SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, , sober, people, life, feel, quit, email, husband, day, head, relapse, thought, support, months, work, home, love, alcohol, addictive, coaching, tired, thinking of drinking, Sober Coach, sober journey, sober trial, sober audios, email, day one, approach, practical, approachable, positive, message, heart of your work, stop drinking, quitting drinking, makes a difference, 1-on-1 support, reach out, I don’t know what I’m doing, I feel lost, I feel hopeless, no resets, challenge, tools, successful, keep track, Booze Free Brigade (BFB), pregnant, situational, moderate, anxiety, cope, feeling of overwhelm, little kids, husband, job, podcast, supportive, proud of me, writing, blogs, blogging, Sober blogs, right accountability, day one, committed, A.A., steps, Counseling, micro Coaching, tiny adjustment, therapy, Counselor, fit, jobs, spouse, relapse, not drink, worth, value, measure the value, offering, email, meet, coffee, Sober Coaches, She Recovers, BFB Facebook group, your time is worthwhile, pen pals, invest in myself, expertise, consequences, binge drinkers, prescreening, having better results, present for their kids, feel proud of themselves, empathy, chooses, The Sobriety Starter Kit, private, 1-on-1 Coaching, Course, fits into your schedule, creating, drinking cycle, start, feel better, online course, online, self-study, tailored to your life, more energy, look better, feel better, more patient, process, learning, positive, cheerleader, real time feedback, saved every email, your responses, phone calls, panic and anxiety attack, I’m incredibly grateful to you, planted the seed, love sober travel, new eyes, glass of red wine, sober treat, gold starts, follow instructions, for better or worse, disappointed myself constantly, obliger, Gretchen Rubin’s 4 types/tendencies, sacrifice my word to myself, my priorities for someone else, following through, guidance, decide, strategy, maintenance, integrated into your life, relationship with children, addictive voice, Wolfie, undermine your confidence, resolution, jealous, permission, sober momentum, precious, sober retreats, self-care, reprogramming my brain, messaging, cycle, repetition, different words, different ways, evolved, audios, moving, hope, important, worth it, above and beyond, compounding benefits, evolving, fixed, fixing, better than hopeless, magical, trending in the right direction, early sobriety, physically, emotionally, relationships. stresses you out, early sobriety, capable, learn something, help you to keep going, start again, incredible, benefit of momentum, continuous sobriety, internalized, introvert, extroverts, free moment, I wanted to, hiring a Coach was the kindest thing that I’ve done for myself in the longest time, kind to yourself, nurturing, supportive, giving me permission to take care of myself, validating my feelings, inner critic, society, what your parents told you, take a rest, felt happier, felt understood, yoga video, Postpartum, postnatal yoga, over performing, sober world, pandemic, locked down, learned Spanish, maintain my mental health, over functioning, booze, self-esteem, possibility, count on yourself, uniquely damaged, with character defects, hustling my whole life, cheerleader, positive, you are a badass, shame, embarrassment, ask for help, self-soothing skills, addiction, connection, lived experiences, trauma, divorce, neglect, poverty, misinformation, narcissistic, abused, snap out of it , drama, taking forward, for the rest of my life, celebrate, responsibilities, gifts, blessings, personal development, run a marathon, volunteer work, extracurricular activities, overwhelming, coping strategy, the perfect time is now, provided hope, important components, your role, choice, evolve, worthwhile, evolving

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Belle Robertson

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hi there, Belle Robertson is my guest today. She’s a writer and a Sober Coach with a website tired of thinking about drinking. She’s written a book about how to quit drinking and has worked one on one as a sober coach with 31, 44 individual’s sober penthouse. And I just was chatting with Bill about this before we got on. And that number now is 32, 58. Belle hasn’t had a drink in over 8 years. And she started her own Sober Journey with a Sober Trial, a period of time off alcohol to see how she liked it. And apparently, she did. When she’s not recording Sober Audios or Coaching by email. She works as a Caterer and a text designer, originally from Canada. Belle lives in Paris and Vermont with her husband, who’s also a Canadian. And Fun fact, her husband doesn’t speak great English. So, they speak in French together at home. And I wanted to have belt on this podcast for a very long time. Because Belle was actually my Sober Coach. And I started working with her four and a half years ago, when I woke up at 3 in the morning and said I just can’t do this anymore. And the day I started with Belle was my last day one and she is amazing. I signed up for her 100-day sober challenge. I emailed her every day for about a year, I was lucky enough to actually have a coffee date with her and a few other people when I was 6 months sober, when she was in Seattle, Washington. And I did lots of Coaching Calls with Belle. I was sitting in my car outside of my office in Seattle, and Belle was in her office in Paris.

 

What I love about Belle’s approach is that it’s practical and approachable and positive. And I have to say that her first one-minute message touches me so deeply to this day. And if it’s okay with you, but I wanted to read it to you because I’m sure okay, the heart of your work. So, the way it starts is,

 

So, I want you to imagine that there’s something else for you. Something better than what you’re doing now. I want you to think about “what could be” rather than “what is”. So, if there’s a you, who, right now is a person who’s drinking, and you want to be something else, and you want something else to happen in your life, and you don’t know how to get there. And you don’t know how to get this voice in your head to stop. I know what the answer is. I know that you don’t believe me when I tell you, I know what the answer is. Because the answer is stop drinking. And when you stop drinking, things change.

 

So, Belle, welcome. I am so excited that you’re here.

 

Thank you for having me. That’s quite the introduction.

 

Oh, well, I love you. I mean, seriously, I credit me quitting drinking to working with you and I tell everybody about it. Well, I think it really makes a difference for us when we have 1-on-1 support. When we have actually somebody to keep track of us and see how we’re doing and email me when we drift and where we can reach out and say, I don’t know what I’m doing, or I feel lost or I feel hopeless. Because really, in our general lives and our work life and our relationship lives, we don’t have a place where we can say, I suck at this, and I don’t know what to do next.

 

Yeah, I mean, that is completely right. And it also, it helped me draw a line in the sand and just say, Enough, and I like you, because you coached me this way did not save forever. I just said, I don’t want to feel this way anymore. And when you said 100-day challenge, I was like, Alright, let’s do this. And then you did, and you went straight through with no resets. Also, which is not super common. But it’s a sign perhaps that a, you’d already had a bunch of resets beforehand. And B, that once you got the right amount of tools and supports for you, which is different for everybody, that then you were able to be successful.

 

Yeah. And before we jumped on this call, which you always used to say to me, I have no idea how you look up or keep track of this. But you said today is Day 1694. Since that day, I wrote you, for you, your date of last drink is February 17, 2016. Yeah, that’s just kind of a random day, February 17. It’s not Valentine’s Day. It’s just like, a random day. Well, I mean, you are totally right. Like, this was not my first rodeo, I guess, I kind of got to the point where I was like, Okay, I need to quit drinking.

