The Power of Presence Embracing a Sober and Intentional Lifestyle

Episode 163:The Power of Presence Embracing a Sober and Intentional Lifestyle

In episode 163 of the Sober Vibes podcast, Courtney Andersen talks about the power of presence and embracing a sober and intentional lifestyle. 

As the calendar flips to 2024, let's acknowledge the brevity of our existence with a commitment to clarity over the fleeting escape of alcohol. "Life Is Short" isn't just a saying—it's a chapter in our discourse that confronts the illusionary comfort of inebriation with the unfiltered joy of sobriety. 

What you will learn in this episode:

• 3 Reasons Why You're Going to Be Alcohol-Free in 2024
• Intentions vs Resolutions 
• Learning from the past 

Thank you for listening, and we hope this episode helps.

Reviews help the show. Please rate, Review, and Subscribe to the Sober Vibes Podcast.

Thank you to our Sponsors.

You receive 20% off your order with EXACT NATURE as a show listener. Make sure to check them out and support the show. EXACT NATURE: click here to shop and save 20% off with code "SV20." Free shipping on all orders! Please listen to episode 129 with Thomas White to learn more about CBD.

California Sober as a show listener, you will receive 20% off your order with Cycling Frog. Make sure to check them out and support the show. Cycling Frog, click here to shop and save 20% on your first order with code "SOBERVIBES2024" *Ships in the US only.

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Transcript

Courtney Andersen: 0:00

music, music, music, music music. Hey, welcome to the Silver Bites Podcast. I am your host and Silver Coach, courtney Anderson. You are listening to episode 163, and happy New Year, good people of the world. It is 2024. This episode will be out on January 4th, so it's a couple days into the new year.

Courtney Andersen: 0:52

How we feeling? Feeling good, feeling determined, feeling hopeful and upbeat. What you feeling today, you can say it out loud as you, as you're driving to your job, listening to the Silver Bites Podcast, or always slip into my DMs and let me know how you're feeling in this new year. I always I was just talking to my mother and I like the even years. The only odd year I liked was 2021, when my little dictator was born. So, anyways, I always I enjoy the even years a lot more than the odd years and I feel that 2024 is going to be a good year. So we got a great episode today. It's me talking by myself and it's a little coaching session for you today.

Courtney Andersen: 1:46

First, I want to share that it's very common to make New Year's resolutions and I want to share this. I sent this out in my email earlier this week. If you're not on my email list, make sure to get on it. But I sent this out earlier this week talking about resolutions and intentions, and a couple of years ago I switched it up to start making intentions for the year rather than resolutions, because resolutions, for me, made me feel like it was an energy that reminded me of back, of my old drinking self. Because I would make so many resolutions, I was the person who would always be like, oh, on the first, I'm going to quit drinking like an animal, lose 100 pounds and get my credit score up to 800. That was me all year long, and then by the second day, I was a big person again. So the resolution just didn't bring that good energy to me, like switching over into a mindset of intention and how I wanted to feel for the year.

Courtney Andersen: 2:54

If you listened to the last episode, I explained about my back problems and not feeling my best in 2023. Well, I don't want to feel like that again. So my intention really is this year to heal and do the proper healing, and when you heal, then the feeling of Peace comes into play, the feeling of content, of being healthy, all of that. Whatever is, my definition of healing is obviously taking better care of myself, better self-care routines, consistent working out and, of course, making smarter choices with food, and also get back on the therapy train, because I got off that for a while. Because, again, it's really fucked up when you become a parent.

Courtney Andersen: 3:49

You go through these highs and lows I won't even say it's like a wave, like within, where your own mama and data wound comes up and you're like what in the fuck is happening here? Over Christmas that happened to me again. I'm like what the fuck? Please again slide into my DM, since this has happened to you. It's the weirdest fucking thing, man. It's weird, it's bizarro and people need to write more books about this.

