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You know that sinking feeling when you wake up with a hangover and think: “I’m never doing this again”? We’ve all been there. But what happens when you follow through? Sonia Kahlon and Kathleen Killen can tell you, because they did it! They went from sisters-in-law, to Sisters in Sobriety.
In this podcast, Sonia and Kathleen invite you into their world, as they navigate the ups and downs of sobriety, explore stories of personal growth and share their journey of wellness and recovery.
Get ready for some real, honest conversations about sobriety, addiction, and everything in between. Episodes will cover topics such as: reaching emotional sobriety, how to make the decision to get sober, adopting a more mindful lifestyle, socializing without alcohol, and much more.
Whether you’re sober-curious, seeking inspiration and self-care through sobriety, or embracing the alcohol-free lifestyle already… Tune in for a weekly dose of vulnerability, mutual support and much needed comic relief. Together, let’s celebrate the transformative power of sisterhood in substance recovery!
Kathleen Killen is a registered psychotherapist (qualifying) and certified coach based in Ontario, Canada. Her practice is centered on relational therapy and she specializes in couples and working with individuals who are navigating their personal relationships.
Having been through many life transitions herself, Kathleen has made it her mission to help others find the support and communication they need in their closest relationships. To find out more about Kathleen’s work, check out her website.
Sonia Kahlon is a recovery coach and former addict. She grappled with high-functioning alcohol use disorder throughout her life, before getting sober in 2016.
Over the last five years, she has appeared on successful sobriety platforms, such as the Story Exchange, the Sobriety Diaries podcast and the Sober Curator, to tell her story of empowerment and addiction recovery, discuss health and midlife sobriety, and share how she is thriving without alcohol.
Your sobriety success story starts today, with Kathleen and Sonia. Just press play!
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Sonia: Welcome to Sisters in Sobriety. Today we are thrilled to have Allie Shapiro [00:01:00] on the podcast. Allie is a health coach, a speaker, and creator of the Truce with Food program. She brings a fresh perspective to understanding our relationship with food, body image, and overall health.
[00:01:13] Kathleen: Kelly's approach is rooted in functional medicine and cognitive behavioral change, helping individuals break free from emotional eating, cravings, binging, and the struggles tied to body image. As the host of the popular podcast, Insatiable, Ali drives deep into the emotional and behavioral drivers behind food and health struggles, offering empowering insights for creating lasting change.
[00:01:38] Sonia: Her work focuses on unearthing deeper stories. We tell ourselves about food and our bodies leading to true freedom. We are beyond excited to dig into these important topics with you today, Allie. Thanks for being here. I
[00:01:54] Ali: love talking about this and, and, and our free show. I love talking with you both. It's going to be fun.[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] Kathleen: It's going to be fun. I'm so happy to have you here. Really. We were also talking about this because I feel like this is one area, even though I've been sober for a while, this one area in my life that I just have not been able to work through.
[00:02:14] Ali: Yeah. And Kathleen, I hear that a lot I work a lot of with sober people who are sober from alcohol and they come to me and they're like, this is, The one piece and they come at it from different angles. Some people food and body image where their original issue and then alcohol supplanted it or some people, they save their calories for alcohol.
[00:02:35] Ali: So they were able to be.
[00:02:36] Sonia: did that.
[00:02:37] Ali: Yeah, yeah, thinner. And then, um, once they stop drinking, they turn to sugar. Um, and so it, it, it goes, both ways, but the, no matter where people are and when food became a thing, it all goes back to the same place. So we can, we can talk about that today.
[00:02:56] Sonia: Yeah, I was actually, I was on a podcast Saturday on, [00:03:00] um, remember Charlie, the way out podcast? And
[00:03:03] Ali: Yes. Yes.
[00:03:05] Sonia: about how we both did that, right? So we wouldn't eat and we would save our calories for alcohol. And the combination was you get more messed up because you're not eating.
