Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Kari grew up in an alcoholic environment and drinking was apart of everything.

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

In this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, Kari shares her powerful journey from a challenging childhood in an alcoholic environment to achieving sobriety. Despite growing up surrounded by alcohol and undergoing various personal struggles, Kari recounts her battle with alcohol, the impact it had on her life, and how she managed to find the strength to quit drinking. She discusses her multiple relapses, the emotional challenges she faced, and the turning point that led her to dedicate herself to sobriety. This is Kari’s story on the Sober Motivation podcast.   Support the show: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation Kari on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kari.nautique/   00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 00:12 Carrie's Early Life in an Alcoholic Family 01:21 Teenage Years and First Experiences with Alcohol 02:32 Struggles with Alcohol and Personal Loss 04:34 Modeling Career and Escalating Alcohol Use 05:09 Toxic Relationships and a Suicide Attempt 06:29 Moving to LA and the Party Lifestyle 07:22 Realizations and the Beginning of Change 11:35 Motherhood and Continued Struggles 18:35 First Steps Towards Sobriety 25:36 Introduction to AA and Seeking Help 28:50 Struggles with Alcohol and Early Attempts at Sobriety 29:22 Cutting Ties and Seeking Help 30:11 Lockdown and the Nine-Month Sobriety Streak 34:16 Relapse and the Battle with Temptation 42:01 The Importance of Changing Environment and Community 46:06 Finding Purpose Through Service and Sobriety 48:20 Final Reflections and Moving Forward  

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 as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode of the podcast, Carrie shares her powerful journey from a challenging childhood in an alcoholic environment to achieving sobriety. Despite growing up surrounded by alcohol and undergoing various personal struggles, Carrie recounts her battle with alcohol, the impact it had on her life, and how she managed to find the strength to quit drinking.

She discusses her multiple relapses, the emotional challenges she faced, and the turning point to let her to dedicate herself to sobriety. And this is Carrie's story on the sober motivation podcast. Hey, team Brad here. Welcome back to another episode. Well, we hit our first number one spot on Apple Podcast in Angola for mental health, number one. overall. So if you're in Angolan, you're listening to the podcast. Thank you so much. I just want to jump in here for a second, too. This story with Carrie was emotional going back through it. And you'll understand probably why as you go through the episode, but so proud of her for where she is that she's stayed in the fight. And I think that it's a very important message for anybody out there

who feels like you don't have what it takes. Or you can't do this because of X, Y, and Z. over 160 stories here on a podcast. People have been through a lot. And if you've listened to them, probably nodding your head like, yeah, they have. And the most beautiful thing about sobriety is it truly is for anybody. And I believe that, that anybody can live this way, can incorporate sobriety as a lifestyle into their life and start to experience the benefits. and it may not happen overnight, but it will happen with time.

A lot of people share around that one year mark. Things really get clear on why we went through those early days where we wanted nothing but another drink or another drug and the challenge of all of it. So if you're in that spot, I know I'm just some guy on the other side of a microphone, but you've got what it takes. You have what it takes to change your entire freaking life. There's nothing that you don't already have. It all starts with one day, and then two days, and then three days.

So I want to encourage you to keep going. I also want to mention, too, thank you guys for, you know, the support. It's just been incredible since I launched this podcast and kind of started as just, let's try it out and see and then it's really just become something that I've fallen in love with really meeting people hearing their stories and putting it out there for all of you. If you're enjoying the podcast and you get something out of it and you want to contribute, I'll drop the link to the Buy Me a Coffee page down in the show notes and it would mean the world if you're in a good position to be able to donate some funds to help support the show.

Buy Meacoffee.com slash sober motivation and I'll also drop that link down in the show notes. Now let's get to this episode. Welcome back to another episode of the sober motivation podcast. Today we've got Carrie with this. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm well. Thank you for jumping on here and being willing to share your story with all of us. Of course. So what was it like for you growing up? Okay. I grew up in a very alcoholic family. I grew up with just relatives drinking around me all the time. My biological mom was actually a teenager when she had me. And I found out through her alcohol binges that she got pregnant with me on purpose to trap my dad. And then after that just resented me. You know, he never loved her.

She drank a lot. And my safe space was my dad's mom, who also, I mean, drank a lot. And at the time, I was just like, oh, Nana has either a black coffee or a jack on the rocks in her hand at 10 a.m. watching Walker, Texas Ranger with a double-barreled shotgun behind the front door to shoot squirrels that get into their corn. And I was like, that's just, that was a normalcy for me. As I grew up, I actually got more in touch recently with my, like, the Puerto Rican side of my family. And all they do is drink as well. So it's eat or it's like coquito for the holidays. And there's not even a question.

show up and you drink. So when I was a teenager, I was in high school, I started drinking because I would go behind the bar in my nana's house. My nana used to watch me. My mom was a teenager. At this point, she wasn't a teenager, but she was early 20s. And she would leave for just days. Like, my dad wouldn't be able to find her. This was when I was really little. So my nana started taking me on the weekends and stuff like that. And I would see her drinking with my aunts and uncles. I would see her drinking, you know, with her sisters late at night. And then my dad's younger brother, who was the reigning drag queen in North Florida, and he was a real party or two. He would babysit me sometimes. And I would see all of his friends dressing up and gowns and drinking and having fun.

and it was really idolized in my childhood. So, like, everyone around me that I looked up to had a drinking problem. And I didn't know it until I got sober. But everyone there was just drunk and partying all the time. Every function was something about alcohol. Everybody drank, and it was the norm. So my uncle would start buying me when I was, like, 14 years old, he would start buying me Smearnoff Green Apple, like six packs.

