Look Alive, Sis! 7 Days to Awaken Your Sober MindSample

The Gray Area

In our society, we tend to gravitate towards labels. Feels very black and white - all or nothing. What do you do if you feel like you're stuck in the middle and no label fits to describe your experience? When it came to my relationship with alcohol, it wasn’t “bad enough” to change but it also wasn’t GOOD enough to stay the same. The way I was showing up in my own life was less than what I was made for. I was sipping on my vino during “wine o’clock”, pretending I had it all together when really, I felt a disconnect. I was internally suffering from a divided mind: one that was mindful by day only to become “mindless” after five o’clock.

The labels around alcohol can set up this dichotomy that says either you’re a “normal” drinker or you’re an “alcoholic”. Those were the two options. This kind of black-and-white thinking says that either you have a problem or you don’t. And if you haven’t had external negative consequences because of your drinking, you don’t really need to change. Keeping a lot of us stuck. The Lord wants us to listen to His Spirit’s whisper versus getting caught in the comparison trap.

The truth is that there’s a pretty wide spectrum when it comes to the ways people drink. So, to insist that someone either wears the “alcoholic” label or doesn’t neglects the reality that people’s relationship with alcohol typically changes over time and across contexts. That’s because alcohol is an addictive substance and actually creates a thirst for itself! Our tolerance rises and so does our craving for more in order to get the same effect. This is actually our brains and bodies performing on a normal psychological level. Now let’s add in the social and emotional layers. So many people have remarked to me, “You know, alcohol was never really an issue for me, and then this thing happened.” Or they’ll notice, “My drinking changed when my kids left for college.” Or they might observe, “When I lost someone really close, I started drinking more.”

When I began to understand both that there’s a spectrum of the ways people drink and that people’s relationships with alcohol can change over time, it was like a light bulb came on! My reality began to change when I shifted from black-and-white thinking to discovering that my drinking was somewhere between black and white—it was in the gray zone.

Discovering this “gray zone”—where I could finally admit that bondage to my wine o’clock habit wasn’t aligned with God's best for me was a game changer for me. It might be for you too.

All I know for myself is that my identity is in Christ, not in any man-made label. I want to experience all the FREEDOM God has for me in every area of my life. I know, with confidence, He wants that kind of freedom for you, too. We’ll talk about that more tomorrow!