Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Alcohol no longer served Jodi but getting to that conclusion would come with many lessons.

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Jodi grew up in an environment where alcohol was prevalent, so seeing this while growing up, it felt normal to her. When she turned 17 and moved out on her own, she continued the tradition of wine drinking. Always the life of the party, it was difficult for her to resist what she had considered such a good time for so long. Jodi was a go-getter in life, always managing to keep it together just enough to prevent everything from falling apart. As she grew older, alcohol seemed to consistently be a part of her life. When she became a mother, life became even more stressful, and wine became the answer until it became the question. Could her life be better without it? This is Jodi's story on the 'Sober Motivation Podcast. --------------- Follow Jodi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soberflourish/ Order your coffee from Sober Vet Coffee today and use code 'SOBERMOTIVATION' for 10% discount: www.sobervetcoffee.com Follow Sober Motivation on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/ Check out SoberLink: www.soberlink.com/recover  

Welcome to Season 3 of the Subur Motivation Podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible, inspiring, and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible one story at a time. Let's go. Jody grew up in an environment where alcohol was prevalent. So seeing this while growing up, it felt normal to her. When she was 17 and moved out on her own, she continued the tradition of wine drinking.

Always the life at a party was difficult for her to resist what she, had considered such a good time for so long. Jody was a go-getter in life, always managing to keep it together just enough to prevent everything from falling apart. As you were older, alcohol seemed to consistently be part of her life. When she became a mother, life became even more stressful and wine became the answer until it became the question.

Could her life be better without it? This is Jody's story on the Subur Motivation podcast. Subur Motivation is a community of support for our listeners. David, the owner of Sober Vet Coffee, relied on sober motivation as he began his sober journey while stationed overseas during the pandemic. Moving regularly can be a challenge, so building a support system at the base areas can alleviate some of this loneliness with each move. Coming together over coffee has been a great point of connection for him and his community.

Eventually, he found a love of coffee roasting. Sober Vet Coffee offers roasted to order specialty coffee, and 20% of their profits go to organizations that support veterans mental health. Use the discount code sober motivation for 10% off your order today and give them a follow on Instagram, Sober Vet Coffee, and head over to sober vet coffee.com to place your order. Thank you so much, David, for being part of this community, and thank you so much for supporting the show. Getting sober is a lifestyle change, and sometimes a little technology can help.

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Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Jody with us. How are you? I'm good, Brad. How are you? I'm well. Thank you for jumping on here, being patient with a few of the technical difficulties we had getting into it. But I'm excited to hear your story. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Yeah. So how we start every show is what was it like for you growing up?

For me, growing up, I think kind of typical, really. I was brought up in the Midlands in the UK. Mum and dad both really busy with work. They kind of worked opposite shifts. So it was quite rare for them to be in the household. together, was brought up with my brother. We lived in a tiny, tiny little village, not heavily populated. Like I say, in the middle of the countryside. We had a lovely childhood. Nothing really stands out. I don't have many firm memories of my younger days, which I don't know why. I'm absolutely no understanding why, but yeah, nothing really stood out as, I don't know, any sort of traumatic

experience that might have led me into drinking in later life or anything like that. We did have a lot of alcohol around, though. I must admit that it was quite a boozy household. Any excuse for a party. If there was a party, it was always at hours. We'd regularly be in beer gardens at the weekend with our parents, that sort of thing. One of the sort of families that had always got full alcohol cupboard. So yeah, that was generally my really, really early days, just living in the countryside. Nothing like I say, nothing really stood out there. I moved out of home when I was about 17 years old and I moved into a hotel that was probably about three miles away from where I was living. I found that I was just working there quite a lot and it was actually easier just to move

in there rather than kind of biking to and from. So I think can I look on a reflection, probably quite a young age, to move out of home. And yeah, I used to work long shifts. And when we would finish work, we would go and have a few pints in the bar. And I think that's probably where the kind of the boozy kind of element of Jody really started. And we'd finish work on a Friday night and we'd head off to a local town. It was just almost became kind of when you're not working, You put money back into the business that I sat at the bar, drinking a few pints, etc. Fast forward a few years, moved out of there

and moved into one of the local towns where I've always worked, always had a full-time job since I left school, and just kind of became a weekend party girl. And that's generally where the regular drinking kind of happened. When I moved in on my own, and I guess only now when I look upon reflection, I used to drink a bottle of red wine to myself

every evening. And I was, like I say, probably just turned 20. And it's only since I stopped drinking, do I look back now and see that that is not normal behavior for a girl that lives on her own to be drinking a bottle of red wine every single evening? So that was kind of how my weeknights would go and then it would get to the weekend and we would be out. And I would say probably from around the age of about 19 to about 24, those weekends

started to get a little bit hazy. It was kind of started with a few drinks and then we would kind of get into the kind of party drug side of things and that kind of continued every weekend. Now I would get up and I would go to my job every Monday morning never a problem. Didn't even really feel hung over. It's just

what we did. It was very, very normal. So yeah, it was just that I think from that apes there, it just became well I say it just became. It was just part of me. It framed my entire denial from 90, like I say probably from 19 through to 24 until I got with my now husband. So yeah, it was boozy, very, very boozy. And to be honest, not that I've spoken about it much, Brad, but drugs did play

quite a big part for me in that also. So yeah, I think I probably skipped out a few milestones there, but there's a whistle. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a great picture to paint for everybody, though. And that's a very confusing spot to be in, right? Conversation I've had with people in my own story, it's a confusing spot because your life's not falling apart. I feel like the writing is more on the wall when you are hitting these rock bottoms, you're getting arrested, you're getting impaired driving. Consequences are happening. And when you're not having consequences, then this stuff can carry on for like a lot longer and it might not be as apparent that, hey, like our life could be better without it. So you mentioned that too, like drinking a bottle of red wine a night and then on the

weekend kind of turning it up a little bit. Yeah. What was it like for you, though? because I know we talked a little bit before, you know, this gray area drinking in what that looks like. We'll get into that more because I would love to hear more of your perspective on that and how that kind of played a role in your life. But were things coming up? Were there any consequences that you were experiencing? I mean, so up to that point there, that was just the typical thing that we did as the part of growing up, really. A lot of my friends left and went to uni and I would imagine they were drinking as recklessly as I was. that was really just up to the point of where, I don't know, when you sort of say to me, what was it like, kind of what would your childhood like? That was kind of the cutoff point there

