Ep 177: Who Are You Without a Drink in Your Hand?

Who are you without a drink in your hand? Not what do you do without it — who are you? In this episode Christie shares the surprising truth she discovered about herself when she got sober at 23, why it took years to actually figure things out, and the moment she finally believed she was a beloved daughter of God. Plus: what her clients think they're going to lose when they stop drinking, what they actually find, and one simple practice to start answering the most important question in this work.

Topics covered: The party girl who turned out to be a homebody | Why figuring out your identity after alcohol takes longer than you think | The journal prayer that proved God was listening all along | Walking with Purpose and a decade of slowly receiving God's love | What women think they lose when they stop drinking — and what they actually find | The neuroscience of self-stories and why yours isn't true | Isaiah 43:1 and your actual identity | One journaling practice to start meeting the real you

Scripture referenced: Isaiah 43:1 — "Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine."

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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, Kristi Walker. I'm a wife, mom, and a joy-filled Catholic, and I am the Catholic sobriety coach, and I am so glad you're here When I stopped drinking, I realized something that took me a while to figure out. Almost every person that I had been spending time with, we weren't actually friends. We were just drinking buddies. The thing we had in common was the drinking. So when alcohol went away, they went away, too. Now, I wanna be clear, that's my story. That's not necessarily yours. But here's the question it made me ask. If I had to have a drink in my hand to enjoy being around those people, were they-- were we actually connected? If I had to dr- But here's the question it made me ask: If I had to have a drink in my hand to enjoy being around those people, were we actually connected? Were we friends, or were we just numbing out together? And then the bigger question followed-- And then a bigger question followed that one, one that was a lot scarier. If those people are gone and the drinking is gone, then who am I? And honestly, I had no idea, and finding that out took a lot longer than I expected, and that's what we're getting into today. We're going to the deepest question in all of this work. Not how do you stop drinking, not what do you do at parties, not how do you handle your husband on the couch drinking and you're not. Who are you? Who are you without a drink, an alcoholic beverage in your hand? Not what do you do without it, not how do you cope. Who are you actually underneath the habit, underneath the ritual, underneath the version of yourself that showed up every evening for years and reached for the glass? This is the identity episode, and I'm going to start with my own story because I think it's going to help you understand why this question is both harder and more beautiful than it sounds. So if you've listened to my previous podcast episode, you know that I started drinking when I was 16, and I drank until I was 23. Seven years, which may not seem like a long time, but it means the entirety of my late adolescence and early adulthood, the years when most people are figuring out who they are, what they like, and how to show up in the world, I spent in a blur. So when I got sober, I didn't just have to stop drinking. I had to figure out who I actually was, and to be quite honest, I had no idea. I thought I was the social one, the party girl, the one who was always out dancing, always up for it, surrounded by people. That was my identity, or that's what I thought. That was my identity, or at least that's what I thought at the time. But it really wasn't me. It was the alcohol version of me, the version that needed something in her hand to make her feel like she had a place in the room. And when that went away, I had to meet the real Christie for the first time. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's so true. And here's what surprised me. Christie, she was quiet, not shy exactly, but selective. She didn't actually love crowds or bars or being the center of attention. She loved one-on-one conversations, really getting to know one person rather than working a room. She was happiest at home with people that she genuinely loves. She could talk to anyone, but she was most herself with almost nobody. Her family, a very small circle of friends, and the people who knew her all the way through. She was the person at a party who noticed the one in the corner who seemed a little lost, the one who was maybe on the outside of the group or a little misunderstood, and wanted to go and talk to that person instead of the loudest one in the room. That was me, and honestly, that had always been me That was me. And truthfully, that had always been me. I just couldn't see her through the alcohol But here's the thing that figuring that out... But here's the thing, figuring that out took time, a lot of time. I was well into my mid-20s, probably three years sober before I even started to get a clear picture of who I was, and even then, there was another layer under that I hadn't even touched yet. Even after I stopped drinking, even after I started making better decisions, which it took time for that to happen, but even after I met my husband, and we started going to mass, and building a real life, there was something I couldn't quite receive. I knew God loved me. I'd known that ever since I was a little girl, but knowing it and believing it are two very different things. I always felt like I was on the outside of God's family. Like, I knew He existed, He was good, but somehow I didn't quite count. I was too far gone, too much history, too many times of not listening, of thumbing my nose at the Lord, of doing my own thing. Like, "I've got this. I don't need you." I wasn't like the people in the pews on Sunday morning that had some kind of access to Him that I could not tap into, and I thought that I probably never would I went to mass because it was right, because I owed God my life, and I knew it. But belonging to Him, being truly His, that felt like something that was for other people, not for me. And then something happened that - started to change that. I had been praying for years, honestly, for a husband, and I didn't just pray vaguely. I got specific. I wrote it in my journal exactly the kind of man I was hoping for, and I watched God say no to relationship after relationship that I was And I watched God say no to relationship after relationship that I was convinced was the one. I was sure of it. No, no, not that one, not yet. And then I met my husband, and I looked at him, and I looked at what I had written in my journal, and I thought, "Oh, my goodness. That's him. That's exactly him." God had read my journal. Of course He did. God had been listening the whole time, and every no along the way had been protecting the yes that was coming. That was the first crack in the wall. That was the first real sense that maybe I wasn't on the outside after all. And then we had our older boys, our twin boys, after two years of trying, because I like to say I prayed so hard, God gave me two. And we started going to Mass together as a family, and I found a women's fellowship at our parish. It was older women mostly, beautiful women, encouraging, loving, and we did a book study on The Father's Love, and something in me started to s- to soften. And then