and we would smoke cigarettes and drinks near and off on the dock. And he actually passed away when I was 15, and he was at the time just one of the closest friends I had. After he passed away, the night of his funeral, all of his friends came over to my Nana's house. Obviously, you know, like everyone's devastated, and I hit a bottle of southern comfort from start to finish. and this is when you had throwaway cameras, you know, so I actually have printed photos of me,

like drunk for the first time. And I really didn't stop for the rest of my high school career. I was skipping school. I was, I had a lot of surf buddies. Like, I lived in a surfing town, and I had a lot of buddies that were in college that would surf in the morning. So as soon as I got dropped off at school, I would call one of them to come pick up. me up or they knew I was getting dropped off if my cell phone had been taken away from me. And they would come and pick me up around 8 o'clock, 8.30. And we'd just go out to the beach and everybody would smoke weed. And weed was never my thing, but it was always like, let me crack a beer and let's get on a surfboard. And we would spend most of the day hanging out, surfing, drinking, and then they would

drop me back off. And I got picked up by the bus. And then I'd walk back to my house. I lived with my biological mother at the time. And so she wasn't very present. She was usually already drinking when I got home. And my whole teenage years, right? I got old enough. I got a job at a restaurant at a sports bar. And every time I left work, everybody was like, oh, let's go across the street and get drunk. And I was 18 and the legal drinking age was 21, but nobody questioned it. Nobody questioned me. And I would just get drunk. And so then as I did. turned like 20. I got a job at a gentleman's club working the bar. And again, it was like I would have customers just tip me to get me drunk. And I'd say, I'm working, you know, like I can't have a lot.

And they'd say, no, let's go shop for shot. You want to do, I'll give you $100 per tequila shot that you do. Because I kind of got known as the girl who could handle it, you know, so like it became the game for the regulars to try to just, let's see if we can make her blackout. And it was years, really, of that. Then I met my now ex, obviously, but I met this guy at the time who I just fell in love with. And I came home from one of those drunken nights. And I caught him with the girl I was friends with at the time. And it was a huge fight during which he told me, you know, that he wished I would drop fucking dead.

And so drunk, Carrie was like, let's go do that. So I had every pill that I could think of, you know, in my medicine cabinet. And so I tried to kill myself. And I took every pill I had. If I was sober, I wouldn't have even done that. But it was just this resentment, this anger in the middle of just being blackout drunk. Thank God, you know, like one of my roommates found me. My parents worked at a hospital at the time.

And I was hauled off to, you know, the emergency room. and I was left like, I think it took three or four days. I don't remember any of it. I don't know if I was unconscious, if I was in a coma. I know they pumped my stomach. After that, I was just like, I got to get out of this town. And it wasn't, I have to get sober. It was like, oh, my problem is the town.

Like, the people here are the problem. I'm not the problem. The people are the problem. So I got offered a modeling job out in California. I moved out to L.A. and I was 21 at the time and oh my gosh, you should never introduce a 21-year-old small-town regular drinker, alcoholic, to a big city like L.A. I mean, it was insanity. I went from bartending small gigs and working around, you know, strip clubs and working around like bar environments to

private jets, mansions, like famous people, just. Like, my mind was so overwhelmed. And all that anybody did was drink. Like, this was like 2009, you know? Like, every song on the radio was like, I'm a big deal. I wasted every dime that I made on alcohol. Yeah, and all those experiences there that, yeah, alcohol is around every corner. I'm interested back to when you first started drinking.

It was all around you, too. But some people share a different story. Like some people, they like it from the beginning. they get something from it. And some people don't. I mean, what was your first take that first time or first couple times that you got into drinking? So that first blackout night that I had, I don't even remember having a hangover. I just remember being really sad because it was over my uncle's death.

And the one thing that really just fixed the sadness was being drunk. It was my immediate crutch. And as a teenager, I lived with my biological mother at the time. She struggled, and she was very physically and verbally abusive. And you would think that me being around that, I'd be like, oh, that's what alcohol does to people. I don't want to be that. I don't want to be around it. But it made me want to do it more.

For whatever reason, I just couldn't get away from drinking. I had to do it. It was just like everybody who's cool does this. And it made me feel like the things I was enduring at home were okay. My biological mom, who was arrested for beating the shit out of me. She fractured my nose one night. And she was just drunk when she did it. Years and years later, this wasn't until, like, I started trying to get clean.

She actually came back to make amends. She finally entered the program when she was in her 50s. And the apology I got was, I'm so sorry, that was your perception. And so I grew up around it. I grew up around the negative effects of it. And yet I turned to it. Just it had this magnetism to me. And I never got interested in any other drugs.

It was never like, oh, alcohol is the gateway. It really wasn't. When I was working in bars when I was in my late teens, early 20s, I got offered all kinds of stuff. And I was like, no, no, I want this whiskey. You know, like I want this shot of tequila. And I would make a big scene about it. My ego relied on having this ability to drink so much. I got known as the girl that could outdrink the men.

And that's at that age. Your identity. Horrible, but it became identity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people, you know, I hear that story a lot, right, where it becomes identity in different scenes or a different way to fit into different

things, to different cultures or connect with people or different things like that. But I mean, you know, there's a lot of things at play, I think, in your story, even up to this part, right? It's everywhere around you. Also, the home life was challenging for you. And it's for a lot of people, they share that too. A lot of times this stuff can go through the family tree, right? And it's so interesting because a lot of people share that story of I saw the damage

and the effects that this caused. And then I ended up in one way or another. I mean, probably not exactly the same path. But then now we're on the path of, you know, in a sense, that same thing, right? It really was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I didn't think it was an issue. I didn't think I had a problem. I'm not an alcoholic.

