Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Ash Butterss struggled with alcohol and cocaine for a majority of her life, until she asked for help and was willing to do whatever it took to get and stay sober.

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Ash Butterss joined the podcast this week with 3 years sober.  Ash started drinking at 12 years old and things escalated from there for many many years to come. After losing a friend Ash ramped up her drinking and drugging to avoid any feelings coming her way. As her marriage fell apart and her life as a whole she knew something had to change. This is Ash’s story on the sober motivation podcast. Ash is also the host of the Podcast Behind the Smile - Be sure to check it out ❤️ ------------- Follow Ash on Instagram HERE Follow Sober Motivation on Instagram HERE Download the Sober Buddy App HERE Donate to Support the Podcast HERE    

Welcome back to season two of the Subur Motivation Podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. Ash Bunders joined the podcast this week with over three years sober. Ash started drinking at 12 years old and things escalated from there for many, many years to come. After losing a friend, Ash ramped up her drinking and drugging to avoid any feelings that were coming her way. As her marriage fell apart in her life as a whole, she knew something had to change.

That's when she reached out for help. This is Ash's story on the Sober Motivation podcast. Staying connected and being a part of a supportive community is vital when we are looking to get or stay sober. That is exactly what we have going on at the Sober Buddy app. We work together during our live support groups and private communities inside of the app. And like we say it's Somber Buddy, we came as strangers and left as friends. I truly experienced this today during our live support group. I can't get into the details, but trust me, it was magical.

You don't have to do this alone. Check out Sober Buddy for your free trial today. your soberbuddy.com or your sober buddy in your favorite app store. I hope to see you over there soon. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Ash Butter's with us. How are you doing? I am so good.

Thank you, Brad. As I was saying, it's 11 p.m. here in Australia, and I am definitely a morning person, but I'm so excited to be here with you today. So I'm buzzed and I'm full of energy. Yeah, I love that. Love that. Thank you so much for making it happen.

And why don't you start us off with what it was like for you growing up? Yeah, for sure. I think it's always really important to start at the beginning. And for me, that's a really relevant part of my story. I grew up in an alcoholic home. So my dad's an alcoholic and my mom is the daughter of an alcoholic. And there's alcoholism and addiction on both sides of my family tree for generations. And you know what?

Growing up in that environment, what it really did for me is it wasn't so much about there necessarily being any. sort of physical violence, but there was a lot of raging, there was a lot of arguing, doors slamming, and then one or both parents disappearing for periods of time. What I remember from that period was just always feeling a high degree of uncertainty and a level of unsafe that I couldn't quite understand at the time and being young and being a child and children can be quite narcissistic, You know, I thought that it was my fault. I thought that my parents arguing was my fault. I didn't understand the disease of alcoholism. I didn't understand what was really going on. And so as a

child, what I learned to do was to shape shift and adapt. And I started wearing different masks from a really, really young age to be able to try to keep my parents happy. I very much wanted to be the peacekeeper within the family unit. I did have an older brother, but for some reason I really took on that role of caretaking for my parents and having to live an age much beyond my years. And over time, what started to happen was I began to form this disconnect from the person that I truly was versus the person that I was presenting to the world. And, you know, I hear a lot of people in recovery identify as being people pleases. And that was definitely a big part of my story. I was a people pleaser that developed, grew into being a perfectionist. And that

that drive to be perfect really ruled my life for a number of years to the point where fast forward when I headed into rehab, I was sharing this story with someone just the other day. Rather than me focusing on my addiction as my primary concern, they were like, you know, you need to treat the perfectionism first because that's going to kill you before the drinks and the drugs. So that's wild and I'm sure we can get to that part of the story a little bit later. But my beginning was definitely a lot of uncertainty, of overarching feeling of unsafe and just not really knowing what version of one of my parents I'd get, whether they'd be happy, sad, mad, glad, whether they'd even come home of an evening. It was frightening at the time, for sure.

Wow, my goodness, that sounds like a lot. What did that perfectionism look like, though, in your younger years? So you would try to do everything to this maybe unobtainable level and then not reach it. Like, how did that play out for you? So in the beginning, the perfectionism played out in academia. So from a really, really young age, My brother was actually quite a gifted sportsperson, and we would spend a lot of our family time going to his sporting matches on the weekend. And I remember I wasn't very sporty myself, and I didn't really feel like I could fit in in that part of my family. So I decided that I would go down the academia path, and then I actually fell into music and music, theater and performing,

which was great for somebody who likes to get around wearing masks, because I was able to play different characters and different roles and continue this disconnection of self. but the perfectionism in terms of the academia, like I truly believed that if I got certain grades or if I got that certain part within a role in the school play, that my parents would love me. And so it was an underlying drive for validation. But what happened was the more I achieved,

it didn't necessarily give me the result that I wanted. And then as I got older, that started to play out. As a teenager, I battled with, eating disorders. And it almost became this parallel where I came to a point where I realized, I think, deep down that there was nothing that I could do, no achievement that would be what I believed to be, air quotes, good enough for my parents. And so then I flipped the switch and I started rebelling. And that's, you know, around the time that drugs and alcohol came into my life. And it was like, I just thought to myself, well, fuck it. Like, if being perfect isn't the secret source, then I'm

