In this episode:
Join me as I candidly share personal experiences, answering powerful questions from a recent Q&A that touch on self-confidence, sobriety, moderation, and the complexities of dating without the influence of substances. It is a conversation that celebrates the small yet significant choices that forge the path to reclaiming not just sobriety, but also the self-esteem that addiction often corrodes.
Resources:
Six-Week Writing to Heal Program – Starts June 3rd!
Book Study: It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolynn
Ngl Link – Get folks to ask you questions anonymously.
Transcript:
Hey everyone, for today’s episode, I wanted to share some of the questions that I got asked at a Q&A that I had recently on Instagram. I thought the questions were really powerful questions that would be helpful for anybody listening to the podcast as well. So I’m going to go ahead and go through those questions and just talk about them, because I think that asking questions and feeling safe to ask questions is so important. So if you ever have a random question, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me by email. You can find my email on my website, bottomlesstosober.com, but my email
01:17
So, with that being said, the questions were basically kind of, I would say, in four different topics. So we had relationship to self, sobriety, marijuana and moderation. I had some questions about dating and then also about being in recovery in the workplace, right. So the first question relating to relationship to self I was asked or this was the person’s question. This was also, by the way, anonymous. So there’s a really cool link and I’ll share it in the show notes where you can ask people to ask you questions anonymously.
01:52
So this first question was I have zero confidence in self-trust. How do you have it Right? And wow, what a great question. But I’ll be very honest, I had no confidence to begin with either, and there’s still times today where I have to kind of like remind myself of who the hell I am. You know what I mean, because it’s very easy to slip into old patterns of questioning myself, doubting myself, thinking that I’m not good enough. You know, these are things, these are thoughts that I would say have been core beliefs for me, and so I’ve had to do a lot of intentional work to counter them.
02:30
You know things that help usually, when you stop drinking, you have very low self-esteem because of the fact that you have been living a life of addiction. So you’re probably doing a shit ton of things that you are not proud of, and that is okay. Right, that is the nature of addiction. You’re going to do things that don’t make sense. You’re going to displease yourself, displease your family, right? You’re not like. You’re not like on top of the world by the time that you decide that you need to change your relationship with alcohol and other drugs, right, like, let’s be honest. So it’s totally fair that you don’t even trust yourself, because you’re like, if all of my decisions were fueled by this addiction, how the hell am I going to make a good decision? Right, it makes total sense, I hear you. And so what helped me to build some confidence was doing little things every day that I knew that I could accomplish. Right, Again, being addicted will have you convinced that you cannot make a single good decision, because you don’t make good decisions when you’re under the influence.
03:30
Right, you don’t make good decisions under a life of addiction. But the first solid decision that you can use as evidence to start building that self-trust with yourself is the decision to change your life. Maybe you’re not totally sober yet, right, like, you might be listening to this episode and you’re, you know might be on, like your 10th of day, one which I hear you, I used to have many day ones. I always tell people I decided to stop drinking in September of 2019. And my last drink was November of 2020. That’s 14 months of trying to stop. So if any of you are sitting there like, oh my gosh, you know, I don’t know if I’m going to stop you will, you just have to keep going. If the second you stop trying, you’re done. But if you keep trying at some point, this is going to stick right.
04:13
So the first solid decision that you can lean on as evidence of I so-and-so can make good choices is the choice to start to make your life better. So if you’re ever doubting yourself, lean on that. And then any little day that you can add onto that day, that is evidence of good decision-making. The decision to go to eat some ice cream as opposed to drive into the liquor store that is evidence of good decision-making. The decision to get on a meeting and listen as opposed to go drink some wine that is evidence of good decision-making. So, literally, look at your daily choices, your hourly choices, and that is where you will find the evidence that you can make good decisions, and that is, little by little, how you build confidence and trust in yourself. It does not happen overnight, and if you struggle to identify this for yourself, find someone who’s going to help you do it. Does that mean you need a therapist? Does that mean you need a coach? Does that just mean you need a good friend? Whatever you need, go find it If you can’t generate these ideas for yourself. But you should not be sitting there thinking that you are this living being that cannot make a single good choice, because that is not true. There’s absolutely counter evidence to that.
