Jen Butler, MOM, REDISCOVERED: My Midlife Breakup with Drinking and Diet Culture
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
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[0:45]Jen Butler is the author of Mom Rediscovered, My Midlife Breakup with Drinking and Diet
[0:49]Culture.
[0:50]Jen is a writer, speaker, alcohol-free coach for women, and fitness instructor who believes
[0:55]wholeheartedly in the transformative power of sharing stories.
[0:58]A mom of two middle schoolers, she draws from her own journey through motherhood, midlife
[1:02]and perimenopause to encourage women to practice self-compassion and forge meaningful connections
[1:08]and powering them to take up space as their amazing authentic selves and their family's
[1:12]friendships, careers, and communities.
[1:14]She lives with her family in Westchester County, New York.
[1:17]Welcome, Jen.
[1:18]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to talk about your book, Mom Rediscovered,
[1:23]My Midlife Breakup with Drinking and Diet Culture.
[1:26]Congratulations.
[1:27]Thank you, Zibi.
[1:28]Thank you so much for having me here.
[1:30]Yay.
[1:31]Okay.
[1:32]So we, you and I have quite the backstory at this point.
[1:34]Even though it hasn't been, that much time, it's been intense.
[1:38]Let's talk about it in a good way, in a good way, in a good way, all in the good way.
[1:46]So I first met you in person when you came to Totally Book Live, was that the event?
[1:51]No, it was before that.
[1:52]It was before that.
[1:53]It was the year new chapter.
[1:54]That's right.
[1:55]January 2024.
[1:56]Yes, exactly.
[1:57]And you were so amazing and you wrote this fabulous piece about it afterwards, which I absolutely
[2:02]loved.
[2:03]And I was like, oh my gosh, you're such a good writer.
[2:04]Who are you?
[2:06]So how did you end up even at that event and take us from there to here?
[2:11]Oh my gosh.
[2:12]I love our story and I'm so glad that you're asking me to share it and to share it with
[2:16]you right now because this is really such an incredible full circle moment for me.
[2:21]So a friend who is a huge reader, book fan, fan of yours said to me, there's this woman
[2:29]Zibi Owens and I think you would really jibe with her.
[2:32]I think you'd really enjoy what she's about and she's having an event in New York City and
[2:37]you should go with me.
[2:38]We'll go together.
[2:40]And I thought, I don't know, okay, maybe.
[2:43]And I looked it up and I thought, oh my gosh, it's $175.
[2:48]I don't know.
[2:49]And I was hesitant and it's sold out and I thought, well, I guess it wasn't meant to
[2:54]be.
[2:55]So I, but I put myself on the wait list and then a spot opened up and I thought, well,
[2:59]I guess it was meant to be.
[3:02]And so I went, met my friend Cindy there and you were standing at the door when we came
[3:07]in and it was right after something had happened to you that I forget now what it was.
[3:14]But I read about it on your Instagram and I instantly felt like we were friends.
[3:18]And so I said hi to you and I was like, hey Zibi, sorry about that thing that happened.
[3:22]And then in my head, I thought, do I sound like a crazy person or a stalker that I'm
[3:26]like sharing this with her?
[3:27]But you were so open and friendly and natural and I felt like we were friends from the
[3:32]get go.
[3:33]And that for me really set the tone of the whole event.
[3:36]It was an amazing event.
[3:37]I hope you guys do it this coming January in 2026.
[3:41]There were so many authors there.
[3:43]The environment was so warm and it moved me to write a sub stack post about it because
[3:48]and I titled that post something like, you know, I never knew women could be this nice
[3:53]or something like that because that's really how it felt.
[3:57]The energy of that day was so supportive and open and warm and it was really a revelation
[4:05]for me that you could create that kind of environment and that all these women could come
[4:09]together supporting each other through a love of books and writing.
[4:13]So I wrote that piece and I hesitated to tag you and then I thought, you know what,
[4:18]I'm going to go for it because I want her to know how much this event meant for me.
[4:22]So I tagged you in the post.
