What If Your Partner Is Still Drinking?

Do you need your partner to stop drinking in order for you to be successful in your own alcohol-free journey?

In this episode of The Alcohol Myth Podcast, Coach Jonathan Ball and Ellen Biggs unpack the fear that changing your relationship with alcohol will change, threaten, or disconnect you from your partner.

For many people, drinking is woven into date nights, celebrations, vacations, rituals, and everyday connection. So when one person starts questioning alcohol, it can bring up guilt, shame, fear, resentment, and the worry that the relationship will never feel the same.

But your alcohol-free journey is still yours.

Jonathan and Ellen talk about how to share vulnerably without making ultimatums, why “invited but not required” can be such a powerful approach, and how honest communication can actually create more connection, not less. They also explore what to do when your partner is supportive, what to do when they are not, and how to ask clearly for what you need without trying to control what is in someone else’s glass.

You don’t need to wait for rock bottom.
You don’t need more willpower.
You just need a new way to understand what you are feeling and why you are reaching for the next drink.

If this episode resonates, please like, share, subscribe, and leave a comment with what stood out to you. You can also send questions, stories, or ideas for future episodes to thealcoholmyth@gmail.com.

Connect with us:
Email: thealcoholmyth@gmail.com
Jonathan: https://livecreativeaf.com/
Ellen: https://ellenbiggscoaching.com/

Subscribe for more episodes pulling back the curtain on the alcohol myth.

Chapters
0:00 Invited, but not required
0:42 The myth: your partner has to stop drinking too
2:10 When alcohol is part of the relationship
4:05 Fear, shame, and telling the truth
6:20 What changes when one partner stops drinking
8:30 When your partner is not fully supportive
11:05 Reassuring your partner through the change
13:45 Asking clearly for what you need
16:10 Healthy differentiation in relationships
18:25 Finding new ways to connect
20:15 Key takeaways for couples
22:05 Grace, compassion, and imperfect support

#AlcoholFree #Sobriety #SoberCurious #QuitDrinking #Recovery #Relationships #AlcoholMyth #AlcoholFreeLife

Transcript

Invited, but not required

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I love the approach of invited but not required. I want to tell you about what's going on with me. I want to open myself up and be vulnerable with you about what I'm thinking about my thing. And then you have laid out this invitation. You haven't made any ultimatums. You haven't said, you know, it's got to be this way. I never I don't want it in the house at all. I, you know, blah, blah, blah. But you've just shared your experience and you've shared your vulnerability. And then they get to respond how they get to respond. And how they respond, it's great when you have the support, but you can do it without

The myth: your partner has to stop drinking too

SPEAKER_02 0:42

their support because at the end of the day, it's about you. Why does the world act like alcohol is the answer, even while it is creating problems of its own?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

On the Alcohol Myth podcast, we pull back the curtain so you can see what's really going on with alcohol and what life could be like without it.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

We are coaches trained in this naked mind and effective liminal psychology who fell for the alcohol myth for decades. Now we help people take back control of their lives by changing their relationship with alcohol from the inside out.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

You don't need to wait for a rock bottom. You don't need more willpower. You just need a new way to understand what you are feeling and why you are reaching for that next drink.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

So let's dig in.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

And I'm Ellen Beggs. Great to be with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

And today we are tackling the myth that you need your partner to not drink in order to be successful in your own alcohol-free journey. This is a big one for folks. A lot of us have developed relationships alongside our relationship with alcohol. And some of those have resulted in very close partnerships. And so it can feel for a lot of people like when you are starting to question or change or renegotiate your own relationship with alcohol, we start to get worried, we start to

When alcohol is part of the relationship

SPEAKER_02 2:10

be concerned that that is going to impact some of our primary relationships. And or we feel scared that if I start to try to change and my partner isn't 100% behind me in whatever way I decide that that is, then we might not be successful in our own journey. It keeps a lot of people stuck. It's one that we hear about from a lot of the people in our communities and from our clients. And so we thought we'd tackle it today. So when we talk about partners, we talk about alcohol, we talk about relationships. What comes up for you, Ellen?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, this was a big one for me. I mean, my it's funny because I I work, I'm thinking two different trains of thought here. Because I have I've worked with a lot of clients and I had a lot of um people in my cohort that my uh where I got alcohol free that had very heavy drinking partners. And that wasn't my case. My case was that my husband and I drank a lot together. We did. Um, but I was the heavy drinker and he was the more social kind of a drinker. But that was still a big deal because like because he was more of a social kind of a drinker, A, it kept me in that feeling of like, God, I wish I could just drink like him. Like, why don't I just figure this out so we can moderate together? Because he seems to be able to do it. So why can't I? And then also, like, well, if he's gonna continue to drink because drinking's not really a problem for me, what is that gonna mean if I give it up? Because that is gonna mean that I am like somehow um abandoning that part of our relationship or rejecting that part of our relationship. And and that was a critical part. We we had a lot of rituals around wine. All of

