3 Signs You’re Waiting for the “Right Time” to Quit Drinking (and Why That Time Is Actually Now)

I was on a call with a potential student this week; she’d been sober curious for a while and was starting to feel an intense nudge to get sober serious. 

Like most of my clients and students, she’s smart, successful, and stuck in a life that feels overwhelming and unfulfilling.

Although she’s not an addictive drinker, she uses alcohol as a way to manage stress and overwhelming emotions.

As it happens with many of my students, she is also in the midst of a spiritual awakening. She’s started to learn about intuition and energetic practices and can tell deep down that alcohol is holding her back.

The problem is, she’s not experiencing any outwardly percievable consequences form alcohol.

But when we dug deeper into her relationship with alcohol, we discovered how it was effecting her under the surface: It’s keeping her anxious, disconnected, and slightly out of sync with the woman she deeply desires to be.

She’s craving a life that feels more easeful, more aligned, more connected.

But when we talked, she admitted something I hear all the time:

“I just don’t think right now is the best time. The holidays are coming, work is crazy, and I’d rather start fresh in January.”

Sound familiar?

I get it. I really do. I used Dry January as my own springboard back in 2017 and I haven’t had a sip of alcohol since.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the eight years I’ve coached women through this transition, it’s this:

You have to stop waiting for a convenient time. A new month or a New Year might feel like a sexy time to take a break from alcohol. But, if your soul has been quietly whispering that it’s time for a change, I implore you to acknowledge that whisper before it becomes an unavoidable roar (it will).

In short, the best time to quit drinking is the day your growth becomes more important than your comfort.

So, if you’ve been circling the idea of taking a break, but keep convincing yourself to wait for a “better time,” here are three signs the right time is actually now.

1. You keep waiting for life to slow down, but it never does.

There’s a viral meme that always makes me giggle because it’s so true: “Adulthood is just saying, ‘Things will calm down after this week’ over and over until you die.”

We tell ourselves the same thing about drinking: Once work settles down… once the holidays pass… once the kids are older… then we’ll have space to focus on ourselves.

But here’s the thing: life rarely slows down unless you intentionally create slowness. And the truth is, alcohol is probably the thing keeping you from slowing down in the first place.

It tricks you into tolerating chaos you were never meant to live in. 

It lets you power through burnout instead of healing it.

It numbs you just enough to say “yes” to another obligation that drains your spirit.

So instead of waiting for the storm to pass, maybe the work is learning how to stop standing in the rain.

In the work I do with my clients, we take time to do an inventory of all the stressors that cause you to drink. We come up with boundaries and commitments that allow you to minimize those stressors. In addition, we equip you with new tools and habits that allow yo to effectively manage stress as it presents itself.

Using this two-fold strategy, you create a life that is simultaneously less chaotic and more grounded. When you approach life in this way, alcohol starts to feel less and less necessary. Until, ultimately, it becomes obsolete.

Lesson: When you remove alcohol, you finally see how much of your “busyness” is self-created…and how good peace actually feels when you’re not relentlessly searching for it at the bottom of a bottle.

2. You’ve done Dry January (or Sober October) before and it didn’t stick.

Dry months are seductive because they seem like progress. You stop drinking for a few weeks, sleep better, and feel proud of yourself. But quite often, something sneaky happens: you tell yourself, “See? I can handle it. Maybe I’m being too extreme.”

Because here’s the catch: Dry January happens in a bubble. There are fewer parties, fewer pressures, fewer opportunities to actually test your resolve.

And when life picks back up - birthdays, weddings, work stress, family drama - you realize you’ve practiced sobriety under perfect conditions and life is never perfect.

If you only learn how to say no when it’s convenient, you’ll never build the confidence to say no when it’s not.

Now is the time I give you some tough love. If you’re reading this and telling yourself that you’ll give Dry January another try this year and hope it sticks this time, I have to remind you of the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

If you truly want to make alcohol insignificant in your life…not just take another break, remember this: Real change happens when you stop hiding from triggers and start learning to move through them.

3. You’re waiting to feel ready, instead of deciding to be ready.

This is the hardest truth to swallow (no pun intended).

You won’t wake up one morning magically ready. You’ll just wake up tired.

Tired of the broken promises, the anxiety, the hangovers that linger no matter how much or little you drink.

One day, you’ll finally be tired of diluting yourself with alcohol. You’ll be done and over with playing small and feeling like your potential is slightly out of reach.

You’ll be exhausted from numbing the same emotion over and over, only to find yourself back in another situation (relationship, job, commitment) that causes you the exact same stress and overwhelm you’ve been desperately trying to escape.

Maybe it’s time to create a reality where you escape the hamster wheel. Maybe finding this article is a sign that you’re more ready than you think.

I believe that readiness looks like deciding that this version of you is capable of starting now.

After all, there will always be a celebration to toast or a sorrow to drown. There will always be a vacation, a happy hour, a wedding, a stressful week.

The “perfect time” doesn’t exist, and if you keep waiting for it, you’ll wait forever.

This is your invitation to stop wasting time on a habit that continues to produce the same results.

What if you made the powerful decision that you’re going to choose to be ready now? What if you chose to take a different approach than what you’ve tried before?

What if you start now and arm yourself with the right support and tools to move past proving you can abstain? What if you give yourself the gift of the tools and boundaries you need to sustain an alcohol-free lifestyle?

In my experience, at some point you stop bargaining with your potential and start choosing your peace…That’s when everything shifts. And, believe me, life can shift miraculously quickly when you finally get out of your own way.

If this hit you right in the gut, it’s probably because you’re ready…not for January, not for someday, but for NOW.

You can check out the links below for current opportunities to get started on your alcohol-free journey.