Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife

Ep.147 No Rock Bottom Required: One Woman's Journey Through Midlife Sobriety

• Michele Henning Folan • Episode 147

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That evening glass of wine used to be such a simple pleasure. Now it comes with unwanted side effects—disrupted sleep at 3 am, morning brain fog, and inflammation showing up as puffiness or worse. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone in questioning your relationship with alcohol in midlife.

Leigh's journey with alcohol follows a path many women recognize. Growing up in a home where drinking was taboo, she didn't have her first real drink until college. That initial feeling of warmth and calm became a powerful anchor, especially for someone diagnosed with anxiety and OCD early in life. Fast forward through marriage, motherhood, and grief after losing her father in 2014, and what started as an occasional glass of wine evolved into consuming most of a bottle most nights—a progression that sneaks up quietly on so many midlife women.

The physical toll eventually became impossible to ignore. Racing heart at 3 am, constant fatigue, and the nagging sense that something wasn't right led Leigh to attempt sobriety multiple times before finally succeeding in June 2023. Her candid admission that she tried and "failed" repeatedly before finding lasting success offers tremendous hope and grace to women currently in that cycle. As she powerfully states, "The only failure is when we stop trying."

What makes this conversation particularly valuable is the science behind why alcohol affects midlife women differently. As we enter perimenopause and menopause, our bodies have less fluid volume to dilute alcohol, and our liver may not process it as efficiently. This isn't just anecdotal—it's biological. One drink now can affect us like three did in our younger years.

Beyond sobriety itself, Leigh discovered numerous underlying health issues that alcohol had either caused or masked, from gut problems to hormonal imbalances and even bone density loss. The improvements in sleep quality alone (measurable through her Apple Watch) demonstrate how profoundly alcohol was impacting her body's most essential restorative process.

Whether you identify as sober-curious or are simply seeking a greater understanding of how alcohol affects the midlife body differently, this judgment-free conversation offers valuable insights for making informed choices about your health and well-being at this stage of life.

You can find Leigh at:

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Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
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Michele Folan:

At Asking for a Friend, we dive into the topics that matter most to midlife women, because you deserve to have these conversations. Each episode, I bring you expert insights, inspiring stories and real talk about the challenges and triumphs we face at this stage of life. I'm also excited to spotlight everyday women just like you, who are making waves, sharing their journeys and helping others along the way. These stories are full of courage, resilience and a deep desire to connect and uplift one another. So grab a cup of tea or your walking shoes and let's talk about the things that truly matter Health, wellness, fitness and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is Asking for a Friend.

Michele Folan:

Has that evening glass of wine stopped being the simple pleasure it once was? Yeah, I get it. Back in 2018,. I started questioning my relationship with alcohol, but not because of any rock bottom moment, but because my body was sending me signals I couldn't ignore. As perimenopause arrived, that glass of wine came with unwanted baggage, disrupted sleep, morning fog and inflammation that, for me, showed up as body puffiness and horrible eye bags. Then came the pandemic. Like many of us, I filled those endless evenings with Netflix and wine, but something felt off. That internal enough meter seemed to have lost its calibration and it troubled me more than I really wanted to admit. A 21-day online program in late 2020 became my eye-opener.

Michele Folan:

While I didn't emerge a teetotaler, I discovered something fascinating. Life without alcohol had unexpected gifts. These days, I listen when my body talks. One cocktail yeah, I feel it. Two, that's a next-day tax I'm really rarely willing to pay anymore. Today's guest brings her own candid story to our conversation. If you've ever laid awake at 3 am wondering if it's time to reimagine your relationship with alcohol, this episode is for you. No judgment, no pressure, just real talk between women who get it. And if this show resonates with just one of you, that is a win for me. Leigh Havelick, welcome to Asking for a Friend.

Leigh Havelick:

Thank you.

Michele Folan:

Thanks for having me, Michele. Before we get started, because I always tend to jump right into the topic and I forget to have people introduce themselves, will you please tell the audience a little bit more about you, where you're from? I'd love to have family details because I think that kind of lays a path for our conversation.

Leigh Havelick:

Sure, yes. I currently live in Portland, oregon. I'm married and have three boys 18 and twin 15-year-olds. I originally grew up in Missouri, in the boot heel of Missouri, on the Mississippi River, in a really traditional family mom and dad. I have a brother who's three years younger than me and drinking was pretty much taboo in our family home. My parents didn't drink. I was taught that good girls don't drink, good girls especially, don't get drunk.

