Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - From Daily Vodka to Sobriety: How Shelby Quit Drinking

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Have you ever promised yourself you would stop drinking tomorrow, only to find yourself doing the exact same thing the next day?For Shelby, weekend drinking eventually progressed into daily vodka, blackouts, hidden bottles, and trying desperately to control her relationship with alcohol. She knew she needed to quit drinking, but even after getting months of sobriety, she found herself returning to alcohol and quickly ending up back where she started.In this episode, Shelby shares the experiences that shaped her relationship with alcohol, the reality of being a mom struggling with drinking, and why accepting that she could no longer drink normally became a turning point in her recovery.She also shares how listening to sober stories, finding community, and finally asking for help changed everything.Now more than one year sober, Shelby’s story is a powerful reminder that struggling to quit drinking doesn’t mean you stop trying. Recovery is possible, and you don’t have to do it alone.Connect with Shelby Here: https://www.instagram.com/shelbyyy.cook/Sober Motivation Mobile App: https://apps.apple.com/app/sober-motivation-app/id6759266291Sober Motivation Website: https://www.sobermotivation.comSupport the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivationContact me anytime: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One morning, I just went in the freezer and I took out the vodka. And it was like I never put it back down. That's how it felt. It really felt like the switch. And from there, it was like a very quick descent into full-blown, daily drinking. Today's story with Shelby is a powerful one. She shares how experiences from early childhood shaped the way she saw herself, how alcohol eventually went from something she used to escape to something she couldn't imagine living without.

And what finally helped her find a way out. There's a lot in this conversation about shame, motherhood, trying to get sober over and over again, and the power of finally letting other people in. If Shelby's story or any of the stories here on the podcast resonate with you, don't forget to like and subscribe. And this is Shelby's story on the sober motivation podcast. Welcome back to another episode of the sober motivation podcast. Today we've got my friend Shelby with us.

Shelby, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. Glad to connect with you and have you share your story here on the show. Yeah, me too. I'm really grateful to be here today. Yeah. So what was it like for you growing up? Wow, it feels surreal hearing that question asked to me. It was kind of all over the place. I'm the youngest of three and I have a different dad than my brother and my sister. When I was three years old,

my biological father sexually abused me and was not convicted. And, I was not convicted. And, And in order to kind of get away, my mom had to sell all of her stuff and move across the country. I was born in Tucson, Arizona. So she read somewhere that Maine was the safest place to land. And she drove me and my brother cross country to some family in Maine. My sister wanted to stay back with her dad. So my mom was a single mom with two kids, well, three kids, but two that she was taken care of. and she worked a lot.

So there was that. I feel like it was somewhat safe. You know, my mom tried to get us into counseling and do all the right things, but she was working a lot, you know, she had to provide. And so, yeah, there was just a lot of, you know, getting taken care of by older siblings, being at random people's houses, you know, takes a village. Yeah. How old were you?

Really? When it happened or the move? Yeah. I was three. I was three years old. Yeah. So my earliest memory is like one room hotel rooms. And I think it was that drive from Arizona to Maine. It's, it's so funny because I don't know a lot of people who remember things when they were three, but I do remember some very vivid memories from like that time. We'd rented this house. Well, my grandfather lived in Maine and he had this, I don't know if it's a rental property, but that's where we landed when we got here. And it was, it felt huge to me. There was like double staircase and it's just me, my mom and my brother. And he would throw bubbles on the hallway. We would slide down the hallway. We didn't stay there long. But yeah, those are like my earliest memories. Yeah. So you did have somewhat of a connection there to Maine? Like your grandparents live there or just had this house there? So my, yes, we had quite a bit of family here in Maine. My grandmother, my maternal grandmother lived here. My maternal grandfather lived here and some cousins and stuff.

So there was some connections there. Okay. Yeah. And again, my mom read somewhere we're supposed to be really safe. So that's where she kind of took us. And that's where we've been ever since. Yeah. How do things look like for you, you know, moving forward from there, like starting school and all that stuff?

Any memories there? Yeah, I remember so much. It's kind of crazy. I know there's a lot of people who will talk about not remembering a lot from their childhood, but I remember, I feel like I remember so much and so vividly. I always loved school. I always love connecting with friends and it was nice to be surrounded by people. At home was a little bit quiet. Sometimes like my brother or my sister would be in Arizona with their dad, so sometimes it would just be me. But yeah, school was good. I, I always was a people pleaser. I was always a really good girl. I didn't like to break the rules. I loved to learn. I, again, enjoyed being with friends. I think the younger years were the best, right?

Before you, like, hit that, like, fourth, fifth, sixth grade where kind of kids get kind of, I don't know, mean. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I really, I enjoyed it a lot. We lived in, like, a subsidized housing place. Once we got settled down in Maine, and so there was a lot of kids there. So I always enjoyed being around, you know, kids my age and playing and just getting out and being a kid.

But I did always have this sense that I was like different and a little bit. I don't know. I kind of always felt like I was performing, if that makes sense. Even from a young age, I remember feeling like I was always performing, like always on, you know? Yeah. Was that important to you like to do, like from your mom? I'm guessing to do well in school and make that happen? Or that's something you just really clung to and enjoyed?

I think it was a little bit of both. I think I liked the way I was treated and complimented when I was doing the right things. You know, like, oh, you'd get compliments from like friends, parents, being like, oh, she's such a pleasure to have and she's so polite and all that stuff. I really liked that validation. but my mom was always probably a bit too honest about things. I knew a lot of stuff I shouldn't really have known about at a young age. And I took on a lot of responsibility of being strong. And, you know, my innocence was taken away at a really young age,

but it kind of continued to just be taken away. And, like, I was reminded a lot of the things and all of the stuff that had happened and the type of person that my father was. And I just think it made me this very grown-up child that didn't really have a chance to be that goofy. I was always anxious, always kind of serious. People would always say, just enjoy being a kid. Don't try to grow up too fast. But I look back and it's like I can see why I felt the need to grow up so fast, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, thanks for sharing that too. Like, did you see a lot of drinking around or no? Yeah, I mean, I think that drinking was always very normalized, always. You know, my mom would have a few beers, you know, in the house. She worked at, she was a bartender. So one of the jobs she did at night was she'd go and she'd bartend. So sometimes during the day, like, I'd go to the bar and they'd turn on a little disco ball for me and, like, give me a cup of chocolate milk.

But I was always around drinkers. It was never chaotic drinking that scared me or felt. unsafe until I started getting a little bit older. My mom always really stuck to like the beer stuff. But there was chaotic relationships in and out of her life as I was younger as well. So there was some domestic violence and stuff, just some not great men in and out of our lives. And one of the biggest things I can pinpoint from being a kid is she had a, she had a boyfriend that lived with us. And so she would go to the bar and work and he would, you know, go and visit her. And they'd always come home and be fighting because he had a lot of, like, jealousy and stuff.

And there was a few really loud and tumultuous fights that would happen when they'd come home from the bar. And at the time, you know, it was like five or six. I didn't kind of put it with the alcohol, but it was definitely play a big role. Yeah, they were always drinking. Drinking was always just a normal thing that you did when you got older. Like, I just never even knew it was a bad thing until I got older. Yeah. It kind of reminds me, too.

I mean, listening to so many of these stories over the years, you know, as kids, like, not really knowing what to expect seems to really impact a lot of people, I think, further down the line, like nervous system. some development and the anxiety. And I don't know if this is part of the story too, but walking on eggshells or just not kind of knowing someone's reaction or how they're going to react can maybe create some of that anxiety.

But maybe do you realize it at the time or connect the dots? I think most of us maybe not. Yeah, no. I mean, I don't think so, especially at that age. I think looking back, definitely. I mean, it really was,

always around. It really was always around. Like the drinking was always around. Whenever it was adult friends and stuff, they were always kind of having, you know, like a little party kind of thing. But it's just one of those things that I don't think that you pick up on when you're a kid, you know? And again, my mom's drinking was never like a, it never felt like unsafe. She always seemed to have control of like, like, acting normal and stuff. But it was just not something that I really, I don't know, picked up on until, like I said, I got older. But, you know, I do remember, like, one of the fights that they had gotten into, you know,

they would come home and fight and I, and then break up. And I remember one time she was like, you know, I'm going to, I think I'm just going to take him back one more time. And again, I'm five or six. Like, these aren't conversations. you normally would have with the five or six-year-old. And I remember saying, I don't think that's a good idea, mom. And like a few weeks later, they got into a pretty extensive fight, and it got physical.

