‘Addiction is a spectrum’: Meet the women centering themselves and rewriting the recovery narrative

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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric, and this is next question. You may not know, but April, along with being the cruelest month, is Alcohol Awareness Month, and it happens to be a subject I've been wanting to tackle for a while now because during the pandemic I noticed some pretty frightening headlines about alcohol use, particularly among women. Americans are drinking far more than they did in previous years. Alcohol abuse is surging among women during the pandemic. Women increase their heavy drinking days, more mothers are drinking, and it could lead to alcoholism. One substance abuse doctor calls it an epidemic in a pandemic. Before the pandemic, yet we were seeing this rise in in alcohol use. That's Dr Don Sugarman, a clinical psychologist and researcher at McClain Hospital in Massachusetts and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. There used to be this gender gap in rates, and so you know, in the early eighties, the epidemiological studies were showing about a five to one ratio between men and women. That had sort of shrunk in the nineties to about two to one, and now it's it's getting close to one to one. With the pandemic. We you know, it's still sort of early on in the research, but one study found overall there was an increase by fourteen percent in drinking, and that women had a higher increase at seventeen percent, but that they're binge drinking, which we would say would be about having four more drinks in a short couple of our period of time had for women had increased forty one percent, So that's quite a jump. So is there something about women that make them more susceptible to alcohol abuse? Apparently the answer is yes. Women absorbed and metabolize alcohol differently than men. For instance, women have less total body water, so when they drink, the alcohol is less diluted in their body, so it's more concentrated. They also have less of an enzyme that breaks down alcohols, so they don't metabolize it as much. So for a woman of the same weight as as a man who's drinking the same amount, they're going to have more alcohol in their system, more concentrated alcohol in their system, and it's going to stay in there longer. So that makes them more vulnerable to having the physical negative consequences of alcohol. So on today's episode, women and alcohol abuse. We'll talk to two women who hit rock bottom and not only found their way out, but made recovery spaces for people just like them. Will also hear from an interventionist on how to help someone you love. But we begin with my co host for this episode, Elizabeth Vargas, award winning broadcast journalist, podcaster, and author of Between Breaths, a memoir of panic and addiction. I'm here with my friend Elizabeth Fargas, who has experienced what it's like to be a woman who has a drinking problem and who has come out the other side. Elizabeth and I've known each other, Gosh, I don't want to say how long, but we just say for decades. Perhaps our most famous television appearances when we were trying to figure out what the Internet was in Internet is, uh, that massive computer network, the one that's becoming really big? Now, what do you mean? How does want? What do you write to it? Like mail? You know a lot of people use it and communicate it. I guess they can communicate with NBC writers and producers. Allison, can you explain what Internet is? It's sort of embarrassing after all the work we've done, that that is sort of one of the one of the most um it shared every couple of years and exactly heards. But Elizabeth has not only written about women and alcohol, She's lived it. As I said, She's done several hour specials on it. And UM, I'm so grateful, actually, Elizabeth, that you've taken time out of your schedule to really educate me and all our listeners about this issue, which has become really a huge problem. And why don't we talk just briefly before we talked to some other experts, because I feel like you're an expert yourself. You describe yourself, Elizabeth, as a high functioning alcoholic, and you were able to hide this for years, weren't you? Yeah? Oh yeah, I mean I had George Stephanopolis, you know, um, interviewed me on Good Morning America about this and he said, I have sat next to you for hundreds of hours of live television at that point, because we co hosted and Ring America Get Together and even during nine eleven many of the specials together. He said, I've never once, ever, ever seen any sign of this issue in your life, and close girlfriends of mine were like, what, no, not you? The only I really did keep it very very hidden. Um, similar to the way I kept my anxiety hidden, which was what I was self medicating. UM. And it sadly also kept me in denial because I thought, oh, I can't be an alcoholic. I can't be addicted to this substance, that this can't be a problem for me because I don't look like that. I haven't you know, I'm not homeless, I'm not jobless, I'm not you know, I'm a mother, I'm a wife, I'm a network news anchor. I'm all these things. Therefore, I cannot be an alcoholic. And and I managed to quit, you know, when I got pregnant. Although the first time I got pregnant it was so hard to quit. That should have been a massive warning sign for me. How did you finally come to terms with it? And how did you finally stop? You know? Um, I didn't stop after my very worst variances. You know, I write about this in my book that I had a very scary experience that set me to the emergency room. And it was the really the only really true blackout I've ever had. I wasn't one of those people who blacked out all the time. UM. And But that what that didn't scare me sober, and I did go to rehab. I wit to rehab two different rehabs. One of them was really really great, one was not so great. But it wasn't rehab that finally got me to stick to get sober. It was me quietly finally deciding I can't do this anymore. I can't lie anymore. I can't hide this anymore. I don't want to. That's the key. I don't want to. UM. I spent a lot of time, you know, looking for as I called it, door number three. You know, there's got to be another option here. Um, But I couldn't. There wasn't another option, and it I had to finally sort of come to that decision all by myself. And I'm so gratefull I did well. I'm not only proud, so proud of what you've been able to accomplish personally, but your courage in talking about this publicly, I think has helped so many people because it was so shrouded and shame and secrecy. It's still a Katie, it still is and stigma. We know. I'm on the board of directors for the Partnership and Addiction. We do a lot of science based research for the government on this and we know that stigma is the singular most important reason people do not seek help. They're afraid to They're afraid to admit they might have a problem. They're afraid to admit they need help. They're afraid of the consequences they will suffer in their personal and professional lives by making that admission. And only I firmly believe I mean, listen, I was outed when I was in rehab. It was a deeply painful experience for me. It was excruciating. But and I don't know that I would have written my book if I hadn't been outed. But my story was already out there. I thought, well, I might as well tell my old story since everybody else thinks they know the whole story. Um. But I deeply believe that more people talking openly is the best where we can ship away the stigma and the shame, because then we realized that I and I have never felt lonelier in my entire life than when I was struggling with with alcohol because I didn't I was too afraid to tell anybody what was going on. And that's why I wrote my book so that you know, people can see some one other person's story. And there are a lot of great books out there now, really good books especially by women um talking about their struggles with alcohol and why they drank. And those books helped me. They helped me a lot realize that I'm