just going to rebel and maybe that will get their attention and that's what I did from about the age of 12. Yeah, from 12, so that you started drinking and doing drugs at 12. Wow. Yeah, so I remember I took my first drink at the age of 12 and I drank to blackout out the very first time. I vividly remember that experience. It was almost like because I had spent the first 12 years of my life living with this sense of not being good enough, it was a fundamental core belief of mine as a child. As a result of that, I had this really noisy head, and I call it my inner critic or the itty-bitty shitty committee that lives in between my ears and it's a really negative voice and that was there 24-7. And all of a sudden I drank alcohol and it was like for the first time, the voices

just went silent. And there was this peace and this serenity that I think I'd been searching for my whole life and I found it and my logical brain at that time at 12 years old thought well if one drink does that then two drinks will be even better and so I just kept drinking until I passed out and that was really how I drank pretty much for the next two decades so at 12 years old alcohol entered my life and then by 14 I was messing around with hard drugs how do you get involved around the situation at 12 where you drink into blackout? Yeah, so crazy enough, it was actually my parents had taken me to a Christmas party that was here in Melbourne, a little bit of background. My dad was working. He had quite a high profile job at one of

the football clubs. And here in Melbourne, Australia, AFL is like religion. So he was president of one of these clubs. And as a result of that, my parents were invited to a lot of high profile parties. and so they took my brother and I along to this party. And it was at a house. And I had worked out with a friend of mine that they were serving these free cocktails at the entrance of the party. And so I just kept going around and then out the back and then around again, sneaking these cocktails.

So it was under my parents' nose. They were having their own party and their own fun at the time. My dad does share a story, however, that about 9 p.m., he gets a tap on the shoulder and had to come in to find me with my, arms wrapped around the toilet bowl and they quickly had to take me home. And it was a really interesting lesson at the time. And I think looking back a moment that unfortunately could have gone either way, I now see it with hindsight as it being the potential for a really teachable moment where my parents perhaps could have sat me down and tried to explain the dangers of alcohol

and the consequences to drinking like that. But unfortunately, because they were both heavy drinkers, that wasn't a conversation that was had. And instead of it being a teachable moment, it became a moment where I was reprimanded. I was grounded for six months. And all that taught me was that I needed to learn to hide it better. So I became really sneaky as a result of that. I learned to hide my drinking and my using from a really young age as well. And I became fundamentally dishonest. Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting too, though. When you talk about it there, how looking back, we can always kind of put the pieces of the puzzle together a little bit better than when it's going through it. But you hear this story a lot, right, with the voices, the inner

critic, the shady committee, you mentioned there too, about just beating ourselves up. And then those voices, it gets so loud. And then when we're drinking, it's gone. But it's really interesting how at such a young age, you were able to, I don't even know, like, I know for me, I wasn't aware that that's really what was happening at the time. I wasn't putting the pieces of the puzzle together to say, well, I'm struggling with all these thoughts and insecurities about myself. And then with the drinking, it took it away. I don't know if I put the two together, but somehow I put the two together because that's exactly in the same route that I was. But it's interesting too how it does that. I always wonder, it's like the strangest thing. But I'm like, was I just destined to struggle with this stuff

because of the other stuff? It's really strange how it plays out. But I hear your stories and story and hundreds of people's stories and it's like there seems to be a handful of things that are going on a small handful of things that a lot of us can relate to. Absolutely. I think what ends up happening is it's those handful of specific things that result in this need to want to escape from reality and escape from self. And I was similar to you. I don't think at the time as a 12 year old, I was in my rational brain able to logically piece together why I was using alcohol, but I definitely knew it internally. It was a feeling that I really enjoyed and I wanted more of it.

So that's what I was chasing. I was chasing that high from a really young age where I think perhaps people who grow up in environments that are perhaps more well-rounded or there's just more communication and more support there, they don't have that same desire to want to escape or discreet. connect from self. Yeah. Or maybe find other ways to do it. You know, like I think there are other things you can do shopping, totally. Sports, like, you know, doing other things and not too extremes, you know, like us, we've got that gift of extremes, right? All or nothing. So you start out there at 12 and you just want more and more. And then you mentioned at 14, you start doing drugs and stuff. How did that come

about? Yeah. So I was dating a guy at the time and his older brother was really into it. And I I remember I had been at a friend's birthday party and we all met up with this group of older guys in a hotel room and the brother didn't want to give me anything. They were really trying to protect me from it, but from a really young age, I've been very convincing. Some would say manipulative. And I managed to convince them at the time to let me try it. That was something that ran through me from a really young age as well. Like I always had to be the first to do everything, including really dangerous things. things. And so I really wanted to try it. And funnily enough, I didn't know at the time, but when I had

