74 The Sober Diaries with Clare Pooley

And if it was a problem for you, then it's a problem for you.

Yeah. And also, you know, I mean, people talk about, oh, you can't quit drinking until you reach rock bottom, which to start with isn't true. And secondly, why would you wait until your whole life is ruined before trying to make it better? And the longer you leave it, the harder it is.

Hello and welcome to RxChill Pill for your top-down brain. Resilience is about bouncing back from setbacks, by adapting and learning so you can thrive through life's challenges. Your time is precious, so I work to deliver research-backed tools to boost you and your family's resilience. Each of the episodes strive to leave you with an action or meditation prescription that you can apply immediately to your life. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD, a board-certified physician and mom of two amazing kids, and my purpose is to make the neuroscience of wellness accessible to you and your family's everyday life. Because when I became a mom, I wanted to do everything possible to empower my children with healthy mental and physical habits. This wasn't something that I had growing up, so I had to learn how to create a healthy and happy home life. I'm definitely not aiming for perfection, but I can honestly say that the mind-body skills I learned transformed my family's life. After years of training, I fully transitioned into teaching mind-body medicine. Leaving one of the most prestigious private practices in New York City so I could dedicate my time to creating and teaching the science of resilience. My almost decade-long experience teaching high-performing students of all ages have now led me to the creation of my newest courses, Top Down Brain, a STEM-based digital course and planner, Plan to Soar, and Soar Under Pressure for K-12 and beyond. To make these tried and true courses widely accessible, I'm rolling them out with partnering schools, organizations, and online for individuals on mindbodyspace.com. A portion of all proceeds go to those students in need. I'm so excited to have Clare Pooley here today. She's on a mission to make sobriety not so boring and more normal. When she was 46 and a mother of 3, she wanted to get sober. Clare was middle-aged, feeling overweight and depressed, and drinking like a bottle of wine a day and spending her evenings Googling, "Am I an alcoholic?" But she realized that she felt ashamed and worried about being judged. So what does she do? She started a blog and it was called Sober Mummy. She did it anonymously, and to her surprise, within a year there was more than a million readers. This daily chronicle of her getting sober became a bestselling book called The Sober Diaries. I really admire her for becoming the spokesperson for getting sober. She wants to make it a new normal without the weird stigma of getting sober. Clare is a graduate of Cambridge University, and she was an advertising executive before she stopped working to stay at home with her 3 beautiful kids. She's been featured in The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Publishers Weekly, BBC Book of the Year, and now she's a New York Times bestselling author. For her second book, The Authenticity Project. This was recorded during the second lockdown in London. Hi, Clare.

Hi, Juna.

How is it going over there in the UK? Are you in London?

Yeah, I'm in London, and we're just about to— tomorrow we head into a second big lockdown. So this evening is the last chance we have to go to a restaurant or any shops. That are not essential. And then we've got a month of, at least a month of lockdown. So not happy, really.

Wow. I think I told you this before, but your book was the book that I was listening to on Audible on the day that I stopped drinking wine. And that was June 10th, 2020. 2019.

Wow. Well, congratulations to you. That's fabulous.

Yeah. And I was in Maryland with my daughter. We were at a history competition with a couple of other families. I had some wine in the lobby of the hotel, and I think their version of a glass of wine was more like 8 ounces and not the 4. So I had 2 glasses of wine. But it ended up being more like, I guess it was like 4 or 5. And I was so sick and I felt the spins and I hadn't felt that in a long time. And I wasn't an alcoholic, but for me it was problematic because I knew that I was drinking a glass of wine every single night. And being a breast cancer specialist, I knew that it was increasing my risk of breast cancer. And I did use it for what you describe in the book as basically all kinds of emotions, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's funny, isn't it? Because you use it, you use it to celebrate when you're happy, but you also use it to commiserate when you're sad. And you use it to relax you, but you also use it to gee you up to go to a party. So, you know, and I got to the point where I was using alcohol for pretty pretty much any emotion at all. So feel stressed, drink, feel happy, drink, feel sad, drink, you know, and it becomes associated in your subconscious with all of those different emotions.

Yeah, I totally get that. And I think I was feeling that way too. And I was never a big drinker when I was younger because I just had so much— I lacked that alcohol dehydrogenase. So I get really sick. But then I discovered French wine, which does not affect me.

Really?

Yeah. So it turned out something in the tannins, I don't know, I can drink French wine and not have that horrible hangover. So that really helped me start drinking every day almost, especially when I had some construction on my house. Anyway, so I decided that night, I was so— I felt so sick. I said, that's it, I'm not doing this anymore. And I listened to your book in the car ride home with my daughter, who is 15 years old, and she was laughing. We were laughing so hard. I'm like, I have to meet this woman.

Thank you.

I want you to tell us about how you started this journey. I know you were an advertising executive at one point, and then you stayed home with your 3 kids. You started to feel like you didn't want to drink anymore at one point. So maybe you can tell us about that moment in time. Like, why did you decide in that moment?