Leigh Havelick:

I didn't have my first sip of alcohol until I was in college and for many events and parties that was just a sip. It wasn't until I was in college, and for many events and parties that was just a sip. It wasn't until I was 20 or 21 that I got drunk for the first time and I had this overwhelming feeling of warmth and calm and I was like, oh, this is what I've been missing out on all these years. This is why all of these people drink, even though it tastes like shit. You know, I think I was diagnosed with OCD and anxiety around the age of 10 or 12. And I was never medicated for it. But I went through years of therapy and learning how to deal with it, how to self-regulate, how to positively shift my thoughts, we are in control of our thoughts and having that alcohol, that escape, for the first time, I don't think I'd ever felt a real sense of just calm and carelessness until that first drink. And so, and I remember it, I remember where I was, I remember it so very well.

Michele Folan:

Interesting. Yes, yeah, okay, and then where'd you meet your husband?

Leigh Havelick:

I met my husband at a business conference in Arizona. I was living in St Louis. He was living here in Portland. He's originally from Iowa but had sought the Pacific Northwest post-graduation, and so we met at this business conference and we did the long distance relationship for a while eight months and then it came time to figure out where we were going to try to make this work. Where were we going to do this? We talked about him moving to St Louis, me moving to Portland. Ultimately, I was in a job that I wasn't really happy in and I'd never been out of the Midwest and thought this would be a good experience live somewhere else for a little while, all on the two to five-year plan. That shouldn't work out and we decided to have kids. We would move back to the Midwest to be closer to family, and that was 23 years ago. So now I consider myself an Oregonian. My sons are true Oregonians and this is where we've established roots.

Michele Folan:

Oh, that's nice and you know what. That's their life, that's their home, and so picking up especially high school kids and taking them back to Iowa, that would be like ah, culture shock For sure. Yes, I appreciate you kind of walking us through that and I know you and I connected probably two years ago through social media, and something about you just drew me to you because I was trying to figure out what you were doing and I think you had just become a Faster Way coach. But I think even at that point you were pivoting. You weren't really even going to do the coaching but you started talking about your journey with becoming sober and I would love for you to share with the audience kind of what that time in your life was like and what was going on with you.

Leigh Havelick:

Sure, I found Faster Way, I believe in March, April of 2023. And it was one of the first programs I had done that discouraged alcohol use. That really said it's hard to meet your macro goals whenever you know you're incorporating or trying to incorporate alcohol into a healthy lifestyle. I was really drawn to it for that reason. Secondly, it worked. Yeah, there are so many programs out there that promise results and overcomplicate things or overcomplicate the workouts, and Faster Way for me was just really straightforward and I had really good results in a short amount of time, and so I was a believer in the program, my job. I ended up getting laid off in June of 2023, a job I had had for eight years, but I could tell the March-April timeframe that there was new leadership. It was not going as I had hoped it would be going, so I saw that that was probably not going to continue, at least long-term. Okay, and so when Amanda Tress started talking about becoming a Faster Way coach, I was like I could do that. I could totally do that. I could see myself in this role, in this coaching role, and so I got certified as a Faster Way coach.

Leigh Havelick:

I was also really wanting to stop drinking. I wanted to stop drinking for six years, but it was. It was really at a point that I knew I couldn't continue down the road I was on, and so I got certified to become a Faster Way coach, with the intention of serving sober and sober curious women Nice, because I really felt like there was a need for that whenever I started posting content. The fitness nutrition piece was hard for me. I felt like it required and now, looking back, it didn't. I just didn't know how to do social media. At the time, I felt like I needed to dance or do these silly things in order to gain followers and get attention.

Leigh Havelick:

But my sober content was resonating more, and then, whenever I did decide to become sober in June of 2023, it was like I said this recently in one of my posts it was like a part-time job, and so I really needed to devote my full time and intention to that instead of coaching. And then the sober piece just took off and I really view it as a ministry. I don't think I could never have grasped how many women out there are struggling with this exact same thing. Either they're drinking too much, doing things they regret, they're drinking too much and feeling like shit when they wake up the next day, they're like you said in the intro they're waking up at 3, am not able to fall back asleep, and you know, the number of women that reach out to me is really overwhelming in a good way, and so I really feel like this has become a ministry for me. I don't make you know my page isn't monetized in any way.