arrived at that hotel room, I'd actually broken my foot on the way to get into the taxi on the way there. I'd run down a flight of stairs, drunk, broken my foot, not realized it. Anyway, so I've gotten to this hotel room and I have this first line, well, you know what happens next. Like, I don't remember anything. I just remember feeling invincible. And so I spent the rest of the night like walking and dancing on this broken foot, not realizing. And it wasn't until the next day and I got home and I hadn't slept, but I looked down at my foot and it had just like blown up into this purple and black balloon. And I remember how I was trying to explain to my mom that I'd just fallen down the stairs, but none of it was making sense. And she was so used to my behavior being

erratic and inconsistent that I think she kind of just let it go. But again, I almost remember that experience more than the drinking because I have a memory of that, that feeling. And again, it was like, I really enjoyed it and I really wanted more of it. And so I continued partying and doing party drugs for the next two decades. They came in and out of my life. Like drinking was always the constant. But I'll share a quick story about, you know, when it did get really out of hand, I was 19 years old. And I'd moved out of home by the time I was 17 because I wanted to be able to hide my drinking and using and my family environment had remained chaotic. My parents ended up divorcing when I was 18, but up until that time it was pretty hectic and I wanted to get out. So I moved into my

boyfriend's house at the time and he was also a heavy drug user. And within about six months, I had developed a daily cocaine habit. And it got to the point where I owed my dealer a lot of money and I had absolutely no way of paying it. And I'd gone to the pawn shop and I'd sold my guitar and I'd sold my saxophone. And I just couldn't come up with this money. And I remember thinking at the time, like a rational thought in my head was to potentially go onto the streets and figure out a way to make money there. And for whatever reason, there was something stopping me from doing that.

And I realized that I had another option before that. And that was to go to my parents and to tell them what had happened. And so that's exactly what I did. And at the time, my parents did the best with the tools that they had. Today, my dad is in recovery and he's been in recovery since 2010. But this was 2006. So he was still drinking and we didn't know anything about rehabs. We didn't know anything as a family about 12-step recovery.

So basically my parents decided to take me up to a health farm in Queensland, which is on the east coast of Australia. And you know what? It was beneficial in that I was able to detox and I was able to be clean for seven days, but there was no therapy, there was no inner work, no inner child work, no understanding of the why, why was the reason that I was abusing drugs and alcohol the way I was. So of course, without knowledge, knowledge is power. I went home and I was using again that night. And I was able to curb the using because I basically got to a point where I couldn't really afford it. But the

drinking just seemed to always be accessible. The problem with my drinking and my using was that Sometimes I don't really like using this term, but I don't know any other way to explain it, is I would identify as being high functioning. And so what I mean by that is I was still able to keep a job, not only keep a job, but progress within my career. I think because I was still really good with people. And I could party until four, five in the morning, get an hour's sleep, get myself into the shower and get to work. Like I was always able to show up. And so as a result of that, like, the wheels weren't really falling off and externally everything looked okay and of course from such a young age I'd become this master of pretending like everything was okay so if you were to look at me like I was smiling I was bubbly I was outgoing so there were really no signs to suggest otherwise but the reality was internally I was dying inside and it was very progressive like the disease in me was a slow slow burn over a number of years by 2014 I I'd gotten to the point where I described it as I'd burnt my life down in Melbourne, and so much

so that I decided to take a geographical and move my life up to Sydney. And it was interesting, you know, because wherever you go there, you'll be. And my problems and my behaviour, they just followed me up there, right? Within 12 months, I'd started a new relationship with an addict, and that was a very codependent relationship. We enabled each other a lot. You know, I couldn't really call him out on his using because then he would call me out on my drinking. So we just both didn't really say a whole lot and we fueled each other's

addictions and that carried on for another four years until it was 2018 where I describe it as this sliding doors moment for me. By this time, he was my fiance. His name's Max and he doesn't mind me using his name in these stories. Max and I had come down to Melbourne to go to a wedding and we had gotten a phone call on a Saturday morning from Max's brother's best friend saying that Dan hadn't arrived at work that morning. And that was really strange for him not to show up. And the reason they were calling us was because he lived with us. And so we decided, we couldn't get onto him either. And we said to the friend, you know, why don't you just go to the house and try and jump over the fence and just wake him up and I'm sure everything will be fine.

And when he got to the apartment, he jumped over the fence and he got into the apartment. And unfortunately, he did find Dan and Dan had taken his own life. The reason I mentioned this part of the stories because when I got that phone call, it was almost like this sliding doors moment, and I remember it so vividly because it was in that moment that this switch flipped in my brain, and it was almost like I just pressed the fuck it button, and I went, I'm out. And my solution to life became daily drinking because I couldn't fathom how I was going to, number one, manage my own life, let alone my husband's life, knowing. that he had just lost his best friend, his absolute world. And so that's what I did that day.

