Samantha Lander, See Fit Living Season 3 Ep. 14

Meet Samantha Lander, See Fit Living. Samantha is a successful Health & Fitness entrepreneur who is recovering out loud from drug & alcohol abuse. Extremely resilient and persistent Samantha struggled with her addiction on and off for 15 yrs and after a 13 yr stint of sobriety she relapsed and began to abuse alcohol. Through many of life's ups and downs and her own personal health challenges, she never gave up on the idea of healing herself and her body. Tune in to learn more about Samantha's journey and what she is doing now to help other women to feel good in their bodies again!

Follow Samantha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seefitliving/
or on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/seefitpt
Book a FREE Clarity Call with Samantha on her website: https://seefitpt.com/services/

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**Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this episode are not professional or medical opinions. If you are struggling with an addiction please contact a medical professional for help.

Music provided by Premium Beats: https://www.premiumbeat.com
Song: Rise and Thrive
Artist: Young Presidents

Resources:
Wellness Togethe...

Transcript

Kelly: 0:02

Welcome to the LAF life podcast, a lifestyle podcast based on living alcohol free and a booze soaked world. My name is Kelly Evans and together with my friends, Tracey Djordjevic, and Lindsay Harik. We share uncensored. Unscripted real conversations about what our lives have been like since we ditched alcohol and how we got here by sharing our individual stories. We'll show you that there isn't just one way to do this, no matter where you are on your journey from sober, curious to years in recovery and everyone in between, you are welcome here, no judgment and a ton of support.

Tracey: 0:42

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the laugh life podcast. Tonight we have a lovely guest with us we have Samantha Lander joining us. Samantha is an entrepreneur in the health and fitness industry. And I'll let her get into that later on in our conversation. Samantha is here to share with us her journey of sobriety and we're very excited to have her. Let's just start off Samantha How did your drinking career as we like to call it start? And if you want to tell us a little bit about how you grew up with alcohol and how it impacted and influenced your life.

Samantha: 1:18

Thanks for having me on. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. So everyone's reach out. I come from a family where I don't even remember, I didn't see my dad drink until COVID. The zoom happy hours. But I've never seen him with his mind altered at any point in my lifetime and I'm 43, my mom she could get there. I think, there's moments of, Oh, I'll quit. So I feel like anyone who's quitting something several times, there's usually something going on. I drank for the first time in seventh grade, no aha moment. I didn't really like it. I don't think that I remember I was a blackout drinker. I shortly got into drugs. I started smoking pot shortly after that. I was more drawn to drugs. I always laugh because the movies that I like to watch were all the ones with the people smoking crack and doing heroin and those were my favorite movies. So yeah, so that's where it just began. In eighth grade, I got arrested for smoking pot on a school field trip. My freshman year of high school was when my drinking was pretty, blackout drinker, but we would all drink in class. I'd take the orange juice and vodka in the English class. We'd go smoke blunts cause we had open campus and then come back. I don't know how they didn't know. I got myself into a lot of trouble with my parents. Things were escalating. And, I was always grounded. I was always this and eventually I was running away. And then I just hit a point where I just gave up. They had actually sent me away to a summer boarding school, like boot camp to fix me. And I was doing great and a girl got, I don't even remember any of it, a girl got a bottle of vodka sent to her and we were drinking it. And all I know is I don't remember one thing from this. I guess we had a dance maybe or a party within the boarding school. All I know is I was on a flight at 5 a. m. getting sent home for drinking. So I had like consequence after consequence. But after that, I was always an athlete, but I got more involved in rowing. It was a really good athlete and rower. And that kind of discipline and structure, it's hard to play around a lot, but I did learn a lot about how to manipulate and how to lie so I could still get out and party with my friends, but then look really good on paper for my parents. I think that's where that really began. I just planned out my episodes of drinking and partying. But I still had that drive I, I wanted to live life on the fullest and that made just get totally, can I cuss? F'd up. Yes,

Kelly: 3:48

you can swear. I was going to ask you, Samantha, do you think that was just your innate personality or was it how you were brought up that kind of drove you to be more rebellious?