where I disconnect maybe from the party girl, Jody, ish, to then getting with my husband and having kids and starting a family and kind of like my older, like almost that next chapter element of it. I did get myself into a lot of tricky situations. I think as the young people do do when they're drinking and they're taking drugs at people's houses. I mean, generally, the party would be at mine, which was never really a good idea either because I used to take my rent from work and I'd put it in kitchen draw and I got access to all of that money. So I would get paid to have the party, would be in my house. And he'd be like, oh, is the party going to end or is Jody going to go and get some money? And that would be an awkward situation. You know what I mean? It was kind of readily

available to me. So then when he came to pay my rent, it wasn't a nice time. Because obviously, I've got to make rent because I've got a job and I've got a roof over my head that I need to maintain. I would never say from an outsider's perspective, you would look and think or she drinks a load of red wine and she does cocaine at all weekend. I don't think anybody ever kind of, from a work perspective ever knew that. My family certainly didn't know that. But we all just kept our shit together. We just all kept it down. We would party hard at a weekend and then we would get stuck into work. And I was successful at work also. It wasn't like I was struggling or just showing up. I was kind of high functioning as well. So I kind of looked back and I think I have a bit of regret

about the situations that I got themselves into. But again, it's so normalized. And the generation that I kind of come from, I'm not sure how old you about, but it was so normal for us to be around so much alcohol all the time and it was almost like it was glamorized by our parents, not intentionally. But my mom, when I was growing up, would always be sat with a drink at nighttime. She was a nurse and then a midwife, so she's always had stressful jobs, always. My dad was a police officer. And when my mom would finish work at night, she would have either four cans of something really strong or a bottle of red wine.

And again, don't get me wrong, there's never any kind of blame laying here at all. But I think maybe there might be a little bit of learned behavior. perhaps there for me to leave home and then naturally just start doing the sort of the same thing. It was kind of what I was just around. And again, that isn't calling my mumma. It was normal behaviour for people, for everybody I knew. That's what their parents did. So I guess not really any sort of red flag moments up to around being 24. I'd say that my drinking probably became more problematic for me following that. So myself and my husband both like to drink together become more apparent now since I've stopped drinking that I've always been the bad influence because he barely touches it now.

But yeah, we've always liked to drink together. Our friends like a party. We've got quite a huge friendship circle and it's great and it's good and we always partied together. But for me, the turning point for me or the difference for me is that my husband can just have one if he wants to. But at the same time, if we get back from a party, he's going to bed. I'm opening a bottle of wine. I've had enough. I've absolutely had enough. But in my planning, in that kind of like forward thinking, and when we get back from the party, have I got enough to drink? That kind of like non-stop, never letting the party finish. And that's what I was like when I was doing drugs also.

I heard you talking on a podcast, actually. I think it was your episode with Terry where you would be at a party and there'd be something left and people would be asleep and you'd be like, what? That was me too. Like, are you crazy? Like, the party's not over because everything's still here. That was me too. So I didn't touch anything at all in terms of the drug side of things.

Once my husband and I got together, that really kind of knock things on the head for me. a lot more straight-laced than I was. He wasn't the party boy. He was a sensible guy. I had known him for a long time. So yeah, he really kind of sorted me out and it was just almost a non-negotiable. It was never even a conversation. It was almost like a cut of that part of my life. I was almost waiting for something. It felt like a night in shining armor type of thing, but just waiting for a fresh start. And I think that's what that was for me. So I cut that tie there with that. And again, I never really blew it out of proportion. I never really made it a bigger deal than it was. It was just that part of me is done. That version of me.

sits in those days where I lived on my own and that was great. So I don't think there was anything sort of strange in my drinking probably with my first child, Dexter. Again, we'd just carried on as we always had done. Weekends where we would go on holiday, we would be in the pub a lot. Again, that was very normal. Even if we went for a walk in the countryside, we would end up in a village pub. Everything revolved around a country pub with an open fire and a few beers and a few wines for me. That was just the norm. And as we look back, Dale and I often reflect on that. It was a bloody, massive part of our lives. And we didn't realize how much of a big part of our lives it was until I stopped drinking because there was actually a big void for him

as well, for Dale, like, what do we do with our spare time? And he wasn't more on the, I want a drink, let's go to the pub. That was what we'd always done. It was a bit of a void, if that makes sense. Yeah, it is. And I want to touch on something there too. Yeah. Before we go, and this is incredible. But yeah, it's a way to connect, right? That's the way drinking started out for me is the alcohol was a way to connect with other people. And then you build, like, I built connections and I really didn't know how to build them without it. It was like, what do you want to do? Well, let's go and do this. This is how we pass the time. It's how we connect. It kind of lowered the guard a little bit. I could be like maybe more vulnerable and do that stuff.

So that's a really interesting point that you bring that up because I feel like in so many of our stories, it serves such a big purpose. And you bring up the fact that so much of your life is revolving around it. And it's like, same here. I can relate to that 110%. But like you mentioned too, I think is a home run there. It's like, we don't see that until we step away from it. You know, you'll talk to some people that are still struggling. And you can see it because you're stepping back and you're looking into it.

Not to be judgmental towards people, but if you mentioned to them like, hey, you know, you could maybe do something different. And they're like, with what? Not, you know, nothing. It's like that denial, right? And you live there and you can see it. But you can only really see it when you take a step back. So I love that.

I think that's the thing though, Brad, as well, it's almost like, well, why would I? Like if somebody doesn't recognize that they have an issue with drinking or that it might be problematic, if you were to ever suggest that, it's almost like they can't even get their head in the same mind space because why would they? Because this is what we do. This is what society does. It's what we've always done. It's like they can't even get their head into that space. That makes sense. 110%.

But yeah, so it was a big thing. And I think Dell definitely has struggle with that. we were each other's drinking buddies and we used to be proud of that. We would say we were each other's drinking buddies. And not too long before I stopped drinking, we'd go away for the weekend and we'd be the pint and we'd go to the gigs and the music shows and all that sort of thing. And it's been about kind of showing him and proving to him that we can still do that stuff together. And actually, I'm more fun because there was always a cut-off point as well

where I would either turn nasty or argumentative or something like that. So now he actually gets the night out, but gets a nice version of me as well. and then I'm not awful the next day either. So, yeah, we still just trying to find those other ways of connecting, isn't it? Because you can have those difficult conversations when you're sat up drinking at night as well, can't you? Our thing used to be we would get back from a night out. And if the boys were staying somewhere else, we would sit and listen to music until 3 o'clock in the morning. That was our thing.

