In this episode, Monica and Kaylee, both survivors of alcohol-related sexual assault, share their personal experiences to challenge the societal glamorization of alcohol and its often destructive aftermath. Monica presents alarming statistics to advocate for a critical reevaluation of alcohol's portrayal, especially when contrasted with cannabis. "We owe it to our children to fight for a safer world," Monica asserts, calling for honest dialogue and better protective measures for future generations. Kaylee, host of the podcast Lippy, opens up about her journey from a viral scandal to sober reality as a single mother and stand-up comedian. She courageously shares her disturbing experience of sexual assault at age 14, aiming to resonate with listeners and encourage them to break the silence surrounding alcohol abuse and assault. The episode also explores current legislative measures and potential reforms, including the growing acceptance of cannabis as a safer alternative, highlighted by the impact of the 2018 Farm Bill in traditionally conservative states like Louisiana. Monica discusses the significance of EMDR therapy in her healing process, hoping her openness will inspire others to seek help. Together, the hosts delve into the broader impact of alcohol on women's lives and the societal changes needed to safeguard vulnerable groups. “Through our stories, we aim to ignite a conversation that often occurs only in whispers,” Kaylee explains. “Our mission with this podcast episode is to bring these critical issues to light and advocate for a healthier, more conscious society.”
Notes and Links as promised
Educational Links
Sexual Assault and Alcohol: What the research tells us
LinkedIn Article: Free Speech, the Cold War and Today
Welcome to the pioneering podcast at the intersection of motherhood, mental health technology, and cannabis. It's mommy's new medicine. Here's your host, Monica Olano. Welcome back to mommy's new medicine. We are going to talk today about the impact of alcohol in regards to sexual assault. As you guys know, I am very on the let's bring alcohol and its consequences to life train. And I think this is one that often gets overlooked and underreported. Again, I am not trying to take your alcohol.
I am not prohibition bound or screaming from the rooftops for it. I'm simply advocating for education. And that when our politicians choose to say, but it's for our kids, let's turn some of the statistics back on them and make them defend what choices they're really making for our children. So, that being said, we are going to take a quick do your algorithm homework and make sure you hit, like hit follow or hit review. If any of this speaks to you or think somebody else might be helped by hearing it, because the algorithm will only share with others what we tell it to share. I'll also do a reminder at the end, but today I want to introduce, I don't know if I say old friend, a reunited friend, but a good, good friend of mine from the high school days that through this journey lately, I have recently reconnected with. Her name is Kayleigh Browning. She is a master of many trades, many that she'll kind of give her biography for.
She's also a beautiful, beautiful mother, beautiful soul. Stand up comedian. But I'm gonna let her go into everything that she is, and then we'll dive in. So, Kayleigh, if you wanna do just a super brief introduction, I'm always impressed by your education skills, your stand up comedian, your resiliency. If you just wanna give a little background.
Oh, wow. Okay. I have a master's in PhD coursework in rhetoric. So I like to argue and dissect arguments and perspectives. I teach at the University of Colorado Denver, who is having a pro palestine protest right now on campus. So, solidarity to them for sticking up for what they believe in and being, like, a true measure of the facade of progress in the United States, to be quite honest. So, yeah, go NextGen.
I did not know you were gonna say that. But I am effing loving Gen Z. Yes, I am loving these kids, and I wanna give them every support that we can. So heck yes to the University of Denver kids that are doing it, and all the other Gen Z kids around this country that are standing up for what they believe in. That's hard to do. So thank you for supporting them and thank you for doing it.
Absolutely. I'm so excited for them in. And I'm actually, like, considering taking my six year old daughter down there. Not to get in the mix of it, but just to take a look at this is what it means to be a part of a community, of a collective. And I don't want to use the word progress anymore. It's actually triggering to me now.
As it should be.
Yeah. Because everything that's progressive is just like a basic human need. Therefore it should be a basic human right.
That's for another episode. That is for our next episode. Because I do have lots of thoughts. But no, I think that's awesome that you want to show that to your daughter. I really think that's awesome.
Yeah. And then, like you said, other things. I do stand up improv. And I just finished a book called C sections with strangers that I wrote and I'm trying to get that published. And that's exciting. And it's about women's abortion rights through my experience as a single mother.
Amazing.
Yeah.
She has also done a podcast too, so it is lippy. Lippy is an absolutely amazing show. I'm going to put the links to it in my show notes. And after you listen to this one, you guys should definitely go check out her first season as well.
Cool. Thanks.
