108. Relationships - Reset, Repair or Run

-: 00:10

Hello, darling heart, and welcome to the drink less, live better podcast.

-: 00:17

This is the podcast that helps you to see that drinking less doesn't need to be stressful, lonely, or boring.

-: 00:26

I'm your host, Sarah Williamson, and I decided to have a year alcohol free as a little life experiment and haven't looked back.

-: 00:33

With my experience and training, I now help other people with their alcohol free or drink less adventures.

-: 00:40

You can find out more and sign up to my 5 day drink less challenge at drink less, live better.com.

-: 00:48

I'm here to tell you that you can relax, connect, and have fun without alcohol in your life.

-: 01:00

Join me here each week to find out how. Relationships. Reset, repair, or maybe run. Here we are.

-: 01:10

We're either bringing awareness to our drinking, accepting what alcohol is taking from us, getting into an alcohol action

-: 01:20

zone, or living in alignment, knowing what we want next in life, and whether or not alcohol deserves any kind of place in that.

-: 01:26

And one of the things I get asked about a lot is relationships.

-: 01:32

These relationships could be with family, with friends, or with partners.

-: 01:41

If alcohol has played a big part in how you connect with each other, how you celebrate, how you spend time relaxing, relaxing,

-: 01:50

or maybe providing a focal point for you all, it can be pretty exposing when you take it out of the equation.

-: 01:57

Some relationships will be okay and some, I'm afraid to say, won't.

-: 02:11

It might be worth completing a bit of an evaluation exercise at some point as to whether a relationship is worth spending time and energy on.

-: 02:15

Do you need or want this relationship right now?

-: 02:24

Will it survive being put on the back burner for a period of time? What fuels this relationship?

-: 02:29

Do you share values with this person?

-: 02:46

Is this relationship one that you can see yourself in in the distant future, and that goes for all types of relationships, whether they are platonic or romantic. Let's say you've got a friendship.

-: 02:52

You want to reset or repair it because you think there are some good parts to it.

-: 02:55

Can you change the way you socialise?

-: 03:01

Perhaps you could go for coffee dates or countryside walks instead of nights in a bar.

-: 03:05

What do you have in common if you take alcohol out?

-: 03:10

Can you still find connection and care for each other?

-: 03:16

How will you ever know if trying to reset or repair was the right thing?

-: 03:22

Well, unless you know for sure the only way is to try.

-: 03:27

Do you have a gut feeling about running?

-: 03:38

It's really difficult to admit that you think this relationship might not be working for you anymore, and running might be the right option.

-: 03:50

I had a girlfriend years ago who I met in street outside my house, and she and I had a really intense friendship.

-: 03:59

One of the things she said to me on one of the first nights that we ever spent together drinking in my kitchen was that she'd

-: 04:08

never had a friend who could drink at the same pace as her, and it made me feel really valuable and wanted by her.

-: 04:14

Several years of friendship later we had started to drift apart.

-: 04:19

I had noticed that our values incredibly different.

-: 04:25

I wanted to change but, actually, I was too afraid to leave her.

-: 04:33

I felt a bit run down by our relationship. I started to do yoga. I started running.

-: 04:41

I started taking much more of an interest in my health, and none of these things interested her at all.

-: 04:44

Luckily, we had a bit of a drifting apart.

-: 04:47

We didn't have any big falling out.

-: 04:49

There was no big argument, no disagreement.

-: 05:00

On a particular night out with her at her husband's birthday party, there were loads of us there, I just knew that that was

-: 05:01

going to be our last night out.

-: 05:13

On that evening I was drinking lime and soda and she was furious with me because it was not joining in with the spirit of the evening as she saw it.

-: 05:17

This was a long time before I stopped drinking.

-: 05:25

It was probably about maybe nearly 10 years ago, but I knew it was a nail in the coffin of our relationship.

-: 05:36

I look back at that intense time and I'm really grateful for the relationship that we had but it's definitely one that I am glad I cut loose on.

-: 05:46

There are many other relationships in my life where absolutely I'm always up for resetting and repairing parts of them.

-: 05:54

If I need to apologize for something that I've done or some upset that I've caused, I'm really willing to do that, to be able

-: 05:58

to spend time and move a relationship on with people who I love.

-: 06:11

A bit of relationship evaluation is no bad thing at any point in our life but I think it is particularly relevant as we start to assess our relationships with alcohol.

-: 06:15

Please check out the show notes on this or any other episode.

-: 06:25

You'll see the link to a hidden podcast to help you with your 5 PM cravings, and you'll be able to read about my one to one coaching pro programme.

-: 06:32

Please give me a follow on Instagram or Facebook too. Thank you for listening in today.

-: 06:37

Please come back again next week and, PS, I believe in you.