Janet was right. It’s all about CONTROL. Amanda White has some wise, and life-earned, things to say about the illusion of control. If we’re honest, our desire for control is inseparable from all of our motivations, and can lead us to extreme places. Amanda is a therapist, a woman in recovery from both disordered eating and alcohol, and she’s the author of NOT DRINKING TONIGHT, a terrific book that is a huge contribution in the sobriety space because it bridges the gap between memoir and clinical programming. Amanda breaks down important and often misunderstood topics like self-care, boundaries, reparenting, and trauma, as well as diving deep into WHY we drink. Whether or not alcohol is a thing for you is pretty much irrelevant to this conversation, because almost anyone can relate to issues of control: over our surroundings, other people, and especially our feelings. Show notes: Not Drinking Tonight: https://amandaewhite.com/book Episode link: https://tmstpod.com/episodes/33-amanda-white-our-desire-for-control Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1VgaPAppho7DouFQd8CcEz Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
Amanda White and Our Desire for Control
[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: Hey, it's Laura. If you're listening to this, you're not hearing the complete unedited version of this conversation. If you want in on that, you can get it by becoming a TMST plus member. Just head over to our website tmstpod.com and click support. All right. Enjoy the show.
[00:00:30] Hey, Laura, here, today's guest, Amanda White has some really perceptive things to say about the illusion of control. Personally, although I'm well aware of the ways I try to control things in my life. I never really made the connection between drinking alcohol and control until this conversation. So that was something.
[00:00:54] Amanda is a therapist, a woman in recovery from both disordered eating and [00:01:00] alcohol. And she's just released a terrific book called, “Not Drinking Tonight.” Her book is a huge contribution in the sobriety space because it bridges this gap between memoir and clinical programming and as a therapist, she breaks down important and often misunderstood topics like self care boundaries, reparenting and trauma.
[00:01:24] She weaves in some of her own stories, as well as stories of clients. And she dives deep into the why behind the drinking especially for women. But whether or not alcohol is a thing for you or whether or not you identify as a woman is pretty much irrelevant to this conversation because I think almost anyone can relate to issues of control over our surroundings, other people, and especially our feelings.
[00:01:52] I think you'll get a lot out of it. And here's Amanda.[00:02:00]
[00:02:06] I want to start off by asking of all the topics that you could have written about as a therapist why did you choose to write about drinking and alcohol?
[00:02:15] Amanda White: I'm sober. So I don't drink and it's a big part of my life, but I think that the coolest thing about sobriety or exploring kind of alcohol is it just changes how I see the world and it's connected to everything.
[00:02:31] So if you like my content, if you like that I talk about boundaries or self care, authenticity, you know, or deep connections or whatever. All of that is informed from being sober and being awake enough to be in touch with all of that. So, I guess that's one, that's just my personal philosophy, but I also felt like there wasn't a book written out there by a therapist.[00:03:00]
[00:03:00] There's a lot of amazing quit lit out there, but there wasn't anything that kind of was why we drank the deeper reasons and kind of like, yes, you could read maybe 20 books and understand all of this, but I wanted to put something together where someone could really understand not just how to stop drinking but why they drink and how it might be connected to deeper things.
[00:03:25] Laura McKowen: Yeah. And you do that. That's I think the big payoff for your book versus others. And you talk mostly about women too. Do you only work with women?.
[00:03:38] Amanda White: So it's funny. What happened is that when I got my internship at a drug and alcohol rehab, you know, drug and alcohol rehabs are very gender segregated.
[00:03:48] So they assigned me to be with the women and then I got a job and they were like, well, you already worked with women. So you'll just be with women and then I got really into also working with eating disorders, which is mostly [00:04:00] women. So when it came time for me to start my own private practice, I said that I would just work with women.
[00:04:06] Because that was kind of natural for me. And then I just named my practice therapy for women. For that reason. I named my account that, I don't personally work with that many men. I think almost everything I write applies to lots of people, but you know, these days everyone likes a target demographic.