Samantha: 4:02

I don't know. I think part of it was I thought my brother was doing like the wild guy and he was very popular and I had trouble like classic story. Like I was friends with everyone, but I wasn't, I didn't ever feel connected or have true friendship until probably this past couple of years. And so I think I was trying to follow his footsteps because all his friends I would hear, Oh, he's doing cocaine. He's doing this. And I was like, I just wanted. I wanted a brother, and I think part of it was like, okay, I want to be like him. Yeah I have the ism and he doesn't and so it just kept going for me. There was never a balance and I loved. I wouldn't say I'm like, really outgoing when I use, but. I'm an extrovert. I love people. I can talk to anybody. I'm a Sagittarius Capricorn. I feel like we're pretty fiery already. I don't know. I'm just driven and it's not always a healthy thing to do. It's always a, or it's something good. I'm a Sag

Tracey: 4:56

too, so I can relate. And Kelly and I actually, we've talked many times about how we there was a part of us that felt like we were. A free spirit, but we were very repressed in our upbringing. So I wondered if you had that kind of similar experience with your parents.

Samantha: 5:13

It sounds like it seeing as they sent you off to boarding school or whatnot.

Kelly: 5:18

So yeah, always being grounded. I can relate to that.

Samantha: 5:20

Yeah. Oh, we had a rule book. It was like, first suspense, second offense. We'll say prison later in life. It's I was like, this is like prison. But, yeah, that's interesting. I've never thought about that, but I definitely could see that. We looked really good on paper, right? And I remember what I say is the best thing about 1 of the best silver linings of when I went to prison is humility that my family and my parents had to go through and how humbling it was for them. My dad came he would just listen to these prison reform podcasts, I think on the way to work. He's became like a super advocate for women in prison and during that time period. So I think it definitely, it humbled my family a lot. And, I feel like that's something that needs to be practiced a little bit. I'm a lot more public about my recovery and I was like, no what are people going to say? Have a kid and I'm like, I'm going this way. Sorry. Yeah

Tracey: 6:16

it's hard, right? It's hard to you want to share your story so that you can help other people, but there is definitely a huge vulnerability and you have to question and ask how it's going to affect other people but at the same time, it's your truth to tell, and we shouldn't be ashamed. Is the bottom line, right? So I wear it probably I've never people like how do you just say that stuff? How do you say you're an alcoholic? And I'm like, I'm happy to be. I am an alcoholic. I'm going to I've never and I don't know if that's just something that's my personality or I've never ever had anyone shame me for my past or my choices and I think the key is like, what are you going to do with it? I'm a big believer in fulfilling your legacy. And so for me, it's okay, so I did all that stuff and I could go out and start selling drugs again and doing all the things, but I'm trying to make good of it and do something better. That's. Where you teach people that you don't have to be labeled or judged because you're an addict for sure. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about, the road you took that led you to obviously more tragic things, such as jail.

Samantha: 7:25

Yeah. I went to University of Michigan. I'm just good at manipulation or figuring out what's going to work for me to get me to be where I need to be. I don't know how I got in there. I think about it all the time, but I think I'm really organized. I struggle with ADHD. I was medicated for it. Never took the medication. And I say that because it's an important part of my story so junior year, I went out to California to visit a friend and I did the college thing, the freshman year, blacked out, drank my ass off. Then I did quit drinking after that. I think it was sophomore year. I remember quitting. And it wasn't because I had a problem, but I remember I was like, I just had to quit. I didn't feel good. I suffered from a lot of health problems, just growing up stomach aches and stuff like that. So something told me that. Junior year of college, I went to visit a good friend of mine out in LA, and that's where I got introduced to the perfect cocktail for a blackout drinker. So I. Try GHB, which is basically all the amazing things of drinking without the side effects, as long as you can time it out and be structured. I'm very scheduled and I'm very structured, so it's perfect. And, ecstasy, ketamine but I didn't black out when I did G and that was my aha. That sort of became my new drug of choice. I would bring it back to Michigan with me and then I would go back out to California again and party. I had a lot of gay friends out there. I felt very safe with them. I struggle with relationships with men. And so I just felt safe. And that's when the first weekend that I ever did meth you don't really overdose for meth. I don't know what it was. I did a lot of GHB. I had not slept. I ended up at Cedars Sinai on an overdose. So that's another 1 of those okay, and when are you going to learn it was funny because we sent my friends a gift basket and but this was their life. It was normal for people to do these things. It's like. Sending someone who's like a total drug addict, like a gift basket, they didn't let me die and they took me to the hospital because they shouldn't have let me we shouldn't be doing the drugs. After that, I had a job set up after college where I was helping launch a vodka actually, and I was going to move out there and work with the distributors. It fell through. And I decided to buy two turntables and I saw that there weren't a lot of female DJs out in LA. And that's what I was going to do. I got a job at a great record label and I started DJing and it went well, but in the interim, as I was in college, I was coming back and forth, bringing drugs, mailing drugs, started selling drugs, more and more. I'm a. Yeah. Serial entrepreneur, and I thrive off being successful at work and making money. It doesn't matter what it is. I've been like that since I was little very strong work ethic, but at that point, I was out there and I was selling drugs and things just progressed and I eventually got into a really toxic relationship, super abusive. I couldn't get out of anything. I just knew I was at this point where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, I'd stop or I'm going to die. But I didn't think I was a drug addict. I didn't think I had a problem. I knew I couldn't quit. But I started selling more and eventually I started selling large quantities to less people was my mentality. I'm not going to get caught. I'm going to make more money. This is what I'm going to do and that turned out where I ended up having a full SWAT raid at my apartment and picked up a L. A. County case. And then right shortly after that, I got a federal case and was looking at 22 to life. Shit, shit hit the fan. How old were you when that happened, Samantha? I was 20. Six.

