Sobriety, Healing, & Holistic Mental Health as an Enneagram 3 with Amanda E. White
Welcome back to Enneagram IRL, the weekly podcast where we go beyond Enneagram theory and dive into practical understanding, new clarity, and fresh insight. We’re talking about how each type is in REAL LIFE so you can remember – you’re more than just a number.
On this week’s episode of Enneagram IRL, we meet with Amanda E. White, a licensed therapist and the creator of the popular instagram account @therapyforwomen. She is the author of the book “Not Drinking Tonight: A Guide to Creating A Sober Life You Love," and the workbook version which will be coming out in January 2023. She is the founder and owner of the group therapy practice, Therapy for Women Center, based in Philadelphia serving clients across the country. She has been featured in notable publications such as Forbes, Washington Post, Shape, Self and more.
We discuss performance and perfectionism, as well as explore the topic of Alcohol & more. This episode is great for those who are curious if their relationship with alcohol is serving them in their daily lives. What a great conversation with my fellow Enneagram Three!
Buy Amanda’s book, Not Drinking Tonight
& Pre-order the Not Drinking Tonight Workbook
Follow Amanda on Instagram & Tik Tok: @therapyforwomen
Or connect with her online:
Here are the key takeaways:
Amanda’s journey of finding her Enneagram type as a Three
Discussing how Amanda uses the Enneagram with her therapy clients
The relationship between alcohol and anxiety and the science behind it
The importance of forming a conversation around Alcohol and overall health
Shame & Self-compassion
Amanda talks about trauma and how individuals experience it
How can you connect and work with Amanda
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Naked Mind Podcast with Annie Grace
The Naked Mind book by Annie Grace
Sober Curious Podcast with Ruby Warrington
This Week’s Guest Picks:
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Enneagram Resources for you!
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Learn more about subtypes! Download my free subtypes guide here.
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Listen to the Episode
Read the Full, Unabridged Transcript
Hello, and welcome back to Enneagram in Real Life. A podcast that will help you go beyond Enneagram theory into practical understanding so that you can apply the Enneagram in your day-to-day life. I'm your host, Steph Baron Hall, creator of nine types co on Instagram, author of the Enneagram in love, accredited Enneagram professional, and ennea-curious human, just like you. Be sure to check out the show notes for more ways to apply the Enneagram and your daily life. Thanks so much for listening and now onto the show.
Hey, welcome back to the Enneagram IRL podcast. I'm so glad to be with you today. And I am so thrilled to share this episode with you. So today we're talking with Amanda E. White,who is a therapist and the author of the book,Not Drinking Tonight, a guide to creating a sober life you love. And I found Amanda a while back on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is therapy for women. And when I heard her book was coming out in January, 2022. I immediately listened to it. I snapped it up. I was so curious to hear what she had to say.
As a therapist, Amanda really weaves practical tips and reflection questions through the book. So we kind of get to know these three different characters, which are basically composites of different clients that she's had and they have these three different personas. And so we get to know them through this narrative, fly on the wall sort of perspective as they have these therapy conversations.
But we also are really invited to reflect on ourselves and our relationships with alcohol. And so this podcast today, or this book are not specifically for people who have a ‘drinking problem’,it's more so for people who are curious if their relationship with alcohol is serving them in their daily lives. And so in this conversation, we talk about alcohol anxiety, Amanda's own journey as an enneagram three, we talk about perfectionism and performance and all these different approaches.
And these different strategies that we really use to get our needs met throughout life. So during the episode, I alluded to some of my own journey with this. So I just wanted to share a little bit of that upfront. Of course, I'm happy to share more if you are interested but you know, these are kind of the basics here. .
So in the spring of 2021;I really started thinking about my relationship with alcohol more critically. I had gone through some seasons for sure of drinking more or less but I don't think that anyone around me and actually, I know for a fact that people around me. I would say things like, well, you know, you don't drink more than I do, or, you know, and kind of use themselves as a gauge for that. And even my therapist at the time was like, oh, it's fine. Like, you're doing fine.
But for me it wasn't about the volume that I was drinking. It was about how it really made me feel. And so I started that at that time, thinking about, you know, my relationship with alcohol and what that was going to really look like in the future. And so initially I listened to this Naked Mind, the podcast, and also the audio book by Annie Grace, which is really helpful. Annie Grace talks a lot about the brain science of alcohol and the way that those things work and how the chemicals and alcohol show up in our bodies. And you'll hear a little bit about that from Amanda in today's episode too and so that was helpful, but it also, for me, wasn't quite enough. It wasn't quite there. So that was really my focus for the summer of 2021, I'd say, through the fall. And, you know, I went through times of not drinking for say, you know, six weeks to a couple months and then drinking again, et cetera. So kind of going back and forth in January of 2022, I listened to Amanda's book, which we are going to talk about today, called Not Drinking Tonight.
And it really was a different perspective. So, you know, I already had some of the knowledge about the science and the research behind how alcohol impacts our bodies and those sorts of things even more. So Amanda talks about, you know, trauma and the different reasons why we drink. She has this fantastic quote that I love talking about specifically women who are, you know, struggling with alcohol. And she says ”they struggle to deal with unpredictability and the difficulties of life, more than being addicted to alcohol. They're addicted to the feeling of being in control of their emotions. And the ability to numb the emotions they don't want to feel.”
And when I heard that I resonated with that. So deeply as an Enneagram three, that is definitely part of my Mo it's not that I don't have emotions. It's just, I prefer not to experience them with a lot of you know, robust feelings, I guess I would rather be like, okay, let's just distance from that.
And so part of my process with the Enneagram has really been working a lot on emotional regulation and making more space for myself. To feel those uncomfortable emotions and feel through them. And then, you know, move on to the next thing. And I didn't realize the role that alcohol was playing in, keeping those things really stuck because it really became kind of one of those things where it's like, okay, you can just parachute out of this.
If you're feeling a little stressed tonight, just parachute out. And you can go do something else. You can go experience something different and use this chemical as a way to change that. And again, I just started really noticing, started observing how it made me feel emotionally, how it made me feel in my body.