not alone when we come back to successful women who almost lost everything. When Katie Oluwatoyan started her sober journey, she didn't see herself in any of the recovery spaces she sought out, from the familiar twelve step to rehab an outpatient programs to online communities. I always wondered why I was the only Black person in those spaces when I know it's just common sense that black people, people of color go through a lot of trauma and and it just makes sense that they too would have problems with alcohol. Through her own recovery, Katie started something to fill the void for black women like her. The Sober Black Girls Club started as a blog, a space for Katie to share her story. In twenty nineteen, the blog grew into an online collective, a small support group of black women who identified with Katie's experience. The pandemic expanded the community even more with weekly zoom meetings and eventually in person regional meetups. Today, the Sober Black Girls Club has more than twelve hundred members. Tell us about your relationship with alcohol and how it developed. When did you start drinking. It was later in life, right, correct, I started drinking. Um, when I when I started college. Honestly, I could actually remember like the first day, literally my dad and my brother dropped me off, unloaded all my clothes and and dorm items. And as soon as they left or had got like a knock on the door and there was a fat fat dude, some fat guy, some fat boy, and literally, like I remember, we went we party that night and we drink my first time drinking, and it was just amazing. The relief, the just the looseness, like just be feeling very loose and feeling very free. It was just a crazy experience and it was something that I have never ever experienced before. Um, it was my first time drinking alcohol, and during that time it was was pretty good. I thought it was interesting. And Elizabeth, I know you've read this too, that Katie's background, her Nigerian background. Culturally, Uh, your family, you guys didn't drink a lot, Well, most families don't drink a lot when there when their kids are Yeah, I guess, but you didn't really, um, you know, it wasn't part of of your culture. No, honestly, like not at all. Um. For a while, I went to a private school, like an Irish Catholic private school UM in New York City. So it's pretty strict, you know, uniforms, always being disciplined in a time it was like a different hour. It was pretty strict. And then even when I started attending public school, UM again just having the parents that I had, UM literally school Monday through Friday. Then after going to kalan classes Saturday, I was in a Saturday science and math program. Sunday was Sunday school. It was just NonStop um work and order and and just activity. So there was honestly not even any room, let alone. My family definitely didn't drink or keep alcohol in the in the home at all. You start of drinking just really to party right in college, which is not that unusual. And when did it go from drinking social drinking to drinking on a regular basis, sort of at all hours of the day and not not in a social setting. Oh my gosh. Okay, So I graduated law school just finished graduating law school. And this is not funny. I can laugh about it now because I'm in a better place, But back then, none of this was hilarious or funny in any type of break. But I had just graduated law school. Um, you know, I had my firm, I just sent a lease in New York City. I had broken up with my boyfriend. You know, I just was so ready to stop this new chapter in life. Um, However, there was this thing I had to do. I had to pass the bar. I had to take in and I had to pass the bar. And I remember feeling a lot of pressure because there was this there was this thing. I don't want to pull a stigma, but there was this thing that like, black students don't pass the bar on the first try. Now, looking back, when you compare the ratio the amount of black students that were in my law school, compare them too, the right students, the white students. Excuse me, ratio wise, we all passed and feel at the same time. However, when it's just like five of us in the class, it kind of looks and we all fail. It kind of looks really really bad. So I had a lot of pressure for one just being known to be known to being really smart and intelligent. I had a lot of pressure on that side. Then I had pressure and I had a job, and even though my job wasn't contingent on passing the bar, I still didn't want to be working and had not passed the bar. And then the pressure of being I didn't want to be one of the black students to fail. I just did it. So I started to take medication, and um, I'm gonna say a lot of caffeine, basically caffeine pills, not even medication, so like working out pills, caffeine pills, thinking a lot of coffee. And I was studying literally from like nine a m. To like ten p m. However, when you're drinking so much coffee in the morning, I wasn't able to fall asleep. So I was using wine. I remember distinctively, wine and moonshine, you know, because I was broke, clearly studying for the bar. I was using wine and moonshine to fall asleep. I was just guzzling bottles and bottles. And that's when it started. Literally in the summer of two thousand and seventeen, as I was studying for the bar, morningtime caffeine pills and coffee, and then nighttime moonshine and wine. You had no idea, Katie, that you had a drinking problem, really, which seems hard to for people to wrap their heads around until you went to a therapist and she basically said, we have to address this. And I'm curious, were you just in denial? And I think, Elizabeth, you can probably speak to this. No, I had the same thing, you know. I was like, what do you mean, what do you mean have a drinking problem? It never occurred to me either that I had a drinking problem. And Katie, I'll be honest, my doctor didn't think that, you know. He was like, just cut back, you know, just what, it's no big deal. And I would I would come in, um. I don't know if you had the same experience, but I would come in like, you know, dehydrated and with clearly what the physical effects were of having had too much alcohol and um, And nobody said for the longest time that you have a drinking problem. It's very difficult, and especially if culturally, as you were just saying, you grew up in a in an environment where nobody else was drinking, it might be it's difficult to actually understand and recognize that in yourself, honestly, and two thousand sevens here, if you would have have even with a law degree, with so much education, if you would have said, Katie, what does an addiction mean? Now, I'll be like, what does it mean to have an addiction? What does a indiction look like? I would have said so one houseless on I had no idea that it was even scientifically possible for me to have an addiction, especially to alcohol and drugs UM. I literally thought that, you know, you know the show Shameless. I thought that addiction was like white people's problems, and honestly, that's just what I thought. It was just I thought you had to be houseless. I thought you had to have a big belly. I thought I got so many like physical characteristics of what I thought like a person suffering from an addiction UM would look like. And I said, that's not me. But then when I spent the year just living my life, still working, I realized as I went through jobs, as I went through apartments, as I went through friends and partners, that I actually might have a problem, and I had to accept that alcohol UM was was pretty much a part of that problem. Did anybody in your life tell you that otherwise, like any of your friends or somebody who was who was seeing what you were doing to yourself? You know, you know that's actually a really good question. You know, I actually, um, I think that for a long time, everyone just really knew me as a very uh you know, a strong, strong black woman. Excuse me, you know the girl who's who is? You know? I say what I want what I want to. Um, I'm smart, I can back it up with the facts. I can. I can support myself, I can