And I remember walking out of my room and seeing, like, she slipped up the bed. And he was getting aggressive. And she, you know, she was fighting back. And I remember yelling up to him and being. like, don't hurt my mom. I need her, you know, and he had like yelled at me to shut up. And I went and hid behind a TV, like a big entertainment center. And he'd come down. He didn't know I was behind the TV. And he took the TV off to throw it on the floor. And I was, we just like locked eyes and made eye contact. And she ran out the door with him. And my sister followed. My sister's seven

years older than me. So she was kind of entangled in this as well. And I had to call the, I had to call 911. And so, and again, that's, that was at five. So I didn't connect it to the drinking, but it definitely like played a big role in a lot of the chaos that happened early on. Yeah. Yeah, that is. Yeah, that's a lot of chaos and trying to figure it out and, yeah, how you're going to manage yourself and show up to, you know, school. I think it makes a lot of sense, though, why for a lot of people, that becomes maybe the more comfortable place for school. If home life is a challenge in these ways plugging into school, I hear that so much. I hear that so, so much is like that place where people are more comfortable, maybe more

themselves. Where do things go for you from here? It's already busy, five years old, five, six years old. I know. I just kept kind of trucking along. We switched like 10,000. We switched like towns around like third grade or so. My mom had a new boyfriend. We moved in with him. We got a house. I was there for about a year. And it was, it was hard to switch schools because all of my friends that I had been was since I had started school. Obviously, I was disconnected from them. And that year in particular was really tough because that's, I want to say when a lot of my like self, I don't know, self-consciousness kind of started to come. I mean, I was eight, eight, nine years old. So that does just happen in general, I think. And yeah, I had a really hard

time fitting in there, which was interesting because I didn't feel that at my last school. I had had friends and it just felt, I felt more judged. And that was really hard at that age, because again, you're still so young, you don't quite understand it. And then we ended up switching back mid-year, at the end of the year, back to my old school because I had broken up. And I ended up meeting. I walked into my third grade classroom. And I ended up meeting like one of my best friends, still one of my really good friends to this day.

But that, you know, that year shifted a lot for me. And then, again, fourth and fifth grade, the girls start getting, getting, haddy people kids just start picking up on things you know and i just i was really self-conscious i started i always like to say like food was probably my first addiction i started eating a lot to fill like that comfort and that void and all this stuff that i just was not wasn't being processed you know but at the same time i'm still trying to just do my best and be the best and and people pleasing and I'm just trying to be a good girl. And I think on the inside, I was probably screaming. You know, I really was. I think there was already such a big wall that I had put up. And I think I was

already so disconnected from like what inside, what I fell on the inside. But yeah, I started gaining a lot of weight and heading into, you know, like middle school time. There was definitely bullying based on my weight. And just again, like that dynamic of you want to fit in. I always compared myself to others. You know, I always wanted more than what I had. I could never be grateful for what I had. So there was definitely some bullying, some eating disorders that came up there. And I also was like very boy crazy too.

Like I think because of my history, I had this desire to just grow up and become an adult. like faster than I needed to so I just wanted to like feel love and be grown up and have these like more mature relationships even at a young age which just took away from my again childhood like I just was avoiding or unable to be in touch with being a kid yeah it's almost like a loss of identity or maybe not even really plugging into that it's interesting too with I think the outside praise or the congratulations and stuff. With that, I kind of feel like for me it was never enough. Like even if it was like did well here, it was like, okay, what am I going to do well with next?

Because if I didn't continue to do well, then it would go away. And it's like, okay, what's my value to the world or to these relationships or this or that if I'm not reaching the next level of things? It felt like a constant thing that I could never get to the end of it. would never be enough, you know, looking outside of myself anyway, and it sounds like maybe relatable to you too. What are these early relationships? I mean, this, would you say boy, boy crazy? Like, the first time hearing that. What do these look like, though, when you reflect back, like, are these positive things, too? I'm wondering, too, with how you're growing up and

what you're seeing and your mom's relationships with other people. Like, are you mirroring that? are you going in a completely different direction with these earlier relationships? I really think because I was struggled with being self-conscious, I really was probably looking for any sort of love and validation. Like you were saying, right? Like chasing that validation, you hear it, you receive it, you almost don't believe it, but you chase that feeling, like that feeling of like, I did good or recognizing you in some way. And I think I chase that in my friendships, and I think I chase that in relationships

as well. I mean, I had, you know, I always had like a boyfriend, you know, always. I never was just single ever. And they were always way too mature for what they should have been, you know. I definitely think that I wasn't looking at red flags as much. I knew, I was aware of them because of the things that I'd gone through, but I was really willing to accept just about anything, just to feel that love, you know, I really was. My first real relationship was from going in from eighth grade to freshman year, and it was actually interesting enough, it was actually with a girl, and she was a senior going into her senior year of high school, and I knew, like, my parents were not happy about it, not because of the gender, but because,

because she was so much older. I think if it had been a boy, it definitely would have been like definitely a no. You know, you're talking about an eighth grader and an almost senior. There's such a big age gap there. Yeah. I always felt the sense of like,

I just love whoever for who they are and all of this stuff. But she was very manipulative. She definitely preyed on younger girls who were self-conscious and not really sure of, themselves, didn't know who they were. And she was a really negative influence on my life. She was already into drugs and drinking. Again, being so much older, she was a pot dealer. She had pills. And I think that there's a piece of that that I like because it was like getting into that

adult, kind of feeling like an adult, you know? And that's all that I really want. I just wanted to grow up for whatever reason. I just wanted to be in the next phase of my life because I just don't think I ever felt comfortable where I was at. I was thought if I am a little older, I'll feel better or I'll, you know, and that's, I mean, that that was a big, another really big shift because that's when I started smoking pot. That's when I started drinking. I remember all my, my group of girlfriends at the time we were in eighth grade heading in high school and we made this thing we're this packed we're like we're going to have a party and we're going to drink because we're going into like our adulthood and we need to like try these things it was so it was so

interesting i had drank before my first time drinking was 12 and i it was vodka and orange juice and it was like probably or a law or something really disgusting and it's gross it's gross but I didn't care. Like, even from the very first time I drank, it was like the disgusting taste was almost like, I don't even know how to explain it. It was like, well, this is part of being an adult. Like, you know, and you just, like,

I just suckered through it and I just threw it back. And I went way too hard. I mean, 12 years old, right? Like, that's insane. And anyway, I got a little off topic there, but I had already drank before that. And I remember we had this party, so we were like 14 or whatever. And again, you know, I went way too hard.

We tried pot, we drank, we did all this stuff, and it was kind of like this like goodbye to our child's itself or something. It was silly, but it definitely, like, that relationship that I had had at the time was a big push in that direction. I started smoking cigarettes. I stopped caring so much about school. and she was also very abusive too. She was really verbally, mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically abusive. So I would say, like, imagine if your abuser can, like,

follow you into the same restroom, right? Like, because we're both girls, you know? So that freshman year was really hard. You also have the component of going into a whole new school with this identity of, like, am I gay? Am I straight? Am I bad? So that was a whole other thing and not feeling accepted again, like already hating my body, not knowing who I was on the inside and then coming into this whole other situation.

It's just I just, I felt like I was crawling out of my skin all the time, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So the first time you drank was at 12 too. What are your thoughts reflecting back on that at 12 years old to be to be drinking for the first time? I mean, looking back, I'm like, I can't even imagine. I mean, my son's nine. So I'm like, I just, it was a combination of things, you know.

My mom was just working and I was always sleeping out and anything to feel a little bit older, you know? So when they had said it and I want to try it, it was something I said I would never do. Like, I'm not going to, I always said I was going to do drugs and it was going to smoke cigarettes and I was going to swear. Ironically, though, I never said I was going to drink because that was normal. That's what adults did. You drink. So I think when that opportunity presented itself, it was like, yeah, I want to be older. I want to feel cool.

And it's not bad. So I'll try it. And boy, did I try it. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a kind of thinking here. like that question of like am I enough? Like am I enough or do I feel like I'm enough?