Courtney Andersen: 4:19

So, anyways, I have some healing to do with my own mama and data wounds, but also, too, in the last podcast, of just resorting back to shitty coping mechanisms, and that's what I was doing this past year. I'm not beating myself up. I don't have any shame towards that. It is what it is. It was a learning lesson and a place where it's like I don't want to feel this Again. I don't want to live another year life like this, correct? So I know what I need to do and I don't want to keep being that person that says they're going to do it and then doesn't do it for themselves, they don't deliver.

Courtney Andersen: 5:01

So setting intentions for the year is a lot more helpful for the resolutions, because for the resolutions there's a thing there where it goes back to that failure, right, and then you hold a lot of shame for yourself of, well, I couldn't do it, I failed. And in this life we have been conditioned of this past feeling because of schooling for so long and with the intention. If you end up having a little bump in the road with your intentions, you can be like, okay, I went into this year feeling like this, right, and I want to keep it at the forefront. And with the intention, there just becomes more awareness. So when you are doing a shitty behavior or something that you didn't want to intend to do for the year, you can put yourself into check. Where you can check that habit and be like all right, I need to steer back on my track of what my intention was for the year, correct, so, and even to the way you just word it to yourself makes all the difference in the world than these New Year's resolutions. So if that helps you today, I'm very excited because it has been something that helped me a couple of a couple of years back, when I switched this all around into the energy around intentions and resolutions, is completely different, completely different.

Courtney Andersen: 6:22

So today I do want to share with you three reasons why you're going to be alcohol free in 2024. Okay, these are really good reasons and I hope they resonate with you and I hope they continue to keep that fire under your ass to continue another day of not drinking alcohol. Right, like I said before in other podcasts, look back on the past couple of years as all it's all learning lessons. It's all learning lessons. I was just doing a consult with a woman the other day and she was saying she was saying where she's just like I had a couple of months and then then I relapsed and I said that's okay. I said the relapses will help you continue your alcohol free journey. So continue to look back this last year of where you can approve upon what you learned and move forward. That also, too, if you look back at things and approach it as like what is the lesson I can learn from this? That is another way to take shame away from it, to release shame and to not fucking beat yourself up If you don't learn anything and you keep doing it over and over and over again, then that is where that buildup of the shame and guilt is going to keep coming from.

Courtney Andersen: 7:41

So three reasons why you're going to be alcohol free in 2024.

Courtney Andersen: 7:46

Number one because you are done with the fucking bullshit. You were done. You were done with the cycle. You are done. You are done with this toxic love affair. You are done romanticizing something that does not bring you joy and that every time that you drink, even though and I'm going to repeat this it might start off as one, it might start off as one, but in a couple months, if you keep drinking and you always have it at the forefront, really it was just one. It was just one. It was just one. It was going to lead you down a path where you're going to end up where you first quit drinking, because it never changes the relationship you have with alcohol when you keep including it in your life. It will never change. Once you take that first sip, have that first cocktail, you no longer have control. I said it. I said it. I know a lot of people don't think that they have control with alcohol, but it's a lie. You don't have control. You might not have control that first night when you include one drink back into it. But eventually, within time, it's a tale as old as time and I cannot tell you how much I have seen this. But it's your lesson to learn. But I'm going to say it will never. Your relationship with alcohol will never change and you will always be in this dance with it of trying to moderate it, trying to control it, trying to talk yourself into having a drink. And that is where that exhausting cycle lays. Okay, and it has to. A lot more has to do with them. When you quit drinking alcohol, you then have to start healing your nervous system, because it's that chaos and it's that cycle and it's that habitualness that you are missing, because you were so used to that and it's so used to feeling like a bag of dicks all the time and go on the apology tour and all that jazz. But you're done with the bullshit. Okay, write that on a post-it note, please, and stick it anywhere. Stick it on in your car, put it on your mirror. Write it with some lipstick on your mirror.

Courtney Andersen: 10:29

I am done with the bullshit of alcohol because it will never change and it can. Has you got to look where the facts are? What are the facts? It has kept proving me. It has kept continuing to prove itself to me. It keeps showing itself to me. This is how I feel, this is how I act. This is what happens the next day of having to look into my little dictator's faces and seeing their disappointment because I drank last night. It's true, the same song and dance.

