Elizabeth Jannuzzi, SOBER MOM: A Memoir
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:04]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show
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[0:27]Elizabeth Genousie is the author of SoberMom, a memoir.
[0:30]Her work explores themes of loss, motherhood,
[0:33]and recovery from alcoholism,
[0:34]and her essays have been featured in HuffPost,
[0:37]The Rumpus, and More.
[0:39]Elizabeth earned a best-of-the-net nomination in 2023.
[0:42]She is the program director at Project Right Now,
[0:44]a nonprofit writing organization.
[0:46]Welcome, Elizabeth.
[0:47]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book
[0:50]to talk about SoberMom and memoir Congrats.
[0:53]Thank you.
[0:53]Thank you so much.
[0:54]I'm so grateful to be here.
[0:57]First of all, your book is beautifully written.
[1:00]It's also beautifully designed.
[1:02]Let me just say that, too, with the way
[1:04]that SoberMom sort of fades
[1:06]and then all the chapter headers look the same way.
[1:08]But really, it's not the beauty of the design.
[1:11]It's the beauty of all of the intimate things
[1:13]that you're sharing and all you've gone through in your life
[1:15]and how you've turned it all into a work
[1:17]that the rest of us can read,
[1:19]relate to, be inspired by it's really amazing.
[1:22]So congratulations, seriously.
[1:24]Thank you.
[1:25]Thank you so much, yeah.
[1:26]Why don't we start by your explaining a little more
[1:29]about the book and how you became The SoberMom you are
[1:34]and how you've gotten here?
[1:36]Yeah, well, and a big question.
[1:39]Yeah, do I do like the elevator pitch or the,
[1:42]let me, why don't you share the elevator pitch
[1:45]so to speak for the book, even though the book is your life.
[1:47]So it's a little hard, too.
[1:48]Yeah, yeah.
[1:49]Well, so when I was 38 living in New Jersey
[1:51]in the suburbs of New Jersey,
[1:53]it was the primary caregiver of three young children.
[1:56]I was also in the throes of my disease of alcoholism.
[1:59]So my life imploded when my husband discovered I had
[2:04]a one night affair.
[2:05]And that was really the trap door that led me to my sobriety
[2:09]because when that admission came out,
[2:12]I also admitted to him something I'd been hiding
[2:15]for nine years of her marriage, how much I drank
[2:18]that I was basically drinking, you know,
[2:20]and alcoholism is a progressive disease.
[2:22]So it wasn't like this the whole time, but towards the end,
[2:26]I was drinking vodka, you know, pretty much every day,
[2:30]all day.
[2:31]And so I admitted to my husband who quite honest
[2:35]was relieved because he always knew something was off
[2:38]and but never couldn't, you know,
[2:40]knew exactly what it was.
[2:42]So at that point I started recovery and went to my first AA
[2:46]meeting where the women told me, you know,
[2:48]you never have to feel this way again.
[2:50]And so that's where the book starts at my entrance into AA
[2:55]and my marriage, unfortunately at that time like
[3:00]impluded with things were not going well.
[3:02]And through the 12 steps we were able to repair our marriage.
[3:06]So spoiler, it hasn't been.
[3:08]Well, just backing up to your family of origin
[3:13]because you've had so much loss and heart trauma
[3:16]and all of that.
[3:17]You lost your brother to a car accident when he was 18.
[3:22]You I was 18.
[3:24]You were 18.
[3:24]21.
[3:25]Yeah, I'm sorry.
[3:26]You were 18.
[3:27]He was 21.
[3:28]Your sister ended up dying by suicide,
[3:31]but had an eight month long protracted post coma, right,
[3:35]situation, which sounded horrific.
[3:38]Then eventually your mother passed away.
[3:40]I mean, you poor thing.
[3:41]I was just like, I need to hug this woman.
[3:43]This is a lot.
[3:45]Like it's almost no wonder.
[3:46]Like you're trying to find a way to take care of yourself.
[3:49]Talk a little bit about that.
[3:51]How do you carry all of that weight?