[4:24]You saw it and that was the beginning of our friendship mentorship.
[4:29]And now here I am to talk about my book and I can't believe it.
[4:33]Oh, I can't believe it.
[4:34]Wow.
[4:35]Well, we've also had some ups and downs with this book getting out into the world and
[4:39]and I know it ended up not being perfect in terms of timing and all these other, you
[4:43]know, considerations with our tiny list that we have it to be publishing.
[4:46]But that doesn't mean I'm not a huge, huge fan of the book.
[4:50]I totally am.
[4:51]I am here to support it a hundred percent and so excited to talk to you about it.
[4:55]I also feel like we're friends because I feel like I started getting to know you through
[5:00]that post, follow you to read all your sub stacks, read your memoir.
[5:04]So, you know, it's like we don't even even need to interact.
[5:08]We just read each other's innermost thoughts all the time and that's a relationship
[5:11]right there.
[5:12]Love it.
[5:13]Okay.
[5:14]So to the book.
[5:15]Tell listeners about the book itself.
[5:17]When did you read?
[5:18]Oh, my God.
[5:19]Yes.
[5:20]Yes.
[5:21]So my book, mom rediscovered, I call it a coming of middle-aged memoir because that's
[5:26]really what it is.
[5:27]So it is my life story because, you know, I needed the full arc, but really the crux
[5:33]of the book is about becoming a mom, which is something I wanted my whole life.
[5:38]Struggling with being a stay-at-home mom, leaving my career to stay home with my kids.
[5:44]And even though that was a choice, it was hard.
[5:47]It was very, very hard.
[5:49]And because of some ups and downs that we faced in our family and lots of stress that
[5:56]was put on me as a stay-at-home mom, I turned to wine and it coincided.
[6:02]That time in my life coincided with really the peak of wine mom culture.
[6:06]So I fell into what I call gray area drinking, which I can talk about more.
[6:11]And so my story is about how I fell into that, realize that for me, that became a problem,
[6:18]how I got myself out of that.
[6:21]And then what my life has been like since then.
[6:24]And really, when I first stopped drinking, I thought, all my problems are going to be solved.
[6:30]I did this really big hard thing.
[6:32]I did it with some support from other people, but really on my own, I was so proud of myself.
[6:38]And then I had the wall-bombe of realizing that actually stopping drinking only solved
[6:44]that one big problem, which was alcohol.
[6:47]But then it really laid bare all of the other things that I had to deal with in my life,
[6:51]that I had been drinking to cover up and to numb myself from.
[6:56]So those things include breaking up with diet culture, figuring out what I wanted my identity
[7:02]to be beyond being a mom, because for me, being a mom was a dream come true, but it wasn't
[7:09]enough.
[7:10]I needed to forge some sort of professional identity and identity beyond motherhood.
[7:16]And so that's really kind of the full arc of the story.
[7:18]And there's really no finish line.
[7:21]I'm still a work in progress, but I did enough living that I realized I had enough of an
[7:27]arc to share my story so far as I have come into middle age and perimenopause.
[7:34]Yeah.
[7:35]Lovely.
[7:36]Just when you think you have everything under control.
[7:37]Exactly.
[7:38]Well, the way you share so openly, the way you write as if we're like talking to each
[7:44]other, just sharing it all.
[7:46]It's so accessible and warm and helpful and inspiring.
[7:51]And it's true.
[7:52]You can get rid of you can tackle something and it just doesn't mean that everything
[7:55]is, you know, roses and sunshine all the time.
[7:58]Yes.
[7:59]We go back to what is the gray area of drinking?
[8:01]How do you know if you're in that area and what do you do about it?
[8:05]So for me, I define gray area drinking and it's not my term.
[8:09]It was a term that I came across and that was extremely helpful because to know that
[8:14]it had a name automatically made me feel like, oh, I must not be the only one that can't
[8:20]go for more than a day or two without drinking or that, you know, has a glass of wine and
[8:25]has a really hard time stopping it.
