In this episode:
I share a recent talk I gave at a treatment facility for women about finding and using your voice to recover. I discuss the terrifying experience of almost being exposed by a former friend/love interest and how I turned that fear into courage. I also share the effects of intergenerational silence on mental health, and I emphasize the power of breaking the generational silence, encouraging you to reclaim your voice and use it as an essential tool in your recovery journey.
Resources:
Free Writing Workshop on Christmas Eve
New Year’s Eve Self-Forgiveness Workshop
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. Hi everyone. So I was invited by my fellow sober sister, Kiola Raines, to share my story at a women’s treatment facility, specifically at their graduation ceremony, and sharing my story there was really powerful, and so I decided to go ahead and record it as a podcast episode, because I think that the message that I gave to those women is really applicable to anyone who is struggling to maybe find their voice, and so this episode is for you. If you have been struggling with tapping into your voice, if you are like, oh my gosh, why can’t I talk about these things, this is for you. So I invite you to get comfortable. Close your eyes, pretend that you are at a point of a transition. At the time of this recording, it is December, so we are getting ready to face 2024. But even if you listen to this at some point in the future, it doesn’t matter. We’re always at a transition point because we’re always evolving. So, with that being said, I’ll go ahead and share what I said to this group of women. Hello everyone, good evening and congratulations to this graduating class of the Alcoholism Center for Women. Getting sober during the holiday season is no simple feat, and I do commend all of you on planting seeds today that will blossom into strong, firmly planted and beautiful flowering trees later.
01:49
It was actually during the holiday season of 2019 when a former friend, slash complicated love interest, who is a journalist, threatened me in the middle of an argument to out me to the public. He was very angry with me because he had pulled me, in a nearly blacked out state, from an abusers apartment after I had called him to help me get out right and when he wanted to take me into a treatment facility, I was refusing to go. Mind you, I did end up going into the facility the following day, but at that moment I was very under the influence and I was angry and I did not want to go. I just needed to get out of that apartment space. So this man with his thousands of online followers turned to me and said how would you like it if I outed you right now to everyone on Twitter? Maybe I should go ahead and do that. He knew he was hitting me where it hurts with that threat because at the time I was titled the Kentucky State Teacher of the Year, so I had a lot to lose Because of my work as an educator.
02:51
I hid my addiction from everyone possible, so the very idea of someone telling my story without my consent was terrifying. What would others think of me? Would I lose my job? Would my students and their families turn their backs on me? My family and friends? And what about my mother? She had always been so proud of me. My sister and I are her American Dream children. What would my immigrant mother say to me if I was outed?
03:18
Mental health issues and addiction were not open topics for discussion for the women in my family, though I was raised not to talk about those issues. I’m here to tell you that that type of silence can be deadly for us. That type of silence where we don’t talk about what’s hurting our spirits is 100% a breeding ground for shame, which creates isolation. And then we start to believe the stories in our heads. Right the voices that are telling us things like I’m a terrible mother, I don’t deserve this opportunity or I’m not worthy of connection, I can’t do any better, so I’m going to stick through with this terrible relationship. Right these stories. When we start to believe them, turn us to want to numb with alcohol, other substances or behaviors and eventually we lose ourselves. My hope for you, as you transition to whatever your next step is on your recovery journey, is that you find your voice and, once you find it, that you never let it go. Your voice is going to be your tool for liberation from active addiction.
04:33
So the question comes up where did the silencing of women’s voices come from, anyway, right? So from my experience, my grandmother living in a Latin American country, my grandmother was from Nicaragua, where women had no rights. She protected herself and her children from the heavy hands of her husband at that time by staying silent, right. My mother was then born into that code of silence and carried it into the United States when she migrated here, and though my mother did not suffer from abuse at the hands of my father, for her she was undocumented, she was an unwelcome immigrant in a foreign country where she did not speak English right, and so, for my mother, she relied on silence to help her to not be seen and to avoid getting sent back. The less attention that she drew to herself the better. Even when she was struggling and needed help, right, just keeping that low radar was so important for her. Using resources from my mother would have meant possibly disclosing her status, so it just was not an option for her to get help, and I grew up witnessing her quietly carry everything that hurt her. And as I grew into a woman, she expected me, her US-born child, to do the same, and for years I did think that silence served me.
06:03
As I struggled to balance my life with my addiction, I found ways to cope with the shame. I worked harder for everyone but me. I worked to be the best teacher, the best employee and the best at everything that I tried to do, because it helped me sleep at night. I spent years at happy hours counting others’ drinks so I could pretend to drink like a normal person, when in reality I just wanted to go home, be by myself and drink how I wanted to. I knew I had a problem, but I was taught to not ask for help. And eventually my silence got me alcoholic liver disease, the tool that had once kept my mother, grandmother and the women before them safe. That silence was killing me because it was blocking me from getting help. Something had to change. I had to break the cycle that worked for the women who came before me.