I became a daily drinker. And that went on for the next two years. And that's really where the cycle of addiction kicked off for me. And how I describe it, it was like Groundhog Day. Every single morning I would wake up with this same splitting headache, violently hung over, nauseous. I would try and get myself ready for work all the while, swearing black and blue that I would, wasn't going to drink again that day. Like under no circumstances could I possibly drink alcohol. And then every single day, I'd get to work and, you know, a couple of coffees later, all of a sudden I can stomach a little bit of food. It gets to about lunchtime and then all of a sudden my head starts to tell me, it probably wasn't that bad. I think you're overreacting here. And like a switch,

I would think that I've changed my mind. And all of a sudden, I'm rationalizing and justifying that Just one drink tonight won't hurt. And then boom, the cycle starts again. I'm picking up the bottle of wine on the way home telling myself I'll just have one glass. And then the problem with me, my disease had taken such a hold at this time that the moment alcohol hit my lips, I could not guarantee my behavior and I could not stop until I was blacked out. Wow. Yeah, that went on for two years until February 2020.

And that's where I, you know, I don't know if I'd necessarily call it a rock bottom because it was wasn't any different to any other night that I'd had. But basically, I went out one night with the intention of having one drink. Same old story. I walked through the door at 9 a.m. the next morning. I was down in Melbourne. I walked into my mom's house. She saw me. Her heart broke. I literally watched her heartbreak in front of me as something snapped. And I just thought to myself, I can't do this anymore. I cannot do another day of this. Like, if I don't do something, then things aren't going to end very well. And that, moment that I said I need help and that really kickstarted my journey into rehab and then into

sobriety. Yeah. Wow. Did you say that I need help? Was that to your mom or was that like an internal thing to yourself? It was both. I fell to my knees and I remember my mom coming up to me and I said I can't do this anymore. Like I'm ready. And then we actually called my dad who funnily enough was just around the corner heading into an AA meeting at the time. And he came over and the three of us sat out the back of my mom's house smoking cigarettes and crying and getting together a plan. And, you know, that afternoon, I called rehab that was back up in Sydney that I knew of. And within the week, I had checked in there. Wow, that's incredible. I'm wondering, too, did your folks know how serious this was for you? Or were you still keeping this hidden from most people? It's a really good

question, you know, I was very, very good at hiding it, but of course they knew. Moving to Sydney was a calculated decision I now see in hindsight because it meant that I was really able to hide my drinking and my using. And so for periods of time, I was able to get away with it. But, you know, every now and then I would have a night because what happened was when I drank alcohol, all of a sudden, everything came out because I would stop pretending and all of my real, emotions would come to the surface and a lot of the time I'd end up getting on the phone and calling people and crying and being hysterical. And at times that would be either one of my parents or my brother. So they definitely had signs of it, but in particular, there was no way my mum knew that

drugs had re-entered the scene. That would have just absolutely devastated her. So I was really conscious about hiding things and only showing certain parts. And again, like if ever they thought there was something wrong. Like I was really good at blaming everyone. Like I was like, oh, well, it was because of this or it was because Max was doing this. And that was another part of that moment that I realized I needed help. You know, Max had actually left to go to India because by this stage, our marriage was really suffering. After we lost Dan, to give you a bit of a time frame, we had the funeral seven days later and then our wedding was seven days after that. So it was incredibly difficult to ever sort of establish the foundation for a really rock solid marriage.

And as a result of that, we spent the next two years falling into our isolated addictions, rather than growing together, we grew apart. So Max decided at the beginning of 2020 to go to India to try and he was going to do a silent meditation retreat in the hope that he'd be able to get some answers around his own addiction. You know, as we do, we seek out all the different paths before we get to the point of abstinence, I think. And in that time, I thought, this is great, because you're going to go away and then I'm going to stop drinking because the reason I drink the way I do is because you use every day and, you know, excuses, excuses, blame, blame. And then he left the country and I was still drinking the way that I was prior. And it was at that point that I was like,

I can't deny this anymore. Like, I have to realize that I am the creator of the carnage and that I can't blame anyone. You know, my dad over the years, as I mentioned, he got into recovery in 2010. So there was that period of a decade where every now and then I would blow my life up to the point where I would call him and I would say, Dad, I need help. And if I was in Melbourne at the time, he would actually take me to a 12-step meeting. But he never, ever tried to force recovery on me. It was always a very gentle, loving arm. And it was almost like, why don't you come along, see what it's about and he would share his experience, strength and hope with me. But the problem was every time I went into a 12-step meeting, I describe it as I was shrouded

in shame. The noises in my head was so loud that I wasn't able to hear the message that was actually going on around me. It's like I had cotton wool in my ears. And so that was why for me rehab and being physically removed from alcohol and drugs was so, so important for me. And part of my journey because it wasn't until I was able to do that, that I was able to remove the cotton wool from my ears. The fog started to lift and then all of a sudden I started to really hear the message both in 12 step, but also within the rooms within the therapy, the group therapy, the process, the timelines, everything I did there, all the work I did there in rehab, started to help me understand the why, which was such an important part to me, maintaining my sobriety

once I got out. Yeah. Wow. And so the treatment center really helped you out. It sounds like removing yourself from the situation and doing stuff. So figuring out, we already probably went over the why in the beginning of the story. Am I right with that? For me, there was a fundamental disconnection from the person that I was portraying to the outside world and the person that I really was. And this has been probably the greatest gift that I have experienced personally in recovery has been this reconnection back to myself and actually figuring out who I am. Like, what does Ash like and dislike? And it's from everything.

