Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - For decades Alcohol ran Stephanie's life and getting honest about the problem changed everything.

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

In this episode, we have Stephanie who discusses her multiple-decade battle with alcohol addiction. As the youngest of five girls, Stephanie grew up in a household heavily exposed to alcohol, leading her to start drinking at a young age. Her journey through high school, college, and her professional life is marked by escalating alcohol use, culminating in a near-death experience and a hospitalization due to alcohol withdrawal seizures in December 2021. This life-changing event prompted Stephanie to seek help and embrace sobriety. Now, having reached 1,000 days sober, she shares her insights on the struggles and triumphs of sobriety, the importance of seeking help, and the tools that have helped her maintain a sober lifestyle. This is Stephanie’s story on the Sober Motivation podcast. ------------- Join the Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co Donate to support he show: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation More information on SoberLink: https://www.soberlink.com/recover Check out the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sobermotivationpodcast Stephanie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephrudnicki/

Welcome back to season three of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety is possible, one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode, we have Stephanie who discusses her multiple decade battle with alcohol addiction. As the youngest of five girls, Stephanie grew up in a household heavily exposed to alcohol, leading her to start drinking at a young age. Her journey through high school, college, and her professional life is marked by escalating

alcohol use, accumulating in a near-death experience and hospitalization due to alcohol withdrawal seizures in December 2021. This life-changing event prompted Stephanie to seek help and embrace sobriety. Now having reached a thousand days sober, she shares her insights on the struggles and triumphs of sobriety, the importance of seeking help and the tools that have helped her maintain a sober lifestyle. And this is Stephanie's story on the sober motivation podcast. How's it going, everyone?

Brad here. Welcome back to another episode. And as always, thank you for all the support. Things are just going incredible over at the Suburmotivation community. We've got over 130 members joining us right now as I do this intro for this podcast. And I want to extend the invitation to you. Until Friday, we're still going to be welcoming founding members of the community, which is going to give you a two-week free trial and the lowest price ever offered for the

suburb motivation community. But there is so much more to it than that. So many people have joined the community that say, I didn't realize there was. is anything like this out there. A supportive community that accepts me exactly where I am, a place that's safe without judgment that you can share what you're going through and the struggles. And a lot of people are joining and they're sharing that they were so afraid to jump on a meeting. But when they did and they just saw the warm welcome that everybody gave them, it really changed their perspective for things and just made this whole sobriety thing so much more possible.

So if you could use some accountability and some community and some support on your journey, join us. I'll drop the link down in the show notes below. I would love to see you there. I'm hosting three meetings a week. We also have some other incredible peer hosts and some other incredible coach hosts that are doing meetings. And there's a lot more stuff to come soon. So jump over there and at least check it out.

That's what you could do for yourself. I know a lot of people that are joining. They're afraid of community. They're afraid of connecting with other people. but let me tell you, it's not a scary place. None of us have all the answers. None of us have it all figured out. We're working on being sober and a better person one day at a time, and that's the way we do it.

So we would love to have you. Hit that link down in the show notes below and come and be a part of something amazing that is crazy to say that we're only 17 days into this thing and so much magic is already happening. Also, if you love the podcast and you want to support it with a donation, If you're in a good spot to do that, it would really mean the world to help cover some of the costs of doing this podcast every week. I'll drop the link to that.

The website is buy me a coffee.com slash sober motivation. Drop a donation there and help me cover the costs of keeping this podcast going. I really appreciate all the support. If you're not in a spot, as always, continue listening to the show. I hope you're able to get something from it and share it with a friend.

share with the friend, share with somebody at your meetings or wherever you go. Let them know we're out here, the Sober Motivation podcast. Stephanie, too, who's coming up on this episode, is a member of the Sober Motivation community, and she's incredible to have. Also, this episode is available on YouTube for the video version. I'll drop that link as well, down the show notes. But let's get into this episode shortly. I've taken the device everywhere with me.

It's gone on camping trips, holiday vacations, even Iceland. It was really useful for when I wanted to travel. I wanted to be able to visit friends and really be able to live my life. These quotes are from Soberlink users who have found peace of mind while enjoying vacations, even in early alcohol recovery, when traveling can feel scary. Maybe you're nervous about being away from your support system or your loved ones are concerned about a possible relapse. That's where Soberlink comes in.

Here's how Soberlink keeps you accountable. You'll test at scheduled times each day, two to three times a day. facial recognition confirms your identity, tamper sensors detect any attempts to cheat the system, and instant easy-to-read results are sent directly to your loved ones, giving them peace of mind while you enjoy your time away. Soberlink isn't just about proving you're sober, it's about building confidence in your recovery, even when you're miles away. Soberlink, proof of sobriety at your fingertips wherever life takes you.

Visit soberlink.com slash recover to sign up and receive $50 off your device. Now let's get to Stephanie's episode. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got my friend Stephanie with us. How are you? I'm great, Brad. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course.

It's been a long time coming, I think, for you to jump on here on the podcast and share your story with all of us. So what was it like for you growing up? Yeah, for me growing up, I had a really good childhood, actually. I'm the youngest out of five girls. I grew up in central Wisconsin, and I still live in central Wisconsin. I'm 43 years old. My parents were...

We're great. I was really close to my father growing up. We did a lot of stuff together, fishing. We had a lot of bonfires together. He was my best friend, really, when I was growing up. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. All my sisters were a lot older than me, so he was my buddy when I was real little. And my mom I was close to us as well. She was a good mom. But we always had alcohol in our family where I was very exposed to it very young. My dad was an alcoholic, and one of my older sisters is an alcoholic, too. And probably when I was in grade school, my dad really didn't drink. He probably didn't start drinking until I got back into middle school. And that's because he took up a habit of a wine making.

