#04: A Double Life
In this episode of Girl, Undrunk, Heather and Zoe explore what it really feels like to be trapped in the cycle of alcohol addiction—the exhaustion, shame, and constant feeling of being stuck. They talk candidly about waking up sick, hiding drinking, lying to loved ones, and planning each day around the next drink. As they dig into the hardest moments of their addiction stories, they reflect on how alcohol began to erode their sense of identity and what ultimately pushed them to seek sobriety and addiction recovery.
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#04: A Double Life: Transcript
[00:00:00] Heather: This podcast covers sensitive topics that may be difficult for some listeners. Please take care while listening. Welcome to Girl Un Drunk. I'm Heather, your host, and this episode is a little different. It's not about the success story, the I got sober and now everything is perfect. This is about what it actually felt like to be in it, to be addicted, to wake up with the nausea and weight of withdrawal.
To lie, to plan your whole day around drinking, just to feel stuck in your own cycle. These stories aren't glamorous, they aren't pretty, but telling them makes them real and being real about them makes them human. If you're struggling, if you're in recovery, or if you just need to be reminded that you're not alone, we're here.
We get it, and we hope this episode helps you feel a little more seen. Now, let's get into it. You're listening to Girl On Drunk,[00:01:00]
drunk.
Hi everyone. Welcome to Girl Un Drunk. I'm your host Heather.
[00:01:18] Zoe: And I'm Zoey.
[00:01:19] Heather: And this is episode four.
[00:01:20] Zoe: Wow.
[00:01:21] Heather: Okay. We went to see May Martin last night and uh, I'm wearing May Martin's Mer. Of course,
[00:01:27] Zoe: of course.
[00:01:27] Heather: It was great.
[00:01:28] Zoe: Yeah,
[00:01:29] Heather: I loved it. May, if you don't know, may. Stop this podcast and then go watch everything Mae's ever done and then come back.
Mm-hmm. And then we'll understand. Mae's a comedian, but now released an album and sang and play guitar. Had a band.
[00:01:43] Zoe: I loved watching them just. Take their little breaks I know between the songs and mess around and chitchat. And make mistakes. And make mistakes and would call it out.
[00:01:52] Heather: Yeah.
[00:01:53] Zoe: They were like, oh, I fucked up.
Let's start again. Heather decided not to wear pants last night, and she texted me a photo for outfit and she said, is [00:02:00] this okay?
[00:02:00] Heather: It also wasn't super venue appropriate, like I feel like the gaze that were there were like jeans and flannels.
[00:02:07] Zoe: Yeah. Knees. There was no. Super femme gaze
[00:02:10] Heather: there. No, and I, that surprised
[00:02:11] Zoe: me.
The guitarist was probably the most super femme that was there because she had like her shorts and her cowboy boots and,
[00:02:17] Heather: and her long beautiful hair,
[00:02:18] Zoe: long, beautiful hair, cool
[00:02:19] Heather: vibe, and her ability to play guitar. That really just made me wet.
[00:02:22] Zoe: She was whipping her hair up and down and it was so hot to me.
[00:02:26] Heather: Yeah. That was also my first sober concert.
[00:02:30] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:02:30] Heather: And that was really good. We got there. Oh yeah. It was freezing. We waited in line for too long.
[00:02:35] Zoe: We waited in line for five minutes. It's just because she didn't have pants on that it was too long for her. It's cold. If she wore pants, she would've been okay.
[00:02:42] Heather: Yeah. And I should have worn pants.
[00:02:44] Zoe: No, I'm glad that you didn't.
[00:02:45] Heather: When I went to the bathroom by myself during the concert, I was like, like I wanted to put my coat back on. Like I felt like stupid. 'cause everyone else was like, no. In a sweater.
[00:02:53] Zoe: But did you kind of feel like empowered after that? You did that with like, oh my God, I look so fucking cute right now.
I don't have any pants on, and I just went to the [00:03:00] bathroom without my coat.
[00:03:01] Heather: Like kind of, but I also was worried that like when I was walking back in, that people were gonna be like. Does she think this is like an Olivia Rodrigo concert? And I'm like, no. I'm trying to get Mae to see me marry me. Yeah. And live with me for the rest of my life.
[00:03:13] Zoe: It was all the flannel gaze that were there.
[00:03:15] Heather: Yeah. And I was surprised because I feel like Mai, well, I guess you don't just go to concerts if you think that that person will have sex with you. People go to concerts for music.
[00:03:23] Zoe: Yeah. You clearly went just because you thought May was gonna fall in love with you.
[00:03:27] Heather: Clearly. Clearly. That's why I went,
[00:03:28] Zoe: but. You know, that was just like the first time that you've seen them.
[00:03:33] Heather: I just felt like I was blushing.
[00:03:36] Zoe: I remember my first concert I went to sober probably. Three, four months in, it was at the Velvet Underground. It was really small. It was all my friends and they were all taking shots of tequila, and I remember I didn't know what to do with myself.
[00:03:53] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:54] Zoe: But I just had my drink at that time. It was very important to me to have a drink on me at all times. Yeah. [00:04:00] So I was standing there grasping my drink and watching the singer.
[00:04:04] Heather: Aw.
[00:04:04] Zoe: And I was so newly sober, so kind of like awkward, didn't know how to dance.
[00:04:08] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:09] Zoe: But after maybe half an hour, I felt more loose and proud of myself for even like making it 30 minutes.
I just kind of loosened up. Yeah. But it's crazy how in the early days I was so grasping onto. The sober drink I had in my hand and now when I go out, I don't really even think about it.
[00:04:27] Heather: Oh, I'm still like that.
[00:04:29] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:04:29] Heather: I'm like, put something in my hand. Someone get me a ginger ale. Yeah. Think I just
[00:04:32] Zoe: ginger ale stat
[00:04:33] Heather: ginger ale stat.
[00:04:34] Zoe: Did we say that? I tricked you last night?
[00:04:37] Heather: That was so funny.
[00:04:38] Zoe: I was, um, I don't know why I didn't wanna bring my bag in at first because I was like, is this obnoxious that I bring my big bag into this concert? And I took out my IDs to put in my pocket, and Heather was like, why aren't you bringing your bag in now?
He said, well, I have drugs.
[00:04:56] Heather: And I was like, you have drugs.
[00:04:58] Zoe: Heather fully [00:05:00] believed me that I had drugs, and she was like, what drugs are
[00:05:01] Heather: we
[00:05:01] Zoe: taking?
[00:05:02] Heather: I was like, 'cause it was weird. We were in my car and at that moment I was like, do we do drugs? Because like Zoe is like sober. Sober. Like I, I talk about sometimes like maybe doing mushrooms in the future at a cottage with the girls.
I don't know. Mm-hmm. I was like, are we about to do Molly?
[00:05:17] Zoe: I was proud that I tricked you that hard. She's gullible. No, just like me. Oh my God. If someone said that to me, I would've been like, oh, okay.
[00:05:24] Heather: That was really funny.
[00:05:26] Zoe: All in all, great night.
[00:05:27] Heather: All in all great night.
Let's do a little mental health check-in. How you doing?
[00:05:36] Zoe: I am doing good. I actually had a drinking dream last night.
[00:05:40] Heather: Tell me about it.
[00:05:42] Zoe: A lot of my drinking dreams revolve around me having to apologize to my parents, which is interesting.
[00:05:48] Heather: Oh.
[00:05:49] Zoe: Um, but I was. Drinking and there was a vehicle there, so I think I was driving.
Oops. It was horrible. But I remember having to apologize to my parents in the [00:06:00] dream about my drinking. But then I still knew, I was still hiding the fact that I was gonna continue drinking.
[00:06:06] Heather: Yeah.
[00:06:06] Zoe: So the stress about having to hide it, but apologize at the same time, that's interesting. 'cause that's literally what life used to be like.
[00:06:17] Heather: Yeah.
[00:06:18] Zoe: That cycle
[00:06:19] Heather: mm-hmm.
[00:06:19] Zoe: Of apologizing and then try to hide it again. And
[00:06:23] Heather: God, those so are so embarrassing when you're like, I'm sorry, but like that really means nothing. Yeah. I am sorry that you're affected. Yeah.
[00:06:30] Zoe: But this isn't gonna go anywhere. It's not gonna change.
[00:06:35] Heather: Has, is that the first drinking dream you've had in a while?
[00:06:37] Zoe: Probably in like a month or so. I feel like I usually have a drinking dream maybe once a month.
[00:06:42] Heather: Okay. That's good to know. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it is once a month for me now.
[00:06:45] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:45] Heather: In the beginning it was. Whew. Almost every day. I think.
[00:06:49] Zoe: Well, in the beginning I used to have dreams. I was murdering people. I, I was murdering my mother in my dreams.
[00:06:55] Heather: Were you mad at your mom?
[00:06:57] Zoe: I must've been mad at like a lot of people at that [00:07:00] time. Okay. Just because I didn't know how to place feelings.
[00:07:02] Heather: Yeah.
[00:07:03] Zoe: So I guess angry would be the easiest feeling to be at my parents at that time
[00:07:09] Heather: because they wanted you to go to rehab, so that makes sense. My parents were not like that.
