S2Ep14|| The similarities & differences in our stories
HOST CAIT MADRY SITS DOWN WITH HER PARTNER SARA ASHCRAFT TO DISCUSS THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN THEIR STORIES.
Everyone has a unique story, specifically when it comes to sobriety. In this episode Cait sits down with her partner Sara to discuss just that; their differences and similarities when it comes to the road they took to a sober lifestyle. The two talk about goals for this season, what they've each dealt with hurdle-wise in the last week, and leave you with their first tool for your non-drinking toolbox.
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Cait: [00:00:00] Welcome to the clear-headed podcast. I'm Cait Madry your host and I'm so happy you're here. This is the podcast that drops in on people's moments of clarity surrounding their sobriety super LA of me but I like to start every episode with a deep breath in. So if you're driving to work or you're on your way to run some errands, or maybe you're in bed, getting ready to wind down, let's just start with a deep breath.
And out. Okay. Let's get clear headed. It's the first episode of season two and I sat back down with Sara. It's not that our journeys are so different that we can't relate, but it's that our journeys are so different that we just have to talk about it. We discussed a lot of things, including the goal of this next season for us.[00:01:00]
But first let's start with just a little intro to who we are.
Hi, I'm Cait Madry and I am your host of clear-headed. I'm also a creator. This was inspired by, gosh, my life, my realizations Sara's life Sara's realization. We have been together for a year and a half. We lived together. We have a dog together. We are sober together and it was early in our relationship that I realized that I needed to cut alcohol out of my life.
And really the point of this podcast and this season is to shine a light on all of the moments that people have and can have, you can have, you can join in on having that lead to. Making the choice to have a better life being alcohol free. So should you choose an, [00:02:00] any time length because, and Sarah can speak to this more sobriety isn't linear and often it's experimented with before completely committing to in my journey.
With sobriety. I really thought what most people think, which is just, I need to cut back. I need to cut back, i, you know, step one was realizing I didn't have the healthiest relationship with alcohol that I didn't like it. And like I said, in episode one, alcohol was a constant for me in my life with my family dynamic, just in society, living in LA, out in the party scene with friends.
So I never really thought that it was negotiable to have it out of my. I had this fear that if I was going to be sober, then I would be put into the category of unstable, unsafe, destructive, just everything that I didn't want to be. And so it took me quite a [00:03:00] while to come to terms with the healthy idea that alcohol just does.
Work for me. And that doesn't mean that I'm destructive or that I'm unsafe or that I'm a reliable and actually means that I'm. And by taking those steps, I'm able to be stable and safe for the people in my life. And most importantly, for myself, that's my little spiel. Sara, introduce yourself..
Sara: Hi, I'm Sara. I am a producer of clear-headed podcast alongside Cait. Yes and, and her lover, I think sobriety is such an important topic and conversation because it can be whatever you want it to be. It can be a three month break and you just reevaluate your relationship with it. And if you decide that you're fine and you like having it in your life, no judgment. There's also, you know, you can be sober for a year and then [00:04:00] fall off the wagon, which is exactly what I did. And it didn't make me a bad person or unstable. It just made me human. Yeah. And I think those stories are really important to hear because it's not just a walk in the park for everyone, but it's also not like the worst thing in the world for everyone. It's very, very unique and personal.
And so, yeah. I just think having all of these different conversations with different people and hearing their experience, lessens, the fear around it.
Cait: Yeah. I mean, speaking of fear, like I just touched on. You know, the fact that a big reason why getting completely sober for me was the internal holdup and judgment than I had on the label of being a sober person.
But did you have any fear or judgment when you were getting sober around sober sobriety? Non-drinker I mean, non drinker, by the way, wasn't even in my vocabulary until people who were non drinkers were lame. Which [00:05:00] is like so crazy. Cause I was so deep in the world of booze and alcohol and partying that I was like, oh, it's lame if you're like a non-drinker, but the term non drinker is.
So it speaks to me now so much because so does sober. But sometimes having the label of sober person is like very overwhelming. Like I have to take this word, apply it to everything that I do. You know, sobriety is, you know, whatever you define it to your point. But I think in society, we think of sobriety is okay, if you're sober, then you don't do anything else.
And I think we'll have conversations this season about how that might not be the roadmap for a lot of people. There are people who still smoke weed when they're first sober in their first year and then realize it's still, but see, I would call that a non-drinker. I didn't even know that non-drinker was an option for the most majority of my life, because it's, so here's a box, you have to fit into it.
And I think [00:06:00] with this podcast and this season, what we're trying to do and what we just do in our everyday lives is normalized being sober, normalize, being a non drinker. More overarching is normalized, evaluating on healthy relationships and stepping away from them before it's too late, too bad, too destructive, too harmful.
