CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Holly Whitaker

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Whitney is talking with Holly Whitaker, author and founder of Tempest, about the impact of alcohol on family dynamics. Holly believes that society's positive messaging around drinking often overlooks the negative impact it can have on relationships. She believes that the question should not be whether one is an alcoholic, but rather if alcohol negatively impacts one's life and if steps should be taken to address the relationship with it. She also discusses the lack of informed consent around alcohol consumption, as many people are not fully aware of the potential consequences. She suggests that if alcohol feels uncomfortable or difficult, it's an invitation to interrogate one's relationship with it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Holly Whitaker, a New York Times bestselling author and founder of Tempest, who's here to talk with me today about the impact of alcohol on family dynamics in a society obsessed with drinking. I'm Whitney Goodman. Welcome to the Calling Home podcast. I'm glad you're here. When I was working in addiction treatment centers, I saw a lot of people being labeled as irresponsible drinkers or they were the problem in their relationships because of their alcohol abuse, despite everyone around them also drinking too or even using drugs, but because they were able to, quote, unquote, control it or do it responsibly, they were not considered to have a problem with their substance use.

And there's no denying that a lot of hurt and pain can be felt by everyone that's involved in these situations. But it's kind of crazy to me, the cultural messaging around drinking and how positive it is. when we do hear countless stories of it having a negative impact on all sorts of relationships. And I hope this episode will help you just think about that a little bit more and even question how substances are being used in your own family. So I went on my Instagram and I asked people like, how has alcohol positively impacted your family and how has it negatively impacted your family? And I only got four actual responses, right, of people being

To the positive one. Yes. I got a lot more responses, but they were people being like, you're an asshole for asking this question. I can't believe you would ask this. And there were people who were saying none and describing negative reactions, right? So the only positive things are really like fun to bond with my dad. I've learned how to enjoy alcohol within limits. It's communal breaks down barriers and fear. in communication. Those were the only positive ones, right? The negative I obviously got like 700 over submissions about how really bad alcohol has been. Four versus 700. Yes. Yes. And these are really bad, right? My husband and I are separated because of it. It told me that my parents needed something to escape. It ended my relationship, ruined our lives, ruined my childhood, took my beautiful, funny kind mom. My dad was an active alcoholic. I never knew. him. I mean, it's like so many of these. And this one I thought was interesting. My daughter saying to me, I hate it when you're drunk and I was just a social drinker. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to know like what you,

what you think about these responses because I feel like we consider alcohol to be a bonding force sometimes in families or something that we do for fun. Is this surprising to you the way people respond? It actually is because I do think that we wouldn't drink as much as we did if it didn't actually have more than, you know, whatever that ratio is, you know, one to 200 less. We wouldn't drink the way that we do. I'm of a strong belief that, like, alcohol serves a purpose. I don't think it's, like, holy, evil, bad, and that we wouldn't incorporate it the way we do if it wasn't serving that purpose. So I do believe that there are benefits. And I think when we try and say there's no benefit, then we're actually denying, like, a really rich resource for why we would use it in

the first place. Like, that's like, that's a wealth of information that helps you to understand why it's so important and why it's lodged so firmly within our culture and all of our, you know, almost all of our communion. And so, yeah, I think, like, that's the first comment that I have, which is I would expect there to be more than four. And I'm not surprised by the fact that there was 700. And I think on that, that's also just telling, it's just so telling because I just, I know from my own personal experience of those that are close to me in either my friend group or my family group that struggle with it still or an active addiction, the absolute horror that it is how, I mean, and just from like also, by the way, you know, thousands of stories

coming to me over the years. It feels so invisible still the damage that it causes and it still feel so secret and I think that's like the surprising piece of that is of course everyone has a story and also we still don't talk about that enough. No, I agree with you because it is it's this crazy juxtaposition right of we know there's this huge negative impact on on families in a lot of ways right and we juxtapose that against the really positive like advertisements and culture that we see around drinking, that you almost feel like if your family can't handle it, there's a problem, right? We have these terms like the addict family, things like that. Or you ostracize the member that cannot consume responsibly and you label them as the problem

