The Freedom Room Podcast | Benita

Rachel talks to Benita about her recovery journey. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello everybody. Welcome to the Freedom Roman podcast. I am Rachel Akers, and today is episode 17. Today we've got Benita with us, and she is going to talk to us about her journey through alcohol addiction and her recovery. So welcome Benita. Thank you, Rachel.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Thank you. So can you start and share your story about how alcohol addiction affected your life?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up the oldest of four of five, sorry, kids in a really loving home. Like there was no trauma or anything like that. And um drinking was a normal part of my life when I grew up, you know, went to teenagers and to parties, we'd have parties in the paddock, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

And mum and dad, did mum and dad drink or mum and dad weren't big drinkers.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

No. I did have two of my uncles who lived with us on the property. Uh-huh. They were very big drinkers. Okay. Um, and then so it was kind of pretty normal, kind of growing up. Yep. And then what happened is that um well one thing I I did now know is that um I did actually drink differently from other people. As in I always drunk a lot. I always drank a lot. I could compared to your friends around you, you mean? Compared to my friends around me, I could never really understand how someone could really just have one drink. Yeah, and sit on it and yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And and I could drink heaps of people under the table, you know. I could drink a couple bottles of rum, you know, when I was 18, 19. Oh, okay. No dramas wasn't an issue for me, you know. And then what happened is that I got pregnant. So through my 20s, you know, I did a little I I was always worked, I did a lot of you know, a lot of partying, it was always kind of normal social kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

And then I got pregnant, I think I was 27. And um then I had two babies very quickly.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

And assumably, you know, we we um we have a partner, we have a husband, or I was married I was well with a partner at the time, and had my first baby, ten months later had my second baby.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Holy hell!

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Somebody somewhere is going to be doing some maths. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

And then, you know, my partner at the time was working away a lot. So here I found myself with these two little babies, and no one really to help me. I had family down the road, I had family around me a lot, and then um my drinking started to get worse.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Okay, so up until that point, like when you were pregnant and prior to that, you know, um, you drank what you would see as relatively normally. Or would you say that actually when you look back, it even though you know yeah, that you drank more than others, but when you look back, would you say that there was a bit of a problem then, but you didn't realize absolutely there was definitely a problem then.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

I didn't realise I was a big I was a binge drinker a lot. And your partner, did he drink? Yes. Okay. So a lot of our like a lot of my social stuff was around drinking. Yep. Everything revolved around alcohol. You know, back then I thought it was normal though. Okay, yeah, yeah. Looking back now, I can see that it's not.

unknown 3:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

And the more people we talk to that don't drink and like that look at us a bit funny, and we realise, yeah, that not everybody was doing that. And we do think that everybody is doing it, don't we?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Oh, absolutely. Well, I did. I thought everybody drunk like me.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

You know, I really did. And you know, looking back as well, it was always like once I'd started, I found I couldn't stop. Okay. Found it even back then, it was hard to stop. Yeah, you know, and I honestly thought that everybody drunk like that. I now know different. Yeah, sure. You know, then I had, yeah, I had the kids, the two babies, um, as I said, my partner at the time was working away a lot. And then what happened is I started to drink for for different reasons. It started to become not so much social, yeah, but more as a like a stress release or a reward for getting through a really hard day with the skills.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Getting them to bed and then thinking, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, yeah, and um, and the amount I was drinking increased a lot. You know, like I used to do those wine clubs, you know, where you'd order like a dozen bottles of wine. Yeah, yeah. That'd send them out every three months. One week they'd be gone. Yeah, okay. You know, and then and and that's still and it started to get worse as in like you know, I would go down to my parents' house down the road, you know, and I'd I just was always drinking. And I was always drinking, and um, I used to drink drive with my kids a fair bit. You know, I used to justify it because it was only like just down the road, which is actually four kilometres on a windy, windy road.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah. You know, and there's there's many of us mothers that have done that, um, the drunk drive with our children in the car, which you know, I have to say I was doing it way more than four Ks down the road, you know. Um but um yeah, when we say that out loud, that's scary, isn't it? Because we put we are the biggest protectors of our children, but when we look back, especially when it comes to our drinking, when we look back, actually we were probably one of the most damaging.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Oh, it's it's horrifying when I look back. Like it's just horrifying, and it's not just the drink driving, it's the my eldest daughter. Um, you know, when my I've got a third child, my third child Ranger when he was born, you know, my eight-year-old daughter pretty much looked after him. You know, and it's that stuff. Yeah, it's Christmas Eve, wrapping Christmas presents and drinking so much that I put the wrong names on the presents. Luckily they were small enough not to not to realise, and I quickly swapped them. But it was those little things that was pretty bad.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Running out of wrapping paper um and just putting them in there like a black bag. I'd done that. That if I'd have been more organized, it was because it was midnight and I had nothing else left and I'd left it to the last minute because just drinking, yeah, and thinking that that was okay, and it's not okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