And I think he worried about missing that. But yeah, maybe we don't sit up until 3 a.m. anymore, but we still listen to tunes. Change is a change. Yeah. I think you were mentioning there, too, your son. What was that like when that whole process took place? Yeah, so it's a funny one now because, again, I mean, I'm only one year so over. I say openly.

I always say only. I've been saying it since the beginning. But one of my biggest regret, and it's not a regret. I shouldn't say regrets is that I'm not going to be able to do the entire maternal thing without the alcohol. I'd love to be able to do that and not have a place in my life for alcohol because there were definitely times. More so with my second where I think alcohol was the problem. priority at times. Again, not going to go down the shame warm or with it. But yeah, I kind of think for Dexter, he grew up around it a hell of a lot. He was in the pub with us a lot. There were times

where we would wake up in the night to feed him and I were hung over. And I just think, oh, God, he deserved more. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm a great mom. I can say that I'm a great mom, but I just know that I had more to give than probably being hung over, kind of waiting for bedtime to have the wine, etc. But yeah, yeah, it was definitely more of a concern for me with my next child. Ollie's an IVF baby, so I had two rounds of IVF to conceive with Ollie. I mean, obviously Dexter was wanted as well, but we tried super hard to be able to have Olly. And then when he came along, I've spoken about this, touched upon this before. It was almost as if I just couldn't wait to drink again, because obviously I'd had that time of nine months where I'd not drank.

And then he was here, and he was a miracle. At the chances of IVF working, I don't even know the data on it. And he's here. We've got this little gift. And I'd just, couldn't wait to drink. I remember being sat in the living room and having the cart next to the sofa and was watching TV and being frustrated that he wouldn't settle because I wanted to sit and drink by wine whilst I'm watching telly. And I look back and now and I think, yeah, maybe if I was still in that mindset, if I was still drinking and somebody relayed what I've just said, they'd be like, well, I would think nothing of it. I don't think that's what people do is mummy wine culture. We're told that that's what we should do when we're stressed as moms, especially as new moms,

because it's so stressful, drink loads of wine because it makes everything better. So if I was still in that mindset, I wouldn't think there was anything wrong with it. Having come out the other side of it and looking back and thinking, how much free time and how your priorities change and how much more you've got to give when you dug drink, I grieve a little bit for that version of me with a newborn baby, if that makes sense. But Ollie is now five, and a year of his five years, I haven't drank. So I already know, I mean, Dexter's 13, so he had the good 12 year run of us being in the pub and it being a priority, etc.

And Ollie's not going to get that. He's been a COVID baby. So we've not been anywhere. I've got one of those. Yeah. He's not going to see as much. That's a powerful story there that you share, a powerful experience. Because it is just talking with people and I'm a father, not a mother. So there's a huge difference there, like completely different in so many different ways, obviously. But I've taught with so many people that have got drawn into that to where it's stressful. You go to the store.

You see the T-shirts. You see it everywhere. You see all these things. And it's so concerning because seeing it everywhere, I think in our brain, then it just normalizes this, that everybody's doing it. And I think that it's like, I mean, obviously when you step away from it, you can see it. And I think that's just incredible awareness. And it's such a struggle from what I hear, especially for new moms, because you're being pulled in a million different directions all. day and you're going through a ton of stuff that I couldn't even personally imagine. And then you

want to soothe yourself with the alcohol. When you go through that though, even though it was very normal and that's what you saw and stuff, did you ever have that little voice or a little tap on your shoulder to say like, I don't know if the right term was this isn't the right thing to do, but you knew like that something different might be better in a sense? Not when Ollie was little. No, I struggled when I had Ollie. I definitely struggled. I think the whole IVF roller coaster, did some damage, to be honest. So it took me a while. I was in a fog for a while. I could label it, but it's past now and it's kind of gone. So I think I was just self-soothing. We had some other bits and bugs kind of go off when Ollie in kind of friendship groups and whatnot when

Ollie was tiny. I had to go to the doctors and get some medication for anxiety. Yeah, it was just a foggy, foggy time. So I didn't really look and think I should be doing better. I wasn't myself. I definitely wasn't myself at all. So taking a medication and drinking, I mean, that takes me onto a whole other world of probably where things sort of escalated for me because I was taking that medication the doctor had given me as well as drinking, as well as being a new mom. Yeah, it just kind of escalated. So I'd started to make excuses for Dale to go to bed at night. So, like, try and make an excuse, I don't know, I've got something I want to watch. Or sometimes, depending if I was drinking red wine, because sometimes that would make me argumentative. I

He'd pick a fight, so he would leave me sat in the living room on my own at night. Now, I'm not proud of that. It's not the nicest thing to kind of share, but that became kind of a regular thing. And I think he would maybe even get to a quite a tip-on-look and think, it's late. I'm going to go to bed. I'll leave it to it. Now, when I would finish my little relaxing time that I would set up, I'd light some candles, eat a ridiculous amount of snacks, just plow them away through them while I'm sat drinking my red wine,

watching Netflix documentaries or Netflix series that I never remembered the next day. I'd started to fall over when I got up to go to bed. And I think it happened maybe a handful of times. I did a bit of research around whether it was the medication that was doing that to me. And in my heart of hearts, I mean, people always say, oh, the doctor never asked me whether I should drink on this medication or not, and they blame the doctor for it. And I think there's definitely something in that for sure

that there needs to be more of a thorough examination or a conversation around before these pills are given out to people, I do agree with that. But I also will take a bit of ownership there that you're going to be a rocket scientist to understand that these two things don't really go together, are they? So what I did there, instead of doing the sensible thing and thinking, let's just stop drinking alcohol, let's just cut back on the alcohol, because ultimately a doctor's giving you this medication because he thinks you need it. What I did was just stop taking the medication.

It's these beta blockers. It was anti-anxiety tablets. I just called turkey doctors. In fact, no, it wasn't at the time, actually, that's not true. I was taking antidepressants. That's what I was taking alongside the beta blockers. But it was, again, prescribed for anxiety. So I just called turkeyed off the tablets.

