Ep. #74 Hidden Costs Of Alcohol

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”― Rumi

The Hidden Costs Of Alcohol Are Deeper When You Frame The Question With Possibility Rather Than The Status Quo. 
There is the Screw it I need to relax, but at what cost? 
One innocent night, then 20 years later and you have never asked yourself, do I really want this? What exactly do I deserve? Have I ever tried to relax on my own?

When I meet with my clients for the first time, I find out every area of their life alcohol is effecting. 
It’s been running the underground show for so long, that the status quo of low level vibrations has become the new norm. But what’s possible if alcohol wasn’t in your way?

The answer for how is alcohol impacts, work, love, sex, get’s a different answer than:
What’s possible if alcohol is no longer in your way?
From this place, a world opens that alcohol can't touch. 

To get to the bottom of problems, you have to ask different questions.
Alcohol is a problem because you keep trying to solve it with the same method: Fear, worry, regret and evidence from the past.

On today's Podcast Episode (Ep. #74)  you will take away:
-How to use these hidden costs as tools for change, rather then sources of regret.
-Understanding why you default to fear rather than possibility.
-Why we choose self sabotage over risking failure.
- The BIGGEST hidden of all and is what you need most to heal, evolve and awaken from alcohol, forever. 

If you are ready to live into possibly,  Schedule a complimentary alignment session HERE. 

Thank you for heading to Apple Podcast To Drop a 5 Star Review and What You LOVE about the show! Your presence means so much to me. 

Learn the 6 Simple Cheat Phrases To Calm The Urge To Drink And End The Internal Battle! Follow the link HERE. 

You have everything you need right now to find alcohol freedom with The Stop Drinking & Start Living Course. Join 100's of Women who have successfully eliminated alcohol from their lives using The Five Shifts Processes. Click here to learn more and join.

