Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Nicole’s Sobriety Story: Anxiety, Alcoholism, Rehab, and Rebuilding After Rock Bottom

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

In this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, Brad sits down with Nicole to share a powerful and honest sobriety story. Nicole grew up in California in a home affected by alcoholism, struggled with anxiety and a deep sense of not belonging, and discovered early that alcohol could instantly change the way she felt. What started as weekend drinking eventually became daily drinking, secrecy, relationship chaos, and escalating consequences.   Nicole opens up about how she used alcohol for energy, confidence, and relief—until it stopped working and her life hit a devastating turning point in July 2022. She shares what finally created true willingness, why her first rehab stay didn’t stick, and how treatment, sober living, meetings, sponsorship, and rebuilding trust helped her stay sober. Today, Nicole is approaching four years sober, has rebuilt her relationship with her family, and is focused on living a life rooted in connection, service, and self-respect.   If you’ve ever wondered how to get sober, how to stop secret drinking, or how to rebuild after relapse, this episode will hit home. ------------- Nicole on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cargonicole/

Welcome back to season five of the Sober Motivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We're here to show sobriety as possible. One story at a time. Let's go. Today I'm sitting down with Nicole from the Sacramento area. Nicole shares what it was like growing up in a home impacted by a parent's alcoholism, feeling on the outside from a young age, and how alcohol became her fast-track to relief

until it slowly took everything. We talk about anxiety, validation, relationship addiction, secrecy. In the moment, she hit a life or death turning point that created real willingness. Nicole walks us through rehab, sober living, rebuilding trust,

getting her kids back, and what recovery looks like now, five teenagers in the house and a life she's genuinely proud of. If you've ever thought, I'll grow out of it, or I just need to control it, this one will land for you.

And this is Nicole's story on the Sober Motivation Podcast. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Nicole with us. Nicole, how are you? I'm doing good, Brad. How are you? Yeah, I'm doing well. I'm glad we could connect.

I feel like it's been a long time coming for you to jump on here and share your story with all of us. Yeah, I've been listening to the podcast for quite a while now, probably two years, I guess, and joined your community recently. but yeah, it's nice to be a part of something. Yeah. So what was it like for you growing up? So I grew up in California.

I've lived here my whole life. I had one sister that I grew up with, and I had two parents in the home that were married until I was around 17. At that point, my parents divorced. My dad struggled with alcoholism. So he, you know, that was the biggest part of their, divorce, the reasoning for their divorce. I would say my childhood was fairly normal. My sister and I went to private Catholic school. My mom works a very professional job.

My dad was a correctional officer. So like we always had what we needed. But with my dad's alcoholism, there was a lot of turmoil inside the walls of our home. And outside the walls of our home, my parents acted like different people together. You know, we'd go to a, like, my parents had a big social life. So we'd go to someone's house for, say, a barbecue. And they didn't act the same way that they did inside the house. And that was probably pretty confusing as a child. It was more about the making everything look good to other people where I knew deep down inside that that wasn't how it was at home. So yeah, so that's how I grew up. Yeah, where about in California did you grow up? I live in the general Sacramento area, the greater Sacramento area.

Yeah, that's where you've always kind of been. Yeah. Yeah, I've gone up and down, you know, a little bit east and a little bit west, you know, but I've pretty much stayed in the same general area within about a 30 mile radius. Oh, wow. Okay, got you. What, like at what age, I mean, kind of growing up with the things going on at home? I mean, is there a certain time you feel like you kind of picked?

up on maybe the differences of things at home and outside of the home and, you know, drinking being a thing or no? Like, do you know? I'm not sure that I could pinpoint an age that I was, but I do know that when I was in second grade, I got called into the counselor's office. And he asked me a really simple question, which was just, how come you don't play with the other kids at recess? And I said, well, I don't think they like me. And he said, why do you think that? And I said, I don't know. And no one had ever said anything mean or harsh to me. No one had ever done anything. I grew up with these kids like in a private school like that. You're with the same kids from kindergarten through eighth grade. So I just didn't feel a part of their group. And that has been a feeling I've had since I was really small, you know, just kind of feeling on the outside of everybody's fun, everybody's connectedness. And so I don't know if that stemmed from the way I, grew up and what was going on in my home or not, but I could guess that maybe it had something to do with it. But it also could just be who I was born as, you know. Yeah, which is interesting you bring it up

because I hear a lot of people talk about, you know, sort of, you know, that sense of belonging, maybe not being there or kind of fitting in and, you know, making sense of that from such a young age too. So that's kind of one of your earlier memories there in second grade. Did you feel it as well? Like, did you feel like kind of, I don't know if outsiders the right word, but not connected with your peers, like even, you know, in second grade? Yeah, I definitely didn't feel connected to them. I didn't really know that I could put words to it. But when I just said to him, like, I don't know. And then he asked me about how was my life at home. I just burst into tears. And I could, I was inconsolable. I couldn't stop crying yet to call my mom. And I still couldn't put words. to what that meant, but I just knew something wasn't like, it didn't feel right.

Yeah, yeah. So how do things look for you kind of moving forward through that? I mean, is that the school you went to all the way until eighth grade, you said? Yeah. So I would continue to see that counselor through the rest of my six years there on a regular basis. And I think that was helpful, you know, to have a third party to talk to about what was going on in my life outside of, you know, school, what was going on at home. And also, you know,

we would chat about what was going on at school. So that was definitely helpful in terms of like when I started drinking, I was about 12 the first time. Like I had a blackout. So that was still in grade school. It was at a family party for Christmas. And I got completely blackout drunk. And I remember thinking like the next day that I shouldn't drink so much the next time, but that I couldn't wait to do it again. And in that moment, like at that party when I was drinking and I like all those inhibitions, like all the anxiety that I felt that like the things that I would talk to the counselor about, the things I felt at school where I didn't feel like I could just walk up to a group of kids and be like,

hey, can I hang out? Hey, can I play? Like all of those feelings disappeared when I had alcohol. And so I loved that feeling. Yeah. And that was when you were 12. How does that come about? I mean, I think it, I mean, I think like maybe parents too before and maybe it's still this way,

but would say like, hey, you can kind of drink in our presence. We can keep an eye on things. I mean, was that kind of, was that anything how you grew up or how do you? Yeah. So I, my family, I come from a big Italian family. The other side is German, Irish. So they definitely, they did not let us get drunk. But they would let us, you know, have like the little cup of wine with dinner and

things like that. The party that we went to, my parents didn't know I was drinking. They were busy socializing, you know, with their friends. They didn't know that was going on. They would have never condoned that. But they did let us have alcohol in small amounts when we were probably, I would say probably around that age 12, 13, 14 and up. Yeah. How do you connect the dots at 12 years old that alcohol is going to provide some relief? Or did you? Or was it just like I see other people drinking. Like, what was there something that created sort of that interest? When I was younger, I didn't look like my friends. Like, I developed really early. So people always thought I was older than I was. And somebody must have paid attention to me at that party

and offered me a drink that I don't have like a clear memory of it. But I'm, I'm sure that something along those lines is what happened. Somebody paid attention to me because of the way that I looked because I did not look 12. I looked probably. 16, 17, 18. And they offered me a drink and it went from there. Gotcha. And then of course, just like we know the phenomenon of that craving, like once I had that one, I couldn't.

Even that very first time I could not stop. Like, I just drank until I was sick. Yeah. Like the next day or like on weekends or how did it, how did it progress? So obviously at 12, 13 years old, I didn't have regular access to alcohol. So whenever I was, you know, at those barbecues at friends' houses or whatever, I would definitely sneak alcohol. I don't think that I can remember a time that I got blackout like that for many more years. I think that did teach me like, oh, because my parents found out about it, right?

