It's Just One Glass of Wine! Groundhog Day Drinking: How to Stop the Vicious Cycle of Self-Medicating your ADHD with Alcohol with Carolyn Robistow LPC #162
You wake up in the morning and think, "Dang it! I wasn't gonna drink last night." Now you feel like crap and don't want to get out of bed.
A lot of us live in the middle ground: you wouldn't consider yourself an alcoholic, but you also aren't exactly happy with your relationship with alcohol. It’s an awkward place to be.
…Maybe you're making up rules for yourself like you'll only drink on weekends, on special occasions, or with friends.
…Maybe you say you'll have just one glass of wine, but it turns into two or the whole bottle.
…Maybe you're a Groundhog Day drinker… Every morning you make a pact with yourself and you inevitably break it. Again and again.
Let's pause the spiral of shame and have an open conversation about how alcohol is a popular and culturally acceptable method to tone down the chaos in your mind so you can chill out in the evenings - particularly useful when you have ADHD and loud children.
Let me be clear: I'm not here to tell you never to drink again. I want you to have the relationship YOU want with alcohol, no matter what it looks like.
Today's guest is Carolyn Robistow, LPC, and host of Brain Unblocked: The Brainspotting Podcast. Carolyn helps high-achieving, health-minded perfectionists squelch brain blocks and unhelpful habits. She is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs get out of their heads, stop drinking, and start living optimized AF.
Carolyn side hustles at her private practice, The Joy Effect, an in-person and virtual counseling practice in The Woodlands, TX, where she specializes in Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
You don't have to painfully shame yourself into a new way of doing things. Let's dig into the tough conversations, Successful Mama!
Connect and learn more about Carolyn:
Website: carolynrobistow.net
Practice Website: joyeffectcounseling.com
Instagram: @carolynrobistow
Facebook: Carolyn Robistow
Time blindness. YES. It's a very real thing and it can be a challenge for lots of people with ADHD. There IS HOPE! Here’s a free ADHD-friendly strategy for mamas like you, so you can stop beating yourself up for waiting until the last minute to complete the project, send in the forms, or do the shopping.
Time doesn’t have to stress you out! Grab Secrets for Overcoming Time Blindness, a free download on my website that will save you hours of panic & stress here: https://www.patriciasung.com/monthahead
Carolyn Robistow 00:00
We just throw our system out of balance. And then it takes time to get back in. And we're expecting ourselves to make decisions from place of balance when we've like thrown a big monkey wrench into our balance system.
Patricia Sung 00:12
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family, I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD.
Patricia Sung 01:19
So this is an episode that you may not want to listen to with the kids around. So if it makes you uncomfortable, go ahead and pop your earbuds in or save this episode for after bedtime, or when you're miraculously somehow by yourself. And just as a little disclaimer for today. So about a year ago, one of my students said to me, Hey, I am really struggling with alcohol and drinking more than I want. And I had referred her to Carolyn Robistow, who is our guest today. I am so thankful that she reached out to me and was vulnerable and shared with me what was going on because shortly after that, I had to help someone who's very important to me deal with alcoholism. And I know that having those conversations with her made my manner and how I approach the situation far different and more patient and more understanding. Because we all know when our family or close friends are involved, things are always more tense.
Patricia Sung 02:23
Ever since then, it's been probably like a year and a half, I have been thinking a lot about the connection between alcohol and ADHD. It makes total sense why so many people use alcohol as a way to quiet the noise and reduce the overwhelm and calm down at the end of a frustrating or overwhelming day to bring down that dysregulation and not feel so overwhelmed. I think this is a really common way that people with ADHD especially those who are undiagnosed deal, when when when life is just too much. And as I've watched over the last couple of years, especially with the pandemic, and there being so many jokes and memes about mom and wine o'clock, and those jokes that I used to find really funny have taken a turn because now I see, I see the hurt in the struggle and the escape, that people are using alcohol, because life is really hard. Like immediately when the pandemic started, like we lost so much of what helped us regulate what helped us calm down all sudden, we're stuck in a house with our kids and all of us trying to deal with this new way of life together. And it was really hard. And we lost the ways that we had set up our lives to be successful for us. He was one of those like you can't unsee how the sausage was made.
Patricia Sung 03:46
Now I see all of those jokes and it makes me realize how much of a deep seated issue this is for our community in knowing that there are so many moms who struggle and don't know that perhaps ADHD is the reason why they are so overwhelmed and dysregulated and struggling by the end of the day. And we don't talk about these things enough because of the shame. We don't want the judgment that layers on the judgment we already have for ourselves. How do we admit that we have a problem that we can't deal with on our own or don't know how to deal with on our own or even that it's just not in the place that we want it to be right now. I want you to know that this conversation is not about judgment. It's not about telling you that you should never drink ever again. This is about understanding. This is about forgiveness and grace for yourself about seeing the possibilities that are available to you and for you to have the relationship with alcohol that you want and that you are okay with and that you are happy to enjoy. It's not about the judgment. I want you to know that as you're listening to this episode, there are probably going to be points where you're very uncomfortable Roll in realizing, Oh wow, this is something that I'm not okay with, and stirring up awareness around something that you may have shoved down in the depths into the closet for a long time.
Patricia Sung 05:14
So if you need to, it's okay to pause and circle back in a little bit. And it's also very much okay to ask for help. You are not broken, you are not alone. You are worthy of having a really great and successful life with ADHD. And I'm here to share hard truths, but also to offer the support and encouragement that you can do things differently in the way that works for you. So I have invited a very good friend of mine, Carolyn Robistow to join us today. She's the host of the Brain Unblocked Podcast, and we've been friends for over a decade. I have watched her grow and blossom from when we first started teaching together to becoming a licensed professional counselor to a clinic coach, and she's now certified in brain spotting. As well as being a consultant in training. Carolyn helps high achieving health minded perfectionist squelch brain blocks and unhelpful habits. She's the founder of Carolyn Robistow, consulting an online coaching and consulting firm dedicated to helping entrepreneurs get out of their head, stop drinking and start living optimized AF. She also side hustles, if you will, at her private practice the joy effect where she does in person in virtual counseling in The Woodlands, Texas where she specializes in anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, I am so proud of the woman that she has become. And I've watched blossom over the last 10 years. And I am honored to share a friendship with you today that I hope will shed some light on some dark corners and allow you to see that if this is something that you are struggling with that there is light and possibility. And if you have people in your life who are struggling with this, that you have more understanding and grace for the struggles that they're dealing with, then perhaps can reach out a hand to support them as they make changes in their life when they're ready.
Patricia Sung 07:10
Today, we're talking about gray area drinking and what does that actually look like in daily life? How do you know that your relationship with alcohol isn't where you want it to be? You know, I love to hear how the body and brain interact with alcohol and understanding the science behind that so that you can understand what your body is doing. And then practical steps of how you make a change. If this is something that you are no longer okay with and want to make a difference in the way that you relate to alcohol, and how much brain space you give it each and every day. But most importantly, we dig into the shame. And how do we move past beating ourselves up for the decisions that we made last night and move forward to something better? I'm honored to share with you my good friend Carolyn Robistow. Let's welcome Carolyn to the show. How are you doing today?
