January 12, 2018 • 50 mins
Many people give up drinking in January. Here’s what boozing means for women and feminism.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Bridget and this is Emily, and you're
listening to stuff mom never told you, and today we're
kind of doing a companion episode to our New Year's
Resolution episode. I feel like if you listen to that episode,
(00:27):
which you definitely should, you probably heard me talking about
how I don't really do New Year's resolutions. I sort
of I don't ever really make them, and that's more
or less true. But then after talking it through with Emily,
I realized I actually do have a New Year's resolution
of sorts um that I didn't share on the episode,
and I figured, why not. No time like the present,
(00:50):
No time like the present, And I think it's something
that will be good to share in the sense of
sort of radical honesty, because who knows how many listeners
out there are sort of at lee doing the same thing,
and that is in I am trying to be more
mindful about my alcohol consumption, and if the data is
(01:11):
to be believed, I am not alone. To be clear,
I'm not someone who I think has like a drinking
problem or is a problem drinker. Has never sort of
come up in my life in those ways. But honestly,
this is gonna sound a bit dumb. What got me
really thinking about it was this interview that Chrissy Teagan
did in Cosmo magazine. She talks about how she just
(01:31):
sort of realized that she was drinking a lot and
not really thinking about it. She says, I got used
to being in hair and makeup and having a glass
of wine, and then that glass of wine and carrying
me over to the next one before the award show.
Then that glass of wine would carry over into me
having one before the award show, and then a bunch
during the award show, and then I felt bad making
an ass of myself to people that I really respected,
(01:51):
and that feeling there's nothing like that. You feel horrible.
It's not a good look for me, not a good
look for John, not a good look for anyone. And
I thought same, I relate. Do you relate to that? Definitely? Definitely.
I think there are different times in our lives and
we should acknowledge a trigger warning to upfront here for
anyone who is struggling with or has struggled with addiction alcoholism,
(02:12):
whose life has been touched by alcoholism in your family
or loved ones or friends, you know that this is
a ubiquitous part of our culture. That's in some ways
made more difficult to talk about with such courageous honesty.
So thank you for making this a priority, bridget Um,
(02:33):
because it is so widely accepted and beyond widely accepted,
you know, ubiquitous in terms of its accessibility, and you're
almost deemed weird when you're not drinking, and there are
many social instances in which drinking is an expected part
of the whole celebratory environment. Absolutely um. That has been
(02:58):
my experience on and thinking about Chrissie's story. Something that
really jumped out at me is how if you're someone
who works a stressful job, or you're, you know, just
living your life, maybe you do have a couple of
glasses of wine here and there, and it's easy just
would have not see the ways that they can add up,
or just would have have it be a habitual thing
that you do without even really thinking about and so
(03:18):
or or is like a part of your self care regiment. Exactly,
you can it can almost be twisted in this very overwhelming,
stressful b S world that we've been faced with for
this presidency. Especially exactly so that has been my experience
to a t Many of y'all know that a while
back while posting this podcast, was also working on the
digital team at Planned Parenthood. And let me tell you,
(03:41):
not only is that work very fulfilling and very you know,
gives you warm fuzzies, it's also very taxing, very exhausting,
very frustrating, very overwhelming. You know, there are lots of
times where you screamed at your desk. I've pounded on
my desk at that job. I've screamed out and anger.
And the first thing when I would get home in
the evening that would want to do is have a
(04:01):
glass of wine. Would open my door and be like
Trump nest with us all day. I need a glass
of wine. And generally that would be my routine, you know,
I mean, unless you're running to studio with me to
then try to compartmentalize the news cycle of the day,
which is no easy feat. When you're doing an episode
on I Don't Know Me Too, you know, it's a
really psychologically taxing, uh double duty that you were playing
(04:26):
for a long time there. I can relate quite frankly,
and you know, we like to pour our all into
all these episodes, but also we are forced to compartmentalize
and put on pause whatever is happening in your day
that day to really focus in on a singular topic
at a time, or at you know, three at a
time in studio sessions. Totally, that's totally totally it. Um
(04:50):
So in my day, you know, come home, first class
of wine, then I maybe make dinner or work on
the podcast, and while doing that, have another glass of wine,
and maybe a glass of wine with dinner. And you know,
listen that maybe it doesn't sound like the behavior of
a raging party animal, you know, working on a feminist
podcast over a bottle of wine. But if you do,
(05:10):
if you do the math, that adds up to three
glasses of wine over the course of one evening. Keep
in mind, the CDC says that for a woman, four
drinks is technically binge drinking, and so before you even
know it, you're hair below a night have been drinking
as you're like average week night. And for all of
y'all who heard us on the Delightful Women in Whiskey episode, No,
(05:32):
I'm a lightweight, Like four drinks is enough to basically
black me out at this point. Uh. And on occasion,
on a big night out like I don't know, New
Year's Eve, perhaps I am reminded of what a lightweight
I've become, and I swear it's not from a lack
of practice. It's just that I can't hold a drink anymore.
(05:55):
And that sneaks up on you when you're in an
environment where three or four drinks is you know, running
the mill over the course of a six hour party
or a six hour evening. I think you're exactly right.
I think that we it's easy to sort of not
see certain behaviors as problem behaviors, even if you know
medical professionals say well, technically that was night have binge drinking.
(06:17):
It's easy to sort of have it not feel that way,
particularly when it's so accepted. And I think for me
here in d C, as I'm sure you can attest to,
I work in politics. People in politics like to drink.
He sees a drinking city, and it's really difficult to
get away from that. At times, it almost feels impossible
to get away from that exactly. In fact, a new
(06:37):
report just named d C is the number to state
or in this case, district in our country for the
percentage of adults who consume alcohol and number one for
the percentage of heavy drinkers. According to detox dot Net.
And to be clear, I think part of the intimate
connection between alcohol and politics is that alcohol is the
(06:59):
social lubricant of power. Right. I've talked candidly in my
work at Boston Up and especially on a podcast interview
I recently did with a friend of ours from the
work at Festival w n y c S Women's Podcasting
Festival who I met there. Her name is Terice Barbato.
She has an awesome podcast called That's What She Said,
(07:21):
And I recently did an interview that went into detail
about the really toxic relationship that I found myself in
at the very start of my career. I was a
state director working in politics in Rhode Island at the time,
and at the time I was living with, in love with,
and cared deeply for, a brilliant, hardworking social justice advocate,
(07:41):
elected official, high functioning alcoholic. And there is just nothing
that will screw you up more than loving an addict
and only realizing years later that a lot of what
you thought was true is not true. And it also
(08:02):
really messed my relationship up with booze and made me
inherently uncomfortable with heavy drinkers and being around heavy drinkers,
and it caused me to sort of fall into these
habits of codependency, of counting other people's drinks and sort
of monitoring what was the situation. And I left that
relationship with some problematic drinking habits of my own. When
(08:24):
I drank, I tended to get black out drunk, I mean.
And that was for a while. I was in therapy
myself and and was fortunate enough to get a lot
of support and understand what was going on, um in
my own relationship to alcohol and my relationship to my
ex at the time. But it's pernicious because it is
(08:44):
so powerful in the world of politics, and it's I mean,
it's not only politics, right, everyone's careers can benefit from
networking at happy hour. It just so happens that this
city has happy hour every day and boozy brunches, bottomless
brunches on Sundays exactly exactly. Um. Something that's to that
to me in the story that you were just sharing
with this idea of sort of being high functioning. So
(09:07):
many people I know, particularly people who are brilliant political
minds or brilliant writers. Because journalism and media is also
a big drinking industry, so many of them probably could
stand to look at their substance the way that substances
show up in their lives. But because they have fabulous careers,
because they have because they're ask kickers, because they're so amazing,
(09:28):
because they're so smart, we sort of don't we assume
they have it all together. And I think that's exactly
what my my sort of semi New Year's I hate
using the word resolution. I want to come I need
to come up with like a I like it, and
you know you you don't have to be cool this know,
I know this is my Yeah, So you know. I
(09:53):
think why I'm doing this is because it seems like,
if you're someone who wants to ask questions about how
alcohol shows up in your life, you're an addict, You're
it's a problem, and there's a stigma around it, and
I think, why is that right? Like? Why why should
I feel weird about coming on this podcast and saying
I'm intentionally paying attention to the way that alcohol has
(10:16):
has shown up in my life, not because I'm getting
black out drunk every night, but because I want to
pay attention to it, and it's something that I feel
like we don't pay attention to Yeah, you're right. I
think there's so much stigma, which is very rude. If
you come to realize how many alcoholics are walking amongst us,
it's it's kind of rare that people's lives aren't touched
(10:38):
by alcoholism or addiction in some form or another. I mean,
when you look at the numbers. In the United States alone,
seventeen point six million people, or one in every twelve adults,
suffer from alcohol abuse or dependence, along with several million
more who engage in risky binge drinking patterns that could
lead to alcohol problems. Now, alcohol problems is a pretty
(11:02):
wide net. And any time you find yourself feeling like
I would like to re evaluate, as Chrissie Teakin was,
what the impact alcohol and my consumption of alcohol has
on my life and how I'm showing up and how
I want to show up in the world. That's perfectly
valid for that to show up in that uh, that
(11:23):
bucket of sort of alcohol problems. And it doesn't mean
you've got to ship yourself off to rehab either. There's
this very hard line around the stigma that we bring
to alcoholism that's very unhelpful. Well, that's why I found
Chrissy Teagan's explanation so powerful because she explicitly says, listen,
it wasn't like external forces came and said you've got
a problem, or you know, this happened and I'm so embarrassed.
(11:46):
She just took a step back and wanted to reevaluate
and sort of think through how it showed up and
for her and what it caused her. Right, And I
remember having a day and again, my my stories with
alcohol are as I said, not like I was at
a raging party, you did fall out of a window.
I was college. That's what I can tell you some
(12:06):
college stories where you'd be like, wow, that's but you know,
I was figuring about yeah, the same. To be clear,
In fact, I think part of the reason my alcoholic
ex boyfriend was so normal seeming to me is because
I was in college when we first started dating. Exactly.
