Latest / Radically Genuine / 164. Beyond Willpower: A Former Biochemist's Guide to Sobriety w/ Gill Tietz

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164. Beyond Willpower: A Former Biochemist's Guide to Sobriety w/ Gill Tietz · Radically Genuine

• Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (00:01.538) Welcome to the Radically Genuine podcast. am Dr. Roger McFillin. The average American who drinks doubles their alcohol intake between Thanksgiving and New Year's. The lights are twinkling, the music is playing, and everywhere you look, there's another toast to be made. For many, the holiday season sparkles with celebration. But for those struggling with alcohol, whether in recovery, contemplating sobriety, trying to manage their drinking, this time of year can feel like navigating a minefield in a party hat. And here's something that might surprise you. That one little drink, you know, the one drink that we've been told is good for us, that comforting myth about red wine being heart healthy. Well, the science is telling us a very different story now. For decades, we were assured that moderate drinking could actually protect us against certain diseases. that it was good for our hearts, that a glass of wine a day kept the doctor away. The truth, even that single drink impacts our health in ways we're only beginning to understand. Really, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. Today, we're having an honest conversation about the reality of alcohol, especially now during the holidays. Not the glossy Instagram, perfect pictures of champagne flutes, but the real stories, the hard truths. And most importantly, the hope and strategies for taking care of yourself when it seems like every gathering comes with a side of social pressure. To have this conversation, I'm proud to bring on Jill Teitz, who's a former biochemist whose own struggles with alcohol led to the creation of Sober Powered, an amazing podcast and community. She helps people learn how to manage stress and emotions without needing to use self-destructive behavior to turn down the intensity. She has a great science background that helps people really understand their problems with alcohol and how to make lasting changes. Her own personal story and her own lived experiences, I think invaluable. think many people will be able to connect with it. Jill, I welcome you to the radically genuine podcast. Gill Tietz (02:18.892) Thank you so much for having me and thanks for such a nice intro. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (02:22.862) Well, I appreciate you coming on. I've been listening to your work recently as I was trying to find someone who has real expertise in this area. And, you you stood out from the crowd, in my opinion, from your work on other podcasts and your own podcast is amazing because of its really digestible. practical strategies to help people. like you really understand what people are going through. So if possible, I'd like to just introduce you to my audience a little bit. If you can just tell us your own personal story and how you've gotten to this place in life. Gill Tietz (02:53.524) Yeah, so I guess it all started from me not being able to control my own drinking. And I tried very hard to figure that out over the years. I Googled everything I could. I tried everything Google said, and it still wouldn't work. And then eventually my consequences kept building until I really had to just accept that I can't change the way that I drink. And I really bought into the stigma and feeling like it was my fault and I'm a weak little loser with no self-control. It must have been a choice. And I was terrified of being labeled as an alcoholic and all of that, all that that brings. So I just wanted to understand why me. I hung out with heavy drinkers. My husband can party when he feels like it, but nobody else seemed to have the same problem that I did. So since I was working in biotech at the time, I was used to doing literature searches. So I just started applying that to my drinking. And then that's what eventually led to my podcast and the work that I did today. But it was really just all about, is this my fault? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (04:09.752) So how did you start drinking? If we can kind of go back in time a little bit, how did this become part of your lifestyle and ultimately something that you lost control of? Gill Tietz (04:22.356) Yeah, so I started drinking late, thankfully, because if I started drinking earlier, it could have been worse. But I was bullied growing up, so I was never invited to anything. So I didn't have any opportunity. So that was really protective. So I didn't drink in high school. And because I was bullied for eight years straight, basically, I felt uncomfortable putting myself out there in college socially. so didn't go to the frat parties that everyone else was going to. I studied, I was going to school for chemistry, so it took a lot of effort, and I just focused on that. For the most part, I made friends with the other kids in my class who wanted to study. It wasn't until I went to grad school that I really started to drink. And the only reason I did, I was actually very comfortable not drinking. It was a decision that I made because I grew up observing my mom drink to cope with a bad marriage and I said that's not gonna be me. I am not going to drink. So I used to date, socialize, whatever and it was never a thing. I was never self-conscious. But when I went to grad school, every single person drank except for me. The professors drank with us. There was alcohol. on people's desks, there were parties in the school, and I had this really overwhelming feeling of no one's gonna like me again. Like it seemed like grad school was a fresh start, and I thought that I would be left behind if I didn't participate. So I just started ordering what the person next to me was ordering, because I didn't know how to drink at that point. And it took a couple times, but the first time that I got a proper buzz on, I got why everybody was doing it. And then I quickly caught up. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (06:25.39) You speak to the kind of the cultural aspect of this is, you know, depending on the norms of the group that you're with is that alcohol can be something that is just integrated into the entire social scene. It could be part of. relaxing and a way of unwinding after a long day. It's a way of connecting. And from me personally, from working with people who've struggled with alcohol, I've learned that many have kind of a skewed idea about what is normal and typical drinking. They tend to overestimate how many people drink and how much. So what is normal and typical drinking from your... understanding. Do we even have statistics on this? Gill Tietz (07:14.112) I'm really glad that you bring that up actually because that is a huge part of it. And when you feel like everybody drinks and everybody drinks the way that you do, it feels so overwhelming to think about quitting because you feel like you're going to be rejected. Actually only about 60 % of adults, 18 and up I think is the statistic, have had a drink in the past month. It's really not that many. And the amount of people that were drinking the way that I did very heavily every day or the amount that binge drink. It's very few. I don't remember the exact number, but I can find it for you. But it's like under 5%. It's not very many. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (07:57.526) And yeah, what would constitute binge drinking? Gill Tietz (08:01.056) So binge drinking is more than four drinks in two hours for women, five for men. And then heavy drinking or high intensity drinking is like basically a combination of binge drinking and very heavy daily drinking. Some of it now is starting to go up to like eight to 10 drinks per session. because people are drinking a lot more than what the binge drinking definition is. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (08:33.23) Yeah, I so that's an amazing statistic when you say less than 5 % are drinking that because think about the culture, you know, going out to a bar on a Friday or Saturday night, tailgating for sports events or concerts even, that heavy drinking becomes kind of what the norm is. It's the way that people do blow off steam and relax. And of course, you know, the college culture, you know, that seems like it's, you know, quite the norm for many people. So when you start talking with people about changing their drinking and they become aware that, wow, I mean, the amount that I'm drinking is so much more compared to most of the population, but the people I'm with, like these are my people. This is the norm for us. So let's talk more like you're in, so you're in this environment and you're exposed to this drinking culture. and you want to be accepted, you're like, you're reflecting back on your life, you know, the difficulties that you had integrating socially. So now you're in this situation to be part of the group, it's to engage in those social activities and drinking. How did your drinking progress from just starting that way to problem drinking? Gill Tietz (09:49.386) Yeah, so when I was in college, I surrounded myself with people that liked to study and didn't really like to party. So it didn't seem normal for me. But then in grad school, I'm in a whole different environment where everybody likes to party. So I seemed abnormal in that environment. And what really happened is there was one time where I was very stressed and a couple of my friends brought some red cups and a bottle of tequila up to the lounge area in the school. It was like 2 p.m. probably, something like that. And they poured some warm tequila in a red cup and they gave it to me and they were like, this will help. And I'm like, okay. And I learned in that moment when you're stressed, you drink and the stress goes away. And I was a very stressed out individual. I mean, naturally it made sense. Okay, I'll just drink every day then. And then when you start doing that, it spirals out of control pretty quickly. I think I had a lot of vulnerabilities that made it difficult for me to control my drinking. I was very emotional. I didn't have any coping skills. I had trauma that I hadn't dealt with. I was very triggered. I was very angry. And then alcohol shows up. It feels... amazing for me, better than it feels for most people. I can tolerate it very well, meaning that I don't get multiple day hangovers or anything like that. So it just, it just made sense. So I started drinking every day with everybody else. But what I started observing was that they didn't mess up like I did. I started to really embarrass myself right away and no one else seemed to do that. They were drinking and partying and I had that whole perspective that we all do that everybody's drinking the same amount as I was. In reality, they were not. When you look at it with sober eyes and you get around the same people, it's like, they don't drink like me. Interesting. But yeah, I was getting sick. I was getting sloppy. I couldn't stop once I started. A lot of things were happening. Gill Tietz (12:14.368) but it hadn't got to a point where I was really suffering yet. I was just embarrassing myself. It took a few years of daily drinking for it to get worse. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (12:25.998) So you were able to observe eventually that people can drink moderately and it was a difference between the way you were drinking. What do you see as moderate drinking? What were people doing where it wasn't influencing them like it was influencing you? Gill Tietz (12:43.87) Yeah, so moderate drinking is really only one drink for women and two for men. So maybe even moderate drinking, maybe that's not the right word in this situation. For me back then, I was actually defining moderate drinking for myself. If I could keep my weekly drinks below 30, I felt like I would be moderating, which the answer is no, that's not moderation. but I just considered it anything that wasn't drunk. what I did observe and what I still observe is people can have one, two, three drinks slowly or quickly, whatever they choose. And then they can switch to water, maybe leave some behind in their glass and move on with the evening. It's a very different experience. There's, there's choice the whole time. Mine wasn't choice. was, it was a compulsion. Like I just. wanted more and more and more, there was never enough for me. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (13:52.878) And so you're very aware of the function that it was serving for you. It was a way for you to manage stress. I'm sure it improved your ability to socialize, but you're also reflecting on like the way that it made you feel. Are there differences from your own background with biochemistry and just understanding biologically and how... all of us are quite different in the way we respond to any type of pharmaceutical or chemical or anything. Are there differences in the way that people feel from the way that they ingest alcohol that can make it more difficult for one person, easier for another? Gill Tietz (14:34.878) Absolutely. I said a few minutes ago that alcohol feels better for me than most people. Most people will have a drink and it's fine. That's one major reason why they can stop or why they can leave some behind in their glass. Leaving anything behind is unfathomable to me. I will finish yours and mine if you can't finish yours. There was a very interesting study. It's an older one, but it's interesting. I think it was from McGill University, and they looked at blood endorphin levels in people. And not everybody has the same biology going on. So for people that had average level of endorphins when they had a drink, endorphin levels remained average. So it was a flat line. for people that had naturally low levels of endorphins. When they had a drink, it didn't just bring the endorphins up to average, it shot up far above average. And endorphins make us feel good. Endorphins lead to the release of dopamine, which causes a memory of the experience, so you wanna do it again. So I thought that alcohol felt amazing for everyone, but it really just doesn't. It only feels this amazing for some people. There have also, not just with alcohol, but with other substances, there was a study on trauma with morphine. And no one in the study was addicted to anything, but they had a group that had no childhood trauma and a group that had childhood trauma. They gave them all morphine, all the same amount. The group without the trauma, reported feeling nauseous, uncomfortable, things like that. The group with the trauma reported feeling euphoric. If you feel euphoric, you're probably gonna wanna do that again. If you feel a little bit nauseous or if we spin it back around to alcohol, if you get a headache halfway through the night or you start to feel tired, you're not really gonna wanna continue to do it. Gill Tietz (16:59.798) But if you just feel more and more and more more awesome, if three drinks is amazing, four's probably gonna be more amazing, five, your brain is like, that's gonna be the most amazing, six, even better. Even though that's not the reality, that's what it seems like to the drinker. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (17:19.414) Yeah, so imagine the challenge for people who are trying to, you know, moderate their alcohol, because my experience is there's a process for people who want to make changes. They originally start with probably, you know, realizing that there's a degree of abuse or dependence going on. but aren't always committed to full sobriety for all the obvious reasons that exist in our culture and their social group and what that might mean for them. And so there's always this attempt to try to moderate. So I would imagine it's just so challenging for somebody to try to limit their alcohol consumption to one or two drinks when... they're starting to feel that high that they're getting that endorphin kind of rush and they're feeling really good from one or two drinks. And then, you know, even two drinks, depending on what it is, obviously it starts to impair judgment to a degree. And I'm sure there's all these stories that you can, you know, tell yourself about how it's okay. And it's, it's, it's going to be fine. You can have just one more. what is your experience with people who you know, might have that biological vulnerability and they're attempting to moderate. Gill Tietz (18:37.74) We would all love to live that dream life. I didn't want to have to be sober. I fought very hard to try to learn. Basically everybody that I've ever worked with also really wanted to learn how to moderate. I think once you start questioning it, it's too late for you. Loss of control is one of the earliest signs of addiction. And then it just kind of spirals after you start to lose control. Maybe you haven't lost all control, but you're starting to lose that off switch. That's in the beginning of the path. So you can't really undo that kind of stuff. I think with people who want to moderate, the thing is that one drink really isn't going to do anything for you. If one drink satisfied you, you would already drink one drink. You can't change that part because that part's not a choice. Like a lot of the people that I work with, it takes us like three drinks to start drinking. Like a regular person, they start drinking when they start drinking. For problem drinkers, there's like a negative that we have to get through to then go to baseline to then start the drinking experience. And if I went back to drinking today after five years, Maybe I would, one drink would be awesome, but I am so vulnerable to just drinking as much as I can, as often as I can, that it would just go right back to that eventually. So if you can't control it, like you just, you just can't, that's it. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (20:26.946) Yeah, so I'm really interested, I'm sure my listeners and viewers as well, on your process, how you were able, I think you just had five years sober, right? How you were able to get to that point, as well as the challenges that you certainly experienced in the beginning, as well as currently. Gill Tietz (20:46.058) Yeah, so I started questioning my drinking about two years in and I drank for a total of seven years. So I started wondering like, am I an alcoholic? How do you know? And then naturally your first thing is like, okay, well, I'll just try to moderate. So I did all the things and it just kept getting worse. over the years and I kept making excuses. One thing with problem drinkers is we know the consequences, but we can't fully understand what leads to the consequence. if you, there's been studies where you give everybody like a game to play and you don't tell them the rules and there are some ways to lose. Most people will quickly learn how to avoid losing. The drinkers will know how to lose, like they'll know what losing looks like, but they form the wrong beliefs about it. So they keep losing. So for me, I'm like, tequila is what's making me so depressed. It's these friends that are pressuring me to drink so much. I was forming beliefs like that, so the consequences couldn't really have an impact on me until they got so severe. I took a seven day break three years into questioning it because I went to therapy and I was like, how do you know if you're an alcoholic? And she's like, I don't know, take a break. And I said, okay, well, if I don't drink for seven days and clearly I'm fine. So I didn't drink for seven days and then I went about my way. And then, What happened after that is I started to have the most major consequences show up. So I developed really bad anxiety and I became very suicidal when I would get too drunk, which was often. And eventually that started to scare me because I knew what was possible when you feel that way that frequently. And I decided to take a 90 day break. Gill Tietz (23:09.28) from alcohol. Not because I was interested in sobriety. I still thought that wasn't for me. I thought I was different. It was because I wanted to cure myself and I didn't think 30 days was long enough. So I did the 90. Unfortunately, my birthday was on day 91. So I took it as a sign from the universe and I drank on my birthday and I got blackout drunk. on the first day, but I had excuses. I had other people to blame. It wasn't because of me. And then I started the slow descent back into my regular way of drinking. I was able to control it for two months, which I had never done before, but that's just because of the break. And at the first opportunity to drink and party again, it went right back to normal. absolutely no control, high levels of anxiety, constant suicidal thoughts. And I suffered in that for four months until one night I realized like, I can't change the way I drink. This is how I drink. And that 90 day challenge was what allowed me to really understand what my drinking was doing. Before I did the challenge, I just thought, I was an anxious suicidal person. I thought like, add another problem to my list of problems. But when I quit, that went away. And it takes a bit for the brain to kind of turn back on after you've been drinking that heavily for years. So it takes about 60 days. around, and even though I love dry January, I think a break is awesome. 30 days are physical benefits, 60 days, that's where you see the cognitive benefits. So around 60 days, I was able to make that connection that seems so painfully obvious that, I only get suicidal when I'm super drunk. So therefore, if I don't drink, I don't have to be suicidal anymore. And it felt like a, like, Gill Tietz (25:34.452) an explosion in my head, like wow. So I could finally make the connection between the consequences and the drinking. And then you can't unlearn that even when you go back to drinking. So it was really that experience that allowed me to accept it. And then after I saw that the drinking went back to normal, I know even if I drink after five years, it's just a matter of time. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (26:02.574) So there's a number of things you said that I think are really important that I have to follow up on. One is this name alcoholic. Like it's a label, it's part of our cultural lexicon. You know, as a clinical psychologist, I tend not to use that word because there is no really universal definition of what that actually means. People will come in and say, well, I'm not an alcoholic. And I say, okay, why do you say that? and they say, well, you know, it's not like I need it. I don't like wake up in the morning and not drinking throughout the day. My job isn't at risk. In fact, this goes back to what we're talking about with culture. They seem to integrate, you know, quite well. There's the drink after work every day. Maybe they go to a happy hour and then they go home and they have a few more drinks, but they get up. They go to work. They do the same thing over and over again, but they're still questioning their drinking because. of how much they're drinking and some of the consequences. If I said earlier that just one drink has an effect on us, right? If we look into these sleep studies, you have one glass of wine at night, it's impacting the quality of your sleep. But because of tolerance, for example, and you heard speaking to this, that like there's a number of drinks before it even gets started. Like some of my clients will... you know, do shots before they even head out just to go out to a restaurant where they know they're going to have a couple of drinks. And that's because of tolerance, because they're looking for the effect, right? That's what they're seeking out in that desirable, euphoric effect or that relaxation or enhanced. ability to socialize. So how do we communicate this to people when they're in this mindset that says I don't have these type of problems, not like I'm seeing on