Category: Podcast

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In this episode:

Listen in as I discuss the challenging and sometimes very uncomfortable decisions I’ve made that led me to recovery and, ultimately, saved my life. The journey to recovery has not been easy, as I share about selling my beloved house and moving into my sister’s guest room in Tampa. I also recount how I had to quit my prestigious teaching job and switch to working an entry-level sales job, a decision that, although humbling, was crucial to my recovery. Oh, and dating? My recovery definitely made that interesting.

Tune in as I continue to shed light on the other critical aspects of my recovery journey, including the use of medication and the idea that no matter when and where we start on this path, we are exactly where we need to be.

Resources:

Feeling’s Aren’t Facts: A New Year’s Eve Self-Forgiveness Workshop

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

Hey everyone. So on today’s episode, I wanted to share a list of tough decisions that I have had to make to save my life and recovery. It actually comes inspired by Deisha Kennedy. She’s a financial educator. Her Instagram handle is at the broke black roll and she recently shared a list of tough financial decisions that she had to make that essentially saved her life, and so you know, I found her list incredibly inspiring. So I figured, you know what. Let me do some reflecting and list some of the decisions that I have had to make in my recovery to basically save my own ass. So, with no further ado, here’s that list, right?

00:42
So, number one, I sold the house that I was super proud of buying all on my own in Louisville, kentucky, and I moved into the guest room of my sister’s house in Tampa. So for me, giving up that house that I bought all on my own after having gotten divorced in 2017, it was a huge sacrifice, right? And for me, I grew up in a home where, culturally, we were taught to be quote unquote strong, independent women. Right that we don’t need anybody, and you know, my parents so often emphasize that I was supposed to go to school so that I wouldn’t need anybody else’s help. And yet here I was identifying the fact that I desperately needed someone’s help and that it really wasn’t good for me to live by myself, and I sold the house that was, in a sense, like a dream little house right so that I could move with my big ass dog into my sister’s guest room. But you know what? That allowed me to move into? A home that was full of love, a home full of people who were cheering on my recovery and a home full of support. So I had to make that really, really tough call to lose a space that was online, an actual piece of property whose value would have increased drastically since the pandemic right, and I gave all that up for the sake of having a safe environment. And so I wanted to recognize that that was one of the big decisions, that it was a hard decision but it was a necessary one.

02:10
Number two I quit my job as a teacher in a school that I loved, that was a part of a community that I actually felt really involved in and loved by and accepted by, except they didn’t know I was drinking, right. But I walked away from all that and I had even been named the state teacher of the year in Kentucky the year before and I walked away from all of that in order to start fresh, right. And so when I walked away from my teaching job I don’t talk about it often but like my day job for about two years in my early recovery, I mean I still consider myself to be early on enough, but you know, at the very start my day job was I was a salesperson for a tutoring company and I was an entry level salesperson for a tutoring company, making a little bit above minimum wage as an hourly rate right, going from being like state teacher of the year to that. However, it helped save my life right, because I walked away from a very demanding job that was absolutely exhausting, that, even with all the recognition that I had, I still felt like I struggled to feel successful when my students were constantly being measured against these like standards that were being thrown on us right, and I taught students with disabilities and even though they’re just as successful as their peers, it didn’t always show on tests, right, and those tests directly spoke. Not that they’ve directly spoke, but they directly affected me in terms of my evaluation as a teacher. So for me, I needed to let go of that paperwork, let go of the increasing demands, let go of all the stress and lack of appreciation that teachers overall deal with, even with my accolades again, for the sake of seeking my sobriety, right. So I just want to recognize that like if you’re listening and you’re wondering do I need to walk away from my job? I’m obviously not going to sit here and advise you through a podcast that you need to quit your job, but it is something that you might need to look at right Next up I have, when I started dating again, that I made it a priority to discuss my recovery from addiction very early on with any man who I decided to go out and date with, even if it felt uncomfortable, even if I remember thinking, man, I might miss out on a great opportunity here.

04:31
Right, I still went forward and shared and disclosed my status as a person in recovery because I knew that there is no way that I could build a long, lasting, long term relationship and foundation for a possible family with someone who didn’t know and accept my story fully. That is so important to me. It is so important to me especially because of the work that I do being a life coach for people in recovery, facilitating support group meetings in different communities, openly writing about my story and sharing about my story. There’s no way that you could be the man in my life if you don’t see all of that and see it as an asset. You’ve got to see my recovery as a win. If you look at me and you think I’m a liability, if you look at me and you feel like you don’t trust me, if you look at me and you have your own negative perspective of what recovery looks like, if you buy into the stigma behind addiction, then you’re not the person for me. Frankly, I wanted to know that really really fast. I always brought it up as quickly as possible so that I can clear the path. If you weren’t with it, then you could go and free me up so that I can meet somebody who would see me as a value because of my recovery.

05:54
Next thing on my list is that I accepted medical assistance and I used medication for the first one and a half years of my recovery. I had to let go of that idea that I could do this all by myself and I had to accept that it was okay to work with a licensed medical doctor who can prescribe me something to assist with what I needed, and then, when I no longer felt that I needed it, I worked in conjunction with said licensed professional and let go of the medications. Now, obviously, my journey with medication is not going to be the same as your journey with medication, and just because I have stopped taking medication does not mean that other people need to stop per se. There’s nothing wrong with taking medication long term. It’s just that, for me, I decided that I no longer wanted to take the medications, and the way that I looked at it for myself, in my personal experience, was, if you break a leg and you have a cast, you have crutches. You don’t keep the cast on and you don’t use the crutches for the rest of your life. That’s the way I look at it in my experience for myself. For me, I was, once I felt strong enough in terms of having learned alternate coping tools that had nothing to do with drinking. Once I took the time to design a life that I wouldn’t want to escape from, I figured that I would be good in terms of working on gradually releasing the medication under medical supervision, and I did. Again, not to say that that’s everyone’s experience, but it is mine, and it was very humbling efforts to accept that I probably needed some crutches, that I wasn’t going to do this without the crutches, because I had already been trying for 14 months and repeatedly failing.

07:36
The next big decision that I had to make in terms of supporting my recovery was actually making time in my schedule to show up for my recovery. I clearly was able to manage the logistics of making time in my schedule to drink every single day. That meant that, likewise, I could turn things around and make time in my schedule to go to meetings, to journal, to reflect, to work with Early on. I was in a 12-step program, so I had a sponsor in the beginning. Then eventually, it became mentorship and working with the therapists and coaching. No matter what was going on, I had to dedicate the time to my recovery the same way that I did with my drinking.

08:18
The next big thing that I did was assess my spending. Listen, I used to be such a spender when I drank. I’ll give you an example. I one time when I lived in an apartment before I had built the house, so this was probably around 2016, 2017. No, I’m sorry, I’m giving you the wrong year. Let’s say 2018, approximately. In 2018,.

08:43
There was one day that I had fallen asleep from drinking and when I wake up and I come to, my apartment is full of smoke and there is a man in my apartment who was one of the managing operators of the apartment complex in which I lived in. And apparently I had gotten so drunk and fell asleep to the point that the food that I had cooking in the oven burnt. My apartment had filled with smoke, the smoke alarm had been going off and I noticed neither the smoke nor the alarm. I didn’t hear any of it, I didn’t smell any of it. Nothing woke me up until that man was keyed into my apartment and woke me up out of my sleep, right. So if he hadn’t come in and if that alarm hadn’t like tripped up the security system, could a fire have happened? Absolutely, Could I have died in this fire? Maybe, right, I don’t know, but the fact that it took someone coming into my apartment and waking me up, and that being the only way that I came out of my my like passed out state, speaks a lot. So, anyway, the following day, I had gotten a certified letter from the apartment complex stating that I had a warning and that, if that incident happened again, that I would have my lease revoked and I would have to move out, right. That I would get oh my gosh, I wanna use the word evacuated, but evacuated is not evicted. There we go, that I would get evicted.

10:05
So when that happened, rather than stopping and saying, okay, this is a sign that I need to stop drinking, I became really innovative because people with addictions are incredibly driven people, and when I was still driven to drink and I decided to transition into using Uber Eats and other food delivery services so that that way, I could safely eat when I wanted to eat without risking burning down the house right, and risking burning down the apartment complex. To me, it was an innovative solution to a problem and so but here’s the thing I was on a teacher’s salary, right, and I was my own. I lived by myself, so I took care of all my bills. I was dealing with student loans, et cetera. So my credit card took a big hit because every single night I was ordering Uber Eats, that I was, first of all, barely eating because, as I was getting sick or with alcoholic liver disease, my appetite basically disappeared. However, I still would buy food because I felt like if I forced myself to take a few bites at least. That was doing something right. Doesn’t make sense at all. But that’s drunk math, so to speak. So anyway, over time, after about a year or two years of just buying so many Uber Eats deliveries and then I started doing alcohol delivery as well all those fees, all those charges really really added up and I took a big financial hit.

11:29
So when I stopped drinking, I finally had the courage to actually, like, look at my credit card account and look at my bank account and assess the damage that I had done. That was really hard, that was really really uncomfortable. I’m telling you, right To feel like, oh my gosh, I’m at a negative right, but that was. You can only go up from there if you stop drinking, and that’s how I felt. I was like, well, I’ve got to pick up the pieces financially, create a budget and get on a plan, and so and even to this day, like I have signed up recently for a financial literacy class, and so, as I used to dedicate so much of my money to alcohol, now what I try to do is save. I’m still working on learning about investing and then on occasion, I treat myself within reason to nice things. But I really had to completely overhaul my financial situation, and alcohol made me not give a shit about how much I was spending every single day on food delivery, which was not good at all. So that was a big decision. Another big decision that I had to make was I had to stop telling myself that I was bored every time. Things were quiet when I was drinking alcohol, especially so heavily.

12:44
After my divorce, those few years between my divorce and me quitting drinking, I find myself in romantic relationships with really problematic men. Right, and there was always drama, there was always a conflict, I was always saying something that I couldn’t remember, and then there was always gaslighting happening because people were telling me that things were happening that weren’t maybe necessarily true, but there was no way that I could really hold them accountable because of the fact that I was drunk all the time. So there was just so much chaos in my life that I had gotten accustomed to. And even when I dated Ian, who passed away, obviously we were both sober during the length of our relationship, but then, immediately after he passed away, I spent eight months just in and out of hospitals.

13:30
So for me, my life, I had just gotten used to this sort of like base level line of chaos that in sobriety it went away for the most part and then it was just really uncomfortable to sit with the stillness of some evenings. And sometimes that stillness would lead me to have thoughts that start ruminating and almost like I would just start looking for problems. So I had to really just stop and tell myself that when I was bored that there was nothing wrong with the stillness. Right To not confuse boredom for peace, or rather I think that’s the other way around, so not confuse peace for boredom. Then the last thing on this list that I would say that was really important for me to come to as a decision was to accept that I wasn’t behind quote, unquote anyone else and really embrace that where I was and where I am today is exactly where I’m supposed to be. Right For me.

14:38
There is a lot of ways that if you were to say, compare my personal situation to that of other peoples, it’s very easy to be like, oh yeah, she’s behind, right, because I no longer own property, so I had no home, divorced right, so in theory, behind there in terms of like having a marriage, having a family, no children. So again, especially I mean at that point, when I got sober, I was 35, now I’m 38. But you know, like there are all these societal markers that are external things that you can say that they’re look for is that I was missing and, oh, also being in debt, right. So I had all these things going on where I would start to feel bad for myself and I would start to internalize this idea like, dang, my parents came to this country for me to just be this far behind, right, and I have had to learn to let that go because, frankly, like, yes, I gave up my home, yes, I gave up a job that I was kind of like a little like angel rock star at, so to speak. Like, yes, I was in debt, etc. But you know what y’all like, I can go, eventually I could buy a home again, if eventually I can have a career that I want, right, I can fix my financial situation. But you know what I can’t do? I can’t recover any of that shit if I’m dead because of my drinking. So, at the end of the day, right, it’s like it’s about really just having that very realistic perspective that all those external things don’t matter if I am not alive, and recognizing that I am alive today because I was willing to step away from all those external factors to work on myself.

16:16
So, with that being said, I hope that this podcast episode helped you reflect a little bit on some of the tough decisions that maybe you have had to make, or some decisions that you are sitting with that you might need to complete or move into action. What are they? Feel free to reach out to me and let me know here. Just quick announcement on December 31st I am offering my Feelings Aren’t Facts workshop. It’s a New Year’s Eve workshop on self-forgiveness. It is only $15. If you are interested in work, doing some self-development work with me, I highly recommend it. It’s going to be a beautiful 90-minute workshop where we do some serious reflecting and some writing, where we just kind of set the stage for a beautiful start to 2024. So, with that y’all, thank you so much for listening and I will catch you in the next episode.

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In this episode:

Content Warning: Discussion of pregnancy loss and abortion

As I sat down with Kenneth Watson, known as 12 Faces of Sober, a rush of raw emotions filled the room. His story of struggle, transformation, and the joy of fatherhood took me on a journey that deeply resonated with me. From his past experiences with abortion and miscarriage fueling his addiction, to finding strength and hope in fatherhood and sobriety, Kenneth’s candid revelations served as a powerful testament to human resilience and the invaluable role of a supportive community.

Walking us through the dark alleys of his life, Kenneth was open about his mental health struggles and the impact of his father’s alcoholism. His transition from casual drinking to addiction, taking him through the military, a tumultuous marriage, and multiple rehab stints, was a stark reminder of the havoc addictions can wreak. But it was equally inspiring to see how he found light at the end of this dark tunnel, breaking free from addiction and embracing the joy of fatherhood.

However, our conversation did not stop at his personal journey. We also delved into the larger implications of addiction, highlighting that it knows no racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic boundaries. Kenneth brought forth the necessity for mainstream recovery to be inclusive of people of color, and how sobriety can serve as a rebellion against historical alcohol-induced control mechanisms. Join us on this enlightening journey as Kenneth shares his path to sobriety, the joys and challenges of fatherhood, and the empowering lessons he’s picked up along the way.

Resources:

12 Faces of Sober Site

Follow Kenneth on Instagram

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

Hey everyone. I’m Jessica Dueñas and I’m so, so, so excited to have Kenneth Watson aka 12 Faces of Sober on the show today. We were literally just about to get into the conversation and I was like oh wait, let me hit record, because Kenneth’s wife is literally ready to give birth at any moment. So if this episode abruptly gets stopped, it’s because he had to go to the hospital.

00:53 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
So this is Well. Hello, jessica. Thank you so much for coming, allowing me to come on Bottomless to Sober and share a little little something from my past. I greatly appreciate it and appreciate all what you’re doing in the sober community.

01:13 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Thank you, thank you. So Kenny, like I said, literally his wife is due at any moment now, which is really really exciting. And you know, kenny and I have had opportunities to talk a little bit like on and off, probably over the past, like year and a half, maybe two years at this point, and you know, I remember like when we both talked about like relationships and dating and all of this, and boom out of nowhere, kenny’s married, there’s a baby on the way. So tell us a little bit about that because I think, like for anybody who’s followed you, whatever you’re comfortable sharing, of course, but yeah, like Kenny, what’s been going on? Mr Soon, to Be Sober Dad, this is beautiful.

01:52 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
I met my wife. Let me see, five years ago I was on one of my many I made it a point early in sobriety to, you know, travel and go to sporting events. And I was in Cleveland, actually, at Chargers, chargers, cleveland Browns game, and she had posted something Well, actually it was a black, a black vegan group on Facebook. And so they were like, hey, you know, post the post a picture of you know guys wearing the suits. I was like, shoot, you know, I’m doing community work or whatever. So posted it and you know, got a few likes and everything. So I’m going through.

02:32
It was like all right, well, I’m single, so let’s see. And so she was one of the first persons that I actually, you know, slid in the DM and she responded. So I was like all right, cool, so we hit it off, you know, no kids, both while I was in completion of my master’s degree, because she also had a master’s degree. So it was a lot of things you know as far as that. And so she’s, you know, we’ve been together Like I think it just I think, yeah, this past.

03:07
I think it was October, october, 14, may, five years when we first met, and then this upcoming February will be our first year anniversary of being married and probably, you know, people are probably wondering like, where did this come from? How to let feel. But I, you know, I told I made it a point to be very careful in terms of my relationship. You know, being posted on social media, learning from my past mistakes during the days of drinking, and other people on social media chiming in on my mess. You know my mistakes and mishaps, so that was more or less where I didn’t really do it. You know I’m not ashamed of my wife. I love her to death, but it, you know, I just there was times where I shared, you know, things on there, but I just felt like right now that’s not the goal at hand, and so a lot of people who were definitely surprised when I started posting certain things, but I just felt like I didn’t want that you know part of it to be, you know, in my life.

04:09
But we more or less like I don’t know, like we knew we were going to get married. We proposed, I proposed to her, like I think it was a couple of years ago and you know we took a little time off to you know, get ourselves together and then we got.

04:25
You know, she came to Minnesota in December and then the baby came, you know, and it was like, all right, well, let’s go ahead and push the waiting date up a little bit. And so we got married in April and but we were going to probably get married within, probably like within the year. You know, that was a plan even before the baby was, even, you know, a thought. We were going to do it. So but, yeah, but as far as that like it, I’m not going to lie to you. My a part of my past drinking was from situations you know, dealing with an abortion in 2008.

05:01
A miscarriage in the year that I don’t want to mention, but you know, just it, it, it. I knew that there was a part of me that always wanted to have a child, even, you know, dating back to when I was 14, being in the first pregnancy situation. And so to go all those years not having, you know, having a child, and now, you know, having one of my own. It’s truly a blessing. It surpasses anything thus far within my sobriety of almost seven years.

05:33 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
So powerful Congratulations. I know a big question that I’m sure people wonder right, especially with conversations around relationships. Obviously your wife is pregnant, so I know she’s nine months sober, for sure, but is she a non-drinker, or what does that look like for you all in your dynamic?

05:52 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
I got lucky. I got lucky. Yes, well, I’m not going to lie. You know she has you know, drank. You know, I think she drank last year, but that was on our separation time, so I can’t hold that against her. But no, our, our home is is 100% alcohol free as long as, even when we were, you know, in Jacksonville and you know she was, you know, staying with me there there was no alcohol.

06:19
It didn’t matter who my guests were, you know so that the good thing about it is is that you know with our family.

06:25 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Now you know our son is going to.

06:28 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
You know, we’ll be born into a sober household. Like I said, my wife I’ve never seen my wife drink and I don’t plan on it. So if she drinks outside of me that’s her business, but she doesn’t. I’ve never, not once, seen her drink in five years.

06:42 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, well, that’s super powerful. And, again, like I, I am so stinking happy for you because it’s like I know we’ve been having these conversations over, like I said, the last year and a half, two years. At this point, so to hear that is is really, really awesome. Um, you know, one of the things that you mentioned that kind of like being careful and past relationships and kind of like some of some of the loss that you’ve experienced in the past what are some of like the hopes that you have? Like now that you’re looking at parent, like this is a whole new level of sobriety right. Like now you’re looking at parenthood, like I know for me, I hope to get there at some point. You know that’s something that I have like come around to deciding, like it’s something I want and obviously it’s not just the matter of hopefully when and if right. But I’m curious, like what are like your hopes? Like now you’re about to be a father, you’re about to have a son.

07:36 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Right just to be the best father possible. My father was in my life and to all my friends. They thought that we were like the Cosbeads, but it’s like nah. We got our own type of issues and I witnessed my father abuse alcohol, so I know that.

07:58
I don’t want my son to ever see me intoxicated, because I saw that as a kid. From as far as I can remember, I can remember my dad drinking. I can remember issues with the police. So those are definitely two things that I don’t want my son to witness. I know that it’s no longer. I know that once I got married it was no longer about me. Now I have my wife to think about and my son to think about.

08:25
So just a different thought process. I’m not gonna lie to you. I’ve been a stepfather. I’ve dated women who’ve had kids and of course, your thought process isn’t the same, because these aren’t your kids. Yeah, they may respect you, they may not respect you, but those are still not your kids at the end of the day. And so for me, I guess I just, I just wanna I’m glad you asked that, because I just text two of my close friends from college and I was like they’re both fathers and I’m like, man, can you give me any type of advice? Man, like I got, my anxiety is just crazy right now. And they’re just like stay prayed up and there’s no right or wrong way to do it, but just be present in your child’s life. And I was like that’s all I’m trying to do and the good thing is I’m not working. So it’s like if my wife needs to rest I can do whatever, even if she’s at work. We don’t have to pay to do daycare because I’m at home all day.

09:30 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
So, well I oh no, cause I was gonna ask you actually like so what is like, what are you doing to prepare? Because I think again, like when we get sober, we get a lot of tools. And one of the things that’s been interesting about watching you very recently too, I feel like you’ve been very vocal about how you’ve kind of done your own thing and kind of worked on your own path, right, and so now that you’re, you’ve been doing your own path. That has had to work for you, because different spaces didn’t resonate with you. As black man, I’m curious, like what’s the preparation for the parenthood piece been looking like? So you mentioned your friends and I was curious, like, are you work? Like, is there any mentorship going on? Like what, what does that whole preparation look like?

10:09 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
I have plenty of good men, plenty of good men, not only black men, it’s probably the majority. And so you know, my father’s still alive, you know we’re definitely on good terms. So I go to them. Like I’m not gonna lie to you, I did have like a mental, a mental health breakdown a couple of weeks ago and I think that it was just a harsh reality of a lot of things. It was like okay, I’m just going by, you know, the last eight months, eight months and change, and it’s like okay, I’m going to be responsible for a whole nother human being.

10:46
You know what I’m saying? That, according to the ultrasound looks a lot like me. So it’s just kind of one of those things. It’s like it’s something that I envisioned, but to me it’s like you can’t prepare for it, no matter how. You know you can sit here and you could watch all kinds of videos, watch other people’s profiles it’s still not going to prepare you for you know you being in that situation and I’ve been in it before, but to 100%, no, like this is my child, there’s no questioning. You know you shouldn’t have to deal with that, but that’s what I had to deal with, you know, and I paid the price in the process, because I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions at that time.

11:32 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
So how do you deal with your emotions now? And you’ve been sober. What is it seven years or six years?

