Stop Drinking and Start Living- The Feminine Way

Why It Was Never About The Wine-Attachment vs. Desire

• Mary Wagstaff

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Your craving for alcohol isn’t about the drink — it’s about what you think the drink will give you. Connection. Joy. Freedom.

Over time, your brain has fused alcohol with emotional relief, narrowing your perspective. You believe drinking is the only way to get what you want — but it's actually blocking you from it.

The key is knowing the difference between desire and attachment. Desire is the emotional state you long for. Attachment is insisting alcohol is the only way to get there. That grip keeps the cycle going — even when the drink stops delivering.

Breaking free isn't about willpower. It’s about nervous system regulation, aligned values, and radical self-honesty. Next time you’re triggered, ask: What am I really seeking? Why does it matter?

We are having a HUGE summer sale: Have an unforgettable summer, guaranteed wen you get inside the Sobriety Starter Kit! Click Here to start vibing at a higher level. 

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.

Speaker 1:

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.

Speaker 1:

My beautiful listeners, how is it going? I am gearing up for the best summer ever. As some of you may know, we are opening a farm stand here in the Columbia River Gorge. If you are ever around, I would love for you to stop by in the Dalles, oregon. You can find more info on my social. I believe it's linked there to my farm life, but if not, I'll leave a little link in the description here, because it really is an example of what's possible.

Speaker 1:

Matthew and I often talk about how so many of the milestone moments we've had in our life we would not have been able to do if we were drinking. There was maybe high levels of stress or negotiation or so many things that really required a sense of groundedness and empowerment and for us to be able to move through any conflict quickly collaborate, because so much of our last couple of years has been a negotiation, not just between the two of us, but a negotiation with life. And so this last weekend, we did our first floral arrangement for a wedding and it was so amazing. I'm going to make sure to leave more pictures in my stories, for it's a skyline farms. The gorge is our Instagram account and really, again, you know, so many people are like you're living the dream, all of the things, but it doesn't come without effort. It doesn't come without doing something different and really what you want for yourself this summer isn't to have a drink. You want to have a good time, you want to have fun.

Speaker 1:

So there is a huge distinction here of something that I go over, that is inside of the sobriety starter kit, but something that my private clients and I really unpack is the distinction between desire and attachment and really also a craving for alcohol. Cravings for alcohol we'll just start there, because they're kind of the most tangible thing Oftentimes. Well, there's a daily habit where it's a specific time of day and your body has learned it's a learned behavior, and so there is part of your body that kind of even overrides what your brain wants, saying it is time now for this specific reward. Right, this also comes through association, but the desire for alcohol, I would say for most people that are here, if you're here listening to this, you're in good company, but you aren't really desiring a lifestyle that is full of alcohol, right?

Speaker 1:

Desire is more of a value, it's an emotion that you want to create. There may be an outcome, but what you're really desiring is connection, right? So you're desiring connection, joy, fun, pleasure, freedom. And you have filled your life, over the lifetime of your, of your drinking, with joy. All of the circumstances and all of the memories and situations that have potentially would have created those things, you've created an association with alcohol. So now your brain believes that the only way to achieve those states, even though you aren't actually achieving your desired outcome, is through alcohol. And so now you are attached to an idea of how you think it needs to be, and you're also attached to what you've made it mean about you, right? So you're really narrowing.

Speaker 1:

Alcohol has created this narrowing perspective of your view of what's possible, because you can't see outside of it, because it is such a strong reward and it has colored the lens of everything you see. So the first step is to really distinguish like when you're going to have a drink, what is it that I'm actually desiring? And get very clear about the specific value. And this is something else that we do inside of the Sobriety Starter Kit and I work deeply with my clients on is the most crucial thing is understanding your high level values, because you can never stay motivated long enough If you think you're just quitting drinking. You have to understand the state in which you are aiming for, the state of freedom that you are wanting to achieve so that you can make decisions from that place.

Speaker 1:

And then to see how you're attaching, how you're attached and you're clinging and you're gripping to an idea of the way that you think it needs to be. And then that's the place of resistance, right, that's the place you're not willing to let go of. And from there we use the five shifts process to support that part of you that feels scared, that has a dysregulated nervous system. And until we regulate the nervous system, we can't really be in our intuitive leadership and in our intuitive power. Right Now, you might be in that in other areas of your life where you feel extremely confident and you have evidence, you have proof of concept with your family, with your work, with your mothering. You're very confident in those areas. So your intuition is spot on. You can see people's needs before they even have them themselves. Right, you can really tune into that felt sense of this is safe or this isn't safe, right.