 

3 years before I worked with you, and I quit for 4 months, you know, with the help of the BFB, that online, secret Facebook group. And I had met a woman there who invited me to a with her, and I went for about 4 months, it was not my jam. And then I got pregnant with my daughter. And so, I was sober for a year, but you know, probably not, I would have gone back earlier, just with the amount of support I had. And then after she was born, I kind of did that, like slow shuffle backwards. So Oh, it was just situational. And I can moderate now. And you know, the truth is I wanted to drink. And I went back to a bottle plus a night that you know, fairly quickly, you know, to every single night, every day of the year, for 22 months. So, when I contacted you, I’d come back to the same place with the anxiety of not being able to cope and feeling like my life sucked. And my life was pretty good.

 

I remember that you had quite a bit of anxiety, and just a feeling of overwhelm with a… with a big job. And with little kids and with your husband being involved in sport things. And with all the other stuff that you had the balls you were juggling.

 

Oh my god, I have no idea with 3000 sober pen pals, how you remember that? I’m sure you have notes. But that’s the…

 

Don’t, I’m trying not to disclose all that. I know. Because I don’t know how much you’ve shared with your audience. So, you know, I didn’t say which. I just said he’s involved with sports. I didn’t say which sport. I know it’s baseball. But I didn’t say that. Yeah, I don’t know whether you’re, you know?

 

Yeah. I mean, I think at this point, I’m out on a podcast, so, and my husband is really supportive of me and proud of me. And I mean, he’d have to be right? So, considering I did ask him before, I was like, Hey, I’m gonna put this out there. But you know, so we don’t have a lot of terrible things are much of any of us drinking together. You know, he’s a normie. So, it was all me, it was my story.

 

Mm hmm. So, when you reached out to me in February of 2016, that was just around the part where point where I started to take the Coaching stuff more seriously. So, it’s interesting that you were right there, then because well, so tell me about that. Because I thought you were an old Pro. I mean, you were the Expert. And I was like, I’m just going to do everything. She says, Well, it’s interesting, because in 2016, I was, well, in February 2016, I was three and a half years sober. But I quit drinking for myself, like most people do. I didn’t quit drinking to help anybody. I quit drinking to help me. And I happened to write about it online. In what was a blog, I mean, it’s still a blog, but nobody uses blogs anymore. Which is a shame because if you post on Instagram, it’s really difficult to go back and read what was your day 50. And it’s hard to follow. A blog has a very special way of categorizing and archiving your experience.

 

Anyway, in 2012, which is when I quit there was only blocks. Yeah, so I was writing every day. These sucks. This is hard. This is easy. This is what I did. This is what I learned. What do I do about this? How do I cope with that? stays rotten. And I did that for as many days as it took. I didn’t know how much I needed the feedback of other people who were further along than me, not someone else on day three, but somebody on day 300 who could come in and say, yeah, that part’s normal watch for that thing. Have a high protein snack at four o’clock, the blood sugar thing is actually more important than you realize. And I go, oh, okay, I gotta do… I gotta do that, too. And then at about the eight and a half months mark, my eight-and-a-half-month mark, sober. So, it’s like February or January or February, I think of 2013ish. I can’t do the math.

 

Exactly.

 

But around there. You made your round, then I don’t know whether you were reading online, sober blogs before you quit. But there were a handful of us who were blogging, and there was one girl who was blogging, and she was just really having a hard time getting going. And like all of us, when we don’t have the right tools, or the right support, or the right accountability. She would say I’m on day one, I’m determined. And then the next day she’d say, I’m on day one, I’m determined. And then she’d say, this has got to change. I’m determined. And then I emailed her privately. And I said, you know, it might be that trying to quit forever is hard. And maybe you do better with something like a trial, like why don’t you just quit for 100 days, and then see how you feel? And then she posted on her blog, and she said, I’m doing Belle’s 100-day Sober Challenge. And I’m like, No, you’re not. No, no, no, you’re not because there isn’t one. I’m only eight and a half months.

 

Like, I know, I have no, no. But I, what I had said to her was, why don’t you email me every day and just say “sober”? Thinking that… that was a kind thing to offer, but not actually thinking it made any difference. It just seemed like an easy thing to offer.

 

So, she posted it on her blog. And then what happened was not just the people who were reading and writing that we knew about on the internet’s but strangers who were not blogging and not commenting, just reading, which of course I didn’t even know they existed. What we now would call a lurker. Strangers started to email me and say, Can I do your challenge and I’m like, Oh, shit, like now I gotta write it down. I got a spreadsheet. I gotta like, have a number. Lily’s number one and Leigh Ann’s number two and Mr. Girls, number four, so on. And so, I started to collect people’s names and their start dates. This was all free. And it was all by word of mouth.

 

Yeah, that’s incredible. Like, you didn’t have a website, you had your blog. That’s it.

 

That’s all I still have. Yeah, I mean, I now have a blog with a home with the front page. But I still don’t have what would be a normal Coaching website. And people started to just come to me, and then I made a joke with my husband. And I said, wouldn’t it be hilarious if there were 100 people doing the 100-day Super Challenge? Like, wouldn’t it just be so funny? And then of course, you get to 100. And what happens is not everybody sober. Yeah. And some people haven’t really committed. I mean, it’s a free thing with an anonymous person online that they didn’t really know. Or they didn’t know, well, or they suspect they couldn’t figure out what my motive was. And so, people would use the support, but then they’d get nervous that they this I mean, this sounds ridiculous, but they would get nervous that they weren’t paying. Because who just helps people for no reason. And I’m like, well, but I’m not even really helping. Like, this is what I was saying. It’s not really helping. I just let you email me, and I email you back. That’s not the same as A.A. and steps and Counseling.

 

And I didn’t even know there was a name for what I was doing now, which I now know is called micro coaching. Which is where you, and maybe that’s my own invented word.

 

But I’ve seen it in a couple of I’ve seen it online. So, it’s not a totally invented word. But micro coaching is where you meet somebody where they are, you answered the question that they’re asking. And then you do it again, tomorrow, you don’t lay out a whole bunch of things that you need to worry about, because you’re not there yet. And you don’t start to criticize how they’re handling one thing while they’re dealing with something else. And you do a bit at you do a little tiny adjustment.

 

So, imagine you’re going to therapy, you’d go once a week. And you’d say here’s my problem with drinking, and your therapist would say do this and this and then you’d go off and you’d have 7 days in a row where you have to do it alone. And then you go back to the therapist, and you say that didn’t work very well.

 

Yeah. With micro coaching, you can email, and I’ll answer you. Email me and say I’m going to a thing, what should I say when they asked me, and then I say what you should say, and then you email me when you get home. And then you email the next morning. And then you email the next day and you say I’m having a good day and then you email and say I’m having a bad day and we tweak and work with it in real time. In a way that it can mean a Counselor, obviously, is a fantastic human, but in a way that a counselor cannot. Counselor can do more in-depth things over a longer period of time.

