Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, DRUNK-ISH: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Alcohol
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Stephanie Wilder Taylor is the author of Drunkish, A Memory of Loving and Leaving Alcohol.
[1:09]This is a particularly meaningful podcast for me because I read all of Stephanie Wilder
[1:14]Taylor's books.
[1:16]In the throes of New Motherhood, I clung to every word.
[1:20]She was like a guiding light for me, not that she ever knew that when I was just struggling
[1:25]and trying to get through and feeling like I was losing myself.
[1:29]And here was this funny, awesome woman telling it like it was.
[1:34]And I completely appreciated that.
[1:36]Then I met her when she moderated Laura Cathcart Robinson's event at zippy's bookshop
[1:41]about stash her book.
[1:42]And I was like, oh my gosh, Stephanie, I love your books.
[1:46]And she said, well, I actually have a new book coming out.
[1:48]And I said, when it comes out, you have to come out my podcast.
[1:51]And so she sent it to me in PDF, which is really exciting.
[1:54]And I read it and it's fabulous.
[1:56]And this is the perfect book for now.
[1:59]And it has her sense of humor and all of the good things.
[2:03]And I'm just a huge fan.
[2:05]Anyway, Stephanie Wilder Taylor is an author, TV personality, and co-host of the popular podcast
[2:10]for crying out loud.
[2:12]She co-created and hosted the late night comedy parenting show, parental discretion with
[2:16]Stephanie Wilder Taylor for Nick mom on Nickelodeon.
[2:19]She's the author of Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay.
[2:22]Now, time is the new happy hour.
[2:24]It's not me, it's you.
[2:25]I'm kind of a big deal.
[2:27]And gummy bears should not be organic.
[2:29]She has appeared on Good Morning America 2020, the Dr. Oz Show, Dr. Phil, Larry King
[2:34]Live.
[2:35]And today, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband, her three delightful teenagers
[2:39]and her dog, Penelope.
[2:40]Welcome, Stephanie.
[2:41]Thank you so much for coming on mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss
[2:44]Duranckish, Loving, and Leaving Alcohol.
[2:48]Thank you so much, Debbie.
[2:49]Thank you for having me.
[2:50]I think this is such an important podcast.
[2:53]Aimed at moms, which is my favorite target audience.
[2:57]So I have to say, and I already said this in the intro, I recorded for your episode.
[3:01]But I, and I told you this is I like accosted you at my bookstore, but I have been reading
[3:06]your books forever.
[3:07]And they have been such, you know, guiding lights for me as I've gone through motherhood
[3:11]myself with four kids.
[3:13]And I actually found not one, but two copies of Sippy Cups are not for Chardonnay
[3:18]in my library here because I try to save most of my books.
[3:22]And I also have nap time is a new happy hour and you're the one gummy bears should not
[3:27]be organic.
[3:28]But I guess I missed too.
[3:29]They came out after that because I don't know, I guess I got too busy or something.
[3:32]The other two books are out of the parenting genre.
[3:35]So, so maybe that's why I was leading to people.
[3:38]They were books that they were memoirs about my 20s and not the 20s, but my 20s.
[3:45]Right.
[3:46]Yeah.
[3:47]And I think people got confused and they were like, wait, this doesn't have anything
[3:50]to do the parenting.
[3:52]He went out of a, out of your normal line, I don't know, you're like, Adam Sandler doing
[3:57]a drama or something.
[3:58]Yes.
[3:59]That's what I feel like.
[4:00]Yeah.
[4:01]People were just like, I don't know what this is, but I'll pass.
[4:05]Well drunkish was so good.
[4:07]And you, the way you write and the openness with it, she write and you're sense of humor.
[4:13]I just, I like gobble it all up really, which is fitting to have like an olive on the
[4:18]cover, I guess, although I don't really like olives, but if I did, it would be fitting.
[4:22]I don't either, I don't either, and true story, I've never, ever had a martini, well,
[4:28]I haven't had a, like a regular martini.
[4:31]Wow.
[4:32]I have had flavored martinis.
[4:33]Where's the wine glass?
[4:35]I know.
[4:36]Wow.
[4:37]It's a cool cover, though.
[4:38]It would be creative.
[4:39]I like it.
[4:40]It's a great cover.
[4:41]It's a very cool cover.
[4:42]Yeah.
