Maybe you’ve never thought of yourself as someone who drinks to “cope.” But you pour a glass before you start making dinner because it makes the whole thing feel easier.

You drink while tackling the laundry or answering emails because suddenly you can actually get going.

You reach for wine when you’re bored, restless, overstimulated, or desperate to quiet a brain that simply will not switch off.

We talk a lot around here about the jobs we give alcohol, but what if some of those jobs are connected to what your brain is actually seeking?

That’s exactly what we’re exploring on this week’s episode of Love Life Sober. My friend Brittany Tonkavich was diagnosed with ADHD as a little girl, and looking back, she can now see connections between the way her brain works and the role alcohol played throughout different seasons of her life, from risk-taking and excitement when she was younger to motivation, focus, creativity, boredom relief, and calming the noise as she got older.

This is not a conversation about diagnosing yourself with ADHD. It’s a conversation about becoming curious about your patterns, understanding the role dopamine may be playing, and asking one of the most important questions:

What do I actually need right now?

Because when we understand the job we’ve been giving alcohol, we can begin finding healthier ways to meet the need underneath it.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why alcohol can feel especially compelling when your brain is looking for quick dopamine

• How ADHD can show up in motivation, focus, boredom, impulsivity, and risk-taking

• Why a glass of wine can seem to make boring or difficult tasks easier to start

• The connection Brittany began to recognize between her ADHD and her own drinking patterns

• Why taking alcohol away doesn’t necessarily take away the need your brain was trying to meet

• How Brittany now finds healthier sources of dopamine

• Why understanding the way your brain works can lead to curiosity and freedom instead of shame

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

Listen on Apple Podcasts

If You’ve Ever Thought…

• “Why do I feel like I need a glass of wine just to get started, get things done, or quiet my brain?”

• “Why does alcohol seem to make boring things easier—or make life feel a little more interesting?”

This episode is for you.

Whether it’s adopting a 17-step morning routine, freezing ourselves in ice baths (no thanks not for me) or eating exclusively raw foods, the message is clear: optimize, optimize, optimize.

The same rhetoric seeps into the sobriety space. And living alcohol-free is an incredible tool to improve your mental and physical health. I’ll shout that from the rooftops.

But as a Christian woman, I’ve realized something deeper. Sobriety wasn’t just a hack to optimize my life. It was one of the most significant, most profound steps I needed to take on my personal road to sanctification.

Isaiah 48:10 (NLT) says:
“I have refined you, but not as silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.”

When I reflect on my own journey, I see how much of my sanctification happened in the furnace of giving up alcohol. It wasn’t easy, and it didn’t always feel “fun.” But it was holy work, a refining process that God used to draw me closer to Him.

If our ultimate goal is to become more like Christ, we need to spend time with Him, learn from Him, and hear His voice.

And I couldn’t do that with a hangover.

The world will tell you that sobriety is a tool for self-optimization, a way to feel better, look better, and perform better. Those things aren’t inherently bad. But if you love Jesus, sobriety can be something much deeper: a tool for sanctification. A way to get closer to Him, to open your heart to the Holy Spirit, and to allow Him to do the messy, gritty, often painful but profoundly beautiful work of refining you.

All the life hacks in the world won’t fill the void that only Christ can fill. Without Him, even the most optimized version of yourself will still feel empty. Something, better yet, Someone, will always be missing.

So, can I encourage you today, my beautiful friend?

What if going alcohol-free isn’t just about glowing skin, fitting into your favorite jeans, or finally having enough energy to check off your to-do list?

What if it’s about growing closer to your Father?

About hearing His voice more clearly?

About discovering what He wants to reveal to you in the parts of your heart that you haven’t explored in a long time, or maybe ever?

What if the Holy Spirit is nudging you to take a break from alcohol, not as a punishment, but as an invitation? An invitation to step into the ultimate purpose of your life here on earth: to become more like Jesus.

Sanctification isn’t always comfortable. It often feels like that furnace Isaiah talks about. But it’s worth it. It’s the process God uses to make us whole, to refine us, and to make us more like His Son.

So if you’ve been feeling that nudge to go alcohol-free, maybe now is the time to say yes. Not just for the benefits the world will promise you, but for the deeper transformation your Father has in store.

You’ve been refined, not as silver is refined, but in the furnace of His love, His grace, and His purpose for your life.

Trust Him with the process.

He’s not done with you yet.

The October Fast Is Open For Sign-Ups

If you’ve been thinking about taking a break from alcohol, I want to personally invite you to join us for the Love Life Sober October 40-Day Fast, kicking off October 5th.

For 40 days, we’re going to walk through my bestselling book, Love Life Sober, together, one day, one chapter, one decision at a time.

You’ll have access to four live coaching calls every single week, led by me, , and, and an incredible team of Fast Captains who understand this journey.

You’ll also have your own private space inside the Love Life Sober Community, where hundreds of women have found encouragement, accountability, friendship, prayer, and the kind of support that can completely change this experience.

Forty days to get curious. Forty days to wake up clear-headed. Forty days to hear God a little more clearly. Forty days to discover what your life might feel like when alcohol is no longer taking up so much space.

If something in you is wondering whether life could feel better without alcohol, come find out with us.

The October Fast begins October 5th, and I would absolutely love to walk these 40 days with you. You can learn more at this link.

The October Fast

What if the thing you keep reaching for isn’t really the problem, but a symptom of something deeper God wants to heal?

In this powerful conversation, I sit down with pastor Alex Seeley, author of The Divine Counselor, to talk about what it actually looks like to invite the Holy Spirit into the places where we feel stuck.

Alex shares openly about her own 20-year struggle with an eating disorder and control, while deeply loving Jesus, and why salvation doesn’t mean our wounds, coping mechanisms, and struggles instantly disappear.

Together, we explore the roots beneath addiction, the difference between conviction and shame, and why surrender often requires us to trust God with the very thing we’re most afraid to release.

Alex explains why our addictions and coping mechanisms can become counterfeit sources of safety, validation, comfort, or control, and how the Holy Spirit lovingly reveals what is underneath them so true healing can begin.

We also dive into identity and the danger of allowing a struggle to become the way we define ourselves. You may have struggled with alcohol, anxiety, control, disordered eating, or another coping mechanism, but that struggle is not your identity. Your deepest identity is found in who God says you are, His daugther.

And if you’ve ever wondered,

Why won’t God just take away my desire to drink?

Why can’t I hear the Holy Spirit?

Why am I still struggling when I love Jesus?

—this conversation is for you.

Freedom may not happen overnight. But as Alex reminds us, consistent obedience over time can lead us into a life we could not yet see from where we started.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why you can genuinely love Jesus and still struggle with alcohol, control, disordered eating, or other coping mechanisms.

• How addiction can be a symptom of deeper pain rather than the root problem itself.

• Why the things we reach for often provide something in the moment—comfort, numbness, validation, safety or control—and why that makes surrender difficult.

• How the Holy Spirit helps reveal the deeper wounds underneath our behaviors.

• Why God’s conviction is different from shame and condemnation.

• How a struggle can quietly become part of your identity—and how to begin replacing those labels with what God says about you.

• Why God may not simply remove a desire, but instead wants to heal and reorient the heart underneath it.

• Practical ways to begin recognizing the Holy Spirit’s voice.

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

Listen on Apple Podcasts Here

Join Us for The Divine Counselor Book Club

I loved The Divine Counselor so much, and it has had such an impact on my own understanding of and relationship with the Holy Spirit, that we’re making it our next Love Life Sober Community Book Club selection.

Throughout September and October, we’ll meet to work our way through the book together, with conversations led by our wonderful resident biblical scholar, .

If you’re already a member of the Love Life Sober Community, you’ll find everything you need inside the Book Club space.

And if you haven’t joined us yet the link is right here. Grab your copy of The Divine Counselor, and come read along with us. 🩷

Join The Community

For so many Christian women, the journey to freedom from alcohol can feel incredibly lonely. But what happens when we stop doing it alone and finally get in the same room?

In this special roundtable episode, we are joined by several of the speakers and leaders who will be gathering at the Aligned Conference in Holland, Michigan, September 22–24. Consider this your behind-the-scenes preview, and your personal invitation to join us.

Because Aligned isn’t just for the woman who has years of sobriety behind her. It’s for the woman who is still struggling. The woman who knows something needs to change but hasn’t quite figured out how. The woman who has stopped drinking but still feels alone. The woman who loves Jesus but has wondered why her faith wasn’t somehow “strong enough” to fix this.

In this conversation, you’ll hear from , who previews her message From Numb to Known and shares what it means to move out of hiding and into being fully known by God and by others.

, shares about the lie she believed for years, that struggling with alcohol meant there was something wrong with her faith, and why we don’t have to get ourselves together before coming to God.

gives us a glimpse into his message about gospel-centered recovery and why Christians don’t need to be afraid to put Jesus at the center of the conversation.

Love Life Sober leaders Susan, Heather, and Cindy share why they believe something powerful happens when Christian women gather in person, pray together, worship together, tell the truth about where they’ve been, and realize they aren’t alone.