 

We’re doing these small adjustments daily that can get you from here to tomorrow, which is all you can do in sober world anyway, is be sober today and get to tomorrow. That’s the goal anyway. Yeah. So, I’m doing that for, I’m gonna say years, because by the time that you joined, it was 2016. So, 3 years, I worked with 2100 people for free. That’s incredible.

 

That is incredible. And I know you’ve said that it helped you stay sober. But how do you even fit that in with your other jobs and your other work and your spouse and life? Well, it’s to be fair, 2100 people is not 2100 at a time.

 

Yeah. And when it was free, people would sign up and then disappear. Or they would get to 100 days and then drink, or they would commit and then not and then relapse, and then people would come and go. So, if there was never, there was never more than 50 or 75 people at a time, even now, there isn’t because I mean, that would just be dumb. And there’s a certain and I’m also a fast typist, which happens to turn out to be a skill from high school that has served me well now into my 50s.

 

I am too, and I swear, it’s the best skill I ever learned in my life in seventh grade. And I can type pretty much as fast as I can think. And I can type in all lowercase and just type an answer and press Send. And I don’t proofread it. And it’s very, like, live like that. What I didn’t realize, and the reason I didn’t charge, I know, and I know this sounds dumb. It’ll sound dumb in retrospect, but I didn’t charge because I didn’t think it had any worth. I didn’t think it had any value. Or I couldn’t measure the value because I was the one giving it not the one receiving it. So, when people said to me, I feel guilty emailing you because I’m not paying. I’m like, that’s just dumb. I’m offering. Please email four times a day. And then they’d say, you know, if we could meet for coffee, I could buy you a coffee. And I’m like, Okay, well, I’ll put up a button on my website that says buy me coffee. And then people started to put money in that account. And then I’m like, holy shit. Like, what is this? Because there were no other Sober Coaches at that time. There was no She Recovers, there was no BFB Facebook group, I got a fair amount of pushback for having a donation button on my website, because in the other blogs, there were none. And the very traditional A.A. approach is you give it away.

 

Yeah. But I had 2100 people for free. Yeah, you can’t hold down a job if you’re doing that constantly. I mean, and you know, your time is worthwhile, and you have a ton of experience. I mean, I never thought that I shouldn’t be paying you. Of course, I shouldn’t be paying you. Well, I didn’t recognize the value. And I had a job. So, I didn’t need the money to come from this overstuff. But the pen pals were unable to commit properly, if they weren’t paying, but also, they were unable to take it seriously in a way that you do when you put some money on the table. Because when you said, I’m going to pay some random amount of money, for support to be sober, it means that I’m actually going to invest in myself, because it’s too easy to sign up for something that’s free, and do a day and a half and then walk away.

 

Yeah. I’ve also found out all of this, I’ve learned over time by my pen pals, telling me I don’t I don’t know any of this in advance. And any expertise that I have is because I’ve talked to 3000 people, it’s because I’ve talked one on one. It’s like I don’t have an N of one. I’m not my I’m not the only person I’ve coached. It’s not my only my experience, I worked with 2000 people, before I charged anybody anything. Because that’s because you know, you learn from Linda that that worked for her. And then you go to Casey and you say, did you want to hear what Linda was trying? And then Casey says something and then I go back to Linda and I say, you know, have you thought of this? And then I look like a genius to her. And really all I did was take what you said and go back to her. But I have done that, you know, 3000 times. Yeah. So, what it means then is I have a view or an overview of people who have critical mental health issues, who have no mental health issues, who have been sober for a little while who’ve been sober for a long while. I have people with high bottom and low bottom in the drinking world. Large consequences for drinking no consequences for drinking. I have people who consider themselves to be binge drinkers. I have people who consider who are 23 six, I think my youngest is 23 and my oldest is 73.

 

Wow.

 

In men and women with no didn’t like I don’t discriminate against any of it. And I don’t require you to be sober when you start. Like you don’t say you must already be on day 30 before I’ll work with you, which would be a way of prescreening and then having better results.

 

Yeah. But of the last time 100 people who signed up with me, 76 of them are sober.

 

Wow. That’s amazing. I know that’s a large number. Now that’s because… that’s because they pay. To be fair, that’s because they’ve, they’ve already looked around and decided that they wanted to work with me. Because nobody’s impulse buying. Also, I’ve removed the ability to just purchase it without being on a waiting list, I removed the impulse buying, because I want people to know me first before they actually commit. Because I was having a lot of people on a on a bad 3:00a.m. You can I mean, you can relate to this 3:00a.m. going online, pulling out their credit card, buying something they don’t even know who I am. And then they’re disappointed that it doesn’t magically just work, because they spent money. Do you find it frustrating with people starting over with day ones? No one will know it’s a sign that they don’t, that we don’t have enough tools and support. I mean, if you start off to run a marathon, and you’re not wearing the right equipment, and you didn’t eat right, and you didn’t go to the bathroom first, you’re not going to be successful.

 

Yeah, right. And nobody talks about the bathroom stuff on a marathon, but it’s real. And nobody talks about how to deal with your spouse when you’re quitting drinking, but it’s real. So, people will say that they quit drinking because that they want to quit drinking for them for you know, because their husband is giving them a hard time. And then they soon realize that they just feel better when they are sober. And they feel proud of themselves. And they can commit to things and they’re present for themselves, and they’re present for their kids. But so, if you relapse, then it means that the addictive voice in your head is so loud that you have committed wanted, shown up read paid. And the addictive voice is still loud. Now if you couldn’t have nothing but empathy for that. Yeah.

 

Yeah, nobody picks that mean, nobody chooses that to be their situation. Now, if somebody signs up with me, though, and they repeatedly relapse, and don’t want to add in new tools and supports, and they want to try harder, or they’re resistant to looking at what are they doing? And what can you change? Cause I do, I mean, I have a pen pal right now, who said to me, I want to do this only with you. I don’t want to tell anybody. I don’t want to go to any meetings. I don’t want to tell my doctor; I don’t want to tell my husband. And I’m like, cool. Just don’t relapse. Because if you relapse, we’re going to talk about all those things, adding in all those things.

 

Mm hmm. And then, if there’s any frustration, it’s that the addictive voice can actually prevent people from taking action to get the addiction to stop. And that the addiction itself keeps us stuck in a place where we keep trying the same thing over and over again, getting the same result. And then I’m out here going try different. Yeah, try something different. And your heads like No, No, I don’t. But I don’t want that.

 

 

So, what I loved about working with you, is, you were so positive, you were such a cheerleader for the work I was doing. The real time feedback was invaluable. I mean, just, you know, I do remember because, you know, I, the challenges were real, just in terms of your braking, 20 years of habits, right. So, and one thing I love and of course, I did it before I interviewed you today was, I saved. So, I saved every email I ever sent you and your responses. So, that’s insane. Because I emailed you for a year, and I was doing it like 5 days a week.