Kelly: 10:53

And GHB, that's what we know as the date rape drug, right? Yeah. I hope that you did block out from that though. I'm like confused. If you take too much. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I think when they put it in drinks, they just do a huge amount of it. Okay. And that's what I told my parents, right? So I told them what happened to me when I went to the hospital in case they didn't have cocaine through. But I'm like, I'm so honest. I'm really authentic and I am really honest, but I, and that's when I really separated myself from my family. Because I couldn't even get on a phone call with them. I knew and I was very independent and I didn't need their money. But after the SWAT raid, I would say a month later, a friend of mine went to rehab and he's come visit. It's so amazing here. It's I'm like, okay, I'll come visit you. And that must have been like a higher power thing. And I went and I wanted what he had, I saw just a sense of peace and I went home and I was just so alone at that point. It wasn't a rock bottom that I thought. Like I thought I would be living out of a car, homeless with needles coming out of my arm. That's what I thought a drug addict was. I didn't know what most drugs were. I knew that shit was in the movies, like where they sit in a circle. I had no exposure to it. Except for one guy who said he was a drug addict one time. And I was like, what? And I looked at my dog and I asked her if I should go to treatment and she just came and put her head on my lap. And I immediately called my parents and told them. I need to go to rehab. Wow.

Tracey: 12:13

Sorry, was that before you went to jail, Samantha or after? I went to jail. I had the swap and got arrested, got out. And then I had to go self surrender for the L. A county case. And that's when I did that time I got out, I got my probation transferred and then. After the swap, right? The day I got out, I came home to my apartment and the Missouri. Postal feds were there. And said, I might be getting a federal case against me. And so that didn't happen until after I did my LA County. I went to rehab LA County got out probation transferred was home and then got hit with a 22 to life possibly with a federal. Yeah, sober all of it. I was so happy to be sober. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's so good. That's good. So what ended up happening with your case?

Samantha: 13:03

We got most of the counts drop for the federal case and I got 27 months at a federal camp, which is not too bad. And I look at it as I needed that. I know I'm just a stubborn ass and I may have had a SWAT raid. And then I had the LA County and maybe I didn't need the federal case, but I got it. It was like a timeout I needed. I didn't have a kid, so I can't imagine if I had a kid, it would have been way different. But I was young. I didn't have a kid. I really support a family. I took advantage of the entire thing. I did their drug treatment program. I was the first federal inmate to leave and go tell my story to a group of high school kids I can drive and license to drive every type of like backhoes and road behind her. But yeah, so I did that, but I was on that pink cloud. You couldn't take it away from me. I wasn't going to let it go and I stayed sober. I had no desire for any of that. Through all that.

Kelly: 13:54

Wow. That's awesome. What was the biggest thing you think you took out of that experience? That 27 months there?

Samantha: 14:01

Oh, I think patience is a big thing. I learned because you're dealing with a very different demographic, some amazing people. I still friends with some of them. And then some it's like you just. And I think, you don't want to take things for granted just the biggest thing is just be kind to people and have a good moral compass again think about your consequences and not be so damn impulsive. I don't know how to pause very well. So I think. I was a solid human when I got out of there, I was like, just such a good person. And you lose it. You do lose it. I would say I'm really working to be that kind of person still, but I lost sight of that, in my marriage, I would say big time and then having a kid got really hard to stay grounded. Yeah

Tracey: 14:50

we do lose sight of that when we're using a substance, right? Because we're not ourselves, we're in an altered state. We're not making decisions that we would be if we were clear minded.

