How I Broke My Drinking Habit (w/ Edith Zimmerman) | How to Be a Better Human | TED

This is a selzer with lime. It's what I order when I'm at the bar these days. I'm a comedian and I'm often in situations where everyone else is drinking, but I don't drink anymore. So, this is what I get. You know, since I stopped drinking, I go to sleep earlier. I wake up earlier. My life is, I hate to say it, a little bit boring. So, how do you relate to yourself when you've made a big change? How do you still feel like you without doing the things that you used to do? Our guest today is Edith Zimmerman. She is a cartoonist and a writer, and she's also sober. She's been documenting her journey through sobriety and her daily life through her cartoons and her writing and her newsletter for many years now. — So, I decided to visit Edith to ask her some questions about what it means to change who you are, to exercise a lot of self-discipline and to be creative about what your life looks like dayto-day. I'm a writer, an artist. I live in upstate New York and I run a newsletter. It's illustrated with stories about my life. I don't know how much — That's great. That's perfect. Well, how much information should I — I would say like why not promote like I think you should say drawing links or whatever you want to say. — Okay, smart. — Hi, I'm Edith Zimmerman. I'm a writer and artist. I live in upstate New York. I send out a newsletter called Drawing Links. The hardest part about stopping drinking was worrying that nothing was ever going to be funny again. It was also hard to upend my social life. — No, I'm going to stay in forever, but thanks. Your work is really honest and I'm curious, have you always been good at being honest with yourself? — I drank really heavily for a really long time and I was um I knew it was too much and a problem for me. But I was like, "Yeah, but like it's the only thing I like, so I'm not going to like stop drinking. " The honesty part for me, I think, just came when I was like, "Well, yeah, that obviously is bad, but it's like what else am I going to like this is the only thing that's fun for And I was kind of just like holding these two things that seemed I'm like I've got to solve this incredibly difficult puzzle. Like nobody else before me has dealt with something so challenged. Like and then one day I was like no it's not that hard. — Like it's not the one thing I like. It's like I think I'm just like willing to see what life is like without it. — Deciding to get sober is a big thing. It's a huge thing. But another big thing that many people don't talk about as much is figuring out what your life looks like afterwards. When you cut something out, what do you replace it with? And when I stopped drinking, I just started doing anything that I still liked. I had like a few things that I liked doing that were not drinking. And I just did those a lot. Like I knit, I watched ASMR videos. I watched TV. I read thrillers cuz like you it was like kind of real with myself. I was like, "What do I actually like to do? " And cuz like if I just been sitting there with nothing to do, like the hands will just start creeping toward the wine and be like, "Well, you just might as well let me. " I keep trying to write and draw about how helpful knitting was and has been with not drinking. It occupies your hands in a way that's like m well. It's like they get so occupied they don't have time for anything else. It's like hand food. Literally after I quit drinking, maybe even the next day or that same afternoon or something or that week, I Googled like what do people do besides drink? Um kind of as a joke to myself like the is happening? Um cuz it wasn't it was sort of like a humorless time where it's like okay like phase two there's like top 10 lists like go to a cafe museum. I'm like am I really reading this right now? And one was like rediscover activities you enjoyed as a child. But I'm like, "Yeah, right. Of course. " But that was kind of the gold mine. — I drew about you this morning. — Oh, really? — Yeah. I drew this morning like d I'm excited to meet Chris and I couldn't really remember what you looked like, but I drew this. — That's like close enough. That's like me without a beard. — But like sometimes I draw from a photo and other times I just draw from memory and I'm like this doesn't look like it at all. — I think that you have a very distinctive style and like if I saw your drawings, I would know that they were yours even if I didn't see you doing them. — Yeah. — Do you think about that at all? Like do you ever try and like draw like totally different style or something like that? — Uh no. It's accidental, you know, like you see a you see like an artist whose style you totally recognize and at some point at least what I assumed was someday they sat down and were like, I'm going to draw like the

