Jen Varale shares personal stories, introduces her dog Copper, and explores how small mindful changes around alcohol—like not buying boxed wine—can shift habits while inviting reflection on one’s relationship with drinking.
Jen greets viewers, shares a story about a hat her aunt gave her and the new last name she chose, and introduces her dog Copper to set a warm, personal tone.
She tells a playful dog experiment with her daughter, mentions Copper's Instagram, and then introduces and pours Sauna Water, describing the flavor and brand.
Jen explains she looks for weekly inspiration related to sobriety, notes her 11 years sober, and recalls speaking at a local Purpose Fueled Community event that led to today's discussion.
Rather than labeling drinking, Jen invites listeners to consider how they relate to alcohol, then recounts a mid-40s woman's realization about nightly rituals, heavy study-drinking, and how changing one habit (not buying boxed wine) helped shift her behavior.
Jen highlights how one small mindful change created broader awareness and influenced the woman's partner, encourages self-reflection without labels, offers to talk with viewers privately, sips her drink, and closes the episode.
Hello, hello everyone. Welcome in. Welcome in. Happy Tuesday. I pulled up this hat today and I was reminded my aunt, my dear aunt bought this for me. It's a V in a fun little cursive font. She bought it for me because she was sort of, she was excited about the new last name that I took, that I made-up for myself, Varale, just over a year and a half ago. Yeah, after divorce and just looking to reclaim my own and create my own identity. So yeah, welcome in, welcome in. Jen Varale here, host of Sober Not Somber Hour and my dog Copper is here with me.
Yeah, I think he'll be good during today's call. If you've tuned in before, you've probably heard him whining in the background. That's just what he does. He's a medium golden doodle and has his own Instagram account, Copper Doodle Roo, if you ever wanna follow for some laughs. My daughter and I actually just did that test where you have your dog sit between two people and you all look forward and then at the count of three, you both turn and look at your dog and the first person that your dogs turns to is the one they love the most, which is silly.
But my daughter and I did it round three rounds. So you can watch that online. It was just a fun thing to do anyway. Yeah, here we are today. If you've been in before, We're talking all about sobriety, sober choices, alcohol-free lifestyle, however you identify. And I usually highlight a beverage of choice. Today, I'm gonna share with you Sauna Water. So this is a local brand in Minneapolis, in Minnesota here. And this is one of their two newer SKUs, they have three total. This is the Blood Orange Sumac chamomile and ginger blend.
So I'm just gonna pour that up as people come in here. If you're catching this after, cheers and a happy hour. So what I wanna chat about today is I always look for inspiration during the week. And what always happens is inevitably something comes up that has to do with sobriety. I have a little over 11 years of continuous sobriety. And I talk a lot on the topic to different groups, a lot of professional groups. So Friday I was meeting with this woman who heard me speak at what's called purpose fueled community.
So it's local to the Twin Cities area. First Fridays of every month people meet. And there's usually a motivational, inspirational talk, someone who shares. And I shared December of, must have been 2024, so a while ago now, um, on my sober journey and I was interviewed or in conversation with someone who is in the restaurant industry. So it made for a really good conversation about how alcohol is very prevalent. Um, Friday, I met with this woman who I've known in professional networks, and we see each other here and there.
And she just wanted to get to know me a little bit more. So she was saying to me that she remembered one of the things I prompted her and everyone in the room to talk about or think about was, what is your relationship with alcohol? And I just thought I would pose that today. If anyone is coming to this conversation that isn't yet ready to declare they have a problem with alcohol, they don't get along with alcohol, it may be causing them some disruption in their life. Rather than declare alcoholism, I love to ask the question, just out of curiosity, how would you define your relationship with alcohol?
And so for me, this woman kind of reflecting that back to me, she was what she would consider, a casual drinker, but she had never asked that question of herself. And she's, mid 40s, had never prior to me prompting her had never really asked that. She just sort of chose to drink the alcoholic drink when it was presented or for celebrations and occasions. She would find herself using alcohol to motivate her and use it then as a reward after she would get done with a hard day of work or whatever it might be.
Does that sound familiar to anyone? I love this beverage. So good. So I just wanted to pose that today, whether you are questioning your relationship with alcohol or maybe haven't even asked that question to understand how you relate to alcohol. When do you use it? And is it a mindful choice for you? And so for this woman, she was saying the one thing that happened after she started exploring her relationship with alcohol a year and a half ago was understanding how it was tied to certain rituals nightly just to wind out.
Again, that is like, it serves a purpose for about 45 minutes until it doesn't. And then what happens is like the next day she would talk about feeling awful the next day and like really leaning into, you know, why did I feel it necessary just to be at home? She was studying to get her masters and she would have hours of studying to do and go through 4 glasses of wine before she knew it. So just not even being conscious of like how much is being consumed, she started to look at why that was. And she was buying the boxed wine, you know, the boxed wine that you get like 5 bottles of wine per box.
I mean, I was doing that toward the end of my drinking just because I didn't really want to look at how much I was consuming. Again, does that sound familiar to anyone? So when she looked at it, she realized that making that one change based on that ritual and how she was using alcohol and that relationship to alcohol by making one small change by not buying the boxes of wine, she kind of flipped the whole equation for how she would study and then how she would sort of you know, think of alcohol differently.
So I just posed that question today and this can be, you know, for yourself if you're struggling, like really looking at that relationship and maybe what's the one thing that you could do to sort of change a behavior. One small thing, one really small thing. And I think that's so impactful. Really. And now, you know, like when she started doing that, she started then it was like this ripple effect where she was noticing it everywhere. And she's like, I guess I'm just being more mindful about it.
She also noticed that her husband who, you know, is take her, leave it drinker was starting to notice that she wasn't. And he also, you know, cut back on alcohol use just by the nature of being around her and the couples things that they would do together. So it's just such a beautiful way to just kind of lift the veil, right, on how alcohol shows up and be really truthful about it. Not have to declare anything in terms of a label, but to just explore. Just be like, how am I using it? Is it mindful?
Is it healthy? Yeah, yeah. That's huge. So I'm going to leave that there for y'all today. Have a few more sips of sauna water before I head into the sauna tonight. Yeah. And then obviously also just prompting that question from anyone who, you know, logs in later or wants to reach out to have a conversation. I am here for it. I think it's so important to just make this path to better choices really accessible. So happy Tuesday, y'all. See you next week. Ciao.