So that kind of got his foot back into the door where he was making wine, and of course he's tried to sampling it, and then he started going down that path again. So when I was really young, I was very much exposed to alcohol. I helped him with making his wine. I would sample his wine with him, stuff like that. My mom really didn't drink much at all. It was really my father drank quite a bit. But he was a great dad and was really close to him, basically.

Yeah. Wow. That's a busy household, though. Five of you there in Wisconsin too. This is what I've heard, right? I've never been to Wisconsin before. but I have heard in a couple stories of people that grew up there still live there that there's more bars than churches.

That seems to be a common trend a lot of people share about. Yeah, for sure. It's such a big culture here in Wisconsin. Like you said, you can go to dry through a small town and you can blink and you're through it, but you've already passed two bars in a church, like you said. All our functions, our church functions, stuff like that in the morning. You get invited to like birthday parties and stuff. It's bring your own beer, B-Y-O-B, bring your own booze.

It's very, you grow up with it around here, definitely. And I especially coming from my background with my family, both my parents are from Europe too. So from Eastern Europe. So that drinking culture from Eastern Europe was really brought up in my family as well. Like a lot of the holidays and just in general. But yeah, in Wisconsin too, it's just everywhere you go. You can't escape it. It's hard to be sober in Wisconsin, that's for sure.

Yeah. Well, great job and thanks for sharing that with this. So as you go through like your school life and everything, what did that look like for you and what was going on in your life during those times? Yeah, when I got to high school, an anxious kid, I was very nervous by going into high school because I grew up in the middle of the country. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up, so I was really eager to make some friends. And alcohol kind of was that door for me. Since I was so exposed to it, I congregated to that, crowd when I was into high school and kind of took off from there. It made me be able to get into these groups, make me feel more comfortable. I had something in common with these folks. And it just

really started gripping me at that point when I was in high school and still on through the rest of my life until I got sober. So yeah, it really helped with my anxiousness and my anxiety to try to fit in. I used it as a crutch basically to get through those younger years of my life. And And at the time, I didn't really think it was a problem or anything. You're young. You just think it's a phase. You don't think you're just having a good time and whatnot. But I really started early on drinking and partying and then eventually getting into some

drugs and stuff like that. So yeah, high school was a blur because I started very early freshman sophomore year and so on. Even I did a little bit of college afterwards, technical college. And that's when I started getting into like maybe cocaine and some pills and pain pills and stuff like that where I was really leaning on the drugs and alcohol to just, it just engulfed me. It just became part of my life. It was my environment. It consumed me, basically, you know? Yeah, 100%. So a lot of people share too, right, that struggle with alcohol or drugs further down the road, they share a little bit about felt being uncomfortable in our own skin

in a sense. Is that something like what you're talking about with the anxiety maybe of those earlier years trying to find your way? Where do I belong? I always ask myself, that question like where do I belong? I wasn't a skater. I wasn't into the goth crowd. I didn't play sports. So I felt like there were maybe five places. I wasn't really hitting the books like I should have been. That kind of left me of hanging out with maybe what we would consider the troublemakers a little bit. That's where I found my place. But would you say you could relate to that at all? Like just feeling uncomfortable in your own skin in any sense or no? For sure. Yeah. I definitely wanted to fit in, just like you.

I remember you talking about your soccer practice. You wanted to get on the team and you were not able to get on that team and it was just such a big blow to you. Those little things like that where you get those little rejections when you're younger, like that can really be soul crushing to you when you have your hopes up and you're trying to fit in and find your way in this world and you're just confused. And you want to be comfortable, just like everybody else. And I think so many people are like that, we all are like that.

But for some reason, us addicts, we lean towards like drugs and alcohol to get that social lubricant to actually make me feel comfortable where I'm not like jumping out of my skin or crawling out of my skin when I'm in these types of situations. And that really, I really took hold of that because once I started drinking, I felt like that layer just got shed. I could be more comfortable. I could be myself. I felt more accepted.

I wasn't like in my head so much where you're thinking everybody's judging you. It really just shed all those types of fears and those types of layers that really are difficult. when you're an adolescent and in high school. So yeah, it definitely leaned on that to make me more comfortable around those situations. Yeah, I'm with you 100% on that. And at the time, it was interesting, too, you share that you just have no idea when we first get into this, where it's going to end up. None of us know what the future holds. Like, I remember I had somebody's and we drank and partied the same, but when it was time to go to college or was time to graduate college, like they seemed to just turn the switch off. Well, that was good. We had fun. And I always felt

like I was just the guy left behind, the guy who moved back home after school and everything else. And just couldn't seem to get that switch turned off. And it was really confusing point in my life to why could they be able to change things? And I think when I look back now, I mean, we were drinking for different reasons. For me, it was good, it was fun, but then it felt like it was necessary to be able to fit in and keep it going. And then also, I assume the identity of the party guy. just do ridiculous stuff. And I felt like it was my obligation to continue that going for people. And I always thought in my own head, well, if I don't do that stuff, are they still even going to be interested? So you go, you do technical college for a little bit and get involved with some other

stuff too as well. How does that all look for you and play out for you? Yeah, I think after college, I really, I got a job and I've been at the same job now for about 18 years. And I was really, in my eyes, I was a functioning alcoholic the last couple decades. I was able to work, obviously not to my fullest potential because I was hung over every day, but I drink every day. I mean, I could count on my one hand in the last 20 years before I got sober, the amount of days that I actually did not drink. So I was an extremely heavy drinker. I would go to the bars every single day. I love to socialize, shake for dice, or shake for dollars, shake for shots, you know, play some pool. that was my scene. And like you said,

some people can turn that off. They can go to the bar or just have one drink or just have a couple drinks. I was not that way. I went to the bar and one drink was, that's unheard of.

