Recovery Elevator

• RE 558: Nothing Gets Worse

  Today we have Josh. He is 48 years old, from Sarasota, FL and took his last drink of alcohol on September 23rd, 2023.   This episode brought to you by:   Better Help – 10% off of your first month #sponsored Café RE – the social app for sober people.   This is the last week to sign up for Café RE during Sober October. For the next four days when you join, you will receive a free month!     [02:28] Thoughts from Paul:   Paul was having a talk with his good friend Dusty the other day and he mentioned that when he quit drinking, nothing got worse. Which leads us to the conclusion that everything got better?   This whole thing is complicated but also it isn’t. We are sold a bundle of lies from big alcohol. It just takes time to get the message to all parts of us that when you quit drinking nothing will get worse. When you quit drinking, everything will get better. Finances improve, and we start to feel better about ourselves, just to name a few things.   The word alcohol in Arabic and other languages references alcohol as a spirit or living entity. Several languages in the East, alcohol is literally translated into “mind and body eating spirit”. Nothing will get worse when you quit drinking, and to flip it, everything will get better when you’re not consuming a body and mind eating spirit.     [08:45] Paul introduces Josh:   Josh is 48 and lives in Sarasota, FL. He is married with three children, he works in sales and marketing for a wellness company which he enjoys and for fun he enjoys cooking and spending time with his family.   Josh never had any alcohol until he was 20 years old. It wasn’t an issue for him for a very long time until it began creeping up on him shortly before COVID. Josh says it was around this time that he was having issues with his job and found himself drinking around the clock in order to cope with it.     During COVID it only got worse. Josh says there was a lot of internal conflict around his drinking, and he says he was drinking more than he was sober and the alcohol was always corrupting him. It was hard for him to stop on his own as he had become physically dependent on it.   Josh’s wife gave him an ultimatum after his first attempt at sobriety didn’t work and told him to go to inpatient treatment or they were done. Josh went, didn’t take it seriously and only stayed four of the ten days because he was able to convince a doctor to let him leave early. Everything in Josh’s life was hanging by a thread when he left for a work trip in Italy that ended up being his rock bottom moment.   Josh drank on the flight over and did not stop after he arrived. He missed the work event and was admitted to the hospital that evening. When he awoke, he had lost his job and proceeded to drown his sorrows with whiskey and trazodone. Josh’s wife had found out about him going to the hospital and came to Italy without Josh knowing. She and their friend (who was a nurse) found Josh on the floor of his hotel room without a pulse and saved his life. Josh feels that was divine intervention.   Upon returning home, Josh attended a 30-day inpatient treatment where his life changed. He met other men that were going through treatment at the same time that helped him learn new skills that would help shape his life going forward. Josh always had a hard time asking for help so learning to surrender in all ways has been important to his healing.   Josh began to learn what a gift being present can be after spending so much of his life running from things. Josh is actively working on healing his relationship with his family and friends and is also beginning to explore his spiritual side.   Josh’s parting piece of guidance: surrender and you have to be willing to do the hard work.     Recovery Elevator You took the elevator down, you gotta take the stairs back up. We can do this   RE on Instagram Recovery Elevator YouTube Sobriety Tracker iTunes     

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• RE 557: Why the Drinking?

