Sober Tip Tuesday will be episodes where Courtney provides bite-size topics to help you in your sobriety journey. You can always listen to them when needed.
Today's topic is Relapse.
Courtney comes from a place of love in this episode.
Sober Tip Tuesday will be episodes where Courtney provides bite-size topics to help you in your sobriety journey. You can always listen to them when needed.
Today's topic is Relapse.
Courtney comes from a place of love in this episode.
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Speaker 1:
Hey, welcome to the Sober Vibes podcast. I am your host, courtney Anderson. You are listening to episode 176 and we got a Sober Tip Tuesday coming at you hot today and this topic can never be talked about enough and that is why I'm doing a little Tip Tuesday on it, and it's about relapse. Okay, I understand how it can be feel very shameful to relapse because you keep beating yourself up and mind. You remember I did the moderation game for four years, which felt like a cycle of like why can't I get this correct? Why can't I get this right? What is wrong with me? And correct, why can't I get this right? What is wrong with me? And I believe we all are in, stuck in a cycle of a moderation game. You're trying to play with alcohol right until you fully quit for good and never go back to it. So, when it comes to this, I am just trying to help take away the shame from it and for you to stop beating yourself up if you are currently stuck in this and what to do going forward. Okay, because being in the spot of coaching women for the last many years and creating sober vibes and opening myself up to of being there to receive, to.
Speaker 1:
I tell you all the time DM me of what I'm hearing from the streets and even to what I had experienced from those first. What I had experienced from my first couple of years in recovery since I got in sober, is that it's very easy for people to relapse and then you want to go hide, you want to go recluse and you don't want to face it because you do feel like a failure. Okay, and this is where I urge you not to do that when, if you do relapse, that you then look at the relapse, look at the bump, the slip in the road, the bump in the road. You turned left. You should have turned right. However, you want to call this right and you look at it as like, okay, this is a learning lesson, right, and what do I need to do going forward?
Speaker 1:
Did I put myself in a social situation that I put myself into soon? Did I not have enough support around me? Did I get very laxed in my sobriety and I stopped doing the day-to-day things quote-unquote work and I stopped doing that and then I became stagnant, right, like what was going on? Was I hanging out with the person who's extremely triggering? Did I let the asshole back into my life and then that just set up a stage of then where letting him back into my life, it was not healthy for me. Going back to the people, right, like, what were you doing that led you to that? Did you honestly just say fuck it, I don't care, and went to drinking? If you did, that's okay too. At the end of the day, you have to figure out what was going on around that time, then learn from that relapse and move forward and then start implementing what you learned from that relapse to help you move forward without doing it again. Okay, if it happens again, you have to ask yourself the same thing like was A, b, c and D? What was going on, right?
Speaker 1:
Is it now something where it's like, okay, I need to seek a therapist, right, I need to seek a therapist of who I am now, not who I was 10 years ago, and I believe I was saying this in one of my podcasts recently, and that's what I just from my, from my experience. The therapist that I got this past go-around specializes in the postpartum motherhood topics, and that's why I sought help, because I need to be with a therapist who specializes in that, because that's what I needed to deal with. Okay, so maybe you need to look into a therapist who specializes in that, because that's what I needed to deal with. Okay, so maybe you need to look into a therapist who specializes in addiction. Again, go on Psychology Today, type up therapists near me, see what comes up, and I am telling you, all of their specialties are next to their pictures, like their bios, and I'm not kidding you when I have said that I have picked a couple therapists based on they looked nice, along with what they specialized in, right Like what I was seeking in at that time.
Speaker 1:
So is it therapy that you need? Do you need to start going to in-person support groups? Do you need to drop it where you're like if you were against AA and you never tried it and you keep relapsing? Maybe it like if you were against AA and you never tried it and you keep relapsing. Maybe it's time for you to go try that. Maybe it's time for you to go dip your toe in that pond and see what's up. And here's something that could happen that actually that might have been the thing you needed all this time the thing you needed.
Speaker 1:
All this time Did you stop going to meetings because in-person wasn't your thing, or to that for privacy reasons. You live in a small town and you didn't want to run into anybody that you knew, so you didn't go that route. But maybe it's time for you to try virtual meetings, right? And again, did that next relapse? You just said you fucking didn't care. And I'm being real and I'm probably going to say on a third relapse, did you say you didn't fucking care? Because there is a point we are all we get in at a point where you keep saying to yourself like, yeah, I'm going to do this, and then you don't do it because you don't care. And if you are at that point of you don't care, then you're not going to do it. Then there's more help that you need to get.
