Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Carly Rogers wanted to hit ”cruising altitude” to feel comfortable and alcohol helped her do that until it was time to say goodbye.

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

Carly Rogers started drinking alcohol when she was 11 years old. It all started out very innocent and was never intended to become what it ended up being. Carly was performing in Nashville and drinking seemed to go hand and hand with the business. Carly’s doctor mentioned it would be best if she was not drinking alcohol due to having some medical issues from a car accident. Carly feared she would no longer be fun or fit in but for the last 93 days she has discovered that was not the truth. This is Carly’s story on the sober motivation podcast.   Follow Carly on Instagram Download the SoberBuddy App Follow SoberMotivation on Instagram   ZAdEcaPVtku4nowCcrXE

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. Carly Rogers started drinking alcohol when she was just 11 years old. It all started out very innocent and was never intended to become what it ended up being. Carly was performing in Nashville and drinking seemed to go hand-in-hand with the business. Carly's doctor mentioned it would be best if she was not drinking alcohol due to having some medical issues from a car accident.

Carly feared she would no longer be fun or fit in, but for the last 93 days, she has discovered that was not the truth. This is Carly's story on the Sober Motivation podcast. If you could use some extra support on your recovery journey, be sure to check us out at the Sober Buddy app. We have 10 live support groups per week and also an extremely supportive community. You don't have to do this alone. Join the sober buddy community today. Download the app at your soberbuddy.com or your favorite app store. I'll see you over there.

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Carly Rogers with us. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you for asking. How are you? I'm good. I'm good.

I'm glad that we finally got this thing figured out and we're here recording. this. So how we usually start the podcast is what was it like for you growing up? Well, growing up was pretty rambunctious and chaotic. We did a lot of traveling. My brother and I raced BMX and my parents provided and worked really hard for that. So it was pretty sporadic, pretty chaotic. We always missed a few days of school, which was nice, but a lot of just keeping busy. We were definitely around a lot of scenes back then, especially being like a, like BMX racing as a tailgating kind of event. So lots of alcohol, lots of party, you know,

lots of good times, but very, very chaotic. Yeah, I hear you on that. Where did you grow up at? Vermont. Okay, perfect. Yeah. There's a big BMX scene there? Not necessarily.

There's a track in my hometown that was built. So it became pretty popular, I guess, in the area. It's gotten more popular now after a couple of dead years. And then it's very popular. down south now where I'm staying near Tampa and the East Coast specifically. There's lots of tracks and things. New York State's got a lot of tracks. Yeah.

Okay. It's become pretty international now since the Olympics. Yeah. We actually had somebody on the podcast, Tony Hoffman. He was a coach for the Olympic team at some point. Wow. Yeah. He was a BMX guy.

So cool. So BMX thing. You don't want people too since I mean, we are on a sober podcast. A lot of people too have. have something happen in their childhood that maybe they can say, hey, maybe this didn't necessarily directly relate to things becoming a problem, but maybe it affected things. Did you have anything like that that you can recall from your childhood days? Yeah. Well, I mean, I remember my parents, they had quit drinking for a long time when we were young kids. And then when they started drinking

again, it was a lot. I do remember a lot of times thinking to myself, I'll never drink alcohol. I'll never do that. I don't like the way people look or smell or act when they drink and things like that. And then there are a couple of pretty chaotic events that I do pretty vividly remember from being a kid that I swore, like never going to drink. As soon as I'm even able, I won't. I could get permission to drink it right now and never wanted to. And then, I don't know, I was at a friend's sleepover when I was in middle school and that was it. The peer pressure was all it took really at that age to be able to start drinking and that's kind of when it flipped. Yeah. Interesting you say that when it flipped. So you went from not being interested to being interested. Yeah. School. Middle

school. Yeah. Well, and I was young in middle school too. So I might have been 12 in the seventh grade, but I started off at 11. So I can't remember if it was 11 or 12 when I started first really consuming beer and liquor. How did that look for you? How did that come about? Well, a bunch of us, you know, young girls that were all friends and stuff. We were at our friends, parents, lake house or something for the weekend and the adults went to sleep. And we had our own little cabin. So it was as easy as being sneaky and grabbing a bottle, which come to find out later on in life, they didn't care. The parents at the time, they knew that we snuck it. They didn't care at all. And we were all being sneaky. So it was fun. And oh, we couldn't taste anything because we