You do not have to arrive at Aligned with your alcohol journey figured out. You don’t need a certain number of alcohol-free days. You don’t need to know anyone else who is coming. You can come exactly where you are.

We’ll worship. We’ll pray. We’ll learn. We’ll hear powerful testimonies. We’ll talk honestly about alcohol, recovery, faith, shame, freedom, and what it looks like to build a life centered on Jesus. But we’re also going to have FUN.

Because sometimes the conversation during a coffee break becomes just as meaningful as the message from the stage. Sometimes the woman you happen to sit next to becomes a lifelong friend. And sometimes, simply getting yourself into the room is the very first step toward something wild and beautiful that God has planned for you.

If you’ve been sitting on the fence about Aligned, we hope this episode gives you the encouragement you’ve been waiting for.

Come find your people. Come experience what sober Christian community can look like. Come expectant for what God might do when we finally get in the same room.

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

A Sneak Peek At Aligned

Join Us at Aligned

September 22–24, 2026
Holland, Michigan

Whether you’re sober, sober-curious, struggling, supporting someone you love, or simply longing for deeper faith-filled community, there is a seat for you at the table.

GET YOUR ALIGNED TICKET

Join the Free Aligned Online Community

Want to meet other women who are coming, ask questions, talk logistics, or simply start connecting before September? We’ve created a free online Aligned space in the Love Life Sober Community that is open to everyone, you do not need to be a member to join.

JOIN THE FREE ALIGNED SPACE

We cannot wait to hug you, worship with you, laugh with you, and see what God does when we all get in the room together. 🩷

Alcohol never entered the equation. What I wanted was to check out. I wanted to hit an imaginary eject button and get out of my own brain and body for a while. And after six and a half years without alcohol, I think it’s important to highlight this. The desire to drink can disappear while the very human desire to escape pain, fear, grief, anxiety or overwhelm remains. Getting free from alcohol doesn’t mean we stop experiencing hard emotions. It means we get to learn a completely different way of living through them.

When Alcohol Is Your Fastest Route Out

For a long time, alcohol was my fastest route out of an uncomfortable emotion. If I was anxious, I could drink. If I was grieving, I could drink. If I was overwhelmed after a long day, I could drink. If I wanted to stop thinking about something, soften something or temporarily care less about something, alcohol was there. It did change my emotional state, which is partly why it became such an effective coping mechanism. The problem was that it never actually resolved the emotion underneath it. It temporarily interrupted the feeling and then handed it back to me later, usually accompanied by a killer hangover and a dollop of shame.

This is the way I coped after my mom died. I drank my way through so much of that grief for two years, believing on some level that alcohol was helping me survive it. Then, during my first year sober, one of my dearest girlfriends died. Our children had become friends when they were little, and she and I became fast friends alongside them. When I learned that she had died, my brain immediately ran the old program. I remember thinking that I was going to get into my car, drive to a restaurant, sit at the bar and order a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I could practically see the condensation on the glass. Those thoughts were so bright and vivid because my brain knew exactly what we did when something hurt this badly.

But this time, another thought followed it: You know where that gets you. I had already spent two years trying to drink my way through the loss of my mother, and I knew it hadn’t healed anything. I went to my bedroom and cried for a few days. I sat with the grief, even though it was AWFUL. And in doing so, I began the long process of teaching my brain that I could survive devastating emotions without alcohol.

This Is What Renewing Your Mind Can Look Like

Renewing my mind, as Paul describes in Romans 12:2, has not meant that God instantly erased every old thought, craving or association I had built over decades. Often, it has meant noticing an old thought without automatically obeying it. It has meant recognizing the script my brain wants to run and choosing something different. Over time, through repetition and through God’s grace, those new choices have become easier, and then eventually, second nature.

That is why I wish women would give themselves so much more grace in the beginning of changing their relationship with alcohol. If you have spent twenty or thirty years pouring a glass of wine when you’re stressed, celebrating with champagne when you’re happy, drinking when you’re grieving, and reaching for alcohol when you want to relax, it makes perfect sense that your brain is going to keep suggesting alcohol in those situations for a while.

You have practiced that response thousands of times. It would actually be weird if your brain suddenly forgot decades of conditioning because, at 9 AM one morning, you declared, “Enough! I’m not doing this anymore.” Your decision can happen in a moment. Renewing your mind takes time, repetition, and practice.

Scripture gives us language for this process, too. Paul writes that “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, NIV). Taking a thought captive requires us to notice the thought in the first place. Instead of immediately believing I need a drink, I can become curious about what is underneath it.

Do I actually need alcohol, or am I exhausted? Am I lonely? Am I anxious? Am I overstimulated? Am I angry? Do I need rest? Do I need connection? Do I need to cry? Do I need to tell someone what is really going on? Do I need to get outside? Do I need to get quiet with God? The thought “I need a drink” can become an invitation to ask a much better question: “What do I actually need right now?”

Learning New Ways to Find Relief

This is also where the work can feel frustrating in the beginning, because healthier coping mechanisms often sound laughably unimpressive compared with alcohol. If you have spent years pouring a drink and experiencing an almost immediate chemical shift in the way you feel, being told to take a hot bath and open up your journal can sound bonkers. I understand that. (I would have rolled my eyes at some of those suggestions too.) But the reason those things didn’t feel adequate wasn’t because they didn’t work; it was because I hadn’t practiced them. Alcohol had decades of practice behind it. My healthier tools were brand new. (They also work in a different way because- dopamine and the hedonic setpoint- but that’s another article.)

Now, when I feel myself becoming overwhelmed, I sometimes literally walk out the door and start walking. Worship music always helps me. I take hot showers. I breathe. I pray. I call someone. I get back into my body and try to get with God instead of immediately trying to get away from myself. None of these things erase the difficult circumstance, but that is actually the point. I am no longer trying to erase my life every time part of it hurts. I am learning that I can experience a hard emotion without being consumed by it.

Paul tells us,

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7 NIV).

I used to read verses like this and focus on the words do not be anxious, almost as though anxiety itself meant I was doing something wrong. Now I notice the instruction that follows: present your requests to God. Scripture doesn’t tell me to numb what I am feeling. It gives me somewhere to take it.

For years, my instinct was to make difficult feelings go away as quickly as possible. I wasn’t taught particularly well how to sit with big, heavy heart emotions. I wanted to fix them, solve them, suppress them or get past them. Alcohol fit beautifully into that system because it appeared to fix the problem quickly.

Of course, it was only ever a temporary fix. The grief was still there. The anxiety was still there. The difficult relationship was still there. The disappointment was still there. The only difference was that I had delayed dealing with it and often made myself feel worse in the process.

What If You’re Not Ready to Stop Drinking?

Maybe this is where you are right now. Maybe you aren’t even sure that you want to stop drinking. Maybe you’re taking a break, doing a 40-Day Fast or simply beginning to wonder whether alcohol is doing as much for you as you have always believed. You don’t have to figure out the rest of your life today. I would simply encourage you to become deeply curious and ruthlessly truthful, while giving yourself so much grace and self-compassion. Pay attention to what alcohol actually does, not what our culture/the world has told you it does.

If you drink because you want to relax, notice how long the relaxation actually lasts. Notice whether one glass brings peace or whether it starts an internal negotiation about the second. If you have the second, notice whether your brain immediately begins thinking about the third. Notice how much mental space alcohol takes up before, during and after drinking.

Notice how you sleep. Notice how you feel the following morning. Notice whether the thing you were trying to escape is actually gone. Most importantly, ask yourself why you wanted the drink in the first place and whether alcohol genuinely gave you what you were looking for.

It Was Never Just About Alcohol

After years of coaching women through this process, I am more convinced than ever that this work is rarely just about alcohol. Alcohol may be the thing that gets our attention, but underneath it we often find grief, loneliness, anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, trauma, exhaustion, anger, disappointment, boredom, insecurity or a desperate need to control something we cannot control. Somewhere along the way, alcohol became one of the primary ways many of us learned to deal with being a human being in a broken, fallen world. Removing it gives us the opportunity to discover what we were actually trying to soothe.

That discovery takes time, which is also why I no longer look at every growth point as evidence that someone has failed. I have coached women who have taken years to become alcohol-free, and I have watched God use those years to reveal things to them they simply couldn’t see at the beginning. This isn’t permission to stay stuck or an excuse to continue doing something we know is hurting us. It is an invitation to hold the journey with enough grace to recognize that God may be doing deeper work than we can see. Philippians 1:6 reminds us that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (NIV). We can keep moving toward freedom without demanding that our timeline look exactly like someone else’s.

You Don’t Have to Escape Your Life

Six and a half years later, I can tell you that not drinking has become easier than I ever imagined it could be. But God has not made me immune to pain. I still grieve. I still get overwhelmed. I still experience fear, disappointment and anxiety, and there are still moments when I would love to press that imaginary button and escape. The difference is that I no longer believe alcohol can rescue me from those moments. I know too much now. I know where that road leads, and I know there is somewhere better I can go.