[00:03:16] Kathleen: hmm.
[00:03:17] Sonia: outward appearance is not like, Oh, I have like a beer belly or whatever.
[00:03:21] Sonia: And so we were thinking about back, like, can you imagine, like I was doing this in my 20s and 30s, how unhealthy that was, but imagine if I was still doing that now.
[00:03:30] Kathleen: Mm hmm. Mm
[00:03:31] Ali: I know,
[00:03:32] Sonia: I can't imagine.
[00:03:34] Ali: Yeah, and I think one of the problems with the way that we've all been cultured about food and health is the intertwine of like health and thinness. and so people think, well, if I'm thin, I'm healthy. but we actually know they're the medical term. I mean, it's not highly, um. It's not highly techno, but they're called toffee's then on the outside, but they tend to be fat on the inside.
[00:03:57] Ali: They think they don't have to care and their [00:04:00] mortality rate I think it's like twice the rate as you age, because what happens is, as you age, you become more, it's called insulin resistant. What basically means is it's harder to get food into yourselves, which more gets stored as fat.
[00:04:14] Ali: So we see higher incidences of fatty liver or inflammation and it creates this kind of like. spiral effect. It's not, it's like it, it gets exponential, um, in terms of health effects, but people who are who are thin don't think they quote unquote have to care because they're not showing it on their weight.
[00:04:33] Ali: So everyone, regardless of their body size, especially as we age needs to, needs to pay attention, but not in the way that we've been told to pay attention. So it's kind of a, a matrix.
[00:04:45] Sonia: Yes. Allie, so can you explain to us, what does it mean to unearth our food and body story? And how this kind of shapes our relationship with food?
[00:04:55] Ali: Yeah. Well, I think the, the biggest one, the biggest way [00:05:00] to think about this is first of all, most of us have been cultured, right? Who are, I would say under 20 years old to think that food is only about weight, which is about health. And the narrative is it's about willpower and discipline. Right. So it's like to eat well.
[00:05:18] Ali: and now nowadays that functional medicine has become more popular. We've also layered this morality, layer onto it. Like, Oh, if you're struggling with something, it's because you're not using food as medicine and right. So we have these two parallel narratives. but what I found in my research. And my own story as well was I had a ton of willpower. I had a ton of discipline, um, and maybe like you, Kathleen, it was like the one thing in my life that I couldn't figure out. Like both of you, I know both of your clients tend to be really high achieving and high functioning. And, and that's exactly how I was.
[00:05:54] Ali: and I'm like this willpower and discipline narrative just doesn't make sense. And part of why I went back to grad [00:06:00] school was I realized that, Functional medicine looked at my, so I had struggled with like IBS and depression, which was a result of the chemotherapy that I had gone, had 10 years earlier was my gut health, but no one knew what any of this was 20 years ago.
[00:06:14] Ali: And I was like, Oh, Matt, for me personally, my IBS, my depression and my acne were actually symptoms. They weren't diagnoses. and I had to get to the root causes. And so, um, I was able to use functional medicine to heal and feel amazing and reverse those conditions, but then I couldn't keep it up. And I thought, wait a second, what if this story about willpower and discipline isn't true the same way that for me, my IBS and depression, everyone's diagnoses are different, so I don't want to say this is a
[00:06:44] Kathleen: hmm, mm
[00:06:45] Ali: You know, I just want to clarify that because the wellness world can be a whole lot of crazy these days, so. But I thought, what if falling off track was a symptom too? What if that wasn't actually the issue? [00:07:00] What if willpower and discipline wasn't the issue? And what I found was the deeper narrative is that food is about safety and specifically belonging.
[00:07:11] Ali: And belonging can be kind of an academic term, but I think of it as practically like, are all parts of you welcome? Do you feel like you matter? and when I really started researching into this and looking at it, I was like, I feel like I belong. I feel like I'm confident, except about my weight. And what I started to realize was, oh, I was confident in the areas that I, that came easy to me.
