One Year Sober. The Truth, the Highs, and Who I am Now.

This feels like a special episode because today I’m celebrating an entire year of being alcohol free. Sitting here in this same office, thinking about where I was last year, it’s wild. There is no way this happened. But it did.

I’m telling the whole truth. The freedom and the pain. The messy middle. The wins like running two 10Ks. Turning 40. Changing the way I parent. Growing my business. And I’m also sharing the parts that broke me wide open.

I thought I’d lose people. I did. I thought I’d be boring. I’m not. I thought people would hate me. They didn’t. I thought I didn’t belong in those rooms, and then I realized I didn’t belong in the drinking ones either.

This is about more than just not drinking. It’s about building a life I actually want to be present for. It's about peace. It's about feeling everything.

It's about finding out who I really am without the numbing alcohol that gave me. And if I can do this and make it through this year, I promise you can do anything too.

Let’s crack open that Diet Coke and cheer to ONE YEAR SOBER!

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Transcript

  📍 One year Sober The Truth, the Highs, and who I am now.  Welcome to the Samantha Parker show. This feels like a very special episode because today I am   📍 celebrating an entire year of being alcohol free  and sitting in this exact office at this time last year. That seems like a  wild concept, a wild dream,  a wild like hair, like literally.

There is no way that this happened. But it did. So today on the podcast, I wanna take you through all of it. The good, the bad, everything in between. There's been a lot of talk of Good on this podcast, and I have to tell you guys, it hasn't all been good. Would I trade this and go back and not start this journey?

 Like absolutely not.  This has been the best thing that happened to my life, but it's come with its own set of baggage.

But today I hit one year sober, that was 365 days of choosing something different.



This milestone feels so big. It feels big in my body. It feels big in my emotions. It feels big in my soul. It is insane.

I do have a lot of pride. I have a lot of clarity, and I have a lot of disbelief, like, how did I get here? I'm like so amazed with myself, and there's gonna be so many moments in this podcast where I tell you,  

  📍 if I can get sober, if I can spend an  entire year without alcohol,  I literally feel like there isn't a single thing I couldn't do. 

Like just this past weekend here in St. George, Utah, where I live was the triathlon, and it's a big one. It's a big world championship somehow. I don't know how all of that works,   📍 but I was watching the triathletes and I was like, oh, I could do that. Could I? Probably, I don't know. I don't really plan on finding out, but sobriety  has changed me in ways where I'm like, if I could do that. 

If I could make it to this point,  there really isn't anything I cannot do.  So this episode is about  telling the whole truth, nothing but the truth. So help me, God.  No, I'm just kidding. But this episode really is about telling the whole truth, telling the beauty, and then telling you guys the pain.

I go to aa, so I have the gifts of surrounding myself with a lot of other alcoholics. So I do know that when I have gone through these really painful moments. I knew that I wasn't crazy, so I'm hoping that you out there,   📍 you have people around you or you can use  this podcast to know that wherever you're at on your sober journey, like you are not crazy.

 It is not all sunshine and rainbows,  and it is a lot of everything in between. But a whole year, you guys sat here for a whole year. One of my favorite podcast episodes is with my friend Jaylynn, when I came out of the sober closet, and at that point I was eight weeks sober. Eight weeks, two months. I could not imagine what a year would be.

And I'm like, where did all that time go? Like I literally, I just can't believe it's here. Because I remember walking to aa,   📍 I remember sitting down on that first day super hungover and being  like, wow, these people have like multiple years. You know, some of them have months, some of them have days. But I was like, wow.

And the only way to get through it is to get through it, is to let time take you through.

