This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hi, this is Annie Grace and welcome to this naked mind podcast. I'm here with Shelley. Hi, Shelley.

Hey, it's no good, but you?

Yeah, it's great to be here.

Oh, go ahead.

I was just going to say, why don't you tell us kind of where the whole thing started for you?

Yeah, for sure. First of all, I feel honored to be a guest on the podcast. So your book was the first book I read when I,

after I made the decision to stop drinking. I read it alongside Alan Cars, the easy way to quit smoking.

And those two books were just super, super instrumental in my recovery, especially during those first few days and weeks.

I was a heavy drinker and smoker for over a decade. So, so to just start from the beginning, I definitely believe that going back to the very very beginning is important.

I think it's when a lot of our issues start developing or at least the groundwork is kind of laid down for those issues.

So from the very beginning, I was born to a mother who struggled with mental illness, especially in her younger years and a father who was and still is dependent on alcohol.

Three months after I was born, my mother had to be admitted into a residential psychiatric facility for a couple weeks.

So I was abruptly weaned from her.

And that was like postpartum or?

Yeah, I believe that postpartum, again, it's hard to know what the truth is, but I believe that it was probably postpartum that exacerbated a lot of the

mental illnesses that she struggled with. I think it just sort of made everything put a magnifying glass to everything, right?

Totally.

So during those early, very, very early months of my life, my dad took care of me, my grandma flew in, my aunt flew in.

And again, you know, it's hard to know how traumatic that was for me, but I do think it probably got in the way of me bonding with my mom.

And I think, you know, feeling securely attached to something, I believe that it's at the stage for some of my abandonment issues and fears and things like that.

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