Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Kathryn Jarrett tried to quit alcohol for 12 years but says she was just not ready until she was.

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

On this episode of the Sober Motivation podcast, we have Kat Jarrett who had a beautiful childhood up until her father passed away suddenly when she was just 14 years old and her life went from feeling so safe and protected to darkness. After losing her father Kat was searching for a distraction and she was able to do that by striving for excellence and perfectionism.   During her college years, she began using party drugs and drinking alcohol would creep into her life. Kat tried to stop drinking for 12 years trying many different ways but just wasn’t ready she says. Kat got sober on Jan 01, 2018, after reaching out to a friend for help and is embracing a holistic approach to sobriety every day. This is Kat’s story on the Sober Motivation podcast. ------------- Follow Kat On Instagram: www.instagram.com/aprettybalance/ Check out the waitlist for Kat's book: https://linktr.ee/aprettybalance Follow Sober Motivation Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/ Download YourSoberBuddy App: http://soberbuddy.app.link/motivation More information about SoberLink: https://soberlink.com/recover  

Welcome to Season 3 of the Subur Motivation Podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible, inspiring, and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible one story at a time. Let's go. On this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, we have Kat Jarrett, who had a beautiful childhood up until her father passed away suddenly when she was just 14 years old, and her life went from feeling so safe and protected to darkness.

After losing her father, Cat was searching for a distraction, and she was able to do that by striving for excellence and perfectionism. During her college years, she began using party drugs and drinking alcohol would creep into her life. Kat tried to stop drinking for 12 years, trying many different ways, but says she just wasn't ready. Kat got sober on January 1, 2018, after reaching out to a friend for help and is embracing

a holistic approach to sobriety every day. This is Kat's story on the Sober Motivation podcast. Getting sober is a lifestyle change and sometimes a little technology can help. Imagine a breathalyzer that works like a habit tracker for sobriety. Soberlink helps you replace bad habits with healthy ones. Weighing less than a pound and as compact as a sunglass case, Soberlink devices have a built-in facial recognition, tamper detection, and advanced reporting, which is just another way of saying it'll keep you honest.

On top of all that, results are sent instantly to loved ones to help you stay accountable. Go after your goals. Visit soberlink.com slash recover to sign up and receive $50 off your device. Hey, how's it rocking, everybody? Look, if you need a community to connect to, to get support, to get direction, to get advice, to get help. Be sure to check us out on the sober buddy app. Your sober buddy.com or your favorite app store, your sober buddy. Look for the little blue guy.

join one or all of the support groups per week. There's 10 at least. Sometimes there's more per week. Hope to see you there. Hey, how the heck is it going, everybody? It's Brad here. I'm back from vacation. I missed you guys last week on the second episode,

but here we are uploading Katz episode. An incredible, incredible story, incredible human. She's overcome a lot to be where she is today. So huge shout out to her. You're going to love this story. but before we jump into it, I want to do a little solo episode. But on that episode, I want to answer some of your questions. So if you have any questions that you would like me to go through, to answer, to give thoughts on,

let me know. Send me an email. Brad at Brad T-M-C-M-C-M-C-L-E-O-D-D. T as in Thomas MacLeod, M-C-C-L-E-O-D.com. Send me your questions, or you can send them on Instagram, and I'm going to put together an episode going over some of that stuff. and also thank you everybody who checked out the journal 30 day sober motivation journal thank you so much if you're still interested in checking that out i'll drop it in the show notes and i would love to know

what your thoughts are i got a few messages from people that they're just loving it it's really helping them out and um if it's helping you out send me a message let me know and if you need anything you can always find me on instagram at sober motivation now let's get into this episode welcome to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Kat with us. Kat, how are you? I'm great, Brad. How are you? I'm well, and I'm glad with a little bit of short notice, we could jump on here and record a show. Yeah, I'm so excited. Thanks for having me. Of course. So how we start every episode is what was it like for you growing up? Yeah, so I grew up just off of Boston in a small town. I had a beautiful childhood. I had an

older sister and a younger brother. I was raised Catholic who went to church on Sundays. I was involved in sports. My dad was my soccer coach. Just a beautiful life. When I was 14, my father died suddenly. I actually found him. He had cardiac issues and he passed away a week later. And so at 14 years old, my life just went from feeling so safe and protected and just a bright light in my home went to darkness. And my mom did the best she could, but she grieved really hard. So I went from having two connected present parents to really having none. So I was a freshman in high school at the time, and I had made the varsity soccer team that fall. My dad was so proud of me, and he passed away in the winter. And then I also made the varsity softball team in March. When I came home, he wasn't there to tell,

and that's when I lost it. And it hit me that he was gone. So I coped with perfectionism. And when I looked back in my teenage years, I realized that, you know, my addiction started later on in my life, get to that in a minute, but I realized that I was really searching for something to numb my emotional pain from losing my father so suddenly in the trauma from that. And I think when people have a void that they're dealing with in life, they look for something outside of themselves, whether it's affectionism and academics or sports. And those things are viewed as healthy coping mechanisms, but it was toxic for me. Or people could cope with work or earning money or women or sex or drugs or alcohol, right? It's all the same. It's just a different.