Leigh Havelick:

I will say recently I restarted Faster Way for myself because for so long, I just gave myself permission with the whole fitness and nutrition piece, like the only thing I could do was focus on being sober. It was my priority, it came above everything else, and so now, now that I'm almost two years sober. It's like, okay, I'm ready to get back into that. And so I recently posted about you know, would anyone be interested in following along with my fitness journey? And again the response was just overwhelming. Because I think people in this stage of life, we want to be healthy, we want to be healthier, and so how can we do that? We can do that by not drinking, we can do that by increasing our muscle mass, we can do that by, you know, reducing our fat loss. We can do that by eating enough of the right foods to really nourish and fuel our body. And so I feel like we're all in such a similar place.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and that's why I wanted to have you on the show, because I know you went down a path that was very difficult and you're very open about that. I would like for you to share though the progression because, like you said, you made it through college drinking very little. When did things start to really become more of an issue for you with alcohol?

Leigh Havelick:

I think the tipping point was in 2014, when my dad passed away. I noticed a significant shift in my drinking. Before that, I was a little bit more of a drinker. I was a little bit more of a. I would have often a glass of wine in the evening, a hefty pour of wine in the evening, but a bottle would last me three to four nights and at the end of my drinking I was drinking up.

Leigh Havelick:

You know, two thirds to a bottle, plus on nights that I would drink and I didn't drink every night, but I drank most nights and you know, for so long in early motherhood I was just so busy Like I could. I could make a glass of wine fit in. I looked forward to it at the end of the day, but I needed to be able to wake up at 5 am and with toddlers I had three kids, three and under, and I needed to be able to be present and beyond and have energy, and so drinking didn't really fit into that. But as they got older and they were sleeping in on the weekends and you know it's just, and I met more parents in the community and drinking is a thing that parents in the community do. You know we had, we would bring I remember a baseball season for my son, that little league that we would bring, instead of bringing snacks for the kids, we would.

Leigh Havelick:

Adults had a sign up where they would bring drinks for the adults on Saturday mornings. You know, these are I'm talking nine, 10, 11 o'clock games, so that we would start with screwdrivers or mimosas or whatever people wanted to bring in the morning. And it's such a cultural and you know so present in our culture and every aspect of our culture. And I, just I drank more and more and it began very innocently and before I knew it, my glass of wine at night had turned into, like I said, two thirds to a bottle. But in 2014 was when I noticed a shift and for the longest time I justified it because I was hurting and I was dealing with stress through alcohol. Right, I know now that it didn't fix anything and it probably made things a hell of a lot more difficult, but at the time it felt like a Band-Aid, you know, a temporary fix for very deep pain.

Michele Folan:

Right. Was there a physical toll that you feel like it was taking on your body at that time?

Leigh Havelick:

Not, I was younger then I didn't feel the physical toll until really my mid to late 40s, where it was. I would wake up and my heart would be racing, which scared me, because my mom has AFib, my grandfather had AFib, my husband has AFib and so I know, like once you, you know, once you're diagnosed and get on that medication, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And I was like I am throwing myself into a fit, you know, into this irregular heartbeat by drinking wine, like what is that doing for my heart long-term? And then I was exhausted, like I was waking up every night I would drink at 3 am like clockwork, and I would lay there and I would catastrophize, like all of like, like the smallest things became huge issues in my, in my racing mind at 3, 4, 5 am.

Michele Folan:

It happens to all of us, Leigh, and I mean even now, even nights that I don't drink and I wake up at 3 am, I still will have those racing thoughts and I think some of that is cortisol, right. Some of it is like if you've had drinks the night before and you wake up in the middle of the night and your heart is racing. I think sometimes it's just the sugar's worn off and it wakes you up. And part of that anxiety is I'm never going to fall back to sleep, right For sure, and I have to get up at 6 am. I've got so many things to do.

