Ep. 86 Breaking Up with Alcohol in Midlife: Laura Valvasori on Living Alcohol-Free

Meegan Care: Well, welcome to the podcast, Laura Valvasori. So glad you’re here. Tell us actually where you’re, where you reside and a little bit about yourself and who you help.

Laura Valvasori: Sure. So I am currently in my office, which is a she shed formerly was our shed in Ontario, Canada, just outside of Toronto. So my background is that I’ve had a marketing consulting business for 10 years and am transitioning into offering some more wellbeing mentorship services.

And I’ve been more recently sharing my story around going alcohol free, which is a decision that I made. Four years ago last week actually was my anniversary of four years. And I did so for well being reasons, not because I had an addiction problem. So to take you back to sort of a sense of what life looked like for me, I grew up.

Drinking as a teenager, like as many people do into my 20s, getting more into wine and then I had my kids and there was the mommy culture of drinking wine together. And we were very social throughout our life, my husband and I, and we also have a boat in Northern Ontario. So we’re boaters and there’s a real connection between drinking and boating.

So it was a part of a lot of our social interactions and. Yeah. I was starting to notice some symptoms that I wasn’t familiar with, and I was noticing I was getting a lot of heartburn, and not sleeping great, and all of these things that I was attributing to perimenopause, but deep down felt like the wine might have actually been part of the problem, and I ignored it because I didn’t want to deal with it.

Stopping drinking because of all the implications of that. And then I hit a bit of a breaking point. When we took a three week vacation on our boat. It was just when we were starting to come out of Lockdowns for Covid and we took this big, beautiful, amazing trip. And we had a great trip, but I drank every day because we were on vacation and it was the thing to do.

And I wasn’t drunk. I was just, you know, having a cooler in the afternoon and wine at dinner and, and by the end of the vacation I felt. Horrible. And I knew that I had to do something and give it a chance. So I made the decision to take a break for a while. I didn’t put a timeline on it. And around that time, as the universe does, I came across Annie Grace’s book called This Naked Mind, which was the first book I read which I always recommend to people.

And it helped me understand a lot about why we drink and helped support some of the initial people. Phase of me deciding to stop and within a couple of weeks of stopping, I was shocked at how much better I was feeling. My indigestion, my heartburn was gone. And from there, it just kept getting better.

And the more research I did, the more I learned about alcohol and what it actually is doing. I was shocked. I had no idea what Alcohol really was and what it was does to our bodies, especially as women. And from there, I just decided to sort of keep going for a while. And it became 4 years later. And I’ve now created a program called Still Me But Alcohol Free.

And support women sort of go through this with the right support and tools that I wish I had at the beginning.

Meegan Care: Yeah, amazing. So from your, your experience, you’ve created a program to support women to, to experiment with being alcohol free. Yeah.

Laura Valvasori: So I always say that I think part of the challenge. Is that we never give ourselves a break for long enough to understand how it could help us.

And I’d been through, but I think many people do a 30 day challenge and I was miserable and cranky the whole time and I just look forward to the end of those 30 days. So I could have a glass of wine and. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. So this time, I also incorporated a lot of mindset study that I’d done, and I was thinking, how do I apply that to this situation?

How do I look at it differently? And so I really treated it as an experiment, and that’s how I’ve created the program to give women a chance to it’s a way for the participants to explore the relationship to understand how it impacts them understand themselves, because a lot of why we drink is habitual, it’s patterns, we’re not even thinking about it.

And so it really is sort of a thought, like an experiment for a period of time with the right information and tools and support and at the end of it, we go through a decision making process where you’re going to go from here. So are you going to choose to stay. How you were, because you know what? I was actually fine.

Didn’t make a big difference for me. And maybe that’s what you discover, or I’m going to moderate, and we talk about the pros and cons of that, or I’m going to continue to be alcohol free, and we talk about the pros and cons on that, and then you make a commitment to yourself. So it’s not about, doing this program to 100 percent quit and I’m going to judge you if you don’t make it to the end, that is not at all what it’s about.

It is just about giving yourself a chance with the right resources and the right support to see what works for you.

Meegan Care: I really like that because I think about it’s kind of, you’re ramping in so that you have an experience of being alcohol free and very key is important with support because it’s, Still unusual, I think, in our culture, anywhere in New Zealand, to be alcohol free.

