Month: July 2023

In this episode:

Link to Spotify.

In this episode, I sit down with Brian, a school administrator with a remarkable journey to share. Brian opens up about his past as one of the few Black male elementary school teachers he knew. On top of that, he shares how he battled alcohol addiction and navigated the challenging road to sobriety. Listen to learn about educators’ struggles as they balance teaching responsibilities with personal demons and what tools you can take for your journey.

Resources:

Follow Brian: @teacherhootnhowl on TikTok, Threads, B-R-I-A-N Linktree

Explore Brian’s Support Groups: Sober Together Facebook Group and Sober Together Marco Polo

Bottomless to Sober – Workshops, Writing Classes, and Coaching

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas
Hey everyone. Welcome on today’s episode. I’ve got Brian, who is a fellow educator who I’ve connected with here in the beautiful world of the internet. And really, I just wanted to invite him on the show today because I think it’s really important with back to school season being right around the corner for folks to hear about the perspective of an educator with regards to his story in recovery, and hopefully you are able to walk away with some tangible strategies to either help you or the educator in your life in terms of.

making some strides in your own journey. So with no further ado, Brian, tell us about you.

Brian
Well, I’m Brian and yes, I am an educator. I have been an educator for, I don’t know the years now, 24, I think. And part of the education journey that I’ve had has been partly, mostly as an alcoholic that I could honestly say.

I’m originally from Michigan. That’s where I spent the first 30 years of my life, growing up in a very Southern Baptist Christian home where alcohol was…

just no, a big no-no. Alcohol was bad. And I’m 46, I grew up through the 80s and 90s. So a lot of the advertising and things like that were out there for us and what we were learning in school had to do with not doing drugs. That was a big deal. But alcohol really never seemed to be

deal they didn’t Nancy Reagan the former first lady didn’t really talk a lot about don’t drink don’t drink or anything like that so it was such an acceptable thing in society but I really got through middle school through high school without ever doing anything I believe it was because I

was raised that way and that wasn’t something that I was gonna do but by the end of my senior year of high school in 1995 I was just turned 18 and in February of that year and it was the end of the year it was a memorial day weekend and I went quote-unquote camping with my friends.

And because that’s what you do. It was senior skip weekend. So we skipped school, went camping at the rifle river. I have no idea where that is. I just know I was in the car. Drinking beer and enjoying it. And I was like, oh, this is cool. This is what this is what camping is. So I think that first night. Because my bloody recollection is not all that good, but.

I’m pretty sure I went through a case of beer, smoked weed, did everything that 18 year olds did or teenagers did at the time. I did it all in one night and I was like, yeah, popped up the next morning and did it again. And that started a life of drinking. So I was a commuter in college, so I still lived at home and lived…

the college life even as a commuter. So I would still go out and party. I would still start my weekends on Wednesday and go to Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then start over calmly on Monday with a new week and focus on my school and all that kind of stuff. It wasn’t…

crazy alcoholic drinking and when I looked back on it, it was, you know, what a lot of people were doing at the time. It was just partying as a college kid. Then around 22, I ended up abruptly ending all that party stuff and got married and was a father immediately. So

I had to make some different choices about how I dealt with alcohol because that was still there. And honestly, I don’t think I’d be sitting here talking to you if I hadn’t gotten married and become a dad. When I did party, it was blackout drink party.

piss yourself at some point, puke wildly. I had fun, but there were a lot of times that I’m pretty sure I was not the life of any party because I was always focused on the drink. Always focused on the drink instead of focused on the fun. So I took that into marriage, and I think I was more of a…

heavy drinker, but I tried to restrain myself to weekends because I had little kids. I have three daughters and I needed to be present as dad and as husband for my wife to be able to do that and be an elementary school teacher. So in my town of about 35,000, I think everybody knew who I was. I was a kid.

black kid who grew up in a white town where I ended up teaching in the district and town that I grew up in. So people knew who I was and if I did stupid stuff with alcohol, people knew that. My wife, when we got together as just dating and stuff like that, she was not a drinker. And I…

Introduced that to her at some point. I guess in order to date me you were gonna have to drink With me or you didn’t have to but that was that’s part of the decision that she had made so It became a thing for us, but I can remember many times As a young dad and young teacher and young husband still doing stupid drunk stuff

not all the time, but enough as to where I should have known that there were some issues there. But I was able to survive and be successful. And as a teacher, my kids were in the 90% reading, and they were very high in math, and they were good kids. Nobody messed with Mr. Johnson’s class. I guess I can say my name. I don’t care.

Brian
Nobody messed with my class. They were well behaved. They were good kids. They knew what the expectations were and what they were supposed to do. And I think at that time back in the early 2000s I didn’t spend a lot of time drinking during the week where I would show up to work hungover and smelling like alcohol or anything like that.

I was good about that. I was always really good about separating work and alcohol. Even though sometimes I do remember I occasionally, you know that wake up time when you’re like, oh shit, I’m still a little fucking drunk. Can I cuss on here? I just did. Oh, sorry.

Jessica Dueñas
No, you’re fine. Totally fine.

Brian
Yeah, but I would wake up a little drunk or hungover or whatever you want to call it. And I’d still be able to go to work because it was a small town. So I could just hop in the car, drive a half mile to work and push through the day. And when you get good at teaching, you can figure out those days that you don’t really want to do anything.

And I’m not promoting this at all, but we figure it out. If it’s a day that as a teacher, I just need to be alone, even though I’ve got between 20 and 36, 38 kids, whatever you, it’s all changed over the time. But I was very good at not being drunk at work and never would have thought to drink at work.

or drink before work or you know head right to the liquor store after work that was not part of anything. I would have laughed if anyone had asked me that what my routine was. My routine was to get up really early, do lesson planning, do grade grading papers and

be the first one out the door because I wanted to be there with my kids and my wife. My kids didn’t even know I was a teacher. They never saw me grade papers, they never saw me lesson planning, and they were little, but they really had no idea. Not until they got older. Around the…
sixth year, fifth or sixth year of my career was when the economy started to really be messy and that was the first experience that I had with being laid off and not knowing what I was going to be able to do, not knowing what the future was.

with my job even though eventually I would always get my job back but sometimes it was less like last second I remember they were like hey you’re gonna be teaching this kindergarten in the morning and eighth grade math in the afternoon and I’m like okay at different schools yes yeah I can do that of course

Jessica Dueñas
That’s insane.

Brian
super teacher, I guess, but I was gonna do anything for my family. But the cycle started of not knowing where I was going to be. And I think the last year that I was there, I ended up at a different school and it felt like a… I don’t want to say an imposter, but if you know schools, schools really… I think if you have a good school culture, you can…

sometimes become very family-ish and sometimes that can turn a little clickish. So I would show up and felt like an outsider. And through all that, I think my wife and I had decided that we were going to leave and my wife and I ended up deciding that we were gonna go to somewhere. We didn’t know where and we landed on Arizona. She had lived in Phoenix in 99 and said it was beautiful. So we ended up.

coming here, I’d say probably about 15 years ago around today. I got a call to be a Dean of Students. And I think by that time we were, I know I was drinking more. We had sold our house and were living in her parents basement until I.

was able to get a job in Arizona and then we finally did move, but I know I was drinking more then. I don’t know if it was because of the stress. I don’t know if it was because of the progression of the disease. It’s a lot that I look back on and wonder, you know, where the red flags were, should have been. Can’t go back and change time.

So I know that alcohol was way more of an issue. And I’m telling this story from what I recall and how I’m recalling it. I could be way off base. My wife could have another version of this and I’m sure she does, which there’s nothing wrong with that. She was there for that and any kind of trauma that I caused. And…

Brian
as I tell this and try to go back so many years, it is an interesting trip because I see things from my perspective. Having little kids, I don’t really think about, having little kids then, I didn’t really think about, you know, what any of this was doing for them, to them, or how it was affecting them. I should have thought of that stuff because I was an educator and…

I knew the effects of substance abuse and trauma and all that stuff from being a teacher. And I did not apply it at my own home. And that was a fail. That was a fail on my part that if I could go back and change time, I wish I could. But like I said, I can’t. But I get to do that now. So…

Coming to Arizona with no money and nothing. I had a job and I was excited, but we had really pushed all the cards on the table to be able to sell the house and move and do all of that successfully, which we did. But there was a lot more drinking in my house, probably on my part.

I don’t know if it was because the job was more stressful. It just always felt like we were behind on a lot of different things financially. And moving to Arizona with three kids is hard. And then the thing that we tried to avoid in Michigan started happening in Arizona.

where the economy was, it’s like Arizona always has to be able to catch up from the bottom. So two years into working here, they’d already cut my job in half and I was basically instructional coaching and Dean of Students at the same time. And then by the third year, the my position was gone. They had eliminated that. So I was in

What I really didn’t know was this long series of not knowing what the hell I was doing in education. I didn’t know what the next job was. I didn’t know what the next school was. And as a teacher or as an administrator, that’s not a good feeling to have. And within that, I used alcohol as just a way to basically shut down.

I think I was still successful during that time doing what I needed to do, but that was what I used to just basically say, fuck it. I’m doing what I can. I’m doing the best that I can. And it doesn’t seem like enough. And I was, my gosh, after I was a dean of students, I was a…

specials teacher where kids came to me and I Just basically did what I did him from my office in the classroom talked about so what we would call social emotional learning now I was a social emotional learning teacher before that even Was a thing and I got to do that kindergarten through eighth grade, which was a nice No, it wasn’t a nice experience. I’m looking at it now. Like I’m glad I did that

But I was at one school for two weeks, and then I would go to another school for two weeks, then I’d go back to that school for two weeks, and I didn’t have any kind of home again. I was just that dude that taught that specials class, and I knew that that’s what I was, because they had called it like a gap position. We just need a special, we need a body, we need somebody who can do this, and I was like, yeah, I’ll do it, just to, you know, I didn’t know any better.

but it didn’t help me out in dealing with alcohol. It really allowed that to increase. Yeah.

Jessica Dueñas
Right. So when did you like, when was like that turning point for you where you had to stop drinking? Like, what was it that brought you to that turning point? You know, for some people, they use the term bottom, other people don’t resonate with that term. But I’m hearing like your career was getting increasingly, increasingly more stressful. The budget was affecting your role.

Brian
Yep.

Jessica Dueñas
also kind of like not really being honored and respected as a professional, which happens to so many teachers. And so yeah, I’m curious, like, where was it that you started to realize that the alcohol had to go?

Brian
Um, well, after all a few years in flux, I ended up getting an assistant principal job in a different school district, which was great. That was 2012. And I was in that school district for seven years where I was an assistant principal and I was a principal. Uh, I was drinking during that time. I, my principal would tell me that sometimes when I was an AP.

And I think I knew I had a problem. I was still drinking when I was a principal. And then we had the change in leadership. So as an educator, you know this, you get a new superintendent that comes in, new superintendent, cleaned house, of all the administrators put her people in. And I was one of the people that,

Brian
was part of that deal. And I had to go back to the classroom. And that was really not the rock bottom, but it was bottom enough as to where I should have known, yo, you got to stop. During that time, I had my first seizure in 2019. I didn’t know why I didn’t and I ended up in the hospital for a few days. And

Jessica Dueñas
Wow.

Brian
I didn’t, it was not attributed to alcohol. So I was just like, all right, let’s just keep going. So I continued on with life, but then the pandemic hit and I was teaching at home, like many teachers across the country, across the world. And my alcohol definitely very much,

exponentially increased as to where I would be on a Zoom and I would have bottles next to me and be able to put kids in breakout rooms and then be able to break out my own bun and there was there was no supervision there was no administrators coming to the classroom or anything like that so I became a drinker at work at home.

Jessica Dueñas
Hehehe

Brian
And during that time I had COVID, I lost my taste and smell, but with that I also ended up in the hospital. I had a car accident where I believe I had a seizure. My blood pressure was really low. My, and then by the time that they had done all the scans and checks, they’re like, dude.

your kidneys aren’t functioning, your liver’s fucked up. You got a lot of stuff going on. I burned my esophagus because I couldn’t taste and smell. I was drinking 100 proof, you know, the 99 brand. I was drinking 99 bananas, like it was water and I was chasing it with water. Like either my chaser, I wasn’t mixing drinks anymore. I was just like.

Jessica Dueñas
Oh god.

Brian
I’m gonna get fucked up and still do whatever this is. And during that pandemic time, I was hospitalized a few times. I would pass out in parks. I would go, quote unquote, walking. And when I went walking, there’s lakes here where we can walk. I would hit the Safeway first and get some little of the airplane bottle type.

drinks, put them in my pocket, walk around my three miles and be halfway through that little pack knowing that I had stuff at home. I started driving out in the desert just because there was that was the only way out of your house because it was mask up or don’t go anywhere, you know. So I would drive out, I would drink, throw bottles out the window.

there were never any cops around, so I wasn’t really worried about it. And throughout all this time, doctors would be like, dude, your liver enzymes are bad, your, these numbers are bad. Every time I would have to go to the doctor, it was like, I knew something negative was gonna be there and it was about alcohol. I stretched through that and I was like, I’m gonna be a principal again.

I’m going to do this again and I got that last year. And. At Labor Day of 2022.

Brian
I was told in the morning, this is the best, I was working at a target school, the guy that ran it said, this is the best start we’ve had in our 10 year history. Thank you. And that afternoon, I was given a letter of termination because they said they didn’t have enough students. They had cut my Dean of Students position the week before. And I was like, yeah, I can manage this on my own, which I could. And then I lost that job and that was pretty much.

the way and I just didn’t care anymore. I felt like a failure for the third or fourth time in my career. Everything was defined by my education career, by being whatever that position, whatever that title was. That was an important thing growing up, was going to college and becoming that thing and being that thing for the rest of your life.

And I clearly wasn’t doing that from what the world was telling me. And I just started drinking all the time at that point last year. Uh, crisis team had come in. I’d been to the hospital several times. I really wasn’t doing anything good as a dad or husband. I was terrible to my wife. I was really angry with her.

and displayed that regularly. I didn’t care about education anymore, which, you know, that was my heart. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything.

Brian
Eventually through a series of events, I ended up checking myself in to a behavioral hospital and or psych hospital, whatever you call it. And

That was October of last year. So almost 10 months ago, just over nine months ago now, I finally had said, you know what? This isn’t gonna work anymore. This marriage isn’t gonna work. Being dad isn’t going to work. Being teacher guy or educator or whoever the, whoever I thought I was supposed to be, none of that was going to work if I was going to…

keep drinking alcohol. And on top of that, physically, medically, I had a seizure in January of 2022 in my glass with my students. And thankfully I had a, my teacher’s assistant was a paramedic and my wife worked there too. So she was around the corner.

but I was able to not help. But again, that should have been a red flag of stop, stop. And I had tried to stop during that year in 2022 because I knew going into that next job, having alcohol be a part of it was not going to help me be successful as the principal that I wanted to be. And when I lost it, I lost pretty much hope. But then…

something clicked that said, hey man, the next seizure you have, it could be your heart. It could be, you know, I didn’t know. And I made a point of saying I’m not going to be the guy that dies with a bottle next to me or in my classroom because I was drunk. And I was in the psych hospital for a week. And really…

I think through the use of medication and therapy and, uh, seeing other people in similar circumstances and meeting people who I still talk to today and we still have connection, uh, that ended up being really important. And I was listening to your podcast today.

and one of the ones that you did before about you know being in a hospital and it was the best thing I could have done and I honestly don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner except for when I think back and I can think currently is the stigma that goes around with being an alcoholic that exists here in this country

and probably around the world. I haven’t been around the world, but I know it does because I have friends that I talk to around the world now and they said the same thing, but I finally succumbed to that. And since October 15th of 2022, I have not picked up again and I have not had any cravings. I have not thought about it. And every time I think or see alcohol, I…

do a little dance in my head or sometimes physically and say, fuck you, I win. And that’s how I am here today. As a nine month sober person, my life has entirely changed and I’m a better everything for it. And I wish I’d done it much sooner.

But I’m glad I’m still here and get to be able to talk about it, share my story with other people. When I was a principal, education stories were huge to me. That would be part of every PD that we would have was education stories. And I would have teachers share their stories about how they got to where they are today.

Brian
I’ve been a speaker at a conference on stories and education. So coming up on you, you have a similar thought process when it comes to storytelling and storytelling and education with alcohol. That’s like sort of a cool bonus. I don’t know.

Jessica Dueñas
Right.

Brian
But it allows you to be able to use the things that you have used as an educator and be able to, honestly, I put them into place in my own life and they have been part of the toolbox. I was gonna talk about toolbox, but…

Jessica Dueñas
Go for it because I mean that, I mean, I was going to ask, well, now that you are so sober, now that you are sober, how are you staying sober as an educator? So yeah, like what does that toolbox look like for you? Schools right around the corner.

Brian
Yeah, so once I got out of the hospital last year, I started going to, I tried AA meetings, because it was a different world. I’d gone to AA once or twice, a few times before in town, and it was in person, and I live in a small community. So it wasn’t really anonymous. Everybody, you’d see people and you’re like, oh shit, I know who that person is. Oh shit, that lady teaches at my kid’s school. Oh shit, like, oh.

It didn’t feel good. It felt weird. It felt vulnerable and exposed and what’s the talk of the town going to be? This teacher guy is drunk and I didn’t like AA when I first went. And then I went zooming on AA and for a period of time that was very helpful for me to be able to hear.

other people’s struggles and stories within their addiction. And to know that I wasn’t the only one who was on the struggle bus when it came to this. I remember going in 1998, I was 21 years old, one of my buddies, he had to go to AA court mandated because he got a DUI. And I went to the meeting with him. I’m like, I don’t have anything else to do. I’m living at Michigan State for the summer, living my best life.

waking up drinking, going to bed drinking, eating Subway, like 21 year olds do. I went to this AA meeting in person, because that’s all there was then. And this, I just remember it vividly, this man talking about how he couldn’t function. He’s like, I had to wake up. And he said that he drank a case of beer a day. And I was like, you can’t drink a case of beer a day. What the fuck? These people are crazy. And…

He said I couldn’t I would wake up and I would drink and I would drink throughout the day and I would drink at night And I’m like God that’s an alcoholic. That is not me. I am NOT that person and Eventually that became me Spoiler alert! It happens! So I Listened to these people I had really determined that I was not going to be drinking anymore because I didn’t like I said I didn’t want to die

Jessica Dueñas
Right. Spoiler alert, it is possible to drink that in a day.

