Ambien Addiction Almost Destroyed Her Life: Laura Cathcart Robbins

Laura Cathcart Robbins is the best-selling author of the Atria/Simon & Schuster memoir Stash, My Life In Hiding, and host of the popular podcast Only One In The Room. Laura has been featured on MSNBC, The Tameron Hall Show, C-SPAN, and Dr. Phil, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Good Housekeeping, Today.com, Huffpo, and more. In 2024, Laura’s New York Times Modern Love essay was turned into an episode of the Modern Love Podcast, and she was named the SDWF Memoirist Of The Year. A TEDx speaker, Laura currently sits on the advisory boards of the San Diego Writers’ Festival and The Buckley School’s nationally recognized DEI Board Committee. Find out more about her on her website, lauracathcartrobbins.com, or you can look for her on Instagram at @lauracathcartrobbins.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Thriving with Addiction Podcast, where we explore how recovery is not just about surviving, but about truly living. Each week we'll dive into the science, stories, and strategies that help people and families heal from addiction and build healthier, more resilient lives. I'm your host, Dr. John Avery. Let's get started. I'm John Avery and welcome back to Thriving with Addiction. Today I'm joined by Laura Cathcart-Robbins. She's the best-selling author of the memoir Stash, My Life in Hiding, and host of the popular podcast, Only One in the Room. Laura has been featured on MSNBC, The Tamron Hall Show, C-SPAN, and Dr. Phil, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Good Housekeeping, Today.com, and more. In 2024, her New York Times Modern Love essay was turned into an episode of the Modern Love Podcast, and she was named the SDWF Memoirist of the Year. A TEDx speaker, Laura currently sits on the advisory boards of the San Diego Writers Festival and the Buckley School nationally recognized DEI board committee. Laura, that's you. Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Thank you for having me and thank you for reading the whole bio. I think it's a long bio.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

So well, you've done you've done a lot and your journey has has gone a lot of places, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

It it has indeed.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Your story is so unique that if you don't mind, take me back to the to the very beginning from growing up and and and how you made your way all these years to who you are today. Oh, you mean like the whole story? Take me way back. Yeah, let's start. Let's start. I I mean you're uh high school was tricky, right? And growing up with your parents divorcing, tell tell me, tell us some of that that uh origin story.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah. Um yeah, my my parents' divorce wasn't actually very tricky. They got divorced when I was four. And even though my dad moved away to go to med school and then um lived in another state after that, you know, for the rest of my life, they still raised me together. Um, so my parents, it was a very kind of cohesive, um, I think progressive for that time, which was, you know, late 60s, early 70s. Um, but but I did have a hard time with my stepfather. And that that happened. He came into my life when I was five. Um, they got married uh a couple of years after that, and he was just somebody for whom, you know, uh kind of everything I did rubbed him the wrong way. And I do talk about him when I talk about my addiction because I think the scaffolding for it started then when I started to edit myself. Because if I was my authentic self and it rubbed in the wrong way, um my house got very violent, not toward me, physically violent, but it would get violent toward my mother. And even beyond physical violence, the the rage, the yelling um was was something that was really hard for me to metabolize uh then and now, honestly. Um I I I find it quite difficult um to be in a situation where someone is yelling the way that the yelling occurred in my home when I was growing up. And and so I would edit myself and I would comportmentalize and I would, you know, not be myself if it were going to be something that he wouldn't like. And it sounds like a lot of kind of mental gymnastics. Um, I got quite good at it very early on, so I there wasn't as much thought involved. I just started doing it. But what I I didn't realize the cost of it. Um, I wouldn't realize that until, you know, much, much later, decades and decades later.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Did anyone else realize or what was going on with you back then or try to intervene?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

I don't think so. You know, like my my dad, he had no idea any of that was happening. Um he didn't know until until my book came out in 2023. And I aside from all that, I was a really like happy social child. Um, so nobody really had any reason to worry about me or to look any further into what was happening. And like I mean, when I say I was good at compartmentalizing, I mean I was, you know, an expert at it. I was very good at it. It was seamless. So it even to me, it didn't seem like I was compartmentalizing. I when I reflect back on those times, except for those periods where there would be issues with my stepfather, the majority of my childhood I think on only.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