Transcript

0:55

Welcome, welcome. My name is Mary Wagstaff. I am a holistic alcohol coach who ended a 20 year relationship to alcohol without labels, counting days or ever making excuses. Now I help women just like you from around the world do the same with my one on one private coaching program. In this podcast, we will explore my revolutionary approach to getting alcohol out of your way that breaks all the rules, life enhancing tools that make not drinking exciting and joyful and profound and sacred journey that it is to rediscover who you are on the other side of alcohol. This show is not a substitution for rehabilitation, medical treatment or advice. So please talk to a medical professional if your alcohol consumption is at risk to your mental or physical health. Now on with the show. Hello, my beautiful listeners. It's Mary Wagstaff, welcome back to another episode of stop drinking and start living. It is still winter. How about that. But you know, what I've learned about winner, and all sorts of other things that I used to not have great awareness of or that used to really bother me and I used to really let affect my mood is that we have the opportunity to move circumstances of our lives and things that we don't understand and other people's actions into neutral, that it is our thoughts about a thing that create our emotions. And this is so amazing, this is something that my clients kind of blows their mind, not only about the reasons why they drink all of the other things in their lives, all of the other things that have bothered them. That how if they move it into neutral, and even maybe have a different thought, that creates a new emotion, how much better their life becomes. And we stop living in principle. And we start living towards happiness, right? Rather than I'm going to stand on principle, because this person shouldn't be doing this. And this is wrong. Rather, how can I choose the thought that's going to create happiness. And then when we find the inner peace inside of ourselves, just even from like that neutral, peaceful place, it's not, you know, extreme bliss, or, you know, any crazy emotion that's like, really, really, over the top, something that we try to get from alcohol sometimes, but just that peaceful state of presence, that then we create more peace in the world, we are all vibration, we are sound and light. And this creates a vibration and a frequency that the outer world responds to. And something that I've always said is one of my missions in life is to create a more peaceful world and one person at a time, when we go out to try to change the world. We often fall short and we lose so much of ourselves, and then we lose our capacity to create peace. But we try to change the inside. And this is some a Rumi quote, quote, right is like, I became a wise man so that I try to change change the inner world. And when we do that, there isn't Everyone has their own sovereignty. So we're seeing that we're changing from a place of external leadership to a place of internal leadership. So there are facts right, the sun creates gives us vitamin D, which is something that we need, we have less access to sometimes the outer world and we know movement creates natural endorphins. And so if we're not engaging with people in the natural world, there is some of that that's less, but if you can look at the facts, and you can place the facts, then you can have a thought about the facts. This is the way that it is. So how can I respond now what can I do because these are the neutral circumstances that I cannot change. Instead of this sucks. I hate this, this is never going to end, so on and so forth. So maybe you start taking some vitamin D, you create a movement program inside of your home, you go connect with people outside and join a hiking club. You take a trip, right often people vacation in the winter time so even just going and spending a few days where it's sunny, even if it's not necessarily warm. That's Something that I do, because I'm in the middle of the mountains in the foothills, so we don't see a lot of sky, they didn't realize how much that was affecting me this year, even with like the gray when I was in the city, there was just a lot more sky. But now being in the foothills, there's a lot of trees surrounding me. So I was actually starting to get a little depressed and not really understanding why. And so I I left to go to the other side of the mountain, I can take a couple of our drive and go to where it's quite sunny in the state of Oregon. So we have so much power that we give our that we don't give ourselves. We want to take all of the praise when things are amazing and awesome. And I did that. But when we don't feel good, we want to blame the outer world. But when we can take personal responsibility for all of it. We know what's possible, we step into a place of possibility and we're more willing to fail, we're more willing to try and move into that place of possibility rather than get stuck in fear and kind of that place of staying safe. So what I wanted to talk today was about the hidden costs of alcohol. Alcohol is habit forming. And we know this right? So it is simply it's simply just that that you've created a habit that can be created within 40 to 60 days, there's a lot of different research about this. And that is think about all of the habits that you have right now all the learned behaviors, riding a bike, tying your shoes, going to getting up in the morning, getting ready for work, driving a car, walking, brushing your teeth, right so anything can become habit forming. And the reason that this is good is because it saves the brain energy it's efficient, which is why habits are hard to learn good habits are hard to change, but they're also hard to break. In now you've heard me talk about this before. Also, where now you have this habit, this thing that is you're a very efficient at you're very efficient, the brain is very efficient at getting that dopamine response, the the numbing the emotions, shifting the mindset, all of the things that the alcohol is actually doing for you, that you haven't really practiced doing on your own but but it's capable, but you're capable of and so you add on top of a habit, a really big chemical reward. And it's even harder to break. Right. So brushing our teeth, we continue to do it because we avoid cavities, we have better smelling rather like a taste in our mouth, so on and so forth. But it's not like it