I didn't, to be honest, I didn't want to quit drinking, you know, because I, you know, it was part of what defined me in a way. I saw myself as a party girl, you know, and I'd watch all those episodes of Sex and the City and Bridget Jones and that sort of thing. And I thought that, you know, drinking alcohol was what emancipated feminists and sort of, you know, feisty women did, you know. And, uh, it was so— it was sort of, you know, it was part of me. But, um, you know, I got to I got to the point where I realized it was, it was affecting me really badly, sort of mentally and physically. And I tried really hard for years to cut down on what I was drinking, to just drink sensibly. And it took me a long time to realize that, you know, I'm just not a natural moderator. I think people are either good at doing things in moderation or they're all-or-nothing people, and I'm very much an all-or-nothing person. And I found it really hard to try and keep to a sort of, you know, a sort of, you know, decent amount. So, you know, I would set myself all these rules, you know, so I'd say, well, I'm not going to drink during the week, or I'm not going to drink at home, or I'm only going to drink one glass and no more than that. And I would stick to those rules for a short period of time, and then it would all go out of the window, you know, quite quickly. Within a week or two, I was breaking my own rules again. So I tried and tried and tried, and I really didn't want to have to give up altogether. And then the first page of my book, The Sober Diaries, is the moment when I realized that, you know, the game was up, I guess. Because it was the morning after my birthday party, it was my 46th birthday party, and I woke up with a really bad hangover. And I knew that the only thing that would make me feel better is, is what we call— do you have the expression hair of the dog? No, no. Okay, it's an English expression. Hair of the dog, um, is— means basically having, um, a glass of alcohol to cure you of the hangover that you've got. Um, and I knew that the only thing that would make me feel better that morning was, was drinking. And, uh, but I had this— one of my rules I never broke was, you know, you must never drink before midday because people who drink in the mornings are alcoholics, and I wasn't an alcoholic. So therefore I couldn't drink in the morning, and it was 11 o'clock in the morning, and my kids were there in the kitchen making a huge noise. And I, so I took this, I found this, uh, about an inch of red wine left in a bottle, and I poured it into a mug because I then I thought, well, the kids won't see that I'm drinking. I drank that, um, that red wine, and I did feel better, um, but then I looked at the mug and it said on the front of the mug, "The world's best mom." Oh my goodness. I felt so awful and so guilty that I haven't had a drink since. So that was the moment. That was the last time I had a drink. And that was 5 years ago.

Wow, that mug really did it.

Yeah. I was the mug.

And you had a lot of guilt as a mother, right? You talk about that a lot in the book.

I felt like, you know, I gave up work when my third child was born to be a stay-at-home mom, and I really wanted to do it properly. I wanted to bake all the cakes and make all the dress-up costumes and, you know, and be a really good mother. And I felt the problem is that I felt like I was constantly running away from my own children because I would be reading bedtime stories and I would do them really fast so that I could get downstairs and pour myself a glass of wine. And I spent quite a lot of the time being grumpy and a bit shouty and, you know, just not relaxed and not the happy, fun mum that I wanted to be. So, and that made me feel really guilty because I thought, you know, this is not, this is not why I stopped working. Um, so, so yeah, so it was, I felt really bad about all of that and I'm a much better mother now. I'm not perfect, but I'm much better.

Related to, uh, the scenarios in your book where Juna Bobby is having playdates and you break out the glass of wine and, you know, tell me about that. It seems like even though we're on different sides of the ocean, you have similar social norms.

Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Because alcohol is the only drug that you actually have to justify not taking. You know, it is, it is a drug. It's a drug just like any other. And, you know, and I think sometimes You know, nobody would say at the school gate, "Oh, I can't wait to get home so I can, you know, rack up a line of cocaine," you know. But, you know, we all joke about wine, and we all joke about sort of me time, and this is sort of wine o'clock, and it's sort of mummy's little helper. And, you know, it's— if you look to— if I look at my social media feed, it's filled with jokes about mums and wine and how wine is necessary to— get through the, the, you know, ups and downs of motherhood, which is terrible because it is, you know, it is a drug. And, and, you know, I think the problem is we— I blamed myself for getting in the mess I did. You know, if you get addicted to alcohol, it's, it's really— it's not your fault. It's an addictive drug, and that's what it does. And as a society, we just tend to ignore that. And, you know, that's a real That's a real shame.

There used to be this little onesie that you could buy and it said, "My mommy drinks because I cry." Oh, so sad.

Actually, you know what? I, I read something somewhere that I thought was really heartbreaking, and it was a preteen child who was talking about how, you know, their mother— they kept hearing their mother make jokes about how she needed a glass of wine because she, you know, she had to cope with this playdate, or she had to sort of— she had kids coming for sleepover, and she was like, why does my mom need wine to spend time with me, you know? And I thought, yeah, it's a terrible thing we're saying to our kids, really, is that the only way we can manage to cope with you and all the, you know, and your friends and the stuff you do is to be drugged. It's sad.