Maybe that is one of the greatest gifts. I no longer need to escape my life every time it hurts. I can stay present, bring what I’m feeling to God, and walk through the hard thing instead of trying to drink my way around it. Do I do this perfectly? NO WAY. I will be a work in progress until heaven.

If the old script still loads first for you, please keep going. Get curious about what is underneath it, take the thought captive, and bring the real need to Jesus. Keep practicing the new response. There may come a day when you realize, almost without noticing, that alcohol is no longer the thing you want when life gets hard. That is just how completely God can renew a mind.

In this episode of the Love Life Sober Podcast, I’m joined by bestselling author Jennifer Dukes Lee to talk about her beautiful new book, How to Love Your Mornings.

Together we explore why mornings are one of God’s greatest gifts, how Scripture is filled with stories that begin at daybreak, and why creating simple, faith-filled morning rituals can transform not only your day, but your entire life.

Whether you’re newly alcohol-free, struggling to find consistency in your quiet time, or simply longing to wake up with more peace and purpose, this conversation is packed with practical encouragement and biblical wisdom.

Jennifer also shares why she studied more than 200 mornings in the Bible, what Jesus’ own morning rhythms likely looked like, and why God’s mercies truly are new every single morning.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• The biblical theme that connects creation, the resurrection, and everything in between

• The difference between a morning routine and a morning ritual

• Why your quiet time doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful

• How to rebuild healthy habits after you’ve fallen out of rhythm

• Why sleep is a gift from God—and how “revenge bedtime procrastination” may be stealing your joy

• The surprising morning habits Jesus likely practiced every day

• The four different Morning Archetypes and how to discover yours

• How to create a morning rhythm that actually fits your personality and season of life

• One simple phrase to begin saying every morning that can change your perspective

If You’ve Ever Thought...

• “I know I should spend time with God in the morning, but I just can’t stay consistent.”

• “I’ve fallen out of my quiet time, and I don’t know how to get back.”

• “Everyone else’s morning routine seems so much better than mine.”

• “I’m too busy to create healthy morning habits.”

...this episode is for you.

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

How to Love Your AF Mornings

Get Jennifer’s Book:

How to Love Your Morning: Faith-Filled Habits to Build a Life of Joy and Purpose One Day at a Time

Like so many gals in our community, I looked forward to that glass of wine at the end of the day. It was how I celebrated good news, softened difficult days, and marked the transition from work to “rest.”

Now, I can see alcohol for what it truly was: a substance that had a hold on me, a coping mechanism that I had a firm grip around, and a drug that wasn’t actually doing the things I was drinking it for beyond, perhaps, a 30-minute hit.

This week on social media, a very popular Christian podcaster (we’re talking hundreds of thousands of followers) posted on Instagram that if alcohol was your master, it was something to walk away from. Naturally (I can’t help myself), I went straight to the comments because it is very rare that a popular Christian takes such a hard-line stance on alcohol. I was excited, and I wanted to find others who had come to the same realization I had.

There were, of course, some comments in support, but the majority were defending alcohol.

“Drinking isn’t a sin!”

“But Jesus drank wine!”

“It only counts if you get drunk.”

I myself have been asked this question a number of times on Christian podcasts and radio:

“But Christy, drinking actually isn’t a sin. How do you respond to the fact that Jesus turned water into wine?”

Here’s the verse that I find most helpful with this question:

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.
1 Corinthians 6:12 (NIV)

Now, Paul isn’t talking specifically about alcohol, but he is talking about anything that begins to exercise authority over our lives. His concern wasn’t merely whether something was permissible, but whether it had quietly become our master.

Instead of asking whether I had a “drinking problem,” or whether I was drinking enough to fall into the sin category, I began asking whether alcohol had become something I couldn’t imagine living without.

Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel gave that question even greater weight:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”
Matthew 6:24 (NIV)

When we hear that verse, we often think about money because that’s the example Jesus uses. But the principle extends far beyond our finances. Anything we depend on for our security, comfort, identity, or peace has the potential to compete for the place that belongs to God alone.

Looking back, alcohol looked like it offered to solve problems that I should have been bringing to Jesus. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it became my preferred source of comfort, rest, celebration, and relief. I never intended for that to happen, which is exactly why I think it’s worth asking ourselves some honest questions.

The following three questions aren’t meant to produce shame or fear. They are simply an invitation to examine our hearts before the Lord. They certainly exposed mine.

First, how much space does alcohol occupy in your life?

Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21, NIV). Treasure isn’t only measured by what we spend our money on. It’s also measured by what we consistently think about.

How often do you think about drinking? Does it shape your nightly plans? Do you make sure there’s always enough wine in the house? Does a holiday, celebration, or stressful week immediately make you think about alcohol? If someone unexpectedly suggested giving it up for a month, would that feel like a major loss?

These aren’t questions designed to make you feel guilty. They are simply diagnostic questions. Whatever continually occupies our thoughts often reveals what has captured our hearts.

Second, what job are you asking alcohol to do?

This may be the most important question of all because it shifts our focus away from the quantity of alcohol we’re drinking and toward the reason we’re drinking it.

For years, I wasn’t simply drinking wine. I was asking wine to comfort me. I wanted it to help me relax after difficult days, celebrate good ones, quiet anxious thoughts, and provide a sense of relief from long hectic days with crazy kiddos. None of those desires were sinful. God created us to long for rest, joy, comfort, and peace. The problem wasn’t the longing itself. The problem was where I was looking to satisfy it.

Jesus offers something more sustainable:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 11:28–29 (NIV)

I had spent years trying to manufacture with alcohol what Jesus freely offered through Himself. Wine could temporarily numb my exhaustion, but it couldn’t give my soul rest. It could distract me from anxiety for an evening, but it couldn’t produce lasting peace. It could create the feeling of comfort without ever addressing the deeper ache underneath.

That realization also transformed the way I read Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles...”
2 Corinthians 1:3–4 (NIV)

I had been asking alcohol to do the very thing God says He delights in doing Himself.

Finally, if God asked you to put alcohol down, what thoughts would come up for you?

Imagine Jesus gently asking you to set alcohol aside for a season. (This may not be so hard to imagine, because you may have been hearing Him say it to you for a while now).

What happens in your heart?

Do you feel peace? Or do you immediately begin negotiating? Does fear appear? Frustration? Resistance? A list of reasons why now isn’t the right time?

When I first sensed God inviting me to let go of alcohol, I was surprised by how scared I was. That fear was evidence that He was lovingly putting His finger on an area of my life where I needed to trust Him.

The Holy Spirit exposes these things because He loves us too much to leave us mastered by something that can never satisfy us.

Looking back now, alcohol revealed where I was searching for life apart from Christ. I wanted alcohol to give me peace, but Jesus is my peace. I wanted alcohol to provide comfort, yet Scripture calls God “the God of all comfort.” I wanted alcohol to help me rest, while Jesus had been saying all along, “Come to me... and you will find rest for your souls.”

Freedom isn’t ultimately found in learning to drink less or even in successfully giving up alcohol. Freedom is found when Jesus becomes the source of everything we once believed alcohol could provide. Only then do we discover that He was never trying to take something good away from us. He was inviting us into something infinitely better.

So perhaps the question isn’t simply, “Is drinking a sin?”

Perhaps the better question is, “Lord, has alcohol taken a place in my life that belongs to You?”

And if something in you stirred as you read these questions, if you felt resistance, recognition, conviction, or even the quietest nudge from the Holy Spirit, I’d encourage you not to rush past it. Bring it to Jesus. Ask Him what He wants to show you, and then be willing to listen.

And if you feel called to respond, I’d love to hear from you in the comments: Which of these three questions is God asking you to sit with today?

Most of us aren't looking for another drink, we're looking for relief. Relief from the shame, the striving, the pressure, and the exhaustion of holding everything together.

If you've been trying to stop drinking, break free from emotional numbing, or finally experience the rest Jesus promises, this conversation with my friend, literary agent, bestselling author, speaker, and host of the Pray Every Day podcast, , is for you. Together, we explore why surrender isn't losing control—it's the place where healing truly begins.

Together we discuss Mary’s new book "The Freedom of Surrender" and touch on topics such as: surrender, shame, control, emotional numbing, alcohol, and why God always pursues the root before He changes the behavior.

We unpack why numbing—whether through alcohol, scrolling, binge-watching, overworking, or endless striving—never gives the peace we're searching for, and how daily surrender opens the door to lasting healing, freedom, and genuine rest.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why emotional numbing never produces the rest your soul is searching for.
• The difference between numbing and true soul renewal through Christ.
• Why surrender is a daily practice—not a one-time decision.
• How control can quietly become its own addiction.
• Why God always heals the root before changing the behavior.
• How shame and regret keep women stuck—and how grace breaks the cycle.
• The role of safe community in lasting freedom from alcohol.

If you've ever thought...

• "Why do I keep reaching for numbing instead of real rest?"
• "I want to stop drinking, but I'm scared of what will come up if I do."
• "I can't let go of the shame and regret from my past."
• "Why does surrender to God feel so difficult?"

