Challenging Alcohol Norms: Hadley Sorensen on Social Drinking / EP 40

In this episode of the Feel Lit Pod we have an extraordinary guest, Hadley Sorensen, joining us.! Hadley is not just a mom of three boys and a lifelong runner, but also the inspiring author of the eye-opening book, “The Dirty Truth on Social Drinking, Everything in Moderation and Other BS.” Have you ever questioned the social narratives around drinking? Hadley dives deep into her personal journey with alcohol and her powerful transition to an alcohol-free lifestyle.

What motivated Hadley to write such a compelling book? What hurdles did she face on her path to publication, and how did she find the incredible support that kept her going? We’ll uncover these stories and more as we explore her impactful social media presence, where she boldly addresses “gray area drinking” and challenges societal pressures that normalize alcohol use.

But that’s not all! We’ll also delve into crucial topics like educating kids about alcohol, the risks of early drinking, and the transformative benefits of sobriety. How can we live an authentic, joyful life without alcohol? Hadley, along with your hosts Susan and Ruby, will share insightful perspectives and practical advice.
So, get comfortable and prepare to be inspired by Hadley Sorensen’s brave and uplifting journey. What new insights will you gain from this episode? Let’s dive in and find out together!

Timestamp
00:00 Lower barrier to rethink alcohol, avoid labels.
03:31 False beliefs about alcohol prevent seeking help.
08:01 Felt lonely and different, quit drinking ultimately.
12:51 Quit drinking, began journaling about the experience.
16:13 Determined writer navigates journey through numerous rejections.
19:01 Parent against serving alcohol to teenagers at home.
21:36 Turned off comments; protecting mental health from toxicity.
25:10 Living alcohol-free helps discover authentic self.
29:53 Quitting drinking transformed running into joyful experience.
31:06 Alcohol-free lifestyle reveals true joy gradually.

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Websites:
Susan Larkin Coaching https://www.susanlarkincoaching.com/
Ruby Williams at Freedom Renegade Coaching https://www.freedomrenegadecoaching.com/

Follow Susan: @drinklesswithsusan
Follow Ruby: @rubywilliamscoaching

It is strongly recommended that you seek professional advice regarding your health before attempting to take a break from alcohol. The creators, hosts, and producers of the The Feel Lit Alcohol Free podcast are not healthcare practitioners and therefore do not give medical, or psychological advice nor do they intend for the podcast, any resource or communication on behalf of the podcast or otherwise to be a substitute for such.

Transcript

Sick and tired of your love-hate relationship with wine?
Welcome to the feel it alcohol free podcast. Hi. I'm Ruby Williams. And I'm coach Susan Larkin. We are 2 former wine lovers turned alcohol freedom coaches exposing the lies about alcohol and giving you, our listeners, the tools to break free so you can feel lit. And when you're lit, you'll feel healthier, freer, and more in control of your life. So relax, kick back, and get ready to feel lit alcohol free. And don't forget, grab a copy of our wine free weekend guide after the show.

Susan [00:00:00]:
Hey. Hey, everybody. We are so glad to be back with the feel it alcohol free podcast. And today we are so excited to have a special guest, Hadley Sorensen, who is the author of, The Dirty Truth on Social Drinking, Everything in Moderation and Other BS. So welcome, Hadley. Welcome.

Hadley Sorensen [00:00:24]:
Thanks for having me.

Susan [00:00:26]:
So Hadley Sorensen is a mom of 3 boys, a lifelong runner and a writer. Her debut book, The Dirty Truth on Social Drinking, Everything in Moderation and Other BS was released on May 14th. As an enthusiastic social drinker throughout her life, she always felt like her relationship with alcohol was problematic. It wasn't about how much or how often she drank. It was about how she felt when she did. I totally relate to that. And two and a half years ago, she woke up with her last hangover, her heart screaming that sobriety was the right choice. She had no idea that a whole new beautiful life was about to unfold.

Susan [00:01:07]:
And now she uses her social media platform, which is amazing, to tell her story with the hopes that it will reach someone struggling as she was. Her goal is to help others realize that anyone can quit drinking at any time for any reason. No rock bottom required. We totally resonate with that. Right, Ruby? 

