[00:00:05] Jake White: Welcome back to another episode of Party Talk, where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. In this episode, we’re chatting with Mary Tilson. Now, I’m really wanted to have this discussion with her because she’s the founder of Sun & Moon, sober living. I’m going to ask all about her life because it is so fascinating. But here’s what she says about it. It’s an inclusive community, education platform and resources of dedicated to helping others find freedom from addiction, and living a fulfilling life, alcohol free. And I just resonated that. With that so much, and I know that you will as well in the prevention education space. So check out this episode of Party talk, featuring Mary Tilson. Well, let’s dive in. I’ll ask you to introduce yourself, Mary.

[00:00:54] Mary Tilson: All right. Well, thank you so much for having me. My name is Mary Tilson. I’m a certified recovery coach, and a yoga and meditation teacher, and also the founder of “Sun & Moon” sober living, which is an inclusive community that welcomes people who are sober and sober, curious to really explore tools that will support that decision and living substance free.

[00:01:17] Jake White: That’s awesome. What do you think are some of the things that challenges that people have? They’re like, “Mary, I want to be in your community because this is what I’m dealing with.”

[00:01:29] Mary Tilson: That’s such a good question. I’ll say one of the biggest challenges for sure, is a lot of people have concerns about how their social life and relationships are going to be impacted, which is part of the reason I’ve been so drawn to your work. And also the substances that they’ve become used to using, whether it’s alcohol or anything else, are actually serving some form of purpose in their lives, like they’re using it as a tool to cope with the challenges of parenting, or to relieve stress, or to feel less anxious in social situations. So despite the fact that they’ve clearly recognized that it’s causing them a lot of harm too or they wouldn’t be seeking out sober spaces, they struggle to grapple with how they’re going to get by without it.

[00:02:21] Jake White: And I’m excited to ask you more about that, because I think that’s where just the real value lies, because you’re helping someone come from a dependency on a substance to achieve those results. And you’re helping them discover healthier ways that they can still get those results, but that is not going to harm them or their friends or their future and that’s just so in line with what we do here. So I’m super excited to dive in. And I think the audience is going to get some real practical things to take away and try. Before we do that, I know your story a little bit and it’s so fascinating. So will you tell us a little bit about your journey to get to what you’re doing now and all the cool places that you’ve been?

[00:03:04] Mary Tilson: Sure, I’d be happy to. So it started with my own experience with substances which began pretty early on. I was started to experiment with drinking and marijuana when I was about 13 years old. I was going into my freshman year of high school, and using it for a lot of reasons that people do. It helped me with some of my insecurities. I felt as a young teenager, and more comfortable in social situations. And it’s interesting, because I look back and I used to always be like, “I didn’t have any major consequences in high school.” But then my parents organized this intervention with some of my best friend’s parents after we had a friend ball down a hill at the beach from getting too drunk. I had friends get DUIs. I was at parties that were busted by the police and I just got away. So I was always on the edge of major consequences, but none of them ever really touched me. And so I went to school at the University of Colorado in Boulder, which is a beautiful place, I live very close to there now. It’s also notoriously a big party school. And I leaned into that 100%. I was partying every night of the week if I could, not partying the way that you encouraged but really heavily leaning into substances. And I also discovered Adderall, cocaine and ecstasy during that time that allowed me to fuel this work hard party hard mentality where I was still managing to get good grades, but because those substances were allowing me to stay up later and sleep less. I was starting to black out, and that’s when I started to experience real negative consequences from my substance use and it started off mild just getting blacked out and said eight things that I regretted. And then it got a lot more serious like everything from blacking out and passing out on family vacations and doing drugs with strangers and hotel lobbies to hurting people that were really close to me. And it got to a point where one morning I’ll never forget my junior year I woke up and was like, so overwhelmed with anxiety and shame and paranoia with the vague memories of what I’d done the night before that, I just called my parents and I was like, I need to get out of here. Immediately fly me home, get me out of Colorado, was flown home to Chicago. And what I didn’t realize was that I was also going to find myself in outpatient treatment, and rehab when I got back to Chicago, and I had no intention of calling myself an alcoholic or an addict, I definitely didn’t think I was going to get sober. To me, that was equivalent to what is a life as a college student that was my thinking, as I’ve shared with you before. And so unfortunately, I went through this treatment program with the mentality of, I’m gonna go through this, take my little break, get a little escape from all the drama, and then I’m gonna figure out how to moderate when I get back. And unfortunately, I did try that. I spent a few more years really trying to fight that battle. And things only got worse. So by the time that I had learned the lessons enough times, it hit a point a few years after I graduated, where I was ready to fully acknowledge that substances had no place in my life. And there I was reaching kind of a fork in the road where it can go in two very different directions. And I live in endless gratitude for that moment of realization, because I actually could never in my wildest, it was beyond my imagination. What could happen when I got sober? I kind of thought, “Alright, I have to get sober.” So I’m just gonna like, not really have a social life, live this boring life in Chicago and hide out in my apartment when all my friends are doing the fun stuff. But it couldn’t have been further from that I ended up. I ended up doing mine. I went back to outpatient treatment, I did a six week treatment program. And then purely with the intention of filling the time that I had the free time that I had. Once I finished treatment, I did my first yoga teacher training. And that ultimately led me to going to Southeast Asia on a trip to travel and to learn more about the philosophy and spiritual roots of the practice, just immerse myself in nature and have a little bit of an adventure, and ended up traveling the world and teaching yoga retreats, and then have recently really focused on how I can bring this all together and incorporate a very holistic approach to recovery, which includes mindfulness, yoga, the more traditional approaches to recovery and the tools that have been proven extremely supportive for many, many, many people over a long time. So that’s really my passion with Sun & Moon, sober living, it’s kind of embracing both sides. There’s the light in the dark. We have these challenges that might drive us to this decision. But also, like, the b side is for variety, it has so much to offer. And I really don’t want to limit that just to people who have a struggle with addiction, even though it can obviously help people like me too.