  Today we have Lauren. She is 44 years old from Arroyo Grande, CA and took her last drink on April 26th, 2021.   This episode brought to you by Better Help – 10% off of your first month #sponsored   Tonight, our four-week mindfulness course starts in Café RE at 7:30 EST. This is our fourth year doing the course and you’re going to learn a lot about how to sit with those thoughts in the head. Specifically, the ones that tell you it’s a good idea to drink and how to let them pass.   Paul’s next book Dolce Vita will be coming out soon. Once we have a launch date, you all will be the first to know.   [03:22] Thoughts from Paul:   Why the drinking? Well, the better question is why the excess drinking? Why do you drink before you meet up with friends and continue drinking afterwards? Why do you drink after you tell yourself you’re not drinking today? We may never 100% know why, but it’s a good idea to have a simplified mission statement that you tell yourself when you feel the urge to drink.   A key to recovery is discovering the purpose that excessive drinking serves, the why. And then another important key is finding healthier ways to fill the role alcohol was playing. Paul shares that the fourth step of AA played a very helpful role in him learning his “whys”.   Paul encourages listeners to explore within them what it is driving the drinking and then explore what makes them smile without the alcohol and do more of that.   [7:33] Paul introduces Lauren:   Lauren is 44 and lives in Arroyo Grande, CA. She is married and they have a 17-year-old son, a dog and a cat. Lauren works in public affairs and communications for a local college and for fun, they enjoy spending time on their boat at lakes.   Lauren had her first drink at a party when she was 16. She says she didn’t go to a lot of parties so was excited when she was invited. Lauren was upset about something before going and had already made the plan to get drunk in order to change the way she was feeling. In college is where Lauren says her drinking really ramped up. The parties were fun, and Lauren would binge drink on weekends but did not drink during the week.   After graduation, Lauren began working as a TV news producer where drinking during the week became normal. It was around this time that Lauren met her husband. When he got a job out of town, Lauren chose to go with him and soon after became pregnant.   Lauren didn’t drink while she was pregnant but definitely missed it. They had no support since they moved to a new place. After the baby came, Lauren started drinking again and this time it wasn’t for fun, it was to cope. She made attempts to moderate, but the goalposts kept moving. When her husband confronted her about her drinking, she defensively began to hide it.   COVID came and Lauren says she lost accountability by not being able to go to work. Her first drinks would come earlier in the day and before long she was starting her mornings with a shot of vodka.   She kept her concerns about her drinking to herself, but it was starting to show enough for her husband to stage an intervention with her family. Lauren agreed to go to treatment and stayed for 40 days with an outpatient program afterward. For the first time, Lauren didn’t feel alone and was determined to make sobriety work.   The first year of recovery, Lauren avoided anything that would jeopardize her sobriety and began acquiring tools to keep her sober. She read books, listened to podcasts, began exercising and found a therapist. By year three she had more confidence: went back to school and took on more responsibilities at work.   Since quitting drinking Lauren says that her family is closer than ever. Presence, patience and gratitude are huge things in Lauren’s life now.   Lauren’s parting piece of guidance: just try.   Recovery Elevator You took the elevator down, you gotta take the stairs back up. We can do this. I love you guys.   RE on Instagram Recovery Elevator YouTube Sobriety Tracker iTunes     

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• RE 556: Accountability is Real