within the family. Yeah. And I love that you're using the word consume responsibly. Yeah. Just because it's not, it's such an inaccurate. It's not responsible. It's not responsive. they just happen to, with this one particular addictive substance, they are able to control it and not be ruled by it. But also, we don't even know if that's true, right? They're just not off the rails with it. They're just, like, there's a whole spectrum there. But I want to just be really careful to say, what does responsible mean, right? When we say, like, they can consume responsibly. We're still putting it on an individual level and saying it's an individual's responsibility to consume this. drug that's so heavily foisted upon us. And it, again, like, doesn't, it kind of removes like the alcohol industry and, you know, societal issues as causal factors of why people drink problematically in the first place. So anyway, but yes. Right, right. No, I, I, uh, screenshoted. I think you shared this on Instagram that the alcohol industry says they want people to drink responsibly, but they don't define what that means. And if every adult in a

America drink according to the American federal guidelines for low risk drinking, alcohol industry sales would be cut by 80%. Yeah. And that number is like, it depends on what years you look at, but it's in the like 50 to like 80% that, like, in terms of revenues that they would lose if people actually consumed within the guidelines. Most of their income comes from people that use it, um, problematically. They use, that are addicted to it. And so they don't want you to drink responsibly, right? They want you to drink absolutely irresponsible. Which is so, wild when you think about it because I guess what I've been contending with on an individual level is I have a two-year-old son. Okay. And I've decided like, I don't want to drink around him.

That was a decision that I made because I had an incident where a woman was drinking wine near my son and he said, what is that? And she said, oh, it's happy juice. And I cringed inside and I was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to explain this consumption to my child? And I ran through it in my head. Like, none of it makes sense. Why does mom drink this? What is it? What does it do for me? And it was a light bulb moment for me about like all the messaging that you talk about in your book that we receive about alcohol right throughout our lifetime. And that all starts in the family for most people. It's like who introduces you to substances and how are those substances introduced? to you. It's wild. It is wild. And then you also have people that I wrote about this, I think,

within the past year just you also have people looking to Europe in different European countries that introduce alcohol consumption from a really early age and then try and correlate that to lower rates of addiction without looking at the fact that like a lot of those countries have like socialized medicine, you know, like long parental leaves, you know, in different types of social supports, higher family integration. Like there's just so many different factors. that exist. But again, it is this, it's this really complex thing in America, specifically because of this one drug that's so promoted and also almost entirely defensible. Anyway, you do this thing in your book where you talk about alcohol, but you replace alcohol with cocaine, right, in all of the

sentences. And I also showed my husband that, and he's like, wow, that is so jaw. to think about it that way. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I'd love to hear you explain, like, why you think when we put alcohol in the sentence, it makes sense to us. But when we replace it with anything else, even, I think, like, marijuana, people kind

of, like, shrink back at that. Freak out. Less now, but still, yeah. For sure. It's, again, like, the cultural message that we've consumed and that we have, we've taken on and we've reinforced. And so it's just normal to us. I mean, you can essentially.

convince a culture of any type of belief. And our culture believes that alcohol is entirely healthy. It's something that a certain select number of people are allergic to and have a disease, the disease of addiction, which makes them unable to consume this super healthy, you know, inner substance that is absolutely not problematic. You know, we blame the people. We don't blame the substance. And then we also have, you know, a war on, you know, a very, very longstanding war on drugs where, you know, that's driven by different social factors, that's driven by racism, that's driven by classism, that's driven by all sorts of things, where we have, you know, this really like arbitrary classification of certain types of drugs is bad as illicit. Elicit just means

bad, not supposed to take, right? And that make these substances demonic and make the people that use them a different type of person. And then alcohol is this, like, very, very protected substance, primarily because so many of us consume it. And also primarily because there's a huge lobby and there's a huge, you know, capital interest that's backing it, the alcohol industry. And so you have this very, very normalized, entrenched use of alcohol and you, and then everything else. But if you just also watch, like around, if you look at cannabis and are, you know, now that we can make money off of it, now that there's, you know, corporate interests, now that there is this like normalization of the consumption of it, the legalized consumption of it,

