Latest / Mom Wars / Freely Sober

Transcript

Freely Sober · Mom Wars

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: From the front lines of the mom Wars.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Here's Bethany Mandel and Kara Kennedy.
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to another episode of your favorite podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: I am your American co host Bethany Mandel. I am
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: a homeschooling mom of six and a frequent contributor to
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: The Washington Examiner and The New York Post. And I
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: am joined by my beautiful, very pregnant co.
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: Host It's nothing beautiful about me, Karra Kennedy, who is
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: increasingly depressed and sad.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I'm pregnant. Are you depressed and sad because you're pregnant?
• 0:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm just so pregnant now.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: It's just I just forgot how bad it was.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And what do you do besides be pregnant?
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Not much? Right order a lot of Amazon deliveries, take
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: on a lot of work that I probably shouldn't be
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: taken on right now. You can in the Free Press
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: and increasing me in the Talegraph, which is kind of fun.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: That's exciting. Yeah, and we are joined by a very
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: old friend of mine from golly fifteen years ago.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I think possibly more. I don't even know so long so.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Erica Anderson is a freelance writer and the author of
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: the new book, Freely Sober, which is why we're here
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: and why we're having this conversation. But you also wrote
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: a book that had the word clouds in it.
• 1:29
  Speaker 6: Yes, my first book was called Leaving Cloud nine, so.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: That there was nine in there too, Yes, Leaving Cloud nine.
• 1:35
  Speaker 6: And then I had my second book was called Reason
• 1:37
  Speaker 6: to Return and this book is called Really Sober so
• 1:39
  Speaker 6: Lucky number three.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: So, as the author of three books, does it get
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: any easier to write a book once you get to
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: number three.
• 1:48
  Speaker 6: I don't know that it's easier, but I think it
• 1:50
  Speaker 6: becomes more clear how you put things together, so you
• 1:53
  Speaker 6: get a little bit more of a system going on,
• 1:55
  Speaker 6: and you kind of anticipate what's coming, so you're not
• 1:58
  Speaker 6: like as much of a dumpster fire and you give
• 2:00
  Speaker 6: it's the editor.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I mean I was a dumpster fire rolling out my
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: book because I rolled my book out at the same
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: time as having a baby.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my first book. It was like right
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: when my daughter was born.
• 2:12
  Speaker 6: It came out and then I really like podcast book
• 2:14
  Speaker 6: stuff and I'm like, right.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, I can't function exactly.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: So that was your oldest is your daughter, So you
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: have two children, your daughter is your oldest and then.
• 2:26
  Speaker 6: She's the second, so she's my second finest ten and
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: my daughter is seven beautiful.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Right, so this is a very interesting book and you've
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: made the rounds. I think you spoke on Alex Clark's podcast.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Right, Yes, I did Culture patha carry.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: So give give us the elevator pitch of what what
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: led you to write this book? Because it's very interesting.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: I think you also had a piece in the Wall
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Street Journal about it. Am I lying the Wall Street
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Journal and New York Times. Actually, let's go and real
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Christianity today. Yeah, I've been able to write about a lot.
• 2:57
  Speaker 6: I mean originally the piece in the New York Times
• 2:59
  Speaker 6: was but sort of spurred me on to get really
• 3:02
  Speaker 6: serious about writing the book because I was like, Wow,
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: if I can get a piece there, surely people are
• 3:06
  Speaker 6: interested in this, right.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I would say the.
• 3:09
  Speaker 6: Book is sort of part memoir, part self help, part journalism.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So I pack a lot in there, but it really
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: stems from my own story.
• 3:17
  Speaker 6: Spending basically twenty years in a pretty unhealthy relationship with
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: alcohol is probably the best way to describe it. You
• 3:23
  Speaker 6: could say I self medicated. You could say, you know,
• 3:26
  Speaker 6: I had a bit of an addiction. There are so
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: many ways in labels that you can classify what a
• 3:31
  Speaker 6: struggle with alcohol looks like. But when I was able
• 3:34
  Speaker 6: to quit drinking five years ago, so I'm five years sober,
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: I realized I wanted to help other people. I wanted
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: to speak to women like myself, especially from a faith perspective.
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: There's not a ton out there from a faith perspective.
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: It's all very secular, which I don't have anything against that.
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: I really benefited from all the books I read and
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: the groups I was in, But I was like, this
• 3:56
  Speaker 6: is missing for me, and so I'm going to step
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: in there as a writer and just do this thing.
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: And so that's where it came from, and it came
• 4:04
  Speaker 6: out three weeks ago and going strong.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I feel like your voice is lending a lot of
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: necessary pushback on the wine mom culture. That is something
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: that has always really bothered me about because a lot
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: of why we started the mom Wars, both the substac
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: play Subscribe and the podcast was that I felt like
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of the messaging about motherhood was really unnecessarily negative,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: and a lot of that is the mom mom mine,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Oh my God, wine mom, so I wake up at
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: four am. I get it sometimes today in all of
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: those days. So wine mom culture where they're like, I
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: need wine to get through the day as a mom
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: because this is an unbearable reality without the use of alcohol.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Do you get into that, because that is maybe one
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: of my least favorite line phenomenons.
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I do have a chapter on the wine mom culture,
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: and I agree that it is so intertwined with that
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: whole negative stereotype of motherhood that you guys talk about
• 5:11
  Speaker 6: a lot, just you know, people warning, oh, just wait,
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: you know, all of that kind of advice, you know,
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: just wait till learir this age, just wait till they're
• 5:17
  Speaker 6: that age, Just wait till they're born and you're not sleeping.