There was a time in our lives too, my husband and I used to have wine with dinner every single night when my kids were around 5 or 8 years old. And I remember one night my son said, you know, we were pretending restaurant and they were the waiters and we were the customers and they were like, here's some wine. And that's all they kept talking about. I'm like, oh, we're, we're not really setting a great example, are we?

Well, I remember my, when my youngest was learning to read, um, I went to go and pick her up from school and the teacher called me aside and my, she must have been about 5 years old. And the teacher said, "Oh, something really funny happened today because I was listening to Maddie read and she, um, we were reading a book called A Cup of Tea and I said, 'Does Mummy like a cup of tea?' and she said, 'Oh no, no, Mummy likes wine.'" And I thought, actually, it's terrible because, you know, my kids every birthday and every Christmas they give me wine-related presents, you know, like bottle stoppers or corkscrews or, you know, They, you know, they very much saw it as my thing. Wow.

And now are they confused about what they should buy you?

They buy me tea.

Oh, okay. You're into tea now. I want to get more into the embarrassment. I really related to your book where you start to describe that if you say that you stopped drinking wine, it's the only thing where people don't congratulate you. For example, if you quit smoking, everybody's like, "That's awesome." But can you talk a little more about that? And I know you are an advocate for making sobriety fun and not so boring.

Yeah, I mean, I actually did a whole TED Talk, TEDx Talk about it because I felt so passionately about the fact that, you know, we need to change the narrative here because, you know, when I quit drinking, I was so ashamed that I didn't tell anyone. And, you know, you think, well, hang on, I've done something really monumental and really brave and something really hard, and yet I feel embarrassed and ashamed. And why is that? Why is it that the people who are still taking the drug feel fine and the people that stopped taking it feel embarrassed about it? And, you know, nobody— you know, you go to a party and people say, what do you want to drink? And you say, oh, I'll just have you know, whatever, a mocktail, and they look at you as if you're a bit strange. And, um, uh, but, you know, things are really changing because, um, I don't know if it's the same in the US, but in the UK, alcohol-free drinks, so alcohol-free beers and, um, and mocktails and alcohol-free spirits and things like that are, you know, a huge market now. And there is increasingly, particularly amongst millennials, you know, it's increasingly seen as being not just okay but actually a really good thing to live a sober lifestyle. Although actually, having said that, even the word sober still feels, you know, the other meanings of sober are sort of, you know, you say sober as a judge, you know, sort of soberly means sort of, you know, rather boringly, or sort of, you know, all the language around it is, is, you know, makes it, makes it sound really dull. But Yeah, the truth is that, you know, when you drink, you turn the volume down on all those emotions that you find really hard, which is part of the reason why we do it. But when you turn the volume down on all the bad things, you also turn it down on all the good things. So when you quit drinking, you find that actually life becomes technicolor in a way that it hasn't felt for a very long time. And, you know, actually it is you know, you, and you have so much more energy and enthusiasm for everything. So it's a, it really is a completely revolutionary way to spend your life, not a sort of, you know, not a dull and boring way.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel like it's not something I mention immediately to people.

Um, yeah, I find that the people who have a problem with it are people that have a problem with alcohol. And funny enough, the people I know who have never had any issue with alcohol don't barely even notice, you know, because it's, it's just not something they think about. So, so, you know, me not drinking has not bothered them at all. But my old big drinking buddies, I think, found it really hard because I sort of changed the rules, I guess, in their minds. And I understand that because when I was drinking too much, I would have hated one of my drinking buddies to quit, you know. I would have felt like they were bailing on me somehow. So I really, I really do understand. And, you know, I think the truth is that those big drinkers I probably spend less time with, but I also have, I have a whole host of new friends who I never would have become friends with in the old days because I would have looked at them and thought, oh, you don't drink very much, you're not my sort of person. And imagine all those people I just, you know, I just discounted because they, you know, they were drinking tea where I wanted to drink wine. So it's, you know, so it's opened, it's closed some doors, but it's opened way more doors than it's closed, I guess.

That's so interesting. So you don't miss it at all now?

No, no. You know what? The only times I think about it really is when, if something really, you know, when tough stuff happens, I'm really used to other coping strategies. I have a whole set of things that, you know, I, I call on, um, as a way of coping with, with stress and anxiety and fear and all those sorts of emotions that I used to numb with alcohol. I'm pretty good at that. Um, the thing I, I guess I find hardest is when something really brilliant happens. So if I have some fabulous news You know, in the old days you'd buy champagne or something, and you know, it's sometimes you sort of think, God, you know, a piece of cake just doesn't cut it in this instance, you know. So what I'm learning to do is to make a list of things I can do to treat myself when really good stuff happens.

What's on that list?

Okay, to start with, when I first quit drinking and I realized how much money I was saving, I, um, I opted into a flower subscription service. So I get some flowers every week just for me.

Wow.