Fear, shame, and telling the truth

SPEAKER_00 4:05

our celebrations included wine. We had special wines, we had special champagnes, we had, you know, I had gotten into gin at one point, like we were throwing gin parties, like it was intertwined in our social life and in our personal romantic life, too. And so um the thought of like switching that up, even though I knew in my heart of hearts it's what I needed to do, I had a lot of fear around that, what it would mean for our my relationship.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Yeah, it's such a common experience of being afraid of what the partner's response might be too, right? Like, are they going to how open am I with them in the first place with my thinking? Like the when I decided to make a change, it meant in some ways talking to my wife about stuff that I'd never talked to her about. Like she had no idea that I was so unhappy with how much I was drinking, and she didn't really know the scope of how much I was drinking too, because I I wasn't keeping it completely secretive, but I also wasn't keeping it completely on front street either, right? Like, you know, she'd think that I'd have three beers in a night, and I had gone to the fridge and you know, managed it to where I'd actually gotten nine beers that night, right? Like it would be it would be little things like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

So it was it was one of those things where it felt really scary to even talk about because it meant kind of uh revealing this part of my experience that I had so much shame wrapped around. And coming to terms with that was the first barrier, not even to mention thinking about what it would mean in the future. Like one of our first experiences together as a couple was this extravagant trim to la trip to Las Vegas and you know drinking uh drinking mimosas and playing slots together. And part of me was holding on to being

What changes when one partner stops drinking

SPEAKER_02 6:20

able to do that again exactly that way. Uh, I didn't know then what I know now that when we go to Las Vegas again, we're gonna have even more fun than than we would the first time. But I just didn't know that then, right? And so I felt really scary to say, hey baby, um the decision that I'm making is resulting in us never being able to have that foundational fun experience again. And looking at it that way was really scary.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, I mean, I think I felt a lot of guilt and shame around that as well. Like I had somehow wrecked it for us, right? Like, because if uh because Chris, my husband, was f you know, not that he didn't go through periods of time where he probably drank more than was a good idea, but when he chose to not drink, he could. And, you know, if he got to choose how many drinks he'd have in a night and not have me egging him on, it would be much less, right? Typically. And um so I felt like I felt like because I had gotten out of control, because I had this problem, it was, you know, I I kept wanting I wanted to like sort it out in a way that wouldn't jeopardize the thing, because I felt like it was unfair to the relationship, that this was my thing, and why did it have to impact the relationship? And you know, ironically, that actually is a little bit of what happened in the in the as it unfolded, is it it really is my thing, right? Like me changing my relationship with alcohol, even though I feared it would change everything, it it didn't, right? It all it changed was what was in my glass. And if anything, it actually connected us more because I openly and honestly shared with him how much I had been suffering, which, you know, he he didn't know because I didn't allow him to know that. I didn't invite him into that.

When your partner is not fully supportive

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So there was like this, you know, sort of invisible wall between us that he didn't even know was there. And so it it actually ended up, you know, my fear of it being this disconnecting thing, it ended up being much more of a connecting thing. And then, you know, he gets to make the choice about how much and how often he wants to drink. Just because I'm not drinking doesn't mean that he has to not drink. And, you know, he's naturally just started drinking a lot less because A, he sees how great I feel, and like that's kind of inspiring, right? To realize, oh, you know, I don't, you know, just having one or two beers a night does wreck my sleep a little bit. And so I really like the AF beers, so maybe I'll just have those with Ellen instead. You know, that's just kind of happened naturally. Um, but I never wanted or asked him to stop drinking because I felt like that was uh that I wanted it to really be about me, you know. I felt like I, again, I had all this blame and shame. I got myself into this, I'm gonna get myself out. But ultimately it was like I had that experience, and I get to, you know, choose what I want going forward. And um, but I don't, you know, like I had a very positive experience, and I think you did too, that our partners were very supportive of our change and and and what we were doing and saw how good it was for us. I think that there are, I mean, you coach clients, I coach clients, I have people in my cohort that their partners, they're not as supportive, they're not as into it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Yeah. I think when that happens, it's so much about that other person's experience with their own drinking and the fear that comes up for them. Uh, because like you said, Ellen, like this decision to drink or not to drink is so much a personal choice. It is an individual person by person uh decision. And how funny is it that with what other thing would we get so wrapped up into what other people have in their glass, right? Like it's it's kind of weird to obsess about like, um, is that still or sparkling water? Because I've got judgments on you depending on what the answer is. Like, it's absurd. But for this, we just like give alcohol a pass again and then we keep it rolling. But the for the