And it was a few more months again, before I really came to this perspective of saying, you know what, I'm not going to drink anymore and so, it's been quite a process. And it has also just been one of those things that has been incredibly healing for me in working through this and understanding not only my approach to alcohol and what I believe about myself when I am drinking versus what I'm not. What I believe about the role of alcohol in my life, what I believe about the role of alcohol in culture and in society in general and just really investigating all of these things.
And. I think what's really important with this is knowing that you don't have to have a ‘problem’. To look at why you drink you don't have to have a problem to look at if it's really helpful for you in your life or not.and so that's kind of the invitation with our conversation today. And again, I'm just sharing this because I think it's really useful to be able to think about other people who, you know, might not have the exact same relationship with alcohol that you do, but still might choose. You know, to be sober for whatever reason and whatever that looks like for them.. And so whatever it looks like for you. So if that is interesting to you at all, I hope you really enjoy this episode. And I hope you'll go pick up Amanda's book because it has been really helpful for me just thinking through some of the deeper reasons why we turn to different substances, you know, of course alcohol is not the only one that we turn to, but it is the one that we're discussing today.
Before we get into today's episode. I do want to just share that during this episode, we obviously talk about alcohol, alcoholism, alcohol use disorder and addiction broadly. We also talk about eating disorder recovery again, broadly, we don't go into specifics. But if that is something that is going to be difficult for you to listen to something, that's going to be tough for you to hear, know that ahead of time. And maybe this is one that you'll want to skip, or you can fast forward through those parts when we start to talk about, you know, eating disorders and things like that.
So without further ado, I want to introduce you to today's guest;
Amanda E. White is a licensed therapist and the creator of the popular Instagram account therapy for women. She is the author of the book, Not Drinking Tonight, guide to creating a sober life you love and the workbook version, which will be coming out in January, 2023. And FYI, I got some behind Info on the workbook, which It will be significantly different from the original book. So if you read Not Drinking Tonight and you're thinking, well, I'm not going to get the workbook because you know, it's going to be the same, it's actually pretty different. So there's new content.totally different. So I highly recommend pre-ordering that now. And then it will be out in January.
She is the founder and owner of the group therapy practice therapy for women's center based in Philadelphia, serving clients across the country. She has been featured in notable publications, such as Forbes, Washington Post, Shape, Self, and more. So I think you're really going to love this conversation. We talk about the Enneagram. We talk about sobriety, we talk about a lot of our misconceptions around self-compassion and self-accountability and alcohol and all of these different things. So even if you know, alcohol isn't a thing that you want to think about right now, or want to you know, rethink right now, this still is going to be great.
Conversation for you to listen to. So let's hear from Amanda.
Steph Barron Hall: Well, Amanda, I'm so happy to have you here. Welcome to Enneagram IRL
Amanda White: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you Steph
Steph Barron Hall: Yes, I'm excited too because I, you know, we were just chatting a little bit before I started recording and I really loved your book. It was, you know, when it came out, I can't remember exactly when it came out, but the second the audio book came out, I snapped it up, you know, and I devoured it and I have really loved it.
Steph Barron Hall: But once I learned a little bit more about you and the way that you, you know, work with different types of people in therapy and all that kind of stuff, I knew I wanted to chat with you about your book and about the Enneagram.
Amanda White: Yeah,
Steph Barron Hall: So tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell me your story, the Enneagram, all that kind of stuff.
Amanda White: Okay, cool so I'm Amanda White.I'm therapy for women if you are on Instagram I have been in recovery for eight years now, and for me that means I don't drink alcohol and I'm also in recovery from an eating disorder. And I wrote a book which came out in January, 2022 called, Not Drinking Tonight, A Guide to Creating a Sober Life You Love.
Amanda White: And it is a self-help book but it also, like the introduction shares a bit about my story and really you know, I moved a lot as a kid. I went to two different elementary school, middle school and high schools. So I went, I moved a lot growing up and that really just impacted my ability to feel comfortable and make friends and it really kind of set me up for developing, you know, mental health issues. I had anxiety and depression growing up, though I wouldn't have identified it as that. The biggest thing that started happening is I became bulimic in high school and I started seeing a therapist for that and then kind of shortly after that, I discovered alcohol and it was a very magic moment for me in that it kind of felt like friends in a bottle.
Amanda White: It felt like my social anxiety went away. I was this better, cooler version of myself. I could talk to people and I kind of just became hooked and the two really went hand in hand and progressed throughout college. I experimented, uh, with Adderall and got very hooked on that as well. Really struggled in college.
Amanda White: Saw tons of different therapists. Lied to pretty much all of them because I was way more concerned about them liking me and thinking that I was making progress compared to actually making the progress, huge people pleaser growing up, you know, I was an, I was the oldest child very much before my whole life kind of fell apart with mental health issues.
Amanda White: I was very much kind of the hardest worker, the golden child, kind of, my brother was always compared to me so it was very surreal when kind of everything tumbled down and I like barely graduated college and was struggling so much and I think my parents were a lot in denial of that and by the time I graduated, I really didn't know what I was gonna do.
Amanda White: I worked at a frozen yogurt shop after I graduated cuz I was terrified to get a real job. And luckily I found a therapist who was amazing and she was really open about being in recovery herself and that just made such a huge difference for me. I was able to be honest for the first time and start to actually unpack, you know, what patterns led to all of this and was able to finally get into recovery.
Amanda White: Alcohol took a little longer because I didn't actually think I had a problem with alcohol. You know, I knew my eating disorder was an issue and drugs, but alcohol was so normalized that that took longer and you know, I just kind of, I was so inspired by her in the process of therapy that I went back to school and I wanted to become a therapist myself and do that for other people, and that's kind of how everything unfolded.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, that is so interesting. One, I'm really curious why you were terrified to get a full-time job. Was it because of the, you know, these different things that you're battling?
Amanda White: Yeah I mean, I think part of it was also just rejection, like the idea of I didn't know what I wanted to do. The idea of, I mean, I struggled so much with basic things in college, like being on time for things, attendance, you know, in classes, like doing what I said I was gonna do. I was so flaky. So the idea of having a job where people depended on me or I could get fired was terrifying to me, so that was a huge part of it.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, that makes sense yeah and then so can you tell us a little bit about your enneagram type, because I am already hearing it, weaving through your story.
Amanda White: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a three wing four. I used to think I was a two for a long time, you know, I think a lot of therapists do because we're like, we're helpers. We want, you know, of course and then I thought it was a four for a bit, but really once I figured out the wings, it so much sense to me cuz even when I was young I was like such an overachiever, such a perfectionist, obsessed with good grades, obsessed with looking good and being perceived a certain way.
Amanda White: And really I think the achieving also was really my way of surviving. You know, when I switched to a new school or I had to deal with not having friends or whatever, I would just be like, well, I'm gonna study really hard, or I'm gonna be amazing at sports or whatever, you know, so that really shaped me.
Amanda White: And then it also just created when everything fell apart and I wasn't doing well in college and things like that, it totally destroyed my sense of self and I had like no idea who I was anymore without achieving, you know, in high school I really had my heart sound on going to Dartmouth and I didn't get in and that like, crushed me and I kind of I kind of would tell myself, well, I don't have friends.
Amanda White: I'm not happy, but I'm gonna go to college and everything will be better in college. And I've kind of always had that personality too, of I'll be happy when I'll be happy when the next thing, the next thing that achieving in the future so yeah, it really, I had to kind of recalibrate. who I was. And I mean I remember so specifically with my therapist saying, well, I think I would be a good therapist because I'm really nice and I'm really caring.
Amanda White: Which is like the opposite of kind of what being a therapist is at the end of the day cuz you have to have hard conversations with people and be honest with them and but I think that spoke to, just like my self concept was just kind of like, well, I care about people. I'm nice, I'm a helper, which I kind of fell into when I wasn't an achiever and it took me some time to kind of figure out that no, like my core is more of an achiever, but I really relate to like, you know, the four part of myself too, where I am very individualistic.
Amanda White: I started my own practice. I really love doing things and like being a leader. and seeing things differently I think than sometimes I'm not always good at just kind of going with the flow and going what people tell me to do. I really like context and to understand why.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. And I think that a lot of threes can also resonate with that sense of going to therapy and like literally lying to your therapist because you're like, well, I'm going to ace this. I'm going to be amazing at therapy.
Amanda White: Yep.
Steph Barron Hall: Oh, so interesting. Okay, so then, When did you learn about the Enneagram? And as you look back on even your journey towards sobriety, what does that look like? How do those things play into each other?
Amanda White: Yeah, so I didn't learn about the Enneagram until probably like four years ago. so it wasn't something that I knew about when I was getting sober or I was doing self-help stuff. So yeah, it didn't, I didn't have that context as I was getting sober for sure. But now, I mean, I think that it's something that helps so much with just, I mean, there's tons of different personality tests and I think what I love about the Enneagram compared to some of the other ones like Myers Briggs or other things like that, I've struggled with other ones where it's very static. It's like, you were born this way. This is who you are. And just because of my recovery, because of my sobriety, I feel like I've been so many different people throughout my life that it's really hard to just be like, this is who I, you know, like the Myers Briggs talks a lot about whether you're like kind of more of a planner or you're more spontaneous.
Amanda White: And I've struggled with that a lot because I was a planner growing up. Then my life fell apart. , you know, in addiction, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't be on time to a doctor's appointment, so I wasn't a planner then. And then I got better, but I never totally like flipped the other way again. So it leaves you being like, well then who am I compared to?
Amanda White: The Enneagram to me isn't about habits as much it's more about patterns of thinking and tendencies and that's what I really love is you can have a tendency towards something, but it can show up in different ways depending on your circumstances, depending on what else is kind of going on in your life. And that clicked a lot for me.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, I love thinking about it in terms of strategies too, like these are the strategies that we use to get our needs met. And obviously, you know, I'm not a therapist, but I read tons of therapy books because I'm just so fascinated by the ways that we basically have to learn to survive and cope in how our brains function to keep us alive.
Steph Barron Hall: And so they build these structures and these personalities in these different ways, alcohol being one of them that we can survive and we think we're getting our needs met. And then we learn, oh wait, that wasn't doing what I thought it was doing.
Amanda White: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. I love thinking about it that way too and that is such a therapist way to understand things cuz exactly . You're not just one thing your whole life. And I like looking at, you know, all, whether it's addiction, coping skills, other things. I really agree with you and I believe that almost everything we're doing is trying to get some need met, even if it is causing way more harm than good.
Amanda White: And even if it has become maladaptive, if you look at things I love looking at things from an evolutionary perspective. Like we at the end of the day are just trying to survive and get our needs met, and then we come up with different things based on our life circumstances and you know, our traits to get our needs met.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, absolutely. I, uh, I feel like that is something that when I started recognizing that, just in myself, I was like, oh, okay, that's different. Like that is a different approach to thinking about, okay, it's not just. You communicate this way, it's like, no, you've learned that you need to communicate this way and it's okay, and we're gonna do something else down.
Amanda White: So much easier to be compassionate, I think, to yourself and other people when you can look at it from that way.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. So I am curious to hear if you use the Enneagram at all in your therapy practice. And I know that you work with a lot of women who have, are walking through recovery or have dealt with addiction issues and I'm curious to hear how those things kind of play together.
Amanda White: Yeah. Yeah. So it kind of depends on the client. Obviously, some of them are very interested in knowing themselves and some of them are not as much. So it depends on where they are in their journey, but I absolutely use it. I also really like the Enneagram. It's much easier with quizzes and stuff like that compared to some of the other ones.
Amanda White: So robust, so intense, so specific that it, I think can be confusing for people where I just feel like there's a lot less pressure sometimes on the Enneagram and it's allows you to kind of be like, this may be what you think and then you may learn that you're different based on what you kind of uncover once you figure out the wings.
Amanda White: So definitely I think that I also just tend to, just based on the population I work with, work with a lot of women who are threes or, you know, have perfectionistic tendencies and things like that so it's really fun to kind of help them understand that more and also understand that just because they have right, that strategy doesn't mean that they have to.