There was no one drink for me and you, Brad. We always wanted, you know, as many as we possibly can have. So I drink heavily at the bars and when I came home,

I didn't shut it off either. I also became a drinker by myself at home, just sitting on. my couch and I started with like beer and I tried to looking back on it now I probably tried to quit so many times because I switched from beer and then I went to wine thinking maybe that if I drink wine now I'll drink less at home well then now I'm drinking one to two bottles a night of wine on top of all what I drink already during the day so that okay maybe I then I switch to like liquor

maybe if I switch to the hard stuff I won't need to drink as much to satisfy whatever it is that I needed to satisfy at that time, and that didn't work either. Then I was still, that guy even got worse. So, I mean, I just, my whole life was just drinking, really. It's, when I look back on it now, I worked and I, you know, I had a lot of fun and I did all, you know, my family life and stuff. Luckily, I didn't lose a lot of friendships or anything like that. I wasn't like a destructive drunk.

I didn't, you know, go out and, you know, lose jobs or, you know, end up in jail. I did end up getting up one DUI, which kind of rattled me. It rattled me for a little bit for a couple weeks. But then I just went to the bar closer to home. So then I could walk home. I was always trying. I think I, as far as I can remember, I think like when I was in my early 20s, when I was in college, I knew I had a problem deep down in me. I absolutely knew it, but I just buried it.

I didn't want to deal with it. I thought it was a phase. And then just time gets away from you. And then you just get into this type of lifestyle and environment where that's all you're focused on every day. You wake up hungover. You wake up feeling like crap. And then you're thinking about, well, I need to have a drink. So then you go get that other drink.

And then you're drunk. And then you come home and you drink some more. And then it's just this vicious cycle you get caught up in. And it's absolutely terrifying how quickly it can happen. I, like you said, Brad, I thought it was just a phase. I thought this was going to be something, a party years when I was younger and I was just going to grow up eventually like everybody else did and be able to go to the bar and just have that one drink. And I still want, I still, I'll admit, I still want to be that person to be able to go to the bar and have that one drink. I would love to.

I would love to go to dinner with my family or a friend and just have one drink or two. then he'll go home and be fine with it. And it's impossible. And I know that it's impossible for me. That's why I can't, I can't have that one. There's that saying, I can't have one. I have to have 15, therefore I choose none. That's my non-negotiable right now at this point in my life because I'm just not that type of person. I'm not a normie. I have this, whatever it is, you want to call it disease or affliction. But it's hard. It's hard. But what I'm here, thousand days sober today, which is pretty cool. I've made it this far, and I don't plan on slowing down anytime soon. Yeah, and that is incredible that the days, the day you booked for us to do

this was a thousand days for you. So that is, that's incredible in itself. So going back a little bit, though, you mentioned something that was interesting to me about early on in your maybe early 20s, I think you said there, that you knew at some level that you had a problem. What does that look can feel like for somebody in their early 20s to think, to have those thoughts or those feelings. Yeah, I think for me, when I was thinking that, like I said, I just thought it was a phase. I thought I was going to grow out of it and that eventually I would just grow up and move on with my life and not drink as much. I knew I had a problem, but I didn't think I had that kind of a problem. I just thought, I drank too much, but not alcohol had this grip on me where I could not

stop and I needed it to basically function and survive. It was like a survival mechanism for me at that point. So yeah, it was hard. And then I just buried it. I just buried it. I drowned it with more alcohol because I just didn't think I would end up like my father that had a problem. I didn't think I would end up like my sister. I think you're different. You think it's just going to be something that you're going to eventually kick and be able to be someone that can just walk around and have a couple every now and then or whatever or not at all and just be fine with it and not have it is a struggle it is it is sometimes. So yeah, it's something that I just buried. I just figured it's something that'll pass, but then time gets away from you. And before you know it, you're really

deep into it. Yeah. And then a lot more challenges come up about how to get out of the cycle and how to move into sobriety. If you can remember, when did shame, if that's part of your story, feeling shame about drinking, enter the picture? Shame and yeah, shame and guilt and resentment. and all that. There's some big words. I'd probably say, probably when I hit my 30s at some point, so probably about 10 years ago,

is when I really knew that I just couldn't escape it. And I was hiding it at that point, hiding from my friends and family. You know, they talk about how much did you drink or what did you drink or whatever. And I'd lie. I'd just say,

I don't drink every night. I just drink on the weekends or if I have some during the weeknights. It's just a couple. All bullshit. I drink all the time. So the fact that I knew I was lying when I started lying in my 30s and hiding it, I definitely felt a lot of shame and guilt because it is. You don't want to admit that you're that out of control of your life, that you can't control just a substance. And it's something you can control because obviously there's so many people that have gotten sober and like me and you and we can continue to be sober. It is something you control. But when you're like that deep into that addiction and that,

far of your own control and reality. That's really where I felt that shame because it was just chaos. It was just, I had no control over my life and it sucked. It sucked and it was shameful for sure. It was hard. It was really hard. And then what do you do when you feel these things, Brad, you drink more. So I couldn't like, I couldn't get my head above water at any point because I didn't have, I didn't feel like I had any weight out. I felt like this was my life, this was my environment, this is how it is. And I just have to deal with it. And I dealt with it with more drinking, which was obviously a terrible idea. But I just, that was the only thing I knew how to survive to get through each day. Yeah. And it's a point that a lot of people I think talk about

is that when you get wrapped up in it, where we're sitting now, we can see it clear as day, right, that there's another way to do things. But when you're right the thick of it, and I feel the thousands of messages from people, and you can have a conversation with them, and it's just you can tell on the other side, it's that hopeless state of mind and that hopeless place to be to where they can't see a way out, even though it's, hey, check out the podcast. Hey, listen, look at all these people's stories on the page. On Instagram, we probably have more than a thousand stories of people who made it out.

