Stop Over-drinking and Start Living

If you want to stop over-drinking but you keep abandoning every journal, tracker, urge that hits, and morning routine you start, this episode is for you. Quitting drinking gets a lot easier when the work stops feeling like a punishment.

For twenty years, I gave alcohol the good glass, the beautiful thoughts, the longing feelings, the candle, the music, and the best hour of my day.

Then I started doing the work to stop over-drinking and I handed that an exhausted self at the end of the day, no patience left and no kind words.

And then I wondered why I kept going back to the wine. Obviously, I changed that and learned how to be with myself and accept what was happening inside of me and made that ritual something I wanted to connect with.

The problem for most of you is that you've started a practice you don't want to return to.
We come back to places that have been tended. That's true of a kitchen, and it's true of the ten minutes you spend with yourself every morning. So in this episode I'm walking you through how to make the work of quitting drinking beautiful enough that you actually want to come back to it tomorrow. Almost none of it costs money.

What we cover:

Why you keep quitting your own practice

The outside stuff — the notebook, the chair, the hour — and why that's only a small part

Slowing your breath down before you start, because you cannot arrive somewhere beautiful at a sprint

Greeting yourself when you sit down: thanks for connecting with me today

Why "thank you" builds something that "good job" never will

The tone you take with yourself on the page, and why nobody returns to a place where they get yelled at

How you end a session, and why that decides whether you come back

What I learned about tending yourself walking 173 miles on the Camino de Santiago

What to do when the emotion you're processing is genuinely hard and there's nothing pretty about it

This one is for the woman who looks completely fine on the outside, the career, the family, the house, and is quietly exhausted from the cycle of over-drinking and breaking promises to herself. Especially if you're in a season of change: retirement, an empty nest, a career shift, newly single, caring for aging parents.

You already know how to make something beautiful enough to return to every single day. You did it with wine for twenty years.

We're taking that back and pointing it at you.

ABOUT ANGELA:
I'm Angela Mascenik, a certified life coach who helps women stop over-drinking and start living.
I over-drank for twenty years while raising three kids, building a career, and keeping a good marriage and a nice home — functional on the outside, struggling on the inside. Life coaching changed everything for me, and I've been alcohol-free for eight years. Now I do this work with women all over the world.
My approach is compassionate and completely shame-free. We get to the root of why you're drinking in the first place, and we work on boundaries, emotions, mind management, and learning to put yourself at the top of your own priority list. A big part of what I teach is learning to feel and process your emotions instead of reacting to them — getting out of your head and into your body.

You can work with me privately - https://form.typeform.com
in a small group called the Transformation Program -www.angelamascenik.com/transformationprogram, or at one of my sober retreats at The Magic House, my retreat center in Lisbon, Portugal - www.angelamascenik.com/magichousefounderscircle

Who's good at being patient? I know I didn't used to be! I wanted things FAST. I wanted to get results in weight loss as fast as possible, to get over my drinking ASAP, for my husband to change quickly or my co-workers to function faster.

Our culture is built on getting things done the fastest and most effecient way possible.
So, it's our conditioning and programming that has told us to not have tolerance for discomfort and things taking longer.

Good news, it's ok, you are not alone and there is nothing wrong with you.

The idea of patience usually is prefaced by a LACK of patience. We mostly recognize when we are NOT patient.. when we are feeling frustrated or irritated or angry.

So to be more PATIENT, we actually need to learn how to be with the difficult feelings.

When we are faced with an issue that isn't going as we hoped it would be we traditionally thing 'we need to be more patient.'

NO - the first step is ALLOWING the feeling that IS present.

That is patience, allowing the discomfort in the thing that isn't working out the way you thought it would.

Tune into this episode and hear a new way to think about patience and benefits of being patient.. there are many!

The Stop Over-Drinking and Start Living podcast is for high-achieving women who are tired of the cycle. Drinking more than you meant to. Waking up at 3am. Promising yourself tomorrow will be different. This isn't about white-knuckling your way through Dry January. We get underneath it. Why you're drinking in the first place, what you're actually feeling at 5pm, and how to build a life you don't need to escape from.
Every week I'm talking about boundaries, emotions, mind management, and putting yourself at the top of your own priority list, which is the part most women skip.

Ways to work with me:

The Magic House, My retreat center in Lisbon, Portugal. https://www.angelamascenik.com/magichousefounderscircle

Private coaching One on one, for women who want to go deep and go fast. https://form.typeform

Transformation Program, small group, 6 months of weekly meetings and materials, includes a trip to The Magic House at the end! https://www.angelamascenik.com/transformationprogram

Subscribe wherever you listen, and if this episode helped, a review helps another woman find it.

Scared to stop drinking because you don't know what happens next? We'll cover what actually happens when you stop drinking, what happens to your friendships when you're the one who changes first, and why Dry January was never a preview of anything. If you're afraid to quit drinking because of everyone else, this one's for you.

