Category: Written by Jessica

“How do I know if I’m ready to date? I don’t want to get hurt.”

If you are stepping into the dating arena in 2023 as a person in recovery, I want to go ahead and hit you with the news that you getting hurt is a guarantee.

Someone will disappoint you, piss you off, or trigger some age-old insecurities about yourself you may have thought you got over. This truth isn’t limited to the idiots you may encounter. Even people with the best intentions for you who may be a good fit for you will, at a certain point, cause an emotional disturbance for you.

So, if you want companionship, step one is to accept that there will be pain in seeking it.

When I dated in early recovery, I made two mistakes.

1. I falsely believed the person I was with would never hurt me.
2. I was too early on in this recovery work and too unsteady to handle the pain that eventually did come. So when my heart broke, my attempts at sobriety shattered right along with it, leaving me to do a hell of a ton of picking up the pieces.

So, if you want to ask yourself if you’re ready to jump into the dating arena and look for companionship, first, you must accept that there WILL be times when connecting with others romantically will challenge you. Dating can be fun, AND you will still get your feelings hurt. If you have decided you want a partner, you have to be ready to take the risks that come with it.

Hurt, sadness, disappointment, and anger are all part of the human experience. Welcome to your human life.

So, what happens when you take the risk and get ghosted, or someone tells you they had a drunk mom and aren’t looking for someone with a prior complicated past with alcohol?

You might question everything about you, including your sobriety. The inner critic inside your head might say, No one is EVER going to want to be with you now that you’re sober. If you haven’t built a strong foundation for yourself or adopted tools to help you through hard moments like these, you may start to believe that inner critic to the point you drink to quiet the voice. To drown it out.

​After the heartbreak after the loss of my prior partner, I committed to not dating seriously until I could trust myself to handle pain and not drink over it.

​Once I started looking for a partner, however, I suited up and showed up, knowing that disappointment wouldn’t kill me, neither could rejection nor mixed messages. Would these feelings hurt? Hell yea. But they couldn’t harm me. I was safe.

​I am safe.

​Do I know that my current partner will never break my heart? No. I have no guarantee of that. What I do know, however, is that anything could happen with him, and I don’t have to drink over it.

​My work on myself, the tools I utilize to cope, and the people in my circle have given me a safe place to land. So, if I ever were to hit a place of emotional devastation, drinking doesn’t have to be my way to handle it.

​In closing, if you’re thinking about dating, ask yourself these questions:

1. Am I ready to feel the discomfort of a range of challenging emotions because people are not perfect and dating requires me to meet new imperfect people?
2. Am I equipped to handle the range of challenging emotions that may accompany this journey without drinking?

If your answer is yes, happy dating AND you should check out life coaching with me so I can work you to navigate that lovely journey I’m all too familiar with. You can schedule a free coaching consultation here!

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Dasha Kennedy, a financial educator known on Instagram as @thebrokeblackgirl, recently shared a list of tough financial decisions she had to make that saved her life. Her list inspired me to create a list of my own tough decisions I had to make to save my life via being in recovery. 

Here is that list:

• I sold the house I was super proud of buying all on my own in Louisville, KY., and moved into the guestroom of my sister’s home in Tampa, FL. Giving up the house meant letting go of the independence I had been proud of achieving post-divorce in 2017. I was raised to be “strong” and not dependent on others. Moving in with my sister also gave me the safety of leaning on people who loved me and would encourage my recovery.
• I quit my job as a teacher in a school I loved that was part of a community I felt great joy in being involved in, where I had gotten recognized as a Teacher of the Year for my work. I worked as an entry-level salesperson at an online tutoring company instead. To be named Teacher of the Year and walk away from a space where I felt loved and respected was hard, but it was on my terms. I had a choice: face the hard of losing my job because of a circumstance I could have avoided, or face the hard of being proactive and walking away because it was no longer sustainable. 
• When I started dating again, I made it a priority to discuss my recovery from addiction very early on with the men I met, even if it felt uncomfortable. I knew that any man worth building a long-term relationship with would not view my recovery as a liability but rather as an asset. I wanted to repel people who wouldn’t meet that expectation quickly.
• I accepted medical assistance and used medication for the first 1.5 years of my recovery. I let go of the idea that “I can do this by myself” and accepted that a licensed medical doctor could help me do what had felt like impossible work.
• I talked about my story and fully accepted that I had been secretly addicted to alcohol for years. A huge thing that kept me drinking was being trapped by shame. Shame kept me thinking I was unworthy of connection, so I didn’t talk about my problem with alcohol to anyone for fear of judgment. Once I connected with others, I realized I was not alone, and it wasn’t just me.
• I made time in my schedule to show up for my recovery. If I had made the time to drink, I could make the time to show up for my recovery, whether that meant meetings, therapy, or working with mentors.
• I assessed my spending habits and put myself on a serious budget. I became dependent on food delivery services during my active addiction because I didn’t want to burn the house down by falling asleep while cooking. I was in debt and started learning about financial literacy to get my money in order.
• I stopped telling myself I was bored when things were quiet—I experienced a lot of drama as a result of my drinking, so when things got calmer, I kept looking for something to scratch the drama itch. 
• I accepted that I wasn’t behind and embraced that I was where I was supposed to be. I gave up my home and a job I was passionate about to get sober. I can work toward a new home or change my work any time, but my life is the only one I have. 

