Shivani Gupta

Welcome to the AskShivani, I am so excited to be able to have Sarah Rusbatch on our podcast today. There are some extraordinary things that Sarah has done, and we want to dive into a conversation with her shortly. But let me tell you a little bit about her first, she's a certified women's health and wellbeing coach. She's also an accredited gray area drinking coach, and a keynote speaker. She talks in her keynotes and her presentations about her journey to sobriety and the impact that alcohol has on mental health. And the day that we are recording, it won't be the day that it's launched. It's actually working World Mental Health Day. So it's perfect that we are recording this today, and bringing that to you. And she's also the face behind alcohol-free movement. And she will talk about and hopefully in our conversation with her today, she will talk about the dysfunctional relationship that she had with alcohol, and how she made that decision to completely remove it. And then she works with an amazing online community, as well as helps people uniquely on their journeys. So, we're gonna dive into this conversation. Sarah, welcome to the podcast.

Sarah Rusbatch

Thank you so much for having me.

Shivani Gupta

And it's just wonderful, that you do what you're doing. I had a big 50th. And I'm not a big drinker. But I had a big 50 This year and decided that I needed to clean up and I usually have a month of alcohol. But now, I'm approaching three months and I haven't had a drink. And so, I was so fascinated not only because it's World Mental Health Day today, but also the personal journey I've been on. So, I'm so curious if you would take us firstly through a little bit of your high highs and low lows in your journey to get to where you are today so we can get a bit more appreciation for what you've been through.

Sarah Rusbatch

Sure. So, my drinking started, I grew up in northern England, it was never a question as to whether I would or wouldn't drink. Like it was just what everybody did. You watched your parents do that at the weekends, that was where everyone's socialized was at the pub. So, my drinking started quite young, as was the case for many teenagers in my local area. And I'm looking back now at the time, I didn't realize it but looking back, I can see that my drinking was just that little bit more than other people's it was I didn't want the party to end I loved it kind of that feeling of there were no problems, there was nothing to worry about. As soon as I had a drink, everything felt like it disappeared. I had moved around quite a lot as a child, my father, his job had led to us moving around. So, by the time I was 13, I've been to five different schools. And looking back, I can see that played a big part because you're the new girl all the time. You're the new girl that's always having to kind of break into friendship groups, get people to like you and to accept you, and try and build that history with people. And what I discovered with alcohol was it was a real way to fast-track that friendship. Because when you've had a few drinks, I'm sure you've been there. You're my best friend, I love you. I'll tell you all my secrets. And I loved that I love connection. I'm a girl's girl, I create friendship groups very quickly and love being around other girls and other women. So, for me alcohol was a really good fast track to feeling accepted feeling connected to people feeling like I was included, and I was part of the group. And so, you know, fast forward I had been drinking quite a lot through my teenage years, I went to uni where alcohol was very prevalent. I moved down to London and got my first job. And it was the era of Sex in the City. We were the girls we could match the boys, we could drink the cocktails and the rooftop bars. It was also glamorous.

And I drank like everybody else drank guess maybe I drank a little bit more but it wasn’t problematic. It certainly wasn't something that I had to worry about. I never really, I never drank on my own. It was you know, a social thing that I did in my 20s. The turning point for me looking back was in my early 30s, we decided to make the move to Australia from the UK. My husband's from New Zealand. We had had a baby by this point we wanted to give our kids the lifestyle that he had growing up and you know, beach, cricket and barbecues and sunshine, etc. And I never really, I completely underestimated the impact that a move like this would have on my mental well-being on my identity of having to start all over again. And I got pregnant as soon as we got here. So, I had two kids under two very quickly. I had no friends. I had no family. I had no support group. I had no friendship group. I had gone from having a very successful high-flying career to being at home all day changing nappies, singing nursery rhymes cleaning up baby sick, pureed food, and I just lost myself in a very deep and profound way, I was terribly homesick.

