Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Stephanie Wilder Taylor and this is Drunkish,
the podcast based on Drunkish, my memoir about quitting drinking,
which is still for sale. Don't you know look it up.
Speaking of memoirs, my guest this week has written a
memoir about her drinking story, called The Diary of a
twenty five year Old Alcoholic, and we kind of went
there in this interview. I think there's something here for everyone,
young and old. Please do me a favor and rate
and or review this podcast, give it a watch and
follow over on YouTube as well. And now here's Ellie Rose.
And here we are with Ellie. I'm really excited about this.
I've been trying to pin you down. You're a busy lady. Definitely,
it's too busy for my liking right now. So you've
just released a book. I have it in my hot
little hand. Not that people on YouTube can see this,
but it's called The Diary of a twenty five year
old Alcoholic. So you wrote it when you were twenty five. Yeah,
you're now twenty nine, so your story is pretty incredible.
I went to your book signing for the people listening.
It was maybe a little while ago. But I and
you were, so you're so vulnerable and honest and raw
and all the things. And I full disclosure, I haven't
read the whole book, but now I've heard a chapter
of it, and I think your story. I have a
lot of people on that are I guess more my age,
and you're on the younger side for you know, which
I think is so important and you know we're going
to get into it. But you have such a strong
message for young girls because your drinking career and a
lot of the damage that you caused to your own
self started pretty young. Tell me about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So my first drink I was thirteen. I stole
it out of my older brother's dresser. It was like
Captain Morgan and my best friend at the time, and
I we just found it, took SIPs, and I was like, ooh,
I like this because at that period, my brother was
a junior senior in high school and we would go
back and forth between my mom's and dad's house. But
when we were at my mom's house, she'd let it
be the party house. And so there are always high schoolers,
older high schoolers, boys, girls sleeping over drinking, and I
got curious and at fourteen, I was in high school.
And then that when I had my first blackout. And
after my first blackout, I blocked out almost every time
I drank.
Speaker 1: It was very it was immediate. There was no like
path to alcoholism.
Speaker 2: Like at fourteen, I knew that I shouldn't drink, but
I kept doing it because I was fourteen.
Speaker 1: You know, I just you know, I just want to
interject to say that if for people that aren't alcoholics,
I think they hear something like that and they go,
oh my gosh, that's crazy. I think for most people
that are alcoholics, it's like, yeah, yeah, same that it
makes me feel good, like less alone. I mean, I
was black. I blacked out the second time. The first
time I drank was kind of fun, and then the
second time I drank, I had a full blackout. My
friend broke her ankle and we were like fourteen, Yeah,
so yeah, I broke my hand once.
Speaker 2: I once woke up with a broken hand, and I
was like, and the lies you have to tell people
about what happened.
Speaker 1: I just made it up, said I fell in the snow. Yeah,
snow is pretty slippery, so yeah, there you go. So
you knew you probably shouldn't drink, but you're fourteen, it's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it just became like my social construct. Like
all of my friends we started drinking, and I just
became part of like that group, you know, where it
was normalized just to be drinking every single weekend and
just partying.
Speaker 1: Until you blacked out.
Speaker 2: But it was very obvious that mine was more extreme
than others because I was doing things that other people
weren't doing. Like my first blackout, I made out with
one of my friend's boyfriends and I don't remember it,
so that like kind of made that my reputation, you know,
but everyone knew, like all my friends, everything knew I
wasn't a bad person, but like, drinking makes you do
bad things and it also is really confused when you
don't remember them, and that just became the pattern of
my life. So for ten years, I thought I was
just a bad person, and then I would always try
to drink more in order to feel better, to make
better memories so I can be like, no, I can
do this. So I think for ten years, I was
just fighting to be able to drink and be able to.
Speaker 1: Have fun.
Speaker 2: And I think, of course, is all alcoholics, we know
you're filling a void. There was stuff that happened to
me young that I was just trying to mask, and
natural depression, natural anxiety, all of those combinations they make
you just a dangerous, dangerous sixteen year old, seventeen, eighteen
year old all the way to twenty five.
Speaker 1: It was scary. So while you were young, tell me
about the chapter that you read at your book signing
about the situation that happened where you got bullied. Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: It I didn't start having like you know, like the
blackout sex that didn't start until this, So this was before.
I feel like when you're like making out with people
and you're just like kind of doing dumb stuff, it's innocent.