Leigh Havelick:

Yeah, how am I going to get through the day? And instead of recognizing like I am going to get through the day and then I'm going to have a peaceful night and I'm going to sleep by not drinking, it's like I get through the day by two o'clock, I'm thinking about what I'm going to have a peaceful night and I'm going to sleep by not drinking. It's like I get through the day by 2 o'clock. I'm thinking about what I'm going to drink, how much I'm going to drink, how many drinks I'm going to have. By 5 o'clock, I'm opening a bottle of wine. By 9 o'clock, that glass of wine or that bottle of wine is gone, and then we're doing the same thing again. It was literal insanity.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I kind way during the pandemic, honestly, because I wasn't working and we were kind of stuck in the house, and so that's when I started saying, oh my God, if I just leave an inch in the bottom of the bottle, it doesn't feel like I didn't finish it. There's still an inch in the bottom. So how was your husband responding to your drinking at this time? How was it impacting your family?

Leigh Havelick:

I don't think it, maybe naively, I don't think it impacted my family until around 2017, where my boys started noticing and started making comments about my drinking, and 2017 was the first time that I decided I was going to take an extended break from alcohol. You know, we were. My husband was drinking too, along with me at the time. It was before he was diagnosed with AFib and, like I said, I mean, that's what everyone in our community did, that's how we bonded, that's how we celebrated, that's how we grieved. I mean, everything was an excuse to drink. You know, before the kids games, after the kids games, at birthday parties, weddings, we were still going to weddings. You know we're kind of entering the next stage where we're going to be going to our friends' kids' weddings.

Leigh Havelick:

But oh, yeah, at the time, you know he was drinking with me and there was a lot of self-recognition there. You know, when I would wake up and I would not remember things from the night before and I'd be like, oh, I'm going to drink less, I'm going to do better. And you know he's like, yeah, just, you know, you know, just drink like I do have. And he never, he never, struggled with alcohol. I think he, he didn't understand my struggle. You know he, he didn't drink during the week. On the weekends he could go big and then be done and then, but he never got. Maybe five times in our marriage have I seen him where I'd be like, oh, dave was drunk, but otherwise he just he is very in control. I was always very out of control and so, yeah, I just don't think he understood the struggle.

Leigh Havelick:

I don't think he understood the struggle until the very end where there was some things that happened where he was like you don't drink like other people or your relationship with alcohol is different than other people. I would take these breaks and I would do good during my breaks and then I'd go back and it would start slowly and innocently where I would only drink on the weekends and then I'd have a glass of wine, maybe a couple nights a week to. I'm drinking five nights a week to. I'm going to lunch with girlfriends and having drinks and drinking into the afternoon, into the evening. It always went the exact same way.

Leigh Havelick:

But 2017 was the first time, you know, my kids had made a couple comments my oldest son, specifically my twins I don't think they fully grasped everything that was going on at the time but my older son made some comments and those continued and those comments should have.

Leigh Havelick:

I should have been done at those comments alone, but I always thought I was going to do better. You know, my husband, for a long time, was encouraging in yes, let's drink less. You're present for them every day, these couple times where you've drank too much, whatever, like everybody has bad days, kind of justifying it and so and that was like my green light to keep drinking. And again, I'm not blaming him at all, because I should have said from the beginning I have a real problem. I don't drink like other people because I recognized that pretty early on, after my dad passed away, and I knew that I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism. I think once we start using it as something else, to you know, to to deal with trauma, to escape, you know whatever may be going on in our lives, once it becomes a crutch it's really hard to make it something different than that, as much as we might want to.

Michele Folan:

I agree. Hey, leigh, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Are you feeling overwhelmed by the changes that come with midlife, struggling with weight, energy or finding time for yourself? You're not alone. I get it because I've been there too. Self, you're not alone. I get it because I've been there too. I specialize in helping midlife women just like you transform their health and lives through personalized nutrition and coaching that fits your real life Together. We'll tackle those unique challenges, whether it's balancing your hormones, dealing with cravings or boosting your energy. It's not just about diets. It's about reclaiming your strength and confidence, one step at a time. Check out the show notes of this episode and shoot me an email. I'd love to learn more about you and your challenges. Okay, we are back. So you quit several times, yes, quit several times, attempted to quit, right, yeah, and then there was. Was there an incident? Was there something that happened that finally you said I got it? I got to do it this time.

Leigh Havelick:

No, strangely no, 2020 was bad, really bad. I was drinking. I was buying wine by the box. I thought there were three bottles of wine in a box. A box would last me a couple nights. Then I learned there were four bottles of wine in a box and I was going down. I had it. We have a fridge in our garage and I was going down progressively earlier every day pouring wine.

