Wild Sobriety

The Real Problem Isn't Your Drinking (It's This)

• Mary Wagstaff

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What if quitting drinking isn’t actually the real problem?

In this episode of Wild Sobriety, I share how I stopped making alcohol the center of my life — and started focusing on what actually mattered: learning to handle real life without needing to escape it.

I talk about how changing my relationship with alcohol wasn’t about giving something up, but about raising the quality of my problems — from “how do I stop drinking?” to “how do I create a life that doesn’t need alcohol at all?”

It’s not about perfection. It’s about presence, power, and emotional maturity — the kind that makes you proud of who you’re becoming.

✨ Takeaways:

    •    The real reason trying to “quit drinking” keeps you stuck

    •    What I focus on now instead of “not drinking”

    •    How I learned to see alcohol as a symptom, not the source

    •    The truth about emotional avoidance and self-abandonment

    •    The simple question I ask myself that always brings me back to peace

Learn how to say no to alcohol, deprivation free with your wild feminine self. 


🌹Schedule A Free Private Strategy Session With Mary Today and Take Your Power Back

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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_00:

Welcome back to the show, my beautiful warriors of love. Welcome to Wild Sobriety. It's Mary Wagstaff. I'm thrilled that you're here. If you're new, welcome. This is a really great sign that you are already starting to shift your perspective. This is what's possible for you. When you start to step into these new curiosities, I want you to know that every single time you look something up about alcohol, you try to find something new about shifting your perspective, about what's possible for you and your pleasure, you are growing your awareness. This is what is so powerful about you being here. I have been coaching women one-on-one and in group settings for almost six years around alcohol coaching, but I've been doing mindset and mindfulness work for 20 years, right alongside with all of the drinking I was doing. And that's no longer my story anymore. And I am here to share with you the powerful, powerful work that is possible for you through empowered feminine sobriety here in our Wild Sobriety Podcast. So what if I told you that quitting drinking, just that statement, is a low-value problem to have. And that if that is what you are pursuing, you are going to stay stuck in places of obsessing in that cycle of just being a drinker or a sober person. And it's never going to help you get to the other side of it. So we want to switch what we're calling a low value problem to a high value problem. And we're going to explore that here on today's show because you want to have problems. Problems are where it's going to help you grow, but you want to make sure that the problems that you're focusing your energy on are the ones that are going to serve you and your future. So today, here's a perspective shift. The low value problem that I could have is that, oh my gosh, I have to work and I have a sick kid that's home. But the high value problem that I have is that I work from home and I have the availability to have my sweet little baby boy who never ever naps in the doorway of my office right here. So a low value problem is something that keeps you looking outside of yourself for an solution. And what it ends up doing is it takes your power away. And I wanted to preface this conversation with this idea of low value and high value problems, is not a concept that I created, but I watched a coaching call yesterday with one of my teachers, Brooke Castillo of the Life Coach School. And she was talking about how problems and the quality of problems and how we really need to know and define very specifically what our problems are. Now, for our example with alcohol, we know the impact of no longer drinking has rewards that are unimaginable to you. But the reason it's a low quality problem for you right now is because part of you doesn't want to not drink and be sober. It's because of the perspective of the way that you are looking at it. And the other reason that just focusing on not drinking, I can't drink, which creates this feeling of deprivation and a lack of control, gives your power away. And alcohol is an external circumstance that you can't ever change. So one of the traps people get into is if I could just have one, this moderation conundrum where there's still you're still outsourcing your power and centering the change around alcohol. Alcohol becomes the center of change versus you becoming the center of change, where everything that you do is 100% in your control. I really want you to get into a place of shifting your perspective from a low-value problem to a high value problem of what you're actually changing and the bigger problem you want to have, like the good problem that you want to have on the other side of alcohol, what alcohol-free freedom actually means to you. You could have one shift of perspective and take one low value problem and shift it to a high value problem and just focus on that one thing for all of next year until you have completely mastered it and changed the course of your life forever. And alcohol is the one thing, even though it's just one spoke of your life, you're in the center of change. However, because of the nature of alcohol, it kind of leaves this veil and this film over everything because we associate it with so many of these areas of life. We associate it with the way we show up with our children, with our social life, with the energy we have for work and our perspective. The question I want you to ask yourself right now is do you want to be the victim or the hero of this journey? And I know you, and you are already the hero of your own life because there are so many high-value problems that you've created. And every single thing that you think is a problem in your life right now that doesn't feel like a worthy endeavor, you can reframe that, or you can just decide that's a problem. And there is some truth with yes, alcohol is an addictive chemical. So the problem can be with just the drinking in and of itself. But from my approach, from the five shifts, the permission protocol, everything you'll learn here in Wild Sobriety is that beliefs are more important than the behavior. And alcohol is the symptom of a bigger problem. Alcohol is the low-value problem of a bigger problem. And in our case, the bigger problem is a feeling problem. The bigger problem is a boredom problem. The bigger problem is uh feeling nervous and anxious about being your authentic self problem or spending time by yourself or feeling lonely problem. Everything, every association that you have with alcohol has another emotion behind it. It might be an excitement problem. And how do I feel all this excitement in my body? And can I have fun be fun and be playful? Now, when you solve for a feeling problem, well, you are a human. So here's the good news is the thing that makes you human from everything else on the planet is your emotions. And when you can solve for those emotions and you learn how to be by yourself, you learn how to feel the sensations of boredom, and