I started co-coordinating a Walking With Purpose Bible study. It's a Catholic women's Bible study, and I started doing that with a friend, two of my friends at our parish. And through Lisa Brenninkmeyer, the founder, through her writing, through years of that study, and we'll actually be going on 10 years this fall, I started to actually receive what God had been saying all along: "You are mine. I called you by name. You were never on the outside." It wasn't a lightning bolt moment. It was slow, a decade of slow. But that's actually the most honest thing I can tell you, because I think that's how it works for a lot of us Now, your story is probably a lot different than mine. You didn't necessarily spend seven years drinking your way through your identity formation years. You're likely older, more established, more put together on the outside. You have-- , you likely have a career or a business, a marriage, children, a faith life, a homeschool, a variety of things. You go to Mass, you show up for your people, you volunteer. But I want to ask you something. Do you know who you are without the wine? Not what you do, not how you function, but who you are, what you actually like, how you actually want to spend your time, what brings you alive when there's nothing to take the edge off and nowhere to hide Because here's what I see with my clients when they start this work. They think they're going to lose something. They think that they're going to lose their ability to relax and that the only way they know how to come down from the day is that glass of wine, and without it, they'll just be wound tight forever. They think that they're going to lose their fun, that they'll become a wet blanket, the boring one, the one who makes everyone else feel weird. And then something unexpected happens. The noise stops. That chatter, the constant mental negotiating about when they can have it, and how much, and whether they should, and how to hide it, and how to explain it. If you experience that, you know it's exhausting. That relentless inner conversation, it just starts to quiet. And in the quiet, they start to hear something that they hadn't heard in a long time, themselves. One of the most common things that I hear from women on the other side of this is, "I didn't realize how much time and energy I was spending on something that I didn't even wanna be doing anymore. I wasted so much time." Not just the drinking, the thinking about the drinking, the planning around it, the recovering from it, and the managing of it. And when that's gone, there's so much space. Space to figure-- Space to figure out And when that's gone, there's so much space. Space to figure out who you actually are, what you actually like, and what the Lord is calling you to Now, here's something I want you to understand about identity and habit. Your brain doesn't just get addicted to substances. It gets addicted to the self-stories, the narrative that you've been telling about yourself. "I'm the fun one. I'm the one who needs wine to relax. I'm the one who can't do events sober." That story has neural pathways just like any other habit, and it runs automatically, and it feels so true because you've thought it so many times. But a self-story is not the same thing as the truth, and here's where faith does something that neuroscience alone cannot do. Neuroscience can tell you that your self-story is a trained pattern. Neuroscience can tell you that your self-story is a trained pattern that can be retrained. That's true. It's helpful. But it can't tell you what to replace it with. It can't tell you who you actually are at the deepest level. But God can, and He already has. You are not the woman who needs wine to relax. You are not the woman who can't be fun without a drink. You are not too far gone, too much history, too complicated to be part of His family. You are a beloved daughter of the King of Kings, made in His image, called by name, known completely, and loved without condition those aren't just nice words. That's your actual identity, the one that was true before you picked up the first drink, and it will be true long after the habit is gone. Isaiah 43:1, and I keep coming back to this verse because I think it's the foundation of everything we do here, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine." Put your name in it. Say it out loud. Fear not That is who you are. Everything else, the habit, the self-story, the version of you that needed something in her hand to feel like she belonged, that is not you. That is what you carried for a while, and you can put it down. So how do you actually start answering the question, who am I without a drink in my hand? I want to give you one practice this week. Get a journal, or even if it's just the notes app on your phone, and finish this sentence When I'm most myself, I... Not when you're performing or managing, not when you're being who and what everyone else needs you to be. When you are most genuinely, quietly, and freely yourself, what is true? Maybe it's, "I love being home with my family more than anywhere else." Maybe it's, "I actually prefer one real conversation over a room full of surface ones." Maybe it's, "I love early morning when everything is quiet." Maybe it's something you haven't done in so long that you forgot you love it. Write it down. Don't edit it. Don't make it sound impressive. Just start meeting her, the woman underneath the habit. She's been there the whole time. She's been waiting Now, this is exactly the work we are doing inside the Soberish Summer Reset, and it's open right now, or at least registration is. We officially kick off July 1st, and the doors are staying open all summer, so wherever you are right now, you can jump in and start. This identity work, figuring out who you actually are underneath the habit, that doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in community with women who are asking the same questions and doing the same work right alongside you. If you're ready, the link is in the show notes, and if you're listening to this at a different time of year, check out my website because I have seasonal programs going all the time. Okay, friend, here's what I want you to hold onto today. You are not the woman who needs wine to be fun. You are not the woman who can't relax without it, and you are, are not too far gone to be part of God's family. I know this because I spent years believing I was, and I was so wrong. You are a beloved daughter of the King, called by name, already His. And the woman that you're going to find on the other side of this habit, she just might surprise you. She surprised me. I thought I was a party girl who loved a crowd. Turns out I'm a homebody who loves her family, seeks out the person in the corner, and does her very best work in quiet rooms with real conversations. I like her a lot better. Next week, we are going to talk about something that I hear from women constantly, and it might be the most important mindset shift in all of this work. What happened when I stopped calling it willpower? Because the moment I stopped- What happened when I stopped calling it willpower? Because the moment I stopped trying to muscle through this on my own and let God actually into this specific space, everything changed. That one's coming next week. Don't miss it 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, thecatholicsobrietycoach.com. Follow me on Instagram @thecatholicsobrietycoach. I look forward to speaking to you next time. And remember, I am here for you, I am praying for you. You are not alone.