Ep.59 Mocktails, Cancer, and Finding Peace

There are so many layers to our lives and often, when presented with a guest opportunity, I am not only impressed with their accomplishments but the stories intertwined into how they got to where they are today.  As a midlife woman, there is a great deal of inspiration to be garnered when we take the time to listen to each other's whole narrative.

Marnie Rae Clark is a successful business woman, writer, mom, and wife, who made the decision twenty years ago to quit drinking after an incident at an elementary school auction.  That later propelled her to start tinkering with fun, creative non-alcoholic drink options, and eventually, she co-founded National Mocktail Week.  Marnie was truly ahead of her time, because people weren't really talking about the sober curious movement then.  

And as many of us do, we ignore the sometimes nagging, obvious symptoms that there may be something physically awry, and Marnie finally got her odd neurological issues checked out.  A stage IV cancer diagnosis followed, and while some her plans and dreams were put on hold, this cancer warrior wants to inspire others through her writing by sharing about her journey.  There really isn't a lot of good stuff that comes having cancer, but Marnie believes that there are some really great things that would not have happened had she not received that diagnosis, and she hopes to encourage someone else who is going through a rough spot.  

In this episode Marnie Rae Clark and I discuss:

- The catalyst for her sobriety
- Mocktails and starting National Mocktail Week
- Her symptoms, eventual cancer diagnosis, and sober cancer journey
- Selfcare and listening to our bodies
- The importance of her writing in the healing process

You can find Marnie at:
https://www.instagram.com/marnieraec/
Good Things Good People
https://marnierae.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=reader2&utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fmarnie%2520rae&utm_medium=reader2

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Transcript

Asking for a Friend Podcast
Michele Folan
Marnie Rae Clark
Mocktails, Cancer and Finding Peace

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

life, great, drinking, feel, sober, aa, alcohol, marnie, guest, love, cancer, working, hard, bartenders, lung cancer, years, kids, day, hair, friend, midlife, mocktail

Speaker 1  0:00  
I often get asked how I find guests for the podcast. As the show has grown. I many times get contacted by someone's publicist who's written a book or has started a business that they wish to promote. Or sometimes the guest will just reach out to me directly to make a connection. Instagram and Facebook have been great resources for guest and topic ideas. And of course, I love having other podcasters on the show. Many times after we record my guests and I will chat and exchange ideas and tips, Deb pod lager who has been on the show as a guest before, she's a fellow podcaster as well. She reached out to me after she interviewed today's guest, and said that she thought it would be a great fit. She was correct. And I so appreciate the community and the camaraderie that we are building to network and support each other.

Speaker 1  1:09  
Health, Wellness, career, relationships and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host Michele Folan, and this is asking for a friend. Welcome to the show everyone. My guest today is a writer and blogger. She's also the founder of national mocktail week and a cancer thriver Marnie Ray Clark shares her journey and her blog called good things good people, where she wants to inspire others to look at life a little differently, and find the blessings in the heart stuff. Welcome to asking for a friend Marnie Ray Clark.

Unknown Speaker  1:57  
Thank you so much, Michelle, so excited to be here.

Speaker 1  2:00  
Well, I appreciate you being here. We were actually connected by Deb pod lager, who was also a guest on this show.

Unknown Speaker  2:10  
And she awesome. She's amazing.

Speaker 1  2:14  
For those listening, Deb pod Lager is the mocktail mom. And I can't remember what episode she was on. But that is a very fun episode as well. So you might want to check that one out. For sure.

Unknown Speaker  2:25  
It's hard not to listen to her or talk to her and smile.

Speaker 1  2:28  
I know I love her energy. She's great. Yes, we start every episode with introducing our guests. And I would love for you to tell the audience a little bit about you where you're from, where you went to school, all that good stuff.

Speaker 2  2:43  
I think we just decided right before we started the podcast, I'm 55, not 56. married to my high school sweetheart, mom of three, two adult kids and 117 year old is going to graduate next year. I live just outside of Seattle and a tiny little community that I absolutely love. And my husband and I, like I said we dated since we were 14 built a business together here in our community. We've been in business for over 30 years. Oh, wow. It's a construction company. And I worked alongside him for all those years doing the books, a lot of times it was a night job for me because I would go to my full time job, come home and do the kid thing and then have to do the books at night. Oh my grown a lot over the years. And I was able to retire from the company in November of 21. And he is still working and running the company. And I'm involved a little bit but basically retired. Okay, now I have time to do things that I enjoy, like writing and blogging and retirements, a little odd, a little different mindset to get used to after years of the hustle and grind. But I'm very excited to be able to have some time to breathe.

