S2Ep19|| a discussion about motherhood and toxic drinking habits
Cait talks to Recovery is the New Black founder Michelle Smith about toxic habits society pushes on moms to cope.
This Mother's Day episode is a discussion with Recovery is the New Black founder Michelle Smith. She is so many things, but most importantly, a mother. Cait and Michelle discuss the toxic drinking habits encouraged as a coping mechanism for motherhood.
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Cait [00:00:00] Welcome to the Clearheaded podcast. I am 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 lie down. Let's just start with a deep breath in. And out. Okay, let's get clear headed. Mommy juice, our kids wine, so we do too. I know you've seen them teams and T-shirts and pillows and signs that encourage moms to let loose with that glass of rosé. For today's bonus episode. We're celebrating Mother's Day. I had an enriching conversation with Michelle Smith, who wears Mother as one of her titles along with non drinker. Michelle's story is gripping. After losing her father at 15, meeting the love of her life at 16, and walking into a career in correctional facilities, Michelle used alcohol as a way to cope. She had talks with her husband where he would ask if she even remembered what she had done the night before. Years went by and she had children and her trials with alcohol didn't fade when her mother passed away. She found herself leaning on alcohol more than ever before. She had another talk with her husband, where he expressed concern. Only this time he was at the end of her hospital bed.
Michelle [00:01:47] I had a moment of clarity. It's like I always waited for, like, the fog to lift or like this little sliver of hope because I knew what I was doing was so self-destructive and I was taking everybody along with me. I wanted to change, but I think I was scared. I didn't know how. I didn't know what to do. A lot of people, especially when you work as a professional and in the public eye, even to to add on that other layer of stress. And it was like, I am eliminating myself from my life. I know what it's like to not have my parents around as a child. I literally doing the exact same thing and that terrified me because I know how that feels. How it felt. And I looked at my life as I'm digging such an incredibly large deep hole that I don't think I can ever come out of it. I started challenging those thoughts, that imposter syndrome, that voice that's telling me. But I've gone too far. It's over. I might as well just kind of go happy, right? Fall, fall into this hole. At least I'll have my quote unquote best friend alcohol with me because I've lost everybody else from this disease, including myself, my identity. And it was like this one moment of like the clouds parted. And I just told myself, if I'm going to do it right now is the moment that I have to surrender. I don't know what's going to come next, but I have to keep fighting for my children until I can fight for myself. I'm eliminating myself from my own life, and that is terrifying. And my kids and my partner deserve more. And I accepted. The need for help is kind of like that divine timing, that moment of clarity, because I knew it was going to go away quick. You know, we have this epiphany of we don't want to drink, and then 10 minutes later we're drinking.
Cait [00:03:54] Yeah.
Michelle [00:03:54] So I was like, okay, the need for help is there. The moment of clarity is here I am. I can consider this my bottom. Even though I knew I had had so many before that I accepted the need for help. And that was the moment I just released the idea of doing this perfect, the idea of doing this alone and that this is my opportunity and I'm not going to take it for granted. And I kind of just put one foot in front of the other and got out of my own way, which really created this pathway to divine timing of other things just kind of falling into place building like I like to say, my dream team, everybody from medication management to therapy to treatment to the 12 step program, it just kind of all started to align. And I think so much of it was because I got out of my own way.
Cait [00:04:47] We hear this even if it's, you know, from TV shows or movies, you hear this again and again that you have to want to do it for yourself. And once you it sounds like once you really wanted to do it for yourself, everything else followed. And what you just said, which is just such a good way to look at this, is you are okay with not doing this perfect. And oh my goodness, if I can take anything away already from this like five minute convo, it's that everybody should alleviate that pressure to do it perfectly because there isn't a quote unquote roadmap to your recovery. It's going to look so different for everybody. So that's that's lovely to hear when we talk about alcohol in society. I mean, I'm not a mother, grandmother. And I'm I'm so sorry. Just on a personal note that your mother has passed when we talk about motherhood and mommy juice and society and how it is geared towards handing mothers that glass of rosé at the end of the day and you talk about it in your TED talk a bit about I think the direct quote is there's this unwritten rule that motherhood is hard and that alcohol helps. Many of us aren't given permission to admit that we are struggling. And so we don't ask for help, we don't seek support. We stay in isolation and our secrets have been keeping people sick. When did you realize that incredible realization?