Speaker 1:

But when it comes to yourself, when it comes to alcohol, your whole story, the whole narrative around it, has been completely hijacked by the chemical of alcohol. And so we have to take a step back. But see how the beliefs, the attachment, is actually creating more desire, right. The attachment to these ideas of creating a past memory, of trying to recreate a past memory, but only doing it through the lens of alcohol, is fueling the desire to drink but ultimately is shortcoming your ability to have the real thing that you really desire. So it's nuanced and of course, we have language which we have to unpack.

Speaker 1:

And that's the really powerful thing about working inside of the program whether you're in the sobriety starter kit or you and I are unpacking this together is that we start to use a specific type of language that creates a frequency, right, that creates a deeper understanding for you, so that you can actually have a strategy and apply the principles to your life, because ideas can mean. You know, a language can mean anything to one person. So when I say desire, right, we can wrap that up into an urge, we can wrap that up into a craving, we can wrap that up into a longing. It might not even always be a positive thing, but in this circumstance I really want you to think about the fact that alcohol is is overriding that which you truly want in your life and it is limiting you from actually getting that. And they've somehow become meshed together into one thing.

Speaker 1:

Right that your desire for alcohol is actually your desire for happiness or your desire for relaxation or your desire for peace? Right, but you very well know that it's actually not working, or you wouldn't be listening to the show. But what happens, because your brain has been hijacked, is there's that initial relief of looking for that and the brain is going to remember what happens first. Right, it doesn't remember all of the sunbaked passing out, laughing at the stupid inside jokes with your group, again and again feeling ashamed, feeling embarrassed. The next day, all of the alcohol exhaustion, waking up thinking I can't believe that I drank again. Am I going to do this again tonight? And the cycle continues.

Speaker 1:

Right, this is your story? I hate to break it to you. Is everyone else's story, right? That's why this podcast exists. Now you have a very specific reason. You have very specific circumstances in your own set of values, but alcohol is not unique in how it affects people's lives in the shame spiral. And then we're all in the same society and culture that has glamorized things, that has encouraged women to drink as a source of empowerment or that they deserve a time to relax. But what you actually deserve is to have your desire fully met, and the best way to do that is to get crystal clear on what it is you want and why that is important to you, and then start to make decisions from that place.

Speaker 1:

But it's not as simple as that, because we are attached as humans to ideas. Right as soon as life does something different or someone else has a different idea of the way they think it could be done, we freak out right, like when someone else's reality is different than ours. We're like triggered by it, and this is the part of mindfulness that we get to practice, because we carry our old garbage around with us, we carry an old story around with us. We are not even living in reality, we are trying to recreate the past and is limiting you from the potentiality of an amazing, amazing future. Because what you have done and what we've all done, this is just the way the human brain works and that's why we have to kind of go in and tap into the other parts of our brain that we're not really taught how to tap into, like our ability to become aware of our own thinking, like our ability to be compassionate with the part of us that's scared and really presence our emotions by just recognizing that they're simply sensations in our body.

Speaker 1:

Because you have defined yourself as all the experiences you've held onto right and all of your stories and all of your trauma, and think about the way that you've labeled yourself. Is it serving you right? There was a point when my mom was a single mom and she used to get food stamps and I used to get free lunch and I went through like teenage angst and I had a situation with my father figure in my life and we all have got a daddy wound. I don't give a shit about any of that anymore. I'm not sitting in that story because what happens is we want to hold on to victim consciousness. We attach to victim consciousness so we can stay the same. And it happens where people come to me and they have a huge breakthrough, say on a consultation, and they don't move forward because they see a solution, because they see a solution that would require them to let go of their old story. And that is a scary thing for people and I'm not shaming anyone for that, because I guarantee you I do it in some other area of my life, right. But because my awareness has grown and one of my personal values is freedom, and freedom requires personal responsibility, radical personal responsibility, because I'm not in charge of the way anyone else shows up right. So if I don't step into personal radical responsibility for myself, then I can't have freedom.

Speaker 1:

So this week I want you to take a step back. When you have an urge or a trigger for anything right and or you're disappointed in yourself, find out what is the true desire underneath it and why is that important to me and what is my attachment to creating that in my life? Where am I resisting? And you will shock yourself at how, in the same situation, you can have a completely different perspective, because when you attach to the desire that you really want, why that's important to you and your value, your mind change, and your folk. Your mind changes and instead of focusing on the past, you're now focusing on the future.

Speaker 1:

If you're listening to this in real time, this is the end of May. I have a huge, huge, huge sale right now on the sobriety starter kit that is available to you. You go in there. You have one lesson that's an actual strategy to start to apply, and every single day you become a new version of yourself because instead of attaching to the past, you are attaching to the future. I am so excited for you to have the best sober, sexy summer of your life and get out of the past and recreate a brand new high vibing life for yourself.

Speaker 1:

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 marywagstaffcoachcom.