Speaker 1  3:51  
For a lot of women, I will say who have worked the bulk of their adult years. Taking that shift is sometimes very difficult, because it's also a time where we're redefining sometimes who we are and what's important to us.

Speaker 2  4:06  
Yes. And I think for me, and maybe for a lot of other women too, as we spend so many years taking care of husbands in jobs and kids and families that we get to the retirement point that we've waited for for so long. And all of a sudden we don't have any idea what to do with ourselves because we really haven't taken that time to figure out you know, what does bring us joy.

Speaker 1  4:28  
You have the gift of writing. It was at your major in school.

Speaker 2  4:32  
No, I did not go to college. I just find that I'm able to express myself best and most comfortably through writing. It's funny because the writing came just recently in the past few years, though, when I look back to when I was a kid when I graduated from high school I wanted to be a journalist and I did not pursue that for who knows why. I think it has always been there. I just have never really tapped into it till now.

Speaker 1  4:59  
Okay, that's It's nice. I love when people find their passion later in life. Yeah, it fills a void for some of us that need a little creative outlet. I think that's great. Right? I am very curious around your decision to stop drinking 20 years ago, we've not really talked about that. And I was wondering if you would mind sharing that with our listeners,

Speaker 2  5:24  
my decision to stop drinking came very abruptly, after a really awful ugly night at an elementary school auction. Not to say that that was the one moment in time that made the decision. It was obviously years of unhealthy drinking and behaviors. But that was the one moment that I was like, Okay, I can't do this anymore. There was no gray area of drinking. For me. The whole gray area drinking is the new term I feel like that has come about in the last few years. And I think it applies to probably a lot of women. The good thing about it, I think, is it's just encouraging people to evaluate their relationship with alcohol. But anytime I feel like you're questioning your relationship with alcohol, I think is the very first line that maybe you should think about your relationship with alcohol. That was my experience. 20 years ago, things were very different in the recovery world. There's so many options for people now online, offline, in person, coaches, sober groups, back when I got sober, you went to rehab, or you went to a are you just cold turkey quit? I went to AAA with the help of a friend. And that's how I got sober. Not that there's a lot of controversy around AAA, I just feel like now people are coming forward and saying, you know, that doesn't really work for me. And that's great. It worked for me, I didn't have many other options. I fully support it. But I do know that nowadays, people have a lot more options. Do you think

Speaker 1  6:53  
some of it is that stigma of just going to AAA and admitting for sure that they may have an issue.

Speaker 2  7:00  
The hard part about AAA is that you know, it's Alcoholics Anonymous. So you typically don't tell people you're going to a you don't announce it to the world that you're in AAA. And I think it feeds into some of the shame that you probably already have about behaviors or things that have happened or your inability to quit drinking. I think that whole secrecy kind of thing is probably not helpful for some people. I was very happy when people started coming out about their drinking, because I was like, you feel very isolated, and you feel very alone, which for me is not helpful.

Speaker 1  7:33  
Were people then sharing with you say, Hey, I know you don't drink now. I need some help. Were people asking you for help? Or were they just willing to share their stories with you?

Speaker 2  7:44  
Yes, that was the best part of the whole journey. It was when I started talking about it on social media. I just kind of came out about it not to focus on sobriety. But hey, this is just something you may not know about me kind of a thing. I would get messages from people that were questioning their relationship with alcohol or full on felt they had a drinking issue. I mean, that really got to my heart because that's what I really could have appreciated when I had first gotten sober.

Speaker 1  8:10  
You did it before was an OSA cool

Unknown Speaker  8:13  
thing.

Speaker 1  8:15  
But now, I mean, you started national mocktail week, which I find that fascinating. Tell me the process. What got you to start doing this?

Speaker 2  8:27  
Well, as I got older in my sobriety, I was finding more frustration around the fact that I would go places, a baby shower or work event, a conference, any type of event and there were just never be any options for me. Maybe some bottled water, maybe some soda, which I'm not a big soda drinker.

Unknown Speaker  8:47  
Shirley Temple,

Speaker 2  8:49  
surely a sample? Yes. Virgin Margarita. That made me very uncomfortable. If there was ever a trigger for me to want to drink it was that just not feeling a part of the social environment? I thought there's got to be mocktails there's got to be something out there. No bartenders would ever offer you anything. I started researching, Googling, trying to find McTell recipes. And it was really hard. I mean, if you think about what's out there right now to drink that's non alcoholic. There's a plethora of items. You could have non alcoholic tequila, no alcoholic rum. You can have non alcoholic beer wine. When I started making cocktails, there was none of that, like none. There were a few brands of wine that were not great. They're terrible. Yes, they were terrible. We won't name names, but they were not good. And I appreciate the effort, but they were not good. I think there was Oh duels was the non alcoholic beer, which wasn't really great. Really, there wasn't a lot. We were literally trying to make mocktails with bitters and soda and juice and vegetables and whatever we could find. It was a lot different than it is right now. We got this boy say we I had a friend that was helping me, coaching me through some of this and we thought, wouldn't it be great to have national motto week, there's national taco day, a National Donut Day, we researched it. It's really not that hard. You fill out an application and you pay some money, and that's about it. Oh, wow. Okay, we were very excited about it, though, because we created some events around national cocktail week. And it became a really great way to promote the sober, curious and non alcoholic culture.

