This week, Laura takes the mic solo to reflect on hitting seven years of sobriety. She goes deep on four ideas that feel most important now as she looks back - ideas that are both urgent and grounding, timely and timeless - whether you’ve struggled with addiction or not. Since Laura got sober in 2014, cultural ideas and discussions around sobriety and addiction have massively changed. A “condition” once cloaked in anonymity and dark church basements has become both vocal and visible as more and more people choose to recover out loud, new recovery modalities surface, and movements like #sobercurious #oneyearnobeer #soberoctober and #dryjanuary have brought alcohol-free experiments and lifestyles into the mainstream, Amidst this shift, Laura encourages us to play the long game. She touches on the many layers of her sobriety from quitting Ambien to body issues, money, emotional sobriety, relationships with men, and finally quitting social media, and how the work of recovery is an ever-evolving, mysterious and life-giving process. ‘How I Knew I Needed to Quit Instagram’ (New York Times) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/well/mind/instagram-quit.html Laura’s book: https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Luckiest-Surprising-Magic/dp/160868654X/ The Luckiest Club: www.theluckiestclub.com Laura’s Website: www.lauramckowen.com Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/478iRwMKSjbPbLBaJQaHsy?si=845f0479f47c4342 Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
Laura McKowen on 7 Years of Sobriety
[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: Hello, good people. It's Laura. It's just me today. I'm doing my second solo riff on the pod. I'm really excited about what I want to talk about today, which is some learnings, some wisdom, some collected works from having achieved seven years of sobriety last week. And I was saying, as I was rounding the corner on the seven years, I was remarking to my boyfriend and friends that it felt different.
[00:00:49] I don't particularly actually love my anniversaries. They've always felt, which is something I'm going to talk about. They've always felt either anticlimactic or even not great. I feel a little wobbly. I feel anxious. And this is something I hear a lot from people in recovery, that anniversaries, especially the early ones for me, were more a source of anxiety. I relived a lot. It’s almost as if the body remembers and I think it does. We are taken back and we relive some things that were really deeply painful and it's not always the best experience, but this time it felt good. It felt more than good. It felt significant. And I got curious about why that was, and I started to write down the most important things that I've gathered in that time, both in preparation for this show, but also just for myself to sort of process what was happening.
[00:02:13] In my newsletter, if you're a subscriber, I talked this week about a question that has come up for me a lot in the past six months, which is “what is enough?”. And this idea, this realization really, that it is the nice little life in my book that I talk about that I want. That it is not more. More success, more achievement, more followers, more money, more just further expansion outward. I chased that for a long time and really all my life, even in sobriety, and there were good reasons for that. There was a time and place for that. I had to rebuild a life, as many do in sobriety, and the energy was one of outward expansion. And what I talked about in the newsletter was this concept that Carl Jung had come up with about the first and second half of life. The first half of life is all about outward expression, achievement, significance, success, claiming one's identity and really expressing that outward into the world. And that it's necessary. There's a time and a place and a need for that. The second half of life is about inward experience, about spiritual experience, about moving the lens from the outside world towards the inner life. What gives us meaning in that first half of life and what is even true for us in that first half are not the things that give us meaning in the second half and those things are not even true for us.
[00:04:25] The playbook is different in the second half. And I heard that long ago, 15 years ago, I remember Wayne Dyer talking about it. Anyone who references Jung’s work seems to reference that and it's always been an interesting concept to me and one that I would reflect on where I was, and there's no magical age, by the way. It's not in your first 30 years, you're in the first half and then the second 30 or whatever, you're the second. Now, some people reach the afternoon of life as it is also otherwise called or the second half really early on. they get initiated into some difficult circumstances or something that requires deep transformation and some people stay in that first half for their entire life.
[00:05:25] So I've been thinking a lot about that. I think that has a lot to do with the phase that I'm in. And that's reflected in a lot of the things that I'm bringing to you today. So I started out thinking there would be seven things in seven years, and I realized that was way too many to go deep on.
