Episode 130: Alcohol, Anxiety, & Avoidance
All this month I am talking with experts in these four areas of avoiding. In today’s episode, I talk with Andrea Owen, recovering alcoholic, life coach, and author about the connection between avoidance and alcohol.
Is it too early to pour a glass of wine?
I'm just going to have one drink while I read my book outside.
Okay, well, one more while I cooked dinner.
Oh, a glass of wine would taste so good with this pasta.
I think I'm just going to do half a glass.
Well, there's just a little bit left in the bottle. I'm just going to finish that up…
And then at 3:00 AM, waking up with a headache and unable to go back to sleep, my monger starts chiming in: Why did you drink so much? What were you thinking? Why did you do that – again?
Before I took a long, hard look at my drinking, this was what I put myself through most days of the week.
Alcohol and anxiety tend to go hand in hand. We drink to decrease our anxiety and then because it feels so good, we drink too much and the result is an increase in anxiety.
Today, we're continuing our month of avoidance and anxiety by talking with Andrea Owen about the connection between avoidance and alcohol.
As a recovering alcoholic and life coach, Andrea has a unique perspective on the topic of avoidance and alcohol. She is the founder of Your Kick-Ass Life coaching and author of the books How To Stop Feeling Like Shit and 52 Ways To Live a Kick-Ass Life. I have been a huge fan of Andrea's for years, and this is the first time I've had the privilege of talking with her.
I love this interview for so many reasons, but the main point I want to leave you with is that alcohol use runs on a continuum and it is a personal decision. No one can tell you that you have a problem with alcohol except for yourself. For Andrea, her bottom was very high. For others, it takes much more drama and devastation before they notice they have a problem.
If you haven’t had the chance, go back and listen to the episodes with Jacquette Timmons, Erica Drewry, and Bailey Parnell.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
When Andrea knew she wasn’t just a social drinker
Why it can be so hard to see that drinking is a problem
Why alcohol gives us false hope as a treatment for our anxiety and why it can make for a dangerous combination
What role society plays in drinking
And what to do if you want to change your relationship with alcohol
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
Andrea: nd then four o'clock rolls around five o'clock rolls around, and the anxiety starts to build, and that's when I would break. And it would be five 30 or six o'clock, and I'd be like, I forgot the garlic. I need to go to Trader Joe's, and I would run down there and get a bottle of two-buck chuck. And I would probably get more than one just to be safe because my anxiety was so high.
And that happened over and over again.
Nancy: What time is it? Is it too early to pour a glass of wine? Okay. I'm just going to have one drink while I read my book outside. Okay. One more while I cook dinner. Oh. A glass of wine would taste so good with this pasta. I think I'm just going to do half a glass. Oh, look.
There's just a little bit left in the bottle. I'm just going to finish that up. And then, at 3:00 AM, waking up with a headache and unable to go back to sleep. My monger would start chiming in, "Why did you drink so much? What were you thinking? Why did you do that again?"
This was most days of the week for me before I took a long, hard look at my drinking.
You're listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.
All this month, I'm talking with experts in a variety of areas to pull back the curtain on our avoiding ways and how we can make small manageable changes to bring intention to our lives.
Today. We're talking about the connection between avoidance and alcohol and anxiety how they tend to go hand in hand. We drink to decrease our anxiety, and then because it feels so good, we drink too much, and the result is an increase in anxiety. My guest today is Andrea Owen, founder of your kick-ass life coaching and author of two books.
One how to stop feeling like shit, 14 habits that are holding you back from happiness and to 52 ways to live a kick-ass life BS, free wisdom to ignite your inner badass and live the life you deserve. I have been a huge fan of Andrea's for years, and this is the first time I've had the privilege of talking with her. Because Andrea is a recovering alcoholic and life coach, she has a unique perspective on the topic of avoidance and alcohol. I'm so excited for you to hear our conversation. It is an open and honest and, at times, very vulnerable conversation about alcohol, anxiety, and avoidance. We recorded it just two weeks ago. So its message of alcohol abuse during the stress of a worldwide pandemic couldn't have come at a better time.
Andrea. And I talk about when she knew she wasn't just a social drinker, why it is so hard to see that drinking is a problem, the dangerous combination of alcohol and anxiety, why alcohol gives us such a false hope as a treatment for our anxiety, the role society plays in drinking and what to do if you want to change your relationship with Alex.
Okay. I am so excited to have Andrea Owen here from your kick-ass life. I have been a huge fan of Andrea's for a number of years. We're both gonna feel old here. I started following her when I was like in eighth grade, and she started doing stuff when she was in sixth. So it all works out. So, Andrea, we're talking about anxiety and avoidance. And so Andrea's here to talk to us about avoidance and alcohol, which is a subject near and dear to my heart. And I think something that a lot of my listeners are going to relate to. So I want to start right out of the box. Really big. Let's start with the word alcoholic. It's loaded. It is a loaded word. It's loaded, it is a loaded word.
Andrea: It's heavy and loaded. And I was thinking, as you first started talking when you said alcohol, and I was like, I hope people don't turn it off. Like thinking that I'm going to tell people to, I'm taking your booze away. I'm telling people to stop drinking it.
That's not it; just do what you want. It's just a discussion. And yeah, the word alcoholic is it's certainly not a term of endearment, right? Nobody wishes that they are one at all. It's not a club that really anybody wants to be put in. And that being said, there's a lot of shame and stigma around it still.
What's really interesting is that now as we're recording this in 2020, that word almost has like in the circles that I run in almost has an old-school connotation to it because so many people are getting sober. In the name of wellness and I'm using air quotes over here, which adds a whole other conversation, which I'd like to talk about, but they don't want to be associated as an alcoholic.
