Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Michelle shares her story about her struggle with alcohol, relapse and sobriety

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Michelle's drinking started out in high school and continued into college. Michelle then continued on after college spending a lot of time partying and drinking and would experience blackouts when Xanax was introduced into her life. The shame and guilt kept her trapped and after getting sober for some time Michelle relapsed and things quickly got worse. Michelle shares the ups and downs of her life in this incredible episode.  --------- Follow Michelle on IG: Soberinlosangeles ---- Grab your free sober tracker app from SoberBuddy: Click here to Download   🤗

Welcome to Season 1 of the Sober Motivation 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. On the outside, it may have appeared that Michelle had things together. On the inside, she was harboring a secret that almost cost her life and addiction to alcohol. In today's episode, Michelle shares her story of getting sober, overcoming a relapse and creating a community of support.

We need to talk about alcohol recovery in the workplace. Talking about sobriety and proving it to your employer can be so difficult. And our friends at Soberlink want to help. If you need a reliable way to present documented proof of sobriety to a boss or loved one, Soberlink can help. Soberlink is a high-tech portable breathalyzer system that uses facial recognition technology to verify identity, has unique sensors to ensure that no other air sources are being used, and sends results directly to your specified contacts.

So there is no questioning whether or not you took the test or whether or not you altered the reporting. This is why Soberlink's remote alcohol monitoring system is considered the gold standard. Being in recovery from alcohol does not define the future of your career. Let Soberlink help. Learn more about Soberlink and request an exclusive $50 off promo code by visiting Soberlink.com slash recover. Welcome back to episode four of the sober moment. Motivation podcast. Today we have my incredible friend Michelle from sober in Los Angeles.

Michelle, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, Brad. How are you? I'm well. I'm well and I'm really grateful to have you on the podcast here. Maybe we'll start things off with a little bit of your childhood. Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, I'm Michelle. I'm sober in Los Angeles on Instagram. I grew up in Los Angeles. I'm born and raised here. Really had a wonderful upbringing. I have a younger brother who's actually in recovery as well. By all standards had a really solid upbringing. We played, you know, I played sports, was the senior class president in high school, had a ton of friends. And, you know, I definitely dealt with some depression and anxiety throughout high school. I think back when I was in high school, it was really less diagnosed or less sort of looked at as a

problem and not talked about as much. And so I think that that's sort of where some of my mental health struggles set in during the high school period, but also where some of my drinking started too. But I also, you know, I went off to school in Philadelphia. I went to a great college, spent some time in Detroit, working in sports when I and then came back. to L.A. and did my master's degree in L.A. and have basically been here ever since. So that's, that's, that's to know a little bit about my upbringing. Yeah, beautiful. I can relate to 110% with the, with the high school stuff. I feel like that's what things for me really became a challenge was, was during high school that trying to fit in, trying to belong somewhere. And I definitely

felt like an outsider for most of my high school days. and probably before then, but it was really exposed during high school. When did drinking become part of your life? Like high school? Yeah, very casually. It's so interesting because I know that so many people have pressure from their parents to really succeed in high school. And my parents always let me do exactly whatever I wanted. So I wanted to take the tough classes.

I wanted to be in extracurriculars, be part of our student body government. And so I really put a lot of pressure on myself. But part of that was that I, you know, even despite having at the time undiagnosed depression, I wanted to have some sort of school life balance and started drinking casually at parties in high school. And I wouldn't say it was problematic at that point, but I certainly indulged quite a bit. So that's definitely when drinking came into my life. And I do think it was to sort of relieve myself of my, of the pressure I put on myself in high school. Yeah, that definitely seems to be where a lot of people start out with high school and the pressure of everything.

It's really like it's kind of before life starts, but it's a head. This is definitely a heavy part of life. I hear a lot and I can relate like with my own story. Like the first time I got drunk, I didn't necessarily know that this was going to be a problem. Like I wasn't there yet. But I enjoyed it way too much. Can you relate to that the first time?