Laura Valvasori: Yes, it is definitely, yeah, it’s definitely growing in popularity, but especially if you’re the first in your friend group to do this, it can feel very lonely and overwhelming and can be easy to throw in the towel at any time when you start to get challenged.

Meegan Care: What was it like for you when you went alcohol free?

Were you the first in your friend group?

Laura Valvasori: I was, and I remember when I was starting to feel like I needed to quit, I went, I would talk to my best friend and I said to her, I feel like maybe we should, Stop drinking for a little while and she was like, why, like, I’m good and I was kind of taken back because, you know, people talk about having an accountability partner and doing a lot of things and what I realized in that moment was for her.

It wasn’t an issue. She wasn’t experiencing a lot of the physical symptoms. I was and I needed to make a choice that was right for me. And had I me. But oh, if she’s not going to do it with me, I’m not going to do it. It takes courage and really listening. I was listening to another one of your podcasts talking about your inner knowing, like listening to your own intuition about what feels right for you.

So initially it felt a little bit. Lonely in that way, I did have an advantage in that we were still in some lockdowns for covid when I initially quit. So, when I was socializing with friends I’d get together with my, we were still doing the outside get together thing. We were in that phase. So, for the 1st, few months, I would bring a bottle of non alcoholic wine and I’d have it sitting by me and many of my friends didn’t even know that I’d quit.

I feel like it helped me ease into it a little bit. And when they did find out that I’d quit, they were like, but wait, no, you’ve been coming to all these things and you’re still socializing. Like you’re still having fun. Like how could you quit? Which felt like a big compliment because I always wanted to continue to have an active social life to get to have fun and not make it a thing about feeling deprived.

Meegan Care: Yeah, absolutely. I love that train of thought with it, being alcohol free doesn’t necessarily have to impede your capacity to be social and be with your friends. I think that’s a lot of women that I talk to that is like a barrier.

Laura Valvasori: Huge barrier. Yeah. It’s a huge barrier. Our sense of our need, especially as women to have a sense of belonging

is

really strong.

And when everyone else is doing this thing, you want to feel a part of it. So for me, having good non alcoholic alternatives helps me continue to feel included. Some people choose not to use alternatives, but I find it really supportive. And I can still enjoy a mocktail or a glass of non alcoholic wine.

And I feel like I’m a part of the social situation.

Meegan Care: Okay. So that’s something still important to you four years along on your journey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Valvasori: So that’s just sort of become my way of being a part. Like last night I went out for dinner with a bunch of my girlfriends and I ordered a virgin Caesar and my Caesar looked exactly like my friend next to me who ordered an alcoholic Caesar and I still enjoyed feeling like I was a part of the table.

Mine just didn’t have alcohol in it.

Meegan Care: Going through that journey for yourself, and like you said, you didn’t sort of let your friends know on a broader scale until you were further down the track. Did that in any way challenge your identity, who you are, how you fit in with your community?

What happened there for you?

Laura Valvasori: I feel like I, my friends were all supportive, especially since I said that I was doing it because I was feeling these physical symptoms. It’s hard to argue when someone’s saying, I’m not feeling great. Like, your friends want you to feel good, but it did create some. kind of awkward conversations at times in that when you say that you’re not drinking, it often creates a response in someone that they start telling you how little they drink.

It makes them reflect on their own drinking. So I never have any intention of trying to push this on someone. I am very happy to share my experience. But I’ve been very cognizant from the beginning of this being my choice and not trying to push it on other people. But even so, it can make people feel uncomfortable because it makes them reflect on their own choices.

Meegan Care: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I went through a phase in my 20s. I had Crohn’s disease, really sick with it. And I just Couldn’t drink at all. And so I came from quite a binge drinking background and culture to zero alcohol. And that actually meant that I became more separated from my family and family gatherings.

And it’s different now because I think our attitudes have changed. This is like thirty years down the track, but then I became the kind of outlier. And the outsider and somebody who doesn’t have fun and all of that kind of stuff. So for me, that’s still sitting in the background when I think about this.