Courtney Andersen: 11:04

Number two this one is really short and sweet. You deserve a life of peace. You do. I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna use the word happiness, I'm not going to you. I'm not. I'm not gonna say joy, I'm not. You deserve a life of peace. Slash contentment. You do, you absolutely do, and I'm not gonna add anything more than that, because I really do believe that you deserve a life of peace.

Courtney Andersen: 11:36

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Courtney Andersen: 12:53

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Courtney Andersen: 14:35

Life is short, and why keep wasting it in a bottle of booze that delivers nothing? It delivers nothing but despair and lies and empty promises. Life is short. Life is short and I have not. Since having a child, I have seen more and more where time is fucking bizarro and life is short, and so why keep living in this cycle and living in this despair of battling with a substance that does not bring you much? Yeah, it might bring you about an hour of some escapism, but then you have to deal with the fallout of booze, and that fallout of booze lasts so much longer than that simple hour of that dopamine hit. You get from it. It's time. It is time to leave the bullshit behind, and every day you live, another day not drinking alcohol is another day of awareness for yourself on how you feel.

Courtney Andersen: 15:54

Now, if you're listening to this and you just came, you were in a relapse and you came out of it and whatnot again. Look at that relapse, look at that bump in the road and just know that that helped you get to this point right and alcohol just showed you themselves again. And work on the acceptance that you are a person, because a lot of people this is hard for a lot of people you are a person who should just never drink alcohol and that is okay. If you wanna put that in an affirmation, put that in an affirmation and stick that somewhere. Reward it to yourself, that it feels right to you and it feels like your ownership of your own vocabulary and how you would say that. But definitely work on acceptance and maybe that's your intention for this year. Maybe your intention is to be like I do need to work on acceptance that I am a person who will never drink alcohol or shouldn't drink alcohol, or I will never drink alcohol again in my life and that is okay. I know that's scarce some, but it's just the fact of it. You have done this dance and you keep doing this dance and you keep getting stuck in the same spot and I don't want you to be stuck in that same spot anymore when you break through and start living the consistency of a person who is alcohol-free, you then start realizing the grasp that booze did have and there's nothing better than the price honestly and this is gonna sound really cheesy, but the price of freedom, when it comes to breaking up with alcohol, it's your world gets better, life gets better. I'm not saying life gets perfect, because there's still a dance you have to do after you quit drinking alcohol, but life gets better, man, and, as I stated, life is short, so take it by the balls. Take it by the balls and continue to live that alcohol-free life in 2024. I hope this episode helped you today. If you haven't already, please grab my book to help you in your journey today.

Courtney Andersen: 18:14

Sober Vibes A Guide to Thriving your First Three Months with Alcohol. The link is in the show notes. You can get it on Amazon, barnes, noble, any of it If you are even past that point of three months. I've had many people read it who have been sober past that time and it has still continued to help them, because it's stuff they haven't heard before and or it's a nice refresher. That's a thing that needs to still keep happening in your day-to-day sober life and every few months. You need a refresher of where you once were, because that shit will humble your ass.

Courtney Andersen: 18:52

To keep going forward, to be like, oh yeah, I don't ever wanna be, I don't ever want, I can't do a hangover again. I was talking to a girlfriend the other day. She had woken up on New Year's Day sober and she was like this is so good and she's like I can't even think it's been like five months for her at this point and she's like I don't even know if I could deal with a hangover anymore. I'm like, yeah, that sounds terrifying. Like no, no, no, no, because I remember, because I burned it so hardcore into my being of remembering what that hangover felt like and remembering what that fucking shame cycle looked like, like that, to me, keeps me going. I don't wanna start back at day one. I don't have an in me. I don't have an in me. So to not start back at day one, I have to keep not drinking and keep making the better choices for myself, day in, day out. That doesn't mean that you have to be doing the most every day. It just means I'm going to make a better choice today of not drinking booze. Okay, also, too, I just want to address this January.

