The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - The Effects Of Alcohol On The Body & Mind Ft. Drinking Games Author Sarah Levy

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

#556: Today we're sitting down with Sarah Levy, Sarah Levy, author of "DRINKING GAMES", a book that examines the intersection of sobriety, relationships, and identity. With the rise of sober-curiosity, we're talking with Sarah about the role alcohol plays in everyone's lives, and how our short-term choices about alcohol effect our long term health. Sarah takes us through her personal journey with blackouts, dating, relationships, wellness culture, and more & she explores the impact alcohol has on relationships and identity, and teaches us how life’s messiest moments can end up being the most profound.   To connect with Sarah Levy click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you Primally Pure Primally Pure has harnessed the power of natural ingredients in their complete line of non-toxic beauty products. Visit primallypure.com/skinny or use code SKINNY at checkout for 15% off your order. This episode is brought to you Airsculpt AirSculpt is a minimally invasive body contouring procedure designed to permanently get rid of stubborn body fat in one session. Visit airsculpt.com/skinny to find out more about receiving a complimentary AirSculpt area with the purchase of one or more areas. This episode is brought to you by Sakara Sakara delivers science-backed, plant-rich nutrition programs and wellness essentials right to your door. Their ready-to-eat meals are nutritionally designed to deliver results—from weight management and eased bloat to boosted energy and clearer skin. Go to Sakara.com/skinny or enter code SKINNY at checkout to receive 20% off your first order. This episode is brought to you by Armra ARMRA Colostrum strengthens immunity, ignites metabolism, fortifies gut health, activates hair growth and skin radiance, and powers fitness performance and recovery. Visit www.tryarmra.com and use code SKINNY at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. Go to squarespace.com/skinny for a free trial & use code SKINNY for 10% off your first purchase of a website domain. This episode is brought to you by Perfect Snacks Made with freshly-ground nut butter, organic honey and 20 organic superfoods, Perfect Bar has a variety of products that are good to eat and good for you. Go to perfectsnacks.com/skinny to learn how you can receive a perfect bar for free. Produced by Dear Media    

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for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. I didn't know what had happened. Like it was so embarrassing. I didn't remember what we had done. Like nothing about it was fun. I couldn't even tell myself like it had been a crazy fun night. I didn't remember anything. And I remember just walking home the next morning and just being like, I need to stop. And I didn't know anyone my age who was sober. I didn't know what it would look like to stop drinking. I just knew in that moment, like I can't keep doing what I'm doing.

From there, it was just about like being really honest with the people in my life in a way that I had never been honest before and like saying out loud for the first time, I think I need to be sober. I didn't know anyone who didn't drink who was my age. Like I didn't know what that would look like, but I just knew that the way that I was living like wasn't working anymore. This has been a topic that I have want to really dive into on the Skinny Confidential Him and Her podcast. And it's a topic that I think Sarah Levy really nailed. Essentially, I found her when I was on Amazon and I saw her book pop up as a recommended book for me. And I downloaded it on my Kindle and read it on a flight. It's called Drinking Games, and it explores the role alcohol has had in our formative years

and what it means to opt out of a culture that's completely enmeshed in drinking. So she really examines her relationship with alcohol. She was 28 years old. She was living in New York City, working this incredible job and socializing every weekend. Alcohol was involved everywhere. It was involved in work dinners. It was involved in social events, brunch, whatever it was, it was around. What she realized is she started to notice that she had this huge secret. And that secret was her relationship with alcohol was becoming toxic. And throughout the book, she realizes that she needs to save herself. Incredible book. And Sarah Levy is a real star to come on this

podcast and be so raw and real. So in this episode, we're going to talk about blackouts, dating, relationships, wellness, culture, and we're going to get real about alcohol. So Sarah Levy, she's a writer based in Los Angeles by way of New York. Her work examines the intersection of sobriety, relationships, and identity. She has been featured in the New York. Her work examines the intersection of sobriety, relationships, and identity. She has been featured in the New York Times, New York Magazine, The Cut, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Vogue, Elle. She's amazing. It is a bestseller, Drinking Games. On that note, let's meet Sarah. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. I think people have a lot better information now. Even if you're somebody who maybe doesn't fall in the category of maybe you're somebody that doesn't necessarily have an alcohol issue

and you can drink socially, I think many people now are learning about the detrimental effects of alcohol on the body and mind more so than ever before. And we've had so many different characters on this show talk about this. And there's not to date been one person that's been able to point to one positive effect outside of if you wanted to get into it and say, oh, it can make you social or you can be that kind of thing. But from a health perspective and from a mental health perspective, there's not been one doctor, expert, thought leader, person that's been able to come on and say like, yeah, that you can pour it. For a long time, they were trying to say, oh, you could drink a little bit of red wine, but they found that you have to drink so much red

wine that that's not true either. So yeah, I mean, I think for me personally, I've just lost a lot of interest in it unless there's a real occasion. I just read a study that came out recently that was like no amount of alcohol is good for your health. And my dad's side of the family is French. So like European drinking wine at lunch every single day. And that was always the narrative that I heard growing up was like, it's good for you. Everything in balance, everything in moderation. And on my mom's side of the family, we have a history of breast cancer. My mom's a breast cancer survivor. And when she finished her treatment, her oncologist was like, I don't want you drinking at all. Like there is no reason for you to be having alcohol. And so this was before I got sober. I had

like those two narratives. And since getting sober, I've obviously done a lot of research. And yeah, the study came out a few weeks ago that was just like no amount of alcohol actually has health benefits. Like you can drink for social reasons or to relax or whatever, but it's not necessarily doing anything positive for your body. When you look back like an umbrella view of your childhood, is there something you can pinpoint where you look back and you think, oh, that's where it started? I always felt really uncomfortable in my skin. I moved around a lot as a kid. So I

changed schools a few times like in elementary school and just being kind of new and feeling like I needed to be a chameleon. I needed like I went to a French school for a couple of years and then I was in a public school in New Jersey and I was like observing what everyone else was wearing and trying to figure out like what I needed to do to fit in. And so those are just some of my earliest memories of feeling like I wasn't a part of and I wasn't necessarily like enough in my own skin. I don't talk about this often, but I did have some trauma in my childhood. I was sexually assaulted when I was very young. And I've only recently started sharing about it because there are, I think, so many women, people who unfortunately have trauma in their childhood

and have that experience that they don't talk about for years and years. And so for me, I kind of buried it and didn't talk about it until I was much older. But when I started drinking alcohol in high school, just with my friends, I think the discomfort that I had just always had in my skin, like an eating disorder cropped up later in life. Like there were just these voices kind of always going for me, telling me that I wasn't enough as I was. And alcohol really quieted that for me. How old were you when you had emotional trauma or you said sexual trauma when you were young? Six. Wow. That's young. Really young. And so the alcohol became sort of like a coping mechanism for that.

