Episode 39: Sober September Finale: Ask Me Anything on Sobriety, Recovery, and Living a Life You Absolutely Love

So you've built a strong recovery foundation and now you’re ready to break through life’s glass ceilings and create next-level success that feels as good as it looks? 

I want to help you make it happen. 

Book your free 1:1 Next Level Breakthrough Call, and together we'll:

• get clear on what next level success in your life in recovery looks like 
• name the biggest thing holding you back from having it now, and 
• map out a powerful strategy to create success in the areas of your life and career that matter most 

You deserve to experience next level success, to expand what’s possible in your life, to step into the identity of a woman in recovery who knows WTF she is, and to know exactly what to do to manifest your biggest dreams. 

And I can help you get there. Book your call here.

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We’re closing out the Sober September series with something special — an Ask Me Anything episode! I invited my community, clients, mastermind sisters, and friends to send in their most burning questions about sobriety, recovery, relationships, and what life looks like when you stop settling for survival and start building a life you absolutely love.

Inside, I get real about:

• The difference between sobriety and recovery — and why one is not enough without the other.
• What really changes when you go out sober.
• How recovery principles spill into marriage, motherhood, health, and work.
• The daily practices that keep me grounded and moving toward my goals.
• Why authenticity—not cosmopolitans or high achieving— is the sexiest thing in the world.
• What happens to friendships when you stop drinking, and how I navigated loss, reconnection, and building new relationships that feel expansive and aligned.

I also share raw truths about perfectionism, people-pleasing, the patriarchy, and the miraculous gift of celebrating 44 years of life and 15+ years of sobriety.

This episode is for you if you’ve ever wondered what recovery really looks like in the day-to-day, how to apply spiritual principles outside the rooms of recovery, or if you’re ready to fall more in love with your own 24 hours.

Let’s connect!

Book your free 1:1 Next Level Recovery Breakthrough Call

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Hey gorgeous.

I love you.

I'm so proud of you.