[00:04:25] Laura McKowen: Yeah. No, and I think that's great. Your book is definitely not only for women, some of the themes that were, that I want to ask you about, I think are more prevalent for women. So one of the things I love that you talk about is reparenting. Explain, what is, what is reparenting?
[00:04:42] Amanda White: So my definition of reparenting is kind of learning how to be an adult.
[00:04:49] It's like filling in all the gaps that a lot of us didn't get growing up. And it's not even that your parents were bad parents or they neglected you. [00:05:00] I mean, a big part of reparenting in the book that I talk about is like, we may have to recover from over-parenting right where our parents did things for us and we never learned.
[00:05:11] Some simpler things in life. For me personally, when I got sober, it was a huge part of my journey was I didn't know how to set boundaries. I didn't know how to process emotions. I didn't know how to have any sort of communication with people and share that I was frustrated with them. And I really see that with all of the work that I do with my clients.
[00:05:33] And it's the biggest thing I think, really that people don't learn how to do. And it's kind of that emotional sobriety idea. If we don't heal what's going on, if we don't learn and fill in these gaps. We're likely to pick up a drink or do something else again.
[00:05:49] Laura McKowen: Inside the idea of reparenting is this idea that every person maybe knows if they're willing to have the mindfulness, which you talk about, [00:06:00] to be aware of what they're feeling and then maybe aware of what they might need, that they, that we all have that innate awareness inside of us. Is that an assumption of reparenting?
[00:06:11] Amanda White: Yeah. I mean, it might take time, I think, to know that and I think that is one of the beautiful things about sobriety is you kind of unearth and get away with all the stuff that's been blocking you from what you really love, what you care about. What's important to you and lets you kind of tap into that.
[00:06:32] Inner wisdom. Like it doesn't have to necessarily be spirituality. But I do think we all have an inner wisdom that we can kind of tap into.
[00:06:42] Laura McKowen: That wasn’t always the way it wasn't always like, you know, what's best for you. And even in recovery programs that there can be this we know what's best for you, but you don't.
[00:06:55] And I, I think that actually comes from a good place, but [00:07:00] your message is you have someone very wise in you. You have an inner knowing.
[00:07:07] Amanda White: And that's the one thing that I love that you talk about Laura too, is I also was in a 12 step program. So I'm very intimately familiar with it, professionally familiar with it.
[00:07:18] And like, that is what's hard. Because I agree. I think it does come from a good place. And when you are in the depths of your addiction, sometimes. You don't, you can't be attached right to that inner knowing because you're so blocked from it that you do need someone to kind of just tell you what to do day to day, put one foot in front of the other.
[00:07:41] I think the problem is when we do get to that point where we have tapped into it, and especially if our inner knowing is saying, maybe you want to explore this, or you want to explore that. There's no room for that, that that can kind of get sticky. Right?
[00:07:58] Laura McKowen: It's when it becomes dogmatic, that it's, [00:08:00] that it's sticky. So one of the aspects of reparenting that you talk about is self care. And I love the way you talk about self care, because, you say, you know, we, we say it's like bubble baths and stuff like that. And I think generally people know that it's not quite that, but you really break it down. So can we go into details of the types of self care?
[00:08:25] Amanda White: Absolutely. It's finding that line of what is genuine self care. And I think this does, I mean, this is why it's a part of reparenting is it's kind of looking at yourself as if you were a loving parent to yourself. What would you push? What would you, you know, scale back on? And that is why it's a little messy where it's there's physical self care, which is actual physical, because self care is really connected also to our basic needs being met too.
[00:08:55] So that's a big part of it. So physically, right? Like eating enough, [00:09:00] drinking enough water, making, you know, dressing yourself, bathing. All of those people typically know what physical self-care is. There's emotional self-care, which is what you expose yourself to the people that you talk to, how different emotions or being around people impacts you.
