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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 1052 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today I'll be speaking with Nicole. She's had type one diabetes since she was 21 months old and she's now over 40. Today we talk about owning a restaurant, drug and alcohol use, and much more. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician. Before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. You want to get five free travel packs in the year supply of vitamin D, use my link drink ag one.com/juice box because that's what you'll get with your first order at that link. Speaking of things you'll get 40% off at checkout with the offer code juice box. At cozy earth.com. You get a great insulin pump at Omni pod.com/juice box and amazing CGM at dexcom.com/juice box. As a matter of fact, when you use any of the links from the Juicebox Podcast, you're gonna get great stuff. And you'll be supporting the podcast. So give that stuff a look, would you? There's links in the show notes and links at juicebox podcast.com.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod. Go get your Omni pod five right now at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. Today's show is also sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter contour next.com Ford slash juicebox. Get yourself an incredibly accurate an easy to use blood glucose meter. Get the contour next gen.

Nicole 1:59
My name is Nicole. I have been a type one diabetic since I was 21 months old. And I am about to be 40 this year. Wow. Yeah,

Scott Benner 2:10
not quite too. So 38 years about

Nicole 2:15
Yeah, yeah, goodness. Yeah, it was 38 years. It's been my really literally the whole life. I don't remember life before diabetes. No

Scott Benner 2:24
kidding. One thing nickeled try not to like, follow Yeah, just yeah, whatever that is that might be allowed chair or I'm not sure what you're doing right now. Also, interestingly enough, I was going to real quick do the math on what year it was when you were diagnosed? And then I realized I'm not 100% sure what year it is right now.

Nicole 2:45
I was diagnosed in 1985. Okay, wow. Yeah. My mom was pregnant with my sister. So my sister and I are exactly two years and two weeks apart. So I was diagnosed in July of 1985. And my mom was due with my sister. I think her due date was actually scheduled for the end of August. And yeah, then diabetes walked in and messed it up for

Scott Benner 3:14
you besides your sister, any other siblings?

Nicole 3:17
Nope. Just the just the sister. Yeah.

Scott Benner 3:20
How about diabetes, autoimmune in your family.

Nicole 3:24
So my sister has Hashimotos. She was diagnosed few years ago. But as far as we know, no other autoimmune. My grandmother has had really terrible arthritis. I don't know whether it was rheumatoid or not. I don't. I can't remember if all of the arthritis is or autoimmune or if it's just the rheumatoid but anyhow, so she, but that's the only that's the only history that we have. Now, with that said, I didn't really know my dad's side of the family. So I mean, it might exist there. And we just were not familiar but

Scott Benner 4:00
yeah, okay. Yeah. Um, I don't think all arthritis is not on me. And I'm gonna look real quick. Yeah, I

Nicole 4:08
don't think that they are. I really thought just rheumatoid. But again, I don't know if what she had whether it was thought or not. Yeah, passed away a couple of years ago.

Scott Benner 4:15
I say, Yeah, this year says like, osteo. Excuse me. Osteoarthritis is not an autoimmune disease. Right. Okay. So, real quick before we move on your sister, do you think she had Hashimotos for much longer than she realized? Where do you think it came on?

Nicole 4:31
I think I think she probably had it for longer than she realized. My sister struggled a lot through high school and growing up with like, various, various issues. But she when she got married, she was trying to get pregnant and was having trouble conceiving when they did a bunch of tests on or to see what the issues were Hashimotos popped up as, as one of the problems so yeah, yeah, I

Scott Benner 4:56
don't need you to tell me a lot. I'm not asking you to tell me about I was just interested in About Oh, that's great. Yeah,

Nicole 5:01
I think she's probably had it for a long time. But we really kind of went undiagnosed and not not familiar.

Scott Benner 5:07
So what I mean, your, your note to me is, is simple and short. So I'm wondering what made you want to come on the podcast?

Nicole 5:17
Well, so like I said, I've been listening to you for a really long time, like, I want to say, probably pretty close to the beginning. I don't know how I stumbled upon your podcast, but I really have been listening to it for a long, long time. I'm part of the Facebook page. And you had reached out on Facebook at one point trying to find some people to do after dark episodes. So that's kind of what I volunteered with. I have a few, like, topics that I think might be relevant to an after dark, but that's kind of why I reached out to you.

Scott Benner 5:50
Well, Nicole, listen, yeah, thank you for for responding. When I did that. I have to tell you. I used to have trouble getting after dark episodes in the beginning, right? It was like, Hey, can somebody and people were just like, you know, every once in a while you get somebody to jump up in the butt anymore? No trouble. I don't think

Nicole 6:12
the taboo came out of it. Because you were doing them enough. I imagine that people got less afraid of talking about some of the subjects that you were discussing. Yeah.

Scott Benner 6:21
Well, the problem ended up being is that I put the call out thinking I was still in the same position. And now I've got I've got 25 recordings of people who like, you know, at some point in their conversations, had my life said dumpster fire.

Nicole 6:36
Well, and I think leading up to this call as well, I really went I had initially messaged you saying, Oh, we could do an after dark. I had some topics I thought were relevant and that we could discuss. But it doesn't need to be that way either. I mean, again, I've been doing this for a long time. So there's some I mean, lots of topics that we can talk about that are necessarily after dark.

Scott Benner 7:00
Sure. Sure. Well, yeah. So let's just go and I mean, we don't have to, like point ourselves in one direction. Although now everyone listening is like, well, whoa,

Nicole 7:08
what's, what's her secret? What does she want to talk about?

Scott Benner 7:11
Maybe we'll get to it. But you know, I've never done this before. But because you've been listening for so long. I'm gonna let you lead the way. What do you want to tell?

Nicole 7:21
Oh, yeah, I think I've been kind of through the thick and thin of it. I mean, I know you have a lot of a lot of people on as well that have been in this in this disease for a long time. And I wanted to kind of, you know, I guess, share my story and my version of it. Like I said, I was diagnosed at 21 months old, there was no life before diabetes, it was just always what I did. My family's life revolved around diabetes as well. So my sister lived like a diabetic, she, she there was no sugar. When we went trick or treating as kids, obviously, we would both collect whatever candy we could get. And then my mom would buy the candy off of us. So it's not like my sister was like, living like a normal kid with, you know, a bunch of sugar lying around, she could just do whatever she wanted. She really looked like a diabetic too, which is kind of funny. And I, you know, when I, I'm a part of a lot of different Facebook groups for type ones. And I think sometimes I give, you know, suggestions of things that my mom did, growing up that I thought were really kind of creative and wonderful. And then I think treating the whole house like we all had the disease was was a nice way of dealing with it. I never felt ashamed of diabetes. It was never an embarrassing point for me. All the kids at my school knew, and they all knew what to do in the event that something bad happened.

Scott Benner 8:50
Really how love the teachers, your mom, did your mom, like come into the school and explain that everybody?

Nicole 8:55
Yeah, yeah. My mom was very she was very present at the school. So I actually went to a little tiny country school. I grew up almost across the street from the school, but it was in the country and on a pretty busy highway. So we had to be bused in or drove in. And my mom did a lot of my mom was a stay at home mom when I was a kid. So she went to a lot of the, you know, she would volunteer for recess to be one of the I forget what they were called the parents that like walked around and made sure the kids were misbehaving or whatever. She became on all the field trips, she did all of those things. So yeah, she was she was very present. And then, before the school year started, she made a point of sitting down with every teacher and talking to them about what to expect and I mean, I'm in Canada. I don't know if I mentioned that at the beginning. But so our system is a little bit different up here. We don't have school nurses or whatever. But anyway, so she always made a point of being present at the school and I just again, I really don't think that it was ever like something that I shied away from. Everybody just knew. Again, it was a tiny school. So, the kids I went to school with in kindergarten were the same kids I went to school with in grade six, like, there wasn't a lot of turnover. And, you know, they all just, they were familiar. They knew. They knew when does

Scott Benner 10:11
that ever mean? Did that ever come into play? Like, did a child ever help you or I had

Nicole 10:16
a, I passed out one time at school. So like I said, I was diagnosed in 85. And when I was first diagnosed, we were on the, you know, kind of two needles a day. And he Mulan and our and we were very scheduled. It was like, breakfast at 7am. lunch at noon, dinner at 530. There was no, if you were 15 minutes late for any of those things, you know, it was going to be a problem. And so I remember one time, I had joined the school choir was on my way to choir practice at lunch, and I had decided to skip my lunch until after choir was done. And so we were walking to choir practice, and I passed out on the way down the hall. And a friend of mine was behind me. So she she realized that I was fainting, and she put her arms out, caught me and dragged me down to the principal's office. And when they got there, they just said Nicole passed out to help her. So they I mean, obviously the principal's office had everything that they needed. But yeah, I mean, the kids were giving me sugar or anything, but it also, if I needed to excuse myself in class by the teachers, or let me go to the bathroom whenever I wanted to. I was allowed to have sugar at my desk if I wanted to, you know, and everybody just knew it's not like they helped. But they also didn't make a big deal out of it. If I if I needed something.

Scott Benner 11:36
I see. Being from Canada, does that change how the healthcare system works for you?

Nicole 11:40
Well, yeah, so I am in Ontario specifically. And we have, obviously good health health coverage here. And when I was young, I was always on my parent's health care plan as well. So you know, hospital visits, things like that were never an issue getting supplies access to supplies were never an issue, it just was generally covered, became a bit of a problem. When it came time to go on the pump. I went on the pump at 18. So I mean, that's going back again, 20 years ago, I was probably pretty early, one of the early adopters of an insulin pump. At that point, I remember it being a little bit tricky, trying to figure out which company was going to cover what and you had to apply for one program to cover some of your you know, one of your insurance plans with cover some of the supplies and some of them were covered in a different way. So I mean, it's still a bit of a challenge to figure out how you're going to get your supplies covered. But I mean, all of my supplies get paid for I don't pay for anything out of pocket.

Scott Benner 12:44
It's different province to province, I guess I should say. I should probably say like province, but like from province to province. It's different, right?

Nicole 12:51
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So Ontario has a pretty good, a pretty good health care plan. I think Alberta is up there with one of the better ones. They're pretty advanced in terms of what gets covered by the government. And then what gets covered privately as well.

Scott Benner 13:07
Do you recall what your first pump was? What brand it was? Yeah, I've

Nicole 13:10
never moved from Medtronic. I've been on Medtronic the whole time.

Scott Benner 13:13
Okay. Oh, all right. So yeah.

