Louise 1 [00:00:10]:
Hello and welcome to Your Way, the podcast that will help you figure out who you are, what you want, and how to do life, business, relationships, all of it on your terms. If you are fed up of are following somebody else's rulebook and are ready to throw it out and write your own, keep listening. This is the space to help you really figure out how you want to do this crazy thing called life your way. Join me as I explore these fascinating topics through a variety of guest interviews and solo episodes. It's time to do life on your terms. Buckle up and get ready.
Louise Lewis [00:01:01]:
Hello and welcome to the Your Way podcast. So we have a first for the Your Way podcast this week and it is our first guest interview. So whilst there were some guest interviews on the old podcast, this is our first. And I am delighted to welcome Mary Wall to the show today. Hello Mary.
Mary [00:01:24]:
Hello Louise. I'm delighted to be your first podcast guest on this one. I had no am and so the.
Louise Lewis [00:01:34]:
Title of the podcast today is Avoiding a Holiday Hangover. And I really wanted to have Mary on. So I have known Mary for about a year, I think about a year. And I love watching the work that she does and I've loved watching the evolution of her less wine, more you offering. And I just think this time of year is such a there's so much pressure to drink and there's so many opportunities to get absolutely shit faced. You can swear, by the way, and then feel absolutely rotten the next day. Right now, what this isn't is everybody should be sober, no one should drink alcohol, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like this is the your way podcast.
Louise Lewis [00:02:28]:
It's about each individual doing it their way. But I really wanted to have you on so that those people who are out there thinking about maybe it would be nice to have a Christmas where I didn't have a hangover the whole time can start to think about how they could go about that. And also for anyone wanting to dig in a little bit to think about why am I getting sheer faced so often and what's going on there.
Mary [00:02:59]:
For me, there is so much in there. First thing I've come back to this, I got kicked out of the brownies. That's for another story. The brownie motto when I was in the Brownies in Ireland was be prepared. And that's the number one thing I can say for the coming weeks, is just know where you're going and also think about where you're going. You don't have to go to every single event. There's so many things going on. You don't have to go to all of them and you don't have to drink of all of them.
Mary [00:03:30]:
I had a conversation with a client the other day and she was just saying, what's happening at the weekend? She said, oh, well, going out Friday, there's going to be drinks. I'm going out Saturday, there's going to be drinks. They're going out Sunday, there's going to be drinks. And I just said to her, why? She's like, well, because there always is. I'm going to such and such a place and we always get chickfila's there and I'm going to my sisters and we always get really drunk there, and I'm going out for lunch with those people at their house and we always get really drunk there. Do you want to get really drunk? She's like, no, you don't have to drink all the drink. And especially because lots of the events we're going to at this time of year might be work parties or parties at people's houses where it's sort of essentially body is free drink. People think, oh, it's free, or I'm being offered a drink or I'm going to somebody's house and I should accept a drink because they might think I'm a bit weird.
Mary [00:04:24]:
If I'm not drinking and I don't want to be Debbie Downer in a smaller setting around a dinner table, I don't want to be the one putting their hands over the wine glass and think, oh, no, not me, I'm on teetotal now. I don't drink. Aren't I marvelous? Kind of if you want to go down that route, that's fine, but you might not have many friends the end of the holidays. So, yeah, it's just being aware of being conscious of what events you want to go to and whether or not you want to drink at them. And if you are going to drink, why are you drinking? Are you drinking because everybody else is drinking and you're going to feel like you're not going to fit in? Are you drinking? Because say it's. Your partner's works due and you don't really like any of the people he works with or they work with, and you're thinking, oh, my God. The only way I can get through this dreary event talking to Bob accounts is if I literally drink my weight in wine and then think, do you have to go? So it's just take I would say take an event by event, get your calendar out, look at everything that's coming up. First of all, see which of them you want to go to, which of them you don't want to go to, and then decide if you're going to drink, how much you're going to drink, and get really clear on why you're even drinking alcohol in the first place.
