Annie Grace: This is Annie Grace, and you're listening to This Naked Mind podcast where without judgment, pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hi. This is Annie Grace of This Naked Mind podcast, and this is a podcast that I've been super excited to do because I have not one, but two special guests. So, I've got Paige and Mary Lambert. Hi, guys. Hi.

Paige: Hi.

Mary: Hi.

Annie Grace: I don't think I introduced you right, so you can reintroduce yourselves if I did it incorrectly. Do you go by Paige and Mary or Mary and Paige or just [laughing] …

Mary: The order, we're a little bit flexible on.

Paige: Yeah. But yeah, I'm Paige and this is Mary.

Mary: Mary.

Paige: Yeah. So, actually, spot on.

Annie Grace: Oh good, so good. So, welcome, you guys. So, you guys, you reached out to me and I actually knew about you because of the incredible song, Same Love, which is just one of those tearjerker, beautiful, beautiful songs. It just gets my heart strings and I was like, "Oh my gosh, Mary Lambert read my book... I'm freaking out." Anyway, this is like mutual freaking out, which we were doing lots of before we started this morning.

Paige: Yes.

Mary: Yes.

Annie Grace: Awesome, you guys. This is so exciting. So, tell me your story. I'm just going to turn it over and you guys just go back and forth and tell me all the things.

Paige: Yeah. Maybe we could start with, if you don't mind, hun, the fact like what prompted you to reach out to Annie.

Mary: Oh, yeah. Well, I, let’s see …

Paige: I guess this requires going a little bit further back in the story.

Mary: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mary: But, yeah. I think, yeah, because you have gone through such a massive transformation, that for me, I felt like I couldn't not acknowledge somebody who was a catalyst for your changing.

Paige: Right, right.

Mary: And I just felt just such deep gratitude for Annie and your perspective and your approach. I felt like it's very accessible and fair and kind and generous to the reader, to the audience, and I feel like that is just so drastically... Not drastically, but just very different than the rhetoric you get at AA-

Paige: Oh, yeah.

Mary: ... or just other approaches where it sometimes feels a little shamey.

Paige: Totally.

Mary: And really calling things like... Really kind of dealing in absolutes. And I feel much like what I do in my work which is what I want to do is to destigmatize mental illness, I want to deconstruct shame and where shame comes from because most, for what I deal with, is mostly with childhood trauma and sexual assault and mental illness and those things, but I feel like there's such overlap with substance abuse.

Paige: It's like you were all speaking the same language in search of the same truth and the same peace, and part of the reason I love hearing Mary talk about this is because this is the first... it's the only relationship I think that I have truly felt like I've had a partner in this journey, but at the same time, the magical thing is, because of your work, this is the first time I felt I haven't needed one. Like, "Oh, this is something I could do by myself, it doesn't matter who I have by my side, but isn't it awesome that I have somebody who gets it."

But I will say, just to back up to my experience with drinking, is that, as I mentioned to you before we started recording, I have bipolar disorder, Mary does too, and it's a big part of her work and her crusade against shame. And I don't know if my drinking behavior started as a way of self-medicating that or not, but I wasn't really interested in drinking in high school. I wasn't really into it in college, and I went to the University of Texas which is a huge party school. I mean, I was an English major which, no offense to English majors, is not exactly rocket science. You've got free time if you want to drink.

But, I just wasn't really interested in it, and then, when I was in grad school I was getting my masters degree in English and was living in Bellingham, Washington, and absolutely fell in love with drinking. And I was also, in addition to being totally stressed out, I was also in a really terrible, abusive relationship and was definitely, absolutely, medicating my way through that. It started with drinking champagne and wine and then just gradually, I don't even know how it

happened, I just got to the point where I was drinking like a fifth of whiskey every other day. I drank, I don't know, a minimum of five beers a night most times, and I had made, in various stops in my life, I'd made attempts to cut back on drinking or make little rules for myself which I now know is super common.

I'd be like, "Oh, I'm just not going to drink hard liquor any more. Oh, I'm just not going to drink brown liquor any more. That's the problem." Or, "I just can't have wine." That whole thing. And it had gotten, actually, since I met Mary incidentally, which has been just the best and healthiest relationship of my life, it also coincided with realizing how bad it was getting. So, just while I've been with Mary, I've had instances, like I've ended up in the hospital twice because of drinking. I have driven while really intoxicated more times than I'd like to admit. Have dredged up stuff with Mary and started fights and treated her really, really, really unfairly, which I'm finding to be the hardest part of this whole process, feeling of shame.

But nothing really even prompted it, Annie. I had downloaded your audio book, I had downloaded This Naked Mind audio book. There was no incident that made me realize, "Oh, shoot, I've really got to stop." There was no single thing. And I was just drinking like normal, it's was just a week where I was having, I don't know, five or six beers a night and went to bed drunk and woke up hungover every day, and something just... It must just be what you talked about in your book, that friction between your conscious and unconscious mind. Something was like, "Let's give that audio book a listen."

I mean, and I listen to stuff constantly. I've a long commute to work and I'm a college professor so I'm in my office grading and just hanging out a lot of the times when my office isn't just flooded with students, of course. And so I started listening to it, and so much of... I mean, first of all, at just a superficial level, I was like, "This sounds like somebody I'd be friends with." Like just your voice, you sounded like you were in the kitchen talking to me and you started the book with that anecdote about waking up at 3:33 in the morning every morning, and I recognized that and I recognized waking up and feeling panicked that way and drinking more to fall back asleep and I felt like it was somebody really connecting with me and what I'd gone through.

And I decided to just, as you suggest in the book, I was like, "I'm just going to think more about this while I'm drinking. I'm just going to consider it." And I kept listening to the book, and I didn't tell Mary what was going on, and she hadn't given me any ultimatums, she didn't pressure me, she wasn't like, "It's me or the alcohol." She never even really hinted that I needed to stop drinking at any point in our relationship. She's kind of wanted me, I think, from a distance, to figure that out.

And so, yeah, it was a couple of days after I started listening to it, I had a beer and I was sitting at the kitchen table with it and I was like, "I don't want this any more." I'm so conscious of the effect this has and how it's going to make me feel. And then the next day the same thing happened, and I tried to make

myself drink and I didn't like it anymore, and I kept thinking about this passage in your book where you said, "Alcohol will lift you up but only after it's knocked you really far down, and it will never lift you up to higher than you would be if you weren't drinking. It's just not possible."