Laura Valvasori: Absolutely. Yeah. Our experiences, particularly when we’re younger forms, a lot of our beliefs about alcohol. So for me, I grew up with parents that were very social and alcohol was a part of everything. And so I. Subconsciously start to make this connection that alcohol equals fun and you have a part of alcohol.

So that that’s, you know, where that gets ingrained very young. And then society shows us all of these examples of people having fun and advertisements and TV shows and it’s, it’s everywhere. It’s just a very part of culture. So it starts to ingrain this belief in your mind. But when you start taking it apart and recognizing that It’s a belief and that you can change your belief.

You can choose a new belief and start reinforcing that. That’s part of the mindset work that I think helps make this change more successful or longer lasting versus just trying to take something away. And willpower and white knuckle your way through an experience, it’s about shifting your thinking about your drinking and then giving yourself chances to have experiences and like documenting them and doing things that are going to reinforce in your mind that we still can have fun.

So I kept a journal as an example. And this is something I do with the women in the program. We keep a journal of all the experiences you’ve had alcohol free. And so I couldn’t imagine going to a wedding alcohol free. I just went to a wedding and I had a good time. I couldn’t imagine having a date night with my husband without ordering a bottle of wine.

And then I did and it worked and it was fine. So it’s like all of these experiences start to slowly build and that’s part of the shifting of the mindset. And yeah. I think that that really has a big shift on how you experience it and the long term impact.

Meegan Care: Yeah. So helping women get more connected to their own personal why.

So for you, your physical wellbeing and for others that may be something slightly different, but you have to know what that’s about.

Laura Valvasori: For me, it was a couple of things. So there was the physical symptoms, but there was also this misalignment that I was starting to feel. So I remember when I was, I turned 40 and my girlfriend put together a slideshow of pictures of me over all the years.

And I noticed that I had a glass of wine in my hand in almost all the pictures. And then when I turned 43 or was around 43, I remember a friend we were talking about future careers and I said, Oh, I feel like I’ll do something in health and wellness. And she said, well, you can’t do that if you’re drinking wine.

And it just felt, again, these like little moments, and then I was starting to Notice, like, do all these things to support my health in midlife, yet I was doing something that I knew was working against all the things I’m doing. So I’m going to a naturopath, I’m taking supplements, I’m doing the workouts, I’m doing the meditation, I’m doing all these things, yet I’m doing something that’s countering all of it.

So it was just starting to, Not sit well from a values and an alignment perspective as my life was entering this phase. So it was, it was really the physical piece and this feeling of misalignment for me.

Meegan Care: Misalignment. Yeah, that’s a really good way to describe it. And talk to us a little bit about the perimenopause, menopause and alcohol, because how alcohol impacts our body or our body’s resilience to alcohol through that phase definitely changes.

Laura Valvasori: 100%. It’s something that I noticed and that a lot of people notice. And, you know, some of the more common perimenopause symptoms of hot flashes and sleep disturbances and anxiety, all three of those are impacted by alcohol. So, a lot of women experience a reduction in hot flashes when they take alcohol out.

There is definitely an impact on sleep and there’s a whole, I’ve interviewed a sleep expert in the program that talks all about the different ways that alcohol impacts not only your ability to get to sleep, but the quality of sleep and the number of wake ups and the whole overall sleep cycle, the architecture of your sleep.

Changes when even when you’ve had like one glass of alcohol, it can change. Yeah. Which may sound familiar. And then anxiety. A lot of women use alcohol as a stress reduction tool. Yes. They think they’ve had a pain, they wanna have a glass of wine and relax, and there’s the initial feeling of relaxation, but it’s actually a depressant on your central nervous system and it amps up your anxiety.

So. The things that you’re using it for are actually causing more problems in a lot of the perimenopause symptoms that we experience. And it also impacts like every system in your body. So your brain health and your brains impacted, as we know, through perimenopause your digestion and your gut biome gets changed by alcohol.

So. Alcohol is actually a toxin to your body. I didn’t know this when I was starting to do my research. It’s actually classified. It’s F it’s made from ethanol, which is the same as gasoline. And when we put it into our bodies, our body recognizes it as a toxin. And it’s like, All systems go on deck to try to get this toxin out.