And it sounds like you sort of hit it by being happy. You know, sometimes you imagine when trauma happens that people are acting in problematic ways, but we can hide behind a smile as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, I mean, I I think my baseline is happy. This is what I feel as an adult, you know, who's been sober for a number of years. I really get to see what I am, stripped down, naked, like without anything. And I wake up happy every morning and I go to sleep pretty happy. I'm not an anxious person. Like I don't I don't identify as an anxious person because I don't have a lot of anxiety in my life. And I think that's who I was before he came into my life anyway. So certainly there was some masking going on. Um, but for the most part, I think that's who I was authentically. And the the it did carry me though, quite a while. Because again, like, why would you investigate the happy child?

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Right. Yeah. Exactly. And what happened from there? Because things did get a little rocky for you, I think, in high school and then in the sum of the post-high school years.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah. Well, I didn't I didn't get very far in high school. I I finished the ninth grade year, but none of my ninth grade classes. Um, and and the truth was it was I was just lost there. I had gone from um a small Montessori school in Cambridge, Mass. We had moved to Berkeley, California. And I went to my first public school, which is high school, it's Berkeley High. Shout out to the Yellow Jackets. And, you know, there were 3,000 kids on this campus. And I I was literally lost the first week. Like I couldn't find anything. And then when I did, you know, the education I had been given up until that point was not an education that was a good base for for high school. I I didn't know any of the basics. I didn't know anything. Um, in my my algebra class, I was completely unprepared. I was unprepared for chemistry, like anything that there was a preciseness to it, where there wasn't just like I could give an opinion or be creative. Um, I I was really failing in. And so I just stopped going to those classes. And eventually I stopped going to all my classes. And um, again, nobody knew. All the correspondence happened by actual mail, snail mail, and I've been intercepting letters from the school successfully up until a time where I missed one and then it all came crashing down.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

What was the response of your family then?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

I don't really remember, honestly. I remember sitting in the counselor's office and like my stepfather not being happy. But both of them, my mother and my stepfather were very confused. Like, you mean she hasn't been going like all year? Like, what are you what are you telling us? Like, how could that even be possible? And and so the decision, I don't remember going home with them afterwards. I don't remember whatever discussion took place. But I was able to continue to live at home if I got a job. That was the response. And I know that my mother was very disappointed. And I know that my stepfather was angry, but I don't I don't remember those conversations after that.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

But uh sort of a pretty dramatic signal that not everything was right.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I mean, I don't think I was seen as a delinquent or something like that, because even though I was literally um a delinquent, I because I was not showing up.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

You were delinquent, yes. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Um, but I I think I was seen as somebody who maybe just lazy, like I just didn't do what I was supposed to do. And I'm I'm guessing that. Um no one, no one that I remember ever voiced that to me, but it wasn't so much that I was bad or rebellious, it was like you could have done better. We're so disappointed. This, you know, like you have it in here. Everybody thought I was very bright, that I had a lot of potential, and they didn't understand why I wasn't using it.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

What happened from there?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

I got a job. I got then I got another job, and I got like, you know, day jobs. I worked at a sauna, I worked at an ice cream store, I worked as a waitress. Like I did that. So I was in 10th grade when I was finally caught. Um, so there were two more years, two and a half more years of until I turned 18. So I worked like that until I turned 18. And um, and then after I turned 18, I kept I kept doing those types of jobs for a while and still living at home.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

And some point some substances did creep in as you were trying to navigate all that. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Yeah, yeah. I um and it's you know, it's a really interesting thing to tell people about because people have an idea of of what it might have looked like to do cocaine in the early low, late mid-80s. It was the mid-80s, no, the the early 80s, it was very early 80s. Um you know, freebasing was um later turned into like what crack cocaine is, and then it was sold on the street. But at that time, it was not. And it was this like there would be like these very glamorous parties where people would be cooking cocaine in the kitchen and people would be smoking it like um kind of like you know, like opium dens dens in like, you know, the the dynasty years of China, um, where there were wealthy people that had access to this drug. And there was music and dancing and really good food, and there would be this too, this this smoking of cocaine called freebasing. And I was introduced to somebody who had these parties, and um, I ended up trying it, which was very unlike me. I I was not a drinker, I didn't like alcohol. I tried weed, I didn't like it. We called it pot. Then um I had tried, you know, snorting cocaine, I did not like that at all. So I was not figuring that I was gonna like this at all, but I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And, you know, I would go back and hang out at his house with him for weekends after that, like go Friday night and come back home on Sunday. And I did that for almost a year.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

And that was a it's almost you're almost telling us if it was it was a good memory, a a good time. Were there challenges or how how did that come to an end?