And I believe in your ability to create a life you absolutely love.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Girls Who Recover podcast with Dana Hunter Fradella, where incredible women just like you, go to transform life's biggest setbacks into your most powerful comebacks so that you can live a life you. Love. I'm your host, Dana Hunter Fradella, transformational coach and founder of Girls Who Recover, and my mission is to pull back the curtain on our mistakes, failures, shame and personal disasters, and light the way for how to use those to create your biggest and most gorgeous comebacks. Follow the show now. Grab your iced coffee and turn up the volume for girls who recover. Let's light it up. Welcome, gorgeous. Back to the Girls Who Recover podcast. I'm your host Dana Hunter Fela, and I am here to close out our sober September series on the girls Who Recover podcast. And so this month is all about being sober and the difference between sobriety and recovery and it we two really gorgeous and different conversations with women who are at various levels in their own sobriety journey. And in their own recovery journey. So I hope that you have loved those. I also have gone off the box, off the Rucker on purpose because I wanna be sure that I'm being as authentic and genuine with you as I possibly can. I'm not holding back and just to out myself. I'm definitely not everybody's cup of tea, and we're gonna be okay with that.'cause I don't even like tea. I like coffee. Anybody else? Coffee, iced coffee. About 4:00 PM on a weekday. No, just me. Okay. I've actually gotten better about doing that. So a few things before we get started today is our Ask Me Anything episode and I pulled my Facebook group and I pulled my Facebook audience and I pulled my communities and my friends and my masterminds and I said, if you could ask me anything about sobriety and or recovery. Right, because recovery doesn't always mean sobriety. We can be recovering from things like people pleasing and over-functioning and overachievement and war, alcoholism and all the things, right? So recovery being all inclusive, not necessarily predicated on sobriety, although it is for me,'cause that was my main issue. And as you know, once I solved that one, more issues came to light. So what do you know? Welcome to humanity. And I said, if you could ask me anything about sobriety and recovery, what would you ask me? And there are a lot of you who responded. So, because my husband is gonna be home in 25 minutes and I'm going for a walk with him because he is so sexy and we have this time blocked out together. To connect, which is important'cause one of this questions is about recovery and marriage. So hopefully I get to that one. I'm do my best answer as many of these questions as I now, I was debating earlier as I was on my. I was in the bathroom actually.'cause where else do we do our best thinking? And I thought who are you to answer these questions? Are you some sort of expert? And I'm gonna say, yeah, I am. I am an expert. And I'm not sure what you believe qualifies somebody to be an expert. If this is your first episode, welcome home. I'm so glad you found us. Please, if you love it or if you don't, that's fine too. Share it with a friend who might need to hear a message of hope, who might need to hear that it's possible to recover from any setback and create the most gorgeous comeback that you could possibly imagine. Especially for women. That is not only possible for you, it is your birthright. And that's the message that the Girls Who Recover podcast. So just in case you forgot. Okay. All right. So where was I? Oh, doing my best thinking. Oh, right. Am I an expert? Yes. I've been sober for 15 plus years. I've been active, very active, maybe even overly active in the recovery community for just as much time. And I am obsessed with the difference between sobriety. Recovery, which might also be like the difference between healing and really living. And I started girls Who Recover and I started my coaching and speaking business because I was deep in the rooms of recovery and I kept seeing women with. Plenty of time and lots of time and time, time, time still suffering and struggling. And I said, we've gotta be done with that. We have to be done with attachment to struggle because that's not the assignment and that's not our promise. And that's not actually what this episode is about. But just in case it's your first time here. Welcome. And this month is about sobriety and the difference between sobriety and recovery. And I'm also personally obsessed with creating a life that I absolutely love and I want to make it my mission. I have made it my mission to show other women how to do the same and extra bonus if you're in br if you're sober and in recovery, because that's my favorite place to hang out besides bedtime with my girls. That's also super fun. Okay, so the other thing I wanted to mention is, oh my God, your girl's 44. I turned 44 last week and we went so hard in celebration mode that I was like emotionally and spiritually hungover for the next like four. My husband nailed it. He woke us up with Michael Jackson's, or not Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder. I love both Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. They're on the same playlist. The Stevie Wonder birthday song. It's the best one, and I will listen to it all day long, whether it's my birthday or yours. And then