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

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

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

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

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

Key points

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

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

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

It’s the small things that become heavy

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

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

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

An invitation for you…

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

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

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

Sobriety can feel like relief

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

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

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