Ruby [00:01:31]:
Yes. Yes. And with the fact that it is a beautiful life on the other side of alcohol.

Susan [00:01:34]:
And I just wish people would believe us, but it's like, it's true. It's true. Yeah. So I love the name of your book. Ruby and I were talking about that before our recording. It was like, that's such a good name. Thank you. The dirty truth on social drinking…

Susan [00:01:50]:
So what is the dirty truth?

Hadley Sorensen [00:01:54]:
Well, it's a loaded question because there's a lot to it. Right? And I wanted the title to include the term social drinking because I wanted to kind of lower the barrier to entry for people who are reconsidering or thinking about their relationship with alcohol, but they're kind of afraid of those labels we like to use. And it's like like I was, well, my problem's not that bad. I, you know, I don't consider myself an alcoholic, so that book might be too extreme for me. Right? So alcoholic, so that book might be too extreme for me. Right? So I wanted to kind of address social drinking because I think there's so many people that are trapped in that gray area. The dirty truth is that we have been lied to about alcohol from all angles for so long. We're told that it is the best way to have fun.

Hadley Sorensen [00:02:49]:
It's the best way to celebrate. It's the best way to connect with people. It's also the best way to handle stress and worries and anxiousness and all of the the the like, every range of the human emotion. It's like alcohol is the solution. When in reality, it's hurting us in so many ways, and it's really doing the opposite. But we're just fed this narrative from every angle. And so like I did, so many of us grow up thinking that alcohol is kind of this required part of being an adult. It's a requirement of being human.

Hadley Sorensen [00:03:31]:
We have to drink. And if it doesn't feel good, well, you just must not be doing it right. You know? And there's and there's, you know, even though it's problematic, even though we know all of this, you're either an alcoholic or you're a normal drinker. And it's your fault if you fall into the alcoholic bucket, not alcohol's fault. So you better make sure you're on the normal side. Right? There's just so many lies we've been fed, and it keeps so many people from getting help from making a change, from fixing something that feels broken in their life because they think that it's normal. They think that they're supposed to be doing it.

Susan [00:04:12]:
Yes. Oh my gosh. We talk about that a lot. We do podcasts about and that kept me stuck for such a long time because I kept trying to get back to being normal because it's safe because I didn't wanna be that. I didn't wanna be an alcoholic in that binary thinking of you're either normal, you're an alcoholic when in reality, there's a whole gray area for alcohol use disorder. 

Ruby [00:04:40]:
And we really have to start using that language because that's the appropriate language. Alcohol use disorder. We wanna keep saying that over and over again because “alcoholic” is a label and it's on the person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:04:52]:
Yeah. And the alcohol use disorder appropriately reflects that it occurs on this spectrum that has a huge wide range. It's not binary. It's not you're either a or b, and you have to fall into one of those buckets. And so many people don't realize that.

Susan [00:05:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, when reading your book, I just resonated with so much of your story, except I wasn't really a very good social drinker. I mean, my problematic drinking was when I started using it as a coping mechanism more because, I mean, it's like when you said I have to get better at this. It's like I was a bad drinker. I don't even know why I held on to it for so long. I wasn't having fun in bars. Like, I was always super self conscious.

Susan [00:05:30]:
I wasn't even a good social drinker. So it's so hilarious that here I was trying to, like, get better at it. But, I resonated with your story when you talked about having that sort of still small voice, the voice of your intuition where you notice, like, I drank, you know, like, your you drank like your friends, but it bothered you and it didn't seem to bother them. And it's like, and then you were taking it sort of like what I would do too is like, well, what's wrong with me? Why is this bothering me? So tell me a little bit about that.

Hadley Sorensen [00:06:04]:
Yeah. As I look back now, I realize that my intuition was sending me messages from the very first time I drank. The first time I drank, I was 14. I talk about it in the book. It was like a little party at a friend's grandmother's house who was out of town and we raided grandma's liquor cabinet, which meant we were drinking things like peach and mint schnapps. Right? And that was the first time I got drunk. And from that very first time, I felt something was off. It didn't feel right.