05:34
So, moving on to the next question, which so now I’m kind of moving into topics of sobriety, marijuana and moderation. So this next question that I was asked was what would you say to people who can’t imagine living in the world without numbing with some sort of substance? What did you do? What do you do now? To be in the place that you’re in? It just sounds impossible, honestly, and I don’t think about living in the world forever without some sort of substance. I just have to get through today, and when I was early on in my journey, that was literally all that I needed to worry about. I just needed to make a plan between now and going to bed so that I didn’t have to numb.
06:22
I also wanna recognize that numbing takes many shapes and forms. So again, if you found me, if you’re listening to this, chances are that your version of numbing involves alcohol, maybe other substances, right, but I wanna recognize that, like people numb with food, people numb with shopping, people numb with sex, people numb with, like, serial dating, people numb with the internet, right, there’s lots of ways to numb. But since this question is with regard to a specific substance, right, I just tell myself I just had to get through today. I cannot tell myself I’ll never numb myself again and I still don’t play around with the nevers. It’s just not my thing. I don’t like putting the word never in my vocabulary.
07:04
I don’t think that I am this higher power that can determine outcomes. I don’t determine outcomes, I just put in my best effort on a daily basis, right, the outcomes are not up to me. So, even with sobriety, I just say I just need to not do this today, and I know that that might not be the most exciting response to that question. But if I start to think about the future, that’s not even here, right, because for some of you who are worried about oh my gosh, what if I never drink again? Let’s be honest you don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know if we’re going to be here tomorrow. So, rather than taking our energy and stressing about a tomorrow that might not come because we don’t know what the future holds, let’s just keep it simple and let’s just worry about today. That is the treasure that you have today. Tomorrow, we don’t even know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s going to happen. And then every day, the days add up, the time passes. Also, I’m going to be honest Earlier on, there was no way that I was going to and this is my personal experience and not medical advice but earlier on, there was no way that I was going to get through my early sobriety without the assistance of a psychiatrist and medication.
08:20
I had been living my life with no clue that I had bipolar two disorder. So to go from self-medicating with alcohol forever to suddenly not having it and not yet having been taught coping skills to deal with my emotions and just kind of like out there, like raw dogging life no way, I was not going to do that without medication. So I want to recognize that also, I had tools, and so for those of you who might need to explore your toolbox, this is a great opportunity. Do I need to see a physician? Do I need to see a psychiatrist who knows a little bit about addiction and how to treat it? Right? That was fueling my drinking or other drug use, right? These are really important questions to ask yourself.
09:07
So, if you have stopped and the world feels like this absolutely intolerable place to be I want to share you don’t have to sit in intolerable feelings. You shouldn’t be suffering for the sake of getting sober, and so don’t hesitate, talk to a physician. I did, and it completely changed my life. Eventually, I learned how to use coping skills. Eventually, I learned how to regulate my body. So I don’t take medications anymore, and I’m not saying that’s going to be your story necessarily, but what I’m saying is that if you break your leg, you’re going to need a cast, and you’re going to be your story necessarily. But what I’m saying is that if you break your leg, you’re going to need a cast and you’re going to need some crutches, and then eventually, those can sometimes come off. Typically they do Right. So, likewise, if you need something to assist you through this early period. There’s no shame in that. Like I said, I openly talk about the fact that I use meds all the time. No shame, no problem with it. Wouldn’t have done it any other way.
10:09
So the next question what are your thoughts on marijuana? Are people in alcohol recovery okay with others using marijuana? So how other people recover really is not my business, and I hope that you surround yourself with people who also aren’t trying to tell you how to recover. Everybody has to find their own right way to recover, right? With that being said, I will not use marijuana. I will not use other mind altering substances.
10:39
But again, I just finished saying that I was using psych meds to help me with getting sober in the beginning. So who the hell am I to say that my chemical is better than yours? Right, like, I chose my substance to help me get off of alcohol. For some people, they do use marijuana to help them stop drinking. That’s, that’s on them. You have to make whatever choice. You are going to sleep well at night with, right so like. If you go to bed every night and you sleep like a baby, knowing that THC is helping you quit drinking and that works for you, go for it. Right, that was me with my psych meds. I was so grateful to have these tools to help me stay sober.