Like I don't remember many other times after that, but that one time I could tell you who was there, where it was. We were drinking some. It was like ever clear and a cooler with fruit. And I remember that. And I'm like, I just felt alive. Can you relate to that at all?

Absolutely. It's so funny because I cannot, I remember the first time I smoked weed, like vividly. And weed's never been a problem. But I cannot remember the first time I drank, actually got drunk. Somehow I just started drinking in high school on weekends and after homecoming and things like that. But I certainly had this like desire. I was always so excited when we would have homecoming. And I knew that a friend's brother was going to get us some smearing off ice or some vodka or something. I always got so excited for that part of the night. Like, we're going to have so much fun.

We're going to get drunk. We're going to be silly. And that alive feeling for sure, although I'm not really sure I was actually alive. It's just, you know, at that young age, it felt like so rebellious. But I certainly had that feeling and definitely can relate. Interesting stuff for sure, how we can kind of remember those details. But was it in college when things started to escalate for you? Yeah, absolutely in college.

So I went to the University of Pennsylvania, which is a wonderful school, but also pretty well known to have a big party scene. It's a fast crowd for sure. And when I got to college, it was all about. party. I mean, I won't say all about partying. Definitely studied very hard. Freshman year, I had actually made a bunch of friends who were from Los Angeles. So oddly enough, I go all the way to Philadelphia for college and end up meeting all these amazing people from L.A. and we kind of all stuck together. I think when I noticed it was most problematic was my first semester freshman year. We had obviously been partying a lot, trying to soak in all of that freedom of

sort of living on our own for the first time, just living away from my parents. My freshman year, I got a phone call that a really close friend, someone I had dated in high school, had committed suicide. And I honestly hadn't, I felt like I had nowhere to turn. You know, as I mentioned before, it seemed to me in high school, I didn't really have the resources to cope with depression and anxiety like I do now. When I got that phone call, I remember just not feeling like I had anywhere to turn. And I'm sure that there were mental health resources on campus. I just wasn't aware of them. And so instead of really dealing with that grief and that trauma, really understanding what had just happened,

And it was like I was a zombie. I was going to classes, hysterically crying, laying in my dorm room, listening to the same songs on repeat. And then at night, going out and drinking and ending up a bloodbbery mess by the end of the night, just either being blacked out or sobbing somewhere. I think that's when, you know, not dealing with that trauma and that death in my life was really when things started to escalate and I started to use alcohol to cope. It became more than just partying. It was a tool that I used to cope with things that came up in my life. Yeah,

that that's a common story too that I hear a lot too is that that's when it kind of switches over. Yeah. Like it's the it's the party. It's to fit in, to have a good time. A lot of people do that. And then there's sort of something that happens. And then now we're supposed to, switch over to something that the thing with alcohol is that we can always depend on it. You can go to the store and 10, 20 bucks and more than not know the result you're going to get in it. And it works really well until it doesn't work. So college, this happened and you're struggling big time with this. Did you ever think to reach out for help?

Like was there ever anything you did during your college years to say I need some help with this? No, you know, there were a couple, there was one instance in particular, like my sophomore year, or I believe it was my sophomore year. And I had thought about transferring back to a school in California to be closer to my family. I definitely like that time in particular. I was just feeling so down. I ended up applying too late to the transfer. And so they said no. And so that was sort of. of when I look in hindsight, that's the only time where I was like trying to figure out if I could do something to change. But in terms of actually reaching out for help, I really didn't. I mean, I lived with eight other women, my sophomore through senior year in the house off campus. And we all really supported each other, but we were all really young. I mean, we were young and doing the same things, like going out and partying. But in terms of, you know, what I do now, I never really reached out to anyone in terms of actually getting the support I needed.