It's like my taste in music, movies, people. I used to think I was the most out there extroverted person because that's what I projected. But the reality is I actually love my own company. I love my own space. at one year sober, my marriage did end up dissolving and I moved back to Melbourne and I lived in an apartment by myself for 12 months and I did all of this crazy stuff that I never would have done before. And this is the coolest part is like I'm three years sober and I feel like I'm just at the very beginning of this journey. Like I get to peel off all of these different layers and it's over time

and it's a really beautiful blossoming experience. But until I was able to do that, And also to acknowledge what actually happened, because I'll tell you another story, Brad. I remember vividly sitting in group therapy in this rehab. And one of the exercises they got us to do was to do a timeline. So we had to go from zero to age 17 and map out any significant moments that we thought might have created trauma in our lives. And I remember going into that exercise honestly thinking, well, I haven't experienced any trauma. So this is going to be a bit weird, but okay, I'll do my best.

And I got out this piece of paper and I started ruling everything up perfectly with color-coded highlighters because remember I'm a perfectionist, right? So I'm drawing up this timeline and I start writing everything out, thinking not much of it. Anyway, it gets to the day where I present it back to the group with the primary therapist in the room. And I read, took me about an hour to get through it and I finished sharing my story. story and my therapist looked at me and the first thing she said was Ashley, you smiled through that entire hour. She was really concerned about that because it was such an intense

disassociation from the reality of what I had just spoken to people about. And then she pointed out to me that there wasn't one, there wasn't two, there wasn't three, there was multiple instances of significant trauma within my story that I just hadn't even acknowledged because to me that was just normal. Like it was just normal for your parents not to come home at night. It was just normal to have to make your own lunch every day or have your parents give you a $20 note and say that's for dinner. Like go sort yourselves out kids. And there were other instances, things that had nothing to do with my parents. And again, I will echo like they did the best with the tools they had and I have an incredible loving relationship with both of them today. But only through doing this work, right?

I had to first acknowledge what went on. Then I had to do the trauma healing as a result of sharing my timeline. They actually identified that I would be put into an accelerated program for people that had experienced significant childhood trauma. And that program was called Changes. And that's where I went in and even did more intensive somatic work. And I was able to do things like hand back the guilt and the shame to different people in my life that had given it to me to carry from a young age.

And all of that was such a power. powerful experience that has allowed me to continue this work of working out who I am. Because as long as I'm carrying that guilt and that shame, as long as I'm denying my reality or disassociating from my story, then how can I possibly get to the core and the inner essence of who I am? So I am so incredibly grateful for that experience and it really had changed my life. Yeah, it sounds like it. And this was all at the rehab? Or is this like an aftercare program that you did as well continued on? This was all at the rehab. So the rehab I went to, it's called South Pacific Private, and it actually

modelled off the meadows, which is in Arizona. So it's all based around PMLD's developmental model of immaturity. So you spend a lot of time unpacking codependency and codependent traits and how they all flush out into secondary issues and different addictions and they can be, you know, substance abuse, but also process addictions and all sorts of things. So it was quite an intensive program. It was a three-week inpatient stay. And then they did provide aftercare after that. But unfortunately, nine days after I got out of rehab, we went into lockdown. And it was the first lockdown of New South Wales.

And Zoom and things like that hadn't quite gotten set up yet. So it was really interesting. My first year of sobriety, like I didn't have any of the sort of follow-up aftercare from the rehab, but I did go straight into 12-step, which really helped me stay in the middle and stay close to other people who were sober and doing the work as well. Yeah, no, that's incredible. Yeah, I remember that. Remember those times. It seems like so far away, doesn't it? It's wild. It's crazy. Yeah, how things move. You know, I'm interested here, though, because you have all this stuff going on and you're not really looking after it for so many years. You mentioned two decades

of drinking and using drugs. And then you have this taught with your mom and like all of a sudden, you're willing to look at all this stuff and take on the world, how was that for you? How come you were able to maybe move so fast? Because I think a lot of people, it takes a lot of time. They go to treatment. Some people do go to treatment. They're not willing to listen, not willing to accept stuff, not being open to trying things. Like you mentioned this, you're doing your chart there and you're having a hard time beforehand to say like, hey, this is important. But I feel like some people, if they see it and there's no value there, might not even do it. And then from what I'm hearing is that you did that. And that really opened up another window of understanding of maybe how things

played out. But what provided you the willingness, I guess is the short question. In short, I had the gift of desperation. We hear that phrase thrown around a lot, but it was really the reality for me. By the time, I really took things to the edge, like to the bitter end, I had gotten to the point when I finally asked for help. Like, I knew I was fucked. Like, I had honestly tried every other way of trying to get sober. I had tried yoga, meditation, doing dry July, like periods of abstinence. I really had, but I knew in my core. Remember, I had been on that hamster wheel, as I know you call it, for two years, every single, day promising myself that I wouldn't drink and then I was drinking again. Like I knew in my core

that without help, I was cooked. I was done. And so I did. I had that gift of desperation where I was willing to do whatever I was told to do. And that's something that I've carried throughout my recovery the last three years. And even though it may seem like first treatment center, bang, she gets it. You've got to remember that there was 10 years of like pretty intense crashing and bashing where I think I had tried to get sober. Even though it wasn't through the treatment center, I mean, I had many, many conversations with my dad about it and popping my head into A and yeah, even though it seems like maybe it was quick. Like for me, it felt like it was a decade long process to get there. Yeah, which is interesting too that you bring that up.