And I didn't know that you couldn't do that. I just stopped doing it, which I think everybody knows you should try and wean yourself gently off these things. Yeah. So even at that time, I didn't stop drinking as much as you all doing. I just stopped the medication. It was almost like I've got it on such a pedestal that it couldn't possibly be the alcohol. So yeah, so that kind of was a bit of.

a turning point for me where I'm just making an excuse to sit on my own, try and kind of make Dale go away, leave me to it, and then I'd started falling, getting these bruises, and then I'd cold turkey myself off medication. But, Brad, to be honest with you, none of this, I don't know whether I was in complete denial, to be honest with you, or whether it was just so normalised, and it's just been a part of my life for so long. But it was only when I started listening to other people's sobriety stories, and they were labelling the same actions of what I was doing as red flags, it took for me to hear other people labeling those things, for me to realize that my drinking was problematic. I didn't realize it at the time at all. I had no idea. I just thought

this was normal. I thought it was normal. Yeah, I hear you on that. Yeah, it's so powerful to hear other people's stories because then we can identify with bits and pieces and we can hear our own story a little bit inside of it. But yeah, it's interesting because I think when you look back now, well, you obviously see all the red flags, right? Red flag here and everything. But yeah, that denies can be so strong. And it's something that works so well until it doesn't. That was my experience anyway. This stuff worked so well. I just had so many insecurities and I didn't really like the person I was. And I was struggling with so many different areas of my childhood and everything else. And this just quieted the voices down about I wasn't good enough and I'll never be anything.

Like in the weird thing about it was at first it worked for the whole night. And towards the end, it would only be like one, two hour windows. But it's also interesting too with your isolation thing because that's the way I got towards the end of my substance use. I didn't want other people around. It started out as a social aspect, but I didn't want other people around because I wanted to do it the way I wanted to do it, and I didn't know any other people that did it the way I did it, and I didn't want them saying anything because people would sometimes say things, right?

Like, let's call it a night. I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear any of that or that's enough. I wasn't trying to hear any of that stuff. So I couldn't relate with you on that. You just want to be kind of left alone to do your thing, you don't want anybody to have anything to say about it. No, you don't want any judgment.

My biggest fear has always been to be partway through a conversation with somebody and to start slurring. It's always been my thing. I don't know where it's come from. I don't know, maybe conversations with Malol maybe because we used to sit and drink wine together when I was growing up. And if she started slurring, I knew she'd had too much. If I started slur and she knew I'd had too much and the conversation would change.

So I think that perhaps I was scared if that one, I knew I'd had too much to drink. We'd have a nice conversation. It was a nice night. And I knew the point it was going to turn. because ultimately I was going to black out. Do you know what I mean? So I'm going to sat there with my husband and I'm not going to remember any of those conversations.

So I want him out of the picture. Yeah, bringing up blacking out too. Like that's a lot of people's story too when you mix medication with the alcohol. But I think bring back to the doctor thing, too, about, yeah, I mean, doctors have to be diligent too with prescribing. I mean, obviously I think they're getting more and more informed because of everything that's happened in that aspect. But I think back to different situations when I was asked questions.

And I would just say, oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, drinking. No, not that much. Like, it was funny, though, because I thought I was tricking them. But like the guidelines, I mean, here in Canada, they're kind of suggesting like two drinks per week. Yeah. And it used to be 15 drinks per week. And I didn't know that, you know what I mean?

Like going way back. And that had been 15 drink guideline has been there, I think, for a long time. So when I go back to like my 20s, I had surgeries and in different things that had to be done or injuries or went to the hospital and they would frequently ask you that question. And one time I was really intoxicated and thought it would be a good idea to play a pickup game of basketball. And I fell down on my ankle and like just blew the whole thing out. And then, you know, you go there and they're like, how much are you? And we were drinking every day at that time.

And I was just like, I can't remember what I said, but it was way over. And I thought it was normal. When I reflect back to that, I was like, I thought that was normal. And now looking back, I'm like, it was normal with the people I was hanging out with. But I don't know if it was necessarily normal for everybody, you know, in their 20s, right? So, but it's interesting. How old are you at this time? So that time I would have been, I'd say, roughly.

36, 36, 37. So just turned 40 this year. Okay. Yeah. So I think, again, from having Ollie, from right up until when I quit, but drinking and definitely got out of hand. Obviously, then we had COVID and that just everything spiraled. We've got two and a half year old at home.

Everyone's got their own horrendous COVID stories. We've got a hell of a lot of work going on at work, projects, flipping on their head, starting new projects from home, and it was just mayhem. So yeah, things definitely ramped up there for me, without a doubt. To be fair, I mean, I did start taking breaks from drinking. So I think I'd been possibly sober curious for around two years before I actually stopped. I'll label it sobering us now because I know what that is. But it's a bit of a crossover for me. So I would generally set myself many targets, but it was always around losing some weight. It was never around taking a break from alcohol.

Because I knew that when I stopped drinking for a certain period of time, that was when I would lose some weight. Otherwise, what I would do is I would eat really well in the week, and then I would get to the weekend, and I would gorge in red wine or prosceco, and I would just stay the same all the time. And I remember I used to say to my husband all the time, I can just get this weight off. I can drink every weekend then, and I'll be fine. I always remember that. So I used to set myself times. And any quitlet that I digested, it was never because I wanted to be sober forever. it was to keep me on the straight and narrow in that month's break from alcohol.

So there's something in there. I know there's a kind of a powers that be or whatever that used to kind of put these things in my lane. But gradually over time, I think I can't remember which books I kind of started with Sunshine War, Sober. I think it's a Catherine Gray book. And they would help me. I wouldn't really listen to podcasts or anything then because I wasn't serious about kind of getting. So little things to kind of keep me on my brain. But I'd never make the months.

I'd probably make two weeks. two and a half weeks at max. And that was only ever weekend. So it was rare for me to drink every night after I'd had kids. I didn't drink every night after I had kids. But there was certainly spells since having Ollie, where it became a daily occurrence. And Dale was sort of say to me,

you're getting wine again tonight? He would never sort of say you're drinking too much. But he'd just have to make that sort of little nod towards maybe you are. And then I'd be like, no, I need to rein it in because he's noticed it now. I mean, if I lived on my own, heaven forbid. And we talked before this, about getting there before it becomes a serious, serious problem.

