Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Mayra Gomes became addicted to tequila and needed it to get going in the morning this is her comeback story.

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Mayra Gomes lost her father at 11 years old from a car accident and had a feeling of abandonment for years to follow. Mayra would first become obsessed with boys and then alcohol. Due to the past trauma Mayra was unable to be alone with out having panic attacks and alcohol just make this much worse. Mayra was a best selling author and journalist but drinking tequila became a way of life. She also became a professional wrestler with the NWA and feels not shame about her struggle with alcohol. Mayra found hope one day and has been sober ever since. This is Mayra Gomes story on the sober motivation podcast. ------------ Follow Mayra on Instagram HERE Follow SoberMotivation on Instagram  Download the SoberBuddy App  

Welcome back to season two of the Subur Motivation Podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. Myra lost her father at 11 years old from a car accident and had a feeling of abandonment for years to follow. Myra would first become obsessed with boys and then alcohol. due to the past trauma, Myra was unable to be alone without having panic attacks and alcohol was just making this worse.

Myra was a best-selling author and journalist, but drinking tequila became a way of life. Myra found hope one day and has been sober ever since. This is Myra Gomez's story on the Sober Motivation podcast. You don't have to get sober alone. If you're struggling to find a supportive community to help you on your journey, be sure to check us out at the Sober Buddy app. On the Sober Buddy app, everyone comes as strangers and leaves the meetings as friends.

Everyone works together to lift each other up when they need it most. Check out one of the 10 or all 10 of the live support groups that are hosted throughout the week. There is also support groups on the weekends. And I hope to see you over there soon, your soberbuddy.com or your favorite app store. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. We've got an incredible story to share with you today. We've got Myra with us. How are you doing?

I'm doing wonderful. How are you? I'm good. So how we start the podcast off is what was it like for you growing up? So to tell you a little bit of my backstory, I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in a show business family. So my father was one of the most influential writers for theater, television, and film. He was actually the first Brazilian writer nominated for an Oscar. My mom was an actress.

She moved from a small town to Big Town Rio to be an actress and met her favorite writer and they got married. So my life growing up was very happy. You know, I lived in a very happy, healthy, creative household. And where often dreams became reality. So I grew up with this example of dreams really being able to become real. and I idolized my parents, especially my father, watching him create these wonderful characters and then seeing them come to live on television. So that was my childhood.

I grew up writing and acting. Like, that was my idea of fun. I would write plays, scripts. So on May 18, 1999, my life changed drastically. I woke up to go to school and I was late. I had a math test and I was really worried. And I went to the kitchen and I know. noticed that people in my household seemed very sad. Their demeanor was strange, was different.

And my aunt had been instructed to slowly tell my sister and I the bad news. So my aunt told us that my mom and dad had been in a car accident, but they were in the hospital in São Paulo. They had gone there to watch a play and go to dinner. But I was 11 years old. and I already knew how to access the internet. So I turned on the computer and the home page of the computer was the news page, and I read the news. Gij G.H. G.gomi dies in a car accident. And I saw pictures of the accident and of my father's dad body. And that's how I found out that my dad died when I was 11 years old.

So this event pretty much changed my entire life because I became very angry and very rebellious. I think I was very angry that I was lied to and that I found out that way. And as a child that made me question, like, is there a God? Because if God existed, he wouldn't have taken my father away from me. I'm sorry if I get emotional. It's like the first time I'm telling this. This event pretty much triggered 20 years of alcohol and drug addiction. And it was a really long journey to even understanding how to navigate all this.

Because after my dad died, I just felt to empty. And I was always trying to find an external way to fill in this emptiness that I felt without my dad. Yeah. And who looked after you then after that? My mom and my aunt, but my mom was going through her own trauma. So as I was growing up, my mom was dealing with her own loss and she was actually really young. She was in her 30s. And eventually she started dating again and she started dating someone who lived out of town.

So she was often out of town. So shortly after my dad died, I skipped the grade actually because in school I was like a writing prodigy pretty much. And my school wanted me to skip a grade from the fourth to the sixth grade because they thought that I would do better and I was really mature and the stuff that I wrote, you know, was too advanced for my grade. And I didn't know if I wanted to skip the grade or not. It was ultimately my decision as an 11-year-olds.

