EP55: Sober Curious: Do I Need to Stop Drinking? Recover Without Hitting Rock Bottom with Sober Sis Founder Jenn Kautsch

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Today I’m sitting down for a truly honest conversation about being sober-minded with Jenn Kautsch, founder of Sober Sis, a global sober-curious movement helping women rethink their relationship with alcohol without labels, shame, or judgment. Jenn is a speaker, coach, and author of Look Alive, Sis, and has supported hundreds of thousands of women in choosing clarity, presence, and freedom. She’s also my new personal hero and friend.

We talk about what happens when a woman wakes up inside her own life and decides she’s done with the quiet compromise of grey-area drinking.

Jenn shares how she went from a non-drinker to mindless “wine o’clock,” why the detox-to-retox cycle keeps women stuck, and how sober curiosity became the doorway to real freedom, clarity, and presence.

In this episode, we get right into it, discussing:

• What happens when you realize drinking isn’t ruining your life… but it is shrinking it
• What grey-area drinking actually looks like (and why so many women live here)
• The detox-to-retox cycle that keeps many high-functioning women stuck
• How sober curiosity offers a gentler, more powerful path to recovery
• The 3 practical tools and a gorgeous frame-work Jenn teaches to navigate cravings and wine-o’clock moments and create a life you actually love

This is by far my favorite interview on Girls Who Recover and I love that it’s the last.

And it’s for you if you’re ready to stop numbing and start living.

Love Jenn and Sober Sis as much as I do? Connect with her here:

Sign up for Jenn’s next 21-Day Reset 

Sober Sis Home Page 

Free Gift for Girls Who Recover listeners: Happy Hour Survival Guide

Facebook / Instagram / Look Alive, Sis!

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Hey gorgeous.

I love you.

I'm so proud of you.