Courtney Andersen: 20:02

We have a second sponsor and I never addressed this. They were a sponsor back in, back in, I think it was July or August, okay, and it's Cycling Frog and this is for California sober people. There's a lot of people who listen to the podcast and are California sober. So if you're wondering why there is an ad for cycling frog, that there is a percentage of THC there's 5% in these cell cells for the higher level and then there's 2%. I don't consider myself California sulfur. I don't smoke, I don't participate, right, I take my CBD. No, they reached out to me last year. They did share with me about how a lot of their customers are people who are trying to give up alcohol. Right, and I am pro harm reduction. Okay, I'm pro harm reduction. That is why you also always hear me say to talk to your doctor about withdrawals, okay. So if this is going to help somebody on their path towards sobriety, then cool. If you're California sober, cool.

Courtney Andersen: 21:24

And I have to say this and I still am not going to label myself as California sober, because when I had these, it wasn't too my intention wasn't to get fucked up, but this last time, in the fall time, when I had a back flare up. I actually had a couple of these, not a couple in one night, but because I couldn't fall asleep, so I had the cycling frog light and it helped me sleep and it was like three nights in a row where I used it. Now again, harm reduction, because in 2024, there is not an umbrella. Well, it depends on what program you follow, but I have to say this because I am a huge component of you need to do what's best for you in your recovery and I just think in 2024, there is so many versions of sobriety and recovery and what you should be doing and that and should you be taking prescription medicine? If you were to have a back injury, if you went to a pain clinic, would you be then prescribed percocet and like it in? You know what I'm saying? It's just that because there's so many levels of what people think is quote, unquote what you should do for your sobriety and recovery, and I just feel like this is to the point of you have to do what's best for you and I'm not going to sit here and be like, no, you're never going to do a substance again.

Courtney Andersen: 23:02

I know many people. I know a person who used to have a raging pill problem and he drinks alcohol. Am I supposed to be like? Well, you need to be careful. That's on him to decide. I've known people who have quit heroin and they still drink. Do they have a drinking problem? No, I mean, that's just from my point of view. So if you're wondering why this product is a sponsor for the podcast, because I believe in harm reduction and there are a lot of California sober people out there, because this helped me sleep for a couple nights and I was thankful that it was here.

Courtney Andersen: 23:40

My husband loves these. I have to say that my Matthew loves these because they help him sleep too. So that's where I stand with that. So if you have any questions that you want to ask more, I'm not looking for a debate on this, but if you have any questions about it, please let me know, and I just like to use full transparency with the good people of the world, because honesty is the best policy. So I'm being honest about it and that's my beliefs.

Courtney Andersen: 24:12

That's my beliefs and that is how I feel, because it's just if you look at it, because some people like to get on a high horse and say that any substance that alters your mind is bad. And I have to say this Our tellies that we have probably 90% of people, 95% of people, have an addiction to their cell phones or social media, or checking your phone or picking your phone up all the time. You know what I mean. So we can't get on that high horse and start preaching the good word when there's cell phones addictions, there's sex addiction, there's all of that. But just so, that's how I feel. I'm going to leave it at that, okay. So that's my disclaimer with the Cycling Frog that is January's sponsor, and do with that, with what you like, because you were grown as adults, okay. So I'm going to say it again If you feel like that would be a trigger for you, don't get them. Do not get them. But if you are a person who is California sober, then great, enjoy. I like this company. I think that they're doing good stuff. I just like the company, okay.

Courtney Andersen: 25:32

I also, too, had a woman who reached out to me who was, I think, like 15 years sober and going through perimenopause and that's another thing that is not talked about enough which I am looking for and she tried this and it had helped her sleep one night because she did not, she couldn't sleep, so I'm glad that that option was there for her, because perimenopause is a whole nother ballgame. But in season five I am going to try to have a hormone specialist on to talk about perimenopause and menopause, because that perimenopause can be like 10 years and then you hit menopause and that's only for like a day. Some bullshit anyways. Okay, I'm going to stop talking now. I'm 2024, very, very excited. This should be a good year and again, just keep having another day of choosing the next right thing for yourself and for you. If that is alcohol, then do not drink alcohol today. Make sure to please rate, review and subscribe to the show as always. Thank you for listening. Keep on truckin' and stay healthy out there.