Introduction
Most men in midlife who feel like alcohol has more of a hold on them than it should are not addicts, and they know it. They just know something has shifted: the second glass most nights, weekends starting earlier than they used to, a low hum of guilt they cannot quite name.
This episode of Don’t Let The Old Man In sits down with Sarah Rusbatch, bestselling author of Beyond Booze and one of Australia’s leading voices on what she calls grey area drinking, to talk honestly about the space between a normal drinking habit and a real problem, and what it takes to change it.
Why this conversation matters
Sarah’s own drinking started at fourteen in the north of England and was normalised by a career in London recruitment, where getting clients drunk was part of the job. It escalated quietly for two decades. She never woke up needing a drink and never missed a day of work. By every outward measure, she was fine, which is exactly what makes grey area drinking so hard to see in yourself. It is more common in midlife too, when the body processes alcohol less efficiently and the low mood it produces gets blamed on ageing instead.
What we discuss
- Sarah’s own story, from raiding her parents’ drinks cabinet at fourteen to a London recruitment career where doing shots with clients decided whether you got the job
- What grey area drinking actually is, and why it sits in the hardest place on the spectrum: not bad enough to feel like a problem, but taking more than you realise
- Her framework of magic, medicine and misery, and how alcohol shifts from something fun to something you rely on to switch off
- Why moderation is not a real option for some people, and what a neuroscientist told her about the neural pathway that forms once alcohol becomes your solution to stress
- Why men and women tend to reach for a drink for different reasons, and what that means for changing the habit
- The thirty-day experiment Sarah recommends, tracking sleep, energy and mood before and after, so the decision is based on data rather than guesswork
- How to raise a concern with a partner or friend without shame or accusation
Why midlife men should listen
This is not a lecture about giving up drinking. Sarah is careful to say there is no shame in how any of us learned to drink, given how heavily it was marketed to our generation. What she offers instead is a way to get curious about your own habits and notice, honestly, whether alcohol is still doing what you think it is doing for you.
For men carrying the quiet cost of a habit that never looks like a problem from the outside, or for anyone who suspects a mate or partner might be, this conversation is a way in that does not start with judgement.
Guest info
Sarah Rusbatch
Sarah Rusbatch is a certified health and wellbeing coach, an accredited grey area drinking coach and a keynote speaker who shares her journey to sobriety with audiences worldwide. She grew up in Manchester, built a career in London recruitment, and moved to Perth with two young children, where a growing reliance on alcohol eventually caught up with her. She had her last drink in April 2019.
Sarah now hosts The Women’s Wellbeing Collective, a global online community, and is the bestselling author of Beyond Booze: How to Create a Life You Love, Alcohol-Free, published by Murdoch Books. She lives in Perth with her husband and two children.