And I believe in your ability to create a life you absolutely love.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Girls Who Recover podcast with Dana Hunter Fradella, where incredible women just like you, go to transform life's biggest setbacks into your most powerful comebacks so that you can live a life you. Love. I'm your host, Dana Hunter Fradella, transformational coach and founder of Girls Who Recover, and my mission is to pull back the curtain on our mistakes, failures, shame and personal disasters, and light the way for how to use those to create your biggest and most gorgeous comebacks. Follow the show now. Grab your iced coffee and turn up the volume for girls who recover. Let's light it up. hello my gorgeous friends. Welcome back to another exciting adventure on the Girls Who Recover podcast. Today we have a really special guest, and I know I say that every week, but today I'm like, fangirling so hard and I'm almost in tears because I, I wanna tell you the story about how I met Jen Couch. Typically I think other podcasters like have a plan with their podcast. They've got a schedule and a calendar, but the way I like to move through the world is to, as often as I can just close my eyes and say, universe. Let's make this really fun. Let's make this really amazing, and whatever you have for me today, just send it my way and I am here for it. And not so long ago I said that invitation to the universe and was, I think Instagram was also listening. Somehow God works through Instagram. And so I found Jen and I found sober sis and I thought, oh, she my, she know, I'll tell you the truth. I was like, she would never come on like she's, her movement is really big. She's got so much beautiful stuff going on. She's written a book, she's all, and then that was my head. And I thought, oh, I'm in my head. Let's go check out with the heart. And the heart already told me what to do. My mind just got in the way. So I said, okay, heart, we're gonna send her a dm. If she says yes, great. If she says no, at least we bravely asked. And as you're here to witness, she said yes. It's like that, that, we're in high school again and we're like, I'm gonna ask that person out and then they say yes. So this is a much more like adult version of that. But I'd love to introduce you to my new friend Jen Couch. Jen is the founder of a nonprofit called Sober sis. I'm gonna say that again. Sober cis, and she's the leader in the sober Curious movement. She hails from Fort Worth, Texas with her husband of almost 30 years. That in and of itself is a huge deal and has two kiddos in their mid twenties. Jen's passion and life's calling is to create a space where women can renegotiate their relationship with alcohol without labels, judgment or shame. Can I get an amen on a weekday for that? And she coaches women who feel stuck in the gray area on the drinking spectrum, and she helps women get off autopilot and mindlessly sipping through the habit of wine o'clock. She's all about holistic health and promotes freedom from the detox to reox cycle, which I'm gonna get you to talk about sharing through her personal faith, understanding of science and her ability to facilitate connection. And because of that, lives are being changed and everyday women are becoming more. Fully alive through sober minded living and being more present in their own incredible lives. So I just have to say this sober cyst started in 2018 and since then, and we're gonna drop this in the show notes for you. 250,000 plus women have downloaded her free Happy Hour Survival Guide, and over 40,000. Women have participated in the 21 Day Reset Challenge. So if you're interested in that, we'll drop that in the show notes. Those are huge numbers. Also, before I pass it to you, Jen's also a motivational speaker and the author of Look Alive sis. So without further ado, I bring to you dear gorgeous listener, Jen Couch. Welcome Jen. Welcome. Wow. Dana, what an intro you just gave. How does that feel to hear that? Such an amazing intro, just how you started it all, which is your personal, story in finding me, and then our connection before you even hit record, was already just validating and confirming to this was totally meant to be. I feel so honored to be on your podcast and have this conversation, so thank you for allowing me to be here. I really appreciate it. I'm fangirling hard. So let's get right to it today. We'll talk about your personal story, Jen, and then we'll shift into sober sis and your work in the world and the women that you serve and support because they're listeners right here and I want them to hear all about you. So tell us your story, Jen. Yeah, just to keep it real and real time. And when we're recording this here we are fall of 2025. I am 54 years old. I did cross the 30 year married Mark in May. So I need to update my bio. And I do have two kids still in their mid twenties that are inching closer to 30 than they are 20, which is mind blowing. But that's where I am today. But that's definitely not where my story began. As far as my relationship with drinking goes, I have I guess I say a unique story. I feel like everybody's story is unique, but yet there are common themes and common patterns that I think anybody listening, no matter where they are in their relationship with alcohol, will be able to identify if they're even on the drinking spectrum at all. Which for a long time, I was not a drinker early on in my life. I didn't drink, believe this or not, I'm, I know I'm AKA sober sis out there that I really didn't drink during college or in my younger years, in my twenties. I had a drink here and there, usually didn't like it, didn't finish it, won my thing. And so I just, the irony's not lost on me that by the time I got into, I guess you could say the drinking world, I was actually my young thirties. So it was a good 20 ish years ago. Again, to date myself, but really how drinking entered into my world was, I was a married young mom and in my twenties I was building a family, building a business with my husband. It was all about building and being Prego and like cranking out kids and like building a family. So of course if I hadn't started drinking before that, it probably wasn't the time. So by the time I'm in my young thirties, I am finding myself out, out and about in the happy hour world. A lot of network marketing, happy hours and going into those as a non-drinker, I'd never really thought about it. I just, I was a non-drinker. People drank. I didn't, no big deal. I didn't really care either way. And one of my good friends, I'll never forget it because it was a real, it was a real moment for me. I was probably 32 years old. I was at a networking happy hour event. And my good friend lover today said, Hey, Jen, why don't you get a drink with us? And I'm like, huh, why don't I always get like a Dr. Pepper or a sweet tea. I'm down here in Texas, so everything's a Dr. Pepper. And I thought, you know what? Why don't I, I'm like, I went back to, I reverted back to the rules I think I had when I was younger of, don't drink unless you're 21. Don't drink and drive, don't get drunk. Okay okay, no problem. I'm a rule follower by nature. In fact, when I was younger, drinking seemed rebellious and risky and unsafe and maybe not always that cool where I grew up, in again, in, the south and in Texas and in the eighties there was still a lot of people not drinking. So it really wasn't a weirdo thing to not drink. Anyway, so I went back to my kind of my younger thinking days and then all of a sudden I'm in my thirties, I'm married, I'm a mom, and I'm like, wait a minute. This doesn't feel scary, rebellious. It actually feels adultish. Glamorous, like a big girl thing to do. Kinda like I earned it and why don't I, Courtney, my friend I'm like, why don't I absolutely. Sure. I had no cautionary tale to pull from because I did not grow up in a home with parents who drank either. Again, I think that's because they had a cautionary tale more so in their life. So I was the benefactor of maybe those that chose not to drink because it didn't serve them, and they knew that early on. And so I just grew up with, yeah, you, you can take it or leave it. I'm in my thirties, clearly. I could be immune from any negative impact of alcohol if I haven't had any by now, yeah. I was a little bit prideful to tell you the truth. Prideful and naive at the same time. So I walked right into the alcohol trap. Pretty much just yeah, sure. Order me up something I don't even know what to order. Like literally. And that began my at that point, I didn't know it was gonna be this rollercoaster ride of a 15 year, love affair as we've heard it described, or companionship with drinking, because I literally almost started from scratch in my young thirties. So I really took my thirties to catch up, learn, literally learn how to drink, learn how to be a cool, appropriate, again, glamorous adult drinker, which is not throwing up in the parking lot at age 35 when you're paying a babysitter. Amen. What in the world? And that was my experience. So early on, I felt a tremendous amount of shame and confusion. Like, why can other people hold their own and they learned it, 17 or 2020, or 21, whatever. And for me, my relationship with drinking was out of the gate. A lot of mental tug of war. A lot of, I like this, I don't like this. I feel like this is really fun and celebrating and like I'm like everybody else, but like I feel like I'm abandoning myself. This isn't my true self. I'm not really aligning to how I wanna show up in the world because like you mentioned earlier, I really started getting in this detox retox loop because I was already sober minded. I