[3:53]Yeah, well, you know, obviously that was devastating
[3:57]for me and my family having those tragedies,
[4:00]especially both sort of coming of age moments
[4:04]when I was 18, just graduated high school,
[4:08]heading off to college.
[4:09]And then when my sister died,
[4:11]I was like just starting my life in New York City.
[4:14]I was just got out of college ready to start a career.
[4:16]So yeah, they were definitely difficult,
[4:20]but something I'd like to emphasize
[4:22]is that like I was an alcoholic before they died.
[4:25]You know, at age 17, I was drinking alcoholically.
[4:28]Like I could answer that.
[4:30]You know, there was like my brother was in recovery
[4:34]and he was sober three years before he went back out
[4:37]and died in a car accident drunk driving.
[4:39]So but so I knew about recovery
[4:42]and we had those brochures in our house
[4:43]that like asked you, you know,
[4:44]do you drink before the party?
[4:46]Do you black out when you drink?
[4:48]And even at 17, I could answer yes to those.
[4:51]So although, you know, my family definitely has these tragedies,
[4:54]it's not what made me an alcoholic.
[4:56]I would have been an alcoholic anyway.
[4:58]What it gave me was sort of like,
[5:01]I don't want to say like an excuse,
[5:02]but like I could say, well, poor me, you know,
[5:04]you would drink too if you had these tragedies.
[5:07]Like definitely like subconsciously gave me this out
[5:11]to continue to drink the way I wanted
[5:13]to drink, you know, and maybe cause me to hide it longer.
[5:17]You know, like I definitely kept things under wraps.
[5:20]I didn't want to be a problem to my parents.
[5:22]You know, I definitely, and that's sort of why I became
[5:26]a secret drinker.
[5:26]Like I did, you know, I realized like it's from not safe
[5:29]going out drinking in the streets of New York City
[5:32]and I started just to drink at home.
[5:35]The drinking of course, mass the grief numbed it for sure,
[5:39]but that's not why I became an alcoholic, you know,
[5:41]I would have been anyway.
[5:44]But, you know, alcoholism is a family disease.
[5:46]So, you know, my brother died of alcoholism,
[5:49]and though my sister died by suicide,
[5:52]I would say that alcoholism played a part
[5:54]in her suicide.
[5:56]Oh my gosh.
[5:58]So it's just so much to carry.
[6:01]Yeah.
[6:02]Did it help you writing about it in this way?
[6:05]Yeah, yeah, it did.
[6:05]I had when I first started writing the book,
[6:07]I included all the grief, all the stories
[6:11]about my brother and sister.
[6:12]And like you said, my sister had that eight month hot,
[6:15]like I could write three books about that year
[6:18]because it was really difficult.
[6:21]So I had to make the decision to focus this memoir
[6:23]just on my recovery.
[6:25]And just on that, you know, that section, you know,
[6:27]the, I mean, it ends after five years of sobriety,
[6:31]but really it focuses on the first year of sobriety
[6:34]because it was too much to include all the details
[6:38]of those tragedies.
[6:39]So I am working on memoir number two.
[6:41]That is about grief.
[6:42]Yeah.
[6:44]It's more difficult to write for a bunch of reasons
[6:48]because it doesn't have like a narrative arc.
[6:50]You know, how do you solve grief?
[6:52]I don't, you know, you don't.
[6:54]But it's so yeah, it was definitely,
[6:56]I mean, I always wanted to be a writer.
[6:58]I was, you know, when I started writing bits and pieces
[7:01]and seeing where I could go,
[7:03]I could, I saw that my recovery story, you know,
[7:05]could be written as like one whole book
[7:08]and I focused on that.
[7:09]And then I had to take out chapters that dealt with
[7:11]my brother and sister.
[7:12]So we'll be in the next book.
[7:15]Okay, well, well, the sobriety piece also
[7:19]and sorry for starting with those losses.
[7:22]It just was so, it stopped me and my tracks, you know,
[7:25]realizing all of the stuff that it happened to you.