It's not okay, you know, and um the last probably five years of my drinking were pretty bad. The like just not being present with my kids um was pretty much a daily drinker by then. And as I said, you know, my my eldest daughter, one of my eldest daughters, um, you know, she looked after my youngest for me a lot. And you know, I never realized the effect that it had on my family around me, especially my parents.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

I robbed them of their peace of mind for a lot of years.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I can relate to that with my mum, absolutely, yeah. The sleepless nights that they've had over us, and yet we wouldn't think that we gave them any reason to, because we would think that we were we're good kids, right? Well that's well that's right. But yeah, sleepless nights because they just didn't know what was gonna happen to us. And their children, their grandchildren.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

And and here's the thing, my kids were still going to school, they were still doing all the things, we uh I had friends, we did play dates, you know, I managed to have quite a good mask. A lot of my stuff was hidden.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Would you refer to yourself? Did you ever refer to yourself as a functioning alcoholic?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

I don't actually think I did. Okay. Because to be honest with you, like I grew up with, as said, my two uncles who at that time were living down the road, you know, both of them passed away from alcoholism. And I knew what an alcoholic looked like. I knew what an alcoholic looked like. You know, and I just I never ever till the very end of my drink of my drinking, I never admitted or even to myself that I might be an alcoholic.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Okay, okay. Like that denial. The denial is in me. So it wasn't that you knew you was an alcoholic. Like for me in at the end, you know, I knew I was an alcoholic for a very long time. I just didn't know what to do about it. I thought that I'd been to everywhere and tried everything. Whereas you yeah, no, no, no, I'm I'm all good, everything's fine.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Um I just thought that, you know, I just was, you know, my life was hard. You know, to the outside, people looking in, it looked wonderful. Well, you know, I think. But um but the insides of me were really messed up. Yeah. And I honestly just thought that it was just me, that there was something actually fundamentally wrong with me. Okay. I didn't really put the two together if that makes sense, but I just I really fundamentally thought that there was something wrong with me. I didn't know what it was. But I knew that alcohol helped sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah, okay. So alcohol wasn't the problem. You was the problem, and alcohol was your saviour. Alcohol helped. Right. Until it stopped.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Mm-hmm. Until it stopped working, you know, like um I the other thing as well is like with my drinking, even though it was a lot and and whatever, like, I cannot remember anybody pulling me up on my drinking.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Okay. So none of your family ever said I'll oh I can't.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Not that I can remember.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

No, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

None of my not that I can remember any of my family ever saying, Benita, you're drinking too much. Bonita, don't get in the car and drive with those kids.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Okay. And is that because again, you covered it well, or they generally didn't think that you had a problem or I don't know. No.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

To be honest. No. I don't know. Um, I think now I knew that they knew I had a problem.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

You know, uh they knew I had a problem.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

But they didn't know what to do with that either, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:05

That they didn't know what to do with it either.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Absolutely. You know, like like uh I think it was about three years before I came into recovery. My uncle, my mum's brother was living at home next door to their place, and look, you know, and I knew what was happening. Like mum would go over in the morning and check whether he was still alive most mornings from his drinking. And then, you know, he ended up having a fall outside at four o'clock in the morning with blue, went into hospital, had what they call alcoholic um amnesia, yeah. Um, and like he didn't even know who he was. Yeah, okay, what are you doing here in hospital? Oh, I was on the soccer field and this happened, and blah blah blah blah blah. It's like that was really shocking to see that.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