Kelly: 15:01

I was just going to say, so then what happened? I feel like there's lots more to this story. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I got out and I became a personal trainer cause I had money laundering on my charge and I had a job at a retail place, but I didn't want to deal with it. And again, I'm an entrepreneur. I saw an opportunity and within a year. Or so I was making six figures just doing really well bought a house. I did get engaged to 1 person that did not happen. And then shortly after that, I met my ex husband and it was like. A dream school, so he, he was sober and he had a past and I had a past and. I always feel like I got bamboozled a little on that 1, but he got sober at 16. And we're both in the fitness industry and it was good for a while until it wasn't, so what happened is I was going through fertility treatment. There's a lot of stuff that happened I shouldn't have even tried to have a baby, but we were going through it. And I think that's when my addiction started to spin out of control again. I was going to 1 meeting a week. For a long time, and that worked I did the steps a couple of times before I went to prison went to meetings and help with all that in prison and the drug program. But, I was an air, NAer, when I. Got sober. I was in LA. NA is amazing in LA. I came home and it was like everyone in NA it was a little miserable. They're a little different than AA and It just wasn't the same and I started going to one AA meeting a week and I like the people but I would sit in The back and I but I'd be like you guys have never even done drugs you guys don't even fucking know me I can relate who would leave their kid alone or drink airplane bottles while picking up their kid from daycare? Who would do I would never do that. Right until I did, I started going through fertility treatment and I think that obsessive compulsive. Behavior started it was a harder than prison. I don't know if you know anyone or you have gone through it. It was so hard emotionally. And there's not a lot of tools for it. You just got to wait another month or it was just stressful relationship. My ex started using and he had 23 years. So when I was trying to get pregnant, he started drinking and smoking pot and honestly, I'm not trying to throw him under the bus. He got sober at 16 and I was maybe this will make them nice. And then maybe I, and I think part of it was like, then I can do it. I guarantee my disease is you know what this means? Once you're done, you're going to have some credits, but then he was like lying about it. It was a lot of lying a lot across the board but I got pregnant. I had my baby. I had postpartum. Everything was hard. I wasn't working. I've never not worked. Sitting at home all day with this blob was like, I did not know what to do. And breastfeeding was really hard. And I was sitting in a breastfeeding class and a woman said you should just have a glass of wine. And that was it. Really? It was like, it was there. I was waiting for it. Yeah. Yeah. And then I called my parents and I said the lady at the nursing class said that I should just have a glass of wine. They're like you should just do that. Oh, so that's my big message now is that mommy wine culture and that whole, it's crazy. Cause I guarantee if I said, Hey. I think I'm just gonna smoke some meth so I can, yeah, I can get some breast milk, nobody would have been okay with that. No, but they were, everyone was okay. All my clients know my story. I'm really open. They all knew I was drinking again and it was, it's fine for a while. The blackout stuff didn't happen as much. I think I was very health conscious still at the same time. But then shit started to get bad when the divorce started to go through and, just the separation anxiety. I would get when my baby would go to his dad because that was not a healthy environment. And I think that's when I was like the numbing I can't, I still have a hard time connecting with my kid because of it, he's got other things going on, but just that numbing, just I can't deal. I didn't have the emotional capacity. To handle anything. And so I was drinking and then it was okay, we're getting a divorce, but we did a lot to try to save the marriage. I will give us credit for that, but it got where he was out 1 night really late drinking and partying with this guy. And I just was like, in therapy, I was like, listen, it's either this or that we, we quit, we get sober or we're getting a divorce. Okay. Had 13 years of sobriety before I relapsed and I've been in the rooms long enough to know when someone says I'll stop but I can't promise you it'll be forever coming from someone with kind of a history of lying and things I just knew and so that was done and I quit drinking because I was never going to let that be the reason why our marriage didn't work and I just couldn't that's something I would never do I was good