My beautiful friend, this episode is for you. 🩷

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Get Mary’s Book Here:

The Freedom of Surrender: Forty Devotions for a Joyful Life in Christ

The Freedom of Surrender

There is something extra special and comforting about a trip where I know exactly what to expect. I know I’m going to order the poke bowl and fries for lunch, I request the same massage therapist every year, and I joked this year that next year I’ll probably be requesting the same exact hotel room.

The ritual-trip also includes Holly and me choosing a book together to read by the pool (this year it was Theo of Golden) and ordering a lavender lemonade. The lavender is grown on-site, and the drink became our signature summer mocktail years ago.

These are two days of the year where I try to completely switch off, and it’s usually much needed by this point in the summer. So I giddily sat down on day one, fired up my Kindle, and asked the sweet server for a lavender lemonades, guacamole, and fries.

We settled in with our books and, when the drink was placed in my hand, I took a sip. I said out loud, “Yummmm! We made it! Yay!”—a declaration that our trip was starting off just the way we’d hoped. And then I took another sip. And then a third. And possibly a fourth while digitally flipping through Theo’s portrait bestowals.

And then I felt the burn. Right in my chest. I realised that, in my excitement, I’d forgotten to say “virgin.” The lavender lemonade (served without alcohol, on-tap in the spa!) was also on the cocktail menu at the pool. The burning I felt in my chest was vodka. I had taken multiple gulps and now I was going to have to experience whatever buzz was going to come from those three or four overly excited sips.

For a split second I just sat there staring at the glass. I wasn’t afraid I was going to start drinking again, and I wasn’t angry (it was my fault after all for thinking I knew the menu so well that I didn’t even check!), but I did have that immediate feeling of, “Ick!!” I don’t want alcohol in my body.

And then I thought, “Buckle up. We’re about to have a growth point.”

I seriously hesitated to even write about this because I have seen so many people in the soberverse genuinely freak out after accidentally having a sip of alcohol. They panic that they’ve lost their sobriety. That they’ve ruined YEARS of work. That they have to start over. I don’t believe any of that is true.

In fact, I think panicking about losing your sober streak can sometimes reveal that sobriety itself has become the idol. (I’ve got a podcast all about that coming later this year, and it’s a goooood one, so more on that later.)

But I also know some of you have accidentally taken a sip, or you’re terrified of what would happen if you did. So if this experience can encourage even one woman today, then I want to share what I learned.

And, last week on a coaching call in True Vine, we talked about how not to waste growth points. So, in the spirit of not wasting this one, I want to tell you what I learned after accidentally having alcohol for the first time in more than six years.

I really don’t like the feeling of being buzzed.

Yes, it was slight, but I felt it. My speech felt a little garbled for a few minutes, I didn’t feel 100% in control, and it was not relaxing. I think this is important to point out because the feeling I once desired and craved at the end of every single day was no longer enjoyable at all. I hope that encourages you, my beautiful friend, because it can change for you too.

Alcohol is highly addictive, but it no longer has a hold on me.

We talk a lot about how alcohol is highly addictive, and it is, but those few sips did not make me want one drop more. After quickly asking the server to remake it without alcohol, I had absolutely no desire for anything except to feel like myself again. Again, I think it’s important to point out that alcohol does not have to have a hold on you forever, even if it feels like it does right now. You really can find freedom.

You can lose the desire so completely that even experiencing the physiological effects sends you running in the opposite direction.

Freedom is not tied up in alcohol consumption or a day count.

How many times have you heard me say this in the community? You can have decades of alcohol-free or days, but if you still desire it, that is not freedom. If you’re still scared of it, I would argue (and this totally depends on each woman) that it might not be freedom either. My freedom was not affected because I accidentally ingested this yucky drug we are all trying to move away from.

My freedom is in Christ, and because I desire Him so much more than alcohol or its effects, those accidental sips changed nothing. I say this for the woman who has her sobriety validation tied to how little or how long she has or hasn’t been drinking. It’s not about the alcohol, my friend. It’s about the why. It’s about the desire. And it’s about God renewing your mind.

He has completely renewed my mind when it comes to alcohol. Totally. Completely. A 180-degree turn from what it once was. (I am obviously still working on many other areas!)

And the beautiful thing is that the same God who did that work in me is doing a work in you too.

He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6).

What He did for me, He can and will do for you. Keep going!

Alcohol adds nothing.

I didn’t really need (or want) this reminder, but I’m hoping it encourages you. The beauty and specialness of my annual Ojai trip with my bestie is about being with my bestie. It’s about resting, connecting, laughing, and simply being together. The scenery and the spa don’t hurt either, but I don’t need alcohol for any of those things.

Not for rest. Not for connection. Not for joy.

If you’re reading this right now and this feels so far from possible for you, then, my beautiful, beautiful friend, I want you to know that I once thought it was impossible too. It’s not. With God, all things are possible.

Jesus looked hard at them and said, “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it.” (Matthew 19:26, The Message)

True freedom isn’t found in never drinking alcohol.

It’s finding that Jesus has become the source of the peace, comfort, joy, rest, confidence, and connection you were once looking for in a drink.

I hope this week’s Refill reminds you that your alcohol exodus isn’t ultimately about alcohol. It’s about so much more than that.

The world—and much of the secular soberverse—defines freedom very differently than you and I do because that version of freedom is often measured by day counts, streaks, and meetings attended. Here, we get to surrender. We get to abide in Christ. We get to let Him renew our minds. And as He does, alcohol slowly stops being the centre of the story.

Jesus becomes the centre instead.

And, my beautiful friend, that is true freedom.

One of the things I find most fascinating about alcohol is the amount of energy we spend trying to decide whether or not we have a “real problem.”

We compare ourselves to other drinkers. We make rules. We count the number of days we can go without drinking. We remind ourselves that we don’t drink every day, that we’ve never blacked out, that we’ve never gotten a DUI, that our marriages are intact, and that our careers are thriving (or at least, good enough).

I know because I did exactly the same thing.

Over the years, I’ve coached hundreds of women who’ve done it too.

But what if we’re asking the wrong question?

This week on the Love Life Sober Podcast, I sat down with one of the beautiful women on our Leadership Team, Heather, whose story has stayed with me long after we finished coaching.

Heather spent years asking the same question so many of us ask:

“Do I really need to stop drinking?”

Heather didn’t fit the stereotype of someone who “needed” to quit drinking. She had been married for more than twenty years. She loved her job as a lactation consultant. She was leading Bible studies at church. She had a wonderful son and a life that looked, by most people’s standards, completely put together.

From the outside, there was no dramatic rock bottom.

But inside, she knew something wasn’t right.

After the heartbreaking loss of her sister, wine had quietly become her place of refuge. It was where she turned when life felt overwhelming instead of turning to Jesus.

Can you relate?

Heather’s life circumstances didn’t suddenly become easy after she stopped drinking. She still had grief to carry. She still had conflict to navigate. She still had lonely evenings and difficult conversations to face.

What changed wasn’t her life.

It was where she turned when life became difficult.

Instead of pouring a glass of wine, she went for a walk. She prayed. She journaled. She called a friend. She sat with uncomfortable emotions long enough for God to meet her there instead of numbing them away.

That’s where transformation happens.

In this episode, Heather and I talk about grief, growth points, idols, why you don’t need to hit rock bottom to desire freedom, and what happened when she finally stopped asking whether she could drink and started asking whether alcohol was leading her closer to Jesus.

📺 Watch the episode:

🎧 Listen to the podcast:

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Join Heather and Me at Aligned

One of the greatest gifts of this community is that women like Heather don’t just experience freedom for themselves, they turn around and help other women find it too.

Today, Heather serves as one of our incredible Leadership Team members, encouraging women, praying with them, and reminding them that they’re never walking this journey alone.

This September, you’ll have the chance to meet her in person at Aligned, our first-ever conference for Christian women who are sober or sober curious.

If you’ve ever wished you could spend a few days surrounded by women who genuinely understand this journey while growing deeper in your faith, I truly believe Aligned is going to be something special.

We would absolutely love to welcome you to Holland, Michigan, on September 22-24. I have a feeling you’ll leave with more than new friends, you’ll leave with renewed hope that the freedom you’ve been longing for really is possible. 🩷

The Aligned Conference

But the moment that got me happened before Forrest Frank sang one of his newer songs.

He walked to the microphone and asked, “How many of you believe prayer changes things?”

The Intuit Dome erupted with cheers.

Then he smiled and quietly said, “You’re in this room because somebody prayed for you.”

And then came the tears. Because in that instant, I knew exactly who had prayed the prayers that led me to that room.

My mom.

If you’ve read Love Life Sober, you know that when I was growing up, my mom didn’t drink.

She loved Jesus with her whole heart, and she made sure my brothers and I knew Him too. Every Sunday she drove us an hour each way to church because she wanted us to sit under the teaching of her favorite pastor. Looking back now, I can’t imagine how exhausting that must have been.

The light of Jesus shone so brightly through her. Our house was the gathering place. It was where my friends came for sleepovers, where everyone got ready for prom, where the kids from school knew they could knock on the door for a swim or a snack even if I wasn’t home. My mom welcomed everyone.

