31 Clues Your Drinking Is Becoming A Problem #health #holistic

How do you know when it’s time to do something about your drinking?  

If you’re a grey zone drinker like I was, the chances are it’s not that clear. 

Perhaps your life looks pretty normal, from the outside. You’re still showing up for your life and taking care of the 101 things on your to-do list.

And yet… you keep drinking much more than you planned to and you regret it afterwards. 

So how can you tell if you’re worrying over nothing, or if things have crossed a line? I believe there are 31 clues to pay attention to.

Looking for the free 7-day coaching week I mention in the video? Click here to find out more.  

Here are the 31 signs your drinking is becoming a problem – how many resonate with you?

1. You spend a lot of time thinking about drinking – what, where, when, how much.

2. You often promise to ‘just have one’, but that rarely happens. Once you start, it’s often hard to stop.

3. You’ve created lots of rules around alcohol, such as not drinking before a set time, only allowing yourself certain types of drinks.

4. You frequently break your own rules.

5. You feel ashamed of your drinking and beat yourself up about it.

6. You try to hide how much you’re drinking from those closest to you.

7. Your partner has expressed concern.

8. Your drinking feels like a big, heavy secret – it’s a source of stress and anxiety.

9. You dread putting out the recycling bin. Sometimes you dispose of empties away from your home so no one else notices.

10. Given the choice, your favourite way to drink is by yourself. Alone, you can have as much as you like without being judged. 

11. When socialising, you keep a careful eye on everyone else’s glasses to make sure you don’t drink too fast.

12. In public, you work hard to be moderate. People would be surprised to discover quite how much you drink at home. 

13. You’re passionate about running or yoga, so everyone assumes you must be super healthy. This makes you feel like a fraud.

14. You’re disappointed – angry, even – if you’re unexpectedly asked to be the designated driver.

15. When someone makes a joke about your drinking, you’ll analyse it for hours, wondering why they said it and what they really know.

16. You’re often anxious about whether there’s enough alcohol available. Will your supplies last? Should you get more?

17. You buy your wine from different shops on rotation because you’re worried the store staff will judge you.

18. You delay eating so you can drink first without a full stomach dampening your ‘buzz’.

19. You feel bad about rushing through things, such as your child’s bedtime story, to be able to drink.

20. You’re regularly blacking out. There are long periods of time that you have no memory of.

21. Mornings often begin with you trying to work out who you called last night and what you posted on Facebook. 

22. You frequently argue with your partner whilst drunk and then cannot remember why the next day.

23. You drink to manage your emotions. It’s your go-to whenever you’re stressed or sad or tense. You have a few other coping mechanisms.

24. After a change in circumstances, e.g. retirement or leaving a stressful job, you thought your drinking would naturally wind down, but it hasn’t.

25. You’re permanently exhausted. Alcohol is seriously affecting the quality of your sleep. 

26. You rarely have enough energy for the hobbies you used to love.

27. Your physical appearance is changing. Your face looks puffier.

28. You diet hard during the day, but you’re still putting on weight – you know the empty booze calories aren’t helping. 

29. You’re scared something bad is going to happen. You’re not sure what, but you’ve had a few close shaves recently, e.g. driving when you shouldn’t. 

30. You keep googling things like ‘am I an alcoholic?’

31. You find yourself on websites like this, looking for help.

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If You Feel Like a Bad Mum Because of Your Drinking, Watch This #health #holistic

If your drinking makes you feel like a bad mum, you’re not alone.

Maybe Mother’s Day stirred something up. Perhaps it got you thinking about your relationship with your kids and how alcohol impacts that.

It doesn’t matter how old your children are – the guilt can be a lot to deal with. 

If you’ve been beating yourself up, here’s what you need to know (and the key question to ask next).

Key points

Mummy wine culture has made this all worse

From wine bottles labelled “the kids are finally asleep” to prosecco playdates and memes about the wine you need for parenting, drinking and motherhood are often treated like one big joke. But behind all of that is something we don’t talk about enough – motherhood is relentless. 