I don't have a problem because I don't need help. and deep down inside I was like, I was dying. I was miserable. Nothing was good enough. Everything I tried to achieve, nothing filled my bucket. It's like I kept trying to fill this bucket and there were holes in the bottom. And the more I drank, the bigger the holes got. I couldn't figure out like what was wrong, why this was happening to me.

And I accomplished all of my modeling dream. in Los Angeles. Like, I moved back to Florida to finish school. I met my son's father, you know, like, I had a pretty healthy relationship. But when I look back, it's like, all we did was party together. And it wasn't until I got pregnant with my son that I was like, you know, fully sober for nine whole month, or, you know, eight whole months or however long it took for me to find out that I was from when I found out I was pregnant to when my son was born. And in that amount of time, I was like, I hate who I am. I hate who I'm with. I hate my surroundings. I hate my job. I was like, none of this is fulfilling to me. And where I was at that point, especially financially, I was just

trapped. I was like, I'm going to marry this man. I'm going to be with him. I'm going to become a part of his family. And in the back of my head, I'm just like finally dealing with the emotions that I've been numbing since I was 15 while pregnant. Like while completely broke, I had to quit my job. We moved up to New Jersey to live in his parents' basement. I had to sell my car. I was on food stamps. I was on Medicaid. I remember at one point just looking at my mother-in-law, I'm being like, I don't have keys. And she was like, oh, I'll give you a key to the house. And I said, I don't, no, I don't, it's weird. I don't have a car key. I don't have a house key. I don't have a mail. mailbox key. I don't have anything. And it wasn't a finished basement, you know, so like we're down

there just me, my two dogs, my new husband, my newborn. And so I started drinking again. It was the only thing I knew. And so up until my son turned four, I drank. I was high functioning. And his family was Irish. So like every occasion, there was alcohol. High functioning, super stable, but just miserable the whole time. Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head there a little bit back, right? As you're just trying to fill that internal void. Some people call it like internal black hole in a sense, right, where we're trying to feel this internal void with these external, you know, things that are out there in the world, like a career and money and relationships and all this stuff. And I just remember that too in my story. Just getting there.

Accomplishing those goals, I thought were going to change things, you know, quote unquote, change things. I get there, accomplish that. And I still feel inside the same exact way. Like, how you mentioned there? The bucket had holes in it. I don't think my bucket even had a bottom to it. Everything just came in the top, and right out the bottom,

I never felt fulfilled by other things. When you look back at your story here, I mean, hindsight, you know, we have a lot better vision looking back. When would you first say you got some sort of gut feeling or a thought maybe that, like, the alcohol is a problem for me. I mean, did it take a while for you to even have that first, even if it was small? I would joke about it. And my brother-in-law at the time, there was one day where, and actually, I had a couple of pageants where for the, for two to six weeks before the pageants.

I was on a strict diet and I wouldn't drink. And I have no idea where that tenacity came from now. I don't know how I did it because I wasn't working any steps and I was miserable. And the guy I had married wouldn't let me get a job because we could afford child care. And I was kind of just stuck at home with the baby. But at the time, I was like, modeling is my thing. This is my passion. I'm going to make this work.

It's the only thing that gets me out of this house. It's the only paychecks that I get. And so I did everything I could to try and get booked for jobs. And so some of those jobs required a certain level of fitness. And I was able to put down the wine or put down the liquor for a couple weeks at a time. But one day, I was on one of those diets. And I remember just saying out loud to the family and just being like, I haven't had a drink in X amount of weeks or whatever. And nobody acknowledged it.

So I said it louder. And I was like, hey, I haven't had a drink in a couple of weeks. And at the time my brother-in-law, everybody else was drinking. He was like, yeah, yeah, Carrie, we get it. You're an alcoholic. And I felt hurt by that state. I felt so hurt. My pride was like, that's such a bad word, you know?

And it wasn't until my son was about four years old. My son's father and I had moved from Jersey back down to my home state, Florida. He had finally gotten a job that paid well. I went back to bartending. I was doing pageants again, but I wasn't drinking on the job. I was just like working my butt off and then drinking after work with the girls I'd bartend with. And it wasn't until I decided for two months straight. I was just like, I'm going to stop drinking for as long as I can stop drinking. And I made it two months. And in those two months, I saw so much. I was like, oh my God, I'm hurting. I'm physically hurting. Like living in this situation I'm living in is physical pain. And I was able to just put words to the feelings for the first time instead of numbing them. And my son's father would come home from work some days and just be like, why are you crying?

And I just be like, I don't feel like you love me. I don't feel like anyone loves me. I don't love me. And he would never acknowledge that. I felt completely alone. I felt backed into a corner. I was like, I've caused all these problems and I can't get out. Like, I'm married to somebody I don't love.

I'm in a job that I hate. I have so much more to give. This is not me. And I've been drinking myself stupid because of it. And so it was those first two months was like a, it wasn't even a slap in the face. It was like I got hit by a train. It was just like all the emotions came back and I could feel for the first. time. And it literally led me to file for divorce. Like, it led me to just pull the e-break and just

halt everything so that I could be carry again. And I wrote a note in my phone that I have. And in the note, I just, I randomly took a, you know, feelings inventory, which I didn't know was a thing. And I wrote on the note, I was like, I want to know what it likes to, I want to know what it's like to sing at the top of my lungs again for no reason. I want to feel what it feels like to wake up and feel happy about who I am. And it was a really long, really emotional note, just kind of entailing how I felt those first two months of sobriety. That's incredible. When, just for the timeline here, what year-ish was this, that you got the two months? So that was in 2018. And I didn't consider myself an alcoholic. And I didn't. And I didn't. And I didn't.

going to a program. What I did was file for divorce and move out. And then when I was moved out and I was in my own apartment, I was like, oh, okay, we can drink again. Nobody's judging us. Time to drink. Yeah, I think it's easy when we're in these different situations because it only makes sense that if we change where we're at, I mean, some people call like a geographical change. I mean, not necessarily that you did that completely. But, hey, my problems live here. So if I move over there, then my problems will be solved. You know, I went to rehab when I was 17, I went for 12 months, and we used to get this focus every.