about 10 years because there's something, it's a strange thing. And I don't know if there's anything to it, but I'm hearing a lot of people are struggling for like 10 years seems to be like big thing struggling. And then it's a 10 year thing. It seems to be like we get that. I don't know. It's really strange. And it's only a handful of people. So I don't know if there's anything there. I hope not because 10 years is definitely, you know, a long time to go through this. What was it like for you though? So you wake up and you're like, I can't do this again, right? Because we have all the physical effects, the mental health that, you know, just really gets decimated, physical health is down the drain. spiritually, I mean, I was just personally broken and disconnected. Do we get in that

cycle of it's not going to happen and then we do it again? Were you beating yourself up throughout that whole process? I don't think I ever really, I mean, I don't think I ever really gave it enough of a shot. When I talk about trying to get sober, it's really interesting. I don't think I ever gave myself enough of a chance to ever sort of honestly be able to put my hand on my heart and say, yeah, I tried and it didn't work. And I was doing that because I was wanting to stay in that bubble of denial. As long as I hadn't truly given it a shot in my mind, then it was okay because I wasn't failing. And if I wasn't failing at getting sober, then I didn't really have a problem, you see. So there was all of these like,

mental twists and mind games that I was playing and the denial ran so deep within myself, even though I knew deep down that things were getting really, really bad. Like I so identify with what you were sharing about physically. Like I've shared on Instagram. Like I looked like a completely different person. If you ever check out my rehab intake photo, like, wow, a completely different person physically. Mentally, I was cooked. Like I had ended up on Lexapro for anxiety.

I'd been hospitalized twice with significant major panic attacks in the sort of year leading up to getting sober and never thinking that it was alcohol that was causing that. Like I thought it was the death of my brother-in-law. So again, like denial, not being able to look at my stuff and acknowledge what was really going on. And then spiritually, like, oh my gosh, you know, Brad, like I said, I had tried to get into yoga a bit and, you know, yoga is such an incredibly spiritual practice, and I actually am now a yoga teacher in sobriety, funnily enough, but at the time I would go to these yoga classes and I would be drunk half the time because, you know, I needed a bit of vodka just to get going.

And I would be lying there in Shavasana, wondering why I wasn't getting the connection and the hit that I was looking for. Of course I wasn't, because there was already alcohol in my system. And again, meditation, like I would sit there and I would try and commit to a daily practice of meditation, but the problem was I was so violently hung over every morning that I couldn't sit still and I couldn't sit in the quiet. And I'd also been snoozing my alarm for 30 minutes. So it was like, I didn't have any time to sit there and meditate. So I was definitely seeking. But the reality was as long as I was putting alcohol into my system, like I shared the other day on Instagram,

it's like it's the spirit of alcohol that disconnects you from the spirit within yourself until for me I was able to get abstinent, like I was going to stay in that rat race. It was just, it was so overwhelming. Yeah, it's one of those things. When you know, you know. Figure that out. When you can connect those two pieces, then I feel like it can make a huge difference because then you have that understanding of what's truly going on.

And when we're wrapped up in it, you know, I had no idea what was actually going on until you get distance from it. And I think the other big thing, and this is part of the reason I'm so passionate about the work that I do within the recovery space and the work that you're doing, Bradd, is I also didn't really. really have any examples of like women my age who were sober and looked like they were enjoying it. And so like I'm so grateful for the fact that I got to that point where I was so desperate, I was willing to do anything because I can really understand how so many people stay out there for a really, really long time because the idea of getting sober can be really, really scary. And I remember even walking into rehab thinking to myself, well, you know what? If I'm going to be sober, like my life is probably over. But if I keep drinking, I'm going to die. So I may as well

give this a shot. And I had resigned to the fact that I was never going to enjoy my life again, that I was going to lose all my friends. I was never going to laugh. I was looking at it through such a small lens. None of it was true. Like if I had only known what the reality of life sober was going to be like, I think I probably would have gotten sober a lot earlier. But I didn't have any reference point at the time or any examples of other people that were doing it that looked like they were really enjoying it other than my dad. And that was kind of a hard one to gauge because he was a 50-something man. Yeah, no, I hear you on that. And now there's a lot more people sharing about it and having fun doing it, but yeah, when everything is attached to one thing and then you have to give up that one thing,

then I think it's just natural to say, well, there goes everything. That's what we know. So you mentioned you're three years sober, huge congrats on that. That's incredible. What has life been like for you since you started on this journey? Like, what's changed? Oh my gosh, what hasn't changed? So just to give you a couple of examples, they say in recovery, not to make any big decisions in the first 12 months. And like I said, I took everything really seriously, including that advice. And so what I did was I spent the first 12 months still in the relationship with my husband and he was still in active addiction and that was really hard because we were in lockdown.