Brian
and I knew that I only had so many chances left. That’s really how I felt. I felt like if I was a cat, I was on life 12 and shouldn’t have been there. So, putting my toolbox together, when I got released from the hospital, I got set up with a therapist. I got set up with an intensive outpatient program, which was…

uh what I’ve really been doing during this time of uh I don’t want to say not working because I’ve worked off and on here and there but I had to and everybody doesn’t get to do this I had to call time out on my life in order to keep my life I could have kept grinding I there’s I could have after I lost my job in october or september of last year I could have

easily gotten another job because they need teachers and I’m a little unicorn-y in teaching because I’m a black male elementary educator and there aren’t a lot of us. There aren’t a lot of black educators but there aren’t a lot of black elementary male educators on top of that. So I could have jumped back into it but I had support from my family and I had support from my wife to do whatever I needed to do to…

help myself be better. And I did the intensive outpatient all online and that included physical therapy. My body was broken down from the seizures that I had had. So I couldn’t even lift my arms hardly. And my wife would make fun of me when I was trying to bag groceries because I couldn’t bag groceries.

I was so slow and I couldn’t put dishes away and all of this stuff and there was an app that had come out before I went to the hospital and it was called Sober Together and you basically had to there was a guy that moderated questions a question of the day and you got on video and answered the question of the day.

That was great. We had a little community. Uh, you got to learn a little bit more about people. Um, it was a way to keep accountable by checking in every day. And through that learning along with my IOP, I had put together a lot of tools for the toolbox to be able to.

do something different than alcohol. To be able to color and draw and sing and find joy in doing laundry and the little things in life and still being able to go to some meetings and stuff like that. Well, early this year in 2023, the Sober Together app, they couldn’t maintain it.

and they shut it down. And that was a interesting time. But this group of alcoholics, we were very slick and we shifted our questions of the day over to Marco Polo. And we started assigning people weeks to have questions of the day. And with Marco Polo, there’s no time limit.

And that’s how I ended up where I am now with this group of people and being able to talk and getting on TikTok. TikTok, man, that’s been one of the best things I could have ever had. No lie.

I was a TikTok watcher like a lot of people are back in early TikTok. And then when I got out of the hospital, I’m like, I’m going to tell my story on TikTok. I’m going to go through recovery, check it in on TikTok every day. And I think my first one was maybe day 20 or I’m walking with my daughter. We’re on a walk. And

It got a lot of likes. A lot of people liked it. I was like, oh, okay, maybe people will. I was just a watcher and laughed at people dancing and I learned how to grill really good. And all the stuff that happened in the pandemic, I got really good at some things because I learned them on TikTok. And I thought, why couldn’t someone learn from me on this platform and see that you can be an almost dead.

puffy-faced, fat Elvis, alcoholic, at the bottom of whatever the bottom is, to be someone who today is 280 days sober and living the best life that I could possibly live as a school leader. With my family being happy and…

the changes that are actually occurring in my world because of the actions that I’ve taken. I would never have imagined that, but that’s where I am today and I’m damn proud of it. I work hard at it. For anybody who thinks they can just not work at it, they’re kidding themselves. It takes work, it takes determination, it takes plan, it takes support and I have…

all of those things at my fingertips right now. And I am so thankful to be here and get to share this story because there’s a second half to it. I look at it as the one of the questions recently was what would you call a chapter, this chapter of your life? And I went straight to Dr. Dre and I was like and Snoop and I was like this is going to be called the next

And that’s where it is. That’s where I am right now. I am living the next episode of Brian, and I’m no longer identifying myself as an educator. I’m just me. Everything about me as an educator defined who I was, what school district I was in, what position I was in, how many years I’d been somewhere. It was always important to be that guy.

Jessica Dueñas
I love that.

Brian
And now I could care less. I’m glad I have a school job and as a school leader, but I would be happy working at the safe way where I used to buy all my alcohol or working at the liquor store where I would pull up and the guy would be like, hot damn, hot damn, cause he knew my drink or the liquor store on the main street down the road where I can walk in, the guy sees me.

and pulls out my bottle of 99 bananas and I pull out my $9.67 and give it to him. I went in there and bought for my wife a few weeks ago, a few months ago, and he goes, the guy that owns the place, he’s like, damn, you look good. And I go, I’m not drinking anymore. And he literally walked back, put the little bottle down that he knew I would get. Then he goes,

Jessica Dueñas (49:15.051)
Thank you.

Brian (49:26.998)
what would you like? And I got whatever it was that my wife wanted. And I walked out of there just like I had won the lottery. Like I have done this and I’m going to keep doing this. And it took therapy, it took meds, I take naltrexone every day for cravings. I take gabapentin, which I think helps with that. I take

Zoloft, which helps me with my, which helps my brain. I’m taking things now that actually help me. And I listened to, you had mentioned on your podcast, your most recent one about if you break your arm, you put a cast on and you don’t have to wear the cast for the rest of your life and you don’t have a broken arm for the rest of your life. And

Brian (50:26.126)
And I looked at these things like, okay, I needed AA for a little bit. I don’t need that anymore. I don’t foresee always needing to be on medication for cravings or for anxiety or for any of that stuff forever. I don’t really see that. I see these things as temporary so that eventually I will be free of all of that. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

Jessica Dueñas
Mm-hmm.

Brian
And that’s part of the story too is like you said, if you need something that’s going to help you just be your best self, what’s wrong with that?

Jessica Dueñas
Exactly.

Brian
I don’t think anything’s wrong with that. And that is what I’m telling people in my recovery is the point is not drinking. The point is being sober. And if I have my own way of doing that, then that’s totally 100%, not just fine, but awesome.

And I can share that with other people who get stuck in the AA trap or the big book trap or I don’t want to sponsor trap of what that is. And I love to read. I’ve read so much about the brain and the body and how alcohol really does mess that up. They would always show us that black lung back in the day when it was about smoking, but they never showed you.

the effects of the alcohol on your brain and your body. And I wish they would have, but now I get to be that person to be able to share those things with people like you who know that there are many paths to recovery, not just one. And that whatever your path is, if you’re successful at that, it’s…

it’s good. If it’s good for you, it’s good and it’s a path and a journey. And I was listening to somebody the other day talking about the journey. And if you’re driving from Michigan to Arizona and you get a flat tire, that’s just a little bump. That doesn’t mean you go back to Michigan and start the trip over. It means you fix your tire and you keep going to Arizona.

And if I were to relapse, which I don’t foresee, but I’m not, I always say confident, not cocky, Brian. If I were to relapse or for people that do relapse, you don’t have to go back to square one. You get back in your car after changing the tire and you keep moving forward. And that’s my mindset right now. And for anybody that talks to me, that’s where I’m at. And I’m…

best Brian I’ve ever been in my life. Well, maybe outside of that cute kid that I used to be, but that’s a different podcast.

Jessica Dueñas
Right. Well, Brian, I mean, just thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. Again, I mean, just for anyone who’s listening, I feel like a couple of the key takeaways here is, yeah, like exploring that toolbox. You know, again, nothing that was said here is medical advice. However, both Brian and I have benefited from collaborating with medical professionals, including…

going to treatment when you need to go to treatment, having a psychiatrist prescribe you medications that, you know, hey, you don’t have to take forever if you don’t need to, but really be open to whatever pathway is going to get you there. It doesn’t matter how you get there. The point is, and like Brian said, the point is getting to be a sober person, getting to be an alcohol-free person so that your life doesn’t have to revolve around this damn substance because…

we do already have enough to worry about, and we don’t need to have alcohol be that added thing that complicates things. So, I mean, Brian, again, thank you, thank you, thank you. And we are close on time. So I’m gonna go ahead and wrap us up. Did you want to say any last word? How can people find you if they want to find you? Or do you want to not be found?

Brian
I can be found on TikTok at teacher hootenhowl. It’s a weird name, but it’s a name that, this is gonna sound really silly. The hootenhowl was a bar that my buddy, teacher buddy and I would go to after, on Fridays, to finish our week, cause we hated our jobs and hated our lives. And we were just talking one day during the pandemic.

Brian
like we should come up with a podcast called Teacher Hoot and Howl. And I sat down and wrote out a whole little plan for it. We never did it, but I just took the name and, uh, have kept it. And it’s been really cool. I know one thing that you asked me to talk about was, um, still being sober when your partner is drinking.

And all I will say to that is if you stay focused on yourself and the things that you need to do for you, people can do whatever they want to do. It’s their choice. And my job is not to go in there and try to solve their problems. Even if it’s the problems of people that you care about and love. My problem is.

Brian
my alcohol problem and…

being preachy and all that shit is not going to help anybody stop. I know that for a fact. So I just try to like in teaching, be a model of what an alcohol free life can be. And currently on July 22nd, 2023, I think I’m doing a damn good job.

Jessica Dueñas
Yes, that’s awesome. And plug for my latest podcast episode, episode 10, I actually interviewed my sister on her experience as a loved one dealing with me and my addiction. So for anybody who is out there and is kind of listening to this and you’re like, Oh, I have a podcast. episode for that. Like go listen to it. It’s really helpful for folks who are dealing with a loved one struggling. Maybe you’re not, but someone you care about is. So I’d definitely recommend that. All right, Brian. Well, thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

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I connect with Martin Lockett, who recently reached the second anniversary of his release from prison after serving 17.5 years for a DUI manslaughter charge. Martin provides an insightful reflection on his childhood, particularly the mindset of a teen trapped in a cycle of making poor choices and how an environment can impact an individual. Martin also discusses how the experience of causing a tragedy and subsequently going to prison, instead of cementing the ceiling placed over his head by society, enabled him to shatter it.

Content warning – Description of a car crash and death

Resources:

Martin Lockett – Public Speaker, Author, Counselor

Follow Martin on Instagram

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

My apologies, there were technological issues and I was unable to pull the transcript for this recording.

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In this episode:

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I share my recovery story a lot, but in this episode, I sit down with my big sis, Sofia, to have a raw conversation about her part in my story of addiction and recovery. Several key things we discuss in this episode:

1. Professional help. The person with the addiction isn’t the only one who benefits from it.
2. Managing guilt.
3. Understanding what is in your locus of control.
4. Setting boundaries.
5. Current worries.

If this episode touches your heart, you MAY feel inspired to follow my sister Sofia or say hello. Sofia’s boundary is she will not welcome strangers following her/adding her as a friend, so if you listen to this and want to send her a message, please message me, and I’ll pass it on to her. 🙂

Resources:

Op-Ed That Went Viral

Bipolar I vs Bipolar II: Breaking Down The Differences

What is the Baker Act?

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas (00:02.204)

Hey everyone, super happy to have you. So this episode is really near and dear to me because my first ever guest is actually my sister, Sofia. I call her Sophie, but you all don’t know her. So she is Sofia to anyone listening to this. And basically just to kind of give you all some context. So I am the youngest of a combined eight kids between my mom and dad. And so my sister Sofia, she’s the seventh, but

Sofia (00:17.134)

Thanks for watching!

Jessica Dueñas (00:30.644)

because our parents came to the US kind of like with already their older kids having been born and staying in their respective countries, Sophie and I really grew up together. And so a couple of cool things, Sophie is 11 years older than me and she got to name me. Thank God, because if I had been a boy, my mom would have named me Eduardo. So I don’t even know what my name would have been if my mom had named me. So Jessica came from my sister naming me. So she did a good choice there.

And honestly, she, thank you. And you know, and really I asked her to come on because I think it’s really important that we also consider the perspective of our loved ones. And when I struggled so much, she was there for me in ways that I, I mean, there’s no repaying it, right? All I can do is just continue to walk the path that I walk. And I feel like that’s the best that I can do. Chrissy, my dog decided to start playing with the bone now.

Sofia (00:58.902)

You’re welcome.

Jessica Dueñas (01:25.788)

But yeah, I thought that having her on would be really helpful if you’re listening and you have a loved one or if you are a loved one and you’re listening and you’re kind of just hoping. So here’s some perspective. I hope that you get something from this. And again, nothing that we’re offering is advice, but it’s just a perspective that may be helpful. So with that, thank you, Sophie, for coming. I appreciate you.

Sofia (01:46.926)

Well, thank you for having me. I’m honored to be the first guest.

Jessica Dueñas (01:50.484)

Yes, you’re always the most special person. So, all right, so the first question really that I have, and again, with my drinking, right, what was it like dealing with me in active addiction, especially when you found out that this was a struggle I was keeping from you?

Sofia (02:08.97)

I mean, it was so much, it was kind of overwhelming because the timeline of it all, we were like in the middle of COVID as well. It was very, very frightening, very scary because our family has a pretty extensive history of alcohol addiction, but I had never…

seen it to this level. And I was very much afraid for your life. And it’s a sense of helplessness because this person that you love so much and you just wanna be able to fix it. And as a big sister, I wanna come in, I wanna save the day, I wanna be able to fix it, but having to accept that there is really nothing that I can do.

Um, it’s, it’s a very kind of helpless place to be. Um, and, and frustrating because, you know, knowing you, and I know what an intelligent, bright individual you are. And I knew that like, intellectually you knew that you needed to stop doing this. And.

Also knowing that you kind of knew how to work the system. You knew the right things to say to let people or make people think that, oh no, I’ve got it under control. Like I’m good, I’ve got this, no problems. Yes, I know I’m drinking too much, but I’ve got it under control. That was just, that was frustrating for me because I knew that you…

You knew you needed help, but you weren’t in a place where you were, I think, accepting how serious this problem was really, was just affecting your life and your health, and that you were really at risk. That was really difficult.

Jessica Dueñas (04:24.84)

Yeah, thank you for that. And I mean, it’s funny because in my writing, I often reflect on how good I am at knowing what the right things to say are. And I have to look out for that today. Like I have to be very intentional with sharing with you or with Rashard or anybody, like I’m not okay because I’m such a good actor, right? And it’s like, I still have to watch out for that today and just…

practice that transparency because it’s so easy. You know, we learned it in our family to just always put up the front of being strong. You know, it’s like I feel like that’s very ingrained in our family history. One thing that kind of came up for me while you were talking, you mentioned helplessness and accepting that you couldn’t kind of like control me or the outcome. At what point did you understand that you were helpless in that or like, you know, that you couldn’t control me? And at what point, like how did that help you kind of?

hope, so to speak, if that helped or was it, did that make that worse?

Sofia (05:22.539)

I mean, to be honest, I ended up having to go to therapy myself because, you know, I don’t want to say I’m a controlling person, but you know, I’m used to being the person, the go-to person when something goes wrong. I fix it. I come up with solutions. And, you know, this was one of those situations where…

I really couldn’t do anything and I didn’t know how to deal with that. So it was affecting me. You know, I was, I had anxiety. I was a nervous wreck. And again, this is just one of those things that was in addition to the whole situation that we were living through at that time. So we just kind of compounded that and you know, I’m in healthcare. So it was just so hard and, and you know, really brought to light.

that life is so precious and it’s fragile. And I really truly, every time the phone rang and I saw that area code, I was always afraid what was gonna be on the other end of that line. Is this gonna be the call telling me that something happened to you? And having the idea of like, how am I gonna explain this to mommy? How do I say it? I couldn’t, there was nothing I could do.

It was, so I had to seek help for myself. You know, I finally got to the point and actually my supervisor told me, she’s like, you know, you have anxiety because I never dealt with anxiety before and I honestly couldn’t recognize it in myself, but you know, I wasn’t sleeping well, I was having trouble concentrating, you know, all the classic signs of anxiety. And so, you know, I did seek help for myself and.

You know, it was hard to accept and I don’t know if I ever truly accepted it, but I just had to deal.

Jessica Dueñas (07:27.839)

Yeah.

Well, thank you for that. I’m glad that you got help. And again, anybody who’s listening, right? Like if you don’t know what to do, like A, it’s okay to not know what to do. And B, there are resources out there. So you did therapy. Any other support systems that you leaned on during this time?

Sofia (07:46.67)

Um, you know, of course I have like, I have wonderful friends, um, you know, that just kind of listened to me, supported me, you know, again, there’s, there’s no right answer. Um, but, you know, they just understood, um, where I was coming from, you know, cause we all have loved ones, you know, and it’s kind of like, you know, you see someone on a train track and you see the train is coming and

that person just will not get out of the way. Like no matter what you do, like you can’t pull them off, you can’t push them off. And that’s all you wanna do. You wanna get them out of the harm’s way. And just, you know, it’s very, it’s hard to watch someone you love spiraling and hurting. You want, you just wanna be able to, you know, make them better, stop the hurt and…

not being able to do that for them, especially in a situation. I think like, you know, and I’m sure as like, if it’s a parent with a child, you know, you want to protect them. And, you know, me being your older sister, like I’ve always kind of been like in that like second mom role, even though obviously, as we’ve gotten older, our relationship has changed and became more of like a friendship than like me, you know, taking care of you. But

you know, that doesn’t ever really go away. And so, you know, it’s difficult to just let someone you love, you know, go through that process, whatever comes and just, you know, I just kind of got to the point where I was like, well, I will just be here, you know, in whatever capacity I can be and, you know, even though I hated it, I had to accept that I can’t, I can’t do this for you. This was.

work that you had to do for yourself.

Jessica Dueñas (09:46.996)

Absolutely. And again, for anyone listening, relinquishing that control is so powerful for whether you’re in recovery or you have a loved one, right? Just understanding that we really can’t control other people and outcomes. And that’s such a hard thing to accept, but I mean, I feel like it’s just super, super critical. Another thing I wanted to talk about was, and also actually to give context, so Sophie

caretaker role. So again, for anyone listening, there’s an 11 year age gap, right? And growing up, our parents were self employed, and they had like this little store in Brooklyn. So oftentimes, Sophie was tasked with being basically, yeah, like a like the second mom, you know, so I spent like, I mean, I used to go on Sophie’s first dates because she had no, there’s no babysitter. So I would go on Sophie’s dates with her.

