Ep 158: What Happens When You Fast from Alcohol for Lent?

Fasting from alcohol for Lent is becoming a powerful spiritual practice for many Catholic women. In this episode, Christie explains why this fast is biblical, how it affects the body, and how to approach it gently as an offering to the Lord. 

If you feel drawn to try this fast, I created a simple Lenten devotional called Into the Desert. It’s a daily companion for women fasting from alcohol, with Scripture, reflection, and guided journaling to help you stay attentive to what God is doing as you set wine down.

The devotional opens on February 15th, three days before Ash Wednesday, with a gentle preparation period to help you ease into the fast. From there, each day opens one at a time, right when you need it—like a Lenten calendar—so you’re not getting ahead or overwhelmed, just showing up for today.

You can find the link below:
https://courses.drinklessornotatall.com/courses/into-the-desert

If you have ever...

• Struggled with the social pressures associated with alcohol use.
• Felt isolated, alone, and unsure of how to break the cycle.
• Experienced shame and frustration after drinking.
• Told yourself, “I’ll never get this. It’s no use.”

Then this 5-Day Sacred Sobriety Kick Start is for you! 

Each day, you’ll receive a short video with simple tasks to help you analyze your drinking habits with clarity.

👉🏻 Get started with my FREE 5-Day Sacred Sobriety Kick Start
https://the-catholic-sobriety-coach.myflodesk.com/5-day-sobriety-kick-start

👉🏻 Book a Clarity Call
https://app.paperbell.com/checkout/packages/38683

Visit my Website: https://thecatholicsobrietycoach.com

Transcript

 Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety Podcast, the go-to resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives. Women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason. I am your host, Christie Walker. I'm a wife, mom, and a joy filled Catholic, and I am the Catholic sobriety coach, and I'm so glad you're here.

 Every Lent we give something or some things up, but sometimes the Lord. Gently invites us to set down the very thing that we have come to rely on most, so that he can meet us there.

I want you to imagine we are sitting at a table together, a kitchen table, maybe you have a coffee in hand, a cup of tea, some ice water. And the house is finally quiet and I lean over to say something to you to say something out loud that you are thinking about, . And that is the thought.

What if this lent. I set down alcohol, not as a lifelong vow, but as a fast offered up to the Lord just for this season, for these 40 days. And now before you decide whether that sounds possible or not, I want to show you why this fast. Is deeply biblical, even though as a lot of people like to point out to me, wine is present all over scripture and I wanna share with you why it might be exactly the fast that the Lord is inviting you into so that you can emerge having had a deeply.

Spiritual and good. Good. Lent. Now, first I wanna talk about why this fast is biblical. I mean, I know, I hear you. Wine is in the Bible, Christie. It's all over it. It's part of celebration and blessing and, oh yeah. It was Jesus's first miracle. Ever heard of the wedding feast at Cana and the promise of abundance.

Look, I know it's important, it matters, but scripture also shows us something else that when God wants to prepare someone for something, to cleanse them, to strengthen them for what is coming, he invites them to fast. Jesus Fasted Moses fasted. Elijah fasted. The early church fasted, not because food or drink were bad.

They're things that both nourish us and bring us pleasure, right?

But the reason for this is because fasting makes space for being alert, for being attentive. Be sober minded for your enemy is on the prowl. Fasting isn't rejection. It's devotion. It's a strengthening. It's a preparation and it is helping you to be the person that the Lord wants you to be and, and it is helping you prepare for spiritual battles that are to come.

And the great thing about Lent I love Lent. I think it's the best. It's my favorite liturgical season because it's an invitation to choose. The Lord over distraction it gives me a reason to do it. I could do it any other time of year. Yes. And sometimes I do it, you know, do types of fasting and, and other things, all different types times of the year for different reasons.

But there's something about Lent. That I just feel the Lord's grace so powerfully. And maybe you do too.

And sometimes we're not just, we're not just trying to set things down to set things down. Right. Setting things down sometimes that are bad, sometimes that are distracting, but sometimes things that are good that are just keeping us, maybe we're just a little too tied to them. Maybe we just love them a little too much.

Maybe we're teetering on making them an idol.

So this fast isn't about making wine or alcohol the enemy. It's distraction. That's the enemy. But this fast is an act of choosing to be present over what's easy. It's choosing to have awareness over numbing or escaping, and it's to choose prayer over autopilot.