But I stuck to my guns. I stayed sober. And at a year sober, I decided to end that marriage and I moved back to Melbourne. So I moved cities. I left my marriage. A year after that, I left my corporate job. I'd been at L'Oreal for five years and I decided to leave that, become a yoke. teacher and start a podcast. So it's like my life could not look any more different now. And

it's the most rewarding, incredible space to be in. Like every single day I get to work with other women, stay connected to other sober people. And like, I know that I'm doing good in this world. I spent so many years creating chaos and carnage wherever I went. Like I wasn't proud of the person that I was showing up in the world. I didn't treat people. with respect. Like everything I was doing, there was an undercurrent of like what's in it for me. And none of those things apply to me anymore. Like I honestly come from a place of compassion, love, selflessness. I try and think of others in any given situation. And as a result of that, I've rebuilt my self-esteem. And I really love the person that looks back at me in the mirror.

Like, I'm really proud of the woman I am today. I didn't ever think that was going to be possible. sobriety is such a gift and the longer that I've stayed sober and like I said three years, because I'm in this for the long run, right? Like I want to stay sober for the rest of my life. So it does seem like three years is a short amount of time, especially when you compare it to the fact that I was drinking and using for 20 years. I know that I'm at the very beginning of this journey. But what it's shown me from the outset is things keep getting better.

And that's not to say things are great all the time. Like sobriety's fucking hard. you have to feel everything and you feel it like in the moment as it is with nothing to numb the edges. And, you know, a big part of, for me in this journey has been learning to sit in the discomfort, to sit in the shit and know that a feeling's not going to kill me. That's been a really big part of particularly the last 12 months. The first 12 months, I think it's like, just don't pick up a drink, right? Just don't pick up a drink.

And then you get through that first 12 months and then you start to like work out how to be in the world again and how to have relationships and how to engage in life. And then from there, you just start to up level and things start to fall into place because you're more aware of who you are as a person. And none of that would be possible if I was still drinking and using. So yeah, I mean, life has changed more than I could have ever possibly imagined. Like if you had given me a pen and a piece of paper at three days sober and said, write down for me where you're going to be in three years, not a single one of those things that I just mentioned would have been listed. And that's what I love as well is like it's so cool because I came from living a life

that was so small and so insular to now so big and so expansive and so full of light, love and hope. It's just amazing. Wow. That's incredible. So you quit your job, went into podcasting and doing yoga. Yeah, all the things. Yeah, I live a really like connected spiritual life now, which is just the complete opposite to what I was doing for the first 32 years. Yeah. It's kind of like that thing too. Like everything was so busy, right? In the addiction, the chaos.

Everything was busy. The fear of missing outs. We have to be part of everything. And there's like this kind of boredom. It's not really boredom, but it's just kind of stillness. In recovery, I don't know. It's a beautiful thing where you can just enjoy it. You don't have to be going out places.

You don't have to be part of the parties, part of the crew. For me anyway, I just enjoy just kicking it. sometimes and just chilling and I was never able to do that for a long time. I always had to have that distraction. Don't want to miss out on anything. Got to be part of something. It was like running around with chicken with its head cut off type deal, trying to always keep up. Yeah, so I identify with that. And I think a big part of that for me, Brad, was that sense of not wanting to sit with myself because I really hated the person that I was. Like, I was really ashamed. I wasn't proud of the person I was. I didn't have any self-esteem. And so to sit alone with my own thoughts, that was like,

I couldn't even imagine doing that, even if I was alone. Like, I did most of my drinking in the last two years alone by myself hiding it because I just couldn't sit with myself. Whereas today, I absolutely love my own company. Like, it gets to the point where I have to consciously make sure that I'm, like, leaving the house and engaging with people because I can spend a whole lot of time by myself and be really happy. That's so cool. Look, I ask this question for most people, but if someone's listening to the show and they're struggling to get her stay sober, what advice would you have for them from your own journey?

Oh, yeah, don't stop before the miracle happens. In this short amount of time, all of the incredible people that I've met, we all have different stories. But the one thing that we all share is this incredible abundance of gratitude that we have for sobriety. So I would just say, like, don't give up and take the cotton wool out of your ears and listen. When I just shut up and listened and took direction, my life became so much easier. Because when I was in the mentality of, don't worry, I got this or I know better, I was just in a world of pain and I ended up burning my life to the ground. Once I became teachable and I became

willing, like things just fell into place and I was able to hand it over and that's the lane that I've stayed in since getting sober and it surfed me really well. Yeah, no, that's so powerful. Yeah, I mean, getting out of your own way. I always go back to, I mean, the best ideas I had ended me up in the worst places. And when I first started, I had to really understand, like get honest with myself that, hey, like, you don't know, you don't know what to do. The best ideas rarely worked out. It ended you up in the places you were trying not to end up. I always keep that just with a lot of things in life. And I think that's so important for somebody coming in

because a lot of people, when they come into recovery too, the one term you mentioned before, I know you don't like that term. But I mean, high functioning, right? That comes around a lot. And it's like, I think some people on the outside can definitely be high functioning. You can show up to your job and you can do this. But what we're seeing more and more is that impacts of alcohol on your health, your mental health, your mental health, your physical health.