So they might say something like I have a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol, or it wasn't serving me anymore. So I decided to quit. I know you and I were talking beforehand about combining alcohol and medication and how it's not good for people. And there are all kinds of reasons that people either massively cut back or decide not to drink anymore.
But at the end of the day, that term alcoholic still is not one that anybody wants to be labeled as right.
Nancy: And I think it doesn't get talked about. And I like, I do like how, just because that word is so loaded. I like how the, the culture is shifting more to, it, it is a continuum that I can be someone, not everyone who is an alcoholic or has a problem with alcohol, or however you want to say it is getting up and putting.
Vodka in their orange juice. There are people that are highly functioning that still have issues with alcohol. And that's the theme where I want to talk about, we're going to talk about today. Cause I think you fall into that and I certainly fall into that. So I know you have shared your story.
I've read your story. Can you share, you have to go into the whole thing, but just share your, you had a very high bottom with your story. Can you share that high bottom just to give people a taste of that?
Andrea: Sure. And I, I want to just circle back real quick to what you just said about the continuum and it's, I don't know what the exact stats are and I'm not an expert or scientist on this, but I would venture to say that the majority of people that have a problem with alcohol are the functioning alcoholics. Are the people who still go to work every day. Hopefully they still have their job right now. There's still functioning as a normal human being. And most people wouldn't know, like some people that are close to them might suspect that they have a problem, but for the most part, they cover it up very well.
And that's part of the problem that becomes so incredibly exhausting for people that have problems like mine. And so my mind, my addiction started long before my drinking became a problem. Chronicly codependent. I struggled with love addiction in my late teens and throughout my twenties, and also had bouts of an eating disorder.
And really, I had this like buffet of addictive coping mechanisms, just really unhealthy coping mechanisms. And I would just choose one based on whatever was going on in my life. And how many people really are ever taught healthy coping mechanisms, not very many of us. And so when I woke up and became conscious of those other problems in my life, I got therapy.
I went to 12 step program for co-dependence and really turned things around. And that was right when my drinking picked up. Ah, so it was I had two little babies at home. My identity changed from being a single working woman to stay at home mom with two little babies. I had also been through a pretty egregious divorce that I hadn't ever really processed, even though I was in a much better healthier marriage at that point.
But, looking back on the trajectory, it was almost like without skipping a beat, I just went like from one thing and do another, and before my drinking, like I was a typical binge drinker in my twenties and just partying with my friends, but I could really take it or leave it, like if there wasn't any alcohol in the house, I wasn’t thinking about it.
If I went to a party and there wasn't any booze there, I wasn't upset by it or at all. But as soon as I let go of all those other coping mechanisms and my drinking started to become the forefront of how I would cope. That's when I was thinking about the inventory in my house, I was thinking about, how much time do I have to drink?
Have a drink before we go to this restaurant or the movies or this party. And I would look at everybody else's drink if I was at a dinner party, just to see. We take inventory, like how much wine is left in this bottle? Can I be the one who pours the rest of it?
Am I getting people going to notice that I've had three drinks and everybody else has only had one? These are the types of things that started consuming me. Like the type of thoughts. I shouldn't say that were consuming me and to get on a more nuanced level. I had two babies at home. I had just started a business, just barely started it.
And I remember there was one day where I was going to take my kids out into the cul-de-sac and pull them around on the wagon, which was just mind numbingly, boring. Like it doesn't say anything about how much I love my children. Like I love my children like the next mother, but it was, I was bored being a stay at home Mom and I had an, there was an empty diet Coke can that was being supposed to be taken out to the recycling. And I was like, I could pour wine into that. Three o'clock in the afternoon was not as acceptable for my neighbors to see me outside with a wine glass in my hand, but I could pour some merlot into a diet Coke can, and nobody would know.
And I did it. And I remember thinking, I had that voice that said, I don't think that's probably healthy. It's just like your conscious comes in and like taps you on the shoulder. And I was like, oh my God I didn't want to hear those voices because I knew that my dad also had a very high bottom and got sober when I was 18.
So I knew. I knew where this ship was headed and I didn't want it to be the case. I did not want to quit drinking. I could not imagine my life without alcohol. I was angry at the thought of giving up alcohol. I was like, no sobriety. Are you kidding me? How does anyone have fun? Sober? I am the fun one.
I'm a fun drunk. Sometimes I get emotional, but for the most part, like I have got myself together. It got to the point where it was things like, I'd have two glasses of wine before my husband would come home at 5:30. And as soon as I heard him pull into the driveway, I would put that dirty wine glass in the dishwasher and pull out a new one.
So he would think I was having my first one. It was things like that, that I knew. I knew on a gut level. We're not okay. Here's the other thing that I knew Nancy, is that I didn't want this to be true. I knew that if I didn't change my behavior, I was not going to get. It's just going to get worse. And I also had read some research that said that for some reason, women's progression into quote, unquote alcoholism or whatever you want to call it is faster than men's.
And they, the only explanation they have is that it's because of the way that we metabolize sugar. And it was it's interesting, but also was defeating because I'm like, I don't want this to be the case. And then I had a breakdown with my husband and I was drunk and I told him that I think I needed to get sober.
And he's just a non-drinker, he's like one of those people who can totally take it or leave it and he just leaves it. So he didn't totally understand. He's are you sure? And anyway, bottom line, is, I called a friend who had almost a decade of sobriety and recovery, and I talked to her about it and she was.
She didn't gasp. Like I thought she would, because I still thought that even I still had so much shame around it that I thought people would judge me, even the people I trusted the most. So it was a very afraid to talk to her about it. And she was not judgmental. All she said was why don't you just quit for 30 days and see what.
And I was like, I can do that. That's easy. It turns out it wasn't easy.
I was like, screw this, I'm drinking. But that was my answer.