[7:27]But anyway, the sobriety piece also,
[7:29]I mean, you start out, you've left your kids
[7:31]in a minivan in the parking lot of a liquor store, right?
[7:34]Well, you just run in and sort of justify
[7:37]the size of the bottle
[7:38]and how you didn't buy like the bigger one
[7:40]because like that would suggest your family of drinkers
[7:42]but not a flask that you can hide in your jacket
[7:45]or something because you're not that way either.
[7:47]But just like a nice, you know, mid-sized bottle
[7:50]that, you know, you can, and then you just jump back
[7:53]in the car with the kids who are on playing video games
[7:55]and you'd show us even through this one example
[7:58]and there are more obviously throughout the book
[8:00]but just how your mood is affected by it,
[8:04]how you start snapping at the kids,
[8:06]which at bedtime, obviously,
[8:08]so many people can relate to that mood and, you know,
[8:11]but then you're saying like,
[8:13]oh, I realized I am snapping because I drank
[8:16]and then you said I like, well, I've already ruined today,
[8:19]I might as well just drink more like fine.
[8:21]We'll try again tomorrow.
[8:22]Tell me a little bit about that
[8:24]and sort of when you're in the depths of the drinking
[8:27]and the momming how you felt about it and everything.
[8:31]Yeah. Well, it's really, it's terrible how much
[8:33]like mental space it takes over your brain,
[8:36]you're either, if you're not drinking,
[8:38]you're thinking about like how you're gonna drink,
[8:41]you know, how you can get what you're gonna drink
[8:43]and so that, yeah, that chapter tried to show you like
[8:46]how I would think and I would try to be like,
[8:49]okay, let's go on and outing so I would feel good
[8:52]as a mom like, all right, we'll go do this
[8:55]and then to reward myself, you know,
[8:57]I'd get a vodka and you'd switch liquor store.
[9:00]I mean, the thing is if you go to any recovery meeting,
[9:02]you hear other women share these stories,
[9:05]which is why like we have to go to those meetings
[9:08]because you can hear like, oh my God, that's what I did.
[9:11]Oh, you hit your vodka bottle in your riding boot.
[9:15]I did that, you know, oh, you went to different liquor stores
[9:18]because you didn't want them to judge you
[9:20]as if the liquor store clerk is judging you.
[9:22]I mean, they don't care.
[9:23]But like, this is like the mental obsession, you know,
[9:27]and trying to hide it and, you know, telling yourself,
[9:29]not this, I'm gonna, you know,
[9:31]this time I only have two drinks, you know,
[9:33]it's always two drinks, two drinks,
[9:35]but it never, you know, that's the disease
[9:37]is once you start drinking, you can't stop.
[9:39]I mean, you just have to keep drinking
[9:41]till you either pass out or, you know, finish the bottle.
[9:44]So yeah, so there was a lot of like, I don't know,
[9:48]oh, I would have to tell all this in my AA story,
[9:51]but I didn't want my husband to see the charge
[9:54]on the credit card or our debit card at the liquor store.
[9:57]So I would get cash out.
[9:59]So it was like just,
[10:00]so well thought out in plans, like even from the beginning of the day, like get cash out at the
[10:04]grocery store and that's why and then I had $20 and that one bottle I could use cash, you know,
[10:10]any different bottle might cost more than the $20 I had, you know. All these like, yeah, be able to,
[10:16]you know, take kids, go get McDonald's or something so that and put them in front of a movie
[10:21]so that I can drink, you know, and it starts off like maybe you just do it at night and, you know,
[10:26]but then, you know, to, like I said, a progressive disease so it sneaks in, you know,
[10:30]during the day and to the point where I was like, then I couldn't, I would drink even going on
[10:36]the outing, you know, which is terrible and, you know, you don't want to be that way. If you want
[10:41]to stop, but that's the problem with alcoholism, like, even though you don't want to drink that much,
[10:47]you just can't stop, you know, so, oh my gosh. Yeah. How do you square all of that with
[10:55]succumbing to this disease, which now you have our entreatment for is absolutely right,
[11:00]with being a good, you know, quote unquote, good mom, which you also clearly want to do in the book,
[11:05]and how, how do you pair those things when, when one thing you're doing for yourself is actually
[11:10]making the other things so much harder? Yeah, you don't, I mean, the thing without
[11:15]calling them is like your brain sort of splits, like you don't, you know, you don't know,
[11:20]you're being, you're trying, you're trying to just be a mom, you know, and you don't sometimes,
[11:26]like drinking would make me be a better mother, right? Like I'd be, let things pass or I'd be
[11:31]have more fun with them. I wouldn't feel so tight and clenched, you know, so prickly. But yeah,
[11:37]you know, I knew, but when you're drinking and you say, like, you drink and then get in the car,
[11:42]like, you know, you can't, your brain like splits as an alcoholic. So, you know, even though,
[11:49]like the next day when I'm sober, I might think, well, that was terrible. I won't do that again.
