00:00:19
Raquel Baldelomar
Hi, my name is Raquel Baldelomar, and welcome to the Mega podcast where I speak with high achievers on how they fulfill their professional dreams while achieving balance throughout their lives. Today I am with Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. She is an author, TV personality, and co-hosted the popular podcast for Crying Out Loud. She co-created and hosted the late night comedy parenting Show, Parental Discretion with Stefanie Wilder-Taylor for Nick Mom on Nickelodeon. She is the author of Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, Naptime Is the New Happy Hour. It's Not me, It's You, I'm Kind Of A Big Deal, And Gummy Bears Should Not Be Organic. Stefanie was born in Queens, New York. Her biological father was standup comedian Stanley Myron Handelman. She is a podcaster and also teaches memoir writing classes and her latest book, Drunk-ish: Loving and Leaving Alcohol, which will be released in January, 2024. She talks about her journey as a wine-loving mommy blogger to giving up alcohol. She lives in LA with her husband, John, and their three teenagers. Stefanie, welcome to the Mega podcast.
00:01:26
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed hearing my bio because I sound like such a go-getter.
00:01:32
Raquel Baldelomar
Are you a go-getter?
00:01:33
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I don't feel like it, but I guess when you hear about all the things I do, I guess.
00:01:37
Raquel Baldelomar
I mean, I'm telling you to write all the books you've written. I've written one book and I'm trying to work on my second book. It is hard.
00:01:44
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
It's really hard.
00:01:44
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah. So when I see you've, all the books you've written, the podcast, the blogs, I mean, you have to have some level of go-getter.
00:01:53
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I guess I'm a go-getter that sees myself as sort of laid back, but I know I must not be
00:02:01
Raquel Baldelomar
Right. No, I think you are. But you're also a mom too, and that is such a privilege. I mean, to be a mom and your, how old are your kids now?
00:02:10
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I have twins who are going on 16, almost 16, and then I have a daughter who's going on 19.
00:02:16
Raquel Baldelomar
0h, 16 and 19.
00:02:18
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah,
00:02:18
Raquel Baldelomar
Love those. Dude, I was a rebel at those ages.
00:02:21
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I was so bad. I look at my kids now and I'm like my twins who are almost 16, and I'm like at 14. I was already drinking up a storm, staying out late. I mean, I was trouble.
00:02:33
Raquel Baldelomar
I was too. I was too. But it also, I think that when you have that childhood where you were kind of a difficult child and that you had difficult experiences, I think it really kind of prepares you in a way for parenthood and how do you then use that to be a better parent? And especially when your kids are going through difficult, they're going through adolescence how to be a good parent for them.
00:03:00
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I definitely feel like I overcompensate a little bit though because having had that deprivation in my childhood, I sometimes have to stop myself from, it's not that they're spoiled, it's just that I try not to allow them to have too much pain or suffering. Do you know what I mean? And sometimes it's like you got to also build resiliency in your kids and let them fail.
00:03:22
Raquel Baldelomar
You do, and you need to let them make their own mistakes knowing that they might make their own mistakes and
00:03:28
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
They will make their own mistakes. And then you have to find that balance, which is the theme of your show, to go how much do I want to protect them and how much do I want to let them hurt a little bit,
00:03:40
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Find their way?
00:03:40
Raquel Baldelomar
Oh, yeah. Well, I want to talk about parenting. I think that's such an important part of just what you as a mother, as someone who connects with other mothers and really talks about the reality of motherhood. And
00:03:51
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Mhm
00:03:51
Raquel Baldelomar
Think it's really great that you were, you've done that, but I also want to just get into your own childhood and just what it was like growing up. So in the research I have, your parents divorced when you were four,
00:04:05
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Mhm
00:04:05
Raquel Baldelomar
Then you just moved around a lot and you had a stepdad who was emotionally abusive to you.
00:04:13
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
He wasn't great. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah, I would say I had a pretty chaotic childhood because, and also when your parents divorce, when you're that young and you don't understand that your parents are separate people going through their own things. So I think what I knew as a kid was I just wasn't getting my needs met and then constantly moving, constantly changing schools. And I was an anxious kid who got really bad headaches. I got migraines from the age of really young age, as young as I can remember getting migraines. And it was, yeah. And my stepfather was, I just don't think he ever cared for me.
00:05:00
Raquel Baldelomar
And I can understand that I get migraines too, and it's debilitating. And to get them, when I remember reading how you said you got them at five and people would say, you're lying. They wouldn't even believe the fact that you had migraines.
00:05:13
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah. It's interesting because my older daughter got a migraine when she was probably five, and I recognized it right away. She felt nauseous. She just kept saying, my head hurts. It hurt so bad. And I was like, I know what that is. But when I was elementary school age, I would go to the nurse's office. I would have this horrible headache, and a lot of times my mom would refuse to come get me because
00:05:40
Raquel Baldelomar
They didn't believe you.
00:05:43
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I think. Yeah. I mean, that's how I remember. I remember that she, yeah.
00:05:48
Raquel Baldelomar
And I remember reading saying that you were considered the "designated problem" in the family,
00:05:57
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
The identified problem. Have you ever heard of that in therapy? Yes, because I feel like there were a lot of, looking back, especially, I feel like there were a lot of problems in the whole family. My mother and stepfather went on to have two more kids. I'm really close to my brother still. He lives out here. But I was the one that was the, so-called cause of any issues in the family, whether my brother wasn't getting along with my stepfather, whoever was arguing, it was like I was the cause I was the bad one, the black sheep.
00:06:33
Raquel Baldelomar
And how did he think that affected you?
00:06:36
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh, I think I grew up with a chip on my shoulder. I was rebellious. I had a, can we swear?
00:06:42
Raquel Baldelomar
Of course.
00:06:43
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh, fuck you attitude all the time. I, oh my gosh, Raquel, I did not get along at jobs. I mean, I was arguing, arguing with bosses. It was hard. I think I just sort of gave up on, I just felt like people didn't like me and I had a lot of problems in, I feel like this is therapy. I had issues in school. I feel like I was kind of bullied. I feel like, I found it difficult to make friends. I was always moving. So I definitely think that carried into my adulthood with just, my husband says that I have a thing where I always think of myself as an outsider. Even if you kind of look at me and how I live, I'm the most generic mom. You know what I mean though? It's, I'm very normal. I'm not that edgy, but inside my head is an edgy, I don't care attitude. It's gotten better.
00:07:37
Raquel Baldelomar
Well, you've had to almost develop that because it seems like there wasn't real love and support in growing up, and we don't have that. Then you find protective mechanism. You find coping mechanisms a
00:07:49
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Lot of, yes, and really, I mean, I know we'll get to this, but a lot of sobriety and learning to be a sober person. A lot of that work was kind of dropping some of that shield and kind of learning to be more vulnerable and learning to find other mother figures in my life and lean on my friends and realize that I have a lot of love in my life, and I don't have to walk around with that.
00:08:18
Raquel Baldelomar
No, I think it's for a lot of people who watch this and a lot of other people who are also going through difficult family relationships, it's to be able to, especially as a young child, to say, you know what? This is just not right. I need to find quality, maternal figures, quality paternal figures in other ways. It's really hard to do that as a young child, as an adolescent.
00:08:42
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
It's really hard. And I think that anybody that's growing up under difficult circumstances, as kids, our natural thing is to go like, well, it must be my fault. It must be my fault that people don't love me or that people don't respond to me, or people aren't there for me. I must repel people in some way.
00:09:01
Raquel Baldelomar
Do you think that, would you consider that traumatic, would you consider that being a form of PTSD?
00:09:11
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I don't know. That's hard to say because maybe, I definitely think that I used a lot of substances as a coping mechanism. So whether that was to blot some of that, maybe it's trauma. I mean, I guess there's not, there wasn't one specific incident, but there were a few incidences that I can point to that I can say that I feel like there was a, before and after,
When I was 16, after one of our moves, we'd moved from Spokane, Washington to Springfield, Massachusetts, and I was not getting along with my stepfather. And it's funny too, I do feel like this is therapy because my kids are the age that I was. They're a little bit older. When my kids were 15, which was the age I was when we moved, I can't imagine my kids doing anything to make me feel like, I don't like you. I don't feel like you're a part of my family. My stepfather was actively at this point, not speaking to me, didn't like me. So my parents and my brother and sister drove across the country and they wouldn't have me in the car with them. So they flew me across the country to stay at my grandparents' house. So we were all together at a friend of my mom's house briefly for a couple of weeks. And then my mom sent me to a runaway shelter to live for about two weeks until the runaway shelter was like, well, this child is not a runaway, so you can't just dump your kids here. You got to go pick her up. And then my mom begrudgingly picked me back up from this. It was a terrible experience. And I definitely, and then she brought me back to their house. They bought a house and I lived there, and then I was on borrowed time. It was as soon as I can get out of here, I'm getting out of here.
00:11:03
Raquel Baldelomar
And just, I mean, how that affects you though, I mean, you don't have love. You're rejected. Your rejection on so many levels, which affects your psyche.
00:11:13
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Definitely. That definitely, I feel like there was a distinct before and after to that situation. And I feel like it changed me in a way of just toughened me up and like, okay, well, I'm on my own. I'm going to have to take care of myself.
00:11:27
Raquel Baldelomar
Do you think that led to some of the heavy drinking at that early age of 16, 17, 18? Because you talk about you've started drinking early.
00:11:37
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes, definitely. Yeah, I definitely think that I was using alcohol. I mean, look, bottom line, who knows why people have a toxic relationship with alcohol.