What did I really think that sobriety was going to be?  I'm not quite sure.  I almost felt like I didn't belong there. I was like, why is this happening to me? What's going on? Why me? Like what? How did I end up here? I remember having a lot of those thoughts, like, why is this happening to me? I'm not one of those people, and I didn't really quite feel like I belonged in those room with those other alcoholics, but then I was really feeling like I didn't   📍 belong drinking still, and it was like this kind of gray area that I sat in for a  long time now I find myself in almost the opposite gray area where alcohol is over there and I'm on the outside looking at it like, oh, I do not belong there. So it's just, it's interesting you guys, and I think you just have to realize like you're on this journey of life.

Like you really don't know what next year's gonna bring to you. But when you're on this journey of life and you're doing it sober, like you're taking away your addictions, all of a sudden you're like,  who am I? What am I? What's going on? And it's a whole new terrain to navigate. 

So, yeah, I was scared to get sober. I didn't think I belonged in those rooms, and I didn't think I belonged outside of those rooms either. 

I thought people would hate me. I thought I was going to lose friends. I thought I'd be boring. I thought I'd be annoying. I thought I'd be too much. I assumed no one would wanna be around me anymore because trust me, I didn't wanna be around sober people that would block my own drinking

and that fear right there is what almost kept me a drinker. I was afraid of losing all of it. And there is a saying among alcoholics,  you drop one thing to gain everything.  And now I can tell you it's true.

I've sat in those seats. I've walked a mile in my own shoes. And you know what? You give up one thing and you gain so many things.

So I've had so many wins this last year being sober.   📍 I ran two 10 Ks, which was amazing. I don't know how many times I have to say it.  Every podcast episode, I'm like, I could not believe I can run. I can't believe it. I went for a three mile run today just because I love it. My dog loves it. My friend Cody runs with me.

I love it.  I turned 40 this last year.  Turning 40 sober was such a big win. It was huge. Like I just look at like 30 year olds, me, or even 39 year olds, me, and that girl was in for it. Like she would look ahead and. Like it's just one of those things you guys like. I just, I can't paint a picture for you of how this feels because there is no point in my past where looking ahead, I was like, oh, you actually did it.

You actually told alcohol to fuck off and you actually changed your life. Like there's no point. There's like no point. Because while I always constantly had that little thought going on, I never actually thought I would see it through   📍 and I fucking did it.  That's why I feel like I can do anything is because this is so big to me.

 One of my favorite wins out of all of this is the relationship that has  changed with my children.  I realize how much pushing away I did to give myself that buffer so that I could drink more. I was never not present. I was always there, but it was definitely at a distance. I have a totally different relationship with my son, and it's even in the way I react.

You know, he's a teenage boy. He just turned 14. He can be a little like off the charts sometime where I'm like, what is going on here? Having a boy is new to me.  We made it through the teenage years with my oldest daughter, but this is new. I'm like,  we got some like testosterone rage going on there,  but there is really like nothing that throws me off.

I can like look at him and I can see what he's going through and like notice his emotions and I'm just not reactive like I used to be. We're able to talk.   📍 We're able to just like laugh. And oh my God, I  love that little kid so much. And it's so fun to watch him, you know, transition from boy to man. It's amazing.

And I get to do it clear focused and not freaking drunk you guys. And not to mention the relationship with my daughter, that was a.  Big part of my sobriety journey.  I don't think you can ever get sober for other people. I think you have to get sober for yourself. But what you do start to realize is the benefits and how much it's like benefiting everyone else around you when you do get sober.

And I know that people on the internet, especially YouTube, I've seen the comments. People are like, you, you can get sober for your wife and kids. My wife and kids was gonna leave me, or my husband was gonna leave me. And I'm like, yeah, but  ultimately you did it for you  because you still wanted those people in your life.

I did this for me, but I knew that it was   📍 gonna have this domino effect on all the people around me.  And I think that is one of the most beautiful gifts ever, is when you gift yourself this like insane amount of self-improvement. 'cause really, we shouldn't call it a  sobriety journey.  We should call it a self-improvement  like bootcamp from hell.

