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Speaker 2I didn't ever, ever, ever think that I had access to a life that was different than the way I was living. Emotionally, physically, I just, I didn't know that I could have a friend. Like, there was the thing this summer where I had a boyfriend and a best friend at the same time, and that has never happened to me before. And it was difficult to navigate, but I'm like, oh my God, all of these things that if I was three years ago sitting in my condo just covered in wine from the night before, I would have been like, oh my God, all of these things that if I was three years ago sitting in my condo just covered in wine from the night before, if that's not possible, I'll sooner die, you know? So being able to actually say to people, like, no, it does fucking get better, like, but you have to trust the process. Yeah.
Speaker 3Hi there. Welcome back, or welcome to Recovering Out Loud podcast, the show where we get real about mental health and addiction. I'm so glad you're here. If you or someone you love is struggling with drugs or alcohol, please reach out for help. Send me a message on all social media platforms at recoveringoutloudpod or by email at recoveringoutloudpod at gmail.com. You are no longer alone. You know, addiction is kind of the same thing, right? You scrape your knee long enough and you ask for help and finally the help comes.
Speaker 2Are you good at asking for help?
Speaker 3No, I suck at it. Yeah, I suck at it. What does it look like for me? I have to get caught doing shit.
Speaker 4Okay, and then you'll be like, I need help. Like, I have to get in trouble, right?
Speaker 3I always tell this story, but quickly, like, I had a thing with, not too long ago, actually. I've always had a body dyspnea or everything. I mentioned that to you when we talked. And it's why, it's not why I relapsed. I shouldn't say that. But it started this relapse with steroids and all that stuff. Well, this thing I was talking about on here, so I won't go into too much detail, but I think four or five, six months in, something around that mark, I was using Ozempic online. Okay. And in recovery. And I knew it wasn't good. And I'm not, listen, I'm not here to tell anyone not to do it, because I've since learned that a lot of people are on it. That's your thing, right? For me, this is what happens when I start to do things. Even though it doesn't directly alter my mind, it starts with a little secret. And then I'm, like, embarrassed about it. I'm ashamed about it. And fast forward to me smoking meth again. Like, that's how it escalates.
Speaker 5Okay, did you tell anybody that you were doing Ozempic, like, through online?
Speaker 3So.
Speaker 5Or was that a secret that you were keeping to yourself? Great question.
Speaker 3And that's the problem, is I'll tell you 90% of it. Right. Like, I'm trying to think of an example. Like, I was using it, and now I'm not. Right. So it's like, it's still a fucking lie. It's a blatant lie. Yeah. But it just, like, makes me feel better.
Speaker 5But you sneak around it. You don't tell the full truth. Yeah.
Speaker 2Half-truths are really the way to survive. It's minute by minute. It's minute by minute, hour by hour. Until you die. Even when we went to the, we, we went to a cottage. Well, my sister and I have a cottage. And we went, and I didn't tell my sister that all the boyfriends were coming up. I was, I just said the girls were going. And I don't even know why I did that. I think I was, like, didn't want her to get annoyed that, like, there were guys that are going to be there. So I didn't tell her that. And then on the podcast, we said that we were bringing the guys up. And then she called me. She was like, so I just caught you in a lie. You're a liar, so tell me the truth. And so don't listen to the podcast. I know, I'm like, fuck off, Karen.
Speaker 3That's my first answer to unfollow me then.
Speaker 2Yeah. I'm like, if you don't like it, get away. But no, she's right. But it is, half-truths are like, that's like our thing. It's our default, you know?
Speaker 3And it's funny because you say that and it might sound so stupid and insignificant, but when you're talking, like, I'm just like, oh my God, I get that. Right. It starts with this little thing and then you're lying about doing drugs. Like it's, that's kind of the way I am.
Speaker 2Right. Yeah. It's like, I'm going to be in trouble. I'm going to be in trouble regardless of what I'm doing. So let me try and lighten the blow, but it's going to come back on me so much harder and it's going to happen every time, but I'm going to do it. Yeah. You know?
Speaker 3Yeah. And learn the hard way. So what happened with me and was, you know, looping back to the asking for help thing, my wife and I got into a fight. She was bringing up a lot of the stuff she has. She's doing a lot of healing. Right. So she, she met me when I was seven, seven and a half, seven years sober. Okay. Top of my game. Like happy, joyous and free. Right. Like the little things didn't bother me. And when I say that, I mean, I've truly mean like the little things didn't bother me. I was just top of sobriety doing well. And so she met the real me, which is great. And I think that's the only, actually, she says it, that's probably the only reason she stuck around because she met me. So when I relapsed, I went hard and I started doing benzos. I went to all these things I said I wouldn't do driving drunk, like actually I've driven drunk, but driving in blackouts, all these moral boundaries crossed them all. Right. Just one by one. Yeah. I'm not a true addict. I fully am a true addict because I think most people, if they relapse after eight years, I think most people, heavy drinkers, they would've been like, whoa, you know, you have a couple or, and it was Adderall that I started getting on and you're like, well, that was close.
Speaker 5I better get back. So before that, were you just alcohol or what were you before? No. Coke was my main. I'm always a stimulant guy. Okay. Yeah. Alcohol is always, I'm an alcoholic. I always say it.
Speaker 3It's the same shit to me. I use outside things to change my insides. Yeah.
Speaker 5Gambling.
Speaker 3It's all the same. Whatever else do I'll use it all.
Speaker 5How long did you relapse for?
Speaker 3Um, like it was probably a year period of lies and manipulation. So when I, when I go back to my relapse, I, I, I attribute that year, but I didn't start drinking until probably a four month drinking meth. I'm at an Airbnb one get one day on a couch. Some guys pulls out a pipe and I'm just like, yeah, I'm never going to smoke meth. Right. That's not, I don't do that. I'm not that guy. Want some meth. I'm like, I've already been taking in pills. Sure. Why not? I'm already fucked up. And then you do it. Thank God I didn't get into that because some of the people I was hanging out with at the end, like, um, I was going to, uh, maybe I shouldn't say the name of it, but an after hours club in Toronto on Sunday nights. And I was like steady there. So I got to know the bouncers.
Speaker 4Is it the legion?
Speaker 3No. It was a good place. Right. They took care of me. Like the guy, the guy at the door there. I still talk to him. Actually. He knew I was struggling and he would always just like talk to me. Cause I would tell him, I'm like, I, you know, I shouldn't be here. Like I'm an addict. Like I'm not like these other people, maybe, maybe they are. But um, I started hanging out with those people that were smoking meth and like, just like that. You think like Coke sessions are sketchy and like you start to get to introduce that side of the world and it's just like a whole other, how the fuck did I end up here? And that I'm not saying that those people are less than, or I'm the same. I am that person.
Speaker 2Right. But it is funny. Cause having these conversations, sometimes I try to like step out and be a little objective. If we weren't junkies respectfully sitting here, like just my sister listening to you be like, yeah. So then I started, you know, taking this and now I'm smoking meth. It's like, Hey, like where's the jump? Like where did, how did that happen? But it is all the same. So it, it, for us, I feel like it, it is like I'm drinking and now I'm doing this and now I'm taking that. Yeah. What's next?
