Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about
Speaker 1: your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine,
Speaker 1: but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it.
Speaker 1: That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you
Speaker 1: better understand what's going on inside your body so that
Speaker 1: you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional
Speaker 1: health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to
Speaker 1: uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up
Speaker 1: with Doctyesmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together we will
Speaker 1: help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like
Speaker 1: why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight?
Speaker 1: Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients?
Speaker 1: Because when you understand your body better, you can transform
Speaker 1: your health. Visit v three sixty dot health or check
Speaker 1: out the show notes for more. My sister in law, Susannah,
Speaker 1: and I have been through a lot. I first met
Speaker 1: sus when I was twenty s and she was twenty three.
Speaker 1: So when Tim and I first started dating, and we
Speaker 1: had so much fun together, we'd often end up in
Speaker 1: the clubs partying together.
Speaker 2: Tim's actually one of six.
Speaker 1: So there's five boys and one girl, Sus, and so
Speaker 1: often the brothers, some of the brothers will come and
Speaker 1: join us at the clubs. I guess that's what you
Speaker 1: do in your twenties, you're just out having a fun time.
Speaker 2: It was awesome. I've got such great memories.
Speaker 1: Then, as the years progress, marriages, babies, you know, we're
Speaker 1: all growing up, settling down.
Speaker 2: And it was around that time that I just started.
Speaker 1: To notice a few cracks with Sus. The family barbecues,
Speaker 1: we'd all be winding down towards the end of the barbecue,
Speaker 1: but she seemed to be ramping up, always with a
Speaker 1: drink in hand. I also noticed some changes in her personality.
Speaker 1: Sometimes she'd be really shut down and quiet, and then
Speaker 1: other times she'd be so talkative and chatty, but then
Speaker 1: get argumentative and then quite emotional. And it was around
Speaker 1: that time we all started to worry. Actually, remember this
Speaker 1: one event, Sus was very very upset, and so she
Speaker 1: and I kind of broke away from the group and
Speaker 1: we sat on the couch together and we spoke and
Speaker 1: cried for hours, and I felt like I had finally
Speaker 1: gotten through to her. And so the next day I
Speaker 1: called her to check in and see how she was doing,
Speaker 1: and it became really clear to me that she basically
Speaker 1: didn't even remember the conversation that we'd had the night before.
Speaker 1: I just felt like I could not get through to
Speaker 1: her after that, so I really stepped back. Tim, his
Speaker 1: dad and his brothers had I guess what you'd call
Speaker 1: an intervention with her that didn't seem to go well.
Speaker 1: So I really felt like I had lost my sister
Speaker 1: in law. This is healthy her with Amelia Phillips. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is going to be one of the most personal
Speaker 1: ones that I've ever done. In a minute, I'm going
Speaker 1: to introduce you to my beautiful sister in law, Susanna Myerson,
Speaker 1: who is one of the bravest, strongest people I know.
Speaker 1: I lost Susanna for about two or three years to alcohol.
Speaker 1: We hardly spoke, I actively avoided her, and she was
Speaker 1: the source of so much worry for me, for Tim,
Speaker 1: and of course for the family. But to our incredible
Speaker 1: surprise and joy, Susannah found.
Speaker 2: Her way back to us.
Speaker 1: She was able to find sobriety, and she has bravely
Speaker 1: stepped forward to tell her story and now helps others
Speaker 1: who have recognized that alcohol is no longer serving them.
Speaker 1: Susannah is an executive producer based in Sydney. She's now
Speaker 1: nearly seven years sober. That just blows my mind. She
Speaker 1: now runs the Sober Curious Reset, which is a four
Speaker 1: week guided online program for women who are questioning their
Speaker 1: relationship with alcohol. And look, it's not about needing a
Speaker 1: label or waiting until you've hit bottom. It's really a
Speaker 1: welcoming peer led space where women can get honest, feel
Speaker 1: less alone, get curious and really explore what's underneath. Because,
Speaker 1: as Susannah discovered, giving up alcohol wasn't the end of
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 2: It was actually just the beginning. Sues, Welcome to healthy Hair.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks, Phil's wow, what an intro. Thank you for
Speaker 3: having me.
Speaker 2: We've been through a lot, haven't we.
Speaker 3: We sure have. Yeah, I'm lucky to have you as
Speaker 3: one of my sills.