then learn how to shift that perspective to create a new intentional emotion on your own because every single emotion you're numbing, and you learn how to relax without feeling guilty, that's a problem worth having. So I want you to look at the high value problems that come when you start to solve the emotions and the sensations. And I really look at the urge for alcohol as an emotion because it shows up just the same. Even though there might be a little bit of a physical craving, it's kind of hard to differentiate whether it's an urge that comes from attachment just because it's always what we do in the habit, or there's a real embody, the body is waiting for it. And sometimes it's both. But there are a lot of times where we don't really want to drink, but we drink because we're not sure what else to do. And it's because of what we've always done. So that's the place where we explore, and that's the high value problem you get to have is getting to know the honor that it is to be fully human and uniquely yourself. Because whether it's one drink or whether it's 20 drinks, you are altering your authentic expression. So the better problem that you want to have is not that I need to stop drinking, is that I need to honor my fullest expression, is finding freedom in my authentic self and change the course of your life because it's going to show up in every single area. And you get to be in between this place and discerning what is for me and what am I maybe just scared of. So when you chase the alcohol problem, you're chasing the problem that you drink too much, that that's the problem. But when you shift your perspective to know that I'm getting to learn more about who I am on a deeper level, now that is a problem worth facing every single day. Because this is a high value problem. And this high value problem is 100% in your control. It has nothing to do with the circumstances outside of you. It's about how do I embody the sensations? How do those show up? What is the actual emotion that I'm experiencing? What needs do I have that are being met? What new focus on the alcohol as the problem itself is keeping you out of your power. It's not how do I avoid alcohol, but it's about how do I honor my authentic feelings. This is how you start to trust yourself again, too, because instead of relying on anything outside of yourself, you see that ripple effect in every area of your life. So you're the center of the wheel of change. All of those thoughts that you had that created the desire to alter start to fade away because they don't have, there's no more evidence to support that they are true. And this is why it's so important to evaluate. It's so important to create a plan and practice and implement again and again and again for long enough until that high value perspective of the change that you're making actually sticks. Okay. So here are some of the high value problems that you also get to have on the other side of alcohol. So first it's about what you're solving, but most of you don't believe that things are going to be better on the other side of alcohol. So here are the high value problems myself and my clients have on the other side of alcohol. And you get to pick one of those to start to work towards. How do I manage all of this cognitive fire in my brain? When I quit drinking, I had so many ideas inside of me that just started to bubble up. It was, oh my gosh. I mean, I started the podcast. I wanted to, I started writing again. I started sharing. I started teaching. I started facilitating. I started gathering. That's a good problem to have. I have so many ideas. I don't know which one to focus on. How do I channel all this energy I'm waking up with? I'm waking up at 5 a.m. What do I do with this energy? Good problem to have. What new thing do I want to learn today? Because I have so much space in my mind now and I'm so excited for possibility. How do I relax without feeling? Or now that I can just relax all day, every day, I get to relax without feeling guilty. This is a good problem to have. Should I take another nap today? Good problem to have. Which social engagement do I have to say no to? I will tell you, my social life became so much more interesting because instead of just focusing on things where alcohol was involved, I was actually going to like all of the things because I was my brain was so wrapped up in alcohol. So it's like there's a lot of social engagements to say no to when you feel you have more options because alcohol isn't a problem. And the list goes on and on. And for me personally, I want to read to you a message that one of my clients sent me. She says, Everything's better. I'm waking up at five, getting to the gym before everyone wakes up. She's waking up with so much energy. I'm in a good mood. I'm reading books again. I have so many books I want to read. And really, most of the people I know have really high value problems. And so I want you to think about over this next when we say to ourselves, that's a good problem to have. It's oh my gosh, I'm so busy. Okay. That's a good problem to have. It's a good problem that you can actually physically, mentally, emotionally do all of those things, just physically. I'm so healthy, I can do all of the things. Busyness is a good thing. And if it's not, then you need to shift your perspective because maybe you're thinking in a low-value problem cycle. I have so much patience. People are just walking all over me. And then she says, it I realize that it wasn't my relationship that was the issue. It was my attitude as a result of drinking. I honor my authentic expression so much that the people around me don't even know who I am anymore. I've become such a different person. That's a great problem to have in the best way possible. I have become such a new version of myself. And you are, and then I'm giving people permission to do the same. And the truth is, is that we grow and we change. And some people will fall away and others will remain. So the real shift is not asking how do I stop drinking, but the shift is asking, who am I becoming? And what is the problem, the high value problem that she has. When you focus on the high value problem that you're trying to solve, the low value problem will go away all on its own. You become the woman who honors her feelings and the one who steps into her authentic expression. This is not shame. We're not really taught how to do this. We're learning as we go. We're all always children. We're all always students because you've never lived this moment in this body here now. So don't think that I should know how to do this. Just know that the availability for the tools and the skill set and the support is available to you here now, here on the show, in all of the free resources in the wild sobriety community. Every single Wednesday inside of the community until January 2026, I will be hosting a permission magic skills and share. It will be a call to share, which there's so much power in having your voice heard, witnessing other people. It doesn't have to be about alcohol, it could be whatever's present for you and whatever little topic I teach on based on the five shifts and the permission protocol. So the link for everything you need is right here in the description. And I can't wait to see you inside the wild sobriety community.