Mindful Drinking & Moderation in Midlife: Low No Drinker Podcast

105: Defending Your Right to Moderate in an All-or-Nothing World

• Denise Hamilton-Mace • Episode 105

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In this solo episode, I’m diving into the loaded topic of moderation — and why it’s not the dirty word so many in the alcohol-free space make it out to be.

I’m sharing my own experience with passive moderation, why I never said “I’m quitting alcohol forever,” and how that gentler, more flexible approach led me to a place where I barely drink at all — without feeling deprived or like I’d failed.

This episode is for anyone who’s been told moderation doesn’t work, or that taking a break from booze only counts if it ends in total abstinence. I don’t believe that. I believe in finding what works for you, on your terms — and giving yourself the space to figure it out.

0:00 Moderation Isn't a Zero-Sum Game
3:38 Active & Passive Moderation
7:15 Taking a break from alcohol is powerful
12:12 'Learning' not 'failure'

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Speaker 1:

guys. Moderation is not a zero-sum game. This isn't. It works for everyone or it works for no one, and we need to stop this rhetoric that if you are moderating your alcohol intake, then you have a problem with alcohol and therefore you need to give it up. All together. It doesn't help anyone and it doesn't work for the vast majority of people who come to this space looking for positive alternatives to the way they're currently drinking, to be told that they either have to change everything about themselves or they're a complete failure.

Speaker 1:

Hello, hello and welcome to the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife podcast brought to you by Lono Drinker. That's me, the leading global magazine for mindful and sober curious drinkers. My name, as you'll know by now, is Denise Hamilton Mace, and I'm the founder, editor and host of all things low no drinker, and I am here to help you find, understand and enjoy the world of low, no and light drinks, drinkers and drinking, so that you can live a life less intoxicated on your own terms, right, so what's got to be in my bonnet? I was listening to a podcast earlier on today. I won't name it because, although I'm not bashing that podcast, you know we obviously have different opinions on the messages that we're giving, and that's okay. That is why we have different people, different voices, different podcasts, different ways of seeing the world, and I welcome that. I don't for any moment think that everybody should agree with what I say, but if you do think along similar lines than me, then I want to, and even if you don't, I want to explain a little bit why. My approach is that moderation isn't this dirty word that a lot of people in the alcohol free space seem to treat it as Now.

Speaker 1:

First and foremost, as always, I need to put the caveat in there that I am not talking to people who consider themselves or have been diagnosed to have some form of AUD, that is, alcohol use disorder, which is the term we use now that we used to use the phrase alcoholic for. So, obviously, if alcohol has a life damaging impact on you, then my only advice is that you seek professional help from those who are qualified to give it to you, and I hope that anyone who needs that help does find it. There are some fantastic resources out there, and if you're ever unsure of where to go, then you can always drop me a line and I will happily point you in the right direction. However, I'm talking about and I'm talking to the vast majority of people out there who use alcohol on a regular basis and don't consider themselves, or would not be considered, to have an alcohol use disorder, and what I find is that in the alcohol free space space, specifically, whenever the word moderation is mentioned, it gets a real bee in people's bonnet.

Speaker 1:

Now, I know that moderation comes in many different shapes and forms, just like we all do. There are different horses for causes when it comes to moderation. I have done episodes before, and I do again, on the two main types of moderation I think people are facing, one of which is active moderation, and that is things like your dry Januaries, sober October, you know, your specified month off or specified time frame where you're not allowed to drink any alcohol at all. And then there's passive moderation, and passive moderation, to me, is what people go through when they've come to the realization that alcohol is no longer serving them the way that it was, but that they might not quite be ready to give up entirely. Active moderation in its purest form taking a month-long break for dry January can have some really positive impacts on people, but you'll also hear them say that it can be really negative, and I can agree that when you spend 31 days white-knuckling through a break from alcohol, no-transcript, waiting for the moment where February 1st hits or November 1st hits and you can go to the pub and get absolutely wasted is probably not the most effective way to spend your month off of the booze. The idea with these months because that is not the purpose of them, by the way the idea of these months is that you take some time out from alcohol to reassess how it's impacting your life and to think about what role you want it to have playing in your life going forward. It's also physically so that you can have a little bit of a break. You give your liver a break, you give your heart a break, you give your brain a break from all the alcohol that it has to keep processing on a regular basis.

Speaker 1:

Now, the other side of that, as I mentioned, is the passive moderation, and this is where I think that things get misconstrued a lot, because whenever somebody says moderation and then some people get their backs up about it, what they're always thinking about is that active moderation piece. They're always referring to people taking a set break from alcohol, after which they go back to drinking just the way that they were. Or when you set yourself specific rules to say, I only drink on Fridays and Saturdays, or I'm allowed to have two glasses of wine over a three-day period, you know whatever convoluted situation you might set yourself up with. And then you spend your entire time in that process thinking right, I had a small glass of wine on Wednesday, so then if I have a medium glass of wine today, then that means I can still have two glasses left.

Speaker 1:

That's just tiresome. Nobody wants to be doing that, okay, and it's not a productive use of your time, your efforts, your brain power, the constant monitoring of what you're doing, the constant referencing back to what you did a couple of days ago. Have I had my allotted amount? Am I allowed to have any more? Will I feel guilty if I drink some more? What if I go over my allotted amount? Have I failed at my moderation? And don't get me started on that whole. I failed at it because that's such negative self-talk that all it does is send you on a perpetual spiral that reinforces the negative self-image you had about yourself that may have led you to making these choices in the first place. What never gets talked about and what irks me is the fact that there doesn't have to be a negative self-spiral from moderation.

