Jen greets viewers, explains the Sober Not Somber Hour schedule and mission, and orients the audience with casual details like the weather, her dog, and an upcoming walk. This establishes the relaxed happy hour tone for the episode.
Jen greets viewers, explains the Sober Not Somber Hour schedule and mission, and orients the audience with casual details like the weather, her dog, and an upcoming walk. This establishes the relaxed happy hour tone for the episode.
Jen presents a nonalcoholic Cabernet Sauvignon she opened for her son's 21st birthday, notes its brand (Waterbrook) and low calorie count, and contrasts it with typical alcoholic wine calories. This segment models an NA beverage choice and transitions into the episode's main topic.
Framing sobriety through identity, Jen recounts how she began getting sober at 40, navigated early challenges like attending a wedding sober, distanced herself from drinking relationships, and eventually began reconnecting with college friends. She reflects on realizing those friendships still held deep care beyond drinking.
Jen explores how time and growth changed her perspective on communities she once left, posing questions about groups people have exited and whether they might be healthy to rejoin. She prompts listeners to reflect on shame, belonging, and the possibility of renewed connections.
Jen says that finding identity is a major gift of sobriety, toasts with a nonalcoholic cheers, explains that many NA wines are dealcoholized and a good happy hour option, and invites comments before closing the episode. The segment wraps up with encouragement and practical advice for those questioning alcohol.
Hi there. Welcome in. Welcome into the Sober Not Somber Hour. I'm your host, Jen Varale. Yeah, every Tuesday, 4 o'clock Central, I come at you with some ideas on sobriety, how I've been navigating it, what it looked like 13 some years ago when I first tried to start to get sober and what it looks like now with nearly 12 years of sustained sobriety. And that to me is alcohol free living and an amazing lifestyle and choice that anyone can make. Yeah. How is everyone today? Give me just a brief reading if you're coming in.
Hi, Jackie. Yeah. How's your day going? I know in Minneapolis it's raining. It was beautiful this morning. I'm sitting here with my dog Copper. He's a golden doodle. If you know my talks right after this, we go on a WALK. So we hope that he's patient today. Yeah. Today I'm gonna highlight as I always do a non-alcoholic beverage of choice because this is a happy hour. And today I have a non-alcoholic red wine. So that's kind of a little bit of a different thing to highlight you guys, because I'm usually talking about cocktails or ready to drink beverages in a can.
But this one, I opened it last night because my son who just turned 21, that's a whole nother subject. came over for dinner and I made some pasta with some red sauce and we cracked a bottle of non-alcoholic red wine and I'm sure for his 21st birthday he was probably like hmm gee mom it'd be nice to celebrate with maybe alcoholic wine but he doesn't complain. He happily indulged in it with me and was surprised actually at how satisfying it was. So this is a brand called Waterbrook, and this is a Cab Sauvignon with 50 calories per glass.
And if you looked at the calorie count on alcoholic wine, it can be anywhere from 100 to 150 calories per five ounce glass. So this is the way to go. Yeah, so welcome in. Today I want to share a little bit on my sobriety journey with the lens of identity. So what we do in the Cadre Sphere is obviously look to share wisdom, knowledge, lived experience on the topic. And by doing that, we're also sharing our stories. So one thing that happened recently was I got together with a group of my college friends.
So there were seven, eight of us, but seven of us were able to attend and they were my college friends. And we got together this weekend and they brought their husbands, boyfriends, and we all just, we had a great time. And it was like literally like a 3 to 8 PM outing, which is totally my vibe. And most everyone in that group, no one's in recovery, no one defines themselves as an alcoholic as I do, but several of them chose not to drink. and the rest of them had anywhere from one to maybe three beverages, I would guess, over the course of five hours.
So it's just interesting because we're all in our early 50s, and when I started getting sober at age 40, the very first thing I had to do in early sobriety, four days after I declared my third round of a sober stint, I had to go to one of my best friend's weddings. And I had to remain sober for that. And so this was that same group, you know, that I would have been with almost 12 years ago at that first wedding where I was sober. And I made it through that wedding, but it was not easy. I mean, these were my drinking buddies.
