{"id":6081,"date":"2026-03-02T14:36:59","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T22:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/odaatchat.com\/?p=6081"},"modified":"2026-03-05T13:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T21:33:22","slug":"the-root-cause-of-emotional-eating-in-sobriety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/odaatchat.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/the-root-cause-of-emotional-eating-in-sobriety\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional Eating In Sobriety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Embed Player\" src=\"https:\/\/play.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/40312030\/height\/128\/theme\/modern\/size\/standard\/thumbnail\/yes\/custom-color\/87A93A\/time-start\/00:00:00\/playlist-height\/200\/direction\/backward\/download\/yes\/font-color\/FFFFFF\" height=\"128\" width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"true\" mozallowfullscreen=\"true\" oallowfullscreen=\"true\" msallowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border: none;\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">There\u2019s something we don\u2019t talk about enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You quit drinking.<br>You do the work.<br>You go to meetings.<br>You build a life you\u2019re proud of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And then\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You find yourself standing in the kitchen at 9pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Maybe it\u2019s sugar.<br>Maybe it\u2019s \u201cjust a little snack.\u201d<br>Maybe it\u2019s eating in secret.<br>Maybe it\u2019s feeling out of control around food in a way that feels eerily familiar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">A lot of people in recovery don\u2019t want to admit this part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But it\u2019s common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Very common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">In this week\u2019s conversation with Ali Shapiro, we unpacked something that changed the way I think about food struggles \u2014 especially for sober people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">She said something powerful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">\u201cYou don\u2019t love food so much. You\u2019re trying to feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Because if addiction is avoidance of pain\u2026 then food can absolutely become the next strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Not because you\u2019re weak.<br>Not because you lack discipline.<br>Not because you\u2019re broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But because your nervous system still wants relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">It\u2019s Not About Food. It\u2019s About Belonging.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Here\u2019s the framework that stopped me in my tracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali asks her clients two questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Think of a positive food memory.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Think of a painful food moment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Then she looks for one thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When food memories feel warm and good, there\u2019s usually connection. Celebration. Safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When food feels chaotic or secretive, there\u2019s usually isolation. Shame. Disconnection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s not about calories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s about whether you feel like you matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That\u2019s a different conversation entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why We Switch Addictions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">In recovery, we often say, \u201cIt\u2019s not the alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The alcohol was the symptom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The deeper driver was emotional regulation, belonging, identity, safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So when alcohol leaves\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The system looks for another solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Food is legal.<br>Food is celebrated.<br>Food is socially rewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And our culture makes overeating normal \u2014 especially during stress or the holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So if you\u2019re sober and struggling with food?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You\u2019re not failing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Your nervous system is trying to solve a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Question That Changes Everything<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali offered one simple question that reframes the whole struggle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWhy does this make sense?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Instead of:<br>\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Try:<br>Why does this make sense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Why does it make sense that after a stressful day, I want sugar?<br>Why does it make sense that when I feel unseen, I want to eat?<br>Why does it make sense that when I feel alone, I crave something soothing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That question moves you from shame to compassion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And compassion is where change actually begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Practical Action Steps<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Here are 5 ways to start applying this immediately:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Run the Food Memory Exercise<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Journal two columns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">A positive food memory.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">A difficult food moment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ask: Where was belonging present? Where was it missing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Ask \u201cWhy Does This Make Sense?\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Every time you feel out of control around food this week, pause and ask that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">No fixing. No rules. Just curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Delay the Behavior by 5 Minutes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Not to restrict \u2014 but to observe.<br>What am I feeling right now?<br>Lonely? Overstimulated? Unappreciated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Expand Your Definition of Fun<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">If you\u2019ve tied indulgence to being \u201cthe fun one,\u201d ask:<br>What else feels fun to me now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Rest? Deep conversation? Leaving early? Going to bed proud?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Create One Small Belonging Ritual<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Call someone.<br>Go to a meeting.<br>Text a friend.<br>Sit on the porch instead of isolating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Food is often replacing connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Replace it back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Resources<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Ali Shapiro\u2019s assessment + programs:<br>\ud83d\udc49 https:\/\/trucewithfood.com<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Ali\u2019s Podcast (Insatiable \u2192 rebranding to Truce With Food)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Concept: Functional Medicine (root cause vs symptom treatment)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>\ud83d\udc4a\ud83c\udffcNeed help applying this information to your own life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Here are 3 ways to get started:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>\ud83c\udf81Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days &#8211; With a printable PDF checklist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Grab your copy here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soberlifeschool.com\">https:\/\/www.soberlifeschool.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>\u260e\ufe0fPrivate Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.makesobrietystick.com\">https:\/\/www.makesobrietystick.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Subscribe So You Don\u2019t Miss New Episodes!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong><em>Listen to the episode on<\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521\"><strong><em>Apple Podcasts<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>, <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB\"><strong><em>Spotify<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.odaatchat.com\"><strong><em>HERE<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>.You can also watch the interview on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@theonedayatatimepodcast?sub_confirmation=1\" title=\"\">YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"295\" height=\"121\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image.png?fit=295%2C121&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6082\" style=\"width:227px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521\"><strong><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"217\" height=\"76\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-2.png?fit=217%2C76&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6084\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1374\" height=\"334\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?fit=640%2C156&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6083\" style=\"width:225px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?w=1374&amp;ssl=1 1374w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?resize=300%2C73&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?resize=1024%2C249&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?resize=768%2C187&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@theonedayatatimepodcast?sub_confirmation=1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"179\" height=\"60\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-3.png?fit=179%2C60&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6085\" style=\"width:228px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@theonedayatatimepodcast\"><strong><\/strong><\/a><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Apple: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521\"><strong>https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Spotify: <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB\">https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Transcript:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ali Shapiro: Podcast Interview<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">[00:00:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Thank