The Wellness Esquire Podcast

How a Mom Could Choose Alcohol Over Her Kids - with Amy Guldner

• Ariella Cohen Coleman • Season 1 • Episode 14

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In this episode, I sit down with Amy Guldner, a former big-law litigator turned wellness coach. We dive into the silent struggle many high-achieving professionals face: using alcohol as "medicine" for stress. 

Amy shares her journey from being a "successful" attorney and mother to realizing that her nightly bottle of wine was actually fuel for a growing darkness and suicidal ideation.  

We explore the mindset shift that allowed her to stop wanting to drink, the flaws in how the legal industry discusses substance abuse, and why self-compassion is the ultimate tool for peak performance.


Amy Guldner is a former litigator with over two decades of experience in BigLaw and freelance legal work. After transforming her own relationship with alcohol and stress in 2020, she became a certified coach and speaker specializing in helping high-functioning professionals find freedom from alcohol. She is also a certified Pilates instructor and an advocate for mental health and authenticity within the legal profession.


RESOURCES MENTIONED:

This Naked Mind by Annie Grace

Between Breaths by Elizabeth Vargas

Dr. Andrew Huberman (Huberman Lab Podcast)

Kristin Neff (Self-Compassion research)

Montage Legal Group

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Host Info: Ariella Cohen Coleman

The Wellness Esquire: Creating a bold new path where wellbeing, happiness, and authenticity drive performance and success https://thewellnessesquire.com

Ariella Law, PC provides strategic legal support - from formation, contracts, and compliance to fractional general counsel - through project-based services and monthly subscriptions for entrepreneurs, growing companies, and mission-driven organizations. https://ariellaw.com/

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Speaker 1

Welcome to The Wellness Esquire Podcast. I'm Ariella, and I'm thrilled for you to listen to this conversation with Amy Guldner. Amy is a lawyer, speaker, and coach who helps people, especially high achievers and lawyers, rethink their relationship with alcohol through a lens that's grounded in well-being, science, and self-compassion rather than shame. Amy stopped drinking in July 2020 after years of trying to moderate. Amy and I talked about what it felt like for her to live in that exhausting loop of, I'm gonna change tomorrow, and then breaking that promise again and again. Amy also shared how the legal industry's educational programs around alcohol were counterproductive for her and actually helped her to convince herself that her relationship with alcohol wasn't a problem because she was still functioning. She didn't fit the examples the speakers in those programs described. She was working, parenting, and showing up. We talked a lot about the mindset shift that finally helped Amy change her relationship with alcohol, sparked by the book This Naked Mind. We dug into the limitations of the alcoholic or not framing, the stigma that keeps people stuck, and why approaching change with curiosity rather than judgment can be everything. Amy explains why progress is not a raise by a slip, why the goal isn't perfection, and why so many lawyers need a new way to think about habit change that aligns with what we now know about the brain. Amy and I also talk about what came next after she ended her relationship with alcohol, the toolbox she has built to cope with stress without alcohol, movement, sleep, morning light, boundaries with social media, authentic connection, mindfulness, antidepressants, and becoming a Pilates teacher. And she shares how this work has become far bigger than alcohol alone. It's about designing a life that supports presence, health, and the ability to show up as the person you actually want to be. This conversation is full of insight, compassion, and empowering reframes, and it's a reminder that you don't have to wait for rock bottom to choose something different, to choose to feel better and to choose what's better for you. If you've ever wondered whether the role alcohol plays in your life is truly serving you, or if you've felt the weight of perfectionism and stress in this profession, or any profession, I think you'll get a lot from Amy's story. I'm so grateful to Amy for sharing so openly, and also grateful for you for listening. Enjoy. Hello there! Hello, Ariella! It's wonderful to meet you. Right back at you. So I think we're okay to record just before we started a bunch of landscaping nearby. It just they decided now is a good time. And we are in Panama in a really great we're in the jungle with a beach like right at the bottom of the hill, and we're in this great house that has we can't really close windows, so there's nothing I can do about it. So if you can hear me fine and you don't hear the background, then I think we'll be fine.

Speaker

But I'm playing no recourse. So far, I can hear you perfectly. So no, and I can't hear any background sound either. Perfect. How are you today? I'm good. I'm so excited to be talking with you, and I've just loved getting to know you better through your podcast so far and on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1

So it's just such a treat to be here. Thank you. I'm I'm so excited to have this conversation. I also really appreciated your email an hour or so ago, making sure that I take my own advice because sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't, and my husband catches me. Um, but then there's the other times where you know it's great to have somebody else around to say, you know, all these things that you tell other people, you should do that for yourself. So thank you. And that is exactly, I mean, that's such a big part of why I decided to do this podcast, is I started one by one finding my you know lawyer well-being community. And my goodness, has that been helpful? And can you only imagine what our industry would be like if we all felt like everyone around us was someone we could turn to and say, This is what's going on? And they can say, Oh, I got you.

Speaker

Exactly.

Speaker 1

So we're gonna talk about all of it.

Speaker

Yes, one of many reasons I'm so grateful for you and your courage in starting this and letting people know about that community. It is what we're hardwired for and it's what we need for our profession.

What drew Amy to law: People-pleasing, achievement pressure, and indecisiveness

Speaker 1

It's really what we need. I, you know, at this point, it doesn't feel courageous for me at all because I've been talking about it for so long. But when I first started, I mean, really my what I would think of as my LinkedIn career, it started with a post about like, hey, I'm a lawyer, and by the way, I have this really complex uh health history. And you know, I I I posted because I just I felt like I wasn't me. I wasn't able to show up truly as me. And it's not like I was looking at the time to walk into every room and say, hi, by the way, before we start, let me tell you about me and my health. I just wanted to feel like I could talk about who I was and not feel like you know, I always had to kind of put a muzzle over myself if we ever got to anything that felt more personal. And for me, it was also just about like I had a lot of food-related issues, so I couldn't eat around people. Um, and anyways, but so when I posted, I was thinking, well, I'm I know I'm basically like the only lawyer out there who has health challenges, but maybe there's one other person who would benefit from hearing my story because while I always knew that I would do whatever I wanted to do, I'd find a way. It and I I really benefited also that I'm a twin and my sister has the same general health challenges, and she's a doctor. So we had each other to do these crazy things with really challenging bodies, but I thought it would have been nice to have a lawyer to talk to, to look to as some sort of example. And I thought, okay, I guess maybe I'll be that person in case someone out there needs it. So that's where it started. And I was, I'm sure you won't be surprised, flooded with messages from people saying, Me too. Here's my my unique version of your story. And here we are a number of years later, and finally doing doing the podcast to share all the stories out loud. So want to get into your story.

Speaker

Yes, I love just that permission that you continue to give people to be real and authentic and vulnerable and not to have to have everything together all the time. Because as we know, that pressure leads us to lots of dark, ugly places. So I'm so grateful for you. I know you are literally changing lives with the work that you're doing. So thank you, Ariella.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Well, you are too. So let's let's get into that. So I you stopped drinking in July 2020. Yes. Before we get into the details around that, just tell me what drew you to law school in the first place.

