Normalizing Sobriety | Kyle Alsteen

In this episode of Never Alone Live, Kyle Alsteen shares his powerful story of addiction, recovery, and learning how to normalize sobriety in everyday life. From owning a bar at 21 while battling alcoholism to reaching a breaking point that ultimately changed everything, Kyle opens up about the reality of addiction, the turning points that led him to recovery, and what life looks like today with over three years sober.

Recovery is possible. You are never alone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone to this week's uh edition. Is it edition? This week's edition, uh this week's episode of uh Never Alone Live. Uh excuse me. We are very honored. Uh well, as usual, we have Krista Sober Barbie here. I'm Johnny. Um, and uh we are honored to have a new friend joining us. Uh can't wait to meet Kyle A. Kyle, what is happening, my brother?

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Not much. Thanks for the invite uh to tell a little bit about my story.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Absolutely, dude. We're we're excited, man. Uh you know, we've had a lot of people come on here, and uh oh, look at Mandy comes in right off the bat. Our our friend Gigi is here uh because she knew you're gonna be here. Uh Kyle, how long have you been sober? Uh a little over three years. A little over three years. Very active in your program. Um from Wisconsin, uh a Packers fan, but we're gonna put that aside. We won't even talk about it. Why'd you even bring it up? I don't even know why you brought it up. Pretty sure I didn't bring it up, but I don't I don't even know why you why you would bring it up. And there's Sarah, our favorite Canadian is in the house, joined us. Um uh so Kyle, tell us tell us uh tell us about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

All righty. Well, um I'm from Green Bay, Wisconsin, I guess. Uh more towards the Door County area. I'm not sure if some people probably know the Door County area. It's like a tourist tourist area. Um and hold on a second. Um so uh figure. The one the one empty office I pick, someone's gotta come in it. Um so I am at work today, by the way. Uh, but no, uh so I grew up in uh Green Bay area, uh perfect childhood. Had an older sister, uh eight years older than me. Um had two awesome parents. They're still alive. My dad's 81 and my mom's 79. Um and just discovered alcohol when I was a teenager. Um and to be honest, when I discovered it, um, I really didn't like it. I would do fake drinking, stuff like that, you know, try to make it cool that I'm drinking, and I'd you know, secretly pour the beer down. Um until I got about 18, 19. Um I started liking it a lot, and I pretty much became full-blown addicted. Um, when I was 21, I purchased a bar. Uh, not a good idea for an alcoholic, and that didn't last very long. It lasted about a year, and uh I sold it. Um it's pretty much I got the ultimatum that um either my fiance was not gonna marry me or I would have to marry the bar. So I got rid of that. It just kept on spiraling into my 30s, and uh then I um got so bad that I thought I was having a heart attack and had to pull my car over and got rushed to the hospital and got thrown into rehab. Um had a detox. So that was good. Thought that was my saving grace. Uh had my first AA meeting in detox, and then I was sober for four and a half years, fell away from going to meetings. Um meeting makers make it. Um, so I fell away from meetings, and lo and behold, the little alcohol that sat on my shoulder was saying that I could drink normal again. So with that I did, tried. It lasted about two weeks, and then I went on a five-year relapse, and it was a holy hell of a relapse. Um not good. Um, and then finally one day, um, this is like the way short and virgin, uh, but um finally one day I I fell on the ground um after a rampage, hit my head against a door hinge and was bleeding all over. My girlfriend um had to call my dad, who at that time was like 78, um, to help me. And that morning I woke up and that was it. I had enough. Um I had to um change my life. It was either that or I was gonna die. I mean I was on a fast track, I didn't care. I didn't care if I died at all. I just cared to have fun and cause pure hell, and I was really good at that. Um, I gave up on life completely. And uh I wanted my life back. You know, I have a a son and uh I'm not a grandfather, and hopefully she'll never see me in active addiction. Um my son unfortunately had to. He had a little bit of a reprieve for about four and a half years. Um but yeah, I just want to make sure that my grandchildren don't see me ever, like the shape I was in. And with that, I mean there were so many different relationships. I went through two marriages, um, and uh lo and behold, I I'm back with my first ex-wife. So uh she went through my last addiction, um, my my last relapse, and I give her um all the credit for sticking with me because I don't know how she did. Um really don't know how she did. And I appreciate her and I love her so much. Um yeah, so that's my my history of AA with that. I um, you know, the first time I was in my program, I didn't have a sponsor. Um I was one of them guys that I can do this myself, you know, and I did go through the steps myself, but it wasn't the right way. According to me, it wasn't. It didn't it didn't sink in. And um this time I did it differently. I I got a sponsor, I met a sponsor on a Zoom meeting. I never personally met my sponsor, but you know what? We talk every other day. We'll throw a text message in there. He's from Sacramento, California, and uh worked the steps with him on um text yeah, you know, on uh video calls and stuff like that. And it's great. I'm in my third round of 12 steps, um, and I learned something different every time I do them. Uh you know, and uh I started majorly getting into service work and um big time. I mean I'm vice president of our clubhouse up here in Green Bay. Uh I'm on a couple different chairs for our area and our district, and I do a lot. You can just ask my girlfriend. Uh last night I was trying to stay on your meeting, but my computer wasn't working right, so I had you on my phone and I was on the PI meeting for my area, and so but I'm glad I made it at the end. Um, yeah, so that's a little bit about me. Um that's about all I got for myself.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Kyle, that's awesome, dude. And thank you for uh thank you for sharing today. And uh, you know, uh Krista and I both uh got sober uh with AA, and uh, you know, we are a platform that you know recognizes all forms of recovery. So if it's A A N A C R C A, whatever the case may be, if you're on the MAT program, we are all for it. If you're if it is recovery-based and you're trying to live a better life, we are all for it. And look at all of our friends that came over to see you. Uh, I'm gonna shout out a couple names real quick. Tiffany, our friend Tiffany from Canada, who's one of our OGs. She's been uh she's been with us on Never Alone since the very first episode. She doesn't miss them. Our friend Nikki from Arizona and Jojo. My Jojo's here. And uh and is that Carrie? And I'm never gonna try to pronounce that last name. Uh, but Carrie, welcome in. And uh my girlfriend. Is that Carrie's your girlfriend? Hello, Carrie. Gunlickson? Okay. Uh, how do you say it? Gunlickson. That's a that's a lot of names. I come in, she never liked taking the standardized tests at school because she had to fill out so many dots. So many dots. Uh Carrie, welcome it. So now hang on. Carrie's the as the ex-wife. Yes, first ex-wife. First, first ex-wife current girlfriend. Okay. I'm telling you, there is he's he's like uh watching Love Island down here. Krista, where can you relate? Krista's on mute, so she's just laughing.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