Speaker 1:
It's one of those things and this is where addiction becomes is very sad, because there's such a spectrum of this and there are some people and I'm going to say this and I don't want to come off as an asshole, but this is the reality of the situation there are some people who don't care and will continue using and drinking and playing the part for others, just to get them off of their back. But I do believe that if you're listening to this podcast, that you do care right and that you do want to make a change, and that you are. You're here, but you just need to find the groove that works for you. This is why I continue to share of like you have to find what works best for you. That's why I wrote my book like I did, because you could have a neighbor who's telling you like this is what they did and this is what you need, and you're like, no, like I got to figure it out and this is what you need. And you're like, no, like I got to figure it out.
Speaker 1:
And even if you are in a community and relapse happens whether this is virtual or in person and then you relapse and you feel like you quote, unquote, fucked up, and then you have this embarrassment there. But I want to tell you that in these communities, if you lean into them, these communities, if you lean into them, there's no embarrassment. But you have to give it more than a shot, than one to two meetings. You really do have to sit there and tap into it for a period of time, for some consistency, and when I say a period of time, I mean I'm talking like three, four, five months. Think of how long you were drinking for and how long you were in this active relationship with alcohol. So, when it comes to the relapse game, you honestly continuing to move forward and learning from the relapse without shaming yourself and drawing back and going inward where it's just like this happens.
Speaker 1:
This is part of a lot of people's process and that is why quitting drinking alcohol is a process that you have to go through. I cannot say it enough. Four years before I was like I will never drink again. I just had this talk with a one-on-one client, as she's currently going through the process and thinking to how hard that going back to the day one is right, even though if and again if counting days messes with your head, don't do it. But if you are a day counter cool, okay. But also, too, you can't forget the time you had before a relapse. So let's say you go a year and you relapse, okay. So does that year not exist because you drank? No, you have to understand what a badass bitch you are. Pick yourself off the goddamn floor and get back to it. You had a year. You can do another year and be like so where did I go wrong in that year when I hit this bump in my road? What wasn't I doing?
Speaker 1:
And what happens is a lot of time, people just get stagnant and they don't continue to keep doing the things that make them feel good to move forward Right or, on the other end of that, some type of life altering event happens and whether it's a death of somebody or a loss of a job a global pandemic that we were in years ago, uncontrollable shit happens and it is just the reaction to it. And again, if this is resonating with you, I am so incredibly sorry that any I mean for everybody. I'm sorry for that global pandemic but, like for, if you are going through a hard time right now and life circumstances have kicked you in the dick, I'm truly sorry, but drinking is not going to keep solving those problems. Drinking isn't going to bring somebody back. Drinking isn't going to bring your job back. It's just going to continue to make it worse and worse so with the relapse.
Speaker 1:
If you are going through this right now, I get yourself back up, learn from it, lean into what you need, moving forward and even if you want to make that more of a private thing for you, like you don't need to sit there and tell your significant other that the A, b, c, d, e, f, g, this is all what you're doing. If you did that the first time and it felt like a lot of pressure, then just lean back and I will tell you this. When it comes to relationships, then just lean back and I will tell you this when it comes to relationships, if you are in one and getting sober, if they don't have a problem with the hooch, they don't get it. So stop expecting them to get it and realize that you and that person are completely two different people and operate in two different fields. Yes, if they are your soulmate, it does not mean you're the same person. It doesn't. And I had to have a therapist tell me and Paul that's what I like to call Matt now for shits and giggles and that's when I had to have a couple's therapist tell me, and Paul, you guys are not the same person. And I'm like no shit. You're absolutely right and I've shared this before.
Speaker 1:
So if telling people too much, too quick, it's too much pressure for you, then dial it back. Dial back. You don't have to tell everybody your sobriety plan because you need to figure out what's best for you. So the relapse thing if you are in the middle one, get back on the fucking horse, pull yourself up. Do not let it define you, do not go inward in the sense of then where you are in the middle of one, and then you are choosing to. You know, leave a community in person virtually because you relapsed. 80% of people who enter in the sobriety, enter in quitting drinking, will relapse.