Nancy: Was that when you went to the grocery store? Like you thought you were going to, there was some story you shared, like you thought you were going to make it. And it was like four o'clock and then you were like, I'm not going to make it. And you packed up the kids…
Andrea: Oh Yeah, no, that was when I was still drinking. And what I would do with that was the whole thought process of, okay, because this is people who have problems with alcohol. This is what we do. Okay. I drank too much last night. I am. I'm not going to drink tonight or I'm just going to, make it to the weekend.
I'm not going to drink, it's like a Wednesday or something. I'm not going to drink. I'll drink on Friday night. And then we go to the grocery store and we don't buy any alcohol. And we are just pleased as punch with ourselves. And then four o'clock rolls around five o'clock rolls around and the anxiety starts to build.
And that's when I would break and it would be five 30 or six o'clock and I'd be like, I forgot garlic. I need to go to Trader Joe's and I would run down there and get a bottle of two buck Chuck. And I would probably get more than one just to be safe because my anxiety was so high and that happened over and over again.
And it just, it's this constant, like trying to cut back or only drinking on the weekends or only drinking beer and wine. And it's people who don't have a problem with alcohol don't need to moderate. They just don't and if you're finding yourself needing to moderate, you might want to look at the bigger problem.
I'm not here to say anyone's an alcoholic. If you do this, then you are this. I'm not like, and that's part of the frustrating thing is like I went to Google and typed in. Am I an alcoholic? Hoping. On the screen, it would pop up. Yes or no. I wanted an answer flashing letters. Yes. So it was like ambiguous and I don't know.
And so that's when I got sober and there's a much bigger story to that too, but that was really the bottom for me
Nancy: Cause I wrote it down. If I don't change my behavior, it's going to get worse. Like when you said that was like a gut punch to me, just because that's, I think whenever we're making a change or whenever we notice anything, that's what happened.
We have that realization. That if I don't change my behavior, this is going to get worse. And meanwhile, we're still debating it,
Andrea: Right we're still making justifications for our behavior. Yeah we do that with other people too. We do with other people. We do that with other things. Like when we realize it's a bigger problem, whether it's food or whether it's our sedentary lifestyle or sugar or bad love and relationships and what we're tolerating. Bad bosses that were tolerating, like all that we wish and hope and pray that things are going to get better on their own. We want to take the easy route if I just ignore this. Hopefully it will get better if I just cut back on the alcohol, and we try that for a little bit.
If I just make more excuses for this person or my behavior, like we try everything, we try the easy way and that doesn't work and it becomes just infuriating and also. The sense of shame too, that washes over is just that we can't fix it. And I work with a lot of high-achieving smart women and they have climbed the corporate ladder and it's if I'm so smart, if I can keep getting promoted, if I can, if these women are making six figures and like, why can't I figure this out?
Why can't I stop? And it's such a deeper issue than just quitting drinking. Drinking. Drinking is just a symptom really.
Nancy: Because I went through a similar process, I did Brooke Castillo at the time she was doing a stop overdrinking class and I took that and it was a game changer for me.
Like I was really glad I found that, but I was surprised a, how much time I was spending, how you describe that. Thinking about it and drinking, thinking about drinking and then thinking about covering it up and I'm not really hungover, I'm just have a headache or it's just my sinuses or it's just like justifying covering it up, looking forward to it.
I was amazed how. So much of my life was devoted to it that I didn't even realize like all of that, like you said about the taking, like never leaving an empty glass on the table or taking the inventory or are they going to know that
Andrea: waiting for an acceptable hour to pour your drink?
Nancy: There's a lot of mental energy. That goes into it. And also then unhooking, as you said, it's more than just the drinking then unhooking, like the social dynamics of it. And how do I go into a room and not have a drink when that's, what I'm used to doing and all of that stuff. Navigating your life, even if you decide to just want to step back and see what it's like to do a social event without drinking, that's challenging.
Andrea: Oh my God. I went to my 20 year high school reunion and I had just gotten sober, I think, within a year or two before. And it was my first big social event. Sober wow.
You to a high school reunion. Could it get any more anxiety ridden? And I had a good high school experience. Like I know that's not everyone's experience, but I had a lot of friends and but still, I was just like fraught with anxiety and the bar is like the most popular place at a high school reunion.
Everybody's feeling awkward and wanting to put their best foot forward. And yeah, it was tough but I. Did you have a question in there? Because I was going to go off on a tangent about anxiety
Nancy: no no go off
Andrea: Well, I think that whether you do Brooks program or whether you do alcoholics anonymous and there's, I'm so grateful now that there are other options besides just AA that we'll look at the deeper problem.
My hope is that, and I don't know that much about even, the logistics and how even Brooke's program works. I know it has a lot to do with that work, but this is so much more, I just want to emphasize this is so much more than just quitting drinking. I think that for me, What I was do, what I was trying to do by drinking was runaway from my life and to deal with my life.
And I'm like generalizing here because it wasn't even something that I was completely conscious of. It was, I was so afraid to walk into healing from so many things from everything I was trying to avoid. I had, like I mentioned, I had gone through a divorce. Had just tried to sweep under the rug and like blame that person.
And like he was such a jerk and it wasn't meant to be, which is all very true. And to listen to him, it was horrifyingly heartbreaking, ending a 13 year relationship. The identity shift of becoming a mother and just everybody has stuff. Everybody listening to this, you have somebody broke your heart, whether it was your mom or dad, whether it was massive disappointments at work, whether it's being, let, go from your job.
Right now, as we're recording this, we're a global pandemic. I guarantee you there's people facing so many challenges, whether your worst challenge right now is just having to quarantine, right? This is causing collective trauma all over the place. And I use that as an example of things that we want to avoid because they suck.