for a while and then COVID hit. you And the classic COVID story. It was really hard. I'm an extrovert. Things with my ex all of it, it hit again. And I just was like, it basically got to where I was drinking every day at about three 30 or four either starting the airplane bottles on the way to get my kid or on the way back. And then a bottle of gin every night. And I'm like a buck 10. I'm not like, I would blackout from a sip. I could blackout from a whole bottle. It didn't matter. I just knew once I was home and safe, that's when it would start because I couldn't deal, like I was functioning by day. Was dating, I was doing a lot of crazy shit on that front. I was out to kill every guy and just a mess, just a fucking mess. I couldn't stop. I just kept wishing someone would see how fucked up I was and take me and hold me in their house for a week. Just take me and lock me in your house for a week so I don't drink. And then I'll get it. Because I couldn't understand why it was so easy the first time. It was so easy, I was done and I'm like, okay, this is that thing again, I guess one day I'll get it, I hope I get it before I die or something really bad happens my son gets taken away, I was chairing a meeting, relapsing, I was going to meetings every day, sometimes two, I had a sponsor my honest factor was kinda iffy, I would be really honest, and then I just I'm not getting it, so fuck it I'd pace back and forth from my house to my car, trying not to drink. You name it. I was doing it post its everywhere on every mirror, every fridge. And I finally got a little bit of time and I prayed to my higher power, which my prayers were all fucked up then too. It was like, I need money. I need money. I need this. But it was getting a little desperate by the end. And I prayed that I could meet a guy. That was sober, had a kid and was like 6 foot covered in tattoos, whatever, it was like the perfect. Gem of a man for me. And I met him the next day at a kid's birthday party. And I knew he had a sober family and he was sober. He was six years sober, but I knew that he wasn't going to get me sober, but I thought I would be around people who could support it enough that I wouldn't have a problem anymore. And I relapsed once with him, told him, and then we shouldn't have been together. But. It just got where I didn't care. It felt like it was wrong, but I knew I still needed to stop. I relapsed again. And that was December 23rd, 2022. I had a gift basket from a client sent to my house with gin in it. And I was just like, game on. And I told him and pretty much this guy walked out of my life in a nutshell. So I feel like the universe gave me exactly what I wanted. And ripped it away because I was able to feel love again. He was very loving, very loving something I hadn't had in a very long time nurturing. And I lost it and I lost it because of my addiction. And all I can think of is I didn't lose my kid, but it took losing a human in my life due to my disease to get me to wake up is all I can think of is I had this amazing Beautiful hot guy, and then I just left my life like a ghost and you know I never lost my parents. I never lost my friends no human has ever left my life because of my behavior and that happened and I was like fuck and My sponsor at the time was like your fucking ego is so bad You don't got it. You just because you had 13 years. It's not me. You don't have it and I don't know what she said that day, but I went to this random woman's house and cried for 5 hours and I have not had 1 craving. I have not thought about it. It's finally, 1 way I have an amazing relationship with my higher power. I do the most incredible service work now. My life's so fucking good. So that's what happened. Wow. It's my story, and how old is your son? He's six. 19th. Yeah. Have you ever heard of it's oppositional defiant disorder. Oh, wow. Which is like what in adults is like conduct disorder. Kids that go to juvie kids that get the shit beat out of them by their parents. He's oppositional to everything it's wired that way. You say no, I say yes. You can't say no to this kid. It happened about three and a half. It got really bad. it's so hard. I feel like some days I'm like, I have every excuse in the book to drink right now because I get verbally, it's he's abusive physically, verbally. He doesn't even know. He doesn't even understand it. He blames me for everything. He's wired literally. And I'm like, it's like a disease. It's I'm like 12 step them or do what I got to do. He can't help it, and I need to find a way to get him into recovery because there is no magic pill with this 1. and so that's been, thank God I'm sober, or I probably would have smacked him across the face because it's, you don't know what to do until I find out. Oh, it's insane. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, interesting 1. yeah, it's a new 1. so there's not a lot of support, but

