Stop Over-drinking and Start Living

Join me for a conversation I had with my very good friends, Josh and Dan. We have been friends for 25 years and have navigated as much as any friendship could. We discuss navigating the relationship when someone changes their relationship with alcohol. We also discuss the secrets to maintaining and growing our friendships, that include being authentic, trusting each other, telling each other the t...

My amazing client asked me this question and I thought it was so great that I did a podcast on it. Your feelings drive your behavior, so if you are wanting to make behavior changes, learning how to feel your feelings and understanding your feelings on a deeper level is crucial. This episode dives into the WHY we want to know how your feelings actually feel in your body. I'm talking about the physi...

This podcast episode is an update on the Sober Sunrise Project, grief surrounding the unexpected and sudden loss of my sister in-law, Teresa, and being flexible on changing plans. I share the importance of taking care of yourself no matter what unexpected or difficult thing happens in your life. I also share why learning to process your feelings is so important so that you can call on your tools d...

If you've successfully cut back on how much you are drinking, even if it's just one extra day less or instead of 3 drinks you've been having 2 more often, you had to go through some discomfort to do that right? You had to process urges, manage your mind, say no more often, and all that isn't a walk in the park, it's UNCOMFORTABLE. When you move towards any goal you will have different levels of di...

This episode dives in the problem of people in our lives who might say unsupportive comments about you cutting back or quitting alcohol.   I explain WHY they might do this and how to navigate it if the person who is the offender is important to you.   I also discuss our culture and the social pressure we experience when we are actively trying to change things.   These things can be...

Happy July, I am super excited about my 30-days of sober sunrise project I am doing this month at Carolina Beach, NC. You can read about it here,   https://www.angelamascenik.com/blog  I'll be updating it everyday.   I'm celebrating 6 years of alcohol free lifestyle this summer and I wanted to do something big. This episode explains the project and the work involved in setting mysel...

This episode helps you look past your current discomfort with over-drinking.   Often when we are considering a change or claiming a specific goal to drink less, we get stuck in what we currently 'feel' is true for us. We review past failures and discomforts and then think about that as we asses a given situation, like attending a party or going on vacation sober.   This episode will help...

Friends, I have news, my sweet Edie girl dog has passed.   This episode is an exploration of how I'm processing her passing and concepts that I use to make the grief and loss more bearable.   I also discuss that the pain from loss is not linear and we need to let go of timelines.   The most painful thing we can do is judge ourselves that 'we should be over' something when the grief...

My amazing client Rhiannon, generously offered to come on the podcast in exchange for a coaching session!   She posted in our Alive AF! private Facebook group about needing coaching around summertime and how to make her self a priority while her kids are home and they have a lot going on.   You MUST listen to this podcast immediately if summer time has you feeling like you can't possibly...

Ep 282, How to Protect Yourself From Over-drinking in the Future This episode I discuss the importance of doing what you can to protect yourself from over-drinking in the future. You might be someone who has made great progress in stopping the over-drinking. Now, you might be lacking on 'doing the work' that you did in the beginning to get where you are now. This episode encourages you to inv...

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Noell L. Rowan to the podcast. Noell Rowan, Ph. D., LCSW, LCAS, CCS, ACSW  is a clinician with more than three decades of experience in the field of social work. She has practiced in hospital, community, and private practice settings in Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, and provides clinical supervision for MSW students in North Carolina. After practicing for more th...

This is a special conversation I had with Kim Jeffs, Founder, Executive & Somatic Coach of Soma and Soul and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counseling Supervisor. From Kim: ‘I'm licensed as a mental health counseling supervisor in the State of NC. Additionally, I'm a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, focused on high-stress physiology. Over two decades, I've explored the connection...

My husband and I went to NYC for the weekend and a theme emerged, ASSUMPTIONS. So many assumptions happened for both of us and one involving a complete stranger. Our mind likes to make assumptions to save us energy and time. An assumption is a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof. Tune in and hear 3 completely different stories on assumptions, from brunch to a phon...

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being.   It affects how we think, feel, and act.   It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.   Over-drinking is usually a sign that our mental health is in need of some help.   Over-drinking is a symptom. For a lot of my clie...

What does this even mean? Have you ever noticed how uncomfortable you get when you perceive other people feeling some sort of discomfort or negative feelings? If you have noticed this and then tried to 'make everyone feel better' or 'try to diffuse' a situation so the peace gets kept or whatever it is, how does this work out for you? Does it exhaust you, make you feel anxious, overwhelmed, or edgy...

This episode helps you discover if YOU have a problem with alcohol. Most people have an image in their minds about what someone with an alcohol problem looks like. And for most of my clients they don't match that description. Often people who want to cut back get pushback from their loved ones who don't understand why they are focusing on cutting back when 'they don't understand, you don't do anyt...

This episode dives into what to do when someone you care about shares that they don’t think you need to cut back or wishes you wouldn’t cut back or dismisses your desire to quit or cut back. Mostly, when people dismiss your desire to cut back it’s just because they don’t want to cut back. They don’t want anything to change. So when you say you are going to do something differently, it often will m...

This is a HOT episode friends, you must listen ASAP.   Have you secretly done something for someone else whit it's really what YOU want?   Truth telling time!   You must turn in to hear about this very sneaky behavior that I'm guessing WE ALL SHARE.   Especially, people pleasers!   I share a story of when I recently asked my son if he wanted donuts and discovered that I wa...

I was scrolling through some of my favorite sober Instagram accounts the other day and came across a graphic that said  ‘5 ways to stop drinking.’   The first one was ‘ prioritize yourself .’   I thought, yah,   I  know what that means but if  you  are reading a post on how to stop drinking, it’s likely YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS.   So, I thought, I’d ex...

This week’s episode talks about the creeping effect of drinking alcohol.   Have you recognized:   1) Your drinking has increased over time in how many days a week you drink or how many drinks you have each time you drink?   2) When you try and cut back and then you are ‘loose’ with your rules around alcohol, you notice it creeping back in to your old habits?   Tune in and hear...

This is another question I received and wanted to dive into this specifically.   This can feel like a dilemma. You notice someone you care about over-drinking. Maybe they are stumbling at the end of a night out. Maybe they can't drive to pick up their kids, maybe they get really sad or cry after a night out.... and it's not just a one time incident. You notice this frequently.   Do you s...

I'm answering another listener question today on the podcast.   I am diving into this question:   'I think the thing I wonder most is "is it truly possible to go from decades of nightly wine addiction to moderating easily". 'Are there people that can switch to drinking 4 or 5 times a month without thinking about it constantly? I'm so tired of thinking about it all the time. I sometimes t...

I'm answering more listener questions on the podcast today!   Today is all about food! Many people transfer one over consumption to another.   Today's episode is about food and how you can use the same tools that I teach about alcohol to how much/when you are eating.   I address these questions:   SO my question is, how do I transition this to food....I have found that I snack...

Another great listener question getting answered today. Here's the question: Why everyone thinks you are over-drinking because of some trauma in your life or some emotions you are trying to cover up... how to deal with over-drinking because you simply LOVE the buzz. In this episode, I explain why you get a buzz and why we get addicted to it. I also share ways to regulate your dopamine levels and a...

What do you want to hear on the Stop Over-drinking and Start Living podcast?   Today, I'm answering this question:   How can you positively influence someone you care about who is over drinking such that it is negatively impacting not only your relationship with them, but many areas of their life and how they show up? How to support and inspire positive changes?   Tune in and hear t...