were 11. So it just tasted like water because our taste buds haven't developed yet. And then we felt goofy. And so that's kind of the way that we got, you know, at least I can say for myself that I got enticed and hooked on drinking. Yeah. If that makes sense. Of course. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I mean, the availability is there and then you, yeah, it's like a good time at first, right? For most of them anyway. Well, some people have a really bad experience where they're throwing up and stuff, but we still go back to it and experiment more. How did things progress, though? because I can't imagine at 11, 12, this becomes an everyday thing for, you know. It did pretty quick.

My parents worked really hard, and they were home a lot, but they were also gone just as often. And a lot of my friends were like that. They all had parents that either they would go out at night or they would leave us home alone for the weekend or whatever the case was. And it was always available. And a lot of times without restriction, like we didn't have to ask permission or didn't have to sneak because our parents weren't home. or a lot of us had older siblings that were generous enough to leave some behind or let us hang out with them while they were all drinking. And so, yeah, it was very easy to become habitual even in high school. I remember going to sports practices either hungover or drunk and thinking

it was funny and still performing great, still getting good grades in school, still, you know, a starting athlete or anything like that. And this was fresh information. I've done hundreds of podcasts now and I've never talked about this. So I hope I'm not getting anybody in trouble by that. But, you know, it's just crazy. Like, I remember now going back through one year high school, I had a class with one person every single day, every semester. And we would bring water bottles of vodka into school and drink them. And not every day, but, you know, more than once a week sometimes. And then on top of that, too, just the weekends, we never really had any restriction. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is probably a more common of a story than maybe even we

realize. Yeah. And I'm just talking as one person out of a group of maybe, and this isn't even highballing, but like 10 to 15 of my friends that I know of. And then we've got, you know, another group of 10 to 20 people, all of our older siblings. So and that's just, okay, let's put 40 people right right there in one small town of 2,000 people. That's a big percentage. Yeah, for sure. Early on, what was it doing for you? Was it solving a problem for you? Or it was just a the habit you were doing or what was going on? It was, yeah, it was cool, you know, and it was just we were able to. We didn't really brag about it.

We weren't trying to, like, show off in school or anything like that. Our group of friends just, we thought it was funny. We thought we were getting away with something and we were all able to function, even at such a young age, fairly inebriated. So I think that was really the only thing was just fitting in, feeling cool. Did you struggle to fit in? feel cool without doing that? I wouldn't say necessarily that I struggled with it, but it just made it feel easier. And being smart or being good at singing or being good at basketball wasn't really

enough to keep up with everybody else. That's interesting. Interesting. When did you start with singing? Because that's where you're at right now. Share a little bit about that with us. Yeah, so I mean, I started really performing when I was five or six performing the national anthem at BMX races. And then I got into seeing the national anthem at parades and other sporting events around town. I joined my first band when I was 13 and we played in bars. It was pretty neat. We got the opportunity to get paid to play in places like that. And of course, my parents were always present and we were never allowed to drink whenever we were in there.

but of course I was getting snuck, snots and beers and things like that. And so, yeah, I didn't really see like success until, I'm going to say maybe 2016 when I first started working with Upchurch. That's who kind of gave me like my biggest song so far. Wow. Yeah. Well, that's cool. And I'm sure we'll get back and touch on that a bit more.