you so much for joining me,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh my God, Arlene, we&#8217;re gonna have a blast<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: if the pre-show was any indication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: the pre-show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: pre-gaming. Not on this podcast. I don&#8217;t even drink so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: no. Pre-gaming. No. It was so funny &#8217;cause we were both talking like a mile a minute and I had like I I, I was taking notes. I have like 10 things on the table here that we need to talk about, um, yeah, we&#8217;re gonna, we&#8217;re gonna be talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Okay. Listen, we&#8217;re at the time of year where people are really struggling with food and I feel like this is kind of always, this is like an evergreen topic. A lot of people get sober and they kind of switch addictions, but like, maybe they start. Struggling with, um, overeating, not eating enough, uh, sugar there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">There&#8217;s all kinds of, a lot of us in 12 step or, uh, you know, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, things like that, we switch. Right? And in my mind, all addiction is the same. It&#8217;s an avoidance. It&#8217;s an [00:01:00] avoidance of pain that we don&#8217;t know how to process to resolution. So I kind of come at it through this lens of compassion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: man, it is a struggle, especially like I&#8217;m 57, so it&#8217;s like at a certain age, like menopause, like I&#8217;ve been struggling with menopause for a while, menopause kicks in. Um, just, just all kinds of stuff kick in. So, um, we&#8217;re gonna talk about some practical ways to start. We&#8217;re gonna talk some mindset stuff and some practical action oriented stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But, um, before we, and I&#8217;m gonna let you talk eventually,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I am mesmerized. Go ahead. Go ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: very excited about this topic, but we&#8217;re gonna touch on, uh, GLP ones, you know, binge eating, things like what are the dysfunction, what are the problems, and then we&#8217;ll talk about the solutions. But I&#8217;m always so curious about people&#8217;s story, like how did you end up in this type of work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah, and I just wanna say I agree with you. I think about 30 to 40% of my clients are sober and they come to me [00:02:00] because sobriety after sobriety. Exactly like you said. They turn to sugar, they undereat, overeat, eat in secret, or they tell me that food was their original issue and then alcohol kind of crowded it out and now it&#8217;s like now that without the alcohol that those old habits have returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So totally hear you on that. So I myself. Struggled with, um, first it was just dieting. I, I went to Weight Watchers at 11 years old in a suburban strip mall in Pittsburgh. Yeah, it was the eighties, you know, it was, or well, maybe why then it was not the nineties. Um, and then at the age of 13, I was actually diagnosed with cancer and.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I got really thin from chemotherapy, right? Like, and growing up in the eighties and nineties we, and I&#8217;m sure before, but the eighties and nineties were really, I think, kind of the peak of this. You know, it was like health equals thinness. So even though I was thin, because I was like near death, I was like, I have to stay skinny to be [00:03:00] healthy and I got a lot of attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I could wear clothes that I couldn&#8217;t wear before. You know, all that, that stuff. Um, and so. Then the dieting kind of turned to like over exercising, right? Like it was like, okay, I can out, I can outrun and out exercise what I&#8217;m eating. And then when I went away to college that I couldn&#8217;t keep it up. And so then I was like, oh, emotional eating, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And like diet starts tomorrow and like falling off track at night. And I thought all of these things from dieting to emotional eating, to secret eating to bingeing we&#8217;re different. But I can talk about like the through line, through all of them. And then when I. Left. I graduated from undergrad and I started my first job and I was like, I mean, I was in the honors college at Penn State, a plus, you know, top of my class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Never struggled with achievement. And then I had a boss that she and I just did not get along. And I remember being put on a performance improvement plan. I know, right? The horror. And I started to develop irritable bowel syndrome and which was like 25 years [00:04:00] ago, so they didn&#8217;t, I don&#8217;t know if they still know what it is, but I had also struggled with depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so my emotional eating essentially turned into binging. And I was just like, what is wrong? Like, I just really had no trust in my body. I was using food to cope, um, and for all these other reasons. And so essentially, um, about 20 years ago, I found functional medicine, which is a lot more popular now than it was back then, but it was the first time that I started looking at food as something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Other than calories. I was like, wait, it can be medicine. Like I&#8217;ve never heard this. And again, for people listening, this is before social media. This is when we had like five newspapers, right? Like I&#8217;m only 47. I know. It was like pre-internet, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: our information sources were very, nobody was saying gut health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Nobody was talking about blood sugar unless you were a type one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: wasn&#8217;t even a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Exactly, exactly. And I was able to reverse my depression, my IBS, my acne, all these things that I had [00:05:00] tried, everything western medicine could throw at me, right? And nothing worked. But really working on healing my gut, balancing my blood sugar and hormones at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So I felt really amazing and I lost some weight as a side effect of doing that. And I was like, what, um, what is this magic? But then. Even though I felt great when I was stressed, like when I would go for scans for, in the cancer world, we call it scanxiety season. So it&#8217;s like you&#8217;re going to get scans to make sure your original cancer isn&#8217;t there and then you don&#8217;t have new cancers, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So I&#8217;m at, I was at risk still am for higher risk for breast cancer and thyroid. So I would like binge on sugar during these scans. And I&#8217;m like, now I know sugar feeds on on cancer. Why am I doing this? Especially when I feel so great and so. At the time, I had also started to see clients on the side had gone to a holistic nutrition school called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But I was just doing like grocery store tours and I was teaching people what kale was and [00:06:00] how to say quinoa properly. Right. Everyone was saying quinoa like it was, it was, it was a time arlena, and I thought I was the only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: we&#8217;ve come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I know, I know. And I thought I was the only person with this crazy relationship with food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But after about four sessions, my clients who were over-functioning, who you call like the striver, right? Like strivers, like we, the sensitive strives, we were really like, other people were like. I&#8217;m struggling too, like now that I know what to do, you&#8217;ve taught me, I, I can&#8217;t really keep this up. And I was like, what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I&#8217;m not the only person with this crazy relationship with food. So I was living in Philadelphia at the time and I went back to grad school at the University of Pennsylvania to really take like a functional approach to why we battle food, whether we call it falling off track, whether we call it stress eating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">A lot of my clients eat alone, right? They&#8217;re out. They&#8217;re out at a place and then they&#8217;re scheming, how am I gonna get home? Or their whole family goes to bed. And then they say that, like, one of my clients, like, I feel like a raccoon at night. Like, like foraging through my [00:07:00] kitchen, right? When no one&#8217;s there,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And again, these are very high, high functioning people. So I was like the willpower discipline. Like excuse just doesn&#8217;t track with the rest of our lives. And so I went to Penn and I was like, what is the root cause of why we can&#8217;t stick with it? And I found that it&#8217;s really about safety and belonging and.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. And so then I created my Truce with Food Model, which is now 19 years. It&#8217;s research based. I&#8217;ve iterated it over 19 years of being with clients. Um, but it really is a framework of like stubborn transformational change. Um, and once I was able to figure that out for myself, my relationship with food completely healed my IBS, which I thought was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You know, reversed, but I still like couldn&#8217;t eat three hours for bed. I still couldn&#8217;t eat nightshades. I couldn&#8217;t, still couldn&#8217;t eat raw vegetables. My digestion got radically better. I could, like, I had so much more flexibility. My depression, I thought I had [00:08:00] gotten to like, you know, I don&#8217;t have depression, but really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Just addressing the food kind of got me to zero, but now it was like, oh, I have resilience, I have joy. I can feel things and appreciate them. So when I really addressed these underlying emotional patterns, um, my health just transformed in ways that I&#8217;m just, I&#8217;m still grateful to for these days. &#8217;cause I don&#8217;t know where I would be 20 something years later had I not changed all of those patterns, you know, 20 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So I just talked a lot, but that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s how I ended up here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: it. No, it&#8217;s so good. I, I, just to define terms a little bit, you, you,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: about functional eating, and I don&#8217;t think I have clarity on really what that means,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. Oh my God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: functional medicine, like, can you tell, can you just like, so we can define some terms, like, what does that mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh yeah. The academic in me loves this question. Are you kidding?