Amanda White: Right. I think there is this misconception. With like being, , a three that you have to do that for your whole life or that that is your whole identity or you're not a three if you aren't successful or something like that and I think that's really interesting to unpack too because just because we have these tendencies that might not be what we want, we may wanna create a different life for ourselves.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, and I think too, you know, the way that I approach the Enneagram is looking at, okay, what I'm finding about myself is it's really hard for me to know myself, cuz I've spent my entire life kind of basing what I think about myself on what others think about me. And so my journey is so much about, okay, let me go back and find my own sense of self, regardless of whether it's successful or if people like it or not.
Steph Barron Hall: What does that actually look like? And that can be incredibly challenging. And I think, you know, this is. I've talked on Instagram stories a few times about my own journey with alcohol and stuff, but this is like the first time that I'm actually talking with somebody where, you know, that topic can come up and it's totally okay because I think sometimes it can be so much more comfortable to hide and to not talk about that.
Amanda White: Yeah.
Steph Barron Hall: Especially with alcohol. There's so much shame. I loved so many of the things that you talk about in your book, but thinking about, you know, I can't remember exactly who you were quoting when you said this, but alcohol is the only drug that if you don't take it, people ask questions or people think you have a problem.
Amanda White: Yes, it's so true. We just, as alcohol is so embedded in our culture, in our lives and just this is, you know, once you see it, it's almost like you can't unsee all of the messages in our culture. All of the, you know, all of the all of the commercials, all of the conversation, all of the jokes, how much it is just normalized and just, we're just taught that the way that adults handle their emotions or a hard day is they drink.The way that adults celebrate and have fun is they drink. And if you're not doing that, you either have a problem or there's like, or you're weird, there's something wrong with you.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah.And it's so backwards and so strange that we think about it that way, especially given the research that exists around alcohol. And I've seen you address this actually on Instagram. I think also probably on TikTok, where you're talking about how four people with anxiety, you know, of course. You just mentioned that you work with a lot of like high achieving or perfectionist sick type of women who, and a lot of them are using alcohol as a way to numb emotions or to just cope with life.
Steph Barron Hall: And a lot of those type of people have a lot of anxiety, but alcohol just fuels it. And we are given this cultural narrative that it doesn't, We're given this cultural narrative that alcohol is the way to alleviate anxiety. So I'm curious if you can tell me a little bit, I know this wasn't in the questions, but if you can tell me a little bit about the science behind that and why that happens and why we think about it so incorrectly.
Amanda White: Absolutely. I think knowing the science is so important cuz when I explain it to people, I think that they understand things in a different way. So this is a very rudimentary, , dumb down for any scientists out there. Obviously this is not exactly what happens, but what happens when you drink alcohol is alcohol is a central nervous system depressant.
Amanda White: So your body gets depressed, sens like, and that's what makes you feel that euphoria. It's what makes you feel initially kind of calm when you drink alcohol. The problem is that your body and your brain always wanna be in homeostasis. So if you ingest a depressant, your body starts producing essentially anxiety, chemicals, and hormones because it wants to bring you back into that homeostasis level.
Amanda White: The problem is, is that alcohol, depending on how much you drink, eventually leaves your system, right? Like, I mean, literally alcohol. Marked as a poison in your body and your body stops doing other things like digestion, other good things, and just as kind of like red alert, we need to get rid of this immediately.
Amanda White: When alcohol leaves your body, the problem is, those anxiety hormones have still been flooded through your system, and those don't leave at the same time as the alcohol does. So what happens is the next day, often you're left with feeling more anxious because your body has produced those chemicals. So temporarily it can make your anxiety lower and you can feel a little bit better.
Amanda White: But over the long term, It causes you to have more anxiety because it literally trips up your brain to produce those chemicals and then over time, more and more, right, your body gets even better at adjusting to it. So your body starts to actually,you know, get used to the fact if you drink every day, that it's gonna start just automatically producing more of those anxiety hormones to anticipate you drinking.
Amanda White: And that's where long term people struggle with sleeping. You can, you know, depression, anxiety, all of these things, it initially helps, but over the long term, it makes it so much worse. That's the amazing and terrible things about our bodies is they're so smart. They will outsmart us. They will figure out a way for you to survive, even if it means cuz your body, your brain doesn't care whether you're miserable.
Amanda White: It cares whether you're alive first and foremost. So it kind of compounds and that's what people call hangxiety the next day. is literally those, Yeah. Yeah. It's become kind of a cultural term, which I'm, I'm glad to hear about but yeah, it's the feeling the next day after you've drank, sometimes it is based on what did I do? Who did I text, what did I say? But even if none of that happened, it's just that additional anxiety, those additional hormones, feeling anxious the next day after drinking.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Well, and I think. That, I mean, when, when we talk about it like this, it's like, okay, clearly this is not a healthy behavior. You know, we, and and even, it's so fascinating to me because I have a lot of people around me who are really health conscious, they still do drink and, and maybe even drink quite a bit. And why is it so hard for us to grasp that concept that actually this is putting us in a worse space than when we began?.
Amanda White: Yeah. It's so interesting what you said about the health conscious stuff too, because people will not drink soda or shame people for drinking soda or sugar or other things. right. And then they're like literally drinking, I mean, for lack of a better word, like, Alcohol is ethanol, it is poison, and I think a lot of it is just the culture around it.
Amanda White: I mean, I think that diet culture is very interesting in that it shames all these other types of chemicals or you know, sugar, juice, whatever, all of these other different things. But it doesn't often talk about alcohol. In my book, I did a lot of research, you know, personally, like I shared, I'm in recovery from both, uh, substance use and an eating disorder.
Amanda White: And I specialize in that in my clinical work too. And the rates really of overlap are really, really high among women especially. And when I was doing research, what's so interesting. So diet culture is essentially the idea that we're sold, that if we look a certain way, if our body is thin enough or meets the cultural ideal, we will be happy.
Amanda White: And we see this through Kardashians selling us different things, right? All of these different things we're told you'll be happy. The solution to your problems is that you're not thin enough or you don't look like this body type. Alcohol also sells us the same thing. It's just a different product. It tells us if you drink, you will, this is the solution to your problems.