Speaker 1: Oh Darling, Well, let's start with your story, because you know,
Speaker 1: from the outside, most people would never have known that
Speaker 1: you had an issue with alcohol. You were just kind
Speaker 1: of fun, Sues. When did things start to change for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I don't think that there was one definitive moment where
Speaker 4: everything changed.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like a switch flipped.
Speaker 4: It was definitely a slow build up over years, and
Speaker 4: I think for a long time I didn't even see
Speaker 4: it as a problem either, because in my world it wasn't.
Speaker 4: I worked in advertising for every twenty years, and back
Speaker 4: then drinking.
Speaker 3: Was just part of the job.
Speaker 4: So I have, yeah, client lunches nearly every day that
Speaker 4: turn into dinners wrap drinks after every single shoot. It
Speaker 4: was all part of my professional identity and I was
Speaker 4: the fun series, and to be fair, I was having
Speaker 4: a great time doing it.
Speaker 3: I loved the work. I loved the pace and.
Speaker 4: Traveling the world filming commercials, and the drinking kept.
Speaker 3: Pace with every bit of that.
Speaker 4: So success in alcohol was so intertwined that I generally
Speaker 4: couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. But gradually,
Speaker 4: over time the alcohol started working against me. And I
Speaker 4: think what I realized is underneath all that, there were
Speaker 4: many things happening in my own life that I didn't
Speaker 4: really process at the time. I got married quite young
Speaker 4: at twenty four, and as you know, and I was
Speaker 4: running highly successful, fast pace production, coming with lots of
Speaker 4: travel and working very hard, and drinking was all intertwined
Speaker 4: in that. And I've got so much gratitude for that marriage.
Speaker 4: We've got a beautiful daughter together and we co parent
Speaker 4: really well, which I'm so grateful for. But after that
Speaker 4: marriage ended, I just I didn't know how to cope.
Speaker 4: I was running a business. I had to keep showing
Speaker 4: up and keep performing, and we would split the time
Speaker 4: with our daughter one week on, one week off, and
Speaker 4: the week said I didn't have my daughter. I felt
Speaker 4: extremely alone and the house was just so quiet. I
Speaker 4: just don't think a lot of people talk about that enough,
Speaker 4: that early separation period, when you don't have your children.
Speaker 4: You know, it's not natural for a mother to not
Speaker 4: have her child with her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, must feel like a real lurch where kind of
Speaker 1: you know, when you're with your kids, you're just so
Speaker 1: in the moment and so involved. I can't imagine what
Speaker 1: it would be like to just it's almost like having
Speaker 1: the rug pulled out from under you for those weeks.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's so interesting.
Speaker 4: It's like you drop her off to a dad's house
Speaker 4: and then you go back home to your house and
Speaker 4: it's empty. You know, you see her toys in her bedroom,
Speaker 4: her bedroom's empty, and it's just it's heart wrenching. And
Speaker 4: I think those weeks that I didn't have her. I
Speaker 4: drank more, and I think that's because I hadn't worked.
Speaker 3: Through anything from that time in my life.
Speaker 4: I hadn't processed the end of the marriage, the guilt,
Speaker 4: the grief, the shame around the fact that the marriage
Speaker 4: didn't work out. I just drank through it, and alcohol
Speaker 4: was just doing a job. It was managing the pain
Speaker 4: that had nowhere to go, really, and as you know,
Speaker 4: the family staged an intervention. It was around this time,
Speaker 4: and you know, my dad and two of my brothers,
Speaker 4: including Tim, your hubby, were waiting for me, which I
Speaker 4: thought was going to be a normal dinner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1: I remember the lead up to it, like there was
Speaker 1: a lot of talk between all of them, how are
Speaker 1: we going to do this? I was like, guys, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to get involved, but I was glad they
Speaker 1: were doing something. But I did have a few red
Speaker 1: flags about it. But I'm just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I've just got to let them do it the way
Speaker 1: they want to do it.
Speaker 2: And so I remember the day that it happened. Tell
Speaker 2: us about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to be honest, I was quite furious about it.
Speaker 4: I told myself, they didn't understand that what was really
Speaker 4: going on underneath.
Speaker 1: They probably didn't know what was going on underneath. They
Speaker 1: just saw what was going on on the outside and
Speaker 1: looked destructive totally.
Speaker 3: They're just looking at what's on the outside.
Speaker 4: But also I didn't really know what was going on
Speaker 4: underneath either at that time. I was blocking it and
Speaker 4: that was the problem. And I guess from that intervention,
Speaker 4: I didn't stop. I went the other way and I drank.
