Ep 108 DryTogether Founders Megan Zesati and Holly Sprague

Midlife Mixtape

“A spirit of curiosity”: Megan Zesati and Holly Sprague, founders of the DryTogether alcohol-free living community for midlife moms, on the benefits of teaming up to cut back on booze, the media messages that boost our consumption, and living AF(AF.)

• DryTogether.org
• Harvard Health Article on Women, Alcohol, and COVID-19
• Outlander #1 – your gateway read
• Presenting sponsor Kindra – use the code MIXTAPE20 for 20% off your first order!
• Unlock Your Life Podcast with Lori A. Harris

Freedom to make the best choices for yourself at midlife, and to worship George Michael.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here! ***This is a rough transcription of Episode 108 of the Midlife Mixtape Podcast. It originally aired on November 2, 2021. Transcripts are created using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and there may be errors in this transcription, but we hope that it provides helpful insight into the conversation. If you have any questions or need clarification, please email [e-mail] ***

Holly Sprague 00:01

In my life right now, I’ve got so much going on up there that I need some space, and I need some area that is not consumed with how much I drank last night or how much I’m going to drink tonight.

Nancy Davis Kho 00:16

Welcome to Midlife Mixtape, The Podcast. I’m Nancy Davis Kho and we’re here to talk about the years between being hip and breaking one.

00:26

[THEME MUSIC – “Be Free” by M. The Heir Apparent]

Nancy 00:40

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[MUSIC]

Nancy 01:48

Hello to all of you who know exactly who will be there wanting some when you try new soft and juicy Bubble Yum… I’m going to give you a minute… It’s the Flavor Fiend.

Hi, it’s Nancy Davis Kho. I’m the host and creator of the Midlife Mixtape Podcast. I have considered doing an episode where I just have you guys all record yourselves singing your favorite 70s or 80s ad jingles, but that would create earworms that might actually be fatal to us at our ages. Who wears short shorts? I’m not even going to give you an answer to that.

Actually, I do have an ask for you, before we get to today’s episode. We’re going to be talking soon about pets and midlife in an upcoming show and I want you to send me pictures of yours – the pandemic puppies, the covid cats, friends from the more exotic aisles in the pet store. I’m going to put together a slideshow of the pets that make the lives of Midlife Mixtape listeners better, and I want to make your furry, or winged, or scaled buddy to be included. Just send the pic to [e-mail] before November 11th. That’s it. Send me some cute animals’ pics, please. Make my day.

So, I got pitched by today’s guests a few months back, and I was immediately intrigued. Megan Barnes Zesati and Holly Sprague are the founders DryTogether, which is an alcohol-free community for midlife moms that brings together women ages 35-60 years old from around the country. Through virtual events and a robust member-only online forum, the DryTogether community facilitates a safe space for mothers to connect and explore this stage in life – without alcohol.

I will cop to being one of the 41% of women who increased her drinking during the pandemic. The RAND did a study and it’s cited in a Harvard business review story on the topic and I’m going to include in the show notes if you want to check it out. I’ve always enjoyed my daily beer, and since college, with a few memorable exceptions, I’ve always been able to stop when I’ve had enough. I guess this is true confessions time for you. Hope you’re ready for this. But when the pandemic started, and especially as it dragged on and the grief and losses piled up, I definitely allowed myself to drink more than I normally would. Studies and anecdotal evidence will tell you that drinking more is common response to dealing with stress, and I ain’t special. I’m pretty common.

But recently, my friend Maria and I talked about how women seem to be drinking all the time, way more than our moms and grandmas did. That was even before the pandemic started. The same Harvard article bears out the theory that Maria and I had. Between 2001 and 2013, there was a 16% increase in the proportion of women who drink alcohol, a 58% increase in women’s heavy drinking (versus a rise of 16% in men), and an 84% increase in women’s one-year prevalence of an alcohol use disorder (versus 35% in men). So, basically, women have been drinking more since this was measured in 2001 across the board. I think that’s been influenced a lot by the media we consume that makes drinking seem like the behavioral baseline.

I present to you myself as Exhibit A: have you read the Outlander series? Okay. If you haven’t read this yet or if you haven’t seen the show on Starz: it’s basically Scottish Kilt Porn. There’s Time Travel and there are Highlanders, and at all times one of four things is happening in this book series: someone is bleeding, someone is plotting, someone is making love, and someone is drinking whiskey.

