Stop Drinking and Start Living- The Feminine Way

The Thing You’re Avoiding About Alcohol Is the Way Through

• Mary Wagstaff

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Freedom from alcohol isn't found in white-knuckling or temporary breaks — it emerges when you stay engaged with the process of transformation.

In this episode, I share a powerful moment from a recent family reunion where, for the first time, everyone had shifted their relationship with alcohol. What came from that wasn't awkwardness — it was deeper connection, true presence, and genuine joy without needing a single drop.

This is what happens when we stop performing and start participating in our own change.

You’ll hear:

  • Why temporary breaks often reinforce the desire to drink
  • The truth about alcohol and connection (it’s not what you think)
  • How the Sacred Pause Method “front-loads” your healing — and shortens the timeline
  • What one client said that changed everything for her: “This finally feels real. And sustainable.”
  • How lifting the veil on your habits gives you a completely new perspective — one you can’t unsee

✨ Download the 60-Second Urge Codes for instant relief from your next craving — in less time than it takes to pour a drink.

🎁 And if you’re ready to go deeper, my Christmas in July offer is available through August 3rd:
Book a free consultation and you’ll get $250 off your first payment, instant access to the Sobriety Starter Kit, and a 75-minute emotional support session to simply receive and reset.

This is your sacred pause. Let’s make it count.

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. My beautiful listeners, it's so awesome to be here with you. I'm feeling amazing. I'm in such a good mood in real time.

Speaker 1:

My sisters I don't know if I've ever really even talked about this, but I have twin sisters that live in New York, upstate New York, which is where I'm from, and they are here in Oregon. I could almost cry talking about it. One of them drove cross country with her family, and so my niece and nephew are here getting to play with Emmett and you know we really haven't had a lot of time together in their young little lives and my other sister staying and her husband are staying with my mother, and we have never all been this together here. We um took my mother the catalyst, for it was um we grew up listening to, like Lilith fair rock when we were younger, um, like Melissa Etheridge, the Indigo Girls Jewel, all of that stuff. And for my mother's birthday we bought her a ticket to go see Melissa Etheridge locally here in Oregon and it was amazing. She completely rocked the show and so we surprised her with the girls coming and we all went to the show together and to be able to be together and there was a lot of drinking that actually went on when, um, my sisters and I were younger, and even with my mother and to all be able to be together completely authentic, everyone's changed their relationship to alcohol. It was just awesome. Everyone was dancing, no one was uncomfortable, and this is what I wanted to talk to you about today.

Speaker 1:

This is what is possible for you to step into another phase of your life later on where you get to have a deeper, more authentic connection in your relationships, where you know I've I've coached so many women who feel like alcohol is the catalyst for connection to go deeper. But what I found because I've had the first hand embodied experience being in relationship to family through alcohol and then being on the other side of it is that it's actually the opposite, that it's so much easier to actually break that fourth wall of intimacy when you've gone through the process of learning how to be with yourself and going through that liminal space of kind of learning how to be with yourself. And you know, going through that liminal space of kind of being in those, um, those kind of like weird awkward feelings at first. But the only way to get there is to actually do it. You can't avoid it and this is what you have to be willing, willing to accept. And there's so many things out there that are going to give you a five-day process, a six-week process, a quick fix, a P90X right, and it's like, okay, great, you can make it through P90X and you can show yourself that you can do it and you might get these amazing results. But you don't just stop there. It's not sustainable.

Speaker 1:

And when I was coaching one of my clients this week, what she said had been a big shift and it's only been a few weeks is the honesty of knowing she needs to be engaged with her life. But something I say on the show all the time is the reason you think you can't is the reason that you need to, because if you simply try to ignore alcohol, avoid it, distract yourself, replace it and never actually engage with the process of unlearning it or going deeper and learning how to do what you think alcohol can do for you on your own, the desire lasts for longer. So to actually expedite your results so that you actually no longer want alcohol, you have to stay engaged with it. So the more work you put in and you front load on the front end, the quicker it goes away. You actually end up saving yourself time. So instead of repeating this process right for the last five, three years, of taking these short breaks and just kind of being in that waiting phase and then going back, you're front-loading your work, you're putting it in on the front end and then it's like okay, now it's over.

Speaker 1:

You see the change happen and, especially when you're doing one-on-one coaching, we're actually looking at that every single week with you and I think there are amazing group coaching programs out there and I think that there's a power in seeing other people coached and there's a power in um, you know, reflection. This is why I offer the monthly sister circle, but with something that's so deep and we all have our personal story and everyone starts from a different place. And you've been going through this for 20, 30, 40 years. Right Like having that real accountability, that eye on you and someone to really hear your story and to see your specific thoughts. There's nothing like it. It is the most sacred, high honor of what you can do for yourself, to have that personalized support than anything that I've ever engaged in, and this is the thing that most people they don't want to hear. But I'm not here to gaslight you and I'm not here to bypass the reality of needing to be present with your life and your emotions, because this is what alcohol has done for you. It's had you avoiding things that you don't want to look at. But when we do it through the lens of the sacred pause method, through my method, through private coaching, there is a neutral, objective perspective that we're taking from compassion, from curiosity, because I have all of the belief and the embodied evidence to know your success is inevitable.

