This Naked Mind Podcast

Alcohol Freedom Coaching | EP 949 Alcohol and emotional regulation. For a long time, they were basically the same thing for Gwen and Cynthia. Gwen can feel sure she doesn’t want to drink, then find herself wavering in a grocery store parking lot when her husband asks if she wants wine. Cynthia has spent decades on a farm she calls Never Done, 26 of them alone, pouring wine from a box because for m...

Lisa’s Naked Life | EP 948 Trigger Warning: This episode contains references to domestic conflict, impaired driving with a minor in the vehicle, and a cancer diagnosis. Six beers in, Lisa drove her fifteen-year-old son to a friend's house. It wasn't the first time she'd driven after drinking, but something about that night finally scared her. By then, she was drinking about two bottles of wine mos...

Alcohol Freedom Coaching | EP 947 Trigger Warning: This episode mentions a pregnancy loss and substance abuse. What if it’s not giving up the substance that you fear? Deb and Rosie are both finding success in their breaks from alcohol and THC, respectively. They don’t realize it until Coaches Cole and Hayley ask the right questions, but both women are now facing the fear of change. Are they ready...

Where Are They Now? | EP 946  "I had to pick one life or the other." That's how Sabrina describes the ultimatum to stop drinking her husband gave her two years ago. Sabrina is back to catch up with Hayley and explore what happens in that time between learning to live alcohol-free and truly living an alcohol-free life. Her key takeaway for other moms? Quitting doesn't clear out the mental spac...

Five o'clock. It's like an internal alarm that goes off for Sandra. The day goes from manageable to get me the heck out of here as soon as the clock flips. For Lucy, it usually hits mid-afternoon: the realization that today won't be Day 1 alcohol-free after all. Drinking to check out is so normal that most people will tell you it isn't a problem at all, but that isn't for anyone else to decide. It...

5 a.m., and the bottles go out before anyone's awake. A soft clink of glass against the can, quick hands, quicker steps back inside. For years this was Michelle's ritual, drink alone, hide it, wake up and do it again. A DUI didn't stop it. A year and a half without a drink during COVID didn't stop it. One sentence, heard on a commute to work, finally put a stop to her cycle of drinking alone and h...

Trigger Warning: This episode mentions death by suicide and death from alcohol use. Something is wrong with me. Five words, but they can resonate in your brain over and over again for decades. That's the reality Lisa and Michelle have been living with day in and day out. To the point where drowning that voice out with wine was the only way to find peace. Or so they thought. Coaches Cole and Zoe of...

How do you quit drinking when your job is getting other people to drink? For years, that was Kelly's daily reality. She sampled wine and liquor with retailers all day, then went out drinking with her coworkers once the samples were done, and some nights she couldn't drive home afterward. She kept a tablecloth in the back seat of her car for exactly those nights, climbing back there to sleep it off...

Trigger warning: This episode mentions disordered eating and self-harm. “You either drink, or you don’t,” Kelly’s husband actually said to her. If only it were that simple, like there’s a switch you can just flick and the desire to drink evaporates. While that might be true for some people, most of us find the path to freedom much harder. Jules knows that, and she knows how hard being honest with...

Twenty-four hours of food poisoning on an all-inclusive holiday, and Helen's body made a decision before her mind caught up. She'd been drinking that week too, the way she always did with her sister, and somewhere in the middle of being violently sick she found herself pleading with her own stomach: no more, nothing else toxic, please. She got home and never drank again. You don't need an excuse n...

What does it take to stop shaming yourself for drinking again? Sarah and Katie are trying to figure that out. It's easy to say that you need to change through compassion, self-love, and empathy, but putting that into practice is a much different story. Coach Hayley and Coach Cole use their training and their own experiences with drinking again to help Sarah and Katie use curiosity instead of blame...

Six years ago, Payal looked in the mirror the morning after a blackout and finally had enough of herself. She's back on Where Are They Now to talk about how to quit drinking as a mom when mommy wine culture makes it feel normal, and what six years actually built: a dad and two sisters who gave up alcohol right along with her, and two boys who have never once seen their mom drunk.  Payal and C...