Amanda White: You will be happy, you will be outgoing, You will have friends. You will be popular. In the same way that if you have this body type, and that I think is what's so interesting is they're both selling the same thing, just shilling a different product essentially. And that to me is why. People can be super health conscious and really into diet culture and also bought into alcohol culture, but not understand that they're being sold something essentially.
Amanda White: Because no, there isn't anything to sell with sobriety. You're not selling, right? Like there is no money to be made if people stop drinking. There's no money to be made if people stopped trying to starve themselves. You know, all those diet products, all of that kind of stuff, even clothes. So that's really to me why that happens is that people don't think about the overlap. They're not educated about alcohol, and instead, celebrities sell, you know, organic wine because that's so much better.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Yeah. And like it for me, it begs that question like, how do we actually change this because. I am hearing it more and more. You know, I think, you know, and there have been a lot of women talking about this specific angle on alcohol for several years. Like you think of Ruby Warrington and Annie Grace and like these different people who've kind of pioneered this.
Steph Barron Hall: and recently I saw some, something actually from Andrew Huberman from the Huberman
Amanda White: Yeah. Yeah.
Steph Barron Hall: in which. Pointed to somebody else who, who is a man and, and starting to say the same thing. And then people are like, Oh, okay. You know, now we're gonna listen. Right,but what do you think are some ways that we can approach this differently?
Steph Barron Hall: I know that in your book you talk about therapy as a really helpful way, but how do we kind of change.
Amanda White: Yeah, I mean, I think that. Uh, there are some amazing people doing really great work. Starting to normalize it, starting to talk about it more. It feels like the research is finally starting to peak through in that I'm finally starting to see people being honest about just the ties of alcohol to cancer and other illnesses and things like that where it felt like even a few years ago, people, doctors, you know, were still recommending, you know, wine as like a heart healthy thing to drink and stuff like that. I mean, in my mind, awareness and talking about it that's why I'm really active on social media and I talk about it on social media and for me specifically, I think there's a lot of power in non sober communities kind of talking about it too, so Right, like a lot of these amazing women and people.
Amanda White: Like Ruby Warrington and Andy Grace, all these people, they're kind of like insular communities, right? Like they may have the name sober in their, in their Instagram handle or things like that. And it's often a community of people who are sober or interested in it that explore it. And I get a lot more pushback on it, but I really try to be like, I'm not just sobriety, it is really important to me, but I'm gonna sprinkle it in with all the other content that I talk about.
Amanda White: And for me, that feels really important because it allows me to reach people who would never follow a sober account, who would never maybe be interested in reading about someone's journey, you know? That was in an addiction, you know, that only talks about addiction. And I really try to be more broad about it and be really clear that you don't have to be sober to follow my account. Most people aren't, but it's like, it's good for us to be exposed to different ideas and different things. So that's one thing that I try to do.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Well I can appreciate that too because I was just talking with a friend recently about they lead a recovery ministry, and they were saying that, 90% of people who actually have, or who actually drink would meet the criteria for alcohol use disorder, but they just don't know it because socially we're like, Oh, you're only an alcoholic, or you're only you know, addicted or whatever.if you drink X amount. And so you find yourself thinking, Okay, well it's fine. Like I'm.
Amanda White: Absolutely. Well, it's part of why in my book too, I mean even, you know, some people don't even necessarily, I mean, it was a big shift that was good that happened in the DSM where they did create that like mild, moderate, severe. But I even really believe too, that we shouldn't have to label ourselves at all to question our relationship with alcohol.
Amanda White: You know, when I'm in therapy with. If they talk to me about their sleeping habits, I don't have to diagnose them with having insomnia for us to have a conversation about their sleeping habits. But because of the way that alcohol has been stigmatized, often when someone does talk to me about their alcohol or I ask about it, The first response I get is, I don't have a problem. I'm not an alcoholic. And that shuts the conversation down. And it is because I think so many people are afraid to look at it and afraid to talk about it because they're afraid to be labeled. And that's to me where in my book, I propose the idea of creating a term called disordered drinking, which is much more broad and allows us to re.
Amanda White: We can all fall into this pattern at any point in our lives and we could, you know, I would say most people in college have disordered drinking . That doesn't mean they're an alcoholic necessarily, or they can never drink again. And I think the idea of abstinence only can also shut down the conversation.
Amanda White: And it's really why my book, I'm very like, I'm not saying you can never drink. I don't believe that. I think it's really up to you and I'll give you questions and tools. And you can explore this for yourself, and you can take a break and see how you feel. And you can choose to not drink or take a break from drinking or cut back simply because you don't like how it makes you feel’ It doesn't. We need to stop looking at it as whether it's bad enough and start thinking about, is this actually improving my life enough that I wanna keep doing this?
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, that, that question that. Pose, You know, Would my life be better without alcohol?
Amanda White: Yep.
Steph Barron Hall: about how that's the best question to ask because it kind of is open ended.
Amanda White: Yep. And it can change, right? Like depending on your life, depending on what's going on. And I think that's important too, cuz people get very afraid of committing to something for the rest of their life.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, yeah. And I think. Part of what you're doing too, to dismantle a lot, a lot of the shame around it is so useful because shame is one of those things that keeps us really stuck and keeps us hidden and we can't heal when we're in that space.
Amanda White: Exactly. Yeah. A big part of my book, I talk about shame. I think it is so important to understand and unpack because like you said, it keeps us so stuck. It keeps us quiet. It keeps us from being able to connect with other people, ask for help, all of those things that we need if we want to get better.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Yeah you also talk a lot about, and you've already mentioned it some, but about self-compassion and, you know, so reading your book. So in the way that you frame this story is you have these three different clients who are like an amalgam of, of your different clients, right?
Amanda White: Yes. Yes.
Steph Barron Hall: So you kind of have these three themes, which I think is such an interesting way to frame it.
Steph Barron Hall: Why did you choose to do it that way?
Amanda White: Yeah. Thank you. I love doing it that way. I came up with it because I think, so it's really funny. Actually most therapy books that are very clinical use, something called Case Conceptualizations, which is like a vignette of someone and it's just a short thing. And they typically have a new one per chapter or maybe multiple in a chapter.