Hadley Sorensen [00:06:42]:
And it wasn't just this, like, I'm doing something bad. I'm gonna get in trouble when my parents don't approve. It was just that inner voice that was like something about this doesn't jive for you. And I felt that voice continuously. You know, from that point, I continued to drink socially in high school. I went straight in to I mean, I went in hard to the college binge drinking scene. And then from there, kind of graduated into mommy wine culture. And all along the way, I always felt like something was off with my drinking.

Hadley Sorensen [00:07:16]:
It felt a little bit toxic or corrupt. And I would look around, like you said, my drinking was not out of the norm. Right? I'll use norm and quotation marks because it shouldn't have been normal. But in the situations I was in, whether it was college, mommy wine culture, whatever, I was drinking just like the people around me. But it just seems like it was affecting me differently. And I was a blackout drinker. And so off and on my whole life, I experienced blackouts. And so I had so much shame and regret and worry and fear, you know, tied to those blackouts.

Hadley Sorensen [00:08:01]:
And I knew other people that blacked out, but it wasn't it wasn't everyone, but everyone kind of laughed it off. Like, it's not that big of a deal even though I would wake up the next morning just feeling like a shell of a person wishing I could make the night disappear. I wasn't sure whether I was glad I couldn't remember or whether I was upset that I couldn't remember. But I just always felt like something was off, and I would look around and everybody else just seemed to be going on with their day, taking some Advil for their hangover, going on with their life where I felt like I was imploding on the inside. So it just always felt like something was different. Now I'm sure lots of those people that I thought were perfectly normal were struggling in some capacity too. But, again, I just felt like I was sort of experiencing it differently. And that voice, that intuition just kept in the last, I'd say, probably 3 or 4 years before I finally quit drinking, really started getting louder and nudging me more aggressively.

Hadley Sorensen [00:09:08]:
And like we so often do, I got really good at ignoring it. I got really good at pretending like it wasn't there because I hadn't wrapped my brain around the idea yet that there was something that I could do about it. It still felt like not drinking isn't an option. I have to drink right now. I live in this society. My friends drinking not drinking just isn't it's it's not an option on the table. So I have to figure this out. So I just kept ignoring the voice. And finally, it started screaming. Right? And it got too loud to ignore. And I'm so glad that I finally listened.

Ruby [00:09:53]:
Yeah. So glad.

Susan [00:09:55]:
I was recalling, when you're talking about black I I didn't black out initially. I was a barfer. People laugh. So, I mean, it's sorta like you know? And people say, why do some people develop a problem with alcohol faster blah blah blah than others? It's just like we have different bodies just like some people get diabetes and some people don't. Right. So it's right from the start, my body was rejecting alcohol by throwing up. Right? Because and yours with blackouts. It's just like your brain is like, nope.

Hadley Sorensen [00:10:23]:
Oh, and good. And I used to say I used to get jealous of my friends that were the barfers. Right? Because I'd say, well, your body throws up and rejects the alcohol, and and then you can you know, like, in college, it would be like you'd throw up, and then you could keep drinking or or whatever. Whereas, my I mean, it's so disturbing to think about. But my I would just shut down and blackout, and I'd say, oh, I'm so jealous that you're a barferer, and I'm a black outer. I mean, like, those were the only two options for life. 

Ruby [00:10:54]:
Right. Isn't that crazy? Think about that when you're saying that statement. Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:10:59]:
It's embarrassing to even say the words, but that's how I used to think.

Ruby [00:11:03]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Susan [00:11:04]:
And that statement that, like, I have to drink. They're not drinking is not an option. Like, that's too weird or ever like, why is that an option not an option? Just like, you know, I don't know. I I I encounter clients like that. Like, it's just why do we have to get to the very, very end of our rope before we just go, okay. Finally, I have to do something about this. Why is not drinking not an option in our society? That is just I think it's changing, which is exciting.

Hadley Sorensen [00:11:36]:
There. Yeah. I I know. I thought of it as, like, it sounded like the ultimate punishment.

Ruby [00:11:41]:
Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:11:41]:
It's not an option because that would mean I had a problem.

Ruby [00:11:46]:
Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:11:46]:
And then it was, like, the death sentence of my social life and fun and everything else. Yeah. Which is so now we know

Ruby [00:11:55]:
What's the truth?