Speaker 3Always looking for the next best thing. Cause it stops working after all. Yeah. Okay. Enough about me. Girl undrunk. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming down. I love, um, talking recovery. I love that you guys agreed to do this and, uh, your podcast is amazing. This is fun. It's light. It's controversial. Um, yeah, I find myself listening to it. I'm like, Oh fuck. Did she just say that? And I love that shit. I love dark humor. I love it. I think, um, well, let's start with this. What, so what do you hope somebody listening to your message or podcasts, what do you hope
Speaker 5they get out of it and start, you can go on, I guess just that they're not alone if they're feeling, if they themselves are an addict, if they have an addict friend, family member, just. I think addiction is real and it doesn't mean that they're bad people think we're, we're not bad people at the end of the day and yeah, just that you're not alone and there's hope for you. If you want to get sober, you can do it. We wanted it enough and we got sober. Yeah. It's just the wanting and getting there is hard and we talk a lot about that.
Speaker 2Um, yeah, yeah, I think I addiction and everything that comes with addiction. Is so chaotic. And I think most of my life growing up, I was very much like, I don't know what the fuck is going on and why everything feels like this and going through the system and being like, okay, a lot of people feel this way, but we're all quiet about it. Right? Like I grew up thinking I was a piece of shit, but I'm pretty and I am active and I do things, but I'm like, I'm not okay inside. And a lot of people aren't. And I think when you don't even know how to put a label to that or words to that, you just feel alone and lost. And so I really, I think both of us are really very much like, hi, we're here. Like when you're ready, wherever you're at addiction, sobriety, eating disorders, toxic relationships, like we're here zero judgment because we have literally done and seen it all. Yeah. So it's like, it's just really a place where you can come and be welcome and then talk about crazy shit, you know?
Speaker 5And I, I was so scared at first to be like saying all the shit online and now it's like, It feels so natural, like what else would I be doing? I love nothing more.
Speaker 2it's the best thing once you start talking about sobriety it really becomes the the best thing because you can relate to everyone all the time yeah you know about everything it's funny you
Speaker 3bring that up because um whenever when i first started i kind of came to this realization too where i was like this is this is my all or nothing thinking but everybody in the world could possibly hear what i'm about to say yeah yeah you have to wrap your head around that
Speaker 5i'm not i don't even really think about it too much i don't think now i don't yeah but when i
Speaker 3first started it was like that i kind of had to accept that yeah yeah my aunts my uncles and you
Speaker 2know yeah oh yeah the fam it's the family first you're like sorry to your point like i i at uh
Speaker 3i don't know whenever we go out for dinners and stuff my aunts and stuff like fuck i had thanksgiving was it thanksgiving no yeah thanksgiving yeah thanksgiving yesterday for america but i'm all over um we're sitting at the table we're going around what we're grateful for my fucking aunt goes i'm so grateful to learn more about my nephew's addiction and like she started tearing up she's like i didn't she's like i had no idea i've been learning so much and she listens to every episode shout out zia kathy but um yeah it was amazing she's like i've learned so much right yeah and she was so grateful for it it's awesome yeah there's been some like
Speaker 5fights i've had with some family members friends about what i say on the podcast but at the end of the day like i told my one friend that i was scared to do the podcast when we were first starting and she was like why are you scared and i said well what if like people don't like what i'm saying what if they don't agree and she just said like if they do then those aren't your people and i think that's just very telling of the situations i've had since saying some of the stuff i've said on the podcast yeah and that's whatever yeah and i think at the end of the day
Speaker 2too like we almost died a lot of times like we really almost didn't make it and like i don't want that for other people yeah i really want to just if we can touch anyone's lives save anyone's lives like we get that and like if honestly i feel like if you almost fucking die then you have to talk about it you know it just feels like that's what we're meant to do chances are someone else has been through that 100 for sure yeah everywhere all the time yeah yeah it's true yeah um the one thing too i find
Speaker 3about what i like about listening to you guys is this boredom and recovery thing keeps coming up right how am i gonna have fun i was so fun when i was drinking right that's my favorite thing yeah it's like you were not fun let's look at the last 30 days you tell me how it went right yeah you why are we even talking in the first place obviously there's something anyways yeah i digress but um i just it feels fun listening to you guys and i think it's important especially for young women coming in but anybody anybody to to be able to know that holy fuck there's people that are having fun like they sound fun they're having fun they're talking about doing shit sober fun yeah i
Speaker 2can do that too right it's important i think yeah it feels impossible at first i i sit sometimes in our podcast studio and i just look around and i'm like not even the podcast but i didn't like i text zoe all the time just being like i love you i'm grateful for you she sent me a really nice paragraph yesterday yeah i did i was feeling very sentimental i almost went but also fuck off like oh sorry fuck off but i i didn't ever ever ever think that i had to do something i didn't ever ever think that i had access to a life that was different than the way i was living emotionally physically i just i didn't know that i could have a friend like there was the thing this summer where i had a boyfriend and a best friend at the same time and that has never happened to me before and it was difficult to navigate but i'm like oh my god all of these things that if i was three years ago sitting in my condo just covered in wine from the night before i would have been like that's not possible i'll sooner die you know so being able to actually say to people like no it does fucking get better like but you have to trust the process
Speaker 5yeah you know i know i think like i had an epiphany the other day and i didn't even tell you and i've been feeling like just more anxious than usual the past couple weeks i blamed it on my period i thought you were gonna say i blame it on heather no i blame it on my period i actually hate you no i don't i'm done as of today no i'm drunk canceled no um but i i was talking to my sponsor and i think like i have just been more anxious lately because i have good things in my life that i've created like i have an amazing boyfriend i have an amazing best friend i have an amazing podcast and like i've never done anything that i've loved so much i've always just worked shit jobs i don't care about this is something that we've built that i am so proud of and that i love i've never experienced that so i think it's good anxiety but it's like yeah it that's why i think i've been more stressed because things are rolling now and i don't want to lose it i think it's like the fear of losing these things i don't think i um i don't think i'm like worth it to have all these good things in my life yeah so yeah that's my epiphany no i feel the exact same way
Speaker 3yeah i think that's would you say it's kind of like imposter syndrome sometimes too yeah i used not currently i'm not yeah i've experienced it for for sure i think like i used to always when
Speaker 5things were good in my life i would just get super blackout and ruin everything you know like fuck everything up and i think maybe i'm scared that i'm gonna like fuck everything up somehow
Speaker 2um but i'm not that's actually really nice i swear i'm not gonna do that that's really nice because that's how i feel all the time i'm so scared i'm like i am on a train and i'm gonna fall off so fast yeah maybe zoe says this to me all the time where i'll be like oh i'm a liar like i'm a fuck up i can't do this and she's like no no you used to not be able to do that like now you're not a liar i'm like oh so maybe i can stay on the train and just hold on and sit down yeah maybe it's okay take a seat
