In this episode:
Kiola Raines takes us beyond getting sober. As a Black woman, her recovery journey unfolds against a backdrop of unique challenges that fuel her mission to establish safe havens for individuals like herself. Join us as we explore the distinct hurdles Black women encounter when seeking support for addiction, from the glaring lack of representation to the enduring impact of the “war on drugs.” Kiola not only sheds light on these issues but also takes proactive steps to rewrite the narrative and dismantle beliefs that could impede recovery. Check out this insightful conversation that goes beyond the surface, delving into the transformative work of reshaping the recovery landscape for Black women and other women of color.
Resources:
Kiola’s Site – KiolaRaines.com
Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction by Maia Szalavitz
Stack ’n’ Days Podcast by Ray Donovan
Transcript:
00:05 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
I’m Jessica Dueñas, and this is Bottomless to Sober, the podcast where I talk about anything and everything related to life since my transition from bottomless drinking to a sober life. Hey everyone, so today I’m really excited to have my fellow colleague and friend, Kiola Raines on the episode. I really just wanted to have her on, so just have a conversation about sharing her story. I think Kiola is a really powerful story that a lot of women can benefit from all women, but also women of color, considering the different options for what may work for them in recovery, and so I am honored to have a busy mom, fitness coach and also recovery meeting facilitator on here. So thank you, Kiola, for coming on. I appreciate you.
00:51 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yes, I’m glad to be here, looking forward to it Coming in straight from the gym, eating my post-workout meal and then taking my son to a birthday party. So you covered all of the things. Yeah, you covered all the things that I’ll be doing today?
01:07 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yes, basically. So first, if there’s anybody on listening who has not heard of who Kiola is, can you introduce yourself a little bit and just give the listeners a background of your story?
01:18 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yes, I just did a presentation yesterday and the woman said lots of folks in our class have heard about you. You have got such a good reputation. I was like good, because if you met me seven or 10 years ago, I don’t know if I would have had such a great reputation. So I come into the recovery world with four years and 10 months almost 11 months in my journey and I am really happy to be able to share a fitness and nutrition foundation with one-on-one clients that I work with in a peer recovery relationship and then also sharing that knowledge in communities as well. So my education background is in kinesiology. I have a bachelor’s and a master’s in sports and exercise psychology and I spent about 15, almost 17 years actually now that I think of it in gyms, in group exercise classes, doing one-on-one training, running boot camp classes and achieving what I thought was my ultimate dream, which was opening a gym, and that was an amazing experience. But I also was not prepared in my sobriety to take on a feat like that, and now I get to share all of the things that I wanted to share in that space in a community that’s even more near and dear to my heart. So not to say that I don’t have a passion for sharing fitness and nutrition education with everyone. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be able to do what I love to do and pair that in sobriety and recovery. And, looking into the new year, I’m definitely being called back into the fitness world and into the coaching world in that aspect, which will drive my programming a lot more geared towards people in recovery still, but really focusing on implementing movement and nourishment so that you can have a strong foundation in your recovery.
03:25
What else? And I have a three-year-old son and an awesome partner, a sibling to four folks. I’ve got three sisters and a brother. My parents met at Disneyland. That’s always a fun little random fact about me. They’ve been together since they were 15. And I guess that’s my first experience with recovery is watching my dad in his sobriety recovery journey. He’s got over 25 years and one of my foundations and values is family, love, love, love, family, love. To be able to have such a supportive family as well.
03:58 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
That’s awesome and congrats to your dad. I’ve seen his content pop up on occasion. He’s like I can see where you get the motivational, inspirational vibes from, yeah.
04:08 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
That is him.
04:10 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
So you mentioned that your first experience in recovery was actually witnessing your dad, or what motivated you to actually get in recovery. Was your issue with alcohol showing up the same way that they did with your dad, or did it look different?
04:28 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
It looked much different because I was single, with no kids, so I could go deeper and deeper and deeper, Not to say without anybody concerned about it, but there’s less concern when you don’t have children and a household to upkeep and all of those responsibilities. But my family did reach out. They had an intervention that didn’t go so well, Also lots of individual conversations of concern, and so for me what sparked it this time around was the full on moment of clarity. I deserve better. I know I can do better, and if I’ve achieved what I’ve achieved so far while drinking and misusing alcohol and other substances, then I just had that conversation with myself. Imagine what your life could be like if you just get this out of the way.
05:22
But that wasn’t the first time I tried to get sober. Not at all. My first drink was at 15. And until I got into recovery I assumed everybody’s. First I just thought isn’t that what everyone does? You get into high school, you get a little access to it and you just kind of experiment, and from then on it was just something that I thought was part of my social life, part of my personality, and I had that first really bad hangover and did the I’ll never drink again thing.
05:55
And then, in 2015, got a DUI. But this is all after a decade over a decade of whoops. That might have been a little too much or, oh, I don’t know if I need to keep it up at this rate. A lot of little signs and experiences that I realized were telling me you’re doing this in a completely different way than your friends. And my parents don’t even drink. I didn’t grow up in a household with alcohol In my dad’s substance. He never brought it in the house or anything like that, but for me it wasn’t. I need to do this for my family, like with my dad, it was. I need to do this for me because I deserve better and I know that I can do better. So they were prompted for different things, but I will say losing relationships with my family members was a part of, was a part of the reason that I knew I needed to recover.