So after my dad died, I told the school, there's nothing worse than losing my dad. So I used to be scared before, but I'm not scared anymore. I'm going to take the chance and I'm going to skip a grade. So I went off to middle school. It was a completely different building with older kids. And pretty much after my dad died, I got really obsessed with boys. So this huge obsession with boys started looking back now. Everything makes perfect sense.

but as a child, that was the way that my brain found to sort of get through this pain. And so I remember, like, being in church after my father died and thinking about my school crush and I was always thinking about a school crush, you know, and if I didn't think about it, I just felt completely depressed and empty. So now I'm in a higher grade with older kids and I'm obsessed with boys and I completely lose interest in school. I used to be a great student, but now I don't care anymore. and I just started getting more and more rebellious. I feel like rock music was one of my biggest escapes.

I loved rock bands. My room was filled with posters of rock stars. You know, I was that 90s girl with all the posters and the walls and stuff. And I started going to concerts like really young when I was pretty much 11 years old with my mom. And it was kind of a bonding experience between me and my mom. My mom also going through her trauma. But in school, like I had all these feelings of rejection and abandonment. I was really insecure.

You know, I felt out of place, and I felt like I was ugly, and guys that I liked didn't like me back. So when I was 15 years old, I actually had my first kiss with a rock star. And so this experience kind of helps me, like, with the rejections that I felt at school. But anyway, so after this band leaves town, I'm completely depressed.

I feel like I'm never going to see him again. You know, I live in Brazil. This is an American rock star. And I become extremely. depressed. And so I start using drugs because to me that's what it was to be cool. So that's what the rock stars I idolized did. That's what the cool guys in school did and the cool girls that hung out with the guys and the characters in the movies. And I just wanted to fit in and to feel like I belongs and to be cool. So I started using drugs. And this started like experimentation with basically

everything from like weed, ecstasy, LSD prescription pills, the glue, aerosol deodorant, crack at some point. So I tried everything when I was a teenager. And that was my idea of rebelling against everything and I'm being cool. This to me was very glamorized. I thought, this is what I have to do. I want to be different from these people that I go to school with. I want to be cool like the rock stars. until it begins. Yeah, and that was in high school or? That was in middle school, middle school to high school.

Were you hanging out with a select crew of people or were you just doing this on your own? I was doing it on my own and I was influencing everyone around me to do it as well. So I would throw these huge parties in my own bedroom while my mom was traveling and have these drug parties and invite lots of people from school. Like I wasn't an unpopular kid, but I just didn't have the feeling of, belonging. I felt like I was very different from everybody else. I grew in a very like elite sort of environment school and I was the rebellious girl. I started getting tattooed when I was like 14 years old. Again, because that's what the rock stars did. So you had these parties where everybody came over and then

throughout this process because you're mentioning about missing that feeling of belonging after your father passed away. Did this fill that void for you, this partying these drugs? It just made me more and more depressed and it just drove me deeper into depression. And when I was 15 years old, actually, I had another very traumatic event and it's very hard to talk about. But I was raped by a boy in my school. So on top of all these feelings that I already had of not belonging and abandonment and insecurity, this huge thing happens to me as a 15 year old. And it pretty much makes me 100% uninterested in ever going to school again. So I start doing drugs more than ever. I'm doing drugs in the school bathroom now. People are aware that I'm doing drugs. I've been called into the principal's office

multiple times. And I just decided that I wanted to drop out of school. I wanted to be expelled, no matter what. I didn't want to go to that school anymore. After that happened to me, I feel like I was judged by my close friend. They said that it was my fault that had happened. And I was just like, fuck everything. I don't want to be here anymore. So I stopped going to class. I just did drugs in the bathroom very often and would pretend that I was sick and be in the nurse's office. And so eventually I failed a year and got kicked out of school.

Yeah, wow. Did you talk with anybody about these events happening at the time? Yeah, I did. A lot of my close friends knew. I often went to the school's therapist as well. And my mom became very aware of it at the time, as well. She found out that I was doing drugs. I was like addicted to huffing deodorants at the time. So my mom also knew. But there was like a lot of judgments because people would say that I was doing this to myself. Yeah, that's one of the big struggles out there that people have this perception of

we're choosing to do all of this stuff. Failing to look at what else is going on, there's often a bigger picture here for it. Yeah, I mean, my mom tried to help me. She really did. She was a good mom. But she was very young and she was dealing with her own stuff as well. She didn't know how to restart her life. She was married 18 years. Wow. So as you move through this time in your life of high school, what did things look like afterwards for you?