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: I too, have always sort of hated that, and it
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: goes hand in hand with people saying you need wine
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: or you deserve wine to sort of get through the
• 5:28
  Speaker 6: night or get through whatever this phase is. And I
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: even talk about in I believe it was, yeah, the
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: Wall Street Journal piece about how a doctor even told
• 5:37
  Speaker 6: me to drink wine. I think I think my I
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: think it was when I just had my son and I,
• 5:44
  Speaker 6: you know, was dressed out postpartum or whatever. Obviously wasn't
• 5:47
  Speaker 6: admitting to the doctor that I already drank plenty, but
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: the doctor did suggest you should just have a glass
• 5:53
  Speaker 6: of wine and relax at night. And as innocent as
• 5:56
  Speaker 6: that doctor may thought it to be, I actually was
• 5:59
  Speaker 6: able to use that as a justification for my drinking.
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: I was constantly justifying it, Well, everybody does it. Well,
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: it's five o'clock somewhere where you know, there's drinks here.
• 6:08
  Speaker 6: Everybody's drinking. Like I'm still getting up in the morning
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: and exercising and getting my job done and being a
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: good mom. And so it was just like this constant cycle,
• 6:17
  Speaker 6: and the wine mom thing comes into play with just
• 6:20
  Speaker 6: popular culture. I mean, we know we see the like
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: there's a bag that's that I see in the grocery
• 6:26
  Speaker 6: s where that's like, what is it?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Wine? Is just fruit salad or something.
• 6:29
  Speaker 6: Like that, you know, basically, and you see the magnets
• 6:33
  Speaker 6: and the cups and the shirts. And for some people
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: maybe it is truly a funny joke. But I think
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: what what people miss is how many people actually do
• 6:41
  Speaker 6: struggle with substance abuse or just that unhealthy relationship with alcohol,
• 6:46
  Speaker 6: because it is truly a drug. It is an addictive substance,
• 6:49
  Speaker 6: and it's actually more normal than not to develop an
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: addiction to it, whether that be mental or physical, than
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: it is to just be able to.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Take it or leave it. And I feel like, can
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: these mon take it or leave it? Sometimes it doesn't
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: feel that way.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: When was the moment for you did it kind of
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: became clear that this wasn't just a little thing that
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: you would do every night and that you had to stop.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: You know, when was that kind of mine?
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: I always knew that something was off about the way
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: that I drank, even in my college years and in
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: my twenties, just from the way that sometimes I would
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: have more than everyone I would have, you know, struggle
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: to stop.
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  Speaker 1: I would be drinking when other people weren't.
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: But in my twenties it was more like, oh, this
• 7:33
  Speaker 6: is just kind of how life is, and everybody does this.
• 7:36
  Speaker 6: And again, you're in your twenties. I mean, people use
• 7:38
  Speaker 6: their twenties to make excuses about a lot of a
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: lot of things. I think that's not great. But when
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: I hit my thirties, you know, I got married, I
• 7:47
  Speaker 6: had my kids, and it transitions to something really different.
• 7:51
  Speaker 6: It's like you're not you're no longer going out with
• 7:53
  Speaker 6: friends and hanging out and doing fun stuff.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: You're at home, you're cooking dinner. You know, you're drinking alone.
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  Speaker 6: And there's something really differ about drinking alone than drinking
• 8:02
  Speaker 6: with friends and the way that you're I'm not going
• 8:05
  Speaker 6: to say this very clearly, but I could tell you, like,
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: depending on my mood, how the alcohol would affect me.
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  Speaker 6: And if I was drinking because I was feeling depressed
• 8:13
  Speaker 6: or anxious, it would impact me differently than if I
• 8:17
  Speaker 6: were out having fun, even if it was the same
• 8:19
  Speaker 6: amount or the same alcohol. And so there really is
• 8:22
  Speaker 6: a biological response, a chemical response to how alcohol affects
• 8:26
  Speaker 6: your body. And the other part of that, the other
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: side of that that I've been talking about, is how
• 8:30
  Speaker 6: alcohol affects women in different ways than men. We are
• 8:34
  Speaker 6: very different and you know, biology wires as differently, and
• 8:37
  Speaker 6: so when we drink, we experience actually more devastating consequences,
• 8:42
  Speaker 6: both short term and long term when you look at
• 8:44
  Speaker 6: like rates of alcohol related deaths and the way it's
• 8:48
  Speaker 6: connected to cancer. And then these days, being in the
• 8:52
  Speaker 6: perimenopause world that I live in as a forty something,
• 8:56
  Speaker 6: it's affecting hormones. It affects so many parts of our
• 9:00
  Speaker 6: whole systems that I'm really thankful that people are starting
• 9:03
  Speaker 6: to kind of wake up a little bit and see
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: that sobriety might actually be best for lots of reasons.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I'm shaking my head because I'm starting to join you
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: in that. Yeah, it's not fun, it's not great.
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: But I'm learning a lot about my body, so like
• 9:18
  Speaker 6: I'm getting educated, and so that's kind of interesting. It
• 9:21
  Speaker 6: actually makes me wish that we taught girls about these
• 9:24
  Speaker 6: things like way before.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: I feel like when I was trying to get pregnant,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: I did a crash course in fertility, and now that
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: I'm about to hit forty in almost exactly a month,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: I'm doing a crash course in perimenopause.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: I all the Instagram accounts I follow, they're like perimenopause.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, I need to start following those accounts. Yeah.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: So when you when you sort of sat down to
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: write this book, were there like doctors and experts that
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: you kind of turned to as like these are the
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: people who are the voice? Or does that not really
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: exist that much either?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: You mean the voices that are speaking against it? Yeah? Yeah,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: that are experts on this. I wouldn't say I was
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: going to any particular people.
• 10:10
  Speaker 6: I was really just looking at hard data, like looking
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: at what does Harvard Medicine say, you know, in their
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: survey from last or their studies from last year. And
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think what truly was inspiring me to
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: keep going on this was looking at the rates of
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: alcohol related dust in women. And if you look back
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: over the past twenty years or spent a sixty three
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: percent increase. And while there has been an increase on
• 10:33
  Speaker 6: the male side, it is nothing compared to the female side.
