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What Happened When I Stopped Drinking: Hormones, Weight, Stress, and Breaking the Cycle

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Release Date: 09/19/2026

Menopause and Heart Disease: What Women Are Still Not Being Told with Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Most women enter perimenopause thinking about hot flashes, weight gain, sleep, brain fog, and hormones. Very few are told that this may also be one of the most important cardiovascular windows of their lives. And that is a problem. Heart disease remains the number one killer of women, yet women are still being underdiagnosed, dismissed, and evaluated using systems that were largely built around male cardiovascular disease. In this episode, I sit down with preventative cardiologist Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum to talk about what women actually need to understand about their hearts in perimenopause and...

Quick Hits: Empower Your Physique: Breaking Misconceptions for Women Over 40 with Philip Pape

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. This week we're exploring the intricacies of hormonal health and nutrition for women over 40, including the delicate balance between diet, exercise, and hormones. Joining us is nutrition expert Philip Pape, and together we debunk diet myths and provide personalized strategies to maintain energy, muscle mass, and metabolic health. We also discuss...

Why Do My Joints Suddenly Hurt in Perimenopause?

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE GUIDE "IS YOUR HRT OPTIMIZED!" Yesterday morning, I sat up in bed and somehow threw my neck out. That was it. I did not fall. I did not lift anything heavy. I did not have some dramatic injury. I literally sat up. And if you are somewhere in your 40s or 50s, there is a very good chance you have your own version of this story. Your shoulder suddenly stops moving properly. Your back goes out doing something completely ordinary. Your knees start aching. Your Achilles is angry. Your elbow hurts for no apparent reason. Workouts you used to recover from easily suddenly leave...

Quick Hits: Estrogen Has Been Vindicated! Estrogen HRT & Its Crucial Role in Breast Cancer Prevention with Dr. Lindsey Berkson

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

This is Quick Hits, where I pull the best takeaways from past podcast episodes and bring them to you in a shorter format. If today’s clip resonates with you, be sure to check out the full episode linked below. Download in iTunes or on your favorite podcast platforms. Dr. Devaki Lindsey Berkson is a thought leader in functional medicine, with an emphasis on hormones, nutrition, digestion, and intimacy. Berkson was a distinguished hormone scholar at a world-renowned estrogen think tank at Tulane University because she wrote one of the first breakthrough books on endocrine disruption)....

The Midlife Peptide Guide: Energy, Muscle, Recovery, Skin, Sleep & Libido with Dr. Jeff Gross

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Peptides are everywhere right now. They are being talked about for fat loss, muscle, recovery, brain health, skin, longevity, inflammation, mitochondrial function, injury repair, and just about every other problem women run into in midlife. But which peptides actually make sense? Which ones have useful evidence or clinical experience behind them? Which ones are still early? And where do peptides fit when a woman is already dealing with changing hormones, declining muscle, stubborn body composition changes, poor sleep, low energy, and slower recovery? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Jeff...

Quick Hits: The Sun Deficiency Epidemic: Could Sunlight Be the Missing Link in Modern Health W/ Gerardo Gutierrez

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits, where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most popular conversations. Want the full episode? You’ll find the link below. Are we getting enough of the right kind of light? In this Quick Hits episode, I pull out the biggest takeaways from my conversation with Gerardo “Guti” Gutierrez on sunlight, UVB, vitamin D, red light therapy, infrared light, circadian rhythm, and hormone health. We break down why sunlight is about far more than vitamin D, how UVA and UVB affect the body differently,...

What Happened When I Stopped Drinking: Hormones, Weight, Stress, and Breaking the Cycle

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

This may be one of those episodes you are tempted to skip because nobody really wants to hear that their nightly glass of wine could be working against them. But this is not a lecture about why you should never drink again. In this episode, I’m having a very honest conversation about alcohol, especially for women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. We talk about how drinking may affect sleep, cortisol, cravings, estrogen metabolism, liver health, insulin sensitivity, weight loss, and the way your body handles stress as you move through perimenopause and menopause. But this conversation goes much...

Quick Hits: Breathwork for Women: Igniting Inner Empowerment with Kyla Erlandson

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. Breathwork has been used for thousands of years across cultures as a powerful tool for healing, emotional release, self-discovery, and spiritual connection. Yet most of us move through our days barely thinking about our breath, let alone using it intentionally. In this episode, we explore how breathwork can help you reconnect with yourself,...

Tired, Wired, Puffy, and Foggy? Minerals May Be the Missing Piece with Caroline Alan

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

You are taking the supplements. Drinking the water. Maybe you are even on HRT. And yet you still feel tired, puffy, anxious, inflamed, constipated, foggy, wired at night, and completely drained during the day. What if one of the missing pieces is far more basic than another hormone, peptide, or supplement? In this episode, I sit down with Caroline Allen, The Mineral Geek and co-founder of BEAM Minerals, to talk about the role minerals play at the cellular level. We get into mitochondria, energy production, hydration, nervous system regulation, detoxification, adrenal and thyroid function, and...

Quick Hits: Reversing Hashimoto's Disease: Insights from Dr. Anshul Gupta

The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health

Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today’s clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. Dr. Anshul Gupta is a best-selling author, speaker, researcher, and leading expert in Hashimoto’s disease. Through his work, he helps people better understand the root causes of Hashimoto’s and how a functional medicine approach may help improve thyroid function, reduce symptoms, and address the autoimmune process. Hashimoto’s is one of the...

More Episodes

This may be one of those episodes you are tempted to skip because nobody really wants to hear that their nightly glass of wine could be working against them.

But this is not a lecture about why you should never drink again.

In this episode, I’m having a very honest conversation about alcohol, especially for women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. We talk about how drinking may affect sleep, cortisol, cravings, estrogen metabolism, liver health, insulin sensitivity, weight loss, and the way your body handles stress as you move through perimenopause and menopause.

But this conversation goes much deeper than calories and hormones. I share my own history with alcohol, addiction, social pressure, unhealthy relationships, and the moment I realized I had to break the cycle for my daughter. We talk about why drinking can become such an easy way to numb stress, dissatisfaction, loneliness, relationship problems, motherhood, or simply a life that does not feel the way we want it to.

The goal is not to shame you into quitting. It is to help you become honest about what alcohol is giving you, what it may be taking from you, and whether it is still serving the woman you are becoming.

In this episode, we cover:

Why alcohol can become harder to tolerate in midlife
The connection between alcohol, cortisol, and stress
Why drinking may worsen sleep even when it helps you fall asleep
How poor sleep can affect hunger, cravings, insulin sensitivity, and weight
Alcohol and estrogen metabolism
Why drinking may make midlife weight loss harder
The social pressure women face when they decide to stop drinking
My personal history with alcohol and addiction
Why alcohol can become a tool for avoiding uncomfortable parts of life
How drinking can affect relationships, parenting, and self-identity
The moment I knew I needed to break the cycle for my daughter
How to start examining why you drink
Finding your personal leverage for cutting back or quitting
Why addressing the reason you drink matters more than sheer willpower

Who This Episode Is For

This episode is for the woman who tells herself she only drinks to unwind.

Maybe it is one glass of wine after work. Maybe it is a few drinks on the weekend. Maybe you know you are drinking more than you would like, but you are not sure you are ready to look too closely at why.

It is especially for midlife women who are struggling with stubborn weight gain, poor sleep, anxiety, stress, hormone symptoms, or feeling disconnected from themselves and wondering whether alcohol may be playing a bigger role than they realized.

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