[00:05:55] So we're doing four. Four things in seven years of sobriety that I want to talk about and share. And that's the program for today. So just to put a pin in the moment in time where this started, September 28th, 2014. I was working at an advertising agency as a vice-president of client services. I was an account person, which is like if you're equating it to Mad Men, I was, oh God, what’s his name again? I was Roger, but he was one of the partners. Don Draper's the creative. There were many people that were account folks. They're the ones I know... Don Draper. Yeah. Okay. Stay with me. Don Draper was a creative guy, sort of the mad genius. The one who gets to do the sexy selling. And then Roger was more of an account person. The one who had to actually face the clients. That was me. And I'd been in that world for 15 years. Alma, my daughter was six at the time. I was living in a little apartment with her and I was separated, but not yet divorced. We had been separated for a couple of years at that point, but we just hadn't gone through the act of finalizing paperwork, dragging our heels on that.
[00:07:38] And I was in a horrific financial state. High. Just under $200,000 in debt. And I did not own a home. Things were pretty messy. And I had been trying to get sober for over a year and the stakes were pretty high. And that night, well that morning of September 28th in 2014, I woke up in my apartment. My brother and my sister-in-law were in town for my mom's 60th birthday party. It was a surprise for her and Alma was also with us. And I woke up. We had not gone out the night before. Because they were there I was home, but I had been drinking and I woke up with just the worst anxiety I had ever, ever, ever felt. And I, you all, I had felt crippling panic attack levels of anxiety many times, but this felt worse I think because I had witnesses in my home and they knew I was, you know, they were very... I was not supposed to be drinking, let's put it that way, so there was all kinds of shame. I had a lot to do that day. I had to go to the airport to pick up family for the party, and there were all kinds of things to get ready. And we had to go to a soccer game really early that morning for my daughter. And I had to be in front of all kinds of people and play like I was feeling great on a Saturday morning and so on and on and on. And the anxiety was just horrific. And I felt that morning and really all day I thought I can't have one more day like this, or it will kill me. I won't make it. I absolutely can't feel this way ever again. And at the same time, I also promised myself, well, I didn't promise. It was more of an “I'm not going to promise”. I'm going to do something different than what I'd done hundreds of times before. I didn't say I'm never going to drink again. I didn't say that because I didn't believe it.
[00:10:01] I just said I'm not going to do it today. And I made it through that day, in that way. And seven years worth of days since then. It's important to say, especially for those who are listening and in early sobriety or trying to get there, that I don't have to have that vigilance anymore that I did then. I don't have to think about not drinking. I don't have to promise myself that I won't drink today. It's not like that anymore, but it was for a while. By a while, I mean a year into two years that I had to make a conscious effort to stay sober. And I say that not to discourage anyone. I say that because that is the reality for a lot of people.
[00:10:52] And I think if it's still hard for you, it's easy to think that there's something wrong, but there's nothing wrong. It takes a long time to, how do they say it, put that toothpaste back in the tube or to unring that bell. It takes a long time and that's okay. It's a lot of what I'm going to talk about today.
[00:11:20] So that's where I was on September 28th, 2014. And these are the four things that I want to tell you today looking back seven years later. The first one is there are no shortcuts and anything that feels like a shortcut is probably a trap. Another trap. It might work for a while. It might feel good for a while. It might distract you enough for a while. It might give you the illusion of health or success or progress, but at the end of the day there are no shortcuts to sustained health. To peace. And to creating meaning and a life that you want to live in. So the reality is we're all going to chase things that feel like shortcuts, especially in the beginning because man, you just gotta make it through the days. I chased just about anything, except drinking. Relationships. I chased body stuff, so if I just lose weight and fix my body, or I cut sugar, or I cut carbs. I mean, the body stuff was endless. If I become really successful, if I get these really quick wins on social media or I make money here or whatever it is, that it'll fix me. It'll fix it. And that's never the case. I'm a huge believer by the way, especially in those really early days, like do what you got to do to stay sober. Do what you gotta do to stay sober. That's called harm reduction in some circles. You can't bite off the whole thing at once and you shouldn't. What I'm talking about here is more allowing yourself some patience and allowing yourself a lot more time than you maybe have allotted and understanding that anything worth having takes time. And nothing is worth more than recovering from an addiction, if that's what you're suffering from, because most likely your life hinges on it in ways that you can and cannot measure.
