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 Amy. Hi, Amy. Hi, Yanny. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me. Oh, thanks for being here. It's awesome. So why don't you kind of take us back to the beginning in your journey with alcohol like back to kind of your first drink or when you were a kid? Oh, you know, there wasn't a lot of alcohol in my house.

I'm going to go back to your first drink or when you were a kid. Oh, you know, there wasn't a lot of alcohol in my household growing up. I come from a small town, conservative family. Of course, there would be events and it would be there, but it really was not part of my upbringing.

There wasn't a feeling about it one way or the other. It's just there were, you know, our focus was on other things. It just wasn't around really until.

And a high school, a lot of my friends enjoyed drinking, but I always seemed on the outskirts of those groups. I really didn't start drinking until college.

And I at that time I thought it was just something college students did and figured once I graduated, I would move on and it wouldn't really be part of my life. And in large part, that was true for many years. That was true.

I did have one really fun year in college. Then I graduated and I went to law school and you know moved on with my life. It really did not become become prevalent in my life until I became a parent and was a parent became a parent to a special needs son pretty involved.

And then less than two years later, he had a little brother who also had needs. So really wasn't until my parenting experience that it became common in my household.

Okay, interesting. So you had you had some fun in college, but it wasn't it was really kind of a take it or leave it sort of sort of situation.

I thought, you know, I need to get on with my life. That's something the kids do using abuse. And so I'm just going to move on with my life. I remember going reconnecting with childhood friends who were also some of my college friends for a high school reunion and one of them said to me, you don't you don't drink.

How do you not drink? And I just said, well, it's really not part of our lives. And she went on, well, when you go to somebody's house for dinner, you bring about a wine. Right. I mean, how how do you avoid that? And I said, well, this boy, I don't go anywhere for dinner. I'm a special needs mom. So my life was was entirely different. I found it notable that that was curious to a lot of people that I had known earlier in my life. But really, no, it just was not part of my life until I became a parent.

And so can you talk to me a little bit about, you know, your emotions, I mean, I'm a mother of three none of them are special needs, but I remember kind of the process when you're pregnant of going through the diagnostics and whatnot and waiting for the results and that emotion and what what that was like for you.

A diagnostics of my children. Yeah, when you were did you know there were special needs before they were born? No. Okay, so you didn't have that kind of.

No, there was no preparation. There was no nothing. You go into the hospital, your naive, you're a little bit scared. You have an idea of what you think that life is going to be. And in the blank of the night, it changes. And that isn't always the case. It was the case with my older son, not my younger. Well, yes, my younger son too.

Okay. Yeah, that emotion is always just beneath the surface. And so a slight tangent is that I know that there's the argument of, look, you don't want to, you don't want to take a drink. You know that it's not going to change anything.

Drinking is not going to suddenly take away the diagnosis. And my response was always, but that's the point. That's the whole reason why we drink is because it's not going away. It's a marijuana. It's life long. I know it's not going to go away, but at least for the next 20, 30 minutes or however long, can I not think about it. So those emotions never go away.

Those emotions never go. They're always there. And it's, it's the harsh reality of what this life is. Could I preface this by saying, I'm a proud mother. And I am a proud special needs mother. I love my children, just like you love your children.

And so when we have these conversations, we'll have some, some honest words. But it really does not take that love away. I feel that honest words help us all.

It certainly doesn't negate any love that I have for my children, but it is a tough life. It is tough.

My first son, I could tell from his first cry. I knew when I had him, I could tell by that cry that cry was not quote unquote normal. But I was hormonal. I was, I had just given birth.

I was young, girl. I wasn't a young, young mother, but maybe mentally I was, because I just thought life played out in a certain way. It was very similar to the way that I grew up. And I just thought, I'd be a soccer mom. My kids being school they grew up, they go to college. That's what life was going to be.

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