Nicole 13:15
So when I was young, I remember when it was time for a pump. You know, I was, I was not a good diabetic. When I was in high school, I did a lot of, you know, lying and sneaking food and all of that stuff. I wasn't good at it. And I remember going to the doctor's office, and the doctor had said, my mom had said to him at that point, I couldn't tell you what my agencies were, but I know they were bad. And I remember my mom saying to him, you know, what, what do you suggest we do? Like I'm at a loss. I don't know what else to do. And he kind of threw his hands up in the air. And he's like, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know. She just she's kind of beyond help. And my mom said, Well, that's not an option. We're not just gonna give up. She said, I've been reading a lot about these insulin pumps. What do you think about that? And he said, Oh, no, they're useless waste of time. Don't even bother. My mom again was like, that's also not good enough. So she switched it and knows immediately we went to find an endocrinologist that believed in insulin pumps and I was transferred to a program where they very quickly put me on a put me on the pump. So at the time, I think they had Medtronic animus and there was a third one, I can't remember what it was. I think Medtronic is the only one still hanging around. But anyway, I went on Medtronic right away. And and I've never switched. You said

Scott Benner 14:38
something a minute ago. I want to ask you about Yeah, I hear a lot of like, a lot of adults use this phrase. Like I wasn't a good diabetic, right. When you say that? I do you mean good. Like good at it. We're good. We're good. Like your intentions for it. That makes sense.

Nicole 14:55
Like yeah, it does me i Yeah. Again, I think about that the clinic that I was And there was there were good diabetics, and there were bad diabetics. And it was there was always sort of this, like, if you didn't test your blood sugar's enough, if you didn't, you know, do your injections on time, if you there was lots of reasons why they would kind of say you're, you know, you're being bad. I think there was a bit of shame to it.

Scott Benner 15:19
Yeah, a lot. It's what it sounds like. But it's the sort of it's the things. So that's the

Nicole 15:23
thing. It's the actionable items, I was always, you know, I It's not like I was wildly out of control. But sometimes I would forget to test sometimes I would eat and forget to give insulin, you know, things like that I wasn't great at carb counting. So there was lots of things that I think I felt like I was being bad at. And when we switched to the other clinic, I remember going in and seeing this doctor for the first time and we sat down and I sat in the office and I kind of cried, I was like, I know that I'm bad. And I'm sorry for being bad. And I just I don't know how to be better.

Scott Benner 16:02
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Nicole 18:19
And she looked at me and she goes, honey, it's not your fault it if you're not having good blood sugars, or if your agency isn't right, you have to understand that there's a whole team behind you. And it's all of our faults. We're not doing our jobs either. Don't blame yourself for it. And it was the first time anybody had ever been

Scott Benner 18:37
shared the responsibility with you. Yeah, exactly. And at that point,

Nicole 18:40
I was 18 I'd spent almost my whole life being told that I was bad at it.

Scott Benner 18:46
No, you're fine. What I was gonna say is that your first doctor was bad at it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you're following the lead, right? If you're being coached and your coach isn't good, and so your your results are what I mean, it's, it's like eating right? What do they say? Like you are what you eat, right? So he's, he's the food you're eating his information and you're getting, you know, stomach cramps and, and bloating. And that's just because he sucks. So so. So when you move to this other person, and you open up to them, and they they respond by by sharing the blame, or the burden, I guess, honestly, do you make a shift there

Nicole 19:27
that at that point, then I went on to that they got me right away onto the pump. And that was a huge game changer for me. And I did I became very interested in what my blood sugar's were I got interested in keeping good notes. And I just Yeah, I did. I took much more of an interest to it. And I just it there wasn't again, there wasn't any shame anymore. So I did spend a lot of time as a kid. Like I said to If I forgot to test sometimes I would just fill in the numbers or fill in the blanks, you know, I'd be getting ready to go to clinic and I would bring out my chart with all of my blood sugar's written on it, and it would, and they'd have a bunch of holes. And I would just fill them in. Like, I think today, I must have been 5.6. Just put in numbers, that sounded good. And that made me feel good. The doctors obviously knew better, I'm sure they're looking at my blood sugar's going, there's no way you're running a whatever, a one C, and you're saying that you're five all the time?

Scott Benner 20:29
Yeah. But so, you know, it's just, I know that we think that our lives are this like, snowflake, you know, and we're making all these decisions and shaping ourselves, etc. But when you're kids, even when you're an adult, like you are shaped by the things around you, the, you know, the input that comes from other people, expectations that are set, you know, milestones, following through like that stuff, like someone easily could have set different expectations for you. Now, I don't know that it doesn't mean you would have reached them. Because you might not have been getting good, you know, advice from your physician. But at least it doesn't take that much to set someone up with a reasonable expectation and a reasonable plan, and let them see even a reasonable amount of success so that they can they can believe in those things, and then continue to apply them and multiply. And yeah, it just it's kind of obvious need to hear you talk about it. Not neat. Because it was because it was your life, but But it's interesting to hear you talk about it like how like a simple little thing like that. And not for anyone listening like Not, not like unreasonable expectations, like every test has to be 100. And you need to be taller and prettier and faster, like not all that just within your own thing in your own. Yeah,

Nicole 21:55
yes, let's make this attainable. Let's try for something attainable. And yeah, I spent a lot of time feeling like it. I couldn't reach their goals. They were just impossible. They felt so far away. And so at some point, you kind of go, Well, why bother? Yeah, and I'm never gonna get there.

Scott Benner 22:13
Honestly, thank God for your mom's reaction. Because his the new goal that the first doctor set for you was very attainable, which was failure failure. He was he was telling you give up. Yeah, your dad. Oh, you easily could have meant that. You don't I mean, and she steps up and says we're not going to do that.

Nicole 22:31
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Thank God for my mom was right, because she spent she did she was she really pushed? She was like, again, that answer is not good enough. And I'll go find somebody who has the answer I'm looking for.

Scott Benner 22:43
Where do you think she What do you think she learned that? What did she wrestle polar bears professionally? I don't know, trout fishermen. But with that she did she catch trout right out of the river. But they're so funny.

Nicole 22:56
She, again, when I think back, she was so forward thinking in a lot of her ways. And, you know, she was really, like, I had diabetes through the 80s and early 90s. She had a pager. So if things went, if things went crazy while I was at school, they could page her, which the only people that had pagers back then were doctors and drug dealers

Scott Benner 23:18
and drug dealers. That's exactly my mom. And my mom,

Nicole 23:21
she carried a pager around. Again, I said that thing about the Halloween. I mean, that was very different. I just, I think for her, she always just, you had a podcast a couple of weeks ago that I listened to where they talked about just this idea of like, not being held back, like diabetes wasn't going to hold me back. And I think she just always felt like that, like, this will just be as normal as possible. And we'll be, we'll all be as normal as possible. But yeah, but at the same time, healthcare is critically important. And so we'll do whatever we have to do in order to make sure she's healthy.

Scott Benner 23:57
Yeah. And I guess the fully pack in the context like you, you were diagnosed at a time where management was not terrific. Like, you know, the options weren't really like, yeah, nearly what they are now, obviously, and maybe for the doctor, was he an older man? Do you remember?

Nicole 24:13
Yeah, he was. Yeah, I had a my first endo was actually a really compassionate lovely man. But he ended up I think, moving to a moving to a different job. I think he was moved somewhere out west to work at a at a university or something out there. Anyhow, so I ended up with this new doctor and he came along while I was in high school. So I'd been at that point, I'd had diabetes for quite a long time. And but yeah, he was an older man. In fact, shortly after I left from that clinic and found a new Endo. I heard that he had passed away so he wasn't he was much older and didn't have a very again forward thinking mentality,

Scott Benner 24:53
but was at least kind. Exactly yeah, yes. Yeah, little kindness doesn't hurt to call you No, no. No. How you doing? You said you were nervous at the beginning isn't getting better?

Nicole 25:04
Yeah, thank you good. Is it good? Yeah,

Scott Benner 25:06
you're doing great. Okay, so, I mean, not that I need this to be like after dark material, but I feel like there's a story in here and it's part of it. And you feel more comfortable. It's interesting. When you were being more like just anecdotal and telling a bigger story, you wandered. But when you start talking about details, you're much more focused. So I feel I feel like we want to, like, do that, like, kind of go that way. So you've, you make it through, you know, make it through the first doctor. Next doctor helps you get the pump. And how old were you when you got the pump?

Nicole 25:43

18. I was 18 years old. I remember, just towards the end of high school,

Scott Benner 25:47
and you were leaving high school with what intentions?

Nicole 25:51
So I was off to university, I was ready to go, I had been working at a part time job that I really loved. And when I was getting ready to leave, he said to me, Well, so what are your plans for the future? What do you want to do with your life? And I said, Oh, God, I have no idea. And he said, Well, I said, to be honest, I'd like to own your he was a bakery I worked at I said one day, I want to own your bakery. And he goes, Well, you know what, the University of Guelph has a really great hospitality program. Why don't you get into that? And one day, come back and we'll talk. And so I did. So I went to a Hospitality and Tourism Program. It's a university degree anyway.

Scott Benner 26:30
Did you come back and, and vicious takeovers Miss Baker?

Nicole 26:38
Back. As far as I know, he still owns it. It's still there. It's been it's forever.

Scott Benner 26:45
So when you head off to this, when you head off to university with your new pump and your diet and your new diabetes, like ideas, how do you make How do you make out through those years?

Nicole 26:57
Um, so I think that's where I was going to talk about some of the kind of, you know, I guess after dark topics that we were going to talk about my willingness, I guess, to play around with alcohol, for sure. It was, I was not afraid of what was going to happen if I drank too much if I, you know, passed out from alcohol it. When I went into university, I was ready to have some fun. I never played with drugs. It was never on my list of things to do. I smoked a bit of pot, but that was about it. And I didn't generally like the person I became when I smoked weed. So I had stopped but

Scott Benner 27:35
who did you become when you smoked weed? Oh, so that was a federally poll. That was a very fun noise. You went you wouldn't? Let me tell you.

Nicole 27:51
I am generally a very kind and very patient. Calm, friendly. I always want people to be happier. Tell me, you know, and I would turn into the Hulk. It was I would rage I would get so angry. And you know, I couldn't stand my friends that were giggling. They'd be smoking pot. You know how they get the giggles and I would be like, shut up. I hated life. Why are you laughing so much? Nothing is funny. I just I would rage and I did it a few times. And I thought I don't like this version of me. I'm not doing I

Scott Benner 28:25
can't believe your friends like you did it again.

