Thriving Alcohol-Free with Mocktail Mom

Ep 112 Borrowing Belief: Lindsay Hennekey Helps Women Make Alcohol No Longer an Issue

• Season 1 • Episode 112

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Lindsay Hennekey shares her powerful journey from using alcohol to cope with life disappointments to creating a thriving alcohol-free life through her coaching program Feel Good AF.

• Lindsay's drinking escalated when facing fertility issues and divorce, leading to daily alcohol consumption
• We often drink to procrastinate and avoid dealing with difficult emotions
• When you hold space for emotions rather than numbing them, they naturally dissipate
• Lindsay's turning point came after reading quit literature and realizing she would never have children. 
• Instead of numbing her grief with wine, she chose to discover "what happy people do who don't have kids." 
• The pandemic provided a unique opportunity to focus on sobriety without social pressure.
• Communication with loved ones is crucial in early sobriety—tell them what you need.
• Having a drink isn't a failure, but rather, it is just returning to your comfort zone.
• Lindsay finds joy in helping women who don't believe they can quit drinking borrow her belief in them.
• Non-alcoholic alternatives like craft NA beers, wines, and mocktails help make sobriety enjoyable.
• The highest achievers aren't typically heavy drinkers—success and sobriety often go hand in hand.


Connect with Lindsay: Instagram or LindsayHennekey.com

Try GoBrewing Non-Alcoholic Beer. Use code MOCKTAILMOM for a discount!

Join Deb's membership community and create delicious mocktails with your new best friends! Weekly Happy Half-Hours over Zoom to make mocktails and connect.

You are loved. Big Time Cheers!

Speaker 1:

I was drinking to cope with stress because I wasn't able to get pregnant, and so I isolated a lot and I drank almost every single day. We drink to procrastinate. We drink so that we don't have to deal with something or think about something. If you can hold space for your emotions and just let them exist, they will dissipate. I had a choice I could continue living my life sitting on the couch drinking wine, feeling sorry for myself that my life didn't turn out the way I wanted to, or I could figure out what happy people do who don't have kids, and so I chose to do that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, hey, friends, welcome back to Thriving Alcohol-Free. You are in for a treat today. Lindsay Henneke, am I saying your last name, right? Yes, okay, good, I didn't ask you before we started recording. I just love you and I'm so happy that you're here today to introduce yourself to my audience. I'm going to read a little bit of your bio, but thank you for being here.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. I just love you too, and I'm so happy to be getting to know you better, really really it's like instant connection.

Speaker 2:

You and I did an Instagram live together with Kate Taylor and it was so much fun. That's how I met you. It was so much fun to connect together and super excited for you to be here and for everybody to hear your story and hear what you're up to in this alcohol-free movement. Okay, I'm gonna read a little bit of your bio, which is always the biggest challenge for me in the podcast. Here we go. Okay, Lindsay Heneke is the creator of Feel Good AF.

Speaker 1:

I love it.

Speaker 2:

With over four years of sobriety under her belt, lindsay's journey is a powerful testament to the transformative nature of embracing sobriety. I love that embracing sobriety. She teaches ambitious women how to make alcohol no longer an issue. That's enormous, because it is an issue right, it can be yeah it can be Okay, welcome. Welcome, I would love to have you share Maybe you mind sharing your story of how you, maybe your drinking history and how you got alcohol free. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. So I would say I was this quintessential high school drinker. I had older brothers and so I would see them partying. I couldn't wait to be in high school and doing the things that they were doing. And then I couldn't wait to be in college and my whole life revolved around partying and socializing.

Speaker 1:

And then I went right into the workforce and getting married and never stopped binge drinking and so as I got older and started to think about like we should have children and all of these things, my life went into a spiral of fertility issues and divorce, you know, and tens of thousands of dollars spent on fertility issues and, you know, trying to become pregnant. And then I got divorced and then I kind of found myself living alone, was just in this condo, after selling my house and thinking, oh my gosh, I don't think people come home from work every day and drink and then spend their whole weekends drinking. And that was kind of where I wound up. It was almost like I just didn't really know what to do with myself. And so I was working a lot and I was very house poor in my in my condo going from double income to single income and so I just was like not very.

Speaker 1:

I started to isolate a lot and the next thing I knew I kind of got out in the world more, I was socializing, more, my job was more demanding, I was traveling more for work and through all of this I was drinking a lot, more specifically when I would be traveling for work and with clients and spending a lot of time in airports. And I would always blame anything on why I didn't feel good, but it was definitely. I was never hungover. I will tell you that I never once would say I'm hungover and I just really tried to fake it. I would run five miles the next morning to prove that I wasn't hungover or anything like you know. I would try to not miss those workouts so that my husband specifically didn't know that I was hungover, because then I got remarried in 2016.