there were flowers and then there was a date lunch. And then he slayed the birthday game by surprising me for ti with tickets to Alabama shakes. Surprising. Surprised is like a relative term there, right? Because like I definitely told'em the moment they came out that I said, they're coming on my Brits and I wanna see them. And so we did and we co-created this really magical day that happened to be on a Tuesday because I think every day is really important to celebrate, especially since. If you're like me, you really shouldn't be having any birthdays. The way that I was living before I got sober and before I really leaned in fully to recovery was not setting me up to, to succeed in life and not even to have, in fact, I'll tell you this, maybe I've said this before. I got sober when I was 28, and for the most of my life I didn't believe that I would make it to 30 and not. I didn't suspect. I like literally did not think that I would be 30. So the fact that we're 44 strong, which I'm claiming is the year of magic, say it with me. Magic. And a couple of cool numerology things is I'm 44, September 23rd is my birthday. I am a first day Libra. So we're all about harmony and balance and I don't know about that, but I still love being a Libra. I also will pick up 16 years of sobriety, so 44 and 16. If you're a mathie Mather like me, you know that there's some magic in those numbers. And so I took. Every opportunity to celebrate is what I want you to hear. I celebrated with my kids. I celebrated with their godfather. I celebrated with my friends. We had a girl's brunch, I'm calling it from now on the annual magic brunch. I celebrated with my husband. I celebrated with myself. I went on a run. I got a two hour massage. I had my favorite late afternoon cold brew to light the fire of the next three days, and I made myself available to receive. Which makes me feel really emotional. So one of the questions is what's your favorite thing about recovery? And it's this expansive feeling of being worthy and deserving of receiving it all. Receiving all the love and all the appreciation and all of it. I was like trying to work Facebook. I've only had Facebook for 20 years and I still am like, how do you do this? In fact, my phone's probably gonna die before this live stream finishes, so you'll have to go listen to the actual podcast this week on the on your podcast platform. I've totally lost my train of thought. Where were we? We were celebrating, we were drinking iced coffee and Yes, I'm sorry, it's lost. Maybe it'll come back. So we're celebrating because really and truthfully, these last 15 years have been lanap. They've been extra, and I really believe truly in a couple of things. One, I'm gonna stay grateful and stay excited about this new life that I have. And number two is, I think we need, as women need to be. Celebrating our age more. Can I get an amen on the fuck you patriarchy, please. If I see us pretending like we still wanna be 29 and oh my age, and oh this and all that no, that's a noise. Let's be done with that. Where the real celebration lies is in the beauty of what it means to be a woman. Aging gracefully with wisdom and power and nurturing this not just for ourselves, but for the women and the girls that get to share our space. Do you think I'm gonna talk shit about myself in front of my three young daughters about what it feels like to be in my forties? Absolutely not. That's not what I was put here to do. That's not the assignment. The assignment is to revel in the 24 hours that I have, and that is what recovery looks like for me. It's not just about not drinking anymore. I don't even think about that. That sounds disgusting to me. That in itself is a miracle. And it wasn't like that the first year, and it wasn't like that the first couple of years. But now it's not only can I not drink forever and not think about drinking, but I am so deeply invested in being in love with my own life. I can barely sit in this chair right now. Not because it's perfect or because I need to like, make everything look okay, like I'm showing up here no makeup. Like I, I'm still feel like I look sexy as hell, but I'm not trying to hide anything from myself or from you. I genuinely love my 24 hours. I love it. Ups, downs, twisty turns, swerves and all. And so I wanna close out sober September with an Ask Me Anything to celebrate sobriety, to celebrate recovery, and to celebrate your voice. Because there were so many of you that asked questions. I don't think we're gonna get to all of'em. Maybe a part two is in order. Okay. So let's go to Cana first. Cana, I love you so much. She's my. Soulmate. She's my client. She's my mastermind partner. She's all the things she says, and she is not sober. I don't know if she is or not. Okay. What's one main benefit you experience now when going out and staying sober? I am sorry. I don't mean to laugh. Of course someone that doesn't have or understand alcoholism would ask that question. It's such a good one. Okay. So the most simple answer I can give you about the benefit that I experiencing now when I get to go out and I just shared with you we went to Alabama shakes, we go out all the time, specifically in the name of entertainment or live music or somebody's birthday party or having a blast. I mean, I'll tell you. As I've gotten wiser in years, I actually prefer to wake up earlier. So instead of staying out till midnight, my sexy bedtime is like 8:30 PM but I will