I started reading the series during the pandemic and let me say: I love these books. I will read them forever. I want to read about Jamie and Clare’s generous and steamy nonagenarian sex life someday. I’ve read10,000 pages of this series since March 2020. They’re literary comfort food to me. But I find when I read them: I want to drink more. BECAUSE EVERYONE IN THIS BOOK IS DRINKING WHISKEY ALL THE TIME. And TONS of whiskey.

I can tell when I’m reading them, I’m like, “I think I’ll have a beer while I read!” so I know I get impacted by what I’m reading, watching, and consuming. Then when you see that level of drinking on TV, and in ads, and in everybody’s memes and on Instagram: Mommy drinks to cope, it’s time for Mommy juice, you’ve earned your drink, you start thinking: maybe 2 drinks a night is normal? Maybe 3 is? I don’t know what normal is anymore.

I don’t know if you guys are into horoscopes – I am thanks to Aunt Noonie. I am an April baby so my sign is Taurus. It’s the sign of the zodiac that can be really sybaritic – very self-indulgent, with a tendency to overdo all the earthly luxuries like good food and good drink and cashmere on sale at Garnet Hill. So believe me, I’m the last person to judge anyone else about how you’ve handled the past year and a half, what your preferences are. I am not judging.

But I found that for myself by summer of this year 2021, I was getting sick of it. I was feeling really bored of relying on the second drink more often than not, and since then I’ve been working really hard to cut back to my regular baseline of a single daily beer with a goal someday even to get below that. It’s not been easy. It’s amazing how quickly that became habitual.

I sometimes wonder if just not drinking altogether would be a better option for me at this stage of life. I think it would be hard because it IS so enmeshed in the culture, and that’s why I invited Holly and Megan on today, and that’s what the conversation is that I have with them. I hope will be of service to you, whoever you are and whatever amount you find yourself about thinking and drinking at midlife.

Let’s put on the teakettle and sit down with Holly and Megan of DryTogether.

Nancy Davis Kho 07:14

Welcome to the Midlife Mixtape Podcast, the cofounders of DryTogether, Holly Sprague and Megan Zesati. We’re so happy to have you here today.

Holly Sprague 07:22

Hi, thank you so much for having us.

Nancy 07:24

Of course, I need to know before we get down to business, and I’m always curious when I have two people on the show whether you know this about each other. Holly, what was your first concert and what were the circumstances? And Megan, you know this question is come in for you next so think it over.

Holly 07:39

My first concert was Cyndi Lauper. Yes, I’m a midlife mother right now. My father took me. He was really into getting me into music. That was like one of the good ways that we did bond because after that, he took me to Michael Jackson. So, come on.

Nancy 07:56

Wow. And he stayed in the concert venue with you?

Holly 07:59

Yeah, he did.

Nancy 08:01

He was a trendsetter, because sometimes my guests and I talk about the fact that our parents were the ones who drove us to Syracuse or to Rockport or wherever to go to the show, and then they sat in their car with the newspaper and read that until the concert was over. But as parents ourselves, we go in with the kids. So your dad was kind of cutting edge.

Holly 08:18

That’s right. I guess so. I think he really just likes music and he wanted to hear it.

Nancy 08:23

Megan, what was your first concert and what were the circumstances?

Megan Zesati 08:27

Okay, seventh grade. George Michael, Freedom, Reunion Arena in Dallas, and my friend’s very cool mother brought the two of us.

Nancy 08:39

You must be young Gen Xers. That’s what I think, because us old Gen Xers, the older sisters, our parents never stuck around. But your mom would have been crazy to leave a George Michael show.

Megan 08:52

Right.

Nancy 08:53

Was it everything you dreamed of and more as a seventh grader?

Megan 08:55

It really was. It was like a highlight, and I’ve got a string of those that just kicked off a few great music experiences.

Nancy 09:03

What would you follow it up with, Megan?

Megan 09:05

Oh, Paul Simon was another just life altering experience, and that was a few years down the road, also like a big mega concert.

Nancy 09:15

So many good shows, never enough time!