Sofia (10:36.11)

I’m sorry.

Jessica Dueñas (10:40.564)

So just to give you context, I was always, always there. And we were super close. But yeah, our relationship has changed drastically once I grew. So the other question I had for you was, you know, I now, when I tell my story, right, like I openly admit to having struggled with alcohol for many, many years. You know, and I’ve probably known that I had a problem since.

you know, before I married Chris. So let’s say that’s like, what, 2011, 2010, you all, I’m not married to Chris anymore. Chris is my ex-husband’s name. But before, so if I knew I had a problem since probably say, 2011, 2010, and you didn’t find out about my problem until say about 2019, like that, that winter with the holidays and stuff when, so what, when you realize that I had a problem, right?

Sofia (11:13.088)

Mm-hmm.

Sofia (11:27.702)

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Jessica Dueñas (11:36.18)

What was your reaction to me having kept it a secret for so long?

Sofia (11:42.782)

I mean, it was shock, honestly. You know, and now like looking back, looking back, you know, I see that there were signs, but I think, you know, because I just, I could not like wrap my brain around it, or I would always kind of find another reason, like something, you know, I remember there were times.

Very few times but once or twice you called me and now I know you were drunk but because I would I could never kind of Assign that to you like I wouldn’t I would not you know if anyone said to me Oh, if someone’s gonna have a drinking problem the last person I would think would be you know And so I think I was in a little bit of denial. You know, I remember when you were in college

And you would tell me stories about stuff and I’m like, golly, like you’re partying a little hard. But I also like, well, you know, you’re in college, it’s your first time away from home. And, you know, we grew up in a pretty strict household. So I just kind of chalked it up to like, well, you know, you’re letting your hair down and you’re just having a good time. Not, you know, a little concerned, you know, for your safety, but never thinking it was like a real serious problem.

And, you know, so many times like we would travel together and you wouldn’t even have a drink. You know, you would just have so it’s like I never saw you drink. You never drink around me. And so it was all kind of like what I honestly I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I was like, what is happening here? And you know, the way that I found out, you know, and do you mind if I tell the story?

Jessica Dueñas (13:36.271)

Nope, go for it, that’s fine.

Sofia (13:38.002)

Okay, so, you know, it was, it was the holidays, it was Christmas. And, you know, I am not a drinker. My ex-husband also was not a drinker, but I loved entertaining. Um, so I would always have people over and, you know, people come over, they always bring something and normally it was, you know, a bottle of whatever alcohol. And so I had quite a nice stock of alcohol in my house because I never drink it. And I would just collect.

collect and then I would bring them out whenever I had a party whatever but never even thought twice about it and so you know we had a big Christmas party or holiday party and you were here and you know I’m in the middle of the night you know Olivia my oldest daughter comes in and wakes me up and is like mom like something’s wrong with Jessica you know

So I’m like, Oh my gosh, what happened? And I, you know, run in there and by the time I came in, you were getting up, but she found you like passed out on the floor. Um, and then I, you know, in the kitchen, there’s like bottles and I’m like, what, what is going on? Like, you know, my main concern at that point was like, are you okay? But then once it started sinking in and then you admitted to me that, you know, you’ve been struggling with alcohol. Like.

One, my immediate feeling was a huge amount of guilt because I had all this alcohol in the house. Like, had I known, all of that crap would have been in the garbage because I couldn’t care less about it. You know, so that was my, I felt horrible that I, you know, had all this stuff out here for you to just access. But you know, again, and that was one of the things that I had to work through in therapy was like, you know,

I had no idea. And so it wasn’t my fault that I had alcohol in the house because I just didn’t know. And then, you know, sadness because you were so sad. Like you felt so broken to me when you like finally admitted what was happening. And that made me like that broke my heart. That you were

going through this by yourself and you felt like you had to keep it from me. Um, because you know, my main concern is you and like, doesn’t matter what’s happening, like I’m always going to be there for you. So it was a lot. It was just a lot to take in and to process because, you know, thinking like how long this had been going on and you know,

just finding out this way was just, it was jarring, you know, for like so many different reasons. And then understanding that all of these times that you were telling me, you know, that you were checking yourself in because you were depressed, but it was really you going into rehab. And, you know, feeling bad also that I didn’t probe

more, not to say that you were going to tell me even if I had, because I think, you know, until you were just ready to do it. And I almost thought that had to happen the way that it happened.

for me to fully understand how serious this was. Cause if you had just told me over the phone, again, knowing you, you would have said the right words and you would have made it sound like, oh, it’s not that bad. I know I’m just drinking a little bit too much and I’m gonna, like, you know. And as a matter of fact, you did one time I was visiting you in Kentucky and…

we went to an AA meeting together because you said that you were just drinking a little bit too much and you wanted to get it under control. So again, I was like, oh, that’s great. I’m so glad that you’re doing that. But I didn’t probe deeper because you know, you’ve always been just such a put together person that I assumed like, yeah, you do got this. Like you’re fine. And that’s why like it was just shocking to me because, you know.

It really brought home the fact that alcoholism, alcohol abuse can affect anyone. Like nobody’s immune to it. It doesn’t matter how educated you are. If you’re a professional, like, you know, we always assume, I think we have a picture in our minds that, you know, people are people that are downtrodden and, you know, on hard times.

Jessica Dueñas (18:21.907)

Mm-hmm.

Sofia (18:40.622)

are people that are struggling with alcohol abuse, but that’s not true. You know, it’s really, no one is immune to it. It doesn’t matter where you are in your life or how much you have, how educated, how professional you are. It can, you know, it can touch anyone.

Jessica Dueñas (19:01.697)

Yeah, it really can. And I mean, you know, it’s, I’ve been muting my microphone while you’re sharing just to avoid cruise in the background, making random noises. But you know, like when you were sharing the story of, you know, only finding me, you know, it’s like I felt that same like sadness just like wash over me again. And like I got really, really teary eyed. And I mean, I’m just like, I’m so glad I’m not, I’m really glad I’m not there anymore. And I’m so glad to have found like

genuine recovery because I remember that moment. And that also brings me back to, because I went to treatment when I flew back to Kentucky after that incident, I did go back into treatment and winter break was still going on. So no one at work knew what had happened either. And we are like sitting in a staff circle, like our first day back and we’re doing professional development. And they’re like, oh, share something about your winter break. And I just start crying because I don’t wanna say, well, I spent my winter break in rehab.

Sofia (19:36.881)

Yeah.

Sofia (19:53.25)

Yeah.

Jessica Dueñas (19:58.248)

You know, like it was, that was so, so painful. And the other thing too, that you said that stood out, you know, you mentioned that, you know, all those years, like we would travel and you know, you would never see me drink. And it was like, yeah, like I learned to really become a mirror and just mirror people’s whatever, however people were drinking. That’s what I always matched so that I wouldn’t stand out. And then that day, of course, like I had been holding back.

you know, I hadn’t been drinking. And then I got to the holiday party and there was all that stuff there. And I was like, oh, you know, thinking I could do it. And of course I like went overboard. Cause you know, with addiction, it’s just like, it’s that shame and that guilt just cause you to spiral. But yeah, I’m glad. I’m so glad that is not my story today. But the other thing I did want to ask you about is the today, right? Like it’s been, you know, thank God over two and a half years at the time of this recording.

Um, cause we’re recording this in July of 2023. If you’re listening at some random other point in the future. So it’s been about two and a half years since I got sober. Um, what is it like now for you? Like, do you ever worry about me relapsing now? Kind of like, where’s your head space around that?

Sofia (21:12.874)

Um, no. Well, to be honest, I was a little worried, like, of you moving out, because, you know, for background, like, Jessica came to live with me, you know, in what was that, 2020, right? You know, because at that time, everybody was working remote, and it just, you know, she was by herself in Kentucky, and that just was not working.

Jessica Dueñas (21:32.864)

Yeah.

Sofia (21:41.438)

Um, so she came to stay with me and she was working remotely. So it was kind of like an easy transition. You know, she and Cruz came to stay here. Um, and so, you know, I did worry. Like what would happen if you were to move out by yourself, you know, because I do think that, you know, loneliness, um, can play into that sometimes. Um, and so.

Like I was so happy with the way that you did move out because I felt like it was a great middle ground where you’re like on your own but very close to support people as well. So you’re not like by yourself. And if you ever felt like you needed to, you know have interaction with someone, like there’s people all around, so to speak, you know that’s the only thing that worried me but honestly not really.

that you would relapse, but more that you would just struggle a little bit with loneliness and those types of feelings. But I feel like you have really done so much work and learned so many coping skills and just like a self-awareness about yourself that when you are feeling a certain type of way that you address it right away. And that’s one thing. You know.

denial is a terrible thing, you know, and I think really being aware and being honest and open with yourself when you are struggling and you know you’ve come so far in being open and asking for help when you need the help that I don’t worry about that anymore. Like I feel like you you’ve just made and in our family again we tend to

We had to unlearn those things, you know, and learn how to ask for help because it’s always, you know, feelings get squashed, feelings get put away and you just, you know, you know, I’m fine, I’m fine, we’re good, we’re good, even when we’re not. So I think like you have come like, and done a complete 180 where now when you need help, you just ask for help and you’re aware of when you’re feeling that way.

Jessica Dueñas (23:41.58)

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Sofia (24:02.026)

So I think you have all the tools to maintain your sobriety.

Jessica Dueñas (24:08.628)

Yeah. I mean, I think definitely there’s been a lot of unlearning of previous like programming from like childhood that I’ve had to do. And then yes, like for all that unlearning that I had to do, you know, soaking in all sorts of tools and strategies that have helped me. And so to give anyone who’s listening context, so I guess I live with my sister up until March of 2023 and I do live on my own, but

because of my work, I get to live on a college campus, which is really amazing. And my partner lives really, really close by actually. So, you know, when I first moved in with my sister, I was like, all right, I’m never moving out until I’m getting married. That’s basically what I was thinking. But then this job opportunity came up for me to get back in education and have like a live on staff role, which has been perfect. So I am always interacting with people, but I do have my own living space. So for me, I am literally rewriting the narrative because when I…

Sofia (24:49.421)

Hahaha.

Jessica Dueñas (25:05.524)

first lived by myself was when I got divorced. And that’s when my drinking took off. And so for me, it was like, how do I do this living by myself thing without alcohol? And it’s been really like structuring my time in meaningful ways, giving myself lots of opportunities to rest, seriously asking for help. And yeah, like if I’m feeling lonely, pick up the phone, call somebody, go visit, whether it’s my partner or go swing by my sister’s because thankfully she doesn’t live that far. She’s like 25, 30 minutes away. So

I have really been able to build a new life of living solo that looks totally different from what my life looked like when I drank. I think that has been really powerful and it has been that self-awareness and doing the whole no longer saying all the right things, like letting go of saying all the right things because I’m very good at saying all the right things.

Sofia (25:56.886)

Yes, and I think that was the key. I feel that was the turning point for you really, because like when you came here, your last time, so another story. So Jessica was here, I was still married at the time and I get one night, you know, my house, it’s not a huge house, but you know.

The master bedroom is kind of on one side of the house. The other bedrooms are on the other. And I come out of the shower and I get a text message from Jessica saying, oh, don’t worry, I have a ride home. And I’m like, what? Because when I went into the shower, she was here. And then I had no idea when she left. So I guess she called an Uber and had the Uber pick her up like around the corner.

And she went to a bar and she didn’t know where she was. And, um, you know, we live in Florida and Florida is a very, um, has the highest rate, I think probably in the country for human trafficking. So I kind of panicked and I was like, do not get in the car with anyone. I will come get you. I was like, where are you? Where are you? Um.

You know, she didn’t know where she was. And I was like, just ask somebody, what is the name of the bar you’re at? So, you know, we, we figured that out. My, my ex-husband and I jumped in the car and go get her. And I told him, I said, we’re not going home, go straight to the emergency room. Um, so on our way there, she finally is realizing that we’re not heading to the house. And, um,

we pull into the parking lot and she’s like, no, I’m not going in there. I’m not going in there. And I said, well, you need to come in here because you’re not coming home until we figure something out. Like you can’t keep going like this. Um, and I think that was for me, like my breaking point because it scared me so bad that she was actually going to get into the car with someone that she didn’t know. Like just, it just,

that was it like that was my breaking point um so we’re in the parking lot of this emergency room and she said to me i will go sleep on a park bench before going into that emergency room and i was like the hell you will i was like you’re coming in here i was like i was like you’re either doing this on your own two feet or i will call the police and they will escort you in there

I was like, I’m not doing this again. And so we did end up going in there. Um, and again, it was COVID. They let me stay with her, um, because she was just in such a state. Um, but you know, my ex had to wait in the car. They wouldn’t let him inside. And the ER doctor, you know, in Florida, we have this thing called the Baker act where if someone is.

harm to themselves or others, they get admitted against their will if they’re not willing to go in for a minimum of three days. And so I spoke to the ER doctor and I said, look, like she is not safe. And I said, so either you Baker Act her or I will Baker Act her because as her family member I could Baker Act her. I didn’t want to be the one to do that.

But in speaking to her, you know, the emergency room doctor said, I’m going to big ractor because, um, by law, if she feels that the patient is not safe, she has to do that. So, you know, she spoke to Jessica and said, I’m going to order a psych evaluation for you because, you know, I just feel like you’re not safe. Like you’re putting yourself at risk. Your life is at risk. Um, and when, and again, because it was COVID the

psychologist was on, they rolled in like a TV screen and he did a virtual visit with her. And when I was sitting there with her, I was like, look, just please be honest. I’m like, don’t say all the keywords. I’m like, just be honest. You have nothing to lose. I’m like, you are at the point where you are telling me that you would rather sleep on a park bench. It can’t get much worse.

So you have nothing to lose by being honest with this person and just tell them what’s really going on with you. And he was a wonderful clinician. He reviewed her chart and he said to her, because again, Jessica has been, at this point, she was going to AA meetings, she had a therapist, she was on antidepressants, and this had been a cycle that had been going on.

for a while where she would go to rehab, not drink for a while, again, have a relapse, and it just kept going over and over and over again. And I think she was exhausted at this point. I could just tell she was kind of giving up, and I’m like, no, we’re not doing this because she kept trying and it just kept failing. And the psychiatrist picked up on that

records and stuff and he’s like look something’s not adding up here he’s like you’re doing all the right things but you still keep relapsing he’s like so get check into a facility let them do a full psychiatric evaluation like let’s figure out what’s going on here he said because I see that you were a person that is trying but something’s not working so let’s figure out why that is and

she agreed. Thank God. And I feel like that was really a turning point, where she just kind of stopped pretending that it wasn’t as bad as it was. And she went into this facility, you know, and of course, it was it was difficult. But I think if she hadn’t done that, you know, we wouldn’t be here having this conversation today because

Jessica Dueñas (32:32.233)

Okay.

Sofia (32:34.53)

I really, I didn’t think she was going to make it to be honest with you. Like she was going to be a statistic. You are going to be a statistic. You know, I’m just.

Jessica Dueñas (32:42.632)

Yeah. And I mean, it’s funny because I don’t remember, you know, I was definitely in a blackout when all of that happened. And I mean, obviously I wasn’t consenting to go to, to get Baker act that happened. But yes, once I got so to kind of fast forward that story, you know, once I got in the facility, when you are Baker acted, you don’t have to really do anything once you’re in the facility, you can just sit there for three days and say all the right things and go home.

Sofia (32:52.319)

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Dueñas (33:12.18)

But once I was there and I sobered up and that fog cleared, that same clinician, or maybe not him, because I don’t remember, but there was a clinician who was very kind and asked me if I was willing to do a more thorough psychological evaluation. And at that time, that was my choice. And yes, I was so sick and tired and exhausted, and it felt like I had been dying without dying, but there was just no way to continue living. So I said, you know what?

F it, yes. I mean, like literally all the light bulbs went off when I was in that facility. Cause while in that facility, I remember I called Sophie and I was like, I think I need to quit my job. I don’t know if you remember that phone call, but I called you and I was like, I think I need to quit. You know, I had already sort of been looking for other options in case I did need to quit. I think I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t ready to let go of my job either. But yeah, I did that evaluation.

Sofia (33:52.481)

Thank you.

Jessica Dueñas (34:05.308)

And that was a wild moment too for me because, you know, he hits me with the diagnosis, which was bipolar too, for those of you who need to Google it or look it up, it’s basically serious, heavy episodes of depression without the full blown mania that someone with bipolar one might experience. So, you know, there was no like breaking from reality, et cetera, but just very, very powerful episodes of depression, which literally lined up to like my story as he was saying it.

And I remember I started crying and I was like, oh my God, you’re telling me I’m crazy. Because of course stigma and ignorance. So that’s that was my initial reaction to the bipolar two react diagnosis. And he was like, well, you know, that’s the missing piece. Kind of talk like what he said to my sister or one of them said to my sister, you know, this is the missing piece. She’s doing all the right things, but chemically, there’s something off in her body and she needs to kind of like restore the balance.

before she can really have any sustained sobriety. And so they did prescribe me all sorts of meds, and I’m not gonna go into that because if you are suspecting that you have this diagnosis, you should absolutely see a psychiatrist of your own and get diagnosed properly. But they gave me the battery of medications. And yes, while I was in there, I decided to resign from my job as well. So when I come out, this was very early November. And remember, my sobriety day is November 28th. So obviously everything doesn’t suddenly click.

right away, the medications do take a couple of weeks to kick in, right? But by the time I had that last drink, it just, it wasn’t the same anymore. And again, because the medicine was doing what it was supposed to do. So even though I went and I repeated the old behavior of sneaking off and buying the alcohol and trying to drink it, it didn’t hit the same. And so I didn’t, I guess I got drunk and had a hangover and things like that, but I didn’t continue to spiral.