Nicole 28:28
I know. Because they were giggly and high. They had a good time with it. They realized how upset it made me

Scott Benner 28:35
it made you so you. So they lost their inhibitions in one way, but you lost yours in a different way.

Nicole 28:41
I couldn't be nice anymore.

Scott Benner 28:44
So here are so here's my question, Nicole. Are you nice? Or do you have a lot of rage inside of you? And that helped you let it out?

Nicole 28:52
Oh, yeah, I have a lot of rage inside of me. I'm generally I you know, wake up most days at 100 and have to kind of call myself down. I don't know why I am I'm generally a pretty angry person. But I yeah, maybe that's it. It just exposed.

Scott Benner 29:11
What was your I didn't like this is what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking like you, you're relaxed. You're like, well, now I don't have to pretend to like these modes

Nicole 29:23
very live a very lonely life.

Scott Benner 29:29
So what is there something you can point to in your life that made you angry?

Nicole 29:34
No, I really, I don't know. I don't think that there's anything specific specific. No, no, I had a pretty I had a pretty normal childhood. Like, my parents were together until they split up when I was maybe 13. Like I said little country school knew I had lots of friends. Very popular. I there was nothing that attributed to the rage. I'm not really sure where it came from. So he Yeah, I think

Scott Benner 30:01
as an adult, you still have it.

Nicole 30:05
Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Scott Benner 30:07
Is there anything you do to try to like, let the pressure off once in a while?

Nicole 30:12
Yes and no, like I'm trying now to do. So like I said, I love listening to your podcasts. There's a bunch that I listened to including a bunch on how to overcome some of those things. So just, you know, journaling and things like that. I play around with

Scott Benner 30:30
it's not it's not anxiety, right, Nicole? It's just you have a low tolerance for

Nicole 30:36
Ah, yeah, I do it which is funny because again, like, I have a lot of people say like, you're the most patient person I've ever met. Like, you have such a you have you let people walk all over you and you let it you know, it takes a lot to finally make me explode. But when I do I go once I explode, I really go. Okay, let's

Scott Benner 31:00
let me ask you a couple of questions. Have you ever had your thyroid checked?

Nicole 31:04
Yeah, I'm on thyroid medication. I

Scott Benner 31:06
am. What's your TSH? Do? You know?

Nicole 31:08
I think the last one was two. I had my bloodwork done back in.

Scott Benner 31:13
Good. Good, good, good. Religion. None, none. Little, little interesting. Hold on a second. Did anything happen in your life that was traumatic, even to another person in your family that you wish wouldn't have happened? Car accident, like anything?

Nicole 31:32
No, nothing, nothing like that. I think some of maybe some of my trauma again comes back to the diabetes, you know, as much as I say, so I suffered from a lot of really bad low blood sugars when I was a kid. I don't think I've ever heard you interview a person. That hallucinated with Lowe's. I don't know if you have but you are one of them. I full blown hallucinations with a low blood sugar like so as

Scott Benner 31:58
you describe that to me, please.

Nicole 32:00
So I don't know. They must have been seizures. i We didn't call them seizures. We called them reactions. They were generally middle of the night when I listened to your episode with Arden kind of describing her her seizure and the shifting the room kind of the jumping, I think she called it. For me, it was always the shifting. So I could, the floor would suddenly shift and I'd feel kind of unattached or, you know, off balance. Yeah. And that but a lot of times I would wake up in the night with these reactions, which were like I said, full blown hallucination. So I would start to see things in the, in the bedroom. And, like terrifying things. As a kid, I don't know how you describe them, like monsters and snakes and bugs and all the things that you're afraid of, and they would all be in my bedroom. And I would start to scream and cry, of course. And my parents would read in and they would also be these horrible creatures, you know, like terrifying monsters are covered in bugs covered in snakes, I just remember so many times they would come in and they would have to try to you know, get me sugar and whatever way they could, but without seeing them. You know, I couldn't look at them because they were so terrifying. But they had to, they had to grab me and hold me down to get generally they did corn syrup. That's what they would use to get in my mouth because at least then some of it would be absorbed through your cheeks, my cheeks and then I mean corn syrup was less likely to be spit everywhere. Like it's kind of hard to spit out syrup. But it was you know, thick and when went right in. So anyways, but there was a lot of hallucinations. My mom used to tell the story about one time she came in and the room was full of. According to me, the room was full of flies. There were flies everywhere. So she grabbed my she sat me down on her lap, and she shoved my head over her shoulder so I couldn't see her face anymore. And my dad was on the other side, jamming the corn syrup in. And then they waited a little bit and my twitching slowed down and they realized that it was probably over so they kind of pulled me back so I could look at at my mom again. And I looked at her face that I slapped her. Which one was that for? And I said there was a bug on your face. She still had a fly on her face according I mean, she did it but that's what I saw was this. Did you ever

Scott Benner 34:23
did you ever hear your parents say to each other? Oh, great thing we had kids. What a decision.

Nicole 34:31
I can't imagine being my poor mother being pregnant with the second one going. I think we made a we made a mistake.

Scott Benner 34:39
We made a mistake. Can low blood sugar cause psychosis? It is well known that hypoglycemia can lead to psychiatric symptoms ranging from delirium and confusion states of psychosis. So that's not unusual, but you're right. I've never heard anybody talk about it.

Nicole 34:57
Yeah. And I thought that it was very common, but the more I listened to your show, the more I realized that people just people that wasn't normal.

Scott Benner 35:07
Were they're not admitting to it in a call,

Nicole 35:09
or they're not talking about it. Maybe they don't have any memories of it. But it was very scary as a kid, it

Scott Benner 35:13
was very, very Yeah. Listen, I didn't I don't have diabetes. But soon after my parents, like split up, I was probably in my early teens, like 1314 around there. And I would have a reoccurring nightmare that a giant talking Spider was up in the corner of my room, and it would tell me it was going to kill my parents. And one night, I got out of bed and felt like I had gone downstairs, like to use the bathroom. And I was in the bathroom. And I thought I was awake. And but the Spider was still there. Right? And then I woke myself up and it was gone. So I somehow like I somehow in a dream move through the house and I used to I did sleep walk a little when I was a kid. I don't do it anymore, actually. But I I wonder, like looking back on that I think I might have slept walk to the bathroom, and then continue the dream continued. And then when I woke up, it was over. But so anyway, big spider, not flies, but I'm with you. Yeah,

Nicole 36:19
it was. Yeah, it was always and I mean, again, they changed it. It changed. It wasn't always flies or bugs. It was like, sometimes they were monsters. And my parents would come in as these big like hairy looking monsters, you know, with big teeth, and they'd be growling at me as they were rushing towards me to try to take care of me. Oh,

Scott Benner 36:38
my God, that's well, that's okay. So let's call that traumatic. Yeah.

Nicole 36:44
I mean, I had a, and I mean, there was a lot of incidents of that when I was little, and they obviously slowed down as I got older and things got better. And I was able to control things a little bit more. But the last time I had a seizure, I was six I was while I was 15. It was just before my 16th birthday, and I had woken up in the morning and I went into take a shower. And I hadn't bothered testing my blood sugar's yet because I was, you know, not worried about it. Anyhow, I got up I took the shower, I got out of the shower. I remember standing there in the bathroom. And when I was in high school, like lots of the kids were candy necklaces, remember candy necklaces, of course. And so my sister used to wear them to school. So she had a couple of them sitting on the counter and at that point I realized like should I think I'm low so I started eating through her candy necklace and it didn't I didn't get there fast enough. I I've passed out and see Easton. Anyway, that that one again scared me for a long time that I was really terrified about going low for night and going low early in the morning. And so oftentimes I would run my blood sugar's higher because I didn't want all that

Scott Benner 37:56
to happen. Yeah. Hey, I have to ask you the kid was wearing the candy necklace. Yeah, she used to wear them and you wouldn't add her to like a zombie to get to it. No,

Nicole 38:06
she wasn't wearing Oh in the morning so she's like taking it off to go to bed and they were just sitting on the bathroom counter heard I shared a bathroom

Scott Benner 38:14
I was had a beautiful picture in my head of you like basically be like brains and coming at her like kids like why am I friends with Nicole feel way better story? Yeah, if you want to retell it where she's wearing the necklace I mean I'm okay with it.

Nicole 38:30
I'm naked fresh out of the shower and stumbling out or going give me your necklace your necklace

Scott Benner 38:34
that's terrible. Oh my god so you had your blood sugar was bouncing then? Cuz you don't you don't you didn't have low Awan it's not like you got low a lot because you were keeping some like, like the stability at a lower number. So you were jumping up and jumping down constantly. Yeah, yeah. What kind of food did you eat back then?

Nicole 38:54
Anything and everything there was never a limitation. I mean that's not true. That's not true at all. When I was young we did we were on the My parents were allowed to give me like I was allowed to starches and two fruits and one protein at dinner say something like that. And they knew that a starch was like a piece of bread. One starch was a half a cup of potatoes they so they it was carb counting but not really. I mean we weren't looking at the numbers but we were looking at the values of food and but I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted. We were restricted in terms of quantities. And I was like I said restricted in terms of meal times at at breakfast, lunch and dinner I could eat whatever fell within those values. Outside of that I wasn't allowed to snack unless it was kind of free foods. So then I did a lot of like lots of proteins. My My mom always had like, cheese sticks or you know coming home from school we would eat Cheese or like pepper rats or you know, different smoked meat, things like that there was always like meats and cheeses that we would snack on. But that was the snack you couldn't do with crackers because crackers had carbs and carbs would mess it up.

Scott Benner 40:13
Yeah, Arden loves to. Like she hasn't done this in a while because she's in school. But there are times when she'll put together a plate looks like she's at a at a party by herself. It has grapes and cheese and crackers and pepperoni. Stuff like that. Yeah, she just disappears with it. And sure coutries. Exactly. In her bedroom. Very, very fancy. Although I don't know how fancy it is. I think the crackers are rats. But that's not right, by the way, are not easy to Bolus for when you take the crackers and then the grapes. And then add the protein and the cheese. It's a it's a task to Bolus. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, actually,

Nicole 40:50
well, at the time. I mean, we didn't really we understood the like I said the values of food, but we didn't understand how they all work together. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, even as a kid, I was allowed to eat pizza. But I don't remember how it affected me or anything. Like I

Scott Benner 41:07
actually have a recording coming up in I think it'll be out in April. It's with a big stick a health influencer, who like normally, um, I don't know, like, I don't know much about it. But a couple of listeners were like, hey, look, this lady's talking about food impacts. And she's wearing like a glucose monitor. And she doesn't have diabetes, but she's looking at the impacts of different foods and talking about about them. Now in her context. She's talking about how to eat them in certain orders where it benefits your body. But I thought, this will be interesting. Like she's got she's got this perspective. And yet, she's not that she doesn't have diabetes. So like, I'm like, I'm gonna ask her to be on so she's she's going to come on, we're going to talk about your state. Yeah, about that.