Speaker

I think it was a few different things. I would say a combination of people pleasing, a strong internal pressure to achieve, and quite frankly, indecisiveness. So when I was younger, I remember kicking around a variety of careers and always being told, oh no, you're too smart for that. And it seemed that either being a doctor or a lawyer were the only answers that would satisfy the adults around me. I was pretty comfortable from early on with public speaking and writing. And then when I went to high school, I did speech and debate, mock trial, all of that. And as my family would say, I argued quite a bit outside of those contexts as well. In fact, my parents have always said that any career other than law would have been a waste of all of the years they endured as I honed my arguing skills. Um, as for that internal pressure part, you know, I think from elementary school on, my identity, or at least a big chunk of it, was being a good student. And that's where I derived, you know, all my strokes. That's how I got myself worth. So I was always trying to be the best student. You know, I'd go all out to make sure I got the A plus, not the A minus. And then when I got into college, that pressure to achieve led me to thinking, well, maybe a bachelor's degree isn't enough. I need a professional degree. But that indecisiveness is probably the biggest thing that drew me to law school. I was one of those people that never could seem to figure out what I was supposed to do with my one precious life. I would be so envious of people who said, you know, oh, I know I've known since I was in junior high that I wanted to be a pharmacist, or I always said I was gonna be a lawyer or a doctor, whatever it would be. And I took, you know, every interest aptitude test they offered, high school, college, and nothing really seemed to guide me. And then when I was a senior and undergrad, I took the LSAT really on a whim because I did not know what I was gonna do with my life or my organizational psychology, organizational communication and psychology double major. I had a couple of aunts and uncles who went to college, but no one in my family had gone to graduate school or professional school. So I just decided, you know, I'm gonna apply to three top 25 law schools. And if I don't get in, I'm just gonna have to figure something else out because I wasn't that invested in going to law school that I was willing to take on a lot of debt and maybe not get into a really good school. But I did get accepted the University of Iowa, which is a great public law school in my home state. So I had in-state tuition, I got a great scholarship, and off I went, really just as a way of putting off the real world for a few more years and hopefully figuring out during that time what I was supposed to do.

Speaker 1

Okay, so tell me, wow, it has just started pouring like crazy. If you at any point have a hard time hearing me, just pause and let me know.

Speaker

I will let you know. I can hear the rain, but I can still hear you. Okay, great.

Speaker 1

Okay, so you get to law school. What next? Tell me, you know, in some reasonably sized nutshell, what did the legal your legal career start out as? And then how did it turn into what it is now?

unknown

Yeah.

Speaker

So I started working for a big law firm in Phoenix, Arizona, and I was there for about four years doing healthcare litigation, mostly medical malpractice defense, got fabulous litigation and trial experience, especially as a young associate at a big firm. And then when I was a fourth-year associate, my long-distance boyfriend and I got engaged. And we initially thought he would move to Arizona, but he got a dream offer in Southern California. My firm had a Southern California office and needed a mid-level associate in a slightly different practice area of product liability defense. So I made what I always say was the ultimate sacrifice of love, and I took a second bar exam, the California one no less. So then I was out there in California trying to do all the things to be on the partner track. But I knew that I wanted kids. And even though I saw other women manage both of those things, I feared I wouldn't be able to do partnership and motherhood. So when I was a seventh-year associate around the time that the firm then was putting people up for partner for the first time, I asked if I could be considered for the senior attorney position instead. That was a voted-on position like partnership, but without the prestige, without the pay, and without all the extra responsibilities that partnership had. The people that I talked to about it were very surprised, but they said, okay, if that's if that's what you want. Then when I returned from my first maternity leave, I asked for a reduced hour schedule, 1,500 billable hours, something like that. And they gave it to me. And then after the 2008 recession, my firstborn child was in kindergarten at that time. My baby was about three. The firm said, okay, you either need to go back to full-time or leave. And I decided to leave, and I went over to Morgan Lewis as a senior attorney in their labor and employment group on a reduced hour basis. I wasn't there for long when two of my prior colleagues started Montage Legal Group, which is a high-end freelance attorney network. I was really apprehensive about leaving law firm life and regular paychecks, benefits, and the like. But I was realizing that even my reduced hour gig still wasn't going to give me the flexibility and the breathing room that I wanted for my family, especially with my husband being a busy PR doctor who was also an Army Medical Corps reservist and had just done three deployments in about five years. So I joined this freelance attorney network and started doing piecemeal project-based work for other attorneys, other firms who either had too much work or perhaps they needed someone with a certain substantive area of expertise. It was a great move, gave me the flexibility that I wanted. I could pick and choose my projects and be as busy as I wanted to be. But my well-being did not dramatically improve. I had tried to leave those internal demons behind, but those little buggers just latched on even tighter. And then those next 10 years were probably some of the darkest of my life. Even though I'd been a lawyer for many years, I was one of those people who would always joke, like, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But as is the case for so many of us in this space, I think it was precisely that darkness and precisely those struggles that led me about five years ago at age 49 to pivot into the well-being space and become a speaker and coach.

Speaker 1

Okay, so first of all, I'm I'm so impressed that really fairly early on in your career, you even had the awareness of I don't think partner is right for me. And instead, I'm gonna ask for something that seems like not the success route that we tend to, you know, think about stereotypically. And not only that, but to say I want reduced hours.

Speaker

Yep.

Speaker 1

It's phenomenally brilliant, but unusual.

Speaker

I was so fortunate in that speaking to the community piece that we've already been talking about here today, we had a number of young women in my practice group in our Orange County office doing product liability work that were all sort of getting married and having babies at the same time. And so I had other people who were there talking about this reduced hour schedule. So we're like, oh, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna come back full-time? What are you gonna do? Oh, I think I'm gonna ask for reduced hours. And so we had that support. And in fact, it was two of those same women that went on to found Montage Legal Group that I ended up joining afterwards. So I don't know if I would have had the courage to do that if I didn't have those other women around me who were talking about wanting something different from this practice of law. Not that there was anything wrong with the women before us that went and did the partner route and did it well and had babies or had other life things, but we were there thinking that we wanted something a little bit different. So I owe so much of it to those fellow, fellow associates and young partners that I was with that kind of said, you know, maybe something a little bit different.

The progression of drinking: From social binge drinking to using wine as daily stress medicine

Speaker 1

Yeah. Okay, so tell me about your relationship with stress during that time and or if before, if it if you have, you know, your relationship with stress before law school, before your legal career, anything you want to share about that as well?