Leigh Havelick:

And so, in June of 2020, I joined a program through This Naked Mind called the Path, and it was supposed to be a year-long program. I joined it. I met people that I'm still in contact with today. We still cheer each other on today. More than a handful that are still sober from when they quit in 2020. A lot of people in our group were bowing out around the September timeframe, and so I had been sober for three months. By that point, I thought that I was cured and could do this on my own, and so I quit the path and I stayed sober until January. That's pretty good, yeah, seven, almost seven months.

Leigh Havelick:

And then took another long break in September of 2022, rejoined the path. It had changed. It was no longer a year long program, it had changed to 90 days. So did 90 days through the path, stayed sober, started drinking again four months later, again around in December, like holiday December. January was always hard for me.

Leigh Havelick:

And then in June 2023, I was just like I can't do this. I was just so sick and tired of being sick and tired, just like I can't do this anymore. I can't do this. And when I quit again, I had no reason to believe it would be any different than my other previous failed attempts to quit drinking. But I knew I was more done than I ever had been. I knew alcohol wasn't going to change, so I had to change. It took a long time for me to figure that out.

Leigh Havelick:

I accepted the fact that I couldn't moderate my drinking and I started this Instagram account. I started this Instagram account a week into being sober and I acted like I had been sober for a really long time. I didn't. I didn't mislead people by any means. I was very honest about how long I'd been sober, but I was giving advice, like I had been sober for a long time because I had done all these programs. I knew all of the information. I had all the resources and tools at my disposal to be successful and to help other people be successful. It was just a matter of doing it. It's kind of like talking about recently restarting my health and wellness journey. It's like I'm a certified fitness and nutrition coach. I know exactly what to do and how to do it. It's just a matter of I have all the tools. Just a matter of doing it.

Michele Folan:

When those first let's say, two, three weeks of your sobriety at this point, what were those like? I always wonder how you're feeling. Did you feel differently? Were you sleeping better? Was there anything that stands out in your mind during that time where you were saying gosh, I love how I feel.

Leigh Havelick:

This time yes, because I had done it for so many. This time yes, because I had done it for so many times that there is rewiring. That happens every time. We have long breaks from alcohol where we don't have to relearn how to be sober, we don't have to relearn coping mechanisms. They're back there, we just have to access that information in our brains. And so this time I was all in.

Leigh Havelick:

I only viewed sobriety as a positive thing and knew that it was going to change my life. Previous attempts were so incredibly hard and there wasn't a whole lot of joy. It was, you know. I felt that I was being deprived, and especially those times that I took where it was going to be a timed break, like I was going to do it for 30 days, or I was going to do it for 75 days, where it was just like getting through the day until I could drink again. And that was. You know, that was a different mindset.

Leigh Havelick:

But I remember, you know. I remember standing in front of the refrigerator one night throwing a temper tantrum because my husband had had wine the night before and there was half a bottle in there and I couldn't drink it. I remember my first sober vacation. We went with another family to the beach and I remember everyone was playing games and drinking and I just went up to my room and sobbed like a kid because I was having myself a pity party. But I knew that it was the right choice for me. So it was definitely.

Leigh Havelick:

It was progress, right we talk a lot about in Faster Way, progress over perfection, and so all those failed attempts. I don't really like the word failure in sobriety, because I always tell people that whether you do it for a day or whether you do it for a hundred days, it's all part of the work and if your ultimate goal is to quit drinking, eventually most people will get there. You know, I thought something was inherently broken in me because I was following all of these sober accounts and I couldn't figure it out and I would get up some mornings just pissed off and unfollow them, and then I'd unfollow them and then I'd re-follow them. But it was all. I mean, looking back, it was all part of the work. It was never for naught, and so when people reach out I failed, I failed, you didn't fail. The only failure is when we stop trying. So I try to remind people of that a lot.

Michele Folan:

And I like to say too, Leigh, that you're not starting over at day one again, right? I hate that, that the clock then all of a sudden starts over again. No, no, no, no, no, you're not starting over, right, you're starting from a place of experience. I really and I do this even with my clients they're like oh, I was really bad this weekend. I'm like so You're fine, just pick back up where you left off and let's move on, right, there's no lamenting. You know that you ate four cookies, Okay, fine, right, yeah, and we learn from those experiences and it's just human nature, right? So I appreciate you telling that piece of the story, because it's so important to kind of where you are today. I would love to know how, where you are today. I would love to know how, like, looking back now, how you're feeling mentally. What kind of work did you have to do? Because I know the mindset work is huge. Was being out there on Instagram? Was that part of your therapy?