And I think that’s when I realized that biologically, the medicine did what it needed to, and I felt done. And so once I got through that first day without alcohol, after having like picked it back up after a few weeks of meds, I finally had that glimmer of hope of like, oh, maybe I can do this because something shifted. And so when I had that glimmer of hope,

probably I waited another day or two, and then I was like, you know what? I’m gonna go ahead and like tell my story. And I wrote that op-ed article. So my sobriety date was November 28th of 2020. That op-ed article that has gone viral, which I’ll link in the show notes, that came out live in the Louisville Career Journal December 4th. And my last day of work was December 3rd as a teacher. And then I started working at a tutoring company. So yeah, just lots of…

really important information and a lot came out just from me becoming finally willing, going from wanting to willing. And then again, letting go of saying all the right things and just saying the truth and speaking openly. So Sophie, what would you tell, kind of like as the last question, what would you tell anybody else who has a loved one who’s struggling? Like whether it’s another sibling, a parent.

Sofia (37:06.21)

down.

Jessica Dueñas (37:19.536)

and they have someone struggling, like what would you say to them?

Sofia (37:28.104)

Acceptance that you can’t fix it. You know, the person I’m in a relationship with is in the same situation with his brother. And unfortunately, you know, he’s still struggling. He’s going through that cycle of rehab, you know, being sober for a little bit.

relapsing, all that stuff, and you know, it’s a younger sibling. So the same thing, you know, he wants to come in and swoop in and fix it. And there is no fixing it. Like you just have to accept it. You know, support that person, let them know that, you know, you’re here for them. You love them. And pray that they finally get to the point where they are willing.

to get the help that they really need to make the changes, the permanent changes, to get the tools to get healthy and get sober. Cause that’s really all you can do. And talk to somebody for yourself, like get help for yourself because, you know, if you’re not okay, it’s really hard to help someone else.

or be there for someone else and it’s draining and that’s okay. Um, and it is okay for you to say like, you know, I’m not okay because this person that I love is struggling. So I would say, you know, take care of yourself too, in the process of accepting that you cannot change it.

Jessica Dueñas (39:13.896)

Yeah. The other thing that I would add to what you said, and again, this is me from the perspective of the person who was struggling is I think about the boundaries that you set to. Like for example, me ending up in that last hospitalization here in Tampa was absolutely a result of you setting a boundary. Like you were like, you’re not coming home. So like here’s your options, but you’re not coming back into my house. Right. And so, you know, you putting that on me, like then of course I’d

Sofia (39:24.18)

Mm-hmm.

Sofia (39:35.621)

Yeah.

Sofia (39:40.013)

Right.

Jessica Dueñas (39:43.688)

chose or will at that point, not really, but you know what I mean. Like you, you set that boundary that made a big difference or, you know, even when I was in your house, like there were times that like, you were very clear, like if you’re staying here, then I’m holding your car keys. Of course I, you can’t control everything I did. Right. Of course you didn’t plan for me to call the Uber, but whatever.

Sofia (39:46.818)

Yeah.

Sofia (39:57.674)

Right. Of course, I didn’t realize that was before. Right. Oh, but also I didn’t realize that Uber delivered alcohol. And that was like, I remember one time, the doorbell rings. And you know, normally people let you know when they’re going to come over, they’ll just pop over. So I was like, Oh, that’s weird. And it’s like, nighttime. I’m like, I don’t think you know.

Jessica Dueñas (40:08.849)

Alcohol. Right.

Yeah

Sofia (40:22.966)

Amazon doesn’t ring the doorbell. And I opened the door and this guy’s there with like a brown bag, a brown paper bag. And I’m like, what’s this? And he’s like, oh, I’m delivering this. I was like mind blown because here I think I’m like, oh, I got her keys. She’s like, I’m gonna get alcohol.

Jessica Dueñas (40:41.934)

Right. I mean, right. Well, you tried, right? And that’s what matters. But the boundary setting, you know, of course, these are perfectly good examples of like, it’s not perfect, right? But again, like people who are struggling with their loved ones, it is important to evaluate like what boundaries can you set? Like, are they welcoming your home and understanding that it’s okay if not? Like, again, you drew that line at that point when it was time for me to go into that last facility.

I was no longer welcome in your home unless I’d changed certain things and then I was welcome back in your home, right? And so I think that for people, you know, like yes, you’re gonna feel guilty and it’s okay to feel guilty. It’s okay to not feel okay, but you have to make sure that you’re protecting your home, protecting your family, protecting your loved ones, right? Like there was nothing that I would steal, but like if I had been desperate enough, I could have taken like money from, you know what I mean? So I think like it’s really important for people to establish boundaries.

Sofia (41:13.63)

Right. Yeah.

Sofia (41:28.014)

Wow.

Sofia (41:33.978)

Yeah, but I think, yeah, and like I said, for me, the breaking point was just, you know, that realization that you were going to get into a car with someone that you didn’t know from Adam, and who knows what, where that man could have taken you, you know, like the fact that you had such a disregard for your own well-being, you know, that for me was like, oh no, oh hell no.

Jessica Dueñas (41:53.257)

Right.

Jessica Dueñas (42:04.146)

Yeah.

Sofia (42:05.07)

Like, that’s it. Like that was the line kind of in the sand for me. Like I was not, I couldn’t sit by idly and let you just put yourself at risk that way. And you know, it’s funny because you weren’t like a drinking and driving person. Like I felt like you were, yeah, like you were aware enough that you would always Uber to wherever you were going. Like you didn’t try to drive.

Jessica Dueñas (42:22.304)

Thank God.

Sofia (42:31.706)

But you know that just scared you know excuse my language the shit out of me when you were like yeah I’ve got a right I was like what so for me that was the boundary like I just couldn’t I could not just sit by and let that happen you know so that was when I was like oh no this is something’s gotta happen here um you know and I’m grateful like today I’m just I’m so grateful

Jessica Dueñas (42:40.64)

Yeah.

Jessica Dueñas (42:49.889)

Yeah.

Sofia (43:01.098)

and proud of where you are and the fact that you are taking this experience and helping other people having an impact even if it’s one person and then that person pays it forward, it’s a ripple effect and for anyone who has a loved one going through this, I’m fortunate enough that this has been my outcome.

you know, that the person that I love is healthy and safe and happy. And you know, in such a good place that it just, it, it fills my heart and makes me so happy because that’s all I’ve ever wanted. You know, it’s like, that’s all you ever want for the people you love is for them to be healthy and happy. And so I think that you are helping other people get to that place.

And my heart goes out to the people that don’t have somebody supporting them. Because it’s not an easy journey to do on your own. Not that it’s not achievable, but it’s so much easier when you have somebody to lean on, I think.

Jessica Dueñas (44:12.552)

Yeah. And I mean, and I’ll close out by just, I mean, I’ve said it to you personally, but just so that it’s recorded for the internet to save forever. I love you so much. I thank you so much for believing in me. Like I’ll tell you, I know, but seriously, like you believed in me. I know. But you know, like there may have been times when there’s 8 billion people on this planet and you were the one who believed.

Sofia (44:30.614)

So now you’re making me get teary eyed.

Jessica Dueñas (44:41.972)

that I could, and I think that there’s the power of just one. And I think that our relationship, our sisterhood, is a testament to all that can come from just believing in a person. And so, you know, recovery is absolutely possible if you’re listening, and if you have a loved one, cheer them on healthily, work with a professional to set the appropriate boundaries for yourself so that you stay healthy.

And same thing, if you have a loved one who is still struggling, I wish them all the love. I wish you all the love in the world. This is hard. You don’t have to do this alone. If you want to reach out, my sister does not like random strangers reaching out to her, but you are more than welcome to reach out to me and send me a message through my social media or email, and I will happily pass the message on to her. She doesn’t like strangers following her, but you’re welcome to follow me. I take strangers following me all the time.

Sofia (45:37.827)

Yeah.

Jessica Dueñas (45:40.06)

So just thank you all so much, so much for listening. I really hope that you got something out of this. And just again, thank you to my sister, Sofia, for sharing her part of my story with everybody. So thank you everybody for listening.

Sofia (45:53.678)

My pleasure. Bye everyone.

---

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

I share about navigating through a day of feeling triggered after a disagreement in a personal relationship, and share specific strategies for getting through the tough days without a drink.

Resources:

Poem From Agridulce – Dhayana Alejandrina

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas:
Hey, so today’s episode is brought to you by having a hard day and deciding that again, there’s so much power and connection, even if it’s me talking into a microphone by myself, knowing that at least one other human being is going to hear this. Like just that is comforting enough for me. So thank you for listening, but it has been a hard day. And if it’s been a hard day for you, I’m letting you know that I will not drink with you. Um, we

we need that reminder. And I wanted to record this podcast because I think it’s so important to just be really, really real and highlight the fact that this journey of being an alcohol-free person, of being sober, of being in recovery, it’s not sunshine and rainbows. I haven’t had a drink since November 28th of 2020 and at the time of this recording, it’s been two and a half years, over two and a half years. And today, my body…

has been experiencing the sensations due to emotions that in the past would have made me drink. I’ll say for the purposes of this episode, I’ll say that I’ve been triggered except that I don’t want to drink and I know that I won’t drink. So it’s not like I’m having cravings for a drink, but I never wanna forget what those sensations were that would set me off to drink in the past. And so I’m going to use the language of I’ve been triggered because I think that’s probably the best way for me to convey content that is…

helpful. I don’t know. I might be wrong. You might be like, I don’t know, just, you know, disconnect, click next show. Um, but for the purposes of all intensive purposes, let’s say that I’ve been triggered. I think that’s the best way to like go through this, except, um, like I said, I don’t want to drink, but the experience that my body is going through is the exact same experience that would have been a triggering experience in the past. So anyway, why the hell is Jessica triggered? Right?

For context, I’m in a relationship and it’s great and it’s healthy. And all healthy relationships go through bumps in the road. Right. And basically my significant other and I, he and I are experiencing some incongruence in terms of how we’re perceiving a specific situation. And, you know, I have been having one perception and he had been having a different perception. And we realized that yesterday. And so we’re taking a little space, like for a day to just kind of like think and reflect.

and then come back together and, you know, talk about what we’re each wanting and needing and how we can support the other person, et cetera. But the old me, like my brain is perceiving it as a major threat, right? Why? Because in my history of being in romantic relationships, a disagreement was way more than just a disagreement. A disagreement often led to like huge heated arguments with yelling.

Um, especially when I was much younger, you know, things would get physical really fast. Um, you know, I mean, I’ve had like the police involved in conflicts that I’ve dealt with romantic partners in the past, right? And so for me to now have a disagreement with someone, my body hears the word disagreement and is like, you know, sounding off all the alarms. And so me being by myself in my apartment for me.

that also is a previous condition under which I would drink. So of course it’s like all the stars are aligned for my body to really think that I’m threatened. And so my brain, I would say like the primitive part of my brain is feeling threatened. And when our primitive parts of our brains feel threatened, what usually does it lean toward if there’s a history of alcohol abuse? Typically it would be alcohol, right? What we would need to survive is, you know, food, human connection,

Food, human connection, what else do we need to survive? Oh yeah, water. You know, things like that. Those are the things that we actually need. But when our dopamine has been, like our relationship with dopamine has been distorted by the use of alcohol or other addictive substances, we don’t think that we need those actual things. We think that we need like alcohol or, you know, insert whatever addictive substance you used to dabble with. So with that being said,

My body has felt like today what it’s felt like, again, this happened yesterday. And so it’s still just been kind of like on a higher level of escalation. So like at work, while I felt this anxiety, which manifested in my stomach, feeling like a roller coaster was kind of like on the, you know, going down the hill on a roller coaster, I had to be really mindful of how I was interacting with other people because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t like lash out at, let’s say colleagues and et cetera. So you know, I kept to myself a little bit more. And um,

And you know, that was one thing. I was really mindful of how I was treating other people. So in terms of like how I got through the day, I was mindful of that. As soon as I got out of work, one of the important things that I did was get into movement. So I went to the gym, I lifted some weights and that felt good, but it really wasn’t enough. And so I got home and I put on salsa music and I did some, I started taking classes again. And so I did some dancing by myself to kind of practice and move. And that felt really good. But…

For me, somatic strategies aren’t enough. Like breath work is good, which I did do, taking deep breaths to again, help break up that physical manifestation of the anxiety in my stomach. If you take a deep breath and you stretch out that diaphragm and it presses on your stomach, you can feel some relief of the physical sensations that come along with anxious thoughts, for sure. But again,

I also had to kind of sit and talk to myself and like do some self coaching. So what that looked like for me in case this is something that might be helpful for you is, again, going back to that perceived threat, I had to first assure myself that I’m safe, right? Like my body is thinking like, uh-oh, there’s a disagreement with a romantic partner. She’s in danger. Like alert, alert. So I had to tell myself.

First, this is temporary, Jess, like you’re okay, Jess. And then two, I’m safe. Like those are old dangers. I’m not in those old relationships anymore where a disagreement could lead to huge outbursts. It’s like, this is safe. We’re having calm conversations. So that’s the first thing that I remind myself, that I’m safe. And then the second thing that I remind myself of is that my relationship is okay. Like I’m perceiving these threats, but again,

It is absolutely normal for two adults who consent to be together to have disagreements, right? And we’re handling it in a calm, mature manner, but I still feel escalated because there’s just that history that I have. If you read The Body Keeps the Score, our bodies remember things much more quickly than like our conscious minds do, which is crazy. So anyway, once I remind myself that

I’m safe and my relationship is going to be just fine, that this is normal. That really does help bring me down. But then the third thing that I did, so I had the movement, the somatic piece with movement and breathing, the self-talk, the coaching, self-coaching. But then the third thing that I did that really helped was also seek connection and community. And so I happened to have to facilitate meeting tonight, which was perfect because in the community, I shared that I was having a hard day.

And what that allowed me to do was connect with other people who were also having a tough day or even if other people weren’t having a tough day, they’d all been there and they knew that you get through it. So there’s just that encouragement piece of being with like-minded folks in that space to really feel accepted and safe and nurtured and cared for. Because sometimes self-nurturing can be hard. So when we can’t do it for ourselves…

we go into the community, we lean into the community, and the community can do for us what we can’t do for ourselves just yet. And again, and I’m pointing this out because even at two and a half years sober, I’m still leaning on community spaces, right? And so I wanna highlight that certain things may not just suddenly disappear just because a lot of time passes. And I mean, two and a half years is not even a lot of time in the grand scheme of a human life, you know what I mean? But anyway, then the fourth thing.

that I really leaned into was also moving into self-encouragement. Once I leaned into the to the community, we started having a conversation. I felt more inspired to lean into that self-encouragement piece, both for myself and then also helping others encourage themselves. And so I’ll share this poem that I read to the group. It’s super short and it’s by poet Diana Alejandrina. I’ll put the link to her book in the show notes in case you’re curious about her book.

You can find it on Amazon. And listen to this poem. It’s from page 93 in her book, super short and beautiful. The poem is titled Vulnerable.

I’ve always been beautiful. I just waited too long to tell it to my reflection. I’ll read it again. I have always been beautiful. I just waited too long to tell it to my reflection.

So I love that poem and I shared it with the group and then encouraged them to fill in the blank. So instead of I’ve always been beautiful, just kind of have them all fill in whatever else they wanted to. But I really love that poem because one thing I realized also that being unsettled in one area for me quickly leads to spiraling in other areas. So like I noticed that again, we had that incongruence with me and my partner.

And so then today I was also then having like random body image issues, like out of nowhere, like just not feeling comfortable in my skin. Um, you know, looking like jumping into comparing myself really quickly. And so reading that poem and then again, being in community reminded me that like, a I’m exactly where I need to be. I am a beautiful whole human being.

right, most importantly from the inside. Like, seriously, like what I have to offer in terms of my heart and for you listening, right? Like tap into your heart, like what beauty does your soul have to offer this world, right? Like the gifts that you have to offer other people because you take care of yourself and nurture yourself and you work on your personal development, like wow, like that shit is beautiful, right?

And if you haven’t told yourself that you’re a beautiful person, like, please stop, like press pause on this, go to the mirror and tell yourself that. Or even if it doesn’t feel natural, like I’m willing to believe that I’m a beautiful person. Right? Like sometimes positive affirmations can be a little, eh. Like if, you know, I don’t want you to be talking to yourself in the mirror and saying something that feels phony because being phony, that’s not, that’s not it. That’s not the way to go. I try my best to be really authentic and you know.

you when I’m having a bad day because I think that that’s important. So don’t call yourself beautiful if you don’t feel it, but at least say something good to yourself. What have you always been that like, you know, you are and just say that, right? Like, so anyway, um, suffice it to say by the time I was done being in community and talking about this, I felt more self-encouraged and

reminding myself that I am enough. I am a beautiful person. I have cared for myself so much. Perfect example, random side note. To add to my interesting day, my dog decided to, he ain’t decided to, he got sick. He threw up two times and had diarrhea two times, all in the span of me having this meeting. And I heard weird noises going on, but obviously I’m busy facilitating, so I can’t just leave a Zoom meeting hanging.

But I sign off the Zoom meeting and I go out there and I open the door and whoa, it was like biological warfare. Like all my senses, like my nose felt attacked. And you know, poor doggy, he’s okay, he’s fine. Just letting you know, Cruz is good. But anyway, like of course I go to clean up everything. And here’s evidence, right? Like again, if I wanna dive into my paranoid fears of like, oh, my relationship is in danger, what did I do? I called my boyfriend and I said, hey, Cruz threw up.

can you come over? I need some help. Or like, I needed, he had, he had my dog cleaning solution. I left it over there. So he came over, he got out of bed, he came over, he brought me the cleaning stuff so I could clean up the poop and the vomit, you know, with the enzyme cleaner. And he gave me a big hug and a kiss and then he left because, you know, we had agreed to like have time to ourselves tonight. And again, that was evidence for me of that my relationship was totally fine.

Right? Like we’re grown people. We can have disagreement, have some space, but then show up for each other. But then being the fact that like, I thoroughly cleaned up this dog’s poop and vomit, and I wasn’t upset at him. I was calm. I was like, okay, like poor puppy, let me clean all this nastiness up, you know? And that I cleaned it well, also spoke to the growth that I’ve experienced because there was a time when I had him initially.

that I had gone into like an eight month bender because my boyfriend, my then boyfriend had passed away. Right? And so being able to like thoroughly clean up after a dog, after several messes that I left behind, just reminded me like there was a time that I wouldn’t have had the physical capacity to do that because I would have been passed out. I would have been too drunk. I wouldn’t have, I would have been so uncoordinated that I would have like sneered everything even more. So.

there’s been a lot of growth. There has been a lot of growth. And so to kind of close out a couple, just again, concrete things that you can do if you’re having a hard day. Number one, practice some sort of a somatic strategy to bring you into the present, right? Again, if you are feeling triggered, chances are your body is perceiving some sort of a threat, even if you’re safe.