I don't know. My biological father was a pill popper. He was a full on addict. Nobody in my mother's side, no alcoholism that I can see. It's nature, nurture. It doesn't really matter at this point. But yeah, I definitely think that I loved to drink. I was a teenager. I thought it was fun. I thought it helped me escape my home life. I thought I was more fun. It lowered all my inhibitions. I feel like I had a lot of intimacy issues. It was very hard for me to connect, especially to men. And so I think the alcohol helped me feel connected. And then, not that I wasn't having sex with guys, but there was a lot of making out and trying to feel connected. And then when I was sober, I was like, Ew, I don't like that guy anymore.
00:12:44
Raquel Baldelomar
But it's only when you were drinking that you actually felt free and you felt fun.
00:12:49
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes
00:12:50
Raquel Baldelomar
Your inhibitions were lower.
00:12:51
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes.
00:12:51
Raquel Baldelomar
And that's why, I mean, a lot of us do that.
00:12:54
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah.
00:12:55
Raquel Baldelomar
Tell me about your bulimia, because you talk about how it was a release and it was helped with your anxiety or just what do you think caused the bulimia? Was it a weight?
00:13:07
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I think it's interesting because bulimia is definitely another addiction, but I didn't know at that age. I think a lot of girls that develop anorexia, bulimia, I don't think we know. I think we think it's because we feel fat. So to me, it was like, I really like the feeling of eating a lot of food. I felt hungry all the time, and
00:13:30
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I ate food. Honestly. I think food was my first drug. Sugar was my first drug. I loved sugar. I loved candy. I stole candy. There's a chapter in my book where I talk about sugar being my first addiction and remembering the feeling of stealing Halloween candy when I was five, because I just felt like I couldn't get enough. I wanted that fix. As I got older, I realized that I had a relationship with food and sugar that was unhealthy, but to me it was because it was making me gain weight. So I was like, somehow I put it together one day after eating a lot of food. What if I threw up and then I wouldn't have to have that guilt. But the thing is that bulimia is a very addictive thing because when you throw up, there is kind of a release. I don't know.
I know some people that self-harm. I, there's things that people do that other people would be like, that's disgusting. How could you do that? Throwing up your food sounds gross. And it was, but it does something. There is a psychological effect that felt really good. But then it creates a cycle where once you do it, you're like, well, now I am hungry. So you want to eat more food. Or it starts building up, so then you're like, I'm not going to do that again. That's gross. But then at that time, it was once in a while. But then when I moved to Los Angeles at 19, from 16 to 19, it was something that I did not super frequently, but when I moved and I was on my own, I started doing it all the time. But I didn't know it was an addiction. I didn't know was even, I knew I was doing something that was very unhealthy and I wasn't feeling good. And then I figured out that it had a name and that it was not good. And I got myself help, got into therapy.
00:15:35
Raquel Baldelomar
And how did you get out of not being bulimic? So bulimia was the first addiction basically before
00:15:42
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
First Addiction.
00:15:43
Raquel Baldelomar
Okay. Before alcohol.
00:15:44
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah. So I'm a very addictive person. I have a very addictive personality, but it's tricky because, so I went to a 12 step meeting for food addiction. Basically, Overeaters Anonymous is where I went, but I didn't really do that much, but I feel like it was recognizing the problem. I was in therapy. I was reading a bunch of spiritual and self-help books. And then I made this decision where I was like, I'm not going to do it. I'm just not going to do it again. And I, I went on a trip to Jamaica and it was very spiritual for me, and I just was like, you know what? I'm floating on a raft. And I had this epiphany that I don't have to do that to myself. And it was this really beautiful moment, and I kind of felt like something changed internally and I gave it up. So it seems kind of easy when you think about it. Also, another addiction I had very briefly was to cocaine. So I would do cocaine at, I was 18, 19 years old, living in LA. It's probably not in your notes. This is extra. It is.
00:17:00
Raquel Baldelomar
Thank you for sharing this.
00:17:01
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Here we go.
00:17:01
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah, thank you. So
00:17:02
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I started doing coke with not buying it, but with my neighbors. It was like party time
00:17:08
Raquel Baldelomar
Eighties,
00:17:08
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Right?
Doing Coke. I noticed very early on with myself, I mean literally after a few months of this, I was like, something's different about the way that I enjoy cocaine. It's like when I do it, I definitely want more, but I know everybody feels that way that does that drug. But for me, I felt like obsession. Obsession. Who's got it? Where are they going? I felt tortured by it, and it didn't even feel that good. I would feel great for 20 minutes. Everybody was super interesting. I couldn't wait to hear your whole life story. And then all my mind was doing was like, okay, well, I need more cocaine. So after a few months of doing it, I was like, if I continue on this way, I'm going to be like a cokewhore. I'm going to find people that have it, and I'm going to do things beneath my moral compass. And I was like, I need to not do cocaine ever again. So two things that I, you
00:18:07
Raquel Baldelomar
Just stopped.
00:18:08
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I just stopped. Never did it again.
00:18:11
Raquel Baldelomar
You talk about having an addictive personality, and a lot of people who go through sobriety, it's not just one, we talk about this, you talk about this in the book, but you also have that ability to just walk away from that.
00:18:26
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
But that's what's so tricky, right? Because I'd done that with certain things because I was like, well, look at me. I'm obviously not an addict. I stopped doing coke, never did it again. So it was with drinking, it was so hard because I couldn't, anytime I'd be like, okay, I'm never going to drink again. If I'd have one bad night, it was always like, well, I can stop if I really want to. So the rationalization would just be like, yeah, but because nothing terrible ever happened to me from drinking. It was my own. It's hard to explain because cocaine seems, it is such a more, less socially acceptable. It's like if you become addicted to cocaine, that's just not going to be a good look, right? It's not going to lead to a lot of success in life, but somehow people drink and make it work. So I think I spent the next 20 years going about 20 years going, okay, I know I can't do this other thing, and I know I can't be bulimic, and I know I can't do cocaine, but drinking's still cool. I'm going to make that one work.
00:19:33
Raquel Baldelomar
And It's so socially acceptable.
00:19:35
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah
00:19:37
Raquel Baldelomar
What I love, what you're doing is you're now making, not drinking cool. And you go from being a blogger writing books about drinking
00:19:48
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah
00:19:48
Raquel Baldelomar
Targeting mothers who are so stressed out who need a release and need an outlet to now you can also not drink and be cool and be fun and be hip. I mean, because I think for a lot of years I don't drink as well, but for me, I just stopped drinking it because it gave me headaches 10 years ago. But I have seen that it is,
00:20:08
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I don't like that you can drink.
00:20:13
Raquel Baldelomar
Well, what I have seen that people will judge you if you don't drink. And I think
00:20:20
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Right
00:20:21
Raquel Baldelomar
Things are finally starting to change if you choose not to drink. But you can still be fun. You can still go out and party and have fun.
00:20:26
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah, no, good for you. Because I think that's something that you should talk about more because you can make that choice. You don't have to have it get so bad. And especially, I was kidding with you, because I hate it. I hate that some people could drink if they wanted to, and they just choose not to. But that's the whole point.
00:20:45
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah.
00:20:46
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
You're not an addict.
00:20:48
Raquel Baldelomar
Well right. I'm not an addict. But I also, what I noticed is the judgment that comes from other people when you choose not to drink. And I'm sure that you've also experienced that and other people who are going through sobriety, experiencing that,
00:21:04
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Of course
00:21:04
Raquel Baldelomar
The Judgment and what's wrong with you, why don't you want to have fun? So what I'm also seeing is just the new mocktails going to restaurants, and now they're giving people, I was reading articles about, there's new a all water sold that's basically that non-alcoholic drinks, just water, it looks like in a can. That's thing. So I love seeing that, but I also think people who choose not to drink, whether for myself, just choose, we don't want to.
00:21:39
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Right
00:21:40
Raquel Baldelomar
Or people who really are going through sobriety, just that there being a support system by society at large.
00:21:48
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah, I think you're right. I do think things have changed. I mean, when I got sober, it was hard, but it was mostly hard because it was that escape valve
Was not something that I could do anymore. And so I wasn't interested in your flavored sparkling water or your, you know what I mean? It was like, I'm glad to have it now, but it was a struggle then. And yeah, I definitely think it's gotten much more socially acceptable to not drink. Nobody cares, but I don't think people cared that much at the time. And that's the thing that when I was writing the book, I was trying to put in something for people to a lot of people, a lot of women especially say to me when they're trying to get sober, well, what am I going to say when people ask me why I'm not drinking? And it kind of makes me laugh now, and I understand that fear, but it's like, who cares? I either say, oh, I don't drink because I used to drink way too much. And what are people going to say to that? Oh, well, you should give it another try. I think you probably could. I do laugh when people are not even just one.
00:22:56
Raquel Baldelomar
Right?
00:22:57
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah. What part of I'm sober. If I could have just one, I would have just one.
00:23:03
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah. What do you do when you go to restaurants and they put wine in the food? I mean, I'm so sensitive to alcohol. I can feel it. And I don't know if you can or not.
00:23:15
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
One time when I was early on in sobriety, I ordered tiramisu at a restaurant and I, oh my God. I was like, this is a drink. This is an alcoholic. I took one bite and I was like, oh my God.
00:23:28
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah
00:23:28
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Not supposed to be having this. And then I didn't eat it because I did feel like almost like if I eat this whole dessert,
00:23:35
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah that's right
00:23:35
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Just tastes like drinking. But I think in general, I mean, I don't cook with wine. If there was wine in a sauce at a restaurant, I don't think I would notice it.
00:23:48
Raquel Baldelomar
I remember having, there was a wine in a sauce, and I got the worst headache afterwards.
00:23:53
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh, interesting.
00:23:55
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah
00:23:55
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Mean, usually the alcohol cooks out when you cooks out of a sauce. But I cook. I used to make pasta and make pasta sauce, and that was my thing, was a glass for me, a glass for the sauce. So I don't do that anymore.
00:24:13
Raquel Baldelomar
But you made your whole, I mean, one of your biggest identities was being this, you made a living. You say, you talk about, I made a living off of being honest about the fact that motherhood triggers a lot of mental unrest in people. And that mental arrest, people needed a release, a way to just let go.