That's it's like, if you're an alcoholic and you want
to pass as like someone without a drinking problem data
(12:27):
college students, Definitely, it's like the best strategy that's real
for me. I remember one day where I was excited
to I think, do something. It was something out of
the house, something small or minor and I went out
drinking the night before and I didn't get black out drunk,
and I wasn't like raging. But the next day I
was hungover, and whatever the thing was I was looking
forward to, I couldn't go because I was on the
(12:49):
couch nursing a hangover, and you know, it was it
was something small in my life, but I thought, gee,
it's like I was looking forward to this thing all
week and now I can't go because I went out
drinking the night before and I just thought it wasn't
worth it. It wasn't because I could do that day over.
I would have done it differently. And I also think
(13:09):
for me, the way that alcohol has showed up in
my life is that, you know, not only working in
politics such as such a boozy industry, but I've worked
in the service industry and the restaurant industry, and a large,
you know portion of my friends currently work in bars
and restaurants, and that is not only is that a
boozy industry. In fact, according to the National Survey on
Drug Use and Health, the only industries with more alcohol
(13:31):
abuse and the service industry are the construction industry and
the mining industry. So it's a it's a hard drinking industry.
And you know when you're going to visit your friends
who tend bar, and that's hanging out with your friends
you tend to drink. Also, you got the hook of
with the best drinks, and like I've totally benefited from
having friends in the service industry. It is great. Have
(13:52):
you ever been a part of the lock in culture?
And I was a barmaid what the English called bartenders
or women bartenders in London during my study abroad experience
at the University College London shout out to UCL I
got a job at a wonderful little pub called the
Rocket right by King's Cross Station and for an entire semester,
(14:18):
after a Friday or Saturday night of tending bar, all evening,
two o'clock would roll around, we would kick everybody out,
clean up the bar, lock the doors, and then the
party would begin amongst all the staff. So that lock
and culture, which is still very big, not just in England,
I'm sure, but here in the United States as well,
encourages a lot of my friends in the service industry
(14:40):
to party until the sun comes up, sleep it off
all day long, and then go back to work. As
the evening falls and that is Hey, I gained twenty
pounds in beer weight, straight up be I didn't make
my best choices. I didn't make the best use of
my time in Europe. Although some would say that the
study bar experiences more than just what you learned in
(15:02):
the classroom, and that was certainly true for me. I
don't know. I just feel like there is a culture
of being a happy, go lucky party person that comes
with an excessive, scientifically excessive amount of drinking. And I
feel like you've said it multiple times. You pride yourself
on being the party girl. Your the life of every
party I've ever been to. You enjoy drinking, so it's
(15:25):
hard to examine a hobby that, like you say, you
also can feel some remorse over when you look back
in the grand scheme of things, like that's an okay
dichotomy to embrace. Yeah, I'm my whole life. I've been
known as the sort of the fun one quote unquote.
I remember in college when you know how in college
(15:45):
dudes are like talking about the girls and and they're like, oh,
so and so is the pretty one, and so and
so is the hot one. So my friends are always,
oh she's the hot one, and then she's the cool one,
and it was always pretty, she's a lot of fun.
That was me. I was the fun girl, and so
I think that because of that, drinking me kind of
became part of my identity. Like, like the idea that
(16:07):
I would examine something that seems so closely linked to
how people think of me when they think of how
I show up in the world was difficult. I've seen
this before with you as we've gone out drinking after
many a podcast session. I wonder if you feel this
need to entertain, because I almost see you kind of
putting on a performance. And y'all, if we ever get
(16:27):
our act together and have an actual meet up in
d C, which I know we've been talking about and
dying to have, and schedules have been challenging, but we
will figure that out, you will see bridget Todd the
entertainer because when you were out for a night, you
are on and it's never about you chilling, It's about
making sure like the environment is good for other people.
(16:48):
I almost feel like you you perform for other people
in that way. Yeah, I'll put it this way. I
think I've always been someone who my sort of everyday
superpower is to get others to feel comfortable and open up.
And so I if we're out and I can tell
someone feels awkward, I'm very good at getting someone to like,
loosen up, relax, telephonny story, laugh, whatever happen to me.
(17:12):
I mean, my god, Bridget, I mean it's a talent.
But it's also like a curse, right, because if you're
always thinking, you know, if your number one priority is
I want everyone to feel good, be happy, to be relaxed,
to be laughing, be having a good time. That if
that becomes part of how you see yourself, it can
be a little problematic. Yeah, not to mention, you're also
the pretty one and the cool one. So literally every
(17:35):
dude in my college would disagree you're all wrong. Obviously, Uh, Bridget,
Todd's modesty strikes again, and I'm here to debunk the myth. No, well,
I think I think you're totally right, and I think
that you know, before we dive too deep into a
therapy session here in the studio, Bridget's most innermost thoughts,
(17:57):
it's this was I really struggled with weather to bring
this to the pot. This is an episode that I
hope that no one I know listens to because it's
not something I'm really comfortable talking about with friends unless
that we're very, very close. It's not something that I
want people to be examining on my behalf, Like if
someone sees me with a picture of a drink on
(18:18):
Instagram and awesome to be like, I thought you weren't
drinking this month or whatever? Right, this is something that
I think us right, right, And so this is something
it's you can probably tell difficult from me to talk
about because it's so personal. But I think if there
are people and the research suggests that there are, who
are also reevaluating thinking through how alcohol shows up in
(18:40):
their lives, why can't we all do it together? I
completely agree, And this is something that I've done myself
in the years following that relationship, because you know, there's
a many different shades of what might be deemed alcoholism.
And interestingly, most people who drink too much, according to
Dr Robert Brewer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
(19:03):
are not alcohol dependent or alcoholics. It's this idea that
they're excessive drinkers, which can cover several different groups binge drinkers,
heavy drinkers, meaning men who have more than fifteen drinks
in a week or women who have more than eight
drinks in a week. Everybody's counting on their fingers right now,
(19:23):
which is good. Um, women who drink, drink, pregnancy, anyone
under the age of twenty one who drinks. And so
if you're someone like me who likes to drink, you
might be thinking, oh, great news. According to this research,
I am not in fact a problem drinker, or I
am not in fact someone who is an alcoholic. I
can just keep heavy drinking with reassurance and I don't
have a problem. But here's why that's wrong. The knowledge
(19:45):
is that only ten of heavy drinkers are actual alcoholics.
May sound reassuring, but that doesn't mean that the other
don't also have problems with drinking. Joseph Noinsky, PhD and
co author of the book Almost Alcoholic, which I feel
like is a really perfect title, points this out. In
his book, he describes how drinking negatively affects up to
(20:06):
one third of drinkers who aren't actually classified as having
an alcohol use disorder. He writes, there are many people
in the almost alcoholic zone who are having alcohol related
problems with their health, their relationships and social lives and
even their work. But who don't connect the dots between
these problems and they're drinking. These people dismiss the possibility
of being alcoholics, and they truly don't qualify under current definitions.
(20:27):
But maybe to take a step back and look how
drinking is affecting their lives. That speaks so strongly to
me because at one point in my life, shortly after
I'd gotten out of that really toxic relationship, and I
was starting to recognize that, wow, the amount of alcohol
that I was consuming when I was going out for
a night of partying was putting me in dangerous situations.
(20:50):
And I feel like we've all had those nights, and
you know, I think we're lucky if we can look
back at those nights and say, wow, that was almost
something really dangerous. And one of them for me was
the fact that when I did get very drunk out
partying with a group of people, my go to would
be the like runaway. At some point in the night,
(21:13):
I fled the scene. One of my body was like rebelling.
When I was realizing I'm so drunk, my instinct was
to flight, basically, And there were many times when I realized,
like I'm alone, I'm heading back to my apartment. My
poor parents. I hope they don't listen to this, But
like it was, it was dangerous. There were dangerous situations,
(21:37):
and I was fortunately, you know, not rescued, I would say,
but helped by kind people to make sure I got
home safe and sound. And I'm talking strangers and police officers.
So I just remember waking up the next day after
an altercation like that and thinking about my consumption as
(21:58):
being something. This isn't so thing I've survived that was
part of a bad relationship. This is something I need
to deal with and I need to take responsibility for now.
And that's when I started going dry in January, which
I've been doing for a few years. Um. That's when
I started recognizing that it's okay for me to own
being a lightweight as opposed to trying to keep up
(22:21):
with the boys or keep up with women who can
drink me under the table quite frankly. And I just
think it's so worth evaluating your own danger or your
your own ability to put yourself in situations, even if
it's just like Christy Teagan, who might embarrass herself or
(22:41):
in front of people she respects, or God forbid something
much much scarier than that exactly. And I want to
talk through how this idea of a dry january is
showing up right now in January after this quick break
and we're back just sharing some of our war stories,
(23:05):
from survival, survival stories, from lives as within figuring out
the way that we use alcohol. Um. And that's why
I'm so interested in this idea of a dry January.
So to be clear, I'm not committing to a dry
January necessarily. I'm committing to a drinking less january thinking
about it. Do you think you could do like a week?
(23:25):
Just do what I'm doing. I'm I haven't had a
drink since New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve was my
last drink. Same, Yeah, I'm down if you're down. Yeah
I did. I didn't do it last year or the
year before, but I did it for two years prior
and it was great. Yeah, I mean, I'm down with
doing it. There are a couple of there are a
couple of things I have on the schedule that I'm like, well,
(23:45):
I'm definitely gonna drink that I'm I'm going to drink then,
So I just don't want to set myself up for
a goal that I know I'm not going to meet.
It's not about perfection. That's flexibility is so real that
it's so real, um and so dry January. This was
something I had actually never really even heard of. Um.