So anyways, back to my question, would you kind of answered, but you just thought people were lame, not drinkers because you were in it, but like, were you scared of being lame? Like why did that fear stem from?
Sara: Yeah, I think so much of my identity was tied up in drinking and partying and in a lot of different facets too, when I was younger, I was the cool girl, you know, I had, I would have parties and I would always have alcohol and I could really hold my liquor.
Well, so it was kind of, it was a claim to fame type of thing, where I was like, yeah, I can handle my shit. And that slowly evolved with me [00:07:00] as I grew up. And then, you know, I worked in the restaurant industry and I was very well versed on wine, natural wine specialty. The core is in specialty cocktails. The bartender was always like, you have a really great palette.
And so I turned this obsession with partying into no now I'm, I'm like a mature adult and I know all about booze, which allows me to do. All of the time, you know, and for me, drinking didn't really exist in a vacuum. It wasn't like, oh, I'm just drinking a lot. It was like the drinking then led into the cocaine and then led into the anxiety the next day, which led into like anti-anxiety medication.
And so it was like, for me, I really think I do identify as sober because if someone was like, Hey, do you want to smoke weed? Or, Hey, do you want to do a little ketamine or something? Right. That would be. Not good for me and my journey because those things were very inextricably linked. Right. I was never just a drinker.
It maybe started [00:08:00] off as drinking. Oh, a cocktail and then a bottle of wine. And then next thing I know I'm taking tequila shots, but then I'm like, I need something to like lift me back up. So for me, I'm not just a non-drinker, I really am sober. And I think doing anything. What kind of throw me off the path that I want to be on.
Cait: I stand with you in that. I mean, I want you as the audience and the listener I want, whoever's listening to get to know me too and you and our story so that maybe you see a little bit of yourself in one of us, but I haven't done a drug in my life. I know, which is really kind of crazy, but also not really that crazy because it's crazy.
Sara: You, you existed in that environment for so long. Without like trying it at all.
Cait: It's also really fascinating to me. And I know that there are people like this out there. I mean, I do, I think. I don't know, what's more common. I don't know. What's more common to just do what I was doing, which was like having this judgment [00:09:00] on like drugs, but then like soaking my sorrows and like tequila and booze.
Sara: Well, that society, because booze is. You can go to any store, any liquor store, any convenience store and buy. If you wanted to buy three bottles of mezcal and go drink them yourself, like no one's stopping you. There's not a limit on how much alcohol you can buy. There's not a limit on drinking alone, right?
People might judge you if you told them the extent of it. No one really knows. And it's very normalized. It's very normalized to drink. Honestly, I know people who think it's completely normal to just drink a bottle of wine and a night and like no judgment, but that just didn't work for me.
It is kind of a slippery slope. And I'm saying it because I was on slope. I mean, I, I slipped on that slope. I mean, too, it does start with normalizing it. And that's a really good point. It is because it's legal and drugs are illegal and that's what I was taught. You do not. Do things that are not legal. I didn't drink and drive. Katie would get her car [00:10:00] towed all the time.
She would just leave it in a space that she wasn't allowed to, but she would not drink and drive, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing that I think a lot of people they're like, yeah, you know, I'm drinking and drinking is legal. And then it's like, it's not a gray area. You can never drink and drive. But I think when you're drinking, you start rationalize it. And you're like, yeah, but I haven't had that much. And if I drink water, like I should be good and I'm not going to get pulled over and have coffee just like snowballs, but you were always very adamant about not drinking and driving, which is amazing.
Cait: Yeah, I agree. And I do think it's amazing. I also just want to point out that there was a lot of other gray areas in my life personally and morally that when I would drink it would slip me too. And I think that it goes to show that. I mean to the average person that I was around. I was pretty put together. I mean, I had my boundaries. I had, I would say that I had a [00:11:00] outsider's point of view, a hold on my alcohol.
I didn't drink and drive. I didn't lose my job. I didn't, I didn't lose a ton of money. I didn't full on ruin relationships in a public sense or that anybody really. Yes, I did internally, but no one really saw the slop. I mean, I think you're like, Sarah is like, I kind of saw this. Well, no, I think that there's just like different kinds of drinkers.
Like when you drank, you went so all out that there was like blackouts involved and like, I think at a certain point you couldn't, you couldn't do anything like bad, like getting a car and drive, even if you wanted to, because you were like past the point of return. Whereas I was the opposite. I remember putting back like 10 drinks, 10 cocktails and being completely articulate and like going to do something.