06:56 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
So kind of leaning into that next part, what were some of the obstacles that you faced in recovering? So I mean, I think one thing that sounds like it may have been helpful in your family was that your dad was actually a model of someone being in recovery, Culturally speaking. What’s been your experience about the narrative around? The conversation of mental health and addiction, and what barriers did you face in the beginning when you were trying to get help, if you did?
07:22 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yeah.
07:23
So ironically my dad doesn’t. He doesn’t consider himself to be in recovery. I know that he is, but he’s one of those people that was like I will I don’t want to call myself an addict and so he wasn’t going to regular meetings or anything like that. I just I saw the stone cold like hard quit, I can quit. I knew this on my own and we didn’t talk about it. That was a huge barrier. I knew what was happening and my mom shared at one point one of the weekends he had, you know, disappeared on his little weekend getaway. My mom shared what was happening and she, I said where’s dad? And she said you know what? I don’t know where he is, but you can ask him when he gets home. So she was at that point of like I’m sick of making up stories, I’m not going to tell these kids anymore lies. And he she made him face the fire himself.
08:21
So that was when I understood drugs addiction and I saw his behavior changing over time. I would notice that was longer amount of periods of time between his disappearing, which was that was kind of a good thing, like okay, he’s doing this less and less and then one day it just not happening anymore. But because we didn’t talk about that, I didn’t quite understand how the whole thing worked. Like, how did sobriety work? Do you just stop and you start going to church? That’s what we did, that’s what he did, and so that was also a barrier. We didn’t talk about it and then I thought the solution was church and it was also a different substance. So those were challenges.
09:04
The benefit is that I knew it was possible. I knew that it was possible to break free from addiction or substance misuse. I just didn’t know exactly how to do it. So my only outlet, the only thing I thought was available, was 12 step, and when I got a DUI, I walked into that space because it’s required in California. You get a DUI, you have to get a breathalyzer in your car. I mean thousands, tens of thousands of dollars in fines and fees and you have to go to 10 AA meetings. And I walked into that 12 step room again with this message kind of from my dad that, like I don’t go to those meetings because I’m not an addict anymore and I’m not going to go up there and say I’m an addict. You know and this is my story he believes that he’s been delivered from addiction. He’s free from it and he is a former addict.
10:01
So I already had that kind of mindset and I went in to the room and my sister was with me my younger sister but I looked around and it was me and her and we were the only people of color in that room and I was like, oh hell, no, I’m not doing this, like this is not, this is not it for me. And that was another barrier that I stayed. Who knows, you know what would have happened, but I just wasn’t ready to share my deepest, darkest secrets. I wasn’t ready to share my energy. I also just wasn’t ready really to quit and that kind of turned me away.
10:40
I lasted eight months on my own, doing my own thing. There was some benefit that I got from the alcohol education classes that I had to attend, but I didn’t have any community. I had some support from my family, which was great, but I didn’t have any tools, and so that was the next barrier. And because I didn’t see myself in that room, because I had this message from my dad that was different than what I believe about myself now, and because we didn’t talk about the sobriety piece, it was just kind of like this understood thing that was happening. Those were several obstacles for me.
11:22 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
So I have a question. I know back then your dad didn’t talk about his journey. I know now that you’re so open with it and you know, I know that you have a really tight relationship with him.
11:31
Have you ever like? Asked him about back then, like if he had ever looked for spaces? Cause I’m curious and, based off what you’re saying, I’m like well, did Keel, does that ever go? Maybe into a 12 step room? And he was like I don’t see anybody. It looks like me. So I’m going to go to church, Cause at least people look like me in church. I’m just curious what happened there.
11:49 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
That’s it Exactly. And I didn’t learn until I was 30 days into recovery. So, January of 2019, January 1st, I walked into a space and was just like help. You know, I don’t want to leave this room without some kind of support and I started off really on fire, you know, for that program and ended up moving back home, you know, had no car, no money, was this at the bottom, bottom, bottom, and because I got to see him every day, I was on, I was on his ass like dad. So how come you never went to, you know, these meetings? How come you never did this? How come you never made a mess with us? How come you and he’s like actually and he, you know, pulled out some stories. He’s like this is what happened for me.
12:40
He had gone to rehab two or three times and he had gone to NA meetings and CA meetings and he was experiencing people outside of the meetings trying to sell him his drug of choice, because they knew that everybody at that meeting probably wanted it, you know. And so he experienced that. He experienced pushback. When he would name his higher power and say who he believed in and what he believed in, he got pushed back from that he got pushed back from not wanting to call himself an addict, and so I learned a lot. And I joke with him I’m like, well, this would have been helpful, dad, 20 years ago, If you would have been helpful. We talked about this then I would have had a little bit more understanding of what you experienced. And we also talked about the reason that he chose to go into his religion. That is where he found his peace, that’s where he found his power. Through prayer, through joining the choir, he found his community. That way he found his ministry in coaching, specifically football and track, so ministering to young men. He felt very called to be the father figure or the coaching figure to try to steer these people in the right direction. And that’s. These are things that I had no idea. I thought my dad was coaching to avoid coming home. I thought that he was like too too, had too big of an ego to say he was an addict. I didn’t understand that he had gone through all of these experiences and I pulled out those conversations, which also allowed me and him to have a closer relationship and him to be a part of my recovery.