And I thought, "I want to know what's it's like to be higher than this. I want to know what that feels like, because my life isn't... I love my life. I'm so happy, and I don't deserve to punish myself like this," you know. And, so, then the next day was August 27th, so I'm on day 98 today.

Annie Grace: Yay.

Paige: I just stopped. And I haven't looked back since. I could just talk about it for hours and hours but it's been the most powerful, transformative experience of my life, and it started off with, I signed up for and did the September 30-day challenge, and by then I had already quit drinking, but I checked into it all the time anyway because I felt it was like my family. And so, Mary knows, I would just sit in bed and read people's stories and try to encourage people and pump them up. And it was still an amazing experience. I'd do it again, even without drinking. But, yeah, what an incredible journey it's been.

Annie Grace: Oh, it's so cool. One thing that you said that really struck me, well, there are so many things and I know we haven't talked about this yet, but do start a podcast because you have just a great way of storytelling. You just...

Paige: Thank you.

Annie Grace: I could listen to you all day. So-

Paige: Thank you. I felt like I was rambling, so I'm glad to hear that it was ...

Annie Grace: No, it's so good.

Paige: We have a podcast in the works. It's called the Manic Episodes. Pun is 100% intended. It's a big, fat, queer, bipolar and sober podcast.

Annie Grace: That's awesome. So good. So one of the things that you said that I thought was so cool was you didn't... So, when I stopped drinking, or when I... not when I stopped, this was about a year before I stopped. So I started having this, like, I remember, literally getting off of a train and I was in London and I got off the Paddington to Heathrow, Heathrow express. I'm sitting down in a tunnel, and I had this visual of like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm on a train and it is headed somewhere," and I could see where it was going. And I was like, "This train is going and it is going somewhere very dark and very bad," because I was crossing all these lines, right?

So, I'd started with these little lines, like, "Okay, well, it's still 2:00 a.m. in New York, so even though it's 6:00 a.m. in London, I can definitely pour myself a drink, that's okay because..." Whatever. "And I know it's vodka but it's in orange juice, so even though it's..." whatever. Crossing all the lines. And so I just had this moment of clarity. It was like, "Wow, I see where this train is headed." And it took me, still, time to get off that train. I had to do all the research that I did. But one of my biggest, deepest desires is to help, just spread the message that we don't have to stay on the train. We don't have to see where it's going. We don't have to go through all those awful experiences until it finally crashes and then-

Paige: Right.

Annie Grace: Yeah, we're going to change. I mean, the research shows that drinking will naturally kind of evolve, out of... Most humans will drink too much and then they will naturally come up against such consequences that they will stop drinking. I mean, that's what the research shows. It will take on, often, I think, it's like 25 years or something crazy. But why do we have to do that? Why? Why can't we just have this conversation earlier? Why can't-

Paige: Yeah.

Annie Grace: ... should be like donuts or eating too much, I don't know, red meat. Like, come on, let's have that conversation. So, I like that about your story.

Paige: And the extent to which it's culturally normalized is also something that your work drew my attention to, initially, but now I think I'd like to think I'm like, "I'm an intellectual and I'm a critical thinker and I'm above being persuaded by those kind of messages," but... And my parents didn't drink, not really. I mean, my mom drank, when I was in my teens, I saw her drink some, but my dad was a teetotaler and never touched it my whole life, but I think that didn't really matter because it was just this like saturation of messages that it was positive and-

Annie Grace: Sexy, and-

Mary: ... it was sexy, and, yeah. And I had... Thank God I don't have to think about this now, but concerns, too, about... I felt like I was already operating at a deficit because I struggled with mental illness. I thought, "If I add into that mix that I'm sober, in recovery from drinking, or God forbid that I'm an alcoholic, nobody's ever going to want to be near me because I sound like a basket case." So that caused me a lot of concern, and so, yeah, as you just said, instead of going through that whole shame-filled process, and that's where a lot of this touches up against what you were talking about earlier, about navigating and negotiating shame and kind of transcending it, it's such a better way to think about it to say like, "Oh, I have an opportunity to get off that train. I see where it's going and it doesn't end well."

And as you talk about it in your book and the research shows, it is, I don't know if this is quite the right word, but it's progressive. It's not going to magically get better, and there's not going to be a day when suddenly the consequences are so bad that... Or, why would I let it get there in the first place, right? And, we had also, we had successfully quit smoking, so that was another-

Mary: That's a big deal.

Paige: That was a big deal as far as like, I knew I had a partner in doing this, but I realized that I had reached a real turning point with my sobriety because in talking with Mary about it, I had a lot of apprehensions about... Because Mary still drinks in that magical way where it's not a problem for her and she has control over it, which is just a superpower, I think. But, no, I don't mean to say that, but she has a totally different relationship with it than I do. And I had concerns about affecting how much fun we were going to have together as a couple, and I wasn't going to be crazy, fun, drunk Paige anymore, and finally Mary was like, "The person you became when you drank wasn't fun. That wasn't fun for me."

Mary: You're not more interesting. You're not more fun. There are times when I feel like I have to make excuses for you, or I feel a little embarrassed and I just never... It is such a gift. Your sobriety is such a gift that we can go to a dinner party and I just know that you're going to be on. You're on, you're so smart, you're so funny, it never made you more fun.

Paige: Right.

Mary: And I think there might have been times where it was okay because everybody else was-

Paige: Right.

Mary: ... drunk as hell, acting fool, and I feel like, I've had my own relationship with drinking where I used to be a bartender and in bartending culture it was encouraged that I drink on the job, and so I was blacking out a couple of times a week. I drank really heavily starting from when I was 16, until maybe like 24, 25. And I was in relationships where it was kind of... that was shamed. So I immediately was like, "Well, I'm a product of my environment." So I was like, "Okay, well, I don't drink anymore," and then I would secretly drink. So, I knew from my experience that someone giving me an ultimatum or shaming that behavior was not helpful.

Paige: Right.

Mary: So, when I might have seen some red flags with you and your drinking, I knew that there was going to be no sustainable solution with me being like, "It's either me or drinking."

Paige: At the helm of it, yeah.

Mary: It had to be your own journey, just like my relationship with alcohol changed but not because anybody told me to.

