Aidan and Jolene introduce themselves and talk about their decision to make an Early Exit from the drinking life. They also discuss whom they hope to reach with their podcast about the gray area of drinking and explore how they both used alcohol as a way to self-medicate their anxiety, the power of story and the ability to edit our personal story lines. Aidan shares a quote from Walt Whitman about curiosity versus judgment and Jolene shares a coaching tip about the neuroscience and benefits of finding like-minded communities. 

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to 'Edit Podcast: Editing Our Drinking and Our Lives' on iTunes, SoundCloud, or stream on Google Play. Please consider rating us on iTunes. It will help others find our podcast!

CONNECT WITH JOLENE:

• Craving Brain Coaching - www.healthydiscoveries.com/coaching/
• Jolene on Instagram -  www.instagram.com/healthy_discoveries/
• Email: jolene@healthydiscoveries.com

CONNECT WITH AIDAN:

• The Dry Life Blog - www.ivyleagueinsecurities.com/the-dry-life/
• Aidan on Instagram-  www.instagram.com/drybeclub/
• Email: aidandonnelleyrowley@gmail.com

Aidan gives a glimpse of what her drinking looked like in the beginning. She talks about coming from a family where alcohol is often celebrated and acknowledges that she has many good memories associated with drinking. She talks about getting accepted into Yale and receiving a celebratory bottle of champagne from her parents, but confesses that over the years, things began to change. An important turning point in her drinking narrative was an ill-fated Christmas party she hosted soon after her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Shame and self-loathing began to accompany her drinking even though she was "holding it together" on the surface. Anxiety led to unconscious and then more conscious self-medication. Aidan went through several years of alternating between drinking and not drinking, years which led to her eventual decision to quit for good in July 2016.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to 'Edit Podcast: Editing Our Drinking and Our Lives' on iTunes, SoundCloud, or stream on Google Play. Please consider rating us on iTunes. It will help others find our podcast!

CONNECT WITH JOLENE:

• Craving Brain Coaching - www.healthydiscoveries.com/coaching/
• Jolene on Instagram -  www.instagram.com/healthy_discoveries/
• Email: jolene@healthydiscoveries.com

CONNECT WITH AIDAN:

• The Dry Life Blog - www.ivyleagueinsecurities.com/the-dry-life/
• Aidan on Instagram-  www.instagram.com/drybeclub/
• Email: aidandonnelleyrowley@gmail.com

Jolene gives a glimpse of what her drinking looked like in the beginning. She didn't grow up around a lot of drinking and rarely drank in high school or college, but there was a pivotal point in her late 20's when things changed. She began using wine to self-medicate the heartbreak of a lost relationship. Jolene talks about how her drinking continued and escalated into her 30's and how she began hiding her hangovers more than her drinking. Even though Jolene was never a big volume drinker, her frequent drinking was becoming a problem. She shares how she started to weigh the cost/benefit of drinking and ultimately decided that drinking wasn't working for her anymore.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to 'Edit Podcast: Editing Our Drinking and Our Lives' on iTunes, SoundCloud, or stream on Google Play. Please consider rating us on iTunes. It will help others find our podcast!

CONNECT WITH JOLENE:

• Craving Brain Coaching - www.healthydiscoveries.com/coaching/
• Jolene on Instagram -  www.instagram.com/healthy_discoveries/
• Email: jolene@healthydiscoveries.com

CONNECT WITH AIDAN:

• The Dry Life Blog - www.ivyleagueinsecurities.com/the-dry-life/
• Aidan on Instagram-  www.instagram.com/drybeclub/
• Email: aidandonnelleyrowley@gmail.com

Aidan talks about her "dance" between drinking and not drinking. She recently heard Elizabeth Vargas, author of Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction, speak at the She Recovers Conference. Vargas said, "when you start to drink to numb, that's something you need to pay attention to." Aidan agrees with that statement and shares her story of finally deciding to stop drinking for good. She mentions the pain of a miscarriage, how she used wine to self-medicate after the birth of her third daughter and then after the death of her father. Aidan reads her first Year Without Wine blog post, originally published in 2012, called Wine Is My Weakness. With the help of a therapist, she came to realize she may not have a capital "P" problem, but that she had a lower case "p" problem with alcohol and anxiety. She talks about the liberation she found in giving up alcohol and how this gray area of drinking is a universal, under-explored topic.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to 'Edit Podcast: Editing Our Drinking and Lives' on iTunes, SoundCloud, or stream on Google Play. Please consider rating us on iTunes. It will help others find our podcast!

CONNECT WITH JOLENE:

• Craving Brain Coaching - www.healthydiscoveries.com/coaching/
• Jolene on Instagram -  www.instagram.com/healthy_discoveries/
• Email: jolene@healthydiscoveries.com

CONNECT WITH AIDAN:

• The Dry Life Blog - www.ivyleagueinsecurities.com/the-dry-life/
• Aidan on Instagram-  www.instagram.com/drybeclub/
• Email: aidandonnelleyrowley@gmail.com

Jolene talks about dancing back and forth between drinking and not drinking for many years and about how she reached her quiet tipping point on December 14, 2014. It wasn't planned and she didn't think of this as her last day of drinking, but after drinking on that Saturday and feeling sick until the next Tuesday, she knew in her bones she would not drink again. The Early Exit is a liberating choice because it goes beyond not drinking alcohol. Jolene has come to know and understand this is also about nervous system regulation and the ability to sit with the discomfort in life. Jolene shares how she has gone on to study somatic yoga and shares some of the exciting things she is learning about neuroplasticity and our ability to rewire our brains and feel better.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to 'Edit Podcast: Editing Our Drinking and Our Lives' on iTunes, SoundCloud, or stream on Google Play. Please consider rating us on iTunes. It will help others find our podcast!