wake up at four 30 and have the best day ever. So there's that is, maybe I do less of it, but what I was laughing about is, oh, I remember it. I'm there for the Alabama Shakes concert. I was with her in the fourth row. I was with the song, I felt the music. I created joy in the space. I danced. I made friends with the people next to me. And I don't mean sloppy drunk friends. I mean, you look amazing. I'm so glad to share space with you. And I was able to take it all in from the stage and the audience, and we went to the Sanger Theater in New Orleans and there are these stars in the sky and it felt like magic. And so the long and short of it is number one. I remember because back in the days when I was drinking, I drank so much that my mind went into what we're we call blackout, where it's like you're functioning but you're not actually remembering. That's, a science question for another day, but I spent a lot of my life functioning and not, not remembering, and then doing things that made me feel so ashamed or being told that I had done those things. So no more of that, like that. Could that be enough? But the real thrill is being somewhere. And this often means like putting away my phone.'cause that is a, an addiction. It means putting away my thoughts about future and past and being so deeply in the moment that it feels like a present tense orgasm. And I don't mean that like in any way, except for that's what it feels like to be so in love with your life. But it, and it requires presence and staying presence. And for me, it requires sobriety. I cannot be fully present in the moment. When I have shut off the spiritual gate with poison and toxins, okay, so I know I used to think that I was having a good time because I would drink, but actually I was just denying myself the gift of the present moment, the gift of my husband being at my side and shaking my ass in the row and being available for her soulful voice and really being in the moment. Living the life, living the 24 hours, that's the main benefit. Okay? Like just no big deal. Just everything. Okay. Casey, my girl. Love you girl. Check out, by the way, Cana has a podcast. It's midlife butterfly. Go check it out. It's awesome. And Casey has a podcast and it's called The Inner Spark. Check her out. She's fantastic. And both of them interestingly, have been guests on girls who recover. Casey asks, how would you say going through the recovery process has helped you handle other situations in my life? That's a beautiful question, and I'll just say in the most simple way, going through the recovery process has given me a life. Why am I crying on the podcast? Is this even happening? It really is. It's happening. We're going with it. Okay. So the recovery process not only saved my life,'cause as you heard, I was not gonna make it to 30. It also gave me a life. It gave me the situations that now I get to handle. And just for minorities out there, the recovery process is infinite. It's never ending. And so it's not graduate school where you go and you take the classes or you take the steps or you take whatever and then you're done and you're good to go. That's not my experience. The nature of my alcoholism is it's a lifelong, it's like herpes, my friend. It doesn't go away. It doesn't go away. Ask me how I know. Okay, can we get out of the shame stigma of all the things. So the recovery process. Gave me a life. It saved my life. And the same principles that I learned in recovery, which is not just not doing the thing that is killing me, but also being so available for the power of a relationship with the infinite, a reckoning and righting of the past, deep connections with other humans, and a life that's filled with love and service. All of that spills over into every area, so it makes my marriage better because I pause instead of yelling at him most of the time. It makes my parenting better because I know that I am not actually in charge of my kids. They are guided, loved, and supported by the same spirit of the universe that I am, and so I get to show up and be light foreign with them. It helps me in other areas of my life, like my health, because I remember how grateful I am and how much I shouldn't even have a body that I want to take really good care of the body that I have. So I eat well. I'm in the middle of a fast right now. I drink water. I exercise every day, and that came from recovery, which reminded me who I am, what is possible for me. And whose I am, a daughter of the divine, a daughter of the infinite, a child of the great creator. And how, how would I not wanna take care of my body when I remember who I actually am? And that is the big, one of the biggest gifts where recovery has given me. Carrie says, beautiful. Love you, Carrie, Rachel. Hey, girl. Okay. Rachel asks such a bombshell question, how do you apply the principles of recovery to your marriage and motherhood? And I think I spent a little bit of time talking about that, but I don't have recovery if it's only showing up in the recovery community. Does that make sense? Real recovery is messy and it's like water. Okay? Not messy in a good way. The sexy kind of messy, and it's like water. So this is almost empty. I've got how I'm hit my water goal. I've got a little electrolytes going here from my fast, but if I take this water and I dump it out on the computer, it's not gonna stay. First of all, it's gonna not do good things for my computer, but maybe it needs a