And hopefully you'll play us a song here too. I can. I just told you I've got the guitar that Tray Lewis. told me right next to me. So I could if you, if you'd like. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that. I definitely would love that. But okay, so let's move forward here. So you're in high school. What happens after high school? If we're not skipping too far ahead, when did you realize that, hey, I might have a problem with this or, hey, my life might improve if I don't do this. Did that ever happen? I've always kept that little piece of little Carly in there that said, you don't want to be like,

this. You don't want these things, you know, all of those negated. You don't want this. You don't blah, you want to be better than this. And as soon as I graduated high school, my parents okayed me getting a fake ID so that I could perform at the bars in Nashville, which having a fake idea at 17 years old, moving to Nashville, Tennessee to play music in bars. I mean, that was just a recipe for disaster there that in hindsight, it was just all signs blinking like problem, problem, problem. Of course, you know, fast forward. Now we know better. But back then it looked like success, success, success. And I think the turning point, there was one point, maybe right before the pandemic where I'd had to talk with a girlfriend of mine where I was like, I got to quit,

like I got to quit drinking. It's making me ill. I'm drinking so much that it's making me sick, which was a first. I never had a problem with getting ill or hung over even until I was drinking almost entire bottles of liquor in a few hours. And that's a lot. And then finally a doctor told me about 90 days ago that if I didn't stop, that the brain injury that I had sustained about five years ago could potentially cause some severe long-term effects, if not a fatality. So it was at that point for sure that I was like, all right, that's it. I'm done. I'm done right now. I think I had six or seven beers in the fridge that I just let sit there for however long it was. was before I moved. And yeah. Yeah, wow. So today we talked a little bit before we jumped on here

live that you have 93 days of sobriety, which is incredible. So before the doctor told you, did you ever make any attempts at getting sober? Did you ever talk to people? What did that look like? Yeah, I'm wearing my best friend Ali's merchandise. She was also a country singer. And she's been with me since freshman year of college being my best friend. And her and I had had multiple conversations. A lot of times, me and tears, you know, we'd Snapchat back and forth video messages almost like so we didn't have anything in writing. But a lot of video conversations of dude, I got to stop this too much or I'm spending too much money or now's to the point where like I stay I'm going to not drink today and I still end up drinking by two o'clock in the afternoon.

Even if it's just a beer. Like I could go a whole day and just only have one beer, but I had to have that one. So a lot of times those conversations would come back at me like, dude, you said you weren't going to drink today. Ah, yeah, whatever. I don't have a problem. So, you know, one's good. But after especially extensive research, even that one beer can be so detrimental. Yeah. Yeah, I know for me, for my story, like, I could definitely have the one. But it took everything inside of me to not have any more where it was just like this pure insanity in my mind just was just going crazy, right? Was it like that? Right. After the doctor's conversation, no.

But before the doctor conversation, absolutely. I was like, oh, if I'm sitting here drinking a soda, I might as well drink a beer or whatever. Yeah, it was definitely possible to have that one. But after the one, then it was like, yeah, you just wanted more. One for me did the trick. I was never after one. It couldn't get me to a place where I could escape myself. So I just had to have more and more and more.

And I always called that cruising altitude, too. I never wanted to get drunk, but I wanted to get up to cruising altitude where I felt comfortable. And I almost felt more comfortable because I could either not have the one, but once you have that one, like you said, now you're just like, well, let me just get into my comfort zone or let me just keep on having them. Yeah. And I always was chasing that comfort zone, which unfortunately my comfort zone became 12 to 15 beers or a few liquor drinks. But yeah, that was definitely tough. Yeah. No, no, I hear you for sure.

What role does this all play in sort of the country music scene? Because I know just from knowing, I'm a huge country music fan, and I know there's a lot of artists out there who it's interesting to me. They don't drink themselves. They're sober. But they make songs about drinking. And I'm just thinking, it is what it is. It's cool.

I'm not against that. What I wonder is how wrapped up the culture is about drinking. And like if you want to make a hit song, maybe that's how you do it is talk about drinking. I'm curious about that. I really know nothing, and I'm sure you probably have much more insight on this. So what do you think?

Yeah, well, and I'll even take it if I may, I call these my little stoner thoughts, because I go down these rabbit holes of things, and I'll even take it back as early as like the Mountain Dew and White Lightning days where it's so ingrained in the genetic component of growing up maybe low middle class, upper middle class, blue collar, whatever you want to call it country, that everybody relates to it. So therefore, it's profitable.

So therefore, the industry is pumping that into the system, which again, just regurgitates more alcoholism coming through that it's just this big wave, in my personal opinion, this big cycle, which I've also kind of taken a step back and looked at it as pretty offensive. Even when I was drinking, I didn't like listening to songs that talked about, let's just go get drunk. And this is why we drink. and everybody raise up your glass and cheers.

