Why Quitting This Time Will Be Different

I’m sharing about what it actually takes to make a lasting shift in your relationship with alcohol—and why “feeling good” can often be the very thing that triggers a return to old habits.

We explore:

• Why you break your promises to yourself (and how to rebuild trust)
• What really needs to change to create a new self-concept
• How intention, not willpower, changes everything
• What clients say made this time different—and how it can be different for you too
• The truth about emotional alignment and identity shifts
• Why accountability and presence are essential, especially when you feel good

This is about so much more than just “not drinking.” It’s about stepping into the woman you know you are. One who leads. One who listens to herself. One who lives from her values.

Ready to finally do this differently?

You’ve tried to cut back on drinking but nothing sticks, you're stuck in the cycle of confusion and convincing. One day you're motivated, the next you're telling yourself it's not that bad. What makes the difference isn’t more information—it’s having a new way to apply it. Click HERE to schedule your free consult to uncover the one thought that will change everything.

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.

Transcript

Mary Wagstaff: 1:14

Music. 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. Welcome back to the show my beautiful listeners. Thank you for everyone that celebrated with me last week or this week, really, because I just put the episode out, I received so many beautiful just notes of congratulations and inspiration. And it was so, so sweet. And although I said, I don't celebrate myself often in my wins, I don't not do that because I feel like embarrassed or like it's, you know, a big ego or something like that. It's really just a habit, right? It's a habit of slowing down and stopping at the VISTA, and I've talked about that a lot and but it's on the other side of alcohol and the deconditioning of, you know, what we're taught as kids, as women, to not have too much pride or too much ego, you know? I, really do honor my self and honor my accomplishments. And we work so hard in this modern world and with all of the information that comes in and all the information that goes out, that this is what we want to inspire our children to do and so that they can continue to inspire the next generation, right? Because it's the belief in ourself, that the work we're doing no matter what it is, right? Getting a load of dishes done, getting a load of laundry done, like all of the things we do all day long, as mothers, as caretakers, as women, for ourselves and for everyone, that if we don't believe that it's worth something, right? That's where that lack comes in. And so I believe everything that I do and presence is such a key to that the more present I am with the one thing, or, you know, even just stopping to notice that I'm kind of multitasking, or I'm wanting to rush something along the second that I slow down and step into a place of patience, which is so much what the farm is teaching me, and so much of what like having a child teaches me, and what you need to find freedom from alcohol, is you do need patience. We don't learn things overnight, and you don't unlearn them overnight, especially as an adult. We don't unlearn the beliefs that we've had for 44 years, for 50, 6070, years, with all the social conditioning overnight. We have to be patient. But the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So it's the little, tiny shifts that really make a biggest, the biggest difference, and that is what's so profound about coaching is because when we show up every single week, we're saying what was different, what was a win, what was easier this week. And that evidence builds, it compounds, but right now, what's compounding for you is your confusion, right? Your confusion is compounding. And you're convincing of yourself that when you feel better, that that it's fine and it's not a problem. And then inevitably, you know, you go back into the same pattern again and again. So today, what we I want to talk about. And the reason that this came forward was because I had asked, and I asked all of my clients this, but recently, I had asked a client of mine, what has made the biggest difference, right? Like, why was this time different? This person who has struggled for many, many years, right, probably their entire life, since they were very young, you know, started smoking pot, has always kind of had some attachment to an external reward, an external stimulus. Right now, of course, this is how we learn. But it was stopping and starting projects like shiny object syndrome, just moving on from one thing to the next to the next to the next. And what they said is, this time is already different. We're not even halfway through our. Our time together, this time is already different because they're here, because they set a precedent for themselves to kind of stake their claim with something new. So what happens when you say, you know, it's like you say you're done, you mean it, and then you're pouring yourself another glass of wine, a couple days later, a week later, a month later, right? Because the body rebalances itself, and then it's actually feeling good that creates the trigger, right? It's not feeling bad, it's feeling good that creates the trigger. When you're feeling bad. You don't want to keep doing that thing, but you've associated feeling good with alcohol, and last week, my invitation to you was, what can you do for yourself, the alcohol that you only think alcohol can do for you, right? And that is what we aim to do in the private coaching program. And when you are continuously breaking your promise to yourself over and over and over again, it chips away, inevitably, at your self trust, at a subconscious part of you that's like doesn't really believe that at any point you actually are serious about change, there's always kind of what I call these Get Out of Jail Free Thoughts. It's like, Yeah, but you know, we'll inevitably go back to it or but what about this time and when it's only you having the conversation? You're not holding that new perspective, you're not holding it through the good, the bad, the indifferent, for long enough to see yourself through to each new circumstance. And when that happens, and when you feel good, start to feel good again, that's when you convince yourself that nothing's really wrong. I don't have that big of that bad of a problem, so on and so forth. And then inevitably, it happens again. And then it's that negative self talk that something must be wrong with you. Why can't I drink like everyone else? And then you're in a shame spiral. And then nothing changes. And then it changes again for a little while, and maybe you quit for a little while, and then you feel good again, and then you go right back to it over and over and over again, because you don't want something to quote unquote be wrong with you. You want to be quote unquote normal like everyone else, right? And so you have all of these thoughts that are comparing yourself, shaming yourself, in confusion, convincing yourself, and it's exhausting, and you just keep doing it because you don't make a break in that pattern. And if you don't interrupt the deeper the whole process of the beliefs and the emotional patterns, it will you will continue to go back to that learned behavior. We have grooves in our brain that are so, so deep. And the truth is, is your brain is actually working normally, like, if I have any mission in life, it is to normalize addiction. It's because addiction is a learned behavior. It's a especially when you add a chemical, a strong chemical reward. Is there nuances? Is there spectrums Absolutely. But when you try to intellectualize the problem and look at it like we want to