Transcript:
Welcome to Episode 27; Is CBD a Drug? This is an episode that was inspired by many of you reaching out asking about the risks associated with taking CBD if addiction is a concern. I am really excited to share this episode because the irony of it being the 27th episode must mean something. 27 has always been my number. I am not sure if you are a numbers person or not but everything in my life revolves around the number 27. I look at the clock when its 9:27 or 1:27 every single time. My birthday is on October 27th which is in just a few days if you are listening to this when it goes live which means the 27th episode is unintentionally being published on the week of my favorite 27 of all 27’s. I’ll just say it. I freaking love my birthday. I never grew out of the excitement except as I have gotten older I love it for more reasons. I just think it is so darn amazing to be living and breathing and expanding as a human being and to celebrate an entire new year of life is so special. I bake myself a cake and full on celebrate myself the same way I celebrate my children and oh mama - if you have one takeaway from me ever - do this! Love yourself the way you want your people to love you and it leaves zero space for anything less.
Anyway, this episode is a good one. Especially because this is something my husband Ty and I personally experienced. A fear and hesitancy toward CBD because Ty is a recovering addict and we just assumed it was too close to marijuana to be safe. When CBD started showing up everywhere in 2018 my husband asked me about it. He saw that one of his friends who is a professional runner was sponsored by a topical CBD and he asked me what I thought about it. I didn’t take a second to answer. I knew it was a solid no. Of course we would never bring any type of substance into our home because I made an inaccurate assumption.
Fast forward to March of 2019. I was pregnant with our fourth child and CBD was brought up again but in a context I would have never imagined. We were wrapping up a weekly visit with our midwife and she lovingly asked if I had any questions. I asked if she had any recommended alternatives to ibuprofen. Ty is an avid athlete and had been taking ibuprofen daily basically since we met. I knew it wasn’t good for him but could never find a good alternative that actually helped him so I thought it was worth asking her.
Without hesitating she said “oh yeah! Have you ever used CBD? Its like magic and is better than ibuprofen!” I remember Ty and I looking at each other out of the corner of our eyes in our secret language that said “hell no! Has she lost her mind?”
She knows Ty’s history - I mean she is basically family after being such a big part of our life with all of our sweet babes. So before we even had time to answer out loud, as if she heard our unspoken language, she said “I know you are in recovery, Ty, but CBD is not a drug. It is very different than marijuana. You know - CBD comes from a different plant. The difference between marijuana and CBD is like a portobello mushroom and a hallucinogenic mushroom. You just have to know exactly that to look for.”
She went on to tell us all about those important things which I will share with you in just a minute but first, I have to tell you what she told me. “You know, Sarah, almost all of my mamas take CBD because it helps stabilize your hormones and the mamas who take it have reported that they don’t experience the extreme highs and lows postpartum that most women experience. You should start taking it now too!”
This is when she really grabbed my attention. I literally felt like smoke was coming out of my ears because she was completely blowing my mind. She was telling my husband who is in recovery and me who was 8 months pregnant that it was okay to take this thing that I had so strongly categorized as a drug and she was telling me it was perfectly safe and even healthy to include in both his recovery and in my pregnancy and postpartum!? Then she really blew me away when she nonchalantly threw in that many of her mamas give it to their kids and the kids thrive with it. They are calmer and more content. They sleep better and all around it seems to be a really wonderful thing for everyone.
WHAT!!??
So! I am sharing my personal introduction and experience with CBD because I want you to understand I was exactly where you are. And I want to continue to share here for a minute so you can hear what I learned that literally changed my life. From being passional anti-CBD to being so passionately pro-CBD that I dove head first into the industry and created my own line that I give to my entire family every single day.
The things my midwife told us that were important to look for were:
- Transparency in the company. That it was important to know where the hemp was grown and that it was organic hemp.
- That there were third party tested that proved the CBD was THC free.
She told us it was hard to find and that she was actually on a hunt because the one she had been recommending to all of her mamas went out of business. Which now that I am where I am I totally understand why. It is incredibly hard to have a CBD business. I will tell you more about this in a minute.
So! We left that appointment scratching our heads. We trusted her with our whole hearts. There isn’t a thing she told us that we questioned. Until this. Just because addiction runs so deep in our family that we always lean on the safe side. But I was intrigued so I dove in. I researched CBD for days. This is how my brain works - when I gain an interest in something I am determined to learn everything I can about it. So when I went on walks I listened to podcasts, read books while snuggling my children to sleep and devoured research articles.
I also contacted my naturopath to get his opinion. This is the same miracle man who saved my sons life by teaching us how to rebalance his gut. He said “oh yeah! CBD is a miracle and I have some here!”