It did. And I didn't tell anyone. I had obviously so much shame and fear. And, you know, it was someone older who was like telling me not to tell anyone. And so I didn't tell my parents. I didn't tell anyone until I was like 21. The years in between, I discovered alcohol. And it really was like the solution that I had been looking for.

I finally felt like just comfortable in my skin and I felt like I could flirt with guys that I liked and I could, you know, just be this like lighter version of myself in a way that I'd always struggled on my own. Was it immediate with alcohol? Right when you found it, you liked it. I loved it. Yeah. And I was, you know, a perfectionist. I was a rule follower. I was a really good kid. And I had been taught drinking is bad. You're not supposed to, especially underage drinking or drinking and driving. And I remember being at a party and drinking at 15. And I was like, this is why everyone does this. I loved it. It was so much fun. I just felt like warm honey in

my veins. I felt like I could just relax. And one of those first times I drank, I blacked out. And that was very much my relationship with alcohol was. I loved it. It was so much fun. Once I started drinking, I couldn't get enough. I wanted more. And eventually, usually ended up blacking out. You talk about in your book how you would go to parties and sometimes you would wake up throwing up or in the hospital. When these things would happen, would you automatically distract yourself the next day to try to get it off your mind? What would you do to sort of, I guess, detach from it? It was so normalized for me, like blackouts, drinking, partying, that when I pushed it a little too far and like threw up or woke up in the hospital a couple of times, I just would kind of go overboard to make sure that my life just looked so normal and so good on the outside that like it couldn't be a real problem. What do you mean? So for example,

like I always would define my success by these like external metrics, right? These things that meant that I was okay. So in high school, like those first blackouts that I had, it was, okay, I'm going to just really focus on my grades. And then I'm going to get into the best college that I can get into. I went to Brown University. I was like, I have arrived. Like I can't have a drinking problem because I'm smart. And I'm with all these other people that are very high achieving and smart. And then it would black out again and have more consequences. And later on being in New York City working, it was like, okay, I'm going to put everything into my career and be killing it at work and get a promotion, or I'm going to work out every single morning. I was doing SoulCycle

before going to work, sweating vodka, feeling like, okay, this being healthy makes up for the way that I drank over the weekend. And just as long as I looked okay, if I had the right job, if I had the right apartment, if my body was okay, if I was going on dates, if I had the right group of friends, it, in my mind, kind of negated the way that alcohol was affecting me when I drank. It was like a way of saying, I don't have an alcohol problem because people with alcohol problems don't have their life in order. Exactly. I had this idea in my head, like people with alcohol problems are much older than I am. They've lost things. They've had marriages and they've had, you know, they've lost their

homes. Like they had to have these big consequences in my mind. And as long as I had like the checklist, I couldn't have a real problem. And was your habit, was it a type of habit where you would drink every single day or was it a type of habit where you would drink every single day or was it the type of habit where when you would drink, you would just binge? I did not drink every single day. I didn't drink first thing in the morning. I never drank before work. I didn't drink alone. I drank socially, you know, after work, happy hours, and then like going out on the weekends at dinners and then going to bars. Once I started drinking, it was very hard for me to stop. And then I would binge. When you look back on you being in the hospital, are you maybe drinking too much at a party? Was there a moment when you were

really young that you can look back to and you thought, oh, this might be a problem? Or was it not until way later? When I was 23, I woke up in the emergency room for the first time. And that was the first moment where I remember thinking, this doesn't happen to everyone. My friends like to go out. We all like to party and have fun. But this is not the norm. And I was really scared. And I remember thinking, OK, I need to figure this out. I need to figure out how to drink responsibly. Getting sober and eliminating alcohol was not on the table. I was 23. I was single. I lived in New York City. I was not going to be sober. And so that was the first moment where I was like, okay, I need to just reel this in. And I sort of embarked on a five-year period of trying to moderate my drinking, which was

very uncomfortable. And I really struggled with it. But I remember that morning, like waking up in the hospital and just being like, I need to figure this out. And what I've learned since then is like, if you're waking up thinking, like, I need to figure this out, I need to like figure out how to moderate my drinking, you've probably already kind of crossed over into a different place with your alcohol consumption because most people who have like a normal relationship with alcohol don't have to try really hard to not get wasted when they start to drink. Yeah like most people if that if you wake up in the hospital like well I'm not doing that again ever but if it's happening multiple times you're like okay maybe this is something that I can't figure out on my own anymore. Yeah and that's

the insanity of it for me like the denial denial was really, really powerful. Like I was waking up in the hospital and then coming up with all these excuses. Like the first time I fell out of the cab and hurt my arm, I literally fell out of a cab and like, you know, those spiked fences, not moving door was open. You know, those like spiked fences on sidewalks in New York City fell right onto one, like right on my arm. Oh, Jesus. Don't remember it. And woke up in the emergency room, like with stitches in my arm.

Literally, you guys. Holy shit. Oh my God. Still have the scar. Wow. That's like a, that's a scar. Don't remember it. Okay.