And I genuinely think that that's what happened with me because I had the tendency to do it. Take Dale out of the equation, heaven forbid, touch words, that would never happen. But take deal out of the equation, I don't know where I would have ended up because I was drinking so much. I was a party girl.

I didn't know how to say no to things that I kind of enjoyed. I would take breaks, but it would be to do with losing weight and not to do with the alcohol. In denial, complete denial, I'm telling me. Yeah, no, I hear you on that. In that, too, you tell a lot of people, the seeds are often planted before that big decision is made. And then the seeds will grow or be watered with little things here and there that we might not even expect.

It's an interesting story. Dale sounds incredible, by the way. Dale's approach to all of this, right? You mentioned there, like, didn't come down on you because a lot of people wonder about how to go about doing that. Was Dale's approach helpful for you to be like, I'm kind of seeing it, you know, in real time here. It wasn't like the hard nose, like, you're an alcoholic, you need to change your life. You're doing terrible things. Like, I'm out of here.

It doesn't sound like it was like that. It sounds like it was more of a patient, gentle approach. Do you think, looking back, that that was helpful for you? Yeah, I do because, and to be honest, but I don't think he ever thought I had a problem either. I think when he saw that it was becoming more regular, he didn't like it. I don't think it aligned with the version of me that he had in his head or the version of me that he knew I wanted to be. So he would gently check in. Do you know what I mean? He would gently check in.

I know that if he was to sort of assume that I was drinking too much or even say that out loud, I would have got really defensive, really, really defensive. And I would have had my guard up because it was my wine. It's my treat. It's the one thing I've got to deal with all of this chaos. Back on. It's my. Do you know what I mean? So he wouldn't have come in and kind of approached it that way, thankfully.

But yeah, I think that was what I needed because he knows me. And if he'd have gone heavier, I would have told him where to stick it, I think. Yeah, Dale, you're out of here. Yeah, that's good because for different people, I think, yeah, the approach is different. Because some people ask, right? And it's a loaded sort of question, right? But it's going to probably depend on the relationship with the person and where things are at. But it's interesting, too, there where you mentioned that Dale didn't necessarily think that it was a problem too through all of it.

And I don't know if you were, you know, kind of doing things, maybe he didn't know the volume or stuff. like that. Like I know we've kind of got our tricks, right? There's so much shame involved. Because I know for me, I would wake up every day and I would say, this is it. That's it. That's it. Enough is enough. And I'd have this internal conversation with myself. And from time to time, I would tell other people. And then I wasn't able to stick with it. And then I just felt even worse about it because I'm like, here you are again. Selling dreams to everybody that you're going to change. And I wanted to do nothing more than to change and to just walk away. But I just couldn't. I felt like I just couldn't. And By 5 o'clock, 4 o'clock, 3 o'clock after lunch, I would have the bright idea of planning

another night. And it was a tough spot to be in. Yeah, I get that. I get that. So where do we go from here, Jody? So I think, again, back on the kind of frequency of how often I was drinking, for me, it was only ever meant to be a Friday or Saturday night. They were only my intended evenings.

And then it would be Sunday without fail every single week. one of the big things for me that I realized I can't keep doing. And just to draw back just a second about what you were saying about Dale, about him not knowing the quantity of what I was drinking, he wouldn't have known because once he'd gone to bed, that was my shame spiral. That was the thing that I'm not proud of. If he was sat there with me, he was going to witness it.

And of course, he probably would have said something. Do you know what I mean? But I hid it. I hid that behaviour from him. I hid the fact that I was falling over. I hid the fact that I totally self-inflicted these hangover. was when I'm hugging the toilet the next day, and I'm having to sort of say to him, you're going to have to take the boys on your own today because I can't do it.

And I would mask it and say I was poorly. I wasn't. I was hung over because I drank too much. I would hide quite a lot from him. But I also think that you talk about shame there. And I think these sort of things for me are a bit like therapy because I don't really talk about it much. You kind of almost have packaged it up and put it in a box and that's an old version of me.

It's good to get it back out, isn't it? And dissect it and kind of talk through it. But I think that I misplaced my focus. So where you talk about shame, the shame for me was when Dale would shout up the following morning, who's eaten all of my crisps for the week? That would be where my shame came from because I would sit up with my wine like I mentioned and I would devour packets of crisps because I knew I'd had too much to drink. I would kind of eat those crisps to kind of sober myself up perhaps.

So my shame would come from when he'd shall who's eaten all of these crisps. And I would be embarrassed of the volume of crisps that I'd eaten the night before, not the volume of wine that I'd drunk and the fact that I was in bed with a raging hangover. And then when I think about these breaks that I've taken have always been to lose weight, it's like I've misplaced what was actually the problem. It wasn't the food all along. It was actually the drinking. And it's taken a long time for me to realize that,

that I had this shame and willingness to approach the food element of things. But the drinking was absolutely protected as though my life depended on it. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. But it's the story of so many of us, right? Like, I mean, when we look back, yeah, we're just like, oh my goodness, where did we go wrong here, right? Like, what were we thinking? You know, but it's the reality.

Like, I'm with you on so much of that stuff. When I look back at my story, I'm like, for one, I'm grateful to even be alive for one thing. Because there were many situations that I was involved with that things could have really, really went the other way. So that's like, you know, one thing. But yeah, looking back. And that's why I think it is good. We talk about this stuff. We let people know that it's okay because if we can share the tough parts of the journey,

the hard parts of the journey, I think it gives other people permission to do the same. And I think that's where a lot of the healing comes from because, I mean, we can. And I'm sure like you mentioned, box it all up and toss it away and move on. But I don't know if we're still going to probably think about it from time to do. You know what I mean? Like creep back in, right? So yeah. And that's so powerful.

But it's hard though. Like even me being in recovery for 13 years, like it's still hard, right? It's so hard to work through things. For you being in recovery, do you consider yourself sober or alcohol-free or I don't drink? A bit of both, really. I mean, I kind of call myself, my Instagram is sober-flourish, so I would relate to being sober.

Alcohol-free or sober makes no odds to me whatsoever. However, I have recently been told or read somewhere or I was a message or something that told me that I shouldn't use the word sober unless I identified as an alcoholic. I was kind of, hang on a minute. let's just, we're trying to remove all stigma from any form of drinking. It doesn't matter where you're starting places. If you want to call it sober or alcohol free, my opinion, just go for it.

