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. So I'm so excited. I have someone who I've been just dying to meet on with me today and welcome Molly.

Molly of breaking up with sugar, which this is not the final cover. I was really lucky and I got an early release copy and then I made the mistake of starting talking about it because I was so blown away by your book.

And I was like, where can I get one? Where can I get one? So everybody had to wait and it was all this pressure. But anyway, now people have it and it's lived up to all the hype. It's phenomenal. And I can't wait to have this conversation with you today. So welcome. So good to have you.

I am fanning out. I'm so excited. I'm such a big lover of your work too. Annie, I'm so glad to be here. That's so awesome. So fun. So I would love to just like, I know you're probably sick of telling it, but I would love to dig into your story and just kind of hear, you know, all the nitty gritty where it all started how accumulated into this masterpiece that's sitting beside me.

Yeah, well, I always think about my story. It feels always feels a little bit divine, you know, because my, you know, I had all this personal trauma and wreckage and and then my professional life just started to go through it with with it and.

And I always say, you know, I make programs for my sickest self, right? And I write books for my sickest self. Like when I read over when I was reading over the book, you know, there will be moments where it was like I was being too like new me and it wasn't speaking to old me. So I was feel really turn on the other side of it. But yeah, I mean, when I was.

Little shy of three, my dad passed away really, uh, dramatically and really quickly. And, you know, in that, when I figured that out and I said to my mom, you know, where's dad and she said, you know, whatever you're supposed to say.

I like, it was it's been told to me like I really turned to sugar immediately. Like really turned to sugar immediately. And I think that makes all the sense in the world, biocamically and, you know, emotionally. And so,

you know, I was a big bone kid from the beginning. It was like nine pounds, 12 ounces. And so, you know, but then around seven, um, and I was all about the food, right? Like we went to the amusement park. I wanted the churros, right? Like I was over at my friend's Jenny's house. I couldn't get to the Oreos fast enough. So it's just like pretty food centric this whole time.

And then when I was seven, the adults were worried about me and they took me nutritionist, which like, you know, I think makes sense.

Because my behavior is around food or troubling. And you know, it's funny because I actually remember being that nutritionist thinking to myself, like, this is not going to solve my problem. Like I just want to eat a lot of food. And how you were like seven.

Yeah. So interesting. And, um, and then, you know, and then I think the story sounds like a lot of people stories, right? Because it was really my relationship with dieting really started there.

And that demoralizing cycle, right? That trauma and drama. And so I would like go on a diet and, you know, the diet would inevitably fail me and, um, demoralization and weight gain and self hate and all of that. And then I would turn to sugar.

And feel a little bit better. And then I would go on another diet, get get get it together again, get that like hope in earnestness and maybe I can do it again. And the diet would fail me.

And, you know, I never thought that sugar was my problem because it was really my solution. Right. And, um, and then my professional path just started to started to come in like I've always been like this. Like I was like, I knew that nobody was solving my problem. Right. And I was going. I mean, I'm and like we're not talking like I've been on two diets. Like there isn't a diet. I haven't been on. There isn't a doctor. I haven't been to there isn't a self help or paid support group.

You know, I ate my way through bariatric surgery. Right. Like any. Yeah, I'm really I'm telling you. I'm really the poster.

And, you know, and the whole time. And one of the things that I did when I was 25, I was hired to like be the clinical director of a therapeutic boarding school in California. And I was taught like very weight loss model.

And it was really low fat, the calorie canteen. Remember those days of like honey mustard pretzels and like that free brownies and like snack whilst cookies. And and at that point, you know, I it sort of worked for me because I was like in this environment where they were they were giving me the food and I was walking a lot and whatever. But so

suffices to say always somewhere inside of me. I knew that I wanted to find this comprehensive solution to help people. I'm not sure I signed up for like the, you know, demoralization and sadness and the path that I would have to take. But on the other side of it, it actually is okay because I really experienced almost everything you could experience. And so I think that helps me to be helpful to others.

But by the end of all of that and so having eaten through the bariatric surgery and, you know, I'm a trained addiction professional at this point, I'm a trained eating disorder professional like to say doing that work while being an active addict and eating disorder person.

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