Even as a trained sober coach and someone with almost six years of sobriety under her belt, there are still situations that feel awkward to me as a sober person, and last weekend I experienced one of them. 

I went to a birthday dinner for someone I adore. In addition to my husband and I, the birthday guy and wife, there were two additional couples that joined. I was only slightly acquainted with them. We went to a great place with a beer hall-type atmosphere and sat at a long table. It was restaurant week in Chicago, so our whole table shared the pre-fixe meal. The menu included two Gruvi NA beers and an amazing zero-proof old-fashioned made with alcohol-free cinnamon whiskey. All good. 

When the party guests arrived and saw my beautiful old fashioned, they asked, “Is that an old fashioned?”  "Yes, it is!” I replied proudly. “It’s delicious. I don’t drink alcohol, so it’s the zero proof version.” No one...

Since the day I was born, beer has been an omnipresent staple in my life.

Before I tasted wine, which would become my drink of choice and also the nail in my coffin, so to speak, before mommy wine culture was an even thing, before my relationship with alcohol would be labeled as problematic, before my recovery, if you call it that, or my discovery, if you don’t, before my sober coach training or expertise in the alcohol free space, before I became the person I am today, before I knew anything about alcohol, there was beer. Beer was my first sip. Beer was tightly woven into the tapestry of my identity. It still is. In short, I love beer.

In some ways, falling in love with beer was my destiny.

My parents were both beer drinkers and beer lovers who met in a local beer tent. I was born in a small town that was home to more bars than churches. The local taverns had more worshippers than the parishes. My hometown is located in a state whose Major League Baseball team is named after...

As the new year begins, I’ve been thinking a lot (almost obsessively) about goals. As a perfectionist, it’s killing me that I set out to read 40 books in 2023 and I ended the year reading 39. Nevermind one of those books was about 700 pages long, it’s still just bothering me to no end feeling like I didn’t meet my goal. Should I just be happy with the 39 books I read? Was 40 books too lofty of a goal for me? Did my goal change and I failed to update my app with the challenge? There were years past when I surpassed this goal by double digits. Should every year be more books, a bigger challenge than the year before? Am I the biggest failure? Please don’t answer that, I am having a hard enough time here. 

As a Coach, I think about goal setting all the time, on every client call. I am specifically trained to help other people achieve their goals. Thoughts on goals are not new to me, but I have a few new thoughts to share. I personally want to...

We all want to toast at midnight (or at 6 pm whathaveyou) but not everyone wants the booze. 

Here are nine of the best tried and true bubbly alternatives. I recommend each of these delicious drinks for filling up that champagne flute and toasting with elegance and confidence. You won’t be missing out on anything except a New Year's Day hangover. Join me for an Insider Dry January Challenge. Cheers to health and wealth in all the ways in 2024. 

My top picks for alcohol free champagne.

1 - Thomson & Scott Noughty Sparkling Chardonnay. An immediate favorite. Elegant, organic, and sustainably sourced from Spain.

Buy Here

2- Gruvi DrySecco. Made with white wine grapes and inspired by champagne. Dry, floral and tart. This one is my go to white for every occasion. Try it for New Years Eve and keep it all year through. Bottled in individual servings which is genius. 

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3- Sutter Home Fre Brut. This is the one you that are...

If you are like me and most of my clients you want to quit drinking but you want to wait and get through the holidays first. If you are thinking about addressing your relationship with alcohol, but putting it aside for now, and planning on doing something about it in the new year, I hear you. Are you feeling defeated almost daily by staying in the drinking cycle and continuing to not take action on a bad habit that is starting to take more than it gives? It doesn’t feel good to worry about your drinking incessantly and then do nothing about it. I know, I’ve been there. 

You might feel like you don’t have the capacity to completely abstain from alcohol this holiday season. You want to delay the endeavor for another better time in the future. A fresh start so to speak. I understand this. It is natural to resist change, especially such a big one like drinking. 

I personally think right now is always the best time to address and evaluate...