So your liver will first try to process the alcohol to get it out of your system. And then it’ll process the food you’ve eaten if, if you’ve eaten like a meal with some wine. So it’s like your body is constantly in this low level of fighting. If you’re drinking on a regular basis, that It just dampens and impacts the effectiveness of your body’s ability to function optimally overall.

Meegan Care: Yeah, absolutely. And when, obviously, we know when we’re in perimenopause, our energy like our physical vitality takes a bit of a hit for so many of us. And then layer on top of that, we’re giving our body another job to do. Right. That is, you know, I found in perimenopause and early postmenopause, I couldn’t even have a glass of wine.

Like the first little bit would be nice. And then half an hour later I would be exhausted, tired, slightly headachy. And so I sort of just went, this isn’t working for me. Now I’m right on the other side. It’s okay, like, I can have a glass of wine and I’m fine, but, but now, so that, that’s good on one hand, but on the other hand, I think it’s, for me anyway, personally, I want to be really clear around, yes, like, my body can tolerate it that day and maybe the next day, but, In what ways might this be depleting my vitality over the long term?

And even, and even

Laura Valvasori: if you’re drinking moderately or say you have a glass of wine on a, on a, just on the weekend, that alcohol stays in your system for up to 10 days for your body to fully process it out. And so you’re, impacting systems and your overall level of vitality for days after you’ve had a drink.

So even if you’re thinking, well, I don’t drink much or often, that one drink which is often more than one drink, will have a longer term effect. So you’re constantly staying in this cycle, even if you think that you’re moderating and have gaps between the drinks that you’re having.

Meegan Care: Yeah. So I’m thinking, right. So last weekend I did buy a bottle of wine and I had a glass on whatever Saturday night and then hubby had some. And then this week I have felt a bit more fatigued than normal. And. And I don’t normally drink wine at all and just watching those patterns emerge, I think is really important and helpful for us because there is, like you said, we can do all of those things.

We can go to the gym and eat right and take supplements and do all the stuff. And then we’re giving another stress to our body through alcohol.

Laura Valvasori: Yeah. It’s just so counterintuitive. And as women, I know we work so hard to try to. Do whatever we can to have our vitality. And like, I was spending thousands of dollars supplements and natural path appointments and feeling like and getting my blood work back and my liver numbers are off.

So we’re going to supplement your liver. My liver numbers are awesome. I just had blood work done

Meegan Care: and

Laura Valvasori: my inflammation markers are awesome. And it’s just. But I was doing all these things to try to counter what I was doing on the weekend.

Meegan Care: And because you know, we’re not saying this to create guilt or anything like that.

No, so ingrained in our culture and society. It’s such a normal part of life, but it, you know, it’s really great to have this broader awareness of the role that alcohol plays and the challenges it causes for our system. Yeah. So what do you find are the main barriers, women, say someone like me, who’s like, you know, well, I actually do feel a whole lot better without alcohol.

And, but, It’s not something that’s been a major problem in my life, but I just know that my vitality is better or emotionally I feel better without it in the days after. What are the main barriers that prevent women from really going forward like you have and being say four years or even six months or one year alcohol free?

Laura Valvasori: So I think that the fear of the fallout with friendships is a huge thing. The impact on the social situation is a big barrier. I think that the fear of failure is another that a lot of women have tried to moderate in the past or they’ve you know, done 30 day challenges and they’re like, Oh, here we go again.

And am I going to fail? So I’m not even going to bother, like I’m not even in because I know I’m going to be out. And the third piece is, I think that They don’t recognize the importance of the whole mindset shift. It’s more than just making the decision and not having the drink. And like I said, white knuckling it through the situation.

It is how do you, how do you change and support yourself with other stress reducing types of modalities that are you going to be turning to instead of a glass of wine? And how do you change your mindset so you can go to a party and still have a good time? So without. Like that’s a big barrier for people too is like not thinking through like the whole implication of it.

So I think the fear of the friends and the social situations and the fear of failure and the not shifting are kind of the things that hold people back from even trying.

Meegan Care: Yeah. And I’m thinking like how useful it would be to have that supportive guide if this was something you were experimenting with.

as you do in your course to give you those sort of ideas and open that doorway in terms of mindset shift and belief around self and alcohol. Yeah. We can start to really shift. Yeah.