It was like this, it was a one-liner, the quote of some sort that we were supposed to focus on for the week. And here I am like five months into this program, and I'm thinking I'm on top of the world, right? Brad, you're doing a great job. I mean, you're doing what needs to be done. And then I get this one focus, and it brings me back to kind of what you just mentioned.

And it went like this. Wherever you go, there you are. And it said something else about, like showing your true colors, you know, stop playing this game. That's what they were, that's the message that it was called treatment team was presenting to me as like, wherever you go, there you are, you can only play this game for so long. Like we want to see the real you. And this is five months of living at a place. And I'm like, I thought I was the real me. And then digging deeper into that because I always thought that it was this or was that or it was everything around me was the problem

for where I ended up in life. And when I look back, I realized that I was the consistent thing in all of these situations and bringing the chaos was always close behind me. Maybe not always right there. And I just thought of that when you shared that about now you're on your own. You've got this other stuff kind of figured out or you're away from it for now. So now I'll be able to kind of get back to it, but maybe in a more manageable sense. I think you hear that a lot. I'm really interested to like in your story there because I think that kind of what you shared a lot there is like that early stage of being a mom is like the isolation and staying home in just feeling alone and I mean it's not something I can necessarily relate to I mean I'm a dad but I hear that from you about

you know feeling isolated and in really struggling but I'm wondering too did you ever know a sober person throughout all of this? I did not. I didn't know anyone sober. When my son was born, when we finally moved out of the basement and into a home that was rented to us for cheap by like a friend of the family. We couldn't even afford cable. Like we had nothing. So it was me alone in the house with a four-month-old. And his dad went to work. And there was no way that I could work and cover child care costs. So I was the child care with zero entertainment at the house, like nothing. And so I would just drink whenever the baby was sleeping. And so I was battling, what I know now, I was battling postpartum depression. I was battling alcoholism. And my son,

luckily, because of the mother I had, I've always been so bonded with my son. I never left him alone. He was always completely attached to me. I wore like a ring sling. He was always pretty much physically attached to me. And I didn't know a single person that was not drinking. Like not a single, not even a person on Instagram. My entire news feed on Instagram was like people that were drinking, people that are out partying. And again, all the music that I listened to because I grew up listening to country and then listening to hip hop. And so my mind had no shot. I had no shot at sobriety back then. Yeah. If that's what's all around and that's what you see, I'm always curious to that, though, if people knew anybody who didn't drink, it's always interesting. A lot of people are like,

no, I never really knew anybody. So that was 2015. I finally, once we moved to Florida in like 2016, that was when things got worse, if they could at that point. But like I said, I was a high functioning alcoholic. I was able to hold a conversation, hold a job, get up in the middle of the night and take care of the baby, like change all the diapers, clean the house, cook the food. And I was able to do all of this, just completely hammered. And I didn't know who I was. And then the moment that I was able to finally say, I'm putting this down, I want to stop drinking. And those first two months, I was just like, I cannot be a part of this family. I can't be around this person. I hate everyone. I hate me. I hate my surroundings.

I hate my job. Love my son more than anything in the world. It's the only good thing that I have going. How do I get out? And I had no money saved up. Everything was in my son's father's name. Like, I didn't have a dollar to my name. So as I was bartending, I started, every time I made over $100, I'd put that money away. And I would hide it in like the backs of picture frames, like in our house because I didn't have a bank account to myself. So I would hide all of this money until I had enough money to move out and to get into an apartment on my own. But then once I changed, like the place, like you said, like wherever you go, there you are. And who I am is an alcoholic. So wherever I went, I was an alcoholic. I went straight back to drinking because now, you know,

the cat's away, the mice will play. Now I'm, there's nobody to tell me what to do. Now I'm going to drink because I'm happy. I would kid myself and say, oh, I'm just drinking because I'm happy. And I was miserable. So I drank for throughout the course of the divorce, which was a way longer process than I thought. And I worked in a bar for that. And I would do homework with my son and everything. And as soon as he went to bed at 8 o'clock, pop a bottle. And then I would drink until I blacked out. And I'd wake up at 5.30 the next morning and do it all over again. Just this cycle of hell. Yeah. Wow. It sounds like it for sure. And that's what I think it gets into. I mean, when do you start to maybe go closer to, I don't want to use the word sobriety, because that's heavy.

in the beginning or making that change. But when do you start to get? And I think you touched about it a little bit on it earlier, right? Right. I think what happens a lot of time, and I'm only guessing here, is that my first thoughts were not to give up the drugs and alcohol. That was not my first thoughts. My first thoughts were that maybe there's something more to life than this life.

And that was kind of like when I reflect back about the ball, like it got a little bit of snow on the snowball. I mean, it wasn't rolling fast down the hill. But I just had this feeling that there had to be something more to life than the way I was living. I mean, when do you feel in your story that you started to kind of maybe shift towards that way of thinking about this is not probably going to work out forever, right? You know what I mean? Yeah. For me, the first time I heard about AA was from my biological mother.

So she came back into my life. And this is a woman whose career in my life has been peppered with violence, anger, and drinking. And again, she was a high functioning alcoholic. Like she would black out drunk at night, wake up at 4 a.m., go teach an aerobics class. Like this woman, I know where I get it from. And she came to me in 2019 in the fall. And she was on her step nine, where she was making amends. and the amends that she made to me were bullshit.