11:37 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Yeah, it’d be seven years next week.

11:39 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Okay, wow.

11:40 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
One to 15. Like I’ve been, honestly I’ve been struggling because therapists like I’m, you know, big shots out to Miss Charlene Smith. I’ve just go. You know she’s no longer my therapist but by far the best therapist that I’ve had since 2010. And it was to me like she was more of like an auntie than she was my therapist that the government was paying, you know, to have these sessions. And once I left Jacksonville, I think the last session I had with her was when all hell broke blue excuse my language last year and I had to move back up here and she was like I don’t care if you’re out of state, but I’m gonna take your. You know, I’m gonna take this call and I was like all right.

12:32
So I’ve been battling in terms of trying to find the right therapist.

12:36
You know, like in Minnesota there aren’t therapists of color and I want to have a therapist that has some type of knowledge of what a black person goes through or you know what I’m saying because they’ve experienced it when you have someone that’s not of your own ethnic background, unless they’re married to somebody and they still want 100% no. And so I had a therapist. She was black, she was in St Louis, we were doing virtual, but then it was issues because you know she would forget that we would have the appointments. And I’m like, okay, you know, I don’t know if you saw, but like I think during the summer like I would go for walks while I was having my therapy sessions and stuff like walk around the lake in my old neighborhood. So now it’s just more or less of me trying to, and even though the therapist that they have me scheduled to see next month, I got rid of her last year because it affected she was non-African-American and I’m telling her the stuff that I’m going through, but it’s just not resonating, she’s not understanding it.

13:42
And so I was just like I can’t. I’m sorry, you know disrespect, but I can’t have you as a therapist if we can’t relate. And so, and then now, like I said, they scheduled it and I just told my wife I was like, wait a minute, they just said the same the lady I had an issue with last year. So now I just how I more or less already belong with it, but how I usually handle it now I have really, really good friends. I have good friends from childhood, from junior high, elementary, college, military.

14:13
I can reach out to a lot of people, and even in the sober community, and so you know we help each other and that’s kind of how it is. So I will definitely say that. So shout out to the sober community, thankful, thank you, because I know that I’ve had some hard days and I can reach out, including you is like, look, I’m struggling, I don’t know what to do, and that’s kind of how it is, even though I haven’t met a lot of people, obviously in the sober community, but I still feel like we have that connection and of course we’re gonna meet one day, but it’s just a matter of time.

14:47 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Oh, for sure, like either something’s gonna bring me to Minnesota or I know you have connections in Florida. For sure, like one of the biggest issues in terms of access to appropriate medical care for people with addiction is that right that we don’t see ourselves represented in service providers and that can create a really big barrier. You have to feel seen and if your provider doesn’t know that, doesn’t understand that, then it’s a really difficult thing.

15:13 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Yeah, and then one thing I have an issue with, too, is that this is for any healthcare professional make sure you read the chart before you see the client. Because I’m gonna give you an example. I was in Phoenix, like I might’ve been, maybe like within the first six months of me being out the Army and, like I said, I was still. I was on the tail end of my addiction and I volunteered to go have a therapy session and the lady come you know, calls me in the office and was like, yeah, so what are you here for? And I’m like, did you read anything? I’m like I’m a victim of domestic violence. I struggling with alcohol. Hell, I probably smelled like alcohol the day I went up in there and I was in tears and I was like, I mean, I’ve cried before in the therapy session, but not like that was like dang.

16:06
What’s the purpose of you having me come in here for this appointment If you don’t even know anything? I mean you could have, at least, just five or ten minutes before I walked in here, looked over something. No, that lady had no clue and I said I’ll never see that lady again. Sure enough, I switched there. It’s like the next day or that same day I was like I need somebody else.

16:26 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, and I mean even just that little personal touch, right Like that, that can go a long, long way.

16:33
So, kenny, tell me a little bit about your story, because obviously you know my podcast is like pretty new, like I just started in July, so you know I haven’t been on before and for anybody who’s listening, you might be like a totally brand new human being that I’m introducing on here and so obviously, so far they know that you are super excited to be a dad. But you know you’ve done some major things. You’re a vet, right, and I think like that’s important. Um, so can you tell us a little bit about yourself and just kind of like how you, how you got to a place of struggling with alcohol and how you came back from it?

17:06 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Hmm, okay, uh, you mentioned florida. I was uh born in florida or raised in san diego, california. My dad was in the navy so we kind of moved around a little bit and kind of around the country in the 80s. Um, as I mentioned earlier, my dad um struggle with alcoholism, um while he was in the military, so I saw it and so a lot of the his actions Eventually carried on to me the love for music, playing it all, day and night, um stuff like that. Um I would. I’m the youngest of five, two brothers, two sisters. I was the only one who had the issue with drinking. My other, some of my siblings they drink, but no one had the issue like I did.

17:52
Um, I was like anybody, you know, I ain’t gonna say anybody, but I was, you know, an athlete. You know, growing up, you know I played baseball, basketball, football. It’s pretty good at some of those sports. Some of them just kind of kept me off the streets. Um, all right, I wasn’t. I would say I was For rather, you know, intelligent until I moved to one of the worst school districts in the county in san diego and I was in the top percentile.

18:17
I have to say this I was in the top percentile in california, all the way up until like fourth grade gifted classes and then we moved districts and then I just lost all of it and so my parents didn’t have education. So always in my mind was, like they’re working so hard. I know that once it’s time for me to get out of school, that I need to go to college, that so that I can have, hopefully, a better opportunity. So I folded around and went to four colleges and universities one, hbcu, carcass, and university um. But the problem was is, once I got the degree in 2003, um, the job market, you know, wasn’t the greatest. And so in my mind I’m thinking, like, okay, if I go to college, I invest all this time, then I’ll be able to get a job. Oh no, that wasn’t the case. And the job that I did end up getting in my field, it was only paying me seven dollars an hour. So of course I’m hustling, I’m I’m substitute teaching, I’m working at a prison out here, and that’s that was my hustle. And Because of politics and everything, me being a young, on their personality, you got these older personalities. They didn’t like it because of the fact that, like, okay, this guy’s gonna steal my job, the hundred thousand dollar job that they got, now potentially I can take. And so clashes, and so I ended up leaving there and I went to Arizona. And when I went to Arizona I’m thinking like, okay, I have the degree, I have the experience and now I’ll be able to Get a job in radio. No, I didn’t. I didn’t get a job and I had to go get a job Just like anybody else, working in department stores, post office and so on and so forth.

20:00
But in between that time I’m hanging out with my brother, my brother’s 10 years older than, or is 10 years older than me. So they’re drinking, they’re smoking. You know, at that time I’m drinking Budweiser, they drinking malt, liquor, hennessy and all this stuff. So now I’m going from, you know, as some would say, the mommy wine culture to now I’m drinking the, the street stuff. And so when I’m drinking this now it’s bringing out a whole different person. And so I’m hanging out with these guys. They’re miserable in their marriages and I’m just a guy who’s Not trying to get married, but I’m absorbing all of what they’re doing.

20:37
And so I started to pick up that habit then because I couldn’t find work. I wasn’t happy with the work that I was getting. The pay was horrible 10, 11 dollars an hour, barely surviving and so I ended up getting with someone. She got pregnant and ended up having an abortion, and he completely drove me crazy. And so I told her. I said, if you do this, you’re not going to get the same person, and eventually that relationship lasted for a little bit longer, but I ended up doing a night in jail and, you know, lost everything, was homeless and had to come to Minnesota and that was my first day in rehab.

21:15
So I did Three stints in rehab before I actually Got to where I’m at today three rehabs, two detoxes, one homeless shelter, um, but as far as where, it continued to carry over, I was in the military. I served in your army for six years. If anybody knows about the military culture, you work hard, you play hard, but then you drink even harder, and I was already with the addiction before I got in the army, and so it was magnified, and at that point I was needy, I needed the attention of a woman, and so I got married to somebody that I had no business being married to, and I was with her for for six years and she basically Told me that I wouldn’t be shit excuse my language that I would be a drunk with um, but a bachelor’s degree, and she’s all right, she’s absolutely correct, but I’m now sober with a master’s degree, so I don’t know. But, and so I, in 2016, after I got the army 2015 but 2016 Um, I was in a hospital.

22:17
I did nine days. I had issues with my pancreas it almost exploded Gained a lot of weight, lost a lot of weight within a nine day span, but I still didn’t learn. I still didn’t learn that, okay, this alcohol is taking me out. And so, finally, um, I I called my mom like I said I mentioned a few minutes ago, I was in a homeless shelter and I got kicked out. The homeless shelter Called. My mom was like, hey, can I come back to Minnesota? And she’s like but you got to get sober. I said all right. And so I was on the bench for like two weeks and then, finally, I went ahead and um.

22:53
Like I did a night of a binge. I went to the casino, spent about four, five hundred dollars. My mom was like how can I help you? How can I get you sober? How can I, you know, get you on the right path? Because I I don’t want to bury my son. And when she said that I just completely sobered up. I still drink until I went in the rehab.

23:11
But I just knew that there was that this alcohol stuff wasn’t for me, and so I did treatment. When I was in treatment, I got my furniture, my car, from Arizona. Um, I, I’m not gonna lie, I like to say it. Um, men, we do get a chance to take furniture from the women. I took a four bedroom house full of furniture In my car. My car got shipped up here when I was in uh in treatment.

23:34
And so once I knew that, when I got out of the hospital, once I knew that, when I got out of rehab, that I knew like, okay, maybe this is going to be different. I had the keys to my car, I had the keys to my apartment that day of, and then, a couple weeks later, I started grad school, because I applied to grad school when I was in uh treatment, and so that I mean I did that and and pretty much Over the six or seven years I’ve traveled. Like I said, I love sports, so I’ve tried to go to sport and then talk throughout the country. Um, I did a study abroad, and also Mandela University during my graduate studies. Um created a podcast author to book. Um, what else? Got married, have kids, you’re about to have a son. I mean, sobriety has brought a lot of stuff that I honestly did not think that I would be able to experience, and I love it and and I encourage anybody to just try and just see what happens. You never know.

24:33 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
That’s awesome. One of the things that I noticed, also that you had a kind of posted about lately, was sort of navigating your own path. So for anybody who might be listening and kind of trying to figure out what works for them especially if they’re a man, especially if they are a man of color, a black man, who might be listening right what do you recommend or like what worked for you and what didn’t work for you? Like, obviously I know you went to rehab, but once you get out, you know rehab is this protective little fortress that we’re all in, because I went to rehab too and you’re finding your safe when you’re in there, but as soon as you come out, the real world is waiting for you. So how did you transition into the real world and stay sober all this time? Like what did those supports look like? Was it just sober people? Was it all sorts of people who you were connecting with? Because you know some people will say, like you have to only be around sober people, etc. So like what did it look like for you?

25:28 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Did you do like?

25:29 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
step programs, etc. Things like that.

25:32 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Well, I had the it’s no longer open, but there was the next town over and I had been going to that AA group since like 2008. And so I would probably say like I did a combination of a lot of things because for me AA was kind of triggering, because I was going to AA and I was still drinking. You know, I would either go into AA intoxicated or the moment I left I was intoxicated. So it was more or less like I tried it but I just didn’t. I didn’t feel comfortable in the room because I was an old black person in there and it was. I wanted to be in the rooms where I can hear some similar stories, like maybe some childhood trauma, certain things that that may not. You know, because you know how it is in in in in black people’s homes, they don’t necessarily address those hotbed issues mental health, you know, addiction to a substance and stuff like that, and so that was it. But now, like I would say, like some of my friends didn’t understand, like fully understand, because they still drink, and so I was still being invited to to functions early into sobriety and I was like look, no, I can’t go, I don’t trust myself, let alone being amongst a bunch of people that this is the main focus of this get together is you’re going to be drinking. And so I had to say no and be firm, like no, I’m sorry, I don’t want to hang out. You know now, if you want to come, you know, come, hang out at my place, where I know like I’m not going to be drinking. Then yeah, so I had to be have limitations even, you know, had company, you know of the opposite sex. They knew they couldn’t come over and have it. You know, out on now they chose to drink before they came over. That state business.

27:31
But I would have to say, learning to say no, that was probably by far one of the hardest things. For me was to say no because, like I’m boring, I can’t have fun without alcohol. But then once I realized I didn’t see that I can and so I would say, like getting to know myself because of the fact that, like I was lying to myself for so many years. So it was like I had to retrain my thought. Like you don’t have to lie your way out of everything, just be honest. Now, if they don’t like your honesty, guess what? At least you know what I’m saying. You’re not intoxicated and getting caught up in lies. So I say that a lot of things that I couldn’t do, that that was key, like when I was married, like it was only going to Phoenix. When I lived in North Carolina, living Texas, we only went to Phoenix to visit her family.

28:22 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Now, you know, in the last seven years.

28:24 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
I’d have been to more states in these seven years that I did in the sixth that I was married, and so it’s like, okay, now I can do it. I love sports, so I’m trying these things that I couldn’t do, that I was doing when I was drinking, and am I comfortable? I tried one game. Okay, let’s try another one, let’s try another one. And so that’s more or less with that. But I would say, just be.

28:50
I think that for me it was this is all I had. It was like either I get sober and continue to live this life or you might as well, just, you know, go down the road about 10 miles to the maximum prison where they got the Duke that took out George George Floyd. I can go in that prison where I used to work at, because that’s where I was heading, and so now it’s like I don’t want that and that’s why I try to spread the message like a it’s possible, yeah, try a. Try everything. If it don’t work, try something else. So that’s what I did.

29:25
I put myself, I got active in the community. I was, you know, doing community work up in St Cloud, hanging out with the mayor, the police chief, stuff like that. So it’s just kind of keeping myself busy, you know. And then I had grad school. Grad school was my therapy. Going to class every day, studying writing 2025 30 page papers was my therapy. And, like I said, now, the blessing of my wife and having an in house therapist 24 seven, you know what I mean. So it just you know. Just I guess, given myself a chance. I didn’t give myself a chance when I was drinking because I spent more time drinking than doing anything else. Now I got time. I want to go do stuff and I do if I’m financially able to do it.

30:10 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
If not, I go do something for free. That’s always a good point, thank you, and so I know earlier I had asked you like what are you hopeful for with your son coming? Is there anything that you’re like fearful of with this new transition? Um?

30:30 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
I just, I just don’t want my diabetes to take me out.

30:33 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Hmm.

30:42 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
You know, I said I was going to be like super healthy, super strong before he gets here, but that’s not a harsh reality. So I mean, I think, just be present, I think what’s most important, like when I played sports my dad wasn’t there, and so the luxury of now to date, is that I don’t have to work.

31:01
My dad At least that’s what he said he was working, so he didn’t have time to watch my games. Now I do. You know, I know I post on. You know I’m going to my nephew’s games on Friday nights. He plays basketball as well, so I’ll be doing that here in the next couple of weeks. So that’s kind of I’ve been preparing myself for a lot of years. I’m looking forward to whatever activity he’s involved in. I will be there. If my wife came, I will be there.

31:27
You know what I’m saying, yelling my, you know, to the top of my lungs, but I don’t know. I just as far as fear, I’m going to be honest. No, I don’t. I’ve seen enough fear in my life. I’m so that my son don’t have to. You know what I mean and I guess some of my past relationships prepared me. So this is, I don’t know, like I don’t want to. I don’t want to think about fear, because I live that life of fear when I was drinking, because it was like I didn’t want to deal with nothing in life. So I guess I don’t know. I don’t know if that makes sense.

32:08 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, no, it does so. Like well, what advice or what message would you give to anybody who maybe, yeah, like, for example, like I’m 38, anybody who’s listening, who is in their late 30s, their 40s and they’re feeling like time has passed them by, right like that? When that that voice comes out, that’s like it’s too late. What did you say to Summer?

32:32 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
It’s never too late Because, like you said, as you, you, I want to use it. Please say, but the fear of the unknown, like I didn’t, I didn’t know what long term sobriety look like, I know what a 30 days look like, I know what a week or two or 24 hours look like. But but this, right here, and I’m living proof, just by removing alcohol, that all these opportunities have, you know, came available. I’m, you know, hanging out with, you know, like minded people in the sub community that’s trying to spread awareness to it. So I would say, on social media, find some people that are truly genuine, that, even though that they’re behind the phone and you may never met, but are these people would you hang out with, would you truly trust?

33:37
telling personal information to Just keep a diary of how it’s going right, Document the good days and the bad days, Okay, so that when you have that long, long-term sobriety on your belt, you can go back and be like okay, how did I get myself out of that situation? Okay, I was anxious, I was frustrated. Oh, I know I can go to drinking, but what are you doing now so that you’re not putting yourself in that situation? I would say be as active in the sober community, Be careful for some snakes out there, but just be as active as you can ask questions. You know what I mean.

34:24 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
That’s what I was gonna ask you about too, because that was the other thing that I had noticed on some of your shares, like on your posts, there had been sort of like a few people that made reference to, I guess, like rejection from people in the sober community, and I was curious if you could speak to that a little bit.

34:47 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Yeah, when I first got into the sober community, like you say, 2017, because I was in treatment and I wasn’t really using my phone.

34:56 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
I would reach out to people.

34:57 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Hey, I’m newly sober, what advice can you give? Okay, some people wouldn’t even respond, the majority of them would. So I was like, all right, well, all right, then I’m gonna continue to keep posting my stuff and hopefully somebody will catch on.

35:15
And then I started, like you know, after like maybe I would say, maybe like year three, so like either 2019, 2020 is when I started to like people started to. I don’t know it was. I’m dealing with this, so it was. I’m dealing with different types of people in the community. But it was tough because, like I said, I wanted to try this. You know what I mean. I wanted to really be active within it and it’s like, okay, some people have you know that I reached out to, had years under their belt. I’m like I just want some guy and I’m like, look, you don’t have to be my sponsor, I don’t want a sponsor. But you know, can I lean on you? Can I? You know, if I’m having a tough day, can I just be like I wouldn’t get no responses? And even now, like even with some of the stuff that was like that was said, like last year, like I was in an interview and someone was like, as if, like that I can’t go and study abroad in South Africa and you know the government pay for it. You know what I mean and I’m like, okay, who are you Like if that’s what happened? You know I served my country, I earned that right. Why are you upset? You know what I mean. And then they made another comment like oh, my son, he was on the airplane and he pointed out this black guy and asked me why is he so dark? I’m like, so you telling me this on a podcast interview? This is no joke. I said okay.

36:47
And then you know other instances, you know people telling me oh, you’re not promoting AA. And I said I never said that. I said you can try it If you like it, cool, but if you don’t, yeah, just know that you can. You can say that you tried it. But, like I said, it’s four, some and not for all, but I don’t know Like it. To me this ain’t a popularity contest and to a certain extent that’s where it what it, what it seems like. And with me having a master’s degree in communications in this media, I analyze this every day and I know that this is not how this community should be, but it is and I want to change it. But you know there needs to be a few more voices out here. But, like I said, when I first started there was nobody. Now there is, so it’s kind of like alright, let’s keep going.

37:48 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
What would you envision it to be like if it was like ideal?

37:53 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Morey, more events, more events, more sponsors, more, more inclusiveness, then you know, if you guys don’t want to include us. You know we on the panel we was in this summer Like we shouldn’t have to put up a fuss like we were seeing at least I know I was seeing I brought it up to kill. I said wait a minute, like so you telling me that this is the face of sobriety? Is nobody of color? Or you got one person, one person. Okay, there’s more out here, and a big chunk of them I ain’t gonna say big, but a handful have been on my podcast. I had to go do the legwork to find them. You know what I mean. So, and then it kind of trickled down. Now, everybody’s ever, you know, it’s cool with everybody, which is cool.

38:45
I wanted to continue to grow, like I said, I just want to be happy in this community. I want to meet as many people, however, and so on, but the other bs y’all could keep that you know. But I just I realized after what happened a couple weeks ago, I’m just not gonna address it, I’m just gonna block the individuals and keep it moving, because I don’t want, you know, those People that do support me and follow me and understand like I’m trying my best in this journey To get deterred because of somebody else. You know, because they’re of their ignorance and stupidity. You know saying.

39:21 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
I mean that’s crazy that somebody would ask you that, like in a podcast interview, like that.

39:26
That’s wild. And yeah, I mean I would say I know that I remember in the summer I was, I was out of the country visiting my mom, but I remember that’s actually it was the sober summit which is getting redone and you know, I know you spoke up about it, kyola spoke up about it and the woman who runs it, maggie, she stepped up and for the holiday version which is out actually this week, um, she was very intentional about bringing on Making it a more diverse panel. So, you know, I’m I’m glad that I remember Kyola having like a big post about it and calling it out and you know, I appreciate that, like, maggie took that feedback and did something about it. Um, and, like you said, it would be great to see that happen more, because addiction doesn’t just affect one population. Like addiction is seen in all races, all ethnicities, all backgrounds. But the way that you know mainstream recovery puts that, you would think it’s just like white folks We’ll deal with addiction right, and it’s not.

40:32 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
It’s not like I said I, I love to see it like more and more just the you know different different pages. I’m like, okay, that’s what’s up, let me follow. You know what I’m saying. Every time I see if, if it’s something that’s tagged, like, I think j, I think j had somebody on there like somebody else, uh, like tagged him or something. So I was like I clicked on the that individual’s profile. Okay, yeah, I’m following them too. You know what I’m saying.

40:59
Because, that’s just to me is what it is. I, I love to see it. I love you, know. Even if it’s somebody’s promoting something, I try to share that too, because I know that I’m not gonna see that on other people’s pages, you know yeah, yeah, and you know.

41:13 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
And the other thing too, with addiction, I think, like you know, I remember well I don’t remember because I was a kid, but you know, when we were talking about addiction in the 80s and 90s, it was the crack epidemic and that was affecting predominantly black americans, right, and we, I feel like we didn’t really talk about addiction, it was just criminalized. Nowadays we’re dealing with opiate addiction, you know, sweeping across the country and you know, now the conversation is happening, right, because we have a certain demographic of folks that are being impacted. But the crazy thing is that there are actually plenty of people of color who are also being affected by by opiates. But you know, of course, because the majority are white folks, you know that that has had more attention, which is Wild, because I I almost feel like now, for example, like when you hear about people talking about addiction, like sometimes you would think that it as if it’s just white people who are impacted, but like no populations of color have been impacted historically.