Hadley Sorensen [00:11:56]:
Exactly, Yeah. Opposite of what it's not a death sentence for anything. It's it's, yeah, it revives you.

Susan [00:12:04]:
It's the best. I know. And it's like how many I always say, like, we always there's nobody who stopped drinking is like, meh. It's okay. It's like, no. We're all, like, singing it from the rooftops. Like, it's the best thing. I might have your life just turned around.

Susan [00:12:18]:
You feel alive again. You just but nobody believes us. I mean, maybe people are starting to believe us, but I didn't believe it. I would hear other people and go, yeah. That's fine for you. But, do you know?

Hadley Sorensen [00:12:29]:
No thanks. Or I I would say the famous, oh, I don't trust people who don't drink.

Susan [00:12:34]:
Yeah. Isn't that crazy? What is up with that?

Ruby [00:12:37]:
Yeah. I I totally get it. You know what I'm really, really curious about though is how how you, like, wrote this book. Like, I'm just we haven't been talking about the book much, but I'm so curious about this book. Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:12:51]:
Well, so I've always been a writer. And when I quit drinking, it was sort of natural for me to start journaling about it. And I I should say I was also already out there on social media kind of publicly because I had been a health and fitness coach for 6, 7 years, and that was because my business was totally driven by social media. So I was used to sort of putting myself out there. And all of a sudden, it got very hard for me to kind of keep going in the way I had been with my fitness business because I felt this sort of, like, disconnect. I felt like I was going to eliminate alcohol. It's a big thing in your life, and I didn't know how to talk about it yet. I didn't. I had been preaching for years that you can have it all.

Hadley Sorensen [00:13:42]:
You can have balance. I love wine, but I'm still so healthy. And I was starting to realize what BS that was. So I kind of felt like I had been really inauthentic out there. It was this whole, like, crisis of consciousness, and I didn't know how to continue. So I sort of retreated inward, started writing, started journaling, thought about my experience with alcohol and what I was going through and all these lessons I was figuring out. And it felt really good writing about it. And at the same time I was reading, I was devouring quit lit books.

Hadley Sorensen [00:14:15]:
I loved them. I mean, I've read so many, and I'm sort of a voracious reader anyways. So I just went all in and the books were a really big part of my journey but what I what I realized was there was this disconnect I didn't feel with most of them like I never had that oh my gosh, me too moment because I felt like their drinking experiences were sort of different than mine because I was kind of in that gray area, and most of them were more, you know, rock bottom stories, if you will. Or, they were just in a different way. We talk about alcohol use disorders, the spectrum. We were in different places in the spectrum. So there were certain things I related to, but a lot I didn't. And it was more a reminder of, well, that could have happened if I didn't stop. Right.

Hadley Sorensen [00:15:07]:
And I thought there's really not that many books out there that talk about where I am. Maybe I can be the one to tell that story. And so I've been writing and writing, and I decided, okay, I have no idea how to write a book, but I feel like I'm onto something. So I'm just gonna keep going. I'm not gonna research how to publish a book, I don't want to get hung up on any of that. I'm just gonna keep writing until I feel like I have something that might be worth putting out into the world. And if I don't, I don't. You know, I was just sort of very, like, at first, I'll see where this goes.

Hadley Sorensen [00:15:46]:
And it just felt really good, and I kept writing. And then I started sharing little bits on social media. And, of course, my audience was all there for fitness. And all of a sudden, I start talking about how I quit drinking when I've been like the ultimate wine mom on, you know, Instagram. And there was some attrition, you know, I lost some followers. But then there were all these people who were coming to me privately and saying, oh my gosh. Me too. That's exactly how I felt.

Hadley Sorensen [00:16:13]:
You're telling my story. And I was like, maybe I am on something. So I started talking about it more and I kept writing and I thought, yeah, I want to do this. I want to tell this story. So I wrote for a little over a year, and then I started researching, like, now what do I do? And figuring out how to find an agent? And how do I, you know, how do I start the process? And then how do you find a publisher? How are you? And I just kept going kind of one step at a time, and I decided I was gonna get it out there in the world, and I would just keep going. There was no timeline, and little things, just there were a lot of “nos”. There was a lot of rejection. There were a lot of setbacks, and then things just started slowly to kind of piece together.

