Mindful Drinking & Moderation in Midlife: How to Drink Less, On Your Terms
**A Spotify 'Rising Star' show** How do I drink less without quitting completely? What's the difference between low, no and light alcohol drinks? Why can't I drink like I used to? Why do alcohol-free drinks cost so much?
If you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s or beyond and asking these questions, this is your podcast.
Welcome to the essential show for midlife adults who want to drink less, on their own terms—without the pressure to quit completely, follow rigid rules, or label themselves as sober.
I'm Denise Hamilton-Mace, your mindful drinking mentor, magazine editor, writer and public speaker on all things low, no and light. Each week, I help stressed parents and busy midlife adults navigate their relationship with alcohol through practical approaches grounded in real-world experience and behaviour change strategy, not willpower or wellness culture
What you'll get:
Mindful Moderation Solo Episodes – Deep-dives answering the questions that matter to sophisticated drinkers who want to moderate smartly:
- How do I cut back when my partner still drinks at home?
- Why do premium alcohol-free drinks cost the same as full-strength versions?
- How do I navigate social situations when I'm the only one moderating?
- What really works: willpower vs. strategy?
Drinks 101 Mini-Series – Short educational episodes demystifying the confusing world of low and no alcohol drinks:
- What does ABV actually mean?
- What's the real difference between non-alcoholic, alcohol-free, low alcohol, and light beer?
- How are alcohol-free drinks made?
- Which drinks are safe for pregnancy, driving, or recovery?
Meet the Makers – Intimate conversations with the founders, brewers, distillers, and visionaries creating the premium drinks and experiences that support your moderation goals.
This podcast is for you if:
- You want drinks that taste like the ones you already love
- You're looking for practical advice that fits your demanding life, not another wellness overhaul
- You recognise that coasting with mid-strength drinks, zebra-striping, or bookending your evening with something non-alcoholic are all valid strategies
- You want better mornings without giving up celebrating life's special moments
This isn't about going completely dry or reinventing yourself. It's about keeping energy for what matters most: family, health, career, and living life on your own terms.
Join the moderation revolution happening in midlife – because while Gen Z gets the headlines, you're the one actually doing it.
Mindful Drinking & Moderation in Midlife: How to Drink Less, On Your Terms
Mindful Drinking Advent 1: Design Your Christmas (Before December Does It for You)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
On Day One of our Mindful Drinking Advent Series, learn how to set a clear, grounded intention for Christmas so you can navigate parties, pressure, and festive chaos on your own terms.
Today’s episode helps you pause before December sweeps you away, reduce drinking on autopilot, and choose a more mindful, meaningful season.
0:00 Welcome To the Advent Series
4:33 Why Intentions Matter This Month
7:23 Craft Your Personal Guiding Sentence
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You can email me at denise@lownodrinkermagazine.com
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🗣️ Join the growing community on Substack
https://lownodrinker.substack.com/
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🌱 Reset the way alcohol shows up in your life with the 4 Week Midlife Mindful Drinking Reset
https://www.lownodrinker.com/4weekreset
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🧮 Drinking Impact Calculator: Find your personal tipping point
https://mindfuldrinkinginmidlife.com/products/drinking-impact-calculator
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🧐 Take the quiz and find out what's REALLY driving your midlife drinking habits
https://www.lownodrinker.com/
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*Some links are affiliate links. If you make a purchase, Low No Drinker may earn a commission. Thank you.
Welcome to day one of your mindful drinking audio advent calendar with me, Denise Hamilton Mace, your mindful drinking mentor. It is day one of December. We are officially inside the madness and mayhem of festive frivolity. Now, if you have signed up to the mindful drinking advent calendar, you will have received your first door this morning. And if you haven't, there is still time to sign up. But as I've mentioned before, the podcast, the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife podcast, is going daily in December. This is your audio advent to help you through the biggest drinking season of the year. Now, each day between now and Christmas Day, I will be sharing a shorter episode with you to go through some of the stuff that we're all going to be facing this December when it comes to wanting to drink more mindfully through Christmas, to perhaps take a sober curious approach to the festivities, to maybe just wanting to not put a label on it, not have to give it a name, not have to set any rules, but just know that we want to drink a little bit less, or we want to drink a little bit differently, or we want things to be a bit different this year. Because if you're anything like me, and because you're listening, there's a chance that you are, you've had some pretty wild Christmases, right? Because it is just three to six, depending on when you start, where you are in the world, and how intensely you go. Comes the eating badly, comes the not getting good sleep, comes the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of all of it. So there's so much going on at this time of year that sometimes, sometimes, you just need a little bit of space to take a breath, to take a moment, to have a think about what you're actually doing, why you're doing it, and what you want to get out of this time. Now, as you know, this podcast is not about telling you that you're not allowed to have a drink. If you want to raise a glass this December, have at it. I want you to have the best Christmas, but I want you to have it on your own terms. And that means drinking when you want to drink, not because you feel like you have to drink, or because you're doing it on autopilot, or you're doing it because everybody else is doing it and you don't want to feel left out. So, day one today, uh, that's the introduction. I won't do that long introduction for every day, but just in case you had missed the previous episodes that told you a little bit about what's going on, now you know where we're at. So, day one on our mindful drinking advent is all about setting our intention for the season. Now, as I just mentioned, I want you to have choices this Christmas. I want you to be able to have a festive season on your own terms. So before December sweeps you up into its uh its chaos and it's it's relentless ongoing of events and parties and friends and family and restaurants and dinners and drinks and late nights and all the other things that you should and shouldn't be doing. Um, I really want you to take a moment today to set your intention for how this month is going to play out for you. Now, it's up to you how you want to set your intention. You might be the kind of person who likes to meditate on things. You might be the kind of person who likes to journal and write things down. You might be the type of person who likes to go for a long walk in the park and just think things through. Whatever it is that you do doesn't matter. The format in which you do this isn't what's important. What's important is that you do do this. So, what I would like you to do, either at the end of this episode, or you can press pause now, whatever feels most comfortable to you, is I want you to take some time to have a think about how you want to show up and how you want to be present over the next few days. This isn't just about alcohol, this is about you and making sure that you have the best time because you understand what you want to get out of the season. So I want you to take a couple of moments and have a think. This isn't about setting yourself rigid rules, this isn't about punishing yourself, this is not about restricting yourself, but I do want you to make a quiet agreement with yourself right now, today, in this moment, about how you want to move through the next few weeks. Maybe you set yourself some guiding mantras, maybe you set yourself some frameworks, maybe it's just a general understanding of what's really important to you. Because if you understand what's important to you at this time, it's much easier to keep it in your field of vision and to work towards it than to just put it in the back of your mind and never think about it. So maybe your guiding thoughts are things like being present is better than being perfect. Okay. If you have an event to go to uh and you don't have the perfect outfit, you don't have the best Christmas jumper, which was always, for some reason, always a big stress for me is making sure I had the right hilarious Christmas jumper. Uh, and it was so inconsequential. I have no idea to this day why I put so much pressure on it. But being present is so much more important than being perfect. Maybe it's for you that you do want to set some guidelines around how you'll be drinking when you go to certain events. Perhaps you know that your company workdo is a hotbed of uh craziness and uh illicit kisses under the mistletoe and all sorts of other uh Christmas shenanigans. And so maybe you want to set yourself some uh guide rails about how you participate in those events. And maybe it is zebra striping where you alternate between an alcohol full and an alcohol-free drink each time. Maybe it is bookending where you start and end your evening with an alcohol-free drink, but you allow yourself a couple of alcohol full ones in between. Maybe it is coasting, where you stick to mid-strength drinks throughout the evening. Maybe it's pacing, where you say to yourself, I'm only going to have uh one alcoholic drink per hour, and the rest of the time they'll be alcohol free. There are lots of ways for you to do this. I can't tell you which one is going to be best because everybody is different and we all have our own path to a life less intoxicated, even at this busy Christmas time. So I want you to think about how you want to show up over the next few weeks. I want you to write it down somewhere. Like I said, either in your journal, you can put it on your phone, stick it to the mirror, uh, wherever is good for you. But write it down in one sentence. Don't make this overcomplicated. This isn't about writing out your personal manifesto. But one sentence, this December, I want to feel and stick it somewhere that you're going to see it. Then I want you to create some space for yourself that you are going to allow yourself to occupy every day on your own so that you have a moment to think for yourself about how things are going and how you're feeling, and to remind yourself of your sentence, of your your your guiding thought, of what you're trying to achieve. Remind yourself of what you want and how you want to feel this December and how you want to come out the end of it feeling. And every day, just take some time to sit in that moment and recognize if you are serving yourself, if you're working towards what it is that you want, or whether you are making choices that may be taking you away from what you want. Now, some people will call this meditating, uh, I just call it thinking. You might decide to do it in a yoga moment, you might decide to do it when you're having your coffee. The point is, it doesn't really matter. Find a way to do it your way. I I'm I'm definitely not one of those everything has to be done a certain way, because what's successful for me isn't gonna be successful for you, and what's successful for you might not work for me. So find your own space, find your own time, find your own thoughts, sit in them, acknowledge them, action them, and treat yourself like you deserve to be treated this year because the only way you're gonna get through a December the way you want it is to recognize that you deserve it and you are the only person who can give it to you. Okay, that's it for today. I will see you tomorrow for the Mindful Drinking Advent day two, and until then, cheers to a Christmas less intoxicated.
