I want to tell you something I have not really talked about publicly before. I changed my relationship with alcohol almost seven years ago. And yoga had everything to do with it. Not in the way you might think though. Yoga did not make me stop drinking. I stopped because I was done. But yoga is the reason I was able to see clearly enough to get there, and it is the reason everything changed after.
This is not a recovery story. I was not addicted. But I was someone who used alcohol to cope with things I did not know how to deal with, and I did that for a very long time.
My relationship with alcohol started young, at age 14. In the Netherlands, where I grew up, the legal drinking age was 16 when I was young. So it was not crazy for kids to drink at 14. Everyone was drinking. There was so much social pressure. It was cheap. There was not much of a barrier. And it was socially very accepted that you drink.
From the start I was not afraid to lose control. Getting wasted was fun, funny, and what I was supposed to do. At least that is what I thought. It also kinda labeled me as a wild one, which I liked. Looking back now I can see it was a coping mechanism for a lot of discomfort I felt as a teenager, but at the time it just felt like what everyone did.
Between the ages of 10 and 28, I lost six friends and young people in my life. Six. And each time, except for the very first one, I would ramp up drinking to deal with death, dying and making sense of losing someone so young. Alcohol became the easiest way to not feel things. Over time it became the go-to for everything.
But we all know what happens when you drink too much. You get emotional. You say things you can not take back. Your deepest worries and anxieties start to take over. And over many years of that, I started to really not like myself anymore when I drank.
It followed me from the Netherlands to university, where I did not know how to have a party or dinner without a drink. Or two, three, four, five. It followed me to Brasil, where caipirinhas replaced beer after I learned I was gluten intolerant and vodka replaced wine because wine was expensive. And it followed me to the US, where after my divorce, drinking became something I could not only not afford emotionally but also financially. I was getting myself into situations I felt shame about, and I started to realize I was often alone in them and it was not always safe.
Because I am a yoga teacher, most people assume I am a vegetarian and always calm and serene. I am none of those things. Yoga came to me because I was the opposite. I was a mess, my mind was racing, I did not have coping mechanisms.
It was the yoga philosophy that started to plant seeds. Seeds around how I was treating myself. That there was another way that I could exist and be happy. Or at least be more aligned. I started becoming more aware of concepts like Ahimsa, the practice of not hurting yourself. Satya, truthfulness. And Svadhyaya, self-study. The practice of just looking at yourself. Not judging, just seeing. That is probably the one that did the most work on me. Because once you start really seeing yourself, you can not unsee it.
But I definitely felt like a fraud. I was presenting myself as this calm yoga teacher during the week and then going wild on the weekends partying. And sometimes even showing up the next morning to teach, barely sober.
I definitely taught with hangovers. It was rough. Brainfog and extreme nausea. I one time taught a full class, walked out the door, turned a corner and threw up. How embarrassing is that?
I was not being truthful to myself about drinking. It was no longer just fun. It always felt like this is what you do, and I often did not feel good about it afterwards. My hangovers got worse and worse. I would throw up multiple times the day after drinking, which gave me the nickname the Queen of Hangovers.
The gap between what I was teaching and how I was actually living was getting harder and harder to ignore.
In 2019, the day after Thanksgiving, I was with my husband's family. His brother makes a mean margarita. I drank one, and somehow drank more, and before I knew it I was on the floor in the bathroom throwing up. I do not really have much of a memory of it. The next day I spent the whole day sick, throwing up and feeling horrendous.
And I said no more. I had said that many times before, but this time I was really done. And I never looked back.
The part that made it easier, honestly, is that shortly after I got pregnant. I had every reason not to drink and then I was breastfeeding, then pregnant with my second and breastfeeding again. It almost felt like I cheated through my stopping with drinking period. But by the time all of that was done, I could not imagine going back. Going back to hangovers, feeling shame, embarrassment, blacking out, the zapping of my energy. I feel so much better not drinking.
I still find it weird to go to a bar or a club and not have a drink, so I kind of avoid it. It is so ingrained. Decades of this do not just disappear because you made a decision. I also struggle with celebrations. When everyone is holding a glass of bubbles and someone hands you one, there is this pull. Not because I can not have it, not because I was addicted, but because it is what I was used to doing. What I was supposed to do. What everyone else is doing.
And I have to be honest with myself about why I do not just take the glass. It is not because one glass would destroy me. It is because I know myself. If I start drinking again for this celebration and that dinner and this special occasion, it will just creep back in as a norm. And my life is better without it.
But saying no in those moments is still uncomfortable sometimes.
And then there is the social part. Being around people who are drunk or high and feeling like the odd duck out. Noticing my own tiredness in a way I never used to because I was always matching everyone else's energy with another drink. I went to a club with friends in Berlin and by the time 2am came around I was exhausted. The energy of everyone around me getting more drunk and high just became too much.
Does that mean I will never have fun? Absolutely not. But I am more aware now of what kind of social gatherings I choose. Where I put my energy. How that energy is spent. I love dancing, so I dance at sober dance parties or at someone's house. I love being around people, so I meet up during the day, or for dinner where I do not mind skipping wine, or at someone's house, or a gathering outside. I have just found different times and different moments to do my thing.
And in all realness, I am still trying to figure out how to blow off steam the way I used to when I could just forget about things when drinking. I have not figured that part out yet. I am not sure I will. But I would rather sit with that question than go back to how things were.
Not drinking has helped me deepen my spiritual practice in ways I did not expect. I am not bypassing my emotions anymore. I have to deal with things head on. With a therapist, with meditation mentors, with myself. I am not avoiding anymore.
At first it made me more rigid. And sometimes I still am. But in so many ways it has made me softer, more compassionate, more understanding towards other people's suffering. Because I know what it is like to be in pain and not have the tools to deal with it.
It really informed the way I teach and what I talk about in classes at Home Studio Yoga in San Anselmo. I started talking a lot more about kindness and compassion. About how to deal with hardships and using the lessons I learned from the philosophy, things that supported my own journey. I often tell people that what I talk about in classes is stuff I need to hear myself. That has always been true, but it became more true after I stopped drinking.
I want to be careful here because I am not a counselor and this is just my story. But if you are someone who is sober curious, or just quietly wondering about your own relationship with alcohol, I want you to know you are not alone in that.
You do not have to have a dramatic rock bottom to decide something is not serving you anymore. You do not have to call yourself an addict or go to a meeting. You can just start noticing that who you are becoming and what alcohol does to you are moving in different directions. And at some point you just stop.
Yoga did not fix it for me. But it made me honest enough with myself to finally see what was happening.
With love,
Martine
Can yoga help you stop drinking?
It can help you become more aware of what you are doing and why. That is what happened to me. The philosophy, especially concepts like Ahimsa, Satya, and Svadhyaya, made it harder to keep ignoring what was going on. Yoga did not make me stop. But it gave me the clarity to get there on my own.
What is sober curious?
Sober curious means you are starting to question your relationship with alcohol without necessarily labeling yourself as anything. You are noticing patterns, paying attention to how drinking makes you feel, and wondering if there is another way. It is not about being in recovery. It is about being honest with yourself.
Does yoga help with stress and coping without alcohol?
It has for me. Yoga gave me tools I did not have before. Breathwork, meditation, the physical practice, the philosophy. These are all things that help me process stress and difficult emotions without needing to numb them. It is not a replacement for therapy and I would always recommend working with a professional too. But it is a meaningful part of how I take care of myself now.
