Waking up with hangxiety? Try this relapse recovery reset to rebuild self trust and stay sober without the shame loop (even after a rough night or the weekend)

Waking up after drinking with anxiety, regret, and that heavy “why did I do that?” feeling is something so many women experience when they’re trying to quit drinking.

In this episode of the Sober Vibes Podcast, I walk you through a relapse recovery reset, a practical, no-shame approach to help you move forward, rebuild self-trust, and stay sober without falling into the “start over” cycle.

If you’re navigating quitting drinking and dealing with alcohol cravings after a slip, this episode will help you reset your mindset and your plan.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

• what hangxiety really is and why it feels so intense
 • why a relapse doesn’t mean you failed at quitting drinking
 • the subconscious reason slips happen (and what they reveal)
 • 3 powerful questions to ask after drinking to break the cycle
 • how to identify your real triggers and drinking patterns
 • how alcohol cravings are often tied to emotional states
 • what your slip was actually trying to protect you from
 • how to rebuild self-trust without starting over

Instead of restarting, this episode shows you how to:

• reinforce the exact moment your plan broke down
 • adjust your environment and routine
 • prepare for future triggers
 • rebuild self-trust through small, consistent actions

Each time you respond differently after a slip, you strengthen your ability to stay sober long-term.

Ready for Support? Here Are 3 Ways to Work With Me:
• Stop Starting Over Program
• Sobriety Circle
• 1:1 Sober Coaching 

Gain access to my Masterclass when you submit a review on iTunes. Email me sobervibes@gmail.com with a screenshot of the review, and I will send you the code to unlock my Masterclass for free!

Thank you for tuning in!

Thank you for listening! Help the show by Rating, Reviewing, and/or Subscribing to the Sober Vibes Podcast.

Connect w/ Courtney:
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Join the Sobriety Circle

Apply for 1:1 Coaching
Order the Sober Vibes Book

Transcript

Calm Reset After A Rough Night

Courtney Andersen 0:31

Hey, welcome back to the Silver Vibes Podcast. I'm your host and sober coach, Courtney Anderson. You are listening to episode 270. As always, I hope you're well in the world, and I hope today that you're kicking ass and taking names. If you're listening to this episode in particular after a rough night or maybe to a weekend that didn't go how you how you wanted it planned, right? Because you go in with a plan and then you woke up with that heavy feeling of that anxiety, that regret, that why did I do this again? You know that loop that I'm talking about. I want you to take a breath with me. And just to let you know, you didn't ruin anything, okay? And that you are not starting over from zero. So today we're going to reset and we're going to do it calmly and clearly and without the shame that you've been putting on yourself for many years. So let's talk about what anxiety really is, okay? What is happening currently? It's that anxious, shaky feeling after drinking. Man, my anxiety used to turn into full-on panic attacks after 25 years old. I don't know what it was about me with 25, but as we get older, alcohol and your body, it just you can't hang like you once used to. And specifically for me, that was that to that was that moment I will never forget. And I've mentioned it on this podcast before. There was one time that I was having a panic attack where I legit thought I was having a heart attack, and I went into a walk-in clinic. I like disconnected to like the EKGs and stuff. I can laugh about it now, but during that time, during that, I was not. And here's the thing, too, that weekend I did a bunch of cocaine as well. So, and I will never drink a Mountain Dew ever. I actually have not drunk one of those since that, because that was like the last thing I drank before I went home from a weekend long bender, and then I ended up having a panic attack. And one of my girlfriends who lived in the house below me, it was a duplex, and she lived in the bottom level. She says, Dude, I think you're having a panic attack. Anyways, so that was when my hangovers changed. 25 in that maybe you have not had an extreme like I did, but you notice that something is shifting. What is happening to you is that anxiety. And it's not just a it's

