Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Navigating Dry July and Beyond

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

In this insightful episode, Brad and four special guests discuss their experiences with sobriety and offer valuable tips for those participating in 'Dry July.' They share personal stories and advice on starting and maintaining a sober lifestyle, emphasize the importance of support systems, and highlight unexpected benefits. With practical mantras and motivational messages, this episode aims to encourage and support listeners on their journey to sobriety. The panel also addresses common concerns such as social situations and the decision to share sobriety goals with others. ----------- Free Dry July Support SoberBuddy Community: https://community.yoursoberbuddy.com/plans/368200bundle_token=8d76ca38d63813200c6c1f46cb3bdbed&utm_source=manual More Info about SoberLink: www.soberlink.com/recover Guests Accounts Todd: https://www.instagram.com/tkinney111/ Hadley: https://www.instagram.com/hadley_sorensen/ Megan: https://www.instagram.com/sobahsistahs/ Jon: https://www.instagram.com/thetireddad/    

Hey everyone, how's it going? Welcome back to another episode. I'm joined here by a couple of guests as we talk about dry July, what it was like for us starting out. And just keep in mind if this is, you know, your first try, your second try or third try, whether you're just going for a sober month or whether you're really trying to make the lifestyle change and embrace sobriety in your life. This would be a great episode as we all talk about our journeys and what it's looked like. Everyone has a little bit of a different story. we get into this episode, I want to invite all of you to come and hang out in the month of July in the suburb buddy community for free. You're going to get 10 plus support meetings each week, as well as some on-demand resources, a course, early recovery skills, which is just incredible. You're also going to get a community of people that you can connect with 24-7 and it can help support you and meet you exactly where you're at in your journey. So whether it's your first day, you're curious about what sobriety is and what it looks like and how to make it a part of your life. Come and join us inside of the sober buddy community.

We would love to have you. I'll drop that link for you to join for July for free down in the show notes below. And I'm hosting a first meeting tomorrow. July 1st, 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. And I hope to see a few of you there. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. Let's get to it. It was vital in keeping me accountable.

It doesn't interrupt my life. It only enhances my life. People in my program swore by it. These are just a few quotes from Soberlink users. Soberlink is not just any breathalyzer. It's the breathalyzer designed specifically for those in recovery from alcohol addiction. How it works is simple. You'll test at the same time every day. A built-in camera will take a photo during your test so it knows it's you testing. Tamper sensors will flag any attempts to cheat. And instant easy to read results are sent directly to your loved ones because it's not just about proving you're sober. It's about sharing your success, establishing patterns of trust, and dispelling doubts with hard evidence. Soberlink, proof of sobriety at your fingertips. Visit soberlink.com slash recover to sign up and receive $50 off your device.

Welcome back, everyone, to a special episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast. Today I've got some incredible friends and guests with me here who have all shared their story, actually, on the Sober Motivation Podcast. And today we want to bring you this episode to talk about those first 31 days and with dry July coming out, we really want to bring a lot of tips and some insight and what it was like for us getting started on this journey. So first off, I'll do a quick intro of all of our panel guests today. We'll start with Megan. Oh, hey everybody. It's Megan here from Soba Sisters. I'm really happy to be here. Great stuff. Great to have you. Todd, how are you doing? I'm good, Brad. It's good to be here. My name's Todd. I'm an attorney in Omaha,

Nebraska. In October of this year, it will be five years since I gave up alcohol. Beautiful. Thank you so much. John. How's it going? My name's John, also known as the Tired Dad. I am 543 days without alcohol and years without any substances, drugs and stuff. So, thanks tired dad for being here. Hadley. Hi, hi, Bear. My name's Hadley Sorin. I'm a sobriety advocate and author. And in August, it will be three years since I stopped drinking. Wow, great job. Thank you, everybody, too, for taking the time out of your busy lives to do this here. Let's kick off with this question about somebody's considering getting curious. I think this dry July will be a springboard in a sense for that, about getting curious about what role alcohol plays in my life. and maybe the million dollar question,

would my life be better without it? What was your experience in your first 31 days? I mean, did you start to experience benefits within that time frame? Let's start with Todd. Yeah, and for anyone asking themselves that question, would my life be better without it? 100%. Yes, it will be.

It may be hard to see at this point, but I found that to be the case 100 times over. I would say get curious. I think if you're watching this, then you're thinking about doing it already, or you're going to do it already, you're already curious, which is good. I would say document your month as much as you can, the good stuff, the bad stuff, and everything in between. Because I think that's useful to dig into the things you experience. And in the moment, I think it helps you dig into that even more. And if you want to go back and remember certain things, it's useful for that too.

But I would say just get curious, pay attention to how you feel during that months. Be honest with yourself. You know, try to strip away some of the lies and some of the stories we tell ourselves about our drinking. And try to get real for a couple minutes and see how that goes. Yeah, I love that. The honesty part, right? Yeah, it's tough, but it's worth it. Yeah, necessary, though, a necessary part of the process.

Megan, what are you thinking? Well, first, Brad, I love how you said, would your life be better without it? And I think that's really important because that held me back for a long time was, did I qualify for somebody to be sober? Was I bad enough? You know, things like that. You know, really asking ourselves, would our life be better without it? And you're right, absolutely 100%. It will be, but maybe not right away. So for those, you know, if you are doing a dry July is to not expect your life to magically be better overnight or during that time. And even if maybe you don't see any big changes during those 31 days to keep going and to keep going even if it's not perfect. Say you do have a slip somewhere

during that time during July. It doesn't mean you just throw in the towel and you give up and you go back to drinking. It just means that you keep going. And that overall, it's more about making sustainable changes over time because we all want quick fixes, right? We all want like instant gratification, everything to be magically better and to be easy. And that's just not realistic. So if you really want to make sustainable changes to carry on throughout the rest of the year and hopefully for the rest of your life, is to have some realistic expectations and to think about it as like an experiment.

