EP 137 | Time to Say Goodbye

I’m back after a three-month pause to own what happened, explain why my energy changed, and share what I’m choosing to prioritize now. 

I also say the hard part out loud: I think it’s time to say goodbye to the podcast, even though I still love it.

• Ghosting the show and why it wasn’t intentional
• Knee replacement recovery realities, physical therapy load, and support at home
• Family changes, pivoting when plans don’t work, and preparing to become a grandma
• Accepting limited energy and choosing priorities on purpose
• Shifting from podcast interviews to the Mocktail Social Club community
• Monday night Happy Half Hour mocktails, connection, and meeting non-alcoholic brands
• Upcoming member events with Tomorrow Cellars and Rachel Hart

Please join me at the Mocktail Social Club. 

Our membership is just all about supporting you wherever you are. 

Always here for you!! Thank you for being such a special part of my alcohol-free journey. I am forever grateful for our podcast community. 

Reach out if you need me: Deb at Mocktail Mom dot com 

Join the community of mocktail-loving ladies in the Mocktail Social Club. 

• Instagram: @Mocktail.Mom
• Mocktail Book: The Happiest Hour
• Website: MocktailMom.com       

 You are loved. Big Time Cheers!

Transcript

Welcome To Thriving Alcohol Free

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome up friends, and welcome to the Thriving Alcohol Free Podcast. I'm your host, Deb, otherwise known as Mocktail Mom, a retired wine drinker that finally got sick and tired of spinning on life's broken record called Detox to Retox. Let this podcast be an encouragement to you if alcohol is maybe a form of self-care for you, or you find yourself dragging through the day waiting to pour another glass. I am excited to share with you the fun of discovering new things to drink when you aren't drinking and the joy of waking up each day without a hangover. It is an honor to serve as your sober fun guide. So sit back and relax or keep doing whatever it is you're doing. This show is produced for you with love from the great state of Kentucky. Thanks so much for being here and big time cheers. Hey friends, it's Deb. Welcome back to Thriving Alcohol Free. How are you? Did you miss me? I have ghosted my podcast. I never thought such a thing would happen. But here we are, three months later. Three months later, I'm back. I'm still alive. You guys, I am so sorry. I wanted to come on. This is going to be a very, very short episode. I really am just coming on here to kind of do like a public service announcement for the podcast community of Thriving Alcohol Free and just to apologize. I did not intend to drop a podcast. My last podcast episode was with Brian Miller. He uh came on and joined me, had a great conversation with him. I actually subscribe to his newsletter. If you guys don't do that, um, check out his newsletter. I think it's on Substack None For Me. I believe it's called None For Me. But um make sure you subscribe to it because he's an excellent writer, an excellent writer. So I've really enjoyed um receiving his emails when he sends those out. But all that to say, it wasn't my intention to just like drop a podcast and not come back. But uh, I had knee replacement at the end of February and I had all these high hopes of repackaging, you know, conversations that I'd had during the Mocktail Summit and put dropping those as podcast episodes and even recording some solo episodes. But I can't even tell you how that knee replacement knocked me into next week. I mean, I just I don't know what I expected, but I think I thought I would have a lot more energy than I than I have had because I had the surgery, and obviously, like you have to have your leg elevated and blah, blah, blah, and you have to do physical therapy. And I didn't realize, number one, how much time the physical therapy takes. It's no joke. Like you have to do these exercises and you have to do them like five times a day. And it takes so much time. I mean, it I have felt like I've had a newborn, a back to like newborn life, except I was sleeping through the night at least. But wonderful Larry did get up. He set his alarm, like whatever, however often it was I was supposed to be taking pain medicine. I don't know if it was like every four hours. I think it was every four hours or something in the very beginning, three hours or something. I can't remember. But he was so great, uh, would set his alarm and wake up to bring me the pain medicine. I don't know if he was like afraid I was gonna take too much or whatever in the middle of night, but whatever. He would come over and give me my pain medicine, which was very, very, very nice. Took great care of me. He and Lily kept the ice machine flowing with freezing cold water to this like great, I have this great ice machine. So, all that to say, I thought knee replacement was just gonna be like elevating my leg and still having energy to do all the things that I've been doing. For example, the podcast, which I love. And the podcast's been going on for several years and it's been so much fun. I have just, I've loved this podcast, but I just realized that with the things coming up, not only the things that have happened in this last year, knee replacement, Lily moved back home. I don't think I told you guys that. Did I? Did I tell you guys that? So Lil went away to college, right? She went away to college last August. I was like, oh, wah, wah, wah, empty nesting. And then Larry and I were like, oh, empty nesting. We are enjoying like, you know, evenings quiet. Not that Lily's loud, whatever, but it's just a different energy, right? When you have like, with just the two of you. And we've never had that time with just the two of us because we got married. I had two daughters. So we've never had time, just the two of us. Well, Lil's first semester at college was not as wonderful as she had hoped for it to be. And so we were like, Lil, no problem. Like, we're just gonna pivot. You have to pivot in life, right? When things aren't working out the way that you thought they were gonna be, or it's not as you thought it was gonna be, no problem. It's okay. It's not a failure. Let's pivot. So she moved back home. I'll let's say she moved back home end of December. So we've gone, I don't want to say, how do you? We're not empty nesters anymore. We have Lily home. And so that's been great, but it's energy, you know. It's and it's been, she's here, she's going to uh community college, which is awesome. She's working full time, um, and it's been great to have her home. But just, you know, we've had a lot of like family life things or whatever you want to call it. My knee surgery. I'm gonna have another knee replacement in August. And then Hannah is having a baby in uh in October. So there's a lot of things going on, and it's like, boy, I did not realize um how how low my energy was going to be, and how I really