Speaker 1: Harder as a bit of an fu or just it
Speaker 1: was like an extra layer of guilt, shame, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it. It was an extra kind of
Speaker 1: emotional turmoil. Why did you drink more?
Speaker 4: At that point, I think that there was a bit
Speaker 4: of anger that they didn't get what was really going
Speaker 4: on and really asked the question like why.
Speaker 3: Are you drinking?
Speaker 4: Like I guess, I was just a bit hurt bien
Speaker 4: and felt like they didn't understand.
Speaker 3: Obviously, no one in our family had been divorced before
Speaker 3: my daughter was quite young. It was a very hard time.
Speaker 3: I was running a business.
Speaker 4: It was just a really hard time for me, and
Speaker 4: I didn't I felt like it was more an attack
Speaker 4: on my behavior than trying to actually work out what's
Speaker 4: going on underneath.
Speaker 1: And so what happened after that and how long after
Speaker 1: the intervention did you hit a rock bottom or it
Speaker 1: took us through from that point to then when you
Speaker 1: did decide to do something.
Speaker 4: I just kept drinking, and then obviously I could feel
Speaker 4: more people pulling away. So after the intervention, there was
Speaker 4: you know, less talk with my brothers, with my dad
Speaker 4: and yourself. You know, I could feel that you guys
Speaker 4: were disappointed that I maybe hadn't listened as you had thought,
Speaker 4: But I was just still trying to cope with what
Speaker 4: I was going through. So there was no dramatic moment,
Speaker 4: no ambulance, no accident.
Speaker 3: It was just me one morning.
Speaker 4: Laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, just knowing with
Speaker 4: absolute certainty, if I didn't stop drinking, I will continue
Speaker 4: to keep pushing people away, and I was going to
Speaker 4: lose the one person I love the.
Speaker 2: Most, your partner, Sam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I could feel Sam pulling away.
Speaker 4: So on the morning of September twenty three, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: I woke up and just said enough.
Speaker 3: And that was day one. I haven't had a drink
Speaker 3: since Sam, who is now my husband. I could feel
Speaker 3: he had been pulling away.
Speaker 2: Really, is that right? You felt like you were going
Speaker 2: to lose that relationship.
Speaker 4: I could feel that it was causing problems to us
Speaker 4: our relationship, and I didn't know how to stop it.
Speaker 3: So I did the only thing I thought I could do, and.
Speaker 4: I actually ended the relationship, even though I still loved him,
Speaker 4: because I didn't.
Speaker 3: Want to hurt him anymore.
Speaker 4: As much as it broke me to break up with him,
Speaker 4: I had to let him go. That was one of
Speaker 4: the hardest things I've done. And then he met someone else,
Speaker 4: and watching that play out on social media, seeing him happy,
Speaker 4: seeing him move on, sent me to a place I'd
Speaker 4: never been before. I stopped caring about anything. I drank
Speaker 4: more than I ever had, But for some reason, Sam
Speaker 4: came back and I knew I.
Speaker 3: Had only one last chance with Sam.
Speaker 4: And there was no big conversation, no ultimatum, just the
Speaker 4: quiet understanding between two people who really love each other
Speaker 4: that something has to change, something has to give, and
Speaker 4: it had to be for me because that's the only
Speaker 4: way someone can get sober. I think, is if it's
Speaker 4: for them, you can't do it for anyone else.
Speaker 3: And I finally came to.
Speaker 4: That realization because I'd realized that the version of the
Speaker 4: person I've been for the last twenty years and performing
Speaker 4: and the mask that I was wearing just wasn't working
Speaker 4: anymore for me.
Speaker 3: It had worked so far against me. Now I push
Speaker 3: my family away, my.
Speaker 4: Marriage had ended, the relationship that I was in at
Speaker 4: the time was about to end, and I knew that
Speaker 4: this was my last chance. So it was literally just
Speaker 4: that one morning I woke up and just my body
Speaker 4: couldn't handle it anymore, and that was it.
Speaker 2: What did you do from then?
Speaker 3: Well, I waited for a few weeks to tell.
Speaker 4: Anyone because I knew that no one would believe me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't have.
Speaker 1: If you'd have called me that day and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I've just decided to give up alcohol, I.
Speaker 2: Would have said up the phone and gone, oh here
Speaker 2: she goes, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Exactly, And so I waited a few weeks to tell anyone.
