How I Stopped Reaching for Wine and Started Reaching for Myself

I’d like to think that it started because of motherhood, but I know that’s not true. Drinking as a way to cope with stress, feel a sense of control, loosen my social anxiety, and feel connected to others began way before I became a mom. In college, it was just seen as "normal” - a night out with friends, pregaming sporting events, blacking out from jungle juice in sticky-floor frat house basements. Why would I think there was a problem when it’s what everyone was doing?

Perhaps motherhood was the perfect amount of pressure and responsibility I needed to finally become aware of the problem. Maybe the fact that the Covid quarantine came right after my first baby turned one, my job’s Zoom happy hour started at 3pm, Tiger King had everyone drunk, and no one really knew WTF was going on in the world all served as fuel to the fire of drinking to cover up how out of control I felt inside.

Whatever the reason, and for however long, it got to the point where I was drinking wine every night to emotionally numb out. To escape from my life. To not lose my shit on my babies. To keep that fake smile plastered on my face while I cooked, cleaned, worked full-time, and took care of everyone else around me except myself.

It was my way of taking the edge off. Feeling a sense of control in a life that was spiraling. Numbing the emotions I wasn’t ready to face. Shutting up the voice in my head telling me, “You deserve more than this.”

I told myself, again, it was normal. Just like how in college everyone was participating in this wild binge-drinking culture, I was reaffirmed by my behavior every time I watched TV and saw the characters drinking in nearly every scene. I binged Netflix shows like Working Moms while nursing my hangover from binging wine the night before, then spent hours on Instagram being further validated by moms posting about their “mommy juice” and laughed at the joke we were all in on… moms deserved wine. It was a reward for our sacrifice of parenthood. A little vacation. A moment to feel at peace amongst the chaos of raising children and living in this society that puts mothers’ wellbeing on the back burner.

But deep down, I knew something was wrong. I knew this wasn’t just about unwinding - it was about disconnecting.

Because when I wasn’t pouring another glass, I had to sit with feelings I didn’t yet know how to hold.

What is emotional numbing?

Emotional numbing isn’t just about alcohol. It can look like binge-watching Netflix, scrolling for hours, overworking, overeating, people-pleasing, or constantly seeking outside validation. It’s anything we do to avoid feeling too much—too sad, too lonely, too overwhelmed, too unworthy. It’s a survival mechanism, often learned early, to keep us from drowning in emotions that feel too big to process.

The problem? When we numb the painful feelings, we also numb the joy, the connection, and the sense of aliveness. We become spectators in our own lives, watching from behind the glass, never fully present. And we disconnect from our intuition and the voice inside that’s there to help guide us, keeping us stuck in cycles that don’t serve us and drain us of our energy and life force.

How I stopped reaching for wine and started reaching for myself

It took me years to get to the place where I finally stopped the cycle. I can’t even count the number of times I was up in the middle of the night Googling “how to tell if you’re an alcoholic”, or the confusion I felt over the fact that I was an extremely successful, high-functioning employee and mother who appeared to have her shit together yet felt so dead inside. I thought alcoholics were men having mid-life crises who get a DUI, cheat on their wife, go bankrupt, hit rock bottom, then sit in a circle in a room of strangers and introduce themselves while drinking cheap coffee. That’s the image I had in my mind and I didn’t understand how I fit into that.

I remember how many times I tried to stop drinking and couldn’t. I’d go a few days, a few weeks, sometimes even a few months without any alcohol, and I’d write about how healthy and good and clear I felt. But then life would happen, and I’d fall back into the pattern.

I wish I could say there was one defining moment where everything clicked for me and I just decided to stop. But healing doesn’t work like that. It’s a slow unraveling. A remembering. A deep exhale into the parts of ourselves we’ve abandoned, and slowly reclaiming them.

Here are a few things that helped me on my journey of quitting alcohol and reconnecting with myself:

1. I got curious instead of judgmental

Instead of constantly shaming myself for pouring another glass, I got curious. What am I trying to escape right now? What is this wine really giving me? When I peeled back the layers, I found loneliness, unworthiness, a fear of being out of control, and a backward sense of safety. That awareness alone shifted everything.

2. I created space for my feelings

I used to think emotions were meant to be avoided or fixed. But feelings just want to be noticed and felt. Instead of drowning them, I started sitting with them. Journaling. Breathing. Feeling. Letting the waves crash and realizing they wouldn’t sweep me away.

3. I found new ways to regulate my nervous system

Numbing is often a sign that our nervous system is overwhelmed. I started experimenting with ways to soothe myself that didn’t involve alcohol—walks out in nature, yoga, breathwork, dancing, even just holding my hand to my heart and taking deep breaths. Over time, I built a toolbox of healthy coping mechanisms.

4. I stopped running from myself

I used to think that if I stopped numbing out, I’d have to face all the pain at once, and it would break me. But what I found was the opposite. Meeting myself with compassion, piece by piece, didn’t shatter me—it healed me. And in that process, I uncovered something even deeper: joy, peace, and a self-trust I never knew was possible.

The invitation to come home to yourself

If you find yourself numbing out—whether it’s with wine, food, social media, or busyness—I want you to know this: you are not broken. You don’t need more willpower. You don’t need to shame yourself into change.

What you need is your own presence. Your own tenderness. A willingness to sit with yourself instead of running away.

The truth about emotional numbing is that it’s never about the wine, the scrolling, or the outside distraction. It’s about the parts of you that are longing to be met, seen, and held.

And the most beautiful part? You are the one you’ve been waiting for.

Are you ready to reach for yourself?