Right. So I drop out of school and my mom's so angry at me. I went to like a really good school, you know, and I used to be a great student and I'm very talented. I'm a great writer. My mom's so angry at me. And she's like, what are you going to do with your life? should try to put me in a different school.

I also didn't want to go to school. I would skip school all day, just go to the mall instead. I would get dropped off and pretend like I was going to school and I would just go to the mall. And so my mom's like, what are you going to do with your life? And I said, well, mom, I'm going to be a bestselling author. I'm going to tell the world this story and I'm going to become a bestselling author. And that was my plan. And wildly enough, exactly that happened.

I was 16 years old. I wrote my first novel. And at 19 years old, I became a bestseller by telling this very story. Wow. Yeah. So pretty much at 19, my life once again changed very drastically because overnight I became sort of like a teenage celebrity of sorts. And I would go in like television shows to talk about drug addiction and teenagers,

but I was still using drugs. So, you know, the interviewer would ask me like, you know, tell the kids what to do and what's the lesson in your story? And there was no lesson in my story because I was still going through all of this. There had been no conclusion. Like I was, I still had depression. I was still using drug. But professionally, I suddenly had a career. I wrote two more books after that. And I started writing for several very well-long publications. I was a writer for multiple newspapers and magazines. I was on MCV. I did a lot of stuff. By the time I was like 21 years old. But even, Even though all of this is happening and I'm getting a lot of success, I'm still feeling

empty, depressed and like without a boy, without a man, I feel like I have no identity. So this is still my feeling and this is a feeling that goes on throughout my whole life pretty much. Yeah. What's the name of your first book? It's called Fogalasa, but unfortunately it hasn't been translated to English yet. Okay. You're working on it. Yeah, that's incredible though. Three books. That's a lot. How do you pull something like that off with all the other stuff that's going on? What do you mean? With the addiction and the other stuff going on in your life, how do you commit,

I'm guessing here a lot of time and a lot of energy into writing a novel? Yeah, I think I wanted to prove everyone wrong. I wanted people to know that I had a voice and that I was going to make something out of myself. And I wasn't going to follow the rules, but I was still going to be successful. So I think that was really my drive. And I wrote my book in six months, actually. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I wrote it during the most emotional part of my life. Everything was hot while I was writing in. Yeah. I like how you put there. Everything was hot. I'm just thinking here. I'm not a writer, but that might have made it a little bit,

maybe easier in a way to fill the pages type thing. Yeah. But when I wrote it, I still didn't have any trust that I would be published or anything. You know, I had this crazy dream, but I had my parents as an example, and they always made their dreams come true. So I was like, you know what?

I might just be filmed by selling opera. And then it happened. Wow. Yeah. Incredible. Is there another book in the works? Yeah. Actually, right now I'm working on a new book, which I plan to release in the U.S.

And I'm also working on the translation of my first book. So my plan is to release the first book that I wrote when I was 16 with a book of what's going on now as a sober person. Wow. That's incredible. So cool. So where do things go from here? become a best selling author and you know some things in your life sound to be going really well

yeah maybe other areas aren't going so well so where do we go from here it's amazing because through my whole life it really didn't matter how well things were going i still felt exactly the same i still felt depressed i still felt like no one loved me i felt like i was worthless i could never feel that sense of like, I did it, I accomplished this. Maybe I went for a short period of time, but eventually the depression feelings, they would always return. So I decided to move to Hollywood. That's the next thing I do. I'm 21 years old now.

I've written books. I've been on MTV. I've written for magazines, newspapers. My job now is to interview rock stars. So, you know, everything's gone full circle. I have the job of my dreams when I was a kid. I'm working as a music writer for like multiple months. Madnessy, but I'm still not happy.

And then I come to the United States. And it goes straight to Hollywood. So on my second night in town pretty much, again, having my mom as an example, her moving from her small town to Rio de Janeiro to be an actress, and here I go, I'm moving to Hollywood, and I'm going to be a rock journalist in Hollywood. And so I met a guy. We fell in love. and I moved in with him pretty much right away,

and we got married in six months. So through my whole life, I have this feeling that I'm going to lose the person that I'm with. So it's like a fear of loss, right? Because my dad went to dinner and went to a plane, he never came home. So I have this lingering feeling my entire life that when someone walks through the door,

they're never going to return. And so this whole feeling of loss continues, and my husband at the time is working in Hollywood as a DJ, so he works during the night. and constantly I have to deal with this feeling of him leaving and me thinking that he's never going to come home again. So I start to get panic attacks. And the panic attacks really are what led me to my sobriety

because my panic attacks continue to get worse and worse and worse with the years and with age and with my drinking. I'm still drinking, right? Of course. So he goes out at night. I have panic attacks. I think he's never going to come home. I feel like I'm going to die. and I drink.