14:34
Now he’ll come on Any meeting. I ask him to come on, but he’s talking about his recovery much more, which I think is I think he really needed to do that. I think there was a lot of shame for him and me being so proud and open about like I have no shame I mean, you already know like I am proudly in recovery. I’m so happy that I got sober. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and I think I’m showing him that we don’t have to be ashamed, we don’t need to be feel guilty or ashamed that we fell into a cycle with substances that are highly addictive. It’s not like we chose to become addicted, you know, like TLC, it’s not our fault. It is our responsibility, though, and I’m showing him that you don’t have to have this dirty little secret. You can walk proud that you are sober now that you are in recovery now. So I learned a lot in those conversations. They just I wish they had happened sooner. I’ll say that for sure.
15:33 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and you know, I mean I’m so grateful for that kind of like new opportunity that you’ve been giving your dad, right, Because it goes to show that you know we learn from them, they can also learn from us. And also it’s just a beautiful image of like literally just breaking the cycle, Because I feel like that’s the thing in a lot of our communities we don’t talk about things, we go through the worst of things and we have to put up these masks of being like strong and we’ve got this, but there’s so much help to be had when we open up and share our stories. So you’re a mom now and my question is obviously your son Ziggy he’s only. You said he’s three, right, he’s three, yes. So as he gets older, what is that going to look like, like the conversations that you’ll have with him?
16:17 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yeah, any and everything, I hope. Whatever he wants to know, I want to do that opposite of what my parents did. My parents both of them, especially my mom, will say they were in full on panic survival mode. My mom was trying to protect her kids and so she didn’t want to share too much. My dad was ashamed of his actions and ashamed of his addiction, so he would kind of just hang his head down when he came home from those weekends and reach out to mentor other kids because he thought we didn’t like him which was sometimes true, but we were hurt and because they were in that panic survival mode, they just didn’t share a lot of things that were going on with us and then they dove into their religion, which also brought on shame and guilt about so many things. I want to do the opposite. I want to let my son feel free to ask me any questions me or Nathaniel and I want to keep an open line of conversation, age appropriate. I’m happy to share with him what I’ve experienced. He’s going to grow up hearing the word sobriety, hearing the word recovery. He’s going to grow up in a household where there isn’t any alcohol and he we’re also on a different topic. We’re also open about letting him choose his own spirituality and his religious beliefs.
17:50
So I grew up in a Christian household. My partner is Jewish. We agreed that we’ll present both of the things to him. We’ll celebrate all of the things and let him decide what works for him. So that’s very different than either one of our households. We were not encouraged to have our own spirituality, even just the sex conversation. Nathaniel’s parents didn’t talk to him about it. My parents were like no, no, no, don’t do that, that’s bad and I don’t want to do any of those. I want to change the narrative in our household to open conversations, ask whatever needs to be asked. Teenagers get a little awkward. They don’t necessarily want to talk to their parents about everything, but I want to make my son know that I’m available or his dad is available, or, if he doesn’t want to talk to us, we’ll find you a resource that you can talk to. But no shame and guilt and fear around these conversations. I just want him to be curious. I really do want to have a child that’s open to asking questions.
18:51 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and that’s so powerful and I’m so grateful to hear that that’s an opportunity that you are going to give your son, because a lot of us our parents generation did not encourage the curiosity or the questioning right.
19:03
It was very much just do as I say or you know, maybe not even as I do, but do what I say. There is something you touched on. You talked about survival mode, which I think is an important question. There’s been in spaces where I’ve heard people say well, you know, the decisions that our parents or their parents made were made in survival mode, but we’re not in survival mode anymore, so we can be free to loosen up in certain ways.
19:29
I would say yes and no, because I think, that, as people of color, especially say black people in America, there are times when, especially when there’s police violence or any other like systemic inequities happening, that people might still feel or genuinely actually be under a threat. Right, and so when people like I feel, like sometimes I like some of my one on one clients, like, let’s say, if something really harsh happens on the news, their first go to is why bother, jessica? Why should I bother being sober when this world is so fucked up? Right?
20:04 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yeah.
20:05 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
I’m a black woman and such and such just happened on the news. Why should I try to get sober? Why should I even bother? And so I guess my message, my question for you is like what’s your response for people, whether they are people of color or there are allies right, like when the world is falling apart, like how do you respond to it and stay focused on your recovery?
20:28 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yeah, oh, that’s a good one. I definitely was used to be in that this world is shit, let’s get faded, because, you know, let’s just stay faded to not think about it and ignore it and avoid it. I was very much in that cycle. I was just so sad and so upset and so broken. Sandra Bland’s death, murder, I should say it really impacted me because at that time I realized I would have, that could have been me. I was that feisty person. You know I was smoking cigarettes at the time. Everything she did and that could have been me. I don’t need to put the cigarette out this like I just it hit me really hard and I did spiral.