So your arm was impaled. Impaled. My friend was with me at the time and was like, I had never seen anything like it. Like the insides of your arm. Like, I don't remember anything. Like I had. Well, in that case, maybe good because shit. Yeah. And I woke up in the emergency room with her the next morning and was just like, what happened? Like groundhog day, no memory of it. Most people that happened to them, they would be like, I need help. Like I, wrong. In my mind, it had been my birthday. That was my birthday party the night before. So of course I got too drunk. I hadn't had a big dinner. This is my narrative at the time. I had all these tequila shots. It was a big night. it could have happened to anyone and I write about in my book drinking games like that night actually changed the course of my friendship with that girl who was in the

hospital with me she was my best friend at the time you say she was not happy with you she ended our friendship yeah yeah it was really scary for her and she had had I think other scary nights of taking care of me and it was I think I think for her, a turning point. And I think when you're in something and you have a problem with alcohol, it's very easy to blame other people. It's very hard to kind of turn the mirror on yourself and say, I think I have a real problem here. And so when she walked away from our friendship, and I still had stitches in my arm, I was angry. I was like, how could she do this to me? I have no idea why this is happening. Of course, in retrospect, I can look back and see how terrifying that was for her, but I just was not in a place where I

could take responsibility at all. There's a theme in your book that you talk about, and I don't know if it was on purpose on purpose or not but there's a romanticizing energy around alcohol one and then you're in new york city where it's mimosas out on sunday and oh it's monday it's been a long day let's have a drink and then you say how much you like vodka martinis because it's tuesday and then oh it's lunchtime where i walked up the street six feet right yeah or like this person's doing this happy hour like it's i think it's Tuesday and then, Oh, it's lunchtime where I walked up the street six feet. Right. Yeah. Or like this person's doing this happy hour. Like it's, I think that it's the mixture of romanticizing alcohol and making it this

romantic thing. It makes sense. You said your parents were front, like French, they, they romanticize it. So then you have New York city on top of that. Do you think that contributed to everything that was going on?

Definitely. I moved to New York City fresh out of college right after graduation, like a month later. And I'm 33. I grew up with Sex and the City and all these depictions of New York City. I was really excited to be young and living there. And I just really thought that drinking made me this empowered, chic, cool, like feminist girl. Like I could keep up with the guys. And that was a big part of my drinking in college was like, these guys were really smart, right? They were like crushing it in the classroom and we would be out and I was like able to go drink for drink with them. And that made me feel really cool and powerful.

And in New York, it was similar. I loved being able to go out and order a martini. This was also 2012 when I first moved to New York and wellness was really popping up and there were a lot of new wellness startups and there was this idea of balance, right? Being the healthy girl who's having a salad and also having a martini. And I just loved that idea of being able to have it all and martini. And I just loved that idea of being able to have it all and do both. And I do think that I told myself this story for a really long time about needing alcohol to be the version of myself that I wanted to be. When I graduated, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I felt incredibly lost and aimless professionally.

And I think I derived a lot of security in this idea of being able to go to a nice restaurant or go on a date and order a drink and just kind of sink into it. After you have this friendship blow up in your face after the hospital, what was the next thing where you were like another sort of memory that you remember that was a moment where you were like, fuck, this is becoming an issue? The fence is not the worst thing? The fence is not the worst thing. I didn't get sober for five years after that. Wow. Yeah. Her book's very good. Very good. I would kind of go through periods. So after that night, for example, I would put myself on a plan

where I would be like, okay, if you go out, you're having one beer or you're having two vodka sodas, water in between and no shots, right? I would make myself these rules. So you'd map out the drinks ahead of time. I would map out my drinks and like that would be my game plan for the night. And I would try to stick to it for like my first night back out or whatever, but I would inevitably fall off and would end up like drinking however much I was going to drink. And after that night in the hospital, I remember just like a series of totally uneventful, boring, but horrific morning afters of like waking up in my bed, having thrown up on myself, like waking up being like, oh, you know, which is dangerous. And like not knowing where my phone was, not knowing where my wallet was, just not remembering how I had gotten home.

And the blackouts got worse for me. And blackouts are really scary. They're characterized by a sense of lost time. It's not just like falling asleep. It's like you're awake, you're having a conversation with people, you're interacting, you're able to get in a cab or go to another bar,

but you're not forming short-term memories. And don't they start to happen at a higher frequency? They do, especially if you have experienced blackouts early in your drinking. For me as a teenager, I've had doctors tell me that it can become the default setting in your brain. When you drink. When you drink, exactly. So if you're more prone to blackouts, it's likely because you've experienced them earlier in life. And so it was just a lot of nights like that. It was waking up the morning after going out being like, who did I text? Who's mad at me? How did I get home? How did my night end? And it was like these moments that just sort of continued to stack up over time.

I would go like a month at a time without drinking or, you know, I would try to take these breaks and it would just always, once I started again, kind of take me back to the same place. So what was the point where you were like, this is not working? And maybe you didn't say that. Maybe it was someone else. When your family members start realizing, when more friends start realizing, when people start starting to catch on what's going on? So I hid my drinking from most people in my life, other than my friend who was with me that night when I fell. But what I started to do was cycle through different friend groups. I had my close friends who were consistently my best friends, but I wasn't always going out with them. So I was going out with different people and kind of I would go out with one group of friends one weekend and then another group the

next. So no one really noticed how bad it was getting. What happened was I was 27, 28, and I was in a job that I was obsessed with. I was working at a startup. I loved it. I thought it was like the coolest thing in the world. And I went out one night after work with my boss at the time. And I had really been telling myself, I had just turned 28. It was a few days after my birthday. And I had told myself, this year is going to be different. We're not blacking out all the time. It's not cute. And it was the first time, I think, that I had set the intention for myself and wasn't really giving myself the same out that I had been giving myself before. It's such a small thing, but I had booked a workout class for the next morning. I paid for it and I was planning on going.