[4:43]In fact, my husband likes martinis.
[4:44]So maybe I could just leave this next to his dead side or something.
[4:47]He'd probably enjoy it, although it's kind of counter to the message of the book, which
[4:50]is, of course.
[4:51]So why don't you tell listeners about, about drunkish and what it's about why you decided
[4:57]to write it and, you know, we can dive into what's inside.
[5:01]Sure.
[5:02]Well, 14 years ago, I made a big decision, a quick drinking, 14, it'll be 15 in May.
[5:10]And prior to that, as you know, I'd written quite a few books and been a person who loved
[5:17]the whole mommy wine culture.
[5:21]It's not that I thought that I was, I didn't, it's not that I was being fake.
[5:26]I really was thinking that it's a great thing that moms have a way to sort of like blow
[5:32]off steam and bond with each other.
[5:35]And I thought the whole kind of wine culture was fun.
[5:39]I really did.
[5:40]I thought, and I stuck up for it in the way of, you know, I don't think moms need any more
[5:45]judgment.
[5:46]So if a mom is having a glass of wine and having a play date with their kids, like, why
[5:51]is that a bad thing?
[5:52]You know, dads can have a beer and watch the game and nobody thinks, nobody goes,
[5:56]why aren't your kids in the house?
[5:58]But somehow it seemed a way to judge moms.
[6:01]And I didn't like that.
[6:02]My whole first book was really railing against the judgment of moms, especially considering
[6:08]the fact that when I had a baby, I felt anxious and scared and alone and inexperienced
[6:15]and all the, all the insecurity and kind of the, the, I started blogging.
[6:22]And a lot of the blogging culture was around drinking.
[6:25]Like we all thought that was really funny, including me.
[6:28]I say we.
[6:29]I thought it was hilarious.
[6:31]The first time I wrote a blog post, I was a couple of glasses of wine in when I started
[6:35]my blog.
[6:37]My baby was only a couple months old.
[6:40]And I also have a stand up comedy background.
[6:44]So a lot of it was exaggerated.
[6:46]You know, I was being funny.
[6:47]I wasn't really drinking alcoholically at that time.
[6:51]I didn't, I didn't feel I was.
[6:53]But you know, come to find out that all that anxiety and all that insecurity and all of
[7:00]that loneliness and isolation was kind of a perfect storm.
[7:05]And my drinking did, I did start drinking a lot.
[7:09]And I did start questioning my drinking.
[7:11]And then when my daughter was about two, I decided to quit drinking.
[7:17]But it didn't stick because I ended up, I was, I was totally sober.
[7:22]But like six weeks later, I found out I was having twins.
[7:25]And I was like, Oh my God, I didn't drink through that whole pregnancy.
[7:29]I stayed sober.
[7:30]And then when I had my twins, I really and truly felt like, Oh, I obviously don't have
[7:36]a problem because now I've gone all these months without drinking.
[7:40]It wasn't hard.
[7:41]I didn't have any problem doing it.
[7:43]But this is a weird thing that a lot of women, especially women that drink a lot.
[7:48]And then they worry about, how am I going to stay sober during my pregnancy?
[7:51]A lot of women have no problem with it because all these hormones that go through our
[7:56]system can sometimes make women feel actually calm.
[8:01]And it's tricky because then you're not drinking and you're pregnant.
[8:04]You're like, Oh, look at me not drinking nothing to see here.
[8:07]Don't worry about me.
[8:09]You go back to drinking with a vengeance because now the hormones all drop out.
[8:15]You feel like shit, you're, you know, back to how you were before, but worse.
[8:21]And then you're like, Well, thank God I can drink.
[8:24]And that's how I was.
[8:25]And then because I do believe now that I have alcoholic tendencies and I have, I mean,
[8:32]we can call it a substance use disorder, we can call it whatever we want.
[8:35]But alcohol has always been a way that I solve problems and that so it got bad pretty
[8:43]quickly.
[8:44]And then I got sober when my twins were 18 months old and that was it.
[8:49]And I decided that because I every time I talk about addiction on my podcast for crying
[8:57]out loud, which has basically raised my kids on that podcast.
[9:02]And people always seem to respond when I would talk openly about my issues with alcohol
[9:07]and my issues with all addiction.
[9:10]And because it would get so much response, I sort of felt like after a certain amount
[9:13]of time, I hadn't really talked about it.