21:09
You know, there was a dark time for me in that, realizing the world is so dark, in recovery I have truly found serenity and peace. It’s something that I I didn’t realize. What a gift it would be to have a peaceful mindset and to lean into calmness and serenity. And I would encourage folks to focus on being the light in the dark world. You know, yes, there’s darkness, there’s war, there has. I don’t think there’s been a time since the beginning of humanity where there wasn’t some kind of war going on or some kind of fight going on or struggle or hunger or death destruction. It hasn’t happened. It’s a part of humanity and I think it’s okay to give space to honor people’s lives being lost and honor that that is happening and acknowledge it and then to fuel your fire to be a light. Show up in a way that is peaceful, show up in a way that is encouraging. In your own small space, you can be impactful in your community. You can be impactful in your household, being a peaceful person, and I have definitely switched from the doom scroll and the deep dive and looking at the pictures and looking at the videos and looking at all of that stuff, I just don’t.
22:41
I just don’t look. I know what’s happening, I’ll hear it, you know one of my family members is going to mention it or someone’s going to say something about it and I acknowledge oh man, yeah, that’s really tough. So the best thing I can do today is stay sober, which I feel like is an act of revolution. It is a rebellious act. To be sober and be clear minded.
23:00
Rather than numbing myself or numbing ourselves and staying on that low vibration. The best thing we can do is become higher with our vibration and our energy and be the smile that someone sees that day, be the light, be the helping hand, be the peace that someone can experience. That’s the gift that we have in sobriety, rather than adding to the negative energy. And I really want to go towards being more positive and being light. It’s not easy, it’s not, and I also thought about toxic positivity like, oh well, there’s a war, you know that’s okay. No, there’s a war, and that’s fucking sucks. People are dying every day. That’s horrible, and the best thing I can do while I’m here on this planet is be peaceful and be a light and be encouraging, be positive.
23:49 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, definitely Like one of the things that I will always share and I think like that’s the same thing, like we have always 100% been living in unprecedented times. It’s just that nowadays we have the technology to access it like 24 seven and be connected, but sadly, humanity it can be a very like a source of beautiful things and also a source of really dark spaces and horrible, horrific things that you know, you’re spot on with that and I think like that’s the same thing that I tell people, right that look at what is in your control and focus on that.
24:22
Maybe we are not able to suddenly execute world peace, but you know what? We sure as hell aren’t contributing to the population of the earth if we’re trashed right. And so we can at least maintain sobriety. Then at least there is the opportunity a for us. Like you said, you can make an impact within your home, you can make an impact online, you can make an impact with another human in some way positively, but you can’t do that if you are just gone into the oblivion of substances like you just can. That’s right.
24:48 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yep.
24:50 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
So the other thing that I guess I just wanted to ask you in terms of recovery as a black woman, right when, what are barriers that you’re seeing for women, other women of color, whether it’s black women or just black and brown women?
25:05 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
what are?
25:05 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
barriers you’re seeing and what are some recommendations that you might have for any woman of color who is like listening to this and kind of exploring what her next step might be?
25:17 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yeah, barriers are when you walk into a lot of in person spaces. Depending on where you are, you will likely be the only one in the room and if you grew up experiencing that like I did, I grew up as the only black person in my classroom from kindergarten to about seventh grade and the last thing I wanted to do was experience that awkwardness all over again. So that was definitely a barrier. Also, culturally and I know this is true for a lot of Asian cultures, because when we think of people of color, I know a lot of groups there’s black, brown, latin indigenous, and then there’s the Asian Pacific Islander have kind of like a separate, they have that API designation and so I think that group also is missing out on experiencing sobriety because they will walk into a room and be the only one in the room or not feel included in this person of color by pop group, because now there’s a separate designation. That’s a whole separate issue. I think we need spaces together and I think we all need separate spaces to to heal in our own ways to address different cultural challenges. So that’s another barrier, the lumping together plus the separation. It needs a little work, it needs a little attention.
26:42
When I walk into. I say walk into me virtually. So if I go to a virtual meeting, the what? The meetings I’m hosting? 99% white women, 99% white women. Even for white men that might be intimidating because it’s like, wow, is this a women’s group? Nope, this is just. This is just the community. That’s the new age virtual space. Years ago and still in, I think, 12 step, it is predominantly male. In that 12 step space where they made women’s meetings, in that space, smart recovery has started to add on women’s meetings and by pop meetings. But when you walk into or log into a room and there’s 200 people and all the folks that have their cameras on you see me hosting or you hosting, and then that’s it, it’s.
27:35
It makes it challenging to be vulnerable. It makes it challenging to talk about your mistakes, your shortcomings, your character defects, when we know that the media has painted us as defective for many, many years, has painted us as lazy and addicts and or loud and just, you know, not getting the work done that we need to get done. Like we’ve had this negative story being told about us and I’m supposed to go into this space and talk about my personal challenges and in 12 step, you’re not even allowed to bring up race, you’re not even allowed to address the fact that you’re not in the same or your socioeconomic status or the things you’re seeing in the media are affecting your mental health, which is then affecting the relationship with substances. And there are there are not enough spaces specifically for sober black women or black women in that are not just social spaces. I’ll say that there’s one space that is a club, that is more exclusive. I’ll say like a sorority. That’s my experience.