television or those movies where someone's downing the bottle of vodka every day? Gill Tietz (28:01.91) So many people say word for word the exact same thing to me. I said it too. Nobody wants that label. It feels bad. Some people are very empowered by it. Most people are not. If you're empowered by it, awesome. I think the best way that I've found is to see other examples of people who have to be sober because they can't control their drinking. I think that's why I try to be so open about the loss of control that I experienced and the embarrassing things that I did. Because if you admire me and I did these things and you don't think I'm a loser, why do you have to be a loser? And that's what helped me the most when I quit and I stopped isolating. I saw all different types of people. and I didn't think any of them were losers or failures. And it made me stop beating myself up so much. And it made me trust that I could be open. And then once I started being more open, I saw that everybody could share my experience, even down to the smallest detail. And then it doesn't matter if you're an alcoholic or not, you just have found where you belong. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (29:30.542) You mentioned something also I thought was very interesting and it's around mental health and alcohol. So certainly there's reasons why people drink and some of them are to manage social anxiety, for example, or to de-stress because they feel stressed out a lot and they don't have the skills to be able to kind of self-regulate. But then there becomes this cycle that is developed where somebody feels anxious a lot of the time, and then they rely on the alcohol. And it's this belief that they need the alcohol to be okay. Maybe they need the alcohol to sleep. But from a biochemistry perspective or what we know about alcohol as a drug, it in itself could be creating those exact states of being depression, anxiety that the person's trying to alleviate. Gill Tietz (30:34.092) Yeah, and that is what people don't understand. They don't understand that the reason that you're drinking, whatever that is, the payback is like 10 times what you started with. So if you're drinking to manage anxiety, you get way more anxiety at the end of your drinking. If you drink to deal with stress, now you are less resilient to stress. And what that means is that You perceive things as more stressful than they are. So then everything's overwhelming to you. If you drink because you're depressed, now maybe you're depressed and suicidal too because it gets so bad. And we don't understand this because that payback happens so many hours later that it feels like it's us or our life. Like, if my life didn't suck so much, I wouldn't have to drink like this. But really, your life sucks because you're drinking that much. And if you could trust and get support and get to that 60-day mental clarity thing, you might make that connection and realize, wow, this was not helping me in any way. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (31:52.418) the effect that alcohol has on our body. So we know that there's withdrawal, even if someone doesn't identify as alcohol dependent. I think I've read some research that just even the person that is just drinking on the weekends, there's a recovery process that takes you into the week for your body just to be okay, to be able to get a good night's sleep. or to recover from what you just did. And so there's this like elevated anxiety, your body's adapting. What do we know about withdrawal and alcohol? And I want to get into like those 30 days, 60 days, like the changes that occur, because I think, you know, what makes alcohol so challenging to stop is because it's really hard in the beginning because what's going on in your body, what do we know from a biological standpoint about what someone's going to have to go through if they want to stop drinking? Gill Tietz (32:45.418) Yeah, so as you drink more and more, we know that you develop a tolerance. I think most people have experienced it, can appreciate it. You need more drinks. You can handle more drinks before you get super drunk. The same thing is happening to the neurotransmitters in your brain. Your brain isn't used to alcohol being there when you first start drinking. And when you expose your brain to alcohol regularly, It adapts to compensate for the presence of alcohol because alcohol will slow down the brain and the brain wants to maintain a balance. So it's going to speed itself up to counteract the effects of your drinking. And that's why you need more to get the same effect. And this happens with everything. Alcohol causes a big boost in serotonin. So withdrawal is going to cause a drop in serotonin. dopamine, you're gonna get a big drop in dopamine and that's probably one of the most difficult parts of the early sobriety process, which I'll get to, but in the very beginning you're going to have cravings to drink because your brain doesn't know what's going on. It thinks it needs alcohol to function. That's why you have the withdrawal symptoms because your brain's trying to adjust and figure out what's going on here. Once you get through that acute withdrawal, your brain isn't like back to normal and reset. It's still adjusting and changing. It's just not so like dire anymore. So it feels like it's going on maybe behind the scenes, but you could still have increased anxiety, increased depression, things not feeling very rewarding, increased stress levels, reduced stress resilience, things like that. What happens later that is very difficult for people is the dopamine thing. So I mentioned that the first 30 days are for physical benefits. First 60 are for cognitive benefits and the first 90 are like emotional benefits and dopamine reward system benefits. That can even continue on to the first six months. So someone who's Gill Tietz (35:14.28) under three months, they're going to feel bored. They're going to feel like nothing is worthwhile. They're going to struggle