[00:08:49] Jake White: Exactly. Because we offer both ends of the spectrum, like just you and I talking is I found value in what you do as well. So it doesn’t have to be that you have this exact story that’s just like mine, or just like yours. One thing I want to point out from your story, which will hopefully is going to be helpful for people listening because we focus on the youth prevention. So in your story, you talked about how you would go to these parties and people would black out, they would get hurt, someone did get injured, like things were happening around you because you were in that environment. But it didn’t seem to be happening to you. And there’s this line, I always remember my mentor told me this, and I use it sometimes in speeches. If like the odd, they tell me like you need to get serious with my audience, because a lot of them are using and I know you have a really positive programming, it’s fun, but you need to tell them what’s up. And so I have this line that I use I learned from a mentor and it says, “Men can lie, women can lie, numbers cannot.” And if you imagine the risk of using drugs, and alcohol is like rolling that dice. And if there’s six numbers, we all have a number. So just because if I’m a four at four didn’t get rolled, it doesn’t mean that no one got hurt. It just means that I didn’t get hurt. And so for me, personally, that’s such a motivator is like, I want to show people, they don’t have to play that game, to have a good time. Because the less people who are rolling it, the less people that will get hurt. But just that realization that, “Oh, wow. I’m okay”. But what about my friend or what about my family or my little brother or sister who’s going to start using because they saw me do it?

[00:10:43] Mary Tilson: Exactly. That’s such an important point. And I think, , we can get in this mentality of oh, it’s never gonna happen to me, and even now I think about this Fentanyl crisis, and how many people are accidentally overdosing thinking they’re doing cocaine for, for example. And I asked myself, what I still have rolled that dice? I think there’s a possibility that I might have. And how can we reach people so that they see that this actually genuinely can happen to you? And when I think about it, it’s exactly as you focus on it’s like giving other options. Because to me, there was two options. It’s have a social life and do drugs, or spend the rest of your life alone as this boring. I really thought that way. So that is also contributing to the thought process. And it doesn’t have to be like that.

“Managing Stress: Techniques and Practices to Replace Substance Use”

[00:11:44] Jake White: It doesn’t. And that’s why it’s so important. The work that we’re doing is through our program, we’re offering the alternative to socialize, socialize and find community, and you’re doing the same thing for adults. But you’re also including that other aspect. So since my social life is taken care of, but I still need to cope with the pain, I still need to learn how to relieve stress and relax. So can we talk a little bit about that? What are some of the ways that you use or that you can teach people that if they are using drugs to cope or to relieve stress? What are some alternatives that we can explore?