And which is a great thing, you know, every Monday morning, this bunch of flowers arrives and I put it on my kitchen table and it reminds me, you know, what I've done and how far I've come. And it, you know, it makes the house look great and it makes every— the rest of the family happy. So, so I bought myself flowers.

I love that. And how much did you save? I noticed I saved thousands.

Oh, I saved a lot because I tell you, one thing I used to do, which is slightly embarrassing, but I used to think that the more money you spend on wine, the less, you know, the more it made you a connoisseur and not just an addict. So I used to sort of, I used to spend ridiculous amounts of money on wine, you know, and I drank a lot of it. So, you know, so when you, you know, I saved, I remember doing my tax return at the, you know, the end of the first year of not drinking, and I realized that that, you know, I, for the first time in, you know, in, in ages, I was sort of solvent at the end of the month as well as at the beginning of the month, you know, which was nice. It was just sort of, you know, revelation really.

So, wow.

So yeah, um, but other things I do, if it's something— if I've got really great news I want to celebrate, I might book myself in for a massage or a pedicure or, you know, something that is indulgence, um, small things. I'll have a nice bath with aromatherapy oils, or, you know, it's— so it's about finding other ways of treating yourself that are actually much healthier than drinking alcohol.

That's wonderful. It sounds like you're really savoring sobriety.

Yeah, yeah.

And what do you do when you're stressed? Because those are the moments, right? What do you do when you're stressed? You have a lot of tools, you said, and I know from reading your book that you are a self-help guru. Google everything. You're, you're, you know, all the research, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So I know one thing you do is go ahead and find that knowledge out to help yourself.

Yeah. I mean, actually, I found, I think everyone has their own thing. Um, and, you know, a lot of people, for instance, like meditation or, you know, mindfulness. And, um, I found that really difficult. I found it really difficult to not to stop my thoughts going out of control. And I discovered that actually, for me, the best way of stilling my random thoughts was reading and writing. So I started reading everything I could about alcohol and about, you know, about anything really. But I read loads of memoirs, I read loads of self-help books, I read loads of fiction with characters who were drinking too much, or just general fiction. And I started writing. I started writing a blog, which, as you know, is called Mummy Was a Secret Drinker. And that was my therapy. You know, every day I wrote what was going on in my life, how I was feeling, what I'd discovered, what I was, you know, what my hopes and fears were. And I just poured it all out on the page. And wow, that really helped me. And I still do it. I still write every day, although now I write fiction, but I find that therapeutic So you started that blog on day 1? Uh, day 3, I think it was. Day 3.

Okay, and so you just started writing. And in Cambridge, did you study writing?

No, I studied economics, funnily enough. Um, and, you know, and I love reading. I always have, and I always wanted to be— you know, if you asked me when I was a teenager what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say, oh, you know, I want to write books eventually. That's what I want to do. Um, And, you know, and yet I stopped writing. All those years when I was drinking too much, I stopped writing. And as soon as I stopped drinking, I had this urge to write. And it's almost like drinking sort of keeps the lid on, you know, as I said, it sort of keeps the lid on all those bad things, but it keeps the lid on all your passions sometimes as well.

Creativity?

Yeah. And, you know, I mean, I always tell people who, who ask me about quitting drinking and what they can do to fill that hole, or to cope with, you know, all the stresses and strains of life instead. And, you know, I often say, look back at your childhood, look back at what it was you loved when you were a child. And for me, it was reading and writing, but for other people, it might be art, or it might be sport, or it might be gardening, or animals, or riding, you know, they're— whatever And often people find they rediscover those passions when they stop drinking, and that that is what then becomes their stress release, their passion, their— often their livelihood. You know, I make money now from writing, which is—

I know.

You know, which is ideal. I mean, making money from something that you would do anyway for free.

It is.

Don't tell my publishers that.

So your advice is to go back to your childhood and relive, like, what gave you joy as a kid. Right? So you just answered the question from one of our listeners, Mallory Chin. So you also, you answered why, and you just answered what you would do to fill that void, which is what she asked. All right. So perfect. You're amazing. You blogged every single day, is that correct?

Mm-hmm.

And just for people who have writer's block or trying to write something, it sounds like it came really natural to you. Did you even. Um, correct it? Did you put it through Grammarly? Did you, or was it just like thoughts, your everyday thoughts?

I mean, I, I did, I did edit, um, before I press publish, and then sometimes I publish and then go back and edit and republish. But I think initially I wasn't really expecting anyone to read it because I wasn't publicizing it because I wrote under a pseudonym. I, I called myself Sober Mummy, and as a result, I didn't I didn't put my blog posts on social media. I didn't do anything to publicise them. And because I was so ashamed and worried that people would find out it was me, I just kept it really quiet. So as a result, I didn't really— when I started writing, it was a very, you know, it was a very selfish thing. It was— I was doing it purely for my own, you know, for my own peace of mind. And as a result, I didn't think too hard about it. And I think— and I still do the same now— I think having started writing that way, I then carried on. So even now when I've got professional editors— and I still find it weird, but I am a professional writer— I still, I still feel, you know, I still write for me, I still write as therapy. And as a result, I don't, you know, I try not to think about it too hard or to worry too much about, you know, what people will think.

