Maureen Benkovich (00:04.814)
Are you sick of feeling stuck in the cycle of over drinking and regret? Wondering if your anxiety or depression is tied to your drinking? I get it, I've been there. As a former weekend binge drinker turned alcohol freedom coach, I know how frustrating it is to feel trapped and not know how to break free. I'm Maureen Bankovich, founder of Sober Fit Chick Coaching and you're listening to Sober Fit Life. So if you're ready to ditch the hangovers and finally feel your best physically,
mentally and emotionally, you're in the right place. Get inspired by real stories from people who've regained their energy and joy by kicking alcohol to the curb. Plus hear from health and fitness experts who share practical tips and science -backed insights to help you thrive alcohol -free. Ready for a fresh start? Let's get sober fit.
Maureen Benkovich (01:02.444)
Welcome to my Sober Fit Life podcast. This is my very first interview and it's with me. I thought maybe you all would like to hear how I came about starting this podcast. And I thought it would be really fun to have my friend, mentor and business coach, Wendy McCallum on to interview me. So it wouldn't just be a monologue. So I hope you'll enjoy this time and hearing about Sober Fit Life. And here's Wendy to interview me.
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here today, Maureen. You know I believe in this podcast. I believe in you. I know a lot about your story personally, and I know about your story as a coach. And I was so excited when you were starting this podcast. And I have so many things that I want to talk about. We could probably talk for two hours, but I'm going to try to keep it brief and start with...
why did you decide to start this podcast? So you've been coaching for a while. What was the motivation behind starting My Sober Fit Life? So I've always been into fitness. I was a fitness trainer, a fitness competitor. I had my own Pilates personal training studio. Fitness has been a big part of my life. But also mental fitness has been a big part of my life. And really in the last few years,
since removing alcohol, I started to understand how important it is to take care of your mental health, just like you do your physical health. And that also goes along with emotional health. So they're really all work together, your physical, mental, and emotional. So to me, sober fit life is all encompassing. Yeah, and we had actually lots of conversations about that on the business side of things when you were talking about starting this podcast and we were working on kind of the niche and the focus of the podcast.
talking about the name and incorporating the word fit into it because that's always been part of your personal brand as a coach. And you were really worried that incorporating the word fit would have people assuming that this podcast was all about physical fitness. And it was really important to you that people listen to this podcast because they were interested and curious about other aspects of their fitness. Yes, because when I look back on my past and when I was drinking and I was fit,
Maureen Benkovich (03:22.764)
I looked from the outside, looking in, you would think, I've got everything going for me. I'm eating clean, I'm teaching classes, I'm training other people, I'm fit physically. But mentally, what was going on the inside was a whole other story. And eventually, no matter what it looks like on the outside, you're going to crumble if the inside, not taking care of your mental health. And of course, alcohol was not helping me in any way with my mental or physical fitness.
Yeah, and let's talk about that because I think this is really common. I certainly hear this a lot as a coach, also coaches in the alcohol sphere. hear, you know, I women who come to me and say really similar things like I'm doing all of the right things. And oftentimes, I'm going to say like, this is my only vice. Don't take this away from me. I'm like perfect everywhere else. I'm really taking care of myself. And so I think this is going to resonate with your listeners, your story around this, because it is so common. Tell us what
that look like? What did your life with alcohol look like in terms of how were you trying, how did you even make that work? Because you were so fit, I'm putting that in air quotes physically, doing all of the things, doing these like really challenging workouts, you know, on the regular and getting involved in like very challenging fitness events, like obstacle courses and training other people and all the rest of it. But
still managing to keep alcohol in your life. I would love it you would share a little bit about how you did that what that looked like. Well, it's actually a very common phenomenon in the fitness world. And I call it the detox -retox cycle. And so most people who are really conscious, they're drinking their green drinks, their smoothies, their protein, they're really watching their health in every other way. They're working out, but we're drinking, right?
And we're drinking, a lot of fitness people will not drink during the week. This is what I did and binge on the weekends. So, and I'm thinking, well, I'll just sweat it out starting on Monday and I'll punish myself with my workouts and I'll rehydrate. And then, you know, Thursday comes around and I do it all again. But really that whole thing, that whole cycle is so bad. So you think you're detoxing, but that is not what is really happening actually, as you know. Yeah. And so what.