to feel any gratitude or joy. If everything's boring all the time, it makes it really hard to not drink. But if people can persist, sometimes it even happens sooner, where you can start to feel little glimmers of joy and gratitude. but it will be noticeable at three months and then very noticeable at six. A lot of people at six months, they can walk outside and be like, wow, look at that tree. It's so beautiful. And you just feel good in your regular life and it makes it easier to carry on. But before that, when your reward system is all messed up and that's because alcohol causes such a huge dopamine release. that it throws off the scale of the reward system and it takes time to heal. But you gotta get through that initial boredom and that's very difficult. And throw into that like all the environmental cues, feeling left out, maybe all of your friends are drinking buddies, maybe your job is stressful. It's very, very difficult to make this change. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (36:38.872) What I love about your work is the practical strategies that are given to deal with the myriad of situations that people are gonna have to go through. I wanna get your thoughts on some of the support systems that are typical in our culture. So let's start with Alcoholics Anonymous AA. What are your thoughts on that as something for people to rely on? Some of the pros, the cons potentially that you've seen, as well as some of the belief systems, like changing people, places, things. I think that's what kind of feels overwhelming to some people is a complete shift and change of their social network and so forth. So let's just start with your opinion on AA. Gill Tietz (37:27.02) I think AA is awesome. They know what's up. All of the steps are very useful. People, places, things, very useful. Huge pro, it's free. It's everywhere. Go on vacation, go to AA, meet some people in a different country or on a cruise ship. So that's a huge pro. You can do it online, you can do it in person. There's so many different sponsors from all walks of life. that will support you. Everybody will give you their number and then you can just call them whenever you need it. Like I've heard people call random AA friends at two o'clock in the morning because they were having trouble and the person picked up. That's a huge pro. The cons, people get turned away by feeling like there's a religious aspect because of the higher power part. People are scared to walk in. to a meeting because they don't know what it's going to be like. They worry that someone might recognize them, even though whoever recognizes you is there for the same reason as you. I think another pro to another con, excuse me, too, is that sometimes AA people can be very strict about what they believe is the right thing to do to get sober. And that can be a turnoff for people. They don't want to have to do like one specific thing or they're not going to be able to stay sober. But I think if cost is a factor, ease, is really, really good. And there are so many different meetings too. Like the first meeting you check out, if you check out 10 more, they're probably all going to be different. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (39:19.822) Yeah, it's you know, it's kind of like therapy in a lot of ways is it depends on the people who are around you. So like, we call something therapy, but whoever your therapist is, it was going to really depend on the strength of that or the how valid it is and something that can really help you. I guess I would imagine we're dealing with people, the community is means a lot or the sponsor or the person that you're you're working with. Let me ask you more about, you know, Gill Tietz (39:26.892) Mm-hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (39:50.178) being sober in a culture that idealizes alcohol use, right? this time of year, there's just so many celebrations. There's so many parties. And even if you're not doing like those work events or a number of those things, well, I mean, you're going to go probably celebrate with family and drinking tends to be a part of this. How do you help people who are trying to give up alcohol when it's in your face? There's pressure to drink. mean, people are often offering alcohol. They're providing it as gifts, there's toasts. And sometimes other people become uncomfortable if you're not necessarily drinking. Like it's almost sometimes it's like a stop and a reflection on what they're doing or it impacts them. What are some of the key strategies that you're using to help people get through what is ultimately a challenging time for many? Gill Tietz (40:50.444) Yeah, I think the most important thing to know is that nobody cares as much as you care about whether or not you drink. It feels like the whole world is gonna just fall on the floor in shock because you're not drinking anymore. But nobody cares. People may seem like they care, but that's just because they notice a change. It's like, you used to drink more than anybody else here, and now you don't drink. Interesting. They don't actually care. what I help people with the most is how to say no in a way that you're comfortable with. think a common go-to is making excuses. I'm on antibiotics. I have to drive. I have to get up early in the morning. If you make excuses, people are going to find solutions for you. Like if somebody told me when I was drinking that they can't drink because they're on antibiotics. I would have told them about all the times that I drank while I was on antibiotics and it worked out just fine. Now you have a new problem. Now you have to find another excuse. So I really don't like excuses for that reason. And it also undermines your confidence. If you're telling people that you're on antibiotics, you're like projecting insecurity out there. Really the best is no thanks, I'm good. And if they're like, why you always drink? What's going on? It's like, yeah, just, you know, I'm just not short so that there's nothing to latch