You know, in life to not maybe go and chase all of these other different things externally to try to be at peace, maybe internally. So you start to, so you kind of move on. A lot of moving parts still. Start freshman year. Kind of start drinking. I mean, what does that look like for you moving forward? Is this the weekends or does this thing take off right away?

way or? Oh, geez. So, I mean, being young, you don't have a whole lot of access to getting alcohol. Yeah. But definitely on the weekends, we were drinking, we were partying. I started smoking weed very heavily. And I was smoking cigarettes, too. So there was that component of, like, hiding from, hiding things to start, hiding things

from my parents. I would sneak out of the house. I would skip school. But I was always doing really well at school, too. So I would be able to leave once I got my license. I was able to leave at lunch and then come back. Yeah. And I would just go and I would smoke a ton of weed.

I would not drink really during like the weekdays because again it's like the access issue. But we drank like almost every weekend. And my best friend, her parents, they owned like a seasonal camp. So almost every weekend, they would be gone. so we would be trying to find alcohol and we would all be drinking. And I mean, a lot of times we would drink until we were sick, you know, and I always, but I was always the one that was the worst. I was always the one blocking out.

I was always the one getting out of control. I never had a stop. I never had a stop, but anytime I started drinking, I never, I didn't drink to like, taste it. I didn't drink to like have fun. Like I drank to get drunk. Yeah. And that's, you know, and from the very beginning, I didn't recognize it at that point, obviously, but. That's interesting too. Yeah. You know, now it's like, okay, we can see it on this side of things, but at the time, we know that it's like, okay, you know, I'm drinking a lot. I'm having, you know, this experience over here, but not really connecting the dots.

They're like, hey, maybe we're avoiding something or we're feeling a certain way. And this is sort of helping us forget about it or numb from it or feel like we, you know, are part of the crew here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was that immediate and you hear it on the podcast a lot. It was that immediate feeling of like feeling like I could connect, like be.

loose and not say the wrong thing and just fit in. Like I felt immediately accepted and like it was, it's a good time. And I don't know if I really had that feeling when I wasn't feeling my body with something. I always came into stuff anxious and worried about how people are going to look at me. Again, I was like that performing, right? Like always performing, always on. And that's exhausting. And I found out later in life that I, you know, I was diagnosed with ADHD. So there's, was that whole other component of not understanding why I didn't feel normal. You know, everything was just a little bit harder to keep everything together because I had this underlying ADHD.

And they say, you know, like the way it presents in girls is that hyperactivity that you typically would see or that they used to look for. It's internal a lot of times. And that resonated with me so much. It was like that hyperactivity was like just in my brain, just constantly. going. Everything was just disorganized. And yeah, it was just, it was one of those things where alcohol, it just made me feel okay for just a minute, you know, and I just, and I would tease that feeling. And so I would just keep going and I would end up blocking out or, or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, it was

sad. Yeah. I think back then, too, it was kind of like the ADHD was like the ramp bunchious teenagers or boys or that was the big focus too and in the alcohol oddly enough is a great self-medication tool for the busy brain right because it slows i mean it's a depressant so it slows everything down so then it's kind of like okay feel maybe more normal to how other people are feeling i mean the the stats and the studies that have been you know um explored with people with ADHD using some substance, you know, weed probably falls into it too. Yeah, for sure. Sort of, you know, calm down or feel, you know, quote, unquote normal or to slow down a little bit

or to fit in is just, it's, there's so many people that, you know, don't really know what's going on. But I think like back then, if you weren't presenting the signs of being disruptive in the class, maybe that this wasn't red flagged as much as if, you know, you were like me, is tearing the class up. and getting in a ton of trouble there. They're like, okay, we need something for this guy here. So that's a really interesting component too. How do things like look like for you as you kind of finish up high school and your plans for after that?

Like, were you thinking that way? Like, hey, I'm going to, you know, what do I want to do after high school? Yeah, I was. So like I said, I did really well in school. I always tried really hard to get like A straight A's. I remember I'd get crap for my mom if I got like a B. which again was really difficult because I was struggling with ADHD so everything was a mess my binders my backpacks like everything was crazy but I held it together but that took so much more out of me to do that

and I had this anxiety you know like I had I would procrastinate but my anxiety almost kept me in check it was almost like my anxiety was this coping mechanism to keep me in line so I always was told I was going to be the first to graduate from college and in my family and I had all these aspirations and dreams of things that I had wanted to do and it just fell like it just fell to the wayside. So yeah, I thought I was going to go on and do all these big things. I had all these big dreams. I wanted to be successful. thought that I was going to be able to like perform again perform my way into like some sort of

happiness and and that just wasn't the case and the issue in high school was it was again like that chasing external validation whether that be from smoking or or drinking or the relationships all of those dreams just kind of fell to the side because again I started I mean I started smoking weed every day, all day. They started my day that way. I did it on lunch. And I really just stopped caring as much, which again, I think was some of that self-medicating. I think it allowed me to kind of let go a little bit because I was always on and always trying to perform. And again, that was like a daily thing, but we definitely were drinking on the weekends. I do remember a few times bringing alcohol, like a twisted tea and like a mug to school. But I,

I was always the good kid, so no one ever suspected it. So I definitely was always trying to feel something outside of the way that I felt. And at the time, too, around, I didn't even mention this in like six or seventh grade, my mom's drinking had gotten really bad. She started drinking liquor. There was some stuff that had happened in our personal life. And she very quickly got physically addicted. her drink of choice was vodka.

So at home, things started getting chaotic again. She was very not for herself when she drank. And I was put into a lot of situations around that time, that early adulthood, that were scary, you know. I remember she was going to go to work one night and she, like, couldn't even walk. And I had to pull her out of her. car and asked my stepdad to like do something about it you know and he he just he she wasn't going to do anything and i was like you're going to let her drive um and she cried in my bed all night and

i had to call her out of work it was just traumatic it was things like that you know and that was all through it was on and off through late middle school and high school And so I also, that was another component of like, I almost just didn't care anymore. I wanted to just, I just wanted to, like, escape. I really did. I was not home a lot because it was just unsafe. You never knew if you were going to come home to her drunk or her sober. You know, I remember her picking me out from school one day.

I was like late. And I didn't even have my license yet. And she was driving home. And I was like, oh, my God, we're going to crash. and I made her pull over and I drove home even though I didn't have my license. Yeah. It was just really, it was another just big part of what was going on in my life at that time. And so towards the end of high school, I was basically living at my boyfriend's house.

I turned 18 my senior year. I was smoking all the time. I applied to schools, but I didn't look based on like merit. I wanted to go to a school that one of a. of my best friends could go with me too. So we just picked a community college. I had no idea what I was going to do, what I wanted to do. So I just picked something. You know, I definitely didn't chase my dreams. You know, I think it was that time where, you know, it was like after the recession. So, you know, you didn't go to school to like chase your dreams. You went there to find a job.

So I was always kind of talked out of like the things that I may have wanted to do because it just wasn't realistic. So went to college for like one year. I switched mid-year to a different college, and then I dropped out just to join the workforce because it just, I don't know, I just didn't, I didn't have that drive. I just wanted to smoke weed all the time and afford being able to drink and, you know, not not have the responsibility. I had to work a lot in order to like afford being in college and just felt like too much. Yeah. It's so interesting too, like looking back,

I think it's a common trend for us when we're younger. I can't wait to grow up and leave the nest and do whatever the heck I want. And then we grow up and we leave the nest and we do whatever the heck we want. And it's like, okay, this is tough too. Yeah, it's not what you expect it's going to be. Yeah. How are you feeling about yourself? I mean, is it on your radar too?