Reaching the breaking point: Suicidal ideation, the "mom guilt," and the realization that alcohol was no longer a friend

The 30-day experiment: Reading This Naked Mind* and the mindset shift from "can't drink" to "don't want to drink"

Speaker

Yeah, so the this I always was probably quite a stress case. I think I would just get wound up, you know, very tight, you know, like just very reactive, all of that, and would try to cope with it, you know, usually with maybe physical activity, you know, socializing, that type of thing. But alcohol entered that picture pretty early on. Um, I started, you know, as a social drinker, like many people do, but then the alcohol became part of that stress response. I don't know if you're familiar with Elizabeth Vargas. She's a TV journalist who wrote a book about her own struggles with alcohol. And she talked about her alcohol consumption as going from magic to medicine to misery. And that's a pretty good framework for my story with alcohol and stress as well, with thankfully for me, a miraculous mindset shift at the end. I actually didn't drink in high school, but then I more than made up for that with binge drinking in college and law school. I had so many bad choices, blackouts, horrific hangovers, but it seemed like most other people around me did as well. Now, maybe part of that was the fact that I was in the Midwest, which is a really heavy drinking area. And then when I started my legal career at that big firm in the mid-90s, I traded the cheap beer and the Long Island iced teas for wine. You know, first I was a white wine drinker and then red wine. And red wine was just that magical, you know, cure-all elixir. Whenever I had an inkling then that maybe I was consuming too much, probably in the throes of a hangover, I consoled myself, you know, I'm just a social drinker and I never drink alone like those alcoholics do. I didn't need alcohol at that time, but I thought it made life more fun, made me more fun, and helped me to connect with colleagues and clients. It quickly became part of my identity. But then I started picking wine not by the name or the pretty logo on the bottle, but on another part of the label on the alcohol content. The higher, the better. So then by the time I was in my late 30s, I had two preschool age kids, busy career as a civil litigator, still busy even on a reduced hour schedule. And then my husband had just been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. So it was around that time that I discovered the power of a glass of wine on a weekday evening to relax and unwind, to quiet the mind that was almost always thinking either about work or what a bad mom I was. And it helped me to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow or maybe earlier. I didn't know then that we are so much more likely to become addicted to alcohol when we're using it for stress relief than when we're drinking socially. And my brain did exactly what it was supposed to do. It developed a tolerance, and then I started to need more and more for the same effect. So it wasn't long before that glass of wine every night became at least a bottle almost every night, sometimes with margaritas before the wine. Like many other state bars, California has had mandatory continuing legal education on substance abuse for decades. And every time I would go to my required lecture, I would typically leave reassured that, well, I must not have a problem because I'm not as bad as those other people who were telling us their stories. And the alcohol wasn't talking back to me. It was not getting in trouble at school, and it was that kind of glue holding the proverbial shit show together. Then now Q the Misery music for this part of it. So a friend of mine once said, Alcohol is the great escape until it isn't. So by now I'm in my mid-40s and I've got a family member making a comment about my drinking after a long weekend together. He said something about, so is that your sleeping pill? Is that why is that what you use alcohol for at night? It was really more of an observation than a criticism, but it stuck with me and I started to question my consumption. But unfortunately, my answer for that question was just more drinking, so I could try to ignore it and I didn't make any changes. Again, I wasn't driving under the influence, showing up drunk for school events, I was getting my work done, and I knew so many people who were drinking at least as much, if not more, than I was. I knew about recommended daily maximums, but I kept trying to convince myself that those don't really apply to me because I'm six foot two, so I thought, well, I don't have to apply, I don't have to follow the women's guidelines. But at this point, I was pretty much needing wine every night, whether I was at home or on a trip. As a family, then we were going to national parks as often as possible. And after we'd hike and explore all day, my husband and kids would go to sleep and I'd sit up alone in the hotel room or the vacation rental and drink my bottle of wine. My darkness was really growing at that point, and I did start to struggle with suicidal ideation. I've got this nasty, nasty inner critic who was trying to convince me at that time that the world would be better off without me. I knew I did some good in the world, but I just couldn't seem to stop being this mom who yelled at her kids. And I sadly was not connecting the dots then with. My alcohol use. Like this survival tool couldn't possibly be the source of my struggles. But that close brush with suicidality did scare me. So I embarked on a self-improvement mission. I got back into therapy. And I didn't like being so dependent on alcohol. I thought setting a really bad example for my kids on how to cope. So I started at that point my five-year journey with attempts to moderate and get control. I never tried to stop drinking. Why would I do that? But I tried all the rules, you know, only two drinks per night, no drinking on weeknights, no drinking after a certain time, you name it, nothing stuck. I was really disciplined in other areas of my life, but I just couldn't seem to moderate my drinking. And then that cognitive dissonance was growing because I was continuing to do exactly what I was trying not to do. So I'd wake up in the middle of the night, upset I'd consumed a bottle again, vow that I wasn't going to drink or was going to drink less that next day, and then just break that promise to myself, come evening, wash, rinse, repeat over and over. So whether I was like beating myself up for drinking the night before, wondering why I am struggling to make this change, deciding what my attempted maximum would be for that night, or figuring out what I needed to get done before I could start drinking, I was thinking about alcohol in one way or another, almost all the time. It's like I was a prisoner in my own mind and it was just getting worse. Then I remembered many years before that, I was appearing in dependency court as a volunteer court-appointed special advocate for foster youth. And I saw this mom there whose kids had been removed by child protective services due to some substance abuse. And I remember thinking, gosh, I can't imagine how a mom could choose a substance over her children. But as my misery grew, I understood. Alcohol had become my best friend and it was always there for me to help me numb and escape. It was that quick, stress-relieving tool. And I feared that if push came to shove, I too might choose alcohol over my kids. So now we're at the COVID-19 lockdown, you know, mid-March 2020. I just started another attempt at moderation, probably a Lenten resolution to either not drink on weeknights or maybe only drink half a bottle on a weeknight. But whatever it was, I was failing miserably. So I started Googling, am I an alcoholic? And I bought a book called This Naked Mind. And I read the book, and then I was sold on trying this 30-day experiment, which is a challenge to give up alcohol for 30 days as an experiment of sorts, filled with daily emails and videos. That next 30 days there included my husband's birthday, my birthday, a family trip to Montana, and my niece's wedding. So I always say go bigger, go home. And it wasn't easy, but it was way easier than I ever anticipated, thanks to that mindset shift that I had experienced. Instead of telling myself I couldn't drink or I shouldn't drink, I no longer wanted to drink. My conscious mind knew for years that alcohol wasn't serving me anymore. But that book and that guided break convinced my subconscious mind of that. And then I was able to finally align with my behavior with what I wanted to do. So then as alcohol became small and irrelevant in my life, I had that inescapable tug on my heart to help others reframe the role of alcohol and theirs. You know, I didn't know how or when I would do that. And I received an email about a coaching certification program. I had never envisioned myself as a coach for anything beyond maybe my daughter's preschool T-ball team. But I'd also never felt such a strong tug to pursue something as this pull to help other people who were struggling like I was. So I thought, well, maybe I should become a therapist. Lord knows I've been a huge fan of therapy myself over the years. But then I realized that it was really coaches of all types that have had such a positive impact on me. And I decided that, you know, this is the route I'm gonna do. I'm I'm gonna get this coaching certification and just see where this leads. I always love that Ram Das quote that we're all just walking each other home. And then now, as a coach in this space, I've got that great fortune of accompanying other people on their journeys to reframe alcohol, free themselves of the chains of that, and just become the best versions of themselves. Wow.

