Who says you have to have alcohol to make a party fun? Not me! After 26 years of sober New Year's celebrations, I can tell you that waking up hangover-free and ready to tackle the year ahead is the greatest gift I have given myself - and you can do that for yourself, too!
Almost always, saying "no" to the booze means saying "YES" to feeling better and to the desires of your heart. You know, the ones God placed there because HE knows they will bring you true fulfillment and happiness. So let's forget about FOMO and embrace JOMO (JOY of missing out!).
This minisode includes tips that will help you navigate any social gathering EVEN if you are an introvert - or an introverted extrovert like me!
You can do this, SIS and I'm here to help!
I'm here for you. I'm praying for you. You are NOT alone!
Please subscribe to this podcast so you won't miss a thing!
Who says you have to have alcohol to make a party fun? Not me! After 26 years of sober New Year's celebrations, I can tell you that waking up hangover-free and ready to tackle the year ahead is the greatest gift I have given myself - and you can do that for yourself, too!
Almost always, saying "no" to the booze means saying "YES" to feeling better and to the desires of your heart. You know, the ones God placed there because HE knows they will bring you true fulfillment and happiness. So let's forget about FOMO and embrace JOMO (JOY of missing out!).
This minisode includes tips that will help you navigate any social gathering EVEN if you are an introvert - or an introverted extrovert like me!
You can do this, SIS and I'm here to help!
I'm here for you. I'm praying for you. You are NOT alone!
Please subscribe to this podcast so you won't miss a thing!
Welcome to the Catholic sobriety podcast mini-soad. These shorter episodes provide quick tips and information that you can refer back to when you need it most so you can achieve and maintain your desired level of sobriety. I am your sobriety coach and host of this podcast, kristi Walker. Let's get started. In today's mini-soad, I am going to tell you how you can rock a party sober, or at least maintaining the level of sobriety that you have decided for yourself, so that you can build trust with yourself, keep promises to yourself and wake up feeling good the next day. Now I've been sober for 26 years and I can honestly tell you that your experience at a party or an event when you've decided to reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption is completely what you make of it. So I'm not going to be telling you that you need to will yourself sober. You're not going to be clenching your fist and scrunching up your face, which totally don't do that. It causes wrinkles, but you don't want to do that as you're trying to will yourself not to have alcohol. You don't want to sit there and look at all the people at the party thinking how much more fun that they're having because they're drinking, while you're sitting here in the corner, sipping your sparkling water and feeling like you're completely missing out. We are going to turn FOMO into JOMO. You're going to have, instead of fear of missing out, you are going to have the joy of missing out, and I am going to help you manage your mind around that today, because, as I'm recording this, we are just a few days away from New Year's and New Year's Eve and we know that that is like synonymous with over-consuming alcohol, food, all kinds of things and then waking up the next morning swearing everything off and starting anew, which to me sounds crazy, because I don't know about you, but when I used to party and drink a lot, I did not wake up great the next day Like I was dehydrated. I was still a little like maybe I don't know hungover, drunk, I don't know. It kind of depended on what time I stopped drinking and passed out. But here's the thing you don't want to start the New Year out feeling unwell. You want to start the New Year feeling at the top of your game, having clarity and being able to just take this time of resetting and make this the best year yet, whatever that looks like for you. So I'm going to give you some tips on how you can rock a party sober even if you are an introvert. That's another thing.
Speaker 1:
Sometimes I work with people and they talk about how extroverted they are and that they need to be around people and consume alcohol and go to these parties and events and all of these things. But when they eliminate or greatly reduce their alcohol consumption they're like, hey, guess what? I'm actually not an extrovert, I'm an introvert Like I like being at home. I'm kind of a homebody. It's actually quite draining for me to be around a lot of people for an extended period of time feeling like I'm on, and that's when they realized that they were using alcohol to kind of help them through those situations. And maybe you'll find the same as true for you, maybe you won't. I like to call myself an extroverted introvert, so I love being at home. I prefer just to be like around my family or really close friends. Yet if you get me in a social situation, I've learned how to just be like I make it fun for myself and hopefully for others that I interact with. It's not always the most energizing thing to do, but I certainly don't dislike it, so you might find the same is true for you. So okay, I'm just going to give you some tips on how you can rock a party sober or, you know, drinking the amount of alcohol that you've predetermined that you want to drink. So the first thing I would say is, when you get into a conversation with someone, just ask a lot of questions, because people love to talk about themselves and their families and their work. They just really want to be seen and heard, and if you are an introvert, you may find that you like this technique a lot because it's a gift to them. But it's also a gift to you, because you are being relieved of having the focus on you. You can turn the focus on them, okay.