[00:07:37] Ali: Like, I was really good at work because I was good at school.
[00:07:40] Ali: and part of why I leaned into school was because I struggled with my weight as a kid. And so I was like, I'm not going to be the pretty one. I'm not going to be the one. So I'm going to be smart and, overachieve and work hard because that got me things.
[00:07:53] Ali: But the things that were, um, were, that were really vulnerable for me, which at the time was figuring out my [00:08:00] health, figuring out my weight. I had all those diagnoses. I did, I was in a corporate job and it wasn't, super fulfilling. there's something about having a near death experience at 13 that sends you into an existential tailspin very early on.
[00:08:14] Ali: and so I wanted something with more meaning. but I, and I was like, well, once I lose weight, I'll be able to figure this out. Like, and then I wanted to date. And at the time I had been in a corporate job where I was I was traveling all the time and I was like, well, once I lose weight, then I'll meet someone that, I, I want to date.
[00:08:32] Ali: So these very vulnerable areas, my health, my career and dating, I had kind of used the once I lose weight, that was the way to kick the vulnerability down the can or down the, you know, down the, down the can. So. I thought of like, Oh, I don't feel when it comes, if I think about belonging, I can't bring these parts of me that don't have the answers that are beginners.
[00:08:54] Ali: And that I did, I wasn't able to be with that. and so that was ultimately why I would. [00:09:00] On the surface, it was like, Oh, I'm so stressed from my job, but I was like bored and like detached from it, but like also stressed. And then I would eat at night, right? Like I deserve to eat this. Um, or going out, on a date and it like, didn't go well.
[00:09:14] Ali: It's like, Oh, it's because of my weight. and then eating, right? But underneath it was these, these things. deeper issues, um, belonging issues. And so I think we can kind of make it more practical, even if Kathleen, I can, can I ask you some, some questions?
[00:09:29] Kathleen: Yes, please.
[00:09:33] Ali: Cause did that make sense? Cause sometimes the stuff can be abstract. Um,
[00:09:37] Sonia: abstract for me.
[00:09:38] Kathleen: It's okay. Do you want to, Sonia? Do you want
[00:09:41] Ali: yes. Ask some
[00:09:43] Sonia: No, no. I think if you go through this with Kathleen, I'll understand what the belonging piece is because I know I struggle with the belonging thing. that's coming up a lot for me in therapy. So I would love to hear this.
[00:09:54] Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So Kathleen, let me, let me first just ask you, what are some of your [00:10:00] happiest food memories? Even at
[00:10:04] Kathleen: So I don't have very many happy food memories. I have to say, because my like disordered eating started when I was eight. Um, so long, long time ago. Um, happy food memories. I would say, if I think about it, it's when I'm cooking, and I actually really love eating healthy food, though I don't eat healthy food all the time, because I binge now, on sugar.
[00:10:28] Kathleen: Uh, but I actually love Thanksgiving, so Canada, our Thanksgiving just passed yesterday, and it's my favourite holiday, and I love making Thanksgiving dinner, um, so, um, yeah. So I love that. I love that. Like family is around. I like cooking healthy food, but those, I don't have very many other happy memories of food.
[00:10:51] Ali: five, six, seven, four.
[00:10:56] Kathleen: I don't, I don't. It goes way, way back because I [00:11:00] was an overweight child and, um, don't want to blame my parents for this, but I was raised by people in a generation who thin, you know, was.
[00:11:12] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:11:13] Kathleen: So, um, I don't have, I have some, some, like a little bit of, I actually do have some happy memories of eating.
[00:11:21] Kathleen: Um, my grandmother is French Canadian and she would make this like fudge. And so we would have that together when I was little. So I have that memory, but otherwise really, I don't have a lot of great memories around food.
[00:11:33] Ali: Well, I think that's even fascinating. I bet. What was your relationship with your grandmother? Like?