Speaker 3: Sam was very supportive during.
Speaker 2: That time, So you did tell him.
Speaker 4: I told Sam, obviously because we're living together, but no
Speaker 4: one else. But I do remember telling Dad the moment
Speaker 4: I drove to his office in Piermont. I think I
Speaker 4: was a few weeks Ober, probably four weeks, and I
Speaker 4: sat down in his office and I saidn't want to
Speaker 4: tell you something.
Speaker 3: I know I've got a drinking problem and I'm going
Speaker 3: to get help.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, And we just hugged and cried and he
Speaker 4: didn't question it, he could feel my pain, he didn't flinch,
Speaker 4: he was just proud and he knew I'd come to
Speaker 4: a breaking point. And being completely seen by him and
Speaker 4: still completely loved that gave me so much strength to
Speaker 4: keep going because I could tell me.
Speaker 1: Oh, sus and that's just what you needed and probably
Speaker 1: what you felt like you hadn't had up until that point.
Speaker 1: I can remember you trying to come and stay with
Speaker 1: us because we'd recently moved up to the Northern Beaches
Speaker 1: in Avalon, and you had tried a couple of times,
Speaker 1: Tim and said, oh, Sue's wants to come up for
Speaker 1: the weekend, and I'd said, sorry, Tim, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to have the house full of alcohol.
Speaker 1: And I think I pushed back a couple of times.
Speaker 1: We would you know, I had four young kids at
Speaker 1: that point in time. I just couldn't deal it. But
Speaker 1: then finally you did come up for the weekend, and
Speaker 1: I will never forget you coming in. And you know,
Speaker 1: we all cried, and you said that you'd been sober
Speaker 1: I think at that point for about a couple of
Speaker 1: months now, and I just remember us crying and me
Speaker 1: just being so shocked. I had no idea that you'd
Speaker 1: gone through that whole journey and that you'd done it,
Speaker 1: you know, relatively alone as well.
Speaker 2: What was it like telling us?
Speaker 4: I remember driving up to avalon that day and my
Speaker 4: heart absolutely pounding the whole way there. I was thinking,
Speaker 4: are they even going to believe me? I knew, my
Speaker 4: heart I was going to continue to be sober. I
Speaker 4: just knew it, but I was worried you'd think that
Speaker 4: I'd go back to my old ways. I knew that
Speaker 4: you were skeptical. I think it was six weeks. It
Speaker 4: was six weeks sober at that point.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: Six weeks to me felt like everything and nothing at
Speaker 4: the same time. So you know, I wasn't just hoping
Speaker 4: you'd believe me when I told you. I was hoping
Speaker 4: I could get close to you again.
Speaker 1: Honestly, it was like a brick wall fell down, and
Speaker 1: energetically you were already completely different.
Speaker 2: It's hard to describe it.
Speaker 1: It was literally like a wall, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was a wall that I had put up,
Speaker 1: or a war that you had put up, But it
Speaker 1: was like an instantaneously I had old suits back. It
Speaker 1: was just such a beautiful moment, and I was so
Speaker 1: incredibly proud because I knew how hard that would have
Speaker 1: been to go for that long after what you've been through,
Speaker 1: and I know you're such a strong, hum human being,
Speaker 1: but to actually see that you were able to do it,
Speaker 1: it was an insanely proud moment. But what I have
Speaker 1: heard you say Soue since then is that you thought
Speaker 1: that giving up was going to be the hard part,
Speaker 1: but actually it was afterwards.
Speaker 2: Can you explain what you mean by that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, don't get me wrong, giving up our cohol is
Speaker 4: definitely hard, but I think what nobody tells you is
Speaker 4: that stopping is just the beginning, and that's where the
Speaker 4: real work begins.
Speaker 3: As you know, I didn't have a traumatic upbringing at all.
Speaker 2: I don't know someone could argue fives might.
Speaker 3: Be pretty exactly.
Speaker 2: You've seen a bit in your some of the family stories.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I feel like we need to get
Speaker 1: you on to just talk through some of the family stories.
Speaker 1: But yes, definitely a lot of love.
Speaker 4: Very love and caring parents, a beautiful family unit, a
Speaker 4: beautiful home. But there were things along the way as
Speaker 4: I got older that I think I needed to address
Speaker 4: once so I got sober.
Speaker 3: I think the nine year marriage ending.