support a community. So this is just my attitude because in all reality, my drinking problem really developed into an aggressive like personality that I thought at the time was just me. But it wasn't until I got sober that I realized, like, oh, this really isn't all me. That had a lot to take with the alcohol that I was consuming. You know, a lot of my story I can look at, uh backwards. Emily Paulson is a sober, working mom of five, but her drinking began long before she became a mom. I used it to cope from a very young age. But my behavior always mimicked the people around me. You know, when you're drinking in high school, it's you know, it's against the rules, and you're already doing something you shouldn't be doing. But it wasn't out of the ordinary. And you know, got to college and did some binge drinking, but again kind of normalized in college, so it was always hidden, um, even when it was problematic, and it really you know, I drank in my young adult years, and it was really when I became a mom that I I really started using it to cope. And what was hard about it is is that I didn't fit the mold. If I if I googled, you know, in my an alcoholic, which I did many times, Um, I couldn't check all the I couldn't answer all the questions, like I couldn't check yes and all the questions. You know, I didn't grow up with alcoholic parents. I UM, I could stop because I stopped, you know, five times for five pregnancies, nine months at a time. So I thought, no, it's it's it's not a problem. And it wasn't that something bad happened every time I drank. But anytime I did, you know, getting a really big fight with my husband or send a text message, I didn't want to send or feel ashamed about something. Alcohol was always the common denominator, and I think being pregnant so many times back to back really kept it at bay. Um. And when really was when my last child was born, it was kind of like all bets were off and my drinking really escalated. But again I was looking around me and you know, other moms drank, and you know, it was kind of a joke. It was this, uh, you know, that's what moms need to do. Yeah, I mean you wine, I wine, right, All those jokes that really normalize something that I deep down really felt was a problem, and I just didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to look at it further. Um. And I would always say, but I haven't you know, this hasn't happened yet. I haven't I haven't gotten in trouble with a law. I haven't. You know all of these things I thought should happen, these rock bottom things, and I really didn't have a place to go. Um. I think that's one thing along the way now looking back, that I wish there was a place for people who were questioning who who again couldn't check all those boxes, who hadn't had all those rock bottom consequences because eventually then when I did well, then I fit Then I was knocking on the door of a and I fit right in because I've had the d U I and I've been in the hospital, and I had marriage problems and all of these things. Um, but I can look back and see that I had nowhere to go for a really long time. There's a saying that the people who take the alcohol quizzes are because they're taking the alcohol quiz they have an alcohol problem, you know, like it should just be a pop up if you google that, like, yes, go if you don't have an alcohol problem, you're not online taking a quiz or taking the quiz in the back of Cosmo magazine when they used to have that. Um. And all these movements that have popped up that are sober curious or just you know, opening this discussion and dialogue about your relationship with alcohol. UM, I don't remember seeing any of these before I got sober, um, you know, which was you know, several years ago now. But UM, it seems like we've had a lot more of these movements pop up since then. And I often wonder, you know, maybe I would have stopped sooner or managed it better sooner if I had been able to be in a room with a bunch of other women who were talking about this, right, because I think there is a point where once you're using it to cope, I think there's a point where there's a point of no return, right, Like you can't unpickle a cucumber if you're aware. It's like, there's not enough informed consent out there to know, Hey, this could happen. This is an addictive substance and you could get addicted to it. You don't have to check all these boxes. You don't have to hit some proverbial rock bottom. It's just an And it's not a moral thing around drinking or not drinking. It's just, hey, maybe maybe you should know these things about this substance so that you can make informed choices. And it's funny, Elizabeth. I don't know if it's funny is the right word, but it's it's It reminds me because your book came out um after I had been hospitalized, um for I had taken sleeping pills and champagne, and I was in hospital and I was still at the point. I remember reading your book and having to put it away because I was still at the point where I was reading things just to um proved to myself that I wasn't bad enough to quit. And as I was reading your book, I'm like, oh, oh, this is resonating um. And I wasn't ready to face it until again, it was January when I finally got sober, and and I think it was I think it was something you said about, you know, loving your kids so much that I would die for them. I couldn't. Yeah, I would, I would die for my kids, but I couldn't stop drinking for them. And I don't think anybody ever put that into words. And like, I'd had so much shame at that point, how could I keep doing this to my kids? And it was like, like someone else gets it? Yeah, you know. Yeah, I don't know about you, but when I'm in the rooms of recovery even today, it's the moms who are in the rooms who feel like they I know from my personal experience that the deepest reservoirs of shame for me surround the fact that I was a mother who drank, you know, not not just that I was a woman who drank, because there's that too, Like somehow it seems somehow okay er for a man to be drunk or tipsy, um, but not for a woman. But it's even less okay for a mother. There's so much pressure and there's so much in society about the bad mother right and judging yourself against those standards. I was telling Elizabeth during my short lived talk show, I had someone on, and I was, I think, in retrospect, kind of judgmental about this trend to have wine boxes, like the you know, we give our kids juice boxes, but there were wine boxes or doing like while the kids were on play dates, the moms were drinking wine and and I remember saying, gosh, that that sounds kind of dangerous and is that really a good idea? And I got a lot of pushback, um from people in the audience, but also from people on my staff that I was kind of being holier than thou about these women and these hard working moms who had the right to relax and be, you know, connect over a glass or two or three of wine. You know, it's funny because if you say, there's so many things that are demonized right like from the time you give birth. It's like breastfeeding or formula feeding, or you know, right, cereal or not, like all of these things. And so I think, just being a mom, it comes with this shame in this judgment, and I think we're just waiting to come back and just be like, Hey, don't tell me I can't do that thing. Look how hard I work, Look how difficult this is. I deserve this thing, and it when you really look at it, and you look at the marketing around it, and you look at the messages were being sent. Why is that a necessary thing? Why do we need to drink at ten am at a play date? Which, again, all these things are things that I did. I don't say this as a judgment, it's it's in looking back that I realized, Gosh, I remember going on a cleanse and demonizing sugar and gluten and dairy, but I never took out alcohol. Um, why why aren't we talking about this? By remember googling sobriety groups again, Katie A. Lou Wittoyan, and I remember the first one that popped up was a twelve step UM twelve step traditional meeting. I went to my first meeting and it was really really far from