was already present, awake, alert, aware, in my own life before drinking. So I kept that during the day, kept that behavior going. In fact, if anything, I doubled down and became even more sober minded by day. Green juice, yoga class, working out, waking up, reading my bible, praying, meditating, doing all the right things, like checking the good wife box, the good mom box, the good daughter box, the good. I was checking all the boxes. So by five o'clock, wine o'clock, the decision fatigue, the weariness of being so responsible all the time that it became a real treat for me and the reward that I had connected and the if I was bored, if I was anxious, if I was lonely, if I was celebrating, if I wanted something. Whatever alcohol started to become that coping mechanism for me, a crutch. And I could move the crutch. I could not drink because I had so much practice not drinking. I really had a contrast. And I knew life without drinking. So I could go for days, weeks, or months without a drink. I would do this bigger detox to retox Loop. Some people may do it every day. I was going through periods of time where I was doing that every day. Jen, can I interrupt you for a second? Yeah. Can you clarify what you mean by detox to retox? Sure. Absolutely. Thank you for asking that because it's so in my brain. Let me get it out here. I think I understand, but if I don't understand, definitely let's clarify what you mean. Good. Pause. Thank you for asking me to clarify that. So detox is everything that's healthy and mindful and literally detoxifying the green juice, the hot yoga, the saunas, all of that. That's the detox. And then the retox is that habitual or autopilot or mindless sipping. It's that drinking that is just retox by bringing in the toxin of alcohol, but also it's this almost like mind shift. It's this thinking that shifts of mindlessness. Versus mindfulness. And so I think that's the biggest difference that I see in the detox to retox detox is trying to rid yourself of things that aren't healthy. Retox is putting it back in and hoping it all balances out. Okay. Thank you so much for clarifying that. That makes so much sense. And my mind just exploded. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm doing that right now with different things like especially Oh yeah, for sure. It can plug into a lot of things besides alcohol for sure. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Please continue. Yeah, so anyway, I just, it's a fairly short story in the sense that, I work with women now who have been drinking for decades, 50 years, and I really, relatively speaking, had a fairly short run because I. Let me back it up and say, even in my late thirties, I was like, you know what, this detox retox loop, this yo-yo drinking, it's almost there's yo-yo dieting on again, off again, counting calories, macros, doing all the things, and then just like wheels off whatever. That was me with drinking, like really mindful or really not. And so I was so sick and tired already of that by the age of 38 that had only put me in five or six years of catching up, pretty much with everyone else. At that point, I looked at my husband, I said, babe, we were both in our thirties at the time. I'm older than him by a couple years, so I can say we were both in our thirties. I looked at my husband Craig and I said, I just. This is becoming too big in our lives for me individually, for sure. For us as a couple, we were starting to make it like our evening activity, like a storm's rolling in, grab a bottle of cab, let's pull it on the front porch. We could find, coupons for beer tasting and make that a date night. It was becoming very alcohol centric, even in our marriage, in our relationship. So I said, babe, what if we just didn't drink for a year? Now, keep in mind we didn't meet drinking, we didn't drink together, almost our first decade of marriage. So he was like, yeah, sure, let's do it. And I think if I didn't have a buddy, a kind of like he was my drinking buddy, if I didn't have a sober buddy at that time, I would've never made it a year because I only applied willpower. I had no tools that I now know and love to teach. Others I didn't know any of the mindset shifts. I just knew, I wanna look good in a bikini. I wanna lose some weight. I don't wanna wake up with a hangover. Let's do this thing. And we did it. Boop, just pressed the button like, let's quit together. Okay. Anniversaries, birthdays, beach trips. We're not drinking together. We're losing weight. We're looking good on the outside, but on the inside nothing is changing. In fact, really, if anything, to be honest, Dana, I'm counting down like clearly. I don't have that big of a problem or unhealthy relationship with alcohol. If I can just quit like for a year, anytime I want, again, naive and a little bit prideful, intersecting at the same time because sure enough, after the year. We both went back to drinking in a quote, more moderate way, mindful way. Cool. That worked for about three weeks. Then it just slowly crept in where I'm like, wow, I'm back to where I was. I can open a bottle at 5:00 PM five o'clock, wine o'clock, and by 9:00 PM give me four hours about a glass an hour. Boom. I've done the bottle breakdown. I've done the freaking bottle breakdown again. What in the world? So that, again, just wait. Tell us what that means. What does bottle breakdown mean? The bottle breakdown, which means, Hey, I'm gonna buy a bottle this afternoon, that I'm only gonna have a glass tonight. And once I open that bottle, uncorked it, twisted it off, it was that three to four glasses that I could pace over the night. Subtle, mom's just a little, little numbed out, A little less there. But no one's slurring. No one's tripping. I'm just not a hundred percent present and I know that's so important to both you and I. Just, how can we be more fully alive, more awake, alert, present in our own lives? And I was just taken off the edge, literally losing my edge, losing my sharpness, my ability to just be present in my own life. And yeah, I could pace it out and, but it was very defeating because I knew if I just said I was having a glass, that glass would last till five 30. I'm like, cute. Okay, we're just getting started. That feels so good because now my shoulders are dropping, the anxiety's lessening. What's boring? If I'm gonna cook spaghetti in the kitchen and get that ragu jar going, let's get some red wine too. It was just so my routine, so I would say my story if I fast forward it, which I will, because I was 45 when after getting back into the detox to retox loop, getting back from taking a break from drinking and going back into mindless sipping. Which turned into, again, more losing my presence in my own life. I was 45 years old, Dana, my daughter was 18, we'd made it my 40 to 45 was her 13 to 18. So for any moms out there who know about raising daughters, and again, shout out to my daughter now who's awesome. She's 27. Really an incredible adult woman out in the world doing amazing things. We all had those teenage years. And for me as a mom, to be honest, I just, I don't think I was prepared for just the teenage angst that can come at you when you're the safe person in your child's life. Like you're the mom. You can take it, you can get the brunt, I think of a lot of their confusion and emotions. And I really internalized a lot of that as rejection and it was really painful for me. And again, I didn't have a lot of tools to manage those emotions, so I would just suppress'em during the day, deny'em in the evening by drinking. And so really doing more of the inner healing and the inner work. I've really come to find out that is one of my common themes is this feeling of rejection. And now, how do I handle that now? Definitely not with drinking. So she was graduating, she was moving on different season life stage for her. And I thought, you know what? I want a different season and life stage for me too. I have shrunken down in my own life to be so small. Alcohol's become so significant. I feel so insignificant. My voice, my actual voice, I have dumbed down and numbed out to be like, eh, doesn't really matter. Nobody really cares what I'm doing. So that's why I was the mom at the kitchen sink on a Tuesday night on my third glass of wine at 8:00 PM thinking, how in the world did I get here? I worked out today. I wasn't gonna drink tonight, and now I'm just in this mindless loop. And it was so defeating, so lonely, so frustrating.'cause I could be so high producing, so mindful by day and the duplicity was killing me. It really was. And and yeah, I thought if she's gonna, she's gonna graduate. If you will, I wanna graduate too. And I, at that point, was staring at 46. Real, real close. It was nearing. I thought, I'm halfway through the forties, dude. I'm halfway through a key decade here. If I wanna show up at 50 different than I did 40.'cause I thought I would show up at 40 different, and I did not. I showed up at 40 already, back into the trap. I thought to myself, literally I'm gonna have to change something. Something's gotta give here. And it's not gonna be a juice cleanse. It's not gonna be even like a quick, bootcamp type situation. I've gotta do the inner work to really be a, I wanna be a different person, not even just change my behavior. And I thought I've got a lot of work to do. I don't even know where to start. So I'm gonna start with alcohol as maybe the lead domino. That is going to knock down all these other things in my life that are not adding up or aligning. But if I can start there,'cause that's a real tangible culprit for me. That is not, I was curious, I was like, why did you pick alcohol? What