Like where are you going to see the changes? Where are you going to, you know, how is your sleep better? Most likely in 31 days, your sleep is going to get better. Maybe not within the first week. You might actually have some insomnia and be up in the middle of the night because your body's like, what the heck is going on here? So, but eventually by the end of the 31 days, you should be sleeping better than you have before. You should have, you know, a little bit more energy. And again, everybody's different. And I think sometimes in 31 days, we're expecting to feel better. And

sometimes you actually feel worse. Sometimes your anxiety gets worse because we don't have this, you know, this fake thing that's masking all of our real feelings. So a little, a lot of times I think what happens is we go to take a break and we actually feel worse or we feel our feelings now. We feel this anxiety or whatever it might be. And so we just go back to what's comfortable, which is alcohol or substances, whatever your thing is. And so just keep going. Just don't quit quitting. Yeah, beautiful. Love that. Thank you. John. What are you thinking? Oh, of course I have to go after that. Megan said everything that got on. Yeah, I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I a lot of sober octobers, dry julys, dry jenaries for years, like over five years. And yes,

you know, you feel better. You're not hung over, you know, but I definitely experienced that first week or two of did not sleep well at all. Anxiety came up. stressful situations. I had nowhere to go. You know, I had no where to mask that. So I just had to deal with it head on. And But what originally got me sober was dry January of 2023. And this is coming off the holiday. So I was drinking a lot. And that was a rough month. And January, I live in Tennessee.

It was cold. It was dark. It was rainy. Not ideal. I started doing cold plunges. I just needed to feel something. Like I needed to torture myself. I needed to just feel something.

but that first two weeks I did not sleep well. Anxiety really came up throughout that whole year. It was hard that first year. I had to deal with a lot of stuff that I've been bottling up for 20 plus years. But after that first year, man, I was like, okay, this is what they're talking about. This is that feeling. Just a new life, really. But just like what Megan said, just keep with it.

I was like, okay, it's been three months now. Why am I not feeling like a new person? I feel worse right now. Like some days I feel worse. And it's one day at a time. And I just kept going. Just one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. And it did get better.

Yeah, that's right. You do have that experience with the January. So this is, yeah, this is going to hit home. Great share. Great share. Hadley. Oh, man. Going last.

This is really tricky. So I think that to, answer your question is 31 days enough? It can be in some ways if you use that 31 days appropriately. If you go into a dry month, and I say this from experience, because I also did lots of dry January, dry July, you know, I picked a month here or there because I had a drinking incident or a hangover that was so bad. I said, I'm never drinking again. And I, you know, took time off. But if you go into it with the attitude of, oh my gosh, I got to suffer through these 31 days and then I can't wait for that drink on August 1st, right? You're not going to see any benefit from it.

But if you go into it with the right mindset, if you open your mind and your heart and like Todd said, you really get curious. You use the month to explore your relationship with alcohol. Look at the ways that you use it. Look at the impacts it has. educate yourself, read some books, whatever. And again, that doesn't mean it has to be perfect. And if your dry July isn't perfect, then it's a failure. Don't think of it that way at all. But if you really use the month to think about the impact that alcohol is having on your life, document it. I love the idea of journaling through a dry month like this. So you can really pay attention. You're going to see

some benefits and you're going to see some things that get harder like everyone has said. There's some things that you might say, wow, this got better right away. Actually, my sleep improved really quickly. My anxiety, I was in this loop when I finally call it quits of, you know, incredible anxiety and depression following weekend binges, and then I would start to feel normal again, and then I would repeat the cycle. So when I stopped, I noticed, you know, a difference there right away. But then there were some things that, of course, were really hard. It takes a long time before you get to a place where you start to see the miracle that everyone's talking about. So you can't give up, get curious, use the month wisely, don't expect perfection, but you can absolutely, I think, see benefits

in a month like this. Yeah, great. And so much stuff. I mean, we just covered a ton of ground there. So thank you everybody for bringing that. And the common theme I hear there in one way or another is that if it doesn't work out the way that you envisioned it, it's okay. Get back up and keep going. I mean, because I think I know all of you and your stories, and I'm recalling them here quickly, but none of us got it on the first go. Like the first time we were just like, hey, I'm just going to give this a try. But we learned something throughout all of it that I think when we got to the point and where we are now, it really helped us, you know,

springboarded us in a sense to get there. I'm curious too about anybody who, you know, they're considering this. And I think a lot of people like you guys just shared there, right? You've done the January, you've done the October. It's like a lot of people that are going to dip their toe in here.

It's not necessarily that this is their first time. What advice would you give them during this month, during making this decision? Let's start out with Hadley this time. So advice for somebody who's just embarking on dry July, whether it's your first time or not, I would say one of the things that I think is really important is deep meaningful self-care. Really, as you're starting something like this, take care of yourself on a deep level. And I don't, when I say self-care, I don't necessarily mean bubble baths and many petties, right? That kind of stuff. That can be self-care, but really think about what you need. on a deeper level. And for me, as an introvert, it's things like when I'm, when I have to take care of myself, it's alone time. It's getting lots of exercise. It's going for walks. It's being able to spend time in my own head. So that's one of my biggest tips is to really

take care of yourself and don't feel guilty about that because it's a big change and you really want to nurture yourself through the process. And then the other tip, I would say, is use the time to educate yourself. I'm a big fan of this. I talk about this a lot and not just because I wrote a quitlet book, but because quitlet changed my whole perspective on alcohol and drinking. And it was a big part of what kept me going when I first stopped drinking. So listen to podcasts like this about drinking about alcohol, read books, but really educate yourself about what alcohol is and what it actually does to us because most of us are pretty naive in that regard. I was for sure. And so once I learned more, it was hard to want to go back to it when I had all the facts. So I'll stop there because I don't

want to take everybody else anything. And that's why I wanted to give you a shot at first. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's great. And I love that too, the self-care, the meaningful part. And it does come with that opposite thing and feeling guilty about looking after ourselves and take care of ourselves, but so essential in this whole entire process. Todd, what are you thinking? What's some advice for somebody starting out? So I don't know about everyone else on here, but I describe your first couple social situations

when you're not drinking as like you're going to your first junior high dance. It's really awkward, and you feel like there's a spotlight on your head and a sign above your head that says this person isn't drinking. You know, you should ask him about it. and you go through, you know, a hundred different pretend conversations in your head about, oh my gosh, what if they say this? How am I going to respond?