Louise Lewis [00:05:45]:
And you said then about, I don't drink and we'll talk about this in a minute. And I don't never drink, I rarely drink. And so I will be because I've been invited already and I've said yes, going to several Christmas drink events. Now, the people that know me generally know what to expect, but for people that maybe aren't quite as obviously a non drinker as I am, people will just generally know. And you talked then about I could feel a little bit awkward at the dinner table to be that person that puts the hand over the glass and is like, oh, no. But what would you suggest for someone so say someone they do want to be sociable, they do want to get involved, but they don't necessarily want to drink. Or they might want to go and have a drink, but then after that they want something that isn't alcoholic. What would you suggest as, like, I.
Mary [00:06:35]:
Would say, I mean, if you don't want to have that sort of kind of beam of attention, everyone turning around going, so when did you stop drinking? Kind of thing. You don't have to make a big deal of it. If you're going out to a restaurant or a party or an event, you can just find out in advance. You can look at their drinks menu online and see what they have. And you can actually practice I know this might sound a bit bonkers, but you can practice asking for, say, a seed lip and tonic, which is a kind of a non alcoholic spirit, or a different type of drink, rather, so that when the server comes around to the table and they say, what are you having? And you're not like, going, oh my God, and you ask for your normal glass of what have you, because that's what everybody else is having, you don't want to feel weird about it. And if you just fluently, just ask for whatever it is you want. People won't notice. Maybe one person, maybe you've got that one friend who's like watching you like a hawk and monitoring every drop of every morsel that goes in your mouth.
Mary [00:07:31]:
Well, that's rare. So just be sort of if you're relaxed with it, other people will be relaxed with it. If you are at that dinner table situation and somebody let them pour the wine, you don't have to drink it. I've known plenty of people that have sat at my dinner tables back in the days when I could be bothered to have dinner parties and I would notice it because I was drinking a lot. I would kind of notice it, oh, she hasn't touched her wine all evening. They would just be sipping their water. But there are lots of ways that you can get around it. And also, if you really feel awkward about it, there's no harm in saying that you might want to get up early the next morning.
Mary [00:08:09]:
You might be driving, you might even be on antibiotics. There could be many, many reasons that aren't like, well, I am holier than thou. My body is now a temple, and I will allow no poison past my lips, which is a surefire conversation killer atmosphere killer at any party. And just be a normal self. Show that you can have fun.
Louise Lewis [00:08:33]:
Yeah. And one of the things that I realized recently so we went out for a fancy dinner with two of the couples and we sort of were like, let's just take you into this area for a drink before you go for dinner. Now, one of the ladies was driving. I don't really drink. And their menu had so many alcohol free options. So I had a glass of alcohol free Prosecco. She had an alcohol free gin and tonic. I mean, it's still about the same.
Mary [00:09:04]:
Price, which, yeah, it is. There's no money saving in the actual alcohol free drink. But I listened to something very funny today on Radio Four, the wine o'clock shopping, the online shopping that happens after you've had a few drinks. So the money saving element comes in later, but it doesn't necessarily come in at the time of buying the alcohol free drinks.
Louise Lewis [00:09:27]:
Yeah, but then that was great because I had the glass and it was lovely and I got to enjoy the experience. And then I did have a little bit of actual wine with dinner, but just enough. And going back to what you said about being that kind of sanctimonious, oh, I don't drink. I would just like to out myself on this podcast. I would say that there are two reasons why I stopped drinking. So I stopped drinking when I was about 20, and I can think of one occasion since then that I've been drunk. And otherwise, it's like I'm having a glass of Pateka at Christmas or I'm at a wedding and I'm having a drink, but mostly I don't. And it's not necessarily because I became holy than now.
Louise Lewis [00:10:10]:
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Number one, massive control freak. Do not like to feel out of control. Do not like the feeling of being out of control when I've had a drink. Also don't like the hangover feeling the next day. And then the second thing as well was, again, around the same age that I stopped drinking, I lost a lot of weight very intentionally and then was quite restrictive with what I ate. And if I drank my willpower to not eat properly reduced, absolutely I would eat. Right.
Louise Lewis [00:10:47]:
So I'm not here like, oh, and now my body is a temple. Now, my reasons for not drinking now are different, but it's just there's been a period of time, which is like close to 20 years now, of not drinking. So I don't miss it. It's just not a part of my life. But I think that's very interesting. So, for me, I think without those two things, I probably would have been a very heavy drinker because I would have drank as a way to cover up how I felt.