  Today we have Sue. She is 54 years old from Stewartville, MN and she took her last drink of alcohol on May 9th, 2023.   This episode brought to you by:   Sober Link sign up and claim your $100 enrollment bonus   Next Monday, October 20th, we start our four-week mindfulness course in Café RE. It starts at 7:30pm Eastern and we hope to see you there!   [02:36] Thoughts from Paul:   Paul shares that while visiting his parents in Colorado, he lost his wallet at a park. Thankfully, a high school friend’s mom ended up being the one that found it. When he picked it up from her, she told him that her son is recently sober and gave Paul his phone number to reconnect.   Paul had recently tried to rejoin the fantasy football league he had previously been a part of and was denied re-entry. This brought up huge feelings of rejection reminiscent of his childhood. While on a retreat with his sober friend in Mexico, Paul found himself dwelling on the negative emotions when he caught himself looking at a beer a fellow diner was having. The thought that “one or two beers would make you feel better” came over him, but then he looked at his newly sober friend and reflected on the great talks of sobriety that they had shared, and the thoughts went away.   Reeling from this, Paul went outside, shook his head a few times and then was filled with a warm embrace by the universe knowing that his lost wallet put him in Mexico with his sober friend and everything ended up alright.   [07:36] Paul introduces Sue:   Sue is 54 years old and has two adult children and one granddaughter. She works as a housekeeper for a hospital at the Mayo Clinic and for fun she loves nature, animals, hikes, jet skiing, kayaking and birdwatching.   Sue’s parents were both daily drinkers. Sue would sip her dads beer because she thought it was cool, but her first real drinking experience was when she stole some sloe gin from her parent’s pantry at age 13 or 14.   In her teenage years she began to party a lot on the weekends. Sue was a shy girl, and drinking helped her open up and gave her the attention she craved. Her grades in school began to suffer because she was skipping a lot and Sue ended up unable to graduate.   Sue never thought her drinking was a problem even after getting in trouble for underage drinking. Her boyfriend was abusive, but due to her craving for love and attention, Sue kept going back to him. After a long breakup, he returned wanting to reunite, claiming he had changed. Soon Sue became pregnant, got married, quit drinking and focused on having a family.   Sue enjoyed being a mother. Her husband worked a lot, so she did a lot of the parenting on her own while working a full-time job. As the kids got older and were home less, Sue began to drink more. She tried to hide her drinking, but her kids began to notice. Sue and her husband were fighting a lot and eventually had a messy divorce in which her husband got custody, which was very hard on Sue.   Sue got remarried in 2015 and while she cut back a little, her husband started calling her out on how often she was drinking. This led to her hiding her drinking again and several hospitalizations over the next few years.   In 2017, after a hospitalization, Sue was able to get sober with the help of AA. She says complacency led to relapses. Her children had cut her off and there were multiple inpatient and outpatient attempts but nothing stuck until May 9th, 2023.   Sue says the difference this time is that she fully surrendered and is doing this for herself and not others. She checked herself Hazelden and dug into the work of loving herself again. She still stays active with that community and her AA group. Sue says her  spirituality comes from nature and her belief in prayer and hope.  She has been able to reconnect with her children over the past year and has plans to become a peer recovery specialist.   Recovery Elevator Go big, because eventually we all go home. I love you guys.   RE on Instagram Recovery Elevator YouTube Sobriety Tracker iTunes     

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• RE 555: Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

  Today we have Camille. She's 36 years old, from Coeur d 'Alene, Idaho, and she took her last drink on August 22nd, 2024.   This episode brought to you by Better Help – 10% off of your first month #sponsored   Café RE   [04:26] Paul introduces Camille:   Corrine is 36 years old and lives in Coeur d’Alene, ID with her husband and two young children. For fun they enjoy spending time with friends in their community and spending time outside.   Camille says her father got sober when he was 24 and while growing up, she wasn’t told that she couldn’t drink but her dad gave her things to look out for. She experimented with alcohol in her teens while partying with friends. When she was 18, she began to be very active with church and started dating her now husband.   Camille and her husband got married when she was 21 and she says her drinking ramped up in her mid-twenties. They enjoyed hosting get-togethers with friends and neighbors. Camille says that over time she began to lose the “on/off switch”. She and her husband were still active in church, so Camille found herself living a secretive double life.   Camille was able to quit drinking both times she was pregnant but would always be ready to start back after giving birth. When her first child was five months old, Camille began drinking boxed wine in an effort to believe that she wasn’t drinking as much as she was. Not long after this, she began having alcohol in multiple locations so she could rotate through it.   Working as a hairstylist and taking on more responsibility at church found Camille more exhausted and feeling more shame about her drinking. She began to feel like God was asking her to hand her problem over. She was at the point where she was disgusted with how she looked and felt and tired of the anxiety and mental gymnastics surrounding her drinking.   Camille’s husband never questioned her drinking, and she was scared to bring it up. When he decided to quit drinking in solidarity with a friend, Camille decided to join them a few weeks later.   The first two weeks, Camille says she was white knuckling. She tried to distract herself as much as possible. She started making jewelry, exercising, listening to podcasts and reading quit lit. She tried listening to This Naked Mind again and identified with a lot of things.   Camille began to burn ships with her friends and fellow church members and learned she was not alone. Her parents were very supportive when she shared with them as well. After the first two weeks, Camille began to reap the benefits of an alcohol-free life. She says she now feels free and fully present with the people that matter.   [47:39] Thoughts from Paul:   This is an intro that Paul says he has been wanting to do for a while but has shied away because the subject matter can be triggering for some, including himself. Politics, news, the state of the US, the state of the world. The message he wants to convey is DO NOT DRINK THE KOOL-AID.   The news, social media, politicians and all of the algorithms on the internet are trying to put you in a fearful state. They have learned that fear and fake news hold your attention longer, that they can control you better, and they make more money on advertisements, etc.   One thing on the news that we see is doom and gloom, but Paul shares that he does not see that in real life. He doesn’t want to downplay things, but things aren’t nearly as bad as the news wants you to think. We need to start choosing where to put our attention. We are almost enabling addicts who are addicted to power by giving them our attention.   Go meet you neighbor, learn the names of birds in your yard, and be kind to yourself. Humans are going through a lot of change at the moment. And change is hard. We’re going to be just fine.      Recovery Elevator Rule 22, let’s lighten up and not take ourselves too seriously. I love you guys.   RE on Instagram Recovery Elevator YouTube Sobriety Tracker iTunes     