Maureen Benkovich (05:40.66)
How long did this go on for, this cycle? Like when we're talking about your, I mean, I had a very long and illustrious drinking career that spanned decades. What was it like for you? How long were you able to do this detox to retox thing and keep your head above water? Well, as I said, know, there are a lot of fitness instructors who are doing it, they're teaching classes hungover. So when I'm in my late 20s, I can actually do this. You know, my metabolism is really working at a high rate.
and I'm kind of caught up in what everybody else is doing. But at the same time, I'm also dealing with an inner struggle of depression and grief. And I will go into this more in other podcasts deeper, but I was childless, not by choice. couldn't have children. And that became a real struggle for me. And I hid it, how much I was really struggling, how sad I really was. And I hid behind this camouflage mask of the drinking party girl,
you know, workout person who had it all together, but really inside I was crumbling. So I could keep up that facade probably in my later twenties, early thirties, but then it really started to fall apart as the depression increased and the anxiety increased. And I wasn't actually grieving, right? I wasn't moving through the grief process. I was staying stuck in grief of who am I without children? Look at all my friends are growing their families. And I was really staying stuck, but the
key thing to know is when you're drinking and you combine it with someone who has depression or anxiety and you're on antidepressants, this is a very dangerous combination. And it was exacerbating my depression and anxiety and making the antidepressants basically ineffective. And so I was actually hurting myself. Even though I was thinking, you know, I'm going to drink because I'm going to feel better, but that's only for a very short time. And then the cumulative
ramifications of drinking like that every weekend just caught up to me and I really just broke down. Yeah, it's so interesting to me how we all know rationally and intuitively, I think that alcohol is a depressant, but we don't make this connect. Like there's this disconnect here from a social perspective, we just disconnect this and see it as a coping tool that actually helps us with sadness and depression and grief.
Maureen Benkovich (08:06.796)
What you're saying is that it was just making everything worse for you. Was there like a turning point? Was there something? I mean, I know people ask me this all the time about my experience as a drinker. Was there a moment, something that sealed the deal for you where you thought I have got to change this? This is not working for me anymore. And what did that look like if it was there? Yeah, I would go into these deep depressive episodes and I could hide because I didn't have children. wasn't taking my kids to the school. I wasn't doing what everybody else was doing. So I'd hide for a week.
And then like I said, drink on the weekends. And sometimes I would come out of these cycles, but sometimes I wouldn't and it would get pretty dark and very, very depressive. And, I just realized I was in trouble. I was going down a very dark path and I started to put it together that after every time I binge on a weekend, my, go way down in my depression and anxiety and dark thoughts. And I started looking it up and I started looking up alcohol.
induced anxiety, alcohol induced depression. And there is so much information out there. It's just, we're not hearing it because all we're hearing is what we're marketed to, what we see, you know, this is what you do if you have a rough day, this is what everybody on television is doing. So, you know, I'm buying into all that. But then I started to put the pieces together and realize how much alcohol was actually hurting me. So I came to a point where was in a really low, dark place and it was scary. And I thought,
I got to stop drinking. I tried a number of times on my own and I even did like extreme fitness contest where I wouldn't drink for six and eight months at a time, but I never looked at the inside, what was going on. I never looked at the grief, the depression and the anxiety. I just went right back to drinking when the contests were over. So I knew I needed to do something different and something that would make alcohol no longer center stage in my life.
Do you remember that moment? Like I can distinctly remember sitting in a chair with a glass of wine in my hand and thinking like, I don't even like this anymore, but I don't know how to stop or change it. Do you remember what it felt like to be stuck? I remember that moment because it was actually in September and I was going out to lunch with friends and our lunches would turn into dinners. And, and I literally wrote in my journal cause I was at this time trying to cut back and I wrote,
Maureen Benkovich (10:31.416)
Dear God, please let me drink two white wine spritzers and not drink martinis. I really want my friends to support me. I'm going to talk to them about it at lunch. So we go to lunch and I tell my friends, they're like, well, good luck to you. I'm having a martini. They both ordered. I'm like, yeah, screw it. You know, so I had a martini, came home smashed again. That night my husband was upset. He's like, why can't you just have two?
and woke up at three in the morning. Like I always was extremely anxious. I literally got out of the bed, got on the floor on my knees and said, God, I can't do this without you. I have tried and tried and I'm not going to make it if I don't stop this. And so I need your help. And then a coaching program that I had been looking into, I signed up the next day. And so that was the last day I drank. That was September
14th, so this September 14th, it'll be three years since I've had alcohol, but I waited two weeks till this coaching program I signed up for started. So I was basically white knuckling it, but I was determined and I just journaled and journaled and wrote and felt my feelings for the first time, right? Cause I've been all these years numbing my feelings, numbing all the things that were always boiling up inside of me. just would suppress them. So I just let it all out. And that was actually a really healthy thing to do.