And so when we went out, my boss and some of his friends, I really was not intending on getting so drunk. I wanted to have a couple of drinks, go home, go to sleep, go to the class the next morning. And I woke up the next morning and I was next to my boss's very good friend in his apartment. And I couldn't talk my way out of it to myself. I couldn't do the thing I had always done, which was rationalize how I had wound up there. I hadn't wanted to go home with him. I hadn't ever met him before. I missed my workout class that I had paid for. Every time I tried to talk myself into like, oh, it's not a big deal, I couldn't do it. And I don't know, I was just done. And it wasn it wasn't my worst night, right? Like I had woken up in hospitals before I had had much more, I think like severe consequences to my drinking, but I was ashamed. I was really embarrassed that like my boss had seen me that way. And he's not

my boss anymore, but my boss at the time. And I remember just like walking home and like, I didn't know what had happened. Like, it was so embarrassing. I didn't remember what we had done like I just was like nothing about it was fun I couldn't even tell myself like it had been a crazy fun night I didn't remember anything and I remember just walking home the next morning and just being like I need to stop and I didn't know anyone my age who was sober I didn't know what it would look like to stop drinking I just knew in that moment like I can't keep doing what I'm doing so what did did you do? What's the first move? So I went home and I sat on my couch for two days and like felt sorry for myself. And I had been in therapy for years and just had never told my therapist kind of like the real,

the extent of my drinking, made a therapy appointment for, you know, that Monday. And I Googled, I sat on my couch and I Googled recovery meetings in Brooklyn where I was living at the time. And I just didn't drink for those two days until I could get to one of those meetings and until I could get to my therapist. And from there, it was just about being really honest with the people in my life in a way that I had never been honest before and like saying out loud for the first time, I think I need to be sober. I didn't know anyone who didn't drink who was my age. Like I didn't know what that would look like, but I just knew that the way that I was living like wasn't working anymore. If you followed me on Instagram recently, you know I've been sharing my postpartum experience.

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problems drinking? For example, when I think of addiction, it's like somebody who has to have, they have to do this, right? It's like a thing over, but like in your case, I'm listening to you and it says, you know, maybe you didn't drink all the time, but when you did, it was just so problematic. I'm not disparaging either one, but do you think there's a difference? Do you think you had an addiction to alcohol or do you think that you personally just like were a terrible drinker? That's what I'm saying. I'm trying to thread the needle because we all know those people in our life where it's like, hey, maybe they don't drink so much, but every time you go out with them, it's such a

nightmare. And you're like, it's not fun to drink with them. It's not fun to go out with them. They're not doing it habitually, but when they do, it's a nightmare. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I think from what I've learned, addiction and alcoholism, it's progressive and it continues to get worse. And so I think at the point that I was at, problem that I had developed likely would have become a full-blown dependency on alcohol to exist as it is. I had no ability to socialize without it, so I had become pretty dependent on it in that sense. But I know what you mean. I think for a long time, that question and overthinking that kept me from thinking I was allowed to get sober. Yeah. And I don't want to do that to people listening. I'm trying to be very careful, but there's some people that I think even if they don't necessarily have an addiction,

should just never drink alcohol because they're not good drinking alcohol. I think some people justify like, oh, I only drink like once a month. But it's like, yeah, that one time you do, you're so miserable. You're such a mess. You can't control yourself in such a bad way that it's like, maybe you just should not have alcohol ever because you are not somebody who can handle it. And I think it's like the insanity of the chokehold that alcohol has on us as a society is if you had that kind of a reaction to literally anything else, like if you're allergic to peanuts and you eat a peanut butter sandwich and you're going into shock, you would just stop trying to eat peanuts. It's a good point. If I ate a steak or if I

ate a salad and I just started throwing up and woke up in a hospital and impaled on a... There would be like, well, I'm never doing that again. Correct. It's just a thing where it's so socially acceptable. It's such a part of our culture that people feel like, oh, I have to partake in this. Exactly. And so it's like, it doesn't even matter if you're an addict or you just are a bad drunk. You're allowed to not do it if it's not serving you. And I didn't know that that was an option for me. When you started talking about the trauma that you had when you were young, when you were 21, you said you started talking about it at 21. Did the alcohol consumption get worse from 21 to 28?

It did. Yeah, it really did. I was doing pretty intensive therapy and had told my parents about what happened. And it was just a very necessary but uncomfortable process to go through. And alcohol just kind of had my back in the beginning. Like it was a relief to be able to go out for drinks after like a hard therapy session. And after, you know, I stopped, completed the therapy program that I had been doing after about a year, I just hadn't acknowledged or resolved the role that alcohol had started to play in my life and in that healing process while it was happening. Well, you also talk about too, and I think that this is an interesting part about how when your mom was going through breast cancer and she was going

through her treatments that you would go be with her during these treatments and then you would go use alcohol again to sort of numb it. And I think there's a lot of probably people listening that are in a position where they're taking care of a parent, whichever way it is. I mean, some parents have Parkinson's, some parents don't have money and they need financial help, whatever it is. And then they use drugs or alcohol to sort of numb the pain of having to take care of a parent. Was that juxtaposition interesting looking back? It was. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 25.

So it was like right smack in the middle of all of this. And I moved in with her while she was going through treatment. They were living in New York as well. So I was able to go out with my friends and then go to treatment with her. And it was terrifying. And I didn't know how to process any of those feelings or how to kind of compartmentalize the feelings that were right. The fear, the real fear that was coming up, it was just like very present for me all the time. And I was, I found myself like, you know, hung over in treatment with her going out and drinking that night, talking to

everyone who would listen about how scared I was, strangers that I was out with, and then going to be with her the next day. I have a toolkit today that we can talk about in sobriety that didn't exist for me then. The only tool that was available for me was alcohol and was drinking. As long as I showed up on time for my mom's treatments, I would tell myself that it was okay that I was drinking through it. I think that there's a lot of people listening and a lot of 20 to 40 to 50, whatever, that are in a position where in some way or another, they're feeling that they have to take care of a parent. And there's a million different iterations of what that looks like. I'm talking about money, spiritually,

physically. Maybe you have a parent that isn't nice to you. I feel like there's a lot of people who are numbing the pain of having to deal with their parents. From this book, have you experienced a lot of people reaching out about that? I have. I've experienced people who have really resonated with that section. There's also a section in the book where I talk about caring for my grandparents in sobriety, both of whom passed away recently. I was very close to them. And my grandmother had dementia. And so watching that.