It really took off in the UK, but the first
time in the research that I found that it showed
(24:06):
up was in nineteen forty two. Sober January was a
campaign pushed in Finland as part of the country's war
effort against Russia, but in modern days. According to The
Sudden newspaper, the official campaign started in the UK around
eleven by a nonprofit called Alcohol Concern and so basically
the idea behind dry January came when an Alcohol Concern
employee decided to not drink during the month because he
(24:28):
was running a half marathon in Debruary and this really
took off after that. In twenty twelve, Alcohol Concern decided
to launch their first dry January campaign, which would start
in um. The first ever campaign saw just under four thousand,
five hundred people take part, and by January it was
up to seventeen thousand people. In two thousand and seven
(24:49):
it was up to five million who were on board
of the campaign, and in a country like England, where
once again I have slang there, in the country of England,
they pride themselves on their beer consumption just as much
as their cheese consumption. You know what I mean. I
feel like that's a really astounding number, and good on
(25:10):
alcohol concern for making this such a huge campaign, and
it absolutely trickled over the US. I've heard people here
call it dry Uary, and to me, it feels like
the perfect time of year to just wring your liver
out for one month after New Year's because the Lord
knows I need it. And I think I drank less
on New Year's this year than ever in my adult life,
and I still was like January one, Why am I
(25:33):
so hungover? This is not the tone I wanted to
set for my New Year. It's the worst way to
spend I mean the worst. Yeah, It's like I feel
like it's one of the worst ways to ring in
what it's supposed to be a fresh star with a
headache watching a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon because you
can't leave your couch. And also we're getting older and
(25:54):
hangovers are gnarly, y'all, like hangovers in your thirties are
no joke. That's a day killer. And I remember being
twenty four and being hungover, and I look back on
that and laugh, like, you weren't hungover. You didn't know
what to hang over. What's funny is that I actually
never got hangovers in my twenties. I didn't get I
had never even experienced one until my thirties. I thought
(26:15):
they were made up to scare young people out of drinking, like, oh,
you're gonna have a hangover, don't drink about all. There's
no such thing as a hangover. I remember the first
time I experienced a really bad hangover in my thirties.
I went to the urgin, I went to urgent care.
I was like, am I dying? They're like, no, you
just drank. You just drank a lot last night. I
had never explained. You're like, can I get an IVY
(26:36):
drip please? Because that would cheer me right up. I
know what you might be thinking, are dry January is
actually effective? According to the research, they actually might be
a study from University of Sussex says they can actually
be effective and making you more mindful about your drinking overall.
According to this research, the fighting suggests that participates in
(26:58):
abstinence challenges such a dry january maybe associated with changes
towards healthier drinking and greater d R s E, which
is basically how likely you are to turn down a
drink um and is unlikely to result in undesirable quote
rebound effects. Very few people reported increased alcohol consumption following
a period of voluntary abstinence, and to go on. The
(27:19):
research that I found most compelling from that study was
that even if you don't actually complete a full dry January,
you actually are still more likely to drink less throughout
the next six months. So if I don't actually make
it a full month, this research suggests that even if
I have a drink here or there, you don't have
to be perfect and have a perfectly dry January to
(27:41):
still get results that last for potentially six months. I
totally understand that because it's about mindful awareness and that
dr SC thing which is so critical. It's the drink
refusal self efficacy, that ability to be at a party
and have everyone turned you and say do you want wine,
liquor or beer and for you to say water for
(28:03):
me please, and not die of humiliation and peer pressure
because for whatever reason. I mean, people look at you
sideways when you refuse an alcoholic beverage at a house,
but like I don't know what to give you, and
who is it that has this great stand up bit
about it? Um John Mullaney? Oh where? Yeah? Where. It's
(28:25):
like if you were to say, oh, I don't eat mannise,
people wouldn't be like, no, man, you have a bad
experience with manna. Yeah. I mean. John mulaney is a
hilarious Irish American stand up comic who is in recovery.
He's an alcoholic and he jokes about a how much
blacking out used to cause him trouble and why he
(28:46):
does not drink anymore, but be when he would go
to friends parties, they would look at him like, I
literally don't know what to get you want some pickles
from the back of my fridge or I think I
have like a leftover towards I don't know what to
give you. That is how foreign abstinence from alcohol can
be for our culture, and that ability to refuse drink,
(29:07):
that ability to say no thank you takes muscle like
it actually is a habit that you have to flex
over time and practice every time. It is not easy.
And I used to just get a soda water with
lime at the bar when I was really stepping back
from my alcohol consumption and trying to ease up on
the booze altogether, because I was so freaked out, um,
(29:30):
just so it would look like I was drinking, which
I would say is perfectly acceptable, but still skirting around
the self efficacy part. Right, you're not really unabashedly refusing
a drink, You're sneaking by right. I mean, I've done
the soda water with lime trick too, and it's effective.
But the real question is why should we have to
(29:52):
trick people into thinking that we're having a drink if
we don't want to drink? Like, why is it not
okay in our culture to just not drink at times
and have it be your own business of why that is,
and not have it be a thing. I guess I
would like to see some culture shift around how alcohol
shows up really for all of us, even for people
who are our light way to barely drink. I just
(30:15):
think that we don't live in a culture that is
really open to folks being mindful about how they drink
in an explicit way without it being something that's incredibly stigmatized, Yes, exactly, like, oh,
do we need to stage an intervention? And then you
have to think about the folks you might be ribbing
at the party for turning down to drink or making
fun of for being a lightweight might actually be struggling with,
(30:37):
like more hardcore alcoholism than you know. And when we
have a culture that's not tolerant of even analyzing alcohol
consumption or speaking critically and mindfully about our own consumption,
how must it feel to be in recovery and be
around people who are basically throwing such shade to anyone
(30:58):
who might refuse a drink. Know, it's just so intolerant
and disrespectful, and alcohol is so omnipresent already that for
folks in recovery it can be really hard to stay
and recovery as opposed to more hardcore drugs, which are
harder to get your hands on, uh than you know,
every single holiday party, every single wedding, every single gathering
(31:22):
of friends at the bar, every single networking opportunity, like
it's harder to avoid when it is this mainstream. And
even beyond that, think about how many different activities we
now and I'm I'm not throwing shade on this because
I think it's awesome, But how many activities have we
included booze in that we don't even necessarily think of
(31:42):
as drinking activities like booze yoga, what it's a it's
a thing, Okay. So Brad the boo is the one
who convinced me that all day drinking is insane. And
I never had the guts to look at it that
way because it's so you know, omnipresent and brunch and
boozy softball leagues and all that other stuff. And then
(32:02):
I realized, like, I cannot have a day and have
drinks during the day. Can't do it. I can't have
a drink in the park on a Saturday. That will
not work for my body. And once Brad acknowledged that
it was crazy and he doesn't understand anyone who does it,
I was like, Yes, this is the mentality I can
get on board with, because all that daytime that we've
(32:25):
made alcoholic all of a sudden is nuts. That's not
what alcohol is meant for. In my opinion. It doesn't
pair well with your surfboard yoga. I just do not
get it. I can't do it when I day drink.
I'm I'm out for the night. I'm like sleeping at
five pm. Yeah, I don't agree. I mean, I do
think that. I think culturally it's gotten a little out
(32:46):
of hand, But I do. I do love a good
boozy brunch. I can't. I do. I have boozy brunches
at every bost at boot Camp, but people do seem
to love it, And every single bust at boot Camp,
I go home from that brunch without a mimosa. I'm
like the only one who doesn't have a momos that
brunch because I need to get through the rest of
my day. Yeah, I guess. I guess my thinking is
(33:08):
if brunches on a Sunday or Saturday and you don't
have a big day anyway, I don't know. I guess
this sounds of justifying something that you were like, No,
it's really not a good idea. But I mean, I mean,
I think, with all self efficacy in mind, you have
to know yourself and your own body and your goals
for Sunday or Saturday or whatever day it is. And
(33:29):
I have found I enjoy my life more when I
do not. I like, unequivocally don't drink during the day. Yeah, yeah,
I don't think I've ever seen you drink drink and
other than our whiskey episode. Oh yeah, that was the
only time day. But it was a great episode. It
was worth it was worth it. It was worth it. Yeah,
I don't want to throw shade on my favorite activities,
(33:51):
which are boozy brunch, but I just think it's okay
to enjoy a boozy brunch every now and then also
being critical of a culture where alcohol is creeping more
and more and more into our activities that we perhaps
we're never boozy to begin with, Yeah, I think it's
worth a critical eye. And I also hear that there
(34:13):
are some critiques of this concept of pure abstinence as well,
which when we look at it from a sex ad perspective,
those critiques carry over pretty pretty interestingly because in this
piece for Vogue, Laura Nelson writes about the fact that,
you know, dry January is basically an extreme diet, and
(34:33):
like all extreme diets, it can set people up to
yo yo afterwards, they might justify binge drinking prior to
dry January or immediately afterwards. It might set you up
for a sort of springboard effect instead of finding a
sense of balance. For whatever is right for you, with
(34:53):
that sense of flexibility and not striving for perfection, which
can sometimes set you up for failure. Yeah, I think
it's important to note that the research that we cided
before says that most folks don't find themselves binge drinking
after a dry period. But I do think that it's
kind of one of those things where maybe it's not
a one size fits a thing. I can imagine someone saying, Oh,
(35:15):
I'm gonna give up booze for all of January, so
I'm gonna really go hard December one, and then really
go hard on February one, and how it not be
such a helpful thing in their life. I think you're
absolutely right. And what's interesting is that this is especially
relevant for women in this moment we find ourselves in.
We're going to explore that further after this quick break
(35:36):
and a word from our spensors, and we're back and
we are talking through our relationship to booze. Quite frankly,
this concept of taking January to be more mindful about
alcohol consumption, and what I found most interesting in the
(35:58):
research is that this is especially relevant for women today.
Americans across the board are drinking more now than they
have in the past, according to a seventeen study from
JAMMA Psychiatry. But these increases in alcohol consumption was especially
higher in women. It kind of does remind me of
(36:19):
the women in whiskey episodes, because women are leaving the
whiskey renaissance if you think about it. According to this
twenty seventeen study from J. A. M a Psychiatry, from men,
high risk drinking had increased fifteen percent and alcohol use
disorder had increased close to thirty For women, the high
risk drinking sort of population increased by sixty six zero
(36:44):
percent and alcohol youth disorder increased nearly eighty four percent.