Carolyn Robistow 08:03
Good. I'm so excited to be here. I know we've like wanted to coordinate this for a while you're talking about you coming on my podcast me coming on yours. So it's nice to finally kind of have it in place.
Patricia Sung 08:14
I would say like I just talked about this in the intro. But this is something that's really important to me. But I've sat on it for a while because I wanted to make sure that I had fully formed my thoughts around it before I dove into it because it is a sensitive topic. So before I even get into that, though, like I gotta back up, like, what the heck is a clinic coach, let's start there.
Carolyn Robistow 08:33
So a clinic coach is it just means that I have a certification to do coaching. But I have a clinical background because I am or was a licensed professional in the mental health field. I technically still am. Some clinic coaches have gotten rid of their clinical license. Some of us keep them I'm a person who kept mine. So it just means I have a master's degree in counseling to back up my understanding of how coaching works.
Patricia Sung 08:58
Okay, now we're specifically diving into gray area drinking today. And obviously, like in all of your time as a counselor, you've worked with plenty of problems. So what drove you to specifically lean into gray area drinking?
Carolyn Robistow 09:13
Yeah, so aside from my own experience with gray area drinking, which was kind of the main thing that catapulted me into it, because I had this whole experience where it was like holy shit, like not drinking, even though I don't consider myself an alcoholic or a person with substance use disorder or a clinical anything like not drinking was still a really big deal. And it was really hard to get to a level where I just felt comfortable with it. And alcohol didn't take up any brain space. Like these days, I don't think about whether or not I'm going to drink I either do or don't. And for me most of the well all of the time that is I don't but just the idea of I'm not not drinking because I'm actively trying not to I just don't anymore. And so I went through my whole experience And and part of that experience was realizing that a technique I use called Brain spotting, which I know you and I have talked about a lot. And you're familiar with you how I was able to use brain spotting to change the way alcohol like lived in my brain so that I was able to just stop thinking about it or wanting it or whatever, stressing about it. And so I started trying to bring it in to my clinical practice. As a therapist, I started marking like, Oh, I do gray area drinking or brain spot it. And what I found is that because it's not a clinical need, like it's not on a full blown alcoholic, yeah. So when people would come in, they'd say, Well, yeah, I want to drink less. But also, I'm dealing with clinical anxiety, or I'm dealing with ADHD, or I'm dealing with clinical obsessive compulsive disorder, which in the clinical setting is going to trump their work on their drinking. And there's this piece of like, well, we know that if we can get the drinking sorted, the rest of it's going to be easier. But also, it's not the clinical need at the time. And so I felt this like real struggle with like, Well, shit, how do I help both things. And so I decided, just to completely separate the two, start the separate coaching business, get that certification, where I focus solely on the alcohol and the relationship with alcohol, so that then people can go through and do the clinical work with their own counselor, which will not be me, and we can focus just on the drinking. So that's kind of the short version.
Patricia Sung 11:24
Yeah, like, it brings up a good point of where there's a lot of discussion, if you will, around getting a like official diagnosis and seeing a professional. And this is one of the reasons I always tell people, it's a good idea because ADHD doesn't travel by itself. There's always something that comes with it, whether it's your learning disability, stuff like dyslexia, and dyscalculia, the anxiety, the depression, the OCD, that chronic fatigue, or in this case, like maybe there's an issue with alcohol, that's not a full blown disaster, but also not where you want it to be. And when you don't talk to a professional, you don't usually uncover all the stuff that's going on, there's so many layers, like we are complicated things, human beings. And when you work with someone, you'll start to pull out like all these pieces, and yes, you can't work on all of them at the same time with the same person. But you a lot of times you like having helped makes a difference. And having that outside perspective can say like I see these things we should probably address more.
Carolyn Robistow 12:25
Yes, well, and on top of that, the way my program treats the drinking is there's these three pillars, and we have to have all three in place. And I say it's like raising a house where you don't like Jack up one corner of the foundation, and then jack up the other corner of the foundation, you're going to break the foundation, like we have to do all three a little at a time at the same time, which can feel really overwhelming to a person, especially if you're coming neurologically from a place where your brain really struggles to make sense of multiple things happening at once and how overwhelming that can be. And one of the pillars is how we build in daily support. And so when you're coming to a professional once a week for an hour building and daily support can be a massive struggle. So having also the coaching piece of it is the beauty of now we've got this online component where you can get the daily support, even though I'm not one on one meeting with you on a daily basis, you still have these daily things. So it just to me made so much more sense to do it this way.
Patricia Sung 13:23
Okay, so let's look at like, what exactly is gray area drinking? Because like we alluded to it a little bit like, and not just what it is. But like for someone who's dealing with this in daily life, like what are those examples where people can be like, ooh, check.
Carolyn Robistow 13:38
Boy, do I have that list ready to go for you. So I actually I call it gray area drinking out in public for the most part because it's the most commonly used phrase to describe it, but I actually don't use that in my work. I call it Groundhog Day drinking because it is regardless of how often you're drinking or not drinking for the person that is going to be the right person to work with me. One thing they will know is that every time for the majority of the time at least they are going to wake up that next day and it's like a reliving like the 1993 Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, like it's a reliving of God, I wish I just hadn't done that the way I did. And it can be I meant to only have one and I ended up having three or I meant to only have three and then I ended up having the bottle or I meant to have zero and then I had one anyways. And so that's this Groundhog Day. So where it doesn't necessarily have to do with how much are you drinking and how frequently it's how do you feel when you wake up in the morning about the fact that you did or did not drink however much you did or did not drink? So I know that's a little vague. The way to know like, okay, is this a thing for me?
Carolyn Robistow 14:52
There's actually four types of Groundhog Day drinkers and the one that I work most with these days, the ones who are really ready for it all. or the rule creating moderators. And so if you're finding yourself making these kind of random rules for yourself for what is quote, unquote, a healthy amount to drink, where you where it's like, Okay, I'm gonna have to, but only on weekends and only when we're out to dinner and never at home, and then you drink at home, and it's Groundhog Day, and you're like, oh shit, I did what I said I wasn't gonna do. Or some other really common rules that a person might have are, I'm gonna have water in between every drink so that I stay hydrated, because there's this idea that dehydration is the only thing that is wrong with alcohol. And this idea that if I drink water in between one, I'll solve the dehydration problem. And two, I'll somehow like slow my pace. But then what ends up happening is you end up chugging the water. And so it does nothing to slow your pace. Or you'll pour a glass of water and your next drink at the same time, because maybe you're out socializing, and it's like, well, I'll just get both drinks right now. And then eventually, the water gets set down, and you're only walking around with your glass of wine or whatever. So I would say if a person finds that they are making their own rules and breaking their own rules, more than 40% of the time, you're probably stuck on the Groundhog Day circle of shame. And so there's a lot of how to know if you're on the other levels, but I don't know if you want to get into all levels today.