[8:27]Just one glass.
[8:28]So that's where I was.
[8:29]That's where I got stuck.
[8:30]I would wake up anywhere from groggy to fully hung over at the beginning of the morning,
[8:37]say, forget it.
[8:38]I'm not drinking tonight.
[8:39]I'm going to take a week off.
[8:40]I'm not going to drink for a week.
[8:41]And by 5 p.m. like clockwork, I would be reaching for the wine, the open bottle of wine
[8:47]in my fridge every night.
[8:49]And I had a really hard time stopping it.
[8:51]Just one glass.
[8:52]It was like once I had that first glass, a switch flipped and I just had to kind of keep
[8:57]that buzz going.
[8:58]It really was a vicious cycle.
[9:01]It wasn't a paralyzing cycle.
[9:04]I was still completely functional.
[9:06]I was still a good mom.
[9:07]I was getting my kids to school.
[9:09]I was doing the PTA stuff, like doing all the things I needed to do, cooking the dinners,
[9:14]doing the dishes, doing all the things, but inside I knew that it was a problem.
[9:19]And I call it like a lowercase P problem.
[9:20]It was not a capital P problem.
[9:22]Thank goodness.
[9:23]I didn't need professional help, but I needed to help myself because I knew it was a problem.
[9:29]And I tried by myself for a long time.
[9:32]I tried to take weeks off.
[9:33]I tried to take a month off and nothing ever worked.
[9:37]And finally, I realized that I needed to reach out for help.
[9:40]And that's how my book starts is with me that moment of making myself super vulnerable
[9:45]and reaching out for help.
[9:46]And I did that to a group of women online and anonymous women, most of whom I will never
[9:53]know who they were.
[9:54]But they I reached out and said, I think I need to do dry January.
[9:58]I have no idea how I'm going to
[10:00]to do this. Any advice would be appreciated. And they received me with such kindness and compassion
[10:06]and support. And that made all the difference for me.
[10:10]That's amazing. I mean, it is a slippery slope when drinking is so socially acceptable and it's
[10:16]something that moms do together. Yeah, yeah, it's like you can't get away from it. It's like
[10:22]bare everywhere. Exactly. Exactly. You know, why mom culture is all about like,
[10:28]wine is a tool. You need to survive motherhood. You need this. And I fully bought into
[10:34]that because I was feeling so isolated in my struggles as a mom. I felt so guilty that I wasn't
[10:41]fully content and satisfied being a stay at home mom. And here wine was put on this pedestal.
[10:48]Like this will help you. This will help your anxiety. This will make you feel good. And I went
[10:54]all in. I feel like I've had periods of time in similar spots when my twins who were now 18
[11:00]were like, I don't know, maybe three or four. And I had to go on antibiotics for something. And the
[11:04]doctor was like, you can't, I mean, you kind of alcohol for like five days. And I was like, Oh,
[11:07]I don't think I can do that. Yeah. Like, how am I going to do that? Yes. Yes. And when, you know, I
[11:12]realized it was getting to be a problem when I got sick, like I got a bag cold. And it felt like a
[11:18]relief because I felt like, Oh, thank God, I'm not going to want to drink. And I thought,
[11:23]well, that's not great. If, you know, I have this horrible cold. And it's a relief because I'm not
[11:28]going to be craving alcohol tonight. Like, that's not great. We need to do something about this.
[11:32]So diet culture though is another piece of the puzzle here. And by the way, there's so much sugar
[11:38]in wine. It's almost like it's all wrapped up in the same dopamine response. Oh, that don't mean
[11:45]yep, yep, that reward center back here. Yep. So talk about that. And your sort of lifelong
[11:52]experience with diet culture. Yeah. So I, you know, grew up in the 80s and 90s where skinny was
[11:58]the goal. And fat was the enemy. Fat in food and fat on our bodies was the absolute enemy.