 

And so, I’ve got them all in a folder, I actually pulled up my first email I ever sent you after listening to the audio, if you’re less than one, and I have all our phone calls. So, you recorded our 30-minute phone calls. And I listened to them again, which is crazy. So, my first call with you was on day 16. I have one on day 33 at four months at day, 105 months when I was having a panic and anxiety attack that was very, very real. And you know, I’m incredibly grateful to you. But I remember on my first call on day 16 saying, I’m going to Venice with my mother and my sister at 4 months. And I’m incredibly worried about that. And I said, you said we could talk about that for about 5 days before you go, yeah, I, you know, you were like a, you planted the seed like you are going to love sober travel, it is going to be amazing. You are going to see everything with new eyes, it’s going to be the best thing you ever did. And I wish I could go back and redo every trip I’ve done without yanking. So that, I mean, I held on to that. I really did.

 

And you said you’re on day 16. Let’s talk when you’re on because I was going to be a little over 100 days. When I went you were just like we can talk about that then. And it was great advice, right? Because my next challenge was my husband got a promotion, and I was going out to dinner with another couple for the first time. And you know, it was much more basic, like what do I say to them? How do I not die when they order a glass of red wine? What do I order? What’s my sober treat afterwards? Like, just so different?

 

You know, I just looked up our email history. And it doesn’t include all of my replies but includes most of my replies and all of your emails. It’s 800 messages. Oh my god. Yeah, I got my money’s worth.

 

You know, I bet, a lot. Okay. You were with me for 2 years, though. To be fair, you were penthouse for 2 full years. Yeah, that’s… Yeah. I mean, I literally did everything that you suggested everything like you send a lesson on email, email me back. And I was like, Okay, here I go. And you asked me on one of my first calls you were like, you know, what is going on it? I was just like, what am I a joiner? I like to get my gold stars. I follow instructions. Like, I want to be an A plus student. So, I mean, for better or worse. I do bet that people’s fair. I like my Pats on the head like so for better or worse. Like, I think that really helped me. Because, you know, I never want to disappoint anyone. It although I disappointed myself constantly, like I’m an “Obliger”, you know, with Gretchen Rubin’s 4 types/tendencies that I am more likely to sacrifice my word to myself or my priorities for someone else. But God, that helped me in not drinking.

 

Yeah, and actually following through. And while I’ve been the thing about taking guidance, though, I mean, to be fair, we have to decide who we asked for guidance.

 

Yeah, lots of people want their sober support to come from their drinking spouse. Or they want their sober support to come from their Facebook family. And not from another sober person who’s further along than them. Not someone else on day three. This is the mic primary concern with a lot of the groups online is the repeated relapsing, which is normal. But repeatedly relapsing without changing your strategy isn’t helpful. And saying you got this isn’t true. You don’t get it. You don’t get it. In fact, I don’t get it. I’m on day 3000 something you don’t get it. I don’t get it. I still have to do some maintenance. It’s like saying I got a full tank of gas. Oh, cool. You got it. No, I still have to put gas in the car.

 

Yeah. And the further I mean, the further along sober you are, the less maintenance you have to do or the eat. The maintenances, or it’s just integrated into your life in a way that doesn’t feel like anything. But it’s sort of like complaining that I’m going to mix metaphors. Again, I just said gas in a car. Now I’m going to say, it’s just like saying, I have to wash my hair, and then I have to wash it again. I just want to wash my hair once and be done. I just want to quit drinking and not have to think about it anymore. Like, really, I just want my paycheck to arrive in my bank account and never think about money again. school doesn’t actually work like that. And it shouldn’t. Because the most important things in our lives do take maintenance, like marriage, like relationship with children, like our marathon time, like our weight, like our drinking, like our car maintenance, like our car maintenance. You don’t just buy a car and then never put gas in it. It’s like, well, I saved up a lot of money. And I paid for this car. And it’s really, it’s like, yeah, and now you got to learn how to drive it. And then you got to learn how to read all of its noises. And know what this light means and what this gauge means, then you have to do things preventatively so that it never breaks down on you is the difference between a car breaking down on the side of the road on the way to school and a supercar breaking down is that a supercar doesn’t necessarily get restarted?

 

Yeah. Well, and when you talk about not relying on other people at the same point, as you are, I mean, I agree with you 100%. Because when you talk about that addictive voice, and you know you call it Wolfie and so I call it Wolfie, cause that’s what we talked about in 800 emails, like other people can trigger that Wolfie voice in yourself and to some extent, like, undermine your confidence, your resolution and, you know, plant his seed that you I mean, you get jealous.

 

Sometimes, if someone relapses, you’re like, well, if she can drink, why can’t I write even though she’s saying, I am fucking miserable. And it was a terrible decision. I feel like she said, it’s permission. You are so fragile in the beginning, like you need someone. I mean, I’ve honestly internalized everything you said to me, but I’m like sober momentum is precious, like, there is no guarantee that you’re going to get another streak. You know, I had a healthy fear of relapse. And you talked about sober retreats and self-care and lowering the bar and doing less. And I think I listened. I love your one-minute messages, I started out on your first I think you were putting them out as I was going through because like, right 54 came out and all the other ones and I listened to them. When I was driving to the gym, to work out at 5:30. In the morning, when I was driving home from work before I picked up my daughter at daycare, like not when they were in the car, but every other time. And I was like reprogramming my brain with a message that not drinking suits me. And that not drinking is a good idea, and that nobody needs to drink. I mean, all of those things, I think that we’re conditioned for 20 plus years, our whole lives to think that drinking is good and fun and a privilege. And you will be ostracized if you don’t and people would judge you. And it’s required and your words and your audios really helped me break that… break that cycle?

 

Well, I think some of what we need to is the repetition. I mean, we need to hear the same message in different words in different ways. And it’s like this, this idea of micro coaching, we need to not just hear that audio on day six, but we need to hear it again on day 16 because we’re in a different place. And then on day 40 when you listen to it again, you hear something different, because you’re dealing with things because you you’ve evolved the audios the same. You’ve evolved so now you and also it’s again, it’s like talking about your weight or husbands are moving if you’re not dealing with your waiter or a husband or moving. You sort of go Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Until you’re moving. And then suddenly the audio about moving seems really important. Yeah.

 

Yeah. And it also is, you know, the idea of hope. And the idea of it gets better. I know, like so I said, I pulled up your emails. I wrote you on day 30. And it was the day that I listened to your One Minute Message, Tell Me, which is my absolute favorite message of all time. Tell me, I think it was worth it. Yeah, Tell Me it gets better. Tell me it’s worth it. Tell me it will all be okay. Tell me it’ll get easier when I know what to say. And then you were like, it is it does. It will be. Oh my god. I was in tears. I wrote that one in Scotland. I mean, I remember that particular audio because one of my sober pen pals asked me to come to her wedding as her sober support as a guest. And so, I flew from Paris to Scotland to it tend to wedding if someone had never met.

 

Okay, that’s above and beyond.

 

Well, I’ve never been to Scotland and I thought it was gonna be it was close. I mean, it was Paris and you’re like a wedding. That’s always fun. Yeah, what do we you know, nobody, and you’re going to be sober. Yeah, sounds it sounds fantastic. And it was always in English. So, then my husband didn’t come with me. So, I was alone. I remember recording that in the hotel room in Scotland. I don’t know why I don’t remember. I don’t remember every single audio without one in particular.