42:14
I mean, you know, like I remember one of the wildest things that I remember reading and learning about once I got sober Was how alcohol was used, like I went to. So I went to New Orleans last year and did a tour at I cannot remember the the name of the plantation, but it was like they went through One of the ways in which like alcohol was used with enslaved populations and like you gave them alcohol and you especially gave them alcohol during the holidays so that they wouldn’t plan like to escape, right. So like, what a powerful way to subdue a population, to give them mind-altering substances, because then they’re not going to be coherent enough to like plan any escape, right? We don’t have those conversations enough about how like rebellious sobriety actually really is right like, if you’re clear-headed, you are way less likely to be controlled.

43:03
And you know, we don’t. We don’t talk about that enough, especially for populations of color Like. It’s so important to have our clear heads. You know.

43:11 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
I agree 100%. I was just. I was on the phone with Kiehl’s dad last night and we were having this exact conversation real, because it’s it’s. It’s hard because, like you said, you know, because it’s affecting One community. Now they have, like you said, they got these initiatives Okay, but where were these?

43:31
initiatives, when you was going directly to our hoods and and putting and showing us how to cook the stuff. You know what I mean. Well, we’re gonna take you out, we’re gonna take the mail out the home, but this is what it is and you guys got to deal with. And so now it’s like okay, you got people of color talk about. We don’t want this stuff, no more. We want a different life, and sometimes we’re not as welcome. I’ve even had people who have black in their tag name and people will reach out to them like why does it have to be about race? You know, somebody matter of fact, somebody gifted me a sober black veteran. Somebody inboxed me. No, they commented on my post and was like can you make me a white sober veteran shirt? I’m like you can go make your own damn shirt. You know what I mean, but she’s not gonna come on my page with that stuff, you know.

44:25 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, and that’s the thing it’s like. To me, the most dangerous conversation is the one where it’s like I don’t see color, like no, I need you to see me. I need you to see me exactly as I am, because this color that I carry is a huge part of my identity, my upbringing and also a lot of the trauma that’s been put on me and my family for generations, you know. So it’s so important to recognize it. Well, we’ve been all over the place in this conversation.

44:57 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
I won’t. Hopefully I didn’t talk too much, you know.

44:59 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
No, no, no, this has been great. I mean, again, I’m just really excited to have had the opportunity to touch base with you. I know your life is about to completely change, you know, in the matter of days, weeks, right. So I’m just really honored that you took the time to talk to me because, again, you’re getting ready for a big transition. I’m really honestly happy. I’m so happy for you. Like I remember when you first told me that you had a baby on the way, and then I saw the marriage announcement. You know, I’m just really grateful to see people reaping the fruits of this work, you know, and it’s like I wish more people could, right, and not everyone gets this blessing. And you know, I do feel very fortunate and I know you feel very blessed and fortunate too, like we’re definitely a minority and I’m very grateful to be here and I’m just so glad to see that you’re happy. So I was like oh, let me reach out to Kenny because you know, I appreciate it, I really do.

46:03 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
I appreciate it all because, like I said, it’s you know, being on the interview side is totally different than, you know, me being the host, because I, at one point, that’s all I was doing was just interviewing, interviewing, interviewing one interview, you know, and then about 20 more. You know what I mean. So it was like, but it’s you know, it’s cool and it’s I’m definitely happy to be in this community and I’m happy to, you know, really meet people like you that definitely keep me, you know, on the up and up of you know, about this sobriety and not giving up. You know what I’m saying, because if there’s been too many times where I’m like man, I could just delete this account and just go live my life and I’ll be okay. It’s kind of how I is, but I don’t want that. I want to continue to spread the message and, like I said, coming from a different perspective, you know, with attitude. Basically, you know what I’m saying, but it’s people are relating to it. You know what I mean, and so I got to keep going.

47:03 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, exactly, I mean because your son is only one of many lives you’re touching, like you’ve been touching lives for years and now you have this beautiful life that’s coming and you know the work that you’re doing. It’s just like you’re planting a seed, like who knows what your son can do? Your son can do like anything, and that’s so wild because you get to be sober, like you literally are. It’s almost like you’re creating the most fertile soil for, like your son to grow. Like, if your son is going to be this flower, he’s going to be like this big, beautiful, like just gorgeous human being, because you’re giving him like the best environment to have a head start. It doesn’t mean that he won’t have like his own challenges. He’s going to be a human being in this world. That’s a crazy world, but like what, what a better parent than like a sober parent right to have? So that’s just awesome.

47:58 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Yeah, because I definitely don’t want to. You know, hear, you know I don’t want to be apologized to my son every single time I made a mistake because I was drinking, right. That was the only time my father apologized and it’s like, okay, but what about all the other stuff? You know what I mean. So I’m just like I don’t want that. I just want to be present as I can, and I know the only way I can be present I have to be sober, and I’m definitely looking forward to it.

48:26 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah Well, kenny, thank you. Thank you so much. So if folks want to find Kenny again, his handle is 12 Faces of Sober I’ll link it in my Instagram. I’ll also link. Your book is on Amazon, right?

48:43 – Kenneth Watson (Guest)
Amazon and on Walmart. All you gotta do is type in the 12 Faces of Sober as well, as you can get it on my website, 12FacesofSobercom. I became a best seller last February 22nd 2022. I have a few more books in the works. I just I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m gonna kind of scare you to put them out, but you know, we’ll see one day. But, yeah, Okay, that’s pretty much it.

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Link to Spotify

In this episode:

Join me as I tackle the challenges of navigating the holidays while maintaining sobriety. This episode takes a hard look at our programmed thoughts, particularly those we’ve clung onto since childhood, and how they might not truly resonate with us. To help you combat these, I introduce a simple, yet profound question to ask yourself: “So what?” This question is a handy tool to challenge your thoughts throughout the holiday season. The second half of this episode discusses the concept of safety in recovery and how to establish it within ourselves. We explore how alcohol can make us feel like we need it for survival when in fact we don’t.

Resources:

Sober Summit Holiday Edition – Get A Free Ticket!

New Year’s Eve Self Forgiveness Workshop

Addiction and The Brain Video

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:
Hey everyone, and somehow, just like that, it’s already November. I literally do not know where the time went this year. I feel like I literally it was January. I closed my eyes and, boom, here we are in November. And it’s also just hilarious because I maybe I feel it stronger this year than in other years, but I also feel like it really feels like it’s the holidays. Maybe it’s because of, like, the never ending jokes online, of like when the clock struck 12 on Halloween, that people are bringing out Christmas trees, et cetera but it really really feels like it’s that time of the year which, for some people, it can be like the most joyous time of year and for many, many others including you, if you’re listening to this, because you’re probably somewhere on the spectrum of addiction, right it can also be just a really triggering and difficult time of year. So I wanted to talk about the holidays. With that being said, first, I wanted to point out a free resource the sober summit holiday edition is featuring myself, but 23 other really like phenomenal speakers. I’m going to have her as a guest on the podcast. Keo Lorraine’s will be one of the speakers, jay Chase, chris Marshall, founder of Sandsbar. Lots of other really phenomenal folks are going to be on there and we’re all essentially telling our stories and also talking about getting through the holidays sober, right. Lots of really valuable tips, et cetera, and all of that is free, and so I will have the link in the bio for you to register for that. It is coming up actually right next week, november 8th through the 10th is when all these interviews and conversations and events go live, and resources. So I will put that in the show notes so that you have an opportunity to sign up for free for that.

But let’s go ahead and let’s transition into the topic, right? So the key question that I want to introduce to you, for you to really having your back pocket anytime you find yourself battling your thoughts this holiday season, is literally asking yourself these two really short, simple words so what? So what as a question is going to be so important for you to challenge yourself? Because one of the biggest barriers that we can often have in our recovery and just in our personal development in general is that we have thoughts that we have been programmed with since we were younger, that we firmly believe are true and, at the end of the day, if we sit with them and push back against them. We realize that they don’t actually resonate truly with us in our spirits. Right, it’s usually something that we were taught either in our family or by society at large. Right, but we have to really sit and examine what matters to us and use that as a way to kind of help guide our path, moving forward as we go through the next two months here, through this lovely human existence. Right, because not only are we going into the holiday season, but also, like the world itself also really feels like it’s on fire, and I feel like the world is always on fire.

And now we have you know, we have crisis and conflict in the world, a lot of people who don’t know, kind of like, how to respond, how to feel about it all sorts of mixed feelings. And, frankly, wherever you are, wherever you are, right, I just want to recognize that your feelings are valid, but it’s also important to recognize that your feelings aren’t necessarily facts. So, with that being said, let’s talk about some different scenarios and how you can use the question. So what, right? So first, let’s say that you, either you have been in an online support group community or you recently joined an online support group community, and you know that during the holidays there will be meetings. Most of these communities do not drop their meetings during holidays because of the importance of being able to have a safe space to go to.

On Christmas, for example, when there’s way too many people talking in your family and you’re losing your mind, you might need to get on a meeting to talk, right. But now you’re worried about getting on a meeting because you don’t want to be caught having a conversation about your recovery journey, right? You don’t want to be caught working on your recovery. You don’t want to be caught getting support from other people. You don’t want to be heard being on any of these calls, right. And so you’re thinking, hmm, maybe during the holidays, even though I would love to get on a meeting and connect with, like my fellow sober peers, I don’t want my family to know that I’m doing this.

And so, first, I hear you. It’s scary. But second, I want to ask you to ask yourself so what if they find out? Right? I really want you to think about that. I want you to follow that.

So what up with asking yourself what is the absolute worst thing that could happen from your family finding out that you are working on yourself Seriously, like write it out. If you need to get a piece of paper and write out, what is the worst thing that could happen from your family finding out that you’re working on yourself, and then look at the worst thing on that list and you tell me if that worst thing on the list can actually hurt you or harm you more than alcohol, or if it could just hurt you or harm you, period Right. That’s something that’s really really important to focus on because, especially in terms of, say, family members or loved ones right, who chances are if you struggled with an addiction to alcohol or other substances are these family members have seen you struggle, right, even if they didn’t know that you were directly consuming alcohol or other drugs, they probably saw the erratic behavior, they probably saw you acting out. They know, they know the people in our lives are not dumb. They know exactly what was going on. So, without being said, let’s go back to that question If they can see you drink, why can’t they see you recover? And these are hard questions, but I think it’s really important to ask ourselves that because I know for me my old answer to if they can see you drink, why can’t they see you recover, simply because I was ashamed that I had a problem Right.

And where did that shame come from? It came from the belief that used to be instilled in me that there was something wrong with me if I had a problem with alcohol, right. But since then, what have I done? I have done a lot of informing myself and I know that my problem with alcohol was not my fault. Like, first of all, in my case, I was primed ready to become addicted to a substance, right, I grew up in a family where substance abuse was definitely prevalent. So, whether it’s a nature versus nurture thing, the point was that I was primed for it. Second, I had gone through several traumatic events that also primed me to become addicted to a substance.

And then three, let’s talk about the fact that alcohol itself is an addictive substance. And when people, repeatedly, are exposed to anything that’s addictive, their chances of becoming addicted to the addictive substance go up drastically. Right, nowhere in that formula is there there’s something wrong with Jessica, right? Absolutely not. And so, again, if you’re like, I don’t want them to find out that I am struggling with addiction, I I, you know. Sure, they can see me using, they can see me drinking. But they can’t know that I’m working on it, right? I really want you to stop, slow down and do some really serious digging, because chances are is that you, like many of us, are just struggling with shame.

You probably don’t understand enough about the sources of addiction and where they come from, and so you think it’s something that’s wrong with you, when you are a perfectly functional human being, responding to either your environments or, again, addicted substances, right. So again, if you, if you’re like oh my gosh, they can’t find out, ask yourself so what? What’s the worst that could happen from them knowing? And is that worst thing actually a source of danger to you? All, right, let’s look at another scenario, kind of along the similar vein or whatever.

So let’s say, your family always drinks during the holidays and your plan is to not drink. So either you’re going to tell them I’m not drinking today, I’m not drinking right now, or you’re even wondering if maybe you should just say that you’re sober. Right, regardless of how you say it, you are planning on letting them know that you are not consuming alcohol with them, but now you’re in a panic because they’re like oh my gosh, my family. What are they going to say? Right, and that’s what you’re thinking. What are they going to say? How are they going to react? And so those two questions that you’re asking yourself are yet again fueling a lovely spiral, fueling a lovely panic, and you’re not sure what to do with yourself.

So I want you to, in this case, write out all the possible things that they could say, write out all the possible things that they can do, and then I want you to ask yourself those same two words so what, right? So what If they say whatever they’re going to say, or if they do whatever they’re going to do? Here’s where I want you to stop and analyze yet again what is the worst thing that they can say to you, what is the worst thing that they can actually do to you? And you need to evaluate if it’s something that can actually harm you. Right, I don’t know your family. Like, if your family is literally going to Physically hurt you and harm you because you’re not drinking with them, that’s one thing. But if your family is just going to talk shit about you because you’re not drinking with them, is that talking shit going to actually hurt you? Yeah, I might hurt your feelings, but will you be safe? Right, and if you’re going to be safe after you look at what’s the worst that can happen, then. So what? Right now, if you’re not going to be safe with them because there are patterns of abuse right, there is a history of endangerment Then we need to talk about the next scenario, which is you’re not needing to fucking go to spend the holidays with your family, right, like if you are actually at risk.

So let’s move into that third question and that third or a third scenario. So maybe you know that in your case, you just all together have no business going to visit your family this season, right, and you’re deciding to stay home. But now, yet again, guess what. You’re now worrying about what they’re going to say about you from a distance, right? What are they going to say? Are they going to cut me off? Are they going to block me? Are they never going to invite me to anything again? Right, like, your mind is just racing with all sorts of things that are just coming up for you. And again, that’s okay to have these racing thoughts, but let’s, let’s slow them down. What is it that your family can possibly say about you? Write it down, what can they possibly do from a distance? And write it down right? And yet again, I’m going to ask you to ask yourself so what? What is the worst that is coming off of that list that you wrote down Right, and can that actually harm you or are you safe, right? Essentially, I really want you to assess if you’re safe or not in these situations, because for so many of us and I do an okay job of explaining neuroscience I’m going to put a link in the chat to some other resources not in the chat, a link in the show notes to some other resources, but essentially right, when we think about alcohol and dopamine, our brains.

Alcohol completely distorts our dopamine and our dopamine has often been used as a signal for us humans as oh, this is something I need for survival. So things that can often like cause spikes and dopamine are things that feel good, that are also directly tied to our survival. So it might be things like food. It might be things like sex right, let’s keep the human race going. It might be things like affection and connection with family right, because, again, these are all things that we essentially need as human beings.

Alcohol totally hijacks those sensors and makes your brain think that when you’re in need of survival, that you need alcohol, right. So suddenly you’re hungry, but you’re not really paying attention to your hunger singles. So you think you want a drink. You’re tired and you need rest, but again those survival signals are totally thrown off. So you want a drink. Instead, you are in need of human connection and you’re feeling lonely, but your brain is hijacked. So your brain is like no, you don’t need people, you need alcohol, right.

So let’s go back to this whole establishing safety thing. The reason why I want you to go back and say so what? The reason why I want you to look at what’s the worst that could happen and if you’re still going to be safe, is because the second that your body and your brain perceive that you are being threatened. If it’s not a real threat, it doesn’t matter. Your default is going to be I want a drink, and so it’s your job to slow down and tell your brain and tell your body hey, I know you think I’m in danger, but I’m actually safe. I know you think that my mom giving me attitude is a total threat to my life and now I have to go drink because my body is perceiving that as a need to survive. But actually my mom talking shit. Despite her doing that, I’m actually still safe, so I don’t need to drink, right. So that is why it’s so important to consistently establish safety all the time. One of the biggest things that I still tell myself at almost three years sober is anytime I get stressed, I quietly tell myself, just, you’re safe. Because I need to remind my body that, even if it perceives something harmless as a threat, that I am not threatened and that I’m okay. So I hope that makes sense In terms of safety, though and I made reference to this a little bit earlier but in terms of safety right, most of the time you are going to be safe.

In this day and age, most of us do have the privilege of not having our lives being threatened just because we say no to a drink of alcohol. What I do want to recognize as I’m saying this, is that there are still some people who do have situations where their safety actually may be threatened and, for example, in cases of intimate partner violence, some people may have partners who intentionally use alcohol as a tool to subdue them and to control them, and In those cases, saying no to alcohol may actually put you at risk. So I will also put a resource in the show notes. If anybody listening does struggle with intimate partner violence, or not even intimate partner violence, it can be just Violence in the home, right. You may have, like I said earlier, you may have family members who Do actually cause you harm, right, and we do need to establish safety. So I will put a link to some resources in the show notes so that you have Access to tools for wherever you are to get out of those situations, because you also deserve to be freed from those situations and you absolutely deserve to be safe and nobody should be using alcohol or other Substances as a tool to subdue and control you and hurt you. So I will put those in the show notes.

The last thing that I wanted to share is before I close out again in this holiday theme yay, again, I want to invite you all to my New Year’s Eve self-requivocist workshop. It is on New Year’s Eve, on December 31st. There’s more information on my website. I will put a link in the show notes to it. But essentially we’re gonna be doing some self-reflection. We’re also going to be doing an exercise on evaluating our guilt, resentment and anger specifically towards ourselves, and then also doing some work on both outreach to our younger self and Outreach to our future self. It’s a 90-more in that workshop. It’s a beautiful opportunity to build some community and support right before transitioning into the new year.

I’m super, super excited to hold it. It’s gonna be an awesome 90 minutes on New Year’s Eve and, chances are right, new Year’s Eve Again, you’re probably gonna want to break from your family. So join me in this workshop. It’s only $15. So you should come join. Can’t wait to see you there. With that being said, I cannot wait to see you all. Next episode I will be having Kiola Raines, my friend and fellow sober sister. Share her story and also just some information on the work that she does and support that she provides. So thanks everybody so much. I’ll see you soon.

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

How do you transform your life from a crippling addiction to a beacon of inspiration?

What if you could redefine your future, regardless of your past?

Join me for an incredibly raw and inspiring conversation with Nico Morales as we explore his tumultuous journey from addiction to recovery. Nico bravely shares his experiences growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and takes us through his struggles with the opioid epidemic and his battle with drug use, which escalated to the point of heroin addiction.

As we move further into Nico’s story, we learn about his decision to quit drugs and the process of self-work he had to undertake to overcome his addiction. We also touch on his struggle with avascular necrosis and how the motivation to be a good uncle led him to finally work to healing his body. Nico shares his ongoing journey to maintain a healthy, substance-free life and how he has replaced his dependency on substances with healthier habits. Listen in as Nico inspires us all with his resilience, determination, and journey to personal development.

Resources:

Nico’s Site – NoHaloNM

Nico on Instagram

Nico on YouTube

Nico on TikTok

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

0:00:06 – Jessica Dueñas

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, today’s episode features Nico Morales, a fellow comrade in the recovery journey, and I just wanted to give you the heads up that we do discuss drug use in detail, so if that is not content that you are able to successfully listen to at this time, please come back to this episode at a future time, but otherwise, I hope you enjoy. Nico’s story is beautiful and absolutely inspiring. Thank you, hey everyone. 

So on today’s episode I have here Nico Morales, who is a fellow in recovery that we were just talking before I hit record and I was trying to remember when I had done like an Instagram live with him, probably about a year ago or so, but anyway, I wanted to have Nico on the show really to talk about his story, and I often talk about my addiction to alcohol, but really addiction is addiction and it impacts so many people in so many different ways and I feel like Nico’s going to present a perspective for folks to really stop and process and think about the different challenges that folks face living in recovery and also in active addiction. So, nico, I want you to go ahead and tell us about yourself. 

0:01:31 – Nico Morales

Wait. Well, first of all, thank you for allowing me on to your platform. What’s up everybody. I love when people can pronounce my name correctly, so I appreciate that as well. You wrote jars, so that’s always fun. But yes, my name is Nico Morales. 

I’m from Albuquerque, new Mexico, the Duke city. Quick fun fact about Albuquerque that most people don’t know is that it’s older than the United States, so we have a lot of deep culture and rich culture here, but we also have a lot of generational trauma that comes with this type of environment. I grew up in a middle class household. Both parents were participants in my life, didn’t really have any needs like big needs. We had all the meals, we had a roof. We had clothes. Was it the stuff that I wanted? No, because, just like most teenagers growing up, we want the best and sometimes they’re not going to cough it up. There was a few nights where we had beans for dinner, but, like I said, we never missed a meal at all. 

I grew up in a very traditional, conservative household, but at a young age I had to spend a lot of time with my grandparents. So from like age two to age six, I spent most of my time with my grandma and my popla and we traveled from New Mexico to Arizona back and forth, because that’s where they are originally from. Reason for that was because my sister was pretty ill when she was not born but she had some complications at the hospital after she was born that caused my parents to spend a lot of time there with her. So there wasn’t anybody else to kind of watch me except for my grandparents. So I got to hang out with them, which I find as a key benefactor to where I’m at now, got one of those old souls, and it’s because I was hanging around with old souls since I was a baby. So growing up my mom and my family had a nickname for me that was little man and it was because I walked around like I was a little man. 

Basically I had been around, been around grown adults. I spoke most of my time with grown adults. I didn’t really spend it with kids. So that’s how I kind of grew up from two to six. When I was six, my grandfather passed away and my grandmother was like, yeah, I can’t be watching him all the time on my own. So I went and stayed back with my family. I have a few cousins, probably about eight of them that were all within the same age bracket. So instead of traveling, we all used to get put at Grandma’s house. That was kind of like home base for everybody. So they’re my extended siblings. So from six to about 14, I was around them, hung out with them. 

But at age seven I was introduced to wrestling, which is another key benefactor to where I’m at now. Wrestlers, if there are any listening, you guys are the dopest. Not that any other sports are bad, but we don’t play with balls in wrestling, let’s put it that way. And yeah, wrestling became my outlet. It became my outlet for understanding and understanding who I was, how I can grow mentally tough and discipline and what those key, what discipline and mental toughness, played in life overall. 