So while alcoholism has traditionally in the past been a
disease dominated by men that is overwhelmingly impacted more men
in terms of sheer quantities, the rates of women who
(37:04):
are now showcasing these kinds of symptoms and challenges with
their consumption is increasing at a much faster pace, which
is something that health professionals and public health advocates are
concerned about. Well. One reason why the research suggests that
women are drinking more is this idea that women are
becoming more quote like men, and so they have more
(37:25):
educational opportunities more. But yeah, these educational and professional opportunities
have women more aligned with men and thus have resulted
in women drinking quote like men more. Huh. Unfortunately, biologically
we are still not all like all men. And this
(37:48):
is not I don't want to draw hard lines on
the gender spectrum here right now, but it's true that
the definitions from the CDC about what qualifies as an
alcoholic differs across a gender binary. I find very interesting. Exactly,
it's a physiological standpoint that's like a very harsh line
like men equals this in many drinks drinks um. I
(38:10):
also found it really interesting that in addition to this
idea that women are having more professional educational opportunities that
can lead to more problematic drinking. Another one is good
old fashioned stress. Women be stressing. I don't know if
you've noticed, but the patriarchy is a little stressful to
deal with and I think women and according to the research,
it's true women are drinking more because of that. According
(38:33):
to this piece in the Atlantic, women are basically drinking
to deal with all of the stress that comes from
trying to be a perfect white, a perfect mother, or
perfect employees. Roll overload booze is yes, honestly, honestly is
Jan Bauer, author of Alcoholism and Women, believes that women
are looking for what she calls quote oblivion drinking. And
this is the idea that your day to day just
(38:55):
battling the world is so hard and you have to
be so perfect that you're drinking just to blot out
the feeling that you need to be perfect for a
few hours. You know who speaks to this a lot
in her Ted Talk is Burnet Brown, whose Ted Talk
is one of the most widely viewed talks ever on
shame and guilt, and she discusses this in the context
(39:19):
of a banana nut muffin and a beer. And when
you are having a tough day, when you're feeling stressed out,
when you don't want to feel the feelings that you
are feeling, it is easier and more socially acceptable to
just have a beer and a banana nut muffin and
numb out for a little while. And that's totally normal
in our society. But the unfortunate consequence is you can't
(39:41):
numb selectively. When you numb out the pain or the
shame or the guilt or the trauma, that you're burying
and you're trying to avoid dealing with You also numb
out joy, You numb out your capacity for connection, You
numb out your capacity for vulnerability and love. And that,
I mean, that was the kicker for me when I
(40:01):
was listening to her ted talk. Was just because it's
a societal norm to come home after a long day
and tune out an oblivion drink. Doesn't mean there aren't
serious downsides that we're missing out on by doing so.
I think that's so right because think about it, even
in the most common sense terms. Let's that you have
(40:23):
an old friend that you're excited to catch up with
and they come to town. You go out drinking. You
might wake up and be like, I don't even remember
the conversation we had. In the moment, it could be fun,
but looking back, you're like, we were drinking, and I
numbed doubt the joy, the laughter or the stories, the
catching up because I was drinking. That's why I'm trying
to do more workout friend dates and like non alcoholic
(40:46):
tea and coffee friend dates, which is a weird thing
to do because traditionally I would say, let's grab drinks,
and especially when I'm traveling to new cities from on
the road all the time. I don't want to be
alone on the road all the time, and so I
always trying to meet up with friends ends and make
time for fun in my year of fun when I'm
on the road. But now I have been much more
deliberate about non alcoholic planned fun because you know, I
(41:10):
got a Google coundar like bubble on my on my
schedule for it. So it is interesting to think about
how you can get that connection without the expected default
of the alcohol that comes with it. So often I
think that's so true. I mean, we have a lot
to vent about. Donald Trump is president, and women are
(41:31):
under attack left and right all over the place. We
have a lot to sit with a friend, and we
have a lot to be angry about. And I saw
this crystallized in this beautiful, hilarious viral essay that started
on medium by Christie Coulter called giving up Alcohol opened
my eyes to the infuriating truth about why women drink.
The reason, according to culture, the infuriating and ever present
(41:54):
indignities that being a woman in society comes with is
forcing us all to sort of modify these feelings with
our boozy brunches and wine nights that stayings man. That
feels true. So she describes the act of getting sober,
and she writes, how did I not see this before?
I asked myself? You were too hammered, I answered back
the summer. I see though, I see that booze is
(42:15):
the oil and our motors, the thing that keeps us
purring when we should be making other kinds of noise.
Right She's basically saying we should be marching in the streets,
we should be running for office, we should be taking
what's you know, rightfully hours, equal access to power structures,
and instead we're saying, you know, the patriarchy and for
(42:36):
me another And I kind of get it. I get it.
It is this weird form of self preservation through numbing.
But what she's really doing this piece is calling us
out for the bullets that that is, because that's not
actually helping anybody totally. She describes this kind of if
you remember this commercial um for perfume, I can bring
(42:56):
them the bacon shryed up in the pan. It's about
being a twenty our modern woman who can do it all.
I can bring on the bacon and never let you
forget you give her usually an hour perfume. With a
twenty four hour woman, I can work too, five a club,
come home and read you take your reta. So the
(43:18):
woman in the commercial sings this song, and she says,
I blame that for a lot first running the note,
and that women should have to pick a career keep
house their husband when the only same thing to do
is pick to an outsourced The third for making it
seem glamorous, for suggesting it was going to be fun,
and the tagline she dragged around, the eight hour perfume
for the twenty hour woman, just in case you thought
you can get one thing hour off the clock. The
(43:40):
longer I am sober, the less patience I have for
being a twenty per hour woman. The stranger who tells
me to smile, the janitor who stares at my legs,
the man on TV who wants to annex my uterus,
even the other TV men who say abortion should be safe, legal,
and rare. What business is it of yours, whether it's
very or not, I think, And then I start to
get angry at women too, not for being born wrong
or failing to dismantle a thousand years of patriarchy, on
(44:02):
my personal timetable. But for being so easily modified by
a bottle, for thinking that the right to get as
trashed as a man means anything but the right to
be as useless. That is damn. Yeah, that stings. It's intense,
but I get it that I was a little called in.
I was a little called in. It's it's easy to think,
(44:23):
you know, with boozy brunches and cocktail hours and all
of these material things that feel good that we as
women have thought to have, maybe they're fallen back on ye, Like,
maybe as good as those things feel, they don't really
mean that much. Yes, And it really makes me look
back on our Women in Whiskey episode with a different perspective,
(44:45):
because instead of celebrating the renaissance of whiskey being led
by women, it's actually disarming us in some ways. And
so finding that balance for you personally is so important,
finding the balance between drinking in a way that makes
you feel delighted, if that is something that makes you
(45:05):
feel delighted, but not drinking as the default, because when
it becomes mindless, it's someone else handing you the drink.
It's not you really pouring it for yourself. It's sort
of society numbing you out instead of you deciding selectively
when you're going to choose that for yourself. And I
think that kind of mindful awareness is a good thing
(45:26):
to focus on this month. So I'm with you, Bridget,
Let's give it a shot. And for our listeners who
might be toying with this idea, how are there a
couple of ways to dabble in dryuary. So, whether you're
doing it tough fully and so really tap into your
rightful feminist rage, or you just want to save a
few dollars by not spending them on beer or give
your liver break cups. Whichever, whichever reason you're doing it
(45:49):
more or or if you're not doing it or whatever,
totally cool. But if you are cutting back this month
or anytime, here are a few tips. We mentioned earlier
that drinking a soda water with the lime kind of
makes it click your drink gin and tonic if you
find it helpful to avoid questions. Um. Something that I've
been kind of dabbling in is fancy mock tails. Um
they are really really high and sugar, but I kind
(46:11):
of think I go, like, maybe if I drink a
fancy fizzy fruity drink I can. You know it'll be
easier to exactly. I'm all about selecting advices. Another is
sort of remembering that there are other things that you
can do when you're trying to avoid drinking other than
hanging out in bars. You know, you can go to
a museum, you can go to a park, you can
go do a workout. Like you said, there are plenty
(46:31):
of ways to have fun with friends that don't include drinking.
And most of all, don't worry if you slip up.
I am the queen of trying things and then being like,
I don't like this, I'm not going to do it.
Remember that that research shows that even if you just
cut back on your drinking for one month, you still
get positive benefits for six months, and you're less likely
to binge drink for six months after that, even if
(46:53):
you don't actually complete your drink January. Yeah. I think
it's really about flexing your mindfulness, muscles, and really developing
the skills to refuse a drink, which in this world
is bizarrely hard and it shouldn't be. And this is
especially important if today's episode is making you call into
questioning your relationship with alcohol. To a much greater extent
(47:16):
than uh, just sort of over drinking on occasion. If
the description of alcoholism or alcohol abuse that we described
earlier from the CDC sounds like you, and you are,
in fact someone who needs support, do not be afraid
to talk to a professional. I can attest to the
(47:38):
life changing magic of therapy. I think we've discussed it
on the show many times now. And I remember distinctly
finally confessing to someone when I was in that relationship
who happened to be a trusted ally who loved both
of us. She loved me and she loved my partner
at the time, and that's what made me feel safe
going to her. She was my primary care physician in
(48:00):
and I said to her on my annual physical when
she had a very powerful question at the bottom of
that form, saying, is there anything else you want to
talk to me about today? And I wrote alcoholism? And
I just broke down on the exam table. When she
asked me what was this about. I remember saying to her,
this is my loved ones problem. How do we get
(48:20):
him the help he needs? And she looked at me
and said, yeah, let's talk about that, but first let's
get you the help you need. And I remember thinking,
I don't need help, but don't need therapy, it is
not my problem. And that one moment, that insistence that
she had in connecting me with a trusted therapist who,
by the way, helped me get sort of financial assistance
(48:41):
to afford that life changing support, changed my life. It
caused me to start bossed up. I mean, everything rolled
out for my life since that moment, and it all
starts with being willing to have the very uncomfortable and
vulnerable but powerful conversation with someone who who was in
a position to help. So seek out a medical professional
(49:04):
for God's sakes, even if it's not something you're sure
is a problem that you have to deal with. In
my case, I was basically a codependent in a relationship
with an alcoholic and I didn't even know that word
existed until I was in therapy. So it can be
life changing to really take take the time to give
yourself that time of day and get the support you need.
(49:25):
One of the easiest ways you can make that first
step right now is by calling the Substance Abuse National
Helpline at one eight hundred six six two three five
seven for free and confidential information and support. That's one
eight hundred six six two four three five seven, And
I hope you'll take that step today. If this does
(49:46):
feel like something that's more than a New Year's resolution
for you, yeah, I don't want to conflate those two things.