Speaker 1:

And I had these other things going on with my uterus, with fertility, and I was anemic and I kind of thought that it was some of my health issues that made me feel so horrible. But deep down I knew that it was like drinking. I was drinking to cope with stress because I wasn't able to get pregnant, I was not having a family and I was getting closer and closer to 40. I was getting like closer to this realization that I would not be getting pregnant, and so I isolated a lot and I drank almost every single day. I would have little breaks here and there, but they were totally backed because I would want to lose a few pounds. So I would take, you know, a 30 day break. I would do something like a whole 30, and I would feel so good and I would always say like, oh well, now I'll just drink on weekends, I'm not going to drink during the week anymore, and within two or three weeks, I was right back to drinking every single day.

Speaker 1:

I was 39, and I read my first quit lit book. It was Thanksgiving weekend of November 2018. Okay, read Rebecca Weller's A Happier Hour, and a coworker gave it to me or mentioned it to me. And yeah, because we were the two that were always like, oh, I had too much wine last night.

Speaker 2:

It was like that, coworker, you know everyone, I think, has one, and like I can't wait, like your drinking buddy, so to speak you know like. I don't feel so bad because we're both. We're both at home drinking our wine.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, and we would like text every night. I'd be like, oh, I made it to 530, like actually did a workout and then now and then poured my glass of wine, and so we would text all the time. And so she had mentioned it and I was like I'm not reading that book, no, and then I did, and we both read it the same weekend Really, yes, thanksgiving weekend. And she finished it before me and said, like the next day she said and I didn't drink last night. And I was like last night was the Friday after Thanksgiving. What do you mean? It's a holiday weekend. What do you mean it's a holiday weekend?

Speaker 2:

You didn't drink Drinking holiday. Yeah, this is a drinking weekend.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And so I was like, wow, I got to get this together. And so I didn't drink that night, which was the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, so proud of myself and I finished the book and I decided that I would take a 30-day break. And so my 40th birthday was that Christmas Eve, which was also right around day 28 or day 29 of my 30 day break, and I totally blew it. I drank, I didn't care, and then I kind of went off the deep end for a while and maybe like another couple of months, and then I started to read again more quit lit.

Speaker 1:

And then for about another year I would kind of go back and forth, I would follow people on social media and back then there wasn't a ton of people, and then I would read a little bit more and then I would just completely just live my life and not think about it at all, because I was convinced that it was not something I could ever do, like I was a drinker. There was no way I was going to be like one of these people who could quit drinking. I did not see that path for me ever. And then in 2020, when we had the pandemic, like right before that I decided that I needed a new job. I was so bored at my job. I had blamed my job on why I was drinking so much, and so I started to look a little bit for a new job, and then I learned that I had to have a hysterectomy.

Speaker 1:

And it was almost an emergency hysterectomy, but I was able to like prolong it a little bit because of the pandemic. I didn't want to go to the hospital and have surgery like it. I wasn't ready to be in a hospital during that time.

Speaker 1:

So I waited a little bit and I decided that I needed to stop drinking at least two weeks before my surgery because I had been drinking so heavily. I was very concerned about going under anesthesia and with the amount I had been drinking, and so I pretty much just like went on a bender until the two week mark before my surgery. And I had recently gotten a new job and I knew like I wasn't going to be successful at that job if I had kept drinking the way I did. So that was it I quit two weeks before my surgery and I always say like I kind of had an assist, because after my surgery I wouldn't have been drinking anyway.

Speaker 1:

So the first like month was that it's still kind of easy, but then I had to do all the heavy lifting of it. But I it was acceptance. I was never going to be a mother and I had a choice. I could continue living my life sitting on the couch drinking wine, feeling sorry for myself that my life didn't turn out the way I wanted to, or I could figure out what happy people do who don't have kids, and so I chose to do that.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I love it what happy people do who don't have kids.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because I wasn't happy, like for so long and I just like masked it all with more alcohol.

Speaker 2:

Isn't it interesting? I mean, just how like we think, how we think our life is going to be one way, right, and then like it, like I got. I got pregnant the first time. Never got pregnant again my second daughter's from China. So it's like just life changes, right, it just it changes. Life happens differently than we expect it to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like how I'm going to still be like I'm happy, I'm so happy. But like how I'm going to still be like I'm happy, I'm so happy. But like how do we navigate this and not allow alcohol to numb our feeling of like my life should have been this way. I should be at this place, Right.