Laura Valvasori: It can feel overwhelming as well, because there are books and podcasts and all kinds of different things. So trying to figure out where to even start and That’s one of the things that I did in the program is I took all these resources.

I’m a big researcher and I love information, but like, how do we distill it down to something that these are a few podcasts to listen to? These are some great books. Here’s some key studies. Here’s a bunch of information about all the impacts on your body in different ways. So we covered the mind, we cover the central nervous system, we cover digestion and gut health.

I’ve kind of condensed it down. So you’re not going all over trying to find all these things, then bring you sort of through a sequence of, of tools and modalities and exercises to support you as well.

Meegan Care: Yeah. Cause it’s about getting a really strong foundation, right? So to create behavior change, we have to actually shift the foundation underneath it.

And then 100%. Yeah, it makes that behavior change easy, er, easier. I guess we are talking just as a bit of a caveat, we’re really talking about Using alcohol in a general sense, we’re not talking about more down that serious end of the spectrum of addiction or very problematic use of alcohol.

Laura Valvasori: That’s a very good thing to clarify. That’s a very good thing to clarify. I am coming from a place. I am not a mental health or addiction specialist. I’m sharing my experience to help educate. Others there are people who need different types of support and there are lots of supports for people who have an addiction.

I, I find that. There was like a bit of a gap when I was reading things or looking at resources that a lot of people were coming at this from a place of addiction and not coming at it from a, how do I just want to feel better? So, yes, that’s a really good distinction that this is intended for someone who is a habitual, casual drinker that is not coming from a place of addiction and looking for some support and community around that.

Meegan Care: Yeah, really good to clarify that. So for women who, and I’m one of them, you know, we’ve had a really busy day, we’re coming home, and you get that kind of little glimmer inside yourself that’s like, I’m going to treat myself to a glass of wine, it’s been a long week, how lovely that will be. What do we replace that with?

Laura Valvasori: Yeah, so for me, I have found some non alcoholic wines that I enjoy. They are different, I’m going to caveat that. They’re never going to taste like the actual wine, but my palate has adapted to them, and I don’t even like the taste of actual wine now if I accidentally take a sip of my husband’s.

So for me, having, Either a non alcoholic beverage or some soda water or something in a fancy glass gives your brain a bit of the trigger that it’s still something that’s a treat. And what we’re often looking for is not what’s in the glass, it’s the Relaxation and the switch from being in like work mode, life mode to downtime mode.

So if you can find other practices that do that for you. So, like, I take a bath often. So that for me has become like the signal at the end of the workday and into the evening and gives me that sense of relaxation. That I would have turned to a glass of wine for so finding things that work for you, either a substitute in your glass or a fancy glass or some other kind of modality.

That’s going to give you what you’re actually craving.

Meegan Care: Yes, nice. I can see how that would be really helpful. Yeah. And so for someone who is listening to this and like, you know what? Yeah, I’ve been thinking this for a while. I can feel this emerging in my awareness. Where do they start? Like, through what door is it, is it best for them to focus on?

Laura Valvasori: I think that starting to do some self reflection is the first place that I would start. And that’s something I do with the women in the program, is we start by talking about your whys. Like, why do you really want to do this? What is the motivation? And being honest with yourself about how Drinking is making you feel what your fears are.

So really doing some journaling would be a great place to start to start getting honest with yourself about where you’re at and why you want to make this commitment to change.

Meegan Care: And for you, did you notice a, any shift for yourself emotionally and psychologically through going alcohol free?

And if you did, what were they? Yeah.

Laura Valvasori: So, for me, like I said, the heartburn I was experiencing physically went away. I was also having, I used to refer to it with my husband as free floating anxiety. I would just get anxious, but not about a specific thing, and that disappeared. And I just felt like I had more clarity, less sort of fog, I just felt clearer and sharper And as time went on, physically, the most interesting thing on the sales page, I have a picture of it.

My eye color changed significantly. So a lot of people talk about the whites of your eyes. If you’ve been drinking, your whites will be more yellow. I mean, I think the whites got a bit whiter, but for me, my eyes are blue. It’s hard to see with my My eyes are blue and they got way more vibrantly blue. So there were physical changes and there was less inflammation in my face and my skin looked not as dull.

