Our guest today, Susan Hodgson, is an Irish coach living in France, who helps expats to drink less and find a welcoming sober community abroad.
We discuss how Susan made the choice to step away from alcohol after experiencing anxiety and worried that her alcohol use may be exacerbating it. We also discuss the startling differences between Irish and French drinking cultures and how it can be hard to drink less as an expat when you are trying to find friends and fit into another culture where wine is revered and accompanies every gathering.
Finally, we tackle the broader societal perspectives on women's relationship with alcohol. We discuss how quitting alcohol can lead to genuine laughter, greater positivity, and a more fulfilling life.
Join us!
SUSAN HODGSON - SHARP SENSE COACHING
To learn more about Susan Hodgson's services:
Website: www.sharpsensecoaching.com
Instagram: @sharp.sense.coaching
MEG & BELLA
Megan Webb: https://glassfulfilled.com.au
Instagram: @glassfulfilled
Bookclub: https://www.alcoholfreedom.com.au/unwinedbookclub
Isabella Ferguson: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
Instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
Instagram: @kidsandalcohol
Our guest today, Susan Hodgson, is an Irish coach living in France, who helps expats to drink less and find a welcoming sober community abroad.
We discuss how Susan made the choice to step away from alcohol after experiencing anxiety and worried that her alcohol use may be exacerbating it. We also discuss the startling differences between Irish and French drinking cultures and how it can be hard to drink less as an expat when you are trying to find friends and fit into another culture where wine is revered and accompanies every gathering.
Finally, we tackle the broader societal perspectives on women's relationship with alcohol. We discuss how quitting alcohol can lead to genuine laughter, greater positivity, and a more fulfilling life.
Join us!
SUSAN HODGSON - SHARP SENSE COACHING
To learn more about Susan Hodgson's services:
Website: www.sharpsensecoaching.com
Instagram: @sharp.sense.coaching
MEG & BELLA
Megan Webb: https://glassfulfilled.com.au
Instagram: @glassfulfilled
Bookclub: https://www.alcoholfreedom.com.au/unwinedbookclub
Isabella Ferguson: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
Instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
Instagram: @kidsandalcohol
Hello everybody. I am absolutely thrilled to have Susan Hodgson on the podcast this morning. Susan is a coach. She's got her own coaching business, sharp Sense Coaching, and Susan and I met as certified coaches of this naked mind and I know that you know all about this naked mind methodology created by Annie Grace. We've got a different take on coaching today because Susan is an Irish coach living in France helping expats drink less so they can feel home wherever they are, and this is a really fascinating topic to delve into because it really includes so many issues Travel, holidays, identity, belonging, all of it where alcohol is normally front and centre. So I'm really excited to delve into this topic. Welcome, susan. Thanks, fella. Would you mind just giving me a little bit of a blurb about where you are and how did you end up in France?
Speaker 2:Oh well, yeah, well, I'm Irish. So if I start talking too fast, just tell me to sing or something. I'm Irish and I have been living now in France for quite a while 20 years and I left Ireland in my early 20s. When I was leaving college, the question was more sort of where are you going to go, rather than what are you going to do, and so many of my friends also decided to leave Ireland and go travelling about it. So after a couple of fairly short stints that went in Spain and a couple in Germany, I ended up in France on holidays.
Speaker 2:So I'm a bit of an accidental expat. I just came over and I just came over on a visit and met a woman who knew a man who was looking for a PA and, in her 20s, just like, yeah, yeah, I'll drop my backpack here, see how it goes. And yeah, I sort of never looked back. I always sort of had for a long time I had it in the back of my mind that I could just upstix them head off again whenever I felt like it.
Speaker 2:You know the way life happens you know work and relationship, and then family, and next thing you know, you're settled. Yes settled.
Speaker 1:Where did alcohol kind of start for you and, I guess, become something that you wanted to curtail and then stop?
Speaker 2:Well, I started drinking in my teens, as so many of us, and, being like, we have our stereotypes. You know the Irish drinker.