Speaker 1:

I was so focused on what should have been that all I did was like I didn't want to do anything else until I had that, that all I did was like I didn't want to do anything else until I had that. And when I was like, met with the finality of it, I'm never going to have that, yep, yep. I had to change. There was just no way and yeah, there's a lot of because I had everything else going on in my life Like I was very successful, I had a successful husband, I had an amazing job and I just I was so hyper focused on what wasn't going and a little guilt too.

Speaker 1:

I think you know my parents a lot of the are you ever going to have kids? How come you haven't had kids yet? And I'm like, how many times do I have to tell you that Like I can't get pregnant? I don't know. And like say, I said like very mean things to my mom sometimes because I'm like it's been a decade and you're still just casually asking me if I'm pregnant, like what?

Speaker 2:

I don't know. Yeah, it's painful. No, that's painful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So quitting drinking just makes you. It gives you perspective, I think, on what is important. And once you can get over the hump of the reality that you're not drinking anymore, it's like, oh my gosh, how could I have lived that way for so long? And that's just because we believe that alcohol has to play a role in our lives. And it doesn't True. But if we don't give ourselves the chance to experience what it could be like without alcohol, you just never know. So you stay.

Speaker 2:

Totally, yeah, you stay in that place. Yeah, yeah, you stay in that place. Yeah, yeah, okay. So what was that like then? Okay, so you got past your surgery, recovery, and now you're like back out in the world, back out at work events and well, probably not because it's 2020, right, so, yeah, so maybe you're still a little more, you know, insulated at home, but how was it when you're like trying to explain to people, you're not drinking, yeah, so okay.

Speaker 1:

The first thing is I think that I was lucky that it was during the pandemic. But when I tell people that, I am often responded to with like oh, that would have been so hard because the pandemic was so hard, so people were drinking more. But I thought that I was lucky from the socialization aspect. All I had to do was talk to my husband about it. I didn't have to explain myself to anybody. But when we did start going out, or even if it was just him and I going out to dinner when we finally were able to, I would be very uncomfortable, even just us, and I would want to go to, like, the pizza place that only served soda. Yep, yep, yep, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're like there's no temptation here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

But I found that all I really had to do was tell my husband what I needed from him in those moments. So if we were going out, with another couple. I would be like, okay, this is what I'm ordering, so-and-so, asks why I'm not drinking. Like, just don't say anything, I've got this. You know, if, if, if I tell you that I want to order a glass of wine, like I literally want you to publicly shame me. I literally want you to tell me, like, what are you doing? And he never would have done that.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, but you're like you're telling him what you need, Right I?

Speaker 1:

need this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's good, it's like yeah whatever's going to work for you, yep, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so I often tell the women that I work with and I see it every time, every single time they pull the trigger and do this action is like you have to tell the person that you're with whether it's your partner or just somebody that you spend the most time with that this is a problem for you, because this is about boundary setting and building inner integrity.

Speaker 1:

Like you're making a promise to yourself that you won't drink, but you will break that promise 8,000 times, like we've all done. And when you tell the person who matters to you the most, like what's really going on in your mind. This isn't just a oh I need to quit drinking casual thing. This is all I think about is alcohol. I leave work early just so that I can get home before my husband and have a drink before he gets home, so he doesn't know how much I'm drinking. Or you don't know that I actually woke up at five o'clock this morning and dragged a bunch of wine bottles out to the outside recycling, so nobody would see. Like they need to hear that, because when they don't otherwise, they're just like you're fine, you don't have a problem, you're right.

Speaker 1:

But it doesn't matter. If you think it's a problem and if you don't feel your best, that's enough reason. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And if you don't feel your best, that's enough reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so good. How do you help people feel like, okay, so if they do have a drink, that it's not a failure, but it's just like maybe building a muscle for them or like they're growing in their walk of not drinking?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I look at having a drink just going back to your comfort zone. So, good or bad, we know the outcome when we drink. We don't always know the outcome of what's going to happen if we don't drink because a feeling is going to come up or we're going to have to deal with that feeling or whatever, and so oftentimes women will join my group say they'll be in there for three months and maybe two or three times during that few months they will have a slip. And so I look at it as this is not a new day one, this is not a failure. This is like you were really growing and stretching and you are rewiring your brain to tell it like no, I don't want to drink.