It's like, you're just like provoking it almost, which is fine. And I get that the general consumer is probably listening to those songs while they're drinking. But yeah, I mean, I feel like the industry definitely force feeds it, which perpetuates a natural cycle of more alcohol use and consumption. I think they're all, pardon the crass term, but I think they're all in bed together as far as the industry is concerned. You see these country singers that end up getting thousands and thousands of, and thousands of dollars from beer manufacturers or liquor companies. That's interesting, yeah.

And I think when you kind of take a step back, you can see all the moving pieces. Would it be hard to get a song about recovery and sobriety sort of through the channels than it would be maybe the party track? I feel like people have shot that shot. You know, I would even go, I think Trey Lewis himself has a song about it too. I think for one, there's a lot of people in denial that don't want to hear that. And there is a market and a niche for those people because I've finally posted about my sobriety. And all of a sudden, I got hundreds of messages that I hadn't received.

You know, my channel's been a little bit of a shadow ban, if you will, for the last couple, however longs. But when I posted that, it was like an influx of messages from people who have also been struggling for a while that felt uncomfortable sharing that or felt that they didn't have an artist to look up to for that reason because a lot of these artists that are sober. like you said, they're still singing about booze or they're still singing about partying. And I think it's possible, but the marketing isn't probably there from the mainstream. I think it would all have to be independently boosted. And I think a lot of people would turn it off or even skip it on purpose because they don't want to hear that. And the people that do want to hear it maybe aren't ready for it.

It marginalizes this very small group of folks, I think, that are in this genetically disposed group of people that are ready and willing. to receive that message if that makes sense. Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. Yeah, that definitely does make perfect sense. What I'm getting is that there's not enough people to throw the money at it to make a, to make something, to make it a hit, right? It might not be a hit, so maybe we don't take a chance on it.

It's interesting, though. What motivated you or inspired you to share your story? Well, it finally took, there was some chastisement from my page, like from some of my followers that were, you know, oh, you haven't been drinking lately or whatever, which that sounds kind of weak-minded for me to just succumb to that in order to start sharing it. I wanted to be solid on it, at least giving myself that 60-day, I've done this. You know, I didn't want to get to five weeks in and slip up and then had been posting about it for weeks. I certainly didn't want to look as if I was doing it for clicks or relatability or anything like that.

And when I was able to explain it to, I think I got asked as a question. Like I post the ask me a question thing on Instagram a lot. Okay. And somebody had said like, oh, would you drink it tonight or something? And it just led me down the whole of the car accident posts and being like, yeah, I'm not drinking. And here's why. And I think too in person, a lot of people were starting to offer me drinks. And it was getting hard to where I just wanted a blanket message statement to everybody

that follows me like, hey, I am not drinking anymore forever. So I think all those components kind of added to the reasoning for sharing. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, and I think everybody's going to do their thing differently. And if you talk about it or if you don't, perfectly cool. But I definitely think there's an added amount of accountability to putting things out there. But you also put yourself out there to like, hey, things might not work out. But like just for anybody listening, too, if things don't necessarily work out the way you want them to the first go, the second go, the third.

go just keep getting back up and getting back at it type deal, you know, because for me, I lost track of how many times I tried to figure stuff out, but I just kind of kept with it, you know, so I think it's super cool, especially, I mean, in the mix of all of this, right, in the mix of this. And did you have anybody around you that, you know, you could lean on or supported you to do this? Not really. I don't have any friends that are alcohol sober, specifically that I'm in close proximity with often. My whole family from generations down the line have been pretty consistently drunk. I'm going to just say consistently drunk for however long, you know, whether that's a beer

every day or getting plastered every night. It's every cousin, every aunt, every uncle. If they haven't quit, then they're still heavy on it. And, you know, my best friend, Allie is very supportive. If I said, hey, I want to go to the bars, but I need somebody to not drink with me, she would do it. that was never the case. And once the doctor told me that it was going to cause such damage,

you couldn't have paid me to have any more alcohol. You know, there's some days where I kind of crave the taste of it, but there's plenty of other alternative options where I can get like a butterscotch flavor or something like that and it does the trick. But no one really specifically where I could be like, hey, can you just like hang out with me inside at home and not drink? Yeah. So that's kind of been a solo fight.