Leigh Havelick:

Oh for sure I tell people all the time that anytime people are like you're helping me, Thank you, Like you are helping me in return. All of these conversations I'm having in my DMs, all of these conversations I'm having in the comments of my posts, it is helpful to me, it is like therapy to me. And there was so much work for so long. I mean, I read every quit lit book available. Quit lit some people don't know it's books about sobriety and I read every book out there. I couldn't consume that literature fast enough.

Leigh Havelick:

I've read a few of them and I listened to so many podcasts about by sober people, how to get sober.

Leigh Havelick:

There were coaches through this Naked Mind the Path who had their own podcast.

Leigh Havelick:

I listened to those and just absorbed all the information I could, because information is power at the end of the day, the more we know, even you know, like if you think about blood sugar spikes, right, so you're going to eat the four cookies and there's no harm in eating four cookies. Like you said, it's four cookies. But also we know that when we eat four cookies, our blood sugar spikes, and we know blood sugar spikes cause inflammation in our body and so we never quite look at it the same way, Even though we still might have the four cookies. We know what it's doing to our body, and the same thing happens. You know, the more we know about alcohol. We know it's linked to seven types of cancer. We know that it premature ages us. We know that it's stored as belly fat around our middles. We know all of these things, and so it makes drinking less attractive. The more we consume that information, the more we believe it, and when we believe it, it makes letting go a heck of a lot easier.

Michele Folan:

Absolutely and I'm there right. So I never have said I'm a teetotaler, because anybody that is in my life knows that's not true. But my ability to moderate myself has proven to me that I'm not broken, right, yeah, and because I thought for so long I'm like God, what is wrong with me? I, you know, I like gave me a bourbon and then I want three. You know, it was like I was feeding the beast a little bit.

Leigh Havelick:

And one is too many, and a thousand is never enough.

Michele Folan:

That is such a great saying. When it comes to that, you know. One thing that you have talked about on your Instagram is kind of your self-care routine. Has that been something that you have embraced after you quit drinking? Oh, for sure.

Leigh Havelick:

For sure. I think routine is stability, and stability is the opposite of my chaos when I was drinking, and so it's such a privilege to be able to wake up every morning. I mean, I have, I wake up. I sleep with a night guard. I put my night guard in solution. I take my hormone replacement therapy. I put on my weighted vest, I go down and walk on the treadmill. I put my night guard in solution. I take my hormone replacement therapy. I put on my weighted vest, I go down and walk on the treadmill. I drink my coffee. I you know I'm very routined and it is.

Leigh Havelick:

I remember Holly Whitaker writing about how excited and how much joy she got from flossing her teeth, because it's something that was completely neglected during her drinking days, and so, getting sober, I addressed all of these underlying health issues. I had some serious gut issues that needed to be resolved that I worked on for the past year. I had gone through menopause and didn't even know it because I had an IUD in, and so I addressed all of these hormonal issues. When I went, I went to my primary care physician and she was like oh yeah, I think you've probably gone through menopause. If you cause, I'd have my IUD in and then I never got my period. After that it had been a year and she said, well, if you got a period now, I would be concerned. I would consider yourself through menopause. I said, okay, do I need to be thinking about hormone replacement therapy? And she said you know, if you're not having any big issues, there's no need to consider that. And I was like, oh, okay, and just took her word for it. Well then I was talking to my client who was a functional medicine nutritionist, and I said this is what my you know primary care physician is saying. And she said, oh, at minimum I would recommend a DEXA scan to see what your bone density is, to see, because if your bone density is not good, then we should consider hormone replacement therapy. So I had a DEXA scan and I have osteopenia, which makes sense because my mom had osteopenia. My mom went through menopause very early and drinking and drinking contributes to bone loss.

Leigh Havelick:

Yes, yes, it does. So there's been all of these things that letting go of alcohol has helped me embrace. So I'm not only healthier because I quit drinking, but I'm healthier because I'm addressing all of these underlying issues, many caused by alcohol my gut dysbiosis probably alcohol played a big part of that. My bone loss, all these things go back to alcohol. And so when we tell women that you don't have to have a rock bottom to recognize that alcohol is no longer serving you, it negatively impacts every organ in our body and every aspect of our health. And, you know, for a lot of people, I know, that's not reason enough to quit drinking, especially if people can manage their alcohol. You know, it's like deciding to have cake at night. Right, I'm just going to have you only live once.

Leigh Havelick:

Yolo, that was my excuse for so long you only live once I could die tomorrow, why would I not drink the wine when I could be hit by a car tomorrow? Well, I hope I'm not going to be hit by a car tomorrow and, like you said, we have 20, 30, 40 years left and we have this one body and I want to take care of it.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, you know, there is a stigma to even having this conversation and I mentioned this in another podcast recording here recently is that I lose followers whenever I talk about it. I think I've turned people off by bringing it up on the podcast as often as I do, but the data doesn't lie and I feel like I am not doing my due diligence in bringing this forward if I don't talk about it. I'm a health and wellness podcast. I am a fitness and nutrition coach. I have 26 plus years in the health industry. I am not going to put my head in the sand and pretend like this doesn't exist as an issue in our society. The facts and then you can make your decision.

Michele Folan:

I still have friends that drink. I sometimes will have a drink with them. Sometimes I don't. They've quit questioning me. They've quit asking what's in my glass and I feel very comfortable with that. I don't feel like I miss out. As a matter of fact, Leigh, I'm wittier, funnier, when I don't drink, right? And the other thing, in being almost 61, it just makes me effing tired. Yeah, I have a cocktail and I'm like ready to go to bed. I'm tired at 9.30 anyway. You know, when you're dozing off at 8, you're really rip-roaring fun at that point. So, and the other thing is that I did have a liver specialist on my show and I asked her why is it that midlife women we don't handle alcohol as well as we did when we were younger? As with everything, we're all drying up. You know our vaginas, our joints, you know our eyes everything dries up.

Leigh Havelick:

Our brains.

Michele Folan:

Right, and we don't have the fluid volume, the load that we had before to dilute the alcohol, and our livers may not be working as well as they did either, but there is a scientific reason why one cocktail is enough for many of us now, whereas we could have three or four in the past and still be fine. So, anyway, I wouldn't say that I know you have felt this amazing community around you, with a sober community, with your presence out there on Instagram, which I just again so proud of you for your bravery, and talking about some of your low moments, and your good moments too, with this journey. I'm really curious, though, what future plans you have to expand your reach.

Leigh Havelick:

Oh, that's a hard question. I saw that in the notes you sent. I'm like I don't I don't have a good answer for that, michelle. There's days that I don't. I don't want to be a sober coach, because I really there are times I need downtime.

Leigh Havelick:

I love, love this community and I wouldn't be where I am without it today. But sometimes it it becomes a lot because I'm an Enneagram 2, and I'm extremely empathetic and I really carry the emotional load of other people's stories and I think that's a gift because it enables me to help them. But also there's times where I'm like I need to dial it back, I need to take a few months off, and so I really felt that at the end of the summer, in August, my mom was coming out, we were going on a family vacation. I'm like I'm going to, I'm going to take a little bit of a break, and I did and I loved it and I needed it. And I even moved my account to private where I wasn't getting new followers and having new questions, but I could just really minister to the people who are already following me. And then, with everything happening around the election, I found myself really getting into a dark place where I was consuming the wrong things and I'm like the best way to get out of this funk is to give back. And so, in you know, the November timeframe, I moved my account back to public and I started posting again and it feels really good to be a light and help people and even, like you said at the beginning, like if one person is impacted it's worth it.

Leigh Havelick:

Yeah, and there will be. There's women who have messaged me from the beginning, who are still struggling. You know they'll have, they'll DM and be like I'm on day 24 and then I failed, and then I'm on day 46 and you know, and then or they'll unfollow me and come back and they'll be like I'm sorry, I unfollowed you. I'm like I didn't, I didn't notice that you unfollowed me. I only noticed because you're telling me. But it's okay, because I did the same thing.

Leigh Havelick:

You know I, I was you, I am you, I get it. So I like being able to take those breaks. But I was really surprised, like I said, about how many people were excited about this health and wellness journey. So maybe I will do a couple six week rounds of faster way for sober and sober, curious women. Yeah, if there's interest there, because that's something you know. We can kind of start and stop on our own schedule, which is another thing I love about Faster Way and the Faster Way coaching program. It's on our timeline, which I need right now with, you know, my three boys on three different basketball teams and, like I said, sending one off to college.