 That's what we should call it. When you gift yourself this and you decide to go on it, it's a little bit of a scary gift, but it impacts so much around you. I almost feel like I, I'm really kind of struggling to get through this podcast because I don't know how to like completely describe it. I don't know how to just put it all out on the table for you.

So I'm just trying to share from my heart and try to explain that sobriety. It is holding you back. It is like a constant weight. It is a constant like block in your schedule. Just think about this, like you have this goal, you have something you wanna do and you can consider alcohol or whatever, like addiction numbing item you have.

I'm assuming if you're listening to this podcast, alcohol could be a big one for you. And it's like you just constantly, or   📍 putting this huge roadblock in it. If it's that you need the time and space to work on a goal,  alcohol just comes in and takes all of that time and space.

It's like time blocking your calendar, but in a bad way. And then if you have something physical, you're working on, alcohol comes in and erects like total complete havoc on your body. So for me, I was always trying to like claw my way around that I was giving like a hundred million percent more. To reach the goal, didn't ever reach.

It would constantly go through the same cycle of guilt and shame because alcohol was blocking it. And it's like I just shoved that to the side, like just goodbye, shoved it out of the way. And I'm like, oh my God. Like I can do this.  I can do just about anything.  And a lot of times the only thing that's stopping me now sometimes is like my knowledge, my brain, the thinking time.

Time is a big one. I'm not a patient person. Time is huge.

My sobriety journey also gave me so much more space and time to focus in on my business. And  I am such a better business owner if it's relating to clients.  If it's making sure that I always show up and you guys, I would show up, but now I'm showing up like fully awake. It's like, you know, when people online for a long time, we're talking about like, you gotta wake up, who's woke?

The awakening is happening. Uh, no, I don't know what that is. This is being awake. This is having total focus, total clarity, and you can literally be like, these are the next steps I'm taking. Oh, this obstacle appeared because life is still life. That's okay. I know how to navigate it.

I can feel the pain if I need to. I can experience the joy if I need to. I can make a decision if I need to. And the point is if I need to, I'm present and I'm here and I can do it.

 I didn't just remove alcohol.  I built a completely new version of myself and I'm still building it. Did anyone just see the Minecraft movie? It's like it's a work in progress. Okay.

So now for the really, really hard parts of sobriety.  This should not discourage you from getting sober.  I just think it needs to be real. You know, I kind of think of when we were like getting ready to come be humans, there had to have been some sort of little like, I don't know, disclaimer.   📍 There had to have been a disclaimer. 

We all sat down and they showed us this movie. You know, it's kind of like the, like the Cialis commercials or the pharmaceutical commercials. You know, you too can experience Total Bliss, but you might also experience paralysis. Like some of these commercials are wild. You might lose all of your vision and have no hearing.

There had to have been some prep coming down here. You had to have known you're about  to walk into an absolute shit storm.  Like I just don't believe there's any other way. Like we had to have been slightly prepared. I feel like there was a lot of training that went on before we were like, let's enter a body.

Like I just feel that that 100% had to have gone down. So 100% I feel like I have to share with you.  You're gonna experience some shit. 

There are so many waves that come with sobriety.  The loneliness, the identity shifts.  I am going through a really big identity shift right now. I know that I am like mourning who I once was and that's, that's okay.

You know, it's like, maybe you had a grandpa that was close to you but he was an absolute asshole and you're like sad and you like kind of were mourning that he passed away, but you're also like, it wasn't super cool. I don't know if that was the best comparison. But I really do feel like I'm mourning, like a shitty part of myself.

I'm mourning a past life because that life got me here. There were still so many beautiful things in my life. I still had all the bases there. It just wasn't a solid foundation that I had built everything on.

  📍 So you are definitely gonna grieve that old and what you perceive to be that fun version of you.  Yeah. That version of you is fun drunk. Samantha is quite fun. She is a good old time, but only for other people who are also probably drinking at that level. Only for other people who are like, okay.