SPEAKER_00 12:00

I mean, it was it it wasn't what I would think it was, like where it was dark and you know, scary or any of that. It wasn't any of that stuff, but you know, it's smoking cocaine, it's not good. And there's a come down and a withdrawal that's you know, really um it can be debilitating.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

And, you know, at first I didn't experience that, which is why I liked it so much, I think. But eventually, you know, I think my body built a tolerance and I started to experience withdrawal. And um, you know, I was always really thin. I think I was probably more thin toward the end of that year than I normally was. I was also mysteriously gone a lot. My mother didn't know where I was, and I was an adult then, but I was still living at home. And when she confronted me about it um with my dad, my not my stepfather, I was one shocked that they were so upset about something that I didn't think was that big of a deal, and two really eager to get them off my back. Like if I did not want to be this to be an issue. So um, so I I stopped. I stopped seeing him and I stopped doing that. And that was that was the end of it.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Again, a sort of ability you have where like some really major things happen and you sort of move quickly past them and change and just keep marching on in a in a rather unique way, I feel.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah, no, I thought so too. And I actually thought, well, you know, if I had wonderings about whether or not I wasn't at it, right? Um, or you know, on my father's side of my family, there were alcoholics. I understood what they looked like. They were like the ones in movies, you know, they drank themselves to death, they drank out of paper bags, they were destitute. Like I understood what alcoholism looked like. And so it really reassured me that I had done this drug for, you know, the better part of a year and I could put it down that easily. It proved to me that I was not an addict or an alcoholic. And that was like a big like relief, you know, at 2021, whatever, however, 1920, I guess I was then.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

Walk us through what happened next in your life because things you started to get successful at work and got married and had kids. How how did we get to that stage?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, I was I moved to Los Angeles. Um, I wanted to be a commercial director. That's that's what I thought I wanted to do with my life. And I saw I went to work for one and discovered that that's probably wasn't going to be what I did with my life. There, there just weren't anybody who looked like me um behind the camera in that industry and ended up working for a publicist, an entertainment publicist. So this is like all of my 20s. I'm in LA. I worked for that director, then I worked for a PR company, and then um eventually I opened my own. And it was during that time that I met the man that would become my husband. I was, I owned and ran a successful PR company. I was drinking then, but socially, um, it was I partied a lot. Like I had these hip hop clients and we would be out, you know, I had to go out with them and, you know, have them do press and not be ridiculous. And so I would have like a drink or two while we were out, but I still didn't really love alcohol. And because I'm on the East, the the East Coast, the West Coast, I would have to be up at like in my office by seven to deal with East Coast clients. So there wasn't a hangover, it was not an option for me. It would be terrible to have a hangover. So I drank socially throughout my 20s. And like you said, I I I got married um when I was 31. And I was 32 when my my first child was born, and 33 when the second was born. And um and it was after my second child was born that the trouble began for me.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

And we'll get in that to a sec, but I'm just curious what that transition was like for you. Because we were sort of working odd jobs and trying to make it, and suddenly you were in a much different place. You created your own PR company and you married someone that was on his way to becoming very famous in in his own right. Like life really changed a lot for you in the in a in short order.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