[00:11:39] Kathleen: Really good. Yeah, really good. Yes.
[00:11:46] Ali: in her care. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So now tell me about some of your hard food memories.
[00:11:58] Kathleen: I remember my first [00:12:00] binge when I was eight years old and I had to Walk myself home from school and I would call the like backyard neighbor to let them know that I was home safe And this is a different time again, right? I'm 46 so it was a different time and I was an only child and I remember this feeling of loneliness and this like deep deep feeling of loneliness and I made an entire pot of pasta and I like just shoveled it in plain.
[00:12:30] Kathleen: No, and it was like it really helped me feel Not lonely in that moment it like helped fill me up
[00:12:39] Ali: So what was the loneliness? Do you know what it was stemming from?
[00:12:45] Kathleen: Yeah, I mean, I love that we're doing a live therapy session. It feels like right now, but, yeah, I was a lonely kid. I was really, really lonely in childhood. And my parents did, the best that they could possibly do, but I was an only child. I was [00:13:00] awkward back then. I was, not pretty back then I was, you know, overweight ish, chubby, like not super overweight, but kind of chubby.
[00:13:08] Kathleen: I didn't have a lot of friends. And so my, if, if someone asked me, describe your childhood. Yes, there were absolute happy moments, but my overwhelming feeling of my childhood was loneliness. Hmm.
[00:13:21] Ali: can you see the lack of belonging
[00:13:24] Kathleen: Yes. Can you Sonia?
[00:13:26] Sonia: Yeah. I, I, now I get it. Yeah. Now I get it.
[00:13:31] Ali: and I think why it's, and, and Kathleen, I struggled with weight early on. I went to Weight Watchers at 11. Yeah. And people were like, your parents let you go. And I was like, I, my parents let me do whatever I suggested. This was not, so it wasn't like to blame my parents or anything, but it was just like, you know, like I'm 46 too.
[00:13:49] Ali: It was a different era. Like, it was just like.
[00:13:51] Kathleen: era. I know. It was a different era, like, yeah. Mm-Hmm?
[00:13:55] Ali: and I think there were a lot of great parts about that era, but there was a lot that was not, and this emotional [00:14:00] piece. And so I think, so what happens in that pasta, right, is not only does it fill you up, but it stimulates attachment chemicals. So, since the time that we are born food, we had 2 safety needs as babies.
[00:14:17] Ali: and early children to be touched and to be fed. But what we, but the food was accompanied by a caretaker, right?
[00:14:26] Kathleen: Mm-Hmm.
[00:14:27] Ali: from the time we're born, Um, food and caregiving are attached because as, as babies, we have two basic needs to survive touch and food.
[00:14:38] Ali: And Dr. Debra McNamara, who's actually an amazing Canadian, uh, developmental psychologist talks about this in her book, Nourished. Um, but what, when we are being fed, we're being fed by a caretaker. There's someone that we belong to that cares enough about us. that we survive, right? So when we eat that pasta Kathleen at [00:15:00] eight, we're getting the attachment chemicals that are necessary to know that someone cares about us, but it doesn't include the, but it doesn't give us the deeper belonging that we, there's no caretaker there.
[00:15:13] Ali: Right. And belonging requires a bigger risk, right? It requires being like, and again, not that we're supposed to know this at eight. I mean, I came home and started eating bagels after being bullied. Right. And I had so much shame about being bullied. My parents Probably would have supported me, but I again, it was the eighties.
[00:15:34] Ali: No one did emotions. It was
[00:15:36] Kathleen: Mm mm. No.
[00:15:39] Ali: so it was like the bagels were my lifeline to feeling like I belong. I was stimulating the feeling of belonging without having to be like, Why do all the girls hate me and I'm sitting at the table by myself, right? And, um, and so for you, this just pervasive feeling of awkwardness, of [00:16:00] picking up on the climate of I'm, I'm heavier.