The Chemistry Behind Hangxiety

Courtney Andersen 3:00

not just an emotional reaction, but it's a chemical one. Okay. So alcohol impacts your nervous system. This is why I believe too, you have to give yourself time to get off of that ride with alcohol and let your body heal. Okay. Because your nervous system has been out of whack, not just for a day, for years. And again, it's not just I don't care how much yoga you do, I don't care how many green smoothies you drink. When you keep putting alcohol into your system, it is god-awful. So your nervous system is out of whack, right? Your sleep's out of whack too, your hormones. So the next day your body is dysregulated. Then your thoughts jump into I messed up, right? I can't do this. I always end up here. What is wrong with me? And then that's where that spiral starts. But what you're feeling right now, it's not failure. Okay. It's a moment your plan didn't it didn't fully get supported. And even if at a period of time you had a plan, okay, and you hit this bump in the road, right? Still you have to look re-look at your plan to be like, okay, maybe something in this isn't working. And this is where people get messed up because they think that just because they did AA and that didn't work for them, that there is no other option. It's this is where I will scream it from the rooftops. You have to keep working with who you are now and with yourself and to calm your nervous system. Why does it blame my calling out to eat on your Friday night? Terrible idea. Stay home and eat some pizza after your long week of hustle that you just had. Okay. That's my side note. So before we get into today's topic and I go through some questions, there's some questions here. Just want to let you know that if you are looking for more sober coaching, looking for more support in your journey, you can find my information in the show notes below. I have three different options now that you can work for me. My stop starting over program that I just launched last week. You can get it this, you can get it now if you are a solo dolo person, you know, that lone wolf. If you're looking for community, there is my sobriety circle. And then off to if you want more high-level coaching and want that specific one I want accountability, check out my sober coaching. All right. So this is a shift I want you to hear. Okay. A slip doesn't mean that you lack discipline. And a lot of people think that's what that means. It means that you hit a moment your plan again didn't prepare you for. Listen, there is some times that you will get knocked off your feet to be like, oh, I didn't even think about that. And you can't think about that. That's where it's like some of this stuff you just have to, you're just gonna go through it to see what happens. And that's why I'm always with people, it's this is okay. So now you have this experience where you're like, oh, okay, so now I know for next time this could happen to me. And so that moment your plan didn't prepare you for, it's not a character flaw or defect. It's not, it's not proof that you can't stay sober, it's just a gap. It's gaps can be filled and it will be filled for next time you're in that particular situation. Again, let's just take death for instance. Okay, you're never gonna be prepared for

Slips Are Gaps Not Failure

Courtney Andersen 6:40

the loss of a parent. You're not, even if you know that they're dying and then they die, you don't know, and I can speak from experience because I've been going through this the last couple months of what I thought it was gonna be and what it is. And this is why I don't truly like when people like nowadays, it's everybody like especially too big, big people where they talk about things and it's bitch-do you have a narcissistic father or mother because like why are you talking about narcissistic parents if you haven't gone through that experience? I really am huge with people, yes, having qualifications, but also to going through that lived experience. I say this in my book, especially with sober coaches. Like, it's like that is what is particular that should be important to you. It's okay, does this person have this lived experience? Because imagine talking to someone too about sobriety and they don't have alcohol addiction. Like people will ask me, especially on my sober vibes Instagram page. And if you're not following, please follow, where they're like, why don't you talk about other addictions? It's because I didn't have any other addictions. I don't know what crack addiction is. You can ask my sister. I I don't know what that's so I'm not gonna speak on something that I don't know what that is like. I don't. You want to talk about the eating cycle and that? Yeah, because that for me, that was before my alcohol addiction. Like porn addiction, I would never speak upon because I didn't have it. Anyways, that was a little tangent, but that is just how I feel. Okay, so, anyways, moving forward, these are the three questions to ask after a slip in particular, right? Because I don't want you just to think that you had a slip and then you just say, F it, I can't do this. You really have to look upon what is going on at that particular moment, okay? And I don't want you to keep going in it with shame. This is where a lot of people they carry that shame, or if they've had a relapse and it's oh, I had six months of sobriety and I don't want this person to be upset with me. It's being accountable for your actions in this actually means way more than you and being truthful and alignment than it means of you drinking truly. So I just want you to go into this with clarity, right? So ask yourself these three things, okay? One, when did it happen? Okay, what time of day? What part of your routine? Was it after work, late at night? Social setting, right? So ask yourself those. Number two, where did it happen? Were you at home, out with friends, in an environment where alcohol was easily available to you to just then be like, I'll have a Budweiser. It's gross if you drink Budweiser, but I will have I don't like an IPA of some sorts. Let's update this. But man, Budweiser's a gross. But so three, what were you feeling? And this is the most important one because you really truly have to, you have to use yourself, you have to use that voice inside of you and your feelings as your inner compass. You have to let that guide you of what you're able