But sex is such a vulnerable thing, and especially as
a young girl, it is like your repute. People are
so unfair when it comes to women in sex, and
like I'm just very sex positive, Like I'm very passionate
about this, Like I'm not and I think for so
long and I shamed myself for it. But at the
end of the day, like a huge aspect of it
was alcoholism. Alcoholism, So like what happened with this account
was basically I had a blackout and when I came
to I was next to someone who I shouldn't have
been next to, and he had a girlfriend at the time,
and he was my friend, you know, And I don't
consider this guy to be a bad guy. He's also
an alcoholic, so like I think we were both in
the same boat in this situation. But yeah, so and
this girl she he was dating, she was she had
recently had cancer, and so this is like the worst
situation you can be in, like sleeping with I don't
like cancer is more normalized. But like back then in
twenty fourteen, like that was such a horrible thing. And
for me, I woke up and I was like, oh
my god. And yeah, so after that, you know, she,
like I mentioned, she wasn't the kindest person in the world,
and so she would like follow me around classes, yelling
at me, calling me a whore, tweeting about me, and
so like Twitter was like basically just her bullying me
on it.
Speaker 1: And then so like a week.
Speaker 2: After this event, I got home, I was at my
dad's house. My mom wasn't around, she had her own
struggles with alcoholism. And I was at my dad's house
and I had my ex boyfriend texted me and he
was like, hey, have you seen this? And I looked
at it and it was a Twitter account created with
like images of me, like from my Facebook and I'm
like sixteen at the time, and it just is calling
me a whore and like ten different variations. And the
account was called Harry Harry Dix, which like, it's a
funny chapter now and I'm able to bring light to it,
but it is just so.
Speaker 1: Crazy that this happened.
Speaker 2: It And when I saw that account, I was like,
my first reaction was they're right, Like I was never
a victim in this, and I wasn't a victim because
I have the support around me to like help me
with this. My dad called the police, he sent them
to the girls house. She said that she didn't do it, so.
Speaker 1: Then the police came back, and then the police called
my dad.
Speaker 2: And said, hey, she didn't say she made the account,
but she was screaming that Ellie fucked her boyfriend. And
so why did a police officer tell my father that
I was sixteen and I lost my virginity?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I grew up in a really weird
part of Pittsburgh, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and my I think just the way a father
is the way my father is.
Speaker 1: He after that it was my fault, you know.
Speaker 2: And so then the account, the police ended up somehow
taking it down, and I found out that it was
a group of girls that I was friends with, like
you know that group of girls that you're like friends with,
but like every time I black out at a party,
they like fuck with.
Speaker 1: Me, which is just so evil. And how did you
find out who was behind it?
Speaker 2: I loosely had someone admit it. They've never fully admitted
it still, which is fine, Like that's not the point
of this.
Speaker 1: The point is that this is.
Speaker 2: Just one situation of being bullied at this age, and
being bullied for something that you don't remember doing is insane,
like insane for a sixteen year old girl. Now I'm
twenty nine, I can understand it, and I have so
much compassion for myself and I forgave myself. But it
didn't happen till like put drinking, because for ten years,
eight years after that, after this account was made, and
it was my second time having sex. The first one
was with a boyfriend that I loved, So this is
like I was very like against that, but after that happened,
it was as if something turned on in my head,
and like it happened probably twenty more times before I
graduated high school. I don't remember, and I talk about
it in my book, but I do believe like sex
is a form of self abuse, especially when you're blacking
out and doing it like this, And it just built
this pattern that now that I'm not drinking in four years,
not drinking.
Speaker 1: That's never happened it.
Speaker 2: It's just it's such like there's such a gray area
when it comes to alcohol and sex. And that's why
if you're a girl who blacks out you're sixteen, Like
I think it's very important for people to hear the
story of saying, like the only way to stop it
is to stop blacking out, Like this was not happening
to any of my friends. It was only happening to me.
And like one other girl I knew who was blacking
out and this was happening too, Like how did people
not see this pattern?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: How did adults not see this pattern and see that
something was wrong? And like, obviously I had stuff that
happened to me when I was a little girl that
was also enhancing this. But it's like the baseline of
my story and it's just so vulnerable. And I almost
didn't put that chapter in the book, but after editing
it multiple times because the first version of it is
like you're a writer, you understand the first drafts are
sometimes just for you. It helped me accept it. But
that I would say was the foundation of me not
trusting myself when I drink. But it's interesting because it
happened when I was fourteen with my first blackout too.
I was like, there's just I'm just not that. It's
just so confusing because i don't know what I'm like
when I'm blacked out.
Speaker 1: But I'm just not.
Speaker 2: That kind of person that would like actively want to
be intimate with someone's partner, you know. And then this
pattern actually happened before I quit drinking, where I was like,
this is I'm just kind of jumping around. But there
was a situation I was in a relationship with a
married man and that was like my final straw, and
then I quit drinking like a couple months after that ended.