[11:53]You just, you can't help it, you know? And one thing I always like to share is like,
[11:58]I may do things as a mom. Like I remember this, I put the wrong Halloween costume in my son's backpack,
[12:04]and then I was at the Halloween parade and I saw him in this like two tight costume and I was like,
[12:10]oh my god, so upset. And I thought it was because I was drinking the night before. Like,
[12:15]I put the wrong costume in. Now, that's something I may have done sober, right? Like, easily,
[12:21]like, or the tooth fairy, like, forgotten to put money under the pill. Like, something I may have
[12:24]done totally sober. But the fact that I knew I was drinking like the shame and guilt, you know,
[12:30]would be so, so terrible, you know, but one thing that helps with shame and guilt is just more
[12:35]drinking. It's a cycle that's very difficult to get out of. How do you know when drinking is
[12:43]getting to be problematic or when it is the disease of alcoholism versus just drinking a little too
[12:49]much? Like, what about people who are listening who are like, well, I really like my evening drinks
[12:55]or how does she know? How do I know? Right? How do you answer that? I think if you're thinking
[13:02]about it, if you're worried about, like, people who aren't alcoholics, don't have a problem with
[13:06]alcohol, like, they just don't think about it. They'll go to the cocktail party and they'll have,
[13:10]you know, as many cocktails as they want, which, you know, but someone who maybe has,
[13:17]you know, a substance abuse disorder would be like, okay, I'm only going to drink two drinks at
[13:23]this cocktail party. Like, it's, I'm not going to drink more, you know, I feel like normal people
[13:28]don't think like that, you know, but someone who's, you know, it's a, it's a mental obsession
[13:34]and a physical allergy. So the mental obsession is like thinking about, well, when I can drink,
[13:38]though, how much can I drink at this party? What should I bring? Why, you know, that's the mental
[13:43]obsession. And then the physical allergy is like, once you start drinking, it's difficult to stop,
[13:49]you know, for me, I was like, once I had that two drinks and had that buzz, like, it would be
[13:54]almost painful to just like let the buzz fade away, you know, like you just didn't want, it was
[14:01]very difficult. And that's why you just keep drinking because you always just trying to get that
[14:06]feeling of that like two drink buzz feeling, you know. So yeah, I would say if you're concerned about
[14:13]it, you know, try not drinking for 30 days and see how it goes, you know, if you're, you know,
[14:19]uncomfortable or if you can't even do it, you know, maybe it's maybe you do have a problem.
[14:25]And should they try AA or what? There's all different, you know, roots to recovery for sure,
[14:32]you know, some people, you know, some people don't have, some people can just stop, you know,
[14:36]on their own and kudos to them. I could not. That's not something I could do. Yeah, I had to go to AA.
[14:42]I had to find people who had the same diseases me in here. It's hard like how colleagues like
[14:50]don't want to hear from somebody else, like don't want to hear from your husband you're drinking too
[14:53]much. But like when you go to the rooms of recovery, nobody tells you what to do. They just tell
[14:58]you about their experience. And when you hear that someone else had the same experience you had,
[15:03]and you feel, you know, comfortable. And so yeah, I think, you know, there's open meetings. So if
[15:10]anyone's ever curious about it, you don't have to raise your hand and say, you're now call like
[15:13]you can go to an open meeting and just sit and listen and see if it's something that's for you.