And of course, the next day I feel even worse because that's what alcohol does to you. But this goes on repeated, you know, almost every night that he's working for years, you know, and I realize that I am continuously reliving my father's death every single time that he walks out of the door. And I can't get out of this loop. I just drink more and then I feel more depressed. I drink more and then I feel more depressed. And, you know, we're in a happy marriage at this point. so we're not really having any relationship problems.

It's really revolving around the fact that I'm unable to be alone, and so I drink. And then to make things even worse, my ex was involved in a criminal case at the time with his ex-wife. And so there is a criminal case going on and the lingering fear that he's going to jail. So eventually we go to trial in this case, and he is convicted to six months in county jail. So now for the first time in my life, I have to face being by myself. Up until here, I haven't been by myself. I moved to Hollywood, but I met someone right away, right? So I never really lived alone.

And so, of course, the alcoholism just gets worse and worse and worse. Now I have to deal with the fear of him being in county jail. So, you know, it's everything times a billion now. My life has completely fallen apart at this point. And it's a nightmare. I can't describe it any other way, but like a nightmare coming true rather than a dream. And so unfortunately, my panic attacks just get worse and worse and worse and worse. And we separate within a year of him coming back from jail.

And so I'm by myself again, living the trauma again, drinking more than ever. I'm addicted to tequila at this point. I'm waking up in the morning and drinking tequila just to survive the day, just to survive the feeling of being alone because every time I'm alone, I feel like I'm going to die. and it just keeps getting worse the more I drink. But I feel like in my story in my life, every time that I hit like a rock bottom is when I decide to make an incredible change.

Then this happens again, the same way that it happened when I was a teenager. I'm watching wrestling on TV, WWE, watching women's wrestling. And I get really inspired and I think something like lights up in my head and I think if I could wrestle, if I could be as powerful, as strong,

as beautiful as they are, I think I would be happy. And I really believe this in that moment. That's what I think is going to finally make me happy. If I can learn how to wrestle and become a wrestler, you know, again, prove everyone wrong. And so I literally Google, how do you become a wrestler? And I see, oh, you need to go to wrestling school. So I found one in Vegas. And in my mind, it's like, oh, perfect. I'm going to move to Vegas to become a wrestler. That's what I'm going to do. And so I do that. I moved to Vegas. I started living in casinos and hotels.

Like every week I'm changing hotels according to the prices. I'm living literally in every hotel in Las Vegas. And this was like my idea of how to work through being alone. Because I'm in Vegas and I'm alone, but I'm surrounded by lights and people and sound, you know. And somehow this helps me for whatever reason. But of course, I'm drinking more than ever. Now I'm in Las Vegas.

So I'm going to wrestling school and I'm actually doing the work. You know, I'm doing the very difficult work of going to wrestling school, hurting myself in the ring every day, taking bumps, trying really difficult, dangerous moves. I'm not an athlete. I've never done any kind of professional sport in my life. Like I did boxing and MMA training, but like nothing professional. And all of a sudden I'm like, I'm going to be a wrestler.

So this is the most challenging thing that I've ever taken on ever, but I feel like I was wrestling my demons. Like I was going through my separation. I was trying to learn how to be by myself. And I started to do it through the sport of professional wrestling. People are kind of like, what are you doing? You know, you're not going to be a wrestler. Like, what are you thinking?

You know, or like she just went to Vegas to party and she's spending all her money drinking in Vegas. Which is like kind of true. But I wasn't doing the work. So at some point, you know, I have to go back to L.A. It's too much. I've been in Vegas for too long. And some things happened in the school also that I'm not happy with. And I come back to L.A. And I'm like, damn, I didn't make it. I didn't succeed. You know, everyone was right. I'm not going to be a wrestler. And then all of a sudden, Billy Corrigan of the Smashing Pumpkins, who is the owner of the National Wrestling Alliance, follows me.

and I know Billy from the past, from the music industry, and I've been in a Smashing Pumpkins video before. And Billy asks, and comes to my page, and on that day, I'm actually in the school wearing a Smashing Pumpkin shirt. So that's the photo that's on my profile. What are the odds? And on my bio it says, Future Star of Wrestling. And Billy asks me, are you wrestling?

