Fresh Take: Suzanne Warye, THE SOBER SHIFT

22:39Suzanne Warye:Yeah. And you talk about the fact, which I hadn't really thought about, our doctors are drinking. A lot. And so.

22:45Margaret Ables:Our doctors are drinking a lot because it's high stress, right? Right. And so we're taught, like, if you were stressed out, drink. And so our doctors are drinking a lot.

22:54Suzanne Warye:Yeah. It is hard to really change the conversation about it. Because if you go to your doctor and you say, hey, I'm finding myself using a lot of cocaine to deal with my anxiety. They're like, stop the presses. Right. But if you say you're drinking, it's like, well, we're all doing that.

23:10Margaret Ables:Right. Well, yeah, I am too. And, you know, there's a quote in there that's something like how doctors perceive it is that if your patient is drinking less than you are, then they're fine.

23:20Suzanne Warye:Yeah.

23:20Margaret Ables:And that's a real issue when doctors are drinking a lot.

23:23Suzanne Warye:So let's talk a little bit. We love neuroscience about the neuroscience of alcohol free living.

23:30Margaret Ables:Yes. It's so funny because if anyone who listens to my podcast is listening to this, they are laughing right now because I am not a neuroscience person. I am not a neuroscience either, but Amy loves it and we talk about it a lot. I mean, I'm fascinated by it and I love talking about it. But this was part of the book that I thought it was very important to include what it is actually doing to our brain and our mental health and how. That was the hardest part to write because I had to research a lot. I also leaned on my friend Jill from Sober Powered. She has all of the science about this. But yeah, it ruins your brain.

24:05Margaret Ables:Not only like does it affect your hippocampus and the size of your brain and all that, no matter the amount, I think that this is really important to know that it's no matter the amount, it's one glass of wine. The way that it affects your dopamine and your serotonin spikes your cortisol, even when you're not drinking it, if you are consistently drinking alcohol, your brain has changed even when you're not drinking it, which means you find less joy in things that you found joy in when you were 14 or whenever before you started drinking. and so all of these things i mean even if you think about what is a hangover right what does that feel like if you throw up after you're drinking that's your body's kind of last attempt to save your life to rid your body of this toxin it's saying this is so bad we have to expel it it's pausing all the other important functions like hormone production and if you're trying to have a baby it's pausing the reproductive stuff see i'm like very scientific the reproductive stuff.

25:06Suzanne Warye:You can tell you're not talking to doctors here, but we know we're talking about it anyway.

25:11Margaret Ables:I didn't know all of this. I didn't know any of this stuff when I quit drinking at 39. I kind of thought maybe alcohol might be good for me in my heart. You know, red wine.

25:21Suzanne Warye:Well, people, right, you get the, oh, everybody in France has healthy hearts because they drink red wine, right?

25:25Margaret Ables:Which is that, and that's the French paradox that I write about in the book, too, and that's been, like, widely debunked. That was in, like, the 70s or early 80s, And they didn't look at their diet because it was actually their diet. You know, if you hear resveratrol, you would have to drink something like 1 ,000 glasses of wine to get any sort of benefit from the resveratrol in wine. And the ethanol would still negate it. And also you would be dead.

25:51Suzanne Warye:So don't recommend is what we're saying on that one. That's a no.

25:55Margaret Ables:Yeah, just eat some blueberries and say no to the wine.

25:58Suzanne Warye:Let's talk about the diversity of challenges that people face because stopping drinking and approaching sobriety is different for different people. They're coming from different starting points. Yeah. They're coming from different cultures. And then they're facing different amounts of resistance, which is interesting to me.

26:18Margaret Ables:It's so interesting. And the resistance can feel so loud. It can feel like, I mean, when I decide to do yoga, I'm not then asked like, well, are you going to do yoga forever? Or was that just today? Right.

26:33Suzanne Warye:And why are you doing yoga? What is this about? Yeah.

26:36Margaret Ables:Why do you feel like isn't that a little extreme to do yoga or to go for a run? Like, are you always going to be a runner? We get these questions about alcohol because we have been taught not to talk about alcohol. And so all of us are walking around with all of our stories, our alcohol stories, our sobriety, our moderation, all of this stuff that we haven't been able just to openly talk about our doubts and our fears. And so every person that you meet is bringing that to the conversation, right? If they hear you say, oh, you know what? I'm not drinking. And their reaction is, what? Why? That seems so drastic.

27:13Margaret Ables:Everything in moderation. that is just a window into their relationship with alcohol. That is everybody's reaction to you not drinking is all about their relationship with alcohol. And that's okay. They're not there yet. Maybe they won't be. And that's just, that's okay. I know that because I was one of those people. I was very interested when someone stopped drinking, but I was also like, oh my God, I could never do that. Like, oh, wow.