onto to ask you about. Also flying under the radar is good. Get a non-alcoholic beer if that works for you or a soda water with lime and a short glass. So then you, or a mocktail. So then you just look like everybody else and nobody has a reason to ask. So there's lots of good ways to avoid that. My favorite thing though is to channel your inner smugness because it's cool to not drink. Everybody else there, I know this isn't true, but it's helpful for us when we're nervous, everybody else there needs to drink to be there, except you. Gill Tietz (43:14.988) That's pretty cool. That's badass. Think about how smug you're gonna feel when you're springing out of bed at five o'clock in the morning and everybody else feels like crap and they can't get out of bed. Think about how proud you're gonna be when you tuck yourself into bed at night and everybody's got fuzzy memories or maybe they're throwing up or they're embarrassing themselves or they're starting an alcohol-fueled fight or they got the drenches in the kitchen. Like be smug about it, be proud. And one thing that helped me too when I was first getting comfortable is I would look around the room and I'd be like, I can drink more than all of you have ever drank in your entire lives combined. And nobody knows that about me. And I was like, that's hardcore. Not a lot of people can tolerate the level of alcohol that a problem drinker can tolerate. And then we still get up and do our whole lives. That's a pretty tough person. So I try to reframe it like that. It's not that you're not gonna fit in or people are gonna reject you. What if you reject them with your new awesome standards? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (44:35.06) Love it. Love it. I've never heard, I've never heard this before. That's kind of atypical, but it just speaks, think, to the level of thought that has kind of gone into this. And what an incredible strategy in order to be like mentally prepared for this and to change your worldview. I'm a big believer that we are, we are creators of our own reality in a lot of ways. And so you're really influencing that. So, you know, as you were mentioning before, you know, alcohol is a social lubricant. Gill Tietz (44:56.17) Yep, I agree. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (45:04.974) and really it lowers inhibitions and it allows people to open up to a degree, right? And I'm an observer of humans as I'm sure you are. And you see that like when people are not drinking there's more of this closed off stance maybe, you know, that social anxiety is that energy is kind of experienced. And this is the challenge with some of my clients. They say, you know, I'm just, it's very difficult for me to socialize, you know, without a couple drinks because I'm just an anxious person. You know, they identify themselves that way. I'm awkward is another word that they describe. How do you assist people who, you know, have used alcohol for that socialization and now they're having to face their own fears and their own social anxieties? Gill Tietz (46:00.222) If you have to drink or get drunk to be around certain people or to be at a party, that's not actually your scene. You don't actually like doing that or you don't actually like those people. If you really liked it, you wouldn't have to get drunk to tolerate it. So I think that's an important thing to keep in mind too. Like a lot of times we're drinking, to tolerate or pretend to enjoy things and people that we don't like. With people that are anxious, alcohol relieves anxiety. We all know that. We've all experienced that. Studies on people with social anxiety have found that if they have a group that drinks and a group that doesn't, and then a placebo group that thinks that they consumed alcohol. The alcohol group will have the lowest anxiety followed by the placebo. And then the group that didn't drink and didn't think they drank has the highest level of anxiety. When you put them in a social environment, the socially anxious people who have consumed alcohol and have the lowest level of anxiety are perceived the worst by the people in the room. So you're the only one who thinks that that helps. Really what's going on is we drink to calm the anxiety and then it unleashes this needy beast that can't give itself validation or comfort or security or with this fragile ego. And we unleash that on the room and we take things personally and we're loud. Gill Tietz (47:59.84) and we need attention or we're over sexual. Maybe like a lot of women I talk to will hook up with people or feel like they need a lot of attention or flirtation. People don't like that behavior. So if you can actually learn to be comfortable around whoever it is or learn to be comfortable in a room in general, you'll get over it. If you keep drinking to deal with it, you now have to drink to deal with it for all eternity. And I promise you, nobody thinks that you're better than when you're sober. And I encourage people, don't go to a party right away. How about you hang out with somebody one-on-one? Get comfortable with one friend before you start going to parties or if you're really anxious about dating, that's another one I hear a lot. Maybe wait, maybe go out with friends one-on-one. move to a small group before you venture out and do these other things. And people will also feel bad because they don't want to stay out late anymore. And after like two hours, they get the point and they want to leave where before they were the last person at the party. And the way that I reframe that for them is that's not you being boring. That's called standards. Like you got stuff to do. You don't wanna stand around in a room with other people that are standing around in a room for six hours. You have things you wanna do tomorrow. You have things you wanna do tonight. That doesn't mean that you're boring or life has changed in a bad way. It means life has opened up and you can do all sorts of stuff now. So I think trying to... reframe the experience, but then also tiptoeing in and not just going to the parties and the bars that you used to go to is helpful. But seriously, I swear nobody else thinks that you do better when you drink. Nobody. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (50:09.122) That's great advice. I know I've kept you a while and you're on a limited schedule. I just wanna end with kind of one final question. One of the things that I'm kind of outspoken about is the industry of mental health, that is therapy and drugs. That same industry is in substance abuse as well. And I would like to support those who are really making a difference and offer services and do things outside of what is kind of that restricted realm of like how we seek help. And you've created something that's amazing and beautiful. And I think everyone who was listening to you today really kind of understands your areas of expertise, even though you're not a trained mental health professional. But you've taken your own skills, your own experience, your own background in science, and you've created something that seems really, you know, is really, really meaningful. So I'm just curious to know. about the services and the community that you've created and how you do help people. Gill Tietz (51:08.288) Yeah, so I have a, and thank you for all of that, by the way. That was very nice. But I have a small online community called Living a Sober-Powered Life that has meetings for people. Maybe the AA isn't their path, although I do have crossover. Some people come to my meetings, some people go to AA. And we focus on the work. So all the problems that led you to drink the way that you drink. And then I also work with people on a one-on-one basis who want maybe more private support or more personalized support. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (51:47.66) Right? identifying some of those kind of root causes, like, you know, helping people understand the reason they turned to alcohol in the first place. You know, that was certainly kind of a theme of some of the things that you spoke about today, right? Like, a great takeaway is when you're experiencing that kind of anxiety, this discomfort amongst a group of people, when you say, that might not... be your people, that might not be your scene. You're communicating something I think that is very important, that's a message I like to send, is that our emotions are signals. They're trying to communicate to us. and that we can use our emotions to our benefit. They're not something we have to run away from. We don't have to escape from it. And if we're in a social situation where we're feeling that anxiety, you know, there's multiple ways that we can kind of approach this. We can lean into it and see this as opportunities for growth because our best self is that sober self. And we can be able to identify what we're actually scared of and practice and take risks and become more authentic and kind of work our way through that because we know through exposure to situations that feelings going to dissipate as you get more comfortable and confident in those situations. But you're anxiety and your emotions might also be very clearly saying is, yeah, you want to get out of this situation. This does not work for you. This isn't your best life. So I'm sure there's a lot of clarification about what your values are, who you want to be. the life that you want to live and then mapping that out and changing mindsets. think that's what I took away from today's discussion is that you have this way of being able to work with people to shift the mindset from one place that it wasn't serving them into a way that now it can serve your higher self, the better version of you. Gill Tietz (53:51.582) Yeah, there's this you that's in there that you have to discover. When you drink problematically, you slowly, over the years, give up your hobbies, change your friends, maybe you marry someone based on how other people like to drink. That's why it feels like everybody does what we're doing, because we create that. we give up everything that doesn't involve our favorite thing of drinking When you remove the center of your universe What's left if you keep living that life you're gonna feel the void all the time So it's not a sad thing You get to discover who you actually are and you can be like whoever you want basically With practice and if you care enough and you get to find out what are my actual values now that alcohol isn't the only one. How do I like to socialize? Do I even like to go to parties? Do I even like to go to the city at all? Maybe I don't, I don't know. Maybe I don't like to go on vacation to this particular place, I just liked that I could drink the whole time. It's an exciting process and it's really freeing if you can see it more as an opportunity. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (55:13.932) That's great. Where can people discover you? can they find out about your work or access any of your services? Gill Tietz (55:20.844) So if you search soberpowered, you will find me wherever you're looking. That's my podcast and my website. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (55:29.002) And I do want to provide a recommendation for the podcast. It's, it's one of those podcasts where, know, some of the episodes are relatively short, like 25 to 30 minutes. think typically it's that. And it's direct. It's the point it's practical strategies. And it speaks to a lot of the challenges that people who are struggling with alcohol or trying to maintain sobriety are going through every day, you know, and when you had, when I looked, I think there was probably like over 250 episodes. So, I mean, there's a wealth of information on there. that science-backed information to just the practical strategies, to values, to ways of living and so forth. It really, really is a good podcast. So I hope people can check that out. Jill Teitz, I want to thank you very much for a radically genuine conversation. Gill Tietz (56:21.142) Thank you.