you're also seeing those barriers break down and that normalization occur around it. And then you also see this with psychedelics. And so it really is very arbitrary. It's, you know, Because, like, also, when you look at, you know, David Nutt did this study years ago that essentially, and he was the UK drugs are at the time, that essentially ranked based on harm to self and societal harm, like, the most dangerous drugs and alcohol was swimming at the top. And it's primarily swimming at the top because of the nature of the substance itself, but also because of the fact that it's so widely used. And also because of the fact that most of, what happens, it's largely, like, the problems that are generated from alcohol consumption are largely felt by society. So yeah, I mean, it's just, there's a lot that goes into it, but you're right. Like, if anybody, like, even cigarettes, like, if you lit up at a party, if you were at a family party, you know, with kids around, maybe everyone's drinking, you know, alcohol. And then if somebody lights up a cigarette, I mean, it's just, if you can just imagine that scene and how people would,

respond and react to that because our attitudes towards cigarettes have shifted dramatically over the past eight years. Yeah, it's so true. I want to go back to what you're saying about like psychedelics, marijuana, things like that because I was listening to, I don't know if you know who Scott Galloway is, but he has a podcast. He was talking about how he doesn't want to drink a lot anymore. And he's noticing that a lot of Gen Z people are moving away from alcohol and instead like doing mushrooms or doing other things after they've had one drink. Do you think that's a positive shift? Like, what's your attitude about that?

I don't know enough about Gen Z. I do know that they're an alcohol consumption. And there's like anything else, you can massage the data to drive the message home that you want to. So there's plenty of articles that are pointing to data that says Gen Z is rejecting alcohol and drinking less. And then there's also articles that say they're not. But also, I think Gen Z grew up on social media.

We know from like the last few months, like the CDC released their report that said, you know, like the social media and all of its corollary causes of, you know, depression and suicidality and teens. And so they have a different type of addiction that they're dealing with. And that stuff is addiction, you know, technology, screens, devices, all of that social media is an addiction. We're using those devices addictively, and kids are from a really young age being exposed to addictive technology. And so I also think you can't really talk about their attitudes towards alcohol or, you know, whether or not, you know, there's like anecdotally, you know, maybe some groups are, you know, rejecting alcohol because, again, like, their parents drug of choice. If you think about, like, who Gen Z's parents were, like, and like where alcohol consumption was when they were. in their formative years. But I think I think like it's it's hard to really say like across an entire population why or what and what they're doing instead or that you know or make these like

you know the alcohol industry is so powerful. You know, I mean if you look at like cigarettes and the tobacco industry, people still smoke. They still find novel ways to get people addicted to tobacco. I mean, just look at like what's happened vaping. And so I think that I'm not worried about the alcohol industry losing customers because the generation is growing up with different attitudes toward it. Yeah, when I hear some of these things, though, about like, oh, people are moving away from alcohol and towards this, I guess as a therapist, I'm always like, it's all the same thing to some degree if you're using certain things to cope with life in a way that is detrimental

to you. Like I remember when I would work in addiction, they would say like a drug is a a drug and not really try to differentiate between what substances people were using. And it feels like there's always this narrative of like, I got to find a safe way to detach from life, but the target just keeps moving around on like what is considered safe. And we all have vices, right, that everybody uses to disconnect. But I guess what I see really in your work is that what you're talking about with alcohol is more about informed consent than anything and being honest about what alcohol is and what it does to you. So can you speak a little bit more about that?

Yeah. And I just want to plug my friend Carl Fisher's work. He wrote a book called The Urge. And it's a tremendous and beautiful illustration of the history of addiction. Like we look right now and we look around and we think we're, you know, we don't think we are. We're in an addiction, you know, epidemic. You look at fentanyl and opioids and alcohol and, you know, But he does a really great job of tracing the history and showing that there have been plenty of epidemics prior to our current time that existed with different types of substances. There's always like a substance of the moment that's like, you know, causing the most harm, whether it's like, you know, the crack or, you know, today, fentanyl and now, Trank. So specifically, to answer your question about what informed consent is around alcohol. So informed consent just means you understand.