She volunteered at homeless shelters. She fostered children who needed a safe place to sleep for a few months. She anonymously paid the school tuition for a family going through a difficult season. She was generous in ways I didn’t fully appreciate until I became an adult.

She was also my best friend.

We had our Mother-Daughter Trips—or “MDTs”, as I called them. First to Disneyland and Palm Springs, and later, as I got older, to Mexico and Europe. Some of my happiest memories are wrapped up in those trips and the fun we shared.

Then, when I was twenty-four, something changed.

She started drinking.

Over time, alcohol slowly introduced me to someone I no longer recognized.

The woman who had once been full of joy became sad. The woman who had always encouraged me became critical. When Chris and I got engaged, she was furious. When we moved to London, she accused me of abandoning her.

It broke my heart.

And to be totally honest, I didn’t respond well either.

Instead of approaching her with compassion, I met her pain with my own anger. To cope with the confusion and grief, I drank too. Alcohol became the thing we both reached for, and in different ways, it damaged us both.

When my mom died, I often say I grieved two people. I grieved the mother I grew up with, and I grieved the mother alcohol had taken from me long before her funeral.

For years, it felt as though her struggle with alcohol was the final chapter of her story.

Standing at the Forrest Frank concert, however, I was reminded that before her struggle with alcohol, there were her prayers.

Long before alcohol entered our family, there was a mother faithfully asking God to draw her daughter close to Jesus. Long before I ever wrestled with my own drinking, there was a woman kneeling in prayer over my life. Long before I would one day write a book, start a ministry, or walk alongside thousands of women searching for freedom, there was someone quietly asking God to do what only He could do.

Those prayers didn’t stop working when alcohol entered the picture.

They didn’t lose their power because our relationship became complicated.

They didn’t expire when she died.

God kept answering them.

As Forrest began singing Somebody Prayed, I looked around that arena.

There were thousands of us standing together, but every single one of us had arrived there by a different road. Some had been prayed for by parents. Others by grandparents. Some by faithful spouses, pastors, teachers, or friends. Perhaps some had been carried to Jesus by the prayers of people whose names they will never even know.

None of us got there by accident.

Somebody prayed.

I couldn’t help but think about the unexpected beauty God has written into my own story. The little girl whose mother drove her to church now spends her days trying to point other women toward Jesus.

What the enemy intended to destroy has become the very place where God displays His redemption.

That doesn’t erase the pain.

It doesn’t rewrite the years we lost.

It doesn’t pretend the battle wasn’t devastating.

But it reminds me that alcohol never gets to write the ending.

Only God does.

That’s a lie the enemy loves to tell us, that whatever we’re facing today is the end of the story.

That the marriage will never heal.

That the prodigal child will never come home.

That we’ll never break free from the wine bottle.

That the prayers we’ve whispered through tears have somehow gone unheard.

The Bible tells a different story.

Our God is always working in generations.

The prayers you pray today may become someone else’s testimony years from now.

One day your daughter may find herself standing in a church service, a college dorm room, a hospital waiting room, or even at a concert, overwhelmed by the realization that God has been pursuing her all along.

Your husband may one day look back on his life and realize that grace reached him because his wife refused to stop praying.

Your friend may finally find freedom after years of struggle and never fully know how many prayers paved the road that led her there.

We rarely get to see all that God is doing while we’re waiting.

But He is always working.

In the years after I lost my mom, and after I turned to alcohol to cope with my grief, I believed the last decade of her life would define how I remembered her. I thought alcohol would become the final word in her story.

But my friend Forrest reminded me of something different.

Today, when I think of my mom, I see a woman who loved Jesus.

A woman who faithfully prayed for her children.

A woman whose prayers outlived her struggle with alcohol.

Those prayers became the catalyst for my own love for Jesus and, ultimately, for the birth of the Love Life Sober ministry.

Because she prayed, Love Life Sober exists.

Because she prayed, thousands of women around the world are discovering that Jesus comforts them better than alcohol ever could.

God has truly restored what the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25). He has worked all things together for good (Romans 8:28). Even the things that were dark, broken, and messy.

The enemy wanted alcohol to become my mother’s legacy.

Instead, her legacy is prayer.

And because she prayed, generations of families are being changed.

So yes, Forrest.

I believe prayer changes things.

It changed me.

And by God’s grace, it is still changing generations.

Before you go, I'd love to ask you the same question this article began with:

Who prayed for you?

If someone immediately came to mind, I’d love for you to tell me about them in the comments below or inside the LLS Community. I have a feeling your story might be exactly the encouragement someone else needs today.

For years, so many of us believed there were only two kinds of drinkers: people who could “take it or leave it,” and people who had hit rock bottom.

But what if you don’t fit into either category?

What if you can stop drinking for a while... but you can’t seem to stay stopped? What if you aren’t drinking every day, but alcohol has quietly become the thing you reach for whenever life feels stressful, lonely, overwhelming, or worth celebrating?

In this week’s episode of the Love Life Sober Podcast, I’m joined by my lovely friend Jenn Kautsch (), founder of SoberSis and one of the original voices in the sober curious movement.

Together we unpack what it really means to live sober-minded—not simply avoiding alcohol, but becoming fully awake, alert, present, and available to the life God has for us.

Jenn shares why so many women get stuck in the exhausting cycle of moderation, why “gray area drinking” is far more common than most people realize, and how alcohol can quietly become a socially acceptable way of numbing what God is inviting us to bring to Him instead.

One of my favorite moments in our conversation is when Jenn reminds us that this journey isn’t about perfection or performance. It’s about progress. It’s about presence. It’s about surrendering one small area of our lives and discovering that Jesus has been inviting us into so much more all along.

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking...

• I can stop for a bit... I just can’t seem to stay stopped.

• Wine o’clock is the only thing getting me through my life right now

• I know something needs to change.

...then I truly believe this conversation will encourage you.

Whether you’re sober curious, somewhere in the gray area, or you’ve been alcohol-free for years, this episode is a beautiful reminder that freedom isn’t simply about what we’re giving up. It’s about Who we’re drawing closer to.

Watch Here:

**Love watching Love Life Sober? Did you know that YouTube subscribers get a notification to watch a day earlier? Just head to the Love Life Sober Channel and tap subscribe at the top to get your weekly episode every Monday!

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Listen On Apple Podcasts Here

The Countdown to Aligned

We’re counting down to the ALIGNED Conference, friends!

Holland, Michigan. September 22-24

Whether you're newly sober, sober curious, or have been alcohol-free for years, Aligned is a place where you can exhale, be fully understood, and grow deeper in your relationship with Jesus alongside women who truly get it.

Come expecting powerful teaching, honest conversations, heartfelt worship, and the kind of authentic community that reminds you you're not alone. We would absolutely love to welcome you. 🩷

The Aligned Conference

I couldn’t make sense of it. After years of friendship, this gal simply cut me out of her life. My mind became consumed with trying to understand why. What had I done? What was she thinking? Had I missed something?

And this is where social media becomes one of our worst enemies.

Maybe you’ve been there too.

Checking an old friend’s profile. Looking up an old boyfriend. Wondering where they are now, who they’re with, what they’re doing. Refreshing Instagram, hoping that somehow the next post will finally give you the answer you’ve been searching for.

Can you relate?

One afternoon I was sitting at my laptop, once again trying to make sense of everything with my friend Google, when I felt the unmistakable nudge of the Holy Spirit.

Stop looking back.

As I often do with that still, small voice, I ignored it the first few times.

I refreshed Instagram again.

I searched again.

I looked again.

But eventually, after hearing that same gentle nudge over and over, I realized the jig was up. It was time to stop looking behind me and start paying attention to what God was placing in front of me. Which is often, so much easier said that done.

Have you ever noticed that when God wants to teach you something, He seems to bring it up everywhere?

A Bible verse.

A sermon.

A podcast.

A conversation with a friend.

It’s as though He keeps highlighting the same lesson until eventually you’re out walking the dog, look up toward the sky and laugh,

“Okay, God... I get it.” (Just me?)

That’s exactly what happened. Suddenly, Lot’s wife was everywhere.

And then I listened to a podcast by Christine Caine and realized there was also a lesson here for all of us on an alcohol exodus.

Jesus tells us;

“Remember what happened to Lot’s wife.” (Luke 17:32)

Isn’t it wild that of the roughly 170 women mentioned in Scripture, Lot’s wife is the one Jesus specifically tells us not to forget?

As a quick refresher, Genesis 19 tells us that God sent angels to rescue Lot and his family from Sodom before destroying the city. Sodom had become deeply corrupt, and the family was given one simple instruction as they fled:

Don’t look back.

“But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.” Genesis 19:26

The message made me think about leaving our drinking identities behind.

Back in 2020, when I first started sharing publicly about my sobriety, one of the posts that got a ton of likes and reposts was about grieving the life of your drinking self.

Hundreds of women resonated because I was trying to put words to something we'd all felt but struggled to explain: the grief that can come from stepping away from a familiar life before we've fully embraced the new one.

When we’ve spent years identifying as the fun one... the hostess... the life of the party... the girl who always ordered the next round... it can feel surprisingly painful to leave that version of ourselves behind. Sometimes we find ourselves looking back longingly at that woman we used to be.