Mary [00:11:18]:
Yeah.
Louise Lewis [00:11:20]:
Now, I chose my particular poisons were food or no food, exercise and overworking, mostly. But I do think it's an interesting thing to look at in terms of, well, why do we drink? Or for me, why don't I drink? But why do people drink in the first place? Because a lot of the time it isn't actually anything to do with the alcohol.
Mary [00:11:47]:
I don't know, and it isn't. If anyone was feeling curious about this, I would suggest getting a glass of your favorite tipple. Sitting in the most boring room in your house without a phone, without a book, without an animal, without any distraction. And just sit there and drink that drink and notice the sensations. Notice how it feels in your body. Notice if you feel kind of are you feeling that buzz that everyone talks about? Or are you actually feeling a bit sort of sleepy? Are you feeling up? Are you feeling down? It's a very interesting experiment, so I'm not going to spoil it for anyone. If they want to try it on the podcast, that would be interesting to hear. But, yeah, it is.
Mary [00:12:28]:
It's not the alcohol for most of the women I coach. It's an eject button. It's everything that's gone on all day, the stresses of the day, the stresses that are not dealt with, things that are bottled up, and they just come and it becomes a habit. It's just a simple habit, in a way. It's 05:00, it's 06:00, our hands are on autopilot at the fridge door, at the corkscrew, pouring the wine, and before we know it, it's in our mouth and very little thought has gone into it because it's become as automated as brushing your teeth. Just because it's a habit that's been practiced so many times, it's become a sort of second nature. And the body kind of thinks of the triceratops here. Hello, Tina.
Mary [00:13:16]:
The lower brain being able to call it that, thinks that alcohol is just the solution. And it's just been trained to think that. So it's a kind of a well worn path and a neural pathway. Anytime you feel stressed, anytime you feel anxious, anytime you feel tired or overwhelmed or sad or any kind of emotion that's generally on the negative ish end, it kind of goes, I know, have a drink, drink will fix it. And it becomes the sort of solution. So I kind of talk about like alcohol being the solution more than the problem, because your brain thinks that alcohol is the solution, so it's continuously going to offer you, have a drink. Oh, go on, one won't hurt. All that sort of chatter that's going on.
Mary [00:14:03]:
Lost a train of thought there for a second.
Louise Lewis [00:14:07]:
If alcohol is the solution, not the problem, not that we are a problem to be fixed. Yeah, but what is the solution that sits separately to alcohol?
Mary [00:14:20]:
What do you think? I think the solution is looking at what is triggering people to drink. Alcohol creates, in the way it works in the brain, the body, it creates its own desire for itself.
Louise Lewis [00:14:34]:
Right?
Mary [00:14:35]:
But to have that first drink, it's just looking at, why am I drinking? What's going on? If you can just take that pause at sort of wine o'clock when you'd normally be going to pour whatever it is you're going to pour. And a lot of the women I work with are drinking. They're not just drinking out socially, they're just habitually having those few glasses of wine every single night of the week. What am I feeling? What am I thinking? And lots of women, they're not used to thinking about things like that. What do I actually need right now? What's missing from my life? What can I give myself in my life? And when we start looking at those things and addressing those things, in lots of cases, they've got themselves bottom of the pile. They're running ragged, they're running businesses, they've got important jobs, they've got kids, they've just got so much going on and they're just not looking care of themselves at all because everybody else's needs are coming first. So that wine is like, this is for me, this is my time. I speak to women, I've got a friend and she says, no, I'm not ready to give up.
Mary [00:15:40]:
My wine is all I've got. And I think for lots of women, they feel that's all they have is that wine. O'clock so it's addressing what else is happening in their lives. So they don't feel that need then, that that is their out, that that is their escape, that they have a life they don't need to escape from. They're able to manage their stress so that a bottle of wine isn't the only way that they get to do it. Because in actual fact, the drinking then creates more stress. If they're not sleeping well and they're waking up in the morning anxious, and then they're worried about the drinking, they're thinking, oh, God, am I drinking a bit too much? It's getting a bit out of hand. And then that creates more stress.