[00:14:37] Even if you aren't someone who went to say “the bottom” or lost a lot, the possibility of what your life could be like on the other side is probably so profound. You have no idea how profound it is until you have moved to the other side. There are many unknown unknowns. That makes sense. We know we're not going to have hangovers and our health is probably going to improve and we're going to sleep better and that has this wonderful cascade effect. And, you know, we probably won't say things we regret and we won't blackout and we'll have more energy and so on. Those are easy things to see and to grasp, but what we can't grasp is the places that will open up when we aren't sinking our spiritual energy, our emotional energy, our psychic energy into drinking and recovering from drinking.
[00:15:54] Can't possibly imagine what portals we will enter when that happens. So there is no shortcut to that either. There's no shortcut, some things come fast. A lot of those things that I just rattled off, those things come quick. Right? You feel better pretty quickly. Sleep better pretty quickly. Start to have a little more self-respect because you're not saying things that you don’t want to be saying. You're not making a fool of yourself, even if it's just in small ways. You're not going out of your own integrity and things like that. Those things come back fast. You can be more productive at work. My boyfriend stopped drinking around the time he met me and he's not someone that would qualify. The way he says it is he didn't have whatever I have. He wasn't that far down, but he had something. He did lean on it. He said he could not believe how his mornings opened up, how he didn't have to fight through fog for the first three or four hours a day. Like, that's fast acting and something you notice very quickly and that changes your days significantly. So some things happen fast, but most things, the really meaningful things, the deep things, the long sustaining gifts, there is no shortcut for those. Be wary of anything that feels like it's going to get you there faster, that there is going to be a shortcut or that you should be there faster.
[00:17:59] I named some things, relationships, weight loss, or even just getting more fit, social media, achieving success. Everything that is worth having takes time and often a lot more time than we think. What I want to underscore with that is wherever you are right now is perfect, because that is your point A. That is your starting point. If you can accept that wherever you are today, whatever the reality is for you, that is your point A. If you can stand in that point A and work that point A, that's how you make progress. I always reiterate, someone said to me once, if you want to go faster, slow down.
[00:19:06] And that was all about being in my point A. The point A for me was I wanted to drink every day often. And it was just about all I could do to get through the day without drinking. And that had to be my point A. That had to be my marker for success. Sometimes it felt like all I did was get through the day and drink a glass of water and breathe and not drink. The glass of water was even extra. Sometimes it felt like all I did was not drink in a day. That was the only thing that went right. That was the only thing I achieved. I couldn't accomplish anything else. And I came to see that as a marker of success. Like a huge one. And that was my point A and every time I tried to surpass that point A or get out ahead of my skis and try to do more and be more and have more quicker, I either drank or I suffered. And so I learned, play it at point A. The people who focus on point A play the long game and the long game is where it's at. Long game is where it's at. All right. So that was number 1. There are no shortcuts and it's actually good news. It might sound like bad news, but it is good news because number two, the process is the gift.
[00:20:37] The process is the entire gift. So what do I mean by that? Let me take a sip. You get to hear all my swallows and everything. Okay. The process is the gift. So when I look back and this tracks my whole life, not just sobriety, but since we're talking about sobriety, I'm going to keep it to that. When I look back on the last seven years, I don't really recall the singular sort of peak moments as being the best. The anniversaries. I've had seven birthdays. I got divorced. I switched careers. I was on TV. I published a book. I've been on bestseller lists. I started a company. All of these things are wonderful, but when I think about the most meaningful parts of those, I don't think about the peak moments. I don't think about the anniversary of my sobriety date or the birthday or the day I was on Good Morning America, or even the day my book came out. I don't think about that. I think about what comes to mind and what I feel is the process of getting there.
[00:22:16] The much smaller felt details, especially when they were difficult. Those quiet internal moments or maybe those moments when I was with one other person and we witnessed each other going through something. Those are the things. The process was the gift. The peak moments are fine and you should cherish them and I do, but they almost never land for me. I always find peak moments to be overrated and then often disappointing because I can't really land in them. They wouldn't mean anything anyway if it weren't for the process of getting there.