where I lived, and at that time I was really down bad um in other words, I was in a bad place. I didn't have a car. I had to take public transportation everywhere I went UM, Uber's buses, trained subways, et cetera. And I remember I had to travel about an hour and a half to the nearest twelve Step meeting UM at that time, and when I went, I was the only black person there. Uh. And at first that didn't really ring alarms, because the truth is, in a lot of spaces that I UM were in up to that point, I was pretty much one of the only few black person in a lot of spaces that I was a part of UM in high school and college and law school, So it didn't really bother me too much. But I remember, and it was a speaker's meeting, and I remember the speaker telling her story of how, you know, she got into addiction, and when she was talking about her time and addiction she was, she had basically said, for lack of better words, that life was so horrible. I was living in this neighborhood and the neighborhood that she said was my neighborhood, and the way she talked about my neighborhood was just in such an awful way. But the truth there's there's nothing wrong with my neighborhood, just the fact that it's just not white. There's absolutely nothing wrong with my neighborhood. I live in one of the safest balls that you could live in New York City. Yes, it's like somewhat segregated where we have one you know, the not Shore. I was just putty much multicultural Black Asians, um, Spanish folks, and then you have the South Shore, which is more white folks, and that's where the meeting was at. But there was nothing wrong with my with my neighborhood. Um. So after that, I was like, absolutely not and I just didn't attend that meeting anymore. And I started to I joined Instagram, and I remember and I started to you know, be involved with the Instagram community. However, that community was also white, and it wasn't a problem that they were got. It was a white community. My problem with the Instagram recovery community at that time was that it was painting a one sided picture of addiction and recovery at that time, sobriety was this thing where you know, you do yoga and you drink coffee and you're doing this and everything was just so bright and pink and cherry, and at that time, I was it was such a dark place. I was in such a dark place. Excuse me, I was in a bad place and I just couldn't understand like what was going on. And that's what, you know, encouraged me to create my blog. But the first two things that I did that didn't work was definitely a top stop traditional program um and then just trying to get into this holistic lifestyle in the beginning. It didn't work because I actually needed professional help. It wasn't enough that I was doing yoga and drinking coffee and saying that, like you know, like sobriety is just this amazing, great thing. I actually needed a professional to help me with the physical part of my addiction. I wanted to ask you, Elizabeth about this because I know a A is inclusive, anybody can come, it's open to all, and yet I find it fascinating that implicit bias can creep into a twelve step program and the things that made it hard for Katie to get there, you know, public transportation where it was located, despite the fact that they want to be open to all, in some ways can make it unwelcoming for people of color. I find that so interesting. Yeah, you know my experience is that, UM, first of all, Katie's right. In most UM uh twelve step A A meetings I've gone to, UM it is mostly white people. Um. I there have been a couple of meetings where there has been only one black person, one person of color. Depends on how you defend you defined person of color. Um. I. You know I learned and heard early on that you know, try another meeting. There's some meetings that you go into and certain parts of Manhattan where I live, where you know, UM it's I don't fit in with that group is as much UM. There are meetings for every sort of demographic. Their meetings that cater to LGBTQ communities, their meetings that are women's meetings. There are meetings that are men's meetings. There are meetings that are grittier, and meetings that are very you know, UM high society problems dominating. To put it kindly, UM, it's basically it's group therapy, UM where people can get into a room and you know, bear their souls and UM and hear about other people's ruggles and triumphs, and you know it is really I have found great comfort in it. I will also say I didn't like it at first, but I think that had more to do with I didn't like having to call myself an alcoholic. I didn't like having to deal with the fact that I had a drinking problem. I didn't want someone to take away my crutch. I want a door number three, Like you know, where's door number three? Please? And I spent a couple of years like banging around looking for door number three before figuring out there wasn't one. And and so everybody comes to sobriety and acceptance of your disease of alcoholism if you want to, you know, accept that it's a disease or whatever however you define it, but it's um. You have to accept that first. You can't be in denial. I was in denial for a long time. And I, you know, and to my detriment because sort of like you, as you were just saying at the beginning, drinking was lovely and great. I've defined my quote unquote career of drinking in three stages, magic, medicine, and misery. And it was magical at first because it worked, and then it was medicinal because I needed it in order to get through, and then it was miserable in the end. And it's amazing how long a person will stay in the miserable stage, you know, and refuse to take that enormous step of admitting you need help and uh and and and seeking that out. It's difficult. I if I may, I first, I love the three um. That's like amazing in a perfect way to even describe my drinking history. I also wanted to say at the time that I was trying, I did attend my first tolf step meetings, and then eventually later on in my sobriety, I started to still attend of a fellowship. However, I knew that this was not point. I wasn't going to do the steps. I don't I didn't want to sponsor. I was just there for fellowship at one point, at a different meeting with more people of color from the various different backgrounds and religious beliefs. But I will say that at the time that I did try my first TOLP step meeting, there was this thing of like outside issue. So they might have had like a woman's meeting, and they might have had this meeting, but they didn't have meetings for for people of color. And even in the meetings that it wasn't until George Floyd it's twenty twenty, which I think is extremely embarrassing. Um, because it's so obvious. How if you can accept that women and experiences that we face as women can play a role in all of trauma, how can you not think that being black or being of color would pay some type of role in the trauma the black people face. But at the time when I did my first twelfth Step meeting, I couldn't talk about anything that involved me being black, And that to me was just a big red flag because who is this who is this rule protecting? You know, who is this rule aiming to heal? Clearly not meet. The day I actually stopped was very It was a very normal day for Emily. Even admitting she had a drinking problem took a series of rock bottom moments. Um, you know, I've had the d U I I'd had, I'd been in the hospital several times. Um. You know it really helped was after I got a d Y, I had to do classes, you know, court mandated classes, and I had a breathalyzer put in my car, which is just I mean, there's there's a whole thing that goes along with that, like giving the third grade teacher a ride on the field trip. Like that conversation you just don't think about having when you're getting behind the wheel, right. UM. So the when I when I had to get the breathalyzer, it really opened my eyes to how much I had been drinking, even though even though I knew. UM, I was like, Wow, I couldn't drink and I couldn't drive the car if I drank. So if I was going out to dinner, it's