That's amazing. So when you're writing, you're talking to yourself, or are you talking to an imaginary best friend?

No, I guess I talk to myself. Okay, awesome. Yeah.

And that blog took off, and within a year you had a million readers.

Is that right? Yeah. I mean, it was It was extraordinary. I mean, it was sort of— I think what happened at the time, there weren't many people talking about alcohol issues, and certainly, you know, there was nothing really in between people who could— or there wasn't much in between the people who could drink normally without a problem and the sort of rock bottom alcoholic, as, you know, as people see it. And, you know, and but there are so many, you know, alcohol addiction actually is a real, you know, it's a spectrum. There are thousands of shades of grey. And, you know, just because you don't fit the classic mould of the rock bottom alcoholic doesn't mean that alcohol isn't screwing up your life. And, you know, I think that just at the time there weren't many people talking about what we now sort of refer to as the gray area of drinking.

Well, I think that's so important that you're talking about that because you do discuss how you would take all those quizzes like, do I— am I an alcoholic quiz? And you said, do I drink alone? No, I'm with my dog.

Yeah.

So that's so important because if maybe you would have started earlier to— on your road to healing if you had known that you fit different shades of it and it wasn't black and white. And if it was a problem for you, then it's a problem for you. Yeah.

And also, you know, I mean, people talk about, oh, you can't quit drinking until you reach rock bottom, which to start with isn't true. And secondly, why would you wait until your whole life is ruined before trying to make it better? And, and the longer you leave it, the harder it is, you know, like any addiction, you know, the long— the more entrenched it is, the harder it is to dig your way out of it. So, so waiting until you fit that stereotype is, is a bit of a daft thing to do. But, you know, but I, along with thousands and thousands of other people, would sort of Google, am I an alcoholic, and fill out those little quizzes and say, no, no, no, I'm fine because I don't drink in the morning, because I don't have blackouts, because I don't— whatever it is, you know, you always find a reason to think that your drinking is actually okay. Lots of other people drink the way I do, I'm fine. And the truth is that, you know, that I wasn't fine. And there's a whole load of people, it turned out, like me out there who are also not fine, you know.

So it's really how it shows up in your life and how you feel about it.

Yeah.

I mean, because there are working alcoholics. My dad was a working executive alcoholic his whole life, and he died from alcoholism.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, and my husband's father as well.

Yeah, I mean, it's— it— I mean, I guess what I realized is that, um, you know, it got to the point where the benefits I was getting from alcohol was so far outweighed by the negatives. So, you know, so I guess in the early days when, you know, I would have loads of fun and I feel slightly bad the next day, so, so the balance was you know, on the fun side. And over time, that balance just shifted so that, you know, alcohol was giving me a little bit of fun and a whole load of grief. I know. Um, and there's a great quote actually by somebody, Anne Lamott, who is a writer, and she says that she gave up drinking when she realized that, um, she, uh— oh God, what was it? Um, she said that she couldn't lower her own standards fast enough or something to keep up with the reality of her life, um, you know, because I got to the stage where, you know, I was anxious all the time. I was, uh, I wasn't sleeping at all. I was, um, I didn't have any energy. I felt like I was stuck in a rut. I mean, it was causing so many problems in my life. So yeah, yeah.

So that segues right into how alcohol affected your physical body. So you said sleep, and you always blame sleep on your anxiety or what it is.

Yeah, there's a classic sleep pattern with alcohol where you go to sleep very easily, you know, and I used to fall asleep in the middle of films all the time, you know, for instance. So you go to sleep very easily because the alcohol relaxes you.

Yes.

But then you wake up at about 3 o'clock in the morning And at that point, you know, you're often dehydrated and you're, um, often your thoughts then start becoming sort of, you know, very dark and depressing. So that's the point in the, in the night where you start beating yourself up about, you know, what you failed to do, what you did that you shouldn't, what you said to whom, you know, all those stuff. So, so yeah, sleep is, is a, is a classic issue. And, you know, weight is another issue. I was sort of massively overweight because the calories, empty calories in alcohol are, you know, huge. So that was a problem. And my energy levels were really bad, you know, because I was constantly dealing with all these toxins, I guess. My skin wasn't very good because, again, toxins, dehydration. You know, etc., etc.

And you mentioned your hair in the book.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, actually, I didn't think there was anything wrong with my hair, but then when I quit drinking, it went— my hair went all big and sort of, you know, luscious in a way it hadn't been for a very, very long time. And again, I think it's dehydration is the issue, because alcohol dehydrates your body, so not good for your skin or your hair or anything like that.