[9:16]I had obviously hadn't written a book about it.
[9:19]But I'd been really honest on TV and in articles that I wrote.
[9:23]So I thought like, why not tell that story?
[9:26]I didn't feel like I had a different story, I felt like that story would need it to come
[9:30]out of me.
[9:31]And I have a stand up background and I'm a humor writer.
[9:35]So I wanted to see if I could write a book about getting sober in a similar vein to
[9:41]sippy cups or not for Chardonnay, talked about being a mom.
[9:45]You know what I mean?
[9:46]Like a really honest book, most of the memoirs about addiction that I've read are really
[9:52]sad and you know, people have kind of low bottoms and I could be going on and on right
[9:57]now.
[9:58]I've heard it.
[10:00]So what's in the book?
[10:01]This is great.
[10:02]I'm like, I'm just watching your stand-up show from home.
[10:05]It's wonderful, like a live stream or something.
[10:07]It's great.
[10:09]No, you do write with the same voice because it's your voice
[10:13]and it's wonderful and funny and relatable.
[10:16]I mean, you say these, you have these like throwaway lines
[10:20]and I don't know, it's just, you have one part about like,
[10:24]when you did get sober, how all of a sudden you
[10:26]didn't want to have sex with your husband anymore.
[10:28]Like, what happens after a year when you were younger
[10:31]and like your breast reduction surgery, you didn't care.
[10:34]But then when you were nursing, like all of a sudden,
[10:36]it's like an issue and you had to deal with that.
[10:38]Like all things, they could easily remain private.
[10:41]But when you bring them to light, it makes people chuckle,
[10:44]whether it's happened to them or not or some piece of it
[10:47]or whatever.
[10:48]Well, you know, you're a writer.
[10:50]So I think you know this.
[10:51]And I also teach, teach writing.
[10:53]And one of the things that I say to my students
[10:57]when they're, when we're talking about writing about yourself
[10:59]and memoir writing, is it if you aren't feeling a bit uncomfortable
[11:03]with the things that you're revealing, you're not doing your job.
[11:07]Because I don't read people's memoirs, you know,
[11:10]to read their public thoughts, I read somebody's memoir
[11:14]to hear what they're really and truly thinking inside.
[11:17]And I want to be a lawyer and I want to hear those things.
[11:22]And that makes me feel closer to the person.
[11:23]And that makes me feel, I want people to feel like,
[11:26]oh, I want to be her friend because she keeps it real.
[11:29]And so a lot of those things, it's not that easy to be that honest.
[11:36]But that's how I know that I'm doing it right
[11:38]is when I feel that icky feeling like, oh,
[11:42]I really be saying this to people who really want to hear like this,
[11:47]this is scary to feel that exposed.
[11:51]It's true, but it's kind of the point of it.
[11:55]Sometimes though, it's easier to have strangers read it
[11:58]than people you know a little bit.
[12:01]Do you feel like that?
[12:02]Oh yeah, my husband hasn't read the whole book.
[12:05]And believe me, I'm not, I read him out loud
[12:09]when I was working on it.
[12:10]I would read him parts of it.
[12:12]He doesn't know half the stuff I said about him at this point.
[12:15]Because I mean, there's one thing I had to tell him
[12:19]because it happens early on, which I'll all remind you about.
[12:22]But when we were dating, so this was one of those things
[12:28]that when I wrote it, I was like, oh my god.
[12:30]But sometimes I would get drunk on a date
[12:33]when back when we were single and hadn't been together that long.
[12:37]And I once, you know where I know what you're going to say.
[12:41]I saw a sleep mid blow job.
[12:44]You had a funny term for it though.
[12:45]Yes, we called it a cock nap, which he said he's like,
[12:50]oh, I didn't remember the next, he's like, yeah,
[12:52]you took a cock nap, which I was humiliated briefly.
[12:57]But it was so funny that he said that.
[12:59]And then that became kind of a running joke of ours.
[13:02]But of course, years and years later, I'm writing the book.
[13:05]It's like that comes back with a cringe factor.
[13:09]I thought, you know, it's the truth.
[13:11]I'm going to put it in there.
[13:12]But I had to tell him it was in there
[13:15]because like I was thinking about his sister reading it,
[13:18]my sister-in-law, I didn't even know this is in there.
[13:23]And he was like, it is.
[13:26]I'm sorry.
[13:28]It's like, do you tell him while it's when it's already like,
[13:32]at the printer or when he can do something about it?
[13:35]Yeah, don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness.
[13:39]Oh my gosh, well, he also plays into your moment where you were like,
[13:44]this is not hitting bottom or I don't know what you want to call it,
[13:47]but the moment where you really decided to change your ways
[13:51]and that you felt you had put your kids in danger
[13:54]and like, that was like the final straw for you.
[13:56]Do you want to talk about that moment?
[13:59]Sure.
[14:00]Well, prior to this, I don't think that,
[14:02]and this is one of the reasons I wrote the book.
[14:04]I don't think that my bottom looks like a lot of people's.
[14:09]Looks like you would imagine, you know, I wasn't drinking in the morning.
[14:12]I wasn't sneaking drinks in the shower.
[14:15]I wasn't hiding from my husband.
[14:17]I was drinking in my mind, in my way, I rationalized it.
[14:23]Even though I would have wine like before my husband got home from work, you know,
[14:28]and then when he got home, I'd be like, oh, let's open a bottle of wine.
[14:31]There were those things.
[14:32]I'm not trying to make myself sound like what?
[14:34]I had two glasses of wine and night.
[14:36]I was drinking problem drinking, but most of it,
[14:40]my husband was aware of and I think he thought I was just very stressed out.
[14:45]I mean, I had, you know, baby twins and basically like a very young child.
[14:51]You know, my older daughter was, let's, when all this happened,
[14:55]she was four and they were 18 months.
[14:57]So she was four and a half.
[15:00]Yeah, they were 18 months.
[15:01]So my husband made a lot of excuses for me as well.
[15:07]But one of the things that I think really bothered him was, and this had happened earlier before
[15:12]the kids came along, you know, I would go out.
[15:15]Let's say, as a stand up comic, I'd go to the improv and have some drinks.
[15:19]I would drive home and my husband would always be like, are you okay to drive?
[15:23]Like, are you sure?
[15:24]And the thing about me and my drinking is I always felt fine to drive.
[15:30]It's like a thing that my chemistry, you know, some people can smoke pot and feel fine to drive.
[15:36]If I had one hit of pot, I'd be like, I can't drive.
[15:40]Like as I, but alcohol made me one of the, I was one of those cliches where I was like,
[15:45]I'm a better driver after I've had a couple drinks.
[15:48]I'm more relaxed.
[15:51]It all seems a little bit funny now.
[15:53]Obviously it wasn't funny.
[15:54]But the thing was my husband didn't like it when I would sort of like disappear at night
[15:59]when I would drink and then not respond to his phone calls or texts.
[16:02]And so on this occasion, I had taken two of my kids with me to this,
[16:08]to like a play date at a woman's house who had kids and a nanny watching the kids.
[16:14]And it was like a nice evening.
[16:16]And we were, she was serving drinks.
[16:18]It was kind of a drinking crowd for lack of a better word.
[16:23]Everybody was kind of having some drinks.
[16:26]But in my mind at that time, the way I saw other people's drinking was like,
[16:31]oh, everybody drinks this much.
[16:33]Now I can tell you that even my mom friends that are like act like they love to drink,
[16:39]we'll usually have a glass of wine and be like, I'm good.
[16:42]I just wasn't seeing it that way at the time.
[16:44]So anyway, I had some drinks.
[16:47]And then I had some more drinks.
[16:50]And then I was feeling really good.
[16:51]And what tends to happen with me is if I've had a couple drinks and I'm feeling relaxed and happy.
[16:56]And like always right with the world, I want to keep that going.
[17:00]I want to keep that feeling going.
[17:02]And it's very selfish.
[17:03]And I stopped being aware of what the amount is that I've had and what the rules are about
[17:10]drinking.
[17:11]And I feel like I want to feel this way.
[17:14]And I need one more drink to feel this way.
[17:17]And I can't, I'm not hurting anybody.
[17:19]And I made, my husband had been trying to call me.
[17:23]And I was resentful because I was like, why is he trying to call me?
[17:27]He had, he was home with one of my twins.
[17:29]And I was with my other twin and the older one.
[17:32]And I was thinking, this guy's on like a freaking Hawaiian vacation right now with one baby.
[17:37]I've got two of them with me, like stop calling me.
[17:40]That was my attitude.
[17:41]Why are you bothering me?
[17:43]Eventually, he called my friend who I was with and was like, what is going on?
[17:48]Where is Stephanie?
[17:49]Why isn't she answering my call?
[17:50]So she told me, hey, John's trying to get a hold of you.
[17:55]All I remember really is being like, fine, I guess it's time to go.
[18:00]Put the kids in the car.
[18:01]I drove home.
[18:03]I did not crash the car.
[18:05]I did not, nothing happened.
[18:07]But when I got home, my husband was in the driveway waiting for me.
[18:11]And he was furious.
[18:13]And he knew that I was drunk.
[18:16]He told me, he basically confronted me right there.
[18:19]And he said, you're drunk.
[18:21]And I was genuinely mad, appalled.
[18:24]But like, how dare you?
[18:26]I can't believe you're accusing me of this.
[18:28]What kind of a person do you think I am?
[18:30]And I went in the house and I slept on the couch, fully dressed.
[18:36]I woke up the next day and I, it just hit me.
[18:39]I was like, oh my God, I was had a brutal hangover.
[18:44]It was so obvious that I had been drunk and I remembered him being mad at me.
[18:49]And I knew I was on the couch.
[18:51]I knew we were like in a fight.
[18:53]And it just, I just woke up.
[18:55]I just woke up to the idea that like,
[18:59]I would have judged the crap out of another mom.
[19:03]If I heard that story and I knew that a mom drove home,
[19:07]like even in that situation, if I had heard another mom was at that gathering
[19:12]and drove her kids home practically in a blackout.
[19:15]And her husband, I'd be like, wow, that woman has a problem.
[19:19]But all of a sudden it was me and I couldn't escape the idea that like, no, I did that.
[19:24]I did this thing that I would never, this made this decision that I would never make.
[19:29]I would never make a decision sober that would put my kids in danger.
[19:33]Never. That's not the kind of parent I am.
[19:35]I think I was an overly conscientious parent.
[19:38]You know, I may let my kids eat a gumball off the floor of the mall,
[19:42]but I'm not going to actually put their lives in danger.
[19:47]And I actually had to go convince my husband that I had a problem.
[19:52]Because I just knew that my husband is very forgiving.
[19:57]He's very easy going.
[19:58]I knew he was mad.
[20:00]knew that if I told him, my husband doesn't think I'm a bad person. And he didn't think
[20:04]that I had a drinking problem. That's the thing. We didn't get in fights about my drinking.
[20:09]Ever. Like it wasn't a thing. My husband has never one time said like, I think he
[20:13]drank too much. Like it was just my husband always made excuses for me. Like, well, it's
[20:19]hard for you to gauge how much you've had to drink. It's hard. If we're at a party and
[20:24]you have a wine glass and people keep pouring you more wine, it's hard for you to tell.
[20:28]So we would do these little games where he'd say like, I'll let you know if you're
[20:32]starting the same tipsy. But then we go to do that and I'd be like, stop trying to
[20:37]police my drinking. So he'd leave me alone. So when I went to him that morning, I knew that
[20:45]I could convince him that I didn't have a problem and he would forgive me and I could say
[20:49]I'm going to be so careful from now on. But I knew that if I'd done this, it could happen
[20:57]again because I didn't think I would do that. Do you know what I mean? I didn't. The
[21:02]sober me wouldn't have done that. So I knew without a doubt in my mind that when I drink,
[21:07]I don't know how much I've had unpredictable. So if I'm unpredictable, then that follows
[21:14]that I shouldn't drink because I'm not safe drinking. And that knowledge made me go, well,
[21:20]if that's the case, then really, and I've tried many times to cut down. If you read the
[21:26]book toward that happening, I'd really been trying to manage and control my drinking and
[21:33]it was not working. So I had decided I'm just going to drink every single day, every night,
[21:39]but only have a couple glasses and I'm just never going to drive. And then I drove. So I just
[21:45]was like, I have to do whatever it takes to just not drink again. But I did not think at
[21:50]that time that it could be classified as alcoholism. All I knew was I don't want to drink anymore.
