Well with Arielle Lorre - 78: Alexis Haines - Real Talk, Life Updates + Living in Alignment

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

In this episode I’m talking to Alexis Haines about anything and everything! We sat down at my house and hit record and had a very genuine conversation between friends covering everything from crazy drugs stories to life updates, spiritual growth and living in alignment, emotional hangovers, how our relationships are really going in quarantine and so much more. www.woomoreplay.com/discount/BLONDEFILES for 20% off your order! www.blublox.com with code BLONDE for 15% off your order! Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Go to your reis-adviseur or sunnycars. The following podcast is a dear media production. Hey, welcome to the Blond Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything

in between, no topic is off limits. I know there is so much information out there, so I'm here to help you navigate it all and live your best life. Thanks for listening. Let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to this show. I love today's episode so much.

with my friend Alexis Haynes, who I'm sure you all know. She has been on the show before last year where we got into her history with reality TV, drugs, jail, getting sober, all of that. So today's episode is different. And we were literally sitting at my house in Malibu talking and I hit record and just let it roll. So you're going to enter this kind of mid-conversation. And this is just a very genuine convo between friends covering everything from crazy drug stories to life updates, spiritual growth, living in alignment, emotional hangovers, how our relationships are really going in quarantine, and so much more. So enjoy. We're just going to wing it. I love that. And see where it goes. I'm here for winging down to talk about what is anything off the table.

Oh my God. It was so funny. Did you want to do? Watch my Instagram stories from last night. It was Jared's 40th birthday. And they put together the most beautiful. I saw the stories, but I didn't have the sound on. Oh, so they put together the most beautiful socially distanced outdoor dinner that was catered. I wore the dress. So good.

The dress I bought with you that I then ruined. I got caught in a cactus, ripped the whole bottom and stained it with olive oil. Oh, my God. So the dress is done. What the beautiful dress. It lasted. lasted for one night. Not even then.

I wore it one. It was terrible. But anyways, it was so funny because my girlfriend, Jessica, I was doing a story. And then all of a sudden she says in the background, I mean, Babe always talks about your sex life. And I got it on video. I was like, thanks. I'm making a video right now. Because I really truly am an open book.

And I think it's funny because a lot of the time when I do podcast, people are like, is anything off limits? And I'm like, no, I'll talk about anything. Would you talk about that story that you were just telling me? I would. I don't want to get sued. Yeah. Maybe we'll get to our crazy drug stories. We can get to that.

Yeah. I actually cut that from the book because my attorney advised me that that would be kind of a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. It wouldn't be. Well, you talked about some of them, but you didn't use their names. You just used like musician. Uh-huh. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So some of that stories in the book. And I think, you know, my life back then was really crazy, obviously. And I wanted to leave it for people to, like, use their imagination when it came to the events. But, no, that was a great, that was actually one of the highlights of my using. Like, you know when in the beginning of you're using, everything's fun. And then it starts to get really crazy. But then in that crazy, but then in that crazy,

you have these moments that are like bliss. And you're like, this is why I'm doing this. You know what I mean? You have to or we wouldn't be doing it. You wouldn't be doing it. So you have these time period. So this was right before I got arrested. And my sister Tess was dating kid rock at the time.

Musician in the book. I'm sure that legally that's probably not a great idea of whatever. And I was. They might not be familiar with the blonde files. Yeah. Probably. You're right. But yeah, so it's funny because showed up to your house and we were talking about all the houses that are for sale.

And I said, well, this person's house is for sale in Malibu. And it's the most beautiful home. And it reminded me of these moments, these nights that we would have in that house where it was just such a crazy mix of people that you would never expect. So one night I walked in for a dinner party and they had a chef there preparing this amazing meal. And it was like Cindy Crawford, T.I. Anthony Kedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sean Penn. It was like the craziest group that you could ever imagine. And we would sit outside and listen to them jam in the backyard for hours until four or five in the morning. And it was epic. And one night we were out at sunset, which I just ordered food from. And we came back to the house and a number of us, I won't say who, had done a ton of Coke. And you know with Coke where you pass that point of no return, you are, I said this person

kind of transformed into the Joker, but it is like that where you have this like weird switch where all of a sudden you're like manic and like twitchy. You've done way too much uppers. but one person in the group who's a very, very famous actor, reached into my purse and grabbed my favorite Dior red lipstick and put it on in the bathroom. And I remember sitting near the bathtub and they just went into this full on monologue of it was of a trans prostitute. And I don't know where they got this dialogue from, if it was from a script that they had done or whatever. It was the cocaine. But I remember sitting there and at the end we were all like awestruck at this moment and our jaws were dropped and we were all clapping in the back. Like yes, bravo more. And yeah, that was definitely one of the highlights of my using. We had so many fun moments there. I mean, they say like in recovery that it's fun and then it's fun with problems and then it's just problems. And I think I even like I get stuck.

I'm still not so far removed from it that I mainly just remember how bad it was at the end because that's what I'm closest to. Like the fun times were such a long time ago. But I, when you were telling that story, I was remembering like this one standout time where I ended up in Puerto Rico with, I don't know that I should say. I ended up in Puerto Rico. You should say. With a really famous football player and all their friends and this girl who I was friends with

and she was friends with like a couple guys that were friends with them. So like we were with this big group and we got a bunch of Puerto Rican cocaine when we got there. And we were staying. I can't remember a hard rock or something like that down there. And the first night we were like, okay, we're going to like have this big night out with everybody and we did this cocaine. And we got so high. I just remember getting in the elevator going down.

The doors opened to the casino and it was like bright lights and like, And the door shut. And we just went back up to the room. And we, it was so weird. I think we had like a twister, like the board game. We got Twister. And she and I just so fucked up played Twister and like drank on. Oh my God. So weird. But what was I going to say about? Oh, of course it's fun. Like that's why we partially why we keep doing it despite all of the wreckage. Obviously, we talk about all things self-care here from nutrition to mental health to physical health and everything in between. And you guys, one of those in-betweens is sex care. Okay? This is not to be overlooked. So I want to talk to you about Wu More Play.

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coconut love oil. It's made with organic coconut oil. It is edible. It's like a vanilla cupcake, okay? And if you love that, then they also have quickies, which are cute, perfectly pre-portioned packs of the love oil. So all you have to do is rip off the top and get going. No mess, no cleanup, okay? So head over to woo moreplay.com. That's W-O-O-O-Play.com slash blondefiles, B-L-O-N-D-E. E-F-I-L-E-S for 20% off your order of Wu. Or you can use the code blonde files at checkout for 20% off W-M-W-M-W-M-R-P-E-L-M-A-P-L-E-E-E-F-I-L-E-E-S. And trust me, you guys, you are going to love this, and you're going to keep coming back for more. Hi, I'm Caroline Stanbury, and I am divorced, not dead.

Fresh off the back of my divorce, I'm bringing real stories, real life, real talk on all things that aren't said. Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves for the happily ever after? Does our love story really have to be one great lengthy novel? Or can we be happy with a book of short but exciting love stories? I guess we'll find out on divorce not dead. And lucky me, you'll be joining me for the journey. So buckle up. I mean, I love drugs. I still do. I think drugs are great. I mean, it totally makes sense to me. Evan was saying something the other day to me. Evan's my husband for anyone who's listening to this and has no idea who I am. But Evan was saying something to me the other day. He was like, did you know that in the first month of quarantine, Xanax prescriptions were

filled 40% higher than any other month? And I was like, well, no shit. Zanax is amazing. Everybody's using Xanax. And I just, I don't know. I think people are so shocked to learn about addiction and how many people are addicted to substances and about drug culture and just the chaos that it causes in people. I was like, so-and-so is a drug addict? And it's like, it just makes sense to me. This world is so chaotic and crazy and scary right now that, and I think, you know what I was thinking about the other day is if COVID hit and all of the stuff that was going on politically

was transpiring and none of us had social media, we would all be exponentially more happy. even though this was all happening. Oh, 1,000 percent. I saw a meme that was like somewhere like Joe is sitting at his house in the woods with like no social media and he's not watching the news and he's like very happy right now. Yeah. And I was like, yeah. I mean, my husband doesn't have social media. He's arguably maybe kind of addicted to the news a little bit. So that's not great. But even just taking the social media component out of it, he doesn't know. He doesn't hear. the crazy shit that people say, whatever side you're on, like on Twitter, on Instagram, he doesn't see all of the conspiracies. Like, so he has no idea. And like it's not so much like an ignorance as bliss thing because he's very aware,

that's actually going on. But he doesn't see the rest of it. My husband's the same. So my husband, the only social media that he actively uses is Twitter. And he doesn't even tweet. he just reads the news and his like favorite bloggers and things like that. And he listens to a good amount of news in his car, but at home I have a rule that we don't,

we're not putting on CNN all day long. It's just not going to happen in that. I can't take it. But he is the happiest, chillest, calmest, most content person that I've ever met. And he's so woke and so aware and so involved in what's happening. and really has so much passion for it. But yeah, he's just like unaffected.

Chuck was writing something today for one of his shows, and he's having one of the characters be some kind of like gender fluid thing. I don't know. He was writing, it's a comedy, right? And I was like, you're going to get canceled. He wasn't saying anything bad about it, but just everybody is so sensitive right now. And he's like, I'm already canceled. Like, I'm done anyway.

And I don't have Twitter. And I'm not going to even see. So I don't care. I was like, wow, that's very free. Yeah. What's that like, Chuck? Tell me more. How do I get as, you know, invigorated as you are to just do whatever and say whatever?

I feel like I'm very vocal. You know, it's funny because even just today I was pretty vocal in my stories. And then I get like a slew of your fucking idiot and you have no idea what you're talking about. And aren't you aware of da-da-da-da and whatever. and I'm just like, ugh, whatever. And as much as I want to say it doesn't affect my mental health, to a certain extent, it doesn't. But when it's all day long with all the feedback, but I feel like it's my responsibility as someone

who creates the type of content that I do to talk about this stuff, you can't shy away from it. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about, like, how you deal with, I don't know, like backlash. not even backlash, but just the climate of like being a personality, a public personality with a social media presence and a podcast. And how do you deal with that? Because it is such a toxic place right now. No matter what you're saying. If you're saying eat your vegetables, there's somebody who's like, vegetables are bad. Carnival only.

Yeah. Like it doesn't. Only eat beef. It doesn't matter. Like people just want to fight. So I post it. live the other day because I got an influx of messages. People come to meet for advice every single day. And I can't respond to all the DMs. But one day, right after the passing of Justice Ginsburg,

so it was that night. So the following day. So I get a whole bunch of DMs. Like, I feel so hopeless. I don't know what to do. Oh, my God. Aren't you devastated? The whole thing of like, I just don't know if I can take anymore. 2020 is the worst year ever. Da-da-da-da-da. And so I couldn't respond to every DM and I did a live and I said, listen, guys, this is obviously a very challenging moment. And in these moments, let me share with you what I do.

And so I talked about having a really stable morning routine, like setting ourselves up to thrive throughout the day because it's true. When I wake up in the morning and grab my phone and start staring at. at my phone, I end up having a day filled with anxiety and stress. When I wake up in the morning before my children, get out of bed, brush my teeth, whatever. So I went on to this whole thing about the proven effects of meditation and not looking at blue light in the morning and talked about grounding and all of that stuff. So then the following morning, I did it. I was like, wake up with me. This is literally what I do step by step. And I was recording a video of myself while I was

brushing my teeth and I literally got 15 DMs of people who are like, why would you leave the water running when you're brushing your teeth? Stop. Ooh. That's the space. That's where we're at on social media right now. Yeah. That is where we're at where it's like there is no grace, no, you know, everyone has to give

their fucking opinions about what you're doing or not doing. I'm worried about this standard of perfection though. Yeah. Like, because I get the same thing. Yeah. It's like, really, this is, that's what you're going to choose to be outraged over. There are so many important things. I get it.

But like, really? And granted, I turn my water off when I brush my fucking teeth in the morning. Right. But I was recording a video with one hand and a toothbrush in the other. I didn't like cross my mind. And here I am. I'm trying to help people. and motivate them to take a few positive action steps in the morning to be more mindful,

to slow down, to be able to gain some peace in their lives. And here you are. And so for me, really quarantine in a lot of ways, because I've been very, very strict. I haven't gone anywhere. I haven't stepped on a plane, a hair salon. I've been to two restaurants, one of which was with you last week and we're six months into quarantine. I was telling my husband. And by the way, we sat like in the middle of nobody around us. No one. Except there must be have been some TikTok girl behind us because people are like walking by taking videos. And I was like, who are you? But the guy she was with was so annoying. And I remember walking out and being like, can you imagine dating that guy? Like, no. 20 year old, 19 year old Alexis would have been all over that guy. Right. And now I'm just like,

oh, but anyway. You guys know I talk about my love for blue blocks all the time. I wear their blue light blocking glasses pretty much all day and have noticed a big difference in my anxiety, my tension headaches, eye strain, and just the overall burnt out feeling that I get after sitting in front of a screen all day. I also installed their red light bulbs in my bedroom in L.A., and it was a total game changer when it comes to falling asleep naturally, which is so important. And you guys can hear the science behind all of this on episode 46 with Andy Mant, who is the founder of Blue. Blue Blocks where he totally breaks it down for us. So I'm in New York now and our bedroom here doesn't have blackout shades so light starts creeping in as soon as the sun comes up and I'm such

a sensitive sleeper. It gets me every time. However, I am using the Blue Blocks Sleep Mask and I'm sleeping until 7 a.m., which is like unheard of for me. It is so soft and comfy and blocks out all the light, which is so important because even a tiny amount of light hitting your clothes. eyes at night is enough to decrease REM and deep sleep, which is the most restorative of our sleep cycles. So I basically love all of their products and I stand by them 100%. And I know so many of you guys have purchased their products as well and are loving them too. So thank you for tagging me when you do. So if you want to get your energy back, sleep better and block out the unhealthy effects of blue light. Go to blue blocks today and get free shipping worldwide and 15% off

with the code blonde, that's B-L-O-N-D-E, or go to blueblocks.com slash blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E. And that's B-L-U-B-L-O-X.com. Yeah, I think quarantine's been a blessing for me in a lot of ways, because I've gone through really a lot of soul-searching, a lot of shadow work, and I'm really vibing with this, like, level of peace that is pretty untouchable, like, shakable. We're at that point, which is just amazing. I love what I'm writing that. That's not saying things aren't hard. Then I'm not still having anxiety, moments of depression, feeling hopeless. All of those things are still there. But there is this undercurrent of just truth that is that

everything has always been and will always be perfect. And it's okay. And I can just do everything in my power to make my life, my kids' lives, my husband's life. And then after that, you know, try to be a member of society that helps other people's lives. And that's all I can do. Yeah, it's definitely been a very challenging lesson in things we can control and things we can't. And I've had kind of a similar experience where like I went through more discomfort this year than I think I ever have, at least in sobriety before that. It was just a shit show. I don't even know what was going on. But I kind of came to this place too where I was like, wow, like I need to really learn to let go of the things I can't control. I always thought I was before. But with all the distractions gone and with things so unpredictable,

that's all you can do. Yeah. Yeah. I think it, this has been the ultimate surrender and I see the amount of chaos that's happening online. And what it makes me think of is all of these people, are trying to hold on for dear life. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't matter what side you're on. You're holding on no matter what. Yeah, it's fear.

It's fear, I think. I don't know. There's a saying in recovery that you probably know that's like pause when agitated or doubtful. And I've heard people say that the amount of sobriety, but you could apply this to whatever, the amount of serenity or peace that you have isn't measured by like how much you meditate

or how many years sober you are or whatever. It's measured by how long that pauses when you get agitated. And I was like, yeah, these people are not pausing. Myself included sometimes, you know, I'm far from perfect. And I see something and I have a reaction. But there's a difference between like having that reaction and acting on it. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think that it's a constant having to check, like check myself. Like where am I at? in my, you know, experience right now. Am I in full on fight or flight? Am I really being present? Am I being mindful? And even when I'm in my mindfulness, I can totally make mistakes and fuck up and whatever.

But I think that that's when that ability to pause, pausing gives you perspective. And when you can have perspective, then you can zoom out a little bit and go, okay, do I really need to do this right now? Or is this some knee-jerk reaction? I mean, the night that RBG, RIP, died, I was on one. You should have seen me on Twitter.

I was a fucking nightmare. I was what I hate of people on Twitter. I was every senator that was committing to appointing a new justice, I was like, well, now I'm committing to donating $150 to your opponent. I was lived to every single one of them. And Evan was like, what is all these act blue charges on our? on our account. And I was like, I donated $150 for each kid to every single person that I was mad at that night, like to their opponent.

I was literally on a storm of like, fuck you. Resentment donation. Yeah, I hope you don't get elected. You'll, you know, this is the last time you'll ever step foot into, you know, Congress. I was, oh my God. And then I woke up the next morning. And I had like a fucking hangover. Yeah.

An emotional hangover. That's the thing when you're in sobriety for as long as we've been in sobriety for, when you act out of alignment with your peace and serenity, you literally have a hangover for days. Yeah. Days. It's very unfortunate because sometimes I really want to act out of alignment and just do something. All the time. Self-seeking.

Like, you know, selfish, dishonest, whatever I want to do that sometimes. And sometimes I do. And you know what? I get the worst anxiety. I get the hangover. I am all like out of, all out of sorts. These are the quality problems that I have today, right? It's like my amends used to be, I'm sorry I fucked your boyfriend.

Right. You know what I mean? Like I'm sorry I stole your drugs. Sorry I robbed your house. I'm sorry I stole from your car. I feel like there's more shame though in sobriety because when at least for me, like the amends that I had to make. when I was using was because I was using. I was not, not that that was an excuse, but, you know, in sobriety, it's like, I don't have

anything. Yeah, you were like, it's the drugs. And now you're not on drugs. Right. I'm like, I'm like, I'm totally clear. It's just me. It's just me. Oh my God.

This is who I am. Oh, my God. No, what it is is in, and here's the thing. When I'm on top of, which I haven't been great about lately, my meditation, my journaling, my spiritual practices, these things don't come up. It's a lot of work, though. Yeah. It is a full fucking dedication.

And this is the way we are always supposed to live in community, in communion, with a connection to spirit, with the connection to not just our immediate family, but to the world and to the way that we affect it. we were supposed to live easy, slow lives where occasionally there would be an attack or an illness or something like that. But for the most part, with each other in harmony. And now we feel like we have to do all of these things and go, go, go, and be on social media and work crazy hours and have the best behave kids and all of the things. And it is completely unsustainable. And it is completely unsustainable. And when I'm focused on that, when I'm focused on the go, go, go and social media and

TikTok and where I should be and my podcast numbers and all of the things, I am far more likely to make the impulsive purchases and to act out on the behaviors or say something fucked up to my husband or whatever it might be. Same here. And it's so funny because I know what the solution is. I know when I get uncomfortable and when I'm distracting myself and when I'm reaching for my phone, first thing in the morning and getting on TikTok or whatever, getting on my Finsta, you know, like whatever it is, getting on Twitter, going shopping.

Wait, you have a Finsta? I have a Finsta. Oh my God. This is like confessions. Doesn't everybody have a Finsta? I don't have a Finsta. Tell me more. What do you use this Finsta for? I'll tell you offline.

I need to know who you're following. But like, but you know what I mean. Do you comment? No, no, no, no, no. Okay. So just for peeping. I just peep, yeah. Okay. And it actually, well, yeah, I won't get into it.

But I know what the solution is. It's very, and it's very simple. I am just so resistant to doing the things that are helpful for me. That are good for me. Yeah, it's so much easier to just distract. Oh my God. I say it all the time. Living life on automatic pilot is far more easy, much more painful, but far easier than living

a mindful, patient, peaceful life. Yeah. Even though when you do that, even though it takes discipline to do that, then you're met with no resistance, way less resistance at least. Whereas like if you're... I don't think so. I'm going to challenge it. Can I tell you why? Yeah. Because we live in a world that's not practicing mindfulness. That is very competitive. That is very go, go, go where you feel like you have to post every day and do this amount of stories and work this hard and have this many downloads. So when, you're choosing the peaceful path, but you're feeling the pressure of the weight of societal norms that we are expected to achieve right now. It is crushing. Even when you know that it feels so good

to slow down, that it feels so good to live in alignment, that it feels so good to be mindful, it feels so good to meditate twice a day, it feels so good to do a yoga class, it feels so good to only work for four hours a day, you get 500 emails and then you're drowning in emails. That's my story. My emails, I went through my emails. I got down to 80 emails today. 686 emails. Oh, my God. 15 voicemails and over 100 texts because I'm trying to live slow. But that pressure, and then it's like, where are you? You're not responding to my email. Can't you do this? Oh, can't you book five podcast this month and and also do this person's and all the things and it is suffocating.

See, here's my experience. My experience is that if I'm meditating twice a day and I'm, you know, doing my prayer in the morning and my journaling and doing the things that I do to feel like really spiritually connected, I guess I don't, I don't feel that pressure as much. Like it's there. But I'll be like, yeah, I don't feel like posting on Instagram this week. Like, and I don't really care. No, totally. And I don't. And the emails, I'm like, yeah, I can.

Okay, like, I'll find time to get to them or I'll do what I can do now. I guess, like, the resistance will always be there. It's just, it doesn't feel. See, I ride that for like four or five days. And then I have so many emails. And Brian's calling me going, hey, Brian. We both have the same producer. And Brian's calling me going, like, you didn't do dead.

And I feel like, oh my God, now I've got all of this stuff that I have to catch up on. And it's challenging. And I think there's a way to do it and also like manage all of that. I mean, it's hard. It's hard. I guess sometimes like. I struggle. Yeah.

I struggle with it. I mean, I've got two kids too. That's true. Yes. You have a whole different component. She's going to be doctor. She's going to be a doctor. By the way, just had a meeting with my college council.

My new college counselor on Saturday. And like best case scenario, I would graduate in eight years. So let's pump the brakes. Okay. But still, that would be the goal. You're going to school to become a freaking doctor right now. She was like, I'm not just going to be like a nutritionist. I'm going to be a doctor.

No, no. I might still do nutrition. Who knows? I could take, I took art history this summer and I was like, well, this is fascinating. I'm going to now move to Rome and be an art historian. Like I'm so easy. Like, because I skipped out on the college experience when I was younger. I did not care about learning.

I didn't have any interest besides drugs and alcohol. So now as an adult learning this stuff, I'm like, wow. Like I feel like my eyes are opening to so many things. I was like reading about some cave paintings and I was like, I'm going to be an archaeologist. I love that. So there's so, who knows what would happen? I envy that. If my brain, see, I think I'm so talking.

from my children. And like my brain is just not working at full capacity right now. And so I just for some reason, I'm like, it's just too much for me. It's like too, like I, you know, I watch my friends who are, you know, who just graduated, graduated a couple years ago. And I'm like, I miss that experience. I was also homeschooled. I say that in quotes because like I didn't really learn that much.

I wish you guys could have just seen her face that she made. Um, my kids, it's interesting because I'm homeschooling my daughter right now and I developed this curriculum and I'm like, mom, this is what you were supposed to do. My kids have learned more in the last month and a half of homeschool than she did of all of first grade. Like, it's amazing what homeschooling can do and I think it's great. But I, so I missed out all. I think I went to like, I did one homecoming and one prom, but they weren't mine. And I left school, traditional school in nine. grade. So I didn't really even get like a high school experience. Yeah. And then I did like one community college class, but I was so high the whole time that my professor was like, get out. Like you're not,

you have not turned in a single paper. You're not doing your homework. Like you should just drop the class and move on. So my hat's off to you. I think it's amazing what you're doing. Thank you. I definitely have the advantage of not having a lot of distractions. I mean, I, I have obviously the podcast and like the work that I do on Instagram and all of that, but I have outsourced so much. I have amazing people that run my website. I need to outsource. Yeah. So what I have to do is I have to show up and record my podcast and, you know, record ad reads and listen back to do all the stuff that you're very familiar with. And then like create content, whatever that is, recipes, photos for Instagram and then oversee what's going on with like the blonde files helps and the podcast,

Instagram and the blog posting and all that. But I have. people that run that. Yeah. So I can focus like 80%, let's say, 75, 80% of my time and my attention on school. Well, and Chuck's so busy. It's like, oh yeah. If he's, you know what I mean? I have a husband that comes home at, well, you said he, our husbands are so similar like that. It's like, what's, what are we doing? What's for dinner? And you're like, oh my God, you should be able, my husband's gotten much better in quarantine because he's just like, I see now how chaotic your life is. And actually he'll cook dinner a couple nights a week, which is nice. And he's actually a decent cook. See, Chuck, you've got that going for you. Lost cause. He doesn't even know. When I went home to visit my parents, he would text me and be like, can you postmate me tacos? I'm like, can you postmate you tacos?

Like, are you kidding me? I'm going to sleep. But I wanted to ask you how. marriage is going in quarantine. I think a lot of people message me as though I have any clue how to be in a successful marriage. I've been married for two years, you know. Yeah. I've been married for almost nine. Yeah.

So how are you guys dealing with this? Yeah. It's interesting. So I'm way more needy than my husband is. My husband, like, he could not cuddle for like a week and he'd be fine. I'm like, hug me, hold me. So when he was home at first, it was great. I was like, oh, my God, this is amazing.

I'm going to have help with the kids. And like, you know, and then that was fun for like a week. And then he started working from home and it was kind of like, keep the kids quiet. I'm like, well, I've got to work too. So you keep the kids quiet. And so that was a little bit challenging. And then we figured out this thing where we split the day. So he gets three hours in the morning.

I get three hours in the afternoon, flip-flop alternate days. And we were helping my daughter with. school and that was good for a while. But I'm not going to lie, it's been hard. It's brought up a lot. Some stuff has bubbled to the surface. There have been two pretty epic fights, which is interesting because my husband and I, we don't really fight. And this year, we've had the most fights that we've ever had. One was pre-quarantine when I went to New York. I think I shared that with you. And then, so that was already like under the surface. And then, and then, Yeah, we got into two pretty big fights. And, you know, I think it's, it's one of those things where I always talk about my rule of five. Have you ever heard me talk about this? No, I don't think so. It's my rule of five. And anytime I, this gets out of alignment, inevitably, everything falls apart. So my first priority, I'm holding up my thumb right now, is myself and my spiritual practice.

And then my second priority is my husband and my marriage. My third is my children. And my fourth is my friendships and, or no, my fourth is work and then fifth is friendships, right? And these are my top five priorities. They mean the most friendships and family for the last one. And so if any of these things fall out of order, so say my relationship with myself and my higher power and my spirituality practice goes down, everything else crumbles right away. If that's an alignment and my marriage is starting to crumble, then my kids are affected, my work life's affected, my friends and family, everyone gets affected. So if I'm in alignment, my marriage is great, but my kids are suffering, then my work life. And, you know, it's like, so it's like a ladder. Like everything has to

stay here. And so what I've realized, and I was talking about all of these epiphanies I've been having in sobriety is that in a lot of ways I was making Evan my higher power. And, And that is a recipe for utter disaster and chaos. Somebody in my life always reminds me, Chuck is not your source. Nope. I'm like, oh yeah. For anything. It's so easy. It's so easy to make them that, though.

And you're in this union. But I have to remember that we're two whole people coming together, not to have people. And it doesn't mean that we don't support each other and that we're not there for each other. It just means that I have to be doing all of the things possible to take care of myself. in order to have a successful marriage. And so, yeah, it's hard, especially with kids, we have to, like, schedule date nights. We schedule when we have sex at this point. I'm like, Tuesday evening, I will be ready. I will not be doing anything all day on Tuesday. It feels like I'll probably be pretty relaxed. I won't be exhausted. I will be ready at 8.30 once I put the goods to bed.

Like, that's the point we're at right now. In the beginning, it was really fun. I'd be like, on me you upstairs and that. And that lasted for like a month. And then after that, it was just like, we have to have some sort of routine. I really have to keep in alignment my rule of five. I have to take better care of myself. And as a result, things have gone back to normal. What about for you guys? Well, we kind of talked about this last week a little bit. I mean, we, overall, it's been fine. I don't like using the word fine. Because it sounds so, like, bleak. Like, really? But no, I mean, we kind of had, like, a similar experience where in the beginning, like,

so I always work remotely. So this is not anything new for me. He goes to Warner Brothers every single day at, like, 8 in the morning. And he works 15 hour days. Yes. And he gets home late at night. And so we get, like, very little time together. So in the beginning, it was like, wow, this is like we're playing hooky.

You know, it was very scary. course, everything going on, a lot of uncertainty and all of that. But it was fun. It was like getting to hang out with your best friend all day, every day. I mean, we're lucky that we have husbands that are our best friends because it truly Evan is. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of like you're sick of each other after a while. Right. So like we had that kind of like really happy, euphoric phase. And then after that, I mean, it hasn't, that kind of just the novelty of it wears off. And since then, like, we haven't had any issues, but we just go, it's kind of like in and out. Sometimes we're super connected. And then other times, it's like, who are you?

You again? Like, just give me a few days. You know. But you guys are going in New York together. But he's only going for the weekend. And I'm going for a couple of weeks, which is great. I mean, I think it's good. That's how we always were. So when we started dating, I was working in the counseling job and I was in school and I was working with clients that were like in San Francisco and Vegas and Chicago and Florida. So when we started dating from the get-go, I was always busy, always traveling. We were never, I was not that person that was like, okay, here I am. Like I'm moving in. You know, we're together like every single night of the week. I always had a lot of independence. And he was always really busy too. And so it worked like that. And, um, and,

You know, I maintain that obviously after marriage. Like we're together a lot, but still like we have separate lives, which for some people might not work, but for us it works. Like we're separate lives, separate interests, but we're super supportive of one another. And we make the time that we are together really count. Like he, like I was saying, he doesn't have social media. He's not on his phone all the time. So when I'm with him, I try not to do that either. And so we get like real quality time. That's so nice. But I can't remember why did I go off on that tangent. We were talking about New York.

No, about how about how is marriage and quarantine. Yeah. So that said, I think, a little vacay in New York, a little time apart. So my last fight with Evan was this. I booked a room on the four seasons. You know I love that one four seasons. It's close. It's convenient.

If I have to get back to my kids, I can. I'm not like all the way in Orange County, which like all the way in Orange County. It's like an hour and a half drive. But still, you know what I mean? I love it. I'm there all the time. I've always been there all the time because it's my favorite spa. They really do have the best spot.

If you haven't been there, it's a great spa. This is Westlake? It's in Westlake. Yeah. Thanks for outing my son. I'm just kidding. I don't care. You'll see me at the Westlake Four Seasons.

No, so I booked this room and I was so. excited and I booked this night for us and Evan knew and so I was like can you pick me up see my husband's the fucking CEO he's the boss he's not he's like he can do whatever the fuck he wants I get he has like a busy schedule but like if he wanted to pick me up at two so we could check in at three and like have yeah he couldn't even do that this is fucking quality problems whatever the fuck whatever and so I was like we need a break from the kids we need one night away I want to just sit in my robe in the room, binge eat from, you know, I want them to drop the food off and then I push it out the front door when we're done.

And I don't have to do a dish. I don't have to clean. Nothing. And so I booked this thing and he doesn't pick me up until 4.30. And when he gets home, he goes, we should take separate cars, which I'm like, aren't you picking me up? I guess not because I'm going to leave for work in the morning. I fucking lost my mind. I lost my mind.

I was like, what the fuck? I am trying to get some quality time with you and have planned this whole thing and you're going to be at the hotel with me from 5 p.m. and then leave at 9 a.m. I booked massages outside by the pool. Like, bro, we have late checkout.

I booked on my Amex, so at 4 p.m. checkout. You can't give me 24 hours. Usually in the summer we take two-week vacations. Are you fucking, I lost it. I, yeah, no. And he sees the error in his ways, though. That's the good thing. I was going to say, did he stay?

So he got in a huge fight in the room, went in, like, no one was talking. And then things got heated. And, of course, we were like, you know, everyone was airing their grievances on both sides. And then, yeah, and then we just made up and definitely did not have sex. No sex that night. It was too angry still. But like, you know what I mean? Whatever.

And then guess what? Yeah, girl got a massage, ate lunch by the pool, climbed into bed, and watched miscongeniality, and it was everything. That sounds amazing. By myself. Enjoyed it. Those fights are the worst when it's like starts as one thing. And then all of a sudden, everything's on the table.

It's like, oh, really? Because I always am like, here we go. It happens like every six months. And I was like, hey, Chuck, I think there's a way to avoid this. Like, we can just talk about something. It's bothering us. You don't need to save it. Real time. We don't have to like, yeah.

Yeah, you don't need to save it. But I think our husbands are similar and they're both kind of stoics. Yeah. And so they either let it go or let it build. Yes. Yes. It's either one or the other. There isn't like, hey, babe, you know what? When this happened, I felt this. And I don't think men are wired that way. Exactly. I've seen Evan cry. Have you ever seen Chuck cry? Chuck actually is, well, not really over something sad, but yeah, he's very, like, emotional. He'll cry if something, like, touches him all the time. We were watching the Lakers last night.

And, well, I kind of cried too, but Anthony Davis won the game in the finals, well, Western Conference Finals. Yeah. At the buzzer. And they were in their Kobe jerseys. And he won. And we were both screaming and, like, I had tears and I looked at him and he had tears. And we were like, wow. Like, this is 2020.

It's like heavy. We were crying at a Lakers game. But yeah, he's pretty like in touch with his emotions that way. Sweet. Well, yeah, Evan cried not when I walked down the aisle, not, this is crazy. He didn't cry at all during our wedding until we were at a dinner and my ex-stepdad stood up and he said, I feel like Alexis is finally safe now. So it was really about him.

So he cried during that. He didn't cry during my first birth because it was so traumatic. He cried a tear during my second birth. He cried once when we got into a gnarly argument and he lost. My husband, like I said, I don't think one time we've really raised our voices at each other. And that's it. And it was, and obviously, maybe people don't know this, but I have severe history of sexual and physical violence. And my, like, severe.

And so we got an argument and he couldn't control his rage. And he came up and I was in the shower crying already. And he opened the door and I was naked and I felt so violent. vulnerable and he yelled at me and I was like, get out of the house. This is it. You know, and he immediately started breaking down crying and he's like, I'm so sorry. I don't know what that was. That was so bizarre. I was like, I don't know what that was. I've never seen that in you ever, ever, ever. And I never want to see it again. And then the last time was that night. So my husband's mom committed suicide when he was 14. And we watched this movie that night in the hotel called Paris, Texas.

And it's about this boy that gets dropped off and his parents are both really fucked up. And then he rekindles, he finds his dad. The dad finds him. And he brings him to his mom and he leaves the boy in the room with his mom. And he just goes like he left the boy with the mom forever. And Evan, I'm not talking a tear. I've only seen him shed a tear. It was a, like a visceral.

physical weep. I hope he's not mad at me for sharing that. But that, it was a moment for me too because I've never seen that side of my husband

and I've been married to him for nine years and it was almost therapeutic to see him like that. Mm-hmm. Like to go, oh, there's deep,

profound emotion in there somewhere. Right, right. My husband's a very, he's very like, woke all about the issues, cares so much about the planet and kids and what we're doing to the planet

and about saving addicts and all of the things. But like he's just not ever emotional. And that moment for me was like, whoa. Right. That's heavy. It was heavy. I'm sorry to end the podcast on such a heavy now. No.

No. Well, so why don't you tell everybody a little bit about what you guys are doing and about recovering from reality and what's coming? Like what do you think? What do you see next for you guys? So almost a decade ago, we started this amazing treatment center, Allo House. And it was based on what we thought the community needed, which was a place of complete compassion and acceptance and no behavioral modification at all, just really meeting people with where they're at.

And we are kind of like the leaders in this compassionate care model. And what we noticed was that we had a much higher success rate than most treatment centers. And it was because we use compassion, not control, to change people's lives. And so we've grown so much and it's just such an honor. We have all levels of care. We're a dual diagnosis treatment center. We treat both mental health and addiction. Primarily addiction, though.

But the two things always go hand. hand and hand. And so after a couple of years of that, I decided I was going to start recovering from reality, which is a podcast where we just talk about recovering from life, like all of the hard stuff. We go there, whether it's about what's going on politically or recovering from a nearly divorce or having a child that has, you know, developmental delays being black and trans, whatever. We've had the most amazing guests. I feel so honored. that I've had the guests that I've had. And so it just started as me, like I was just going to do a podcast by myself.

And then I was like, no, I want to listen to other people. And oh, my God, the first, however many episodes. And still, I can talk way too much. And it's a problem. But it's gotten so good, you know what I mean? To where now I'm like, I love these episodes. And I listen to them back. And I'm just in awe of the guests.

And I wrote a book also titled Recovering from Reality. that's a memoir. And what's coming up that I'm really excited about is my husband's book, actually. He's writing a book. I won't share the working title, but it's basically an in-depth look at addiction in America and why nothing that we've worked that we've tried so far has worked. And it's really interesting. It looks at everything from a non-biased view. He even dives into looking at the benefits of plant medicine to like, why isn't pharmacology working to, like, is the brain really broken? Like, how is it possible that all of a sudden people aren't making the right amount of dopamine and serotonin? Like, is that the truth? Or, you know, is it something else? Like,

it's just so exciting, listening to him really finding something that he's so excited about and so passionate about that's going to help so many people excites me. And so I love that. we're about to switch to both an in-network and out-of-network facility. My goal would be in the next three years to have a nonprofit center. It's just the time and funding and really just building a team to, that's the really hard thing about providing treatment is that it's so expensive. It's so expensive. So in order to keep a, like a Medi-Cal type of center going, you have to do it in

And it's so hard to find we were this close to securing a facility. You have to find a center that is zoned for medical because things are zoned for different things. And right now we're able to provide treatment in, say, Malibu, because you can operate six beds in a house in Malibu. In order to sustain like a Medi-Cal nonprofit type of center, I mean, the overhead will easily be one and a half million dollars a month and I would have to treat at least 75 people in that center to make it possible. Yeah. So it's like that that's really my goal. That's where I'd like to get. And there's amazing nonprofits, you know, that are available right now, Tarzana Treatment Center and even Miriam's house right now. I love Miriam's house. They're struggling. Financially, they just can't get that. That's what I've heard

because, you know, people aren't doing the fundraisers and all that stuff right now. And it's just the cost is so high to do inpatient treatment like that. And so, you know, there's a number of things that I'm really excited about and hopeful for. And yeah, it's an honor and a privilege every single day that we get to do this work is a gift. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade it. Even though it's stressful and challenging and heartbreaking a lot of the time, last night at dinner, one of our first clients is one of our dearest friends, Olivia. And it was back when we were just a sober living. So we can be friends because they have strict laws that you can't be friends with clients.

But it's back in, you know, whatever. It's like two years and nine months or something like that you can't have a relationship with them. So this was nine years ago. And here she is almost a decade sober with a baby. And I'm just looking at this and I'm like, this is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Every time I get a letter in the mail or someone drops, you know, when I bought my employees drops off a letter of, oh, my God, had I not gone to Allo, like, I wouldn't have been alive and my life is so good now. And even a couple years ago running into an old client at Coachella who came in, like, in a meth psychosis, who's now five years sober, living his best life with his friends. I mean, it's, oh, it's glorious. It's amazing.

Seeing people recover is the best. thing. Yeah. Oh my God. Such a gift. Yeah. And I wouldn't have it any other way. It's just, it's amazing.

So that's what I'm up to. And, you know, the podcast is just incredible. And I'm so, you know what I love about my podcast? And I don't know if you have the same, but it's a community now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. We have a Facebook group.

It's like 400 members right now. And it's just, but it's someone that's like, I'm having a really tough day. And everyone's just like, what's up? Do you want to get on a call? How can I? Like, it's amazing. Amazing. And that's all I ever wanted was a community of people who every day were waking up and trying to be better and trying to have a better life, you know? And then as a result, when they obtain that better life, and they go out and help other people do the same. It's not about sobriety per se, but just anything in life, you know. I love it. So good. You know, I think what you're doing

is amazing. I have loved your podcast from day one. Everybody, I'm sure everybody listening to this listens to you, but if not, go listen to recovering from reality. And thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. I'm always posting about each episode there or over on my personal page at Ariel Laurie.