[15:19]You know, it's not for it's for people who definitely want to quit all substances, you know,
[15:24]it's not we don't do the California sober or the, you know, oh, maybe I'll just have one drink a
[15:29]month like there are other programs out there. I think if that's what you're interested in,
[15:32]but it's for people who know they they can't drink at all. You know, so
[15:38]you wrote also about your relationship after your high school reunion and how you accidentally left
[15:47]the note on your computer for that your husband found and all of that. How do you feel about all
[15:53]of that now? Well, I mean, even still it's difficult to admit that. It's one of my most shameful
[15:59]moments. But now I feel like saying God for that because it was the trap door that got me into
[16:06]recovery that, you know, sort of what happened was like the drinking wasn't doing it anymore,
[16:11]which is also a problem for alcoholics. Like this was my solution to me feeling prickly and,
[16:17]you know, and my solution wasn't working anymore, which is why sort of sought out another solution
[16:23]to help, you know, help me get through the life. But I'm like now I feel I don't want to say
[16:29]grateful because if I could erase that whole scenario, I still would, you know, I feel terrible about
[16:36]the harm that I did to my family and my husband. But if that hadn't happened, I don't think I
[16:42]would have admitted I had, you know, a drinking problem. So, you know, and I was pretty good at hiding
[16:47]it, you know, which is like amazing, you know, to I didn't really realize what a good liar I was
[16:54]until I went through the 12 steps and I was like, oh wow, I was a liar, you know. But yeah, that whole
[17:01]the whole scenario is still embarrassing to me, still shameful. It's difficult for me to talk about,
[17:05]but yet, you know, I do think it's important to share, you know, sharing, you know, cause,
[17:11]you know, helps people who may have gone through the same thing, you know, feel like they're not alone.
[17:15]And I do believe it was was the, like I said, the trap door that got me sober. So
[17:23]what's it's great of you to talk about all of it right about all of it. I mean, it's going to help
[17:28]so many people. I'm sure of it. So yeah, how do you feel about your kids reading the book,
[17:35]knowing all this stuff about you? Have you talked to them about it? What's going on with them?
[17:41]Yeah, it's difficult. They're all young adults now, right? My old, uh, oh, this is
[17:46]23 and the youngest is 18. So I had so once it became clear that this was happening,
[17:53]the book was getting published, you know, I talked to them about it and I had to tell them,
[17:58]I had to say, you know, here's what happened in our marriage. I had in the fair,
[18:03]and that's what led me to getting sober. I spoke to each one individually, you know, I suggested
[18:08]not reading the book just because I mean, they probably don't want to know all the intimate details
[18:14]of, you know, things between me and my husband. They don't want to read about their parents,
[18:19]but you know, I can't help them if they do decide to pick it up, but they all handled it in stride.
[18:25]You know, they're still young and they may not understand, you know, once you've been married
[18:29]25 years, like the things happen, you know, and it's they may not get that yet, but they probably
[18:36]will one day, you know, I think they see how we are now, you know, so committed to each other
[18:41]and an in a loving relationship and, you know, hopefully that's a good example. It was difficult,
[18:46]not to lie. And I hope that they don't read it till they're a little bit older.
[18:52]Do you worry about them with drinking? Oh, of course, yeah, yeah, constant worry about everything,
[18:57]right? As parents, we just worry. So all you can do is just, you know, say this is in our family,
[19:04]I believe it's genetic, you know, here are the signs that, you know, could indicate here's
[19:09]here's how I knew I had a problem, you know, that's what I try to I try to always lead with my
[19:14]experience, you know, not say, don't do this. Like, well, this is what happened to me and
[19:19]and how I knew I had a drinking problem. And then you just kind of have to let go, right? And,
[19:25]you know, as of yet, everyone seems okay, but yet, you know, I mean, I'm hoping
[19:32]sharing my story. I mean, if anything, they know where to go to get help, you know, if they do
[19:38]have a problem. And that's what keeps me going to AA for sure. I think about like, well, what would
[19:43]happen, you know, if so, so many people like get sober and then drift away. But like, I want to
[19:49]make sure the meetings are still there if someone like my kids or other young people have to go,
[19:54]it would be such a shame, you know, so that's what keeps me, you know, showing up to meetings,
[19:58]because I want to make sure.