Nicole 41:52
Well, and I think, like, I don't really limit what I eat. Now, either. There's a lot of foods I just can't be bothered with, because I don't I don't know how to Bolus for them. And I don't want to find out. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah, we had a party. So I own a restaurant. We had a party there a few weeks ago, where at the end of it, they they came up to me, and you know, thanks so much for having us. And here we thought you'd like one of the cupcakes that we had made. And I was like, Oh, thank you so much. And I kind of left it on the on the counter. And when my on one of the servers came in, I said, Oh, if you want that cupcake, go ahead. I won't be eating it. He was like, Yeah, I guess it would pretty much kill you, wouldn't it? And I was like, Well, no, it won't kill me. But I'll be honest, I don't even know where to begin.

Scott Benner 42:38
might ruin the next three or four hours.

Nicole 42:41
Like, it might not kill me. But I said, Okay, for fun. Tell me how many carbohydrates are in this cupcake? And he's like, I don't know. 95? And I'm like, great. I would have maybe guessed 40. So yeah, you probably would have killed me.

Scott Benner 42:56
Well, yeah, no, I take your point. Like some of them are, it feels a little unknowable. Like, especially when someone just hands you something you have no context, like,

Nicole 43:04
here it is. Okay, and I just yeah, you're right. I think there's a lot of times, I just can't be bothered with the headache of trying to figure it out.

Scott Benner 43:10
I think interesting, too, like a cupcake is an example. It could hit. It's gonna say something that's gonna sound opposite, but it could hit less than the carbs indicate. Like, if you ever had a situation like that, where you like, look something up, and you're like, This is what is this 100 carbs for this. And, and then you later realize that it only hit like it was 50 or, or something like that. And it does happen. You know,

Nicole 43:37
it happens a lot. And so my, my partner now is a as a chef, and so he does a lot of I mean, I like a queen at home. But anyhow, he made Detroit style pizza the other day, which is that big, thick, heavy crust. And it was so delicious. But I looked at it and I was like, Oh my God, I don't even know where to start. So I Bolus for it. And I had such a beautiful straight line. And I was so proud and so happy. And I went in. I have a good friend of mine who's a type one. And so I was telling them the story and his girlfriend said, well, for curiosity sake. You know, how much did you Bolus so they said, Well, I looked at it. I thought it was probably 40 grams. I was

Scott Benner 44:21
gonna say 40 for a piece of square right? About 65

Nicole 44:27
and 40 was just beautiful and perfect. Nice. I said usually when I eat pizza I'm I Bolus for about 25 grams of carbs per slice. And she said that's so funny because the the guy the her partner, he he generally Bolus is 40 grams of carbs per slice. And then I laughed. I said, I wonder which one of us is right, because we're both Oh, which one of us is right in terms of the number. One of us is right in terms of our car in terms of our ratios? Which one of us has got it here?

Scott Benner 44:58
Well, that's such a sale. The end point really Nicole, because what's right is

Nicole 45:03
what works? Well, exactly. Yeah. And if both of us are hitting straight lines, then does it matter?

Scott Benner 45:10
Not at all. Literally not at all. Oh, so yeah, it's exciting to hear somebody talking about that way. Because it because for the people listening, it doesn't matter. If if this thing, whatever you're eating is 10 carbs, but it hits you like it's 15. And it hits somebody else. Like it's eight and it hits somebody else. Like it's 20 Well, then that's what it is. Right? You know, and, and fighting reality by pointing at a number is, I think part of how people make themselves cuckoo with all this. Right? Yeah. So all right, anyway,

Nicole 45:43
yeah, I had, I had an appointment last week with a new nurse. So I went on the new Medtronic pump about a year ago. So it's got it's the full closed loop with the CGM and everything. They're all connected. The Medtronic 770. So and then the nurse that I was meeting with left the practice, and they never reassigned me to another one. So I went a long time without seeing anybody, and they call me and they said, Oh, we've got a Medtronic rep in did you want to come in and meet with us? And I said, Yeah, sure. That'd be great, actually. So I went, I went in and met with them. And at one point, she, she was looking at something I forget what she was what she was pointing out, and she said, your you know, your numbers are great. Your time and range is fabulous. If you're striving for perfection, here's where I would maybe adjust it. And I said, Yeah, I get it. And her and I got into a bit of an argument. Oh, that's what it was over. I said, sometimes for dinner, I might not Bolus, the right amount. Like let's say I look at food. And I think, oh, this could be between 30 and 35 grams of carbs. I think I'll Bolus 30 today because I don't want to go low later. And she was like, that's, that's not the right way to do it. You Bolus for what is in it? I was like, Well, yeah, that's fine and good. But sometimes I don't want to go low later. And she said to me, she's like, your, all of your problems are purely psychological. You're I mean, you could be you could be wonderful. If if you stop letting your brain make the decisions. You know what I mean? Is that

Scott Benner 47:15
because you don't get it? Yeah. Is that because you don't actually get low later, you just are afraid you're going to? Yeah, yeah, from when you were younger? You should, you should have told her listen, if I get low, you're gonna turn into the Abominable Snowman. And there's gonna be worm scary. There's gonna be worms coming out of your nose. And I just can't do that anymore. But so so you really are afraid of the insulin a little bit still?

Nicole 47:45
Very much so that I'm, I'm very, very afraid of insulin yet. But not on basic. Very, very. I'm aggressive. And I have, and I have good control. But I yeah, there's I'm still afraid of the lows. I really am. I'm afraid of. I think I'm afraid of not waking up from a low.

Scott Benner 48:04
Well, yeah, yeah. Listen, you've been talking for 45 minutes. I think people listening have checked their blood sugar or their children's blood sugar five times since you've been taught. I'll be like, let me just take a look

Nicole 48:17
at the terrifying to make

Scott Benner 48:19
sure that the worst. Want to make sure I'm not going to see a zombie Hold on a second.

Speaker 1 48:26
Well, listen, you had a specific, yeah, this specific experience, and your body obviously doesn't do well with it. But have you had that experience as an adult?

Nicole 48:38
No, never. I've never I have not hallucinated as an adult. I had one terrible low in university that I remember the room shifting. I mean, again, there are times where I still have those those kinds of broom shift blows where the floor feels like it's falling out. I had one awful experience. A few years ago, I was I always call it the my ex husband left me for left me for dead on the kitchen floor. We were I had been out. We had been out drinking and partying at a friend's place and he had left before I had and then I called him to come back and get me and in the meantime, he was turning around to come and pick me up and I ended up getting a ride home with somebody else. And he was like, fair enough very mad at me. And when we got home, I guess I so I had got home before he had and I walked in the front door and likely as a result of drinking and everything else, I think I went to take my shoes off and I passed out on the kitchen floor. And so when he got home, I was passed out and he quite literally stepped over me to go to bed and left me there. When I woke up. I probably will maybe four or five hours later, and at the time I was on the Libra so I scanned my sensor and it said I had hit the low you know how It doesn't read any more. It just says low. Yeah, I'd hit the low at the point of which we were coming home and stayed there all night long. And so yeah, I always, I mean, that was the worst one I've had recently I woke up and luckily, my purse was right next to me because we've just gotten home and I had gummy bears in there. And I swallowed a bunch of those before I managed to get up and go to the couch, but

Scott Benner 50:27
I'm gonna. I'm gonna say something crazy here. You didn't see any hallucinating at that point. No, I wasn't listening. I was just passed out. Is it possible? And this is gonna sound really crazy. But is it possible your parents actually were monsters? And you could only see them like that when your blood sugar was low? Because it hasn't happened since then. Can you please go to go to your your mom and dad? Are they alive? So? Yeah, would they would they come back together for an experiment? I'd like to get your blood sugar low. And I want to see if they're monsters right now. No, I mean, a little bit. I really do a little bit want to know.

Nicole 51:13
Well, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember. I mean, again, I had a good relationship with both of them. So I can't imagine

Scott Benner 51:22
why. So no, I'm teasing you. I didn't mean like human monsters. I meant, like really like furry things that just

Nicole 51:32
it was the 80s hair was different back then.

Scott Benner 51:37
I don't know. They were. I don't know. I just I got this. I just hit the all sudden I was like, What if our parents are actually creatures? And this is why that's what she was saying. And I mean, the flies. Makes sense, right? Because monsters would have flies around them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm very worried now about the one. Conspiracy theorists listening right now is like, you know, I listen to this podcast today. This lady's parents were sub humanoids. And she did.

Nicole 52:08
I'll get tracked out, you know why if all of a sudden you stopped seeing my name on the Facebook group, you know, I've been like, sound out and snap me up. Those Those spy balloons that are flying all over the world right now that that one's gonna come and hit my house in a minute. Down and suck up the alien life form that I am.

Scott Benner 52:27
I think everyone should be appreciative that I was not so ham fisted as to call them Sasquatch is because you're in Canada. I stayed. I stayed off the Canadian thing. I one thing I mentioned earlier, but that's it. Pretty much. I've been pretty good.

Nicole 52:41
Why you don't have Sasquatches in the US? I thought I think

Scott Benner 52:44
we call them Bigfoot. You call them Sasquatch? No. Right? Yeah. I mean, I think that's it.

Nicole 52:51
My boyfriend calls them Sam squatches his son will just oh, if he ever listens to this podcast. He'll be so upset that I said Sam squinch on here. How old is the the son is 1212 and he always says that he'll go oh, I think we found a Sasquatch. I think we're gonna go to Sam square and Trenton saying it by mistake. Now he does it on purpose just to torment him.

Scott Benner 53:15
Oh, Trailer Park Boys, right. Yeah, I got I got it. I got it. Okay. Yeah. Well, he won't be upset about that. He's not like we call that his name. And like,

Nicole 53:26
he doesn't want to listen to a podcast about diabetes. I don't

Scott Benner 53:29
think he I don't think so. You don't think that's what's five year olds or

Nicole 53:34
year old? A 12 year old boy with literally no experience and except for mine.