Speaker 1  10:33  
I have a couple quick stories. I was in a bar with a colleague up in Boston. And I asked the bartender I said, Do you have any decent non alcoholic beers? And he goes, I have a great non alcoholic beer. And my colleague looks at me and says, I've never heard those two words used in the same sentence. He put an athletic beer. Yeah, they're upside down in front of me. I took a sip of it. I said, You've got to be kidding me. Right? He said, No, I'm not kidding you. I said, it's fantastic. That's what I buy now. And I have that at home. And then recently, I was up in Madison, Wisconsin, we were at this really cute little restaurant was another work trip. And they had a whole menu of curated craft, non alcoholic beverages.

Unknown Speaker  11:20  
Wow, that's so impressive.

Speaker 1  11:22  
A whole menu. It is a thing. Anybody listening? It's okay to ask for a mocktail. When you're at a restaurant, because I think we need to create more demand and more visibility correct to the fact that people want that?

Speaker 2  11:39  
Well, and that was something every time I would go out to a restaurant or event or anything I would always ask. And if they had mocktails, on the menu, I would always order one, even if I really didn't want one because they need to know that people want that. The next thing I would love to see happen, which is happening is that they're just on the menu, because I think some people are still nervous about asking or intimidated about asking, and there are still some servers that are uneducated, bartenders that are annoyed by the whole process. If they're just there for you to order. It just alleviates all of that uncomfortable feeling.

Speaker 1  12:15  
I want to ask you before we move on to the next topic, I would love to know what words of wisdom you can impart for women who are on the fence right now who are thinking that they want to change their relationship with alcohol.

Speaker 2  12:33  
There's a couple things, I think you just really need to tune in to what you're feeling about the situation in your relationship, because like I said earlier, if you're already in that place where you're starting to question what alcohol is adding to your life, then it's a good time to maybe take a break, taking a break could be do a seven day alcohol free challenge, it could be a 30 day break could be dry January or sober October, those are really great ways to start. And then I just would encourage you if that's a process that you choose to really pay attention to the differences in your life, because it really only takes a very short amount of time of removing the alcohol to start to see changes, less anxiety, better sleep, maybe even a little bit of weight loss, feeling better. I think my biggest thing is just to encourage people to really tune in to how they're feeling while they're drinking. And also while they're not drinking.

Speaker 1  13:29  
And the other thing too is you don't have to wait for you to blackout. Correct. on a Saturday night or to fall down the steps are you know what I mean? Yes, I think it's okay to say I just don't know if this is serving me. What is

Speaker 2  13:47  
this adding to my life? Right. And now with the addition of some really great alcohol free wines and beers, you can still have your beer or your glass of wine without the alcohol and you still have the experience. I love that that's an option for people now.

Speaker 1  14:03  
I know really, because oh duals was it for so long?

Speaker 2  14:06  
Yeah, we're big athletic fans here too. My husband loves having a beer and encouraged him to give that one a try. And he was like, you can't tell a difference.

Speaker 1  14:17  
You really can't. Is he sober as well? Or no? Okay,

Unknown Speaker  14:20  
so just me. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1  14:22  
Which is cool. I would love to talk about your cancer diagnosis. Okay. You were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2021. Did you have any symptoms, anything that made you want to go to the doctor for this?