27:37Suzanne Warye:I also think I'm a little bit older than you that the conversation has been historically, you have an alcohol problem or you don't. And so I do think that maybe 10 years ago when friends of mine stopped drinking without starting to go to AA, I did have the reaction of like, what do you mean you're stopping? I truly didn't understand it. Like, yes, I thought the world was alcoholics and people who could drink. And so that this middle ground of people who were saying, I actually don't like the role that alcohol is playing in my life where I just have decided for 800 different reasons that I'm not privy to or don't need to know about that I'm not going to drink alcohol anymore that I did have a reaction and I do think that story is changing a little bit yeah the internet sober curious even things like dry January which you talk about in the book is kind of like why are we doing this and being like yay February I get to drink again but that those ideas were very new to me 10 years ago.

28:37Suzanne Warye:And I was react like, oh, is there something I didn't know about you that you had a drinking problem? Yes. Like, wow, how bad did it get?

28:46Margaret Ables:I wonder.

28:47Suzanne Warye:It would be like someone telling me they had cancer almost like, oh, this is something I didn't know about.

28:53Margaret Ables:Right.

28:54Suzanne Warye:Right.

28:55Margaret Ables:Even probably five and a half years ago when I quit, I didn't know anybody who didn't drink. It was just not, it wasn't how we talk about it today. I think we still have a lot of work because I think initially that is the, well, are you an alcoholic? Because yeah, you're right. There's either somebody who genetically or whatever we've been taught, they just can't drink. They've lost the privilege. And then there are like normies who can just drink fine. And when you look at the substance, that just doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's not true. And it's also just a way to put the responsibility and the blame on the person instead of the substance.

29:37Suzanne Warye:Right. I'm talking to Suzanne Warei, the author of The Sober Shift, a modern day guide to living an abundant sober life. And we'll be right back. Summer is definitely a time when you want to be able to throw something on just before running out the door while also somehow looking like you definitely didn't just do that? Oh, that's why we are so in love with Quince. Quince makes elevated essentials using premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, and washable silk without the traditional retail markup. Quince's 100 % European linen pants, dresses, and tops are the pieces you'll reach for all summer long.

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30:54Suzanne Warye:Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E, Quince.com slash fresh for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash fresh. So I sidetracked us a little bit before the break. Like we were talking about starting places for people and some of the obstacles that get in the way. It's not even about judgment of like who has it the worst and who's it hard for and who's it easy for. That's not the discussion. But I think it is useful to say people have unique starting points on this path.

31:30Margaret Ables:Yeah, it's true. And I think one of the big obstacles that I've heard from women are what if I lose all my friends? Everyone around me drinks. Right. I'm not going to be invited to things. I'm going to just be sitting at home bored and I'm going to be left out. I think that's completely understandable. And that might happen. Right. Part of the reason I drank was for connection. I wanted fast track to connection. I was like, let's just drink and then we can tell each other, you know, we can like trauma bond and we could talk about our parents divorces. Let's just do it. the problem is I would do it with like the bathroom attendant or something and she'd be like okay I have to work oh you know ma 'am this is a Wendy's please keep moving yeah I I don't know who you are and uh you gotta go yeah and so you might have a period if you quit drinking where you're not invited as much as you used to and I think that that's really hard and that's sad and there is this mourning, kind of grieving period of like, oh God, I'm outgrowing this thing, which means I might be outgrowing the people who only do this thing.

32:41Margaret Ables:And that's tough. The book is kind of in two parts. It's like the first part, I kind of burn everything down and it's like, okay, let's talk about what alcohol actually is and what it's taken from you. And then the second part is the building. And the building will come. It takes time. And I think A lot of times we want that right now. It's like, yeah, but I want that thing. I want to just replace it with something else. And the fact is that you might need to kind of lean into this loneliness and this boredom and this kind of new chapter of like, okay, what did I like to do when I was 14 when I came home from school?

33:21Margaret Ables:how did I spend my afternoons if I just had a free afternoon what did I do I was a person before this thing came in and kind of numbed me and blurred me and I've lost myself especially in motherhood and so like how can you get back to that and that takes time they say addiction is

33:37Suzanne Warye:progressive but I always like to say that sobriety is progressive one thing that you can do right

33:44Margaret Ables:away is to find a community online and just start there. Start in a place. That's why I created the Sober Mom Life Cafe is just a place where it's just women. You don't have to be a mom where you could go and just begin to tell the truth about this thing that has played probably a very big role in your life, but you've never been able to talk about it because we've never looked at it. It's kind of like the mold in the basement.