gives us this flood of chemicals that are in our brain that actually create this flood of of a false pleasure in the body. Right we we experience the endocrine system, which is what is what the hormones respond to. So all the feel good hormones, oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine, serotonin. But when you stimulate them unnaturally through the use of drugs, then the they become out of balance and the the ability to access them, naturally becomes less. So you'll notice that things that have brought you natural joy in the past that kind of childlike wonder, say, going swimming at the pool, or even just taking a nice walk on the beach, all of a sudden now the only thing that you can think about is that Margarita because that's what the habit has formed. And now the brain expects this really big pleasure, where the wonder and awe of, you know, the landscape of this beautiful vastness of the mother ocean, of the the natural negative ions that come from the breaking waves and the seawater. And we we kind of bypass all of that because the brain is searching simply just for this chemical reward. So the first hidden cost of alcohol is that you miss out on the natural pleasures of life, and it does return. So one of my things and you may have heard me talking about if you've been on the show for a while. Was Margarita is in Mexico. And I was shocked that how deep that groove was how the salt and the lime And then all of the things are associated with my pleasure of what a vacation naturally is supposed to be. Well, I had a linemate I love the lines of Mexico, they are so good. They're the best they are sweet and juicy. They the fruit in Mexico is like nothing compares to the that is even comparison to the US. But so I had the line with some salt. And it was so freakin good. And I was realizing that yes, I do, like love that taste. And, but when I didn't love was that hazy, middle of the day, you know, after that little spike of the pleasure from the tequila wears off, and then you miss out on all of the other natural endorphins of that sacred space that is, and you I mean, you can hear me talking about I love the beach. I love the warm tropical beach. It's not for everyone, but it is for me, my hair responds really well to the beach. If you haven't seen me I have curly hair, but it's kind of fine. And so in the dead of winter in the mountains in Oregon, it is kind of flat. And yeah, I love my beach waves. So the took a minute, right? There was definitely a pole of Okay, is this going to be the same without it? And then I did all the work that I teach my clients I really looked at, you know, what did I deserve, what was I really wanting out of being in this tropical environment, my my biggest expectations were the sun, the sun and the relaxation, the warmth, be able to kind of be in my bare feet and take my clothes off and that kind of thing. And when I really looked at that, it took a while to decompress. There wasn't that instant decompression. But I knew that the end result of what I wanted was to rest my body to detox to relax to, to purify, and really take in and be present with the natural elements to shut the mind down in an unnatural way where I was quieting the mind from work and in the future, but I was present. And so the so alcohol quiets the mind, but you're not focused on the present. So there's the hidden cost of presence, which is the only place where we can find real peace. And I've done an episode about the the illusions of alcohol, Canada smoke and mirrors. And that is one of the other ones. And this this episode kind of overlaps with that the hidden costs that we don't see because the illusion of alcohol makes us think that we are having this decompression, but in fact, we're actually triggering stress response in the body where the nervous system is way off balance. Where from the moment that alcohol enters our body, it is immediately trying to detoxify the body. So there's this moment in your life where you just started drinking, and you may have done it for a specific reason to numb out. Most people kind of do it because it's the natural progression of just becoming an adult. And there's really no question and that's kind of what they've seen everyone in front of them do. And you've just never stopped to ask yourself. So this is the other hidden cost of this habit of alcohol is not knowing what it is that you really want. Never having given yourself enough of an opportunity to pause to ask yourself why? Why is this the way that I naturally interact with all of my friends? Why do I kind of have to check out to go out and to have fun to connect to be an adult to sit at for lunch or you know a quote unquote nice dinner this is this nice thing that we add, but what is it really what is what is nice about it, what is special about it, you know having to really understand that and so you know that so I come back to this example of my vacation time in Mexico. Why did that equate to you like literally passing out on the beach and So when I, when I came to Mexico after I hadn't been drinking the stark reality of how absurd it really was, to me that I was spending, you know, almost the entire day, in kind of a low level buzz was just terrified, terrified, not to mention the money, right. And, and really that missed opportunity. And I mean, I was, you know, we're not like necessarily out partying and going to clubs or anything like that. But that there's there was this lack of pure rest, this lack of pure relaxation because of what's happening on the inside. And we come to the the hidden costs of the factors of our lives that we can't actually see. So when I meet my clients, for the first time I find out and investigate it, what in every area of their life is alcohol actually affecting. And it's been running in their underground show and the subconscious for so long, that there's a status quo of this kind of low level vibration, and has become their new norm. But what's possible on the other side of it, right, so there's, the answers are all dependent on how we ask the question. So when you ask the question, how is alcohol affecting your work your love sex life, you get a lot of a different answer. It's like, Well, no, my relationships great, right? That what's possible, when alcohol is no longer in your way, when alcohols not centerstage? Then what? Right? So when you look at it from like, the every day, like, no, we're good, we hang out, we're buds like, I