[00:23:16] So, things that come to mind, like having that first exchange with someone at work when I told them I wasn't drinking and realized that had just come out of my mouth. I was now somebody who said that I'm not drinking. It was an impossible thing just moments or days or weeks before.
[00:23:42] And then I said it. I screwed up the courage to say it and I said it and it became a thing in the world. Just that one moment of conversation in my office. Or I remember texting a friend in my bed on a Friday night about plans to meet up for coffee on Saturday. And I knew I would make it on time, that I would have no problem setting my alarm and being there and how extraordinary that was because I was never that person. I could never count on myself. No one could count on me.
[00:24:26] That was amazing. And the slow, awkward, sober connection that I made with the one of the first people I dated, you know. Just those really tender, awkward moments of learning how to walk in these new legs, these new sober legs. Figuring out how to set up a podcast. Like I had a really big podcast. HOME podcast got to be so huge. We had no idea how big it would get. There were some really incredible peak moments in that show sitting across from Augusten Burroughs interviewing him when he had his dogs in the background. And just having this out of body surreal experience, because this is one of the authors that I have read for years and just absolutely idolize.
[00:25:21] And he's there in front of my face talking, opening his mouth and saying words. To me. Like, wow, that was a moment and that was great. The things though that I think of are that run where I thought of the name of the podcast and made a phone call to my co-host and said, like, this is it. And we said, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Or creating the cover art and just fussing around in Canvas for hours and hours and finding exactly the right feel that we wanted and things like that. Figuring out the technology and buying a microphone and figuring out how to set it up and sitting up in my daughter's room on pillows and recording those first few episodes. That was the juice.
[00:26:19] That process was the gift. Taking a shower when I really wanted to drink. Hot showers were one way that I figured out to unwind tension out of my body when I wanted to drink or release a craving. And that first time I figured it out I actually felt my nervous system changing as the water rushed down and I realized I could help myself. I could help myself out of a moment. And things like that, braiding my daughter's hair without a hangover. So the process is the gift. The process is the gift. The peak stuff is great, but the process is the gift. And the process comes from being in point A and operating in that point A and feeling the tiny win. The tiny, but magnificent win of making it to point A.1 and then A.2, and then finally point B. That's the real stuff.
[00:27:37] The process continues to be the gift. I thought publishing my first book would be just the most extraordinary, exciting, incredible thing that could ever happen to me and it was. It was a lifelong dream, but the process of writing it, although exceedingly painful and lonely and full of crushing doubt, getting through that and learning like, oh, this is how I can make this type of transition sentence work. Oh, this is how I can wrap up this chapter. Having those, those moments where I feel myself growing and changing. Those were what made it extraordinary. I think the reason the process is the gift is because it's about the internal. It's about engaging in the mystery and I'm very, very interested in falling in love with the mystery of life again. I think that is where the magic's at. I think that is what we want.
[00:29:11] I wrote a poem at the beginning of sobriety. I'll have to dig it up and post it in my newsletter when I send this episode out or have the team post it on social when we promote this episode. The poem says, How does it happen? You fall in love with being alive. You fall in love with life.
[00:29:44] And I think that's why the process is the gift. That's where the falling in love takes place. It's the internal, it's the mystery. Whereas the peak experiences are usually about the external. They're about getting the award or achieving the accolade or having public recognition of something. And again, those things are all good. I want that stuff too. It's fine to want that stuff, but it never delivers what the internal experience delivers and I think that's why. As Rob Bell says, “there is no it”. I chased a lot of its. If I get this person to blurb my book, if I get this person to mention me on Instagram, if I get this person to ask me to be on their podcast, if I hit the New York Times bestseller list, and on and on and on. If I just get that, I will know I have made it. I will be complete. I will feel whole, and I will be satisfied and I will have made it. But there is no it. I've achieved some of those, a few of them and the really, almost frightening part about those things is that they feel really good and then you wake up the next day and you're still the same person that you were the day before.