Mm Yeah. And what was your experience with the other side? Like, how did that when you when you went through that, you felt the emotions? The reason I'm sort of thinking back to what you said about how you, you know, you were sold this bill of goods that in order to be happy, we need to drink like drinking is just part of being a happy, beautiful, successful, fun person and everybody who can control alcohol, you know, everyone who
is those things can control alcohol. And then when you're the person who feels like you can't control it, it feels like it's your fault. And it feels like you can't be happy without it, right? And there's this feeling like we dread the idea of changing our relationship with alcohol or drinking less because we think that actually we'll be more depressed and sadder and worse off if we remove the substance from our life. I'm just curious as to what your experience was on the other side. Once you took a break from alcohol and started doing all of this work,
Maureen Benkovich (12:56.47)
What changed in terms of your, your own mental health, your own emotional health? Yeah, that's a good question because I really dreaded it because I had built my identity around this party girl. Hey, come party with me when you get a babysitter, cause I'm living a carefree life and look how happy I am over here. So I didn't know who I was going to be without being this party girl that really I had trained my friends to come to expect. So it was pretty scary when I said to my friends who I typically party with, listen, I'm
I'm not going to drink anymore. and I got some support. got some, the usual like, what are you kidding me? Come on. It's no big deal. You're not that bad. You know, we all have fun, but I knew I was determined. You know, I had to make a change for my mental health. but what I've seen on the other side of alcohol has been incredible. The way I explain it to my clients is like getting rid of the alcohol is just that first big domino. And you have to knock that one over.
And then there's all these other dominoes that then you can work on with a clear head. So I could actually, for the first time, I grieve. I grieve the loss of not being a mother during holidays. It really hit me. It was actually in year two of no alcohol. And I really felt it and it hurt and it sucked, you know, but that's, that's grieving, but I literally moved through it. And I found a support group called the Childless Collective, which again, I'll talk about on this podcast later.
But I was taking action now. I was doing things. When I was drinking, I would think about all the things I wanted to do and dreams I had, but I didn't act on any of them. I was too tired, too busy being hung over and trying to recover during the week and act like I had it all together. That's exhausting. So, you know, as soon as I was in a coaching program, in about two months into it, I'd stopped drinking. was like, I'm done. That's all I needed to understand was,
The physiology, the chemistry of alcohol, it's addictive, it's not my fault, but I can change it. Then I was empowered. And then the next step of course is I'm like, I want to help other people understand this. I've always been a coach of sorts as a trainer, and it just seemed like a natural step. And I wanted to help educate other people to know it's not their fault. This is actually a very dangerous addictive drug that we are all drinking in our alcohol saturated society. And I want to help people.
Maureen Benkovich (15:25.142)
learn the truth so they can become free. So to really have a passion, I mean, I haven't had a passion for years. I was so stuck on who am I without being a mother? I couldn't imagine anything else. So now I have a real passion for helping other people and it's in alignment with my values. All that drinking I was doing and getting wasted on the weekends, that was not in alignment with my values. And that's another reason why it felt so bad. I was doing something just
really was out of integrity with myself. So now I feel very much in integrity with myself and I have a mission and a purpose and it makes me get up every day and want to do new things. And I meet wonderful people like you and all my other coach friends all over the world who are all trying to inspire people in their various areas of coaching. So it's really just opened up a whole new chapter of life for me and I'm enjoying it.