Now, if you’ve read Love Life Sober, you’ll know that fading effect bias is very real.

Our brains conveniently soften painful memories while amplifying the enjoyable ones. We remember the laughter but forget the anxiety. We remember the buzz but forget the shame. We remember feeling carefree while conveniently editing out the hangovers, the arguments, the regret, and the promises we’d made to ourselves.

The “fun” we miss was often chaos.

The “boredom” we fear is frequently just unrecognized peace.

But here’s my question for us today, my beautiful friend…

Should we be looking back at our drinking days, longingly, at all?

Inside the Love Life Sober Community we often compare leaving alcohol to the Israelites leaving Egypt.

God rescues them from slavery. But instead of trusting Him, they spend much of the journey reminiscing about Egypt. They forget the chains and remember the food. They forget the pain and remember what felt familiar.

Isn’t that exactly what we do with our drinking?

The first few months, or even years, without alcohol can feel like wandering through the wilderness. We’ve left our counterfeit comfort behind, but we haven’t yet fully settled into the freedom God is leading us toward.

And so we look back.

We romanticize what once enslaved us.

All the while, God is simply asking us to keep following Him.

In that sermon (linked below) Christine said;

“If we linger too long where we’re not supposed to be, we’ll start longing for what we should no longer be lingering in.

And many of us are lingering and longing for things that God is asking us to leave behind so that we can be free to lay a hold of all of that in which Christ Jesus has taken a hold of us. Now the last thing any of us want to turn is into a pillar of salt. The last thing we wanna be is stuck forever in a place where God doesn’t want us to be or to be stuck in a season that’s actually finished.”1

A season that’s actually finished.

Is your drinking season finished? (Or is it time for it to be?)

Then why are you still looking back?

Why do we remember the nights dancing on tables as the best nights of our lives when many of them ended with us passed out on the bathroom floor and waking up full of shame?

Why do we glorify the glass of wine that supposedly “helped us relax” when it robbed us of deep sleep and left us anxious the next day?

Why do we miss the date nights that revolved around wine when they often ended in arguments and days of not speaking to each other?

If we're called not to conform to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2), why do we keep peeking over our shoulders, wishing we could have just a little piece of it back?

Listen, I truly understand what it feels like to be torn between the life you’ve known and the life God is calling you into.

It isn’t easy.

Grieving your old identity is real. Missing what felt familiar is real. I’ve heard countless women express exactly the same struggle, both inside the Community and throughout the wider soberverse.

But perhaps that longing is also an invitation.

An invitation to ask God to transform not only our behaviour, but our thinking.

Because the danger of continually looking back is that we never fully move forward.

Like Lot's wife, we become stuck because our hearts remain fixed on a place God is trying to rescue us from. Maybe not literally turned into a pillar of salt, but mentally rooted in a season God has already asked us to leave behind.

Sometimes that lingering keeps us trapped in the moderation fantasy.

“If only I could stick to two glasses...”

“If only I could drink like everyone else...”

“If only...”

Those thoughts keep our hearts facing Sodom instead of the future God is leading us toward.

The Apostle Paul gives us a very different picture of what following Jesus looks like:

“I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” - Philippains 3:13-14

So today, my beautiful friend, if you find yourself still looking back—still idealizing wine, still wondering how to keep alcohol in your life even though you sense God asking you to put it down—ask Him to renew your mind.

Ask Him to help you see alcohol as it truly is.

Ask Him to remove the distorted, rose-coloured glasses.

Ask Him to loosen your grip on the very idol He has lovingly asked you to surrender.

And then...

Keep walking.

Don’t look back.

God never asks us to stop looking back because He's trying to deprive us. He asks us to stop looking back because He knows where He's taking us. Freedom is always found in following Him forward, never in returning to what once held us captive.

Remember Lot’s wife. Keep your eyes on Jesus. He's leading you somewhere far better than anything you've left behind.

In this week’s episode of the Love Life Sober Podcast, I’m joined by alcohol mindset coach, podcast host, and author for a powerful conversation about the emotional needs that often lie beneath our drinking.

Anna shares her journey from decades of relying on alcohol to lasting freedom, and explains why so many women don’t identify with traditional recovery labels yet still find themselves stuck in the exhausting cycle of drinking, moderating, promising themselves they’ll cut back, and starting all over again.

Together, Christy and Anna explore why lasting change begins with awareness instead of shame, how curiosity helps uncover the real reasons we drink, and why creating a life you genuinely love naturally weakens alcohol’s grip.

If you’ve ever wondered...

• Why can’t I stop drinking?

• Am I a grey area drinker?

• Why does moderation feel so exhausting?

• What am I actually looking for when I pour a drink?

• Can I change my relationship with alcohol without shame?

...this episode is for you. 🩷

In this episode you’ll learn:

• What “grey area drinking” really means—and why so many women identify with it.

• Why awareness, not shame, is the first step toward freedom.

• How alcohol quietly becomes an emotional management system.

• Why moderation often feels more exhausting than quitting.

• The life-changing question Anna believes every woman should ask: “Is my life good enough?”

• How to discover what you’re truly thirsty for.

• Why lasting change is rarely linear—and why that’s okay.

• Practical ways to begin building a life that naturally replaces alcohol.

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

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Over the past six weeks, I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside so many incredible women as they’ve taken brave steps away from alcohol and, even more importantly, closer to Jesus.

Watching what God has been doing in this community has reminded me of something I find myself saying often on our coaching calls: our exodus from alcohol isn’t simply about getting sober. It’s about becoming more like Christ.

At first, most of us get here because we want to stop drinking. We want better sleep, less anxiety, healthier relationships, fewer regrets. We want to feel like ourselves again. Those are all good desires, and I don’t believe God dismisses any of them.

But somewhere along the journey, something begins to shift.

Instead of asking, “How do I stop drinking?” we begin asking deeper questions.

Why do I feel like I need alcohol in the first place?

What am I really looking for? Comfort? Rest? Relief? Confidence? Connection?

And then comes the question that changes everything: Could Jesus meet those needs better than alcohol ever could?

That’s where this journey stops being merely about sobriety and starts becoming about sanctification.

I’ve learned that sanctification is slow, ordinary, sometimes uncomfortable work. It’s God gently revealing the places where we’ve been relying on something other than Him and lovingly inviting us to trust Him instead. Looking back over my own journey, and watching so many women walk through a 40-Day Fast, I can see that leaving alcohol behind has become one of God’s greatest tools for shaping my heart.

Here are just a few of the ways He’s been doing that.

Alcohol taught me to listen to my flesh. Jesus is teaching me to renew my mind.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 that we are to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” If I’m honest, before I stopped drinking, I didn’t really know that was possible. My thoughts simply felt like they were all true.

If my brain told me I deserved wine after a stressful day, I drank. If it whispered that everyone else drank like this, I believed it. If it convinced me that I would have more fun with a glass in my hand, I rarely questioned it.

I love how teaches that the brain and the mind are two different things. My brain may generate old pathways, cravings and automatic thoughts, but through Christ I don’t have to obey every thought that passes through my mind.

Instead of cravings being something to resist they became invitations to get curious. What is my brain trying to tell me? Is it actually true? Does it line up with God’s Word? What does Jesus say instead?

Learning to examine my thoughts rather than blindly obey them has transformed far more than my relationship with alcohol. It’s changing the way I parent, the way I respond to conflict, the way I handle disappointment and the way I walk with Jesus every single day.

Alcohol made me obsess about tomorrow. Jesus keeps bringing me back to today.

Jesus said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew 6:34

When I first stopped drinking, I was desperate to know how I was going to navigate every future event. What about weddings? Vacations? Christmas? Date nights? Girls’ weekends? Milestone birthdays? How would any of it work without alcohol?

But God never asked me to figure out six months from now.

He asked me to trust Him today.

Again and again, He has gently reminded me that His grace arrives in the present moment. Not next Christmas. Not next summer. Not the holiday I’m already worrying about. Right here. Right now.

Learning to stay present has given me far more peace than trying to plan my way through every possible scenario ever could.

If you’re still future-tripping, take heart. You’re learning a brand-new way of depending on God. Keep coming back to today. It’s where His grace always meets you.

Sobriety was goal. Jesus became the focus.

Our secular self-help culture celebrates sober streaks, milestones and day counts. It’s easy to begin measuring success by how long we’ve gone without a drink.

But what happens when sobriety itself becomes the finish line?

Eventually you get there.

Then what?

During this June Fast, I’ve been reminded again that freedom from alcohol is a beautiful gift, but it was never meant to become the centre of our lives. Jesus is.

Psalm 27 says, “The one thing I ask of the Lord—the thing I seek most—is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”

The one thing.

Not sobriety.

Not self-improvement.

Not becoming the best version of yourself.

Jesus.

And when He becomes the focus, everything else begins to find its rightful place. Every morning in His Word, every answered prayer, every temptation surrendered, every moment of peace becomes another reminder that intimacy with Him is infinitely richer than anything alcohol ever promised me.

Alcohol made me doubt God’s goodness. Sobriety taught me to trust Him.