But again, I've been lucky. I haven't been as tempted because of that diagnosis that I don't really have an option. So I feel much more confident, I guess, in my ability to be able to go out and be around people that are drinking. But I feel so bad for people that are going to continuously have to struggle because they don't have some sort of physiological damage or something like that. My only relateability to that is just a few times where I said to Allie, I would quit. I'm not drinking today. And then sure enough, by 2 o'clock, we're at. at the bar day drinking or I was watching football or even just cracking one open while I was getting

ready. Yeah. Yeah, it just becomes so intertwined with so many activities and everything, right? So yeah. What was it about the visit there? So the doctor told you that a lot of damage could be done if you, like, how did drinking get connected with this? Did he know that you were struggling with drinking or you were drinking a lot talking? Yes. So we've been studying this brain lesion that I sustained. I got a really bad car accident in 2017 and it ended up just with a permanent brain lesion. We had been putting off studies on it just to see as far as long-term effects. So I didn't think anything about it. And then my first visit, you know, they asked the standard like you drink, you smoke, yada yada, told them that I drink. And I say like everybody else, but I'm sure everybody else is honest

with their doctor. I lied like a damn hound. Nobody's honest with their doctor. Go ahead. Yeah, but a couple times a week, you know. And then we did a sleep scan. We did a sleep scan. We did all these different EKGs, EEGs things, nerve taps and stuff. And I've also got physiological damage in my grip strength, like my hands, which sounds a lot like this other disorder that's called Korsikovs is what it's referred to, severe brain damage based off of alcohol usage. And that brain lesion, where it sits in the brain kind of thing, and I'm no doctor by any mean, I'm just trying to relay the information the best I can.

but essentially the message was relayed like, hey, yeah, we're seeing some serious signs of brain injury damage. The first thing I would suggest before we go any further is just cut out the alcohol, all alcohol, any substance that's not whatever you're supposed to do. Cut it out and we'll test again in the year. And so that was the first Nix. And he said, you know, if these physiological memory, grip strength, any sort of neuropathy that's going on, if any of that is affected by the alcohol, then we'll be. be able to tell in a year. And if it's the brain injury, then the alcohol is just making it worse anyway. So just cut it out. And maybe there's progress to be made. And if there's not, then at least we're sustained where we're at. Yeah. Wow. So did you eventually get honest with

them about how much or no? Or did they kind of have an idea? No, they didn't really follow up with anything like that. I was honest enough with myself and my friends and family and everybody on Instagram knew how much I was drinking, you know, but no, I never really came forward and was like, I'm actually drinking six to 30 beers a day. Is that how much of you drinking when you were doing shows and stuff? Like 30. Oh, I'm not I'm not exaggerating when I say, yeah, easily in a day, especially if we had like a tour day where I was up in the city that I'm performing in, starting load in at 11, like crack a beer as soon as we woke up sometimes and never get drunk or ill or sick that I would have, you know, considered to be and sometimes mixing other substances

throughout the day, whether it was something to keep me awake like an adderall or something like that or if I was smoking pot, you know, all those things. It was just constant up and down. And I would say, yeah, easily between 11 o'clock in the morning and 2 a.m. There's no way I drink less than 30 beers or a couple bottles of liquor. I drink Jack Honey straight on the rocks. And I'd go through quite a few of those just pre-show to post-show. And if it wasn't beers or whiskey, it was a frozen drink with dinner and, you know, shots. If I look back at bank statements, I've probably spent a life savings on alcohol the last seven years.

Yeah. Wow. What brought on the heaviness of it? Do you have any idea? I think just because I could, I had this sustainability. I think starting and learning how to operate alcohol, I call it an operation, to how to operate on alcohol and operate with alcohol at 11, which was 15 years ago. I learned pretty quick.