You know, if you want to abstain from alcohol for
a month and you realize that this is like a
month off isn't going to cut it for you, definitely
reach out and talk to someone. And I think that
(50:06):
as we do this, you know, I'm working on being
a little more radically honest about how alcohol is showing
up in my life and sope this is something that
you are also doing. Let's talk about it. We want
to hear from you, so feel free to reach us
on Instagram at stuff mom Ever Told You, on Twitter
at mom Stuff Podcast, and send me an email at
mom Stuff at our stuff works dot com
Hey, this is Bridget and this is Emily, and you're
listening to stuff mom never told you, and today we're
kind of doing a companion episode to our New Year's
Resolution episode. I feel like if you listen to that episode,
(00:27):
which you definitely should, you probably heard me talking about
how I don't really do New Year's resolutions. I sort
of I don't ever really make them, and that's more
or less true. But then after talking it through with Emily,
I realized I actually do have a New Year's resolution
of sorts um that I didn't share on the episode,
and I figured, why not. No time like the present,
(00:50):
No time like the present, And I think it's something
that will be good to share in the sense of
sort of radical honesty, because who knows how many listeners
out there are sort of at lee doing the same thing,
and that is in I am trying to be more
mindful about my alcohol consumption, and if the data is
(01:11):
to be believed, I am not alone. To be clear,
I'm not someone who I think has like a drinking
problem or is a problem drinker. Has never sort of
come up in my life in those ways. But honestly,
this is gonna sound a bit dumb. What got me
really thinking about it was this interview that Chrissy Teagan
did in Cosmo magazine. She talks about how she just
(01:31):
sort of realized that she was drinking a lot and
not really thinking about it. She says, I got used
to being in hair and makeup and having a glass
of wine, and then that glass of wine and carrying
me over to the next one before the award show.
Then that glass of wine would carry over into me
having one before the award show, and then a bunch
during the award show, and then I felt bad making
an ass of myself to people that I really respected,
(01:51):
and that feeling there's nothing like that. You feel horrible.
It's not a good look for me, not a good
look for John, not a good look for anyone. And
I thought same, I relate. Do you relate to that? Definitely? Definitely.
I think there are different times in our lives and
we should acknowledge a trigger warning to upfront here for
anyone who is struggling with or has struggled with addiction alcoholism,
(02:12):
whose life has been touched by alcoholism in your family
or loved ones or friends, you know that this is
a ubiquitous part of our culture. That's in some ways
made more difficult to talk about with such courageous honesty.
So thank you for making this a priority, bridget Um,
(02:33):
because it is so widely accepted and beyond widely accepted,
you know, ubiquitous in terms of its accessibility, and you're
almost deemed weird when you're not drinking, and there are
many social instances in which drinking is an expected part
of the whole celebratory environment. Absolutely um. That has been
(02:58):
my experience on and thinking about Chrissie's story. Something that
really jumped out at me is how if you're someone
who works a stressful job, or you're, you know, just
living your life, maybe you do have a couple of
glasses of wine here and there, and it's easy just
would have not see the ways that they can add up,
or just would have have it be a habitual thing
that you do without even really thinking about and so
(03:18):
or or is like a part of your self care regiment. Exactly,
you can it can almost be twisted in this very overwhelming,
stressful b S world that we've been faced with for
this presidency. Especially exactly so that has been my experience
to a t Many of y'all know that a while
back while posting this podcast, was also working on the
digital team at Planned Parenthood. And let me tell you,
(03:41):
not only is that work very fulfilling and very you know,
gives you warm fuzzies, it's also very taxing, very exhausting,
very frustrating, very overwhelming. You know, there are lots of
times where you screamed at your desk. I've pounded on
my desk at that job. I've screamed out and anger.
And the first thing when I would get home in
the evening that would want to do is have a
(04:01):
glass of wine. Would open my door and be like
Trump nest with us all day. I need a glass
of wine. And generally that would be my routine, you know,
I mean, unless you're running to studio with me to
then try to compartmentalize the news cycle of the day,
which is no easy feat. When you're doing an episode
on I Don't Know Me Too, you know, it's a
really psychologically taxing, uh double duty that you were playing
(04:26):
for a long time there. I can relate quite frankly,
and you know, we like to pour our all into
all these episodes, but also we are forced to compartmentalize
and put on pause whatever is happening in your day
that day to really focus in on a singular topic
at a time, or at you know, three at a
time in studio sessions. Totally, that's totally totally it. Um
(04:50):
So in my day, you know, come home, first class
of wine, then I maybe make dinner or work on
the podcast, and while doing that, have another glass of wine,
and maybe a glass of wine with dinner. And you know,
listen that maybe it doesn't sound like the behavior of
a raging party animal, you know, working on a feminist
podcast over a bottle of wine. But if you do,
(05:10):
if you do the math, that adds up to three
glasses of wine over the course of one evening. Keep
in mind, the CDC says that for a woman, four
drinks is technically binge drinking, and so before you even
know it, you're hair below a night have been drinking
as you're like average week night. And for all of
y'all who heard us on the Delightful Women in Whiskey episode, No,
(05:32):
I'm a lightweight, Like four drinks is enough to basically
black me out at this point. Uh. And on occasion,
on a big night out like I don't know, New
Year's Eve, perhaps I am reminded of what a lightweight
I've become, and I swear it's not from a lack
of practice. It's just that I can't hold a drink anymore.
(05:55):
And that sneaks up on you when you're in an
environment where three or four drinks is you know, running
the mill over the course of a six hour party
or a six hour evening. I think you're exactly right.
I think that we it's easy to sort of not
see certain behaviors as problem behaviors, even if you know
medical professionals say well, technically that was night have binge drinking.
(06:17):
It's easy to sort of have it not feel that way,
particularly when it's so accepted. And I think for me
here in d C, as I'm sure you can attest to,
I work in politics. People in politics like to drink.
He sees a drinking city, and it's really difficult to
get away from that. At times, it almost feels impossible
to get away from that exactly. In fact, a new
(06:37):
report just named d C is the number to state
or in this case, district in our country for the
percentage of adults who consume alcohol and number one for
the percentage of heavy drinkers. According to detox dot Net.
And to be clear, I think part of the intimate
connection between alcohol and politics is that alcohol is the
(06:59):
social lubricant of power. Right. I've talked candidly in my
work at Boston Up and especially on a podcast interview
I recently did with a friend of ours from the
work at Festival w n y c S Women's Podcasting
Festival who I met there. Her name is Terice Barbato.
She has an awesome podcast called That's What She Said,
(07:21):
And I recently did an interview that went into detail
about the really toxic relationship that I found myself in
at the very start of my career. I was a
state director working in politics in Rhode Island at the time,
and at the time I was living with, in love with,
and cared deeply for, a brilliant, hardworking social justice advocate,
(07:41):
elected official, high functioning alcoholic. And there is just nothing
that will screw you up more than loving an addict
and only realizing years later that a lot of what
you thought was true is not true. And it also
(08:02):
really messed my relationship up with booze and made me
inherently uncomfortable with heavy drinkers and being around heavy drinkers,
and it caused me to sort of fall into these
habits of codependency, of counting other people's drinks and sort
of monitoring what was the situation. And I left that
relationship with some problematic drinking habits of my own. When
(08:24):
I drank, I tended to get black out drunk, I mean.
And that was for a while. I was in therapy
myself and and was fortunate enough to get a lot
of support and understand what was going on, um in
my own relationship to alcohol and my relationship to my
ex at the time. But it's pernicious because it is
(08:44):
so powerful in the world of politics, and it's I mean,
it's not only politics, right, everyone's careers can benefit from
networking at happy hour. It just so happens that this
city has happy hour every day and boozy brunches, bottomless
brunches on Sundays exactly exactly. Um. Something that's to that
to me in the story that you were just sharing
with this idea of sort of being high functioning. So
(09:07):
many people I know, particularly people who are brilliant political
minds or brilliant writers. Because journalism and media is also
a big drinking industry, so many of them probably could
stand to look at their substance the way that substances
show up in their lives. But because they have fabulous careers,
because they have because they're ask kickers, because they're so amazing,
(09:28):
because they're so smart, we sort of don't we assume
they have it all together. And I think that's exactly
what my my sort of semi New Year's I hate
using the word resolution. I want to come I need
to come up with like a I like it, and
you know you you don't have to be cool this know,
I know this is my Yeah, So you know. I
(09:53):
think why I'm doing this is because it seems like,
if you're someone who wants to ask questions about how
alcohol shows up in your life, you're an addict, You're
it's a problem, and there's a stigma around it, and
I think, why is that right? Like? Why why should
I feel weird about coming on this podcast and saying
I'm intentionally paying attention to the way that alcohol has
(10:16):
has shown up in my life, not because I'm getting
black out drunk every night, but because I want to
pay attention to it, and it's something that I feel
like we don't pay attention to Yeah, you're right. I
think there's so much stigma, which is very rude. If
you come to realize how many alcoholics are walking amongst us,
it's it's kind of rare that people's lives aren't touched
(10:38):
by alcoholism or addiction in some form or another. I mean,
when you look at the numbers. In the United States alone,
seventeen point six million people, or one in every twelve adults,
suffer from alcohol abuse or dependence, along with several million
more who engage in risky binge drinking patterns that could
lead to alcohol problems. Now, alcohol problems is a pretty
(11:02):
wide net. And any time you find yourself feeling like
I would like to re evaluate, as Chrissie Teakin was,
what the impact alcohol and my consumption of alcohol has
on my life and how I'm showing up and how
I want to show up in the world. That's perfectly
valid for that to show up in that uh, that
(11:23):
bucket of sort of alcohol problems. And it doesn't mean
you've got to ship yourself off to rehab either. There's
this very hard line around the stigma that we bring
to alcoholism that's very unhelpful. Well, that's why I found
Chrissy Teagan's explanation so powerful because she explicitly says, listen,
it wasn't like external forces came and said you've got
a problem, or you know, this happened and I'm so embarrassed.
(11:46):
She just took a step back and wanted to reevaluate
and sort of think through how it showed up and
for her and what it caused her. Right, And I
remember having a day and again, my my stories with
alcohol are as I said, not like I was at
a raging party, you did fall out of a window.
I was college. That's what I can tell you some
(12:06):
college stories where you'd be like, wow, that's but you know,
I was figuring about yeah, the same. To be clear,
In fact, I think part of the reason my alcoholic
ex boyfriend was so normal seeming to me is because
I was in college when we first started dating. Exactly.
