Chloe Is Starting to Drink Too Much

Proxy with Yowei Shaw

The episode follows Chloe, a 22-year-old medical student in Australia, who is struggling with an increasing alcohol habit but fears that seeking help

Key takeaways

• Chloe consumes approximately three-quarters to a full bottle of wine daily as a 'wind down' routine.
• Jay notes that while trauma is often cited as a cause for addiction, genetics accounts for 50-60% of vulnerability.

Main topics

• Alcohol addiction and prevention
• Genetics vs. trauma in substance abuse

Notable quotes

I'll find myself in the morning saying, I'm not going to drink today. It's not going to happen. And then I'll get home from placement and it'll be six o'clock at night and I'll be like, I'll just have one glass.

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates that early intervention and finding a support

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) I'm Elizabeth Day, creator and host of How to Fail, where we hear from people like this. Speaker 1 (0:04) For Schitt's Creek, for example, if I had a partner going into that experience, I certainly would not have had that partner coming out of that experience. Speaker 2 (0:12) It's a talent to be a mom. Speaker 3 (0:15) You know, it's a skill. And even... We actually seen Miranda fail at a lot of things that was the best thing that could have happened to her. That's How to Fail. Find it wherever you're listening to this. Speaker 3 (0:37) Back in March, I got an email from a listener in Australia. I'm calling her Chloe, 22 years old, a health care student about to start medical school. And she said she needed help, but was afraid of getting reported to Speaker 2 (0:52) the authorities if she got help. Can Speaker 3 (0:55) you say more about that? What are you afraid of happening? Speaker 2 (0:58) Just like losing everything. Like even though you can like get help, but then. To then have to be tested every time you go into work is just like, that would suck. Oh, is that something that happens? I don't know. That's the thing. I don't know. I'm not getting enough to look. Chloe is referring to Australia's mandatory Speaker 3 (1:17) reporting laws, which require that health care practitioners be reported when an impairment like substance abuse could put patients at risk. I Speaker 2 (1:25) don't think it's going to happen to me. Like, I'm not someone who would ever drink on the job. That just would not, I would never do that. That is just diabolical. But like if something like that did happen, if there's like a mandatory report, that would suck. And the drinking hasn't affected work at all for you? No, it's not leading to any mental issues. I don't get in arguments with people. And I don't get hangovers. That's the other thing. How much are you drinking right now? Probably three quarters of a bottle of wine a day in the evening. And it's definitely creeped up as well because I've noticed right at the beginning, about half a bottle would be fine, but now we're getting to three quarters, sometimes a whole one. But it's not like it's making me, I'm not getting completely plastered. That's not what's happening. It's more of a wind down routine that I can't seem to kick. But if you let that all stack up over the course of a week, let's say it's five days out of the week, that's easily. Speaker 2 (2:31) 25 to 30 standard drinks of alcohol, which is a lot of drinks. I can easily tell you that 30 shots a week is too much. I mean, you're considered to have a problem if you're having more than 10 standards a week. Oh, really? Speaker 3 (2:46) Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:47) That's considered to be a bit like, a Speaker 3 (2:49) bit, hmm. Speaker 3 (2:54) Being afraid that you could lose your career when you're only a student and you're just starting to have a drinking problem could be considered overkill. But that's who Chloe is. I've met lots of nerds in my lifetime, but never a nerd for preventative medicine like Chloe. Her dream is to work in rural communities to prevent many of the preventable diseases she's seen in placement. Speaker 2 (3:17) Which... Love that. Speaker 3 (3:19) You Speaker 2 (3:19) get a lot of people who just haven't had the access. You'll ask them, when did you last get your blood pressure checked? And they're like, never. So when it comes to drinking, she Speaker 3 (3:27) knows exactly why she should stop. At just 22, Chloe sounds like one of those PSA posters you find in a doctor's office. Come to life. I Speaker 2 (3:37) know it is so bad for my liver. It is terrible for your sleep. It is terrible for your blood pressure. It's terrible for your bones. It... Increases your risk of getting all these vitamin deficiencies. Speaker 3 (3:50) It Speaker 2 (3:50) destroys your intestinal lining, which that's how you get absorption of nutrient deficiencies. Speaker 3 (3:56) You Speaker 2 (3:56) can end up with a vascular necrosis of your hip, which is where the bone dies because it's not getting enough blood. It increases your risk of so many cancers. See, this is the thing. A lot of people don't know. Typically, a lot of these cancers, a lot of issues have no symptoms. No noticeable symptoms until it is too late. Speaker 3 (4:18) And so Chloe is trying to catch her drinking problem before it's too late. She can already spot the early Speaker 2 (4:24) signs. There was a local Dan Murphy's, which is one of our biggest alcohol suppliers. And one of the people at the Dan's, like, recognized me because I'd been there so often. And at first I was