[00:16:03] Ali: So that's bad, right? It starts to very early on. Make us feel like I gotta hide certain parts of me my appetite included my appetites the obvious thing But it's the vulnerabilities of I feel awkward and I and when we're when we're kids like that developmental piece our peers start to become really important to us because we're starting to try to individuate against from our Parents, so does that sort of help Sonia and Kathleen?
[00:16:32] Ali: What Kathleen I think does that make it more clear of what I mean by belonging?
[00:16:39] Sonia: I didn't know there were like, yeah, attachment like chemicals released. Like that's, yeah, that's crazy.
[00:16:45] Kathleen: I'm curious, if we take my example, and then, because it kind of flows into the question I wanted to ask too, is like, yes, we were a child, we were children of the 80s, and there's still, you know So we were, we were children of the [00:17:00] Kate Moss era of the like, you've heroin chic and thin, thin, thin. And so it still happens, obviously.
[00:17:09] Kathleen: Like it's, there's image all over that, all over the news. Like you see thin is better still. You see that message. So when you have that lack of belonging, let's say, and then you're eating. In my case, it was that. First started that I have that memory of that big bowl of pasta or pot, actually. Um, how does then the media messaging the beliefs that we have from society, how does that then impact us?
[00:17:38] Ali: I love this question. Um, so as we're developing, I think what we need to think about is, um, the first few decades of our life, belonging depends on other people liking us because, like, when could you actually take care of yourself? Like,
[00:17:58] Kathleen: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm.
[00:17:59] Ali: like it [00:18:00] wasn't for me until I graduated undergrad, like until I had a job, right?
[00:18:03] Ali: so until then, and nature designs this, this way, like often it's thought like you can't care about what other people think, but no, it we're in community with other people. It's good to learn in a healthy culture. It's good to learn. So I'm what other people think and care about. We obviously don't live in a healthy culture, so there's a kink in the design of nature.
[00:18:24] Ali: So the media messages. What I love that you bring this up is like, and even like both of us, our parents were doing the best they could, right? The media think is such a, flashpoint for what the culture values and believes. And so as we're developing those first 20 years of our lives, the media messages get filtered into the doctor's messaging, into our parents messaging.
[00:18:49] Ali: And again, for, we have to remember back in the eighties and nineties, there were like, I mean, we didn't have cable. We couldn't afford cable. There was like three stations. Right? So there wasn't, I [00:19:00] don't even know if there is diversity of thought now. We have more noise, but so what ends up happening is we start to develop this internal sense of authority this is good.
[00:19:10] Ali: This is bad based on media messages. But again, these media messages, it's almost like surround sound at the doctor's office, right? The, I mean, doctors are still needing to learn that thinness isn't the only marker of health. Right? Um, And so what ends up happening is the media messages are just one fraction of it, honestly.
[00:19:31] Ali: But what they do is we're, we're paying attention. Oh, this is what gets rewarded. This is what gets witnessed. And this is who matters, right? And ultimately belonging is I feel like I matter here and I can contribute and women especially are told you value and can contribute based on your looks and being an object versus having hungers, right?
[00:19:54] Ali: Physical, emotional, soul. I know I'm going deep, but that's just how I roll.[00:20:00]
[00:20:00] Kathleen: Mm-Hmm.
[00:20:01] Ali: But what happens internally to us as humans is the first couple of years, the first, we come out of early adulthood and we feel like there's this good or bad. A lot of my clients are like, I'm all or nothing, right? So it's like to be good, the message I got, and this feels authoritative, meaning like absolute, no, I can only find someone that I want to date if I lose 30
[00:20:24] Kathleen: Mm-Hmm.
[00:20:25] Kathleen: No, I can only get this job if I, lose weight. No, I [00:21:00] can only go to the gym anytime I want and not be fearful that anyone's going to make of me once I'm a certain weight. Right? And that feels so absolute. And that like, there's no other options, but the job of adulthood is to evolve our sense of belonging to go rather from what does everyone else think to how does this feel for me?