Hadley Sorensen [00:17:01]:
And I found the right person who was amazing to work with and helped me get it out there. And now here we are.

Ruby [00:17:11]:
So proud of you. So proud of you.

Hadley Sorensen [00:17:14]:
Thank you. Yeah.

Susan [00:17:16]:
Well oh, I loved your book, and I think that it is great to have something out there that isn't a rock bottom story that can encourage gray area drinkers, hey. You don't have to have a rock bottom. Stop. Before that, I've always thought, you know, why do this? I think it's a Nelson Mandela quote where it's like, why are we fishing people out of the river? Why don't we go upstream and see why they're falling in the first place? Yes. So yeah. So it's great to have another book out there, another something to offer clients, and, and I enjoy reading people's stories as well. And I loved your story, and I love so I so you popped up probably because I'm in the sober verse, and I started following you. And it was just like that. I thank you for saying that you already had a social media following because I'm just like, all of a sudden, there's this new person, and she's got, like, 40,000, 50,000 followers.

Susan [00:18:06]:
I'm like, how did she do that? But along with that has recently come some haters, which is crazy. I am curious about that. Scary. Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:18:21]:
Yeah. So I see everybody jokes like, oh, you know, you've made it when you start having the crazy trolls come out of the wood

Ruby [00:18:29]:
I've heard that.

Hadley Sorensen [00:18:30]:
Yeah. I'm like, okay. Thanks, I guess. And, you know, I've had it on and off before, and it's easy to sort of brush off. The most things I don't do, I'm not offended. I don't take it personally. Intellectually, you know not to take that stuff to heart. It's fine.

Hadley Sorensen [00:18:47]:
There's a lot of crazy people out there, you realize, and the Internet can be a dark place. And probably, like, 2 months ago, I did this post about teenage drinking.

Susan [00:19:00]:
I still saw it.

Hadley Sorensen [00:19:01]:
I have two. I have a 13 year old and almost 15 year old and I also have a 25 year old. So I've already been through the teenage years and dealt with, you know, drinking up to the age of 20. Right? So I've been through it before, but I was still a drinker then. So it was a little bit different. And so I thought I didn't really think this post was going to be anything exciting, but it was born out of these conversations I'd been having with people in my suburban area as I learned that so many high school parents are providing alcohol for kids to drink at their house. I was not talking about the parent that lets their kid try a glass of wine at Thanksgiving dinner or, you know, those kinds of scenarios. I was talking about, like, please don't I no. I'm not gonna let my kid go to your house if you're serving them White Claws in the basement, and I'm certainly not gonna be serving teenagers alcohol in my house.

Hadley Sorensen [00:20:02]:
Mhmm. My whole kind of sobriety experience has been an amazing opportunity with my boys to have open and honest conversations. We talk about what happens on my social media. We mean, it's been amazing. In no way do I think that they will never drink. I don't tell them that alcohol is bad. My husband still drinks. It's just that I want you to be more educated than I was.

Hadley Sorensen [00:20:26]:
So when you make these decisions, whatever well, people I mean it was the craziest thing I've ever seen. They were convinced that I'm insane because I'm not gonna let my teenagers drink. The whole idea that they're gonna do it anyways so you should teach them how to do it safely. Because these parents are safely teaching kids how to binge drink in their basement. I mean there were so many things. I get the sort of rational argument on one side. They might do it anyway. They might but not all teenagers drink.

Hadley Sorensen [00:21:01]:
Not every teenager who doesn't drink in high school is going to go on to college and die of alcohol poisoning in the 1st week, which is also what everybody was telling me. I was getting death threats.

Ruby [00:21:12]:
I know.

Hadley Sorensen [00:21:13]:
I was getting people telling me that they hoped my kids hated me and never talked to me again. After they went off to college, they were gonna die of alcohol poisoning. I had people that were trolling me so hard. They went out to Amazon and were writing crazy reviews on my book, never having it just blew my mind.

Susan [00:21:34]:
Oh my gosh.