like, oh, ha ha, that's kind of funny. But then I thought about it, I was like, that is a bit odd. They get a lot of customers. Like, I've worked in fast food and it takes a while for you to even recognize a regular. Speaker 3 (4:49) Chloe now spreads the buying of booze across different bottle shops. And she hasn't told anyone in her life. Not her family, not her friends, not the boyfriend she lives with. She doesn't want to stress anyone out or deal with a label. And so... How's this for a warning sign? She'll cram wine in the crisper drawer to avoid questions. She once drank an entire bottle of her boyfriend's expensive whiskey, which she doesn't even like the taste of, and had to borrow money from her sister to replace it before he went on a camping trip. I don't even like whiskey. Speaker 2 (5:22) That's also like one of those strange things is like I've now gotten into drinking stuff I don't Speaker 3 (5:27) actually like. Chloe wants to prevent her drinking from becoming an emergency, preferably before it messes with her work or relationships, preferably before bottoming out. The sooner you catch it, the better. Prevention is the best cure. But how? She's afraid of seeing a therapist or going to a support group in case she gets reported. And the resources she's found don't speak to her. I Speaker 2 (5:53) sent you some resources for medical professionals. Were you able to access any of them? I did. But I feel like a lot of them can be very, like, trauma-based or... Trying to get to the bottom of why you're using it as something to escape from something else. But I have no idea what I'm trying to escape from. That's the main part of it, I guess. If there is an emotional component, I have no idea where it's coming from at all. Speaker 3 (6:24) And this is why Chloe came to us. She loves her life, has great relationships with her partner, friends and family. She's passionate about her work, but not too stressed. She doesn't understand why she's drinking. And if she doesn't understand, then how can she stop? It takes the edge off. The edge off of what? I don't know. Speaker 2 (6:45) And I can't seem to break the habit. Speaker 3 (6:50) Okay, last question. If you had to vocalize the sound of this conundrum, what would it be? Speaker 3 (6:56) Probably an Speaker 2 (6:57) Australian magpie. Say that because these birds are, like, notorious for swooping you. They will swoop the shit out of you. What does that mean? They, like, come out the tree and, like, come and, like, I don't know, like, dunk on you. Swooping is what we call it, but they come and swoop on you all the time, particularly during the season where they have, like, little chicks. But the part that's, like, odd is, like, they're in. Every gum tree. You can even like plan a route if you're doing a run or something to avoid that tree, but you're going to run into one. Speaker 3 (7:32) And Speaker 2 (7:32) they make the most beautiful sound. Beautiful, beautiful call. But they are so damn dangerous sometimes. Have you been swooped? Oh yeah. I've had them pull like hair clips out of my hair when I was a kid. Every Australian knows the sound of a magpie. Every single one. All of us know that sound. Speaker 3 (7:54) After the break, Chloe meets a proxy who knows all about getting swooped. Speaker 3 (8:14) Okay, I am very excited to tell you about the newest show in the Radiotopia family. It's called Lightbox. The host is Mark Henry Phillips. He spent 20 years composing music for a living. And then one night, he typed a few words into an AI music generator, and he claims that it did his job better. Way better. In just 10 seconds. Basically for free. In his podcast, Lightbox, Mark investigates what AI is doing to music and the people who make it. Over nine months, he conducted more than 40 interviews. He talked to the CEOs building these tools, Grammy award-winning producers secretly using them, and legendary musicians trying to stop them. Lightbox is not just a story about music. It's about what we lose when machines start doing the things we thought made us human. Lightbox is out now wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (9:15) How are you doing? The previous weekend, Chloe and her partner had a housewarming party for their new apartment and people brought too much booze. So there were a bunch of drinks left over. Speaker 2 (9:27) There were two bottles of wine in the fridge and a couple cans of stuff. And one of my friends, it was his birthday last night. I was going to save them for then. And it just didn't happen. It just didn't happen. Speaker 3 (9:40) What do you mean? What happened to them? Speaker 2 (9:46) Sorry, I'm just laughing because it's like, what happened to them? I drank them. Speaker 3 (9:50) There is some progress to report. For the first time, Chloe talked to someone besides a random podcast about her drinking. Her sister. Speaker 2 (9:59) We were kind of sitting outside in my new place and we've been having a couple of drinks and she was talking to me about how, look, she does smoke cigarettes. I've spoken to her about this many, many times. Please stop. And it just kind of like came up because she'd been saying it's a bit of a. thing to take the edge off Speaker 3 (10:19) and I Speaker 2 (10:20) was like huh oh I guess I do kind of drink quite a bit and then she kind of looked at me a bit surprised and she was like you it's Speaker 3 (10:26) kind of a big deal right yeah Speaker 2 (10:28) I think to her it was both the surprise and also oh it can't be that bad kind of vibe all Speaker 3