“Me Time” Was Really Check-Out Time

karenmrubinstein
Jul 21
5 min read

Stress Wasn’t the Problem—Disconnection Was

Opening Scene – The Sip Before the Storm

“You’ll need this,” my sister said, pressing a goblet of red wine into my hand on the front porch.

It was Thanksgiving at my parents’ house. Through the cracked-open front door, I could already hear the forced laughter, the clinking of dishes, the familiar tension just beneath the surface.

That wine wasn’t a toast. It was a tranquilizer.

An understanding between sisters that what was waiting on the other side of that door wasn’t going to be easy. In our family, holidays came with sarcasm and subtext. Smiles that masked stings. Passive-aggressive digs disguised as jokes. Long histories hanging in the air, unspoken and unresolved.

I took a gulp—fast—and stepped inside.

Was I Raised Around Alcoholism?

People ask me this all the time.

“Is alcoholism in your family?”

“Did your parents drink?”

“Did you grow up around it?”

There’s a theory—one I’ll write more about next week—that alcoholism is hereditary. And while that conversation is layered, the short answer is no.

My grandmothers drank tea. My grandfathers smoked themselves into cancer but rarely touched alcohol. My mom sipped a single glass of white wine over the course of four hours. My dad gave up his two-beers-a-year habit the minute his blood pressure went up. He did yoga. Ate organic. Avoided salt. Discipline was everything.

So no, I didn’t grow up in a home with alcohol abuse. But I did grow up in a world where alcohol was casually, silently recommended every time things got hard.

“You’re stressed? Have a glass of wine.”

“You need to relax? Pour something.”

“It’ll take the edge off.”

It was normal. Sophisticated. Social.

And for people like my parents, it was just that—moderate, harmless, even ritualized.

But not for me.

Because while my mom could take one glass and let it sit half-full all night, my pour started with a bottle. And when that stopped working, I moved on to more.

The Excuses I Told Myself

I told myself I wasn’t drinking that much.That I was tired. That I’d earned it. That I needed it.

There wasn’t anyone around me calling it out. No confrontations. No ultimatums. I wasn’t waking up in strange places or missing work.

And for a long time, I believed that if I could just find the right system of control—moderation, rules, schedules—I’d be okay. I thought it was a willpower problem.

But it wasn’t. And I unpacked that myth in Willpower Won’t Save You.

That’s the thing about high-functioning drinking—it hides in plain sight.

And because I was “still functioning,” I convinced myself it wasn’t a problem.

But functioning is not the same as being okay.

Me Time—or Disappearing Time?

I called it “me time.”That end-of-the-day glass was my reward, my soft landing, my signal that I could finally exhale.

But eventually, I had to ask:

If this is me time… why do I feel so far from myself?

Ann Dowsett Johnston, in her book Drink, put it bluntly:

“What’s sold to us as ‘me time’ is often just a culturally accepted way to disappear.”

And that’s exactly what I was doing.

Not relaxing. Not recovering.Just slowly, quietly disappearing.

When Winding Down Became Wining Down

Somewhere along the way, “winding down” became “wining down.”

“Unplugging” became “pouring up.”

We weren’t taught how to regulate our nervous systems—we were taught how to refill our glasses.

It’s all over the culture:

“Wine Down Wednesday”
“Uncork and unwind”
“Take the edge off”
“Self-care = Sauvignon Blanc”
“Me time in a glass”

It’s subtle. It’s playful. It’s everywhere.

We joke, we meme, we market it—and suddenly drinking is no longer about escaping pain, it’s about being chic, relatable, deserving.

But what looks like fun on a t-shirt often hides the truth:

We weren’t relaxing.

We were disappearing.

When drinking stopped working, I didn’t immediately get help—I tried replacing it with something else. I talk honestly about that shift in From Wine to Weed.

What Stress Really Looked Like for Me

Yes, I was stressed. Overwhelmed. Carrying too much.

But the wine didn’t calm me—it sedated me.

It knocked me out, not into sleep but into stillness.

And the chaos always came back harder.

From my twenties through my fifties, I suffered from severe, relentless sleep disorders. Night terrors that left me screaming. Sleep paralysis that trapped me in my body, awake but unable to move. Sometimes I’d fall out of bed and lie frozen on the floor while Barry called my name, unable to reach me. Once, during a stay at a friend’s house in New England, he held me all night to keep me from falling out of an antique bed raised several feet off the floor.

Still, I drank to relax. To sleep.

Because I didn’t know what else to do.

But alcohol wasn’t calming my nervous system—it was wrecking it.

What I Was Really Numbing

Gabor Maté writes,

“The question is never ‘why the addiction?’ but ‘why the pain?’”

And when I started telling the truth, I realized I wasn’t just drinking because I was stressed.I was drinking because I was carrying pain I didn’t know how to face.

Grief I hadn’t named.

Rage I didn’t feel safe enough to express.

The pressure to perform, please, and stay composed while everything inside me was unraveling.

I wasn’t drinking to party—I was drinking to protect myself. I go deeper into that truth in this piece: What If Alcohol Isn’t the Problem?

But I’m Still Functioning…

That’s the trap for so many of us.

We’re not passed out in alleys—we’re getting shit done.

Raising kids. Running businesses. Showing up.

So we think we’re fine.

But as Dr. Sarah Wakeman of Harvard Health puts it:

“Just because someone is functioning doesn’t mean their drinking isn’t a problem.

What makes it dangerous isn’t the chaos—it’s the silence.The way we justify. The way we hide. The way we disappear.

What I Needed Instead

I didn’t need better willpower.

I needed a new relationship with myself.

I needed to learn how to rest without disappearing.

How to feel without falling apart.

How to listen to my body instead of sedating it.

I had to learn what it meant to feel safe inside my own skin.

Now, my “me time” looks like breathwork. Gentle movement. Journaling. Prayer. Stillness.

Not perfect. Not pretty. But real.

If You’re Nodding Right Now…

I want to offer this—not advice, not judgment, just a moment of truth.

If you’ve been drinking to cope…If you call it stress but it feels like something deeper…If you’ve been disappearing into glasses of wine that used to feel like comfort but now feel like shame…

You’re not broken. You’re not weak. You’re not alone.

Try asking yourself:

What story do I tell myself about why I drink?
What am I actually trying not to feel?
When did “me time” become disappearing time?

And maybe… what would healing look like instead?

Gentle First Steps

If you’re looking for new ways to exhale—here are a few that helped me begin again:

4-7-8 breathing (inhale for 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8)
Guided meditations (Tara Brach, Sarah Blondin, or Insight Timer)
Trauma-informed support (groups, coaches, spaces like Women in the Rooms)
Books that helped me wake up:Drink by Ann Dowsett Johnston
The Myth of Normal and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Maté)