Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Rising from Darkness: Carly’s Unforgettable Journey to Sobriety.

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

On this week's episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, we are joined by Carly, whose remarkable journey to sobriety has reached a milestone of 120 days at the time of recording. Carly's life struggles began at 11 when she sought help for her eating disorder and self-harm by entering rehab. Over the years, her addiction to drugs, primarily alcohol, led her down a path of darkness that she now looks back on with gratitude for having survived. Join us today as we delve into Carly's inspiring tale of resilience and redemption. Tune in to the Sober Motivation Podcast for Carly's incredible comeback story. ------ Follow Carly here: https://www.instagram.com/the.soberchic/ Follow SoberMotivation here: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/ Download the SoberBuddy App: https://soberbuddy.app.link/motivation Check out Soberlink: https://soberlink.com/recover 👉 Support the show here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation

Welcome to Season 3 of the Subur Motivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible, inspiring, and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible one story at a time. Let's go. On the show this week, we have Carly, who celebrated 120 days sober at the time of recording this episode. Carly started really struggling in life at 11 years old when she entered rehab for her eating

disorder and self-harm. Carly's addiction to drugs and mostly alcohol took her to some very dark places that she is grateful to have survived. Don't miss this incredible comeback story on today's episode. This is Carly's story on the Sober Motivation podcast. Hey, how's it going, everyone? Brad here. Thank you, everybody, for all the support. Be sure if you haven't left the review on your favorite podcasting platform, check that out now.

Look, this is an incredible episode. Carly has really come back from a lot, been through a lot, shares her story beautifully. Look, I pretty much got out of the way for this one and just let Carly share her story. And that's the way things flowed and she did an incredible job. I know you're going to enjoy this one. So I'll see you guys on the other side. And here's a few word from our sponsors.

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Now let's get to the show. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got my friend Carly with us. How the heck are you? Hey, Brad. I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me today. Of course.

It's our pleasure on the podcast. to have you share your story and how we start every episode you're familiar with. What was it like for you growing up? So my childhood from the outsider's point of view was pretty normal. We lived in a nice neighborhood where most of my friends lived. We'd always be outside riding our bikes and playing at each other's houses and everything. It was the same neighborhood I went to like elementary school at. So I pretty much grew up there since I was five years old.

I lived my whole life with my brother, my parents, and my mother's parents. as well. So it was kind of a, you know, packed home, but it was my normal living with as many people. At one point, we actually lived with my great grandma as well until she had to go into a nursing home. But yeah, so I'm so used to being like in a pretty busy house, but it was a very routine household. I always felt like if I made a mess, I was going to get in trouble, which most of the time I was. But from an internal point of view, my childhood was pretty far from normal. I can pretty much remember from a young age starting off these bad behaviors at home and at school, I believe around the time I was maybe six or seven, I was experiencing these like severe fits of rage where I could just feel this fire light up inside of me. And I knew that something just didn't feel right. I felt like I needed it to. punch a pillow or like rip something, I was a very angry, anxious, worried kid at all times. I pretty much began to find these creative ways to lie to my parents about stuff that was pretty pointless

to lie about. My mother would ask me, Carly, did you wash your hair? And I would say yes, but I very clearly hadn't washed my hair. So then I would be grounded for lying. Or similarly, my mother would say, don't ride your bike too far ahead of us, and I would go full speed to beat them home, and then I'd get grounded for disobeying. So it just always felt like I was under watch, and my brother was the good kid, you know, he had really good friends growing up, and none of them were really like troublemakers or anything. So I felt like I was a little bit of an outsider in my family because I felt so rebellious in a sense, I guess. So by the time I got a little older, the need to be in control of my body and my life got very real.

I turned 11 years old and had just started seventh grade when everything pretty much took a turn. Going through school, I never really felt like I belonged anyways. I did have some friends, but it always just felt very odd. Like almost I was begging these people to be my friends still. But yeah, I can kind of pinpoint some things in my childhood that I would hear people in my household discuss, a lot of it kind of revolved around their weight. We had cabinets that were full of like recipe books, but a lot of them were like diet books. Like what's a new diet fad? How much weight can we lose this week? Or whatever. I just always heard something being talked about with like

food and diets and weights. And we were very controlled with our sugar and our snacks. I think our little reward was on Friday nights we would eat popcorn for dinner. And that was like our excitement for the week, you know. I can't really recall my father being around that much. He worked night management at UPS for a very, very long time. So he would work all night and sleep mostly during the day. So I don't really remember him being around much besides, you know, maybe a few occasions. I can remember, but there was times where during these situations that I was dealing with my mother, my father would get involved and he would be very angry. I always felt like he was just mad all the time. And I just didn't feel like I had a very close relationship with, to be honest, maybe

either of my parents. Like my mom is my best friend now, you know, and I think back. And I think she was going through a lot of things with my father that I didn't understand at that age, but it was hard back then. So I met my best friend basically in sixth grade, and I can recall going to school, pretty much telling her like, hey, we should only eat salads for lunch because that's how you lose weight. And why 11-year-olds need to diet doesn't make sense to me. But nevertheless, I was hooked like anything in my life. It had to be taken to the extreme. So at this point, At 11 years old, I started restricting my food down to maybe a piece of fruit a day. That continued probably for a couple months until my pants barely stayed up around my waist.

