Now 15 years in recovery, Stefanie reflects on the pivotal moment that led her to quit drinking, its public exposure, and her new book, “Drunk-ish.”
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, welcome to Heart of the Matter.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m excited.
Oh my gosh. So it’s been how many years? I interviewed you for a special I did on women and alcohol on 20/20 many years ago.
You did. It was a great interview. I was only nine months sober at the time. And you also had Mary Karr on and she had 20 years. And I remember that Mary Karr was like, “You’re nine months sober? I was a mess at nine months sober.” And I was like, “Well, it takes all types.”
It does.
And then you guys went to lunch together, I found out, and I was really jealous.
Mary Karr actually took me to my first AA meeting.
Really?
If you can believe it. Yeah she did. She wrote this amazing memoir called ‘Lit’ all about her journey to sobriety.
Oh yeah.
And one of the many, many books that I read when I was struggling and trying to figure out what to do, and she was an incredible help. So anyway, it’s so great to see you again and congratulations on … It’s 15 years of sobriety now.
15 years. Yeah. It was 15 years in May.
That’s so great. So you and I have a similarity thing in that we were both kids who were super anxious and you say you started drinking pretty young when you were just 14 years old to relieve that anxiety.
Yeah. And I don’t even think I knew at the time. And I’ve read your book, which is just absolutely beautiful, which I mentioned in my book because I talked about our interview.
I did read that part.
I really related because I felt like as a kid, I didn’t know that that feeling of being uncomfortable in my skin and just so self-conscious and not ever even-keeled, but I didn’t know that that was anxiety. Nobody told me that what you’re feeling is anxious and there’s treatment for it. So I think I was always in search of something to make me feel better. So the first thing was sugar, and then I always thought there was something wrong with me because I was a kid who just always wanted more. More of whatever it was that I thought made me feel better. So when I started drinking, it was like, “wow, this is helpful”. But I didn’t know that I was treating anxiety. I just thought like, “Oh, this is fun. I finally feel brave.” I did everything for the first time drinking.
It’s interesting because I, too was so anxious as a kid and it was so obvious to anybody watching. I had massive panic attacks and that sort of thing. And nobody’s noticed or said anything. So in that sense, when you’re a kid, you can’t put a word on it. And more importantly, you don’t know that there are other people who feel the same way.
Right. Yeah. Exactly.
You tend to internalize, there must be something wrong with me and I just need to fix it.
I felt that way the whole time. Through all of my drinking I felt that kind of shame and embarrassment that I can’t control this thing that other people seem to be able to control. When I go to a party, and I mean to have two glasses of wine, and then I end up having six. And I always had a thing like, “Well, it’s because somebody just kept refilling my wine glass and I just tend to lose …” There was always an excuse in my head, but somewhere inside I was just like, “What is wrong with me?” You know that thing where it was just embarrassing. Why can’t I control this the way other people can? Why do I end up embarrassing myself and other people don’t? I don’t think I’m doing something that different than other people.
You’re also a comedian, and alcohol you say is a big part of that and a big part of what you needed to do to get on stage and perform and be funny. It was like, “I got to have a couple.”
Definitely. Well, it goes along with that thing of just from the time I was 14 and I needed to be a little buzzed to have my first kiss. It’s a bravery thing. I felt more self-confident, more easy in my own skin, and I definitely needed that to be on stage because I was just anxious. Anxious and self-conscious. And I felt like if I don’t have a couple of drinks, I can’t be funny. And there’s nothing worse … And I’m sure as a performer, even though it’s your job, even when it’s your job getting up there and feeling not relaxed and not capable of doing the thing that you’re supposed to be doing. I tend to get into an anxious spiral where, “Uh oh, I’m self-conscious, this doesn’t feel right.” And I just thought I needed to have a couple … Just a little, just something to take the edge off. Later for me it was Xanax because once I had a prescription for Xanax, it was like, “Oh, if I could just have a half a Xanax, just a little thing to take the edge off, I’m going to be so much funnier.”