[00:31:36] And there's no magic transformation. There's no, you know, like in Super Mario Brothers where you get to go up and now you're on level three. You get to, what is it? Someone scream it at me about, what is called when you shit.. jump lives? God, it's going to kill me. And I know it's killing somebody out there.
[00:32:09] Anyway, it's not like that. It only lasts for a minute and it's cool and then you're still the same person. I have achieved big things when I have felt like shit on the inside. And after that big thing happens and the sort of dopamine rush has the corresponding dopamine low because that's how the brain works, you feel not only as shitty as you felt before, but shittier. Because there's a disappointment that nothing has changed. So there is no it. Rob Bell talks about that in one of his episodes and it is absolutely true.
[00:33:00] Okay. So now we are on to number three. This is kind of a quick one. Maybe. Maybe it won't be quick.
[00:33:11] Listen to your gut and trust it sooner. Listen to your gut and trust it sooner. This is like an ever evolving practice and process for me. Getting sober allowed me to..., we all have this internal guidance system and we call it our gut because it's in our body. At least that's how I understand it and experience it and what I would say, even science says. There is wisdom in our body. We are not our minds. We largely live in our minds. We can live almost all of our life thinking that what is happening in our mind, that our thoughts are the reality. The stories that we tell ourselves in our mind are the stories that are the truth and that everything we do and everything we achieve and everything we experience and everything that's possible exists as a result of our mind. It’s a very Western culture, post-industrial revolution type thinking and framework. And it's God, it's not even half the story. We are bodies, we have, we have not only bodies, but we have spirits. We have souls and we have a collective unconscious in which we also participate.
[00:34:50] Our minds are wonderful. They solve problems. They can do all kinds of things, but we experience things as a much more integrated, interesting, layered organism that includes the body and our intuition, also called our gut. Feeling that tiny voice. Those are the words that we use to describe it. Those are often things that we can't really explain with rational thoughts, but we just have a knowing. We have a sense that something is true and oftentimes it goes against what we thought was true. It goes against what we believe, what we have been doing, what we believe, what we think we believe. And every single time I've had that small voice, that gut sense that something needs to happen, that I need to stop doing something, that I need to start doing something, it's always right. It's been right. It was right with alcohol. I knew it. I knew before I even allowed myself to know that it was the thing that had to go. I knew that, and I knew that years before. I don't even know how many years before. In some ways I could say I knew it when I was in college. I could say, oh, I didn't really know that until I was in my late twenties, but who cares?
[00:36:29] I knew it, it was in there. I have known that throughout sobriety, so many times, so many times this person isn't good for you. This is not where you need to be. And sometimes I would listen, but oftentimes I wouldn't and years would pass by and inevitably I was right. The situation would be bad. The person would not be great for me. All of those things. And I would have to back out and it’d be much harder to do it at that point. I knew that about Ambien. Ambien is a medication that you take for sleeping. I wrote a long piece about it. We can link to and show notes about how I took it for 10 years.
[00:37:24] I knew at one point that I would not be able to sell my book if I didn't quit it. I knew I wouldn't be able to do the writing that I needed to do. I was right. It was very scary. I finally let it go and I sold my book within a couple of months. So, you know, when you have that feeling, I've had a few relationships where you're seeming to get a lot from the relationship. You might even like each other on many levels, and I'm not talking about just romantic relationships. The ones I'm referring to are actually friendships, but you have this sense that either you're not really in alignment or they don't actually have your best interests in mind.
[00:38:24] There's just something that's off. There's something that's not right about it. Or you know for sure that there's something that's not right. Something really pisses you off, but you push it away. You try not to know it because XYZ. You rationalize those things. Those relationships haven't ended well for me. I've done that with work projects where I've done things for the wrong reasons. And, you know, because it would make money or because it's a quote unquote good opportunity, or because it’d be good publicity. Oh my gosh. That's a horrible reason to do something in and of itself. And my gut said it and I didn't trust it and my gut was right. The most recent one is social media. I knew, I would say as far back as 2017-18 when I started writing about and talking about social media and what it was doing to me, I had the same sense that I had with quitting Ambien. I won't say alcohol because that was a bit different. I didn't really didn't want to give that up.