Let’s start by talking a bit about what DryTogether is. I gave a very quick intro on the way in, but why don’t you guys tell me, not just what it is, but the moment where you decided to start it. I want to hear the origin story. Who’s going to take that, Holly or Megan?

Holly 09:33

Either one. Megan, do you want to go, or you want me to?

Megan 09:36

I don’t know if there was a single moment when we decided to start it. It’s like it decided to start and in some ways we started with an experiment, an idea and we have been following it, evolving. What we did initially decide to start began in January of this year, in 2021, and we started with the shared challenge of doing a dry month together for anyone who wanted to do that experiment, for any reason at all.

Nancy 10:07

I’m going to ask a lot of questions just so everybody’s clear on this. Complete abstinence from alcohol for a month? That was what the challenge was.

Megan 10:16

It was the intention to abstain from alcohol with the larger purpose, and this is really more of the spirit of it, is to see kind of what you learn about yourself and your relationship with alcohol, by stepping away from it. It’s not really an accountability group, nobody got dinged or in trouble if they drank during that time. Truly, nobody was checking. The spirit of it is less about restriction and taking something away, and more about seeing what you learned about yourself by stepping away.

Nancy 10:48

And you guys knew each other how? I’m curious to know why you two came together over this issue.

Holly 10:55

Yeah, we were college roommates. We’re both from Dallas, and then we met at the University of Texas in Austin, and we’re very good friends and stayed in touch throughout the years. That was, what? 25 plus years ago. I live in Boulder, Colorado, and have lived here for about 20 years now. Megan’s in Austin, and we’ve kept in touch along the way, obviously, shared our lives with each other.

Then just recently, in the last two years, we really found out that both of us were alcohol free and that we had stopped drinking for our own reasons, kind of on our own. We were sharing a lot about that with each other, in terms of how it impacted our lives being alcohol free in a very alcohol-soaked society, and a lot of people around us were still drinking, and we were trying not to and what did that look like. So, we kind of started talking a lot about that. What got us to DryTogether is kind of a continuation of those conversations.

Nancy 12:01

I have to just interject here and say that the AF all over the DryTogether website stands for alcohol free, not what Nancy thought. When I first thought I was like, oh, okay. Alright. They’re a little edgy with the AF and then I’m like, oh, I think that means alcohol free.

Holly 12:16

Well, we tried to be a little edgy actually.

Nancy 12:19

Okay.

Megan 12:20

Because we are also midlife AF.

Nancy 12:22

Right. Perfect.

Megan 12:23

So we are an alcohol free community for mothers in midlife, and that’s really what this community is about. It is the place where you can come if you are a mother at this age and stage in life.

Nancy 12:39

What is it about midlife mothers and drinking, or not drinking AF as the case may be, that is uniquely challenging?

Megan 12:47

This is a pandemic project. The way that it came about is that during the pandemic, the messaging to women and to mothers coming at us from a number of sources, and also just how we speak with each other, was definitely like, “We’re going to need to drink to power through this experience.” That was where Holly and my conversations and idea for doing this dry month together would give us just a different experience of trying to cope and connect during what were pretty dark days in the pandemic.

Nancy 13:23

But I feel like it even started before the pandemic, and I’m curious, since you work in this space, if you would agree with me, or if you’ve seen research to bear this out. I feel like the media and especially social media make it seem like everybody’s drinking all the time, and especially moms are. I have to tell you this whole trope of “Mommy juice!” on a wine glass, or “Mommy drinking blah, blah, blah” – it makes me crazy. I think that is different from our parents’ generation, our mother’s generation, our grandmother’s generation, I wonder if you’ve ever seen research that shows that to be the case?

Holly 13:55

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we’ve seen research come out of the pandemic that shows 41% of women were binge drinking during the pandemic, and that’s a pretty high number. I think for so long, it was our generations’ way of coping and this was how you can stay young, and this is how you can get through things. It was just a message we were given, that that was the really best way to go about doing it.

Nancy 14:23

I hadn’t thought about that, but it makes sense to me that it’s one of the ways that you present to the world that you’re young: you can still go out and get smashed and have fun at a bar or whatever, even if you’re in your 40s and in your 50s. But we all know we don’t recover like we used to when we were in college.

So at some point, you have to think about recalibrating your relationship to alcohol and what you use it for and what looks like healthy, sane consumption.