One of the reasons why I interviewed you for that special I did on 20/20 was because you really later in life spoke about, wrote about, connected with other moms and alcohol. And that was the part of your story that I found so unique. Because in your late 30s, I’m here. The same thing. I had my first baby when I was 39 years old. I thank God I was fortunate enough to be able to do that. You started a blog and you really found a community because other moms were also struggling and other moms were also drinking. Talk about that a little bit.
I started it when my older daughter was only a couple of months old and I just felt completely displaced by parenthood. I came from a background of TV writing. Joke writing, humor writing, where I was almost always the only woman in the room. It was not a thing where I talked to other moms where I ever cared or talked about having babies or anything like that. And like you, I had my first daughter late. I think I was 38, and all of a sudden my life totally changed and I felt incredibly isolated, bored. I didn’t know what that feeling was, but I felt like, “Oh God. Is this what it is? Is my day just going to consist of going to Target and making conversations about formula? I can’t take it.” So I needed an outlet.
And the drinking thing, I wasn’t really meaning to talk about drinking. It was just that I’m home. I got this baby, I’m bored. I’m having a couple glasses of wine to take the edge off at the end of the day, and then I’m writing about it. And that’s where I found, oh, that’s what other moms are doing too. It was a big surprise to me, and then I just embraced it. I was like, “Oh, well, here we go. I’ve got these other … This is so cool. I’m connecting with people online. They’re commenting on my blog. I’m commenting on their blog. I’ve found such camaraderie.” And for one of the first times I felt connected and not alone. I think what’s interesting is that yes, we were all kind of doing that, and then at some point around the time I think that I quit drinking, a lot of us started to realize, oh, this is not good. This is a problem.
Right. But before you got to the not good part, you wrote, ‘Sippy Cups are Not for Chardonnay,’ ‘Naptime is the New Happy Hour.’
Yes.
And I remember going to birthday parties when my kids were really little and being surprised and thrilled that they were serving wine at this noon birthday party. There did seem to be this movement that you wrote or were part of where it was like, “Hey, I deserve this. I deserve a cocktail in the middle of the day. I’ve got to change diapers all day long and monitor play dates.” In other words, talk a little bit about that movement, that environment, what that was like, why you thought this is my reward for a day of non-stop caretaking and what you were tapping into, because I’m setting up the backlash when you announced, okay, I’m not drinking anymore.
Right. Well, definitely when I was writing about it, I did not think that I had a drinking problem. I thought, this is just what I’m doing. This is how I’m making myself feel better. I felt like everybody must do this. If you find something that helps you, you imagine that everybody else is doing that too. I didn’t really hang out with people who didn’t like to have … All of my mom friends at the time … Well, that’s not actually true. I had some mom friends that didn’t drink very much so I didn’t hang out with them that much. I gravitated towards the ones that I bonded with over when I would go to their house, let’s have a couple glasses of wine.
It helped me connect with myself before I had a kid. And I think that was true for a lot of women. I think we were adults. We were women who got to go out at night and hang out with our husbands and drink and have sex or go to the gym or do things that were adult things. And then we have a baby. And a lot of us found ourselves … Even if we worked … Because I had friends that worked. But there’s something about when you come home at night and you feel like, “Oh, I can’t just go out. I can’t just go to the gym. I’m a mom now. I have to be home with these kids.” So I think that the drinking felt like an escape and it felt bonding to other women because we all felt like, “Well, if we can’t escape our houses, at least we can escape in our minds a little bit.” And I think it brought a lot of us together.
And also … And I stand by this, there shouldn’t have been the judgment about it. If it’s not a problem, why is it okay for the dads to hang out and watch the game and have some beers, but suddenly it’s wrong if a mom is having a couple glasses of wine? So I think we sort of rebelled against that notion that we’re not allowed because we’re the mom. And I think that it was incredibly bonding for other moms to be in this together. If I went to a friend’s house for a play date with our kids and they broke out the wine, I was like, “Okay. This is somebody I can hang with. This is going to be a fun afternoon.” And it didn’t mean that I was getting drunk. It just meant that yes, we’re going to bond over … We can do this. It just connects us with our adult selves. Do you feel that way?
