Sober Not Somber Hour

Hey all you Cadre fans, I am coming to you from my apartment today, which feels a little better than the space that I entered on gosh last last Tuesday. I was at a place called Improving and I was at a live event and it was chaotic. It was happy hour time. So. So I am happy today to just be in my quiet apartment thinking about some sober, not somber hour things to share with you today. Yeah, this time of day it's like warming up in Minnesota and things are feeling good. Like patio happy hours are just around the corner.

I know it for Minnesota. Yeah. So I was thinking about just how I have shifted in 10 years of sobriety to not only not drink at this time of the day, but to replace perhaps happy hour or drinking rituals that I either did on my own or with coworkers with some different activities. And I would love to just here drop in the chat below what activities you do happy hour time that are not alcohol related. So this time of the day, what are you thinking about? And I will share with you one huge blessing in my life that if you haven't tried and Luke knows this, the sauna experience has been one of my go to replacements and has been my sort of new happy hour since I discovered it about seven years ago.

So I just want to share with you, as I was kind of reflecting back before hopping on today, that I'd always get this anxiousness toward the end of the day and being someone who I call sober necessary. My go to was an alcoholic beverage which then could spiral out of control for any evening. So when I came to the first sauna that I went to. Oh I love it. Mani pedi happy hour. Yes, speak wonder what I was really thinking about was where are the adult social spaces I can go to on my own and not be pressured to drink.

So I wandered into the Huing Hotel and they had a four hour sauna and cold immersion contrast community guided experience. And I literally cried like the first time I experienced it because it was so profound. And I up to that point, the first year of sobriety I stayed home. I didn't even do happy hours. I couldn't even go into those spaces that felt toxic to me. And the second and third years I would go into those bars and different social gathering spaces but also not be happy about it, always feel othered, always feel like I could never truly belong and it just added stress and anxiety.

So what I found when I came into sauna was a new ritual, a new happy hour which I have been reflecting on. What I love about it and the fact that I could go somewhere that I didn't have to coordinate with other friends and plan and be like, hey, I want to go to this experience and there's no alcohol where my friends, my college friends that I usually hung out with would drink. I didn't have the pressure of having to like invite people along. I could literally go to the sauna by myself. And by the way, sauna, despite all the community conversation that happens in many of them locally you can actually just go and be an introvert.

Don't say anything, just be around people who are in conversation. And I found that to be very healing and helpful. So that's maybe something you hadn't thought of. Just like where are these spaces we can go to as adults? So that became like a safe haven for me. And I leaned into that heavily during several times in my life when I really needed to not only experience like something physical, but improve my mental health. So the sauna is an amazing place for that. If anyone's tried it, I would love to hear.

Yeah, what do you think? How often do you go? I go three to four times a week. It's literally my ritual, that is my happy hour. So today I just wanted to leave you with the idea that, you know, alcohol is pretty ritualistic and it's obviously everywhere in our community. So thinking about how you can kind of replace those experiences and make it easy because if you're just like saying you're not going to drink or you know, having that experience, you're. You're less likely to stick to that if you don't have an alternate plan.

So that's my suggestion. I've got a bunch of different sauna places I could recommend locally if you are in the Twin Cities, but a really great avenue to explore. So thanks all for joining. Oh yes, week wonder. I appreciate being an introvert and still being around people who are engaged in conversation. Yeah, it's a really cool experience because in America, even thinking of social spaces like restaurants, tables are so othered and you would never overhear a conversation and just join in. But the sauna just allows that.

It's such a beautiful thing, it's such an intimate setting. So yeah, that's my happy hour now. And I always say, you know, it's 5:00 somewhere. Let's indulge in a non alcoholic beverage if we must and find other ways to kind of enjoy this time of the day and celebrate and create new rituals. Until next week, happy February and warmer temps everyone. And stay warm here in Minnesota. See you next week.