28:50
And then there are some by Poc, 12 step spaces, but you have to search for those. It’s much more challenging just to walk into a space. I’ve gotten lucky and the reason I’m in recovery is because the 12 step space I walked into in my neighborhood and LA was predominantly black and that was the miracle. That was the miracle of the higher power or whatever that was like. We need to make sure that she stays this time. So find a meeting in your community, but if you’re not in a predominantly black community or predominantly Latin or Asian community, you are going to have a hard time. You know walking into spaces and being vulnerable.
29:32 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
You know it’s funny when you were talking about kind of like painting the picture of like the defects quote unquote, the defects of different populations. You know the book I’m going through right now with the book club on the reframe app, it’s Unbroken Brain by Maya Salavitz, and she goes through the history of addiction, specifically legislation. And it’s wild because the first cocaine laws were written during the Jim Crow era to target black folks, under this assumption that black people were the ones predominantly using cocaine. And around the same era there were laws written against opiates because Asian people, there was this association with opiates and Asians, and so there were all these opiate laws written around the same time period.
30:15
And then the other wild fact was that the KKK was a huge proponent of prohibition because of immigrant groups being associated with alcohol consumption. It was really really fast, sad and infuriating but fascinating information because you know when we were talking about it, right, like just this idea that, like you know, for some people it’s. You don’t even realize that that’s the subliminal programming that’s happening to us as a society, that we just start to picture the faces of addiction looking like you or me, just because of like laws that had been written so long ago and it’s just like the. And then you know if you go to the 1980s and the war on drugs really war on people.
30:57
Yeah right, really a war on people. Because now that we have say like, I don’t want to say predominance, I don’t know them stats, but now that we’re seeing, say, opiate addiction impacting so many white Americans, you know, now we’re getting it, the people are getting the opportunities that they need for treatment, whereas, say, in the 1980s, 1990s, when you had the black community getting affected by the crack cocaine epidemic, not the same, the access was jail. That was a treatment. You know, yep, it’s wild.
31:24 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
I’m curious how that what are the responses? Will be in that book club from this book. So you’re dropping gems on them, which is like a beautiful thing for people to see that truth it’s we people of color, specifically black folks in the US have been the picture of addiction, but we have not been the picture of recovery, and that is a huge problem. That’s the reason that I reached out to the creator of the sober summit and I was like look, this is great and I’m so happy you want to make this summit, but this is not the picture of recovery. This is the reason people are not going into spaces, because they log on to a meeting or they walk into a room. They don’t see themselves and so they don’t stay. But we are recovering too. You know, I get to see that.
32:13
That’s one of the reasons I go to that in person meeting I go to is to be reminded that there are black folks surviving and recovering and overcoming, just like everyone else, and it needs to be broadcasted.
32:30
That is something like if I have a project in 2024, it’s to align with the podcast stack in days and and similar to what you’re doing highlight our voices, highlight our stories, highlight our faces. You can see that we are recovering as well and we are not going to stay the picture of addiction. We can be the picture of recovery. And even I mean with the whole war on drugs versus opioid epidemic, it’s like, oh, this is, we need to help these people, we need to solve this disease, this epidemic. But then with crack and black folks even though I mean we could go down a whole rabbit hole with that it was a war on drugs, just the verbiage around it is completely different. So we definitely need to continue talking and sharing. And so I tell my dad, like, don’t be ashamed. Don’t be ashamed because you, speaking about being sober, will help somebody else realize that it’s possible. They see it in you, they can connect to you and your story, your language, all of that stuff.
33:41 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and the same thing with your dad, right, like your dad, when he was struggling, he was probably constantly receiving messaging that told him that there was something terribly wrong with him. Yeah, he was lesser than human being because of his addiction, right, and thankfully. I mean the good thing about the internet, right, the bad thing about the internet is that there’s sometimes so much bad information out there. But the good thing about the internet is that, when, say, there’s mainstream recovery programs that aren’t necessarily representative of what recovery can look like, there’s just people like us, regular people in recovery, who are able to speak up and use our voices to really help cast this message far and wide. And for anyone listening the Stacking Days podcast, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes.
34:22
It is a podcast that highlights the stories of people of color in recovery to get a good sense of what recovery can look like from a whole range of perspectives and a whole all sorts of different recovery paths, whether they’re 12 step connected or not. Because the 12 step programs do save many people’s lives because if they didn’t save lives they wouldn’t still exist but they don’t resonate for everyone. So how do you approach 12 step program spaces now? Because you do still attend meetings in person. What does that look like? How do you stay true to say what works for you while attending different programs meetings?
34:57 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yeah, first I will say me and you are not regular people in recovery. We are rock stars. We are rock stars in recovery and humble also. We know we take it one day at a time, but I think some people really dive into this work and want to share it. There are a lot of people who will keep it for themselves, which is great and fine. I’m not saying one is better or worse. And then there are teachers and coaches and leaders. We cannot help but want to share and spread this message.
35:28
So now, when I go into 12 step spaces, I’m much more confident than I was. Obviously, at 30 days and 60 days I thought this was the only way and I need to just do what they say. I didn’t know about smart recovery, I didn’t. Reframe didn’t exist, tlc didn’t exist, silver black girls club didn’t exist and I didn’t know there were spaces like celebrate recovery and women for sobriety. I thought if I don’t do this, I’m going to be fucked up forever. Basically, now, fast forward.