[00:09:18] You know, like watching a TV show may have an impact on your emotions…
[00:09:23] Laura McKowen: Hold on, before you go on just stop and emotional stuff here. So an example of emotional self care could be deciding not to go to a certain thing with your family because you just don't have the energy in your bank emotionally to do it.
[00:09:46] Amanda White: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:09:50] Laura McKowen: Or what else. This isn’t always seen as self-care.
[00:09:53] Amanda White: Emotional self care could also be right. Because there's a part of self care of like taking care of your future [00:10:00] self too. So emotional self care could also be setting a boundary now when it's like uncomfortable and maybe you don't want to, because you know that then you won't have to enter into these uncomfortable conversations in the future.
[00:10:15] Laura McKowen: Oh God, I love this one.
[00:10:18] Amanda White: I think a lot of us feel like it's too, I can just suck it up. I don't want to have this conversation with this person. I'm exhausted. I'm going to just allow them to talk to me this way or say this thing around me that bothers me, or, I mean, to make it real physical with drinking, right.
[00:10:38] Like. I'm going to let them ask me, you know, why I'm not drinking still, even though I don’t..
[00:10:44] Laura McKowen: I'm not going to talk to them or ask them not to ask me, I'm just going to put up with it.
[00:10:48] Amanda White: Exactly. So it's, you're expending more energy now having this conversation, but you're saving yourself, future emotional drains, [00:11:00] frustration, all of that.
[00:11:01] By having that conversation now. So then that person knows how to treat you the next time you show up and they won't ask you why or say that thing that you don't want them to say to you.
[00:11:12] Laura McKowen: Okay. So emotional self care and financials what you were saying next.
[00:11:22] Amanda White: Yeah, I think this is a big one too, because self care can get into like treat yourself and they are not the same thing.
[00:11:30] Right? I'm not against people treating themselves, but that's not self-care so, you know, financial self-care sometimes looks like telling yourself, you're not going to get takeout tonight. Your not going to go to this event because it doesn't fit in your budget. It might look like creating a budget for the first time it's looking at like maybe your taxes for the first time.
[00:11:57] I mean, I remember when I got sober, one of the biggest [00:12:00] things I did was I like actually made myself look at my bank accounts and stuff like that because when I was drinking, I didn't want to know again, it's this reparenting point of your having the hard conversation with yourself. You're looking at things you don't want to look at in the moment, but it's taking care of yourself.
[00:12:20] Because you're going to feel so much better when you actually know. What's going on with your bank account and what choices that you can make for your future self.
[00:12:28] Laura McKowen: How do people not turn in this self care practice into another thing to be perfect about?
[00:12:35] Amanda White: That's a great question. I think if you look at it as a checklist, it can definitely go that way.
[00:12:42] One thing that I talk about and believe in is because some things might be self care for you sometimes and not others. And I think if people really realize that they can recognize that it's impossible to be perfect with this, right? Because [00:13:00] sometimes self care is getting takeout and sometimes home care is not getting takeout.
[00:13:05] So there's no real rule you can create to make yourself be perfect at self care, cause it's just, it's dynamic. It changes even things change in your life and your self care is going to have to look different.
[00:13:20] Laura McKowen: You put it under Reparenting, which I love is a Reparenting practice. Even if you haven't had a loving parent in your life, what makes me responsible, but also loved like, what is compassionate and responsible.
[00:13:36] Amanda White: Yes, exactly. Because it's holding those two things at the same time. And sometimes people will say to me, if I'm nice to myself, I'm letting myself off the hook and those two things can exist at the same time, in the same way. And maybe no one has ever done this to you, but like you can compassionately set boundaries with someone and [00:14:00] out of love tell them what works and what doesn't work for you. And you can do the same thing to yourself.
[00:14:07] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Well, I think I, yeah, I mean, we're so weird and we're in this weird puritanical culture where if you suffer more, you, you know, like suffering is the way and I think we confuse responsibility with duty, right?
[00:14:21] Yeah. So, but responsibility is like, okay, if I want to be responsible for my experience. So if I want to have the experience of being proud of myself tonight, say and to honor my commitments, but also do it do so in a way that doesn't negotiate my health. Then that means I'm going to not go to the party.