It's just like if you were to be prescribed psychopharmaceuticals, if you were to be. prescribed Zoloft or an antidepressant. Informed consent means that your doctor and you have a conversation that fully understand what the consequences are of taking this, what the side effects are, that it's going to be hard to taper off of. It's just this, I know what I'm actually putting into my body. I'm informed and I consent to doing that. And with alcohol, we don't have that because it's this thing.

again, like there's, there's so many factors. Like, for one, the idea of the alcoholic as being this, you know, specific type of person from birth has this potentiation for alcoholism. And the moment they meet alcohol, it's game over because they always had this in them. And they are allergic to it. And they now have a chronic disease that they have to manage for the rest of their life. So this again puts the blame on the individual and then tells us that the substance is totally fine. I mean, even though, by the way, if like the rates of addiction were known and we, like, the fact that we basically put every single human to the test to see whether or they're not an alcoholic, right, like by just saying you are expected to try the substance and then figure it out.

Right. So, you know, I think when it comes to informed consent, there's none of that because, one, again, there is this idea that it's a safe substance. There's just sick people. And then also it's just this right of passage, right? We have so few rights of passage within our society. And, you know, one of them, one of the biggest ones, you know, there's, there's, you know, getting your period. There's graduating high school. There's getting a driver's license. There's, you know, there's so few celebrated. rites of passage. Not that we celebrate getting our period, but there's, one of the biggest ones is turning 21, becoming the age, and being able to drink. And you are expected to go through this right of passage. It is an anomaly if you turn 21 and you decide not to drink, right? And so it's this idea that you're just going to do this. And this idea that there's a small percentage of the population that will struggle with us and therefore there's no there's no sit down of you know like in your in in the years in which you might start using it which is going to be you know in high school there's no moment where there's an intervention and somebody is explaining to you

these are all the things that consuming this will cause what's assumed is that you'll be a responsible adult. You'll use this substance, you know, the way that you should. And it ends there. And for the most part, most people that drink don't actually understand all of the side effects that come with consuming personally and societally. So it's, it's not there because it doesn't exist. We don't even have a model for it. There's not even nutrition labels or warning labels on this product. It's so true. And I agree with you. 100% on this that I think like if someone's going to do something, go skydiving, engage in any type of activity, like they should know the risks and they should be able to sign up for it and

decide if they want to do it, right? The part that also trips me up is like people who try to kind of debate that alcohol is healthy in some way, right? Or they're extremely health conscious in other areas of their life, but we'll consume a lot of alcohol. And obviously, you know, we're empathetic to that and there's a lot of like psychological things that play there but the cognitive dissonance that happens sometimes in those moments to me is such a testament to like the brainwashing to some degree that has happened by the alcohol industry that we can see all of this damage prioritize our health in all these huge ways but not be able to see that but I mean that happens all the time with a lot of different things yeah of course we choose not to know

And also, it's kept from us. And also, everyone else is doing it. And also, it's normalized to consume this thing. And so, yeah, I mean, it's bizarre for sure. But it's also kind of in line with a lot of things that we do. You know, a lot of us still eat meat. It's not, it's no secret, you know, what, what, like, industrial farming of animals is doing to the environment. We still drive gas cars.