Amanda White: And as a reader, I really don't like when people write that way because I don't become interested in the character, and it's very easy to kind of skip through the vignettes because you're like, Well, it's gonna be like two pages and then I'm gonna ha, I'm gonna learn about someone else. So my idea of creating three characters and weaving their stories together, so you kind of follow them throughout the book was really based on, I wanted people to be interested and to care about these characters.
Amanda White: And it also, , I really wanted to give a peek into the therapy room and kind of destigmatize it and show that it can be, you know, a lot less scary than I think that people think it is. And it just became a good way to kind of tell the story and give, I wanted to, I created three different characters that were kind different points and different backgrounds because my hope was people would, you know, relate to at least one of them in the.
Steph Barron Hall: Absolutely. And it's so fascinating too because you know, as you're reading it kind of evokes this reaction of. Come on, Aren't you seeing this? Like, aren't you, like, you wanna tell the, the client and then it, it kind of inspires you to be like, Wait a second, am I missing that in my own life? And, and kind of asking that question.
Amanda White: Exactly. And that's, I think, what's so interesting. About being a therapist is, you do get to see that from your perspective. When you see these things together, you. You, you see it and it exactly is that sometimes you wanna just be like, Don't you see this? But it is so much harder to look at ourselves. So my hope was if you relate to someone and you can see that person probably needs to stop drinking or cut back, if you then do the questions right at the end of the chapter or whatever, you could be like, Oh, maybe if I'm relating, maybe I need to look at s0ome of my stuff too.
Amanda White: And that felt like a gentle, compassionate way. For me to kind of inspire someone, and I'm just such a big believer too, in that we can't make someone change. We can't. Force them into that. And the best realizations people have are the ones they discover for themselves. I mean, that's part of being a therapist.
Amanda White: It would be very easy for me to sit and be like, This is why your problem is the way it is and this is what you should do. But our job is to help. It takes a lot more work, but it's to help someone else see where they may wanna change, but it's more powerful cuz then they discover it for themselves..
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. I mean, yes. It's so cool to see that. And I also, it kind of made me think about your. Journey that you talked about in, in, in your book where you were working at a treatment facility for
Amanda White: Yep.
Steph Barron Hall: alcoholics, and then you were like, Wait a second, I'm coming here drunk sometimes or hungover.
Amanda White: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was a big, I had so much shame around that for so long, but it was, I think it's so important to name and to be open about, because it does happen to therapists and it was something that I was so entrenched in drinking that I, like you said, I would go to my, you know, internship and I thought I was so different and I thought that.
Amanda White: You know, my drinking was totally not as bad as theirs or whatever, but I was showing up hungover or in shame of what I did the night before. And it wasn't until I kind of had a rock bottom moment of I woke up at, you know, it was Labor Day weekend and I was a yoga teacher at the time and I had to teach yoga.
Amanda White: At 6:00 AM and I woke up and I taught yoga completely drunk. I don't remember teaching. And that to me, I mean I'd had worse moments. I'd had a lower bottom for sure, but it was a moment where I, when the inner voice kind of was like, What are you doing? I listened. And I think that's important cuz I think a lot of times we have those moments of clarity or thinking, what am I doing?
Amanda White: And it's not special necessarily. It can happen multiple times, but what's special about it is whether you listen and you take action from there.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Uh, and I can just imagine too, like that moment because especially, you know, yoga is so much about embodiment and mindfulness and these things. Uh, and to go to that and be like, I don't remember a single thing. And, and too, like that dichotomy of those people are alcoholics. I just drink a lot.There's a difference. And, and bringing, you know, your entire concept of course is like disorder, drinking, like you. Run the gamut of how much you drink and it can still be something that is not helping you.
Amanda White: Absolutely. And a big part of my, uh, identity when I was a yoga teacher because this happened, right? Like there's yoga that happens at breweries and like all of those types of things. Like I, my identity was really being like, I'm a yoga teacher, but I'm a cool yoga teacher, you know, and I make jokes and things like that, and I think that's also really interesting.
Amanda White: That happens a lot in the yoga community. To go back to what we were kind of saying about people who are really into meditation and yoga and clean eating and all of these things, but then like drink a lot, but they, you know, justify it by, it's fine, it's not bad, right? This is organic wine or whatever they say to them.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Oh, we are so interesting in the way that we like, just really want to keep that, you know, sacred, and I think for me, like one of the biggest takeaways from your book, was about this idea of self-accountability. So I think, you know, I've, I've talked about this a little bit on my podcast before, but probably I think like a lot of 2021, I was in this mode of really leaning into self-compassion, learning what that looked like for me, leaning into it and, and basically having this. Almost like going too far, You know, like the pendulum swung too far. Where it was like self-compassion is just giving myself whatever I want, whenever I want it. So if I, and especially I. I mean, I don't need to go into the whole backstory, but I read a lot about spontaneous sobriety, like the way that Annie Grace talks about it, which I think is really cool, and it does seem to work for some people.
Steph Barron Hall: But then I was like, Oh, great, I don't want alcohol anymore. And then when I did, I was like, Well, I should give myself what I want, you know but you have this perspective that actually is a little different. So you have this concept of radical self-compassion, but also. Being a gentle and loving self guardian and holding yourself accountable to the person that you wanna be or, or seeing your life as valuable and worthy of being lived well.
Steph Barron Hall: And so, like, holding yourself accountable to your goals or, or to whatever you wanna do because you believe that you're worth it. And I'm curious how you came to that, the marriage of those two concepts I feel like it really threads the.
Amanda White: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I definitely had a similar experience to you where even, and that was what was insane, is so as I was getting into recovery from my eating disorder, that was part of what I said is I was like, Well, you know, a lot of my eating disorder was about restriction and not allowing myself to have certain things.
Amanda White: So I am going to let myself drink when I want to drink, and I'm gonna let myself have fun. Because my college experience was so, you know, dreadful. It was like I was recapturing part of my college experience, I think too, and I did kind of really was so overly compassionate to myself that it did kind of become, I can do whatever I want when I want, and it didn't feel good.