Horrible. Horrible. And being so close to her and her not knowing who I was and literally having to help her get dressed and care for her it was like one of the hardest things that I've ever gone through and I was sober and so like the dichotomy of taking care of my mom watching her go through treatment when I was drunk all the time to then being a few years sober when my grandma was dying like both were really hard. And that doesn't change. It's uncomfortable and it's painful to live through those experiences. The difference is

when I was drinking, I felt like I really was unable to show up and fully be present for my mom. I was physically there for her, but I was hungover. So I feel like I would be snapping at her or I would be in my own head, literally complaining about having a headache or being nauseous while she's getting chemo because I had been drinking the next day. That makes probably guilt or shame. Exactly. Because you're sitting there doing it to yourself. Exactly.

And she's doing it because she has to do it. So I can only imagine what that brings up to the surface. It's like you want to push it down even more with alcohol. The problem with alcohol is that it is one of the substances that humans use in the human condition to justify any kind of strange behavior. It's like I talked about I was sober for a little while. And I also really, I just don't drink a lot anymore. But I had a bunch of young people, right? Well, you're not dating anymore. And like to date, you need this. Or they'd be like, well, you know, I have anxiety and there's only thing that calms. Like it's, it's the one thing that people will use to justify like any, like there's a, they have to give themselves so many excuses. And listen, I was a drinker. I mean, I started, I had a fake ID before I had a real idea. I was drinking alcohol at 12, 13 years old and heavily on.

And fortunately, I didn't ever get so far. But it just got to a point for me where I'm like, okay, this is just not that interesting. If you sit around a bunch of drunk people sober and you listen to them have a conversation, it just sounds like a bunch of drivel over and over and over and for way too long. But I realized I was like, once in a while could be good, but you're missing to your point so much of life by just medicating yourself and numbing yourself all the time with this stuff. It's like, even if you are dating, how do you even know if that's a good date or not? Oh my God. I was single when I got sober and I was dating.

And when I was drinking and dating, I liked everyone. I would go home with anyone. Everybody's interesting because you're not even processing anything. And I just wanted them to like me, which is also maybe not everyone's experience. But I pretty much liked anyone because I just was looking for that validation or attention. And then dating sober was such an interesting experience because I was like, wait, do I like you? Am I enjoying this conversation? Are you interesting? Are you asking me questions? Some people were perfectly nice. I just didn't feel like a connection. like you? Like, am I enjoying this conversation? Am I like, are you interesting? Are you asking me questions? Some people were perfectly nice. I just didn't feel like a connection. That was

sort of groundbreaking to be the person saying like, I actually think maybe we don't see each other again. Like, thank you for the couple of dates, but I'm good. I had never done that before. And, you know, I met my husband sober. I got married sober. I was able to form a much more authentic connection without alcohol than I had ever been when I was drinking on dates. I think because alcohol keeps everything surface. So it's easy to be like, oh, I like you or I dislike. On alcohol, you know if you like someone or dislike them instantly because you're just seeing what you like on the surface. It's very difficult to get deep with someone because how could you when someone's mind is that numb? Totally. Or I would go really deep, really fast because I was drunk and it wasn't real. The other

person either wasn't on the same level or I would wake up the next day and be like, why did I share that with that person? That didn't feel safe. That didn't feel authentic. I was just in my own world and so drunk that I was kind of misreading the situation. When you got sober, what are some things that happened good and bad? Well, we can talk about like some of the physical things that happened. So I had always kind of characterized myself as like an anxious person. Within a few months of getting sober, I felt not even a few months, like a few weeks, I felt so much calmer.

I was sleeping better. I just felt like no matter what happened that day, like as long as I didn't drink, it was going to be, I was going to put my head on the pillow, like remembering everything I had done and said. And that was just a really grounding, like calming feeling. My skin got better. I had more energy. I was exercising and not like going out and drinking right after my workout. So like like I just felt like it could be much more intentional with like my time and how I was like treating my body. And I was so scared about like the social aspect of you know what would happen with my friendships. And I mentioned like I had you know a group of girlfriends that I was close with from college

and wasn't always going out with them was kind of going out with other people. Those friendships like those authentic friendships got much stronger in sobriety, which was a really nice surprise. And they were very happy and very supportive. Some things that also changed were I mentioned the job that I was in that I was obsessed with. And I was just on this one path where I worked in marketing. I thought that was my passion. And I ended up staying in that job for about a year after I got sober and then losing it when I had like a little over a year sober, which was devastating. And it ended up being like the best thing that had happened for me, right? Like I have friends who will say like rejection is redirection. And I was very much redirected. It gave me permission to pursue writing, which was something I'd always been passionate about. And ultimately, I gained a lot in sobriety. And I also lost some things that weren't serving me anymore, a job, some party friends that I had. But overall, I think I gained so much clarity. And it gave me just permission to get to know myself and figure out who I wanted to be at 28, 29. Do you have so many DMs of people

asking you questions about sobriety? Yes. I bet, I bet. But I love it because I sent those DMs. I used to go on Instagram and type in hashtag sober and just try to find anyone who looked normal, who was young and not drinking and had a boyfriend. That was all I cared about.

And so I'm always happy to get those messages because I know what it's like to be in that place. If someone's in a place and they're struggling, and obviously I'm not saying you're a doctor, but just if you could just tell like a friend what you would do. Yeah. If you're struggling with alcohol, like you have permission to take a break or to stop drinking. You don't have to keep drinking. You don't have to try to figure it out. And if you are at the point where you're curious about sobriety, reach out to the friend of a friend that you know is sober. I reached out to a lot of acquaintances when I was newly sober and asked them to get coffee because I just didn't have anyone to talk to really. And those conversations were so helpful.