Scott Benner 53:38
So we're I feel like we're dancing around something. You have an ex husband? Who left you on the floor? Left me on the floor? Is this not a great experience being married?

Nicole 53:49
No, no, it wasn't a good one. There was a there was a few incidents of you know, kind of emotional abuse like that. I would have called that emotional abuse. Because I think when you do that to somebody, it just I realized that at that point that you know that it wasn't going to be fixed. The marriage was long gone. Yeah. Anyhow, yeah, we separated actually just before COVID. Just before we went into our first lockdown here in Ontario,

Scott Benner 54:15
did you like say to yourself, oh, I can't be in here together. Let's do it now.

Nicole 54:20
No, I really, I didn't believe that COVID was a thing. I really thought that people were being ridiculous. And, and I couldn't I remember somebody saying it to me one time, like, have you heard of this virus that's about to come in and shut down the whole world. And I laughed, and I went, Oh, you're so full of it. There's no way of viruses coming in and shutting down the world. Are you insane? Like that doesn't make any sense. And yeah, two weeks later, then boom, I but I really didn't believe that it was a problem. And even when the government told us we had to close our doors, like I said, I'm a restaurant owner. So we had to close the doors and we weren't allowed to have people in and for the first couple of weeks, I just thought it was all a bunch of hot like whatever. on earth are we doing? Why are we so afraid of this? It just, to me, it just seemed wild. But

Scott Benner 55:05
there have been three pandemics since the 1900. Right? Yeah, right. This happens all the time. You just right. Yeah. I know. I

Nicole 55:15
understand. Trust me, it was crazy.

Scott Benner 55:18
It does sound crazy. It mean when you live your whole life, and it hasn't happened. And it's just a story, like, you know, well,

Nicole 55:25
and when you have something like diabetes, and your parents become monsters, when you hallucinate, and yet, you can recover and rebound from that and go on to live a normal life, then why on earth are we so afraid of a coal you

Scott Benner 55:39
feel? You? I think just Yeah. Well, did you have you gotten COVID? Yeah, I had to change your mind if you had it. Yeah.

Nicole 55:50
I said afterwards. I'm like, Man, I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

Scott Benner 55:54
I did not enjoy my my one time I've had COVID at all. That was

Nicole 55:57
we were very careful. My partner has a daughter with disabilities. Actually, she has a different form of diabetes called diabetes. insipidus, which is so like, our bodies can't process the sugars and hers can't process sodium. But so we were very, very careful about what we were doing, you know, exposing anybody to any of that we were very close with, you know, wear our masks diligently and we were, you know, hand sanitizing like crazy. So, but I ended up catching it. I had no idea from where but yeah, it was miserable. no fun at all.

Scott Benner 56:28
May I took a sidebar here. diabetes. insipidus. In Sydney is a disorder of salt and water metabolism marked by intense thirst and heavy urination occurs when the body can't regulate how it handles fluid condition is caused by a hormonal abnormality and isn't related to diabetes. In addition to extreme for thirst, and heavy urination. Other symptoms may include getting up at night to urinate or Bedwetting, depending on the form of disorder treatments might include hormonal therapy, low salt diet or drinking more water. Very rare. 20,000 cases in the US per year. Wow,

Nicole 57:04
very, very rare. Yeah. So I'm very different so that it's not like, so she's regulated through fluids. And she does take an oral medication as well.

Scott Benner 57:17
And your partner only hangs out with people who have the word diabetes somehow involved.

Nicole 57:21
Yeah, he's he says that he's like, Oh, God, my diabetics, I can't even believe that I found another one. Just a different form.

Scott Benner 57:29
I mean, it's, it's interesting that it's called diabetes insipidus. And yet, it has nothing to do with diabetes.

Nicole 57:36
Well, so it's funny, I joined also a Facebook group for diabetes and separatists. And they are also outraged by the fact that they're called diabetics, because they don't they feel like that they're immediately assumed to have mellitus. And there, they want to rename diabetes and separatists to I forget what it is some sort of deficiency, instead, like the hormone that that they're deficient in, as opposed to being called

Scott Benner 58:06
everybody wants to rename something. You got what you think the Hashimotos people are excited, right? What's wrong with you? I have Hashimotos disease, right? Great. Like a guy named Smith couldn't figure that out to be him. But listen, I like I'm gonna pull one ad here for a minute, because I feel like you can substantiate my my thoughts that working in a restaurant is an orgy of alcohol and sex and the battery that happens after the place closes. Am I right? Yeah, I am. Right, right. Yes, yes. I knew it. People come on here and lie all the time about it, but I know. Okay, so what is it? Is it the schedule? Or does it attract a certain person?

Nicole 58:58
Yet, you have to be a certain kind of want to work in the restaurant industry. And we're all a very strange breed of people. But I think gluttons for punishment, for the most part, it is a incredibly hard job is physically demanding, generally long hours long days. And yet, I mean, we work when everybody else is off. So you don't go to a restaurant, generally, between nine and five. I mean, yeah, you might go out for lunch here and there. But usually it's the night times in the evenings and we work late hours, and I'm off today, like my Mondays and Tuesdays are my days off. I haven't seen a weekend, a real weekend in many, many years.

Scott Benner 59:36
And cocaine flows like water.

Nicole 59:37
Am I right? Well, yeah, so not in my restaurant? Of

Scott Benner 59:41
course not. Not yours. No, behind my back, right. Yeah,

Nicole 59:45
I always say that. I'm like, you know, if the restaurant industry has taught me anything, it's that there's a lot of people do cocaine and a lot of people cheat on their partners. Like there's a lot of adultery and there's a lot of cocaine. Just in general in the world, but

Scott Benner 1:00:01
no, well, yeah, there's

Nicole 1:00:02
way more than you thought in restaurants, of course.

Scott Benner 1:00:05
But yeah, I knew it see people because they got the thing going, right. You get to go to work, make money, you eat for free, and you get to have sex and drugs, and nobody knows about it.

Nicole 1:00:17
Right? It's totally normal. It's very, very normal. I used to work with a girl who said she bumped cocaine for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She didn't eat she said she was real thin when she first came to the industry, because that's all she did was cocaine.

Scott Benner 1:00:33
Did you hear when I interviewed the one girl and I asked her what her diet was like, and she said cocaine and and what what alcoholic she say? I can't think tequila she said. I said what's your what's your what's your diet like? And she says, like cocaine and tequila. She was not joking. And I was like, oh. So anyway, so when I'm what? I don't know. I feel so vindicated right now the call? I don't know.

Nicole 1:01:03
Well, then I'm glad I came on to do my job.

Scott Benner 1:01:06
Yeah, no, you really came through for me. This is lovely. I know two people who are chefs. And they're both out of their minds. Yeah.

Nicole 1:01:15
Yeah. Really, the hospitality industry is full of really crazy people. I mean, a lot of people get into it to start because it's good quick money. And you know, lots of people take up serving jobs or jobs when they're in high school and, and putting themselves through college or university but the the lifers the people that stay in the industry for life. Were were a special breed. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:01:36
Not not like you worked at a diner in 11th grade for a summer or something like that.

Nicole 1:01:40
Yeah, no, no, we're talking the Yeah, the people that do it

Scott Benner 1:01:43
for for life, so then they Adderall must be huge to

Nicole 1:01:46
again, maybe not not so much in my experience, but I again, like I said, I really stayed out of the drug scene. So yeah, I know that I've been around a lot of people that have but I it just was never anything that was tempting.

Scott Benner 1:01:57
No drugs for you. But you. You drink like it's a profession. Yeah, yeah, I still do. I

Nicole 1:02:03
drink a lot of alcohol. But I think I, again, I kind of attribute the drug fear back to the hallucinating as a kid. So I was never interested in dabbling. I mean, my ex husband loved mushrooms. And he was like, you know, it'd be so fun if we could get high on mushrooms together. And I always said, No, I don't. Why on earth would I want to hallucinate on purpose? I mean, I did it so often, when I was little that, I just can't imagine that it would be a pleasant experience.

Scott Benner 1:02:30
Yeah, I I'm starting to believe that. It's a very small number of people who aren't doing something altering seriously. And not not a judgement, by the way, just to just I'm starting to think that it's a thing we keep quieter than people give us credit for keeping quiet. It's just, you know, very, very interesting. Would you consider like your consumption of alcohol is it is as grand as it was in college or no, now?

Nicole 1:03:00
I Yep. Yeah, it is. So in a bit in a different way. So I, I drink every day, I come home from work and have a glass of wine or two, or a bottle every day.

Scott Benner 1:03:15
Sometimes I fill the bathtub, and I get in with a straw. And I know my bath is over when the wine is gone.

Nicole 1:03:25
But that said when I was in university, like my consumption was a lot but it was a lot, you know, at a time and I would I could get faced and blackout drunk and I wouldn't even think about it. That was that was my level of intoxication that those days don't happen anymore. It's not like I'm stumbling around the living room at night. Singing into my wineglass. You know what I mean? I enjoy

Scott Benner 1:03:48
sweet care. Can anyone hear this?

Nicole 1:03:51
I mean, don't get me wrong. If any of my friends listen to this episode. They're like, we've seen that version of you. And yeah, she does still exist. Don't pretend like you're all high and uppity and you know,

Scott Benner 1:04:02
but not grown that not an angry not angry when you're drunk though.

Nicole 1:04:07
No, not anymore.

Scott Benner 1:04:08
Not anymore.

Nicole 1:04:09
Well, maybe more of you trucks husband. I definitely was but no, not I generally don't get angry.

Scott Benner 1:04:15
Nicole, I think it's incumbent upon me to ask you if you've considered therapy.

I am in therapy. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. For sure. Of course. What Scott, you don't understand? I'm way better.

Nicole 1:04:33
No, no, no, there's definitely a therapist there.

Scott Benner 1:04:35
And so when you're talking to the therapist, you said earlier you couldn't pinpoint what happened. But do you just not want to share it with me and you know what it is? Or do you really not know? It's okay, if you really

Nicole 1:04:45
don't know, I really don't know what happened. Like and I've said that a couple of weeks ago to my partner I was like, I don't know whether they're, you know, I'm I really do believe that I live a life that points towards trauma of some kind, but I really don't know what it is Yeah, I mean, there's a lot there. There's a lot that I am angry and resentful for. But I think a lot of it happened kind of older. And while I was already an adult, my dad pieced out at 18. He was done with me at that point, we had a big falling out and, and then that was the end of my relationship with him. So we reconnected a couple of years ago. It's certainly not the relationship that a father and daughter should have. But again, I was 18 when it happened. So I think, you know, there's different forms, but I can't I can't figure out what happened when I was little little that would have pointed towards it.

Scott Benner 1:05:41
So I mean, is it as simple like, is it what they call daddy issues? Did you feel abandoned?

Nicole 1:05:46
Oh, I mean, I said yes. As a young adult and up until, yeah, I'll definitely definitely I had a good relationship with my dad. It was a really hurtful thing for him to leave. Yeah, it did. It made me really upset for many years.

Scott Benner 1:06:00
Well, I mean, I think that's what you're mad about my call? Yeah, maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's it. Was your mom called to live with? Like, did you feel like you got left with the wrong person?

Nicole 1:06:13
No, no, not at all. Just my mom was always the caregiver. I mean, I remember my like I said, my mom was always the one at home when we were little and not. She was clearly the the better parent, she was the one that was she was clearly they definitely did not want to end up in my dad

Scott Benner 1:06:35
call. Are you letting us hear like 20% of your personality?

Nicole 1:06:43
Yes, I was gonna censor myself on this podcast. There's probably a bunch that could come out if we had more time. Maybe I should pour a glass of wine now and then you'll really see the true meat.

Scott Benner 1:06:54
Does your father work in the restaurant? No, Cody. Yeah,

Nicole 1:07:00
yeah, definitely.

Scott Benner 1:07:02
I'm getting it. I'm getting out. Okay. You know, I was thinking recently, if I shouldn't do a couple of episodes with people who are drunk Endor high. Like, like, tell them like you have to be altered to do the episode.

Nicole 1:07:18
I'm not gonna lie when I was getting ready to do this. And remember, I said at the beginning, I'm feeling a little nervous. The thought of having a glass of wine before we sat down and really did cross my mind. It's a little early in the day for that. And I didn't want to be shit faced by the time the kids come home from school.

Scott Benner 1:07:33
Can I ask an insensitive question? Yes. Do you think you're an alcoholic? Oh, yes. 100%. Okay. And are you in treatment for that? No, no.

Nicole 1:07:45
Okay. Well, I own a restaurant. I don't know if you caught that part.

Scott Benner 1:07:49
So are you trying to tell me that? This is a common place situation in your world? Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So, we're trying to are we trying to build the picture here that certain, I do agree that certain kinds of people go into certain kinds of industries, they they're drawn to them for, like, you know, for probably obvious reasons that we're not going to sit here and break down. So you're in that industry to begin with? I mean, because you went right away to college. And I don't know if you realize it, because it's so normal to me, you're like, I'm gonna go to college, and I'm gonna drink a lot. Like that was the plan. There are people who don't do that. But you you wouldn't think that you would think that. Everyone does that. Right?

Nicole 1:08:30
It's funny, because, again, I've heard when you talk, because you're not a drinker at all.

Scott Benner 1:08:35
No, you've had more. You've had more alcohol. You've had more alcohol. I would say this weekend, I've had my Yeah.

Nicole 1:08:44
Right. And that to me, just is is like, I don't understand it. Yeah, alcohol was, I guess, I suppose probably pretty prevalent my whole life. It was very common for my dad to drink. It was very even, you know, common for my mom to drink, not excessively for either of them. But alcohol was always around. Yeah. family functions when we were young, always there. Like I said, my dad hadn't been around for many years. And then when we finally reconnected, he and my sister and I sat down for dinner. And he's like, I just kind of want to get this all out of the way. He didn't really he wasn't very close with his family, either growing up, abandoned by his parents at a pretty young age. And he, so he didn't, I mean, I remember his mother as a kid, but not not being close with her or anything. So I guess he joined one of those like ancestry.com, or whatever they are, where you find out who all of your relatives are based on the DNA test. And so he discovered that his father had actually fathered up lots of children all over the country. Oh, and was all of a sudden exposed to all of these relatives. And he said, at that point, he goes, I've learned a lot about our family and our family history. I need you to understand our side of the family will die from self inflicted wounds. So alcohol addiction, cigarettes, drug addictions, things like that, that either will deteriorate your body or will, you know, outright kill you. That's, that's how we die. That's how this side of the family goes.

Scott Benner 1:10:21
Nicole, can I say something? Yes, we remember earlier, like an hour ago, when we were talking about how your doctor set up expectations for you and you follow them. Don't let that happen with this. There's no way people die. That's not true. There's there's things that people teach each other. And people have tendencies, but you can go against your tendencies. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. Don't let somebody tell you that this is what happens. We have heart attacks in our 40s. Or we're all drunk or we're all this. It doesn't need to be that way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen, I'm not judging you. You can jump in with both feet if you want to. And it's cool with me. I honestly don't care what anybody does. I really, you know, I say that around eating with diabetes. And I wonder if people recognize I mean that for everything. Do not care what you do. It's fine. And I don't mean that, like, go ahead, do the wrong thing. I don't care. I mean, I think living let live I think, I think that everyone has a story that you don't know, and that everyone has things that they need, want desire, lean on, etc. And you can't judge them. And nobody, you know, you wouldn't want anybody judging you with the weird thing. You don't I mean, like, I'm sure right now, there's someone listening. It goes, this girl drinks too much. That person is probably selling pictures of their feet on the internet. So like, don't judge me, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's a by the way, I saw this boy. You know, those videos. There was that video, this one kid used to run up to people in like, $300,000 cars and be like, Oh, my God, I love your car. What do you do for a living? He was trying to get out. Right? You know, somebody came along and made these other videos. That was that where the guy is like, How much money do you have in your savings account? Something like that. And he goes up to this one kid. And I just want to say, I'm not judging him. But I didn't look at this kid and think this kid is a mover and a shaker. Like I you know, like he was, he was, slovenly, would be a way I would put it. I think he he maybe could have done a set up. He was uncapped. Anyway, if Sasquatch was a person, like he could play him in a movie, and the guy's like, How much money do you have in your savings account? And it's just something like $90,000 which I'm not gonna lie shocked me. And I was like, Huh, why? And he says, What do you do for a living? And this kid goes, I saw pictures of my feet on the internet.

Nicole 1:12:44
Oh my god.

Scott Benner 1:12:45
I was like, I am trying way too. I'm trying

Nicole 1:12:51
to say it like I think we're doing this wrong. You know, I worked really really hard for really not a lot of money.

Scott Benner 1:12:58
barely enough to buy wine.

Nicole 1:13:01
For my wife

Scott Benner 1:13:03
took the wine bill out would you own a summer house somewhere?

Nicole 1:13:08
Oh, I probably could buy now. Probably could I'm not gonna lie.

Scott Benner 1:13:13
Sweetheart. I gotta ask you a question. Where in Ontario are you? Are you more in like the Toronto we part of you more in the lake? Manitoba part?

Nicole 1:13:21
No, I'm more so our outside of Toronto. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:13:25
Trying to truck Toronto. Trying to get you to Toronto? Well, I love the Toronto. I tried to explain to my wife one day I'm like, so many Canadians put the like an hour before the show, and they don't read their Trump dough. And she's like, that's not how you say it. I wish you guys knew how my wife's personality of mine are not the same. So I'm like, I'm not saying that. That's how you say it. I'm saying that's how they say it. And she's like, that's not how you say it. I'm like, Oh my God. We're caught in a circle here.

Nicole 1:13:54
Like it's just a friend of mine used to laugh at me. She was from the from New York. And I said something one time she goes, Oh my God, you're so Canadian. I said, What are you talking about? It's just like, you just had a boot. And I said, What are you? What do you mean? I don't say a boo. None of us say we're not going to boot. That's not how we talk. She goes it is how you talk. Again, and really so yeah, we just say a boo.

Scott Benner 1:14:19
Nicole, I don't know. I can't judge you. I honestly, if I were to say water. I'd be like, why is that? Why is my mouth doing that? So I can't make fun of you. You say a boot if you want to. You know it's interesting. I've been sharing this with a lot of people. I've been making the after darks lately. I gotta tell you a secret. I hate that they're called after dark. Why is that? I don't think there's anything wrong with this conversation.

Nicole 1:14:49
Well, it's funny you say that because I've had I've told a few people that I was that I had this call scheduled with you today and that it was going to be an after dark episode and they go well, why is it Hold that. And I've said, Well, I think generally it's not, you know, children appropriate and because there's so many kids that listen to your podcast, that maybe that's why, and but I had a few people say that like, what are you going to talk about that you wouldn't say in front of a child? And that's so inappropriate? That's so wildly inappropriate?

Scott Benner 1:15:20
No, tell them I agree. Yeah, no, I've

Nicole 1:15:22
had a few people say, I don't understand the after dark thing that

Scott Benner 1:15:26
I don't either. It's because I think I'm doing it for like, the one person who will look up from their Bible while they're listening to this and send me a note that says, you know, you can't I wish you'd flagged it differently. Yeah. And you can't you can't you can't let somebody talk about drinking like this and not let me know that's going to happen. Right? And I don't find personally, there's two people here talking to you at the moment. There's the bonds. No, I'm just kidding. There's the person that makes the podcast, and the person I am if this wasn't what I did, and the person I am doesn't want them to be called anything. The person who makes the podcast knows that if I don't call them something, then people will complain to me. And I

Nicole 1:16:14
do but do people. Yeah. Yeah. Are you really Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:16:19
get complaints about them. So not a lot. But enough that, you know, I get yelled at sometimes. Because, like, I mean, honestly, you say that you will, you're not going to hear a lot of podcasts seriously talk about drinking the way we did, and yet be so jovial about it at the same time, but But it's, but it's not a comedy thing, where we're just like, ignoring the fact that you shouldn't be drinking that much wine. Like, you know, it's interesting, too. You know it right?

Nicole 1:16:49
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, it's, for a long time, I tried to convince myself that that wasn't, you know, the person I was because I don't have mine at breakfast. And because I don't, you know, I don't have to drink every second of every day. I'm definitely not an alcoholic. But no, I also recognize that like, when you're when your mind immediately thinks of alcohol as the solution for stress or fear nerves, then yeah, your your brain is, is geared for something different. And I'm not saying that, you know, it can't be helped or fixed.

Scott Benner 1:17:24
Does it feel like if you had a food thing, like if every time you got upset you ate? Or if every time you felt stressed, you ate you would see this as the same thing?

Nicole 1:17:33
Yeah, I mean, I even think about, like smokers. And you know, how many times people that smoke cigarettes would say, you know, if I get stressed out at work, they go, Well, do you want to go and have a cigarette? Oh, no, I don't actually I don't want to smoke.