Amanda White: And it started to be like, Well, what would it look like if I actually thought was a cuz, right? Like self-compassion. A lot of that people talk about being a loving parent to yourself. But if we think about that being a parent to yourself, a parent doesn't just let a child not sleep. If they don't wanna sleep, it doesn't mean that they just, you know, eat whatever they want or skip school when they don't feel like going to school.
Amanda White: The parent has that understanding of like, you can be really compassionate to your child. Nothing they say can be bad or wrong, Like you can validate every feeling. And that doesn't mean though, that they can just do whatever they want. And that became a really important concept for me in. You know, my therapist helped me with it a lot and I started recognizing if I, if I don't feel good about myself at the end of the day, what is the point of self-compassion?
Amanda White: You know, there's just, because you're really kind to yourself and you let yourself off the hook and things like that, it doesn't mean though that you don't have goals or you wouldn't feel better doing things. And I think that's really interesting and I started thinking about recovery for myself as not what do I want to do in the moment, but how will I feel after I do this?
Amanda White: And even if we think about it in terms of anxiety, a big thing that I think stops people with anxiety from getting better is right, Like the example of they want to go to a party or an event, they said yes to it, but then they feel anxious. And what should I do is a very common dilemma, you know? Well, should I be compassionate to myself?
Amanda White: Not have myself go or should I push myself. And the problem with anxiety is avoidance makes it worse over the long term. So obviously if you are, like, if you can't push through it or you are sick or you have something going on that is really precludes you from going, yes, don't go to the party.
Amanda White: But if you're not going because of anxiety, the problem is, when you cancel going to that party, your anxiety is gonna lower and your brain learns, Oh, not going to the party is the solution to my anxiety reducing. But if you actually went, your anxiety would also reduce. Because it's much like, it's much harder in our heads, right?
Amanda White: Even if you're anxious, when you go after you're done, your anxiety will lower because it'll be done. And when you do that, your brain learns, Oh, going, you know, and getting stronger actually also reduces my anxiety. So that really to me, or like if we think about exercising, like we know exercising is so great for us, but we don't always wanna do it in the moment.
Amanda White: So, with my clients, I really kind of came up with the idea that having them ask themselves, How will I feel after I do this? You know, if you are getting up at six in the morning to go work out and you didn't sleep at all the night before. You are gonna feel worse after you work out . If you scheduled this and you really wanted to go, but you just woke up and didn't really feel like going, you're gonna feel better after you go.
Amanda White: And that I think is like the important thing is not during, not right before, but, but afterwards and trying to think of things from that longer view.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Well, and too, when you talk about, you know, these three categories, emotional regulation, self care and boundaries, and thinking about how we all need some growth, probably in one of those areas.
Amanda White: Yeah.
Steph Barron Hall: That makes a lot more sense too, because then you know, if you're going, because you're trying to alleviate anxiety, just changing the perspective can be really helpful
Amanda White: Yep. And I think with, like we
Steph Barron Hall: love that you give practical options.
Steph Barron Hall: Mm-hmm.
Amanda White: Yeah. Thanks. And I think with what we were saying about just perfectionism and stuff, you know, like I was someone who always, when I was younger, would do it and push through it or whatever, right? And then, when you try to find compassion, you can swing the opposite way and then you cannot let yourself do it.
Amanda White: And how do you find that balance? And I think that's where, coming back to that loving parent, coming back to what your values are, what you want your life to look like, is really, really helpful. And also knowing, you know, how things impact you if you do something or you don't do something.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Well, and, and you have to be like, aware enough of yourself to know how it impacts you.
Amanda White: Yes.
Steph Barron Hall: That's tricky. Uh, I feel like there are so many other things that we could talk about because I'm really curious to hear about how you see trauma and those different things play out in this, so maybe let's chat about that for one quick second and then we can, you know, wrap up.
Amanda White: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I talk about trauma in my book. I'm really kind of a believer, and I think the best way to understand trauma is not everything is trauma for everyone, but most of us do have some type of trauma. And I think that kind of helps with the swing of, I think in the past few years, right?
Amanda White: Like 10 years ago, I think most of us in our culture didn't identify as having trauma. And then we kind of swung. And now sometimes on social media, it feels like everything is trauma and saying this is traumatizing has almost become like a joke and a dialect in our culture. But not every, Right.
Amanda White: Like just, I think what's so interesting about trauma is it's not even about the event, it's really about how it impacted you and your interpretation of the event and how it changed your life. Trauma shakes our understanding of ourselves. It robs us of a sense of safety, and that is true whether you have sexual trauma or whether, you know, you.
Amanda White: You know, you're I don't know, you lost a job, right? Like there, it's not about what happened because it's really about the context. And I try to explain in my book that the same thing can happen to two people, but because of their experience, because of what they've been through, whether they have resources to cope with it or not, will impact whether it's traumatic or not in their life.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me too, in terms of, you know, I, when I think about that, I think of. Like the Enneagram, of course. And, and the way that each of us, we have these different core beliefs and core assumptions, and I think when our core beliefs or assumptions are, you know, for, for better, for worse, like hammered in by what happens to us, it means something different to different people.
Steph Barron Hall: So, for example, you know, I had an experience where I, I had. I basically got like a barrage of feedback online that was incredibly challenging for me, and somewhat threatening. And I think, you know, if I were an eight for example, that probably would've not impacted me the same way. But for me as a three and being like a little sensitive snowflake, I was totally like, I think I was, you know, somewhat traumatized by it and, and had to take a lot of time to work through that and be like, Wow, why am I like having so much anxiety every time I open this app?
Amanda White: Yep.
Steph Barron Hall: and working through that and how we, like you're saying, we have these same experience and we have different reactions to it.
Amanda White: Yeah, I love the way you explained that. That's exactly what I would say. Really the hallmark of trauma is it's like something happens and we have an interpretation about it, and what really cements it is when our deepest fear is confirmed by what, Right? If, when our interpretation of the event that may not be true happens and it's confirmed, our worst fear is said, that is where a lot of times something is solidified in and it's like the nail in the coffin for sure.