Speaker 2:I had that when I came over to France, you know like almost immediately the first thing people would say to me oh, you're Irish, lovely, lovely country, green, it rains a lot, and oh, you like a drink, and you know kind of a little bit about everybody thinks, but at the same time I'm in a pub having this conversation. So you know, and yeah, I mean it's very much part of Irish culture. The pub, you know the crack and you know, yeah, craic, yeah, I love it. And then I arrived in France and there's kind of a different way of drinking and I feel like the French invented day drinking, you know, with the wine at lunch and then like afternoon apparel, and then wine with dinner, you know. So so it was kind of a different, a different maybe take on it and it's like a more constant kind of drinking rather than the sort of like weekend mad drinking that I was used to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but but I was in my 20s and adapted very willingly to this new drinking culture. You know that didn't mean of course, I didn't go out at weekends with all my other ex-pat friends and, and you know, go a bit mad.
Speaker 1:So was it? Did I actually give you a bit of permission then to drink a little bit earlier in the day?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, I like I mean around lunches I mean, but you know sort of gave you yeah bit of a green light.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. I remember my one of my first jobs. I was working with a French. It was a French company, so I was working with this French lady in that lunchtime. She would say to me the canteen is awful, let's go out. And there was a little creperie around the corner. Little you know. A little restaurant would do like you know, the Breton crepe and salads and stuff, and traditionally you have cider with your, with your crepe. So she'd say, well, just get a little bowl of cider. And I was like, oh, yay.
Speaker 2:This is great, you know. And then we'd ask, oh, we'd have a couple of drinks and go back to the office. And I remember now, like you know, sort of saying yeah, yeah, I'll do that.
Speaker 2:No problem volunteering for all this sort of stuff, you know, because I've had a couple of drinks during the day and yeah, and then, of course, leave the office and then go and have a drink after work, yeah, so, yeah, so I was very much part of my like, yeah, weekly day, probably that's around when I would start having, you know a daily drink because you'd have a little glass of wine after work or whatever, and sometimes at lunch, like I just said you know, did you notice that you culturally drank quite differently to the way that they drink in France?
Speaker 1:Did you notice that you know, because there is such a and maybe it's not so true necessarily that in France you just have one or two In anyone sitting. It's much slower and that's it, whereas I imagine Irish culturally, the style of drinking would be very similar to Australia, where you kind of binge, you hit it and you drink almost to get drunk.
Speaker 2:I do notice. I do notice a difference in that it's. It would be quite frowned upon to be visibly, you know, drunk. Yeah, you know, it's kind of not. I guess it's not so much a big deal. Maybe in Australia or in Ireland where they've been like, oh I've had a couple too many, you know, whatever, it's not that big a deal. But here I feel like, anyway that it's, it'd be more frowned upon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense to me. And, susan, what happened to lead you to make that decision? That alcohol just was no longer serving you?
Speaker 2:Well as alcohol was very much a part of my life up until up until it was like my mid 40s, I think. I think what happened for me was being an expat. I did the part, I did the whole party. Expat in my 20s and then I started getting a bit more serious in life and work and settling down and I think when I first stepped into parenthood, motherhood, that's when I started to feel very foreign. So it was like 10 years into my expat experience where I started to feel like other I guess in inverted commas I felt foreign. I felt like I wasn't doing it right. You know the pressure to get everything right, yes, even at the best of times. Then, when you become a parent, then it's like you really have to get this right.
Speaker 1:I can really appreciate that for sure, and you wouldn't have had your family around you to kind of help with that difficult time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and all your references are different because they didn't do it that way. I didn't grow up like that in Ireland. My parents weren't like that. Things like even in your pregnancy, how you give birth, breastfeeding, what to feed them when they start school, how long do you stay at home, that sort of thing. Like here, matjarni leave is very short.