cheeks in this funny shape and that's going to be my thing. But I just started drawing stick figures um or like ball heads with like little necks and like circle eyes. And then I just kept doing it and like slowly it evolved and now I feel like I have a style but it's like none of it was conscious or purposeful. — I think people also have this idea a lot of times that like drugs or alcohol are the key to creativity or being interesting. — Yeah. — I think there's lots and lots of examples of people like making their best work or making work at all after they stopped using or stopped drinking. — Yeah. And it sounds like kind of cool. It's like oh you sort of like blur the lens a little and something more truthful will come out. And I think everyone has an experience where that actually happens too. That's the that's why it's tricky. Like it starts out kind of fun. You have like one or two positive experiences such that like you can no longer really be honest with yourself later on when you're like am I having that many positive experiences now or am I just like repeating the same thing that worked like eight years ago once or twice? A lot of your day-to-day and a lot of my day-to-day is like taking care of young kids, which is like on the one hand like very relatable to many people and on the other hand like very boring and routine and the same and like be being able to find like something really funny about that and relatable I think can like crack you out of it in a make you see it in a different way. — For a while I was going through this really dark I don't know it was sort of a rough time last summer was just like I wasn't publishing anything. I wasn't doing anything. I was still drawing, but I didn't really know what to do with it. And I just like I don't know how it happened, but I got this idea. I started drawing mermaids, like sketching mermaids. And then I started I was like, "What if these mermaids too had like a very mundane life? " So, she like started a newsletter about her mermaid life, but like her mermaid life was like really boring. So, I started this whole mermaid newsletter. It has like 20 installments. — She was single and had no children. I'm not even sure I believe in love. when you can be mundane within something like thrilling, I find that like very pleasing. Or it's like, oh, I've inhabited the world of this mermaid, but like yeah, she just like wants people to like her and just like eats like garbage. She was actually a health blogger. I start my morning with a sand dollar smoothie and 3 hours of a cargo ship sound bath. We can imagine like the most fantastical other world and then like really quickly it's like just another day being a mermaid. Does anyone read my mermaid blog? What does it even matter? You're like you're a mermaid. Please God. — But no, but that's why it's funny. It's like all the thoughts I'm really having when I'm feeling so sorry for myself. It's like as if the mermaid has it is funny. — Being a mermaid is hard sometimes. you wrote this really beautiful article about running and how sobriety and this physical activity of going for runs and jogging had an interesting relationship. Can you just tell us a little bit about that? — Also, I just want to say I feel like I'm starting to feel just like an imposttor where it's like, oh, you journal and you run instead of drink. It's like, yeah, you and like 50% of the population running. — Well, what's the imposttor part of that? — Well, it's like, yeah, there's nothing special about what I do, so like why would anyone want to talk to me about it? I think you're special, but I know that's that literally sounds like a Mr. Rogers episode, but I think you're special, but I do. But I mean, really, I think the fact that it works for a lot of people is why I'm interested in it. — It was not difficult to stop drinking, but what was difficult was finding stuff to do with the time that emerged because it was not just like a little time, it was a lot of time. And so I think it's really important to swap out habits. Okay, so we're about to go on a run with Edith on her normal running path. And I just I can't emphasize enough how much I do not normally run. And what you're about to see is not going to be pretty and it will probably be indecent. How often? Like twice a year, once a year. No. — Well, this year this will be the first time. — Okay. — Um I mean if you count like I've moved, — right? — But like gone for like a jog. Not because I was like late for something. This will be the first time that I've run this year. — All right. So we'll start down this way. I have a lot of energy and I have like a capacity to be really dedicated to things which when you're like having a big hangover or you're just like repeating your wine it doesn't you don't feel like passionate and devoted — like what is it that you're getting out of it — just like doing a thing that I feel good about. I like tiring myself out. — I like that I can do it. I like taking some time away from the house. Like

— what do you think about uh dwelling on things that have happened, like replaying scenes, yelling at people in my head. Usually I'm in a better mood by the time I get back, though. — Yeah. — And it's like once I achieved a certain level of fitness, I could just like kind of keep going and not think only about whether or not I had to stop running. — I won't lie, I am already thinking about when I could stop running. As I tried not to pass out or literally cough up a lung, I couldn't help but notice how well disciplined Edith is. And it's not just that Edith stopped drinking and then replaced it with a habit that is better for her. It's that those habits made her feel better about herself. Edith. So, there's been this process of like self-discovery of asking yourself like what is it that I do and how do I spend my time? How has that process been an ongoing process and how has it been something where like you've found things and you want them to stick and be pillars? — It's like, well, what do I like to do? And it's not easy. How do you take a moment to be like, do I even like what I'm doing right now? And like, how do I change it? I think that can be too overwhelming of a question to think about sometimes if you're in a situation where it's really bad. But the answer is dull. It's like just keep testing everything you think you know about yourself is probably not true. I think it's just like being open to new experiences and retrying things cuz sometimes like the situation is just totally different or you're totally different. I'm I mean I'm fine. It was great. It was really great running with you. — Yeah. — Thank you. I'll catch up. — Okay. [gasps] — [sighs] — After spending the day with Edith, one of the things that I'm thinking about a lot is how you might not be the same person that you are now tomorrow or in 5 years. You can change. You might become an artist or a runner. You might become sober. These things that are such a huge part of your life, they don't necessarily stick around forever. And you can't necessarily imagine what your life would look like down the road. Things could change. I mean, I'm definitely not going to become a runner, but like that could happen for someone. Not me, but maybe you. I think I've definitively learned that I will never run again. Hey, thank you for watching this video. If you like what you just saw, you should check out our podcast, How to Be a Better Human. We have an extended conversation with Edith Zimmerman that is out now. We get even deeper into these issues and we have tons of other episodes with many topics covered from all sorts of really interesting and intelligent people sharing their perspectives. So you can find how to be a better human wherever you get your podcasts. We put out new episodes every week. —