Tracey: 24:58

yeah hopefully that, just continue to do your research and I'm sure you're lucky. You do what you do for a living because you're educated and, how to treat and deal with a lot of stuff. Hopefully somewhere along the way, you'll figure it out or find something that works for.

Samantha: 25:15

There's something called therapy. It's like parent interactive therapy. And it's. At 1st, I was like, there's no way. But we're on a phase two and basically you put them in timeouts and eventually you put them in a room and you have to hold them in. It's a lot. But after the first time we did it, he walked up to me later that night, it like reset him. He was great. Every time I do it, he's like an angel. So it's working. We've had a good couple of weeks even. And I remember the first time we did it, he came up to me and goes, mommy, I trust you a little bit like out of nowhere. And he's just always mean to me, like always mean. So I was like, it's like hope. Yeah. Yeah.

Tracey: 25:50

That's good. So that's good. Hopefully that continues to work for you. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. I can relate to, a broken relationship being a single parent and dating for sure. All those things, the peak of my drinking happened during that time in my life too. And sometimes I think that at the time, drinking got me through it. Because same type of thing I had a really messy split up not a nice ex and not amicable which made, shared custody of a child very difficult. So yeah, I definitely used it as a numbing tool, so I can relate to that. It was just a lot of emotion to cope with at the time. Yeah. Yeah. That was my thing for 2023. I was like, listen, I did something wrong. What was it like I do all the things. I have my functional medicine practice. I was the healthiest alcoholic like ever. I'd wake up and put my castor oil pack on and get in my infrared sauna but I was like, something's not, there's something's off. And I was like, this is, I know what it is. It's the emotional part. It's like the mental, emotional, I was not tackling it and I'm not going to get well. My hormones will not get well, nothing will get well if I don't tackle that. And I just like took it on full on a lot of therapy, a lot of meetings, a lot of support groups a lot of crying, a lot of dark days, but I just sat in it. I, it feels good now to sit in it. Like when I think about it, I think back, I'm like, man to be able to feel such intensity, even if it's shitty. Yes, it felt good to me. It was like, it's I was feeling again. My heart was being like, ripped out. But I knew it always gets better because it always does. Yeah, it passes, right? That's what we learn when we sit through it. Then it does pass let's talk a little bit about what you ended up doing with your career and your business, See Fit then I do have a question I'll get back to you on after what you just said there about being the healthiest alcoholic but yeah, tell us a little bit about how you got into your business and what kind of services you offer. Tell us about all your certificates because I know you have a few.

Samantha: 27:59

I do. So as a personal trainer obviously I had a lot of stomach problems, chronic fatigue as a kid. I remember in fifth grade just being like, I was always so tired and my stomach was like a mess. But nothing, there was never really a solution. And then when I became a trainer, I was doing all the right things eating super clean and. Working out a lot of cardio, a lot of cardio and I realized that this isn't working. I started gaining weight, I had chronic diarrhea, my hormones were awful. I started getting my period like every other week, and I kept gaining weight, but I felt like now, after being pregnant, it felt like I was pregnant. My PMS was Three and a half weeks out of the month. I might have two good days in the month. And I was getting really into the holistic coaching and learning more about that along with the personal training. And I met someone that said, Oh, you should run a food sensitivity test with me. And that just opened up the doors. And I was like, Holy shit, this is like root cause. What is this? Not bandaiding everything. I wasn't taking any supplements or any medication, at first test. It blew me away. I remember I dropped like 20 pounds of water weight just for all the inflammation from the foods I was eating. Everything that I was eating, I had a food intolerance to, and after doing a lot of research, which is interesting especially with the people I work with, who are in recovery, what happens is you get that same feeling as when you use drugs. So that dopamine and serotonin, that inflammation of the brain, all of that stuff happens when you have foods you're reactive to or inflammatory to foods in the body. So then you compulsively eat and you binge and you can't stop because you want to feel that again. And you don't even realize it's happening. You could be eating carrots and almonds. Like I was eating healthy food, but I couldn't stop. I'd eat dinner and then just keep eating, but it was all because these inflammatory foods. And I'm such an addict that I'm sure it's just fuck yeah, let's do it. So I did that. The diarrhea didn't go away. So then we talked about doing a hormone, adrenal panel, and then a stool test to check for like parasites and all that stuff. And it was just like, what is this? And I did it all. And I had multiple parasites. I had Candida, my hormones, my estrogen was out the roof. I'm super estrogen dominant within the first month. I could say that I had, a week of good days and that got me, I was like, something's going on. And so that just got me on my journey to do that because I had a lot of women that I was training that was also like they eat clean, we're doing what calories in, calories out, and not getting anywhere. And that's just such bullshit. When people come in, I'm always like, just don't count calories. We're not doing any of that. And it's you see the relief on their face. My gut was a wreck. I was doing GHB, which is made of concrete cleaner. I was eating prison food. The list goes on. And so I wanted to do that for other people. And I also wanted to save money on all the labs that I was running on myself. So I decided to become a functional diagnostic nutritionist. And that's when I started just running the labs on the side. But then during COVID, I fully switched over because I thought being a personal trainer was too easy for me at this point and that I needed to challenge my brain and that would get me sober. And then it just became oh, my God, I brain fog and I can't do anything, but I switched over and that was my business full time. Now I don't really train anybody because I see that the results that I get from this are way better. And I just like this kind of work. And so now I do like very specially lab testing. I work with people with autoimmune menopause, the symptoms I get are hot flashes, night sweats, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, I have a lot of women in recovery who want to just heal their body, heal their gut from all the damage that's done a lot of them are drinking. And, we find, definitely underlying gut infections, hormone imbalances, blood sugar after you get sober is bad. And, we've been told that. eat sugar, Is that why I have so much sugar cravings? Yeah. Yeah. It's probably your blood sugar. It's just off. And most of us try not to eat a lot all day because that's, we've just tried to manage it. And then at night, it's like game on because we haven't eaten all day. And it's scary to eat a big breakfast. Cause what if you eat a lot at night and you've had the big breakfast. So we, we all have these like running tapes in our head. Yeah. Yeah, we work on regulating all that. We look at infections, hormones, mold, name it. So that's what I do now. And it's turned into a lot of people in recovery,