label on it, a different avenue. So I went from my high school, really an overachiever. I got a full ride to college. I went to physical therapy school. I got into a doctorate of physical therapy program in Boston at Northeastern. And like I said, I got a full scholarship. And I graduated that with a 4.0. However, when I was a freshman at college, I started into the art-aid drug scene. And immediately when I tried those drugs that spike dopamine and create euphoria, I was hooked. I loved it every single weekend I did it. So I partied hard on the weekends. And then I was always in my A.D.M class on Monday and studied really hard.

That perfectionism in me never went away. But it became this cycle. And I got involved with this dangerous man who was a drug dealer, of course. And it was just a really dark time in my life looking back. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So a lot went on for you.

Fairly, early, right? Yeah. So I had, like, dabbled with alcohol as a teenager, but I never liked it. When I got kind of tipsy, I pulled back. I didn't like to be not in control of my body. I liked to be in control of my thoughts and my actions and my body, and I like to be able to drive home at the end of the night. But then after those college years, when I bought into drugs, I started to scare myself

because late at night I would be still doing drugs and the party drug use progressed to cocaine use and that's just my story. And, you know, there was one late night that I got a bloody nose in a bathroom and I really, really scared myself. So to stop using the drugs, I've stopped drinking completely. And then I tried to drink again and I didn't want to do the drugs anymore, but my drinking just catapulted and I became a blackout drinker overnight. And this was when I was about 24 years old. So I never picked up the drugs again, but alcohol became my new addiction. And it was really scary. I would wake up in the morning and have had blacked out at night. It bruises on me, not knowing what happened, not really even knowing who drove that night.

And it was just a scary time. Looking back, I knew I had a problem. I used to actually Google, like, alcohol addiction, and I would see if I would qualify. And I always kind of just talked myself out of it. You know, it just was my coping mechanism at the time. I got married and had two boys, and I chose to homebirth because I didn't want any. drugs. I wanted to experience the entire thing. I didn't want to numb any piece of it. And then when they got a little bit older into being like toddlers, I started to go out again. I did most of my

drinking out of the house, hanging out with friends, but again, just a blackout drinker. Once I had one, I could not stop. Like, I really could not stop at one or two or three. I would just drink really fast and blackout. So fast forward to when I was 37 in 2017, that year was really dark for me. It was really difficult to get through it. I had some stuff going on at home. And every time I drank and blacked out, I would say I'm not going to do it again. I just kept doing it. So I reached out to my friend who had been in recovery for about 10 years.

And she answered and I said, I need help. And she said, I know. And then she was at my house within an hour and helped me up with a recovery program, a local recovery program that she was familiar with. And it's been five and a half years now that I haven't found it necessary to pick up a drug or drink to deal with life and my life looks a lot different today. My two boys are 10 and 12. I'm a single mom. I'm proud. I'm, you know, mostly proud that I'm a woman of dignity today. I have control of my life again, meaning not control of my life in the way that you would think, but what I mean by

that is, you know, because I'm sober, there's no point in my day or my week that I act out of character or if I fall short, I know it's just because I fell short. It's not because of a toxic coping mechanism that I have. And I've got a lot of work to deal with the trauma that I endured as a young teenager with my father's death. And also I have a lot of trauma from my drinking years. I'm actually doing EMDR, which it is you basically reprogram your brain to kind of view all of that differently with today's knowledge. It's like a physiological healing through trauma. And I found that that has really helped me. And I just do the best I can. Every day I wake up, I pray to God to keep me away from a drug, drink of substitute. And I ask to, you know, have him allow me to see the truth in my

situations. And I pray to have other people see the truth in the situations, too, and just put people in front of me that I can be of service to. And I just try my best. My boys are amazing. And I'm not perfect. My life isn't perfect, which I know means. It's actually a little bit weird right now. I'm having a big transition right now, but it's all good. And, you know, because of my transition, people have been asking me like, oh, I'm afraid you're going to pick up or have you picked up. And I honestly haven't thought of it. And people also say, like, you're kids okay. And I answer, like, they're okay because I'm okay. As long as I remain sober, they're going to be okay. Yeah. Wow, that's so powerful. So powerful. And like we talked before, too, huge congrats on five