Holly 14:51

Right. I think we question a lot in midlife and I think especially, our generation and my friends and I think, “Oh okay, let’s give up gluten. Let’s try going dairy free. Let’s try this new exercise regime.” But it seems like alcohol is one of the last things to question and to look at and analyze. And whether that means you give it up all together or you continue on in a healthier way, even to stop and look at it feels taboo, in a way. So we’re just trying to open that door and make it a little bit more normal to think about it and talk about it.

Nancy 15:29

If we go through that DryTogether open door, what does it involve? What am I signing up to do if I decide I’m going to do dry together for a month?

Megan 15:37

We began as just the dry month together. But it has evolved to become an online community where there are multiple opportunities to connect with people. We have a private paid community platform like Facebook, but with not Facebook, where members have access to one another, and we share articles and resources. On there, we also host events that happen mostly over zoom.

So we’ve got a book club, we’ve got a mind body workshop, usually neuro Pilates, and we have a guest speaker series. Again, we’re really looking at this intersection of midlife issues, including this “I can’t drink the way I used to, and maybe I should reconsider what this is doing to my body,” and the DryTogether dry month is one of the offerings that we have.

But at this point, it’s really evolved into just a community that doesn’t revolve around alcohol that is for mothers in midlife. There’s something specific about this age and stage where we’re wanting to deepen and be more intentional and purposeful about how we’re spending our time, kind of “the anti-scrolling,” and so this is a place for that to happen where alcohol is not the centerpiece. It’s not the thing between us as we attempt to connect. We have other purposes here other than to drink together.

Nancy 17:03

Well, it’s interesting to me that the emphasis is on community, because if you think about – not that we’ve been able to be out social drinking for a year and a half – but when that time, fully returns, or maybe it has for some of you who are listening, it’s hard to be the odd man out who’s not drinking at a party. It’s hard to be the only person at book club who doesn’t have a glass of wine in front of her.

And so this idea of having strength in numbers, and maybe knowing ahead of time with another friend, “I’m going to bring something non-alcoholic to drink, will you do that with me as well?” I imagine there’s a lot of strength that comes from that. I’m only imagining it, because with my friend group, it’s pretty rare. But it would feel less difficult if I knew I was approaching that with someone else, or with two or three other people.

Holly 17:53

I think that’s one of the best things about the community. As it’s growing and evolving, these women are coming together from all over the country. I mean, we’ve got women from all across the country, and so you log on and you see how people are handling the work event, the work happy hour where you are the only one turning down the glass of wine, or a date night and your husband still drinks and you’re trying to cut back. Or book club.

There’s plenty of instances where these women are the only ones who are turning down the glass of wine and what does that look like? If you know that other women are dealing with that in Boston, or Atlanta, or wherever, and you kind of feel not quite as alone and isolated in that.

Megan 18:37

I mean, certainly my story is that giving up drinking has just really not been hard. It’s been a choice that keeps making itself because I just feel better in all the ways.

Nancy 18:48

I’m curious about that. Can you talk a little bit about both the personal health benefits that you’ve seen, and maybe if you’ve got any kind of studies or research around this, particularly as it pertains to women in midlife?

Megan 19:01

I don’t have studies or research right now about that. But my experience has been that when I was 42, honestly, around my early 40s, I just started noticing that there was this layer of preoccupation around my drinking. I might wake up at two in the morning and I’d be thinking, “Gosh, why am I up? Did I overdo it? What’s going on? Why can’t I sleep like I used to?” When I ultimately decided to do a dry period, I never intended it for it to be – now coming on my fourth year, fifth year. It was like, well, let me just see how things clear up. Let me see what gets better in my life if I can focus more, if I can sleep better.

That’s the spirit that I entered with, and I’ve never tried to hang a label on it or tell myself forever. I continue to choose it every day and that aspect is really important to me. So I found it relatively simple to not drink.

But what is complicated and has been difficult has been the social aspect that you mentioned. Even though Holly and I didn’t really start talking about our experiences doing this until I was a couple years in, it became all the more important, I think, because my experience was that I didn’t go through an addiction recovery model. And that’s not what DryTogether is, either.

But I felt a little in between a normal space that revolves around alcohol, and a sobriety community, which is not what I was needing. But I was wanting more community around simply being a non-drinker in a drinking world, and I think Holly and I connected around those topics, honestly, on the phone during the pandemic. And then we thought, “Well, what will happen if we try to expand this conversation? Surely, we’re not the only ones.”