Hadley Sorensen [00:21:36]:
And it hasn't stopped since people I finally turned off the comments on that post because I was like, I don't owe anyone anything. I'm out here. It's sort of like my mission to, you know, help people who's I don't need I I get to protect my mental health. I don't need to deal with that. But I still have people who find that post and then come and leave crazy comments on my other posts and send me crazy messages. I have folders full of screenshots of the crazy stuff that's happened. And it really, it just caught me off guard because it wasn't something, you know, I get comments here and there on posts like the oh, it's oh, oh imagine this was your whole personality that kind of stuff it doesn't bother me. But something about this in the way it just felt so icky and toxic and it really got to me for a while and I had to sort of work to get my head on straight again.

Hadley Sorensen [00:22:34]:
But then it bugged me because I let it get to me. Do you know what I mean? It was like, I know better than this. But when you're getting these, like, floods of hate messages and comments, It's hard. We're human. Right? It's hard to put that behind you and think, oh, well, was I wrong? Many people think that I should be serving my son and his friends beer in the basement and letting it's it's wild that I'm considered crazy for that opinion. I I will never understand it. So I saw something

Ruby [00:23:08]:
flat out illegal. Right? Like, there's a law. Right.

Hadley Sorensen [00:23:14]:
Well, and then everybody's going, well, you know, it's legal to serve your own kids if you're with them. If you and I'm like, oh, first of all, nobody clearly even read the post. That's not what I was talking about. If you wanna give your kid a beer or a glass of wine, I don't, I don't care. I'm talking about serving teenagers alcohol to binge drink. What I, you know

Susan [00:23:33]:
And taking their keys and all that, you know, you hear the parents do that. And Oh,

Hadley Sorensen [00:23:37]:
and they think they're so progressive and responsible. Well and if you don't do that, they're gonna go drink in a field somewhere.

Ruby [00:23:47]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:23:48]:
Or you just teach your kids how to say no in difficult situations. You educate them. You No. I agree with you. Need to prosecute this.

Susan [00:24:00]:
No. No. But it's just so tearful it's what it's like, what are we stirring up? It's like, why? Like, nobody's the bigger issue. Nobody's telling us to teach our kids how to smoke or, you know, now pot's legal. Well, you better teach your kid how to smoke pot because otherwise,

Hadley Sorensen [00:24:14]:
they're gonna go through it. So why don't we just get them a joint and teach them how to do it?

Susan [00:24:19]:
Around. Yeah. That's crazy, but nobody ever talks about that or defends anything like they do alcohol. And it's crazy. And statistically, and this has been scientifically proven that children who drink before age 21 are 5 times more likely to develop alcohol use disorder.

Hadley Sorensen [00:24:39]:
Yes.

Susan [00:24:39]:
So even if you are serving your child alcohol at Thanksgiving dinner, you're creating a risk for them to develop alcohol use disorder in the future. Yeah. So Yes. You know, just to be educated.

Hadley Sorensen [00:24:53]:
I firmly believe that our goal, our job as parents, isn't to let them try it so it's not a big deal and they know how to moderate. Our goal is to keep them from doing it for as long as possible while also educating them so they know more when they finally do.

Susan [00:25:09]:
Yes. Yes.

Ruby [00:25:10]:
So they can naturally, have their brain, you know, grow and develop naturally without alcohol as well as learn how to be social, learn who they really are. What I find with clients is that they get stuck as a teenager, like stuck in that time period emotionally, socially. Like, they don't even learn how to be social. Are you an introvert? Are you an extrovert? You're forced to maybe be an extrovert, but maybe that's not who you really are. So, I love actually working with people in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, because they actually discover who they really are. But they're because you aren't you aren't your real personality when you're drinking. Yeah. So it's kind of really it's real like, this whole alcohol free journey, like you were saying, it's beautiful on the other side, but it's so amazing to finally live authentically and figure out who you really are.