Patricia Sung 16:25
No, I think that's a really good start for moms to start thinking about like, ooh, could this be me? Yeah, I'm like, Oh, okay. Like, I mean, like, we talked beforehand, I was like, I gotta stay on track, because Carol and I have known each other a long time, and we could easily get down rabbit hole. So I'm like, no Patricia Soundtrack Soundtrack. Okay. One of the things I think that makes people really nervous about starting to look at their alcohol, like shame, we'll talk about a second because that's the whole thing. But think of it as like, my only choice is to cut off everything completely and never drink again, or do whatever I'm doing currently, like it there doesn't feel like there's any middle ground. Right? Is that true? Like, do you have to just like cold turkey? We're done. And we're moving on with life? Like, how, how can we make this work for our lives?
Carolyn Robistow 17:11
Yeah, that's a great question. And so I operate in this great place of uncertainty, which is to say, I do not know what the be all end all is. But I know that thinking I'm either kind of like, all in with my current relationship, or I have to cut it off completely is a lot of really just being stuck into extremes. And that's actually how people stay on this Groundhog Day circle of shame. And so maybe it's a good time to act. So I will tell a little bit about the levels, but I promise I won't dive into all of them. But it's so what happens when you think about, okay, when a person who's a rule creating moderator or any type of Groundhog Day drinker thinks, Okay, I don't want to drink the way I'm currently drinking, what the common understanding of that is. And this is an enormous mistake, like, I cannot emphasize enough that what is being told as a mistake is this idea of okay, I'm going to take a break from it. And so this looks like sober October dry January, I'm going to do a whole 30 challenge, or I'm going to give it up for lunch, whatever. And I call those people white knuckling avoiders because all we're doing is really just like, Okay, I on the prize, I just gotta go 30 days, or I just got to do this juice cleanse, and I can make it seven days. And then I'll know that I can do it, right. The reason that's a mistake is because you're just basically making your life miserable. Because you're removing something, it's going to feel very limiting, it's going to feel very restrictive. And that sucks.
Carolyn Robistow 18:42
The next thing that happens though, so let's say a person makes it there, 30 days or whatever, then there's this idea of now bring it back in, but at a reasonable amount. And this is where we get the rule creating moderate peers, which is okay, well, now I'm only going to drink within this set of rules. But like, at what point is that living your best life or now you've got all of these rules around that you're still back to it's still restrictive, and all of that, the next thing that will happen is they'll say, Okay, well, I'm only going to do it on special occasions then. And now we're a special occasion slipper, which is really just the exact same as a rule creating moderator, you're just drinking less frequently. And there's this idea that, okay, we're going to take it away, we're going to bring it back in slowly and then magically, we're not going to have a problem with it anymore. And like where else in life does that work? Like it just doesn't, I think it gets treated like I think about so you know, I sprained my ankle back in February and I was on crutches. And so it was like, okay, don't put any weight on it for 12 weeks, okay, and then slowly add in weight, and then you go back to your regular self and for some reason, because that works for my like ankle ligament. But this is not a physical ligament problem. Like that's the idea that I want to go back to using it the way I was before. Like I want to be able to use my ankle By the way I did before I took the weight off of it.
Carolyn Robistow 20:02
So when we do it with alcohol, we're literally promoting this idea of eventually I want to end up back where I was, because that's what this process does, it gets me back where I was. And so I think of it instead as like a country road. And this is how neural pathways work, which is where the way we drink actually lives is in neural pathways. And in our subcortical brain, but so if we think of an old country road, like you can picture there's like a house on a hill, and you can tell where this road is. But there's not actually a road there. It's just these like two tire tracks that you can tell had been driven over and over and over and over through time. And so now it just is a road like, we just can see it, it's easy to find. And so if we think of our relationship with alcohol, and how we drink as this country road, we'll, if we get off that road to make a new road or a new neural pathway, we're gonna have to drive that road a lot of times, but the idea of moderation or being a real creative moderators, okay, I'm only going to drive that old road, like, on weekends or to restaurants or on special occasions, well, what does that do to that old road, it makes it still really easy to access because the grass doesn't have a chance to grow over it. And the new road is not getting as much driving time as it needs in order to be strengthened. So I prefer that analogy. I don't even remember the question you asked, Oh, gray area drinking. So it's just drinking in this area. That's not either extreme, it's drinking in the middle. And if it's a groundhog day experience, because you can be a gray area drinker, and that be totally fine. And you're happy with it, and you're not worried about it. Or you can be a Groundhog Day drinker where you're drinking in the gray area, and you're filled with and I know he said this a minute ago, like there's a sense of shame around it. So it's more about how you feel about your drinking than about the amount of frequency you're drinking.
Patricia Sung 21:47
So basically, how do we end up here? How is it that in our culture now, this current state of consumption is like, okay, and that there are like, when I think about, I look back at the pandemic, and there's like all these memes and jokes about mom needs a glass of wine at five o'clock. And all this is like, how did we get here? That culturally, it's acceptable. And yet inside, we feel like this is not a satisfactory place to be?
Carolyn Robistow 22:16
The short answer is the alcohol industry has enough money to market it in a way that we are led to believe that this level of drinking and consumption is quote unquote, healthy, quote, unquote, normal, quote, unquote, what you should be doing? That's the short answer, like because they have invested gazillions of dollars into having us believe that because it gets them even more money. It's like, that's
Patricia Sung 22:44
because I keep thinking about like, you always hear those studies of like, oh, the, you know, they studied red wine usage. And they're not usage but like drinking and you know, having a glass of red wine every day is great for your heart. And I'm always like,
Carolyn Robistow 22:56
yeah, that has been disproven. And there's new research out now saying even a single glass of red wine actually has more damage than it helps. And there's the piece that like, okay, yeah, so there is maybe one helpful component, but like, why would you drink it with all these other things that literally undo any health benefit? Like why not get that same benefit from another place that doesn't have all this other stuff like that, to me is the same as what's a good analogy, like climbing up one stair and then jumping back to and then climbing up one and jumping back to and being like, why am I not at the top?
Patricia Sung 23:29
So like, I want to dig into that shame. Part, because I feel like that's the biggest hurdle we have to moving forward. We know on the inside, we're not happy with how this is going. We also don't really know how to solve it. And then you have the whole layer on like, people always ask you when you're not drinking, or are you pregnant? What's going on? Oh, what's, and it's, that's not an imagined problem. It's a real one. How do we unravel all that shame that comes with it? Like what's causing that? Yeah. And then how do we unravel that so that we are okay, you talking about it? Because this is one of those things where when you joke about mommy wine at five o'clock thing, it's like socially acceptable, but for you to say, No way and say like I drink every day, somebody might be like, a Jedi face. So then no one ever gets any help.
Carolyn Robistow 24:22
Right? So with the shame piece, a huge part of it is because one we're being told this, like mistaken way to solve it, right? Like we're being told, Oh, yeah, just build some boundaries around it these rules, and then you'll moderate it. And so the shame comes in with when that doesn't work, because it doesn't work. When that doesn't work. We're left having been told, here's what works and then we think what's wrong with me that it didn't work for me. And that it's just this mistaken thing it like if someone could listen to this and not take away a single other thing, it would be that it's not working because it's not actually the way Do it. It's not you, it's that you've been told the wrong way to handle. So that's a huge part of the shame, right? Like we've just been given this mistaken way to handle it. And the truth is so if you think about and that's why I call it the Groundhog Day drinker circle of shame, because if you visualize it like a cycle, it's like, okay, so I'm going to be a white knuckling avoider, where I'm going to take it out, then I'm going to be a rule creating moderator, then I'm going to be a special occasion slipper. And then I'm going to be right back on Groundhog Day, because I'm gonna have a special occasion and I'm gonna wake up and be like, damn, I did it again.