11:19
Now are there some people who are going to be judgmental? Yes, so, with that being said, understand that whatever decision that you make A it’s your business, but, b when you put it out there, believe me that people are going to chime in with their opinions, right? So you’ve got to recognize that, if you’re going to talk openly about, say, using THC as a part of your alcohol recovery journey, be confident in your decision, because I promise you, someone is going to talk shit about you. That’s all I’m going to say, right? So when you make these decisions, be mindful of what are you keeping private. What is between you and your physician, right? So when you make these decisions, be mindful of what are you keeping private? What is between you and your physician, right? What is between you and your therapist? What is between you and your coach? And then, what are you sharing with others openly? Because, again, people like to be judgmental. People are humans. We’re flawed. We are flawed, beautiful creatures. So just know that there’ll probably be some smoke if you no pun intended. I seriously didn’t mean to say that, but there will be comments made if that is a part of your recovery journey.
12:25
But again, like we anybody who’s been addicted to alcohol and is working on quitting we’re just trying to get to experience this life and be freaking, happy, right and free from that addiction. Again, it is not a part of my. I used it briefly in my time of active addiction. Wasn’t for me, so definitely I had zero interest in using it in recovery Again. I just stuck with a plain old, plain old prescriptions with the doctor and that worked for me. But great, great question. So kind of feeding off of that.
13:01
The next question I got was what are your thoughts on moderation? And I’ll tell you straight up like moderation is not for me, absolutely not. Moderation is a nightmare. The few times that I tried it was because I was in denial about my addiction to alcohol and I thought that if I could control it, that I could somehow prove to myself that I didn’t really have a problem and I would only try and do it, just to end up crashing and burning, crashing and burning. So no, thank you, not my interest.
13:34
I would rather just not drink, and I mean I even remember when I was in my active addiction. Right. If I would go to a happy hour, say, with my colleagues, I wouldn’t even drink, because you know they’re all sitting there and they’re nursing their one drink because they just drink like people without addictions. So they just have the one that they sit for like an hour and I knew that I would just want to scarf mine down. So I would rather drink nothing than have one drink. And you know there’s in 12 step spaces.
14:03
I’ve heard the saying it’s one is too many and a thousand is never enough. And let me tell you that that is such truth right there. Like AA is not my thing. I’m not a fan of 12-step programs. For myself they do great for other people it’s just not my thing. But man, if you ever had a more powerful saying that one right there, is it right. So no, thank you.
14:27
And here’s the thing I didn’t drink for the taste, right Like I drank to obliterate my consciousness. And so you know, like one of the funny things that I see, or like my reaction say to how nowadays, you know, like mocktails are so popular and people love their alcohol-free wines, I don’t want any of that shit, to be honest, because I never liked, I never cared how alcohol tasted anyway. So you know, I’m the sober person that just drinks a lot of water and coffee because I don’t really care for mocktails. I never, I never, wanted something that tasted good and yummy. I just wanted to, like you know, stop existing mentally for for a while, for the rest of the day. So, yeah, I, moderation is a big no for me.
15:16
I have seen, you know, I used to work at the reframe app, and the reframe app is a community that offers an alcohol-free version and then like an alcohol-free track and then a moderation track, and I have seen people who have successfully moderated. With that said, I don’t know what it’s like to walk in their shoes and I don’t know if they’re like white knuckling it to just keep it to the one to two drinks. Or, you know, if you are successfully moderating, were you really addicted in the first place, right? Those are great questions to explore that I don’t have time to have a conversation about, but food for thought. If you hear of people who say that they decided to change their relationship with alcohol and they’re now moderating, I want you to consider that maybe the extent of their problems with alcohol may not be as extreme as yours, right, and so recognizing that, again, everyone walks their own path and how other people recover is their business, not our business. So again, if that works for them, great. But again, this question was asked to me. So no, I will not moderate and I will not consider it. It is not an option, it sounds like hell. So no, thank you, all right.