You’re expected to work like you don’t have children and parent like you don’t have a job. Exhausted, overstretched, under-supported – of course you reached for something to take the edge off. Drinking can be part of bonding with other mums too. 

Drinking becomes how you handle everything

Somewhere along the way, wine stopped being an occasional relief and became your operating system. Perhaps your children have left home now but drinking is still how you decompress after work or how you get through a long day without losing it completely.

The pattern often stays because you’ve been practising it for years. So stop beating yourself up. You’re not broken or weak. You found a coping mechanism that genuinely helped for a while. The problem is it’s now causing more issues than it solves, and you’re self-aware enough to recognise that.

How could alcohol-free living help here?

Forget the guilt for a minute. Instead of cataloguing what you’re doing wrong, write down how you’d show up differently without alcohol. Maybe you’d have real energy in the mornings instead of forcing yourself through the school run feeling rough. Perhaps you’d say yes to spontaneous plans because driving in the evening would be no problem.

Maybe it would be easier to fully remember conversations with your teenagers. You’d be fully present for those random moments when they suddenly want to talk or need you. And you’d be role modelling another way of handling life. 

The question isn’t “Am I bad enough to need to stop?”

You don’t have to quit. It’s your life, your choices. But because it’s your life, you also get to decide whether alcohol is good enough to stay in it. You get to ask: would stopping for a while show me that life could be better – maybe in ways I haven’t even imagined yet?

So the question isn’t “Am I a bad mum who needs to quit drinking?” It’s more: “Is alcohol good enough for me and my family?” Only you can answer that. You get to make the decision here – the one that’s right for you.

If you know something needs to change but you can’t imagine quitting yet, come and join us for Freedom Week. You’ll get 7 days of coaching and support to help you break out of the drink-regret-repeat cycle.

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I’m Too Tired And Busy To Deal With My Drinking Right Now #health #holistic

You know you need to do something about your drinking. 

But every time you think about tackling it, the same thought stops you: “I’m just too tired to quit. I don’t have the headspace for this right now.”

You’re already exhausted. Overwhelmed. Running on empty. The idea of adding something else to your endless to-do list feels impossible.

I get it. And I’m not going to patronise you with that rubbish about how “we all have the same 24 hours in the day” (We don’t!)

But I do want to talk about why being tired and busy might actually be the most compelling reason to stop drinking now – not later…

Key points

Why alcohol, busyness and exhaustion are so tightly linked

If you’re in midlife, particularly perimenopause, hormonal changes mean you’re genuinely more likely to be sleeping poorly and feeling irritable. Your body’s ability to regulate mood and energy is shifting. You’re probably also at a phase of life where you’ve got more on your plate than ever. Doing well at work with real responsibilities. You might have kids at home. Ageing parents. Volunteer roles you took on because nobody else would.

Alcohol becomes the logical solution because it ticks so many boxes. It feels like a reward after a long day. Maybe it soothes some resentment that nobody’s noticed how much you’re doing. The sugar in wine gives you a little boost when you’re flagging. The really annoying thing about alcohol is that it almost works as a good fix here. And there’s nothing quite as addictive as something that almost works.

The “once things calm down” trap

You tell yourself: “Just as soon as this settles down, then I’ll tackle my drinking.” Once work quiets down. Once this is off my plate. It feels like you’re taking action – agreeing to deal with it at some point in the future. But that perfect moment never materialises. As soon as one thing clears, something else takes its place.

How long have you been waiting for things to calm down? If you’re in your forties or fifties, the demands aren’t disappearing anytime soon. The kids, the parents, the career pressure, the hormonal changes – it’s all here for a while. Waiting could mean waiting for years.

What if alcohol is causing your exhaustion?

At 4pm, alcohol might feel like the solution to your tiredness. But what if it’s actually the cause? Think about how often your drinking has you waking at 4am, unable to get back to sleep. Starting the day with sky-high alcohol-fuelled anxiety. The emotional overwhelm of crying in the shower, wondering how you’ll get through everything feeling this hungover.