Carolyn Robistow 25:31
But the truth is, from any point on that circle, first of all, having a healthy relationship with alcohol, not even a stop on the circle, it's like a little moon out here to the side, like it's not even on, like, you're gonna go around this circle. And it's this little moon over here that you're not even going to hit no matter how many times you cycle through. That's why it's a mistake. But the other thing to know is from any point on this circle, like so, let's say you're a white knuckling avoider, and then you just cave in one night, even though it's the middle of your pull 30 or whatever, and you think, okay, it's just one not going to kill me, you know, whatever. And so you have the one and then you wake up on Groundhog Day, and you think, damn, I wish I just hadn't had that one.
Carolyn Robistow 26:06
So that's why it's shameful because no matter where you are on that circle, you're still a Groundhog Day drinker. And so getting off the circle, which is this idea, and I call them optimized AFers . Because I like that AF reminds me of M'ers. And there's also no like sexy name for people who don't drink we get like dry sober. teetotaller, and it's like this, it really furthers the idea that like some for some reason, life without alcohol is not fun, when in reality, it is gazillion times more fun. So I like a AFers. Because we're like super baass. It has this like, empowered like MF er strength. When I think about it, am I going back to these three pillars, we've got the daily support, and we've got informed decision making is another one of the pillars, which is we need to really understand a lot about what is the truth in the science around alcohol? How does it interact with our very individual brains and bodies, because it's not the same for everyone, especially when we bring ADHD into the fold, right? Like now we need to know how it interacts with specific brain regions and how that impacts our ADHD. And that's why that's one of the pillars because learning about it is going to decrease the shame around it. Because you're going to start to realize like, oh, shit, this isn't me. This is Alcohol working the exact way alcohol works like I've not done anything wrong. It's literally doing what it does. I'm going to stop that soapbox there. Or if you have follow up questions.
Patricia Sung 27:38
I think first what I want to touch on is like when you say like alcohol is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. What does that mean? Like, like, when you have ADHD, you have to understand the why in order to like dig into your motivation. And just being like, it's not good for you is like nobody cares. So like, what is it actually doing?
Carolyn Robistow 27:57
So the number one thing, especially and I want to I want to step off real quick and just say like so many of the people I work with the women. So I work mostly with entrepreneurs who are either already alcohol free, and want to work on mindset blocks, or they're wanting to be alcohol free. And we start there. And so many of them are getting these late in life diagnoses of ADHD because they are exactly like your episode 158. Like, here's the Trish is episode 158. If you're listening to this, you haven't heard Patricia is 158. Go listen, I think it's 158. Yeah, it was driving all the symptoms, right like in so it's really common for a lot of the people I work with to have this. So I actually have had this conversation a lot of times, which is, especially with ADHD, we're dealing a lot with like the prefrontal cortex, the executive functioning and like task initiation task completion. And I know that's not a complete picture of it, but it is a really common component of it. So with the very first sip of alcohol, and more and more, the more you drink, the very first part of your brain to go offline is your prefrontal cortex, that is the first place that it's going to start having an effect which means the second you take a sip, you have decreased your executive functioning, your ability to initiate a task stay on task, which goes back to look at what we do, we put these rules in place and say I'm only going to have to Well, hell the various turned
Patricia Sung 29:27
off your roof fell apart.
Carolyn Robistow 29:29
The very part of your brain that contains the stop button is the exact first part of your brain that we are disabling with that first sip of alcohol and by the time we've had the second drink, we've only disabled it more and it stays disabled for a period of time after so it's like that's maybe the number one thing to know about how it works and the shame piece right because we feel shame around. I said I was only going to have to why can't I just stop we can't stop because the part of your brain thing that tells you to stop is the number one part of your brain you just like sent to the beach. I feel like I'm getting really worked up about it.
Patricia Sung 30:07
No, I'm like, this is what I look for.
Carolyn Robistow 30:10
Yeah. What other questions do you have about it?
Patricia Sung 30:13
That's the number one thing like, what are some other tidbits of like, this is why it's hard, especially for ADHD. Why is this great question.
Carolyn Robistow 30:19
Another good question is when we look at it from neurotransmitters, which is not my main area of focus, so I just have kind of a surface level knowledge. But like the idea that for everybody, especially with ADHD, there are various neurotransmitters that are like short or too much, there's just like an imbalance, right? And so when we introduce alcohol, our body is amazing. And it's going to counter whatever we put in it, if it's foreign, right, like all things that come in our body has a reaction, that's just what we do. So dopamine is the sexy one, right? Like it gets all the oh, I want to drink because I'm low on dopamine, which is true. But there's also these other neurotransmitters like GABA, where when you drink, you're changing your body's ability to not only produce enough GABA, but also whatever our body produces that kind of balances out GABA. Now, it's going to overproduce that to make up for it, like we just throw our system out of balance, and then it takes time to get back in. And we're expecting ourselves to make decisions from a place of balance when we've like thrown a big monkey wrench into our balance system.
Carolyn Robistow 31:20
The easiest way to describe that one I think are the most tangible way is when we think about sleep. And sleep is a huge one for me, because it was a huge part of when I started thinking, Man, I don't think I'm drinking in a really good way. This isn't working for me. Because and I know you know this, and I won't tell the whole story. But I actually started losing some vision in my left eye because I wasn't getting enough quality sleep. And so when I learned oh my gosh, alcohol has such an impact on sleep. Like I knew that, you know, like you stay up later, or whatever, or you wake up in the middle of the night to pee more like I knew that it didn't help. But when I learned the science behind how alcohol impacts sleep, I was like, Oh, I can't ignore it. I can't unknow it. I always liken it to taking whatever pill Keanu Reeves took. And then he saw the matrix. And it's like, Ah, you can't unsee it. So and that's the informed decision making pillar, right? Like we're learning all these things so that we can see it for what it really is.
Carolyn Robistow 32:14
So when you drink alcohol, it's a depressant. Like it just is. That's the nature of it. And so your body's going to automatically try and balance you back out back to homeostasis by bringing in some stimulants, and then your body processes out the alcohol before it processes out the stimulants because the alcohol is a foreign invader. So it's like I get out stimulants we put you there. We'll deal with you later. So now you process out the depressant. And now your stimulants are WAY TO HELL up here. And I know it's a podcast, but just imagine my hand really high. And so that's why it's so common for Groundhog Day drinkers to wake up at two, three or 4am and have like anxiousness and racing thoughts or jitteriness, because your body is literally now going, Okay, we've processed out some alcohol, let's deal with these stimulants. So it just throws us out of balance in that way, in a really real measurable way. Like this is science.