and a half years, right? Yeah. Thank you. I mean, that's incredible, especially for what you're explaining that it was like, right? Like this story, man, I can relate to a lot of parts of it, right? Like all or nothing. And, you know, switching over from party drugs and maybe thinking alcohol's okay. You know, there's a lot of people over the years I've talked to that come to that conclusion about if I lay off the hard stuff, right? If I lay off the cocaine, the pills, the ecstasy, the party stuff, you know, if I get that, well, I can just have a couple of beers or a couple drinks and I've made progress and I believe yeah I mean in one aspect of course we've made progress but it's a very slippery slope how long did it take you before making that switch that you

maybe saw hey you know maybe this is just as bad as maybe what I was up to before if that makes any sense so you mean after I became a blackout drinker after switching yeah like you yeah honestly I think right away I think I knew I have a strong inner voice. My intuition's very strong. And even in the depths of my drinking, I remember I have this teddy bear that actually I was born with maybe somebody gave it to me in the hospital. And I brought that to the hospital. My dad passed away. And so this teddy bear, I still sleep with it today even. But I remember being so hung over and laying on my pouch and holding my teddy bear and just praying, you know, like I said, I have those foxhole prayers from being raised Catholic and just praying

for an end. And I remember in my 20s praying that. I would be pregnant. Not like I was ready for a child at that time, but I knew that if I was pregnant, I would stop drinking. Like, I had no power over it. I knew I was powerless over it, and I still drank for, you know, a dozen more years. I knew it was just as bad. I think it was actually worse. I think the alcohol use was worse than the drugs. Yeah. In the beginning, I knew that. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, because I'm thinking back in my story, when I realized that, hey, this was a big problem. Initially, I was very scared that like because this had become, although it was a problem, it was also a solution for me. So it was a solution to all the insecurities to the countless other

things that I was struggling with internally, the trauma and a lot of the stuff you've mentioned, different things caused it in my story. But it was a solution for that stuff and it worked to quiet the voices. I didn't feel as uncomfortable in my own skin when I was drinking. And then when I realized like, hey, yeah, this is a big problem for me. Now I was going to be faced with this, this decision, I have to move on from something, I have to get sober. And it was scary. What was it like for you when you initially, you know, went to reach out to your friend and you're going, you know, those couple days leading up to it? Like, I'm just thinking for someone else who's listening to the show. If they're like, man, I'm struggling every day. I'm waking up and I'm hung over. I've

come to the conclusion and I'm past the denial part of like, I need to do something. Like, walk us through that for you and maybe somebody can relate with it. Yeah, definitely. And I do want to say I have an Instagram feed. It's called A Pretty Balance and I talk a lot about my path and my journey and my stories. And I'm also writing a book on my recovery. And in the book, I talk about the night that I drank too much and I went out and drove and got a bad car accident. Leading up to that, that was October of 2017, every single time I drank, it was a life or death night for me. It was dangerous decisions. And here I am. I have two young children. I worked for the town that I lived in and had a great job. My name in the newspaper, you know what I mean, would not have been a pretty luck for my

family and it would have been devastating. But I was in a bad car accident and that's when I woke up and called my friend. I knew that it was life or death for me and it was a Sunday morning. My two boys were downstairs watching a cartoon and I was terrified that they were going to lose their mother. I'm so grateful that I had that clarity in that moment and I reached out to her and it wasn't hard in that moment. But before then, I just wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to do it. it. There were so many mornings that I could have and I just wasn't ready. I wasn't able to stay sober through the holidays that year. And some people ask me all the time, like, how did you stop? Like you make it look so easy. How can you just stop and not drink again for five and a half years?

I'm telling you, I didn't just stop. I tried to stop for 12 years. I tried to stop on my own. I tried to stop with other techniques that I had. And even through that fall, I had support and I kept picking back up. So if you're listening to this and you keep pecking back up and you feel like a failure, I see it was a hero. And I say this all. the time. I see people who pick up and then come back to try to work a recovery program or try to stay sober. Like, you're truly a hero in my eyes because you're not giving up. You keep moving forward. You know, and that's usually, Relapse doesn't have to be part of everybody's story, but usually it's a little bit messy before it gets clean again. I feel like in life, I tend to think