00:24:36
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Right
00:24:37
Raquel Baldelomar
For moms who are going through just all the stresses of motherhood, if you don't have an addiction, glass of wine is okay, it's okay. But
00:24:46
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Of course, yeah.
00:24:47
Raquel Baldelomar
At what point did you realize for yourself that this is just, I have to, even though this is part of my identity, I am bringing this to light. I can't do this for myself. What happened that made you realize I need to stop?
00:25:02
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, that's a really good question, and there's a couple of things about this. So number one is after I had my daughter, I definitely always had an issue with alcohol. And I do get into it in the book. I tell all the way from childhood, not that I was drinking as a child, but the sugar,
I knew that I had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, but I always felt like, okay, I'm going to be able to manage this. And honestly, it wasn't like I kept wine in the fridge at home. I wasn't drinking so much that it felt like a dangerous thing to me until I had a baby. And the thing about having a baby was the postpartum depression hit me and postpartum anxiety, and I didn't know that I was having it because I didn't have a great support system. My mom wasn't really around me very much. I didn't know other moms. I used to be a standup comedian. I didn't know any other, that was the world I was in. I mean, I was doing standup when I was pregnant with my older daughter. And all the moms are like, most of those people were drinkers, and I just didn't have mommy friends.
I moved from the city. People aren't, not everyone's from Los Angeles, but I moved to the suburbs, put it that way. When I was pregnant, I met a couple of moms and I was like, oh gosh, this is not for me. I went to a pampered chef party and I was like, oh gosh, these moms are boring. What am I going to talk about with these people? And I found that once I had the baby, that loneliness and the anxiety, it felt like it was not okay. I felt like something's wrong with me. I didn't know that other people felt this feeling. So once I realized, oh, I could have a glass of wine, and it kind of relieves it. And also I think a lot of new moms are very surprised that you can't keep up with some of your old things that you did to be healthy.
You don't have time to go to the gym. You're not sleeping. There's a lot of things that can affect your mental wellness after you have a baby that you don't realize you're not supposed to be feeling this way. You don't know that you're not supposed to be feeling this high level of anxiety or depression that you, especially if you haven't felt that before. So I didn't know I was supposed to be feeling like that. I felt like something was wrong with me. I felt like I must not be a good mom because I'm not loving this new motherhood feeling. Honestly, I loved the baby. It wasn't that I was thinking I was going to hurt my baby or anything like that. I loved her, but I felt very much, oh my God, keeping this baby alive 24/7 is going to be a huge responsibility. And also my life is never going to be the same.
I have this huge responsibility. And I felt like drinking helped calm the anxiety and also made me connected me to that world of like, oh, look at me. I'm still fun and cool. I'm having some wine. And then I started a blog, and as a comedian and as a new mom, I was like, what's funny is making jokes about drinking. So it's not even that. At the beginning I was doing so much drinking as making jokes about it. And then I got a book deal, and then I named the book Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay, which I just thought was a funny
Thing of like, oh, and the idea behind it was really like, Hey, just because we're moms, we don't have to put our wine in a sippy cup. We can still use nice stemware. So that led to me being kind of known for making all the jokes about drinking. Well, behind the scenes. I was sort of developing a dependency. It was like, okay, having a glass of wine every night, became having two glasses of wine, became having three because where was I going? I wasn't going out with friends. I didn't feel like I had friends. I was a mom. I felt like I'd been robbed of this. I wasn't out doing standup as a brand new mom. So I felt like the wine gave me some release. Well, now remember, I have an addictive personality, but I'd never been fully addicted to drinking. I think that it was just this perfect storm, and I think that before long, I realized, oh, my drinking, even as a new mom, is not like other people's.
So what happened is one night I went out trick or treating, my older daughter was like two at the time, and I went with another mom, put it this way. I went on trick or treating with some people. I got real drunk. I had the best intentions. I made a drink that I thought was very Halloween themed. It was Kahlúa and orange juice. And the other people that were with us were like, no thanks. I was like, you guys are missing out. This tastes like a Tootsie Roll. This is so good. I was having the best time. I was like, oh, see, we're making Halloween fun for the parents and the kids, except that I got really drunk and don't remember it. And that my husband was like, oh my God, you were a little bit embarrassing. You were really bonding with this. I was with a friend and her mom, who was kind of closer in age to me.
I was a bit of an older mom, I guess I made best friends with this mom. I got her number. I was like, we're going to keep in touch, don't remember any of it. And I was like, you know what? I don't want to be a drunk mom. I want to be a sober mom. I don't want to miss these opportunities to watch my kid have these experiences. And I really meant it at that time. And I went and joined a little support group to help with the quitting drinking, but it didn't really do anything. I was just like, okay, not going to drink. And then six weeks later, I got pregnant again with twins and holy shit, okay. Then I didn't have one drop of alcohol through that entire pregnancy. I had the twins, they came early because one of my twins was small,
00:31:27
Raquel Baldelomar
Born like two pounds.
00:31:29
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
She waas two pounds,
00:31:30
Raquel Baldelomar
And
00:31:30
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
The other twin was four pounds. So one of them, that part's a long story. I'd had some surgery for fibroids, and where that little twin attached was not like there was scar tissue there. So it was a whole thing, the pregnancy, I was in the hospital for a while and it was a whole thing, and it was a little traumatic. And the kids were in the NICU. And then when they got home from the hospital, I was like, you know what? Look at me. I didn't drink through the whole pregnancy. I didn't drink for six weeks before I got pregnant. Obviously, alcoholics would've had a hard time staying sober. So I must not be an alcoholic. And I really think I need to drink again, because now I have three kids, three and under life is 10 times harder. So it's a good thing. I'm not an alcoholic, so I can still drink. And I went back to drinking and that kind of, I thought I was doing okay, but my one line in the sand was, I'm going to be, I'll drink at home so that I never have to drink and drive. But something about the way I drink is that I never think that I'm drunk. So always people that have some drinks and you go like, are you okay? Are you okay to drive? And they go, yes.
That was me. Always felt like, fine. Now, put a little pot in me. And I'd be like, oh God, no. I'm high. I shouldn't drive. But for some reason, alcohol, I just thought I felt more confident. I always felt like I was fine. So I had my kids out with me. I was at a play date, and I thought it would be fine to have a couple of drinks, and I would stop drinking way before I had to drive home. There was a nanny there watching the kids. I thought I was being very responsible, and I made a really bad decision, and I drove home with my kids. It was a couple, two miles from my house, but when I got home, my husband had been trying to call me. I'd been ignoring him, and he was so mad, and he was like, you're drunk.
This is terrible. What's wrong with you? And I was belligerent about it, and no, I'm not drunk. How dare you? And I woke up in the morning, very, very hungover, and I was like, oh my God. He was right. And I had the biggest epiphany of like, oh, this is just everything else in my life. This is bad for me. I'm not safe when I've been drinking, and I've been fighting this for a lot of years, and I needed this clear sign that I am not somebody who should ever be drinking. And then I got serious about it and I got sober.
00:34:16
Raquel Baldelomar
That was your sign, just driving.
00:34:18
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
That was it. I never drank again. That was 14 and a half years ago. Yeah.
00:34:21
Raquel Baldelomar
Wow. Well, congratulations
00:34:22
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Thank you
00:34:23
Raquel Baldelomar
For being sober for 14 and a half years.
00:34:26
Raquel Baldelomar
What I also really appreciate about your story is you really want to show to other mothers that you can be fun. Life can still be fun, and maybe it's in a different format rather than not having to drink, but you want to have fun. You're not just a mother anymore. You want to just release. It's important to have a release. So knowing what you've been through, what would you tell mothers who are going through the stresses of being a mother now? How can they find a release maybe without going to alcohol,
00:35:06
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Mhm
00:35:06
Raquel Baldelomar
Kind of going through this whole journey yourself. Is there other
00:35:09
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I think it's really important. I would say that the most important thing to me is having other friends who support you. You have to find other moms, whether it's moms who drink or moms who don't. I have such a support system that I felt forced to build up, because you can't do it by yourself. It's very, very difficult to get sober by yourself. So I had to find other sober people, and a lot of those sober people were moms. I was very shocked to find out that there are so many moms in my exact position. I expected going into recovery support groups to just find mostly old men
That drank out of paper bags. That's kind of what I thought it was going to be. It's like everybody that's totally normal. And I found moms, and then it was realizing, oh, I can hang out with other moms and have tea or whatever. And it's really, for me, it's about connecting. It's about this. It's about having really good conversations and stop being so surface. And also for me, telling the truth, finding people who are just real about it. I had no tolerance once I was sober for moms that were like, oh yeah, parenting is so easy and know it alls and all that stuff. I just make short work of those people and hang out with other parents that I have a lot of really good mom friends that don't drink much, that drink if they want to, but they don't drink alcoholically. And I find that finding other stuff to do and finding stuff to do with the kids and going out places. I mean, it's been a journey for me.
00:36:55
Raquel Baldelomar
Mhm
00:36:56
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Hate that word, but you know what I mean. No, it's, it's been 14 years. So when I got sober, my kids were still really young. I had to find other things to do than just be home having a glass of wine.
00:37:07
Raquel Baldelomar
And you started finding other things to do smartphones, and
00:37:12
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I
00:37:12
Raquel Baldelomar
Have an addictive
00:37:13
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Personality.
00:37:14
Raquel Baldelomar
Sugar? Sugar,
00:37:15
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes. I have a bejeweled problem. It's an iPhone game.
00:37:19
Raquel Baldelomar
Oh, really? Yeah. You
00:37:21
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Know what? It's like Candy Crush, but it's a poor man's candy crush.
00:37:25
Raquel Baldelomar
It really, even Instagram is addictive. All of that is really addictive. I think even for people who are not addictive personalities, I find myself, oh my God, I just get sucked into Instagram. It's very easy.