And at 14, I was ready to drop out of school because I figured, you know, all I saw everybody around me do was work, so might as well just jump into the workforce. I felt like I was ready to do the workforce thing and I had my mom get me a job as a laborer on a construction site. So I was, my first job was a gopher go for this, go for that, go pick this up, go pick that up. Basically, my, it was my uncle, that was my, my employer, and he told me one day he’s I don’t pay you to think I pay you for everything below your neck. So just consider, that sounds like cool, that works, I can do that. 

And so at 14, I was ready to drop out of school. I had seen enough of life that I was prepared to kind of leave Just like everybody else. There’s some adversity that I faced in my teenage years. Some stuff that was repressed from my childhood started to come up. One of the things that I struggled with growing up was abandonment, wondering why the heck my sister got to spend time with my parents and I didn’t, and that got expressed in narcotics. So I started to provide and be like hyper independent about age 14. I remember I got this idea because money was always a topic in the household. 

There wasn’t ever enough, it seemed like, and whether it was my house or it was the family’s house or it was someone else’s house, it just seemed like everybody talked about money. So I figured I could help out by making sure nobody had to pay for me and I took my lunch money. One day I got three bucks for lunch, if you can believe that, and I went to. Instead of getting pizza and a soda, I had this older guy go buy me a pack of primetimes, those single or cigarrillos, and I started selling those when I was 14 years old, freshman in high school, and that’s kind of how I got introduced to narcotics, I would say, because tobacco at the time wasn’t, you, weren’t allowed to have it, but we were smoking them. 

And then I took that and I did that a few different times until I had 20 bucks. And then I put that 20 bucks, I went and bought me a half ounce of swag and I started rolling blunts for people and selling the blunts, just so I could make more money. And then that escalated to more cannabis and by the time I was 17, I was selling cocaine pills and cannabis. That was one part of my life, right, because I always thought money needed to be coming in. That’s why I wanted to work. That’s why I wanted to be independent. 

The other side of my life was all star athlete. I was pretty decent at wrestling because it was my outlet, like I could beat people up for fun and not get in trouble. Like I could express myself that would be the best way to say it the stuff that was going on in between my ears that I couldn’t like talk with other people about. I didn’t have the words to communicate. 

I didn’t have the knowledge to understand the emotional intelligence I came out in wrestling so I got pretty decent at pitting people to the ground and winning matches I got so good that we set out some old DVDs for recruiters and I got picked up to go to a Northern Colorado University on a full ride scholarship. So as a junior in high school I had already kind of set that, set, that path. One of the other things that I struggled with not just abandonment, but I also struggled with authority. I don’t like being told what to do. Jessica, like anybody can ask me for anything. 

If you ask me for my shirt and it’s the only shirt I got I’m gonna give it to you. If you ask me for my five bucks and it’s the last five bucks I got I’m gonna give it to you. If you try to take this stuff from me, oh, we have problems. Like, if you try to tell me that I need to give it to you, we have issues. So I’ve never liked authority, ever in my life, struggled with it even to this day. 

I think that’s why I like entrepreneurship, my coaching and my trainings, because I’m my own boss. There’s nobody that tells me what to do. I get to set my own schedule. I get to work when I wanna work. Yeah, even with the book that I wrote, it was difficult to have somebody give me feedback and navigate me through writing a book, because I was like I don’t like being told what to do. So I say that because when I was a junior, we got this new wrestling coach me and him being in CIDI. When it came to that authority, I was on this ego trip that you know what? I’m a badass wrestler. I already got a full ride scholarship. What do I need you for? And he was like well, you’re on my wrestling team, so you’re gonna listen to me. 

I’m like no, this is my wrestling team, you just get to be the head coach. I had a couple buddies that were in weight classes above and below me that we did what we needed to do because we saw that as our way out. New Mexico is a beautiful place but it’s very high in poverty and low in education. So with that, yes, I grew up in a middle-class household in New Mexico, but compared to the rest of the United States it was below the means. So we saw wrestling and sports as a way to get out of that cycle, that environment. Because when I was growing up we were always taught education is your way out and I totally believe in education, not and I know that you were a teacher, so I say this delicately- not the educational system but I do believe in lifelong learning. 

Individuals who are always learning are the individuals who are always growing. 

So I say all of that because in my senior year I had a really big head clash with this coach and eventually I quit wrestling, and because, again, I didn’t have the emotional tools, the communication skills, the know-how to tell people what was going on or even be self-aware enough to know what was going on. 

I just went into the negative lifestyle pretty in-depth At that point. Oxycontin was a major pill that was being produced and we could find it everywhere here in New Mexico. There was actually recent there was a recent lawsuit between certain states and these opiate manufacturers and they found that in New Mexico it was targeted opiate distribution. What that means, jessica, is that they found three places here in New Mexico and they overprescribed and over-distributed opioids just to make a profit. Those three places are Taos, New Mexico, there’s one down south in New Mexico and then one’s here in Albuquerque, and those opiate funds actually just got approved in a lawsuit and New Mexico’s gonna have like $140 million come to it and I’m sorry, albuquerque’s gonna have $140 million come to it because of the opioid misdistribution. But I grew up but I should get back to that. 

0:11:55 – Jessica Dueñas

Yeah, so with those areas where that happened, are these high-poverty areas? Are these places where folks have a lot of manual labor and are having a lot of injuries? Because I know, let’s say, if you look at Appalachia I taught in Kentucky there were a lot of issues with opiates in the state of Kentucky and particularly in communities, coal mining communities and things like that. So I’m curious if what made them target those cities in New Mexico, if you knew. 

0:12:22 – Nico Morales

That’s a great question. Construction is one of the biggest industries here in New Mexico, as well as hospitality. So those are the two major industries here in New Mexico. 

0:12:32 – Jessica Dueñas

So that would make sense. That makes so much sense. Yeah, okay, sorry to interrupt. 

0:12:36 – Nico Morales

I was just like I wonder why, but okay, no that’s a solid question Because, you’re right, a lot of people had construction injuries and middle-class paycheck to paycheck is the majority of the people. So if you’re not at work, then you’re not getting a paycheck. So how can I work all here to take this pill and you won’t feel the pain you know. So that makes total sense. 

0:12:57 – Jessica Dueñas

Yeah. 

0:12:58 – Nico Morales

But I grew up in that epidemic opioid epidemic when it first started in 2008. And right about that same timeframe there was the economical decline with the housing market, so it was a beautiful, perfect storm for selling drugs. Quite honestly, there was high despair. There was people wanting to escape, because by no means am I trying to promote substance use, but that’s a solution for a lot of people and it’s a taught solution for a lot of people. Here you have a problem smoke this. Here you have a problem drink this. And then it kind of escalates from. 

0:13:35 – Jessica Dueñas

There. 

0:13:37 – Nico Morales

So at the time I would get 120 oxy, 80 milligrams. You know 120 of those. I’d keep 20 alone, I’d sell 100 and then I’d go re-up again. So I was taking quite a lot of opiates myself because I found that as to be a solution. My personal opinion there’s two, two like kind of users. One user like their brain is working so much all the time that they need something to slow it down, so downers help out. Then there’s the other user that’s working like not as quick in their brain, so uppers help them out. Like they just they feel like they’re on point whenever they’re using uppers. So at this point in my life I was 18 years old selling oxy cotton and then, about 2010, they stopped the production. They started making them differently. 

And we found ways to get around that method, so they just started putting extra coding around there. We found ways to use without with by getting through that coding. But there’s a point in every addiction that it’s not so much the high, in my opinion, it’s the ritual behind the high right. So, like I’m sure, for individuals who, or even when I drink I’ll get to that in a little bit but when I drank, there was a ritual behind drinking. When I smoked cannabis, there was a ritual behind smoking cannabis. I didn’t like joints, I like blunts. I didn’t like smoking out of a pipe, I like smoking like something that I could hold in my hand, and that ritual was interrupted for me and I remember one night I was laying at home and my hand was throbbing. 

I couldn’t sleep and it just hurt. And I had this little voice pop into my head that says you’re going through withdrawals, what are you gonna do? And I was like, oh, this is withdrawals, I am not trying to deal with this. So I hit up one of the homies that I had and he’s like I don’t have any oxy, but I got something else that’ll take that withdrawal away. I was like, all right, well, meet up with you, show me what you got. And he showed me some heroin, black tar heroin. He said this will take your withdrawal away, for sure it will. And he taught me how to smoke it off of a foil. Just, he was like it’s just the same as your pills. You freebase it, so just smoke it and it tastes like crap. It tastes worse than a pill. But I smoked it and immediately the withdrawal symptoms started to go away and I was like cool, I found something that’ll make me feel better. And now I have another product for the people that I am currently serving Biggie Smalls I hope everybody knows who that is. 

He wrote a song called the 10 Crack Commandments and the fourth crack commandment is you don’t get high on your own supply. Well, I had broken that one and I started using more than I was selling and that became a big problem. The individuals that I was purchasing my narcotics from at this point it was heroin. They didn’t want to do business with Nico because money wasn’t coming in when it was supposed to come in and there was always some sort of excuse that I could come up with. So it was very difficult for me to get opiates. But at that point smoking no longer was benefit. I would smoke maybe about a gram of heroin and I would barely get high because oxycontin is so potent. It’s a synthetic opioid. So this girl that I was seeing at the time, she was like well, you know, if we inject it we can save ourselves some money. And I was like where? So she taught me how to shoot up and I remember taking a shot in my hand the first time shooting heroin. 

And she brought over a needle. We were at my apartment, she showed me how to shoot heroin into my hand and from there game was over. I had never felt anything else that was so freeing and so uplifting in my brain. Like my brain was able to actually not feel the pressure that I had felt for most of my life. And I was when I was 20 years old, so about 20. Within four years yeah, about two to four years I was already hooked on heroin IV injection, and that continued until I was 22. 

Weight 120 pounds, and I was using probably about three grams of heroin IV injection every day. Just to break that into numbers, at the time I could get a gram for 60 bucks, about $120 worth of heroin that I was using every day. Heroin is broken down into different. It’s not like your normal ounces, where seven is a quarter, 14 is a half, it’s three, six, 12. So it was about a ball of heroin that I was shooting every day for myself, just to stay well enough that I didn’t feel the withdrawals, because at that point you’re not using to get high, you’re using to avoid pain, the actual physical pain. 

That of course, brought some very big social issues and familial issues. My family no longer wanted me around, the friends that I had didn’t want me around, and that resurfaced that emotion of abandonment that I had talked about when I was a kid and that just made me feel even worse Again. With now knowing how to communicate and express these things, I would just found myself in a very much downward spiral. There was a point where I had cysts growing on my body because of the injections that I was doing. I had reused needles. That shared needles, fish hook needles that’s when a needle bends back because you can only use a needle so many times, so it starts to bend back and it looks like a fish hook. And I learned how to fish, hook my veins and get high. That way I ended up robbing people because I needed to get high. And I say all that again not to promote it. 

But there is a driving factor behind the mind of an addict. I have a belief that addicts are some of the most intelligent, hyper-focused individuals out there. Now, where that addiction is directed is their choice, so that skill never goes away. That hyper-focus, highly driven, highly motivated individual. They never lose that. They just direct it into a different place. 

So at 22, I found myself sleeping in a Walmart parking lot in my truck with a weapon on me, because I had done some things where people were looking for me, and it was into the best situation. That little voice popped back into my head and said what the heck are you doing? You’re sleeping out here at a parking lot when you can go sleep in a warm home. It was the wintertime, so I was freezing cold. All you have to do is stop using. And I was like well, this stuff is my solution, like this is what keeps me All right. That little voice in my head was like are you sure about that? Look where you’re at, jessica. I’m not sure how many of your people believe in God, but that is where I stand firming. 

And that’s who I believe was talking to me. I believe it was God was dropping these little downloads into me when I was going through these situations because there was other situations where I got out of that I shouldn’t have got out of and it was that same little voice that came into my head that was like you need to leave or you need to do this. 

0:21:16 – Jessica Dueñas

You know what’s funny that you mentioned that little voice. It’s like I’m amazed that you had that little voice, because I feel, like so many of us, or in my experience, so often the voice in my head was like of self-hatred and I love that you had a voice speaking to you with like logic and like hello, like what are you doing? You know Because I don’t feel like that’s everyone’s experience that they have that common sense still in them, especially like at the depths of the worst. So that’s really powerful. 

0:21:45 – Nico Morales

Absolutely, and you know those are self-negative, self-talk voices were there and that’s why that voice stood out so much. I think because I was used to that negative like you ain’t shit, Miko, the hell are you thinking? Like you can’t change. Look at you, Look what happened to you as a kid. No one loves you. Like those voices were constant, so I was used to hearing those. So that other voice when it came up in those health balls, like what the heck is this and why is it here? Why do I get this? Because I like that voice. So, yeah, I stopped using. When I was 22 years old Cold turkey is what they call it I didn’t go through any type of detox, Didn’t go to any type of rehab, Didn’t go to any medically assisted treatment center, and mainly because there was limited resources. There was one place that I could go, here in Albuquerque, and the stories that came out of there they’re like you might as well just go to jail, it’s better. 

0:22:44 – Jessica Dueñas

Yeah, I mean, you know what’s crazy and I was thinking about it when I knew that you were coming on today. It is this idea, like, in terms of where do people go who are struggling with addiction to opiates? Right, because if you are struggling with alcohol, you can put it in a hashtag into Instagram or anywhere, and there’s like a million communities and you can literally almost go community shopping, do a free trial to this community, a free trial to that community right, and really find what works for you. But I feel like and you know, my partner had passed away from his addiction to opiates back in 2020, right, and he attempted to get sober by attending AA and calling himself an alcoholic when alcohol was not his problem, you know, and I can’t help but wonder, like what if he had found community among other people who knew exactly what he was struggling with, with the urge to shoot up that ritual? Right, like that whole thing that you described? 

I feel like there’s just so much isolation when you can’t openly come out and say that that’s what you’re struggling with. And like if you’re trying to fit yourself into, say, an alcohol free space, when you’re not an alcohol lick or, you know, addicted to alcohol. I feel like that can be really limiting. So I was going to ask you like, how did you do it? But you’re basically you kind of just cold turkey on your own. What kept you going? 

0:24:06 – Nico Morales

I knew if there was a reason that I was still around, so I was trying to figure out that reason. But that lifestyle there was enough people that I seen pass away from overdoses, using less than I had used. One of the big things that happened was there was this young kid and I call him young, he was probably about 16 at the time and I was maybe I was about 20 years old and he went to a party and he had taken a couple pills and he didn’t wake up the next day and his family and my family were pretty close and I had a revelation like well, I’m able to use 320 milligrams of oxy-ca and I’m able to shoot up grams of heroin and I haven’t passed away yet. Why Like that? Why was my biggest driver? 

I was dedicated to figuring out the why that I was still allowed to be in this place when other people hadn’t. There was other individuals that I had used next to and watched them overdose, and there wasn’t Narcan at the time. There wasn’t these things that were available at the time to revive somebody. So when they went blue or on the lips, like you just knew, get your stuff and get out of there. 

Like that’s what you knew to do. It was during that era that they had the law created where you could drop somebody off at the hospital when they were overdose. Because that’s what was happening People were dying using together and you would get arrested. If you called the cops. If you were there when somebody died and they saw a drug, you were going to jail. So there was no point in helping anybody because you were gonna be hurting yourself. So what really kept me going was why. Why the heck did I get to make it to all this stuff? And that’s one of my biggest drivers was figuring out the why. And I didn’t figure out the why immediately. 

I stopped using heroin when I was 22 years old. June 13th 2012, 22 years old, that was the last day that I shot a heroin. 

And from there. I just white knuckled it and spent time for me in prayer because I knew that there was something greater out there for me to do, and I didn’t know what it was. But I still had to deal with my issues, and I think that’s the underlying thing with all addictions is that there’s some sort of issue that you have to come to terms with. Doing my own self-work Some people call it shadow work. There’s different terms for it in different communities self-awareness, going to therapy but it uncovers something that’s been kidding for your whole life and that subconscious, hidden driver is what programs most people and when we can find solutions to that program that make us not feel pain anymore or even give us some sort of pleasure for a little bit. That’s what gets us hooked, and so my family started letting me back around them. 

One of my homies was letting me around him and just a side note if you are somebody who has a loved one that you care about, that is using some sort of opiate. Right now, fentanyl is the biggest thing. Telling them that they can’t use that around you is okay. This guy, I love him to death, but I haven’t talked to him in 10 years because he told me he can’t be around me when I was using and it was the best thing for me because I was like dude, we were close, he was my brother and he straight up said don’t come around me because you’re not the same and that was the most helpful. 

And I still don’t talk to him because we’re not there and I probably caused a lot of damage to that relationship, but he was one of the reasons that my life got saved, because I was like shoot, if this guy don’t want me around, then what the heck am I doing? My sister was someone else that was like Nico, I can’t be around you, you won’t be involved in my life if you continue participating in these behaviors. I hadn’t dealt with my abandonment, with my fear of missing out, with my need to be right, with my constantly creating problems that I could solve, because that’s what I was doing. I was making problems in my life so I could solve problems in my life, so I could feel better about myself. I was afraid of missing out on experiences and times, but I would use that fear to get high and get drunk and I’d miss out. 

I didn’t like to change the way that I thought, and because I didn’t like to change the way that I thought, I would stay in a consistent pattern of self-harm. And then I needed to be right, because I have the issue with authority. So I needed to be right and using was the right thing for me, and so those type of thought patterns kept me stuck and I started drinking. Because I remember one day there was my old man who was like you can hang out with me, you can live with me if you want to, but you just can’t use drugs. I was like, okay, cool. 

So I started drinking and because I hadn’t dealt with my underlying issues, alcohol became my escape and I repeated. I eventually found myself living in an abandoned building because my parents no longer wanted me around. My sister no longer wanted me around. I was drinking two bottles a day rum, and that was a solution that I had found. It wasn’t until that moment, and I was sleeping in this building with just a hot plate. They didn’t have no running water, they just had electricity that was rigged up and I had a hot plate, a TV and a mattress, and I was just like what are you doing, dude? You’re back at this same spot that you were a few years ago, and I was 27 at that time. 

So I had a decent stretch without using heroin, but I became completely dependent on alcohol, and that tends to be a common factor for opiate users. They’ll stop using opiates, but they will begin drinking because it’s very much a depressant. And I’ll share this for all the alcohol-free people out there, people who are thinking about going alcohol-free Get some help. I didn’t get help on that one either, but get community, get accountability. Those are two main things that everybody needs to make any type of change in their life. 

But, especially to remove or release this type of dependency, is accountability and community. And there’s like Jessica said earlier, there’s quick hashtags online. Stopping, yeah, yeah and you can find them, and there’s people who want to help you out that have been through it Now, because of the extent of my overdrinking, the extent of my opiate use. I got diagnosed with this rare disease it was called avascular necrosis when I was 28 years old and what the doctor said was that my hips were collapsing. The blood vessels that go into my hips go ahead. 

0:31:24 – Jessica Dueñas

I heard about that actually with someone who I went to rehab with. She was addicted to heroin and she continued to struggle, even like in recent years, and she had posted about having to have like some bone replacement work done. But anyway, yeah, go ahead. 

0:31:41 – Nico Morales

Yeah, it’s very common amongst opiate users and steroid users. Actually, those are the two main ways that they currently know about it. Last I checked, the numbers were 250,000 out of every two million people. I’m sorry, in the United States 250,000 people get diagnosed with it every year, but I was at stage four, so apparently I like stage one or two. They could put a piece of your other bone on there and it’ll regrow, which is really cool. 

Our bodies are trippy, but with this one where I was at, my bones had already collapsed. So the way I like to describe it is I was walking around with two collapsed hips. Imagine trying to take a cinder block and put it through a metal basketball rim. That’s what I kind of walk around with. So I had this goofy limp. I look like a penguin that’s what I like to describe it as, because penguins don’t have the hip flexors where they can lift up their knees. They just kind of waddle. It’s exactly how I want and I felt. 

You know this is a journey. So wherever you’re at in the journey whether you’re starting to identify the underlying issues, whether you know what your underlying issues are and you’re maintaining a healthy relationship with them, or if you’re in a place of giving back. I think that healing once you heal, you help other people who are behind you. But in my journey between that healing and helping and maintaining, I had this self punishment. Basically because I didn’t go to rehab, which I figured was a punishment, I didn’t go to jail, which I figured was a punishment. I was like, oh, this is how God is punishing me, this is how I’m being punished is my hips are collapsed, so I’ll just deal with it. So from 28 to 31, I was working full time at a call center, so I sat down all day, which was helpful, but I waddled everywhere else. I was back in school getting myself an education, because I was an area that I knew I could develop in and I was writing a book. 

But in all that time frame I had two collapsed hips. I couldn’t sit down or to get up, hurt to use the restroom. Hurt to climb stairs. Hurt. I could hear the bones rub up against each other inside my body and I just thought it was. You know, this is my punishment. This is what I get for doing all the stuff that I did, and I want to speak to somebody who right now, I can sense, is feeling that self punishment, like well, I need to continue to punish myself. You don’t Like, you’re here for a reason, you’re listening for a reason. There’s no reason to punish yourself further. If there was a punishment necessary, then you know what. You’re, not the. You’re not the judge and jury of your life. Quite honestly, that’s my personal belief. And my doctor was like, yeah, you need to have your hips replaced and I was like, cool. 

0:34:40 – Jessica Dueñas

I’ll just avoid that. 

0:34:41 – Nico Morales

I’ll just ignore that. I’m not going to deal with that, because then you have to take pain meds you have to take, you know. 

0:34:47 – Jessica Dueñas

I mean, if you have a surgery like that, typically I’m not assuming that that’s what you did, but usually that is the pain management. Like you’re going to have to take opiates because I mean, Dan, like you’re having entire bones sawed through and replaced with artificial joints. 

0:34:59 – Nico Morales

Absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, at that point, I was just completely against it. I was just living in constant pain from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. But you know, there’s another why you have to have wise. If I could share anything with people listening right now, there’s a why that you are doing what you’re doing. There’s a why that you over drink. There’s a why that you use a substance. There’s a why that you’re taking some sort of behavior. You got to have a stronger why to overcome that and that stronger why you’re going to be the only one that can identify it. 