Three Questions To Ask Yourself

Courtney Andersen 10:00

to put yourself through. So, were you stressed? Were you overwhelmed? Were you bored? Were you lonely? Lonely is a big were you tired? Were you celebrating? Were you mentally exhausted? Yeah, were you overstimulating? Because the feeling is the real trigger. That is where the starts is being triggered by a feeling. So it's not the alcohol, it's how this came about before. That's why they would just said too. Going out to eat on a Friday night is like an awful idea because I'm going back to nervous system regulation. After the hustle and bustle Monday through Friday, right? Of you doing whatever you have to do and then putting yourself in an environment where it's loud. There's drinking, there's heavy drinking going on. It's just not the move for somebody currently in your case. Not to say you're never gonna go out to eat on a Friday ever again, but in the beginning and maybe even to that first year, that is not your move. Where you just come home on Fridays now and you're like, oh, this is gonna be my calm. And what was your slip or what your slip was trying to protect you from? Okay. So this is a big part too. You didn't drink because you don't care. You drank usually because something in you needed relief and you're searching for that relief. At a certain point, though, that alcohol doesn't become the relief where it doesn't, it's not fun anymore to be able to cope. It never really was, but at some point for all of us, it was fun. Okay. And when I say it never really was, it's if you look at the grand scheme of things and how we've been so conditioned with alcohol, like it's the pits, but it was fun at a certain point, right? Like after 25, it alcohol it wasn't fun anymore, especially to those hangovers that I just described. Like living in that cycle was god awful. You are needing relief because that is to now what you have associated with alcohol. With it's I need this relief to just breathe. Your brain was trying to calm you down, it was trying to give you a break, right? It was trying to protect you, it was trying to take the edge off, help you feel normal in a social setting and like without that social anxiety, right? Or to help you escape from something. So instead of asking, why did I do this? This is what you need to ask. What was I trying to feel or not feel? Okay. So what were you trying to feel or not feel? And that there's gonna be a lot of empowerment in that issue or in that answer that you give yourself. Tons. Because then you can start working with that and start creating a plan around these feelings that you have. Because even the feelings that I listed, you're really not gonna go through those all at once. And for a lot of women, it's two major things of feelings that trigger them, where they will drink to not feel a lot of them. It's many women, it's about being tired. Okay. Many women, it is about being tired, and that tired is that trigger. So it's so what can you do to help you not feel tired? Do you need to take a nap? And I'm being dead ass serious. This is where you have to start doing this type of work of what you can fit into your day-to-day. And in my new program of the stop starting over, I work a lot with that because with that program in particular, I've taken my one-on-one coaching since I've done since 2019, and have condensed it into this. And it's the same issues with every woman that I work with, especially trying to get off of that moderation cycle. So you have to then start rearranging your days of okay, what can I do for myself? So the second half of my day, I'm not dead ass tired. Yes. Will there be some days you just have to power through it with coffee? Absolutely. But if you can prevent it, you can prevent it. And sometimes that's not even napping. So if you're gonna be like court, I don't nap, cool. You can take a 20-minute car break, right? Like where you just sit in your car for silence and close your eyes for a minute. We're all tired in 2026, okay? But that's a huge trigger for women. So, how do you start rebuilding without starting over? You don't have to, this doesn't have to be a tomorrow. It doesn't have to be like Monday or today. I want you to drop the I'm starting over mindset, like truly. And you are not back at zero, right? You still have this awareness and this experience and these tools that you just had in whatever time of sobriety you had, and that you have proof that you can stop. So that didn't erase from your mind. And a lot