Michelle [00:06:21] I realized it probably halfway, three quarters of a way into when my drinking was really being problematic.
Cait [00:06:28] Interesting.
Michelle [00:06:29] The people that I would bring it up to in my circle, birds of a feather flock together. They were drinking, too. And so they're not going to want to buy into the fact that we are vulnerable. Prey. There is this thing, big alcohol that found this vulnerable population of women who they hadn't tapped into yet, this resource. And I'm like, I'm the product. I am vulnerable. I'm longing for connection. I'm feeling depressed. I have unresolved grief and loss issues. I was too stubborn to go to my doctor and really find out that I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. I felt like I can do this all on my own and everywhere I would go to kind of take a breath away from this type of culture. Everywhere I went, it was right there with me and I felt You either initiate into this club or you don't. It's like this unwritten rule that this is just what you do as a mother. And when you keep going back to this addicted substance, you are going to become addicted and vulnerable. And I didn't have any other place to go. And so the thing I did is instead of engaging in continuing to participate in this, I pulled back and I kind of like went into lockdown, so to speak, in my own home. And before we had this thing called lockdown, I called it house arrest. I am not on probation or I haven't been in trouble with the law, but I can declare this space sacred alcohol free zone where I can't control what happens out there, but I can what happens in here? And just even though I wasn't able to maintain sobriety, it became kind of a secretive place so I could keep myself even sicker in isolation because there was no accountability. And with that, there's no support. And so my alcoholism really thrived in this place of loneliness, which just kept me drinking longer. But I really noticed when. I would open up social media, for example. Everything in my feed was about either an ad or about a mom struggling and drinking or about a happy hour, or that they got a free mimosa with their pedicure. Every ad in the magazines that I would open, every conversation I would have with somebody over the phone. It is such an ingrained behavior and coping tool that we're using in our society. It is absolutely so normalized where you have to literally justify why you don't drink.
Cait [00:09:06] You know.
Michelle [00:09:07] It's you know.
Cait [00:09:08] It is it's so crazy. I think you use the example of if somebody quit cigarets, you know, nobody goes, oh, my God, come on, you're my smoking buddy. Like, let's light it up. But it is that case with alcohol. When you made that adjustment and you realized and you built your dream team. What was it like with your group of mom, other mother friends? Did you have a hard time acclimating back into social situations or mommy group or however, however, whatever role you played in that?
Michelle [00:09:45] Yeah, that's a great question. You know, it really varied on the individual person and what really what the context of the relationship was with that individual. There was some friends that were from childhood that had been there through the ebbs and flows, parents deaths, you know, divorces, marriages, children. And those relationships had more substance to them. And so those ones have been able to thrive because there was more than just alcohol that glued our relationship together. Some of the moms who, you know, when you become a mom, there's this thing of you kind of like just don't have time for anybody other than your kiddos or that's where we center our world as to our children. And so whatever activity they're doing or study time or, you know, library readings or swimming lessons, we kind of just meet our friends through our children's friends because we're just kind of doing that activity then. And so those kind of just like they dissolved on their own where they just fizzled away because I wasn't going to Happy Hour or I wasn't going to a birthday party from that friend group. Some of those just kind of organically dissolved on their own. They naturally just went away, which was easier for me to have to address it so I could use the strength. And kind of like building my confidence to the people who really mattered, who had been there a long time, where I needed to make amends and I needed to apologize and start showing up in their lives the way I had before I was drinking. And so it was really different because I was wearing all these different masks. So, you know, I could show up. And there was a certain circle of people like my really close friends and family, which they knew how bad my disease had gotten and they weren't going to cosign on my drinking. So they wouldn't drink around me. They wouldn't allow me to drink around them. And that gave me the accountability and love and support to just show up authentically as myself, find my footing. And so the places that I could walk in to and then those social circles where I didn't have to feel like I was so anxious to show up or lack of self-worth that I had to self-medicate before entering that room. If I had to do that, I was in the wrong room.