And I remember she came down to visit in my little two-bedroom apartment. My son, we hung out with my son. She never got to see him, really. And then after he went to bed, we were drinking tea. And she tried to make a half-assed apology of like, I'm sorry, that was your perception of what happened. And the big what happened was like the night that she finally went to jail, you know, for beating me up.

and which is a whole other story in its own. But I got a chance to look at her and just say, with all honesty, like, that's a shit apology. And pointed to the wall behind me, which was the room, my son's room was behind me. And I got to tell her that I am striving to be the mother I am to him because I never want him to view me the way that I view you. And it was kind of a bonding moment, but there was something. really missing there. Like she started crying, we hugged. And she had told me she's going to a noon meeting every day of the week. And she introduced me to the meeting guide app and how I could find AA meetings in my area. And so it took me like a little bit of time, but I was like, I think

more than anything, I just didn't want to be like her. And I said, you know, if I jump on this bandwagon, if I try to quit drinking now, I'm not going to be, you know, 50, 52 years old with a 34-year-old child who has a child, I won't be in this position to where my kid hates me. You know, like, I don't want my son to ever go through what I went through. So if this is how I stop it, I'm going to stop it. And I remember the first AA meeting I went into just hungover wearing a shirt. So I like to dive if I consider myself a mermaid.

And I had a friend had bought me a shirt that said, of course, I drink like a fish. I'm a mermaid. And I went into AA wearing that shirt, crying my eyes out the whole meeting. And I met so, like that one day, just this room full of, I don't know, 15 strangers in folding chairs in a 12-step house. All just gave me more validation in one meeting than I had ever gotten in my entire life. And I said, I want to do this. I want to come back. And the saying in AA is, keep coming back.

And so I did. And I would fuck up all the time. I would get two weeks under my belt. I would get shit drunk. And I would go back. The next day, still hung over. And I'd be like, white chip, please, I'm here. You know, I did what I could to just drag my ass back in because I couldn't break my, my magnetism to alcohol.

But I knew, as I was. high functioning as I was, that if I could get my ass to the gym with a hangover, I could get my ass to sit in a chair with a hangover. And so that for 2019 really became like the struggle. I'd get two weeks at a time, a month at a time, another month. And then it wasn't until like 2020 when it finally clicked. And it was just, I had to cut off my biological mother. I had to stop because one day she was sending me what I was. I could tell were drunk text messages and they were angry and they were violent. And I was like, nope. And I just, I blocked that person on everything. I was like, what I wanted to do was drink about it.

And what I did instead was like, cut it off. I was like, no, I'm not going to do this. And I, I vowed to myself, you know, like, I'm not going to be like that. And so I reached out to a therapist. I got prescribed naltrexone. So the night before I took, my first Naltrexone, I decided, let's go through this 1.5 bottle of wine. It's the last one we have. We'll take our pill in the morning. But after that point, you know, like it was COVID. It was shut down. I was able to not leave the house because I wasn't supposed to leave the house. So there were no bars to go to. I didn't have a job. You know, I was unable, I started making money online. I, with all of my modeling stuff, I pulled up like a subscription-based website and I started making money off of that to pay my bills.

and then 50% of the time my son was with his father. So 50% of the time I was alone at home on this medication that I literally couldn't pick up a drink if I wanted to. And it was just me and my thoughts. And it was, they were horrible thoughts. I'm a really horrible person. Like when I let the alcohol take hold of those thoughts, drunk me is just an absolutely awful human being.

And I was like, I don't want to think these things. I don't want to feel this resentment. I don't want to feel this anger. I just, I had to get past it. So it wasn't until April of 2020 that I actually had my longest branch of sobriety at the time, which was nine whole months for that first real leg. Yeah, that's incredible. I'm curious, too, looking back. So your mom and you sit down, you go through that men's process.

And then you guys get into AA. I mean, did she know that was something that you were struggling with? Was she aware of it? Or how did you guys get on to that? Did you tell her you're going to go type deal? I did. I told her that I would check out that meeting. And she had given me, she's, yeah, it's in Roward.

It's at noon. And I looked it up. And it wasn't the same meeting that she was going to. So we weren't in the room together. But for a good couple of weeks, maybe, like, I have. would call her every time I left a meeting. And I would just, it was the first time that I had a relationship with her. And it was such a small window. It was like, it was such a small window until she fell off again and became the person I knew. And actually, and I still have not spoken

to her since I cut her off. And actually, you know, Mother's Day, I think it was two Mother's days ago, I was like, I've heard that she's been sober. I was really like, I don't have a mother, you know, I am a mother, and I get that chance. But the woman that raised me, my nana, she passed away. And my biological mother is, I have no relationship with her other than pain and hurt. And then my mother-in-law, my son's father's mother, she was incredible. And she passed away. So I have this huge, like, hole where I feel like I should have this support system. And so I was going to reach out and work on an immense, work on, like, developing a relationship. And then someone sent me, I think it was a TikTok or a video she posted on social media, shredding me, blaming my existence for her addictions.

And I was like, oh, I'm not ready for this. I was like, as a mother, I could never look at my child and say, I'm an alcoholic because of you. I could never. Like, my son is everything. And so as a mother, I don't understand, you know, there's a wound that's there that she hasn't healed. And because of that, I have a wound that I can't heal. And now I'm able to not drink about it. You know, like the moment I found that out about two years ago, I had been sober for months.

And I was just like, nope. or taking this because I have no control. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. What a journey there with everything in that sense. So you get this nine months, which is great. I mean, wow, putting together nine months after everything.

I mean, what was working for you then? And then what happened, you know, for you to go back to drinking? What was working was lockdown. I couldn't go anyway. And when lockdown started lifting, the bar called me back. And I actually went and worked at the bar totally sober. And I would tell my customers, my regulars, who I had obviously not seen in six months or something, that I was sober. And they would actually tip me more for it.