How much time are you spending just managing your drinking? One of my clients described it as having a part-time job – buying it, hiding it, disposing of empties, planning around it, thinking about it constantly. Plus all the time spent googling for help, Alcohol isn’t the knight in shining armour rescuing you from bad days. It’s creating most of your bad days.

Your exhaustion isn’t the obstacle – it’s the sign

What if your busyness and overwhelm aren’t things that need fixing before you can stop drinking – what if they’re the exact sign that you need to stop now? When you quit drinking, you remove one of the heaviest things on your plate. And the women who are the most exhausted and run down have the most to gain. Because when the returns come – and they do – they’re dramatic.

You wake up without immediate dread. You’re sharper at work, more present at home. You stop beating yourself up and ruminating on everything you’ve messed up. The women who come to me feeling too tired to quit often make the most dramatic transformations. Not in spite of how exhausted they were, but because of it. Stopping drinking allows them to finally catch their breath again and get that headspace back. 

Ready to create an alcohol-free life you love? Click here to learn more about my Getting Unstuck course.

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Are You Taking Care Of Your Basic Human Needs? #health #holistic

Why does sobriety feel impossible on some days? You wake up determined, but by late afternoon, the cravings are so strong you can barely think straight.

It’s easy to assume this means you’re weak or lacking willpower. But what if the real problem is simpler than that? What if you’re just not taking care of your basic human needs?

I believe that behind every craving for alcohol is an unmet need. And if you’re constantly battling urges to drink, there’s a good chance you’re overlooking some key needs:

Key points

The four needs that fuel so many cravings

When your fundamental needs aren’t met, your cravings will be stronger and more frequent. You’ll be much more likely to reach for something outside yourself (like alcohol) as a quick fix. There are four needs in particular that make a big difference: sleep, nourishment, joy, and comfort. Get these right and sobriety becomes much more doable. Ignore them and you’ll constantly feel like you’re white-knuckling it.

Sleep: The one you’re probably sacrificing

If you’re used to burning the candle at both ends, you’re reducing your ability to handle stress and make decisions that align with your goals. Maybe you think you can’t go to bed earlier because you won’t get everything done. But by staying up later, you’re perpetuating a cycle where you always have too much on your plate and the sacrifice is always you – your sleep, your sobriety, your health.

Nourishment: Are you actually eating and drinking enough?

Being hungry and thirsty around wine o’clock makes cravings so much worse. Yet many women fall into a pattern of undereating – either to save calories for alcohol or because they don’t want to “take the edge off” the buzz. Are you eating enough actual food throughout the day? Plan a snack and some water around 4pm to ward off cravings.

Joy: The missing ingredient in your serious adult life

We might be grown-up, responsible adults doing important things, but we desperately need joy and fun. If you’re not getting that anywhere else, it makes sense that you try to inject some happiness into a boring day by pouring wine. So think about a typical day. What else is bringing you genuine joy? You need that somewhere in your day, otherwise alcohol will always seem like the only option.

Comfort: Learning to soothe yourself without wine

The world is uncertain and sometimes unsafe. Things go wrong, people disappoint us, and we have difficult days. There’s nothing wrong with needing comfort – we all do. But if your only way of comforting yourself is through drinking, you’re going to struggle. What else soothes you? For me, it’s calling a friend, having a bath, curling up with a book, and going to bed early. If you’re drawing a blank, think back to what comforted you as a child. You’d probably still be soothed by that same thing (or a version of it) now.

The key question: What do I need right now?

Can you see how different that is from asking “What’s wrong with me?” Instead, you’re just being curious. Noticing that you have needs. And that you’ve been using alcohol to fill some gaps. There’s nothing wrong with that. Alcohol worked for you, for a while, but now it’s probably creating more problems than it solves. Being able to meet your basic human needs without alcohol could change everything for you.

Ready to create an alcohol-free life you love? Click here to learn more about my Getting Unstuck course.

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The Heaviness Of Hiding Your Drinking #health #holistic

I saw a news headline the other day that said: “How doctors and dentists know when patients are lying about their alcohol intake.”