CONNECT WITH JOLENE:

• Craving Brain Coaching - www.healthydiscoveries.com/coaching/
• Jolene on Instagram -  www.instagram.com/healthy_discoveries/
• Email: jolene@healthydiscoveries.com

CONNECT WITH AIDAN:

• The Dry Life Blog - www.ivyleagueinsecurities.com/the-dry-life/
• Aidan on Instagram-  www.instagram.com/drybeclub/
• Email: aidandonnelleyrowley@gmail.com

Aidan and Jolene talk about what life without alcohol has been like so far for them. They share what the best parts of the dry life have been as well as acknowledge the tougher parts. This episode is an honest, if surface, peek into life without alcohol. They both share how giving up alcohol has reduced their anxiety and they discuss the new level of presence and resilience they've found. Some of the more difficult pieces have been feeling lonely at times and pulling away from certain groups of people. They end this episode on a positive note about making the bold choice to stop drinking while this choice was still a possibility and they acknowledge that, contrary to popular wisdom, there is no requirement of "crash and burn" to stop drinking and we can make the choice to stop at any point.

CONNECT WITH JOLENE:

• Craving Brain Coaching - www.healthydiscoveries.com/coaching/
• Jolene on Instagram -  www.instagram.com/healthy_discoveries/
• Email: jolene@healthydiscoveries.com

CONNECT WITH AIDAN:

• The Dry Life Blog - www.ivyleagueinsecurities.com/the-dry-life/
• Aidan on Instagram-  www.instagram.com/drybeclub/
• Email: aidandonnelleyrowley@gmail.com

Jolene and Aidan debrief what it feels like to have the first six episodes of their podcast out into the world. They talk about the vulnerability hangover of sharing their stories along with the overwhelmingly positive response they’ve received from thousands of listeners who identify with the gray area of drinking. Jolene talks about hitting the sharp edges with her anxiety when they first released the podcast and she shares two examples of a medical professional who brushed her off and told her “she didn’t have a problem with alcohol” whereas another health care professional said she “would have recommended treatment for Jolene.” They talk about the strength that comes from vulnerability even though it’s uncomfortable and often hard, but ultimately very liberating. Jolene shares a coaching tip on how to reduce sugar cravings by eating regularly. Aidan shares a book she’s reading called, Material Girl, Mystical World: The Now Age Guide to a High-Vibe Life by Ruby Warrington. She also shares a quote by Howard Thruman, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”  Please consider rating us on iTunes. It will help others find our podcast!

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to 'Edit Podcast: Editing Our Drinking and Our Lives' on iTunes, SoundCloud, or stream on Stitcher, Google Play. Please consider rating us on iTunes. It will help others find our podcast!

CONNECT WITH JOLENE:

• Craving Brain Coaching - www.healthydiscoveries.com/coaching/
• Jolene on Instagram -  www.instagram.com/healthy_discoveries/
• Email: jolene@healthydiscoveries.com

CONNECT WITH AIDAN:

• The Dry Life Blog - www.ivyleagueinsecurities.com/the-dry-life/
• Aidan on Instagram-  www.instagram.com/drybeclub/
• Email: aidandonnelleyrowley@gmail.com

Aidan looks back on her drinking days and talks about the surprisingly positive mental, emotional, existential aspects of her hangovers. Jolene shares the negative physical effects of her hangovers and how they ultimately motivated her to stop drinking. Jolene talks about the histamine, blood sugar response and explains how, during a hangover, our bodies are simply trying to regulate and bring things back into physical balance, and how we then beat ourselves up emotionally. Also, brain chemicals GABA (helps us feel less anxious) and serotonin (helps us feel less depressed) get depleted from too much alcohol. Aidan talks about how, while hungover, she felt a lot of emotional shame, regret, guilt, sadness and knew spending time hungover meant she was losing time from her precious life. Both Jolene and Aidan talk about a couple ‘hangover supplements’ they used to take. Aidan reveals how she would open up to her husband and feel so vulnerable in the morning after drinking. This was a time when she would be more emotional and cry - which is something that doesn’t come easily to her. The hangover enabled Aidan to access emotions and feelings that she wouldn’t normally allow herself to feel. Both Aidan and Jolene confess that they hid their hangovers at times and Jolene mentions Bessel van dark Koll’s book, The Body Keeps The Score as a helpful resource for understanding stress and trauma and some underlying reasons for why we might drink too much. Jolene gives a coaching tip for boosting gut health with fermented foods and Aidan recommends the book, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, by Cheryl Strayed. They end this podcast by talking about striving for a quiet acceptance with whatever it is you’re dealing with at this time in your life.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to 'Edit Podcast: Editing Our Drinking and Our Lives' on iTunes, SoundCloud, or stream on Stitcher, Google Play. Please consider rating us on iTunes. It will help others find our podcast!

CONNECT WITH JOLENE:

• Craving Brain Coaching - www.healthydiscoveries.com/coaching/
• Jolene on Instagram -  www.instagram.com/healthy_discoveries/
• Email: jolene@healthydiscoveries.com

CONNECT WITH AIDAN:

• The Dry Life Blog - www.ivyleagueinsecurities.com/the-dry-life/
• Aidan on Instagram-  www.instagram.com/drybeclub/
• Email: aidandonnelleyrowley@gmail.com