Speaker 2  14:37  
Well, I'd like to say no, I didn't. But I did. I had a couple of symptoms. I had a cough, and I've had a cough for a long time. I have asthma they usually kicks in when I catch a cold or something my asthma will kick in. My dad had a chronic cough for 20 years. We just chalked up my cough to apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Yeah, I didn't take it that seriously. I had a disc inhaler that I used when my asthma would kick in. In August of 21, my inhaler ran out and I messaged my primary care doctor and asked for a refill. And she said, I'll refill out this one time, but you really need to go see a pulmonologist. This was at the tail end of COVID. Getting into a doctor was ridiculous. I knew that if I went, they were going to say, Oh, you have asthma, give me an inhaler. And it was just anyhow, I didn't make time for it. That was in August, and then in October, my right foot and my right leg, I started having paralysis in my leg. I didn't know that it was paralysis, I just kept saying there's something wrong with my leg, my legs weird. And it just kept progressively getting worse and worse. Long story short, after a few series of MRIs, we determined that I had a spot on my lung, which obviously was lung cancer that had metastasized to my brain. And the tumor in my brain was in the motor complex, which controls my right side, which was obviously what was causing paralysis. This all happened in a very short period of time, probably less than 30 days. They have my diagnosis checked me into the emergency room at our local cancer hospital. I had brain surgery a few days later to remove the tumor. And I had about 15 Other lesions and my brain was in the hospital for a week and then came home and had to recover. In the meantime, they do a biopsy on the tumor and determine the mutation and the DNA of the tumor. And I was fortunate enough, as weird as that sounds. To end up with what's called an EGFR mutation. I have non small cell lung cancer, and this mutation specific mutation that I have, there is an actual medication out there that just shuts off the cancer cells. Basically, I had brain surgery came home started taking a pill every day, and I am stable. All my brain lesions are gone, my lung tumor is gone. It's just back to life as normal. Wow. as normal as it could be, I suppose.

Speaker 1  17:04  
Yeah, the difference is, and I can explain a little bit of this non small cell lung cancer, there are some decent cure rates with that. And there are medications out there and treatments that are very effective. small cell lung cancer, not so much. Correct. We have a long way to go there. That's what eventually took my dad from us. You're not a smoker? No. Yeah, the difference there is that you could never pick up a pack of cigarettes in your life and still get nonsmall cell.

Speaker 2  17:40  
Yeah. And that's how they described it to me is that non small cell, really the only thing you need to have to get that is lungs. Small cell typically falls not always, but falls more along the lines of people who have had a smoking history, and which is harder to challenge and manage because you've now introduced a toxin into your body, what they're dealing with with nonsmall cell is just basically my own cells.

Speaker 1  18:06  
Now looking back, your decision to quit drinking? Could you imagine now drinking and battling this disease?

Speaker 2  18:18  
No. I feel like without getting too spiritual. I feel like I was really set up for success with this diagnosis with just the way things played out in my life to get me here. There's no way I could manage the sobriety, the physical aspect of it is one thing, trying to keep my body as healthy as possible. But the mental side of it would be unbearable, like I was still drinking.

Unknown Speaker  18:42  
What is your prognosis?

Speaker 2  18:44  
I don't know. I don't ask. My doctor asked me if I wanted to know what the cure rates were and what the prognosis was. And I just chose not to. I know that those are statistics that I may or may not fall into their averages. I could be higher than normal or lower than normal, but it doesn't really matter at this point. So I don't know. Right now, I feel great. I have very little side effects from the medication. I still am challenged by some issues with my nerve damage on my right side, but it doesn't really impact my daily life. I have to keep going forward, assuming that I'm going to be here for a long time.

Unknown Speaker  19:23  
Right. Are you going to keep the short hair?

Speaker 2  19:27  
I think so. 99%? Yes. I get very frustrated in the summer because I want to wear a hat and I feel like I look like a boy with a hat on. And there's something about long flowing locks with a hat is just so beautiful and sexy and but then my daughters come over and they both have gorgeous long hair and I find hair everywhere. And it's like okay, not going back there.

Speaker 1  19:50  
Well, you all can't see Marnie right now. But she's absolutely stunning. You can carry the short hair. I love it. Thank you. I think it's a great Look, I vote keep the short hair and forget cleaning up long strands of hair.

Speaker 2  20:06  
Right? Well, that's a five minute morning routine getting ready, which I definitely do not want to give up.

Speaker 1  20:13  
My husband says every time I take a shower, it looks like a squirrel has been run over by a lawn mower.

Unknown Speaker  20:18  
Oh my god.

Speaker 1  20:21  
It's really not that bad. He exaggerates oh my gosh, he's horrible about calling out the fact that my dark hairs all over the bathroom. I do want to ask you, though, because there was a bit in your story about maybe not listening to your body. I would love to hear your advice for other women about taking care of things that are nagging them.

