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Monita,  I finished my first Whole30 on January 31.   Like you, I considered doing a Whole30 plus a drink here or there - but decided not to.   I LOVE wine, and love me a good IPA.   
I am SO glad that I did.    I almost caved on day 10 - but then Sweet Melissa popped up on my Facebook feed telling me that most people, if they are going to quit, quit on Day 10 or 11.  She convinced me to push through.  
It was hard.  I had cravings.  But sometimes, I would just have a little bit of compliant Kombucha in a wine glass or a cup of herbal tea.  And guess what?  The cravings got to be less and less.   By about the two week mark, cravings were gone. 
The most noticeable thing was that I slept better than I had in a long time, and woke up feeling refreshed and happy.         
Anyway, I am going to encourage you to give this 100% for 30 days.  If you don't, not gonna judge, but I encourage you because I want everyone to experience feeling the way I do now, and for me I KNOW that it wouldn't have been possible with alcohol. 
Also, are you eating enough carbs?  Maybe have fruit earlier in the day, sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes?
Good luck, whatever you decide to do!

Monita,  I finished my first Whole30 on January 31.   Like you, I considered doing a Whole30 plus a drink here or there - but decided not to.   I LOVE wine, and love me a good IPA.   
I am SO glad that I did.    I almost caved on day 10 - but then Sweet Melissa popped up on my Facebook feed telling me that most people, if they are going to quit, quit on Day 10 or 11.  She convinced me to push through.  
It was hard.  I had cravings.  But sometimes, I would just have a little bit of compliant Kombucha in a wine glass or a cup of herbal tea.  And guess what?  The cravings got to be less and less.   By about the two week mark, cravings were gone. 
The most noticeable thing was that I slept better than I had in a long time, and woke up feeling refreshed and happy.         
Anyway, I am going to encourage you to give this 100% for 30 days.  If you don't, not gonna judge, but I encourage you because I want everyone to experience feeling the way I do now, and for me I KNOW that it wouldn't have been possible with alcohol. 
Also, are you eating enough carbs?  Maybe have fruit earlier in the day, sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes?
Good luck, whatever you decide to do!

You can drink and follow all the other principles of the Whole30 but you would not be doing a Whole30, you would be doing your own program.  If now's not a good time for you to give up drinking, that's totally fine and we're not here to judge but rather support you when you're ready.  There are lots of discussions around how to navigate not drinking on Whole30 even with a richly scheduled social calendar but again, the final decision is up to you.
As far as the headaches, if it is sugar withdrawl, feeding yourself more sugar in the form of fruit isn't going to be a great solution.  You'd be better off to take the tylenol and kick the sugar withdrawls rather than dragging them out by giving yourself that bit of sugar every night.
It's likely you wouldn't find many stories of someone doing Whole30 with alcohol and then reporting their experience on a Whole30 platform because we keep the topics around the successes of Whole30 on topic to those who have completed them within the rules.  You do raise a good point tho, for yourself, you're never going to know what the difference is between doing it with alcohol and doing it without until you do both - we have no way of knowing how much or little alcohol affects your system, your cravings, your willpower, your energy, headaches, bloating etc... 