look at the data, but we also have to go beyond your beliefs, because your beliefs aren't necessarily facts, and so you're looking only at the evidence that you've had, which is such a small, small portion, and then you're making it personal, like you're making it all about you, and you're not Having a wider perspective, right? So short term relief wins over the long term intention when you are running on autopilot, right? So you're every single time, every single time your brain is going to remember that euphoric feeling and it's going to override your long term intention when you're not in the place of examination, when you're not in the place of taking some sort of measurement when you're not in the place of reiterating your intention and making not just decisions about Alcohol, but making decisions about all of your life from from your life intention, from doing a values assessment. And the thing is, is what happens is, most people think that they need more discipline. They have to get serious, and then they compound the pressure, and that pressure creates more exhaustion using willpower. Power until eventually you break and you have nothing to fall back on when that will power runs dry, and that's why nothing sticks. But what happened? What the truth of what happens is that you need a new self concept. You need to be doing it different, to create a new proof of concept, right for yourself. This isn't just about quitting drinking. It is about who you are becoming without it. So who is the the version of you that no longer desires alcohol? What does she do? Right? Well, she becomes a leader in her community. She walks her talk, she makes a stance, she makes a strong declaration to do something different. And the reason that that's so scary for people is they're afraid if they say, I'm quitting and they end up drinking, that somehow, you know, they, they've like, lost, they can't save face, and they've lost some credibility. But with whom? Right? No one's paying attention the way that you are, and no one else actually, like, really needs to know. But when I talk to people, it's like they're just trying to quit on their own and inevitably, without any sort of accountability, without any sort of community, without any sort of being able to find relief by sharing their story from a non judgmental perspective, and they're just in their own Head. They just get stuck back in their own head, right? Because the decisions that your beliefs are making aren't the decisions that are serving you right now, for the most part, with alcohol. So you need some new ideas in there, right? You have to do something radically different to get radically new results. And I talked about this last week and how I started engaging in all of these really radical new ways, like I joined a sacred sisterhood, a priestess path. I started hosting my own women's circles. I started going to coaching and to networking events, like doing all this stuff that was outside of my typical comfort zone, spending time with people that weren't actually that, where alcohol wasn't part of the conversation, and really diving in to my mindset around coaching, but also learning how to embody my emotions from a feminine perspective. So the key is not willpower, it's intention, identity and and being in emotional alignment right with the truth of who you are, but you have to get clear on what that is. You can't just kind of like think it in your head. You have to get very clear. You have to commit to it and it ha. You have to have consistency and repetition. So this shift comes when you stop negotiating with the old story and you hear it, you honor it, you talk to it, and you take a new stand for a new story, one circumstance at a time that you can prove yourself. Oh, I can show up in this new situation. And when I walk my clients through this and and what makes the biggest shift, it's just that, right? People tell me, even just on our consultations, I've never felt comfortable enough to share this with anyone. I've People tell me all the time, I've shared more with you on this consultation, about this, about alcohol and other things that I've ever shared with anyone, right? So we create a really safe, non judgmental, completely disarming space where we get to just go over and see, what are the stories you've been telling yourself? What are your emotions? What are the facts? What's useful, what's serving you? Where do you want to go? What's worked, what's worked in other areas. And we create a plan specifically for you, something that you actually believe now, these are not just mantras, right? These aren't just positive affirmations. These are about the woman that you are, the values that you already hold and and just shifting the perspective right, having a new perspective, but holding that with consistency for long enough. And that is the biggest point. I always tell people when they step into the coaching container, the shift is already happening. You've already made a stance. You've already signaled something to your brain that you're doing something new, and you're always going to take away what you came for, new awareness of your thoughts. One of my clients, and this is an older episode, she said, I didn't have a drinking. Problem. I had a thinking problem. She just thought her thoughts were just there. She didn't know she could become aware of them. So we practice that and change them and talk to them. So you have to have awareness. You have to start bringing in compassionate attention to your objections and your self talk. And this is like about the words that you say your life, intention is so crucial. Life intention LED. Decision making is everything. Once you have that everything becomes a no brainer, becomes very obvious what you're doing, from the way you treat yourself to the way that you process emotions, to the urges, to the decisions you make. You have already overcome all of your objections once you create a life intention, and this helps with an identity upgrade, because you step into more integrity, you become the woman who does what she says she's going to do. And if you don't, you become the woman who treats herself with respect and compassion along the way, and you learn how to do that. And the biggest thing is the support and the accountability right, because when you have that consistency in any area, right to go and to share, to express the from a really deep place in your heart, like where your resistance is showing up to celebrate your wins from someone that's been through it. And this is, you know, this is how, this is how we do it over here. So why is this time different for you? Why is this time going to be different? And you don't want to wait until you're at rock bottom, and we're going to talk about that next week. You want to do it when you're feeling good, right? Because you actually have endorphins that will carry you through. And switch them from being triggers to help you drink to being the trigger that nothing has gone wrong. Stay tuned for next week's episode. Follow the link here in the show notes to sign up for our consultation. We are going to take you from burnout to bliss out and having an amazing summer. I'll talk to you soon. The days of white knuckling your way through an urge are over. No more distracting yourself, no more avoiding alcohol, no more resisting and I am not exaggerating when I say that doing this one thing for five minutes will change not only how successful you are in drinking less, but how much you will love your alcohol free life. You are going to feel so good. So come on over to my website or follow the link right here in the show notes to grab the free urge guide that gives you the exact cheat codes to use to find relief without a drink. And the best part is no deprivation, no missing out, required. I'll see you over. Mary Wagstaff, coach.com, you.