Stop Drinking and Start Living- The Feminine Way

From Emotional Fire to Feminine Power: Marianne’s Sobriety Breakthrough (1 of 3 )

• Mary Wagstaff

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The Best Case Study You’ll Ever Hear: Reclaiming Your Power and Inner Peace

This is not like any other sobriety show.

In this episode, you’ll hear one of the most transformational case studies ever shared on the show.

I sit down with my incredible client, Marianne, a high-achieving woman who knew that if she wanted to live the life she truly desired, alcohol had to go. But what happened next was something she never expected.

 She didn’t just become a non-drinker—she became a woman in total control of her emotions, her peace, and her power.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why quitting drinking is just the beginning of true transformation
  •  How Marianne went from feeling emotionally on fire to becoming the calm, steady presence in her life and relationships
  •  The secret to stopping emotional reactivity and reclaiming inner peace
  •  How feminine leadership and personal responsibility impact relationships—without forcing change on others
  •  The key to staying committed when life throws its hardest challenges at you

Listen and Apply
This episode isn’t just for listening—it’s for learning. I invite you to commit to these three episodes featuring Marianne’s journey. Take something from each and apply it to your own life.

What if peace became your default?
What if emotional overwhelm was no longer your identity?
What if you had the tools to face life’s biggest challenges without needing to escape?

This is change in action. This is the feminine way.

 Listen now, take notes, and start stepping into your sovereignty.

-If you’re ready to release alcohol and embrace the feminine way, let’s talk. Book a free call here.

Quitting Drinking Doesn’t Have To Be Disappointing, Boring & Exhausting, It Should Make You Feel ALIVE Again. You came here to play full out. Learn more about this private deep dive session that will awaken your life force and connect you to the vitality you need to hold space for your big vision!

Follow the link Here!

It's time to GLOW-UP and just in time for the warm weather. Shake off the stagnant, stuck energy and activate your aliveness. Book a Sober Glow-Up Activation Session HERE. You can turn your story around with ONE decision.

DISCLAIMER: This podcast and its contents are not a substitute for rehabilitation, medical treatment or advice. It is for educational and inspirational purposes. I am not a therapist or doctor. The views here are expressed a personal opinion and based on first hand experience. Please consult a doctor if your mental or physical health is at risk.

Unknown:

From the very first day that I thought about even talking to someone, it was because I just was exploding inside. I just didn't know at all how to contain the emotions that I was feeling and and I thought, man, with all the work I've done over all these years, I just, I'm I'm like a wreck, and I was just on I've just felt emotionally on fire all the time and and so to be at this point where it's like I have water to rely on, I can just take a sip of pure, clean water in my mind and not go off the deep end.

Mary Wagstaff:

Welcome to stop drinking and start living the feminine way. I'm your hostess. Mary Wagstaff, holistic alcohol coach and feminine embodiment guide here to help you effortlessly release alcohol by reclaiming your feminine essence. Sobriety isn't just about quitting drinking. It's about removing the distortions that keep you disconnected, overwhelmed and stuck in cycles of numbing. Each week, I'll share powerful tools, new perspectives that transform and deeply relatable stories to help you step into the power, pleasure and purpose that it is to be a woman. This is your next evolution of awakened empowerment. Welcome to the feminine way. Hi there, beautiful friends. Just a quick note before we get into the show. This episode is actually three parts, as you heard at the very beginning, my wonderful, beautiful client, Mary Ann, who I'm going on my third year working with her, we have just been crushing goals left and right. And this, this interview and this conversation is so rich that I didn't want to edit any of it out, and we went for about almost an hour and a half, so I broke it up into three different episodes. And the way that I would like you to approach this, because it's really important to have a mindset like, what do you you know, even doing with your podcast, listening, right? Just taking it and going on with your life? No, this is actually an opportunity to learn. So if you want to know what it looks like before, during and after a quitting drinking, but also becoming a more empowered version of yourself. And Mary Ann so beautifully expresses at one point saying I knew that I couldn't live the life that I wanted to live if I if, if I was, if I was drinking until I became a non drinker. And she just articulates so many beautiful examples of how her mindset has changed in every area of her life, because it didn't take Mary Ann long to let alcohol go, and she talks about the accountability that coaching really supported her with. So what I would love for you to do is commit to these three episodes, and I'll invite you to take something from each one of them and apply it to your life. Right? She talks about a conversation that she had, a phone call she had with a friend, something a conversation she had with a brother, a sibling, and how she responded differently, how she's acting differently, and just see, how does this change your perception of your life? How does this change the peace that you're able to access? How does this change your desire for a drink, or your desire the or the habitual nature of complaining? Right? So take this, use it, apply it, and then come back the next week. Because this is change in action. This woman has shown up for herself. She is inspiring me every day. She has shown up for herself in such a huge way when times were tough, when you know, she wanted to throw in the towel on certain things, right? And she didn't. And she kept showing up, and she committed to coaching. She had the container of safety to work through all of it with. And I couldn't be more honored and just so proud of her, but more honored to share the story of the the teamwork that we were able to do together. Now, of course, she had to show up and do it all on her own as well, because, of course, I'm not there to move people's mouths and, you know, move people's arms and but knowing that she she had the support, she had the ability to process her and evaluate her, her thinking, her feelings and her behavior, and then go and apply it is just so awesome. You will learn so much from this if you commit to these episodes. Have an amazing day. Welcome back to the show. My beautiful listeners, I am so thrilled to have. Have you here today. This is a really, really, really special episode I have with me, one of my longest clients, and also one of my favorite people, someone that has really shaped the way that I coach, the way that I look at things. And you know, the longer that I get to work with someone, the more I get to see their transformation and and really what makes people tick and what's possible, and especially exploring the feminine way. And my guest today, Mary Ann, it has been such a delight in curiosity that it has been such an honor to coach you and being our first interview of our relaunch, it couldn't be more perfect to have you here today. So welcome to the show,

Unknown:

Mary. Ann, oh, Thanks, Mary. It's a pleasure to be here. My absolute pleasure. Yes. On relaunching the show, it's about time. Yes, thank you.

Mary Wagstaff:

I know everything in due time, so I always love to start out, as you know, with what's working. So it doesn't have to be anything big or huge in this moment. And we'll get into the, you know, into the nitty gritty, but what feels really magical and present for you today with what you're celebrating or with what's working?

Unknown:

Oh, it's just, you know, there's, there's just peace. And there's so many things to be not peaceful about happening, but there is just this sense of order in my emotional response. It's like, I just don't lie. I just settle and I stay curious and I and I may even like, I'm saying stressful things are going on and, and peace just is, like the constant and that it's a complete and utter change over the last two years.

Mary Wagstaff:

Yeah, well, maybe we can talk about how you went from where you were to now you're in this state of peace and and, you know, it's not like you're not. I mean, tell me about it. Tell me about this experience of experiencing things that feel unpeaceful, and then how you get back into it. And then we can work backwards.

Unknown:

Okay, so, so you know, from the very first day that I thought about even talking to someone, it was because I just was exploding inside. I just didn't know at all how to contain the emotions that I was feeling and, and I thought, man, with all the work I've done over all these years, I just, I'm I'm like a wreck, and I was just on I've just felt emotionally on fire all the time, and, and so to be at this point where it's Like, I have water to rely on. I can just take a sip of pure, clean water in my mind and and not go off the deep end. And I'm not saying that I never experience it, you know, a frantic emotion or anything anymore. Certainly I do. But, you know, I I just, I just think my way through experiences. I don't emotionalize my experience. I don't run rampant in my own thinking. I just, I control my thoughts and and it's, it's been, you know, a godsend ability to co create with your coaching. Because it's, I just never knew that this was possible. Honestly, it just this wasn't the goal of my coaching. You know, the goal of my coaching was to be supported to become a non drinker and and now I'm a non crazier. I'm not crazy anymore. Well, you know, that's no fun, but you know sometimes I'm crazy, yeah, in all the good ways, yeah.