16:23
Next question oh wait, sorry, and I had another thought too, on the moderation part. If you are genuinely addicted to alcohol, right, and you keep trying to moderate because you realize, like if you don’t drink anything you feel like you’re dying, call a doctor. Alcohol withdrawal is actually incredibly dangerous and it can be deadly. I’m not playing around like, look it up on Google. And so if you are having these very wild symptoms, like if you’re feeling like your heart is palpitating and you are shaking uncontrollably and like your stomach is turning into this knot, that cannot undo itself, please, please, please call a doctor. If you’re not even sure, just call a doctor. It is much better to withdraw from alcohol safely and under medical supervision than to try to do this on your own and potentially risk hurt. Again, not medical advice, but I am telling you to get in touch with a medical professional.
17:24
Anyway, the next question that I got was about dating and it was where did you go to meet people and did you only look for sober people? So I met my current partner on Bumble. So, yay, go Bumble, and we’re, I guess, a solid year and a half in moving into two years soon. I was not about going outside and trying to meet people. I’m just going to be honest, like I mean, yes, I go outside and say to the salsa events, but that’s actually not where I would want to meet like my future partner at. So that’s, that’s that. I was just like no, I will meet people online because I’m not going out to meet people and I work on a college campus, so most people are either way younger than me or they are already like married, et cetera, and I and actually I met my partner before this job. So I’m digressing, but anyway. So I use Bumble.
18:20
And when I first started dating, about a year after I got sober, I’ll tell you how my mindset about dating shifted too. So initially I was like I’m not dating anybody who’s in recovery, because I was like the only person who I’m trusting is me. But again, if you all know my story right, like I had a partner who passed away from his own addiction as a direct cause of his addiction. So in my mind I was like hell, no, I’m not subjecting myself to that shit again. And I was like I will not date anybody who’s in recovery. I will only date somebody who has like no addiction history, right and um.
18:57
So then as I dated people, you know, I found a lot of people who do consume substances, but pretty much most of them are balanced, et cetera. Like maybe a drink here on occasion. Um, I went out briefly, like on a couple of dates, with somebody who smoked a lot of marijuana and I was like, no, like this really is your life Like that. That’s not going to work for me. Um, but I eventually landed with my partner and my partner pretty much is a non-drinker. You know, again, we’ve been together a year and a half, knocking on two years, and literally I have seen him consume two drinks this entire time and they were like little, not mocktails, they were cocktails, like when we were like once on vacation and once on his birthday, and like that was it. And you know, I was like why don’t you want to have more? Once on vacation and once on his birthday and like that was it. And you know, I was like why don’t you want to have more? And he’s like I don’t like how that makes me feel Hilarious, right, and what a novelty. But anyway, yeah, I I, by the time I met my partner, I will be honest, I was more open to meeting someone in recovery, but I feel like I would have to feel that they were very steady in their, in their program and whatever program they were doing for themselves in terms of, like their self-care, their community, like are they actively engaged in community, et cetera.
20:10
But I ended up not with another person in recovery and that works just fine with me. And the reason, like I said, that initially I was sort of anti-dating people in recovery was because I was afraid of someone else relapsing. You know I had seen how much I relapsed and then I had my partner who relapsed and passed away. So I was like, oh hell, no, these relapses, they’re guaranteed. I’m not dealing with someone else’s relapse Now. I don’t feel that same way. I have enough evidence to counter that belief. I know enough people in long-term recovery to know that people really can, you know, recover and stay away despite like life doing the most horrid things to them. So you know, if I ever were single again, I would be open to dating someone in recovery, but they would definitely have to be like a solid, steady person, definitely not someone in early recovery. Hell to the no.
21:00
If you are in early recovery, run from relationships, just run. Or you can read my story and learn from my experience. Don’t date in early recovery. That’s my personal tidbit. Again, life will teach you Otherwise. If you don’t want to follow my suggestion, you go for it and you’ll see what life will teach you.
21:29
But anyway, my next question that I got pretty similar. Just, this person was worried that they’ll never be in a relationship with a person who’s in recovery because of their own experience. But then they also worry that they can’t have an intimate experience with a normie, a person without an addiction, because they could never understand. And again, I pretty much addressed a lot of this. But I do want to say if you are entering the dating arena and you are in recovery and you’re kind of like, I don’t really want to date another person in recovery, I just want to share, it is your right to date whoever the hell you want to date, right Like you, don’t owe the recovery community anything by dating only within the recovery community, right? Like there’s no obligation, there’s no contract that you signed upon getting sober where you have to be with other sober people. Be with who you want to be, period, that’s it right. And give yourself permission to change your mind also Right. So if you want to go in with kind of like a specific mindset, just give yourself permission to change your mind, that’s all right.