I stay. I mean, you never know what's gonna happen. Um I can relate a lot to your story with like owning a bar at 21. I became a bartender the day I turned 21. And that's where I'm I'm getting the we're gonna talk about normalized sobriety in a little bit, but it like starts then, you know. You you're revved up to 21 and it's time to to do what all 21-year-olds do. And some of us are just a little different. And I it just I can relate so much, and you kind of had like an abrupt stop, kind of like Johnny and I did too, you know, like a kind of like an institution that stopped yeah. And my first AA meeting was in jail.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah, mine was fresh out of jail. Uh Sherry Wisner. Hi, Sherry. First time watching. Welcome to Never Alone Live. If you have uh, we'd love to know uh more about you. Tell us your sobriety date in the comments, tell us where you're from. Uh David Lavinger, you guys are awesome. David, you're awesome. You're the awesome one. Thank you for being here. Uh so Kyle, I want to ask you a question about owning your bar. And now, because I mean, and I know I've got a list of questions here, but this is how this works. Um so you're 21 years old and you open a bar. Did you this was this your bar? Did you open it with buddies?

SPEAKER_02 10:22

So my uh grandparents' bar. Um, so they ran it for years, and uh we ended up leasing it from them after they both went to um an assisted living, and then I took it over. So um, yeah, it was in the family, so no longer in the family, it's not even a bar anymore. But yeah, it was not a good decision. Uh you can ask anyone, you can ask my girlfriend, you can ask all my friends. I mean, I used to get so bad behind the bar that they had to close the bar, I'd be laying on the you know, the floor, and thank god I had decent customers and decent friends that they would close the bar for me. And I'd wake up the next morning being like, holy crap, what the hell happened? You know, maybe I should have got the hint then, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

I can't I could I can't even imagine. I can't even fathom. I'm I'm like as soon as you said it, I imagined myself owning a bar at 21 and how horrible of a decision that would have been. Because I was I was a straight alcoholic at the at that time, and it was it was ugly.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

At the time it doesn't sound horrible though. It doesn't at the time it was great.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

It don't it's convenient. It feed it, you know, it fed my addiction. Great.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Did it make any money?

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Not really. Yeah, I guess I guess it actually did.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

A tavern can make a lot of money, so you know uh well it paid his bar tab. It paid his bar tab.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

No, I I think I actually think we took a little of that money to put on down on our house, actually.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

So yeah, the end of uh the end of my drinking career, I worked at a bar for quite a few years. I learned a lot about the the ins and outs, and uh and and my I I made X amount of dollars per hour and worked a lot of hours. I was a cook in the kitchen, it was a good kitchen. Uh hopefully you never ate there. And uh um I and my entire every week I got paid on Friday and would be in there was like $12 and uh in my bar tab. And uh that was it. That was it, but I was good. Uh okay, so that was uh Sherry says 20 years off of H, a few days off of math, and no alcohol. Sherry, congratulations and welcome to this new life. If that's uh what you want, you know, and that's a decision that we all get to make. You know, every day we get to make a decision whether or not we want to stay sober, whether or not we want to surrender. Kyle, tell me about surrender.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Uh so I surrendered big time. Um I had to. Um, I just had to give up my thoughts of that what I was doing was normal. Um it wasn't. Um, and I mean, I live in an area where what I was doing is the norm, but it really is. Uh sad to say that a lot of people don't believe that the US say the Wisconsin culture, but oh my god, it is. It's it's horrible here. Um but I had to surrender, I had to give it I had to give it to someone. Um and when I quit um when I got sober for the second time, um I didn't know who to give it to. Um I I was a born and raised a Catholic. Um once I was out of the house, I was like, screw this, I'm never going to church again. My parents made me go, and you know, just a regular asshole. But um maybe I should have stuck with it. This would have never happened. But um I'm a true believer of uh thinking your past, your past is where you are now. And uh if it would change, you wouldn't be where you know, if it would have gone different, you're not gonna be where I wouldn't be where I am right now. I wouldn't be talking to you two right now. So um, but no, I had to surrender. Um, and at first I didn't know who to surrender to. Um, I think what I did is I surrendered to my conscience um in my head. And eventually I guess I have spiritual spiritual awakening. I think it happened the time that I I realized that um I can start feeling the way I felt when I drank without drinking. And I truly have come to that point in my life where I can I mean not the total buzz, but I can get my mind in that realm and I can feel good. Uh it's very rare I have a bad day. Um, very, very rare. But yeah, I had to surrender. I completely surrendered to alcohol. Alcohol, alcohol is the devil. Uh I never want to put it to my lips again, but you can never say never because you don't know that. So I hope.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