Like listen I've been sober for many years now and I teach shame resilience, and I still don't want to deal with it. It's not like I look forward to it or it's one of those things. I have yet to meet an expert or facilitator or coach or therapist. Who's I cannot wait to do my EMDR therapy, its so comforting and relaxing (laughter) Like it's the freaking worst. So what's on the other side. That's so incredibly rewarding. And no one can explain that to you. Like you can't really even write that on a sales page. Yeah. You'd just have to believe that it's there.
Nancy: it's not, I as you, so I'm just putting a point on this.
It's not linear. Like I think so many people think, oh I'm remarried now to this amazing man. And so that divorce is in the past, like moving on and if you haven't dealt with it, It's not in the past. I have so many clients that are like why am I even, especially now with the collect, I've, I think a lot of stuff is coming up for people cause they're quarantined and they got all this stuff going on.
And so there are a lot of old traumas are coming back and they're like, this shouldn't be, I dealt with. Back in the timeline it's back there. Yeah. Did you didn't deal with it though?
Andrea: You did deal with it and it's back. Yes. There's that thing like, yeah. Yeah. There's that saying? That says like new level, new devil and I think it's actually new level old devil.
Yeah. I think that the same stuff keeps coming up. I heard a interview with Monica Lewinsky years ago and she was talking about the person interviewing her, asked her about her trauma, obviously she dealt with massive public humiliation and went through years of trauma therapy for it. And the interviewer asked her about it.
And she said, the goal is now not that my trauma is completely gone and disappeared. The goal is now that it's just a hummingbird versus I forget what the metaphor that she used, like a hippopotamus or something to be this huge impact that she would have. Now it's just, now it's just like a little flutter and I love that.
She said that because it was such proof that it never really goes away. Like people are facing probably people who had food scarcity issues when they were a child. Like they go to the grocery store now and that stuff comes back up. And I think it's what I have learned through all of this is to treat myself and other people too.
But just with grace and compassion, when old stuff comes back up, because I am a true believer, like I never used to be super spiritual or somatic. And like I used to like staying up in my head, it was safer, but I have really surrendered now into okay. Trauma, even if it's not trauma, just difficult situations and old memories, they live in your body.
They do. And we can't deny that it's part of just the human experience for this to come up. I think people are being triggered all over the place right now. And people, some people are dealing it for through drink.
Nancy: Yeah. And I think, culturally, it was normed. now and now.
Andrea: It's more than normed it’s almost worshipped.
Yeah. The media feed is packed more so than normal with people talking about drinking and celebrating the culture, that idea
Andrea: Because we don't know what else to say.
Nancy: Yes, very true. Because I said to you, if I hadn't gotten my drinking under control, I know I would be a two bottle or one to two bottle her right now.
I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know what to do.
Andrea: People don’t know what to do with their hands. People don't know what to do. People don't know what to say online. And people also want to find some kind of relief, not just from the physical drinking, but also of what to talk about. It's like we have to have humor through this and I think that's why everybody's talking about the tiger king right now, but also what's another really socially acceptable joke it's drinking.
Yeah. And honestly, And some people think this is such a buzzkill, but I hope that when my children are my age, that drinking is as weird as smoking is now. How, when we see, cause like when you and I were kids, I remember seeing cigarette vending machines inside of a day.
That is unheard. Those are museums now. I'm not that old. (laughing)
Nancy: Exactly. Thank you for saying that.
Andrea: But I want, I hope, like when my kids are in college, even that they are in some kind of history class and there's like ads in there from drinking. And they're like, remember when this was a thing and that it's just that kind of taboo and that we flip the script on it.
Yes. The stats are staggering of Holly Whitaker wrote a great book called quit, like a woman. And she's really great when it comes to stats and doing great research and how horrible drinking is for us. And then the domestic violence, the violence in general, the accidents, the deaths, the sexual abuse, the sexual assault that happens because of drinking will blow your mind. I told my 12 year old son, the other day we were on a walk and we were talking, he had asked me if I'd ever smoked marijuana. And I said, yes. And he looked at me like he was judging me. And I said, listen, he's 12. And I said, listen, I'm going to be honest with you.
I would rather you and your sister smoke pot. If you're going to do anything, I would rather you smoke pot versus drink. And he looked shocked and I'm like, we'll talk more. Later. We don't necessarily want you to smoke pot and there are some parents listening who might be gasping, but when you look at the stats yeah.
I've told them, I say, look at the stats. I don't, I personally don't smoke lot anymore because I'd be smoking all day.
Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. So w one thing I found, which, Is what I really enjoyed about drinking. I call it my fancy drink that I needed a fancy drink. And that right now, like that's like either an N/A beer or a bottle of water, in a fancy glass.
And that kind of signified the end of the day for me ritual it's a ritual. And the power of that was amazing to me that it, in so many ways it's served at the same purpose that it was like, here's your signal to relax. Here's your, have this bubbly drink and this will relax you.
Did you find anything like that? That was. What was underneath what the alcohol was serving?
Andrea: I think I was past that. I think that if I would have said what you just said, that was just an excuse for me personally. I love hearing other people's stories, but I think that what you just described sounds just like a habit.
Like for people like putting on their workout, clothes signals that it's time to go sweat. Getting the leash out for your dog signals that your dog is going to get excited. Cause he, or she knows they're going for a walk, but that's, to me that's easily replaceable. I would just put kombucha in a wine glass and be just as satisfied with the ritual aspect of it.
For me, it was more than just, I would say like the ritual was maybe like 1% of it. 99% of it was running away emotionally and mentally was
Nancy: how the alcohol made you feel. The numbing that the alcohol brought
Andrea: checking out, I just was checking out. And it was also a way to squelch my anxiety, but it ended up, I ended up totally shooting myself in the foot.