Like I think there's something about hearing a sober person share their experience and being able to identify with it that can be really like instrumental in seeing yourself in that trajectory and being like, oh, maybe I could do that too. So I would say reach out, get coffee with the sober friend of a friend.

And this is very cliche, but like truly take it one day at a time. I really took it 24 hours at a time when I was first sober because if I had gotten ahead of myself and thought like, oh my God, how am I going to be sober at my wedding? Or how am I going to be sober at dinner next week? I don't know. I couldn't have done it. And so I really would just wake up in the morning and be like, okay, I'm not going to drink today. And I would play a trick on myself and say, if you really want to drink tomorrow, we'll figure it out for tomorrow. But just for today, you're not going to drink. And I always give that advice to people who are newly sober. You don't have to worry about

forever. Well, there are other things that you had to give up in conjunction with giving up alcohol to make sure that you didn't go back to alcohol. And for example, I know my situation was different. I only took seven months off and didn't have the same kind of issue, but I just knew if I was going to do that, I had to say no to a lot of things. There were certain dinners at certain times. I was like, nothing's going to happen for me at that time. I had to pass or certain events or things that people were going to. I'm like, okay, well, if I'm going to be sober right now, like I can't go to those things. So I had to give up a lot of things. And I think that's the pushback that especially young people have.

It's like, well, I'm going to miss that party. I'm going to miss that event or I'm going to miss that work thing or that social gathering. It's like the way I looked at it is in order for me to be successful during that, at least that seven months, like I had to eliminate. And I think it's important to talk about in your case, because I'm assuming outside of alcohol, there was a lot of things that you probably had to look at differently. Definitely. In the very beginning, just like said no to things. I said no to happy hours. I said no to dinners. Like you don't have to go out every night. I was going out every night of the week. Right. And that's, I think also just where I was in my life in my twenties, single compared to maybe where I'm at now where like, I would never go out every night of the week. Like I like to be in bed

at eight o'clock. We're talking once or twice a month for me maybe that's a big month for me yeah I just yeah I said no to plans in the beginning after a certain point like I was single and I was young and I wanted to be going out and I remember talking to a friend about it you know who was sober and she was like you can go anywhere where there's alcohol as long as you're confident in your sobriety and you also don't have to stay out the longest and be the last to leave. And so I started doing this thing. Also note on that, you never want to be the last to leave. Total loser look. Total loser. Yeah. And I always wanted to keep the party going and who wants to stay out because I didn't want to be alone and I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to end the night.

And now I love being alone. I love being at home at home but anyway so early sobriety would do like a beautiful 45 minutes so i would like go to the event like and set a timer for 45 minutes and be like i'm gonna talk to as many people as i can i'm gonna have my seltzer or whatever and when the timer goes off like i'm good like i'm good i can go home and so i would do that for like i love an irish goodbye i love an irish goodbye like whatever happened to that person nobody cares yeah just a whisper of me and then i'm gone right he's so busy my dad's really good at the irish goodbye i'm gonna make you put those headphones on if you're gonna keep breathing into the mic oh i'm breathing yeah like i was gonna say something earlier but yeah oh anyways i forgot about i forgot that you were doing that and then i then i saw you without

the headphones just now and i rejogged my memory um hopefully carson can edit that out but yeah um i think that's the other thing with alcohol is like, you're always the person that's there too long doing, you know, the annoying thing for weight. I think that alcohol can be fine in certain social settings, but as soon as it becomes like the main reason to go to a social setting or the main event at the social setting, it's like, it's not enhancing anymore. It's actually taking away at that point. Totally. I also think that the next day isn't talked about enough. Like as I have kids now, it's just like not worth it. How you feel the next day. I mean, sometimes I could feel hungover for two days. Oh yeah. Like it just goes on and on. It's

like not worth it. And that was another tool that I picked up in early sobriety was like, say I was out and a martini did look really good and it did look appealing, but I knew that I wanted to be sober. I would play the tape forward. So I would literally like do a movie in my head of what happens if I take that drink. So I pick it up, I drink it. Oh, like I feel relaxed. I start to feel a buzz. I want another one. I have another one, whatever that leads to that. Fast forward to I wake up the next morning. First thing that I do, I open my eyes, don't know where I am, or maybe I've made it back to my apartment and I have a pounding headache. I can't show up for my life. I'm throwing up. I am skipping plans. And like you,

I'm hungover for two plus days and I'm hating myself. And then come back to the present moment, the martini's right there, it's not worth it. And I had enough evidence and just fact finding that I had done in my 20s where I had really been trying to figure out a way to work that by the time I got to the point where I was ready to get sober, I just knew that it didn't work for me and I knew it wasn't worth it. And I think that's the other thing with people who are sober curious is like, if you're not sure, I keep maybe trying to drink and see how it goes. And I know that's maybe an unpopular opinion, but like I needed to be sure. Like I really needed to know that alcohol was not serving me anymore to say that I needed to be done for good.

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The other day we were stuck on the airplane for 10 hours. I'm not even joking, guys. We were sitting in an airplane for 10 hours when we were supposed to be on a flight for like three hours. Thank God I packed a little carry-on of food. In this carry-on of food, I had fruit, I had vegetables, and of course, I also had a perfect bar. And this really came in handy when Michael was bitching about our flight not being on time. I was able to just hand him casually the dark chocolate chip peanut butter with sea salt. It's a real party, but the best part is it contains 17 grams of protein per bar, so whoever's eating it is satisfied. And these bars, they're whole food

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of one bar directly to your Venmo or PayPal account. I mean, this is so cool. All you have to do is go to perfectsnacks.com slash skinny to get a free perfect bar today. That's perfectsnacks.com slash skinny. You get a free perfect bar today. Happy snacking. I think the other problem, maybe particularly in this country, is alcohol goes hand in hand with being social at such a young age. So for example, I'll just talk about myself. I mentioned we start drinking very early, middle school, all through high school. Then that just becomes, hey, you're going out on a Friday, Saturday. Okay, you're obviously drinking, right? Then you get to college and it's the same thing and amped up even more.