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: love it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Lay it on me girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. So functional medicine, it, and it has really jumped the shark lately, so it is, but what it is, is it takes a [00:09:00] root cause resolution approach to physical symptoms. So, for example, depression, right? Like at again at the time. I thought I had a serotonin deficiency, and all the antidepressants that I had tried were like to help that serotonin deficiency, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But functional medicine says, wait, is depression a symptom? And again, it&#8217;s different for everyone. So I don&#8217;t wanna say what worked for me is gonna work for everybody else, but for me, my depression was actually inflammatory driven because chemo had destroyed my gut. And so, and the reason, so why couldn&#8217;t I produce enough serotonin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And, and now we know some people have too much serotonin, which causes mood challenges. So, you know, nature&#8217;s kind of like Goldilocks, but to, but functional medicine said you don&#8217;t like, you don&#8217;t necessarily have irritable bowel syndrome. That is a col, that&#8217;s a collec cluster of symptoms and what&#8217;s really causing all of those symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So it&#8217;s getting to the root of a problem rather than just trying to battle the symptom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: I am [00:10:00] all<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: is a<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: root cause. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: And nutrition is,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: oh, no, I, I just kept on going, but nutrition is like the first line of, of, of therapy there. Not the last or not, you know, and most, and a lot of things, it&#8217;s not even considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So that&#8217;s why where the nutrition connection comes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, A lot of times people treat it as an afterthought and which, and you know, there&#8217;s a lot of, um, you know, the parlance a 12 step. It&#8217;s all about. You know, um, it is kind of getting to root cause, cause causes and conditions. They talk about causes and conditions, but a lot of times people are so focused on the alcohol or the drugs and we&#8217;re like, that&#8217;s not it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s, that&#8217;s just the symptom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: are like, how do I manage my drinking? And it&#8217;s like, well, if you can manage the emotions. Underlying like that is what is compelling you to drink in the first place. So we gotta go, gotta go deeper, gotta go root cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m a big fan of sort of the inside out [00:11:00] approach, like root cause analysis type stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah, and what&#8217;s especially important I think, with drinking or drugs or food is that a lot of people think that their psychology or emotions are all just kind of like mental,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: again, like 90% of your serotonin is made in your gut. So it&#8217;s like, and so much of. Even just trying to stabilize yourself so you can process emotions requires feeling really physiologically strong, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like I always tell clients you think of, think of quote unquote mindset. No one&#8217;s located the mind. We, we think it&#8217;s Bo, but if body and brain together, right? It&#8217;s like in an infinity loop. So you know if your blood sugar&#8217;s crashing, you know, people know they feel hangry, right? It&#8217;s like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Oh yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Like a lot of my sober clients, like I have so much anxiety now that I&#8217;ve stopped drinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right? And it&#8217;s like, well that makes sense. And maybe if we can get you to eat some of the right foods that that anxiety, some of it can go down. Or a lot of people have anxiety from not eating enough. It&#8217;s like once you start nourishing yourself, [00:12:00] okay, I&#8217;ve reduced like 50% of this unnecessary. Unnecessary anxiety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So now I can deal with the emotional stuff that is the patterns that led to this stuff in the first place. So it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s a little bit more tricky with food because the minute you tell people also what to eat, which I don&#8217;t, I actually take an experimental approach, people wanna rebel. So it&#8217;s so,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: You know, I, I love, I love the experimental model because I feel like there&#8217;s so much of us that are, that is that, that is rebellious, like<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: step, you know, it&#8217;s a, it&#8217;s a group of very rebellious people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I hear you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. And it makes sense really. Um, it really makes sense. It&#8217;s like anytime you, like I come from a sales background, we were just talking about it like Silicon Valley, and I learned in sales that if you push. like creates natural resistance. Like I had someone do this, uh, experiment with me, this guy who&#8217;s like, hold up your hand. You know, you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re listening on a [00:13:00] podcast, not on YouTube. You can&#8217;t see this, but I&#8217;m holding up my hand and he was like, hold up your hand. And then he put his palm on my palm and pushed a little bit and I just.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Naturally push back. And he is like, why did you push? And I was like, I don&#8217;t know. And he is like, it&#8217;s human nature that if you push, people will push back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: you wanna do is align. And align. You know, the problem is out there and we together are gonna problem solve. It&#8217;s like a, it creates safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: a lot of this is around safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: It is totally around safety and you know, my master&#8217;s degree is not in nutrition, it&#8217;s actually in adult development and how adults change. And adults especially, do not like being told what to do. I mean, I would argue my 6-year-old son doesn&#8217;t either, but adults especially, it&#8217;s like, you&#8217;re not gonna tell me what to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like, we don&#8217;t like our autonomy being taken away. So it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: It&#8217;s so funny because, uh, I don&#8217;t like being told what to do, but I&#8217;m such [00:14:00] an information junkie, like I&#8217;m a self-help junkie. So much though, I started another podcast called Self-Help Junkie because I don&#8217;t wanna be told what to do, but I will seek out information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: But if you come to the conclusions yourself of what you&#8217;re actually gonna do, that&#8217;s very different than it. Yeah. It&#8217;s not about, I always tell clients there&#8217;s a difference between authority and expertise, so if so, but what we&#8217;re often doing when we are looking for someone to tell us what to eat is we&#8217;re like, you&#8217;re, we&#8217;re putting that AAU authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right. Like, oh my God, this is the truth, right? Like menopause for keto, this is the answer. Or like vegetarian diet, this is the answer. And so it feels like authority<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Uh,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I tell my clients, look, everyone is gonna have their, like, there&#8217;s experts out here, but that doesn&#8217;t mean that you take what they say swallow and you know, eat what they say wholesale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like I always say like for example, Berry Sears from the Zone. I don&#8217;t know if you remember that diet, like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: zone<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Like,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: okay. I [00:15:00] learned from him that blood sugar mattered to me even though I wasn&#8217;t a diabetic. Was his, were his nutrition recommendations, right? For me, not really, but he probably had to package them as weight loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">&#8217;cause that&#8217;s probably the only re way I would&#8217;ve picked up that book. And it&#8217;s like, oh, but learning about blood sugar and, and then connecting it to, whoa. When I balance my blood sugar, I&#8217;m satiated, my cravings go down. I have energy. My mood is stable. That was me coming to those conclusions myself rather than just being like, oh, I&#8217;m good because the zone diet said this and I lost a pound this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right? So.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: we&#8217;re taught, especially those of us who were born before the two thousands, you know, only connect food to wait. And so we don&#8217;t, we miss these smaller improvements that will help us come to these conclusions on our own. Like, which is what you&#8217;re doing with self-help. Like you&#8217;re reading them, but you&#8217;re not like, I have to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s like, maybe I&#8217;ll take some of this, some of that. Right. Am I right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: yeah. It&#8217;s an experimental thing. Like in [00:16:00] 12 Step, I was told, well just, you know, you don&#8217;t have to believe anything we say. Just run the experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes. See, they were giving you autonomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. Yeah. And that was a very different approach to what I grew up with. You know, I kind of came from like, um, I grew up in a, a church, you know, my dad was super religious and I went to church a lot and stuff like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And it was this idea of like, this way is the only way type of mentality. And it just created such resistance in me that I was like always looking to break the<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Well, and if we wanna really geek out for a second, &#8217;cause this is, my work is rooted in development when we really think like it&#8217;s just like. One, it&#8217;s just a diet I haven&#8217;t found. We&#8217;re actually bringing a lot of our authority baggage to the situation. We don&#8217;t know that, but like I&#8217;ve had, for example, I had a client who, she had hired a vegetarian nutritionist, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This, she was a nutritionist who really believed in everyone being vegetarian and my client. She eventually came to me &#8217;cause she&#8217;s like, it was just like I, I didn&#8217;t wanna disappoint [00:17:00] her<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Hmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: so I just stopped showing up. But I was hungry. I was having cravings, I was crashing, I was actually eating more sugar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I was like, well, maybe that&#8217;s not what worked for you. Like, did you talk to her about it? She&#8217;s like, I just didn&#8217;t wanna disappoint her. And it&#8217;s like, but that&#8217;s probably how she related to teachers or her parents, right? So we have this internalized authority that we say they right. Whenever we&#8217;re like, I&#8217;m worried what they think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So it doesn&#8217;t surprise me then that you feel rebellious if you didn&#8217;t like the way that the authority was delivered in your household. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. And for, and for me it was like, you know, there was a lack of, I hate to say this &#8217;cause um, you know, my dad was such a good dude, but he didn&#8217;t do some things that I wish he would have. Right. Like, he wasn&#8217;t very ambitious. He was sort of like, do the bare minimum, minimum kind of a guy. And, and so I, I, I, I didn&#8217;t like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I wasn&#8217;t inspired by his lifestyle to then want, I didn&#8217;t want to [00:18:00] adopt his beliefs. And I feel like a lot of people that are experts and, and leaders and stuff lead by inspiration. And that&#8217;s kind of what gets me excited about certain things. Right,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: of like, I, I just feel so inspired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like that&#8217;s what gets me to take action is, but, but I need to see the example like in, in 12 Step they talk about hope being, hearing other people&#8217;s experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh, I love that. That&#8217;s beautiful<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: I love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: because it makes you feel not alone, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, because they like, they&#8217;re like, when we&#8217;re talking recovery stories, people tell, tell you how horrible it was, you know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And then they tell you, these are the actions I took and this is what my life is like now. And you&#8217;re like, well, bam. I, I was doing all that crazy stuff too, so<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: do it, I can do it. And<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: and so I ran the experiment. They&#8217;d be like, oh, do 90 meetings in 90 days. Do the 12 steps. Talk to your sponsor when you feel triggered about something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You know, that&#8217;s a, there&#8217;s a, I always say there&#8217;s like a treasure [00:19:00] under every trigger. Like there&#8217;s a<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh, I love that. Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: something that needs to get healed. It&#8217;s just like, and if somebody wasn&#8217;t a jerk to you and sort of, you know, touch your soul bruise, you know, and be like, then we wouldn&#8217;t have the opportunity to like bring that pain up so we can work with it and deal with it to resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I completely agree that I say like I, I mean when I was battling food, it was so torturous and it is like the best, worst invitation I got to worst, best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: alcoholism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: worst thing that ever happened to me. What was, let&#8217;s touch on the darkness a little bit. &#8217;cause I feel like, like, let&#8217;s talk, let&#8217;s give people some hope, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: was<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: There&#8217;s so much hope with the right framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. And then, and it&#8217;s so funny because you were talking about as you had to go through chemo and you were so young and, and you were doing it in an era where some of the supermodels that they called it heroin chic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: And so to be actually be sickly was sort of like the ideal. [00:20:00] And, and so like, what were some of the dark times for you? &#8217;cause I feel like all addictions sort of end up in this place of like, suicidal, suicidal ideation. I hate myself. I&#8217;m never gonna change. I&#8217;m broken. Did you<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: those experiences too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh yeah. In fact, um, you know, like when you first diet, especially when you&#8217;re young and you have all your progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone, it can handle a lot of stress, right? And, and yo-yoing is a huge stress on the body. It&#8217;s actually one of the biggest contributors to poor health, like as a co-factor is like, yo-yo dieting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Um, but I remember, you know. It, it, that was that first job in Lynchburg, Virginia. &#8217;cause I was on this like leadership development program and every six months I was being moved to a different place with the, with the company I was with. But I just remember like having such bad heartburn, being so depressed and feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And, and then like the one thing in my life that I thought I was good at, which was school and work [00:21:00] was like, no, that&#8217;s being like, you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re on pro, essentially on probation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Oh<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: how I think of it now. Right. But I remember, and I was so self-critical back then, I didn&#8217;t know that my eating made sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I didn&#8217;t know that I was doing it because food stimulates attachment chemicals. And I was like feeling like I had support, like as Dr. Debra McNamara says, like nothing as addictive as something that almost works. Right, like it&#8217;s such a good quote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Who&#8217;s the doctor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Deborah McNamara, she&#8217;s a child developmental psychologist, but she talks about how food, um, soothes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: our drive for attachment, but it doesn&#8217;t satiate the deeper belonging or caretaking that we need with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And one of the problems with food, um, especially as I call it, like the, I&#8217;ll handle it myself, problem in terms of like. I did this in secret, right? Like I think my sister kind of knew I struggled, but like I hid it from everybody. But like I also didn&#8217;t let anybody see any sort of vulnerability in me either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So it was [00:22:00] just my eating was just mirroring how I was relating to life. So I felt so isolated, so lonely, and so broken. In fact, I remember. Being like, um, like 23 and having tried like everything, cabbage, soup, weight, I mean, you name it, I tried it. And again, also having this horrible heartburn, my stomach and knots like being depressed and no antidepressants working, no even therapy wasn&#8217;t really helping me and just being like, um.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I actually still have the email I sent my sister. And like, again, I, I say this as I was being mean to myself, but I was just like, I have to give up dieting because, and I&#8217;m just gonna have to be fat and miserable forever. And again, I, I have a different understanding of what I was, you know, I, I don&#8217;t say fat, like to disparage anyone, but like at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">At the time, I was just being so self-critical of myself, you know, I was like, I just have to like live like this. Um, and I just thought like my life was over. And again, I was like 23, but it felt like it was over because I [00:23:00] didn&#8217;t like my job. My health was worse and worse and worse, you know? And. Really, I was carrying around trauma from cancer that I didn&#8217;t know I had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I just wanted to move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: the first generation of childhood cancer survivors, so they were just really happy. We were alive physically, and there was none of this like lookout that this might have done something emotionally to you. And again, I don&#8217;t fault anybody, right? I&#8217;m alive. I, I&#8217;m so grateful for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And. It&#8217;s like I was one of, you know, one of the few people who had cancer back then, and so it was just a different level, different kind of support and different understanding. So yeah, I felt really dark and, and like just kind of like, I&#8217;m just gonna have to accept that my life is gonna be miserable, but that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: that sounds so familiar to. My own story of when I first got sober, I was like, that what I&#8217;m doing with the drugs and alcohol is so, I know it&#8217;s so bad for me. I have to give it up. So, and the surrender [00:24:00] was, I&#8217;m just gonna have to be miserable. I&#8217;ll just never have fun again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: I&#8217;ll just never have fun again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s all. That&#8217;s all. I just can&#8217;t, or I&#8217;m gonna die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: or, or I&#8217;m gonna die. And so I was just like, surrender. But I didn&#8217;t realize that sort of, that surrender was necessary for me to let go of the drugs and alcohol so that I could then I didn&#8217;t know that I was actually creating. Space for something new to come in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">&#8217;cause there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s this idea that there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs, right? So the problems don&#8217;t get solved. We just have, and, and now I, I&#8217;ve been thinking it in terms of systems. So I had a system of being triggered. Then I would have the behavior of the drinking and the using, and then I would have a predictable outcome, which ended typically in low self-esteem, bad relationships, and a whole bunch of mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: And so when I surrendered when it was like you, you know, like when you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re a kid, [00:25:00] you&#8217;re walking down the hall with a big stack of books and the bully comes and knocks all the books outta your hand. Like it was sort of like my, that was how my relationship with God was. I was like, I was trying to use all these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Uh, dysfunctional systems and God was just like, smacked, smacked it outta my hand. And I was like, all right, I surrender. And, uh, was then quickly sort of, uh, introduced to this new system, which was like, for me it was 12 step and, and there&#8217;s a bazillion, I&#8217;m not, uh, I&#8217;m solution agnostic. As long as you find something that works for you, you know, I<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: promiscuous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I like to try all the things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: say it, um, yeah, so there&#8217;s no solutions, there&#8217;s just a trade off. And so my new trade off became community self-examination, um, sharing all, all so all that stuff. So that was my trade off. So, um, I was still doing a bunch of work. It was just leading to a reward instead of a regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Ooh, I love [00:26:00] that. Yeah. Yeah. I do think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: I&#8217;m interviewing you. Um.