• 10:37
  Speaker 6: And so part of that is that women have started
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: drinking more in the past thirty years. That's tied to marketing.
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: It's also tied, I think, to the pace at which
• 10:46
  Speaker 6: we live our lives in the way in which we
• 10:48
  Speaker 6: deal with that. But it is very apparent that something
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: happened about twenty five years ago and it began to
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: sort of change the trajectory of how women were drinking
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: and how it was affecting them. And you can see
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: now like the American Cancer Society came out a few
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: years ago and said zero alcohol can be recommended, it
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: is increasingly tied to breast cancer, other kinds of cancer,
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: heart disease. I mean, any of these sort of systems
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: within our body are affected by alcohol.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And it may not be a convenient fact.
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: That people love to hear, but the days of drinking
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: and red wine every day are good for you are
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: kind of gone because those studies are funded by the
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: alcohol industry.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: Oh is that what you mean by molcitin?
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: That was interesting, Oh yeah, partly. Yes.
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: Also about that time, I guess, I don't know precisely.
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: I think probably in the early nineties was when it's
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: really kicked up. The marketing company sort of realized, oh,
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: if we like put some sugar in this drink and
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: wrap it with a pink label, we can actually sell
• 11:46
  Speaker 6: it to.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Women for a dollar more the pink tax. And they
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: And so they realize, oh, my gosh, this is an
• 11:53
  Speaker 6: untapped market. And if you go to the liquor store
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: at the grocery store today, you will see the bottles
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: and the io of all the different colors and the
• 12:01
  Speaker 6: whip fream flavored vodka and all of that. And that's
• 12:04
  Speaker 6: because women started started going for it.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: And then I feel like I remember this specifically a
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: couple of years ago with pink Gin. Yeah, probably Gin
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: became like the whole thing and nobody was drinking Gin before.
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: There are some libical years ago, I mean, genius evil,
• 12:20
  Speaker 6: genius marketers out there.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: The one that I talked to a lot of people
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: about a.
• 12:25
  Speaker 6: Couple of years ago that really was a struggle was
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: Trulys if you guys remember Truies. And then there was
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: there's another one along there's another brand that you might anyway.
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: They're just the They're like the Seltzer waters with alcohol
• 12:39
  Speaker 6: in them, and women love them, including me. I used
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: to drink them too before I quit drinking, because they
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: are like very low calorie but they're sweet, but they're
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: high in alcohol content. And so it was just like
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: the downfall of so many people in the summer, and
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: especially oh. I would also mention just COVID times. I
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: was going to ask that, Yeah, COVID times were bad times.
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: And the number that I just cannot like that is
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: just incredible, is that women with children five and under
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: increase their rate of drinking by three hundred and sixty
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: three percent, and that was far higher than any other
• 13:10
  Speaker 6: demographic like across the planet. And when COVID started, my
• 13:13
  Speaker 6: kids were two and four. So it was like, hello,
• 13:16
  Speaker 6: I'm like literally in the middle of that demographic and
• 13:19
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to blame COVID. I actually had quit
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: drinking before COVID, and then I started drinking again in COVID,
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: so joining a lot of other people.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: But it was like, I mean, talk about joking about
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: day drinking.
• 13:31
  Speaker 6: I mean, I've never seen so many jokes about it,
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: and people really just.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Like let themselves go when it came to alcohol. And
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I do think that that has a lot to do as.
• 13:39
  Speaker 6: Sort of the sort of boomerang effect of people realizing
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: what have I done to myself and why?
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Sobriety is kind of on the rise as a front.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Right now, Hi, this is a young Culter. Welcome to
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: my Ricochet podcast.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Culter.
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: Every week on Ricochet, You're home to center right conversation.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, that was pretty good. It was the American Heart Association.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: You said, they said absolutely zero alcoholnth society and society.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: I feel like that's not the message because like zero there.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: I find the messaging around alcohol and pregnancy to be
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: very bad because so Emily Oster talks about it, like
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: when you tell women zero alcohol ever ever ever that
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: psychologically when women do break that seal and they have
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: a sip, they're like, well, might as well, And that
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I think is actually worse than using the moderation messaging. Yeah,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: so I get Yeah, I'm just asking like your thoughts
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: on that because I feel like that moderation is probably
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: a better message than zero ever ever. Ever.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's very individual.
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: I mean when it comes to the pregnancy thing, I mean,
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: I am not worried if a woman has, you know,
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: a half a glass of why when she's pregnant, I'm not.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's gonna harm her child Personally.
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: I'm not a doctor, but but I think, you know,
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: I think I'm thinking of it more as like a
• 15:26
  Speaker 6: long term sort of personal bodily thing.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: But you're right, everybody's different.
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: Not everybody necessarily needs to fully cut it out and
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: you know, say no forever and to freak out about it.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you see a lot of obsession, you.
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: Know, looking at Mohawk for example, people are getting like
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: totally obsessed with like I can't have anything, like.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: My kid must not eat the upcake at the birthday party.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: And I think, like, okay, we're going overboard, like we
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: should be informed. We should be educated, we should be
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: making wise decisions. But again, everybody is different.
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: Everyone has a different biology, everybody has different genetics and experiences.
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: And so I think the one of the points I
• 16:03
  Speaker 6: want to make right now with the book and just
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: all the things I'm talking about is just the awareness factor.