We still play and play. There's so much stuff that we still do, even though we know it's terrible either for us or for our future. So it's just, it's not surprising at all. Do you ever get like so frustrated knowing all of this being awake to it and kind of living in this world? I don't get frustrated by alcohol anymore. I think that it used to, I spent a long time being extremely frustrated by it. I think that there were years where it was just like, it was just like constantly seeing, you know, like health icons. You know, like I talk about this in my book, like watching the way that.

you know like in goop health like their conference is subsidized by an alcohol company and they have they promote you know like different drinks and wines and there it's supposed to be a wellness organization not even like just wellness it's hyper wellness it is you know going to the extreme of of what we go to in order to preserve our health and balance and and then you have this toxic substance that's being promoted within it. And stuff like that used to just, it felt like every day I would hear something, I'd see something, it would just drive me wild, and then I would post on Instagram or I'd write an essay in response. And I don't feel that anymore. And I'm not really sure why. I think like it's in part because it's just exhausting to like be that triggered all the time. But I also think it's because there's been a shifted attitudes. Like at the very beginning when I started when I started posting about alcohol you know there was stuff like wolf was good would like you know post about their like cucumber CBD you know post sauna elixir

and like with vodka right and and it would just be maddening and they were promoting this as like a healthy thing to do you know taking this like the hydrating drug you know after you've you know purged all of your hydration so Like stuff like that. And I would then, you know, we reposted on my Instagram and I would be like, everyone go to this post and like pile on and get them to change. And I think that there was, I used to get so much more angry about it because I really felt very, very powerless in changing the narrative. But I think that that has largely shifted. There's plenty of people that are extremely aware of what it means when a celebrity, like Jennifer Lopez, who has talked for years about

not drinking, creates an alcohol brand, right? Like, there is plenty of people that now see that and are upset by that and are going to speak to that. I had no idea she did that. That's wild. She did. That's really wild. Right. And also she's married to like, one of the most famous alcoholics, right? So it's just like, I don't need to say it anymore because there's plenty of people that understand and the tide is shifting. I think what I get more frustrated about now is kind of one thing that you were saying a minute ago. A drug is a drug. A drug is a drug. I think that one of the things that I'm more frustrated out and also where my energy is going is trying to expand this definition. I think that there are

the very clear suspects of like who has a problem and it's like people that use typically substances you're not supposed to be addicted to for whatever reason like gambling or porn or and then there's everyone else right and if we look at like our social media usage or consumerism or anti-aging practices or our like hustle culture like there's so many different areas where we are not identifying that that's addiction and we still have this binary of bad addiction versus like socially accepted and promoted addiction like to work to success to accumulating wealth and so I think that I'm far more interested now I think like the alcohol stuff is going to take care of itself I think I don't know but I think it's an

overall like there is still this really big divide between these are the people that need to watch themselves and like be in recovery forever and they're sick and then there's the rest of society And if you look at like what we're doing, I mean, it's the definition of insanity. It's the definition of addiction. Like we are doing things with short-term benefit of long-term cost in so many different ways. And I think that that's far more interesting now than just this one substance, is being able to look and implicate everybody in it and therefore give everybody the option to actually make changes to, you know, free themselves and hopefully change the narrative

that we're in as a global family. So yeah. I love it. And I'm glad that you are taking that on to some degree. It's a big thing to start talking about this because I know when I just started talking about like positivity and manifestation, like people would lurch on me for trying to go against that in any way. And I feel like alcohol is an even bigger beast than that. That some people are like, are you crazy? Oh, you spoke negatively about manifestation. Negatively. Yes. Okay. I was like, I thought you were going to. I thought it was the other thing. Yes. You're like, I need to get off this podcast right now. I was going to say, great. No, I mean. No, exactly. Exactly. And I do think it's like, don't take away my

manifestation. Don't take away my. Yeah. Yeah, my spiritual. Right. And it's the same. But I think that there is something really beautiful in this. It's like it looks like a punishment. When you when you call people out on these things, not call them out, right? Because it's nobody's job to please other people. And I think that's like really where it comes down to. Like that your comment about informed consent is like really hits the mark because it is up to us. I really do believe in an individual so long as they're not harming other people like they're allowed to do whatever they want to do with their bodies. Right. And that includes putting food into it, drinking, doing drugs, fucking whoever they want. You know, Like, whatever you want to do, it's your body, and it is your choice.