But there's a point in time, I think, in a lot of people's life who struggle with this, we do not see a way out of it. That way, we just cannot envision it for our life. Like, I'm going to quit drinking alcohol. Look at how ingrained it is into our cultures. I can't do that. The fun is over. No more friends.

No more good times. No more shows. No more football games. Everything is over, and that's really how we feel about it. And then when we get sober and we'll get into all that stuff, but it's so far from the truth, but it's that real place of just not seeing a way out. You mentioned this before,

and I've heard you share that I've heard you shares before. And I have to ask, this dice game that you're playing at the bars, what are you, are you rolling dice, the highest one wins type deal? Or how does this work? Oh my God.

It's been a while. It's been so long since I've shook for shots. But yeah, it's just, basically for shots. You get a group of people, get a dice box, and there's games called like EAS or threes, ship captain crew, and you shake, everybody goes around, and the loser buys a round to shots. So basically, you lose money and you get drunk, and it's a lose-lose situation now that I look at it, but it was something to do to pass the time because, especially in this state, there's not much to do in the wintertime, so we go to the bar and we

just find these games to play. So I do not recommend it because you lose money and you end up getting drunk and it's never a good thing. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Now I see it. So if the pool table was full or something, this would be another thing to get involved. And you mentioned that too. And we've known each other for quite a while from sober buddy meetings and now sober motivation meetings. And a big part of your story and you shared it there too is just like going out every single night. And I imagine somewhere in there you're probably telling yourself at some point, I've got to stop going out. I've got to make changes. I'm going to quit tomorrow. It seems to be a common trend with both people's journeys. But what's that life like going through it too? Some things,

I'm sure, are enjoyable. And I think it's really important too. We honor some part of the stories where it wasn't necessarily, I think for a lot of people, disastrous all the time, right? We found community, we found connection, we found relationships and in drinking and going out and stuff. But what does a life like that look like for you? Yeah, and like you said, I had a great time too, Brad. It wasn't all terrible. I thought I did enjoy the company of the people that I went with, hung out in the bars with and formed a lot of relationships and friendships out of it.

We went to like Brewer Games and stuff like that and other events and concerts and stuff like that. So I wasn't all terrible, but it was just hard. I know deep down inside I wanted a different life and I just couldn't get out of it. Like you said, I think you brought up this in one of the meetings this week. If you ask me, I keep doing this over and over again, right? Keep going out every day. Keep going to the bar. I keep drinking and I feel terrible the next day and I feel shameful and whatnot. And I wish I had a better life, a better way out of it. And it's like you asking me, why do you always choose the hard road? And that'd be like me saying, well, why do you assume? I see two roads. I didn't see those two roads. That's what it felt like to me at that time

every day. There was not another path I could go down. And it sounds weird to say, but that's how I felt. Like you said, that's that hopelessness feeling you get, that feeling that you just built your life around this type of lifestyle that you don't see another path. You just see this one road and you took it and you don't know how to get off it anymore. You're so far down on it that it's hard to get off of at that point. So, yeah, I did have a lot of fun. I don't regret it. It's maybe the person who I am today and stronger than ever.

And I have no regrets about it. But yeah, it was tough. It was tough and fun at both the same time, like you said. Yeah. And I think, too, over time, right? It decreases, right? The percentage. So just to guess here, 20% disastrous type stuff and then maybe 80% of it is enjoyable to begin with.

And then I feel like over time, the longer we stay in the game kind of deal, that percentage creeps together. And then the scales tip at some point to where it becomes more chaos and just really and also that intuition, right? And then some people say gut feeling. We have that gut feeling that we can be doing more with our. our life. We have more to offer this world and there's other things we want to do with it, but it becomes really challenging when we're hung over every day. And that's the lifestyle we're living. And you mentioned that a little bit too. So going through things like, what's going on in your life through your 30s about you got the same job for 18 years and you never really

got any trouble with that deal? And I think that's a thing some people share too. I've got my job still. It's not, I'm not that bad. I'm not in that bad of a spot. How do things look like for you moving forward. Yeah, my health really started to decline. My physical health really started to decline along with my mental health, too. It was just exhausting physically and mentally. Physically, my body up until the end, my, I suffered from terrible. I was very overweight.

I lost 100 pounds the first year I got sober. So I was very overweight, and most of that weight I contributed to drinking. and so my physical health, I had inflammation towards the end. I was so tired. I was so weak. I had, wasn't even a loss of appetite. I had no appetite because I was drinking so much then I couldn't eat anymore. Eating was like a chore.

Going out to eat with people, I hated going out to eat with people because I wanted to eat, but I couldn't. My body was shutting down so much that it couldn't take in food. I'd take a few bites and that was it. It was just terrible to not be able to enjoy these little things that everybody else can. You know, the night sweats, the shaking, the sleep deprivation, the racing heart, the shakes. I mean, I had all, you Google effects of alcoholism on a body. I suffered from that for the last five, maybe six, seven years up until I got sober.

Every day, I had everything and it was just getting worse and worse. There were some mornings towards the end where I would look in the mirror and I would look to see if I had John. the yellow in my eyes, the yellow on my skin, because I knew my liver was starting to shut down because I could just feel that in my body, those types of effects. And then my mental health, too, it's exhausting to try to always find alcohol for every situation you're in and to make sure it's there for you. Make sure you have a backup. Make sure you have enough at home during the night.