A nicer memory though than what really happened.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

But he got his memory back. Oh, okay. He got his memory back, and then he, you know, but and but he was 60 and ended up in a aged care home and then passed away from cancer not long after. But through that whole period, like that wasn't even enough to stop me drinking.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

No.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

It was not enough to stop me drinking.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Like I I was it a a you and him situation? That's him, this is me, our drinking's different, or I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

I just I don't I I honestly don't know, but it just wasn't enough to stop me drinking. You know, and by the end of my drinking, I was pretty much a daily blackout drinker. I'd pass out on the lounge with the kids. Um in the morning I would wake up, eyes would flick open in a panic, and think, where are my children? I'd have to jump up, lay my eyes on them, make sure that they were there. Then I'd have to then I'd go and look for evidence that they'd been fed or what had what had happened.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

And what about your partner at this point? You know, um, I know you said he was working away, but did he ever see any of this? Did he ever kids say anything to him, you know?

SPEAKER_00 13:10

No, well he was he was drinking as well, you know. And um had there was a couple of times actually, one in particular he did pull me up on my drinking. He was I woke up one morning and he was just so angry at me. So angry at me. I'm like, what is going on? Why are you saying that? He said, Don't you remember? I was like, remember what? He'd come home, um, we lived on property, and as he'd driven up the driveway, here I was walking through the paddock with my youngest who was 10 months old, half crawling, carrying him, and my um other two kids who were like I think five and six at the time, trying to kind of help me and help me get home because I'd gone to the next door neighbours to have one drink.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

And I just remember him being so angry about that.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

And you didn't remember and no, I had nothing. No, I used to gauge um how bad the night was the next day by um whether Jay was talking to me or not. You know, if I woke up and you know he like wasn't talking to me, it wasn't because I could remember, it was like shit that I must have done something really bad last night. Um, or yeah, I woke up and he was like, that only happened a couple of times with my partner, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Um I said this is a way a lot, and a lot of times he was drinking with me.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah. So after that occasion, um and he'd said, What what did you do then? Did you know with your drinking, or did you just carry on like normal?

SPEAKER_00 14:42

I just carried on. Okay. It was another three years before I hit my rock bottom. Okay. Mmm. And um and I used to have parties, we used to have parties and barbecues all the time, and you know, by the end, the last few years, like they were always at our house. Okay. My kids never did anything after school. Have a drink and it was just really looking back now, it was just so crap. And then I got to the end, and um my last drink, I'd gone next door to my neighbour for one drink.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

At this stage I'd had I had And and for people who don't quite get, you know, next door where you live isn't like you don't you don't live like you don't semi.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So it it would be it would be like, you know, a five-minute walk, maybe 200 meters, 300 metres or so through the paddocks to get to my next door neighbour. And by this stage I had my 17-year-old stepdaughter living with us in U 12 full-time. I had nine-year-old daughter, eight-year-old son, and my four-year-old son. The two boys come with me. The girls stayed at home, they were cooking dinner. I'm just going up for one drink. I went up there, and then um my phone went flat. I had Chloe, oh yeah, Chloe, my eldest, had rung me and said, dinner's dinner's ready, dinner's ready. So, yeah, yeah, no worries, I'm coming down, I'm coming down. And my phone went flat, and I can't really remember much more. Then the next morning I saw on my phone that there was a photo of me standing there with my mum and dad with a snake. What had happened is uh the girls were at home, the carpet snake had come into the guinea pig cage and started eating the guinea pigs. And they were beside themselves and couldn't get a hold of me. I had said I'd be home two hours earlier. Uh I can't remember coming home. I think I walked home with the boys. So they had to call my parents. My partner was away at the time. I had to call my parents to come up and deal with the snake, and I just had no memory. Then that next morning my nine-year-old daughter said to me, Mum, where were you? We needed you last night and you weren't here. She'd said that to me a few times before, but this time was bad enough.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Had the neighbor ever said anything to you?

unknown 17:19

No.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

No. Okay. But then again, I'm guessing neighbor drank. Similar?