At this point in my life. I’m 31 years old, 30 years old. So this is 2020 now, and you know there’s a whole world event going on that we all live through. But my sister was. My sister was just getting married. She had just actually completed her first year of marriage and she told me that she was pregnant and I was like, oh, shoot, that means I’m gonna be an uncle. Right, that’s how that works. She was like yeah, you’re gonna be an uncle. I was like cool Now. I shared with you guys earlier that my uncle was the one who gave me my first job as a, as a gopher, so that title in my head holds a high prestige. And I was like, well, I need to be like the dopest uncle out in the southwest. Like there can’t be no cooler uncles other than Nico out here in New Mexico. Like I got to be the coolest uncle. That’s my goal. And how am I going to hold this baby, walk around with this baby, if I’m waddling? Like how am I going to play with the baby? How am I going to enjoy time with this baby? Is this baby’s memory going to feed Nico, waddling around his whole life living in pain? Can’t play with her. 

So I decided you know, it’s time to get my hips replaced. And at this point both my hips are now in stage four. They’re. Both the doctors are telling me you need to get it replaced. Um, you’re, they’re going to collapse. And if they collapse, you have these arteries inside of your legs and if those get cut internally you could actually be in serious damage. And I’m like, yeah, whatever, all right, like guys don’t know who I am. I was using all this heroin, I was over drinking, that don’t face me. 

But when my sister was like, yeah, you’re gonna be an uncle, something in my mind clicked and I was like, yeah, you need, you need to be a healthy person. Um, so I started searching for, uh, help. And you know what? That was another area that help wasn’t readily available. Um, because of my age, they didn’t nobody wanted to really do the surgery on me. The doctors that I was referred to. They’re like, yeah, we’ll give you a quarter zone shots and that’ll just remove your pain. I’m like, oh, I could live through the pain. I’ve been living through the pain. I need to be mobile. Um, I need to be able to move. And they’re like well, we don’t want to do the surgery. Uh, one surgeon. I asked him because I could tell there’s a sense that most addicts have, like it’s a sixth sense. You know, when somebody’s BSing you, you could read between the lines. And I was like look bro something seems off. 

So what is it that you that you’re not telling me? He’s like well, the way I was taught is that these implants, they go from one box to another, and I was like, oh, I got you. What he was saying is that you know what, when I pulled the implant out of the box that I get it from from the manufacturer, the only other box that it should be in is your coffee. And since that’s not going to be the case with you, I don’t want to do the surgery. I was like got you, thank you, you’re looking out for your numbers and I appreciate the honesty, because now I know that for sure you’re not doing my surgery, we’ll go find someone else. 

So it took me about another six months, looked into some robotic surgeries, because they have those available. My insurance was like no, I can’t pay for that. So I kept on searching and I found this doctor and he saw me walking and he was like yeah, you need your hips replaced. I got an opening, I’ll do it, and it was music to my ears. So in June of 2021, I went and got my left hip replaced. In August of 2021. I got my right hip replaced. So I did bilateral anterior antheroplasty within 60 days. 

And like you said, Jessica, there was the opiates. Right, I have this belief and, again, your journey whoever’s listening is different than my journey, so you need to do what’s best for you. But I figured that if I was scared of opiates and they still had control over me, like if I was scared of them, scared to take them, then that meant that they still had a control over me. And again, my issues with authority, like nothing is going to control me Nothing. And so I didn’t tell the surgeon, I didn’t tell the medical team that I had issues with opioids. It wasn’t on any of my medical records. It was something that people knew, if you knew me, but like medically, paperwork, it’s. 

One of the best parts about being from New Mexico is that they’d say you don’t put nothing on papers. Like nothing, Nothing on papers. It might not even be New Mexico, it might just be that poverty mindset of you know what. Don’t put your name on things, Because I haven’t had my name on very many things since I was like 18 until now in my 30s. It’s all under the table. And so I went and they’re like well, sat with the anesthesiologist. Here’s a couple of the different things that we can do for you. We can just knock you out so that you don’t feel it, but you’ll be awake. You can see everything happening. I’m like miss me with that. 

0:40:34 – Jessica Dueñas

Now I’m good. 

0:40:36 – Nico Morales

See them like bring out a saw and bring it to life. Cool, let’s flattery everywhere, like I don’t want to see any of that. It’s like there’s another way that I can do it and you may come in and out of consciousness. I was like you need to make sure that I don’t wake up, because if I wake up there’s going to be a problem. Like just, I know myself well enough that if I wake up and I’m in that type of environment, I’m going to freak out. 

0:40:59 – Jessica Dueñas

That’s going to be hard for people. Yeah, like waking up mid-surgery. That’s traumatic, so no yeah. 

0:41:07 – Nico Morales

Yeah, and with that description the anesthesiologist was like all right, cool, I’m going to completely knock you out there I was like, great, knock me out, that’s the way to do it. And then afterwards that’s why I say accountability and community. However you find that in your path, you need to have it. My community that I found was this personal development group, because I didn’t. I didn’t find community amongst the NAs, I didn’t find community amongst the AAs, I didn’t find community amongst these, like Jay. We both know Jay Chase. He has a group like that right. He works for another organization and mainly because they don’t pay me. I’m not dropping their names, that’s why. But there’s organizations out there that you can find community in and you know, even for those who don’t want to go that route and might lean a little bit more towards the spiritual side, that’s what a church is supposed to be. It’s really not a building, it’s a community of people that you’re supposed to be able to be accountable to, and that’s what it boils down to. 

So I found myself a community within this personal development group and I had somebody keep me accountable, because they prescribed me oxycontin again when I got out of my surgery. 

I had two weeks worth of pills to take and the people that I had around me. I was like I designated one person that could come and check on the amount of pills that I had, to make sure that I was taking exactly what I needed to be taking, which was very difficult. I could lie with that whole control thing that I have. I was like, yeah, this is hard but I had that to make sure that I had the accountability there and I removed my dependency on opiates like afterwards, quicker than they had prescribed. So like they had me prescribed for like two weeks and I did it within a week. And I did that because I knew what my body does on opiates. I knew how my mind works on opiates, but I replaced it with. I replaced it with cannabinoids. That’s what I use. It was a harm reduction method for me, so I’d take edibles and I’d smoke just to manage my pain for the time in between the two surgeries and then after the surgeries. 

And then I got my second surgery and the same thing. I removed the opiates prior to the time that I needed to and the worst part was the doctor was like how’s your pain? Do you want me to give you another script? And I was like no, no, I don’t need another script. And really I say that because I don’t want anybody to think that there’s a time that you finish this like. 

Every day is a day for you to choose how you’re gonna approach life. Are you gonna be dependent on whatever substance it is, or are you gonna be dependent on validating yourself through other things? So now I validate myself and I feel my gaps and I feel my mind with exercise, with reading, with journaling. So every day I do prayer, I do a workout, I do journaling, I do some reading and I make sure that those are the four things that make me grounded. Because it used to be get up and take four shots Used to be get up and smoke a couple pills. Used to be get up and smoke some weed before I could feel something, and now, as long as I do that, I feel whole and that’s really my biggest thing. That’s my why now is that I get to share with people. 

Here’s another way that you can approach life. You don’t need to escape life. Life is supposed to be for the living. You’re not supposed to be zonked out, zombieed out. You’re not supposed to be a drunk all the time, Like what actual life is not a life. It really isn’t. And that thought process and that approach has been what’s helped me out and that’s what I share with people in my own programs. In my own, I put videos out all the time just to help people with their thoughts, their emotions and their actions. That’s what it boils down to for me, and I’ve reduced my life dependency. I used to be big on coffee, just not hating on anybody who drinks coffee but I used to drink like 32 ounces a day and I was like, oh shoot, this is the next thing that you could evolve. So it’s just constantly stripping things from my life that I feel give me a validation. That’s outside of me, Because we should all be validating ourselves internally, Because whoever’s listening, you’re an amazing human being. You got breath today. You got today before a reason. 

Not for anything that you did, but because there’s a purpose out there. You’re supposed to smile at somebody today that’s going to brighten their day. You’re supposed to talk to somebody today that’s going to make their day better. You’re supposed to do something in this world that no one else can do, and my goal, my why now is to make sure that you feel empowered, motivated, encouraged and you see that hope. Because if you’re still around, that’s why You’re around, so that you can bring something to this world that no one else can. And, just like Jessica, she brings things to this world that I can’t ever bring. She brings a perspective that I can’t bring. We can sit here and we can partner and we can talk, but the ultimate goal of these conversations is to bring awareness to others, so that you know and you can join this realm of the living, this non-dependency, this beautiful life that we get to enjoy. And now I can hang out with my nieces. I’m getting a little bit emotional about it, but I get to pick them up and hang out. 

0:46:52 – Jessica Dueñas

There’s more than one now. 

0:46:54 – Nico Morales

There’s more than one now, yeah. 

0:46:56 – Jessica Dueñas

That’s awesome. And you know, nico, one of the things that you said that I really loved in terms of your decision to get the surgery, like that transition of the almost like self-flagellation, like well, this is my punishment, I’m just going to deal with the pain and the suffering, right, really. And then you found out your sister was pregnant. There’s a baby in the picture and suddenly that light comes on and you were like that was my motivation to become a healthy person, and I love that. 

Coming back to that, because I think for a lot of people, they think, just because they stop using substances, that that suddenly makes them healthy, right, and it’s like, and I think like your big shift to being healthy was finally loving yourself enough to take care of yourself inside and outside, right, not just stopping the cessation of the substance abuse, but like no, let me take care of myself so that I can be a human and connect and build meaningful connections with, like awesome little kids that you have in your life. Now. That to me, like that’s really powerful. I love that. So how is the Uncle life now? What does that look like for you? 

0:48:03 – Nico Morales

Oh, it’s awesome. Every Wednesday I get to hang out and they yell out Theo, when I’m pulled up. They already know that we’re going to go do something fun. We’re going to hang out. I get to buy them little clothes Like Biggie Smalls is still. They got a sweater of Biggie Smalls that they each get. 

Like it’s amazing. They have these beautiful blue eyes and they’re so brand new to the world. I got to take them on a school bus the other day. Like I’m a talker, I can talk to anybody. So my nieces love the school bus song, you know, and we saw a school bus when we were at the park and I started just talking to the school bus driver and all of a sudden my niece was on the school bus, in the school bus seat. So it’s those type of memories that I get to hang out with and create that I just know brightens up their life, and they won’t ever know the version of me. 

that was there, Don’t get me wrong. When they get older and probably have some conversations, but they won’t ever know what that was like. 

0:49:00 – Jessica Dueñas

And that’s what’s beautiful. They might Google their feel and be like what’s this? Yeah? 

0:49:07 – Nico Morales

Yeah, yeah, uncle, you got this book out here. How come they talk about you like this? How come what? 

0:49:14 – Jessica Dueñas

is it that you do? 

Yeah, my boyfriend’s son is 12, and he’s on TikTok and he found me like I mean, at this point he’s known for like a year, but when he first found my stuff online he was like are you OK? Because in one video I was talking about blacking out and what that’s like, and he thought I meant that I was like currently blacking out. He was like are you all right? I was like, yes, I’m talking about my past, but it was a good conversation and hey, he’s a 12-year-old who now knows a whole lot about substance abuse and what it looks like. So, yeah, it can be really excellent role models for these kids in our lives. 

0:49:52 – Nico Morales

Absolutely and not to say that I want that on them, but they’re going to have their own struggles and to even show that, hey, here’s how I overcame the struggles that I had. That can be an extremely good role model for someone else, because problems never go away. I don’t care how affluent you are, I don’t care what your background is, I don’t care what your demographic is Everybody has issues. One of the best parts about this journey is that now I can help people change the way that they think about themselves and visualize themselves and identify it, because when I started identifying as someone who loved myself, that’s when things really started to shift. When I identified as someone who had self-hate wasn’t worth anything, that’s when I did a lot of things that came with that, so that self-identity is huge. 

0:50:46 – Jessica Dueñas

So, in terms of your future, now that you’re giving yourself the gift of being in the land of the living, basically, what do you see for yourself in the future? 

0:50:59 – Nico Morales

Well, let’s go with. I’ll do personal, spiritual and business, because that’s kind of how I approach life. So, personal life I see myself marrying, having a kid, having kids. I like that, for that’s my goal, and Supporting them and teaching them from the stuff that I have learned, you know, in part of my wisdom on them and being that protector provider for someone else. I think that is Is Parts, that’s for sure, in my personal goal. 

Spiritually, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, so, you know, sharing the love that I felt from him to others, that’s something that I know I can do. You know, yes, I believe there’s some people who believe in God. There’s some people who don’t believe in God. Either way, you’re exercising the skill of faith, the muscle of faith. So I support anybody who wants to exercise that faith muscle, whether it is in God, jesus or someone else. But that’s my personal belief. So Any chance that I get to do that, I do that. And here’s the crazy part, jessica, I grew up around pastors and I hated them. I absolutely hated pastors. I can’t stand the church and now, just because of my own communities that I’m still a part of, people have now called me pastor and I’m just like, oh shoot, that’s full circle. So that’s the spiritual side of it, you know, just staying consistently in tune with this higher power. I think that’s the best way to describe it. For somebody who’s not any type of religious affiliation, that allows me to be the best. But again, I profess Jesus as much as I can. And then, business-wise, my goal is to be the number one speaker in the nation on substance use and recovery. So I’ve had some great trainings from some high-level speakers and I love to go and share the knowledge. This weekend I’ll be speaking at a global conference to help Share a technique that I’ve developed For emotional awareness, emotional intelligence. But yeah, that’s my goal is to be a speaker for this up to go to speaker and substance use and sobriety, if you want to call it that, I like to call it personal development, because that’s just how I view it. It’s helped me view it that way. 

I also do consulting for organizations that behavioral health, organizations that employ people who have lived experience. I have some contracts with the state of New Mexico where I help them out in their human services department and then I do coaching for individuals who do want to Kind of get that life coaching. I do that and that’s what my future could system and it looks beautiful like. It looks beautiful being able to Coach people to their definition of sobriety, coach people to their definition of success, to consult and make sure that you know I’m giving the person first experience, because I was. One of the reasons why I never attended a behavioral treatment center was because it was Money first or organization first. It was in person first, and so being able to integrate that and have the backing to do it you know, credentials and education that supports it is very important to me. So making sure I do that and then speaking man, I love you like podcasts like this. 

Just being able to share the hope With someone else is is the goal that I have going forward. 

0:54:19 – Jessica Dueñas

And how could people find you like? Let’s say, somebody wanted to reach out to you. After listening to this, what’s like your website or your Instagram handle? Yeah, for sure. Thank you for the opportunity to share that a website is the best way. 

0:54:33 – Nico Morales

I have a personal belief that no one was created to be a perfect little angel, so my business name is no halo. You can find me at no halo and em comm. That’s wwwnohalo nm com. My Instagram handles are at no halo and em, and that’s on Instagram, facebook and YouTube. Oh, and I got a tick tock now too. Actually, that one is at Nico Morales, with two underscores between the knee and the knee. Go Morales, with two underscores between the Nico Morales. That’s where you can find me. 

0:55:05 – Jessica Dueñas

I’ll put those also in the show notes too. I’ll look all those up and put them in. Well, any last word, nico, for anybody listening. 

0:55:13 – Nico Morales

Yeah, the last word is uh, you weren’t created to be a perfect angel, you were created to do better. 

0:55:18 – Jessica Dueñas

today, let’s see. I love that Progress over perfection. Well, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much, nico, for sharing your story with everybody. Um, it is, it’s powerful, it’s beautiful and, honestly, I really hope that you know like I feel a lot of hope just listening for your story today, and I hope that you know everybody who’s listening also feels that way and feels inspired. So, thank you so much. 

0:55:44 – Nico Morales

Thank you for the opportunity to share. 

0:55:46 – Jessica Dueñas

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 sobercom, 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 sobercom. See you then. 

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

In this episode, I explore the intricate journey of letting go, which looks different depending on where you are at in your life journey. I dive into a personal story of letting go of a romantic connection, who, after waiting for a year of sobriety to get serious with them, their response – a suggestion to “focus on your recovery” – prompted a deeper examination of what it means to work on recovery and the fear of being alone. Ultimately, today’s episode focuses on finding peace and self-worth throughout life’s transitions.

Resources:

Free Support Group Meeting for Educators

New Year’s Eve Self Forgiveness Workshop

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas: Hey, everybody, before we start. Today’s episode, 2 quick reminders reminder number one. If you are an educator, I am hosting my free support for educators. On Thursday, October nineteenth, at 8 30 Eastern Register for free on my website bottom list to sober.com. And I am hosting a new workshop called Feelings aren’t facts, and it is a self forgiveness workshop on New Year’s Eve. So find out more information also on my site, bottomless to sobercom. And with that.

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gonna go ahead and let’s get started.

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Jessica Dueñas: So first, I want to start off this week’s topic. Just with sharing this beautiful poem by Alexell from her book after the rain, and it’s from page 57, and I’ll go ahead and read it, she wrote.

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Jessica Dueñas: I’m gaining perspective from what is able to stay and finding wisdom in what has to go. Letting go isn’t synonymous with missing out.

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Jessica Dueñas: I have the power to make room in my life for shifting and joy. I am releasing what no longer serves a purpose in my journey with Grace. I will create space for change.

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Jessica Dueñas: So first, I just wanna say I really do adore Alex, else work when I first started to get sober it wasn’t actually quitlet that like carried me and inspired me and got me through. It was it was Alex l’s work. It! That is actually what I was diving into reading her work, and then also before agreements was like on repeat for me

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Jessica Dueñas: and Alex. L. There’s just something so medicinal about her words that II love going back to some of these poems that I read like way early on, and reflecting on where my life is today. And so.

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Jessica Dueñas: you know, I wanted to talk about this idea of letting go

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Jessica Dueñas: letting go. Is this really great idea? Because it can go in many directions

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Jessica Dueñas: when you first are quitting drinking right when you’re first addressing your relationship with alcohol.

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Jessica Dueñas: It’s almost like the First level of letting go is just letting go of that. The actual relationship with alcohol that you had right for so many of us. Alcohol has been there when we were happy. It’s been there when we were sad. It’s been there for literally everything right. Everything in life can eventually become a trigger that sends us off to the drink, and to break away from that, and to step towards the unknown, a life without alcohol. A life without that crutch

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Jessica Dueñas: can be incredibly scary, and we can get panic stricken. I remember I was right. I remember asking myself what happens now, and I remember almost feeling like this devastation, and the Major sinking in my stomach at the idea of Oh, my gosh! I’m never going to have a drink again.

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Jessica Dueñas: and obviously, you know, and I’ll even say it’s my clients like you don’t have to think in terms of. I’m never going to drink again. But to be honest in my situation, I had to think that way because I had gotten diagnosed with alcoholic liver disease. So for me, if I wanted to stay alive.

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Jessica Dueñas: My relationship with alcohol had to become one of permanent abstinence right there. There is no moderating for me given how bad my drinking had gotten. And so, you know, in my case, I did have to make terms or come to terms with the fact that I was never going to be able to drink again in any kind of successful manner. So yeah, absolutely. The idea of never having that comfort to lean on was scary.

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Jessica Dueñas: There were times, you all that I remember I would come home from work when I was in my active addiction, and you know my cravings were so high, and my withdrawal symptoms were so bad by the afternoon that I would swing by the liquor store grab that fifth of cheap Bourbon I’d come home, and literally, I would just like Rush to get into bed

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Jessica Dueñas: right. And I remember the same way that you might hold like a stuffed animal in your arms. That’s how I would cradle that bottle. and I would just sip on it until I, you know.

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Jessica Dueñas: disappeared in my mind right until I fall asleep. and for me.

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Jessica Dueñas: That was very, very comforting for a long time, so much so that I eventually developed alcoholic liver disease. And so I just want to recognize if anybody’s listening to this and is working on stopping.

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Jessica Dueñas: I hear you. It is very scary, and it is very hard, because I it’s like suddenly you’re ripping that Teddy bear out of my arms like what I can’t. I can’t have my Teddy bear anymore. And it’s like, No, you can’t have your Teddy bear anymore.

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Jessica Dueñas: so in the beginning it is that it is that challenging. And then.

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Jessica Dueñas: as you continue right, like, once you start hitting some milestones. Now, it’s like you’re being faced with the challenge of other levels of letting go right like. And that can be scary. Because obviously, if the first goal is to quit drinking. Now, alcohol is out of the way, and literally, the world is your oyster. In terms of like. You can develop yourself into any kind of person that you want to be right, like the opportunity for growth and self development really magnifies. And that’s scary in itself.

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And what that means, too, is that the opportunities of what you can let go of

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Jessica Dueñas: also grow right like? Now, you can really look at anything in your life and be like all right. Does this serve me? And if it doesn’t, maybe I do need to release it. Maybe I do need to let it go. And so you know this coming this month actually

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Jessica Dueñas: will be the anniversary of me, having let someone go of who I dated so, as many of you know, who have followed me or know my story. I was in a relationship during one of my earlier attempts at recovery.

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Jessica Dueñas: With a man who had passed away due to his own addiction with opiates, and after a relapse he had passed away. and I was in a complete.

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Jessica Dueñas: horribly devastated place. After his death. He died in April of 2020, and I didn’t stop drinking until November of 2020 but I would say in about around September, October, I met someone who

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Jessica Dueñas: it was long distance, so he was in Louisville, Kentucky, and I was here in Florida at this point already, but you know he had taken a liking to me, and he he did quickly become like a a what I felt was a safe person. Right? I you know I knew that he didn’t struggle with substances, so I knew that I wouldn’t have to worry about him suddenly, like turning around and like passing away on me, so to speak

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Jessica Dueñas: but you know, like he had some solid familiarity with recovery spaces because of people in his family who had recovered and overall. You know, he presented as a really solid person. And so, you know, he he got into my circle as someone who I would talk to frequently on the phone, and on occasion we visited each other, you know. Either he’d come to Florida, or I’d go to Kentucky to visit

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Jessica Dueñas: as I navigated like my very early recovery. You know. One big takeaway I had gotten from Ian’s death was that I was not going to get into a very serious relationship with someone so early on like. No, I wasn’t gonna like move in with you that fast, or anything like that.