[21:58]When you say it though, I mean, and when you say even what you said earlier about the hormones
[22:03]and pregnancy and everything, do you look back ever and I don't want to minimize alcoholism or
[22:09]any of it or whatever it is, right? There's so many factors at work. But I feel like and for
[22:14]the mom culture in general and flashing back to my own habits, particularly when my twins were
[22:19]young as well, it's so stressful. And there's so little, there are so few breaks when because it's
[22:29]nonstop that a glass of wine is something that can like take you out of it a little bit. So it's almost
[22:35]like medication in a way. So I'm wondering after the like maybe when you don't, well, I don't know,
[22:43]what did you what happened then? Like did you feel like you needed a different type of medication
[22:48]afterwards? Well, and I just want to go back to something that you just said that I think is
[22:53]really important. And it's not that I think that many moms misuse alcohol when their kids are young
[23:00]and may notice themselves drinking more or using it to self medicate. Like you said, a lot of
[23:06]times people once you have a baby, your anxiety goes through the roof. I mean, and let's face it,
[23:13]a lot of moms are the default parent and feel, you know, I wrote about this feeling in sippy
[23:19]cups where it was like, we are aware of where the kids are at all times. And I used to get furious
[23:26]that my husband like would, let's say we're sitting on the couch and we've got the baby and, you know,
[23:31]my I was so annoyed at the idea that my husband could just get up off the couch and like,
[23:36]go take a shower. Oh, must be nice. You can just go take a shower. Like this, the planning that goes
[23:43]into taking a shower when you have like a newborn baby, you can't just take a shower. You have to
[23:48]like put the car seat right next to the shower so that I mean, wait till they're asleep. But then
[23:55]even if they're asleep, you have to bring the frickin monitor in with you. And husbands,
[23:59]just they just don't have that or really understand that unless they're a single dad of a newborn,
[24:05]which you don't care about that much. But I can imagine that, you know. So my point is,
[24:10]I think that a lot of people use alcohol, why? Because it works. It does make you feel relaxed.
[24:17]It does decrease your anxiety at first. If you're drinking too much, it can also have a rebound
[24:23]effect and make you more anxious. And it's alcohol is a depressant, right? But we don't necessarily
[24:28]realize that. But my point here is that that doesn't mean that all moms become alcoholics either.
[24:35]Just a whole bunch of other factors. You know, so for me, I turned to drinking, but I'd always use
[24:42]something. So I could look back, you know, once I once I'd been sober for a while and I could really
[24:49]start going through looking at my life and get out of that denial of like, this came out of nowhere.
[24:55]How did I just suddenly become somebody who can't know? It's like I'd been drinking since I was 14.
[25:00]I'd regularly had blackouts. I just started looking at my drinking more honestly. And my
[25:07]biological father was a pill addict. He was an addict most of his life. But I always separated that
[25:13]from me. He didn't even raise me. I didn't see a lot of the genetic component, the childhood chaos,
[25:20]the doing stand-up comedy and always drinking before I'd always used alcohol. For a lot of women,
[25:28]I think if they have certain factors from their childhood in their genetic makeup, it can wake up
[25:35]that sort of alcoholic tendency in them. But for other people, they can go through a little period
[25:41]of using alcohol too much and then go, you know what? This isn't healthy. I'm going to start
[25:45]going to the gym. I'm going to get into wellness. I'm going to I'm not going to do that. And they're
[25:49]able to not do that. So I don't want anybody to hear this as like some indictment of like moms
[25:55]and drinking. And like we're all human. We all turn to things that make us feel better. There's
[26:00]nothing wrong with that. And it's only if you notice that like now your kids are getting a little older
[26:07]and you're still in that bad habit. And yes, I needed what I needed was understanding that was
[26:14]became like my drug. Other moms not drinking with me, people to talk to people to hang out with.
[26:21]I needed something, you know, like a SAV for the for the loneliness and isolation that I still
[26:26]felt. And I needed more help. I needed my husband to pitch in more. I needed, you know, I started
[26:32]going to recovery meetings. And I definitely got a lot out of that mostly company.
[26:41]And the feeling I wasn't alone. And I binged on a lot of sugar that first year.
[26:47]I get that. I had this one moment, which I'm like sort of ashamed to even say out loud.
[26:52]I'm not even sure I've told the story. Well, maybe I don't know. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
[26:56]But we were living in like a temporary apartment as we moved from one place to the other. And
[27:00]everything was just totally disorienting. Like I didn't even, I barely knew where we were living.