I lost some customers because of it. But, you know, my income was still really good. So I was like, okay, I can do this. I can work and I can stay sober. What really kicked me in the back was my best friend, my career drinking partner of 15 years, she came to, visit. And I had my pride. You know, I'm not going to blame this on her. I'm blaming this on my habit around her. And I'm blaming this on my ego and my pride where I said, you can have one drink. You can just have one. You can have a bottle of wine with dinner. And a friend of mine owns a

restaurant down in Miami that is like super high end. And he was like, oh yeah, come on in. I'll clop your meal. And I said, it's not going to be a cheap meal, sir. Like my best friend is coming in and we're going to drink wine. And he was like, whatever bottle you want, go right ahead. Whatever bottle I want, are you kidding me? Do you know who you're talking to? So my first drink turned into drinking with her for the entirety of her being in town. And then using that as an excuse.

And then when she left town again, going straight back to just drinking every day. And I would plan. like to take this naltrexone again because I was like I did so well the first I used it the first 60 days and then I was able to stop the habit and for me that's what I used is what worked in those first 60 days so when I needed my first 60 days again I tried turning to it and it didn't work it was like I would plan I'd be like if I don't take it this morning I can go to happy hour tomorrow like I would make play. And so my alcoholic brain was like, you're not an alcoholic carry. You're doing so good. You're so healthy. You deserve it. You can have a drink. And it was just in my ear. And really what my sobriety held on to was lack of temptation. As soon as I was hit with temptation, I fill off the wagon again. Yeah. It's so interesting, right? Because even with all of this stuff, I mean, hindsight's 2020. We can see it all clear as day now. But I can relate with you when you're going through it. But you start to believe that stuff. I've got all this other stuff going for me. It's good. I'm not struggling

with this. I don't have a problem. Like I get it together. It's interesting too. And I'm wondering if this was your thought pattern at all. I'll just drink while my friend is in town. As soon as she leaves, I'll quit again. Yes. It was that it was that you were thinking, yeah, because I've been there too. And I think that's why I always say to people, you know what? Like, it's a heck of a lot easier to stay sober than to try to get sober again. Yeah. And sometimes we have to just get through those moments that are really heavy and hard. In our mind, they might seem like they're going to last forever, but they don't. And we just have to find a way with whatever tools we have in our box, we have to plug in, you know, and try to get through those moments because I don't know how many

times I've heard it countless, right? I'm just going to drink for the vacation. And how many times I did it myself. I'm just going to drink for the game. I'm just going to do this. And then, you know, weeks go by. And it's, dude, I thought, you know what I mean? Like at first, it's okay. It wasn't terrible getting back into it at first. But then I ended up right back to where I was. And then I'm looking myself in the mirror. And I'm like, dude, you said just for the game, you know, what happened here? Weeks go by. And then all of a sudden, I realize I've made an excuse every day to pour a drink. And I'm like, I thought we were just going to drink for, you know, insert occasion. And then it's like the next day I'd be like, I drank yesterday, so I could just have one today.

And then I would make up occasions and weeks would go by. And I'd be like, damn it, I've been drinking for eight weeks straight. Every single day. I've not had a day off. Fuck, I did it again. You know, I heard one of my favorite quotes by Briné Brown. She says, like, when you numb your capacity for pain. which is what we're doing when we drink, you're also numbing your capacity for joy. So I was

incapable. I was trying to not feel this pain, but in the meantime, I was making it almost impossible for me to feel the capacity of joy that I really have in my heart. And I was going through these crucial years of my son growing up, you know, kindergarten, first grade, and I was present for everything for him, but I wasn't present for myself. You know, it was like, if I get through this school activity, we'll swing by the park, and I know which park has brunch. So I'll make sure I get my champagne and my kid can play on the swings. No. Like now the relationship I have with him, it's let's go on a vacation together. Let's go diving with dolphins. Where do you want to go in the world? You know, we can go out just sitting at the beach. Like my son now,

has this thing where he'll get mad at me if I wake up and do morning yoga and I don't wake him up for it. Like, it's quality time. He craves this quality time where we just talk to each other. I wasn't giving him that when he was four and five and six years old. Now that he's 10, it's the one number one thing my kid asks of me outside of wanting the iPad is, Mom, can we talk? iPad always comes first. The iPad and then, yeah, that's great. And it's so great to see the relationships kind of improve. I think it's just sobriety offers a sense of clarity to where even when I look back

at my things like my story, my journey, like I was present for stuff. But I feel like if I'm really being honest with myself, I had a lot more to give. And it wasn't that I was just not doing it. I just didn't have the capacity maybe in the way I was thinking or the way I was showing up to do it. I was always distracted with other stuff or just not feeling well. I mean, when you wake up, when I woke up hung over, I mean, you can't really get plugged into money. You know, I couldn't focus on anything. I couldn't really plug.

I couldn't connect with people on any deep level. I just didn't have the capacity to do all of that. You know, it's so interesting, right? And I got to say, I'm so proud of you for sticking with this thing, right? because things aren't always working out according to the plan for you, right? You go into this. I mean, the idea is probably, I want to be sober forever from here on out. You have these road bumps sort of thing in your path, but you don't quit on yourself.

And you keep doing it and you keep going back. And my gosh, that is such a difficult thing to do. When you're part of a community, when you're part of a team, it's really hard to go back sometimes, right? A lot of people share about struggling with that. I think that's really cool that you did that. How does it look moving forward from here? So after COVID, that specific best friend of mine, she went through some bad stuff.