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: No, but you can see the similarities, right? Like that, I&#8217;m gonna butcher the clo quote, but there&#8217;s, um, Wendell Berry, he&#8217;s a, like a farmer environmentalist, and he has this quote that&#8217;s like, when you no longer know what to do, like the real work has begun. And it&#8217;s something like a mine that isn&#8217;t a mine, that isn&#8217;t impeded flows or something like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I&#8217;m like, yes. It&#8217;s like, it just, I think I wish there was a better way, but I think you, you have to come to that exhaustion and just being like. When you don&#8217;t know what to do, that&#8217;s when the real work opens up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, there&#8217;s actually something called a set aside prayer. It&#8217;s like, help me set aside everything that I think I know<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Mm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: have a new experience and a different result. Something like that. But.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: It&#8217;s like, just help me just set this aside so I can have a new set. And really it&#8217;s, and I like the idea of systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">&#8217;cause it&#8217;s not personal, it&#8217;s not<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: on my psychology, it&#8217;s not based on me being a good [00:27:00] person or not. It&#8217;s just like, oh, if I take different actions, I&#8217;ll get different results. It&#8217;s the whole thing behind running the experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah, no, I, I&#8217;m the same, like a big part of my work is helping clients identify the story that makes them turn to food because of the belonging. But part of the big underlying work is like. Try not to make things so personal, because when we&#8217;re in our story, everything is about us. Instead of like, well, what other factors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right? Like, what other factors happened here? Right. And so by depersonalizing it, you&#8217;re, it&#8217;s like, oh. This is something anyone can do. I think the challenge, and I&#8217;m sure you see this working with people and working with my clients, is because they&#8217;ve struggled for so long, they&#8217;re so convinced, they&#8217;re broken, they&#8217;re so convinced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">They just love food so much. They&#8217;re so convinced that food is always gonna be a thing. That it&#8217;s almost like that&#8217;s the hardest part is like you said, can I be willing to think maybe there&#8217;s something out here that I, that I don&#8217;t know is true? Right. Or I forget how [00:28:00] you, how you phrased it. But<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: the set aside. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: yeah, I find that the.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You&#8217;re big on this compassion, but it&#8217;s like<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: really hard to have like, you know, compassion for yourself when you&#8217;re so frustrated and doing so destructive behaviors. But I always say to my clients like, one of the biggest takeaways everyone makes. As for my programs are like, why does this make sense? I&#8217;m like, that question helps get you to understand that what you&#8217;re doing is protective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That you don&#8217;t love food so much, that you aren&#8217;t insatiable, that you, your body isn&#8217;t broken. Right. And I&#8217;m like, I had every reason in the world to believe my body was broken, right? Like I had more diagnoses at like 22 than most people have in a lifetime like cancer. And I&#8217;m like, if I can like. Put Humpty Dumpty back together again and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I&#8217;m, that was in my twenties. You have more resilience. Everyone&#8217;s situation is unique, so I don&#8217;t wanna say there&#8217;s a one size fits all solution, but do you find that, that like, that [00:29:00] identity of like, but I love alcohol or, but these drugs, I&#8217;m gonna have to give something up. It&#8217;s almost those beliefs that get in the way of the work sometimes, but not realizing their beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like, it&#8217;s like, no, I just love food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. It wa and it was, what I&#8217;ve come to understand now is it was very closely tied to my identity like this. I developed this identity. The story was that I was like this fun party girl. Right. And I would make a joke outta everything. Like I was a, I would drink so much, I, I&#8217;d vomit, you know, on a pretty regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I would joke around, I&#8217;d be like, oh, if I didn&#8217;t have splash marks on my shoes, it wasn&#8217;t a good time. Like, that was my<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: big joke. You know, I made a joke outta everything. Or I would, I would tell stories like, yeah, me, I, you know, when I was growing up, uh, I really wanted to be good. I was always begging God to fix me, and I could never be, I could never be good. I could never be good. And so I just decided to give up on God and being good. I was like, well, if I [00:30:00] can&#8217;t be good, I&#8217;m gonna be good at being bad, you know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: there was I believed I was bad and I didn&#8217;t even identify that till I was, had been sober for a long time. It was all identity stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: So was the fun identity, the way to kind of compensate for the badness, like, this is how my belonging is secured if I&#8217;m fun, because I&#8217;m trying to prove like, this is how I&#8217;m proving I&#8217;m good and worthy is the funness, which cover like, so it&#8217;s still a hustle, right? For for worthiness. Belonging, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: it&#8217;s exhausting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. It was exhausting. And it really didn&#8217;t even, it didn&#8217;t even work that good because by the time,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: It works in the short term. That&#8217;s the problem. It works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: thing. It worked in, it worked in the short term. And I, and I would imagine, you know, the, the food and all that stuff where it, it&#8217;s so funny because the dy, it sounds to me like the dynamics are very similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: And there is this old timer, he used to say, it doesn&#8217;t matter what the problem is. The, the solution is spiritual. It&#8217;s simple and it has nothing to do with [00:31:00] the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: It&#8217;s not good. nothing to do with the problem. We need to get into this solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. He was practicing functional, whatever before it was even called a thing. Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: yeah. Yeah, it was awesome. was awesome. Okay, so we&#8217;re very clear that food&#8217;s not the problem. Drugs are not the problem. Alcohol&#8217;s not the problem. What is the problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. So let me ask you, Arlena, when you think of some good food memories, what comes to mind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Um, actually we were just talking about this, uh, not too long ago. Uh, good food memories was like my dad&#8217;s birthday, and we would go to the German restaurant. We&#8217;d all gather and. You know, be together around. It was always, and, and my husband and I, we, we show love through food. Like if you come to my house, you are not leaving hungry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You know, it&#8217;s like we show love through food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: And so, &#8217;cause you said, you know, your relationship with your dad was a little per I&#8217;ll say persnickety [00:32:00] when you were at that. Well, yeah, not that great. When you were at that restaurant though, was there sort of like a resting in that relationship? Like it was, would you say that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. We were celebrating him. We were all together. It was like very, very happy and yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. Yeah. And then when you think of some hard times in your life where food was present, can you share an example of that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: I. I don&#8217;t know if this is re this relates, but like when, especially when I was using, um, food was a problem because I would get sick a lot when I was drinking. And so then I, it was either like I would throw up and like, it was like if I hadn&#8217;t eaten then, you know, it wouldn&#8217;t have been such a big mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Or like when I was hungover, I was so nauseous I couldn&#8217;t eat. So I don&#8217;t know if that sort of fits into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. Yeah. So the, [00:33:00] the unifying thread of both of those is belonging, and by belonging I mean feeling like the experience was a place of rest or not. It was a place where, like you said, with, we were celebrating, so it was like a resourcing place like this felt, this felt good, right? Versus when.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: to come together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes. And you said even like if you come to my house, it&#8217;s like food is this universal way of showing you care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right? Like I remember a couple years ago my neighbor who I see here and there, like his, his beloved dog died. Right? And I knew him well enough, but not so much. And I&#8217;m like. What can I make you like? And he wanted spaghetti, right? It was like, I can&#8217;t fix this, but I just like made him spaghetti, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Brought it, and I don&#8217;t even like love to cook. So this is like, but it&#8217;s that knee jerk reaction because food in your common, in your experiences, right? It&#8217;s like, Ugh, I can be at rest. I don&#8217;t have to earn my belonging, my worthiness. The hustle isn&#8217;t there in those moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Hmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Do you think that&#8217;s fair to say of the [00:34:00] po?