After all of my research I learned that my midwife was right. And when I say research this may mean something different than traditional research. Which is actually something I teach in everything I share. I believe the strongest research is compiling everything you can find. The good and the bad. Educate yourself from all angles and then turn inward. After you learn everything there is to learn what do YOU think? What feels right in your body and heart? Because that right there is how we as mamas can make our most powerful judgements and decisions. Learn and then turn inward. Go with what your educated inner voice of wisdom says.
In this case, my voice resonated perfectly with what my midwife and naturopath shared with me. So I went to the naturopath and got the CBD. It was $210 and tasted absolutely horrible but my husband and I committed. And it completely changed our life. Ty stopped needing ibuprofen and I seriously had my strongest postpartum experience of all four of my children. I didn’t have those extreme highs and lows that I did with my first three children.
Now fast forward to my fourth baby being 5 months old. We were traveling in California, about to go down the Baja peninsula and I called my naturopath to order a bottle before we crossed the border. He said he was out and would’t have any for a few weeks. I knew that I never wanted to live without it so I went into a Sprouts and grabbed a bottle. It was a trustworthy brand - one that I felt familiar with and had purchased other supplements and baby products from. Well after opening the bottle I was reading the fine print 5% of ingredients sourced in the United States. I had to throw it away. I could not give this to my family and it was in that moment where I decided that I needed to create my own brand. I was already in the works of creating my line of gut healing products so I added this to the list.
After baja I began my quest. I started touring different manufacturing facilities and found myself in an industry so dark and so ugly. I knew it was important to source a trustworthy CBD but I didn’t know how bad it really was.
You have to understand that CBD went from being basically a nothing industry to a booming billion dollar industry within a very short window of time and greed got the best of a lot of companies. I go deeper into this in episode 6 and 7 so definitely give those a listen but I want to stay on topic here and share with you what I learned about CBD being a drug or not.
CBD comes from the hemp plant and while in is in the same cannabis family as marijuana it is NOT marijuana. The hemp plant does contain a very small amount of THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana. There are three different kinds of CBD you can purchase: Full spectrum, broad spectrum and CBD isolate. Full spectrum means that the THC has been left in the CBD. Broad spectrum means that all the cannabinoids have been left in the CBD except the THC - it has been extracted out. CBD Isolate is the most processed of all and CBD is the only cannabinoid left. So which is the best? Some full spectrum CBD’s actually add in THC from the marijuana plant and for the broad spectrum - you have to be careful. Federal regulation allows you to call CBD broad spectrum if it contains less than .3% THC. What I learned in my search of sources the absolute best quality CBD for my brand is the it is takes really expensive and top of the line manufacturing equipment to extract all of the THC. Most companies are okay excepting the .3% and calling it good but that wasn’t going to cut it for me. If I was going to take it while breastfeeding and support my husband who is a recovering addict in taking it I needed to be certain it was THC free.
THC has been shown to cause growth and developmental delays in children and I just wasn’t okay getting away with what the government says is “fine”.
So my Balance CBD is incredibly expensive for me to source. I know it is $127 a bottle and the is expensive to you as a consumer but I guarantee you - any other brand with equivalent quality would be charging over $300. My goal is to provide you with the best quality that you can trust like I do with giving it to my own family yet keep it as affordable as I can while making enough to keep my business going.
So! As long as you are certain that the CBD you are taking is made from organic US grown hemp and is truly THC free meaning it contains 0.000% and you can easily find the third party test results that prove the purity and absence of THC I know with my whole heart that it is not something that should be feared as being a drug. Or that it will trigger addiction in children. Now that I have taught you a bit about CBD I want to repeat the metaphor my midwife shared. “Saying that CBD and marijuana are the same thing is like saying portobello mushrooms and psychedelic mushrooms are the same thing”. The way your body processes and reacts to CBD is completely different than marijuana. Became they are two very different things. CBD does not get you high. It supports you endocannabinoid system which is a natural system in everyones body that is in charge of helping balance all of your other bodily systems.
CBD is far better for my husband than taking ibuprofen. And it works! And not only that but the reason it works is because it is incredibly healthy for your body. If you are interested in learning more about the endocannabinoid system or what CBD actually does in your body please listen to episode 6 and 7. It is pretty darn amazing and explains exactly why it changed my postpartum experience. These episodes will also answer your questions about how to take it, the most common mistakes people make when taking it and what to make sure of if you have tried CBD and it didn’t work.
Thanks so much for joining me today. Next time I come on I will be a whole year older and I can’t even wait!