Yeah, I love that. And that's that post alcohol transformation. That's just like the most special thing to see. I love what you said earlier, I want to spend a minute on it and just get your thoughts on this. Because I think it's important for your listeners to understand from your story and for their own for their own experiences, and whatever, you know, their journey, that taking alcohol out of the picture doesn't solve all your problems. And it doesn't eliminate all your anxiety and depression. I've
I've certainly have met people for whom it has had a radical impact on their anxiety or their depression. But what it does do, I think we probably can both agree, is that it puts you in so much better of a position to take the next steps and to do whatever the next thing is that's going to be helpful for you in terms of getting better and improving those things. First of all, do you agree with that? And did you notice
even though obviously you had lots of big emotions and things to process and still had complicated, your mental health was still complicated after you left alcohol behind. Did you notice an immediate improvement in like your baseline, either around the anxiety or the depression? mean, sort of like, you know, when you were waking up before when you were still drinking on a scale of one to 10, what was your mood versus afterwards? And what was your anxiety before and after?
Maureen Benkovich (17:48.43)
Yeah, sure, because I was waking up at three in the morning, my heart racing, and I did it again, beating myself up and not understanding also the chemical reaction that was going on in my body because alcohol and what your body does to try to get rid it. But now I remember in the first few months, it could take 10, 20 days, but I started sleeping better. And that was amazing. like, wow, I slept through the night. That was incredible. And so of course, if you sleep better,
You're less irritable and cranky. And I also had really destroyed my gut from drinking. And so over time, my gut was healing. So that was starting to feel better and my skin was looking better. you know, I didn't really drop weight. Like a lot of people come to me like, I want to lose weight and I'm going to stop drinking. That might be a side effect. It might not be a side effect, right? If you're already a person who's working out, you might lose a few pounds and you might lose a lot. I don't like to make that promise to people.
But it's certainly you have more energy to really enjoy your workouts, to focus on your workouts, to eat right. Now your gut is absorbing nutrients. So all of that was, was, yes, definitely starting to feel better. And there was energy. I finally was having energy. I think that's the biggest change. it's continued, boy hit my mic, it's continued to get better, you know, as every year. And also learning to deal with the depression.
with other ways to address my central nervous system. So I have a lot of tools in my toolkit now that I didn't have before. Alcohol was the tool. And now I have breath work. I have nutrition. I have yoga, which I'm doing. I was always more like lift weights, know, hardcore stuff. Yoga is so good for me. So I have a whole toolbox, journaling, do it all the time. Morning routine. I didn't have a morning routine because I was hungover. That's what my morning routine was. It was like just trying to
get up at the very last minute, you know, and now I get up early. I'm an early morning person. That is amazing. Yeah, that's so great. Talk about your experience around peace of mind. Like you said, before you made this change, you were up in the middle of the night at 3am, you know, with anxiety. I'm assuming it was sort of like what it looked like for me where you're like,
Maureen Benkovich (20:10.156)
Why did I drink again? I promised myself I wouldn't do this. You're beating yourself up over that. You're feeling like a failure, replaying the events of the night before. You're stressed out about how you're gonna cope the next day, all of that stuff. How did that, the experiment with taking alcohol out of your life, how did that impact your sort of base level of...
I call it peace of mind and I'm careful to use that word with you because I know that you had other things still that you were dealing with and so you weren't necessarily feeling peaceful all the time. did you notice a shift there? Because a lot of the women that I talk to about alcohol say that is the biggest like bang for your buck right out of the gate thing. It's like somehow surprising to us that we're no longer waking up at three in the morning beating the heck out of ourselves. But what was your experience with that? Absolutely, because when you're drinking and especially when I was binge drinking on the weekends, it was chaos.
And chaos is not restful. if I would black out, I would have blackouts. So talk about waking up and having extreme anxiety. Like, what did I do? What did I say? Trying to go through your phone, take a look around, yeah, it looks like I washed my face and okay, I got my pajamas. And you know, that's a horrible feeling. And then trying to hide it, trying to act like none of that bothers you. That is not peaceful or restful at all. So now,
It's funny, sometimes I still have to remind myself, I think a friend of mine came to visit here having a girls weekend, she also stopped drinking. And both of us were like, should we get an Uber? And we were like, yeah, we don't have to do that anymore. Sometimes you just have these realizations and life is so much more simple without drinking. it's, I mean, simple in a peaceful, calm way because you don't have to manage this thing that is running your life.