Patricia Sung 33:11
And the the hard part is we really don't understand much about our bodies. Just as like a general rule. Humans do not understand what their bodies do. Like, in being sick over the last few years I've by requirement had to learn a lot about how my body functions. And there are so many times I'm like, like, how do we not know this? Why is this not part of science? There's like so much theory there. And I'm like, but what I didn't understand like how muscles work. I didn't know most of your hormones were made in your gut just assumed that they were made in the hormone making factor or in the hormone special area with the hormone organ, there's like, so many things that are just like blowing my mind. I'm like, wow, I was very unknowledgeable. But I think that just as a general rule, we don't understand how our bodies work. Which means like when we are in these situations of like the Groundhog Day of what's around me and not having any clue that like, oh, yeah, this is why it happens like this. I think knowing that also is a great way to alleviate this shame. Like it's the same reason I tell people, you have to understand your ADHD. Yeah, in order to be successful. Because when you think it's you, you think you're the one who's broken and you can't figure it out. You don't make any progress because all your energy is going to just this little hamster wheel machine, learning anything to move forward that like none of that energy is going to improve things. It's just going to let me tell myself how much I suck. But when you understand that, like this is how your brain reacts with the alcohol. This is how all your hormones react with alcohol. This is what your body does without that's when it's like, oh, that's not me. Like my body's just doing its job and the alcohol is doing its job. And then it's not on me and it's not my personal failure.
Carolyn Robistow 34:58
Exactly. And What unfortunately happens with that piece, which is why there's three pillars is that then we get this, okay? Now I know. And so now I'll make better decisions. But that's also not how our brain works. Because and we think like upstairs brain downstairs brain and upstairs brain is, you know, executive functioning and all of that we mistakenly think that the executive function or is the decision maker. And it's not, it's just the direction follower, the action taker. So if my downstairs brain has decided a thing, my executive functioning brain takes action on it. And so then when we're learning things, that's actually all upstairs brain information. So it's still not enough. So what happens then is people think, Oh, now I know. And then then they still end up on the cycle of shame here. And then they're like, Oh, I knew it. And I still did it. And the shame piles on, which is why the third pillar is subcortical change, which is kind of downstairs brain all the way into your body.
Carolyn Robistow 36:03
Like if you think about that picture from school, where it's like, here's your brain. And here's your central nervous system. And like all these little little nerves spread out through your body. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, that's where we actually have to change the way your brain and body think about alcohol or relate to alcohol, because then they're going to deliver a fully informed decision up to your top stairs brain, your neocortical, like now might just try not to use too many crazy words, executive function or brain, and it will say, Oh, this is the action to take, I'm gonna not have one, or I'm gonna have one or whatever. So we need all three of these pillars. And what happens is people get one pillar or two pillars, and it doesn't work the way they want it to. And then they're left back on this cycle of shame going, it's me, something's wrong with me. And so I want people to hear that is not you, we need all three of these things. Are there people who get one or two things? Yeah, there are exceptions to every rule. And odds are, they have done it in a really uncomfortable, really, like difficult, really miserable kind of way. And I don't love that that furthers the idea that of not drinking is like, Oh, you're gonna go through this, like really crappy set of cravings. And like, now, with physical addiction, there is withdrawal, and there's more to it. But with this gray area, while that's still a possibility, we are not resigned to this like misery of fighting against alcohol cravings. Like, we can literally change how your brain does and does not want alcohol. But we have to have all three pillars in place for that change to happen.
Patricia Sung 37:46
Are you constantly scrambling to get things done? You never seem to have quite enough time to do it all. And it feels like you're drinking from a firehose, and then you get mad at yourself, because you should have been ready because you knew about that birthday party or that field trip or that vacation for a long time now, and yet somehow, you still aren't ready. As ADHD moms, we spend a lot of time living reactively you're playing Whack a Mole throughout the day dealing with one emergency or surprise after another. You feel like you don't even have time to catch your breath. This is a really stressful way to live every day. The hard part is it we live in the now not the not now. And all those things the birthday party, the vacation the field trip, they're all not now until suddenly, they are now how do you move those things from not now to now before they are emergency now, by doing some proactive planning. Every month, I look ahead at what's coming up so that my brain recognizes that it's coming soon it brings the knot now into the now temporarily, I'm sharing this tried and true strategy with you. So head over to my website patriciasung.com./monthahead. It's all one word monthahead lowercase letters, and you can download it for free how in just 10-15 minutes, you can walk through what's coming up and help your brain move from reactive to proactive this 10 or 15 inute activity once a month saves future me tons of hours of stress and panic. And I want that for you too. So go to my website, patriciasung.com./monthahead and grab your free ADHD friendly strategy, which is my secret on how I overcome time blindness and lower your stress a whole bunch future you will thank you so much in a couple of weeks. So go grab it now. patriciasung.com./monthahead. m o n t h a h e a d.
Patricia Sung 39:43
My whole goal with today's episode is to give them on a listening the knowledge that like one this is a thing. This is a very common thing like normally when I come with my theories, I have done research and I have, you know, facts to back it up. And this is something I really just been sitting on and seeing the impact how much especially like in the mom culture for women with the inattentive ADHD, and the late diagnoses and all that, like, this is a fabulous coping mechanism to quiet the noise in your brain and like calm down at the end of the night when you're super dysregulated. And like, can't just can't with anybody anymore. If this makes sense. Yeah, this sounds like a great idea. Of course, it's helping you. And yet, when you have that little like niggle in your heart, it's like, oh, well, right now a year, maybe this isn't quite where I want it to be like, I want us to start those conversations that it's common, it is frequent, and that we don't have to hide it. Right? In order to pretend like everything's fine. And start bringing like that, like, this is a thing. Be able to recognize whether or not you're on that tipping point of am I right? Or ooh, this isn't working for me. Yeah. And then follow that up with like, Okay, but what do I do about that? Like, if this is me, and I'm listening, and I'm like, Ah, what do I do now? What's the answer? How do you start making a change? Like what's, and like, obviously, it's this is a very complicated process, but like, what's the one thing a man can do right now listening, being like, Okay, this is my first step. Here's what I'm gonna do about this today or this week? What do I do?
Carolyn Robistow 41:20
So very first step, and that's a hard one, right? Because it is like, well, we've got these three pillars. Yeah. And so I would almost say, who I'm going to try and not overcomplicate it, because my initial thought is, first step is just recognize that this is the way you've been told to handle, it is not the right way. And it's not working. And that's not you, like be open to, there's another way to handle it, it's really hard to take like all three things and say, just do this one thing. Because the whole nature of the three is just one is going to keep you stuck. Like I would say, if nothing else, I would recommend getting more information on the science behind alcohol, that seems to be the tipping point for a lot of people because like you said, there's a lot of us walking around like, Oh, God, I didn't even know that's like how it did it. I just assumed that it like gave me this nice, warm, fuzzy dopamine hit. And it helped me relax. And the truth is, it relaxes you for like point five seconds, and then your body starts dumping you full of stimulants. So it's actually not even having the impact that you want it to have. So I would say if there's one pillar that you could immediately dive into it would be just to learn about the truth about alcohol. And not in like a like scary, like billboard, like let's learn the truth, kind of way. But in a like, just be an informed decision maker, you know, I have a whole daily support thing that I like to build in for people. And I do run that as a free workshop kind of regularly throughout the year to build in that pillar. But daily support can look different for everybody. It doesn't need to be daily meetings, it can be finding out what your neurotransmitters need in doing that. nurturing yourself. But yeah, learning about it, I think is maybe number one, I'll have to think more on that question. That's really good question.