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Jessica Dueñas: But you know I did have a romantic interest. You know, I’m I wasn’t gonna shut all that off. So you know. So just to be perfectly honest about my journey right? So you know, I always had a love interest.

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Jessica Dueñas: and as my first sober versus 3 came around right like when we got to. So I got sober. November 2020, and by November 2021, October, November, you know, my one year was coming up, and

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Jessica Dueñas: you know, as I got stronger one of the big moments of clarity that I got right in my journey was that I, though my hopes of a marriage and children, all that had kind of been dashed when Ian passed away. I had recovered enough from that to know that I did want that. I knew that I did want an opportunity at a family.

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Jessica Dueñas: and once it was, you know, almost my year sobriety. I was like, you know what I’m gonna tell. So and so I’m just gonna call him so. And so for the purposes of this episode gonna call, I’m gonna tell so and so that

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Jessica Dueñas: I’m ready to look at next steps like, II want this to be like a real solid relationship. I would love to, you know. and I did. I was super excited. I had hyped myself up. I was like, yes, finally, like I’m ready, and I’ve I’ve so patiently waited, and I’m so excited to pursue this future with this person. And when I told him that

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Jessica Dueñas: his response was you. You’ve got to focus on your recovery.

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Jessica Dueñas: And it’s funny cause I was like, what do you mean? I have to focus on my recovery. I’m always gonna have to focus on my recovery like, are you kidding me like? There’s no finish line to this like there’s no finish line quitting, drinking.

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Jessica Dueñas: And

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Jessica Dueñas: I’ve remembered that I really dislike the way those words landed on me like the way that he said it, because it felt like the words themselves sounded good, right? Like anybody telling a person a recovery like, yeah, you gotta focus on your journey.

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Jessica Dueñas: Sounds good on the outside. But when I stopped and let it sit with me, and I thought about it, and I had talked to my therapist at the time. I realized that

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Jessica Dueñas: for me it felt more like it was a cop out like it was his way of keeping me attached while still keeping me at a distance, right like.

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you know.

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Jessica Dueñas: extending this moving the goalposts, so to speak, and like extending this time period.

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Jessica Dueñas: And so, you know, like, we had had another conversation about it, and I was, and I came back, and I said, like, Hey, I understand. Like you’re right. I’m going to have to work on my recovery.

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Jessica Dueñas: But that’s something that’s always going to happen, and I can pursue my other goals and dreams while still working on my recovery, like working on my recovery, doesn’t stop me from doing everything else like. Yes, very early on it did right like. I walked away from my job and quit

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Jessica Dueñas: to get sober. But that didn’t mean that I was going to stay jobless forever. Right? Like we can take breaks from certain things to really focus on a critical, important thing like getting sober when you’re like practically dying. But at this point I hadn’t drank in almost a year. So, and I was working again. So I was like, No, I can pursue a relationship and work on my recovery like I can. I can handle that.

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Jessica Dueñas: And he was like, No, II don’t think that you you can. And that was when I realized that it sounded like I had a decision to make right. So either

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Jessica Dueñas: I follow along with what he was saying.

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Jessica Dueñas: and wait for him to tell me when I was ready for this relationship right, and remove all my agency in this and turn this over to this guy.

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Jessica Dueñas: or I take ownership. And I say, you know what I’m gonna let go of you and look for someone who isn’t going to look or use my recovery as a means to say that I’m not ready to handle certain things.

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Jessica Dueñas: and so I let him go, and that that was nerve wracking right, because, you know, after Ian had passed. I mean there was several months that I was totally on my own, but you know, like I said I met so and so come the fall of 2020.

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Jessica Dueñas: And

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Jessica Dueñas: even though we weren’t like in a serious relationship or anything, at least it was like a love interest that was sort of a distraction while I navigated everything, and the idea of going into the world with a totally clean slate as a woman with like a year of sobriety was really scary, because.

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Jessica Dueñas: you know, at least so and so. He met me while I was struggling, so he knew everything right. He had known about all my trips to rehab he had known about when I had gotten like the bipolar to diagnosis. He had known all that, and so, in a sense, I felt like. Well, if I let him go, maybe he’s the only person who will accept me how I am and has seen me struggle, and maybe no one else will want me.

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Jessica Dueñas: That’s what my brain was trying to tell me to like. Try to protect me and keep me small, and keep me in this relationship that was, gonna get me nowhere. Right? I use. I started to really doubt that anyone else would see my worth or my value. And so when I decided to let him go, it’s like I heard that fear, but I was like, No, some somebody is going to see my worth. Someone is going to value me regardless of my past in my story.

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Jessica Dueñas: So I decided to, you know, go ahead and explore.

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Jessica Dueñas: dating right and explore getting online, and all of that. But going back to the poem right?

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Jessica Dueñas: I’m releasing what no longer serves a purpose. I will create space for change.

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Jessica Dueñas: I really did create that space for change. I mean, I spent probably about another year, you know, meeting people connecting.

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Jessica Dueñas: disconnecting right? And I remember at that point I had gotten with the coach, and you know her reminder. She was like, date them all until you find what you’re looking for right. But don’t settle. Don’t settle even when your brain starts to tell you like maybe you should settle.

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Jessica Dueñas: don’t. And so and that’s literally kind of like the mindset that I would approach every time that I met somebody, if I realized that there was something about us that was just really not compatible. And if I realized that there was something about them that was really

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Jessica Dueñas: going to block me from having some of the things that I want, that I had to let them go. I had to let them go, and it was so scary and so uncomfortable each time. But today I’m in a place where

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Jessica Dueñas: I have peace. I’m in a place where have a sense of family?

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Jessica Dueñas: I’m in a place where there’s really all sorts of potential right and all sorts of hope that has been brought back. And so

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Jessica Dueñas: just a reminder, right like, you can absolutely create space for change. And you can welcome the things in your life that you’ve always been wanting to, but you do have to be ready to let go of whatever’s holding you back right, whether it’s something as not simple, right? Cause. Alcohol is mighty and powerful as hell, but whether it’s something like alcohol, like a substance, or a person, or a job, or a place right?

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Jessica Dueñas: it’s so important to be ready to let those things go. And it’s so

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Jessica Dueñas: so wonderful to be in a space with someone who doesn’t use my recovery as a metric of my worth. Right? I don’t plan on drinking again, but if I did drink tomorrow, I know that my current partner wouldn’t use that as something to hold over my head.

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Jessica Dueñas: Right? II never want my my worth to be measured by the length of time that I have sober, because even the person who is actively drinking today and struggling with their addiction, is worthy of love, and is worthy of peace, and is worthy of stability. We are deserving

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Jessica Dueñas: of peace always. That’s not conditional.

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Jessica Dueñas: And so with that, I hope that you all have a wonderful week. I will talk to you soon. Thank you so much.

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

In this emotionally powerful episode of Bottomless to Sober, I delve into the inspiring and heart-wrenching story of Ana, a young woman whose life was deeply impacted by addiction and mental health challenges. Ana’s journey is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of shedding light on the hidden struggles that many individuals face. At the end I also reveal what Ana does for a living, which may leave listeners surprised because of the assumptions we so frequently make about people struggling with addiction.

Resources:

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Sara’s Story Podcast Episode that I reference

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas: Hey, everyone. So first, before we start today’s episode, I just wanted to share an announcement that on New Year’s Eve, December 30, first, I’m actually going to be hosting a New Year’s Eve self forgiveness, workshop. It’s called feelings aren’t facts on New Year’s Eve self forgiveness, workshop. And essentially it’s gonna be a 90 min workshop where we’re gonna go through some reflection work. But really, also, I’m doing some exercises on evaluating our guilt, resentment and anger towards ourselves.

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Jessica Dueñas: and then I’m diving into some next step works where we are either honoring our younger selves or preparing for our future selves. And so I definitely invite you to check it out. The information is, live on my website at bottom list of sober.com. If you wanna check it out and see if it’s something that you wanna do to get your

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Jessica Dueñas: this 2023 wrapped up? With some really powerful reflections. But with that we’ll go ahead and get started. So for today’s episode, what I wanted to do was actually share an old story that I had written. So in 2021 I had interviewed Anna. Ana is not her real name, but she did not want to disclose her identity for the purposes of sharing this story on a public platform, and I wanted to go ahead and just reread her story and share it with you all, because

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it is a really powerful story that resonates with so many of us in terms of the struggles that we go through when we deal with addiction. So the story is originally titled. You don’t know what you don’t see.

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Jessica Dueñas: And this is Anna story.

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Life in active addiction is difficult.

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Jessica Dueñas: Getting sober can be nearly impossible for some, and a sober life does not necessarily equal an easy life.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna’s story is full of countless challenges, lots of falls, and even more comebacks.

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Jessica Dueñas: Sobriety is a challenge, but I wouldn’t trade my life today for anything is something that Anna had said when we met. raised by her abusive mother. Anna’s childhood only increased in chaos as she grew

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Jessica Dueñas: she described her mother as the older she got the crazier she got, and I mean she caught herself on fire. And yes, Anna meant this literally, her mother really did catch herself on fire.

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Jessica Dueñas: What about your dad, Anna? Anna’s dad was primarily absent from her childhood, and she said, My dad, I saw him a handful of times growing up. I always wanted to be with him, especially because my mother was constantly hurting us. She hurt us a lot.

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Jessica Dueñas: My dad had a wreck drinking and driving. He actually killed some one. So he went to prison.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna’s a fast talker, and can get a lot out in a single breath. So after she said all that she did pause, but then continued, there was always something that was causing me trauma, and I didn’t even know I didn’t understand that it was happening to me. I didn’t understand any of it. I wasn’t allowed to kiss my mother, hug my mother, or tell her that I loved her. I just couldn’t find the love.

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Jessica Dueñas: I was a good kid. I wasn’t a bad kid

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Jessica Dueñas: when I was 16, she continued. That’s when I found alcohol and drugs.

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Jessica Dueñas: My first drink felt like I could breathe. I felt that people cared about me, the people at the drugs and alcohol. They didn’t judge me. They didn’t make fun of how I looked.

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Jessica Dueñas: I fit right in. Anna then described how drugs and alcohol brought her the peace and comfort she yearned for since early childhood life

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Jessica Dueñas: her life was really chaotic and confusing. So for her to escape was bliss.

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Jessica Dueñas: I assumed that since her mother had been so abusive that her doing drugs would only have brought on more chaos at home.

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So how was your relationship with your mother? And now that you were older and she found out that you were doing drugs? I asked.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna had chuckled

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Jessica Dueñas: at the time we started using together. It brought the relationship to a different level.

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Jessica Dueñas: I finally had something she wanted. So she started to be nice to me. It was good. She started liking my friends, too. She was just easier to be around.

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Jessica Dueñas: This new bond, however, didn’t last long.

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Jessica Dueñas: One day her mother had Anna drive up to her mother’s boyfriend’s house, and as her mother got out of the car she turned to Anna, and in a harsh yet hushed tone said, Don’t get out of the car. Don’t say anything and shut your mouth.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna recalled her mother, went into the house and rushed out shortly after taking Anna straight home.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna’s mom had just robbed her own boyfriend. As they heard a car pull up which was the boyfriend’s car. They went and hid inside the back.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna recalled watching the car slowly pull into the driveway, and pausing, they held still, watching him steadily he put the car in reverse and backed away, driving off as if he had come in.

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Jessica Dueñas: Had he gone a hair further he would have seen them.

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Jessica Dueñas: Once he was gone. Her mother went through the house, ransacking it, searching for all the drugs in the home, including what she stole.

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Jessica Dueñas: Making sure not to leave a fraction of an ounce of weed, and balancing the beer that remained in the fridge. She walked out.

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Jessica Dueñas: They didn’t see their mother again for about 4 months.

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Jessica Dueñas: so you must have been devastated right? I had asked. I was wrong. Anna and her sister, then ages 16 and 14 respectively. They were alone for a week.

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Jessica Dueñas: The Wicked Witch was gone is how they said it.

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So they partied. They had friends over, and they were distracting themselves.

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Jessica Dueñas: Yes, they thought about their mother. They wondered where she went, but they also felt relief. No one was in the house who could hurt them.

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Jessica Dueñas: Shortly after her mother’s departure the family got involved. About a week later it happened to be that her father was wrapping up his prison sentence, and as soon as he got out he pulled the girls out of school to live with him and his girlfriend, her 2 kids, plus the additional 2 kids who would come over every other weekend

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Jessica Dueñas: 8 people in a one bedroom apartment.

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Jessica Dueñas: It was tight, but her father eventually got them into a house where they had room to stretch

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Jessica Dueñas: with her mother gone and her father back in the picture. Anna looked forward to having a dad around.

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Jessica Dueñas: The time lost while he was away could not be made up.

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Jessica Dueñas: Hope had filled Anna’s heart as she started this new life with her father. Anna said to me, I wanted my dad, my entire life. but when I finally got my dad

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Jessica Dueñas: I didn’t have my dad at all.

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Jessica Dueñas: He was focused on his girlfriend and her sons. All the strangers were getting the affection.

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Jessica Dueñas: So one day I came home high on weed. Then he called the police on me. They didn’t do anything, so I did it again.

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Jessica Dueñas: I was so angry, Jessica. All these years he abandoned me, and he hadn’t been around, and now I’m still not good enough.

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Jessica Dueñas: Things also weren’t going any better at her new high school, either. She reported. I had been to 10 schools, and that was the worst school I had ever been in.

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Jessica Dueñas: you know, as a teacher when she shared this right. It’s like I’ve seen my fair share of parents who would come to school and raise hell if they suspected their daughter was being bullied. But instead, what her dad did, her dad pulled her out of school senior year when she was dealing with being bullied.

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Jessica Dueñas: I didn’t go to Prom, she said, walk at graduation. I didn’t participate in any senior trips. Instead, I spent my senior year in a treatment facility Anna shared

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Jessica Dueñas: like Sarah, whose story I had shared several episodes ago. Anna, despite being the youngest in the facility she did adjust fairly well. but she was furious, and she felt betrayed.

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Jessica Dueñas: I didn’t need to be around strangers. I needed some one to show me that they cared.

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Jessica Dueñas: but he just sent me there. I didn’t get a year book. When I was 17 I got a big book.

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Jessica Dueñas: I got a big book with everyone’s signatures. When her time and treatment was up. At age 18, Anna prepared to go back home. only to find that her stepmother was sending her to another facility instead of letting her come back into the house.

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Jessica Dueñas: At this point Anna’s mother had reappeared. She had also gone to treatment herself.

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Jessica Dueñas: so when Anna was getting transferred to the new facility, she escaped and hid from the police who were dispatched to find her. I mean Jessica. I walked in the snow, knocking door to door and hid, hoping that someone would let me in so I could avoid the cops.

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Jessica Dueñas: But no one let her in. and Anna did eventually get a hold of her mother.

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Jessica Dueñas: Her mother had a place to stay, so she let Anna stay with her, and though they each had just completed treatment programs for addiction. They didn’t stay clean.

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Jessica Dueñas: and Anna didn’t live with her mother for long, either.

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The next few years of Anna’s life were a blur.

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Jessica Dueñas: I don’t remember what happened, she said. I just know that shit happened, and it was all bad. Her drug use got worse crack homelessness moving around to different cities, hoping to get her life together.

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Anna looked out when her aunt gave her a chance, and she moved into an apartment with her cousin in a new city.

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Jessica Dueñas: She was so grateful her drug use actually slowed down as a result which was positive. But her drinking continued, and along with it, so did her depression.

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Jessica Dueñas: One day on her birthday.

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Jessica Dueñas: she hit a low point. Anna attempted suicide

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Jessica Dueñas: in the hours leading to the attempt. Anna went out drinking for her birthday, hoping to find someone to spend the night with.

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Jessica Dueñas: She had the apartment to herself, as her cousin was away on a camping trip when she didn’t connect with anyone. She came home drunk, upset, feeling rejected.

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Jessica Dueñas: 2 dozen bright roses were sitting still, waiting for her when she arrived. They were a gift from her sister.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna snapped. She scrambled around the apartment, looking for anything with a sharp edge. Razors, knives, whatever she thought would cut her flesh. She laid in bed, preparing to rip at her wrists. When the doorknob, when the doorknob rattled.

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Jessica Dueñas: she heard the door squeak, and then a shriek.

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Jessica Dueñas: Her cousin had walked in.

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Jessica Dueñas: Seeing Anna lying in the bed with the blade against her wrist, her cousin straight up, just leaped into the bed, and when she landed her cousin felt a poke and ripped the sheet up off of Anna, revealing every sharp tool in the apartment that was just laid around her. She called 9 1 one, and Anna went straight to the hospital again.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna shared. I was pissed.

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I wanted to DIE.

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Jessica Dueñas: She spelled the word Die! She spelled the word out, being mindful of her son, possibly being within earshot as she was speaking.

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Jessica Dueñas: I felt horrible. I wanted to die, and no one even let me try. I would pray to God I don’t want to do this any more. I don’t want to be here any more. I have always asked God. Since I was a kid I never had any love, no kindness. I couldn’t take it. I just didn’t want to keep going through life. It was too overwhelming and hard.

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Jessica Dueñas: After her attempt in the apartment. Anna’s aunt didn’t allow her to return.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna eventually ended up back home and moved in with a friend.

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Jessica Dueñas: She did find her way back to drugs, but this time not for long.

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Jessica Dueñas: When she moved in she met John, the boy next door. He later became her husband.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna had a habit of attracting younger men, so throughout our conversation she occasionally referred to them as boys.

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Her connection with John filled a void for Anna, and she found herself willing to give up everything for him. The drugs, the alcohol, even cigarettes.

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Jessica Dueñas: Those were the rules that I wanted him to live by, and I was willing to do the same she shared. He was okay with it. He chose me.

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Jessica Dueñas: He gave up all of his comforts with his family for the sake of being with me. I felt loved

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Jessica Dueñas: for the duration of her marriage, which was about 6 years. Anna didn’t touch alcohol or drugs. Toward the end of their relationship she started stealing his grandmother’s prescriptions, however.

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Jessica Dueñas: and though the pill use appeared minor at the time. this was a slip that would eventually lead to a landslide. When they divorced. Anna was happy to move on.

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Jessica Dueñas: In her married years she did well for herself, and was ready to be an independent single woman. Outside of those few pills she was sneaking. Everything was great.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna was recently divorced, and 30 when she met up with some friends at a festival.

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She hadn’t had a drink in 7 years, and her friends were excited to taste wine.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna said. I thought to myself. I’m grown. I’m a woman now. I know right from wrong. I mean I drive a Mercedes. Certainly I’m not going to drink and drive in a Mercedes, I’d become sophisticated.

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Jessica Dueñas: But on day one of drinking, after 7 dry years, she went straight from tasting the wine to pounding drinks at a bar past 2 in the morning, and shortly after that

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Jessica Dueñas: drugs came right back into the picture.

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So much of what Anna gained in those 7 years that she was sober, vanished, or was at risk of being ruined.

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Jessica Dueñas: Nothing in Anna’s life was steady except for the whole drugs and alcohol had on her again

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Jessica Dueñas: during an attempt to get sober. In 2015 Ana had moved into a halfway house and met another boy quote unquote.

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Jessica Dueñas: He was 11 years younger than her, and he was barely a few months sober

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Jessica Dueñas: things moved quickly. It was August. They met. October came. They were living together, come November. Anna was pregnant. By the end of the year, however, Eddie relapsed and left town after he robbed the local heroin dealer.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna was alone briefly, but she followed after Eddie because

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Jessica Dueñas: I wanted my baby hell or high water to have a mom and dad there. except Eddie, couldn’t stay out of jail, and he couldn’t stay sober once her son Bryson was born. Anna couldn’t stay sober either.

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Jessica Dueñas: In the years that followed there were attempts at getting clean. They tried to get it together. They moved cities look for different environments, but no matter where they went, they couldn’t escape their addiction.

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Jessica Dueñas: The following years consisted of breakups, attempts to get sober, broken promises, and increasingly worse drug use. Then, then things look a turn for the worse.

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Jessica Dueñas: They pulled in from having bought some spice. They looked at their money. In front of them were only 5 $1 bills.

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Jessica Dueñas: They looked at each other. They knew what to do.

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Jessica Dueñas: Sure, they had just come from buying the drugs. But why not be efficient and get the $5 worth now, so that they wouldn’t have to turn around and worry about it later?

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Jessica Dueñas: Then the last thing that Anna could remember was putting the car in reverse. Next thing she opens her eyes to find herself surrounded by white smoke.

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Jessica Dueñas: It was choking her. Her entire body was throbbing.

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Jessica Dueñas: She didn’t realize where she was until she looked up, and as she focused her eyes a tree came into view. As the smoke cleared. Anna had swerved into oncoming traffic, crossed 4 lanes and crashed into a tree on the side of the road.

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Jessica Dueñas: Eddie was in the car with her. so was their son.

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Jessica Dueñas: I figured this is the part of the story where the arrest happens, you know, as we’re talking. So I asked her, did you get arrested.

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Jessica Dueñas: And her response was, No, I woke up real quick. I made up this whole story about how I had to swerve to avoid someone who looked like they were on the phone. And so, to avoid hitting that driver, I said that I lost control of my car. The police believed me no ticket, no arrest, nothing. I didn’t even have insurance or any papers for the car.

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Jessica Dueñas: Nobody was even hurt. but I took that as a sign, and I left Eddie again.

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Jessica Dueñas: Though Anna was briefly clean, she connected with yet another quote, unquote boy with who she had gone to elementary school. This one’s name is Jason.

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Jessica Dueñas: she obsessed over him for a year, and after much anticipation upon meeting, she immediately felt something

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Jessica Dueñas: she said, I don’t know. Something just wasn’t right.

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I thought that maybe Jason’s probably not sober

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Jessica Dueñas: as she continued to describe the moment

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Jessica Dueñas: it was something about the way his head was cocked to the side. Oh, and he asked for money, too. I knew I shouldn’t have talked to him. Jessica. The problem with me is that it never matters if I want something. I’m gonna get something and I just don’t care.