[00:39:49] Yeah, I had the sense that this isn't right, this isn't good. This is really, really, really, really bad for me and all the same fears too about letting it go and what that would mean. And no, you can't do that. That's just not the way it goes. That's not the way it's done. You can't make it without it. All of those things. And years later, this past summer, I finally let it go. And my gut was right. Like I knew that years and years ago. The way I want to say this is to become a really dedicated student of your nervous system.
[00:40:42] Notice the things that put your nervous system in a hypervigilant state. Notice the things that feel bad to your body. Notice the things that feel good to your body, that feel calming and that feel resonant and expansive and right. Like a good note. Hitting that beautiful chord on a guitar and the way that it resonates in your body, you can feel it all the way through. There's no resistance. Don't mistake this for fear, because fear is a different thing. We can often feel very afraid of things that are good for us. This is more of a nervous system warning sign. Have you ever had that feeling when you're around someone that your body just hates it?
[00:41:52] There's someone that I was very close to at one time, and whenever I would be in their presence, my body was miserable. I felt exhausted. I felt like I was having a panic attack. I felt tense. I needed to nap for days afterwards. It just felt awful. Even anticipating being around them felt awful. Notice that. That's a good indication. Pick people who are really good for your nervous system and steer clear of people who aren’t. It doesn't even have to be about them being bad or anything being wrong with them. It just doesn't work for you. Okay. And so number three was to listen to your gut and trust it sooner.
[00:42:47] And that's a process that will evolve. All of these are things that continually evolve, but especially that one. I'm learning to trust it sooner. I let go of things faster. I have much better discernment on my decisions upfront. I trust my gut. The last one, number four is nothing will impact your life more than the people in it.
[00:43:20] Let's take a sip of coffee with that one.
[00:43:26] Nothing will impact your life more than the people in it.
[00:43:34] So some of this builds off of number 3. I have talked a lot about the fact that I'm not a joiner. I'm not even really, I'm not a community person. Not just with sobriety, but with all kinds of things, I want to do it myself in my own way, without people around me. I think it's Brene Brown that says, “I like humanity, but people… meh?” and I have resisted joining.
[00:44:22] I have resisted people. I have resisted community. When I got sober, it became increasingly the case. I think some of that was necessary. I needed to go in, go inward and be alone and have a lot of solitude and just sort of be with myself and learn myself and get quiet. But it got to the point where I became almost a rugged individualist. There's this book that I'm reading or that I got and I started reading anyway. I haven't made my way through it, but it's called The Practice of Groundedness.
[00:45:16] It's a newer book and he calls it heroic individualism. And a lot of us suffer from that and want to be heroic individualists. We want to be able to do everything on our own and not be dependent on others and not lean on other people and need them. I mean, there was no word that was more gross to me than needy. Needy.
[00:45:45] Oh, don't. Don't. To have someone perceive me as needy was just the worst. Big shadow word for me. Not all of this was bad. Not all of this was bad. I needed to learn how to carry my own water as they say. I had to learn how to do all kinds of things that I never learned how to do as an adult, like manage my finances and buy a car and everything. Take out the fricking trash. I had either relied on partners for that, or I just never bothered to learn it and figured someone else would just take care of it. And I needed to learn all that stuff. I needed to do that stuff. I needed to own it, and that was all worthwhile, but that's not mutually exclusive with connection to others.
[00:46:43] That's sort of the mistake that I make. I have learned that I am an extreme introvert. I just had no idea, but I can really hole in and I can be a hermit and given the choice, I will almost always choose to be solo versus go out with people. But I have learned, and this actually came through the Enneagram for me. One of my dear friends, Jim Zartman, who’s been on the show, pointed it out. This speaks to the people in your life for being the most important and impactful thing. I have two very good friends, Jim and Jim, and we do a regular ceremony every year, which sounds very, um, kind of weird, but it's really just a conversation where we sit and we bring to this conversation, to each person, a blessing and a challenge. Something that we bless them with for the year to come and something that we challenge them with for the year to come.