I got everything. Like, I got it. I can figure it out, you know, a difficult situation, like, put me in the middle of a difficult situation in a room or a difficult conversation, and I can diffuse it and I can figure it out and come out on top. But with alcohol, I felt that way and I was never able to come out on top by myself. I needed the support of other people in recovery, other people that were sober, other people that had the same feelings that I have. And like you said, like the storyline is likely different. Sometimes it's the same, which is weird, but usually different, but the feelings are the same. And I needed to identify with people who had similar feelings as me. So if you are struggling and you are not reaching out for support, I encourage you to get a

group of people around you who have been where you are or have the same feelings because the feelings don't go away because you stop drinking. Like you have the same feelings, but you just learn to cope with them a little bit different. And so you need people that are surrounding you to support you and encourage you to keep going or else you're just going to pick back up again. Yeah, that's incredible. That's the biggest thing that's helped me on this journey. It's connecting with other people. Other people who are like me, you know, that are like me. a little bit scary that there's more out there, but there's a few. And that's been so helpful. But see, I understand why people are hesitant, right? Because when you do that, you go to people and

you say, hey, look, look, I'm going to get sober and I'm going to stay sober. There's going to be some accountability involved in the whole process, right? And it becomes real. But definitely like, get out there because Kat just said, too, like, I didn't figure this out my first go, my 20th go, like maybe my 30th. I wasn't counting. I never really knew about sobriety or getting sober. I was just trying to like not die and stay out of jail and try to do a little bit good and do those things. I had to get a few days under my belt. But after a while, like you keep at it. It's literally like anything else. Like you just get at it and you'll learn. You'll pick some things up, some tools along the way and hopefully take up. So I'm so glad you brought that up. You know, it's not a failure.

If things don't work out first try. Yeah. And I think too to remember like just to know that other people have done similar things than you and they're not bad people. And that just made me think when you were talking about when I was a little girl and I was at a sleepover once and I took a spray bottle of plant food that was on their counter. I don't know why. I sprayed it in my mouth. Maybe my friend dared me or something. I was young like eat. And I sprayed it in my mouth and the mother called my mother and she said, I think you have to come pick up Catherine because she just sprayed plant food in her mouth. I thought I was going to die and my mother picked me up. And I remember saying, did you do this? Did you ever do this before? Like I just wanted to know. I was

craving a story that somebody else had dumbness and they were okay. And I feel like when we get sober or when we're still sick and drinking or drugging or using or gambling or, you know, having sex too much or food or whatever your thing is, we just want to know that somebody else was in our place and they're okay now. You know, like that slice of hope, when you see somebody else who has a similar story as you and had similar addiction issues or struggles and they're doing okay, it's that light that you can just lean towards, right? Like plants grow towards the light, right? We always crave the light.

So I think surrounding yourself of people who are on that journey is just the solution. You know, it's the solution. Wow, that's beautiful. Yeah. That just hit me right there. Not about the sobriety, but I'm thinking of that in other areas of life. You know, whether it's starting a business or whether it's starting a new hobby or being, for me, I have three kids. It's like being a father.

And I have three kids. I've got five, three in 18 months. And I'm thinking to myself like, you know, did we ever get out of the madness here? And in other people that are further along share a story of like it gets better. I'm just like, yeah, it definitely offers a lot of relief. Yeah. Yeah.

And thinking about the light, I got up this morning early like 5.30 and there was a gorgeous sunrise. I mean, my sky was bright orange, bright pink and all that. And I noticed as the sunrise progressed that the clouds were so gorgeous. And then the clouds started to get just like dull and then they turned gray and then they turned white. And I realized like clouds on their own are just ordinary. But the light, the sunlight is what makes them special, right? It's always the light that makes things special. Your light makes you special.

And when I was at the end of my drinking, I remember looking in the mirror and my eyes were just vacant. They were dark. I didn't recognize myself. And my light was gone. Looking back and if you're listening and you're in recovery, look back at pictures of you and your last couple years of using, you know, you'll see that your light is gone. And when that light comes back and you shift towards the light and you grow towards the light when it comes back, that's really where the beauty happens, you know, in recovery. Yeah. I see that every day because

people submit pictures to the sober motivation Instagram page. Oh, yeah. All day, every day, people submit pictures. And yeah, you can definitely see the side by sides of how it was like and then two, three years down. It's like, my goodness, beautiful, beautiful transition there. Yeah, and it's like interesting what we feel is acceptable when we're drinking. What I thought was acceptable behavior, like drinking before obligations that I have that I absolutely should not have been drunk for, that I thought it was totally okay to drink before certain things and go with a buzz on. It's not acceptable. You know, and looking back on photos of myself and it's just the perspective of wanting more and having a higher standard for yourself. And I think when I got sober, it was a situation where I knew, well, I didn't want to die. that was my primary goal. But I also knew I wasn't going to reach my full potential. I worked really hard in school. I'm educated. I have my PT degree and my doctorate and I'm creative and I feel like I knew I had a lot of potential and I knew I was cutting myself short. And so when you embrace recovery and you can show up every day with responsibility and focus to reach your full potential and