What are some tough decisions you have made to save yourself? Are there some decisions you know you need to make and are stalling on? 

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Podcast Listen to the Bottomless to Sober Podcast. Episodes 1-29 are live!

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“Wow, that’s different. I wouldn’t think a woman your age would have no kids,” said one of the fellow Mobilize Recovery participants I was sitting with after telling her I don’t have children.

I felt my heart race and my body go into a bit of a panic as I quickly fell into an old pattern of justifying my current circumstances.

I rambled, “Uh, well, you know, all those years that I drank, I worried about getting pregnant. I didn’t have the right partner. I didn’t want to have to change my drinking for someone else…” and honestly the list goes on of how I vomited at the mouth to try and defend my position as a woman with no children today.

I wish I had said, “Why does it matter to you if I have kids or not?” or “What are you making it mean that I, as a 38-year-old woman, don’t have children?”

But I didn’t.

And you know what, at this point, I’m better off asking myself these questions because she’s moved on with her life, and I’m still sitting here reflecting on this moment. I need to acknowledge, like Don Miguel Ruiz so often shares, if something in that woman’s words hurt me, it’s because she happened to touch on a wound that I already carry. So, what I need to do here isn’t worry about her remarks but pause, look at this, and ask myself what I need to learn about myself from this incident that disturbed me.

So with that:

Why does it matter to you, Jessica, if you have kids? And what are you making it mean that you, as a 38-year-old woman, don’t have children? As part of my socialization, I was taught that having a child is, in a sense, the pinnacle of womanhood and a necessary life experience. As a 38-year-old, when I look at society and lean on these external beliefs that I was given, I can quickly feel that I’m “behind” and that I haven’t “checked off all the boxes” of what a woman’s experience “should” be like.

And there it is, that word “should.“

That dangerous word that many times I shamed myself with and drank over. Anytime the word “should” comes out, that’s a sign that I need to evaluate the validity of my thoughts. It’s okay for me not to have kids today. It’s also okay for me to want children. However, having them or not does not make my life any more or less “complete,” and it certainly doesn’t take away from my lived experience as a woman.

So the next time someone makes a statement toward you that stings, if “don’t take it personally” doesn’t work for you at that moment, get curious and ask yourself:

1. What can I learn about myself from this incident?
2. Why does this statement bother me?
3. What am I making this mean about myself, and is it even true for me or is it true by an external standard?

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“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 is also familiar. This often leads people to confuse the discomfort of the unknown with being “wrong” or “bad” or “ominous.” 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’re most used to.”

From pages 17-18 of The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest 

I’ve referenced this passage in about three different conversations in the last 24 hours, so I figure it’s a sign that I should go ahead and share it in an email, too.

Sometimes, we have a friend, or another loved one who makes decisions that we don’t believe are in their best interest. For example, after infidelity in what is supposed to be a monogamous relationship, we may see our loved one choose to take the individual who betrayed them back. In our minds, we might be thinking, “What the f*ck are you doing? You deserve so much better!” And as a result, we get angry and disappointed. We’re basically taking it personally that our loved one did not choose what we thought was best for them. 

Here’s a reminder. First, nothing other people do is because of you, ever. You may be the most supportive friend, and you may have all the evidence in the world as to why your friend may want to leave a job or partner who doesn’t treat them well, but let me offer you the idea of putting yourself in their shoes first while keeping this passage I quoted in mind. Especially that last line, “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’re most used to.”

So to you, it may be frustrating to see a loved one continue to drink, continue to go back to a workplace that treats them like garbage, or stay in a relationship where they are not valued or respected, but remember that to them, the idea of something unknown may be more terrifying than their current situation. You know that saying, “Choose your hard?” Everyone has to do just that: choose their hard. For some, choosing the hard of what is familiar may be all they can handle rather than opting for the challenge of diving into the unknown. 

It’s not up to us, and it’s not up to you.

The second thing I wanted to do regarding this passage is to invite you to do some self-reflection work. Take a few minutes and think on or journal these questions after re-reading the passage: 

What is a familiar pattern you keep diving back into because you’re scared of what might happen if you enter unknown territory?

What do you think is the worst that could happen in this unknown realm? Seriously, what’s the worst that could happen? ANNNND, so what if it did? 

What is the worst that could come from you staying in the pattern you are in today, from staying in the familiar? Compare this “familiar” worst-thing-that-could-happen to your “imagined” worst-thing-that-could-happen from diving into the unknown. What do you notice?

Feel free to write back and let me know! Have a great rest of your week, and if you want to have these conversations 1:1, please note that I am open to taking new coaching clients again as of this month, so sign up for a free consultation here! https://www.bottomlesstosober.com/coaching-services/

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“How was I going to explain this to Mami?