Patricia Sung 43:09
Well, because, like, a lot of what you know, because with ADHD, like all of a sudden, like, I'm sure there's a mom listening being like, panic mode, throw everything at it. And, you know, we don't, we're just all or nothing people. Most of us do that, like, oh, well, I'm not gonna drink, and I'm gonna have all these rules, I'm gonna do my dry January or whatever. And then you just find yourself back there shortly after in the same spot. But at the same time, like thinking about the big picture of what you're modifying just feels really overwhelming. So it's like, how do we start small? Here's Okay, I have a little like, how do we make it manageable? So that it's not?
Carolyn Robistow 43:43
Yeah, here's my answer, then stop making rolls around, you're drinking. Like, you don't even have to do anything. There's we're not going to add anything that's going to overwhelm a person just stop making rules about it. Just stop.
Patricia Sung 43:55
Yeah, like, is there I feel like a lot of where moms go off track is in that like, evening time, when things are real overwhelming. And that's when we used up most of our energy, the decision fatigue kicks in. Yep. And that's when we start, you know, eating the junk food and drinking the extra glass of wine and or scotch, or whatever it is. And how do we support ourselves in that hard time? Is there something we can like latch on to at 545? That would help support them? Um, who's right now calculating her rules? About what yeah, what should I do with this bottle opening?
Carolyn Robistow 44:38
Yeah, there is. And this is why it is such a complex topic. Like there's so much even to just unpack with, well, what's the right thing to do instead? Because every one of us is unique and different, but maybe think of it this way. If everything operates on a zero to 10 scale, and everything in your body, I mean, operates on a zero to 10 scale and so zero is this idea of like new troll. I'm not overstimulated, I'm just kind of chilled out, just kind of like all systems running optimally. And 10 is I'm at max capacity, like decision fatigue, everything feels chaotic. There's a lot of stimulation around me, that's a 10. And so I like to say this as a blanket rule, nothing helpful happens above a five less when you're in the office with me, or if you're doing self brain spotting, which we didn't even really talk a lot about. But when we're doing any sort of deep brain work, like brain spotting, we're gonna go above a five, it's part of the process. So good things happen above a five, but it's not nothing productive externally happens above a five. So if you're above a five, and you go to initiate that conversation with your husband, guess what's not gonna go well, because you're worked up, you know, or like, your kids are really working you up. And then you want to go like, tell them just to stop yelling, like, if you're yelling, you're above a five. And then you end up feeling really guilty, right, because you're overstimulated, and now you've reacted, and then your kids follow you up the scale. And so the number one thing then, and so I'm like taking away my thing about learning, we're going to scrap that for another day.
Carolyn Robistow 46:08
Our number one job, regardless of what we're experiencing, is to be aware. And if I'm above a five, I gotta get below a five. And for me, that may mean I just say, I need a minute and I go take some deep breaths for me, that may mean, I go for a walk, or I get physical energy out of my body, or for me, it means I say, can I just need a hug. And now what actually is mine, like when I'm above a five, I'm like, a hug. So give me a hug. And so my only job is to get below a five because similar to alcohol, the higher we climb, the more our executive function or is offline, and we're not taking best actions. You know, the decisions are coming from a place of overstimulation, overwhelm, burnout, all of those things. So that's the number one thing if you think you want a glass of wine, go do something that gets you below a five and I promise the wine does not it makes you above a five. So go do something that gets you below a five. I know that still leaves a lot of questions, because there's this desire to be like, but what's gonna get me below a five?
Patricia Sung 47:11
Yeah, no, it's funny, because we actually were talking about in my course q&a meeting yesterday on on Wednesdays, we all the students can come and ask questions. And we ended up talking the entire time yesterday, just about like, when you're super overwhelmed, and you're in that like, ADHD paralysis mode? What do you do? Well, that was my advice is like, number one, you have to pause. And then number two is figure out like, how do you calm down? Yeah, which looks different for everyone. Yeah. And in the moment, when you're real hyped up, you have no access to the logical list of things that would help you. So that's one of the things we have to think about ahead of time is like, Okay, what makes me feel good. And then you have the read like the list ready to go, because you don't access the list when you're struggling?
Carolyn Robistow 47:53
So you don't and so it is a lot of preventative work. That's, here's what I'll say then. So when I offer my class on creating this system, so you know exactly, so you're one nurturing your zero to 10s, regularly throughout the day, and it becomes this, like, easy, automatic process. So you're less likely to go above a five, and you've got this list where you can just legit thing, I'm going to do that thing and you go do the thing. And so I run that course, I'm gonna run it again, probably sometime around mid to late October of this year. And so if anyone wants to just make sure they get notified about that, it's just Carolyn Robbins sto dotnet, forward slash optimized AF, we'll get them on the waitlist and whether or not they're interested in the full program, that's where they're going to get the information about that masterclass also, so they can take just the master class and then whether or not they apply it further. It can be just a Oh, good. This is another really helpful way to help myself. stay below five.
Patricia Sung 48:53
I'm gonna ask one more question. Yeah, I got I have a whole list of questions that we didn't even touch but we can
Carolyn Robistow 48:59
If you want to plow through them, I'm game what we can do. I'll stop talking so much.
Patricia Sung 49:03
No, you're good. No, it's like, for me, like, I know that. There's so many things that we could dive into today. Yeah. Yeah, this one was really on my heart of I just know, I'm like, Oh, I'm trying to get teary. I just know there are so many moms who are struggling every night and sitting here like beating themselves up again the next morning and like sitting in bed, knowing like they hear their kids and they're like, I can't get up because I feel like crap. And like, I just know that there is like it's not just one mom listening that there's literally like hundreds if not 1000s of moms who are listening to this episode and going I don't want to do that anymore. And when you're carrying around that shame, like layered on with like, the shame of having ADHD, the shame of you know, all the things you feel that in life and shamed it in this and that like you're never getting anywhere, because you're so focused on telling yourself how much you suck. And like I always say, like, Look, you got to treat your ADHD first. That's the route.
Patricia Sung 50:05
Unless like the caveat is if something's on fire, then you got to deal with that if you were suicidal, you got to deal with that first. If you are self harming, you got to do that first. And, to me alcohol falls in that category of if this is a an issue, maybe not necessarily alcoholism. But if it's one of those things where it is on fire, that it has to be dealt with first. Yeah. And it just like, it just breaks my heart knowing like, what an insipid, like, awful. Like, I'm like, I don't even have the words to describe like, what a problem it is. And yet it's hidden, and it's shoved in the closet, and it's stuffed down. And no one talks about it. Because no one wants to say, Hey, I drink too much with my kids around like that makes you look like a shitty human being and then you don't want to tell anybody. It's like, oh, they're gonna call CPS. I'm 11. It's like, the whole thing that we like, run on this, what if of like all the terrible things that are going to happen. And it keeps us from getting help. And it keeps us from moving forward. So it's like, although I want to ask like 50 more questions, but the thing is, I'm like, This is what matters like this, it needs to be discussed, it needs to be in the open. And I'm almost like mad at myself that I waited this long to talk about it. Because it's such an important place in my heart in the way that I've seen it affect my clients and the way that I've seen it affect my family, and I'm not okay with contributing to the shoving in the closet and pretending like everything's okay anymore.
