It's Not About the Alcohol

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 stress cycle and finally give your body what it's actually asking for.
Key Takeaways:
Your desire to drink at night isn't weakness. It's your nervous system asking for relief the only way it knows how.

Your body doesn't speak English—she speaks energy, movement, rhythm, breath, and sensation.

The habit that needs to break isn't how much you drink. It's the belief that you have to stay in constant motion.

Expanding capacity isn't about doing less. It's about teaching your body how to hold more without living in survival mode.

When you learn to give your body what it actually needs, the drink becomes optional—not because you're white-knuckling, but because you're not desperate anymore.

The Three Tools:
Shaking/Swaying — All animals shake off stress. Release the energy that got stuck in your muscles.

The Voo Exercise — Deep breath in, then "vooooo" until all the air is out. Stimulates your vagus nerve.

Bilateral Stimulation — Left-right rhythmic movement (walking, tapping shoulders, tapping thighs) tells your nervous system you're not frozen.

If you are ready to get support from a community of women who are co-creating this change with intention and clarity— Click here to BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL. 
 
Do you want help from Colleen with a situation you're struggling with? Click here to submit your question for Colleen's NEW Q&A episodes. Your name will not be mentioned on air! 
 
Find me on:
YouTube: @HangoverWhisperer
TikTok: @hangoverwhisperer
Instagram: @thehangoverwhisperer 
X (Twitter) : @NotAboutTheAlc

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 wire our bodies to seek relief wherever we can find it.
This episode explores why healing often makes the urge to numb louder at first, how shame removes our sense of choice, and why compassion isn't a feeling you wait for — it's a perspective you practice. Colleen reframes healing not as fixing what's broken, but as recovering the parts of yourself that adapted to survive.
This is a conversation about why the drink was never the point — and how emotional sobriety begins when you understand what the behavior has been protecting you from.
 
🔑 Key Takeaways
Why drinking is often about relief, not desire



How chronic stress and insecurity train the nervous system to numb



Why shame keeps you reactive instead of choiceful



The difference between fixing yourself and retrieving yourself



Why compassion works better than willpower



How healing becomes possible when responsibility feels empowering, not punitive



This episode is a reminder that the behavior makes sense — and that understanding it is what gives you your power back.
 
If you are ready to get support from a community of women who are co-creating this change with intention and clarity— Click here to BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL. 
 
Do you want help from Colleen with a situation you're struggling with? Click here to submit your question for Colleen's NEW Q&A episodes. Your name will not be mentioned on air! 
 
Find me on:
YouTube: @HangoverWhisperer
TikTok: @hangoverwhisperer
Instagram: @thehangoverwhisperer 
X (Twitter) : @NotAboutTheAlc

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 due to hormone changes, she's spent the last decade having obligatory sex with her husband. Because a good wife takes care of her man, right? But also having to put up with his temper tantrums and passive aggressive behavior when she doesn't put out has left her with a mountain of frustration and resentment that until now, she didn't have the tools to process.
This episode is about the emotional straightjacket so many women find themselves in. How having sex to keep the peace forces you to disconnect from not just your sexual energy, but your life force energy.  Which is why it makes complete sense that you'd rather drink alone than be intimate with the man you love. 
In this episode, I cover:
→ The functional freeze: when you're going through the motions but feel dead inside
→ How obligatory sex shuts down desire for everything—not just sex
→ Why you need to stop participating in the hostage negotiation over your vagina
→ How the cultural programming that says women are responsible for men's sexual needs is destroying your marriage
→It's not menopause that's disabling your libido
→ The only way to rekindle desire is to give yourself what you want (especially when what you want is to be left alone)
→ Why the relationship you need to focus on repairing is NOT with your partner, but with yourself
This episode is for you if:
You'd rather drink alone than have sex with your partner

You've lost passion for things you used to love

You feel like you're just going through the motions

You've been "going along to get along" for so long you don't know who you are

If you are ready to get support from a community of women who are co-creating this change with intention and clarity— Click here to BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL. 
 
Do you want help from Colleen with a situation you're struggling with? Click here to submit your question for Colleen's NEW Q&A episodes. Your name will not be mentioned on air! 
 
Find me on:
YouTube: @HangoverWhisperer
TikTok: @hangoverwhisperer
Instagram: @thehangoverwhisperer 
X (Twitter) : @NotAboutTheAlc

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 decision itself. Through the lens of emotional sobriety, Colleen introduces a simple but powerful framework for discerning truth from fear by tuning into the body's signals instead of the mind's panic.
You'll hear how stress, overwhelm, and safety each create completely different "radio stations" in your nervous system — and why decisions made from red- or yellow-light states tend to repeat old patterns, even when they look logical on paper. Colleen also shares how learning to separate identity truth from situational escape changed everything in her own relationships.
🔑 Key Takeaways
Why urgency is a feeling, not a fact — and why most decisions can wait



The three nervous system states (green, yellow, red) and how they distort decision-making



How to tell the difference between truth and a stress-based escape plan



Why the only thing you can truly "know" is who you are — not what you should do



How fear, guilt, and shame keep you choosing the familiar instead of the aligned



Why there is no "right" decision — only decisions you learn from



What actually changes when you trust yourself to handle whatever comes next



This episode is a reminder that clarity doesn't come from forcing answers — it comes from safety, self-trust, and the willingness to sit still long enough to hear yourself.


If you are ready to get support from a community of women who are co-creating this change with intention and clarity— Click here to BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL. 
 
Do you want help from Colleen with a situation you're struggling with? Click here to submit your question for Colleen's NEW Q&A episodes. Your name will not be mentioned on air! 
 
Find me on:
YouTube: @HangoverWhisperer
TikTok: @hangoverwhisperer
Instagram: @thehangoverwhisperer 
X (Twitter) : @NotAboutTheAlc

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 and chips after a fight with her husband—even though she swore that she was done with all that. I'm breaking down the difference between a habit and a survival strategy, why your nervous system reaches for food and alcohol when you're overwhelmed, and what it actually takes to change this pattern for good.
In this episode, I cover:
→ The difference between a habit and a survival strategy (and why it matters)
→ Why negative goals ("drink less") don't work and what to focus on instead
→ How I was stuck in this pattern for two decades—and what finally changed
→ Why humans default to victimhood and how empowerment must be learned
This episode is for you if:
You've worried about "failing" to keep your New Year's resolution

You find yourself in the same pothole every night

You're exhausted from fighting a battle you keep losing

You think you know what you should and don't understand why you can't get yourself to do it

You're ready to stop surviving and start thriving

 
If you are ready to get support from a community of women who are co-creating this change with intention and clarity— Click here to BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL. 
 
Do you want help from Colleen with a situation you're struggling with? Click here to submit your question for Colleen's NEW Q&A episodes. Your name will not be mentioned on air! 
 
Find me on:
YouTube: @HangoverWhisperer
TikTok: @hangoverwhisperer
Instagram: @thehangoverwhisperer 
X (Twitter) : @NotAboutTheAlc