00:37:40
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Instagram is for people, and I wish I was a little more addicted to it. I should be better about my doing social media, but mine is always anything that's just very mindless. But yes, I have, in my book, it's a chapter called, "Whack-a-mole" it's like one addiction goes down and then another one pops up and the game where you hit the moles with a mallet in carnivals
00:38:07
Raquel Baldelomar
Mhm
00:38:07
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Then another one pops up, it's like, oh my God. All of a sudden I'm like, oh my God. All I do is play threes on my phone. And then I try to delete threes from my phone. And then I think about how bored I am, and I go, I think I could just play threes one more time. I'm just going to download it one more time. I'm going to be better this time. I'm not going to play it addictively.
00:38:28
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah, but do you think that's healthy? I mean, I think there's healthy whack-a-moles or are there healthy whack-a-mole that you can addicted to that maybe is mindless, but it's still, it's harmless? I mean,
00:38:42
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I kind of try to go, listen, drinking is not something that I do safely. I drank and I drove. So that's a no-go. Obviously other things that are, I can't take drugs. I can't take pain pills. I can't do cocaine. Sorry, my stomach just rumbled on you, but I have to go like it's harm reduction, right? I mean, is it really that bad to check my email 50,000 times a day? Is that hurting anyone? Not really. But when I'm doing something and I find myself doing it a little addictively, I'm not hard on myself, whatever, drink coffee, do exercise. But when you find that it's starting to affect something else in your life or it's not feeling good to you, or for me with sugar is something that for a while I was like, well, it's not hurting anybody. You can't get pulled over for drinking while eating cake. I mean, you could if you were not watching the road, but you know what I'm saying, nobody's going to measure the sugar in your system. So I was like, I can eat. I can still eat candy. I still have that. But for me, it gets to a point where I'm really eating it addictively and it's affecting my life and it's affecting my happiness. And when that happens, I have to reassess and I have to go, would my life work better if sugar was just on the off list and I just can't have it?
00:40:09
Raquel Baldelomar
So for people who do have addictive personalities like you, what do you recommend for them? Just cut out sugar, cut out. I mean, can they just reduce it? Is it possible to do that
00:40:22
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, they should try.
00:40:23
Raquel Baldelomar
Okay.
00:40:23
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I mean, a lot of people, this is the biggest question I get. Can I moderate? Do I have to quit or can I just cut down? Right? I don't know. I couldn't moderate, so I had to quit. I think for people that really are addicted, moderation doesn't work. I think if you're somebody who's like, you know what? Sometimes I tend to drink a little bit too much, so I really want to be more mindful of my drinking. Then by all means, keep yourself in check. Go. You know what? I'm going to limit myself to two glasses of wine at night. If you can do that, that's awesome. For me, I couldn't. And for me, it's more freeing to just go, I just can't have it at all. But I can't answer that question for other people.
00:41:14
Raquel Baldelomar
But that's what brought balance to your life is just totally cutting it out. Where somebody might be, okay, I can just have a glass of wine three nights a week. That won't work for somebody like you. And you have to have that sort of self-awareness to understand if you want to have wine wine is that important to you or sugar, is that important to you? Can you have a dessert a few nights a week or totally cut it out. I think that's really an important part of just the process of just getting that balance is it starts with understanding. Are you capable of totally really moderating it or cutting it out?
00:41:54
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I mean, that's what it is. A hundred percent. That's what it is. It's like if you're asking yourself those questions, you're on the right path. If you're somebody who's like, you know what? I don't like the fact that I come home and have four glasses of wine every night. It doesn't feel good to me. It's not serving me, then absolutely. If you're somebody who's not an addict and you're not dependent on it, then you should try going, let me see how it feels to have two glasses of wine every night and see if I can find other things to do with my time. And then if you're like, oh, wow, this is uncomfortable. I don't think I can do this. Or I think I need some help, or I think I need a program, or I think I need to read some self-help books okay then do that. And if you still find that you can't drink two glasses of wine,
The problem is what happens with a lot of people, especially with something like alcohol, is you go, I'm only going to have two glasses of wine. And you do that for a little while, and then you get shitfaced and find yourself passing out before reading your kids' bedtime stories. And those are the kinds of things that demoralization, that make people go, oh, this isn't working. I think I need to quit
00:43:09
Raquel Baldelomar
For mothers, now you have this audience through all your books, you've built this audience targeting mothers about just talking real about the realities of being a mother. It's not just perfect and easy. What would you say to mothers now for who are struggling with just the balance of just managing their own personal mental health with trying to, who might have they don't. Maybe they're on the
00:43:43
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Borderline
00:43:44
Raquel Baldelomar
Of being just
00:43:46
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Liking
00:43:46
Raquel Baldelomar
Alcohol too much
00:43:48
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
That
00:43:49
Raquel Baldelomar
Maybe they don't know, but it's so stressful. But you want to also have compassion for them too, is the best thing to just find your support group, find a support group of people that you really like. What if they don't even know whether they are? I mean,
00:44:06
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
The number one thing is that it's okay for us to say Parenting is Hard.
00:44:13
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
It is so hard. It is the hardest thing that I've ever done. It's harder than anything. It's harder than writing books. It's harder than getting through my childhood. Parenting is hard, and it can trigger a lot of things in a lot of people. And I don't think enough people understand that a lot of childhood trauma, a lot of things get triggered by the idea that you're somebody's parent now and you have this opportunity to do things different or better. And then we're isolated a lot our world now, you hear that all the time. It takes a village. A lot of us don't have a village. A lot of us don't have supportive parents. A lot of us don't have neighbors. A lot of us don't have that.
00:44:52
Raquel Baldelomar
And culture in la, you live in la. I mean, I've lived here for 12 years. A lot of us don't have, I mean, my family is all over the United States. They're not in LA. It's a very hard place to have a family because of the lack of a support system.
So If you live in a big city and you don't have family members, it becomes even harder. And just acknowledging that is recognizing how hard is it is to do that is the first step.
00:45:23
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah, let's recognize that it's hard. Let's not keep pretending that moms are able to do it all. A lot of us are not able to do it all. And then find your people. Find your posse. Go to a mommy and me class, even if it's not your thing, even if you're like, oh, I'm not going to find, I went to mommy and me at a temple when my baby was six months old. I was desperate. Like I said, I didn't know anybody, and it's kind of against my personality to join mommy & me. And I did find the whole thing a bit cringey and a bit, I was called, my older daughter's name is Elby, and they were calling me Elby's mom. And I was like, okay, I still have a name. Stefanie. Can we just have our first names? At least that do we have to lose every part of our identity? I'm just like, mommy now. But guess what? I made one friend in that group who is still my friend. That's great. Our daughters have been to every single one of each other's birthdays. Our daughters are best friends. We met when they were six months old. I still call her almost every day. We chat on the phone. I think that's so important. It's so important to find friends. It's
00:46:34
Raquel Baldelomar
Real deep friends.
00:46:35
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Deep friends. Because shit gets real. When you're a parent and you spend a lot of time alone, don't spend so much time alone. Take your baby, go over to a friend's house, bring a bag of chips and hang out with other people. You need that. You need that comradery.
00:46:52
Raquel Baldelomar
You talk about a support system, and I think the most important support system is your partner. Your husband, in your case, it sounds like you have a really good relationship with your husband.
00:47:08
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah, he's great. He's really great.
00:47:10
Raquel Baldelomar
How long have you been together?
00:47:11
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
So we got married in 2004, so I guess we've almost been
00:47:19
Raquel Baldelomar
20, 21 years.
00:47:22
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah.
00:47:22
Raquel Baldelomar
Congratulations.
00:47:23
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
No, 19 years.
00:47:25
Raquel Baldelomar
19 years. Yes. 19 years.
00:47:26
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah. We'll have our next anniversary will be our 20 year in February. Yes. He's awesome. He's funny, he's loving. But make no mistake, we got in a lot of fights
00:47:39
Raquel Baldelomar
The first year after having a baby. I was like, I just thought I just, well, you also went through so much trauma, and you talk about how certain things that he would do triggered some of just these feelings of just the abuse you experienced as a child. So I remember you writing
00:47:59
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
About, yeah, I know you wanted to know early in our relationship how intimacy was very difficult for me. Relationships were hard for me, and I think I just always felt like the guy's going to leave. I just had that, yes, things would trigger me if my husband was a few minutes late to pick me up for a date. I was like, oh, okay. I got it. I get it. He doesn't value my time. You know what I mean? I was reactive and I would pick fights and I would make him prove that he was going to stay, and I was really difficult and he tolerated it. But one of the things, and I did see it in your, that I don't know if this is advice for people or if this is just what happened with us, but we kind of talked about what triggered each other. What made him upset, and this came from his childhood, was if he would ask me what's wrong? And I would go, nothing.
And he could tell something was bothering me, and he did not like that. And he would get mad at me for thinking I'm mad at him. But what was going on in my mind was I was like, this thing that I'm mad at him about is probably really stupid, and he's probably going to think I'm ridiculous and crazy. You know what I mean? Because say he was five minutes late, and in my head I was stewing about it. And I think this means he doesn't really like me that much. If he really liked me, he would've been early. So I'd be stewing about that. And then he'd ask me what's wrong? And I'd go, nothing, because I didn't want to tell him that it sounds stupid. So this would lead to fights. And eventually I would say, wow, I was kind of mad you were late. And he'd go, oh my God. Why didn't you just tell me that? Because I would've told you the reason I was late. Or I would give you some reassurance and I'd think, oh, it's so stupid that I even need reassurance. So eventually we came to the conclusion that I needed to tell him if I was upset about something, I needed to tell him right away and not, he just did not like that.