Paige: Totally. And-

Mary: And just because I didn't want to be hung over any more, I didn't want to have moments where I was just forgetting everything.

Paige: Yeah. And I'm sorry for totally steamrolling this, Annie, but that's exactly what... In my previous relationship, my partner did confront me and said, "This is completely unacceptable, and either you're going to quit drinking or I'm going to leave you." And I was like, "All right, I can do it." So I remember I took the bottle of whiskey and dumped it down the sink, and I was like, "That's it. I'm never drinking again." And I just got really adept at hiding it, and that was, I think, speaking of the cognitive dissonance, it was worse than ever then and I was as ashamed of it as I'd ever been, but knowing with Mary I had freedom to be honest with her about what the journey was like, but also that I owned being sober. It was my thing.

It wasn't something that was hitched to Mary in any way. It wasn't her idea. It wasn't her pressure. And one night, I remember, I think I told her and she really bought like, "Okay, this is going to stick," was I said, "If I had a choice right now, if you said," which of course Mary would never do this, and presumably no sane person ever will, but, if, I said, "Mary, if you told me you could do this shot of tequila with me or I'm going to leave you, I would be like... I'm going to pack my bags. I'm gone. I would choose my sobriety over this relationship every day of the week." And she was like, "Oh, thank God." I remember you sort of just crumpled-

Mary: Oh, it made me so happy.

Paige: ... because I think that can be its own issue, right? Is somebody else feeling responsible for being a steward of your sobriety is a really unfair impossible situation to be in, and I think we know that, too, because nobody can be the steward of your mental illness, right?

Mary: Right, right.

Paige: Nobody can be responsible for your wellbeing and for your self-care, but you. And that's where I think our communication that way has been just so helpful.

Mary: Right. Well, and because I used to be a craft bartender it was kind of a fun challenge because we have a pretty big bar in our house, and so I was worried first of all that I was like, "Well, we have all of this liquor here, and I don't want to stop drinking. I like having a drink, I don't know, once every few days." And I

still wanted to enjoy craft cocktails or a nice glass of wine, and so I was like, "Is your journey... Do I need to start adapting or changing?" And it was just so reassuring. You were like, "God, no. Do what you want to do, have nothing to do with me."

Paige: Yeah.

Mary: And that felt so safe. And there were still times when you were first going through the transformation where I was like, "Are you sure it's okay? Are you sure you don't mind? It's on my breath, or like, you know..." And I just felt so safe. So then, I got to come up with different mocktail recipes, and that's been really fun.

Paige: She's gotten really good at that.

Mary: Every night's a new mocktail recipe. It's so much fun. They're so... it's becoming a thing.

Paige: There'll be like a sprig of rosemary, or some twist of lemon. And, I mean, she's so good at it. But, yeah, and I promise I'll stop and take a breath here, can you tell we've been excited to have this conversation?

Mary: We're so excited to talk to you.

Paige: I think, in addition to that turning point of realizing that I would choose my sobriety over any relationship that I was in, I think that that helped to give you the confidence, but I also, as far as socializing and being able to go out and all that staff, I remember I told Mary, "Oh, no, Annie says that she goes to bars and stuff. It doesn't bother her at all." I was like, "That's what I like about Annie's book. She's not telling me, 'You're never allowed to do this again'." It was like, "You get to not do this if you don't want to. It's okay to not do that. There's no can't, or don't, or won't in it."

And that was so different than all the other literature that I'd read or stuff from AA that was very much like, "You can never be around it." For some reason, whenever I hear AA, I would just imagine this... with a black and white image and it's like this grizzled old man with a cane. That's what I imagine. It's like stabbing you. Like, "You can never go to bars again, and you can never be happy again." You obviously give yourself to... Well, and I know that's helped people. I know, I know, I know. But, just for me, like you said earlier Mary, too much of it was like, "You have to diagnose yourself, face the fact that you're fundamentally, as a human being, flawed, and you have to change your life forever. And you'll never be able to be the same person you were. Now you are a big A alcoholic and you can never get away from it."

And I thought, like I said earlier, "I'm already big B bipolar, this doesn't feel good. I don't want to be this thing." And, instead, it's just like an activity that I

get to not do. It's just like, I don't know, I'm not particularly crazy about snowboarding and I don't have to do that either.

Annie Grace: So awesome. So, the other thing that really struck me in the early days about going out with other people. I love how Mary is like, "You're just as much fun. You're hilarious and you're fun and everything." And one of the things that I noticed is, because when you go into something with a mindset, and I always caution people, I'm like, "Don't go into it with the mindset that it's going to be amazing, because you're just going to set yourself up for disappointment. But don't go with the mindset that it's going to suck, right, because then you're going to prove it true."

Whatever we say, if we say like, "Oh, man, it's going to be so miserable at this bar. All I'm going to want to do is drink," that's going to happen because you told yourself. It's going to happen, you know, that's just the truth. But, going to it with some curiosity, like, "Okay, well, how's this going to be? Am I going to be fun? Am I going not be as funny? Am I not going to be as cool?" When I started going to stuff with curiosity and then I'd come into it and I feel like, "Well, why is everybody taking so long to loosen up?” Because they all have this idea that they need three drinks.

Mary: Right.

Annie Grace: Because they told them, "Okay, this is how parties work. We come, we get our beer, we stand around, okay, now we can have fun." And I show up, I'm like, "All right. Why are we here talking about the inappropriate-

Paige: The party's here.

Annie Grace: The kids are downstairs. Like, what's happening? Let’s go.

Paige: Right. And in fact, wasn't it... I know, I feel like one of my students overciting a paper in an essay here, but I'm just going to keep doing it. It was also in your book that you talked about going to a work function or something and telling your husband, "Oh, my God, it was awful." And he was like, "Well, that's probably because there's a bunch of work people."

Annie Grace: Yeah, totally. It was work people, and in another country, where I'm never going to see them again, and the whole point of it was to close deals, right? So, you're on, and it's just not a fun environment. It's like super toxic anyway, because you're trying to sell your charisma in place of whatever the whole ATM deal I was trying to close. I mean, it was so silly in the first place.

Paige: Yeah.