What if they say this? For me, the physical part of not drinking was not as hard as I thought it would be. The mental and kind of emotional, psychological part was harder than I thought it was going to be. And social situations at first were incredibly awkward for me. And at the time, it feels like that is how not drinking is going to be. be like forever. And you're like, well, you know, okay, I'm sleeping better and I'd love not having hangovers, but this is really weird and this feels awkward. And so I would say it's not going to be like that forever. It feels like it is. But that goes away. I promise that goes away. So the awkwardness

and just the weirdness and you feel like a fish out of water, all that stuff's normal and it's not going to last forever. So I would try to tell yourself that when you experience those because, again, for me, I felt for a while, well, I don't know if I want to do this if this is how not drinking is going to feel like. And it doesn't feel like that forever. And the only other thing I would say is echo Hadley comment about books and podcast. And I would say, find a community, whatever that looks like for you, find other people who are doing this with you, find other people who have given up drinking, talk to them, listen to them, the books and the podcast, all of that stuff. It made you feel so much like you're less alone. You are less alone. But there was a time

in my life where I felt like I was literally only person on this earth who struggled with alcohol the way that I did. And it wasn't until I read my first quitlet book that I realized I wasn't. And then that led to more and that led to online groups and that led to meeting people. And the, There's a ton of us out there, many more than I ever realized. And it can be incredibly helpful when you're early on. Yeah. I love that, Todd. And the way you put it, the way you put it there with that sign,

hits, I'm not drinking and definitely come and ask me about it. Let's make this even more of a struggle for me to figure out. And I mean, that's always interesting too, right? And I think people going into these 31 days is if you are going to advance your situations. I mean, it's summertime, right? things are moving. We're getting together a lot, barbecues, weddings, birthday parties, whatever it is, pool parties. And if you're still going to participate in that stuff, I always suggest to people to have a practice, you know, like you can do it in the mirror,

you can do it with a support partner or something like that to practice about what you're going to say because I know early on, I would just be in this spot where I'm like, do I tell them my whole story? What do I tell them? You know what I mean? And I felt like I just worked it up so much. So thanks for sharing that too. And you shared there too. I mean, Hadley just released her book as well. And then you have a, you're an author too and in everything as well. I mean, it's, that was part, that was such a important part of your journey. And then you flipped it around and in our being that for other people. That's incredible, man. Yes. If you read Hadley's book and you read my book, everything will be fine. Yeah. Man, let's just wrap the podcast up there, man. We're done.

Yeah. Beautiful, Megan, what, what do you got for somebody's start now. Gosh, well, definitely get Hadley's book because I'm loving it so far. So I just want to give a shout out to Hadley in her book. But I always say it's okay to lay low while you're getting your shit together. All right. So you might stay in for all of July. You might not go to any parties or events or gatherings or whatever it might be. And that's okay. It's one July. It's one summer. You know, you don't have to think about I got to stay in for the rest of my life and be like a hermit or, you know, that it's okay. Because what you're doing is going to just have some. You know, you don't have such huge impact on the rest of your life. So it's sit it out. Just say I'm not coming this year. I'm

going to be here at the cookout, you know, and not saying to sit home by yourself and feel all, you know, sad about it, but to just not put yourself into those types of situations when you're not quite ready yet. And that if you do go is to be really proud because many people who drink have a really complicated relationship with alcohol. And like Todd said, you could feel like the fish out of water, like everybody's staring at you, like, why aren't they drinking? But they're not. They're actually really curious about how the heck you're doing it. How are you doing it? How are you at this party? When everybody else is drinking, you're the only one that's not. They are probably really like almost envious because they're struggling alone in silence like we all did for so long. So feel proud

of it. Feel proud of the fact that you're not drinking, that you're taking a 31 day break or whatever it might be in that when someone does ask is to, you know, I always say stand up really tall and proud and just say, I'm not drinking. And yeah, you don't have to get into your whole, all the dirty details of it all. You can just say I'm not drinking right now and I feel great. I'm just taking a break. And then people, they may ask you more questions and want to know, but it's not so much to be, you know, to air your dirty laundry. They want to know all that. They're curious because they're struggling themselves. So you can be that person that almost gives them that opportunity to take a look at their own relationship and it could change their life. And then they could come back and say,

hey, thank you for that, for almost just giving me saying it's okay to take a break. Something else, I want to say that is going to really be helpful for you is to join a support group during this time. And I mean, I still am part of groups because for me, it's really important to, and especially in those early days, to have other people to say, hey, is this normal? Are you going through this as well? Or I have this thing coming up, but I'm nervous. And then what should I do? Did anybody else, have you gone through something like this? So having support and other people who get it, because your family and friends and love doing it all that, they can do whatever they can, you know, as much as they can to try to support you. But at the end of the day,

if they don't struggle with this themselves, then they don't know. So having a support group is going to literally be a game changer for you during this time. Yeah, beautiful. I love that. It's okay to sit stuff out. I feel like we feel that pressure to do stuff. And even if you do go to things, I hear people utilizing this tool a lot early on is that you just leave when things get a bit heavy. So if you do go to events, maybe, I mean, I was the kind of closer for things, right, until the taps turned off. That was my position, especially if it was on the house. And in sobriety, it's, you know, I mean, 9, 10 o'clock when things start getting a little bit iffy, right? Like, I'm out of there.

And I don't go around all the time and say goodbye to everybody and make it this big thing. I'm just, I'm out. I'll see you guys later. And I always thought early on that everybody would notice that. What I realized is never once did anybody ask about why I left early and nobody noticed. This didn't matter. So great stuff. Incredible things so far.

John, is there anything left, man? Man, I got to stop going after Megan. She's stealing all my stuff. No. But yeah, just to follow that up, realizing that everybody's journey is different and every person is different. And for me, how it was for me, is stay busy. I have to do something. You know, I did the cold plunges in the winter. I have to work out. I have to take my kids out of the house and do something with them. Just stay busy. I have the person. I have the person. where it's almost like, I'm going to be addicted to things that are good for me or bad for me. And I have to choose. So obviously I'm choosing the good things and just get obsessed with something. Definitely find a support group. Definitely. You know, dry July is a hard month, but it's also an easier month in that you have more opportunities to stay busy. Right. It's usually some. outside you can go to a pool you can you can go places and just stay busy go hiking something just get your mind off of it because boredom for me was an easy trigger to get right back into it your life's gonna you know look

different the day-to-day yeah you're not gonna be the closer anymore I relate to that I was the closer of all closers you know I was a closer by myself but you know just take it day by day. I love the day by day. You're going into dry July, but take it day by day. Don't think of the end. Think of July 1st, July 2nd, July, you know, day by day and stay busy. Just find something that you can get obsessed with. Yeah. Hey, I love when you talk about the cold plunging, man, because my shower turned a little bit cold this morning and I jumped out of it. It's terrible, it gets the job done real quick.

Yeah, and I love that too because back when you were sharing, you need to feel something, right? You need to feel something. And I think that's why so many people gravitate to exercise or you hear a lot of people sharing about a 20-minute walk or maybe a two-hour walk about just moving our body. And I think a lot of it has to do with those habits. And the things that we just got used to rinse and repeating. And we have to make changes in that sense. In the cold plunging, we'll do that. And a lot of other things.

That's an incredible list of things we can do. I'm wondering too on a bigger scope here, right? Because somebody's starting this whole thing out. It can be an overwhelming journey and everybody has different goals and a different vision for themselves. What are some of the most surprising or unexpected benefits that you've realized from living a sober life? You know, because I'll just share for me, I got into this whole thing to avoid a lot of the consequences I was experiencing. in my life. It was really painful, it was really dark, it was really sad. It was really the same thing over and over again. And I didn't recognize who I saw in the mirror. And I was like,

I want all that to stop. But I was really naive to say my whole life was going to change. And I know that's a little bit dramatic. But I was like, I did not expect to where I was to where I'm at today for so many things in my life to change to really become an entirely different person way of thinking, a way of perceiving the world, goals, and starting a family. Like, these things were never on my bucket list. I never, when I was growing up to I was about 25, 26 years old, I never thought of starting a family or getting married or going to college. You know, none of these things were on my radar and that all completely changed.

And what I coined it all up to was like sobriety. You know, without that, like, I'm an all or nothing guy. I think a lot of us who get sober, we have a lot of those traits, right? all or nothing. And that's why when we get sober, we put those superpowers to good. And we've created a ton of good stuff, especially here. But what would you say has been some of the most surprising or unexpected benefits of living sober? We'll start out with Megan. I knew you're going to start out with me. I don't know why. Oh, gosh. I mean, the list can go on and on. But I would say the biggest surprise and I was pleasantly surprised is the mental

stability. I was very unpredictable in my mood, everything about, you know, it could be highs, lows, and now I'm pretty like pretty even keeled. You know, you know what you're going to get with me. And that's really nice, especially when it comes to relationships, because I've been in a long-term relationship. And back when I was drinking, I would literally end the relationship like every other week. Like, I don't know how he actually stayed with me because I just felt really crappy about myself. and I didn't have the skills to like work through things or actually talk about things if they bothered me. And so now I'm able to deal with them in real time. And so I guess just being predictable in my moods.

And I, you know, I still struggle with depression and especially in the winter months, but it's nothing of what it used to be like during my drinking days. And so there's just so much. But I would definitely say like mental health, you know, I just didn't want to feel hungover anymore. And I didn't want to feel like sad and I didn't want to be obsessing over alcohol. That was really like why I quit. But I got so much more out of it.

And just the, you know, the stableness in my mental health was a huge surprise. And that's what keeps me from ever going back because I know if I have one drink, I will go back to that feeling and go back to that, you know, just chaoticness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Megan. Todd. Well, I think along the lines are what Megan just talked about.

I have a sense of an internal peace and calm that I've never had before, that I didn't know I needed and I didn't know existed. You know, if you would have asked me while I was drinking, you know, how was your self-esteem? I would have said, I think my self-esteem is pretty good. But what I realized after I stopped was the drinking and the internal battle that I went through and I didn't drink every day. I was mainly a weekend drinker and a social drinker, but I obsessed about it too.

I thought about it all the time. I drank more than I wanted to, more often than I wanted to. I mean, I'd wake up in the next morning and go through that whole shame cycle. And that took its toll on me more than I realized. And so when I quit, to be able to shed all of that

and leave that behind, and it didn't happen overnight, but once it started happening, I mean, it felt like I took a backpack full of like boulders up my back. And I just felt lighter and I felt better about myself. And I thought, there's a whole new way of living out there that I didn't even know existed until I quit. And it's so much better than what I was doing before that that's what keeps me from, you know, dwelling on going back and why, you know, I know you're not supposed to say this, but I can't imagine ever going back because the way I'm doing life now is so much better. And I enjoy it so much more than I did as a drinker.

And I used to love to drink. I mean, I used to love drinking. And this is so much better. It's just the piece of my calmness that, again, I didn't know was, I didn't know I needed. I didn't know what was out there. And the other thing is, you know, I've got four kids. And when I quit, my oldest was 14. And our second was 13.