It's a way of saying to the Lord. I want to be here for you for this season as close as I can, even if and when it's uncomfortable.

And that's really the heart of the question, isn't it? What happens when I remove the thing that softens the edges of my day and I offer that edge to God instead? What happens when I stay present to my evening, to my emotions, to my fatigue, to my insecurities, and I let him meet me there? Pretty soon that discomfort becomes something else.

It can become prayer. It can become an offering.

That's why this fast is so powerful. It doesn't take you away from life. It actually brings you fully into it with God.

Now, let's be honest, most of us give things up for Lent that don't really touch our inner lives. Maybe chocolate, social media, snacks, and those are fine. Those are good, but they don't always change how we cope. They don't change what we, what we reach for. When the day is finally over.

Alcohol does wine at night smooths the edges in a way that nothing else can touch. And this is all about the way that alcohol affects our brains and our bodies.

It helps us move past what we don't want to feel super quickly. It helps get us through. It's easy, it's quick and it's effective and that's why it can be so hard to put it down, but. That's also why this fast can feel so intimidating. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. I've known women that are like, what is wrong with me?

That I cannot give this up for Lent? It's because it's hard. It's very hard, but the harder something is, the more fruitful it will be because Lent isn't just about self-improvement. It's about paying attention to things that we may not be noticing about ourselves or our relationship with the Lord.

Alcohol quietly and consistently takes our attention away from the things that matter our family. Sometimes our responsibilities, our motivation, and most importantly, away from God. Now, let me just pause for a moment. If your mind drifted, come back to me,

what do you usually reach for at the end of the day? To take the edge off? Just notice it. No fixing. No judging, just noticing.

Now in scripture, the desert is never a punishment. It's actually preparation. Jesus went into the desert and he came out strengthened. He fasted, he was tempted and he stayed and he left ready for his mission. When we fast from alcohol, something similar happens, we feel more, we notice more, we can actually hear our own thoughts again.

And we can be more present in life.

At first, this is going to feel super uncomfortable, but uncomfortable isn't bad, and it doesn't mean that anything is wrong. It actually means that things are starting to be revealed. Sometimes this can be wounds that need healed.

Sometimes it's feelings that need to be felt or situations that need to be resolved or forgiveness that needs to happen. This is a time of awareness of noticing.

So now that we've talked a little bit of the faith aspect of it, I wanna get a little sciencey here and talk about what happens in the body. When Jesus fasted, he wasn't only training his spirit, his body was being ordered too. And that matters because especially as Catholics, we know that we pray with our bodies, we kneel, we stand, we bow.

We receive.

Here's what I see happen when a woman sets alcohol down for Lent. Even women who only drink in the evenings. You don't have to be an over drinker or chronic over drinker

for this to be hard or to see results, so within a few days, your sleep will begin to change because alcohol fragments. True rest. And you can see this if you sleep with an Apple watch or you have a sleep tracker, like a ring or something like that. If you track your sleep on the nights when you drink or overconsume, and the nights when you have no alcohol, even if you don't get the most amount of sleep ever.

You will slowly start to notice that your sleep quality is better because when alcohol is removed. The brain can actually complete a full sleep cycle. Once again, so many women wake up when they're drinking and they'll wake up at about like three o'clock in the morning. And a lot of times they think, oh, I just have insomnia.

And then when they remove alcohol for a time, especially like longer periods of time, they realize, oh my goodness, I wake up more present. I make wake up clearer.

And that's, even if they don't get that good of a night's sleep, even compared to the nights when they consumed alcohol, it's better than that. So again, in the first few days, you'll start to notice that change, even if it's just waking up without a dull hangover and that is the fast beginning.

Its work. Now, by the end of the first week, the liver can stop managing alcohol and return to its real job, which is regulating blood sugar, stabilizing energy, clearing inflammation, and a bunch of other things. 'cause the liver does a lot.

And when you consume alcohol. Its primary job at that moment is to rid your body of that toxin.

The body actually treats alcohol as a priority toxin and a metabolic emergency, which places the processing of food and any other nutrients on hold until the alcohol is cleared from your body. This can mean increased fat storage.

It can inhibit the secretion of digestive enzymes, which can stop the breakdown of food into those molecules that our body needs.