Like, you know, everyone knew me as like good times, you know, dance floor, like all the things, always good energy, high energy until it wasn't for me. So surviving that first huge wedding experience was big. And I have to say that I've talked a lot in sobriety about having to distance myself from the people that I drank with. And what's becoming very interesting or being pointed out to me through going back to these relationships with these college girlfriends is that Early in sobriety, I did feel a lot of shame and I felt like I could never maybe be around them in the same way as I had.
And so I distanced myself from that group and how sad, but also necessary in my early sobriety as I was figuring out my identity, who I was without alcohol, and I didn't want to be around it. So I took that time and eventually, I don't know, maybe five some years ago, started to sort of come back into that group and feel much more comfortable doing things with them. And then this last Saturday night, it was like this group, because there were probably 15 or so of us, hadn't been together in so long.
And we came together and it was like, I just felt like I belonged again and I realized that, you know, a lot of times in recovery people will say they have to break away from the groups that they drank with. However, most of my friends were, they were all normies. I was the one who was excessively drinking. So going back to that group and looking at the healthy relationships they've created, As I said, there were seven of us girls and I was the one with the boyfriend and the rest of them all happily married.
Very interesting. Very interesting. So coming back to them, realizing they were the healthy ones, the stable ones, and I needed to kind of reshape my own identity and maybe go away. But then to know that that group has been opened back up to me and I felt the care and the love like we celebrated my birthday, which is coming up. So they surprised me with some birthday cupcakes and you know, it just was like, it really had me questioning what I thought was my identity in relationship to that group.
And outside of drinking, the ties and the deep connections and the love between those women and myself are still really deep. They're still really deep and wow. That was kind of eye opening to me. And because of having, you know, this opportunity to share with you on CADRE, I'm like reflecting on that and realizing that. So I'd pose the question to you or anyone who is chiming in listening. Hi, Speak Wonder. I'm sorry, I can't see many of the comments. I see people are in here, but I'm sorry the app isn't showing me any comments, but You know, I'd pose that question.
Where in your life in the past did you leave groups or relationships or communities? Maybe it was your church, maybe it was a school and that you just left with sort of this bad taste in your mouth. Like I can't have that anymore. It's not for me. But then maybe through growth and realization and coming back to that group or person or community, you realize that maybe you had some growth, some growth to do, and it looks differently now with some wisdom and just some different insights. So I am so grateful because what if I had just read all those college friends off?
What if I just said I can never be with them again because the stories that do come up when we're all together are about our college drinking days and so many of them are really hilarious. And a lot of them I don't remember, honestly. And that makes me sad because, you know, I have to reflect on that. And I honestly think that was part of a lot of the reason I just stayed away from gatherings or engaging in that conversation because, you know, they view it as fun and, you know, drunk and good times.
But it was just painful for me to get together with them and have to look at that and that identity of who I was and that doesn't feel like me anymore. But because enough time has passed and they know me, they know my true self without alcohol, they know my integrity level and they love me for it. So that's, gosh, that's just like, it's pretty profound once you start thinking about what you may have shut out of your life because of shame or not belonging when in reality there could be space there for you.
So just posing the question because the reflection on that happening just really had me thinking about it. And I think coming back to self and finding my identity is one of the hugest gifts of sobriety. And I would say that to anyone who's questioning their relationship with alcohol is that doing without it can really show you. You know who who you are and it can really help you show up and identify ways that you can belong. So I I love that. I just was like not even expecting to kind of reflect on that today.
So this is a little NA cheers to all of my. college friends who saw me at my worst and um are cheering me on in this new phase of life and yeah they're pretty amazing okay and then as I end it for the day just a reminder that non-alcoholic red um has come a long way so if you've tried some of the cocktails or ready to drink stuff I've suggested um the NA wines are pretty good. And reminder, do not compare them to alcoholic wines. In fact, my taste buds have changed so much that alcoholic wine I don't even think would be ever something I want ever again.
So a lot of these wines are de-alcoholized, have been made as real wine, and then ethanol removed. So they're a great option for happy hour. And yeah, like I said, cheers to all my college friends. And yeah, I'd love to hear any comments if you're thinking about different identities that you kind of closed yourself off from or groups or communities that you might someday come back to and find them more healthy than you anticipated. Cheers. Have a great Tuesday.