was it about? You ha there life is big. There are a lot of pieces and the puzzle. Yeah. And I'm curious, what was your inspiration for choosing alcohol first as lead domino? And I think because I did have I guess you could call it a luxury of the contrast. I knew life without alcohol truly was better. I already knew that deep down I knew that my anxiety had been rising since I drank, not lessening, but I didn't know why. I didn't know any of the science yet. I didn't understand the link between alcohol and anxiety. I just knew that I had more anxiety and I didn't like a substance, something outside of me being that in control of me. So I was like, I'm gonna start there because I think you're wrecking my sleep even though I'm using alcohol as a sleep aid. Your sleep right. So I thought, I've gotta look at this in a different way. And so instead of trying to avoid alcohol, white knuckle it and just willpower again, like I had done before in my thirties, in my mid forties, I did something different. Instead of trying to just not drink in abstinence, and I started hearing words like sober curious and alcohol free lifestyle. As if it was like a wellness journey, like a choice that I could make for. A lot of reasons. And even the term gray area drinking was still fairly new. I didn't know that there was a full drinking spectrum. Tell us what gray area drinking means. Yeah, I, I think this could be an educational piece.'cause I thought either you were an alcoholic or you weren't. Either it was all or nothing. And that gray area I've even got some notes'cause I really like to get this definition right. Gray area drinking is the space between every now and then drinking and severe alcohol use disorder. It describes the middle ground where someone doesn't fit the stereotype of an alcoholic, maybe not physically addicted.'cause again, I could go months. I could do a year. I could put it down, I could physically put it down and yeah the detox retox was. Was there, but it was more the foggy mind, the anxiety. But my relationship with alcohol was definitely more complicated than casual drinking. So it's that true middle ground where I could take it or leave it. If I didn't take it and left it on the table or left it behind, I felt miserable and deprived, but I could physically, do it and be okay. And so I think a lot of gray area drinkers are in that detox to ox loop up and down, on and off. I would give'em by friends Dana, and they'd be like. Are you on or off right now? And I'm like, actually, I'm on right now. Let's get some Prosecco. Let's go. I'm Most that your friends are awake to it too. Yeah they're like, what are we doing? Are we drinking tonight or not? And I'm like I don't know what y'all are doing, but I'm not, or I don't know what y'all are doing, but I am. And, but I didn't realize too how much of a ringleader I actually was in that department as well. I would get a lot of girls' nights together. I knew all the spots in town that had the great happy hour, specials and love getting together with the girlfriends and drinking. I still love getting together with girlfriends and drinking non-alcoholic drinks now and having just a sexy, like the sexy mocktails or, it. Which I gotta tell you, since 2017 when I began my alcohol free journey, boy, that whole industry has just boomed and the demand is there, which is super exciting to see. So that's my story in a nutshell. I wasn't a drinker in my younger years. I picked it up casually in my thirties, fell into, as Alan Carr calls the pitcher plant. I could fly out at any time. But then I was just going back in, and then I realized in my mid forties, this is not serving me at all. It's not aligning for me at all. In fact, if I don't change something now I am going to be in an empty nester that becomes a professional patio drinker and I'm just gonna, I don't know. It's just going to, it is gonna become more valuable to me, not less when less people need me or care. So I was at a crossroads and that, I think that was a catalyst that made me ready. To learn. So I brought alcohol in closer. Instead of trying to ignore it, deny it, suppress it, or just abstain from it. I actually brought alcohol in closer and I said, let's go. I'm gonna look at you. I'm gonna look at you for all you are. What are you alcohol? Who are you to me? And that, did you do that by, was that like a solo jour journey? Like a solo journey? Did you have community? So for me, it's my experience not, yeah. Tell me more about yours. I could not do, I couldn't do it by myself. I your, so your story is just, you're so awake. And I just kept thinking, man I was in my late twenties when I got sober, but I just wasn't, yeah. Maybe my intuition was telling me all the things that you're articulating right now. But my mind was in the lead, and so my mind was like, oh no, you can handle it. You can handle it, you can handle it. And it just wasn't like, there wasn't a desire to be awake really. And I thought if I just like you, check the box. Like I got the fancy degrees. I got a fancy almost husband who, because of my drinking didn't end up being a husband, but he was an almost husband, and then a fancy house and a fancy like, and then also could go some time without drinking. But like between the times it was chasing me around the block, it was just like this would be so much better. Or maybe Sunday, like maybe blah, blah, blah. It was like this noise. I'm curious about, what was my actual question? Oh, yes. So can you tell us a little bit about your journey? It sounds like you made the decision, you're awake at the wheel and you want to be, and your daughter's let, your daughter's graduated and she's become her own adult, and you've decided, I just also wanna note that in mid forties, I'm here now, and I'm like, there's something magical about this time period where it's oh. It is time to really wake up and live right? This last part has been great and good job, me and us and the world, but there's something really available here. It's like a portal. Yeah. This is a different direction. Jen, just bear with me. Yeah. I'm curious if that was a part of it, but my real question is can you walk us through the decision that you made in this awakeness to stop drinking and start living and what that took to become a part of your identity, your DNA, your spirit? Walk us through what that looks like. Yeah, great question because I, ironically, it was a podcast. And that's why I think podcasts are so important. And that's a lot of why I'm here today, is because there may be a woman who's going on a walk who's ready for a change, looking for something different, maybe needs to hear it a different way. Maybe we're the same, saying the same thing in a different way, and they just need to hear a story that just something clicks. And so that's what I was doing. In doing that, I started realizing, oh, there's a small world. There's a remnant of women that are women and men that are talking about alcohol in a way that is resonating with me. They're not necessarily using the words that I'd heard before. Addiction recovery. Sobriety, sober. I think I, I would've not identified with those words enough to understand what they were saying. So when I started hearing words like gray area drinking, sober curious, and alcohol free lifestyle, it perked me up. And then I started listening and watching different coaches, authors quit lit. It just became like available to me, a whole new world, which I didn't even know existed before, like clue lit. Like I just thought there's one way, there's one direction, and I just didn't know that the conversation was expanding and growing and that there was room for me to be curious that there was room for me and a space for me to begin to just take a break, wrestle with it out loud without having to just go into a situation where I'm like. I'm ready for a label. I'm never drinking again. Whoa. That was just extreme. Extreme for me. And I felt there's gotta be something that, that's maybe again, more geared for along the drinking spectrum, which I really do think is going in one direction. I think it's a highway that you get on. I got a late on ramp in kind of an early off ramp, if you will, but it's still the same highway. And I think it's a one way, I don't think people get on that highway and naturally, intentionally unintentionally end up drinking less. If it becomes a value in their life, you're gonna dream more. And so I was on that highway, I was heading that direction, but I was seeing all these exit ramps, all these off ramps, and I was like, maybe I can take that one, maybe I can take that one. So it took one. And so I think for me, but I would say by three or. Probably three months in my sense of community was gone. I was dipping in and out of Facebook groups. I was listening to different leaders who had gone ahead of me, who highly influenced me. They were out there, but I wasn't finding my people. Like I wasn't finding what I myself was exactly looking for. And again, these groups are great. Some of them are still going today. They're great communities, but it wasn't quite what I was needing. And I think the, the mother of all invention is creating what you need, what you wish you would have found. Yes. And what I personally was looking for. Was a guide or a leader, somebody who was very accessible, someone who was literally showing their life. Not all, just, prerecorded. I have a prerecorded 10 week online course. It's a part of what I offer, but I also go live in my free network every Friday. I'm keeping it real right here in this chair with what's really going on in my real life. Eight and a half years alcohol free. My husband still drinks. I have kids now that are on their own journeys with alcohol. Most of my friends do too. What do I do when I go to a wedding? How do I handle life? Bombs that happen in my personal world, I like to talk about that real time.'cause I wanna show women not just the beginning but the middle and the now, which is not the end. And so that's one thing I was looking for that I could not seem to find. Yes. And I wanted all women. Some groups had that, some groups didn't. And I wanted someone who could bring in a holistic point of view, the mental that I wanted to know. Practical mindset tools. I say in my book, look Alive sis, which I haven't have right yet. Yes. Because I have something else. Yes. Look Alive sis. Which is 40 days to awaken your Sober Mind. What I was looking for was someone who could say, like I did in my book, I actually had a thinking problem. More than a drinking problem. Yes. Because if I notice where my thinking changed with,'cause alcohol was there throughout my whole life, my thinking about alcohol changed. That's what got me drinking. And that's what also helped me stopped drinking, was my thinking. So I wanted somebody who could really talk about decision fatigue, the habit loop, the three Ps, which are like in my free guide. I wanted like practical wine o'clock. Help me right now. Like thanks for the wait, hold on. What are the three Ps? What are the three P's? We're gonna get the guide. I'm just downloaded the guide, but Oh yeah. What are the three Ps? Three Ps I talk about all the time and I'm happy to share because they are a takeaway for your listener Yeah. To use tonight. Or this weekend, whenever they're listening. But the three Ps are critical. And the first one is pre-deciding. I thought I was pre-deciding not really. I was getting to parties or date nights or patios or even my own kitchen. Having good intentions from that morning, but not really pre-deciding. Pre-deciding is saying it's off the table, like if I have to get on my knees and pray or break down or get on Amazon and buy a bath bomb, I'm not drinking. Like it's more of a commitment and a must than it is a should or a vibe, like it's not made, we're not trying, if there's not, maybe it's, this is what we're doing, I'm not gonna get to the party and just see how I feel. Yeah. Your toast, man. You're going in and you're siess. Or at least that's what I experienced. Pre-deciding is super important. And then I think pre-planning, if you're gonna pre decide, you've also gotta pre-plan. Okay. If you're not drinking and you're walking into an alcohol centric situation, or it's a high trigger zone for you, which a lot for me was just boredom, just like laborious task. You've got a plan, what are you gonna drink? What are you gonna say? Yeah, go in with a plan. And then my favorite P tool is playing the movie forward. Play it forward. If I go back to the bottle breakdown example, if I would've played that movie forward and said, oh, I'm just gonna, I'm at the Target cash wrap, oh, it's a bogo. Buy one, get one. I'm gonna get two bottles of, Pinot Grigio, and I'm just gonna open one tonight and have a glass. I'm calling myself out on that because I know if I play the movie forward, that's probably not what's gonna happen. So playing the movie forward requires a lot of honesty, kind of radical honesty with yourself. Jen, really, what's the history here? Not even judging myself, but just like observing, like what is the pattern? Is the pattern that you do have just one. Probably not. So let's really play it forward. And I love, can I just say I love the way that you're talking to yourself, because I think a lot of the conversations that women are having in their minds are very judgemental. They're very Judge Judy. Like shame and guilt and get it together ourselves. Loser. Whatcha doing your shit together. Oh no, she's fired. We're gonna ask to actually step over here and we're gonna be our own best friend. Thank you. How would I speak to my daughter? Or how would I speak to my best friend? Could I please offer myself that same compassionate love? Yes. So pre-deciding and there's so much power and decision pre-planning. So I remember this, the story. Bef when I was, I use the word sober. When I got, when I was nine months sober, my best friend was getting married and I was invited to give the toast at the wedding. Oh, how did you handle that, Dana? I called my mentor and I asked other people in the sober community like, what the, what am I gonna do? Yeah. And is this even possible? And so I, the approach. And I'll just say this, like from my own experiences, that approach can't work for me because there's something that's, it's like I have a disease in my thinking mind. The thinking doesn't work and I can't play that movie forward because the tape player's broken, the VCR is just cracked out. And so the, my approach was total terror and then lots of prayer and connection. So I'm praying, I'm like, whatever's out there that's kept me sober this long, I'm gonna need you to just get me to the wedding. And then through the wedding, and then I had other sober sisters on the phone and I went in the bathroom and called them. I'm like, I'm about to do it. Cute. And they're like, it's fine if you wanna keep me on speakerphone, like I'll be quiet. I'll walk out to the stage with you. And then I gave myself permission to leave right after. And I had my own car. So this is where like good move. Pre-planning, pre-planning, big time. It didn't help me. So I had my car in the parking lot. I drove myself. Now I didn't leave immediately, but I knew I had the permission to do it. Yes. And I also to, to your point, I had the pitch, why aren't you drinking? And I've said, I'm not drinking because I'm driving. And let that do not, you were ready. I'm not drinking because I'm driving or I'm not, I don't drink. And then just let them be confused. Now I have no fucks to give. So I'll say totally. I'm an alcoholic. It's bad for me to drink. It would be bad for you if I drank any other questions. Yeah. Yeah. That'll shut'em down. But I wanted to say something else too, is that I'm so glad I'm so glad you're here. The universe loves us so much, Jen, because there is such as you found with, 250,000 people, and this is, I'm sure that's old news. I'm sure it's more like 500,000 because the world isn't small anymore. The world of women who were waking up and questioning the relationship with alcohol, that wasn't available to me, or I definitely wasn't interested in it when I was in drinking and, yeah, every, there's so many different experiences. My experience is I had to get cracked open mind, body and spirit in order to be open to a solution, which if in my, in the world that I run around in is very spiritual. It's very much we have to have a spiritual experience, like we gotta have spirit of the universe or God, or whatever you're calling it today. It doesn't matter. And there are a lot. But we do also use terms like sober and alcoholism and disease and addiction and recovery, which I'm now seeing is it's pretty intense. Like that language is intense and so yeah, which is totally okay. Yeah, I just think. For me, if I would've I would've, I might've missed the message. I needed to hear if the semantics, if the words didn't open up. More conversation and more curiosity. Yes. And so your movement is exactly what the universe needs. Yeah. The movement I'm a part of and they're the, we're the same. Like it's this, there's a, if we're looking at a Venn diagram, like really close together, and there are people who won't even grace the doorway of ours because of the, I'll just use the word extreme and intense and, we'll, wait, I wanna say this since you mentioned highway. We'll wait until they've flown off the bridge, until they come to us. You're so right, Dana, and you're like a wake up call in the middle of the downward trajectory that's Hey, we're this exit ramp. Look at, it's already not going great. I you, I'm so glad you said that because I often say, and I'm sure you've heard this language too, just a different, the elevator doesn't have to go to the bottom. You don't need a rock bottom. And I really do believe that. And for the longest time in that age, 40 to 45 for me, which were my biggest really wrestling years with it and my kind of my dark years with it, on and on again I felt gosh, do I have to get worse before I get better? Exactly. That doesn't make any sense. No. Like it just didn't make any sense to me. And because I felt like I was on this highway, I was in the right hand lane, not the left lane. I wasn't going the speed route. It was just so slow and subtle. I could have gone another 10, 15 years. Yes. And probably managed. My drinking pretty well. I had the age, if you're listening, she put managed in quotation marks. Listen. Yeah, that's, she put the word managed in quotation marks. That's we, that's big air quotes there. That's not a thing that we, that's actually happening. What I heard that we have in common, and I see this with drinker with drinking. Listen, I love alcohol. It did me a lot of service. It kept me alive. But here's my truth is that when I drank, I was completely cut off from my own. Intuition from the spirit, from God, from spirituality, which is the key to being awake, right? It's the key to presence. We were losing our, we were taking off our edge, but losing our edge. To hear that still small voice, to have that discernment, to honor ourselves and not eject out of our own life and abandon ourselves there, I can't tell you how many times I felt like, oh my gosh, Jen has now left the building and I'm still there, but I'm not really, my true self isn't really