Speaker 1:
Statistics I don't, I'm not statistics, I'm not the one who does these, I'm not the one who runs these numbers, but this is statistics of the game and you have to remember that. This is because we too live in a world where we are, so Alcohol is around us all the time. It's the one drug we have to explain not using. People think that you're nuts if you're quitting drinking alcohol, but there's so many options now of helping you in a sobriety plan and the recovery process. There's so many ways now to find that help that you need that sticks. So get back on the horse, find what works best for you and move forward and don't go inward.
Speaker 1:
Just don't recluse, because that's very similar to the. It's very similar to your drinking, to how you were in your drinking days, cause you know God, I used to hide out. I used to hide after I would fuck up for a night. I would go MIA because of the embarrassment and shame. So I understand that I'm not so far away from that that I don't get it, because that is something that I burned into my psyche for years. That way, I never went back. So use this practice. Think about every Sunday. I would do this five minutes.
Speaker 1:
This is not saying to live in your past, but you have to remember where alcohol took you. You have to remember, when you wake up the next day of that rippling anxiety that like, oh God, what am I doing? Remember it and move forward and like this is a place I don't want to be, because what happens is the more times you, the number of days that you go without drinking, the more awareness you have. Then, when a relapse happens, you're like that's right, I don't feel this good. Right, I don't feel this good. This does not feel good to me. This is not. I'm not living my authentic self. This is not how I wanted to go into my 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. Right, this is. I don't want to keep looking my kid in the eye after a night of drinking and them asking him what happened last night or thinking that me hammered was hilarious when I'm sitting here like mortified that my kids saw me like that.
Speaker 1:
So think of something like that that has made a lasting impact on you, and remember that if you drink alcohol, 80% of the time that's what's going to happen to you, right? And that if there is something, a lot of us need more help, and that's why I'm always a big fan of therapy like therapy, because there's so many underlining issues that go on that when you quit drinking, that come to the surface and you're like, oh my God, right, like depression, anxiety, coping with traumatic events, and all doing it without using alcohol. So I will preach therapy till the end. I am a sober coach, but I can't go far with people when it comes to traumas because I am not specialized in trauma care and allhealed and I just I want for you to be able to continue a life without alcohol. So, again, look into therapy. If you have not, if you are in with a therapist right now and you're bullshitting her or him, I would highly advise and even, too, my sister had said it best in her recent LOT episodes of like stop bullshitting the therapist. Or if you're a strong personality and you're dominating the therapy session, look for another therapist who's going to see through this and not allow that. Because I really do think that there are a lot of therapists out there who can sniff through the bullshit and put you in your place.
Speaker 1:
I had one I mean, I had one right before I quit drinking and she was like, do you ever think about not giving up or giving up alcohol? I mean, she called me out on it and then I fired her. So I believe in you and I strongly do think that you can stop drinking alcohol. I truly do, if I can do it. I truly do believe that you can do it because I mean, I used to love alcohol. I loved it and I hated it, and I loved cigarettes and I don't smoke those today, right? So it's just about doing the work and seeing what fits best for you in your sobriety and recovery plan. Okay, I hope this episode helped today. I hope this was kicking the ass that you needed to be like.
Speaker 1:
You're right, because I just don't want I don't want anybody to sit there in a relapse and being like their own shame of it. Get the best of them where they keep going, where it's like no, stop yourself and to feel bad that this happened. And when reality, you go back to the numbers and it's 80% of people who enter this end and that they will end up relapsing. And it doesn't make you a bad person and it doesn't mean that you failed. You just keep trying. There's no pass fail in this. You do your best every time, and that's another thing.
Speaker 1:
Maybe, too, if you were thinking like maybe we're living too much in the future and you should just now just live in the day, like, as of today, I'm going to stay sober and start living that way and see how much better that feels, because I know a lot of women, especially if they say that they're not going to drink for a year. That's very overwhelming for them and I totally get it. But if you just say that you're not drinking today, it takes a lot of pressure off of you, correct? So do what you got to do to not relapse, correct? All right, I hope this episode helped you today, as always. Check out the sponsor for the show and any resources you need. All the links are in the show notes below or you can visit CourtneyRecoveredcom. I hope this Silver Tip Tuesday helped you today. Keep kicking ass and taking names, thank you.