remember, you know, my, my partner, Matthew. And we were we were enabling drinkers, for sure. It was kind of the basis of a lot of our relationship. And we had a great time, you know, before my son was born, we really had some amazing times, and we became very close. But what was possible when alcohol was no longer in a way was true intimacy. Right? But if I would have asked, how is alcohol affecting my relationship, I mean, for me, that was one of the pain points a little bit because we were such good friends that it would get to this altered point, that would create a confrontation. And that wasn't fun for anyone. But you know, it's like, you can kind of you have these blinders on from, from what's really happening. And so when alcohol is no longer in your way, I know, I talk to people about work. And they're like, you know, because people that I work with are, are what we call, quote, unquote, high functioning, and they're out in the world. They're working, they have families, that they know what's the there's the really big red flags, which is, you know, maybe they're not connecting. And community as much. They're obviously getting physical effects from the hangovers. They're having a lot of that back and forth mind drama, where they tell themselves, they're not going to drink it, and they end up drinking. So it's just taking up so much of their time. They're not doing as much of their, you know, exercising or movement practices or things that they were once interested in, aren't as exciting to them, right. They don't have the motivation for and so, but they just don't kind of understand why because all of it is happening on the back burner. It's happening in the subconscious. And it happens slowly, right? You're drinking for 20 3040 years. It's not like it's happening overnight. But that habit has been formed very quickly. If you can think back to when you first started drinking. Think about how quickly you saw the the effects. What maybe that you thought were positive effects, like, Oh, yeah, I can I like this, right? It happens very, very quickly. And there's some people that don't like that at all. But when you are in that place, for that long, you can't really see how it happened until you break it down. And that's the power of one on one coaching is we can kind of look backwards not to tell the story, but to deconstruct the habit of how we got to where we have been and you also have to slow the process down enough to see that yes, it has. Although you can drink more right your tolerance has gotten higher. The effects of The day after are worse, right? So you're drinking more, the effects are worse. And the frequency and duration is increasing as time goes on. And so you can see that it's only a one way. And you have to ask yourself, if not now, when. And the thing that people stop is the fear. They think if I look at this now I'm powerless, and there is no choice. But the truth is, is that alcohol isn't going anywhere, right? So commit to the investigation of these hidden costs of your life of what your life really means to you. And find out how has alcohol, my relationship with alcohol slowly bend diminishing the value of what's most important to me, in my life, and it continues to take more and more center stage, right? So when you look at your work, right, you might be going to work and things are okay, you might have a hangover, but you're still able to get it done. But when you ask what's possible if alcohol is no longer in your way, I talked to a woman a couple of months ago, and she was like, No, works fine. And then I asked her this question. She said, Yeah, when I've taken a break before people are coming up to me, they're like, Oh, my God, You look amazing, you're in such a good mood, blah, blah, blah, then she was able to see like, wow, not drinking really does affect the way that I show up, her boss came up and asked me to do a special project. And so drinking every day, or however much you're drinking might not be affecting what you're doing, but not drinking is where possibility lives. And so the biggest hidden costs of alcohol in your life is limiting you from what's possible, from your potential from experiencing the present moment. And all of the gifts that it has to offer in this is the biggest hidden cost of all. So with my partner with Matthew, what was the hidden costs of that was not being able to go deeper, was not being able to evolve with our relationships. So grow as we were growing as individuals, because alcohol keeps you stuck in the past, the hidden cost of alcohol is never growing, to meet yourself, the woman that you are today, and things aren't particularly easier. But your capacity to respond with grace, and to have the non judgmental awareness and meet things with validation is so much greater. So there is there's so much that now Matthew and I can't hide from but we're able to meet ourselves on the other side of a discourse doesn't happen immediately. But we have the awareness now that we're able to meet ourselves from that place of reflection from seeing ourselves and the other, to validating someone else's own personal experience that it's going to be different in ours because we have a different brain, we have a different background, we have different genes, right. But when you're drinking, you lose the ability to do all of that. So there's the health inside of your body, the physical imbalance that's taking place day after day after day, and it does not have an opportunity to repair itself. And then what's how you dry January is not cutting it. It takes a long time for the effects of alcohol to rewrite themselves. And there's some effects of alcohol that you can never fully rewrite, brain cell, brain cell loss and memory of course. But that's no reason to, to shoot for the stars. My ability for cognitive learning and conversation is so much greater. I could barely you know learn how to play a new board game when I was drinking, let alone produce a podcast and help transform help women transform their own lives. So the effects on the other side of it far outweigh that short amount of pleasure. That is only the habits talking to now. It is not you The biggest hidden cost of all of alcohol is your ability to create an intimate relationship with the highest part of yourself, connecting with what is given naturally, without all of the story of society that's been created without all of the materialism. Without the, you know, the physical body like the the, you know, quote, unquote, in shape, body, the the success, the prestige, the the healthy relationships with a family. All of that takes a backseat, and is able to just be a welcomed bonus to your life, when you have a more intimate relationship with the highest part of who you are, with your innate wisdom, your intuition as a sovereign woman, your ability to connect with the divine parts of yourself, and to not miss out on your life because you're living it for an idea of what you think you should be. Or because you're living it by obeying a habit that can very easily be unlearned. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes some time. But when you confront the story, week by week, like my clients do, and my my one on one program, we uncover the story of the lies of the habit, the hidden costs, the illusions, they cannot be uncovered when you just ignore them and go on to the next day and think it's going to magically go away. But it does expedite the process so that all of the costs of the last 20 3040 years and potentially lifetimes, because now alcohol is a story that's been interwoven into our DNA. And culturally, it's such a collective story, that people's minds are blown when they're like, why didn't I ever even know this was an option? To not to drink to be an adult, and not drink to be an adult and have an amazing fun, abundant, bad ass life and not drink? I am the furthest thing from square. I will tell you that right now. So it doesn't mean you're boring or a fuddy duddy. If anything alcohols boring. And you've done it. You've been there you just sit around. You have no there's like, and then the the the ideas, right, that we think are so amazing when we're drinking. They don't come to anything. They don't come to fruition. I mean, unless you're Stephen King, and he's sober now. Right? Because he talks about like that he doesn't even really remember writing most of the work his early work, but that's something else. Some people talk about being able to be creative in in their in intoxication. But the real creative channel of connecting with our higher selves of creative consciousness of lifeforce comes when we're more of a Clear Channel when we're more of a clear vessel. So we default to the fear of like being, quote unquote, practical, just because of survival of evolution of our brain that has not caught up with our modern day needs. So instead of living into possibility, we self sabotage, we quit and we fail before we even give ourselves a chance to because we think if it's our choice, it'll be better. It'll be easier. But the truth is, is that failing just means you're trying quitting means you never try. So fail forward by learning what didn't work, because who's there to tell you, you're wrong? We need to step into emotional adulthood and say, who cares? Like why is it so painful to try and not do it the first time and it's basically because of conditioning, but you're an emotional adult, you're a sovereign woman. So taking control of all of these areas of your life and asking yourself who is going to tell you no. Right, your Instagram feed your partner, and then you get to evaluate all of that. And is that the life that you want to live being dictated by outside forces? Because every time you make the decision to drink, it is a decision and a choice. And there is a beautiful life waiting on the other side of alcohol. So when you decide to give up on yourself before you start. That is how you know that you are self sabotaging. And all that does is keep you in a perpetual loop. So the way to spot this is when you get really excited about something, and then you talk yourself out of it, right. So you know, I am going to make a change, I'm going to do this, I'm going to show up, you sign up for a program, and then you quit. And that's why doing the one on one coaching with my program is that commitment of not just changing your relationship to alcohol, but not quitting on yourself, being able to see it through for a certain amount of time, so that you build that muscle and that skill to feel that sacred reward. Where what you deserve, is just the feeling of showing up is the reward itself, not to check out at the end of the day. So if you take anything away from the show, and really ask yourself, what have the hidden costs of alcohol bed for me? How am I leading my life, by example for my children, for just being part of the collective community? Am I settling, maybe to even be in a community that isn't really serving me? Right? So there can be a lot of shifts that take place around alcohol. But when you find that groundedness in you in who you are, and you gain that clarity, when you start to balance the inner workings and of the body, the chemicals in the body, the physical body, the brain starts to clear the headspace starts to clear and you start to be connected to energy around you in a positive way. Maybe losing some of these external circumstances that weren't really serving you to begin with become less and less scary, because you show up more and more for yourself. So you don't need the external, the illusion of validation because you're doing it for yourself. And I know that you have what it takes inside of you to step into not just quitting alcohol, but to examining your relationship. And I would love the opportunity to chat with you. And if you haven't yet, it would be amazing if you could leave a five star review for the show, because this show is actually changing people's lives. And it's not just me, but it's all of us showing up together. It's your ability to take in the information. And like I said, this is something that has been coming through me to you. So I am just thrilled to be here and I can't wait to talk to you soon. So have an amazing day and look in the show notes for the links for the five star review and to sign up for a one on one alignment session talk soon. Hey, if you are loving this podcast, you are definitely ready for the next step. I would love to invite you to learn my three shifts process to interrupt any craving and get you started on your journey to finding freedom from alcohol. All you need to do is click the link in the show notes or on my website Mary Wagstaff coach comm to schedule a private call with me. You will leave the call with the tools for success and feeling competent and excited about entering into your new phase of life and it's completely free to you. I look forward to connecting