Speaker 2:Compared to Ireland, women would tend to stay at home At least my experience talking to my friends would tend to stay at home longer than here, and you know so there's a huge guilt. When I went back to work, I was like I should be staying home for the first year and I should be breastfeeding for six months. Yes, that's the sort of thing, and I think that's when I well first started feeling terribly tired. I was exhausted because I had my son, then I had twins. Yeah, that would do it, that'll do it. I was just so tired and so tired and that pressure of like trying to do a good job at work, trying to do a good job at home, feeling like I'm probably not getting it right and missing, like the misunderstanding that it's dress up day at school, for example. You know, return in the corner and everybody's a spider man or a princess. Oh, no.
Speaker 2:Not us, you know, missing the bus and, like you know, getting things wrong at work and stuff, you know, and I just, I fear I think that I started to like that's when I really started to use my nightly wine as a coping mechanism. Before that it was my, it was, it was my social, social reward kind of thing. Yeah, and I mean not necessarily in a healthy way either, because I was, you know, relying on this for my social life.
Speaker 2:But when I started to use it as a coping mechanism for the tiredness and for the lonely feeling that came with being, with being an expert and an expert mom, you know, without the, perhaps without the support I would have had back home, I remember, I remember going to the, remember going to the pharmacy one day and they had a. They had a what do you call that? We can stand with magnesium supplements on it. And I'd said, like you know, are you feeling stressed? Are you feeling down? Have some magnesium. And I said to, and I said to the lady behind the counter does this work? And she and she said yeah, yeah, yeah, it works.
Speaker 1:Please you know, that's sort of you know like really sort of overwhelmed you know I can relate to so much of everything that you're saying, but I think it would have been compounded being an expat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like it's, like it's just that little bit more intense.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, you have the cultural, cultural differences, language differences, like there's like an additional layer all the time, like, not to mention the admin, like the forums that you're like. What the hell is this? Now, you know?
Speaker 1:And alcohol is everywhere In France, in the supermarket. It's and it does tend to be there almost as a given that it's going to be presented with every meal, although it is anticipated that you're going to have less of it at the time. But yeah, I can easily see how it becomes a coping mechanism in that circumstance, absolutely. Was it around that time that you started doing some reading into how to cut back? What did you do, or how did you? Who would you have reached out to as an expat?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I, so this was just pre COVID coming up to COVID, kind of time, and I, I do, I mean, I think I probably spent maybe a couple of years Googling how do you stop drinking without actually stopping drinking?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then how many? So many of us did that.
Speaker 2:Exactly. How do you only drink at weekends without feeling miserable during?
Speaker 1:the week.
Speaker 2:You know that sort of thing, and I don't know it just was. You know it takes a while because you're like I don't want. I kind of think I don't want to do this anymore, but I really, really do still want to keep drinking, you know. So I think I did a lot of Googling. I was having terrible anxiety. I was waking up at three in the morning the usual, you know, pounding heart and waking up even more exhausted, and I was just like this is I just I'm not coping. I was feeling terribly depressed. I mean, I was.
Speaker 2:I was having anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants at the same time and still drinking, and so like a mess, I was feeling just awful, you know, and I was just like but I, at the same time I was like is it the wine or is it just me being crap, not coping with this? Look at this amazing life I have. I live in Paris, I have three amazing kids, I have a husband, great house, a fantastic job, the whole thing. And I was like it can't be the wine, it must be me.
Speaker 1:Wow, Susan, it is.
Speaker 2:It's not chomping with it.
Speaker 1:It is such a vicious cycle, isn't it? I think there are so many women around the world, no matter where you are. That can 100% relate to everything that you've just said. And alcohol, as Ann Douset Johnson of that author of Drink says, it helps you do the heavy lifting. It is the modern women's steroid, so you're very easily able to get caught into the mind frame that it helps you and and you sort of just get. And then, as we know, snowballs, how much were you drinking in those moments? Was it? Was it quite a lot? Was it a bottle of night? Or what was it like?