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, similar, not quite not as bad. But I said, I I honestly, honest Scott, I cannot remember anybody pulling me up about my drinking. Other than my partner a couple of times. And they were only the times that he was sober. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

So and then yeah, so that next morning I went my parents slipped down the road, went down the road, and um I knew things were really bad because dad didn't talk to me. And dad didn't talk to me. Okay, and that's really out of character, right? Really, really out of character. And I just knew that something had to change. Like I just I'd never felt that feeling of um shame and it was a lot of shame, but it was the strongest ever. You know, like for the few years prior, like I'd wake up most mornings feeling, especially last 12 months, feel just wake up feeling sick and ashamed. How did I do that again? Again, yeah. It was like, you know, I'd be cooking dinner and it's like I would come to and I would have a wine glass at my mouth. And as soon as I'd had one bit, that was it. So then yeah, and um so I actually rang a lady I knew who was sober. Um I tried to rent, I didn't get, she was away or something, so I couldn't get through. So what I decided is I thought I just I I knew for something, just I knew I had to not drink. Now, previous to this, just to be clear too, I think in probably the last three years of my drinking, I think the longest I went without a drink was maybe three days. Okay. And that was purely because I was so physically sick I couldn't put a drink in me. Other than that, for three years it was, you know. So I stopped by myself. Yeah, and just what it was kind of like um what I did was pretty much locked myself up in the house, put the keys where they needed to go, went to school, went the long way around, so I didn't go near any bottlos at all because I knew I couldn't trust myself, um, and just isolated at home. And so I did that for two months.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Okay. That's a long time um to just not drink because you would have been white nuts in it every day, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Every single day I pretty much slept when the kids weren't there because I I I couldn't otherwise I knew I'd drink. And um it was incredibly hard and it got worse. I got worse. Like I was I just couldn't understand. I'd stopped drinking, but nothing got better, things got worse, especially my inside stuff. Like I just I hated, hated who I was. I hated the person that I was. I felt like that you know, how could a a mother do this to their kids? Okay, you know, how could a daughter do this to their parents? You know, what was I I just felt that that somewhere inside of me there was something that was fatally flawed with me. I didn't know what it was. And I said I stopped drinking and it just got all worse. Which confused you even more. Way more, way more. So then it was a couple of months in, and then it was my best mate's 40th, organizing it for months, in the city, no kids. I knew without a doubt that if I went, I was gonna pick up a drink. I was gonna drink. There was no way, I knew it, there was no way.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Because you'd haven't done any work, right? And suddenly, you know, this late night was coming up that you've been organizing for ages and you can't drink.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so I made another phone call to again a lady that I knew who was sober, and um I said, I need some help. And she said to me, Benita, I've been praying to hear this from you for years. Um I'm currently overseas, but someone will give you a call. And then from there I went to my first recovery meeting.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Okay. And what did that look like?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

That looked like me walking into this room where there were I felt so sick, I just could barely look anybody in the eye. But I was so scared and desperate that I just did it. Did it and I walked in and I was a bit sh I was actually a bit surprised about how what they look like in the recovery room.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Okay. Yeah. You know the perception of what we think and our what it is. Yeah, yeah. We were connecting every uh Trump and every Tom, Dick, and Harry that yeah, we're living on a park bench, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

That's right. So from that point on, what happened was is that I just did what I needed to do, what I was told to do. I got help, I did it through a 12-step program, and I just as as said every day, just did what I was told to do basically because I didn't know what to do. Every action I'd done had led me to this point. Yeah, yeah, you know, and then 10 months into recovery, you know, when I was sober, I actually had to leave my partner.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Okay, wow. I was actually gonna ask you, you know, what was one of what's your biggest challenge? I'm assuming that was it.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