like, oh, okay, I can't drink here. Oh I can't drink here. I can't drink here. I'll go to the book club. Oh, I can't drink because I can't drive my car. UM. And then there were times when I would drink and then not be able to start the car in the morning to take my kids to school because there was still alcohol in my system And it was so confronting that part of it was UM. And then the conversations I had to have with my kids, uh my, you know my kids were young, but my oldest two were ten and eleven. Once I got the d u I and had the breath lizer put in, and their questions were like they were so simple, and yet I never talked about it. I'd never had to answer those questions like, hey, you know, why if you have to drink or if you have to drive home, why did they serve alcoholic restaurants? And I'm like, that's a really good question, and I've never had to answer that before. And it was really like, hey, you know, if you've got in trouble for it, why are you still drinking? And that to me was like, oh, I don't know, Like I don't know. And I was still enough trying to fit that square peg in that round hole and making this thing work because I just thought it'd be easier to be a person who drinks. And and you know, I woke up on New Year's Day and again I just gone, We've gone out to dinner with friends. It wasn't a rager. We just drank till midnight and then went home. And I had blacked out like an entire weekend of my life. And and blackouts were becoming much more frequent, but this was so confronting because I had blacked out, like, you know, things I've done with my kids over the weekend, I had just I'd missed so much of my life. And I heard my husband downstairs with the kids, and I had already been in the hospital. I had already, you know, been in trouble with the law, like I was losing everything, and it was just so like it's like I could hear my life going on without me, and I could hear what that I was just like eliminating myself from my life. UM. And that was finally the point where I just called the one person I know who or I knew at the time, UM, who was in a A. And I'm like, tell me what to do, tell me what to do. I like, if I drink again, I just think, like, I think this is gonna kill me. Um. And I started going to a A. And just at that point, it was just unraveling how I had gotten to that point, um, and how it had been so hard to stop. Even all of those red flags, those rock bottom things were not enough to make me stop. You know. Scary when we come back, how Katie and Emily built recovery spaces that fit their needs and the needs of their communities. So you saw this huge vacuum, clearly, Katie, that wasn't being filled, and you decided to start the Sober Black Girls Club. Honestly, when I think back to two thousand and eighteen, that's when I created SBGC. And it wasn't a collect it at that time. I just created it, you know, as a blog to hold myself accountable. And when you fast forward to now, um, when the pandemic hit, that's when a flock, a huge flock of women started to send me emails and d ms basically saying that they think they have a drinking problem, but they weren't too short um. And it reminded me of my time into the seventeen when I was studying for the bar. You know, all that stillness that I had by myself. I wasn't you know, I was in the library, locked into the cubicle, studying, studying. It was in those moments of isolation that I really only had two things that I can said in my friends, coffee and my caffeine pills and then a bottle, you know. And I can understand that these women who are so used to doing ten thousand things at one time are now in the moments of stillness and they don't know what to do with it now, and what is the easiest thing to do, especially when you haven't really been paying attention to your mental health, who haven't really been paying attention to your hobbies? What is it that you truly like to do? Your life has been about your kids, that has been about going to school, has been about raising um, you know, doing doing two jobs at once. The easiest thing to do is to beat to the bottle. Yeah, we've seen that. We've seen that in the pandemic, especially with women, that more than men, they've been impacted by mental health challenges, anxiety and depression and self medicating that anxiety, depression, drinking has been off the charts among women in the pandemic, much more so than men. And the isolation you were just talking about, which is, you know, thank God. Can you imagine if this pandemic hit before we had zoom, before we had an ability to connect at least online. I don't know what a lot of these I don't know how people in recovery would have would have navigated that. But I'm not surprised that you started hearing from so many women because they had nowhere else to turn and dealing with the isolation and the responsibility which we know falls mainly on the women's shoulders, in any fai only when it comes to childcare and that sort of thing. We had kids going to zoom school in the other room or sometimes all in the same room. It was such an enormous challenge for women during this pandemic, and so many of them we know statistically, have have turned to alcohol as a result. I'm interested, though, in in in narrowing the focus to Black women, because I think women in general, as Elizabeth points out, we're really affected by the pandemic and alcohol abuse increased dramatically. But can you talk about what women of color, black women who you heard from some of the specific issues they were dealing with, because I just found it so interesting the added pressure you felt Katie as a black woman even before the pandemic and perhaps exacerbated during the pandemic. I think one of the main problems the effect Black women and particularly is that we think that the outlet to our trauma, regardless if it's cultural trauma, racial trauma, um any type of trauma, is either pleasure or producing. So there's this stereotype that this is statistic. It's not stereotype. Is actually true that Black women are the most educated group demographic um in terms of degrees, higher education degrees or degrees in America, at what costs to do folks think that that's true? You know, that is costing us our sleep, our health, our our our enjoyment, our our hobbies. It's costing us so much. And we do feel that we have to overcompensate in regards to the negative stereotypes that are plaguing that are plaguing society. Some of the stereotypes that I'm thinking that black people are lazy, that we're crazy. There's all these stereotypes. Uh, we don't want to adhere to. We don't want to show, even if it means that we deny our own selves, our humanity. I've never ever ever seen until I created a Blackers club or even heard of of a woman become an addicted to anything. I've never seen and I didn't hear about it. But it doesn't mean that it wasn't happening. It does happen. However, we just keep it a secret because we feel like we're going to be labeled as crazy or lazy, or it's going to be used, it's going to be mentioned or used against us as some type of excuse. And also in regards to men, and household. Um. I think this is also another statistic that black women generally make more or the bread winners of the household. At what cost? At one expense? Do folks actually think we like going out and working NonStop? No, we don't. Um, it's just a lot of pressure in regards to always producing, producing, producing, And when the pandemic it and there was hardly you couldn't really produce much. We couldn't go to the gym, you know, a lot of our jobs was shut down for a period of time. Then what to return to pleasure? It's usually just production or pleasure. If we're not producing, then we looked to pleasure to release ourselves. And what was that? That was alcohol? And I think that that was basically a generic story that I was constantly hearing. How were other black women reacting to what you were doing? And an ability for them to voice some of these pressures and concerns and forces that were making them more predisposed to abusing alcohol. I think first, UM, like something that I do constantly