And so first, like bring yourself into the present moment. Remind yourself that you are here in the now, right? That craving that you’re having, don’t get upset with yourself over having the craving. Get curious about it. What need do you have that is coming up for you that is being interpreted as a need for an alcohol, right? So is it that you’re needing a human interaction or you’re needing rest or you’re needing food, water? What do you need?

Ask yourself that, what do I need, right? So anyway, the somatic strategy, ask yourself what you need, get curious with yourself, remind yourself that you’re safe. Again, remind yourself that you’re safe. Get in community. If you are not a part of a community, I strongly recommend that you find yourself one. If you’d like 12-step programs, do a 12-step program meeting. There’s also online resources, Smart Recovery is free.

The Reframe app offers a seven day trial. Theluckiestclub.com also offers a seven day trial. Those are two communities that I work with. I’m a coach and I still firmly encourage my one-on-one clients to go get in community because your mentors, your coaches, they come and go, but your community is there forever if you choose for it to be forever. So I always strongly encourage people like get in community. You…

You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. You don’t want to lean on just one person. So find community. I still lean on community. And then, yeah, like the last thing I’ll say is find some way to encourage yourself, right? I mean, like I said, I invite you to take that poem that I read and fill in the blank with something that applies to you. I have always been blank. I just waited too long to tell it to my reflection. What are you? What phenomenal thing are you?

and tell yourself that, right? And nurture that and encourage that because you’re not drinking, because you don’t need to drink today just because you had a crappy day. You don’t need to do it. I’m not doing it. You don’t need to do it. We cannot do this together.

I think that’s all I have for you folks. Sending everybody lots of love, sending myself some love too. If you are wanting some supports, you can find writing classes at bottomlisttosobre.com. You can schedule a free consultation for one-to-one coaching. If you’re a teacher, I am running a free support group for educators on August 3rd. So just a couple of things that are popping up. And yeah, subscribe to my email list and that way you’ll also have a heads up whenever anything cool is happening that I am running. But my next free writing workshop will be in September.

And then my current six week writing program just started, so I’m not taking in anybody for that, but I have one more six week writing program coming up, Writing for Healing in September to close out the year. So thanks for listening, sending you lots of love. And if you are enjoying the podcast, please write a review, please share it. Thanks so much.

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

I talk through the process of identifying that which is in our control (or not) in order to help alleviate stress. I also walk through a journal exercise you can do on your own, or you can grab a free worksheet if you prefer to print and do this exercise on a handout. 

Resources:

What Is In My Control Worksheet

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas (00:01.59)
Hey everyone, in today’s episode, we are going to talk a little bit about how we really have to let go of trying to control things that are outside of our control. And the reason I’m saying this as a message to you in the podcast is because it’s a message that I honestly need. And so it helps me by talking about it on here. Also, to be honest, I’ve noticed that it’s been kind of coming up as a theme, right? Like that we are giving our energy and time and stress over to things.

that honestly are out of our control. And that’s energy that we could be putting into ourselves. Because if we put that energy into ourselves, that’s change that we can actually affect, but we can’t change our jobs. We can change jobs that we can’t change the job that we have. We can’t change the people that we’re dealing with, but we can change who we deal with. Right. And so this episode is really about acknowledging where we have power and where we don’t so that we can take all that energy and use it productively. Because again,

It’s not worth, especially if you’re listening to this and you are a person in recovery, you’re quitting drinking, et cetera, it’s not worth giving your mental energy to a space where it’s just going into the void, right? So this episode is accompanied by a worksheet that I made. You can find the link to this worksheet in the show notes. You’re more than welcome to follow along with that worksheet, or you can just kind of follow along, use a journal, et cetera. But first I wanna start off by reading a quote

from the book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace, A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, and this is by Nadra Tawab. And she wrote, “‘Nothing other people do is because of you. “‘It’s because of themselves. “‘All people live in their own dream and their own mind. “‘Even when words seem personal, such as a direct insult, “‘they really have nothing to do with you. “‘I constantly work with my clients “‘to depersonalize events and interactions with others.

When we personalize, we negate the personal story and history of the other people involved. Personalizing assumes that everything is about us. And I really appreciate that quote because at the end of the day, the world really doesn’t revolve around us. We might feel like it does because obviously we are looking at everything through our lens.

But if we step outside of ourselves, everybody really is just walking around in a bubble of their own personal lived experiences. And so when people do things, it really has nothing to do with us, even when it really feels like it is at us, that there’s always something going on there. So just that invitation that if tomorrow someone says something to you that frustrates you, it’s okay to feel frustrated because you’re a human and that’s a part of the human experience, but I invite you to think.

I wonder what’s going on with them that made them talk like that to me. I’m not saying become a doormat and accept terrible behavior and people talking to you all sorts of ways, but what I am inviting you to do is to work on detaching yourself emotionally from what people might say to you sometimes. But anyway, I digress. So if you have the worksheet, it’s there for you or in your journal or in your brain or in your device, however you wanna do this.

I want you to think about different areas of your life right now that you may be struggling with emotionally. So maybe it’s work has been pissing you off, or maybe it’s your romantic partner or your perspective romantic partner. Maybe it’s a friend or a family member. But I want you to take a moment and just jot down maybe two or three different areas of your life where like right now you are finding yourself struggling with.

Body image is another one that just jumped into my mind, right? So just kind of like a free for all. Now you’re going to do this separately for each area, but we’re going to pick an area and in that area, I want you to draw a T chart. So on one side on the left side, you’re going to title that side. What about this is not in my control? And then on the right side, you’re going to title it. What about this is in my control? Now the reason I’m wanting you to write this out,

and visualize it is because visualization is a really powerful way sometimes for us to wrap our mind around things. And I know a lot of people when they’re told, oh, go journal, journaling seems weird if you don’t really have a structure with how to write. So if I give you a specific tea chart, right, with a specific title, it’s going to help you generate ideas. And then you also see it in front of you and it’s easier for you to digest it in your brain. So what about this is not in my control? What about this is not?

I’m sorry, what about this is not in my control? What about this is in my control? And then skip down, because you’re gonna give yourself some space to write. And at the bottom of the sheet, you’re going to write, what questions can I ask myself when I feel set off? Right? So if you have the handout, there’s a second page where I kind of go through this on my own and just kind of model it, right? So on the second page, I’m pretty much using myself as an example.

And I want to emphasize that this is not an example of a right answer. I just threw something out there. So let’s close our eyes and transport ourselves to Jessica in mid 2022. I just picked a random time. Um, at that point, to give you all some context in terms of what was going on in my life, I was dating, but not in a relationship. I hadn’t met my current partner. Um, I was growing increasingly frustrated at work. I was getting ready to visit my mom at that point in the summertime and

you know, visiting her is always stressful because I’m always waiting for her to comment on something about my appearance. Anyway, I’m gonna pick one of those areas and I’m going to follow the directions that I just gave you. So I have the T chart on the left side. I have what about this is not in my control? And on the right side, I have what about this is in my control? So for, I picked myself as the topic just in general. And so on the left-hand side, I wrote,

Things about myself that I cannot necessarily control. If I have a craving, right? And my cravings are not just for alcohol, but sometimes I struggle, say, with food and other things. So just impulses, right? So cravings, when they pop up, again, I’m a human, and I’m a human who was once fiercely addicted to an addictive substance. So when my brain gets set off on occasion, I can’t help it that it does that.

And that’s okay. And I can be forgiving of myself for that. Next, another thing that I can’t control are my initial thoughts and feelings when something happens, when something is said, when I have a sensory experience of processing something that happens, right? So if I see someone on the road swerve, my initial thought might be, oh my God, I’m gonna crash, right? That’s an initial thought, which leads to feeling fearful.

I can’t help that. That’s an automatic response of mine, but I can control how I react. I can control what I do with that thought or with that feeling, but I’m not on that column yet. Another thing I just threw out there in terms of what is something that I cannot control are the things that happen outside of me, like people’s actions, decisions that are made at my job, et cetera. And you can apply this to dating. You can apply this to anything. But…

I want you to think about what else is outside of your control, right? Especially in any area that might be bothering you. So now I want to focus on what is in your control or in my case, in my control. So what I listed was I’m in control of how I choose to react to cravings or feelings or thoughts, right? I can have that initial feeling and thought and be kind to myself for having it.

And especially with regard to craving alcohol or other things you might be addicted to you all, I really want for you to understand to practice Greece with yourself. Because again, you at some point were heavily addicted, well, maybe not heavily, but you were addicted or struggling to let go of an addictive substance, right? So you were being a perfectly functional human with a perfectly functional brain when your functional brain…

acted accordingly and got addicted or found itself liking alcohol or other substances a whole lot. So when you have a craving, those sit there and be angry with yourself. Say something like, oh, this makes sense. Neurologically, this makes sense. I mean, I don’t know if you talk like that. That might be a little, a bit much to be like neurologically, this makes sense, but you get what I mean. Be kind to yourself when you have an initial craving. Be kind to yourself at whatever feeling or thought jumps out when you experience something. Because again, that’s just…

your brain and your body responding to stimuli. With that being said, you can then control or choose how you react or act based off those things. So if you are feeling fearful and you’re driving that car and something suddenly jumps out at you, you can choose to panic, right? And maybe drive in a slightly erratic manner that may not be safe, or you can pause.

take a deep breath and remind yourself you’re still safe. And the safest thing to do is to drive safely and like keep an eye on your peripherals, right? Slow down, drive defensively, et cetera. Same thing with the craving. You can have the craving and run straight to the liquor store and buy alcohol, or you can have the craving and choose to set a timer, choose to tell yourself, if I’m still having this craving in 15 minutes, I’ll think about it. But for right now, it is not an option for 15 minutes, right? There’s a lot that you can do.

when you are set off to either give yourself time to react or to say, I’m not going to react in any specific way. I’m going to change my actions. And then the last thing that I just threw in there in terms of my notes of what is in my control is that I’m in control of being able to take action to change circumstances I don’t like. So if for example, I’m at a job and I don’t like the way the company is going, I

can choose to continue to stay there and continue to be frustrated, or I can choose to create an exit plan, which might include updating my resume, starting to look online at job postings, et cetera. Right? So I am in control of those things. I can’t change the job. I can go to the CEO and make a complaint, but it’s, I might not be able to change anything, but I can change where I work. Same thing with dating. Right? I may, I can’t control

If someone is into me, I can’t control how someone chooses to communicate with me. I can’t control how someone acts, but I can choose to entertain that person or not if I don’t like what they’re doing. That is what I’m in control of. So kind of transitioning then into the next part of that activity is what questions can I ask myself when I feel set off? And I listed a few, but honestly, I want you to think about what can you ask yourself?

I wonder why I’m upset. What is it about the situation that is bothering me? I wonder what’s going on with that person that they seem upset, right? Again, being curious is really helpful. In terms of what I actually listed on my worksheet, I put, am I trying to manage an outcome? Because that’s a pretty good sign of if I’m trying to control something or not, right? Am I trying to push for a specific outcome? Am I trying to control how someone else is acting, right? Am I getting into

putting expectations on other people’s behaviors because I am not here to control other people. We are not here to control other people. Then the next one is, is this situation in general? Is this situation even in my control? Because if not, let me release it. And if it is, what action can I take to change the situation that it is? And then the last one that I always recommend for folks to kind of think about is

Do I need to take a break and come back to this? So if someone sends you a text message and that text message, your initial reaction is anger and you want to respond, I’m not saying it’s wrong for you to feel angry. Feel the anger, but give yourself a moment to pause and think about if you need to react to it, if it’s something that’s in your control, or if it’s something that you can let go of, right? So food for thought, even just slowing yourself down a little bit.

can be incredibly empowering because if something does warrant your reaction, you can react with confidence because you know you weren’t just jumping the gun with whatever you said in response. So I kind of just wanted to really talk about that because for a lot of people, again, we really can lose sight of what’s important and what really matters when we are trying to control outcomes, control other people’s behaviors.

control how systems that we might be a part of do things. Whereas we can sometimes elect to opt out of dealing with certain people, elect to opt out of working in certain places and really put our energy into that which can grow, that which can change, which at the end of the day, that’s us. So that is all I have for you. Again, I have a worksheet. That free worksheet is available. The link is in the show notes.

And then of course if you want to work with me feel free to schedule a one-to-one coaching session I am open for clients. You can do that on my website at bottomless to sober Calm take care of yourselves, and I hope everyone has an awesome day. Take care

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

I discuss how I went from wanting to get sober (but still drinking) to actually becoming willing to do the work to get sober, including information on how I got my bipolar II diagnosis, being willing to use medication, deciding to get off prescription medication, and what I do today to maintain sobriety. 

Resources:

National Institute of Mental Health – Bipolar Disorder

Bottomless to Sober – Blog, Writing Classes, Workshops, and Coaching Support

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas
Hey everyone, so today we are doing my story since sobriety. In episode six, I pretty much told you everything that I could remember in terms of my life up until getting sober. So in this episode, I really wanna dive into the beginning of the alcohol-free journey, what that has looked like ever since, how it’s changed, and then also kind of like where I see it going. So I’ll go ahead and I’ll get started.

My sobriety date is November 28th of 2020. And as I mentioned in episode 6 2020 was the year where I had lost my boyfriend tragically Due to a drug overdose and between my own Shame and my addiction to alcohol that I wasn’t really addressing openly and then that grief Everything I completely just fell apart, right?

And so I had been hospitalized seven to eight times in facilities and hospitals, in hospital stays from three days all the way up to say five weeks. So my final hospital stay, it started on Halloween of 2020. So my own little horror story, right? I was doing another one of my classic relapses where I was staying with my sister because I was working remotely, schools in Kentucky were closed

all fully virtual because of the pandemic. So I was working in Tampa, but you know, working in Louisville, but out of Tampa. And I had ordered alcohol, she found it. I was ashamed, embarrassed. So I got in an Uber and I went to a bar not far from her house and she found me at the bar. I don’t know how I probably texted her to say that that’s where I was. At that point, we get into it and she’s like, you can’t come home. You know, like you have to go get help.

And I was like, well, if I can’t go home, then I’m just gonna be homeless. And I like sat down on the sidewalk thinking I was like big and bad or whatever. So she called 911 and I ended up in the hospital. And at the ER, I remember that I was so angry being at the ER, I just didn’t wanna be there. And everybody had stepped out of the room that I was in and I eyed a bottle of hand sanitizer, like off in the distance. It wasn’t that far off.

I get up, then I grab that bottle of sanitizer, I open it up and I like chug it back. And then I like jump back in the bed, fade to black. And by the time I come to, my sister had apparently Baker-acted me. Baker-acting in Florida is when somebody is a threat to themselves or to other people, you can say this person is a threat to themselves or other people, so they need to go into a psychiatric hold, which is exactly what happened to me. So by the time I come to in the psychiatric hold,

Obviously Halloween has come and gone and it’s like November 1st or so. I’m invited by the social worker that I’m having a conversation with to stay longer. She’s like, you can stay here for your psych hold for three days, 72 hours, or we can do a full psychiatric evaluation and dig into what you’ve got going on because it seems like you’re suffering a lot. Fair enough. Solid point. So I consented to stay. I w-

woke up in that hospital and I was like, this shit is not sustainable. I can’t keep doing this. This is exhausting. So exhausting. It was like I wanted to die, but couldn’t and wouldn’t, but it also just was no way to live. And so I feel like that was the moment where I finally became willing. And I’ve talked about this before in other spaces,

For me, wanting and willing are two different things. I can want sobriety. I wanted sobriety that whole time. Nobody, like I didn’t wanna keep going in and out of hospitals. I didn’t wanna wreck my car, right? I didn’t wanna give up five weeks of my life to be in one of the hospitals and being in the ICU. I didn’t want those things, but I also wasn’t willing to do whatever it took for me to avoid those situations as well.

And I point that out because a lot of times we are in that headspace of, Oh, I want to, I want to be this, I want to do that. But there’s wanting and then there’s willing. And in that moment of waking up full of exhaustion and frustration and anger, I finally had become willing. And so even though in the past, anytime I was in a treatment facility, as you all know, if you listen to the episode, my rehab story, you all know that I was

always paying attention to the social workers to figure out how I could get discharged. And this is the first time that one of them asked me if I wanted to stay and I said, yes, I’ll stay. So again, there’s that big switch from wanting to willing. So in that hospitalization, when I get evaluated, I meet with a psychiatrist and he jumps into my story and we notice that there’s patterns of

not me being depressed all the time, like consistently depressed, but me having these waves of incredibly crippling depression, right? Like starting from college where I stopped going to class abruptly and failed and lost my scholarship at Barnard College, a part of Columbia University, and lost that Ivy League scholarship. So I switched schools. Or times that as a teacher that I would go kill through, like just eat up my sick time and be left with nothing.

and like forced myself to come back to school. But otherwise, there were just always these periods of my life where I just suddenly like disappeared on everybody, right? And there were a couple other things that he noticed kind of talking about my work ethic, periods where I could go with very little sleep on occasion and just have like these moments of massive creativity, et cetera. He also noticed that I spoke really fast.

at the time. And it’s funny because I could talk really fast. I’m very intentional about slowing down how I speak, especially obviously right now I’m recording into a podcast mic, so I’m slowing down on purpose. And this man was like, Jessica, you have bipolar disorder, bipolar two to be specific. Let me tell you, when this man said that, I was like, oh my God,

Back then I used the term alcoholic. Not only am I an alcoholic, I’m bipolar too. I was like, oh, this is the worst news ever. And I started crying right then and there. And he’s like, whoa, like slow down. Like, why are you so upset? And I was like, again, old mindset, old thinking. I was like, because you’re telling me that I’m crazy. Mind you, I was already in a psychiatric facility, but whatever. I was so upset.