22:29
Again, if you date someone in early recovery and like you’re in early recovery and they’re in early recovery, it’s a recipe for disaster. I promise you that. That is all I will say. It’s not, it is. There’s so much that can go wrong and I would hope that things go right for you and I would love to be proven wrong. If you’re listening to this and you have some opposite evidence to show me, please do. Please counter my belief, because my belief is pretty set in stone that two people in early recovery don’t usually have a great start. I know eventually things can change for them. But yeah, feel free to send me an email and counter my belief with your beautiful story. I might even want to have you as a guest on the podcast, right? So feel free to counter my belief.
23:14
But, moving on, I have last two questions and they’re both related to recovery in the workplace. So the first one is does it make you nervous to talk about addiction so openly while being in education? Because, again, my day job, right, I work at a university with college students, very closely with them, and the answer to that is I’m not nervous about it at all, right, when I interviewed for my current role, I was asked my why, why are you applying to work here? And I literally opened with the fact that I’m in recovery. My drinking started in college and I want to work with college students to make an impact where I didn’t have that adult who was openly out in recovery. That’s that I would hope that any educational space would see me as an asset. However, if someone, if a hiring, if an HR department, were to look at me and then Google me and see all that I do and be like, oh no, we can’t have her here, then fine, right, Like, if an employer hires me, they hire all parts of me. If they want to hire me and then expect me to like not talk about sobriety, not talk about recovery, et cetera, then I don’t want to work there anyway. So I do speak openly because I do want to repel the people that don’t need to be around me and I want to bring in and attract the people who want this kind of energy. So if an employer, if a university is like, oh no, no, we can’t hire her, bye, that’s fine, I don’t need to work with you anyway.
24:44
And then my last question was would I ever go back to the classroom like a K through 12 classroom, because I used to be a middle school teacher. So to be clear, right, I am in education, but at the collegiate level. But no, I would absolutely not go back to K through 12 teaching, not at this point. I would say I did good work. I taught in public schools for 13 years, busted my tail, I did damn good work and there’s nothing left for me to prove by going back Like I’m good, I’m done. You know that was when the worst of my drinking happened and that’s when some of the best work that I ever did happen as well. And I don’t need to rewrite that narrative there. I’m good.
25:28
I also think, like you know, I live in Florida and there’s so much at risk for just opening your mouth and speaking some truth here, where I would not last like probably a couple of weeks in a in a Florida classroom. But even in Kentucky, where I used to teach, or New York, I just I don’t have an interest in going back into a profession specifically K through 12 teaching where teachers are villainized so much. Now I don’t have that battle in me. You know like I would go back if I wanted to go back in and be like fighting for change and affecting change and things like that. But you know, one of the biggest things that has helped me with staying sober is realizing that a lot of the system is fucked up and it not that it’s just me, like a thousand me’s can make a difference, but I have to also really be careful with my energy. You know what I mean and I know that there are a lot of people who are mobilizing and fighting good fights and the way in which I’m supporting those good fights today might look like donating money as opposed to showing up physically and fighting those fights. I feel like if I were in a public school setting, I would probably be wanting to show up physically to fight these fights, right, and I don’t have that in me anymore and I recognize that I used to like in 2018, 2017, even 2019, like I absolutely was a teacher helping mobilize and like run protests up on the state Capitol and all this stuff, and I don’t have that in me anymore. So, no, I know, I know what my limits are and that is not it.
27:10
So with that, I hope that you got something out of this Q and a. If you have any other questions, reach out to me, please. But yeah, I will catch you on the next episode and again, sign up for the book study. Sign up for the writing class. You don’t have to envision yourself as a writer, a good writer or anything right Like come and freaking, get that story out off your chest. Amounts of paper. But yeah, I will catch you all on the next episode. Bye.
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