Scott Benner 1:17:48
I would like a big gulp of

Nicole 1:17:53
glass of wine, that would be my solution right

Scott Benner 1:17:54
now. But I'm gonna say something that I don't know if people think about all the time. Society is tenuous. And it's being held together a little bit with, you know, duct tape and spit just a little. And if you took away cigarettes, and alcohol, and a number of other drugs from society, I think in about a week and a half, we'd be in the streets stabbing each other with whatever we could find. And so, yeah, and there are plenty of people like I'm going to tell you right now, everything you've explained to me about, about your desire to drink, I understand what you're saying. I have literally no personal context for it at all. I can't as a person, like as a as just an individual. I do not know what you're talking about. I don't understand that life gets hard and you want to drink. I don't I don't I don't. I just I'm lucky that I don't feel that way. And I think I'm very aware of that. But I get it. I like intellectually, I understand everything you're saying. And yeah, I don't judge it at all. Like, but I really think it's just the case. You know, I think some people, they're, they're wired one way and some people are wired another way. And it doesn't make say

Nicole 1:19:06
like, I have an addictive personality or I have you know, addictive tendencies. I do believe that people can, can be that way. I can start my day without a cup of coffee. I need the coffee. I if I don't have the coffee, I'll be very sick without the coffee. I'm just as addicted to coffee as I am no alcohol. I have to tell you, it's a little bit more socially acceptable. In my mind,

Scott Benner 1:19:27
I have people are gonna laugh at me. I have the same arguments in my mind about little weird things all the time. For instance, almost three times a week, I think, shouldn't I just drink a cup of coffee to see what it's like?

Speaker 1 1:19:42
But right like, shouldn't I just go get coffee and try it? And I think yeah, I should. I should just go try that. And then I never do. Or someone gave us the edibles once as a gift. And they sat in the house so long that they got hard went bad and we have to throw them away. Right? But what we were like We should try these. And everyone is like, yeah. And then it just never happened. Never got there. It doesn't make any sense. Like I, I am so understanding of like, weed culture, that if I were to get a vape pen, I know which one I would get, like, I've looked into it that much, I will never, I will never do it.

Scott Benner 1:20:21
And I don't know why. Like, I am almost as conflicted about it as you are. Except for when I stop and think about what the like when I think about weed as an example, I think about like pain, like my back or something like that. And I think well, if that would help with that, then I would, I would be very interested in that because I don't listen, if you are a person listening right now. And you somehow see a difference between going to a doctor and getting a compound through a pharmacy. And you know, a guy in a restaurant taking a bump of cocaine to get through a thing. Like, I think you're being a little like, puritanical. If you're thinking about that it's all the same thing. It's just coming through different directions. Yeah, and so I have no feeling that like, oh, I shouldn't try that. I should probably, but then I just don't. But I'm not being held back by any fear or guilt or anything. It just, it's not enough. For me. It's almost like gambling. Like to me, like, I see how it would be fun to bet on something. But then I'm like, I don't care enough to actually do it. To actually get there. Yeah, like, it's just, it's, it's just the strangest, it's weird to be me in this situation, because I am totally open to it. Like, even like the idea of like, micro dosing mushrooms. Like I hear people talking about that. And I think yeah, but that makes a lot of sense. You know, and then, like, if you were anxious, or depressed or, or anything like that, and something like that would help you. I think that's great. I, you know, I just I don't know, I could never saying could never is the wrong phrasing. i It doesn't, I'm not drawn in that direction, I think is the the honest way to say it.

Nicole 1:22:06
It's just it's not in your vocabulary. No,

Scott Benner 1:22:09
I'm drawn in the direction of my back hurting and me being okay with it. Right, but Right. But for some reason, I did make a doctor's appointment for a couple of weeks from now with an integrative medicine person. And I am going to go in and say, Look, here are the things that I'm like physically unhappy about. I would not rule out anything. Tell me what you think. What do you recommend? Yeah, because I don't, I wouldn't, you know, I hurt. I shouldn't say this out loud. Yeah, I can't say this on here. Okay. There is a drug. I can talk around it. Okay, that people use to cut weight. Yes, that a lot of it's and it's not insulin. I want to be really clear. It's yeah, okay. Yeah. And I could easily, like, take it, right. And I heard somebody talking about it. And I know that works. And I know there's no like real weird side effects from it. I was still like, Man, I probably won't do that. I'll probably just die overweight. And then. But then, but like, think about the reverse idea of it. Like there's that I have access to this tiny little thing, that if I, if I took one of them a day for a few weeks, I probably lose an amount of weight that would benefit my heart. And yet, I'm like, well, that's not what it's for. Which is ridiculous. But if I go to that doctor, and that doctor would tell me here, I'm gonna give you these pills. Take them for this many weeks, and I think you'll lose 20 pounds. I'd go okay. You would do it. Yeah, isn't it? It's very strange, right?

Nicole 1:23:52
Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It really is. It's so and it's funny. It really is funny to me. What? Yeah, what people are willing to do to their bodies.

Scott Benner 1:24:02
If someone says it's okay. What's that? Sorry if someone says it's okay.

Nicole 1:24:06
Yeah, because the doctor tells you you should. Many years ago I was I did take medication for anxiety. I had. Again, I don't know if you've talked to anybody with this. Have you ever heard of trichotillomania

Scott Benner 1:24:20
get the data here? You made that up? I know where you made that up. Don't start lying now. You've been honest. So far trick.

Nicole 1:24:30
Hello, mania.

Scott Benner 1:24:31
I found that hold on. Yeah, I'm assuming this is a website that you made. Just it's a disorder that involves recurrent irresistible urges to pull out body hair.

Nicole 1:24:43
Uh huh. So I had this again, from the time I was very young, and growing up, and I finally had enough of that and I went to a doctor and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. Please help me stop. I'd like to see a psychiatrist or I'd like to see a therapist. And I don't want to do the hair pulling anymore. And he said, No, no, no, it's just an anxiety problem here. Just take this pill. And he put me on these anxiety meds. And I went on them and I went, like, and they mellowed me right out. And I felt super mellow all the time. And then after a little while, I thought, so funny. I don't feel any, any stress and any anxiety, but I also don't feel general, like happiness anymore. I just, I was so mellowed, that there was no that it eliminated the extreme highs and the extreme lows. So as much as I wanted to get rid of those lows, I've missed the highs that were coming. If that makes sense. I went off the meds. And I thought afterwards like again, it seems so it seems so normal to just yeah, here's the meds just take them. It's just these pills that can all be solved with pills. And it was and that was his solution to it and really know what I needed was to, to see a counselor to see a therapist, like there was more to it than than not, you can't just take a pill to make it all go away. I mean, you can you can and doctors love to prescribe them. But we also, you know, again, there the there has to be a certain level of responsibility that we take on ourselves. Great point.

Scott Benner 1:26:15
Ever depressed. Do you have OCD?

Nicole 1:26:19
Yes, and yes, not so much. I mean OCD a little bit, but not really the trick and the trick is like a sign of OCD. But not that aside from that that would be about it. Like again, I there's a lot of like, I don't know if I don't think it's normal. I do a lot of like counting like counting steps counting stairs. Yeah. Numbers, numbers, numbers and depressed. Yeah, depression for sure. Yeah, there's been a lot of that over the years. I have more. I don't take anything for it. Aside from wine.

Scott Benner 1:26:51
Heil. There's a summary here. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is associated with low grade inflammation, neural antibodies or neuro inflammatory autoimmune disorders. In some subsets of OCD patients, autoimmunity is likely triggered by specific bacterial, viral or parasitic agents overlapping surfaces. I mean, the hair pulling disorder which I'm not going to trick a trill till amania trichotillomania, trichotillomania, that sounds like something from the seventh day song. Do you ever eat the hair?

Nicole 1:27:28
No, no, no, never, never like that.

Scott Benner 1:27:33
Is it? Can you vibe with what I'm reading here like that? There's this as you reach for the hair. There's like this tension that builds up. And then there's a release after you pull it out. Yeah. And it makes you feel better.

Nicole 1:27:45
Yeah. See, but for for half of a second. And then it's gone. Like and then it disappears just as quickly as it was there.

Scott Benner 1:27:54
The alleviation disappears. Yeah. Correct. So it's not actually helpful.

Nicole 1:27:59
I think that's where it becomes like an obsessive disorder is where you it's this obsessive thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it, and the, like, the, the, I think that's how they describe the like, OCD is the obsessive this of it to the to the compulsion of doing it, like

Scott Benner 1:28:20
if you need the release, then and it only lasts for a split second, then you got to keep doing it to make the release again. I mean, honestly,

Nicole 1:28:26
it never ever fixes whatever's causing the anxiety in the first place.

Scott Benner 1:28:29
Yeah, I mean, even like, just transfer that idea over to smoking you brought up smoking or right you smoke the cigarette, the nicotine hits you. It gives you that pop, right, yeah. And then it lasts. It lasts a little while and then it wears off. You have another cigarette. That's the same right? It's really this idea. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. All right.

Nicole 1:28:48
And again, I think like same with the caffeine, same with it, many of them again, same as a lot of the medications that you can take like eventually it wears off you have to and you have to keep feeding and feeding and feeding.

Scott Benner 1:28:59
But you're lying. Is that hard drugs?

Nicole 1:29:01
No, I've never done hard drugs. Interesting. You don't know why never. I don't know why. Yeah, I just never had an intro you know, I I never had the interest like I said I never wanted the I never wanted the hallucinations like any of the hallucinogenic drugs scared me really scared me I just couldn't imagine ever putting my body through that again. And so then I like I just I think I just never dabbled with any of it it just it's not like I wasn't around it it's not like I didn't know people that did it but

Scott Benner 1:29:32
no, cuz you're around it all the time is my point.

Nicole 1:29:36
Yeah, exactly. Like it's very very prevalent. I could easily get my hands on it if I wanted to almost anything I imagine. My partner's a weed smoker I'm sitting next to at the kitchen table is is a bag of weed and rolling papers. Like if I wanted to, I could smoke a joint right now and I just I literally have no interest on

Scott Benner 1:29:53
it. Hey, this is gonna seem like a right term. But did you like the bear on Hulu? Have you haven't seen it? to restaurants.

Nicole 1:30:01
Yes and no, it was very uncomfortable for me. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:30:04
I'm dying to know why. It was.