good clean, it's not gonna stay in one place. And that is the nature of recovery. Because the way that I do recovery is based on a spiritual foundation and the spirit is like water. And it expands and it cleanses and it goes all over the place. And we can't jump in a pool and be like, water stay right there. The water's gonna go everywhere. So it's the same thing with recovery and marriage. And then being a mom, is that the same kind of. Right living that I'm pretending sometimes that I'm actually doing in my recovery. That's, I say pretend only because, let me just slow down here. At the beginning I was pretending. I was pretending to know how to even go 24 hours without drinking. I was pretending to know how to be a human. Was pretending to know how to function well in the greater whole of society. What I mean by that is like not believing that I was better than, or worse than just like really landing softly in the middle and being love to love and so. Through that I also was carried and taught and guided and mentored and spiritually led, and sometimes dragged and sometimes carried so that I could continue to practice those same things I learned in early recovery that I'm still practicing now, like love and tolerance and patience and accepting without condition, and, essentially being love. That's what it comes down to is my rendition of recovery. Real recovery means like I am love, and there's this beautiful definition of humility that's in one of the recovery texts that says, forgive me if I don't get it exactly right. Recovery is a clear recognition of who and what we are, followed by a sincere promise to become what we could be. Okay, so Humili humility is not humiliation. It's not us flinging our arms in the sky and saying, okay, well, I'm not good enough. And it's all no, it is not that. It is. I know who I am. I know who I am, and I know what the promises are. I know what the assignment is, and I'm not gonna hold myself back. I'm not gonna believe the things that shame would have me believe. I'm not gonna listen to the patriarchy that would keep me safe and small. I'm going to listen to my inner guidance. I access in prayer and meditation and fellowship and community, and I'm going to practice that on the ground. So instead of yelling at the five-year-old in the morning, which is what my negative ego would have me do, what my impatience would have me do, I get down on the floor with her and I'm like, baby, love you. It's time to go. Let's go play with the bunnies. Let's brush our teeth like it looks like. Love and patience with the five-year-old. With my husband, with my friends, and it also looks like loving honesty. So when I'm feeling frustrated, I don't self, I don't abandon my feelings, and I don't not say the thing. I'm holding my throat chakra here. That needs to be said because sometimes the most kind thing we can do is be lovingly honest about our feelings, about our experience, about our beliefs. And so that hopefully that helps. I'm honest with my husband. I'm honest with my kids in a way that is loving and kind. So there's a balance. You feel it, right? Real recovery is about not being on the extreme on better than or worse than. It's about landing really gently in the middle. I hope that was helpful, so. The principles, again, don't exist in isolation. That my marriage is the principles. My mo motherhood is the principles. And one of the principles I love so much about recovery is this principle of grace and it, it sounds like this, so you've heard it a million times. Progress not. Perfection progress, not perfection. So when I do yell at the five-year-old, or when I do start a fight unintentionally or maybe unintentionally with my husband, I can take a step back, seek spiritual guidance from a human mentor, from the spirit of the universe, from my girls in my group, from my friends, and then write the situation. I'll be doing that for the rest of my life because I don't know about you, but my aim isn't even perfection. That doesn't even sound like fun. What sounds like fun is learning and growing and leaning in on progress. Can I get an amen on a weekday? Oh my goodness, Priscilla, this question is so good. Priscilla says, what makes you feel the most sexy? And this is such a good question because I thought before I got sober that I was really sexy. I mean, I was also in my twenties, but I wore all the sexy things. And then I would go do the sexy things. Wear the sexy things. Do the sexy things, and think that over drinking and alcohol abuse and the blackouts and the guilt and the shame and the remorse and the unexplained marks and the unexplained P months next to me. All of that in the name of, oh, well, it's sexy, right? I would also start the night with a very sexy martini glass. And in some of my final days, end up under a house with a cracked red solo cup. Okay, so alcoholism is real for me. And so what I thought was sexy was really delusion. And what I now know is the most sexy is authenticity. Isn't that sexy when a woman is like, this is who the fuck I'm, that is sexy. And my husband is turned on by that. My listeners are turned on by that. And what's the other thing that's most sexy? And I've said it before already in this episode. Is allowing myself to be turned on and in love with my own life. And so sometimes it looks like it's wearing sexy clothes or like having sexy energy. But the most sexy thing about my recovery is the fact that I'm obsessed with