Let me weigh in here. I'm a wine connoisseur with extensive education in wine. I have a dedicated cellar in my home with some pretty special bottles. I really, really, REALLY love wine. Initially we thought we would do a Whole30 plus wine thing but then we decided that, if we were going to do this, we were going to do it all in. 100%.
The first few weeks were really tough. Lots of headaches and brain fog. I agree with taking some tylenol and getting over the sugar withdrawal ASAP. By Friday night, I could hear bottles calling me by name. It was so tempting and so, so hard.  It was, in fact, the only thing I craved. But, now on Day 31, I am so glad we did Whole 30 as designed. In fact, I am so convinced of the benefits of the program, that I committed to an additional 10 days so I don't muddy the waters of re-introduction with serious jetlag (travel from Toronto to Adelaide jetlag). That means a Whole 40 without wine AND I'm travelling to South Australia where some of the best shiraz and reislings in the world are made. Even I can't believe it -40 days without wine.
I don't think wine causes me any problems. Despite my love of it, I don't drink to access and didn't have any kind of withdrawal from it besides sadness and missing it. But, something has been messing with me because, after 31 days - I feel amazing. The best I ever have in, literally, decades. I am really looking forward to reintroducing it in 9 days - because, I don't think it's causing any problems but, I won't know that for sure for 9 more days. That's how this works afterall  
If I find out wine causes me problems, I'll have choices and decisions to make. I'll cross that bridge in 9 days. If it's fine, I'll carry on with Paleo plus wne.
I encourage you to choose to have this whole experience  - 100%.  It's been an absolutely phenomenal for me and my 2 famjam members who did this with me. 
Good luck however you decide. 
 
 
 

So this is my 3rd go around doing Whole30. I love it and thought that I should get my Mom to do it since she is saying she wants to lose weight and has a lot of aches and pains and general tiredness. She is 89 so that is to be expected and she also has dementia. She is in stage 4ish and doing pretty well. So we started on 1/14/19 and we are on day 10. I am feeling amazing as I always do at this time and she is exhausted! She doesn't want to drink her tea (she has about 4 cups of decaf per day) since she cannot use Sweet N Low. She is eating everything I give her and there is nothing that she can get a hold of to go off schedule so there is no cheating. She slept most of the day today and feels super out of it. I am wondering if I should just encourage her to push through and things will get better in a week or if I should allow her to add Stevia back in so that she is drinking more and keep things going. Does anyone have experience in this? Anyone have similar experience of story?

Maybe she can drink something besides tea if she doesn't like it without the sweetner?  Or maybe an herbal tea or an iced herbal?  Water with a splash of fruit juice?  
Is she eating at least a fist sized serving of starchy carb a day?  That's very important as well as salting to taste and of course the fluid intake.  It stands to reason that someone approaching 90 who may be in less than optimal health isn't going to have the same experience - as we age our bodies take longer to get used to change so if she's used to having lots of simple carbs (grains, sugar, crackers, bread) that might be impacting her energy quite a bit. I would encourage you to have her eat every 4-5 hours at regular meal times and not sleep through them.  Also as we get older we generally eat less at each meal so it's possible that she needs the amount of food from 3 meals but split into smaller portions and spaced through the day... maybe do a bit of research on optimal eating habits for seniors of her age and then just sub out the recommendations for grains and dairy or whatever the case is that would not be compliant. I think you may need to be a bit more creative and flexible with her program than your own while still sticking to the actual rules (the 'no' rules, not necessarily the recommendations) to accommodate her particular context.  Good for both of you for taking this on!  You're a third of the way through! Yes!!!

What a lovely post - I don't have any suggestions regarding the tea but I admire your commitment to your mom and her health. My mom is also 89 and in such great health - I neglect to appreciate how lucky I am to have her still  
I always thought when I hit 80, I'd throw open the pantry doors and just have at it - all those things I have wanted but not eaten over the years just waiting for me to indulge in. However, my mom, like yours, is still conscious of her weight and her health and thinks about what she's going to eat and how it's going to impact her so, I think my plan is just another pipe dream. 
I hope your mom perks up - you might be messing with her internal systems by using this strict diet - as a former RN, I'd recommend a visit to her doctor if her lethargy persists or worsens - there could be some electrolyte imbalances happening with the diet change. The elderly react differently to metabolic changes than we do and things can get out of hand if not caught early enough.
Best of luck - hug your mama - we're so blessed to have them!

Thank you Shannon!  On your recommendation, I have just started Food Freedom Forever (which is on Amazon kindle Unlimited!!)  

Thank you for your replies
I passed on it and got the compliant shrimp instead but I am there often at lunch so I thought I'd ask!