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: You know, before I started looking into this, I really
• 16:10
  Speaker 6: didn't know how deeply alcohol did affect the body in
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: such long term and you know, specific ways. And so
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: I think when people know this stuff, they can better
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: make informed decisions about what they actually want and also
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: think twice when they're doing something like, oh, do I
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: really want to do this long term? So I think
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: the education piece is really important. And and that just
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: individual personal conviction, whether it's a faith thing, whether it's
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: like you know that you can't handle this fall and
• 16:38
  Speaker 6: you need to need to admit that there's a whole
• 16:41
  Speaker 6: spectrum I things of places that people can fall.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: Did you read any other sobriety memoirs or.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: In this genre, because I feel like there's been a
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: couple of really good ones.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, there's been so many good ones.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: Have you read Blackout by Sarah Hack?
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's one of the best ones for sure, she's
• 17:04
  Speaker 6: such an amazing writer.
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: And then the Katie Hurts, So just.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: That's on my list.
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: I know, I know you guys had her on the
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: Free Press podcast and I are our Barry's podcast, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: I listened to that and I was I remember I
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: pulled up my podcast and I was like, what is
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: this episode? I was like, they should be interviewing me. No,
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: but I was really I was really fascinated. And I
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: had no idea she was writing that. I knew who
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: she was, but I didn't realize she was writing that book.
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: And so I immediately was like, oh, I've got to read this.
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: But yeah, I've probably read like at least fifty memoirs.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I just love them. It's just sort of like a
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: guilty pleasure for me, I guess.
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: But when I did stop drinking, one of the sort
• 17:42
  Speaker 6: of mind games I played with myself was I said,
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: as long as I'm reading one of.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: These books, I can keep going.
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: And so I bought like twenty of them off of Amazon,
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: like I would buy like the used versions or whatever,
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: but anytime there's a new one, I grab it. And so,
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: of course some of that inspired me to write. And
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: I will say one of them. One of the people
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: that I definitely encourage people to follow and read her
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: stuff is Laura Mcowan. She wrote the book We Are
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: the Luckiest, and she sort of was really big impact
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: on me in terms of her journey and all the
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: writings she's done's.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: It's just interesting though, with all of the different books
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: that they are, every single one kind of takes a
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: different approach, which I find is pretty interesting that you
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: usually think typically have given up drinking it, like you
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: go to AA, but there are so many other ways
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: that you, yeah, stay motivated and kind of take the
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: first step, you.
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: Know, Yeah, I think AA it's interesting and there's been
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: really a revolution.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Revolution that's probably the wrong word. There's been really sort
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: of a shift away from AA. Not that AA.
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: I would never say a bad word about them because
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: they've really helped so many people over the years, but
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: just given the world that we live in now and
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: just the access and sort of the creator economy there,
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: there are so many different programs and now that people
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: can go to maybe a better fit for them. I
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: know people have often said AA felt very masculine, it
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: felt very like just not a place that they felt comfortable,
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: and so for me. I joined an online group. This
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: is during COVID of course, so everything was online called
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: The Luckiest Club, which was started by Laura.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: McCowan, and I just found it a much better fit.
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: And you'll find several other bigger communities out there that
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: you can join now as well as some like micro
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: communities to kind of find what works for you. So
• 19:28
  Speaker 6: it's no longer like the thought that AA is a
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: must and that has to be what you do. But
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: I do think that community support and joining a support
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: group if you do feel that you have that addiction component,
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: is really important. It's it's really tough to do it
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: without that.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Did you feel did you feel pushed back within your family,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: because you know, I think probably a lot of your
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: drinking was you know, sort of socially with you know.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Aunts and uncles and cousins and know all of that.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Was there.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Was there any sort of difficulty in deciding like this
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: is not for me anymore when it came to social gatherings,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: both you know, social with friends or with family as well.
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean when one of the you know, biggest
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: things that you start to worry about when you're thinking
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: what if I quit drinking is sort of what are
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: people going to think of me? And what am I
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: going to say? And at this point in my life,
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: it's kind of funny to me that I was even
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: worried about that, because I'm just so used to just
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: not drinking and I'm I don't have a problem being
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: around it at all. But at the time I was
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: very worried about it. And my family, though they're not
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: like super alcoholics or anything, there is drinking at the
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: holidays and usually at my parents' house and so, but
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: they were all very supportive.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: They're like, good for you. But my dad's like, that's great,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: that's great for you. Have fun with that.
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: But you know, and nobody else was really inspired to
• 20:50
  Speaker 6: to quit. But it has been I think helpful, helpful
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: for people to see me go through this. I do
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: think like I've had a sort of positive affect on
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: how they think about it. I know my sister, for example,
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: she she has really taken some stints away from drinking,
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: kind of based on my own.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Stuff as well. So it wasn't it wasn't too hard.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: It was just at first it was just a matter
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: of me being able to resist and not like one
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: of my triggers is being at my parents' house where
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: they have like this. It's like in the basement they
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: have this big refrigerator that's always.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Full of all of drinks.
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: And so during COVID or like maybe it was the
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: beginning of COVID or something when when I first like
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: kind of broke my sobriety, that's where I was alone
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: in the basement. Nobody was around, and I ended up
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: taking a drink out. So it was like, you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: kind of a scary environment. But for the most part,
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: everyone very supportive and it wasn't like I was going
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: out all the times.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: They had like little tiny children.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: So for other moms who you know, they're like day drinking,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: they're the wine moms, what is if they're listening to
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: this and thing like do I have a problem, what
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: is your answer? Like how how do they assess like
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: is this a problem versus like, you know, this is
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: a recreational thing that you do that you don't count on.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Where is that line for you?
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: I was going to ask this because I think that
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: it's really common. It definitely was for me, and it
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: definitely was for a couple other moms that I know,
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: Like the immediate kind of postpartum phase where you haven't
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: drank for the whole pregnancy, and then your app all
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: night anyway and you look really look forward to that
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: glass of wine before bed, and then it becomes like
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: and every night kind of thing. And then three months
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: and you reevaluate and you're like, oh, I should probably
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: stop this, you know.