00:50:03
Raquel Baldelomar
It doesn't matter. Even if it sounds stupid, even if it just shows that you're just being anxious. There's no basis but just saying, it just says, Hey, I'm upset at you for this. I think that's a really good rule,
00:50:14
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
And we still do it this many years later. I feel the way we have different styles. He is very easygoing, but when he is upset about something, he will also kind of stew on it. Or if I've hurt his feelings, he'll sit on that and he won't tell me for a while. And then you have to
00:50:34
Raquel Baldelomar
Prod it out of him.
00:50:35
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I have to prod it out of him because it's so rare. But I can tell when he is unhappy about something. And then, so the thing is, I have to go. You expect me to tell you right away. So my style is, my relationship style is when, and I do this with friendships too. When I'm pissed about something, I'll just tell you, but I only will tell you if you're somebody I care about having a relationship with, because I don't want to start playing games or being kind of cold to you. So if I'm mad, and I'm not saying it's not perfect, it's not like the minute it happens, but if something's bothering me, if you and I are like, if you've done something that kind of pissed me off, or I will come to you and I'll say like, Hey, Raquel, the other day when you kind of dismissed this thing that I was telling you, it kind of bothered me. It hurt my feelings a little bit. And then that allows you to go like, well, I was already kind of irritated at you because of blah, blah. And then we can, let's get it on the table and talk about it.
00:51:37
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Or you can be like, wow, I'm really sorry you received it that way. I didn't mean that. I do the same thing with my husband. Sometimes it doesn't come off, I just said it like this. Sometimes it comes off like, dude, why do you do blah, blah, blah? It really bothers me. But the thing is that he knows about me and that my friends know about me is once I've said it, I'm over it. So if I just tell 'em what's wrong, it doesn't mean I want a divorce. It doesn't mean I don't like you anymore. It doesn't mean I'm not attracted to you anymore. It doesn't mean I'm going to stay mad about this. It means I needed to say this. Please respond. And now let's move on.
00:52:18
Raquel Baldelomar
It's being comfortable with conflict, bringing up contentious things, even if it's totally illogical, it's purely emotional. It's just being okay and saying, bringing up something that you're not happy about. I think that's kind of what I feel like. It's just being really comfortable with conflict, knowing that by bringing it up, it's going to dissipate it.
00:52:45
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
And that is what I naturally do. But also in sobriety, I have learned that the way to keep my serenity, my peace is I can't walk around with resentments against people. I can't be mad about stuff. I can't afford that. I can't afford to have those feelings that roiling around in me that now makes me uncomfortable. I used to be okay with having little resentments, being mad at people. That self-righteousness was kind of almost comfortable for me. Do you know what I mean?
00:53:20
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah.
00:53:22
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I almost relished somebody pissing me off. And then being able to go tell 10 other people about it, can you believe this happened? And I just don't like that feeling anymore. It affects my peace. So if I'm upset about something that I can do something about, sometimes I have to look at what is my part.
00:53:43
Raquel Baldelomar
And then it's also too is recognizing, am I always angry? Am I always angry at something? And is that really on you versus on somebody else?
00:53:52
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes.
00:53:53
Raquel Baldelomar
So I think that's also the balance of that. But no, I think that's a really good thing though about in terms of just how to maintain a happy, healthy relationship as a mother with the most important partner in your life, in your case, your husband. How do you maintain a happy marriage after 19 years? I mean, in LA especially, that's a huge feat.
00:54:20
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Truthfully, I think that mean, this just sounds corny, but my husband is my best friend. Even if I, I've just been gone for a couple hours. I'll call. He's the one I want to call on my way home and go like, oh, here's what happened. Or We work really well as a team. We just kind of compliment each other. But the main thing I would say is that he just makes me laugh. That's important. He's really funny.
It's such an important thing to me. I found somebody who makes me laugh. And still, after all this time, he makes me cry, laugh. And as
00:54:53
Raquel Baldelomar
Someone who grew up in comedy and who was a comedic writer, that is an aphrodisiac.
00:55:00
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
It really is. And he's so bright. He's really bright. He is somebody who knows how. There's people that know a little bit about a lot. He kind of knows a lot about a lot. And he loves to read. He loves to research things. And I don't. So I like to get the short answer to, I like to be able to go, I don't understand what's going on in the Middle East. Can you explain it to me?
00:55:27
Raquel Baldelomar
That's so cute.
00:55:29
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
And then he'll be like, okay, how far back do you want to go?
00:55:32
Raquel Baldelomar
Well, there's a lot.
00:55:33
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Are we going back 20 years? Are we going back 30 years? Okay. And I love that about him. I love that he never makes me feel stupid or I didn't go to college. There's a lot of stuff. I don't know. He never ever makes me feel embarrassed about the things I don't know. And then I think I have a better emotional IQ than he does a better eq. He has probably a higher iq, and I have a higher eq. So he gets to come to me to go, do you think I wrote this email okay?
and I'll be like, oh, well, maybe you want to kind of say it this way. So there's things that I help him with, and there's things he helps me with.
00:56:12
Raquel Baldelomar
Was he, I'm sure he was supportive during just your sobriety when you were going through it.
00:56:17
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Very supportive. Yeah. I think it's interesting because when I got, I don't think my husband ever saw me as an alcoholic. I think he imagined alcoholism the way a lot of people do, which is very clear cut, just getting drunk every night, drinking in the morning, hands shaking. So he had sort of an old, he didn't understand that. I think he thought, it's willpower. Just don't drink so much. And we went through these little things earlier on in the relationship. When I'd accidentally get drunk, he'd be like, okay, here's what we're going to do here. Your problem is when you're drinking, if the alcohol's free flowing, you don't realize you've had so much. So what I can do to help you is I'll let you know. He became the wine police.
So he'd be like, oh, you've had two glasses. Maybe you want to slow down. And then I'd be like, oh no, I'm just ramping up. No thanks. I don't need your input. And then, because by then I'm had a couple drinks, I'm like, I want to do what I want to do. So that didn't work. So by the time I was like, I need help. I don't ever want to drink again. And I don't know. And he was very much, I think you're being hard on yourself. But once he realized, no, this goes far back for me, this is something that I've struggled with and this is I've really proven to myself that I cannot moderate. I tried moderating. I tried having one drink. I tried having three drinks a week. I tried having drinks every other day. I tried having drinks only on, like I said, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I tried, oh, I'm only going to have two drinks and it's only going to be after six o'clock. I tried it all and I would always break my little promises to myself. So once he knew that this was for real, he was on board.
00:58:15
Raquel Baldelomar
That's great. I mean, that's great that you had that level of support. What about people who don't have that? Let's say they want to go get on a sobriety program but they don't have the level of support with their loved ones. Maybe they're also alcoholics. I mean it's
00:58:32
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh, that's so common. So common that one partner is wanting to stop drinking and the other partner is like, what are you doing? Yeah, and I don't know. I think it can really affect your relationship for sure. You just have to decide how badly do you want to be sober? And also there are so many groups, there are 12 step groups, and there's just women support groups and there's women. There's a lot of support you can get outside of your relationship that can help you in your relationship.
00:59:08
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah. Well that's good. So just finding that support. It might not be your partner, but finding that support somewhere else.
00:59:14
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Exactly.
00:59:16
Raquel Baldelomar
You talk about how you suffered from postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, one in six women have that.
00:59:24
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Wow.
00:59:26
Raquel Baldelomar
It's an enormous amount.
00:59:27
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Wow. That is a big number.
00:59:29
Raquel Baldelomar
And you talk about how when you initially got diagnosed, you started taking Zoloft and Opin.
00:59:42
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Anti-anxiety. That's a benzo.
00:59:43
Raquel Baldelomar
Benzo with having this addictive personality. Talk about what is your experience with taking pharmaceuticals for anxiety and depression?
00:59:57
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, I mean, I think antidepressants are great. The antidepressants are fine. That's not a mood altering drug. I mean, that helps. I mean, people need to take antidepressants, in my opinion. Some people do. If you need to take it, that's fine. It really helped me I think in the short run, but I was also drinking while I was taking it, which doesn't help. I was also
01:00:24
Raquel Baldelomar
Taking the Zoloft with
01:00:25
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Taking the Zoloft, but then still drinking wine,
Which is not helpful because it's hard to tell. Alcohol is a depressant, so you're taking an antidepressant and then you're also adding a depressant into your system, so that's not going to be great. But you weren't going to tell me that at the time. Also, I was taking Klonopin and then Xanax after that because honestly the anxiety was so bad. Once I started taking Xanax, I was like, this is amazing. Is this how people feel all the time? Do people really feel just kind of peaceful? That's just their natural state of being. That's insane. Where's this been on my life? How come nobody gave this to me earlier? I could have used this when I was a kid. Unfortunately, benzos are addictive
01:01:17
Raquel Baldelomar
Very highly,
01:01:18
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
And once you become dependent on it to feel serene, that's the only thing that helps you feel serene. And when you're not taking it, you don't feel good. So for people that have panic disorder, that I think that can be helpful that aren't also addicts, but it's very easy to get addicted. So once I got sober, I had to get off the, I didn't need to get off Zoloft and I didn't for a couple of years, eventually did, and I haven't taken anything in many, many years. But the benzos, I had to get off right away because it's an addictive drug. So I had to wean off of it really slowly. And it was really hard because the anxiety came back like full force. And I had that feeling like, well, if I'm just going to feel this way, then I'm just going to drink and take Xanax because this is terrible.
01:02:15
Raquel Baldelomar
What would you recommend when that anxiety comes back, when you decide, okay, I'm going to get rid of this because of the addictive properties, but that anxiety comes back in full force, what do you do to try to alleviate that anxiety without getting back on the pharmaceuticals?