here is I don't even know what I like. I don't even know who I am. I don't even know what is it that I wanted to be? You know I didn't. I don't know who I am as a person. You know, a lot of the women that I meet through the club know who they are as a mother, as who who they who they are as a wife, who they are as as a student. But when all that was taken away during the pandemic, they couldn't they couldn't define themselves for themselves. And that was definitely a common thing that that created. Honestly, the experience, especially on Thursday group. I know folks think that, Um, I know there's this misconception that SPGC all we do is is is talk about race. I'm done talking about race. I'm gonna be very honest. You know, I stopped doing a lot of interviews and podcasts about race and recovery realm because I'm tired. I want to help woman, I want to help myself, get back to the basics and literally find out what makes us us as individuals and then use that information in a collection in a community, collective forward way. Um that is really the goal of s b g C. I'm so I'm really tired of of of the race talk, and not because it's not necessary or needed or because it's not true. Because I don't think it helps black women. I think it helps the society as a whole try to understand race relations. But again, why is that on the back of black women. It just feels like everything when it comes to community, especially the black community, is on for the black woman. You know, even when I created a s b GC, I had men telling me that I needed to create one for them, because the truth is, I think that the black men's plight is a specific plate um. However, patriarchy has been a you know, a theme in my trauma. I'm not creating anything for you. You do have to do it yourself. I can help you, but that's not something I'm trying to take on. I'm actually trying to learn how to not take on other people's problems and focus on myself um as an individual, because what I focus on myself, I'm focusing and helping my community. And I also think it's important to note that Black people do not have a long history of mental health treatment. Like you know, for a long time, we were seen as objects. And it's crazy to me that I found out that even in the eighteen hundreds, when this nation was going through the Tempest movement, when this nation had decided that alcohol was was negatively affecting the society, that they purposefully left black people out. Racism is prevalent in every aspect of this nation, including recovery. And it's embarrassing and wrong for anyone to to think that all recoveries equal. Even when I went to rehab, and I did go to rehab, it was my first time there, and a lot of this and I was the only Black person there, and a lot of them this was their third fourth time. And is that judgment? No, because I think I think most people do need a second time to go to rehab. The first time, you don't know what you done. Statistically, Yeah, that's that's true. Most people have to try several times. It's I think there's an amage of three or four or five attempts before it gets sober. Yeah, and and and and and have you know, constantly hearing about families who had um uh say similar issues, families of getting treatment and and figuring out recovery and being in recovery. That's not a clipical to black folks. Really, this generation, the millennials are finally saying enough is enough. We're getting back into nature where filks, we're taking care of our mental health. We're trying to understand our our parents problems because they didn't take care of their mental health. They had their own issues that involved their race, that involved um, their gender, and their sexual irritation, and that looked totally different. So so our meetings provide us connection. We have to make connection to all these points. It's not enough to say I have a drinking problem and I need to find myself. I need to understand that. Why after I went to college, I did gymnastics, you know, you tell me, you know, you know, I didn't not homosexuality, I dated a man, I went to law school. Why am I still miserable after doing all these things? And why because I kept on putting my self worth into tangible items. I kept on putting it, I kept on listening to what people told me to do. And who are these people who did my parents want me to listen to white folks. That's something that we all try to please. We try to not be that that you know, we're trying. We live our lives. We're trying not to be that one, that black person, right, we want to be trophies. We want people to know that we're trying. So hard, and we're trying to do. That's pressure, and that does affect and contribute to our self esteem and how I see myself. I'm happy that I went to law school. I do like luxury things. I do like to have money. However, I want to be okay with just being Katie, even even with those things. I don't want my worth to be based on those on those things. So I feel like our meetings are it's not only about getting to know who we are. It's really understanding our history. It's it's knowing that slaves did how we're you know, given alcohol to keep them domicile. It's knowing that for the Tempest movement, black people were not a part of it. They had to make their own Tempest movement, you know. It's it's knowing what the society and what does racism and sexism and and you know, even as a queer person homophobia that I grew up so homophobic, and I grew up very anti black, even myself perpetuating these these things and not even knowing and understanding it. How do these um is ms play a role and how I see myself and other people. Emily talked about Sober Mom Squad which you started during the pandemic. Was this to fill the need that you felt wasn't there when you were googling? Am I an alcoholic? Yeah? I mean it was a couple of things. So I was working as a as a recovery coach at the time. Um, and I is working really one on one with women who who had similar stories to me, who you know, really tried to control it for a really long time and then hit rock bottom. And they were either uh, they're you know, coming out of rehab, going to a a you know, really just to supplement um, you know, people's other recovery modalities. And once you know, it's just a couple of weeks in the pandemic and all the kids were home, I started getting messages from moms saying, you know, I never questioned my drinking before. Um, and now I'm drinking a lot more and it's scaring me or my kids are noticing me drink now. Um. And I don't know how you know that line of demarcation from coming home from work and having that quiet time in the car, like you don't have any downtime. So women were using alcohol really as again as a coping mechanism and you know, hey, can can you help? Can you work with me? And meanwhile I'm home, also working with my five kids with no extra time, wondering what the heck I'm gonna do, And so I just honestly put out a call to action on on social media. You know, I said, is this with other recovery coaches, counselors, is this what you're seeing? Um, does anyone want to help do something? And um, you know a few other women in the recovery space, We're like, yeah, I'll help, I'll help, I'll help. And we started having just a free meeting every Wednesday, and the only requirements were, you know, if your mom and you're questioning your use of alcohol, or if you're just a mom who doesn't want to be in the sea of of women telling you to go poor your quarantine e or you know that all these wine messages were really strong at this point. You know, it takes a what it thought, what was my favorite one? It takes a glass of wine to have a kid, and it takes a vineyard homeschool one or something like all of these messages that and also, you know, Elizabeth was mentioning the other day, like what businesses we're thriving. It's like, we're still open. It was the grocery store, at the drug store, in the liquor store and the essential service and sort of laughing about that, but it's a it's a big red flag, isn't it. Yeah, well, on the biggest growth in alcohol with single serve drinks