there, and I've detached. It's that divided mind and that divided mind and just even coming from my faith perspective, I went from a divided mind to a renewed mind. I needed to keep renewing my mind every day. Yes. I sit and I renew my mind. I need a fresh start every day. I'm not living on my renewed mind from eight years ago. I'm renewing my mind every day, and that's leading me to my sober mind, which is being awake, alert, aware, and present. Okay, so let's talk about your work in the world, because I love this. I love our trajectory. Sober minded, renewing of your mind. I know that you're, you have a faith practice. Talk about, if you will, the work that you do in the world and the women who you best serve now. Yeah. Thank you because I feel so passionate about this still all these years later because I am going for the woman at the kitchen sink who is on her third glass of wine who wasn't gonna drink tonight and did the workout. And her family's not necessarily noticing because it's not quote that bad. She's just drifting through her life, rumbling down and unraveling slowly but surely from her best self. And so that's I do have this vision of this woman, which of course is me. That's who I was. And who's cleaning the skillet that I had the first glass while I was cooking in the skillet second glass, while I'm eating third glass, while I'm cleaning fourth glass in the bathtub? Boom boom. I had it down to that's just what I do. I'm on autopilot, so I wanna help the woman who finds herself, like whether it's socially in that autopilot thinking or at home or both. To feel empowered that she doesn't have to crash her car fall down. And again, that's not always the story anywhere, but I just want them to know that there are some practical tools and that maybe they could start small and take a bite-sized chunk and do something like I offer, which is a 21 day reset challenge. Started offering these in 2018. I've offered one every month since March of 2018. Wow. That's how we've hit those crazy numbers. It's just, 2020 was like, yeah, everyone's quarantined in their house, drinking, quarantining driving, and here I come online down that hallway, that highway. Yeah, because I'm a virtual community virtual coach. I do host live events, but it was like, I feel like God, the universe definitely placed me in that position to be like. I'm sure you saw the memes, like an AA meeting, being like a football stadium and like we're filling it up. Same along the whole drinking spectrum. People that hadn't even struggled with alcohol per se, switched from that. Every now and again, drinker or a social casual drinker to, oh my gosh, I, I think I'm on vacay all day, and I two weeks to flatten the curve or whatever it was, turned into two months, three months. Oh my gosh, I'm drinking more than I ever did before. It's happening. That's the woman I was able to help then too. Whoa, this is like a new thing. Like I, I was not prepared for that, so I was prepared for that because I had been alcohol free at that point, about two years. So I was like, okay, I understand what's going on here. I understand how it can be blindsiding later in life or when it hasn't been something that you've dealt with all along. And so yeah, so that I started Soberist to create that meet you where you are. Let's just take a break together. Let's just hit the, let's, if we're going with the highway example, let's, take a blinker, let's get off the drinking highway. Let's just go to a rest, stop. Let's just gas up, fill up with some new thinking. Let's pop our hood. And guess what? You're not at the rest. Stop alone. You mentioned connection earlier. That is huge. We've got the three keys that's practical, but connection is everything. I'm sure you've seen or heard the infamous TED talk that's gone viral about connection being the antidote to addiction and addicting. What is that? What is addiction? I'm a big fan of Gabor Mate. Yes. Who talks a lot about his view of addiction is doing the same thing over and over again. Any addictive behavior. Even after negative results or consequences, why do we do the things we do? I wanted to pop the hood with people at that rest stop and go, Hey, let's talk about some practical science here. Oh, alcohol creates a thirst for itself. Didn't know that. Yeah, it does. It's great marketing. Now I do, and I love telling people, Hey, guess what? You're dealing with an addictive substance wherever you are on the drinking spectrum. It is kinda like opening a bag of chips, but much worse, it wants you to eat more. It wants you to drink more. And that's why that it's similar to I was, I not smoked cigarettes. It's disgusting for 20 years, but it's it's the same. It is, it's just so the same. So much of it's, and that's why I can go back and say, for me it was a thinking problem.'cause sometimes for me it's fill in the blank. There's this concept of transfer addiction. So that's why I like to work with women past the 21 days into the pillars of building an alcohol free lifestyle. So that's my kind of my second step. Once they're off the highway, some get back on, they're drinking less. Moderation may work for them at this time. And again, air quotes, if you could see, there's a caveat at this time because moderation worked for me until it didn't. Yeah. I could control my drinking. Some of the time, but it always ultimately was controlling me. I just thought I was in control. It really wasn't and misses what I see. I was thinking about my where I just looked down at my watch. I have my little mama's watch. This is my grand, my grandmother who's passed on. And I always looked at her and I was like she, Dr. She then, this isn't her per se, but this is the type of what I see, where it's okay, we've been drinking a long time and we're still drinking the same amount. Let's just say, but what happens? You said, this is like on the inside we spiral. We demise, our inside is to demise. So while our intake may even stay the same, the anxiety rises. The fear of walking out the door rises, the fear of connection, the fear, and the, we get use this word so beautifully because we're shut off from our. Spirit or intuition, we cower and our world gets really small. And that's I think why COVID was such a huge catalyst. We're not built to be small. We're not built to be alone. We're not built to be on our mind. Yes. Need. So it doesn't matter if you're having two glasses a night or two bottles a night or day drinking, or only drinking on the weekends, that doesn't matter as much as like you just described the inner citadel, the inner world. Oh, mine didn't match the outside. That was a problem. That's duplicity. And that, that did not feel, that felt divided, which is not. And that's what was hurtful to me. And this is where I like wanna get up and just jump outta my chair, is that it's, we're not living, we're not allowed, we're not in the middle of our own lives, right? We're quote, managing or maintaining. But really, are we, I would say not. I would say we're slipping. There's no neutral in life. There's really not. You're really the idea that if nothing changes is false. Yeah. If nothing changes, you get worse. It gets worse. There is no neutral people. I thought I was like in like a neutral gear, like it's not that bad. It's not that good. I'm not hurting anyone. Yeah. I'm hurting myself, which is hurting everyone. Around me because my presence is gone. That's not, I know this isn't your, I don't know this, but this isn't a part of, what either of us are really about. But I've gotten this new thing that I'm really sensitive to because I have three little girls. They're little. They're five, they're eight and they're 10. Oh. And I will take them, I take them out in the world. We have the best time. They've never seen me drink. I've been sober 16 years. Wow. And, but we use this language because you said your parents had a cautionary tale. I had a cautionary tale. So we get to share. I love this language that you're using too. And I want you to know I'm using, I'm gonna use it immediately with community and daughters. Where am I going with this? Lemme just take a breath. Perimenopause came in for a second, believe it or not. Still understand. I know, right? What is the I there, but I can still relate with what you're saying. Okay. So alive in our own life, and I found it here. Here she is. Then I will go around other women. Although candidly, I really only hang out with sober women now.'cause that's my people. They're awake, they're connected, they're excited about their own life. But I'm sometimes around women who drink around their kids. Around their kids, and then around my kids, and I see them go to sleep. Yep. You know what I mean? I'm not actually fall asleep, but it's like they're not there to scare, they kind glassy-eyed, g glassy-eyed. Yes. That there's a disconnection in themselves. And so there are two, I have two thoughts. One is please don't do that with your kids. Number one,'cause like it's unsafe. And also two, because you're teaching them what to do. But three is you've just cut off your, with itness. Yeah. You just cut off your intuition. You just cut off the you know that thing you have with your kids where like you already know, you don't even have to see them. You already know they're up to something. It's the ice in the back of your head. For real. Yeah. And those get closed. Yep. When we're drinking. So true. Those get closed. And so three layers of please again I'm not anti-alcohol, but since we're in this conversation, what are your thoughts on that and what are your thoughts on, because I wanna be like, please don't drink in front of your kids. Definitely don't drink