How Smart & Successful People Quit Drinking - Lori Massicot

Tribe Sober - inspiring an alcohol-free life! This weeks podcast guest is the lovely Lori Massicot a midlife sobriety coach. I discovered Lori when I found her podcast – it’s called “to 50 and beyond” – it’s a podcast aimed at women in mid-life where she highlights the beauty of aging and the freedom that comes along with alcohol free life. She’s on a mission to raise awareness towards the life changing impact of sobriety as we age.  She interviewed me for her podcast and you can hear that conversation on episode 182 of to 50 and beyond. It’s called “Getting Sober Over 60” and you can access it here In this Episode I’m always fascinated by the way peoples drinking evolves over the years – I’m the first person to admit that drinking can be a lot of fun – until it’s not – until you become dependent - check out our podcast on how we go from "liking to wanting to needing"  Let’s remember that 20% of social drinkers WILL become dependent over the years – if we are in that 20% then that doesn’t make us bad people – or weak people – or diseased people. It just makes us people who have become addicted to an addictive drug!  People who will have to do a bit of work to change their habits – and that’s where people like myself and Lori come in – we’ve been where you are and we can help you make the change.  As you heard Lori did the fun bit in her teens and 20’s – partying as a teenager and then working in real estate, earning good money and drinking wine with friends and colleagues. Then it was the mommyjuice phase – in here 30’s Lori felt depressed, put on weight and found her high pressure job all a bit much. She was using wine at home to cope with her stress and felt trapped in a vicious cycle. She refers to her early 40’s as the “dark years, she lost her mom and could get through two bottles of wine at a time. She had a wake up call when a family member asked her if she was an alcoholic.  That’s when she realised that alcohol had become the centre of everything in her life. Of course like many of us she tried “the rules” (drinking only on certain days, drinking red rather than white etc etc) which of course didn’t work. Of course she also tried to “moderate” but of course that didn’t work either - in fact we agreed that for many of us its only when we try to cut down that we realise the extent of our problem.  We realise that we have crossed a line with our drinking and it’s going to take more than a bit of willpower to make a change. So if you are busy trying to “moderate” and using rules to control your drinking please save yourself a lot of heartache and take a complete break – no need to use the F (forever word) – just take a break “Playing the Movie Forward” is a very popular tool in our community.  Lori found herself “playing the movie forward 20 years” and was  horrified at what she saw.  She knew her drinking would escalate over the years and decided that she was done.  She poured her Chardonnay down the sink and got started on her life changing journey to sobriety. Lori used journaling as her key tool –there is so much evidence of the value of keeping a journal – and it helps us so much when we are on this path. We can use it to process our emotions, note our triggers and track our journey.  We can read back to the early days and see how much easier its getting and realise how many benefits we are experiencing. And of course the more benefits we do experience the less likely we will be inclined to return to Day 1! Exercise was another key tool for Lori and she educated herself about the best ways to strengthen her body in midlife. So journaling, exercise and playing the movie forward are all great tools which will help us to quit drinking. We all need to create a personal toolkit and we help you with that at Tribe Sober workshops.   Sobriety has given Lori freedom and peace. When she feels anxious she now understands how to self soothe without alcohol. I loved the way she said that in early sobriety we have to protect ourselves and build ourselves up so that we can learn to cope. Then we can go on to learn how to actually thrive our alcohol free lives. That’s exactly what we help our members to do at Tribe Sober with program – get more info and sign up here We agreed that ditching the booze gives us a feeling of power - we are doing something that the majority of the population would not even consider - Sobriety is a Superpower! Times are changing and the sober curious movement is helping that. People are getting “sober curious” a