I was working and I didn’t after my first. My journey with alcohol was after my second. That’s when I thought I had postpartum depression. It turns out now I know I was perimenopausal. I was in a hormone cyclone after I had my second baby. And as I write about it in my book, there were a lot of reasons why I think I was turning to alcohol. Mostly because I’m an alcoholic. But that’s when I fell off a cliff was several years after the birth of my second child. Now looking back on it, I understand some of what I was feeling was completely hormonal, and I don’t think doctors pay enough attention to women in perimenopause and menopause and what that does to them. And nobody was treating me for it, but I don’t know.
I remember that being a thing for a while and feeling that same thing you did a couple of times. Surprised that I would walk into an early in the day birthday party and that they were serving alcohol. It wasn’t something I could engage in because at that point I was working so much and I wasn’t in the grips of the disease of alcoholism at that point. I do know that culturally … I’m not sure we’re at a point now where we celebrate that quite as much. But I know that you know because later on you quit drinking and some of these women who followed you, and loved you, and celebrated you, and bought your books felt like you had removed their permission slips somehow. That you were now with maybe some other parts of society that frowned upon the mom having a cocktail while they say, “Sure. It’s okay for the dad.”
Well, yes and no. Because yes, I’m sure that when it first happened, there were definitely a lot of moms who got scared. And I know that because a lot of those women are sober now and connect to me and write to me and message me.
Really?
Yes.
So wait, back up. So you announced on your blog, I’m not drinking anymore. I’ve decided to stop drinking.
So here’s what happened. It was a slow … I thought the drinking was fine until it wasn’t fine. And I think that’s relatable to a lot of people. It was good and then it felt like a compulsion, and I started to feel like I can’t not do this. This thing that I thought was fun and helping me is now something I feel chained to. And then I was actively trying quit drinking. Trying to moderate. I’m only going to drink on the weekends. I’m only going to drink on the weekdays. I got into this cycle of feeling bad about myself the next morning, promising myself I wasn’t going to drink. And then by the end of the day, rationalizing it and going, you know what? Screw it. I’m going to have one glass of wine. Just one little glass of wine, and that’s it. And then I open a bottle, drink it.
And so that cycle continued for a little while until, and by the way, just to speak to something that you brought up earlier, also, when I was pregnant, I felt pretty good while I was pregnant. And then after I had my daughter, my anxiety shot way up and I didn’t recognize it. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. What was wrong with me was I was also experiencing postpartum. What I later was diagnosed with postpartum anxiety. But I didn’t know I had that. So I just felt like something’s wrong with me. I’m not experiencing motherhood the way other people are. I’m so full of anxiety. I’m counting my baby’s breaths because I read that they’re supposed to breathe 60 times a minute. It was not a great experience. Eventually I was diagnosed and then I was prescribed medication for it, and I did start to feel better. But I wasn’t understanding that the drinking wasn’t helping me. I thought the drinking was also helping me. Drinking-
Because it does at first and then it doesn’t.
It does at first, and it has the opposite effect. It can make you more anxious. So I didn’t know that I was in this cycle that I was causing myself. So I had made a decision that trying to control my drinking is so difficult that what if I just decided that I’m somebody who likes to drink? I’m a drinker and I’m going to drink, but I’m not going to ever do anything dangerous. I’m going to drink at home after the kids are in bed. What’s wrong with that? And then as you may have read in my book or heard from my story, I was out at just a regular hangout with a bunch of moms and their babies, and there were nannies watching the kids and everybody was drinking and I had a couple of martinis. And because this is who I am, I never think I’m drunk. Even when I’m drunk, my brain tells me I’m fine. I decided to drive home with two of my kids in the car.