[00:14:47] I'm going to potentially disappoint a friend. Yeah. Or just say no to having, you know, going to coffee, even with a friend it's redefining these terms of what we've learned as [00:15:00] good for us. And really, I think, especially you write a lot about women in one of your examples, Andrea, I think deals a lot with perfectionism and the sense of duty.
[00:15:12] Yes. Do you find that that is just like the most common theme?
[00:15:16] Amanda White: Yes, it absolutely is, is I think, especially it goes into what you were talking about with, you know, these kinds of rigidity, the black and whiteness of just women, especially that I work with really perfectionism is such a big thing they struggle with.
[00:15:32] And I think it creates this interesting dynamic too, where we will push ourselves so far that then we snap. And then we fall to the other side. And there's, I think I talk a little bit about this in my book, but I, I talk a lot on Instagram about over and under functioners.
[00:15:52] Laura McKowen: Ooh. Talk about that. I was going to ask you.
[00:15:52] Amanda White: Yeah, so essentially, I mean, we can look at this in relationship or just, you can be both in [00:16:00] person. An over-functioner is someone who in response to stress or anxiety, they try to get as much done as possible. They check things off the list. Yeah, me too. They clean, they need a task. They need something to do.
[00:16:15] Right. And they will push themselves to the brink because they can't sit still when they, when they're anxious. Under functioners as result of this will take their hands off, they will shut down. They'll avoid a lot of things which then makes their anxiety even more beause they keep avoiding it.
[00:16:36] And a lot of times also what people don't realize is you can swing from one to another. So, what happens is a lot of women I find too, will, you know, they might be responsible, the responsible one in the family. They might be the one that takes care of the kids and has a lot more emotional labor on their plate.
[00:16:55] So they respond to everything and are an over-functioner [00:17:00] push themselves to the breaking point and then they under function and think they're lazy when really they're just recovering. They feel terrible, feel so anxious by everything they avoided. Then they have to over-function again, to deal with all of this.
[00:17:17] And it just creates this really difficult cycle to get out of.
[00:17:20] Laura McKowen: Oh my gosh. That's what drinking was for me, for someone that's just listening and they're identifying with this, what would you start? What was, what are the first couple of things that you would tell them to think about or look at?
[00:17:37] Amanda White: I think what this cycle specifically, what people don't want to hear, but what needs to happen is you have to start by functioning less like you've got to lower the bar to start because it is impossible to push yourself this hard forever.
[00:17:58] So if we are an [00:18:00] over-functioner, we have to start in the cycle somewhere. And the easiest place to start is by taking on less, trying to get help, like trying to get help in some capacity. Like having those tough conversations, maybe asking a partner or someone you love for help. Taking on less at work or not volunteering, right.
[00:18:21] To do everything and just lowering the bar for yourself. Because I also think we can get into this shame cycle where we feel shame about something. And then we set this huge goal and we feel temporarily better with this big goal because it's going to change our life. And then we try and it's too unrealistic.
[00:18:44] And then we fail and we don't meet the goal. And then we feel terrible about ourselves and we feel all the shame. And then the only way we know how to escape the shame is to set a huge goal again, that we're going to change our life. And we never make progress. Where if [00:19:00] we started with smaller goals, smaller steps, we would be out of the cycle and we could make small incremental progress.
[00:19:09] Laura McKowen: What is the functioning keeping people from?
[00:19:12] Amanda White: Probably their emotions, especially if you've stopped drinking or stopped doing your thing. Right? Like we over-function, and we, you know, it's hustle, culture, work culture, all of that. We don't have to feel that anxiety. We don't have to feel that overwhelm that pain, that whatever we're feeling, we can just busy ourselves so much that we're not in touch with what's going on inside.
[00:19:40] Laura McKowen: This might seem like a silly question, but why are we so afraid of our feelings?