Speaker 1:

There are so many people that take part in a dry month challenge and relish in it. There are people that go through a sober spring and come out with a spring in their step because they feel rejuvenated and energized and clear-headed and they have a new zest for the things that impassioned them beforehand and they want to keep growing the great relationships that they've started developing with their friends, with their family, with their kids, with their spouse. They want to keep going with the projects that they've started doing, either at work or their own hobbies. Taking a break from alcohol can be an extremely powerful, positive way for you to reassess where booze sits in your life, and it doesn't have to have an end point. That means either going back to drinking the way you were or becoming an absolute born again teetotalist. There is a middle ground. There is life beyond one extreme or the other.

Speaker 1:

I often reference myself because I speak from my own lived experiences. My journey into drinking less came from recognizing that I never, ever wanted to have a hangover again. I didn't say I'm never drinking again and in fact, for a very long time I would go out and I'd go for a meal with my husband or my friends, or we'd go to the pub or whatever. And if there was a drink there that I really liked, you know, if there was a wine that was one of my favorites, if there was a Pouy Fusay there, I'd be. Oh yes, I really enjoy that, I really want to have one and I would have one.

Speaker 1:

But what happened was, the longer I kept recognizing that alcohol wasn't serving me the way they used to, the less I wanted to drink. The less appeal alcohol had to me, the less I enjoyed even my favorite wines or cocktails when I had them. And we just, I find that we just don't talk enough about the fact that moderation has so many pluses to it and so many benefits to it and can lead to a really wonderful life relationship with alcohol at the end of it. If you give it that time and space without delay, pre-judging moderation or pre-judging yourself for the way that you behave on moderation, it doesn't have to mean that you are going to be teetotal when you're finished, because that in itself can put a lot of people off If you're not ready to remove alcohol entirely from your life, if you go into a month-long break thinking that the ultimate goal at the end is that your entire relationship with alcohol will change and you'll never want to touch a drop again.

Speaker 1:

And then, on your first day back, you decide to have a glass of wine. You're telling yourself that you failed. Everyone is telling you that you failed, and that's not true at all. What I think is most powerful about these months off is that you take the time out to think positively about what you're doing. Not to focus on the fact that you're not having alcohol, not to count down until you can have your next one, not to think constantly oh, this meal, this occasion would be a lot better if I could have a glass of wine. But to start thinking what fun am I having without it? What can I continue to do now that I couldn't do if I was drinking? What would I like to be able to get up and do tomorrow that I now have the space and the capacity to do? If we think about it that way, and if we allow ourselves space to just let a moderate lifestyle become part of who we are, then it may lead to a whole new lease on life that you hadn't thought about before.

Speaker 1:

Now, for me, that passive moderation technique that I took, that approach that I went down, has led to me now barely ever touching a drop of alcohol. I know I said in a previous episode you know that I don't like answering that question do you still drink now? Because I don't think it's relevant. But for me, alcohol no longer plays a role in my life. There may be occasions when somebody around me is having a drink and they say it tastes delicious and I might want to taste it. Fantastic, my mom's 75th birthday, I had half a glass of Prosecco. Wonderful, that was all I wanted. I didn't enjoy having any more than that. Because I took a passive approach to moderation, I was able to take back the power of choice from alcohol and that was what I wanted. Again, I will say that that worked for me.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying that it has to work for you, that it will work for you, or that, if you feel like it won't, that you should force yourself to try it. We've all got to go, and this is my main point is that we've all got to go on this journey and find the path that works best for us. What I hope that my show does is it gives you the tools and the resources to explore different avenues that might work for you as and when you decide that you're ready to start taking these steps and ready to go on this journey wherever it may take you. But, just like the rest of life, this is a journey. This is not about the destination. You know you might recognize that you enjoy not drinking and therefore not want to go back to it, and that's just as valid as somebody who says do you know what I missed?

Speaker 1:

Alcohol. I'd still like to have a drink, but now I think I definitely want to drink less because I don't want to have the impacts of it as much. Both routes are completely valid and nobody else has the right to tell any of us that our choices are invalid, particularly when we're trying our best to better our lives. By making any choice to reduce your overall alcohol intake so that you can better your quality of life, you are doing a fantastic thing for yourself and you don't have to know where it's going to end. You don't have to have a final target in mind, and I want you to feel empowered to be able to make the choices that serve you best in any given situation, without having to think about somebody else's determinant of whether or not you are doing it the right way.

Speaker 1:

There aren't any rules to moderating and mindful drinking. There are only the standards by which you set your own stall and you decide you want to live your life by, and sometimes you will achieve those things you wanted to achieve. You will drink the way that you had intended and you will go home feeling that you have been successful in that. And there will be other times where you might have a couple more than you intended to do. But I want you to remember that that is not failure.

Speaker 1:

That is learning, because every time you set yourself a moderation standard to achieve and every time you don't achieve that standard, you can choose to look at it as failure and use it as an excuse to slide back down the rabbit hole of despair and self-loathing. Or you can choose to look at it as a learning opportunity where you've gotten to know yourself better, you've understood your needs better, you've identified your triggers better and next time you'll know how to respond better. Okay, my rant is over for this week. I hope you found this episode has given you some food for thought. If it has, then my one ask would be that you do me a favor and you share this episode with someone else you know who is traversing, living a life less intoxicated. That is it for me for this week, and I'll catch you next time.

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Denise Hamilton-Mace

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