So yeah, and then on a more serious note, I know you were diagnosed with breast cancer within that year. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, and you know, there's— I, I didn't— I really didn't make the link, um, when I was drinking between alcohol and breast cancer. And I think there's a lot of people still who have no idea that how strong the link is between alcohol and cancers. And for women, alcohol and breast cancer particularly is a really, you know, there are endless studies now that show that those two things really go hand in hand.

Not to mention other cancers.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, a whole host of cancers are related to alcohol. You know, I had a family history of breast cancer, but my, the women in my family who've had breast cancer got it very late. You know, they were in their 70s. And I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 46. So, I mean, it's quite possible that it was in the post anyway, but I think my drinking accelerated the whole thing. And so, yes, I was diagnosed with breast cancer about 8 months after I quit drinking. And, you know, sometimes I wonder whether subconsciously I knew that something was going wrong and And that was why, one of the reasons why I quit drinking when I did, because it just seems like such a coincidental timing, you know, that I discovered that, you know, I'd been growing this, this tumor for some time, you know, at a point when I stopped drinking already. Because if I'd still been drinking at that point, you know, everything, all the wheels would have fallen off the wagon. Um, so, you know, the fact that I was sober was such a godsend, not just physically because, you know, it would not have been good to carry on drinking alcohol when I was fighting breast cancer, but emotionally, you know, I think if I'd still been drinking, I would've spent the whole time weeping in front of my children and, you know, and just, you know, I wouldn't have been able to cope.

But how did you cope with the stress? Of breast cancer in your first year of sobriety?

Well, luckily I'd done 8 months already, which was, you know, so I was through the worst of it. Um, and so I, I, you know, I learned to take it one day at a time. I've learned, you know, a lot of the things actually I learned quitting drinking were really helpful when it came to, to dealing with the, the anxiety of breast cancer. So, wow, you know, taking it one day at a time, just great trick when you're dealing with stress of any sort. You know, don't look ahead, don't worry about, you know, try not to think about the test results or the sort of, you know, or recurrence or, you know, all those sorts of things. So staying in the moment, staying in the moment.

So you do practice meditation because that's what meditation is. Yeah.

I mean, I guess I, I found that my way of doing mindfulness was writing and reading. You know, that was my way of staying in the moment and You know, I think people assume that to be mindful you have to meditate, you know, or chant. And no, you just need to find something that keeps you anchored in the moment.

Action meditation.

Exactly. I found all those tools really helpful. But also alcohol-free beer really helped me. I drank a lot of it when I was doing the breast cancer treatment because it cleverly tricks your subconscious into thinking that it's, uh, it's alcohol which makes you feel relaxed without any of the downsides. It's true, you know, it's amazing. But some people— I have to give a sort of caveat here because some people find alcohol-free drinks, um, or fake alcohol, uh, a trigger. So like a slippery slope? Yeah, for some people, if they drink an alcohol-free beer, it just makes them crave the real thing more. Um, other people can cope with it fine. So, so yeah, so it's just a caveat. Do you know, I always tell people, do what works for you, but you know, it doesn't work, don't do it.

I've been drinking a lot of virgin, uh, drinks now. They're so fun. Yeah, like muddled mint or basil.

Like, and restaurants are getting so much better at bars, at sort of providing a variety. Because when I first quit drinking, you know, I'd often go to a party and And I'd say, you know, they stand at the— as you go into the— through the door there, you have a waiter holding a big tray of champagne and, you know, and cocktails. And I say, do you have anything non-alcoholic? And in the old days, it was like either water or orange juice, and that was about it, you know. Whereas now it's, you know, there is almost always something.

Yeah. And I can— I just order whatever drink is on the menu, but I tell them virgin. And they're fine with it.

Yeah, I drink virgin mojitos and and Virgin Marys and, you know.

Yeah, but again, once again, like you said, it could be a trigger for some people. So you just have to figure out what's good for you.

Yeah.

So I wanna go onto your space. So I like to talk about your mind and your body and your space. So I noticed in the book you talked about having to make dinner at a different time in the day because you always associated cooking with drinking wine and cooking. So you started doing it earlier in the day. So what kind of tactics like what kind of tools did you use to change your space or time so that you can fit it into your new way of life?

You know what, one trick I found really helpful at the beginning, and it's, it's something I always advise other people to do right in the early days, is shift your whole timeframe. Because what, what I realized is that the time I found hard was the evening. Because that was when I associated— that was the time I associated with drinking. And the time I loved was first thing in the morning because I was waking up without a hangover. I was waking up having slept really well, and I was waking up with loads of energy. And I was like, yeah, mornings are great. So I thought, well, actually, why not have less evening and more morning? Since evenings are hard and mornings are lovely. I love them. So I just shifted my whole day. So But the first few months, even, I started going to bed at the same time as my kids. So I went to bed at, you know, about 8 o'clock in the evening, and I'd read for a bit. I might do some writing, and then I'd go to sleep. And then I'd wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning, like, ding! And, you know, I never thought about drinking at 5 o'clock in the morning. That just wasn't, you know, whereas I did at 10 o'clock at night. So I just slept through 10 o'clock at night for months.

