ADHD, Alcohol, and the Search for Relief w/ Jennifer Salzman
episode
Journey to the Sunnyside | Mindful Drinking & Alcohol Health
45 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main focus of the episode and who is the guest?
Welcome to Journey to the Sunny Side, the podcast that helps you build a better relationship with alcohol and uncover the secrets to mindful living. Each episode brings you real stories, expert insights, and practical tools to support your goals. Whether you're cutting back, taking a break, or thinking about quitting for good. I'm your host, Mike Hardenbrook, best-selling author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert. This show is brought to you by Sunnyside, a personalized science-backed program that helps you to drink less through habit change, coaching, and community. And for added support, we now have Sunnyside Met. A clinical option offering access to compounded naltrexone. a prescription medication that reduces cravings and helps prevent binge drinking.
Ready to start your journey? Get your free 15-day trial at Sunnyside.co In this episode, I'm joined by Coach Jennifer Salzman, an ADHD advocate, mindfulness practitioner, and alcohol-free life coach. Jennifer spent years feeling uniquely flawed before receiving an ADHD diagnosis in her 40s. Looking back, she began to understand why alcohol had felt like such a reliable form of relief. We talk about the connection between ADHD and alcohol, why drinking Can feel like relief for an overwhelmed brain, and why willpower often isn't the right tool for change. Jennifer also shares how mindfulness, self-awareness, and ADHD-friendly strategies can help people interrupt autopilot habits and feel more in control.
Jennifer, thanks for coming on today.
Thanks, Mike. It's nice to be here.
We're gonna have a great conversation and I I wanna jump right into it because you've shared that For years you felt uniquely flawed and struggled with things like school, work. relationships and emotional control. Can you take us back to that period of your life before this ADHD diagnosis?
Well, that period of my life was my whole life because I didn't get a diagnosis till I was forty one, I think. But yeah, growing up as Neurodivergent but not knowing it. I always just felt like I didn't quite get it, even though I didn't always know what it even was. I I tried to gauge like how other people behaved because I felt like I wasn't socially in tune with people. I wasn't always sure how to act properly. And I was always being told by my family and teachers like, you're too sensitive, get a hold of yourself. And what's interesting is that, you know, typically we think of ADHD as like little boys being hyperactive. Right. And especially because I'm a Gen X. I mean Girls didn't have ADHD apparently back then.
So but the the hyperactivity was really like internally. It was in my brain. It's not that I was running around physically, but there were there was constant chatter in my brain. And I didn't know how to shut it off. And so just moving through life kind of knowing that I was different, but I couldn't quite explain why or how, it just sort of shaped my identity of feeling like I'm just weird. I'm just fundamentally flawed in some way, and I'm not sure why.
How did Jennifer’s early life feel before she was diagnosed with ADHD?
And that just kind of became How I felt about myself until I got that diagnosis.
Yeah. Well, we talked a little bit off camera that I can also identify that I was diagnosed young, however, with ADHD or ADD. And I'm and I actually want to talk to you about that a little bit. And even the more newer modern term of saying things like neurodivergent. I think some people you hear the terms, not everybody they think maybe it's like one of those words that you hear and you think you know, but maybe you don't know. And unless you really take some effort to look into that. And so I want to talk about that and we're going to tie into how this relates to alcohol and how there's some unique perspectives in that and you're gonna share how you've sort of addressed it in your own life. But before we do, give us a little bit of rundown of how
These things that you're now looking back on retrospectively. how they look or how you identify how that affected how your relationship with alcohol was.
Yeah. Well, so having that feeling of just being different and kind of a misfit and not
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main focus of the episode and who is the guest?
0:00–3:38
2
How did Jennifer’s early life feel before she was diagnosed with ADHD?
3:38–7:49
3
What connection does Jennifer describe between ADHD and alcohol use?
7:49–11:32
4
How did receiving an ADHD diagnosis in her 40s change Jennifer’s view on drinking?
11:32–17:14
5
What role did medication (Adderall) play in Jennifer’s drinking patterns?
17:14–22:05
6
How did Jennifer finally quit alcohol and what emotional shifts helped her?
22:05–30:01
7
What mindfulness and ADHD‑friendly strategies does Jennifer recommend to break autopilot habits?
30:01–37:57
8
What practical steps can listeners take right now to drink more mindfully or stop drinking?
37:57–45:00