Cait [00:12:15] Yes, that's something that I've heard from so many people with. And I think it's just something you can take just even from a confidence aspect. If you have to alter yourself to be in a room full of people, it's probably not the right room. And that's incredible that you were able to to put that together and then to, like, move forward confidently.
Unidentified [00:13:46] You know, you.
Cait [00:13:47] Mention that most of the friends that you had or some of the friends that you had made were because of your children and your children's schedule, which I have heard is, you know, children take over your life and your whole world. I mean, I have a puppy and I know that not the same thing, but I can imagine that if it was a human being who could walk, talk and have opinions, it would take even more of my time, energy and life. And I know that I feel guilt when I'm too focused on myself. And I know that mom guilt is a thing. And and I want to know your opinion on a couple of things. One, do you think that mom guilt is a reason to keep mothers grabbing that glass of rosé to cope? And two, did you navigate any guilt? Not that they were warranted, but guilt for refocusing the time on yourself in your recovery. Did it ever take away from your child's plans or your routine that maybe you had that had to change? How did you navigate that?
Michelle [00:14:55] The guilt. The guilt was real. I think, you know, the best way I can look back in hindsight with the guilt is that, you know, I really feel there's that difference between guilt and shame. It's like I feel guilty for doing something right, but I feel shame because I'm owning the behavior as my identity. So I chose to say I am a bad mom, which is not true. And so I was shaming myself, which was making me drink more. So, Michelle, I'm going to punish you, but I'm going to punish you with more alcohol, which is what you're trying to abstain from. And so it's this insanity loop of self-sabotaging behavior that took me down faster than quicksand. So what I had to really learn is I am a really good mom who makes really bad decisions when she's under the influence. Right. So what led me to really drinking other than that, that mental health stuff that I was going through was being a new mom, losing my mom. I had to say, Michelle, alcohol is a coping tool. I feel guilty for not showing up in my children's lives the way my mom did, the way my mom's mom did. And this is a different generation. We are expected to not only take care of the children, do the sports, keep the house, keep our partner satisfied. We can do all of that. But if we want to be empowered and educated and work and have a powerful career, we don't get to pick and choose. At least I didn't. I had to do it all on top of building a career and my expectations for myself of what I wanted to be, having everything I'd ever wanted in my entire world and wanting to escape all of it in the same breath was that my bandwith wasn't big enough to satisfy, to complete, to obtain everything that I had envisioned for myself the way I had before kids. And so I didn't adjust that temperature on this expectation meter because I'm a perfectionist. Perfectionist, I am a people pleaser. And those are some core beliefs that I had to focus and work through as I was growing up. But I got too busy with life. And so alcohol was really, people say, self-medicating, quote unquote. So I just felt a lot of guilt for not showing up the way I really, truly thought in my fantasy world I would. And then when I look at social media and I look at so-and-so down the street, of course we look like we can hold it all together. And it's this Pinterest house and these home cooked organic meals working for the PTA. Right? Volunteering. And at the cost of what? Right. I was putting wine in my Yeti Cup just to make it through a PTA meeting, and I was not the only one doing this. I thought I was. But when we start sharing our story and start talking out loud, we realize there was a whole truckload of us that were doing this. And so all of those things were just they were compounding onto each other, which made me feel guilty that I just wasn't serving and showing up in a way I had created this idea in my head. And so that's where a lot of the guilt was, but really quickly turned into shame. And so I'm really sad. Instead of talking to somebody about how I feel like I'm failing and showing up in life, it's easier to just suppress with a glass of wine and shut down the noise in my head and just get up and do it all again the next day. Instead of working through it and setting boundaries and giving myself a kudos for some victories, for accomplishing some things in my life, it didn't have to. Perfect and it could be messy, but I wasn't giving myself that leeway. And so that's the. That would be my answer to a lot of how that guilt played into. The sobriety leading to sobriety. That was a lot of where that drinking was, kind of like the groundwork was laid. And then I think the second question you asked me was where the guilt came in with me shifting into this recovery mode and working towards building this way towards recovery and building this dream team of people. I spent so much time on my sobriety and a lot of my friends and family felt left out. They felt that I was choosing recovery over them the same way I was choosing, drinking and drugging over them. And it was a full time job to be in sobriety. It really is. Because if I could use my determination and my discipline and my hustle to obtain my drug, I had to work that hard to chase another 24 hours of sobriety and rebuild the pathways, rebuild my relationships with people. Learn to like myself in the mirror so that I could learn to love myself and show up in a way that felt good to me. And so there was so much inner work and I felt so guilty because now I'm sober minded, but I'm still feeling a little bit more absent from my life than I want to. Because I'm on these meetings, I am going to these classes, I'm doing service work. And so then I just felt horrible because I'm sober. I should be giving everybody everything. But I was building the foundation so I could be there forever. Yeah, but right now I just have to learn a little bit more about my disease, how it's affecting me. Learn to forgive myself, release the thing about shame and the idea of being perfect so I can find my footing to be fully present for the people who I love. And that takes time. And I'm so grateful that I had people in my life who honestly loved and stood by me. And the other people who didn't. Weren't my people.