So, we started pulling in women who are alcohol free for all kinds of reasons. Some are engaging DryTogether as part of a larger recovery effort. But others are people who alcohol has just never really been their thing, or some people have an allergy to it, it makes them feel bad. Some people have had children and wanted to be more responsible, and others have become alcohol free for health reasons, others just to be a higher and best version of themselves, more of an optimization. Others are training for an event.

We come at it from all different kinds of reasons, and if we can break out of this binary, where if you’re not drinking, then that means you have a problem or you’re an alcoholic, or you’re out of control or powerless over it, or even the word sober is so sobering, not fun. Right? I think this community is really an attempt to meet an in-between space, and because of that, it gets hard to sometimes define. Holly and I are constantly talking about, “Who is this for exactly?”

Nancy 22:08

That was my question, because I’m somebody who – I like my five o’clock beer and then I pretty much stop after that. But there are times where I’d like to maybe take a week off or something and then, I don’t know, I just think, well, it’s not really a problem, so I don’t need to stop.

And especially during the pandemic, when so many of us just were trying to get through what was an incredibly painful time, the one would become two once in a while. I know I’m not alcoholic, but maybe I just would do better at being able to pause it, or stop it entirely, if I was in a community of people who could relate to that.

Megan 22:48

Yes, exactly. I think that that kind of natural curiosity that you’re expressing is something that just gets kind of shut down. There’s no place to go, to really explore those questions further especially, because the first thing you confront is this question of, “Well, what does that mean? Does that mean I’m an alcoholic? Or why am I doing this?” Or if you feel relatively unconflicted about asking those questions of yourself, then as soon as you start telling people that you’re not drinking, you are confronted with having to answer those questions for other people.

Nancy 23:21

It occurs to me for those of us who know and love sober alcoholics that the more people out there in the world who maybe aren’t alcoholic but still are alcohol free and can say “I’m just not drinking right now,” it makes it easier for them too. Because they’re not the only one standing there with the with the soda water in the slice of lime. It makes things a little easier for our friends in that community.

Megan 23:43

That’s right. In the end, it’s an inclusivity issue and we want alcohol free to be a choice that is included, not sent off to its own kind of siloed place.

Nancy 23:56

I do notice there’s more product on store shelves like fancy non-alcoholic beverages so you don’t feel like you’re missing out on the experience of having a nice cocktail. Is that what you’ve seen as well?

Holly 24:06

There’s so much, and so much that launched during the pandemic in fact. It was kind of already a rising market, the non-alcoholic spirits market and beer and wine. But even during the pandemic, it’s been crazy to watch how many new companies and brands are out there. Since you like to talk about music and stuff… the Dead and Company, the Grateful Dead version is in town, right?

Nancy 24:29

I’m familiar.

Holly 24:30

Okay. They’re in town in Boulder right now at Red Rocks and I went last night and I’m going tonight. They have Heineken 0.0 at the venue, and it’s really a treat for me to have my beer, and have something that I can drink and have fun with, and it is nice to see more options out there slowly but surely, I’ll say. I think that as midlife mothers we want to see them more in the places we’re going, like restaurants with our families. But yes, there’s many options out there now, but it’s a matter of how we get ahold of them.

Nancy 25:05

What would you say are the biggest obstacles to people joining in or completing the DryTogether challenge?

Megan 25:12

I think the biggest obstacle is this people wondering if they are a fit, or feeling like they have to have more clarity at the outset before even engaging about what is their relationship with alcohol, or what would they like it to be.

Nancy 25:27

Can you talk a little bit more about what that means?

Megan 25:29

People worry that in order to join, a barrier might be “I have to make a decision for forever or even for this month, that I’m not going to do this before engaging, or will I belong? Is this a group of people that share my values that we’re all find commonality and connection? Will they get me?

Is this a recovery community or not?” These are some of the barriers that we face.

To that, the answer is it’s a place of self-inquiry, community and exploration. The spirit is of curiosity, and it’s not a downer to be in there. It’s fun, it’s inspiring. We’re really empowering one another, we’re not sitting around telling our rock bottom stories. That’s not the spirit of it. It’s all about what we are learning about this emerging aspect of ourselves as it’s happening, and we’re trying to figure it out, and you don’t have to have the answers and we’re just sharing from that place.