That was my biggest challenge, having to leave my partner like that. I loved him dearly, you know. However, what happened was I I stopped drinking and I started to change. I was doing the work of recovery and I started to change. And I'd given him every option to, you know, come with me on the journey. You don't have to stop drinking, but you know, I'm gonna change.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

You know, you can you can come with me on this, you know, because I was also getting outside like help as well, like with counselling.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

And you know, I decided that I was so full of fear about picking up a drink and where it was gonna lead that I just did everything that I could. Yep. No matter how I felt. You know, I just did it. So anyway, yeah, 10 months in I had to leave him. Um, I left my kids with him for six weeks. I'd basically go down in the morning, he'd go to work, look after kids take them to school, I'd bring them home from school, and then he'd come home idly. So did that for six weeks. Uh yeah, it was really hard. I live I went down the road to my parents' house and then I we had to that was it. You know, I had to say, I'm done. Because really what it was for me, I knew that if I stayed in that relationship, he was gonna drink.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

And was that because he was a drinker or just because of the relationship? Both.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Okay. But he also couldn't understand, like, you know, our whole lot of our relationship was around alcohol.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

You know, he loved it when I came first came into recovery, but then mine started changing and he didn't understand. And he didn't know who you were anymore? No, he didn't know who I was anymore. No. So that happened, and so I literally walked out of that relationship, walked away from the house and the property um with just my clothes and kids' clothes. And then I was lucky enough to be able to move down to mum and dad's property and kind of just start again.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

And um how easy is um recovery as a single mum?

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Oh extremely tough. Extremely tough. But the flip side of that is is that I am not doing recovery just you know, my recovery records out to my kids.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

So I'd go to recovery meetings um the first three, four years, like you know, four five, six times a week. And I'd bring my kids if I had to. So my kids have grown up in recovery meetings. Um but I had no choice if I had to. But yeah, it's extremely hard as a single mum.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

And um obviously your the 12-step program that you were working rubs off on them, like you say, the ripple effect, but it's almost is it I'm guessing that you know they they taught the language, they see it, they live it. Um and actually it's it's actually really very beneficial for them, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Oh, absolutely beneficial for them. They I see my recovery in my kids all the time. Yeah, they don't necessarily see it, I see it. Yeah, I hear it in their words, I see it in their actions. And that's amazing. Yeah, and that's one of the things that keeps me motivated to do my recovery every day. Like I'm nine and a half years in recovery. Wow. And I'll be honest with you, when I first walked into recovery meetings, I was thinking there's no way I'll go a week doing this. Like I'd done two months, but it was horrendous. It was horrendous, like that two months by myself.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Because it was two months of just not drinking and nothing else. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

That's right, just not drinking and nothing else. Recovery, I've got all these other tools that I can use. And yeah, nine and a half years later, it's I get goosebumps because it's just amazing.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Yeah, yeah, we're we it's nothing short of a miracle, that's for sure. So, how would you say recovery has changed your life?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Hugely. I have a life that I had never even dreamed it was possible. So, like the basic way that things have changed is people can rely on me. I'm absolutely present with my kids. You know, um I I have a job, I get to work um with other women in recovery as well. I I do corporate training. I'm way more confident. Probably one of the biggest things as well that has changed is that I absolutely love who I am. You know, that that's huge for me.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

And I know that there's not actually something fundamentally wrong with me. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Um, because you've been and seen um lots of other people who uh have alcohol addiction and it's not because there's anything wrong with anybody.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

No, that's right, it's not because there's anything wrong. It's nothing wrong with me. I was just very sick.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

And all I need to do is treat it. Recovery is how I treat it.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yeah. And you will continue to treat it for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Absolutely. Yeah. I can't afford not to. No, no. I don't want to, to be honest. Like from the start of my recovery to now, nine and a half years later, the amount of amazing things that have happened is just uh incredible. Because early recovery, if you would have told me that this is where I would be now, I would have gone no way.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