Speaker 2:Probably was yeah, because I was working. So I was working during the day and I'd say, I'd say if I had, if I hadn't have been working, I would have started drinking a lot earlier during the day. Yeah, as in I mean working, as in having to go to the office If I were home with the kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the whole day I'd say I would have been drinking a lot more. You know, it was the fact that I had had to go to work and function at the office was probably what like if there was anything holding me back for the second bottle. It was that. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I yeah, I think I was I'd become home in the evening and I'll have a drink with while getting the dinner ready or somebody's got homework to finish or whatever you know.
Speaker 2:And then the the routine, getting people ready for bed, and the fights over teeth, and then what have you got tomorrow? And what did I forget to do, you know? And then, when everybody's in bed, then it's like then you get the right, now it's my turn, Now I get to have a glass of wine and like chill out, and then the one glass leads to another glass, needs to another glass, and next thing you're waking up at three o'clock with palpitations. Oh, you know, go in, I am ruining everything, you know.
Speaker 2:And then, as but as I think there's like what we're saying, there's an extra layer when you're, when you're an ex-pat, because you, you feel you feel guilty for drinking and like feel ashamed of that, that behavior, and and for not coping and for feeling so shit all the time, and then at the same time, you're supposed to be like living this fab ex-pat life. So you feel like you can't really say that to people at home, because will they understand or will they be like, for goodness sake, you know, yeah, poor you over there in Paris, you know.
Speaker 1:And I get that. So who understood what you were going through? Was there anybody?
Speaker 2:Well, listen, I went, I plucked up all my courage and I went to my doctor and I said listen, I really, like, the pills aren't working, I'm depressed, I'm still anxious and I know that I'm drinking too much and I can't seem to stop and I don't know, like, is it chicken egg? Is it what's going on? You know, whatever it is, it's just a big, big thing at the moment. And I said to her, I said to her I really this isn't, this isn't going well. And and she said to me, she said to me well, what does your husband think? Oh, so, at that moment, yes, and so, and this is so, and this is a young woman, you know. So I was like oh God, if she doesn't get it, I am. So I'm totally on my own. Now. What a question. What is your husband think? Okay, whatever, never mind, I'll just figure this out by myself you know you're not the doctor.
Speaker 1:I may yeah?
Speaker 2:Listen, and so I think that was when I was like I gotta figure this out by myself, and that's when I really hit the podcast and the, the quit lit, and but I wasn't finding the thing that that clicked with me, you know, and I was scrolling through. This might try and define how to stop drinking without stop drinking. And scrolling through something, somebody's site or somebody's Facebook thing and somebody had put in the comments on this other site, somebody had said oh, you guys have to check out Annie Grace's book, it's brilliant. And so I think I Googled that and I started reading that and that her story resonated with me rather than what I've been, what I've been hearing, what I've been reading before, and so I kind of yeah, I'm hooked on to her podcast and found, found that community of people who were think like living the same thing as me?
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's when I like real. I mean, I did wasn't verbalizing any of this, I was just like reading and listening and it was again. So the whole new vocabulary isn't it? Absolutely yeah. And and these other people, mostly women, of course, were like saying it out loud and you know, like saying it in their voice, kind of going I'm not doing well, I'm completely overwhelmed and I'm drinking too much. I know it's not good for me and I know it's not doing me any favors, but I just can't figure out how to, how to stop this job cycle. Yeah, and so that was that. That was like what got me on it, on my like road to figuring it out for myself. You know, with the same, it's this, it works the same way on everybody, even worse circumstances that can be, you know, slightly different, or so I imagine there that alcohol for you fueled some of the anxiety and other feelings for you.
Speaker 2:Well, oh, absolutely yeah. I mean, I was convinced that my anxiety was just coming from me not coping, that I was, like you know, just going in that you know mental roller coaster every evening. And when I took my first break and noticed, and noticed gradually every night how I was like at the beginning, waking up yes, still, because you're still like I'm turning out the adrenaline and the car's all and all that because it's so, you know, ingrained in your system to do that but gradually noticing how less and less, and then when you get that first night of sleep like real, straight through, I woke up with the biggest smile on my face. That is better than any damn mouth back I've ever tasted.