It was mentally exhausting. So it was just breaking me down at the end. And I knew at some point probably the last six months the last year, I knew something was going to happen, Brad. I could feel it in my gut. Every other day, I'm like, something's going to happen. I'm like, I can't live like this anymore. You know what I'm talking? This is probably like when I'm 39 years old.

And I'm like, I just can't. How much longer can I do this? How much longer can my body hold up with this or my mind before I just something happens? And I honestly thought it was going to be something with the police officers. I was going to get pulled over again. And I was going to get another DUI or something or some other crazy thing like that. I'm like, something's got to give because I couldn't do it myself. I just knew at that point that there was no way I could do it on my own.

It was going to have to be some big life event that had to like a rock bottom. And it was a rock bottom for me moment, December of 2021. that really just absolutely changed my life forever, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, as you go through there, too, six, seven years of going through all of those symptoms, too. And probably, I'm just guessing here, but probably wanting nothing more than to quit, but just not having the direction or having that insight on how you're going to go about doing this and feeling all those effects too physically.

Yeah, I'll never forget that stuff. You're just in a constant anxious state. And when it comes to the drinking, it's just that constant anxiety of, yeah, heart raising, worrying about, I would go to bed some nights and I would just have the last thought I would have before I just went to sleep was like, I don't know if I'm going to wake up in the morning. And it was scary, but it's like when you're in that, like you mentioned earlier, you just don't see a way out of it. I wouldn't say I was like okay with that, but I just accepted that. as my life, which was like, it's such a terrifying place to be. And you bring up the mental health aspect of things too.

I think for anybody who's drinking, who's drinking too much, it takes a heavy hit. So what happens on December 20th? Yeah, December 2021 it was. I ended up going to the Twin Cities for Christmas with my family, small family, gathering. And the week prior, that whole week up until that point, I drink a, extremely heavy. I had the whole entire week off of work, so I was even hitting the bottle even way worse than I normally do. I just remember going to the bar every single day and just hitting it

hard. So that whole week, I was drinking extremely heavy. And when we got to St. Paul in the Twin Cities, it was just a normal day. We had a couple drinks for lunch. I didn't really drink heavy that day. In the evening, my family, we had dinner reservations to a place to go out to eat. And of course, I wasn't hungry because I'm never, at that point, I just had no appetite. So I didn't want to go to the restaurant and take two bites and just not eat anything. So I just told them I was going to just stay behind and take a nap. And next thing I know, I'm on my back on the floor and I got paramedics above me and I'm just in a state of under confusion. And they're asking me what, do you know where you're at? Do you know what's going on? Do you know where you are? And I'm like,

I don't know. I'm confused what happened. And they told me that I had a seizure. So I guess I literally dropped down to my knees and I face planted it on my niece's rug, split my upper lip wide open. I ended up getting 16 stitches in my upper lip. I have a wonderful scar that I can see every day to remind me of that night. But then I started seizing right there on the floor. And I was very confused. I didn't know what was going on.

They told me that. And I remember turning to my sister and brother-in-law that were there. And they just had this look of utter care. Like, I can't even imagine the last, what, minutes, how many minutes I was out, you know, convulsing on this floor, what I just put them through. And it was scary. I just, it's one of those images that's burned in your brain. You know, you don't forget that what you put someone you love so much, you know, that kind of expression on their faces, it's hard, you know. So, anyway, I end up having, they took me to the hospital.

in the ambulance. I had to end up having a seizure in the ambulance and I had one more seizure in the emergency room and I stayed two nights in the hospital there. And obviously the doctors come and talk to me after they stitched me up and they told me the reason I seized was because it was alcohol withdrawals. And I was like, at first I was confused. They even mentioned alcohol. I'm like, obviously my family told them. They know, they knew I had a problem even though I tried to hide about it. They knew what they told them I was an alcoholic. And I'm like, alcohol withdrawals. I'm like, I go, I drank today. I'm like, and I drank the whole week. I'm like, I had two drinks for lunch. I had a couple in the afternoon. I go, how can it be alcohol withdrawals? And they told me,

it's because you didn't drink enough alcohol today. And that scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I mean, I didn't even know you could have seizures in this type of reaction for not, for drinking so much alcohol and not having enough that your body and brain just shuts down like that. I had no idea. This was all new to me. Of course, I didn't believe it. And I'm in my hospital bed and I'm Googling it on my phone and just like trying to understand what was going on because I was so confused.

So it was hard. I stayed two days. I was tied to the bed. I was on watch for falling because of that. Luckily, I didn't have any more seizures after that. And they talked a lot about when I came back to Wisconsin to go into some inpatient. and outpatient programs, and they ended up prescribing an altrexon. So I was on naltrexon for the first three months.

This is all new to me. This is all stuff that I never heard of. It was just a big, it was a huge traumatic event in my life that was life-changing. So that day, and I've been sober since, it's been, that was a thousand days ago. But it was hard in the beginning. But yeah, that's really what that rock bottom. That's what I needed to open my eyes and just let me know. to be honest with myself and be honest with my family that I,

all right, this is, I have a way out. I see that there's support now. There are options. There are people that love me and that want to support me and want to see me succeed in life. And I want to see myself succeed. Once you start getting a few days of sobriety,

the clarity started coming and it just took off from there, not right away. But, but yeah, that was a moment that really changed my life and set me on a new trajectory. Yeah. Wow. Great job.

A thousand days too, we mentioned that earlier, which is incredible. Just leading up to that event, too, because you mentioned, too, your family, they had an idea that you were struggling with alcohol and stuff too. Was there anybody mentioned to you, like, try to quit over the years, conversations like that? No, they didn't really mention it to me, but I think that's a lot with my family history. Like, my father's alcoholism and one of my older sisters, her addiction, and she was one of the types of alcohol. that was just a tornado. When she went on binges, she destroyed everything in her life.

