It's Not About the Alcohol

What do your drinking and your bank account have in common? More than you think. In this episode, I sit down with mindset coach and Mystic Millionaire Danielle Amos to explore the hidden connection between your money beliefs, your scarcity mindset, and why you reach for the wine at the end of the day. Danielle went from $100K in credit card debt to a million-dollar business — without a website — u...

For two years, "reduce your drinking by 80%" was my signature phrase. It's on my website, my ads, my podcast — everywhere. In this episode, I tell you why I retired it, what I replaced it with, and what this shift means for you — whether you're in my program or hearing my voice for the first time. This is a behind-the-scenes episode pulled from Coffee with Colleen, my daily internal podcast for cl...

Most women measure alcohol consumption by how much and how often they drink. But the research says the most important predictor of whether your drinking becomes a real problem isn't about the amount you drink — it's why you drink. In this episode, I tell the story of the exact day I became a daily drinker — and why I didn't even know it happened. I break down the neuroscience of why drinking to re...

✦ February Bonus ✦ Join The Next Chapter by February 28, 2026 and receive $2,000  off.   In this episode, Colleen reframes one of the biggest misunderstandings about drinking: it's not one behavior — it's a collection of hundreds of habits shaped by context, environment, relationships, and emotional states. Many women believe their drinking defines who they are because they identify with their wor...

You think your cravings are a willpower problem. They're not. You think if you could just think differently, you'd drink differently. And that's exactly why nothing has worked. In this episode, I'm breaking down why the urge to drink starts in your body — not your brain — and giving you three red flags that your drinking is actually a symptom of something most high-achieving women refuse to look a...

In this episode, Colleen continues sharing takeaways from her retreat with Dr. Amanda Hanson ( midlifemuse ) — and she names something that sits underneath so much of women's drinking, overgiving, perfectionism, and burnout: conditioning. Not just childhood conditioning — cultural conditioning. Colleen explains how patriarchy functions like an invisible rulebook: the expectations women follow with...

You told yourself this morning you weren't going to drink tonight. But now that it's time to make that decision, it feels impossible to say no. That moment is exactly what Colleen breaks down in this episode — because the path forward requires you to understand that this is not a lack of discipline and it's not a willpower problem. The relief you feel when you take that first sip has nothing to do...

Do you want to know what's different about the women who can genuinely take or leave alcohol? And why it feels impossible for you to be "more like them?" In this episode, I'm giving you a sneak peak of my new masterclass: The science behind take it or leave it--why some women can and how you can too. The masterclass isn't even on my website yet--you'll watch it right on YouTube.  Click Here to WAT...

I was one of the most therapized people you've ever met. I knew my triggers. I'd unpacked my daddy issues, my relationship with my mom, my insecurity, my eating disorders, problems in my marriage. I cognitively understood what triggered me and why I wanted to drink so much. And that did fuck-all to reduce my cravings. Which is how I know that awareness isn't enough. Understanding the pattern doesn...

In this episode, Colleen shares a raw, surprising takeaway from a recent retreat — one that had nothing to do with learning new concepts and everything to do with experiencing her body in a new way. What began as deep discomfort around words like sensuality and sexual energy opened into a realization many women quietly live with: when you've been taught to fear, suppress, or perform your body for...

I woke up a little hungover this morning. I had a third glass of wine I didn't need. And instead of spiraling into shame, I did what I always do now—I grabbed my journal and got curious. In this episode, I'm walking you through exactly what I do the morning after I drink too much. The four mindset tools that set me up to learn instead of spiral into shame. The journaling framework I use to extract...

In this episode, Colleen responds to a question many women hit right after real momentum begins: What if I slip back? What if the funk comes back and I lose everything I've built? Using a recent coaching call — and her own very real 5 a.m. spiral — she breaks down why the goal of emotional sobriety isn't avoiding hard days, negative thoughts, or uncomfortable emotions. It's learning how to recogni...