And then you get out of it and you're an adult and you're like, yeah, I used to do that in college, but now I'm going to... It just carries forward. It becomes the norm in social settings. And so you go through your young adult years and then become an adult and you don't know how to behave without alcohol in social settings. It's like, that's your crutch. That's the only way you can go out now. You hear it all the time. It's like, oh, I can't go out if I'm not drinking.

I can't be sober. Everyone's sober there because we don't feel comfortable in our own skin because we've been trained that every time you go out in your social, you need this crutch to lean on to make you feel comfortable and make you feel like yourself. Right. And so like, I think for me personally, I started seeing that I'm like, every single time I'm out, it's like, okay, we're drinking and it's just a bunch of dribble, but like, this is my norm. Like when I'm social with people, it's because I'm drinking. So that seven month experiment for me was mostly to actually just become very comfortable with myself in any

setting without alcohol. And now like the way my relationship is like maybe once in a while, I'll partake if there's a real reason. I do the same thing that you do. I'll play like, what's it going to look like tomorrow? My daughter's going to get up at six in the morning. I'm going to have to get up regardless. I'm going to feel this way. If there's not so many boxes checked for me, I'm like, I don't want to do it. And at the same time in that seven month period, I learned how to be very comfortable in social settings without alcohol. And I think a lot of young adults, adults, people in this country in particular, they don't do that exercise. They don't even realize that it's possible to go out and have a fun time and stay out late without

actually having a drink in your hand. You're hitting it on the head. This is why I wanted to write drinking games. Alcohol has this formative role in our most formative years. And so it's like, I had no idea who I was the first time I drank. I was a 15-year-old kid. And then I learned how to socialize in the context of alcohol, in the presence of alcohol, always with alcohol. And I remember hearing when I first got sober, someone saying my drinking started out as fun, and then it became fun with problems, and then it was just problems. It was really fun for a while. And that was really the thing I kept coming back to was, yes, I'm having these problems. I can sit here now and talk to you about waking up in the hospital. And it's like, well, why didn't you just

stop? Because it had been fun for a really long time. And because the way that I viewed myself as a social being and as like a woman was I drink to be fun. I drink to loosen up. I drink to socialize, right? I drink for connection. That's what I really was searching for was connection. I had no idea how to find that without alcohol because it had been with me my first kiss, my first time having sex, my first time making friends, my best friends in college. We were drunk for all of that. It was my best friend in a lot of ways. It had been there with me going through horrible breakups. I drank. The idea of figuring out who I was without it was really scary and just so vulnerable. Yeah. And other people find it strange when you're out socially and not drinking, right? Like

if I'm ever out with a group of people now and they're drinking and I order a club soda or something and they realize I'm not, it's like, well, why aren't you? And I think that's also a strange narrative because people can't fathom that you could be out and be comfortable and be having fun without it, right? So then you get this kind of weird, I mean, it doesn't bother me anymore, but you get this weird kind of group pressure. It's like, well, if you're out with us, you have to be drinking or else you're not going to be able to have a good time. So I am having a good time. I just don't need the, I don't need the alcohol in this case. And then again, I'm not saying like, I will still go out and partake once in a while, but like that seven month period. And now we're not having

anything to drink again for this quarter, at, it just completely realigned my relationship with it. I'm like, okay, yeah, maybe, but it's not the main event anymore. It's like, okay, if it makes sense and it was working to get comfortable without this substance, to your point, I had had since I was a kid, that's all I knew. If you're going out, you're being social, you must be drinking. You have to be. Yeah. Being able to dance without alcohol, being able to be silly, being at my wedding and not having a sip of alcohol, that was the most present that I have ever been for anything in my life. And I love that you're talking about the seven-month break that you're taking and that you guys are doing it for another three months because I think it's really important for people to hear that it doesn't have to look like my experience right like it doesn't have to be crazy blackouts that mean

that you need to take a break from drinking and even for someone who is having crazy blackouts like I was I could take it a step further and be like but I wasn't drinking every day so I don't need to take a break from from drinking and it's like, no, it's just what we're talking about. If you feel like it's omnipresent when you're socializing and you're just questioning the role that it has in your life, that's enough of a reason to reevaluate the relationship. Well, we do a lot. I mean, we haven't talked about it in this episode, but we were talking, we had Dr. Will Cole in here. So many people that listen to this show or that are just, not just, not just this show, but any show they're interested in like, how do you get your health in order? How do you balance your hormones? How do you get better sleep? Like,

how do you optimize your life? And for me, the other exercise is like, okay, I have two young kids. I got to carry a bunch of shit and strollers all over the place. They're heavy. You know, like I don't want to be the dad that's huffing and puffing and not able to pick up my two young kids because I'm out of shape. And I don't care who you are. You could, you cannot argue with the fact that if you're drinking consistently and then trying to get your hormones in order, get better sleep, get in shape in the gym, lose weight, like you're putting yourself at such a disadvantage. That seven month period for me, like was such an acceleration in my personal like health journey. And so now I look at it, I'm like, okay, I don't want to get back on that old train because I know what I can achieve without alcohol in my life. And again, like I said, it'll be once in a while, but it's just

the abundance has just been severely limited because I see what happens when you eliminate it. It's so true. And I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was much younger and had always been trying to balance my hormones and be healthy. And I remember being juicing and doing all this stuff while I was much younger and had always been trying to like balance my hormones and be healthy. And like, I remember like being, you know, juicing and doing all this stuff while I was still drinking. And it's like, it's so in retrospect, obvious that I was just negating any positive effects that I would have been getting just because of how much I was drinking. It's not to say like, if you have one glass of wine, you're negating all the good stuff. But for me, like I was getting wasted. And then the next day having a green juice and being like, I wonder why I'm not healthy. Are you noticing a lot of people are sober curious lately?

