The Freedom Room Podcast | Cory

Cory talks about his journey 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Hello, and welcome to the Freedom Room podcast. This is episode 19, and we have a member of the Freedom Room with us today, a member who would like to stay anonymous. So could you start by um sharing a little bit of your story and how alcohol addiction has affected your life?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Yeah, sure. Hey Rach. Um hey, let's make it easy. I've always wanted to be called Corey, so maybe we could go with Corey today. Okay, Corey. Um hey, so the question was about how how alcohol addiction affected my life. Is that right? That's it, yeah. Yeah, look, it was interesting. It it affected my life in a way that I probably didn't realize until it really showed up. And that that sounds a bit ridiculous, but um uh such things as thought clarity, um, dependence, every event had to be built around alcohol, or alcohol was coming to an event, um uh the finances were getting hammered. Um I think that's probably the way I would say it kind of affected my life, and it wasn't until I got sober that I actually realized the parts of my life that were were were affected because when I was in the midst of it, I didn't see my life being affected, everything seemed okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Yeah, I totally get that. I know when um when I got sober, um I thought my whole life prior to that, all I wanted to do was just not drink anymore, and I thought every other part of my life was just perfect. I didn't think there was anything else wrong with me whatsoever. Um, and then I got sober, and then I realized that probably every part of me actually was a bit messed up. Um, and I yeah, I had to make a lot of changes. Um, and it's interesting because if we were to ask ourselves the question at the time, you know, is your life manageable? We'd be like, no, there's nothing wrong with my life. I'm fine, I just drink too much.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Um Yeah, I found that um I was able to what I thought was function, and I was holding down some pretty high-profile jobs, and I thought I was doing I think I was doing pretty good in those jobs, but then the question would be asked was, well, you know, how do you know you're doing good at your optimum? So it's kind of like you know, I remember I remember when we were at school, you know, there'd be guys on the swim team who you'd go, look, aren't they great swimmers? And then you know they're smokers, and the comment would be, but how good would they be if they didn't smoke? Yeah, even though they're good at the moment. So it was kind of like that. I didn't I didn't know what I didn't know until I stopped drinking. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

Yeah, no, I I like that. Um, so Corey, I like that too. Um what was some of the turning points that actually led you to seeking help, even though you recognized it after more so, but what was it that made you seek help?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I realized that things weren't going the way I wanted them to go. I wasn't happy. I I ultimately wasn't happy, and I knew the alcohol had become a problem. I think some one of the big telltale signs was I was putting on an immense amount of weight. Uh calories, yeah. You're throwing it down and it j you just blow out. Lots of sugar. Um yeah. And I think the other thing was that I was constantly tired, okay, constantly irritable. Um and I I knew that I wasn't making good decisions. Like I knew if I was thinking at 11 o'clock in the day, I was thinking about my first drink, sometimes even earlier. And now I knew because of the space I worked in, hey, this is not bloody help help helpful mate. You know, you if you're thinking about a drink at 11 o'clock or even earlier, um, you've got a problem. And then finding myself constantly going home on routes past bottle lows, past pubs, or to places where alcohol would be and gravitate to that, I wasn't going there for the right reasons. I was going there to get drunk or have a drink. I wasn't going there to see someone or do what the actual intention was behind what I was saying. So that's when I kind of picked up how it's starting to become a problem.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

You would justify it though at the time as yeah, you're going to the pub or wherever to see so and so or to socialise, or um, but I guess it became very quickly in sobriety that that wasn't true as well because you stopped going, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Um so the real reasons for what I was doing was everything was driven by alcohol or wanting to have a drink. It wasn't driven by, hey, I'll go out and see mum and dad. We'd really love to catch up with them. No, I'll go open a mum, I'll go over to mum and dad's because the bar opens there at three o'clock. If it's not open, I'm sure I can get it to open. Um, hey, look, let's go um let's catch up, let's go catch up at the pub. Let's not catch up for a walk or catch up for a uh to go see a movie or catch up over a nice meal. I'm usually in the pub for a drink.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