Nancy: So let's talk about that. Let's talk about how it pours gasoline on the anxiety, the rebound effect.
Andrea: It's, it's a sedative and it just, I, again, I'm not a scientist, but there, I know that there are studies out there that show that it actually makes. People's anxiety worse and it affects our sleep.
That's one part of it. I was not, I was drinking like, I think back on this and I'm like, how did I even function? Also granted, I got sober when I was 36 or 37. So I was, it was younger, somewhat younger. I still my thirties, but I would drink an entire bottle of wine. And then I would take three Tylenol PM.
That's the only way I can sleep. But then I was getting up at a pretty early, had two toddlers and I go for a three mile run. Oh, my pushing two toddlers in a baby jogger. And in a way it was to punish myself. It was to prove that I was okay if I could still get up in the morning.
And also my tolerance was high. If I could get up in the morning. Drink water and drink coffee and go for a run. Then clearly I don't have a problem. It's moms who sleep in until 10 and don't work out at all and they stay in their sweats all dayAnd I remember watching this was back when Oprah still had her show, but there was a woman on there who they were highlighting, women who are alcoholics, who were mothers.
And there was a woman who had, she hit a bottle of Chardonnay, like in the laundry room. So it's I was like, okay, then that's clearly an alcoholic and I am not one, cause I don't have to hide my alcohol. And it's funny. I ended up meeting her. That woman that was on Oprah. She had a blog and I had reached out to her and we ended up being in the same circle of recovery.
And I told her that story, she's you have no idea how many women told me the same thing. Wow. And but yeah, like that was anxiety was something also that I had such a shame and stigma around because it was a lack of control. Like I wanted to control how other people perceived me. I wanted to control how my body was the way it looked the way it behaved. And when I was having a panic attack or my anxiety, or I would just wake up with anxiety, to me that signaled total and complete weakness, it signaled that I was less than. That there was something wrong with me that I was broken. And I also didn't want anyone to know.
So if I could squelch that anxiety, even if it was for a couple of hours, then that was all that I needed. I would deal with the repercussions later, which was the next morning or the middle of the night waking up in a cold sweat at 3:00 AM.
Nancy: Yeah. Which is fascinating how our brains work. That, that break is worth it,
Andrea: It was, and it's interesting, you hear people who don't understand addiction or people that struggle with any kind of substance. And they say you had kids like, wouldn't that be enough for you to be able to quit for your kids? And I remember right before I got sober, my daughter was about six months old.
She must have been yeah. Six months old because it was my birthday. And we were, there was where we lived. There was like a community pool and jacuzzi and. I had, I was sitting on the edge of the jacuzzi with my feet in the water. And I had taken a Vicodin, which was my husband's prescription. Cause he had shoulder surgery and it was like out on the counter.
So I was like, why not? It's my birthday. So my mentality took if I get in and then had a couple of glasses of wine and the four of us had gone down to the pool and my husband was there too, but I had my daughter on my lap and she was six months old. So she was, like not walking yet, but active in my arms.
And I remember thinking that I was buzzed enough that if she fell in the water, I don't know how quick I would be getting her out, and the bubbles were going. And I remember having that thought this is dangerous. Like, the buzz that I have is dangerous.
And even that wasn't enough. But it was, but honestly, like it was those thoughts. It was, knowing that pouring wine and a diet coke in the middle of the day wasn't okay. Feeling supervised when my daughter was that little near the water wasn't okay. So all those thoughts started to stack up, which later pushed me to get sober.
Nancy: So then after the 30 day where you could, you did say, yeah. So then how did start really getting sober in those early days?
Andrea: In the early days I went to alcoholics anonymous. I went to meetings, the 12 step program meetings, and it was enormously helpful for me. I also had watched my dad go through it.
So I was familiar with the program. I also had gone to 12 step programs for co-dependence. So again, I had a sense that this could work for me, and I know that alcoholics anonymous is not for everyone. I also have my feelings surrounded. I don't go to meetings anymore. I think it needs to be, I think it needs to be updated, but alas.
That's a long shot.
Nancy: I agree with you.
Andrea: It saves a lot of people's lives. So I did, and then I actually relapsed about five months later, which is quite a story on vanilla extract and NyQuil, if you want me to tell that quick story? Oh my gosh. So I had four or five solid months of sobriety and recovery and was working with a sponsor and doing all the things they were supposed to do.
But still in the back of my mind was feeling like my story wasn't bad enough. Like I'd go to meetings and hear stories of people, getting their kids taken away, having DUIs, getting arrested, losing their jobs, losing everything, and coming from a very high bottom I've look around and I'm like this isn't me.
There wasn't really anyone there I could relate to. And they kept telling us like, listen for the similarities, not the differences. And. I remember I was at a very small meeting and someone said, I don't know about the rest of you, but I was really desperate when I got sober and everyone's nodding their head.
And I'm like, I wasn't, my rock bottom had come years before with severe co-dependence, which is another story for another episode, I got conned and my ex-boyfriend lied about having cancer to cover up his drug addiction anyway. So that rock bottom was back there, but mine wasn't. And so I. Went home, like a few days after that, my husband and I had gotten into an argument, which was pretty rare.
Like we have a really great relationship and we got into an argument and I got super triggered. Cause I was still dealing with all the emotional stuff from my divorce and he left the house to go for a walk and I'm like, this is it. He's leaving. I'm going to be a single mom and what am I going to do?
We had just moved, like just going through that whole anxiety spiral of being abandoned. And so I thought to myself, like I immediately wanted to drink because that's what we want to do. We want to change the way we feel really is what it is. I don't like feeling this way, triggered and abandoned and nervous and anxious and angry and sad and all of these things like how can I quickly change the way I feel?