Like they took me home throwing up so they knew about it. So I knew I needed to like pull back a little bit. So I was able to do that at a very young age. And then in high school, it was drinking every weekend whenever I got the chance. I always went to college parties, you know, and hung out with people that were older than me because they could buy alcohol, right? Parties with my friends were like hanging out of the river, like doing dumb kid stuff. And I wasn't interested in that.

I wanted to change the way that I felt. And in order to do that, I needed to be with people that had access to what I wanted, which was alcohol. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that too. So you're in this Catholic school until eighth grade. where do you go to high school at then? So I went to one year of Catholic high school,

but then my family moved about 15 minutes away from there, and I would have been driving myself, like 45 minutes in traffic. My mom didn't think that was a good idea to give a 16-year-old a license, a car, and put her in traffic every day. So I went to our local public high school, which was a mile down the road. So my last four years or my last three years were in public school. And because of the way, that I had been educated in Catholic school, I never opened a book again. I never had to study. I never opened a book in high school in the public high school. I just would show up to class most of the time and take tests and turn in homework. But I never studied. I didn't continue the way that my education had been going, which was really like education was hard for me. It wasn't always easy. I really had to struggle to like perform well. And in public school, it just seemed like things were.

so much more lax and easier, and it was easy for me to get straight A's without really trying. Yeah. Is there anything else that stands out to you in this sort of stretch of your life? I mean, I would assume that there was a bit of a transition there, too, of maybe how things were school for you before and things at home kind of, you know, moving forward there. Is there anything that stands out sort of in your high school years? Yeah. I mean, it was definitely culture shock to go from such small school environments to now I was at a school with three, four thousand kids. I was able to make a couple of quick friends due to like a new student social thing that they did before school started. So I did kind of get my core

group of friends, but they all wanted to party and drink like I did. So that was our connection more than anything was that we could now go and do the thing that I wanted to do, which was get drunk and change the way that I felt. So yeah, it was definitely definitely a different experience. than my primary years being in high school, being in a public high school, being able to find a group of people that wanted to, you know, sharing the same kind of activities I did. Because when I was with those same like 36 kids for nine years, you know, there wasn't much to pull from. There wasn't as much to choose from in terms of a core group of friends. Yeah. So there were 36 kids and then you went, you know, in your class there.

And everybody was together. Yes, this sounds like anyway, this is a big shift, a big change for you. At that time, though, because you mentioned there's something too that I think is very relatable to many is drinking to change the way you feel. I mean, did you connect those dots at the time? I think that I did, honestly, because like I didn't like the way that I felt when I had to do the grind, go to school, go to work, you know, be with my family. But when I was drinking, I liked the way that made me feel and that was different. So I think I definitely did connect that drinking made me feel different and I liked the way that that was better than being sober. How would you describe how you felt when you weren't drinking? I had a lot of anxiety. You know, I just didn't feel like just this

underlying current of anxiety about everything. You know, I was just kind of always nervous. I never felt like I was doing anything good enough. It just in in all aspects, whether it was school or at home or at work or whatever, I just never felt comfortable in my own skin. I just always had this level of anxiety. And I couldn't, I probably couldn't put words to that then. But I just knew that I felt better when I could eliminate that anxiety. Yeah. And I mean, that's one of the things that, you know, for time, alcohol will do a good job with. I think, too, it's so, interesting how people's in people's life i mean this is something i relate to and part of my story is it presented itself at you know the timing was pretty pretty good to sort of check that box

of um it's relatable to me to of feeling uncomfortable and having anxiety always kind of feeling like maybe i was hungry you know kind of fight or flight you feel it in your stomach and your gut um yeah kind of at every turn right like am i going to measure up am i going to do well am i going to fit in you know what and you have those teenage years that they can be so difficult, right? And I would always wonder why it came so easy for some people. They were easy to kind of flow and easy to roll with the punches of sort of life and everything that came in that, you know, maybe that four years stretch. And they did well, but if they didn't do well, they seemed to handle it well, you know?

And then there I was where like, I'm just like, dang, I can't get anything right. I really can't get anything right. So then I think, you know, I did a lot of the same stuff too is really found a friend group that was just, you know, my distraction or my place of escape, you know, and then alcohol comes along. And it's like, wow, I don't have to feel this way anymore. And now people enjoy hanging out with me and I'm the funny guy and I'm connecting with other people. And at the time, consciously, I don't think that I picked up on all of that. But I think subconsciously somewhere it was like, okay, this makes a whole lot of sense. even though I wasn't supposed to be doing it, but it was like, hey, I'll, I'll risk that to have a place to belong and people are enjoying my company.

And, you know, all of this is starting to make a whole lot of sense. But then, you know, like you mentioned there a couple times too, I think when we're young and we're going through it, you can't see the bigger picture. You know, nor do you maybe even want to, right? It's like, I don't even really want to know where this train is headed. Right now, this feels good and this is working for me. how where do you go after high school or do you have any thoughts on that so also in high school i think that my second addiction started which was companionship right so being with men i think i am 42 years old and since my first boyfriend i've been single for three months i've never like i can't i could

never be alone right that sense of being alone in the world was overwhelming once i had my first boyfriend in high school. Like, I never wanted to not have a partner in life anymore. I, after high school, had a boyfriend. The end of high school, he was older than me. He was a few years older than me. I think I was 18 and he was 21. And so I really wanted to go to school and study and have a career. I honestly wanted to be a speech pathologist back then for children. And but hanging out with the boyfriend was way more important. You know, in in our program that I work a 12-step program, we talk about higher power. And I absolutely made that person that was in my life my higher power because like everything was about that person. So I couldn't focus in school. I couldn't be there.

And so I never really, I didn't complete college. I, you know, dabbled and did a few classes. And I was, I felt a lot of anxiety in the classroom because I didn't know anybody and, you know, Again, I had those same feelings of being afraid to be liked, not running to get close to anyone because I didn't know what kind of people these were, were they going to like me? And that rejection is easier if you just don't try. Like if you don't have to get rejected, that's easier than being rejected. And so, yeah, so after high school, you know, I just kind of fell into, I was drinking a lot, you know, on the weekends and hanging out with my boyfriend.

And that was it. That was all I did. That was all I could focus on, just things that made me feel good, which was taking myself out of myself with alcohol and spending time with somebody else. Yeah. And even if you peel back the layers on that, I mean, what boxes, what, like, what boxes do you see that was checking for you as sort of plugging and, you know, leaning all the way into, you know, this, this relationship or it sounds like many relationships, my guess would be sort of as you kind of move forward, did it just offer some sort of distraction or comfort or like, what was it doing for you?

I think it was validation. Like I've always, until coming into sobriety, you know, I always needed outside validation. I could never, never pull validation from inside me or from the things that I was accomplishing. I always needed, you know, somebody else to tell me, you're great, you're doing a good job, you're pretty, I love you. I needed that validation from something outside of myself. And so that I think is where always being in a relationship, they'll, you know, checked that box. My, you know, my parents weren't always happy with me for XYZ reason.

My sister wasn't always, you know, on my team for XYZ reason. But if I had a partner in life, like that person was supposed to be with me in life. And you mentioned it sounds like a lot of relationships. And that's because when that partner wouldn't be on board anymore with building me up, I would be like, all right, I got to find a new one. You know, and I would move on. Yeah. What was your sister there, too?

Is your sister older than you? My sister is five years younger than me. So she's my little baby sister. And we had a pretty close relationship in my 20s. And it struggled in my 30s. And that was that was directly a direct result of my behavior with alcohol. You know, she kind of set up some boundaries. and that was her way of protecting herself.