That's it's like, if you're an alcoholic and you want
to pass as like someone without a drinking problem data
(12:27):
college students, Definitely, it's like the best strategy that's real
for me. I remember one day where I was excited
to I think, do something. It was something out of
the house, something small or minor and I went out
drinking the night before and I didn't get black out drunk,
and I wasn't like raging. But the next day I
was hungover, and whatever the thing was I was looking
forward to, I couldn't go because I was on the
(12:49):
couch nursing a hangover, and you know, it was it
was something small in my life, but I thought, gee,
it's like I was looking forward to this thing all
week and now I can't go because I went out
drinking the night before and I just thought it wasn't
worth it. It wasn't because I could do that day over.
I would have done it differently. And I also think
(13:09):
for me, the way that alcohol has showed up in
my life is that, you know, not only working in
politics such as such a boozy industry, but I've worked
in the service industry and the restaurant industry, and a large,
you know portion of my friends currently work in bars
and restaurants, and that is not only is that a
boozy industry. In fact, according to the National Survey on
Drug Use and Health, the only industries with more alcohol
(13:31):
abuse and the service industry are the construction industry and
the mining industry. So it's a it's a hard drinking industry.
And you know when you're going to visit your friends
who tend bar, and that's hanging out with your friends
you tend to drink. Also, you got the hook of
with the best drinks, and like I've totally benefited from
having friends in the service industry. It is great. Have
(13:52):
you ever been a part of the lock in culture?
And I was a barmaid what the English called bartenders
or women bartenders in London during my study abroad experience
at the University College London shout out to UCL I
got a job at a wonderful little pub called the
Rocket right by King's Cross Station and for an entire semester,
(14:18):
after a Friday or Saturday night of tending bar, all evening,
two o'clock would roll around, we would kick everybody out,
clean up the bar, lock the doors, and then the
party would begin amongst all the staff. So that lock
and culture, which is still very big, not just in England,
I'm sure, but here in the United States as well,
encourages a lot of my friends in the service industry
(14:40):
to party until the sun comes up, sleep it off
all day long, and then go back to work. As
the evening falls and that is Hey, I gained twenty
pounds in beer weight, straight up be I didn't make
my best choices. I didn't make the best use of
my time in Europe. Although some would say that the
study bar experiences more than just what you learned in
(15:02):
the classroom, and that was certainly true for me. I
don't know. I just feel like there is a culture
of being a happy, go lucky party person that comes
with an excessive, scientifically excessive amount of drinking. And I
feel like you've said it multiple times. You pride yourself
on being the party girl. Your the life of every
party I've ever been to. You enjoy drinking, so it's
(15:25):
hard to examine a hobby that, like you say, you
also can feel some remorse over when you look back
in the grand scheme of things, like that's an okay
dichotomy to embrace. Yeah, I'm my whole life. I've been
known as the sort of the fun one quote unquote.
I remember in college when you know how in college
(15:45):
dudes are like talking about the girls and and they're like, oh,
so and so is the pretty one, and so and
so is the hot one. So my friends are always,
oh she's the hot one, and then she's the cool one,
and it was always pretty, she's a lot of fun.
That was me. I was the fun girl, and so
I think that because of that, drinking me kind of
became part of my identity. Like, like the idea that
(16:07):
I would examine something that seems so closely linked to
how people think of me when they think of how
I show up in the world was difficult. I've seen
this before with you as we've gone out drinking after
many a podcast session. I wonder if you feel this
need to entertain, because I almost see you kind of
putting on a performance. And y'all, if we ever get
(16:27):
our act together and have an actual meet up in
d C, which I know we've been talking about and
dying to have, and schedules have been challenging, but we
will figure that out, you will see bridget Todd the
entertainer because when you were out for a night, you
are on and it's never about you chilling, It's about
making sure like the environment is good for other people.
(16:48):
I almost feel like you you perform for other people
in that way. Yeah, I'll put it this way. I
think I've always been someone who my sort of everyday
superpower is to get others to feel comfortable and open up.
And so I if we're out and I can tell
someone feels awkward, I'm very good at getting someone to like,
loosen up, relax, telephonny story, laugh, whatever happen to me.
(17:12):
I mean, my god, Bridget, I mean it's a talent.
But it's also like a curse, right, because if you're
always thinking, you know, if your number one priority is
I want everyone to feel good, be happy, to be relaxed,
to be laughing, be having a good time. That if
that becomes part of how you see yourself, it can
be a little problematic. Yeah, not to mention, you're also
the pretty one and the cool one. So literally every
(17:35):
dude in my college would disagree you're all wrong. Obviously, Uh, Bridget,
Todd's modesty strikes again, and I'm here to debunk the myth. No, well,
I think I think you're totally right, and I think
that you know, before we dive too deep into a
therapy session here in the studio, Bridget's most innermost thoughts,
(17:57):
it's this was I really struggled with weather to bring
this to the pot. This is an episode that I
hope that no one I know listens to because it's
not something I'm really comfortable talking about with friends unless
that we're very, very close. It's not something that I
want people to be examining on my behalf, Like if
someone sees me with a picture of a drink on
(18:18):
Instagram and awesome to be like, I thought you weren't
drinking this month or whatever? Right, this is something that
I think us right, right, And so this is something
it's you can probably tell difficult from me to talk
about because it's so personal. But I think if there
are people and the research suggests that there are, who
are also reevaluating thinking through how alcohol shows up in
(18:40):
their lives, why can't we all do it together? I
completely agree, And this is something that I've done myself
in the years following that relationship, because you know, there's
a many different shades of what might be deemed alcoholism.
And interestingly, most people who drink too much, according to
Dr Robert Brewer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
(19:03):
are not alcohol dependent or alcoholics. It's this idea that
they're excessive drinkers, which can cover several different groups binge drinkers,
heavy drinkers, meaning men who have more than fifteen drinks
in a week or women who have more than eight
drinks in a week. Everybody's counting on their fingers right now,
(19:23):
which is good. Um, women who drink, drink, pregnancy, anyone
under the age of twenty one who drinks. And so
if you're someone like me who likes to drink, you
might be thinking, oh, great news. According to this research,
I am not in fact a problem drinker, or I
am not in fact someone who is an alcoholic. I
can just keep heavy drinking with reassurance and I don't
have a problem. But here's why that's wrong. The knowledge
(19:45):
is that only ten of heavy drinkers are actual alcoholics.
May sound reassuring, but that doesn't mean that the other
don't also have problems with drinking. Joseph Noinsky, PhD and
co author of the book Almost Alcoholic, which I feel
like is a really perfect title, points this out. In
his book, he describes how drinking negatively affects up to
(20:06):
one third of drinkers who aren't actually classified as having
an alcohol use disorder. He writes, there are many people
in the almost alcoholic zone who are having alcohol related
problems with their health, their relationships and social lives and
even their work. But who don't connect the dots between
these problems and they're drinking. These people dismiss the possibility
of being alcoholics, and they truly don't qualify under current definitions.
(20:27):
But maybe to take a step back and look how
drinking is affecting their lives. That speaks so strongly to
me because at one point in my life, shortly after
I'd gotten out of that really toxic relationship, and I
was starting to recognize that, wow, the amount of alcohol
that I was consuming when I was going out for
a night of partying was putting me in dangerous situations.
(20:50):
And I feel like we've all had those nights, and
you know, I think we're lucky if we can look
back at those nights and say, wow, that was almost
something really dangerous. And one of them for me was
the fact that when I did get very drunk out
partying with a group of people, my go to would
be the like runaway. At some point in the night,
(21:13):
I fled the scene. One of my body was like rebelling.
When I was realizing I'm so drunk, my instinct was
to flight, basically, And there were many times when I realized,
like I'm alone, I'm heading back to my apartment. My
poor parents. I hope they don't listen to this, But
like it was, it was dangerous. There were dangerous situations,
(21:37):
and I was fortunately, you know, not rescued, I would say,
but helped by kind people to make sure I got
home safe and sound. And I'm talking strangers and police officers.
So I just remember waking up the next day after
an altercation like that and thinking about my consumption as
(21:58):
being something. This isn't so thing I've survived that was
part of a bad relationship. This is something I need
to deal with and I need to take responsibility for now.
And that's when I started going dry in January, which
I've been doing for a few years. Um. That's when
I started recognizing that it's okay for me to own
being a lightweight as opposed to trying to keep up
(22:21):
with the boys or keep up with women who can
drink me under the table quite frankly. And I just
think it's so worth evaluating your own danger or your
your own ability to put yourself in situations, even if
it's just like Christy Teagan, who might embarrass herself or
(22:41):
in front of people she respects, or God forbid something
much much scarier than that exactly. And I want to
talk through how this idea of a dry january is
showing up right now in January after this quick break
and we're back just sharing some of our war stories,
(23:05):
from survival, survival stories, from lives as within figuring out
the way that we use alcohol. Um. And that's why
I'm so interested in this idea of a dry January.
So to be clear, I'm not committing to a dry
January necessarily. I'm committing to a drinking less january thinking
about it. Do you think you could do like a week?
(23:25):
Just do what I'm doing. I'm I haven't had a
drink since New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve was my
last drink. Same, Yeah, I'm down if you're down. Yeah
I did. I didn't do it last year or the
year before, but I did it for two years prior
and it was great. Yeah, I mean, I'm down with
doing it. There are a couple of there are a
couple of things I have on the schedule that I'm like, well,
(23:45):
I'm definitely gonna drink that I'm I'm going to drink then,
So I just don't want to set myself up for
a goal that I know I'm not going to meet.
It's not about perfection. That's flexibility is so real that
it's so real, um and so dry January. This was
something I had actually never really even heard of. Um.