make good decisions, you can lay your head down at night and be proud. You know, there's not that shame that we are suffocated with when we're using, when we lay our head down or when we wake up in the morning, it's haunting. The shame was haunting when I was using. Yeah, I can relate with you on that too. I feel like I personally left so much on the table

when I was living like that because I just felt terrible every morning. And I was big into doing drugs, two pills, heroin, drinking. I mean, you name it. I was just looking for an escape by any means possible. But I was constantly not feeling well. And then this stuff I was doing to the crime and stuff,

you just don't feel good about it all. I was a convicted felon at 18 and I got deported from the United States. I got a lifetime ban. I'm up in Canada now where I was born. And you really start to believe that story. I did anyway. I really started to believe the story. Like I would look at other people that are sober and doing well and I'd say,

oh, man, you know, that's, I'm happy for them, but that'll just never be me, you know, and I'll just go on to like continuing to just do the bare minimum. So I love that you put it that way. And in sobriety, I was able to go back to school and I was able to have a family. and, you know, do stuff. I'm like, whoa, like, this is kind of weird. I never expected much. Yeah.

But, yeah, it's so true. I think we leave a lot on the table, right? Yeah, yeah. And we often identify ourselves as being bad. And then looking back, we just see that we weren't well. There wasn't anything bad about us. It was just that we weren't well. Yeah, and I love that, too, because it's more of like that empowerment.

It's like more of empowering us with things other than just being like, hey, no, don't do that. You're bad guy, you know? Yeah. And so I think with sobriety and I navigate more of a holistic sobriety where I do all sorts of things in my life and my lifestyle looks very holistic because I think that when you become alcohol free or when you give up any addiction, you don't only have to recover from the physical addiction. It's so global, right? So, you know, I have a clean diet. I exercise. I do meditation. I use red light therapy. I do Reiki therapy. Like I said, I'm doing the EMDR. So I'm trying to hit it from all different. I use all clean products, all clean makeup, and try to maintain balance and homeostasis in my body so that mentally and cognitively and spiritually and physically I can show up and be the best version of myself. You know, and I think when people enter recovery, it's kind of like, oh, well, I'm not drinking, so I'm going to leave it there. And I encourage you, right? I challenge you

to try to every month or so, like, take it one step further. Try to enhance your recovery in another way when you feel like you've mastered your kind of program or whatever you have going on, your support, your schedule, all that, try to add something or try to take something away that's not serving you and try to add something that may serve you. So I think maintaining that balance is so important too. I do a lot of reading in the morning as well. I read through devotionals and I have a whole list of books that I love. But oftentimes I feel like you not only have to work your recovery, you need a break from it as well. And don't focus so much on the fact that you can't drink or trying not to drink that you forget to live your life sober. There's times when I definitely

put my life first in a day because of my kids' activities are this and that and the other. And then I just press, you know, a latch on to recovery more later in the week. But it's finding that balance. That's really important. Yeah. Isn't that your Instagram handle? Yeah, pretty bad. Well, my slogan is it's my wealth. It's life isn't always pretty and it's It's not always balanced, but we can shoot for a pretty balance. Yeah, okay. It's kind of my jam. No one or not no one, but like people say, what's pretty balanced?

I just, I thought it was catchy. Yeah. Oh, it is. Yeah. No, I like it. That's so true to incorporate, you know, different things or push yourself a little bit. But I mean, that's another huge point too because it's more than just the not drinking. When I look back at my life, I was struggling with behaviors and different things like far

before I ever picked up my first one, like before I ever got. down to the drugs of the drinking. And I was seeing counselors and therapists and doctors and, you know, you know who and the ADHD and this guy, you know, Medicaid and Medicaid them. I always seen people a long time. And I had a lot of behavioral problems, anxiety, depression way before it. That's where I always think when everybody's like, I know, I get messages all the time. How do we get sober? Well, I don't know if that's the big question. I think the big question is how do you stay sober? Because, I mean, if you went to sleep and you don't drink until five, you were sober, you know, for at least a couple hours that day.

But it's the problem that what we struggle with is like, how do we stay sober? If somebody's listened to this show, Kat, and they're struggling to get or stay sober, what would you say to him? Like I said, the number one thing is to find that support network. But I don't know, just you talk. And then I was thinking about my younger brother. He was two years younger than me. He passed away from this disease this past January.