[00:21:24] Kathleen: How does this feel in my body? Not only what foods I was told were good or bad, but am I going to society might have told me that I only matter to myself? Because of my weight, but what do I want to believe that? Do I want choose that? Do I want to evolve my ideas good and bad to what feels good and bad?
[00:21:45] Kathleen: and I'll give you a practical example when I met my now husband I met him at a bar again different phase. I was never really a drinker But when I met him, I was like 30 pounds above my ideal weight, right? And I was [00:22:00] like, Oh my God, but what is, I can't, can't date anyone. And then when he approached me in a bar and asked me out.
[00:22:06] Kathleen: I was no longer like, Oh my God, like my body, whatever. I was like, do I want to learn how to practice dating? Because no matter how much weight you lose, dating is still awkward. It being in a relationship is a skill set communication of, of all these different that weight loss can't teach you.
[00:22:24] Kathleen: And so I was like, I'm going to go out with him for me so that I can start practicing dating. Now it ended up, he's now my husband. But I, as an adult had to say like, I'm, I am rejecting that I have to wait to date until I lose 30 pounds, right? It's like if you're at the doctors and they are, they are treating you under, weight stigma.
[00:22:48] Kathleen: It's like, no, I deserve better care. either, you're going to give me better care or I'm going to go where I can get better care. So the task of a adult belonging in adulthood is to actually question those [00:23:00] messages and realize that maybe the environment That we grew up in, and we didn't have other choices.
[00:23:06] Kathleen: There's a lot of other choices out here as adults, but we have be willing to go out there and them. Does that answer
[00:23:13] Kathleen: Mm-Hmm.
[00:23:14] Ali: the question? Yes,
[00:23:20] Kathleen: that's okay, Sonia.
[00:23:21] Sonia: I love it. I'm like not even, yeah, worried
[00:23:23] Kathleen: Okay. We're like, I'm like, I'm like, okay. I have so many questions. So. the belonging piece, is it then, is it tied then to self worth? Like, is that, is that the link? Is there a link there? Because what you're saying is like the belonging when we're younger is like outward, like, how can I fit in with you?
[00:23:44] Kathleen: And then it sounds like you're saying the belonging later is how am I okay with how I am?
[00:23:54] Ali: and it's finding the people that want to support that, right? [00:24:00] So, I can even tell you in my own work, right, as this is, I really felt like an outsider talking about this belonging work for so long because everyone was like, no, food is medicine. It's willpower. people still think that, but I really, you, we need other people.
[00:24:18] Ali: So this isn't about everybody else, right? It's about finding your people. But over the years, I've found my people who want to go deep and have tried everything else. And so I feel belonging with my clients because they get it once we work together. I mean, they get it listening to podcasts like this, but they're like, yes.
[00:24:37] Ali: And so it's like, Oh, as a kid, I needed everyone in my small community. But now there's a big bad world out there, and it's about me finding, I don't need everyone, but I need some people. And I love that you brought up worth, because I think with weight and food, if we, you know, Kathleen, I grew up my dad, Every day was [00:25:00] like, I'm running from the fat man.
[00:25:01] Ali: He was, he was heavy as a child. He never put that on me, but like he would weigh himself every day. He would, he would tell us his weight, right? So grow up in this climate that we have, that food is work and that we have to earn our worth as a result. And so part of this is being like, Oh, and this takes time, but it's like, Food doesn't have to be work.
[00:25:26] Ali: My worth doesn't have to be work. And it's also a little bit more nuanced in that this is also a developmental skill. So, no, not everyone is going to learn this. In fact, 60 percent of college educated Americans will stay in what's called the socialized mind where it's like I care about what other people think and this is not about how smart you are.