my own life. I love it. I love it here. I love it in this body. I love it in my home. I love these flowers behind me. I'm like that little girl. If you haven't seen this YouTube video, please. She's four or three. She's I love my life. I love my dad. I love that is truth. That is someone who's connected to the spirit of the universe and that is sexy for me. Priscilla also asked, this is beautiful. Great question. Priscilla's like a go-getter. She's got three questions. Okay. Lemme take one more. What's something you do every day that has kept you moving toward. Your goals or that sets you up for a successful day. Ugh. Such good questions. Okay. I have a morning practice. I am diligent about the morning practice because I believe that magic and miracles begin in the morning. I'm gonna say it again. Magic and miracles begin in the morning. You see what I did with alliteration there too, right? Okay. So I wake up and the very first thing I do is I think now it's involuntary'cause my brain is trained. I am so grateful to be alive today. What I got another day. It doesn't always come naturally with that level of intensity, but it does come. I'm so grateful. In fact, this morning I woke up with a little bit of like nervous energy, maybe a little feelings of anxiety. And the way that I pour on a healing balm, an antidote to that is to count the ways that I'm feeling grateful. All of the things that I can feel grateful about, not think grateful about.'cause gratitude is not a thinking, it's a feeling. So wake up and feel gratitude. And then I hit my knees like in child's post position and I say, God, creator of the universe. Come in here. Get in my mind. Get in my heart. Get in my body. Create this day, co-create this day with me. I. Then I surrender the day. Sometimes I take it back often every day. Let's be real. But I'll invite God's spirit of the universe into the day and then take, ask the, ask God to take over. Then I meditate and I have extended my meditation practice. Right now, I'm doing 17 minutes in the morning, and ideally I would do 17 minutes in the afternoon. I'm practicing Zeva meditation. But there's no right way to meditate. I'm, I'm a big fan of the Insight Timer app. I started with the free version totally to recommend it. And you could start with one minute, and that is how I started. And it can be silent or it can be guided, or it can be movement, it can be whatever you want it to be. And then I will journal about. The day as if it's already happened. So this might be considered a spiritual manifestation practice, but I don't just let the day happen. I design it. Remember, I've already put God in charge of the day, and then I write the day as if it's already happened, and I write it in gratitude. I'm so thankful that my podcast was easy and fun. I'm so thankful that all these. Beautiful women ask great questions. I'm so thankful that my walk with my husband was a connector. I'm so grateful that this talk I get to give later tonight moved someone to take an action to serve their spirit. You see what I'm saying? And then every single day, I exercise every day because I didn't get a new life to not take care of the temple. You heard sometimes it's a walk, sometimes it's a hard run. Sometimes it's a rage run. Sometimes it's at the gym, sometimes it's booty. Like whatever it is, it doesn't matter what it is. For me, it is a non-negotiable to move my body because my mental health, my spiritual health are all connected to me taking care of the temple. Can I get an amen on a on a week weekday? Oh, this is such a good question. Best vacation I've ever gone on. Well, number one, I remember all of them, so they're all the best. But the one my husband and I took this year was we went to Vancouver, British Columbia for a recovery conference, and we were around 35,000 people who were both sober and in recovery. What? Plus we got to go to Canada and we got to use our passports, which I never thought I would be able to use a passport again. That might be a whole separate episode about why, but we had passports. They let us in and we had a blast. Okay. I hear my husband coming through the door, so Marcel, my spirit, mama, I love you so much. She says, what challenges do you have that look different now in sobriety than when they happen before sobriety? Interesting. What challenges do you have now that look different? Than before. Hmm. I don't know why this is coming through, but let me let it through. So I just had a podcast interview with a perfectionist. It wasn't even a podcast, it was a client call. I had a potential client call with a woman who's clearly a perfectionist. I mean, I can spot it a mile away because that was me and hyper achieving total type A God bless us all. I mean, that could be its own recovery category. And that was me. So not only did I have a crazy addiction to alcohol and alcoholism, I also was. So intense and hardcore about achievement and perfection and 4.0 GPA at Johns Hopkins and president of the sorority. And I'm gonna be, you know, this makes six figures by the time I'm 20. And then and I did all that stuff and I was coaching this woman to be like, yeah, your mind can help you create all of that. And it does such. The, the job that it gets done is so small in comparison to what is possible when you surrender your life to the care of the spirit of the universe. I don't know that that resonated with her, but I hope that it resonates with you. And so I