You know, if I start feeling this way, maybe just drink a couple bottles of water and come back down and you can just start drinking again. I even would pride myself when I played on Broadway in Nashville, you know, the shift run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. 6 to 10, and then 10 p.m. to 2.m. I play from 10 to 2. You hammered. Go home, take a nap until 6. come back and play another show from six to ten and then play again from ten to two

and be drunk that whole time or be drinking that whole time. Rather, I wouldn't even say necessarily drunk, but it was never like a depressive thing I didn't feel like at the time especially. I felt like it was just more I could. I liked it.

I liked how people perceived me while I was drinking. I liked showing off that I could drink, especially if people were offering free drinks. I'd absolutely. I'll take every single one. And then I'm making the bar money. So sometimes I make more money and yeah. Wow.

Yeah, that's a lot. But I can see it how everything, your career, your lifestyle, everything is wrapped around. That's one thing that consistently is going to be there every time. The crowds change. The venues change. People change. But it sounds like you could always count on there'll be booze there at every show. Yeah.

Yeah. And the few times where it was detrimental, if I got too drunk or if I woke up feeling ill, you know. I mean, there was a period of time where drinking and performing caused me to have to be on vocal rest for six months. Could not speak. Zero noise made. If I got hurt, I couldn't scream.

If I was sad, I couldn't make any sounds, nothing. Couldn't laugh out loud for six months. And essentially, if I had been honest with my doctors at that point, and they told me, hey, yeah, I just cut out the drinking. You'll be able to be back up and running in a week. Instead, I just didn't really listen except for just to stop talking. And I think also the fact that like there was hardly ever repercussions, like the few times that there were, they were never detrimental enough to turn me off.

And very fortunately, never was arrested, never had any sort of criminal offense, never burned a bridge with a friend or family member or went bankrupt or anything like that. So I never had any backlash. Yeah. Nobody ever thought it was a problem. Yeah, no, I hear you on that. I hear you on that. But you must have had an idea of something.

Yeah, and maybe people around you two did too. I don't know. Maybe they did or maybe they were carrying on the same way. So it's kind of like a hypocrite in a sense to say, hey, Carly, look at what's going on when they're doing the same thing or not far behind. Yeah, I think off the top of my head, I know one person in my family that I could call and be like, hey, how's your sobriety doing 20 years later? or whatever. I don't know anybody right now other than, you know,

Trey Lewis and a couple of guys that he rolls with that have been steady sober for an extended period of time longer than just a few days, you know, rather than just get sober January that I could ask any questions for or anything. And yeah, most people around me, if I was like, no, I'm not drinking today. Oh, come on, you, Sally, or come on, Nancy, take a beer, take a shot. Yeah. What are you? Lamo, I'm like, no, I can do it. I'll take five right now.

Yeah, I'll show you. I'm wondering, do you have any tracks that, any songs that relate to this or anything going to in the future? Is it anything you thought? I'd like to. Yeah, I really would like to. I, again, though, I'm just so afraid. I'm very confident that I won't relapse just on the fact that like kind of can't, even if the doctor was like, yeah, go ahead. I feel so much better now.

I feel so much clearer. I feel happier. I feel less stress, all these things. I wouldn't even want to go back to it. But I'm so just scared. And I'm sure anybody would be that if I do put something out like that and then I fall back, that I would just look like a hypocrite, you know, which of course isn't the case. If anybody's listening that might feel that way, you can tell anybody a hundred times that you're going to quit and not.

And that doesn't make you necessarily a quitter or it doesn't make you any less sufficient. It just means that you fell off and made a mistake and you got to get back. on like you said earlier. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting that you bring that up. I've thought about that too with everything that I've kind of put my heart and soul to with the podcast, with the Instagram, with Facebook, with everything, really. You know, what if things don't work out? But I don't know for today. They're working out so far. And I'm going to run with that. You know, I'll just focus on that. But it is an interesting question to wonder too. I know there was somebody who put out a song recently, the fella from Lady A. It's interesting how, yeah, I mean, I thought about that angle.

But I never really thought about that angle in a sense about, yeah, what if you do open up about this and then, you know, maybe one day things don't work out or your situation changes or anything could happen. And then you have this out there. What could you play with you? So you have the guitar that Trey Lewis had. I mean, is there anything in your arsenal that we could rock with? Yeah.