That has to remain. I think that that's one of the most important things, because I don't, I think, like, part of why we are so sick is because we don't have control over our bodies. I think part of the reason that we need to numb and escape is because we have all these rules to navigate of what we can and can't do it or allowed to do, and we don't really have this, like, full autonomy to make decisions. We're not trusted to make decisions. And so I think that that's, like, a huge piece of this, which is that it really

has to be up to the individual. We have to trust individuals to make the right choices. And at the same time, we also are doing no one any favors by not being extremely clear about what things are extremely harmful and giving people the full amount of information to make those choices from and to make those choices with. And so, sure, it sucks, you know? Like, you're the one that's like saying alcohol is bad. I mean, it's, I would not say it's been great for my social life. But I think that in all of these things, like talking about technology and social media, talking again about like breaking up with, you know, one of the things I'm writing about this week and it's so painful, but it is not going to be some government that actually fixes the mess

that we're in. It really does come down to the individual choices that we make. And we have to make a lot of uncomfortable decisions pretty fast. And I think that that is, no one wants to hear that, you know, and whether it's alcohol or anything else. And so it's, yeah, it's hard, but it also is it's a portal, like looking at these things that we do that are extremely, you know, harmful to ourselves or harmful to other. And going through the process to, to modify that is such an opportunity. The less we want to do it, kind of more important it is to do. That's so true. And I, I want to piggyback on what you just said about like informed consent it's your choice what you put in your body all of that i i i 100% agree with and i think the weird thing about alcohol that i hear is

from people is like it's not hurting anyone i'm the one that's drinking it right and we all have kind of evolved sure it's crazy right but i mean i was when i worked in addiction treatment i remember people would say to me like oh i i drink because i like the taste and i'm like you blew up your whole life you're here, you lost your job because you like the taste, like not possible, you know, or it's not hurting anyone, like these really just kind of watered down beliefs about it that keep us stuck and don't let us see the pain. And I feel like with cigarettes, we have now come to understand like no secondhand smoke is a thing. I can get other people sick. And I see that with alcohol too, that if you engage, especially in, you know, excessive drinking around children,

driving in your home. We know all these negative outcomes are there, right? Most domestic violence, all this stuff happens under the influence a lot of the time. And so I feel like that's one way when we think about this from a family perspective is like we have to shift our thinking as like when I consume this into my body, it doesn't just impact me. It impacts all the systems around me. And so if I'm going to consume this, this thing in an informed way, I have to do. it in a way that has the least amount of destruction for my life. I can still see my conditioning that I'm under this like responsibility umbrella still here. But I'm wondering like if it would help some people to shift their thinking that way that this isn't just about me. It's about the

people around me as well. Well, I mean, the first thing I want to have is compassion for somebody that's drinking excessively to the point where it's actually like let's just take a person that's drinking in a family system. And what the stress that that causes, you know, it is like seen is the selfish disease and seen as like specifically this one thing you know there's plenty of things that people do that fuck their families up and this one thing addiction is you know it's it is the one area where you're allowed to just you know say this person's a fuck up this person is ruining the family and blame everything on the addict and say you know and really so i i have like a very you know that my first reaction to that is like we but we have no problem

blaming people, blaming addicts for ruining families, right? Like it is like the first and last story. And, you know, I think like I told this story in my book. I think I told it my book. But when I came out to my family, at first I thought I had borderline personality disorder. And one of the things to manage borderline personality disorder is quit drinking. And I, that for me, you know, when I told my family, I said, look, I think I have borderline personality disorder. And, and. I also need to stop drinking. And then when I started drinking again, you know, they were just like, well, we bought books, you know? And like it was just like the extent of like their involvement in it was limited because I had done this to myself. I mean, it was a firsthand experience that I think is pretty universal to people that are trying to quit drinking. And from having that experience, I absolutely caused my family a lot of pain, not as much as some other people have. Definitely not as much as some other people have, but enough.