And I was really close with her mom. Again, there's the mom hole in my life. And the plan was to just get her out of where she was living because she was living in a party city. And she was around all of these drugs and alcohol. And like her life was kind of fall. falling apart. And so I finally got her to move in with me, which led to me having like chunks of sober time and then chunks of relapse because it is so much easier to be pulled back to

your bad habits than it is to be to pull someone else up, right? So I spent a couple of years, you know, just like kidding myself and saying, I'm not as bad as other people. Like, I can function. and then going through like months of sobriety and saying, no, this is the thing, I need this. And then being pulled back into it, whether it was holidays, family occasions, or habits. Like my cravings would kick in hard when I was around the people that I was used to drinking with. And that's why it's so important to change those people, places, and things. It does not matter how much you love someone. if they are a drinking trigger for you, there was no way that I could continue to have this group of friends in my life as long as they continued to drink and party and drug.

And like, drugs weren't really my thing. I would try them when I was drunk, but like I couldn't be around somebody that liked to drink because my mind would trick me into thinking it was okay. So it wasn't until she moved out, finally, when she did move out, like, I watched the woman I loved, like a sister, deteriorate to the point where I would go over to her house every single day just to bring her food, and I didn't know if I was going to walk in on her body or not. I couldn't do it anymore. I was like, I am either going to end up right there beside her, or I am going to be the one to pick up the pieces and call her mom and tell her it happened. And I couldn't continue to put myself through that emotionally. And I couldn't continue to put my son through that because my son's in the

back seat of the car. When I'm pulling over, we're all like driving over with Chick-fil-A. Let's knock on the door and see if she picks up, you know? And at that point, I really made, like, the hard decision to cut someone out of my life that had been there for 15, 16 years. and then that's when I really started to be able to heal. You know, like at first, it was like, okay, who, you know, weight off my shoulder, and then I started drinking again. And that's when I was like, you know what, it wasn't her. It wasn't the habit of her.

It's still me. I am still the problem. I am always going to be the problem. I have to own up to this and I have to make the decision to change my life because no one is coming in here to save me. No one is coming over to check on me. No one is taking this bottle out of my hand. And if they tried to, I'd probably fight them. So this has to be a me thing. I have to do this for me. And I had read something somewhere that said, you know, if you base your sobriety off of doing it for people you love,

say, I'm going to do this for my son. Then when you relapse, you hate yourself even more because you're like, oh, man, I don't even love my kid enough to quit drinking. No, that's not it. It's you. This has to be a sobriety first, family second kind of program because there will always be an excuse to drink. And like I said before, I will always have it in me to pick up another bottle, but I don't know if I have it in me to put it down again. So I'm not going to pick up another bottle. And because I'm not, I'm able to share that. I'm able to give that gift or inspire others to have that first few weeks of sobriety. If I can at least inspire you to take 30 days off of drinking, I know that when you feel that good feeling like you're going to crave sobriety over alcohol,

and then that's when your battle begins, you know? It's this cycle that we all go through. And so now I'm opening up a level two sober home for women in early sobriety so that I can hopefully give that safe place in early sobriety to find community and to find like new people, new places, new things. You know, living in a house full of people that are sober helps you find that community that you need in early sobriety. Because if you keep going back home, you're going to keep drinking. Yeah, wow, that's incredible. Yeah, I mean, if you keep going back, there's another saying out there that you can't heal in the places where you were broken, something like that, right? Something about changing our environment that we're in. And not if that's possible for everybody, but I think that there are elements that we could adjust or could change. But it's even in your story a lot, you're kind of ending up. You mentioned it right there, and I think hit the ball out of the park. If you want to change your life, but you're still hanging out with what was. And then, it's, it's really hard if you don't have the community on the other end pulling you up and you're not plugging into that maybe as much, but you have this other group of people. This is who you know. You met them through the drinking. That's probably a big thing you guys did. I'm only guessing that's what

me and my buddies did, my good buds. It's what we did. That's really when I look back at it and get brutally honest there again, that's really what we had in common. Maybe all we had in common. I mean, we were all good guys, but we just, you know, connected over alcohol. We didn't really do other stuff. We didn't go to the movies or anything like that. And your environment plays such a role in sort of the healing process that comes with recovery. But I agree with you. Like people, you know, if you're struggling, like just give it 30 days to kind of see if it's for you. And I know, like when I first started, someone who would mention 30 days. And I'm like, oh my gosh, Are you kidding me?

But I think if we zoom out a little bit, I mean, 30 days is nothing. I mean, it goes so fast. It's really not much. And if you can't do many things in life, that in 30 days, you'll start to experience some benefits, you know? And if you're drinking and you stop drinking, you could experience benefits. And some people share a couple of days just to check it out and see what it's all about.

How have things been with you, you know, since you get on the journey now? What was that like? I mean, when did you come up with the decision to put it down? again. I mean, what did that day before look like type thing? I went to visit the other half of my family that lives in Puerto Rico and I went over Christmas and or no, over New Year's. And I hadn't been drinking. I had been playing the game, playing the line of I'll just drink a little bit. And this was part of my resolution every year. I said, I'll be sober for three seasons and I'll drink for the holidays. And I kept up with that. And I felt like

such a fraud because I would tell people over those first couple of months of me being sober, oh, no, I don't drink. And then over the holidays, I, they'd say, the same people would see me drinking. And it really just didn't feel good in my heart. And over New Year's, I went to visit my Puerto Rico side of the family. And of course, again, it's, you know, shots and shots. And I promised myself I wouldn't drink. And I knew when I made that promise that promise that I was lying to me, you know. And every time you don't fulfill a promise to yourself, you hurt your own self-esteem. and you need confidence to get sober. You need to know that you can do it.