 

I do. But I also remember that you liked it. And did you know also recorded a version of it with you saying it when you asked people to record their own audios and send them in for one minute messages at one point, and I recorded one about not drinking being sort of a long game of compounding benefits. And you know, imagining my son was 8 at the time and imagining what his life would be like, when he was 18, like a decade out if I kept drinking a bottle of wine a night, versus what his childhood and teenager and life would be like, if I stopped and it was just so stark. I wondered if by the time he was 18, he would want to bring his friends home. And you know, he’s my biggest fan. It’s crazy. Like he and my husband, for my 1000 days, went to a craft store and got me I have it in my office, a glass jar and literally counted out 1000 like glass, marbles and put it in there. And I had it on the kitchen table when I came down in the morning. And it was incredible, because my husband didn’t necessarily think I needed to quit drinking he, you know, wanted me to have an off switch. He wanted me to not open a second bottle of wine on a Tuesday and pass out on the couch. But, you know, we drank together, and he was like, can’t you just cut back? Are you overreacting? So, the fact that they are just proud of me makes me so happy.

 

And How old’s your son now? He is 12 and a half. Right? So, to have a 12 and a half… 12 and a half year old son who speaks to you at all? You’re doing something right. Because really, right around 13 they stopped talking?

 

Yeah, yeah, stop holding your hand. It’s always been a good boy.

 

Yeah, yeah. And that was part of it. I was like, I am miserable in my life. And I have the sweetest son and a really good husband and a good marriage and all the things. And yet, I’m waking up every day saying I hate my life, which is insane. And it was the alcohol. I think people don’t realize it’s the alcohol. I mean, that’s the thing that a sober person knows that a drinker doesn’t, although that a drinker hopes is true.

 

Yes, that if you remove the booze things change, if you remove the booze things get better. It doesn’t all get magically fixed. But the possibility of fixing things is there in a way that is not while you’re still drinking. So, it makes things possible, which frankly, is better than hopeless. Although it’s not magical all the time, but it’s still light years better. And when people say to me, you know, I’m on day 16 I don’t feel better. It’s like, do you feel better than day one? Okay, well, then you’re trending in the right direction. Keep going. Ask me again on day 30. And then they say on day 30. I still don’t feel great. It’s like, Okay, do you feel better than day 16? Yes, trending in the right direction?

 

Yeah. Well, because we drink for 20 years and 16 days, I’m not drinking, like, you’re still I mean, my god, you’re still pulling yourself out of all the things that both physically and emotionally in relationships, and, you know, everything stresses you out in early sobriety? Of course, it does. Well, and you feel like you’re not capable. Yeah, when in fact, you’ve just done 16 days, or you’re just on 30 days, that you must have learned something to get here. Yeah, you will continue to learn things that will get you there. And that’s the thing about relapse, right. If you relapse, you relapse right at the point where you needed to learn something that was going to help you to keep going, and you didn’t learn it. So, you didn’t keep going. And there was something there. You were supposed to learn that now, you have to go back to one and start again. And I can learn it again. The next time it comes up and try not to relapse again. Yeah, so that you can actually learn it so that you can go ahead then to the next, to the next one.

 

It’s so disheartening, right? You get to day 49. And you drink and then you’re on day 4, which is incredible, right? Because a lot of people go back to drinking and stay in that cycle for a long time trying to get you know, a start again, and their minds just saying Oh, drink tonight. You can start tomorrow. You can start Monday, but you’re like fuck, come on. Day 8, I was down 49. This sucks. Yeah, well, and then there’s lots of creative math that goes on. And then there is I don’t want to count that, let’s just call it 46 minus one. And the problem with that is that if the days don’t count, then the days don’t count. If you don’t count days than the days, don’t count me. Drink once, and then two weeks later, you’ll drink again. And then three weeks later, drink again. And you’ll be like, Oh, I’m on day 100. And it’s like, well, you’re actually on 7 days, you know, and that’s, people do get mad at you when you say that. It’s like, not those that those days don’t count. Not that you didn’t learn something, not that you’re, you didn’t gain information. But on day 7, Wolfie is fucking loud. You know what I mean? Like, you have to go through that again. And if you’re stopping and starting, you’re not having the benefit of momentum and have continuous sobriety, which gives you a different set of tools. And so, you actually, I mean, it’s harder, it’s, frankly, harder to stop and start than it is to be continuously sober. Which means that, on a day that seems really hard, you have to go to bed, and you have to go to bed at 2 o’clock, you have to cancel your afternoon stuff. You have to not go to the pub for dinner, what are you doing in the pub?

 

Anyway, you order a frozen meal, you stop making five lunches a week, you know, you stop that all of that over functioning. Because if you can’t protect your sobriety, and you’ve already identified that you want it that’s the thing, we’re not coming into anybody’s bedroom and saying you must be sober. Everybody who you are working with, or that I am have on my like, free subscriber list for the daily emails has chosen to be there. Every single person is there because they want to be there because they want the support because they want the information. As they know something is up with their drinking, and they’re trying to figure out what to do. It’s not like we’re going into anybody’s house and trying to convince them. So, then we get there and your addicted voices loud. You have to be willing to open your head to let a sober person’s advice in. But a sober person’s advice is going to sound exactly wrong to a drinking head. If you’re a drinker, and somebody says, no pub for dinner, you’re like, I always go to the pub. That’s ridiculous. What does she know? I always go to the pub. I’m like, you want to be sober here. Yeah. And it’s not that you can never do that stuff. Again. It’s just like, you can’t do it yet. You’re not strong enough yet. And you are kind of torturing yourself and making it harder on yourself. Like, why would you do that? Well, there’s a certain amount of I need to test this. Yeah. But I mean, I mean, I don’t believe in testing it ever, but you certainly don’t test it on day 7.

 

And some, I mean, this was in my inbox this week where someone relapsed. And she said, You know, I had to go to that thing. And it’s like, you know what you didn’t, you’re on day 4 for the 40th time, and you’re suffering from that, and you’re unhappy, and you’re crying on the phone to me that this is really hard. You don’t have to go to that birthday party. You just don’t, you don’t. And your kids don’t have to go to swimming. Unless they’re in the Olympics, in which case, you’re their coach, or they’re the coke co car share. Drive, Uber will take them. Right. Yeah, most of the time, most of the things are not requirements. But our head says I have to be able to function exactly the same as it was before and quit drinking. I have you exactly the same things as I was doing before and not allow myself any latitude for the fact that removing this kind of addictive substance is gonna suck. Yeah. And so, I want to pretend like it’s not actually happening and just keep going on with life. And I don’t want to listen to audios because that reminds me about drinking. And I’m like, yeah, that’s just gonna work. Yeah, and I, you know, I really internalized like, if you feel like you want to drink to tolerate something, it’s the thing you’re trying to tolerate that needs to change. Not that you need to drink to do it or something doesn’t sound like any fun without drinking. Maybe it’s just not fun. Like, right, or maybe you’re shy and quiet. And maybe you think that you need to like to self-medicate and add a chemical to change your basic personality as if there’s something the matter with being quiet. As if there’s something the matter with going into a party and first talking to one person and then talking to two people and not dancing around with a lampshade on your head. If you think that’s fun. I mean, that’s a distorted version of fun anyway.

