This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this Naked Mind Podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Nice author of this Naked Mind in the Alcohol Experiment.

And today I'm answering Reader's questions and I have an awesome question and it says,

Hi Annie, I love your work. It would be great if you could do an article video podcast on easy short ways to communicate to strangers and friends that you don't drink.

I would like to avoid saying I stopped drinking or I'm sober or I'm testing out what it's like to not drink.

I would like just a simple sentence that says to that person, yes, I'm not drinking and I'm totally in control of this decision.

I'm stronger than the substance that substance is weak to me and I want the sentence to be somewhat closed for discussion.

Unless of course the person would like to talk about how I did it and I'd be happy to talk.

But give me the power over the questions they might be asking such as, why aren't you drinking?

This is such a point for all of us that we go through of, you know, how am I going to do this in a way that feels good and authentic and genuine to me.

And I actually recently did a video about like am I sober and some of the things because I understand not wanting to like take on necessarily even an identity or a definition and just really wanting you to be a non-issue.

And when I was going through my journey, my question wasn't how can I stop drinking?

That was my question for a while, but wasn't until I shifted the question from how can I stop drinking to how can I make alcohol a non-issue?

How can I make it small and irrelevant in my life? How can I make it so that just doesn't really matter?

And when I found the answer to that question, I was elated and it was amazing and it was incredible such like the best experiences of my life.

But then I would go out into social situations and I'd realize, oh my gosh, when I say I'm not drinking, it's not a non-issue for all the people around me.

It's actually a big issue. And they start questioning me and they start asking me all these things and they feel very uncomfortable in some situations.

And demanding answers are number one woman just cornering me and being like, well wait, are you pregnant? Are you on medication? What's happening? Like I don't get it.

We've always drink together. Why is this changing? And she was literally panicked and she was a few drinks in at that moment and she was very upset.

And so one of the things we have to realize is that how big or little of an issue we make this is totally up to us.

And it's the energy we bring to it more than it's the words we say.

...