It did, it did. And um, you know, in in one way I thought I should have always lived like that. Like I should have always been the boss of a lot of people because I like bossing people around. And I always love nice things. And this kind of like I always figured I was bound for this kind of luxurious life. So it felt right in a way. But then, you know, it also here was I who didn't finish ninth grade or tenth grade. I mean, actually didn't finish either, but I went to both, um, who never went to college, who grew up really, really poor. Like, I shouldn't say we were really poor. We always had like a place. And but, you know, my my mother was on welfare while my dad was in in med school. Like we just until he started making money, we just didn't have any. And um, you know, she we lived in apartments where she slept in the living room and I had the bedroom. Like we were poor. And this was a much different world. This was private planes and nannies and, you know, eight-piece table settings and, you know, premieres and that kind of thing. So I'm a quick study. And I kind of, you know, quickly would educate myself by looking around, seeing what other people did, how they did it, um, how they dressed, what they didn't wear, what they did wear, like all that kind of stuff, and and figured it out. But um, you know, I thought getting into it, oh, this is what I need. I need to be in this position so I don't have to worry about anybody kind of scratching at my past and finding out that I didn't graduate from high school, you know, finding out how I actually grew up and not how I present. And so I thought if I got married to this man, and I I say, I say I thought that, but I don't think it was a conscious thought. It wasn't like strategy. It was just like there was an acceptance of I wouldn't have to worry about that once I was established in this new light.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Right. And that sort of was your strategy from the beginning, like something that was worrisome, you would quickly shift and you have this like incredible way about you. I can tell that people immediately sort of love you and and give you trust and and then you're on to the next thing, but without really addressing the thing that came before in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally without addressing it. Just you know, and and this is also, you know, uh a cultural thing, you know, in the black community, there's not a lot of going outside the family or certainly outside the community for quote unquote help. It's almost seen as a betrayal when one does. So it's not encouraged. I mean, I should it's different now. It's not that much different, but it's different now than when I was growing up. And even when I was, you know, in my 20s, I won't say, well, I can say that was, you know, um 30 plus years ago when I was in my 20s. So that's a long time ago. And things they just weren't discussed in the same way. And, you know, it was either seen as a betrayal or weakness asking for help. So it was never on my radar to do so. I never even thought about asking for help.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

It wasn't even in the menu of options. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

And then, and the reason I often refer people to your book and and your story, Ambient came in. Tell tell us how that got into your life.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Well, like a lot of people, I was it was prescribed to me. Um, it was prescribed to me after when my my second son was still a baby, um, I was just having the hardest time um at night. I, you know, I and I I I like to be careful about this because people get the impression that I was worried about them during the day, which I wasn't. I was I mean, I was. I was obviously worried about, not obviously some people aren't, but I was worried about my children, but like in a more healthy way. But I wasn't like, oh my God, he's gonna break his neck if he goes on that, you know, monkey bars or whatever it is. I wasn't worried like that. At night, I would be worried that they would wake up and I wouldn't be there. That was my primary worry that gave me a lot of anxiety to the point where, you know, any pre-wake-up winter whimper rather, I would shoot up out of bed like a fireman and go check them. And then I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep because I'd have so much adrenaline in my system from being like just like ready like that. Like, I'm here. What do you need? I do think a a lot of parents experienced this. Um, I think mine was another level of vigilance, of hypervigilance. And I think that it comes from when I was little and would listen for that escalation of violence in my house at night. And I couldn't rest until I was sure that everyone was asleep. And I think that didn't wake up in me again until I had kids. And then, um, you know, it like I said, there'd be like this vigilance. I was always a light, you know, I would sleep lightly until I needed to be up, and then there'd be this adrenaline dump and I couldn't get back to sleep. And then I had to get up with them. You know, they got up like kids do in the morning, and it was a full day. I stayed home with my kids. I shut up my PR company after my first son was born. I wanted to be an at-home mom. I was until they both graduated from high school. And um I I just uh I couldn't understand why this was something that I couldn't fix or compartmentalize or get beyond. Uh so I went to the doctor and told them what was going on. And, you know, in this very kind of intense, shaky way, because that's how I was feeling. I was, you know, had been without sleep for a couple of days and I was away from my kids for the hour that I was there on that visit. And I just wanted to get back on track and be whatever myself was, um, what I thought was myself, uh, which was not somebody who was intense and shaky all the time. I had turned into somebody that I didn't recognize. And so he prescribed me ambient. And you know, that first pill gave me everything I wanted. Everything. It gave me the sleep I was looking for, it relaxed me. I had the best of dreams, and I woke up feeling like super mom. Like I was full of energy, I could handle the day, give me the pumpkin patch, you know, no problem. Let's go on that hay ride. Let's go and play Spongebob for the 60th time with the puppets that we had. Like, whatever it was, I could do it. And I wanted to for my kids. I wanted to be that fun mom. And, you know, that first ambient let me see a world where I could be.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