[12:05]And so I tried Weight Watchers for the first time when I was 12. My mom was on it. It was something
[12:11]we could do together. And I thought, you know, this was normal. And so did she. Like, she didn't
[12:16]know any better either because we just all bought into it. And even then, I remember tracking
[12:22]my points and feeling hungry. And it just, it just felt awful. So I would, I would say today's
[12:27]a points free day. And then I would eat an entire sleeve of chips or hoy cookies. And that was
[12:32]happening when I was 12. So that's kind of how my relationship with diet culture started,
[12:37]not great. And then it just kind of continued throughout my life as I fought against my body.
[12:44]I never felt thin enough. I never felt small enough. My parents divorced when I was four. My
[12:50]mom is about five, seven and has kind of a normal body like mine. And my dad remarried a very
[12:56]petite woman who's wonderful. And I adore her. But the message that I got from that was, oh,
[13:03]you live happily ever after if you're small and beautiful and quiet, not if you're normal size
[13:11]and taking up space. So that was not a great message for me to get. And it's not my parents
[13:17]fault. But that was how I read the situation. And so for my whole life, I just tried to stay small.
[13:24]I tried to exercise to make myself smaller. I tried to eat less to make myself smaller and go
[13:30]figure nothing really worked for long because our bodies are meant to take up a certain size and
[13:37]shape in this world. And that is predetermined to a certain extent. And I eventually, during COVID,
[13:44]because I think we all got tired of a lot of things during COVID, just decided, forget it. I'm
[13:49]done with this. At the start of COVID, I was working with a nutritionist. And I had to put that in
[13:54]quotes because she was not so great as you'll read about in the book. And I was really starving
[14:00]myself. And that was just, it was such an awful time because it was the start of the pandemic
[14:06]and I was starving myself. And it was just this horrible cycle. And when I finished working with her,
[14:14]I, well, the first thing I did was I ate an entire tub of vanilla almond butter. And then
[14:20]then I felt sick. And then I decided enough enough, I'm just going to let my body do what it's
[14:27]going to do and be the size is going to be. That's not to say I'm always happy with it. That's
[14:33]not to say I don't still get self-conscious, especially because I teach fitness classes and I'm up
[14:37]there in my sports bra and my leggings in front of the room. But I have practiced just appreciating
[14:45]my body, not always loving it, not always even accepting it, but just appreciating that it is
[14:52]the size that it is and that I'm healthy. And that's what matters the most. It sounds like it,
[14:58]like it all makes sense, but it's so hard to internalize that. So hard. It's so hard. So I know
[15:04]you went through so much to get to that place, but how like where do we have to hit bottom basically
[15:11]to just say, okay, fine, this is me. Like I know you got to it through sort of a traumatic,
[15:17]traumatic way, but so many people are looking for peace with who they are, what they look like.
[15:23]Yeah. And the sad part is it's like it doesn't end at a certain age. Like you don't just
[15:29]all of a sudden, because I always assume like, oh, well, I'm sure like grandparents don't worry about
[15:34]no grandparents worry about it. It doesn't go away unless something's done. Right. Unless you deal with
[15:39]it on a certain time. So not that you're, you know, a purported expert in this, but for those who
[15:45]are still struggling a little bit, like how do they get to where you are? So to answer the first
[15:51]part of your question, I am a firm believer that you do not have to hit rock bottom in any area of
[15:56]your life. I didn't hit rock bottom with my drinking. I didn't hit rock bottom with breaking up with
[16:02]diet culture, but I got to a point where I had had enough. And at that point, it was really about
[16:10]practice. Practice is one of my favorite words because it just implies that you just have to
[16:16]try and try and dry and dry and dry and dry. And you will never be done. It will get easier,
[16:22]but it will never be necessarily easy, but you just have to keep going and eventually
[16:29]that that initial struggle eases. And then it's just, it's easier. It's never necessarily easy,
[16:37]but it is easier for sure. So I just think about that. I think about, you know, I'm practicing
[16:43]on a day when I'm, you know, right before my period and I'm feeling bloated and discussing and I'm up
[16:48]there in the front of the room, teaching a fitness class. I think like, oh, I feel gross. And then I
[16:52]think to myself, this is great practice of just showing up in my body exactly the way it is today
[16:59]and teaching a great fitness class and providing a great experience for these women and having these
[17:03]women see me in this state and just kind of owning it and accepting it for what it is. So to me,
[17:10]it's really about practice. And I, you know, try to talk about that in the book a little bit of
[17:16]just like, you just keep going and you just keep trying and eventually it does get easier.