And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm still in school. I haven't even had my debut match. I'm still learning. in school for maybe six months. And he literally says to me, oh, that's okay. Do you want to come work for the NWA? And so all of a sudden,

it happens. I'm hired. And now I'm working in professional wrestling. This covered by one of my rock idols. Wow. And that was through Instagram? Through Instagram. Wow. That's incredible. I mean, I'm still like back to the, I'm still back in the part where you said you saw it on TV.

And then you moved in. to going to wrestling school. Like, did you have any idea of wrestling at all? Nope. Just like, I want to be a wrestler. It inspired you that much. That's incredible. Yeah, because I was in a very low point.

And I feel like whenever I'm in a rock bottom, I have the necessity to reinvent myself. And I've done it repeatedly through my life. And at this moment, it happened to be that the female wrestler has inspired me to do that. Wow. Wow, that is so powerful. So then you get this call up to be part of the NWA, but you're still drinking and doing that at the time?

How does that all play out? Because I can imagine that it's going to be hard to... Right. Be hard to show up to be a professional, anything, let alone a wrestler. Exactly. When you have to have tequila to get going in the morning. Absolutely. And so before I debuted in the company, before my first season,

I actually tried to get sober. So that was the first time that I tried. And I actually was sober for three months the first time. So when I debuted, I wasn't drinking my first season. And I was very proud of myself. I'm doing this. I'm going to be sober now. I have a serious job now.

This is what I wanted. I'm here. You know, this is surreal. This is amazing. This is a drink come true. I have to dedicate my. myself. I have to sacrifice myself and I have to be good at my job. I don't want to disappoint Billy Corgan. I was sober in my first season at wrestling and then I went home for the holidays,

you know, and I'm sure that's how it happens for a lot of people. I relapsed on Christmas at home. You know, I'm in Brazil. I'm with my family. I miss my family. And I just say, okay, one drink. And you know how it goes. Now I'm back to drinking again. And I have to go back to wrestling. So now I'm in my second season. I'm coming back for the second time. You know, I'm very much still a new girl, very green, have a lot to prove. Wrestling is that kind of business where you really have to earn respect. You know, you don't walk in right away respected.

And so, yeah, the second season, the company throws a rap party and there's lots of alcohol serves. And of course, I start drinking tequila. I can't help it. So I started to drink tequila and I remember being one of the last people to leave the studio. And at this point, I am the new girl and this is what I'm doing. It doesn't look good at all. Luckily, nothing embarrassing or bad happened, but this is not a good way to start and it can only go downhill from there.

I almost missed my flight back home the next day, actually. So can you imagine if that had happened? But luckily for me, I hate to say this, but the pandemic saved me. because all of a sudden the world shut down, the show paused, and I had to go home. So during the pandemic, my alcoholism just goes completely out of control. So now we're all locked in. I'm sure it was hard for every single person in that situation. I'm at home. I'm by myself.

I have no more routine. I have nothing to support me at this point. I'm not working, I'm not training, my gym is closed, what am I going to do? And to be honest, to me it was like the perfect excuse to not have any responsibility with training and dieting after I had been so disciplined. I just pretty much said, I'm going to drink and eat all day, who cares? Because I don't have to train. I don't have to film. And once I know the show is back, then I'll get myself back in shape.

Thinking that would be that easy, obviously, it would not. But yeah, then what happened was during the lockdowns, my panic attack just got out of control. And the more I drank, the worst the panic attacks got. So at this point, I'm having panic attacks where I think I'm going to die almost every night. And it's hours and hours where I just cry hysterically. Nothing can stop me from crying. And I just feel like I'm going to die. I want to die.

I'm nothing. No one loves me. I'm alone. And it just got to a point where it really. was rock bottom because I knew that I was going to die if I continued to do things the way that I was doing. I was going to kill myself on one of those nights because I just felt like no one loves me and that's couldn't be further from the truth. There are so many people who love me. You know, my mom loves me, my family loves me. I have so many great friends. I have so many people who look up to me,

but I just couldn't feel it at all. You know, and the alcohol just made that feeling much more intense. So that's when my therapist at the time said, you have to go see a doctor and you have to get sober. You have no choice that you want to live pretty much. And so I looked for a doctor and he said to me, the first thing that we have to do is get you sober because we have to see if your panic attacks are connected to your alcohol abuse. And I swear to you that was like the first moment in my entire life

that I felt hope that I could become sober because all I ever wanted was to not have panic attacks and to be okay being alone. And that's the whole bottom reason of why I drank. I was unable to be alone. And since the day I started with the doctor, I have been sober ever since.