Mary Wagstaff:

I just had, yeah, yeah. I mean, the the chills I had, the way that you expressed that of being emotionally on fire and, you know, and we'll talk about this too, but it's not a void of emotion, right? It's not a void of experiencing emotions. But what you're to me, what you're expressing is, is being able to control feeling like you're in control, right? Like, here's this experience, here's these emotions, and go ahead,

Unknown:

right? No, and it's not like a stepper wife kind of control. It's a, it's a real stepping back and looking at something that's coming toward you. And, you know, like, I just, for instance, I had a neighbor call. Me, and she was telling me this experience she was going through with her mother, and she wanted me, or in the past, because I don't know what she wanted, right? I would be supposing that, but in the past, I would have jumped in with fire and flames, and I would have joined her in her emergency, because she was expressing an emergency, and now i a i listened and didn't talk a lot, you know, that's a big improvement. And and then the next day, I actually texted her this long text, and there were no shoulds in there. There were no I recommend there were, there was none of those things. It was just sort of a replay of the quiet side of her concerns that I was able to access, and so I thought I would share with her. And she wrote back, oh, my god, that is so helpful. And to have that skill now is like because that's what I do with myself when, when some so that came from me. It didn't come from, you know, becoming a robot or something that came from my spirit and and I've learned to not feel overwhelmed or or join into the energy that's around me. I've learned to stay in my own lane, stay in my own presence, stay in my own spirit, and experience the world a little bit more externally, instead of being sort of open and full of holes that get filled with stuff that you don't want coming in, right? So, so I have this wonderful force field, like this golden force field of of distance from the the outside world. And then the other thing that I that I use that for is when I feel dysregulated, that I can actually step inside of that place, and I can become curious, and I can look at, what am I thinking? What do I what do I want to feel, and what thoughts are making me feel destabilized, and what words are Am I using in my head? And what if I replaced those words? What if I rethought? You know, thought a new thought. It designed a new thought to get myself away from the dysregulated thought, and now I can do that without thinking about it. Now, when a dysregulated thought comes, I just, I'm like, wait a minute, you know? I just need to change my thinking, and I'm going to feel better, you know. And every now and then a stubborn thought comes up, like, I don't want to feel better, I want to be mad. But then within a few minutes, you know, you I sort of laugh at myself, and I say, well, feeling angry and shitty doesn't, you know, doesn't serve me. So, like, I should really use that skill. It's pretty handy, you know. So it's a totally different way to live. And I had this conversation with the man in my life yesterday, and I said, You're the conflict we had yesterday is still playing in your head today. And I said, so, so you have to really keep that here. You have to guard that thought, to keep it alive. You have to think it over and over and over again. What if you just accepted that I made a mistake that I didn't understand and that I didn't really do anything wrong, and it and it, I'm not saying it hit him like it would hit me and you, but it definitely made him consider a different possibility. And that's really what, what you taught me, and what what you know. But you know, these things have been taught to me over, over time, over my life, you know, but I haven't been able to absorb them into my body until I work with you and and, I guess, I guess, you know, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, because, you know, our house had just had a big fire, and we lost almost everything and, and I just thought, If I drink through this experience, I'm going to die, you know, I won't make it. I'll absolutely become an alcoholic. Like, like, you know, our members of our family and and so I just got became proactive, and I said, I have to find somebody to help me understand why it's better not to drink. And I didn't want a AA approach. I didn't want. I like, because I'm very involved in my own personal, personal physical health. So, you know, i i But, but I also knew that alcohol is a toxin, and it's and it's a brain toxin, and it pulls you back in over and over and over again. So I just wanted a support system, and I didn't want to end up on the other side of the, you know, rebuilding the house. I knew it was going to be horrific, and, and I didn't want to end up in a beautiful new home, and I was a wreck, you know, and, and it wasn't easy, but, but just the just having, what's that word Mary? It's right. It's running the tip of my tongue. You know, where, where you responsible, but where someone's with you, accountability. Thank you. That that was really key for me. Yeah, because there were plenty of times, especially in the early days, where I would have thought, you know, a drink would be really good right now. And I said, but I don't want to tell Mary I had a drink,

Mary Wagstaff:

which you can many people have done it, and there's no judgment. We, we that's like the teaching part, right? But Right,

Unknown:

yeah, but I just that was just what I wanted to I wanted to succeed at it, and and, and my partner decided a year later to not drink, and he hasn't had a drink in a year, and so we are both alcohol free.

Mary Wagstaff:

It's amazing that happens a lot. It's amazing, especially when you're taking personal responsibility for your behavior. And I know, I mean, I know your story, so I know that you never put that on him as a request or anything. And it's, it's so amazing to watch the power that the feminine really does have inside of the dynamics of a relationship. And sometimes there's a little bit of, there's a little bit of a pushback, even if there's not a request or a demand, it's kind of like, Wait, you've changed the rules of the game, right? And what's going on. And there it'll go extreme. It can go even get heightened, like, oh, like, I'll show I'll show her I can drink. You know? Well, he's so funny. Yeah,

Unknown:

he did, Mary, I he drank twice as much when I get up drinking. Yeah, no, that was one the house had just burned down. Yeah, so I don't, I almost don't blame him, but he, he upped his drinking for at least five or six months, and then he regulated again to his regular drinking. But then one day and he just said, you know, I'm just going to not drink anymore. And he that would not have happened for him without this work, you know. So you're right. It's a it's a feminine like, I feel like that's probably the biggest thing I am in my relationship right now is, is he lives in a different world, and I then I do and and I bring him this earth bound, you know, earthly like I sink my feet into the ground. I'm a, you know, I'm going to a hiker and everything. I brought him out into the woods. And now he goes out into the woods all by himself. And so that sort of energy is definitely from the feminine, I think. And then I I cook at home. You know, he's a mister restaurant. And you know, when I when we first got together and I had his child, I had, we had dinner seated together. Nobody did that before. And and so, so I think that is one of the things that attracts him to me, although I don't know that he knows it, but it doesn't really matter, sure, but I didn't not drink to set an example to anyone. So I just, I just knew that a great deal of pain was coming. It was very painful to have that because we we remodeled the house for a year and a half before the fire. So we lost a whole year and a half, and then I was watching my dog age, that just choke me up. But I was watching my dog age, and I thought, Please, God, I don't have to have this dog when we moved back into the house. And that didn't happen. But I knew that if I drank, I would people. Lost forever, just I wouldn't come back from it, yeah, and the fear of that alone. And you know what? I wasn't drinking alcoholically. I wasn't not showing up for my life. I wasn't like and I don't I'm not trying to say that that's I'm better than anyone, but I knew that alcohol was that thing that I reached for when I didn't want to feel, I didn't want to feel. The end of the day coming back home after working on the house and talking to him about about it, you know, we were at odds the whole time, and it was terrible, and I just didn't want to have something quieting my emotions. I wanted to learn about my emotions, and you taught me about honoring my emotions and not a letting and not having my emotions be so animalistic, you know, like I was like a a screaming child and, you know, a colic or something, I just it. I was out of control, and it took me a while to harness that, but I'll never go back to that, because I have this whole skill set now of thinking, you know, of critical thinking and of accountability to myself, and of authenticity of self. And that's not being myself. That's being, you know, that dysregulated thing is not me, yeah, that's, that's just sheer explosion of of energy, and that doesn't feel good. And so, I mean, in the last I would say, probably since September we moved into the house almost a year ago, year and two months ago, 10 months ago, we moved into the house, and about six months ago, I started to have this new shift of relaxing and, and I'd said to you, I need a year to to heal from how hard it was to do this house. But it didn't take a year. It only took a few months, you know. And, and I still feel like I I'm still working through a little PTSD on time. You know, every now and then we just had some frozen pipes. It was no fun, but, but a year ago, those frozen pipes, I would have been telling everybody. I told you so or screaming, or, you know, running around with a vacuum behind everyone. And now I was like, there's dirt. We'll clean it later. And it was totally different human beings, oh my gosh, yeah, totally different. And and all the men that come to the house, they experienced me completely differently. And in fact, Thanksgiving, I made Thanksgiving dinner for a handful of the men that don't have families, about eight guys. And I had eight big dinners for each of you know, one for each. And the owner of the company said, Mary Ann did that. And I thought, wow, like the Mary Ann before the House project would be known for that, but the Mary Ann during the House Project was not known, would not be known for that, and so, but that's the Mary Ann that exists now. Yeah, you know. And it was hard to, you know, just but you know when, when I was standing in front of that fire, I said, find the good in this and I know that that's what my Ida of mastermind group, and we would always say that find the good in this thing. And that was before you and I met, and I stood there, it was horrible, and I said, I'm the good in it. And six months later, my sister announced that she had cancer. And I ultimately coached her to find the good in it. And I didn't just find the good in it, I found, I found a wellspring of self, you know. Of self mastery by working with you. You know, I now have so much to draw on that I had a fraction of that to draw on before. And I, you know, lived a long life. I'm in my 60s and and, you know, I was always edgy and always a little bit nutty and, but, you know, hopefully I'm just nutty in a good way now.

Mary Wagstaff:

Oh, there's so much in there, and I just want to reflect a couple of things back. And, well, a congratulations, because wow, like we were trying to figure out I should have looked it up before we got on the call. But it's been about two years that Mary Ann and I have been working together. And if you've been listening to the show, you'll know that I have a process called the Five shifts. And this is something, some of the stuff that Mary Ann's talking about with the curiosity. And you know, this is the thing about the emotions. It's like our emotions are generated by our thoughts. So if our if we let our thoughts run wild and our thoughts are out of control and and it's okay that we have raw we have raw emotion when, when life happens, but if it's really based on our thinking, and our thoughts are just out of control and they're just running wild, and then we're letting other people's thoughts also, like, that's what you were talking about, that about that wall of, you know, this kind of shield, this Golden Shield, it's like, if we're enmeshed, and this is why I was thinking about social media, I'm like, social media is just an enmeshment, and other people's wild thoughts, like, I don't want to be in there, like, you got to put your Golden Shield up, right? And so much of what we interact with, because there's so much information. Information isn't really always education. Most of the time, it's just someone's opinion. So when you're out in the world and your opinions are like going crazy, and everyone else's opinions are going crazy, it's like whoa. And then there's these, there's these big life circumstances that happen that you have never experienced before, right? A fire happens. Like, that's a big deal. You've been working on it. So it's like, and you had used the term, you know, my emote, this emotional fire and, and I think probably what you had been conditioned to use alcohol for, without really knowing it was that was like the water in the past. But all that created, from what I'm hearing and what I've experienced with you, is really just kind of numbness. You go from this emotional fire to numbness to then back to a dysregulated system. So you know, and many people say this is like alcohol on the fire of emotions is like adding more alcohol, or like adding more fire to the fuel to the fire, right? So by learning how to find that bomb, becoming the water, finding that inner balm, because, like you said, you would have still been maybe alive, but you would have lost a sense of yourself. And that is what that is, what I've seen in the last six months especially, and what you knew always the whole time, because Mary Ann committed to seeing her relationship, to seeing herself on the other side of this, because she knew there was another side. But what you did, Mary Ann, and this is part of the feminine way that is kind of a new awareness, really, to the five shifts into my work. So what are you taking away from today's episode? What has inspired you? How can you put this mindset shift into work to create really more peace in your life? And I think that that's all we're ever looking for. So make sure to tune in next week, because this is going to add on, and you're going to get this beautiful first hand perspective of what it really looks like to create big change in your life, and how you know it does take time. It does take a commitment. But if we look at the breadth of our life, and if we look at all the stopping and starting and the confusion that we do, it's like Mary Ann gave herself a lighthouse. She knew where she was going, right? And that's all you need, is a lighthouse, and that is going to help you make decisions, give you direction and make it a lot easier to shift when times feel really challenging, so that you can show up to have your own back. Have an amazing week, and I'll see you next week, if you are ready to embrace the feminine way in your life and release alcohol effortlessly, I want to teach you how to talk to yourself when you are alone. This is the hardest yet most impactful piece of the process. Download my free guide, the six cheap phrases to calm the urge to drink and end the inner battle. You'll discover how to find relief for any urge or emotion without deprivation. Visit Mary wagstaffcoach.com Slash urge tracking to get your free guide today or follow the link right here in the show notes. You.