Mary [00:16:20]:
That's adding on to all the other stress for the next day, 05:00 comes around again and it's a vicious circle. So it's addressing all the stresses and the faulty thinking, the limiting kind of thoughts and beliefs around alcohol. You heard your confession, I'll give you mine. I used to believe up until embarrassingly recently, within the past couple of years, that people who didn't drink were boring and weird. Frankly, they were kind of bit OD. I remember being at a kind of a fancy house, country house party thing with friends of my husband's family a couple of years back, and there was this couple, and not only were they vegan, but they didn't drink. This incredibly successful couple with this very well known friend business. Yeah, we just kind of thought and they're very nice, but it's almost like, what is wrong with them? They're not drinking, they must be kind of boring.
Mary [00:17:22]:
And that was all because I had all these beliefs that people who didn't drink were boring and dull. And that is what a lot of my clients, especially coming up to this time of year, how can I go out? How can I do Christmas? How can I go to parties and not drink that much? Because people who don't drink are boring, and that's sort of been imprinted on them from childhood, from the media, from just everything that they've grown up seeing around them. So we have to dig that one out and kind of root it out and pick it apart massively. And I think that the thing as.
Louise Lewis [00:17:55]:
Well, is and you can say whether or not this resonates for your experience, Mary, but most people are in some kind of denial, right?
Mary [00:18:05]:
So it's like, nothing's wrong with me.
Louise Lewis [00:18:06]:
I'm drinking because this is normal. What are these weird people doing not drinking? Rather than like, oh, there's probably more than I would want to do here, and maybe it's something to look at. So I want to just pick up on something that you said a minute ago. So you were talking about all of the experiences that people have, and you pose some really lovely questions about what do I need? How am I feeling? What am I thinking? And why? Whilst those are, without doubt the key questions that people would benefit from asking themselves, in your experience because I know what the answer is in my experience. In your experience, how likely is it or how accessible is it for people who aren't used to doing that to just do it on their own?
Mary [00:19:08]:
Yeah, it's very difficult to do on your own, because most people will just look at me like and I'm sure when I first started doing this work and heard about it, I was just like, I don't know. I don't know what I'm feeling. I don't know what I'm thinking. I just want a drink.
Louise Lewis [00:19:21]:
Yeah. And I wonder if and again, because I don't tend to work in the drinking sphere, but I'm just curious about whether you've heard it in this context. So a lot of the people that I will speak to will know. They know they've got stuff to look at, right? And their deep fear is, but if I look at this stuff, if I take the lid off this box and look at what's inside, I think I'm going to unravel and I don't know if I can put myself back together again. I think that feeling my feelings could be the great undoing of me. Right? And they will then adapt because of the stuff in the box, which might be drinking or drugs or shopping or whatever. So in your experience, what are the barriers that people perceive that they have?
Mary [00:20:13]:
I think they perceive that they're scared. There's nothing they stop drinking. What's there? Are they going to have any friends? Are they going to have any social life? Are they going to even know who they are anymore? Is their relationship going to change with their partner? If they have a partner that drinks? Yeah. There can be a lot there that they're kind of scared to get into their family dynamic is going to change. If they're from a family of big drinkers, how are their family going? Are they going to be sort of cast out of the clan, as it were? There's a lot of fear that keeps women drinking and there's a lot I speak to so many women that they know they want to stop, they desperately want to stop. They know it's doing them no good, but yet there's that fear still holding back. Mean, I'll give an example with my husband. That was actually something that stopped me a lot for a long time was that when I were first together, we were other a long time before we had kids, we lived in the States, we'd go out, we'd sit at bars and drink.
Mary [00:21:20]:
We'd got bars and restaurants going to be singing, drinking. That was just our thing. We were sort of bon vivers, as it were, good food and good wine and that was just what we did. And then I think that translated to sitting at home in the kitchen once we were at home with kids and that was the connection and I kind of felt, oh God, this is really our main connection. We don't go out very much, we live in a rural area and if I stop drinking, that might make things kind of weird. And it did stop me that thought for a long time, but I decided I'd had enough. And then amazingly, he stopped within a couple of months of me not drinking. So now we're kind of like connecting over going, oh my God, how would amazing how great we feel not drinking kind of thing.
