Hello, I'm Dr Louise Newsome. I'm a GP and menopause specialist, and I'm also the founder of the Newsome Health Menopause and wellbeing centre here in Stratford-Pon-Avon.

I'm also the founder of the free Balance app.

Each week on my podcast, join me and my special guests where we discuss all things perimenopause

and menopause. We talk about the latest research, bust myths on menopause symptoms and treatments,

and often share moving and always inspirational personal stories.

This podcast is brought to you by the Newsome Health Group,

which has clinics across the UK dedicated to providing individualised perimenopause and menopause care for all women.

Today on the podcast I'm going to introduce to you Alex Newman, who's a substance misuse

therapist. And the more I do in the menopause, perimenopause, PMS, PMDD space,

the more I speak to women who actually are addicted to all sorts of things, not just drugs,

but alcohol, food, various things that they know aren't right, but it's to get comfort actually

for sometimes symptoms that

are really affecting them. And they don't always join the dots and realize that the hormones

can cause the symptoms that are leading to their addictions. And I've spoken to a lot of people whose

addictions have come back, actually, when they've become perimenopausal. So Alex reached out to me for a while ago, so I'm

super excited about listening to her today. So welcome to the podcast, Alex. Thank you very much.

So tell me a bit more about you, if you don't mind, and how you developed your skills to become a

substance misuse therapist. Well, I started my counselling training over 25 years ago. My first

placement was in a drug and alcohol setting. So yeah, and I became really interested in the

whole subject of addiction. My first job actually was as an alcohol crime and education group

worker. So that was quite interesting.

And yeah, so throughout my career then, I went from being a counsellor support person to team leader, manager, and then got involved in service development and training consultancy.

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