So there were physical changes that over time also started to happen along with sort of that more mental clarity. And my sleep was way better. I didn’t have any idea that I was sleeping so poorly until I started sleeping better. So I was like, Oh, everybody wakes up a few times a night and everybody tosses and turns.

And then I would sleep right through the night. I was like, Oh.

Meegan Care: Hang on a minute,

Laura Valvasori: wait a second. So yeah, there was definitely, and then we have better sleep. You just feel better

Meegan Care: and everything goes better. Right. Yes. Yeah, I need my

Laura Valvasori: sleep.

Meegan Care: Yes, I know just from having one drink, my sleep is lighter. It’s more restless.

It’s more interrupted.

Laura Valvasori: Yeah, 100%.

Meegan Care: Yes. And yeah, sleep is such an important foundation. So what, what haven’t we talked about that you would really like to share with the listeners, or you think it’s important to impart?

Laura Valvasori: I just think that just reiterating that making the, it really takes a lot of courage to make this choice. And a lot of women at this time in their life are reevaluating a lot of areas of their life and sometimes getting a bit more bold with what we want or our identities are shifting. And as you’re going through that process, this is an area that I think a lot of people avoid looking at that can have a really big impact on the quality of your life, not just in the immediacy, definitely you’re going to feel some changes, but in the long term, like your vitality is so important.

And if this is something you can control at a time when there’s so many things that are beyond our control, then it’s worth looking at. Giving yourself the opportunity to experience it.

Meegan Care: Thank you. Yeah. I think so obviously I work with women in midlife and we want that change because that’s what’s emerging in our body physiologically, there’s change coming.

And so we want things around us to change, or we know that there’s a call for change within us. And yet sometimes we, we miss what’s so obvious and right in front of us. Why do you think that is in terms of alcohol?

Laura Valvasori: I think because it’s so ingrained in us that we don’t even Notice we, it is so normalized to drink. It is such a part of everything toasting to celebrate a drinker at the end of the day to relax. And it’s like, it’s everywhere. So it becomes a part of our subconscious mind. That we’re not even thinking about drinking.

How many times have you just had a drink because that’s the thing you do in that situation? Not even asking yourself, do I actually want a drink right now? Like, am I even interested in having a drink? It just becomes so habitual and we’re in autopilot that I think we don’t, it’s right. It’s so obvious, but we don’t think about it because it’s just, it’s been a part of our life.

And I like to say it, you know, it’s like a frenemy. It’s been a friend for so many years and it’s been a part of so many things and I’ve had so many great fun nights and but it’s starting to feel like a toxic relationship and you’re starting to feel like you need to break up and you hesitate and you don’t want to end it but In the end, you’re changing life’s changing and sometimes it’s the right choice.

And like you say, it’s right in front of you and you could just give yourself a chance to experience something different and then make a decision.

Meegan Care: Yeah. I really love how you’ve, you’ve sort of flipped that experience, something different and then make a decision that to me sounds very, very doable. And you’re deciding if you want to break up with that frenemy who has become quite toxic in your life.

Laura, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us and your guidance. How can people stay in touch with you? Maybe there might be some people that want to work with you or still learn from you. What’s the best way for them to do that?

Laura Valvasori: Sure. So there’ll be links below, I believe, to my Instagram and my Facebook.

So I’m Laura Valbasori and you can also link to a webinar, a free webinar. That’s a 40 minute webinar where I talk about five hacks for a happier day. Happy hour, alcohol free. And I talk about some of the things to consider if you’re going to a social situation and you want to try to not drink in it to set yourself up for success.

Meegan Care: Beautiful. And your program, just remind us what your program is called and how often you run it.

Laura Valvasori: Sure. So the program is called Still Me But Alcohol Free and it’s available in two formats. So there’s a self guided version that you can start anytime and that’s available for purchase on demand. And then I run the program a few times a year.

The next group program starts September 23rd. So it runs for six weeks, and in the first couple of weeks, we sort of do some intro and prep and learning, and then we have an experience of four weeks alcohol free, and then you make the decision. So that format includes All of the online learning modules that I’ve created, and there’s a ton of information there, plus a weekly call with the community and access to an app that we can all chat and answer questions and share in real time.

Meegan Care: Thank you so much for joining us today, Laura.

Laura Valvasori: Thank you.