I doubted God at the beginning. I knew He was asking me to leave alcohol behind, but I wasn’t convinced His way would actually be better.

Would I still be fun?

Would people still invite me?

Would I ever truly relax again?

Would holidays still be enjoyable?

Would I always feel like I was missing out?

Looking back now, I almost smile at those questions because the life God has given me is so much richer than the one I was clinging to.

That doesn’t mean my brain has stopped producing fearful thoughts. It hasn’t. It still offers me lies, doubts and worst-case scenarios more often than I’d like.

The difference is that I’m learning not to build my life on those thoughts.

Instead, I’m learning to hold them up against the character of God.

He is good.

He is trustworthy.

His plans really are higher than mine.

And every act of obedience has become another opportunity to discover that He was right all along.

Alcohol helped me fit into the world. Jesus is teaching me it’s okay to be set apart.

If you’ve been reading along for a while now you already know how much I love Romans 12:2 in The Message:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down …God brings the best out of you.

The truth is, going against the grain is uncomfortable.

None of us likes feeling different. We want to fit in. We don’t want to be that woman who isn’t drinking when everyone else is.

I was reminded of this recently during one of those never-ending parenting battles over screen time. I told my teenagers that I genuinely didn’t care if all of their friends were allowed more hours on TikTok than they are. We know too much about what social media does to developing brains for me to make decisions based on what everyone else is doing.

The same is true with alcohol.

Just because every mom at the barbecue is joking about needing wine to survive the summer doesn’t mean I have to join in. Just because “wine o’clock” has become normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Just because a culture celebrates something doesn’t mean Jesus is calling me to participate in it.

And yet, comparison is so tempting.

We look around and wonder if we’re the odd one out. We worry about the question:

“Why aren’t you drinking?”

I used to be SO worried about getting that question. Now it reminds me that I belong to a different Kingdom.

There is something incredibly freeing about being able to say, “No thank you, I don’t drink,” without needing to apologise or explain. Not because I’m stronger than anyone else, but because Jesus has been changing my desires. He’s been teaching me that His approval matters more than fitting in.

Being set apart is about trusting that God’s ways really are better than ours.

If that confidence feels a million miles away for you today, don’t be discouraged my beautiful friend.

One day you’ll look back and realise that the thing you were most afraid of—being different—is one of God’s greatest gifts.

The beautiful invitation

As we finish this 40-Day Fast together, I hope you’ve discovered something far more valuable than an alcohol-free streak.

I hope you’ve discovered that every craving can become an invitation to pray.

Every temptation can become an opportunity to trust. Every surrender can become another step toward becoming more like Jesus.

Because that has always been the goal.

Not simply to stop drinking. Not even simply to become sober.

But to become the woman God is shaping you to be.

The beautiful thing about sanctification is that it doesn’t end when the Fast does.

Tomorrow morning, God will still be patiently transforming you.

Next month, He’ll still be renewing your mind.

Next year, He’ll still be inviting you to trust Him a little more deeply.

“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)

So keep going, my friend.

Keep bringing Him your cravings, your fears, your questions and your ordinary Thursdays..

Keep fixing your eyes on Jesus.

Because the more we follow Him, the more we discover that freedom from alcohol was never the destination.

It was simply one of the beautiful ways He chose to bring us closer to Himself.

One of the things I hear most often from women is this:

“I just don’t understand why I keep doing this.”

They aren’t asking because they don’t know alcohol is making them miserable.

They know.

They’ve read the books. They’ve listened to the podcasts. They’ve promised themselves that this weekend will be different. They’ve poured bottles down the sink and bought new ones the next day. They’ve prayed. They’ve tried moderation. They’ve tried rules. They’ve tried white-knuckling it.

What they don’t understand is why stopping feels so much harder than it “should.”

For a long time, I asked myself exactly the same question.

I thought the answer was that I simply needed more discipline. More self-control. More willpower.

But what if we’ve been asking the wrong question?

What if, instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” we started asking, “What happened to me?”

That doesn’t mean we become victims of our past or excuse our choices. Far from it. It simply means we begin to understand ourselves with a little more honesty and a lot more compassion.

This week on the Love Life Sober Podcast, I sat down with licensed professional counsellor and trauma expert , whose own childhood was marked by addiction, neglect, abuse, and profound family dysfunction.

When Gina discovered alcohol as a young teenager, she wasn’t looking for a party.

She was looking for relief.

Alcohol quieted a nervous system that had never learned what safety felt like.

I suspect that’s true for more women than we realize.

Maybe your childhood didn’t look like Gina’s.

Maybe it looked perfectly ordinary from the outside.

But perhaps you learned to keep everyone happy. To never rock the boat. To swallow disappointment. To carry responsibilities that weren’t yours. To believe your needs came last.

Perhaps alcohol became the place where your shoulders finally dropped.

Where you could stop performing for a little while.

Where you could exhale.

If that’s true, then the problem was never simply the wine.

The wine was doing a job.

Of course, it wasn’t doing that job very well. It came with anxiety, broken sleep, guilt, shame, and all the consequences we know so well. But understanding why alcohol became so attractive in the first place changes the conversation entirely.

It moves us away from self-condemnation and towards curiosity.

That doesn’t remove responsibility. It actually gives us more of it.

One of my favourite moments in our conversation came when Gina explained the difference between genetics and epigenetics. Yes, some of us may have inherited a greater vulnerability to addiction. But vulnerability isn’t destiny. Our daily choices, our relationships, our faith, our healing, our community, our sleep, our stress—all of these influence the direction our lives take.

I found that incredibly hopeful.

Because so many women arrive in our community believing that “alcoholism” “runs in the family,” as though that settles the matter.

It doesn’t.

Your family history matters.

It shapes you.

But it doesn’t have the final word.

Jesus does.

Perhaps my favourite part of our conversation, though, was talking about our children.

So many women tell me they’re terrified they’ve already done too much damage.

I understand that fear.

But our children do not need mothers who never struggled.

They need mothers who know how to repent. Mothers who apologise. Mothers who keep growing. Mothers who show them that change is possible and that Jesus still transforms lives.

What an extraordinary gift that is to leave the next generation.

Not perfection…..Hope.

If you’ve ever wondered why alcohol feels so hard to walk away from, I hope you’ll listen to this week’s conversation. It’s honest, deeply compassionate, and full of practical wisdom. More than anything, I think it will help you replace one exhausting question—”What’s wrong with me?”—with a far better one.

“What happened to me...

...and how might Jesus want to heal it?”

I think that question changes everything.

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

WHY ADDICTION RUNS IN FAMILIES

After taking a long break from alcohol, Steven, the well-known creator of The Diary of a CEO podcast, shared that he drank a few glasses of wine and felt like it “ruined” the next three days of his life. His sleep suffered. His workouts suffered. He ate worse. He didn’t feel as sharp at work.

(Probably not surprising to anyone in this community… The first time I saw the headline, I thought, Well… yeah. Obviously!)

But then, because it’s alcohol—and doesn’t the world love defending alcohol?—the internet, predictably, exploded.

One camp applauded him for speaking honestly about alcohol’s effects.

The other rolled their eyes, accusing him of taking the self-improvement movement too far. Surely life is about more than obsessing over sleep scores, productivity, and wearable data?

Personally, I think both sides are missing something.

As someone who can’t seem to escape the self-help universe (largely because it’s the box the world tends to put sobriety in), I’m constantly bombarded with authors and experts claiming to have the next “life hack” that will change my life.

Whether it’s waking up at 6 a.m. to stare directly at the sun (which still confuses me—how is that even possible when the sun isn’t even up yet this time of year in the UK?), adopting a seventeen-step morning routine, cold plunging, journaling, eating exclusively raw foods, or taking a cabinet full of supplements, the message is always the same:

Optimize. Optimize. Optimize.

The same rhetoric has quietly seeped into the sobriety world too.

Go alcohol-free because you’ll sleep better. Lose weight. Have clearer skin. Think more clearly. Improve your HRV. Wake up feeling amazing. Perform better at work.

Now, don’t get me wrong, babe.

Living alcohol-free has transformed my physical and mental health, and I’ll happily shout about that from the rooftops. I’ve written an entire book on the subject.

But as a Christian woman, I’ve realised something much deeper.

Sobriety wasn’t just a hack to optimize my life.

Sobriety was one of the most significant, most profound steps I needed to take on my personal road to sanctification.

Because God was never simply trying to make me a better human.

He was making me more like Jesus.

Isaiah 48:10 says:

“I have refined you, but not as silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.” (NLT)

When I look back over my own journey, I can see that so much of my sanctification happened in the furnace of giving up alcohol. It wasn’t easy, and it certainly wasn’t a clever productivity hack. It was holy work.

Giving up alcohol exposed parts of my heart I didn’t even know were there. It revealed where I had been looking to wine for comfort instead of Christ, where I had been numbing instead of grieving, striving instead of surrendering, and coping instead of trusting. God lovingly uncovered the places where I was relying on something created rather than my Creator.

That refining process wasn’t comfortable, but it was necessary.