So they were both at the age where they knew when adults were drunk and they knew when I was drunk. And that was really starting to bother me. The fatherhood stuff really weighed on me. And my dreamy made me feel like I wasn't being the best dad I could be. I knew I wasn't being the best dad I could be. And that bothered me a lot. That bothered me on a different level than when I woke up the next day

and was mad at myself for getting too drunk the night before. When it involved my kid, I could BS. my way out of that. But when it involved my kids, I couldn't run from that. I couldn't BS my way out of that. And so the effect has had on just my relationship with my kids, but how I feel and how I view myself as a dad now is so much better than before. It's just a different level of being there and being present and a different level of contentment and peace and happiness. Well said, Todd. And I can relate with a lot of that too. When you're going through it, it starts to be feeling all right. Yeah, people ask you, how's your self-esteem? How's your confidence? How are things? And it's not that they're always in the

gutter, but it's just, things just seem to skyrocket on the other side. It's tough, man. Love that, dude. John, what are you thinking? Yeah. So for the longest time, I thought I was like a functioning drug addict and a functioning alcoholic because, you know, I did all my stuff that I was supposed to do. I showed up to work no matter what. And then when I got sober, the amount of presents that I had for everything and how much I can get done now without stressing myself out is amazing. And the mornings are amazing. They, I'm just aware. Like, the feeling is hard to explain, but I'm just so aware. Like, I appreciate like nature. You know, I see like a blue Jay and it's amazing, you know, and it's just stuff that I'm realizing that I never realized before

because I'm in this tornado of trying to manage my addiction, trying to be a present father, present husband, work really hard. And it's just this tornado. I didn't listen to people very well. Even when we were partying, I'm like, I just want to talk. Let me talk. You know, I'm feeling a good buzz right now. Let me talk. And my wife would always say that. You don't let anybody talk.

You like, I'm like, I don't even know what they're saying. I'm not listening. It's about me, you know? And now it's, she loves that about me now that I listen. And when we're at gatherings and with friends, I'm just so much more present. I'm way more present with my kids. Um, fortunately, unfortunately, when I was drinking a lot, they were really young, you know, like toddlers, a little older, my oldest, but now that they're getting into where I can really

spend that one-on-one time with them and talk to them and they're saying such cool things, I'm just so glad I'm as present as I am because I don't think I would be, you know, so, yeah, just that feeling of presence, how it's really supposed to be is addicting. I'm addicted to that. I'm addicted to the sunrise and at nighttime, just me and my daughter look at the stars and stuff. I'm like, I don't know if I've ever experienced this since like when I was a little kid, you know? And it's amazing. So that was the biggest, whoa moment for me.

Yeah, beautiful, John. Thank you. Hadley, what are you thinking? I mean, I hear myself in everything that has been said so far. And an analogy I like to use as when I was in like fifth or sixth grade, my vision had gotten really bad. But my parents didn't believe me because when I was younger, I had lied because I wanted glasses and they took me to the eye doctor. And the eye doctor was like, your vision's fine. Well, this time my vision really was bad.

And my parents didn't believe me. So I finally went and got glasses and I got them and I put him on. And on the way home, I started crying because I could see the leaves on the trees. You know, before it had just been this like big green blur, blonde. and now I could actually see the leaves. And I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize how much I was missing. And that's what this has felt like, right? There were the obvious benefits that I was expecting. I didn't want to be hung over anymore. I knew I finally had realized that a big chunk of my mental health struggles with anxiety and depression were tied to my drinking. Those were the

benefits I was expecting. But the ones that I wasn't expecting, so much like what Todd said, And it was this overwhelming sense of peace that I didn't know I had been missing the way I drank. And similarly, I was mostly a social drinker. I was a weekend warrior, but blacked out a lot of time when I drank. It was unpredictable and chaotic. And it brought this level of stress to my life and shame, right? What was a big part of that cycle? And if you had asked me, if I felt peaceful, I would have been like peaceful. I don't know. What does that even mean? But in surprise, I realized that there was this overwhelming sense of peace that was so powerful and so unexpected. The other thing was it really impacted my confidence in so many ways. Like others have said, the ability to be able to trust myself in any situation. It made me confident, again, And in a way that I didn't realize I was lacking. I didn't realize how much that cycle of shame and regret and self-loathing,

how much impact it had on me along the way until I closed that chapter. And then I realized I was a much more confident person. And again, huge impact on me as a parent as well. And my boys are teenagers now. and an unexpected benefit is that I am able to have really powerful conversations with them about alcohol and the kinds of situations they're going to face in a way that I would not have been able to before. Before it would have been this do as I say, not as I do thing. And how would I have these tough conversations when I'm, you know, maybe blacking out on the weekend or they see me drinking with all of our friends? I'm able to talk about alcohol and drugs and all of these things in a way with them.

Again, I'm not naive enough to think that they're never going to drink, but the level of honesty and frankness that it's brought to those conversations is huge. And also going into these teenage years knowing that they will be able to depend on me in any situation, right? I always Oh, call me if you need a ride, no questions asked, well, what if I had been a bottle of wine deep on a Saturday night and they needed a ride home. And again, it comes back to confidence, just knowing that I'm the parent that can be trusted and counted on and they always know what they're going to get. That has been really big for me. Yeah, wow, beautiful. Great share there. Great stuff that some of the unexpected benefits of making this choice of sobriety. I'm thinking here too,

somebody's getting into July and this is a million dollar question. maybe. Do they share with other people? If you tell anybody that this is what you're doing, hey guys, for your friends or for your partners or husbands, wives, whoever it may be, do we mention it? I'm curious to see how you guys went about it in the beginning. Did you talk with people and let them know, hey, this is the journey I'm on? Or did you want to get a few days under your belt first? So maybe to avoid, hey, it didn't work out and those tough conversations? Who wants to start with that one? Todd? whatever feels right for you is the way to go

and everyone's different. I'd say what, I do think generally it helps that at least one other person knows because you sort of got an accountability partner in your life, someone who's going to understand and be supportive. You know, it's up to you. Whatever feels the right way to handle it, I didn't run from it.