Yeah. And is anybody in this error of your life picking up on drinking being a problem or are you thinking of like, hey, this, maybe I'm drinking too much? Or does any of that stuff come into the picture or no? So I would say that for myself, I definitely knew that I drank too much. I didn't like the consequence of the next morning, waking up, taking the temperature of whoever I was with, see what I did. the night before. Did I make an ass out of myself? Did I do something stupid? Did I wake up with a black

eye because I tried to jump over the balcony and I fell on my face? You know, so I didn't like those consequences. My dad was an alcoholic as well, like I mentioned earlier. And I spent like a few years, I want to say like between 18 and 21 maybe, we didn't speak at all. I didn't speak to him at all. like I was just angry at him. I think it was me trying to like establish my independence from my parents. And I chose to take my anger out on him for whatever reason. I don't, I don't know. But we were able to rekindle our relationship when I got pregnant with my son.

And I used to drink with my dad. Like I used to drink pretty heavy with my dad. My dad would come over and, you know, get trashed at my house. And I drank a lot with my dad. It wasn't until after my dad died. in 2011, that anyone said anything to me about alcohol. My mom would say things like, you need to slow down. You know how your dad drank.

You know what happened to him. You need to slow down. Everyone's until many years later, would she say you need to quit drinking? It was always you need to slow down. My sister, after a few years of being kind of on the outside of my life, came to my house and I guess it was like a pseudo intervention but not really like her and a close friend of mine came over and they said we're worried about you you you've really got to slow down like we only drink on the weekends now like do you think you can do that and they had no idea how much I was drinking at that time you know that was during the pandemic no I apologize it was right before the pandemic like the very beginning of 2020 and I was drinking around the clock at that time, like 24 hours a day. I had alcohol in my system. But still, even then, like knowing how much I had, you know, kind of screwed up my life,

they still never said, you have to quit drinking, you need to go to rehab or anything like that. So it was always the people in my life would say, you need to slow down. You need to get control of this. Yeah, which is interesting there too, because I feel like there, A lot of people kind of have conversations like that. And I think you bring up sort of the other side of the coin is they're mentioning this to you. And they have absolutely no idea of how much you're actually drinking. So it's like in a sense, it kind of makes sense, I guess, that they're like,

hey, you have to slow down without seeing the full picture. I'm sure if they knew the full picture, they'd say, okay, they're like you have to stop. But I mean, I think we even do really good jobs ourselves and convincing ourselves that like this is normal or maybe other people are doing it or it's not that bad or things are still, I don't know, things are still kind of together or I'm not as bad as so and so. I do notice people, and I don't know if this is part of your story, but I do notice people that have somebody called a family member or call it a friend or work colleague or whoever it is. they'll have maybe somebody in their life that outwardly you can see how much they're drinking or how much they're struggling or whatever and kind of use it as like, hey, I'm not, you know, things aren't looking like they are for, you know, so and so. And that can kind of be like a measuring stick of like maybe where I'm at personally. I feel like when I just jumped. Oh, go ahead.

Yeah, I think I always compared myself to my father, you know, and I wasn't like him. I honestly, can tell you right now, Brad, I was exactly like him, but I couldn't see it. I could not see it in myself that I was just like him. And so that was always my measuring sickle. I'm not as bad as my dad. And I think that in the back of my mind, I thought maybe someday I'll be able to control this, but right now I can't, so I'm not going to never again was I thinking like I would be able to stop drinking at some point. I just knew maybe I'll be able to slow down. and get control of this at some point, but not that I would get sober. It wasn't a thought.

Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, I mean, I think that's sort of the dream for any of us, maybe in one way or another, right? When we're in it's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to be able to, you know, scale this back, right? I think a lot of times we tell ourselves or I did anyway, well, if I get this opportunity or I meet the, you know, this person or this happens or that happens in life, you know, I mean, drinking, you know, I would tell myself, well, drinking, you know, it's not going to make that much sense. So I'll be able to kind of scale it back to maybe the way other people did.

But I mean, I used to work with this doctor and she was great, but she would always tell people, you can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber. You know, you can't go backwards, you know, with things, right? Like to go from this state of chaos to now it's going to go back. But I mean, even for you, you know, I mean, people share different experiences, but even for you the first time, that you drank, it was, I mean, I would say extreme. Like it was drinking, you know, like it was drinking a lot to where, you know, you're blacking out. So I think for some people, like for me, the first time I drank, like it might have been

a blackout. I don't know what that happened. I can remember bits and pieces of it. But it was a great experience. And I think for the longest time, I was trying to relive that or trying to say, like, can that be it to where all of the dots connect, the connection is unreal. I'm kind of in this euphoric state for maybe three hours. As towards the end, it's like 20 minutes.

It's more of like the warm up was the exciting part. And then when I would start drinking, I would just be miserable because I didn't want to be drinking. And I hated sort of how that all looked and felt. I just knew it wasn't going to work anymore. Was your mom a drinker or no? No, and I, she's not really, but I do want to make clear that first time that I drank, like even though I did take it too far and I got blackout drunk, I still enjoyed myself.

Like I still wanted to do it again. With my mom with alcohol, there was a period of time where I can remember her drinking a lot of wine with her friends. But it was a brief moment, a couple of years in there, probably surrounding like just before the divorce and maybe slightly after. but no, she's not really a drinker. She has an occasional glass of wine. She had a glass of wine last night.

And she's so funny because, you know, she gets tipsy off half a glass of wine. And she's not like me at all. She's not like me at all. Yeah. Like to some people, you know, they'll leave a little bit behind that I'm thinking, oh my goodness, what is going on here? Yes. Do you feel yourself when you were drinking that you would get energized?

They would bring energy to your life? Yeah, absolutely. I would be excited to like wake up early on a Sunday morning when everybody was still sleeping to clean the house. So I would pour myself, you know, probably about this much whiskey, down that and then get going. Clean the house, do a laundry, organize the garage. Like I definitely felt like I was ready to take on the day if I started it with a good dose of alcohol. obviously by the end of the day, that would catch up to me and I would eventually end up passing out, right? Like your body can only handle so much before it just shuts down.

But no, I was always like ready to go. I didn't drink alcohol to relax. I drink alcohol to like feel something different. And it definitely did energize me for sure. Yeah, which is so interesting. I saw this, uh, Huberman was sitting down with someone and saw this podcast clip that he said, eight percent of people are born with this gene.

and I think that's what he was what he was saying there. I don't remember it exactly. But and that's the effect that alcohol has on them as to where I did the majority, I guess, right? Like you see them, they drink, they get tired. They kind of go to sleep. And then I hear a lot of people like at night, right, cooking and cleaning and all this stuff.

And I think if you look at sort of maybe quote unquote normies, when they're drinking, they're not amped up in cleaning the house or whatever else it is. right and it cleaning the garage or tinkering or stuff like that and um that is an interesting sort of thing is that like yeah it does wake up energizes you a bit more too which i think like i never knew that obviously that you know when i was drinking i never knew that but i would always i could always stay up later than everybody else like they would be ready for the party to be over and i was just so bummed i'm like no the party it can't end yet they're like we've had we've all had enough i'm like what do you mean enough?

Like we're just getting started. But I mean, that's the way I drank is, I think you're only going to get so drunk. Like there's like a ceiling to it. But I would, even once I reached that ceiling, many, many nights would just keep going. And I think it was like my brain's way of thinking there was going to be another level to it when it was just much more painful the next day. and just to kind of keep things going. So I'm always interested in sort of that, you know, that effect.

Lock us through sort of this middle ground, you know, 2010 and stuff like that in these relationships. Are these like six months or these like three years or how was that looking? Yeah. So the first boyfriend was two years. The second one was five years. And then after that I met my ex-husband now. And we were together about 10 years.

But so I met my ex-husband. I was 23. And within a couple of months, I was pregnant with my son Jack. And so there was a lot of feelings surrounding that. I didn't really know him very well. Seemed like a good guy. But how well can you know someone after a handful of months? The Catholic guilt thing started kicking in a little bit. You know, I never had planned to have children before. I was in a committed, married, really. relationship. My family didn't pat an eye too much. Like I was worried about their reaction, but I didn't get a negative reaction from my family. They did think I should get married, which I didn't right away. We waited a couple of years. So then began another part of the journey, which was motherhood. Right. So I go from this person that was just constantly trying to do something to better the way that I make myself feel better, right? Better the way I felt by using outside substances, outside validation, and then now I have this baby, and I'm a mom, and I'm 24 years. I was 24 when he was born. I didn't have an education to fall back on for a career.

I tried initially to stay home, but I couldn't sit still. Like I couldn't be in, you know, I couldn't be home all day while the baby's napping, you know, three, four hour naps a day and be alone. I couldn't do it. So I went back to work. I was a nanny for a family. And, that was honestly great. Like, that was a great period in our lives. My drinking was probably fairly controlled during the week. You know, I would definitely get home from work and drink wine, maybe a cocktail. And then on the weekends, like all bets were off. You know, I was going to get blackout probably Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and probably do something really stupid, probably say something that I didn't really mean and not have the best behavior. And that would go on for a

couple more years. I had more children. I had a set of twins in 2012. And that took me out of the workforce. So that made me a stay-at-home mom. And it was wonderful for that first, about that six, six months or so. My husband at the time was working from home. So he was not necessarily there to help me, but just there. And at that time, like, I just wanted somebody to, I didn't want to be alone. And even though I had my children with me, they weren't adults. Like, I needed another adult there. I needed a partner. I needed someone to be there validating me. After the twins were born, when they were around eight or nine months old, I had gained a lot of weight. You know, I was breastfeeding twins and you have to eat a lot of calories to maintain that. They were also

premature. So they spent some time in the hospital. And so for whatever reason at that time, breastfeeding them was like my main goal and it gained a lot of weight. So when they were around nine months old, I decided to stop breastfeeding and to try to lose weight. And I can honestly pinpoint now based on a lot of reflection that this is where I broke the kill switch right here. I went to see a plastic surgeon about having a tummy tuck because I'm only five feet tall. I know you've never seen me stand up next to you in person, but I'm a really short person. And to carry twins, it really ruined my body. And he told me to lose weight.

So the only way that I know how to lose weight back then is calorie deficit, but I wasn't going to give up alcohol. So I basically wasn't eating and just drinking. I would throw a salad down, you know, a couple days a week, maybe a can of green beans, but I really was not eating. And I lost 60 pounds in four months. And but I think there was just that shift. like alcohol became the most important ingredient in my life at that time. If nothing else, I had to drink. And I think it was from then after my surgery.

Like that's when I became a full-time everyday drinker. Yeah. Every day. And when did you have the surgery? At the end of 2013. Yeah. And then you're, yeah, then you're drinking every day. When you're drinking in this.

stretch. I mean, are you going out or is this just at this drinking at home? Are you partying? The majority of it would be drinking at home. You know, now at this point we have three small children, but we would definitely go out, you know, once or twice a month. And it would always end badly every single time. And every single time we were going to go out, you know, I would tell myself like, okay, you just got to keep an eye on it. Don't over drink. Just keep control. And then you can drink more when you get home. That was always my thought pattern. Like, just have a little while you're out, enjoy it. And then you can have more when you get home. And it never worked. It never worked. Not once did it ever work. I always got too drunk out. I've been kicked out of restaurants.

I've been kicked out of bars, you know, just for being too drunk and making a scene, basically. Yeah. Anything you can pinpoint there is to why. you were kind of drinking so heavy when you went out? I mean, I definitely drank because I liked the effect of alcohol. And because I'm an alcoholic, there's never going to be enough, right? One is too many and a thousand is never enough. So once I start drinking, I just literally cannot stop. Like, I just cannot stop.

So I don't know that I was drinking for any other particular reason other than the craving was there and I was going to keep feeding it. Yeah. You ran into problems with it too with going out. I mean, what is your partner or your ex-husband saying about this space of life? Anything? Or no? Well, he would get upset, you know, when, so I might be, we might be out drinking with friends or something.

And I might be really inappropriate with one of his male friends. Not like crossing the line cheating or anything, but just being inappropriate. Like, not a way that I would ever act now. And so then we'd go home and the next day we'd fight about that. but he never again one of those people in my life that never said like you got to stop drinking you know you need to slow down it was more like you need to stop acting like an ass when we drink yeah that was more the message i got from him which i guess now i can see like that's just not possible like i i couldn't do both things i couldn't drink and not act yeah you know that way

yeah it is interesting too those kind of conversation that I think a lot of people have too. It's like, man, when does the not drinking part come into it, right? Like, you hear these stories, right? And I think we look back and we're just like, hey, the not drinking part is sort of would help out with all of this stuff, right? Like, when you take that out and, I mean, I'm sure we'll get to that part in your story. Like, it's interesting how the chaos really seems to fade away when we take drinking out of it. But for so long, it's like, I don't know.

if we're not surrounded by other sober people or we don't see that that's possible or we don't think that that is something that's going to be, you know, maybe fun anymore, then it's like, we're not really hearing that conversation too. But I think like as we look back at it, it's like, oh my goodness, you know, you can kind of see the snowball really picking up speed as it goes down. And you have three kids at this point too. Yeah. Well, I was going to say that it's, that's why it's so important, you know, what you do and what so many others like you do with these sober podcasts and people that, you know, are in recovery that are out in the world in, like, in person meetings, our goal is to help the next person, right?

I'm sure your goal with this podcast is not just to have a conversation with me, but to help somebody, right? I didn't have any sober people in my life. There wasn't anybody that was in recovery. I didn't know what to do at the end when I wanted to stop drinking. and I can now see the value that my children will have in having me as a person in recovery in their life. You know, like maybe if any of them have a problem, we can stop the bleeding a little sooner. You know, I was 38 when I got sober. So maybe for them, if anyone struggles, they know where to go.

They know I'm an open book. They know they can talk to me. I think it's really, this is really important, you know, what we do. Yeah, of course. And, you know, I've heard people too say that they didn't even know it was an option. Like giving up drinking. I didn't even know that that was an option here. You know, I think because we do, whether we realize it or not, I think we surround ourselves with people that are kind of like us or or people that are going to accept our behavior as to where you mentioned how you operated back then. And I could only, you know, if you had somebody that was around and they're doing all this stuff, I mean, you're not put, you're not going to put yourself in that spot or, or co-sign that stuff,

right? And there's going to be a conversation and in all of this and not in a way of, you know, making somebody feel worse, but just maybe that could be the one person. I hear so many people, I think people to kind of flip things around that are struggling, so many people around them are like, how do I tiptoe into this place of like letting them know I'm concerned about them? And I'm like, man, I think there's a lot of people out there that are struggling with this that just wish somebody would shoot it to them straight because their friends aren't going to do it because it's great. They're covering the bar tabs.

Their friends got somebody to hang out with. They're maybe not the only one living a chaotic life. I mean, nobody wants to necessarily drink alone and, you know, have all of this madness on their own. It's nice when you have company. So if somebody's struggling, they might just be waiting for that one person to come along and say, hey, hey, hey, hey, the way you're going about things is not good at all. And I don't know if that was part of your story that's kind of coming up. But as you're kind of going through all of this, it seems like a common theme I hear a lot.

