Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Stephanie Wilder Taylor and this is Drunkish
And look, whether you just quit drinking, you're sober curious,
or you just like listening to stories about whyos, there
is going to be something here for you. This podcast
is based on my book Drunkish and listen before I
get to my guest today, please give me a five
star rating, and also go to YouTube and follow the
show so that you can see what everybody looks like today.
I am talking to Christy Tanner, whose ig handle is
Mocktail Mommy. She's also a certified recovery coach, and I
split this episode into two parts because her story is
intense and it deals with more than just addiction. It's
such a good story. But please come back tomorrow for
the second half, which is nothing short of inspiring. Let's
get to it. Hey, everybody, we're here with Christy, and
we were talking so much off camera that I felt
like we were wasting it, so I was like, let
me hit record. Hi.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm so excited to be here. It says my
internet connection is unstable. Are we good?
Speaker 1: I think we're good?
Speaker 2: Okay, well perfect? Yeah. You reached out yesterday and I
had a little moment of am I being punked? You
are this amazing inspirational sober author and I am some
mom in the middle of Wisconsin who has gotten sober
and your work has been so inspiring. So then when
Celeste was like, oh, I don't know if you've heard
of Stephanie, and I'm like, have I heard of her?
I have her book? Of course, it was like an
immediate yes. I feel like these are the kinds of
gifts that we get in sobriety that you could never
ever in a million years predict or expect that these
kinds of real life connections with people who really really
get it on a deep level would be presented. So
I'm really grateful to be here.
Speaker 1: Aren't we all just some mom? I mean, seriously, you
know it's funny. That's so sweet of you, and I'm
I'm so glad that I wrote this book because before that,
I was just known for writing, you know, parenting books
and a couple of memoirs about my twenties that absolutely
nobody cared about. Like four people bought it, but you know,
it was a complete departure to go. So I'm going
to just write this sobriety story I already had thirteen years,
and I thought, you know, the stuff that connects with
people a lot the most is not always the parenting stuff.
It's the sobriety stuff. So I think that telling our
stories is the thing that helps other people find their similarities.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And that's what they say in the rooms, right,
they say, look for similarities, not differences. And that was
really hard for me. When I first knew I needed
to eventually stop drinking, the only thing I had heard
of was AA and I went to a handful of
meetings in Chicago and in these basement rooms with lots
of smokers. I don't smoke with a whole bunch of old,
bald guys and bad coffee, and I'm like, none of
these men have any idea what I'm going through. They
are not raising small children, they are not in the
middle of moving. I only saw, Oh, that must be
nice for them that they have this guy's group at
you know, six pm on Wednesdays. And I'm like, but
that's actually in the middle of dinner time, and like,
isn't super convenient for my schedule as a mom. So
it was like all I saw was like, well, that's
not me, and the problem was they weren't me. But
the problem was my same problem, and that was really,
you know, hard to wrap my head around. And when
I knew I had to get sober eventually, what happened
was I blew up my whole life. Everything got worse
and worse and worse. And when I had to get sober,
I announced that eighty nine days sober on Instagram. I
many was I'm an alcoholic. If you see me drinking
like you got to call nine one one and people.
This is in twenty nineteen. This was not cool to
be sober. I was brand new in this neighborhood with
four children under the age of five and a half,
getting a divorce from my husband. I had just gotten
two duys, ended up in jail and Gary, Indiana, and
scared the shit out of myself and everyone else that
knew me, and got on the Internet and created mocktail
Mommy and Instagram account to hold myself accountable. Because the
only safe place I felt sober was around other addicts.
In the beginning, I did not feel safe at a
grocery store. I didn't feel safe at Target. I really
struggled to drive by the liquor stores that I used
to go too. It was really hard, and I had
blown up all of my life. Right. I never considered
myself a liar, but I lied to everyone's face to
protect my alcoholism, and that made every other part of
me questionable.
Speaker 1: Well, take me back, like when did you When did
you start to feel like alcohol was a problem for you?
Speaker 2: Sure? You know? My story is in high school, I
sort of like moved all over South Carolina, Minnesota, Kansas
for my dad's job. High school in Kansas lots of
like field parties, drinking, running away from the cops. It
was like fun and easy. I was always the designated driver.
I had no interest in alcohol. I was very much
a straight a student like wanted a boyfriend and like
I was like not interested. But sophomore year, some boy said, oh, well,
Christy doesn't drink because she can't handle it, and I
was like, oh, let me. Then they show you what
I can handle because you don't do that to me. Right,
Like I'm an Enneagram seven, I'm like super fun. I
am a yes girl all the way, and so I'm like, cool,
what are we doing? They're like Jack Daniels, I'm like, sweet,
I don't even know what that is. So I drank
Jack Daniels shots on sophomore New Year's Eve. I proceeded
to vomit everywhere. They had to basically cancel this gigantic,
huge party we were having at someone's house. We were
supposed to not be having it. They had to call
my parents, they had to take me to the er.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: It was a whole thing. And the next day of
my parents woke me up at seven am and they
were like, it's time for breakfast, and you're gonna sit
here at the table and tell your younger.
Speaker 3: Brother how good it feels to feel hungover. I was like,
I actually want to die right now. If you make
me look at this pancake, I will vomit.
Speaker 2: You know. It was like brutal. And so I was like,
this was the most mortifying, awful, horrible experience my whole life.
And for the next two years I didn't drink.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, so till senior year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like, okay, that's a big no no
for me. Like, I don't know what happened, but I'm
like not good at that. And I was like I
was fun before that. I don't need that. I'm good. Well,
in the next two years. I also had really bad acne.
I started acutine, which caused me to gain fifteens. I
all of a sudden had these massive boobs and weird acne,
and I just felt weird in my body. And I
was a really big soccer player. I was working out
in class and I ended up fracturing my lower back,
which ended me up on bread rest and intils. Love faints, yeah,
love painfills except for I thought I loved them. But
my mom was like, you were not you. You were awful,
you were mean, you were aggressive. I was basically blacked
out like this full time while they're trying to decide
if I need surgery on my back and all this stuff.
So I'm just laying in bed. I'm losing weight without
knowing it. And I go back to school three weeks
later and it it is like I am Barbie promo queen.
I have shown up and people are like, oh my god,
people look amazing. What diet are you doing? And I'm like,
ooh ooh, hang on, people like me when I'm skinny,
this is good. What does that turn into anorexia? Full
blown anarexia? Counting calories, working out all the time, hiding,
working out till I pass out, waking up at four
in the morning, going to the gym, like it was
a crazy cycle. But I was really busy, worried about
food and going to parties because and not drinking felt
safe because it wasn't calories. I didn't want to drink
because of the calories. I'm like, look at all these people,
they're drinking a hundred calories and the glass are the idiots?
Like what you know? And so I was really preoccupied
with all of that. Sort of fast forward. I did
end up in an eating disorder hospital inpatient place for
eight weeks. I got down to seventy two pounds. It
was really bad. And I graduated and my parents were like, Okay,
you can go to college right at Miami of Ohio
as long as you weigh one hundred pounds. And I
was like cool. So I like had to like had
a you know, a nutritionists and all this stuff. But
then I'm leaving. I go to college and it's like
wait a second. Now I'm in college and there are
no parents here, there are no rules, there is no curfew,
I have no dress code. It was like I'm allowed
to be free for the first time, and man, there
was something really intoxicating about that. But to be free
and knew and be like, Okay, I can be whoever
I want here, and I'm gonna be like the cool girl,
and I'm gonna drink just like everyone else. And let
me tell you, Stephanie, it was cool to be drunk
in college. It was fun to be like, oh, look
at her, she's dancing on the look at what she
did on the bar. That's so funny. Look at her
she's trying a head and stand like. I was always
doing dumb, ridiculous, look at me kind of stuff because
that's the kind of person I am. So it was
kind of I became party girl. But I also love school.
I went to class every day eight am, never missed
the class, got straight a's. But I partied seven days
a week, and I thought that was fine, and it
was fine kind of for a while. But I realized
very quickly that my drinking was not like my roommates
drinking at all. My roommates could go out on like
Friday and Saturday, I want know, seven nights a week.
That means I had five different groups of friends because
all of them go out two nights a week, so
that means I always have an invite, right. I was
involved in everything I have, very much like Fomo. I
don't want to miss out on anything. I want to
see it all and do it all and be a
part of it all. And I thought alcohol is easiest
way to connect with people. And what I've always wanted
in my whole life is to feel a deep connection
with someone and to feel seen and understood. And I
felt like alcohol made that happen for me.
Speaker 1: I agree, I feel that same way. I agree.
Speaker 2: I felt like it was like this great, it doesn't matter,
it doesn't matter kind of who you are, if we're
all sharing this bottle of wine, right, like we're all
in this place together.
Speaker 1: And that feeling of And I still miss this sometimes
because when you're sober and other people are drinking, you
feel you can't help but feel a little distance from
you're just not on the same level. And I do,
I do remember so clearly that feeling of like once
you have a glass of wine in you, everybody's more interesting. Ever,
you just feel closer to people. Yeah, the next day
you're like, oh god, that person was an idiot, but mm.
Speaker 2: Hmm, but it's like, yeah, the beer goggles work, right.
Everyone is interesting, everyone's a little more attractive, like you're
a little more invested in their stories. So college was
super fun. I had the best time ever at Miami
of Ohio. But it also is known for being a
party school. It's there are twenty three bars and three
square blocks. Wow, and you better believe I stopped at
all of them. And I was real good friends with
all the bartenders. And then it became a bartender, Stephanie,
because why wouldn't you? And then I got fired from
bartending because also that's what happens when you're an alcoholic
and you're a bartender. So I ended up getting fired
on Halloween my senior year. I ran home in a
bug costume, half naked and didn't show up for the
rest of my shift. And then I avoided that bar
for six months. Right, That is how I handled alcohol.
That made me do things that felt embarrassing and like,
oh my god, I would never do that as a
normal sober person, like I'm a responsible I show up.
I would never do that. And so instead of being
able to like own the fact that I did that
thing and have a hard conversation, I'd just be like, oh,
I just won't go to those bars on that side
of the street anymore. So like the consequences of my
drinking were slowly without my knowledge, making my life smaller.
This place is no longer safe because I've been in
embarrassment there. That place is no longer safe. This group
I threw up at their house, this guy's house. I
peeed in his bed. I mean, there are stories of
hand stories. My junior year, my roommate leaves a highlighted
newspaper article taped to my apartment door, right my bedroom door,
and it's like signs of problematic and blackout drinking. And
she has highlighted this article. And I am twenty one,
and I am like, what a bitch. She is so
on fun, like her hang over suck. I don't even
know what her problem is. She has a boyfriend that
she's so boring. And I was mad. I was like
pissed off, and I was like, I'm so sorry that
you can't party whatever. No, Sephanie, like she's on real problems,
Like she was really concerned, But.
Speaker 1: You were twenty one, you were never gonna be like,
oh my gosh, thank you so much for the good feedback.
That is something I'm really gonna consider, and maybe I'll
check myself in somewhere. You're twenty one. Oh my god,
I've had lots of those, not that exact thing, and
that story is so common. I have friends that are like, oh,
this friend of mine came to my house and left
a big book of alcoholics on my kitchen table, and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, fuck off. It's like that's I know where
it's coming from now. Of course, at the time, I'm like,
literally go to hell, like I hate you so much,
go eat some pancakes and like call your mom or
something like I don't know so, but it was like, okay,
we can see that there's like a difference here. I
blacked out every time I drank. I didn't know that
you shouldn't. I don't think Sephanie. I really ever fully
felt tipsy. I was one hundred percent of the time drunk.
Tipsy was like the first sip it I drank. I
drink like a man because I want to have as
much fun as they're having. So if if my boyfriend
or ex husband, for example, weighs two hundred and fifty
pounds and I weigh one hundred and five, soaking wet,
but we're going drink to drink. Shoot. Yeah, but I
didn't put two and two together. I just thought we're
we're all getting another round, righto.
Speaker 1: So what happens?
Speaker 2: So you get out of college, get out of college,
move to Chicago, fall in love with this guy. We
both have sort of like big, good corporate jobs. We
have a really nice income, and our entire life revolves
around flying to Napa. I've never been to Napa Valley.
Now we're in every wine club ever known to man,
and drinking is sexy and sophisticated. Plus I'm wearing heels
and we got a limo ride. Okay, Like I am
living out my ever loving dream. I'm like, ugh, I
have everything in the whole world, except for then all
of our wines starts showing up at our house, right,
and then I'm realizing Okay, yeah, I mean like I'm
twenty two, twenty three, he's twenty eight. Okay. So we
go out to dinner five nights a week, and we
drink every night, and then we party on weekends. Okay,
so we drink every day. Well, it's fine kind of.
There are definitely times that my drinking start causing problems.
Sort of at like big events like a wedding out
of town, right, I get so excited. It's like, whoa
start drinking on the plane. I'm blacked out at the
rehearsal dinner. That's not cute, like not classy. Probably not
the impression my now ex husband wants to give to
his corporation. But these are so hard for me to
see that they are connected to my drinking and not
that it is a reflection of who I am as
a human being. Right, I cannot separate that, like I
am not a bad person, I am making bad choices.
I just felt like a bad person.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that is so relatable to me. I
was just thinking about this the other day because well,
Love is Blind the reunion, I don't know if you
watch Love is Blood, and the one of the women
was that got really drunk at an event probably caused
the fiance to say, I'm not going to do this.
And I was having shame for myself for thinking I
have been her, And also I could tell that she
was not going to go. This has to do with
my drinking. This is him saying I'm a bad person.
I feel that so so hard. How do you not
understand until you really understand that it's the alcohol, and yes,
we're the ones drinking it, but it always does sound
so fun until you have the blackout, until you embarrass yourself,
and then you wake up and you go, I cannot
believe I did that again. I can't believe this is
what happens when I drink and I continue to do it,
but you have to think it's not the alcohol.
Speaker 2: Well, and truly, like when I watched that last night
as well, I was so deeply uncomfortable because I have
been her so many times I have I am almost
positive that that is what I looked and sounded like
when I was angry and unable to pause, unable to
see my side of the street, unable to think clearly,
felt victimized, angry, and that was the only way I
knew how to express anything. Was like I repressed everything
except for joy for the longest time because joy was allowed,
joy was acceptable, and joy was expected of me, and
that is what I would be delivering as expected. And
then something blow up and the only thing that comes
out is visceral lava, the worst things you could ever
say and never take back. Right, That is how I
really believe I acted. I don't know for sure because
I was always blacked out, but yeah, so I couldn't
separate that, like, okay, some of these big problems. And
then it was like, well, well the guys get drunk too.
It was like, okay, we're still figuring it out. We're
figuring it out. And then I get pregnant, and I
get pregnant, and I find out I'm pregnant out like
nine weeks, and I'm not even concerned about not drinking.
I'm like, oh my god, I'm pregnant. I want to
be a mom. This is the best thing ever. Did
not really cross my mind. I ate a lot of
ice cream and Hamburgers for the first time in twenty years.
I was like, living my best life. And then I
have this baby and he's beautiful and perfect and wonderful,
and I have champagne like in the hotel room because
like ob I have been waiting for nine months, so
I have mimosas in the hotel room, and Stephanie, it
was off to the races. I was like, actually, wait,
being a stay at home mom is actually the best
thing ever. I'm getting paid by work for the next
three months to hang out at home, drink mimosas, watch
Real Housewives with my baby, and do tell me time like,
this is the shit. I have reached the holy grail
of why I'm on this planet. It was awesome until
I realized I didn't have the same level of like
intellectual connection with this newborn that I did with the
job that I had, all the work that I did,
the people, the connections. I didn't have responsibilities that were
the same. I was sort of tied to the house.
I was no longer seeing my friends, I was no
longer using my brain the way I was normal like
used to. So I'm like, God, I can't wait to
kind of like get back to being myself. So I
go back to work, you get a nanny, and I'm
drinking like a maniac. I went out for the first time,
really really out for bat Trap party at when my
son was four months old. I was breastfeeding, and you
can see throughout the night my boobs are just rising
full of milk in all the photos, and like by
the end of the night, my boob is like up
to here. And I come home and so I'm like,
I have to pump and my husband finds me passed
out in the nursing chair, the pumps, boo boo, Stephanie,
are they going into bottles? No, no, ma'am, no, ma'am.
I just have boob milk all over me and my
nursing chair. I'm like, Okay, well, obviously, it's just because
I'm a brand new mold and I took a lot
of time off and it's fine. And then I get
pregnant again and I'm like, whoa, that wasn't planned. That
was really fast. I thought you couldn't get pregnant when
you were breastfeeding. Oops. Okay, So then I'm pregnant again,
and this time I'm like, oh man, that is pretty
annoying that I can't drink. It seems like everyone else
is still partying. And now I'm like mommy and pregnant
and have a job and can't drink, and this seems
like pretty unfair. So I was like, I can't wait,
and then it would be like, what, you know, I
think probably at seven months I could probably just like
have a glass of red wine. I've heard that's fine. Well,
so you know I do or whatever. I have my
second son, he's almost four weeks early. He ends up
in the nick you for a month. I don't leave
the nick You for about two and a half weeks.
I have a sixteen month at home. The first night
I go home, I get blackout drunk, and then I
go the next day and I breastfeed my newborn. These
are not things I'm proud of, and not things that
I was aware I was doing. Also, like I just
thought I was doing what I needed to do to
survive that my child was in the nick You. By
sixteen month old is at home, my husband is back
at work, and I don't have any help, and I
felt scared and unqualified, and I felt like nobody gave
me like a manual on how to do all of this.
So he gets out of the nick You. The night before,
we went to a huge party, I get black out.
I we go pick them up at the nick You.
I'm throwing up on the way. I mean, this is
to bring home our tiny little baby. And when we
get home. The next couple months are pretty difficult, and
I am not happy. I feel like my husband and
I are like not connected, We don't feel the same.
Like he's sort of like knows what's going on, but
like he very much has a separate life. He has
a job to go to and I'm just like in
the occupational therapy, feeding therapy, all the things that I know,
you know, and it's a lot to manage. And then
I get pregnant again and this was also unexpected, and
so I get pregnant again, and at five months pregnant,
I find out that my son is going to be
born with a cleft flip and palette. And overnight my
pregnancy goes from normal to high risk and my life
turned upside down and every single thing I felt about
myself before that day disappeared, and I felt like I've
already failed and I haven't even met my son yet,
and I already failed him. And in the back of
my mind, I never would have admitted this, but I
wondered if it was because of my drinking. And I'm like,
oh my God, Like, can I have did I? Cause this?
Like is I'm never going to be able to forgive myself.
This is not fetal alcohol syndrome. This is a randomly
occurring birth defect. But the reality was the way it
made me feel about myself that I could have caused
something because I was being reckless and I was being
I was more worried about medicating my own self, ego anxiety, whatever.
That I wasn't actually able to put this newborn first
like that was really terrifying to me. When my son
was born, it's perfect and he's amazing, but it was
really challenging. It couldn't breastfeed. He had three surgeries his
first year. I had three kids under three and a half.
We just moved from Chicago to the suburbs. My husband
got a big corporate job, was traveling two hundred nights
a year. I don't know anyone in the suburbs, and
everyone who came over to meet me brought me wine.
Welcome to the neighborhood. Can I watch your babies while
you go out with your girlfriends. We would love to
have a play date and hold them. Mommy, wine culture
showed up big time for me. And I lived in
this bougie neighborhood in the suburbs of Chicago, and we
had enough money and they had nannies and it all
looked good, and so that's what we did. Mommy Wye
culture was how I survived, except for it started getting
really bad really quickly, right because none of us had jobs.
We were all stay at home moms. Somebody would host
a party, we'd drive a mile away all hang out
all day, get blacked out. I would get blacked out.
I don't know about other people. And then I would
go home and pretend to my husband like I hadn't
been drinking all day and be like, oh, it's four
o'clock so we could open it whatever. And he's like,
have you been drinking? And I'm just straight up lying
to him, like what is wrong with you? It is
three pm on a Wednesday. Of course I'm not drinking, Like,
get your shit together, like, I'm sure you had something
at lunch, Like I was mad, and.
Speaker 1: I smile because also relatable.
Speaker 2: I was like, what, who do you think you are
to tell me, like you don't have a beer at
happy hour every day? Who are you to tell me
that I'm less of an adult to make this decision. Yeah,
And it was a huge control thing too, like it
did not like the thought of someone else, like having
control over what I could or couldn't do. So things
start getting worse. And I go to this party with
these girls and I get blacked out in the middle
of the party, and so I get upset and I
walk home except for I don't make it home and
I end up passed out on the street median in
the middle of our fancy ass neighborhood. And that was
my first time that I ended up in what not,
I guess medical detox and then the psyche word.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I laughed. It's not funny, obviously, but I
mean it painted of a picture.
Speaker 2: It's accurate. I looked really good, pasted out. I would
like to let you know my heels and bag epically adorable.
So like, if I'm going to die on the street,
meeting and I will look cute. I just who.
Speaker 1: Called the police?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Did someone call your husband? Did they call the police? Like?
What how did that work?
Speaker 2: I don't really know. I woke up in the hospital
and my my best friend who lived in downtown Chicago
was with me. She had apparently contacted my husband someone
had the police have found me passed out and I
can't let like. I had a point three to four
alcohol wow, really high. And they were like, we think
you have an alcohol problem and I was like, oh god,
I really don't. That's so cute, though, do you know
what I really have? Like I have depression in a anxiety,
I'm unhappy and my husband's an asshole obviously, right, Like,
this is the problem. Do you see him here right now?
He doesn't love me whatever? Right, So I'm like anything,
but the alcohol could be the problem. So then they're like, great,
go see a psychiatrist, get some benzos.
Speaker 1: Before we started recording, you were like, there's so many
similarities in our story and I am hearing them. M yeah,
that's what I need. I need something to take the
edge off because I have anxiety. And now I have
diagnosed anxiety, so like this has been the problem all along.
The problem is I don't get to feel like normal people.
I've never felt like just super comfortable in my own
skin because I had anxiety. Now everybody can get off
my back about the fact that I sometimes blackout when
I drink.
Speaker 2: Right, So I'm like perfect. So I'm like great, now
I'm on Benzo's and drinking fantastic, great combo. Things do
not get better. My husband is now like concerned enough.
There have been enough times that like, you know, he's
out of town and the babysitter will call and be like,
I'm a little worried to leave because Christie's home, but
like it's not like with it. I can't tell you
how many times babysitters slept over at my house because
they were too scared to leave me alone with my children. Again,
like super not proud of this and super unwilling to
look at it because I felt trapped, scared, wrong, bad
alone and see a way out, And so I thought
the way out was ignore it and maybe it'll take
care of itself eventually.
Speaker 1: Maybe when you feel better, you won't have to drink right,
and then it will just go away, right, because it
does to the fact that you can drink regular like
a regular parce.
Speaker 2: I can just be social, right, just like social on
the weekends at parties or on days that end and
why or if there's like a matching glass with the
cocktail and it's the theme, because that the theme, so
like I couldn't miss out on that anyway. So my
drinking is really bad, and things keep getting worse that
I keep lying, And now I'm hiding bottles. Now I'm
hiding bottles around the house because my husband is on
to me. He's now tracking my spending. Now I'm buying
liquor not from liquors stores or grocery stores. Now I'm
buying it from Target. Home goods, any where that you
can buy it that would not be like you go
here for food and drinks, anywhere else that sells it, CVS, Walgreens,
any of those, I am buying it there because that's
not trackable. So those are my bottles that now he
doesn't know that I have. He knows that I'm getting
it somehow right, but he I think he doesn't know
that I have them, and They're hidden all over my house,
so that when I'm doing laundry at two o'clock in
the morning and say I have to switch to laundry,
I'm actually up drinking for an hour. Because at this
point I have three kids under four and a half.
My husband and I are not on the same page.
We are not getting along. I have no real friends.
I have like a group of people I pretend to
hang out with so I can drink and I don't
feel seen or understood by them. When I drink, I
get depressed and sad. When I get depressed in sad,
I drink more alcohol and then it becomes a really
big problem. So my parents get involved and they're like,
you have to go to treatment, and I was like, great,
I'll go to an anxiety, depression and eating disorder program.
I have all of those things. They were like, you're right,
let's send you to that. So I go to a
six week IOP program. Right, it's or PHP. So it
was five days a week, six hours a day, and
about four weeks into that program, stuffanie. You know what happened,
they got they everyone got smoke brakes. Right, So, like,
in the middle of this program about eating disorders and depression,
people get like these smoke breaks, and I'm like, I'm
not a smoker, but like these people get to go
on fucking breaks. I'm gonna be calm a smoker, Okay.
So I don't like smoking, but I'm like, I love
the idea of a break. So I just start bringing
wine in my car. And so I then take smoke
brakes and am getting alcohol warm alcohol out of a
Phronsia box in the back of my car. Mmm, yummy.
I get blacked out in the middle of this program.
In the middle of the day, I come to in
the hospital. I have been kicked out of a PHP
program for getting shit based awesome. So after that happened,
I got out, Nobody sort of knew what to do
with me. I drove one time, and I totaled my car.
Nobody was in the car, thank god, except for me.
But after that happened, my parents my husband were like,
this is enough. You have a problem. You have now
ended up in detox four times. You've been in the
ear multiple times for alcohol. You have an alcohol problem.
And I'm like, I hate all of you, but whatever.
So they're like, you have to go to rehabs. So
I'm like, great, I'll go to rehabs. So this is
twenty seventeen. My youngest is one, my oldest is four.
I'm like, who leaves their kids when they're this tiny?
I fly out to California to some fancy rehab because
I'm like, I'm not going to go to downtown Chicago,
like driving in traffic f that. Like, I'm going to
like I want to go horseback rating, i want to
get a tan, I'm going to get a six pack.
Like I'm gonna come back from like mommy camp and
be like so hot. This is literally my mentality going
to rehab is I just seed a mom break. This
is mommy reset. No one gets it. I'm not actually
an alcoholic and I'm going to go prove it.
Speaker 1: Well, my thinking was the same because when I got sober,
my kids were my twins were eighteen months and my
older daughter was four, and I was so jealous of
the people that were like coming to meetings from rehab.
I'm like, damn, it must be nice. I can't even imagine.
What do you just yoga classes every day? I was
so jealous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm like, great, I'll got to rehab. I
go to California. It's basically like the Four Seasons. It
is the most beautiful, luxurious place. We have like a
private chef and like also, it's like one bazillion dollars. Also,
by the way, like an insurance does not cover this,
And I'm like, what EV's was it like this side? No,
it was called hang on. It starts with an R.
It'll come to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's okay, just because we had the guy who
used to run cliff Side on the show. But oh,
it's kind of a douche anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the place that Robin Williams went. Okay,
it was Yeah, I was real fancy. It was real fancy,
and I learned a whole bunch of wait for it, nothing.
Do you want to know why I learned nothing? Because
I didn't want to. I think you could go to red.
You can send somebody to rehab and if they don't
want to be there, they're not going to get anything
out of it. I really I think that's true. And
I still needed to go. What happened was all the
alcohol was taken out of my system for thirty days.
What happened was I saw glimmers of people. There's a
woman who gave me my AA book that I still
have and wrote me a note in it. Her name's Pam.
She came to our rehab and and spoke about her life,
and she had something I wanted. She was authentic. She
is confident, understated, confident, didn't have to like own the rooms,
but owned it anyway, really sure of herself, had like peace, peace, sin, serenity.
I was like what she just like feels? She has
just like lovely energy and light and there was something
really attractive about that. And so I asked the rehab
place if I would be able to meet with her
a handful of times and they said yes, And so
she and I really made a deep connection. And she
took me to her AA meeting, which was a totally
different experience than going alone to some random group in
downtown Chicago when I didn't really want to go. This
was kind of like it sounded like your first time,
Like I had a friend, I had someone whose arm
I could hold on to, whose hand I could squeeze.
Who's gonna drive me home? Because Lord knows. After I
raised my hand and said for the first time, Hi,
my name is Christy and I'm an alcoholic, I was
not going to be able to drive home. I was
not gonna be able to stop crying. I was terrified,
is this real? Am I this kind of person? And
what does that mean about me? If I am so?
Speaker 3: I do this.
Speaker 2: I stay sober for thirty days. My dad flies out,
my husband flies out, we celebrate my thirty day chip,
I go home. I stay sober for thirty days. And
then my husband and I went to a Bear's Steelers
game and we were in the front row and I
had a beer because I'd been sober for two months,
and he had a beer. So I had a beer
and Stephanie. I was so damn proud of myself. I
only had two blue moons, minus the one shot that
I took with the people in the hallway that I
didn't tell anyone about. But I only had two blue
moons and I'd been sober for six two days. Obviously
it wasn't an alcoholic because alcoholics couldn't do that. And
when I was in rehab, everyone told me I wasn't
an alcoholic. They were like, sorry, what do you drink?
And I was like champagne and they were like what
the fuck? Like that isn't even like high proof, Like
what kind of fucking lay mass alcoholic? Are you? Like?
Have you gotten a DUI? I'm like, oh my god,
of course not. Have you lost your job?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Are you getting divorced? No? Well, what why are you here?
I'm like, oh my god, why am I here? I
don't need to be here. I am figuring out the
rules of drinking. You have to take breaks, I gotta
I gotta drink more water. I need to like have
some food when I'm drinking. I'll have some rules. I
get it now. I know all the neuropathways and the language,
and like, I'm so smart I can out smart addiction. Uh, Like,
I'm really smart. I really thought I was going to you.
Speaker 1: So what happened?
Speaker 2: I did not out smart addiction. That is not possible.
Everything got worse so fast. I came home. I I
totaled the car. We moved. We moved from Chicago to Wisconsin,
and it was sold to me like, this is a
really good opportunity to start over. Nobody has to know
that you've gone to rehab, nobody has to know that
you have a drinking problem. Frush start. And there was
something so incredibly attractive about that to me, And I'm like, yes,
I can go be a regular drinker. So we move here.
And right after we move here, I get surprise pregnant again.
And that pregnancy, I had a really hard time not drinking.
I thought about it every day. I was mad all
the time, I was exhausted, the three little kids at home.
I didn't feel great. I found out I was pregnant
when I was traveling on a yoga retreat in Bocos
del Toro, Panama, in the middle of the Zeka Scare.
So I had like all this other stuff to worry about,
like my my daughter's head too big, Like there was
just so so much going on, and my drinking got,
you know, bad, And so I was not drinking during
my pregnancy until I found something out. I found something
out when it was my son's two year old birthday party,
and I was seven months pregnant with my daughter, and
I had two other kids, and all of our families
were over, and I, you know, got some information. And
I didn't say anything about this information, but I knew it.
And it was so upsetting that I I went to
the locutor store and I got an entire bottle of
rose wine and I locked myself in the basement and
I drank the entire thing as fast as I could
at seven months pregnant with my daughter, and I was
just like, I don't want to be here. I don't
know how to get out of this. I don't know
what I want to do. I hate everyone, I hate myself.
I don't know how to be a good mom. I'm
stuck at being pregnant, like I don't have any friends.
It was really, really bad. The next two months were awful.
I had my daughter two days before Halloween, and I
had her and two days later I got out of
the hospital and we came home and my husband went
back to work, and I took all four of my
kids under the age of five and a half to
a neighborhood Halloween party. When I had a thirty six
hour old baby, and I got blacked out in a
brand new neighborhood with a thirty six hour old baby
that I had driven to and basically no one in
the neighborhood knew who the hell I was. And these
people were like, what the hell is going on? Why
is this woman here with no nanny, no husband, no
one's driving, She's driving a thirty six hour old baby,
Like this is crazy. That led to the scariest six
months of my entire life, because what happened after I
had my daughter is that I didn't care anymore than
people thought I was an alcoholic. I didn't care. I
didn't care what they thought because I didn't care about
myself and I don't want to be here anymore, and
I didn't know how to get through the day. And
the only thing that gave me any sort of relief
was alcohol. And I didn't have anyone to talk to,
and my parents didn't believe me, right because I had
been lying to everyone about drinking, how could they believe
me about anything else. I get it, you know, it
was just like this perfect storm. After my daughter was born,
my alcohol use was like on high alert for kind
of everyone. The handful of friends that I had had to,
you know, pick me up on a Tuesday after a
nail appointment. I'm the nails spot, won't let me drive.
I get I host a bunco party, progressive bunko party
that I know you did too, and I passed out
before people got here. I was such a mess. We
went on a President's Club trip for my husband in
March May May end of May May of twenty nineteen,
and it was like we had really been working on
my drinking. He had, you know, we had talked a
lot about it. We had rules in place. I could
only drink with him. I could only drink what he
gave me. Like it was like he had to be
the alcohol police, which is a horrible place to be
for anyone. And so we go on this trip and
it was like I was allowed to be fun until
the trip was over, and then when the trip was over,
it was like party time is off except for Stephanie.
You know as well as I do. I don't have
an off switch. You can't tell me when it's time
to be done and expect me to be done. So
I get home from this trip, I go on a bender.
I had suicidal ideation, really bad in a plan and
all this stuff, and I ended up calling my therapist
and they sent me to psych Word and I left
the psych Word three days later, against medical advice, deciding
that I needed to go home. And I came home.
My husband was like, what are you doing here? And
I was like, well, I just got an uber home
because I decided it was time to be back here.
The next morning, he all of my kids to school,
and then he was like, I'm gonna take our daughter
to the gym with him so you could rest after
your weekend. I know you had a rough weekend. And
I was like, I hate you. I hated everyone. And
the doorbell rang while he was gone, and I was
served separation papers with no notice, four days after trying
to commit suicide. And that was the very very first
time that alcohol was not my first thought. This was
the very first time that life was bigger than alcohol.
Alcohol was not going to solve the fact that I
had just gotten separation papers handed to me by some
sad looking old man. And I was like, oh my god.
So I stayed sober for about three weeks. I got
a lawyer and then he and I, my husband and
I went to a concert somebody we really loved together,
and what did we do? We had a drink and
that led to six weeks of me drinking and driving.
I ended up all over the state, blacked out, passed out,
throwing up in random parking lots, hotel rooms, nobody knew
where I was, Like, I didn't know where I was.
I would leave entire suitcases of things in a hotel
and just like be like whatever, I don't need that
stuff anymore. I wanted to run away, and alcoholic couldn't
get me far enough away from myself. And so the
two weeks before the or the July, I had had
another big incident and my husband was like, I don't
trust you at home alone with the kids. And I
was like, what a dick? Like I put these kids
here on this planet, and the only reason that they're
alive today is because I take care of them. It's Stephanie.
The truth was that also could have been the only
reason they wouldn't have been there would have been me,
And that was really scary. So he was like, we're
gonna get a full time nanny, and I was like,
we're going to get a full time nanny? Like I'm
a stay at home mom. What am I gonna do?
I That made me mad, and so I ended up
drinking and I ended up getting not one, but two
you eyes in seventy two hours. One week after we
hired a full time nanny. I got my first one
July second, and I got my second one on July fifth.
My husband took the kids away after the Fourth of
July party. I've been on an ID in my car
or you have to blow into the thing. I'm on
sober link where you have to blow into the facial
recognition to Stephanie, I have rules, I am, I'm I'm
blowing into it and then I'm drinking and throwing up
and to try and manage the miss of it all.
It was just so much.
Speaker 1: Well then, so Christie, I want to I'm gonna split this.
I feel like this is a great place to end
our part one because there's it's so important. No no, no, no, no,
it's great. The part two that after, I feel like
can be its own story and we can do it
over like twenty minutes on that so freeze where you
are tell us where to find you. I see it
on your screen, but you're at mocktail, Mommy, yes, mocktail
Mom Christie Tanner. I mean, you've come a long way
since then, so I want everybody to tune into part two.
I'll post Part two tomorrow, so let's pause and then
get right to Part two.
Speaker 2: Perfect