of where this is kind of headed to of like you you know i mean getting straight A's and doing so well in school and being the first one to go to college and that was maybe you didn't land where you wanted to but you landed somewhere and then now it's like okay i'm i'm packing that in are you aware at the time or like what are your thoughts about okay you know i mean if i kind of dialed this out 10 or 15 years like it might not be where i thought i was going to be it definitely wasn't where I thought I was going to be. But, you know, I just, I just didn't, I wasn't thinking about what the, the future really, like, really was looking at, looking like in terms of, like, the substance stuff. All I knew is that I was, it felt normal. You know, I felt like that's what

everyone was, like, kind of doing. I mean, some people were doing in college. I wasn't. I was, I had, you know, had a serious boyfriend that we had a house and we had like rented out room. So we'd have like, you know, parties all the time. And he was older and could have could buy alcohol. So it was very accessible. I knew that my drinking was different than others. I knew that the way it looked was different than everyone else. I always went too far. And like, again, I think I blacked out probably 90% of the time. I'd never have. like an off switch. I never had an off switch and I kind of would turn into a very stubborn, like kind of mean, angry version of myself once I got to a certain point. So you weren't going to

tell me to stop anyway. But in terms of like what I thought it was going to look like down the road, I didn't think that I was going to end up like my mom. Like that was the number, like, it was so interesting because I'm seeing it in real time. Yeah. And I'm, not putting connecting the dots at all you know but I still was not drinking like every day I wasn't drinking every day just when I did I would binge so it was always the the pot for me that never stopped that continued to just grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and I think that because I was constantly smoking I just think all the I don't I think people underestimate what that to your brain. You know, I really do. I don't have any judgment toward people who do. I just think

anything that you're doing daily and enough is not conducive for like growth in any way. The, you know, smoking all the time too is interesting, right? Because I think there are people who will die on that hill and teach their own and what everybody does. I mean, I'm with you. Like, it's all good. But I do hear stories often too where maybe the ambition slides away of, you know, being motivated to do stuff. And it's kind of like always like whether it's the marijuana, whether it's alcohol, whether it's other substances, I think anytime that we're personally uncomfortable in a situation and we lean on something to either mask that or take it away,

we remove the ability for us to learn better strategies on how to work through situations. And I don't think we realize it at the time, but I see that as what, And when you rinse and repeat and you get in that cycle of whether it be drinking or whether it be the smoking, then it's like, okay, what other tools end up on our belt to deal with life on life's terms? You do it for a bit. It's like you got two tools. You're showing up to build a house with a hammer. How far are you going to get?

Especially when we decide that we want to turn our life around or make some changes. We look to our belt, our toolbox. and it's like, wow, all I've got is a hammer. Like, I need to learn the other tools. And it is interesting, the other aspect, too. I mean, I've heard this story countless times. People growing up and their parents or family members struggling with a substance, alcohol, they're just commit to themselves to their core.

They're either not going to drink at all or they're never going to end up like what they've seen growing up. Like they know better because of that experience. They like, I know better. I know the signs. I know what to look out for. I'll never end up there. But people do. Yeah.

Yeah. They do. They sure do. It's so true. I think you think that you, you, because you know the consequences that you're never going to let it get that far, you know, you're like, well, I'll know. I'll be able to figure it out for it gets to that point. And you just, because you don't understand, I could never understand how she couldn't just not drink.

Like, we're going to pick out a Christmas tree and cut down a Christmas tree at 8 in the morning. Why do you have to be drunk? I 8 in the morning. I don't understand. Yeah. And you don't understand until you understand, you know. And it's just, you think you're never going to get there. You know, you really just don't think that it's going to have.

happen to you. But it will. It will happen. If you, if you feed your body these things, like you said, like it just becomes that tool. And on top of that, like your brain, every single time that you're taking away your brain's natural pathways to get dopamine and joy and you're replacing that with something else that's giving it joy or dopamine or that validation, you stop being able to experience it without it, you know? And it's just like, I had to be high before I did anything. That was my first, you know, people say it's not addictive and that's on. I know for sure that I was physically addicted because if I didn't smoke, I would have serious gastrointestinal issues. I would like not be able to eat or I would be throwing up. I would feel sick. I would be very

irritable. And honestly, the only reason why I quit smoking weed was because I started drinking more. And I didn't like the way I felt when I was drinking a lot daily with smoking. So I started putting the smoking to the side and drinking started taking hold. And that started being the thing I did every day. When was that? Yeah. So, yeah, I guess I kind of skipped a bit here. So I met my husband, And the year I was going into college, and I ended up moving in with him midway through, and we got this house. We had the roommates, all of that stuff. And I quickly got married.

I got married the week I turned 21 because I want to make sure I could legally drink at my wedding. Like the words are written in stone, really, and I was avoiding all of it. And then after we got married, I quickly wanted to have a baby. I wanted it because, again, chasing something that I thought was going to make me feel something, you know, like myself. I thought I was going to finally have the family and the, in the baby, and the house. And, you know, suddenly things were just going to magically fall together. And that just was not, you know, the case.

But in 2017, I had my son. and it was the most intense love I can even describe. I had really terrible postpartum anxiety. I didn't want to share him with anyone. I didn't trust anyone. I didn't really want anyone around. And I fell into this really kind of like depressive state, I guess. And staying home, I stayed home with him for 18 months and it was not for me.

Some people can do that. And that's like what they're meant to do. I felt like I was like losing my mind. I hate to say that. I love that I got to stay home with him, but it was hard. And again, I went right back to smoking weed and smoking cigarettes like a few months after he was born. So. Yeah.

I think that brought some shame as well, right? Because you have this baby in the house and you're drinking and you're losing control. And you're like, I thought I was going to have it to. together. I thought I'm adult now. I thought I had the baby in the house and the husband and I was going to have my stuff together, but I didn't. So fast forward, you know, I went back to work. I started working at an animal shelter, which was really cool. That was a really cool job. But in 2020, obviously, COVID hit. And that's when it switched from the weed to the alcohol. I was home a lot and I was home a lot with a young child.

And it was March 29th, 2020, my son turned three. And that did something to me because what had happened to me happened when I was three. And what I didn't know was that around the time of a year, March 29th, was the same time that that stuff had happened to me during the year. I was three. And something about that, like right around that time when you turned three, something switched inside of me and like everything came back. And I was struggling with my marriage a lot. I was not. I didn't feel what I thought I would feel like in this relationship. And I was seeking, you know, external validation again. And I had found someone outside of my marriage that was

making me feel really good, not in like a physical way, but in an emotional way. So I thought I was going to leave my marriage. Austin had turned three. He got diagnosed with autism. He wasn't speaking. There was a lot going on at that time. My mom had gotten into a car accident. She drove through someone's fence and ended up having to go to rehab. It was like a combination of a lot of things. And I just, it was like, I swear to God, one morning I just went in the freezer and I took out the vodka. And it was like I never put it back down. That's how it felt. It really felt like the switch.

And from there, it was like a very quick, very quick descent into like full blown daily drinking. Yeah, during the pandemic too. And you know what's going on where there was like that extended downtime. I mean, you know, that area. of time is it's become so interesting to me, especially with these stories, because it's almost like there was raid in so many people's face. If there was kind of a problem, I feel like this brought it to another level. Oh, yeah. Maybe in a, if the right words for it are good or bad, I don't know that that's exactly it. But I think there's a lot of people that this caught up with them sooner rather than

later how it plays out. I don't know, but I hear a lot of people that are like, you know, they probably could have been on the train for a lot longer, but because of this, the downtime at home, all the jokes, all the memes, everything, right, where they could work, you know, everybody's situation is different, but they could still, you know, work. And the time just kind of seemed to creep back a little bit. Maybe it was five before. Then it was three o'clock shut it down. Noon, coffee cups, everything else.

It just really seemed to pick up speed for a lot of people. If there was already kind of a shaky foundation. Oh, 100%. I mean, you're talking about something that's never happened before. You know, this was like, is the world ending? Like, are we going to be all right? You lose your connection to others. You can't see people.

You can't, you don't know what's going to happen. There's this underlying anxiety. And then all of a sudden, you're not working and you have nothing to do. But you know what you can do is you can order groceries and alcohol. And I know that the sale of alcohol like skyrocketed during COVID. It was all that people had to do. You're bored. You're stuck.

You have nothing to do to like fulfill yourself. So I think a lot of people leaned into that, into anything that made them feel a little bit like they had to. control over what was happening. Because that's what it does. It gives you some sort of weird sense, you know, sense of control. That's just not accurate. But no, definitely. I hear that a lot, that a lot of people's.

I mean, I think that it was going to get there eventually, but I think that progression definitely, like, went on fast forward because of COVID. Yeah. Which, like, I think there's, I mean, if there is a silver lining to it, maybe that's it. Like you didn't have to maybe wait until maybe 50 or 60 or wherever, right, to say, okay, you know, here's a serious problem. What are you thinking, though, as you know, drinking and drinking every day and like this starting to maybe, I mean, sound like maybe mom's story a little bit.