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Jessica Dueñas: He was a heroin user. And at this point I was no longer scared of the high. I wanted to know exactly what everyone was talking about. He didn’t want me to try it, so I told him that either he get me heroin and help me use it, or I was going to go out there, find it myself, and probably die trying because I wouldn’t do it right.

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Jessica Dueñas: I told him I’ll die, and it’ll be on your conscience that was enough to have him get me the heroin.

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Jessica Dueñas: And so from then on they used the heroin together, always in secret.

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Jessica Dueñas: It was fun at first, she said.

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Jessica Dueñas: I was high all the time. I pretended to be a mom. I pretended to be present, but I was high all the time. Then one. The one thing she didn’t do was put a needle in her arm. She only snorted it.

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Jessica Dueñas: She said I was almost at the point of shooting up. But then my mom died.

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Jessica Dueñas: and that changed everything.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna was going to her mother’s house one day with her son.

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Jessica Dueñas: She was heading to work, and her mother was going to Babysit. II don’t know what happened to her. I walked in with my kid, and she was dead on the floor. I think when my mama went to heaven she found out what I was doing, and shifted things, so I had to stop heroin.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna had not experienced, quote unquote the dope sickness because she never ran out of heroin. Then one day

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Jessica Dueñas: the jump out boys got her and Jason

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Jessica Dueñas: and I was like, Wait, what? What are jumpout voice? So she started to explain. The police officer came to my car.

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Jessica Dueñas: and at that moment, and she said that I was like, Okay, so this is the part of her story where she gets arrested. But, Nope, I was still wrong. She got off with a warning

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Jessica Dueñas: but she had to give all of the drugs she had over to the police officer. Right? Cause they like jump out and like kind of get you

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as soon as the police officer walked away

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Jessica Dueñas: it hit her that not once in her life did she ever have to go get drugs. finding heroin at that point seemed like it was practically impossible. People would sell her fake drugs, and it got so bad that she had to find a former Sponsee that she had, who she also knew, had relapsed to get her drugs. And you know, eventually, I mean Anna just grew tired of that struggle, and she decided that she needed to get off of heroin. And she left that guy, Jason.

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Jessica Dueñas: So I asked her, so did you go to treatment to get off heroin? I asked

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Jessica Dueñas: her response. Nope, I smoked meth for 4 days.

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Jessica Dueñas: For 4 days she stayed in the bathroom, using meth to help her get through the dope. Sickness that heroin withdrawal brought on all the while her son was home.

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Jessica Dueñas: I made sure to check on him, feed him, leave him, and then go retreat into the bathroom, stay high in there. I made sure. He ate that he had a toy, the TV on anything to keep him entertained while I hid in the bathroom.

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Jessica Dueñas: when she learned what long term meth use does she freaked out and got sober again.

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Jessica Dueñas: Then Eddie called

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just like before he came with promises, waving the white flag of so called sobriety that he was just using CBD.

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Jessica Dueñas: Curious, Anna decided to try some Cvd. When he offered.

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Jessica Dueñas: and as soon as she hit the pipe she felt that snow flow in to her lungs, and suddenly her heart sank because it wasn’t Cbd, it was Thc.

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Jessica Dueñas: They were driving, and when Eddie saw her face overcome with worry.

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Jessica Dueñas: he started laughing, and he said, Let’s make a stopover at this house. We need to pick up something. and angrily. You know she’s crying as they picked up acts like drugs, she cried, as she watched them go mad in her house, taking things apart, becoming obsessive, becoming compulsive. He had to go.

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Jessica Dueñas: So Eddie finally left.

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Jessica Dueñas: and Anna felt like she needed to take the edge off and drink. So she picked up 2 wine bottles. She uncorked. One, sipped some.

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Jessica Dueñas: and as she felt the buzz start in her body she realized, I don’t want to do this. She opened the other wine bottle, and she poured out all that she had left. It all went down the drain.

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Jessica Dueñas: This was on July eighteenth, 2018. I’m sorry. 2019,

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Jessica Dueñas: and Anna said, I prayed God that’s the last time that I picked up a white chip. If you’re listening. A white chip in 12 step programs is the first chip that people pick up to denote like a fresh start. So it’s like the 24 h, Chip.

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Jessica Dueñas: So how has Anna stayed sober ever since her response? I’ve stayed away from men.

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Jessica Dueñas: My thinker doesn’t work when I’m around them. I only have made bad decisions, and I decided to focus only on my recovery.

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Jessica Dueñas: And then she paused. But things have changed recently, she said.

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Jessica Dueñas: Mark, a family friend who was going through divorce, started reaching out to her.

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Jessica Dueñas: So she, Anna, tells the story. For months I refused each invite to dinner, to a movie, to a walk. Then one day, after a long work week, I agreed to go to a movie.

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Jessica Dueñas: and from there it was perfect.

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Jessica Dueñas: We connected on a deeper level than any I felt before. He told me he would take care of me, of my son, that he wanted to have a baby with me. He even told my father.

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Jessica Dueñas: I thought to myself, well, I’ve been patient. I’m finally gonna get something good.

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Jessica Dueñas: As Anna was speaking, you know. Her voice was picking up that enthusiastic note, too, like I was even getting excited for her, I mean, I personally thought, yes, that’s right. She’s been so patient now she’s getting the love she’s been waiting for.

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Jessica Dueñas: But her tone changed. Then one day I get a call at work.

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Jessica Dueñas: I remember hearing that tone change, and I immediately cringed, and I like started to brace myself. Oh, God! I thought he told me to come and get my things, that his wife was coming back.

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Jessica Dueñas: that he didn’t love me anymore, that he loves his wife. I didn’t have anywhere safe to go. My roommate had relapsed, and I couldn’t go back there with my son.

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So I stayed with a friend in the program.

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Jessica Dueñas: This all happened 3 weeks before we met, but you know, when I had this conversation with Anna. Thankfully. Anna had just found a home recently, so at the time of this interview she had found a safe space for her and for her son.

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Jessica Dueñas: It’s the most beautiful home I’ve ever lived in. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

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Jessica Dueñas: Despite this heartbreak, Anna has stayed sober, she maintained optimism, and was ready to move on and not let this set her back.

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Jessica Dueñas: Yeah, she was hurt. She was reeling from the shock, but she was grateful to have a home and be safe. But then she started to feel sick. and she felt different. So she took a pregnancy test.

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Jessica Dueñas: It was positive she took more each one was positive.

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Jessica Dueñas: Mark called me telling me to meet him at the clinic to get rid of it.

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I’ve done too much in my life to go get an abortion. I told them to get fucked and hung up

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Jessica Dueñas: for days, he persisted, though calling her phone calling her at work.

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Jessica Dueñas: I told Mark, not to worry that I don’t want him. This isn’t a trap. I’m a grown woman. I’ve made my bed, and I’m going to line it and take care of my kid. So that’s where I’m at.

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Jessica Dueñas: Anna spoke firmly, with a strong resolve. so I asked her, how are you feeling now? She said. Well. I’ve never made it to 2 years while trying to be in recovery.

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Jessica Dueñas: The fact that I have a baby inside me makes me feel hopeful that I’ll make it.

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Jessica Dueñas: So far I have a good history of not doing drugs while pregnant, so I think I’ll make it, she laughed. This baby is a blessing this baby has saved my life.

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Jessica Dueñas: The baby is due in October of 2021. Marx tried to deny that it’s his, but he’s just in the Nile. He begged for this baby for 2 months, and now he’s trying to deny it.

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Jessica Dueñas: I can’t wait to meet my baby. I have all the love to give this baby that I didn’t get.

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Jessica Dueñas: so I had a few wrap-up questions I had asked her. Where’s Eddie? He was in prison at the time.

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though Anna knows they won’t have the family she once dreamed of. She prays for him. She wants her son to have his father.

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Jessica Dueñas: I’m scared for Eddie

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Jessica Dueñas: he’s not using when he’s in there. When people sober up for a while, and then they go shootin up. It’s too strong for them, and they’re dying out here. I want my son to have his father. I don’t want Eddie to die when he gets out.

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Jessica Dueñas: and Anna’s right. That is way. Too common a story in recent years.

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Jessica Dueñas: What’s next for Anna at the time of this interview she responded. Well, I never got to finish music school when I was younger. But one thing that I will be doing is offering voice lessons. I can’t wait.

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Jessica Dueñas: I’m really excited to do that here in the next few months. I’m working on a book. I have a lot of goals. I’m really taking care of myself this time. I’m not letting my sorrow, my emotions or my pain get the best of me.

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Jessica Dueñas: I cope differently today. I don’t cope with a bottle, a pill, or heroine. I cope with serenity, with God, with my support group with music, with walking, anything and everything, without putting some shit in my body. I refuse it.

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Jessica Dueñas: I’m definitely not above it, though. When this breakup first happened. I was really close to getting myself a bottle, but, thank God, I didn’t.

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Jessica Dueñas: Today I think everything through. I think, think, think I think about my life, and how I will go right back to where I was. If I put anything in my body. I just can’t. I’ve got 2 kids to think about now, and I’ve got a future that I wanna have.

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Jessica Dueñas: And what about work?

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Jessica Dueñas: So fun? Fact, Anna

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Jessica Dueñas: is actually a nurse, and she’s been a nurse for 12 years and a completed college and her nursing school during those different time periods of sobriety that she’s had throughout the years right?

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Jessica Dueñas: Why did I intentionally leave out the fact that she’s a nurse. because we so often make vast assumptions. These wild assumptions about people who use say illegal drugs right, and

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Jessica Dueñas: I just wanted to share Anna’s story.

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Jessica Dueñas: to point out that this is a nurse like any other nurse that you might see at work. And this is her real story.

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Jessica Dueñas: Addiction doesn’t target any specific group of people.

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So be mindful in your daily interactions with others, because

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Jessica Dueñas: you don’t know what you don’t see.

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

Ever been on the receiving end of a hateful glare from your partner’s ex? We’re uncovering empowering ways to navigate such awkward encounters, emphasizing the power of stepping back to weigh our options and potential consequences, reshaping our mindset to construct a more positive narrative, and taking action without shouldering the responsibility for others’ emotions and responses. 

Then, I also share a part of my rehab journey from the brink of despair to belting out tunes at a karaoke session in rehab. I share the magic of “snapshot moments” – those randomly profound instances of hope and inspiration that encapsulate the resilience of the human spirit. Join me as I reminisce about Danielle, the staff member who illuminated the possibility of joy sans alcohol, and young Elly, whose bold performance became my unforgettable snapshot moment. 

Resources:

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

My Full Rehab Story – Where I first meet Danielle

Jessica Doing Sober Karaoke

Transcript:

So today’s episode is going to be a little bit random, even though, honestly, this podcast is in general pretty random, because I just go with from my heart. But there’s kind of two different things that I wanted to talk about and both of them involve sort of some storytelling. But the first topic is more so a recent conversation that I had regarding an incident, and then the second one actually is I did want to share just a brief story with you. So for the first part I’m going to talk about a conversation I’m making up names, a conversation about Jane, her boyfriend John, and Melissa, who is the girl that John used to date. So Jane came to me, she dates John, and then Melissa is the third person involved in the story. So Jane and John like to frequent like a social outing actually to go dancing, to dance salsa, and when they go dancing, what Jane has noticed right, james perception of the situation is that Melissa, who John used to date, gives her dirty looks and, according to her, these looks are full of hatred and she’s like seething while she’s on the dance floor with John and, as a result, the looks make her very uncomfortable, the looks are making her wants to stop dancing and the looks are making her feel like she has to take action and do something about it. So she came to me and she was like Jessica, what do I do in this scenario? With that being said, my first question to her was how do you know that what appear to be dirty looks have anything directly to do with you? To which she responded I don’t know right, because I was like so did she straight up come to you and tell you I’m giving you dirty looks because you are dating the guy that I used to date, or are you assuming that because of their history? And lo and behold, she shared that she was assuming that and I was like so then you don’t know what she’s thinking when it looks like she’s looking at you. She confirmed that.

Then, with regard to her options, I was like so what? What possible options do you have? Because I think it’s important that, before we jump into an action, right, we give us, we give ourselves, the gift of the pause so that we can look at all the possible outcomes and see which of those we’re comfortable with. So I was like what, what might this look like? So she was like, well, option one, I can ignore it, or option two, I can confront her.

So I was like all right, well, let’s talk about your option one, ignoring it. How is doing nothing working for you right now? And she’s like it’s not. And I was like so, in terms of you say not taking any physical action and, quote unquote, ignoring it. You still have to do some work around your thoughts and your thinking. And she was like well, what do you mean?

And I was like because, right now, the story that you’re telling yourself is that this girl hates you because you’re dating her ex and because of that now you are blocking yourself from dancing, you are blocking yourself from having a good time, and you are creating this whole story in your mind where you are now a victim, when this woman did literally nothing but happened to maybe look at you with her eyes, and she was like, oh, that’s true. So I was like what can you tell yourself? Right, what can you practice? Instead of she must hate me, what can you tell yourself when you notice that it looks like she’s looking at you. What can you tell yourself instead? And she was just kind of like well, I don’t, I don’t know what you mean.

And I was like well, first of all, you already made up this whole story that she hates you, with no evidence. So you might as well make up a story that sits better with your spirit, right? So like, how about you tell yourself that this woman is looking at you because she’s admiring higher dancing and maybe the look looks a little bit dirty because she’s jealous? But let’s remember that jealousy is a sign of acknowledging and recognizing something in others that we would like for ourselves. So I was like how about you tell yourself that this woman is just jealous, that you’re a good dancer and you know?

And Jane was kind of cracking up, but she was like oh, I had never thought of it that way. And I was like, exactly, I was like you’re already making up the first story anyway, because you have no evidence. So if you’re going to go that route, make up a story that makes you feel good, so you feel less self-conscious when you’re dancing. And she was like okay, that’s a good thought, so anyway. So then I was like but let’s go back and explore your second route, right?

Because she also said that she could confront her. So I was like so tell me, what would that look like if you confronted this Melissa? And she was like well, maybe I could say hey, I noticed that when I’m dancing with John, I see that you’re looking at me and you look angry, and I just wanted to see if there’s anything that we could talk about. And I was like okay, fair, now tell me, how do you think that that would work out? What are the possible outcomes there? And she was like Jane said well, either she would maybe be more reflective about her facial like, how her face looks, or she might not care, or she might get offended. And I was like bingo, right. And I was like and I was like not, that it’s your responsibility to manage how she feels and responds to things. And I was like but if your original suspicion is correct, that this girl dislikes you, then she’s going to be like perfect, I found a way to make her uncomfortable, right. So I was like really like.

We are not in control of other people. We cannot tell someone how to look at us, how to not look at us, what to say, what not to say Never in your life and I was telling her this and I’m saying it now here never in your life will there ever be a person, even if it’s your own child and your parent, where you can genuinely successfully control them, because there will always come a time when that person will break free from that Right. And so that’s what I told her. I was like so, based off this conversation that we’re having, what are you going to do? And she was like you know, I think that I’m just going to when I see her looking at me, not that I’m going to ignore it, but that I’m going to intentionally tell myself that maybe she’s looking at me because I dance nicely. Maybe she’s looking at me because maybe she is a little bit jealous that I dance nicely. But that’s a better thought, energetically, for me to practice than this woman hates me. And now I don’t want to dance. And now I’m like self-conscious and I was like, exactly, bingo, I’m going to practice that thought.

So, anyway, I just wanted to share that because, again, just for anybody who’s ever like well, what the hell is coaching Like? I hear about it all the time that’s an example of how coaching would operate with me, just for your reference, and I think that again, for any of you who go into situations where you think that someone is looking at you right, and you start telling yourself this whole story in your head, if you’re going to tell yourself a whole made up story, then at least make up a whole story that’s going to make you feel good, because, dang, why are you stressing yourself out so much? You know what I mean. So, anyway, I wanted to share that. And then the second part is actually, I just wanted to read a little like a tiny short story that I had written to my email list and I just, you know it makes me happy to share it, and so I’m just going to go ahead and read it here to you all, and then we’ll close out for today’s episode.

So, for Um, to give you some context, when I was in treatment, I often called certain moments snapshot moments. Right, like literally. I spent my time in treatment thinking like, oh, I really wish I had a camera, and that thought lived in my head the entire time I was in a treatment facility. Every time I was in one in 2020, because no matter how long I was in a space, whether it was three days or five weeks. I always felt like there was always a moment in there, interacting with other folks, where I did feel a flash of hope, a moment of inspiration, right, and so for me, I call those snapshot moments. So I spent five weeks in one of the treatment facilities in Louisville, kentucky, and, honestly, I don’t remember. I vaguely remember how I got there, right, like, my memory of my rival is spotty. But again, there’s several snapshot moments from treatment that I hope I never forget and I’m so grateful to be able to record it because this is one of them.

Right, karaoke here in a rehab. No way, you’ve got to be kidding me. This is what I was saying, laughing. I was talking to my friend, andy. So, andy, is this massive six foot five like radiant, beautiful, personality, human being, and I’m so grateful I actually still get to text with him to this day. But back then in 2020, we were in line for lunch at the cafeteria after, you know, we had finished one of our group therapy sessions and it was funny, because there were eager murmurs among, like, the fellow residents that one of the staff members, danielle, said that she would bring in a mic and a speaker set, if we like the people who had miraculously not killed themselves in recent weeks were willing to do karaoke during her shift. She was gonna supervise this on Friday night. You know it was early summer, like I said, in 2020.

And after I had flipped my car upside down on Barge Town Road in Louisville, kentucky, I ended up at this treatment facility. So you know, for me, the idea of going from barely wanting to be alive to singing into a mic in front of other people without a single drop of alcohol in my body that thought was wild. I mean, I had to be locked away in a treatment facility because I couldn’t bring myself to stop drinking safely, and now these people want to get me to sing along on a microphone, you know. So there were so many thoughts that ran through my mind in response to this idea. Right, like I was thinking what if I’m not fun to others and I just bore them? I’m not good enough to get up in front of others and just be. I like my singing voice, but I’m scared it’s not good enough to be a strong voice and that I can’t be silly enough to be comically bad for karaoke. Is there even such a thing as fun without alcohol? I’d like to watch others try. I love karaoke, but me sober. I have to pass.

As we sat down to eat, danielle, the staff member of the buzz, was about how to approach our table. As usual, she was beaming. Did y’all hear about karaoke on Friday? You ready, jess? She looked me in the eyes and smiled, which slowed the racing panic of my detoxing brain. Danielle had always put me at ease because her lived experience really didn’t still hope in me that this repetitive cycle that I found myself in would one day stop.

In Drowning in Shallow Water, chapter one, which I will share the link in the show notes, I do share how I learned that Danielle had also lost her partner to a drug overdose and despite this loss she was sober, working with others. Danielle gave me hope that I could find joy and love after losing my boyfriend, ian. Her lived experience and confidence in how she conducted herself made me think maybe I can do this karaoke thing. On Friday night. I turned my face to Danielle, smiled while hesitantly shrugging my shoulders, and said I really don’t want to do it, but since you’re putting it together, danielle, I’ll try it. You won’t regret this, jess, danielle declared and damn it, she was right, but not for those reasons. So on Friday night Danielle came in for her shift. She decorated the residential lounge area, turned the overhead lights off and connected her karaoke machine to her phone. As the music started playing and I felt the bass of the music vibrate a little bit, the sensory experiences began to take me back, like the thumping with the darkness and the flashing lights from the machine took me back to being at a bar or a club. But I wasn’t at the club. I was in treatment.

One of the younger residents, ellie, got up to do a song. In our therapy groups she was often disengaged and rarely used her voice. I assumed that she did not want to take up space. So I remember my curiosity when I saw her awkwardly standing before us, her hand on the mic and the other on her hip. We waited for what felt like ages and then the words came. Ellie took a deep breath, closed her eyes, gripped the microphone with both hands and came to life. I wish I could remember the song, but I don’t. Honestly it doesn’t matter. What mattered was that Ellie was freed beyond the walls of the treatment facility in those few moments, as she danced and performed as if she was on stage somewhere else.

I elbowed Andy next to me and I held up my hands as though I was holding up a real camera and took a snapshot of Ellie. So what happened afterward? After letting herself be seen, ellie started to speak up more in groups after that, and me I did eventually sing too, just not on that day. So again, I just wanted to share that little snapshot moment because that’s the thing, right. You go to treatment and you meet these people and you spend so much time with these individuals, getting to know them on such a deep level as you rip your hearts open in these groups and then they’re just gone. So I had the pleasure of still being in touch with Andy, but Ellie I don’t know where she is. I have no idea. But I am glad that for a brief time in my life I did intersect with her, if that’s the right word to use, and I did get to see her light up and I did get to see her connect with herself and her body and feel proud and excited right. And I remembered her when later on, I eventually sang while I was in treatment of that facility.

And now I will happily grab a karaoke mic and without a single drop of alcohol. I will sing my heart and soul out and I will perform. I actually had recently reposted it on my socials, a video of me doing karaoke, so you’ll see that in the show notes. And, yeah, I hope everyone has an awesome week. Thanks for listening and take care of yourselves. 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, bottomlesstosober.com, 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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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

I discuss maturity as presented in the context of a poem by Diego Perez, aka Yung Pueblo, how it’s different from “adulting,” and when to choose to use one’s word based on possible outcomes.

Resources:

Yung Pueblo’s Poetry

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas (00:01.59)
Hey everyone, on today’s episode, I wanna talk about the topic of maturity. Now, the reason I wanna talk about maturity is because yes, many of you are probably adults, many of you are probably paying your bills, showing up to work, taking care of any living creatures that depend on you. And so in theory, you are taking care of everything. So you’re adulting, but…

you can adult and not be mature, right? You can adult and be struggling wildly with addiction, which is what I was doing for years. I struggled with addiction while showing up for work, while winning awards, while completing all the checklists and completing all the tasks. That did not make me mature. Today, I’m sober almost three years and I still struggle with maturity, which I recently struggled with. And so I wanna go ahead and talk about maturity in the context of this poem.

and I’ll go ahead and I’ll read it to you. So it was written by Diego Perez, also known as Young Pueblo on social media. And his poem goes like this. Maturity is realizing that half of what you want to say does not need to be said. Being able to see the difference between ego reactions and helpful points that can uplift harmony or reaffirm your values makes a real difference. Speak your truth does not mean speak your ego.