[00:19:48] Amanda White: We are so afraid of our feelings because they're very unpredictable number one. I mean, there's like 20 reasons, but I think off the bat, they're like [00:20:00] weird and they're like uncontrollable and they come and they go and we can't measure them when you're in it.
[00:20:07] You feel like it will last for forever. And then we go do other things to avoid the feeling and then it comes up again and it feels like it's going to last forever. So we never pushed through to the point of realizing and trusting ourselves that the emotion will always come down.
[00:20:25] Laura McKowen: I think that the word control is what it comes through a lot in your book.
[00:20:29] I mean, that was like when I was reading it, I'm like God, and you know that like, but the more I'm sober, the more I do this work, the more I work on myself, the more I work with others more, the more I see, we all just want to control how we feel, how we're going to feel, how we used to feel like how others feel.
[00:20:52] Amanda White: How others think of us.
[00:20:54] Laura McKowen: Oh yeah. All of it. And so [00:21:00] the self care piece looping back to that, what does that have to do with control and, or letting go of control? Like, how is it connected.
[00:21:11] Amanda White: I think it comes back to kind of what we were talking about with, you can try to make self care checklist, a way of controlling a thing that you, you know, re a rigid habit, a thing that you do, but because real self-care is flexible and changes and is unpredictable depending on how you feel and is.
[00:21:33] A lot of self care. I mean, I have questions in my book about how do you know something as self-care and one of the biggest questions is how do you feel after. Not before, because a lot of us who are anxious feel terrible before we go do something, but we, if we feel better afterwards, right. Which is also different in how you can tell if you're exhausted and you need to sleep and you force yourself to go and you feel [00:22:00] worse after going, that's a sign that it's not self care for you.
[00:22:05] So I think real self care is messy and changes and it's the same with our emotions because it's very based on how we feel and being responsible for creating how we want to feel.
[00:22:21] Laura McKowen: So what have you noticed in yourself or in the people that you've worked with…what's the reality of this emotional out of control weather that we experience as humans, because I, when I got sober, certainly it was like erratic and all over the place and up and down, and I still have periods like that kind of, but it's more even.
[00:22:49] Amanda White: I think, I think most of us do start off with really high ups and downs.
[00:22:55] And I think a part of that too, is because we've been avoiding our [00:23:00] emotions over time, maybe drinking over them. Our body doesn't trust us yet. It's kind of like when you are like if you don't eat enough, your body or you don't sleep enough, your body stops sending signals because it's like, all right, well, you're not listening to me anyway.
[00:23:16] Right. So then if you're catching up, your body doesn't trust that there will be enough food or there'll be enough rest. So you might need to swing into kind of, you know, the other side of it. But over time, you'll trust yourself, your body will trust. And those emotions will become less intense, become less overwhelming.
[00:23:38] Of course you'll still have your moments, but the more you allow yourself to feel your feelings and the big thing people not mess up with this get wrong about emotions too, is sometimes you can't judge your emotions while you're like that prevents you from processing them.
[00:23:56] Laura McKowen: I know that's the hardest part though.
[00:23:58] It is. It really is. [00:24:00] You don't want to be feeling the thing you're feeling or you've been taught to demonize the thing you're feeling.
[00:24:05] Amanda White: Yeah. Or we get caught in intellectualizing it, why am I feeling this what's wrong with me? What can I, you know, all of that versus coming from a place of curiosity, again like that gentle parent of like, I wonder, you know, what's going on for you, what might be helpful that we could do today to support you?
[00:24:26] You know, so those questions instead, but it's very hard for sure.