All right. So I let's uh let's keep on this subject for a second. Let's talk about God. Let's talk. I mean, everybody comes to God at their own time and their own stage. Some people never do. Um, you know, and I know Chris's story, I know my story. What's how did what is your relationship with your higher power? What's that look like? And you know, you never know who's listening or who this could be, you know, this could help change somebody's life, just finding out how somebody else found God. Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

So um, I would say my first boat of being sober, I would consider myself I was probably agnostic. I wouldn't go as far as saying I was an atheist, I just didn't know what was out there. And like I said, the first time I was sober, I wasn't following stuff correctly, I wasn't doing the program correctly. Um, so I just I just went with that. Um, this time around, um, I knew there had to be something out there. I knew that something took away my urge to um not drink anymore. And I guess I do call my higher power God. Uh do I pray? Yeah, I guess I do. Um, do I go to church? Do I um read the Bible? No. Um, I guess my Bible um would be the big book. Um and other books too. I mean, I I read a lot of books. I'm really into you know a lot of the AA history, um, you know, with Bill W and stuff like that. Um, but my Bible's probably the big book. Another uh book that I've read probably 10 times is the Little Red Book. Um I I love that book. Uh it's nice and small, compact, easy to read. Um, but no, I I know there's a God out there, um, but I wouldn't consider myself anything religious-wise. Um I just know that God's out there, and uh, and I got no problem, you know, if you're you know whatever religion you are. Um I tell you straight out, my my sponsor is not one that believes in God. Um, you know, he believes in the thing that lives down below. But he's my sponsor, and that's I know it's crazy, isn't it? But that man's taught me so much stuff, he just believes in something else different. And that the there are na and a members out there that do believe in that. I don't, you know, I I'm too afraid to. I don't want I don't want to go through the you know, but no, I I do believe in God, but uh you know, my sponsor, yeah, he just says, you know, you need to have a higher power, and our higher powers are different, um, but we still work the steps the same way. Um, and we just consider it a higher power, but I do believe in God, I think it's God. You know, around here we have a lot of um uh native native people, and you know, they call they have a bunch of different names for the you know, the creator and all that, and I really respect a lot of them. I have two good friends that are native and they think about it different, and it's awesome. That's what they believe in, you know. So um I think everyone has to have a higher power, and I really don't I don't really don't I don't think it matters what it is. You know, I have some people, some some newer people in the program that use their meetings as the higher power. You know what? For a little while I I used that too. I use my sober friends as my higher power. Um, you know, there's so much you can use as your higher power until one day, you know, I don't know, something just struck me, and I'm like, well, you know, there is a God. I just thought of it like that, you know. It's like, okay, cool. So yeah, if someone believes, you know, asks me what I believe in, I say I believe in God.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

I love that. And and where we have so many similarities, you know, and I was raised Catholic too. I call myself a recovering Catholic. I did not like the Catholic religion, I did not hear about a loving God that I could love and trust. Some people, if you're Catholic, that's wonderful. If it works for you, it didn't work for me. And I was agnostic as well, came into the program. The group was my higher power for a long time. They led me in good direction. I loved them, I trusted them, and then it took years and years. But after 20 years of uh being sober, I finally found Christianity that I and I love my church and uh and eventually got baptized. But it took 20 years of of having a God, which was the spirit of the universe. So, you know, whatever anybody else uses, whatever works for you, that's why I love my program. In the spiritual experience, it talks uh at great lengths about the two different types of uh of finding your spirituality. And there's the blinding light type that you know woke up and boom, there was God. Great. But then there's us of the educational variety that we had to kind of see some proof in the pudding to actually develop that relationship. And Krista, Krista, you have more of a blinding light story.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