 

Yeah, I think also people think that, that being an introvert is a character flaw that needs to be medicated, as opposed to for those of us who are extroverts. We’re so busy sucking the oxygen out of the room, that it can’t be full. It can’t just be a room full of extroverts. That would be a terribly boring party, you’ll be a whole bunch of bla bla bla bla.

Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, I think when I started working with you, I remember going to my son’s baseball practice, he was still pretty young. So, I had to drive him there and stay and drive him home. And I was listening to your audios, because that’s what I did you know, every moment that I had a free moment. And it wasn’t because I had to. It was because I wanted to. And I just remember this feeling coming over me and thinking to myself, that hiring a Coach was the kindest thing that I’ve done for myself in the longest time, really. And kind, because why, because of that then allows you to be kind to yourself, it was having someone be nurturing and supportive, and giving me permission to take care of myself, instead of taking care of everyone else and telling me that, you know, validating my feelings. And you know, I was so mean to myself, in the voice in my head, whether it’s your inner critic, or society, or what your parents told you that you’ve internalized, but, you know, I was like, Why can I cope with this? I should be doing more, I shouldn’t rest, I should do all the things and you were like, why would you cope with that? That sucks? Why don’t you take a rest? You don’t have to do all of that, you know? And it was just so funny. I started, you know, honestly, I just felt better. I felt happier. I felt understood. And it’s crazy that this audio voice and I did feel like I knew you because you replied back. And we did have calls, but this voice telling me that made me feel better. And it reminded me of right after I’d had my baby. And you know, I it’s just kind of a really, really, really tough time you go from being completely spoiled and nurtured to being sort of a housemaid where you are completely serving a kind of demanding. You know, it’s always What have you done for me lately, and you don’t get a lot of support and it’s just miserable.

 

And you know, I did this, this yoga video right? Postpartum. And it started with what you’re doing is hard. This isn’t, you know, this is difficult. Your body has been through so much, you, you know, you are hurting.

 

And I just started crying at this like postnatal yoga. Yes, it is. And no one was saying that to me, it was very similar. Yeah, well, there’s a lot of overperforming, right. There’s a lot of polished looking faces. And I popped up my baby and went, you know, I had a cheeseburger and went back to work in the afternoon. And then there’s also a lot of that in the sober world, too. There’s a lot of AI, or the pandemic world. Yeah, I was locked down for four months, so that I learned Spanish and carved my headboard out of glass. And then there’s, you know, I had to homeschool my kids, and run a full-time job and maintain my mental health and make sure I was stayed sober and cook dinner.

 

Like, yeah, some of those things are too many things. And since you can’t hand your children back, although you’ve tried. And you’ve asked for a refund on those kids, and nobody’s given it to you. What else can you give up? And you know, some of the things we give up have to do with over functioning, but also the booze. When you give up the booze you get, I don’t even know how to describe it, you get self-esteem, you get possibility, like I was mentioning before, but that actually means something like then you can count on yourself. And then you wake up, don’t feel like a bag of shit. And then you sleep through the night and then you feel proud of yourself. Like really, if we were going to sell a pill and it was called, I feel proud of myself. You’d buy it. And if that pill said, I feel proud of myself cannot be taken with alcohol. But you’ll feel proud of yourself. It’s like, okay, I’ll go for it. Yeah, what do you come up to somebody and you say, I need you to quit drinking or you need to quit drinking or you want to quit drinking and then you’ll feel proud of yourself. They’re like yeah, I’m not convinced. Yeah. Well and I feel like not all approaches are that way. I mean the way I think about it now, and I learned this from you is be proud of yourself. Be proud of yourself on day 2, be proud of yourself. on day 5. Realize you’re doing one of the hardest things you will ever do. You know, I mean, I went to A.A. and you spend all your time talking about your bottom and the worst thing you’ve ever done and how we are uniquely damaged with character defects and I… I didn’t, you know, I didn’t feel like I was a very bad person I really didn’t. I felt like I had been hustling my whole life and trying to be kind and trying to be good and feeling anxiety that I wasn’t measuring up or doing enough or disappointing people. I didn’t feel like I was uniquely damaged or had a character defect. I just felt like, I got addicted to this really addictive substance. And I liked that. You were such a cheerleader and so positive and you know, just being like, you are a badass like, this is hard, and you’re doing something that so many people who worry about their drinking, aren’t doing. And I didn’t get that from A.A. I felt like I was feeling bad. Or you know, I don’t even call myself an alcoholic. I feel like I personally don’t feel it’s helpful. And I know you don’t either.

 

I like that. That was one of the reasons I liked working with you. You were like, if you’re a boozer, and I really, yep, I’m a loser, you know? Yeah.

 

Yeah. Well, but you know, not everybody. Not everybody approaches it, though, the way that I do with the, you know, the cheering in the no character defect and as helpless people, millions. Oh, yeah. And but there’s, but I don’t think that tough love is terribly helpful. And I don’t, and I think we already know, it’s hard in our head, even if we’re not articulating it, we know. And we’re sort of carrying a certain amount of shame and embarrassment to even ask for help. And I think you have to meet people where they are. But you also have to lower the barrier to entry. Like, if I make you say, I’m an alcoholic, to attend the meeting, that is a high barrier of entry. When I first quit drinking, my husband said, the problem with A.A. is the name. You shouldn’t have the word alcoholic in it, then people would go. And it’s like, that’s it. People don’t want to say the word. So, then it’s like, on my side of the screen, it’s like, okay, fine, who cares what the word is, don’t say the word. Call it any other word, doesn’t matter, we still know we want to quit drinking, it doesn’t matter. But that’s not so commonly thought in the silver world, you and I both know this. It’s also not so common in the so it’s more common in the silver world, also, for people to think that there’s a character flaw or defect that has made them addicted, as opposed to what you just said, which is the thing that you know, that I believe, which is that the product itself is addictive. We have a sensitive head, we have poor self-soothing skills, and the product is addicted, you put those three things together, nowhere in there is I I’m bad. Or even I did something wrong.