Speaker 3like oh my god yeah yeah and that's one of my favorites and the beautiful part about that too is like i don't know the destination you know and it's like so it could be anything yeah i want to know the destination that's that's more my thing is like right now at least anyways it's like i fear of the future so i guess it's similar right yeah well i think like and now i feel like
Speaker 5i'm trying to control all these things but i can't and i don't know the destination but i have to trust in it and i think like i do it's just been harder for me the past couple weeks to do that
Speaker 3which is fine yeah controlling outcomes right yeah it's if i can if i know what it's going to be then i feel more in control more comfortable in the moment one of my good friends um actually one focuses on inputs not outputs and i love that it's just like doing the next right thing if you can't do the next right thing do the next thing right which is one of my favorite sayings like what's the right next thing well you gotta brush your teeth brush your teeth right like just sometimes it's it's that granular right keep the motive yeah the um i can't think of the word anyways keep it going yeah keep it going keep it moving um okay i want to hear about the last 30 days of each of your drinking using
Speaker 5so we'll start with zoe okay what was the last 30 days like so the last 30 days for me i was in sarnia it was like the end of covid and i had been fired from my job i had a dui i was just basically drinking at my parents house every day my dad had stopped talking to me because he was scared that he was gonna just find me dead somewhere so he just like avoided me for everything i didn't learn that until i went to rehab he wrote me a letter saying like sorry i haven't been talking too much but i was scared there i was just gonna find you dead so i wanted to distance myself before seeing that which was really hard to read that but and then the last week i was like okay fuck this i'm moving back to toronto i'm gonna be happy in toronto i'm gonna be able to control my drinking in toronto i need to go back that's where my friends are i had nothing left in sarnia my boyfriend broke up with me because i was crazy no job couldn't drive anywhere in sarnia like how am i gonna get around anywhere in this small town so i moved back to the city i tried to i was applying for jobs i went to an interview drunk blacked out there don't know what happened at all woke up the next day was like so shameful of that obviously i was supposed to meet my friends somewhere and i physically couldn't get onto the subway to meet them so i just like called them i i said i can't do it and for some reason like at that point i was just like i need to go to rehab like this is the last thing i haven't done i've tried everything else my mom's been telling me to go to rehab for like five years now it's the last thing i haven't done and i think at some like that was like my god moment of like i can't believe i i can't believe i called rehab in that moment but i did so this part is all very fuzzy to me i don't know exactly how what happened but i think i must have told my friends like i'm gonna go to rehab like i can't meet you guys i need to go whatever i call my mom and i tell her and i take an uber to rehab and i was so drunk at this point that they're like you can't come here i was banging on the door at rehab i just showed up i was like please take my - I feel so responsible today. - But you didn't do any intake or anything, right? - No, I didn't. - So they don't even know who you are.
Speaker 3money i'm going send the money send the rehab money write the rehab check yeah seriously make
Speaker 5it out to me it'll be fine i i didn't know that i was banging on the door they told me that after as well which is just hilarious but then they were like you need to go to the hospital to detox i think before you could go to rehab so i was like okay fine like i'll go um and throughout somewhere in that point i think like on the way to rehab i probably threw my phone into a ditch being like i don't need my phone i'm going to rehab a new woman really just everything is just so crazy and then i think after trying to go to rehab i was trying to go to the hospital but i didn't have my phone right and i had no money and i was like i'm gonna go to rehab and i was like i'm gonna go to rehab and i had no money and i was like i'm gonna go to rehab and i was like i'm gonna go to rehab and i had no money and i was like i'm gonna go to rehab and i was like i'm gonna go to rehab and i had no money and i was like i'm gonna go to rehab and i was like i'm gonna go to rehab no idea where i was i was in the middle of etobicoke i had no idea where i was and i was knocking on a random person's house to take me to the hospital and they opened the door and they said yeah like they called me a taxi to the hospital which is so amazing thank you to whoever did that um so i go to the hospital obviously they're not seeing me and i'm just sitting there and i'm starting to like wear off the alcohol and i'm like oh my god what's happening and i give up at the hospital i just go home and i'm waiting for my parents to come pick me up for like the next morning where they're gonna properly take me to rehab and so that happens i wait like i didn't sleep that whole night i didn't get any alcohol probably because i didn't have a phone i don't think i had a wallet at that point like it was just like i didn't have any access and even if i did i was just like so just beaten down of like there's like i give up like fuck this like you know and i was i showed up to rehab like a little baby and i had no idea what rehab was gonna entail i don't think i knew i had to stop drinking forever until like a weekend until i was like oh fuck like this is this is real so were you doing you were doing drugs as well or was alcohol mainly alcohol was my main thing for sure i like when my friends were doing coke when my boyfriend was doing coke i always was like pitching in and doing it as well i bought coke once by myself and did coke once by myself so i don't necessarily think like i'm a coke addict but like i obviously did whatever and if anyone was doing something i was gonna be doing it i almost did do meth once because i was in a car randomly on the way to london with like three guys i have no idea how i ended up in that car they were all doing meth they didn't have any more alcohol for me so like i literally almost did it but thank god i didn't um the guy who was driving was like fucking cracked out and falling asleep at the wheel and i was in the back seat had to wake him up every five seconds to like stay on the road yeah it's like i couldn't be smoking crack because i was trying i was like basically driving the car yeah i mean it goes back to your should
Speaker 3have been dead so many i have so many scenarios like that where my friends are driving and i'm messed up you're like i this is not right yeah this is bad yeah i was like how did i end up in
Speaker 5this yeah that's that's what it is how did i end up how did i end up here i'm a nice person like i was raised by you know how did i end up here raised by decent people what the fuck happened
Speaker 3yeah the reason i asked you about the drug thing is because you you mentioned that you didn't know you were gonna have to stop drinking for a bit so because my experience was i had a cocaine problem at 23 i went to rehab at 23 the first time i get that guys understood check but i'll i'm not i'm not an alcoholic i'm gonna drink like let's deal with the cocaine thing and so two weeks into my rehab the guy's like dude you're an alcoholic yeah it was the hardest thing for me i don't know if i
Speaker 5understood what alcoholism was okay okay like i don't think i fully understood what i was doing because i was so fucking just like dazed all the time i don't think i knew anything um so i think i learned in rehab that first week like oh fuck like i am an alcoholic yeah and the solution is to stop drinking forever um i think going in there yeah i just wanted to like not die and not drink like a crazy person and then i realized that that's not possible that's a good
Speaker 3point actually i can relate to that too where it's like i have a problem with drugs yes but there's something else i'm i'm broken right there's something else and it's like no it's just the drugs yeah just let's let's stop doing the drugs for a bit it's so much easier to just
Speaker 5like separate it in rehab like rehab's amazing we talk about it all the time we love rehab
Speaker 2but can't can't wait to go back careful i'm like how much is a vacation can i just like spend that and go to rehab for a little bit like it's fun and make all the friends in rehab yes