It was at that time, nothing happened. I got home. My husband was absolutely furious. He’d been trying to call me all night. And I really had this moment where I could see myself really clearly, and it was just one of those, what are you doing? What are you doing? You did this thing. It was the most risky thing. You would’ve absolutely judged another mom for this behavior, and here you are. Why is that? Because I obviously can’t handle my alcohol. I make bad decisions. So I made this decision. Okay, but here’s getting back to what you’re saying. Prior to that, I’d still been blogging all the time about how much I love drinking. Because remember, I had just decided that I’m an alcohol enthusiast and drinking’s fun and I’m going to own it. So I made a sharp right turn, and I was like, “Uh-oh.” I’m quitting drinking. I started going to meetings. I asked for help. I was doing all the things. And now I’m like, “I have to write on this blog. I can’t just disappear.”
So it was really difficult. I was crying when I wrote the blog post. Of course, I wasn’t going to say I drove drunk. I was not ready for that. But in fact, when I did the interview with you, and that was nine months into it, I did not reveal that I drove drunk. It wasn’t until years later. I still felt humiliated. I felt like I would be judged by the entire world. Just saying that I think I drink too much, I thought I would be judged. And yes, that’s when shit hit the fan. Then the New York Times wrote a post about it, about me drinking, and I was horrified. And that is when the backlash … Negative comments. A lot of people had something to say about it, and it was a really hard time. And I-
What were they saying when you say these negative comments?
She shouldn’t have been allowed to have kids. Oh, if she hates being a mother so much, if it’s so hard, then why did she even have kids to begin with? Oh, it’s so disgusting that she’s drinking. CPS should take her kids away. And that’s without saying the drinking and driving part. That’s just me saying that I think I drink too much and decided to quit. So listen, we can’t go by internet comments, but it was difficult. But what I was saying is that later, much later, a lot of the women that felt maybe a little betrayed by me and a little under the microscope by the decision I’d made told me that that is when they started taking a look at their own drinking. Most of them didn’t say they immediately were like, “Oh, if she can do it, I can do it.” But it planted the seed. And I’m proud to say that once I’d made that decision, I leaned into it and decided to talk about … I was like, “I’m already outed, so if my story can help people, then I’m just going to do it.” I agreed to go on Dr. Oz. I agreed to do the interview with you. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t pleasant to be talking about something that felt really humiliating. But I knew it helped people to hear their story, as I’m sure you felt the same way writing your book.
Tell me about some of the messages. It’s just such an interesting arc that initially women were furious and people were awful and very judgmental. And then months, maybe a year later, you start getting the messages saying, “Thank you, actually. You made me reconsider my own relationship with alcohol.” That just says so much.
It’s really beautiful. It’s a really beautiful thing to realize that just by being honest … I’ll tell you, I don’t know if you saw this part in the book. This is the part that was about you. I talked about what a great interview. You made it such a great experience. I know now that you felt interested in this story and maybe you were hearing something that you related to in my story. But you were so generous with your energy and you were just sweet. I never felt treated like, oh, I’m trying to make this a scandalous news story. On the other hand, I did another interview a few years later, which I talked about in the book with another famous journalist, and it was a terrible experience and I was hosting a kids’ TV show. Well, it was a show for moms. And I’d really stopped talking about the alcoholism thing. I’d really stopped talking about it because I felt like I did it, I talked about it, we’re good.
And by the way, I’m sober and I’ve been sober for several years. It’s a past chapter of my life.
Yeah. Yes. Yes. I’m trying to think. I must have been four something years sober. And I was like, “This isn’t all there is about me. I’m hosting a show.” Has nothing to do with drinking. It’s a comedic show. But I was asked to do it and I was really talked into it. The producer called me. “You’re going to connect with other moms. We love what you’re doing. The show that you’re going to be on, you’re going to be the expert.” Okay. You get it. So I agreed to do it.
A couple nights before I was to fly to New York, the producer called me and said, “Hey, we found this thing on YouTube where you talked about driving drunk.” And quite honestly, I said, “I haven’t told that part of my story, and I’m not comfortable with it. And I feel like it would open me up to so much … I’ve already been judged really harshly. This is going to make it 10 times worse. I don’t want to talk about that. No, thank you.” So then they said, “Okay, okay.”