Even though I’ve been sober for over a decade, reading that touched a nerve. 

I remember what it felt like to sit in the doctor’s office, being asked about my drinking, trying to decide, “Do I tell the truth here or should I round it down?”

The article itself talks about all the telltale signs medical professionals look for, but that’s not what got to me. What really struck me was remembering the sheer heaviness of having to worry about little things like a trip to the doctor’s.

And that’s exactly what I’m talking about today – the heaviness of hiding (and managing) your drinking.

Key points

The hiding doesn’t stop at the doctor’s surgery

Every single woman I work with hides her drinking to some extent. Even if you live alone and think you’ve got nothing to hide at home, I bet there are still people in your life you’re hiding from.

Maybe it’s the friend whose evening calls you never answer because you might sound drunk. The invitations you turn down because they’d mean driving or staying relatively sober when you don’t want to. Emails you draft late at night but don’t send because you can’t quite trust what you’ve written.

It’s the small things that become heavy

Perhaps you worry whether your colleagues can smell yesterday’s wine when you walk into the office in the morning. Maybe there’s that familiar panic when you wake up and realise you sent text messages or called someone last night, but you can’t quite remember what was discussed.

Or perhaps it’s the clink, clink, clink of wheeling your recycling bin to the curb, hoping the neighbours don’t notice it’s full of empties. Perhaps you’ve started rotating between different shops because you’re worried the cashier is somehow keeping count of what you buy.

None of these things feels like a big deal on its own, but can you see – or feel – how all these little worries accumulate into something much heavier? That’s the real problem here. Not any single thing, but the cumulative weight of carrying them all.

An invitation for you…

First of all, be honest with yourself. How many of these little worries and challenges are you navigating each week? How many small things are you hiding, managing, calculating, worrying about? Make a list somewhere private – maybe on your phone – so you can see it all laid out clearly. You’re not doing this to shame yourself or beat yourself up, but just to see it properly.

Then, after you’ve made that list, close your eyes for a moment and imagine not having to manage any of it. Imagine it all just… going away. Imagine not having to worry about or hide anything, because there’s nothing to get caught out by. 

That relief you’re imagining? It isn’t wishful thinking – it’s your intuition telling you something important. You’ve been carrying all these little things for so long that you’ve forgotten how heavy they are. You don’t always notice the weight until you finally get the chance to put it down and step back.

Sobriety can feel like relief

We tend to assume there’s a heaviness to not drinking – that it’s going to be hard work in and of itself. But I promise, alcohol-free living does not have to feel like white-knuckling and deprivation. Not when you’re doing it the right way. It can just feel lighter. 

Remember, more often than not, there isn’t a big rock-bottom moment that changes things. It’s just the accumulated heaviness of all the little things that one day, becomes too much to carry. 

Ready to create an alcohol-free life you love? Click here to learn more about my Getting Unstuck course.

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What These Sober Women Want You To Know #health #holistic

There are so many things I wish I’d known about alcohol-free living before I quit. 

Back then, I was convinced my life was basically going to be over, if I couldn’t drink. 

Without alcohol, I thought I’d either die of boredom or I’d become a sad sober loser –  abandoned by all her friends – and the loneliness would do me in instead. 

(Dramatic? Me? Just a bit…)

With those kinds of beliefs, it’s no wonder I was a bit resistant to quitting drinking. And I know I’m not the only one who anticipates the worst.

So here’s my attempt to put your mind at rest. 

I’m going to pass on some messages for you, from a few of my Sober School students.

I met up with them in person last month and asked them to write you a message. Watch the video to see what they have to say!

Key points

Their biggest wins

These aren’t small achievements. These are life-changing moments that happened because these women put down the wine glass:

• “749 days sober. My big win? Being effortlessly alcohol-free. No mental chatter, ever. An upgrade indeed.”
• “399 days sober. Thousands saved. My big win? I like myself.”
• “1076 days sober and £10,000 saved. My big win is that I got myself back.”
• “Seven and a half years sober. Saved enough to buy a car and get a mortgage on my own. My big win is that my partner has never and will never see me drunk.”
• “£6,000 saved in 1,120 days. My big win? Dealing with the sudden death of my husband without returning to drinking.”
• “I’m 3.5 years sober and I saved enough money in sobriety to get my teeth fixed – and I overcame my agoraphobia.”