And then like later admitting to someone, I was just like, yeah, I've had like 10 drinks and they're like, So, what were you doing drugs while you were doing that? No, I wasn't at the jest. I just could [00:12:00] really hold my alcohol period. Yeah.
Well, I mean, it goes to show that you can't really judge other you can't and nor should you, I hope you don't wait for other people to tell you have a problem before you realize it's maybe not the healthiest relationship that you have with booze.
We touched on this a little bit, but I just want to share what the goal is for every episode. My goal is to. Showcase the diversity in everybody's story and the possibilities of where you can be at, in order to join the sobriety culture, being a non-drinker, you can join at any time in any phase for any amount of time to become healthier and to become a more authentic self without alcohol. So in all of these episodes and in all of these conversations, we're going to talk with people from all different timelines, whether that's try [00:13:00] 30 days of no drinking, you want to do a full year. You want to set yourself up for success for the rest of your life, or maybe you had a miss step..
I don't even want to call it a miss step. We got to figure out a word for that. Maybe you're testing your boundaries or you're in a situation that's going to give you more security on to the choice that you have made to be a non-drinker. And, and sometimes that does mean. Going back to booze and realizing that it's not all it was cracked up to be in your head.
And that's okay. We're going to have conversations about that and how to process it. And I also, the goal is to meet you in the struggle and in the success, because to Sara's point earlier, it is hard, but it's not impossible. And there are so many stories and, and moments and realizations and tools that make this not only easy but fun.
Um, I think you're going to like [00:14:00] this, it's an analogy. Okay. It's like a cookbook and there are a ton of different recipes in that cookbook. Some of them you might like. And some of them might just not be for you. You don't like cilantro, but the point is is that you have a whole book that you can flip through and go, oh my God, this is exactly what I wanted to eat.
And that's like sobriety. It's like, my story may not resonate with you. Or Kate's story may not resonate with you, but maybe. Someone else's does maybe you feel seen, or you feel heard through that person and their experience and it inspires you to try it, to taste it, see how you feel about it. Yeah. Yeah.
Just get the ingredients to make that recipe, to make that 30 day episode to make that year episode. That's a great analogy. Is it an analogy or is it a metaphor? I think an analogy is when [00:15:00] you say it's like, okay, let us know. We're really good at sobriety. We're not so great at English language with all that said, what's the motto though.
Here's the motto for me, but I think it is you don't have to hit rock bottom. to say buh-bye to alcohol.
Sara: I guess mine would be like, there is no specific way that you have to do sobreity. You can find what works for you and outside of that, there shouldn't be any judgment about it. Yeah. It's very, very personal.
And that's the kind of space that we want to create for people. They don't feel judged. They don't feel like they're doing it wrong because there's no right and wrong way. As long as you're doing what's best for you. And you're healthy and happy. I think that's the goal. Yeah. To examine your relationship with alcohol, remove it indefinitely.
Try it out. Don't look at your shakeups as [00:16:00] failures. Don't beat yourself up over it. There is no super specific guidelines that are a one fit all. Yeah. It's different for everyone. And you're supported. This is a place you can come and feel supported and we promise we'll be honest in our journey to. No, we're perfect.
Cait: And we got it all figured out. You don't, you don't Sarah and I were just saying last week, like, wow, we're so stressed. Oh my gosh. I've never wanted to drink more. And what did we do, drink? No, I'm just kidding. No, no, no, but we, we set it out loud and if that's the first tool that I can say to put in your toolbox is, say it out loud.
Or if you don't have anyone that you feel yet comfortable enough to say it out loud, to look yourself in the mirror, say it. And I promise you. That power will decrease significantly, if not completely vanish because for a lot of us living with addiction or living with this unhealthy relationship of alcohol, a big part of [00:17:00] it is the secrecy that keeps it going.
It feels like we can get away with it. So when you let those voices and those temptations live secretly in your head, I feel like it tumbleweed. Yeah. I mean, it has the control. If you're holding it close and tight to you, it's controlling you. And I think one of the things I learned the most from my second kind of go around is that sobriety has a really hard time thriving in isolation.
Yeah. So say it out loud, say it out loud and get around people that you feel like you can say it to. And maybe that's just one person for now. The quantity is not the goal. The quality is a goal of people who you put in your circle in the immediate. So that's our first tool. Say it out loud. We just used it last week.
And. Thank you for listening. I cannot wait. Next week we have Zewiditu Jewel host of sober in the morning, and it's such a good conversation. She's so good. Her goal is to make sober, [00:18:00] sexy, and she's doing it. She is doing it. So I'll talk to you next week. Bye guys.
This episode was produced by Sara Ashcraft music by honeydew and recorded at the wave for more tips, tricks and tools.
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