[27:05]And I didn't have my stuff in all this. Anyway, I would push the devil stroller down the street
[27:09]in New York. And it would be shabbat or something. I'm like, oh, I've got to get more wine. Like it's
[27:14]it's okay. I can go and get more wine. It's Shabbat. So I would like try to squeeze this devil
[27:19]stroller into the inside and down the two steps that they had there. And I remember my kids at one
[27:24]point, they were like four, three or four. Mommy, like I don't want to go to the blind story again.
[27:30]That was like this. Oh, embarrassing. Anyway, mommy, why do you buy so many bottles of wine?
[27:39]I know. I was like, you know, out it is the people in the store, like, you know, looking at me.
[27:44]It's all good. It's Shabbat. But, you know, I'm buying five bottles. But anyway, right. Did you
[27:50]find yourself having to come up with a little excuse in your head? Like, oh, that last time was just
[27:54]for a party we were having. Yeah, always so is something. But what you went through was farther in the
[28:02]past that you sort of trudged up and trudged up. That sounds negative. But like, you know,
[28:08]started writing about now for this book. Why go into this now? And what did it
[28:14]feel like to look back on a time? I mean, it sounds like you have a lot more compassion for
[28:18]yourself than you did when you were going through it. Yeah, I think it was too raw for a few years.
[28:25]I mean, the thing is the drinking and driving was humiliating. And it was so hard to talk about,
[28:34]you know, for a long time, I only talked about it with people in my meetings, people that I knew
[28:40]would understand. And it just what I mean, my closest friends knew, my brother and sister-in-law
[28:46]knew. But it's just not something that I regularly talked about. And I would go on TV because
[28:52]it seems weird to say that I went on TV. But because I'd written that books, it becomes,
[28:56]it sort of got out that I got sober. And then all of these outlets were wanting like me to talk about
[29:04]it. I got interviewed for the New York Times. I was on the cover of the Sunday
[29:09]style section. I was only sober four months. They've done an interview with me. And listen,
[29:15]I looking back, I feel like it's a little bit weird that I did that. So like knowing what I know
[29:22]now, 14 years later, it's a, it's weird that at four months, I had anything to say about sobriety.
[29:28]I did know that I didn't have anything to say. So when I first was approached by like Dr. Oz,
[29:34]Dr. Phil, I was like, no, absolutely not. I don't want to talk about it. But this reporter from the
[29:40]New York Times wanted me to be interviewed. And I'd been, it's like a long story. It's in the book.
[29:47]I'd been outed by a parenting writer for the New York Times. And I was upset. I was very shocked.
[29:55]I was very upset. I had originally just told my small block.
[30:00]the readership, which was only a few hundred people that were reading that blog. And she had
[30:04]basically announced it in her column on the New York in the New York Times. Without any heads up,
[30:09]I had no idea she didn't ask me for a comment. She just talked about me. And a lot of people
[30:14]apparently read the New York Times, who knew that's when all these publications started reaching out
[30:20]to me and asking me to be on TV. And I was like, no, absolutely not. So eventually when I was in the New
[30:25]New York Times after by this woman who interviewed me, I started getting people reaching out to me
[30:32]like on Facebook or whatever, kind of asking me for help. And I was like, wow, okay, maybe I'm in a
[30:40]sort of a unique position to tell the truth about what's going on with me. So I agreed to do
[30:46]a couple of shows. I did not ever mention that I drove drunk. That was not part of the story
[30:53]at the time. I had a lot of rationalization for that. Number one, I was embarrassed. And I didn't
[31:01]want it. I was like, I'm already being judged like already without even knowing that piece of it,
[31:07]some of the comments I was getting were like, you shouldn't be a mom. You shouldn't be allowed to
[31:11]have kids. You should have your kids taken away from you. CPS should read this and come and get your
[31:15]kids. I mean, just knowing that I admitted to drinking too much. I was like, what is going to
[31:22]right? The feds are going to show up at my door. If I say that I drove drunk, like I was scared.