07:09
So what did it take to find that inner voice and speak up? It took becoming willing to break the attachment to the things that staying silent was protecting, those things that staying silent was cocooning and protecting in that bubble. They fueled my drinking and I had to let them go. I had to learn to release things such as my old habit of keeping everything hidden because the idea of being seen as a person with an addiction was paralyzing. I had to let go of the idea that a person with an addiction was not worthy of love and support because I 100% bought into that stigma. Today I understand that whether you are actively struggling with your addiction on day one or day a million, you are as equally worthy of love and support.
07:58
Back then I did not understand that, believing that if I could do more at work for others, get more degrees, get more accolades, that I would have a higher value as a person. I had this idea stuck in my head that working harder at everything but myself would offset how poorly I felt about my drinking, which is not true. I had to release my unhealthy relationship with my brother. They often say blood is thicker than water, while family is not thicker than my peace. I had to learn that settling for breadcrumbs in romantic relationships was something I had to stop doing and let go of because I didn’t think I was worthy of anything better. I had to let go of my career that consumed so much of my time that I could not focus on my recovery and, lastly, I had to let go of worrying what other people thought of me.
09:02
On my day one, which is November 28, 2020, when I realized that I had to clear these things in order to make space for a life of recovery, I decided that it was time to say effort and use my voice. On December 3 of 2020, it wasn’t the journalist who told my story to the world. It was me. I wrote an op-ed article that I published on my terms in a local newspaper, where I told the world exactly who I really was, about my nearly deadly addiction to alcohol, and that I didn’t care anymore what anybody thought of me, because that shame wasn’t going to drown me anymore. I closed that article with the following words from darkness comes light.
09:48
Each day, as I go through this process of choosing life, of choosing to stay sober just for another day, I know I made the best decision ever. My dream is to attain long-term sobriety and I believe one day I will. But just for today, I choose to live in recovery until I fall asleep. I will fight my alcoholism daily. I no longer live in fear of anyone trying to out me. There were times this year I felt ready to die, but here I stand to tell my story of choosing to live. I will live a good life. I will have a family, find peace and still be of service to others, just not in the way I had planned. My mother has a saying in Spanish uno pone y ellos dispone, meaning we can have one plan, but God will have another plan, and I accept that as my journey. And so today I stand proud of who I am and embrace all parts of me. My recovery will no longer be a secret. Instead, it is my story to share, to tell others that we all deserve a fighting chance at a good life, no matter how many times giving up feels like it’s the only way out.
11:09
So I close my article with that piece, and I’m not telling you all here that you need to write newspaper articles and tell the world your business, not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that, in order to find your voice, first, I want you to recognize what role not speaking up has played in your life. What has not speaking up blocked you from Silence may have served the women before you or people before you. Let’s not deny those facts, and I challenge you today to face another truth you are not the women before you and you do not have to do things the way they did to survive and to thrive. What is one way that you will clean your voice as you move into the next phase of your journey after today? Is it a commitment to tell at least one person a day what you’re feeling? Will it be a plan to share in a recovery support group meeting? Do you have a community already picked up for you to participate in, or do you need to find one? What about journaling? Have you put a pen to paper lately? Today’s world will not read your mind and present you with the support you need on a silver platter. Every woman’s journey is going to be different, but at the center of every woman’s journey in recovery is the force of a woman who decided to be the change that she deserved. Thank you again for your time tonight and I’m wishing you all the success in the future.
12:33
So that was the talk that I gave at the graduation and it felt really really good to have kind of like that version of my story. I have been taking writing classes myself to really build on my writing craft, and so that that was very it just felt really good and soothing and healing to the soul. Again, reminders on Christmas Eve I will be doing my free writing workshop. So if you haven’t done that before with me, I totally invite you to come check it out. You can register on my site, bottomlesstosobercom. On December 31st I am doing a self-forgiveness workshop as well, just kind of again having offerings during the holidays, because I know holidays can be tough. And then, of course, you’re always welcome to check out one-to-one coaching and schedule a consultation for that as well.
13:22
So with that, and the funny thing too, speaking of writing, if you noticed, I did pull parts of my previously written story to kind of redo it. So again, it’s just been a really, really, really fun to play around with things I’ve previously written and remaster them, so to speak. So with that, have a lovely day. I hope to see you at some of my upcoming workshops and in the meantime, take care of yourselves and each other. Bye, 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, bottomlesstosobercom, 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 bottomlesstosober.com. See you then.
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