I’m Back — And We’re Talking About the Part of Addiction Nobody Talks AboutI’m Back — And We’re Talking About the Part of Addiction Nobody Talks About
Stop Drinking and Start Living
Mary Wagstaff returns to Stop Drinking and Start Living to share how her break reshaped her views on sobriety, family addiction, and faith. She reflects on the impact of addiction on loved ones and offers a new way to see boundaries, triggers, and purpose in recovery.
30:28•28 Oct 2026
Sobriety, Family Addiction and Faith: Mary Wagstaff Returns to the Mic
Episode Overview
- Changing external circumstances, like a podcast title, doesn’t replace the need for genuine rest and inner change.
- Effective recovery work needs to look beyond symptoms and address daily thoughts, habits, triggers, and the “loading” process.
- Addiction can place intense and often unseen strain on family members, whose stress response may be as severe as the person using substances.
- Reframing addiction as “not about me” helps reduce shame, strengthens boundaries, and opens space for healthier support.
- Having a purpose or devotion beyond oneself can cut through ambivalence and make long-term behavioural change more sustainable.
“Girl. It is not about you. It was never about you. It doesn’t define who you are.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation on **Stop Drinking and Start Living** catches Mary Wagstaff back at the mic after a much-needed break, with fresh clarity on addiction, recovery, and faith. You'll hear her talk honestly about why she changed the show title and why she’s now returning to the original name, admitting that what she really needed wasn’t a rebrand, but rest and reflection.
Mary shares how coaching women through sobriety continued even while she stepped away from recording, and how supporting her partner Matthew through his addiction showed her how thin many treatment approaches can be.
She points out that some programmes focus heavily on relapse prevention and symptoms, without looking at the “daily and weekly thoughts, habits, triggers, loading… we don’t just get triggered, we get loaded and then we trigger.” That idea alone may make you rethink how you view your own patterns. A big focus here is the often unseen impact of addiction on families and loved ones.
Mary suggests that the stress, hope, chaos, and nervous system overload can be “actually often sometimes worse than the addict themselves,” especially for women trying to hold everything together. She’s clear that “in some way, we’re all recovering from something,” whether it’s alcohol, porn, complaining, or any other compulsive habit. Spirituality runs through the episode as Mary talks about her conversion to a Christ-centred faith and how devotion gives direction beyond self-help.
She challenges old ideologies, invites a shift back to simple biology and data, and makes space for different beliefs while still saying plainly that “we have to have something outside of ourselves to reference.” Her core message to anyone caught up in addiction dynamics is disarming and hopeful: “Girl. It is not about you.
It was never about you.” That reframing opens the door to new boundaries, less shame, and a more grounded way to support yourself and the people you love. So, are you ready to see both sobriety and family addiction from a different angle?
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