Speaker 3so fun careful what you wish for no yeah i've been to three and it's like when you go back especially after having eight years and uh it's yeah it's humbling especially when they tell you to stay for an extra 30 days and you're like i have more i've been in recovery longer than fucking these people were born yeah like half some of them right like we had a fucking 16 year old in ours right it was like that was a crazy thing anyways um i felt really bad for her but we became like we became friends over the time which was cool because uh yeah like i don't know it was a whole thing but this is the the beautiful thing about um recovery is that like it doesn't discriminate one but also like everything she would say even though she's like in a completely different you know and i don't recommend this right but i i understood everything she was saying and then when i would say something she understood right it doesn't mean we have to go hang out and you know i i know there's a whole thing right i don't i don't do that and i strongly preach against not doing that i hang out with guys especially in early recovery that's a huge thing for me i know you guys always talk about that guys with guys girls with girls yeah or whatever you identify as yeah uh but um it still doesn't like it's it's just it's it's amazing to me it's cool like generations it's the same feelings yeah like
Speaker 5some old man will say something i'm like yeah i relate to that or like some young woman who's half my age will say something and i'm like oh fuck yeah true yeah um you relate to because sobriety and addiction is such a specific thing like anyone's stories you can relate to it and i think that's why the podcast podcasting about it is so great because we're not that unique we're not we're not special everyone like a lot of people have this disease yeah and yeah so heather
Speaker 3walk us through your my last 30 days what did that look like my last 30 days i definitely
Speaker 2we have different stories i was an indoor cat for sure um i my last 30 days i would say was prepping to die or to go to rehab and i knew that those were my options i think like for a few months before that i'd been waking up in the middle of the night sober and being like fuck i gotta stop like i'm having heart palpitations and i always had but they were getting worse and i was there was a few times where like my whole left side was like in so much pain i didn't tell anybody i was just lying in my bed and i'm like okay like this might this might be it i'm this could i could die there's also and then i'm also an addict where i'm like probably not and then i'm gonna drink again but i was having more and more of these like thoughts of like oh yeah yeah i think i'm i was huge i was so puffy i was so sick i couldn't i would take the only thing that i was doing consistently as a real person was taking my dog to the park every morning i would go to the park at 8 a.m throw up at the park order wine rack so that when i would get home he would meet me and then i would drink all day she had a wine guy she didn't even like order through the apps at the end
Speaker 5she just had this guy that would bring her wine yeah dial a bottle he like worked for valet service
Speaker 2well he did uber eats and then he kept coming to my house which like at some point stopped being embarrassing like it was like every single morning he'd be at my house giving me wine and then eventually he was like why are we going through the app like just text me yeah so some guy delivering basque zero sugar wine to my house every fucking day but i couldn't do things like i couldn't put my hair in a ponytail or i'd be winded like i'd have to sit i couldn't tie my shoes everything was like exhausting and i was listening to armchair expert every day i mean i always listen to it but doc shepherd relapsed and then he did an episode called day seven i don't know if you've listened to it but it's so good you gotta listen yeah i like him i love him yeah yeah it's really good and i um i listen to that every day i think i listened to it 14 times before i called rehab because i was like i'm gonna go like i need to go and i knew i knew i had to stop because i've been i've been an addict since i was like nine honestly like i had ocd when i was a kid and then eating like took over my whole life so i knew that if i was gonna stop something it had to stop for good um i was not sure i wanted to go i definitely didn't want to stop drinking but i knew i had to so i was like okay the in between and then i was scaring myself like i i don't know why like saying this always makes me so emotional but like i was my sister and i lived in the same building so she had a key to my house like she could come up but um i was like overfilling my at night because he could like stay alive for three days if i fed him enough like if i gave him enough food because i was like oh wolf Aaron comes up my sister I can't have her find both of us dead so at least Nike my dog will be alive if she finds me dead it won't be like double trauma so I was doing that which is so crazy to think about like I'm planning for my death yeah and that was making me really sad and scared and I had this like little piece like I feel like we all lose it where it's like fuck me forever I'm a loser I've always felt this way like I don't deserve to be here but then there's like this little thing inside me that was like but I secretly think that somewhere deep inside me I'm fucking amazing I am like I just know that and I I don't know what this is but it's not right and it's not me and it doesn't have to be which is like obviously like all of these like thoughts going through my head but I'm like listening to day seven Dax Shepard's podcast over and over again I'm drunk out of my mind at like 10 a.m I'm so fucked up and I'm like I'm gonna listen I'm gonna call rehab I was like scrolling I'm like I googled luxury rehabs Toronto and like it sent me to Muskoka and I was like great like the first one I chose like I just called them and I was like I'm really drunk can I come and like I had two weeks I had to fly Nike to my parents in Florida and then come home and go to rehab but once I called and I was like I'm sick I need to come and it was immediate yeah like they were like great we have a spot for you my whole body like just relaxed I felt like I could fucking breathe and I was still gonna drink up until the time I went to rehab but I was like at least there was a plan for you someone's got me now like someone knows what's going on no one else knows but someone knows well everyone knew obviously the wine guy definitely knew yeah the wine guy knew well he texted me when I was in rehab and I showed my counselor and he's like you got to delete that number you're gonna delete all your dealers even if it's the wine guy like yeah I'm like oh I guess he is my dealer I never thought of it that way yeah so true he's just like peddling over like oh my god he's got stacks of cash on him just I'm like his one client keeping him afloat I hope he's okay yeah but but yeah I I just I told them I was like I have to go and then I'm like still drinking I called my sister and my sister actually we've gotten really really close since I've gone to rehab we were close before but it's hard to be close to me because I'm not here but I called her and I was crying and I was like I know you don't like when I'm sentimental and cry but like I have to go to rehab like all this shit and she was like oh I don't care when you're sentimental or cry she's like I just don't like when you talk about blow jobs it's like I would love for that to stop in sobriety and I was like okay okay so so specific yeah well she always is just like Jesus Christ like everything else in my life is fine but she uh I told her I like asked her if my parents would be mad she was like no I can tell them if you want me do but go tell them and the reason I bring up Dax and Monica so much is because I they saved my life 100% saved my life I was always in trouble as a kid sorry I'm going too long I'm always in trouble as a kid all the time like I was just a bad kid and or bad you know but I just thought in my head like I'm a fuck up and going to rehab is so shameful for my family especially that like they're going to be mad and I don't know how I'm going to do this like they might hate me forever but I'm going to rehab and I'm going to rehab and I'm going to rehab and I'm Even though, of course, they were thrilled because they're like, you are going to die. You look insane.
Speaker 5Finally, she wants to go.
Speaker 2But I thought, like, okay, if my parents are mad at me and they hate me and they think I'm the worst, like, Dax and Monica would be so fucking proud of me. And I care about them so much. And so, fuck everybody else. They would say it's a good idea. So, I'm going to go. So, that was, like, that was my last 30 days.
Speaker 3What about that episode do you, like, kind of sticks out for you?
Speaker 2Well, I think just the fact that it happened and it made it more real because Dax was talking about his addiction all the time.