Why does the wine start calling at 5pm—even when you promised yourself this morning you wouldn't drink tonight? In this episode, Colleen breaks down exactly what's happening in your nervous system when willpower fails, why high achievers are stuck in chronic stress mode, and how the shame spiral is actually making you drink more. Plus, three body-based tools you can use tonight to complete your st...

In this episode, Colleen unpacks one of the most misunderstood truths in emotional sobriety: drinking isn't a character issue — it's a nervous system response to chronic stress, shame, and unmet needs. Drawing from The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté, she explains why so many of us learned to survive in environments that never felt safe — and how culture, economics, and generational trauma quietly wi...

This is a follow-up to last week's episode about a client whose New Year's resolution to "drink less" was already failing two days in. I talked about how emotional overwhelm leads to a "functional freeze," and why this is more than a habit, it's a survival strategy.  On the coaching call, we uncovered exactly why she's needed a survival strategy. Like many women who experience a decrease in libido...

In this episode, Colleen breaks down one of the most misunderstood moments in personal growth: the space between feeling pressure to decide and actually being ready to decide. Drawing from her own experience with sobriety, divorce, and rebuilding her life from the ground up, she explains why urgency is almost never a sign of clarity — and why the nervous system's state matters more than the decisi...

Are you worried about "failing" at your resolution to drink less this year? Before you beat yourself up after your next slip, I need you to understand something: this isn't a willpower problem. It's not a discipline problem. Because this is far more than a habit problem. It's a survival strategy. In this episode, I'm responding to a message from a client who found herself on the couch with wine an...

🪩 HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!  💃  In this episode, Colleen pulls back the curtain on what overwhelm actually looks like from the inside — not as a failure, not as burnout drama, but as a nervous system hitting its limit after years of living in survival mode. What began as growth, ambition, and "doing what needed to be done" quietly turned into a chronic stress response that her body could no lon...

You know what you need to do. So why can't you get yourself to do it? Because you've been waiting for motivation to show up—like it's some mysterious force that either finds you or it doesn't. But motivation isn't magic. It's dopamine. And dopamine follows rules. In this episode, I'm breaking down exactly how dopamine works in your brain, why your current approach to drinking less is actually maki...

In this episode, Colleen breaks down a moment almost every woman in this work has experienced: when your body makes a decision before your conscious mind even knows what happened. A glass of wine ordered on autopilot. No craving. No plan. Just habit taking the wheel. Using a real travel story, she explains why this isn't a moral failure, a hidden self-saboteur, or proof you "can't be trusted." It'...

If you've been stuck in a job that's slowly draining you—and using wine to cope with the Sunday scaries—this episode is your permission slip to start thinking about what's next. Career coach Michelle Schafer has been through two major career reinventions herself, and she's spent the last decade helping people figure out what they actually want and build a plan to get there. But here's what makes t...

Why do we buy gifts we can't afford for people who don't need them and over-schedule ourselves to the point where we only have the energy to drink and complain about how stressed we are? This episode is dedicated to your inner rebel—the part of you that wants to pour a drink, flip the bird, and Thelma-and-Louise yourself out of the insanity. Because she's not the problem. She's the part of you tha...

Katie Herzog spent 15 years trying everything: AA, therapy, CBT, SMART Recovery, moderation management, swapping booze for weed. Nothing stuck. And in the back of her mind, she always knew she'd start drinking again. It was just a question of when. Then she found the Sinclair Method—a protocol where you take a medication called naltrexone, wait an hour, and drink. It sounds too simple. It sounds l...

In this episode, Colleen speaks directly to the women who live and die by the checklist, the ones who can run circles around everyone else at work, keep ten plates spinning at home, and still collapse into bed wondering why they feel exhausted, behind, and overwhelmed. If you're a high-achiever who secretly depends on stress chemistry to function, this one is going to land. Colleen breaks down why...

In this episode, Colleen shares a real moment from her life a few weeks ago. The kind of moment everybody encounters but rarely names. On a Thursday flight, she felt calm, grounded, and uninterested in drinking at all. Forty-eight hours later, on the way out of New York, she couldn't wait for the flight attendant to serve her Chardonnay. Nothing "mysterious" happened in between. Her capacity chang...