There's really, you know, and at the end of the day, like is it other people's responsibility to come to us and say, hey, like, I mean, as an adult, I mean, this is a problem. I don't think so, but it wouldn't hurt to say, you know, to come and be like, but the other side of the coin is, too, I think Nicole, what you touched on earlier is we're pretty good at keeping, you know, things together and keeping things quiet and not letting people know how much we're drinking, how frequently we're drinking, you know, because there's the guilt and the shame aspect of things. So it's like what, what can people pick up on, you know, as they go through it. But I think that is a good thing that I've heard. anyway, and I think is relatable. There's no sober people around. There's nobody that's not drinking. It feels so far out of reach. It's not something we're thinking about. I think in that spot, we're just trying to think, okay, in the future, I'm going to figure

it out. And I've got to kind of just do the best I can with this middle ground, but I'll get there eventually. I think there was even a part of me that thought I would grow out of it. Oh, yeah. By 38. I hadn't grown out of it yet. like I don't know how much time I was willing to give it left, you know.

Yeah. Well, of course. I mean, yeah, that that is a thing too. And I mean, I touched on it earlier too. I think that that's, you know, we think of those milestones maybe in life, right? Of a career or starting a family or a move or a relationship. You know, we think of those milestones as maybe being the springboard for us to grow out of it. But I think if you peel back the layers and you look.

look at sort of the role that alcohol has played in our life and everybody, it could be a little bit different. It could look a little bit different. But I think every time that we struggle in life and we lean on alcohol, a stressful day, even a good day, celebration or this or that, we're really not utilizing healthier ways to kind of work through, you know, life on life's terms. So then, you know, decades go by or years go by. And it's like, hey, this becomes one of maybe only two or three tools on the belt. So even though we want to quit and we want something else for our life, I think when you kind of scale it back and we look at our tools that we have available to us, we don't have many, you know, and that's why, you know, plugging in for support and getting help

and being able to listen to some other people that have kind of been through it. But it's so interesting to me too, and I'll quit rambling after this, but you said some really good things there. We do this and hopes that people can maybe relate to it, I think, in one way or another and say, hey, you know what? That's my story. Like, maybe I should listen up here. One of the things that still baffles me and has for all of these years and my own life as well, because I saw where I was headed. I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it for myself until I did. But it's like, I think we're so good at saying, well, that never happened to me or I'm not there. But it's like, You relating back to your dad of saying there's so much, you guys are so much different.

But I think with the growth and maturity in development, you can look at it now like you shared there and say, oh, you know, I mean, we were the same. But I think we compare maybe our earlier drinking to maybe somebody who's got two decades on us or 10 years on us. And we create such a distance there that it's like, well, all obviously, you know, if it gets to that point, like, I'll definitely. head up the skates, but it's not that smooth. Where do things go for you moving forward from here? So, you know, I mentioned that the twins were born and then I had that surgery. Shortly thereafter, in 2015, if I would have wrote down on a piece of paper what I wanted my life to look like in terms of material things or in terms of things that I had in place, you know, I was married. we bought a beautiful home on acreage. My kids, all three of them, were in private Catholic school.

I had ran a little farm on my property. And I was a stay-at-home mom at the time. On paper, like, my life was great. My husband made a lot of money. You know, we were doing really well. And I was miserable inside. And I didn't know why. Like, I was just miserable inside.

There was something I couldn't feel inside of me. And, I mean, I would go from there to tank my marriage and do things that were irreversible in my marriage and leave my husband. And then the spiral just continued. Once I left my husband in 2016, you know, I would drag my kids around to different relationships. I think there was four relationships before the current husband that I have now, who I met at the end of 20s. So in four years, four relationships. One of them was two years. One of them was one year and then the rest is broken up there. But yeah, I would just drag them along with me, you know, not giving the thought to what I was exposing them to, you know, not being their mom first, being me, Nicole

first and doing what I wanted and let's drag these kids along with me because they're in tow. So, you know, I have a, I don't focus on it much, but there was a lot of shame in those years when I first got sober. Like a lot of reflection on I didn't behave the way that I wanted to behave as a mother. So, yeah, so I would, we got divorce and I moved in with my parents for eight months with three kids. That was a circus. And, you know, eventually I moved out of the house with another boyfriend and lived with him for, I think, think it was like a year and a half with the kids until that relationship started to sour. And so I left that one too.

And then would, at that time, that's when I was, that's when I was single for a minute, literally a minute, met somebody else. This guy was worse than I was in terms of alcoholism. He was farther down the road than I was. So it was a short. Drinkers? Oh, all of them. drinkers?

Yeah. All of them. All of them were drinkers, heavy drinkers, if not alcoholic. And the last one was definitely alcoholic really bad. There was a lot of things that happened. And it was just a short three months. And I think we went to the hospital four or five times in those three months. So after that is when I met Stephen, who I'm currently still with.

And he's a normie. And that was different. How do you mean Enormi? I met him just the way I met everybody else. You know, like on dating apps. We met through Facebook dating. And initially, you know, in those first couple of weeks, I was like, okay, like, I need, like, once I realized that the relationship could go somewhere, I thought, okay, I need to control this drinking thing. And so I was for a couple of weeks able to control it to a point.

point, you know, like control it when we were out, knowing I was going to go home and finish whatever bottle I had or wait until he fell asleep and then drink some more. But I was able to keep control for a few weeks. And just like an alcoholic, like within three months, I moved into his house with my children, you know, moved out of the place. For the first time in my life, I had established a home with just me and my children. And, you know, the prospect of, you know, the prospect. of somebody else I gave it up within months, right? And so moved in with him. And once we moved in together, I think that's kind of when the gloves came off. And I was like, okay, I don't need to control this anymore. And I didn't. And my behavior became glaringly obvious really quickly and

that it wasn't okay. And he was saying things like, I can't live like this. Like, you can't be drinking like this. And so that was probably early 2021. And I said, okay, I said, you're right. I've needed to quit drinking for a long time. I'll stop drinking. And I think that if you had hooked me up to a lie detector test at that moment, I would have passed because I truly believed that I could just put down the bottle. Like he was enough. Again, as a person that's always sought outside validation, he was enough for me to quit drinking, you know, to make him happy I could quit drinking. And, you know, obviously it didn't last. And what that meant now was that I was going to hide by drinking.

Because now I've said that I won't drink. So now I'm just going to drink in secret. I'm not going to drink out in the open. I'm only going to drink in secret. So nobody will know. Well, that's not how alcohol works. Everybody knows, especially him. He knew.

And for some reason, I think maybe it was the secrecy of it or the hiding, trying to get in as much as I could when he wasn't here. But I was honestly drinking more than I had been drinking when I was drinking out in the open, which still baffles me to this day. That could happen. So if I was drinking, you know, three quarters of a bottle when I was drinking out in the open, now I'm drinking the whole thing because I'm trying to sneak it in. So yeah, so that obviously did not go well. And by probably the end of the summer of 2021, he was done. He was, you know, he was like, this isn't working. Like you're going to need to move out and I'll give you some time, but like it's not working.

And to say like he would give me some time just meant like that just opened a door for me to just keep going. Right. Now I'm heartbroken and just use that as. fuel to drink more in November of 2021. I said, I'll go to rehab. I'll go to rehab. It was my idea, you know, I know how to fix this. I'll go to rehab. And it can definitely tell you that the intentions there were to get everyone off my back. I really, truly thought I could go to rehab and they were going to teach me how to control my drinking. It sounds so stupid. But I really thought, like, I'll get a year of sobriety, I'll hit this magic reset button, and then I'll be able to go back to

the way it was where I could casually drink, which is a lie. I never casually drank. I guess what I was relating that to is the way other people drink, but I never was like that. Not one period of my life was a casual drinker. You mentioned earlier how like you've seen people leave, you know, a little bit in the bottom of their wine glass or their cocktail, I would go by and drink everybody's leftovers before we left the restaurant. You know, if people didn't finish their drinks, I would finish them for them. And so that was the biggest lie that I told myself that I could go back to casual drinking because I was never there in the first place.