Speaker 4: The grief, the sad, the feeling that I'd failed something.
Speaker 4: I had to go back and relive all of that
Speaker 4: sober without anything to take the edge off. And then
Speaker 4: there was something else. When I was twenty six, I
Speaker 4: had a miscarriage. I had a DNC, and I remember
Speaker 4: being in the hospital before the general anesthetic and when
Speaker 4: I woke up, they said it all went well, get
Speaker 4: on with life, and I did. I got on with life.
Speaker 4: But for a long time, I didn't get a period.
Speaker 4: So I went and had some tests and we couldn't
Speaker 4: figure out why and ended up taking a long time.
Speaker 4: But after a year of not having a period and
Speaker 4: getting all these tests done, I was diagnosed with stage
Speaker 4: three Asherman syndrome, which is a severe case of scarring
Speaker 4: in the uterus caused by a DNC. Oh wow, And
Speaker 4: in my case, the scarring was so extensive that I'd
Speaker 4: stopped getting a period altogether. And I remember I was
Speaker 4: twenty six at the time. My gynecologe is sitting across
Speaker 4: from me and saying, Susanna, you may never have children.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, how confronting.
Speaker 4: I'd never been maternal up until that point, was so
Speaker 4: career driven, so focused, so to hear that was the
Speaker 4: biggest shock of my life. And the guilt that I
Speaker 4: felt around that that I had caused that from my body,
Speaker 4: you know, that the miscarriage had caused that.
Speaker 3: You know, there was so much guilt around that.
Speaker 4: And the moment someone tells you that you may never
Speaker 4: have children, that maternal instinct changes instantly, and that's when
Speaker 4: I really wanted to have children, and so, you know,
Speaker 4: I went down the how do I fix this mode
Speaker 4: as a producer. So from there I had three surgeries
Speaker 4: to remove some scarring before we could try and get pregnant,
Speaker 4: which thankfully I did, but unfortunately it was a difficult
Speaker 4: pregnancy and there was still scarring in the years. So
Speaker 4: Mattie was born six weeks premature. We had to have
Speaker 4: an emergency c section because she stopped growing, which is
Speaker 4: very scary.
Speaker 2: I remember that period and we're all so worried.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So she was born one point eight kilograms and was
Speaker 4: in special care nursery for four weeks. And what no
Speaker 4: one tells you is how hard it is to leave
Speaker 4: the hole after giving birth without your baby.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: It was one of the most even imaginerandous hardest times.
Speaker 4: And I think I had PTSD after the surgeries, after
Speaker 4: the difficult pregnancy, the birth. You know, I was at
Speaker 4: the hospital four times a day. You know, she had
Speaker 4: tubes in her. It wasn't the fairy tale first baby
Speaker 4: pregnancy that you think you're going to have. I pretended
Speaker 4: like everything was okay. I've remained silent through all of that,
Speaker 4: and that's where the problem was.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, you know, my memory of you,
Speaker 1: and you're such a stoic, strong person, and you come
Speaker 1: from such a line of strong women, all of these
Speaker 1: you know, traumas and difficult experiences you had. I can
Speaker 1: imagine your just pull your socks up and get on
Speaker 1: with life kind of girl. And you were taking that approach.
Speaker 1: By the sounds of things I was.
Speaker 4: I was so from the time I was diagnosed, from
Speaker 4: twenty seven to my life pregnancy, which was three years
Speaker 4: ago thirty nine, I've had up to eight surgeries to
Speaker 4: remove scarring because it grows bad.
Speaker 2: Goodness.
Speaker 4: Wow, again, when you ask me the question, you know,
Speaker 4: why do I say it's harder, you know, when you're
Speaker 4: sober than giving up drinking.
Speaker 3: I had to relive all of that again sober.
Speaker 4: And I know it sounds cheesy, but the saying you've
Speaker 4: got to feel it to heal it, Like I had
Speaker 4: to feel all that.
Speaker 3: I had to release the guilt.
Speaker 4: Around the fact that Maddie was born premature and that,
Speaker 4: you know, I chose the wrong hospital to do the DNC, and.
Speaker 3: Like, how did that let that happen? How did I
Speaker 3: let someone scar me like that? Like there was a
Speaker 3: lot around that, and I really do believe that. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've read it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that title.