She lost jobs. She lost relationships. And so as far back as I was little, my father and her battling their alcoholism in our family was, it was always around. It was always talked about. So I think my family gave me space by the time when I got old, because I'm the youngest out of five girls.

So by the time I got a little bit older, and they realized that I had a problem, I think they realized that nobody, they can't force me to get sober. Because they know they couldn't force my father. They couldn't force my sister. So I think they knew to give me that space. And I'm very thankful because I think if they would have mentioned it to me, I would have got very defensive.

I don't, I wasn't ready to admit it. Up until that day, I don't think I was ready to admit it. Even though deep down inside I wanted to, I just couldn't do it. It was that shame. It was that guilt. It was all those things that you bury that you don't want to. acknowledge that you're that out of control. So they didn't bring it up to me. They gave me that space. But afterwards, of course, they told me, yeah, we knew. We knew about it the whole time.

But I'm glad that they didn't because I would have definitely pushed back. It wasn't, I wasn't ready. I had to be ready for myself and do it myself and my time. And I'm so thankful that that they were around when I had those seizures because that could have happened right in my house when I was alone, driving a car. I'm extremely blessed and fortunate that they were around for that when that incident happened because I could have bled out right here on my kitchen floor. So it's crazy how it just all lined and they didn't push me, but they were there when I ate them the most in my life. And they've been lifting me up ever since. Yeah, that's so beautiful.

So you have this moment too, right? It's so scary too. I was even thinking that about the timing of everything and how it happened. It's not obviously anything that we want anybody to do or have to go through. But, yeah, I mean, you could have been driving or so many different other situations that it could have went a lot of different ways. You're there in that moment and you've been doing this for decades, right? You've been drinking for decades at this point.

And you end up in the hospital. What was it about that? Did that just make it real? Did you get some education or some different insight or did an aha moment? What about in that moment changed maybe your perspective on where you were in your life and that you had to put in the work to make a difference here? Yeah, I think it was the first day my sister visited me and she, we talked a little bit when I was in the hospital and she asked me straight up, the question, are you an alcoholic?

And I told her no. My answer was no. And she just let it be. We talked a little bit more whenever she went home or went back to my niece's house, came back the next day, obviously, to visit me, talked a little bit. And she said, again, are you an alcoholic? And I just remember feeling like my heart dropped and I'm like, I have to admit it at this point. Obviously, this is my opportunity to become honest with myself and actually admit it and say it out loud.

And I did. And I said yes. And she asked me why I didn't want to, why I answered. differently the day before. And I just said it was hard to admit. It's just hard to admit that, like I said, you lost control of your life like that. So that was my, honestly, my big moment where I know I can really go back to that point where that seed got planted in my brain, that finally getting honest with myself, that

I can have a different life if I choose. This is the first step. admitting you having a problem and accepting that I'm powerless over it. You know, I am. I truly am powerless over it. So that was my first seed that got planted. And, of course, it takes a while for it to grow, but that's what really got me going to think that I could actually choose a different life.

And when I got out of the hospital, I actually, I was only going to be three weeks. I was only going to go on a break. I was only going to say, okay, I'm going to heal up my lip. I'm just going to take three weeks off. see what happens. Try to slow down. I didn't want to give it up at that point still, but I didn't. Like I knew my God I wanted to, but it's so hard to give up that life, Brad.

Like you said, I built my life around it. It was my comfortable blanket that I had all at all times with me. And to envision your life without something like that is absolutely terrifying. All your friendships, all your relationships, all the events, weddings you go to, barbecues, you go, to. go to anything. Football seasons right now. Alcohol is around everything. And for that to be removed from your life is absolutely terrifying. So initially I was only going to take a three-week break, but then I got on that medication. I got on the medication right away in Altraxon for the first three months. That really helped with the craving part. So I could at least focus on not having that

craving part so much where I need to have that drink. That was blocked by that medication. And I could I focused on different things on like going on online communities, going on Facebook and whatnot, and seeing that there's actually communities out there that support you. And there are other people that are out there that are living a sober life. I had no idea. They did it. I didn't know. I didn't know there was such a huge community, a sober community out there of people recovering

from my type of life that know what have I gone through and what I've been through and what I've been battling. It was incredibly eye-opening, and it just launched me into wanting more to find out more about it, get more knowledge on it. Okay, what's this person doing? Look at this person. They got six months sober. This person's got five years sober. It was amazing to me.

I'm like, I couldn't believe these people could do it because I didn't think I could do it, but obviously there are people out there doing it, you know? So it was, it was quite an interesting start for me. Like I said, I didn't jump into it right away. It was a slow roll, but I got excited when I started seeing everybody else being able to do. What I really wanted to do deep down inside for so long was to enjoy life and not be addicted to this substance every single day. Yeah. It just ends up consuming so much of our time and energy. Like it's just you wake up thinking about drinking and then just go from there, right?