I never did. Yeah. I think that's the thing that, you know, we get, we get stuck in sort of this cycle of things, right? Did your family know what was going on? No. they knew that I certainly had ups and downs, but they were so far away. And I think that they noticed a little here and there, like when I would come home for breaks, that maybe I'd come home like a little drunk from, you know, seeing my high school friends when I was home from college.

But they had absolutely no idea. It was, and that sort of became a pattern for me when we talk about in my late 20s, early 30s, when it was time for me to get sober. My parents really had no idea how bad it had gotten. And at certain points, thought I wasn't drinking and didn't know that I was drinking again. So I became very good at hiding it from them. I think my friends were always the ones that knew, obviously because they could see me partying. They saw sort of the fallout from certain things that had happened. We do a really good job at like hiding it. We don't want to point it out to people. We don't want people mentioning that this is a problem because then maybe just maybe we'll have to maybe do something about it.

And we don't necessarily want to at that point. What about in your, what about after like college? Now you're out into the real world. The quote unquote real world of my 20s. Yeah, no. So I mean, I mentioned to you. I went to Detroit. I worked in sports.

And it was very much, you know, working in sports is very much a big, there's a big drinking culture, especially because we're working so many hours for, you know, working games. And so working game nights, working all day, doing events outside of the games and such. And so we'd always go to the bar after. and I think it became somewhat normalized because it was like everyone was drinking in college, everyone was drinking when I was in Detroit, partying a lot. When I came back to L.A. in grad school, we were doing projects, you know, doing our grad school projects at the bar. And so, yeah, it just sort of continued on through my 20s.

And I think that I was maybe, you know, I was still doing really well in grad school and sort of setting up a, career for myself, you know, still doing just fine at work and in school. But, you know, the weekends and the weekend, when I say weekends, it was probably more like Thursday through Saturday, sometimes Wednesday through Saturday. I was just finding myself partying those nights. And it certainly got to a much more scary point in my late 20s when I started to mix in Xanax with drinking. And so, that's like when it got really bad. I will point out I have had chronic migraines and headaches for as long as I can remember. And I dealt, you know, as my 20s went on, I dealt with that sort of in this horrible cycle of, you know, having headaches, thinking that I could get some relief by drinking

a little bit. And then the next day would be terrible with hangovers. So my headaches would just be worse. And I had a doctor prescribed me Xanax, not knowing how much I drank, which obviously is very dangerous. Me not at the time, not knowing how dangerous it was to mix Xanax with drinking. And that's when I started this sort of cycle parting on the weekends and blacking out pretty early on. That's when it became really dangerous. And so, yeah, there seemed to be a problem there, but it went from problematic to scary and dangerous when the Xanax came into play. How old were you when you started taking the Xanax and were you still in school at the time? No, I was probably 28, 29, 30.

Okay, got you. You're definitely right about that, a dangerous combination that I only did it a few times. I didn't have a prescription or anything, but I did it a few times. Yeah, and I blacked out. I was talking with somebody else to about like I went to, I showed up to work one day. And I had taken some Xanax and some alcohol. And then I blacked out and like this job, they like sent me home. And supposedly I drove home.

It was really scary thing. And when it got me down and talked about it the next day, I didn't remember anything. What a mess that was. So I could. And that was like one time. And then it happened another time. I wouldn't say like it happened. It wasn't like something that just happened to me.

It's choice. I was a choice I made and then that happened because of it. But I couldn't, well, I could imagine that that would be scary because I didn't think that that was a thing. Like, I didn't think I was going to black out from having like a couple of beers and some Xanax. And then the next thing I'm out with my buddies and I don't remember anything. And the next day they're telling me like, you were completely out of line out of control. And we've never seen that before.