But yeah, I mean, I went to treatment in 2021 and I stayed for 26 days. I left early. I didn't stay the whole course. It was Christmas time and I wanted to come home and spend time with my kids. I thought everyone would be so happy to see me because I was sober now for 26 days. I was cured. I had a handle on this thing and I was going to be good to go. And no one was happy to see me other than my children.

They all saw something that I couldn't see at the time was if I couldn't stay in rehab for 30 days, how was I going to possibly stay sober? You know, and in that rehab, I did learn, I had a lot of good knowledge come out of that. I did learn that there would be no way that I would ever be able to drink again successfully, you know, without consequence. I did find that out through the big book, through the classes that they teach you, you know, they teach you about your brain and they teach you about different therapies and you do go through parts of the big book. So I understood when I was leaving that I would never be able to drink again. But that was it. That's all I did.

I went to rehab for 26 days and I came home and thought I could stay sober without support. And how many days after you came home were you drinking again? So I lasted a total of 47 days. So another 21 days or so at home? Is that math-massing? 26 days in rehab and 47 days total. Yeah, it's good enough for me. Math-knack is not my strong suit.

Yeah, so you do that and you pick up a few. things along the way, but going into it too, right? One of my earliest mentors said back problems. You know, I had back problems. There were so many people on my back. I wanted to get them off of it. Yes. And interesting. And then another 21 days to, you know, afterwards. Where was your husband now, right? But dating then, where was he at? He was like, hey, if you do this rehab program and you stay sober, is he changing course on giving you another opportunity to stay together? So he didn't say any of those things. But when I left treatment early, I left in an Uber and I came home while he was at work. And he just came home from work. And I was like, I'm here. And he was like,

okay. And so there wasn't really any conversation. Like, you know, I was in a complete delusional state. Like, okay, now everything's perfect. Everything's back to normal. And that wasn't the case, but I wasn't seeing it. I, you know, obviously, I drank again. And then I would go through periods of time where I would move out of the house. I would move up to my mom's house. And then, you know, a few weeks would go by and I'd be doing well. And he'd ask me to come home. And I would come home.

And then I would fall off again. And then I'd move back up to my mom's house. I think I did it three times in that time between December of 2021 and July of 2022. So in June of 2022, things were really good. I had just moved back home after another stint over at moms. Let me back that up. Things were good with Stephen and I. Nothing else was good.

In May of that year, my ex-husband told me the kids weren't going to come anymore. And it was so painful to face. I just didn't face it. I just didn't face it. I didn't take any steps to do anything. I didn't really feel like I had any options. I knew not drinking would be. be my way in, but I didn't know yet how to do that. I couldn't go to court and jump up and down

and say he won't give me my kids. He's going to, you know, be like, tester, give her a breathalyzer right now. Like, it wouldn't have gone well for me. It would have come with more consequences. But in June of 2022, Stephen and I were doing well. I had strung together a little bit of time. I was able to string together like 10 to 20 days on my own. You know, so it was this constant like up and down. Do you want me to get to the next part? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Okay. So in July of 2022, I had been home for a few weeks now, maybe a month.

And like I had said, in June, things were really good and things were continuing to be good. And I found myself at home on a day while all the, there was nobody here. Stephen was at work. The girls were at their moms. I have two stepdaughters. The girls were at their moms. And my kids were, wherever my kids were, I didn't even know where my kids were. I didn't know if they were with their dad or with my mom.

I had no idea. And I thought, I felt so good that day, what would make me feel better? And that was alcohol. So after, I think I had 20 days at the time. I went to the store. I bought a bottle of alcohol. And I thought, I'm just going to drink half of it. I just want to feel good for a little bit.

And I drank the whole bottle. I was drunk when he got home from work. And he just took one look at me. And he didn't say a word. He didn't say anything to me. It was just a look on his face. Like, I knew this was it. Like, he was done.

He'd had enough. He'd given me enough chances. He'd given me enough time to figure it out. And he left the house. I was supposed to go to a softball meeting for my stepdaughter. I was going to be the manager of the softball team that season. And so he went in my place to the meeting because he knew I was in no condition to show up. And while he was gone, I took a bottle of pills and tried to not wake up permanently.

And during maybe like within an hour or so, the medication that I took started to make me feel loopy or I don't recall exactly. But I started texting people, started texting all my family members and my friends. Like, I love you. I'm so sorry. I think was the text. And I sent it to, you know, like 20, 25 people. So they all kind of connected the dots and figured something was up. They descended on my house. Multiple people came here. And my mom called 911. The paramedics came. And I wouldn't admit that I had taken anything. You know, I wouldn't admit that I tried to do something to hurt myself. And they asked you silly questions. like, who's the president? What's your address? What day is it? What's your phone number? And if you can answer those really simple questions and you won't admit that you've done anything, there's nothing they can do. They have to leave. And I remember one guy looking at my mom and saying, look, we know she tried to do something, but legally we can't take her. We know we should, but we can't. And they left. Stephen didn't want me here. So I left with my mom and my sister,

Actually, my sister was here too. She was very angry. And I think the plan was they were going to take me to a hotel, let me sleep it off, and then figure out what to do with me the next day. And in the car, I started having seizures. So they took me to the hospital. And I spent 10 days in that hospital. I ended up with a bowel obstruction. And, you know, they gave, they were giving me a lot of detox meds, which I didn't actually need.

because I hadn't been drinking for 20 days. And I had drank that day, but like, I didn't need to take all those detox meds. So I was very out of it for several days. And then my mom came to me, my mom, my sister on maybe like the fourth or fifth day. And they had a, there was a whole background plan where if I wasn't going to go to treatment, you know, they were going to give me those hard lines. Like something like you see on that show intervention, you know, if you don't go to treatment, we're not going to support you in this way that way. or the, you know, whatever. And as soon as she said, we think you need to go back to treatment, I said, yes, I'm ready.

I'm done. I just, there was a shift there. I was just done because I, at that point, I think I had two options. I had get better or die. And laying there, looking at my mom, I wasn't ready to die. Wow. Thank you for sharing that too. And that was in July of 22.

when sort of that, you know, this all came about. It's always so interesting how you can have some sober time or abstinence or not drinking time. And then going back to it, it's like it was waiting there the whole time. And it's even heavier than maybe it was before those moments too. You know, it's like people, you get some time away from it and thinking that it's going to be different. The next time is going to be all the stuff we tell ourselves, right? Like it's going to be different this time. I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that.

I'm going to change this up. And then we always find ourselves back at the same place or maybe a place that's even worse off. Worse. You mentioned earlier about romanticizing that first time that you drank and wanting to get back to that. And then how awful it felt to be drinking when you didn't want to drink. I think that one of the most awful feelings I had is taking a drink against my will. You know, like looking at it, knowing I don't want to drink this. but something inside me is telling me I have to.

And in the end there, the only time I felt good was maybe a minute after that very first drink in the morning. And that was it. The rest of it was like literally medication so that I could live. There was no good feelings anymore. You know, and that's just the worst. And that's where we get ourselves too. You know, people that drink like me anyways. that's where we get ourselves to. And when we have consequences in our relationships or legal

consequences, the shame and the guilt of that feels very heavy. And we don't know what to do other than to pour alcohol on top of it. Yeah. Try to numb or escape, you know, the best, I mean, the best way that we can, you know, going through that stuff too. And I mean, you have, you know, a lot of things, too. I've kind of picked that up as sort of a consistent sort of theme, right? Is the shame it just seems to be building and building and building. And then you pop into this secrecy sort of phase of your life too. And I mean, it really kind of makes sense. I mean, drinking even more in that phase too because I feel like this is going against,

you know, a lot of the ways you want to live your life or your values as a person. And it's like, hey, I'm living in this extremely dishonest way. And, you know, those voices can get loud too. So drinking more to say like, I don't want to have to worry about. That is one of the interesting things too is that we don't want to drink anymore. You know, like we don't want to anymore, but we find ourselves in that spot time and time again. I don't know, you know, thinking things are going to be different or just all of the pressures or feeling so alone. Like there's no way out of it.