35:58
Years later I put myself out there in the social media world and I learned so much like oh wow, I can use therapy, I can use fitness, I can use nutrition, I can create my own social circle of sober people who will share their tools with me. I can participate in virtual spaces and I built my own program or building, still building. I’m learning things all the time of my own program. So I walk into that space very confident because I, in January I’ll be five years sober and even though they a lot of people don’t remember me because it was three years in between since the last time they saw me, if I go up and share and I say I’m four years sober, they’re like how, who’s your sponsor? What is this miracle of sobriety that you speak of? So I’ll share. But I honestly do much more listening in that, in that space I go in and unless I’m called on or there’s, you know, nobody is sharing. I listen, listen, listen and take in the information and the stories, the reminders of why I stay on this path and I don’t go there to campaign for my journey and my path. I go there with respect, you know, drink a little coffee, maybe have a donut, and just I. Honestly I’m sitting in that room like I mean I wish I could record it because I am just like giddy, big old smile ear to ear, just like sitting next to this 68 year old woman and this 30 year old woman and seeing this man get his 40 year chip, and just it’s like a celebration for me. I take the things that resonate with me and I leave behind what. What doesn’t resonate, but there is, and there always will be, wisdom in that room.
37:53
The reason that I started and stayed on my journey is because of that room, because I was given the opportunity to reflect on me and realize that it’s not just alcohol. You needed something, you needed a feeling. Why did you need that feeling? Why were you trying to escape certain things? Why were you trying to numb certain things?
38:15
So it’s the first place I learned to reflect and if I met anybody in that space that was new to sobriety, I would not say, hey, you know, there’s, there’s other things you can do. I’m not here to disrupt anybody’s journey. If somebody asks me, what am I doing, I’m happy to share. But I’m not going to go in that space and try to deter. I go in as it’s a celebratory space for me. It’s like a reflection space for me and I honor it. I respect folks that are doing what they’re doing. I could maybe laugh a little under my breath about things and I’m like, okay, well, there is another way. But that’s not. I don’t need to go in there and like fight people about it and debate people about it.
38:58 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, for me definitely. So I got exposed to 12 step programs through the different treatment facilities that I had been hospitalized in by default. That’s kind of like at least the treatment facilities that I was in in Louisville, kentucky, and I don’t know about other places.
39:12
They automatically just kind of feed their patients into the 12 step programs and they have speakers coming in from 12 step meetings and you know like since getting sober I’ve reached out to treatment facilities to share my story and they pretty much has been like well, if you’re not a 12 step person, we were not taking your story. The only place that let me share my story was a facility I was hospitalized in myself, so they’re like okay, you graduated from here so you can come back and share your story.
39:36
But you know, at that time being that early on I was told this was the only way. I was so desperate to not die that I was okay with complying and, honestly, to this day I would probably still be in the program if I hadn’t been exposed to other people. So you know, the way that I ended up leaving 12 step programs was when I did my Red Table Talk episode back in May of 2021. So I was like maybe seven, six, seven months sober. I was on set with Khadi and Annie Grace.
40:08
So Khadi was Black Girls Club and Annie Grace, the author of oh my gosh, I’m blinking on her book right now.
40:13 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
The.
40:13 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
This Naked Mind yes, thank you. And I remember I genuinely asked them. I was like, oh, what, what like, something about. Like, what did your sponsors say about doing this? You know, I have no idea and each of them was like no, we don’t go to AA. And I was like, like how you said what’s this miracle?
40:31
I was like what, you don’t go, you don’t do AA? And they were like no, we don’t do AA, you know, we do whatever. You know each of them does their own thing. And I came back, I flew back to Florida and I saw my therapist and I was like you mean to tell me I don’t need to do this? And she was like you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but it’s a good idea to have support. So as soon as she said that, that’s when I just started like looking at my options and exploring Because you know, again I was fine, I was totally fine with the space.
41:02
But yeah, there were certain things that frustrated me, like, you know, not being able to really talk about certain things when they were happening, like when the Black Lives Matter protests were happening in Louisville, kentucky.
41:13
You know that was one of the primary effects because of Breonna Taylor and I taught at a school for black males and I knew that if they weren’t protesting, their family members were out there protesting and I couldn’t talk about that at a meeting and the one time I brought it up because it was stressing me out, I was told that’s an outside issue, you can’t talk about it, and I was like I’m a teacher who loves my students desperately and I can’t talk about an issue that is directly impacting them and that left me very disheartened. But again, I was complying because I really wanted to stay sober. So I was still showing up. But once I learned that it wasn’t something that I had to do, I definitely got out there and stayed curious. But I told my support group what I was doing so that they could hold me accountable, like if they saw me suddenly flying off the handle.
41:56
Because I’m not gonna lie, when I stepped out of my normal routine with the 12 step program, checking with the sponsor every day and doing that, there was a part of me, there was a seed of fear that had been planted in me that I would die, that I would drink and that’s exactly how I felt, and I had seen people relapse and die most of them not alcohol, to be fair, but still, and so I was just really worried that I was gonna rapidly become a statistic that they talk about in meetings, like the people who go back out and just die. But years later I’m still here. Thank, God.