Well, speaking of Gen Z, I think some of our experiences that we're going to talk about today tie back to when we were the age of the Gen Z ers that are out there advocating for what they believe in and what they feel to be right. So we are going to dig into the relationship between alcohol and sexual assault. So trigger warning to anyone that might have any experience with this, if the kind of conversation will trigger, you know, that going in so you're prepared when you listen or if you are not comfortable listening. We also completely understand we're both going to share some stories about how this has impacted us specifically. So we are not just up here preaching facts that we found on the Internet. We are also. We have personal ties to this that run deep and affect you even 20 years later. Okay, so alcohol and sexual abuse.
If you were to take a guess, Kayleigh, about what the percentage of american women that have reported sexual assault reported. Reported total women, not even age group, just like total women that have reported sexual assault.
30%.
You are almost dead on. It's 25% of women. I'm a girl, mom.
I kind of pay attention to this stuff.
God. See I have two young girls now. I'm like, I gotta fight for them. I gotta make sure the world that they are going into is not gonna be the world I had to fend for at 16 and 19 and burn that shit down.
Well, they have less reproductive rights than we did at their age. That's mind blowing. Like, I don't have time for this.
I know.
All right, go on.
More statistics. Well, now, of those sexual assaults, what percentage do you think have been related to alcohol use?
Geez, probably like three out of four. It's like 75%.
It's about half.
Okay.
The other thing I wanna notate is a lot of the reason that these whole discussions have started for me is because I am very pro cannabis use, but especially in comparison to alcohol, I'm high right now. Yeah, I know. I actually took a sativa gummy, too. Cause I was like, I flew in from Minneapolis this morning. I was in Minneapolis for 48 hours. Just balls to the walls. Flew in this morning, then had to go pick up my kids. And so I was like, I'm gonna take a little eight milligram sativa gummy.
So I am lasered in and focused. The reason that I bring this up is because the way alcohol is allowed to be glamorized, it is the way that it's allowed to be marketed towards our children and many other things. Whereas we say, this other one they're using, it's going to be bad for the children, but there's no science for that. All the statistics, everything I'm going to quote today and tell you is from the own federal government's website. It is from their national library of Medicine, where they very proudly claim, and tout that none of this is bought, basically, that it doesn't have any outside influence, that these are all academic papers within the National Institute of Health. So they're all like, academically research written papers. These are real statistics that are out there about alcohol and how they are offending sexual assault. So as we dive into this, if you are hearing rhetoric within the government, within the propaganda right now about other things that say, oh, well, this is for our children, just take a step back and really think about what the research about alcohol and how it actually impacts our children is.
So before I dive in to how our stories relate to this, I also just want to go over a lot of the things that they're saying out there for the anti cannabis. You might not have this in the state of Colorado right now, but a lot of red states. As soon as the state elections passed, a lot of the THC beverages and the Delta nine gummies that are federally legal under the farm bill of 2018. That's most of the product of what we have here. Louisiana, for example, just got medical marijuana a couple years ago, but due to that farm bill, it made those beverages and the Delta nine gummies legal as long as they're derived from less than 0.3% THC. If you're not familiar with it, it is very convoluted, but not once you get into it. But basically, what happened was the federal government allowed it through a loophole in the farm 2018 bill. Now, they kind of just went hands off, but the states can still then now enact their own laws.
They let these systems kind of go and be fine and do whatever, and then as soon as the local state elections passed, there's now legislation trying to ban these products. And their whole reason being, well, it's to protect our children. So that is why I want to say, well, here's what alcohol is actually doing to our children. They did a study of us 12th graders and scientifically identified that alcohol is the number one gateway drug. So how many times did you hear growing up, don't do pot, don't do marijuana? It's a gateway drug.
All of the times.
I. Yeah, all of the time. And we are trying to make regulation against cannabis when it's proven scientific fact that it is the gateway drug.
Do you realize the irony of you and I having gone to our high school?
Yes.
And being in the same class and, like, the level of alcoholics we both were our senior year? Like, I don't know. I've taken a mental inventory. I'm like, I don't know if there were two bigger female alcoholics in our class than us.
No. No, there were not.
So this is like, we're like, we know.
Okay. Yes, we know. But that is also, like, part of my point for this. I am not the girl that was clean and innocent and perfect. I am a girl that has started drinking. God. I had my first drink at twelve. I think it was the first time I had a drink.
Started drinking heavily at 14.
Yep.
Same things happened in early, like college, that just. I mean, it just took off. And it has been, if I'm 38 now, that is 24 years of use. Well, I guess I stopped at 37, so 20 whatever years of use. And then, like, 20 years of hard use. Like, we're talking hard, numbing use. Like, I've been through the bad of it. I've been through the fun, the glamour, the good things of it, as they would say.