[17:22]And speaking of keeping going and trying, you've also along the way now written a whole book
[17:26]about this. Yeah. When, how do you go from writing blogs to writing books? How do you tell me
[17:33]that whole thing? And when did you always want to write a book? I did. I did. You did too, didn't you?
[17:39]I did. You always want to write a book, right? I think a lot of reader, if you're a big reader,
[17:43]it's like, you have to imagine. I feel like, well, could I do this? Yeah. Can I hold my,
[17:49]will I be holding my book in my hand someday? So I started journaling in sixth grade. And at that,
[17:54]I was a voracious journaler throughout my adolescence and young adulthood. And that was when
[17:59]this dream really began. I always wanted to write a book. But I kind of leaned toward nonfiction
[18:06]just because I always journaled. And I'm a little afraid of fiction anyway, but I'm going to get
[18:10]over that. But I always just sort of like leaned towards that, like telling my story. I just didn't
[18:16]know what my story was. And when I first quit drinking, I thought, oh, I have my book. It's going to be
[18:21]quit lit. I'm going to join the quit lit shelf. That's it. And that's the book I started to write.
[18:26]This was about five years ago. And I got through that book. And some of those scenes are still in
[18:33]my book. Some scenes that I wrote a long time ago. But I thought what what then made me stop that
[18:39]project was this isn't all I want to tell. There's more to me than just my story of quitting
[18:45]drinking, not to not quit like because I think those books are very important. But for me, it was
[18:50]really my motherhood story that I wanted to tell. And quitting drinking is a huge part of that.
[18:55]But it was that overall arc that I wanted to tell. But I got very nervous because I thought, well,
[19:00]maybe my story isn't special enough to share. And that's when I thought, no, I'm going to make it
[19:07]like a self-help book, like some cool hybrid memoir self-help. And I sent a DM to Zippy Owens. And I
[19:14]said, hey, Zippy, what do you think of this idea? And Zippy said to me, Jen, I'm going to be
[19:20]honest with you. Don't try to play the market right from your heart. Everybody has a story to share.
[19:26]Everybody's story is worth sharing. So write your story. And that Zippy, I will, I am forever grateful
[19:35]for that advice because I'm a rule follower. And it's like, that was the permission slip I needed
[19:40]to write my story. And that's what I did. And that's what this book is. So I am so grateful to you
[19:46]for giving me that very precious advice. And I hope everyone who here is this also takes that advice
[19:51]because you're absolutely right. We all have stories that are worth sharing. It doesn't have to be
[19:57]an outside arc. It doesn't have to be rock bottom.
[20:00]It just is us. I love that. This is like the most feel-good podcast ever.
[20:07]Thank you, Jen. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you. Okay, so now with the book coming out and all of
[20:16]your, I know you've gotten used to, you had practice sharing from the heart and all that,
[20:21]is there anything in the book that you're a little nervous to put out there for the first time?
[20:26]Oh, how much time do we have, Cindy?