Hadley Sorensen [00:26:10]:
Yes. You just nailed my whole story, like, to a tee. Because when I started drinking at 14, I was this socially awkward, shy. Like, I struggled to fit in. And all of a sudden, it was like, oh, this drinking thing is amazing. This is what I've been missing and so I went all in but I never learned to appreciate myself as the introvert that I really am. I forced myself to be the extroverted party girl, and I hated that. And it felt completely inauthentic, but I had no idea what else to do. So it's been this journey of really learning who I am without alcohol.

Susan [00:26:49]:
Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:26:49]:
And it's been amazing.

Susan [00:26:52]:
Yeah.

Ruby [00:26:52]:
And you are not alone. I mean, like I said, so many people. It's like this, it comes up all the time. Introvert, extrovert, and then they're, like, forced. For some reason, we're forced in high school or college to be extroverts. And, but now people are like, I like to read books. I like to be alone. Like, yeah.

Ruby [00:27:10]:
Go for that.

Hadley Sorensen [00:27:11]:
As I always joke that my, you know, being boring in sobriety is by choice. I'm not bored because I'm sober. I'm bored because in sobriety, I've realized that I really like being bored. Like, I really like to be quiet and peaceful and boring. Like, I don't wanna be at a bar or a party. And now I accept that about myself, and I am totally good with it.

Ruby [00:27:32]:
Me too. That's so great. Yeah. Meditation or being in nature. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Susan [00:27:38]:
I mean, you mentioned in the book that it's, you know, quitting drinking is 20% about not drinking and 80% about healing. And that's what we do when we work with clients and, you know, it's the healing work.

Ruby [00:27:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:27:51]:
That's so important.

Susan [00:27:53]:
Yeah. And it's not boring. You're not boring. You're just quiet and, yeah. Because that's such a big, big misnomer that, oh, now you're boring if you don't drink. We're actually more interesting.

Hadley Sorensen [00:28:05]:
Oh, so much more interesting. And I have so much more fun in everything that I do.

Ruby [00:28:11]:
Me too.

Susan [00:28:11]:
Me too. The belly laughs, the I mean, I mean, I felt like when I would drink, I would get giddy and silly and funny. But, I mean, I always say to my husband, I'm fun and funny and funny you're not drinking because I'm actually more clever. I actually have my brains, you know, brain cells.

Hadley Sorensen [00:28:28]:
Yeah. And you notice that now when you're around people who are drinking. Right? I think, oh, at that point, I would be thinking I was hilarious when really I was kind of sloppy and slurring or repeating myself, not really making sense or, you know, completing sentences. And I thought I thought I was hilarious in the life of the party, and now it's like

Ruby [00:28:52]:
Yeah. It's so true. Actually, if everybody's drinking, you don't notice that people are getting louder, repeating themselves, you know, maybe falling over. Like, it's just silly or you don't notice. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah.

Susan [00:29:04]:
I remember somebody saying on one of my coaching calls that she was like, well, I have to drink because we sit around the campfire for, like, 6 hours, and that's just so boring. I can't do it unless I'm drinking. And I'm like, well, how about you just don't sit around the campfire for 6 hours? Because that sounds horrible. You know? Yeah.

Ruby [00:29:21]:
Do the things you like to do, actually.

Hadley Sorensen [00:29:24]:
Yeah. We create these stories in our heads of all the reasons why we can't do it. And when you step back and really think about it, some of them are pretty silly.

Susan [00:29:33]:
Yeah. I know. That's so true. So true. Well, so at the end of every podcast episode, we always like to ask our guests what they are doing to feel lit in their alcohol free lifestyle. And so we wanna ask you that question to share with our listeners.

Hadley Sorensen [00:29:53]:
So I kind of have 2, I would say. 2 things that sort of light me up right now. One thing that's been a big part of my journey and has been bringing me so much joy. I've always been a runner. I've always been big into exercise, but it has changed so much since I quit drinking because before so much of my running was sort of about punishing my body for what I had done, what I drank, what I ate when I was drinking, and I never felt good, you know, running. And now running brings me so much more joy and peace and sort of all the things because I'm honoring my body. I'm listening to my body. I feel good.

Hadley Sorensen [00:30:39]:
I feel healthy. And it's a way for me to connect sort of with nature, which has been a really big deal for me too. So that really, really makes me feel lit. The other thing is just being a part of this community out here and sharing and giving back just brings me so much joy and really lights me up.

