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If you recently saw the revised drinking guidelines in Canada and gasped, you’re not alone. Most Canadians are drinking more than two drinks a week, the new low-risk maximum.

Ann Dowsett Johnston is an award-winning journalist and the bestselling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, a book named one of the top 10 of the year by the Washington Post. Ann is also now a psychotherapist, and my friend, mentor and writing coach.  

Ann joins me for a discussion about the alcohol consumption guidelines in Canada released by the Centre on Substance Use and Addiction in January, which replace the 2011 Low-Risk Drinking Guidelines. The new guidelines present a continuum of health risks associated with different levels of alcohol consumption, including the risks of breast and colon cancer, heart disease, and stroke. Ann and I discuss what now constitutes low-risk, moderate, and...

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In this short podcast episode, I provide listeners with an update on my abrupt transition to empty nester this fall, including the blindsiding grief I felt this spring and how I worked through it to find the joy on the other side. Since my children are only seven months apart, and in the same grade, they both left their childhood home for university residences the same week.

I share a piece I wrote called “Emptying the Nest” that will resonate with mothers everywhere, where I explore how it feels as your young adult children begin their slow leaving process and then disappear from your home.

If you’ve got children (or nieces, nephews or step-kids or godchildren), don’t skip this one – it’s short and bittersweet but also universal in the emotions involved in this natural transition period in midlife.

Please feel free to share this episode with any moms (or dads!) you know who are in...

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In this short podcast episode, I provide listeners with an update on my commitment to “creating a life I don’t feel the need to escape from” before my transition to empty nester this fall, including my re-discovery of my love of writing. I share a piece called “Taking Care of Me” that will resonate with busy, worn-out women everywhere, where I explore what it really means to take care of yourself and the magic that’s available to you when you finally accept that you’re in the driver’s seat of your own life.

Don’t skip this one – it’s short and sweet but it also might be just thing you need to hear to take back some control over your one wild and precious life!

Does your life look great on paper, but it still feels like something’s missing? Grab your free Blueprint for Change Workbook here: www.wendymccallum.com/blueprint

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Following up on Episode 49: “This Is 50”, I provide listeners with an update on my commitment to “trying all the things” and to “filling up my joy bucket” to help smooth the transition to empty nester that is coming soon. 

I share the story of how I re-discovered my love of writing (which I discussed in last week's podcast with author Ann Dowsett Johnston, who is also my writing coach), and I read a piece (*gulp, this was the scariest thing I've done in a while!) that I hope will resonate with many of the busy women who listen to this podcast, about what we miss out on when we rush through life with the goal of always achieving, and don’t slow down enough to get present for the ordinary, in-between days (where all the joy lives.)

Does your life look great on paper, but it still feels like something’s missing? Grab your free Blueprint for Change Workbook here: ...

Watch the podcast, above, or listen below.

Ann Dowsett Johnston is an award-winning journalist and the bestselling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, a book named one of the top 10 of the year by the Washington Post. Ann is also now a psychotherapist, and my mentor and writing coach. 

Ann joins me for a discussion about the new face of women’s recovery, and the powerful role that writing can play for women recovering from addictions and over-drinking, eating disorders, illness, and trauma. We also discuss the new ending Ann has planned for the 10th-anniversary edition of Drink and what Ann is exploring in her second book, which she’s hard at work on now.

We discuss why, almost 10 years later, as Ann so aptly stated in Drink, alcohol is still “the modern woman’s steroid”, and how the overwhelm and stress of the pandemic has spiked drinking levels and continued to normalize women’s drinking as a...