My husband was working quite long hours setting up a business. And I really struggled. And that was when for me, alcohol became something that wasn't about socializing, it became something that was a reward at the end of the day, it became something that was a crutch, it became something that I was looking forward to more and more, I can't wait for five o'clock when my husband gets home from work, and I can crack open that bottle of wine. And looking back, that was definitely when alcohol became something other than just a social lubricant and became something of a crutch for me, my health, and my mental wellbeing. So fast forward a few years and my drinking had escalated quite a lot. I had created a friendship group with others, where alcohol was quite prevalent. The Mummy wine culture, I think the alcohol companies, you know, they really do target young mums, they really did target us to believe, or we deserve that wine at the end of the day, and you never needed to tell me twice. So, I was there going, yep, I deserve it. I mean, you can see now that those baby bros out there that my mum needs why. And I'm the reason my mum drinks, wine and all of this, you know that there's a real movement in terms of the alcohol companies targeting mums as using alcohol as a production something that they deserve as if it's some kind of form of self-care. And I fell for that hook line and sinker.

I remember going to my GP. And my anxiety was through the roof. I was taking the kids to school by this point, coming home and getting back into bed and ruminating worrying about what I'd said the night before, like really in a place that and I've never had anxiety before. So, I went to my GP. And at no point did she asked me or how much have you drinking, happily gave me a prescription for some anti-anxiety meds. But in the end, I didn't take them, I felt like there was something else going on. And I decided to take a break from alcohol. And I intended to do 21 days, this was back in 2017. And I thought if I do 21 days, that's how long they tell you it takes to break a habit. And I just need to get out of the habit of drinking all the time. So, I did 21 days, and I was oh my goodness, this is who I am without alcohol. This is what it's like to wake up every day with a clear head having eight hours of sleep feeling revived and energized and happy and positive. So, I kept going and I did 100 days. So, I got to make the 3 months, just over three months, I did 100 days. And it was incredible. Like I couldn't believe how wonderful I was feeling. But at the same time, I was like, you know what, I can't never drink again, that would just be weird. I'm staring at the party girl. I can't imagine not having alcohol in my life. But it's fine. I've done three months. So now I'll be able to moderate now I'll be a normal drinker. Now everything will be okay. If I went back to drinking, within two weeks, I was straight back to where I'd been before because that's how it is for many people.

What followed was two years of battling to reduce my alcohol, taking breaks, going back to drinking, trying to moderate, and then finally reaching the realization that moderation was never going to be an option for me. And that I was such a happier person. When I didn't drink alcohol, my mental health, my anxiety disappeared, I was more present as a mum, and I was smashing goals at work. I had a deeper relationship with my husband, I had a better relationship with myself because you don't have a relationship with yourself when you're drinking a bottle of wine most nights. And in the end, I was like, why do I keep going back to the thing that makes me feel awful? But I know that when I don't do that thing, I feel amazing. And so, April 2019, I had my last drink. And here we are three and a half years and then retrained as a gray area drinking coach and now, I support women all over the globe to change their relationship with alcohol.

Shivani Gupta

Oh wow, that is such an incredible journey I was just inspired and also you know there are a lot of people know what's not good for them. There are a lot of people that got - Yeah, that's not good for me, but we still continue to do it. So, one thing is knowing and having the awareness what's not right for you. The second is actually to take action now to you know, to be able to do that and talk about that really openly. And I think it's so great that we are speaking about that. I've certainly been part of some of that money culture. I've been away on a couple of women's weekends with other moms where the whole focus was alcohol. And I stopped going to them a couple of years ago because I just went no this is just not serving me in terms of where I am.

I want to take the conversation a little bit broader in terms of challenges. So, when challenges come your way obviously the one that you've just shared very openly there is around your relationship with alcohol. What about when other challenges come you know even now running your business and helping women all across the world and obviously with children. So, when challenges come your way, like do you have a process or a methodology or a ritual? Or how do you go about dealing with it? Some people journal some people meditate, some people do different things. What do you do, I'm always interested in what people do when challenges come their way.

Sarah Rusbatch

I'm a talker. So I always talk, I'm very lucky that I have a coach myself, I have a couple of very close girlfriends who are such a good listeners, and they know me really well. And so, for me talking, I have to get it out of my head, I always remember going to a workshop once and it said, if it's in your head, you're dead. And just going round and round and round. In my head, I feel like I'm going mad. So for me, it's two things. It's journaling and getting it out on paper. And it's talking. And that helps me so much to process. But I've also, since removing alcohol put many things in place, that means that ideal with challenges with so much more of a calm approach. Because I'm managing my nervous system, I'm managing my mental wellbeing anyway, so that when the challenges come, I'm better equipped to deal with them. And that means for me, its exercise, it's getting time in nature, it's meditation, it's having time for myself every day where I'm doing something that has space, and isn't just this constant to do list of doing all the time, and being able to, to create space to do things that I love. And as long as I have that going on, then when the challenges come, I can deal with them so much better.