And I also make my livelihood from boo's sales. So I am so intertwined in this. Yeah, if you don't know, my husband owns bars and restaurants.
Oh, okay.
So literally, if alcohol stops selling, my livelihood goes down. But that is how passionate I am about how we are being lied to, how it's being marketed towards our children, the impacts it's having on our society, and what better voice to start the discussion, I feel like, of someone that's been through every single avenue of it. So, yes, the irony. Kaylee and I came from, gosh, you text me out of nowhere. I opened my phone one morning recently and it says, is this still Monica? If so, I'm Kaylee. Do you remember me? We used to put vodka in our sprite remix bottles. I would have remembered you without that. Without a doubt.
But yes, we did. I didn't go to a basketball game without vodka in my crystal light. We would go to the movies. We'd be pouring, like, the rum and the different drinks. I didn't do anything in high school sober, ever.
Yeah, I remember senior year during lunch, we would have like, over an hour and we would go and get a little drunk, get a little high, and then I'd have my senior english class and I was just so passionate. And I'm like, flushed cheeks. And I remember the teacher, she was always like, yeah, yeah. And I was like, I am hammered.
Yeah.
So much potential.
So much potential. The party scene, I can't remember. Were you TKD? No. No.
Because I was rejected from that particular group of girls, which is interesting and a loss for them. But I did get voted life of the party of the senior class. And I have. Ever since I've become a mother, I have looked back horrified at, like, the public acknowledgement that, like, this girl here, she fucking parties.
If it makes you feel better, I got, I think, most likely to be single at the ten year reunion. And I was. What does that even mean? So Kayleigh and I, yes, we have a history of partying together. And so we are gonna take it a little bit away from the light sided humor and kind of give you some experience. You know, I'm spouting off statistics and those are just statistics. When you hear those, you kind of like, oh, man, that doesn't sound good. But then you kind of forget them. And I think until you hear the real stories behind them, do those numbers become more impactful as well? As the amount of people that don't tell their story, there is so much shame associated with sexual assault.
Still, especially if alcohol was involved, women are known to feel more. Well, maybe I shouldn't have drank. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. It victimizes you all over again, and it shouldn't. So if the folks out there that are in power are truly worried about our kids, I hope that our stories can help show we need more attention on alcohol and more attention on healthier ways to keep this from happening generation over generation over generation than we do rhetoric about other things. So let's look at the science. Let's talk about some stories. Kaylee, you want to go first, or you want me to just dive in and see where I resonate with you?
Sure, you go first. It's. This is your pod.
Okay. Mine was a hard story to tell. I I told Kaylee right before this. I have probably only told maybe five people total in my entire life when I went to Florida state.
So.
Florida state, very big party school. Very well known for that. My sophomore year, we lived right behind a bar, and I believe it was like a Tuesday night. Cause, of course, they had some special. We were broke college students. That's why we were gonna go on Tuesday night. You know, my crystal light and vodka, it didn't die by sophomore year of college. So I was still drinking my crystal light and vodka that Kaylie might remember from my high school days.
And I want to say we had some of that before we walk over. You would cut through this little blockbuster parking lot, and then, literally, you were right there. And we've done it a million times. And it was just my friend and I that went. Our other roommates didn't want to go because it was a Tuesday night, and they were responsible. She was probably my Kaylee of college. That is what I like. She was fun.
She was partied together. Like, we had a really good time. And so we went. And walking to is the last thing I remember from that night. The next thing that I remember is waking up in my bed in, like, 02:00 p.m. In the afternoon. You know how you are after a night out of drinking. But this time was different.
I woke up in my bed. I didn't even feel hungover. It was a weird feeling. And I just looked down, and I will never forget it. I was in a gray forever 21 t shirt. It's like a lying t shirt. And it had these silver sequins, sparkles to make it the v neck. You guys know what, a 2005.
And the jeans, the low rise jeans that went with it. And I had, like, these little black heels on. Everyone wore that outfit back then. But anywho, it was just covered in debris, so leaves, grass, those weeping willow things that they have down south. I can't. Spanish moss. Covered in spanish moss everywhere. And I just, like, stumble out into my living room, and my roommates are just like, what happened, Monica? What happened, Monica? I'm like, what are you talking about? And I was then informed that I had showed up back at home, but I couldn't speak, like, English.