I think it was a little both. I also grew up Catholic, and I actually went back to Catholic Church on last Wednesday for Ash Wednesday, and I was an altar server. I was like, we were very involved, and I was forced to go. And I mean, we would like fist fight in the car right before we got out to walk in and be the perfect little family, and um it and then I went to a Christian school in middle school and was told completely different things that were not Catholic, and I was confused, and there was this confusion, but I always had God. I never thought God was the one like punishing me or putting me through this. I knew he was there. I think I was like more in the waiting for him to do something to me, and I didn't know it was gonna be like devastation to get me out of that pattern I was living. Um, I think it was it was definitely like a blinding light, but there was a lot of education too. And my higher powers evolved through the years. I just celebrated 10 years. The first eight years I was kind of like the the AA book was my Bible. And then I was introduced to, I didn't know there was a faith centered recovery. It is 12 steps. So it was very similar to AA. And in my program, they relate back to AA, NA. He references a lot of of books and stories and stuff. So um I've evolved a lot. It's evolved a lot and it's continuing to. And that's my favorite part about like recovery. Nothing like just stays the way. It's not like one size fits all. It's always growing and changing. And I really enjoy hearing other people's stories and how they got to where they are or what they use. And I kind of take a little from everyone, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

I think that's the that's the way it's supposed to work. You know, we we get a message of hope. We get to see how other people live, how other people do. Like I the program uh going to meetings was enormous because it's where I learned the steps. But then it was the meeting after the meeting at the coffee shop where I learned how to implement these steps in my life. And it was by watching how these other guys did it, you know, how they were a father, how they practiced uh, you know, you know, talking to God and praying and stuff like that. That's where I really was the coffee shop and the meeting after the meeting. It's why fellowship is so important, you know. Um, but uh I want to get I want to get into another topic, Kyle, because uh you do a lot of 12-step work, and you do a lot of things for area and district, I'm sure, and and conferences and all that other stuff, and you've created uh your own company to do some things. Let's let's get into this.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

So yeah, um, yeah, I do I'm big time into the program. Um what about two weeks after I got sober? I was like, you know, I'm just gonna start a company, an apparel company, and I just started it with a cricket. Literally, I bought a cricket on uh Amazon, and I was like, see what this is about. Um, you know, so I started making shirts and then I started picking up business, and then I was like, you know, I'm gonna get into maybe laser engraving. So I picked up a laser, then I went to got another laser. Um, and then it probably happened about last year at this time. I think we were getting ready for our um area conference, and someone asked me if I could make some tumblers um that said our conference. It it didn't have the date on it, but it said of saying, I think navigating the waters of recovery because we're up in Door County and we're surrounded by water. Um, and I said sure. So then I ended up buying another laser, and then I was like, you know, I would like to focus a little more on recovery. And um I started wearing my shirts and I would get some flack from some heavy duty AAs. Um like, oh, you shouldn't be promoting yourself. Um and then I started getting uh not on TikTok, I didn't start seeing them, but through Facebook, I started seeing more people that were promoting, you know, recovering out loud. Um, and I always, you know, if anyone ever asked me, I I was like, sure, I'm in recovery, or you know, my family knew my old friends knew. I call them old friends because they're kind of not friends anymore. But I would say 99.9% of my friends are in recovery now. But um, so I started pumping out some more stuff about recovery, and uh finally one day I was just sitting around and I was like, you know what? Drinking in my area is so normalized. You know, for those five years, I thought what I was doing was normal, and the people I hung out with, that was normal. That was normal drinking for us. We were drinking till we're blacked out, we'd get in fights, you know, you didn't know what you were saying, I was being verbally abusive. Um why don't we normalize sobriety? And I was like, wait a minute, that's that's that kind of sounds cool. So um my first one I did, and this was longer than that because I got rid of my cricket like a year two years ago. I was just like, well, this this doesn't work, it's not professional and stuff like that. Um so I started doing it a different way, uh, with DTFs and um direct the film. And um my first shirt I made, normalized sobriety, was done on the cricket, and um I wore it to my meeting, and people are like, Wow, you know, hey yeah, you know, that's really cool. So then I just started going balls to the wall, I guess, on it. You know, I was just like, alrighty. So I made, you know, some other sobriety shirts. Um, you know, I got the Clarity Over Chaos one. Um and I just started going and going and going, and then I was like, maybe I should go, you know, I started going on TikTok. And Barbie, I think I friended you like I don't know, like two years ago probably. And I just never checked, you know, I was just not I didn't even know that sober anything was like that on TikTok. And then I found your live one day, and I was like, well, this is pretty cool. Um and then I was like, you know, maybe I could take this, take this normalized sobriety thing another step. And um I did, so I got a Shopify um uh website, um, which now I'm regretting, and right now the reason I'm not publishing my um I'm trying to get out of Shopify because Shopify took too much control, and I want to control, I want to make the product myself, um, and I don't want someone else making it for me. So um right now I'm trying to buy out my domain name from them. So if you would still go on champion dash fire l or dot com, you would go to the Shopify and you'd still see my stuff all listed there, but uh eventually that's gonna get to where it goes to me. Um and I just started doing, you know, I'm starting to do more designs with the normalized sobriety, and I I wanted to get out there. Um, you know, I do the hats, um, the leather patch hats, and it's just now all the people at my AAA meetings are buying my stuff, and it's like some people are like, Oh, you're profiting on this, and I'm like, no, because I'm like seriously making like three dollar profit on everything I'm making, mainly on the sobriety stuff. Now I still do other stuff for other people. I mean, right now I just nailed another big job today for uh tumblers. Well, well, maybe they're watching this, but they're getting charged full price. I just think I gotta make some money on this stuff somehow. But literally, you know, my normalized sobriety stuff, I'm making like three bucks, and that's just for me taking the time to order it and stuff like that. So my prices are down on that, and that's why I don't like Shopify because Shopify cranks everything up for shipping and handling when I can do it myself. So I want to promote it more. I started doing a lot more TikTok stuff, um, you know, with videos and stuff like that. There's gonna be more to come. I got like some really good ideas. Um I'm actually talking to, I'm not sure if you would do you do and do you have any groups called Wiki Paw?