Learning how to stop feeling left out when you quit drinking starts, for Brenda, with a very specific list: people who can supposedly drink like it's nothing and never seem to pay for it. Kate's experience looks different: a friend in recovery who stopped getting invited to things, and a dinner this weekend she's already rehearsing lines for. Listen as our coaches help Brenda and Kate separate fac...

Trigger Warning: This episode includes mentions of a medical emergency and a homicide. Sunday morning, and Brenda can't get out of bed. Her head is pounding hard enough that she genuinely believes she might die from it, so she turns over and doesn't get up again until one in the afternoon. She'd been retired for years by then, a daily schedule and routine filled with wine instead, and what she lab...

Trigger warning: This episode contains references to disordered eating and the death of a parent following a medical complication. “I'm actually on day twenty-six alcohol-free right now, the first time since I was pregnant with my daughter,” Bethany says. Bev has been counting differently: hers started January 13th, and her husband hasn't missed a single one of his own drinking nights since. Betha...

Annie Grace grew up in a cabin with no running water, no electricity, and a dad who never drank. A decade later, in a corporate job in New York City, she was pouring close to two bottles of wine a night, buying the boxed kind so nobody would notice when one ran out. In this episode, she sits down with Mike Marshall, CEO of the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance, on his podcast The Shift, to talk about w...

Why can’t I just have one drink? For Pamela, that question comes from her struggle to moderate her drinking, and for Claude, it sits in her fear of never being able to drink again. Same question but from two very different perspectives. Coaches Cole and Hayley work with Pamela and Claude to discover what sits behind these questions and to find out why one drink never stays one drink for most of us...

Judd never considered that he would quit drinking before turning forty. After all, for twenty-five years he would pick the idea up and put it down as regularly as if it were his morning coffee. But one day he picked up a receipt for a book he'd bought two years earlier yet never read. Suddenly the countdown was on, and he was no longer willing to keep the idea of quitting drinking before forty on...

What does it take to figure out how to stop relying on alcohol for confidence? Amy needed eleven months alcohol-free, followed by more stops and starts than a city bus has, to decide something needed to change. For Dee, it was an entire wedding weekend and the fear of being the only one without a drink in her hand that made her realize alcohol was holding way too much headspace for her. Coaches Zo...

Deb's Naked Life | EP 920 If you're thinking about stopping drinking in your 60s but keep telling yourself you're too old, too set in your habits, or too far gone, Deb's story is the one you need to hear. She was a registered nurse who had directed a hospital addiction recovery program and still didn't see herself in it. She was caring for a dying parent, married to a heavy drinker, and drinking t...

⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode contains references to domestic violence and a mental health crisis. Who am I without alcohol? Does that question sound eerily familiar? Steph and Nicole both find themselves grappling with that very idea and wondering what the answer will mean for them. Steph is 55, and alcohol has been by her side and has helped define her for most of her adult life.  Nicole...

What does building a life you don't want to escape from actually take? Donna joined The Path in March 2021 after a COVID grocery store moment she couldn't unsee and hasn't had a drink since. Now five years in, she's back with Coach Hayley to share what's genuinely changed, what she's still working through, and a question that keeps getting more interesting. Donna and Coach Hayley discuss: That COV...

⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode contains references to childhood abuse, parental alcoholism, and the death of a parent from alcohol-related illness. Most of us were never taught how to give ourselves grace about drinking, only how to judge ourselves for it. Kelly and Amber are proof that the shame and guilt show up no matter how different the situation looks. For Kelly, it shows up after a weeken...

Trigger warning: This episode contains references to drunk driving, DWIs, and thoughts of not wanting to live. Zita was in her kitchen in 2017, working up the nerve for a hard conversation with her boyfriend, when the thought arrived: "You know what would make this easier?" She took a shot to self-soothe before the conversation, and it worked so well that her brain filed alcohol away as the answer...

⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode contains references to psychological and emotional abuse in a marriage.  The answer to "why I use alcohol to cope" is rarely what you expect. For Will, it’s buried in a need for control he's carried since a chaotic childhood. For Kathleen, it comes from decades of being the one everyone else leans on. Coaches Cole and Zoe help Will and Kathleen take steps towards f...