Speaker 1:

That suggestion sucks Like brain. Stop telling me I need a drink right now, and so, like every other time, I need a drink right now. And so, like every other time though, you've complied, and so the brain is still going to serve that suggestion up for a long time, and so it's OK. If you said, ok, brain, I'll have the drink, it's just because it was comfortable. You had been growing and stretching and living in the discomfort for, you know, probably a month or two months, and sometimes we just have to relax, and so, as long as you use the slip as a reminder as to why you're doing this work and you use your tools you reach out to the group, you reach out to me you should make sure you show up to our next weekly call those things. It will not become a massive slide. You won't be drinking every single day. It'll be a one night thing and then you just get right back up there.

Speaker 2:

A little bump in the road.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because it is. It's just, it's the comfort zone, like we drink to procrastinate. We drink so that we don't have to deal with something or think about something.

Speaker 2:

Or feel something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, or feel something, and so if you can hold space for your emotions and just let them exist, they will dissipate and they are valid. Anything that you're feeling is valid, and so self-validation is also very important and something that we talk about. Like you, don't you have other people to tell you that it's okay to feel the way you feel. So true.

Speaker 2:

That's so true. So okay, so you have coaching, you have a group coaching. You do one-on-one coaching. I love it. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I mentioned your, your Instagram, lindsay, and it's L-I-N-D-S-A-Y underscore Henneke, h-e-n-n-e-k-e-y. I'll make sure I put that in the show notes. Everybody can follow you. And that's your website as well. Yeah, lindsayhennekecom. So make sure your website's awesome and you have resources on there A great blog and just a lot. I love it. You're very practical.

Speaker 1:

And just in the advice that you give. And just like want and I know that you want this too I just want everyone to know that they can quit drinking, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Period, period yeah, because right, for so long we feel like we can't, like we can't. You're either normal or you're alcoholic. So you do like gray area coaching, gray area like help people walk through, kind of great, because I didn't even I had never heard that term gray area drinking until I kind of started scrolling sober stuff. Yeah, yeah, okay. So yeah, that was new to you, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, new to me even, like when I was two years sober like.

Speaker 2:

I hadn't really been yeah, I didn't really.

Speaker 1:

I don't think it clicked with me and I read a lot of Quitlet in early sobriety and I did not. That wasn't something that was. I didn't resonate until I actually started to see, like I don't have to label myself as an alcoholic. Perfect Winner, winner, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because I don't, by the way, I know. No, yeah, what are ways that you reward, Like how people learn to reward themselves Besides just alcohol?

Speaker 1:

Yes, probably one of the most important things, because you have to say what do I deserve right now?

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I just had this long stressful day. How should I take care of myself right now? So I have like my mentality around. This is there's little rewards, like for when you hit milestones, and so what I used to do is plan like a shopping trip, like so, where I live we don't have a ton of stores. So when I was quitting, I remember like my six month anniversary of not drinking. I told my husband like I just want to go to Montreal and I want to go shopping because it's the closest city and so OK. So that was like a big reward for me when I hit my six months. But then throughout my journey I used to order little gifts for myself on Amazon so that they would kind of show up around a milestone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, my big thing is like I love so I was a wine drinker but I love IPAs. So I'm a big non-alcoholic beer person. Really Okay, yeah, it's, they're kind of my favorite and so they're also expensive, more expensive, oh, yeah, yeah, none of the non-alcoholic. It's not cheap, none of it, no, no. So we have a local brewery here. It's called Zero Gravity and they have a spinoff, I guess. Or they create a non-alcoholic IPA and a pilsner. It's called Rescue Club.

Speaker 1:

So it's one of my favorite places to go to because it's a brewery that was right up the street from my old office and I used to go there and drink pretty heavily after work most days and especially in the summer. They have like a beautiful outdoor thing and we would always go there, and so now it's just like a place where I feel like I can go and they have this option for me. I see all of my friends and I don't know if this happens to you, but I see people like, particularly people I used to go on business travel with, and when they hear the words out of my mouth that I don't drink anymore with, and when they hear the words out of my mouth that I don't drink anymore, the shock and awe but in the best way is so amazing. Like my God, I'm jealous is most often what I say?

Speaker 1:

Yes, Really, yes, like I have had coworkers, specifically men, because I used to work in the auto industry too, so I worked with a lot of men and they were like God, I wish I could quit drinking, wow. And it's like you can, you can, you can, you can, and it's okay. Yeah, everyone can, everyone can, and, as I, when I was really focused in my career and my drinking, the one thing I noticed is the real leaders and the real successful people they were not drinking. Yeah, no, they were not.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the highest achievers are not drinkers. They're not. They're not waking up with a hangover.

Speaker 1:

They're not.