Susan [00:31:01]:
That's so great. And you do such a great job. Your posts are amazing.

Hadley Sorensen [00:31:05]:
Oh, thank you.

Susan [00:31:06]:
Loved you since the minute you came out. That means the world. It's so great. I know what lights us up. That's what's so amazing in this alcohol free lifestyle is that we get to figure that out. It's sort of like alcohol feels like this little black cloud, at least for me, that was, like, obscuring what brought me joy, obscuring what lit me up. It was like this soggy wet blanket on my life and you move that and it's like, it's not right away and it's not I remember reading in your book too. Like, you get to year 1 and there's no like, there's no fireworks.

Susan [00:31:43]:
Like, there's no cake unless you make it yourself.

Hadley Sorensen [00:31:45]:
Exactly.

Susan [00:31:46]:
You know? And you think you're gonna have this magical moment at year 1, you know, like, where, you know, all of a sudden the, you know, clouds part and, you know, this moment. And it was kinda like, nope. Now it's like

Hadley Sorensen [00:31:57]:
It's just another day.

Susan [00:31:59]:
366 is the next day.

Hadley Sorensen [00:32:01]:
You know, after 365. I remember that at a

Susan [00:32:04]:
100 days. I went, okay. It's 100 days.

Ruby [00:32:06]:
Yeah. But you can create one. You can create your own celebration. Celebration. Yes. Make make your own cake or go to the spa or what? I mean,

Susan [00:32:15]:
just celebrate

Ruby [00:32:16]:
all the time. You know, like, every month, I would try to get a massage and really celebrate because this is you're doing hard work. This is

Susan [00:32:25]:
Yeah. You do yeah.

Hadley Sorensen [00:32:26]:
I made myself a really big ass beautiful cake for my 1,000 day early last year, and I was like, yes. I deserve a cake. I've done something really big. And it was so fun.

Susan [00:32:39]:
Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's like the biggest, hardest thing I've ever done in my life, I think.

Ruby [00:32:44]:
Me too.

Susan [00:32:44]:
I've done a lot of stuff. You know? But this was this it's it's

Hadley Sorensen [00:32:48]:
It's a big one.

Ruby [00:32:49]:
It's something I'm the most proud of too. Yes. And life changing. So Oh my gosh. Yeah. I love that your book is about gray area drinkers. I just wanna say that you're right. That a lot of the quit lit is about, maybe, people that have gone farther down, you know, on the spectrum.

Ruby [00:33:09]:
So I really love that you are in this space, and I can't wait to follow you and on social media. I haven't. I'm one of the ones that haven't yet. So yeah. Oh,

Hadley Sorensen [00:33:20]:
Well, I'm so honored to have gotten to speak with you all like this.

Susan [00:33:23]:
Where can we find your book? Where can our listeners find your book and find you on Instagram to follow you?

Hadley Sorensen [00:33:30]:
Yep. So on Instagram, I am at hadley_sorensen. You can find the book from there. It's on Amazon. My website is hadley sorensen.com. I have a blog and some other things I try to keep up to date on there, but Instagram is kind of where I spend most of my time and have the most fun. So it's easy to get a link to the book from there, or you can just search it on Amazon.

Susan [00:33:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. Your posts are really clever and fun, and, I enjoy them so much. And I really enjoyed your book, and I'm so glad that you went with your intuition and just kept pushing through. And I know it must be so hard to get “nos” when you're trying to publish your book, but I'm so glad somebody picked it up and got it out into the world to help more people.

Hadley Sorensen [00:34:17]:
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Ruby [00:34:20]:
Thank you, sadly. Thank you. Yeah. My

Susan [00:34:22]:
pleasure. Bye. Bye. I feel like


Thanks so much for listening to the Feel Lit Alcohol Free Podcast. Do you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show? All you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts and do 2 simple things. Leave a rating and review telling us what you think of the show. And in that review, ask us any questions you have about breaking free from wine or living an alcohol free lifestyle. That's it. Then tune in to hear your question answered live. Don't forget to grab your copy of a wine free weekend at www.feellitpodcast.com
And remember, do something today that will help you feel lit. See you next time!