With the chaos, I was not the best time. The thing about alcohol is I really kinda see it as, yes, it can be great. Like think about this,   📍 like you're with a bunch of friends, you're at the pool, you're all hanging out. You all have a great time.  You're talking about wild shit.

'cause you're slightly drunk. Maybe somebody jumps the wall into the neighbor's house. I don't know. It's funny, right? You're fun, everyone's having fun, but then what happens when you go home? What happens when that dark side of alcohol comes out? What happens when you're not your best self?  What happens when you make bad choices? 

Like to drink and drive? What happens when you decide to put yourself in front of your kids drunk? Like what happens then? What happens when you say things to your husband or do things that you can't take back? There is a dark side of alcohol. I feel like the fun side,   📍 it's plastered on the posters, it's plastered at the clubs. 

It's plastered as you having that great time, but it's the after that is horrible. It is like what happens at the end of the night. That is fucked up. And even if you just pass out, you just ass out, face down, plant yourself in bed, you're gonna be awake at three in the morning and   📍 you're gonna be puking your guts out.

You're gonna be hung over.  You're not gonna be living your best self, you're gonna be making up excuses why you can't do blah, blah, blah. That's what I'm talking about you guys, is that you're trading. This like little pocket of like appeared fun, right? Just being drunk with your friends or drunk in your backyard, whatever it is.

Whatever. Like gives you that sense of fun because it's science too. So your prefrontal cortex has dropped, like your decision making power has dropped. So you think you're the coolest person in the world. There's no filter, there's no morality filter, there's no, Hey, that's stupid.

Don't do that. Filter. And we're perceiving it as fun. It's fun to not have to make decisions. It's fun to not give a fuck and just be like, fuck it, I'm doing, but that little snapshot of time, like maybe you get a good two hours, you're now paying for it for essentially days or years or you know, entire marriages or the relationship with your children and like, I don't want that.

I do not want that.

 So if you are in that process of grieving that old fun version of you,  think of that little pocket that you were trading, you were taking fun, you a few hours of fun, you. Or maybe a whole Sunday fun day on the lake, and you were trading that for like all of the rest of the time. It's like you're almost sabotaging your backend consistently.

Consistently just effing yourself up.

As I was writing the outline for this podcast, I was thinking about even last year me, so I had two best friends last year. Yes, I had two. And we're gonna air quote here. Best friends. I have both of them blocked on my phone now.  That doesn't make me happy. That doesn't bring me joy. 

And you know, I have to 100% say like I contributed to a lot of this crazy behavior, and when I no longer was that crazy behaved person and I was in the midst of getting sober and going through all of that, we just didn't align anymore. I've got no shade towards them other than I cannot have them in my life.

Not because they were gonna show up and force me to drink. It wasn't even remotely like that. It was because  I was no longer participating in the behavior.  And it sucks. It fucking sucks. I have someone else who's really, really close to me. I did not block her, but I don't respond to her texts anymore.

I'm like, I just, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can see that you're  battling alcoholism.  I can see that you're an alcoholic. You can't see that. I've never, you know, approached this person, of course, because my journey is my own, but I'm like, I just, I can't be in your life anymore. I. And it sucks. It does suck.

I don't invite people over anymore. I'm not like, Hey, come over. Let's do dinner. I can't remember the last time I did that. The only people I invite into my home is this very core small group of friends and family that I trust and that I love, and that I, I know they fucking love me. I'm gonna get emotional thinking about it.

And it's not anything to do  that none of them are sober.  It's not like they're, you know, alcoholics too. It's just that I don't want anyone else in my space that doesn't belong there. So there is this huge piece of like loneliness and that's what I'm navigating right now as I turn a year sober, as I'm so fucking proud of myself.

But  I'm also like, who am I? And that's a really cool gift.  That's something I get to discover on my own. I just turned 40, I get to spend, you know, this last half of my life. I might not even be halfway there yet. You guys, I feel like a 88 is my number. So I might, you know, have four more years before I'm even half done.