01:02:31
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I mean, that's a really good question. It's trial and error. The way I got through it was talking to trusted people and people that were sober and saying, I don't think I can do this. This is hardcore. And I had people that were like, what you're feeling is really normal and you will feel better. You just have to keep talking about it. You have to share with us about it. And just being easy on myself, not expecting I had to let my husband do more of the childcare. I had to just go, there are a lot of things that are making the anxiety worse and I have to put my health and wellbeing first. And once I decided that and I was like, I had to make sobriety the most important thing, I had to come first.
01:03:22
Raquel Baldelomar
More important than your kids at some point
01:03:24
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
At the very beginning, yeah.
I had to, well, not more important than my kids. I want to leave them outside. But I have a personality, I don't know if you're like this, but where I think that I'm the only person that knows how to do things and at least the correct way,
01:03:41
Raquel Baldelomar
There's a bit of a control freak in me. Absolutely.
01:03:43
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
So when you're a control freak and you're trying to get sober and you're trying to raise three young kids, it's, it was very hard. I was like, if I let my husband do things the way he's going to do them, he's not going to do it right or the way I want it done. But at some point I had to let go and go. I also really want to stay sober and I really want to go to my meetings and I want to be around my sober friends, and I just have to let him struggle.
01:04:12
Raquel Baldelomar
Do you think that drugs are overused, like these pharmaceutical drugs to treat anxiety and depression? Do you think they are? Some people absolutely need it.
01:04:22
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Mhm
01:04:22
Raquel Baldelomar
You feel like it's a crutch that is somewhat overused?
01:04:27
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I don't personally, I don't think that that's, I mean, do I think they're overprescribed?, I really feel like I don't have a medical license and can't determine that. I think in some cases they're underused because I think some people suffer needlessly with depression and their whole lives and anxiety. On the other hand, can we teach people more coping mechanisms so that we don't need it. Do we look for outside ways? Do we look for other ways to be healthy before we look for medications? Can we do more therapy and more I think that we should definitely exhaust other avenues first. But I don't know,
01:05:16
Raquel Baldelomar
Maybe. I think for some people they absolutely need it. They absolutely need it. But I also, I really do agree with trying to find natural healthy ways that you can use. For me, I find even taking naps when I need to, when I'm super, I'm super stressed. I have high anxiety just trying to just like, okay, I need to just take a nap and see where I'll feel so much better afterwards. But it's so personal and, and some people absolutely, absolutely need the drugs, but I do think that there is some way of just trying to take the steps yourself to try to find that balance within you.
01:06:02
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
But at the same time, if you're finding that you are doing things and you're taking enough naps and you still feel terrible, then seek outside help. I don't think enough people actually seek outside help. I didn't know that there was, I mean, Zoloft really helped me with postpartum depression. It's a real thing. It's a real biochemical issue. Your hormones drop all the way down and people don't know what hit them. And I think that Zoloft helped me through that time, and then I was fine once I got off of them. They're really also hard to get off of, which can be trouble. So I definitely recommend trying other things first, but I think that there's no shame in needing some help.
01:06:45
Raquel Baldelomar
And then using it for a time period, but then when your doctor recommends to get off of it, trying to wean yourself off of it.
01:06:54
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
But also be easy on yourself when you're trying to wean yourself off. Because I don't think enough people know how hard these drugs are to get off of
01:07:02
Raquel Baldelomar
It is
01:07:03
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
They're really hard. And you can be so confused, am I just feeling anxious again? Or is this a withdrawal syndrome? And I think be kind to yourself and make sure you're very clear with the doctor of what symptoms you're having because people don't need to suffer needlessly
01:07:19
Raquel Baldelomar
In the book, Drunk-ish, everyone. This is the book here. It's coming out January, 2024. You talk about changing the mental outlooks and patterns to make sobriety stick. So there are five of them that you list, and I just want to just have you tell me what you think about these five. You have finding my part, taking the focus off of me, thinking through the drink, pausing, and gratitude.
01:07:52
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Okay,
01:07:52
Raquel Baldelomar
So let's go through these five and just creating new mental patterns, new mental outlooks for people that want to get sober to make it stick.
01:08:04
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Okay, so the first one was finding my part, right?
01:08:08
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
So finding my part is basically the fact that, as I told you before that I tend to look at other people as being the problem. Like, me, what could I have done wrong? Well, oftentimes I can, when I was younger because of my upbringing, I found it very difficult to take criticism. I was super defensive. And because underneath that is just fear. It is just fear that if people are mad at me or if I did something wrong that I'm unlovable. So it was very easy to just go like, well, then I didn't do anything wrong because I don't want to have done something wrong, so it must be somebody else. But I have learned that if you can look at what part you played, that is the only path to being able to change it. I can't change other people. I can only change myself. So if I can find where I may have been egotistical or sensitive or looking for having unrealistic expectations of other people, people are also human. So when I'm disappointed by the way that somebody else behaved, sometimes I have to go, are they just being human? Was it really personal against me? A lot of times when I take things personally, if I can look at it objectively, I can see that let's just have a little more empathy for what somebody else is going through.
01:09:35
Raquel Baldelomar
Right
01:09:35
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
So that's one thing.
01:09:36
Raquel Baldelomar
That's great. So with the finding my part is do people do that through therapy? How can they really get that level of self-awareness to see, how am I contributing to this? Is it just journaling, therapy? How can people get on the path to that you think?
01:09:53
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, sometimes if you have a trusted person in your life, especially somebody else who's also sober, that person is a great person to run things by and you can say, Hey, I really feel mad at so-and-so here's the situation. You need somebody that will actually call you out on your, now, I think this was also in your notes, can that person be a therapist? Yes. But usually therapists are going to be on your side. I've had a lot of therapists in my life, and most of the time when you tell them, I'm really mad at this person because of this, your therapist will be like, I know that sucks. That person shouldn't be in your life, right? They're going to be nurturing to you.
01:10:34
Raquel Baldelomar
They need to call you out. Somebody who can call you out. You
01:10:37
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Need somebody who's can be real with you and go, all right, was it really that bad? Or Let's find out what your part is. Well, that can be a trusted friend that you say to them, I really want to look for what my part is. My husband will come to me and I will help him with that too. You just have to be gentle with the person. It's not about going like, well, you suck. You did this or you did that. It's about, okay, well, why do you think you're having this kind of a reaction? Could it be that you have these impossible expectations? When I get mad at my husband, oftentimes it is an unrealistic expectation. It's that I think he should think the way that I do, and I have to go, oh, he doesn't. He's not me. He has his own way that he processes things and that's how he's seeing the situation. So he's not necessarily the bad guy. I just don't like the way he's thinking.
01:11:31
Raquel Baldelomar
And that kind of goes into your second point about taking the focus off of me
01:11:35
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Taking the focus off of me is I can think about myself a lot all day long. How do I feel? What do I think? What am I experiencing right now? Well, sometimes when something happens or you're upset about something that you can't do anything about, it's very helpful to go, let me call one of my friends and see what's going on with them. Let me stop thinking about myself and really focus on how I can be of help to somebody else. And that is so helpful. A lot of times when you are concerned with somebody else or listening to somebody else tell a story, you kind of forget about the thing that's going on with you.
01:12:15
Raquel Baldelomar
Then we have thinking through the drink.
01:12:18
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, that's like a sobriety thing.
01:12:20
Raquel Baldelomar
Right
01:12:20
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
So that is basically when I feel, and it still happens to this day when I feel like, oh my God, an espresso martini sounds heavenly right now. I wonder if I could still have one. Maybe it's been four. I'm going on 15 years with not drinking. Maybe things have changed internally in me and maybe I could have one drink. A thing that really helps me is to go, okay, so let's play it all the way through. Let's play the tape. Okay, so I have one drink. Well, it's going to taste really good. I'm going to feel that warm buzzy feeling, and I'm going to be like, oh my gosh, all is kind of right with the world, how I've missed you sweet alcohol. And then I'm going to be like, you know what? That one drink was so good. I think I should have just one more because one more.
Right now I feel kind of good, but two drinks and I'm going to feel like much better. Then I'm going to have the second drink because why not? I just had one. What, am I just going to have one? So then I'm going to have two drinks, and then I'm going to be like, okay, I'm going to stop at two because I don't want to seem like an alcoholic. I don't want to feel like I have a problem again, I'm good. I've had two drinks, but then the next day I'm going to be like, God, I successfully had two drinks. I could probably have two drinks again today. I'll just have two. And pretty soon, because it's how it always was before, eventually I'm going to get drunk and do something embarrassing and look at, I've had all this time, I haven't had a drink. My twins were 18 months old the last time I had a drink and I've done all this good work, and now I'm just going to be drinking every day again. So I go, is it worth it? Is it going to be worth it for that few minutes of like, oh, this feels good. No, it's not.
01:14:11
Raquel Baldelomar
Playing that tape, playing that tape of how it's going to play out
01:14:14
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
And being realistic with myself, this is what I always do. This is why I quit drinking.
01:14:21
Raquel Baldelomar
What does pausing mean to you?
01:14:24
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Pausing when I'm agitated is something that I wasn't used to doing when I drank, when I have a feeling, when I have a thought, when I have a self-destructive tendency, I just do it. And pausing is like, you're so mad at somebody and you're like, I really need to tell them how I feel. I need to send them an email and just get it out there to them. Love with the conflict to meet it head on. Well, it's not always the best idea. So what I try to do is I will write the email and then I will send it to a friend and go like, what do you think about this email that I'm feeling like sending? And the person will say, oh, it's coming off a little harsh. You might want to tone that down a little bit. You sound like a bitch. And then that's the pause. So it has saved me in a lot of circumstances since when I'm able to successfully do it. Do I always pause? No. Is it something I strive to do? Yes,
01:15:30
Raquel Baldelomar
It's a good practice.
01:15:32
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
When my husband says something to me and I get really annoyed about it and I want to say something back right away, I go, is that thing that I'm about to say going to help the situation at all? Or is it going to make him mad? And so if I think it's going to make him mad, then I go, what I need to do is wait an hour. And if I'm still feeling that way, then I can say the thing and say it in a nicer way. But half the time I don't actually feel that way again.