I mean, I've got one and I'd have to pull it out real quick. But I wrote a song with my best friend, Allie and another girl named Cameron, and a long time ago, it's called By Your Side. And it's on all the digital platforms and stuff, but it's pretty sad. The whole premise of the song is basically how lonely you feel, even though you're next to somebody. And I think that that really went hand in hand at the time I was cheated on. But I think that also went hand in hand with a lot of how I felt as a kid, you know,

being around people that were drunk was not the same as being around them when they were sober. And that detachment was very prevalent. And so I think that that could be relatable if that would work. Oh, that would work great. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. How was I supposed to know? I would feel so alone being together. I thought it'd be better.

The pinnacle of my heartbreak was the night that you betrayed every promise. if I'm going to be honest this bed is getting colder by the second but I like it that way anything's better than me sitting here begging begging you every night to stay

this heart might be empty like these sheets I'm in tonight. The funny thing is that being alone feels just like being by your side. Now you can say it's all my fault, but I know I gave my all. I don't deserve this. if I'm going to be honest this baby's getting colder by the second

but I like it that way anything's better than me still sitting here begging begging you every night to stay this heart might be empty like these sheets I'm in tonight. The funny thing is that being alone feels just like being by your side.

It was fine. It was you. It was iran, falling from the sky. In the middle of the night, I could see it in your eyes. Something wasn't right. You said that I was crazy, but was I really, baby, this best getting colder by the second. But I'll get that way.

Anything's better than me. Staying here, begging, begging you every night to stay. This heart might be empty, like these sheets on me. tonight. The funny thing is that being alone feels just like being by your side. Yeah.

Wow. That's heavy. That's a heavy one. Yeah. Thanks. No, it was meant to be. And actually, it was at that point in time too when I couldn't speak. I was on that vocal wrist. That's when you wrote it? Yeah, I was on that vocal wrist, so I couldn't even hardly.

I wasn't, I was toward the tail end of it. I still haven't fully recovered yet, but yeah, we got to write and all that because I got cheated on too. And I hadn't really put it in that frame before of, you know, a partner who just wants their partner to be home with them instead of out partying or doing other things. But it kind of fits well with that too. Yeah. No, I could really relate to what you had mentioned before about being by people or being with people not able to feel connected because I felt like that, like my entire growing up, I felt like the world was going on around me and I just didn't feel part of it. And that's a whole other thing, but I can relate to it a lot in that sense.

Yeah. And also, congratulations, of course, to you for your journey. I think that's amazing and what you're doing for everybody else. And you got a pretty large page. You're changing a lot of lives. And if it wasn't, you know, for Trey posting y'all and another, I think there's another page two that I follow. I mean, I read the quotes every day and they actively remind me like, you're so much better off without the stuff. I think for a long time, I thought that I'd be worse, that people wouldn't like me, that, you know, I no longer get the joke or I wouldn't, like you said, be involved and a lot more people than we think are struggling with it. Yeah, and that's so true. Thank you so much. And glad we can that we can do that. But that's the truth.

And that's the whole truth about all of this is we'll wrap this up here. But that's the thing is so many people are going through this that maybe we just don't know yet or maybe they don't know yet. That their life could be so much better without it. And it's just incredible to be able to spread that message in a non-shaming, non-judgmental, but just a compassionate way for people that, hey, when you're ready, if you're ever ready, we're out here. We're out here hanging out. And this, we can still have a good, fun, eventful life. One that we probably will remember more, you know?

That's one thing too. And I've been so surprised. I posted a TikTok a while back. Like, what's one thing that surprised you? It's like that I can still have fun sober. You know, I just had one of the best days in my life yesterday with my boyfriend. Now granted, was he drinking beers all day? Absolutely.

But did I have the best day ever waking up early, getting a workout in? which I've become health obsessed, which I guess maybe just my obsession with being drunk switched to being, you know, as healthy as possible. But, you know, waking up, getting a protein shake, going to the gym, going and having a big breakfast with him. We went fishing where I just drank water all day, which is surprising too. You can drink 30 beers in a day, but can't drink two bottles of water. If you'd just flip that, you'd feel so much better.