[20:31]Yes, although my dad has now read the book, so I'm like, okay, if my dad has read it,
[20:36]anyone can read it, it's fine. But yes, I mean, I, I really go there and, and that was,
[20:42]I worked with two editors in the process of writing this book and that was the advice that they had,
[20:46]was like, you gotta really go there, Jen. Sorry, but you're kind of glossing over this. Nope,
[20:51]you gotta get in there. And so I did and I share very vulnerably about everything from like,
[20:59]in high school, I call myself a social springboard because I was the girl that boys kissed
[21:04]so that the girls they actually wanted to kiss would see them kissing a girl. And then they'd be like,
[21:09]oh, I want to kiss that boy now. So that was very vulnerable. You know, I mean, oh my gosh, I
[21:14]talk about how I lost my virginity. I talk about some sex stuff that is, was very important for me to
[21:21]share, but also just makes me feel super vulnerable, vulnerable. But at the same time,
[21:28]now that I'm an open book, I mean, literally, I feel like here I am. It's really empowering because
[21:35]it just feels like, yeah, this is my story. I have taken full ownership of this. And I have already
[21:41]had advanced readers who I know come up to me and say, you know, thank you so much for sharing
[21:48]because like, another thing I share about is PMDD, which is pre menstrual dysphoric disorder,
[21:54]which is a hormone based mood disorder that I have. And I didn't find out I had it until I was
[21:58]about 41. And I've had women come up to me and say, I think I have that. I gotta go talk to my
[22:03]doctor or I have older friends who are now in their 60s who have said to me, I absolutely had that,
[22:10]but I didn't know it. And I just had to live with it until I hit menopause. So there are definitely
[22:17]things in here that I kind of can't believe I have in a book that everyone's going to know about,
[22:23]but it has been incredibly empowering for me to be able to do that and just own it. And now to get
[22:30]the response that I'm getting of people saying, oh my gosh, me too, or oh my gosh, I didn't know
[22:37]that was a thing. And knowing that because of what I've written, they no longer feel like they are
[22:43]alone in their struggles makes it all worth it. Amazing. I remember those ads on TV. Do you
[22:48]remember those? Like, it's not PMS. It's PMDD. And it was like, what the heck? I'm like, what is this?
[22:55]Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know it was a thing either. But I'm glad you tackled it because I don't
[22:59]those ads are definitely not on anyone. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Okay, aspirations going forward.
[23:05]I know you're going through a lot of changes in your life now. What next? Well, I feel like I'm
[23:13]currently living my next memoir. So that is coming, but that is years away. I got to do some more
[23:19]living before that one is is ready to be written. However, I had an idea for a fiction project
[23:25]that sprouted in my brain over dinner with my kids this past summer. So a month or two ago,
[23:31]we were all sitting at dinner and we started talking about this idea for a fiction story.
[23:36]And it has now taken root in my gut the way that my memoir did. So I'm like, oh, well,
[23:42]here's the next book. Got to write it. Got to write it because it's in there now. I've never written
[23:46]fiction before, but I am so fired up about this story. It will not let go. It's like, it's keeping me
[23:52]up at night. It's waking me up in the morning. And I'm really excited about it. It is a dual timeline
[23:59]forbidden love story that takes place in a place that has been very important to me in my life
[24:06]that I talk about a little bit in the book, but I don't talk about the time that I
[24:11]spent there. And I was thinking to myself, like, how have I not written about this stage
[24:16]of my life? And I realized this moment in my life, two summers that I spent in this very special
[24:21]place was so important to me and so formative that it kind of needs its own project. And I've
[24:27]realized it's a fiction project. And so I'm super intimidated, super excited. And I'm just,
[24:33]I'm going to go for it. I love it. You're very inspiring. I hope you know that. Do
[24:39]you'll feel that. Thank you. Jen, thank you so much. I'm so glad that you wrote this book that
[24:48]you came to our event. The things have unfolded that the way they did. And I feel like this is just
[24:52]the beginning. So I'm so excited to collaborate and see where all of this goes. Oh, thank you so much.
[24:59]I truly can't thank you enough for your support and for putting me on your most anticipated list
[25:03]for fall. And just every, every moment that you have offered me support and mentorship has
[25:09]meant everything to me. And this has been like the most glorious full circle moment this morning.
[25:14]So I'm so grateful to you, Zippy. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jen. Thank you.
[25:20]Okay. Yay. Thanks for going on. All right. Bye. Bye.
[25:27]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zippy. Formerly, mom's don't have time to read books.
[25:32]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens.
[25:38]And spread the word. Thanks so much. Go and buy the books.