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, so it's like Wisconsin, young people of alcoholics, non-yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

So my area got the convention for um this 2027's uh convention, or maybe it's this year's, I'm not sure. But uh, so I'm talking to them. I might start making some shirts for them. Of course, I will not you know charge them. I'm just gonna go pure uh cost on that. Um so I mean it's just it's just getting out there. I mean, a lot of people are buying my shirts, so like uh I'll donate shirts and donate hoodies for um for our clubhouses. Um, like a we just had over Super Bowl, we had um uh a soup competition um and stuff like that. And I donated some of my stuff, I know, for prizes. But people are starting to pick up on normalized sobriety. And you know, I'll be walking around public because I you know I'm at work, so I got my work stuff on now. If you see me like yesterday, I was working from home. That's usually when I can hit the lives earlier, um, the TikTok lives, and um, you'll see me either I have a sober uh AF shirt on, or I have my normalized sobriety, or I'll have my um chaos shirt on. So, you know, I wear it in public. My girlfriend, you know, but she doesn't mind, but sometimes my son's like, oh another sobriety shirt, and I'm like, Yep. So it's like uh so I get the word around, and people will ask me, Oh, where'd you get that? Well, you know, I make them. So I'm trying to brand the normalized sobriety a little bit more. Um, and what normalized sobriety means to me is this is so normal in our area. I think it shocks people when I'm when they see my hat or they see my shirt. And maybe it makes them think a little bit, you know, that maybe being sober should be more normal than our drink, our drinking is around this area. And I it goes all over the place, but you know, I think Wisconsin is I mean, for God's sakes, we're known for it, you know. And I used to be one of the idiots that used to brag about it, you know. And um it is time to normalize sobriety. Um I think it's starting to happen. We're really starting to see a lot of younger people um come into our groups, you know. In my small group in Little Town on Thursday nights, you know, we got three or four younger people in their 20s, and I love seeing that, and that's why I like Wikipedia so much. I mean, it's a younger group. Umly thing you just need to be young at heart, you know, and I like that. And um it's just I want to see more younger people in programs. I don't care if it's any um Christian-based, whatever. Um, it's if I would have known what I was gonna end up in, you know, like say after I sold my bar, that should have been the point in my time in my head saying, okay, Kyle, it's time to sober up. You got a problem here, you know. And I wish I would have done that. Um, but you can wish, and like I said, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if that would have happened. I don't think I would have been. You don't know, but I'm pushing more and more of the normalized sobriety. I like my logo. I got comments on my logo. Um, and I just think it needs to happen. It it just time to happen, it's time for people to start thinking different.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Kyle, I love this dude, and I love the term normalized sobriety. You know, uh, it's a movement, and we are pushing the save movement, same movement. You know, we work with uh the guys from Recover Out Loud. We love that Daniel and Crystal, uh, our buddy Mike from Sober Hats, who you know very well, you know. As a matter of fact, and and wearing these things out in public, you know, I wear my sober period hat out in public. And I get people that come up and ask all the time, what does that mean? I said, What do you mean it means? It means I'm I'm sober. You know, but it opens it and you're proud. It opens a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yes, yes, yeah. I bought a cricket in 2020 during COVID when I sent my husband off to rehab. And I was like, I need to make a little bit of money. I'm a new mom, and I think everyone can relate from our AA sayings because everyone was so depressed and it was such a hard time for the world. And I was trying to normalize, I didn't even realize that. I was trying to normalize right, but I was trying to like build a bridge to the normal people. Like you guys can benefit from recovery too, you know. And I wish I stuck with it, but we have a lot, a lot of coming. All I wear is recovery shirts, and then my husband wears all the samples I've made through the years. All of them.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

So speaking of, Kyle sent Krista and I each a package, and uh, it was so cool getting a guy. We got so we got our packages, and we're gonna do the opening right now, the reveal. Now, Krista hasn't started opening. I still open in mind, so I'm I'm ready to go. Um but uh, you know, it's uh true unboxing, Johnny. What do you mean it's not a true unboxing? It's coming out of the box, out of the package. Um, and but you're gonna be sitting there wrestling with packing tape for 10 minutes. That's what we're gonna have to do. But recover out loud and normalized recovery is you know, ending the stigma. And we're gonna get more into that. But you know, like recover out loud, you know, we do the we did Freedom Fest down in in Charleston, and we have our next one that we're working on and planning. And it's freedom from the stigma, freedom from the bondage of alcohol and drugs, freedom from the freedom from the bondage of self, freedom from you know, the the chains that we hold, but also the stigma from what people perceive us as, you know, and uh and it's more than just uh it's more than just drinking and drugs then. Now it's mental health too. It's ending the stigma everywhere, normalizing sobriety, recover out loud. These are the things that are going to change the world. And I'm gonna open my package. Is your package open yet?