Speaker 2:

They're not zoning out all night. They're not. Yeah, I could never wrap my head around it, like, how does that? How do they not drink? How does Tim McGraw not drink? I don't understand. For whatever reason, he's the one I keep I was. I used to always think about like he got all healthy.

Speaker 1:

he looks so good, you know yeah, you don't have to drink yeah okay, so you love IPAs.

Speaker 2:

Okay, let's talk a little bit, if you don't mind. Can we talk a little about what, like? What do you drink when you're not drinking? What are you drinking? Let's say you drink the IPAs. What kind of alcohol beers do you? What do you love in the summer or year round?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I drink Rescue Club IPA. I drink a lot of athletic brewing. My husband has the membership for athletic brewing, so he's always getting stuff and Go Brewing is one of my favorites.

Speaker 2:

It's so good.

Speaker 1:

They have some sours that are really good.

Speaker 2:

They're my favorite. The sours are my favorite. I can't believe you're saying that because they're just like my love. Language is literally Go brewing sours. Yeah, yes, they're so good yeah.

Speaker 1:

So good, I have not tried anything from them that I don't love.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And then my other favorite thing, actually, aplos sent me this is their, their I forget the first word, but their Negroni. It's like a mandarin or something.

Speaker 2:

Negroni, yeah, I can't remember the name of it? Yep, it's in an orange, can? It's their? Cans are delicious. Yeah, their cans are so good. Yeah, I'm a big fan of aplos. Yep, yeah, okay, good, that's my new new one. Do you drink any of the non-alcoholic wines or anything, or make mocktails? Not that you have to, just curious, yes I do okay.

Speaker 1:

So my favorite non-alcoholic wine, non-alcoholic wine, is the blanc de blancsancs, the sparkling Chardonnay by Oddbird, that is my favorite, and then the other one is the Oddbird Addiction. It's their Spanish red.

Speaker 2:

It's so good. Okay, okay, nice, nice. And do you make mocktails or do you order mocktails when you're out and about? Not that you have to, but yes.

Speaker 1:

I do order mocktails and if there's a mocktail on the menu and I want it to come out with fancy garnish, like I want a candied rosemary sprig, oh, you want everything. Yeah, I want everything. Like yeah, I want it to look like a display.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the most beautiful cocktail has just been placed in front of you.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, it should.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it should. Yes, that's awesome. That's awesome, okay. What do you love about being a sober coach? What do you love about what you're doing?

Speaker 1:

Okay, I love that when women first come to me, they don't believe that they can quit drinking, but I always just tell them that they can borrow my belief in them and it's only a matter of time before they start seeing it in themselves and just watching that light bulb come off of, like, ok, I'm seeing it, I see that this is possible for me. I just still have to do all the tedious work to get there.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yep, yep, they start to see it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but that's my favorite part is when they go from the oh my gosh, what have I just done signing up with you? To it's starting to click.

Speaker 2:

Right, right. At first they're excited to sign up and then they're like what am I doing? Yeah, it's almost like like they're looking at themselves in the mirror and you're helping them like it's all blurry and you're just helping them, like, clean it off so they can see themselves clearly.

Speaker 1:

Right, I love that analogy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the steam is just there and I'm just just like, yeah, you're just like, let me just wipe this off and we're just going to see you for who you are Right, yeah, I love that. Like they can borrow your belief, yeah, and I know like it's possible.

Speaker 1:

It is possible. This is just about like who do you want to become? Because you can become, you can be anything, and usually when women start to talk about that, really they're just pulling from an older version of themselves that they kind of lost and we just start to like, like you said, we just wipe away the mirror and it's great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, who am I? Yeah, and I, actually I do like myself, you know, like I liked that person before I was drinking, you know, and zoning out all the time. Yeah, let's get back to her, yeah, yeah, lindsay, you're so awesome, you're doing great things. I'm so jealous for all the women in your membership. They're just so blessed to have you Really.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

You're doing great work. I'm really, really thankful that we're connected and I just want to just encourage you to keep on wiping off that mirror for women making a huge difference. You're making an impact in this world.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, thank you so much. It's been so much fun to get to know you better. I'm super excited because now we're best friends.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we're BFFs. Yes, and you really you encouraged me before we started recording. You really encouraged me because Deb's been feeling a little overwhelmed.

Speaker 1:

So thank you for encouraging my heart.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, love you, my friend. Yes, big time cheers to you for tuning into the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast. I hope you will take something from today's episode and make one small change that will help you to thrive and have fun in life without alcohol. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social, send up a flare or leave a rating and a review. I am cheering for you as you discover the world of non-alcoholic drinks and as you journey towards authentic freedom. See you in the next episode.