Mary [00:22:04]:
And can you believe how bad we used to feel? And oh my God, what must we have been like? Kind of conversations. So we're bonding more over not drinking, or in his case, drinking a lot less when he goes out with his friends. He's just been away on holiday and with some of his friends in a sports holiday and he had a few beers then, but at home he's not drinking. And yeah, the not drinking has actually brought us closer, whereas my fear was the not drinking would kind of make us even further apart. But yeah, I understand that there are fears, there are definite real fears that people have that make them not even want to go there.
Louise Lewis [00:22:42]:
Yeah, and I love what you've just shared there about you and your husband because you're right, sometimes the opposite of our fears happen. And also, by the way, sometimes our fears happen. There are going to be times where someone is going to think something of you or say something doing it. And then again, part of this work is, well, how do for your clients, how do they become the person that can be firm in who they are against that thing? Because you said one of their big deep questions that sits underneath is who am I without this. And I suggest I reckon the question really is who am I?
Mary [00:23:19]:
Yeah. Who am I? Who am I? Especially if someone's been drinking like I have for like 30 years. You've been drinking? You've had maybe had some kids or have been very involved in a very big corporate career, perhaps, where you have this sense of yourself as the drinker. The partier I kind of came of age, really in my early twenty s and the ninety s when it was all about the ladettes and drinking men under the table. And that was kind of a sign of our, like our metal. I could drink any man under the table and dance on it at the same time kind of thing. The party girl, the lively one, or the one that can always be relied on. Someone phoned up on Tuesday night and said, do you want to come out for a drink? Who are you without what's there? And I think some women, they're very scared that they don't know what's there.
Mary [00:24:11]:
They don't know if anything's there we go. Very gently, hand in hand to those faces. Yeah.
Louise Lewis [00:24:20]:
And you know what, Mary? I think if we're honest, if everyone's honest, I don't mean me and you.
Mary [00:24:25]:
Yeah, we're all if the collective people.
Louise Lewis [00:24:29]:
Are all honest, whatever the flavor of Symptom masking we have gone for that question sits there who am I? What am I here for? What's my purpose? What's the point? All those big existential questions and we do the stuff to mask or hide it. And then for some people it's like, no, actually, I want to know myself. I want to know who I am. And that is why I love that your strap line right now is less wine, more you. Because, yes, you help people to less wine.
Mary [00:25:12]:
I do.
Louise Lewis [00:25:13]:
Can you talk a little bit more about where the more you comes in.
Mary [00:25:19]:
The more you comes in? I mean, obviously women come to me in all different stages of drinking and it is gray area drinking that I deal with. It is not a serious alcohol use disorder. People that would have physical withdrawal. It is women that are social drinkers, women that are having a few drinks every night, but they're functioning, they're going to work, they have careers, relationships, et cetera. And the less wine, I mean, for some of them, they have already stopped drinking. I have clients that come to me. They've already stopped. So all the work is the more you the whole time together, is that okay? What now? I think that's the question.
Mary [00:25:56]:
They're like, I've stopped drinking. What now? What do I do with myself? And even just in a case of if woman's been used to drinking two, 3 hours of an evening, that's suddenly two, 3 hours you've got back. Yeah, my daughter does football now on a Friday evening at 06:00. If that had been a couple of years ago, I would have been like, no, that is 01:00 time. That's just not happening. I would have done anything to sort of talk her out of it. But now it's like, yes, that's fine, I have time to do that. So there's just the time element of suddenly you've got time.
Mary [00:26:29]:
And a lot of the women I speak to will tell me I don't have time to exercise, I don't have time to take care of myself, I don't have time to do anything for me. But they have time to drink. So there's a little element of kind of fooling ourselves. I've done it. Lots of people have done it. It seems valid. I'm sitting down, I'm having a drink, I'm tired, I need to rest. You're kind of tired and you need to rest because you've been drinking from the night before.
Mary [00:26:53]:
So the more you is looking into just all the general well being, what are they doing for themselves? How are they nourishing themselves? With food, with movement, with breathing, with creativity. I have a lovely client who started drawing again after 20 years of not drawing, with just things that bring them joy, discovering what brings them joy, whatever kind of movement it is that brings them joy. I literally have women where I'd say they don't know what they like. It sounds like a joke, but to say to somebody, what's your favorite color? I think, Well, I used to know what my favorite color was, but I don't know. They lose so much sight of themselves and it's just that little kind of journey of discovery of what do you like? Which is sort of a baby step to what do they want? But what do you like, what kind of music do you like? I make a thing of just got one of these digital Dab radios and I just put on random stations sometimes and I've discovered all sorts of music that I'm 51 I never knew I liked. Love it. I was listening to some Irish folk music last night and Nick came in the kitchen, he went, what is that? And that's usually me saying about him with his music. I really like that.