in front of mine. I'm serious about that. Yeah. We're not, I'm not willing to normalize this for my kids. It's not okay for the world to be asleep right now. Good. I think you're awesome Dana. And I think that's a great, as your kids get older, age appropriate with just their understanding of the world, which is a pretty chaotic, confusing, crazy place as it is, what a great opportunity for you to begin dialogue in conversation. That's one thing I missed as a kid and a young person was any dialogue around alcohol. There was none. It was over there. Way over there. It was like I said, I grew up with kind of the three rules around drinking. Don't drink unless you're 21. Don't drink and drive. Got it. That was back when Mad Mothers Against Drunk Driving had just come out. We're at the flagpole. We're doing like mad against Drunk driving. Alcohol was still demonized, like it's bad and if you do it you're probably bad. Like that was the atmosphere I grew up in. But it also gave me no tools for when I was an adult. It gave me no tools. So I think you being able to bridge that gap of Hey guys, we live in an alcohol centric society. You'll be able to put it in kid language, but just giving them the tools to stand alone, to belong to themselves. I read Brene Brown's book, braving the Wilderness back in 2017 about how to belong to yourself. Yes. And just this whole critical thinking and this, don't get into the group think and think for yourself. And it's okay to be different. I think you've got a great opportunity by actually letting them experience the contrast a little bit, even though you're not loving that. I get it. I actually started drinking when my kids were around your kids' ages all the way through most of their high school years. So I was the mom. Now, I will tell you this. The drinking culture in my 15, 20 year tenure of drinking, I literally watched change the mommy wine juice culture. The what's in your Yeti at the park, the Halloween, is coming up the trick-or-treating with like moms or, like the parents are lit. It's like I started watching that and just, it was normalized. So I think you being able to just make it less about the person. And more about the substance and more about it less being a moral failure. It's more dude, this is an addictive substance that's highly marketed and promoted, and people are fa, they're duped. I felt duped. Wait, yes, wait, what if I would've known what I would've known about alcohol being like ethanol, being like flammable being like so addictive, being like so undermining to my actual resilience. I just thought it was a fruity drink that kind of made you feel relaxed. Like I, I think my, again, being naive actually set me up for being blindsided. So I think you're in a cool place where you don't have to be the example, but you can leverage the examples around you. Not to shame that mom to them or even to your kids, but just to say, you know what? A lot of people don't know. Okay. And again, that's where I come in.'cause I wanna help, I wanna support, I wanna bring in a non-judgmental, nons, shameful place. But hey, if you're drinking around your kids, like I was even at the quote appropriate times at dinner time at home, while I'm cooking, not like at the park or like driving them around, it's still showing them, Hey, mom's checked out. Or even in my kids' teenage years, which you're not even there yet, which is buckle up, I'm glad, had a sober mind. Because the anxiety I would have to like, try to really keep my drinking at a certain level that was undetectable. So I thought from them. So when they came in at curfew, I was the night shift between my husband and I. He was the early, he's the early to bed. Early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise guy. You know that, that little saying I was like, cool, you're the early shift. I'm certainly not getting up at 5:00 AM I'm more of the 7 38 a 8:00 AM shift. So I'm really the midnight shift. Got it. So I, that was a lot of my evening drinking was in front of Netflix waiting for curfew. I think I'm more there than I am. What was I showing my kids talk about? Confusing and again, felt so shameful and alone. I wasn't sure what to do with that. And so I needed a place to go where I could be like, is anybody else doing that too? Because again, I could have really real candid conversations with them and I was under the illusion that I was less affected than I was, even if they may not have fully noticed. I'm sure that now they, I, we've talked about it. Yeah, and it's to take it out of, so thank you for naming that because the intention is not to create shame at all, although I'm, I bet it has. So I wanna take like a big step back. And this is also what's coming up. It comes up a lot on the podcast. But I think women in particular, so this is affecting women specifically in very specific ways. Yes. That's why in my community I attend mostly women's meetings, women's only meetings, because our stories are, can be very different. Yeah. And also we get more honest when we're around women and feel safer as my experience For sure. And but also Hey, listen, let's go Glennon Doyle for a second. There's something in the water, there's something in the water. Mixing alcohol and women where we're even thinking about things like calling something mommy juice. Like what? That sounds like the patriarchy to me, right? What's that? And yeah. I love your movement because it's just such a powerful addition. Addition to or accelerant to the waking up of the women, conscious of the consciousness of women in the world, right? Because we've things to do, if we're dumbed down, asleep in our own lives, nothing to see here and nothing to worry about here. We should be world changers. We are builders. We are creators. Yes, we need to be out there. And that's why. In our community. My, my goal, the mission of even my nonprofit, is to get that free guide, get these tools, invite as many women to the table as I possibly can. All walks of life, age, religion, sexual orientation. I don't care. Come to the table. Let's work on your relationship with alcohol. Let's get you sober minded, awake, alert, aware, present in your own life. Then what you do with that, where you take your sober mind, get in there, go out. Go out there and live it out. And I think that there is a collective movement, although I will say this, Dana, this is pretty, it's pretty staggering, pretty shocking stat out there. And I know I'm about probably a decade older than you for the first time in history. Drinking's going down, right? Like the Gallup poll just came out for the first time in 90 years. Drinking is actually less than it's been in 90 years, and that's because of the 20 somethings. They're drinking less because they're watching us and beyond they're learning drinking more. And so the overall numbers are going down for people picking up drinking or accelerating drinking, obviously it's still a huge. Huge issue in our society, so I'm not minimizing it, just relatively speaking, the drinking industry, the actual alcohol industry is suffering right now. They are not doing as well because the alcohol free in a industry is fulfilling a lot of the need for people who do wanna drink less or not at all. Or even switch it out every other one or like on again, off again, whatever. For the first time in history, women ages 40 to 70 are drinking more as they age, not less. Yeah. So it is, it's potentially my age group and now yours too, but that middle age and beyond that empty nester, the grandmas that are actually finding that's more like 70% are drinking more. And so a lot of the women in our sisterhood, I've worked with six decades. Worth of women spanning. I have women in their twenties all the way through their eighties in sober sis. We really do have a remnant of about half a dozen, 80 plus women in our tribe. And we like, oh, y'all have so much life experience. I'm like, you literally could be my mom. Yes, but I'm your sober minded coach. We can do this. But I would say a lot of women are like, oh my gosh things are changing around me, but I'm not changing now. What do I do? Especially if you've been drinking for decades and maybe didn't have that cautionary tale or that rock bottom early on, you have gotten to that point where you are seemingly managing it well, you're dying on the inside, but you've got it down on the outside. And that's, can you say that again? Stop and say that again. Yeah, you're dying on the inside. You're dying on the inside. It looks like you got it great together on the outside. Yeah. All those boxes are checked and you're killing it, man. You're just really knocking it outta the ballpark at your complete and utter essence expense. I love this conversation so much. I know we don't have time to go in deep in depth, but I'm wondering if you could really quickly, two things. One, tell us what the pillars are and two is how can we, like, where's your favorite place to be found? And I'll drop all of your links in the show notes. Yes. So they can find you well and thank you for that. I do have so many resources out there that are free available right now. Like just go get'em, y'all. If you're curious. Yes. Whether that be a free guide for kind of the, like a happy hour survival guide, I have that free community. I do host a 21 day reset challenge at the beginning of every month. After that. I do have a 10 week online course with coaches in it that really do walk through the 10 pillars, which I can rattle'em off right now.'cause I wrote'em down after being alcohol free a couple of years. And I was like, wait a minute, I'm still alcohol free. I'm not just. I'm not using my deprivation