And I'm just like, wow. Okay. I mean, it didn't scare me enough for me to get sober at the time. So I couldn't imagine that for like years. Yeah, it was probably totally scary. And I totally relate to those stories that you told. I mean, I would, I had a friend tell me, I did come to the point of realizing, you know, when I was first prescribed it, I didn't think that there was any problem. But I obviously started to recognize that it was making. you know, it was causing problems. And I didn't realize how dangerous it was, but I got stuck in this cycle of using Xanax to cope with when there's a ton of other ways to cope with headaches, one of them being not drinking, but it became this cycle. And I had a friend tell me one time, you're so much fun until like midnight and then something switches and you're just like a zombie. You know, there were moments that were really, really scary.

So, yeah, it definitely got to the point where I was scared enough. I had hurt enough people, hurt myself enough that I was like something has to change. What surprises me most about all of this, though, is that you're able to go to school, finish school, graduate, hold these jobs. When I was doing this stuff, I couldn't hold the job at Little Caesars. I got fired from Little Caesars. The owner threw a pizza, whole pizza pan at me one time and was like, you know,

you're fired. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, so that, like, that always amazes me from how some people keep it all together.

And then I was like, man, you know, was I just like a one-off kind of guy? I couldn't keep anything together. I got, I got to kicked out of college. And I mean,

the list goes on. At the end, I was living on my brother's couch. And I'm like, man, you know, looking back, I wish I could have,

had some success. How did you manage all of that? I honestly don't know. I look back and I'm like, how was I partying so much and keeping it all together? And I would say I sort of was and I sort of wasn't. I really only drank when I was partying. I never drank in the mornings or during the days when parties came around. I was full-fledged partying and I sort of found ways around it. Like I always made it to school. Sometimes I would call in sick to work if I was hung over on like a Friday morning or something. It amazes me too that I was able to somehow keep it all together because I remember one time in particular I had gone out and then I woke up the next morning and I was just I couldn't move and I ended up not showing up

to this work event and in my mind you know in my mind it just wasn't important enough and it was going to be okay and I definitely got in trouble for not going but sort of always talked my way out of it like I'm, oh, I'm so sorry. I just, I really wasn't feeling well and I had texted and so and so that I wasn't going to be able to make it. So it was almost like I was always planning ahead that I was going to cancel on things. I knew I was going out and partying. I had a plan for the morning on how to cancel and somehow just continued, you know, continued to do good work. And I have to tell you, looking back, I don't know how I did it. I really don't because there were days where I would just, you know, lay in bed all day and pretend

I was working from home or something like that. And I wasn't. So it's pretty, I know that there are just, it's such a spectrum when we look at people. I am a no off switch drinker. And so I somehow managed to not drink during the days. and then, but when I did drink, it was, you know, all bets are off, no off switch. So it is pretty astounding to me when I look back to that I was able to on the surface, on paper, keep things together.

Yeah, that's a good point, too, that you made at the end there because that's been brought up in a few conversations, too, about on the outside, it might look like we have things somewhat went together. But I think what the big thing that motivated me anyway to make changes was how I felt on the inside. There was never really. I mean, there was,

but there wasn't like rock bottoms that I was like, oh, because of this rock bottom, I'm going to change. It was more like the internal rock bottom of like, long story short, I feel terrible every single day. And I sort of would catch glimpse.

of two years down the road, five years down the road, 10 years down the road. And I'm like, I would see it in other people. I'm headed in that direction pretty fast. And with with drugs, too, drugs was a big part of my story. Kind of asked myself, like, what do I want out of life? Because this this is going to be a blur for the next 40 years. When did you first get sober? What you said about that internal feeling. Like I certainly had those moments where I was so embarrassed and I had done something terrible or I had blocked out at a friend's wedding and really hurt her or something. It was that internal feeling of I am pushing people away. I'm hiding this from my family. I just don't feel like I am my best self or that I'm happy. And so I first got sober in 2017.