Mary [00:28:09]:
It just really speaks to me. And I would never have was looking up, how can I go and see this woman? Where is she playing? So it's just uncovering those parts of you of themselves that have just been buried, have been forgotten about, and our tastes change. So maybe things that they did like and were into when they were younger have evolved. Maybe they're the same, but it's just really looking at they'll say, oh, I'm looking after this, but what about you? It's kind of like you want me to bring them back to you? What about you? I'm looking after my kids, my husband, this, my job that I'm like, no, it's come back. Come back to what are you doing for you? What's. Happening for you because most of them are not used to thinking about themselves pretty much at all. They were starting that habit.
Louise Lewis [00:29:01]:
I think you said before, something about like they're at the bottom of the conveyor belt. Bottom of the conveyor belt. You're never thinking about you. You're never considering your needs and wants actually to start to look at all of these things. You get to start to build this rich, full life that is you and that embodies you. So you've kind of weaved a few bits in Mary, but I would love to hear for you, because your fear was or your thoughts were people that don't drink are boring. Like, what the hell is wrong with them? Now, I think most people that know you, if it was like, describe Mary in three words, they would pick fun as one of the words, right? And that is you now.
Mary [00:29:46]:
And I had to prove that to myself. I had to go out, and I went to networking events, and I went to things like, well, I want to go out, and I want to meet people. That was one of my things. When I stopped drinking, I wanted to make new friends. I wanted to meet more people. And I went to these things and the cold, lighter day and even in the evening, and I was sober, and I went. I had a good time. I had fun.
Mary [00:30:07]:
It was great.
Louise Lewis [00:30:09]:
And so what does fun look like for you now? What does the no alcohol fun version of Mary look like?
Mary [00:30:16]:
Oh, there's so many things. I like dancing. I love dancing. I want to go out dancing. I've got a bunch of parties lined up for over the Christmas time they're really looking forward to going to. I'm getting lots of sequins out. I think just being I thought that the loud, fun loving part of me was very tied to the drinking, and then I realized it actually wasn't. I think the Larry there was a loud, fun and leery or Larry maybe a bit kind of, yeah, that was the drinking.
Mary [00:30:47]:
But the sort of fun and outgoing and up for itness is still there. And I was kind of scared that I would lose that. That was all the drink and that wasn't me. My clients find the same thing. I think the bits that they're afraid that they'll lose of themselves, they don't they don't lose the bits they want to that they like, that they're happy with, I remember.
Louise Lewis [00:31:12]:
And it kind of touches on something that you said before, like, there can be this fear of, if I do this work, I'll lose my partner, which, by the way, comes up in whatever kind of personal development that we do. And I remember my first coach saying to me, sorry, Louise.
Mary [00:31:26]:
Just a second. Elizabeth. No, close the door, darling. I want to call.
Louise Lewis [00:31:33]:
Family. We alive.
Mary [00:31:35]:
Yeah, just second. She hasn't let the dog in. She has.
Louise Lewis [00:31:37]:
Sorry about that. My fear was the more of the work that I did on myself, the more it would move me away from my husband. And my coach was like, you're doing this work to have a better relationship with yourself and to bring more love into your life for yourself. She's like, More love is only ever going to create more love.
Mary [00:31:59]:
Yeah.
Louise Lewis [00:32:01]:
And she was so right. It doesn't mean every time one of us goes through quite a growth period, it's not like, oh, God, is this the thing that's finally going to end? But I think so often the fears are misplaced. And if the fears aren't misplaced, I think it's because people deep down know that the thing isn't right for them anyway.
Mary [00:32:19]:
Yeah. And there's always going to be fear of the unknown and fear of change. I mean, we don't like change as humans. Even when things are not great, it's kind of easier to the devil, you know, is an expression that we use a lot. But yeah, I think with I have never met anyone who drank less, who decided to drink less or stop drinking and hasn't felt their life get better as a result of it.
