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.

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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...

I sent my first weekly newsletter in August of 2019. I had seven subscribers at the time. Two were myself using my other email addresses to populate the subscriber field and set the momentum. The others were my mom, my husband, and a few friends that I asked to add. I committed to writing a weekly newsletter for 4 ½ years with very few weeks off. Mainly, when I have been out of the country, I have missed a handful of weekly newsletters. With tons of organic effort, my subscribers list has grown greatly since 2019. My writing remains incredibly personal. 

I have always had the belief that writers should be paid. I pay for writing that moves me. This includes a Medium Membership, Substack Subscriptions, paid newsletters, great books, writing courses, writing coaches, writing classes, writers retreats, hearing writers speak, and more. I gladly pay for all of it. Each month when I open a paid newsletter, I think maybe this will be the month I cancel or weed out and...

I often get asked, “What is it like to go to a sober retreat?”

I have had many sober retreat experiences, and I’m happy to share my feedback. 

In this blog, I will be reviewing 3 specific retreats: Brave Recovery Coaching, Sober in the City - Zero Proof Experiences, and the SheRecovers Annual Conference. These are three very different experiences with different goals, taken at different points on my alcohol free journey. 

Spoiler alert, they were all fantastic. TLDR.  

My first ever sober retreat was a female hiking retreat in Sedona, AZ hosted by Brave Recovery Coaching. I was an acquaintance of the host, Carrie May, a Certified Recovery Coach and Nurse Practitioner. I had met two other attendees briefly at a previous local event. I didn’t really know anyone, and I really didn’t know what to expect. I was very nervous because I wasn’t friends with any of the attendees. I was basically going alone. I ended up flying and driving...

Alcohol-free drinks can be a helpful option for people that are sober or sober curious. However, the appropriateness of alcohol-free drinks depends on several factors:

• What Stage of Sobriety?  In the early stages of sobriety, some individuals may find it best to avoid any beverages that mimic the taste or appearance of alcoholic drinks, including alcohol-free alternatives. This is because consuming such drinks might trigger cravings or lead to drinking alcohol for some people. Over time, as individuals become more confident in their sobriety, they may choose to incorporate alcohol-free options into their lifestyle. I personally, didn’t have any alcohol free alternatives my whole first year of sobriety. I was afraid they might trigger me into craving an alcoholic drink. As a drinker, wine was my drink of choice. I started to explore with alcohol free beer in my second year of sobriety and found it to be a great tool at that time. Both beer and alcohol free spirits ended...