Michele Folan:

Oh yeah, you got a lot on your plate, but I'm in the thick of it. Yeah, but you know it's funny. I don't know if you remember this, but I messaged you because you had disappeared.

Leigh Havelick:

Yes, you did, and I mean, there are people that I consider true friends through this platform Lots of women, actually, and you are one of those, michelle, and so that was a push that I needed. I feel like this whole thing has been a calling something bigger for me and I've never really had a calling, and that's a story for a different day but it was those little nudges from people checking in on me, making sure I'm still sober, you know, but also, are you okay? The thought did cross my mind, right, you know, are you okay? And so I mean that's, that's pretty incredible when people, people notice I'm gone, I it's humbling.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I think I just was used to seeing your posts and I find them very inspiring for someone in my you know my position who is, I mean I'm beyond sober curious. I mean I've been sober curious for a million years at this point, but I, you know, I like seeing those posts because it keeps me honest with myself too. Really. Quickly back to self-care what is the most important thing you do for yourself every day?

Leigh Havelick:

Sleep. I think I mean we cannot, we can't, underestimate the impact of sleep. I think it is the single most important thing, aside from not drinking, that we can do for our overall health and wellness. It comes before my exercise routine. It comes before most things where I try to be very regimented. My lights are off at a certain point every night and my alarm's set. I get up at the same time every day, but I think that's definitely the most important thing that I do and I can tell whenever I haven't had enough sleep. But it really impacts me now and my sleep is so much better since I quit drinking. I tracked it on my Apple Watch.

Leigh Havelick:

The before and after is so telling the quality of sleep, the amount of deep sleep, and I felt like in early sobriety I it's like I could not. It took six months, I feel like, to get out of this incredibly deep state of fatigue. And I don't know if it was just. You know my body was finally like, oh my gosh, I can finally rest, like it's been on, you know, so overdrive, driven by all of these artificial hits of dopamine. And you know like the processing our bodies have to do to get alcohol out of our systems and I wasn't even getting out of my system before I would start the next day and have more drinks, and it took a long time before I felt like I was on a good, normal sleep pattern.

Leigh Havelick:

And I think for a lot of people and this happened to me in the years that I had tried to quit it takes a long time for our sleep to get back to a normal state in general, and it took me a long time to be able to sleep, to fall asleep, because I'm so used to falling asleep under the influence of alcohol. And so I was talking to one of my good friends and she's like I don't know why you say not drinking helps you sleep. Every time I take breaks from alcohol, I just I just lay there awake at night. I'm like well, you got to take a long enough break that your body can get used to not having alcohol in your system and relying on alcohol to sleep, and that usually takes more than 30 days.

Michele Folan:

You know what, besides sleep, Leigh is? You know, alcohol is a depressant and just because you may not have the alcohol still in your system, those depressive effects still exist. And so if people are feeling a little down or moody or whatever, it can be the alcohol, even though maybe you haven't had a drink in a day. We have to be very aware of the fact that those are very long-lasting effects and the alcohol takes us days and days to get all of that process through. So it's just something that I've learned here.

Leigh Havelick:

Yeah, 10 days is what Annie Grace, who founded this Naked Mind, says. 10 days and how many people are going 10 days in between drinks Not.

Michele Folan:

And I get it right. I am not judging, and that's the thing I just want people to know and I want to this last thing I'll say about this I am not judging. I want people to have the information so that they can make smartest choice for them. Yes, not for anyone else, but for them, so for sure. Lee Havelick, where can the listeners find you?

Leigh Havelick:

I am at macrosandmocktails on Instagram, okay.

Michele Folan:

And I will put that in the show notes. Lee Havelick, this was a lot of fun. I really appreciate you being here today and telling your story.

Leigh Havelick:

Thank you for covering this topic. It's so important, especially in the health and wellness space, and the fact that you're doing it and using your voice of influence to draw attention to it is incredible. So thank you. Thank you, Leigh.

Michele Folan:

Hey, thanks for tuning in. Please rate and review the show where you listen to the podcast. And did you know that Asking for a Friend is available now to listen on YouTube? You can subscribe to the podcast there as well. Your support is appreciated and it helps others find the show. Thank you.