Cait [00:20:56] Yeah, they weren't your people. I think it's really important for any mother or father or parent out there who is I just can see a parent. I would just imagine that I could see somebody going, I don't have enough time in my schedule right now to get sober. I don't have enough time to start my recovery. There is a we got a tournament on Wednesday and then we're going to the gym on Friday and a ballet and a piano lesson like I mean from a for a late 20 something I go would there was a wedding and there was a birthday party and all of that stuff is still true but surrounding a child. So it's really nice to hear that that guilt was present, but you moved through it. And that anybody can. I love that you said that there's a difference between guilt and shame. What I love about your point of view is you can ditch labels because so often having to put a label on yourself sends you into a spiral of guilt and shame. Alcoholic isn't for everyone. Addict isn't for everyone. You don't have to call yourself sober. You can say you're a non drinker. You don't have to be defined by these labels that you put on yourself. Has that has that how you've always seen it, or did you have a realization coming to the conclusion that it's okay to ditch labels?
Michelle [00:22:16] It wasn't the way I had always seen it. I was I was very jaded. Like society kind of paints this picture of what it looks like. There's this normal person or the spectrum goes all the way to alcoholic and alcoholics are a menace to society. They live under bridges when they're severe in their addiction, and they usually lose everything that they worked really hard for. And so it was just ingrained in me and working for the Department of Corrections for so long. The people that would come in there were 80% of them were either a drug related crime or they were under the influence when they were they had committed their crime. So I was seeing the very end of the spectrum again. Their alcoholism or their addiction had gotten them and landed them into a place where their freedom was taken away from them. They were separated from the people that they love. So it was that opposite end of the spectrum, and I was this quote unquote norm. Right. I can maintain, I can handle. I don't have to have it. I really I really stayed away from it until my thirties because I knew I had this predisposition to this genetic component of alcoholism. But I have the perfect example of what not to be. And so I really want to stay away from it. And I did. And so it was in the midst of trying to figure out how this thing had such a big hold on me was when I was really opening my eyes to I'm not just observing this through an inmate or a patient or a client or somebody that's dear to me. I am living this and I went from a normal person who could drink responsibly, whatever to that me. You see those on the bottles? And I would go from that. But I was starting to tip the scale into losing control, having natural consequences, but still feeling like I wasn't an alcoholic. Where this or that hasn't happened yet. So it's the case of the yet that I don't have a reason to stop, but once I do, I'll start taking a look at it, which then creates the physical dependance. I'm not dependent now. But I don't have a reason to stop. And society shows us that everybody does it until you have a reason why you don't. And when I would start saying I'm acting kind of silly by the fire on a camping trip. Oh, well, it's just because, you know, everybody was drinking or a Christmas party. Everyone kind of acts like this, right? So everybody was kind of making excuses for me and other people. So it took me a long time to figure out that there's 50 Shades of Gray to this alcohol use disorder spectrum, and we can take a look at our relationship at any time. And why are we waiting until things are that bad before we really address this thing that's not really adding value to your life, at least not mine, until it's too late. And then you just create these further rock bottoms. Well, this hasn't happened. Oh, I skated probation on this case. And so you just convinced yourself and dodged the bullets just to keep this thing in your life even longer. And that's where I created this idea that I don't know what people are talking about when they're talking about rock bottom. I guess we all create that bottom for ourselves, right? But I just kept exceeding every bottom I created for myself. I would say, okay, but I won't let this happen. You know, I have a headache. I called in sick to work. My husband's mad at me. Now I'm driving with the kids in the