I couldn't even speak words. I was just covered in all of this debris, and I was by myself, and my roommates were trying to ask me, oh, where is our other roommate, my friend? Like, where is she? Where is she? But I couldn't, you know, I couldn't even put a sentence together. And they had assumed that we'd just gotten really drunk that night. They sent me to my room, and they assumed she had went home with her boyfriend. Well, it turns out that she was found later that night or morning. I want to say it was really early in the morning, naked on the side of the road. And she had. I don't want to share her story.
That's hers to share for exactly what happened. I'm sure you can take reference of what happened from there for us to have left the bar. And then she gets found naked on the side of the road, and she was taken to the hospital. I, on the other hand, was just kind of left to be. And then they looked to see, like, they found where we had walked home. We had cut through that same not well lit blockbuster parking lot.
It was.
Blockbuster itself was really lit. But when you turn that just little corner, there's, like, a stretch of, like, the length of blockbuster. The short length, you know how far deep it goes. That's pitch black. And that's exactly where they found the shoes that I was wearing. Those little black heels just, like, wedged into the ground. Like they could tell that a major fight or resistance or something had went down there. And what they were able to depict is that with me being covered and everything, my shoes being everywhere, is somehow like.
As they tried to get us, somehow the fight had went down and I had gotten away, and she had not. They later found out that when they pulled the surveillance tape from inside the bar, that literally as soon as we got there and got our drink, that someone, they could see the back of them going up. Two men. And they had put stuff in our drinks. And then they followed us out. They basically just followed us around all night until we left. And then they followed us right out. And that's all that they have.
And it's a lot. It's a lot. I can't imagine what she went through that night. She left the next day. Her parents came and got her. She. I didn't know what to do. I was 19.
Oh, my God. How do you process this? I'm 19. It's less than 24 hours later. This thing has just happened. I was hiding in my room, like, what do you do? And I. Like, I haven't talked to her since that day. And right before she left, I mean, I remember hearing her parents moving all of her stuff. And I just.
I was scared to come out of my room. I mean, what do you do? And she came in to tell me goodbye, and she just started crying. She's like, what happened, Monica? Like, she was looking into my soul for answers. And I don't know. I don't know. And I've harbored this guilt for getting away that I don't. We don't know how that happened or how it didn't. And that is the last time I've ever spoken to her.
I removed her on Facebook because I didn't, like, seen anything. And I guess subconsciously now I know that it was triggering something. But when they didn't even bring me to the story for the police department till five or seven days later to get a story, to get anything. And then when they did, the only questions that they asked me were, what were we drinking before we went? How much did we have to drink? Everything was based around our drinking. Yep, our drinking. And it was a woman, like, police officer that was interviewing me. And I want to reference. This is a total of a week from when it happened to that.
Nobody had called my parents. I didn't see the police department till five or seven days later. I mean, you're 19. What do you do? You know, you just. You don't know what to do. My parents lived in. God, they had just moved to California. My parents had just moved to California at that time.
I'm from Iowa. I'm in Florida. This is happening. No one calls my parents. I am like, I gotta go. Like, this just is not working. I knew that, like, my roommate had been let out of her lease and out of the school term. And, you know, you take the rest of the term to figure it out and we'll go from there.
And I was like, I gotta go. And so I went to these departments and I was told, you didn't get sexually assaulted so you can't get out of these things, and I know that I wasn't. I know that there's two different things, but just the way it was treated for a 19 year old girl. When alcohol is so glamorized at all these things, you're told to go to college and drink, you're told to do this and maybe not told, but that's what you do, and they reinforce the culture. Right.
There's a reason they're, like, 30 bars across the street from campus everywhere.
Yes. Yes.
I mean, I dropped out of the University of Iowa. I know. What's up?
I dropped out of Florida State. I think I dropped out of college six times. Oh, my God. Me too. Yeah. And we both have graduate degrees. Fuck that. Corporate America.
No, I'm just kidding. But no, it just. I don't understand. Make it make sense. That's what I need to know of how we can have stories like these. We can have the science and the statistics out there that say, hey, these are the gateway drugs. But yet, it's no big deal if kids are drinking in high school. Like, yeah, we shouldn't have been drinking as much as you and I were, but how many teachers parents, how many knew about it and just laughed it off to, like, oh, those crazy teenage girls?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. All the time. Actually. It's interesting.
So, I've.
I've done a ton of reflection on, like, what started me on my drinking.
Journey, and it was.
You know, it was. My aunt in Texas was buying my friends and I boone's farm and letting us drink at her house, and we thought we were so cool, and, oh, God, the sugar in this. But then you're like, oh, so you, like, handed the identity to me. You know? I'm like, oh, this is how I connect with my cool, older, young aunt, and my friends think it's cool. And then, you know, we fast forward to 14, and that's the story I think I'm gonna tell, or I think I'm gonna word vomit em all.