Reassuring your partner through the change

SPEAKER_02 11:05

partners that have fear or resistance around uh our our clients or the people in our communities changing, it's it's really hard and it's very painful for uh the people that we work with. Because of course, like you've you've decided to uh attach your life to this other person at some level. And the people who are around us certainly have influence over how we how we think, how we feel, how we understand ourselves. And when your partner is so ensconced in their own fears around their own alcohol consumption that they can't be there for you in in a way that is immediately and unquestioningly supportive, that can feel really, really bad. And to those people, I always try to encourage them to, I mean, try to encourage them to see this for what it is, that this is a personal thing about your choice and your health, and to also not be so influenced by their partner's decision to either um to cut back on their drinking or to not cut back on their drinking. Just as it is like, just as you want the autonomy to make your own choices, we have to be ready to afford to the important people in our life their own autonomy. We can't ask for it to be about us and then also have say over what it is that they're doing. And when it's approached like that, like you do your thing, I'm gonna do my thing. I would love to share this experience with you, but I don't have to, then things are so much more beneficial. It's it's a uh I love the approach of invited but not required. I want to tell you about what's going on with me. I want to open myself up and be vulnerable with you about what I'm thinking about my thing. And then you have laid out this invitation. You haven't made any ultimatums, you haven't said, you know, it's gotta be this way. I never I don't want it in the house at all. I, you know, blah, blah, blah. But you've just shared your experience and you've shared your vulnerability, and then they get to respond how they get to respond. And how they respond, it's great when you have the support, but you can do it without their support because at the end of the day, it's about you.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, and I I also like I was thinking, what what is what what are people when when you aren't

Asking clearly for what you need

SPEAKER_00 13:45

getting the support, quite often I would imagine that there's a fear there, right? There is just like I worried about if I change my relationship with alcohol, I worried about a fear of disconnection about what it would do to our relationship. You have to imagine that your partner's gonna have those fears too, right? That they might be sitting over there thinking, oh, well, now my wife, my husband, whatever is going to be judging me and my alcohol use. Or now they're gonna change so much. Who will they become? Now we're not gonna have anything in common. Now, you know, all the same fears that I had about what would happen if I stopped drinking, which were, you know, pretty irrational fears, but they don't feel like it at the time. They feel real. Like if imagine that your partner's having those. So, you know, it it does, I think um it can be helpful for the situation, for the relationship, to take the time to reassure our partners that this isn't about the relationship, that we still want to connect, we still want to show up, we still want to celebrate anniversaries with a celebratory toast. We just we'll have something else in our glass, you know. We still want to spend quality time together. And if all of the quality time up until that time was solely centered around alcohol, it's gonna have to look different. But I would imagine for most people, there are some things over the course of a relationship that you do without alcohol. And it's like, okay, maybe we're just gonna prioritize those for a little while. And there might be a period of time where you need to ask for, like, I just can't go out to eat this week because every time I go out to eat, I'm super tempted and I just really need to hunker down and get seven days alcohol-free. Like, you can you have every right to ask for that, but also reassuring your partner that it's not gonna be this way forever. And also, like, if you need to go out to eat, if you want to go meet your friends for a happy hour, like I'm not gonna stop you. Like, I don't really bring this back to like what we need, what we can control, and allowing for our partner to have their experience and not taking it as rejection or threat or like this is never gonna work because they're not supporting me. Like your partner's going to be experiencing feelings too as you are going through this, right? Like it is a change to the relationship. And

Healthy differentiation in relationships

SPEAKER_00 16:10

I mean, most people experience a change for the better, right? Like that more openness, more closeness, more connection. There will be times that if your relationship is based solely on alcohol, yeah, that that relationship might not have a great future. But uh, that is usually not the case.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

I love what you said about that most relationships change for the better as you're working through this. And it reminded me of what you shared at the beginning about carrying around all this shame. And then when you came to the point where you spoke to Chris about it and you like said, here's the thing that I've been experiencing, you opened yourself up to the experience of vulnerability. When people bring you, especially the people that you love and that are closest to you in your life, when they connect with you vulnerably and they share a difficult part of their experience with you, the inevitable consequence is greater connection and greater closeness. That invisible wall that you mentioned before melts. And it's like, oh, I didn't even know that that was there. And now we get to be closer. And that's the that's the upside of doing this and and communicating honestly and clearly with your partner about your own experience.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah, and I think I was just thinking like that honest and clear communication of what you do want and need was so unfamiliar to me. Like I was so used to just doing what I thought everybody else needed. And you know what a beautiful thing that I realized in this process is that the people who love us and who care for us, our friends, our family, our partners, they want to help us. They want us to be happy, they want good things for us, right? And so when I ask for something, when I say, like, hey, I'm actually really tired and I don't think I can go to this event, like what I have learned is that my husband would rather know that, would rather be able to hear what's true for me and honor that, than have me like fake my way through something with seething resentment towards the event, you know, like who knew, right? We can actually ask for what we want.

Finding new ways to connect

SPEAKER_00 18:25

And I think there's a lot of fear around that. If you're afraid to say to your partner, hey, like, I, you know, I need you to keep the beer in the garage and not in the fridge. Can you do that for me? Like most people are gonna be like, yeah, if that would help you, I would love to do that for you. You know, we're so afraid of asking because we've been hiding for so long, right? And we're unfamiliar with asking and speaking our needs. And the other thing is, is if we don't ask and then we get pissed because our partner's not supporting us, like that's our responsibility too. But we can't expect that our partner knows what we need.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah, that's a huge part of this whole thing is being able to both recognize your own needs, which is something that I know for myself, I covered over my own needs with alcohol for decades. And it was a practice that took time for me to even recognize and acknowledge my own needs. And then it was also a learning curve to get on my little training wheels and start to figure out what does it mean to ask for, advocate for those needs. Um because I was just out of practice, like anything that I felt like I had going on or any need that I had met, I had met for the entirety of my adult life with alcohol. And all of a sudden, I was having to develop new skills. And that, you know, there was there were some growing pains in that experience as well. Like there were times where I would, you know, want to ask for what I needed, but being unpracticed in how to do that would communicate it in an unnecessarily kind of like uh harsher, hard

Key takeaways for couples

SPEAKER_02 20:15

way. And I was like, I could have just said, hey, can you help me with the dishes? But instead, I was like, Can you do the dishes? Right. Like, I mean, it's like you know, dumb stuff like that. But it was a result of me not having the practice to do it that way. Um, and this whole conversation makes me think about the I love learning about biology and you know the sciences and and life, especially. But one of the things that makes life possible is that a prerequisite for life to exist as we know it is that cells have to be differentiated from one another. If everything is just all a blob and everything's all blending into one another, then life as we know it cannot exist, right? Like your your eye cells would be commingled with your uh brain cells, and it's you'd be a soupy mess and it wouldn't work, right? It wouldn't work. So a prerequisite for life to exist as we know it is that cells have to be differentiated, and that was a concept that I learned about doing all this work of being differentiated as a person for so long, for my whole life, I'd thought that being in a relationship with somebody meant that we our needs and preferences need to be indistinguishable from one another, right? I I need to be in such close fusion with them that I can read their mind, anticipate their thoughts and wants, and meet their needs before they even realize they have them. And then and then I'll be in a great relationship. And that is uh A recipe for disappointment and frustration and

Grace, compassion, and imperfect support

SPEAKER_02 22:05

confusion and resentment more than anything else. Um, and so this whole experience of figuring out drinking and doing lots of personal work and my own stuff, the result has been healthy differentiation. I know where I start and end, and I know where the people around me start and end, and knowing that allows me to operate in the world in such a more um empowered and healthy way.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

I think that's such a good point. And it made me think about um the story that somebody shared about how they were proposed to is somewhat, I mean, because this kind of blew my mind, and I was like, this is brilliant, but this they were an older couple, so they maybe they had a little bit more experience and like not wanting to be so fused, right? Recognizing that that wasn't a successful way to do it. But um he brought her to the side of a river and had two little like paper boats and put them in the river and was like, I want you to be this boat next to mine on the river, like going down the river of life together. And but you have your boat and I have my boat, and I want us to do this journey together, but you know, you don't have to like my boat. You or you have to like your boat, but you don't, you know, you're not, you don't, you don't need to have be in my boat, and I don't need to be in your boat, right? But we still want to be together and just that visual of like what you're saying, the differentiation. Like we want to do this thing called life together, but we don't have to be the same, we don't have to have the same wants, needs, desires about all the things all the time. And it's certainly we don't have to have the same thing in our glass, like that is just a falsity, you know, and um and it's one that feels real because we're like, well, how can I be not drinking and my partner's drinking and still feel connection? Well, you know, there might be a time after three or four drinks that you won't feel connected to him if you're not drinking. But that's true of all kinds of situations. So maybe that means that you start to have some connection time in the morning. Maybe that means that you, you know, instead of going for date night every Friday, you start alternating that with brunch morning every Saturday, you know, or doing, you know, going for walks in the morning instead of happy hour at night. Like we can find other ways because what both we and what our partners ultimately want is to feel connected and loved, right? And so if we used alcohol as the proxy for that in the past, it's an awesome opportunity to figure out other ways to do it. And it's fun and it's interesting and it's new and it's novel, and novelty is great for relationships. I mean, that is like a proven scientific fact about relationships. So, you know, so there's just so much potential for goodness to come out of this. And that fear around all the things that might happen negatively is completely not that nothing will happen. I mean, that there might be challenging times, but I think the fear gets way overblown.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Absolutely. Um, and so, Ellen, how could you synthesize what we've been talking about and make it digestible? Like key takeaways um from this episode. I think that mine would be the knowledge that being open and sharing vulnerably with your partner about your experience, especially stuff that's hard, it doesn't result in disconnection. It pretty much always results in greater connection. And so while it can feel uh scary or comfortable or new or challenging to do, what's on the other side of it being more connection, more love, more closeness, is again worth it.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah. And and and I think I'll go back to that, like extending grace to our partners as they are navigating this change in our relationship too, because they might say things, they might do things, they might behave in certain ways that feel uh hostile to our goals or not supportive or flippant or they make fun of it or they laugh or they, you know, my husband with the best intentions started to tell people, like, oh, but you know, Ellen doesn't drink when I wasn't ready to share. I mean, he was trying to do that to protect me from a situation where I would go in there and people would ask me what I wanted to drink. And I so we had to have that conversation. Like, I really appreciate the intention behind what you're doing, but please do not do that anymore. And he was like, Oh my God, I'm sorry, I thought I was trying to help. Like, like, let's have grace for our partners, because you know, if this is a real loving relationship, which I'm hoping that most of you are in, you know, the intention is going to be good. The, the, the, the ways people go about it sometimes are rocky. And it's navigating something new. It's a new terrain for both of you.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah. And I mean, now knowing that it's new terrain for both of you, approaching the entire situation with boundless compassion for yourself as you're figuring out how this shows up in your own life and who you are, having expect having who you are as you're figuring out this whole alcohol thing. And then having also the that boundless compassion for your partner, who, as you said, Ellen, like might have the best of intentions, but might show up imperfectly. Isn't that all of us?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

All right, folks. That's this week for the Alcohol Myth Podcast. We hope that you found something to connect with uh today. Um, and if you found something that resonated, we hope that you'll like, share, subscribe, all that good stuff. Help us get the word out about the podcast. Ellen and I recently, as of this recording, um, have reached over a thousand downloads and podcasts. And so that's exciting to that you're here. We appreciate you. Um, and we would love to continue to share this work with everybody.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah. And if you're willing, I would love to like have you have a comment or a it's so it's a craziest thing to record this with Jonathan and put it out into the world and have no idea who's listening and and what people think. You know, I mean, seeing the numbers go up is a little bit validating anyway that people are listening, but it's like we'd love to just know what's resonating with you, what you want to hear more of, what you like. And um, yeah, and if you're willing to share it, that would be amazing.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Folks, have a beautiful week and we'll talk to you next time.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Myth Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

If this episode sparked something for you, we'd love to hear about it.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Send your questions, stories, or ideas for future episodes to thealcoholmyth at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

We read every message. We really do.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Take good care of yourself. We'll see you next time.