01:15:58
Raquel Baldelomar
And that's where that pausing, that hour that it's saved, it just helped in so many ways. And then the final is gratitude.
01:16:10
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Gratitude. Today I have mostly quality problems. When I'm upset about something, I really have to think, is that something that other people in other parts of the world are upset? Would somebody else be happy to be upset about this problem? And I find that I make gratitude lists. I have a little group of women that we all write down what we're grateful for every day.
01:16:37
Raquel Baldelomar
Very nice. How do you do that?
01:16:39
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
We email it to each other. We're on an email chain. Really?
01:16:42
Raquel Baldelomar
That's great.
01:16:42
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
And every day. And sometimes it's really small, minor things, and sometimes it's the big things sometimes.
01:16:49
Raquel Baldelomar
And this is a group of your girlfriends and you just send these gratitude lists and they all send it to each other. Yeah. That's lovely.
01:16:56
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah. That's nice. I just feel like it fills up my heart sometimes when I think about the things that I have and the things that I have peace in my life and I have a great relationship with my kids. And even when things are going wrong, focusing on the things that are going and the things that you have is a great way to feel happy.
01:17:19
Raquel Baldelomar
Absolutely. I mean, that's a huge part of my meditation practice. It's always thinking, what am I grateful for? And there's so many things I'm grateful for. And when you can really start off with that, start your day off with having that gratitude, it puts all the problems in perspective.
01:17:38
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Right
01:17:38
Raquel Baldelomar
It doesn't, doesn't mean it goes away, but it just makes you realize how blessed you are. So I believe that's so important really to do that. The fact that you actually write it down, it's taking it another step.
01:17:50
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, the things that you focus on expand. So if you spend your time focused on especially small problems, they become bigger problems to you. They become the only thing you think about.
01:18:02
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah
01:18:02
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
But if you think about the things that make you happy in your life, those things become the bigger things. If you think about, I have really good friends. I have people that I can count on. My husband makes me laugh. I love my dog. I mean, those kinds of things. I love my life. I mean, I have the greatest life. I teach writing to women. I teach memoir writing. It makes me so happy. I mean, I have a job that I like to do when it's time for, I teach Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays when it's time to teach. I'm in a great mood. I love it. You know what I mean? And I'm so blessed and happy to be able to have that opportunity. I don't have a boss. There's so many things to be happy about
01:18:48
Raquel Baldelomar
And that I think all of that has brought balance into your life, Stefanie, so thank you for sharing with everyone. Just how you went from being unbalanced and all these different ways to now being in a place where you genuinely, there's true deep happiness because a lot of people don't have happiness. A lot of people, they're sad, they're abused, and they're in abusive relationships. They are tormented, and it's really hard for them to find that. And I think it's really wonderful that you, you're sharing your process of how you went through these very dark moments.
01:19:21
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I had a lot of dark moments, and I commend anybody who can get, getting sober is a hard thing to do. Finding your way out of any circumstances is hard. And I'm, I'm glad you're doing this show because people need to hear people's stories and people need to know that all the people that you see that are happy also probably went through hard things to get there.
01:19:48
Raquel Baldelomar
I don't think you can truly experience real happiness unless you have some unhappiness. I think it's impossible. I think the goal is not to avoid unhappiness, but it's just to put it in perspective with the other parts of your life.
01:20:03
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah. Yeah. That's why I try to embrace when my kids major disappointments, I try to go, you know what? You have to have some things go completely not your way in order to embrace the things that do go your way.
01:20:16
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah. We always end this show with same questions. We ask all of our guests balance.
01:20:26
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I knew you were going to ask me this, and I think you're going to ask me about books, but
01:20:29
Raquel Baldelomar
Okay. Yes. Okay,
01:20:30
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Put me on the spot.
01:20:31
Raquel Baldelomar
We can skip the books. We can skip.
01:20:32
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
No, I can give you a couple books. I don't have three.
01:20:36
Raquel Baldelomar
Your top three healthiest habits. Now you would say,
01:20:40
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Okay, well, is not eating sugar a habit?
01:20:44
Raquel Baldelomar
Yes. It's huge.
01:20:45
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, having beat the sugar thing is a healthy habit.
01:20:49
Raquel Baldelomar
So you just totally, you don't eat cake candy.
01:20:52
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
No.
01:20:53
Raquel Baldelomar
That's amazing.
01:20:54
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
No, I don't. I'll eat fruit. I'm not like crazy. I'll add a cracker that has, that's great. But anything that's specifically just sugar, that's the goal of it, is that it's sweet. No.
01:21:05
Raquel Baldelomar
Do you get sugar cravings or does that's not in anymore?
01:21:09
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
No, I still do.
01:21:11
Raquel Baldelomar
I still do. And then when you get those sugar cravings, do you just have a piece of fruit? Okay,
01:21:16
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
One of those healthy,
01:21:16
Raquel Baldelomar
Those people.
01:21:18
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
You know what I do, but my latest thing that I do is I freeze bananas. That's
01:21:21
Raquel Baldelomar
Good. Yeah.
01:21:23
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Frozen bananas are really good. And they take a while
01:21:25
Raquel Baldelomar
To eat frozen bananas and frozen grapes. Yes, I agree. Frozen grapes. I think having just, I love food. I love food, but also I can easily have a food complex, like what you said. It's like I want to have more of that. So I try to just be very mindful of what I'm eating and be very careful of what I'm putting in. But I mean, I commend you for cutting out sugar because it's hard.
01:21:51
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
And then I guess, so the other one is I walk, I take my dog. I walk my dog twice a day.
01:21:57
Raquel Baldelomar
That's great.
01:21:59
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
So
01:22:00
Raquel Baldelomar
That's really helping.
01:22:00
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I was going to the gym, which would've been a healthy habit, and I'm going to be going back, but I fractured my foot a few months ago. So covid happened. Then I got way out of my gym habit,
01:22:11
Raquel Baldelomar
Then
01:22:11
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I put on some pounds, and I was kind of, even when the gym opened up, I found it hard to go back. And then I fractured my foot and I was out of commission for three months.
01:22:20
Raquel Baldelomar
But one of the things about walking your dog versus going to the gym is you're out. If you're walking your dog in daylight, you're getting that vitamin D, and let me tell you how powerful that vitamin D is. It is getting that natural sunlight even for 20 minutes. It changes your whole day. Some days I will be really stressed with work. I am inside all day. I'm working on my computer, and maybe I'll have some anxiety or then finally I'll go outside, maybe have lunch outside, and my whole mood will change just because I have some sun. So I think walking your dog, if it's during the day, getting something, that is hugely healthy,
01:23:02
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I do 45 minutes to an hour with my dog the morning, and then I walk her again at night. So that's a healthy habit, like you said.
And I would say, honestly, I connect with friends every single day. I have friends that we talk every single day, and I find it to be just mentally helpful to connect with somebody outside of my marriage because with just a friend, see how people are doing and it's fun. And I laugh with people.
01:23:35
Raquel Baldelomar
A lot of people in LA, there's this term that says you have deal friends or real friends.
01:23:43
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah.
01:23:43
Raquel Baldelomar
The deal friends are really useful to you. They help you, but the real friends, they're not useful to you, but they're incredibly valuable to you.
01:23:50
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes.
01:23:51
Raquel Baldelomar
So one of the things about, I love this city, I've been here for 12 years, but it is, if you're not from here, it's really hard to develop friendships.
01:24:01
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
It is, yeah.
01:24:02
Raquel Baldelomar
Real friendships, not deal friendships. How do you try to, what do you do if you're new in this town or you're new in any town and you're struggling to create some real friendships? What do you do? What would you tell people? How can they try to create some real friendships?
01:24:20
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, I have a friend who just moved to Atlanta, and she told me that there's, oh, it's Bumble or it's match.com, but for friends,
01:24:31
Raquel Baldelomar
Oh, great.
01:24:31
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
It's a real thing. And she literally went on there and you swipe right or swipe left for friendships.
01:24:37
Raquel Baldelomar
That's great.
01:24:38
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
And people that it's really like, it's not dating. It's actual people that are just looking for someone to hang out with. So you could do that. That would be a thing to do. Did you even know that existed?
01:24:48
Raquel Baldelomar
I know that. I think Bumble had a feature like that. I think that's one of the dating apps, but I think that's that's wonderful.
01:24:54
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I think it is Bumble then.
01:24:55
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah. I think that's really wonderful because I do think that it's something that people do struggle with. It's just developing real friendships. I don't know if it's other doing meetups maybe with things that you like to do or something like that.
01:25:10
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
A hundred percent. I do know people that when they were new in town, did stuff like that. If there's a podcast you like, and there's a group of people that do meetups, definitely go to that. Do something where there are going to be people that you have some commonality
01:25:27
Raquel Baldelomar
What you do is you really try to connect with your friends every day.
01:25:32
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I do. I have all in my favorites on my phone, and I will.
01:25:36
Raquel Baldelomar
So you just randomly pick someone, or who do I want to just connect with today?
01:25:40
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Or I haven't talked to this person in two days. I'm going to call her and update her on blah, blah, blah. Actually, call her up.
01:25:45
Raquel Baldelomar
You call people. That's great.
01:25:46
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh, I call people.
01:25:46
Raquel Baldelomar
That's so good.
01:25:47
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yeah.
01:25:47
Raquel Baldelomar
That's so good. It's so weird.
01:25:49
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
It's intrusive. I know. Well,
01:25:51
Raquel Baldelomar
It's so funny I find
01:25:52
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
My friends are used to it.
01:25:54
Raquel Baldelomar
I find that younger people, especially, I am 44, but sometimes I'll speak to some of these 30 year olds and 20 year olds, and they're like, why are you calling me? They don't want to be called.