Speaker 4: Line resonates with me because I really believe the body
Speaker 4: remembers things, and you know, the miscarriage, the surgeries, the
Speaker 4: marriage ending. My body was carrying all of that, and
Speaker 4: I drank through all of that hurt, and not because
Speaker 4: I was weak, but because the hurt was real and
Speaker 4: I didn't have any other way to harriot, Which is
Speaker 4: why sobriety isn't always just about just putting down the drink.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's about finally feeling what's been underneath it all,
Speaker 4: and that's why I finally got to.
Speaker 1: Do Why is it so hard to get real answers
Speaker 1: about your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine,
Speaker 1: but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it.
Speaker 1: That's why I created Vitality three point sixty to help
Speaker 1: you better understand what's going on inside your body so
Speaker 1: that you can take the targeted action needed. With a
Speaker 1: functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork
Speaker 1: to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed
Speaker 1: up with doctor Asmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together
Speaker 1: we will help you decode your body's signals and answer
Speaker 1: questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing
Speaker 1: my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe
Speaker 1: missing key nutrients? Because when you understand your body better,
Speaker 1: you can transform your health. Visit v three sixty dot
Speaker 1: health or check out the show notes for more. Since
Speaker 1: sharing your story not just with me, but now with
Speaker 1: others and so many as well, and that has resonated
Speaker 1: so well with other people, what have you discovered about
Speaker 1: other women's relationship with alcohol?
Speaker 4: It's funny I find the women that I work with
Speaker 4: don't fit the narrative people have in their heads. So
Speaker 4: they are high functioning, they are successful.
Speaker 3: They are everyday.
Speaker 4: Busy mums, running households and holding down careers. They don't
Speaker 4: arrive saying they have a drinking problem. They arrive saying
Speaker 4: something feels off. They arrive exhausted, They're performing a version
Speaker 4: of themselves that no longer fits. They arrive not knowing
Speaker 4: what they need, and they honestly leave feeling clearer, more connected,
Speaker 4: and more certain of who they are. So I feel
Speaker 4: like there's a lot of shame around it, around drinking,
Speaker 4: and the shame of feeling like you should be able
Speaker 4: to control it, and so you tell yourself you're fine
Speaker 4: and you keep going, and the.
Speaker 3: Silence makes it so much heavier than it needs to be.
Speaker 4: But the common thing I hear when people come into
Speaker 4: the program is I don't think I drink too much.
Speaker 3: It's I don't know who I am anymore. And that's
Speaker 3: not an alcohol problem.
Speaker 4: That's an identity problem, And I think that deserves a conversation.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: So you have a lot of these women coming to
Speaker 1: you and they feel like they've lost touch with themselves.
Speaker 1: They kind of don't know who this version.
Speaker 2: Of themselves is anymore.
Speaker 1: And alcohol might be in the picture, but that's not
Speaker 1: what the big driver or challenge is for them. It's
Speaker 1: this kind of out of body experience of I just
Speaker 1: don't know who I am anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I don't like how I feel, and I
Speaker 4: don't know how to get out of this rut.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I can think of about five people that I know
Speaker 1: that we have had similar conversations. Must be something about
Speaker 1: this age and stage of life. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: after the kids are all kind of off to school
Speaker 1: and you feel like I don't know everything's It's not
Speaker 1: like there's anything extremely urgent right now, you start to
Speaker 1: look inwards a little bit, or maybe, like you say,
Speaker 1: some of the habits like drinking are starting to play
Speaker 1: out in a way that you recognize isn't serving you.
Speaker 4: Probably hormones too, I think our cool starts affecting you differently.
Speaker 3: You know, once you hit forty, Well.
Speaker 1: What is your advice to someone who is questioning their
Speaker 1: relationship with alcohol or is sitting here right now thinking
Speaker 1: I don't feel like myself and I know that some
Speaker 1: of these habits, you know, they might not be a
Speaker 1: problem per se, but they're not serving me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's just honoring that question, like because
Speaker 4: the fact that you're even asking it at all, Like
Speaker 4: I'm sober curious, you know it means something you don't
Speaker 4: And you don't need to be at rock bottom to
Speaker 4: get curious.
Speaker 3: You don't need a label. You don't need to put
Speaker 3: a label on it. You just need to just get
Speaker 3: curious and start to notice when.