Word vomit em all out.
So, when I was 14, I lost my virginity to sexual assault by a boy that was two years older than me. I was at my best friend at the time's house in a teeny, tiny town called Aubrey, Texas. And we had attempted to start drinking over at my friend's house. And her mom had just married this kid's dad, and he was on the football team. He was, like, the quarterback. It's so cliche.
Friday night lights in real life.
Yeah. What's funny is that my father went to the high school where Friday night lights is about, which is like, lee Odessa. Anyway.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. It was a prophecy. We should have known.
Everything is connected. I mean, manifestation's gonna be a whole nother episode. But, yes, when you start piecing the things together, it's like, God, there were so many foreshadowing warnings.
Yeah. So we had white Russians, I remember, and I just had one. So I didn't, like, get drunk. And then things escalated from there. But it was like we were in a situation without adults, and we shouldn't have been in that situation. It was like, the boys were 16, the girls were 14, and it was, like, right when summer hit at the end of freshman year, because we were pretty young in our class, and I had never messed around with a boy or I was very new to it. And it was like the first time I had handled the one eyed snake, and it was like I was on the couch with this boy, which was my best friend's new stepbrother, and we're, like, making out. And I had those MJ safi shorts on.
You know what I'm talking about?
We roll down, you fold them over at least two or three times, right? Yes, yes.
And, like, this is, you know, you're excited. Cause, I don't know, you're experiencing these things for the first time, and that's not hormones, right. And it's not bad. Like, it's just that the part where he, like, didn't stop and then, like, pushed me off the couch and then, like, proceeded to just do it, and I didn't fight. And then when he was done, he tried to, like, pew, pew, pew, all up in my face. And that was extremely triggering for me beyond all the rest of it. Yeah. So then I had my scarlet letter pretty much immediately.
Cause, yeah, you know, he didn't keep that to himself.
No. You know what he did the very next? He asked me to be his girlfriend after it happened, and I was like, absolutely not. Which is funny that I found it in myself to be like, no foreshadowing, Zoe.
You knew you were gonna be a strong, strong ass woman. It just unfortunately took situations like that to ground you into it.
Yeah, absolutely. And so then the next morning, before I got home from my friend's house, back to my parents in this tiny little town and text. Tiny, like, less than 3000 people.
Wow.
Yeah. He had gone to play football with friends, and he basically bragged about taking my virginity. And, like, I don't know, I was. I guess I was known as a prude. So somebody was concerned and told an adult. And then an adult called my dad, and then my dad talked to his dad, and then they talked to him. And then I was the last voice invited into the room. So when I got back to my parents house, my dad was livid.
My stepmom was bawling and crying about, like, you could be pregnant. You could have an STD. Cause they were called STD's back then.
So that was one of the most.
Traumatic and impactful moments of my entire life. And I think that when it's like, why does she act that way? Because that happened to her?
Well, yes, because let's think about it. Like, that is supposed to be a very special thing to begin with, something that you should be choosing when it happens, that you should have full control over how it happens, when it happens, where it happens, and then on top of that, it's yours to share. So to have that power of choosing taken away from you, but then to have everybody, you know, speak about it before you've probably even had time to process it, let alone get to put your own voice to it.
Yeah.
That's awful. I'm so sorry you went through that.
Thank you. Yeah, it was actually. It's been years and years of reflection and a lot of, like, realizing, like, oh, I would. Every time I got to that part of my trauma, historically with, like, a therapist, I would, like, suddenly break up with my therapist and be like, here's the reason. They're not. No, I'm not going to do it. And I'm like, oh, I just wasn't ready to go there.
As someone that's in therapy myself, I'm telling you, it's been 20 years since this happened, and I did nothing but shove it down inside and cover it with alcohol because I had no other resources. I didn't know any other way. There weren't voices like this that I had found or that were out there advocating. And it took me getting alcohol free and starting therapy and reflecting on myself. And like I said, you're probably the fifth person I've ever told this story to. And now I'm projecting it to the whole other world because I don't want anyone else to have to go through this, and I don't want them have to hide behind the shame, especially if there was even one drink. It doesn't matter how much you drink.
Yeah.
You do not need to hide behind it.
Yeah. So, like, from that particular experience with me, it was kind of like, my stepmother was also, like, saying a lot of really abusive things. She is a meth addict and covertly abusive. And she would say, like, oh, Kayleigh's gonna grow up me, an alcoholic just like her mother. And she was doing drugs with the aunt that had given me the alcohol, you know what I mean? And she and my father were the ones that shamed me when I lost my virginity, you know what I mean? And then it was like, she would say things to my sister like, it was kind of like, driven. It was like you were told you're this person and that, like, you're bad as a child and, like, as you're moving through this experience. And so, yeah, it drove me through.