I love it. I mean, I do that. I wake up at 4:45 now.

I still wake up at 5 in the morning because I write now at 5. That's my, that's my writing time.

I love that. Cut out the part of the day that was, um, trouble for you.

It's a relative— it's an easy trick because if you think about it, you know, the time I started drinking in the old days was normally about 6 PM. That was my wine o'clock. And I was going to bed at 8 PM, so I only had 2 hours of the day to get through that I associated with drinking. And I had a whole load more of the day when I could get stuff done.

That's wonderful. So how about productivity? Did it increase your productivity?

Absolutely. Well, I mean, I've— all those books I wanted to write when I was younger, I've now written 3 books. So I wrote The Sober Diaries, which was published 2 and a half years ago. I then wrote The Authenticity Project, my first novel, and that that was published a few months ago, and I've written— I mean, congratulations— I'm writing my third novel now, a second novel.

Tell us about the Authenticity Project and then your third novel coming.

So, so the Authenticity Project, um, is— it was sort of inspired by my own life, I guess, because, um, because I, you know, what I did when I started writing that blog was to tell the real truth about my life. And, you know, if you'd looked at my Facebook feed or my Instagram feedback then, it all looked like everything was fine, and it wasn't. And, you know, writing that blog, you know, was me telling the truth. And telling that truth changed my life, and it changed the life of thousands of people that read it. And that got me thinking, well, what would happen if other people told the truth about their lives? And not on the internet like I did, but in an old-fashioned notebook, a little green notebook. And so that was the basis of the story. It's about a little green notebook that an artist called Julian Jessop writes the truth about his life in, and he leaves the notebook in a café where it's picked up by the owner, who writes the truth about her life, and she leaves it in a wine bar where it's picked up by an addict, an alcohol and cocaine addict called Hazard. And the book is passed between 6 different people who all tell the real truth about their lives and all change each other's lives in the process. So it's, it's an uplifting book about community and happiness and kindness and, and those sorts of things.

I love it. I have it on my Audible. Ah, what about, um, the upcoming one? What is that about?

I, I can't really give you too many details, but in case I jinx it. Okay. But, um, but you know, it's similar. It's, it's a similar feel. So again, it's about community and kindness but in a completely different cast of characters and different— explores different issues.

Well, I think that's fascinating that you are able to write all these books within such a short period of time, and you had been wishing to do it all your life. And here you are, all of a sudden, that blog became a book.

Well, I mean, I've suddenly found myself with so many more hours in the day.

Amazing. So practically speaking, you write first thing in the morning because I know a lot of habits of great writers Writers are always like pre-dawn.

Yeah, yeah, that's me. So I get up at 5 when it's dark and quiet, and I work in— I live in a city, so, you know, that time of day is really magical because it's sort of, you know, you feel, you know, you, you feel like you're the only person awake sometimes. And it's, uh, so, so yeah, I write between 5 and 8, um, in the morning, and then in the afternoon I go back and reread what I've written and edit. And sometimes I look at it and I think, wow, that was great. And other times I look at it, I think, what was I thinking?

So how long did it take you to write your first book? But that was the blog already wrote it for you, right? Yeah.

I mean, the first, The Sober Diaries, was, you know, I— it was based on the material I'd written in the blog. So, so, you know, it was more about editing than anything else because I had had so much, you know, I'd written so much and I had to turn it into a sort of more manageable story. So, so, uh, um, so I guess it took me about— I mean, I wrote the blog for a year before I started thinking about turning it into a book. So that was— it was a year's worth of writing, and then it took me 6 months to turn it into— from a blog into a book.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

What about The Authenticity Project?

Uh, well, I wrote the first draft I, I tend to write the first draft of a book quite fast, and then I spend ages rewriting and rewriting. So I wrote the first draft in 3 months, but then spent 9 months, um, editing myself— editing it myself, and then with editors, professional editors, and my publishers. So yeah.

And so did somebody find you, then agent seek you out because your blog was so popular? Is that how it all happened?

Um, I did have— I, I got to the point where I did have agents approach me, and then I went and approached agents myself. So, yeah, I still can't quite, I can't quite believe that I ended up where I have. I think it just, one thing led to the next thing, led to the next thing, and I sort of find that, you know, often when people quit drinking, you start finding your instincts in a way that you haven't been able to in the past. I think one of the other things alcohol numbs is your natural instincts, your ability to sort of see where you should go next. And when I stopped drinking, I found that one door would open and I'd walk through that door and I'd see another door opening and another door opening. When, when I was drinking, I found like all the doors were closing, you know, one door closed, another door closed, they were all closing, and I ended up in a much, much smaller place. And, uh, yeah, and when I quit drinking, they all life sort of opened up.

You're like in flow.

Exactly, exactly.

What would you tell yourself if you could go back? Would you do things differently? Would you tell your teenage self or your college self something?

Oh, you know what, it's really hard. I don't—

it's hard.

Yeah, I don't like looking back at my life and regretting stuff that I did because there's no point. And also because the stuff I did got me to where I am now, and you know, I'm happy where I am now, so I'm not sure how much I would change. I sort of, you know, I feel like, um, yeah, I feel like those days were, you know, I was a bit out of control, but you know, at the time, you know, a lot of, a lot of it I enjoyed. And actually, you know, it got me to a point where I quit altogether and I'm really happy with the point.

Gotcha. Yeah, totally. I totally get it. No regrets.

Yeah, Juna Bobby MD, as they say.

The reason that I was so excited to have you and to meet you is because of your sense of humor. Your book is so funny, and the person who reads the book is hysterical. So tell me where you got this sense of humor.

Oh gosh, I don't know. I think that really humor was my way of coping with adversity. So, you know, so I've always found that, you know, if things always seem better if you can laugh about them. So humor is, is my, one of my coping mechanisms. And, you know, I find that, uh, nothing feels bad if you can laugh about it. And it is, is absolutely one of the ways that I, I get through life.

So, and your husband is funny too. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's, uh, I think that's why I fell in love with him, because he's, uh, you know, he's We do, even now, you know, with coronavirus and lockdown and, you know, what have you, we will still find a way of sort of talking about what's going on and finding the light side in the darkness.

Do you do anything on purpose to cultivate your humor? Do you try to watch funny shows or listen to funny people or—

Oh, I used to love going to stand-up comedy, which again is one of the things that we can't do right now. But yeah, I love that. Or the— there's a great, um, great venue in London called the Comedy Club, which, uh, um, does stand-up. And there's nothing— there's, you know, I— that belly laughter is, is a— is just a, you know, a fabulous way to spend an evening. So, um, and yeah, TV.

Um, what's your favorite funny show?

Oh, um, you know what I watched recently that I just thought was brilliant? Um, and, and the kids would hate me for this because, because they just, you know, they, they caught me laughing at this show, and they were like, Mommy, I can't believe you're watching that. Uh, Sex Education on Netflix. Oh, I don't know that one. It's hilarious. So, uh, so yeah, check that out.

I will definitely check that out. I started rewatching Seinfeld.

Oh yeah, and Friends is, uh, you know, brilliantly scripted and is one of those programs that we all need during lockdown. You know, it just reminds you— and I, I love the fact that you know, those shows, they don't have mobile phones, you know, they don't, you know, they don't have the internet. And yeah, and it's just, you know, it just takes you back to a more, you know, a more, um, uh, you know, a less complicated time.

Yeah. Uh, one last question: what are your resources, go-to resources, aside from listening to your book, if somebody wants to start to become sober or, you know, look at different ways to live their lives?

Uh, well, you know, there's a great saying. There's a chap called Johann Hari who did a brilliant TED Talk, um, called Everything You Thought You Knew About Addiction Is Wrong. And at the— right at the end of his TED Talk, he says the opposite of addiction is connection. Um, and that is so true. And that's why Alcoholics Anonymous has been so helpful for so many people over the years, because you know, it's as well as, you know, the steps and what have you, it provides a community for people and that connection is really important. But the truth is you can find that connection in all sorts of different places now thanks to the internet. So I would suggest, for instance, on Facebook, if you're in Facebook, there's a great group called Club Soda which is a, you know, fabulous online sober community.

Is that Ruby Warrington?

Uh, no, no, but I do know— I, I know Ruby Warrington, or know of her, but no, it's not. It's, um, uh, a lady called Laura, um, set it up. Uh, so Club Soda, there's Living Soda, which is sober, which is Mrs. D's, uh, Lotta Dan's, um, group in New Zealand. It's a global reach. One Year No Beer is another Facebook group. And then there's, um, soberistas.com, which is a, um, a, uh, huge community. I think they're about 70,000 people around the world are part of soberistas.com online. So, uh, so yes, there are lots and lots of sober groups now that, uh, you know, that you can join, and you can find the one that just feels right for you. Um, you know, with people that you feel comfortable with.

So find your community. And in your case, you just started blogging and the community came to you.

Yes. Yes.

Thank you so much, Clare. This was amazing. I'm so excited to meet you and talk to you.

Oh, likewise. Thank you for inviting me. And it's been so good to talk to you. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening. You can find out more about Clare and her books at Clare Pooley dot com. Claire is an author, speaker, and blogger, and on her website you can find out more about her two books, The Sober Diaries, The Authenticity Project, her blog, and her TEDx talk. Please go to topdownbrain.com and subscribe to our newsletter. You're gonna get extra tips and information on our upcoming courses on SOAR and SOAR Under Pressure for kids, teens, and adults. You'll also get information information on our general resiliency and stress management training for groups and organizations. Please share this podcast with anyone who believes in the scientific method and are curious about natural ways to boost performance, health, mental and physical resilience for themselves or their kids. Thank you so much. Until next time, this is Juna wishing you and your family wellness.