still have a tendency, my ego and achieve mechanism is like. Five. Yeah, of course you're because you're amazing. But really it wasn't me. It was I a put my hand on the heart. I invite the spirit of the universe to come and speak through me. And then the thing just takes off without I don't, didn't even have any goals. I'm not even trying trying to do anything here except for give myself permission to have a voice for the assignment that's on my heart. And of course it's successful'cause I'm not even in charge. I just show up and record. I don't even know what's happening, so. There is a part of me that still wants to be perfect and is part of me that still wants to achieve. And the difference now is that I'm, I'm mostly done with the hustle. I'm mostly done. Like I see that part of me that's really a trauma response arise and wanna be like, let's be the best here. Let's be the best member of recovery. Let's be the best mentor, let's be the best coach. Let's be the best. And that's like a delusion. It's a delusion of the ego. It's a delusion of the patriarchy. And it's the thing that I actually drank over was this belief that I needed to be separate to be worthy or needed to be better than to be worthy. And I won't lie to you and tell you that I don't still need that sometimes. That's why I'm still a fricking room mom at the school, even though I'm like, why are you doing this to yourself? Well,'cause I love my daughters and I like to be involved, right? Slash. Influential, but the difference between then and now is that I can laugh about it, I laugh about it, and I am available for accountability. I'm available for a woman to be like, that was a lot. Tell me more about that. You know? Or for a mentor to say you're full of shit right now. Can we get to God? Like, how can we get back to God? Can we get out of your negative ego and back to God? The old me would've been like, how dare you? How dare you? And the new recovered me is still like a little bit, how dare you? But also, yes, please tell me more because I'm not God. And I'm done trying to play that way. Oh my gosh. Girls, ladies, these questions are so freaking good. Okay. So I might have time for one more and I'm gonna pull one from my mastermind group. Okay. That is so big. That's a big question. I'm gonna save that one for next time. Okay. This is a great question to go out on. My dear friend and podcast colleague and famous writer, Jen Chambers, I'm name dropping, also one of my favorite new podcasts called Same Crime, different Time, and she also just launched, whoops. She also just launched a second rebranded podcast called Beyond the Margins'cause she's such a brilliant writer. So recommend both of those if you like True Crime. The True Crime one's great. Also, she's published like 30 plus books and she's a dang rock star. Okay. John Chambers, here's your question. How did you deal with the changes in your relationships, especially friendships when you stopped drinking? How were you able to continue them or did you have to let some of them go? That as it turns out, that actually is a really big question. Okay, let's go for it. So I'll be super honest with you. I didn't even really have any relationships when I came in. I had some fake friendships and I had these gorgeous, lovely men that I had strung along and cheated on and been unfaithful to, and been and lied to and couldn't. The one of the defining features of alcoholism is we're just unable to connect. Our spirits are so shut down by alcohol and drugs and using and, you know, whatever your addiction is. Somebody wrote in a question about sugar. I bet sugar is blocking you from your spirit. In fact, I guarantee it is. That doesn't mean I don't have some, some of the time, but like alcohol, I can't have some of some of the time. That's maybe the difference between. I don't know. That's a different episode. Okay, so number one, I did not really have many relationships because I believed that I needed to be separate in order to be better than or worse than. Okay. That's my ego had fed me that, so I had some friends. But if you asked them closely how much we were really friends, they probably would not like shake their head a little bit because I didn't have the skills or the experience or even the desire to connect to people on an intimate level. That's just the truth, and that's why I love my life so, so much is like now I can be intimate, connect with basically anyone, especially women. And I will say there was this one friend, probably more than this, but this one friend that I had made recently, maybe six months before I got sober. And we were so tight and I loved her so much, and we loved each other, but the only thing we really did consistently was drink together. And so when I got sober, that friend ghosted me, which I'm sure I've done right. Karma's real, but it really, had me draw a line in the sand that it was like, man, that really hurts. And I could go back. I could go back to drinking and I could go back to her, or I could go back to that life. But by the time she ghosted me, I was already really clinging to the promises that recovery has offered me. And so, i'm able to have relationships now. I feel like I wanna lay on the floor and cry about that because I have some friendships that I've been able to reignite and re nurture from days long gone by. I have a friend that I'm obsessed with. We love each other so much, or raising our kids together. When I'm in