And you know, here’s the thing you all right? Like when you hear a diagnosis and you take it in, it’s hard to take it in, especially when you come from a family where people with mental illnesses are made fun of. We don’t talk about the actual mental illnesses that people are dealing with and the trauma that they’re dealing with. We don’t even talk about the people who are blatantly addicted to different substances, right? So obviously for me to sit there and have a man tell me that I have bipolar disorder, like I was expecting him to say that I have depression maybe, anxiety. I was expecting something generic.

quote unquote, run of the mill. But no, he hit me with the bipolar two diagnosis and that was a lot to take in. And he was like, Jessica, all I’m saying is, and he put it in layman’s terms, he’s just like, you go through waves of getting very depressed and it impacts you badly. And you’ve been self-medicating with alcohol to get through it. But he’s like, you self-medicate with alcohol enough times, you eventually become addicted.

When he said it like that, I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. I can work with that. But then the powerful thing came next. When I said, so what do we do now? Right? Again, that switch from wanting to willing, because I’m asking him, all right, you’re giving me this information, what the hell can I do with it doc? Because I’m really tired of living how I’ve been living.

And so the next step was medication. Before I talk about medication, the other question I wanna tell you all that, the other question that I had for him, I was like, so have I always been bipolar? Like, where did this come from, right? And so basically the way he explained it, he was like, well, it’s kinda like the trick or the egg. He’s like, some people have psychiatric illnesses and they find substances to be soothing to them.

they use the substances, but because they’re addictive, they become addicted, which I kind of already said. And he’s like, on the other hand, some people start using the substances and the repeated use of the addictive substance because it’s so toxic, it changes your brain chemistry, which then creates the mental illness. And so he’s like, I honestly don’t have any way of telling you which one it is, but the point is, he’s like, right now, you can’t stay sober very long.

unless we do something to support the brain chemistry that you’re working with. And so he’s like, however your brain got that way, I don’t know, but we’ve got to medicate you so at least help give you like a fighting chance to overcome the addiction and then you can do the rest of the work. And so when he framed using medication like that, again, I was like, oh, okay. I can do that. It’s almost like if you break your leg, you get a cast on and then you get some crutches, you’re not going to need the crutches forever.

You just need it until your leg is healing, right? Or heals. So when he framed it in that manner, I was like, you know what? Let’s do this. Let, you know, bring on the pills, bring on the medications and let’s see what happens. Because again, I can’t keep living like this. So if you’re listening and you are having this debate about, well, do I use medication? Do I not use medication? Talk to your doctor, have that consultation with your doctor and tap into yourself and tap into your heart.

If you are feeling like you’re at a point where you’re only fighting chance at beating this damn addiction is to get some assistance, get the assistance. Don’t let anybody, don’t let social media, don’t let somebody who isn’t walking in your shoes make you feel any less than because you’re seeking assistance. Because I use, and I’m about to talk about it, lots of medications to help me get through. And you know what? Today…

I don’t use any medication, right? Because at a certain point, as we said, I didn’t need those crutches anymore. And some people need the crutches for the rest of their lives, right? Some people walk with a cane forever and that’s all good. So everybody just has to walk their own journey. But again, if you’re sitting there and you’re listening, you’re like, hmm, I wonder if I should, go have the consultation with the physician. Like it’s not gonna kill you to go sit in a doctor’s office and have the conversation.

You know, you don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do, but I’m letting you know in my story, there was absolutely medication in the beginning. And so let’s dial it back to that time when go back to me being like, all right, well, what’s next? So we go through the medications with bipolar disorder, bipolar two specifically. He gave me a mood stabilizer, an antidepressant.

a sleep aid because I was having like major night terrors. And then he also gave me a medication to assist with alcohol cravings. The other thing that I wanted to mention in case I didn’t, the reason I was diagnosed with bipolar two versus standard bipolar one, in bipolar one you deal with manic episodes. I’ve never experienced manic episodes outside of hypomania. And hypomania is kind of like a more…

quote unquote chill version of a manic episode. So like, yeah, like sometimes I wouldn’t sleep as much. Not, yes, I would get like busy and creative and like produce a bunch of information, like lesson plans that were really creative and things like that. But really, I never lost touch with reality. I was never doing anything very risky. I mean, my drinking was risky, but even my drinking was happening more so in isolation, like in hermit mode in my apartment. So.

I never got diagnosed with a manic episode. So that was what differentiated bipolar one from bipolar two. Bipolar two, again, the heavy depressive waves. Anyway, so I had all those medications given to me. But the other thing that also happened when I was in treatment, again, cause like I said, this is about going from wanting to willing. So I became willing to use medications as a tool, which I was not willing to do before.

The other big thing that I became willing to do was I was willing to walk away from the job that I had. Like I said before in episode six, teaching was my passion. I had literally just won the Kentucky State Teacher of the Year award in 2019. Now in 2020, I’m sitting there and being like, I’ve got to walk away from this? Yes. Here’s why. As I’ve said before, the worst that I felt about my drinking.

the more that I dove into my work. And I did absolutely love my work with all my heart. And because as a kid, my teachers made me feel so loved when I didn’t always feel that. My teachers made me feel that I was more than what my appearance was, that I was more than what the outside could bring. Because of people like my educators that I had, I wanted to be that for my students.

But the problem was I really couldn’t separate in a healthy manner how I could do that for my students and then take time to take care of for myself. And honestly, I don’t even know how public school teachers do that today. So I knew that in order for me to really take the time to figure out this whole not drinking thing, things were gonna have to change drastically. And all that time that I struggled in 2020, I wasn’t willing to quit my job. I wasn’t willing, I wasn’t willing. I’d rather miss a couple days.

do family medical leave, you know, exhaust my sick time, I would do everything but resign. So in this facility, I was like, damn it, I’m gonna resign. I’ve got to, I’ve got to, like, I literally in my mind, while I was in treatment for this week, week and a half, I was like, I’m uprooting everything, everything. Some folks will say, don’t make any big decisions in your first year of sobriety. I made every big decision.

And so while I was in that facility, I wrote my resignation letter. I drafted it out in a little journal that they had so that I could type it up later when I got out. And I decided in that moment, I was done. So it was another thing I became willing to do. Then when I exited, I resigned. I gave in my couple weeks notice and I had accepted a position I applied for and I accepted a position with a tutoring company, something very low key that was not going to be…

taking a lot of my time. So by the time November 28th comes, right? I’d been taking the medications and kind of waiting for them to kick in. Psych meds do take several weeks to kick in you all, so it doesn’t happen overnight. I felt triggered over something and I don’t remember what it was. I did drink, but by that point,

the medications had started kicking in. And so you can say that my last episode of drinking was very anticlimactic, because I thought that by drinking, I was gonna end up spiraling and going to the hospital, but by the time I drank, it was like, ugh, that’s it? Like, that was my reaction.

I was going for the bottle to get some like major relief because again, I was triggered and I wanted to get out of my skin and get out of my head and like escape all the feelings. But when I had it, I just, it didn’t feel like anything. I felt flat because the medications, I mean that whole combination of medication, like damn, it better do something, right? All those meds. And so I like kept drinking and I got somewhat drunk, but it just,

it didn’t feel the same anymore. Something had happened. And obviously, like I said, you take that many medications, like something better be happening, right? And so November 28th came and that was my day one. And when I got to the end of that day one, it was like a fire was lit in me. Cause I was like, holy shit, like I’m not drinking, right?

Like I got through a day without alcohol and I actually didn’t really want it. Right. Do you know how amazing that feels? If you’re listening and you are sober and you are in recovery, you probably know what I’m talking about. If you’re in a space where you don’t miss the stuff to go from a lifetime of feeling addicted, like there were times you all that I felt like a fiend, right? There were times that like.

All it would do was like run through my mind day in and day out. That’s how I felt all the time with alcohol. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t live or breathe without knowing where the nearest liquor store was, how I was going to go get my next drink. Where could I hide it? Is someone going to find out? Am I going to get caught? Going through what felt like a lifetime of that to suddenly have the first 24 hours without an obsession.

for me was otherworldly. And so I was like, what’s next? I don’t wanna lose this. I don’t want to lose this. So suddenly the idea popped into my brain that I should tell my story. I’m going to resign on December 4th. Anyway, December 4th is my last day of work. I should go ahead and tell everyone exactly

what’s been going on. Because then maybe, just maybe, I might be able to break myself free from this. So I contacted a local journalist at the Louisville Career Journal and asked if I could write an op-ed and share my story.

She of course was like, yes. Because of course like, what newspaper is gonna be like, oh no, we don’t want the teacher of the year to tell us about their secret addiction. Like that’s crazy, right? Like of course they’re gonna want the readings and the clicks and all of that. So I got to write it, it was published, it went live December 3rd and it went viral. Like it literally blew up and went everywhere. But more importantly, I was freed.

I kid you not, I was freed. And again, you all, I have not had a drink since. And it was that shift from going from wanting to willing. Wanting to willing. So let’s talk a little bit about what support looked like back then and how it changed, okay? So in the beginning, like I obviously mentioned, I was taking medications.

Throughout the entire time that I was struggling, I was attending AA meetings on and off, mostly online, they were based in Kentucky. It was the only thing that I had ever been exposed to, it was the only thing that I had ever known. So I continued to attend AA meetings early on. I was paired with a psychiatrist, a therapist who was, excuse me, I have hiccups. I was paired with a psychiatrist, damn it, a therapist, when I first quit drinking.

through the clinic that was associated with the rehab that I had gone to, he was sober, but he didn’t attend 12-step programs. And he tried to like open my eyes a little bit to that, but I wasn’t trying to hear it. I was like, no, I’m good with AA. I have a sponsor, I’m good, I’m working the steps, et cetera. And that was fine. But a few months passed and I was five months sober and I got an email in my inbox and it was from a woman named Jennifer. I can’t remember her last name.

but she was like the executive producer of Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith. She’s like, hey Jessica, we read your op-ed that you wrote a couple months ago. We’d love to have you on the show. So I did a Zoom call with her, interviewed with her, and she really enjoyed talking to me, sent it off to the director, they approved it, and they flew me out a few days later to LA. A wild whirlwind, and I couldn’t tell anybody that I was doing this. It was like the biggest secret ever. So.

When I go to a table talk though, the craziest thing is that I met Katie from the Sober Black Girls Club. And then I also met Annie Grace, who is the author of This Naked Mind and also runs that program. And I remember just, again, being amazed to meet these women who I know were pretty high profile folks. And I remember being like, so what do your sponsors think? And they were both like, we don’t have sponsors.

And I was like, what do you mean you don’t have sponsors? And they were like, no, it was like, you don’t do AA? They were like, no, we don’t use AA. We use, you know, we just do our own thing, you know, like support groups, other types of groups. And when I saw these successful women who had been sober for years and realized that they don’t do 12-step programs, it planted a seed.

I didn’t like suddenly change everything that I was doing, but I really noted it because I was like, wow, they’re doing great and they’re thriving and they’re not in a 12 step program. But I thought that if I were to not do a 12 step program that I would die because that was the impression that I was given. And honestly, that was what I would see. I would see people in these 12 step programs that I had befriended and grown to really care for, including my own boyfriend. Right?

relapse and subsequently pass away. So in my mind, I was like, to leave the rooms equal death. But it’s not that black and white. I understand that now, right? So anyway, once I get back from my trip to California, can I start talking to my therapist? I’m like, hey, so I met these women. I was like, hey, they aren’t in AA and they’re doing okay. And…

I decided, well, my therapist was like, well, you’re working with me too, so you aren’t alone in your support. And she’s like, why don’t you see how it feels to not go to a meeting, specifically an AA meeting? Because again, for me, there were times that I didn’t necessarily feel great about the meetings I was attending, but again, it was all that I knew. And so there was one day that I like just didn’t attend a specific meeting.

And I kind of was waiting for the craving to drink to come and overtake me and like make me drive like a mad woman over to the bar or the liquor store, but nothing happened. And then I actually kind of felt happy that I didn’t go to that meeting because again, that specific space, it was just one that I wasn’t comfortable in. And so then it just happened again and again. And then I started getting online and looking at other programs and other spaces.

And over time, I found online community to become really powerful and resonating with me, more so than the 12-step spaces. So at the end, I stopped attending 12-step programs. By the time I hit six months sober, I never got a six-month chip. And again, I think that they save lives and shit. It was a safe space for me many, many times. But

We also always just have to look for what resonates with us. So again, if you’re here listening, look for where you feel comfortable. It’s absolutely okay to be picky about the spaces that you choose to spend your time in. It is absolutely okay. Don’t use those as an excuse to isolate and not be in community, but look around. There’s a lot, a lot of spaces out there.

So anyway, so yeah, so at about six months over, I decided to just like fully dive online. And then as time passed, I also decided to open up, actually at about three months over, I created my blog, Bottom List to Sober, where I decided that Ian, my boyfriend who passed, always talked about his story. And I wanted to dedicate that kind of work to him, the work of storytelling. And so,

My blog initially started off with me just interviewing people about their recovery stories and typing them up and sharing them. And you know, the blog just continued to grow. And I decided at one point, like at about a year or over a year sober, I decided that I also wanted to focus my energy on helping others. And so I learned about life coaching. I took some courses, got certified there. And then…

I just, again, continued to stay online, continued connecting with other people, and eventually stumbled upon Reframe. And I started working on Reframe, and even more time passed. And I started working, this is now more, say 2023, with the Luckiest Club. Other things that I’ve done, I’ve joined the National Association of Addiction Professionals, NADAC. I may be saying that wrong.

But it’s a great source for continued education in terms of just anything recovery based education. And I would say that now my recovery has also changed because about eight, nine months ago, before I hit two years sober, I made the decision with my doctor to stop taking psych meds. I was so scared you all to make that decision.

because I was like, oh my gosh, what if I stop and what if I spiral out of control, right? And like go straight to the liquor store. I always remember when I was checking out of treatment, the last facility, you know, one of the techs, which is like the people that work there, like an assist with everything, you know, he was like, oh, make sure you don’t stop taking those meds, otherwise you’ll end up right back here. And that really stuck with me. So when I was thinking about like, do I really need to still take meds? That guy’s message.

really was stuck in my brain. But my therapist was like, we don’t have to do it abruptly, because that’s not safe, but we can do it, we can taper appropriately, and we did that without disclosing details, so none of you just go off and do this on your own. Again, I want you, any decisions that you make, I want you to do them with a professional working with you. But we transitioned me off of medication, and

Now it’s probably been, yeah, that was in September of 2022, and we’re in July, so it’s been a long time. It has been a long time, you all. And I am here, it’s been 10 months without psych meds, and I haven’t experienced any depressive episodes, and I haven’t experienced anything that I would consider to be manic or hypomanic. And again, that question of the chicken and the egg comes back. Did I?

Do I have bipolar? Bipolar two? Was it the alcohol? Has my brain healed? I know my liver has healed, right? So many good questions that I’m always gonna explore and I’m always gonna continue to learn and figure that out. But ultimately, at this point, I really don’t want to drink. I hope I never drink again. I don’t see that in my future, but I never like to say never,

You’d never know. But what my recovery looks like today is a lot of being just really in touch with my feelings and letting myself feel my feelings and not escaping them and understanding that everything is absolutely temporary. What I do the most today is dive into texts. Reading is really powerful for me. So is writing. And…

really unpacking the thoughts that dance around in my head has been incredibly powerful. So before diving into my thoughts would be triggering because I wouldn’t understand that so many of my thoughts were not necessarily based in reality, right? Like so many insecurities I thought were real when I realized that I was just believing beliefs that were handed to me that I didn’t examine if they resonated with me. And so…

I know that probably sounds really like wishy washy or like very woo woo, but nowadays that’s what keeps me sober. It’s the ability to really pick apart my own thoughts and kind of like coach myself into like, oh, that doesn’t make sense, Jess, or yeah, that makes sense, but what are you going to do about it? Right? Continuing to work with a therapist. I’m in a group coaching program, so I always have access to a coach also to kind of like

dive into my thinking and my work. But I would say that that’s how my recovery has transformed. Certain things that I tried doing, I once was very into the super structured morning routine. I’ve gotta meditate and journal and pray and do all these different things. I have to do 10 things before my day starts. I stopped doing all that. I sometimes meditate, I sometimes don’t. I let my body be my guide.

If I have to slow down and pause, then I feel the need to slow down and pause, then I do it. If I feel the need to have a spiritual connection and pray to a higher power of my choice, I do, but I don’t force it. And that’s almost been like my greatest takeaway. There isn’t anything that I’m forcing myself to do now. Same thing with exercise. Exercise can feel very therapeutic and…

Sometimes I do it and you know, any of you who follow me on Instagram see that I’ll lift the hell out of something. And then there’s other times that I don’t feel like it and I just don’t do it. And so a huge part of me staying sober today is I do what I feel like doing and I don’t force myself to do anything that doesn’t feel right. And that has been working for me.

and I stay in community. I talk, I share, I stay absolutely connected. And like I said, I spend a lot of time reading about how the brain works. Been diving into books a lot to really just understand the science of this crazy shit. And it’s been really powerful. So as I sit here, I feel pretty content about how I explained my life since recovery.

And honestly, I’m excited to see where it continues. It’s been a hell of a journey. I’m incredibly grateful for it. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to record it and to have you listen. So with that, I’m gonna stop there. If you’re listening to this as it airs, a couple cool things I’ve got going on. This weekend, I am hosting a, I’m starting my six-week writing program, Writing for Healing. You can register.

at bottomliststosober.com for the six week program. It also includes a one-on-one with me in your writing, because storytelling saves lives. So just that reminder, storytelling saves lives. So come join me so that I can help you with telling your story. And then on Sunday, July 16th, I’m hosting a one-time workshop where we talk about goal setting with, I’m co-facilitating that with Dr. Diane Marie. She’s…

phenomenal. She’s a phenomenal coach and I’m really excited for that opportunity. And so if you’re feeling stuck about your goals, I’m like, what the hell am I doing this point in the year? Come join us. Um, it’s 15 bucks to do that. And it’s like literally the cost of what it would be like to get Starbucks for you and a friend, except it’s a self investment and that and other opportunities you can find at my site, bottomlesstosober.com. Thanks you all so much for listening. Have an awesome, beautiful, beautiful day. Take care.

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Content Warning: language, death, drug use

In this episode:

Link to Spotify

Initially, I was going to tell my general story, but as I recorded, I realized this episode is more about my life before I got sober. I share how things started for me in childhood as a daughter of immigrants with all the pressure to fulfill the “American dream,” and how I eventually managed to win Teacher of the Year while drinking a fifth of alcohol a day, up through the loss of my partner and finally coming to a place of stopping drinking and how I stopped.

Resources:

NPR – Sharp, ‘Off The Charts’ Rise In Alcoholic Liver Disease Among Young Women

Red Table Talk – Are You Drinking Too Much? A Wake Up Call for Women

Bottomless to Sober – Writing Classes and Coaching Support

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas:
Hey everyone, in today’s episode, I’m gonna tell my story, kind of like my general story. And it’s funny because I had started recording this earlier and then I was abruptly interrupted and in the spirit of me just doing this podcast as a like, just spit out whatever needs to be said and not editing, I was like, you know what, f it, I’m just gonna start fresh. And I will also trust that whatever I say is what is meant to be put out there into the interwebs.

You know, I’ve told my story so many times at this point that it’s always interesting when I say it and to see what feels right and that that’s what comes out. So again, I just trust that whatever I share is what needs to be heard. So I’ll go ahead and I will share and of course, you know, the standard content warning for just about lots of things stands for this episode. So there will be talks about.

alcohol abuse and sexual abuse and things like that. So just kind of putting that difficult stuff out there. I’ll do my best to remember to pause and give you that heads up before I say something explicit, but just giving you that heads up. So anyway, enough rambling. Now I’ll go ahead and start. So I was born in Brooklyn, New York, born and raised, and I was born to a Cuban, an Afro-Cuban father and a Costa Rican mother.

I each come to the US in the late 60s, very early 70s. And I was born, I was kid number eight and I’m the youngest. My parents each had their fair share of relationships. So I was actually only raised with one sister even though she’s the seventh and I’m the eighth. And so my sister Sophia is 11 years older than me and then there’s me. And I was born February 4th, 1985. So I’m an elder millennial, woo woo.

I’m just putting that out there too. I don’t hide my age, I don’t care too, so just putting that out there. Anyway, so with my parents being immigrants, they definitely valued education, the American education system very, very much so, to where it didn’t, almost everything else didn’t matter as long as I did well in school. And the other thing actually that they did value a lot in terms of American values,

I think really is just the adoption of beauty standards, which are, I mean, and I would say honestly, those are more European beauty standards, right? I am taller. I have brown skin because my father was an Afro Cuban. My hair is curly. And then I also have always been a heavier person. And so since I was little, my academics were always celebrated because I’ve always been really good at school. But my appearance has never fit.

that standard and so there’s always been non-stop attempts to change how I look. Like stay out of the sun, go get a relaxer at the Dominican salon, go lose some weight, you know, ponte en dieta. Like always, always like something about how I looked had to be changed and something was always wrong with how I looked, right? And the thing is, when you’re a little kid and that’s what you hear, you start to really believe that shit, right? Like if you’re constantly told that you’re fat, that you’re this, that you’re all…

you know, this, that, and the other, you start to really believe it and you start to see yourself as less than everyone else around you. So from a very early age, I had incredibly low self-esteem because it just wasn’t built up. And I will take this moment to pause and say, my parents did the best that they could with what they had. And honestly, I’m so grateful to say that I am so not pissed at them or at my mom, really, who probably perpetrated this way more than my dad.

because I’ve done a lot of work to understand that folks tend to repeat what they were taught and they tend to repeat what they grew up in and it takes a lot of work to pause and examine what the hell you grew up in and make a change and so I’m grateful that I get to do that but my parents as immigrants as struggling folks they didn’t have the opportunities that I do to stop and do serious self-reflection and like work with professionals and get help so

they grew up in those environments where they rip people down to pieces based off of parents. And so I definitely got ripped down quite a bit. And so the other thing that I developed early on was a really complicated relationship with food and just tons of shame around it, right? Because like if I wanted, if something tasted good and I wanted a second serving of it, I immediately got yelled at, right? And so for me, I immediately started to associate wanting more food or like…

food as something to get in trouble over. So really early on I started to learn how to hide food that I was trying to eat, sneak food in my drawers, sneak a couple dollars out of my mom’s purse aka steal money from her to go buy food and then eat it, hide it in my backpack, get to school, throw it out of my book bag so that nobody knew that I was eating all this extra food because I grew to like it but I felt like it was this forbidden thing and so I was always hiding it.

flash forward 15, 20 years, right? Like that’s exactly what I was doing with alcohol. The second that alcohol for me became something that was bad in my mind, and it made me a bad person to consume it, I started to hide it from everybody else. So anyway, backtrack to childhood. Like I said, I was academically gifted. And so by the time I got into eighth grade, I had picked up like a scholarship to go to this very elite private school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Spence School.

Where again, I knocked it out the water academically. I was really on point but as I got older and became a teen the heavier I got right and so Even though I’m so grateful for school and honestly, I’m so grateful for my teachers, right? like my teachers inspired me to be an educator because When I felt like shit about myself Those men and women whose classrooms I went into

made me feel whole. And I was like, you know what? Like one day I’m gonna do that for someone else and I’m gonna do that for someone else’s kids and I’m gonna make other people’s kids feel really good because my teachers made me feel good when I felt like shit. And I’m so grateful that I got to do that as a classroom teacher for 13 years. But that’s the side point. Anyway, back to the story. So anyway, my self-esteem is really rough in high school.

But academically, I just soared. So by the end of high school, then I had a full scholarship to go to Barnard College, which is a part of Columbia University. So I mean, I had made the Ivy League, y’all. I literally was living and breathing my parents’ American dream, while at the same time feeling incredibly insecure because they still were always commenting on my appearance and how I needed to lose weight and I needed to do all of this. So anyway, carrying all that low self-esteem into college and onto the college campus.

was a perfect recipe to fall in love with alcohol because as a freshman, I was invited to someone’s 18th birthday party at NYU’s campus. There are these guys from the Bronx who had brought some liquor bottles down there. And I stayed out of trouble. Honestly, I did. I minded my business for the most part. I mean, I would get into shit sometimes, but overall I stayed out of trouble. And so when I was on at this party, they were drinking shots. They were taking shots.

And I remember I think one of them was like Goldschlager. I don’t know, whatever it was nasty with gold flakes. And I’m pretty sure that’s what it was called. So anyway, one of them was like, oh, you drink ma? And I was like, before I could even respond, my former friend was like, no, she doesn’t drink. And I felt like, you don’t know that. Like, uh-uh, like I’m gonna talk for myself. And I was like, let me get one. So I took a shot.

And I remember everybody was staring at me and I felt the nastiness and the heat go down my throat and then light everything up like it was on fire. And I wanted to react, but people were watching me and I was like, I’m not gonna react. And so, you know, as they said, I took it like a champ. So they offered me more and I was like, yeah, let’s do this. Because once I started to feel the effects of it, right, and I felt my inhibitions go down and I felt more relaxed, suddenly it was like I was freed.

from feeling physically undesirable, which is something that I always felt every moment of every day. I always felt physically undesirable because it had been programmed in me since I was a little kid that I was not attractive, right? That I was not beautiful because I was fat. That I was not beautiful because my skin was too dark. That I was not beautiful because my hair was too curly. All of that had been programmed in me real hard at that point. So the alcohol made that go away.

and it allowed me to socialize and relax a little bit around these people and relax a little bit around cute guys, right? And I was like, oh, this is good. So time passes in college and I’m doing good in school in general. My class, I’m doing good in my classes or doing well in my classes. And my drinking stays pretty much limited to weekends and binging and stuff like that. But then I get into a relationship with somebody, another guy from the Bronx, nothing personal.

towards the Bronx by the way. That’s just, I don’t know. I always ended up with guys from the Bronx back in the day. And that was a really, really problematic relationship. My family, again, we just didn’t talk about anything. So when I got into a relationship and all the red flags were starting to go up and shine bright in the sun, I didn’t have anyone to talk to, to be like, hey, he did this, he said this.

is this okay? Am I safe? And so basically like by the time we got to Thanksgiving of you know our that first Thanksgiving that we were together, we ate at his family’s house and then we came back to my dorm and then the morning when I get up and I get on my computer he had been on Facebook. Yes, Facebook is that old. And he was logged into his account and when I opened my computer I can see the messages were there and I at that time I was so

I knew nothing about healthy relationships or anything. So of course, if you leave your messages out, I’m gonna check your messages. And that’s exactly what I did. I checked his messages and in there, there was an exchange between him and his previous girlfriend. And clearly he had been cheating. That was incredibly devastating to me because again, this was like my first real legit boyfriend and we just spent the holiday together and oh no, now you’ve cheated. So now like I’m heartbroken. And I had zero standards for myself at that time.

So when I found out that he was cheating and I threw him out, I let him back in a couple of days later, right? And it was just like, no matter what would happen with him, and it would increase up to the point of like physical violence at times, I kept letting him back in because I was just so scared of being alone because I thought that I would always be alone because I had been told since I was little that nobody’s gonna want me, right? But here somebody wanted me.

So it’s okay if they do all this horrible shit to me because at least they want me. That was the old thinking that I used to have when I was younger. And suffice it to say that relationship finally ended, but by the time that relationship ended, my drinking had escalated to the point that I had gotten so depressed that I wasn’t going to class. And so here you had this real bright ass girl from Brooklyn in an Ivy league institution who flunked the semester and lost a scholarship. So…

I took that as a sign that maybe I wasn’t meant to go to college, maybe I needed to drop out, and that’s exactly what I did. I went and I unenrolled from the school. As soon as I get back to Brooklyn and get back home to my mom’s house, because I was living in the dorms like I mentioned, my mom was like, I did not come to this country for you to drop out of school. So she basically was like, you’re going to have to get the hell out if you don’t go back to school. So I was like, fine. I’m going to get a day job.

and I became a secretary at a law office in Staten Island. And at night, I started taking classes at Hunter College at the City University of New York. So I did that and I actually, I got to the end, I got to graduate and I applied to be a New York City teaching fellow because let’s not forget, I still remembered the only adults that ever made me feel good and accepted were my teachers. And I was like, I still wanna do that. I still wanna help make some kids feel good. I still wanna do something good in this world.

So I became a teacher right after college. And I started, I was a special ed teacher in Bushwick in Brooklyn, really close to where my parents had their store. And I taught at my first school for about four years. And I met my ex-husband there. I also started working at the school with a bunch of other fresh out of college teachers. So everybody was fresh out of college. We were all super young. And the funny thing with alcohol, right? Like we all basically just carried our drinking habits from college into our teaching profession.

But now we gave it a new name and it was Happy Hour. So we would go to Happy Hour and one day my relationship with alcohol changed. And I’m not gonna say that this is the day that I became someone with alcohol use disorder. I still can never tell you when it was official because I don’t think there’s such a thing, right? But I had about three drinks in an hour and one of my coworkers was like, dang Jess, like, isn’t that a lot? And I was like,

That is a lot. Inside, that was like my thinking. But then my thinking spiraled to immediately jump back to when I was a kid and I was getting yelled at for eating too much food. And so that wave of shame like, practically knocked me over. And I was like, oh snap, I’ve got to hide my drinking. It wasn’t like, oh snap, let me evaluate my relationship with alcohol. Like, oh snap, maybe I am drinking too much. Nope, it was oh snap.

I don’t want people to see me drink how I want to drink. The exact same way that in the past, I didn’t want people to see me eat how I wanted to eat because I didn’t want to get yelled at and trouble judged, et cetera. So that was basically the start of me drinking more in secret. And so from that point forward, I always matched other people’s drinking. So if we were sitting at a table and we were hanging out for the night, whatever you drink, I would drink it. You had one drink, I’d have one. If you got…

plastered, I was getting plastered right there with you, right? But what would always happen is once I would leave the social gathering, there was always that little pit stop at the liquor store on my way home so that I could finally drink how I wanted to drink. Now, this heavier drinking early on got pretty much like stopped because I got into a relationship with my then husband and he was a

He didn’t have any addiction issues, so he didn’t drink how I wanted to drink, and I obviously was not trying to have problems. So that kind of kept me in check for enough time for the years of our marriage. But even in our marriage, there was one incident where I did start drinking in secret because we were living in a fixer-upper and I couldn’t stand being in that mess. And so he would go to work, and I would drink when he would go to work because I was on summer vacation from teaching, so it was like, you know, I would day drink.

But then one day I accidentally drank too much and I blacked out. Well, I passed out, but it was also a blackout because I couldn’t remember it. So FYI, passing out and blacking out are two different things, but they can both happen at the same time. And all I remember is that I woke up at the University of Louisville Hospital. By the way, we had moved to Kentucky at this point, which is where he was from. And that scared me enough to make me stop drinking for about a year. I mean, and I like joined AA at that time and I…

soar off alcohol for about a year because, you know, it scared me, it scared him. And it was so early on, it wasn’t, yeah, I was early on enough in our marriage where I cared about keeping that marriage intact. And I knew that if I drank, it would basically be me saying, I’m over this marriage. So for as long as I wanted to keep the marriage, keep the house, keep everything, I didn’t drink. But that was the thing, right? I was not drinking for an external reason.

not for an intrinsic reason. And so once I became unhappy with the marriage and I realized that I was okay with things if they fall apart. And I was okay with letting go of this house if it had to go, right? I decided to start drinking again. And so after that, it was only a matter of time before we ended up splitting apart. And I mean, some other things were going on there too, but that’s more his story. And I’ll let him tell that someday if he ever chooses to on his own. But.

Once we got divorced, I finally was like, woo, I can drink how I wanna drink, right? Like going back to that theme. And when I got into my own apartment, that’s where it really was on. And I wanna say we got divorced, I think it was 2017. And by 2018, 2019, I was drinking a fifth a day of alcohol. And by the summer of 2019, I got diagnosed with alcoholic liver disease.

At the same time that all this is happening, right? Because my drinking has escalated so much after the divorce, I also really dive into my career. Because if you all remember, since I was a kid, I always was priding myself on what I can do academically. And so as an adult, obviously I wasn’t in school anymore, but I was working. So I always loved being a good teacher, but I was really like going above and beyond, right? Like staying late, doing all the things, and then.

treating myself by drinking to excess, blacking out, passing out, waking up at like three in the morning to get up, lesson plan, deal with the hangover, self-medicate, and then go back into school. Because in the mornings what would start happening as I got sicker and sicker, I was going through really bad withdrawals, so I got a prescription for benzos to help me in the mornings so that I could go to work and function. And then once I got home and finished all my responsibilities, I scratched off my to-do list.

then I would indulge. But our bodies can only take so much, right? Like the CDC states that heavy drinking for men is 15 drinks or more per week. And for women, heavy drinking in a week is considered eight drinks or more. If I was drinking a fifth a day, that means I was consuming 17 drinks per day when the limit for the week was eight. So that is just to give you a sense of how much I was stressing my liver.

how much I was really, really hurting myself. So anyway, the other thing like I was saying is because I dove into my career and was doing such an excellent job, I did such a good job of teaching that at the peak of my alcohol addiction, while being diagnosed with alcoholic liver disease, well, I didn’t know that at that time, but I won the State Teacher of the Year Award.

Like I literally took the title home for the top teacher in the entire state of Kentucky for 2019 and I got to represent the state in the national competition for the national teacher of the year. And yes, this in the depths of alcohol use disorder. So if any of you are sitting there with your fancy career wondering, could I have a problem? Yes, you absolutely can have a problem. You don’t have to be any kind of stereotype to have a problem.

If you are consuming too much alcohol and you’re questioning your relationship with alcohol, you probably need to address it, right? Like let’s be frank. So anyway, I won the Teacher of the Year award, which brings me so much attention and really all this clout, but I’m drinking so much. And so you can imagine that on the inside, I really felt like my heart was being ripped apart. I mean, not only did I win this award, I won this award two weeks after my father passed away.

And a few days after learning that my then boyfriend after my divorce had also been cheating on me, I was like, dang, right? Like I was not catching a break. The one break that I caught was the teacher of the year award. But you know, I will say again, going back to the academics and going back to work, I do think that school saved my life. I do think that teaching was a part of saving my life because if I didn’t have school and if I didn’t have teaching in the depths of all that addiction.

I don’t think that there’s anything that I would have found worth living for. But I, every day, I did find showing up and bringing smiles to those kids’ faces was worth living for. But once the alcohol got to the point that it threatened my career, that’s when I finally was like, okay, I need to do something about it. So by September of 2019,

My liver disease was getting worse and I was now starting to develop like actual like straight up panic attacks where I could not get in my car at all or drive because I was like jumping or screaming at anything. Like I was starting to, I didn’t hallucinate quite yet but I feel like I was like a step away from starting to hallucinate. Like that’s how bad the effects of the drinking were getting to be.

So I was like, it sounds like I need to go to treatment. I mean, I looked into like how to stop drinking on my own and I knew there was no way, there was no way that I could have safely stopped drinking. You cannot put a fifth of alcohol down your body every single day and then just put that to the side. Like you can’t do that. So I did go into a treatment facility, but I went in telling everybody like, oh, I’ve got the flu and I’m gonna be out for a few days, like don’t call me. That’s what I said.

But in reality, I was detoxing and struggling a whole lot. When I got out of that detox, I did go back into AA, but I couldn’t take it seriously enough. I wasn’t willing to come out and tell people what I had been struggling with. I was going to meetings and I had a sponsor who I was sort of listening to, but my heart wasn’t fully in it.