And it's been now two years and four months. And I haven't had one panic attack since. Wow, that's incredible. Two years and four months. Yeah. And no panic attacks. Yeah.

It's kind of a strange thing where we self-medicate. And then after time, I hear it so often, and it's in my own journey, that what we're trying to self-medicate from literally explodes. And it comes to a point where the alcohol, the drugs, just don't work anymore. Yeah. To cover it up. Herf. That's incredible, though. No more panic attacks after that. With these panic attacks going on and you're doing the wrestling, how was that for you? Did that bring on panic attacks? No, I only had panic attacks by myself. I'm still highly functional through my entire life and I'm able to be in social environments without anyone even noticing that anything is wrong with me. I mean, I'm a writer, I'm a journalist, I'm so accomplished in so many different careers. I can very easily fool people that. nothing's wrong with me unless they stick around for long enough and see me get ugly drunk.

But even when I got sober, a lot of people were like, but were you an alcoholic? They weren't even aware. But the panic attacks only happened by myself because it all came back to the fact that I was still living the trauma of my father leaving the house and never coming back. And that's when it happened. Through every breakup, through every moment I had to live by myself, then through the the pandemic, this trauma kept replaying over and over and over. And then in sobriety, it was the only chance that I ever had ever to deal with the trauma. And so how am I doing now? I'm actually doing amazing. I love living by myself. I love being by myself. I'm very comfortable living by myself.

And I haven't had one single panic attack. And I'm so in control of my emotions and my life has changed so drastically because all my relationships have changed so drastically. I'm such an understanding person and I respect people so much, people's boundaries, people's needs. I became a very emotionally intelligent person in a way that I had never been able to be before. And then now I've been in NWA for three years. I've managed to actually become respected in the world of professional wrestling through working very hard. And I actually am hosting the show now. So I was able to put together the newly learned athletic skills with my journalism skills

that I had through my whole life. And it all worked out in the end. And now I'm a host in wrestling. And yeah, my life has improved in every possible way. But I think most importantly, no panic attack, the desire to live, not to die, self-confidence, self-work, knowing that I did this all on my own. I did it with like my own blood, sweat, and tears. I wrestled my freaking demons. You know, I wanted to prove everyone wrong and I proved everyone wrong. So now we know why you went to the wrestling school. It was to have the skills to do this. That's incredible though.

Yeah. Incredible to do that. And now you're hosting the wrestling show. And yeah, I mean, that's just amazing. Yeah. And then I'm working really hard on all my careers pretty much. Like I'm riding again. I hadn't been able to write for a few years also. And I'm a model as well. I was just on the cover of Playboy magazine. What was that like? That was great. How did that start? Did that start from Instagram too? Did they see you on Instagram? It was more like through connections. I have also worked as a model like basically since I was a teenager. So that has always been something that I did as well. And lately I had been putting a lot of work into that and just doing lots of shoots, meeting a lot of different people and eventually came into contact with the people that do Playboy.

Wow. Yeah. And also a couple of weeks ago, E-News told my sobriety story. So I feel like really amazing, incredible things continue to happen as like a reward. Yeah. No, it sounds like it.

There's this old saying, we give up everything for one thing, and then we give up one thing for everything. And I hear it in your story so much. I know you've changed a ton of other things about your life. But it sounds to me like once you were able to remove alcohol, then you were able to start working on other areas of your life that were causing you to drink the alcohol. When you're able to do that, things just exploded. Exactly. And it's amazing. And I really deeply feel this,

and I know a lot of people in recovery feel this, that the longer you're sober, the more you're rewarded. And you're rewarded with unbelievable things. Yeah. Why is that? I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's like you're sacrificing yourself and you got something back for it. Yeah. I think, too, it's a big thing about energy. When we're drinking and using drugs, like the energy might be low that we're putting out there. It's a low vibration type energy.

And then when we get sober, you start living a little bit different and you can show up for stuff and you're available for stuff. And I know for me, I gained a ton of confidence to say yes to stuff. Most stuff I would say no to before just because I knew my self-sabotage tendencies to where I said yes to things. but then I let the anxiety and the stress get in the way, so I would just sabotage it. But yeah, I love that.