 

Yeah, we have a sensitive head. We have poor self-soothing skills that can be learned. And the product is addictive, which if we remove where our head stops asking for. That’s not the same approach that most everybody has about addiction. There’s lots of talk about addiction to do with connection, that what we’re actually missing this connection, nothing to do with sensitive had nothing to do with the fact that the product is addictive. Just that rats do this, and then rats don’t do this, which of course implies that the most well-connected rat wouldn’t be addicted to heroin, I find that hard to believe. And I know some well-connected, sober people who are addicted to alcohol. So, like I don’t, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it, because it’s my lived experience of the people that I’ve worked with not because I’ve done some rat research, because I’ve actually worked with some people. But the other thing that I don’t really agree with in the sober world right now is the idea that we drink because of trauma. Because really, trauma is everywhere. And I’m not shitting on gabber Mati in particular, because he’s a good Canadian, and I’m also a good Canadian, so really, but to say that it is to do with trauma is to pathologize and experience that just about everybody on the planet has some kind of trauma. There’s lots of divorce, there’s lots of neglect. There’s lots of poverty, there’s lots of misinformation. There’s lots of parents with mental health issues, who did their best, but it wasn’t good enough. There’s lots of narcissistic parents who had kids for the wrong reasons. There’s lots of kids being left home alone while the parents work three jobs. There’s lots of reasons why we don’t develop good self-soothing skills. But to say that it is all because of trauma, I think is not fair. Because for anybody who’s not had not been abused, not had a particular trauma, then they think they should be able to snap out of this. Because you know, nothing bad happened to me. So why does my head ask for alcohol and then I go back to for self-soothing skills ahead that asks for it. The product is addictive. I don’t think that and even if it was, because of drama, let’s say it was, it doesn’t change what you have to do now. Which is remove the booze. Have somebody talk to you who’s further along than you and learn self-soothing skills in real time.

 

I think the self-soothing tools was like, the biggest thing that has helped me and not just in the beginning of sobriety, but I feel like it’s a life skill I’m taking forward for the rest of my life. And that’s also because, you know, we are used to drinking when we’re sad, mad, hungry, angry, tired, frustrated, misunderstood, and happy, right? We feel like we deserve it to celebrate, we want to feel even better, we want the time to be epic, you know, and so actually being like, wow, am I anxious or sad or angry, because those are, you need different self-soothing skills for every one of them, and to process it, or you know, it, or some people drink, and I think I did, because we’re such busy multitaskers. And we’d go go, go, and we want to downshift that quickly to like, now I’m home, now the kids are in the bed, now I need to relax, because I’ve got two hours to do it. And, you know, patience, and realizing that not everything goes so quickly and realizing that when you’re angry, you sometimes need to scream and go for a run, or you know, whatever. And when you’re sad, you need to cry and have someone commiserate with you and tell you that is unfair, and it sucks. Or you need to go to bed and turn off your head from processing all of the emotions and all of the facts and all of the news and all of the data.

 

I mean, sometimes the way that we get, I mean to hope that there’s an instant off switch is sort of fantasy thinking because there wasn’t an instant on switch, you didn’t get all these demands in your life. instantaneously, you added them one by one, you added to be fair, you have jobs. We didn’t just pick any job though we picked important jobs that demanded a lot from us. Then we took promotions, then we took more responsibilities, then we had children, which were, which were gifts and blessings and added to the responsibilities, then we add personal development. I need to do a keto diet and run a marathon, then we add 7 kinds of volunteer work, then we put our kids in6 kinds of extracurricular. And then we want an instant off for that. Really, and you’re like, I have too much on my shoulders. It’s overwhelming. I can’t do that. And you’re like, of course you can’t. Of course, of course you can’t. Right. But if you say to one person, you know what having three children each in three separate extracurricular activities is too much. It’s too much for them. It’s too much for you. It’s not sustainable. The answer is some deep pain, like, but my mother didn’t do it for me. So, I want to do it for them.

 

Yeah, it’s like, yeah, and you’re going to be a miserable human who drinks two bottles of wine a night? That’s not what your kids want, either. Yeah, right. They don’t. I mean, they don’t want you to be angry driving them to three events. They don’t want you frustrated, tired, distracted. Either. They don’t want you hung over. They don’t want you not able to wake up at 3:00a.m. when they need you. They want to be able to bring their friends home, like you said, three sporting events per kid. And you’ve got one family car, and you know, husband travels for work.

 

Really? Yeah. And so, then people say I need an instant offer. My instant off is heroin. You’d say that’s not a coping strategy. But if they say it’s two bottles of wine, it’s like that’s not a coping strategy. Like, yeah, yeah, you’re basically coming home and knocking yourself unconscious, because you’re trying to tolerate your life, and you’re just making harder on yourself. But if you say to somebody, you know what, you need to scale back on some of that, or your kids need to do more, or you need to not have a three extra people living in your house, or you know, we’ve taken on borders, and then roommates, and then they brought their dogs, the kind of chaos. When you say to somebody, it’s time to start to dismantle that they actually want to hold on to that. And drink. Yeah. And I think that’s one of the reasons I finally left my corporate job. I mean, when I was writing you and this was not new, I had so much anxiety from my job, and I would say stress it, but it got a lot better. After I quit drinking, diet are really demanding Boss, I mean, kind of a nightmare. And I was like, what’s wrong with me that I can’t do this. And I remember she even said that to me, like I, you know, like four people on my team. It turned over and I was doing two jobs and she had been out of town for two weeks and there was all this pressure to make the sales numbers. And I tried to talk to her afterwards, after meeting with the big team, because I was the boss of a bunch of people and be like, I, you know, we need more help, this is unsustainable, we’re not hitting our numbers, I need you to step in and take some of this. And she literally looked at me and said, Casey, I don’t know why this is so hard for you. And I just, was like, and I am positive, I wrote you. But I did not go home and drink. It is stressful. But one of the things I love that you say in your interview, because not everyone has kids and a bunch of my clients don’t have kids. And I talk about children as triggers a lot because that was my experience. And also, you love them. And it’s why you stopped drinking often, but you have to do it for yourself. But you say, it’s hard for everyone. Some people say, I live alone. And so, it’s hard to stop drinking. Other people say I have three kids. So, it’s hard for me to stop drinking. Some people say, I work as a lawyer and everybody drinks. So, it’s hard. And other people say, I hate my job. It’s mind numbing. And so, I drank right? I mean, it’s, it’s all because hard forever. No, and because our addictive voice puts the reason for our drinking outside of us. We don’t drink because we have a head that asks for it. We drink because of them.

 

This them. We drink because of people we drink because of situations I drink because my boss, my kids, my husband because I’m alone, like you drink because you’ve had that asked for it. Yeah, that you have kids or not. Because I can assure you, when your husband leaves you, you will still drink. And I know that because I see it in my inbox. And people say, Oh, I will I you know, I don’t have any low bottom. And I will assure you that when you are diagnosed with breast cancer, you will still drink. And that will be so disappointing and devastating to you that then you’ll drink because you’re disappointed and devastated that having cancer wasn’t enough to quit. Because it isn’t enough because those things aren’t like, those things don’t work like deterrence, like they should like it logically. When my husband says I’m over drinking, then I would quit the next day and never think about it again. Because I prioritize my marriage over my alcohol. Like that’s the logical answer. It doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t. Because addiction is illogical. But to take a logical human, which is you and me to have then a tape running in our head that is illogical, is very hard to deal with. Because we believe that message in our head that says I drink because of my husband, I drink because of my kids. I drink because of my boss. Yeah. Instead of saying I’ve got too many things on my plate, my self-care is poor, my self-soothing is poor, and I haven’t had that asks for it. Which means I’m always going to have to err on the side of caution as well. And then when I see people who quit drinking, they go through really, really hard things and don’t drink, you know, people who get or who are diagnosed with MS. People who go through cancer, people who have parents die, I had my very best friend go through brain cancer and have three brain surgeries and then die a pretty slow brutal death. And I was sober through it all and I… I was there for her and peaceful and proud of it and really sad and devastated and thought it was unfair. But I didn’t drink and make it all about me and blame her for her diagnosis for me drinking. And that was incredible.