Louise Lewis [00:32:48]:
I love that. And so what happens to your clients? I know you've already talked about a bit, but I just bring it all together. What happens to your clients when they focus on them instead of alcohol?
Mary [00:33:02]:
Oh, it's amazing. I'm trying to think of one in particular. They just start realizing that they've got so much more control over their lives than they thought. They start recognizing. I have a client who's recognizing that there's a friend she needs to let go. That was just a drinking friend, someone that hasn't been there for her, and she's okay with that. I have a friend who was having a lot of, like she was literally had and started instructing a divorce lawyer, and they've come way back from that because she realizes now that she is not responsible for his emotions. They went away for a weekend.
Mary [00:33:46]:
He drank, he got drunk, he got cranky, he got whatever. And she said, Mary, you'd be so proud of me. I just let him I let him just get on with it. I didn't let him affect my mood. I stayed as I was. So it's just that sense of being having agency in their lives, having control of their lives. Yeah. I have a client who's applying for a PhD, and she's writing a second book.
Mary [00:34:14]:
It's lovely to witness. It's just so exciting to witness. Is that recognizing at first that, yes, you can stop drinking, you can drink less, and it is so much easier than you think possible, and they won't know themselves. You get to the end of three months, and they're kind of like, who am I? Who was that person?
Louise Lewis [00:34:33]:
I love that. It's like a new lease of life in a way.
Mary [00:34:38]:
It's absolutely a new lease of life, because we kind of talk about alcohol, freedom or freedom from alcohol. And it is for a lot of women, it is freedom from just thinking about it constantly, thinking about, am I going to drink? Am I not going to drink? I mean, for some of my clients, they just choose to not drink at all rather than moderate, because for them, the moderating creates more stress about how much am I going to drink tonight? Is there going to be drink there? What will I do? What will I say? Yeah. A lot of freedom. Yeah. And I think the thing that just.
Louise Lewis [00:35:08]:
Popped into my head and again, feel free to disagree, but it's a really key chapter in the journey home to yourself.
Mary [00:35:19]:
Yeah.
Louise Lewis [00:35:21]:
In that rediscovery of who am I? What do I want? What do I need? What matters to me? Oh, wait a minute. I get to matter.
Mary [00:35:31]:
Yeah. I get to matter. And sometimes when we get into these conversations and think, oh, it's selfish, selfish women putting themselves first, I say it's not about being this. I have no problem with describing myself as selfish, but I know some people do and say, you're just putting if you're in a family or you're in a relationship, how about looking at as your needs are equal. Your needs and wants and desires take equal footing to the people around you that you love. Not lesser than, not more than, but equal. And it helps them to sort of feel okay about going to that exercise class or doing things when they think they should be doing something else or doing something at home.
Louise Lewis [00:36:21]:
It just is so important. I think one of the things I sometimes say to people as well is if you have got a family and kids and a job and all of the rest of it, if you are the glue that holds it all together, you want to be taking care of that glue.
Mary [00:36:35]:
Yeah. You want to be Gorilla glue. You don't want to be stick.
Louise Lewis [00:36:41]:
I heard this lovely thing once, and I've never quite been able to repeat it in a way that was as well said as the first time I heard it, but it was something along the lines of we get so fixated by the to do list and we're so focused on what's on the to do list, but we forget that we are. The paper that the to do list is written on.
Mary [00:37:03]:
Yeah.
Louise Lewis [00:37:04]:
And if we aren't looking after us, there's nothing to write on.
Mary [00:37:09]:
I had a vision there of trying to trying to write on, like, kitchen towel or like, toilet paper. And it's dissolving as you're writing, rather than writing on some beautiful, thick kind of vellum parchment. So we want to be parchment. We don't want to be toilet paper. That.
Louise Lewis [00:37:28]:
Didn'T quite because I can't remember if we went off a tangent or if we finished this or not, but.
Mary [00:37:33]:
If you're talking to me, Louise, there was definitely a tangent. I know I'm really vibe all three.