[20:00]that it's still there for the next generation.
[20:03]And I will say, there's so many younger people in AA
[20:06]and you can't, and you're like, wow,
[20:08]if I had gotten sober at 22, my God, you know.
[20:11]But yeah, so far so good with my kids, so that's good.
[20:18]Like you say, you got so good at lying over the years
[20:21]and hiding all these things.
[20:23]Like, do you feel like you are falling into the trap
[20:25]of hiding things now?
[20:27]Like, is there anything that you're like,
[20:28]ooh, I can feel myself sort of hiding this
[20:32]and maybe this is getting to be a problem.
[20:35]Yeah, I mean, that's the other good thing about,
[20:38]you know, being in recovery and having, you know,
[20:40]we have these, like, guidelines to live by.
[20:43]And this is a silly example, but it's total true.
[20:46]Like, I can binge watch TV, like crazy person.
[20:50]Like, I watch TV alcoholically, right?
[20:53]Like, I will take a show and I will watch it
[20:55]until the, you know, all day, like, while I'm for anyway.
[20:59]And I can be, because I'm maybe embarrassed about that,
[21:02]that I'll watch it so much TV, I hide it, you know?
[21:05]And so once you're starting to hide something,
[21:07]then you're like, ding, ding, ding, this is a problem, you know?
[21:10]So yeah, like, what's great is that I can recognize these
[21:14]things now, you know, and it took, it took a couple of years.
[21:17]It wasn't, you know, so easily recognized.
[21:19]And that's why you share things with other people
[21:21]in recovery because you say like, this is bothering me
[21:24]and they'll help you realize like why it's bothering you, you know?
[21:28]But yeah, anytime you start to hide something, like, you know,
[21:32]watching Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, like a crazy person, yes.
[21:36]You know, if you have to sort of say, whoa, like put on the, you know,
[21:40]halt ends and reevaluate it, you know, maybe you shouldn't be.
[21:43]Great show, though.
[21:44]Great show, so good, so great, so good, so much.
[21:48]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[21:51]You know, find your community.
[21:53]You know, I think like, especially like your, you know,
[21:56]career just shows like how much community, you know, does
[21:59]for a writer, right?
[22:00]Like it's just, you know, yes, you have to sit alone
[22:04]at your computer and write it, but like you need people around you.
[22:08]I mean, it's the same as recovery.
[22:09]I find the two very similar, like you just keep happening,
[22:13]show up to the page one day at a time, you know,
[22:15]just like in recovery, it's one day at a time.
[22:18]But surround yourself with like-minded people
[22:21]who are going to support you and help you keep coming back.
[22:25]Because, you know, certainly there was like maybe even years
[22:28]like, like I would, you know, say, oh, I'm not doing this.
[22:32]I don't know why I'm doing this silly thing, you know,
[22:35]but then people drew me back in and now it's just not
[22:39]so fun, right?
[22:40]We're surrounded by these other writers talking about writing,
[22:43]supporting each other.
[22:44]I have a friend who has a book come, came out today, you know,
[22:48]and I'm so excited to support her.
[22:50]So just find your community, you know, know what them.
[22:54]Well, Elizabeth, congratulations.
[22:57]Really moving, really powerful.
[22:59]I'm wishing you all the best, and I'm totally rooting for you.
[23:01]Congratulations.
[23:02]Thank you so much.
[23:03]Thank you.
[23:04]It's been a pleasure talking with you, too.
[23:07]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi.
[23:10]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[23:12]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[23:16]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens,
[23:18]and spread the word.
[23:20]Thanks so much.
[23:21]Go and buy the books.