Speaker 2  20:48  
I feel like this was such a prime example of why it's important to pay attention to your body and not just with symptoms that you might have. But making sure you're strong and vital and healthy. Because the unfortunate part of life is that we're all going to be dealt some crappy hand at some moment in time, there's just not one of us is going to get through this unscathed. So I don't want anybody to prepare for doomsday here. But there will be whether it's you or your kids, or your spouse or your parents, there's going to come a point in time when you are going to need to be at your very best. That doesn't happen overnight. It's a process of eating as well as you can. It's a movement, getting your body strong. And going to the doctor when you have weird symptoms like a cough. The interesting thing that happened in my journey was about two years before I was diagnosed with cancer, I was having some really weird digestive issues that I could not get under control. I chalked it up to eating habits and stress. I had a lot happening just I was working kids, the whole thing actually shut down my blog at that time, I decided to take a few things off my plate. And I hired a personal trainer and I just decided I was gonna get as strong and as healthy as I could I changed my eating. I was working out three days a week with a trainer. When I got diagnosed with cancer, I was in the best shape I've been in in my entire life. Physically, mentally, health all around, I was in fabulous shape, which is kind of shocking. You're like, How are you so healthy and in such great shape and get cancer? I don't have an answer for that. But the thing that was helpful for me it was after I had surgery, I had to come home and I had to learn how to walk again had to learn how to write again, I couldn't use my right hand, trying to get up out of bed or even roll over when one side of your body isn't working to its full capacity, trying to walk to the bathroom sitting on the toilet, I mean, just daily life, things that I had to be strong enough to do. I think that had I not been in good shape, those would have been so much harder for me. Even every doctor and every physical therapist that I went to also the reason you have recovered so well is because you were so strong going into it.

Speaker 1  23:06  
Those are really wise words. I've mentioned this a lot on the show. And I know people are probably tired of hearing me say this. But we've all got a choice of how we want these next 30 or 40 years to look right. And I'm not preaching, I am saying this from some of my own experience. And then we have your great example. If you want to be able to get up off the floor, if you take a spill. Those are all very important goals to have. Right? It's a bit of a wake up call.

Speaker 2  23:41  
When I think at this age, we get to a point where we're not working out because we want to look good in a bikini. I mean, maybe we are which is fine. But we're mostly trying to stay strong and active in our lives as we age. It was a definite wake up call. I was glad I was prepared as I was. But I think if I could get on my soapbox about anything, it would be that

Speaker 1  24:04  
you have a new lease on life. Things look great. Are you living life differently now than you were a few years ago?

Speaker 2  24:13  
I would like to think so the first thing I did was retire. The stress I just I was done. I realized I'm very privileged and having that choice. That is not true for many people. I have really taken stock and what's important to me, spoiler alert, it's people, when it comes down to it, it really is the people in your life is what's important. I do my best to make that my priority. I'm trying to reduce stress, and that will never be 100% it's just life. It's what it is. And I still need to push myself to do things that are uncomfortable and out of my comfort zone. But I don't need the stress anymore of some of the things that were happening in the way I was living previously. You also reach a point where you kind of just don't really care what people think. I love because why I mean, what's the worst that can happen that I could get lung cancer. Right? The worst has happened. I really don't care what people think anymore. Well, I'm still working progress as far as that goes. But definitely, it has changed my outlook there.

Speaker 1  25:12  
I think that's the beauty of being 55 is that we come into our own sometimes, at this time in our life, and it's a gift. Yes. To not care what other people think. Trust me if I cared what other people think I would not be doing a podcast right now.

Speaker 2  25:33  
I know. It's huge to put yourself out there like, yeah, you know, but how much growth has come from that is so wonderful.

Speaker 1  25:42  
It's great. And it gives back 10 times, yes. What I put into it, I would love to know what's next for you.

Speaker 2  25:50  
Well, the blog Marnie Ray will be I'll hit publish on that again, soon, I am still continuing to support the alcohol free and sober community that will always be the closest to my heart. I love seeing that grow and evolve. And I can't believe I mean, when I started posting about mocktails, there was like five of us that you were even talking about it and now it is everywhere. It just it makes me so happy. But I started substack newsletter called good things good people selfishly, because during this cancer journey, I just needed to get out of my head. And I needed to focus on the good things that came from this. And I know that sounds really weird, because there really isn't a lot of good stuff that comes from having a cancer diagnosis. But there were some really great things that would not have happened to me if I had not received that diagnosis. So I'm choosing to focus on those and share those stories and journeys. Hopefully just to encourage somebody else that might be in a rough spot.

Speaker 1  26:46  
And then I would love for you to tell my listeners how people can find you.

Speaker 2  26:51  
I'm mostly on Instagram at Marni re C. And if you're a substack fan, I'm good things good people over there and the blog is morning Ray.

Speaker 1  27:00  
I will put all that in the show notes. Marnie, thank you so much for being here today. I love this conversation. I know the listeners are gonna come away with some great inspiration from you.

Speaker 2  27:14  
I hope so I so appreciate you having me it was a real joy for me today.

Speaker 1  27:25  
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai