Travel With Sober Curators: Alysse Bryson, Founder of the Sober Curator and Pop Buchanan, Founder of Sober is Dope

Dive into an empowering and fun journey with guests from The Sober Curator team where we unfold the wonderful world of sober travel. Join your host, Kat, alongside guests Alysse Bryson, founder of The Sober Curator, and Pop Buchanan, founder of Sober is Dope and Sober Curator contributor, as they share insider tips, personal stories, and many years of sober wisdom for navigating travels and life with clarity, purpose, and humor. These two truly know what it means to have fun in sobriety because we are sober, not boring!

Discover how sobriety can amplify the excitement of adventures, learn practical strategies for maintaining sober living on the road, and hear heartening tales of connection, recovery, mental health support, and personal growth. Whether you're sober curious, newly sober, in a 12 step recovery program, or are supporting a sober person and looking to enrich your travels with more meaningful experiences, this episode serves as your passport to discovering the joy of alcohol-free adventures as part of our growing sober community.

Here is a link to the Travel Section on The Sober Curator:
What a Trip! Sober Travel & Sober Travel Tips (thesobercurator.com)

Check out Pop's Podcast and Website: Sober is Dope

If you like this podcast, please subscribe and give us a 5-star review on Apple Podcast. If you would like to live and travel alcohol-free, head over to Kat Lyons Official so Kat and her team can help you with the perfect sober vacation for you and your family. Here you can also learn more about alcohol-free group trips and alcohol-free meetups! 

Contact and Follow Kat at Sober Travel:
Email: sobertravelkat@gmail.com
Instagram and TikTok: @sobertravel_ (Remember the underscore at the end)
Website: www.katlyonsofficial.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sobertraveling/

Transcript

  📍  Hello, and welcome to sober travel the podcast, or we trade hangovers for high-fives and explore the world one alcohol-free adventure at a time. I'm your host cat lions, whether you're sober, curious, or have longterm sobriety get ready as we travel across the globe with clear minds and big dreams.

And I am stoked because today we have not one, but two awesome people to talk to.  Elyse Bryson with the Sober Curator, and we have Pop Buchanan with Sober is Dope. So I'll turn it over to you two to talk to our audience about what you do. Thanks, Kathleen. My name is Elise and I am the founder of The Sober Curator. We founded it 2020. I have had a career in the media for a really long time, like longer than I want to Tell people a long time.

And I had been looking for something as I've seen all the recovery out loud come online. I got sober back in 2006. And as I've seen everything come online, there's so much goodness out there now. And I was looking for a hub. Or a one stop shop that could tell me where all the things were, whether that was sober business owners, sober merchandise, podcasts, book reviews, TV shows, and movies.

And I couldn't really find what I was looking for.  So when the pandemic happened, I was just crazy enough to think I could start it myself.  Now three years later, we have a little over 30 sober curators around the country. One in Canada, one in Mexico.  And then we have a lot of our preferred partners, like my good friend pop over at sober as dope.

Awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Wow. Yeah. Lisa's awesome. And I'm happy to be part of her team. A little quick background on Elisa and I, we had a little short podcast together with a couple of our friends called sober pop. And  that kept us going. During the pandemic and I missed that.

Hey, at least we should probably try to bring that back. We should probably bring it back. Yeah. Yeah. Again I'm Pop Buchanan, the founder of Sober is Dope, a podcast all about the benefits of sobriety and why living a sober life is a beautiful thing. life. I'm also the co founder of Meta's Dope, which is an art and NFT company.

I founded with my sober girlfriend, Jennifer Ruff, which I'm really proud of. I'm a recording artist. That's what I love to do. I always talk about creativity and recovery as a way of staying sober. Sober's Dope is no, creativity tames the beast. So reconnecting with your personal superpower and not letting your addiction Take you out the game, so to say.

I'm really embrace my music again. So I'm doing music and I'm a published author. I have a recently published a sober's dope book, and I'm really proud of that. That was another milestone that I needed to accomplish during my sobriety. And I'm. Happy that my sobriety allowed me to do something that could help other people beyond this lifetime.

So that's a quick background on me. I'm 10 years sober. My drug of choice was alcohol. And I'm just proud. December 15th makes 11 years sober and I'm really proud to be here. So thanks for having me.  Awesome. My, my sobriety date is right around yours. As long as I don't royally screw up, I should be turning 15 in December 28th, which is Thank you.

You are both December babies. 

And how cool that both of you have found creative outlets to fill that hole that we have in ourselves when we get sober. And it's what the hell am I going to do now? So very cool. Totally. And I just got tired of everyone saying, Oh, you're sober.  Your life must be so boring.

It's no, it's actually was pretty boring before I got sober. If you want me to be honest. And and we, in recovery circles, you often hear the opposite of addiction is connection, and that couldn't be more true. And I think one of the gifts that the pan Demick gave us was was the recovery community jumping online in full force.

And it already had started happening. There was already Facebook and sober Instagram was growing, but the pandemic really put it into full throttle. And then we were taking over everywhere. Absolutely. I was just doing some quick math in my head, and I think between the three of us, we have about over 40 years of sobriety.

Isn't that cool? There's some real wisdom here. Just kidding. Probably not that much.  I know. I'm like, maybe you're putting more pressure on us than I need to. I always tell people the longer I stay sober, actually the less I know. And some people are always like does it get easier the longer you do it?

And in some ways, yeah, it does. I don't, I, it's very rarely that I think about it, but I can't say I never think about it because my mind still thinks it's a good idea or that, I've magically gotten more mature or it would be different this time. And those thoughts still come. I just have a lot of tools now that help me let them pass.

Would either of you share like what brought you to sobriety? Just a brief kind of how'd you get here? What made you want to get sober? What did that beginning look like? I know it's been a bit, but sometimes those stories are really helpful for connection. Yeah. Go for it, pop. For me, it was life or death.

I literally my life totally imploded. I was in the middle of the street. I had a fight with my mother. My girlfriend was away. I lost my house is like this was like a culmination of about a 10 year story of me out of college. I'm coming from a business background getting into a fast paced real estate lifestyle.

Being young in New York with the music, I was drinking a lot, but I had no real control. I knew nothing about addiction, really didn't know that alcohol could be a disease or something of the brain that would could can create addictive and emotional mental health issues. And one day I, at the end of this very long story, I just was in the middle of the street in the middle of the winter in New York.

And I just broke down and I got on my knees. I knew I would die. If I didn't get some help, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to go about getting the help. I thought I was already gone, I already thought, I thought I was just on borrowed time. I thought I would die within the next few days.

So to say, I was extremely malnourished. I was,  emaciated, gone haven't eaten in about a year, not anything significant and consistent. I would just drink. And it was fueled by depression and loss. I had lost someone that I love. Long story short, it brought me to this place where I just had to get on my knees and throw a Hail Mary.

And I just said what I call what I described now is something like a form of an affinity, infinity prayer to God. Like just this Hail Mary, if you're there. If you exist, I spent my whole life believing in you and talking to you. I'm broken. I'm damaged. I'm going to die and I don't want to. And I got on my knees and I totally surrendered.

And the thing about that is surrender is a deep concept. We could talk about that for hours, but this is, it was true surrender. Like I just gave up fighting. I gave up the fear and I just said, I'm just getting on my knees and I'm giving it to God and whatever happens and I heard a voice now this could be whether I was hallucinating, it could have been because I wasn't eating, but I believe that voice was from God.

And that voice literally was like, it's done, you could get up and go jump the turnstile go find a hospital and just keep listening to me, and I'm still listening to that voice to this day I went to a hospital. Long story. I couldn't get into the hospital. I they said I appeared normal. I didn't have insurance.

They was going to send me back out in the street. I broke down, started crying, made a big scene. And I was just honest. I said, if y'all put me back out there in the street, I'm going to die. I don't want, I need help. And the director of that hospital came down. He looked at me. He said, kid, what are you doing here?

I explained to him the whole spiel. He said, look, if you're not bullshitting me. Where we'll help you, we'll be taking a better way from someone, but if you're serious and you promise that you'll behave and you'll do the right thing, there's a place here for you. And they let me get into detox to an emergency as an emergency.

Cause I was so like, I was displaying all these symptoms and that was day one of sober as dope. That was literally December 15th, 2012. And that's how I found my sobriety. I played the game all the way to the end and I knew I would die. So addiction is no joke. And that's my story.  Wow. That's really powerful.

That's really powerful. Thank you for sharing that. And that, just the fear and the loss and sometimes it feels like we have to be like brought down to our lowest point, that lowest bottom before we can go,  I gotta do something, right? I applaud you for choosing this path. Versus other paths that there are.

And I feel like a lot of us have had those like screaming out in the rain, Lieutenant Dan moments where we're just like, why?  And and it could take us to a really positive place where we actually get help or it could take us to a really negative place where we just implode. So I'm so glad that you're here and that you're sober.

Thank you. Yeah, my story is a little bit different than pops. The last drink that I had, if I had known it was going to be my last drink, I can assure you I would have done a better job. It was actually really a very pathetic story. It was a Sunday. I woke up, I was still hung over from a very long weekend of partying.

There wasn't a lot left in my house and I was desperate for another drink. And. My son was nine at the time and I spied over on the coffee table this half full wine or champagne bottle. And I snatched it up while he was watching cartoons and went out onto the porch to, and I was out of cigarettes too.

So I was like digging through the ashtray, I, that's what I was doing. And and. I went to go chug out of this warm, half empty bottle. And as I go to tip it back, I see that there's all these balls in the bottom of it. And my son had filled it with gumballs. The night before and I had this vague recollection of him doing that to get me to stop drinking the night before and I drank it anyway, and I didn't go to work the next day.

I got him off to school. I managed not to drink that day. And then the next day I still didn't go to work. I managed to get him to school again, but I was like, I was, now I was two days. Sober and I was like, Ooh, and I wasn't at that point a drinker every single day all day. But when I drank right.

And it was usually a couple times a week. And I was a binge drinker. I was a blackout drinker, but at that particular time, nothing actually bad was happening. I had a job. I think I'd actually just one sales person of the month or something stupid. I had a car, I had my license, I had a little tiny bit of money in the bank, but there were, had been.

Catastrophic things that had happened in the 12, 16 years leading up to that, right? It's just at this moment, there wasn't necessarily something horrific happening. I just instinctively knew I was at this tipping point and once it tipped, it was going to go and it was going to go really fast. I could just feel it.

And so I had prior to this weekend, I had been going to a couple of different therapists. I even went to a couple of different treatment centers and did the intake. And there was one where I was really honest.  I didn't lie, which was really weird for me I, all I did was lie back then but I told the truth and they were recommending inpatient, which I was like, I can't do that.

I'm a single mom. I have to work. Like I can't be Sandra Bullock and take 28 days. That's not going to work for me. What are my other options? And they were like we do have outpatient, most people do inpatient before they do outpatient. I'm like, no, I'll do that. I'll do that. I can do that in a month when my son goes on summer break, I'll send him to my parents and I'll work during the day and I'll do treatment at night and then I'll see him on the weekends.

And that's how I'm going to project manage, this situation. And they were like, okay what are you going to do between now and then to not drink? And I was like, I don't I don't know. And they were like can you control your drinking? And I was like, as if I'd never heard that before. I was like,  I don't think I've ever tried, I think I'm going to, I'm going to try.

And so that weekend of me drinking bubble gum infused wine was me trying to control my drinking. It didn't work. And so they had told me that there was a women's meeting at this treatment center that anybody could come to. And it was on Tuesday nights. And so that was the Tuesday. It was May 2nd and I hadn't drank in 48 hours.

And I knew that I was on the verge of going to the store. So instead of going to the store, I drove myself to that meeting, and I sat really close to the door, and I didn't look at anybody because I was afraid if they looked into my eyes, they would see my soul, and see how terrible of a person I was on the inside.

But something really magical happened that night, and I had been to one or two meetings before then, and and not heard my story, and all I saw was, I'm not like these people, I'm not like these people, I'm not like these people, but at this meeting God removed, God opened my eyes and closed my mouth and opened my ears, right?

And more importantly, opened my heart. And every single woman that spoke that night had my story to a T. And I was super overwhelmed. And much like Pop, I also had a big spiritual burning bush kind of moment. I was driving home in my car. I was very angry at God. God, I grew up in a Christian household.

I went to a private Christian school. Both my grandfathers were pastors, right? So the God concept is like all I know because that's what I've been raised on but I had been treating God like Santa Claus like I'll do this if you do this like it was some kind of, negotiation. And I was so angry.

I was so angry. It's you're going to take away my vodka. Like I don't have anything else. I'm single. I'm chubby. I don't have very much money. I rent, I drive a Ford and now you're going to take away my vodka. Just and so I'm driving up the freeway and I'm mad and I'm screaming at God and I'm shaking my fist.

And I was like, if This is it. Just give me one more sign. And right. As I'm like demanding God to give me another sign, because apparently the 20 women that spoke that night, weren't enough signs or all the things that happened from the age of 16 to 30, weren't enough signs. As I'm demanding the sign from God, this ding goes off in my car.

And I looked down into the dash and it says perform service.  And I was just like God is in my dash. And for me, I was completely overwhelmed. And for those of you listening, yes, I know I needed an oil change, okay? And I got one, don't worry. But I, in that moment, I was demanding a sign, I got one, I had to pull over to the side of the freeway, and I just sobbed.

I just broke. I just, like what Pop talked about, it was surrender. I was dead. Done. Like I was just, I had no more ideas. I had no more tricks in my bag. And as I was sitting there laughing, crying, snot flying all over my steering wheel I looked back up and was like wiping all my makeup off my face. And as I looked into the dash perform service had gone away and now it went back and it showed me how much gas I had and it was just below a quarter of a tank.

And what I heard in the moment that I look at that, just like pop, am I hearing voices? Am I hallucinating? Or is this a real thing? I don't know, but what I heard as if somebody was sitting in the passenger seat next to me was, you can do this now. The next time I come for you, you will be on empty.

Yeah, and so I haven't had a drink since that night, but it's not because I didn't want to. I have wanted to more times than I could count, but I just got broken enough. Even though. My outside didn't look that broken. My inside was broken. It was so broken and I couldn't handle the thought of it becoming even more broken.

I just couldn't. And so that's when I threw myself into every possible thing. I did the outpatient. I did 12 step. I did therapy. I did yoga. I did meditation. I went to church. I, I just did all the things I just did. I just did everything. And I did it. All not perfectly to be clear. And I still don't do it perfectly.

But I just get up every day and I'm like today, I'm not, I have become a very much a one day at a time girl, cause that's all I can really manage. I just can't really manage more than that. And it's just, my life is simpler if I just keep it in into today. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Thank you for sharing that.

And again, I relate, the last time that I drank, my kids are watching sleeping beauty and I happened to open the freezer to try and get them like an Otter Pop or something. And my ex husband had left a bottle of vodka in there. There was, and I had been trying to get sober on my own and it was just that quick and it's crazy how quickly we can have that mental shift.

And so I got just smashed and, long story that I will sum up my ex was like, okay, it's me and the kids or it's the booze. What are we doing here? And so it was like, we're going to the next meeting. And so  I had no idea. It was like a gay men's meeting. So that's amazing. My introduction to AA was with a bunch of fabulous men.

And the first person who opened the door to me and said, and I obviously look like a little scared, cold, wet kitten, even though I was, just, I was just, Broken. And he's honey, come on in. And he gave me a book and he wrote his name in it. And that man is still my sponsor to this day.

I love that story. That's fantastic. And you know why you were talking for you guys have seen the movie flight with Denzel Washington, right? Okay. If you haven't seen it, just plug your ears right now. Cause I'm going to totally ruin it for you. But there's this scene towards the end, It's a night before he's going to a court case that his career largely depends on. 

And he's in this hotel room and you see him open the mini fridge and the alcohol there and you're like, don't do it. Don't do it, man. Like you're almost there. Like you've almost put your life back together after all this bad stuff happened. Don't do it. And then he just swipes the bottle.

And that scene. Oh, that scene resonates with me. It resonates with me so much because even when we know we shouldn't and we don't even want to, we still do it. That's what addiction is. We do it even when we don't want to, because all the times I said I wanted to quit leading up to when I actually did, I really meant it probably 90 percent of the time, right?

I just didn't, I just didn't have. Any tools to do anything about it. Totally, and then I always feel like 9 a. m. Me is we're going to do this. We're going to stay sober. And then 9 PM me is just look. So there's also a disconnect there. So something that I think is a big trigger for a lot of us.

Are two big things, right? And the number one thing is traveling, being in a new place, new things. One time I was upgraded and handed a glass of a bubbly thing. And then that was it, I was off to the races. And. Or even traveling to see family, because a lot of the time our family can trigger us, or friends can trigger us, or that fun work  party so what kind of tips do you have for folks that work for you as you're traveling to stay sober?

I can go. I have a couple. I always have a game plan. No matter where I'm going, I have a game plan and I have an exit strategy and I try to have an exit strategy that is not dependent on somebody else. It's dependent on me so that I can get out of any situation. But that's a little different when you're at an airport going somewhere, right?

And so I've actually used this trick and it does work. But if you go up And asked at the gate at the counter for them to do the overhead speaker and said any friends of Bill W come up to the gate, they will come, they are there, right? And, but that's a very bold move to do, and not a lot of people, a lot of people will be like, oh, hell no, I'm never doing that, right?

But, there are other options, especially with, there's so many options in our phone. You can jump on Clubhouse. You can jump on Instagram. You can listen to a podcast. You can put in audible and listen to a book. You can listen to a YouTube video. You can, hopefully you have input a lot of phone numbers of people that support you into your phone.

That's the first thing when you're feeling triggered in whatever situation you're in is Tell someone that takes the power out of it, right? It takes the power out of it. And so when traveling, that's what I always try to do. I always try to also make sure I have snacks, make sure I have fluids, right?

Water. And my, my, my drug of choice is diet Coke. And I, so make sure I'm hydrated, make sure I have good sleep, make sure I've eaten something that's good for me. And I'm not just living off sugar, which we tend to do between Halloween and Valentine's Day right? We tend to live off sugar and and there's nothing wrong with sugar in moderation, but it can all, it definitely has an effect on your brain.

But those are just, yeah, those are some of my tips. What about you, Pop? One of the biggest things that I think I try to tell people to focus on is one, you have to be honest with yourself and everyone involved with the trip and everyone involved with the destination and the travel.

I come from a classic alcoholic anonymous, AA program, 12 steps, again, based on the 11th tradition, 12 steps had nothing to do with this. I don't want my 12 step team beating me up, but. The thing is, when you're anonymous, then you can't 100 percent be honest with everyone involved, so I say there has to be a level of honesty when you're traveling, because if you're going into an environment, and you're anonymous, or you don't want to be honest with people, Then they're going to treat you as if you're just gang for the party, right?

Hey, you want to drink, here's a shot, but you have to warn your hosts. You have to I try to tell people travel with some accountability partners or maybe some support or someone else that may be sober. So have a family member that's a, that's in your corner. That's okay, this is an adventure.

We're going to get you through this from A to B  in a sober way, but you have to be honest.  You have to have support and you have to stay connected with your support group or whatever modality you have to stay sober while you're home. Have your sponsor on speed dial. If you're not part of the 12 step system, have an accountability partner on speed dial.

Someone that you could call on every stage of the trip to be like, look, I'm here. I'm at the airport. What's going on? I feel a little bit weary. What should I do? Now, another thing I like to tell people is don't set yourself up for failure. I see people go to airports and try to sit at the bar and watch the game because, but they're going to have a seltzer.

If you're in early recovery and you may be triggered, don't do that. All right. Another thing is understand your triggers. If you're traveling back to a toxic place and that's where the old friends and the old accountability partners are.

So you gotta be honest listen, is Johnny from the block gonna be at the party, mom? Cause if he is, I'm not coming. So again, being honest, he's a trigger for me. Is my did someone from the family invite my ex, even though I'm not talking to them? An ex is a trigger. Know your triggers, be honest with yourself and have a game plan.

Those are some of the, we have, I have a bunch of tips, but that's the main ones that could get you through, right?  Just stay dialed in one day at a time and have a plan on every step of the way. 

Yeah, because if you don't have a plan, then you do plan to fail, right? And I will say just a little bit of hope here. Yes, early recovery, your first holiday sober, hard. Your second holiday sober, still hard. Not the first hard, not the first one's hard though. That first one, the first whole year is just hard, right?

But as it goes on, it does get easier because you get better at advocating for yourself and your needs and boundary setting. And this is where a lot of times code of codependency  stuff starts to fly all over the place. And a lot of addicts are also codependent. It's very common thing to have.

And so setting boundaries and advocating for yourself is okay. And if the people around you aren't supportive of that, then maybe you're around the wrong people. And the power of saying no, not just no to a drink, I'm saying like no to a party. If I don't have a reason to be there and I can't bring something positive to the environment, then I don't go.

So I said no to a lot of things, which was really hard because I'm a person that has FOMO. Like I don't want to miss out on anything. But I said no to a lot of things in the first couple of years of recovery because it was just easier. Yeah, absolutely. It is. It is exceptionally more hard when.

You're first in it and the first, all the firsts, the first birthday party, the first wedding, the first Christmas, the first of everything, but then, it's like when you walk on a trail and you start building, the first time you walk, there's no trail. And then as you keep treading that same path, it gets deeper and deeper.

And soon you're like, okay, I think I got this. That being said.  I was, I've traveled sometimes and I still sit with my back to the bar because I find myself distracted by shiny things over here sometimes. Those bottles are so pretty. They do it on purpose, don't they? They do it on purpose.

Marketing. Ugh. I will say there, there is a lot of non alcoholic options. Popping up now and I gotta be honest with you. Like I have, I've tried lots now. They weren't available when I was in early recovery. The only thing available was, Oh, duals. And it was disgusting. Okay. So I can't speak on if you're an early recovery, if that's a good idea for you or not.

I have no experience. there. So I can't share on that. I would say if it triggers you, it's not a good idea, right? Most of the things that I have tried that are the NA beverage spirit alternatives or the NA beers or the NA wines they haven't triggered me. One did, and it was right. It was the rum alternative.

And I put it with a diet Coke because that was definitely a go to drink. in the past and it was just a little too close to home and I just didn't like the way it made me feel. But so you have to just to echo what pop said, it's really about being honest with yourself and is your motive is your intention, right?

Because we have every right to have a fancy drink out of a fancy glass. We don't, putting me, giving me a styrofoam cup or a kid's cup, it's like putting me at the kid's table. I don't like the way it makes me feel. I want to feel part of the group. I want to feel part of the celebration. I just don't want to consume any alcohol because of the allergy that happens when I put it in my body.

Super simple. And if you're not comfortable about saying that you're in sober or trying to be in recovery, say you're on medication, say you're taking a break. The people that zone in on it. and give you a hard time, that says so much more about them and what they're going through than that doesn't have anything to do with you.

It really doesn't. And the people that can take it or leave it, they won't even care. Like they, it doesn't even occur to them. Another thing too, that helps is strategy. So I always tell people  know where you're going. So for Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day, if you're going to a place where it's going to be toxic, coordinate with the host.

It's usually a parent, a friend or family member. You coordinate, Hey, I'm going to come early because I have to leave early. All right. And then what you do is always get to the party early because you can help it put you in a state of service, right? So the next part is service and volunteering. So you get there a little early.

Now you're part of the whole I'm helping. I'm planning. I'm helping bringing the food out. People are less inclined to bother you to unwind when you're part of the whole getting everything together scene, right? They're like, Oh, okay. Pop's cooking. Pop is helping with the grill. Pop is a, he's handing out this and that, that kind of helps you.

You get there a little bit earlier, you plan with the host, and then you leave a little bit early. Have a strong like Alyse said, have a strong exit strategy. And I always tell people, this is very controversial, but in early recovery, you're gonna have to learn sometime how to bend the truth curve.

For a bit or just outright lie to get out of a situation if it's too toxic, you don't all I'd like to make it like a joke. If you got to say, Hey, I have to leave at six o'clock cause I'm meeting with Barack Obama at seven o'clock. Okay. So I got to make sure I'm leaving early and you're not meeting with Barack.

I said, you can't prove that I'm not, but I have to go. It's just doing what you have to do to stay sober because there are situations where you're going to get in. It's going to be thick. I'm telling you. And it happens within an instant. You're in the room. Your ex walking or your cousin that you're not talking to walks in someone lies and say that you know the family member that you don't get along with, it's not going to be there they walk in there already drunk.

Everyone is already getting drunk early for some reason the environment is not harmonious at all. You have to get out of Dodge. You can't worry about hurting anyone else's feelings. And I think I'm driving this home. Cause I'm telling you, there's this underlining relapse like corner where people relapse based on other people's feelings and expectations.

Like I should, I know I should have left, but I did not want to hurt my best friend's feelings because it was their party or, You can't care. You have to, and you don't have to tell people you're leaving. That's the next thing. You don't have to make an announcement. I'll get, I'm going to say this one thing and I'll wrap this up.

The one of the days I think I would have relapsed in early recovery. If I was, if I didn't advocate for myself, it was such a trigger. It was the same real estate hub of people that I had that I was making money with. I went back to work with them.  And one day, one of the ladies that I had a negative encounter with my building that eventually caused me to leave and lose one of my brownstones, I vowed never to talk to this lady.

She was extremely toxic. And my cousins and them, they're coming in, they're bringing all this food into the office. And I'm like, what's going on? Then I see all of this liquor and it's one o'clock. They're like, Oh, this person is coming upstairs. We're going to celebrate this deal we just did. And I said, Okay, I have to use the restroom.

I left. That was my job at Early Recovery. It was a real job I had. I had an office and everything and I was working while I was in an outpatient. I literally told them I was going to the bathroom, walked out, and never went back. They called me about a week later and said, why are you not coming to the office?

What happened? I just said, guys, something came up and I just can't work with you guys no more. I love y'all. It is. I had to do it. I had to advocate for myself because if I stayed in that environment, they had 500, 1, 000 worth of bottles, all of this food. People's coming in. It was like a stage change within seconds.

I'm like, what's going on? I'm at work now. It's a full blown party at lunchtime. What happened? And then now you got this person coming up. So I say all of that to say, this is your life. Stop. Don't play with it. There's a lot about addiction and recovery is people underestimating  the full power of their drug of choice.

And that it is literally designed to either kill you or drag you to hell. There's no in between when you sugarcoat the darkness of it, and you play games with it and make it this kind of unreal reality. Then you're prone to relapse when you stay stuck on my darkest experience in my addiction.

Why am I sober? How close am I? How close was I to death? Should I play with this? No, you stay within the reality and you'll have a really good chance of getting out because now you're not shortcutting yourself or playing games. Be honest. Be critical and tell the truth and you'll get through.  Absolutely.

And I have I absolutely agree. And, kudos to you for just taking off, it's not the airport. We don't need to announce our departure. We can just leave. We're people pleasing is it is strong. And I've said, oh, I have a really important phone call to get. That important phone call was not pre planned.

It is to my sponsor. Or I'll say I have a really important meeting and that meeting is with Bill W, my big book, in my car.  Yeah. They don't need the details. It's we don't have to tell everybody everything. Like we actually don't have to do that, and A couple of months back,  I traveled back to my high school reunion at 30 years.

I know I don't look it, but yes, 30 years. And fortunately there was some, there's somebody in my class that has seen that I have recovered out loud on the internet, which I actually did not start doing until I launched the Sober Curator. So up until the Sober Curator, I was very open about it. In person, if it came up in a natural way, I wasn't like wearing it on t shirts, but once I launched the sober curator, I went online and what I learned about that was the right people saw it and reached out to me.

And so someone from my high school had seen that I was sober and he had also gotten sober a couple of years ago. So he had reached out to me before the reunion Hey, I'm going, are you going, do you want to walk in together? Do you want to be there together? And I was like, Yes, absolutely.

I do, and I'm so glad that happened. It was at a distillery, which isn't a surprise. And then of course the party moved on to a bar, which is fine. But I had to say it's the curve balls and that's what I want to echo off of what pop said. You can plan and you can strategize. You can have the exit plans and the accountability buddies and all the things do all those things.

Super important. Be rested, be hydrated, do all the things, but the curve balls are still going to come. And in this case, it was like, this girl came up to me and was like, I didn't realize that you dated my husband before I did. And I was like, Ooh. I didn't either, like I had no memory of this guy and I figured out later and that doesn't matter for this story.

But, and I'm, but in that moment, like I was in a bar and I was being confronted with someone who was saying that we had a relationship and I had no memory of him. And it was like, I didn't like any of it. Thank God I had my buddy there that I could immediately go over and be like, I'm super uncomfortable right now.

And he's do you want to go? And I was like, I don't know. And I stayed a little bit longer. And then I did exit. But it's just that those curve balls are going to come. So no matter as much as important as planning is, and I hope you really hear that planning and honesty key, super key, but the curve balls will still happen.

And you're just going to have, you're going to have to be ready for them. Absolutely. And that's where my whole job. Originated is because there's a lot of people who are in the 12 step program. So we get sponsors and things like that, but then there's people who aren't in Tulsa programs, or maybe their sponsor isn't as receptive as some.

And so I love being that accountability partner and just call me at the airport and let's talk about this and let's talk about, what to do when those it is, it's the out of the blue things that make us uncomfortable. And so we don't want to feel those feelings. We want to numb out. We want to avoid, right?

 So thank you for both of your insight on that because you're spot on,  and so now that leads me to the sober curator. I'm sure that is also a huge tool for people as they're traveling, because you have people who write from all over the place, both of you are in different cities.

So how do you think people could use the Sober Curator website as a tool to help them?  Yeah there's a ton of resources on there. We have a travel section with multiple articles about traveling sober and tips and tricks. Multiple. We also have listicles on how to navigate a wedding, how to navigate New Year's, how to navigate a birthday party.

We have literally covered it all. And Pop mentioned back in the pandemic, we were doing this Sober Pop thing that was a podcast that we were doing on Clubhouse, and we were hosting it once a month, or sorry, once a week. And it wasn't a meeting. It was actually, we would bring in special guests on whatever the topic was, and they would share their expertise.

So that could have been a recovery coach, that could have been an author, that could have been somebody who owned a non alcoholic beverage brand. We had comedians come, we had people making documentaries come we just, all kinds of things. So the key is community. So when you're traveling.

You can find community anywhere, even if you're not a 12 step person, right? And let me tell you, even if you're not a 12 step person, you can still go to those meetings, they will still gladly accept you. But you can hop on Clubhouse, you can hop onto anything and get help. But on the Sober Curator, where you can Find a lot of tools.

In addition to those lists is we have tons of book reviews. We have tons of podcast reviews. And for me, putting in a podcast, putting in my earbuds, when I'm traveling on an airplane, on a train, on a subway, in my car, like that just really centers me because when I hear like minded people talking about the things that light me up, it centers me.

It just centers me. And so find, there's so much out there and we've tried to harness as much of it that we can. And I know you've heard a lot of 12 step talk today, and that's the, that's just been for me and pop and for you, Kathleen, I've heard that's our experience, but that's not everyone's experience.

And there's all different pathways to recovery. And we try to showcase that on the sober curator.  It's all run by volunteers. We also do, which I think is really fun, we do movie and TV shows reviews that have addiction, mental health and recovery as part of it. Part of the storyline. And one thing that I find so fascinating, and I want to see more of this, is that the way that we are being depicted in film and TV is starting to actually, thankfully, evolve, right?

Not that I don't love 28 Days, I've seen it a hundred times. Not that I don't love when a man loves a woman. I think a great example would be the show that came out, I think two or three years ago single drunk female. And it showcased a woman who was in her late twenties, getting sober and what that first six months look like.

And what I loved about it is not so much her story, but actually the woman who was her sponsor in the show, who had 10 years, that's what resonated with me as someone in long term recovery. We typically see these storylines play out where it's the hitting rock bottom, they lose it all, they get sober, they leave treatment, they relapse again, that's, that is part of our story, but there's so many of us, I think there's 24 million people in the United States that are it.

Identify as being in long term recovery, right? So those are the stories I want to hear. I want to hear what you're doing with your life at five years, at 10 years, at 20 years, right? That's what lights me up and what I get excited about now. Absolutely. It's a different lens. It's a different lens. Yeah.

Yeah. And pop, what is your experience with sober curator and how that could be a resource and everything? Ah, man. So I always says like the It's I can't explain. It's like a party. I love Sober Curator. It has every single thing. It's like the yellow pages for sobriety, right? And all things in recovery.

I use it for entertainment. I use it for, sober news. You always have to keep up with who's, new in the sobriety scene, what's going on in sobriety scene. It's a beautiful resource. So if you're in recovery, you can also find a bunch of sober as dope content on, so on the sober curator which is beautiful.

And and again, That's what we try to do. We try to work with each other because even with Sober's Dope, if you're traveling, we have over 360 episodes on the podcast that you could go into. We cover all of this. We have the Sober's Dope book if you needed prayers or anything, any reminders, something that's a travel companion.

And I think you could find anything you need in regards to the holidays or just overall early recovery or long term recovery on the Sober Curator. And we're sober as dope. So I use it when I'm down or if I just need to really go pick me up in variety. I think that's where at least hits home.

It's it's never, and I feel like. I tell people you could scroll and scroll and read and I promise you it will be something new. I think you could probably scroll for at least a month and still have new content at least did a really good job at keeping it updated. It's like I have, I don't think there's anything in the recovery space more comprehensive as a tool than the Sober Curator, absolutely. And thank you, Pop, for saying that. And in our travel section, we've actually, in addition to travel tips, we've actually highlighted because a lot of us love to travel. So we will showcase, like I went to Tampa and St. Petersburg and here's everything I did. So if you go to the same city, you could take my trip.

You could do all the things that I did and all the places that I went that were completely alcohol free and super fun. And so we're adding to that as we can. We even have sober horoscopes and sober tarot card reading. It's there like we've, we found it all. And if you think something is missing, let us know, we'll get it on there.

We also have a section called speak out, speak loud, where anybody can contribute. Whatever it is they want, whether they wrote a poem, an essay, maybe they want to write about how they got sober maybe they want to write on a hot topic. We have, it's just a smorgasbord, is that's still a word, of just all kinds of things in there because I just wanted that when you land there, you find something that speaks to you.

That, that is not just, the focus is really on people who have already chosen recovery as a life choice. But I know we get a lot of sober curious and people in early recovery there, which is fantastic. They're totally welcome. But I my, my vision for it is that it keeps people inspired to keep going.

Because the longer I stay sober, the less. The less people there are that have the amount of time that I have  because it's hard, right? And time doesn't also mean anything either. Like I've met a lot of people with over 20 years that are sober, but not in recovery, right? There's a difference between abstaining and working on yourself.

There's a really big difference. So it's like I can tell when somebody is sober or not. In recovery, because there's a there's just such a big difference to me. And so time, although we talk about it.  Do I think it means much? Not really. It's tell me what you're doing to change the way that you move throughout the world.

And the big takeaway that pop talked about is service work. That is the secret sauce. You cannot feel sorry about yourself or be caught up in yourself and your triggers and your stress and your problems. If you're helping somebody else. And so going back to that, do the dishes help with the kids, find a way at whatever event you're going to, whether it's a small household gathering or bigger one to be of service in that space, because then less people are likely to be like, Hey, you want to go do shots?

No. Cause you're overplaying with the kids. And if they're asking you to do shots, when you're playing with the kids that's not a good sign. It's another level of an issue. Yeah. Another level. Absolutely. I love the Sober Curator website. I was looking at it this morning and I was looking for something for my sponsee for her upcoming sobriety date and there was a whole thing on like things that you can purchase and kitschy items and all this stuff.

And I'm like, man, this place is like a buffet but not like A crappy one, it's like a Caesar's Palace buffet where you can just pick and choose what you want each time you go and it's Oh my gosh, there's this new fancy item and and one day it might be helping to plan a trip. One day it might be buying a gift and one day it might just be getting some experience, strength and hope and not feeling alone because both of you have touched on this.

This can be a very lonely. disease. It can be isolating or it can be absolutely the opposite where you're going out and finding people like you both. And we all get to be here and talk together and have viewers and just be connected. So I really, I love the server curator website. It's fantastic.

And there is, yes, we have an add to cart section because I may or may not have a little shopping addiction. I love to shop. Like it's my cardio. I'm here for it. And in my early days of recovery, the recovery merchandise that was out there was horrifically, it was so terrible. It was so terrible.

I was like, I didn't wear it. Not because I was embarrassed because it was ugly. Like I just didn't want to, but now sober is dope merch. It's dope. It literally is. That's one of the first things I published on pop before we were in friends was his merchandise. And there's so many great makers.

There's people making soap. There's people making roasting coffee beans. There's people making cookie dough. There's people making jewelry, and I it's, for me, that is shopping local when I am spending my money with other people in recovery. That is my version of shopping local.

Yeah. And so I just try to find as many of the merchants out there that are doing their thing. Cause I just think it's great.  Absolutely. And I did look at your sober as dope merch as well. So I'm sitting here going, okay, what I'm going to probably overdo it at some point. You will.

Yeah. Yeah. You will. I have like my quit lit library is out of control. My sober t shirt and hoodie selection is vast. My hats are vast. Everything's covered in sober stickers. Like I'm just, I'm out and I'm loud and I'm proud.  And that's so important, too, because, you might be walking through the grocery store, and somebody is  isolating, or they're like, they have sobriety, but they don't have community, or they are new, or whatever they're at, and they see just a shirt, and it's Happens all the time.

You're my person. You're one of, you're just like me. And that connection happens that quickly. Yeah. Pop, you've got to have some stories of walking through New York City, wearing your Sober is Dope hoodie, and having people stop you. That has to have happened. And yeah, it's just it's good seeing people, it strikes curiosity and and it spreads awareness.

Definitely, even if a person is not but they know it exists, it's a thing. And again, we don't realize how many people, just normal people are where we were that don't even know any of this exists. Like these podcasts Treatment Centers, Alcoholic Anonymous, 12 Steps, people are still just going through things.

Life and some kid out there right now that's gonna one day stumble upon all these things. A part of Sober's Dope submission was to spread the awareness of sobriety to a million people. We wanted it to be like something out there where someone could see and they say, Okay, it's quick, it's fun, I get it, it appeals to kids and adults alike.

And I think we're all doing our part. So I'm excited about that, but it's great seeing the reactions on the streets. Whenever you see it, I don't know what it is about the sober as dope. I guess it's the size, but people just look, man. Look, if you want to get some attention, we're sober as dope hoodie.

I'll tell you that much. Cause the people go and stare. It's funny you say that. I, when I wear my Sober as Dope hoodie, I definitely get comments. But I was in New York a couple weeks ago and I have a denim jacket and I've had I have the Sober Curator like a patch sewn on.

It's not big. It's actually relatively small. And the few comments I've gotten on it, it's usually people saying, what is that? But I had just gotten off my red eye. I was too early to check into my hotel and I didn't want to fall asleep in public in New York as a single gal. So I was like, I guess I better go for a walk and get some fresh air.

And so I'm walking down the street and somebody stops me and they're like, is that like the website?  And I look at them and I look at my jacket and I look back at them and I'm speechless. Which is Hard for me to be speechless and I'm just like, huh. They're like, I love that site and then they just kept walking and I was like, wow, I was like, I think I've made it, so that was really cool.

That was really cool. But I, another thing that I can tell you about the site that is actually cool to actually see. Surprised me is I've done two readership studies. Now I did one in  2021 and I did one this last summer in 2023. And both times, cause Google analytics can tell me everything.

It can tell me how many people are coming to the site, what they're reading, how long they're reading it, what their zip code is, what, what their affinities are. I can learn a lot. But I don't know how long they've been sober because Google hasn't figured out that yet. So I had to ask, I had to ask how long have you been sober?

How did you get sober? Are you here because of a loved one? All those questions. And I was pleasantly surprised to learn that about 25 percent of the people that took the survey and this year it was 31, 000 people took the survey, which also blew my mind. 31, 000. I was like I guess people really wanted to win the a hundred dollar Amazon gift card.

But 25 people are, 25 percent of people are coming because they have a loved one in recovery. That they want to be able to connect with them on topics. And I was like, we're not even really creating content for them. Like I, I was just Whoa because that just didn't occur to me, that's the thing about recovering out loud. You don't know the ripple effects it will have. And it will have consequences if you're not comfortable sharing your recovery out loud. Don't like I didn't for a long time. And depending on what industry you are in or what career you have, it may not be a good idea.