I didn't really hide it. You know, my family knew, But I also, you know, I quit the October before COVID hit. So once COVID hit that following March, you know, things shut down and I wasn't dealing with social situations for a while where I had to go through that, which was nice in hindsight. But before that, I went through those conversations. I would rehearse a hundred different conversations before we went out imaginary in my head, most of which never happened, but that didn't stop me from spending a lot of time on it.

And I would always tell people, you know, I'm just, I'm taking a break to see how it goes and see how I feel. And I found one comment that kind of just stops the conversation if you want to stop it is just say, yeah, I'm taking a break. And it's really been an improvement for everything in my life. You know, how does someone come back and say, are you sure, you know, after you said, this is improving every part of my life right now? It's really hard for someone to come back and say, are you sure you want to do this? And, you know, this got brought up at the beginning, but what I know now is there will be people around you who are looking at you. And they may not say anything, but they are admiring what you're doing. And they're wondering, they're thinking in their head, how is she doing that?

Or how is he doing that? And the negative comments you get from people, as we know now, that's all about them. And that's because it's shining a uncomfortable light on them. Those were comments that I would have made back in the day when I was, you know, much more immature and a little juvenile about people's drinking habits. I would have made certain comments like that because at a very core level, the idea of someone quitting drinking, you know, was threatening to me and would make me uncomfortable. And so in order to avoid that, I'd say, where, it's stupid.

Why would you ever do something like that? Instead of looking inward and examining why that made me uncomfortable. You know, I would say how much you reveal and who you tell is completely up to you. And all that matters is it's something that works for you. Yeah, I love that. Love that. John, what do you think? What approach did you take early on?

Yeah, I mean, this is definitely the individual how you want to go about it. But I will say, for me, when I didn't tell anybody, I never succeeded at it. And it was scary to tell somebody because that was like a commitment thing. and if I told somebody and it was usually my wife or maybe a friend if say I'm like two weeks into it I'm like yeah no I'm not and then they'll see me next weekend and I am then that was scary to me because then it was showing them that I had a problem and I didn't want anybody to know that or to put that out there when I wouldn't tell anybody and then I would be oh you want to go over to our friend's house yeah sure yeah definitely breaking it

You know, because no one knew that I wanted to even do that. And the most successful months and eventual sobriety is when I verbally communicated that I was going to do it. And I had to follow through with it. But that's just me. Everybody's different. Yeah, I love that. And I mean, for sure, the two of you have touched on. I mean, it's an individual choice for each person, what you want to do.

But, I mean, I think there's a lot of power. and even like sharing it with one person because it really makes it real and it's that accountability that in my life I was avoiding that a word accountability and responsibility I was like no so find somebody else for that stuff that sounds like for grownups I was avoiding any of that stuff and what I realized too when I taught with people about hey you know I thought I had some people fooled with how things were or how thing where and when I talk with them you know especially my mom right because my my mom watched me through this whole disastrous process and supported me until she could no longer support me financially emotionally. It just became too much. It was too much of a disaster. So she pulled back from it.

The absolute right thing to do, in my opinion, she should have done it a lot sooner. But when I talked with her about it, you know, it was like everybody already knows, you know, what's going on and where you're at. And that was like what I worked up in my own head is like the shame and the embarrassment of like, how am I going to share with everybody? But then it was when my mom told me that. I was like, oh my gosh, you know, so much relief because everybody already knows. She's, yeah, I mean, in one way or another, you know, like, everybody knows. Like, you've been getting in trouble for years. And I just felt like so much comfort in that to know that the secret was out and I didn't have to put it out there. And it was just great. But Megan, what do you think?

How did you approach it? Well, I feel like I've always been an open book. I've never been, like, really secretive person. So where I didn't fully announce it. it to the world, I also wasn't really hiding it. I'd say the people closest to me knew I had been taking breaks and like wanting to quit. And I didn't know like the last time I drank, I didn't know that was going to be the last time I drank, you know, I didn't know. So sometimes when you don't know, you know, it's not like you're going to shout it from the rooftops. But what I think is important is to know your audience. When you're going to be sharing, don't share it with someone that you know is not going to be supportive because you know who they are. You know who the people in your life that are

going to be like bully on board and supportive. And then the people that are and that are going to be trying. And usually those are the ones that you're drinking with are going to probably not be so supportive because now they're going to lose their drinking buddy or whatever it might be. So know your audience. That's really important. And I was actually going to say what John had said was when we don't tell people, ask ourselves why. Why aren't you sharing with people? Is it so you can protect it? Are you only telling certain people so that you're leaving that door open so that you can drink in case they invite you out. And when you do that, you're only hurting yourself, you know, when you're not being open and honest with people in your life. And so I think when we can

take a look closer at ourselves and be, you know, wondering, why aren't we being open about this? We could say, oh, I'm private. But is it really because now once you tell someone it's accountability and they're going to be checking on you, hey, have you drank? And so I think what happens a lot of times is that we don't share because we're not ready and we don't want to be held accountable and we don't want to, you know, let people down. So I think that's just going to be really important. But again, be proud to share it when you are ready and to not be ashamed. It's not a punishment to be sober. It's a power move. It is something that is positive. It's nothing to be ashamed of. And again, most people, they want to stop drinking. They have a complicated relationship.

and that they've probably been, you know, questioning themselves or trying to take breaks. So I think just knowing your audience is going to be really important. But I mean, I started my social media account when I was six months sober. And so I've been obviously very open about it. And I will tell you that I think if it wasn't for that, I may have gone back to drinking because I felt this, you know, people who were watching, people were invested to in my sobriety. So for me, personally, I'm not saying everybody has to go out and start a sober account, but it was that extra layer of protection that I needed.