And then, yeah, landing all the way at, like, did all these amazing things yesterday and still woke up at five o'clock this morning feeling great, ready for work, and not feeling like I was going to vomit or have a headache or sore or any of that. And so for anybody, like you said, that that is ready to just make the switch, there's some, there's some nice green grass over here, too, that that I was missing out on. Yeah. And the money, the money aspect too. You brought that up earlier. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot more of that. There's so many, yeah, I mean, the benefits are just, you know, endless. I saw this meme one time and it was like benefits of drinking alcohol and there's like nothing on the list and then benefits of not drinking alcohol and it's like filled up. Yeah. It's just yeah,

everything kind of starts to brighten up a little bit and you start to enjoy. I noticed for me, I just started to notice the small things in life. Like I could go fishing and since you brought that up and enjoy these moments, not just worry about the next one or the next this or you know, just try to get as many into me as fast as I could and all that type stuff. So that's really cool. Yeah. I know you're early on, but this is a question that I like to ask around here. From your own experience, what advice would you have to somebody who's wanting to start the journey or somebody who's struggling on the journey? Oh, gosh. I don't know if I feel vindicated in offering any sort of advice specifically because I feel so strongly where I'm sitting,

how can I look at where somebody else is sitting and offer any sort of like, I understand because I don't know if I do, but I think that one of the most important things we just touched on is how much better I do feel and how terrifying it is to quit because you think that alcohol makes everything more fun or you need to have it in order to have fun

doing what you're doing. And everybody's heard it a million times you don't, but take it from somebody that was drinking 20 beers a day just to have fun. It's a lot more fun without it. And I find that I'm also enjoying the company of the people that I have around me. While I have them, I think that a lot of people forget that not everybody around them is going to be here forever. And so whatever memories I can make now with those people, I'd like to keep and I'd like to make sober and not have to, for me at least, you know, I'm not trying to. to preach to Paul here by any means, but I just don't need to have it in order to keep my memories

and to have fun. So I think if that's any sort of reassurance. Yeah. No, that's more reassuring than advising, I think. I don't ever want to make anybody feel like I'm grabbing them by the hand, but if I can walk alongside them. Yeah, for sure. And that's great because that's a massive fear, right? No more beer, no more fun, no more connection, no more shows, you know, that's a thing. And especially with you wrapped up in there, that's, you know, your career and everything, that's probably going to be something that's consistently around. And, you know, it's super cool that you're still, you're sharing with us 93 days into this. You're having a blast with things. And that's awesome. Yeah. I also kind of feel good, too,

when somebody keeps irking me. And I say no. Gosh, I had one fella. He just kept on and on one day at the, because I still hang out in bars. You know, I still go to things where alcohol is plenty prevalent. And one fellow was just getting on me one day about doing a shot. And I was like, no thanks. No thanks. No thanks. And not one part of me wanted to, but I was more so just getting agitated at having to continue to say no.

And finally I go, hey man, I can't drink. So please stop. Oh, well, why? And feeling so empowered to just be able to be like, I don't have to tell you. I just don't, I can't. And please stop. you know, that's kind of a fun feeling to just nicks somebody and make them feel stupid for asking. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me too. I feel like I invited myself, but I'm glad to be here and I appreciate you taking your time. Huge shout out to Carly for sharing her story on the podcast today. What an incredible story rooting for her to keep this rocking. 90 plus days sober when we launched this episode. Wow. Thank you so much, everyone, for all the support. And if you enjoy the podcast, this episode, or any of the episodes, be sure to leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform.

And I'll see you on the next one. I'm going to leave you with the professional cut version of Carly's song, By Your Side. How was I supposed to know? I would feel so alone being together I thought it'd be better the pinnacle of my heartbreak wasn't I that you betrayed

every promise if I'm gonna be honest and it's getting colder by the second in there Anything's better. You're begging, begging you at this hot. Wheats, I'm in tonight. Funny thing, and by yourself.

You can say it's older by the second.