I’ll read that again. Maturity is realizing that half of what you want to say does not need to be said. Being able to see the difference between ego reactions and helpful points that can uplift harmony or reaffirm your values makes a real difference. Speak your truth does not mean speak your ego. So I wanted to give an example to highlight this. And I’m recording this on a Saturday.

And usually Fridays are my evenings where I get to spend time with my partner and we get to unwind from the week. Now, yesterday our time together was disrupted because of his work and rightfully so he was upset by what had happened. And he had actually had a really hard week. So he tells me that he needs to decompress. And I’m like, OK. On the inside, however, what I’m doing is I’m suddenly making

Jessica Dueñas (02:21.354)
his issues with work and his stress about me. Suddenly, I am valuing myself based on the fact that he needed to take a break and take care of himself. I’m suddenly questioning my value and my worth in the relationship and it’s like, whoa, I’ve done so much work on myself. What is going on here? I mean, I’ll tell you what’s going on. I was being a human, right? And anyway, so I like literally start almost like.

coaching myself in terms of what can I say to make him come and sit on the damn couch with me and watch TV and have like a cozy night in, right? Like my brain starts rapid firing all the really probably hurtful things that I could have said, all the things that I could have said to make him feel bad about himself for actually prioritizing his mental health and going to decompress.

Right? There was a ton of things that could have been said, but I didn’t say anything. Right? And why not? Because I gave myself the gift of the pause. That is a gift that I have today that I definitely didn’t have when I drank early on. And frankly, on any other occasion, maybe a couple months ago even, I may not have had the gift of that pause. Right? The gift of that

Jessica Dueñas (03:44.086)
What might happen if I said, well, I don’t understand why we can’t just focus on our time together because we get so little time together. Right? The gift of the pause allowed me to see that had I said that, there could have been a variety of outcomes and the most likely outcome would have been an argument because he would have taken it as a personal attack, which honestly, it basically would have been, right?

And so giving myself that pause allowed me to see what the possible outcomes were going to be. And it allowed me to see if I wanted to deal with any of those outcomes, if any of those outcomes were worth me saying what I needed to say. And I determined from assessing the situation by pausing that no, I don’t really want to have an argument. Right? I determined that I didn’t want to have an argument. But the other thing that was really important was

handling the emotions. Because the emotions didn’t just suddenly go away. Just because I knew I didn’t want to have an argument, didn’t mean that suddenly everything evaporated and everything was better and it was sunshine and rainbows. What that meant for me was that then I had to take a moment and coach myself with some self-talk to get through that really uncomfortable moment because I still did feel frustrated. My Friday night plan was not going how I wanted it to go.

And so I had feelings about it, right? And I’m entitled to have all the feelings in the world. I just don’t need to act out on them. So while I was feeling frustrated and disappointed that I didn’t have my special time and to watch some trash TV together, what I reminded myself was, number one, my feelings can’t hurt me, right? Like this discomfort, this urge, this crawling out of my skin, wanting to say something sassy, that urge.

can’t hurt me and so I can just sit through it and it will eventually go away. And that’s what I told myself, right? I told myself my feelings aren’t facts, my feelings are just information and I can act on it or not and I chose not to act on it. As the feelings stayed in my body, what else did I tell myself? I was like, well, it’s late, I can just go to hell asleep, right? Like…

Jessica Dueñas (06:00.77)
He’s over here listening to whatever thing helps him calm down. I can just go to bed and get a good night’s sleep and start my day over tomorrow. And that’s exactly what I did. Right? And so I’m highlighting that to you all because maturity is deciding, you know, like young Pueblo said, you know, deciding if something needs to be said or not needs to be said. And sometimes maybe things do need to be said, right? Like in my case,

that I gave you my example, I chose not to say something. But sometimes you are gonna have to say the thing and that thing may lead to a conflict, right? Maybe in your situation, you may be facing someone, right? Where you have to say something to establish a boundary and setting that boundary may actually hurt that person’s feelings. And so they might have something to say about it, right? At that point, when you’re weighing your outcomes,

Right? When you pause before you speak and you weigh your outcomes, that is a perfect example where that uncomfortable outcome may just be worth it. But you won’t know if you don’t pause to reflect on it. You won’t know if you don’t pause to think about what are the possible outcomes that can happen from any given situation. And so with that, really, I just encourage you that to slow down, right? That’s like step one. Slow down.

What can possibly happen from me making this decision? Is there any possible outcome from me making this decision that I am not ready to handle right now? And if you’re not, let that guide you in terms of what your next steps are.

So I hope you found that helpful. And the other last note that I will mention before I go is just a heads up that next week, starting September 30th, I will be running and hosting the last cohort for 2023 of my Writing to Heal program. We did the free writing workshop today. It was a beautiful experience as it always is. And I invite you, there’s a small group of folks who have signed up. It is going to be a really powerful program to help you with storytelling. So if you are interested, sign up on my site.
Bottomlesstosober.com. Thanks, I’ll talk to you in the next episode.

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In this episode:

Link to Spotify

Do your loved ones make decisions you don’t feel are best for them? This episode is for you. to help you manage your frustrations.

Resources:

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:

Jessica Dueñas (00:01.514)
Hey everyone, I am personally getting ready to travel to Washington, DC this coming week. I’m going to attend the Mobilize Recovery Conference. So for me, it’s really important to, you know, continuously be an active learner in recovery, especially as a coach and as a facilitator for community meetings and different, you know, online sober communities. So really excited for the learning opportunity and to connect with peers from all over the place this coming week.

I go, I did want to stop in, do a quick podcast recording. So I had probably a couple weeks ago written about self-sabotage on my blog. And I realized that I really should have recorded that too. Again, I have been reading this book, which I recommend. It’s called The Mountain is You. It is a part of the book club that I facilitate for the Reframe app, which is an online alcohol reduction app.

They have two tracks, one is to quit drinking, the other one is to moderate your drinking. And I personally don’t moderate, but I do facilitate meetings on there. And so the book club meeting is awesome. So if you haven’t checked out Reframe, you can definitely check it out, do a free trial and see if it’s something that is a community that you would be interested in. So with that being said, the book that I’ve been reading for the book club, it’s The Mountain is You.

And there’s one section about self-sabotage that I thought was really, really powerful that I think I need to give a little bit more voice to. So I’ll read it. It’s from pages 17 to 18 of the text, The Mountain is You by Brianna East. And it goes like this. Self-sabotage comes from what’s unfamiliar. Human beings experience a natural resistance to the unknown because it is essentially the ultimate loss of control. This is true.

even if what’s unknown is benevolent or even beneficial to us. Self-sabotage is very often the simple product of unfamiliarity, and it is because anything that is foreign, no matter how good, will also be uncomfortable until it’s familiar, aka sobriety, right? This often leads people to confuse the discomfort of the unknown with being wrong or bad or ominous.

Jessica Dueñas (02:16.782)
However, it is simply a matter of psychological adjustment. We are programmed to seek what we’ve known. Even though we think we’re after happiness, we’re actually trying to find whatever we are most used to. So I have actually referenced this passage several times in conversations, especially with one-on-one clients. And sometimes we might have a friend or a loved one and they are making a decision.

that we don’t believe is in their best interest, right? Like for example, there was somebody that I know who has a loved one whose husband is possibly cheating, right? And in her mind, she felt that her loved one should walk away from the husband, right? And I get that because maybe like for many of us, we would walk away too. And so after we see somebody that we love, deal with infidelity, right? And what is supposed to be like this monogamous relationship.

we may see our loved ones still choose to take this person back and be like, what the fuck are you doing? Right? And we might be thinking like, you deserve so much better. What are you doing? You should leave. You shouldn’t tolerate that. I would never tolerate that. And you know, as we dive into that thinking, as a result, we start to get angry. We start to get disappointed. And we’re actually taking it personally that the person that we care about chose to take someone else back. When at the end of the day, we have nothing to do with that.

relationship, right? Them choosing to take someone back has nothing to do with us. So that’s the first reminder, right? Nothing that other people do, and this is a very, I would say this is like a foundational tenet in the Four Agreements by Domi Ghebreyes, but you can’t take things personally if you understand that nothing that other people do is because of you, literally like never ever ever, right? You might want to be the most supportive friend.

You might have all the evidence in the world as to why they should leave their possibly cheating partner. Or if you have a friend who’s staying in this job that treats her like trash and you’re like, why are you still working there? Right? Let me just offer you that idea of putting yourself in their shoes first. Now, I’m not saying that I’m supporting, say, like if they’re in an absolutely abusive relationship or in an absolutely.

Jessica Dueñas (04:35.406)
horrific workplace that is damaging to their mental health. But even in those situations, you still have no control. We still have no control, right? And so, but putting aside say, situations that are genuinely harmful to their health and safety and wellbeing, right? Just in general, like crappy partners, crappy jobs that you’re like, why, why don’t you leave? Let me offer you the idea of putting yourself in their shoes first, right? And keep this line in mind from the text.

We are programmed to seek what we’ve known, even though we think we’re after happiness, we’re actually trying to find whatever we are most used to. So to you, it may be frustrating to see that friend go back to that partner. It may be frustrating to see that friend not put in a resignation letter. It may be annoying to see that friend not even go and look for a new job after they complained about it, right? But…

you have to understand that for them, it is very possible, I’m not a mind reader, but it’s very possible that the idea of something that is unknown to them may be more terrifying than whatever they’re currently dealing with, right? So to you with the loved one who has that shitty partner, they may be like, well, at least I know what I’m dealing with here, rather than cutting off that shitty partner and going into the unknown world.

right, in the unknown world of say like dating again or navigating life on one’s own, or if you go from being in a two income household to a one income household, right? Like let’s not even, I mean that could be a whole other conversation, right, but let’s talk about the rates of poverty that women deal with when they go through divorces, right? It’s like you instantly go from being middle class to struggling. And that in itself is very, very scary. Financial security for a lot of people will trump

say that sense of loyalty. And it’s not us to, it’s not up to us to judge those things. So the other thing that I wanted to say with regard to this passage, again, going back into choosing what’s familiar, even if what is better for us is unknown and scary, is I want you to do some self reflection work, right? Like stop.

Jessica Dueñas (06:54.698)
take a few minutes and either think on these questions or journal about these questions. But how does this passage apply to you as well? So like one, what is a familiar pattern that you keep diving back into because you’re scared of what might happen if you enter unknown territory? So again, let’s apply it to dating. What if you are dating someone who you can already predict that you’re gonna have a certain outcome because you’ve seen all of this before?

Right, you’ve seen all this before, you know exactly what’s going to happen, but it’s familiar so you stick with it because you don’t want to go back out there, you don’t want to get back on these apps, you don’t want to put yourself out there and so you’d rather stick with what you’re dealing with. Right, another question, what do you think is the worst that could happen in this unknown realm? Like, seriously, what is the worst that could happen if you broke up with the guy that you

completely giving you all the red flags that you already have recognized, but you’re kind of turning a blind eye to, what’s the worst that could happen if you had to put yourself back out there? Like realistically, is the worst that maybe you might be single for a while, that’s okay, right? Because what’s the best that could happen if you leaned into the unknown, right? The best that could possibly happen is that because you’re cutting out somebody who doesn’t serve you,

that you’re creating the space to meet somebody who’s actually going to be a good fit for you, a right fit for you. Not someone who’s gonna have glaring red flags that you basically are putting sunglasses on to ignore. And the other thing too, is I want you to think about what’s the worst that could come from you staying in the pattern that you are in today, from choosing to stay in the familiar. So think about that, and then I want you to compare

the worst thing that could happen from what you are familiar with to the worst thing that could happen in your imagined scenario. What are you noticing? Going back to that dating example, if the worst that would happen from you cutting someone off is that you’re alone versus you staying with someone who’s familiar and you already know where that outcome is, right? Is it that you’re constantly feeling stressed, your cortisol levels are raised, you’re losing sleep?

Jessica Dueñas (09:19.926)
You’re crying, you’re missing work because you’re wrapped up in drama. It sounds like the worst that could happen from the unknown seems a lot more mild than the worst for the familiar. So just kind of giving you some food for thought questions for you to really think about, because for many of us, even if we have already quit drinking, we can still be stuck in a lot of old patterns. The work starts with

stopping, right, stopping drinking, right? The first bit of the work comes with getting a handle on a relationship with alcohol, but I really like the whole thriving piece comes from all the work and all the reflection that you have to do afterward. So hope that was helpful. Couple of things, I have a writing workshop, free writing workshop that is coming up on September 23rd, which is followed by the last of my six week program for 2023.

So I highly recommend that you sign up for that. If you’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t really want to, I recommend it. A, the workshop’s free. But then also honestly, that writing class, the six week program is so powerful to help you tell your story. Even if it’s a story that you’re just telling to yourself. You deserve to not be carrying that in your heart. So putting that out there, and I am open to taking one-on-one clients. So all this information and more is available on my site, bottomlisttosobr.com. Thanks so much, have a great day.

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In this episode:

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I share some insights about feeling jealous and how to shift the experience of jealousy into something either practical or into an opportunity to practice acceptance.

Resources:

Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops

Transcript:
Hey everyone, before I start on today’s topic, yesterday I was interviewing for someone else’s podcast talking about education and drinking. This crazy story came up and I thought that I would share it because again, it’s so wild the things that we do while drinking and the red flags that we see and how easily we can still just ignore these damn things. We were talking about how heavily embedded…

drinking is in teaching culture, right? And recently there was a new story about an educator in Oklahoma who was found drunk on the job. And I was telling the podcast hosts, I was like, yeah, we drink a lot in schools, like in the teaching environment, not like actively in a school. But so to give you an example,

There was a school that I taught at in Brooklyn, not gonna say its name, or the principal’s name, but I remember that one of our goodie bags, like as a welcome to school bag, included the airplane size bottles of like liquor. Like everybody got like a random liquor bottle, and that was given to us at school as a joke to like keep it in our desk in case of emergency, right? Like that’s pretty wild. And that’s not actually the red flag story though. My other red flag story.

has to do with a different school administrator who was an assistant principal who had hosted a holiday party in Brooklyn also a different school and you know all my fellow colleagues were at this party and Of all the people to like introduce the weed and the marijuana, right? There were drinks there, but it was the school administrators like they pulled out, you know blunts and things like that and I remember smoking and drinking

And back in those days, the way that I would drink typically around people was I always tried to watch what other people were drinking and match what they drank so that I never went overboard and I never would stand out as drinking too much. But because this was a party and the drinks were kind of like all in the kitchen and it was really hard to gauge how much people had been drinking because everyone was just kind of like standing around holding a cup in their hand, right? I started to just kind of drink based off of

Jessica Dueñas (02:23.074)
how I wanted a drink, which always was way too much. And then I added like marijuana, smoking on top of that. And basically what ended up happening was when it started snowing, and when it was time for me to leave their house, you know, it was a brownstone in Brooklyn. I like walked out down the stoop and it started snowing pretty heavily. And I walked maybe like a block and I was like, I can’t function, I can’t go home. So I literally went back to that assistant principal’s house.

knocked on the door and said, I’m so sorry. I’m way too out of it to go home. Can I stay here? So I stayed the night. And then the awkward part was in the morning, their kids, I guess, had gone to sleepover. So their kids come back. And when I wake up, I’m like sitting there to breakfast with the, you know, assistant principals, kids, like having cereal and just like, Hey kids, nice, nice to meet you. Um, and the funny thing is I remember being mortified, but I remember, you know,

First of all, like my AP, my assistant principal brushed it off and she was like, no, it’s okay. It happens to all of us, right? But there were so many times throughout my career where there were times that I had like a big embarrassing moment like that. Like again, I was pretty good at keeping it together and matching other people’s like drinking energy, but when things got out of hand for whatever reason and things like that happened, people were always so quick to be like, oh, you’re fine. These accidents happen all the time. It’s not a big deal.

And nobody stopped to think that these episodes were problematic because I did such a good job at work, right? Because I was such a high performer, nobody would stop to question like, oh, maybe Jessica has a problem, right? That wasn’t ever a topic of conversation that at least was brought to my face. So anyway, it has nothing to do with today’s podcast topic, but those stories were fresh in my head and I just wanted to share them. So with that being said,

What I did want to talk about today was jealousy. I started reading a book recently called The Mountain is You, Transforming Self-Sabotage into Self-Mastery by Brianna East. And as I’ve gone through it, this one section really jumped out at me about jealousy. And so I wanna go ahead and read it to you and then talk about it a little bit. This is from page 76 in case you happen to have the book. Jealousy is a coverup emotion. It presents as anger or judgment.

Jessica Dueñas (04:49.526)
when in reality it is sadness and self-dissatisfaction. If you want to know what you truly want out of life, look at the people you’re jealous of. No, you may not want exactly what they have, but the feeling that you are experiencing is anger that they are allowing themselves to pursue it while you are not. When we use our jealousy to judge other people’s accomplishments,

we are siding into its shadow function. When we use our jealousy to show us what we would like to accomplish, we begin to recognize the self-sabotaging behavior and get ready to commit to what we actually desire. You can think of it this way. When we see someone who has something we really want, but we are suppressing our willingness to pursue it, we must also condemn it in them so we can justify our own course of action.

Instead of this, we can see what we’d also like to create. So pretty short read, but it’s really powerful. And I think the first thing is, it’s almost like the first step to any problem, right, is admitting it. And I think the first step with jealousy is actually being willing to admit, like, yes, I am jealous of this person.

And even for me to say that sentence, it makes me feel physically uncomfortable and I feel almost like a slightly nauseating feeling in my stomach saying that, even though I’m not even talking about a specific example as I say that, because I think about how I was socialized since I was a little girl to believe that jealousy was like a sinful emotion to have and that if I felt jealousy, it was, you know, up there with, you know, several other terrible sins and, you know, like.

would make me morally lacking as an individual if I experienced jealousy. And so to admit to such an emotion to me is still a really uncomfortable act because I still have to work through that socialization of the fact that jealousy, jealousy is just another emotion, right? It’s just another emotion on the spectrum of the human experience. But for so many of us, we’ve been taught that it’s like this evil feeling.

Jessica Dueñas (07:08.406)
because of that, right? It’s so easy to try to deny the feeling, to cover up the feeling, to hide the feeling, to be ashamed of the feeling, right? If we feel shame around a feeling, it’s because we’re worried that experiencing that feeling makes us less worthy of human connection, makes us less worthy to be considered by others, right? And so the first step in this process, for me, when I think about jealousy, is letting go

of the moral judgment of the feeling. It’s a feeling like any other feeling that we experience. Now, like the text says, right, that the shadow function of jealousy falls into judging other people, right, and condemning other people. But the other side of jealousy, I guess the opposite of shadow is, I don’t know, being in the light, but the other side of it is…

using that to commit to what we actually do desire, right? So what I would say with that being said is take the jealousy that you’re experiencing and get curious about it, right? It’s giving you information. Everything that we go through gives us information. So ask yourself, what am I feeling jealous of? What is it in this situation that I would like to have?

Right? And then when you are able to identify what it is that you would like to have from that situation or person that you’re feeling jealous of, ask yourself the next question, why have I not gotten there? What’s blocking me from getting there? Is it a circumstance? Is it you? Right? Like, is this something within your control that you actually can take action and move towards? Or is this a situation that

unfortunately is out of your control. And so maybe you need to do some work around acceptance. I think those are really, really important questions to ask yourself the next time that you feel jealous. Instead of self judgment, right? Instead of being critical towards yourself because since you were a kid, you were socialized that it’s an evil feeling to have, release that, get curious. What is it that I want? Why don’t I have it right now?

Jessica Dueñas (09:30.29)
Is it within my control to work towards that? Or is this something that I have to accept that I don’t have, cannot have for whatever reason? So like, I’ll give you a personal example that I take to heart in terms of that. Lately, I have experienced jealousy when I see images, media, particularly social media of pregnant women, women who are

pregnant women who have just recently had babies, right? And I swear, I feel so uncomfortable to say this, but this is how we go through the healing, right? Shame dies when we speak our stories. And so anyway, I have been experiencing that, right? And for context, if you don’t know, I don’t have children. And so one of the things that I have been telling myself, right, like, well, why am I not in that situation? And it’s because for years, I have not…

tried to be in that situation, right? I have very throughout my act of drinking, I have been very dedicated to avoiding having a child because for all those years that I drank problematically, I didn’t think that I was fit to be a mother. And I probably did myself a favor by having that mindset at that time. However, at this point, right now I need to look at what is in my control and what is in my control is…

at least trying, right? I can try to get pregnant. I’m in a healthy relationship with a partner who is already a wonderful parent to his son, right? And so that is something that I can try to work towards. That’s like an end goal, right? However, the other part of it is I’m a little bit older. I’m 38 years old, even though my mom had me at 45 with no problems, so whatever. I technically probably have a ton of fertile years left. But you know what I’m saying? The point is,

is that there’s always the possibility that this may not happen for me, right? And so at the same time, I have to work with my thoughts and practice the framework of also acceptance that right now I do not have a child, that right now, today as I record this, I am not pregnant. And so I have to also practice acceptance of that present reality too, right? So I just kind of wanted to share that to give you an example of how

Jessica Dueñas (11:54.682)
I can take something that makes me feel jealous, get curious about it, ask questions, identify what is in my control, what is not in my control, and also see where I can practice acceptance to help me make sense of the feeling. Because again, when you feel that jealous wave initially to start, all that is, is that’s giving you information. And I always tell people and I always tell my one-on-one clients, right? Like we, our…

We are our own science, like living breathing science experiment. We produce data for ourselves all the time. It’s up to us to do our own personal data analysis and then decide what we’re gonna do with that information next. So I hope that you found that helpful. Again, I do recommend that read. I always have books that I recommend and I do definitely recommend The Mountain is You. I think that it provides a lot of really valuable insights. And with that, I’m gonna go ahead and wrap up. I hope to hear from you soon. Again, in…

Two weeks I’m hosting my free writing workshop. And then in three weeks, I am starting my last round of my Writing for Healing program for 2023. So I highly recommend that you sign up for those if you are interested in storytelling. Storytelling is so powerful. So with that being said, have an awesome week and I will talk to you all soon.

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