But yeah, I mean, I might be wrong. I don't know whether I'm wrong there. Or whether there is a rule. Or whether there is a rule. Is there a rule? I haven't heard it. If there is one, I'm a rule breaker anyway. Me personally, I'm a rule breaker.

So, I mean, if there is a rule out there for it, like, I'll probably be the first one to break it. It is interesting, yeah, because it's really strange, you know, sometimes in this recovery, sobriety space where there are all these unwritten guidelines. But, you know, like, I'm going to do my thing. And if you want to hang out for it and check it out, like, let's do it. If you don't, like, more power to you. Nothing but love your way.

But like, I got to go. Like, I just don't have time for that. We're all trying to achieve. We're all trying to achieve the same thing, aren't we? At the end of the day. Exactly. And it's just a better life. And whatever way you take, if I want to go to, I'm in Canada, so say I want to

drive to Toronto, you know, there's a bunch of different ways I can take. All the ways are going to end me up at the same place. Some are going to take longer. Some are shorter. Some I get to see some good stuff. Others is just the highway. But I think it's so important that, yeah, I mean, there's different roads that people are going to take and how they're going to do it.

So I love that. No, that's incredible. Then you said a year. You mentioned one year. Yeah, it's been a year. It has been a year. Wow. So on the 13th of August, it was a year.

It's a bit of a weird one for me because I never had that moment where it was, that's enough. Enough is enough. You have to start. things have got out of control. Like I said, to you, I never identified as having any red flags or problematic drinking. It was just I took it a bit too far.

I was struggling with hangovers. It was just the norm. I've been away on holiday with my husband and our all-inclusive break with my kids. And again, a few flags popped up there, but again, didn't recognise them. And got back and just sort of said, do you know what, I'm going to do 100 days?

I was desperate to get some weight off. I'd put on quite a lot of weight during COVID, a hell of a lot of weight, actually. And I was desperately unhappy with my first. shape. I don't think there's many, well, hopefully more so now, but I've never really been that happy with my body anyway. So during COVID and all that excessive drinking and the medication, it did get out of control. So coming back off the holiday, with the additional weight gain from the break, I decided I was going to take a hundred day break from alcohol again to lose weight,

nothing to do with the booze, nothing to do with the health implications what it's doing to my brain or anything like that. It was just purely just to get some weight off. And in that first 30 days, I did a kind of crash course. As much information, educational content I possibly could, I would have in my ears at every single opportunity. And the turning point and the tipping points, there were two actually. So you'll be familiar with Doc Aeman

and his brain scanning and the visualization there of the imagery that he has for alcoholics, moderate drinker, non-drinker, etc., etc. That for me was one turning point. But also the one book that really made a difference, difference for me was the Alan Carr's easy way to stop drinking for women. Very hypnotic, very repetitive, bloody, bloody worked for me. And it was a very weird process for me because 30 days in to a 100 day break, never any intention of never drinking again, I categorically knew I would

never, ever touch alcohol ever again. And it was such a strange sensation to me because it almost felt like I went into a period of grief. I felt sad because I felt like I'd had a decision taken away from me. It was almost then everything that I'd learned was that powerful and that hard hitting that there was no way that I was ever going to touch it ever again. It was like the decision had been taken out of my hands. It was really hard to put into words, but that's how I felt. And I remember coming back from a run. I had it on audiobook, the Alan Car book, and I'd finished it. And I remember coming home from that run and my husband's saying to me, what's wrong? Why are you so sad? Why are you so Mardi? And I explained to him and I just said, that's it, it's done.

And for something that was such a huge part of my life, it felt like that decision had been made and it was just a really bizarre sensation. So from then on, at 30 days, I knew I wasn't going to touch it again. I wasn't scared to say forever. It still made the hair stand on the back of my neck. But I knew it was a decision forever in that 30 days just because of everything that I'd kind of put in my ears, listening to people's stories that were exactly the same as mine and that they were saying that that was problematic. And I was like, hang on a minute. If all of these different people are saying that my regular behavior is problematic,

then I've got an issue here. I've got an issue and I can't keep ignoring it. Yeah. Wow, that's powerful. And it's interesting too because, yeah, there wasn't like a rock bottom type thing for you. You know, a lot more people are coming out with these stories, right? About there wasn't this big blowout type thing. What I think happened here is that you were working, and you mentioned before,

you had kind of started these breaks, you had started kind of exploring this. And then you read the book and the Alancar book, too. I've heard good things. I've heard some weird things about people's experience with it. And I did the quit smoking. I read the quit smoking book. I did too. Yeah, and it was good.

I'm imagining it's just like that for it. It's the same. It's exactly the same. And it got me to stop smoking many, many years ago as well, from 20 a day to nothing. And I don't know what it is in his style. I have no idea. That's incredible. So you had kind of started that process several years before.

And then this things just kind of grew. And then you were able to walk away, which is incredible. And even hearing the stories, too, because if you look back and you probably see reflection in hindsight, it's always 2020, hearing back to your story, and I'm sure we've only captured a very small window of it. Yeah, it was a lot going on. I mean, drinking was like, I'm obviously not diagnosing you or anything, but I'm like, hey, there's red flags a long time ago in the story, right?

And you can kind of see that now. And same with my story, like stuff that I thought was like, quote unquote, normal. When I look back, I'm like, dude, that was not. Like that, that was denial. Everybody was not doing that, but I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. I was just going to say, I mean, I know that my friends weren't sitting in their apartments on their own drinking red wine. So as much as I say, that was normal, I felt that was normal because I'd learned that behavior of family members, but my friends weren't doing that.

Now, my eldest is 13. Coming up to 14, in three years time, if I visualize him sat in an apartment drinking a bottle of red wine every night, and I just think, God, it's crazy. That couldn't happen. Different times, different times completely. But yeah, a lot of it was wrong, a hell of a lot. I almost touched on it earlier again. It was another one of the big red flags for me was the drinking regularly bleeded into four days out of seven.

So as much as I say, no, no, I didn't. It wasn't problematic. I only drank at weekends. Well, four days out of seven is a hell of a lot of alcohol. And on a Sunday morning, for what I'd started doing was when you have that pang of, oh my God, you're waking up, half three, four a m in the morning, your heart beating up your chest.