Kentucky, we've been friends for all 44 of the years, but there aren't many like that because of my. Inability to create and maintain positive relationships. The same with my family, and that's one of the features of the recovery process that I'm a part of and that we, I'll just speak to me. I went back and tried to make those relationships right through the amends process. And so some of the relationships I was able to nurture and revive, and some of them I just wasn't. And that's happened both pre sobriety and in recovery where we've just become different people and that's been okay. And so I did continue some, the one I mentioned my fast friend from 44 years. Love you so much, Kate. And I did let some go. And then as I become even more deep in recovery and even more recovered, and I'm vibrating at a higher frequency, some of the friendships that have lasted a long time are also waning or disappearing, and not everybody rises at the same time. Okay, so the other thing is like I have a husband. We've been married for 11 and a half years. We have three beautiful daughters, and I couldn't. Be with a person long enough to like even consider getting married to them. There was this one sweet man, I love him so much. He looks like he's living the happiest, most joyful, fancy life, and I, he deserves all of that. But that was really my only shot because in all of my relationships I was dishonest. I was unfaithful, I was unconcerned. I was very selfish. And so now I am the. Opposite of those things, although maybe selfish still sometimes. And so the nature of my relationships has definitely evolved and I'm so grateful. I'm grateful for the friendships that I have. I'm grateful for the friendships that I've had. I'm grateful for my marriage. I'm grateful for my kids, and the relationships are the thing that makes me feel most alive because it reminds me what real recovery means. And it means being one among many. It means being authentic and unashamed and unafraid to say the truth in a kind and loving way. And it means living in the middle of my own life. So my husband's home and since, he's hot and I wanna go for a walk with him. I'm gonna sign off, and I want you to know this. If you are thinking about getting sober, it's great and maybe if you're thinking about it, it's a calling on your heart. In my experience, I could never have access to the spiritual nature of my essence, the spiritual path, the assignment, the downloads from the divine, the messages from the infinite, or this gorgeous community that I get to be a part of if I didn't start with sobriety. So I'm not here to market sobriety. I just wanna be real with you about all the gifts that it plus recovery, because those two things are not necessarily together for everyone. There are plenty of sober people out there who do not live their lives. And plenty of recovered people out there who like don't necessarily identify as sober and all, both of that is okay. It's all okay as long as we are loving our 24 hours. So are you loving your 24 hours? So awesome. What can you do to serve the next woman? If you're not, what's one thing that you can do to fall more in love with your 24 hours? Maybe it's get sober. Maybe it's meditate. Maybe it's move your body. Maybe it's make a new friend. Maybe it's. Speak authentically from your own voice instead of that girl good girl syndrome that we're suffering with. I don't know what it is, but I do wanna know. So if you are watching this on Facebook while it's still up, please tell me, and if you're listening on the podcast, there's a text message number that you can text me. I wanna hear from you what is the thing that you are doing to love on your one precious life? So this round and the 24 hours that you get to stand in, and I want you to hear this from me to you. I believe this so deeply. I love you. I'm so grateful for you. I'm so freaking proud of you, and I believe deeply in your ability to create a life that you absolutely love. I hope you ha hope you've had the biggest blast in sober September. I definitely have, and we'll see you in October where the theme is gonna be the Shameless woman. Stay tuned. Oh, whoa. Did you just feel what I felt? There is a whole lot of that and more to help you create miracles in your life. On upcoming episodes of the Girls Who Recover a podcast now ranked in the top 5% of podcasts globally. If you've built a strong recovery foundation and you're feeling ready to break through life's glass ceilings, let's make it happen together. In the show notes, you'll find a link to book a free one-on-one conversation with me and in that conversation. We'll get clear on what next level success even looks like for your life. We'll create some powerfully aligned goals and a plan. We're gonna talk about the big thing holding you back, and you will walk away with a roadmap for how to create a life you are obsessed with. Because hear this from me, my friend. You deserve. Success and freedom and the full identity of a woman who knows what she's capable of and who she is. And I wanna help you get there. So book your free call in the notes. And if you love this episode, follow us five stars, write a review, share it with your best friend, share it with your mom. And in case you haven't heard it today, I love you. I'm so proud of you, and I believe in your ability to create a gorgeous life. You are madly in love with starting. Right now and I'll see you in the next episode, blah.