Shivani Gupta

Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. And where you've come to now it's now been three and a half years now you're working with women across the globe. How old are the kids now?

Sarah Rusbatch

They're 11 and 12.

Shivani Gupta

Okay, I've got similar ages 12 and 13. And so what are some of the future aspirations both at work and at home? And sometimes, people talk about the present moment, sometimes people talk about what are your plans, like whatever the future means to you. Tell us about what are some of the aspirations that you've got both from a work and home perspective.

Sarah Rusbatch

So from a work perspective, I'm really keen to take the work I do into the corporate workspace. But prior to the job that I do now, I worked in executive search, career coaching and recruitment. And I've seen firsthand the fact that so many industries, there's so much alcohol present in those industries. And these companies talk about the fact that, oh, we're doing everything for our employee mental wellbeing. And yet, they don't talk about alcohol. And yet, they don't talk. They don't provide alcohol-free drinks, at social events, you are ridiculed and peer pressured if you're the one not drinking at the Friday night drinks. So, I really want to get into the workplace, I've just run a Corporate Challenge for a large mining company here in Western Australia, where they offered all of their employees the opportunity to come and do a 30-day program with me to change their relationship with alcohol. And that's such a passion for me because people talk about mental health, but they don't talk about alcohol. And to me, that's they go hand in hand, if we're drinking too much, we create anxiety, we create stress in the body. And that leaves us feeling anxious and stressed. And that's the irony is that so many people drink because they're stressed. And they don't realize that the alcohol is actually exacerbating it and making it so much worse.

So, my goal definitely on the work side is to bring more into the corporates around alcohol and mental health. On a personal side, I'm very aware of the challenges ahead with teenagers. And for me, it's maintaining the relationship that I have with my children. And what that involves is me continuing to do work on myself so that I can be present as a mum for them as they navigate those difficult teenage years. And that's making sure that I'm having one on one time with them that's making sure that we're continuing to have those family holidays that there's not a screen or a device in sight where we go bush, we go camping, we really connect with each other and to maintain that so that they know they've always got that that solid foundation, have a family to come back to anytime that they go through struggles.

Shivani Gupta

Yeah, that's incredible. I think it's so beautifully said that sometimes. There are so many industries that talk about now talking about mental wellness and mental health. And I'm not relating it to alcohol, like even sport, I noticed that, you know, when my kids are watching sport, I've got a son who's a bit of a mad cricketer. And when you know he's watching that so many, you know, in my era is to be cigarettes, and now it's alcohol. So, a lot of different mediums are actually speaking about alcohol, which is this conscious and this unconscious thing, it's everywhere. And we related to somehow being successful that if we've done that, we've earned the right to be able to then drink and be able to do other things. And obviously, your philosophy around alcohol is very clear to me, very transparent. Are there other philosophies that you live by that are really important to you in terms of how you operate?

Sarah Rusbatch

I think that the main one is that like one of my mottos is, the goal isn't to be so bad, the goal is to love yourself so much you don't need to drink. And for me, it's about building that self-connection with yourself and loving yourself. Because life is short. And we spend so much time trying to adapt ourselves to fit into the mold of other people's expectations. And I'm very much focused on me being me, you do you, I'll do me, and I'll create the life that I want. And that works for me and for my family.

Shivani Gupta

Yeah, that's really wonderful. I really love that saying, and I do quite a bit of work with women around self-esteem. And I love that, that if you love yourself enough, so you don't have to drink. And that it becomes a choice that you don't kind of have to fall into some of those habits around that as well. And, obviously, around your wellness, obviously, we know that you've been sober for three and a half years. So talk us through a little bit about rituals that you have for your own wellness, particularly on mental wellness, but also other aspects of your wellness. What are the things you do? Do you do things daily, I know you talked a bit about journaling, and talking and having that couple of really close girlfriends, what are some of the other things that you do around managing your wellness and particularly your mental wellness.

