“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.)
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 dj@midlifemixtape.com ***
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 dj@midlifemixtape.com 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 ...