It was almost too seductive, though, the high. How did things transpire from there?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yeah, I mean, that's that's the other thing is ambient seemed to have an effect on me that it doesn't have on everybody. Um most people, from what I understand, yeah, it it does send them into a nice sound sleep. But for me, it there was an added level of euphoria that I don't think most people experience with ambient.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

I can tell now, even in recalling it, you've it was it it really brought about some really feelings and incredible relief.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yes, yes. And and a high that was previously unknown to me, even back in the freebasing days. That was different. It was definitely a very, you know, intoxicating high. But this was different. This was I don't know. It was like every piece of me was impacted positively by it. My fingertips, my toes, my knees, like my scalp, like everything felt good when I took it for about 10 minutes before I fell asleep. Um but I only I took I only got prescribed one bottle that first year. And so it was 30 tablets. And I took those tablets kind of sparingly, like I would save them for treats, like when I really needed it or really needed a reset. And then the second year kids are both kids are walking and chasing them around, a lot of boy energy. Um and I started taking one more often, and and really it quickly got to one per night. It was kind of like one every three nights for maybe a month, but I would say by the second month it was one per night. And then I would start waking up in the middle of the night. And so I would take another half to go back to sleep. And then it it just escalated from there. Um and that that went on. That went on for about if from the first ambient to my last was about six years.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

And eventually, uh I've heard you describe it, went to a point where you were getting it from different doctors. This was before we had prescription monitoring services, and so you would go to a number of people to get more and more, and the use kept growing. What what eventually led you to confront it and and and want to change?

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Uh yeah, I did is doctor shopping, it's called. I have three names, Laura Cathcart Robins. So some were under Laura Cathcart, some were under Laura Robins, some were under all three names. Um, but even with that, with the maybe four doctors I had that would prescribe a you know a limited amount for me. Um, you know, when when they when they felt I was due for a refill, which meant I had to put on a really good show and show up and look very well, but not well rested. But I could not look like a drug addict when I went to see these doctors who wanted to see me before they prescribed me more ambient, which is very smart. And I'm so glad that they that they, you know, um, that was the protocol. In hindsight, I was not glad then. I was really upset by that because I would have just rather, you know, them call it in for me. Um, but I was getting a divorce then. I was getting a divorce. Um, I filed for divorce in February or March of 2008. Um I really thought that I was exceedingly unhappy um at that point. And I did not want to think it was the addiction. I didn't even want to think of it as an addiction. And so I thought, you know, maybe the marriage was what was making me unhappy. And if I got rid of that, then I could I wouldn't need to take as many pills and I would probably have a happier life. And um, you know, a few months later it accelerated a lot, and I uh thought that, you know, if if he found out, meaning my soon-to-be-ex-husband, how many pills I was taking, which in that point was up to 10 a day when I could get 10 a day, which was rare. But I took everything I got when I got it. So if I got 10 ambience, those 10 ambien were gone in a day. Um, but at that point, that would have been um that probably really bad for me to retain custody of my children, is what I figured. So I thought I should get in front of that and go to treatment to deal with the addiction so that I didn't get them taken away from me.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

And as you said earlier, that was facing a lot of sort of background and cultural background that said not to get help and not to pursue treatment. Yeah. What was it what was it like to finally jump in there?

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Well, you know, it's there are a lot of things. I I won't just say in black culture in general, but the in my in my culture, like in my family culture and my friend culture, you know, just things that are considered white people stuff. So, like, you know, white people go to therapy, white people go to treatment. So I was about to do one of these white people things that um and so I told no one, absolutely no one, no one knew except for my ex-husband and my mother and my father what I was about to do. None of my friends knew anything about it. Um, you know, and I was one, primarily I didn't tell anybody because I was so ashamed. I was incredibly ashamed and embarrassed both and humiliated by it. Um, but I also was not wanting their input because as deep and dark as my addiction had become, I put on a really good front still. You know, I went to my tennis lessons, I still went to premieres, I threw dinner parties, I was the PTA president at my kids' school.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