[00:12:22] Mary Tilson: That’s such a good question. Because I really had to ask myself that, and I had to make a lot of major changes to my lifestyle, because it wasn’t really sustainable, the way that I was working and going out every night after work and sleeping so little, I had to be really honest about myself that that just wasn’t a sustainable schedule that I had created for myself. So yoga is an incredible practice, for so many different reasons, but having tools to help manage stress and make relaxation and calming your nervous system, not only a daily practice, but finding ways to sprinkle these little practices throughout your day. And I was actually just reading about a study about how people who routinely relax, have increased expression of the genes that are responsible for calming our stress response. So they’re more resilient to stress. And I think a lot of people miss equate this idea of like being strong and resilient with pushing ourselves and being super productive and working so hard. So we have to reframe how we think about relaxation, that it’s not a sign of weakness, it’s not being lazy. It’s actually a really, really important part of our health physically, mentally. And if we want to get ahead, which a lot of people who struggle with substances are some of the most like driven hardworking people too. So that was a really big one for me was just reframing my whole thinking around relaxation. And so for me, that starts with having a daily yoga practice. And I recognize that yoga might not be the practice for everyone, but having a practice that allows you to really get into your body and connect with your body. I like yoga because it brings in elements of our breath, our mind and our focus, it’s very multi layered, it’s not just working with one area in isolation. And by developing that relationship with your body, you can also start to notice when you’re becoming dysregulated, when you’re becoming overstressed and I’m actually exploring this  now, this month in my membership, we’re talking about befriending your nervous system and to be able to really like tune in and notice when you’re in that really activated kind of fight or flight state and have the tools to bring yourself back to a more calm place is so important, as specially for people who struggle with substances, because when you are in your sympathetic nervous system and that fight or flight state, you lose access to the more evolved part of your brain that can make conscious, thoughtful decisions. So it’s kind of like you get that kind of opportunity to tune in to this like inner radar. That’s like, giving you a little warning bow. Like we’re moving into risky territory here.

[00:15:22] Jake White: Wow.  So you do something where you have a daily practice, and that’s going to help you be in the right state of mind, get in touch with your body, your breath, so that you can recognize those things? When I think of yoga though, it’s incorporate like stretching, you’re exercising, you’re breathing, maybe you’re thinking or maybe you’re even not thinking maybe that’s a trick too. But if let’s say you have an hour or 30 minutes that you do yoga, and then later in the day, there’s some sort of trigger that’s you are going into that flight or fight mode, and you are experiencing stress and anxiety. And maybe a student is asking, and they’re saying, “I don’t like yoga, or I do yoga.” And I like it when I’m doing it. Is there something that it helps you, when you get to that point of stress or a simplified version, you could try to be like a little tool that’s in your pocket, when you’re experiencing this, try this?

[00:16:28] Mary Tilson: Absolutely. I think we tend to underestimate the power of our breath, because it’s just so available to us, it almost leaves too simple. It really just taking a moment to drop in to your body, like if you’re in front of your screen. And that’s what causing all of this stress activation just stepping back for a moment, and really taking a few deep grounding breaths, breathing all the way into your lower belly. Of course, your lungs don’t really go there. But visualizing that and taking up the full capacity of breath. And just giving yourself the opportunity to really slow down and connect with your breath, getting up and moving your body. It’s been shown that our bodies can be through exercise, we have these internal pharmacies that can release chemicals that help us reduce stress and anxiety, and all of that, getting outside and taking just a short walk in nature, putting the screens down, there’s all these little tools, a friend of mine introduced me recently to well over the last few years to emotional freedom technique, which is tapping, I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen that. But it’s a practice where you tap on these various meridian points, which is related to the acupressure points from Chinese medicine. And it’s just a simple practice, but you’re basically tapping on these different points. And it’s also been shown to reduce stress and relieving anxiety and all of that. So I like to think of it. I think sometimes, and I relate to this, because it was definitely my experience, it can feel like a huge commitment going to a yoga studio class, if it’s going to take you 20 minutes to get there, then there’s hour class, there’s getting back. And for people who are juggling career and parenting or even students who’ve got schoolwork and all the other stuff going on, that can feel like a big time commitment and I understand that. I think it’s important to remember that we can experience so many benefits just from sprinkling in these small breaks throughout our day. Because really, you’re kind of like exercising a muscle of becoming. So that’s your default setting in the same way that we might practice, feel stress, pour a drink, or feel stress, engage in some other behavior that might not be causing us or might not be bringing any benefits. We can change our default settings. So it’s feel stressed, take a deep breath or a few.