Sarah Rusbatch

It's really interesting, because something that's really common when we stopped drinking is we swap alcohol for sugar. And it happens to most of the women that I work with, it happened to me. And it's a really common thing. And there are a couple of reasons for that. So, alcohol, a bottle of wine has 69 grams of sugar. So, your body is very used to having a high content of sugar, but it's also that dopamine reward center in the brain that gets lit up. And when it's not getting lit up by alcohol, we start looking for something else. And the interesting thing for me has been understanding how much sugar impacts my mental health and, you know, processed food and sugar. So, I have become very aware of that. And I've done a lot of reading and research on anxiety and mental health and nutrition. So, I definitely focus on what I'm eating. Now that's not to say that I never eat sugar, of course, I do. But I stick by that 80/20 rule of making sure that I'm getting that really broad range of vegetables, eating the rainbow, lots of you know, healthy nourishing proteins, good fats, staying hydrated. So that's key for me. And as is exercise. Like if I don't exercise, my mental health plummets, so for me, but it's about being curious. And it's about trying new things as well.

So, I've recently started going to a Pilates studio and I'm doing a 35k Coast track walk at the end of this month for mental health. So, it's keeping myself inspired, not just staying in the same routine of doing the same things all the time. I know that I like to keep on you know, progressing and feeling like I'm developing in that way. And then the basics for me every day, I do breath work. I try and meditate most days, I've just bought myself a treat for three and a half years sober, when I got the three-year mark, I bought myself an infrared sauna, which I have in my garden, and that has become my sanctuary. I go in there and it's like, it's like the feeling I used to get from a glass of wine, I go in there and everything disappears. No one can contact me I put beautiful calming music on. And I will just be and just being in that moment and getting out of the thinking head and just being connected to myself is so important.

Shivani Gupta

Oh, that inspired me, I have a rule of three, when three people mentioned a book in a short space of time, or YouTube video or anything, I just go that's a sign. You're the third person that's mentioned the infrared sauna to me in like literally a space of about five weeks or six weeks. So, I'm asked to have a must have a bit of a look into it. Because everybody's talking about the benefits of detoxing, especially if you can do hot and cold, and the benefits of all of that on your body systems as well. This Thursday, I'm doing an ice bath for only the second time and trying to have a bit of an experience on a bit of a health day. So that's really, really fantastic.

Sarah Rusbatch

I love ice baths, I've been doing them a couple of times as well and absolutely love it.

Shivani Gupta

Yeah, that's great. That's so good to hear. And I think what was really interesting when you said that around the sugar is I can now relate to that I'm almost three months into not drinking. And again, mine was a bit of sleep lack of sleep when I was drinking a little bit of indigestion, but I just really dislike being forced into things and I noticed for me that when I'm in certain environments, especially when I turned 50 this year, everybody arrived with a bottle of champagne. And so they were like yay to you and I was like I just want to have a deep conversation on the pot of tea like I've got a pot of tea speaking to you I would much rather have a really nice buddy and go yak yak yak for three hours rather than slow down or having to refill alcohol or feel like that is there enough in the fridge, you know, etc. And so I thought I'd like I said, have a month off, and it's about almost three, but I've definitely been eating more sugar. So, I'm going to also learn a little bit from what you're saying there. Because obviously, when you start to clean other aspects, I remember a friend of mine, not around alcohol, she said, when you start to clean up your system, it's like, you know, the water is really dirty, and you can't see anything. But once the waters really clean, and then you start put something dirty in it, you really notice it, because when it's dirty, she said she didn't notice anything. So, when you were speaking there, I remember this friend of mine, sharing that with me three or four years ago. That's what the image came to me when you were speaking. So because when I cleaned this up, then sugar appeared when this happened, I started to process food. So, I thought that was a really beautiful share in terms of one thing, leading to another where it's actually claiming lots of different parts of your aspects of you, of your well-being as well, which is amazing. And Sarah, if people want to do work with you, people want to find out about your journey and your posts and other things you do. What's the best place for people to find you.

Sarah Rusbatch

So, you can head to my website, which is https://sarahrusbatch.com/ . You can find me on Instagram @ sarahrusbatch. And I've got a free Facebook community called The Women's Wellbeing Collective. And that's got over 11,000 women from all over the world interested in learning new, the best sort of health tricks for women as we're aging. So, there's lots of information in there as well.

Shivani Gupta

That is incredible. I'll hang on to you for a couple more minutes after the recording stops. But I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your journey. Thank you for doing the work that you're doing in helping so many people. And so many women and so many mums, and I know this won't be published today, but we're recording it on World Mental Health Day so it's super special to have you on, thank you so much.

Sarah Rusbatch

Thanks so much for having me.