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think the thing about you just
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: have to remember that your your brain is really being trained,
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: your body is really being trained anytime that you're doing
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: that sort of consistent daily thing, and it will take
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: some work to kind of get out of that pathway.
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: I think one of my things was I didn't really
• 22:55
  Speaker 6: even realize how smart your body is that you can
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: actually get out of that rut. You know. I had
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: trained my body so much to to think I needed
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: a drink every day, and I was drinking every day
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: that I didn't recognize that I could actually retrain my
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: brain to not need that, to not think about it.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: But it takes work.
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: But once I realized that and I started to sort
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: of have faith in the process, that really helped me
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: out a lot. But in terms of your question, Bethany,
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: I think you know again, I said, there's a spectrum,
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: and so my first thought is if you're asking do
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: I have a problem, you might have a problem for
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: you that you know if you're even thinking about it,
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: maybe there's something you're uncomfortable with, and don't run away
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: from that discomfort. The best thing you can do is
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: just to explore what your brain is asking you and
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: read a little bit and just develop a little bit
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: of an awareness. I think it's important. One thing I
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: do in the book, because I thought this was super important,
• 23:53
  Speaker 6: is I have these I have an assessment and chapter
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: one sort of a history of sort of alcohol in
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: your life. How did your parents about it when you
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: were a kid, Like what assumptions and stereotypes and things
• 24:03
  Speaker 6: do you assume about it? Or that do you believe
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: about it? Because this is very deep rooted stuff. I mean,
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: we start we start learning about this when we're kids,
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: and we never take time to reassess it and alcohol
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: because it's legal, which I'm not saying it should be illegal,
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: but because it's legal, we don't really stop to think
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: about the fact that this is this is not a
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: benign substance like this ruins families, like millions of people
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: have had to go through AA. Millions of people go
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: through alan On, which is just if you were a
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: family member of a person that was an alcoholic, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: we all know somebody who has had a really rough
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: time in life because of this, and so when you're
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: dealing with alcohol, it's not a dumb thing to ask
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: some really insightful questions of yourself and your use of
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: it and how you want to teach your kids too.
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: I would say, we're on the mom Morris, so let's
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: talk about kids for a second.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I would say that that was big for me.
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: There was a lot of reasons, a lot of sort
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: of layered reasons that went into why it's like drinking.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: But knowing that my mother in law died of.
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: Alcoholism and drug addiction, my grandfather died of alcoholism, there
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: are other members of our families on both sides that
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: have struggled. We knew that we're like, we're going into
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: this with a double whammy for our kids, And I
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: thought to myself, I don't want to pass that down
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: to them.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I don't want them to struggle with this.
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: And I think the best way that you can prevent
• 25:28
  Speaker 6: that is to not drink in front of them, or
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: not drink like it's like a normal everyday thing.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: I'm not saying that should be the rule for everyone
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: or that like if you're drinking wine in front of
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: your kid that you're a bad mom. I'm not at
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: all saying that. But for us, that was a really
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: big assumption for me. And I have this part of
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: my book that actually got cut because of the controversy
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: about the movie.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: It ends with Us.
• 25:51
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah, but I wrote it before all of that happened,
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: But there was I had like sort of the I
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: think the epilogue that was like ends with Us because
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: I read the book, which is about domestic violence, but
• 26:03
  Speaker 6: I loved the title because I thought, that's what I'm doing,
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: you know, that's what we're doing by taking this out
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: of We're ending this.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: We're not going to pass this down.
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: And although my husband is not one hundred percent sober,
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: like he hardly ever drinks because I don't drink, and
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: I was always the one bringing the alcohol into the home.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: So I just think we.
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: Did such a solid for our marriage because we thought
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: a lot when we were drinking, and for our kids.
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: And I am really thinking deeply about how I talk
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: about this stuff with them, and I think kids really
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: get it more when you can explain it. I have
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: told my kids, like, yeah, we have like in our genetics,
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: like we're more prone to addiction, and so we have
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: to be really careful about that.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: So it's not like, oh, this is bad, don't do it.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: It's like, here's why this.
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: Is bad because they know what happened to their grandma
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: so they never met, and they know what happened to
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: my grandpa.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: And so I think and from what.
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: I've heard, this is sort of like nothing that I verified,
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: but I think from what I've heard, when kids have
• 27:02
  Speaker 6: that kind of reasoning, they're much more likely to actually
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: make good decisions around it than if they're just told
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: no and they don't know why.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: That's interesting because I've always kind of wandered about how
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: I would deal with that, because I have addiction run
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: in my family too, and I never knew if like,
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: if you tell your kids, oh, you are more prone
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: to this, does it like plant something in their head
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: and give them kind of an excuse?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm about to read a book that someone
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: suggested to me.
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: I haven't read yet. It's Oh, it's called The I
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: like this woman. I think it's Jessica Laus or something.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Anyway.
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: I also do the link, but it's I was told
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: this is like the number one book to read if
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: you for like talking with your kids about addictions.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: So haven't read it though, Okay, yeah, cool.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: I my dad was a drug addict, and my mom
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: talked about it in terms like not mostly drugs, but
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: you know, any sort of addictive substances. And my mom
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: was very open about the fact that like, you should definitely.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Never that is not a thing that you should tap into.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: And it was I've never I've never even smoked pot,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: like I've never I've never done any drugs whatsoever because
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: of my father.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So that message stuck for me.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: And when I was a teenager, I definitely had a
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: problem with alcohol that was like extremely bad, like I
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: was sixteen and bringing like peach snaps.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And a water bottle like bad. Yeah, And I.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Realized I was like, oh, I am my father's daughter,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: and I should not do this anymore. And I almost
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: never drink now. And I had like very clear parameters
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: of like when it's when it's acceptable, and I almost
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: never hit that threshold of when that when I meet
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: those And so I think it's important to be honest
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: with kids about the fact that like you know, we
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: have this susceptibility in our family. And I say it
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: the same with like diabetes. I'm like, if you're drinking
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: a lot and peeing a lot because of our genetics,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: I'm concerned about diabetes for you. It's the same. It's
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: the same with and I think if you frame it
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: in that prism of like, you know, we have a
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: we have a susceptibility to diabetes and also addiction.
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: Right, I mean, it's it's the you know that there's
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: always the argument, is addiction a choice or a disease?
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: And you know, I think I land more on the
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: side of it is somewhat of a disease. I mean,
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: I think there are nuances to that, like, yes, we
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: have to make that decision, but sometimes when people begin
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: making those decisions not recognizing how detrimental it can be,
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: it then becomes something that you can almost not control.
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: And and so I think you're right, like to frame
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: it in terms of any other sort of health problem
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: that makes so much sense.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Hello, I'm James Lanwix, and I'm at the diner, you know,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: classic American diner, Chrome long Boomerang Pettern for my account
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: of a little jukeboxes. We love these and you can
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: join me here every Saturday when we talk about whatever
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: happens to spring into my mind at the moment. There's
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: no predicting where it will go, except that it'll be
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: done in about thirty minutes. Join me, won't you, every
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Saturday for the Ricochet Audio Network.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Ricochet, Yeah, join the conversation.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: But like my dad became readdicted to drugs because he
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: was prescribed all the pain medication that then became. Then
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: they told you, oh no, no, no, you can't be addicted,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: You can't get addicted.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, just kidding.
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: Well, you know, I have to say, like I've had
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: to be careful about that because I've had some back
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: problems and I know how much I liked those pain pills,
• 30:47
  Speaker 6: and I and actually after I had Kit or after
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: I had my daughter too, that I had had some
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: pain pills and they were gone really fast, and I
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: was like, I'm not allowing I didn't allow myself to
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: ask for more.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Is that that scared me to death to be to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: get addicted to pills.
• 31:03
  Speaker 6: But I saw very easily how it happened, and I
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: knew that I was susceptible to that, So luckily I
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: was able to sort of step away.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: So can I can? I ask you, like maybe a
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: pointed question. Yeah, So are you also, because I've known
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: you for a very long time, are you also an
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: addictive personality with working out with fitness?
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Which loved CrossFit? I did love cross It was religious,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: it was really religious. I don't do it anywhere because
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of my back problems, but I that's actually what made
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: me think of it. Yes, because cross it.
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: Kind of so I did have an eating disorder as
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: a teenager, so you've probably seen me talk about that
• 31:47
  Speaker 6: for like ten years, and so it did in a
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: way sort of morph into some of the alcohol stuff.
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: Like there's a lot of the same sort of mindset
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: and so exercise.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I I think I definitely use. It's I kind of
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: control mechanism.
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: Like if I don't if I don't work out like
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: three times in a week, like I'm like starting to
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: kind of like, okay, okay, I guess.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: You know, so is it the same ecosystem of addiction,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: but that's just a healthier addiction kind of.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I guess. But I don't know. I think it feels
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: more like a I don't know what the word is.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I think I do have a fear.
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: I will just admit, like I do have a fear
• 32:25
  Speaker 6: of like gain weight, like I don't. I don't want
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: to gain weight, and so I just sort of use
• 32:29
  Speaker 6: it as a control thing more more so than a
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: sort of like I have to do this or I'm
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: going to like die type of thing. I mean, there's
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: certainly some unhealthy elements that I'll admit to, but at
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: the same time, I'm like, well, I'm definitely not over
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: exercising if I'm working out for an hour three times
• 32:44
  Speaker 6: a week.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: So I just sort of like let it be. Yeah.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I always wonder that because I follow this influencer, a
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: woman who I find her extremely annoying actually, but she
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: she has good recipes, so I keep on following her.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: But I hate.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Follow her on a lot of other things, yea. And
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: one of them is I feel like she has an
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: eating disorder and she just does not seem to recognize it.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: And I find that strange and I kind of want
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: to comment sometimes I'm like.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Do you know that you have an eating disorder? I
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: wonder if it's the person I saw the other day,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: You'll have to tell me off one, yeah, I will.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: But she she's like very very addicted in a not
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: healthy way in my opinion, to fitness, and so I
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: see this like addictive.
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: Related well, and a lot of people that get sober
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: do get very into their physical stuff.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Like you'll see a lot of.
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: People sort of transition out perfully because they just they
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: need place to.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Put their energy. And a lot of people also don't
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: know what to do when they stop drinking. But like,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: what do I do all the time?
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: Because I was just like drinking and that entertained me,
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: and then all of a sudden they have all the
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: time in the world. Not necessarily the same thing true
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: if you're talking about a mom like I didn't have
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: that problem.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: But husband gave up drinking and then stop it smoke
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: and so much that you had to give nineteen and
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: then he had to get It's been like a vicious cyclist.
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like you're always trying to Actually, we probably
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: don't have to have to get into this, but that
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: leads me. I'm I think I'm gonna ride of a
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: subject soon about the prevalence of gummies and all little
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: yeah see gummies, because they're everywhere, and I'm seeing even
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: these sober influencers that are being like I don't.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Get drunk anymore. I just take my gummies the last
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: with my friends. And I'm like, I don't feel like
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: that's a great message.
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: Like somebody, I have a mom friend who texted me
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: the other day saying, I'm giving up alcohol. I'm gonna
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: be California sober from now on.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, California sober. That's it.
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah, very coming to And I'll just I will tell
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: you a few months back, like I actually I took
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: a gummy and I was like, maybe this will just
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: help me relax that night. And I immediately was like
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: that was a bad idea.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: That was a bad idea, and I I gave him,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: I got rid of them, and I gave him to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: my sister.
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: But I just think, like, if you are a person
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: that really actually has this like sort of ditive personality,
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: like you're just looking for something else to fill that gap,
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: and you've got to fill it with something else. You've
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: got to figure out what it is that you need
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: to to feel whole and to feel fulfilled, whether that
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: is a spiritual component of your life, and it also
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: could be related to your nutrition and like the way
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: that you're treating your body rest. There's so many ways
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: to like fill that gap, and drinking or a gummy
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: or whatever unhealthy thing that you're thinking is never going
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: to do that, and you're just going to keep kind
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: of pushing it down.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: The road until you realize, oh, still not fixed. Fascinating,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: So maybe you should just work out a lot, and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: working out is a better option, I think. Yeah, you're
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: going to choose an addiction. That's a good one.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Bethany, I'm interested in whether you've noticed a different Well,
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: I guess you don't. Really, you don't smekle, drink greity
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: GLP ones.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: I'm wondering if, Oh interesting, I'm a big candy person.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I really like, Sure I do too. Yeah, I also
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: that is.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: I joked that I was fat because of Trader Joe's candy,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: but it just turned out I was just fat because
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: I ate too much, and then my my zet bound
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: made me stop eating so much, and then I wasn't.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: So you're on a GLP one, Is that what you're saying? Yeah,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I'm on zet bound, but I'm like cycling down, gotcha.
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: But I was wondering just because I know so many
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: people who started GLP once and then ended up accidentally
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: stopping drinking or stopping smoking or gamblin or whatever it is.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: So Seth, I think, in a very not so subtle
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: way of trying to encourage me to do them. For
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: about a year, would just like present these studies to
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: me all the time in a very like neutral like this.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Is an interesting factory.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: And I was like, yes, that is very interesting, Honey,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: where did this come from?
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: He's like, I just.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Think the interesting things sometimes and I present.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Them to you at the time. Netral.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so he he did share a lot of
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: that research with me, And I mean, it makes sense,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: like it breaks your synapses that are connected to addiction.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: And I've heard that as well, and I don't thinkotalne.
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I even did a little free class a few
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: months back that was, like I titled it get Rid
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: of the Alcohol Noise because of the food Noise conversation
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: relating to GLP ones. Although I did not like connect it,
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: but I guess you're right. It makes sense like these
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: patterns in your brain are being broken, and so if
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: you're going to alcohol or you're going to food for
• 37:30
  Speaker 6: comfort to fix something, it makes sense that you might
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: not be, you know, headed towards something else bad for comfort.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I used candy a lot also because I
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: don't drink coffee.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I like, I truly am.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: I am scared of addiction, and so my mom was
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: like a basket case unless she had coffee. So I
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: never wanted to be like her either, So I've never
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: had coffee. I'm a Mormon drink tea, not only non caffemated.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: What do you drink in the mornings? Water? Oh gosh, Yeah,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: that's so sad.
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: It was just kidding, But I really look forward to
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: my nice cup of coffee with my.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Like lots time. Most normal people do. I just like
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: the weird Mormon jew. Yeah, your body's probably better for it. Yeah,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: So I was using sugar to keep me awake because
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: I haven't slept in like thirteen years Russian.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I was. I was. I was sugar fueling myself.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah that makes sense.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I have just sort of had to one
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: really nerdy thing that I've recently discovered. I think you've
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: probably Erica. You're gonna be like, why haven't you known
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: this for fifteen years? Taking magnesium at night has been
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: life changing for me. I fall asleep. It's like a
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: muscle relaxer.
• 38:43
  Speaker 6: I'm like, oh wow, that's pretty awesome because it's different
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: for different people. Magnesum doesn't affect me as much as
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: I do personally take melotonin.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: But I don't give it to my kids.
• 38:54
  Speaker 6: I mean I remember I gave it to them some
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: and then I saw these things that were like, don't
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: give your kids melotone. So I was like, fine, so
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: I give them sometimes I give them magnesium gummies.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I've been giving one of my kids, who
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: has had sleep problems her entire life. I've been giving
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: her a pill that is magnesium and like one milligram
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: of meltonin because she's a psycho and she doesn't sleep.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: And she my daughter, is very similar.
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: She she's never I don't think this girl has ever
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: slept through the night.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: She wakes up every night at two am and comes
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: into my bed. But that's that's not normal.
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: And also we're like really bad at like we were
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: not good with the whole Like walk her back to
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: bed and tell her, you know what I.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Like, because you're tired. Yeah, I don't get up an
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: run this household. Oh man, I am, but she so Anyways,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I actually to be honest with you, it doesn't bother
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: me that she sleeps in the bed. I don't mind it.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: I'm just you know, I have that whole mindset of
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: like they're on you know, she's seven. Then she eventually
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: will go out of it one day.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: We so our concern was more the like leaving the house.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Like we installed like a security system, half for security
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: and half to make like if she opens the door.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: She was a toddler.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we woke up this was years ago now.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: We woke up one morning and we thought that someone
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: had been in our house because someone had ripped apart
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: our entire pantry and yeah, like every single garbage bag
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: out of the box, like it was just like a
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: war zone. And we panicked. We were like, did someone
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: rob our pantry? Like what happened overnight? And then we
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: found a garbage bag in her room and we were.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Like, ah, so scary. That is so scary. Do you
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: guys have two stories?
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, but she can't really, she can't get out on
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: the second and she I don't know if people followed
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: on Instagram when I got When we got home from Europe,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: we realized that we didn't have our house or car keys,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: and so we had to. I had to call a
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: locksmith to open our house while I was still in Copenhagen,
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: because he's like, well, i'll just meet you at your
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: house and I was like, no, I don't know exactly
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: when I'm getting home. And I stand and wait for
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: an hour.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: After we like.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Open the house, we will reactivate the alarm system. It's fine,
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: there's nothing of value in our home. It can sit
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: unlocked for.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Fifteen and walk in and be like never mind.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: Right, So we got home and we found my air
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: tag for my for my keys in her bed, but
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: only the air tag and he never.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Found the keys. That's so weird.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so she just like does weird things in her
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: sleep that is really strange.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: She's just a scary child. Yeah, this is scary. I
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: mean it is, like, no, it is for sure.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: So so that is my justification for why I drugged
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: my child with totally a museum in melotonin because I
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: was melogram.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: If it's fine, I'm not too worried about it.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: The girl needs Yeah. So I was using sugar as
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: a fuel and it was really unhealthy.
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's you know, it's amazing because it's like you know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 6: they say, if you do which.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I've never done this, so I can't say for sure.
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: But if you do like a thirty day sugar detox,
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: you know, it's like when you taste sugar again all
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: of a sudden, like even something not very sweet tastes
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: very sweet. And so that's another just way of reprogramming
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: your body. And I like, I I am such a
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: sweet addict. I mean like I do have like a
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: with that too, not in a way that it's like
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: affecting you like in my life, but but yeah, like
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: I put so much sugar and cream in my coffee
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: that people are like, what.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Are you doing? Disgusting? I don't, it's not good. I can't.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: I can never drink black coffee. My husband drinks black coffee,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Like that's so gross. Yeah, Seth, Seth drinks it concentrate.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: That's wait, wait what I mean like like like like
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: concentrate coffee. And sometimes you just yeah, my husband shot get.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: My husband will get when we go to Starbucks, he
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: gets like dope EO espresso.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: And then you shown me when you're pregnant and you'll
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: check in how much caffeine is and stuff that you've
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: realized how much caffeine is in sefe yeah, and it's insane.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: It's really really crazy.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: I think because I don't I don't like imbibe many substances,
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: whether they be alcohol or drugs or whatever, caffeine. I
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: am the cheapest date.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: That's why the magnesium affects you so much. Though that's
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: probably true because you're not used to anything. So you know,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: that's that's another just the hit on this point.
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: And I know we have to go soon, but like,
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: is that like when you are like drinking your inddiction
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: whatever and people are like, well you go take a
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: walk and take a deep breath or whatever.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, like that's gonna do it.
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: But once you sort of give yourself some time to
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: come off that superficial high that you get from the substance,
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: you start to realize that some of those practical things
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: that people are suggesting actually do help. You have to
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: get your body like you have to like detox from
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: the substance in order to be able to be like, oh,
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: those deep breaths are like like I'm like totally into
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: like mobility stretching right now.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: It's a weird obsession of mine, and it just feels
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: so amazing, Like this actually relaxes me. And I'm like,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: you use tell me more. Oh, I don't use anything.
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: I just like I looked up some videos like randomly
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: on Google or YouTube, and I just started doing like
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: five or six similar exercises and do them every single day.
• 44:23
  Speaker 6: If you just look up like mobility exercises for like women,
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: it'll show you so I love exactly. You'll get all
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: the ads. And then right now I'm drinking liquid IV.
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: That's like been my new thing is drinking electrolytes because
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: I never did that before. And so you start finding
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: these other things and I, you know, now I take
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: all the I get my supplements from Weeheart Nutrition like this,
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: like they're like this conservative for a lifetime company. But
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: but I take all the supplements and do all the things,
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: and like I just feel like I feel great most
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: of the time, Like I feel one hundred percent almost
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: all the time.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: And you know, you don't get that way without some intention.
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: It turns out that the people who like just go
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: outside for a walk and drink whatever a ride.
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like they were they had it all along.
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: It really was that simple, eat your vegetables. That's the
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: one I'm struggling.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: But I love it. Where can people get your book?
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: You can get a book on Amazon.
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: All the places the book are still but yeah, find
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: it on Amazon. That's your best place and buy it properly.
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: But you can learn more about it at freelysober dot com.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: And and do.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: You so you mentioned a class that you do, Yeah,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: so tell us more about that actually before we go.
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so this was a so I did, like a
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: sober October sort of challenge. And then to the end
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: of subrect to where I did like a free class,
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: but that actually is available to.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think.
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: I think if you go to Sobrietycurious dot com, that's
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: where you can download sort of my like women's guide
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: to sobriety, like a bunch of resources and stuff. Sobridycurious
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: dot com. I believe in the first email that's sent
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: out that has the link to the training amazing, so
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: sobriety here dot com for that, and then freely sober
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: dot com for the book, and then Instagram of course
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: Erica Underscore Anderson, Erica Anderson all over the world, all
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: over the place.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: The Googles love it.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming on. This was a
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: really interesting wonderful conversation. It was good to catch up
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: because I haven't seen you in so long. I know
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: it's forever.
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: Wait, can I just say I just googled us? What
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: I just googled us?
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: The podcast and there was a great there was a
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: great star review, and then the one before that is
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: two housewives complaining about woke.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: You didn't see my tweet about that. Oh I love it.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: So it was funny because I tweeted it and tried
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: to get people to leave us reviews, using that bad
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: one as bait, and a couple people responded and they
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: were like, that actually makes me want to listen to it,
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: And I was like, well, then, thanks for the advertising.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I would make me want to listen. Hey, listen, let's
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: do it. Let's do a swap. I leave you guys
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: a podcast for you. You guys best go leave me
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: a five star book review.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: There we go, there the love it, love it alome
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: all right, So go pick up the book and follow
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Erica on.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: All of the socials. Thank you so much for coming.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: This was lovely you all right? Until next week, guys, Saddle.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: Up Ricochet
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Join the conversation