01:26:06
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh yeah. My daughter, my one who's turning 19 next month, whenever I call her, I'll call her sometimes and she'll just be like, Hello?
01:26:15
Raquel Baldelomar
She doesn't get it.
01:26:16
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Like, hi, mama, what are you calling me for? I'm like, just saying hi.
01:26:22
Raquel Baldelomar
I have a principle that part of balance is having healthy vices, things that are not necessarily healthy for you, but that are greatly enjoyable.
01:26:34
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
So
01:26:34
Raquel Baldelomar
For me, a healthy vice is poker.
01:26:37
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh my. Shut up. Are you Serious?
01:26:39
Raquel Baldelomar
I love poker.
01:26:40
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Me too.
01:26:40
Raquel Baldelomar
Really?
01:26:41
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Me too. Do you play?
01:26:43
Raquel Baldelomar
Yes, I do.
01:26:44
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Me too.
01:26:45
Raquel Baldelomar
It's so much fun. But it's addictive. It's very addictive.
01:26:48
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh my God. You'll die. In the book, it says the end of it is gambling, and it says, well, at least I'm not addicted to that. I'm not addicted to poker, but I will play online poker, low stakes. I play global.
01:27:01
Raquel Baldelomar
Global. Oh, really?
01:27:02
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Global poker or in real games.
01:27:04
Raquel Baldelomar
It's so much fun. You play Hold 'em. What do play?
01:27:07
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Hold 'em, I love Omaha. Do you play Omaha?
01:27:08
Raquel Baldelomar
I just play Hold 'em.
01:27:10
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Okay
01:27:10
Raquel Baldelomar
I'll just play Hold 'em and I play just cash and in live. But that's my thing, because so much of my work involves computers. And when I'm not podcasting, I'm literally in front of my computer just doing Zoom calls, phone calls, emails.
01:27:23
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Right
01:27:26
Raquel Baldelomar
So I just love poker. It's so much fun. It's just so much fun. And I like playing cash games, but I only play weekends. Only play on weekends, but it is addictive.
01:27:38
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Will you go to a casino to play?
01:27:39
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah I'll go to a casino. Yeah I totally will.
01:27:41
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I love it. Respect.
01:27:44
Raquel Baldelomar
Thank you. But it's so much fun, but it's also, it's highly addicted, and I have to realize, okay, I can't play Because part of me wants to,
01:27:52
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
That's why you're saying it's a vice.
01:27:53
Raquel Baldelomar
Right, exactly. So that is why they say it's not necessarily healthy. You can lose money
01:27:58
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Of course.
01:27:59
Raquel Baldelomar
But I get so much joy out of it, so
01:28:02
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Me too.
01:28:02
Raquel Baldelomar
I do think it's important as part of balance to have vice that you know you're not going to overdue. So what would you say would be,
01:28:14
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Well, one of mine is poker. I swear to God. It's too, because I play with a group of guys, a bunch of comics that I've been playing in the same poker game for 20 years. And so once a month we play poker and I look so forward to it, and I've had the guys over to my house to play poker too.
01:28:32
Raquel Baldelomar
All right. Let me know next time you have a house game.
01:28:36
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes. And I have a poker mat.
01:28:38
Raquel Baldelomar
Oh, you do? Really? Oh wow.
01:28:39
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
That goes over my table, and I have a card shuffler, and I have
01:28:43
Raquel Baldelomar
How fun.
01:28:43
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes, fun. So that would definitely be something that's like, I guess could be kind of bad for you, but it's fun.
01:28:49
Raquel Baldelomar
Exactly. It brings you great joy.
01:28:52
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Great joy. Great joy. I mean, I'm trying to think of things. I mean, sugar-free popsicles, that brings me great joy. I will buy a box of popsicles, and me and my son are both obsessed with sugar-free popsicles. I don't know. I'm trying to think. I mean, I'm not sure.
01:29:15
Raquel Baldelomar
Okay. Well, sugar, free,
01:29:16
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Sugar-free pudding,
01:29:17
Raquel Baldelomar
Sugar-free pudding, sugar-free popsicles. Okay.
01:29:19
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Stuff like that. That's kind of bad for you. Those sugar substitutes are not the healthiest thing,
01:29:26
Raquel Baldelomar
But it brings you great joy.
01:29:27
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Exactly. It brings me joy. Yeah.
01:29:30
Raquel Baldelomar
What are the small things you do every day to try to achieve balance? Just small little things.
01:29:36
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Small little things. I make a lot of, I give myself lists of things that I need to take care of, and I prioritize like, okay, these are my half dos and these are, if I can knock a few of these off, then I'm going to feel accomplished. So let's say it's like, I know I have some bills, some medical bills backed up, and then I'll be like, okay, I'm going to do a couple of those. So knocking things off of a to-do list is something that brings me balance, makes me feel good, but also not being too hard on myself. I'm not going to get them all done in one day.
01:30:13
Raquel Baldelomar
Exactly. That's important.
01:30:18
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
The thing is that I really like my life and I like my have dos, so it's really important. I think if you can have things that you have to do, but that you also doing. For instance, one of the podcasts I do, it's called Rose Pricks, and it's, we make me and my friend Cecily make fun of the Bachelor on our podcast. So one of my have do's is also I have to watch The Bachelor or Bachelor in Paradise, which is on right now. But I also enjoy doing it. So that's something that brings me balance because, oh, I have to watch tv. Darn.
01:30:52
Raquel Baldelomar
It's your have do, but you enjoy it. But I
01:30:55
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Enjoy, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:30:56
Raquel Baldelomar
It's good that you find your podcasts, like things that it gives you jobs that are like, oh, I have to do this.
01:31:02
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I give myself jobs that I enjoy.
01:31:03
Raquel Baldelomar
Right
01:31:04
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yes, yes.
01:31:05
Raquel Baldelomar
What does wealth mean to you?
01:31:08
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Oh my gosh. Wealth to me means, well, I mean, in the literal sense to me, I've never been somebody who's super money focused, but I am comfort focused. To me, wealth is having enough money that I can just order takeout. If I need to order takeout for the family four nights a week, then I can do it and not really feel like, to me, it's the other things. Of course, it's happiness and family and all that, but if I didn't have that, the literal sense of wealth is honestly just having enough money that I don't have to stress if I need to buy my kid a new pair of sneakers. It's just being comfortable, and that's it.
01:31:57
Raquel Baldelomar
And what are the top three books that you recommend most often?
01:32:01
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
My favorite book of all time is Dry by Augustine Burroughs. I am obsessed with that book.
01:32:08
Raquel Baldelomar
What is it about?
01:32:10
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I don't know if you know Augustine Burroughs. He also wrote Running With Scissors, which was a big bestseller. He's my favorite author. It's a book that I loved before I got sober. I just loved this book. It's a book about him going to rehab, but he's just very funny and snarky and sarcastic, and it's just a great read and it's a great story about alcoholism, and I love that book. And also Drinking: A Love Story is another book that I love. Carolyn Knapp is the author of that book. I mean, I'm trying to think of books. I love the book. Oh my gosh, it's Wally Lamb. You know the Wally Lamb book that I'm thinking of? She's Come Undone. That's one of my top books. I've read that book over and over a million times. What about you? What are yours?
01:33:02
Raquel Baldelomar
Oh my goodness. I love everything from Ayn Rand's books. That kind of helped form my desire to kind of start my businesses at a young age.
01:33:13
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Okay
01:33:13
Raquel Baldelomar
But then I also loved books like Alice in Wonderland, Charlotte's Web, I mean children's classics.
01:33:18
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Classics. Phantom Tollbooth.
01:33:20
Raquel Baldelomar
Yep. Exactly. Exactly. And then books like Jordan Peterson's book 12 Rules of Life. Some of the messages in that book really were profound. So I like biographies. There's so many books, but that's why I like. I like getting other books from other people just so that I can see what I would want to read. And also, it's a book might that really meant to you, meant something to you many, many years ago, might not have the same effect right now anymore.
01:33:55
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Right. That's true. That's true. Sometimes I've read something over and been like, oh, it doesn't really hit me the same way.
01:34:01
Raquel Baldelomar
Yeah. If you could put just one single message on a billboard about what it takes to achieve a combination of health, wealth, and happiness, what do you think that would be?
01:34:15
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
One thing on a billboard. How to achieve health, wealth and happiness.
01:34:20
Raquel Baldelomar
Yes. The balance of health, wealth and happiness.
01:34:25
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I feel like to me, it's remove to remove the blocks. I would say it's take the one thing that you think is not serving you and be willing to let that go.
01:34:38
Raquel Baldelomar
That's great.
01:34:39
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I think giving up alcohol changed the game for me, and I wouldn't have known it, but I would say to almost anybody, what's the one thing that's holding you back that you know shouldn't be doing? But you do it anyway and be willing to release that.
01:34:54
Raquel Baldelomar
Let go, go of the thing that really is not,
01:34:57
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
It's not serving you. Yeah.
01:34:59
Raquel Baldelomar
I love that. Thanks. Thank you so much, Stefanie. Thank you. Everyone here that's interested in sobriety, interested in reading Stefanie's story. This comes out January, 2024.
01:35:12
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
Yep. January 16th.
01:35:13
Raquel Baldelomar
And where can people find you, Stefanie?
01:35:16
Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
I am on, well, you can find my podcast is called For Crying Out Loud. That's my big parenting podcast with Lynette Corolla, who used to be married to Adam Corolla. That's like three days a week that podcast comes out. But if you want to find me, my website is Stefanie Wilder Taylor.com. Stefanie with an f and on. I'm not on Twitter anymore, but my Instagram is S Wilder Taylor across the other platforms. Yeah.
01:35:46
Raquel Baldelomar
Well, to my fans, thank you so much for watching. Thank you for being part of this. And I love you. I love you all. If you like this podcast, please be sure to click the like and subscribe button. And thank you again for everything. And until next time, bye.