car, drinking. Now, I ended up in the hospital, but I didn't end up in jail. It's insanity of what we will create in our minds. And so I just finally got to the place that these labels are not serving me, and they're more confusing and condoning and giving me permission to continue to drink that. I am a person who cannot drink. I don't show up like myself. When I drink. I am drinking to avoid numb or not feel myself. This is a tool that I am using when I have access to other tools in my life and that I have, it's become unmanageable. And when I identify myself as an alcoholic from where I was when I started in those rooms using that that slogan that we use as, Hi, my name is Michelle and I'm an alcoholic, I would cringe when I would say that because I truly didn't believe it. And I've really shifted the way I define alcoholism for me personally, and I am a person who cannot drink. One drink will get me drunk and one is too many and a thousand is never enough. And when I say that to myself, that's how I define myself as an alcoholic, not somebody under a bridge, not somebody who steals from their family. I am a person who, for whatever reason, is unable to drink responsibly, and I've learned to be okay with that because it doesn't serve me anymore. And I love who I am sober. And so if I am, I consider myself an alcoholic. That keeps me safe. That reminds me that I can't pick up because I only have control over the first drink and anything else I'm powerless over. And I'm okay with that because I love living a sober life. And I would tell myself in early sobriety, What's all this about? Why is everybody happy to see the sunrise and happy to have a warm cup of coffee? They're crazy. And the gifts keep giving when you have not seen the sunrise and you had a cup of coffee to try to get sober, to go to work, not to enjoy and watch the sunrise, and just simply love your own company. I love my company now. I'm never alone when I'm by myself. That's what sobriety and alcoholism and identifying as this has been able to give me personally. And I'm okay with that. And I'm really proud of myself. And that's taken me a really long time to have the confidence and not think that that's conceited to say.
Cait [00:28:20] Yeah, no. Totally redefining how you classify yourself allows for the redefinition of so many other things. Like you said, that coffee that's redefined as joy, not sober juice, you know, trying to pull it together. Okay. I want to wrap up with you. This has been so enlightening. But before you go, I would like to know, to all the mothers out there who maybe are thinking about becoming an auto drinker, going into recovery or maybe they're new to being sober, or maybe there is a child out there who. Has a mom or a parent that's sober. What would your tip be for them in their sober toolkit.
Michelle [00:29:05] Who always remember you're not alone. Never alone. Addiction wants us to think that we are and we're not. Tell one person, let somebody know so that your secret is not just with you. Somebody that you feel safe with. Grab one book on addiction, on sober curiosity. Grab something you don't have to decide or define or stop drinking. Just start leaning in and getting curious about Why are you drinking? How is your relationship changed? Has it? What will it cost you if you don't take a break? Because when we take a break and do a challenge, it really shows us how invested and connected we are to that behavior. And if you're unable to keep your own promises to yourself, that's information. And I know that the one thing that was really helpful for me and hindsight is if I'm questioning my relationship with alcohol, I already know what the answer is. It's okay to not have a healthy relationship with alcohol and it's okay to be made fun of. And you have this peer pressure because the longer we ignored those whispers, they become screams and it gets really uncontrollable very fast. And so find communities of people, listen to books and podcasts and just open up your mind to what alcohol really does to you and your body and your spiritual health, your mental health and your emotional health and make your own decisions and don't be influenced by other people. Oh.
Cait [00:30:35] So good. I love that. Thank you so much for your wisdom and your time. And I really enjoyed this conversation.
Michelle [00:30:43] Thank you.
Cait [00:30:44] Happy Mother's Day. Yes.
Michelle [00:30:46] Thank you. I really appreciate it. I'm so happy to show up and represent my children. I'm a proud mom these days and they're proud of me. So, yes, happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.