Steph Barron Hall: Ooh yes. Yeah. Then we gotta break out of the coffin cuz we have to live our lives.
Amanda White: Yes, exactly. Exactly. But it's hard cuz then you have to find other evidence, Right? That it isn't that way, but it's, it's scary to do that and hard.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. Oh my gosh. It is yeah, so for me, I had a CBT therapist for a while and I, you know, she still like, look for the evidence, look for the evidence, which is helpful in a lot of ways. And then I went to brain spotting for so long.
Amanda White: Yes, I do. Brain spotting. I love brain spotting. Yep. I'm a certified brain spotting practitioner.
Steph Barron Hall: That's amazing. I thought it was so helpful, I also sometimes was like, I can't do this today. My brain is not happy with me
Amanda White: Yeah.
Steph Barron Hall: Uh, but I also love ifs, which is what I have been using as of late okay. So tell me about what you're doing now. Where can people find you? I will tag everything in the show notes, but share with everyone what you're, what you're up to.
Amanda White: Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at Therapy for Women on TikTok. I have a practice that if you're interested in therapy, we have therapists in 20 states across the country and we're based locally in Philly. but yeah, 20 states across the country so you can sign up for therapy with us. And the other big thing in addition to my book is I actually have a workbook version of it coming out this January.
Amanda White: So in a couple months, depending on when this comes out, it'll be out January, 2023. a lot of it, it's 90% new information. It's, if you loved the questions in my book, it's gonna be all exercises and questions.I'm really proud of that and I'm excited about that release.
Steph Barron Hall: Awesome. That's so exciting. That'll be really fantastic Okay. So I'll make sure everyone can check that out. Maybe pre-order. I don't know if it'll be available for
Amanda White: Yeah. It's available for pre-order now on Amazon. Everywhere you get books.
Steph Barron Hall: Amazing. Okay, so final two questions I ask everyone these. So tell me about a book that has helped you refreshed you or shaped you in the last year.
Amanda White: Mm. This is a good one. In the last year,
Amanda White: I mean this is like not very interesting, but I've been rereading Harry Potter
Steph Barron Hall: I love.
Amanda White: and I haven't read them in like, probably 10 years and it has just been like a nice, I have, I'm like, I have anxiety and you know, there's a joke on the internet of like, we like to watch the same shows and the same movies and things.
Amanda White: It's just very, it was like such a big part of my childhood and it's, it's very comforting to read again. So that's what I've been doing recently. I've been trying to not only read right after, like a big part of my writing process is reading, so I end up reading like 50 books when I write a book. It's crazy and then doing it again for the workbook. So since I've finally done and I did those books back to back, I've been trying to like read fiction
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah. No, I love it. I think that's so important, and I love that example too because I always talk about like, you don't always have to be doing the quote unquote growth work, and I, I love that you're. Look at me. I am not doing it. I am reading Harry Potter and that is growth work too, if you wanna, you know, talk about it that way. Cool. So, and then the final question. What is a piece of advice that has really stuck with you?
Amanda White: Hmm. Huh. Okay. One of my favorite pieces of advice, and I don't remember who said it, was a woman who tweeted it and she said, there are different in your life, like there are different balls in the air. She was talking about motherhood and she was like, The key is you have to figure out which balls are glass and which are plastic because you can drop the balls that are plastic and they'll bounce, and you don't wanna drop the ones that are glass.
Amanda White: And that is something that I really try to use in my life. A lot of times they're, I can't do everything. I need to drop a ball. I can't always be on for everything. But thinking about things in that way has given me a lot of compassion. But also because we talk about the glass balls, it's also some accountability too. So I love that metaphor. I love metaphors.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah, it Do you ever have a hard time figuring out which ones are which?
Amanda White: Yes. And I feel like sometimes you break the glass ones , and then you learn that it's glass and then you gotta figure it out.
Steph Barron Hall: That’s such a good metaphor there too, because I think especially for threes, it's all all about like the image and like how are other people seeing me and I'm, am I meeting their expectations? And those are the things that we sometimes think are glass and they turn out to be plastic.
Amanda White: Ugh, 100%. I can relate to that so much. I think with Instagram and stuff, I used to feel like every comment someone wrote to me, every DM was glass, was so important. And you know, if I didn't check every comma, I used to be obsessive about checking. And in the past year, . I mean, I think that's part of the algorithm changes and other things going on on Instagram, which have been frustrating.
Amanda White: But I do feel like finally I have some perspective around people who can hate me and say things and like I'm not gonna die. And unfortunately that's something that I've had to learn through having, like you said, having some of the, the things that you fear about yourself confirmed by someone and then being like, Okay, but I didn't die,
Steph Barron Hall: I didn't die.
Amanda White: I'm still standing. Nothing like, it's shocking. Sometimes you feel like you're gonna die and you're like, Okay, but I'm still here.
Steph Barron Hall: Yeah.
Amanda White: So sometimes you need the experience. I think of it too, unfortunately.
Steph Barron Hall: Yes. Ugh. That is so true. Okay, . So I feel like we could just talk forever about all of these things, but we don't have forever. So I really appreciate you joining me here. And you know, I'm definitely going to link your book and I'll share about it in the intro too, because I just, it was one of those books for me that well, I have a book like this maybe every month, but I, you know, when I first read it in January, I was like, oh my gosh, this is gonna stick with me. You know? So I just really appreciate you coming on and, and talking with me.
Amanda White: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Steph. This was such a fun conversation.
Steph Barron Hall: Of course.
Thanks so much for listening to Enneagram IRL. If you love the show, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. This is the easiest way to make sure new people find the show. And it's so helpful for a new podcast like this one, if you want to stay connected sign up for my email list in the show notes or message me on instagram at Nine Types Co to tell me your one big takeaway from today's show I'd love to hear from you.
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The Enneagram and real life podcast is a production of Nine Types Co LLC. It's created and produced by Stephanie Barron Hall. With editing support from Brandon Hall. And additional support from Critz Collaborations. Thanks to Dr Dream Chip for our amazing theme song and you can also check out all of their music on Spotify.
