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 and I'm here today with Wendy. Hi, Wendy. How are you? Hi, Annie. I'm great. How are you?

I'm good.

Thanks for joining.

So why don't you take me back kind of to the beginning, like where, where did it all start with you?

What was your first drink look like in your first memories around alcohol?

Well, my very first drink was terrible. I didn't, I didn't, I don't remember trying. I'm sure I did try a drink at some point and just have a couple of sips of something but I don't really have any specific memory around that.

The first drinking experience that I remember was when I was about 15 and I mixed together a bunch of different liquors together in a jar with a friend of mine and drank it straight and got so sick and it was so embarrassing.

I think we're going to my very first high school dance. Actually, the most embarrassing thing about it was that my dad had taught at this high school for 16 years and he had just left to take another job as a principal and so he wasn't at the school anymore but everybody knew who I was and I was so sick at this dance and through up on a police officer and my parents.

I was the worst, was the worst first drinking experience and the good news about it was that I turned me off alcohol for a while. So I kind of stayed away from it for, you know, or at least was very careful with it for the for the next few years.

Oh, wow. So like, did you get arrested or how did you throw up on?

Oh my gosh, no, but my, it was just awful. So my dad had to come pick me up with my mom. He was mortified and he wouldn't come in to get me. So my mom had to come in to get me.

I threw up on the on the police officer, but the principal is also there. So the next day, my parents, I remember, oh, I was so hungover.

My first hangover and it was terrible and I had to call the police officer. They made me call the police station, ask for the police officer by name and apologize to him.

And then I had to go in and see the principal and apologize to the principal. So, you know, I probably got off pretty easy, but I was, I was so embarrassed and my parents were so disappointed. So anyway, it stuck. It was a good lesson for me. And I was really just had kind of a typical high school, you know, with in terms of alcohol.

And then I went to university. I did my undergrad and had a pretty typical college experience with alcohol to like some binge drinking, which was, you know, and still is, I think, all the rage.

So we did that, but it was just maybe once a week.

And, and again, pretty typical, not really a problem.

Then I went to law school after that. And it's kind of a repeat. It's the same thing. It was in law school, though, that I started to get, I started to hear a little bit about like the lifestyles of being a lawyer.

And to be perfectly honest, I didn't go to law school because I wanted to be a lawyer. I went to law school because everybody else thought I should go to law school. And I didn't know what else to do.

So I went, I was in law school. I was a little unsure about what I was doing. I loved law school.

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