Ep 148: When Peace Feels Far Away — Returning to Christ in the Middle of Cravings

When your mind is racing and cravings rise, peace can feel far away — but what if peace could meet you right there in the craving? 

In this episode, Catholic sobriety coach Christie Walker unpacks what’s really happening in your brain and body during moments of restlessness and temptation — and how to plan for peace instead of panic using her P.R.A.Y.S. Method.

You’ll learn how to invite Christ into the craving, regulate your nervous system with grace, and prepare your heart before the hard moment ever arrives.

In this episode:

• Why peace feels distant when you’re overwhelmed
• The neuroscience of cravings and “limbic takeover”
• How to turn temptation into a sacred invitation
• Step-by-step through the P.R.A.Y.S. Method
• How to plan for peace through grace, not perfection

 Peace isn’t something you earn after the craving passes — it’s something you can create with Christ, right in the middle of it.

The Catholic Mom Bundle is available for one week only, and it’s packed with beautiful, faith-filled resources to help you prepare for Advent with more peace and less overwhelm.

It’s an incredible value, and my Reclaiming Peace Gentle Alcohol Reset is included as a bonus.

If this is something your heart needs right now, the link is in my show notes. It’s only here for a few days, so don’t wait!

👉🏻 GRAB the Catholic Mom Bundle: 33 faith-filled resources for $25, only from November 17–21 (ends 11:59 PM EST) https://catholic-mom-bundle.myshopify.com/?ref=CHRISTIEWALKER

👉🏻 JOIN THE Sober-ish Advent & New Year Reset
https://courses.drinklessornotatall.com/courses/soberish-advent-new-year-reset

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Visit my Website: https://thecatholicsobrietycoach.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Purpose
• 1:09 Cravings, Restlessness, And Seeking Peace
• 1:46 Peace In The Middle Of Temptation
• 4:15 Brain Science And The Habit Loop
• 6:02 Introducing The PRAYS Framework
• 7:02 P: Preview The Situation
• 8:58 R: Remember Your Deeper Why
• 11:08 A: Align Your Actions
• 13:57 Y: Yield What’s Not For You
• 15:55 S: Script Your Exit Strategy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:40

Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety Podcast, the go-to resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives. Women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason. I am your host, Christy Walker. I'm a wife, mom, and a joy-filled Catholic, and I am the Catholic sobriety coach. And I am so glad you're here. Have you ever had one of those evenings where your mind just won't stop spinning? And you can almost feel the craving rise in your body. It's that thought that says, I just want to feel calm. I just want peace. But somehow, peace feels like the farthest thing away. You tell yourself, I'll pray later, I'll reset tomorrow. But right now, your brain is bargaining. Your body is buzzing, and the glass of wine or moment of escape feels like the only thing that will quiet everything down. I've been there and I can tell you peace isn't something that appears once the craving is gone. Peace is something that can meet you in the craving. And that's what today's episode is about: learning how to return to Christ right in the middle of that tension. Not once you've handled it, not when you've proved your strength, but right there when you feel weak and restless and unsure what to do next. We'll talk about why peace can feel so far away, what's actually happening in your brain, and how to plan ahead for peace using my praise method. And that's P-R-A-Y-S, Planning with Purpose and Peace. It's the same framework that I teach inside my sacred sobriety lab, and it will help you turn reactive moments into sacred ones. So if you're ready to stop chasing calm and start creating it with grace, intention, and a little neuroscience, let's dive in. So let's talk about why peace feels so hard to find. When peace feels far away, it's not because you've lost faith, it's because your nervous system is quite frankly overwhelmed. Your body is just doing what it's been trained to do, to seek relief, seek control, and seek comfort. Dr. Andrew Huberman calls this the limbic takeover when the part of your brain that's focused on survival hijacks the part that helps you make calm, faith-aligned choices. Now, this doesn't mean that you're broken. You're just activated, and that craving, it's not the enemy. It's actually a message. Your body is saying, I need rest. And your soul is whispering, return to me. God doesn't wait on the other side of the craving with a report card. He meets you in it with compassion. The catechism tells us that grace is the free and undeserved help God gives us to respond to his call. That means he's calling you in that moment, right when your hand is reaching for the glass, right when you're sighing in frustration, right when you just want relief. Peace starts by noticing that the moment of temptation is not a test, but it's actually an invitation. So let's talk about what's happening in your brain. By late afternoon or early evening, your brain experiences what scientists call a dopamine dip. You've been focused, productive, managing emotions and responsibilities all day. Your brain is just trying to keep you balanced. It says, We need something that feels good. And if alcohol has been part of that rhythm, then your brain is of course going to remember that pattern. And that pattern is a cue and then craving a drink. And once you have that drink, you get a short relief. And that is called the habit loop. And that's not a moral failure, it's just repetition. It's what your brain has become accustomed to. It's what your brain has come to expect. But here's the great news. The brain is plastic. Well, not literally, but what I mean by that is it can change every time you interrupt that loop, even once you weakened it. Romans 12.2 says, be transformed by the renewal of your mind. When you choose presence over pouring, prayer over panic, you're actually rewiring both your soul and your circuitry. And one of the best ways to do that is to prepare before the craving ever hits. So that when the moment comes, your brain already knows the path to peace. And that's where my praise method comes in. The praise method is how we plan for peace instead of panic. You can actually use this for anything. A dinner out, a vacation, a stressful weekend, or even an ordinary Thursday. So let's walk through this together. First, the P stands for preview the situation. You're going to ask yourself, what's coming up? Who will be there? What's usually offered? And what tends to trip me up? It's a no before you go kind of question. Anticipation calms anticipation calms the nervous system. And when you rehearse that scenario mentally, your body just feels safer. And safety is the soil where peace will grow. This helps you move from being reactive to responsive. Now the R stands for remember your deeper why. So you want to ask yourself, what do I want most? Not just what I want right now. Play the tape forward and think about that. Maybe you want to wake up clear-headed and proud. Maybe it's to stay present and connected to your family. Maybe it's to live in step with the peace that you've been praying for. Just be sure to root your actions in identity, not impulse. You are not a woman trying to be good. You are a beloved daughter of God, and He just loves you so much. And you are learning to live in freedom. That's a completely different starting point. The A stands for align your actions. This is the practical part where purpose meets preparation. This is where you'll ask yourself, what am I actually willing to do to support my peace? Maybe it's bringing your favorite non-alcohol drink to dinner. Maybe it's setting a boundary, like I will just go ahead and head out after dessert. Maybe it's swapping that 5 p.m. pour for a walk, a prayer, or a journal check-in. Dr. Anna Lempke, author of Dopamine Nation, says that self-binding or intentionally limiting exposure to triggers actually restores dopamine balance and mental clarity. I think that sounds like pretty good news. So you don't just want to remove the temptation. You want to add in structure and support. And remember, peace doesn't just happen, it's planned. Why stands for yield what's not for me? First, I want you to know that yielding isn't weakness, it's wisdom. It means surrendering the things that don't lead you toward peace and letting God redirect your path. So ask yourself, what's not for me in this season? What expectations, pressures, or invitations pull me away from the life that I am trying to build? Maybe it's that inner voice that says, just one drink won't hurt. Maybe it's the social pressure to try to prove you're still the fun one. Maybe it's the belief that you have to say yes to everyone to be a good friend, wife, or mom. To yield means to hand those over to God. To say, Lord, I trust you more than I trust my need to fit in. You're not rejecting people. You're rejecting distraction. You're not being rude. You're just protecting your peace. You're saying yes to the peace that Christ has already offered you. Finally, S is script your exit strategy. Every plan needs a backup plan. Ask, what will I do if things shift? Maybe it's deciding what to say if someone offers you a drink, like, I'm good, thanks, or I'm sleeping so much better without it. Maybe it's texting your friend from your accountability group. Maybe it's stepping outside for a breath, saying a quick Jesus, be with me now prayer, and recentering before returning. When you script your strategy, you disarm the surprise factor. And surprise is actually what triggers stress and causes us to slip. But by planning the just in case, it guarantees that you won't be thrown off. That's not fear, that's wisdom. So when I first started practicing this, I used to roll my eyes at the idea of planning for peace. I just wanted peace to show up for me. Planning just seemed like a lot of work to me that I didn't need to do. Couldn't I just plan and keep it all in my head and just go with it as soon as I was in that situation or encountered whatever obstacle was before me? But I have to tell you, writing these things down, spending time with the Lord, planning them, was a game changer. And I've worked through this with so many women. And I can tell you time and time again, when plans are made, even if they don't take the paper with them, but when they've written it down and intentionally planned with the Lord, they are almost always successful. And even if they don't follow the plan completely, they always come away with so much awareness and clarity of what happened. And that helps plan for the future. We just look at those missteps as evidence, as data and nothing more. Then you take it and you make your plan next time. And the more and more you do it, the more it builds and the easier it gets. So I've mentioned before that sugar is kind of my thing. It's something that I'm constantly trying to moderate and limit. And like alcohol, it's pretty much everywhere. But what I've learned is that planning is actually how I cooperate with grace and allow the Lord to walk beside me. I can tell you, there was a time when I'd go into situations completely unprepared. I would just be solely relying on my own willpower to make good choices. But when I started previewing and remembering my why and learning to set boundaries ahead of time, everything shifted for me. So even if a craving still came, I felt anchored. I knew what I valued. I had a plan. And I really knew why I was doing it. And here's the beautiful part. Peace started showing up earlier, not just after the craving, but actually during it. Because I wasn't waiting to earn it anymore. I was actually inviting Christ into the moment before it even happened. And that's what this work is all about. It's not about perfection, it's just preparation rooted in grace. So even if you have a plan and you don't stick to it completely, it's not a loss because you always learn from that and can go back and then plan for the future with the data that you've collected from other experiences. Will you take a minute and pray with me? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, we just thank you for being our peace, not when life is calm, but when our hearts are restless. Teach us to prepare with purpose, to plan from a place of trust, and to yield what's not ours to carry. Please bless everyone listening. Give them courage to pause, wisdom to plan, and faith to know that they are never alone. Amen. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. If this episode encouraged you, I'd love to invite you to take the next step and join me inside my sacred sobriety lab. It's a space where Catholic women are learning to walk in peace with scripture, neuroscience, and community support guiding the journey. You'll find practical tools like the praise method, group coaching, and weekly encouragement to help you live out the freedom that God is calling you to. You can learn more or join us at Sacred Sobriety Lab.com or click the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. And remember, when peace feels far away, Christ is already near. You are so loved, you are capable, and you are never walking alone. Well, that does it for this episode of the Catholic Sobriety Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well. And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing. I am the Catholic Sobriety Coach, and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about the cooking that I offer, visit my website, the Catholic Sobriety Coach.