 

So, you know if you drink because really should anything happen? You can, you know, when you get away from the alcohol have really shitty shitty things happen and not make them worse, right? And if you are in a place right now, where you were drinking, and you say it’s because shitty things happen, you’d have to be willing to open your head to the idea that maybe your head drinks when you’re happy, sad, mad, glad. And that if it wasn’t a shitty thing, which is totally shitty, and legitimately shitty, and nobody’s discounting that, but if something good happened, you’d also think of drinking. And if you were bored, you’d think of drinking and to celebrate and a funeral and a wedding you’d think of drinking so that probably it’s not the shitty thing. Probably, you have a head that thinks that drinking is a good idea or the seasonal thing, right? People are like, well, the summer. I always drink in the summer falls hard. I love the fall. Holidays are hard. And I’m like, Yeah, I drink 365 nights a year. So, like, I have associations with drinking with Tuesdays and every holiday and every event and being home like yes. And it’s you know, you said this, it is never a good time to stop drinking. If you’re waiting for the perfect time. It will never come. Well, there’s a perfect time. The perfect time to quit drinking is now because then you start to feel better sooner. Yeah, like you really do want to wait three weeks. Do you want to wait till the first of the month? Do you want to wait till the Monday on the first of the month? Really, you want to wait till summer solstice, winter solstice, first, your birthday after the vacation. There isn’t a perfect time unless you want to feel better. Yeah. And if you want to feel better than then you start now. Now I know that sounds trite and sounds easier said than done. But it’s all easier said than done. The reality is, you will feel better when you quit drinking. I think well, and I love that you at the beginning of this, we’re like, yeah, February 17. That’s a really random day. Yeah, this stopped drinking. And what had happened was, I mean, I told myself, like I did a million times that in the new year, I would stop drinking, right? I was like 40 pounds overweight, it was, I was unhappy, I needed to make a change in my life, I did the new year’s resolution. And guess what, it didn’t work. And at most, I cut down to a bottle plus of wine, you know, every four nights, so twice a week. And that was brutally hard.

 

And then I went on a business trip and drank too much, and thought I’d get this great night’s sleep in this hotel bed without my, you know, 22 month old and woke up, rudely hung over and at three in the morning and had a hangover and 10 hours of meetings that were really important. And then I saw a woman the next night who is a cautionary tale and falling asleep at the table and couldn’t get home to her room. And I thought it was actually really dangerous with all the businessmen around her like looking at her. And so, I took her home. And then guess what I went to my hotel room and opened the bottle of wine that was in the minibar. And then I came home and spent a night drinking just on my couch watching scandal and woke up at 3:00a.m. and realized the next day that I couldn’t remember the show, I watched to the point where my husband was like, you watched this last night. And I was convinced that he was incorrect and fucking with me. And I couldn’t tell, but I was trying to play it off. And, you know, just really thought he was wrong. And I was like, you’re wrong, but I couldn’t you know. And then I got to the end of the episode, and something was familiar. And I was like, holy shit. I mean, that’s why I quit on February 7, was my last day drinking. And it was like a Tuesday or a Wednesday. It was not, you know, and my son had a freaking choir concert. That night. So, on my day one, I walked into the gym in an elementary school and washed all these kids singing and felt miserable and was looking at all the other parents wondering if they do, I mean, it was random. But that was the last night I drank.

 

Yeah. And you’ll remember it. And that was your turning point. And everybody gets to pick their bottom. That was your bottom. Yeah. You could have waited for a lower bottom. You could.

 

It was a death of 1000 cuts, though, like and I didn’t know. Like you say I didn’t know that was going to be my last day one. I really didn’t. It was no different than the hundreds of times before that I had said, this is it. But the difference is I got support. The difference is I signed up for your 100 Day Challenge. And I emailed you. And I emailed you every single day or 5 days a week for like 2 years, man, like, you know, but especially day one, day two, day four, day 7, day 16 when I desperately wanted to drink and was in tears. Yeah, I know who you are. And now here I am. On the other side of the microphone. I know I love it. And similar to you like not drinking, and Coaching people and emailing people, and doing a podcast like that is my sober support. Like, I don’t get too far away from remembering that not drinking is good idea. It’s not my whole life. And it wasn’t my whole life for a while, like I got to, you know, everybody goes through a phase where they’re like, I don’t want to think about not drinking anymore. I just want to live my life and that’s positive. But you can’t convince yourself that you can go back to drinking and you’ll end up in the same place. Right?

 

Well, it’s been super lovely to watch it too, and to chat and to hear all about how you’re doing, and we should only do this more often, like more than I am. You know, I am so grateful to you. Honestly, I can’t tell you enough. And your book for anyone listening tired of thinking about drinking? Belle’s book is on Amazon, I highly recommend it. I also highly recommend her audio recording of the book, which I know we you can’t get on Amazon. It’s on your website. Right, right.

 

Right. But if you go to the website, which is tiredofthinkingaboutdrinking.com that puts you on the free right on that page. There’s a place to sign up for the free daily emails and then you get access to everything. Once you’re on the daily emails. I try not to overwhelm people, but then I talk about one-minute messages and then I talk about the other Audio for the book and yeah, there’s free stuff. And then there’s paid stuff. And so, it’s all once you’re on the daily email list, you get access to all that stuff.

 

Yeah, absolutely Belle. You are amazing. You helped me so much. I am so grateful for you and anyone listening, go to Belle’s website. I’ll link to it in the show notes. It is 100% worth it.

 

You’re very sweet. And I want what I want you to know that you did the work. I was a cheerleader. I threw glitter. I provided hope. I think those are important components. But you’re the one who does the work. There’s lots of people who if given cheerleading and hope aren’t ready to do the work. And you were and so I think that, that you can’t discount for a second what your role in this is.

 

Thank you.

 

And it was good work.

 

Yeah, well, it’s worthwhile, right? Like it, Yeah. Like to not evolve. I mean, I suppose it’s a choice. It just, it’s not. It’s not the way I want to go through life. I don’t want to go through life not evolving. Yeah.

 

Oh, you’re the best. Thank you.

 

Welcome. We can chat again soon. I would love that.

 

I would love that. All right. I’ll talk to you later.

 

Okay, bye. Bye.