[00:47:56] And it's this really cool, beautiful thing. And one of the challenges, actually, I think they both challenged me with this, was to seek connection and community and to pursue those things. And I did. I did. I did and it has made my life infinitely better. I got into a relationship which required me to be dependent and to allow myself to be needy now and then, and to allow someone to be there for me. I started a company which requires a lot of help and community and collaboration and a few other ways that this happened. I pushed against that. And if you're someone who has also pushed against that, this is to encourage you. I'm not saying just have more people in your life. That's not even the point. Nothing will impact your life more than the people in it, so it's really taking so seriously, more seriously than anything else, because I did say nothing will impact your life more and I do believe that. Taking so seriously, the people you surround yourself with. You become them. We've probably all heard that line about you become an average of the five people you spend the most time with. And I do believe that's true. If you're around people that are expansive and growing and seeking and are willing to have honest, big, meaningful conversations. And they're going to push you a little harder and you're going to push them and they want for you the very best things. And they can hold up the image of you before you can see it, in the direction of your dreams and your deepest longings. It's going to be possible to get there. The most important part of becoming and having this life that I really cherish so deeply, so much of what's made that possible is the people that I've surrounded myself with. My friend, Jim, has there's sanity in community.
[00:51:07] This is why recovery communities are important. This is why any community is important because we can't do it by ourselves. We can't and we're not supposed to. Have you ever heard that saying that Anne Lamott says, like “the good thing is that we don't all go crazy at the same time”.
[00:51:35] Like we all lose it. We're all misguided here and there, and I'm misguided a lot and at any number of times throughout the day, but I have good people in my life who I can test things against and share and know enough about my life that they can keep me on the better side of middle.That's what we do for each other. There's sanity in community.
[00:52:01] So choose the people that you surround yourself with so intentionally. Oftentimes this means letting go of people that aren't good for your nervous system, for people that are dragging the climate of your life down.
[00:52:32] So I think I will leave it with that. Oh, I do want to say that what goes with that and nothing will impact your life more than the people in it that has a lot to do with how you show up too, so do whatever you have to do to become someone who is capable of relating to others in a healthy way. Do whatever you gotta do. It's the best investment you'll make. It's not always about other people. It's half about other people and half about us and we're a hundred percent responsible for our half. So do the therapy, do the learning, figure out your boundaries, let some people go, do whatever you need to do to heal so that you can be the kind of person who improves the quality of life for those around you and someone who is capable. The most important work I have done is… I want to make sure this is true before I say it. It was very important to me.
[00:53:51] Well, the deepest pain that I had felt in my life, throughout my life was the pain of romantic relationships, the result of dysfunction that was part of my childhood and my own dysfunction and just the extraordinary pain that that caused for me and for others. It was the thing beneath the thing in sobriety. It was underneath the alcohol, underneath the food, underneath the body stuff, underneath everything. All of those behaviors. The original wound was relationships.
[00:54:38] That was the center of the journey. The most important work that I did was around healing that. Understanding that. Doing everything I could so that I could both show up for a partner in a way that I wanted to, in a way that I could be proud of, in a way that would be transforming and healing for them. And being able to receive that as well from someone who is healthy. I met my current partner last year, and I remember when I met him, I had a conversation with the Jims and the other, Jim Trick said to me, “he is your great reward”. He is the great reward for all of your work and I think that was very true.
[00:56:00] Having him in my life has been without a doubt, one of the greatest gifts of my life. It has made my life better and more meaningful in ways that I could not have counted or imagined. So yeah, nothing will impact your life more than the people in it and do whatever you need to do so that you can have healthy, meaningful relationships. I'm going to leave it at that. Wherever you are on your path, whether it's drinking, that is your thing or something else, remember that we all have a thing. I'm going to end with The 9 Things that I'm writing about in my book and what we say in every TLC meeting as that seems a fitting way to end.
One. It is not your fault. Two. It is your responsibility. Three. It is unfair that this is your thing. Four. This is your thing. Five. This will never stop being your thing until you face it. Six. You can't do it alone. Seven. Only you can do it. Eight. You are loved. And nine. We will never stop reminding you of these things. I will never stop reminding you of these things. All right, bye.
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