But I get to spend this next chapter, let's call it a chapter. I've seen women on the internet call it midlife, which I'm not a fan of. I'm like, what? I don't know. I don't know. I, I'm not one to embrace my gray hair either, so I will not embrace the title midlife, but I'm like,  who is Samantha? And this is kind of cool, but also kind of weird. 



I can sit here and confidently say I don't want to drink. I don't want to, there's a bar like through the wall over here. I'd have to walk around the corner, but I don't have any desire to be there. That's not where I belong. I just got back from a trip. I went to my brother-in-law's wedding in the Dominican Republic.

Congrats to the new Parker too. It's like I got a new sister-in-law's. Well, she's super sweet and they had a beautiful wedding and   📍 we were at an all-inclusive resort. That was actually, the wedding was such a beautiful,  it was so beautiful. Like I wanna put it in this golden ball. The rest of the trip for me and some things that I personally had going on was an absolute shit show.

A resort was horrible. We all got food poisoning. There's just different things. I feel like I need to do an entire podcast episode on that. But my point is I spent a week at an all-inclusive resort where you're just on the resort, you're just at the pool or the beach, and occasionally you do a little excursion, and I  had no desire at all to drink.

  📍 There was no way I was going up to the swim up bar and getting soda water with lime or Coke zero. '  cause they don't have Diet Coke or a virgin pina colada. Like I didn't give two shits about putting that alcohol in my body. I did not want that. And that's an amazing space to be in.

But I can tell you I have had times where I did almost drink.

There is a past podcast episode where I describe in detail a night where I almost relapsed, and I can look at that moment now, and I can see  how I wanted to change my energy  to match everyone else's energy. And so part of like this weird space of sobriety where I'm like, this is where it's hard is now.

You do, you're,   📍 it's almost like you're in a fishbowl. But you're on the outside of the fish  pool and you're looking in and you're like, I don't think I belong in there anymore. And if I don't belong in there, I just, I don't know where I do belong. It's like a very interesting dynamic to be in, but like I don't, I don't want to join that fishbowl

and now I get to choose where do I belong? How do I get to redefine those circles?

So I kind of love the dichotomy here where I started out thinking  Everyone is gonna hate me. They're all gonna hate me because I'm not drinking.  And now I'm like, oh, I don't think I even belong there in the first place.  And it's just like, it's freaking cool. Okay. It's pretty cool. So it's all perspective, right?

Glass half full, glass, half empty. I made it through. One of my biggest things too was always guilt and shame. Like I would drink and I'd feel guilty and I'd feel ashamed, and it was like I was almost addicted to it. It's like I'd get off on the cycle and I didn't know how else to live, and now I'm like, I don't really feel guilty for a lot of things like.

I make the best choices I can, but I don't have to do that all the time. I don't have to do that on a daily or weekly basis. And yeah,   📍 I think we could high five to that for sure. 

Yes. So many relationships have changed, but it's because I outgrew them.

Getting sober really just shoves you out of all of that. It's like choice made. You don't belong in these spaces anymore.

And I couldn't let this podcast go by without being as honest as I possibly can. I just, I needed someone to be as honest as they possibly could with me when I first got sober. So I'm doing my best to share that message with you guys as well. But the big, big question everyone always asks is,  does your husband still drink? 

So currently my husband is taking a drinking break. I do feel like that's gonna be his own story to share, but I can tell you that my husband has been extremely, extremely supportive with me getting sober. We just kind of hit an interesting crossroads where my behavior has changed so much that having someone who's still kind of in that cycle of behavior.

It's gotten hard because at first I was so focused on myself and whether everyone was gonna like me, and then I realized, well, wait, what about all this other stuff that I've been tolerating in my life?  I am so lucky to have such an amazing, loving, supporting husband, but.  I also have my own choices to make.