So I knew that I was lying to myself. And it wasn't, like we say, you know, weeks later, you know, I wake up and I'm like, damn, I've drank every day. And so it was February 1st when I woke up and I wasn't hungover. I hadn't drank a lot the day before. I just felt really disappointed in myself. And it was kind of like this, like, voice in the back of my head that's, you're better than this. You know you're better than this. You've done it before. And every time you put down the bottle, you succeed. You help others. You know, you get your head back on straight. The anxiety goes away. The depression goes away. Stop. You know what you're doing is like on a cellular level. I know what it's doing to my body. And I'm why. So I, February 1st, I just decided this is the last time I'm ever going to do this. And it felt so much different than, all the other times that I was like, I'm just going to put this down until the holidays.

I'm just going to put this down until, you know, Thanksgiving. And this time around, it was like, no, we're not picking this up again. And it was this snowball that kind of started rolling and then got really out of hand. So this is something I give to my higher power all the time because I'm not driving this car. Like, I don't know where we're going. We get to a hill and I'm like, oh, cool, that's the next step. Then we go down. So a property presented itself to me that was perfect for a sober living layout.

It's eight minutes away from where my parents live and they own home health care. And it's in my hometown right where all my triggers are. Everything bad that's ever happened to me within 10 miles of where I'm sitting right now. And so this process has been something I would have never been ready for years ago. And in my tenacity now where I'm like, this is sober me and this is sober me. and this is sober me forever. And I'm able to handle what my God is throwing at me. You know, like I'm able to handle these triggers

that would have normally spiraled me into drinking. And it's because I'm no longer friends with the people that I used to drink with, even the ones I loved. It's because I have a higher power that I can turn to. It's because I have a community of sober women that I meet with and that I go to meetings or that I can call. It's because I have a vision for what I'm doing and a purpose now.

So within the sobriety for me, I've found a way to give other people a chance at what healed me. So this whole journey since 2018 has turned into, oh, my God, I can fit eight women in this house. And if I imagine my best friend who I really hope one day becomes successful in her own sobriety, if I could imagine my best friend healing, it would affect me, her whole family, her siblings, like my kid loves her, like all of this. Imagine doing that on a scale of eight women. And I actually ended up naming the property, the whole business is called my best friend's place. Just like, where do we turn? Where do we turn when we know that we're flunkups, right?

We turn to our best friends. So that's where all of this has led me. That's where I'm at now. And that's how I know that this time is that my last relapse was my last relapse. Yeah, beautiful story. Thank you so much. And I did see the name of the place. Even when you were sharing it, I was thinking of that of the sign you posted there on Instagram with the name of it.

You know, I mean, that's incredible. And I think that, you know, you're hearing a lot of stories, right? I think a lot of people are looking for like this rock bottom, we call it, you know, and then you have this rock bottom. And the next day you're just like, oh, my God. Gosh, I messed up so bad. Let me get sober now. And, you know, I've heard this would be 168 stories on the podcast.

And I've been working with people for, I don't know, 15 plus years. Very rarely do I ever hear that story where somebody has this big rock bottom moment in the next day they've seen the light and they just sober up. Majority of stories go like this. And I bring this up in the last couple episodes. This Brenton came on the podcast. He shared about this day. I don't know how I didn't hear about it.

But he talked about soul pressure. And I kind of hear that in a sense. your story too, to where the pressure was just building in a sense. And you just knew you wanted to go in a different direction. You just knew there was maybe more gas in the tank that maybe you could do something. And then I think a big part of people staying on the journey of sobriety is finding a purpose. And obviously you found yours. And I'm encouraging in a sense for other people out there to try to find a purpose in a way to give back to the world, tell about the world. And it doesn't have to be anything massive. It could be everyday stuff, you know, like cleaning up garbage off the side of the

road or holding a door for somebody or donating to a charity or volunteering at your local soup kitchen. So many incredible opportunities out there. But I think what you mentioned there too is kind of like the nail on the head, right? We have to get out of ourselves and plugged into something else. Community, higher power, and that purpose to what do we want to do here? I have one question for you. before we wrap up. Yeah, of course. And then if anything else you have there. I mean, is there anything that you wish you knew as you were going through this process that you know now?

Oh, man. There's so much I wish I could tell myself when I was drinking and when I was relying on alcohol. And the trick is I wouldn't really listen to it. But the biggest thing is just let go of the community you have. If you are surrounded by people who are not what you want to be, fire them. One of my favorite mentors that I've had in real estate investing said that the five closest people to you are your advisors. Now, imagine those advisors as being paid positions because they are your advisors.

You call your best friends for everything, right? Imagine if those were paid positions. Would you continue to give them the job of running, your life if you take a look at where their life is now. So if your five closest advisors are not bettering themselves, trying to find a way to give back to the world, trying to stay healthy, getting sober, doing positive things in their community, if the five closest people to you are not an example of where you want to be, get rid of them. And it's really hard to make friends. It sucks, but you don't have to hold on to the people that you're used to being around just because it sucks to make new friends.

Fire them. Yeah, that's great. Anything else that you want to mention before we sign off? Yes, I did want to say something when you said that, you know, it's finding a purpose. I would say that the closest way to find your purpose is through service. So the AA, you don't have to be in the 12-step program, but getting service. sober a lot of times is about providing service to other people, helping people in any way you can, even if it's just holding the door for somebody as they come in. You're going to find your purpose

by service, by giving back. And that's when it's going to be revealed to you. You can't just sit and meditate on what's my purpose. You have to proactively go out there and try things that are in service of others. Yes, love that. Thank you again so much for sharing your story. Hey, thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. Of course. Well, there it is.

Another episode. Thank you, Carrie, so much for jumping on the podcast and sharing your story with all of us. I'll drop Carrie's Instagram information down on the show notes below. If you're able to connect with any part of her story or just want to say thank you. Click that link in the show notes. Jump on the Instagram. Send her a note. And I'll see you on the next one.