It could. I'm only guessing there. Are you thinking to yourself like, whoa, this is this is a serious problem? or is it maybe the denial element of it? Because it sounds like before too, and I thought this way a lot. Okay, my life is a disaster right now, but I couldn't connect the dots

to how I was living in the moment to being my reality a year from then if I didn't make changes. I feel like I was always convinced of, yeah, man, like I'm going to wake up one day and like really get after it. And I wanted to, but it just, no, I didn't have the skills

or the nervous system's ability to stretch or handle stress or difficult situations. So I guide these grand plans, but really I didn't have the skills to execute on the grand plans. Yeah. I mean, that next day comes and you're like, oh, well, maybe next week. Yeah. Maybe next month.

Maybe tomorrow. Because it's uncomfortable. And like, I don't think that a lot of us know how to be uncomfortable. I don't think a lot of us know how to sit with uncomfortable feelings. I think we really ran from them for such a long time that we have, like you said, we have this hammer. We know how to take that discomfort away. It's easy just to pick up that ham. Instead of growing, you know, and I think that's, it's just, I don't think the real desire to grow is really there until you start getting into sobriety a little bit.

To be honest with you, like, I don't know. I knew that I had to stop drinking. Yeah. But I didn't know, I didn't know the extent of the growth that I had to go through. I didn't know how much things were really wrong inside of myself, you know? I didn't realize my mentality. All this stuff was wrong. Everything was mucked up, you know, from what life throws at you, things you go through, the way you cope.

Yeah. So, yeah, like my, I knew very quickly. that it was getting to be a problem. I would start drinking very early. I was already starting to hide stuff. I was already starting to put water in the vodka bottle. So my husband went in all my chose drinking. In the beginning, it was a little more open with it.

Like I would put some vodka in my Red Bull before we'd go out. I could make a road set of it. And he would give me like little looks, but I just laughed it off. Like don't even, don't even, you know. It's COVID, the world's ending, let me have this, you know? And he was more of a normal drinker. He never overdid it like I did. I can't think of a time that he was like very drunk ever.

He had a lot of control over himself. And that also kind of led me to always feeling like the fuck up. You know, there was kind of this weird dynamic in our relationship where he was older and more controlled. And I was the weirdo. I was like that crazy one, the wild card, you know, and you never knew what was going to happen. And, you know, 2019 I got my, I got a DUI. It got downgraded, but I got a DUI on the way home from a night out.

And I had to call him. They let me go on my own recognizance, like early. in the morning and I walked over to the gas station and got cigarettes, but I had to call him to pick me up with my son, pick my, you know, get my son up in the middle of the freaking morning to come pick me up. Because I just got out of jail, you know, and then we didn't have a lot of money. And he, we had to pay like $5,000 for a lawyer to try to get me out of this thing. And stuff like that all the time, you know, I just feel like I was always needing rescue. And I don't know if there was a piece of him that I enjoyed that, honestly. Not because he's, he's,

liked to see me struggle, but I think he liked being like my, my hero, you know, like my savior. I think it's something that he enjoyed, that he, that made him feel good. But I know he was not impressed with me. And I knew that it was getting to be a problem. And like I said, like around that time, so 2020, my son's three, I'm having this like emotional affair with somebody else as well who just made me feel like very loved and like seen. And all my weird things that my husband was like, I felt like he just, sometimes I felt like I had to be different. Like, I think that I dulled myself down a little bit. I feel like I watered myself down a lot to try to fit into that relationship, especially in the beginning. And again, put on this

performance because I just wanted this family and this, and this, all these things. So I'm in this, like, emotional affair with this person who is like, I feel more seen than I've ever been seen in my whole life and I have all this shame like I couldn't even I feel like I couldn't stomach myself when I wasn't drinking because I had this thing on the side that I didn't want to let go of because it made me feel good and I had this thing at home where I'm like I don't want to break up this family um but I was like it was impossible to be anything other than like drunk you know he worked at my work at the time and we'd go to like his house on lunch and the way it started like the daily part like in the in the middle of the day this was after

COVID once we went back to work I we would go and like take shots at lunch you know and he'd like take one or two but I'm like porn them because I couldn't stomach like I couldn't even stomach what was happening I feel like I had no control I feel like I was losing control of every aspect in my life and I was leaning very heavily on alcohol which we know does not help you have any control whatsoever So it was, it's just started to be this like habit of I would go by like the, what is it, like the 750 milliliters of like Smirnoff. I'd buy that in the morning. And hopefully it was just one that day, but I'd drink that throughout the day. And then it was rinse and repeat every day.

Sometimes it was two. sadly I was you know functioning pretty well going to work all the things drinking all of that yeah what I noticed is that when I had the big bottles I didn't I couldn't control the amount that I was drinking at one sitting so sometimes I'd really overdo it and in 2021 I came home one day I wasn't working but I'd come home with my dog and I'd went to like a training class at my work and I like couldn't walk. I walked through the door. I had my dog. I couldn't walk. I was, I don't even want to know what I look like because that whole day I'd been drinking, I'd probably look so disheveled. Like I was probably wearing like my clothes from that morning. And my husband was just like, probably terrified, you know.

And he, and I was like crying, I'm sure, a mess. And he was like, you know, you have to do something. So that was the first time I tried. getting sober because there was all I woke up the next day with like oh my god people at work saw me like this yeah who the fuck else saw me like this I couldn't believe I was driving around like that all day I can't believe I made it home and um I tried like I went to counseling and I tried some AA meetings I went to my mom because my mom was sober at this point so much like mom I think I need some help. She got me a big book. I went to some online meetings. And I had one bad experience in an online AA meeting where a woman called people out for not being on camera. And that was my

excuse to just say, fuck that. And I stopped going. And I was going counseling for a while, and I kept going. But a few months, I started drinking in, and I was just lying to her. So probably about CAA tried dingsers, that was octobering. That was octobering. October 21st, 2021, and I was not drinking to like the end of January or February the next year, 2022. So that's when I started drinking again. Yeah. And I. What's just curious of the thought process of not drinking and then going back to it. I mean, is it sort of the tale as old as time? Like, I'm going to do it different. You know, I know all of this now. I'm going to do things a little bit different, or was it something else?

I definitely didn't think that I was going to stop drinking forever. I don't think that's really what you should tell yourself anyway, but when he said you needed to get help, I agreed. Like, I had no control. I couldn't even take a day off if I wanted to. I was so deep in it. So those few months I got, I was like, I'm cured. I did it.

Like, you know, I made it a few months. I feel good. I'm feeling like myself a little bit. I can just drink a little bit. I can just do some beers. And I don't think that my husband even really knew because he didn't grow up a substance abuse in his household. I think I, you know, I had had a conversation with him.

Like, I think I can probably start, you know, dipping my toes back in. And he was, he had no problem with that. And I started, I was like, I'm just going to drink beer, which is, so silly because I don't like beer, never like beer. It gets me full before it gets me drunk and that's never anything that I was interested in. I was never drinking for the taste. So I started doing like little boxes of wine and then I would do like little boxes of wine while I was driving or going to work and then it was like that's just not enough. So then it started with the nips, like the little airport bottles because I could control the amount of those that

I was inputting into my body. I didn't have to overdo it. So then I had this like few years where this was 2022, I had quickly gone back to this daily need for vodka, but I had control over the amount. So I knew what the amount was that I could drink to be functional. And because I was buying those small bottles, I was spending way more money. But I had this weird sense that I had, I had it under control. Because, and for a while, I was only doing it on my way home from work. I wasn't doing it like in the morning anymore. So I thought again, like, I got it.

We're good. But I still felt the need to drink before I went home, you know, and I think there was a lot there that I wasn't ready to look at. So that went on, you know, for a few years, 22 to, um, 24 was when I started listening to the podcast. I had gotten, you know, maybe a week here, day there, month here. But I would always end up just doing something that was not good.