So wait until you are comfortable. And if you're never are, that's fine. That's. So fine. But when you do the ripple effects that it can have, and the stories that I have of people that have been, that have called me I have a sister, can you help? I have a daughter, can you help? I have a brother who needs a treatment center.

I have, I'm so glad that I can help. I did step out onto that stage and it's scary because if I relapse now Ooh, that's pretty big pride and ego fall that could happen. But if and when that happens.  I got people that'll pick me back up. That's the thing about the recovery community.

They show up and they show up in full force. You just have to let 'em know that you need the help.  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's beautiful. Both of your perspectives on all of that. It's just spot on. And what's really cool is that, we're in completely different parts of, of the United States and instantly.

Connected.  And I love that too because it's I could go to other countries. I think Alcoholics Anonymous is 180 countries now. Something like that. We can go to meetings all over the place. And you should. My favorite thing to do when traveling is to go to other meetings because you're like the celebrity because they always ask, is there anyone here from out of town?

And you're like, And it's awesome because you immediately feel at home. You immediately, it immediately grounds me. It immediately grounds me. I went to a meeting in the Flatiron district a couple weeks ago when I was in New York and I immediately felt settled and in a room full of people that knew me, even though I didn't know any of them.

Absolutely. I went to a meeting on a cruise ship this summer, and it's really cool because when you go on a cruise ship, they have friends of Bill W and that's all it says. Yeah. So if yeah, if I was at a book conference in Las Vegas and we put up on the Facebook page that friends of Bill W were hanging out in this room at this day at this time.

And five people showed up and we had a meeting in Vegas. Yeah. They're out there. You can find them. It's not hard. It's so beautiful. And I feel like I could go on and on. We're getting about to the end of our time though here. Do we have any final thoughts or things just just wrap up for Sober Traveling? 

I always say Reflect on gratitude, like really, keep it at the front don't discount the power of prayer, even if you don't believe in God, contemplate what a higher power looks like in your life and how that could change you, takes you out of yourself, and avoid risky environments slippery thoughts, places things ideas,  don't play with yourself, be honest with yourself and keep it together.

And again, Sober as Dope is always here. You can go to SoberAsDope. com to listen to the podcast and I always tell people, if you want to speak to me, you can reach out to me on Instagram at SoberAsDope, just inbox me, I'll get back to you, he will, he definitely will.

Yeah, and if we have to get on the phone or something, I'm willing to do that. Also, if you can't afford a copy of the Sober's Dope book, we're always willing to sponsor a copy or give a digital copy to someone in need. So while traveling, I'll email, you can always inbox me, your email address at Sober's Dope on Instagram and I'll email you a book, official copy of the digital book.

And just look, pray. Love yourself. And when I say focus on gratitude, when you start to think about slippery places, things, or you might feel like you're going to relapse or it's the fear of missing out, just remember where your sobriety brought you and that you're alive and that you have your life.

There's so many people that's dying. Fentanyl at this point, we're closing out the year. It's the number one cause of accidental death in the United States at this point. Alright, so now it's getting more critical because they're putting these drugs that's killing people in everyday things like, even the marijuana now, you don't know when it's going to be in the alcohol.

You don't know what's going on. You don't know what the, what type of behaviors alcohol would bring you to, you. Drink the next thing you know, you're triggered. Then you go out there, you try to party with something else. Then it's fentanyl and this lights out, that was my thing. I alcohol had lead me down a rabbit hole of trying anything that came in front of me at some point.

So you have to be careful and that's it. And just, know your destination, be honest with your host and one day at a time, that's my tips.  Thank you so good pop. I would say my tips are keep it simple and keep it small. Keep it into today. You just really have to get through the next 24 hours and have a plan and have a lot of phone numbers. 

in your phone. And, if you're someone like me that struggles with depression and suicidal fixation the holidays can sometimes be really dark, especially in my corner of the world, it's like dark here now, like 4 30 and it rains all the time.

So it's, it can be dark and depressing. And sometimes it can be really hard to pick up the phone. It can be really hard to reach out to tell someone that you're struggling because you don't even want to get out of bed. I get that. And so you can slide into my inbox as well at the sober curator on Instagram, Facebook.

I'm not really on Tik TOK. And then, come to the website. It's everything on there is free. We don't take any advertisers so you're not gonna get bombarded with treatment centers. I have nothing against a treatment center. I went to one, but I really wanted to create a space that was protected that you could just find the content that you're looking for without being bombarded with outside stuff and and just find your people are out there.

You just have to keep looking. Absolutely. And we're going to link both of your websites and resources as well to this. So people can just click on there and join your community because, the more communities we're in the better. It's just like investing in your recovery. Every time you listen to a podcast, every time you go to a website, every time like minded people in recovery, we're just that much closer to, getting through the day.

And that's really all about what I want to add one more thing for those of you that are in a place that you're able to give, we actually have a section on the website called pay it forward, and it features regional and national recovery based nonprofit organizations. So if you're in a place that you're like oh, for tax reasons I need to make a.

Some donations before December 31st and you don't have one that you're already attached to in your area, like you can hop onto that section and you can get a whole list of recovery based nonprofits that we have vetted and we know are the real deal. And if you go there and you think that we're missing a good one, please let me know.

So whether you can give big or you give small, just by showing up for someone and being of service. Being of service is definitely the secret sauce, in my opinion.  Absolutely. Thank you both for being here. I really appreciated your time and there's just so many great just nuggets of wisdom all through this.

So thank you so much.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

If you liked this episode. Please subscribe and hit the notification bell. So you know about all of our new content. You can also share it with anyone who wants to travel alcohol free. Please message me and tag me on social media to let me know what locations you might enjoy us traveling to next. Thanks again, and have an amazing day traveling beyond the bar.