34:10Suzanne Warye:We talk a lot about get curious about what's going with your kid, right? Your kid's coming home at three o 'clock in the afternoon every day in a horrible mood. So you can either be like, my kid's a problem and giving me a problem. Or you can say, I'm seeing a behavior and I want to know what's causing it. They're probably hungry or maybe their last teacher of the day stresses them out. But get curious about what is the fuel. And I thought about that a lot reading the book that you're kind of asking people, get curious about maybe you struggle socially and that you need, you feel you need alcohol to perform correctly at parties.

34:49Suzanne Warye:Or maybe you have tremendous anxiety and alcohol is playing a role to numb that anxiety. But asking the role that alcohol plays in your life, because you're not, as you said, the substance is not the cure. It's part of the problem. And that if you're only looking at it as a solution, it's maybe time to start saying like, hey, I might be a person who struggles socially, so I need to be the first person to arrive that way. I don't feel weird walking it. You can solve those problems in other ways, but you can't solve anything until you get curious about it.

35:27Margaret Ables:Yes. Curiosity is kind of the starting point for all of it. If you feel socially anxious before going to a party, which I feel I don't know anyone who doesn't. I feel like that's a pretty universal thing of just like we would argue I don't I do not have a ton of social anxiety.

35:43Suzanne Warye:You are the unicorn. I'm an unusual person. Yes, I would admit.

35:47Margaret Ables:Yes. But there's just some kind of ease or something about like, OK, where am I going to park?

35:53Suzanne Warye:Shoes on or shoes off? Like, can you just tell me? Right. Is everyone looking at me? Have I gained weight? Did I get more wrinkles. Everyone's what you feel the spotlight. Oh, my God. Everyone's walking in and their whole agenda is what's weird about Margaret's outfit. It's like, yeah, it's not going on, guys. Yeah.

36:10Margaret Ables:No, everyone's just worried about themselves. Like no one's thinking about you, which is amazing. Right. You're not the starring role in anybody else's life, which should feel like a weight off. But also when we're feeling these things that we don't want to feel right. And I always think the opposite of addiction. Yes, it's connection, but it's also feeling uncomfortable. And like feeling uncomfortable isn't something to avoid. It's actually the goal. And so if I'm feeling uncomfortable, I'm like, okay, this is it. I'm lifting the heaviest weights in the gym, you know, like, okay. When you feel discomfort or you feel uncomfortable, and I'm not talking about unsafe, I'm just talking about uncomfortable, and you immediately go to alcohol.

36:51Margaret Ables:In that moment, you are discounting yourself and you're sending yourself the message that you can't do this. And it's probably been decades of us doing that and decades of us subconsciously sending this message to ourselves like, you're obviously not strong enough to handle this. You're not strong enough to feel this. You're not strong enough to weather social anxiety. And then we turn to this thing, which I mean, talk about social anxiety, black out at a party and then wake up.

37:19Suzanne Warye:You're not going to feel good the next day being like, whoa, Oh, who took pictures and where am I tagged on social media?

37:25Margaret Ables:Yes. And you look at your text, your best friend's like, how could you do that? And you're like, what? Talk about social anxiety, right? Like, but instead you could just slow it down and be like, okay, I'm going to go. My heart's going to race and I might be awkward. And like, I'm probably not going to nail this thing, but I'm not going to die. I'm going to survive it. It's going to be okay. And then I get to go home when I'm tired and then I get to sleep really well and not wake up the next morning wondering what I said or if anyone's mad at me.

37:56Suzanne Warye:Yeah. My mother, who was a therapist, used to use a metaphor of holding your hand over an open flame and taking aspirin to deal with the pain. And it's like you're taking alcohol to deal with the pain of the open flame. But you can't discount the fact that that is, at least in the short term, and easier solution. Turning off the flame is hard work. And so that's why I keep coming back to the starting point for people that like, yeah, if you have deep trauma, if you have terrible anxiety, if you have an ACEs childhood with adverse childhood experiences, like looking at that flame, it's not easy.

38:38Suzanne Warye:It's really, I understand why you want to take the aspirin because the flame is so scary.

38:45Margaret Ables:It's so scary. And that was my story. Like that, yeah, I took that quiz. I don't ever want to take that quiz again. Like that's so depressing. I was like.

38:54Suzanne Warye:The ACEs quiz. Yes.

38:55Margaret Ables:I was like, okay.

38:57Suzanne Warye:There's a quiz for anyone who doesn't know what we were talking about that it lists how many adverse childhood experiences you have. And a certain score means you had what's called an ACEs childhood. So these formative experiences that were difficult.

39:09Margaret Ables:Yeah. Yeah. And it does. Sobriety does require work. It does require work. It just it's work that gets easier and gets lighter. Alcohol. Yes, it's easy at first. And man, does it get harder and harder.