You've got that roll call of shit, right. I've got to do a weekly train. I'm presenting to the director at 9. I've got to get the kids up. I've got to get them ready. I've got to do pack up. I've got to get myself ready. I need to make sure I have some fat, some starch to soak up the alcohol.

I need to make sure have I had enough sleep to be able to drive the kids to school. All of this roll call going through your head at 4 a.m. in the morning. Every single week and no one else did that to me other than myself. And every Friday night, my rule was do not do. the Monday morning thing. Do not put yourself in an every bloody week towards the end. That was how I started my Monday morning. So I would wake up, 4 a.m., lean over, take a beta blocker to steady my heart rate and try for the life of me to get back to sleep, but I couldn't. So that was every single week, every week. And I was just sick of my own bullshit, Brad. I was so

sick of it. And I was doing that to myself. So as much as I say, I didn't know what I was doing to myself and that I never saw it as a problem, think it's got to be denial. It's almost like a thought would come in and I'd package it off because it means they've got to do something with it. If I accept the fact I've got a problem, I've got to do something about it. So I just take it over and over again. I hear you on that. Yeah. And it sounds like the rest of your life too.

I mean, things were pretty high functioning. You were moving and shaking. And that's another thing when you taught with people that, see, when you start to drink a lot, then you can drink a lot more. And I think that our bodies are breaking this stuff down super fast, as opposed to other people who aren't seasoned veterans. It's just you're building up that tolerance. and you're able to have more, and you have to have more to get that effect that we once did, right? When we first started, it was, you know, one or two drinks or like a bottle would have

I was never a wine drinker, but a bottle might have you like really drunk. And then towards the end, it's like that's just kind of getting you started, right? Getting you ready for the night. And then, yeah, I mean, then the hangover just hits heavy. And then you're waking up and you got this responsibility of the job and the family and everything else. And like, I hear you. And that's terrifying.

That's terrifying. And then you make that silent pact with yourself. Like, nah. Not tonight. I'm going to take the night off. Yeah. And then you don't. It gets to four o'clock and you're back on it again.

Yeah. You can always say it's one decision away from a completely different life. I mean, I've always been high function. I've always held a job down. I've always climbed the ladder. I've always done really well. But I think had I not got those jobs to get up for the next day, because then you're going to look at COVID, people that maybe didn't even drink hardly at all,

their drinking patterns completely changed, let alone people that already really had an issue with drinking too much at a weekend. I sometimes think had I lost my job during COVID, perhaps, and I had absolutely nothing to be okay for the next day, how far would I have started taking it then? And that sort of interests me. That interests me a lot. And that's what kind of leads me into where I'm at now from a personal perspective. And like my Instagram account, I started it.

And I mean, God, what you do is incredible. The reach you must have and the lives you're changing and the help that you're giving is remarkable. It's unbelievable. From my perspective, I just want to serve now. want to be able to help others see what I hid from myself. I want people to kind of see and recognise behaviours in my story, the same as I did in others. And I've often said, I feel nervous about doing these sorts of things. I'm not a great public speaker. You would think I should be

for the job that I do, but I still am not on of it at all. But I will put myself through any form of discomfort if it helps one more person. If it is, that when you get that message, that inbox message, which you get so many, I see you share them and they're incredible. Just that one person that you've helped, you think it is all worth it. It is worth it. And that's where I'm at now. It's just trying to kind of package up in a way, whether it's a daily quote, whether it's a respondent, a voice note in my inbox, whether it's a newsletter, whatever it might be, to try and normalize, recognizing you've got a problem with it. Yeah, that's so powerful. And by the way, you are an incredible speaker. You are incredible. This has been amazing.

And to open yourself up to be vulnerable, a lot of the stuff you shared, and a lot of people sharing their stories like, we're not proud of every decision or every choice we made, but it is what it is. We can't go back and change it. And we can do kind of one or two things. We can leave it there and we can just work through it and heal on our own. Or we can flip that around and say, hey, we'll use our struggle and our pain to possibly help encourage somebody else maybe to get off this train before this thing crashes and burns. Because the reality is that time and time again, it's proven that this alcohol starts out innocent for most, but it progresses. There's very few, and maybe I have heard them.

I can't recall any just off the top of my head right now, but there's very few people I've talked to that are like, hey, all these red flags are happening in my life. I'm just going to moderate now, and I'm just going to go back to like moderation, normal drinking. I'm just going to have two a week. I just don't know of really anybody who I've talked to in 13, 14, 15 years who shares that story. So I think it's so important for people to understand that.

This is probably not something that's going to get better on its own. But everything you shared, I getting at my point, everything you shared, I appreciate because this is something, you know, from being a mother, from being a professional, from growing up like, from it being so normal for our cultures. You're in the UK. I mean, it's huge there. The reality is everybody who comes on the show, they're like, hey, I'm from so-and-so, and the drinking is crazy here.

And I'm like, I've heard stories from all over the world, Australia. UK, Canada, the U.S., mainly the English-speaking, but it's wild everywhere. I mean, it is everywhere all over the world, and we've all been kind of sucked in to buy into this dream that really, when we break it down, it's like we all bought into a massive lie. But I really appreciate you being vulnerable in those areas because there are so many people who listen to the show, who don't listen to the show, who are right there. They're right there struggling. Maybe it's not to get sober, but maybe it's to stay sober.

Maybe it's that denial part, you know, that part of like, it's so easy, right, to convince ourselves at times. It wasn't that bad, you know, really wasn't. And everything you just pointed out, and I think you probably would agree that, hey, it probably was worse off than you notice going through it, you know? So I appreciate that from you. Thank you. No problem.

So how do you stay on course? I was just thinking when you were talking then that there's a lot of different figures get thrown around about it but I agree with the kind of numbers of for me staying alcohol free sober, whatever you want to call it is 10% not drinking

and 90% emotional sobriety. It's learning how to face your emotions it's learning how to handle grief bad days, awkward conversations how to sit on your own with your thoughts, how to handle socialising

there's a whole world of things that you're going to do as a first when you stop drinking alcohol. And they are the things you're going to trip yourself up with if you don't get good at them. If you don't practice them, you don't get a toolkit in place. And I think a lot of people, well, I know a lot of people think that becoming sober is just not drinking. And then you hear people of relapsing five years down the line, six years down the line, two years down the line. Because you get complacent, you think, well, I'm able to not drink in all these scenarios. But sometimes I think, and I was talking to my husband about this either day, if you are a fortunate enough person to go your first 18 months with no awkward conversations,

no deaths in the family, nothing bad happening to you, none of those hard-hitting emotion-triggering events. And then 18 months down the line, all you've done is not drink. Those things are going to hit you like a freight train. And you've got to learn how to handle those things. You've got to learn how to become emotionally sober. Who are you without the alcohol? What do you enjoy doing?