It really took off in the UK, but the first
time in the research that I found that it showed
(24:06):
up was in nineteen forty two. Sober January was a
campaign pushed in Finland as part of the country's war
effort against Russia, but in modern days. According to The
Sudden newspaper, the official campaign started in the UK around
eleven by a nonprofit called Alcohol Concern and so basically
the idea behind dry January came when an Alcohol Concern
employee decided to not drink during the month because he
(24:28):
was running a half marathon in Debruary and this really
took off after that. In twenty twelve, Alcohol Concern decided
to launch their first dry January campaign, which would start
in um. The first ever campaign saw just under four thousand,
five hundred people take part, and by January it was
up to seventeen thousand people. In two thousand and seven
(24:49):
it was up to five million who were on board
of the campaign, and in a country like England, where
once again I have slang there, in the country of England,
they pride themselves on their beer consumption just as much
as their cheese consumption. You know what I mean. I
feel like that's a really astounding number, and good on
(25:10):
alcohol concern for making this such a huge campaign, and
it absolutely trickled over the US. I've heard people here
call it dry Uary, and to me, it feels like
the perfect time of year to just wring your liver
out for one month after New Year's because the Lord
knows I need it. And I think I drank less
on New Year's this year than ever in my adult life,
and I still was like January one, Why am I
(25:33):
so hungover? This is not the tone I wanted to
set for my New Year. It's the worst way to
spend I mean the worst. Yeah, It's like I feel
like it's one of the worst ways to ring in
what it's supposed to be a fresh star with a
headache watching a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon because you
can't leave your couch. And also we're getting older and
(25:54):
hangovers are gnarly, y'all, like hangovers in your thirties are
no joke. That's a day killer. And I remember being
twenty four and being hungover, and I look back on
that and laugh, like, you weren't hungover. You didn't know
what to hang over. What's funny is that I actually
never got hangovers in my twenties. I didn't get I
had never even experienced one until my thirties. I thought
(26:15):
they were made up to scare young people out of drinking, like, oh,
you're gonna have a hangover, don't drink about all. There's
no such thing as a hangover. I remember the first
time I experienced a really bad hangover in my thirties.
I went to the urgin, I went to urgent care.
I was like, am I dying? They're like, no, you
just drank. You just drank a lot last night. I
had never explained. You're like, can I get an IVY
(26:36):
drip please? Because that would cheer me right up. I
know what you might be thinking, are dry January is
actually effective? According to the research, they actually might be
a study from University of Sussex says they can actually
be effective and making you more mindful about your drinking overall.
According to this research, the fighting suggests that participates in
(26:58):
abstinence challenges such a dry january maybe associated with changes
towards healthier drinking and greater d R s E, which
is basically how likely you are to turn down a
drink um and is unlikely to result in undesirable quote
rebound effects. Very few people reported increased alcohol consumption following
a period of voluntary abstinence, and to go on. The
(27:19):
research that I found most compelling from that study was
that even if you don't actually complete a full dry January,
you actually are still more likely to drink less throughout
the next six months. So if I don't actually make
it a full month, this research suggests that even if
I have a drink here or there, you don't have
to be perfect and have a perfectly dry January to
(27:41):
still get results that last for potentially six months. I
totally understand that because it's about mindful awareness and that
dr SC thing which is so critical. It's the drink
refusal self efficacy, that ability to be at a party
and have everyone turned you and say do you want wine,
liquor or beer and for you to say water for
(28:03):
me please, and not die of humiliation and peer pressure
because for whatever reason. I mean, people look at you
sideways when you refuse an alcoholic beverage at a house,
but like I don't know what to give you, and
who is it that has this great stand up bit
about it? Um John Mullaney? Oh where? Yeah? Where. It's
(28:25):
like if you were to say, oh, I don't eat mannise,
people wouldn't be like, no, man, you have a bad
experience with manna. Yeah. I mean. John mulaney is a
hilarious Irish American stand up comic who is in recovery.
He's an alcoholic and he jokes about a how much
blacking out used to cause him trouble and why he
(28:46):
does not drink anymore, but be when he would go
to friends parties, they would look at him like, I
literally don't know what to get you want some pickles
from the back of my fridge or I think I
have like a leftover towards I don't know what to
give you. That is how foreign abstinence from alcohol can
be for our culture, and that ability to refuse drink,
(29:07):
that ability to say no thank you takes muscle like
it actually is a habit that you have to flex
over time and practice every time. It is not easy.
And I used to just get a soda water with
lime at the bar when I was really stepping back
from my alcohol consumption and trying to ease up on
the booze altogether, because I was so freaked out, um,
(29:30):
just so it would look like I was drinking, which
I would say is perfectly acceptable, but still skirting around
the self efficacy part. Right, you're not really unabashedly refusing
a drink, You're sneaking by right. I mean, I've done
the soda water with lime trick too, and it's effective.
But the real question is why should we have to
(29:52):
trick people into thinking that we're having a drink if
we don't want to drink? Like, why is it not
okay in our culture to just not drink at times
and have it be your own business of why that is,
and not have it be a thing. I guess I
would like to see some culture shift around how alcohol
shows up really for all of us, even for people
who are our light way to barely drink. I just
(30:15):
think that we don't live in a culture that is
really open to folks being mindful about how they drink
in an explicit way without it being something that's incredibly stigmatized, Yes, exactly, like, oh,
do we need to stage an intervention? And then you
have to think about the folks you might be ribbing
at the party for turning down to drink or making
fun of for being a lightweight might actually be struggling with,
(30:37):
like more hardcore alcoholism than you know. And when we
have a culture that's not tolerant of even analyzing alcohol
consumption or speaking critically and mindfully about our own consumption,
how must it feel to be in recovery and be
around people who are basically throwing such shade to anyone
(30:58):
who might refuse a drink. Know, it's just so intolerant
and disrespectful, and alcohol is so omnipresent already that for
folks in recovery it can be really hard to stay
and recovery as opposed to more hardcore drugs, which are
harder to get your hands on, uh than you know,
every single holiday party, every single wedding, every single gathering
(31:22):
of friends at the bar, every single networking opportunity, like
it's harder to avoid when it is this mainstream. And
even beyond that, think about how many different activities we
now and I'm I'm not throwing shade on this because
I think it's awesome, But how many activities have we
included booze in that we don't even necessarily think of
(31:42):
as drinking activities like booze yoga, what it's a it's
a thing, Okay. So Brad the boo is the one
who convinced me that all day drinking is insane. And
I never had the guts to look at it that
way because it's so you know, omnipresent and brunch and
boozy softball leagues and all that other stuff. And then
(32:02):
I realized, like, I cannot have a day and have
drinks during the day. Can't do it. I can't have
a drink in the park on a Saturday. That will
not work for my body. And once Brad acknowledged that
it was crazy and he doesn't understand anyone who does it,
I was like, Yes, this is the mentality I can
get on board with, because all that daytime that we've
(32:25):
made alcoholic all of a sudden is nuts. That's not
what alcohol is meant for. In my opinion. It doesn't
pair well with your surfboard yoga. I just do not
get it. I can't do it when I day drink.
I'm I'm out for the night. I'm like sleeping at
five pm. Yeah, I don't agree. I mean, I do
think that. I think culturally it's gotten a little out
(32:46):
of hand, But I do. I do love a good
boozy brunch. I can't. I do. I have boozy brunches
at every bost at boot Camp, but people do seem
to love it, And every single bust at boot Camp,
I go home from that brunch without a mimosa. I'm
like the only one who doesn't have a momos that
brunch because I need to get through the rest of
my day. Yeah, I guess. I guess my thinking is
(33:08):
if brunches on a Sunday or Saturday and you don't
have a big day anyway, I don't know. I guess
this sounds of justifying something that you were like, No,
it's really not a good idea. But I mean, I mean,
I think, with all self efficacy in mind, you have
to know yourself and your own body and your goals
for Sunday or Saturday or whatever day it is. And
(33:29):
I have found I enjoy my life more when I
do not. I like, unequivocally don't drink during the day. Yeah, yeah,
I don't think I've ever seen you drink drink and
other than our whiskey episode. Oh yeah, that was the
only time day. But it was a great episode. It
was worth it was worth it. It was worth it. Yeah,
I don't want to throw shade on my favorite activities,
(33:51):
which are boozy brunch, but I just think it's okay
to enjoy a boozy brunch every now and then also
being critical of a culture where alcohol is creeping more
and more and more into our activities that we perhaps
we're never boozy to begin with, Yeah, I think it's
worth a critical eye. And I also hear that there
(34:13):
are some critiques of this concept of pure abstinence as well,
which when we look at it from a sex ad perspective,
those critiques carry over pretty pretty interestingly because in this
piece for Vogue, Laura Nelson writes about the fact that,
you know, dry January is basically an extreme diet, and
(34:33):
like all extreme diets, it can set people up to
yo yo afterwards, they might justify binge drinking prior to
dry January or immediately afterwards. It might set you up
for a sort of springboard effect instead of finding a
sense of balance. For whatever is right for you, with
(34:53):
that sense of flexibility and not striving for perfection, which
can sometimes set you up for failure. Yeah, I think
it's important to note that the research that we cided
before says that most folks don't find themselves binge drinking
after a dry period. But I do think that it's
kind of one of those things where maybe it's not
a one size fits a thing. I can imagine someone saying, Oh,
(35:15):
I'm gonna give up booze for all of January, so
I'm gonna really go hard December one, and then really
go hard on February one, and how it not be
such a helpful thing in their life. I think you're
absolutely right. And what's interesting is that this is especially
relevant for women in this moment we find ourselves in.
We're going to explore that further after this quick break
(35:36):
and a word from our spensors, and we're back and
we are talking through our relationship to booze. Quite frankly,
this concept of taking January to be more mindful about
alcohol consumption, and what I found most interesting in the
(35:58):
research is that this is especially relevant for women today.
Americans across the board are drinking more now than they
have in the past, according to a seventeen study from
JAMMA Psychiatry. But these increases in alcohol consumption was especially
higher in women. It kind of does remind me of
(36:19):
the women in whiskey episodes, because women are leaving the
whiskey renaissance if you think about it. According to this
twenty seventeen study from J. A. M a Psychiatry, from men,
high risk drinking had increased fifteen percent and alcohol use
disorder had increased close to thirty For women, the high
risk drinking sort of population increased by sixty six zero
(36:44):
percent and alcohol youth disorder increased nearly eighty four percent.