Speaker 3He was, like, on a pedestal for you. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And then, and I always loved it. Like, I always loved every episode he'd talk about addiction. I'm like, I'm in it. I like that deep, dark, gross shit. But that episode, he was, like, struggling. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm struggling. And Monica, the way that she's talking to him and is there for him and cares, I'm like, oh, okay. Like, he. . . Like, everyone wants him to get better. Like, I want him to get better. So, maybe I'm a person that people want to get better. So, yeah, it just really, like, held me the whole time I went through rehab.
Speaker 3Yeah, like, his vulnerability opened this window into where you could relate to him. Yeah. And allow yourself to start to think about healing in some way and that you're worth it, right? That's beautiful. That's awesome.
Speaker 5Yeah, and that's, like, why you wanted to start the pod so badly. Yeah. Because you know how much his podcast saved you. Yeah. And we want to. And we want to just save other people as well. Totally. Yeah.
Speaker 4Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3That's incredible. So, how did you guys meet? How did you guys start? Like, what's the story behind. . . Oh, my God. The starting of the podcast?
Speaker 2So, Zoe works at a med spa. Yeah. And I. . . I was thinking. . . When I got sober, I never shut the fuck up about it. It's like. . . If anything ever happens to me, everyone will know for the rest of time. I, like, love to talk about trauma. And I'm, you know, an addict. So, I love to talk about myself. But I couldn't stop talking about sobriety. And I'm, like, every day, I'm, like, learning new shit. And I'm, like, oh, this is why I'm like this. Like, your mom. Like, to my mom. I'm, like, your mom's fucked up. That's why I'm fucked up. And so, it was all so interesting to me. And then I was, like, oh, okay. I don't have a life right now. I don't have a job. I don't have anything. So, I'm going to go back to school for mental health and addiction. Did that for a year. Or a year. Maybe two years. And I was, like, meh. I hate school. I love to be there. And I love to learn. But, like, I literally will never write an essay for as long as I live. She can't do the work. She can't do the work. She can't do the work.
Speaker 3I'm doing it right now. And it's hard for me. You're in school? Yeah. Social work. Oh, you are. Okay. And it's hard, yeah. It is hard. I like to work. I'm a working guy.
Speaker 2I know. I'm, like, can I just be in the field? Like, just teach me that. I can't imagine doing a paper. No. I don't want to do that. And I never have.
Speaker 5I never will.
Speaker 2But I was, like, okay, I love this. Like, I do love being in this, talking to these people about all this shit. Yeah. It's so relatable. But I don't know, you know? And then I started talking to, I started having this idea. I'm, like, I love podcasts. I love talking about this shit. What if I, what if I started one? I messaged Arianne, who we actually went to Boston Conservatory together. We went to school together. And she started her own production company. And it was at the same time I was thinking about podcasting. And it was, like, kismet. Yeah. Like, I saw her post, and I was, like, interesting. We started talking, and I was, like, I got to get a buddy. Like, I need a buddy. And then Zoe and I, I walked into the med spa that she was working at. Yeah. And I told the esthetician that I was sober. And I was, like, sleeping with a married guy. Yeah. And so she broke HIPAA, of course, and told Zoe.
Speaker 5And told me. And at the time, I was obviously sober and sleeping with a married guy. And I was, like, oh, my God, we have so much in common. Yeah. And so. I think I randomly said, like, oh, I'm sober, too. Yeah. Or something like that.
Speaker 2And I was, like, why? What's wrong with you? What did you do? Like, did you go to the hospital? Like, I was so excited. Now I'm, like, maybe be a little chiller about people, like, exposing their.
Speaker 5Yeah. I was so excited when you were just wanting to talk so much about it. Yeah. I was, like, oh, my God. Amazing. I know. It was so exciting. That was probably, like, what, a year before we started the podcast? Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5Within that year, you were still very much, like, a stay-at-home person. I was an indoor person. Yes. I was scared. An indoor cat. Scared of leaving. But, like, we would hang out a little bit throughout that year. But then, like, after that, we did get closer. Yeah. I was bringing you out more, experiencing you to the world.
Speaker 2Yeah. That was hard. Yeah. But it was good. Yeah. But the second we met, I was, like, okay, here's a new life. I can go outside. I can, like, because Zoe is out. You're out. She parties. She hangs out with her friends. And I'm, like, you have friends? What's that like? Yeah. So. And then one day we were at dinner. And I was, like, I have to talk to you about something. Yeah. And I think you were just, you thought I was going to ask you to do an episode.
Speaker 5Yeah. I knew that she was wanting to start a podcast. And I thought, like, that was so cool. And I thought that she was just going to ask me to do, like, one episode. I didn't expect to do, like. You're stuck now. Yeah. And I was, like, oh, okay. It's funny.
Speaker 3Usually it's the other way around, right? Yeah. She's going to ask me to join her podcast. Hey, can you be on an episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, fuck you then, right?
Speaker 2You know, doing it, and I wonder how you feel, because doing it myself, I, like, tried it for a little while, and I'm, like, I'm just sitting here in a room talking about sobriety to myself. This, I don't, I know myself. I mean, I, and, but the only way to know yourself better is to talk to other people and see your life through them. Perspective. Yeah. Yeah, and the whole point of sobriety is community. So I'm, like, why am I fucking doing this alone, you know?
Speaker 3Yeah, that's why I do the guests, but it's the only solo ones I do now, and I didn't used to do them before, but I do them, I make, it's very practical for me. Like, here's how I get through a party sober. Yeah. Like, fucking straight up. You take this, and you apply it. You apply it into your life, and it might work for you. Yeah. It works for me every time, right? And so I try to walk people through very practical things, because I follow a guy, Jefferson Fisher has a podcast on communication. He's a lawyer. Okay. And he just, he has 15-minute videos about how to be a better communicator.
Speaker 4Oh.
Speaker 3And I listen to it, and I just, like, it's so practical. It's, like, you start, it's thing one, do this. And it's, like, you can actually apply it into your life, and it makes you a better person. Yeah. Right? So I try to give that up, but I love, like, this is my favorite. It's the best. Just sitting down, no script, no questions. Yeah. Yeah. I've had a lot of professionals in here, and people in the field, and, you know, it's great, but it's very scripted, very professional. I think my favorite podcasts are ones where it's just, like, people talking.