On the days when I was still struggling at six, eight months sober, I would think about these people that I was talking with online, these strangers, and it would keep me from, you know, from drinking that night. So if you find yourself not being able to string together days, like maybe that's a way to do it. Oh, so much great stuff there. Yeah, and though the people find to people that are supportive, and that can help you if you choose to go that route of everything

and you don't have to tell people your entire story and one day and you can just say this is what I'm trying out. And yeah, Hadley, what was your approach? So like everyone has said so far, it was important to me to tell people because I needed that sense of accountability. But similarly to like dry July, I wasn't doing a dry month.

I decided I woke up. after with a hangover and I knew that was it for me but I didn't know how to articulate that. I wasn't ready to like it sounded crazy to come out to my husband that morning and say, guess what? I've decided that I'm never going to drink again, right? What the heck are you talking about? And nobody in my life, even my husband, really knew how much I struggled with this at all. I had done a masterful job of tucking it all down deep inside and keeping it to myself. So that morning in bed, I decided that my alibi, if you will, was going to be 75 hard, that kind of wellness challenge.

I'm not suggesting this is like a great approach or whatever, but I was a fitness coach for a long time. It was really in line with how I lived my life already. The only thing different really would have been checking that box for no alcohol I've thanked. And so that was like the alibi that I needed it. And it was 75 days. so it was a longer amount of time. And so I felt better telling people, hey, I'm not drinking for this 75 days. I'm going to try this. I really feel like I need it. And it felt easier to say that than to say, I woke up on Sunday morning and decided that I'm never going to drink again. And so I was able to gather my thoughts, get my shit together, as Megan said, over those 75 days. And I knew really early on in that, that was indeed it for me. And I know, you know, we go one day at a time. and all of that. But I just knew something so fundamental shifted in me that day that I knew that was going to be it. So I slowly started talking about it on a deeper level and started opening up

about the fact that it wasn't just going to be 75 days. I was going to keep going and I was going to see where it took me. And the interesting part about all of this is that I was a health and fitness coach. So I was already very visible online. I shared a lot of myself out there, but I had built my whole kind of persona around being this marathon running mom who also loved her wine. So I was like deep in the mommy wine culture BS. Like I shared all the memes. I did wine workouts. I mean, it makes me fringe when I think about it. So there was this huge shift where all of a sudden I started sharing. on my page, hey, I'm doing this thing. Hey, I'm not actually drinking right now and I feel like a new person and these are the change that I'm starting to see. And some people were like, what the hell? I was here for the squats and the healthy recipes. What are you talking about? But I was amazed by how many people said, oh my gosh, me too. I feel the same way or I've had those same thoughts. So it goes back to that. You think you're alone and you're not. But Putting it out there like that in that way also helped keep me accountable.

And as I told my friends more over time and explained that this was going to be an ongoing thing, and it was a huge shift for me, I tried to start setting boundaries with that and explaining what I needed in terms of support, even when it was, I don't know what I need, right? I told them that. It was asking the right people, like Megan said, hey, I need you to support me. this. I don't know exactly what I mean, but I just want you to be there. Keep inviting me to things, even if I say no for a while, that kind of stuff. But the more people that knew about it, it fueled me and gave me strength and it held me accountable. Like we've all said, it really

comes back to that. Yeah. Great. Thank you. So what I'm hearing across the board here is that, of course, the individual decides what they want to do. But with that said, we hear the these stories here where everybody approached it a little bit different, but I think it's a common thing essentially to share with other people. And I think one of the things I reflect back on, too, is that other people aren't mind readers as much as I would like for them to be sometimes. And they don't always know what was going on with me or how I was feeling or what I was working through. And if they didn't know, then they weren't able to provide that support in the relationship or in the friendship that really helped me out. And I found when I was able to break down those walls,

those barriers, get it in my own way, step over the fear of what are they going to think. They opened up their arms. They gave me a hug and they were like, let's do this thing. You know, it wasn't how I envisioned it. I want to wrap things up here. You guys have been incredible too. Every round of applause for the panel here. And I really appreciate you guys making time on this Friday to do this. I want to wrap up with just sending somebody off into their dry July or not everybody who listens to this episode is going to be in a dry July,

but they're going to be somewhere on the journey. They're going to be curious about it. I mean, what's some mantras that have helped you on your journey? What are some, maybe a quote or really something that's stuck out and really kept you motivated on this path? So we'll start with Megan. Yeah, I love mantras, affirmations, whatever you want to call them. They've been really helpful for me. I actually, when I was first getting sober at the end of 2020, I set up a few that would pop up in my phone throughout the day.

And they still are there. and they still pop up as reminders. And the first one was never question the decision. Love this one because I feel like we make this choice to get sober. And then our brain can tell us it wasn't a good choice and we should go back. You know, reminding ourselves, don't question that decision that we made in that moment. So that one's good. I love, I am my best self when I am sober.

I love I'm a badass sober woman. I mean, I could go on and on. There's so many, but those are definitely my favorites for sure. John, what do you got for us? Keep showing up. Simple, straight to the point. It's what really, it was a reminder for me just with everything in life, but definitely with this sobriety journey that it's a reminder that it's one day at a time. It's a reminder that you're going to have bad days and brush it off.

Tomorrow's a new day and you keep showing up. But also, I love helping people. Like, it feels amazing to, like, really help somebody's life. And, Brad, I think you've said it, too. It's like a known quote in the sobriety world. We recover out loud so others don't have to be in silence or something like that. And that was big for me, too, because I can't tell you how many people online, but also in person that have.

come up to me and said, you know, I'm getting sober because of what you said and I just related to that and that keeps me knowing that I'm going to keep going. And, you know, people can say whatever they want, but it's the actions that really make the difference. That's what makes people say, hey, how did you do that or, you know, you motivated me. Just thinking about that and then obviously thinking about my own children and being an example to them as they get older, it just keeps me going. So that's all I got. Yeah, I love that, man.

