Service Nourishment

The Dalai Lama has told us that it’s the Western woman who will save the world.

Oddly enough, it is also the same women of the world who are the fastest rising statistic of binge drinkers.

What’s going on here? Surely it’s not a hungover, educated and relatively-comfortable-in-life woman who is going to inspire great community change, collective salvation and foster world peace is it?

Perhaps at first she is. However she can not hold up the responsibility of authentic peace for the duration that we need her.

How do I know this? Because she is obviously not at peace with herself.

A woman who drinks on a regular basis, binges on occasion (a hangover is the first clue) and finds it unappealing to be social or alone without a drink (usually wine) in her hand does not have what it takes to soberly face the real work that needs to be done. There is no space for numbness or time for disillusionment when it comes to helping humanity turn the tide from greed and violence to equality, respect and peace for all.

Women are especially instrumental, as the Dalai Lama can see, to bringing feminine qualities into politics, business, social services and religion. As long as we’re numbing ourselves and swallowing our truth, we can not fully serve.

The world needs sober women who can speak the truth about injustice in small and large ways, on tiny and big platforms who have the time, financial resources and passion to make a difference in their families, communities and countries. These women need to first know their own truth and cultivate inner peace.

“Perhaps you’re delaying facing your truth. Perhaps you don’t like your truth. Maybe you don’t know what your truth is. These are all very legitimate reasons to experience discomfort. However drinking is only delaying the process of your awakening. There are no answers in the bottle. Drinking will not make your life easier. It might make getting through one day easier, however, cumulatively, drinking is making your life more difficult and less manageable day by day.” The Vegan Key™

We have been falsely convinced of wine’s health benefits and marketers know that women generally care about health & wellbeing as well as make the bulk of household purchases, hence the brilliant campaign of wineries marketing to women. Wine is sophisticated, poured into sensual glassware, keeps French women slim, doesn’t make you bloat like beer and isn’t the hard liquor of “real” alcoholics. Wine can be purchased in the grocery store along with diapers, rice, detergent and apples.

We have been sold an addiction, one that repeatedly silences our female voice. Marketers do not care about your health, but rather only your repeat business. Wine may be “more healthful” than beer or liquor, however a healthful, whole diet is not improved by the addition of wine. Alcohol of any kind is acid-forming, hard on the liver, dehydrating and addictive. Each sip swallowed is truth delayed.

We have been sold, very surreptitiously, a delicious poison to silence our own truth.

I fall into the category of Western women and I take my privilege very seriously. I am thankful daily that I don’t worry about my family surviving the day as many women living in war-ravaged locations do. I don’t worry about adequately feeding my family nutritious food every day as many mothers in our country and others do. And I don’t worry so much about my daughter or me being sexually violated as I would living in other cultures or countries. Being cognizant of these blessings helps me to want the same for all women, girls and families around the world. Numbing myself to my privilege and responsibility would help no one: not me, not my family and not my global community of sisters.

Staying sober gives me purpose, clarity, time and money to devote to causes greater than myself. I don’t have an edge that needs to be taken off. This edge is my gift of loving rage & purposeful power and what drives me to do good work so that others can enjoy the comforts of life that I do not take for granted.

Soberistas is a social website that helps people resolve their problematic drinking patterns. Hello Sunday Morning is a movement toward a better drinking culture.

Joyfully and consciously abstaining from alcohol is one pillar of a spiritual diet and service nourishment. When you arrive at a place in life where there is nothing you need from the outside of yourself to feel happy, at peace, and/or comfortable, you will see the absurdity of ‘in-toxic-ating’ yourself with alcohol. There are ways to enjoy flavors pleasing to the tongue and brain that don’t involve introducing poison into your sacred physical & spiritual bodies.

If you can’t invest the time to volunteer at your local soup kitchen or participate in a mission trip to a third world country, or if you don’t have the funds to donate to local or global charities, learn how you can contribute to world peace every single day with every single meal you eat as an expression of service nourishment using The Vegan Key™. World peace begins with you and your daily habits regardless.

“For far too long we have been seduced into walking a path that did not lead us to ourselves. For far too long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. And for far too long we have said no when we desperately wanted to say yes.

When I look in the mirror, I see a woman with secrets.

When we don’t listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don’t, others will abandon us. We’ve been raised to question what we know, to discount and discredit the authority of our gut.

I want to know why. I regret whenever I abandon myself. But harboring regret is making love to the past, and there is no movement there. It’s not the lips of a prince that will save us, but our own lips speaking.

I am growing beyond my own condition, breaking set with what was breaking  me.” Terry Tempest Williams in When Women Were Birds

Join me on a Sober Revolution, will you? Refuse to numb your anger, discomfort, or confusion and instead use that energy to help heal the world…starting with yourself. Know your truth, speak your truth, realize inner peace and activate world peace.

Stop being sold your silence at your expense. The world needs your sober voice.

Additional Resources:

• If You’re Still Drinking, You’re Not Done Yet

• How to Drink Sensibly or Not at All