[00:24:43] Mikel Ellcessor: Hi, I'm Michael. I'm the executive [00:25:00] producer of tell me something true. And I co-created the show with Laura. We built TMST and our online community with the hope of creating a sane spot on the internet. We're really passionate about the ad-free nature of this work. Our belief is that this project worked best if we're not hustling to keep advertisers happy, and we keep our attention on you, the TMST community, and this is where you can play a major role. TMST plus is the membership group that helps to keep this podcast going. Whether it's through a monthly membership or a one-time contribution, TMST plus members are vital to this experiment. As a TMST plus member, you get to join Laura for member only events, send in questions for the guests, hear the complete unedited interviews and connect with other TMST community members. You know, sometimes we feel like we can't make a difference in the world. With the TMST [00:26:00] plus membership, you can be keeping this space alive and thriving for a one-time gift or for as little as 10 bucks a month, you can find the link in the show description and then please head over to TMSTpod.com right now to support the show. And thanks.
[00:26:12] Laura McKowen: So one of the things that I really like that you do is go into diet culture, and that, you know, is something unique about your book too. So where did that come from? Why did you decide to do that? Talk about it. You, you use this specific client example again, Andrea. Where she starts to experiment with not drinking and almost immediately flips to this big diet and intermittent fasting and this whole plan and workouts. And I’ll let you know explain it.
[00:26:52] Amanda White: So it came from my experience first, I'm in recovery from an eating disorder and [00:27:00] I mean, it was kind of the whole reason I really wanted to write this book too, is to get into the weeds of co-addiction and cross-addiction and how we can addiction switch. Because for me, I literally went through multiple years of, I would stop drinking.
[00:27:19] My eating disorder would come back. I would get into recovery from my eating disorder. I would start drinking. I would drink, I would relapse and it was insane and it wasn't until I was able to do both really at the same time. And see the connection between the overlap and see how I would jump from one to another, that I was able to make progress.
[00:27:40] And then I worked at an addiction facility for a number of years. And specifically I worked in a long-term women's facility. Everyone said they, I mean, very few of them said they had eating disorders and then they would stay for, you know, they would go to rehab and then they would come to me and it was a 90 day program.
[00:27:59] So by the time [00:28:00] they left, they'd been there for four months. And 90% of them ended up with some sort of thing with food. God, it was insane how high the percentage was and I've done research on it and the statistics say 20 to 40% of people with substance use disorders also have eating disorders and that's a very high statistic when you think of how. It's a very strict criteria to meet
[00:28:31] Laura McKowen: The criteria for an eating disorder.
[00:28:32] Amanda White: Exactly. So that doesn't even include a lot of the people I was talking about. And I was shocked because. You may have heard this in addiction circles too. People used to say, I'd rather be high and skinny than drunk and fat or sober and fat.
[00:28:51] And it, it really shows up in whether people would say they would end up disclosing that they started drinking or using to control [00:29:00] their weight. Or people then get sober and they gain weight probably cause they need to, because they're eating enough for the first time in a while. They might not have had good nutrition for a while.
[00:29:15] You know? And if you look at principles of nutrition, eating enough is always first before we go up the hierarchy of anything else, we need people to eat enough first. First, especially if they haven't been, then people would end up relapsing a lot of times because they didn't like the weight they were in. They felt uncomfortable.
[00:29:35] You're already going through so much change and then your body changes. So I started seeing that correlation so much and it's something that really frustrates me to be honest about the sober community is it can end up inadvertently promoting diet culture with the sugar addiction and food is terrible and you're switching one addiction for another [00:30:00] and that's not true.
[00:30:03] Food isn't the same as an addictive substance.
[00:30:06] Laura McKowen: That’s a really good chapter in your book. The other thing you talk about is one thing at a time, how does that fit in?
[00:30:13] Amanda White: You’ve got to work on what's the most dangerous. The, you know, the old adage is what's going to kill you first and you start with that and to me, that looks like you do whatever else you need to do to be okay.
[00:30:27] And it might look like sleeping a lot. It might look like eating more cookies or sugar or whatever in the beginning, because you can't just go from. I mean getting sober is really freaking hard, you know?
[00:30:41] Laura McKowen: Well try, that's the thing. It's not a matter of just being nicer to yourself. I mean, it is that, but it really doesn't work.