Keep showing up. Todd, what are you thinking? So I'll give you one that I developed through experience. And that is, none of the bad things happened. And I have a chapter in my book called None of the Bad Things Happened. And it's a list of all the negative things I thought we're going to have. happen if I quit drinking, that I was afraid we're going to happen if I quit drinking. You know, things like, I'm going to lose friends, never going to be invited anywhere, I'm going to become super

boring, never. My kids might argue with that one. They might say that I am super boring, but, you know, vacations aren't going to be any fun. Travel's not going to be fun. All this fun stuff that I like doing is no longer going to be fun. And none of those things turned out to be true. And all of the things that I thought, that I was convinced that I wasn't going to enjoy doing anymore, I enjoyed much more doing sober than I did the drinking version. So none of the bad things happened. The other thing I'll say is the idea of quitting drinking once seemed impossible to me, literally impossible. I don't want to do it. Why would you ever do that? That's crazy. And I did it. and it's turned out to be the best decision I've ever made for me and my family.

And there's a connection there, like easy decisions and things that are easy don't have big payoffs. The stuff we do that seems hard in the moment, those are the ones with the payoff. And I've never made a decision in my life that's had as big of a positive impact in my life as quitting drinking. Mike drop, the fire right there. Thank you, Todd. Yeah, that's great. great, man. That's really great. I mean, insightful. All this stuff that I feel holds us back probably for years for making this decision about how we envision things playing out. And then, yeah, down the road, it's, well, none of that came to life, you know? Yeah. Thanks for sharing at Hadley. We'll finish

up with- How do I follow that? So for me, it always has come back to the reminder that I deserve better than the life that alcohol was offering me. It was, you know, asking myself the question, was alcohol holding me back from living my best life? Was it helping me or was it hurting me? And it was when I really sat back and analyzed, it was a very simple answer. Alcohol was the one thing that was standing between me and the life that I deserved and I wanted and I knew I was capable of. And reminding myself of that is always a motivator still to this day. Yeah, those are heavy questions. Great place to start when examining things, right? What is it? Get to the nitty gritty, right? Get in that UFC octagon and battle it out. I mean, is this really bringing anything to my life? And I think at the

end of the day that we realize that it's taking. It's just taking and taking. I love the thing. I put up something recently about, you know, sober people just tried one more time. And I think it's very easy for us to just beat ourselves up, you know, about it didn't work out. I'm not where I want to be. It's never going to be for me, but the reality is I can relay with Megan. I didn't know the last drink I was going to have was going to be my last drink. It wasn't the play. That wasn't the plan. I woke up that next day and I was just like, you know what? I'm try again. And I try it again. And that's all it was. It wasn't any disastrous night. It wasn't anything overly complicated. It was a pretty standard night. It was probably not even a bad time. And I think we just got to give

ourselves some grace and keep going. I want you guys to give a little thing here at the end where people can find you if they want to follow up some projects you're working on and stuff like that real quick. So we'll start with Megan. Go ahead, Megan. Okay. So you can find me mostly on Instagram, Soba Sisters. And you can find me also in the Sober Buddy community. community, Brad and I there. So if you're looking for a community to join for dry July or just at all, you can check us out there. I'm also doing a dry July group. So if you're looking to do that as well, you could do that. And yeah, just send me a DM on Instagram. Say hi. Let me know you listen to this episode. I'd love to hear from you. Todd. So my book is called, I didn't believe it either. One dad's discovery that everything is better without alcohol. You can find that on Amazon or Todd Kinney.com. Beautiful, man. Yeah, incredible book. I got one from Todd a while back, and Todd gave me this really nice note in there, his

signature and everything. So, guys, we got to make this huge so that I can get a big payday, you know, put that in a museum someday. It's coming to do, Brad. It's coming to you. Just keep waiting. Love it, man. You know, incredible stuff and you share it, too.

I mean, I love the title, right? I didn't believe it either. Great stuff, man. And thank you so much for hanging out today. John. Yeah, I am the Tire Dad on. on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Tired Dad. Dot, there it is, there it is.

Like the color scheme too.com for all merch. And link to my podcast, the Tired Dad podcast, which I started right after I was on the Sober Motivation podcast. And Brad, thank you for helping me out, all the technical stuff, giving me advice. And that's about it. That's where you can find me. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, yeah, but check it out. I'm so happy you started the podcast.

I even when you came on here, too, just the, you got that radio voice, man. So great stuff. Oh, thank you. Hadley, where we can find you afterwards. Sure. So you can find me on Instagram at Hadley underscore Sorensen or my website is hadleysorensen.com. My book is the dirty truth on social drinking, everything in moderation and other BS. and you can find that on my website or on Amazon.

And Megan said, send me a DM. If you're out there on Instagram, if you've listened, anything resonated, I love hearing from folks. And I can't wait to check out Todd's book because I feel like our stories are really similar. So I'm excited to read it next. Yeah. Well, yeah, thank you again, everybody. I mean, incredible stuff.

We covered a ton of ground. And like I mentioned before, I appreciate your time and your wisdom and your insights. I really love doing these panels because every time I do them, I'm like, man, you know a lot less than you maybe think you do. And it's so great to bring everybody together with the insights. And, you know, everybody who tries to get sober, I think that there's a lot of years before that look a lot different for all of us. And it's, I think it's really easy and common in some circles to just give this cookie cutter approach. This is the way you do it, and this is what works. But without realizing what brought us to where we are,

today. And that's why I love bringing people together to where we get that mix of things that work. And it's not to say one way's right and one way's wrong. But our goals here, I think, are the same, is to just stay sober, live our best lives, improve our relationships and our connections, and just be productive out there. So thanks again, everyone. Well, there it is another incredible special guest episode. And the audio that we usually have here on the podcast didn't really translate over to this episode. We have five people on the call recording it so you can only imagine what that look like. But I think overall it turned out well. The information and the content is there. Great insights from all of our guests. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to reach out to

them. I'll drop their Instagrams down in the show notes below. Let them know you appreciate it. And I'll see you on the next one.