I hope to be like you something. You know what? You will be. One day at a time, you'll get there, and that's still the way I truck with things, you know, just for today. It's just what keeps me on track. It keeps the perspective real and just enjoy every minute of it. I'm wondering, too, what was so helpful when you made that decision?

You talked with your doctor. You had all that stuff happened. What was helpful for you to stick? with it because making a decision to get sober is definitely the first step, but it can be made in 30 seconds, and then I feel like now the work starts. I think that nobody in my life had ever told me that there was a way to stop the panic attacks. And hearing for the first time that there was a chance was enough for me to want it because

I can't inscribe that feeling. It was just the worst feeling in the world. and when it started happening repeatedly nights after night, there was nothing in my life that I wanted more to not feel like that. And then also I think that I became public about it pretty much right away. I think in the first month I started writing about it publicly on Twitter and Instagram, and I did that to hold myself accountable. Because I knew that if I had told 100,000 people that I was going to do this the way that I am,

I was going to want to stick to that, to prove to death that I could do it. And just to hold myself accountable. And I think as soon as you tell people about it and, you know, you recognize you have a problem and you're not ashamed of it and you just openly talk about it, people just start treating me with so much respect. That's something that feels really good and you don't want to lose that. You want people to luck up to you because you're doing something great and not because you're a junkie or a non-examined. alcoholic. Yeah. So towards the end of your journey there, was alcohol the main thing or were you still using other drugs too? It was alcohol. So I was lucky because I never got addicted to the other drugs

the way that I did to alcohol. So I had experimentation phase where I did almost everything. And then I still used cocaine for a while as well. But my thing really was alcohol and then eventually it was tequila. Yeah. that immediate happiness, you know, that other things didn't do the same way. Yeah, so you were looking for that literal, you know, a few minutes after or whatever it was to change the way you were feeling in tekeling. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, wow. I'm so proud of you for all this stuff and especially sharing your story.

Why do you choose to share your story? I know you mentioned the part of accountability, but I see the responses from some of the times you shared it and it really seems to be really hitting home for a lot of people. Yeah, and that's why. I mean, I've been able to help so many people simply by being honest. How amazing is that? Simply by telling my story with no shame, I'm able to help so many people look at their own stories and not feel shame and say, yes, I have a problem. You know, this is what's been going on. And there's still time to change my life, you know, like we're still alive. I think while we're still here, we can still change. We won't be able to change once we die. it's very inspirational to be able to help other people. Get with a lot of close friends or even people that I haven't talked to in a long time. A lot of people will reach out to me and say, hey, I want to get sober. I realize I have a problem.

But I'm afraid of being public about it. People won't understand if I say I'm an alcoholic. And I always tell them, I'm proud to say that I'm an alcoholic. I feel zero shame. I feel incredible pride, actually. and telling my story because I didn't choose the things that happened to me. I had these traumatic events happen and I, as a teenager, had no idea how to deal with it. And I have to look at myself with kindness and compassion because I've done my very best.

I did what I knew how to do. And then now if I can help other people, that's a blessing for sure. Yeah. I don't know if this is going to make any sense, but I'll all say it anyway. think for me, too, it doesn't make it okay that I went through all the pain, but I feel like being able to share that with other people makes it have a purpose. So it's like I didn't just suffer in silence for so many years just to let it die there. It's an opportunity to kind of pay it forward. Absolutely. And that's a huge part of sobriety too, you know, being of service to others.

Yeah. Well, this has been incredible. Look, we have a lot of people listen to the podcast who may be struggling to get or to stay sober to stay on the journey. What would you have for them if somebody was listening to fit into that? Just like I said, you still have time. You know, if you want to change, you can change. Don't be ashamed. Ask for help. There are so many people out there who will help you.

There are so many resources. And you can get out of whatever situation you're in right now. Your life can change. Yeah. And you are a true living example of exactly. that changing and doing all this stuff it's incredible just looking into it and where you were to where you are now and thank you so much for sharing your story with us here on the podcast so much it was great huge shout out to myra for coming on and sharing her story what an incredible example

of change of what is possible when we get sober she's doing some incredible things it has done some incredible things if you enjoyed her sharing her story on the podcast be sure to send her a message over on Instagram. And we get a lot more incredible episodes coming up and I will see you on the next one.