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. And I&#8217;ve been, someone introduced this sort of, uh, framework. It&#8217;s, and they&#8217;re asking, are you above the line or below The line above the line is coming from a place of love and peace and creativity, and below the line is all fear-based stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes. And so what puts you above or below the line is actually we all have it. It&#8217;s called, I call it a belonging radar, but it is like always scanning for am I safe or am I not emotionally like, am I. Am I significant? Do I matter here or do I not? And so if you think about your positive food memories, there was no question that you mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">There&#8217;s no question that the people coming to your house matter. Like we, we are here to just rest and have a great time versus the hard times, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Ah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: right where you were using, I don&#8217;t know if I matter, right? For my clients, it could be like. Binging. Like it, you know, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s like, oh, I was the black sheep in the family and it&#8217;s like I was the one that struggled with my weight, but it&#8217;s like [00:35:00] it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s about more than the weight, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s like my parents were really critical and so I would come home, like if I didn&#8217;t get an A plus, right? I would stop at the, this is clients talking. You know, I would. I would stop at the, at the five and 10 mini mart on the way home. Right. It&#8217;s almost like, and that&#8217;s what, you know, I was talking about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It stimulates attachment chemicals. Oh my God. When I go to that mini mart, even though I don&#8217;t wanna be doing that, or even when I am like, oh my God, I&#8217;m at the party. I&#8217;m around other people and I feel so alone and I&#8217;m scheming to get home so that I can eat. It&#8217;s like I&#8217;m feeling so alone, but this food is gonna make me like literally physiologically feel less alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so back to Dr. Deborah Mcara quote, it almost works, but we need the caretaking that is present. In our positive food memories. So even listeners can ask themselves that and you will see that that safety of belonging, of, of mattering, of worthiness, however we wanna say it, is probably there in your good food memories and it&#8217;s probably not there in [00:36:00] your hard food memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Right. That is such a experiential, um, lesson, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: You got it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: just going through that and asking those questions, and I know that people listening, you know, I would encourage people to do that, like as a journaling exercise,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: it&#8217;s so much easier when someone&#8217;s asking you the question and then you can just kind of think about it and somebody can lead you through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: that what you do in your group programs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Well, I mean not So by the time people come to my group programs, usually they know that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re getting into, but they need more. They suspect something&#8217;s deeper going on, but they can&#8217;t like quite put their finger on it. But they hear me on podcasts like this, or not. One thing I just wanna say, I love that idea for people to ask themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And sometimes people will say like, I don&#8217;t have, like, I don&#8217;t have any positive food memories, right? But then the next day or even 10 minutes later, they&#8217;ll be like, you know what? I do remember? I remember one. Podcast host. I asked this and she&#8217;s like, I don&#8217;t have any, and then literally like five minutes later she&#8217;s like, actually I [00:37:00] remember these like orange chocolates with my grandma and like we would eat them together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I was like, what was your relationship with your grandma like? She&#8217;s like, oh my God, she was my person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Oh<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I know. I know. My grandma was my, I&#8217;m gonna cry my person too. Um, yeah, right. We can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: love the grandmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: know, I know, I know. They can be there for us in ways that like, our parents just can&#8217;t. Right. That&#8217;s their, that&#8217;s their role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Um, but the, it just shows like I&#8217;ve, I&#8217;ve asked this question of like thousands of people and it&#8217;s always like the belonging is there with the good food memories and the belonging is not there. So yeah, you do have to ask yourself, and I just want people to also give themselves some time to unfurl, you know, what, what comes out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. I have found that someone&#8217;s knee-jerk response is typically not their long-term response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes, yes, yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. That&#8217;s why when I deliver bad news to somebody, if they take it well, it always makes me nervous. But if somebody gets mad, you&#8217;re like, [00:38:00] okay, bring it on. Let&#8217;s deal with it. You know? But yeah, that&#8217;s side note. But yeah, we need, we do need to give ourselves like a minute to sort of get past that initial resistance or<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: that comes up and yeah, that, that&#8217;s really<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Um, so let&#8217;s, uh, let&#8217;s switch gears into solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So can you create a, can you cultivate a sense of belonging or how does that work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Great question. So the important thing to realize is that when we are young, and I&#8217;m talking like first 20 years of life or so, our belonging rests. On other people liking us enough to continue to take care of us. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: So I always say like, I actually couldn&#8217;t pay my rent and groceries and healthcare until I was like graduated college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like I&#8217;ve worked since I was 12, but my babysitting money was not paying like for a roof over my head. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: was like 20. I I I moved out at 17. You got till 20. That&#8217;s amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: yeah, [00:39:00] exactly right. So. People are like, I don&#8217;t like people judge themselves for caring what other people think, but literally our survival, the first several decades of life is built on that. So again, all of this comes from a place of compassion,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: however, so that&#8217;s what belonging is rooted in when we are younger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Okay. And honestly, most people will stay there unless you have something that has, you look at this like food, like alcohol, like drugs. You will probably stay in that. And we, and the, the statistics show that. It&#8217;s not a judgment. You, your life is not better or worse if you, if you stay in, in that, I would say it&#8217;s probably less meaningful, but that doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean anything, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Some people get a lot of meaning just staying there. So then the task of adulthood is to really mature and look at. Our cultural conditioning, right? Look at how our parents raised us. Look at how the church raised us. Look at how diet culture raised us, the medical system. And so like, [00:40:00] is there another way, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So the task of adulthood is to grow into what is, is to mature and grow into what I, what the developmental psychologist called self-authored belonging. And this is where we can say. I always say the shift is from what looks good to what feels good. So I&#8217;ll give you an example. So belonging, right? Or if you grew up in the eighties, nineties, I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s changed a little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Although GLP ones are introducing an interesting, uh, thing into the conversation and I&#8217;m agnostic about them, so we can talk about that. However, it&#8217;s right. If we think about, we were socialized to believe health equal thinness. If you were thin, you were healthy. Right Now the task of adulthood is to say, wait, what else goes into health?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Because actually we know research shows that people who think they don&#8217;t have to care and are naturally thin, their morbidity rates are drastically higher as they age, because they never thought they had to quote unquote care. Yeah. They&#8217;re, I [00:41:00] don&#8217;t like this phrase, but they&#8217;re called tophi thin on the outside, fat on the inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So they&#8217;re very inflamed. They have no muscle mass, and they don&#8217;t fare so well as we age. Right. And so we have to say like. How am I really like what feels good for health? Right? And this is where we start to make food about more than just calories. Oh wow. If I eat breakfast in the morning and I wait to have my coffee until after I have food, my anxiety is half that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Wow. That&#8217;s important. That&#8217;s interesting. Right? And so. It also can be like, wow, sleep is really important. Oh, you know what? Moving my body, even if it&#8217;s not to burn 500 calories or to out, out exercise what I ate, it&#8217;s still important because it gives me a mental health benefit. It makes me more productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So it&#8217;s starting to define belonging based on what feels good to us. And that also includes outside of health. So like for your example of like, and, and I work on the identity level too, so I&#8217;m so glad you said that. Like, oh, okay. [00:42:00] And if you were in one of my programs, you&#8217;d realize like, oh, if, if food was your thing, this is hypothetical, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s like, and I have this, a lot of clients like, oh, I&#8217;ve listened to all the rules. I look at the menu before I go out. I, I know what I feel like, and then I get to the event and I just