It it had that focus.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

And lots of people ask me things after they're in recovery, like, well, what do we do? Where do we go? How do I see, you know, I'm not gonna see my friends, and it's like, well, actually, you absolutely can. Um, you just don't go to the same places, you know. You can go for breakfast, you can catch up for breakfast, you could catch a movie, you can go for a walk, you can just go to each other's houses, but we don't recognize that as actually catching up as them without it being in the pub, and which shows that we were there for the wrong reasons entirely.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

And that was a thing that really scared me, I think is the best way to put it when I first started considering giving up alcohol was who am I gonna hang out with, where am I gonna hang out with, and what the bloody hell am I gonna do after six o'clock at night? You know, it really it because life had become so accustomed to it everything being shaped around or focused around, engaging with alcohol. Yeah. Um and then what I found was that now I'm in a place of going, I if someone says to me, Hey, we're all going down to the pub, I'm going, nah, I'm good, I don't want to come down. Because I now don't enjoy that space. And it's not that I don't enjoy their company, I just don't have anything in common with people who are drinking. Um, in the sense that after a few drinks, they change. And that's that was me too, I used to change. So I've kind of got a two-hour window that I put on a drinking event. So if I go to a party and people are drinking, I can only last two hours. Because one, I get tired at eight o'clock now. I don't have the calories propping me up until two o'clock in the morning. But secondly, when people are drinking and you're sober, the conversation does change. Um and I don't have I can't get on that level. Um so I kind of go, oh, two hours, especially when the sun goes down, because that's when the drinking speeds up, I end up going home. Um and I found comfort in that now. And that was really difficult, you know. It was a very lonely time for me. Uh though, to be truthful, I did still keep going in the first probably six months. I kept going back to my old horns, but I would drink non-alcoholic beer. Okay. And it weaned me off those places really well.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

And how did you find the um zero beers? Like, did I know you said it weaned you off, and and it, you know, it absolutely can, for some people, be um, you know, what they need to help get them off drinking. For you, how long did that last? Did do you still drink those or do you now just drink soft drinks?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

How how is that for you? Um I had two of I had two non-alcoholic beers yesterday. Had a mate come down um and he's got some stuff going on, and I was like, let's go for a drive. So we went for a drive and we swung into the bottle out. He grabbed a six-pack of beer, I grabbed two stubbies of um non of the non-alcoholic beers and went for a drive. I got through one and a half of them. Um I enjoyed probably the first half bottle. It was nice and cold and fresh and bubbly. Um, but I don't drink them as much. But when I was going back to the pub, I'd sit there and have four or five.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Um, and then I slowly wean myself off. Yes, yes. Um but now when I go back to the pub, if I if I do, like to be honest, I I popped into the pub on Friday um and I stayed for maybe 20 minutes. But when I when I usually go down there now, I usually just have a Coke Zero. Okay, yeah. Um and and carry on from there. Because it's I live in a country town, so everybody kind of knows everybody. Um, and people know that I've quit drinking. And nobody asks any questions. The first thing they go is, hey, how's the drinking going? I said, No, still still on drinking. They go, and the typical response is geez, good on you. That's bloody brutal done. As they drink their rum and coke. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

And you know, sometimes that there's a mix of people, but sometimes people will be quite envious that you have done it because it's like, well, I wish I could have done that.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah, yeah. And look, there's I don't hold any kind of judgment or higher accolades to myself for giving up drinking over people who are who are still drinking because that's their choice. 100%. And my choice was to quit. I'm not any better than you or any worse than you. We're just doing two different things at the moment. That was us, you know.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

We how how can we um you know be disrespectful to them? That that was us.

SPEAKER_04 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

You you said that you would be, you'd get to maybe say 11 o'clock, um, and then you'd be thinking about getting a beer later and where you were gonna get it, how you was gonna get it, where you were gonna go, you know, that kind of thing. Were you surprised that how much time you gave away to alcohol?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah, it's a good question. I never thought about it, but when you ask that, I go, yeah. Yeah, I gave away a lot of time. I would I would say I didn't waste time because every moment that I gave away to alcohol has led me to where I am sober today, so it was a valuable gift to give away.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

100%, I get that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

I would say but was it well used time? Well, you could say it was because I'm now here and I'm I'm staring down almost 12 months sober, um, with a mild indiscretion at about month nine. Um, but no, it wasn't wasted time, it wasn't bad because it's got me to where I am. You know, I don't think I would have been able to do where I am and now be like this. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Um let's talk about your mild indiscretion at month nine.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