They were just like waiting for me. To fucking
[00:07:17] Zoe: figure it out.
[00:07:17] Heather: Yeah. Or to get hit by a bus or something and end up in the hospital for long enough where I was sober. I'm not sure what they thought was gonna happen.
[00:07:24] Zoe: Did you ever think about that?
[00:07:25] Heather: Getting hit by a bus?
[00:07:26] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:07:27] Heather: No, because I wasn't really outside.
[00:07:29] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:07:29] Heather: I was inside. Inside anyway. If someone was gonna get hit by a bus, it would be the Uber Eats driver on his little bicycle coming to my house at all hours of the day and night with my wine.
[00:07:38] Zoe: I'm surprised I didn't get hit by a bus. Yeah. I'm surprised I didn't get hit by a vehicle when I was biking.
I'm surprised I am still alive.
[00:07:45] Heather: Yeah. Biking drunk is wild in the city. I had a counselor in rehab. I was telling him that I was having drinking dreams every night and they were really bothering me. Mm-hmm. They were freaking me out. Mm-hmm. Like I thought I was drinking.
[00:07:55] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:07:56] Heather: And he was like, I mean this isn't super sciencey, but he was like, [00:08:00] when you sleep, your subconscious is there.
Mm-hmm. So like your brain is asleep, but your subconscious is still active. And that's the thing that doesn't necessarily know that you're sober.
[00:08:13] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:08:13] Heather: Or that you're trying to be, I guess maybe if you stop drinking, your subconscious is like, why aren't we drinking? Mm-hmm. Let's drink. How's your mental health doing?
[00:08:21] Zoe: My mental health? I feel like I'm good. I don't know why I have a drinking dreams once in a while. That's not based on anything that I'm feeling bad about. I don't think
[00:08:32] Heather: if I have a drinking dream, I'm like, that's my little shit. Addiction. Yeah. That's like trying to get creep back in, like stay over there in your lane.
[00:08:38] Zoe: Well, that's just my reminder that I am an alcoholic.
[00:08:40] Heather: Yeah. Maybe my addiction feels me slipping. Mm-hmm. Not slipping, but just like kind of letting my guard down a little bit. Like going to a concert. Yeah. And then it's like, mm-hmm. Hello. Maybe you want a little liquid curry. Liquid curry. That's not a good way to shorten liquid courage.
No, I wasn't good. I don't
[00:08:55] Zoe: like that.
[00:08:55] Heather: But
[00:08:55] Zoe: overall week's good. I'm glad that we went to that concert together.
[00:08:59] Heather: Me too. [00:09:00] My mental health is better this week. I mean, there's a lot going on.
[00:09:03] Zoe: Yeah. You're busy.
[00:09:04] Heather: I'm busy girl. But I think I feel okay. Nothing is like too, too overwhelming right now. Yeah. We were talking about this last night that like talking about alcohol so much mm-hmm.
Is bothering me a little bit. It is my two year, I think it's coming up to that point. And I remember feeling like this coming up to my one year where I'm like, okay, so things are better now.
[00:09:25] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:26] Heather: Why am I sober?
[00:09:27] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:27] Heather: And I think now it's like two years and you're like, right, you love sobriety. Why are you sober?
You know? And then you have to like think about it and be like, right, because you're just
[00:09:35] Zoe: remind yourself, yeah,
[00:09:36] Heather: you're a fucking demon when you drink Heather. And you'll never stop drinking. You'll be living under a bridge.
[00:09:40] Zoe: And that's why going to meetings is good too, because I have that weekly reminder that I am a fuckup and all of these people that are sharing, I relate to every single one of them.
And they're so down bad right now and I don't wanna be in that position again 'cause I can so easily be in that position again.
[00:09:54] Heather: Oh yeah. I guess that is nice to see other people going through the struggle. Obviously that sucks. I [00:10:00] was there.
[00:10:00] Zoe: Yeah. And I can easily be there in a day.
[00:10:03] Heather: Oh yeah.
So let's get into some sober news. Shall we
[00:10:10] Zoe: love that?
[00:10:11] Heather: Now, this is a little bit sad. This was in the news this week, actress Michelle Trachtenberg, best known for Buffy. Mm-hmm. She was on Gossip Girl. She was found in her home, 39 years old.
[00:10:25] Zoe: Dead. I feel like all of our sober news stories are sad. It's all about,
[00:10:29] Heather: I know.
[00:10:29] Zoe: Um, and maybe alcoholic dying. A maybe drug addict dying.
[00:10:33] Heather: Okay. So what's interesting about the story is that it's very vague.
[00:10:37] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:37] Heather: But Michelle had gone through a liver transplant and that's pretty confirmed. Yeah. But it doesn't say when, it doesn't say why we customize
[00:10:45] Zoe: the number one reason. That article said to have a liver transplant is alcoholism.
[00:10:51] Heather: Yeah. There's a doctor on TikTok, the liver doc, and she was talking about Michelle's death and she was reminding people that when [00:11:00] women consume alcohol, they need to understand what that can do to their bodies. Mm-hmm. We see men and, and, and yes, of course men in the media are dying all the time from overdose, but women.
We're generally smaller. We metabolize alcohol much slower.
[00:11:14] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:15] Heather: Our hangovers are longer. Alcohol just stays in our body, and so the health risks are higher for women who consume alcohol and if we're making an assumption on Michelle's life, what I do know from this article, it says A source close to Michelle told NBC New York that Trachtenberg had previously struggled with alcohol use disorder or
[00:11:39] Zoe: mm-hmm.
[00:11:39] Heather: Drinking too much.
[00:11:41] Zoe: Yeah. So that doesn't say like if she was an alcoholic or what? No, but she definitely
[00:11:46] Heather: drank, I would assume. And, and yes, of course we can't say
[00:11:49] Zoe: definitely
[00:11:49] Heather: for sure this is what happened. But I feel like for me, reading this article, the signs are all there. Mm-hmm. And if this comes out, and that's not true, obviously, I'm sorry, but I think it speaks [00:12:00] to a larger conversation around alcohol in Hollywood.
And Michelle is one of these people that like. We were never gonna see her again until she died. Also, if you go through Michelle's Instagram, which we both have, it's a little off.
[00:12:13] Zoe: It is off. If I scroll down a bunch of times, scroll, scroll, scroll to maybe 2010. Michelle's Instagram Looks like Blake Lively's 2010 Instagram.
[00:12:23] Heather: Yeah.
[00:12:24] Zoe: Using filters.
[00:12:25] Heather: Looks like Getty images,
[00:12:26] Zoe: using random hashtags on her captions
[00:12:29] Heather: and all throwback photos from like good times from like red carpet appearances or events like that.
[00:12:34] Zoe: Her Instagram just looks outdated.
[00:12:36] Heather: Yeah.
[00:12:37] Zoe: Um,
[00:12:37] Heather: and that doesn't mean necessarily that you're an alcoholic.
No,
[00:12:40] Heather: but I do think it speaks to a little bit of what she was going through.
I mean, she did post a picture. In January and comments underneath it were saying how bad she looked. She had bags under her eyes. She looked too thin, she looked malnourished. Michelle then clapped back at these commenters by saying, this is my [00:13:00] face, not malnutrition, no problems. Why do you have hate? Of course I put a little tone in that.
[00:13:05] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:06] Heather: But to me it sounds defensive.
[00:13:07] Zoe: Yeah. And just because she's being defensive doesn't mean that she's an alcoholic.
[00:13:11] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:12] Zoe: But. It's just questionable. It's questionable. It's
[00:13:15] Heather: because I can put myself in her position and just go through my alcohol history and what that looked like, and it looks similar to hers.
Mm-hmm. I mean, looking like shit.
[00:13:25] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:26] Heather: Posting weird throwbacks not having us involved in your life and you're a a person in Hollywood, you think that at least you'd have a PR someone to put good photos on your Instagram. It feels strange.
[00:13:36] Zoe: And yeah, you should be hanging out with friends. You're 39 in New York.
Be posting about your friends and the fact that you're not means that maybe you're sitting in your house and
[00:13:46] Heather: listen. When I was drinking mm-hmm. I wasn't posting anything other than myself. Yeah. When I go back through my, yeah. Archive of like stories from that time. It was all just like videos and pictures of me drinking and no friends were around.
Yeah. Like when my ex was around, he [00:14:00] would be in them. Yeah. But when he left, it was like, just me. That makes me feel like you're sitting in your home alone, like drinking wine and reminiscing on the past.
[00:14:08] Zoe: Even if she wasn't an alcoholic, she could've just had a, a lot to drink in her days and maybe that's why she did get the over transplant because she drank.
[00:14:16] Heather: Yeah.
[00:14:17] Zoe: Um,
[00:14:18] Heather: as many like. Child stars do.
[00:14:20] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:14:20] Heather: Everyone ignores it and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, this one. Yeah, this one didn't make it. We watch it
[00:14:25] Zoe: happen. It's so strange and sad too, because there could. Be some support and help to those people, but there's not. Yeah, and it just gets slid under the rug
[00:14:35] Heather: and it really makes you feel like, and I, I mean, I have this thought too, I'm like, wow, some people in Hollywood can do it and some people can't.