Speaker 1

You mentioned you went to therapy. Sounds like quite a bit. What was different for you about your experience with therapy and the mindset shift you were able to get from this book? Were you talking about your relationship with alcohol in therapy? Were you what what was that experience for you?

Why therapy didn't originally address the alcohol: The "legal culture" of heavy drinking

Speaker

So I apologize. You did just kind of get a little bit wonky there on it. So I didn't hear the the full part of it there, but I heard the end there part of like therapy with alcohol. And I actually had not talked to any therapist about my alcohol consumption because it really for other reasons. Yes. Yep. Always kept like relationship with with you know with other people, but mostly about my short fuse. I felt like I was very reactive. Um, I say that I wanted um my dad's name is Larry, and he was very uh had a very short fuse himself, would fly off the handle. And I always thought, I don't want to be like that when I'm getting older. So when I had kids and started seeing that in myself, I went in and said, all right, I need a Larry ectomy here. You need to get this like out of my mind. So that was the main thing, thankfully. I had a wonderful therapist then that taught me something that I hadn't really thought about much before was that that our all of our greatest strengths are on the other side of the coin of what we perceive as our greatest weaknesses. So he said, if we get rid of these things that you're not liking about yourself, we're also gonna get rid of the best things about you. So he really started me down that journey of learning to embrace the shadow parts of myself, you know, the where I'm not enough, or I'm too much, all of that, and start accepting that and working with that. But again, the alcohol piece on that, I just never really even thought that it was potentially a problem because it was, it was the magic, it was the medicine, it was the thing that was holding everything together. And I was looking all around, especially in the legal profession, and we've got this pervasive expectation of heavy alcohol use. So I didn't think the alcohol was a problem. I thought it was a discipline problem for me, or that I was weak, that I was defective, that there was something that was wrong with me on that. But yet it didn't really enter my mind to talk to uh a therapist about it.

Speaker 1

So tell me about this mindset shift that the this book helped you kind of get to. It sounds like, relatively speaking, in the grand scheme of things, easily. How did that happen?

Speaker

Yeah, I've I think that, you know, our current society, you know, at least it's getting better now, but I think at the time it was really like this, you know, if you've got a problem with alcohol or whatever, you're you're an alcoholic and there's all this stigma that was with it. But the mindset shift was really about like moving the alcohol conversation from fixing people with a problem to one about wellness. And it was encouraging people to change their relationship with alcohol as soon as they realized it wasn't serving them rather than waiting for rock bottom. It was kind of like, you know, if if we, you know, found out today that we had stage one lung cancer. Can you imagine going to your doctor and saying, you know, I don't I don't want any treatment? Um, I'm just gonna wait until I'm stage four. But I realized from this book like that so often how we treat alcohol use disorder. And it just let me to step into like, you know, I don't, I don't have to have a problem, even though I I did. Um, I don't have to admit all of these things. I'm powerless and do all of that. I can just decide that I'm making this change for my own well-being. And I think in my wellness journey here with therapy and other things, I had started to embrace self-compassion. I had started to embrace mindfulness, meditation, other things. But I really wasn't aware, despite being married to an emergency room physician, of the science behind what alcohol does. So that book talked with me, of course, talked with everybody, not just me in the book, but it went through the science about how alcohol doesn't actually relax you. Yes, you get your 20 minutes of the buzz and the escape, but it actually increases anxiety, it increases depression, it makes you more reactive. Like it just went through all of these things. So I think that light bulb went off for me there. Maybe I'd had enough pain from trying to make this change and realizing that um it's like, why can't I do this thing? That finally like learning about the science. I was like, oh, okay, this maybe this isn't my friend. Maybe I really should try to do this 30-day experiment. Again, not to give up alcohol. It was just like, just get really curious about why you're using it, go through journal prompts, watch videos, because you know, I firmly believe, as I was kind of taught, I think, through the book and other programs, that everything we do, we are doing to feel a certain way. And it's never like the alcohol per se that we want. It's the feeling that we think the alcohol is going to provide. So it helped me just to really start to get in touch with how I was using alcohol. Was it because of beliefs I had about the substance itself? Was it beliefs about society? Do I need this to fit in? What are my friends, you know, are they going to stop inviting me to things, that type of thing? Or was it beliefs about myself? Like I'm not strong enough without this thing. I need it for whatever. So it just helped me to really kind of like pull back the curtain, the wizard of oz curtain, and see what really this like magical thing is back here that the alcohol industry is spending billions of dollars for us to think it's doing various things. And then we we had that legal uh profession as well that was really encouraging, I think in a lot of ways, some pretty heavy alcohol use. So it just kind of pulled all of that back, helped me to look at the substance for what it really was, and to start to get really curious about how I was using it so that I could then try to find some other tools for meeting those very legitimate human needs that I thought alcohol was helping with, which was actually just making them worse.

Speaker 1

So, what was that first month like for you? How did it feel?

Speaker

It was challenging, but because I'd already read the book and already had like all of that in my head, and then it was like these daily emails and videos and journal prompts. And I'll confess I'm one of those people that loves professional development, self-improvement, all of those kinds of books. But I would usually just skip over journaling questions at the end of a chapter. I think, oh, I'll come back and I'll do it at some other time. But I knew for this, I'm like, all right, this is, I think in my mind, maybe it was a I need to prove to myself that I can do this, otherwise, I'm gonna end up perhaps in rehab or I'm gonna have to go to AA or I'm gonna have to do something else. So I'm just I'm all in. I am going to answer all of these questions. I'm going to do the work. And I also, though, it was hard, but I also thought at the time, this is just 30 days. That I'm not saying I'm giving it up for the rest of my life. I'm just taking this 30-day break, and I've got all these ideas for other, you know, mocktails and things I can have at night instead. And I'm really just going to tune into the knowledge I have from here. I'm going to get curious about it, and I'm just going to do this for 30 days and see how I feel, and then go from there. But of course, and I totally anticipated that I would go back to drinking at the end of the 30 days because I still at that point was just thinking that I wanted to moderate. I did not think at all that I wanted to give it up. But the more I learned about alcohol, at least for me, now I'm not here to demonize alcohol by any means for other people, but I thought, why would I want to drink just a little bit of gasoline? Because that was that final thing for me of like, okay, alcohol is gasoline in a glass. It's ethanol, it's the same chemical composition as the ethanol that is sometimes put in our gasoline. And because I had made that mindset shift, I thought, why do I want just a little bit of that? I work so hard at my health and other aspects. Like I try to eat well, I try to exercise, I try to do all of these things. And so for me, I realized alcohol is just like erasing all of that other stuff that I'm doing. So as I went through and started to sleep better, started to feel better, started to feel a lot more calm, relaxed, even in stressful situations with my kids. I thought, you know, I don't, I don't think I want to go back to this. So I think initially I said, okay, now I'm gonna extend to 60 days, now 90 days, and then I did the okay, now I'm gonna try one year. Lord knows I've had enough to drink in my drinking career to get me through the rest of my life. But I'm gonna try one year. I'm gonna experience everything that life throws at me, all the birthdays, weddings, funerals, you name it. And at the end of that year, if I decide that I missed out, I want to go back to drinking, I can do that. But I'm just committing now to this one year. But I also was already starting to think that I wanted to get into the coaching and speaking on it as well. And yeah, I just I never went back. But there was five years of, all right, I'm not gonna drink today or I'm only gonna drink two glasses. So it was a rough, a rough five years of letting myself down every single night.