Build A Plan For Triggers

Courtney Andersen 14:40

of people like to like discount that where it's like, but it's but you still went through that. Even too, when with women, when they say, I was sober during this, during pregnancy, and they discount it. It's no, that's still a win because there's a lot of women who still drink through pregnancies. Like it this is very much real, okay. And then so nothing erased, okay. And now I want you to reinforce the exact moment that broke down. So go back to your answers, right? When, where, and what feeling, and build a better plan for that exact situation, right? So if it was a stress, what's your new stress relief? If it was evening routine, what replaces that window for you? If it was social, what's your exit plan or drink of choice that evening? Or if it's like you need to tell if people are like, why aren't you drinking? Like, I practice before you go out, okay? And this is how you start moving forward. So don't let it just be like, I can't get this done. You have to still keep moving forward because the more time, the more days, the more non-drinking days you have, the more awareness you have. And then so when you go back to drinking, you're like, oh, that feels icky. Everybody knows this feels awful, right? And you feel like you're doing something wrong, and you are because you know that you shouldn't be drinking alcohol. I don't say that to shame you, but I'm telling you this, like your inner soul, because you've had time with sobriety and you know how good you have felt in some senses, in some ways, okay, because you still have to work through some stuff, but just know that when you get that more awareness, that is where you're like, uh, that is where your aha moments are. And it's like, I'm not living in the life that I want to, and this keeps bringing me back to quote unquote ground zero. Okay. So again, move forward through this and don't punish yourself about it, but start building your system around you of what's going to help you in future ways. I had a I have a one-on-one client. I'm just using this as an example. I don't think I've used it before, but this was something that happened where they were at a nail salon. Okay. It was a Saturday, busy. Busy, busy. And the nail salon, we've all we know what that looks like, okay. And their nail person, it just so happened where they then, the nail tech went and got this person a glass of champagne. She took a sip out of it, but she was like, I was so caught off guard. And it was like automatic. So, this is what I'm telling you of one of these experiences. I said to her, I was like, We're not, I'm not counting this, we're not going back to day zero. This was honest to God, one of those situations where it knocked you off your feet. It was unexpected. It was unexpected, and it was like, nope, what am I doing? The awareness was there, and it was like, oh no, thank you. And talking through it, it was like, okay, next time you go there, you just tell your nail tech, I don't bring me any more alcohol. I'm not drinking alcohol or whatever you want to tell the person. But it's easy if something that when you're out in the real world and out of your bubble, that something like that happens to you and it catches you off guard. And it's easy to fall into that. But no, we're not starting over. We're not starting over. You're just awareness. I'm not doing this again. I know for next time. Here is what I this is how I'm gonna support myself to with this system. That's it. That is it. And I want you to do one thing today that rebuilds trust, right? I don't want you to try to do 10 things. One, go for a walk. This is course after a slip, go for a walk, drink water, right? Eat something nourishing, go to bed early, listen to a podcast instead of spiraling. So trust self-trust

Rebuild Self Trust With One Step

Courtney Andersen 18:45

isn't rebuilt in these big, huge decisions, it's built in the small follow-through. So if you're coming out of a slip, this is what you need to do and move that energy forward of okay, and sometimes you just need to get out of your head. You just need to get out of your head, right? And know too, you're not back at the beginning when this happens, okay? You are not back at the beginning, you are not. It's just you have been through this point, and you do not want to forget the time you had sober. Okay. So now you are at the point where you are a person, you're someone who noticed the pattern, you paused, you reflected, and is choosing to move forward differently. And that is to help yourself with better support and better systems for yourself, right? And this is true growth of moving forward, right? That is sobriety because in sobriety it is all about growth, even if it doesn't feel like that to you right now. And I'm telling you, of where I sit, and the people who get honest after a slip or relapse, and they get honest with themselves and hold themselves accountable and reach out for the help, or I know I need to do things differently, and then they do, and they don't ever go back. But you cannot keep shaming yourself after a slip. It but it all truly comes down to like how you can support yourself differently and in these situations. That is why, too, socially, I say don't go out those first 30 days if you do not have to. Don't then just go and tell your friends, go meet them for coffee. Just don't even put yourself in that bar situation or going out to eat with friends. So you have to build a system that's going to support you. And it's not going to be like this forever, but you have to build that foundation for yourself, right? Keep choosing the next best thing for yourself. And the next best thing is for you not to drink alcohol today, right? Again, if you are looking for more coaching in your journey or more support, check out the links in my show notes. As always, if you haven't yet, please rate review and subscribe to the Silver Vibe Podcast. And if you leave a review on Apple, uh Apple Podcasts, screenshot it to me, email it to me, and I will give you free access to my workshop. Okay. And also, if you're listening to this in a hard moment in that hard season for you, I'm really glad that you press play today. Again, you didn't ruin anything. You're learning, you're learning how to relive and learning how this is going to stick for you and not your cousin's uncle. Okay, which would be your uncle too, not your cousin's husband's mother, right? So you have to work this for yourself and what works for you and what works for your personality, and practice through those things of where you've gotten messed up before and practice through that to help support you and your nervous system, okay? As always, thank you for listening. I hope this episode helped and keep on trucking out there.