Tracey: 32:12

I was going to ask that is there a portion of your business that you put towards people in recovery or focusing on people with addiction?

Samantha: 32:20

I'm not a sober coach. I don't want to be a sober coach. I have sponsies, but totally different. I am more on the let's heal your body and repair your body so you can optimize your health and be your best self, be the best parent, not feel like shit all the time, not be bloated all the time and learn about truly taking care of yourself on a next level. And, I think it's just being on all the podcasts like that, I just started getting booked and then just being really open. The news in town did a whole segment on my story. I got published in a magazine in town. So it just was like. It started coming like all of a sudden I was getting the text messages and I'm pretty open book. So it was a combination of that. And then I wanted to get a good solid year under my belt before I was really promoting anything like that. I don't have a lot of time. I have my 13 years, but I don't feel like I have a lot of time. I have so much to learn still. but I feel comfortable enough to be able to work with women who are in recovery. I didn't want to be like, I got three months sober let me fix you. Like I had to fix myself, gave myself a year to like really do that. And so they just come it's interesting. I just have a lot of women, all types of recovery. So I will recommend maybe you should go to a meeting and they're all really I get the texts, they can all text me anytime if it comes to alcohol. I'm concierge anyway. They text me anyway about everything, but that's where I'm going. I think that's my niche. Everyone says that's how you do well. It's find your niche. And I think it's going to be that Mommy wine culture is a really big, a big thing. Yeah.

Kelly: 33:46

Yeah. Yeah. We've really, we talk about it a lot on the podcast and yeah, we're destroying our everything, ourselves, our gut all the things you were just talking about and we don't. Obviously think about it at the time, but it takes time to heal from that, what we've done, but you can, and that's what I can I did it. I've done it several times, I did it after post prison and all that. And then I did it, after the drinking, and then I actually had a lot of mouth stuff that I've been dealing with. So I unfortunately had to take a lot of antibiotics, but fortunately, I know how to fix it all and I've managed through all that. You can definitely heal your gut. You can definitely feel your best. You can definitely have your energy back, your libido. You can poop every day. You don't have to be bloated. That's not your new normal. Just because you're older doesn't mean you're going to have a gut. I don't buy it. So what do you do once you do that analysis with somebody, you put them on some sort of program to eat what not to eat? Yeah. So I typically do a clarity call with them, which is free. And we talked about like a full health history. Like we go to if they were vaginal or C section birth, cause all of that stuff matters. Like with the vaginal seeding and like the gut microbiome and trauma in the home, medications, birth control, really young, all that stuff is stuff we look at, and then I come up with what labs I think are going to get you to your goals, which is typically a food sensitivity test. We do nutrition. Nutrition is super happy to have You gotta start there. You gotta start somewhere. The clients are eating pretty clean. That's why they're calling me cause they've tried everything else and it's not working. We do a full hormone panel. So we look at your neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, organic acids. And then usually a GI panel. Those are the three that most people I have run. And then we do protocols for each one. So we work on nutrition and then we work on, and I try to keep it really realistic. I don't do fad diets. And then we do supplement protocols. So you'll be on supplements. I'm a firm believer in those. And then yeah, we start chipping away at the. Whatever piece of ice. I don't know. I don't even know that there's a phrase there. Yeah, and I think it starts to get the diet line, get those inflammatory foods out, balance the hormones, get the blood sugar regulated and then 99. 999 percent of my clients have an underlying gut infection. If not 1, 2 gut infection. Yeah. So you got to get rid of the infection. Then you have to heal the gut. I kept getting sick because I was working with the best of the best to at this point. And I kept getting sick again just it just not anything would set me off if my cortisol, if I went through something stressful. And so I never healed the gut. I did a lot of work to get rid of all these infections that we found, but I never. I didn't do anything to heal it. And I see that as a missing piece with a lot, like I get a lot of clients from other practitioners because they're like I tried this and I'm like did you do X, Y, Z? And so I'm not an MD, I'm not some super fancy thing, but I've been through like a lot of it. And I think that's really important because I have very emotional clients. I feel like you must have a lot of clients that have an autoimmune disease.