Annie Grace: And I... "Oh, okay," and it was so freeing too because at that moment that was a really big fear. Like, "Okay, I'm going to go into this with curiosity, but what if I

prove to myself that it's just amazing and that I'm super boring with it?" But I had to allow for that. You have to allow for both outcomes, right?

Paige: Oh, yeah.

Annie Grace: And I think that's what's so important about not making it a black and white conversation, is that we don't do that with anything else. We don't do that with... I mean, anything. I can't think of anything that we're like, "Okay, it has to be all or nothing." We don't say, "Okay, I'm not a runner if I don't run 365 days a year, right?"

Paige: Right.

Annie Grace: I cannot, and I've been trying, so if you guys can think of anything, let me know. But I don’t think it has to be all or nothing. No. For me, I'm like, "Yeah, I drink whatever I want whenever I want it. I just haven't wanted to in almost five years now, so that's good for me."

Paige: That's exactly it.

Annie Grace: Also I'm never going to say like, "No, I'm never having a drink again," because that makes me like seize up and forget and it's-

Paige: Yes, yes.

Annie Grace: ... it's very uncomfortable.

Paige: Yes. Exactly. And that's why, in fact, I told Mary, "In fact, no, please leave the liquor in the house." It doesn't feel like I'm exercising... I don't have to exercise any self-control or willpower or any of that nonsense at all. Instead it's just constant, like... it's not even a decision I'm making. It was, "Oh, yeah, that's there." And if some day I decide that that's something I want back in my life, sure. If, when we get married, I decide I want to have a glass a champagne, yeah, that's an option, sure. I can do whatever I want, but now I have this self-control and for me it's also a sign of trust on Mary's part that she will invite me to situations like that where there will be drinking because she's that confident in my sobriety, so for me that just helps it to mature and to evolve.

It's only, I don't know, I sometimes will think of it as a growing child where I'm like, "Yeah, my sobriety is still really young and I'm still figuring all the stuff out about myself." It took me, I don't know, maybe a month or so to come out of that mental fog, but I'd have moments where I'd be like, "I don't know if I'm going to be as sharp or as funny or as witty or as entertaining without alcohol." But then I'd think about things like when your sister came to visit, and we were all drinking but, of course, as always, I was drinking way more than everybody else. And I don't even remember what I was doing, dancing around and acting like an idiot in the living room, and I was really drunk but I was just sober

enough to hear Mary turn to her sister and go, "I'm going to have to stop this, right? Like, I have to stop her, right?"

And I was like, "Oh, my God. I'm like 35-years-old and this... I'm embarrassing myself, in my own house, with my partner, in front of her family member who came to visit from Seattle." And I think that might have been where the... Because it was really after that that I started listening to Annie's book. I think that had a huge effect on me because I want to be... My career is so unbelievably important to me and I've worked so hard for it, and I'm just realizing now, it's incredible that I accomplished... I feel like I accomplished everything I did with one hand tied behind my back because I was so drunk for most of it.

But now, I'm like, "What am I going to be able to do now that I'm sober? Right?" And all these cool things have happened. I just went on Jeopardy!, which was-

Mary: Paige was just on Jeopardy!

Paige: It was fun. And the episode is going to air in February, so there's that whole thing. And I thought about it, and I was like, "I didn't have to worry about..." There is definitely a day when it will be like, "Okay, I'm going to have to figure out how to get a quick drink and a cigarette right before I go in," because when I auditioned, actually, I had three or four beers before I went into the audition room and I nailed it. And so I remember telling Mary afterwards, I was like, "I'm going to have a couple of beers before on Jeopardy! because I think that's when I get in my sweet spot." Like, who thinks that? What person alive is like, "You know what?"

Annie Grace: I've done that. Yeah. I thought that about pool, I thought that about skiing. I definitely felt that about business.

Mary: Did you say skiing? You thought about skiing?

Annie Grace: Oh, yes.

Mary: You better-

Annie Grace: Which, how dangerous is that? Oh, my God. Right? Come on.

Paige: I've done that, actually. I just did that, in fact.

Mary: Yeah. We were just talking about skiing, because we went skiing last year, and I think you were drunk.

Paige: And isn't there such a... Because I think we are such... I mean, Annie, you're hugely successful, aside from this whole project of just absolutely changing people's lives. You're successful in your own right. Mary, you're hugely

successful. I'm successful. What kind of a weight that must that be on a person's brain to know, in your heart, that what you believe in and you just find your behavior is total BS? Because you know it the whole time. I knew it the whole time. I knew. There's absolutely no way I teach better when I'm hung over. There's no way that I'm a better driver if I've had a beer.

That's just not logical. And I think holding those beliefs that are not just not true but also are so insulting to who we actually are and what we're capable of, I just think that creates this huge weight. Even if you're not conscious of it until you get rid of it, like Allen Carr talking about the uncomfortable shoes. It just doesn't... But it's crazy how unable you are to get past the... How quickly, rather, you can be like, "Well, it doesn't make any sense but that's just how it has to be. It doesn't make any sense but I've really gotten used to this and I don't want to mess with perfection, you know."

But, I told Mary just the other day, I was like, "I'm sure there are a few benefits to drinking. It's like, it does the old social lubricant thing and it gives you something to do and you can try new cocktails and all that stuff, but, so I could do that, but by not doing it, I am avoiding 600 other problems."

Mary: Yeah.

Paige: And if I ever feel even a little bit tempted, I told Mary that... I think you were out of town, and I was walking past a pizza parlor, I was walking to a pizza parlor in town and it was a really cold night and I walked past this bar and there was a football game on. I'm a huge football fan, and it was like all these people huddled around the TV watching the Patriots and drank their pitchers of beer and it looked warm and cozy and, oh, and I walked past it and I felt this little twinge and I was like, "You know, things have been going pretty well lately. I could just have a beer. Things are really good." And then, instantly, I was like, "Oh, things are going really well because you haven't been doing that. That's why." Like, don't fumble at the one-yard line.

Mary: Yeah.

Paige: There's no reason to do this.

Mary: And that reminds of me of like... finally, because I was diagnosed bipolar when I was 15, but I didn't go on like an actual regimen of meds until I was 22. And I was just like, after I'd been on meds for a while, I was like, "Well, I'm doing fine." I'm like, "I'm stable now, so I don't think I need this anymore." And it was like, "Oh, maybe... Maybe it's because the meds are working."

Annie Grace: But, here's the thing. Human beings, adults, we're going to do what we want to do anyway, right? And I feel like there's so much fear around like, "Oh, my gosh, you're telling people that it's not black and white and they could drink again if they want to." I'm like, "No, I'm just saying that we are adults." We are grown-

ass people, we are going to make our own decisions, and we could make those decisions with this aura of shame and hiding, or we can make those decisions with the, "I'm walking by this cozy bar, it looks really fun and nice inside. Huh, let me think about this. Let me get conscious."

So I always say, especially to people coming out of the alcohol experiment, I'm like, "Do whatever pleases you but do it with your brain. Do it mindfully and consciously. Do not slip into it." There's two main things that happen is, moments of insane stress and moments of crazy celebration where people slip into it. And of course we slip into it in other places, too, those aren't the only two. But when you slip into it without seriously thinking about it and saying, "Hey, what is this really going to cost me?"

I remember, whenever I was offered a free drink that really triggered me, and I think it was because it was like, I don't know, it was free and I didn't have a lot when I was growing up and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, it's free," and whatever. And then when I really process what is the cost? What is the cost? It became such a different conversation, which is so cool.

Paige: Yeah, absolutely. And especially in terms of cost, I mean, I wonder, too, just drinking is one of the... I mean, obviously, it's not going to help anyone, but for someone with bipolar disorder, it's particularly bad, right? And I'm not supposed to drink on my meds. That never stopped me. And I mean there's not even an assumption that you're going to follow that.

And in fact, I was so excited to tell my psychiatrist I wasn't drinking alcohol any more, and even my psychiatrist was like, "Oh, okay, that's great." You know, it was such a tepid response compared to like when you quit smoking, the whole world is just exploding and orgasmic celebration for you, but with drinking, I've really struggled to get any enthusiasm from anybody and I wonder if... I know the fact that it's so accepted as a big part of that, but it's also making me realize, "Oh, my God, I was doing a really good job of hiding how bad the problem was."

Mary: Right.

Paige: I mean, a really good job. And even my sister we were just visiting with, I had to convince her. I was like, "No, you don't understand. It was really bad. Like I couldn't remember the last day I'd gone without a drink. It was bad." But still, I couldn't get that same level of enthusiasm, so I think I've learned to appreciate it for what it is, which is, it's the beginning of this whole new journey for me because now I'm sort of uncovering the reasons that I started medicating that way in the first place. I'm uncovering all the stuff about my mental health and I've been talking with my therapist toward the fact that I had very permissive parents. I mean they just let me... It was what I like to call laissez-faire parenting. I had no boundaries, no restrictions. We could be out however late we wanted. It was just like really high expectations.

My dad used to say, "College isn't enough. You have to go to some form of professional school or get a PhD or something." It's worked pretty well, but my sister was an attorney and my brother is a physician, and I'm a college professor, but then I have a younger brother who has struggled on and off with substance abuse problems, and I think actually all of us have, and I'm realizing about permissive parenting, that people, if you're raised in that kind of a household, you are more likely to end up with substance abuse problems. So that's been interesting to uncover.

And I've also learned how, and this connects not only with your work and the stuff that you explore in your creative work, but also what I know Annie has an interest in, too, which is how suppressed trauma and suppressed experiences can lead to this kind of pain that we don't really understand that manifests itself in all these different ways. And I know that you're interested in that book, The Body Keeps The Score. And of course, Annie, you talk about this with your back pain, those experiences. But it's like I'm just now realizing it, this is what the work looks like. Those experiences don't go away. I think being conscious of them, like you said, like going into something with all elements of your brain turned on and being willing to be critical of yourself and critical of your behavior.

I think sobriety is really just a start for me. It's going to be the start of this much longer journey of like... I mean I know I'm 35 but like becoming a real grown up and taking responsibility for myself and for what I've been through and for self-care and all of that.

Annie Grace: That's awesome. That's so good. So good. And it's really interesting. So I've been doing some additional research recently, and the whole idea of like... I have all these studies printed out. I'm just furthering what I've been looking to about spontaneous sobriety, which is basically this idea that was... It's so funny because it's so... There's a lot of research on it but it's just not even very publicized, it's not even well known, but the idea is basically that... and it's called either natural remission or spontaneous remission, spontaneous sobriety.

The idea is that people, without any treatment, so like not going into AA, not going into rehab, just naturally get better, and they do it in a way that's more effective and longer term. And so, a lot of my work is like, "Okay, well, what are the key things in there?" So, there's been a few things that have come out recently and it just strikes me to share this because in your story it feels like all of these key things are really present. So, one of the first key things is, something happens that is very internal that makes you feel like, "Oh, this is not congruent with who I want to be."

And so I talk about that as the conscious and the subconscious. Kind of have this moment of reckoning where you're like, "Ah, okay." And so for you it's like dancing in front of Mary's sister, and it was just very like, "Okay, there's a little bit of, this is not the person I really know I am." Right? And it's kind of coming to that, and a lot of that is social. And then, one of the things that the research

says just so definitively is that when we attach shame to relapse or failure or negativity to it, it prolongs the cycle, right? So we know that the cycle isn't always like the straightest arrow, it isn't the straightest line, and it can be all sorts of different ways, but whenever we attach shame to it, it makes it worse. And it's amazing because it's right there in black and white. They studied lots of people and this is true, right?

Paige: Yeah.

Annie Grace: But then the other thing that's really interesting is that when you start to receive, which I think you do, in spades, in your relationship, is positive reinforcement for the change. That is just so huge, and it can be internal but it can be external too. And it's interesting because if we don't have that enough in society, like you're talking about your psychiatrist not saying anything. I mean, so many dozens of people, "I told my doctor and my doctor's like, 'Well, how much are you drinking? What's happening? Are you driving drunk? Are you putting your kids in danger? Are you never sober? Are you...' Like what's..." And if it's not really bad, then they're like, "Yeah, well, me, too. You're fine. I’m right there with you. You want a drink?"

Paige: Yeah.

Annie Grace: And it's just the truth of it. Like doctors and the healers are some of the heaviest drinking. Nurses, lawyers, and, again, successful professional and... but it really is. And so I think it will... I mean, it's already changing in our society, but I think it will more and more, and I think the thing that we can do the most is exactly what you're doing. It's just showing up being you and just not drinking. And I think that's why someone like you with as much charisma and personality and attitude comes out it just really... It's awesome, because it just catapults the whole thing forward.

Mary: Well, I think, too, as you're talking, what I think... Because I'm trying to think, I'm like, "Okay, why is there not the response that maybe we're looking or seeking when we quit drinking, or like when, as you begin this journey, why hasn't it been happening for you?" Because for me, as your partner, I've just been like, every day I'm just like, "I can't believe it. This is just the best. It's changed everything." You know, and I write-

Paige: Yeah, before you messaged Annie.

Mary: Yeah, I did. I just wanted to thank Annie just for like, "Wow, my life is just totally different and we haven't had a fight in three months and it's so cool, and it's everything I wanted it to be." So I'm trying to think of why that response isn't there, why everybody isn't having that feeling. And I wonder if part of it is because of the culture of shame around drinking, where people know so many other people who have quit drinking or used the model of AA or just used this

model of absolutes where they know that somebody is going to relapse again. Or like-

Paige: Oh, yeah. Yes.

Mary: ... how many times has somebody said that they're going to quit doing something and then... From my perspective and what I've seen, especially as a bartender, I've been like, "Oh, sure, you're going to quit drinking." Like, "Okay." Like, "Uh-huh." I just don't... you don't see it. It just isn't something that sticks until hearing about Annie and hearing about your process, and I'm like, "Oh, this is... You really mean this."

Paige: Yeah. It's like when you have a friend who... they're in a relationship with somebody that you're not crazy about, and they break up all the time. So when they do, you try really hard not to be like, "Oh, good, that guy was never good enough for you. I hated him." You're like, "Oh, you all broke up. Okay. I'm so sorry." Just say, "Okay, they're going to be back together within a week," right? I could see that. I could see you being kind of reluctant... And I know, I think that's why. I think you're right-

Mary: Yeah, because, also-

Paige: I think for a lot of people, it's-

Mary: ... also-

Paige: ... you don't want to prematurely celebrate that. Yeah.

Mary: Right. Because initially, when you first started, I didn't say anything, but I remember, there was one night where you only had two beers and I was just like, "Something's wrong." I'm just like, "I'm just not used..." I was like, "That's cool. I wonder if she's experimenting?" Or, like I really appreciate mindfulness, and then the next night you barely had one, and I was like, "What is going on with my partner?" Like I don't know. I thought maybe you were really, really sick, because it didn't make sense to me.

And then the next night you didn't have anything at all, and I didn't want to say anything because, I don't know, I didn't want to jinx it. I don't know what it was, but I didn't want you to have any sort of attachment to my praise to it.

Paige: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Mary: And I didn't want you to have any pressure from me whatsoever, or from me to say like, "One thing is good and one thing is bad," because I wanted it to be totally up to you.

Paige: Yeah, yeah.

Mary: Because if it's anything other than that, to me, that's just not sustainable.

Paige: Right.

Mary: And then it wasn't until maybe a week or two later where you brought it up with me. You were like, "I think this is going to stick. I think this is going to be my... I think this is it."

Paige: And I was enrolled in the alcohol experiment, too, so I was... And it was because I was scared about being a downer. So I was like, "Honey, I think I'm going to do this thing. It's only 30 days. Don't worry. It's not forever. I don't want you to worry that I'm going to be a dud forever." And you were like, "Please, let it be forever. This is great." You were like, "Whatever you have to say to yourself." Yeah.

And I think that's what's so... not only is... Because what you gave me in our relationship really mirrored what Annie's book gave me, and that whole experience was like, "I am here to see how awesome this is for you. I just want you to see what it's like." And I think that's really revolutionary because I was into Allen Carr's book when I quit smoking, and this is a very crude... he's just so British and sophisticated and I listened to it on audio book, but this is a very crude rendering of what he says, but he says, basically, like, "Relish that feeling of whatever that withdrawal feeling is because that's the nicotine monster dying inside of you. Just revel in it. Like, there's a point where you love the feeling of it dying."

And so I kind of did that same thing, where when I'd feel this little like cravings to drink or like the physical withdrawals, like, "Hell, yeah, that means I'm getting sober."

Mary: Yes.

Paige: That's awesome. I want the desire to drink to just wither and die. And so, that was a different mindset, too. And having a partner, having a teammate, there are so many different ways I think in a relationship. I saw so many people in the alcohol experiment on the Facebook group, and of course I won't compromise any of their privacy, but just to talk about it generally, who would say like, "My partner's being terrible right now." Or, like, "My partner is getting blackout drunk and yelling at me." Or, "My partner's saying that doing this whole thing is stupid." And it just broke my heart. Not to say, "I've got this all figured out," because Mary and I both had to struggle so much with this before I made the decision to quit drinking, so in a lot of ways this is a continuation of that journey, so it hasn't always been easy, but just...

And I don't even... I kind of wanted to say to all of them, like, "This is an opportunity for you to... You could do two things. You can either just continue to be who you are and protect your sobriety and model what it can look like

when you are sober and your mind is clear, or you can get the hell away from them because they sound awful." You know what I mean? I know you can't make those judgments about other people's relationships, but just having had both experiences, I think, also, having Mary listen to your work with me, which she's willing to do. She's like, "People are saying that Annie's book..." while I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. I want to hear it, I want to listen to it. Having her be in on that process really, really helped.

And Mary was not in a position to be like, "Maybe I should quit drinking, too," because that's not her journey. I didn't try to convince her of that because it doesn't really have anything to... At the end of the day, we're in a relationship but my sobriety can't have anything to do with her in order for it to be sustainable in a real, fundamental part of who I am. So, instead, it's something different. It's something that's my own, but that Mary gets to help me cultivate and watch it grow and be proud of me, and like you said, Annie, give me that positive reinforcement.

Annie Grace: Yeah. It's so good, too, because I feel like, yeah, in a relationship, change is going to be tumultuous, and it literally doesn't matter how amazing the change is. If somebody loses 100 pounds, if somebody starts working out every day, if somebody gets healthy, if somebody gets on medication for a mental illness, or off medication, or heals, or whatever, right? It's going to be tumultuous no matter how positive the change is because there's a lot of fear that comes up, and the fear is like, "Are they going to be different? Are they going to be too good for me? Are they not going to want me around if they do this?"

And so, I think that, another thing that I think is so important if you're listening and you haven't had the support like Mary is giving Paige, it's just to really know that sometimes it can be on us because we are the one, especially if your partner's still drinking, they're still stuck. But you've got your health now, you've got your mental faculties now, you've got... your confidence is growing every single day because you're doing what you say you're going to do and you're keeping commitments to yourself, and so any kind of... just security you can give your partner, of like, "Hey, I'm still here. I'm still going to appreciate your mocktails with little sprigs of rosemary. It's going to be [crosstalk]." Whatever it is, just to know that it is scary for a partner to change no matter if the change they're making is the best change ever. It's still...

Paige: Yeah. Yeah. We talk about this a lot that I feel like... because since we both struggle with mental illness, there are a lot of conversations that we don't have to have with each other because we understand what the experience is like.

Mary: Yeah, the implicit.

Paige: Right, sort of-

Mary: Yeah.

Paige: ... conversations. But at the same time, when... I'll get questions, sometimes, because a lot of Mary's fans will reach out to me in Instagram and ask me questions, then a lot of them will start following me and things like that. And they'll say, like, "What advice do you have for somebody who's in a relationship with someone with mental illness?" The way I think of it is, like at the doctor's office where there's a list on the wall. And I'm not... I don't mean to conflate mental illness with alcohol, but as Mary said, a lot of the language is the same and the goal is the same, right?

But I think about the list on the wall at the doctor's office of patient rights and responsibilities. I'm like, as somebody who is a partner to somebody with mental illness, you do have responsibilities, or a partner is struggling with their drinking and wants to quit drinking. Like, of course, you have responsibilities to be supportive of them and help them and communicate with them and know what they're going through, but you also have the right to be, I think, to be aware of it and you have the right to a partner who is taking care of themselves, and a right to a partner who's being fair to you and isn't scapegoating you or pressuring you into drinking or is making you feel guilty about your choice.

I remember when I was a smoker, I hated it when my friends quit smoking. I-

Annie Grace: Oh, me, too.

Paige: Oh, it was like they were abandoning me. I hated it, and I would think less of them, but way more of them at the same time. I was like, "You can't leave me here with this. You can't leave me here with this addiction. This is bullshit." And I worried that I was going to make Mary feel that way, but I had, just through my understanding of what sobriety would be like, I kind of knew intuitively, "Oh, this is what a supportive partner looks like in this situation." But, yeah, I totally agree with what you said, that for people listening who are in relationships that maybe don't have that same level of support, like you said, you've got so much on your own and you are becoming stronger and better able to deal with anything that life throws at you-

Mary: Totally.

Paige: ... without alcohol. Alcohol cannot and will not enhance your ability to deal with stress or tragedy or excitement or any of it. As you and Allen Carr say, what kind of miracle drug is it that is just as effective at treating euphoria and heartbreak? That doesn't... it's not it. It's going to drag you down in any situation. But, yeah, while you're getting sober it's like you're exercising all those muscles that will make you stronger and better able to deal with whatever life throws your way, whether that's working on your relationship or realizing that you have grown past the relationship. Or, it will give you more energy and more faculties to do all of that stuff and to be better on your own. And my confidence just grew every single day that I wasn't drinking after August 27th.

I woke up excited to learn, like, "What's going to feel different today?" Even if at first it felt kind of bad because I was in a fog and while I was teaching I kept forgetting what I was going to say, I just took a page out of the Allen Carr book and out of your book and I was just like, "I'm going to embrace this feeling. This is the feeling of getting better. This is the experience of getting better." And now, having that confidence, knowing I did that, this is the coolest thing I've ever done. Like, what can't I tackle? If I can do this without alcohol, what can't I do? And there are so many people in the alcohol experiment who would say, "I lost my job today. I didn't drink." You know, "My kid came home and they'd gotten in a big fight at school. I didn't drink."

There was one person I remember who talked about... they were concerned that their house was going to be foreclosed on. They were like, "That might happen, and I don't know if that's going to happen or not, but I do know I'm not going to drink in response to it."

Mary: Wow.

Paige: And everyone, of course, it was just universal support and praise. And so, I have to say, and that's another thing I cannot recommend highly enough is doing the alcohol experiment and having this little cohort of people and coaches who are experiencing what you are, and maybe they've been through it. There are some people in my group who had gone through the alcohol experiment successfully before. I say successfully. If they did it, it was successful. You know, if they even tried to do it, it was successful.

But knowing that I wasn't alone in the brain fog, I wasn't alone in feeling that way. And for people who did feel like they didn't have support from their partners, I was able to say, "That might be true and you might not be getting that positive reinforcement from your partner or from your doctors or whoever, but we're here and we're giving you that positive reinforcement. What you're doing is awesome. What you're doing is incredible."

Mary: And I will say, as your partner, or for anybody that has a partner that still continues to drink or has their own separate relationship to alcohol, for me, watching you, has created such an example of mindfulness to where I was like, "Oh, well, what's my relationship to marijuana? Like, how much do I actually like getting stoned this frequently, or do I actually enjoy drinking this much?" And you have encouraged that without even consciously doing it. I just see you as an example, and I wonder how that reverberates in our sphere-

Paige: And circle, yeah.

Mary: ... and beyond.

Paige: Yeah, and we actually have that because I don't think that your... Your fans are so into your life and they just love every detail of your life, of course, and I don't

blame them, because your life is awesome. But, I imagine, too, sharing this, because you haven't talked to them about this yet, but I imagine sharing this experience with them, too, will give them insight into what that looks like, and maybe inspire that same kind of mindfulness, because I really do think the most powerful part of this is just being able to model it and just spread the gospel of this being possible, because I absolutely didn't think it was.

And, as Mary said, she was like, I said, "What would you..." Just the other day, I was like, "What would you do if I told you six months ago, at some point I was going to be three months sober?" And she was like, "I absolutely would never have thought that was going to happen. Impossible."

Mary: There's no way.

Paige: And just... impossible. And I didn't think so, either, but now here we are and Mary just had this huge, gorgeous, incredible album release. Her album came out and she had this huge homecoming show in Seattle with all these incredible musicians that she's worked with and who are on her album, and Macklemore came up and performed the new song they have together on the new album, and it was just huge. And I thought, "Every other time I've been at one of Mary's shows I've been almost blackout drunk." Because I get kind of anxious being around her fans and just the atmosphere is so high stress and I would get a little... I'd feel a little bit anxious and I don't know why, and I would just drink and drink and drink, and inevitably start some fight with her and really put a damper on it. And I could feel myself just slipping into this really dark place every time I drank, and I felt like, every episode it would get darker and darker.

Like my bottom was getting lower and lower and lower, and there was also... hangovers would last four or five days.

Mary: Yeah.

Paige: But, yeah, she had this show and I remember you telling me, "Knowing that you're going to be sober this whole time, I'm just..." She's like, "I'm not worried about it."

Mary: I had no anxiety. It was wonderful. I got to have the best show I've ever had, and I just trust... And you were with my family, and you were with my friends, and I just never... I was not concerned in the slightest. And you were able to just totally, 100%, be there for me, and I just felt so safe. I just felt so safe and secure and just confident.

Paige: Oh, it's great. And there was even this, like, one of her fans sent me this video from a few hours back of... that they snuck a video of me backstage peeking from behind the curtain just with this huge, cheesy grin on my face, and it was like, that wouldn't have been the case before. I would have been hiding in the green room, sneaking wine that I've like a cooler full of beer I snuck in, and just

that freedom and not having this gnawing part of me of knowing that I'm sabotaging myself and that I think so highly of myself in all these different ways. But then I'm like routinely putting my body through this horrible, depressing, this toxic experience which is just routinely poisoning myself, that that just created... I didn't even know how much it was weighing on me. I didn't realize how much it was eating away at my confidence and at my belief that I had a right to this life being this good.

But just everything that could possibly be better, is better. It's unbelievable. And being on the other side of this is so beautiful.

Annie Grace: So, you just something that I loved. It's like, "I have a right to a life that is this good." And the craziest part is, we're just born this way. What?

Mary: Yes.

Annie Grace: We just got off our path a little bit. We're just like born this way. We have a right to us being so good. I've had a few podcasts back-to-back today, but before them while I was meditating right over there in that little yellow chair, and I've got like a little drinks fridge right by it and my drinks fridge was like on its cycle, it was like... and I'm like trying to incorporate it into the Zen, you know, whatever, and eventually I forgot about it, and then all of a sudden it turned off, and it was just this... and that's just what's coming to my mind as you're talking about, is like, the noise, the white noise went away-

Paige: Yeah.

Annie Grace: I was like, there are wind chimes outside and I could hear birds in the trees and it was like, "Oh, my gosh, that was taking so much space in my mind, but it was white noise." And we just pour alcohol into all these different experiences and then it just makes it like this white noise. Like, it's a feeling, it's the same feeling to be drunk in the green room as it is to be drunk in your wedding day. Like you just have the same feeling. Now you get to have the real feeling. And I just love how you said that. I didn't know I had the right to life this good.

So, you've kind of already answered this, but I'm going to ask you my final question anyway, which is, if you were going to go back in time until the Paige who was drinking five beers a night, who was dancing in front of Mary's sister and kind of like, "What's wrong? This isn't necessarily me." And you were going to tell her about what life is like now and what you hope now for her future, what would you tell her?

Paige: I think I would say... Oh, that's a great question. I think I would tell her, "It is right on the other side of this, there's something so much better, and it's not a sacrifice." I think that's what I would really want to communicate to myself, is, "You're not depriving yourself of anything. There's something just so beautiful and so incredible waiting for you on the other side, and I don't even want to

describe it because I don't want to spoil the surprise, because it's just so incredible. But it's like real freedom and real peace and real quiet and real love. Like knowing that that's... and it was so close the whole time." I think that's what I'd tell myself. "You are giving up absolutely nothing. You are entering a world that's better than you could have ever dreamed of." And I would tell myself, "You can absolutely do it, and you're going to be better and stronger for it."

Annie Grace: Oh. So cool. That's amazing. That's awesome. It's such a good way to close. It's like this little... just shift in your perspective-

Paige: Yeah.

Annie Grace: ... and it's right here. You can just see it slightly differently, and everything changes. It's amazing.

Paige: And I just cannot thank you enough. I've been... I got really emotional thinking about, "When I have a chance to talk to Annie, what am I going to say?" And I keep just thanking Mary and telling her, "You facilitated this." And how often do you get to like meet and interact with people who have changed your life in this way? But I just think... I know that you have an idea of it and I know that people tell you all the time, every day, how much your work has meant to them, but I see both of you guys as being in this parallel project of using what you've been through and your own pain and trauma to pave a path that makes life easier for other people.

And I think it's just such a selfless, beautiful act. I see you guys as, like, you're doing God's work. Like this is really effective, meaningful work, and, Annie, I just can't thank you enough. You absolutely just changed my life. You really did. I know it sounds dramatic, and I know people say this to you a lot, but I think you saved me just years of heartache and pain and instead gave me... you're just like a friend in my ear in my earpods while I was walking around campus or taking out the trash. It was just Annie talking to me about what was possible in this new life of mine, and just hearing your friend's comforting voice and it will always be such a special part of my journey for that reason.

Mary: Yeah. And I want to also thank you. I felt like, with this change that you've made on your own accord, you have changed the fabric of our family tree, of how our kids will view alcohol. How our grandkids will view alcohol. You stopped the cycle of something even before it went bad or it got bad. I'm thankful to you, Annie, and I'm so thankful to you, honey, for doing the work. It really wasn't work at all.

Paige: No. It was great. It was really fun.

Annie Grace: That's really awesome. Oh, you guys, got me all... Thank you, guys, so much. It was-

Paige: Thank you, Annie. This was great. Hopefully that wasn't too much rambling and going-

Annie Grace: Oh, I loved every minute of it. It was just awesome. You guys are so fun, and just the best, and such good energy. So-

Paige: Thank so much, Annie.

Annie Grace: Have a great day, you guys. Thank you.

Mary: You, too.

Paige: You, too.

Annie Grace: All right. Bye.

Are you ready for a deep dive in truly lasting change? If so, you might consider my Intensive Program. It's a nine-week self-led program that you can do in the complete comfort of your own home. It will truly transform your relationship with alcohol. If you want to learn more about this, go to thisnakedmind.com/intensive. And, as always, rate, review and subscribe to this podcast as it truly helps the message reach somebody who might need to hear it today.