So um you had a couple of drinks, what happened? I went out to a party um with a lovely lady, we just started seeing each other, and um she drank, and I was thinking to myself, hey, I've I s it was a genuine, genuine curiosity. It was really bizarre. I was like, I wonder if I can do this. I wonder if I can do controlled drinking. And and I wonder if it'll be good. So I thought I'm gonna give this a bloody go. And I did. I actually made an active decision. Tonight I'm gonna in two nights' time, I'm gonna go and have a drink. Um and I went and tried it. And I would have got through the course of the night from probably five till five till nine, which was maybe about five or six hours. Five till nine. Four four four four hours. King maths is not your strong point, Cory. I I I would have got through just under a bottle of red wine. Okay? Okay. Uh so a little bit of about eight drinks. Um and um I learned that I couldn't do it. So, and like I wasn't stumbling around, I wasn't throwing up on myself, I was happy, I was merry, but I was just sitting there and I was just going, well, that was that was pointless. Woke up in the morning feeling like a bucket of shit, and I kind of went, that was worthless. For four hours of feeling jolly um that I could feel any other time without the alcohol, but now I've got the hangover. What was the point? Yeah. It it hammered home to me that there really is no point. Or for me, there's just no point.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

And had you intentionally decided um that you were gonna have a bottle, or did you think I might just have one or two, but ended up having a bottle, which meant yeah, I think it's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

I hadn't put I didn't put any boundaries on it. I just went, we'll just see whether it night ends up. I said was I'm gonna have a drink.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

And we'll just see what happens. Okay. But I knew I was gonna have more than one drink.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Um, and that's interesting. So you knew you were gonna have more than one. So that in itself possibly says something as well.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

In what way? In what way?

SPEAKER_03 12:54

You know, because when you you went out with the intention of, well, I'm not gonna have just one, why would you not just have one?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Well, I probably knew I couldn't. Right. Yeah, I probably knew I couldn't just have one. But then I didn't want to just have one. I wanted to get a buzz. I wanted to f I wanted to get the you know, the the nice beer buzz or the red wine buzz that you get.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

So that was that was the thought behind it. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Yeah. And have you had any other triggers since then? And how did you handle it after that night? What happened?

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Um, yeah, look, I've had moments where I wanted to have another drink. It creeps back into your mind.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

But um, one of the things I got out of coming here to some of the meetings was um look at the trees or look at the greenly or or look at something or think of something that's gonna take your mind off it.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

So now typically what happens is when the old monkey jumps back on my back and says, Hey, mate, maybe we should have a drink, I usually just say to myself, give yourself 10 minutes and this will go away.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

And it does. And it does, yeah. Absolutely, 10 minutes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

And um what advice would you give to anybody that was thinking the same thing or was thinking that you know was struggling and um they were afraid of having a relapse or or a mild indiscretion as Corey likes to put it. Um so yeah, what what would your advice be?

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Oh look, my advice would be if if you're heading down that path, um, there's a reason you're doing it. So try and work out the reason why. Um, but also uh reach out to someone who can who you can have a yarn to about it. And and and and you know, um I didn't reach out to anyone because I'd already made my decision, um, and I didn't feel I had to. But if you're in that in that quandary place of going, I don't know if I should, I don't know if I shouldn't, you really should speak to someone about it. Yeah. Go, hey, this is what I'm thinking at the moment, what do you reckon?

SPEAKER_03 14:50

And you said to that um, you know, have a think about what it was that led you to that place. Why, you know, what what do you think led you to that place? What made you decide?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Um, genuine genuine it genuine addiction. Yeah, still still being addicted to alcohol, but also the curiosity of wanting to see if I could do it.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

And I'm also wondering whether or not I kind of felt I deserved it.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

So I'm kind of there going, hey, after eight months, geez, you've done so bloody good here, Corey. Why not why not celebrate with a drink? Yeah, and something can prove to yourself that you can do controlled drinking.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

And if you can, hey, great, you can always have another drink. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 15:35