So when you drink alcohol, the liver shifts its resources in order to break down alcohol into acetate, and that temporarily stops or slows the metabolism of other nutrients.

So this is great news because if the liver can stop managing the alcohol and return to its regular function, that means the

afternoon crashes aren't quite as dramatic, and you know, you may find that you're not as irritable and it's not because life has changed, but because your body isn't working overtime to recover from alcohol every morning.

Now, by the second or third week, the brain begins to recalibrate alcohol spikes dopamine, and then it drops it. And that's because it gets a fast pass through the blood brain barrier. It's water soluble and fat soluble,

so it processes quickly and it gives you a big dopamine explosion where a lot of other things, it's just more of a dopamine spike, but when alcohol spikes dopamine, it goes really high and then it actually dips lower, and that is what keeps you needing and wanting more. So once you remove alcohol, it, it can be hard and our dopamine kind of has to reset, but eventually the brain learns how to receive pleasure the way that God designed, and that can be through connection, prayer, movement, and rest. So when women say, I'm noticing things again, or I feel like myself again, or things are just more clear, or I'm finding joy in things that I haven't found joy in for a really long time, that is part of the restoration.

Now. By the end of 30 days, inflammation drops hormones start to level out. Cravings start to lose their urgency, but the most important change is actually inside of us. Women become more capable of staying present to discomfort without escaping it.

And here's what I see over and over again. When this fast is offered for the Lord and not necessarily for self-improvement, it feels super naturally supported, like I talked about earlier. That's the way I see my efforts and I have seen that so many times in women that I've worked with.

Our bodies just start to cooperate when our minds are with Christ when our thoughts are renewed, and that's something that willpower. Cannot do, and that's a grace.

You can do this. I'm talking to you across the table. I'm looking you in the eye. You can do this. You don't need to white knuckle your way through it. You don't need to be strong. You need a rhythm. You need tools. You need a place to return to. You need something to anchor you, even when evenings feel long and sometimes boring, and that is going to happen too.

Because you're having to take away the thing that you've been so used to having and learn to find other things to put in its place, but you can do it.

So to help with that, I've created a resource. It's just a simple lent and devotional for women who want to fast from alcohol, and it's called Into the Desert. Each day includes scripture, a short guided reflection, and an exercise to do at the end. And this helps so that you're not just abstaining, you're actually paying attention to what God is doing in the space that alcohol leaves behind.

We don't wanna take something out without putting something in its place, and really that's what Lent is. We're not just giving something up to have a big gaping space or being expectant. We're allowing the Lord to fill it with something better. We're asking ourselves, what do I actually need? What is the Lord calling me into?

And with this devotional, which is not a program, it's not a challenge, it's just a place to return. You can use it slowly. You can miss days. You can begin again. You use it in the way that is most helpful for you. I'll have a link to it below. It's just a self-guided. Devotional for you. So if you want something else to go along with your fasting from alcohol, then this might be for you.

And one more thing before I close, for those of you who've realize along the way that you don't wanna do this alone, that you would actually like to also have a community, I have something coming as well. It'll be a place to walk this fast with other women with prayer, with guidance, with real support and coaching.

But I'm not ready to talk about that yet. So I'll tell you more about that next time. So for now, just begin to about it, to pray about it. Maybe put yourself in the presence of the Lord and ask him what he thinks about it, and realize that if this is something that you want to do, you don't have to decide anything forever.

You definitely do not have to do it perfectly. You only have to decide day by day.

Jesus fasted and he emerged. Strengthen the church has always known that this path works. And if you feel that small, steady yes in your chest, trust it. That's the Holy Spirit nudging you. And honestly, Lin is short. Every time I get to the end of it, I'm like, really? We're at the end already? Not yet,

but it'll help you draw so close to the Lord. And I promise you this, you are more capable than you think, and I'll walk with you through my podcast. If you want to follow along devotional or you want to join one of my other programs, just know that you are not alone. 

 Well, that does it for this episode of the Catholic Sobriety Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well, and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing. I am the Catholic sobriety coach, and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about.

The coaching that I offer, visit my website, the Catholic sobriety coach.com. Follow me on Instagram at the Catholic Sobriety Coach. I look forward to speaking to you next. Time and remember, I am here for you. I am praying for you.