In this episode I'm walking you through why your brain is so bad at determining the future. Why it freezes your entire life in place and only takes away the wine. What really happens to the people around you when you're the one who moves first.
And why that Dry January you white-knuckled through was never a preview of anything.

In this week's episode I'm covering:

Why your worries about the future are accurate and still not useful

Focalism, and how your brain edits out every single good part

What happens to your relationships when you change from the inside out

Why you can't do ten years of white-knuckling, and why that's fine

The only thing you actually have to do today

About Angela:
I'm Angela Mascenik, a certified life coach helping women stop over-drinking without shame, willpower, or a label. I over-drank for 20 years while raising three kids, building a career, and keeping a good marriage and a nice home together. Functional on the outside, falling apart on the inside. Coaching changed all of it, and I've been alcohol free for eight years.
The Stop Over-Drinking and Start Living podcast is for high-achieving women who are tired of the cycle. Drinking more than you meant to. Waking up at 3am. Promising yourself tomorrow will be different. This isn't about white-knuckling your way through Dry January. We get underneath it. Why you're drinking in the first place, what you're actually feeling at 5pm, and how to build a life you don't need to escape from.
Every week I'm talking about boundaries, emotions, mind management, and putting yourself at the top of your own priority list, which is the part most women skip.

Ways to work with me:

The Magic House My retreat center in Lisbon, Portugal. https://www.angelamascenik.com/magichousefounderscircle

Private coaching One on One, for women who want to go deep and go fast. https://form.typeform.com

Transformation Program, small group, 6 months of weekly meetings and materials, includes a trip to The Magic House at the end! https://www.angelamascenik.com/transformationprogram

Subscribe wherever you listen, and if this episode helped, a review helps another woman find it.

Quick update episode before I head out to walk the Camino! A few episodes ago, I told you about coming off my medication and sleep aids, the brain zaps, and the nights I barely slept.

Here's where things landed: I'm fully off everything, sleeping better than I have in months, and I'm sharing exactly what worked.

I'm also telling you about the day I broke my own rule, paid for it until 12:30am, and what I did the next morning — because that part is the whole lesson. If you've ever blown a boundary with alcohol and used it as a reason to give up on the whole thing, this one's for you.

In this episode, you'll learn:

The full update on coming off sleep aids and medication, including the last little crutch I didn't even realize I was using

The two simple changes that made the biggest difference in my sleep

What happened the day I broke my own caffeine boundary (and why it felt exactly like drinking)

How to get back to a boundary after you break it, without the shame spiral or the "I'll start Monday" trap

Why your body knows how to get back to baseline when you stop interfering

Quick reminder: this is my personal experience with medication. Always talk to your doctor before starting or stopping anything.

Also, I recommend you listen to 'How to Stop Talking Yourself Out of It When It Gets Uncomfortable' before you listen to this one, to get the full context! Listen to that here:
https://www.angelamascenik.com/podcasts/stop-over-drinking-and-start-living/episodes/2149227702

Now accepting applications for the next cohort of the Transformation Program, check that out here: https://www.angelamascenik.com

ABOUT ANGELA:
Angela Mascenik is a certified stop over-drinking coach for women and the host of the Stop Over-Drinking and Start Living podcast. She helps high-achieving women get to the root of why they drink and change their relationship with alcohol from the inside out — without white-knuckling it or relying on willpower. Angela is the creator of the 6-month Transformation Program, the Alive AF! membership, and The Magic House Retreat Center in Lisbon, Portugal.

If you've ever thought "I've wasted so many years drinking," this episode is going to change how you see your entire story.

It started with Madonna- a line about how the deepest darkness holds the greatest light. And it perfectly captures something psychologists have been studying for decades: post-traumatic growth.

The research shows that women who go through hard seasons — including years of over-drinking, and actually process them, come out the other side with deeper relationships, more appreciation for life, and a strength they never had before.

The growth comes from processing the pain, and just time alone won't do it.

In this episode, I break down the five research-backed ways post-traumatic growth shows up and I share the tips for actually getting there.

I promise your drinking years aren't wasted years. They're the material for the best years of your life.

Now accepting applications for the next cohort of the Transformation Program, check that out here: https://www.angelamascenik.com/transformationprogram

I've updated my website, check out my new about me page: www.angelamascenik.com/

ABOUT ANGELA:
Angela Mascenik is a certified stop over-drinking coach for women and the host of the Stop Over-Drinking and Start Living podcast. She helps high-achieving women get to the root of why they drink and change their relationship with alcohol from the inside out — without white-knuckling it or relying on willpower. Angela is the creator of the 6-month Transformation Program, the Alive AF! membership, and The Magic House Retreat Center in Lisbon, Portugal.