I was wearing fleece pajamas to bed in the summertime because my body was in survival mode. I was growing hair in places that was normally suited for men. I was becoming the sickest version of myself at such a young age that I could possibly be. And it slowly became my identity. I was the sick girl. I was the freak, the one who had no friends, and before I knew it, my parents did catch on. And at the same time that this was happening, I was introduced to sort of like a stress reliecer, I guess you could say. Somebody in my grade introduced me to self-harming as a way of releasing that anger and the stress that I felt for some reason. And as a seventh grader, our lives were just so stressful.

You know, it doesn't make any sense. But back then, I was experiencing this insane amount of anger inside of me that I didn't have an outlet. I didn't have anywhere to put that anger. So the minute I was introduced to this, I was like, oh my gosh, it was like a drug to me, feeling that almost like adrenaline go through me when I would self-harm. And it did. it took that away for me for like a split second. And that's all it needed to do for me to say,

okay, this is what I'm going to do right now. And I would start doing it while I was in school. I would go to the bathroom. I would do it. I would come home. I would hide in my closet and do it. And I would take matches. I would burn myself. And it just got completely out of control. And at one point, I think I can recall I was doing it in the bathroom, like, which my bathroom was the first, floor bathroom connected to basically my kitchen. So my whole family is nearby. And I'm just sitting in the bathroom, like, harming myself. And of course, my mother comes in, like, freaking out. What are you doing? You know, and I'm like, what do you mean? What am I doing? You know, like, to me, it was normal for me, because I had been doing it for months prior to that. So basically, they caught on to all of this and

pretty much told me to pack my book bag and to dress comfy because to my surprise, I wasn't going home for quite a long time. My mother used to tell doctors that it was basically like a switch flipped off in her head. She just woke up one day and was a completely different person. And she was right. I literally was at 11 years old. I can remember the day I woke up and said, Carly, today you're only going to eat half a bowl of cereal. You're going to eat half a sandwich. And you're going to tell mom that you were too tired after soccer practice to eat dinner and just go to bed. And I cannot tell you why I woke up and that day I decided to change my entire world. Because at 11 years old, I entered my first inpatient treatment center.

And shit, that was scary. Yeah. Hold on there for a second. Yeah. Where was that at? It was in Naperville, Illinois. So this was for the self-harm and the other stuff. And the eating disorder.

Yes, because this was probably maybe five months into me. being in a full-blown eating disorder addiction. And I think at first, you know, my family probably just really thought I was not hungry and maybe I was going through some hormonal changes or something that was causing me not to be hungry. But then by the time I was a couple months into it, people were just catching on and catching on. Kids were coming up to me telling me how gross I would look. And I was probably like 80 or 90 pounds soaking wet. And I was, I don't know, I'm five feet, four inches right now. And now I weigh about 40 pounds heavier. So I haven't really grown that much since I was a kid. But I was very, very underweight. And at that point, my mom was definitely

catching on. So yeah. So you go to the treatment center. How long are you at this treatment center for? So from the time I was 11 years old to the time I was 17 years old, mainly the one that was in Naperville, I pretty much lived in and out of there for the next seven years, honestly. Yeah. And you started drinking before you went there? So from what I can recall, I picked up my first drink at 11 years old. I was the bad influence. You know, I was the friend that wanted to make sure I wasn't doing this alone. And I would influence. other kids and so-called friends of mine to join me in these really bad behavior activities, basically. Imagine if you're driving down the road and you see an 11-year-old drinking a beer, walking down the sidewalk in our neighborhood or something. Like, it was so abnormal in my mind, but to me at the time, this was my normal. Like, this was who I was at the time. And I can remember,

I never enjoyed the taste of beer as much as I did that day. Yeah. So where do things go from here? So you end up in for the next. Yeah. Having you're end up in and out of this center. What does that look like for you? So from the time frame that I pretty much picked up that first drink and was already pretty

far into my eating disorder, I guess addiction and self-harm addiction. I was obsessing at this point, like seriously obsessing over every sort of issue that I was dealing with. I was obsessing over my drinking, when I would drink, who I would get the alcohol from, which friend I would try to influence to join me, where could we drink and not get in trouble? I was obsessing over my weight. How little could I eat to make it through my day without feeling guilty for gaining a pound? I was obsessing over what I could possibly do to get in trouble. Anyways, so I was pretty much going in and out of the treatment centers for about seven years. It was exhausting. It was painful.

It was pretty embarrassing. Being treated for everything from anorexia, self-harm. I was diagnosed very, very early with severe anxiety and depression. I can actually remember being prescribed Xanax. at like 12 years old. My mom would kind of shove them down my throat when I would be having like a so-called episode. So it was just very intense at a very young age. And I would go into treatment and I would get out and I would go back to doing the same exact thing I was doing before. You know, like the first time I went in to this treatment center, I'm 11 years old,

but this is an adolescent unit. So there's kids all the way up until they're 18 years old. It was like, I was almost learning how to lie and how to get away with things more by being in these treatment centers with these older people than I was actually getting any help that was useful for me. So it was scary. And I remember when I would leave, I would be inpatient for maybe four months. At a time, I would get out. I would be home for a little bit. And then I would go right back to doing the same thing, I would make sure I could kind of like get away with everything. Like I would start exercising to the point where I would like pass out just to make sure I was not gaining any weight because being in the treatment centers, you have to eat on their regimen.

I was just so severely malnourished that they had me on anything and everything I could possibly get. And my stomach was so tiny that I would eat a piece of food and I would basically vomit it back up because I just could not keep anything down. So you went in and out and then kind of found yourself back at struggling with this stuff afterwards. So you mentioned until 17. Are you going to school or anything? What happens after 17? Well, so I was basically, by the time I was 15, 16 years old, I was getting my first out of like six fake IDs to be able to buy my own booze, to be able to go to the bars at 16 years old, like I said about growing up, I had some friends, but it always felt strange. I was always

like the black sheep of the school. So when I would get invited anywhere and everywhere, I would jump on the opportunity to go to basically make myself feel like I was involved, you know, like I was one of the cool kids, which I absolutely was not one of the cool kids. So at 15 years old, I was actually sexually assaulted by somebody I had never met before. After putting myself in a situation that I pretty much knew could have been harmful, but I basically did nothing to get myself out of it. I did end up telling a friend who told their mom, who their mom told my mom kind of situation.

And it got back to the point where they did want to go to the police, but because I was so embarrassed and I was so ashamed that this had happened to me, Not only was I sexually assaulted, but this person took my virginity from me. He took something that I can never get back from me. But at the time frame, I just couldn't really wrap my head around what was happening. So I pretty much just threw it over my shoulder and went about my way. But I never forgot about it. And at that point forward, I pretty much had a very strange relationship with men for the next 15 years, in a sense.

I would get into like a fight with a boyfriend of mine and I would be on my hands and knees begging them to not leave me. I always had this fear of being abandoned, even though I very much so was not. I had my family. I had my close loved ones. I don't know where this fear of rejection, the fear of being alone came from because I wasn't alone, but at the same time I kind of was because I was. Because I was. so different than other kids in my school that by the time I would come back from these treatment centers and I would go back to school, I was so badly bullied for being the freak or being the sick girl that I actually, when I got into high school, I was partially homeschooled because I could not be in school anymore. So yeah, basically then by the time this all had happened, I was at home alone with my brother at one point. I believe I was 15 or 16 years old and my family had gone somewhere. I can't remember where, but I received a few phone calls and there was these mean girls and everything and they decided to leave me some really harmful harsh voicemails. I never picked up the phone, but, you know,

I'd go back and listen to these voicemails and they were so, so severe that I couldn't take it anymore. And I decided that it would be a good idea to try to attempt to kill myself. So at this point, when my parents had come back home, I pretty much fainted. I had overdosed on an entire bottle of et cetera. And this was a big turning point in my life. I think that my family was really realizing, like, this is serious. She has a lot of problems. And We don't know what to do for her anymore. You know, like my parents were at a loss. My family was at a loss.

This wasn't really very common. It definitely was not common in my family. I think my dad and his side of the family do have some mental health issues, but it wasn't to the point where it was what I was doing. I don't think anyone had tried to actually attempt to kill themselves. And I can remember when I ended up in the emergency room, my father, I think, was actually asking me, did you actually mean to die? And I looked at them and I just said, I don't know. I really didn't know at that point. I didn't want to live, but I didn't want to die. And I'm just sitting with this absolute

fear of realizing that my poor brother first had this burden to carry around that he didn't deserve to carry that could he have done something to stop me? No, there was no stopping me from doing that. And the looks on my grandparents' face when the paramedics came in and, you know, strapped me to the stretcher. And these are very core memories into basically probably the start of my real alcoholism. Because at this point, I was just so completely lost. I had no idea who I was anymore. It was like I was somebody else living in a different person's body. And it just skyrocketed at this point.

So basically by the time I was 17 years old, I got my first underage drinking ticket and lost my license for about three months. And at this point, I had been introduced to drugs. Here and there, friends would be smoking weed. I started working in the service industry. Pretty much by the time I was about 15 years old, I had a little job at like Cece's Pizza. And it kind of was like my door to leading into other service. industry jobs. I started working at a restaurant as a hostess when I was 17 years old, and I was working with a lot of older girls. And pretty much at this point, I was learning what all these older girls

were kind of getting into and whatnot. And I was introduced kind of to Adderall. I was introduced to Vicodin. I was introduced to Percocets. I was introduced to the pill kind of world, in a sense. And I did go through it a little bit. I went through having a little bit of a Vicodin addiction. And so at this point, I can remember dabbling here and there, but my mindset was really all just about where is my next drink coming from. So starting working at this restaurant, I then started to cocktail waitress at a bar in downtown Naperville, which at the time I was 19 years old. And most of these bars, you had to be 21 and older to work at. So I felt like I was a hot shot here. I'm 19 years old. And I'm coming into this bar working with everybody.

There was only one other girl that was my age that was working there with me. So we kind of had like a little packed. And the bartenders would kind of like sneak us some shots every now and then. And we would just do this like every so often. And I worked there for about two and a half years. And things were just starting to get a lot worse with my drinking. So yeah, at this point, it was just like a literal downward spiral. So I got out of that at about.

20 years old then, I was drinking. I would say at least four to five times a week and not just drinking, like not just having a glass of wine. Like, I was drinking beers and shots and I was taking Adderall to make sure I could drink more on my night out because, you know, your tolerance gets so high when you're on that. And like, I was then driving everywhere I was going to while I was drinking. Did you ever realize through all this? Like, I've got a problem with this. Like, there's a problem here. I don't know. I don't know if it ever really clicked to me, like, that my drinking was the problem. I think that because I had so many other severe mental health issues happening at the time, that my drinking was absolutely a way out of escaping what

my brain was really telling me to do. I absolutely think that my mental health issues led into my drinking and using. And I've been told even recently by a friend that you don't have a drinking problem. You have a thinking problem. They're absolutely right. I was always, always trying to find a way out of my brain. So basically, by the time I was 20, I got my first DUI. I was under 21. I only had my fake ID on me at the time. So they wanted to charge me with a felony and keep me in jail. But somebody luckily at the police station somehow knew the person that was the ID that I had. And so $10,000 later and I had the breathalyzer in my car for about six months. And this is how bad my drinking was at this time period that I would go to work and I would have a timer on my phone

counting down the time frame of an hour so that I could take a shot every hour so that I could still blow zero zero into my breath blizer in my car, which now looking back is just absolutely insane. If these were not wake-up calls to me, I really don't know what would have been. So by the time I was 21, I actually then moved away with a partner that I was with at the time. And I just realized how little rules there were for me to follow. Like, this is my first time being completely on my own. I'm in a different state. I don't have any really friends. So, you know, what's a way to meet friends? Well, you go out to the bars and you go drinking and stuff. So I started working Our apartment was right across the street from like this really nice outdoor indoor mall.

And that's where my job was located. So I was like pretending I was at work really late every night and I was just drinking to the point where I was blacking out, walking back home. And this lasted for probably about a year while I was living there. And then I ended up cheating on him and we broke up and I moved into my own apartment and things just got completely worse. I was getting annihilated almost every single night. I was sleeping around, waking up next to people that I could not even remember meeting them.

I was putting myself in like seriously scary places just to be able to drink. The hangovers at this point were just excruciating my finances. I had almost none. I was getting fired for multiple jobs. My friends were so fed up with me and I was just completely lost with myself. I ended up getting hammered at home one night alone and decided it was a really great idea to book my working holiday visa with literally zero thought process. behind that. I got my credit card out, applied, and thinking it was going to take months to get accepted, I woke up the next day getting the email saying, hey, you're accepted and you can

move to Australia. Like, what the heck did I just do? So anyways, I took the leap of faith. I moved all my stuff back to Chicago and I left for Australia five days later. And this is really where my heavy, heavy, heavy drinking and the beginning of my serious drug use pretty much all began here at 23 years old. You say heavy, heavy drinking, sorry, at 23. It seems like you've been heavy drinking for a look here. Yeah, I think it's just because, like, the backpacking community is actually like 20% of the world.

And, you know, Australia and other parts of the world, there's millions of other backpackers just like you doing the same thing. So you'll wake up one day and they'll be like, I'm going to go bungee jumping today. Oh, I'm going skydiving today or I'm going to take a hike today. And then literally by the time that little adventure was done, everybody would be back at the bar. There would be bar crawls every single night. There was just every single night. There was something going on.

And about a month into my travels, I got introduced to Molly and I fell in love. And don't get me wrong, like this was literally the time of my life. But was it because I was enhancing it with drugs and drinking? Or was it just because it was the most independent way of. of living I've ever imagined. At this point, I was about six months into my travels, and I was searching for the drugs every other night. I was probably taking Molly almost every other night, maybe every two to three nights while I was working, while I was just like out with friends, doing whatever. It was just the thing that people were doing. I can remember actually at the bar

I was working at, we had a little fun blow machine, you know, and you could see how intoxicated you were. And at one point, I blew point three four, three times almost over the legal limit. And I walked home completely fine that night. So at this point, my tolerance and my addictions were just completely skyrocketing. After a year in Australia, I moved to New Zealand for another year to experience some other adventures. I was going completely broke, trying to fund my addictions, getting fired from my job. I'm sort of pretending I was too sick to work. But really, my anxiety and my depression at this point were controlling my daily will to literally get out of bed and brush my hair. After about 11 months, I did get to the point where I had a cry for help moment and I severely, severely self-harmed

myself. I basically ended up then being sent back to America to receive the proper treatment. And once I got back to America, I pretty much just had the hopes of saving some money and going back out into the world. So my family at this point decided to all move to Florida. So I was kind of like couch surfing around friends' houses and friends, family members, houses and stuff. So I was working for about 10 months. And this was probably, I believe I was about 25 years old when I got introduced to cocaine. And boy, did I fall in love. There didn't even need to be a party going on for me to get my hands on pretty much anything I could. It would start with like a few bumps here or there. And it led into a full-blown, almost everyday kind of situation. You know, another one of my very, very good friends of

mine and I would get our hands on a couple bags here and there. We would try to meet up to go to dinner on a Wednesday night. We'd end up getting high instead, you know, or we'd sit in the garage, play some card games, and we'd end up going through bags and bags of it. It just did not matter where or what was happening. Like, I was making sure that this was what I was doing. And about January of 2018, I ended up in the hospital for five days with a severe kidney infection. It did spread up to my bladder, which caused me to nearly go septic. While I was in there, the person that I was living with went through all my belongings. And just like that, 10 months of hard work, $7,000 saved up, it was all gone. I was completely broken at this point. I made myself very sick over it. But at the same time,

I had a very, very strong mindset at this point that I was like, nobody can take this from me. I am going on this trip. Because at this point, I had planned another world trip. And so I did nine countries and four months, it was truly amazing. I literally made some of my own dreams come true. And during this time frame, I really didn't touch drugs for maybe about a handful of times. And for the first time, in a very long time, I had a great mindset. So it didn't last really that long. When I got all that money stolen from me, I decided it was a great idea to quickly make money back by going to dance at a gentleman's club. And so I made back about half the money I had stolen at that time period. I also had some close acquaintances paying for things for me and whatnot. So at the time,

when I got back to America, I said, I need to pay off my debt. So I went back to working at the club and basically I then met somebody and moved into his house and we were just very close roommates, close friends. And we ended up having a really great relationship, especially living together. It was very, very comfortable. There was nothing weird. Well, it didn't last very long. When I got back to America, I got reintroduced the party life, like very, very quickly. Before you jump back into that, the time in the hospital, did that freak you out a little bit? Did that scare you? Yeah, it did. But at the time that this happened, I was working my butt off for this trip that I had planned. And so it basically was me just saying that I was too busy working.

to pay attention to the fact that, like, I had maybe TMI, but I had a UTI that I just was not taking care of. And I was also drinking so heavily on top of it that it was absolutely causing it to become worse than it probably would have been if I just took care of it right away. So I think I showed up to like just a doctor and they were like, you need to go to the emergency room right now. You could absolutely be septic. And my face went white. I mean, I was on a road where there might not have been coming back from. It was very, very scary. And I was like peeing blood and I was throwing up blood and I was throwing up every five seconds.

I said, holy shit, something is not right here. And so, yeah, I was in there for five days. And while I was in the hospital, my mom and my brother actually took off down to Florida. It was kind of like everyone was sort of staggering moving down to Florida. So I'm literally laying in the hospital bed. and they're off to Florida. And I'm like, what am I doing? But anyways, going back into this time period,

it was just a very, very sick time period. I think I was becoming sicker than I ever was in the 10 years prior. Living at this person's house, I was appreciative because he gave me basically a roof over my head and everything. But at this point, I was about 26 years old and I was sexually assaulted again by somebody that nobody knew his name. yet I was pretty much to blame because I was drinking and using. It was very shameful, embarrassing. It was gross. But once again, I decided to just throw it under the rug and go about my life, you know,

because during that time period, every single person around me was drinking and using. So it really didn't matter any harm that was done. And I think the hardest part was realizing that no matter the harm that was done to me, I was to blame for it because of what I was doing to myself. And so a little while after that, I found myself in a very drug and alcohol-related relationship. It lasted about two years. We drank, we partied, we used, we hurt people, we hurt each other. We cried for help, but, you know, neither of us were saving ourselves. So how are we going to save each other? You know, it was a very lose-lose situation. By this time period, I was utterly and absolutely repulsed. There's things that I did during this time period that I can't even say out

loud without choking on the words. We would go on two day, four date, or even six day benders. I would legitimately show up to the bar in the same clothes I was wearing for three days straight. Someone would say, oh, we're going to the bar. My anxiety would be so high because I didn't want to be alone in that house that I would continue to join. There was times I was throwing up and still walking out the door to join the rest of the group. The bartenders looking at me, complete disgust, like, what is wrong with this girl? You know, I've been up for six days on drugs and alcohol. No idea what day or time it was, not sure if I've slept or eaten. And then all of a sudden, I would decide it was time to take a break and I would withdraw for two days and until the shaking

stopped. And then I would feel better and I would do it all over again. There would be times where I would do a line of Coke and the next week would be history. And then there would be times where I'd do some and fall right asleep. If that wasn't a wake-up call to come back to Earth, I really don't know what would have been. I didn't have a regular job. So I would go in like once or twice a month, make some money, spend it all on drugs and alcohol with a possibility of being able to pay my car payment without asking for a loan. I was like literally playing Russian roulette with my addictions at this point. I was slowly but rapidly, totally losing the battle. But at this point, COVID hit and it all got worse.

I was waking up 9 a.m. doing a line of Coke, crack open a beer, make some food maybe, have some people over, listen to music, talk about nothing important, drink all day, play some card games, rest and repeat. At one point, probably about three months in, I just woke up one day and out of the blue. And basically, I could see the light again. And I got up, I packed my shit, and I walked away, and I didn't look back. And I said, oh my God, I got it this time. I decided it was time to move to Florida. So I set my date to July 1st. I was like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to be with my family finally. This is the time I can do this. And so about two weeks before I was moving, to my surprise, I did meet somebody who pretty much swept me off my feet. You know, we were having the time of our lives. We partied for those two weeks

before I was moving because I said, why not? You know, like I'm never going to see these people again. I'm gone. So basically, I moved away, but when I got down to Florida, I was lonely. I was missing the man who swept me off my feet. I was buying cases and cases of alcohol night, going for drive, sitting on the beach alone, just getting absolutely trashed by myself because I was lonely and missing this other part of my life that now I was not a part of anymore. So pretty much long, long, long story short, I moved back to Illinois, two months later and about four months months later, I got pregnant with a baby boy, and my world took a big backflip. In all reality, my son absolutely hands down saved my life. In so many ways, I can't express. But at the time,

it caused me a lot of pain and heartache. The father of my son and I were not in any sort of way or position to be bringing a child into this world, into our world, into a scary mess that we literally had not cleaned up yet. But there was a. no doubt in my mind that I was going to bring this child into a beautiful life free of addictions that neither of us had growing up. The father of my son struggled with addiction for a long time period in his life as well. And at the time that I met him, he had a long time under his belt of being clean, you know, so it didn't worry me at all, really. But there was just so many other parts of life that we were not ready for this. And,

And to be honest, when I got pregnant and I'm realizing like, I can't be partying anymore. I can't live this lifestyle anymore. I resented him so much during this time period, mainly just because he had the freedom. He could do whatever he wanted to do. He could go to the bars. He could hang out with his friends. And I'm sat in the dark wondering, like, how the heck am I going to do this? What am I about to really endure?

So basically, after I gave birth, my postpartum, I was. Partum depression hit me so hard. It was so, so dark. Like, my life just was like a black hole. And I pretty much had it in my head that I wanted to make up for all my lost time in those nine months. And seriously, is that what I did? Like, I couldn't have picked up a drink faster if I tried. And honestly, before I knew it, I was drinking all day, everywhere I went at work, not at work, showing up to the buyers again. My car covered in cans and bottles and I literally didn't give a shit. I went to check myself into treatment actually about four months after my son was born and they actually denied me because I showed up drunk. So at this time period, it got really, really dark. I would be calling my mom at like

two in the morning, screaming rage behind my voice and telling her I was going to run my car into a light pool. Like I was just miserable. I didn't want to be a mom. I didn't know how to be a mom. My dad actually currently helps take care of my son and everything now. But at the time period, he said, I'm going to take custody. I'm going to take him and I'm going to move to Florida because this is ridiculous. You know, like I'm coming home, absolutely wasted, crawling, literally like crippled by my alcoholism and my drug addictions and everything that was going on at this time period. I'm crawling around my house, like in front of my son, like this was the most repulsive part of my life.

that there could have possibly been. I should probably rewind just a second. June of 2020, I actually got clean off of all drugs. It was the last time I had touched cocaine was like the week before I was moving to Florida. And by some godsend, I never touched it again. I can't even tell you what turned in me, but the light kind of came back on in my head. And that part of me just wanted to be done. I think I just had enough at that point. Basically, that part of my life after having my son was probably one of the darkest times of my life. I was actually working at a dental office for a little while. And I was drinking my way through my shifts. Like I'm here working inside of people's mouths full on doing procedures. And I'm drinking my way through my day. I would call my best friend telling her like, oh, I just have a couple white claws. I'll be fine. Blah, blah, blah. Like,

It was no big deal, you know, like I could have been sued. I could have been arrested. But none of that sank into these parts of my brain telling me that this was wrong. There wasn't anything telling me, Carly, stop doing that. I will say at this time period, my friends were absolutely done. Like, they were sick of my shit. I mean, my depression would get so ugly to the point where I wouldn't leave my bed for a week at a time. I think my subconscious coping mechanism still to this day is to not eat. And so,

I mean, at some point, my friends would tell me I looked like I should have lived in like a third world country, like I was starving, you know, but I had just not been taking care of myself in any sort of way. It just got really, really repulsive. So March 22nd of 2022, I was working at a bar that I was working at for almost three years. And I had a lot of lot of hard times during this time I was working at the bar. And basically, on March 22nd, I drank an entire bottle of Jack Daniels while I was working. I blacked out. I punched a wall. I hit a parked car on my way home. And I woke up still hambured and I needed to care for my son. And I couldn't. I literally couldn't. I was crippled by my withdrawals at that point.

Two days later, I basically said enough was enough. And I started the detox. I said, this was enough. And it was just bad. Three months, I had constant night sweats. I didn't have any taste buds. The extreme shakes, I fainted actually at work and was taken to the emergency room. I thought that I had been drugged. And at this point, my knowledge of alcohol withdrawal was so minimal that I didn't understand what was happening to me. But at the time when I passed out at work, my heart rate was out of this world. Like, it was insane. And everybody around me kept asking me, did you drink? Did you drink? Because at this time frame, I was telling everyone I was sober. And I kept saying, no, I have not drink. But the problem was is that I wasn't getting the proper medication and the proper support while I was going through this detox that I was just suddenly decided was a good time to do. And so I was hallucinating. Like, I thought I got drugged. And luckily, this was the time frame that I probably should have stroked out. And I thankfully got to the emergency room before that happened. That was like a pretty big wake-up call, you know.

So basically six months later, I was sober and I was like, holy crap, this life was amazing. I had a steady job making a great income. I was becoming a good mom again. And I thought I got this. But the problem was that I had the mindset that once I got sober and clean, I could have that occasional drink, which everyone knows now if you're an alcoholic, you can't really pick up that one drink without expecting to have more than one. And so October of 2022, six months after I got sober, I'd picked up that one drink and pretty much everything I just worked so hard to get to got completely screwed up. One drink led to my nights blacking out again, lying, cheating, manipulating, all the anger, all the repulsiveness again. I was trying to

hide it all because people thought I was sober still and I couldn't hide it anymore. Honestly, I got fired from my study job. I lost loved ones. I couldn't care for my baby anymore. I went on a three-day bender, blacking out on my way home. Apparently, I had FaceTimed my best friend, and I was hallucinating that there was animals all over. And I woke up the next day to her basically telling me that she was done. It was time for me to get help. And for the first time, I listened.

I gave up. I was absolutely hopeless. There was nothing left in me. At this point, I was kind of done being a mom. I was done being a friend, a daughter. I was ready to end this chaos that I created. So March 13th of 2023, I entered my last treatment center. And that was absolutely the scariest treatment center I had ever, ever entered.

At this point, like going through the detox this time, I was just absolutely delusional. I can recall three days into the detox, calling the father, my child, basically saying that he needed to find a new mom for our son. I couldn't do it anymore. And he was like, Carly, you're effing delusional. And I was like, no, I'm not. You know, so angry, but I was. I'm on all this medication trying to help my withdrawals and everything. And I was so, so stuck in my head. There was like no coming back for that from me. And I was in this treatment center. I wrote a suicide note. I actually went and bashed my head against the window like seven times before a counselor found me. I was on a one-to-one water. And I was on a one-to-one

watch. And at this point, my doctor basically said that there was nothing left to do for me. And my last resort was to basically do something called ECT, which is very, very old school medicine. It's called electroconvulsive therapy. So I had four rounds of this type of therapy. And if I would have probably known the outcome of it, I probably wouldn't have done it, to be honest. It was extremely scary. You're put under anesthesia and basically they shock your brain into a medically induced seizure to pretty much remove your short term memory. And that was intense and very, very scary. I had never heard of this before. I didn't even know that this was something that was still around. You know, my friends, I've told about it, they're even like, Carly, is that even

legal anymore, you know, but in a lot of the patients that were just, doing this were under psychosis. And so I'm here like, I'm not under psychosis. Why am I doing this? But I was so delusional to the point where I was telling people that I wasn't going to make it out of the treatment center. You know, like my suicidal ideations were so, so severe that there was no other option for me at this point. I basically just said, all right, I don't care. And I think that I almost didn't care from the point where if this were to have killed me, I didn't care. And that's where it got really, really scary. So coming out of treatment, I went right into an outpatient program. I could barely form words. I could barely speak sentences at this point. I couldn't remember people

that were like very close to me. I couldn't remember people's names. It was very ugly and nerve-wracking. You know, I'm trying to communicate with people and I can't. And so they did tell me it takes about 90 days to really heal from these. types of treatments. Basically, I did my outpatient program. I actually legally had to start an outpatient program. There was some situations with my son to be able to basically see my son on the days agreed upon. I needed to check myself into the outpatient program and start AA. So as much as I had to do that legally, I then sort of started to enjoy it. And when I say that that was my last treatment center, I say it proudly because I got it this time. This was the last straw. And I had somebody recently asked me, you know, I'm starting treatment soon and I'm really nervous. What made you

stay sober? And I said, well, I knew the next outcome was either going to be prison or death. And I don't want either of those. I really truly believe that for the first, time in my entire 20-some years, I can finally say that I made it out alive. And if you were to have told me 120 days ago that I'd be sitting here talking to you, I would have told you that you were delusional because my world has completely changed. And they say that you need to change the people, places and things that are surrounding you that were hurting your addiction and your alcoholism and everything. And I did that.

I retired from the bar community, you know. I have kind of a regular, steady paying normal job. And it's safe for my mental health right now. I am working very, very closely with a hormone therapy doctor at the moment who's done absolutely tremendous things for me so far. I finally am on like the right medication regimen. I have a routine now. And I follow it very thoroughly.

I make sure that I don't put myself in these situations that couldn't cause me any more harm. You know, like I was talking to a friend yesterday about this. And to be honest, I was crying a lot this week, reliving these memories. I've spent years and years trying to repress what I have done and what I've put people through and what I've gone through. And, you know, to relive it with now they're so fresh in my memory, it's painful. And I haven't even began to make my men's with the people that deserve it from what I've put them through. But I just know that I'm here and I am utterly grateful for the friends that got me to where I needed to be to my family. They have never given up on me through everything I've put them through. Been a roller coaster.

Yeah, wow. It sounds like it. And thank you so much for sharing your story with us. what do you find being the most helpful? Because you said it's four months, right? 120 days. What's it the most helpful for you? I never thought that I would enjoy going to AA, to be honest.

I truly was like, these are for these homeless people, like, don't know what they're doing with their lives. I'm not that bad. I haven't had that happen to me yet. You know, there's always the yes and the what ifs. And I truly think that once I joined. the AA group that is now my home group. It's about 10 minutes from my house. And I've met some very, very inspiring people. You know, some of these people have 30-some years under their belt of sobriety. And I'm coming in like, I'm 61 days sober, you know, like freaking out. And I'm probably one of the

youngest people in this little space that we're doing this AA group. And I was so nervous. But I truly in the last 20 years, people have said to me, what is your higher power? What keeps you accountable? And I never understood what that truly meant until my sponsor finally said to me, you can look at a piece of fuzz on the ground. If that is what is holding you accountable to stay sober, then keep that piece of fuzz next to you at all times. And I looked at her and I laughed and I said, are you kidding me? You just explain that to me in 30 seconds and no one has done that to me in 20 years. And so now knowing that I have these little things that are holding me accountable, you know,

and I don't technically say my son is my higher power, but now that I am such a present mother, I am so involved with him. The father and I are co-parenting and communicating like in tremendously where in the past it was very ugly for a while, you know. And so just knowing that my addiction now is almost to make sure that I have peace and quiet in my head because it all starts with my way of thinking. It all starts with that one thought telling me your piece of shit. or the devil on your shoulder telling you that you're worthless and that you have no purpose in this

world. And now I can almost counteract that with knowing what my higher power is. Who's holding me accountable? What is holding me accountable? What is my avenue? What is my escape now when I feel this trigger? What do I do when I feel that anxiety coming on? I have a personal therapist as well. So through AA, through the outpatient program, through my personal therapy and through the loved ones that I still have in my life to this day, I have stopped, I have listened, and I have learned. And I am actually absorbing all of this information and knowledge that I'm finally taking away instead of saying, oh, screw that, I'm just going to do whatever I want to do anyways. I've been selfish for such a long time period of my life, thinking that I deserved all of these

people to keep being by my side when I absolutely did not deserve any of this. I have two best friends that have been in my life for 20 years now, and they have never left my side. And honestly, through all of this, I didn't deserve them to stay by my side. And now it's almost like, this is my way of telling them that I'm okay now. A friend called me a other day, and she was like, because I said to her, I go, we haven't talked in a couple days. What's going on? And she was like, you know, I really think that once I knew you went through this treatment and you got out and you're actually putting your words that you're using into actions, she's like, I can sleep okay at night now knowing you're okay. So I've given this peace back to my family. I've given this peace of mind

back to my friends and close ones. And I'm very grateful for the father of my kid, his family, because they all went through this with him. And so it's almost a blessing that, I'm able to now kind of be open with my situation and I'm not being judged. I'm not being put down because of the things that I've done. I have put myself and my son into situations that I absolutely should have never done, you know, and I still have them by my side. I still have my family by my side through all of this. And honestly, it's all helpful. Yeah, no, thank you so much for sharing that. I'm just wondering as we wrap up here to I mean, this is quite the conversation.

We covered a lot of ground. But what's the one message that you would like other people to take away from your story, if you could decide? One of the things that I have been saying a lot lately is that I have a hard time letting go. I hold on to a lot of resentment and I hold a lot of grudges, a lot of towards people that have harmed me, but in other situations as well. And I've been told so many times like, Carly, you need to let it go. And I could not figure out how to do that. And I finally heard someone say, you don't have to forgive and forget, but you can remember and recover.

And that has literally helped me in so many ways. I can't forgive a lot of people that did harm me. I can't ever forget the situations that I was in or the things. or the things that I've done. But I can remember it all and I can recover from that. And I can pick a different path to walk down now, path that will open these beautiful doors now. And it already has, you know.

I've removed the toxicity from my life and from my body. And I'm now putting the good energy, the positivity, the healthy people, places and things into my world. now. And it honestly, honestly, makes such a big difference. And learning to sit with your own self, your own thoughts, your own feelings is by far the scariest thing that I think I've had to endure after 20 years of escaping at all. I'm learning to feel real feelings again. And I hope that other people struggling or recovering can just learn how to sit with themselves, to learn how to love themselves first. I didn't even like myself, let alone love myself. And now the gift of sobriety,

120 days later, I can sit here and tell you that with a lot of support and a lot of direction and guidance, I am actually learning to love myself again. And it all seriously starts with a you. I truly believe that. Yeah, that's beautiful. Wow. Well, I'm so proud of you to come on here to share your story, to share some insight on what's working for you and everything. Because you could have went through all of that and just kind of taking that with you and moved on with your life in a sense. And I think it's cool that you're putting it out there because there's so many other people who struggle with different parts of your story and be able to relate and just to be an example that you can still find a way out. Absolutely. I am so, so grateful to be sitting here.

today and telling you this story, you know, because there was a dozen times where I shouldn't have been. I shouldn't have made it out. And there's a lot of people that don't get the second chance. And I pray for the people that are still struggling. And I pray for the people that didn't make it because I do have a lot of close people to me that have passed away from addictions and alcoholism. And it's scary. And I truly just want people to know that they're not alone. You know, there is a community out there, there is help. There is people suffering just like you are. And for a long time, I just felt like the freak. Like nobody understood me. And I truly believe that once I found this community of people, that I was going to make a change and it was going to be in the right direction.

And my girlfriend, who's actually sober also, and I have been connecting a lot lately. And we have some pretty exciting goals for the future. We actually just launched our social media page last week. And it's exciting for us just because we've done a lot of like research, I guess you could say. And we look at a lot of other sober pages and obviously your sober motivation page has been such a huge, huge part in this community. We wanted to create something that was inviting and welcoming and to have this safe, judge-free space that people can come to us and share their experiences and tell us what's going on, just even in their daily life. And when you click our page, we're the sober chick.

And it's very calming because, like I said, now my main goal is to find that peace and quiet in my head. And that was what we wanted to create. She's very artsy. She went to school for arts. she's a photographer. So she's very, very creative in the dynamic of the page. It's very enlightening. It's calming. And it makes you kind of feel like you're being swept away in a good way. And we just wanted to kind of be involved in the sober community, but have our own little personal characteristics added to it, you know, and make it a little unique. So we were excited.

And we have a couple of future goals of just maybe creating a little women's group, of support and doing some activities around like the Chicago Land area, like some of those paint parties and just even doing like a women's walk, you know, like once a month or something. That's kind of some of our things that we've discussed. So it's exciting, you know, and I think that that also is such a great way of keeping us accountable because we want to inspire. We want to help and guide and give people that feeling of, you know, knowing that they're not the only ones that feel and think this way. You know, it's so much more out there. And I still want to

learn more. I have a ton more of knowledge that I cannot wait to get my hands on. Yeah. Well, that's incredible. Well, everybody check that out. The sober chick, right? Yeah. So it's kind of funky because our profile name is the dot sober.com. Okay. But like the at is like at v. sober chick without the is our name was taken. So, you know, how that goes. Okay. Yeah. And I'll put it in the show notes. Everybody can click the link and then it's a lot easier than us searching for it. But yeah, I think that would be it for today. But thank you so much. Thank you, Brad. I'm so happy that I could share the story with you today. Well, there it is. Carly's story on the Subur Motivation podcast. I hope you found that as powerful

as I did. The ups, the downs, the downs to all arounds. 120 days, it really goes to show how much things can change when you go all in on something. And the same is true if you go all in the other way. You see how extreme things were and how Carly mentioned in the episode that she would always take things to the extreme. So take your sobriety to the extreme. Thank you, everybody, for the continued support. Be sure to reach out to Carly and tell you.

her if you enjoyed the episode. If you could connect with any part of her story, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who can. And a huge shout out to Carly. 120 days, reconnecting with her son, her family, getting a career and a job that's good for her mental health, and making so many changes in staying true to her meetings,

staying true to what she says she's going to do. And I'm extremely grateful that she decided to come on the Subur Motivation Podcast and share her story. Until next time, I'm out.