Yeah, yeah, I totally hear you on that. feel that like I just remember it, it constantly, it was constantly in my mind, I was constantly thinking in some way about my drinking either what I drank the night before, whether it was bad, whether it was good, I mean, it was never good. And then, you know, what I needed to do today to make up for it, which I guess is that re talks to detox cycle that you're talking about. then
Maureen Benkovich (22:20.204)
you know, whether I was going to drink tonight or not drink tonight. And if so, like, what was that going to look like? And what were the rules going to be around the drinking that I was going to be able to live with and all the rest of it, it just consumes so much mental space. I'm curious about the fitness, the fitness side of things for you. And what you noticed there is somebody who was just has been a lifelong athlete and just so committed to physical fitness.
What did you notice if anything in terms of your ability to perform physically after leaving alcohol behind? Yes, because I would show up to my workouts. I paid a trainer, a guy I've been with forever. He's a fabulous trainer. He's going to be on my podcast. And I would sometimes show up hungover. He would know it. It would be like the elephant in the room that we couldn't talk about. And I would just be putting in the motions. You I wasn't really trying to
get the most out of flexing my muscles or workout hard. I just was like, check the box. At least I can say I showed up at my workout. That's so much different now where I'm like, okay, we have goals. We have long -term goals. This is what we're working on this week. I'm going to try to get better. Instead of just surviving and checking that box, I'm actually, again, with a purpose. I'm working out with a purpose. I'm going to be 60. I want to be strong. I want my bones to be strong. I want my muscles to be strong. So I'm focused and I mean in a good way.
you know, crazy about it. But before it was just check in the box, go home, maybe lay on the couch, eat something. I don't do that anymore. I'm busy all day. Love my workouts, get them in early. Yeah. I do want to share one thing with you too, the difference with alcohol is we as women are sold a bill of goods that it's empowering to drink like men do. And as you know, we're on the rise. We're almost
equal with where men are drinking, the levels of drinking. And just like with cigarettes, you've come a long way, baby. The cigarette industry used to market to women about smoking and it was empowering and sexy. We bought it hook, line and sinker with shows like Sex and the City and This is What Women Do Who Are Independent. It is actually one of the most disempowering things in my opinion, in many, many opinions. There's more
Maureen Benkovich (24:38.702)
there's more sexual violence, there's more assaults. You are not empowered. You are not in your right mind and you're not making choices that are benefiting you. So I feel more empowered now than I have in, I don't know, since I was a teenager. Yeah, I love drinking since I was a teenager. Yeah. I love that so much. One of the things that we talk about the most in my groups is that, I think I alluded to it at the beginning, that idea of like this...
I'm the good girl. Everything I do is good. This is my one thing I do that's like not so good. Don't take it away from me. This is my act of rebellion, my one act of rebellion. And I always say, you've probably heard me say this before, but I always say when 80, whatever it is, 84 % of North American adults drink and 50 % of them are like, wish they drank a little less, like are questioning or a lot less. They're questioning their drinking. Like what on earth is rebellious about being a drinker?
Like you're actually in the majority with the majority, going with the herd, listening to the marketing, believing what you're being sold and told, largely frankly by the patriarchs, if you're female. And so the act of rebellion for me is the conscious positive choice to be a non -drinker in a drinking society. So I love that for so, you know how I feel about that. I love that for so many reasons. I'm so glad you raised Yeah, I feel like a badass. Yeah, me too. I'm a badass because I don't...
drink and I am going against the grain and it feels really empowering. Yeah, it is. is. It is really is an act of empowering. I think it's the most radical act of self care that a woman can engage in. I agree. So if it is something that you this is for anyone listening who is feeling like it's taking more than it's giving, changing, doing the work, digging into this, changing your relationship with alcohol and then doing the work that Maureen's talking about that she did post alcohol. That's been really, really hard for her.
that she's going to talk about on other episodes. And I can't wait to listen to those because I know Maureen's story really well. And it's so inspiring. But that work is the work that is just the most empowering and exciting. And that is such radical self care to do that. And it just leads to it just opens up your life. We I think we all think that taking alcohol out is going to somehow narrow our life and make our life smaller and our choices and we're going to have less fun and we're going to feel, you
Maureen Benkovich (27:02.478)
like we're not, don't fit in and all the rest of it. And really my experience certainly with it has been, it's just opened so many things opposite. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And that's why I want to do Sober Fit Life because I want to bring this, you know, to my community, to women, to friends and everybody that actually, you know, it's so empowering to choose not to drink alcohol and you don't have to label it. You don't have to judge it. But the more you learn about
the science of it and I love the science of it, the brain chemistry, the more you learn that you actually can make changes and you can make habit change and you can choose something different. That's again, empowering and that's what I wanna bring to my audience. And what would you say if there's somebody listening and they're thinking like, I don't know if it's that bad. I'm not sure if, or I don't think I'm an alcoholic.