And I think even the degree of which I was blamed for what I was going through is so humiliating and so painful and so lonely and so unhelpful. So I think before I say anything else, like I do want to say, you know, addicts are all, you know, and I use addict. I don't, I use addict here to just like paint the picture of like, but people that struggle with alcohol use disorder or substance use disorder, they're blamed to begin with. So I don't think we need to like amp that up, that like they are responsible for ruining their families or causing their families harm. But what you do when you step back and you

have, you know, that 30,000 foot view, you do know that most of the stuff that like, you know, there's a lot of, you know, first degree harm that happens to the human. There's, you know, like liver failure, cirrhosis or cancers or whatever. I mean, there's, like, so many things that it fucks up for an individual. But then when you actually scope out, it's called secondhand drinking the same way as there's secondhand smoking because there's so many social casualties. There's there's drunk driving accidents, like you said, it's involved like a high percentage of violent crime has alcohol related to it. High percentage of sexual assault has alcohol correlated. There's domestic violence, high correlation.

So there's there's so much that happens that is when we consume alcohol, the way we do in this country that happens to other people. And I want to say, I can't remember, I can't, I'm not familiar with the statistics anymore, but it's, it's up there, it's high, and it's, I want to say, I mean, like, if you look at the history of what happened to actually tip the scales on cigarette smoking, it was this idea that we were taking away like we were like the infringement on on the innocent bystander other people's rights and that was like the secondhand smoke piece of this was a huge tipping point and what drove tobacco to be what it is today and we don't have that and i don't know why

i don't know why when everybody has a story and it's worse than smoking like not to downplay second like what happens like asthma or emphysema or cancer from secondhand smoke but we're talking you're getting beat in your home you know you're getting raped or whatever it is that happens or or or you're just watching your violent you know father or you know whatever it is that you are witnessing because of or exposed to or vulnerable to because of someone else is drinking i don't know why we're not mad about that enough yet. I don't know why. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm thinking, too. And I like the piece that you're bringing up about having empathy for the person that is being called the addict, is calling themselves an addict because they do end up being the punching

bag in the end. And as a family therapist, I believe a lot of times that person is just the container for all the dysfunction that's happening around them. For all the family. Yes. Exactly. So it's not like if we remove them, everything's going to be fine. It's like, no, they are the piece that's screaming, like, we need help here. Something is going on. Yeah, they're the open wound. Exactly. But for anyone listening to this, that's maybe doesn't consider themselves, you know, anywhere even near that addict camp, right? I think even thinking about how does alcohol impact my relationships? Is that when I usually fight with my significant other? Am I really short with my kids when I do that. And looking at like, if I'm just drinking a lot on Wednesday night and I wake up

in the morning and I'm short with my kids and I'm yelling at them, like, it's not just me putting it in my body. And that was a big like inventory moment for me is like, how is this impacting other areas of my life where I want to be successful? And you have a really awesome line about this in the book that I cannot remember about like, really the question is not like, are you an addict, are you an alcoholic, but is this getting in the way of areas of my life and should I do something about it? Yeah, is it stealing from me. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that that's, I mean, it is, it's such a like, because it is the wrong question to ask whether or not I'm an alcoholic. And, you know, I think it's such a stupid question. I think if you even ask the question, Cheryl Strade recently

wrote, oh, I can't remember the name of it. It was so beautiful. And I'll give it, I'll send you the link so you can put it in your show notes. But like, I think it's like the problem without a name or right because like it's just that uneasiness right it's just that ooh like something here is interesting if i'm even asking the question or if i'm even considering it if it even just you know like it's interesting to me hmm alcohol whether or not you know do i do it is it causing you know like just that we're even questioning it because there's you know there's stuff that like we all do that some people can't do that we do fine like and it doesn't even like cross our radar you know there's plenty of stuff that I do, you know, that like, like, for instance, like, I can keep chocolate

in my house, you know? And I think, like, that's, that's something that I think for somebody might, that might be, like, mind-blowing, right? That they, like, feel like they can't keep chocolate in their house. It might be a trigger for, like, a, you know, like a binge and purge session. Or, like, there's just stuff that we all do normally that other people can't do because of our wiring or because of, you know, whatever it is. And I think that that's one of those things. it just like if you if you if it feels like it's a little difficult for you right and just a little dip if alcohol feels just a little difficult for you and it feels a little uncomfortable i think that that's an imitation to interrogate and most people i think are really terrified to do that i think