Speaker 4: You reach for it, is it to feel more confident,
Speaker 4: is it to numb something? And I think just noticing
Speaker 4: that without judgment is where everything starts. And the one
Speaker 4: thing I'd say to women is you don't have to
Speaker 4: do it alone. You can't do it alone. And one
Speaker 4: of the biggest things I see is women trying to
Speaker 4: white knuckle this sobriety themselves in secret and then feeling
Speaker 4: like a failure when it doesn't work. I think reaching out,
Speaker 4: finding a community, just saying it out loud to one
Speaker 4: person that changes the game completely.
Speaker 1: And not to feel shame around it as well. Like
Speaker 1: you say, I think a lot of people women do
Speaker 1: keep it to themselves because they're kind of feeling a
Speaker 1: little bit shameful or embarrassed, and there's absolutely no reason
Speaker 1: to be. I wish your four week program was available
Speaker 1: back when you got sober seven years ago.
Speaker 4: Well that's why I created it, I mean, because there
Speaker 4: was nothing in that space. You know, You've got AA
Speaker 4: and rehab, which can be considered quite to boob.
Speaker 1: And none of my friends that I'm thinking of would
Speaker 1: ever even consider doing that. I went to AA. Actually
Speaker 1: I went to the current remember what it's called, the
Speaker 1: supporters of AA alan On.
Speaker 2: What is it called alan On?
Speaker 1: So I worked, as you know, with Barry Humphreys for
Speaker 1: a year and he was thirty years sober and he
Speaker 1: still went to AA meetings. So he and his wife
Speaker 1: Lizzie and I would we'd be in Boston, all these
Speaker 1: different cities in America, and he would go still to
Speaker 1: regular meetings thirty years later on the other side of
Speaker 1: the world. And Lizzlie was like, come along and we'll
Speaker 1: we'll sit next door in the allan On group.
Speaker 2: And it was really.
Speaker 1: Confronting for me to sit there and to see these
Speaker 1: people that's families were completely broken, and people that had
Speaker 1: lost their loved ones to alcohol and still coping with it.
Speaker 1: You know, for a lot of us we're not at
Speaker 1: that point. It's just more about I do want to
Speaker 1: explore a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Some of these things.
Speaker 1: Took us three or four week reset, what is it?
Speaker 2: What is it cover? I'm really curious. I would really
Speaker 2: like to do it and.
Speaker 4: Take So the research runs over four weeks and we
Speaker 4: meet online once a week and each week has a
Speaker 4: different theme focus, and we build on each week deliberately,
Speaker 4: so it moves from awareness to what's underneath, to reconnection
Speaker 4: to integration. Week one is about understanding what brought you
Speaker 4: here with no judgment, just honesty.
Speaker 3: And there is something.
Speaker 4: About being in a group with vulnerable women just talking.
Speaker 4: It's just incredible.
Speaker 1: I would love to sit there online with a group
Speaker 1: of women and together us all say what has brought
Speaker 1: us here?
Speaker 2: That's exactly interesting.
Speaker 4: And so by week two we're looking at where the
Speaker 4: patterns actually came from. Week three is about reconnecting with
Speaker 4: who you are underneath all the noise, and week four
Speaker 4: is integration with and when we close with every woman,
Speaker 4: they share where they landed and fails to take my
Speaker 4: breath away what these four weeks does to them. And
Speaker 4: it's not just the weekly sessions. Every woman gets a
Speaker 4: buddy for the four weeks, and in the last reset group,
Speaker 4: I paired a woman in Sydney and a woman in Adelaide,
Speaker 4: and after the four weeks they said that they have
Speaker 4: become friends for life.
Speaker 1: That doesn't surprise me because I bet that the connection
Speaker 1: that you forge with these women is absolutely unbreakable. I
Speaker 1: bet it's a really really powerful connection because you've been
Speaker 1: so vulnerable in front of someone else, and there's that
Speaker 1: feeling of trust and safety.
Speaker 4: And they're a complete stranger, they hadn't met them before,
Speaker 4: but they felt like they could tell them more than
Speaker 4: what they could tell their close friends. So it's just
Speaker 4: amazing what can come out of it.
Speaker 1: What can a woman expect to learn about herself over
Speaker 1: this four weeks when alcohol is taken out of the picture.
Speaker 4: Honestly, different things with different women, but the common thread
Speaker 4: is that most women come in thinking it's about alcohol,
Speaker 4: and they leave realizing it's something underneath and what they've
Speaker 4: been trying to manage and what they've been avoiding. And
Speaker 4: this is the part that I love the most, who
Speaker 4: they actually are without all the noise around them. They
Speaker 4: just start to figure out who they are underneath. And
Speaker 4: the feedback from the first round. One woman told me
Speaker 4: she came away thinking more deeply than she ever had
Speaker 4: in a long time. And you know, she said, another
Speaker 4: woman said, it's not about restriction or perfection, it's just
Speaker 4: about It was actually about transformation. These women move from
Speaker 4: self judgment of why can't I fix this to self.