And I was talking to him because I was recently evaluated for ADHD. I thought for sure I had it. And my doctor was ready to prescribe me like the stimulant medication and all that. But I said, you know what? Let me just get tested. I want to see if it's actually ADHD or maybe I have trauma that's manifesting with these symptoms. And my brother, David, I was with him, I guess beginning of January.

And he told me, he said, Catherine, do not go on that medication. You probably don't have it. It's probably just your trauma. Like, you don't want to get on that medication. And sure enough, well, he passed away before I had the testing done. But sure enough, I don't have any ADHD at all. Like there's no signs of it at all. if anything, I have really good attention. But what I do have is complex PTSD from multiple

situations that traumatized me. So the doctors could have just given me that stimulant medication. I may have gotten addicted to it. And then that would have led to a whole different cycle of problem. So I guess when you're trying to get sober, be careful about switching from one thing to the next or trying to put a band-aid on it. I think it's important to get to the root of the problem. And the only way that you can get to the root of the problem is by having clarity and being in free of substances and talking honestly and openly with somebody who's not going to judge you. And that would be somebody in recovery, somebody who has been sober, who has experience with these issues, you know, and the feelings that we have and all of that. Because oftentimes when you first put the drink down,

you really don't know what thoughts are in your mind. You're full of anxiety. You might be having insomnia. You might be paranoid. And so having somebody else that can be a sounding board for you and to kind of lead you in the right direction so you don't shift over to a stimulant medication or just shift it over to shopping or gambling or sex or food or women or men or whatever other addiction because I love the concept of like dry January and so over October. I love that. But what scares me about those things is if you are struggling with alcohol or any addiction, you put it down and you don't have support, I think that can be a really dangerous position for people because if you're coping, if that's your coping mechanism like you've spoke of,

like if you were relying on that as your solution, and then you take your solution away and you don't have any support, that's a really vulnerable and dangerous position for a lot of people, especially if people have underlying mental health issues. So don't do it alone, I guess is my number one piece of advice. Just seek out support and somebody who doesn't judge you that you can be totally, totally honest with and have them lead you in the right direction. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the best thing, right?

that really is. But it's still confusing, though, in a sense, right? Because that's out there. It's readily available. There's many different programs. I could pull up my phone right now and I could be it somewhere in a little bit or online or whatever. It's readily available 24-7, 365. But it's scary, I think, for people to get started.

It was for me anyway. You know, there's like that little voice in our head that like, we're either too far gone or we're not gone enough. You know what I mean? Like, you think we're beyond saving or things are not. quote unquote, bad enough yet. But definitely encouraging for anybody, no matter where you're at, if you're thinking, hey, I think my life could be better. If I didn't consume alcohol or do drugs, then you're probably right on that. Yeah. And I think a big thing, too, at the end of my drinking, I had a really low level of self-worth. I had a lot of self-sabotage and behaviors. So when you

are in that mindset, it's like in your drinking, you're almost like purposely punishing yourself. You know, you're just sabotaging yourself because you don't think you're worthy of anything better. And so that limited mindset and that negative mindset, it's hard. You can't get out of it. It's really really hard to get out of that yourself. I am very faithful. I pray to God every morning, every night throughout the day. I'm selling my house right now.

And me and my boys are moving into a rental home. And multiple times during the week, I get on my knees and I pray. And every time we have a house showing, I get on my knees and I pray to God for a loving, appropriate family to be in my home. And I think relying on a higher power has really helped ground me and help me. me understand my worth and not seek out those self-sabotaging behaviors that I used to when I kind of felt lost and didn't really have any sort of faith. So I think that's sometimes part of it too that, you know, yeah, you're drinking because you're addicted and maybe you feel like it's your

solution. But there's something deeper often that you feel like you deserve a hangover every morning. You're just doing it to yourself. Yeah. Beautiful. I love that. Yeah. Well, is there anything you want to say before? We'll probably wrap up here in about 10 minutes. But is there any message you want to send. I want to tell people, too, if you guys want to connect with Kat too, make sure to check her out a pretty balance on Instagram. Yeah, is that a good place to connect with you or is there a better? Absolutely. No, and I answer all of my own DMs. I don't have a VA in my inbox, so it's me. So if you reach out to me, I do my best to circle back. You know, if you're in need of any acute help, I'll lead you in the right direction. But if you just want

to check in and let me know how you do it. I'd love to hear from you. And I guess my advice was like, When I first got sober, I remember Googling like recovery talk. I was searching. What is out there right now on Instagram, YouTube, all of the online programs that are out there? It's a gold mine. Okay. So just keep searching, keep following accounts that resonate with you. Some sober accounts and recovery accounts do not resonate with me.