They asked you described you are a master at looking like everything's fine, right? I mean, you you've hone you honed that from the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

I did. I did. And so my friends didn't really know what was happening with me. And I didn't want to tell them. I didn't want, I didn't want them to try to chalk me out of it. I didn't want to um, I didn't want their estimation of me to lower. I wanted to, I think they held me in high esteem and I wanted to keep that status. So I I didn't tell anybody before I went.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

And you got treatment, you went to rehab, and it it it helped. It's and did you then do more therapy or at how did you make your way to sort of really just owning being in sobriety, writing memoirs about it, talking about it publicly? That's a big transition from nobody knowing to being an outspoken recovery advocate.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Yeah, it is it is a big transition. I I mean, I do think treatment helped, but probably not in the way that people think, for me, anyway.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

I think the main thing treatment did was keep me away from it for uh uh so I could string some days together. I was medically detoxed for the first 11 days because I was so incredibly addicted and at risk for seizures, which I had already had when I ran out of it a few months earlier. So I I was on all kinds of drugs for the first 11 days, tapering off, you know, little by little by little until the 12th day I had nothing. And then I left 30 days later, 30 days after I checked in rather. And um, you know, I still wanted to get high very much. I I just figured I would buy my time until I could because I needed to get divorced first and I didn't need, I didn't want to lose my kids. Still with this the motivation that sent me to treatment was the motivation that kept me sober those first few months. Um, I was not into sobriety or recovery at all. You know, I didn't like anything about it. I did not enjoy it. I didn't like the meetings, I didn't like the people in them. Um I was the only one in the room in most of the meetings I went to. I was the only black person at treatment except for one other guy who worked there. So I was feeling very much like, you know, the cultures that I described were prophetic. This is white people stuff because I was the only black one in treatment and I was the only black one in these 12-step meetings. And um, but and so I really I was just biting my time until I got my until the divorce was finalized, and I didn't have to worry about them getting taken away from me or or that being a condition of the divorce. That's what I was biting my time at. So I wasn't I treatment, I stayed sober and treatment was part of what I did. So in that way, that it did work. Um and you know, I know a lot of people that have gone to treatment since then, and people that I was in treatment with who swear that it was their time there. Like the interventions they received there worked for them. They came out of there with a desire to stay sober. I did not, but I stayed sober anyway. And just jumping to telling my story, uh, eventually, not right away, but probably after that first year, part of my recovery, which I finally did end up wanting, my sobriety, which I ended up wanting, because I realized I didn't have to lie anymore. I didn't have to compartmentalize anymore. I could be myself and a lot of people weren't gonna like it, but that wasn't my problem. Um, and I found out I was so much more interesting as my actual self than the lie I had put together. That was the other thing I think I mentioned, not that I didn't graduate from high school or go to college, but I lied and said I did. That's how I got the jobs that I got. You know, I had a I had a college all made up that I went to and I had a diploma in, you know, in my head. This is pre-you know, like nobody could really check anything online. So it was really easy to make up lies. And I didn't have to lie anymore as a sober person. And I found that to be really freeing, and I started really liking it, and I started to finally tell my story, my real story, in those meetings, and then to the women that I would eventually guide through the 12 steps of the program I'm in. And it just got really easy to tell the truth and to tell my story. And I was so ashamed at first, like incredibly ashamed, felt punished, you know, and again humiliated. And, you know, by probably by year three, I was happy to tell it to anybody who needed it. And so when it came time to write stash, it wasn't that big of a deal to me because I told my story so often to so many people.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

What what was the point though when it became your when you wanted to really pursue sobriety and recovery? Was there a moment or uh it just happened gradually and you were like, no, you know what? I'm this I feel better, I'm just gonna do it. Well how how did that transition happen exactly?

