There was a season of my life when my favorite part of the day wasn’t the morning. It wasn’t my first cup of coffee or watching the sun come up or even those quiet few minutes before everyone else in the house was awake. It was five o’clock. Not because evenings were especially magical, but because by then I’d made it. Dinner still needed to be cooked, someone usually needed a ride somewhere, the kitchen somehow looked like I’d already cooked three meals in it, and there was always one more thing to remember before tomorrow. If you’ve raised kids, cared for aging parents, worked outside the home, or simply carried the invisible mental load that so many women carry, you know exactly what I’m talking about. By five o’clock, I wasn’t looking for a celebration. I was looking for an exhale.

For a long time, I believed that exhale lived in a wine glass. It wasn’t really about the wine itself. It was about what the wine represented. It marked the end of responsibility. It was my reward for making it through another day. Somewhere along the way, I’d quietly started believing that I deserved something to help me transition from surviving the day to enjoying the evening. Looking back now, I don’t think that belief made me weak. I think it made me human. We all look for something that promises to help us carry the weight we’ve been holding all day. The problem wasn’t that I wanted relief. The problem was where I was looking for it.

If I’m being honest, alcohol did give me something. I know that’s not always the popular thing to say, but it’s true. It gave me twenty or thirty minutes where my shoulders softened. It gave me permission to stop trying so hard. It quieted the constant chatter in my head about what still needed to be done. That’s why so many women get stuck in the cycle. If alcohol never gave us anything, none of us would have kept reaching for it. The promise feels real in the moment. The problem is that it never stays long enough to become the thing we were actually looking for.

I remember one evening standing alone in my kitchen. The girls were gone. My husband wasn’t home yet. The house was finally quiet, which, if I’m honest, was something I’d dreamed about when the kids were little and every room seemed to echo with somebody calling, “Mom!” There I was with the very thing I’d wished for...peace and quiet...and almost without thinking, I reached for the wine. I can still remember catching myself halfway through the motion and wondering, Why? Nobody’s here. There’s no party. There’s nothing to celebrate. Why does being alone immediately make me think I need a drink?

It wasn’t some dramatic movie moment where everything suddenly became clear. There wasn’t a lightning bolt from heaven or a life-changing speech playing in the background. It was just one uncomfortable question that lingered longer than I wanted it to. When did I forget how to simply be with myself? That question has stayed with me for years because I eventually realized alcohol wasn’t really the center of the story. Alcohol was simply my favorite version of something much bigger. I had become incredibly skilled at chasing relief.

The longer I’ve been on this journey, the more I realize I wasn’t actually looking for alcohol as much as I was looking for relief. That’s an important distinction because I think a lot of us spend years trying to solve the wrong problem. We tell ourselves we need more discipline or stronger willpower, when underneath all of that is a woman who’s simply tired. Tired of carrying the mental load. Tired of making decisions. Tired of feeling like everyone needs something from her before she ever gets around to asking herself what she needs. Of course relief sounds appealing after a day like that. Who wouldn’t want something that promises to take the edge off?

The problem was that I slowly stopped asking a different question altogether. I stopped asking what would actually leave me feeling restored tomorrow morning. I became so focused on getting through the next twenty minutes that I quit thinking about what my soul was really asking for. Looking back now, I can see that I had confused relief with rest, and those two things couldn’t be more different. Relief helped me escape myself for a little while. Rest slowly taught me how to come home to myself again. One asked me to numb whatever I was carrying until bedtime. The other invited me to lay it down, trust God with it, and wake up still feeling like myself.

I don’t think I understood that then because real rest isn’t nearly as flashy. It doesn’t announce itself the way relief does. It isn’t loud or exciting or wrapped up in a pretty bottle with clever marketing. Most of the time it looks almost disappointingly ordinary. It’s sitting on the back patio with a cup of tea and noticing the breeze instead of trying to outrun your thoughts. It’s taking Ollie for a walk because your body needs movement more than another glass of wine. It’s calling a friend when what you really want to do is disappear. It’s going to bed early instead of trying to squeeze one more hour out of a day that’s already asked enough of you. None of those choices gave me the instant rush I thought I wanted, but little by little they gave me something far better. They gave me back myself.

One of the saddest realizations I had after I quit drinking wasn’t that I’d lost years to alcohol. It was that I’d lost evenings. I was physically home, but I wasn’t fully there. I wasn’t hanging from the chandeliers or causing scenes. I was making dinner, folding laundry, helping with homework, watching television with my family. From the outside, everything looked perfectly ordinary. But inside, I had quietly checked out. I had traded presence for relief, and I didn’t even know I was doing it. Alcohol hadn’t stolen my love for my family. It had simply dulled my ability to fully experience them.

I think that’s one of the hidden costs we rarely calculate. We know alcohol costs money. We know it can cost us sleep or leave us with brain fog the next morning. Those are easier to measure. What’s harder to measure is the bedtime conversation you never had with your teenager because you were already on your third glass of wine. The spontaneous walk around the neighborhood that never happened because you’d already mentally declared the evening over. The book you wanted to read. The hobby you kept saying you’d start. The quiet conversation with God that kept getting postponed because you were too numb to notice He was waiting. Those things don’t show up on a credit card statement, but they cost us just the same.

Jesus didn’t say, “Come to me, all who are weary, and I’ll distract you for twenty minutes.” He said, “Come to me...and I will give you rest.” I’ve read those words so many times, but somewhere along the way they began to land differently. I realized I had spent years asking a substance to do what only God could do. I wasn’t really craving a drink. I was craving peace. I was craving permission to stop striving. I was craving the deep exhale that comes from knowing I don’t have to carry everything by myself anymore.

These days, my evenings look much quieter, but they’re fuller somehow. Sometimes I really do sit on the patio, only now there’s usually sparkling water in my hand and Ollie stretched out beside me. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I simply watch the sky change colors while I let my nervous system settle after a busy day. There are evenings when I’m still tired, still overwhelmed, still carrying things I’m praying through. Sobriety didn’t eliminate real life. It simply gave me the chance to actually live it instead of escaping it for a few hours. I’ve discovered there’s a big difference between ending the day numb and ending the day at peace.

If you’re reading this today and you’ve found yourself reaching for something—whether it’s wine, your phone, food, endless scrolling, or simply staying so busy you never have to sit still—I wonder if you’ll pause with me for just a moment before you reach for it tonight. Not to judge yourself. Not to shame yourself. Just to get curious. Ask yourself the question I wish I’d started asking years earlier: What do I actually need right now? Maybe the answer is a glass of water. Maybe it’s a walk around the block. Maybe it’s a phone call to a friend. Maybe it’s tears you’ve been holding back all day. Maybe it’s five quiet minutes with your Bible open on your lap while the house settles around you.

I’ve learned that relief is easy to find. It’s sold on every corner and marketed to us every single day. Rest is different. Rest is slower. It’s quieter. It asks us to stay instead of escape. It invites us to trust instead of numb. And while it doesn’t always offer instant gratification, it gives something relief never could. It gives us ourselves back.

Maybe that’s what our souls have been asking for all along.

Your Sis,

Jenn

Ps: If you’re tired of chasing relief and ready to experience real rest, I’d love to invite you to join us for the next 21 Day Reset.

It’s a space for women who don’t necessarily have a drinking problem, but know alcohol has started taking up more space in their lives than they’d like.

No labels.

No shame.

Just 21 days to step back, quiet the noise, and discover what life feels like when you’re fully present for it.