because it was easily accessible. And if you're at the pharmacy and you're getting your bleach in your hand sanitizer and all the other things that were sold out, and you're at the checkout line, that little can looks really benign. It looks like it's like, oh, no big deal, it's right here. It's super safe. And meanwhile, it's like two and a half servings of alcohol and it's just as easy to throw down as a you know, sparkling water. So even if I'm questioning my use, it's being delivered to me so so easily. Um So you know this, These were the messages that I was hearing. Um and so yeah, we started meeting every Wednesday, and then it just kept growing and growing and growing, and women were like, hey, can we do more of these? And um so I just kind of went with what women were asking for. They wanted to have more meetings, they wanted to have you know, coaching available, They wanted to have a place to connect. And you know, women's communities are are nothing new online. I have friends who I met in a it was a baby center or something. I was in an online group when my seventeen year old was when I was pregnant with him, um and we're still friends. And so it really is just a place. It's a community where you can talk about anything from you know, how you know your baby sleeping through the night or you know, better WiFi connection with all these kids doing school from home, and it just is there's no wine mom messaging around it. Nobody's going to tell you to go just pour a glass of wine. Um So our members really are anybody from women who just don't drink just because they don't or it's never been a thing for them, they just want to avoid all that messaging. And then the whole other side of the spectrum, women who really request sing their drinking sober curious, and women who have been in recovery or are currently um in in recovery. UM So it's just really a community for moms who don't want to be in that Sea of Wine, Mom Marketing, Sober Mom Squad. I know is membership based, right, and it's not unlike Tempest, The Naked Mind and some other organizations that have popped up Emily. You have to pay a fee to be a part of this community. And I'm curious why you decided to go for that model. And are you worried about creating a barrier for for women who may not be able to afford it? Yeah? Sure, And this is a question that comes up a lot. And you know when you have paid for recovery groups, right, And first thing is we started as a free group and we still have a free meeting every Wednesday. We have a free Facebook group. We have a free meeting every single Wednesday. Um. And the reason that you know I grew the community was really because women were asking for it, Like we want more of these meetings. We want group coaching. We want to have different you know, we like have E F T tapping and we have writing for recovery. And I also value you know, what women put into their work, and so for recovery coaches, counselors, um, you know, for my writing expert like I pay them um. And so our membership really goes to pay for the community, UM and for the people who are doing work in the community. And because we charge, you know, a fee for membership, we do offer scholarships to literally anybody who asks UM. So it's really come about and I think, you know, there are so many free things out there, and I think if that works for you, that's awesome. And I, you know, I'm a person who still goes to a a so like, I see the value in that. But there are people who want other things, and I don't think it's out of the questions to uh, you know, pay people for their work. What would you tell moms listening to this right now, Emily, who are kind of on the precipice of thinking, gee, this is taking too much space in my life, or this is becoming too important, or I just don't want to get to the point where you know you were honestly or where Elizabeth was UM or if I am there, what do I do next? Yeah, But the first thing I always say is, you know, it's not your fault for getting addicted to an addictive substance, So to take that whole piece of shame out or you know, we we would never question our use of any other addictive substance. We just say, oh wow, I'm questioning this, I'm going to stop using this. So that's the first thing I say is it's not your fault for becoming addicted to an addictive substance. And I'll so like your rock bottom is where you stop digging. You do not have to fit any of the checklists. You don't have to match anyone else's story. It doesn't have to get bad before you stop and look at what what good do you want instead of what are the bad things you want to avoid? If that makes sense, you know, because it's a different even though you're saying the same thing. It's like I don't want to be hungover every day, or you know, I want to wake up clear headed every day. You're saying the same thing, but it's just flipping the script on what do I want? You know, I want to be more present for my kids. I want to remember my date nights, I want to you know, whatever it is. It's like, what do you actually want? And how much better could your life be if you didn't have this substance that was that was running the show. And I think we also underestimate how much mental work it takes to to try and control the substance. Um. I know for me, it was a huge amount of mental freedom once I was just like, oh, I don't have to do that anymore, Like Wow, I don't have to try and make all these rules and do all these things to try and make this fit in my life, Like, this isn't something I have to do. When you recognize that it's a choice and not a requirement as an adult, Um, it's there's a lot of freedom there. Um just looking at you know, how good could your life be if this wasn't running the show? I love what you just said about you're not It's not your fault. You became addicted to an addictive substance. I think that I've never heard that. That's fantastic. Well, think about cigarettes. You would never say to somebody, are you sure you don't want to just have one or two? Just just don't smoke the whole pack and just have We never we don't expect anyone to moderate any other drug. But it's really again, it's that kind of that double standard if we do expect people to be able to have control over something that's addictive. When you think of about it, it's just not something I never thought of until again I was free from it. When we come back, professional help on what you can do if you or someone you love is struggling. Before we move on once again, here's Dr Don Sugarman to explain what alcohol does to the brain and how sobriety can help it recover. So alcohol is what we would call it anxiolytic. People will notice that in the short term when they take a sip of alcohol that they feel immediately relaxed. The problem is that in the long term it increases anxiety, so it becomes this crutch for people that's not a very effective hoping tool for anxiety. And in the brain, what happens is that alcohol is a depressant. It suppresses the central nervous system UM, so it slows down those systems, which is again why you're feeling more relaxed. But when alcohol starts to leave your body, when you start to go through sort of what it's called alcohol withdrawal, then those systems ramp back up, and that's when you get the increased anxiety. I think the other way that it increases anxiety is that you become reliant on that as a way to to cope when you're anxious, and so when you're in situations where you're unable to drink alcohol and you don't have that sort of crutch, then you become more and more anxious, and it becomes more of an anxiety about having a way to deal with your anxiety. That's not always effective, But as Dr Sugarman says, there is some good news. There are studies that show that, um, the you know, cognitive impairments related to drinking, if you stop drinking within the year of abstinence, those do seem to reverse, with the exception that if you're really drinking at quite an extreme level where they're sort of permanent damage. But for the most part, stopping drinking will help improve your health and can reverse some of those