UnPickled - Prepare to be Alcohol-Free - with Jean McCarthy

Want to give up drinking but have no idea where to start?

You're in the right place!

Everyone tells you sobriety starts on day one. It doesn't. It actually starts before that, in the boring, unglamorous groundwork nobody really talks about. The stuff that happens quietly in the weeks before you ever have a proper "sober day."

In this episode, I sit down with Jean McCarthy to talk about that exact groundwork, starting with the big one: choosing your why. It sounds simple. It isn't. Because a why like "I'm doing this for the kids," as noble and understandable as it sounds, can actually be one of the shakiest foundations you can build a sobriety on. It's a why that lives outside you, and when things get hard (and they will), a why that isn't fully your own can be the first thing to crack.

We talk about what a sturdier why can look like instead, and the small, practical, almost boring shifts that quietly build a foundation strong enough to hold you when the cravings hit. Things like rearranging your furniture so the sofa doesn't automatically mean "wine o'clock." Creating yourself a proper sober nook, somewhere in the house that's just yours, with nothing to do with a bottle. Taking the wine glasses out of the house completely, so the decision isn't sitting there waiting to be made every single evening. And maybe the hardest shift of all, starting to like yourself again before you feel like you've "earned" it.

Jean also gets really honest about her own fears going into this. Including the very real, very human worry that her husband might not want a sober wife. She talks about the moment that fear finally lifted, when she realised that a sober wife is so much better than a dead wife, because if she's honest, that's genuinely the direction things were heading.

Oh, and they talk about how their mutual stumpy fingers actually represent their drinking stories quite well!!! So, get comfy and let's get prepared for sober life.

Note - We chatted for way too long, so this is Part 1. (Part 2 in-coming with loads more juicy prep tips)

💛 Resources & Links Follow and Find out more about Jean head to @jeanmccarthy_writes Or buy her book UnPickled Prepare to be Alcohol-Free: Insights and Tips to Ease the Transition - here https://amzn.asia/d/02iVCTtz

📘 Victoria’s memoir – A Thousand Wasted Sundays A brutally honest and hilarious look at motherhood, anxiety, and ditching the booze. 👉 https://amzn.asia/d/0aZ69GpK

Vic's book 'Mumming - A year of Trying (and Failing) to be a better parent - https://amzn.asia/d/0bUJTS2W

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