I would like either come home and I was really drunk or I would do something really stupid and embarrassing and wake up with that like horrible feeling in the middle of the night, you know, drink with my husband, wake up and be like, are we fighting? Are we good? What happened last night? Like, he always had to tell me what happened last night. I never, like, knew, you know? And then I'm spending every night drinking on my way home. And I'm missing my kid's life. Like, I'm not even, I'm not even there. And I lost my ability to feel anything if I wasn't drinking. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. anything if I wasn't drinking or I felt like I was going to die. I felt like I was a zombie, you know, like I really felt like there was no joy. There was no, there was nothing. If I didn't

have alcohol in my, in my body, I felt like I was a walking shell of a person. And it just, you know, the lies, the shame, the, you know, I was dumping my bottles. I was drinking more earlier all day, spending money, putting on a credit card, getting in debt. pretending like I'm not drunk when I come home when I know my husband knows I'm drunk. But he's not saying, he's not really saying anything. I really think he was kind of scared of me, to be honest with you, because I was, I was an asshole when I was drinking, you know, like, you're not going to look, you're not going to tell me.

And like at that point, I mean, that, you know, that, our relationship, was always rocky since that all that stuff happened. And I don't think there was a lot of stuff we talked about. So I just think he just avoided it. Yeah. So, yeah, I, 24, I can't even tell you when in 2024, but I, like, would beg myself to stop drinking. I would be like, I'm not going to drink tomorrow. I'm not going to drink tomorrow.

Because I hated myself. I couldn't even recognize who I was in the mirror. I'd gained, like, 100 pounds. I was having really bad stomach pain. I had been on like an ulcer medication, but I didn't stop drinking alcohol, even though they recommend I stop drinking alcohol. I never told them how much I was drinking now either. I just didn't want to admit that like I'd gotten to this point. You know, and I knew in my head, but I wouldn't even admit it to myself.

So I would just be like, I'm just going to figure it out. And I'll figure it out in silence and I'll never have to admit it to anyone and I'll never have to say it out loud. and I'll just figure this all out and it'll be fine. And just one day I'm just going to stop. And it's going to be fine. So I was desperate. And so I just looked up on my thing, like on my Apple Music, sober motivation, which is so ironic, that's exactly what I wrote into my search bar.

And this podcast popped up and I started listening to it. And I listened to it like I did anything else, like a, obsessively and compulsively. I just, I filled my ears with it. And then I heard someone on the podcast talking about this naked mind, so I started listening to that too. Meanwhile, I'm still drinking. You know, and I would have days or like a week where I'd give it a rest, you know, or like be listening to the podcast and I'd be like, okay, fuck this. And I would go get to drink and I turn it off for a little bit. But it was like, he was planting these seeds and I was listening to people's stories and I'm like, that's my story. Like, there's moms and there's, you know, daughters and, and, and, and they're,

they're, they're functioning, like, not really, but, you know, like, they're not, they're not losing their whole life, you know, they're like making it work. They're not, you know, and I just, like, felt, I don't know, not. I felt. Not alone. You know, I felt like this was happening to a lot more people than people talk about. Because the rooms of AA, which is a lot of the recovery we hear about, is done anonymously and in silence. And if you're not part of that community, you don't hear those stories. So hearing those stories, like, made me feel something that I was not able to feel. I was able to look at things. And I had gotten.

again, you know, maybe about probably almost like a year of six months of listening to the podcast. And at one point I looked up sober buddy because I was, I was listening from the first season up. So at one point I'd looked up sober buddy when I hadn't stopped drinking yet, but it was like not available in your time zone or something. I was like, oh, okay, well, whatever. And I just did much of the same thing. You know, I was drinking all day, drinking at work, having them. medical, like, issues. My marriage was suffering. I was feeling like a horrible mom. I didn't like myself at all. But I was starting to, like, come to this conclusion that I could stop for an

extended period of time. And it was never going to be enough time where that I would suddenly be able to be like a normal drinker, you know? If I started up again, I was always going to end up exactly where I was at or worse. And I drove around, I drove a lot when I was drinking and I knew like it was going to come to a point where something really bad was going to happen, you know, because I was, and I wasn't just striving with myself, you know, and that's the saddest part. So I, um, I just one day, like, was sitting in my bed. I didn't know it was going to be my last day, but I was sitting in my bed begging for like just to stop. And I didn't really have a higher power, but I prayed.

And, you know, the next day I didn't pick up a drink. And that was last January in 2025. And I'd gotten about four months. And I started again, like really diving into all of the, tools. Like I started listening to all the quitlet. I started really digging into the podcast. I started doing a lot of research. I was talking more openly, like with my mom about alcoholism. I think I had this like, I'm just going to try one more time. I'm just going to see if I can I feel more grounded. I feel like maybe I have a little more control. I'm just going to try one more

time. And I, I, I did. I went back out in April of 2025, and it took four more months of my life. You know, and I just, again, ended right back where I was, except for faster. So that was the last time I was like, I'm just going to go do some more research, as you would say. And I did, that was the last bit of research that I really needed to do because it's not fun at the end. You drinking alone. I didn't even want to go out with people because I always did something that was embarrassing. And I didn't want to drink around other people because they didn't drink the way I drank. You know, I'm getting a double with a shot on the side. I'm not going to dinner and drinking like a glass of wine, you know.

Yeah. So I started having, like I said, like shakes and all of that stuff, just the things that are really scary. And I knew that I had, yeah, it had to be. be like for real. Like I wasn't going to just be able to drink and it'd be okay. I was never going to be able to have alcohol in my life and live my life. Like they were never going to go together at this point. It was just too far gone. So yeah. The last drink I had was July 31st, 2025. Thanks for sharing that too. What goes through a person's mind or what was going through your mind? of this, get some time away from drinking,

now go back and try it again. Already with the consequences, you've had the DUI moons ago, you know, I feel like so many people are out there wandering around. Like once I get the DUI, and of course, like, you know, then I'm, that's the rock bottom.

I'm going to change then, but it kind of goes back to, do you have the skills and the tools? Are you willing to learn them or not? Like, I don't know that the UI or whatever some of us are waiting for out there is going to be sort of the thing to kick us into high gear, right? Because we're really good at convincing ourselves that we know better now. But I'm really curious in those moments,

why did life feel a certain way without it? Like, why not just kind of look at this and say, okay, this is where it's gotten me. These are all the consequences. I hear a big, consistent thing in your stories and so many others and I can relate to as well. It's a misalignment. We have these values that we live by. And when the drinking comes into the picture and takes over, it's like that all kind of goes to the wayside. And it's a big misalignment, a lot of friction internally the way we're living. So like if you have any light to shed on that, like what's going on in those moments where you're not drinking? Life's all right. Might not be perfect, but you're feeling better. And now it's like, all right, I got a, I'm missing out on something.

I have to try again to see if I can make this work. What's the thought process there? I mean, gosh, there's so much there, right? Like, I think that before we're ready and we're just not reaching for the bottle, we're just not drinking or we're just not filling our body with a substance, there is an acceptance that needs to happen before a real change happens, at least in my case, I needed to accept. that alcohol could not be in the equation, period.

Not in six months, not in a year, not in two years, not in three years. I had to come to this acceptance point. Because until I did, I was going to keep, that was going to be my focus. My focus was not going to be, okay, how do I rebuild my life? How do I figure out how to heal? How do I figure out how to navigate a world without leaning on a substance? Like, what inner work do I have to do? It's not that.

It's a countdown. It's a clock that you're like, that you're obsessed with. You're obsessively, compulsively thinking about this clock. Do I have enough time under my belt before I can drink again? Do I have enough time? Have I learned enough lessons? It doesn't matter if you're feeling good because that part of your brain, is still just like wanting, you know, it's wanting the dopamine hit.

It's wanting that discomfort to leave because that discomfort is there for a reason, you know, and when you just run away from it and run away from it your whole life, like you're not doing any work. You're not figuring out, first of all, how to be uncomfortable, how to persevere through that and how to grow. You're just staying stuck. There's no growth. You're stagnant, you know?

And until, like, for me, until I fully accepted that and came to the conclusion, because no one else can tell you that you can't drink again. You can try to come to that conclusion for someone else, but internally, if you're not there, you're not there. And it's going to take as many drinks as it takes for you to fuck around and find out. Sorry if I can't say that word on the podcast, but it's true. Like, you have to get to that point and no one else can get there for you. Whether that be a huge medical emergency or a really bad rock bottom or whatever that pushes you there, you internally have to get there. There's just, there's no in between because you're not going to work on yourself. You're not going to look at the darkest parts of you that you need to look at.