Because this whole being like sober stuff, like actually having to be in my feelings is not fun for somebody else. Not for me. So I didn't want to break my sobriety. Like I didn't want to drink, but I had heard another AA speaker talk about vanilla extract and how she used to drink vanilla extract. So I go to the pantry.
The very back of the pantry, find a bottle of vanilla extract, take a swig of it. And then I look at it that was like sediment all along the bottom. And I look in, it had expired in 2005. Oh. And it was, he was 2011. So it expired six years earlier. So I was like, that's gross. I put that back. And then also it heard that you could drink cough syrup and get a buzz.
So do you see like my thought process there? It's I was looking for loopholes. I still wanted to get a buzz. But I didn't want to drink, like I would've been too to shame to go back to an AA meeting, having drank alcohol. And it just is amazing to me that I thought that I could get away with this is when I really realized I had a problem.
So I went and chugged some cough syrup and stood there for a few minutes and nothing was happening. And then I just, I call it like the case of the F*ck-its, where I just found a bottle of wine. And started drinking it. And then later on that a few hours later, my husband must've come home and my son was bouncing jumping on his bed and I was sitting right outside of the door, on the ground.
And there was like this armoire thing. And I d totally gave up and was just drinking straight out of the bottle at that point. And I had the bottle in there and I grabbed it and drank from it and he stopped jumping on the bed. He was four at the time he stopped jumping on the bed and he has this huge smile on his face.
And he goes, mommy, what are you doing? And it probably looked funny, that I was drinking from a big bottle of wine and I stopped and I looked at him and I said, I don't know. I don't know, honey. And that was the last drink that I ever had. That was September 27th, 2011. That was September 26th, 2011.
Cause my sobriety date is the 27th and I went back to AA and I told everybody what happened. I think I needed to have that relapsed because I was questioning if I really had a problem with alcohol or not. And it really, you can call it a problem with alcohol or you can call it a problem with wanting to run away from my life.
You could call it a problem of not being able to be in my feelings and my emotions, not being able to be in my discomfort. I did not know how to do that. I was like, it was like throwing a cat into a bathtub with full of water. You know how they're just like climbing. That's how I was with feelings.
I just was so incredibly uncomfortable. And that's when I really decided, okay, this is so much more than about the booze. Me learning how to process my feelings and getting really vulnerable and learning resilience. It just better coping mechanisms. So that's really also in the trajectory of my professional life changed because I never thought that I would be teaching shame resilience, never.
I started a business called your kick ass life. Do you think that this was on the repertoire? It was not, but the universe had other plans
Nancy: So, the idea of loopholes, of justification, of the mental energy that you're spending on it. I can remember I was, when I was doing my counseling training, I did an internship at a addiction place. And at the time I was a big drinker. And so I don't know what the word would be. The justifying that, you know, that here I'm a big drinker, but I'm sitting in every day in the group program with the men who are, but they all had REALLY BAD problems (Laughter)
Andrea: , like sure. But not you. (laugher)
Nancy: Exactly And I was assigned to this kid who was like 22 and he had four DUIs and he just kept saying, I don't have a drinking problem.
I just have a driving while I'm drinking problem. And I at the time was yeah, part of my brain was like, yeah, he's right. He doesn't really have a problem because I knew people that had DUIs in my circle. I never had a DUI but that idea of justifying, and that I, a part of me was like with him, believing it like a whoa to me, then I went back to my supervisor and I told him, and he was like, four DUI, That's a problem at 22. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I didn't tell him that. I was thinking this isn't a problem. Cause I, I just told him and he was like, wow. He said for DUIs, like how could he like tells you the warped thinking of him that he's just justifying it with I don't have a drinking problem. I have a driving problem. And then I was like, yeah. And then also tell us the warped thinking of me that I'm with him and I'm supposed to be his counselor here, that was my first. That was my first kind of there's something else going on here.
Andrea: Yeah. And it's just, I think it also it's what I think it would be different if he had gotten pulled over for driving under the influence of cocaine, which we know isn't really a thing, but I'm using that example because we don't put that in the same category. Yeah. If I went to a party and everyone's, like doing lines of cocaine and I'm like, oh I quit.
People wouldn't be like, what, why? Unless that's all we did in his friend circle, but I'm just, maybe this is a bad example, but like alcohol is the only drug that we allow so much laxity with. And we also ostracize, I know that my son, a dramatic word, but like when you are sober, you realize very quickly that everybody drinks, but you, and that people are almost insulted when you refuse a drink or you are the sober one at the party.
It's awkward and I am glad to see that it's changing, but it's still a thing.
Nancy: So I have a just a question. I
Andrea: probably have an answer.
Nancy: So what I've noticed for me and with clients is that, alcohol just enhances all the feelings. So I, when I couldn't, cause I couldn't tap into my feelings, like similar to you, like very similar story.
It's all up hear. Then recently also went through Brené Brown shame, resilience training, and also was like, no, but anyway, never in a million years thought I'd be the first thing that I'd be telling people is you got to acknowledge it. Never thought that would come out of my mouth.
So I would drink to tap into those and then become overly emotional to cause, I needed a way to tap into those feelings, but I didn't know how to do it unless, and the drinking would help that.
Andrea: You think that the drinking is helping? I probably seemed like the, my first thought was like, my heart just breaks for that part of you.
That is so wanting to express. Your feelings and it sound, I make up that not only do you want to express your feelings, but you probably wanted someone else to witness them as well.. And also be received in a supportive, loving, compassionate way.. Because we've all had it go wrong. I think everyone has experienced it where it's gone the other way.
And that's what makes us decide to hold them all in. That's where the term put your walls up. Don't let anybody in comes in. So that's my first thought is oh my gosh, I want it. I want to ask you if you want a consensual hug. I just, and I think that, yeah, there's so many people who are experiencing that and just aren't conscious of it.
Yeah. And how many times have we all cried in the bathroom with our girlfriends? Drunk? Yes. We're all wanting that, not drunk at all, wanting to be able to turn to our girlfriends and say, I had the shittiest week, my partner was such an asshole to me, and here's what happened. And I felt so small when we had this argument and to have it be received with, oh my gosh, tell me everything.
How can I support you? Yeah. Instead of. Oh, it probably wasn't that bad or that was nothing. Let me tell you about what happened to me at work, and it's, that's all at the end of the day is what we want. That's why this quarantine is so hard because we are meant for connection and love and to be around each other, even just socially and.
I think that's what the conversation this whole conversation is about is that we were, one of the things I realized through sobriety is that the one thing I wanted the most was intimacy and love and trust with other people, but it was also the thing I was the most terrified of. Yes.
Typical, like both outcomes are terrible in my mind. And I think that I am not the only one who feels that way.
Nancy: Yeah. I definitely cause that's what I do have to just clarify that, but I didn't know that at the time, like that's looking back, I can look in retrospect myself and be like, oh, that's what I was doing.
Was it allowed me to tap into my emotions by, over drinking But I can, cause I can remember also that my husband and I would fight more, when I was drinking and I would have the story that when we drink, cause he's a drinker. I mean he likes to drink. And he still does, even though I don't, he oh, we have these great conversations and we really hash everything out and it's so wonderful when we're really, in it together drunk.
But you don't remember it the next day? No. And it usually ended. On some stupid fight and we never fight to where the same as you, sounds the same as you guys. And we would end up in some, like arguing over something ridiculous. And that was another sign for me that that was what I started realizing this isn't fun anymore,
Andrea: Yeah, it's so interesting. I think that when you are drinking, you have no emotional boundaries at all. Either you're shoving them all down or you are lashing out when it's really not about the thing you're fighting about. It's something else that either you don't understand or that you're too afraid to talk about.
Or you are completely overstepping emotional boundaries by dumping something on someone else who is either not equipped to handle it, or you're having very high expectations of how they're supposed to handle it both. And it just, it's just never a good outcome is thinking about that. That guy you're talking about the 22 year old, there's no one makes any good decisions while they're drinking.
Maybe I'm maybe there are some good like business ideas that have come from that, but just anybody really make any good decisions. I've never made a good decision while drinking.
Nancy: No. Yeah, no, not at all. Yeah, but I'm so glad that we tapped into that feelings piece. Like really hit that. Cause I think that is a, that is at the crux of this for many of my clients is he is either trying to avoid or trying to enhance so that someone can meet them.
Where they think someone will hear them and it doesn't work.
Andrea: It's we're always trying to get our needs met at the end of the day. We're always trying to get our needs met and Harville Hendrix wrote a really great book called getting the love you want. And the gist of it is that we're always trying to heal our childhood wounds through our partners our romantic partners.
And I don't think it's even just with our romantic partners, it can be with our friends as well. And I just, I think. To tag onto that. I did not want, I just wanted to quit drinking. I didn't want to deal with the feeling stuff like in the beginning. I was like, no, I just want the quitting drinking to solve all my problems.
I don't want to talk about my childhood. I don't want to talk about my divorce. I don't want to talk about all my flaws. I didn't want any part of that. It made me wish that I had a zipper and I could just like unzip my skin and crawl out of it. Like I did not like even still I'm like, oh, I don't want to play principal development life coach anymore.
I just want to talk about new countertops. I just, it's exhausting and I'm not going to lie and tell you it's super fun and it's exhausting. But I think I got to a place where I was like, It's not the other way isn't working anymore. Yeah. And I knew from experience from my first marriage and also watching my parents' marriage, unfortunately fall apart.
A lot of it was due to my dad's drinking. Is that if I kept this up, there's no way I could have the marriage that I put on my vision board. There's no way I could have the business that I dreamed of. I had so many. I was so full of energy and enthusiasm just as a personality trait, but I knew that there was no way I was going to accomplish all these goals.
If I was just pouring alcohol on it all day long. And it was mildly devastating. And I think, I just want to mention that I had to grieve not drinking anymore. Because I had so many fun memories from my twenties and, even my early thirties, like before everything really started to fall apart, they say the alcoholics or even people that just have problems with drinking, like there are three categories there's fun as the first category.
And then the second category is fun with problems. And then the third category is just problems and you can move up. Like you can move from fun to fun with problems. To just problems, but you can never go back. And we're always trying. So I had gotten to the point where, my twenties was really just fun.
I didn't have any responsibilities. I didn't have any kids. I wasn't even like super ambitious with my career. It was just fun. And then I moved into fun with problems and I was like, Ooh, I just want to go back to fun. Maybe if we go to Vegas for the weekend, I could get back there. Yeah. And it just, and there would be days when I would just pine for those old days when it was really fun anymore. But I had to remind myself that's not what my life looked like. It was fun with problems and I was just headed for problems. And so I just want to reiterate, like it's okay to grieve your old drinking self. I had to do that. And I was denying that for probably a few years and just really ashamed of where I had ended up.
And I was like, you know what? I had a lot of really good times with my friends and even still something will come a song will come on Spotify, some Mariah Carey song, and I take a screenshot of it and send it to of my girlfriend. And I'm like, remember when we used to, that's about it and laugh and that's okay.
It's it doesn't, it's not triggering for me or anything like that. But I say all that to you have to feel whatever feelings you're feeling.
Nancy: Because it becomes a part of your identity. Like I was the fun one who never turned down a drink and always was game for shots
Andrea: a drinking game. Yeah. You and I would've had so much fun (laughing)
Andrea: and so many problems
Nancy: And you go out into the world and you've changed. And people are like, oh, you're not that the fun one anymore.
Andrea: You make up that people are going to say that.
Nancy: YES! Nicely said yeah. Thanks for saying that for that. Thank you for that
Andrea: . Yeah. You don't know. And I think you, you have to get to a place where you're okay with whatever they think.
I still have people who are like, are you sure you were an alcoholic? And that's dangerous for someone people, because then they were like, maybe I wasn't, maybe I'm okay. Maybe I can just have a glass of wine with dinner. And I have to just be okay with, they didn't know that side of me. They only knew fun Andrea, who would go to the Mexican restaurant and have a margarita. They didn't know the Andrea who was drinking, four or five glasses of wine every night on a Tuesday with a toddler on her hip. Two very different lives. Cause
Nancy: Because I ended up going back to drinking and dipping into it, experimenting and I never could get back to fun.
And I think that's why I eventually stopped. I realized I'm never going to get back to fun. And so I'm just going to stop searching for it.
Andrea: Were you disappointed?
Nancy: Yes.
I was just going to say which I was very disappointed about like that.
When you said that about the grieving, that really resonated with me. Cause it is, I've noticed what I've noticed is during this pandemic time, as we said, I would be drinking more, but I have like, when my husband goes to get a drink, I'm like, oh, I want to have a drink. And I want to be able to, to numb for right now, too.
But then when I take that story all the way through, I'm like, yeah, but I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night, feeling crappy. And I don't want to, get up in the morning, beat myself up. And I
Andrea: Really think through the drink, that's an alcoholics anonymous term, think through the drink.
So you have to just completely think about what would the next step be and on. But yeah, I still think that too. And I think it's part of that. I miss the ritual and I'm missing out on fun and part for me as someone who identifies as an addict, I also think that's the addict part of my brain.
Who's trying to get me to go back. Say that for addicts. The addict part of us is always on the sidelines warming up. Oh, the coach like put me in I'm ready. Anytime. Something really stressful happens. Like I lost my dad in 2016 and I had a my sobriety was checked just a couple of weeks ago, like when it was really hitting the fan with this pandemic, like that first one.
The week of March 9th, people were all like looking around, like what's happening. And then the following week that we get the 16th was like, really, when everybody started screaming that week I had a meltdown and was just like, oh my God, what I wouldn't give to, to be drinking again. And that is like immediately where I need to call my friends and say, this is what happened and do whatever I need to do for my own recovery and sobriety.
But, we, I always remind myself. Humans are meant for times like this. Imagine what our ancestors have been through this, the fact that we are alive, that our mothers, made it through childbirth, let alone the crisis and wars and famine. And unless you came from like aristocracy liquids, many of us, like our ancestors went through hell and I.
We were meant for this. We were meant to bounce back from this and not have to be drunk the whole time. Yeah. That is comforting to me to know that like I'm going to, this is not going to emotionally kill me.
Nancy: Yeah. That's a great way to look.
Andrea: I was going to say this isn't going to kill me.
And I'm like for some people that's a very real fright for people who are immune compromised. But emotionally, like my feelings are not going to murder me. Yeah,
Nancy: yeah. Yeah. I think that's helpful too. People. Okay. So someone's listening to this, they're intrigued. They want to learn more.
I know you have some resources, , can, you name your resources and the others you think might be helpful
Andrea: . I clearly like to talk. They have my old podcast where I interview really awesome people. And I also coach people on my show and have solo episodes as well. You can find at your kick-ass life podcast, wherever you.
Podcasts and I, what do I have going on right now? I'm writing my third book, but that's not going to be out for awhile. And I'm going to do a writing program with a colleague of mine. So that's fun. Follow me on Instagram. That's where you can find everything that's going on, your kick ass life on Instagram
Nancy: and her amazing dog as well
Andrea: She's in my stories, my coworker she's there now. I have three co-workers at my house for me. I like them a lot.
Nancy: I said that to my husband. I said, the good thing is you're the only person in the world I want to be trapped with during a pandemic. Of course, I said that. I still say that, but it's funny how each week that becomes a different I have to remind myself of that.
Andrea: So grateful that I really get along with my husband. I know that's not the case for many people or they're single and they're by themselves in their apartments. I just, I, my heart is just breaking for everyone. Who's really struggling right now. And that's everyone to some degree yeah. Yeah.
I'm thinking of all of you.
Nancy: Yeah. And you did a special series on your podcast.
Andrea: I did for drinking It's the best way to find those episodes is to go to your kick ass life.com/recovery. And you can find them there. You can listen there on the site, or you can find all the numbers and then search and I, apple podcasts or wherever you can find them there.
And that's probably the best way to find all those recovery episodes.
Nancy: Okay, Andrea, thank you so much. This was fabulous.
Andrea: I had fun and I love talking about this and DM me on Instagram. If you heard this and didn't want to just say hi, I love saying hi to people who heard me on specific topics.
Nancy: I love this interview for so many reasons, but the main point I want to leave you with is alcohol use runs on a continuum and it is a personal decision. No one can tell you that you have a problem with alcohol, except for yourself. For Andrea. Her bottom was very high for others. It takes much more drama and devastation before they noticed they've a problem.
Maybe this conversation resonated with you. Maybe you want to change your relationship with alcohol, like guy. Trust me five years ago. I never thought I could live without alcohol, especially during a pandemic. When my anxiety is sky high, it isn't always comfortable. It isn't always easy, but it is a thousand times better than the 3:00 AM wake up calls of what did you do last night
Helping people with High Functioning Anxiety is a personal mission for me. I have a special place in my heart for this struggle because it’s both something I dealt with unknowingly for years, and because it silently affects so many people who think this is just how it is.
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