When I don't follow them, I don't really align with their message. But find one that you align with. Find stories that motivate you. Find content creators that are in there. the sober space to encourage you, make you laugh. There's so much fun content out there now. And keep it fun. I feel like if we take our recovery paths too seriously, it gets scary really fast. And sobriety is fun. Recovery can be fun. Your journey is fun. And even the setbacks, right? So I know people who every now and then having setbacks and, you know, they're back at it. And it's not

funny what happens, but you have to find a little bit of humor sometimes in your journey. It has to be fun. So like I said, just search Instagram sober motivation, obviously is a great one to follow, but have an arsenal and make sure that what you're being exposed to, like I said, I have a holistic lifestyle, a very clean diet, very clean environment. And I also in very particular about what enters my mind. I only like to digest things that are going to nourish my mind. I don't watch the news. And so I curate my Instagram feed to have very nourishing content. and inspiration and hope. So you can do the same thing. So if you're searching through Instagram and you're just, you know, it's all nonsense or it's not really helping you,

just shipped away from that. So I guess that's my little recommendation there. Yeah, no, that's beautiful. Yeah, I got rid of some people on my feet because they're always on vacation and I'm like, dude, always be on vacation. Like, I want to be on vacation all the time. Yeah, that's funny.

Enough of this. You're ready to. You know, I think, you know what bothers me and I'll say it is there's some women, and I'm all about women empowerment, women sobriety. Like, I think there's a special great co-ed recovery. Like, I love chatting with Brad and everything. And I'm sure you feel the same way about men's groups and things like that. But I think the women community is so powerful.

And when I see a very influential woman with perhaps celebrity status, who is making fun of drinking and heavy drinking and coping with the stresses of life and motherhood and being a mom in childhood with alcohol, blacking out it's funny, day drinking. That infuriates me. And I don't block these people. I tend not to unfollow them. I'm going to put in my recovery that I can see that.

And I always comment. And I try to blow it up. Just tell her, like, is this really what you're using your platform for? You have such great reach. You could do better. And I always say, do better. And so be careful what you buy into in the space of women. And I pray for that.

I pray for that because I think people use humor to make fun of heavy drinking. because they can't stop heavy drinking. And so they're just trying to rationalize it and normalize it. So that bothers me when I see that. I try to always comment the do better. So if you're sober and you're in the space and you see all that stuff, I encourage you to be brave and comment, you know, do better. Like, I'll be praying for you type thing, not condescending,

but like it's not helping us women show up in the strength that we have. Like the true goddess ability that a woman has, we do not need substances to deal with life. We don't. Yeah. You see a lot of that stuff targeted towards like young moms too. I've had a lot of conversations with that type of marketing and stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit overboard, especially because they reach millions of people

with these stories. That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah, with these ideas of things just being a complete mess. You have a lot of people out there struggling too who just want to feel like they don't have to keep doing that anymore. You have to live like that anymore. And then it's like this big joke.

But yeah, I'm with you. Yeah. Better. You know, we can rock and roll. But yeah, my goodness. You know, that's what this whole show is kind of in hopes to do is to show that there's a lot of different people from all walks of life and all different sort of stories and journeys to get, you know, where they were and then what people are up to now. You know, I'm always blown away. Even hearing your story and a lot of guest stories and a lot of people's stories is just how getting sober just really helps people like a rocket ship to like feeling better and being better in business and career and in relationships and life and spirituality and everything.

And just with yours, too, I feel that as well that, you know, it's brought things to another level for you. Yeah. And I calculated at one point how much money I had saved. My stocker was like tons of money. I'm not going to like $45,000, I swear. And it's probably higher now. You know, and it's just a perspective of just being more intentional with everything, more intentional about what you spend, financially more intentional about how you spend your time, more intentional, like I said, about what you allow on your feeds when you digest social media. who you allow to have access to you, your relationships. You know, you have to be really intentional when you get sober to maximize your time because you wasted a lot of time.

You know, I wasted a lot of time drunk and hungover. I did. You know, and I say God's gift to me is my sobriety and my gift to him is what I do with it. Yeah. Wow, that's beautiful too. And I'm sorry to hear about your brother. I feel like I kind of breezed over that part. That's okay.

But yeah. Yeah. And your father, too, like. My goodness, I'm proud of it. They're both on, thank you. They're both on the dash of my car. And so I look at them every day. And David was such a light, you know.