What are you going to do at a weekend when your friends are begging you to come out? You've got to get strong. You've got to work on yourself. Learn how to play situations forward. And I think you could only really play situations forward when you've gone through those first, sober, like a wedding. I've got my brother's wedding coming up this weekend. I haven't done a sober wedding yet. So as much as I know I'm strong in my sobriety and there's not a chance that I'm going to drink,

I'll know after this that the next time a wedding comes along. I can play it forward because I can remember how it went. I can remember waking up the Sunday. when everybody else is really hung over and regretting from the night before and those awkward dance moves they've all got. You can play things forward, can you? And it's learning how to reframe it.

I'm a big advocate of stop thinking about everything you're going to lose when you stop drinking. Because actually, it's nothing. You're not losing out on anything, apart from the anxiety, the headaches, the regret, the shame. What you've got to gain is absolutely gigantic. It's huge. I feel, and to get a bit cheesy on you,

I genuinely feel like I've been, reborn. I feel like I've had a second chance. I feel like somebody has given me a second chance. Don't mess this up. What are you going to make of it? And what I've achieved and what I've done and the opportunities I've been given in terms of fitness and health and relationships and professional opportunities, etc. Wouldn't have happened to me if I was hazing myself every weekend with alcohol. It's just been absolutely life-changing for me. Yeah, wow. I love that. The emotional sobriety part. I even wrote it down here. When did you realize it was going to take more than not drinking because I'm really big on that.

I posted something up about that while while back is about that aspect of things about yeah, okay, getting sober and not drinking. I mean, for me, it's like that part of it, not doing drugs, not drinking, is a decision. You know, then that big question comes like, okay, that's gone. But now we're left with this body and mind and everything else that we don't know what the heck we like to do. We don't know how to feel anything. We don't know necessarily how to.

I build authentic relationships. We don't know how to get vulnerable. When I say we don't, I mean, I didn't know. So I had to learn all of that stuff. And it was like, oh, that's the emotional sobriety. That's when things really get heavy. And that can take a bit of time to set in. That can take a bit of time.

So I'm glad you brought that up. You answered my question without me even really asking the question. I think it depends on your starting point as well, though, doesn't it? If you're quite an aware person already, I think I had to know if you're quite an evolved being, I think it might be a little easy. year to kind of get there if you're not starting from base. Without a doubt, I think what got me going through the first few months was the medical scare. I didn't have a medical scare, but from a medical perspective, the scare of being able to see what it actually does to our brain, learning what

it does to our bodies. And it was that kind of, you can't ignore that. That kept me going probably for the first few months. And then I think once that first hundred days, it was like a pat on the back, well done. You did it. You never thought you were going to do it. And I think it's after those first A few months when you allow yourself to start socializing a bit more, you realize you weren't well equipped when somebody said, why aren't you drinking? So you know you need to do work on that. And it's taking little bits, isn't it? It's like a jigsaw puzzle.

You kind of piece it together. It's not like somebody gives you a book because a lot of people say, well, what's the bloody work? People say to do the work. What is the work? And it's hard to condense that because it's different for everyone. But ultimately, it's not just not drinking. There's a lot of work. You've got to get to know yourself.

Yeah. A lot of work. So true. So true. This has been incredible. I honestly can't thank you enough for the insight that you're sharing with this about your own journey and about, you know, things that have been working for you and what you've been working on since. To sign off here, I think, is a good spot. I always like to ask this question too.

Like, you shared a lot of stuff there. What really hit me personally was being a mom and going through that struggle. And I'm just wondering, you know, I don't know if there is a mom out there who's in that spot. Is there anything you would say to them if there was? I would tell them to take some time out. Take some time out and just jump off that hamster wheel just for a week, just for one week and have a mindset shift of I'm going to try and do this week. You've got to go into that one week and you're going to give it your all.

You are not going to drink because I do genuinely think when you're in that spiral, you're in that cloud, it's hard to lift your head out. And I think even just in those early stages, just taking that one week, the difference when everything is so overwhelming because you're making it worse waking up with a hangover every day it would be enough in those early stages to make you think actually

I didn't resent getting up with them this morning I didn't resent getting up with them in the night yeah it would just be just lift your head out of that fog just for a week and see how you feel but you're not alone there are thousands and thousands of women in the same place and just feel open enough to speak I mean the sober community is insane

I get so many messages. You get so many messages. Mine are mainly for women that relate to that element of it. Like I've got three kids or I've got two kids and I've got a job and I'm in that cycle of this is how I reward myself. We need to stop that. We need to stop that so you can give your full self to your children. I just wish I could have done it sooner. Beautiful. I love that. So powerful. Look, this has been incredible. I said it about five times already. But if somebody wanted to follow up with you to send you a message to find you on social media, where should they look? So I'm on Instagram and it's at SoberFourish or just drop me an email at hello at SoberFourish.com. Yeah, beautiful.

Go and check Jody out. Sober Flourish. Send her a message. If you enjoyed the show as much as I did, send their message, say thank you. That's always so powerful. People come on the show here in Jody especially and they share vulnerable, open story with kind of the world. I think it's so important that we show them support and some kindness for doing that. So be sure to do that.

And I think that's it. Did you have anything you wanted to close with? No, I just think if anybody is even remotely contemplating taking some time off from Alcar, give it a world. It is literally the best thing I've ever done. Thank you for having me. So grateful for Jody to pop on here and share her story. What an incredible comeback.

What an incredible transformation. Thank you so much for being so open, vulnerable and honest with us on the show, Jody. Be sure to send her a message over. on Instagram at Sober Flourish or an email she shared that at the end of the episode. That was incredibly powerful and I know so many of you are going to be able to connect with that story. Sharing stories like that reduce the stigma and the shame involved with people getting help.

And for that, I'm grateful. And I'll see you on the next one.