[00:30:49] Amanda White: Yes, exactly. Because if we look at right, if we go back to control and we look at. I think of eating disorders. It's not about even the food or [00:31:00] anything like that. It's about being in control of your food and body, weight, and shape. Even if it's just an illusion of control, it's also control over your emotions, which is really, if we look at, you know, the heart of addiction, the heart of substances, it's being in control of your emotions, even if your life is out of control.
[00:31:20] You are in control of, of being able to shut down how you feel or shut down trauma or whatever is coming up. So if we just go from controlling one thing to controlling another, we aren't going to be able to do that deeper work that's going to keep us in recovery.
[00:31:39] Laura McKowen: You just said something that I've never thought of before or realized. That even the drinking is about control. I get to control that. I pull that ripcord whenever I want. I don't know how I've never thought of that before, but that's so one of the hardest parts about getting sober is you relinquish that [00:32:00] control. You just have to ride the wave.
[00:32:03] Amanda White: Exactly, exactly. I mean, and I think that is really what sometimes is missing in the conversation because you can look at someone with an addiction or substance use disorder and see their life as so out of control.
[00:32:17] Laura McKowen: Right. It looks like they just want to be out of. Yes. It's quite the opposite.
[00:32:23] Amanda White: Exactly. Because you, like you said, Laura, you have the ability, no matter what you can zone out, you can tap out of life and not, and not participate in that aspect of it.
[00:32:35] Laura McKowen: Yeah. I don't know. I've never thought of that. Like mind blowing to me, man that plays into so many things into the, the perceive, like stigma of it and the shame, because it looks so out of control.
[00:32:51] Like we also like things that look controlled. That's why we like small bodies and certain all that [00:33:00] we like this like image of tightness and control.
[00:33:02] Amanda White: It's why we can addiction switch so easily because if we find something else right, that we can control or use to control our emotions, it'll fill that gap for us.
[00:33:14] And we won't have to deal with what's right. I use the metaphor of the iceberg in the book. Like we don't have to deal with the anxiety, depression, you know, trauma. All of those things that are going on because we can just find something else to not pay to turn that off.
[00:33:32] Laura McKowen: To keep our nose above the water.
[00:33:35] Amanda White: Yes, exactly.
[00:33:37] Laura McKowen: So addiction switching, can you talk, is there anything else to say about that? Because I think that's one of those things that shocks people like, oh, now I'm just spending all this money or, oh, now I scroll Instagram for, you know, seven hours a day or whatever it is.
[00:33:54] Amanda White: My model of addiction is a little different too than like yes, obviously alcohol is an addictive [00:34:00] substance.
[00:34:00] It is different than other things that are not addictive substances, but I also really don't believe that certain people are addicts or alcoholics and other people aren't. I think we all, given our circumstances in life can end up using something or a substance to escape ourselves and to control.
[00:34:23] So that means that there are many things that we could use. We could use working. We could use drinking, we can use gambling, we can use shopping. We can use zoning out on Instagram for a million hours. There are a bunch of different things that can fill that gap for us. Some are just more dangerous and effective than others.
[00:34:44] Laura McKowen: Right. One of the things that it was hard for me to accept when I first really dug into therapy was that it's a slow process. Like, so is sobriety and recovery. It's [00:35:00] supposed to be, but it is so hard to swallow that pill that I'm not going to get better overnight. Things aren't going to change over.
[00:35:13] It's hard to feel like you've got so much work ahead of you. I think that's, I don't want to leave people feeling that like, oh my gosh, this is just so heavy and it's just too much. What sort of hopeful things are you seeing in overall, and then, you know, just, just thoughts about the upside of sobriety and therapy.
[00:35:39] Amanda White: Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing to remember too, is that we learned these patterns and these patterns didn't show up overnight. So to unlearn them is going to also take time. And I think if we can put into perspective for people, how much time did you spend doing this? How much time have you [00:36:00] practiced?
[00:36:01] Right. This habit of. Overfunctioning under functioning. How long have you had anxiety? All of these things, it can try to, it can help a little bit with recognizing that this is going to also take some time to unlearn and kind of work through. This sounds like a lot, and I know what you mean. It can be like overwhelming.