[00:19:08] Jake White: That’s cool. I think that’s actually super helpful. So our body has that response, feel stress, and it wants to do something. So if we’re using the drug for it, our brain tells us, al, take that shortcut every time, use that go back to that. So you’re really retraining your brain in your body to respond differently. Now that you’ve chosen to be mindful of it, and when that happens, take a step back. Try the breathing. Like you said, the deep breaths focusing on it, making your belly rise up and down instead of your chest. That finger tapping thing you said where you tap part of your body. What do you teach about EFT tapping?

[00:19:53] Mary Tilson: EFT tapping, it’s called “Emotional Freedom Technique”.

[00:19:56] Jake White: Perfect. So if somebody’s interested in that, Google that At EFT tapping, that’d be cool to check into, I’m going to look into it some more. And then the other one was just exercise like moving your body. And that one is super helpful for me even when I’m nervous going in front of an audience. I’ve noticed that when I do some push-ups and some squats, and I’m doing that stuff behind the curtain, is that it really just lets me drop my shoulders, get into my mind. And remember, stop focusing on you, this isn’t about you. It’s about the audience. And you’re just here to serve them. It puts my mind away from that fight and flight stress into something that’s more helpful, which is the best posture I can possibly show up in for a student audience. So I love those practical, practical ways. And that you can have something regular that you do every day to keep you in that spotlight. Yoga is for you. I want to I want to explore something that you mentioned last time, that was really, really cool. And I guess just share as much as about it. Because you told me about something I didn’t know about these ice baths or cold something.

“Ice Baths and Resilience: A Natural Way to Boost Dopamine and Build Mental Fortitude”

[00:21:12] Mary Tilson: Have you not seen it popping up? I feel like I see it every day new person is sharing about ice baths, but maybe that’s I’m in the echo chamber.

[00:21:21] Jake White: When you mentioned it, I’ve been asking people who do yoga, do these. I know they are doing it though. But they’re talking about, like all these health benefits. And but it’s so new to me because really, we talked a couple weeks ago, and I had not known about it since then. Like when you see your car you buy it and you notice everybody else is driving it too is now it started to happen. But maybe there’s people listening who haven’t heard about this. So will you tell us a little bit about it?

[00:21:54] Mary Tilson: Honestly, I’ve been really blown away by the benefits of this. And I remember the first time that I experienced it, I was living in Bali and the gym that I went to, there was a spa recovery area that had a cold plunge. And I remember seeing like one of the benefits was like makes you happy. And I just thought it was this quirky thing like, is that gonna help me get through the absolute excruciating pain of sitting in this freezing cold water. But I definitely noticed this sort of like energizing boost, so I just started and it became a personal challenge. Whenever I was at the gym, or in one of the spa recovery areas that had one, I would make a habit of getting in. And I think before I really like got into the science behind how it works in my mind, just knowing everything that I’ve known about recovery and what’s been beneficial for me and sustaining freedom from addiction is like exercising this mental fortitude of being able to experience discomfort and not just impulsively react because of course, you get in the eyes, and you just want to get out if you want to be comfortable. But to actually notice that there’s a choice there, you can listen, and you can be aware of that reaction and that impulse to move towards comfort or relief or whatever it is, and stay and you can actually use your breath to bring you into a more calm, relaxed space. So when I do it, everyone is so different in the ice bath, it’s really funny, some people are like flailing around, and making all this noise, I like to close my eyes and like, get into that really deep, relaxed belly breath, and just practice calming my system down. And so that is just incredible training. So for me, one of the greatest personal benefits has been that it’s really the mental health benefits, and being able to be with discomfort, and it creates a lot of stress resilience, and there’s a building of confidence in that of being able to handle difficult situations. But also beyond just that experience that we can make sense of ourselves. There actually is an extreme dopamine release that happens, which takes you at two and a half times your baseline of dopamine. And dopamine is responsible for motivation and like moving us towards those pleasure seeking behaviors. And so for people who have experiences with substances like alcohol, for example, or in my case, I was using cocaine and things that were really like, blasting my system. There’s a big come down after that. For me, I was like, “I can get this in a really natural way.” And the amazing thing is when you get that dopamine released through ice bath, and same with things like other natural ways of getting that via exercise or anything else, it doesn’t have with the ice baths. It doesn’t have that drop the way it if I were to use a substance, I get that big release, but it doesn’t drop me down. So I feel like a crash. It’s like a sustained, slow release on that. And Andrew Huberman in the Huberman lab podcast has like a whole deep dive into that. And I’m just fascinated by it. I love that. I got to experience it from firsthand experience, I can really speak to it. I’ve been doing it now for probably around. I was just experimenting, but it’s been three or four years. And another added benefit now that I’ve moved back to the States is there’s a lot of communities that get together and do ice baths together. So I have a friend, Justin Weiss, who’s a Wim Hof instructor here in Colorado, who has something called Ice church on Sundays where people get together and do breath work and ice baths together. So there’s a community aspect that’s been an added bonus too.