SPEAKER_00 35:38

I I'm a woman, I know how to open a package.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Yeah, sorry about the packaging. I didn't have my uh good. I ran out of my good mailer. Yeah, I wanted to make sure that uh damaged.

SPEAKER_03 35:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

All right, I got it.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

You're allowed to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

I see my favorite color. I have my favorite color.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

What do we got here? We got oh, I got two things.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Oh my gosh. Shop. My lighting's horrible on this computer. Oh my gosh, I love it. I'm on TikTok live too. Oh my gosh, I love it. I'm wearing this all day today.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

And we got a normalized sobriety hoodie, and I got a t-shirt. Uh-oh. I love it. Oh my gosh, I love it. Clarity over chaos. This is the edge of the chain's breaking, clean mind, clean life, one day at a time. Kyle, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

I'm gonna cry. I love this so much. Oh my gosh, the chain's breaking on it.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

Yeah, that one took a while to design.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

I love it. He's already putting his on.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

I'll put mine on right now.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Oh my gosh, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Only sell uh 50-50 material, so those are uh Porton Company. Uh, I like the touch of those, they're kind of soft.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yeah, it looks oh, I love this. Everybody looking at home, normalized recovery. Those are so awesome. Thank you, Kyle. No problem. I'm telling you, I do uh most of my wardrobe is uh recovery based, and I will wear this loud and proud. Uh last week I wore uh a hoodie from that Skylar Ray gave me uh that says we do recover, and I wore it at church for uh for 2,000 people to see me on stage with because I'm you did yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Oh, I love that. But my husband wears his wears that one to work, so he's out there.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

You know, being out being out is awesome. So now you have a website.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

Yeah, champion-fire.com.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Uh Megan, can you put the uh the website in the comments? People can go and look and see uh the inventory right now. You will be altering this, yes?

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Yes, in like a week it's gonna be. I'm what I'm trying to do is get my uh I'm trying to get my domain back from Shopify. Johnny, I did not give you cards. I forgot, and you were all sealed up, and I'm like, oh shit, forgot to put the cards in.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Look at Jojo says uh he also has 50 hoodies in gray, so this is perfect for him. It is, it's absolutely perfect. Look at my closet. It's uh it's 50 uh 50 gray hoodies. Um, but dude, this is awesome. I love this. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

I love it. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Yeah, no. Megan will clip this out and we'll put the unboxing on uh on the Tiki Tockies and on the Facebooks, and uh we're gonna keep you a link over. Uh show me your site. Darnell, uh, we just put the uh site in the comments right above your comment. So it's right there. It's champion-fire.com. Um, so I want to ask a couple more questions, and uh, these are more about normalizing recovery. So uh what does, in your opinion, Kyle, what does normalizing sobriety, how is that defined and what does that look like?

SPEAKER_02 39:27

So the way I look at it is I think sobriety gets a bad rap. Um some people are afraid of people that are in sobriety um because they right away think they got a checkered past. And I write, yeah, some of us do. Um but I think that's the part that needs to be normalized, you know. Um and that's why I recover out loud. Um, I'm I'm letting you know that hey, I am sober, and if you need help, I got I got tools that I can give you or use to show you uh to suggest how you do it or where to go. Um and you know, normalized drinking has been normalized for so so so long. And um normalizing sobriety, it's time, it's time it happens. Um you know, I I think it's you know, we need more recovery houses. Um I'm going through that right now with my township. Um and a lot of people got a bag bad stigma about that too. They're like, no, we don't want those people here. First of all, they're not looking into what a recovery house does, they're not looking into um, you know, the help that these people are getting, and the reason that they're in this recovery house is to help them along the way. Um we just people that are in sobriety get such a bad rap. You know, right away, you know, and I've I used to think that. I used to think that when I was a drinker drinking, you know, oh so and so's sober or so-and-so is a drug addict, and you know, what are they doing giving Narcan out for free and all that, you know. But once I I um I guess I I grew up, like I say, I was a 46-year-old little baby until I turned 46 and I finally realized that it's time to grow up, you know. Um that yeah, you know, it could be my brother, it could be my sister that needs that narcan. It could, you know, that needs to be normalized. It it's sad in Green Bay because I think we have two places in Green Bay, only two places that you can get free Narcan. Uh one place up in Door County, and stuff like this needs to be normalized, but then you always get your comments. Well, I'm diabetic and I don't get free insulin. You know, it's like I'm I'm diabetic, I'm diabetic. I made myself diabetic because of drinking. I was diagnosed diabetic when I was 22, mainly because I drank like I did. I killed my my pancreas. Um, so I'm not insul on insulin, I take pills, but still, it's like you're not getting the point. These are people's family members, and I see it all the time because you know, when DePure, it's a sub um a town next to us. Oh, they're offering a new, you know, Narcan vending machine. Uh the comments on there were just sickening, and but that's the way I used to think. So I figure if I can it doesn't even matter, you know, I'll I'll walk into a bar if I am going to go get food, you know. I'm not going there to drink because I'm sober, but I'll walk in with my normalized sobriety and you should see some of the looks I get. Or or my sober AF, you know, and people are like, Oh, what do you, you know, or at the grocery store. I ran into an old bar owner that I knew uh you owned a bar in another town, and he's like, Well, I don't like your shirt. And I said, Well, not too much you can do about it, you know. And I walked right by him. Of course, he ain't gonna like my shirt. That's your business, but it's time to normalize sobriety. It's it should be at it should be easy, but I think we all know it's not gonna be easy. Um, it's not gonna be easy. Um, but that's I guess it's just one of my dreams, you know, and I'll keep pushing it, I'll keep wearing my stuff.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