Speaker 1:
The other tip I have for you is just don't worry about the silence. This is a hard one for me because I feel like I have to fill in silence sometimes, although I am trying to get better at that. But it's fine if there's silence. You can either choose to pick a new topic or, like what I do is I just try to politely excuse myself if I feel like it's getting awkward and I'll be like where is my husband anyway? Or oh, I see so, and so over there I need to go say hi. There's always something that you can use as an exit strategy to kind of get out of that awkward situation. Another thing that I find is very helpful is just to find common ground with that person, or find some commonality. It could be like a movie that you've watched, music that you like. You know, if you're both Catholic, there's lots of things you can talk about. If you have kids, that's another thing. So just find common ground, and that makes conversation starting and just having a conversation a lot easier.
Speaker 1:
Okay, the other tip I have for you is going to sound odd, because a lot of times I say no is a complete sentence. You can say no, thank you, and that's the end of it. And yes, that is completely true, and definitely you can say no. I would like to offer you this, though If you don't want to say no, you can say yes, please, yes, please, I would like a club soda with a little bit of lime in it. Yes, please, I would take a Coke. Yes, please, I will have XYZ, whatever, it is the non-alcoholic option of what you would like. Say yes and take that Now.
Speaker 1:
If they happen to say, oh, you're not drinking tonight, just say no, I'm taking a break right now, that's it, end of story. You don't have to offer any kinds of explanations or anything like that. You can even just say oh sure, what non-alcoholic options do you have? Another thing you can do is you know, when we get invited over to people's houses, a lot of times it's polite to ask can I bring anything? So I would just offer. Actually, you don't even have to offer, you can just bring it to say, oh great, I'm so excited, we can't wait to come over, I'm going to bring some fun mocktails and I'll provide the glasses and all this stuff, and then you can make mocktails for anyone who wants them. So this is fun for you because you have other people drinking these fun and festive drinks that you've created, and it's fun for everybody else because they have a nice festive non-alcoholic option.
Speaker 1:
Another thing is just remember how amazing that you are going to feel tomorrow. Just keep that in your mind. You don't have to say it because you don't want to be like oh, you're going to feel terrible in the morning, but I'm going to feel great. You don't want to do that because we don't want to make other people feel bad for their choices, and you know, by trying to make yourself feel better. Okay, we don't want to make ourselves feel better by making others feel worse. That's how I would like to say that. So my last tip is one that I've given often, and that is just to have an exit strategy. So visualize beforehand what you will say, how you will excuse yourself, think everyone for their hospitality, and then exit stage right, you can have a code word for your husband or your friend or whoever happens to be with you, so that you can leave when you want to, and that'll just help you not feel stuck in the situation, knowing that you can leave whenever you would like.
Speaker 1:
So I hope that this has been helpful for you and if you are interested in meeting your goals to reduce or eliminate alcohol in 2024 and beyond, I encourage you to. First of all, you can download for free my five day sacred sobriety kickstart that has videos and an awesome workbook that will help accelerate your goals and your effort as you decide to reduce or eliminate your alcohol consumption. If you want to go deeper, then definitely check out my sacred sobriety lab. This is an amazing course. You can get in on the ground level right now, but whenever you choose to enter into the lab, you get lifetime access to it and all updates that I make, which there will be many. I have so many ideas and there's going to be some big things coming in 2024.
Speaker 1:
And, last but not least, if you would like support and accountability as you discern the level of drinking that is right for you, if you are looking to get to the root obstacle that's causing the symptom of drinking, then I'm happy to offer one on one coaching for you. You can find all the information about all of these programs and the coaching I provide in the show notes or by visiting my website, thecatholicsobrietycoachcom. Thank you and happy new year. Well, that wraps up today's episode of the Catholic sobriety mini-sode. Thank you so much for joining me and please be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss a thing. And remember I am here for you, I am praying for you, you are not alone.