If you're drinking a lot, you get a lot of damage to stuff you cannot see. when I think about alcohol, what it does externally to us. Just imagine what it's doing on the inside. So I think at the end of day, I'm like, we can show up to work and we can do this, but I'm like, there's a lot of cost here. And then the other thing, too, for a lot of people, what I see and where I struggled with, too, is a lot of people say, how do you get sober? And I feel like the question is just so open-ended.

And I like to frame it up in a different way here. Of recent, I kind of thought of this. But what are you willing to do? Because I get messages on Instagram emails every single day. well, how do you get sober? Well, there's all kinds of ways. You could go to 12-step recovery. You go to rehab. You go to detox. You go to Salvation Army. You go to the homeless shelter. You can do smart recovery. Dharma recovery. You could go see a therapist. You could start reading books. You could get a recovery. I mean, you get the gist, right? The list is math. And I think I kind of switch it.

You know, it's like, what are you willing to do? What are you if you're struggling right now? What are you willing to do? And I love what you mentioned to about the gift of desperation. What I love about that is it's a real thing. What I hate about that is that you got to lose a lot to get there. You know, it's kind of like that thing. But it is a beautiful thing. But I personally just hate to see that kind of play out. But I love everything, Ash, that you've shared with us.

In your podcast, I've had a great honor to be on your show. It's incredible. I mean, if I can do half the show you do, I'm in good hands. I'll fall where I'm supposed to. How can we find you? Thank you, Brad. That's so kind. Definitely.

Everyone go check out Brad's episode. It's epic. It's been one of the best performing episodes we've ever had on the podcast. The podcast is called Behind the Smile. So go check that out wherever you find great podcasts. Or you can find me on Instagram at Ash Butters with two S's. I'm there. I'm active.

And I'll get back to you all the time. Yeah. So cool. Is there anything you want to finish off with here? We covered a lot of ground. Yeah, I feel like we have covered a lot of ground today. I think the only other thing that I'll add here is just to remember that you get out as much as you put in. And with the people that I work with, with the people that I talk to, like it time and time again,

the people that I see that come into recovery, that put in the work, that actively adopt the disciplines, like start a meditation practice, start journaling, write a gratitude list. There's so many different cool tools and techniques out there. Do this like your life depends on it. Give it a proper shot before you give up and say it hasn't worked for you. And just don't sell yourself shot. Wow. That hits home for me because I'm big on that about showing up,

about really like getting honest with yourself. Look deep and ask yourself that question. Like when I say that this didn't work, was it that that didn't work or I wasn't working or I wasn't doing the work? I look at it like a savings account that you brought that up. If you have a savings account and you don't put any money into it, then you can't draw money from it. So if you don't do the work, it's recovery. You can't go to the bank one day and say, yeah, well, I'll take $500 and they say, well, you never put any money into it.

Yes. And I think that that's so important because I see a lot of people, I see it, man, I did it myself too. I went to tons of groups and meetings and everything and I couldn't wait to get out of there and, you know, get on to the next one. But I see it a lot of people just sitting back. And I know it's uncomfortable and it's difficult and it's hard. I want you to just get out of your own way. And I want you to get out of yourself out there. Get uncomfortable and get involved because just sitting in a chair or just showing up to your therapist's office and giving them half of the story is not going to get you where you want to be and where you deserve to be.

You deserve to be sober and living your best doggone life like Ash is doing here. Three years. I mean, that's incredible. and look at everything that's changed. It's beautiful. Yeah, 100%. I completely echo everything you've said there, Brad. And this is the thing, like, if you keep doing the same thing, you can expect the same result.

But maybe just give this a go. Maybe just try it and just imagine where your life could go. That's the exciting part of this story. Yeah, so true. All righty, Ash, we better sign off there. Thank you so much. Thank you, Brad. As always, it's so great to chat with you, and I'll see you soon.

Wow. So grateful that Ash jumped on here. 11 p.m. her time in Australia when we recorded this. I am extremely grateful. Ash is just a powerhouse. She has a podcast called Behind the Smile, which like we mentioned, I was able to jump on there and share some of my story.

So check that out. And I hope you enjoyed this episode. Hope you're enjoying the episodes. We're doing two episodes per week. And look, if you are, if you're enjoying it, be sure to leave a review. on your favorite podcasting platform, whether that be Spotify or Apple or IHeart Radio, wherever you listen to the show, leave a review, and I'll see you on the next one.