So while alcoholism has traditionally in the past been a
disease dominated by men that is overwhelmingly impacted more men
in terms of sheer quantities, the rates of women who
(37:04):
are now showcasing these kinds of symptoms and challenges with
their consumption is increasing at a much faster pace, which
is something that health professionals and public health advocates are
concerned about. Well. One reason why the research suggests that
women are drinking more is this idea that women are
becoming more quote like men, and so they have more
(37:25):
educational opportunities more. But yeah, these educational and professional opportunities
have women more aligned with men and thus have resulted
in women drinking quote like men more. Huh. Unfortunately, biologically
we are still not all like all men. And this
(37:48):
is not I don't want to draw hard lines on
the gender spectrum here right now, but it's true that
the definitions from the CDC about what qualifies as an
alcoholic differs across a gender binary. I find very interesting. Exactly,
it's a physiological standpoint that's like a very harsh line
like men equals this in many drinks drinks um. I
(38:10):
also found it really interesting that in addition to this
idea that women are having more professional educational opportunities that
can lead to more problematic drinking. Another one is good
old fashioned stress. Women be stressing. I don't know if
you've noticed, but the patriarchy is a little stressful to
deal with and I think women and according to the research,
it's true women are drinking more because of that. According
(38:33):
to this piece in the Atlantic, women are basically drinking
to deal with all of the stress that comes from
trying to be a perfect white, a perfect mother, or
perfect employees. Roll overload booze is yes, honestly, honestly is
Jan Bauer, author of Alcoholism and Women, believes that women
are looking for what she calls quote oblivion drinking. And
this is the idea that your day to day just
(38:55):
battling the world is so hard and you have to
be so perfect that you're drinking just to blot out
the feeling that you need to be perfect for a
few hours. You know who speaks to this a lot
in her Ted Talk is Burnet Brown, whose Ted Talk
is one of the most widely viewed talks ever on
shame and guilt, and she discusses this in the context
(39:19):
of a banana nut muffin and a beer. And when
you are having a tough day, when you're feeling stressed out,
when you don't want to feel the feelings that you
are feeling, it is easier and more socially acceptable to
just have a beer and a banana nut muffin and
numb out for a little while. And that's totally normal
in our society. But the unfortunate consequence is you can't
(39:41):
numb selectively. When you numb out the pain or the
shame or the guilt or the trauma, that you're burying
and you're trying to avoid dealing with You also numb
out joy, You numb out your capacity for connection, You
numb out your capacity for vulnerability and love. And that,
I mean, that was the kicker for me when I
(40:01):
was listening to her ted talk. Was just because it's
a societal norm to come home after a long day
and tune out an oblivion drink. Doesn't mean there aren't
serious downsides that we're missing out on by doing so.
I think that's so right because think about it, even
in the most common sense terms. Let's that you have
(40:23):
an old friend that you're excited to catch up with
and they come to town. You go out drinking. You
might wake up and be like, I don't even remember
the conversation we had. In the moment, it could be fun,
but looking back, you're like, we were drinking, and I
numbed doubt the joy, the laughter or the stories, the
catching up because I was drinking. That's why I'm trying
to do more workout friend dates and like non alcoholic
(40:46):
tea and coffee friend dates, which is a weird thing
to do because traditionally I would say, let's grab drinks,
and especially when I'm traveling to new cities from on
the road all the time. I don't want to be
alone on the road all the time, and so I
always trying to meet up with friends ends and make
time for fun in my year of fun when I'm
on the road. But now I have been much more
deliberate about non alcoholic planned fun because you know, I
(41:10):
got a Google coundar like bubble on my on my
schedule for it. So it is interesting to think about
how you can get that connection without the expected default
of the alcohol that comes with it. So often I
think that's so true. I mean, we have a lot
to vent about. Donald Trump is president, and women are
(41:31):
under attack left and right all over the place. We
have a lot to sit with a friend, and we
have a lot to be angry about. And I saw
this crystallized in this beautiful, hilarious viral essay that started
on medium by Christie Coulter called giving up Alcohol opened
my eyes to the infuriating truth about why women drink.
The reason, according to culture, the infuriating and ever present
(41:54):
indignities that being a woman in society comes with is
forcing us all to sort of modify these feelings with
our boozy brunches and wine nights that stayings man. That
feels true. So she describes the act of getting sober,
and she writes, how did I not see this before?
I asked myself? You were too hammered, I answered back
the summer. I see though, I see that booze is
(42:15):
the oil and our motors, the thing that keeps us
purring when we should be making other kinds of noise.
Right She's basically saying we should be marching in the streets,
we should be running for office, we should be taking
what's you know, rightfully hours, equal access to power structures,
and instead we're saying, you know, the patriarchy and for
(42:36):
me another And I kind of get it. I get it.
It is this weird form of self preservation through numbing.
But what she's really doing this piece is calling us
out for the bullets that that is, because that's not
actually helping anybody totally. She describes this kind of if
you remember this commercial um for perfume, I can bring
(42:56):
them the bacon shryed up in the pan. It's about
being a twenty our modern woman who can do it all.
I can bring on the bacon and never let you
forget you give her usually an hour perfume. With a
twenty four hour woman, I can work too, five a club,
come home and read you take your reta. So the
(43:18):
woman in the commercial sings this song, and she says,
I blame that for a lot first running the note,
and that women should have to pick a career keep
house their husband when the only same thing to do
is pick to an outsourced The third for making it
seem glamorous, for suggesting it was going to be fun,
and the tagline she dragged around, the eight hour perfume
for the twenty hour woman, just in case you thought
you can get one thing hour off the clock. The
(43:40):
longer I am sober, the less patience I have for
being a twenty per hour woman. The stranger who tells
me to smile, the janitor who stares at my legs,
the man on TV who wants to annex my uterus,
even the other TV men who say abortion should be safe, legal,
and rare. What business is it of yours, whether it's
very or not, I think, And then I start to
get angry at women too, not for being born wrong
or failing to dismantle a thousand years of patriarchy, on
(44:02):
my personal timetable. But for being so easily modified by
a bottle, for thinking that the right to get as
trashed as a man means anything but the right to
be as useless. That is damn. Yeah, that stings. It's intense,
but I get it that I was a little called in.
I was a little called in. It's it's easy to think,
(44:23):
you know, with boozy brunches and cocktail hours and all
of these material things that feel good that we as
women have thought to have, maybe they're fallen back on ye, Like,
maybe as good as those things feel, they don't really
mean that much. Yes, And it really makes me look
back on our Women in Whiskey episode with a different perspective,
(44:45):
because instead of celebrating the renaissance of whiskey being led
by women, it's actually disarming us in some ways. And
so finding that balance for you personally is so important,
finding the balance between drinking in a way that makes
you feel delighted, if that is something that makes you
(45:05):
feel delighted, but not drinking as the default, because when
it becomes mindless, it's someone else handing you the drink.
It's not you really pouring it for yourself. It's sort
of society numbing you out instead of you deciding selectively
when you're going to choose that for yourself. And I
think that kind of mindful awareness is a good thing
(45:26):
to focus on this month. So I'm with you, Bridget,
Let's give it a shot. And for our listeners who
might be toying with this idea, how are there a
couple of ways to dabble in dryuary. So, whether you're
doing it tough fully and so really tap into your
rightful feminist rage, or you just want to save a
few dollars by not spending them on beer or give
your liver break cups. Whichever, whichever reason you're doing it
(45:49):
more or or if you're not doing it or whatever,
totally cool. But if you are cutting back this month
or anytime, here are a few tips. We mentioned earlier
that drinking a soda water with the lime kind of
makes it click your drink gin and tonic if you
find it helpful to avoid questions. Um. Something that I've
been kind of dabbling in is fancy mock tails. Um
they are really really high and sugar, but I kind
(46:11):
of think I go, like, maybe if I drink a
fancy fizzy fruity drink I can. You know it'll be
easier to exactly. I'm all about selecting advices. Another is
sort of remembering that there are other things that you
can do when you're trying to avoid drinking other than
hanging out in bars. You know, you can go to
a museum, you can go to a park, you can
go do a workout. Like you said, there are plenty
(46:31):
of ways to have fun with friends that don't include drinking.
And most of all, don't worry if you slip up.
I am the queen of trying things and then being like,
I don't like this, I'm not going to do it.
Remember that that research shows that even if you just
cut back on your drinking for one month, you still
get positive benefits for six months, and you're less likely
to binge drink for six months after that, even if
(46:53):
you don't actually complete your drink January. Yeah. I think
it's really about flexing your mindfulness, muscles, and really developing
the skills to refuse a drink, which in this world
is bizarrely hard and it shouldn't be. And this is
especially important if today's episode is making you call into
questioning your relationship with alcohol. To a much greater extent
(47:16):
than uh, just sort of over drinking on occasion. If
the description of alcoholism or alcohol abuse that we described
earlier from the CDC sounds like you, and you are,
in fact someone who needs support, do not be afraid
to talk to a professional. I can attest to the
(47:38):
life changing magic of therapy. I think we've discussed it
on the show many times now. And I remember distinctly
finally confessing to someone when I was in that relationship
who happened to be a trusted ally who loved both
of us. She loved me and she loved my partner
at the time, and that's what made me feel safe
going to her. She was my primary care physician in
(48:00):
and I said to her on my annual physical when
she had a very powerful question at the bottom of
that form, saying, is there anything else you want to
talk to me about today? And I wrote alcoholism? And
I just broke down on the exam table. When she
asked me what was this about. I remember saying to her,
this is my loved ones problem. How do we get
(48:20):
him the help he needs? And she looked at me
and said, yeah, let's talk about that, but first let's
get you the help you need. And I remember thinking,
I don't need help, but don't need therapy, it is
not my problem. And that one moment, that insistence that
she had in connecting me with a trusted therapist who,
by the way, helped me get sort of financial assistance
(48:41):
to afford that life changing support, changed my life. It
caused me to start bossed up. I mean, everything rolled
out for my life since that moment, and it all
starts with being willing to have the very uncomfortable and
vulnerable but powerful conversation with someone who who was in
a position to help. So seek out a medical professional
(49:04):
for God's sakes, even if it's not something you're sure
is a problem that you have to deal with. In
my case, I was basically a codependent in a relationship
with an alcoholic and I didn't even know that word
existed until I was in therapy. So it can be
life changing to really take take the time to give
yourself that time of day and get the support you need.
(49:25):
One of the easiest ways you can make that first
step right now is by calling the Substance Abuse National
Helpline at one eight hundred six six two three five
seven for free and confidential information and support. That's one
eight hundred six six two four three five seven, And
I hope you'll take that step today. If this does
(49:46):
feel like something that's more than a New Year's resolution
for you, yeah, I don't want to conflate those two things.
You know, if you want to abstain from alcohol for
a month and you realize that this is like a
month off isn't going to cut it for you, definitely
reach out and talk to someone. And I think that
(50:06):
as we do this, you know, I'm working on being
a little more radically honest about how alcohol is showing
up in my life and sope this is something that
you are also doing. Let's talk about it. We want
to hear from you, so feel free to reach us
on Instagram at stuff mom Ever Told You, on Twitter
at mom Stuff Podcast, and send me an email at
mom Stuff at our stuff works dot com
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