If you're just obsessed with this clock, this stop watch of like, hey, yeah. It's time. I can do this now. You know? Yeah. At least for me. Yeah. I mean, I think it's relatable.

You know, for a lot of people, like you touch the stove over and over again, a hot stove. It's kind of like that expression, you know. I mean, most people, they touch a hot stove once. They're like, okay, that's hot. I'm not doing that again. People wired up like us. I mean, we'll mess around with the hot stove for maybe a couple of years and be like, oh, I didn't realize it was going to be that hot.

I think the honesty, too, plays into it. because if somebody else has accepted the fact that when we drank, it's not good for us, like that's one thing. I mean, people around us, I think they see this a lot sooner than those of us that are struggling. But if we can't get honest with ourselves of how this is impacting every area of our life,

I mean, that's great if our family members or our partners or they're telling us, hey, I mean, Brad, this is destroying your life. Dude, it's only going to get worse. It's like, yeah, man, that's great. But until we believe that for ourselves, like get just real honest and accept that this is

always going to play out the exact same way. And progressive, too. Like we all start, you know, where we all start is not where we all end. Right. So, yeah, I think those two, the combo of those two things. So, I mean, you're laying in dead. You say this prayer. But that was before.

That was like kind of before the months. Like how do you start this or was this to start to this? Yeah. So I had the, so I stopped drinking in January of 2025. I said that like I prayed. I like let my ego go. And I was like, well, I'm not going to ask for help to anyone else. And I don't even want to say it allowed to anyone.

I always would say like, I'm just going to take a break for a while. I never would say like, I'm going to quit drinking, you know, or I'm going to try to get sober. Sober wasn't even my vocabulary because I truly like was like, I'm not my mom. I don't have a drinking problem, but I really did. I was very physically addicted to alcohol at this point. But it was the ego. It was like this ego thing. So I was like just sick of it.

I was sick. I was throwing up every day. I was, I just, I felt like life was passing me by. And I just felt like really desperate. So I was like, well, I'm not going to ask anyone for help. I'm not going to go to rehab. So I'm just going to pray. you know, I'm just going to pray.

And I did. And I just said, please help me. Like, please just help me. Please help me get rid of this. Like, help me trust myself and listen to myself. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do this anymore. Please help me not do this anymore.

And the next day, I didn't buy alcohol. You know, I didn't buy alcohol in the morning or at lunch or on my way home. And I got time and I got a little bit more time. And that was, again, that was about four months before I went back out. Yeah. And got another four months because that was April that I started again. And I didn't get sober until August 1st. So I just, that last time, that last stint, it was like every time I drank, it's like I was so conscious and aware of my problem at that point that it becomes to, it becomes this like inner battle.

And I just was done. I just was done. I was done with my shit. I was done missing out on my kid's life. I was done feeling so ill. And I was done being stuck. And I was done doing things I was ashamed of. And I just wanted more.

I wanted more for my life. And again, I'm listening to the podcast. I've done this so many times at this point. It just was like, it just hit me. me, you know, I was like, I'm going to stop and I'm just going to stop for today and hopefully every day after that. It was not like I'm going to take a break. It was really accepting that I don't think I can drink. Yeah. You know, like I don't think that there's any amount of alcohol I can put in my body where I'm going to be able to be okay. So, yeah. And that's just what happened.

And it was crazy. It was crazy the shift in my, in my mentality. It really was. And again, I was just like absorbing all of the sober content that I could, all the podcast, all the quitlet. I mean, I'm listening to everything. This naked mind, quit like a woman, sober shift, just all the ones. You know, I'm just filling my, anything I can do to feel like resonance.

Because again, I also didn't have, I didn't have community. I wasn't going to AA. I had a weird thing with AA. My mom was big into AA. I was like, had a, I think I was like angry kind of with her still and just didn't want to listen to what she had to say. And here she was sober and here I am struggling.

And I just like didn't want to listen to what she had to say. And I wasn't ready. So I never had community. But I had the podcast. And so like five months at five months, I had heard the sober motivation app. I had heard the, you know, the sober motivation app and all the things you were saying on the podcast about it. And eventually I think I started feeling a little squirly and lonely and my sobriety.

And I just looked it up and I joined. And it's like, I can't even describe the difference that it makes, you know. I don't know how I did five months without it. You know, I definitely don't think I'd be here today if I hadn't joined. the community. Yeah. So you caught up to the episodes there in a sense. And then what shifted in you, though, to where, you know, up until this point, it's like, I'm just going to do this sort of myself, right? I'll just water under the bridge. I'll just move on, you know, and life is good. And was there something that you put a finger on too of like, okay, let me just, I think all of us

are nervous anytime we're like, all right, I'm going to try something new. What is all of this about? is this going to go? But there was a nudge, it seems like, for you or something of like, hey, just give something to try. It was, it was shame. Shame kept me quiet about my substance abuse. I thought that if I recovered and I did it quietly, I wouldn't ever have to really tell anyone.

I didn't have a love for myself and I didn't have an appreciation for what I was going through or the depths of like work that I was trying to get through by myself, I really just thought that if I just did it myself and I didn't have to reach out for help and I didn't have to tell my in-laws or whoever, like, that it would just go away, you know, that it was just going to go away. But what you don't realize when you start recovering is like how much that recovery becomes a piece of you. Like it becomes such a big part of it. of who you are and you have these realizations that like you want to talk about it. You want to talk about it and share it and you want, you don't want recognition for what you're

doing, but it just feels like such a big part of your life, the growth, the parts of you that start coming back. Like I mean, I started drawing and writing again, things that had done since I was a kid. And I was like, I just, I felt this huge sense of pride. I was so proud of myself. I was so proud of my sobriety, you know, like I didn't want to hide it anymore. You know, I wanted, I wanted to share it with people. I wanted, I wanted people to understand that there's so much more than drinking every day. And so I just, I didn't want to hide anymore. So I, I made the sleep and I, and I joined up. And it just immediately was like, it was like a home that I like I never ever had, you know, like there was just this immediate acceptance that I never

ever fell walking into, like any other realm, you know, like you spend your whole life thinking something's wrong with you and like you're being judged and and then you get around these people who like make you feel more love than you've ever fallen your whole entire life. You know, I taste this love, this validation. this in everything my whole life and it's like I found these people and it felt like home. So. For like and I think for being yourself, being who you truly are authentic, not the masks and trying to, you know,

get validation in ways that's not authentic to who you actually are. Yeah. It's like, no, you don't have to perform. Your walls come down and you get to be who you've, like, There's a version of you that exists inside your mind that only you know, and you hide it, especially in substance abuse. And then you come into this place where everyone is like saying all of those things out loud. And you're just, you're unconditionally accepted.

And you might feel nervous at first, but I think very quickly people realize that, like, you come as you are. There's no performance needed. Yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful. Just to hear you, you share that, you know, just something you were looking for, maybe your whole life. And, you know, just I think that there's, it's so powerful. I think we battle uphill just to really mold ourselves into different environments. And we get so far away or if we ever even knew who we actually were at our core. Yeah. to try to just fit in here and fit in there and be seen here and be seen there and do what the world tells us is right to do. And then we lose ourselves maybe in one way or another along the way. And I think a big part of recovery is kind of coming home to ourselves. Like who actually am I

as a person? What do I actually enjoy in life? What kind of people and energy do I want in my life? And I think for so many of us, it becomes so much more than just not drinking. Oh, my God, yeah. They're just not drinking. Like, if I did that, I would guarantee you I'd be drinking. I think people when they start, that's their biggest question is like, all I'm thinking about now, you know, maybe on day three is that I just want to drink. Is it going to be like this forever, Brad? And I'm like, no, it will not.

It will not. There will be times because it is everywhere. the story we tell ourselves probably involve a lot of that, but it's like, no, you'll move past it. Absolutely. I mean, I think I say that too. Like, that's one of the biggest things. The first bit of it is going to be like just not reaching for the drink.

Yeah. Right? It's just what opens up outside of that. Because there's so much that we avoid for so long, you don't even realize that there's so many parts inside of you that I've been like just suppressed, you know, and you start realizing there's all these things that you just didn't do and you didn't lean into. There's, you know, hobbies that you, my hobby was drinking. My hobby was smoking.