Over my ten years of drinking, that happened, and that's
where the darkness comes in, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm just in a relating way because
I've also written a memoir about drinking, and I refer
to a period where I dated somebody who is married,
and I talk about how, you know, sometimes when we're alcoholics,
you're not just going beneath your moral compass. You're just like,
I don't know how I put it, but you're taking
your moral compass and throwing it out the window and
then running over it with your car. You're just all
bets are off, you know. I don't know. We just
rationalize things or do things when we're drinking that we
wouldn't do when we're not drinking. Yeah, and I need
to read your memoir. I need to read it. But
one of the things, you know, that that was really
clear to me, and that was my bottom, was the
fact that when I'm drunk, I think I'm not drunk,
Like that's really my thing. Like my body might be drunk,
but my brain is like, no, you're you're better than ever.
You're really thinking clearly, you haven't had very much to drink,
You're fine. And so I make decisions to drive, you know,
because it's and I always say, like, sober me would
be horrified, like what are you doing, Like you've been drinking,
Like get you can get behind the wheel of the car.
But drunk me is not convinced at all that I'm drunk,
so so to me, there was no more clear indication
of like, this is why you need to stop drinking,
because this decision is extremely dangerous and you have kids.
And I realized I can't say I'll never do that again.
Like it's that it's not the kind of thing when
when you're drinking, you don't learn your lesson. You don't
go like, oh, well, I won't do that again, because
the next time you drink, you're gonna do things again,
because that's what it does. Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, like now that I'm sober, it's like you
can tell when people whenever you're drunk, you can't really.
Speaker 1: Tell when people are lying to you.
Speaker 2: And that's what really got me in trouble, like the
situation with the bury of me, and like I could
have just been being lied to, but once it happened,
once I was like, I'm in this.
Speaker 1: Right, you know.
Speaker 2: But now I would look at the situation and I
wouldn't even come one hundred steps close.
Speaker 1: To that situation because it's obvious, you know.
Speaker 2: So I think we try to also rationalize our behavior
by do you think, what wasn't that bad?
Speaker 1: But like, no, it was bad. But also, and this
might be a little bit off topic of like pre alcoholism,
but I think that probably stuff in your background, stuff
in my background, makes you really susceptible to the the
love bombing. So it's like when somebody, especially somebody who's
married or but their intent on being with you, you
get lied to a lot, and you get a lot
of very focused attention and uh, you're the one for me.
This is my love story. This is like we were
meant to beat. I mean, this is you don't know
at the time. I didn't know at the time, Like,
oh this is what people do. You just think, Oh, well,
his marriage is over, he's leaving, Like I'm not doing
something that wrong like or whatever, or they're open or
whatever they tell you to make you go like, okay,
I'm not just deliberately being a bad person.
Speaker 2: Love bombing. Love bombing is such a drug. Oh it
feels good in the moment, but after when they take
it away, like gut wrenching, the worst feeling. Like and
that's why I'm so grateful all these things happened. I
would never ever, ever ever want to be in that
time in my life again and I hate that. Like
it's not regret, it's just like I wouldn't want to
experience that again. But without it, you know, I have
a lot of awareness when it comes to like relationships
and then now, and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1: Go back a little bit and talk to me about
your upbringing. What was the situation with your parents. I mean,
I know a little bit, and I'm going to try
to get your mom to come on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was four when they divorce, and then
my two blood brothers and I we would go back
and forth between the houses every week.
Speaker 1: And so my mom was really cool, really fun.
Speaker 2: Dad was really really strict. So it was like living
in two different worlds every week. And I lived out
of a ver Bradley bag until I was thirteen, and
then at fourteen, my mom lost her job. She was
a mechanical engineer. She lost her job and then that's
when her alcoholism took over. But growing up, my parents
were drinking almost every day, at least one of them.
Speaker 1: They were drinking.
Speaker 2: I maybe not every day, but it might hit my
brain at that age, that's what I saw.
Speaker 1: Drinking was normal.
Speaker 2: Their part friends partied. They got really drunk and they
changed and that was just normal.
Speaker 1: All their friends did it.
Speaker 2: And then once we were going back and forth between
the houses, my mom for a period she had a
little boyfriends and she got engaged to this guy once.
And then we moved into a bigger house, so I
actually had a sister for a little bit. And then
one day I came home and they were gone. We
were stuck in this big house. And then my mom
unfortunately lost her job and then that's when alcoholism took over,
and then the recession, and.
Speaker 1: So long story short, we're talking like two thousand and eight.
I graduated two year fifteen. Yeah, okay, so around that
time you must have been kind of young. I was thirteen,
okay when she lost her job. Fourteen, it was like
going into yeah, go after eighth grade whatever that was.
Graduated twenty fifteen, so whatever, whatever those dates are. And
she lived in a couple apartments back and forth, worked
like smaller jobs and stuff, but eventually.
Speaker 2: Moved her timeline. I don't even know her timeline, honestly,
it is so crazy. She lived in like ten different places.
But I had to eventually live with my dad full time,
and that just wasn't good for me as a young
girl struggling. He did his best, but it just wasn't
a good situation for what I needed.