And then it's like you mentioned there too, you got to make sure you have enough here, there, where am I going? I do and everything like that. It's a really powerful story you share, though, about your sister coming the first day and asking you the question that coming back the second day and asking you the same thing. I think that a lot of people struggle with that. Once I admit something, then I've either got to do something about it or work twice as hard to just bury it even further, about if I admit that I have a problem with drinking or that I'm an alcoholic. If I say that out loud, then I might actually have to do something here to change my life. And then, you know, what is all the other stuff you listed to? What is my life going to look like? I've never known a life adult life anyway

that didn't involve this. And this was just everything. This was a cornerstone of life and for you for your life. So it's so scary to think, what am I going to do? Like literally, what am I going to do? And I imagine early on you had to figure out what you do. I mean, you're maybe changing your routine. I think you did still go out and socialize with people. a little bit differently early on too. But how do things start to change in your life and in what things do you start doing to operate differently? Yeah, so I still ended up going out to the bars and stuff

and I just wouldn't order a drink. I just have a cranberry soda and seltzer or whatever because I couldn't, like I said, I couldn't envision my life anything different because that was what I had. That's what I did all the time. But then I just started noticing, I'm like, I don't want to be around these people

that drink all the time anymore. And it took me about a year before I stopped really going to the bars and hanging out with those folks because I just didn't want that life anymore. So early on, like I said, I started moving. I started losing weight because I didn't drink all those calories and that sugar I drank. My weight just started flying off. I started walking. I started doing different moving more. Nothing crazy or anything like that.

But just eliminating alcohol and getting a little bit of movement in, I started getting healthier. I started getting sleep. Once you actually get a good night's sleep, two decades of sleep deprivation. When you actually get some good night's sleep, it's addicting. It would actually get a full night's rest. I just started seeing the beautiful effects physically, first off physically, from being sober. All the problems I was having, I didn't realize it was all alcohol related. Everything. It just started getting better and better. My blood pressure started getting better. and then my mental health too. Not being so physically or mentally exhausted by like you said,

trying to find a way to drink every day, trying to hide it, trying to make sure I have my hand on that drink all the time. When you have your mind freed up, all that space you have, it's both scary, but it's also a freak. You could do all these different things,

and I just started making lists of hobbies I used to like to do, some things I like to try. I just didn't sit around. And that's what I did my whole life. I just sat around and drink. And then when you removed that, it was just awesome. I just, it was a slow roll, but I just started seeing, it was like a new light got into me. Like I was reborn again where I could just erase the last 20 years and I could just start over basically.

And I can. You can always start over. You can wake up every day and you can have a new start. Even if you slip, you can still start over. And go for that goal that you wanted your whole life. And when you start having that clarity and all these opportunities, and it just makes you stronger, it gives you more confidence in life. And it's a ripple effect. You know, the strength of my sobriety is giving me so much strength in my regular day life.

Now, I have stronger relationships. I have stronger friendships. Maybe not as many, because we all know when you quit drinking, you do lose a lot of friendships. But the ones I have mean that much more to me when I can devote more time to them. Like you said, Brad, I'd rather have. four quarters than a hundred pennies. You know, I'd rather have those four close friends than a hundred friends. That means so much more to me.

And same thing with my family, too. It's just, it really opened up a whole new world that I didn't know existed. And it's been awesome. It's been a struggle and awesome at the same time, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah, that's beautiful. And that's what it is. It's, people often ask to, does it get easier or not? And I'm always torn and you've probably heard me have this discussion before, but I think it's a little bit of both.

It gets easier, but we also develop the tools and the things that we didn't have before. I think too, after a while, we really bust through that barrier to where before we believed alcohol was improving our life or enhancing our life. And at the end, when we get sober, we start to see through. That was a lie that we bought into at some point. And alcohol just brings absolutely no value to our life. It doesn't help improve any aspect of our life. Even all the things we thought we couldn't do, the shows, the foot. You bring up the football, that's getting kicked off.

All these things that we just were so terrified of doing. I mean, I used to love the Sunday football because the boys would watch the early game and then I could just hide out in the background and start drinking. And then my girlfriend at the time, it was just normal. I just fit in. It was like, oh, that's great. It wasn't a problem. Everybody was doing it.

But the thing is, like, they eventually stopped and went to bed. I just kept it going. It was always that excuse. I always found myself in those situations where I would just, oh, man, if it was a weekend and there was something happening early on in the day, it was just a golden ticket to just get the party going. Other people did it too, but I think, I never asked them, but I think you had different missions.

When I started drinking, it was just to not feel anything to be able to fit in. For other people, I think maybe there's an extent of that, just to kind of loosen up a little bit, but also know where the line needs to be drawn and just not get out of hand. I wasn't really like an out of hand person. I would fall down and stuff. I would never cause like a, well, sometimes I did cause a little bit of a ruckus and I would get in trouble and stuff like that. But most of the time it was just sort of like internally destroying myself. So I love that too. And in realizing the benefits of things and really honing in on that and focusing on that can help us out so much. all the benefits you're experiencing and you have experience really can keep us motivated to keep going,

but not to take away from the fact that it's still a struggle. And I've known you for a while. And you've went through stuff like we all do in a sense, different things for each person. But in our sobriety journey where we have to continuously do that work on ourselves to keep this thing going. What's that been like for you? Some of the things you've overcome and maybe something that's surprised you about the journey. Yeah. So I actually ended up like this last winter, just last winter, I actually ended up going back on El Traxon for about three months. So this last November till January or so I did go back on it because I was, you know, going off the deep end a little bit. I just needed a little bit of extra help to get me through the winter. So I've learned that, you know, even though I take so many steps forward sometimes, it's okay to take a step back sometimes if you need a little bit of extra support. So I've definitely gone through some struggles too.

And I had some incidents this summer as well where it was my biggest test of sobriety. It really tests you. You just want to drown out these emotions that she goes through. But I have all these tools that I've built that going to these meetings and they are here and everybody's vulnerable shares and the strengths that when life gets me down, I don't automatically go to that bottle, even though I used to all the time. I now have all these other tools where I can hop on a meeting. I can go for a walk.