Holly 26:31

Compare it to the new mom groups that I had when my kids were babies, or preschoolers. That toddler stage where I really relied on my new mom friends, and “How are you doing this?” and sharing resources and bonding over that critical time in your lives. And we see this midlife time period as just as critical and valuable and kind of bonding with other women, when you feel this sense of wanting female relationships and deepening that kind of sisterhood feeling is important.

Nancy 27:06

You talk about the self-exploration. What are some common themes that people find out as they’re going through this month with you?

Megan 27:12

People realize their why’s for drinking.

Nancy 27:18

That’s “their WHY’S” not “they’re WISE.”

Megan 27:21

Why do I drink? By taking that away, you realize what your motivations are. Are they social? I think a lot of us learn that we are drinking to perhaps power through situations that maybe we would be better off saying no to, or to feel young, or to feel rebellious, to feel temporarily free of responsibility. Or to market transition between evening. Like a five o’clock beer.

Nancy 27:49

Are you talking about my beer right now? You’re 100% right.

Megan 27:54

Because was my wine, and it was the thing that I could drink to mark that transition while I didn’t actually mark the transition, while I continued to prepare food for my family or to not stop. And so then the conversation becomes about “Okay, so if this is why we’re doing it, what do we need to do instead?” Those are some of the things that I think people come away with, and then I think, really realize they feel much better.

Holly 28:24

They feel better. That’s kind of where I was going, and then the brain space. I always like to talk about the brain space.

Nancy 28:31

Talk about the brain space. We’re into it.

Holly 28:33

People realize, after you cut back on drinking, or stop or whatever, really start to look at it, you realize how much brain space it takes up. Are you going to get the wine for five o’clock? Are you going to have it at dinner? How much are you going to drink, and how much did you drink yesterday? The amount of energy that goes into thinking about it is, all of a sudden, really open and free.

In my life right now, I’ve got so much going on up there that I need some space, and I need some area that is not consumed with how much I drank last night, or how much I’m going to drink tonight, and what does that mean, and analyzing what that means if I drank and I said I wasn’t going to, or I had two drinks and I wanted to have one, and it was light beer or t it wasn’t… There’s just so many things that if you free that space up…

Nancy 29:29

You could learn French! You could do anything.

Holly 29:32

Now let’s not go crazy.

Nancy 29:35

Bien sur, Holly, bien sur.

Holly 29:40

No, because honestly, I did kind of put that pressure on myself. “Well, now I have all this space. What am I going to do with it?”

Megan 29:47

That’s an important part: from there, we have to be careful not to then just stay with that productivity model of like, “Oh, now that I’ve got this time, I’ve got to fill it!” Because I think in midlife, we really need rest a lot more often.

Nancy 30:01

Oh, my God. Preaching to the choir here. Yeah, I think we’re terrible at taking downtime, especially moms, TBH. Maybe that’s part of where the drinking and everything else comes in, is you’ve got to get so much done, because you’re telling yourself you have to, and it’s a way to get through.

Okay, so for listeners who are interested in cutting back and starting in on exploring this AF lifestyle, what’s your advice for getting started, besides going to visit the website, which is DryTogether.org – I’ll leave links in the show notes to that as well.

Megan 30:35

To approach it with curiosity and no labels. Resist the urge to label yourself or what it means that you’re thinking about not drinking, or you’re experimenting with it. To really approach it with the spirit of discovery and what you’re going to learn about yourself.

Nancy 30:54

That’s good advice for nearly every new endeavor, by the way. I think we should just take that with you wherever you’re going to go. Spirit of curiosity.

Megan 31:03

You don’t have to know and you really don’t even have to commit. This is only for you. Nobody else. So you don’t need to even form rules around it. That’s what I would add, and that it is quite simple, in many ways, just to stop drinking. But it’s really amazing to join a community and to be part of a community where this is a shared conversation.

Holly 31:26

Then I would say in some ways, it’s almost rebellious. Because like we said, it’s kind of taboo to question it. But if you do take that step to even question your drinking and how it may have changed right now and what does it look like, a lot becomes clear. For me, at least, it puts me on the right path and, like Megan, I still don’t say forever, and I don’t label. But right now it feels like it’s helping with some clarity that is much needed in this time in my life.