go the flow with everyone, right? And it&#8217;s like, well, why does that make sense? And they eventually realize like, oh, if I am what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: It&#8217;s belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: It&#8217;s like, but that comes up a lot. Oh, I&#8217;m the fun one. And like, and it&#8217;s like, oh, so how are you defining fun? Oh, well, as a kid, if I kept the conversation going, if I made sure everybody was happy, this one client was like, and she actually was like, this is wild. I&#8217;m not even drinking as much because I realized I was eating and drinking when there was a lull in the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I thought I was responsible for keeping it going. But if I think about what&#8217;s fun for me. It&#8217;s, oh my God, not having to keep the conversation going. It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s going to bed knowing I stuck to what will feel good and waking up the next day. And so you [00:43:00] start to expand how you think of fun, right? And then it&#8217;s like, what would make, like, what do you wanna talk about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That would be fun. How do you wanna dress? That would be fun, right? So it doesn&#8217;t mean you have to give up fun, but you&#8217;re expanding. This really narrow, rigid idea of what it means to be fun in this case. Right? Or for me, I had to being healthy because it was so tied into cancer and, and so much, it was like I have to really understand a more expansive idea of what health is beyond just my weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So that&#8217;s what belonging looks like. It&#8217;s like what feels good to me now that I&#8217;m an adult, I have more options, I have more choices, I have more available to me than was available to me as a kid. And as we start doing that, we start to develop, repair, trust. We start to say, I got my own back, like, and I can trust me and I can, and then the people and experience is meant for me actually come closer because part of the problem of when we have a.[00:44:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">What&#8217;s called a socialized idea of belonging. I call it the good girl. Good boy idea of belonging is we think in either or all, they&#8217;re nothing black and white. So we think if I get my needs met, that&#8217;s gonna take people away, right? If I slow down and actually take a walk after lunch instead of working, I&#8217;m gonna fall behind and I&#8217;m not gonna be able to pay my mortgage, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This is all unconscious, but. Versus realizing as you self-author, belonging, the people who really love you and want you at your best, it, it brings them closer. And clients like, I can&#8217;t, I can&#8217;t even believe that. I can&#8217;t. And it&#8217;s like, you don&#8217;t have to believe it. You just have to be open and curious, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: the experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: run the experiment. That&#8217;s what I give no rules. I give because I&#8217;m a rebel too. I&#8217;m like, Nope, I know how adults change. This does not work. So I just said a lot, so I&#8217;ll just like take a breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: no, this is good. I&#8217;m totally tracking with it. And I think, um, you know, this, this process of, um, really, um, developing belonging, like that&#8217;s when you get sober, that&#8217;s one of the things they always talk [00:45:00] about community,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: It, it seems like, um, society right now, there&#8217;s just so little belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like the, the old ways that we used to congregate around church or community or<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: like we don&#8217;t, everyone is so isolated, you know, behind their screens. Everyone&#8217;s got a, a device at the end of their hand and<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah, they&#8217;ve even shown research. &#8217;cause I was in Philly visiting my sister and my son wanted a bagel at this bagel shop and I saw people just coming in and out picking up their orders that they obviously had ordered on the app. And I said to my sister, like. I, I wonder if this like degrades community when you&#8217;re just like, already ordered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You don&#8217;t have to like say hi to your neighbor. And she&#8217;s like, no. They&#8217;ve shown research at like how those little, like, those, that lack of like informal connection, right? Degrades trust. You just don&#8217;t talk to people as much. So it&#8217;s happening in all these like small and big ways. So you&#8217;re exactly right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We don&#8217;t have it anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: I didn&#8217;t even think about that. Yeah, like it is. So, you know, I have [00:46:00] kids that are 25 and almost 22, and you know, they&#8217;re. Always behind the screen. It&#8217;s like you, you don&#8217;t even have to leave your house. You have food delivered to your house. Like you don&#8217;t. It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s just so interesting how people, and I, I just feel like people are so craving connection<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: They are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: but the what it, what it, I don&#8217;t know why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I think it&#8217;s the, it is like a comfort crisis. Like it&#8217;s so convenient to like order your. Drink through the app and just run in and pick it up. Like you don&#8217;t, you don&#8217;t have to wait in line. You don&#8217;t have to talk to the barista or the, you don&#8217;t like, you&#8217;re not even having those small interactions. It&#8217;s like, well then how do you learn to talk to people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I know and what I love what you&#8217;re saying about connection, &#8217;cause belonging there goes up, it is a little riskier. Belonging is about connection. Where you feel significant,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: And so if we don&#8217;t get practice with the barista or the kids in school, right? It&#8217;s like how are you ever gonna be like, I&#8217;m struggling here.[00:47:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You know what I mean? Like, and that&#8217;s, that is the type of, like, when I say I can handle it myself eating and, and my clients are eating by themselves, it&#8217;s like my clients are like, I don&#8217;t like that this work involves other people. And I now, after they go through truth of food consistency, they&#8217;re like, okay, I really get, this isn&#8217;t about the food and I don&#8217;t like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This is about me needing to have needs, you know? And it&#8217;s like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: I know, isn&#8217;t that sad? It&#8217;s like we were so taught to not have any needs, like this idea of self abandonment, you know, is so strong. Self avoidance. Self abandonment, um, dissociation that we don&#8217;t even have to our own feelings. It&#8217;s, it takes a minute to sort of like reconnect from to the heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And it&#8217;s so interesting &#8217;cause you hear that a lot in the sober world as people wanna get quote unquote sober on their own. And my, my position on that, it&#8217;s like that there really is like, it&#8217;s sort of seen as this badge of honor, but it, in honesty, [00:48:00] I feel like there, there&#8217;s no courage in doing it on your own because you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re not ex you, you don&#8217;t have to be vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Well, and the obstacle is the path or the obstacle is the way, right? It&#8217;s like the prote, but that&#8217;s what it, like, you help people see And I, it&#8217;s like, okay, that protective resistance is &#8217;cause you wanna isolate &#8217;cause you&#8217;re so afraid,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: And it makes sense, right? Like if you were a kid and anytime you messed up, you know, you, you got criticized by your parent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Or like, I had really supportive parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Or like, I had really supportive parents and I was like, okay, I&#8217;m not gonna be pretty and popular &#8217;cause I was struggling with weight, so I&#8217;m gonna be smart. Right. It&#8217;s like, so I&#8217;m never gonna, I should have everything figured out then. Right? Like, I&#8217;m smart, I can hack this, whatever it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So I&#8217;m not gonna let anyone see I&#8217;m, see I like, I&#8217;m sweating, right. That I&#8217;m struggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: it to your earlier point about identity. Needing help, needing to be vulnerable. It, it tears at the very [00:49:00] belonging of identity that we like about ourselves, which is why it&#8217;s so hard to not wanna go at it alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, Uh, yeah. It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s so messy. It&#8217;s like, I, I&#8217;ve, I, I learned pretty early on to go to the exact opposite of what my instincts were telling me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: That was smart. That&#8217;s great. You could, you&#8217;re onto yourself though. That&#8217;s what I say to clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: was really no merit. You know, I crashed and burn kind of early &#8217;cause I just was self-destructed early. And then I sort of learned this idea about leaning in the discomfort instead of running away from it. And, and that was if I was able to do it and I had support for sure, but as I, you know, like, you know, I went through 12 seven, got a sponsor and<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: what was really happening to this other person and she, I had a really good sponsor who was like compassionate and supportive and. ask me if, you know, I&#8217;d call her up and complain about my now husband. she&#8217;d be like, she&#8217;d be like, well, I don&#8217;t [00:50:00] sponsor him, so let&#8217;s talk about you. And, you know, and she&#8217;d she&#8217;d like, or she&#8217;d be like, um, did you wanna just vent? Did you want feedback? What it is that you wanted? And, and so she kind of made it safe for me be vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Well, and you&#8217;re putting up a really interesting point. &#8217;cause when we&#8217;re in that either or all or nothing,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: think about being vulnerable, we think we have to bear everything. And it&#8217;s like, no, no, no, no, no. We can go incrementally and like find one person and just. Practice there. So I&#8217;m glad that you use that example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">&#8217;cause again, when we&#8217;re in this like binary mindset, it&#8217;s like, like even people in my groups, I&#8217;m like, you don&#8217;t have to share