I was in September of 2017. I had just hit that point where I wanted to feel better. I wanted to repair relationships. I had so many people that loved me and cared about me. You know, my friends who were seeing this, that they knew I was a good person, but I was not a good person when I was drinking. So I got sober, 30 going on 31 in 2017,

and stayed sober, basically on my own. I really like white-knuckled it. I stopped drinking, but I didn't really do any recovery work. And so I stayed sober for a couple of years and started drinking again, like right before the pandemic. You know, I convinced myself, I could moderate that I wasn't using Xanax anymore. And so I wasn't partying anymore. I can go on dates and have a drink, and that's when the floodgates opened back up.

So, you know, those two years, I think were really important to show me that I could live without alcohol, but I wasn't, like I said, I wasn't doing work on myself or finding the support I needed to really feel like I could flourish without drinking. And I think that it just got stale. And I wanted to let alcohol back into my life. And I'll, spoiler alert, that did not go so well. You want to give it one last try. I don't ever suggest that to anybody, of course. People are going to have their own journey.

But I do find that when people share about it, it's like you close the door. You quit drinking. So you close the door, but you left it unlocked. So you figured out moderation was. going to work. What role did this relapse play in your eventual sobriety? It played. So I would first say if I had to go through relapse all over again, there were a couple of hospital visits in that time before I got sober again in 2021. I was hiding it. It was weighing on me really heavily. So it was horrible. I don't recommend relapse to anybody. But for me, again, looking back, that period

showed me that it was, no, it wasn't just the Xanax and that cycle I had gotten into. But, I mean, it got really bad during the pandemic, especially since I was living on my own and able to hide it so easily and get alcohol from all. these different delivery services that they have nowadays, it was so easy. Looking back and where I am now, it was so necessary because it showed me that in those two years where I wasn't drinking, I wasn't doing any recovery work. And I wasn't, I had zero sober friends. I mean, I know a couple of family members who are sober, but I had zero sober community, zero sober support. or call me a dry drunk if you want during that time, that's fine.

But it completely changed when I got sober again in 2021, November of 2021. I knew things had to be different this time around. I never would have gotten to the point I am right now and changed if I hadn't ended up in the hospital. you know, thank goodness. I think my lucky stars every day that my recovery date isn't, didn't go the other way, right? But I would not be where I am right now had I not gone through all of that. What do you take away from that relapse? And I'm thinking two things here.

A big part of your story from what I've heard is like you're partying. You're out social drinking, partying. But the pandemic hits. here anyway where I was at there was no partying so what changed and what was the alcohol doing for you nothing comforting me so when the pandemic hit you were spending all of your time at home drinking oh yeah it was like a couple bottles of wine not all the time it got progressively worse throughout the pandemic. And there would be months

where I would not drink at all because I knew like I was working from home, obviously. I actually worked from home before the pandemic. So I think the biggest thing that changed for me was I had gone to yoga every single, like almost every single day when I was working from home before the pandemic

and sort of had this community. And then going from that to then just being home by myself all the time with my, one dog at the time I have two now. But my one dog, I just, I felt totally alone. And like I said, it just, I mean, it got out of control at certain points. When things started to open back up in 2021, I was keeping this secret from a lot of people that thought I was still sober. So I was just sort of keeping it from people that, hey, I'm drinking at home alone. And it's not good. But when started to open back up again, I got very drunk. I passed out at my best friend's wedding

in July of 2021, probably one of the worst made of honors ever. Thankfully, I made it through my speech. And then at the end of the night, blacked out, had to go to the hospital, which was horrible. That's when a lot of people found out that I was drinking again. And what a horrible way for people to find out that I had really built up a lot of trust with a lot of these people again and immediately just lost all of that trust. So 2021, it had been four years since I stopped drinking and a lot of people thought I was sober for that long, which obviously was not the case. All the guilt and shame it prevented me from really talking to people about how bad it was or that I was drinking again at all. Yeah, it was a pretty tough way for a lot of people

to realize that I still had this problem or that it had crept back in. And then the shame and guilt spiral started. So that was July of 2021. I promised people after this happened that I was going to stop. But in my head, it wasn't ready to stop. And I really shame and guilt spiraled until November. So the wedding was in July when you, when you went to the hospital.