[00:25:50] Jake White: That’s so cool. I love to the science behind the dopamine and how it’s not just a crash and dopamine crash afterwards. But it’s something and it’s sustainable makes you, it doesn’t hurt you, if anything, it’s building your resilience. And those are the skills that we want young people to know about. And so that is something that’s just really, really fascinating to me. I was hiking a Camelback Mountain in Phoenix and it’s a pretty tough hike. But I went with one of our kids from youth and his mom, and she does yoga. So I asked her, you do ice baths or have you heard of it? And she’s like, “I’ve been doing this for years.” And I was “Why do you do that?” Well, I used to have trouble sleeping. And I was on medication for sleeping. And over the first couple of years, I would just slowly taper off the medicine, because it improved my sleep so much. And so the doctor said, like you don’t need as much. And recently, she doesn’t need the medicine at all. And she’s been getting fantastic sleep. So for her, it literally is medicine. And I love the way that you put it before you’re talking about how our body with exercise is our natural pharmacy. These are cool ways to get the results that we want without putting something into our body that can make us dependent. So that was just super fascinating to me.

[00:27:19] Mary Tilson: I love hearing that story. I only touched on a couple of the benefits, but there’s so many like muscle recovery, things that are more related to your physical body. And this is the cool thing. And I think we sometimes missed the opportunity for all of these tools that are just tapping into our inner resources or environment, you didn’t like hopping in a Cold Creek by my house, I love it. But we miss out on all of these tools that we have at our disposal. We’re just defaulting to reaching for something outside of ourselves like a chemical substance that’s going to change our state. And so that’s been the kind of fun thing with this whole process with recovery over the last decade. It’s just been kind of gathering all these tools and, and people have fun with ice baths. I feel like for you. That’s something that would be such a fun activity. It’s such a community building. The first friends that I met moving to Colorado are through this ice bath community, because we’re in this kind of shared ridiculous experience. Especially in February or January, you’re out in the snow.

“Discovering Resilience: Ice Baths, Yoga, and Other Natural Tools”

[00:28:30] Jake White: Here’s the challenge if anybody takes this, invite your students to I don’t know where you do this, , like the pool or wherever, and to do an ice bath and see how excited they get like, it feels like the Polar Plunge or something where this is crazy. We’re all doing this together. It’s an exciting thing. I’m sold, I’m trying this. So I’ll report back to you, Mary, on how it’s going?

[00:28:56] Mary Tilson: I can’t wait to hear. One of my friends has actually been visiting family and I’ve been seeing her share these little videos of you can also do like a face dunk, where you just take ice of a bowl of ice water and just and it has a very strong response. Also it activates your parasympathetic nervous system and helps calm you down. It’s a nice little trick if you’re having like a lot of stress and anxiety. So I’ve been seeing her with her family and she’s living in Bali. So they’re probably like up, here comes the, like, people are into these crazy wellness tricks and all of that, but the truth is it works, so why not have some fun with that?

[00:29:35] Jake White: This has been awesome, Mary. If people want to check out Sun Moon recovery and anything that you’re doing, where can they find you?

[00:29:44] Mary Tilson: So my website is sunandmoonsoberliving.com. I have an Instagram handle at sunandmoon.soberliving. I’m pretty active on there. And I also have a podcast where I release weekly episodes. You’re Episode will be coming out on there soon, which I’m super excited about. And just interview a bunch of people about their recovery stories about just practical tools on managing craving and addiction and embracing a sober lifestyle.

[00:30:14] Jake White: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much, Mary.

[00:30:18] Mary Tilson: Thank you so much for having me on.

[00:30:21] Jake White: I hope y’all enjoyed this episode of the Party Talk podcast. I hope you feel empowered to take on a new week and keep doing the fantastic work that you’re doing. Please share us with a friend and leave a review.