39:25Suzanne Warye:that's right and i always say we don't tell you to do it because it's advice it actually works like eventually the flame yeah outdoes the aspirin like you can't actually sustain if you could sustain holding your hand out of the flame i might tell you to do it but you can't yeah yeah

39:41Margaret Ables:it just doesn't work it just scientifically is not gonna work right like so i think sobriety comes in stages like that first year might be more about not drinking that's why i walk you through the sober firsts and how you can use those to really propel you. And it's like, just get through this. Just get through this. It's not always going to feel like this. It tends to be, I think, that like second year where this stuff comes up. Like, who was I trying to please? Let's talk about these situations that I was in my childhood. How is this at play? Let's talk about my mom's a therapist too. And so yeah, where the wiring was installed, right?

40:22Margaret Ables:We do have to go back there because it's at play anyway, whether we're going to notice it and talk about it and work through it or not. But that's kind of our life's work. We don't have to, you know, I feel like sometimes women are like, great, I'm going to quit drinking and I'm going to, it's all about like wellness. And now I'm going to go to therapy twice a week and figure out my wounds. And it's like, hold on. First, a huge heaping dose of compassion for yourself in what you're doing and quitting drinking. You're changing generations to come. You're changing them. You're changing your children, not just so that they can see you not drink, but so that they can see you feel and heal.

41:04Margaret Ables:Because when alcohol is in the picture, we don't have to feel. Right. And our kids see us, we don't have to feel. Like my kids have seen me in horrible grief after losing my dad tragically, you know, and that was okay. It was okay because then they did see me get up too. And they see me screw up every day. My friend Courtney always says like rupture and repair. It's kind of a constant rupture and repair. It's this cycle. And that's just alcohol is an obstacle to that because then you add in the shame and then kind of the overcompensation that comes after that. And so our kids then don't really get to see a mom who is really just feeling and working her way through life and counting on herself and sharing what she needs.

41:51Suzanne Warye:And you do talk in the second half of the book about a lot of solutions and really working on this. It's not just like, hey, this is something you should do. Good luck. A lot of solutions. And a big part of that is community. So tell us about the Sober Mom Life Cafe, that community and how community is helping women who are on this journey.

42:13Margaret Ables:Oh, man. I think community is probably, if you have tried this, if you have tried to quit drinking and then you just always fall back and you're just always kind of back and forth, community might be the thing that has been missing. because to be able to sit and we do it on zoom we have a few meetings every week we have book club and it's just peer support so we're just sitting i have a meeting every week and we're just connecting and it's not so much sometimes it's about how am i going to get through my mother-in-law visiting and not drink right and it's like okay it's tips time come in with your tips like what do you have?

42:55Margaret Ables:And everybody shares if you want to. But it's also just like life. Like I feel, you know, resentful of the fact that my husband gets to golf every Friday and I can't even get a haircut. Right. It's like, yes, let's work through this just so we know we're not alone. I think moms need community now more than ever. We need to be able to hear that this is hard and that we matter and that we need help without the disclaimer of like, but I love my child and she's the best and I'm so grateful. Hashtag blessed. Like, right. Yeah. No disclaimers allowed. Like my husband, I promise you does not have a complaint to his boss or wants to vent to his boss, but he starts it with first.

43:37Margaret Ables:I need you to know how grateful I am for this, for this job. Yeah. For this job. No, that's fine. Yes. That's baked in. That's the starting point. And so just to be able to really know and to see and to feel that you're not alone in this moderation struggle in all of the doubts you had about alcohol and the shame it brought and in the decisions that you made when you were drinking i think sharing your shame is so important and being able to shed it and to do that in a safe place no jaws are going to drop there's not there's not going to be a like, what? You did that? No. There will be nodding heads and there will be someone who comes on and say, thank you so much for sharing because I was there too.

44:21Margaret Ables:That was my story. And I think that that's such a soothing balm to our weary souls that we need, that we need so desperately. And I hope it goes on forever because I always want to connect. That's my favorite hour of the week is when I just get to sit and talk with women.

44:38Suzanne Warye:I love that. I've been talking to Suzanne Warei. She is the author of The Sober Shift, a modern day guide to living an abundant sober life. We will link to everywhere you can buy the book. And Suzanne, tell our listeners where they can find the Sober Mom Life Cafe and all of your other work.

44:56Margaret Ables:Yeah. So come to, you can find everything at SuzanneWarei.com, W-A-R-Y-E. So you can find the book. You can find events and the cafe. And then I'm on the Sober Mom Life podcast every Monday. And we just do we talk just like this. Awesome. Yeah.

45:14Suzanne Warye:Love women talking. It's the best. That's right. Thanks so much, Suzanne. This was a great conversation.

45:20Margaret Ables:Thank you.

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