Speaker 1: I needed my mom. So your mom was pretty bad
with her alcoholism at that point and just couldn't care
for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was she did she go to treatment? Yeah, went
to treatment, went to jail. She wore ankle bracelet in
my high school graduation, couldn't drive.
Speaker 1: For a while. Yeah, all of it, all of it.
Do you eys? Do uys? Do you guys now? Were
you aware of that at the time, Like you know,
we were chatting a little bit before we went on air,
But that's a lot for a young girl. Did you
feel responsible for her? Was she emotionally reliant on you? No?
Speaker 2: There was a period where my one brother was in college,
the other brother lived at my dad's full time just
because the house was bigger, and then I lived in
the apartment with just my mom because I just didn't
really get along.
Speaker 1: With my dad at the time. And yeah, she.
Speaker 2: Was died a couple of times and her little fourteen
year old daughter had.
Speaker 1: To step in and be the savior. What happened? Can
you tell me the situation? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I was a freshman in high school and I just
came home and she was an estate that wasn't safe,
and so I had to call my dad and we
had to take her to the psyche Word. And then
everything kind of went downhill from there because we're kind
of hiding it. We were kind of hiding the drinking
for my dad. So I could still live with her
because she would let me go drink. My best friend
lived downstairs in the apartments. We would just go and
drink every day.
Speaker 1: And I love my dad. I could still sneak out.
I alway knuck out the basement, but he was just strict,
very strict. So when you have your mom admitted to
the psych word, what happens you can't go back with
her after that, I'd.
Speaker 2: Immediately movement with my dad full time. You knew that
would happen, yes, and that's why I hit it. But
this situation was just so bad that there was no
hiding it. You were you scared, Yeah, she was going
to die. I mean you say it like.
Speaker 1: Pretty almost dispassionately, but that must have been something very
traumatizing at the time. I wonder. I mean, I've had
a few things happen around that age. I don't know,
I feel like we have stuff in common, even though
I'm much older than you. But did you just kind
of you must have kind of shut down a little
bit and been like, Okay, I'm on my own. I
guess I guess I have to be scrappier and take
care of myself.
Speaker 2: I was very angry at her because I had to
go live with my dad, and I'm trying to be
I'm trying to tread carefully talking about this aspect of it,
because I don't know if the details are necessarily important,
you know, but that's Yeah, it was the hardest period
in my life. So that's when my drinking got even worse.
I was going to say, so, must have escalated everything
and drugs.
Speaker 1: Were you doing drugs?
Speaker 2: I started smoking weed at fourteen, but that's about it.
Speaker 1: So weed never got into like cocaine. College, Okay, all right,
Well then so you finish high school. Your mama's shows
up with the ankle bracelet, high school graduation, and then
you went to college. Yeah, so during this time, I
think it's interesting to say that you were not struggling
in school. You were a very good student.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I graduated with a four point two GP. What is
that about us? Alkis some of us can really keep
our shit together in certain ways. I couldn't. I was
a terrible student, but really creating, and you're probably successful
in some other aspect. I think addiction, No, I was smart. No,
I was not. No, I was not excelling in any ways.
But go on, it's okay.
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of addicts, addiction and intellect
dance like this. And I think a lot of us
are trying to shut up our brain. I've had so
much information in this brain for so long, I just
wanted to stop. I like, I like saw a video
recently that people say that there's periods in their day
where there's just nothing in their head, and I was like,
you're a writer. I write novels in my head every day.
I'm like, I could really pump out like twenty books
right now. Shit, I'm just thinking about I know, if
it just isn't.
Speaker 1: Necessary, must be so nice just to have quiet in
your brain for no reason. Well that's what a blockout was,
you know what. Yeah, you're right, yeah, or like ten bunths. Well,
for me, pot was never great because I would do
it if there was nothing else but or just if
it was there, or if it was offered to me, whatever,
But I would just get so paranoid and anxious. I
don't know why I continue to do that to myself,
but that's an addiction. Man, something's not even good. And
you're like, Okay, sure I'll do it. Oh I had
a terrible experience, Let's do it again, Let's try again.
Maybe this time will be different.
Speaker 2: It made me paranoid and anxious too. But once you
smoke a certain amount, you pass that into what I
call was like psychosis.
Speaker 1: And you're seeing stuff. But it's like, I don't know,
I think I just psychosis goals.
Speaker 2: I think there was just a goal of me just
trying to be in a different way head and so
I'm kind of jumping the gun. But once I quit drinking,
I smoked weed aggressively for three years after, and so
I was just trying to get and I was literally
trying to rewire my brain.
Speaker 1: So it was just different. So okay, so you go
to college, Yeah, things get worse or better? Oh my god.
So okay.