That's also the way I think about alcohol. Like some people can, people can't,
[00:14:44] Zoe: some people can drink, some people can't.
[00:14:46] Heather: But that's not fair because it doesn't mean she's not a good actress. Like it has nothing to do with her being able to kick it and stay. It's like the way that Hollywood works and acting and all that stuff.
[00:14:57] Zoe: Moral of the story is that alcohol can [00:15:00] kill you.
[00:15:00] Heather: Yeah.
[00:15:00] Zoe: No matter what.
[00:15:01] Heather: Yeah. And there are a lot of stories of people who do have liver transplants or complications with alcohol and they don't stop drinking.
[00:15:08] Zoe: Yeah,
[00:15:09] Heather: right. It happens all the time. And you know, that's part of alcohol resilience and like risk resilience.
You're just. It's addiction. You cannot stop. Yeah. It, it's the thing that's gonna make you feel better. You can always excuse it, right?
[00:15:22] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:15:22] Heather: Even a surgery, there's a way you can be like, well,
[00:15:25] Zoe: yeah, it's
[00:15:26] Heather: fine. One glass of wine is fine, and then eventually that turns into six and you're like, well, now my liver's immune.
Right?
[00:15:32] Zoe: Yeah. And now I'm doing it anyways, so what's, why should I stop now? I've already done it.
[00:15:35] Heather: Yeah. Poor Michelle.
[00:15:38] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:15:38] Heather: RIP
[00:15:39] Zoe: But our livers are fine now, right?
[00:15:41] Heather: I think so. I, I was told in my rehab that yes, you'll level back out. Yeah. Like, 'cause I didn't have any severe damage to my liver. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, it was just like,
[00:15:49] Zoe: help me.
But like, I feel like that is what I sounded like when I was a drunk. I know. Hi. Skin was like, please, please don't me ij, [00:16:00] please drink one glass of water. We're tying. We remember it being hungover and chugging water and then throwing it up. Ugh. That's
[00:16:07] Heather: the worst. No, because I didn't do that. I would drink wine when I was hungover.
[00:16:12] Zoe: Sometimes I would feel like just so sick
[00:16:13] Heather: coffee.
[00:16:15] Zoe: Really? You didn't wake up and chug water?
[00:16:17] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:17] Zoe: I think I needed to.
[00:16:19] Heather: Mm. Because it wasn't gonna help my withdrawal. What was gonna help was alcohol. That's why I started drinking in the morning.
[00:16:24] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:16:25] Heather: I was probably like ordering McDonald's and getting like two giant coffees and a hash brown.
[00:16:30] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:31] Heather: I did that a lot.
Okay, so Zoe, today we're here to talk about. Addiction and understanding addiction.
[00:16:42] Zoe: Okay, let's teach these.
[00:16:43] Heather: Let's teach these kiddos.
[00:16:45] Zoe: Let's teach these kids there too.
[00:16:47] Heather: Chapter one. Everyone open your books, science books, open textbooks. So I guess like talking about understanding addiction, obviously there's so much we can go into the science of it.
Well, we can't.
[00:16:58] Zoe: We can't. But we will have someone on [00:17:00] two go into the science of it, because I feel like it could be really interesting.
[00:17:03] Heather: Well, and basically with the science, what I wanna convey is that. Addiction is not just about willpower. There is a chemical thing happening in your brain. Some people's receptors are different and it really likes alcohol and some people's don't.
It is a science thing. I just don't really know how to explain it scientifically.
[00:17:21] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:17:21] Heather: But I do know what we feel like emotionally.
[00:17:24] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:17:25] Heather: So we've talked about when we started drinking and when it was serious, but do you remember a moment or like a time where you were like, oh shit, alcohol has control over me.
Or like, oh, I didn't really have control of that.
[00:17:41] Zoe: It's weird because I think, as I said before, it was an immediate thing for me that I felt that I was like, oh, I'm, I'm just gonna do this forever. Yeah. Like, this is it for me.
[00:17:54] Heather: But that feels like a control thing to say like, I'm gonna do this forever.
[00:17:57] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:17:58] Heather: Was there a flip at some [00:18:00] point? I mean, of course there was, but do you remember.
[00:18:02] Zoe: I mean, of course when there were starting to be repercussions because of my drinking.
[00:18:07] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:08] Zoe: I thought to myself, well shit, I'm gonna have to get better at hiding this or. Shit, I'm gonna have to apologize and do better next time.
[00:18:17] Heather: Yeah.
[00:18:17] Zoe: But there was never a point where I was like, I'm not going to drink like that again.
[00:18:22] Heather: Right. Like there wasn't a flip one day where you were like, oh, I'm an alcoholic. Yesterday I could drink one glass of wine and today I have 10 and I'm not done.
[00:18:30] Zoe: No, because I think I always drank to the point of blocking out.
[00:18:35] Heather: Yeah.
[00:18:35] Zoe: Even when I first started.
[00:18:36] Heather: Okay. Yeah.
[00:18:38] Zoe: I think when I maybe got to college, I recognized more that I was the only one that was really drinking that much. Okay. So people started calling me a drunk. Mm-hmm. I said, yeah, obviously I'm a drunk.
[00:18:54] Heather: Yeah. But it's like a fun thing,
[00:18:55] Zoe: but it's a fun thing and I liked being an alcoholic.
[00:18:58] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:59] Zoe: So I never [00:19:00] thought it was a bad thing until I realized that I actually couldn't stop and that my life was getting worse and worse and worse and worse. Do
[00:19:07] Heather: you remember when you couldn't stop
[00:19:09] Zoe: throughout university? I was trying to control my drinking and I was trying to get therapists. I went to Chem HI was trying to control it
[00:19:16] Heather: in, in university.
You went to Chem H?
[00:19:18] Zoe: Yeah. Okay. And I could never control it. So I should have known at that point that I should have just stopped. But I didn't want to stop. Obviously. Well,
[00:19:28] Heather: you were already in it at that point.
[00:19:29] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:19:29] Heather: Right.
[00:19:30] Zoe: I always just kind of knew that I couldn't control it.
[00:19:33] Heather: Yeah. For me, I think it was definitely a university.
I was excited about drinking. Yeah, for sure. But we were dancing so much that it never felt like a, it never felt like a problem. It did feel like something that was good for me. 'cause I was like, this is a relax. Mm-hmm. Then I remember I have a friend, Kaia. Hey Kaia. We would always drink together maybe every Friday or something, or just like if we had a free night.
But if we both were not doing anything, we would call each other and be like, okay, let's, let's get a [00:20:00] bottle of wine. Come over, we'll chat, whatever.
[00:20:01] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:20:02] Heather: That was like an exciting ritual for me.
[00:20:05] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:06] Heather: And then I started drinking on my own. I remember being in New York and looking at a bottle of wine I had and being like, oh, that's not enough for tonight.
Should I get another bottle of wine? And I went and got one. And I feel like that
[00:20:19] Zoe: that was your moment
[00:20:20] Heather: where you were a bit like, okay. Yeah, I think there were other ones, but I do remember looking in my fridge in New York and seeing like one sweet green salad and one half bottle of wine and being like, I need more For what?
[00:20:32] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:32] Heather: For what? It was already like eight o'clock. I could've just gone to bed.
[00:20:35] Zoe: One of my friends broke up with me because of my drinking.
[00:20:38] Heather: Oh.
[00:20:38] Zoe: I guess that was like a pivotal point of me being like, oh, I'll, I don't care if you break up with me. Whatever. Yeah. Like I'm choosing alcohol.
[00:20:46] Heather: Yeah.
[00:20:46] Zoe: She got me a therapist, actually.
[00:20:49] Heather: Whoa.
[00:20:49] Zoe: Yeah. That's
[00:20:50] Heather: a good friend.
[00:20:50] Zoe: Yeah. And I would go to her, but again, I was lying to my therapist because I didn't wanna be sober and she was trying to moderate my drinking, [00:21:00] but obviously that doesn't help an alcoholic. So I just kept failing her little tests that she would do. So I stopped seeing her, and my friend basically was like, you're either going to choose drinking or you're gonna choose to be my friend.
[00:21:13] Heather: Yeah. I can't.
[00:21:14] Zoe: And I chose drinking.
[00:21:16] Heather: It's not a choice. Sorry. At that point, and like I know it hurts. Mm-hmm. For friends who've been through their family members where you're like, they chose alcohol over me or drugs or whatever, I know it hurts. 'cause it feels like a choice. It's not a choice.
[00:21:28] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:28] Heather: Like I would've rather been dead than to not get my alcohol.
[00:21:32] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:21:32] Heather: If you're standing in the way of my alcohol, you're not my friend.
[00:21:35] Zoe: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I thought that way.
[00:21:36] Heather: Yeah.
[00:21:37] Zoe: And I think after that happened, I didn't have to try to be better for anybody else. My other friend's. Drank a lot, so I was fine and I kind of just got a little bit worse after that.
[00:21:48] Heather: Yeah. Are you guys friends now?
[00:21:50] Zoe: We're friends now, yeah.
[00:21:51] Heather: Okay. You made up?