Yeah. That's the first hospital that said of 2021. I hear it a lot too about the shame and guilt and I obviously can relate to that in my own story. But that I feel like that's a big fuel. I feel like that's a big reason why I decided to make this podcast and why we have the entire sober motivation platform is to share stories of what's possible that people do get sober.

People do overcome this stuff and that like it's okay to talk about it because that kept me stuck. And what I'm hearing from you, that kept you stuck and kept things going downward. Like it just snowballs at that point, especially once it becomes public for everybody to kind of see it. And then they thought it was a certain way. And then now it's not that way. And then we just feel like really bad about it. And it just kind of the cycle just continues. And then it's like, oh, it's the hamster wheel. How are we going to get off the hamster wheel? What happened leading up to you getting sober again in September? Wedding was end of July.

The spiral was horrible. I just felt like I let so many people down. It was embarrassing. Like you said, the shame and guilt, you have shame and guilt when you relapse and you're hiding it from people. There's so much shame and guilt on that part. and then trying to open up to people, I was like terrified to do that because I felt like I was letting people down. And then when I did it so publicly, it was like the worst. It was the worst way to do it.

And so I actually sort of spiraled until November. November is when I got sober again in 2021. I ended up thinking it would be a good idea to go up to Napa by myself to get away for a weekend. First night I got there was the Friday. Did you plan to have a sober trip? Was this going to be a getaway sober trip? I didn't plan anything, to be honest. It was it was one of those.

I've always been, like I said on paper, like so put together in terms of, everything like work, school, when I'm sober, managing relationships. And this, I never felt so much shame. And so I almost knew I was at the end of the line. Like I had to stop. And I just felt like I had to get away and escape like physically. I cannot even tell you why at the very last minute, should I go to rehab or should I escape? I decided to physically escape to Napa and like just it was horrible. So I had gotten this Airbnb Friday night comes around. I go to the restaurant at this place I'm staying at.

It was like a resort. And so they had a restaurant there and I just drank a ton of wine at dinner. Just decided to get some gray goose. at the market. I don't know why. I was already drunk. I still like tremble when I talk about this. I completely blacked out. Came to consciousness by some miracle. Came to consciousness. I was gushing blood from my head. I didn't know where my hair. I have a ton. I have very long hair. It was completely matted. I had hit my head somewhere, concussed myself, thrown up on the carpet. And like I said, by some miracle, I came to consciousness and called 911.

The paramedics came. The police came. They were certain that someone else had been in the room with me because of how basically beaten up I looked. They thought that someone had beaten me up. I just kept telling them, like, I feel like I'm going to die. I feel like I'm going to die. And they got me to the hospital. I had to have staples in my head.

I would say that was my rock bottom. You have done this for how long now? You've ended up in the hospital twice over the past few months. But this was the worst. Like it was, like I said, some sort of miracle. So that was November 19th and the next day, November 20th. It was a miracle that that wasn't, that that didn't go the other direction. It's hard for me to say, you know, death.

I feel like I narrowly escaped a situation that could have ended much worse than it did. I knew then that my recovery had to come first, that I had to be sober. That's a heavy story. I'm glad that it turned out the way it did for you. I really am. Likewise. That was in the Airbnb that you rented then. You made it back there and then blacked out and then this happened.

Yeah. Yeah. That's so scary. What was it like in the hot? Do you remember that being in the hospital? Do you remember like the next day would your family come up there? Like what was that like? So I vaguely remember getting to the hospital and I was there until the next morning.

So they were just monitoring me because they had done like an MRI. Thankfully it was just, you know, the gash to nothing internal. And I ended up taking an Uber back. to the Airbnb in the morning and literally just laid there for hours and hours. And, you know, again, like talking about, like, hiding things. Like, my family didn't know I was in Napa. I really, like, I was trying to, like, escape. And so I called, I FaceTime them that night and let them know what happened.