Speaker 1

Was there a point when you realized, oh, this has gotten easier?

Speaker

I think after probably the that first month actually was probably the trickiest because I just was trying to get out of those habits and patterns, like, okay, every day, whether it's you know, five o'clock, six o'clock, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, whatever it was, when I was done with my work for the day, it it was a habit. But it's also one of the most five most addictive substances on the planet. So it's not just a bad habit, but breaking that habit, um, that first month of, okay, now I'm having my diet ginger beer. That was that was my go-to drink of choice during those early times. And then I just I felt so much better that I realized that really helped me in terms of going forward after that 30 days. And then each time I had like a social thing, something that would come up that I hadn't done before, I had social support because I had started to connect with other people who had read this book that were doing group programs, online things, Facebook groups, all of that. And so I had that support of other people who also were questioning the role of alcohol, who were there to, you know, cheer me on, I could cheer them on. So I think it really was like that first month, that first 30 days, which was the roughest. And it had all of those things that I mentioned before that would have been big drinking things, you know, birthdays, trips, weddings, like all of that. But once I got through all of that, I think I had a lot more confidence. So sometimes people are so leery of making a change like around the holidays or some other time when they normally would drink. But I often say, you know, if you can get through those big times, you've got so much more confidence to go into the rest of what life might throw at you.

Speaker 1

Were you sharing with your family what you were experiencing at this point?

Speaker

I was. So my kids were both teenagers at this point. And and I had talked with my husband as well. And so he knew too that, you know, this is something that I was gonna do. And he was still, and he still is a drinker to this day. And so one of the nice things about this different mindset approach to alcohol, it's it's not something that, you know, I can't have or I shouldn't have. It's something I choose not to have. We still had alcohol in the house, and and he did not have near the issue with alcohol that I did. He could have one or two glasses of wine or whatever he was drinking, and and that would be it. I was the one who was constantly going back up to refill my glass with more and more and more. And even when I knew I should go to bed, I still wanted to have more. So he was able to do that, and I was able to be around that and not have it be any issues. And he was really supportive too, because I think he knew how much that cognitive dissonance was getting to me. So I often say that as of course, having you know, five or more servings of alcohol every night undoubtedly took a physical toll on me. But when you do that every single night, you don't wake up with the same hangover as if you're only doing that rarely. So I wasn't hung over every day. I think I just got used to sort of a kind of a blah feeling, a baseline, like this, this is just how I function. But it was that cognitive dissonance of like, I let myself down again. I said I wasn't gonna do this and I did it. And he realized the toll that that was taking on me, and then I would spiral into shame and all of that. So he was really supportive from the get-go of me making this change. As long as, as long as I wasn't gonna insist that he give up his alcohol, but he's actually gone now on his own and done some 30-day breaks, some 60-day breaks, all of that, and and actually changed his relationship quite a bit as well. But it's still part of his life, and that's totally fine for us. And my kids, I think it was interesting that they were so it was COVID lockdown time, and and they weren't at a point where like they were going to parties and things like that, but they were used to seeing mom have wine every night. And I was able to talk with them about the fact that I don't think this is this is helping me anymore, and so they could see that you could make this change at this point of in your life.

Amy’s current wellbeing toolkit: Movement, morning light, sleep hygiene, and Pilates

Speaker 1

So stress didn't just magically go away. So, what tools did you start to bring into your life to learn how to cope in a way that felt healthier for you?

Speaker

Yeah, so I really had to go back to those things that I had tried to use before that didn't seem to work so much when I was just continuing to drink every night. So for me, one of the biggest tools has always been movement, like actually getting out and moving my body. Um, we've always had dogs. So just getting more regular and consistent, even about walking the dog. So back before when I was drinking at the end of my workday, I might think to myself, oh, I should take the dogs for a walk, but there was the wine waiting to be uncorked, and then I'd start drinking that, watching TV, whatever, and they would not get their walks. But then I started to learn more about stress and all the things and realize how important that movement was. So I was able to really just start to make that more consistent, not something that was just sort of an optional thing. I also am a big fan of uh Dr. Huberman and all of the stuff we learned about light. So one of the tools, especially lately, it's easier this time of year to do, but I've really been trying to prioritize getting that pre-sunrise light in my eye. So that 30 minutes before sunrise, the twilight time, I try to get up so that I can go out and do that. And there's something about the red light, blue light, all those things with the hues that is just such a calming, grounding way for me to start my day. But of course, that has to start with prioritizing sleep. And that was something that obviously when I was drinking, I was not doing because I was so convinced that even though it was supposedly bad for sleep, I thought it was helping me sleep. The reality is it was just helping me to pass out. And I was still, you know, I was waking up often, you know, getting up to go to the bathroom, and then just all the yucky feeling from that. So I started to really be a lot more meticulous about getting to bed earlier, about keeping my phone in another area. So really prioritizing that sleep with it, which then helps me to get up earlier and to get that morning light in. I also started to get much more intentional about social connection. So, with drinking, of course, like I would have friends that I would, you know, go out with for happy hour or wine tasting or whatever it might be. But when I stopped drinking, I now had this space to start to connect with people more authentically, more vulnerably. I started having friends that I would have like regular coffee dates with or a regular walk with, a lunch date, something like that. So I was able to. Kind of prune my social life in some ways, like kind of get rid of like some of the stuff that really isn't serving me so well, and really, you know, focus even more on these relationships that are nurturing to me. And also that I can help these other people just by being there, by being fully present for them rather than thinking about what am I gonna order next? Am I gonna have a glass of water or order another glass of wine? So I could be really purposeful and intentional with that connection. So that's been another really big piece for me of having other people. Um you know, usually women, you know, usually moms, um, affirmations is another tool for me. I have I use that I am affirmations app. I am on an antidepressant. I tried that many, many years ago on a few different ones. That's also been a big part of my my well-being, uh, limiting social media consumption. So I love that app that's called Clear Space, where I have to put in my budget for like how many times I'm gonna check Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or any website, and just being really careful about what I'm consuming. So I think before I was just kind of going through the motions, um, you know, go through the day, that kind of wash, rinse, repeat, as I said, you know, drink the alcohol, go to bed. But now I'm can I'm mindful not just of like the physical food that I'm putting into my body, but like what am I consuming in terms of social media, in terms of podcast books. And I really am drawn more to the growth-oriented, you know, positivity stuff in podcast books and all of that. So yeah, those are my my well-being uh stress management tools today. I love it. Oh, and Pilates as well. Pilates, that's another big one. I never thought of myself as a group fitness person, but a couple years ago I decided to take a class. Friends had been raving about it, and I completely fell in love with it. Before I was such a like go hard, you know, maximum speed, maximum reps, and now I'm in this studio where it's all about mind, body, connection and breathing and precision and control and slowing things down, and also the social piece, the connection with it, the movement, all of it. And it just checked all the boxes for me, and I fell completely in love, decided, you know, this is the thing I'm gonna be doing, in addition to out walking the dogs, and loved it so much that I decided last year I would take another big leap and become a Pilates teacher. So I did our our local studio had a teacher training program, and I just finished that. In fact, I just started uh teaching at some of our studios now, just a total like fun thing, very different, something I never would have done before, but especially not uh in my drinking days. But that's been a really big part of it too.