[00:21:52] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:21:52] Heather: Was that you? Did you do that?
[00:21:55] Zoe: Yeah, I reached out to her a couple years ago when I got to my ninth step. I did [00:22:00] my amends to her. And
[00:22:01] Heather: How'd that go?
[00:22:02] Zoe: It was so scary. Yeah, so scary.
[00:22:05] Heather: Did you call her
[00:22:07] Zoe: I dmd her.
[00:22:08] Heather: Okay.
[00:22:09] Zoe: Because I didn't have her number.
[00:22:11] Heather: Wow.
[00:22:11] Zoe: Wow.
[00:22:12] Heather: This is amazing.
[00:22:14] Zoe: I wonder what my DM said, but I think it was something like, I'm sober. I need to do my amends to you. Would you rather me call you or can we meet up in person?
[00:22:24] Heather: What if she said no?
[00:22:26] Zoe: Then that's fine. Then I, maybe I would send her like a note of me apologizing.
[00:22:30] Heather: And then Can you, like if, 'cause you can't force someone to, um, forgive you.
Yeah. And what if they're just like, I don't wanna speak to you. Does that fuck up your amends? Or you can just move on to the next amends. We just
[00:22:39] Zoe: move on.
[00:22:40] Heather: Okay. That's interesting and But she accepted it.
[00:22:43] Zoe: Yeah, we met up for ice cream.
[00:22:46] Heather: Oh.
[00:22:46] Zoe: And it was like the most special moment ever because after I did my amends, obviously I didn't know what was gonna happen.
We could have just like parted ways after that. But we just kept chatting for two hours and now I'm going to her wedding. [00:23:00]
[00:23:00] Heather: Oh.
[00:23:00] Zoe: Which is incredible. Oh God. That's
[00:23:01] Heather: so nice. Yeah. Okay. Mends are great.
[00:23:04] Zoe: I mean, not all of them are great. No. Some of them are gonna be harder than others, obviously. But that one was.
Amazing. Just to see it work full circle like that.
[00:23:13] Heather: Yeah.
[00:23:13] Zoe: Was something special. For sure.
[00:23:15] Heather: Yeah. That's great. Speaking of apologies.
[00:23:17] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:23:18] Heather: I, as I got older, I was realizing like there were some people in my life that I had hurt.
[00:23:24] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:24] Heather: Um, like dance stuff. When I was in 11th and 12th grade, especially 12th grade, I was the star of the dance studio.
That's just true. That's how it is. Look at me now. But we had dancers that. Some of them had never danced before.
[00:23:40] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:40] Heather: Other than like, recreationally and because of like, the way the dance was, we were like the age groups. We were kind of like in a, in a weird, in-between year they had me dancing with them and I was mean, I wouldn't say anything, but I would just, it was very aware that like, oh, please do not approach me.
Mm. Like, I understand that you are in the room with me right now, but we are on very [00:24:00] different levels right now. There was this guy named Tyler, he never had danced before. Never. I was just mean to him. I would just be like, ugh. All the time. You like
[00:24:07] Zoe: side eye
[00:24:08] Heather: him? Yes. All the time. I'd roll my eyes if he made a mistake or if I made a mistake I would just blame him.
And anyway, all that to say is a few years ago before I got sober, I was thinking about it and I messaged him and I was like, listen, that was fucked up. What I did. I didn't do anything crazy. I didn't like, you know, put glass in his
[00:24:25] Zoe: shoes. Yeah. Were you apologizing? 'cause you Loki thought he was cute?
[00:24:27] Heather: No.
[00:24:28] Zoe: Okay.
[00:24:28] Heather: I was apologizing because I felt bad. That was a formative time in our life, and all he wanted to do was enjoy dance and I was a fucking bitch.
[00:24:36] Zoe: Right.
[00:24:37] Heather: Mind you, I will say I was being bullied within an inch of my fucking life at school. Yeah. And that's not an excuse, but it is a consequence.
[00:24:44] Zoe: So you were getting bullied and you were being the bullyer at the same time.
[00:24:48] Heather: Yeah.
[00:24:48] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:24:49] Heather: I feel like this has to do with addiction. When I was in high school, I was in ninth grade. There was a guy who now, in retrospect, I think he probably had a crush on me. Now you have to remember I [00:25:00] came from private school. Mm-hmm. And it was a cult. So I was very immature. I had never kissed a boy.
I didn't know what dating was like. I hadn't held a hand, nothing. So when I got to grade nine, people had already been stuck in dicks and hot tubs. Okay. And I was a little mouse. So what I assume happened is he like liked me and I kind of just like didn't respond to it.
[00:25:18] Zoe: Because you didn't know.
[00:25:19] Heather: I didn't know.
Yeah. How could he possibly, I never understood. Anyway, he started calling me mustache. He would come up to me and just yell mustache at me, yell it. He would come up to my locker with other guys and be like, Hey, Heather, what razor do you use? Because I'm really thinking of growing a beard.
[00:25:35] Zoe: Why were boys so mean to girls?
[00:25:37] Heather: When I tell you that every single day, I'm shaking right now talking, but that's my hands are like,
[00:25:42] Zoe: yeah,
[00:25:43] Heather: I'm still mad.
[00:25:44] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:45] Heather: I know that there are guys that are in my dms right now who are like, oh yeah, we went to high school. Mm-hmm. Oh, I love your sober shit.
[00:25:50] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:25:51] Heather: Either you said something mean to me
[00:25:53] Zoe: or you saw it happen,
[00:25:54] Heather: or you saw it happen and you didn't do anything to me, when I talk about that, I'm like, oh yeah, my addiction started when I was in ninth grade.
[00:25:59] Zoe: Yeah. [00:26:00]
[00:26:00] Heather: Because I was brutally attacked at school. Yeah.
[00:26:02] Zoe: Or it just started like when we were children and just always didn't feel. We belonged anywhere. You know? Did
[00:26:09] Heather: you, did you feel like that too?
[00:26:10] Zoe: I felt like that too. A
[00:26:11] Heather: really, yeah. Did you feel different than everybody else?
[00:26:14] Zoe: I felt different. And awkward and weird.
Yeah. Yeah. I never felt like I fit in anywhere, especially within my family. I felt like I was always the odd one out.
[00:26:22] Heather: Yeah.
[00:26:23] Zoe: I was always the different, quirky, creative, weird one.
[00:26:26] Heather: Yeah. I always felt like the black sheep always. Yeah. I was the bad one. I was bad. I was loud, I was annoying. My family is all introverts and I'm like somehow a maniac.
[00:26:36] Zoe: Same. Yeah, same. Why was the weird one, and then I was the bad one as soon as I started drinking.
[00:26:41] Heather: It's nice to have an identity.
[00:26:42] Zoe: People love a label.
[00:26:44] Heather: They do. And now I think that's why I love sobriety, because I'm like, I'm sober. I'm a sober person.
[00:26:48] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:26:48] Heather: It's just easier. Um, okay, so during your addiction, what did drinking feel like to you?
Like when you remember putting a glass to your lips? Mm-hmm. Like what did drinking feel like? [00:27:00]
[00:27:00] Zoe: I felt so safe.
[00:27:01] Heather: Mm.
[00:27:02] Zoe: When I was drinking, I felt like I was myself. When I was not drinking, I didn't feel like myself.
[00:27:07] Heather: Yeah, that's how I felt too. You could look at the bottle in the fridge. Why am I saying fridge so much?
You know, that I wasn't putting anything in the fridge. I was drinking warm wine, sitting out in the sun. But I think being able to see the alcohol and like.
[00:27:22] Zoe: Know that I had, it just made me happy.
[00:27:24] Heather: It's a safety. Yeah, it, it is. Knowing that I'm like, oh, okay. Like I have to do something right now, but when I get home, I'll be drinking.
Yeah. Or even like after work, when I would go down to the LCBO and get four cans of wine and like shove 'em in my pockets.
[00:27:36] Zoe: Right. And then walk with them.
[00:27:37] Heather: Yes. I was like, I have a safety with me to get home. I don't have to get home sober. That would be insane.
[00:27:41] Zoe: Yeah. Whenever I was sober during the day, I was always just.
Like, oh, okay, a couple more hours. Then I can drink that one more hour and I can drink that. It was always something I was looking forward to.
[00:27:52] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:53] Zoe: If I wasn't already drunk. Yeah. It's all I could think about throughout the day. It's all that I cared about.
[00:27:57] Heather: Yeah. It didn't feel like getting to have sex after [00:28:00] a long time.
It felt kind of like. Being really cold and then getting into a hot tub or something. Mm-hmm. It's like that immediate, like,
[00:28:08] Zoe: yeah, I could actually breathe finally,
[00:28:09] Heather: and this is me. Mm-hmm. This is me and I'm me and I'm in my home.
[00:28:13] Zoe: Yeah. You know, like Yeah.
[00:28:14] Heather: And also the feeling of like, I need this substance now to do anything.
[00:28:18] Zoe: Yeah. I definitely got that way.
[00:28:20] Heather: You know how like 80% of your body is water? Mm-hmm. I feel like my body actually needed 80% alcohol to survive. That's what it felt like.