Speaker 5Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3This is an interesting conversation, right? Because I love listening to it. to conversations right and i'm i'm a very observant person maybe that's why i like podcasting but we'll be out and i'll be like my i always do this i'm like to my wife i'm like are you do you hear what that guy just said yeah he's always listening she's like no and my wife's like no what the fuck no like what and it's like like you know you can read body language he's getting broken up with
Speaker 2or something it's my favorite thing to do oh my god i love to go out and just like watch people but people tell me they're like you're like this like staring at them can you just like do an ear and i'm like i need to ask them what's going on because you're looking for body language too
Speaker 3right it's important oh that's that's amazing um yeah and then after that after you asked me
Speaker 2is that where we were yeah yeah then we just started it up yeah we just we had to redo the first episode a few times and then now i think we're like in a groove i think so too we've got
Speaker 3guests coming on i mean you got the next like month booked out which is always good i'm like on the fly um i wish i had more bookings but again that'll probably come yeah yeah of course for sure and like ariana is such
Speaker 5like a big help for us yeah like we're so fortunate to have oh my gosh her help and
Speaker 3everything doing this on your own is wild yeah it is a lot thanks i feel better now yeah oh my god
Speaker 2no it's literally amazing you're doing amazing one time i was sitting on the floor with chachi pt trying to figure out a camera thing and i cried and fell asleep and woke up four hours later and i was like oh my god okay we need help here like i can't do this but i have a conversation that i kind of want to bring up um you posted something on your instagram a few weeks ago about dating dating and being sober and your take i think was i guess someone had asked right someone you were responding to a comment someone was like if i'm sober should my partner get sober and you said absolutely not yeah and i actually want to know what like that is how you feel about that like because you are married yeah right um is your
Speaker 3partner i don't know if you want to yeah no no she doesn't uh she doesn't drink as like nearly as much as she did but she's able to turn it off i've seen it i you know she has maybe one drink a month now if that and that was all her choice yeah so yeah i'm happy you brought this up because um i think there's two very different things in my mind it's like there's one one part of it is like when i meet somebody if i'm trying to because this is my thing if i'm trying to change somebody to be sober i have a problem with that like that's my my thing where i'm like very uncomfortable so just to finish the point when i go out to um family things and this happened in my early recovery they would remove all the alcohol for parties and i'm talking like 30 people were there and no one was drinking and it made me so uncomfortable i hated it right because i don't like when i change other people's like lives now i'm i'm happy like a nuisance if they yeah like when they yeah it's a nuisance but it's also like i shouldn't be the guy i respect it don't get me wrong i respect it it just makes me uncomfortable it's like this elephant in the room yeah because no one's talking about it no one's drinking and i'm like you guys would be normally drinking right you wouldn't be getting blackout because my family's not like that but you would be drinking and i'm changing it i feel like yeah i feel like a burden almost right did you have any thought or
Speaker 2um would you feel comfortable and maybe now is different but like early sobriety to tell your family like hey this function is coming up i'm not drinking but you guys can drink that's literally fine yeah okay and do they respond by taking all the alcohol away or how do they respond i think
Speaker 3yeah i think so it's it's two things because um i came in twice right so i've had three major relapses but when i came in at 23 um it was probably a good idea to be honest yeah because i was 23 um even though i had done all the work i lived in minnesota for four months i was in a sober house minnesota i had to go to minnesota it was a great it was a great treatment center it was cold as fuck but yeah um and so you know that was probably a good idea because even though i wasn't seeing my friends like i literally i didn't hang out with anyone for four or five months of my drinking buddies because i was told not to yeah and i was like i like this i like myself now i'm gonna listen it's starting to feel good that's the only reason i stayed sober is because i listened to them and i was like oh my god i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and i'm gonna listen to them and after relapsing and where it was like i went to one party and it was just like no one was drinking and i didn't know like maybe 30 minutes in i was like it's like a summer day and yeah nobody's drinking i'm like oh fuck this is for me yeah you're like this shit about me yeah and although i appreciate it i do i really do appreciate it i would rather people just be themselves like do their own thing right now i think what i what i respect the hell out of is somebody saying i can't be with someone that drinks right i respect the hell out of that like you know yourself it's just for me it's like i don't want to change anybody that's my thing
Speaker 2yeah i i really did wonder because i i don't i don't feel like a burden i am like very aware that i was super sick and i was not well and so like i have to do this and i like that everyone it's like what i lead with but i'm really out there like i'm an extrovert i have no shame about any of it and not to say you have shame but i am wondering that like not wanting to be the elephant in the room or like you know i'm like well that feels to me like like i don't want you to feel like that like if everyone around you doesn't want to drink it's like fucking good
Speaker 5yeah and it's not like you ask them to not drink they wanted to do that because they love you you know like i think i get feeling like that um my family didn't drink around me when they picked me up from rehab we went out for dinner that night and they didn't drink the next time i saw them everyone was drinking and it's been like that ever since um which it only annoyed me because they didn't bring it up yeah when i went out with my friends like the first time i went out with them after rehab like a month later they asked me like do you want me to drink and i was like i don't care asking that's the important part that's the important part my family never asked after that one night they didn't ask but early sobriety i would say like a year in every time i was around my friends they would be like are you okay with me drinking what's the vibe like are you okay with this are you feeling good what's happening and my friends were always supportive like that and i never told them like no don't drink but just checking in on me and asking if it's okay was all i needed i didn't want them to not drink but and that
Speaker 2feels like safety yeah like it feels like safety to me where i'm wondering if that feels like danger to you because i'm wondering if it's also like this difference between like binary speaking like men and women we're like i'm good to be coddled like i you know i like when people know i like if people everyone around me it makes me feel safe yeah so i i wonder if it's this thing of like yeah like i don't i don't wanna i can't do something i'm a man i should be able to do something i can't do it but i don't want anyone to fucking talk about it i don't want it to be a thing where for me i'm like this is a thing and we're all gonna talk about my sobriety you know because it is really nice when everyone around you knows what's going on and then and then i'm like yeah you can drink it's fine because you know me and we've had this conversation yeah you
Speaker 3know yeah yeah the point the important part is if any family is listening that they're wondering how to navigate this especially through the holidays yes just ask them how they're doing ask them if
Speaker 5it's okay to drink i think just acknowledging it is everything you know um i would have been like way more safe if my family acknowledged it you know mind you when
Speaker 2someone in the family has an addiction there's usually addiction in the rest of the family someone right so people don't necessarily know how to navigate it they don't want to talk about it they want to just brush it on the road like i went to rehab she must be okay then now let's move on well i'm also a person like my parents would be like we had to walk on eggshells around you
Speaker 3that's what i was gonna say yeah so i'm like you just put them drag them through the mud yeah and now you're showing up and they're not drinking and you're like upset about it the one wants to go back to rehab right exactly you're welcome motherfucker what do you want us
Speaker 2to do and now you're mad at me for not drinking fuck you but that's like typical addict right
Speaker 3one of the things anyways yeah everyone care about me but don't care about me yeah
Speaker 2but dating never know what we want we got we got some like backlash online about this yeah i saw that yeah yeah because i said we were talking about dating and yes someone should my partner
Speaker 3be sober yeah
Speaker 5and so we were i think a lot of people took the tiktok out of perspective right because we were talking in a scenario where if i'm dating someone else and i'm an addict and then i decide to get sober you need to get sober i need to get sober and then if he continues to drink that's different yeah i took it was taken out of context a little bit but and then in that scenario i'm like yeah he should see that i did just so much work to stop drinking he should be able to be like okay i'm not gonna drink or i'm gonna have like one drink every few months to support her you know
Speaker 2or to ask or at the very least at the very least exactly i was in rehab and there was this sweet angel girl i just you know those people who are just apple pies and you're like how did you get so nice such an addict but she um her husband was a heavy drinker and heavy drinker i don't know definitely had a six-pack every night after work um like they live in the country and she's not drinking but that's hard for her because she's relapsing because she's not drinking and she's drinking all the time and it's in the house and our counselor said to her like and this is harsh and like this is the stuff that people don't like but it's like if he loves you he'll stop like he has to make a choice yeah he has to choose alcohol or you and if he can't choose you then he has a problem with alcohol and that is true and i think that that might be where the backlash comes from because we say this that like take asking someone to like think about someone else and stop drinking feels like i'm gonna take your fucking guns and you're the president of the nra you know but it's not it's not really like that and i think that's
Speaker 5it's also because that guy who drinks like only six beers a night is probably like i'm not a fucking alcoholic but i'm like if you can't stop drinking your six beers at night for your wife's
Speaker 3fucking sake yeah you're an addict yeah yeah yeah yeah no it's true i the the the difference the determining factor really is when someone else is struggling right i think yeah i think if if i'm trying to get sober and my partner is not supporting me that's just about supporting
Speaker 5you're not supporting someone else if you're blatantly doing something that they can't do
Speaker 2in front of their fucking face yeah i don't know i think alcohol is like it's a it's almost like a human right for some people right it does feel like this is what i can do i can handle it i'm going to do it i like it and yeah i think it hurts people when you try to take
Speaker 3it away yeah that that's so that leads me into like my next um thing that i want to bring up too is like um i get really fired up when i see i don't know if you guys have ever have you ever seen the guy that films people uh in arizona he does it there's a guy here too that does it like addicts yeah and he films like fentanyl and it comes from the right place like if you actually
Speaker 5watch the videos like the guy is he helps get so uncomfortable i haven't followed him now but
Speaker 3um i remember i was in vancouver i was at a sobriety conference this year and i found his account my hotel room by myself and it just i started getting so emotional but it was like awesome because i was like oh my god like it for one it made me it made me think about like how bad it can get and it reminded me of how bad it can get but also i was like it was just very powerful and i was like it was so powerful and i was like it was just very powerful and i was like oh my god it's so powerful and i was like oh my god it's so powerful and i was like oh my god it's so powerful and it's a choice and i'm watching this guy and he starts talking and i'm like 100 this guy's gonna be like it is a disease right because you know he's filming these people fucking choosing every day to be homeless and and you know overdose and come on are you fucking kidding me man like it's physically addictive yes fentanyl but there's also like there's people that just get anyways so he gets on this whole thing and i had to i had to literally like stop my hand for from commenting on it because like you know it never goes anywhere yeah so i took a day i went back and i just shared my experience right of if if it was a choice then if somebody like me had relapsed after eight years they would just be like like i said at the beginning that was close like i better slow down yeah i couldn't i had i could not stop you had no choice so here's my thing and then i want to hear your thing um is i think it's a choice in the beginning right to start everybody chooses to start to some degree i think a lot of us are predisposed with it right but we don't know until we start and then once you're in it i think the choice just goes out the window right even if you get some time between you and no recovery support i think the choice goes out the window and you need intervention rehab whatever it looks like what do you guys think
Speaker 5i think i agree with that i think even like there's people right now who are like drinking and it's normal until one day it's not a normal drinker like that choice be it's a choice until it's not a choice anymore until it turns into a disease and that can happen at any moment in your life it happened for me early on it happened for you later on as well like a little bit later than me but yeah it's a choice until it's not a choice anymore and then there's so many times that yeah i wanted to stop but i couldn't my body physically couldn't not drink like it needed it um yeah well i didn't want to hold a knife in front of myself in front of my parents i didn't want to stand on the balcony on 46 floors a like that wasn't what i wanted yeah that was a happened because i had this disease of alcoholism
Speaker 3you know and to the point like that should have been enough for anyone to stop right for sure
Speaker 2it's not yeah i mean sometimes your first blackout in high school is enough for you to stop or college and be like oh my god i got way too drunk on that and i never drank like that again i'm like damn girl how'd you do that yeah but it sounds so much fun for me let's keep the blackouts going yeah well that's the thing right it's not fun like when we're in addiction it's not fun and if you see us like laughing it's because we're fucked like there's no like there's no i don't want to wake up in the morning and the first thing i do is like yeah put my hand under the pillow and get the wine from the night before i think everyone in life goes through some sort of hard time and they can compare that like oh i was fired and i didn't have a lot of money and then i you know worked really hard and i did this and now i'm i'm great and i have a wife and blah blah blah and they compare that struggle to addiction and it's just not the same at all like and i think the comparison between like addiction and diabetes or addiction and cancer is also really hard to you know but it is its own thing and i think using the word choice makes it so easy for all of us to other everyone that's on the street struggling and not getting better like i don't think i'm better than anybody i know exactly what would have happened to me first of all especially if i didn't have my dad and the money that he has
Speaker 5privilege do you think it's easier to say it's a choice like you think that's like an easier
Speaker 3like a cop out for people yeah yeah um i just i like i was watching the video and i don't know what he was trying to get out of it because like you're filming these people every day and it's like so you're telling me that they're choosing to not get sober and you just magically chose to
Speaker 5you're not an addict dude i guess maybe like he he does think he's better than everyone else and that's like his way of being like i'm better than everyone else i'm choosing to not do that but you guys are choosing to live like this like i don't know i don't know i'm just trying to
Speaker 2figure out what that is right what's the motive i guess you do you do make a choice to stop drinking or stop using you have like a weird moment of clarity and you're like i gotta call rehab that's your choice maybe if you have the ability to do so i did i wasn't gonna go to a government funded rehab like i was gonna go to a government funded rehab and i was gonna go to a government funded rehab and i was gonna go somewhere i was gonna pay and have my own bed so like i'm not even just like able to get sober in any way you know that's a really privileged thing to say but it is
Speaker 5fucking true yeah and but and like the fact that i called rehab and i went the next day is such a privileged thing too like yeah a lot of people have to wait months and months and then they
Speaker 2don't want to go at that point yeah and i think the main thing too when we have these discussions about people that are struggling living on the street it's like okay get sober and then what yeah live on the street be fucking cold have nothing yeah people that are so unbelievably under zoe was in the hospital all the time and treated like shit you know when she was going through her addiction like people are not being served they're all underserved nobody cares they're not going to the hospital you can't just get sober and then be like okay now i'm gonna live on the street sober yeah fucking right it's cold it's dangerous no part of the deal is building a
Speaker 3new life right yeah that you don't have to drink in you know everyone says that but it's true it's like i have to build a life that i don't need to drink in right yeah but build a life you have to
Speaker 2be able to push off of something right that's what i mean like that's where privilege comes in yeah it's uh it's tough for sure so in that in that case if it is a choice and i'm on the street even if it is a fucking choice that's what i'm choosing then because i don't want to be out here this sucks so but it's not a choice yeah oh it's hard it is hard and i think we wake up in the morning and you're like i'm not gonna drink i'm not gonna drink and then you immediately drink i think your brain and your body just don't compute at that point yeah there are times where i'd sit on my couch at night and i wouldn't have any alcohol in the house and i'd be like i don't really want to drink right now and then something in my brain would be like but you have to yeah you have to get alcohol yeah yeah and then i would be like you're gonna want it later you're not going to want to get through the night without it and i think
Speaker 3that's the difference between like what we call normies right where it's like that thought process doesn't really kind of well no i could go for a walk i could go to the gym i could you know i need to stop this and then they they stop or moderate right and that's why it is so hard for the normies
Speaker 5to understand us yeah because we're crazy people and they would never do the things that we do um they don't have it right yeah they don't have it for some reason we can have the same experiences
Speaker 2and i'm a junkie under a bridge and you're have a family and a baby and you love your life like but we went through the same trauma or we drank the same or you drank first yeah you know but some
Speaker 3of us have it some of us don't i mean yeah to your point like even when you were talking about the dog thing and your sister not finding too like i literally i was just like yep yeah yeah i probably would have done that you know it's and then i'm thinking about wait that kind of sounds crazy it's true like i can i can totally relate to that um yeah we got to do this again because yeah we're running out of time but i had a great time today i guess i know there's so much more to talk about i know and there's a lot that i want to get into but it'll uh yeah we'll come back yeah we'll have to come back you'll come you'll come see us yeah we'll continue or whatever yeah and i'm coming to see you guys yeah um i guess typically how i end this is if you could say something to your addicted self today she wouldn't listen to anything that's what i say i
Speaker 5know hello are you okay are you alive get off the balcony zoe put some clothes on
Speaker 2Why are you make it up there put that bottle down you dumb bitch uh if if that one doesn't maybe if you
Speaker 3don't like that one yeah um i mean the best advice you heard in early recovery one of the two
Speaker 2oh man oh god i have no thoughts no well how do you stay sober today how about that well well i have a bunch of answers now okay i feel like the best advice i got in recovery is either a don't pick up for some reason that one that we had this guy from ca come in he was gigantic italian man and he just used to be like don't pick up don't pick up today and i'm like okay yeah like i know that's so simple but i'm like yeah right if i just don't open the wine rack door just don't go yeah right and like it's a little thing and then also fucking empathy first yeah i try really hard like you like i have moral anger with men and that leads to a lot of my drinking behaviors and drinking and so i try to do like what is their life like what are they feeling today why would they have said that or felt the need to have acted in that way what happened to them as a kid and then i try to just
Speaker 3move on and that helps me yeah that's a beautiful way to do it for sure to deal with difficult
Speaker 5people and narcissists yeah and men and that's why i started yeah we like you don't worry for now um i think the thing that i first started doing like when i got out of rehab i think i didn't like pay attention to too much but i know for the one thing i know i was doing from when i first got out of rehab till now is just like being honest with everybody and being honest with yourself and like talking about how you're actually feeling and telling people what you need and not lying about anything i think the lying game is so hard like we talked about in the early on in this episode but i think honesty will get you sober and will keep you sober as well um yeah i think that's that's something i grasped on too early on and i don't
Speaker 3think i let that one go yeah yeah i agree with that i think our core like our core defect of character i know some people don't like that word but it's true like our core defect is like lying manipulation dishonesty at its very core is like yeah for some reason whether it's people pleasing or i don't like what you're going to think about me or i'm not going to get my way or like you said it's going to be you know easier to apologize later or whatever i just need to lie and then so i was taught early on too is like when you do make those little white lies because you're going to i'm talking about me i i do about stupid shit all the time uh go back and say hey you know yeah i just gotta even if it's stupid right my therapist just tell me this all the time i don't know if you know christine do you know christine anyways i don't know she's anyways great great woman yeah she um would say just go back hey you know i made a little white lie there and just kind of laugh about it yeah and build that up over time and then you won't lie anymore
Speaker 2i do that with music one of the big things on dates when guys are like what kind of music you listen to and i'm like i fucking hate this question because i like sabrina carpenter and top 40 that's what i want to listen to so i like try to make something up and then i'm like ah it's not true i hate everything i only like sabrina carpenter i hate this question we're not big music people no to my younger self or to my addicted self though and i think that i this is actually for all people that are currently in addiction or whatever but to my young my addicted self i think i would literally just say like i see you and i love you and this fucking sucks so bad but it's all valid like everything you're feeling is real and you're in there and i don't know whether that's helpful or not but like yeah just telling like people who are
Speaker 5feeling that like there's love for you and like we love you no matter what and you're like helpful
Speaker 2yeah and you're a person like you're worth it yeah yeah you're worth it you're loved all this bullshit you've done to yourself and you've done it's like it's not you in there you're still in there and you can we can find you you know and you just have to like believe that that's a real
Speaker 3piece of you and hold on yeah that's a good point um i think yeah well said
Speaker 2what would you say to your addicted self i was gonna have a point on that what you said but
Speaker 3then i was thinking about how to close the podcast oh sorry very long-winded over here we're good for time but it's just like uh yeah i had this profound thing anyways i do that a lot
Speaker 2what would i say um what was what was the thing that you were thinking i forgot now oh sorry it
Speaker 3goes it leaves our heads a lot too yeah well just text me maybe i'll come back yeah i'll make a social media reel about it like an idiot anyways um i think i would say yeah tell the truth definitely but uh the the biggest thing i learned you know through my relapse is secrets man secrets secrets secrets they keep you sick and whatever you're going through like you have to have to find somebody on this fucking earth human not just spiritual because that's important for me too but there has to be someone that knows everything in your brain whether it's a therapist or no matter how crazy it sounds how stupid how much you'll think you'll get judged i tell that to people with long-term recovery all the time yeah don't have any secrets no matter
Speaker 5how insignificant you got to get it out we tell all our secrets on the podcast yeah we really do
Speaker 3that's a good thing about it too like yeah it's a good place to kind of air it out yeah yeah yeah
Speaker 5we've even like we've never had really fights but we've talked about like hard things on the podcast yeah that's nice which is really nice because we feel so safe in that room yeah and yeah everything
Speaker 2is through a sober lens with us and i think that's like very important just in friendships in general like this is my best friend this is the person that's gonna walk through life with me and i don't want to fight this person so let's actually talk about it like we care about each other yeah we're
Speaker 5good to go yeah it's easier to to like have a sober friendship well also because you know that
Speaker 2everything in my life affects my sobriety and vice versa so it's like i'm not just telling you know each other too well yeah it's like this is a sober conversation yeah it's great i can really i think
Speaker 3everybody that's in sobriety like it's someone with form or another is going to affect your sobriety yeah it's true like just not everybody is going to affect your sobriety yeah it's true like just not everybody is going to affect your sobriety yeah it's true like just not not everybody is going to affect your sobriety yeah it's true like just not everybody is going to affect your sobriety yeah it's true like just not not today you know yeah girl undrunk thank you so much zoe thank you so much heather
Speaker 2i appreciate thanks for coming down thank you so much for having us this was so fun we'll see you
Speaker 6soon thanks for listening please help us grow the channel and like share and subscribe for more content the discussions and stories shared on this podcast are for informational and motivational purposes only this content is not a substitute for professional medical advice addiction treatment or therapy if you or someone you know is struggling with addiction please go to consult a licensed physician addiction specialist or mental health professional you are no longer alone
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