Speaker 1:Yes, you do, don't you? It's like no one is ever going to take that away from me again. It's like you can then trust your body to do what it needs to do Again. It's so simple, but so hard, so difficult to actually get to that point that it's that one thing. It's the alcohol, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's interesting too because you know, when things do get hard and you do sort of start relying on whatever the nightly wine to help you relax, or the nightly whatever beer on the way home to kind of steer you for the homework or whatever it is, or to go home to be on your own, whatever you lose touch with like all sides of yourself, like how you're feeling, like what you're, you know how you really feel, yeah, what you really think.
Speaker 2:Because you start going into this just circle over and over again of like say you're an expat and you're feeling lonely, miserable, you're disappointed with the whole experience, whatever, just keep going in that circ, that that like never ending negative loop, you know, and you also lose touch with physically what's going on your whole, like the whole, where, where, where is your anxiety? Where is this disappointment? Where are you feeling at?
Speaker 1:You know we just like immediately going numb it immediately, you know I imagined. Then you started to feel good. You know that you wanted to drink less and become potentially alcohol free or to moderate. But then how are you able to then integrate yourself back into society in France as that person? That would have presented some challenges as well, I would have imagined.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the, the, the preparation I did for it was very much around like why do I want this glass of wine now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and yeah, and it was always coming back to I'm tired and I need. I need a boost. And it was coming back like several it's all mess of stuff, but like it was coming back to the energy I need that. I need that push for the end of the day, yeah, and I need. I need this quiet time for me. I need this. It's me and the glass of wine and that's what I need. So when you take out the wine, like what I? What I needed was more energy and more rest.
Speaker 1:Yes and yes. I hear so many women say that, spot on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, and I would come to, I come home, I would. It was like, stand there, I'm heading to the fridge, you know the cope to the left, the back to the right and then straight to the bottom In the fridge. You know, without even like, and what we were saying about you know, listening to yourself without even stopping to say am I actually, could I use a glass of water? No, that's me and I could have to run around all day. And am I like, are we a bit hungry? Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:Am I annoyed by my day? You know, you know how tired am I and like it's just like, it's a tiny little thing, but five minutes of sitting in a dark room, kind of going okay, that was our day, you know. And then being able to like think about what's going to happen if I, if I do have that glass of wine. What's going to happen is is it ever one glass of wine? No, never for me anyway. Or what was the point of only having one, you know. And so, like, realizing that I can listen to myself, you know, and be nice to myself rather than head straight for the straight for the wine, the anxiety thing was absolutely huge for me because I just wouldn't to to this anxiety in the middle of the night thing anymore.
Speaker 1:It was killing me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and you know what's going to happen tomorrow. So was that, was that? Was that aspect of the, the, the, the, giving myself the rest I needed, and knowing like deep down that that wine was not giving me any rest at all, it was taking it from me. And then the other, the other thing was the, the, the quiet alone, me and me and the glass of wine and the cat, you know, and I realized I could, you know, I could still have that quiet time, but I, but I shortened it so that I could go to bed and get some sleep. You know, the cat gave up on me, she just left, she was a little, she gave up and went out and found some new friends and, and you know, and the quiet, and things like reading a book.
Speaker 2:I'd stopped reading because I was standing there in the kitchen with my glass of wine on alert, I might add. There was nothing restful or relaxing about it. I was standing up in my kitchen watching the clock going oh shit, it's a quarter to 12. I got it. It was really good bed.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:You know, and like on alert in case somebody came down to go are you not coming to bed? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so there was nothing, you know, restful, yeah, and so it's really.