that's changing but because it's so tied into belonging it's so tied into intimacy it's so tight into relationships either romantic relationships or family relationships or friend relationships It's everything. It's everywhere. It's all the time. And there's times where I haven't had a drink in 10 years. There's times where plenty of times where I just wish I fucking did because it would just make my life so much easier in terms of having, you know, like that belonging moment. Yeah. You know, you said about your social life earlier and we laughed, but I think it is such a serious big thing for people that like alcohol becomes the symbol of all the things, right? The celebrations, the connection, the relationships, for young people that your life is almost centered around alcohol. You know, you're meeting people

at the bar, you're dating, you're doing whatever. I remember it being that way for me and how hard it would be to think about it being another way. I did find the question that I had highlighted though that you said people should ask themselves, where did it go? I want to read it so people have it, but we should be able to ask ourselves these simple questions and answer honestly. Does alcohol negatively impact my life, and if so, should I take steps to address my relationship with it? I think that's, like, the best way of putting it. It's not, are you an alcoholic or not? Yeah. Just like, does it fit in my life right now where I'm at today? Yeah. I mean, absolutely, absolutely. There was something you were saying, I want to be clear. The reason my social life

was deeply impacted, just not to scare anybody away that's thinking about quitting drinking because I became extremely annoying about alcohol. Like that, that's why. Like, not... Well, that's why I asked you if it was frustrating to you because I feel the frustration building in me. Like, as I'm reading your book, I'm like, oh, I'm going to be angrier and angrier about it.

Yes. Yeah. In a good way, in a passionate way. I mean, like, every conversation I had was like, D.U, you know, and, you know, and it was my... It was my job, right? Like, I... Right, right.

a company that was like a digital rehab and I was when I was raising money for it I go to all these venture capital events that were hugely like alcohol centric and I'd walk up and I'd be like and everyone's like what's your company about and everyone's like got a drink in their hand and I'd be like I have a company that helps people stop drinking and then everyone get fucking weird you know and that's like that is like the most perfect encapsulation of what my life is like for and still is to some degree like um so but like just giving up alcohol gave me a different standard relationships and made me work for them for like belonging and and not earn or work for but like it made me seek a type of belonging that is far more sustainable. I have a better I would say like there's

a cost but there's also a benefit to it. So I just want to be clear just so that it's like not putting drinking didn't ruin my social life. Being impoverry hasn't. I imagine there's just a transition period right like with anything where you're getting used to navigating the world and your relationships without that thing. And once you come out the other side, it's like, oh, wow, this is much better. But that transition period, I feel like that's with healing anything. You know, there's that ugly middle. With anything, because you're losing an identity. Exactly. Right. It's liminal. You like, you shed an identity completely and you're not that anymore. And you're not the next thing. And you have to navigate that. And you, of course, you know,

lose lots of things. But you do that if, you know, you go through. any kind of major life transition. Well, thank you so much. I think this episode is going to be eye-opening and hopefully just helps people. I want to encourage people just to question things a little bit and continue to be like, how does this fit into my life? How is it impacting my family, my relationships? And then how can I make an informed decision from there? So thank you for helping us do that. Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. It's been fun. Thank you. Is there anything that you're up to lately or over the next few months that you'd like to share with us? No, I am, well, I write regularly on Substack. I've taken a break for the last six weeks,

but I write regularly, like a weekly column on Substack. I'm working on my second book, which we talked a little bit about today. It's about essentially navigating, you know, like these times and also through the ones of addiction and like really giving everybody permission to question what's not working in their life, you know, beyond alcohol. I think I have a podcast called Quitted that we're going to fire up in the future, but a lot of things that are in the make, even nothing that, you know, beyond writing on substack, then anybody can have access to immediately. Awesome. Well, I love your substack. You're a wonderful writer.

So I encourage anybody to go check that out. And we'll, of course, share all of that in the show notes as well. Thank you again for coming on. Thank you so much. It's been fun. I don't know.