Speaker 2: So it was confusing because when I went to college,
that was my first time ever having.
Speaker 1: Like my room that like felt like my room, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my god, all my stuff
can be here because my mom was out and about,
but I'd stuff in her storage like some things were
with her.
Speaker 1: It was confusing. Go to college, I'm living well.
Speaker 2: First off, I leave the girls that made that account
about me, because that followed me.
Speaker 1: It followed me to graduation.
Speaker 2: I they were at the graduation party, like everything was
just so present and no one would admit it. So
I was just the bad person at.
Speaker 1: Least in my head. That's where my head was.
Speaker 2: And because this girl who made the account, she ended
up like doing other things, like it didn't stop at
the account.
Speaker 1: I'll leave that there. They were like, yeah, they were evil.
But I go to.
Speaker 2: College and I'm living with my still best friend at
the time now a girl named Fiona from San Diego,
and she's like a ray of sunshine.
Speaker 1: She is just fun and she liked to blackout like me.
Speaker 2: So I went to college and I somehow became friends
with all these girls from California and I was like,
these are my people, like I East Coast people.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just moved there and I became a really good
friends with girls from Colorado, California, and I just like
college was the first time I had a few good
friends in high school, but college was the first time
I found female friendship. So in one aspect, it is
the greatest thing that happened to me. But I've been drinked,
not every weekend, every day. We would drink four Locos
Admiral Nelson's every single day. I had a four local
at least every single day, and I put on like
forty pounds.
Speaker 1: My freshman year at college. Like the sex stuff was
at its peak.
Speaker 2: But no one knew about the Twitter account, and no
one knew about my past, and I didn't tell anyone
about it. So it was if like I kind of
like removed that whole aspect of myself and brought all
the good things. But I was still in raging alcoholic,
but a lot of people were, like twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen,
twenty sixteen is when I was a freshman in college,
Like they talk about twenty sixteen, like house parties, no
one has their phones out.
Speaker 1: Like raging.
Speaker 2: It was just an experience, and I'm grateful for like
maybe one tenth of those nights, but the rest it
no bad things happen like it should happen freshman year.
And I tell a story in the book about something
that happened to me freshman year that involved like essay
and stuff, and it was terrifying. But yeah, I would
just drink more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, suppress it. Do you feel like since you've quit drinking,
you had to deal with some of those things that
you just numb?
Speaker 2: Doubt so the weed none that writing the book helped,
you know, because I talk about it in the book.
But I was It's as if like the book was
me intellectualizing everything and getting it out and telling my story.
And then I wasn't able to finish the book until
I wrote the last chapter, which is just so funny
and he as a writer, I know, you know this
whole process. I couldn't finish it until I quit wheat
because the last chapter is like a twenty twenty five
forward saying why I quit.
Speaker 1: Like this is the truth, like it this.
Speaker 2: Brought me to this point. And once that happened, it
was a few months of just like quitting wheat, because
when I quit alcohol, I was still microdosing shrooms almost
every day and smoking like two to three months and
diet coke like that's still the life of an addict,
but it's the life of an addict not blocking out,
which is really nice. And I also was able to
create a lot. But once the weed was like awful,
I do like I'm an addict. I was one hundred
percent addicted to it. It was making me a really
angry person. It was making me really depressed. I couldn't
keep relationships, like it's just it was the same relationship,
just less dangerous.
Speaker 1: But then I was.
Speaker 2: Driving every single day while belligerately high, so like also
not less dangerous, it's just there wasn't blocking out, which
was my biggest problem for so long.
Speaker 1: Tell me, tell me about like the how you quitting?
Like what did you do? What was the bottom? What
was the Yeah, this has got to stop. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was working for the NBA at the time,
and I had some clients who.
Speaker 1: Were like very successful actors and creatives.
Speaker 2: And I just always knew that I was meant for
something that like used my voice and I felt confident
in and was creative.
Speaker 1: But my entire life, I thought.
Speaker 2: Like I was raised by you know, like the classic
like white collar you know boomers, like you go to
work and you come home and you have kids and
your days over and then when I met all these people,
like I left Colorado, I went to Atlanta after I
graduated college with my ex boyfriend now.
Speaker 1: And it just introduced me to this world.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my god, I'm a creative
and people are like, why aren't you acting? Like why
aren't you doing this? Because they just like saw something,
you know. And so I had a really good conversation
with an actress and the most interesting thing about her
is we were in the court Side club. Because most
of my days were in the court side club?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? I was a premium sales manager.
Speaker 2: Okay, but then for the I don't know if I
can say it, Atlanta Hawks, I have to cut that out, Okay,
I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I don't know releasing any information. That's cool? You have Okay,
see a cool job?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And but I was drinking on the job
because the client who I was talking about married man.