Speaker 1:It was really like a work of figuring out what I actually need is, you know, instead of the spine, how has your life changed now, in the way that you approach, listening to your own body and and when it needs rest and it needs to be alone has it is a lot more compassion and kindness now compared to you know where you were when our call was still there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, absolutely yeah. I mean, I think the first and biggest thing I learned was compassion for myself. I was, I was being so hard on myself and, like you know, it's beating myself up with a big rod every day, every evening.
Speaker 2:I know, yeah, been able to say this can happen to absolutely anybody. When you don't feel, when you don't allow yourself the kindness of talking to someone about how you're feeling, of listening to your own thoughts and emotions, when you stop doing that and you just give it to a glass of wine or whatever, your cocktail or whatever it is doesn't matter, no wonder you end up feeling lonely and that is so hard to get out of this way of behaving because you're like, well, you can't do it anyway.
Speaker 1:You don't know how to do it anyway.
Speaker 1:It's what we've learnt as well, that there are images maybe it's our own mothers, but images of women all around the world that the kids come in, you're preparing the dinner, doing the homework, you've transitioned from your own job and that glass of wine accompanies you as that fuel to keep you going. So I also hear so many women just say that having pouring the glass of wine is that absolute excuse that I'm needing the energy, but I'm also needing a bit of downtime as well. It's so ridiculous that we can't just give permission for ourselves to do it without the glass of wine. It's the guilt and the heavy lifting and the pressure that we put on ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, at the same time, society is set up for us to have that huge mental load, workload and emotional load to carry, and I mean it's like gosh, you've got to be. Some days you feel like you've got to be super human, and so that's when you do really have to listen to yourself, your body. Are your shoulders up to your ears yet again? Are you sitting there like a crumb or something trying to do?
Speaker 1:I'm fine, I'm fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally fine, and we're just like, from where we're from, from our kids, like all over the world, we're sold this idea of grown up strength and that's how they cope, and yeah, it's everywhere. And then if you have like, if you have again extra layers of like feeling homesick, feeling lonely, feeling like well, I wouldn't be drinking so much if I were back home, yeah, that sort of thing, it's like we're always letting it off the hook. You know it's here, it's not, it's not the, it's because I'm here.
Speaker 1:I've got a question, Susan what was it like being a non-drinker in France, and do you think it's easier being a non-drinker in France than what it would be being a non-drinker in Ireland?
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting question. Yeah, you know it's, you know yourself it's a better practice as well, because you go. Every time you go into a new situation you're like, oh, my goodness, what's going to happen now? How uncomfortable am I going to feel, how awkward am I going to make it this time? And it did take me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember my first night out with my two girlfriends where I wasn't drinking, and I think it was up to Haido for three days, you know. And we went to the restaurant and the music was loud and I was, and they knew like I partied with these girls. We lived together and I partied with these girls like for years. And we went out to this restaurant and the music was loud and I was like I and they got a bottle of wine and I was like, I'll have whatever, I'll just stick to the water, whatever it's on the table, you know. And so the waitress comes around with the wine, so she serves my friend in front and then she serves my friend in beside and I'm there at the music so loud. I'm going, not for me, thank you. And and she's coming with the bottle and I'm like, yeah, it's like a horror story.
Speaker 2:It was terrible and she kept that. You could see that the bottle of wine coming in slow motion to my glass and they're like, and my friends are like, don't do it, it was so awkward, but you know it was like. You know such funny situations like that. And then you know, going to friends for dinner, like and they're like oh, you're still not drinking.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no thanks, I'm grand, yeah. And then, like the panic for the glasses. You know not have the stem. Where what are we going to give Susan if she doesn't have the fancy?
Speaker 2:glass you know other people, other people feeling awkward, and I went into these situations going right, I'm sure I'm going to feel awkward, but I think I think the other people are going to feel just, if not more, awkward than me. So let's just get this over with you know. Yeah, it's a few minutes of you know them kind of going, a few minutes of me probably feeling a bit, you know, weird, but then with practice I don't feel weird anymore.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you know yeah, I went to, yeah, you got after 20 minutes on notices. What was that season Exactly?