And they were shocked by the wedding situation because they didn't think I was drinking, even more, you know, shocked and scared. Ended up driving back home on the next, on Sunday morning. So I just basically laid in bed all Saturday, let my family know what happened, drove home Sunday. People I did let know that this happened. I think there was a lot of concern that it was going to get to this point because of, you know, the signs I had been showing from the wedding and onwards. It was getting to that really scary point.

So that was the day, that's the day you got sober. It's like consider it like the next day. The next day. Yeah. That is when it started. Well, congratulations on that. Thank you. And then how long does that make it now?

A little over 11 months. What's changed in Michelle's life? Oh, my gosh. I met Brad. Good things and bad things have happened. When I got sober again, I knew something had to change. I knew that I needed. I once started going to recovery Dharma meetings.

I've been to tons of different kinds of meetings, AA, smart recovery. I found solace in recovery Dharma because I do consider myself a spiritual person and meditation and yoga has been a big part of my life always. And so got a mentor, which is like a sponsor, similar to a sponsor in AA. And so started really focusing on that, obviously reading a lot of quitlet because that's what I do. I go to therapy weekly one-on-one. So that's been incredibly helpful, I think. But the biggest change has been finding sober community in Los Angeles.

And so in late February, I remembered that I. I had when I was first sober, not drinking in those first couple of years, I had had this thought, like, I need to find friends in sobriety. And I had grabbed the handle at sober in Los Angeles and just forgot about it for like four and a half years. In late February, when I was starting to follow different sober accounts, I came across sober city movement and sober in Seattle, Alex. I posted for the first time on February 25th of this year and did a coffee meetup. Two other women came. One of them I have been friends with now since March. And it's just grown into this like incredible thing for me. Like I never imagine that creating an Instagram would allow me to connect with

people like you to connect. You know, I went to London a few months ago and met sober in Berkshire. I've met Alex sober in Seattle, but I've also, you know, I met Laura, your sober pal and went on this retreat in Idaho where I met multiple other people, five of whom all live in the LA area. But our meetups for sober in Los Angeles, we do hiking, yoga, coffee meetups. We did a comedy show with the Phoenix. the real change for me has been connecting with people on Instagram and in real life and creating these like true friendships through sobriety. This community, I feel so much accountability, but also like strength in my sobriety because I've been able to open up about my recovery journey and recover out loud, as we say.

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. and I love everything that you do in the meetups and the connection because I think that's so important in recovery because a lot of people you hear when they share their story when they're drinking or whatever it is they're doing it's like everybody's doing it. If you see that red car, if you get a new red car, you see a red car Honda Civic everywhere. And it's the same thing as when you look for people who are drinking. But when you look the other way and you see people that are being sober, then it's like you start to notice all these sober people. And it really just changed things. And like you said, you build that community. You build the strength.

You build the accountability. And you build a group of people who understand what you're going through just to listen. Like I find that is just very helpful for people to have people who listen and people who understand. And you don't have to feel the same way because these people have been through it. They know what's going on. And it's just so helpful. We always hear it, but the opposite of addiction is connection. And that has been just the most incredible thing for me.

And being sober allows me to meet all these people to travel and remember everything. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, getting connected with people is just everything too. And you're right. We hear that a lot. I just had a few questions. I wanted to run through with you really quick. I also wanted to mention too.

You're fired up the whole interview here, which is. which is great. But you really got fired up when you started talking about sober in Los Angeles. Oh, yeah. I did, didn't I? Yeah. I mean, it's great. I can tell that you're passionate about it and you like you love this, right? It gives you, it's giving you some level of purpose. I feel like maybe you didn't have for so long. I love it. 100%. I think it's given me purpose. It's given me an outlet. Yeah, beautiful. Another part too on that is I feel like a lot of times we create what we think or no might have helped us early on. So if we if we lacked the community aspect and we were engaged in the isolation and we didn't

have anybody around and we felt like we were on an island, which a lot of us probably did. Like we were the only, Brad, you're the only one who's struggling with this man. Come on. Figure it out. You know, that's what. Right. Myself, right? But then once we kind of look around, we see that we're not.