mindset, I'm not using rules. I'm not exhausting myself with willpower. I'm not shaming myself negatively to just get in line, get better gen. I'm doing all the opposite of that. I'm showing up with willingness, curiosity, I have connection. And that's really the 10 pillars are, you've gotta have a really good why. You gotta know why you're doing this so that when you're tempted or you're struggling, you can go back to your why. And then connection pillar number two, gotta have it got, find your people if it's not in sober sis, there are so many great communities out there, but we've got a great one because again, we really have a lot of fun and lightheartedness talking about something that is really heavy and can be heavy hearted. So connection is key. No judgment, no labels. Number three, how to handle obstacles when they happen. Not if they happen, but when they happen. That eject button is always there. You're, your finger's hovering over it. And that leads me to number four. How do you live in the present? And I love that. That's so on point with what you're doing because even before we started this podcast, you brought us into the present. That's a skill. That's a skill that most adult people don't have. We don't know how to get in the present moment. We're just going and living on autopilot and mindless scrolling, mindless sipping, mindless shopping, mindless everything, and living in the present is a skill. And then scientific gratitude. I've done quite a deep dive on the science behind gratitude. Not just please and thank you, but like how that can literally change everything and then how to course correct. That's pillar number six. It's not about perfection, it's about progress. And so in our tribe is, you slipped up. Hey, you slip. You don't have to slide. Don't start over. It's kinda like running a marathon. If you're running a marathon and you slip and fall on Miles 17, are you gonna go back to the starting line? No ma'am. I will keep running like nobody's there, but my exact experience. Yeah, like literally nobody's there. Nobody's even going that direction. Pick yourself back up hopefully with the help of others because you're not running alone and go to the finish line, wherever that is for you. Your next goal, just the life you wanna, how you wanna show up, but it's a marathon, not a sprint. So it is about progress, not perfection. So we have a lot of grace going on here. And then we talk about identity. Our true identity, going from being a non-drinker to a drinker, to a non-drinker, from going to, single, to being married, to being a mom. Like these are all identity pieces. And really knowing our true identity and who we are on the inside without all the roles and hats that we wear is key. You gotta know yourself, and I think that's one of the benefits of being older. Lots of time get to know thyself because everywhere you go there you are. And and then self-care. I talk about, number eight on my list is self-care and how important that is to have a practice of self-care, not just spa days, every four to six weeks, but like every day throughout the day. And then boundaries, healthy boundaries, loving limits. What does that look like? And then my 10th pillar is passion and purpose significance. We all wanna count in the world. We don't wanna play small. God didn't create us to be little and play small. He gave us all, I think, a very unique assignment that we were given on this planet, on this earth. Even before we were born, we were implanted with something really special. And if we're numbing over that and clouding over that and can't get to that, that's a pillar of living a dynamic thriving alcohol-free lifestyle, which clearly you have found as well. Congrats on 16 years. I'm halfway on, on the journey where you are in sobriety, and I just think if I didn't have a purpose and passion, no matter if it was in, the sober minded journey or not, I would have to have something to pull me forward every day, get up for where it mattered. Jen, I wanna close with this. I think I'm always laughing at and with the universe or God, she has a divine plan and she's very, everything is divinely choreographed. And I don't think it was an accident that your journey started in 2018 because the universe knew what was coming. It was all divinely choreographed. And so you were set up for success. And so maybe we look at this as like our setback and whatever it is literally our set up for the assignment we've been given, right? Which is the way that we can truly accomplish in air quotes, because that's a ruse, but we can really fulfill our purpose. And it seems like you're living in the middle of yours now. And so when you said 2018, I was like, haha, I see what you were doing there. Madam Universe. Yeah.'cause of, because of you. Hundreds of thousands of women now have someone that's speaking a language that they can understand in a very compassionate, open, caring i'll, I don't love the nonjudgmental. What it is welcoming and loving. I just wanna go hang out with you and be best friends forever.'cause I just feel the love coming from your heart, wherever anybody is. And I'm just so grateful for you, Jen, and your work in the world. And if you had one, if you had a megaphone and you could put it in the, let's say the bathroom.'cause we're all taking a bath, at night into the bathroom, the bubble bath of every woman that you're calling in. What would you say on the megaphone. Ooh, that's a great question to, to end with. And I just off the top of my head, one of the, one of the mantras that I love that my grandmother always said I don't think she made it up, but it's from her so it's special. She always used to say, Jenny, be the change you wanna see in the world. And I think that may be Gandhi or somebody else, but be the change you want to see in the world. And I thought I wanna change the world. God's given me that kind of reformer improve or let's make it better mindset. But if we can be that change, if we can start with ourselves, I didn't go out there trying to change the world, my goodness. I was just trying not to drink tonight and started that journey. And so I would just say, if you wanna change the world, I. Sorry. Having a funny mower where I'm like, I think I'm feeling like a Michael Jackson. Like Man in the mirror. Yes. The woman in the mirror. Hear it in the background. People go listen to the lyrics of that song because I am hearing it right now in my head. I think I'm gonna dance that. Asking her to change away. Come on. I'm like, wait a minute. I think I could write a whole blog on Man in the Mirror. Yeah. Like Woman in the Mirror. I like the direction we're going. Yes. That's May could be also your next book. Just saying. Yeah. It could be. Just gimme a little. Yeah. So I'm feeling that man in the mirror theme vibe, that's fantastic. What are you dreaming about before we sign off? What are you dreaming about now? Oh, that's a great question. I, my kids are not married yet, but they are of the age where they could find their special person. So I'm dreaming about being a grandma someday. Someday. No pressure kids, if you listen to this. No pressure. Keep your standard high. Hold out for the good one. But I can't wait to be a grandma. I will be a sober minded grandma. My kids saw me drink but my grandkids won't. So I am excited to have that redo time with with my grandkids down the road someday. God willing that I have them. And I'm also excited about just the nonprofit that we created to keep sober sis going well beyond what I'm able to do with it right now. I think that sober sis as a community, as a sisterhood, I hope it's here another eight years and beyond and can really create a legacy. My legacy, but the legacy. Of changing the trajectory of women's lives. And so I'm excited of the imprint that sober sis can make on the planet in this universe for the better by waking women up to whatever it is their purpose, passion, and mission. So you're wearing a beautiful heart sweatshirt, and I say this at the end of each of my episodes, but I just want you to know how deeply I'm calling this to share it with you. So if you would open your heart and receive this from mine, Jen, I love you. I'm so grateful for you and I'm so proud of you, and I believe in your ability to create a light for women everywhere. Thank you so much for being here. Wow, awesome. Thank you. Oh, whoa. Did you just feel what I felt? There is a whole lot of that and more to help you create miracles in your life. On upcoming episodes of the Girls Who Recover a podcast now ranked in the top 5% of podcasts globally. If you've built a strong recovery foundation and you're feeling ready to break through life's glass ceilings, let's make it happen together. In the show notes, you'll find a link to book a free one-on-one conversation with me and in that conversation. We'll get clear on what next level success even looks like for your life. We'll create some powerfully aligned goals and a plan. We're gonna talk about the big thing holding you back, and you will walk away with a roadmap for how to create a life you are obsessed with. Because hear this from me, my friend. You deserve. Success and freedom and the full identity of a woman who knows what she's capable of and who she is. And I wanna help you get there. So book your free call in the notes. And if you love this episode, follow us five stars, write a review, share it with your best friend, share it with your mom. And in case you haven't heard it today, I love you. I'm so proud of you, and I believe in your ability to create a gorgeous life. You are madly in love with starting. Right now and I'll see you in the next episode, blah.