Speaker 1

How cool. So you now coach others to help them with their relationship with alcohol, and I think just overall with supporting their well-being and and designing their lives to really support them and to, you know, so they can live the lives that they really want people to live. And you you mentioned somewhere uh that alcohol is really just one piece of the puzzle. And that's clear with everything you're talking about here, which is so much just about lifestyle and mindset and intention. So when you are working with people, what might that look like? Of course, everyone's different, but do you have a framework?

Helping others: How Amy coaches high-achievers to reframe their relationship with substances and self-criticism

Speaker

I think what you just said there, everyone's different. I I went into the coaching thinking that I would have like this rigid framework of taking people through things, but I quickly realized that some people come into the the coaching space having not done hardly anything in the area of personal growth. They haven't really done any mindfulness meditation. They've got a mean, nasty inner critic. There, there's zero self-compassion, they may or may not be moving their body. There's like a lot of things. So I had to I have to figure out with each individual client what that wellness uh routine looks like for them, where they're at with it, and figure also what it is that is causing them to consume alcohol. Is it because like they feel like they need it to fit in? Is it because they've got misguided ideas about what this substance is doing? Or are there deeper beliefs about themselves that they are trying to numb or escape with that? And of course, those are the stickiest ones. That's the most likely one that gets people into some type of a coaching, whether it's group or individual. But there are some people that it really is just a social piece, like they they don't even drink at all at home, but they just can't imagine like what their life would be like if they didn't drink in a social situation. Or for some people it might be vacation. Maybe they've uh they don't drink alcohol anywhere else, but they can't imagine like not drinking when they're on vacation. So I really do have to figure out with each individual client where they're at with it, what need they are outsourcing to alcohol, and then start to figure out how they can meet that need in a healthy way. But usually working so much too on the self-compassion piece, I think that is something that most of the people struggle with, especially lawyers. So we just have these, I think we're more even more prone than the regular population to having like a pretty mean, nasty inner critic. And maybe it goes with litigation too. I don't know. I always feel like I could put my put myself on the stand and cross-examine uh myself pretty brutally. But working, helping them to see that that mean, nasty inner critic that we thought was helping us is actually part of the problem. You know, so much of this uh journey, I think, is realizing that these things that we thought helped us early in life, and maybe they really did help us, are no longer serving us. So it's okay. Permission to evolve, permission to change, um, to leave those things behind. No, you're not going to be this, you know, sort of puddle on the floor that can't get out of bed and do anything if you're talking nicely to yourself like you would to a friend. You know, we we think we needed that inner critic to get us through law school, to get us through that really big case or trial, whatever it might be. But we know, of course, from Kristen Neff and all the self-compassion work that it actually doesn't work that way and that we're actually much more productive and everything is better when we can learn to talk to ourselves like we would a good friend.

Speaker 1

You mentioned earlier that the programs that you know we have across the industry that you're are meant to educate around alcohol and to help prevent people from getting into trouble, it was actually counterproductive for you. Are there other things that you've become aware of that maybe it's the language that we often use or other aspects that we sort of integrate into our conversations and sort of um you know our approach to talking about alcohol that really didn't serve you, maybe you're finding with with all of your work often doesn't serve a lot of other a lot of people, keeping in mind, again, we're all different, everybody benefits from different things, but other things that you feel like, oh man, that actually might have kept me in in that not so great relationship longer than it could have otherwise. And maybe if someone had used this kind of terminology with me instead or framed it differently, other people talking about it differently, maybe you would have understood what you needed sooner.

Speaker

I think the biggest part of that really was just the label of alcoholic. So we now know that you know, physicians are not using that term anymore. We've moved to alcohol use disorder. But this whole idea of you're either an alcoholic or you're not was what kept me drinking. I was fighting so hard to be the person that wasn't the alcoholic because, well, then that meant I couldn't drink anymore. And that seemed like just this sad, like miserable life where other people would be having fun and I wouldn't be. So that move to alcohol use disorder, that this is a spectrum. It is not like you are or you aren't, I think has been really helpful for me. And I think as a culture, as a society, we're getting better with that. We're we're not hearing that word alcoholic as much. But when we think about it, you know, we don't treat cigarettes that way. We don't treat cocaine that way. You know, if I said to you, are they all, you know, I think I'm gonna give up cocaine, you know, you wouldn't say to me, well, why? Like, are you a cocaineholic? Like, do you have a problem? But we do that about alcohol. It's this very addictive, toxic drug, but what we put it on its pedestal, we treat it differently. And, you know, you even just the fact that we say alcohol and drugs, like we act as if it's not a drug, but you know, just realizing that it is this addictive drug, that there is this spectrum. So I think if earlier on in my legal career going to these MCLEs about alcohol, if there'd been more of a talk about the fact that this is a spectrum, and also that you don't need to wait until you've hit rock bottom in order to make a change. You don't have to wait for that. As soon as you realize this thing isn't really serving me anymore, you could make that change. So I think that was like the biggest thing, that label and how we talked about alcohol use disorder, calling it with alcoholics.

Speaker 1

I I really resonate with the way I hear a lot of what you're you're talking about, the way you frame this, is you're really focused on optimizing your life and how you feel. And when you talk about, well, is it serving me? That's either a yes or a no question. And it doesn't have to be, well, it's destroying me, so I should stop. It could be, I just don't think it's helping me become the person I want to be or helping me get where I want to go. And I actually have a I frame food in that same kind of way. I have a very complex history with my health and food, and started thinking about it in a lot of the ways that people do now, um, but much sooner. And for me it was really challenging because it was attached to really serious health problems. But I now really think about it, I think about food as fuel. And I also really like to get a lot of joy out of it. And if I really am, you'll see me dancing while I eat. But I think of it very much about is this helping me feel good and perform for my day the way I want to perform? And if not, I don't want to eat it.

unknown

Right. Yep. Yep.