Speaker 2:I went to a party last night and I brought my bottle of fizzy alcohol, free stuff and my husband brought the bottle of champagne and I had my little bottle on the table and went back to pour myself a second glass and the bloody thing was empty because everybody had enough of it, you know they had yours, they had mine.
Speaker 2:So it's, yeah, it's all like it's all. It's a work in progress, you know. And then to answer your question about Ireland and I have so I have less experience now being alcohol free in Ireland than I do in France yes and yeah, and I think the options in Ireland, the alcohol free options, are like that business is booming. So it's, it's, it's coming to Ireland as well, like a lot more probably than in France and like if you go to supermarket you will have a big, like a lot of time I went was a huge big alcohol free section which was right, which was great to see, but it is.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it's a challenge for anyone. They're trying to go alcohol free because, like, the pub is still very important, it's a very important part of life, and so you have to find the people who are thinking the same way as you. Yeah, who are thinking there's other things to do than go to the pub and I mean it's, it's, yeah, it's again, it's a better work, you know yeah it's a courageous step to be the one that doesn't drink and it does get easier though.
Speaker 1:And the rewards are so profound. How do you feel now compared to that person you know, in the throws of young kids and drinking and 3am wakeups? What's the comparison like?
Speaker 2:I am and composed and content, and I know myself a million times better than I knew myself, like, say, five years ago. Yeah, I didn't know, I didn't know what I wanted, I didn't know how I felt, even you know, I just felt like shit, but that was the only way I could express it, yeah, and I got my sense of humour back. Nothing would make me laugh I used to love a good laugh and a good belly laugh, and you know comedies and but nothing would make me laugh and I've like I can relate to that.
Speaker 1:I can relate to that as well. It's the belly laughs. I think I was almost chasing when I was drinking, but you could never remember the choice.
Speaker 2:You know it was a bit forced. It was a bit forced. You feel it.
Speaker 1:It's hilarious, it's not how hard but you feel a good laugh so much more when your the system's operating as it should be. Yeah, you do get to humour, your lightness of being. You really just see the good bits of life. Positivity does come in to play a whole lot more when you're, you know, not drinking and flooded with all the stress hormones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And because it, like a drink, isn't the answer to everything, you find your own answers and so your confidence goes up. Yeah, you rebuild your confidence, you, you. You can deal with the stuff that's going to hit you, because it's like it's life, but you go okay, right, well, I can, I can, I can handle this, whatever it is, you know, rather than heading straight for the spot on.
Speaker 1:I think you're right. It's the the ability to set better boundaries, to feel confident about your decision making, to trust your decisions, and with that comes better boundary setting and greater resilience. All of those things, it just amazes me, can happen on the other side of alcohol. It's, it's just so, and you have to have to go through it to for the penny to drop, to get it it it does all flow.
Speaker 1:Changing that one thing does actually lead to just a multitude of benefits on the other side. So you're now, you've got sharp sense coaching and you've set up business in France and I imagine you are taking clients from all around the world. But expats is your niche. Tell me what's. What are you seeing there as your target audience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny because I have ended up working with more Irish women than I thought I would. So funny how Irish people would be drawn to you yeah, being Irish and everything, so, but that was that's quite funny really. I was like, oh yeah, expats, but I'd like to be able to work with Irish people. Irish, I'd like to be able to work with Irish people. And well, it's, you know it's. There's always a common, there's always a common thread of looking for like connection and that and that feeling of of home. And when you're an expat and you are drinking more than you want to, you're losing connection with yourself first and foremost, but you feel like you haven't got that like community that gets you that you can, that you could talk to about these things. That loneliness just sort of compounds itself when you, when you, when you, or when you're using the wine to like cope with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and the more, like, as we just said, like the more, the more you drink, the more you like sort of dig yourself into that like isolation, yeah, and we sort of sold this idea that you know everything the connection happens with a drink, that that's how you meet people, that's how you make friends. But you know, as an expat, you kind of have to have patience. You didn't, you didn't make all your friends, like, everybody you've met that you haven't made, become friends with. You know, that's the way I kind of, as an expat, you kind of feel like you should, should get all this right, you should have a great group of friends and you should be having the best time ever. Oh, the pressure, the pressure, yeah, to get it all right.