Speaker 1: He gave me drinks. It was fun. Yeah, but I
was really drunk on the job. Okay, but that's in
the past for sure.
Speaker 2: But I met this actress and the most interesting thing
about her was that we were in the club when
I I tell you, their open bar is an open
bar like I've never seen in my life.
Speaker 1: It is five star. And she wouldn't take a drink,
and I was like, why is this girl drinking the
most foreign thing? You're like, uh, you have give free drinks?
Oh my god. She's like no, what's to be on
set the next day? I was like.
Speaker 2: And so then I slowly somehow got into background work
and I was on the set of a show and
I won't be able to say the name of this
because of what I did, but they had for some reason,
they gave a champagne, which I don't think they're supposed
to do this, but I was like background for like
a party, and I was handcuffed to a random girl
and they gave us a bottle of champagne and I
wouldn't let the girl have any of it. I drank
the whole bottle.
Speaker 1: Classic I was like, you don't need this. Because he
was twenty. I was like, you don't need this.
Speaker 2: I drink the whole thing, and I was like, and
round me, everyone was just taking SIPs. I was like, oh,
this will end my career if I really want to
do this. And so that was one aspect of it.
It was that the married man actually played an important
role because he was very famili you're with alcoholism, and
he's the first person that looked at me and said,
you don't need a drink. You know, it wasn't judging me.
He was just saying, like, you don't need this to
be who you are. You're amazing, you're brilliant, You're going
to be very successful. You do not need that to
do that.
Speaker 1: And I hate that. It's I don't hate it.
Speaker 2: I just it's so interesting that it's like the most
random person that can kind of plant something in your head.
Speaker 1: That's why they always say you.
Speaker 2: Can't be the partner of someone telling them to quit drinking,
you can't be this. Sometimes it really is an outsider
who comes in and gets to know you and just
sees it.
Speaker 1: And so that was a seed.
Speaker 2: The other seed in my twenty fifth birthday, I had
a really bad blackout. I was living alone in Atlanta
at the time, and I tell the story in my book,
so I won't tell it now, but it was scary
and can tell you a little.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just I went to a club, I got a
bunch of free drinks. I took an adderall because I
was also like abusing adderall on bypance when I was
drinking is it let you drink more? And I woke
up and I was just splattered on my bed and
there was just some girl had came in my apartment
brought me home, and she left me this very concerning
voice smail on my work phone. Somehow I gave her
my work phone number. I deleted the voice because it
was so bad, so I can't read it verbatim. But
I don't know how she found me. I don't know
where I was because my friends that dropped me off
dropped me off after the bar dropped me off at
my apartment. So what happened from the front door to
my apartment to my bed, I don't know. And my
phone was found in the hallway flights above.
Speaker 1: Wow. And so that same.
Speaker 2: Day I had tickets to go to like the Delta
Sky Club at the Braves game like free alcohol, and
I went there and I was just drinking those beers
just like. And then three days later I went to
a girlfriend's house who I was working with, and she
had this really nice patio and I get there and
I tried usually I was brought a bottle of wine
wherever I went. Of course, this time I was like,
let me not bring it, let me not do that,
because I was like, oh I should, Like I was.
Speaker 1: Really wanting to quit. I tried quitting.
Speaker 2: Let's say I tried witting like one hundred times at
this point. I've been trying to quit drinking for a
long time. At this point, right right, I.
Speaker 1: Never made it past I very rarely made it past
twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: If I want twenty four hours of drink without drinking,
I would celebrate by drinking.
Speaker 1: I think I made it once seventy two hours. You know,
people don't understand that. Like, but by the time that
I quit drinking, I was definitely drinking seven days a week,
and of course had also. But I hear people when
they're like, oh, you know, and then the you know,
I'll take like a week off here and there, and
I'm like, okay, not an alcoholic. I don't want to.
I don't want to change anybody's thinking. Who's listening is
of course, of course you can stop before it gets
to the point that you have to drink every single day.
But I'm always jealous of those people that are like, yeah,
I just stopped for a couple of weeks. Really, I
think I think that's a difference. Like I do think
there's like I.
Speaker 2: Think alcohol alcoholism, like alcoholic, whatever the word is. Research
is getting more broad and I talk about a lot
of like alcohol use disorder, bange drinking disorder, But there's
a difference. I don't think there's a difference, but I
think both can fall under the alcohol like map, which
is just straight up alcoholism drinking every day.
Speaker 1: And then binge use drinking disorder.
Speaker 2: Right, And I think a lot of people who still
consider themselves alcoholics have been drinking use disorder and.
Speaker 1: That's what a lot of people struggle with.
Speaker 2: That's still not great, you know, And if they want
to be alcoholics, come on, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Listen. I always say, and we always say, like all
you to qualify as an alcoholic, you need to want
to quit drinking. You know, if you want to quit
drinking and you're having trouble quitting drinking, this is important.
It doesn't matter, like I always it doesn't matter whether
you're a alcoholic, whether you could take up a blood
tests and they go, yes, you qualify. It's like if
you are trying to quit drinking, especially many times, you know,
people always go, well, why don't you just moderate? Well,
obviously I can't moderate, which is why I had to
quit entirely. Yeah, so if you're moderating your drinking and
you're not successful at that, then it's it doesn't matter
whether you call it alcoholism, alcohol use disorder, a drinking problem,
whatever it is. Abstinence can help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, definitely. And that just brings up a point
in my book is the entire time when I was
writing this book, I didn't call myself an alcoholic.
Speaker 1: I said I had alcohol use disorder.
Speaker 2: And it's just funny because within the book, I write
like little notes at the end of a lot of chapters,
like twenty twenty five perspectives, and I'm like, I am
a great a alcoholic, Like it's interesting doing this book
and all this because there's a lot of research, Like
this book isn't just stories like I'd say. Every other
chapter is like my version. Like I say, I'm not
a doctor, I'm not a scientist, but I did a
lot of research. This like helped me stay sober. I
wasn't in program when I wrote this whole book. I
didn't go to my first a meeting until like two
years after my last drink, I dove in and I
wrote essays about it, and I read different books, and
I researched other alcoholics, and I really researched this disease
in a way that was just so authentic to who
I was, and I was still smoking weed. So that's
why I think it's an interesting perspective because now I
would write it totally different book since I've been in
program and since I've been doing different research and now
that I'm not smoking weed, But both are still accurate,
and both.
Speaker 1: Are still it's good information.
Speaker 2: And that's why I just like modern Like I'm so
against technology in some ways, but there's so much research
at our hands, especially if you're younger people who are struggling,
Like there's so many ways to learn about this, and
so yeah, this book kind of I think after writing
reading the book, I was like, oh, I'm.
Speaker 1: A great a alcoholic.
Speaker 2: I didn't consider myself drinking when I was having just
a bottle.
Speaker 1: Of wine to day, that.
Speaker 2: Was just a normal day. It was when I had
like two bottles and then some shots that I was drinking.
Speaker 1: I think that's relatable. Yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2: It's just so weird now, Like I just it's so
interesting when you're in it. And this brings me back
to the point of how I quit. It was the
most random thing. That was my last straw, Like the
most random. And this is where spirituality comes into it,
because around twenty twenty I discovered like my version of spirituality,
which is like I it.
Speaker 1: Follows more so onto like the.
Speaker 2: Esoteric level of it, and I just I think there's
multiple ways to communicate with a higher power, and I
found mine and that's more so through like crystals, tarot,
meditation and praying you know, to goddess, citizen gods and
just our changels. Like I just believe like there's like
a whole robust version of it. And I grew up
Catholic and so it was so strict and so I
didn't have a spiritual life for a while.
Speaker 1: And then I.
Speaker 2: Discovered this and that played such an important aspect in it.
So there was an aspect of it of getting sober.
And I don't like to say this because it's not
really helpful, but it was magic. I know that's not
helpful for people struggling, but like.
Speaker 1: So that's what it was about. Last what was your
last drink? It was okay.
Speaker 2: So I I just talking about the girl's balcony. The
friend whose house I went to over went over to
her house and I didn't bring a bottle of wine.
And I get there and I we really have a hole.
We're going to sit there and watch a movie. And
I'm like looking around, and I saw that she had
a bottle wine, and I was like, can I have
some of that? She was like okay, and she pourches
me a glass and I sat on her balcony drinking
her wine and I drank the whole bottle. And I
went home and I was like, oh, drove home, went
home and okay. And then also another there's like ten straws.
Speaker 1: One.
Speaker 2: I was doing a video, like a music video for
a friend, like acting in it, and they had tequila
and I drank half the bottle of tequila and drove
home and almost crashed my car on eighty five. In Atlanta,
I was fighting a black apple driving because I told
myself I would never drink and drive because of my mom.
But once my boyfriend and I broke up and I
was living alone in Atlanta, I was like, I gotta.
Speaker 1: Get places right. I sorted.
Speaker 2: That's how I knew my diciction was bad as I
started doing stuff that I said I would never do
because drink DUIs took my mom away from me. Well,
it was alcoholism, but in my head it was DUIs
the police and yeah, so that but my final final straw,
the morning that I said I'm never drinking again, my
last drink was on her Balcony. I came home and
this was the next morning. Jack Harlowe released an album.
It was called like Come Home, Come Home, the Kids
Miss You. And I met him at a game that
same year and I was just around him. I was like,
this guy's cool. Why can't I be like this guy?
He can be doing well and creating, why can't I?
And so I was just like, you know, and I
listened to his album and I didn't know he was
not drinking at the time. And it said in one
of the songs, it's called Young har Leezy and it
says bottle because at this point I'm just gonna be
transparent too.
Speaker 1: And Atlanta, I was going out a lot to strip clubs.
Speaker 2: I was in bottle service, Like I fell in love
with that life. I fell in love with it. So
quitting drinking would sacrifice that life. I love being in
the private clubs with bottles.
Speaker 1: And cameras on us. You know, I want to freaking act.
It all makes sense now.
Speaker 2: But his lyrics said bottles in the sex bottles in
this section marked Fiji, like he's in the bottle service,
love drinking Fiji water.
Speaker 1: Right right? That was it. That was it. I was
never drinking again. Then I went on my phone and
I researched be transparent.
Speaker 2: I researched actresses that don't drink, and it was all
my favorite actresses, and I just never drank.
Speaker 1: After that.
Speaker 2: It was really hard, and I started chain smoking weed.
But that got me to this point, which I'm fully
sober a year in six days.
Speaker 1: It's an incredible story, I think. And then you wrote
the book while you were smoking weed. But then at
the end of the book you quit smoking weed. Yes,
And do you write about that in the book? Oh? Yeah,
in the book. Yeah. We can't see it because it's backwards,
but I'm going to link to the book. Yeah. Yeah,
the diet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called The Diary of a twenty five year
old Alcoholic because I wrote it from twenty five to
twenty seven.
Speaker 1: And then I mean, how is it going with that?
And the reason I asked that is because, having also
written a memoir about quitting drinking, you're putting all of
your personal business on front street, Like, how does that feel?
That there's a lot of shame involved and you just
have to really get used to the idea that you're
helping people. Yeah, and I think that's okay. That's another
I do.
Speaker 2: Think one of the biggest reasons to how people quit
drinking is purpose. And I think every person has a purpose.
Anyone who says they don't have a purpose, I'm sorry,
you're wrong. If you're on this earth and you are breathing,
you have a purpose. I'm very strict on that. I
don't care if it's to go pick berries. I don't
care if it's to try to become president, Like, it
doesn't matter. And I think my purpose, at least at
this part of my life when I wrote this and now,
is to share this story to help people who are struggling,
specifically young girls.
Speaker 1: And I just have no option the entire time. I
have no idea. I never planned to write a book.
I wasn't a writer. Now I am. You're a great writer.
Speaker 2: Thanks, but I wasn't and then I was just I
was just drinking and selling basketball tickets and I wanted
to be an actress, and I'm still pursuing acting. Of course,
I think they all blend like at the end of
the day, like I'm an artist, you know, and it's
crazy what it turned into. And honestly, like, yes, the
stories are hard to tell. But I my best friend
and I edited it and I played like the major
part in editing it, and I self published. I wrote it,
I edited it, I formatted it. Like that forces you
to get comfortable with the material.
Speaker 1: If I wrote it.
Speaker 2: Once and send it to someone and never read it again,
this would be a whole different relationship. I edited every
single word at least twenty times. Like that forces you
to accept this and not become numb to it, but
just be like I really thought about it, if I
want to put this out, and I am. And I
almost didn't put Harry Harry Dix in the book. And
then that's the first that's the only chapter I've read
live so far, so and it just shows like I
just there's like and this is where the spirituality comes.
Speaker 1: It's like I have no choice, like this is what.
Speaker 2: I have to do, because if I don't do this,
then I'm not a line with my purpose that makes
me want to drink. That's just how it works for me.
I think it's different for everyone.
Speaker 1: But well, it's a beautiful story, and we didn't touch
so much on your mom, and I'm really hoping, I'm
really hoping, guys, I'm working on this that I have
your mom on the podcast because you know, interestingly, I
am closer in age. I'm very close in age to
your mom. Yeah, who must have had you when she
was so so young. No, I don't think she actually did.
That's just what I like to tell myself. But the
point is your mom has her own shame and take
on this story that I would relate to in that
way too. So I relate to you and talking about
drinking at a young age, and I relate to your mom.
I'm just so grateful that I was able to get
the clarity I needed and quit drinking when my kids
were extremely young. My twins were only eighteen months old,
so they don't have any memory of meat drinking, and
my older daughter was only four so she same. Yeah,
but that's you know, lucky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to hear her story from that perspective.
Speaker 1: With you, I'll set it up. We'll make it work, okay. Anyway,
it was lovely chatting with you. And if they want
to buy the book, yes, Diary of the Diary of
a twenty five year old Alcoholic. I will link to
it and it's Ellie Rose. Say your last name for
us one more time. Sorry to COVID, so COVID C
I k O V I see but you'll see that
in the link. Oh you're the best. Thank you again,
I met you same all right, bye, everybody, see you
next week. Yet, after a time, he counted the mar