Because if our ultimate goal is to become more like Christ, then we need to spend time with Him. We need to learn from Him. We need to hear His voice.

And if I’m honest, I couldn’t do that very well with a hangover.

The world tells us sobriety is a tool for self-optimization, a way to feel better, look better, and perform better. Those things aren’t inherently bad. They’re nice by-products.

But if you love Jesus, sobriety can become something infinitely deeper.

It can become a tool for sanctification—a way to draw closer to Him, to create space for the Holy Spirit to gently expose the places that still need healing, and to allow God to do the messy, gritty, often painful, but profoundly beautiful work of making you more like His son, Jesus.

All the life hacks in the world won’t fill the void that only Christ can fill.

Without Him, even the most optimized version of yourself will eventually feel empty.

Something—better yet, Someone—will always be missing.

So can I encourage you today, my beautiful friend?

What if going alcohol-free isn’t ultimately about glowing skin, fitting into your favourite pair of jeans, or finally having enough energy to tick off your to-do list?

What if it’s about growing closer to your heavenly Father?

What if it’s about hearing His voice more clearly?

What if it’s about discovering what He wants to reveal in the places of your heart you’ve been too busy, or too numb, to explore?

What if the Holy Spirit is nudging you to take a break from alcohol, not as a punishment, but as an invitation?

An invitation into the very purpose for which you were created: to become more like Jesus.

Sanctification isn’t always comfortable. It often feels exactly like the furnace Isaiah describes. But that’s where transformation happens.

Trust Him with the process.

The world is obsessed with optimization.

Jesus has always been interested in sanctification.

And I’ll choose Jesus every single time.

For so many of us, the alcohol journey begins with one question:

“How do I stop drinking?”

We search for the perfect strategy. The right mindset. More discipline. More accountability. We promise ourselves that this time we’ll be stronger.

But what if we’ve been asking the wrong question all along?

This week on the Love Life Sober podcast, I had one of my favorite conversations with author, speaker, and podcast host . Together, we explore the invitation Jesus extends to every one of us, not just into sobriety, but into transformation.

Because the goal of the Christian life isn’t simply behavioral change.

It’s becoming more like Jesus.

One of the images Christopher shares has stayed with me ever since we recorded. He describes so many of us as walking through life carrying a backpack full of bricks. We become so used to the weight that we forget we’re even carrying it.

Shame. Fear. Control. Perfectionism. Self-reliance. The endless striving to finally get it right.

And then Jesus comes alongside us and says:

“Come to me... Take my yoke upon you... Learn from me... and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mathew 11:28-30)

Notice what He doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say, “Try harder.”

He doesn’t say, “Fix yourself first.”

He doesn’t say, “Carry that backpack like you mean it.”

He invites us to surrender it.

It’s trusting Someone who is infinitely more trustworthy than we are.

That’s why this conversation isn’t just about alcohol. It’s about every place in our lives where we cling tightly because we’re not quite sure God can be trusted with it.

Maybe that’s your drinking.

Maybe it’s your marriage.

Your children.

Your future.

Your identity.

Your need to control the outcome.

If you’ve ever wondered:

• Why does this journey still feel so hard?

• How do I know if I have truly surrendered my alcohol struggle?

• Why do I keep finding myself back in the same cycle?

• Can I really trust God with this part of my life?

I think this episode will encourage you so much, babe.

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

Listen To The Episode Here

One of my favorite parts of the conversation is Christopher’s simple framework built around Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:

Come. Take. Learn. Find.

That is the slow, beautiful work of the Holy Spirit changing us from the inside out.

Because freedom isn’t simply about saying no to alcohol.

It’s about saying yes to becoming the woman God created you to be.

I pray this conversation encourages you as much as it encouraged me.

If you’re not getting Christopher’s substack articles, I would highly recommend subscribing to him, you can do that here.

And you can get his book, Healing What You Can’t Erase: Transform Your Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health from the Inside Out, here:

Healing What You Can't Erase

“I love Jesus, but I still can’t seem to figure this alcohol thing out.”

“I’ve prayed about this for years.”

“I feel like everyone else in my Bible study can take it or leave it.”

“I thought I was the only Christian woman struggling with this.”

For years many of us have sat in Bible studies, church pews, small groups, school pickup lines, and girls’ weekends quietly wondering if we’re the only ones asking these questions. We love Jesus. We love our families. We know God is enough.

So why do we still find ourselves reaching for something else?

Why do we still feel stuck?

And why do we still feel so so ashamed by all of it?

This is exactly why we’re gathering at Aligned.

Here’s just a little taste of what my co-host, Sherry Hoppen, and I have planned for you at the first Christian women’s sobriety conference of its kind.

A Sneak Peek At Our Aligned Speakers

, author of Freely Sober, will be speaking to the woman who has spent years trying harder. The woman who has promised God “just one more time.” The woman who secretly wonders if her struggle means her faith isn’t strong enough.

Her message, Justified, Not Just Sober, reminds us that the Gospel doesn’t simply forgive us. It gives us a completely new identity. So many women are living as if sobriety is another Christian performance metric, and Ericka beautifully dismantles that lie.

Then my friend, , author of Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic, will tackle something I hear all the time…

“Okay, I’ve stopped drinking. Now what?”

Because many women discover that removing alcohol doesn’t automatically remove anxiety, perfectionism, people pleasing, loneliness, or fear. Sobriety is often the beginning of the work, not the end of it.

Jon’s session explores what genuine Gospel-centered recovery looks like and how abiding in Christ, vulnerability, identity, and obedience lead us toward actual freedom rather than simply behavior change.

And we’ll also get to hear from , author of When You Love Someone In Recovery.

I think Caroline’s message may resonate with nearly every woman in the room because so many of us weren’t drinking to destroy our lives. We were drinking to cope with them.

We were overwhelmed.
We were exhausted.
We were lonely.
We were anxious.
We were carrying too much.

Her session, From Numb to Known, invites women to move from coping to connection, from hiding to being seen, and from surviving to truly living.

As I look at these conversations side by side, I keep coming back to one word:

Freedom.

Not simply freedom from alcohol.

Freedom from striving.

Freedom from shame.

Freedom from believing you have to fix yourself before God can love you.

Freedom from carrying this struggle all by yourself.

My co-host, Sherry Hoppen, founder of Selah House Recovery, and I will also be speaking, and we have lots of incredible special guests and meaningful surprises!

And as you can probably tell from these speaker topics, Aligned really is for every single gal, no matter where you are on your alcohol-freedom journey. Whether you’re sober-curious, taking a break, one week alcohol-free, or years into your freedom, we want to worship with you, learn alongside you, and remind you that you are not doing this alone.

If you’ve ever sat in church wondering if you’re the only one...
If you’ve ever prayed, “God, please help me with this...”
If you’ve ever wanted to sit in a room full of women who love Jesus and simply exhale...

We can’t wait to see you in Holland, Michigan.

September 22-24.

There’s a seat for you, babe. 🩷

The Aligned Conference

I used to compare my drinking to everyone around me and think, Everyone drinks like I do. I’m not THAT bad.

Certainly I didn’t have a “problem” with alcohol.

Because when we think about alcohol problems, we often picture someone else. Someone whose drinking is worse. Someone whose life looks more chaotic. Someone who has “earned” concern.

But what if your body has been trying to get your attention long before things ever looked serious?

This week on the podcast, I sat down with Karla Adkins, author of And She Came Tumbling Down. Karla was just 36 years old when she noticed her eyes turning yellow. What followed was a diagnosis she never saw coming: cirrhosis.

And before you think, “Well, that could never be me”, I want you to hear me.

Karla’s story is not shared to scare you. It’s shared to wake us up.

Because one of the most dangerous games we play as women is comparison.

“I’m not drinking as much as she is.”
“I only drink wine.”
“I’m functioning.”
“I’ll stop after this season.”

Meanwhile, our bodies are often speaking much earlier than we realize.

In this conversation, Karla shares the fear, shame, and uncertainty that came after her diagnosis, but even more importantly, she shares the hope. The healing. The freedom. The God who met her in the middle of it all.

We talk about:

🩷 Why “How much were you drinking?” can sometimes be the wrong question.

🩷 The perfect storm of stress, hormones, anxiety, and alcohol that can impact women differently.

🩷 Why alcohol keeps us stuck in fight-or-flight.

🩷 What actually helps us stay free instead of simply white-knuckling our way through.

🩷 The surprising ways our bodies begin to heal when we stop drinking.

I pray this conversation gives you both a loving wake-up call and a tremendous amount of hope.

Because no matter where you find yourself today, God is not finished writing your story.

Watch Here:

Listen Here:

LISTEN HERE: Cirrhosis at 36

Karla’s Book:

And She Came Tumbling Down

And… some really fun news.

Karla will be joining us at the Aligned Conference this September! 🩷

So if this episode resonates with you, you’ll actually get the opportunity to meet her in person, ask your questions, hear more of her story, and even have her sign your copy of her incredible book.

There is something so powerful about sitting across from someone whose story gave you hope and realizing that healing, freedom, and a brand new chapter are possible for you too.

I truly cannot wait for you to meet her.