needed to reserve it for just like the things that I really have decided, these are the things I want to prioritize. Number one, obviously, my family, becoming a grandma, being available to go down to see my daughter, Hannah. Um, you guys, let me just, I just have to give a huge thank you to the Lord because she was on, I mean, death's door when she was seven years old, when she was eight years old. She was so sick with aplastic anemia, and it is just such a miracle. It is God's absolute miracle, his hand on her life that she is even living. And the fact that she is pregnant and going to be having a baby is beyond anything. I'm so, so grateful. So I will never stop thanking the Lord for um his healing hand on her life. But all that to say, my energy is limited. All of our energies is limited. What am I saying? My energy, all of our energy is limited, right? We all decide like, what is it? What are we focusing on? And I can't focus on everything. And so um, really, I'm focusing on our membership community. I only missed one happy half hour. It was the day of my surgery, which shout out to Kendall Olson. She covered for me. She hosted our happy half hour we have on Monday nights. And you guys, we have the best time. We make a mock tail, we connect, uh, we have brands come in. I've been really starting to have like um focusing on the brands and meeting the makers, kind of like we've done here on the podcast, but bringing them into the membership community so that we can meet on Zoom, members can ask questions as opposed to just meeting these brands through a podcast. So actually, in a couple of weeks, we have Tomorrow Sellers, which is a non-alcoholic wine brand. The founder's coming in to share her founder story, do a little wine tasting. She's gonna give away a bottle of wine to one of the members. And so I'm just really taking time, like the time that I usually would take, I guess, for like setting up interviews for people to come into the podcast. I'm really taking that time to bring people into the membership community. So we're actually reading right now. Well, we don't, we're not like a book club, but if you want to, the book that we're reading for the second quarter of 2026, uh, we're reading Why Can't I Drink Like Everyone Else with Rachel Hart? And um, I reached out to her. She actually had been a guest here on the podcast. I reached out to her to say, Hey, we're reading, some of us in the membership are reading your book. Would you like to come in and have a happy half hour with us, have a mocktail together? And she was so gracious. And um, she's gonna be joining us in June. So if you are looking for friends to drink with, if you would like to connect with makers of non-alcoholic options, um, please join me at the Mocktail Social Club. Our membership is just all about supporting you wherever you are. Several of us in the community are sober, are alcohol-free. Some are just more mindful drinkers, some just drink way, way less than they ever did. We just are a group of women who get together and connect and where alcohol is not a priority. It's not a part of our conversation or anything, and we get to share tips and tricks. And um even just last night, we were I was we had our happy half hour last night, and one of the gals was, we were talking about ready to drinks, and I was like laughing, saying like I had never, I never knew what an RTD was, you know, until I stopped drinking. And she was like, I didn't know what a Topu Chico was. And so just to be able to like introduce one another, and it's really community-led. So it's just community led, and people just share their, you know, kind of, oh, I found this. Oh, actually, that reminds me. I was supposed to post um, I was supposed to post a link to Marty. I gotta do that in the membership. Um, I need to post the link. I said I told everybody last night I would post the link. So that just reminded me as I was talking about that. We just share, you know, places to buy things, tips, tricks, discount codes, and um, we have a great time. But all that to say, I'm really spending more time bringing brands and thought leaders, mixologists, sober coaches coming into the membership to meet the members and so that they can ask questions and be connected that way. So if you are interested, just reach out or to me, Deb at mocktailmom.com or mocktailsocialclub.com is the website to sign up, mocktailsocialclub.com. But anyway, it's just been it's been a few months of just, I feel like a lot of changes, health, you know, challenges. I mean, my goodness, uh, you know, everybody's going through something, and we all have to decide like what is most important. And I just feel like I I absolutely love this podcast. It's been so much fun, but I have to, you know, it breaks my heart to say, I think, I think it's time to say goodbye. I feel like I'm breaking up with, you know, a boyfriend that I love very much, but it's like it's just, it's just not the right time for us to be together. So I love you guys. I um am here for you, dev at mocktail mom.com. Please reach out anytime. The door is always open, or swing on over to Mocktail Social Club and um join us. Even if you just want to check it out for a month, like there's no strings. There's no like I mean, people come, people go. It's like if it's the right season, great. I I just like there, it's a place of grace and love. Like, there's no you can come check us out for a month or two. So anyway, that's it. Big time cheers to you. I have my huge mocktail mom cup right here, my emotional support cup that I carry around with me everywhere. But um, I just want you guys to know how much your support has meant to me, how grateful I am for the thriving alcohol-free community, how fun this has been. Thank you for being a part of my journey. Thank you for supporting me for over five years of being alcohol free. And um I could not be here without all of you and without my members, without these brands that have brought so many wonderful things to market. We have so many things to drink when we're not drinking, and the fun is not over. Don't forget that. Okay. Wherever you are on your alcohol-free journey, the fun is not over. If you're just sober curious, the fun won't be over if you stop drinking. And there are so many good things to drink. So I am sending you lots and lots of love, big time cheers from the great state of Kentucky, actually, the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I don't think we actually are a state. We're a commonwealth, but I'm going to keep saying from the great state of Kentucky because I think it goes much better than from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. All right, lots of love. I will see you guys either on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, wherever, or just uh in the Mocktail Social Club if you're a member. Lots of love. And I will see you on Monday night in our happy half hour. Talk to you guys later.