Speaker

I see that same thing with alcohol. And I think, you know, just to that point of optimizing and performance as well. So I think, you know, most people, of course, would agree that, you know, lawyers, we should not be drinking, you know, while we're working on cases, while we're writing deals, contracts, all of the things. But we are also supposed to have, as competent attorneys, we're supposed to have that mental and emotional and physical ability that's reasonably necessary for the performance of our services. We're learning now more and more about the science of alcohol and how it impacts us, not just in that moment, but in the hours later, the days later, the weeks later. And so I think that even though we're still functional, and I think that is what kept me drinking for so long, I was able to get up, I was able to go to work, I was able to do the things. But I think it's getting easier to make that argument that heavy or excessive consumption of alcohol, even during non-working hours, could impact competency. And I give people the example oftentimes with medicine. Like, would you want to go have surgery with a surgeon who is drinking at a risky or hazardous level, but only after surgery or only on the weekends? And then I challenge lawyers to think: should it be any different for the clients that are coming to us for legal advice and representation when their livelihoods, their families, or their freedom is on the line.

Speaker 1

So what if you had a magic wand and could change how the legal industry operates either directly or indirectly as it pertains to alcohol, what would you change?

Speaker

I'm this is not my area of expertise, first of all. I'm definitely more on that individual side rather than the organizational side. But what I have recommended to law firms and other organizations is just that, you know, taking away the glamour of alcohol. So when you're when you have a firm retreat, when you're having an event, do we need to have an open bar? Probably not. These are people, if they want to have a lot of alcohol, they could purchase the alcohol. So why don't we have like, you know, two drink tickets or make it a completely a cash bar, something like that. But making sure as well that we have non-alcoholic drinks that are available for people, whether it's non-alcoholic beer, having a signature mocktail, something in that moment of those events where there is this expectation of drinking, but also just giving more emphasis to situations and social events, activities that aren't centered around alcohol, whether it's going for a hike, whether it's, you know, going to, you know, a spa, massage or whatever it might be, like these other things that we can be doing that aren't just centered around alcohol. And just again, that encouraging people to not wait until they're at rock bottom to make a change. If you feel like you're drinking more than you want to, even if that's one drink a night, I think for so many people, they look at that number of like, well, how much am I drinking? But if you feel like, okay, I have to have a glass of wine every single night, like I could not function or I couldn't go to sleep or whatever it might be, that one glass might be too much for you. Or if I have to have alcohol every single weekend, you know, we start to look at the individual person and what they're needing, what their relationship with alcohol is, and just that encouragement to make that change before they hit rock bottom. And again, just coming back to optimizing what we need to do to be thriving in the profession.

Speaker 1

Do you think that you the mindset shift being so key for you helped you walk into rooms where not only were people drinking, but people who expected you to drink maybe were surprised that you weren't. And I'm I'm asking in particular because I don't drink. I drank a handful of times in college and in law school figured out that I wasn't only having a uh uh I was having more like an anaphylactic reaction, which made it really easy connected to my health challenges. So that made it extra easy to not explore more without because I didn't drink, I I had a lot of experiences with people really finding me to be a weirdo and saying things that wouldn't have um made me feel, well, maybe I'll just try it today, but just made me feel like, well, who do I talk to? Everyone's drinking here, and I'm clearly the oddball, especially when I was, you know, super junior or still in law school. And I really I stood out and I I managed it and I was okay with it, but I was also often just like not really sure what to do with it, but just felt uncomfortable. So I'm curious how you managed, especially you know, being in those rooms at the early stages when you changed your relationship with alcohol, and also again, and just curious about what and it feels to me like this mindset shift uh would allow you to walk in feeling like it was really an empowered decision as opposed to the alternative, which feels like shame. I really can't do it. And and I I do think, you know, I've heard from some people that having the label calling themselves, you know, I'm an alcoholic, helps them remember, no, I really can't do it because I'm you know, everyone's different. But um yeah, tell me about that.

Speaker

Yeah, I think and I and I don't fault at all people who who find that label is helpful. I think it has helped lots and lots of people. But when we know when we look at research and all of that, that it helps maybe eight to twelve percent of people. So we've got this big chunk of people who are drinking more than they want, and they find that that label is a problem. So by all means, if if having that label helps you to do what you want to do and people think it's helping, and maybe it's actually not as much as they think. Yes, yes. So I you you hit the nail right on the head there with the empowering. So that's what I love about the huge growth here in this alcohol-free, sober curious space of, you know, this isn't this isn't a choice we're making because we're weak and we're defective and we're powerless and other people can do this, but we can't. It's like, no, we we could drink, but we're choosing not to because we know what it does for us. We're empowered so oftentimes by our deeper why about what it is that we're wanting. So now when I go into social situations or whatever it is where there's gonna be other alcohol around, I can think about the fact that I am choosing presence. And that's become a really big thing for me as I get older, more intentional. I know life is short and fragile, and I want to be as present as I can for people. I want to remember the conversations that I have. And I know that even if I were just to have one drink, my brain is already going to start thinking about the second drink. And oh, am I gonna have it in another hour? Oh, when am I gonna do that? But being fully present allows me to connect with people, to have meaningful conversations, to be present for whatever they might be sharing, talking about. And, you know, there isn't like initially, it is awkward when you're used to doing something, no matter what it is. If you've got a deeply ingrained pattern, a groove in your brain, I always do this thing when I do blank. It does take a little bit of getting used to, but we can we know about neuroplasticity. Everybody, it's it's just an amazing thing. We can break connections, form new ones. So once people get through that initial awkwardness of that, they get used to like, okay, I'm gonna go and order a club soda lime. I'm still gonna maybe have like something in my hand, but I'm tuned into my deeper why and and it doesn't feel like something that I'm missing out on. So it's actually one of the tools that I work with people a lot on, that idea of FOMO. Oh, everybody else, they look like they're having so much fun, you know, cue up how many, you know, TV shows and movies and billboards and advertisements where it just looks so glorious, but it's really not. So we try to focus on the joy of missing out rather than the fear of missing out. So we've just talked about that as JOMO. So I go into those situations now, knowing that my sleep is not gonna be compromised tonight due to alcohol. Now it might be due to other things, but I know that I'm not already taking that hit to my sleep. I know I'm gonna remember these conversations. I'm gonna be able to wake up tomorrow morning before the sun and see the sunrise and take my dogs for a walk. And so I can tune into that deeper why and all of the things that I'm gaining from missing out rather than focusing on those things that I feel like, you know, that fear of missing out. And for so many people, you know, they've got this idea that alcohol is just all fun and all of that, even though they've had plenty of circumstances where alcohol wasn't fun. And in fact, by the time people come into some type of a coaching group, they usually have had some negative experiences, but yet the brain just wants to hold on to the positive ones. It doesn't remember all of the time. I mean, it does remember, but it doesn't focus on the fact that, no, yeah, remember you you said and did things that you were embarrassed about later or that you didn't even remember later, or you were on vacation and you had to cancel your morning excursion that you were gonna go do to go see or do this amazing thing because you were hungover, or you're praying to the porcelain God. So we have to oftentimes have to remember all of these other things that come with alcohol. But the main way that we do that is that sense of empowerment. And it also, you mentioned the shame piece of it there. I think what's so different about many of the programs that are out there now is approaching this from a lens of curiosity rather than judgment. So if you are trying to make a change, whether you're cutting back or stopping, and you have a slip, you know, we're we're so big on the words that we use for it. We don't want to talk about it as a relapse or a failure or now you're back to ground zero. It's something that we learn from. Um, the the book that I read by Annie Grace's Naked Mind, she talks about it as a data point of helping us to figure out what I can learn from that thing rather than beating ourselves up because we know that that isn't going to lead us to where we want to go. But we can start to just rewind the tape a bit and figure out what happened there, what was going on, what was I feeling, what emotions were present, what did I think the alcohol was going to do so that going forward we can make some tweaks and changes from it. So we really just try to make it as positive as possible. Now, of course, for some people. You know, there definitely are people that you know any amount of alcohol is going to be a really big problem. But that's actually only about 10% of people who drink excessively that have that physiological addiction to alcohol where they need to drink, then it's going to be a withdrawal and the whole thing. Um, 90% of people who drink um too much are not physiologically addicted. So they are able to take it with that approach of, all right, we're just gonna learn from this. If we have a drink, we're going to embrace it with curiosity, not beat ourselves up. And then just that focus on progress over perfection. And I think the changing relationship with alcohol is one that is really tied to consecutive days and streaks, probably even more than other changes we try to make, whether, you know, we're we're still fairly early in the new year here. We're we're in February now. But, you know, we we might say, all right, I'm gonna try to exercise, you know, so many days a week, or I'm gonna try to, you know, meditate, whatever it might be. There's something about alcohol in particular that people feel like, okay, if they said they weren't gonna drink and they went to a party or they had a rough day from work, whatever it might be, and they had a drink, they just like, ugh, now I'm back to zero. I was at 30 days, or I was at seven, whatever it might be, and now I have to start over. We really try to change that mindset about it. Like, no, you you didn't lose those days that you were alcohol free or those days that you stayed within the amount that you wanted. Those are still there. They're not wiped away by one thing. You're just continuing to build on it. So we get people talking more like, yeah, I've I've been alcohol free for 90 days with two data points or something like that, if they want to say it that way. But we're trying to really emphasize that progress is still there rather than like it's, you know, you're only as good as your number of consecutive days without alcohol. And I think that speaks to so much of other habit change as well, of that focus on progress, not perfection. But as you know, and as our good friend Jordana Confina knows too, that perfectionism thing slips us up so much.