Something has been brewing inside me and it bubbled over this weekend. 

It started with listening to a song really loud in the car by myself. It struck a chord, almost literally.

I felt something in the music and started singing along. My singing took a turn and morphed into screaming which ended up with full on sobbing. Sing/scream/sobbing. Release. I spent the next two hours hiking in the woods talking to the trees, crying at the sky, and trying to make sense of my complex emotions. 

I didn't realize that I had been avoiding this meltdown for weeks. I ignored the signals and was now at the boiling over point. Looking back, there were some clues but I didn’t see them at the time. As a sober person, I have worked really hard to “check myself before I wreck myself”, but this one snuck up on me. 

In hindsight, I could see that my recent behavior in hustle, avoidance, distraction, and achievement was my own protection...

I have been doing cold exposure therapy for a few years now. I will share my experience and research in this article. I am not a professional cold therapy practitioner in any way. I am a person seeking new experiences and modalities to manage and regulate my nervous system, and feel good. I find it to be invigorating and that feeling seems to last for days. This seems to be a very positive outcome for my overall health and wellbeing.   

The Ways I Experience Cold Exposure Therapy

There are many ways to experience cold exposure. One method is an ice bath, made popular by the breathing technique introduced by Wim Hoff. To experience this you sit in a tub filled with ice. Remember the ALS ice bucket challenge of 2014? Imagine sitting in the bucket either alone or with others for a period of time, usually about two full minutes. That’s the ice bath. I have experienced two group ice bath experiences. One in a pool of people and another in a tub or trough by myself. In...

I’m sharing a few tips for how to get started with any new habit including ditching the drink. I am starting a new habit of walking in the morning. This is something I’ve been considering for a while. For months I would say to myself “I should really get up and do that,” and then I would not get up and do that. Relatable?

I did this while drinking too. It is part of the contemplation stage of change. 

 
The stages of change model describes the process individuals go through as they make behavioral changes. The stages of change include:

• Precontemplation or as I like to call it, blissfully unaware. In this stage you are unaware or resistive to the idea of change.
• Contemplation. This is when you are starting to think about making a change. This stage can last a long time. In my case with alcohol it was years if not decades. For my new walk routine, I’ve probably been thinking about it for 6 months. I recognize the need for change, but I still...

I had 6 days of company. I helped host a crowd of 15 and also hosted a crowd of 13. I had an open door and a week-long combination of family and friends passing through. Loved ones traveled to Illinois from Colorado, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. There were people aged six to 77. Three dogs. Beautiful chaos meticulously organized. Heartfelt gratitudes shared around a table. Turkey and brisket. Ham and carnitas. Donuts and pies. Chips and dips. Charcuterie boards that went on for days. A mix of Christmas tunes playing in the background. Silver bells. Football and more football on dueling wide screens. A big batch of chili. Dolly Parton at half time. Our first snow!

Gluten Free alternatives. A Wednesday night Poker Tournament. Afternoon naps. Sharing medical test results that were an answer to silent prayers. Client’s reaching out. People achieving new alcohol free milestones and ditching the drink. Staying sober. A Friday morning Euchre game. A houseful of my...

This article was written and published in partnership with Monument.

Thinking about removing alcohol from your life can elicit many questions. This article will offer a few tips from Award Winning Sober Coach Heather Lowe, Founder of Ditched the Drink, who has helped many people get and stay free from alcohol.

If you’re concerned about your drinking, you’re not alone. The CDC reports one in six US adults binge drinks, with 25% doing so at least weekly. Binge drinking is just one pattern of excessive drinking, but it accounts for nearly all excessive drinking. Over 90% of US adults who drink excessively report binge drinking, according to the CDC.

Tips for How to Stop Drinking

Consider Cutting Back:

Many people first try to moderate or cut back on their drinking before quitting altogether. This can be a safe way to reduce your alcohol intake while experimenting with drinking less alcohol. I used this technique myself. For three years, I strived to...