Carolyn Robistow 51:31
And when you were saying that too, and you hit that you hit you bumped up against that wall. It was like I don't even know the word for for it. But it's so awful. And then what you described right after that was ice feeling isolated. And I thought that's That's it. That's why it's so awful, because you feel isolated. Yeah, so yeah, well, I mean, you know, I love it, like, I'll talk about it. 21st, that was hard to get me to shut up about it.
Patricia Sung 51:52
I'm like, I will just have to do like, we have to do second episode, and I'll dive into the rest of the stuff. But like for today, what I want moms to know, is that when you listen to this, you don't have to stay in this place. It's not you you're not broken. Like Carolyn said, the alcohol is doing its job, your body is doing its job. And it's a matter of figuring out a different way of doing it. Because expecting your body to change how it processes alcohol or expecting alcohol to not function that way. It's like I know when we hear it, we're like we'll do? Of course not. But it's like we don't realize that that's been our underlying assumption that at some point, we're going to that our body's going to do things in a different way. When it's not. It doesn't it's not meant to function like that.
Carolyn Robistow 52:35
Yeah, the only thing it will actually do in a different way is build tolerance, which just furthers the problem. Yeah. But yeah, well, and just to say to like, for the however many moms that are listening, that are like, Okay, I'm happy to have the conversation at least started, you know, no, one of us has to talk about everything under the sun and solve every problem. Like, you're so great with talking about ADHD, and I'm over here on my podcast, like having this conversation about alcohol all the time, you know, so this conversation is happening for people. It's just about finding the conversation, you know, yeah. And so I love that you are helping people be open to the conversation by being open to the conversation yourself. Because I can tell you, obviously, I live this life, right? Like the number of people that are not open to the conversation and how they say, Well, what do you do? And then I tell them what I do. And then odds are they've got a glass of wine in their hand. And their number one question is, oh, like, are you judging me right now? And I'm like, not one bit like I'm not anti alcohol, I'm pro inflammation, and I'm pro healthy body systems functioning optimally. And if a person can do that with alcohol in it, knock yourself out. That's really rare. I'm but, like, I don't judge anybody for drinking or not drinking, like, yeah, just do what works for you, you get to decide on your level of optimization. So yeah, being open to even having the conversation is a huge thing. So thank you. I love you.
Patricia Sung 54:07
I mean, it's been been hard like in full disclosure, I haven't had alcohol for like almost three years. And not by choice. It was because I was so sick, it was one of the things I had to cut out because my body was in super, like stress response fight or flight shutting down and I cut out like, I haven't talked about much on the podcast, I'm always like, I'm like, I gotta figure out a way to work this in at some point but like, I was down about 30 foods that I was eating Yeah, because everything made my body freak out. I was not sick. And so you know, alcohol went with it. I wasn't eating gluten and it wasn't having anything fermented and like and and and it's like, well, I'll profits most of these categories. And then as I could, like, I had the opportunities like okay, you can work this back in and full disclosure like my husband's like, we like we used to be huge wine people like we would take trips to go to wine country like this is a big part of like, what we enjoy doing and He's like, aren't you gonna like try the alcohol again? I was like, Hey, I don't really feel drawn to it. I don't miss it. And I mean, it was easy to tell people, you know, I can't drink because of my health issues. I didn't have to have as many of the awkward conversations that come with it, which is, you know, we didn't even we didn't even touch on that today.
Patricia Sung 55:17
But recently, I went to parties. Okay, well, let me just see, I'm gonna try and see like, like, do I miss this and I drink, unfortunately, more than push and have on that occasion, because it was like a wine tasting thing. And also, I hadn't drink in three years. So I'm gonna let you know. Like, again. I said, like, Oh, I'm just gonna, like, try a little bit. As soon as you take it. Like, I cut out. I was like, I ended up trying like all the samples. And I felt awful the next day, and it wasn't like a like, I know the difference now between was this an allergic reaction problem, right? An inflammation reaction problem, like was this my body being like, we're not okay with this thing? Or was it like, you're just hungover? And I was like, oh, no, I'm definitely just hung over. And which in a sense, is your body saying I'm not okay with this thing? Through a different way of saying, but yeah, it is a different sensation. Yeah. It wasn't just like, Oh, you're still not healthy enough to have this. It was oh, this is how my body is trying to get rid of this. I'm like the deepest sleeper you can send home.
Carolyn Robistow 56:13
I know. I eat in bunk beds. Next you and I've watched and thought I know I told you this. I was like, is she okay, over there? Like, you're just so quiet. You sleep so hard.
Patricia Sung 56:23
I sleep so hard. I'm actually borderline narcoleptic. And like I say that because you have to have like, well, back in the day. I mean, I haven't done this test in a long time. But like, you have to have have six of the nine symptoms to be narcoleptic. And I have five of them. And I'm like, like, not the majority. So like, okay. And I woke up so many times that night, I was like, What is going on? Because I don't ever wake up in the middle of the night. Maybe sometimes, like when it gets close to the end of the night. But like, I will immediately be like, Oh, it's still sleeping time. And I'm out. Like, it makes people mad, how fast I can fall back asleep. And I woke up wide awake. could not feel that because I was just like, this is garbage. Experiment check. I found the results. And I am okay with not doing this again. Like, it's kind of like I needed to know that I was choosing it for me and not for my health. So like I did, and I'm okay with my decision now. Like, I don't miss it. I don't. I just it's not for me. And I never thought I would say that.
Carolyn Robistow 57:24
Yeah, like if I never thought I would say it. I mean, you've known me for like decades, right? Like, we had a lot of wine nights. Can you imagine at any point that I would have been like, No, I'm not doing that. Like, that's just not working for me. But on the end, I know, we're trying to wrap up so hard, and we'd love each other so much fail. I will say like, I didn't tell anybody really until I had been not drinking for about a year. Like it was just like no. And I would say like, No, I'm just taking a break or whatever. But I knew for myself that I was done with it. But I just wasn't interested in having that conversation. Because yeah, it is such a hard one. But so there's also no obligation for people to like plant their flag and be like, I'm gonna I'm gonna be in a effer you know, like, you can know it for yourself. And you can learn how to navigate those. I say that when so we have Groundhog Day drinker at the bottom. And then we move through these stages of growth. And the first one is you're an awkward a buffer because you don't know what you really want to drink. You don't know how to order like a mocktail you don't know how to tell someone or you're not drinking, you don't know how to be social without it. But that's a good sign. That's growth. And then after that we become you know, authentic a ephors and then empowered a ephors and then kind of move into optimization. So even with just taking alcohol away, there's the stages of growth we're gonna go through. So yeah, I was an awkward if for for a long time, I probably am still at time.