[00:25:49] Ali: The percentage is actually higher among entrepreneurs. It's like are you willing to learn how to learn? So part of this is also being able to be curious and questioning [00:26:00] if what you thought were good and bad were actually good and bad. So it's not all about worth but it's willing to start to being like I gotta figure out what works for me.
[00:26:09] Ali: Not only, you know, with a lot of my clients, I was told I should be paleo or vegetarian. And so then I, and it starts with me giving them experiments to start to listen to their body. So that sense of authority comes from within and being like, Oh, I don't have to be anything. I can just I need to know how to balance my blood sugar and gut health, but people are making this way too complicated, right?
[00:26:32] Ali: And I teach like a flex. So that's like the first like, whoa, I don't need someone else to tell me how to eat. Like I can listen to my body. And then it becomes once they get into this belonging work and we look at the stories of You know, a story that might make us feel unsafe that we don't belong is I have to work for my worth, you know?
[00:26:53] Ali: Um, and so then we would practice, you know, having you not work for your worth based on [00:27:00] what's important to you in situations. Do you want to find the people who can really see you? Because I have a feeling if you felt this sense of loneliness from eight years old and can't even articulate it, there's parts of yourself that are in deep hiding.
[00:27:15] Kathleen: hmm. Ooh, good thing I have my therapy session right after the recording of this podcast. I'm just going to make note of that. Parts of myself are in hiding. Okay. But I, I have more questions, more questions,
[00:27:28] Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:27:30] Kathleen: So I also like, I, I, I think intuitively have known recently and like in the last couple of years that I need to shift and find my peopleLike, I can't be surrounded by people who are Our dieting, I guess that's, I'm going to say it plainly. I have a really, it triggers me, um, to no end. I like spiral from that. And so I am slowly but surely trying to create community around myself where [00:28:00] I doesn't matter what size I am. I am finally in a relationship where my partner's like, I love you no matter what.
[00:28:06] Kathleen: He's never commented on my weight, even though I've gained 40 pounds since I met him. Never. Not once. So, I think that's part of the belonging also, is having that community that understands you, right? Like, having that community,
[00:28:21] Ali: Well, and I'll just say, I would say you're healing in the fact that you found a partner who doesn't care about that. Cause often the stories that we have that are unconscious and they're not unconscious because they're deep. It's just because we're always taking shortcuts of like, you know, okay, is this, am I safe or not?
[00:28:37] Ali: We have an anxiety management system. That's always just scanning for, am I safe or not? And if you grew up. Especially in a family that was like, your weight matters, you would probably, it's because it's familiar, not because it's what
[00:28:50] Kathleen: Oh yeah.
[00:28:52] Ali: it would be like, let me find someone where I have to like, watch my weight, work at my weight.
[00:28:58] Ali: So the fact that you have found [00:29:00] someone, You're saying like you, you're doing the work without consciously doing it, but it's saying like, wait a second. I don't want this to be to occupy my time. I don't want this to be central focus and now you found safety in someone. So that's an example of growing up and saying maybe when I was little everyone around me cared.
[00:29:20] Ali: But in this great big wide world, there's a lot of people with different perspectives. And so I have more choices now. So I just want to point that out since in case some of this stuff can be abstract.
[00:29:30] Kathleen: Yeah, that makes sense because I married Sonia's brother who was very much raised in a family that places and still does a lot of emphasis around weight. And he was the same with me, like placing emphasis on weight. So you're right. I have grown then because I have found a partner. He literally, like my partner says nothing, nothing
[00:29:51] Sonia: Oh my god, my brother had an issue, right? With
[00:29:54] Kathleen: Yeah,
[00:29:54] Sonia: when you're pregnant and like,
[00:29:56] Kathleen: when I was pregnant, he had an issue with how big I was. And then when [00:30:00] we split up, I lost 30 pounds and he was like, why couldn't you do that when we were married? So like, right? Yeah.
[00:30:06] Sonia: yeah, I'm very clear where my issues come from, right? I know my parents are like, it's like a textbook, right?