42:30
And I do appreciate those spaces and like, let’s say, if anyone comes to Tampa who I know from Louisville and is in recovery and they want a meeting, I’ll help them find a meeting and I’ll go to the meeting with them. You know what I mean. And it’s just like yeah, if you need a meeting, I’ll go with you. When I work with one-on-one clients and I always encouraged them to find a community, like I talk about the online communities and then I’m always like what are your thoughts on 12 step programs? And if it’s something that works for them, great. If it’s not, I let them know. It makes perfect sense. Especially when my clients a lot of them are women of color, it makes perfect sense that it doesn’t resonate with them and I just let them know it’s okay. Mainstream recovery isn’t for everybody.
43:08 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, the whole outside issue thing is like I’ll never understand it, which is fine, because I don’t. I’m not stuck in a place where I have no other tools, but if you understand addiction and you understand human nature and human experience, you have someone write down these resentments right that they have, like I resent this and I resent that. Well, one of the things for me that I resented was the fact that I grew up the only one in the room, and so how is that no longer an issue in my sobriety or my recovery, when it caused anxiety which caused me to drink? So if I’m in this room with people, anything that’s affecting me is an inside issue. I’m in this room, we’re in this room together, I’m looking around, I’m sharing what’s happening inside my physical body, my mind. That’s up for discussion. So I think it’s great that we have spaces where you have freedoms to share and.
44:10
I call it new age, sobriety, new age recovery, where we’re in this evolving space that is much more predominantly women, 12 step spaces originally were mostly men, and so it is cool to watch it evolve. And the next thing I’d love to see and it’s slowly but surely happening is predominantly black spaces, predominantly Latin spaces, predominantly Asian spaces and then everybody together, so having diverse spaces. I do think that it is important for each culture to have a space and we need to be able to heal from the things, especially in the US. All different ethnicities need to be able to heal from the things that we’ve experienced as a country, which then impacted our relationship with substances, and it’s different for each community, but we’re moving in that direction of not being afraid to talk about it, or at least I’m not afraid to talk about it.
45:09 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and also helping us heal our relationships with ourselves, because one of the things that’s just wild is that I didn’t realize how much it took me putting down the bottle to realize how much personal development work there really is just to be done and how much of the healing process also involves like shedding beliefs that have been instilled in us since we were little, telling us that we were less than that.
45:33
We didn’t realize that these came like. These were like total, like colonial, imperialist mindsets that were just brought down generation to generation. That really did like trigger drinking, like I was talking about my hair the other day to someone and I was thinking that when I was little my mom would take me to the Dominican salon and put hair relaxer in my hair just to get it straight, when, mind you, all I need is water in a little brush. But to my mom it was so like, oh my gosh, this is so critical that she would have to take me to the Dominicans. And there was this language use of pelo bueno versus pelo malo good hair, bad hair.
46:08 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yep.
46:09 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
And I genuinely had grown to believe that there was something bad about my hair or my skin color, because I came out like my dad, who was a black Cuban, like just being told when I was little, to stay out of the sun and things like that, because you didn’t wanna get too old schooled, I didn’t wanna get too dark and those little things still would feed into my dream because, as I had low self-esteem, I thought that the things that made me black or made me worse and no, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that but I really did internalize that and I remember I used to think that I was less pretty, say, than other Latina girls, because I had the darker features and the curlier hair, and it’s so false.
46:52
But that was doing exactly what it was meant to, which was keep me small, keep me drunk, keep me invisible.
46:59 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
It’s breach. I can resonate with that. Growing up with, my mom is Creole and so she’s more fair skin with straight hair, and all my cousins on my mom’s side light skin, curly hair, which I wanted because that was good hair, you know that was. Which is so interesting, how across cultures one thing is so desired and the other is not. And then there’s my dad, who is darker and family on that side is darker and wanting to try to fit in on the one side and feeling like an outcast on the one side. And then there goes the Utah white. Oh, that was the killer. Like growing up in, and you know, predominantly white community.
47:39
But I would also hear my parents using that same dialect when they were on business calls. So I was like, well, is I talk business? I don’t know. You know like, no, actually I have a. I have the dialect of the secretary and an appraiser. That’s what it is like a business owner.
47:53
So there was all those messages which, yes, they affect your self-worth. I didn’t realize until I got into recovery that as much as I liked myself and thought I was cute and friendly and funny and pretty, and I’m like, yes, I have a good smile, I didn’t value myself. So it didn’t matter how cute I thought I was, it didn’t matter how funny I was, I had no value and that was something that I had to address. And I’m still learning how to address and be accepting of who I am, the way that I like things and how I feel about myself, learning that everybody’s not gonna like me. And that is a healing journey, because when you are the only one in the room, when you are the tallest one, the darkest one, the only one with braids, then you go to your family and you’re the one that talks white. And then you go to your church and you’re the one that talks white and you go to these. You start to wanna try to shape and shift and you don’t really accept. You just wanna try to fit in. And that is what I’m moving away from being okay with the fact that everybody doesn’t have to like me.