Speaker 2:And you know, like we said, with those like extra layers, you can, with the like maybe guilt, disappointment, feeling like you have a lot of women, moms, who have come abroad to to like follow their partner's career, and so that there's there's a sort of a lack, feeling like a lack of purpose, like is this, is this it now? Oh, yes, you know, am I? What about my career? You know what about my qualifications, whatever you know, and so that's so it's kind of, yeah, difficult and and then you're going to feel you know that loneliness as well.
Speaker 1:What a great service. I imagine business is doing well, so I imagine there are a lot of people needing connection and just to talk about drinking, to take the shame away, I mean it's incredible yeah.
Speaker 2:It's I mean, yeah, I think it's hard to start talking about these things. You know, it's like we're saying it's well, like you've got the double, the double layer. There's the drinking and then there's the whole expat thing. It's like how can I say to people I haven't had a full time?
Speaker 1:I'm supposed to have the best time ever. It's supposed to be glamorous, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, you know. And then you can also be in that. You get in the little you know. You get in the drinking bubble, but you can get into an expat bubble. That's maybe not um. Serving you is probably not the right word, but that doesn't feel as good as it could. I mean, I remember when I was, when I was maternity leave with my first baby and I joined sort of like English speaking mom group and we couldn't help but but we would get together to literally just bitch about everything that was wrong. You know, and, yes, you need to vent and everything. But once you get into that you know negative loop of everything that's wrong and everything that should be different, and you come on like you. Yes, it's good to like connect with people like that, but you come away from it feeling like your life is rubbish.
Speaker 1:It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's how exactly? Yeah, you're going to look at it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, you can get into those sort of bubbles and you can see your way out how to, how to like, pop that bubble. Well said.
Speaker 1:So where can people find you? I imagine you've got a facility there on your site that enables people just to have a you know, a chat with you to talk about your services. Where can they find you? And what would you say to somebody that is drinking too much and is out there feeling alone and wants to talk to somebody else about it? What would you say to them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, to just remember, it's going to be uncomfortable the first time you talk to someone about it, but it's a lot more uncomfortable to like keep yourself in that situation where you don't like, you don't feel, you don't feel like you have any other option than to keep drinking. You know, yeah, I would say especially to an ex-pat you're like, look at everything you've done, look at everything you've seen, look at your adventurous side. You know, just take on a new adventure and go for it. You know it's like. It's like it's like when you look back in five years, how do you want to see this? Like you know, experience abroad, same as with the drinking. Like when you, in five years time, do you still want to be like sitting there with that feeling of is this it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That works well, doesn't it? When you know you sort of do that future, you work. Where am I in a year, five years, 10 years? And if alcohol is going to sort of lead me down the path where I want to be, or is it probably not?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And where can people find you, Susan?
Speaker 2:Well, my website is at sharpsensecoachingcom and, if anybody's interested, there's a video series, kind of mini workshop you can do by yourself to sort of start out. You know, start start preparing, maybe Fantastic. A few questions, if you like. Yeah, see, like, does it sound like something that you would like to do? Drink a bit less. You know that's so good, so good, and you can follow me on Instagram at sharpsetscoaching as well. Yes, yeah, Fantastic.
Speaker 1:I follow you on Instagram. I love your posts.
Speaker 2:They're funny, they're off and get a good giggle, get a good giggle.
Speaker 1:I love it. But it has been an absolute delight to hear your story and just to hear how you, what your take has been on being an expat and how alcohol could really make that experience just a bit more lonely or more stressful. And yeah, I can really, just, I can really see it from that perspective. Now you really communicated that so beautifully. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Thanks a million, it's been fun.
Speaker 1:See you later.