And how I mean, for you, and I've seen it with other people, but it's actually sometimes a good thing, you know, that it happened and it happened like that. Because let's imagine if you were able that night to control it and it was okay, you'd be likely to do it again and see what happens, and actually, it could end up really bad later on. It's it's a blessing, if you like, that you recognize straight away and it was like, yeah, no, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

No, you're 100% right. Like, it was a good, it was a really good learning experience for me. Yeah. And I I have got zero, absolutely zero regrets of doing it. Um, because I was not I wasn't ever one of these drinkers that would get drunk and then run down the street naked and abuse everybody. I was the kind of person who'd drink, get through a good bottle and a bit more, and just sit there and laugh and be very quiet and calm. Um I I wasn't violent, I wasn't angry or aggressive, I was I was a different person when I drank, I know that. I was completely disengaged from the world, I was off in my own world, and my thoughts and emotions and all that sort of stuff were depressed. But um what I learned from it was, hey, great, you can't do it. And you don't need to do it. That was a really big thing I took from it because I did. I walked away from it and I just went, what was the point of that? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was honestly about as helpful as a proverbial on uh uh on a bull.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

It was just not worth it. Okay. And of course, Corey, you're not disrespecting us that you like to drink, get drunk, get naked, and run around in a you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

If someone's gonna get out there and get drunk and naked and run down the street, give me a yell so I can hang out on what I I I need sober entertainment, like that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Isn't it? You know, we're sober, we're not dead. Um that brings us into another um little topic there, you know. What have you you were worried about what am I gonna do if I don't drink? So what do you do? What what how has being sober changed your life? What what do you do now if you don't go to the pub?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Well everything I everything I was doing when when I was drinking, I still do. So I just still live life. I still do a job. I uh I I I run my own business now. Um I think what I have done what I do differently is that I have a greater thirst for being more outgoing and doing things. So um I'll give anything a go, you know. Like someone rings me up and says, Do you want to go for a motorbike ride or get it or do this sport or try this out? I'd be like, Yeah, 100%. Whereas before I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Um I find that I am I am more motivated and engaged with people around me, with my children. So, for example, I'll be in the pool more with them. Because now I won't be sitting there and having a drink watching them, I'll be actively in the pool with them. I'll be more actively listening and engaging with them. My work, I'm more clear in my mind. I'm focusing stronger on on achieving things and and getting there. I find I'm more emotionally in tune with myself. So, one of the great things that I heard from one of the guys who's um who comes here to the Freedom Room is that you start living life in high definition, in 4K. And I think we're moving up to 5K soon, too. But that's that's so true. You start to see, smell, hear, feel things that you didn't feel before. Yeah, and with that comes the motivation to do that more, so you start doing more. So it kind of is its own self-fulfilling motivation. Um like I could probably say at the moment, my business has actually been quite successful. It would not have been this successful if I had still been drinking. It'd be successful, but it wouldn't be this successful. Um, my relationship with my children, okay. I've got a I I always had a great relationship with them, but I've got a better relationship with them now because I'm more actively involved. And they noticed anything. Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Within within five weeks of quitting alcohol, one of them came to me and said, You know you're laughing a lot more, Dad. You know you're a lot more fun to be around, you're laughing a lot more.

SPEAKER_06 19:52

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, little things like that. The other one that was really interesting, the youngest kid came up to me, and I think it might have been about I'd like to say week three, but it might have been about maybe month three. Um she came up to me and I was sitting in the um uh sitting in the lounge room uh reading a book or doing something non-drinking and non-TV based. And she came up and she said, Daddy, can we play a game of cards together? Now what was incredible about that was one, it was it was like a backhanded compliment. The compliment was that she wanted to do something with dad. The backhandedness of it was that in the past she'd never done that because she knew at that time of day when daddy's sitting down with a glass of wine in his hand, that's the do not disturb daddy time.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yeah, so so so now she knew that daddy didn't have the wine in his hand, so daddy was available. Now that killed me, that broke my heart because I never realized I had the insight that alcohol was taking me away from those interactions.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

How valuable and wonderful it is to actually be given that gift of insight based on your child showing you that.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Yeah, it's very scary when again when we get sober on things that happen and things that um our children say that we realise how not present we were.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

But how privileged are we to be in a situation where we can reflect back on that and be able to make amends? Oh. Like or do things that turn it round. Yeah. Because the others could cause because there's so many things in life that don't give us that opportunity to do. So if we were sober, like say for example you're a non-drinker, what things in your life are uh are are are holding up the mirror to you to look into for you to be accountable and responsible for that person you'd be? Like it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Oh, mate, I will always say that I'm a grateful alcoholic for that reason, you know, because it got me to where I am now, but I have also got I've got like a manual to living that. Sober people don't have.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

You are a manual to living that sober people don't have or do have.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

Don't have. So take me and my husband.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

I work a program of recovery. He doesn't. And to watch him struggle and suffer around certain issues sometimes breaks me.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

I've got the instructions on how to do that, you know, I've in my program.