unknown

Yes.

Speaker 1

Well, it's fascinating. As you were speaking, this last piece around bringing the progress over perfection piece, and I started to take in what you were saying and recognize we've we've learned so there's so much science now around how our brains learn and process and and learn from mistakes, and we actually learn better from mistakes than when we don't make them. That's been quite something for me to understand. And yet, and I am not very, you know, much in this space, so I'm learning entirely from you. Um, you know, and and my my knowledge and awareness around a lot of how we talk about alcohol is I don't have, you know, my depth of knowledge is not is not very deep. But what I have had the awareness of is what I mentioned before of, you know, well, I've heard people talk about, you know, it's I it's important for me to call myself this because to understand that it's it's part of my identity. And and hearing you talk about all of this is helping me understand how much we're not applying what we know about how the brain learns and um changes course. We're not applying it to this area that we know we have so much struggle with in our industry in particular. And we've got a lot of work to do to bring all these things together. We can't be talking about, like, hey, it seems like alcohol is an issue in the industry. Let's keep addressing it the way we used to. Wait, that doesn't seem to work very well.

Speaker

But that's and that's what I've been trying to do. I think that's what that tug on my heart was. I didn't realize even just the whole like law school journey and the indecision and you know, doing all the things, the shoulds. Oh, I should do this, I should do that, this is what I should be doing. Changing my relationship with alcohol was like this domino that just let all of these other things start to fall into place because I think I started drinking too, out of like, well, this is this is how I connect with people, this is what other people are doing, this is fun. You know, the the first time like I had alcohol in a social setting, it wasn't the alcohol itself that really had a big impact on me, but the social connection and the way people looked at me was so intoxicating. It was like, yes, like I want more of that because I was that girl who didn't drink in high school, and then I went to my high school graduation party with people, and it was like, you know, Amy's drinking, oh my gosh. And it was like this, this just the social thing that I really felt from that was quite powerful. So just yeah, yeah, there's there's so many things that we're learning with the science, including too, not just the progress of a perfection, but celebrating all of the small, what seem like small victories. You know, there's great neuroscience on that as well. But I think especially we as lawyers tend to beat ourselves up, we're really critical, like, oh, big whoop. I didn't drink today, I shouldn't have been drinking this whole year. And so we tend to discredit those things, but we know that if we can celebrate that and be like, yeah, I didn't do that, like that's awesome. That sets us in motion for more success with that. So I just love that we're learning more all the time about habit change, the science of it, and bringing it into these different areas. And I think the legal profession is catching on gradually. Um, you know, we we've known this alcohol thing is a really big problem for quite a long time. And even after the big ABA report in 2016, you know, it's still continued to be a problem, but definitely seeing a lot of progress with bar associations, state bars, law firms, all of that, being open to these other messages and being open to having people like me come in and speak and share a story of like, look, you don't have to hit a rock bottom. You can be really functional and still decide that you want to make a change.

Speaker 1

Amazing. Anything else we haven't covered that you want to share?

Speaker

I don't think so. We this this has just been a great conversation. I'm so excited that you were interested in talking about this. I think it is such a big piece of lawyer wellness that has typically not been addressed as much as other things that aren't as emotionally uh later. You know, we talk about self-compassion and mindfulness and movement and all of those things. They don't tend to have all the shame and all of the other stuff going with it with as with alcohol. But I think for lots of people, when they do make that change with alcohol, that then opens up all of these other things that they're trying to do to be the better attorney, the better partner, the better parent, whatever, better community member that they are trying to be.

Speaker 1

Yes to all of that. Thank you so much. Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you. Thanks for listening. I hope you got a ton of value from this conversation, and that you will check out the links in the description to learn more about the guest and the wellness esquire. And I hope you take even just one minute to do something for yourself today. Maybe right now. Drink more water, say no, call a friend, do something that makes you happy, have a 30 second dance party, find something to make you laugh. Also, be sure to subscribe and send the podcast to a colleague. And if we're not yet connected on LinkedIn, please fix that. I'd love to know you. See ya next time.

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Ariella Cohen Coleman

Host
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Talya Drissman Woolf

Producer