How do you cope with stress now that you're that you're sober? Yeah. So I was so stressed when I was drinking that when I stopped drinking, a lot of that that stress has sort of gone away. But it doesn't mean that it's still not there about a Peloton during the pandemic. So, you know, working out is definitely important for me. I find myself sort of going in waves where if I'm not. not working out. I can tell that I'm a little bit more stressed or feeling down. So working out is

really important. Also being with my family and my dogs is a huge stress relief, just getting outside and going hiking. Also resting. I find that, you know, I still work from home full time. It can feel isolating during the week for sure. When I get stress, like sometimes I just need to rest. Yeah, superpower think that a lot of people too early on they want to stay busy and it's probably a good thing right to stay like a little extra busy but i mean after a while like yeah you have to learn to relax because you're always going going going and you have like this you know big window of extra time so that i love i love that the peloton and in the exercise a lot of people share that exercises is very helpful for this for stress but also for mental health and so many other things like

you just feel good afterwards. Yeah. What advice would you give someone struggling? What piece of advice from your own journey would you share with them? I would say if you are stuck and struggling, it's probably time, right? If you are feeling so down that alcohol has become a problem in your life, I would first say it's really important to get professional support. There's obviously a ton of people on Instagram sharing their stories, and it's great to like reach out and find somebody that you connect with. Obviously, AA is a great place to start if you need to get to a meeting.

It can be so daunting to go to a meeting, but I think that most people will find that the rooms are really welcoming. They're smart recovery. If you are chemically dependent upon alcohol, you have to. to find that medical support, right? Yeah, true. I love that. That we have to take some sort of action, some sort of action and reach out to people.

It's kind of like telling on ourselves. Like we need to tell on ourselves to say, hey, this is not going the way that I maybe visioned it or that's going to end up to be extremely positive for me. And it's not bringing any value to my life. And then once we understand that, you get support. I also like the other thing you brought up earlier, or what you used in your journey is books, is reading.

Having a better understanding of what's actually going on. And a lot of these books share different perspectives that are really great to kind of get you thinking. Exactly. So when I got sober, I didn't mention this, but when I first stopped drinking in 2017, I read Alan Carr's easy way for women to quit drinking. It was incredibly powerful.

So like you said, like there's so many things you could do. Yeah, it's a great umbrella. I know Megan put up this quote on the sober buddy page one time, which was actually phenomenal. It's like you gave alcohol a thousand tries. Why not give sobriety another try? And I think that's so important there is like if one route or one suggestion, you just don't connect with.

That's okay, but don't let it end there. Like I think about the cycle. Like we tried so many different ways to have these things included in our life. we can put forth, you know, some action, some effort into trying different stuff, not just ending up and being okay with, well, one didn't work. So I'm done. You know, like give yourself, try it out.

It's just like trying food when you're a kid. Like, I used to hate tomatoes. And now like tomatoes with a little salt and pepper on my cheeseburger, you know, bacon sandwich is the best thing in the entire world. It's beautiful. You got to try different things. This have been a great episode. I think there's a lot of stuff that people can take away from here.

And I appreciate you. And sharing this stuff, I understand it's not easy at all to do this sometimes. But I feel like this will unlock the doors for a few people because this story, even though it's your own unique story, there's parts of it that thousands of people are going to relate to. So big thank you. Thank you for having me on. Another great episode in the books. I hope that everybody's enjoying the podcast.

so far. We've had some incredible guests. Be sure to leave a rating on your favorite podcasting platform and do not forget to download the free Sober Buddy SoberTracker app in your favorite app store. Join the Facebook group for some extra support and some community and we'll see you there.