I just wanted to be able to show up to work because A, I cared about work and B, I lived by myself and I had to make sure I could pay my bills so I couldn’t be missing work because of alcohol. But I wasn’t really ready to transform my life. So because I wasn’t ready, of course, whenever you’re not really doing the work, you’re setting yourself up to have slips and relapses, etc. So by the holidays, when the holidays came around, that’s exactly what happened. I felt really lonely and sad and I started drinking again and I ended up in a treatment facility.

all over again. And this time my family found out because it was the holidays so obviously they noticed that I was missing. And the other huge thing that happened while I was in that treatment facility was that I met Ian. And I remember when I walked into that treatment facility and I was doing my intake, I was drunk, but I do remember this. So it’s a drunk memory that I actually have. He was like in the common area. Treatment facilities have common areas, FYI, most of them do.

and the TV was going and I look up and I see this beautiful man just sitting there like watching the TV and he looked right at me and then he looked away and he like went back to looking at the TV and I remember drunkenly being like whoa he’s really cute I need to not talk to him. That was literally my first thought. My first thought was don’t talk to him. But of course why would I listen to my instincts right? Of course not.

So I did avoid him for a couple of days, but probably at about like the third or fourth day, he sat next to me in one of the activities that we were doing, and he just starts asking me questions about myself, and he’s like, where are you from? And I was like, oh, I’m from New York. And he figured that I wasn’t from Kentucky, because you can hear in my accent, I do not have a Southern accent of any kind, or Midwestern, whatever you wanna call it. And so he was like, oh, what’d you do in New York? Did you model? And listen, y’all, like,

That is such a cheesy line, but it worked, right? Because I was like, oh my gosh, ha ha. And yeah, we just hit it off after that. Like he said that and that opened the door to conversation. And by the time I left the facility then, and again, this was during winter break, so no one at school even noticed that I had gone missing, right? That’s like the crazy shit about it. But anyway, when I left the facility, I gave him my number and I was like, yeah, call me. And honestly,

I didn’t think that he would call. But a few days later, my phone rings and it’s him. And he’s like, yeah, like, do you wanna go to a meeting together? And I was like, oh my gosh, of course. And so we went to this meeting together. And at the end of AA meetings, I mean, I’m not gonna say all, but at the end of this meeting, there was a prayer and everybody got up and held hands. And you know, this is before the pandemic too, right? So…

I remember putting my hand in his and it was just like this big strong muscular hand. You know, I mean, he’s a vet. And you know, I just felt like my heart just like, whew, flutter. And I was like, wow, you know. And yeah, we got into a relationship and everything was great. Of course, we got into a relationship against everyone else’s advice, right? Like our sponsors were like, no, terrible idea. You shouldn’t do it. You both are literally brand new to recovery. And of course, we were like,

you know, we don’t care what you have to say because, you know, little did I know that I really like learning lessons the hard way and that’s basically what happened there. And so, you know, we were off in this like beautiful La land, but then the pandemic hit and when the pandemic hit and everything shut down, those church basements that we were having meetings in closed and the community centers closed.

and there was nowhere to go. People were starting to use Zoom, but I wasn’t aware of resources that existed the way that they do today. Today there’s platforms like the Luckiest Club, Tempest, Reframe, right? I work with the Luckiest Club, I work with Reframe. I had no idea those things existed back then. I mean, the Luckiest Club, I don’t even think existed until May of 2020, right? So we had nothing and we were ticking time bombs.

for relapses or slips, whatever the word is that you like to use. And he was the first one to relapse. So it was funny because I had done like, I had like a fake Twitter account, like a fake sober Twitter account. And somehow this woman from NPR, Yuki Noguchi,

I caught her eye with my tweets. So we did an interview and I was talking about my relationship and how cheery and happy I was. And it’s really eerie and I’ll put the link in the show notes to that interview because she met with me then. And then we did a follow-up a year later and this was after everything had happened. And I told her and I updated her on everything that happened and it was really heartbreaking.

But yeah, I did that first interview with her and I was like, yeah, my boyfriend is great, we’re going to go walk the dog, blah, only to find that he didn’t come back and it was because he had relapsed on his drug of choice, which was opiates, specifically heroin. And so that day I found him, he was alive and he was in his apartment and he was high and it was so scary because he looked devastated at his choice and he was so embarrassed and so ashamed.

And I tried to convince him to go to rehab, you know, like go back to treatment, like you need to go back. And he was finishing up his degree in social work at that time at, I think it’s Sullivan University in Louisville. And he was like, no, I’ve got to finish my work. And this man finished his work. He got everything done that he needed to submit for that semester. I remember him working really hard through like the high and the withdrawal. And he got it done.

And then what happened after that was he used again. And that was so difficult because I was like, if you’re gonna keep using, you’re not gonna be able to stay here with me, you know? Because I was like, I’m gonna end up drinking again. And so he was like, okay, well, let me go to the gas station and then we’ll talk about it. So he left to go to the gas station and this was on April 28th of 2020 and he just never came back, you all.

He never came back. I had called him, he wasn’t answering, and I had such a bad feeling as soon as he didn’t answer. So I drove over to his apartment and I saw that his car was in the parking lot for the building. So I get into his building and I go up to his apartment door and I start banging on the door and he’s not answering and I call the phone and I hear it ringing from inside the apartment. So I’m like, he’s in there.

but he’s not answering. So then I grabbed the fire hydrant, just as like one of the neighbors slash people who works in the building comes out, and I start slamming his door with the fire hydrant, and the guy is like yelling at me to stop, and that he’s gonna call the police on me. And I was like, go ahead, like please do. So then of course, like I hear him on the phone, and he’s like, yeah, there’s this tall black woman at the door, blah, blah. And you know, this was shortly after Breonna Taylor had passed away, and I was like, oh, great.

But honestly, I was just so focused on trying to get into that apartment that I didn’t care that he was calling the police. And I was, I welcomed it because again, we needed to get into that apartment. So the police come and you know, he of course does open the door for them. And content warning, you might want to mute this for a few minutes, but they opened the door and they say there’s a dead male.

and I immediately start screaming, screaming at that man. It’s with PTSD, I learned from reading The Body Keeps the Score, another great resource, that our memories get really, pretty much fucked up. And so it’s hard for me to remember the sequence with which everything happened. I just remember the bits and pieces. And so I remember, like if I close my eyes, I can remember.

the police officer putting my hands behind my back and pushing me against the wall. Then it’s like, it fades to black. Then I can remember calling his mother and telling her that her son was dead, like fade to black. Then I remember seeing her appear, fade to black. And then I remember the coroner telling us that we could go into the apartment and see him before they rolled him away.

And so I walk in and he’s on the stretcher and I look around the room and I can see that there’s blood splatter on the wall, probably from him trying to hit his vein with the needle. I see the belt on the floor, the syringe, and he’s just there. And he was blue. He was so blue. And I touched his hair. He had really soft hair. I touched his hair and I said, bye.

and the coroner took him away, his mom followed, and I walked out and I got into my car and I went straight to the liquor store because I didn’t have anywhere to go. I hadn’t set up systems in place for real support. I hadn’t even really told my family that I was dating someone in recovery. You know, there were so many things that I didn’t do for myself that, so I had no place to land.

when life hit the fan. I had no place to land except at the bottom of the bottle. So I went to the liquor store and I got drunk and honestly from that point on, it was eight months of me on a bender. You know, I mean, there were car wrecks, I was in about seven to eight treatment facilities, you know, I was in hospital stays from like…

three days to like five days in the near ICU, all the way up to like a five week stay at a residential facility. You know, it was like I had run through the gambit of interventions and I kept drinking. It was like, what the hell? But I still wouldn’t talk about what was going on, y’all. Like I was still in between hospitalizations. I was showing up to work and trying to teach and.

You know, I kept trying to pretend that I could just move forward, but I was so heartbroken and I couldn’t tell anybody why I was broken. Do you know how hard that is? That’s really, really hard. And by November of 2020, I was staying here with my sister in Florida in the Tampa Bay area. And I went down another spiral down the bottle and she called.

I forget how I ended up in the hospital, so I don’t know what she called or she took me. But point is, in Florida there’s something called the Baker Act, which is if you are a risk to yourself or others, that you can be hospitalized in a psychiatric hold for 72 hours. So that’s what happened. And once I was there and I finally came to, I was like, oh my god, I’m so exhausted. So exhausted. I cannot keep going like this. This is not sustainable.

It was like I was dying, but I wouldn’t die, but there was also just no way to live, right? So I was like, I’m waving this white flag. I give up. And by giving up, I mean like I give up resisting, not that I give up on trying. And so I gave up resisting my addiction and I finally was like, I will get help. I will take medicine. I will talk about it. And so the biggest…

act of liberation that I did for myself was to break the stigma that I grew up in, right? Like coming from a family that we didn’t talk about anything, I said, no, we’re talking about this. And I wrote an op-ed for the Louisville Journal, Louisville Journal, the Louisville Courier Journal. I wrote an op-ed that came out, it went live on December 3rd, where I told the world, back then I used the term alcoholic. I don’t really use that term anymore. But

Basically I was like, hey, I’m your Kentucky State Teacher of the Year and I’m an alcoholic and these are all the things I’ve been going through in secret and I’m done with it, I’m so over it. At the time that was published, I barely had a week sober because my sobriety date is November 28th, 2020 and I wrote that piece around December 1st and it was published on December 3rd. So it was a really quick turnaround, but that, it had to happen.

There was no other way that I could free myself from alcohol because it was so ingrained in everything that I was doing and the shame was so powerful that the only way I felt that I could free myself was to just completely put myself out in the open where I knew that I was safest by being most vulnerable. I knew that I was safest by making myself incredibly vulnerable. Because

No longer could anyone judge me if I put my story out there myself. So the narrative of my mom shaming me when I was little about what I wanted to eat, to the time that co-worker embarrassed me at happy hour, to the time that I was afraid of losing my marriage, like all of that was squashed when I wrote that piece and I published it.

in the career journal. And immediately after that, I resigned from classroom teaching. I started working at a tutoring company instead so that I could really just focus on my recovery. Because again, I did really love teaching and there’s no way that you can teach well in this country and practice perfect self care, at least not me. If you all are, if you’re a teacher and you’re listening to this and you’ve got to figure it out, please email me so that we can talk about it. But I don’t know how you can be a public school classroom teacher.

and truly take care of yourself and be balanced and do both things well. I don’t have that magic key. So I decided to let go of teaching so that I could take care of myself well. And yeah, and initially in my journey, I was in 12 step programs. And then eventually I realized that they didn’t resonate with me. And when I ended up being a guest on Red Table Talk at about five months sober, and I met several sober women who were not in 12 step programs, I was like, whoa. So

you can be alcohol free and not go to AA. And they were like, yeah, like, look at us. And I was like, oh, snap. And so then I started to explore more and find other communities to get involved in and find other ways to do self-development work, which essentially it’s still, a lot of it is all the same, like 12-step work and a lot of the other work that you have to do to develop yourself. A lot of it has similar undercurrents, right? It’s just a matter of just finding the space that you’re comfy in. And so I eventually, I found my space

My journey started with medications and then eventually I did a lot of self-assessment and work again with my therapist and psychiatrist to decide when it was good to let those go. And eventually let those go. And yeah, ever since it’s been, it’s been quite a journey. I feel like this episode really captures more of like my pre-recovery journey. And I should probably do another one at some point about life, like sober life.

Um, cause honestly that would be a whole other conversation, but yeah, I think that sums it up. I have been alcohol free since November 28th of 2020. I don’t regret any of it. I lost a lot as a result of alcohol, but honestly, I do feel like I stand to gain everything from the world and, um,

I’m so grateful for people like my sister who never gave up on me even when I wanted to give up on me. And for all the people who maybe had an inkling that I was suffering but they didn’t know to what extent and so they just loved on me, so grateful for them too. And yeah, I just, I thank you for listening. If you want to work with me, say, on writing your own story.

and check out my website, bottomlisttosobre.com. If you want one-to-one coaching to help you with breaking past whatever the hell’s holding you back from getting better, feel free to reach out. Schedule a free consultation. There’s a lot of different fun things that I do. Most of the things that I offer are free or super low cost and then, yeah, just like come hang, come connect. Thanks so much for listening and you have a great one.

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

I talk about the shame that can be experienced from feeling stuck on goals that we may have set early on in the year, and do a dive into some of the work around goals that I facilitate to make sure that what you’re working on is resonating with you.

Resources:

Upcoming Workshop: Summer Soul Mid-Year Check In: How Are We, Really?

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas (00:01.95)
Hey everyone. So on today’s episode, I wanted to talk a little bit about goal setting and really giving yourself the permission to say, a fit with regard to some of your goals, if they’re really not meant for you and like giving yourself permission to let them go. Now I’m talking about goals because on July 16th, I will be co-facilitating a workshop around kind of like a mid-year check-in, right? It’s called the Summer Soul Mid-Year Check-in.

How are we really? And the reason why it’s called how are we really is because I feel like right now, social media especially is so full of like, you got six months to have six months of progress or six months of being stuck exactly where you are. And I almost feel like the pressure in a lot of social media content right now is that if you’re not working on a goal, I feel like it’s almost like shame as a motivator to affect change. And I’m here to say first of all,

Shame is never an effective way to get things done. Yes, does shame get things done? Sure. Is it longstanding change? Probably not, right? Shame is not really an effective motivator. It’ll get things done, but in terms of that type of change that’s gonna be permanent, that’s gonna feel good to your body, shame is not it. So I welcome you to mute anything that makes you feel guilty if you have fallen off track.

with anything or if you haven’t really been working on anything and if you have purposely not been working on anything and you’ve just been focusing on living and existing, I want you to recognize that as being totally valid too. You don’t have to spend every season of your life working on something. So I want to give you permission for that too, right? Like if you needed someone to say that, I’ll say it again.

You don’t need to always be actively working on something. It is okay to enter seasons of rest and seasons where you pause. So with that being said, yes, going back to what I was originally saying is that I am hosting or co-hosting a workshop on goal setting on July 16th. And if you wanna sign up for that, it is $15. You can spend $15 like at Starbucks in a heartbeat, right? Like buying like…

a drink and a snack. So, you know, if you feel that investment is worth you diving into yourself, please join us at this workshop and you can register at bottomlesssober.com. So first, let’s talk about whatever you may have set out to do in 2023. Why did you select whatever it was as a goal? So I feel like, for example, I’ll use myself. I have in the past,

use weight loss as a goal, right? And so I want you to pause and think about why, if let’s say we’re selecting weight loss, why you’re selecting that as a goal. And I want you to stop, you know, press pause if you need to, but in your journal or in your device, however you’re writing, really dive into why are you trying to accomplish this? And there’s two things I want you to pay attention to when you’re looking at your why.

Like, are any of your reasons related to you being happy if and only if you accomplish this? Or do any of these whys relate to you feeling worthy if and only if you accomplish this? And the reason I want you to think about that, and we’ll be talking about this in the workshop too, is because I want you to understand that when you’re attaching like you’re worthening your joy to outcomes or results from goals,

You’re basically setting yourself up to have a really, really hard time. You’re setting yourself up to really feel a lot of pain if you experience a setback because you’re tying your value to these outcomes. And also you’re kind of denying yourself the joy of being able to appreciate the journey of being able to appreciate your today, the present, because today is really what you have guaranteed. And so if you were no longer on this earth tomorrow,

Would it be that you’re unhappy because you didn’t have these results? Or can you find joy in what you have today? And so, again, if you are setting goals because you think that you’re gonna be happy only when you accomplish something or that you’re gonna feel worthy only when you accomplish something, I really want you to pause and think about that because what is it about your today that you can’t find some appreciation in or that you can’t find some sort of joy in?

And then the other thing too that I want you to do and that we’ll be doing together is I want you to dig into Where did your why come from in the first place? Right. Um, so again, you might want to press pause While you’re listening and journal this But I want you to answer the following questions like when was the first time that you wanted this result for yourself? Was this a norm that was pushed on you either by your family or society?

Or is this something that genuinely came out from yourself for yourself? And I also want you to ask, who stands to benefit the most from you attaining this goal and why? Is it really you who’s benefiting or are you perceiving some outside force to benefit from this? And sorry, there’s some weird background noise in the building that I’m in right now, so please excuse that extra noise. But coming back to this, I really,

want you to examine your why, and I also want you to examine it with self-compassion. Because first of all, if you’ve been struggling with accomplishing a certain goal, for example, for me with weight loss, right? I’ve always been a pretty active person, et cetera, but weight loss is not really a thing that seems to happen for me. And I can fight myself on it, fight the resistance, get really angry, and judge myself harshly on it. But if I look at it from a lens of self-compassion, I can ask myself, where did all of this come from?

And when I look at my history, I wanted to lose weight when I was younger because my mom told me that I needed to lose weight. Where did she get that from? She got that from my grandmother, who got it from probably her mother, right? But nobody ever stopped to really talk about why should we lose weight, right? And

If I then say for health reasons, right? I can dig into that a little bit more because when I weighed the least, I also was the sickest because I had alcoholic liver disease, right? So I really want you to examine the why because sometimes you may discover that you thought you really wanted something, but it was more so that it’s been a message that’s been programmed in you maybe since you were little that you really wanted this.

at your true heart of hearts, maybe you don’t want it. And I want you to give yourself permission to explore that and ask yourself, where is this desire for this goal coming from? And if it is in fact something that you want, that you generated yourself, and if it is something that you are not tying your worth to and that you are not tying your happiness to, then let’s go for it, right?

then let’s make that something for you to focus on for the rest of the year or whenever you wanna focus on it because it is not tied to your value, it’s not tied to your worth, and it’s actually a goal that you can own and that you can claim, right? Like it should be something that feels tough to do, but you would feel like a badass if you accomplished it, but if you didn’t accomplish it, you would be able to be kind to yourself, right?

This is a goal that maybe you can learn something about yourself with regard. It’s a goal that can excite you But again, it’s you’re not attaching your value to it and it’s something that you truly want to do So I just wanted to like kind of have that little brief conversation with myself and record it Because again, I think that right now

the narrative is, oh, it’s July, and if you haven’t been working on something, you’ve been wasting half a year. And again, that language is really shaming, and that language is really, it’s not helpful. And so again, I want you to practice kindness, I want you to practice self-love, and I want you to also practice authenticity with yourself because you absolutely deserve it. And if you wanna do this activity and some more activities in a group,

Please join me on July 16th at the Summer Soul Mid-Year Workshop Where we’ll be doing this in a group and some other activities as well and you can register for that at bottomlesstosober.com Thanks so much. Have a great one.

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