Patricia Sung 58:44
No, no, it's funny, because I remember like, we were going on for like girls dinner and everyone's ordering drinks. And that was the point where I was still sick. So I didn't order a drink. And you didn't and afterwards we were all like is Carolyn. Okay? Uh huh. But nobody, but everybody was like being super respectful. Like, well, we don't want to ask, uh huh. Like, that's the beauty of friends. We're like, we're all just gonna monitor the situation for him. It happens. And then the next time we're like, okay, know what's going on. This is when you have good friends. Like you can have those conversations of like, I'm just not drinking. Okay, and then that was the end of it.
Carolyn Robistow 59:17
But even then noticing how for y'all it was like, Do we ask, Is this too sensitive to ask? Like, right? You know, like, it's tough.
Patricia Sung 59:23
Yeah. And I mean, and also like, it's like, you never know if you're different conversations with different people. It's like, I feel like the people who don't know you are the most nosy what I'm sorry, who are you? What, um, but yeah, it is hard when you get like, especially like family members who are like, well, it's going on forever. But knowing that that's part of the process is really important to know that like, you can learn how to deal with that. It's not like, yeah, it's gonna be that way forever.
Carolyn Robistow 59:51
Yeah, and not only can you that, that this the awkward stage of learning to deal with it. I see. Hi, Dominic. You see the awkward stage we'd like that's a part of it like it's a stage you're supposed to, like, if you're feeling awkward about it, you're doing it right. That's a good sign.
Patricia Sung 1:00:08
Yeah, I'm laughing because my husband's walking around in the background, you can't see this on the podcast. But my husband's walking in the background and like, hey, earlier was killing me because like, I always tell him, like, Please don't interrupt me when I'm recording, because it's really hard for me to concentrate. And he is like, just the very much the opposite of ADHD and like, super, like, he's one of those people that can like, sort of multitask. Like, I'm very anti multitasking, and I won't get on my soapbox, but I also am very anti multitasking. solidaire. Like, he can actually keep up with multiple things at a time better than most people, even though it's not, you know, the efficiency level is low. But like, he's been over here, like working in the flower beds in front of me. And I'm like, must you remove all the mealy bugs from the goal feeling while I try to focus to focus on the person in front of me? So just so y'all know, real life? This is not, I may look put together. Likewise, so, okay, well, hey, I got on the whole tangent. I never actually asked the last question, which is that I know, you mostly work with entrepreneurs. And I've actually been doing a lot more like business coaching recently with moms who have ADHD. And because, like ADHD, people tend to be drawn towards entrepreneurship, and maybe not so fond of working for other people in the nicest way. And like, on the other side, how do you see the difference in these entrepreneurs as they move into being empowered, and really embracing what works for them? Like, where do you see that beauty lie?
Carolyn Robistow 1:01:42
Yeah, great question. I also sidenote, think of moms as entrepreneurs, because in my mind entrepreneurs, anyone who's having to manage multiple systems in order to get something functioning in a really healthy way. So I think that moms kind of by nature are entrepreneurial. Anyway. I love that. And
Patricia Sung 1:01:59
I know that cam might be that might be my quote of this episode, and something so I'm sure
Carolyn Robistow 1:02:05
have at it, I like it too. But so it really, if we think of it as again, is moving through those levels. So it's like, we're going to be awkward at first. And then we're going to be authentic, which means now we're able to show up as our true selves, which when you think of it from an entrepreneurial standpoint means I can be on this podcast with you knowing that there's going to be a video clip at some point and I have my hair and these like squirrely braids, and I'm not wearing makeup, and I'm in like my, you know, tank top, like and not feel self conscious about it, because I feel really aligned and able to step up as my authentic self. And then empowered a ephors. The next step, which means alcohol is not even like a thing in my life anymore. And this is I'm not, I don't mean me, it is me personally. But I mean, I'm speaking from the point of view of someone coming up this ladder. And so you get to empowered where it's like, I don't even zero brainspace is dedicated to alcohol unless you're Carolyn, and you've now dedicated all your brain space to like preaching about it. But for them, like drinking or not drinking takes an absolutely zero brain space. And then you now feel empowered to take these pillars and how your brain and body work and subcortical change. And now you start applying it to other areas of life. So it becomes this ripple effect. And so with entrepreneurs, when you have freed up your creativity and your clarity and your courage, you get to uplevel your business, and you get to scale your impact without this like handbrake of alcohol holding, like you're not as you're you're not limited in the way that you were. And so then it just becomes this ripple effect of amazingness. of optimization, you know, and I think of it to to bring it back to the moms like when mom is doing well, the family functions well. And that's not okay, that that's how it is. But it is a very real fact that that's how it is. And so if we're mired down in how its functioning, we're not in a place to fight that message and go, well, there shouldn't be all moms problem, right? Like, we're just managing and trying to get by. I hope that answered your question. Like that's the impact that I see. We make this one simple, but very courageous and very rebellious change to not drink alcohol, or not drink the way we were drinking, and it ripples into all other areas of life. Yeah, pretty awesome. And that's my final soapbox for today.
Patricia Sung 1:04:26
Like, okay, I'm gonna wrap it up because I'm like, I still got to record the intro after we talk. And I gotta go pick up my son in preschool because I remember him and pick him up today. So we got to do the lightning round and then after that, I'll ask you to tell the moms listening where they can find you and connect with you. So okay, first question is don't You don't have to explain anything literally just fill in the blank. And that's it. Okay, number one. The best thing that I read or listened to recently is
Carolyn Robistow 1:04:52
Anything by Ellen Hildebrand she's my all time favorite author and she's what I use just to she's one of my things that will get me below a five like I just I'm gonna go over for a while and I get to read her books, and they're just really enjoyable for me.
Patricia Sung 1:05:04
Okay, number two, my most boring about me fact is,
Carolyn Robistow 1:05:08
I don't eat meat. Okay, number three,
Patricia Sung 1:05:11
When I'm having a rough day my go to quote song poem, book activity, whatever thing is
Carolyn Robistow 1:05:18
asking for a hug.
Patricia Sung 1:05:19
Number four don't tell anyone
Carolyn Robistow 1:05:21
I don't drink no.
Patricia Sung 1:05:27
Okay, number five. If I had a magic fairy wand for one spell, I would,
Patricia Sung 1:05:32
I would show people the Magic of Not drinking so that they knew it was worth it.
Patricia Sung 1:05:36
Number six, my best piece of advice for mamas with ADHD is
Carolyn Robistow 1:05:41
Take care of your prefrontal cortex.
Patricia Sung 1:05:43
For the Mamas was listening is like, I really want to know more about what Carolyn's doing and how to connect. Where do they find you?
Carolyn Robistow 1:05:49
Yeah, so website is just Carolyn Robistow.net. And I'm on mostly Instagram, as @carolynrobistow, so I'm pretty easy to find just my name.
Patricia Sung 1:05:55
And then you mentioned earlier you had something going on in October, say that one more time for ADHD brains.
Carolyn Robistow 1:06:04
I do. I have a masterclass that'll be coming in October, where we'll go through how to build in the daily support pillar in a really unique and effective way. And that is one that people can go to Carolyn Robistow.net /ptimizedAF and it'll just put you on the waitlist, which will get you the information.
Patricia Sung 1:06:24
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I know that this is a conversation starter that a lot of moms need so yeah, thank you. Bye, bye. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com