cognitive impairments. Elizabeth and I also spoke with Dr Louise Stanger. She's a clinical social worker and interventionists with more than thirty five years of experience in the world of substance abuse and addiction. She told us how to approach people who may have a problem. What are the questions you ask people, Louise to determine if they've gone from having a healthy relationship with alcohol or casual. I don't even know how to describe it to something that is really dangerous, imaging and incapacitating. So um, when I'm doing a family map, where I would asked you, um, Katie. Um, first of all, you take a look and you say, what's more important the event or the substance? So right now you and I are drinking coffee. Um, but let's say we go out to dinner. Right If that glass of wine is more important to you than the event, I'm going to know that because it's not gonna be just one glass of wine, that's gonna be two glasses. You asked people, have there been any unintended consequences? Um? With you know, college students? She said, say, hey, did you ever wake up and someone else is dead? For example? Have you ever missed a class? Have you ever lied or cheated on anybody? Have you ever missed a class? Have you ever has anyone to bail you out? It's taking a look at what have you ever had a d u I? Have you ever been yet reprimanded by your boss? Have you ever fallen asleep with your baby in your arms? There's all kinds of unintended consequences. Do you talk to your partner. If you have a partner, you know, what's your relationship um with everybody? So you try and take a look and you ask people you know, on a scale of one to ten, how's this working for you? And then how do you convince them to take the Yeah, because a lot of people. First of all, there are a lot of people who have consequences like that after one bad night, like I have lots of you know when when I when I started telling my girlfriends that I had a problem with alcohol, they were like, no, you don't, so and so does you know she's had all the consequences that we've seen you. We've never seen you do any of those things. And that's true. I didn't so and for a large and I was able to stop drinking when I got pregnant, and so I that gave me my ability. I was like, I don't have a problem. I can control it. I have controlled it, and I haven't had all those dramatic negative consequences at least not yet. And so how do you convince somebody to take the step to get help when denial can be so strong, and you can point to so many other people and say, well, she's much worse than I am. So first of all, I my word of recommendations. You never go one on one with anybody who you believe is active in addiction. That is one of the most full heartiest things in the world. So I'm really known for an invitational strategy UM or intervention, and an intervention is merely an invitation to change. But if you really want, if you're really worried about someone, you want to do a lot of backwork and do due diligence, and you want to be able to interview their friends, their family because individually, because if I and I don't. If I, for example, I wanted to learn about you, I might talk to your producer, I might talk to your husband, I might talk to your best friend, I might talk to your mother. But somebody usually calls me and not you, because you're the identified loved one. If we use you whose heart is hurting, they beg, they pleaded, they nag, They don't know what to do because they see with their eyes that someone is drowning. So how often how often does that person say, Okay, I'll get help, Like, what's what's the that? Well, here, I've been very fortunate, I'm in success, but I don't show up and just say hi, guess what. It takes a lot of work. So when we're we're doing with the family, I do I do do the family map. It takes me twenty to thirty hours of backwork, but fever before I would ever stage or invite you to change. The way I see an intervention, it's collective in the respect that it takes a village to move someone. Recovery in and of itself is connection. It takes a village. It is an intervention in that we intend to invite or seek someone or motivate them to change, and we create a positive crisis in which there's an opportunity for you to understand that this is coming from a place of love, this is coming from a place of hope, and that there is a solution and people will walk with you. Um. The strategy is you've got to be very flexible. But you don't just walk into someone and you say, oh, hi, you've been drinking, you need to go, or you don't do it in a dismissive way, but you try and learn everything you can about that person and then help other people speak from their heart. So when I talk about intervention, I'm talking about heart hurt and hope. What have you experienced in the last couple of months that are years have made your heart hurt and what is your hope? And you can't do an intervention without having a solution in place. Whether it's UM with alcohol, I'm going to be clear, because it's both physiologically and psychologically addictively, you need residential medical detox. You just can't just go cold turkey on your own. You stand too much of a risk for a seizure for some other problems. So it would be full hardy to say just stop. You can die. You can die from alcohol. Have a friend, I have a friend whose son died. Yeah, So you have to really understand what you're doing. People don't realize how dangerous that is. I mean coming off of heroin, being dope sick. You'll feel like you want to die, but you won't actually die. People die from alcohol withdrawal absolutely. And also you have to with the family that you're working with, give them three gray treatment UM solutions. I'm not related to any behavioral health care center in the world. I've had the good fortune of training or teaching at many of them and working with many of them. Just based on you know, my reputation or my my ability to do good work. Well, you know, just to wrap things up, I hope that that all these people, and we're talking about women more specifically, but anyone who has a substance abuse issue that's developed during the pandemic will get help. UM. Because the numbers are frightening. They are they're they're absolutely at astronomical. We are a country in crisis and our mental health, our anxiety UM is at an all time high. We have UM we're being fueled by the alcohol industry, that marijuana is she the pill industry UM. And what we need to do is help rewrite the fact break. But for women, especially because this is dedicated to women, I want them to know there's always hope, there's always a solution, that you're not alone, that you're not crazy, that you feel it's awful to be inside in zoom land. It's not awful to be scared that your child is not thriving. UM, that there are there is help available. Help is available. If you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol use. You can start by calling the National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Hotline at one eight hundred six six to help. That's one eight hundred six six two four, three five seven, and you know what. You can also check out the groups we discussed, like the Sober Black Girls Club, the Sober Mom Squad, and Alcoholics Anonymous, of course, will have links and more information and the description of this podcast. A big thank you, by the way to my co host, Elizabeth Vargas, who I've known for many, many years and I so admire how she has not only dealt with her issues but shared her story to help other people. Go check out her memoir it's called Between Breaths. And also she's got a great podcast where she talks to lots of different people in the alcohol and addiction space. That podcast is called Heart of the Matter. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers Army, Katie Curic and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements and Adriana Fasio. The show is edited and mixed by Derrek Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie Curic, on Instagram and on my social media channels. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H