[00:36:20] I think when you unravel one thing to another, to another, I'm kind of, of the belief that everyone has their stuff. And everyone has things that they're working through and life is hard for everyone. So I mean, sobriety is really hard and really overwhelming. But it's also, it's also like one of the things that I think makes life most worth living.
[00:36:48] Like not everyone has to be sober, to have a life worth living, but I think the journey that you go on in sobriety, other people have pieces of it. I've been thinking a [00:37:00] lot lately with the pandemic about. Have you watched the show station 11? I highly recommend it. It's all about what makes life worth living like after I, you know, at the end of the day,
[00:37:13] Laura McKowen: Sounds like a show right up my alley.
[00:37:15] Amanda White: I've been thinking about with like sobriety and stuff.
[00:37:20] Right. It's like you're awake. So it's more painful day to day. But you also get to experience more things awake. Day-to-day right. It's what Brene Brown says you can't numb the bad without also numbing the good and the joy. So while it's harder, it's also. It's so much more true. It's so much more alive.
[00:37:43] And that's what life is kind of about is experiencing these little moments and being present for it.
[00:37:49] Laura McKowen: You're so right. There's we all have to do, I had Veronica Valli on just a few episodes back, and she always says like, this is work. Everyone has to do. [00:38:00] Yeah. It's just some people, most people don't answer the call and, and people.
[00:38:06] Struggle with addiction. Just kind of have an urgency about it, but everyone has to do it, right? Yes. And I mean, you're in a fortunate position where you get to actually see people change.
[00:38:16] Amanda White: I do, I do. I’m very fortunate.
[00:38:19] Laura McKowen: I always have felt that way about being in recovery circles. That that is the most magical thing is you see people change where as in everyday life, we really don’t.
[00:38:29] You know, the old thing is people, just, things stay the same. You know, people don't change, but they do. And not just a little miraculously like day and night. Life-changing. Wow. You can't believe it's the same person two years later.
[00:38:45] Amanda White: And you can change that way. You might like to the point where you don't recognize, you know, you might not see it along the way.
[00:38:52] Like the biggest thing for me is I actually got to choose the life I wanted to live. I know like no longer were things just [00:39:00] happening to me. I could actually participate and say, I don't want to be a flaky person. So I'm going to work really hard to show up and be on time and do all of these hard things because.
[00:39:12] I'm sick of this. And that is so powerful. I mean, the confidence you get, I think from like changing your life and living a life that is in line with your values and that you create is just so powerful compared to some people who just go about their days and live life as, as what was dealt to them without questioning or thinking they can change anything.
[00:39:36] Laura McKowen: Yeah. It is quite something to decide. Okay. I've always thought of myself as this type of person, but what if I'm not? What if I'm not the party girl? What if I'm not who you call when you want to have the most fun? What if I'm who you call? When you're in a lot of pain, you know, are you really scared or whatever it is, I'd so much rather be that phone call.
[00:39:56] Amanda White: Yeah. You can change that and you have a lot more [00:40:00] power when you aren't leaving your body, you know, all the time during the day.
[00:40:06] Laura McKowen: Right? Well, I'm so glad you wrote this book. I think it fills this really needed gap between memoir and clinical self help, where it's really based on storytelling. You do a really, really good job of breaking down things like self care and trauma and boundaries in a way that can be used. Plus you have all kinds of resources in the back, which I think is amazing. And you did a really good job.
[00:40:38] Amanda White: Thank you. Well, it was so amazing to chat with you, Laura. I love all of your work and your book is one of my favorites, so it was really cool to chat with you.
[00:40:55] Laura McKowen: Thank you. Alright, thank you so much for being with us today. If you want more TMST head on over to TMSTpod.com and become a member. Members get access to the full uncut versions of these conversations, previews of upcoming guests, invites to join me for members only events and access to our members only community where I hang out a lot. We decided from the beginning to make this an independent project, we don't have sponsors and we don't run ads.
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