You see someone on a train track. You see the train is coming, and that person just will not get out of the way.

No matter what you do.

You can’t pull them off. You can’t push them off. All you want to do is get them out of harm’s way, but you can’t. It’s hard to watch. You want to make them better. Stop the hurt. Me, being your older sister, being in that second mom role, made that hard.

It’s difficult letting someone you love go through that process, but I had to accept that I couldn’t do this for you. It was work you had to do for yourself.” 

–Sofia Dueñas

I interviewed my sister, Sofia, on her experiences dealing with me while in my active addiction for episode 10 of Bottomless to Sober, the podcast. I wanted to pull this line out and discuss it in a greater context: I had to accept that I couldn’t do this for you. It was work you had to do for yourself.

Two and a half years into this new life I live, as I listened to my sister’s words, two questions came up for me for self-reflection, which I’m sharing with you in case you find them helpful:

1. What do I want for myself that I keep waiting on some external force to accomplish?
2. Is there something I continue to try to do for others that they really should be doing for themselves? 

I’ll pick question one to reflect on here:

What do I want for myself that I keep waiting on some external force to accomplish?

I started a book, a non-fiction self-help/memoir hybrid. I wanted to finish it, but I had been waiting to get picked up by an agent and a publisher. In my mind, I told myself the story that that is the only good reason to finish a book. I had gotten TONS of rejections from agents with no feedback and had stopped working on my book because I felt discouraged. Then, recently, I had a kind book agent who corresponded with me and gave me valuable feedback. 

She enjoyed what I presented and encouraged me to consider self-publishing because her inside scoop is that publishers are looking for people with longer-term sobriety if you aren’t strictly writing a memoir. After reading the email from the agent and reflecting on my sister’s statement, “I couldn’t do this for you. It was work you had to do for yourself.” I realize that I don’t need an agent to write a book. I don’t need a publisher. I don’t need anyone’s validation to finish what I started. I just need to finish what I started. So I’m formally declaring that I will refocus on writing my book! How it gets published isn’t relevant, the point is that it gets done.

So back to you, start the week with these questions:

1. What do you want for yourself that you keep waiting on some external force to accomplish?
2. Is there something you continue to try to do for others that they really should be doing for themselves? 

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“The term good enough comes from the psychological concept of “the Good Enough mother,” which was coined by Dr. Donald Winnicott, an English pediatrician and psychoanalyst. This concept proposes that the role of a parent is to provide their child With a background environment that allows the child to develop the ability to tolerate their own distress…
Coming from Good Enough means that you acknowledge your humanity and give yourself the generosity that you would extend to others. You trust that the people you care about can tolerate small discomforts and mistakes.
Here’s what coming from Good Enough means to me:
-I am okay with making mistakes. (I don’t need to listen to the cruel voice in my head.)
-I am not defined by being selfish or selfless. (I am allowed to consider myself along with those who I care about when I make decisions.)
-I can extend the compassion I give to others to myself. (I believe that we all deserve compassion, myself included.)
As you practice Good Enough ask yourself:
-How does my fear of being selfish prevent me from accessing
Good Enough?
-What are the costs (physical, emotional, spiritual) of being selfless?
-In which areas of my life do I feel most convinced of being Good Enough? 
-Can I bring the conviction that I am Good Enough to other areas of my life, in which I am less certain of my inherent Good Enough quality?
You are the only one who can give yourself the permission of starting from Good Enough. Be careful about getting caught up in wishful thinking that other people in your life will gift you this skill; self-compassion cannot be air-dropped–you have to build it yourself. By cultivating a mindset of Good Enough, you will naturally bring more compassion into your internal narrative.”

Selected parts from Real Self-Care by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, pages 140-142

I shared this quote with several spaces in the sober community this week. This excerpt resonated with me because I had to apply a boundary in my personal life, and as the author states, even though I’m not a mother, and the person I was setting a limit with is not a child, I had to believe in this person’s ability to handle the distress from the disappointment as a result of the boundary. I had to trust the process because in trusting the process of setting a boundary, I’m inherently trusting myself to make the right decisions to protect my mental health and sobriety. 

Hard decisions lead to the results we seek in our recovery, and we aren’t getting there by people-pleasing. Saying no to someone you love now is better than becoming resentful over a yes that should have been a no. 

If you have a boundary that you need to set with someone and the idea makes you want to go throw up, consider this:

1. Trust that the disappointment they will feel will not kill them. Yes, we, as lovely humans, don’t handle negative emotions well. However, they are a part of the human experience, and in the same way that we allow kids to be disappointed by telling them “no,” and time and time again, they move on, so will the adults in our lives who we say no to. 
2. Ask yourself: What do you stand to lose by saying yes to something you don’t want to do? If you are a person in recovery, this is a critical question to ask yourself. Is it worth risking a slip? 
3. Remind yourself that if you don’t have your own back, who will? As much as others love us, our responsibility to protect and nurture ourselves ultimately falls back on us. 

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