I am. And I think it's amazing because, right, I got sober a little over five years ago, started out on this journey 10, almost 10 years ago. Sober curious wasn't even a term. Like I didn't know a single sober influencer. There were no people talking about on podcasts. We've seen the space totally shift. And in the last few years, since I started writing and I would write freelance essays about sobriety, I wrote for The Cut, I wrote for The New York Times, I would get messages from a lot of young people being like, how do I get sober?

What do I do? I'm 23, 24, 25 and want to drink less, but I don't know where to start. And I love it. I think it's a really good sign that this generation is asking these questions and thinking about drinking less. I mean, it is hard to live in a city like New York City. I mean, last time I was there, it's 11 o'clock at breakfast on a Tuesday and there's bottles of wine on everyone's table. Some have kids at the table. And listen, I'm not judging. Everyone does their own thing, whatever. But I could see how it would be hard to be sober in a city like that where you're immersed in it? It definitely was hard in the beginning, but I sort of like redefined my relationship with New York in early sobriety and like fell in love with a lot of other aspects of it. And I think the best cities to party in are also like the best, have the best recovery because there are

a lot of sober people in those cities. And, you know, I would wake up early on a Saturday morning in New York and go for a long walk and developed a meditation practice. And I would just have these interactions with people that I never would have had had I been sleeping until 11. And so I feel like I got to experience a lot more. And then I moved to LA when I had about two years sober. And that was a whole new experience of being new in a city and having to make friends. And that's also like a nice opportunity to meet people for drinks and like, right, like be social. That's how people make new friends. But I was able to connect with other people who didn't drink.

And so I think, yes, it's definitely alcohol is ever present like in big cities. And there are so many opportunities that are designed for drinking. But there are often a lot more sober people there than you would think. You mentioned your toolbox. Before you go, can you tell us what's in your toolbox? Yes. So the first thing, and this is a lot of the stuff that you guys talk about too. So it's not just for sober people, but it helped me a lot with sobriety. So I wake up in the morning and I meditate. I don't do it perfectly. Maybe it's two minutes, maybe it's 10 minutes. I like to do a guided meditation.

I had no relationship with the universe or anything outside of myself when I was drinking. And that's something I've really been able to cultivate in sobriety. So I do that first thing and I write a gratitude list, which someone suggested I do that in early sobriety. So I do that first thing and I write a gratitude list, which someone suggested I do that in early sobriety. You guys know this, the act of writing out what you're grateful for literally rewires your brain and is extremely helpful in early recovery. I like to get outside and go for a walk. And I have a community, most of all. That's the biggest thing in my toolkit now is having a community of sober people who I can go to and call for literally anything. I think I just felt so alone when I was drinking in so many situations. And now being able to know that there's a sober

woman or sober person who has gone through any experience that I might be finding myself in has been just extremely helpful for me. So I think those are some of the biggest things. Where can everyone buy your book? I got it on Amazon on my Kindle that you just gave me a hard copy. I know they can get it on Amazon. Where else? What's your Instagram? My Instagram is Sarah with an H, L, Levy. And you can get the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your local bookstore, wherever books are sold. I also recorded the audio book. So if that's more your speed, you can listen to me on Audible or Apple Books. It's called Drinking Games, A Memoir. And Kat Marnell wrote on the back of your book. I'm

a big fan of her book too. Me too. I mean, that's pretty cool. I really enjoyed your book. 10 out of 10. Thank you for coming on. Thank you. I think this is such an important conversation, Sarah. It was so nice to meet you. Well, I like these conversations and it sounds like I've just been like shitting on the entire alcohol industry, which has not been my intention. I'm not trying to sound like somebody who hasn't had my fun and I get it, but I think it's really just reframing the way you think about your relationship with alcohol and questioning, does it really make sense in this situation, in that situation? Do you need it all the time? Do you need it to feel comfortable? If you are somebody that feels that you can only be social with alcohol, maybe it's time to do some

deeper work and figure out what else do you need to discover about yourself before you... You know what I mean? I think that is an important conversation for people to dive into because to your point, this has just become such a social norm in this country it's like oh if like if i'm doing anything it must be with a drink in a hand not saying that it doesn't make sense sometimes for some people it definitely doesn't for some it may but like we've just been on autopilot not questioning when it does and when it doesn't yeah and i think just like taking a break and having room for that clarity and asking those questions is really important. I also think, and this is an exercise for people, go out one night, pretend you're drinking,

sit with a group of people that are drinking and just try to sit there for three hours. It is the worst. It's so boring. You're not missing anything. Honestly, that sounds like hell. Yeah. It's not interesting. You're not missing anything.

That's such a good exercise. No, it's like what I realized. I was like, God damn, my friends are just a bunch of drivel. They're just saying a bunch of... They were talking in circles for three hours. I could have got there and cut the dinner off in one hour without alcohol. Is this worth waking up tomorrow morning, hating myself or having a headache? Probably not.

No. And then you put kids in the equation. It's scary. A hangover with kids is a whole different thing. I can't imagine it's like well imagine being like not to keep you here but imagine like doing what you were doing right and then being obligated to wake up at 6 a.m with a screaming kid that you have to get up and cook breakfast for and run around with and get dressed and change your diaper while you're in that

hungover condition eggs oh my I want eggs! Juice! One ice cube! You've never been truly hungover until you have one of the worst hangovers and a kid screaming to make you eggs in the morning. Oh my god. I can't imagine. That's intense. Sarah, thank you for coming on Drinking Games, a memoir. Go check it out, you guys.

Thank you. Wait, don't go. Do you want to win a signed copy of Drinking Games, a memoir. Go check it out, you guys. Thank you. Wait, don't go. Do you want to win a signed copy of Drinking Games? All you have to do is tell us who you want to hear on our podcast on my Instagram at Lauren Bostic and make sure you're following at the Skinny Confidential on Instagram. When I got pregnant with Townes, I decided to take all of my skincare and redo it. I wanted a whole makeover. And one of the brands that is so refreshing is called Primally Pure. The thing that I like on their site that I used throughout my whole pregnancy, I even used it on my stomach so I didn't get stretch marks, is the Natural Body Oil Trio. It comes with three different scents.

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