What is grey area drinking? Why might you want a sober coach? Why are you so interested in my drinking anyway?!
There's a blurry zone between casual social drinking and problematic alcohol use. My red flags were the 3am wake-up-and-hate-myself moments, short temper and irritability, lack of patience with my adorable but hyperactive children, and just feeling like there was a calmer, more balanced existence out there (PS, there is!)
Grey area drinkers aren’t dependent or addicted to alcohol in a clinical sense. But booze might not be serving you in the way you want it to… here’s some signs to watch out for 👀
1. Your brain is asking questions.
You wonder if you’ve got an alcohol problem. You ask yourself if you are drinking too much and wonder what it’s doing to your brain / body / sleep. You google ‘how many units in a bottle of wine?’
2. I can quit! Watch me!
You do dry January, sober October and the occasional night off. But you return again and again to the same drinking patterns. And you don’t like how it makes you feel.
3. You use alcohol as a crutch.
You use it to celebrate. You use it to commiserate. You mark the end of a day, or the beginning of a weekend with a drink. In short, alcohol is always there.
4. You break your own rules.
‘I’ll just have a couple tonight.’ ‘I won’t drink til Friday.’ Making decisions about how much to drink and when is *exhausting*. Especially when you break your own rules.
5. It just feels a bit shit.
You don’t sleep well (3am wake ups anyone?) You have hangxiety. You have blackouts. You snap at the kids. You don’t turn up to your yoga class.
You don't have to hit rock bottom in order to reassess your relationship with alcohol. If you want to cut back or quit the booze there are a ton of resources out there, including me. Slide into my DMs if you want to chat. 💙