SPEAKER_04 22:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

He hasn't. Nor has a lot of people. People who haven't, you know, have not gone through what we're going through and then not then given the you know the like the the steps, but the actual program of recovery. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

You're talking like the 12 steps, is that what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_03 22:54

And the gratitude that we look at, and you know, the way we look at ourselves instead of just putting the blame on others, they don't have that luxury.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

No, they don't they don't have it. They can get it, and they may already have the capacity to do it, they might be doing it. I guess when you're saying that, one of the things that is kind of making me feel a little bit uncomfortable is we are not in a better position than that than they are, or more fortunate than they are because we now don't drink. Like we can't hold ourselves hot. Oh no, no, not at all. Um and I know that's not what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

No, no, no, no. It's more that the programme, you know, it's the way I live now.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

Um, and to be able to live the life that I live, yeah. I had to go through my addiction so that I could get to work on a programme.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Oh, look, I completely agree with you. There are ways in which I now look at, see at look, see, and feel and be that I would never ever have done, even if I was able to control drink. Yeah, no, that's the program did give me that. The program made me reflect on who I am, what I've done, where I've been, where I'm going, what I can, what I can't do, and what I want to do.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

And the only way we have got that program is because we had an addiction. You know, why are we not taught this stuff at school? Why do we have to wait to get an addiction to um to be able to live like that wrong? But again, I'm grateful, and that's what I mean, you know, because I do I look at my husband sometimes and think if he works a program, he would be able to move on from that pain.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

But there's I I think the program, I think there's many other forms of this program out there that are uh are just as powerful. Really, for me, so so from my experience was this program was one of mindfulness. It really was. It was about becoming mindful of who you were.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

There are many other programs out there that promote mindfulness.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

You and I were just well, I was very lucky to find you um to find a program that worked with me. Yeah. In my addiction. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was able to become mindful and present, and it was uncomfortable at first, but then become comfortable to reflect on who I was.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Would you look for that um program? No. No, it's not I wouldn't have.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Because we didn't realise we need the program, and you know, we come to stop drinking, and then we get the program, and it just changes not the drinking, but the living, you know, the drinking is what 10%, and the rest of it isn't, you know, the 90% is us and the mindfulness and all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

And I sometimes wonder as to was the drinking the problem? Yes, or was, as you said, the 10%, was 90% me re discovering who I was and who I could be, where the real change occurred through the program?

SPEAKER_03 26:11

So I have real big mixed emotions on that question, yeah. Um, because sometimes the answer is yes, yes, alcohol was a problem for you. Yes, alcohol was the problem. You know, we we are alcoholic or however we want to put it. I am absolutely 100% an alcoholic, but then you know, as you just said, was alcohol the problem? Well, actually, I would say alcohol was your solution to the 90% of what you were going through. Well, I think you're right, and and you know, some everybody is different, and that's what makes me say I have mixed emotions on it because um for me, I believe, I mean, I drank alcoholically for my first ever drink, um, and I I think I always was going to. Um, I'm I'm sure that I was born an alcoholic, but then the issues that I had over the years just gave me the reasons or the excuses to continue to drink in that way.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Well, it's it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful product because it's um it's a product that sells itself. The more you have, the more you want. You know, it's it's a it's it's a wonderful product like that.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

But it's also so so so much associated with the happiness, the cool, the rich, the good looking, all this sort of bullshit. So it's all it's a wonderful product. I often sometimes think that God and alcohol are very closely relinked and marketed the same way. You know, you've got alcohol in your life, you'll have a successful, happy life, you know, with cars and hot-looking women and blah blah blah. You have God in your life. Well, you know, you're going to a wonderful place where you're going to be, you know, in heaven and blah blah blah. So they both fulfill some sort of need. It's a pretty loose analogy that I'm making. I realize that.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