We're doing the same thing. We're with yeah, we're all fighting this same fight together, and it's amazing. And our buddy, uh, our buddy Danny just jumped into the comments. Danny is uh legends from uh our Tiki Talkie. I'm telling you, I love that this is the this is the support right here, you know. This uh we do TikTok every morning, right? And now we do this. We come on here and we talk with someone, and uh, and then all of our TikTok people come over here and they're joining. On Facebook and Instagram and all that jazz. And it's so it's so awesome to see the support. And if we keep this support going, if we all fight this fight together, normal something things like normalized sobriety can actually happen. Normalize harm reduction. Normalize all this stuff because and people just don't get it. And I think it's it's it's getting better, but the fact that this is a disease, you know, they don't look on people with cancer with the with the stigma. Uh yet as soon as you say you're an alcoholic or an addict, there's always that stigma. You know, the amount of people that are still out there that says, Well, why can't you just stop? They don't get it. They don't get it, you know. So normalizing uh this other way of life, normalizing this different way of doing it, that's the key. And and wrecking, that's why we we I love when people come on and they tell us their days. That's uh it's so big because they're in the beginning of changing and it's so hard, and we need to normalize cheering for those days, you know. Our friend Nikki just jumped in and she a while ago. I don't know if she's still here, but you know, uh, she's got four days, four glamorous, glorious, out of this world days. Hell yeah, Nikki. Congratulations, and I love you. Uh, Crystal, what do you think about normalized sobriety? What's your definition?

SPEAKER_00 45:28

I I it makes me think like, let's normalize the solution. Like, we get this fight back. I'm trying to open a sober living where I live. And um, the pushback you're gonna get is they don't want those kind of people here. But if you don't have that, you have a bunch of alcoholics and addicts with no place to go, and the problem's just gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger. We're like trying to make a place where there's a solution and healing can happen. And um, something you said in the past too, Kyle, is you take you get the recover, is it recover out loud or we do recover bracelets?

SPEAKER_02 46:01

One day at a time.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

It takes a bunch and like goes and puts them in public restrooms for people to like grab. Like you're just you gotta put it in their face, you know? And I love that. And the key to all this is like education, you know, like you don't know what you don't know. And like the free Narcan, it's not free. A settlement is paying for that. That they had to fight to get, you know. Um and I think just we have to, we weren't loud when we were out there struggling. We weren't, I wasn't out there broadcasting like um I hurt my sister last night and she hates me. Like I wasn't broadcasting that, but I'm gonna broadcast the good news, you know. And um it's just I I wish I heard people doing this when I was in early recovery. That's why I was so loud because I was like, why is nobody talking about this? We're all here healing, becoming better people. Recovery is for everyone. We can all be better in this fallen world. So let's just talk about it, you know? And um, I wasn't always doing these TikTok lives. I've been posting for years on TikTok and Facebook and all that. But when this live community started, and um, it was the end of the summer last year, and we just it just started growing and growing in these connections, and like I don't know if I'd be sober today if I didn't meet all of you because a lot of these people picked me up in some dark times in my sobriety. So I'm grateful for our ever-growing community, and more people are getting their voice. We're creating like more people to talk about it and recover louder.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

So dude, this is uh this is amazing, and this has been so fun so far. And there's one last question I have, and this is kind of like a broader spectrum, right? And it's uh, how does the world normalize recovery? And I know I told you that what we were gonna talk about. I told you my questions beforehand. Normally I don't tell people my questions beforehand, I just kind of surprise them. I like that. Uh, but how do we get this message out there more? How do we get the message of normalized recovery to the world? What do we do? What do we how do we change the thinking of people around us?