Louise Lewis [00:37:39]:
We talked about the fact that it's really hard to do this work on our own. Right? It's really hard, actually, to take that lid off and be like, what am I thinking? What am I feeling? What do I need? They seem like simple questions, but used to putting everybody else first. They are confronting and they are scary. And so I would love for you, Mary, to share because I think if people are like, I kind of want to do this, but I'm a bit terrified because it's a very normal way to feel. Where can people come to learn more about you? Dip a toe in. What are their options? Because I love even as someone that doesn't drink and it's not like in my thing, but I love your social media. I love the stuff that you share because it's so inspiring. Like, you fill my feed with joy and it's not like, oh, joy, and.
Mary [00:38:34]:
I'm going to drink a bit less.
Louise Lewis [00:38:35]:
Because it's like, oh, joy. And I don't drink. But I guess it's the more you part into me. But if people are like, I would like to go and check out this chick, where can they find you?
Mary [00:38:47]:
They can find me on Facebook. I have a Facebook group. I'm going to get this right. Less wine, more you. Not the other way around. Might be another group that's not wine less. Wine more. You can also find me Mary Wall on Facebook and I'm at let's Win More.
Mary [00:39:05]:
You on Instagram and I'm Mary Wall on LinkedIn. I think that's pretty much where I am these days. I'm just dipping my toe in the water of LinkedIn, but I'm getting more familiar with it and I hope to sort of be there a bit more next year. But, yeah, don't be scared. Reach out. It's weekly coaching, but I'm very much I'll leave my clients little kind of love notes and voice messages during the week and I check in how they're getting on and I know if they have events coming up, so I kind of check in before an event just to remind them of what we talked about. And they leave me voice notes back saying how things went. And it's really nice.
Mary [00:39:44]:
There's a lot of support, there's a lot of accountability. It's not just once a week and I leave you hanging. One of my clients from the beginning was drinking seven nights a week. She just could not imagine not drinking. So rather than have one session a week, we had 320 minutes sessions for the first couple of weeks to really just be there. So there isn't the sense that there is no going alone. You don't need to do this alone.
Louise Lewis [00:40:11]:
I love that. And so what I'm hearing, bringing in the theme of the podcast, is that you help people to do it their.
Mary [00:40:18]:
Way, I help them do it their way. Yet whatever works best for them, their way.
Louise Lewis [00:40:24]:
And so you will find all of Mary's links in the show notes because they have been provided and they will be there. So you can go and check Mary out. And then just in terms of how you tend to work with people you mentioned three months before in terms of transformation. So share a little bit about your.
Mary [00:40:44]:
Program, if you can. Three months is the less wine, more you program, and that will depend on where somebody is at with their drinking. For some people, a lot of that time can be spent on the less wine element if they literally have not yet stopped drinking or they're very new to it. And some clients repeat. So if they might need to stay that bit longer, I have some clients, they're good to go after three months. Almost the whole three months is working on that. The more you, the more them. They're figuring out what they want and what they want to do next.
Louise Lewis [00:41:21]:
Is there anything else that you want to share before we finish?
Mary [00:41:25]:
All I can say is you're in control of drinking. You never have to drink if you don't want to. That's pretty much it. You can do it.
Louise Lewis [00:41:39]:
Yes.
Mary [00:41:45]:
I said I go all red when I put on this spot. Oh, God.
Louise Lewis [00:41:51]:
I got asked a question on a podcast I was on recently, and the question was, name someone that's, like, inspirational to you, that you really look up to. And I was like, yeah, I'm kind of scraping around for that.
Mary [00:42:04]:
I can't think of any.
Louise Lewis [00:42:06]:
And she was like, I think a lot of the time it's because we just hold ourselves on such a pedestal that no one meets those ideals. And I'm like, no, I just don't.
Mary [00:42:14]:
Think there's that many people you feel oprah.
Louise Lewis [00:42:21]:
So I know how you feel. This is our penultimate podcast episode. Before we have a couple of weeks off over the Christmas period, go and check Mary out. If you are kind of curious and interested to explore a life with less alcohol, you will be in very good hands. And I will see you next week when we are talking about how to rest and how we give ourselves permission to rest. It's a good one. All right, take care. See you soon.
Louise Lewis [00:42:55]:
Thanks, Mary.
Mary [00:42:56]:
Thank you.