And I think that's actually just down to the uh very good marketing.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, there's an infallibility in in the belief in religion. There's an infallibility in the use of alcohol. So there's a parallel there that I see.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Yeah, for sure. So um, Corey, just before we um finish, um can you just tell me a little bit about how the freedom room itself, like what you feel that you got from the freedom room. Um, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Look, look, look, look, to cut through the bullshit, let's promote the freedom room. Um yeah. Uh no, look, I think the freedom room for me, in um in many of the places that I looked at and many of the things that I tried, I think there was two things for me. One, it was the freedom room itself, but the timing was right. I tried everything. I tried um online counselling, I tried the drugs to stop you from drinking, where you have some sort of allergic reaction to alcohol or it numbs the senses, all this sort of stuff. For me, what was good about the Freedom Room was that it was it was friendly, it was calm, it was supportive. There were other people there who were well willing to welcome you in unconditionally. Um I think it just suited me at that exact point in time to be able to be who I needed to be, and it it allowed it it it was who I wanted to be in that space. So for example, for example, let's let's attach some tangibility to this, is that I could come on a Monday night and sit around and have a chat with other alcoholics, but not sit and dwell and wheel spin in the misery of life and our alcoholism, but be constructive about what we were trying to do and where we were trying to go.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

I could be unjudged. Because there were people at the Freedom Room who had a heavier use of alcohol than I did. You know, there were people here who, you know, I'm sure people there was probably people here who were dropping two bottles of scotch a day. Um, you know, I was probably a bottle of wine a day. Um but I didn't feel judged by them and they didn't feel judged by me, which was really good.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

You know, um, even when I shared stories about some of the things I'd done with my drinking, I just saw head nodding.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

People going, oh yeah, I've done that. Yeah, yeah, no, that's like yeah, that's shit, isn't it? And you go, oh, that doesn't feel too bad. So you felt safe.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

So it was a safe place to to to get through this. I think was the real was the really was the real blessing with it. And it came at the right time.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

And timing is um a million percent the you know the catalyst in the you know if it's not your time, if you're not quite ready, yeah, it's not gonna work. No, no program is gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Well, my timing was spot on coming here because I remember I remember how I how I got connected to the place through a lovely lady who can't who's one of your participants here. But it was a and I met her right at the point in my life when I was going, this is becoming a problem for this is a problem for you. Um you are sitting on a knife's edge. You will either go one way and fix the problem and get clean, or you're gonna go the other way and possibly become possibly lose your children. Um, which was the long-term apocalyptic um outcome that I saw. Um and it was really hard. It was really hard to make that decision. But I f this place I found through Give It Out to the Universe, however, I found it through the through the through the good grace of fortune um that I was able to to go onto the not the non-alcoholic path um through all of the methods, through all of the supports, etc.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Um is there anything else that you'd just like to share with our listeners at all about the story or I think I think the only thing I can share is that if you're not too sure what you're doing or where you're going, one it's about the timing. Um don't fool yourself in the fact that you think it's going to be hard, because it's not hard, but it is hard. It's a it is a tricky thing to do, to give up. It really is. But you can do it. You can do it. So many people do. And you know, I remember celebrating four days, not being sober. You know, I was sitting here the other night listening to a guy who was going, I've only reached 23 days, and I'm thinking in my mind, only that's fucking brilliant. Because I remember when I reached 23 days, I was shouting to the hot to to the sky. You know, I'm coming up on reaching 12 months. I didn't think I'd get here. But I'm here. So you it it is achievable. Yeah, and it is, you know, really small steps. Um, but you've got to work it. You've got to work it. Um, you've got to do the program, you've got to do the steps, you've got to do the meditations, you've got to do the reflections, and it's not actually about doing it for 12 months and then you're healed. It's actually about a change of lifestyle. And if you're ready to do a change of lifestyle, then you'll be successful. And awesome.

SPEAKER_03 33:14

Well, thank you very much, Corey. Um that part that I like.

unknown 33:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Um thank you to our listeners, and um we look forward to speaking with you again next week. Have a lovely week.