[00:28:27] Zoe: Yeah. I always was thinking about it and I, it felt like my identity.
[00:28:32] Heather: Did it feel like shit?
[00:28:33] Zoe: Oh, I hated feeling like shit the next day.
[00:28:36] Heather: Okay, but the drinking didn't feel like shit.
[00:28:39] Zoe: No,
[00:28:39] Heather: I, I think I felt like shit when I was like drinking warm wine in the morning or there would like random days where I'd be like, I don't really wanna drink today. And my brain would be like, yes, you do.
[00:28:51] Zoe: There would be nights where I would obviously drink way too much and didn't eat anything all that day, and then that next [00:29:00] morning I obviously was puking up my stomach acid and trying to drink water or Gatorade to feel okay again to eat something to make my stomach feel better so that I could continue drinking.
[00:29:11] Heather: Oh yeah. It was always about being able to drink again,
[00:29:14] Zoe: but then sometimes I couldn't feel better, so I just drank. Immediately at like noon or whatever, and then
[00:29:21] Heather: you waited till noon,
[00:29:22] Zoe: depended on the day. Okay.
[00:29:24] Heather: I was
[00:29:24] Zoe: like, if I couldn't make myself feel better with like water and Gatorade. Then I would be like, Hey, fuck it.
I guess I'm just gonna drink.
[00:29:31] Heather: Okay. 'cause I was waking up at like 3:00 AM in withdrawal.
[00:29:35] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:35] Heather: Like withdrawal.
[00:29:36] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:36] Heather: And so I would drink 'cause there was a bottle under my pillow at all times. 'cause I'm prepared and
[00:29:41] Zoe: see, I never really woke up with booze left over. To be honest.
[00:29:46] Heather: Okay. I would make sure that I did, I would order four bottles of wine, so I'd have, I could only drink three before I'd fall asleep.
[00:29:51] Zoe: I see. The problem was if I did that, I would drink all four.
[00:29:54] Heather: Yeah. Oh, I'm sure I did that. There were definitely nights, but like mostly I was like, three bottles of wine [00:30:00] will throw me into a coma.
[00:30:01] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:02] Heather: Or just like a deep sleep until 3:00 AM and then I'm good to go and then at 8:00 AM I have to order more from the wine rack.
[00:30:08] Zoe: It's getting to be so long ago that I, it's kind of a blur now.
[00:30:12] Heather: Kind
[00:30:12] Zoe: of, you know, it's, it's kind of nice to be like, oh, thank God that's not my life anymore. It seems so exhausting.
[00:30:17] Heather: Yeah. Well, okay. Speaking of exhausting. Yeah. It was harming you.
[00:30:22] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:30:22] Heather: Why did you keep going back to it?
[00:30:25] Zoe: I didn't think I could stop.
Yeah. There was no option.
[00:30:28] Heather: That's a pretty clear answer. It's a pretty easy answer. There's no choice.
[00:30:32] Zoe: Right. Obviously I wanted to,
[00:30:34] Heather: yeah,
[00:30:34] Zoe: but I didn't think I could do that.
[00:30:37] Heather: Didn't think I couldn't do that.
[00:30:39] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:30:39] Heather: That was not an option for me.
[00:30:40] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:30:41] Heather: You know that thing. Oh, just stop doing drugs and your life will get better.
[00:30:44] Zoe: How? I just didn't think I could stop because I thought that I did too much harm, that I could never live sober.
[00:30:50] Heather: So you were like, this is just my trajectory now.
[00:30:52] Zoe: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:53] Heather: Yeah, it's the thing that hurts you the most. It's also the thing that helps you and it's the thing that you love the most, and it [00:31:00] is a weird codependent relationship with alcohol.
Yeah, yeah. Because it does hurt me. It is toxic, and it's making me look disgusting and feel disgusting, but it also makes me feel the best I've ever felt. It's hard to, to stop doing that.
[00:31:14] Zoe: Yeah. I would try to sober up to get everybody to like me again, and then I would just. Keep drinking again like
[00:31:22] Heather: And what was that?
Was that on your own or was that when you would go out or what was the I'm drinking again.
[00:31:28] Zoe: Probably both, but getting everybody to like me again would take me like a day or two.
[00:31:33] Heather: Oh, oh, okay. We're not talking like a month.
[00:31:35] Zoe: No, I think we know what it was. It's when I'm mustered up the courage the next day to get my phone.
To apologize or to go to my parents, be like, yo, I'm sorry about that. Then I was like, okay, let's
[00:31:47] Heather: the fucking,
[00:31:48] Zoe: let's do it again.
[00:31:48] Heather: The fucking apology tour every morning. Yeah. Was so great. That's why I loved, like at some point in my addiction, I just didn't go outside. Yeah. Because I wasn't fucking anyone else's life up.
I mean, just meant on Hinge. But
[00:31:59] Zoe: yeah, there [00:32:00] was definitely a point where I stopped doing as much stuff as well because I couldn't't, I couldn't make it anywhere.
[00:32:05] Heather: No. Did you have physical effects of drinking? On your body or, or like inner feelings?
[00:32:14] Zoe: I definitely wanted to kill myself.
[00:32:16] Heather: Yeah.
[00:32:17] Zoe: From when I started drinking to when I finally sobered up, like throughout all of that, I had suicidal thoughts.
[00:32:25] Heather: Oh really?
[00:32:26] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:32:26] Heather: Okay. So you, addiction is linked to depression?
[00:32:30] Zoe: A hundred percent. And then. As soon as I got drinking a lot,
[00:32:34] Heather: no longer,
[00:32:35] Zoe: that made me depressed because I was hurting everybody,
[00:32:38] Heather: but no longer awkward, weird, and shy.
[00:32:40] Zoe: Exactly.
[00:32:41] Heather: And that's the most important when you're growing up.
[00:32:43] Zoe: Yeah, that is, for me at least, I needed to be important and popular.
I really craved that for some reason,
[00:32:51] Heather: the physical effects of my drinking at the end. Zoey, I couldn't tie my shoes. I couldn't put my hair any PO in a ponytail. I was. Having such [00:33:00] bad withdrawal in the morning that I couldn't breathe. I was like gasping. Yeah. It was
[00:33:04] Zoe: like
[00:33:04] Heather: hurting in my sternum.
[00:33:06] Zoe: Yeah. It hurt me 'cause I just kept throwing up so much of my stomach as well.
[00:33:10] Heather: Oh yeah.
[00:33:10] Zoe: There was a lot of that.
[00:33:12] Heather: Yeah.
[00:33:12] Zoe: That was like, I think my biggest withdrawal was like just throwing up my stomach acid all the time.
[00:33:17] Heather: Were you throwing up in the shower?
[00:33:18] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:33:19] Heather: Really?
[00:33:19] Zoe: Yeah. Okay. That's actually a question I didn't
know
[00:33:21] Zoe: the
[00:33:21] Heather: answer
[00:33:22] Zoe: to, but I was gonna say, that's what I would do. I'd get in the
[00:33:23] Heather: shower and turn the water and lie down and wait to throw
[00:33:25] Zoe: up.
Yeah,
[00:33:26] Heather: I, I do think that there was like a cognitive shift for me with my ability to remember things. Even still now, I'm like, my memory isn't great. And then I was like, how much of that is just. Being drunk and not remembering and like, have I done something to my brain?
[00:33:40] Zoe: I don't know what happened between the ages of 17 to 23.
I don't know a lot of what happened between that time. To be honest, I don't have a lot of memories.
[00:33:48] Heather: Maybe it was just great.
[00:33:50] Zoe: Definitely was not great. Or else I wouldn't be sober. No.
[00:33:53] Heather: Oh yeah. Well that's good.[00:34:00]
What were your daily drinking rituals?
[00:34:02] Zoe: Um, I'd say I. Probably started to consistently drink in the mornings when COVID started.
[00:34:12] Heather: Okay.
[00:34:12] Zoe: Yeah. But I think in university I would mostly just wake up hungover, maybe have one beer and go to school. And then at our lunch, I would always go to the campus bar with my friend Elisa.
We'd probably have three beers, two shots, go to class. Oh. And then I'd pick up some wine for home if I wasn't going out to the bar.
[00:34:34] Heather: Wow. Okay. Yeah, it's It's your whole day.
[00:34:36] Zoe: Yeah. Your
[00:34:36] Heather: whole day has revolved your
[00:34:37] Zoe: thinking. Well, it's kind of the same as like me smoking now. Like I plan my cigarettes throughout the day and I feel like that's what I was doing when I was drinking.
Just planning my drinks throughout my day.
[00:34:47] Heather: Right. Yeah. That's what I was doing. Definitely like my whole day was surrounded by alcohol.
[00:34:52] Zoe: Yeah. I used to get a bottle of wine during my lunch hour at work, sometimes just to have. Yeah.
[00:34:57] Heather: Yeah.
[00:34:57] Zoe: And then I started to drink it during work that
[00:34:59] Heather: was a silver
[00:34:59] Zoe: [00:35:00] slope.
[00:35:00] Heather: Okay. Well, yeah. So for years I wasn't drinking in the morning, but always at night when I got home. Like I would pick up a bottle of wine when I, for when I got home. Yeah. Like one or two bottles.
[00:35:09] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:35:10] Heather: And then I did the drinking walking home. 'cause I was like, why not? I don't know. Maybe I saw it on a TV show.
I didn't even realize you could walk and drink. Well, you can't actually. But also during COVID. They were really lenient on outside drinking.
[00:35:22] Zoe: Yeah,
[00:35:23] Heather: on like public drinking. They didn't give a shit because people were dying.
[00:35:25] Zoe: Oh. I was always outside drinking.
[00:35:27] Heather: Well then when I started drinking in the morning, I was still living with my ex, so I would leave the house early.
I would bring a Stanley water bottle, go to the LCBO, get a bottle of wine. And then in the Uber.
[00:35:41] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:41] Heather: I would crack it and pour it all into mm-hmm. Which, no, no Uber driver ever said anything to me. Yeah. They were probably like, are you fucking getting me? I would do that and then I would just kind of like sip it all day and then I would be drunk by noon.
[00:35:52] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:52] Heather: But working, and I would try to only really do that on days where my specific boss wasn't there. Yeah. Like my direct boss. [00:36:00]
[00:36:00] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:36:00] Heather: Because if she was there, I had a lot of work to do, but I would always try to book Sundays. Like I would try to work on Sundays because my ex would be at home and I.
Didn't wanna be there. Yeah. 'cause I wanted to drink. Yeah. So I would book to work on Sundays. No one was there and I would just go to the LCBO, get two bottles of wine and drink all day at work. I would get my work done because like, you know when you drink and you get manic and you're like, I can do everything.
Yeah. I would do that until like two o'clock and then I would be like asleep.
[00:36:25] Zoe: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:25] Heather: And then I would go get walking wine on the way home. Yeah. And then drink all night.
[00:36:29] Zoe: I love how you call it, walking wine.
[00:36:31] Heather: My walking wine.
[00:36:32] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:36:32] Heather: Then I would go get home. I'd already had like two or three cans. I'd get the dog, we'd go to the park.
Then I would drink the last can, and then I'd get home and maybe get a bottle of wine as if it was the only wine I'd had that day.
[00:36:44] Zoe: Yeah, yeah.
[00:36:45] Heather: And then when COVID hit, then I was taking three hour baths every single day and bringing two bottles of wine in there.
[00:36:52] Zoe: It was obviously, our drinking patterns were different every day.
Mm-hmm. But. The point is that our day revolved around planning out [00:37:00] our drinking.
[00:37:01] Heather: Oh yeah. Oh, I had to know. Yeah. I had to know that there was either like wine on my person
[00:37:05] Zoe: mm-hmm.
[00:37:06] Heather: At home where I was going make sure I'm not out too late. 'cause if I'm out too late, then everything is closed and then I have to order from restaurants and like.
That was not easy at the beginning of, it's
[00:37:15] Zoe: funny how you had to hide it from your partner. 'cause I don't think I ever had to hide it from my partner. Oh my God. 'cause I always chose partners that were alcoholics as well.
[00:37:24] Heather: Well, we were talking about this before. My partner Ted, he come on. When we started dating, we were like nervous kids.
So we were drinking a lot. And then we would like go to his house and hook up or like go to dinner and like drink and have fun. And then eventually he was like, I don't really wanna drink tonight. Like I don't drink like this. And I was like. Fuck, I thought we drank like this.
[00:37:43] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:44] Heather: So you've set me up and I'm already your girlfriend.
[00:37:46] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:37:46] Heather: So you,
[00:37:47] Zoe: how long was that? Like a month or two?
[00:37:48] Heather: We started dating really quick. Were
[00:37:50] Zoe: you very codependent when you were drinking in relationships?
[00:37:52] Heather: Yes.
[00:37:53] Zoe: Yes.
[00:37:53] Heather: Oh my God, yes. Because I don't think I'm enough.
[00:37:56] Zoe: And now we're like, I would say we're both the least codependent people [00:38:00] ever. Oh my God. Don't touch me.
[00:38:01] Heather: Think that
[00:38:01] Zoe: that triggers me, because that's exactly how I was when I was drinking. I don't wanna be like that.
[00:38:06] Heather: Yeah. I mean. My ex was trying to control my drinking. Yeah. Rightly so. He was living with a full blown, disgusting alcoholic. And mind you, I had restarted taking laxatives because I was drinking so much and I wasn't pooping.
And you were gaining
[00:38:18] Zoe: weight?
[00:38:18] Heather: Yes. And I, I was gaining weight and I wasn't pooping, so I'm like, let me get this out. But when I started taking laxatives again, my body couldn't handle them. So anytime I would take a laxative, I would also throw up.
[00:38:27] Zoe: Ah.
[00:38:28] Heather: So he had seen me so many times sitting on the toilet.
[00:38:30] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:31] Heather: Shitting my brains out and throwing up into a bucket.
[00:38:33] Zoe: Wow. All of my partners I really got drunk with until it seemed like I could never. Drink as much as my partners because they were men and still handle myself. Yeah. So I would always be the crazy one. And then they were eventually like, oh my God, you're absolutely insane.
[00:38:53] Heather: Okay. To break up. But at first it was like a cool thing. Yeah. Like my girl's drinking, she's fun, she's crazy. And then it's like, wait, you're my girlfriend. Can you calm [00:39:00] down?
[00:39:00] Zoe: Yeah. It was just a toxic thing for a very long time until I eventually got broken up with
[00:39:04] Heather: Yeah. It's like you saw me, you knew what I was doing.
[00:39:06] Zoe: You knew what you were getting in. And
[00:39:08] Heather: now you're coming and trying to control everything and fighting me about it.
[00:39:11] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:39:11] Heather: But also, yeah, of course.
[00:39:14] Zoe: Of course.
[00:39:15] Heather: I feel like we've just talked about this. Yeah. But guilt and shame, was
[00:39:18] Zoe: that a big thing? Guilt and shame were obviously a big part of it. I would struggle with that every day and that's why I also had to keep drinking.
'cause I didn't wanna feel that. Yeah. I didn't wanna feel that. I wanted to numb that out. And that's the cycle of it.
[00:39:33] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:33] Zoe: You start drinking 'cause it's fun.
[00:39:35] Heather: Yeah.
[00:39:36] Zoe: And then you start drinking because you did something fucked up when you were drunk.
[00:39:41] Heather: Yeah.
[00:39:41] Zoe: And then you start drinking because you're shameful of who you are.
[00:39:46] Heather: Yeah.
[00:39:46] Zoe: And then you can't stop,
[00:39:48] Heather: you can't live with that kind of shame. You have to mask the shame. Yeah. It's, it's, it's so unmanageable to be that ashamed of yourself. Mine would be, I'm drinking, I'm gaining [00:40:00] weight. I can't do that. But I can't go back to anorexia or bulimia because it's too hard.
[00:40:07] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:07] Heather: I just couldn't do it anymore.
[00:40:08] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:40:08] Heather: So, but I'm also not gonna stop drinking. So the only way to do that is to just drink the shame away.
[00:40:16] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:40:16] Heather: So I'm gaining weight, I'm drinking about it. Yeah. I'm gaining weight from drinking about it. I'm upset.
[00:40:21] Zoe: Your shame was a lot around your weight. Yeah.
[00:40:23] Heather: Yeah. And my weight has to do with
[00:40:26] Zoe: the drinking.
[00:40:28] Heather: But also my value in life.
[00:40:29] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:40:30] Heather: And my worth.
[00:40:31] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:40:31] Heather: Right.
[00:40:31] Zoe: I obviously like didn't like how my body was looking at some periods of my drinking.
[00:40:37] Heather: Were you eating when you were drinking?
[00:40:39] Zoe: Barely. Okay. My, one of the first things my friend said to me when I got outta rehab and we started going to dinners together, Elisa, she was like, oh my God, it's so nice to actually see you eating food.
Because I would go to dinners before and be too drunk. Mm-hmm. To be able to eat and too focused on the drinking, then the eating. Yeah. So I would just never eat, [00:41:00] or I would eat two bites and then puke it all up because I, my stomach couldn't handle it. All it could handle was. The booze.
[00:41:06] Heather: Yeah. Other people have said that to me.
When I first went to rehab, I had one friend in there who was an alcoholic. Um, she was saying, yeah, when I drink, I don't eat. And other people were saying, oh yeah, the same way where when I drink, I don't drink coffee in the morning. I was like. What? The way that I was surviving was like wine, pizza and coffee.
[00:41:23] Zoe: Mm.
[00:41:23] Heather: That's how I was like, no coffee. Oh yeah. My husband knows that I'm drinking again because I'm not drinking coffee in the morning. Well then just drink coffee in the morning and throw him off your scent.
[00:41:31] Zoe: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:41:32] Heather: Idiots.
[00:41:33] Zoe: Idiots.
[00:41:33] Heather: Literally, when you're an alcoholic and you're hiding alcohol, you can't sustain that.
[00:41:38] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:41:38] Heather: People will find out, and it is so embarrassing when they find alcohol, like in between your springboards.
[00:41:42] Zoe: Yeah, and I was like a messy drunk, so like I couldn't hide it that well. I was messy. Sorry.
[00:41:48] Heather: Okay. There was a closet in my bathroom at my old place where if you like move the handle, it would be because I would just throw all my empties in there.
[00:41:55] Zoe: Yeah. I would throw my empties in like my closet.
[00:41:57] Heather: Never a garbage.
[00:41:59] Zoe: Well, I [00:42:00] couldn't put that much empties in my parents' garbage when I was living with them. Right. I couldn't, so I had to hide it and strategically get it out of the house.
[00:42:08] Heather: Right. I was even hiding them on myself when I lived alone.
[00:42:10] Zoe: When I was living alone.
I just couldn't bring all of that booze downstairs because I wouldn't wanna go into the elevator, uh, with that much booze because I knew I was an alcoholic. Yeah. I knew that wasn't the right amount of booze that I should be bringing down to recycle.
[00:42:24] Heather: I've had to switch. I had to switch delivery. Services because they would know who I was.
There were like six delivery men who knew me. I had my morning guy, my afternoon guy, my nighttime guy, and it would be the same person often. Yeah. And you had to show them your id. So you actually had to open the door and speak with them. Yeah. And one guy was like, Hey, um. I just do this on the side so we don't have to go through Uber.
So if you want wine, like I'll just pick it up for you. 'cause that's what I do with other people in the area. And I was like, amazing. And I gave him my number and then he texted me when I was in rehab and my counselor was like, you should delete that number now.
[00:42:58] Zoe: That's so [00:43:00] funny. What's the worst time, like you didn't get away with hiding it?
Oh, I think mine was at my ex's cousin's wedding.
[00:43:11] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:13] Zoe: I got way too drunk. I snuck in a mickey and my purse, and I was obviously drinking at the open bar throughout. Mm-hmm. But I needed that Mickey to drink by myself in the bathroom. So that I could drink more than everyone was thinking I was.
[00:43:31] Heather: Of course.
Because by the way, it also takes you a little longer to get drunk than everybody else because you're addicted to it. Mm-hmm.
[00:43:37] Zoe: So,
[00:43:38] Heather: you know, you have a higher tolerance, so you have to,
[00:43:41] Zoe: but then I remember, I think I fell asleep at eight o'clock in the field. 'cause it was at a random golf course. His mom had to.
Call a cab and literally taxi me home 45 minutes.
[00:43:57] Heather: Ooh.
[00:43:58] Zoe: And she [00:44:00] couldn't like be in the wedding for an hour 'cause she was taking care of me in the field. Oh
[00:44:06] Heather: shit.
[00:44:07] Zoe: One of those times where you think you can handle it all the time.
[00:44:10] Heather: Yeah.
[00:44:10] Zoe: And then you wake up and you're like, fuck, I didn't handle that one. I'm
[00:44:12] Heather: in the field.
[00:44:13] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:44:13] Heather: God dammit. I'm in the forest.
[00:44:14] Zoe: Literally.
[00:44:15] Heather: Yeah. I mean, the time in New York, Ooh, this is bad. This is when my ex and I were breaking up. Like I went to New York with him. He was moving there and. I was drinking so much, but I was hiding it. 'cause at that point he thought I had slowed down.
[00:44:28] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:44:29] Heather: And I had not.
[00:44:30] Zoe: If you're an alcoholic, I promise you you're not hiding it as good as you think you are.
[00:44:33] Heather: Oh no, you're really not. Yeah, because I've seen some of you drinking and
[00:44:38] Zoe: we know that you're lying.
[00:44:39] Heather: Yeah. We
[00:44:40] Zoe: know you're lying. We just love you still. So we won't like get you out of our lives.
[00:44:42] Heather: Even if you relapse and say crazy fucking shit to me, I'll still be your friend.
Like it's happened, but. My ex, we were in New York and I can't remember how quickly it happened, but I met up with my friend Emery, and we went to the park and we just got really fucked up, like, I don't [00:45:00] know, four bottles of wine between the two of us over the span of like five hours. Mm-hmm. And I was lying in the field and then I, I had Nike with me.
I had the dog and I called Ted 'cause I was like, can you come get Nike? And he did. And he was pissed off about that 'cause he was like working or. Whatever.
[00:45:16] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:45:17] Heather: And then later it was like midnight and I was like, can you come get me? I'm like really drunk and I can't walk home alone. Like I couldn't.
Mm-hmm. I could not walk home alone.
[00:45:24] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:24] Heather: And there were like porta-potties, like the nice New York ones and I wanted to go, but they were locked. And I was like, oh no, I have to pee so bad.
[00:45:31] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:32] Heather: And I just peed myself on the way home. I like made a conscious choice and I was like,
[00:45:35] Zoe: did you not wanna pop a squat?
[00:45:37] Heather: He was so mad at me. Zoe, he came to get me. He was pissed. He was like, you're so fucking drunk.
[00:45:42] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:45:42] Heather: I, he walked in front of me the whole time and then when we got in the elevator, he's like, did you fucking piss yourself? And I was like, yeah, I couldn't do anything. You wouldn't let me stop to go to the bathroom.
Yeah. You're mad at me. I'm terrified. Not terrified I wasn't gonna do anything, but like, he was so mad and I was so embarrassed. Then I just like got in the shower with all my clothes on. The next day we were moving to [00:46:00] a different hotel and he did not speak to me the whole time. And in our taxi on the way, I was like, you gotta pull over.
And I got outta the taxi just like somewhere in Manhattan and threw up on the sidewalk.
[00:46:10] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:11] Heather: And then he didn't speak to me for like two days and then we had a big talk and it was bad and I knew I was lying about, mm-hmm. Slowing down and I was apologetic. And then I was just going down to the lobby every day and drinking my fucking face off.
Pretending to study for real estate,
[00:46:24] Zoe: the lie
[00:46:25] Heather: that was bad.
[00:46:26] Zoe: The lying.
[00:46:27] Heather: Well, the lying. The lying is what we're getting into next. Lying to everybody. Lying to myself about how bad the addiction was. Did you find you were in that place? Yeah. Where you're like, I'm fine.
[00:46:40] Zoe: I just, I knew I wasn't fine, but I knew I didn't wanna do anything about it.
Yeah. Honestly, I was just like set to just die at one point. For sure.
[00:46:47] Heather: I would do a thing where I was like. Okay. It's not that bad. Like other people drink or other people do things that are way worse. Or like, okay, tonight I only had one bottle of wine. That's great. Or I would just be like, I would think of [00:47:00] times, specific times where I know other people got really drunk and I'm like, oh yeah, that person's drinking sometimes.
Yeah. It's like, yeah. And I would lie to myself. 'cause I was afraid. I was really afraid. I was like, this is gonna have to stop.
[00:47:10] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:47:10] Heather: I don't. Think that that's possible, so I don't know what I'm gonna do.
[00:47:13] Zoe: I think that was definitely how I justified it in the early stages, like the last two years of my drinking, I was probably like just.
Accepting of my fate that I'm a drunk and I may not make it,
[00:47:27] Heather: but Did you ever get the lucid moments of the I would like lying in bed probably at night when I would go to bed and wake up and I would have the like, okay, I'm sober right now. I cannot drink like that. I can't drink anymore.
[00:47:40] Zoe: I would say that, yeah.
Yeah. But it just, it wouldn't ever
[00:47:44] Heather: no
[00:47:45] Zoe: be true.
[00:47:45] Heather: No. I would drink the next morning. Yeah. Or I would drink a day and I'd be like, okay, today is the day I'm, this is the last day. And then I'd be like, okay, well if today is the last day, then I might as well drink today then, and I'll just start tomorrow.
[00:47:56] Zoe: I don't think I ever was like, I am never gonna drink again.
I never had [00:48:00] that thought in my head until I went to rehab.
[00:48:02] Heather: I think I had that, that. Thought anytime. I was like throwing up in the bathroom the next morning, but not in a real way.
[00:48:09] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:48:09] Heather: Anytime I got really, really sick from drinking, I was drinking that night.
[00:48:12] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:48:13] Heather: It just depended how sick I was to where I could like get up and walk to the store.
[00:48:17] Zoe: Mm-hmm. Hot talking about this so much, it is just reminding me how exhausting it was. All consuming.
[00:48:27] Heather: Well, that's the thing, right? When people, when you assume alcoholics, you assume like a man in his fifties, big beer belly, just lazy. Lazy. Let me tell you, addicts are the hardest working people out here.
[00:48:38] Zoe: Stinky as fuck too. Like I didn't get away with a lot, but I got away with some of it.
[00:48:43] Heather: The way that I describe it is a double life.
[00:48:45] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:48:45] Heather: I was fully living a double life. I was. Being so sneaky, but had to pretend to certain people like my parents. Mm-hmm. That I was fine. Yeah. I didn't look fine. I was gaining a lot of weight.
They knew I was super depressed. They knew I was drinking too much. I just had to do whatever I had to do to protect [00:49:00] my drinking. Yeah. If I looked too bad, if I drank too much in front of them, I was afraid they were gonna take it from me.
[00:49:05] Zoe: That resonates with me too. Like when people were like, oh, well how are you doing?
I would always say like, I'm okay, because I wanted them to know that I was fine with. Me drinking like a lot. Like I didn't want anyone to question my drinking, so I would just act fine for
[00:49:20] Heather: Yeah.
[00:49:20] Zoe: Even though I, in my heart, I was dying inside, but I would just act like everything was fine so I could just keep drinking.
[00:49:27] Heather: Yeah. Because you're like, I'm not good, but if you, but. Take this from me. Yeah. If this thing goes away, that's bad. That's, that is the worst I could possibly imagine, so I can't get there.
[00:49:37] Zoe: But yeah, most people would like stop if any of this stuff happened. We are insane people to just continue ruining our lives for years and years and years.
[00:49:46] Heather: And that's the question for people who aren't alcoholics or haven't dealt with it, it's like, why? Yeah. Why are you doing it? It's so harmful for you. Mm-hmm. It makes you look like shit. It makes you an idiot. It's ruining your fucking life. Why? I didn't [00:50:00] wanna be here. Yeah. It didn't ruin my life when I started, when it started to ruin my life, I was already in it.
Yeah. I couldn't get out. You can't just hop off.
[00:50:07] Zoe: I can't just stop. You can't. That's insane.
[00:50:09] Heather: No, and, and the double life was getting really scary. The like, oh. I would say shit to my sister. Like, I kind of feel like I only wanna drink. Like mocktails on the weekends now. I like drinking, but I feel like the way I'm drinking isn't really serving me and I feel like I wanna do more, like, I would say dumb shit like that to overcompensate for the entire thing while I'm like sitting on her couch drinking a bottle of wine.
[00:50:34] Zoe: Were you a liar before you started
[00:50:35] Heather: drinking? Yes, I've always been a
[00:50:36] Zoe: liar. Yeah, same.
[00:50:37] Heather: I've been a liar. I love lying.
[00:50:39] Zoe: I love lying to, I can't lie anymore, and it's almost annoying to me because when someone asks me something, like I need to tell them the truth.
[00:50:48] Heather: Mm-hmm. Which
[00:50:49] Zoe: is so frustrating sometimes when you're like,
[00:50:51] Heather: if I don't tell you the truth, I'm gonna think about it.
I'm gonna have to text you later. I'm gonna have to talk about it in aa. I'm gonna drink. Yeah,
[00:50:56] Zoe: yeah, yeah. Exactly. And that's the rabbit hole that it does go butt down.
[00:50:59] Heather: Yeah.
[00:50:59] Zoe: [00:51:00] So it's almost annoying how truthful I need to be with some people. And even some of my friends are like, I hate how brutally honest you are with me.
[00:51:08] Heather: Yeah.
[00:51:08] Zoe: I'm like, I'm sorry, but. Do you hate that or am I the only one that's actually telling you how it is?
[00:51:14] Heather: Yeah. People need that. I mean, we hated it when people were giving it to us. Brutal honesty.
[00:51:20] Zoe: Now I like it.
[00:51:20] Heather: Well, now I, well now we need it.
[00:51:22] Zoe: Now we need it. And is that, that's the thing.
[00:51:24] Heather: And now we're more receptive to it because our emotions are regulated.
And if you're a friend and you're telling me something that hurt your feelings or something that I'm doing. If you're my friend now, I'm like, Ooh, let's fix that so we can be friends.
Oh,
[00:51:37] Zoe: thank you. Yeah.
[00:51:38] Heather: Not like, fuck you.
[00:51:39] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:51:40] Heather: Everything you do is wrong. Everything I do is right. Yeah. And I'm gonna drink about it.
[00:51:43] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:51:43] Heather: It's just different.
Did you feel like you were really hiding your drinking from people?
[00:51:53] Zoe: The only thing I was hiding with my drinking was how much I was actually drinking. I can't get over How exhausting This [00:52:00] all sounds, Heather. I know. I can't believe we used to do that.
[00:52:02] Heather: It is nice to reflect and be like, I was a busy girl for no reason.
[00:52:07] Zoe: Well, that's all we knew. That's what we had to do to survive for those years, to be honest.
[00:52:13] Heather: Yeah.
[00:52:13] Zoe: And that's what we needed for us. When I sobered up, it was shocking how I wasn't depressed and I wasn't that anxious.
[00:52:21] Heather: Mm.
[00:52:22] Zoe: I. Realize that. Yeah, my depression and anxiety just came because I was an alcoholic.
That realization was shocking to me.
[00:52:32] Heather: Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:33] Zoe: Honestly, nice. Because I just thought I was an anxious and depressed person. I didn't even understand that. Obviously it was because I was drinking all the time.
[00:52:41] Heather: And if you had found that out before you went to rehab, that wouldn't have stopped you.
[00:52:46] Zoe: I don't know.
I couldn't separate it because I couldn't stop drinking.
[00:52:49] Heather: Yeah.
[00:52:50] Zoe: I tried stopping, I tried controlling it. Nothing could help me. And I think that's the saddest part, because the reality was like I [00:53:00] didn't give a shit anymore. Mm-hmm. And I just wanted to die. Then like,
[00:53:03] Heather: well you couldn't give a shit and alcohol was keeping you from doing anything, but it was the only thing that would keep you alive.
[00:53:08] Zoe: Killing myself. Like scared the shit outta me. Yeah, me too too. And that's I think, why I just kept drinking so much too. 'cause I. I think I like even prayed back in the day like, oh, maybe I'll just wake up and I won't be here anymore.
[00:53:19] Heather: Oh my God. I was always hoping my, yeah, my hormones would change or like I would need to get a surgery or something and that would like
[00:53:26] Zoe: cure you.
[00:53:27] Heather: Yeah. Like change my brain chemistry and then I just like wouldn't want it. I tried to do hypnosis, like I think that's the other thing with addicts, we've tried to stop.
[00:53:36] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:53:36] Heather: If we could stop and just go on with our day, we would. We don't wanna do that. Yeah.
[00:53:41] Zoe: People telling us to stop. Obviously we know that we should stop.
[00:53:45] Heather: Yeah.
[00:53:46] Zoe: Duh. We're not stupid. Addicts aren't stupid. We're not stupid. We know that we should stop.
[00:53:51] Heather: It's not fathomable.
[00:53:52] Zoe: It's not fathomable.
[00:53:54] Heather: It's not, it's not, it's not even an option on the table. You can't, like, there's, you can't do that
[00:53:59] Zoe: until [00:54:00] like, at least for me, I did need to get separated from it and understand what I was doing and learn things to make me feel good without it.
[00:54:09] Heather: Yeah. And now it's so nice to be like, I'm sober and I'm confident in that and I'm happy about it. And that's all the bullshit I went through and I'm not gonna forget it.
[00:54:17] Zoe: Yeah. '
[00:54:17] Heather: cause I needed it to get here.
[00:54:19] Zoe: Yeah.
[00:54:20] Heather: You know,
[00:54:21] Zoe: it seems so big to say to like, just get sober.
[00:54:26] Heather: Yeah.
[00:54:27] Zoe: It's, yeah. It's the biggest thing ever.
[00:54:30] Heather: Oh yeah. It's Everest.
[00:54:31] Zoe: Yeah,
[00:54:32] Heather: it's fully Everest.
[00:54:33] Zoe: It is.
[00:54:33] Heather: And there's a lot of collateral along the way.
[00:54:35] Zoe: Yeah. And it's so scary because you think that your life is ruined, obviously, right? Yeah. Like I thought my life was ruined. I thought that nobody was gonna. Like me. Mm-hmm. You know, being sober, but it's the complete opposite.
Like people will forgive you.
[00:54:51] Heather: Yeah.
[00:54:52] Zoe: If you give them like the choice to, if you grow up a little bit.
[00:54:55] Heather: Mm-hmm.
[00:54:56] Zoe: It doesn't take much for people to forgive you. People know that you are drunk. People [00:55:00] know it was a lot of the time, the booze.
[00:55:02] Heather: People have empathy.
[00:55:02] Zoe: People have empathy.
[00:55:04] Heather: Like you said before. Talking about that I feel exhausted.
[00:55:07] Zoe: Oh my God.
[00:55:08] Heather: For younger, for drunk Heather, I feel exhausted and I'm like, hey.
[00:55:11] Zoe: Put the bottle down.
[00:55:13] Heather: Put the bottle down, and realize that you gotta get sober. Yeah. 'cause it's so much better.
[00:55:17] Zoe: So much better. And people will forgive you and life. Can be rebuilt. I was rebirthed in rehab
[00:55:25] Heather: 1000%.
[00:55:26] Zoe: Mm-hmm.
[00:55:27] Heather: And I'm proud of you.
[00:55:28] Zoe: Proud of you, babe. Bye bye.
[00:55:36] Heather: Thanks for listening to Girl Undrunk. You can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Girl Undrunk Podcast and or send me an email at heather@girlundrunk.com. And before we go, thank you to our amazing producer, Ariane Michaud, and support from her team at Consciously Produced, Martin Nunez Bonilla for the graphics, Ian sit for setting up our sound [00:56:00] and Daniel James for the music and final edits. This podcast would not be possible without you.