Nancy 31:57

We can all use a little more midlife clarity, I think. In a minute, we’re going to come back with Holly and Megan from DryTogether. But first I want to tell you guys about a really cool new podcast.

Last month, I was a speaker at She Podcasts Live in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is a wonderful event connecting and uplifting women who podcast. I crossed paths with a delightful new entrant to podcasting world – Lori A. Harris. Lori recently launched the Unlock Your Life Podcast, and I think you should check it out!

Unlock Your Life is the podcast for highly successful, visionary, heart-centered women of color who want more out of life! If you’ve done all the things….got the degrees, the fancy job, the family but still feel like something is missing then this is the podcast for you. Break free from the white picket prison!

Join your host Lori A. Harris as she shares the mindfulness tools you need to finally put yourself first and design a purpose-driven life that you love.

The Unlock Your Life Podcast is designed to help you uncover your deepest desires in all areas of your life and become radically honest with yourself. Each episode will leave you feeling empowered, enlightened, and free from the confines of society’s expectations.

Lori is giving away a hoodie to someone who leaves a review of her show on Apple Podcasts right now so if you listen to Unlock Your Life and you love it, show a new podcaster a little love and leave a review. You might get a hoodie out of it! Welcome to the Midlife Podcasting family, Lori A. Harris!

[MUSIC]

We’re back with the cofounders of DryTogether, which is an online community with a one-month sort of – I don’t want to say challenge because that doesn’t feel like the right word after talking with you, but an opportunity to examine your relationship with alcohol. I’ve got Holly and Megan here. So I wanted to ask you, and I’ll put this one to you, Holly, what has surprised you most about starting this community? It’s not even a year old.

Holly 33:47

No, we’re still very new, but it has grown quickly.

What surprised me most is that there is a big need out there for women in your late 30s, 40s, and 50s to share about our experiences and to just come together kind of and have a forum where we can talk about what is affecting us at this stage in life. The pandemic definitely had a part in that, because we all were isolated in a new kind of way, and we needed that connection more than ever.

But I also think that women feel this naturally, just biologically, at this time in our lives, and I think that that has been surprising how much women out there in my age range really want to come together and be together and share about our stories and our lifestyles and what can we learn from each other.

Nancy 34:41

Megan, anything to add to that?

Megan 34:43

I would just add that one of the surprises for me was the experience meeting new people just how cool it is to meet new women from all over the country. So often I’m kind of hooked into maybe a work or a school circle. So, it was just this whole new circle during a time that was really isolating, and that was definitely an unexpected perk.

Just to echo what Holly said, I mean, this is an age and stage in life where women are so rarely acknowledged, much less empowered, and that’s what this community has really been about.

Nancy 35:21

Not on Midlife Mixtape. We acknowledge the SHIT out of you midlife women. That’s what we’re doing all day, every day.

So what’s next for DryTogether? Are you guys going to do in person events? Are you going to open this up to men, to non-moms? Because certainly moms need it, a lot of midlife moms. But boy, there’s a broader need. What’s your big goal?

Megan 35:43

We are in a period of reflection and visioning for the next year precisely about that. I am hoping to be able to do more in person gatherings. We did one of them in Washington, DC in August, and then the Delta variant shut down our plans.

Nancy 36:04

The good old days, in pandemic terms.

Megan 36:07

Yes, we do talk about expanding it beyond midlife mothers. Because we are so focused on keeping the community meaningful, and just connecting women as quickly as possible, because their time is so precious in delivering value, we are staying focused on keeping it small and limited to women in midlife right now. But certainly, you’ve got your finger on something that we are talking about and dreaming about beyond this year.

Nancy 36:39

It definitely feels like a time of recalibration and goal setting. We’re in the fall of 2021. I think we can all hope that next year will look like what we hoped 2021 might look like. So it’s a good time to take a step back and figure out for all of us where we’re heading.

I mentioned the website, DryTogether.org. Do you guys want to let listeners know where else they can find you on social media?

Holly 37:06

We’re on all the social media: Instagram…

Nancy 37:10

All the socials.

Holly 37:40

All of it. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, we even have a LinkedIn page now.