[31:27]But also, I just thought the way I rationalized it too was like, yeah, it's the truth. But if I say
[31:34]that, it's going to make a lot of women not relate to my story. It's going to give women a reason
[31:41]to go, well, I would never do that. Therefore, I don't have to look at my drinking. So in my mind,
[31:48]I'm like, I don't need to know that. I'll keep that part to myself. Well, and that went on for years,
[31:56]and I did many TV shows and did not tell the full truth about my situation. It was when I was on
[32:04]Katie Corrick four years later. And now I'm going to have this mom show. I had a TV show for a while
[32:13]called parental discretion with Stephanie Wilder Taylor. It was a comedic mom show. It was fun.
[32:18]It was like a talk show for moms. And I was asked to do Katie Corrick, not as a big
[32:25]expose on my drinking, but to talk about the mommy wine culture. And my plan was to come on the show
[32:31]and say, I still don't think that moms need to be judged for drinking wine. I don't think that
[32:36]this needs to, we don't have to come down on, that was, that was my position. Well,
[32:43]Katie Corrick's producer had discovered a place where I talked about drinking and driving.
[32:50]It was something that I had no idea was out there. It was something that was on YouTube.
[32:55]Anyway, they asked me if they could ask me about it. I said, no, I said, I won't even come do the
[33:00]show. If you're going to ask me about it, they were like, okay, no problem. We won't. And then
[33:04]Katie Corrick asked me about it. And I we were taping the segment. So the cat was out of the bag,
[33:10]as they say. I don't know why that's the saying, but it is. And I just rolled with it. And
[33:16]once I told that piece of it, I expected this guy to fall. And nothing happened. Like,
[33:25]nobody was like, what? You did what? Same thing happened after that show that always happened,
[33:31]which is women were like, oh my gosh, I think I have a problem too. Like, what do I do? And that's when
[33:37]I realized my story is going is going to help people. And the whole story. And that's, you know,
[33:46]I didn't make a decision. It was another 10 years before I wrote this book. But I just decided that
[33:52]like, why not? I felt that sippy cups are not for Chardonnay helped moms because
[33:59]I didn't know that you're not supposed to tell the whole truth about how we feel as new moms.
[34:03]I was no, nobody told me you're not supposed to talk about the breastfeeding sucks and it's
[34:08]awful. And it hurts for some people, not all, not all moms for me. It was terrible experience.
[34:15]Not everybody talks about, I didn't love my baby at first sight. I was sort of breaking down
[34:20]these myths of like, you need to have this certain kind of stroller. You're a bad mom. If you don't do
[34:26]this, you need to have a parenting philosophy. All these things that were big at the time,
[34:31]my daughter's 19 now. So this was a while ago. But I didn't know that you're not supposed to say,
[34:36]it's taboo to like go, I don't, I didn't love my baby at first sight. I hated being pregnant.
[34:42]I was on the fence about being a mom in general. I love it. Of course, I love it now. But
[34:49]saying all those things, there was backlash. If you look at the Amazon reviews for that book,
[34:56]there are people that absolutely love it. Thank you for saying everything you said. You made
[35:00]me laugh. And there are people that like, you should never have had kids. I mean, there are haters
[35:05]all the time. I mean, there are haters, you know, but the book was polarizing is my point. Yes. But
[35:11]I felt like there weren't a lot of books at that time that were people were willing to tell the
[35:16]truth. And telling the truth for me is kind of like a chronic illness. It's just like I can't,
[35:22]I can't help, but it's never going away. It's just how I communicate. I'm just honest. And I don't
[35:28]know. I don't know what you're not supposed to say unless you tell me you're not supposed to say
[35:33]it. But nobody, my editor, my editor of that book was a young gay man who just thought I was funny
[35:42]and was like, go for it. No idea. And my agent was a gay man with no kids. So the two of them together
[35:50]were just like, oh my God, mention it all. Well, look, as someone who read it and loved it, thank you.
[35:56]And I felt this, you know, drunkish is great. Your whole series, your whole voice, all the things
[36:02]you do. I'm, I'm just a fan. I'm like along for the ride. So anyway, this is gone totally long,
[36:07]which I don't think I've ever done. Oh, go like, anyway, but I just like, literally could just
[36:11]sit here and listen to you forever. So anyway, thank you so much. Don't have time to read. And they
[36:14]also don't have time to listen to really long podcasts. That's true. So congratulations for having me.
[36:21]Okay, thanks for coming on. All right. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of
[36:27]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens
[36:32]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com
[36:37]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[36:41]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[36:45]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.