I can listen to a podcast or listen to a book to get me through those moments. So all the stuff that I've learned, through sobriety, you can just apply it to your life. It's amazing. That's the biggest thing of that that surprised me is that they both really go hand in hand. What you learned, what you use to stay sober, you can use in your daily life to keep you going in life. go back to drinking. It seems simple, but that you don't realize that when you're drinking every single day. Yeah, 100%. I mean, it definitely intertwines, right? About how we take care of ourselves and, too, I mean, I'm hearing from you there that you really learned how to ask for help and accept

help out there for you. And there's absolutely no shame in doing that. I always think about it, too, right? Because you're so right. Sometimes go a few steps forward and a few steps back, and I always think about the bow and arrow. The bow and arrow, the arrow only gets its velocity from going back. backwards. So you pull it back and then it's okay, I went back a few steps, but then you let the rope or whatever go and then the arrows just boom. It's gone so fast. So I think that's just it's part of the journey. It's not always going to be, what do some people say? It's not linear. It's not always just going to be straight up and everything like that. There's going to be struggles and it's about tapping into those tools that we've learned along the way. And I think

just really getting to that place and realizing alcohol is not going to improve my life or my situation. So even though I might want to drink, I have to break through that. I've got to get a little bit deeper about where I'm at and realize that this is not going to help me. It never did before. Another thing I picked up to as a consistent thing throughout your story there with different things you shared, it was like that anything but the alcohol perspective of even when you had the seizure at the end. I'll take a three-week break, anything but the alcohol. In other situations in your life, too, right? I'll change all this other stuff in my life. I'll change what I'm drinking, when I'm drinking, how I'm drinking, everything else.

But we protect the alcohol because of, I think part of it is because of the fear of living without it and what a life like that may be. Stephanie, thank you so much for jumping on here and sharing your story. I'm just thinking towards wrapping up. If somebody is in that cycle of drinking in or maybe they're struggling or maybe they're struggling in their journey of sobriety. What would you mention to them? Yeah, that's a great question. If you're struggling, if you're just thinking about it or if you're just starting on it on the journey, I would just three words, you know, choose your hard. Either way you go on this path, if you're going to fork on the road, you can either keep going down the road where you're drinking every day or just binge drinking

or whatever it is, gray drinking. You know that road. You bend down that road and that road is hard. It's full of darkness. It's full of shame. It's full of guilt, anxiety, self-doubt, exhaustion, chaos, bad relationships. That's hard. You've been down there and you know where you end up. There's no light at the end of that tunnel. But if you go down that other path, that's also hard, which which is sobriety, and it's equally as hard, if not harder sometimes, you have the opportunity to grow at least. There is a light at that end of that tunnel or through that tunnel where you can grow and you can, you know, learn some discipline, deal with your trauma, deal with your emotions, and rebuilding old relationships, adding new relationships, getting freedom from your mental circus

that you've been playing with, like you said, that cycle that you've been battling for however or so long, you had that opportunity to go down that road, give you some freedom with that, some physical and mental health, some balance back into your life, some peace. That's another thing I have I never had is peace. Everything was chaos and anxiety all the time. Choose your hard. They're both hard and one's going to require a lot of work, but man, that work pays off. And you won't believe how much.

much the work you put in sobriety, like I said earlier, can affect your day life and improve your day life. It's astounding. I thought getting sober was just quitting drinking. That's it. I'm just going to quit drinking and everything's going to suck. I'm not going to have a life, like you said, Brad. Nothing's going to be fun anymore. It couldn't be anything further from the truth. Once you get some time under your mouth, you choose that harder path, that hard path as well, the opportunities are just unlimited. So you already been down that one road. You know where it goes. It doesn't go anywhere like he said, why not try something new? Why not? What do you got to lose? Yeah, beautiful. And that is the changes that take place, right? So many people talk about it and

share about it too. And it's, I think just drinking alcohol is like buying a lottery ticket that we already know is not a winner. Who would do that, right? You already know the outcome. And that's so many people's stories. And not everybody is out there in the world has a problem or bad relationship or whatever with alcohol. But if you're listening to this podcast, there's probably something inside that's telling you that it's not helping you

that there's something more to life for you that you want to show up differently. I think for a lot of people, I don't know everybody in this world. I don't know everybody's story, but all the ones I hear is it just doesn't get better. No matter what you try or what you do or how many years you put it off for,

it doesn't get any better. And most stories share that it just gets worse and worse. And you don't have to wait. You don't have to wait for these things to happen. You don't have to wait to be in hospital. You don't have to wait for all this other stuff. So I think if somebody's out there and they're considering it, right, I know everybody, I know there's a lot of people out there.

They're checking the boxes, right? Things are pretty good here, right? I got my job and things aren't too bad here and too bad there. But things are going to be a heck of a lot better if you do. give it up. And I think that's the thing. Some of us are waiting for the bottom to completely fall out. And some of those stories end up where it's too late. Some of those stories end up where it's too late to turn things around. So get things going, Stephanie. Great job on a thousand days. It's been incredible. Thank you for letting me be a part of your story, a part of your journey.

And yeah, anything else you have before we sign off? I think I summed it all up. And I just want to thank you, Brad, for being there. I've been on sober buddy community since it started, and now I'm with you in the sober motivation in the mornings, and you're my mentor, and I know you don't have all the answers. You say that all the time. I don't have all the answers. Nobody does, and this journey isn't linear, but it's worth it. It's worth trying. Like you said, there's nothing good ever comes out of going down that dark road, and I just appreciate all the knowledge you have and what you share with us and sober motivation and can't wait to keep growing. Yeah, of course, 100%. Thank you. Well, there it is, everyone, another incredible story here on the podcast. I'll drop

Stephanie's contact information for Instagram down to the show notes below. And as always, if you have yet to leave a review on Apple or Spotify, jump over there and do that after checking out this incredible episode. And I'll see you on the next one.