Speaker 1:

So, and if you want your relationship to alcohol to change in a sustainable way and not just a temporary break that ends with that quiet like screw it, you just can't ignore it because those voices are waiting in the background. I call it the get out of jail free card and it happened to me every time where I would take a break, but quietly, secretly, I knew that it was going to end with the quote unquote reward and alcohol being the reward, not the relief of no longer wanting it being the reward. I know you just want these urges to go away and that it was something that you didn't have to think about anymore. But pretending that you're fine have to think about anymore. But pretending that you're fine does not make it easier. You have to unpack it, you have to plan, you have to look at it and the results are.

Speaker 1:

Is that everything in the process also changes your relationship how you're showing up in secure attachment to your partner, the presence with your children, how you're engaging with your business. You apply these tools to everything, the way you're people-pleasing old relationships in your life, like people that you've kind of outgrown. So when I asked my client what feels different today, what do you believe differently today than you did three weeks ago, she said that it finally feels real, it feels sustainable and for the first time it actually feels possible, Like she's not in that waiting phase right and she it hasn't been perfect, it hasn't been that she didn't hasn't drank a hundred percent and that she doesn't have it all figured out, but she's had wins along the way, because when we have there's conceptual evidence right, Like you can see it in other people but until you have embodied evidence and that that ability to be really honest with yourself and feel it and know it and know how you're showing up, and that it has to be different with the reflection of me, that changes everything. What also happens in this process is and I only want to talk about this more on another episode kind of fourth wall that you have between you and the part of you that is stuck in the alcohol story, because we're bringing it to the forefront of the conversation and you are stepping into the seat of the witness to really examine your thoughts. So instead of just saying screw it right, we're actually saying screw what? We're finishing the conversation. You have to actually go beyond to see and ask is this true? What are the objections that I'm giving myself? And if I finish that conversation of screw it, what am I actually saying? Screw it too, and do I really believe that that's okay with me? Because when we finish the conversation and we don't just sit in that habitual knee jerk reaction, we realize that no, it's actually not okay anymore.

Speaker 1:

And so there becomes this point where you see yourself pouring a drink, but you're seeing it from outside of yourself. It's like you're no longer on the stage. You're actually in the audience watching it, and you're and it becomes surreal. It becomes a surreal moment where you no longer, it no longer lands the same and once you start to lift that veil, you can no longer go back and it doesn't have the same. The objections you can't get away with them anymore, right? So there's, before we do the coaching. There's a lack of awareness, there's kind of a fog, there's a haze. It's like you're going through the motions, you're sitting in the story just hoping this time will be different, but you're winging it. You're doing the same thing again and again and again, thinking the same thoughts again and again and again, right? So until you actually break through, have an experience of feeling, your emotions and your urges have a full spectrum, an actual beginning, middle and an end, you finish the conversation of the objections and the thoughts that you've been thinking, nothing really changes. You're still sitting in that same version of that same exact story and you stay stuck in that fog. And that's really what the sacred pause method is all about. It exists so that it can lift the veil, so that you stop circling in those same thought loops. Of that I'm starting over on Monday and by Friday I'm saying screw it again.

Speaker 1:

I have created an updated version of the 60 second urge codes. If you do not have this in your arsenal, you need to get it right now. The link is in the show notes. This is a free guide. Literally, you can find relief and less time than it takes to pour a drink. It's the 60 second urge codes. You need these codes because what it does is it helps you shift from the urge just from screaming, scrolling or sipping into taking your power, back into stepping in the seat of the power. They work so good. So follow the link. It's a free guide. Make sure you have this tool and these tools, these urge codes, are going to expand as you start to use them from your own intuition. Going to expand as you start to use them from your own intuition. You will find your own internal codes that are going to work for you and help you interrupt the belief pattern.

Speaker 1:

Something else that I wanted to let you know is that I am offering a very special Christmas, in July, offer, and this is to help you get off the fence and make the decision to get support that you have been thinking about quicker. So when you hear this podcast, you sign up for a consultation this coming week. This is only going to last for this one week. So today is July 30th. This is in real time. So, signing up for a consult for next week for Monday, the 4th or the 5th when you join private coaching this week, you will receive $250 off of the coaching mentorship process, immediate and lifetime access to the sobriety starter kit right when you schedule, and a bonus 75 minute emotional support session. And this is just for you to receive to relax. It's like having a massage for your emotions. But you need to take action now and book your complimentary consultation. These sessions will not last. So if you're hearing this, get on it, get your urge codes, stop winging it and just stop waiting.

Speaker 1:

The decision doesn't have to be the perfect time, and that's what. And that's what is keeping you stuck, because, instead of doing it when you're not feeling confident, instead of waiting to figure it out, this is the process that gets you there, and that is what I can't emphasize enough about coaching. Coaching is the container to get you to become that version of yourself that is leading, that is stepping into her maturity, that's stepping into that next phase where authenticity is more of a requirement than belonging, and belonging requires your authentic expression. Right, you are not in that phase of your life anymore where it feels like if I don't belong, I'm going to die. You are stepping into this unbothered, unapologetic phase of your womanhood. Who is ready to lead by example and step into the like? I don't actually care anymore, because this is for me and I don't need permission or approval from anyone else, but this is where we practice it, so that you can feel safe to really be that woman, because this is how you are going to create the exact future that you want. You are setting the rest of your life up with the imprints that we create through this process, through the sacred pause method.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait to meet you, I can't wait to connect with you and I hope you have an amazing rest of your week. 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.