And we had reconnected after a decade of not being in each other's lives because of this disease, you know. And he wrote me a beautiful Christmas car that is in my dresser. And I actually just read it yesterday. And I love reading it. And he was in a great place. And, you know, this disease is sneaky and snuck up on him. You know, I do believe that he's with me. but at the end of the day, he's at peace.

He told me that he was so proud of me being in recovery. He also told me when I reached out to him and said I was a year sober, she thought I was lying. He thought I was tricking him to get him to come to a recovery, some sort of recovery meeting with me. So we were laughing about that. He's like, I thought you were just trying to trick me. And that's like indication of how self-centered we become when we're active.

Everyone's out to get us and all that. He was great. Yeah, that's beautiful. I could hear a little bit of, for most of this interview, you mentioned you're from Boston, right? Yeah. I only hear the accent here and there. Because I worked in hospitals for about 15 years. Yeah.

So I had to hide it. Like I said, my doctor in physical therapy. So I worked in the hospitals for 15 years. And when you're talking to doctors and families about their grandfather, you have to hide your accent. Oh, okay. Now I see. I've got a friend that she's in Boston. She actually works in a hospital too in Boston.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, so she, yeah, in the hospitals, we tend to hide it. Okay, cool. Yeah, well, no, that's incredible. Well, thank you so much. I don't know if there's anything else you want to wrap up. You mentioned you're writing a book. That's incredible.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you can hop on my waiting list. It's the link in my bio and a pretty balance on my Instagram. And I'm so excited. I actually been writing it since last year and I took a break after David passed away. When you're grieving, you just don't have any, I didn't have any space for creative writing. And so my publisher and I took a break. and I start back up soon.

So it'll be writing in 2024. So if you want to get on my wait list, you can hop, then I'll have early access to grab your copy pre-release and all that. And I'm really excited about that. And I think I'm done with about three chapters. Now that life goes on and perspective changes and maybe the book will take a shift, but I intend on being very honest. And there's more about my car accident in the book.

And I share more about my story behind the scenes stuff. And when I was writing it with my publisher, I remember thinking like, gosh, I don't know if I want this all in writing. Like my kids are going to read it someday. And then I decided people need to read this. People need to read my truth. And I think, you know, your past is your best asset. When you can look at your life that way, you're unstoppable.

When you're past is your best asset and you're not embarrassed and you show up with authenticity and bravery to share your story, you're just going to help people. And if people judge you, then that's their problem. You know, it has no reflection on you. Yeah. That would be cool. I can't wait until that. But it's so true.

the way I look at it too, because sometimes I'm like, oh, with this show and everything else I've done over the years. I'm like, oh my goodness. But I don't know. The way I look at it is it might be a little bit dark, but I'm like, look, we all are going to expire someday. That happens. You know, nobody makes that alive that I know of. And when that happens, like, none of this is really going to matter. All that's going to matter is, did you make a little bit of a difference? And I'm like, I'll risk it for that. I'll risk it to see if we can make a little bit of a difference before my time, you know? And I love it. Yeah. I was. Yeah. I love what you do with a show. And I heard recently, I said, you know, when you die,

things you did for yourself die with you, but things that you did for other people live on. So you showing up and having this podcast, every single interview, every single person that listens to this. This is an impact that you've had on the lives of other people. And I just think it's incredible. So I love what you do. I love your feed. I'm so grateful that you asked me to be on to share my story. And like I said, and anyone is listening if you feel compelled to reach out to me, I hop in my own DM. So I hope to see you at some point. So come and hang out with Kat. Looping out with me.

Yeah. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much again. Yeah. Thanks, Brad. Well, everyone, I told you you were going to love it. Look, if you made it to the end here, thank you. And also drop a review.

If you guys are on Spotify, drop a review. Hit one of the comments up. Hit the polls up. I'm dropping some polls in there. That would mean a lot. But look, what an incredible episode. Huge thank you for Kat for jumping on here. cat is dropping a cool thing, so I'll book.

And be sure to send her a message over on Instagram. I'll drop the link in the show notes, but you can also, you know, Instagram.com slash a pretty balance. That's her handle. Send her a message. Tell her thank you. What an incredible episode. Having lots of fun with this.

Love sharing people's stories. Love hearing what you all think. And I'd love to have more of you on the show, more of the guests, the listeners. We had Jason last episode. That was incredible. That was incredible. But yeah, let's keep it going. If you want to be on the show, send me a message. I'm going to try to get to everybody. I can't do it all at once. But with time, we'll get there. Drop a review. Share the show with a few friends. Let's grow this thing a bit. See you guys on the next one. I'm out.