Nicole 1:30:07
It's a very real look into the restaurant industry, which is wonderful. But it's there is a bit of like, there was a bit of discomfort in the stress and anxiety that he was going through. You know, when I get home at night, I don't generally want to think about restaurants anymore. Sure. Like, and if there are a lot of those shows like that restaurant impossible, the bear, even the Gordon Ramsay one where he goes into a Restaurant Makeover, whatever it was, those they really do they kind of make me uncomfortable.

Scott Benner 1:30:41
No, I would imagine I just yeah, you're saying it's very, it's a incredibly realistic look at it.

Nicole 1:30:46
Very, very much. So yeah. Yeah, I, I don't know. It's a really well done show. I think I think we got through maybe four or five episodes. And it was a really well done show. But yeah, it just a bit too much of a real look into what it was there was another movie recently released called boiling point. And where they follow the chef who really does reach his boiling point on a busy Friday night, and I watched that with such extreme discomfort that was over. And so many people were like, Oh, that movie was amazing. It was so good. And I was like, Oh, God, it just felt so real. So real in an uncomfortable in an uncomfortable way?

Scott Benner 1:31:28
Is the I think it just has to be that way, like a restaurant because of the the pressure and the speed and everything, or do you think it's more about the people that get attracted to doing the work and how they react in that setting?

Nicole 1:31:43
Right. Yeah, I think it's probably a bit of both. I think because you really, I mean, restaurants are like, fairly, highly unpredictable. There's a lot that, you know, sometimes the restaurant business will kind of slap you in the face in terms of volume of business volume of sales, you know, it would be lovely to think that every day I go in and deal with the exact same thing, but it's never ever like that. You're dealing with so many people and so many personalities. And it really is, you know, an intense, a highly intensive stressful job for short bursts of time. You know, you but I think at the same time, there's people that enjoy that. That stress and that

Scott Benner 1:32:27
yes, I was gonna ask you Do you like it? Yeah.

Nicole 1:32:31
Oh, yeah, I do. I do. I love it. I love the hospitality industry, like driving a wrench and doing anything else with my life. It's

Scott Benner 1:32:37
like driving a racecar. You think? Like, you're like, everything's good. We're going really fast and slow down. And now we're gonna go around a corner. We might hit something, but we didn't like is that Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. So interesting. The call you have been one of my favorite conversations so far this year. Thank you.

Nicole 1:32:51
Well, thank you. It's only February. So give it time.

Scott Benner 1:32:55
cut yourself short right away. You're like, we're only a month and a half. And I cleared No, I mean, I my first episode was with a paraplegic who rides a bicycle and has type one diabetes is pretty interesting

Nicole 1:33:06
now. Yes. Very, very interesting. I remember that episode. Was that this year?

Scott Benner 1:33:09
Yeah. It was the first episode of 2023. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

Nicole 1:33:13
that was a great episode.

Scott Benner 1:33:14
Thank you. See, I really appreciate how much you listen at the end here, because we're done. Because this was terrific. There's no more you need to give. And plus, I'm assuming you have to drink. But

Nicole 1:33:26
it's now almost 1pm. So you're right.

Scott Benner 1:33:30
To be funny, but but can you just for a minute, explain to me why you've I mean, you've been the show's been on for nine years. Like this is the ninth calendar year, I'm making this podcast. Have you really been listening that long to it? 2015 2015. I started.

Nicole 1:33:48
Yeah, if not 2015. It was shortly thereafter. I think that I've listened to every episode. I really do. There's been a few recently that I haven't if they were, you know, if I didn't feel like they would be relevant to me in some way. But for the most part. Yeah. I really have been listening that long. It's amazing.

Scott Benner 1:34:05
I'm glad I thank you. I'm glad you like it. Yeah,

Nicole 1:34:10
I've been an i i You know, I know a lot of it's funny. I do have diet type one diabetics that I talk to on a pretty frequent basis, I generally recommend the podcast. So yeah, I have been listening to it for a long time.

Scott Benner 1:34:23
Thank you. Well, I'll tell you why it makes me feel good, is because you just said you watch the bear. And it made you very uncomfortable, because it showed you a part of something you didn't want to see that you already dealt. Right. But yeah, you're listening to this and not having that same reaction. So I feel good about that. You know,

Nicole 1:34:39
what I think the biggest part of it is, is that and I think this about a lot of the Facebook groups and I generally try to you know, when I see people struggling with it, I always say like, I think the biggest help that you can find for yourself is another type one to talk to. And like I said I have a few of those that I see on almost to daily basis where we can, you know, vent and grief to one another. But if you don't have that access, and I mean, social media is helpful as well. But you have to know how to filter out a lot of social media. But I think the podcast does give an opportunity to listen to people who understand who are in the same scenario, and kind of give it a sense of like community and, and normalcy. If that makes sense. Those

Scott Benner 1:35:25
do not. Um, yeah, I'm so happy to hear that. I really am. You were terrific. I really do appreciate you doing this. And thank you.

Nicole 1:35:34
I appreciate you having me. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:35:36
think we should just turn the whole podcast into like, after dark and then then we'll lose the after dark thing. Yeah,

Nicole 1:35:42
yeah. Like it can people that's just normal. Yeah, it's just normal life.

Scott Benner 1:35:46
Yeah. Well, I think Well, honestly, because I believe it is. I agree with you. I think that it's an odd thing. To say that something anything, forget it, like the people wearing black T shirts, right? It's so prevalent in the world. And yet, if you didn't ever wear a black T shirt for you to say like, oh, that's, you know, that's wrong. You know, like, so it doesn't? In my mind, it doesn't matter to me, if you're, if you're using something to get through the day, whether it's caffeine or nicotine or alcohol, or you know, something else. You can't, if you're not one of those people, you can't sit back and judge the others. I mean, a because it's just so it's so prevalent, that I don't know, when you stop thinking about it as a problem and just start seeing it as apparently a necessity.

Nicole 1:36:39
Do you think it like, you can liken it to? How many times have you spoken to a UN I don't maybe not yourself, but for for myself, and you know, there's families that come into the restaurant. And sometimes I like I said at the beginning of the show, I swear a lot like, you know, I'll drop an F bomb here and there, I was actually pretty good. I think

Scott Benner 1:37:00
today I didn't I curse more than

Nicole 1:37:03
right? So I but how many times do you swear in front of in front of a kid? And then you go oh, sorry. You know, and the parent often looks at you and goes, like, they don't hear that word at home. Like, we all swear we all do it. Why? Why do we censor it out? It happens?

Scott Benner 1:37:20
Is it the concern that? Because you said we were joking about the kid who sold the pictures of his feet? And like saying we tried too hard. But is it the concern that what if we all tried to sell pictures of our feet? And then who the hell would make money to pay for the pictures of our feet? Like, is it that feeling? Do you think like, if we were all like, if everyone was doing coke to get through the day, they would not turn into? Like, you don't I mean? Like we need a balance of people. And I think that's obvious. Like I think there needs to be all kinds of people there, obviously, are all kinds of people, and you shouldn't try to eliminate any of them, or get them to stop doing what they do. My point is that you should stop judging what they do.

Nicole 1:38:02
Well, and I was just going to say, I think we it's it's thinking that we should all stop judging, but at the same time recognizing that we all do. And I think the reason why a lot of these things go on talked about is because you never know what somebody's going to judge you for. Yeah, man. Yeah, what's that? Sorry?

Scott Benner 1:38:23
You don't want to get spun back around on you?

Nicole 1:38:25
Yeah, yeah. Nobody, nobody wants to, to be judged for for the wrong reason, or for something that they I mean, again, it's pretty open, you can be pretty open and out there with people that you assumer are going to be okay with it. But if I had a group of of churchgoers come into the restaurant after church on Sunday mornings, I probably am not going to be dropping the F bomb around them. You know what I mean?

Scott Benner 1:38:51
No, yeah, nothing and nothing wrong with being respectful of other people's, like, situations to you know what he mean? Like, I'm not saying you should be like, I mean, listen, I, personally, I'm thinking of who I know, smokes a lot of weed. And I have no trouble in the world with what they do. And yet, I was somewhere with them recently. And they were doing it and it kind of imposed on everybody else. And I thought, well, that's not okay. But I would have thought the same way if they would have smoked a cigarette in that situation, or I guess if they would have I don't know, I guess if they would have done anything in that situation. That somehow could have been an imposition other people. There's a balance in there. And just, I don't know, I'm just I think what I'm saying is you have to recognize that somebody's doing any number of the things that we spoke about today is not an indication that they are deficient or broken, or anything like that. We should stop treating people that way. Right. You know what I mean? Just let everybody do what they need to do.

Nicole 1:39:49
We're all just trying to cope. Life is short.

Scott Benner 1:39:53
Yeah, that's it. All right. This was great. Nicole, you were terrific. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Hold on one second. Good time. Oh, did you? Yeah, good. Yeah. Did Oh good. Glad it didn't make you anxious nervous? Or did it make you feel like you wanted to drink while we were talking? Or did it make you feel? No, no, not at all. At all. Are you saying I'm better than your therapist? Nicole? What do you think? What are you paying that therapist is at 40. I know. Yeah, a lot of money. Why don't you send it to me and we'll just talk every week,

Nicole 1:40:25
once a week, but I don't I don't even see her once a week. So that's okay. You're off the hook for that. Alright. Thanks. Yep.

Scott Benner 1:40:41
Nicole was terrific. Was she not? Thank you so much, Nicole, for telling your story. And thank you to Omni pod for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Is it really gonna be a giant truck that goes by while I'm making this good? Omni pod for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Please go to Omni pod.com/juicebox to learn more. See if you're eligible for that free trial and get started with the Omni pod. That truck is so far from here and it's still loud. What the You people doing? Your cars don't need to be that loud. She's contour next.com forward slash juicebox. Get yourself a contour next gen blood glucose meter. They're accurate. They're amazing. And you deserve accuracy. I deserve some peace and quiet while I'm trying to make this podcast. But you know, unlike you, I might not be able to get what I deserve. You can just go Oh, mother, dog. Are you serious? Is this how this is gonna go? Alright, I gotta go. I'm done. I can't take this anymore. Obviously, I'm guessing you don't know that word, but whatever. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Don't forget to hit the links in the show notes or juicebox podcast.com Don't forget to find the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, and check out bold beginnings. My god defining diabetes the protip series, support the podcast listen to some episodes. Download it. Are you subscribed? Please listen, look what I'm going through to make you this podcast. Please tell me you're subscribed. If you're not subscribed, I swear to god