“I DRINK TO CONNECT.”
“I drink to connect.”
This is something that I hear from every single one of my clients when I ask them the reasons that they drink. As women, as mothers, we are desperate to connect with other moms, and we have been fed this lie that in order to do we need alcohol involved. Marketing tells us that that alcohol should be pink, sparkly and in a nice glass, but I digress.
Listen I get it, when I became a mom I was living in a different country to my friends and family, I didn’t know any other moms, so I ended up connecting with women in my NCT group (the class most women in the UK do when they are pregnant), and our idea of socialising was sitting at the Blue Bird on Kings Road and drinking wine while rocking our babies. That’s how I connected with people as a new mom.
I wrote something down when I was on a coaching call this week. “Sobriety is actually the great connector.” I wrote this down and circled it because during my call I was compelled to open up to the client about something that I had done while drinking that I actually hadn’t told ANYONE. One of those many things that I had forgiven myself for, but I had never spoken outloud.
Connecting with sober friends and clients is different than having surface level chit chat that you may not even remember the next day. It’s real. It’s authentic. It’s what brings true meaningful connection.
When a client says “I drink for connection” I like to ask, “but what is connection to you?”
To me connection is when you can show up as 100% you, not as a chemically altered version, and be yourself. Connection is about honesty. Connection is about vulnerability.
The idea of “liquid courage” makes us think that in order to be open, honest and vulnerable we need a toxic substance to “take the edge of” so that we can bear our souls. But that’s not real.
I used to think wine loosened me up, but in the end, I usually ended up oversharing and would wake up feeling ashamed, embarrassed and with a spotty memory about what I even talked about. That’s not true connection.
True connection also requires us to hold space for the other person. But when we are drinking it slows down our brain so that listening and understanding is harder. How can we truly listen, understand, and offer our help as a friend if we can’t properly hold space for them? When I was drinking, I wasn’t ever really listening, I was always thinking about what I was going to say next, or about where my next drink was coming from.
True connection comes from showing up as your true, un-altered authentic self and speaking from the heart to someone holding space for you. That’s how I connect now with my friends. That’s why coaching is so special because it allows women to experience connection, perhaps for the first time, in a transformative way.
If you’re looking for true connection, sobriety is the answer. It may feel scary at first but I promise that it is so incredibly worth it. Sober connection has the power to transform your life. It can open things up for you that you hadn’t seen before.
If sober connection and support is something you are seeking but have no idea where to find it, I recommend reaching out to me, or another alcohol-free coach. This is what coaching is all about. It’s finding another woman, who has been through what you have been through to speak vulnerably and openly about what you are going through.
If you’re interested in knowing more please click the link here and let’s hop on a discovery call.