Well, I was outed basically on the show. She didn’t care about my story. And then in the middle of the interview, she said, “So you drove drunk with your kids in the car.” Something to the effect of why did you do that. But here’s the thing. I was really mad and I felt embarrassed and humiliated, but what was I going to do? I wasn’t going to lie. That’s not what I was taught in recovery. So I had to go with it. I was really upset. I cried afterwards. I had to put my publicist with me. I was like, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know what to do. They promised me they weren’t going to ask me about this.” She was really sweet about it. The show’s publicist was like, “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.” And then I braced for impact when that show aired and I received nothing but love and nothing but other moms saying, “Thank you for sharing that part of your story and I too have done that.” And that was really freeing. I’m not happy that that happened and it wasn’t my choice. But I feel like it’s just better not to have secrets because I think we all have done … Anybody that’s made the decision to quit drinking-
There’s a reason why.
There’s a reason why. We’ve all had that moment of desperation. You don’t stop doing a thing that’s really helpful to you and works because like, oh, I read an article that drinking’s not good for you. That is nobody’s story that I have met that has any type of long-term sobriety. We do things that are so horrifying to us that we don’t feel like we have another choice but to stop. And some of us are lucky enough to stop and have it stick.
Is that why you wrote ‘Drunk-ish,’ your new book, your newest book? Just to give other people out there a roadmap for what you went through and how you came out the other side and continue to thrive and succeed?
I wrote ‘Drunk-ish’ because with 15 years under my belt, I get asked a lot … Because of the fact that these people who read my blog and followed me, I get a lot of … Or on Facebook, I will post every year how long I’ve been sober. People reach out to me. And a lot of times I feel like I’m in a position to help people. Not like I’m some expert or work at a treatment center or can tell people how to do it. But I feel that by sharing my story, it does help other people. And I thought my story is a little bit unique as yours is in the way that I wasn’t somebody who was waking up every morning and having a drink just to function in my day. I wasn’t there yet. But yet I think my bottom was my bottom for me.
I always walked around saying, especially at the beginning, I was like, I was really high functioning. I was a high bottom alcoholic. And the truth is … This woman at a meeting said to me, you were driving drunk with your kids in the car. It’s not that fancy. And it really struck me. I was like, why do I compare myself and go, well, I wasn’t that bad. It doesn’t matter. And the reason I wrote the book is because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how your drinking was. Your drinking was not serving you.
But then how do I stop? Is my life going to be really boring? Am I never going to have fun again? Am I never going to be able to have sex with my husband? Am I never going to be able to just watch TV on the couch without a glass of wine in my hand? And the thing was, is I’d gotten through all those things and figured it out. You know what I’m saying? I figured out how to live in my skin and not drink. And I wanted to share my story, not tell anybody else if they have a … I don’t know. We can’t know if somebody else has a problem. But I wanted to share my story because I feel that when I talk about my story and I wasn’t in the gutter drinking bourbon out of a paper bag, people relate and other moms relate and can see themselves.
They can. And you’ve connected with other moms from the very beginning with your earliest blogs. There’s a reason. Obviously you’re able to write in a way that women see themselves, hear themselves. And now all these years later, you have a different story and a different message, and it’s still resonating, obviously. Which is why you’ve had so much success.
Anyway, the book is fantastic. Everybody should read a copy. It’s called ‘Drunk-ish.’ Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. It is so great to see you again and interview you again after all these years. People can find our 20/20 special, I think on YouTube someplace.
I think it is on there. It was a really good special. I still have people-
It was a good special.
Yeah. A lot of people reached out to me from that. You did a beautiful job. I’m really glad you did that episode.
Yeah. It’s all about women and drinking. And you are one of three or four women we profiled in it, and it was really something. It’s so great to see you. I’m so glad that you continue to have so much success.
Thank you. You too. And thank you for having me.
My pleasure. Thank you, Stefanie.