What they want you to know: 

• “Sobriety doesn’t need to be boring. Sobriety rocks.”
• “What a life upgrade it is.”
• “How good a nine-hour sleep feels. Life is bloody good fun without booze. People don’t really care if you’re not drinking.”
• “I wish I’d known there was nothing wrong with me because I was struggling to stop, and I didn’t have to be ashamed about being addicted. That I wasn’t broken.”
• “I wish I’d known that I could still be fun and interesting without alcohol.”
• “I didn’t know that I could be successful. I was so worried about failing after so many Dry Januarys.”
• “The importance of education. You need to know the truth about alcohol and the power of a community.”

These are just a few messages from some of The Sober School graduates who attended my event in Birmingham. As I said in the video, I know you might not believe me when I tell you how good alcohol-free living can be. But I hope these real, heartfelt notes do strike a chord with you, and perhaps you’ll be able to believe the women who wrote them. 

Not one of these women described sobriety as a sacrifice. Not one said they missed drinking or wished they’d waited longer to quit. What they talked about was freedom, sleep, money, confidence and getting themselves back.

Ready to create an alcohol-free life you love? Click here to learn more about my Getting Unstuck course.

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My Name’s Kate And I’m Not An Alcoholic #health #holistic

In my drinking days, I must have googled “Am I an alcoholic?” so many times. 

I didn’t think I actually was an alcoholic, but my drinking certainly didn’t feel “normal”. I was stuck, not finding anything that described me or what to do next. 

Fast forward to today and an awful lot has changed. 

Not only am I happily sober, but my thoughts on the whole “alcoholic” label are a lot clearer. I wanted to share them here, in case you’re feeling as confused as I was. 

Key points

What exactly is an alcoholic anyway?

It’s a genuine question. How do you define that? Is it someone who regularly drinks above the recommended guidelines or often has more than they intend to? Or is it someone who feels they have to drink every single day? It’s so hard to define.

Some studies have found that only ten percent of excessive drinkers are officially ‘alcohol dependent’. Even if you fill out an online questionnaire about your drinking, it won’t tell you that you’re an alcoholic – it will refer to an alcohol use disorder instead.

Alcohol vs other drugs

When it comes to other substances, we’re not so obsessed with labels. Smokers never wonder if they are nicotine-oholics or whether they have a disease. They’re never going to question why they can’t just ‘control’ their intake of cigarettes or why they can’t smoke ‘responsibly’. 

The difference is that we recognise nicotine as a drug. We understand that if you use an addictive drug, then you’re probably going to get addicted to it. That addiction won’t be a reflection on you or your morals or your inner strength – it’s just what happens. 

A controversial opinion

Some people will come at me for this… but honestly? I think the only people who like to use the word alcoholic, are those who benefit from labelling others. It suits the alcohol industry to pretend that there’s such a thing as ‘normal’ or ‘responsible’ drinking. 

Other drinkers benefit from this too. They want to believe that they’re fine, they’re normal, they’re not doing anything wrong… and people who “have” to quit are different from them. It suits the system to keep perpetuating the myth that there’s just a small group of people out there who can’t use alcohol “responsibly”. 

No need for labels

As you might have guessed, I don’t call myself an alcoholic, I don’t think I am at all. I think I had a very normal relationship with alcohol, because it’s normal to get addicted to addictive substances, especially when they’re romanticised and glamorised. 

Unless the “alcoholic” label empowers you to change, feel free to ditch it. If you quit drinking, all it really means is that you’re a non-drinker. You’re alcohol free. You’re a teetotaler. You’re enjoying a hangover-free lifestyle. And you’re awesome. That’s it!

Ready to create an alcohol-free life you love? Click here to learn more about my Getting Unstuck course.

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