Speaker 3: Understanding of oh that makes sense.
Speaker 4: Of course I cope this way, oh okay, and I
Speaker 4: don't have to do that anymore.
Speaker 1: So there's a little bit of self compassion that bubbles
Speaker 1: to the surface that is a much more helpful emotion
Speaker 1: than shame or guilt or white knuckling it as you say.
Speaker 3: Percent yeah wow.
Speaker 1: I mean, what a unique position you're in to lead
Speaker 1: a group like this because I know your personality outside
Speaker 1: of your experience and qualifications. I know your personality as well,
Speaker 1: and I just you would hold that space and facilitate
Speaker 1: that so well. But then you've got this amazing lived
Speaker 1: experience that you can bring in to this conversation as well.
Speaker 1: So I can just imagine how well you would guide
Speaker 1: these women. And especially because there's probably a bit of
Speaker 1: hesitation beforehand, you know, there'd be people that would be
Speaker 1: worried about, well, a can I not drink for a
Speaker 1: month or is this going to be hard or is
Speaker 1: this going to be painful?
Speaker 2: Did you find there was trepidation initially?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I found a lot of the women came in
Speaker 4: just not knowing what they were coming in for.
Speaker 1: Caye.
Speaker 3: That's a good thing, yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that there was a bit of trepidation.
Speaker 4: But once they're in there and you break the ice
Speaker 4: with the first group, you know, that dissolves pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: So, I mean you kind of touched on this idea
Speaker 1: of the power of that collective.
Speaker 2: Of like minded women.
Speaker 1: Do you find that that's one of the key ingredients
Speaker 1: that makes us feel more supported?
Speaker 3: Definitely, It's just hard to explain.
Speaker 4: Like when you get everyone in a room, even a
Speaker 4: virtual one, with a group of women who are feeling
Speaker 4: exactly the same as something happens that you just can't explain,
Speaker 4: and the isolation dissolves almost immediately. There's something about hearing
Speaker 4: another woman say out loud the thing that you've been
Speaker 4: thinking through them in the morning in your own head.
Speaker 3: It's validating in a way, and you realize.
Speaker 4: You're not broken, you're not alone, and you never were,
Speaker 4: and you've got this support.
Speaker 1: Network It's funny when you were talking through your experience
Speaker 1: before you got sober, one of the words that just
Speaker 1: kept coming to me was alone and just you know,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the weeks without Maddie and how
Speaker 1: everyone was stepping back, and I remember stepping back and
Speaker 1: how alone you felt. And I can imagine that when
Speaker 1: you've got this alternative where you can create this safe
Speaker 1: space where you are feeling hurt and you are feeling
Speaker 1: less alone, that would make such a big difference.
Speaker 3: Definitely.
Speaker 1: Well, look, Sue's Finally, for a woman listening who might
Speaker 1: be sober curious, especially with dry July around the corner,
Speaker 1: what is one parting.
Speaker 2: Piece of advice that you would have for her.
Speaker 4: I would say, don't think of it as you're giving
Speaker 4: something up. I think reframe it in your mind completely,
Speaker 4: like you're running an experiment.
Speaker 3: It's just thirty one days and at the end of it.
Speaker 4: Genuinely ask yourself, how's my sleep, how's my energy, how's
Speaker 4: my focus, how are my relationships?
Speaker 3: And what's actually changed?
Speaker 4: Because I guarantee you're going to notice a shift in
Speaker 4: your life, and because the most common thing I hear
Speaker 4: is you know, I don't think I drink too much.
Speaker 4: It's just really giving yourself that time to work through
Speaker 4: the identity and what's underneath. And you don't have to
Speaker 4: commit forever. You don't need to put a label on it.
Speaker 4: You just need to be willing to get curious and
Speaker 4: thirty one days of curiosity might just change everything.
Speaker 1: Sus thank you so much for sharing your story with
Speaker 1: us today and all the work that you're doing in
Speaker 1: this space. And can I just say I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to have my sister back.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Milsie, and I appreciate all your support.
Speaker 3: I love you, Love you so much.
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