[00:30:12] Kathleen: your parents are like, anyone who's overweight is not attractive.
[00:30:15] Sonia: I grew up like when I would come home, they would pinch my stomach or pinch my arms so I think one, there was like, I did the, the zone diet,
[00:30:23] Ali: did that. I mean, I've done them all.
[00:30:25] Sonia: yeah,
[00:30:26] Kathleen: too. I've done them all too.
[00:30:27] Sonia: in like the early two thousands and I.
[00:30:31] Sonia: And I was like probably too young to understand how to do it in any sort of healthy way. So I came back like a hundred pounds at Christmas, and they were like, you look fantastic. and you get so much positive. feedback. and I had never worked out. I was so unhealthy. so what I did eat, I would just like eat a cube of cheese when I was hungry.
[00:30:53] Sonia: Um, and so, yeah, but I did grow up with messaging and my parents are still like that, right? [00:31:00] I'm not going to change them, but they're still like that.
[00:31:02] Ali: yeah. And again, our, our parents, when I say like the media messaging, all this stuff, I mean, if we want to go really deep, I mean, all of this comes from puritanical Christianity that was like, discipline is defined as control. If you're thin, you're, you know, you're showing that you work hard. And I mean, this is like really big stuff, but It's so much bigger than our parents, right?
[00:31:23] Ali: They're just trying to
[00:31:24] Sonia: Yes.
[00:31:25] Ali: they knew they did the best with what they knew they wanted us to be safe And welcomed, you know so, I mean it doesn't mean we don't look at like where this stuff came from but like These are deep cultural values that, get warped. And in the case of like discipline, it's like, I always tell my clients, part of our work is to like, even what we call self author our own values.
[00:31:46] Ali: Like you can't control your body. There's some stuff you can control, right? Like your blood sugar, the zone diet. I learned about blood sugar there. Um, and so you can control how satiated and satisfied you feel from food. Um, [00:32:00] but. It's about devotion. I'm like, let's think of it rather than being disciplined with your body.
[00:32:05] Ali: Let's be devoted to figuring out how it works and how to feel good in it.
[00:32:10] Kathleen: just hit me so deeply with that.
[00:32:14] Ali: Right.
[00:32:15] Kathleen: Oh my gosh discipline to devotion
[00:32:20] Ali: Yeah. And rather than what looks good to everybody else, what feels good, feel being hungry, sucks,
[00:32:27] Sonia: Yeah.
[00:32:29] Ali: Having cravings sucks. Like
[00:32:31] Kathleen: hmm Binging
[00:32:32] Ali: foods were yeah. Binging sucks. Yeah. Kind of fun fact. I used to do a TV segment in Philadelphia for NBC. And, um, I. In 2009, I bought a zone bar as kind of like showing what this was back when people didn't know
[00:32:45] Ali: what processed foods were.
[00:32:47] Sonia: I ate that Zone bar every day for breakfast. Yeah.
[00:32:51] Ali: when I moved out of, when we sold our condo and left Philly in like, I think 2015, that zone bar was still edible. I was like, [00:33:00] this is gross. Like, I still had it in the wrapper and I opened it up and I was like, I did not try it, but I was like, I think someone could still eat this. So funny, funny, little fun fact about that.
[00:33:13] Ali: But didn't mean to switch the
[00:33:15] Kathleen: No, no I there's so many like gosh ellie I could have you we could just talk to you for hours and hours I already see this and I I I want to just shift and sonia if it's okay with you just shift to um food and alcohol, um, like how so How do drugs alcohol or whatever? Your thing is how does it affect blood sugar sugar levels?
[00:33:40] Kathleen: And how does this impact your cravings?
[00:33:42] Kathleen: Thank you for listening to Sisters in Sobriety and we'll see you next week when we'll share part two of our conversation with Ali , You don't want to miss it. [00:34:00]