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• RE 554: All the Damn Philosophies

  Today we have Mike. He is 50 years old and from Cleveland, OH and he took his last drink on August 9th, 2022.   This episode brought to you by:   Better Help – 10% off of your first month #sponsored Exact Nature – 20% off your order with code RE20   We offer a free month in Café RE once per year. Starting this Wednesday October 1st, and if you sign up for Café RE during the month of October, you get a free month.   [02:59] Thoughts from Paul:   Paul shares with us that he recently heard a song by Cameron Whitcomb called “Quitter”, and it’s about his journey into sobriety.   One line says  - “The hardest part of getting clean are all the damn philosophies telling me how this is supposed to work.”   We all want a manual and a clear pathway to healing. A set sequence of steps. And yes, there are The 12 Steps that have helped many. But not all. Paul believes that there isn’t a manual by design. Recovery is all about recovering you and figuring out what makes you function optimally. Discovering what makes you happy. Could there ever be a one-size-fits-all philosophy or manual for that?   You’re supposed to explore different philosophies and go on a deep mission of exploration when recovering the self. We are tasked to heal and find out what philosophies work for us. We are on a mission to find what brings us joy. There isn’t a manual for that.   Whatever philosophy you choose, make sure it involves other people. An addiction wants you alone with a bottle. The antidote is connection. With other human beings, animals, plants and flowers.   Good news, your listening represents you coming closer to the fire. We’re putting aside our difference and coming together to heal. This is an incredible time to be alive.   [06:40] Paul introduces Mike:   Mike is 50 years old and lives in Cleveland, OH. He and his wife have been married almost twenty years and have two daughters, 16 and 18. For fun Mike enjoys a lot of outdoor activities with his family and enjoys reading.    Mike had plenty of exposure to alcohol while growing up but swore he was going to stay away from it. Sometime in his teens he got curious and decided to try it. He instantly had the “warm fuzzy” feeling but that didn’t trigger any concern. Mike continued to drink through his teens into his twenties, accumulating three DUIs by the time he was 25.   Mike learned his lesson not to drink and drive and straightened his act out a little bit. He and his wife both drank so they didn’t consider it problematic. Over time the nightly drinking increased and many times Mike would find himself drinking after getting home from events or get together.   Mike never tried to moderate his drinking, but he tried to keep it under control. Gradually he began losing interest in doing things that didn’t involve alcohol. When COVID happened, the drinking time would get blurred and soon Mike was known to always have a beer in his hand.   Mike’s wife didn’t like how much his was drinking but seemed to accept it for a while. He began to try and hide it, but he knew that she knew he was drinking. Mike knew the only way he was going to quit drinking was if his wife gave him somewhat of an ultimatum.   There was no rock bottom, Mike says. Work was still going well, and his family was doing well, but he knew he needed to change. Mike knew he needed to prove to himself that he could beat this and decided to give it a try. So far he is three years into that first try.   Mike says the first few days were tough but was committed to giving it a try. Mike did a lot of reading and listening to podcasts, started learning more about addiction and taking courses online. He has enjoyed learning about it all and thinks that we are all capable of more than we think. Mike says he feels too good to ever want to go back.   Recovery Elevator You took the elevator down, you gotta take the stairs back up. We can do this. I love you guys.   RE on Instagram Recovery Elevator YouTube Sobriety Tracker iTunes     

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