SPEAKER_02 48:22

I think um I think you're starting to see it. Now they're saying that um this generation um currently is drinking less. Um and I think that's why we're starting to see some more younger people come into the programs. Um I think people are just getting sick of it. Um I think the way to get the world to understand it a little more is exactly like I think what we're doing, uh, TikTok. Um, I mean, look, on your live, you have that guy from uh Germany. I mean, you have a couple people from England sometimes, you know, and I think it it's getting out there, and um I mean people should share it. I mean, if you believe it, share it. You know, I got people even on my Facebook, and like I said on Snapchat, you know, I'll share it up, share it on my Snapchat, and that's localized. Um, and you know, it's just some people are like, Well, you shouldn't be, you know, saying that. You're you're considering everyone an alcoholic uh by sharing that stuff. And it's like, no, I'm not. I I'm sharing this because if someone sees it and they need some help, either they're gonna call AA's hotline or NA's hotline, get the help, or you know what, it happened to me three times. I had people direct message me. Guess what? Two of those people are in a they're in my homegroom right now. Unfortunately, one of them is no longer with us. Um, but it's this that's how you have to do it. You have to share it. Uh, wear your sobriety stuff out there. Um I think this uh I don't want to get into politics, but um stuff is happening for recovery with the current administration right now. Um I think there's more money being filtered towards recovery. Um and I think that helps a great deal. I think there should be more of that. I think we should be talking to our representatives and say, hey, you know, why aren't we giving more grants out to recovery houses or uh, you know, sober living houses? I know there's quite a few, you know, some in in Wisconsin there isn't much for grants that way, but um I think people need to try for them. You know, I I just got a two thousand dollar grant for um our clubhouse um out of the blue. You know, I was just writing grants. I I do it I do such weird stuff sometimes. Uh one day I just decided to write a bunch of you're a grant writer too. Yeah, you know, I didn't know I was, but we ended up getting a grant, you know, and it's like it just I think the way to normalize sobriety worldwide is doing exactly what we're doing. It's the only way it's only other way to do it. But I think right now people are slowly starting to understand what addiction is, that it is a disease, and how many years have we known it? How many years have been they've been saying it in the big book and all the other books that yes it's a disease, but now maybe people are starting to realize that a little bit. Well, maybe it is, you know. Um there's you're still gonna have your you know, your naysayer saying it's not a disease, it's not a disease. Well, you know, that disease screwed me up for many, many years, and uh I just couldn't say, Well, I'm done drinking today. Uh I wish I could have many times. Or I would quit for a day, but the next day I'd go right back to it, you know. So normalizing sobriety, the only way we're gonna do that worldwide, nationwide, statewide is get the word out. Get the word out, keep doing what you two are doing. Um I I mean you you deserve a lot of credit for those lives that you do in the morning. Um get me hooked on it. I try, I usually with the days I work in Green Bay, um, I'm always late because I got a meeting before that, but I always try and make it for sure. Um yeah, it's just be loud and be proud. Um take the flack. If someone gives you a flack, just uh I don't know, I guess sort of understand what they're saying, but you know, still be proud of what you are. I I'm very proud that I'm sober and I'm very proud that I'm in recovery.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

You know, there's uh all these people, everybody's on Facebook, everybody's on TikTok or Instagram or whatever, right? If everybody just uh announces their own recovery, it doesn't have to say how they got sober or anything like that. If everybody just went out and just said, I have X amount of days sober today, boom, leave it at that, right? Normalize it and just throw it out into the world. Uh I I I didn't I like I'll I'll be honest, I didn't recover out loud for a long time, and not that I was anonymous about it, I talked about it with everybody, but you know, just like social media and stuff, it just wasn't a priority. But every year on my sobriety date, I would always put up my gratitude list and stuff like that. Just every year, just once a year, I post about my recovery, and every year without fail, I'd get messages from somebody who whose sibling needs help or they need help or something along those lines, and and or somebody that just looks at it a different way. I get you know uh hundreds and hundreds of likes on it every year, and it would it would so now recovering out loud, it there's a whole different feel because I know that what but just by putting out the fact that I did it, if I can do it, anybody can do it. Putting out the message of hope is uh is the pro is the starting process, and it's something that everybody can do. I understand there's gonna be fear, there's fear because people do stigmatize, but if we just start small, if everybody starts small, everybody has a voice, and everybody is out there watching and looking for hope. So um, Kyle, dude, I just want to thank you so much for being on here with us today. Um, you know, this is amazing. Thank you so much for our our our presence. Uh, this is so great. Normally, I'm gonna wear this all over the place. Uh, I wish I got I wish I got the pink one.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Um, your signature color. I'm gonna be making a lot of videos in it, and I'm wearing mine to my meeting tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

So Krista would be so mad. Had you sent me the pink one and her the gray one, she'd have been so mad, Kyle. That would have been kind of funny, but absolutely, and I'm off I'm all for uh getting Krista riled up. Uh so uh uh thank you for being here with us. Uh thank you everyone for being here today in the comments, and uh we love you. We're gonna see you again next week. Um, and any any closing thoughts? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Uh just I I appreciate uh being invited to do this. Uh it's kind of a shock this morning, but I was like, oh, okay. So uh it's all cool. I made it work. Um and no, I just appreciate you too. And I think I want to just all the people that are listening to this podcast. Um I mean, if you're not, I don't want to force people to do it, but if you share your story, you could very well save someone. And I mean that's up to you if you want to do it. I got no problem sharing my story. I speak a lot in Wisconsin, um, all over the place. So um I I share my story. I feel better after I share it. And you never know, someone can get just one little bit of your story and say, wow, you know, maybe I do need some help. Or hey, maybe I'm not working my program correctly, you know. Anything helps, and um, I'm just a big fan of recovering out loud. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep doing it. So, but no, I thank both of you for what you do. Um, it's awesome, and I appreciate being invited to this.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Kyle, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, and we will see you next week. And uh, we got great guests next week. So uh so come back and see us again. Love you.