I didn't have hobbies. So like finding things that brought me joy and like living and experiencing. but like authentically, you know, I didn't, it changes and it shifts because in the beginning your brain is also just trying to rewire itself. It's so messed up from years and years and years of just chemical dependency. So it's hard. There's a discomfort in the beginning. And a lot of the energy goes to just not drinking.

But there's a shift for sure where it starts being something so much more. And it's just like, it's a gift. Sobriety is a gift. If you can lean on it and do the work, like there's so much more. There's so much more on the other side that is, you can, you can explain it unless you're in it. You know, and that's why being in a community with people who understand it is like everything, you know, everything. Yeah. I feel like, too, we've hung out so many times on calls.

and a lot of this I feel like I'm hearing for the first time too. A lot of your story and maybe a new level of appreciation for how far you've come, which is like, it's massive, huge. Thank you, Brad. That's, it's really surreal to be here today. I mean, this podcast really did, like, I mean, it saved my life. It really did. And I know that that probably is not, I'm not saying that to make you uncomfortable.

But, like every, it just, it feels so, it feels like the, like my, like my higher power, my, like, whatever it was. Like, I feel like when I was praying that night, like, I was, like, this was meant to come into my life, you know, because it was that next day that I was like, I need something. And I looked up sober motivation. And I, I had gotten, like I said, I got my first four months under my belt. That was the second last time I got so, you know, tried getting sober. And like without having, I don't know, I just don't know if I would have been able to do it. I just didn't, I didn't realize that I was not so alone. I didn't realize so many people were struggling in the same way that I was struggling. I mean, it's the way that it's delivered.

It's the way that these people come on and it's, it's not a performance. It's just come as you are and tell your story and like, let's talk about it. And there's just a vulnerability there. that it's just, it's changing people's lives, you know, and it changed my life. And that's why I wanted to come on here and do it. And I remember talking you when I first joined and I said, I'll do the podcast if I get, I said, when, not if I get one year, I will do a podcast. And that came so much faster than I thought it was going to come, but I'm really grateful to be here.

I hope that this helps someone the way that it helped me, you know, hearing someone's Yeah. I mean, I don't see how it couldn't. I really don't. I think that a lot of the stuff that you brought up, I think that there's probably, I'm only guessing here, I don't know everybody who listens to the show, but there's somebody out there who's feeling that same way, right? The shame is just weighed you completely down. This is never a story that you could share. How would people ever understand about, you know, being a mom and your relationships and the driving element and all of the stuff that just fuels this and keeps us quiet, right? That's almost like what it wants, right?

Because when you start talking about it and when you get vulnerable, when you share with others and you ask for help, your life starts to change. But the shame element, the guilt element of it keeps us quiet and isolated. You just get wrecked. I did anyway. Anytime I took that approach, I just got wrecked, like just decimated. I could hold on for a bit. But I would just get dead, just banged over the head, be back.

at the store when I told myself I wouldn't be back at the store again. But when you share it with somebody else and the person across the table or on the other side of his screen nods their head and say, you know what? Like shared experience there. It does something. I don't know exactly the science of what it does. But it helps us lower the walls that I think we worked so hard to build up to protect ourselves.

But then realizing the path forward is to let those walls. down, let other people in, and, you know, also be able to support others that are going through it. Yeah, it wants to keep you quiet. Your addiction wants you to be, it thrives in secrecy. It drives in the privacy of your own mind. It wants you to think that you're not worthy, you know. It wants you to feel like absolute crap because that keeps you reaching, you know, No, it does. Like, and there's something about saying it out loud that brings you back to this place where you're human.

You're a person. You're not just whatever the belief in your head where you're trying to be, whoever you think you need to be, you're just a human and you're just struggling. And we all struggle. And I think there's a piece of it and a component of it that brings you back to that a little bit, that you're like, I'm just a person. in who needs help. And I'm not bad and I'm not horrible.

I just lost my way a little bit and I just need some help. Yeah. Yeah, I love that so much. Yeah. And like coming together and meeting other people, I think just inspires all of us that like if they can do it, why can't we do it? Or maybe we can do it. And I love so many elements of your story, but I love this.

you kept trying. You know, when you learned a little bit more, it sounds like every time. And you learned a little bit more. And we have people, I mean, you're on the calls and I'm on the calls. And over the years,

we've had a lot of people. And it's so interesting. We have people in the get a stint of sobriety and they'll kind of come back to a call and they drank again. And it's like they feel like they let everybody down. And it's like, you know, everybody's going to be so hard on them.

And it's like, no, why? Why would we be hard on you for getting back up? like that's not going to solve anything. And I think it's just that level of acceptance and meeting people where they're at and you're still in the game. We don't want to see anybody go down that road because it's usually not a great thing for them.

But I think that you kept getting back up is just such a great example for people out there. And this is probably relatable. It's like you never think it's going to work out. Like it's never going to, there's no way. It's just kind of feels impossible as it never has before. And then one time, nothing, you know, big outside thing came into your life and no asteroid hit you.

And in that all made sense. It was like, you just gave yourself another shot at things and got some help along the way, which I think everybody can do in one way or another. It doesn't have to be with us, but find some people to cheer you on. Yeah, there's a quote I like that I've shared a few times in the community. and it's like people in sobriety, like the only difference between people in sobriety and someone, you know, looking to get sober is that they just kept trying, you know? Yeah. Like they're, they just kept trying. Like one day it sticks.

And if you just allow yourself the grace, we talked about grace this morning, yep, yep, I drank. But I can try again tomorrow, you know, like there's no. reason to think that you've failed at anything when you tried you tried you try you know and that's all that matters and I think people don't give themselves enough credit there there is this other thing I was listened to and it was like if you're on this hike and it's a hard hike and when you have to stop and you need to take a rest okay because this hike is really really hard if the person on the hike, said, well, you failed, you have to start back at the bottom. Would you keep going on that hike? No, you know, you wouldn't. You'd be like, well, fuck you. And peace, you know, this isn't

the place. I don't want to hike here. Yeah. So, like, people come here and they're on this really hard journey that we've all been on. I don't know what good it would do to make people feel small or like they failed in some way because they're not. You're trying. That is literally like, that's badass. You're getting it. You're getting after it. So I love that.

I love that people feel safe here. I love that there's no way, particular way that you have to recover. It's your recovery. It's your journey. And we just want to support you on your journey, you know, the way we support each other. There's just no expectations. You just come as you are and you do what works for you. I love that.

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Wow, the time went quick. Thank you so much. Is there anything that you'd like to share kind of before we sign off? You think I would have thought about this more because of how many times I've listened to this podcast. But I just want to say, first of all, I just want to say thank you to you. This is very surreal and crazy to think that a year ago that I would have been hosting meeting and telling my story on a speaker meeting and coming on here to do a podcast,

I would never have believed it. Whoever is out there struggling, just keep trying. Just keep trying. Reach out for help. You do not have to do this alone. Whatever limiting beliefs you're putting out there are anxieties you're having about talking about it to someone. It's not true.

It's not true. Like you're going to be met with so much more. love and compassion, then you give yourself. And that's what it is. You think that you don't deserve it or whatever it is. People are going to give you grace and you're going to find your way. It just, it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to need help, you know, and you can't do this alone. And I don't recommend it. So even if you're thinking about it, you're sober, curious. You just, like, want to chat. Reach out to me. Get on this community. community, it changed my life, listen to podcasts that saved my life. You know, you're worth it.

You're worth it. This life on this other side is so much more than you can put into words. So just keep trying. Yeah. Thank you. I think that's so powerful too. And I mean, just crossing over a year for yourself and just really getting to work on stuff, you know, there's no finish line. It's like one rock, you look under one rock, you find something. And then there's more. rocks to look under. But I think that what you said earlier in the episode too is like not drinking is the doorway to uncovering this other stuff, kind of an exciting, you know, journey of figuring out maybe who we are and maybe for the first time. And it's a really journey of exploration in so many ways. But that first thing has to happen. Thank you again so much, Shelby.

Thank you so much, Brad. It's been a pleasure. Well, there it is another incredible episode. here on the podcast, I'll drop Shelby's contact information down in the show notes below. And if you could use some support on your quitting drinking journey, be sure to check us out on the Super Motivation app on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. And I'll see you on the next one.