It's weird. It's weird, you guys. I'm in a weird space with this. So the question of does my husband still drink? He has up until maybe like 10 days ago, and I'm not quite sure where he's going with that, but that's gonna be his journey. And I know that he held my hand as I've navigated all of this and I'm gonna hold his hand too.

And I know that ultimately he's gonna make the best decision for his self. Or ultimately I will make the best decision for myself. And yeah, it's,  it's like a little bit of a messy middle.  I love Jake so much. We've been together since I was 22. We met in a bar on my 22nd birthday. I   📍 was completely wasted. So we went into this kind of like over-drinking lifestyle together  and we've continued it, but then suddenly it's like I pulled up this red flag and I was like, I can't do this anymore.

Enough's enough. And he was like, okay, like I, I support that.  I love that decision for you.  So we're just kind of like, where does it go next? You know, that first year was just about getting through it and now I'm like, well, where are we going next? And I can see, like, he's almost a mirror for me at this point where I could see some of my past behaviors and I'm kind of watching them in him and it's like, it's so interesting.

It's definitely not the end of us, if that's what this sounds, is like doom and gloom. It's not. It's just like, where are we going next with this? And I think we'll do a podcast.  So right now I'm doing 75 Hard,  which I've never wanted to do 75 hard before because I was like, how do you cut out alcohol for 75 days?

But now. I'm like, that was the easy part.   📍 I'm very consistent with my workouts, so this just kind of like turned it up a notch.  And my husband's doing his version of 75 hard too, so I'm like, maybe at the end of those 75 days, 'cause he'll have had no alcohol. I've o obviously we'll have no alcohol. Where are we at?

Where are we going? And like what is.  Our relationship with alcohol going to be,  and he's gonna get to define that for himself, just the same way that I did for myself. So it's kind of cool,

kind of cool, kind of messy. Again, you just have to look at the glass as half full. I have really found so much peace. In the peace.  I no longer experience fomo.  I don't care what you're doing when you're doing it like I do to the point where I'm like, that's amazing. I'm happy for you, but   📍 if people are going out, I don't really care. I'm like, that's like really cool. If I don't get invited somewhere. 

I'm like, that's really cool too. I love that it's peaceful. It just feels peaceful and it feels calm, and I wouldn't trade this feeling for anything.

But yes, life can be painful,  but at least that pain is real. 

I had rather feel everything sober. I'd rather feel all of it cracked wide open than have to do one single second hungover. And the good times now are so good, like they are just so good. I get like this euphoric feeling where I'm like, oh, I didn't know life could feel this good.  It's like the joy is deeper, the happiness is deeper.

You can love bigger. You can love. Harder and longer, no pun intended there, but you just get to feel all of it. 

And really, you guys, I'm finding new tables to sit at. I'm finding new spaces to be in.

And honestly, my life belongs to me, to myself now. More than it ever, ever did before.

So I'm in this phase of celebrating a year, and really I'm celebrating a year of huge transformations. I,

I feel extremely confident in where I'm going. I feel extremely confident in the choices that I make, and I just feel like. Fuck yes. Like thank you for being here

and I'm really starting to look at sobriety as my foundation and not necessarily like my whole identity, and that's a really cool shift.  This is just a foundation for how I move through the world.  It doesn't mean that's just who I am. That would be like saying Samantha is just a woman. Samantha is just sober.

No weird. Just so many cool things.

I don't have to introduce myself as a sober woman, but I walk into every room more confident because of it.

All right.  My sober besties.  If you're sober on your sober journey, sober. Curious, like just thank you for being on this little tiny snippet of my journey. Being able to share it has helped me stay sober for sure,  but also being able to tell my story and know. That, as Jen would say, Jen is my amazing podcast editor.

Possibly I could be a life raft for someone else. So I stole that from her. Jen, please link yourself in the show notes 'cause she has a whole thing about being someone else's life draft by telling your story. She wrote a book about it. You guys gotta check it out. But God like just thank you. And of course, thanks to God.