Like it just can feel like this is the way life has been. This is the way it's going to be. And I just try to make sort of the best of it, accepting, you know, that this is where we're at in life. or the cards were dealt or the hand we have to play. When we know on this side of things like, gosh, I mean, that's so far from the truth. Like, you don't. I mean, anybody can wake up if they're finding themselves in this situation

or wherever you're at. You literally start, you know, with one day. It's not always planned out. It's not always perfect, but it's getting, moving in the right direction that there's just so much more to life. But when you're wrapped up in and it's like, man, this is everything. So your mom comes to you, your sister come to you, they say, hey, you need to get some help in rehab and you're ready to go this time. I mean,

is this where you're sober from this point on? Yeah. So I went to treatment. I went a couple hours away from home because they knew what happened last time where I left in an Uber. So they took me a few hours away. And from day one, Brad, when I got there, I was just ready. There was a willingness there that I had never had before. There was a drive there to tackle this monster inside of me that I had never had before. I spent years wanting to want to be sober. Then I spent years wanting to be sober. And I was finally at the point where I was like, okay, I'm doing it. I'm going to do it. And so I went to all the classes. I went to every meeting. I've always been on the outside at least a very like bubbly kind of person. And I want to say it was like within the first

week, I was in a group with the director of the program. And I don't know, I wish I could remember the question that she had asked us all and what my answer was, but I can't. So she asked a question of the group and then we all went around and gave our answers. And this is important because it changed my mindset. She looked right at me and she said, wow, your personality is complete bullshit. And I was like, what? She's like, you're so full of shit, you don't even know it. I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I am a happy person. And then she rattled off all the reasons why I shouldn't be a happy person, all the things that were going wrong in my life. And I marched myself up to the office afterwards and said, I'm not going anymore for classes.

And she did this, that, and the other. And they just looked at me and they said, okay, you don't have to go. And it took me about two days to realize she was right. And what she meant is that I was putting on this front. I was masking the way I really felt. And unless I was going to get vulnerable and really talk about, you know, my life and what has led me here and the way I actually feel, I wasn't going to get better. And so it shifted.

It shifted the way that I started showing up. And it shifted the way I started talking. I got to see a therapist there twice a week and an alcohol and drug counselor twice a week. And then classes all day, meetings every night. Like it was a lot of intensive therapy and recovery. And from that day forward, like I took a different approach at it. and I was being able to be vulnerable. Whereas before I was like,

yeah, well, you know, I drink too much and like, you know, I really need to stop. That's not the case. I didn't just drink too much and needed to stop. I had burned my life to the ground and had no idea how to start, you know, putting one brick in place. Yeah.

Well, thanks for sharing that too. I mean, when you get plugged into those environments too, you kind of have that space from the real world, which I think makes it help. because there's like that buffer zone or a place to go. And even when you go back, you know, further in your story too, things were, there were stuff going on before you even got into the drinking. There was all that underlying stuff that like, hey, it came out differently when we're younger, right, the behaviors and how we operate looks a lot different than when we get older. But

I think that's a very common thing. I don't know if it's relatable to you. I kind of picked up on it maybe there. It's like alcohol is my problem. If I take alcohol, you know, I just drink too much. That's like my main thing and not really looking at the layers of the onion of everything else that's come in our life before and like life on life's terms. I mean, how am I dealing with life? If things acceptable or unacceptable and how am I sort of going through it. And I mean, alcohol was just behind every corner, every turn. But that was one of the things I had to learn early on. It's like the substance was one part of the puzzle. But my goodness, once I took it away, I was like, okay, now what do I do?

I'm kind of a little bit more miserable than I was before because now the one thing that I connected so much of my identity to was not in the picture anymore. And now I had to figure out how to go through things. I mean, was that something you figure out? I had to kind of work on and figure out too after you, you know, leave rehab and begin to change your life? Yeah, and I want to get to that,

but I want to share something with you based on what you just said. I met this guy early in recovery that would, he would hold this piece of paper up. See his piece of paper? And he would say, you do this and that's drinking and using. The rest of it's everything you've got to work on. Right? And that could not be more real, right?

Taking away the substance, whatever it is that your substance is, is the, like, it's the pre-step to then, like, working on everything, right? So I graduated in rehab. I stayed the whole time. And, but around the last two weeks of rehab. So I was halfway through my stay. I started to get anxiety again about leaving. I didn't know where I was going to go.

Was I going to come home to Stephen? Was I going to go stay with my mom? I had no money. Like, what was I going to do? And so I started exploring the idea of sober living. And with the help of, you know, my mom, I was able to secure a place to live after rehab. So they call it door to door.

So you go straight from rehab. straight to sober living. So my mom literally drove me from rehab straight to the sober living environment. And the plan was that I would stay in sober living for 90 days or so to kind of solidify my program to build a foundation for what life was going to look like. I didn't have, back in 2020, I had gotten a DUI. And so I didn't have a license or a car or anything like that. And so I was, walked across the street to the grocery store and I got a job at the grocery store. A very close friend of mine that has a sober podcast, it was the first one I ever listened to. That was what he did.

He lived in sober living and he went and got a job at the grocery store. I was like, Jerry did that. I could do that. So I went across the street and I got a job at the grocery store, literally bagging groceries, like the lowest on the totem pole that there is. I needed a tiny little job to have something to do and just, We call it a get well job, right? I needed a get well job. And I ended up staying in sober living for six months. Like the three month mark came and went and I wasn't ready. I wasn't talking about it.

We weren't having conversations about it. I just wasn't ready. I stayed for six months in January. I mentioned I'm in a 12-step program. So by January, it was making my amends to everyone. And Stephen was my last one. And after I made my amends, to Stephen, we agreed that he was ready and I was ready for me to come home. And so I came back home. And I had already connected to people in meetings right here near the house. And I have been going to my home group meeting for three and a half years every single week. It's about a mile from the house. When I got home, you know, I still had a lot of work to do. I mentioned the DUI. The DUI had I had the kids in the car.

So not only did I have to do nine months of a DUI class, I also had to do a year of parenting classes. These are all conditions to getting my license back. So at this point, you know, I was like eight or nine months sober. And I had just started. So this is the beginning, like the springtime of 2023, three years after the DUI. I'm now starting to take care of these obligations that I have to the state of

California. And life was hard. I didn't stay at the grocery store much longer after I moved back home. It was too far away. So I got a job locally here. I was doing some recruiting. And so I had a job, a good job. I had classes twice a week. I had a parenting class and a DUI class. I went to meetings two to three times a week in person. I had a sponsor. I was working the steps. I was working on getting my kids to come back home. My kids finally came back home after I was a year sober, a whole year sober. But it was a lot of work in the beginning. And I just had to keep plugging along and doing the next thing.