Oh, my God.
I thought I was never gonna stop being an alcoholic ever. Like, honestly, I got pregnant and was like, oh, thank God that stopped that. You know what? Right before I found out I was pregnant, I. So I was like, I hate dating fuck boys in Denver. It's not going great. I had just been through a bunch of stuff at the state capitol, which is a whole nother story. And then I was like, I was drinking so heavily this summer before I was moving to do my PhD at Arizona State. Like, I was like, I'm just going to do one last crazy summer.
So I ended up pregnant. But before I found out, I was like, there's a video. I'll send it to you and you can share it with your fans. But it's me running at a traffic barricade like it's a hurdle. Because if you remember, I was a hurdler in high school and I'm so drunk. And I was like, couldn't handle my alcohol because I was also pregnant. But I was like, probably four to six weeks.
But not knowing you were pregnant. Yeah.
I had no idea. No idea. This video, I'm wearing an american flag dress. I trip over the barricade, land with my beer in hand and my baby daddy put it out on the interwebs and hash Gerry of the day. It became a top ten hit. I went viral. I didn't go out there like, oh, my gosh, that's me. I was like, oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Because all I could think about was that I'm fucking pregnant.
Something needs to change.
Yeah. And you know what? Ridiculousness reached out and they asked me if they could use the footage. And I was like, I mean, I guess. And so it, like, was on ridiculous or not, I'm not sure. And it was on the chive. It was on barstool sport. It was everywhere. This was like the, like, meme culture insanity.
Oh, my God.
But yeah. And then after that, thank God I was pregnant, probably because I was sober after that, I was sober for nine months and then have really calmed down since.
Kids will do it to you.
Yeah.
I remember even after having all these kids, I looked at Trey and that's my husband, and I was just like, and this was before I stopped drinking. And I told him I almost hadn't. Like, I was like, I think I want another kid. Even though I knew we had infertility issues. And I looked at him and I was like, I think the only way I can be sober is if I'm pregnant. That's how scared like I was. And I was like, I was. That was one of the things.
I was like, oh, my God, there's an issue. Like, there is an issue that, like, I need to get pregnant so I can stop drinking. But yes, we will share that video with our users. So just know we've been there. We've been there. We want to help be a voice of medium, as one would say, by putting our stories in, all of our humiliation, our stigmas, or whatever you want to call them, so that people can see the truth and the light behind some of the things that lead up to this. It doesn't just happen. There are a lot of precursors for a lot of these things.
And the only way we can do better and help our kids world. And I think, Kayleigh, you're very similar to me. A lot of what drives you is the world you want to leave for your daughter. Yes, mine is my daughter. And I want to raise my son in a different environment than I think a lot of men got raised in. Not all, but a lot. And so we're going to use our voices to help do that and just draw light to the true things that are impacting.
Yeah, I would like to draw back to you. I want to tell one more story about the University of Iowa, and then I want to go back to your experience so we can add some more light there and that'll bring it full circle. So when I was a freshman at the University of Iowa, I went out one night with some girls that we went to high school with. And as you know, I was a pretty solid drinker, so I could hold my own at that point in time.
We were well seasoned.
Yeah, that's probably how I actually got into the university of Iowa. They were like, blow here.
Can I also make a reference that both of these stories, not stories, both of these experiences that we are sharing. Mine comes from Florida State University. Yours comes from University of Iowa. How often have these two schools been listed as the top party schools in Playboy? Best drinking colleges, like, these are effing badges of honor for students to be like, oh, I go to here. How ridiculous is this? Like, we're letting kids go in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to brag about the drinking school they went to, where we know drinking is linked to sexual assault, and the majority of them happen on college campuses. Like, make this make sense to me. Make it make sense somewhere. Okay, so, yes, we were well seasoned drinkers, and University of Iowa very much welcomed a well seasoned drinker.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I went out one night, and I went into the bar, which was, like, particularly sticky and skeezy and had a little. It had, like, a vibe, but also it was like, I remember I had a cardboard driver's license. It was fake that another kid that was from Des Moines had printed off for me and, like, taped it together, and it always worked. It was crazy that that would have never worked today, but it worked back then. And Sligo went with these girls, and some guy immediately asked me if he can buy me a drink. I think it might have been the first time that I went to this bar, too. So I remember the excitement around it. Like, oh, my God.