until you&#8217;re comfortable. This whole process is about agency and trusting. And if it doesn&#8217;t feel in your body like you should disclose yet. No, don&#8217;t do that. Like then it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s not time yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But I still wanna circle back &#8217;cause I think. What&#8217;s great though, you said like you crashed and burned, but people confuse self-awareness with self-monitoring all the time, and so they think like, [00:51:00] oh, I&#8217;m self-aware because I know how they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re thinking, I know that I suck, or like all this stuff, but really they&#8217;re just monitoring themselves all the time with judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so for you to be. Right. It&#8217;s like, but do you know what I mean? Like, so for you to pick up on, wow, like this is not going anywhere. I may tell myself that this is hard and I don&#8217;t need other people. That&#8217;s not self-awareness. It&#8217;s like, oh, I&#8217;m monitoring myself to protect myself versus like, I need, I need help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s the awareness, the self-awareness part. So you have to give yourself some credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I, I got, I had some really good examples and they kind of showed me the, the way, right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: sort of like deconstruct my thinking and take responsibility for what was. Mind let go of what wasn&#8217;t. um, but it sort of, uh, became this process. If, if I was willing to sort of lean into the discomfort, there would be like a reward at the other side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so it was like, it was the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: it was the system. [00:52:00] So these, these women that were living successfully were sort of teaching me their system, and it included being vulnerable and honest about what was really going on. But, but I just want to sort of disclose, you know, um, there was this, Brene Brown was talking, uh, I think it was the diary of the CEO recently where they were talking about vulnerabilities, sort of like the superpower. But she was saying that not everybody is trustworthy. So we have to sort of, uh, develop a, a rapport first before we divulge things and test people out with something small to see if they can handle it or if they are trustworthy or see how they respond. But she said what some people do is they just trauma dump on a brand new relationship and then, then it doesn&#8217;t go well and they go. See, I tried. It<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: And that&#8217;s<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: to, to go back into hiding and isolating. So I think it&#8217;s so important to sort of [00:53:00] address this idea of, you know, start slow and just share a little bit and build trust over time. Like, vulnerability is super important, trustworthy. Run the experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Well, and also if it&#8217;s a new relationship and someone, if someone were to do that to you, like what do you do with that? Like<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Well, I&#8217;m good with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I mean, I am too. I am too. But this is our job. But like the average person, it&#8217;s like they might wanna help, but they may, this, this is what I show, like this is the work I do with clients is like your protector&#8217;s coming out and someone else&#8217;s protector&#8217;s coming out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So if they feel like they can&#8217;t help you and their identity rests on helping you, they may be like, I suck. And they just shut down. Like, you don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s, what&#8217;s going on with the other person. So that&#8217;s why slow and steady right, wins the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, we need context. Yeah, there&#8217;s that, uh, military saying Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Ooh. Or,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: that good?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: yeah, I love like the to go fast, go slow. Right? Like the paradox, because truth is paradox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: It really [00:54:00] is. Oh my gosh. Um, listen, we&#8217;ve been at it for almost an hour. I told you my<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh my God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: off, shuts off right about an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: yeah, I love your content. You have so much good stuff and you know, for people who are really, you know, maybe you&#8217;re sober and you&#8217;re like. Now it&#8217;s time to address the root cause issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like let&#8217;s try to heal some of this, um, anxiety, depression, like root cause issues with food and, and, and, uh, try to like, sort of trade your old system that isn&#8217;t working for a new one. Like what sort of a programs, uh, do<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah. Yeah. So people can go to truce with food.com and find your food stage, and the first step is really to see there&#8217;s one, there&#8217;s four stages between diet happening and having a truce with food, which is my research-based client proven framework. And so it&#8217;s important I think, for people to start there and take that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s like a quiz, but it&#8217;s deeper. It&#8217;s, you know, it&#8217;s between a quiz and assessment. No one&#8217;s judging you, but it can help you see what stage you&#8217;re at. And it&#8217;s really about [00:55:00] readiness of change. And so, yeah. Yeah. &#8217;cause that&#8217;s what my background&#8217;s in. So, but it&#8217;s within the, what&#8217;s it&#8217;s within, like the context of food and, and, you know, changing our, our eating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So. Go there and start, and then you can see like, am I, if I&#8217;m at stage one, I need to do truths with food clarity, which is like more understanding how my blood sugar works and like really diving deeper into this belonging thread. Um, and then phase two is, you know, truths with food consistency. And that&#8217;s like, okay, I get something deeper is going on and I want to address it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But the qui, the quiz and assessment can help people figure out what they, where they are. Um, and then I have my own podcast in Satiable. Um, it will be, the name will be changing in the new year to truce with food. Um, so I&#8217;m not, I&#8217;m sure this is airing, but that is, um, I have a very popular podcast like you as well, so that&#8217;s also another place people can start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, that&#8217;ll be the little word of warning when you change your, uh, podcast name. It&#8217;ll create a lot of [00:56:00] confusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh yeah, I&#8217;m, we&#8217;re gonna work on it, so I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s gonna cause a ton of confusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: It&#8217;s so funny. So I, I started my podcast like nine and a half years ago and it was O DAP chat, and then I realized that people that are newly sober don&#8217;t really know what O dap means. It&#8217;s one day at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah. So then, but I had the URLO chat and then I changed it to the one Day at a Time Recovery podcast. Um, but people still refer to it as, I changed it at least seven years ago, and people are still calling it O<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Oh no. I&#8217;ve had mine for 10. That&#8217;s not good news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: yeah. But anyway, people still find it, it still works and yeah, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s whatever,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: truth with food actually makes a lot of sense. I think that&#8217;s a, I love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: When I was starting my podcast, nobody knew what they were. We were explaining them and it was like I was, that was the only podcast, and now it&#8217;s like a lot of like sex and porn, so that&#8217;s not exactly the same.[00:57:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: It&#8217;s so funny. Yeah. Or now it&#8217;s like all uh, yeah, it is so funny. Crime, true crime, and<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah, exactly. I&#8217;m like, oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: bro. Marketing. Love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Oh my goodness, Allie, well thank you so much for, this was actually really enlightening. It was a lot of new information I hadn&#8217;t really heard before, which is really important. Yeah, I know. A lot of us really struggle with, with food. It&#8217;s, I don&#8217;t know why. Maybe just the overabundance of food and all<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Well in our, yeah, and our food system&#8217;s designed to make you want to eat more. So we&#8217;re not exactly in like a neutral environment and much like alcohol, it&#8217;s celebrated, right? Like it&#8217;s to overeat. Especially we&#8217;re doing this during the holidays, like people think you&#8217;re weird if you&#8217;re not overindulgent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s very complicated. But it, but there&#8217;s a simple solution. Once you weed through all of that, I want people to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah, there is a simple, it&#8217;s simple, it&#8217;s, uh, spiritual. It has nothing to do with the problem<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Yeah, exactly.[00:58:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: as my old timey friend said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Very wise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: so much for joining me. This is, this was really helpful. I&#8217;ll leave links to everything in the show notes including, uh, some action steps and the books we mentioned and links to your website. And you&#8217;re on Instagram too, I&#8217;d imagine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: I am. I am. Yeah. And just for like one action item people can implement immediately is just ask. Why does this make sense when you&#8217;re struggling with food?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Ask, why does it make sense? &#8217;cause that can totally reframe that it&#8217;s about safety and nourishment, not about restriction. And so people can start to unfurl their own answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Arlina Allen: Yes. Love that. I love that so much. Ellie, thank you so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Ali M: Thank you, Arlene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s something we don\u2019t talk about enough. You quit drinking.You do the work.You go to meetings.You build a life you\u2019re proud of. 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