49:04
My coach said if everybody likes you, you’re doing something wrong, Kiola, like, if you don’t have at least one person who’s like oh, I can’t stand you, then you’re probably being nice and you’re not being kind. Being nice is wearing a mask of like. Hey, everything’s always good. Kind is I care about humanity, I care about people and I will tell you also the truth. And the truth sometimes hurts and that’s okay, but I need to focus on being kind, kind to myself, valuing myself, knowing that I don’t have to fit in, and also accepting. That mindset caused some of my anxieties. Also, I’m a person with anxiety, but that didn’t help, it didn’t lessen it when I felt awkward and felt different and it’s one of the reasons that when I walk into that space that is 99% black folks I just like, I just sit back and I’m just like I’m at, I’m home. Oh, it feels so good, it feels so freeing.
50:06 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and you know, the people pleasing comment is just so funny too, because I can completely resonate with that.
50:12
And you know, and that’s the thing it’s like at a certain point, going back to survival mode, right, like for us, like our mothers, our Grandmothers, they had the people pleased to stay alive because not only were you a woman, you were a woman of color, you were a black woman in America. Like you had to make sure that people were liking you, for you to be just safe, right, and and that that’s wild, because again, we in a we’re in a place of privilege and like that in 2023, like it’s okay, Kiola Raines does not need to be liked by everybody, right, and that’s definitely a gift and I think that that can absolutely empower recovery. And it’s just wild, too, because I Don’t think that I there’s no way I would have done this much personal development work if I hadn’t had to get sober. So there’s times, like you know, there’s people who will ask me like, do you ever wish that you like had just been quote-unquote normal, which even like normal doesn’t mean anything anyway?
51:03
But yeah at this point. No, like I I’m not. Like I didn’t sign up for this life. But now that it’s mine, I am so grateful for it because I I can’t see my brain Living under any other like construct anymore. Like this idea of like is like leaving the alcohol behind To give myself the gift of clarity to have these conversations with other people. Like I wouldn’t change this for the world, and if it meant that I had to go through a hell of some hard years, that’s okay, because I’m here on the other side of it.
51:37 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yep, ah that. I agree with that completely. This is our thing. I’m so glad this is my thing.
51:45
I was always into this growth mindset and and the whole personal development world, and what that means for me or confirms for me, is my spirit and my soul knew that, like you need to grow, you need to look at these things, you need to get into therapy. I’m the first person in my family that went to therapy. We we needed it, lord knows we needed it, but my mom didn’t know that that was a tool. She didn’t know that was a resource, so it was something that was like always in me to search for, and Getting the alcohol out of the way was the big obstacle that let me live this way. You know being called to teach and be an educator. There’s that desire. Like you are a lifelong learner, you’re always looking for knowledge and seeking knowledge and ways to connect, but we have this bottle that was in the way from allowing us to grow and develop and I agree with you. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made. I, like I said, I have no shame. I’m so proud to be in recovery.
52:51
I think that there are a lot of people who need the support that we have, not for substances necessarily, for other things going through a divorce, having a child with special needs, recovering from financial Challenges, mental health, all kinds of things. We have not gotten stuck in that cycle. We have found communities and Friends and social circles that we can connect with and tools for us to grow. I, when I first started recovery, I used to always say Everybody needs to do the 12 steps, like everybody needs to do them for something. Everybody needs to look at where they are, where they want to be, how they got where they are and dig, peeled out. You know, dig a little deeper, peel some layers back and learn how they can grow and evolve. Everyone, every single person, could benefit from that, that self-discovery and that personal development. So this is, this is our thing and I’m I’m glad that this is our thing.
53:54 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Me me too. So, to wrap up, I had a question Are you currently taking clients and, if so, who should be looking for you and how can they find you to work with?
54:05 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Who should be looking for me. So, yes, and you should be looking for me if you are open to using fitness and nutrition to support your sobriety. So if you’re someone that Loves to move or would love to learn how to move, if you’re someone who wants to learn how to incorporate nutrition into your sobriety and your recovery journey. I Work with predominantly women. I’m not opposed to taking on a male client here and there, but you have to be willing to take directions from a woman, you have to be willing to take guidance from a woman, and I’m really moving towards folks who are open to working in 90 day to six month coaching cycles. I’m not looking for 30 day at a time. I’ve learned that the work that I’m doing and the work that you need to do takes time to implement, and so, starting in January specifically, that’s gonna be the programming that I’m offering 90 days and six months of coaching, implementing fitness and nutrition for sobriety and how can people say like reach out to maybe learn more?
55:21 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
is it your website, your Instagram?
55:22 – Kiola Raines (Guest)
Yeah, yeah both of those Kiola Raines calm. If you go to my website, there’ll be a link for free consultation, and that link is also in my Instagram as well. I think all of my handles are KiolaRaines. I try to make it real, real simple. Just find me there. Thank you so much for having me on.
55:44 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
I always appreciate a good conversation with you. Mind you, I see you all the time online, but still, it’s nice to like sit and just talk with no interruptions. Yes, hey, if you are enjoying what you are listening to, I invite you to subscribe and share the podcast, but also go to my website, bottomless to sober calm, and find out other opportunities to work with me, from free workshops to Writing classes to one-to-one life coaching opportunities. You can schedule a free consultation for that. Everything is available at bottomless to sober calm. See you then.
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