I honestly thought that I would have this most the most boringest life without alcohol. That was my biggest fear of being boring.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Yeah. Oh, I can absolutely relate. You know, I um if anybody had told me, well, asked me 12 years ago how I wanted my life to be, I absolutely would have sold myself short because my life today is so much better than I ever could have dreamed that it would be. But we do, don't you? We think that without alcohol, life is boring because we are conditioned and programmed for so long and from such an early age, um, that we need alcohol to enjoy life. You know, um, alcohol brings us fun, alcohol is how you socialize, how alcohol is how you um you know have a connection with someone, it's the complete opposite, you know. And I've said to many people, you know, if you are doing an activity and you need alcohol to enjoy it and have fun, then you don't enjoy that activity. Try something else. Oh, tie it up totally.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

And you know, like nowadays too, is like I have no issue being around people who are drinking. No, yeah. I don't like being around people who are full over drunk. No, because I'll be honest with you, they're boring and they're goddamn frr annoying. And they remind us of ourselves. Oh, and it's a huge reminder of me, absolutely, you know. I often I've been out a few times, you know, for you know, events and whatever, and someone said, Do you want to drink Benita? No, no, no, thanks. And if they keep pushing, do you want to drink Benita? No, have a drink, have a drink, you know. I was like, mate, you do not want to see me drinking. I will be up on that table, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

No, yeah. Thanks, no thanks, yeah, no, um, and it's okay to go out and socialise, you know, because we're sober, we're not dead. We can have such good fun and as much enjoyment as people who are drinking. In fact, we have more because we can remember it the next day, you know, and we don't make complete asses of ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Oh, absolutely. And I can leave at any time because I can drive. Yes. Anytime I want to.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

And when I've had enough, we leave.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, my life in recovery is amazing. I mean, I still get life like everybody else gets life.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

But what it means for me now is I have the tools to navigate the good and the bad.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah, sure, sure. So just before we finish up, what else would you like to say to our listeners? You know, um, for anybody that might be struggling.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Okay, you don't have to do it on your own. I always thought that it was just me. I thought I was the only person who felt the way that I did. You know, I thought it was it was only me that I couldn't once I started drinking, I couldn't stop. You know, and waking up feeling ashamed and all of that. And I just was so isolated. But that's not the case. It's not the case. You know, there's a whole heap of people in recovery. Yeah. And it's just a matter of putting your hand up for help.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

And you know, you meet some amazing people in recovery. I have met some amazing, amazing people. I've let's be fair. The most amazing people are in recovery. Look at us.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

I know, I know, but you know, look, I've met celebrities, I have met some really interesting people that do some really interesting stuff. You know, one lady I know hang glides. Wow. Wow, that would be amazing. But yeah, it's definitely it's definitely better. Recovery for me is a thousand times better. I can't explain how much than what it was like when I was drinking.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Awesome, absolutely. Um I think anybody who does think that out alcohol um is so important in their life that they won't ever have the same life again when they get sober. And they are right because we don't have the same life, as we've said before. Um, we don't, you know, we don't the old person doesn't come back. We get a whole new, shiny version, a newer version, a much fucking nicer version because we've done work on ourselves and work on our trauma and worked on our, you know, just the inside shit that we carry around.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

And it's also heaps of fun. It's it is actually lots of fun. It's kind of like, you know, I never knew what I liked doing because all I did was drink when I was socializing. You know, parties was all about drinking and you know, I never knew what I actually really liked doing. So I have, you know, I get to explore now these different things. Do I enjoy doing this? Do I enjoy doing this? Yeah, that's great. You know, like I at the moment, I love axe throwing. That's fun stuff.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

It is fun, absolutely. And yeah, I mean, nobody wants to be doing that when you've had a few. No, so that's a really good um sober um event. I know we did it actually as a freedom room event. It was I was pretty good at it too, funnily enough. I think there's some about us um crazy alcoholic women. Um, yeah, so anybody who is struggling, get out there and get into you know, lots of help. You can do the freedom room with there's other things out there as well. There's actually a lot of other things out there as well. Because it doesn't matter how you get sober, just get sober.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. Thanks ever so much. All right, listeners, thank you for joining us, and we will see you next week for episode 17. Bye bye for now.