So I was like, you can buy me a drink if you buy my friend one, too. So then he bought me a sex on the beach, and he bought my friend a drink as well. And then I don't remember seeing him again. I don't remember the next moment. It was like, I left those girls, lost them somehow, and I was found in another bar, on the bathroom floor in a stall, and these girls found me, and they were like, said I was incoherent. And they got me into a cab and took me back to their dorms. I think they were out in Mayflower.
I don't know.
It was ones that were, like, far away.
We'll take your word for it. Or someone from University of Iowa can come in and clarify.
What I'm hoping is some girl hears this podcast and is like, oh, that's the girl. And then they can reach out to me and, yeah, and then I'll pay them back for the cab money.
Yes.
Anyway, so that's what happened. So, like, I wake up in these girls bunk on the top bunk, and I'm, like, so disheveled, similar. I didn't have leaves all over me, but, like, I have no idea what happened. I get out of this bed. I have never been in this place before. I come out into the common area. These girls are standing there, and they're like, we found you. And, like, you were incoherent.
And I was like, oh. And, you know, you just feel that shame of, like, oh, my God, I'm so embarrassed because I don't know what happened. And that means I let go of control. And you know what I mean? It's just like, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. And so they asked me if I would leave some cash for the cab when I was leaving, and I was like, yeah, sure. And then I had no money, so, like, any money I had had was taken from me before that, so I couldn't pay those girls back. And then I ran out and never came back and didn't tell anybody that story for years and years because I was like, what is wrong with me? You know? And that was. I don't know.
That was pretty. Like, looking back at that, it makes me think about your experience as well. Like, you have a sense of self, of sovereignty, of, like, my experience is happening in this body, and I understand my surroundings, and I feel in control, and I feel safe, but it's, like, so easily that's taken away from us as women. I don't know if you've seen this, but on TikTok specifically, there is, like, these stitches going around about women being like, would they rather be alone with a man or with a bear? And women are again and again and again saying a bear, and then they're stitching together their reasons. And it's usually like these really horrifying stories where men are doing the things that happened to your friend or could have happened to you or could have happened to me. And I just want to say to you very directly that, like, you having the healing and the space and capacity and courage to even tell your version and reality of that story is only going to help her heal in the long run. You know, when I was sexually assaulted when I was 14, there was a witness. And that witness, she was my best friend.
We were 14. She saw it from the outside window and was like, this looks normal. I don't know what it's supposed to look like. So once it was my word versus everybody else's, they thought I was just a lion ass hoe. And that girl reached out to me 23 years later after I told my sexual assault story on Lippi, and she was like, he terrorized me for years.
Oh, wow.
I kept quiet. I had no idea you went through this. A few short years later, somebody else did something similar to me, and then I understood and she couldn't speak out for 23 years. So what you're doing matters. Monica also, like, you fought, you know?
Yeah.
Like, maybe. I don't know if you've done, like EmdR or trying to be hypnotized, but.
It'S on the list at therapy. Actually, my therapist had said, I think we're gonna need to move to some EMDR. When this came up, you know, we're slowly, like, I heal one thing and I'm like, yeah. And then a couple weeks later, I think it's like my body. It's almost like an onion in terms of I heal one layer and I think I'm good. But that just gives the other stuff that I'd push so far down, that gives something else the opportunity to come up. And this is finally in the healing of learning about alcohol and learning about all this. It's coming up again.
And she did suggest Emdr. So I think we're getting close to starting that. And then I've actually always wanted to try the hypnosis because I knew that there was something not right with me. I just had no clue what it was. And you rack your brain trying to think, why am I the way that I'm the way I am? And you can never figure it out. I'm like, oh, I bet they can hypnotize me. And something really deep and dark happened in my childhood or something. But it turns out, no, it's just things that trauma happens and you shove them down, and I covered mine with booze.
So, yes, thank you for talking about this, because you sharing your story is also very vulnerable. And I think we both just hope that we can help any other woman, any other women out there. God, even these statistics that I pulled that I'm going to put in the notes, men are being sexually assaulted. I don't even know the details regarding that. It hasn't ever been something I researched or it's not just women. It shouldn't be just because we had drinks. If you look at the rate that it's happening to college students, they say the I don't even want to go over the statistics said with how many happened before the age of 18. And I know that's just what you.
Talked about before the age of twelve.
It is. Yeah. It is insane. And so we're constantly letting the disenfranchise, the no voice, the no powerful. It's these things that just keep happening over and over and over. And the only way we're going to help make it better is if we stop hiding behind anyone telling us, well, you shouldn't have drank before you went out. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have, but maybe it shouldn't be marketed to me. Maybe it shouldn't be cool to go to the biggest party school.
Maybe we shouldn't be promoting alcohol like some God creature when we know it does all of this. So I just want others to feel, stop. If you're being stigmatized, if you feel shame around it, reach out. You can send a private dm. I'm sure me or Kaylee, just talk to someone. Like, we will help you get it out there. I just don't want anyone to have to hide behind that shame or stigma anymore. Anymore.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I'm gonna take a deep breath and get back where I'm going. It just. God, that stuff gets to me. I'm so. It just doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
Oh, okay. So I am going to put in the show notes, summary caps I'm going to give you. If you think there's no way alcohol is the gateway drug that you say it is, I'm going to put some statistics, and I say this because I also live in Louisiana. I'm from a party state, so I know this isn't going to necessarily land well, but I want to say it again. I do not care what you drink as a person. You do you. I do not, when I speak about alcohol, say it to try to get it back to prohibition or taken away from you. What I want is the truth and the education about it out there so that by the time my daughters and my son get to the age where alcohol hurt and numbed me, they don't look at it like we looked at it.
That is my goal here. So if this makes you upset, I'm gonna piss you off again. But take a look inside and see what's triggering you.
Take a look inside.
If what I'm saying triggers you, that's on you, boo. Like, you go do the work and find out why it's triggering you. But I'm gonna put the statistics of all this in the notes. I am gonna get Kaylee's viral video that I knew nothing about and put that on my notes. And I'll also put Kaley's contact information that she wants to share as well, but with a link to her Lippy podcast, because it's great. I have only. I'm busy with three kids. I hate to say that, but I've only got to listen to episode one so far, but it's amazing.
So I'm looking forward to listening to the others and getting to share that with this audience as well.
Yeah, I think a good starting point for addressing, like, the way that alcohol is advertised towards children. You know, you talk about being glamorized in these colleges campuses. It seems like. Like there's tons of Snapchat ads in my neighborhood. And I always think, like, you talk about the statistics of young people in depression and, like, suicide rates and the causation with social media, and yet there are billboards for Snapchat everywhere. So it's like the same thing, you know, like, what are we marketing to our children?
Yep, it is a whole nother episode. But when I started this, I had no idea I would get down a political rabbit hole, and that's where I'm at. And as you follow the things, you find out who benefits and who doesn't benefit by these, and it will literally make you sick to your stomach when you dive in. But if you listen to them now, it's the Chinese coming for us. Nobody else, none of our own major corporations. It's the Chinese that's gonna get us. I just. You would like it.
I'm gonna send you. I just wrote an article about how quite a few things that are happening right now resonate with the, like, McCarthy policies in the cold war. Erathy is, like, history repeating itself. Yes. So I'm not a historian by any means, but I just heard some things. I was like, this reminds me of something I learned in high school when I wasn't drinking. So I'll send you that LinkedIn article, and I'll include it in the notes, too, if anyone cares. But that'll be for other future episodes, which I hope to have you back.
Cause I think we have a lot of different topics that we could communicate on besides just this one.
Yeah, I'm totally down. And if anyone out there in the abyss wants to come on the Lippy podcast, I would love to have you. Cause I. I gotta get the next season up and rolling, and I'm really excited to do that. Yeah, the thesis of that podcast actually is about really excavating the experiences that we have so that we can look directly into the ways that we negotiate within patriarchal societies to have our needs met as women and those that are othered.
Oh, yes.
It doesn't always come out that way. We talk a lot about sex, too, but we try to mean smart things.
Yes. And you know what? There's duality within women. I'm sick of the you either gotta be smart or you gotta be sexy. Gosh darn it, I'm trying my best not to curse cause I don't want the explicit tag on every single one of my shows. But so gosh darn it, women can be both. So you can be smart and you can be sexy at the same time. You can be happy and you can be sad at the same time. You don't have to be one or the other.
It doesn't have to contradict. So we'll put that out as well in the social media world and get you some guests because I think we know a few people that would fit really well on there.
That's great. Awesome.
All right, thanks, Kayleigh. Talk soon.
Thanks for having me. Monica.
If any of this hits you in your soul, if you think it will help anybody, if you think these voices deserve to be amplified, help us. What you can do to help is you go in whatever listening platform you're on, be it apple, Spotify, and you hit the star button. Whatever it is that you want to do in whatever review you want to leave. And then if you share with someone, those are the things that tell the algorithm, hey, this is worth repeating. This is worth sharing. So greatly appreciated if you do that. All right, thanks, listener. We will see you soon.
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