I think that I definitely thought, and I know a lot of people share this opinion, when you get sober, like everything's going to fall into place. And that's not the case. Like, it takes a lot of work. You know, we think that alcohol is, a problem. So if we take away the alcohol, life will be great. And to a certain degree, life is definitely better, although we've taken away our solution to literally everything. So not only do you have to rebuild your life, you have to rewire your brain on how you deal with life. Like you

had mentioned earlier, life on life's terms. That's not always easy. In my life today, there's a lot of radical acceptance. Like there are things I just have to accept. Like I can't change them. I can't control them. I just have to accept they are what they are. Right. So,

so yeah, so I did the sober living for six months and I came home in February of 2023 and I've been home ever since. Yeah. Wow. In six months in sober living too. I mean,

that's a good sort of segue, I think, from staying in rehab for 30 days, which they're great, but I hear 30 days. is 30 days, removed from sort of the environment of, you know, the real world when you go for 30 days and then it's like, hey, here's, you know, there you go, back at it without any sort of, if you're not really plugging into stuff, that can be a really tricky time. But the bridge,

the sober living, sounds like it was great for you to really build on your foundation and your skills and get yourself in a better spot. But what you say hits home, like just the act of getting sober, like it's a required first step. You can't do it. any of the other stuff without it. But it's not a guarantee that everything is going to be perfect and all of the, you know, the wreckage from the past is just going to wash away. Everybody and everything is just going to forget sort of the road we traveled. You know, that's, that's not it. And now it's learning new skills and how do we cope and, you know, relationships too. It sounds like in your story where, you know, an area of life you'd have to work on, what does this healthy

relationship look like and how can I show up different? Because even though you're going through your story there, kind of picking heavy drinkers and all of that stuff too, I think it's only fair to say, you know, that because I was in these two, but I was the common denominator and all of this sort of chaos too and all these relationships. I picked out. I was just like, oh man, tough thing to kind of admit to myself that maybe for me personally, maybe it wasn't everybody else here, Brad. Maybe you had a pretty big part to play and where you put yourself and surrounded yourself with. And now your kids are living with you. And this July, four years.

This July, I'll have four years. Yeah. So it took about a year for the kids to come back. And at first, they were only here on weekends. You know, their dad was like, we need to trial run this. And I, even though I knew how I felt, I knew where I was under my recovery. I knew that I was doing well, somebody from the outside doesn't trust you yet. And especially my ex-husband, like who doesn't live with me, who doesn't have much exposure to me,

I understood his hesitancy. It upset me, but I understood and accepted it. There's that radical acceptance, right? Working a 12-step program, you've got to learn to accept things for what they are sometimes. So for a whole year, they were here every weekend and not during the week at all. And then during the summertime of that next year, they started where they would come week on, week off. And we've kept that schedule ever since. I have them every other week.

And this is a week. So I picked them up yesterday. So they're here this week. And I mentioned earlier, too, that I have two stepdaughters. The age ranges. So my oldest stepdaughter is about to turn 18 in April. Jack, my oldest son, will turn 18 in June. My stepdaughter, Audrey, turns 16 next month.

And the twins, my twins, John and Caroline, just turned 13. So we officially have five teenagers in our household. And that would sound probably pretty chaotic to a lot of people. But we have a lot of fun. Like we have a lot of fun. My focus is now on my family and being of service to my family and doing things that we all enjoy together. Like that togetherness is so important.

We're not all together. We're all together every other week, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So that's what, six days a month that we're all seven of us together. And to me now, you know, it's really important to spend that time doing things together. Whereas before, that wasn't my priority. You know, the kids were just the kids. They weren't. They didn't have individual names and personalities.

They were the kids. And now I have an individual relationship with each one of those kids. And it's really special and dear to me. It's one of the things that I value most that comes from sobriety is the quality relationships that I have, not just with my kids, but my husband, my mom, my sister. And people in recovery, I mean, some of my best friends I've never met in person live in different. countries. You know? And that's such a cool thing.

So relationships is something I highly value now. Whereas before, if a relationship wasn't going the way that I wanted to or wasn't making me feel a certain way, I dumped it. You know, and that could be a friendship or a romantic relationship, like whatever kind of relationship. If it wasn't going the way I wanted to, you were dead to me. You were gone. That's it.

Yeah. How do you feel about yourself? these days? You know, it's really cool to be able to be with myself today. I love who I am today. I love the woman that I show up to be. I love the mom, the wife, the sister, person in recovery. You know, that person that I show up to be every day today, I'm proud of.

You know, I have a lot of pride in who I am today versus the ego that I used to have that was totally self-inflated and based on nothing real. today I have genuine pride about the way I show up for life and the way I show up for other people and I can look at myself in the mirror and not hate myself anymore

I love myself that sounded really conceited but it's a really important part of recovery to love yourself yeah I mean I think that's a huge shift that just goes to show the growth that you've made in your life I'm thinking about wrapping up here

and I know you touched on few times there about, you know, sort of filling this internal void looking for validation and alcohol and all the other stuff. Where are you out with that? I can't say that I don't so crave, you know, some validation, but today I don't need it. Like, it's not a necessity. The relationship with Stephen was rough when I first got sober. Probably the first two years, you know, like things were getting better slowly. But, you know, the first year was really rough. The second year was better, but still tough. We had to overcome a lot of things that happened while I was still drinking. And I was still finding who I am as a person in recovery. With alcohol is my solution to everything. I don't have alcohol anymore. Now it takes time to develop as a person in recovery. The last year, things have been really great and things are continuing to get better. And I love it when he, validates me or says something nice, but I don't have to have it anymore. It's not a necessity anymore. I can validate myself by my actions. I know that I'm showing up for life in the right way

and in the way that, you know, God wants me to show up for life. So that validates me. It comes from inside now as opposed to needing outside validation. Yeah, beautiful. So beautiful. I mean, sort of the downside which I'm sure you know is that the external stuff it never seems to fill the void or we're constantly on the lookout for it it's just rinse and repeat and getting to where we can do that ourselves makes all the difference if anybody out there's listening that's struggling to get her staying sober i mean what would you i mean that interesting part where you were you know willing to is there anything to draw from your story that you'd mention to someone? So if anyone's out there struggling and they're listening to this podcast,

they've already taken a step, right? They're already exploring something. And I would say, reach out to somebody. If you don't know anybody in your life that's in recovery, there are so many platforms online. There's, you know, things you can just watch on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram. There's a whole sober world out there. We are literally everywhere. And just reach out to somebody and ask for help. Anybody can reach out to me. I'm easy to find. My social media is just my name backwards. It's just cargo Nicole on Instagram. You can send me a message. I would absolutely point you in a direction or have a chat with you. You're not alone. And all you have to do is reach out for help. And the people that are already in recovery,

we will go to any lengths to help you if you're willing to get help. We want to help you. We want to show you that life can be different. So you're not alone and reach out for help. That's what I would say to someone struggling. Yes. Thank you so much. And you're so right. I mean, listening to this podcast is already a step in the right direction

if somebody's trying to, you know, working on changing their life and talk with people. I think it would be intimidating and like, well, I'm going to talk with somebody who's sober and they're going to just say, you know, the obvious. Well, you need to quit drinking. And, you know, it's just not like that. Like everybody's going to, you know,

pick and choose what they like to do or when they want to do it and maybe just connecting with somebody just might be another thing that is helpful and you're not alone with it however you are struggling it's like everybody's story kind of goes in this interesting way that it seems like there are many opportunities to kind of get off the elevator there are many opportunities and you don't have to wait for things to fall apart i mean you just really don't if you kind of see if you can relate to Nicole's stories, say in the middle, well, if you keep drinking, ask yourself, what are the percentages of me getting to the other side of it too? And then maybe, hey, maybe you're only here right now. Get off the elevator. And you don't have to go through all of the

ending stuff. That's enough. It can be enough of an indicator of things are not going well. Thank you so much, Nicole, for jumping on and sharing your story with all of us. Thanks, Brad. I really appreciate it. Well, there it is another incredible episode here on the podcast. Thank you, as always, for listening along. I'll drop Nicole's contact information down in the show notes below. If you enjoyed the episode or could connect to any part of her story, be sure to send her over a message and let her know.

Thank you for joining all of us. It's really an incredible story when you hear all of these things change. In a couple of years, it's not like the shortest amount of time, but how many things could change in three years, three and a half years. as opposed to the way that they were. And you just zoom out a little bit and just imagine if Nicole, since this is her story, doesn't make these changes,

how much different her life looks in the other direction of things that weren't serving her and not where she wanted to be in life. Thank you, as always, for listening. And don't forget, drop a view on Apple and Spotify, and I'll see you on the next one.