Let’s Talk About Alcohol.

I want to be clear about something before we go any further: I still drink wine. Not often, not mindlessly, but I have not sworn off a beautiful glass of red. And this blog is not going to ask you to either.

What it is going to do is tell you the truth about what that glass is actually costing. Because I had to learn this the hard way, and I think you deserve to know it too.

Red Wine Is a Whole Vibe. And I Mean That.

When I think about alcohol, I don’t think about shots or cocktails with little umbrellas. My vice has always been red wine. And it has almost nothing to do with the alcohol itself.

Red wine is an experience. You can’t drink it with a straw. You can’t rush it. There is something that happens when you pour it into a proper glass — the color, the legs, the way it opens up as it breathes. You swirl it. You smell it. You take the first sip and it has layers. Oak, dark fruit, something earthy underneath. It’s not a single note. It’s a conversation.

I developed a deep connection to that ritual years ago. Good conversation. Friends. Maybe some cheese and whatever finger foods we could put together. The bonus at the end — that slow warmth, the relaxation that comes after a long day of being pulled in every direction — felt like a reward. Like finally letting your hair down.

I still feel that way about it. That hasn’t changed.

What has changed is that I now understand exactly what my body is doing during that ritual. And once you know, you can’t unknow it.

But Now It’s Different.

Not just because I’m over 40 — though that’s part of it. It started after chemotherapy. I noticed I couldn’t drink the way I used to. One glass and something shifted. My heart rate would speed up. I’d fall asleep but I couldn’t stay asleep. The next day I was dragging. Depleted. That drive I need to get things done — gone.

I know my body. I pay attention to everything happening in it. So I started asking why.

Long enough and my under eyes would swell. My skin would dull. I spend real money on my skin. That alone should’ve been enough. But it was the fatigue that finally made me do the research.

Your Body Has an Energy Budget. Alcohol Raids It.

Here’s the science, and I’m going to explain it the way I wish someone had explained it to me.

Our bodies run on ATP — adenosine triphosphate — which is essentially our cellular currency. To produce it, our cells need a molecule called NAD+. You’ve probably heard me talk about NAD+ in the context of ReBuild. That’s not a coincidence.

When you drink alcohol, your body has to break down the ethanol. The enzyme responsible for doing that — alcohol dehydrogenase — requires NAD+ to function. So your body diverts that critical molecule away from energy production and redirects it toward detoxification. Your mitochondria — your cellular energy factories — are essentially left starving.

And here’s where it gets worse for women over 40 specifically: we have a higher ratio of body fat to water than we did in our twenties. Because water is what dilutes alcohol in the bloodstream, and we have less of it, our blood alcohol concentrations run higher. We experience more oxidative stress to our cells. We feel it harder and we recover slower. This is not a willpower issue. This is biology.

Your body still needs roughly 70% of its energy budget for basic functions — your heart beating, your lungs breathing, your brain communicating. Your brain alone uses 20% of your energy budget despite accounting for only 2% of your body mass. When your body is busy processing alcohol, it is spending resources it cannot afford to spend. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has confirmed this. The North American Menopause Society research and Harvard Medical School’s on NAD+ and aging points to the same thing.

Alcohol also triggers a negative feedback loop that causes hot flashes by dilating blood vessels and depleting the very molecule we need most as our bodies age. And it doesn’t stop there. It creates a significant impediment to our cells’ ability to repair DNA.

I started thinking about it the way I think about money. My body has an energy budget. Alcohol is a tax on a good I enjoy. And I have to decide — consciously, every time — whether the return is worth the investment.

Most of the time now, it isn’t.

The ROI on a Glass of Wine

I’m a finance founder. I look at everything through the lens of return on investment. And when I ran the numbers on a glass of red wine, I didn’t love what I found.

A few hours of ritual and relaxation in exchange for disrupted sleep, elevated heart rate, depleted NAD+, next-day fatigue, and skin that doesn’t look the way I need it to look. That’s not a great trade. Especially when I’m building a company that requires me to show up sharp every single day.

I’m not telling you what to do with your glass. I’m telling you what I did with mine. I started looking for a better option.

Why Everything Else on the Market Is Terrible

I tried them. I tried a lot of them. The zero-proof wines on the market are either watered-down grape juice, overly sweetened fruit punch dressed up in a wine bottle, or dealcoholized wine that lost everything that made it interesting in the first place. That process is expensive and it destroys the layers. You end up paying a premium for something that tastes like a compromise.

I didn’t want a compromise. I wanted the ritual. The weight of the wine in the glass. The legs. The multilayered experience from the first smell to the last sip. And I wanted the functional benefits — the actual biological support — that alcohol was never providing.

Why I Created Posh Zero

Posh Zero exists because I refused to give up the ceremony.

I built it around the experience first. A luxury red blend that behaves like wine — the color, the body, the mouthfeel, the dark fruit notes, the finish. Then I layered in what I actually wanted my body to receive: Lion’s Mane for cognitive clarity, Kava for the natural relaxation that wine was always pretending to offer, Reishi and Cordyceps for cellular support. And because I formulated ReBuild around NAD+ and mitochondrial health, I made sure Posh Zero doesn’t rob any of that. It supports it.

I spared no moment of the experience to chance. The bottle is beautiful because the ritual demands it. The glass matters because the pour matters. The smell, the sip, the warmth that follows — all of it intentional.

53% of Americans say they are moderating their alcohol consumption for their health — up 4% from the prior year. Non-alcoholic beer grew 22% in 2024. The mocktail category is projected to grow 97% through 2028. The market is moving because women are waking up to exactly what I’m describing here.

Posh Zero is perfectly placed and perfectly timed. Not as a deprivation product. Not as a punishment for people who want to be healthy. As an upgrade. As agency. As proof that you can have the ritual without the cellular debt.

This Is a Judgment-Free Zone

I still enjoy a glass of red wine. I’m not asking you to stop. I’m asking you to know what it costs and decide from a place of information rather than habit.

Breaking a ritual we’ve had for decades takes time. A great place to start is to alternate — one glass of wine, one glass of Posh Zero. Notice how you feel the next morning. Notice your energy. Notice your skin.

Then decide what your body deserves.

You deserve to know what that glass is doing to your cells. What you do with that information is entirely up to you.

Ready to reclaim the ritual?

I built Posh Zero for exactly this moment — a Bordeaux-style zero-proof botanical blend with notes of dark chocolate, espresso, and a smooth oak finish. The ceremony, the pour, the warmth. Without the cellular debt.

Posh Zero is a sister brand by Earthkiss Wellness.

Posh Zero Red Blend is coming soon. Discover Posh Zero → poshzero.com