SPEAKER_00 35:03

You know, my my editor for Stash asked me the same thing because she's like, I I see a bottom here, but I don't see like the moment where it changed for you. Like where, when did you start, you know, desiring this? And and you're right, you just said it in what in your question. It was what they call in 12-step recovery the educational variety. It happened slowly over time for me. There were there were a few moments where I was like, you know, I I had this moment. My my kid was turning 12. I got sober when he was turning 10. And he was turning 12, and it was his it was his birthday, and there was a basketball game, and he's he was not very good at the time. He was not the best, he was by far not the best player on the team. And he really wanted to like hit, you know, a a three-pointer or make a layup or something in the game, and it was, you know, getting down to the final minutes, and someone passed him the ball and he got fouled, and he had to go to the free throw line. And if he made it, his team would win. And if he didn't, they were probably gonna lose. And they can be mean, those kids. Somebody loses the game for them. And I was so I was on my knees, like asking, please let him sink one of these free throws so that you know we'll go out for pizza afterwards and he'll be the hero on his birthday instead of the loser. And he may he shot one, he didn't make it. And then I got back on my knees again before he shot the second one, and I said, Scratch that. I just want to tell you that I am so grateful that I'm sober now because I can be here for him however this turns out, in a way that I couldn't before I got sober. I could I I couldn't have counted on me not thinking about the next high before, or either being high or thinking about the next high. That's where I was all the time before I got sober. I love my kids and I wanted to be there, and I was with them most of the time, but I was not with them, you know, I wasn't present. And so I just, I just was so grateful. I got tears in my eyes, and he didn't make that second free throw. Um, but I was just, I was so grateful that I was there and could still take them out to pizza and be there for him and not make it about me. And that was one of the moments where I was like, I really want to hang on to this. I really want to be able, like, this is what I want to be able to do for my kids.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

I love that story. Brought a little bit of tears to my eyes as as well. And tell me what it's been like in recovery. Has it all been easy, or how have the the subsequent years been for you?

SPEAKER_00 37:55

I mean, the the first few years were terrible. They were so hard. I I I look at people who are getting sober and I'm like, thank God I don't have to do that again. It's it's for me, it was such a tough road. Again, I see other people come in and they love it, like right away. And they get it, and it's not difficult for them, but it was really difficult for me. And sleeping was difficult for me. I'd been addicted to a sleeping pill. I had rewired my brain so that it wasn't programmed to go to sleep when I wanted to, and it kept waking up. Um, and I thought I was gonna die a few times without a full night's sleep. Like I really thought I'm just not gonna make it. Eventually I started sleeping, you know, eventually things got better. Eventually I wasn't so tight and rigid and tightly wound. Eventually I got better, but um, it it took a while. It really took about those two, three years. Now it's super easy. Like, you know, I it we call it sponsoring when you're guiding people through the steps of the program. I have about 11 women that I sponsor. I go to regular meetings. I'm in a relationship with the man I wrote about in stash. He's upstairs right now. Um, so we have a sober home. Um, we have a lot of sober friends. A lot of my friends aren't sober. I have a lot of friends from different areas of my life, but you know, everyone knows I am. And so it's not a big deal. It's it's really easy for me to stay sober. Um, I don't ever want to get sober again, though. That's the hard part.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

You're also now radically honest all the time. I think that's what uh Stash brought about as well, right? You didn't have to hide or smile your way through another difficult moment. You could face all the things in the past honestly and openly and do that in an ongoing way too, I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yes. Yeah, I mean the honesty is the freedom that I've been seeking my whole life, and I didn't know that was the key. Honestly. I honestly, honestly, honesty was the key. I I just had no idea. I thought I had to hide in order to be protected, and that's the only way I could protect the freedom that I I wanted or I thought I had, and I didn't even know that I didn't have freedom until I started telling the truth, which doesn't mean telling everybody what I think, you know, word for word all the time. Sometimes it means just saying no.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Um, but but certainly not lying or, you know, telling someone I'm five minutes away when I haven't left the house yet. Those are the things that I used to do that used to chip away at me, and I don't do those things anymore.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

Laura, you're great. I appreciate you taking the time to share your story.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Oh, thank you, Jonathan. I really appreciate it. I appreciate the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Thanks for listening to the Thriving with Addiction Podcast. If you found today's episode helpful, please follow and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast and share it with someone who might benefit. You can also connect with me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, or visit thrivingwithaddiction.com to learn more. Stay tuned for next week's episode and remember Thriving is possible.