What would you say? And so I'm not sure whether it's worth like doing the work or trying to take a break or. Yeah. Again, because we've been sold a bill of goods that unless you are an end stage drinker who needs medical intervention and, and, know, we'll call you an alcoholic, then why would you possibly need to look at your drinking? You're fine. But if you are questioning it and you're wondering, I wonder if my life would be better without alcohol. wonder if it's no longer serving me. That's enough for you to know that.
Maybe I should get curious and look into taking a break, a guided break with a coach I think is fabulous because you do the work, right? I talked to you about times when I didn't drink for six and eight months, but I didn't take a look at why I drank and all the things I was trying to cover up. So taking a break and really kind of thinking about why you drink and learning the truth about how it truly does affect your brain chemistry. We're all concerned about getting older and aging and our gray matter.
Alcohol hurts us. Alcohol is really dangerous. So when you start to learn things like that, then you can make a choice. And again, not to beat the dead horse, but that's empowering to make a choice. no, I totally agree. And like, just leave some room for the possibility that that maybe some of the things that you think about what it's going to be like on the other side are wrong, you know, and, and just get curious with it. And I think this podcast is such a great place for people to
Maureen Benkovich (29:25.868)
to indulge in that curiosity. They're gonna learn things from you every week. They're gonna hear different people's stories. They're gonna get different perspectives and lenses on this. And they're gonna go away with some really practical strategies and tools that they can start using in their own life to start finding out for themselves whether this thing actually is the right thing for them and whether they want to stay where they are, they wanna make change. So I applaud you for doing.
this podcast and for all the work that you do and for sharing this part of your story today. I know it was just like a quick overview of your story and you're gonna be talking more, I'm sure, as you go forward about your drinking story, but not more importantly, but for me, I just think it's the piece of your story that just makes you so unique and such an amazing coach and human being. And that is your very, very hard experiences over the last couple of decades.
around being childless, not by choice. And I have a personal story. I understand some of what you have felt. And so I have like a special soft spot for this as an area that we need to be talking about more as women. And I love how you have really over the course of the last year realized like,
The thing that I want to be talking to people about is not just their physical fitness, it's their mental fitness and their emotional fitness and their physical fitness together. Because all three of those things are what make us feel truly well. And that you're going to be addressing those issues on the podcast as you go forward too. think it's so terrific. mind body connection is real and it's strong. And so you really can't address one without the other and not enough people are talking about depression because we're also we feel shame around that. And we try to hide it and believe me, any
but he was depressed and listening out there, you know you're amazing at hiding it. We all are. So I'm honest about it. I'll share my stories. Other people will share their stories to know that you can get help. You can choose something other than alcohol and it's going to help you so much in the long run. So I hope to inspire people to take a look at that and take care of their mental as well as their physical health. Well, I have absolutely no doubt that you will continue to do that. You're already doing that.
Maureen Benkovich (31:42.39)
I am so appreciative of you and just honored to be on here and be able to interview you about your story. Hopefully I did you proud and there's nothing big that I missed. Is there anything I missed that you want to talk about? No, you made it so much easier to tell parts of my story and introduce this podcast. I'm to have Wendy on it another time to share what she does because she's amazing and teaches and shares with other people how to coach. That is such a skill and it's something you really need.
guidance and Wendy is my mentor and I'm so appreciative you were here and took the time today to interview me. Thank you. my gosh, my pleasure. Thanks, Maureen. Thanks, Wendy.
Maureen Benkovich (32:31.32)
Thanks for tuning in to Sober Fit Life. If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to leave a review. It really helps others find the show. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram at SoberFitChick LLC for more tips and support. If you're ready to take the next step, grab my free alcohol -free weekend toolkit and start living your sober fit life. Stay inspired, stay sober fit.