Nancy 37:15

@DryTogether. Is that the right place to go?

Holly 37:19

Yeah, it’s all @DryTogether.

Nancy 37:20

Awesome.

So this is the last question, and Megan, I’m going to give you this one first. What one piece of advice do you have for people younger than you, or do you wish you could go back and tell yourself?

Megan 37:30

I would go back and I guess the part of myself that thought about stopping drinking before I did, that younger version of myself, I would say, “Don’t worry so much. It’s so much easier than you think.” And of my friends, I haven’t lost friendships over this decision.

Nancy 37:48

Did you worry that you would?

Megan 37:49

I did at the time. Yeah, I thought, gosh, everything revolves around this and maybe I won’t get included in the same ways. What is true is I don’t always want to go in the same ways, or I’ll leave sooner. But my friends want me happy, whether that’s with alcohol or not.

Nancy 38:09

That’s actually so interesting, because if you lose friends over this, those were terrible friends, right? I mean, it’s a kind of a good litmus test if you’re testing things out. If anybody dropped me over this, I’d be like, good riddance, and goodbye. Start doing it when you feel like it might be the right time.

Megan 38:27

Yes, and it’s hard to hear it when you’re on the other side – but it’s truly not deprivation. It opened so many doors in so many ways for me that that was the big shock, and what I wish I could impart on my younger self.

Nancy 38:44

Are you talking about the kind of brain space that Holly was alluding to, or in other ways that it opens doors for you?

Megan 38:51

The brain space, and in terms of what felt possible in my life. I mean, we didn’t even go into this, but for me, this dovetailed with our family taking a year abroad and lived abroad for a year. That was one of the ways that my life really opened up.

Nancy 39:08

Yeah. Where’d you live? Can I ask?

Megan 39:10

We lived in Costa Rica.

Nancy 39:12

Oh, cool.

Megan 39:13

For a year, and did some traveling as well to Southeast Asia. It was wonderful. But it was something that I couldn’t get my head above water or have the brain space to even really envision, clearly. Then from there, really, it’s just one change leads to another.

Nancy 39:29

And the next thing you’re heading a whole community for people to help them.

Megan 39:32

Exactly.

Nancy 39:34

Alright. Holly, what one piece of advice do you have for younger people, or do you wish you could go back and tell yourself?

Holly 39:40

I would say, “Be a little bit braver, Holly.” Young Holly.

Nancy 39:47

Young sweet, Holly. “And stockpile toilet paper. You don’t ask me why. Stockpile toilet paper and hand san.”

Holly 39:56

Exactly. But just be a little bit braver about joining a community or group. I didn’t really do that before. I had never really done anything, for sure, online groups, or groups in person, or any of these retreats or anything. And there’s so much value there and seeing how other people are experiencing issues that you’re thinking about and facing. To me, that’s been one of the best things about this and just seeing and that shared experiences and resources and how much we can help each other.

I did it alone for so long, and I didn’t have to.

Nancy 40:35

That’s great advice. I think we’re always stronger in community, right? I mean, that’s why the pandemic was so awful. We were not meant to be isolated.

Holly 40:42

Absolutely.

Nancy 40:43

Holly and Megan from DryTogether, thank you so much for coming on and sharing the story of your AF lifestyle AF. I hope you guys will check out DryTogether.org, and thank you so much for being with us today.

Holly 40:59

Thank you.

Megan 40:59

It’s been great. Thank you so much.

[MUSIC]

Nancy 41:05

Alright. So, I’m curious to hear your thoughts about today’s episode. Was it just me who needed to talk that through or did it resonate for you too?

I’m keeping it real for you guys. I have not yet stopped with my daily beer. But I am trying to pay a little bit more attention to why I need to drink it when I do and what my emotions are around it, and I’d be curious if any of you are in the same boat. I’m going to not read Outlander 7 for a little while. I think I’m going to hold off on that until I get this in the bag. Anyways, drop me a line at [e-mail] or send me a message via Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You’ll find me @midlifemixtape.

And remember! I need your pet pictures. Send me photos of those cute GenX pets to [e-mail].

The Flavor Fiend and I wish you a wonderful week!

[“Be Free” by M. The Heir Apparent]

The post Ep 108 DryTogether Founders Megan Zesati and Holly Sprague appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .