Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's me Stephanie Wilder Taylor. This is Drunkish,
the podcast based as you know, as you may have
surmised on Drunkish, my memoir about quitting drinking. Listen, do
me a favor. Rate this podcast six stars at the least,
and or review it. Just say something nice about it.
Please helps people find it. Also, you can watch it
on YouTube, which is why you know, a little makeup
on you our best. This week, my friend Rebecca Lubin
is here to talk about the moment she knew she
was completely done drinking, then the moment ten years later
she thought she might start up again, and the moment
her sobriety really kicked into gear. I loved this interview.
I think you will too. Let's welcome her and here
we are with my friend Rebecca. Rebecca, as I say
on the podcast, Rebecca, you've been She's little. You could
put her in your pocket, you could carry her around
with you. She's super fun and she's been sober for
ten years.
Speaker 2: Got thirteen years? Oh shit, ten months? Thirteen years, ten months.
I'll be fourteen September twenty.
Speaker 1: Fourth, Okay, so you know, just a couple of years
behind me. I'm not trying to be a one upper,
but like seventeen anyway, I love the long, long term
sobriety girlies. I love the conversations we were talking before
I even hit record that like, oh, hold on a second,
I'm having all the technical issues right now. That's okay, Okay,
we're back. I was saying before we started that we
don't always have to go all the way back to
like child unless there's something really specific that you want
to talk about, but like, let's just talk sobriety. Why
are you sober? What happened?
Speaker 2: I am sober because as I moved through my life
from my why is childhood illness that left me infertile
by age eight, I had my ovaries removed because of
very large tumors that they couldn't save the organs, and
I moved through adolescence with a huge chip on my shoulder.
You know, I had to go on hormone replacement therapy
by the time I had to wait, so I was
like sixteen and waiting to go through puberty. I just
messed with my head. It made me feel really insecure
and really unworthy and like I was like nobody else.
And it's really funny because this is a little bit
of callback to your podcast that I listened to that
I started listening to when You're son was seven. What
really resonated for me was when I was ten, eleven,
twelve and I knew I couldn't go through a normal puberty.
I just wanted to be a girl named Rebecca. I
wanted to be a woman named Rebecca who I saw
myself in my head and how I identified, and I
knew it was going to be a struggle, and it
was so heartbreaking, and I was allowed to take hormones
and become the person I knew I was. And when
you started talking about your child, it just resonated so
hard with me that we all should be allowed to
have the same journey I had, that were completely allowed
to be who we are.
Speaker 1: Because what you went through was basically gender affirming care.
Speaker 2: It was one hundred percent because I mean I was
born genetically female, I had my ovaries removed, I never
made estrogen. I was too young, so my pituitary gland
took me only so far, and I ended up being
like a twelve year old who was physically so behind
everybody else that I just walked through every day going
I'm different, I'm wrong, I'm not in my body the
way I want to be. And it was so heartbreaking.
And you know, my mom was such a saint through
all the endocrinologists visits and all the exams and really
kept me sane. But it wasn't enough because I didn't
feel right. And by the time I got through to
go through puberty, like everybody had already lost their virginity.
You know, I was so behind the curve. And around
the time that I got to start on estrogen was
the time I first smoked pot and both those things
in conjunction I've been writing about. It was like a
moment of Okay, I don't have to feel so bad.
I felt so bad for so long, and I'd like
to go back to my younger self and say it
all worked out. Okay, you didn't have to spend all
those years feeling so bad. But it was a lot.
It was, you know, how can I date? I can't
ever have children? How could I get married? I can't
ever have children? And it just sat on me, you know,
it sat on my heart and I became a heavy
duty smoker, and that's how I moved through my adolescence.
My twenties, and I was very, very innocent looking. Nobody
knew that I was like a daily smoker. Nobody had
any clue, and I luckily had very aggressively charismatic but
rebellious brothers on either side of me. I could just
fly under the radar and just quietly do what I
needed to do to feel better about myself, because I
never felt like in here I felt myself here. I didn't,
And it's why I've always been so I guess such
an ally of any child who's going through that, no
matter what gender they were born, because I get it.
I know how it felt.
Speaker 1: So when you were sixteen, you said, and you started
doing hormones, Yeah was it? It wasn't something I mean,
obviously I do know how this works. But so yeah,
it's a continuous thing, like you always.
Speaker 2: I can never go off it. I have to stay
on it for you know, cardiac disease is the number
one killer of women. Our bones get thin. It's made
me a bit of a health nut because I know
I know the things that I'm in danger of happening
to my body, like my heart, my bones. You have
to stay on them for your sexual health. You know,
you don't want to wither up and die sexually or physically,
so I'll be on them for the rest of my life.
And I don't mind at all. I kind of feel
like I'm cheating menopause because I never went through it
and I never will. It happened when I was eight.
It's called surgical menopause. So by the time I was
in my twenties, I was, you know, a daily pot smoker.
I was starting to drink more war because marijuana was
starting to make me like paranoid. And I was about
twenty seven, I'm like, well, this doesn't work as well
as it did. And then I kind of discovered like
tequila and vodka, and I would do that more. And
the whole time I would think to myself, why am
I so profoundly unhappy all the time? I'm so unhappy
all the time. I never feel well, I'm never happy.
I feel like I have a chip on my shoulder
all the time. And one of the things that started
happening around thirty, I started getting these like massive panic attacks,
and like, I live in San Francisco and I nandied
on the other side of the bridge. I live in Marian.
I nannied in San Francisco. I couldn't drive over the
bridge without total panic attacks, sweating, and so I started
going to therapy and the therapist said, what bothers you?
And I said nothing. I had buried everything so far down.
I had disassociated so much much from feeling so heartsick
about not being able to have kids. And it took
a couple of sessions to get to the infertility and
I said, oh, yeah, that does bother me. And we
worked really hard. And after I got sober, I did emdr,
I did all sorts of therapies. And it's now thirteen years,
thirteen and a half years until sobriety that I realized
the other day, I'm really happy. I'm like, I wake
up happy every day. I wake up happy. I moved
through my day happy, and I go to bed happy.
And I know why you when you were when you
were in therapy uncovering the infertility stuff, did she ever
ask you about your drinking or drugs? It literally never
came up.
Speaker 1: The I just never talked. I would I went to
lots of therapy and did not bother saying that I
drink too much. Ever, I didn't think I did.
Speaker 2: I remember once doing like I love to bike, and
I remember once, you know, I'm in my little town
of Mill Valley, I'm gonna take my I'm gonna take
a mountain bike ride. Did a great, big fat bong hit,
walk my bike downstairs and went, WHOA, I don't know
if I can handle trees right now. And as I'm
viking to the mountain to the path, I go, why
do you drink so much? Like every once in a
while it would like creep in, like, dude, why do
you do that? What are you doing? And it just
did not occur to me that it was such a
problem until it was a problem. And it was when
I was forty five and my darling friend Dolores had
told me she had invited me to hear her speak
at AA. She invited all of us to go hear
her speaking. And right before it was time to do that,
I went home to throw my parents a fiftieth anniversary
and I brought home you know, I like mature. I
went to the liquor store first and I got I
was drinking only so Rock vodka then, because you know,
it was fancy, and I would say it's made out
of grapes. I'm allergic to weed. I can't do vodka.
I have to do it like it's like grapes. It's
like a white wine, you know, it's really fancy. It's
like thirty five dollars a bottle. I'm not an alcoholic,
so I would get a bottle like this big and
there'd be like this much love, you know. The next morning,
and my mom and I were talking. We were driving
the car, and she was really funny. I told her
I was doing this. She goes, make sure to mention
your sainted. So my mom and I are talking in
the car and she goes, Honey, I don't mean to
be a bother, but I saw how much blood you
went through last night, and I really feel you're drinking
too much for your height. And I was say Mom,
I said, Mom, I'm going to be really honest with you.
That's every night of the weekend. But I couldn't tell
her weekend starts on Thursday ends on Tuesday. And I said,
that's just how I drink. And I said, but here's
the thing. My friend is speaking at AA last next week.
She asked me to go, and I kind of feel
like I'm going to stop when I hear her speak
I've never been to a meeting before, and I went
to this meeting and she got up and she said
something that really stuck with me, that she got to
be her kid's sober mom. Now I didn't have children,
but I nannied the family i'm with now I've been
with for twenty four years. Wow, I raised so many kids,
most of them I'm still best friends with right now.
A bunch of them I had to go see before
I left. They're in their thirties now, they're like my sisters.
I wanted to be their sober person. I wanted to
be the person who was available twenty four seven, three
sixty five and I wasn't even available for myself. And
then I went to the meeting. I think it was
September twenty third, and I never drank again. September twenty
fourth was my first day. And it was just seeing
like that whole thing, the attraction. If you see what
I have and you want it, you can get that.
And it really meant a lot to me. And I
went to Dolores. I said take me to meetings, and
for like a month, she took me to every single meeting,
and it was really fragile and scary. In the beginning,
it felt like I felt like being a sein enemy
and you could feel everything on your skin. And I
like broke up with the person I was dating because
we drank a lot together. I needed, I need. I
had to get sober on my own and it was
the best thing I ever did. And slowly everything got better,
and like six months in I started going to yoga.
I used to think, I want to be the type
of person who goes to yoga on Saturday, who's not
hungover on Saturday. And I became that person. And the
one thing I didn't do, and I talked to all
my friends who want to get into recovery that it's
not just quitting drinking. The one thing I didn't do
is I slowly let go of meetings. Over the first
ten years of my sobriety, slowly lego of meetings. I
used to brag like, well, I go to therapy because
I need to be the only one in the meeting,
or I go to yoga because it's more spiritual. But
the truth of it is, it's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny, but when you're saier or not, it's
kind of funny to be like I go to therapy
because I need to be the only one in the meeting.
I need to share the whole time.
Speaker 2: I needed to just be about me. This is the truth. Yeah,
And this is why I stopped going to meetings. It
was about ego. It wasn't about therapy. It wasn't about
not wanting to wanting all the attention on myself. It
was about those young men who were like twenty two
to twenty three, who'd come from court ordered rehab and
they looked like they were they just had their ass
kid by life, and I would look at them and
I would go, well, that's not me. I'm not that,
and I've never been that. I'm different. That is why
I almost went out at ten years sober, because I
could not admit to myself I am that, I am
exactly that. We are all addicts. We are all the same,
We are all alcoholics. There is no level of well
I only drink expensive vodka or I only you know.
It's not about judging other alcoholics, and it was about
humbling myself and having that moment of we're all the same,
We're all exactly the same, and I need to check
myself because I'm walking into these meetings with ego.
Speaker 1: Let's be real here, a long time.
Speaker 2: It took me a long time to recognize that I was.
Speaker 1: Going to say that piece. It took a long time.
That was over ten years. It's not like it's not
like you didn't go to meetings for a month and
then you had this epiphany. It's no. I think for
a lot of people, there is something powerful though about
seeing people that are like yourself. Now, it can also
be a trap because you can start going to like
only all women's meetings with people that really have their
shit together, you know, and you can start fooling yourself
into like, oh, those are the people I'm really like that.
And what I what I like to do is humble
myself in the way of going to a meeting that
isn't of all like minded people, because I can tend
to lull myself into a false sense of like, I
wasn't that bad. And it really helps me to do
this podcast and talk to all different kinds of people
and remember like all the shitty things I like, I
wasn't so together I did.
Speaker 2: I was not together at all. I didn't finish college.
I had seven credits.
Speaker 1: Left start college. I have every shitty thing you say
about yourself. I'm gonna try to one. I'm just kidding, God,
this will be fun.
Speaker 2: I had seven credits left, and my parents said, you
have to go to summer school. And I went to
Grateful Dead concerts and got really really stoned all summer long,
and then moved to California. And then at fifty five,
my boss said, I know you want to finish, do
it now? And I got my BA last August. Wow,
thirty three years and Everyone's like, what'd you do it for?
And I'm like, I put a period at the end
of the sentence, and like I didn't get a DUI,
but I definitely drove, inebriated a lot. I didn't get fired,
but I definitely slept through my alarm and came to
work boku hungover a lot. You know, I didn't I
didn't get divorced or marry the wrong person. But I
cheated on like every single boyfriend I ever had, because
I would get drunk and we'd be out somewhere together
and they'd walk up and be like, why are you
kissing that guy?
Speaker 3: And I'd be like, oh, yes, Teddy's so great, this
is my boyfriend. So I did a lot of I
like to tell my friends, like you could suggest anything
like super fucked up, like should we do this, I'd
be like, I'll dry, let's do it. And I have
admitted I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Say ninety nine or maybe one hundred percent of it
to like my mom, and I was like, don't judge me,
but this is all the stuff I did. And she
just kind of non she goes glad you don't drink anymore. So,
like there weren't a lot of consequences, but the consequences
were coming. The concept the severe illness was coming. Like
the pictures I have of me when I drank, Like
my face is this big, my boobs are this big,
and my body is this big. You know, It's like
I was all coming. I was going to lose jobs.
I was going to eventually get a dui because I
always drove drunk. You know, it wasn't that far from
my house to the nightclub downtown. I could make it
back there fine good roads. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so these ten years or right, and you're you're
at this point where you really don't go to meetings anymore.
You're like, I'm not like these people. I'm not that
bad and then what what made you? What was your Well?
Speaker 2: What happened was the pandemic hit in twenty twenty and
I had really fallen off already. So I was. I
hit eight years sober in September of twenty twenty. And
there had been a period of about three to four
years where I would go to get my Thursday and
my chip at the Thursday night meeting in Mill Valley,
and I'd be like, can I have last year's too?
Like I went once a year it was, and I
joked with people. I went in like like I was
in a pageant, like thank you, thank you so much. Yes,
I'm back, I'm back for my chip. I was like
it was like I was walking in a prom dress
going thank you all for being here. I'm here to
pick up my chip. And uh, I had just really
fallen off. I didn't need meetings. I wasn't like them.
I didn't need them.
Speaker 1: And then but you did want to kind of show
them how it's done. You wanted to give people a
little taste of inspiration.
Speaker 2: Sober friend, everybody was like beca sober Oh my god,
she does yoga all the time. Like I was that annoying.
Here's another handstand picture on Instagram and I just biked this,
and I just bike that, and I have my shit
together and I'm sober. Zero recovery. I had never gotten
past step before. I had worked with a sponsor. And
I always say, recovery and sponsorship in AA is like
a vampire. You have to invite them in. And if
you don't invite them in, they're not going to follow you.
You know, it's up to you to make it. So
when I stopped calling my sponsor, she's like, well, you're
not ready, call me when you're ready. So I had
really fall. I had done zero recovery work, and you know,
I would sitting in this room, in this cabinet, Maine,
in this desk, really depressed in July of twenty twenty three,
and I just remember I picked up my box cutter
for my recycling and I said, I am either going
to shove this in my thigh or I'm going to
get amebriated. And it wasn't even I'm going to get drunk.
It was like, I want to obliterate all emotion. I
cannot handle how lonely I am. You know, there were
some things that happened with family members that were very
upsetting to me that I couldn't really do very much
about and hadn't been resolved, and I'm like, I'm a wreck.
So what I did was I picked up my phone.
I called my childhood friend Pete, who we had dated
in our twenties and he was my sober friend. And
I said, Pete, I want a drink and he said, Babe,
when was your last meeting? And I said last September.
But I got my tenure chip and he's like, you
have to go to a meeting. You have to go
right now. And for I found a meeting in Bar Harbor.
I took the bus to Bar Harbor. I couldn't find
the door for the meeting. I was in the wrong
door and Pete said, come home, hop on a zoom
meeting with me. He talked to me all the way home.
I hopped on a zoom meeting and he sat on
zoom with me and he's like, this is what you
have to do. You're not doing recovery. And then I
figured out where to go for these meetings. Where to
go in Southwest Harbor, where to go in Bar Harbor,
And I became like a meeting halic. It was like
God got me right again, and I met a wonderful
man who I ended up dating for three years, who
talked to me about recovery and women's meeting and I
got a sponsor and I finally did twelve Step, and
it turned my whole life around, like cleaning up your
side of the street and forgiving other people for their
side of the street. I had never really considered that before.
It changed how I dealt with every single person in
every aspect of my life, and it was amazing. And
when the guy I was dating gave me my eleven
year chip in September, because they do a big ceremony
and you give each other your chips, and he says
a few words. He said, Rebecca, the reason you're finishing
twelve Step is because someday there's going to be a
young girl who needs your help and you're going to
turn around and help back. And I didn't even know
it was a circular program. I was like, really, that's
what we do, So it was all getting into real
recovery was amazing. And I like to tell people who
are hesitant to go to meetings that wherever you go,
and I travel with my job, we go to Hawaii,
in the winter. We come here in the summer. No
matter where I go. I have a community in Oahu.
It's under a banion tree in the park. I know
all those people by heart. They know me. When I
ride up on my bike, they're like, you're back, and
I love them all dearly. I had a sponsor in
Hawaii this winter. We wanted to do some specific step work.
I have a special person I work with here in
Bar Harbor and I started the first woman's meeting on
MDI here. It's been amazing. And the thing about twelve
Step is when the hard stuff happens, it gets you through.
In three weeks ago, I got a text that he died,
the one who got me back into recovery. He lost
his battle with addiction. And even though a bunch of
our friends have said how like specifically how, I'm like,
it doesn't matter. He lost his battle with addiction. That's
all we need to know. And I wrote on Facebook,
I owe him a debt because he saved me and
lit a fire under me, like I went to AA
the first night I found out, and all I could
think was I will do my damnedest to never go
out like that. That won't be me, and I'm going
to take his light and his energy and I'm going
to tell everyone I know that I am here to
help them and I am here to be available to them.
And I did that in all my meetings, and I've
had two of my women friends come up to me
and say, I like what you got going on? Can
we work together? And we're doing it long distance. This summer,
we're doing two different workbooks. One we're doing the Woman's
Way Workbook and the other one we're doing the OA
Workbook because I've been working on that too. So even
when all the shit goes sideways, AA and recovery is
what saves me.
Speaker 1: So for anybody that doesn't know, OHA is Overeaters Anonymous
over East, because we all have a lot of it
that usually people who have addiction have many different ways
to check out.
Speaker 2: I had. I was telling my friends. I'm like, I
planned eating like a sexual escapade. I planned when I
was going to have a snack, Like literally i'd be
finishing up work. I'd be like, Okay, I'm going to
go back to my room and I'm going to get
the in cheese that I got because it's like it's
organic and it's beak and I'm gonna melt with a spoon,
you know. And I would literally be like oh, and
then I had to like stop and be like, you're
having a lot of feelings and you're eating them all.
You're doing the exact same thing you did with alcohol,
and like full disclosure, because I talked to you about this.
I was just going to do a GLP. I was
going to do a gop one and I have such
bad anxiety, Like I joke that once I got my
anti anxiety medicine, Like what did I take. I took
a xanax and I dropped it on the floor and
it opened and it spilled on the floor. And I
looked at it and I was like, well, I can
never take that because it was on the floor. Like
I gave it to my brother. I was like, oh,
it's on the floor. You can't take it when it's
on the floor. So I actually like I got like
I got my GLP. I got the vial and I
picked it out of the package and it was sticky.
I was like, ah, I can't take it. It's sticky.
And I was like, all right, you're too scared to
take it. Fine, you have to find another way, and
I reached out to my friend. I said, all right,
I want to start over step one twelve step with
food and I was able to so far lose thirteen pounds.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: I had to pray a lot, like I literally had
to like walk in my room and from work and
drop to my knees and be like, please, don't let
me eat all my feelings right now, because I'm lonely
and I'm a little sad and everyone I love is
three thousand miles away and the guy I'm dating is
making me a little nuts and I'm feeling a lot
of feelings. Thank you, Higher Power, thank you. And I
had to really go back and do the entire twelve
twelve step program that I did for alcohol for food,
and I felt like it shot me even further forward
in recovery. And since I've shared about it at meetings now,
one of my friends in the women's meetings like, will
you walk through the work book with me? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely,
I absolutely will because I'm still figuring it out. It's
not easy. I'm hungry twenty four to seven, and if
I'm stressed, I'm like when there's like there's a nap
for that I'm like, there's a hunger for that. If
I'm stressed, I'm hungry. If I'm sad and I'm hungry,
if I'm sleepy, I'm hungry, and I to take it back.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with the GLP one, just saying I.
Speaker 2: Know, I'm just too scared to take it because I'm
scared I'm gonna throw I'm just saying one of the
side effects, which I could, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want anybody to feel any kind of shade
towards GLP one medications because it's very useful. It's not
a shortcut. It's actually can be very helpful to people
that have addiction. They're finding out it really sort of
does something where you just don't have quite that same
speaking from experience, absolutely don't get the same hit from you,
you know, because you don't it does. You don't really
crave substances the same.
Speaker 2: You're eating and you're going, you're the best love.
Speaker 1: I have a hat you're not like, I love it oreos.
I've never had any or gas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because eating can be a very satisfying, Yeah, very
satisfying in a way that I'm trying to replace with
like exercise. But I'm still not opposed to it. I'm
just terrified and bald.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm just saying for all the.
Speaker 2: Friends out there world to get at anxiety of so
many things, like I literally have to talk to myself
all day and go, you don't worry about me. I'm
not allowed to think more than what I tell my
friend Christina, don't think more than one hour ahead.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about xanax a lot, and because and
I don't have the answer to this. This is not
necessarily like a self help podcast, like let's work it
out together, But I was thinking about the fact that
I have so much anxiety, and I know for a
fact that it's not all It's not the same anxiety
from when I was young. I really think it's kind
of hormone hormonally related. I think the drop in hormones
makes me feel sometimes edgy, and then my brain because
I'm a shortcutter, I want the like, how can I
fix this without having to really like sit in it
or figure it out, because sometimes I'm like, there's no
reason that I'm having a freak out on the freeway
all of a sudden, just like oh my god, there's
cars and they're just they're very big, and they're very fast,
and like they could crash, And then I will have
the thought, how come they're not just all crashing all
the time, Like how come car? Like, yes, car accidents happen,
and they happen every day, but how come it's not
just like, how come every car isn't crashing? Are we
all just dependent on the next person being a good driver?
You know?
Speaker 2: And like that I could mess it all up for
me that guy right there, yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, somebody could swerve in my lane at any point. Okay,
So sometimes I feel like I'm always on high alert.
And then I remember that back before I had this pesky,
you know, acknowledgment that I'm an addict, I could take
his annex and go like, ah, I feel like I'm
in a warm bath. All is right in the world.
And then I was getting really upset that I don't
get to have that feeling. But then I had to
do the thing that we alcoholics do, which is the think,
think through though whatever it is, and I was like, okay,
I even took notes on my feelings about this. I
was like, Okay, yes, it's not fair that other people
don't have to deal with anxiety, because not all anxiety
is based on our field is based on some shit
we're not working out that could be solved in twelve steps.
It's just not it's some of it is just in
my body. Okay. Then I was like, okay, but here's
the thing. Yes, some people could take it a nice
little blue pill and go oh I feel better and
I feel like I could handle life and I could
still drive. It's I'm not really mind altered. I don't
feel high from it. I just feel even some people
get to do that, and that's fine for them. Now me,
I would take a xanax. And I know this about
myself so well so, but yet I could still be
talked out of it. If somebody was to be like,
you can totally handle it, I might. I might go.
But this is what I know about myself from years ago.
If I had a xanax, I would be like, oh
my gosh, that this works, that this is so nice,
thank you God for having this nice option of a
medication through science that I can feel a little better.
But then like the next day, I'd be like, gosh,
it's so nice to just feel even keeled and not
have to worry about it.
Speaker 2: That would still work today. Yeah, well yesterday.
Speaker 1: And then it would and then I would start googling, Hey,
how long could you be on xen x? Like, could
I just be on it the rest of my life?
Could I be on a low dose of xanax? And
just like that's how I'll always feel, and Ai or Gemini,
if it's Google might be like, you know what, totally,
you could have just a small you could have zero
point two five I've milligrams of xanax every single day
for the rest of your life, and it's fine. But
I would be like, that's great, but two point two
five doesn't actually really work for me.
Speaker 2: You know, I love I love my people in my close,
close group who say things like this, well, I have
to take five milligrams because I just have a really
high tolerance. I'm like, because you're addicted to it. It's
it's that's addiction. And they're like, just have a really
high tolerance. I'm like, right, because it gets you high.
I just have a lot more. I'm like, right, addiction.
Speaker 1: So then you have to acknowledge I have to go, Well,
the thing is that if point two five even just
took the edge off, that's not quite what I'm looking for.
What I'm looking for is really taking no edge. I
want no edge. I want it sanded down to a
just a smooth and that's just not achievable through just medication.
Like that's just And so then I would have to
be taking half a milligram at lead. Right then I'd
be like twice a day or whatever whatever it is.
At some point I'd be addicted again and then rams up.
Speaker 2: I could do that literally in anything. I can say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the people that are.
Speaker 2: So good, I must walk to the story and get
more right now, so I could have it tonight and
plan my rendezvous because that was really good yesterday, I
should get three, so I have one for tonight, tomorrow
night and the next night. Like I can literally buy
food the way I scrolled away alcohol the way I
scrolled away pod. It's like, better make sure I have it.
Can't run out. Cover's got to be full. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this though, So when you
quit drinking, I see this conversation. This is a very
trendy conversation. A lot of people think that they don't
they don't drink anymore, but they still smoke pot or
do weed or whatever.
Speaker 4: How you we could say to me, you already okay,
all enough same I mean obviously same for me. But
what would you say to people like.
Speaker 1: Have you ever thought, well, but you kind of already
did have a weed problem, so in your mind you
were probably like, I'm quitting getting high in general.
Speaker 2: I quit smoking pot, first cigarette, second, alcohol and all
other drugs. Third because you know, I went to a
lot of concerts.
Speaker 1: I had some.
Speaker 2: Flamboyant partners. There was some dabbling and other things. You know,
nothing like that could kill you, but you know it
could be really fun for an evening. And I'm a nothing,
all nothing, And I have a lot of friends like
I live in northern California. I have a lot of
friends who smoke a lot of pot, a lot of
friends who like take mushrooms, take a little assid and
they go, oh, you're clean and sober, and I'm like,
I am. And here's the other thing, though, the flip
side of that is I don't judge anybody who quits
drinking and has to smoke weed or whatever they need
to do for their recovery, because that's what works for them.
I know it won't work for me. And I know
that unless I am having a full on panic attack.
I will not take any sort of medication to deal
with it. If I'm waking up in the middle of
the night with anxiety, I will first get out of
bed and try to trick myself out of it by
like folding laundry. If that doesn't work, I do like
a downward dog and I do square breathing. If that
doesn't work, I get back into bed and I do
the only thing I won't do is eat. I used
to have a snack. I won't do that anymore. Then
I'll get back into bed and do other more square breathing,
and if that doesn't work. I'm not sure if I'm
allowed to say this on the podcast, but I do
have a vibrator in my drawer.
Speaker 1: Why would you not be allowed to say that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know my mom knows, and I told my mom.
I was like, literally, boom, you're not thinking about anxiety anymore.
I go just about five minutes and you go right
back to sleep.
Speaker 1: That's a good tool, literally and figuratively.
Speaker 2: Literally, it's a good tool. And my guy in coologist
thinks it's hilarious. I'm like, I have replaced any sort
of bens now with the rabbit. It's like really, I'm
like yeah, because you're all you're doing is breathing, and
you're not paying attention to what was going on in
your head. And you know, a lot of times I'm
just lying solo somewhere else, and I find that these
things work. Breathing works, yoga works, and the biggest thing
is to wake up the next morning and realize that
you got through it works. I just facing the shit
head on works. And it's hard. I'm not going to
say it's easy, it's really really hard, And especially like
the food stuff because when I became infertile as a kid,
one of my earliest memories of being miserable an infertile
and not feeling right in my body is coming home
from seventh grade, being home before my mom got off
of work and just standing in front of the fridge
and just reaching and eating and like mindlessly reaching and
eating like mayonnaison, bread, mustard, cheese, but until I felt
full and not bad anymore. And so eating started way
before drinking started, you know, pop smoking and drinking started
when I was an older teenager. But it's just all
the things we do to not feel what hurts. And
I'm determined to feel what hurts at this point in
my life and just kind of work through it and
just be a little brave.
Speaker 1: I think that's just a really beautiful message. And I
think that if we could all just have a little
bit of grace for ourselves and for the fact that,
you know, for a lot of us, especially the food stuff,
especially with women, the food stuff starts really early. It's
a way to self soothe. I'm right there with you.
I have a visceral memory of wanting thirds on my
mom's mac and cheese for dinner, and feeling this sense
of shame of like, oh, I'm going back for thirds,
you know what I and a little bit of that
leaves some for the rest of us, and just knowing
somewhere in myself that, oh, I was being kind of
a pig or I was I can't quite stop eating.
There's never enough for me, you know what I mean?
And then that feeling, it's this profound sad feeling of
knowing when my mom bought ice cream that I was
going to be fighting with myself the whole time of
like wanting more of it and sneaking and getting more
ice cream, and then knowing the reaper esis would be
that somebody would say, who ate all the ice cream?
And there's so much shame involved in overeating, you know.
Speaker 2: There's there's so much it's crazy and like the funniest
thing about my childhood and like not growing. You know,
we joke that I we had to wait for me
to reach this incredible height of five foot one. I'm
the tiniest person in the family. I never got bigger
than my parents. And I know it's because, you know,
we we had to do a medically induced puberty. But
like my brothers ate like a lot. I didn't even
eat as much as them, but they were so skinny.
They were like huge metabolism, so skinny. I had a
slow metabolism. I wasn't growing. I was the chevvy one,
and I always felt bad about it. And it's so
funny because I say to my friends when we discuss recovery,
I always encourage them, go back and thank your younger
self for trying to do. Go back and say thank you.
I understand what you were trying to do. I've got
it from here, but thank you, thank you for trying.
I appreciate you. And I say that to my younger
self all the time. Like I understand you were just
trying to cope with the skills you had, and we
grew up. We figured it out eventually, and I hope
someday i'm eighty looking back at the me I am
now going thanks, thanks for trying, you.
Speaker 4: Know I I.
Speaker 2: I think we kick ourselves too much and feel too
much shame at our younger selves who didn't understand how
to deal with everything we were holding, and we all
hold a lot.
Speaker 1: And even our older selves. I could say the same
thing for you know, the stress and anxiety I had
after having a baby. I didn't have the tools. All
I knew was having a drink took the edge off.
I didn't quite know. I didn't know what to expect.
And then I have this baby. I'm filled with all
of this anxiety and grief in some ways, and love
and protectiveness and insecurity and all of these feelings. And
I wanted to make those feelings go away. I wanted
to get a hold on it. I wanted to feel
a little bit more in control, and so I did
the best I could with the tools I had, and.
Speaker 2: It didn't.
Speaker 1: It's not a good thing for me because I do
have an addictive personality. But like many who came before us,
I could just give grace to the you know, thirty
seven year old that also was scared and didn't have
tools and didn't have support, and you know, and go, Okay,
I did the best I could, and then I got sober.
Then I had to figure Then I learned another way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always think, honestly, Stephanie, if I hadn't become infertile,
I would have been a terrible parent. I feel like
there's a sliding doors version of me who's like on
top of the house with a rifle going, who's miserable
and like her children resent her because I'm moody and
they're like, god, you're awful. But it's funny because I'm
like the ultimate nanny auntie. Oh my gosh. One of
my nanny kids is calling me nana now to her child.
She's like, you're like my mom, so you're his grandmother.
I'm gonna call you nana and I'm like, oh, and
like my ex when I met all his grandchildren, they
called me super aunty.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's just like we're on second generations of some of
these kids, and they their parents tell me, God, if
you weren't around. How would we have done this? So
I really feel like roll of Auntie instead of Mommy.
This life around has just been absolutely I had.
Speaker 1: Other shit yay, So it all came full circle.
Speaker 2: It all came full circle worked out.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy that you came on today. What a
what a great what a treat? Do you want to say?
Speaker 2: What my response was when you texted me? What what?
My my textbacks when you went to that, I said,
Oh my fucking god, you bait your fucking ass. I
want to do this. It's like on my mountain bike
in the Southwest, food bart putting like like my food
and my little saddle bags. I'm like, I just got
to go home and take a shower and look presentable
because it's been a day.
Speaker 1: Well, you look amazing and you are so funny and
what a great message. I want to listen. I'm going
to go back and listen to this episode again. I
feel like I almost cried a good one.
Speaker 2: I'm rewriting the short story I read to you, and
I'm gonna have another edit soon. There's one line that
I'm not sure if I could put in, but it's
pretty dirty with her lawyer going exhibit A have you
seen a picture of his kick.
Speaker 1: So where do you do?
Speaker 2: Everybody take Stephanie's writing class?
Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks for the shout out. Do you do
you need some Instagram followers? Where can people find you
if they want to reach out to you?
Speaker 2: And Nelson Lubin on Instagram, Rebecca Nelson Lubin on Facebook,
Rebecca Nelson Lubin on TikTok. Yeah. I make a lot
of videos of here's where I bike today, and this
is a picture of a tree. Oh, here's a tree
from the foliage. Here. I just bike north Shoolah. Who
Here's some waves and then I do them to classic
rock songs and you know, people look at them and
I'm like, oh wow, people look at them. Well, I
have a blog where I put writing up and it's
Rebecca Nelson Lubin at WordPress dot com. Oh my gosh,
I got an update. Yeah. I working on a memoir
of becoming infertile, becoming an alcoholic, becoming sober and a
different story too. I got to take a year of
writing at San Francisco State finishing my BA and I
got like all and reinspired. M I bas in creative writing.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fantastic. All right, Well, Thank you Rebecca Nelson
Lubin so much, and I will see everybody next week. Bye.
Speaker 2: Listen to you Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Bye, lived my dar