Samantha: 36:54

I do. Yeah. I-P-C-O-S. I'm very familiar with that. Yeah. Yeah. Hashimoto's. Yeah. We get a lot of sleeves. Addison's, Crohn's.

Tracey: 37:03

So tell us what it means to be a drugless practitioner. I know, I was like, where'd she get that? From your website. I know. Everything's on like Instagram for me now, I feel and Facebook. I use supplements that have no drugs. So no prescriptions so it's all herbal, holistic, we don't do any medication. I should not say that. So there is a time and a place for medication. When someone has SIBO, which is small intestinal bacteria overgrowth I typically like to recommend that they do antibiotics with a specific. Kind of antibiotics, not the typical amoxicillin and stuff like that, but that's really where you get them in remission or in recovery from SIBO. It's a tough one to get rid of. And then I do have a couple of clients that are on some thyroid meds, but we use a armor, which is pretty natural but yeah, pretty much, yeah, we don't, we're not gonna, we're not going to bandaid your symptom with a pill right. That's it. Let's figure out what the fuck symptoms are a way of your body's telling you something's wrong. They're great. You should love them. Listen to them. Don't just take a lot of ibuprofen and, some, whatever it is, there's a lot of medicine. Yeah. Kelly, and I can definitely relate to what you said about being the healthiest alcoholic just in the sense that. We were really trying to live this healthy lifestyle. We've talked about many times and if our other co host, Lindsay was here who couldn't join us tonight, unfortunately, because she's traveling, but she would say the same. We've all talked about how, we were doing all the right things in the other areas of our life, drinking the green smoothies. Exercising every day. Meanwhile, then chugging a couple bottles of wine at night. When do you think you figured out that what you were doing with the drugs and alcohol did not align with the rest of your lifestyle that you were trying to create as far as, the health and fitness industry goes? For me, all my little remedies would just stop working. And then I'd be on calls with people and I think the guilt and the shame and I knew when you're waking up every day, being like, I'm not going to do it today. I'm not going to do it today. I got this. And then you do it. And I'm like, and I'm very disciplined. I just knew I was like, this is a fucking disease. I just knew when I couldn't stop. I was rational. I knew like program shit. I knew, but like I physically couldn't. Stop, like it just kept and I'm like what like I couldn't figure it out and I had the brain fog got really bad and it got harder to wake up every day and I just didn't remember anything. I feel like my memory this last three laps fucked my memory like my memory It's not right And that's like reckage past Yeah, I just couldn't do it anymore. I was not functioning. I chose to switch my job and it was way harder. I had to use my brain a lot more than training. As a personal trainer with someone with severe A D D, I could. Do that. That was like what trainers do, right? We're crazy and we can just be all over the place, but you can't when you're doing this kind of work. And that's part of why with Meth, like when I first did meth, which was my drug of choice, it just leveled me out to a state that I had, like I prayed my entire life. And I never took the Ritalin or Adderall. I never liked any of it. I think I probably sold it. But meth, man, when I did that, I was like, Oh, my God, I can read a book I don't feel like I have a fucking 50 monkeys in my head. I think it maybe took it down to 100.

Kelly: 40:27

I've heard that though people with ADHD, it's oh, it's a relief. Yeah, it wasn't a great high when I hear people talk about meth being like you get that? I was like. But no, personally I I remember when I went to rehab, I remember laughing for the 1st time. It's you don't realize I don't think I've laughed in years,

Tracey: 40:48

wow. How do you feel about people in the health and fitness industry that try to incorporate alcohol. In their programs or they use it to celebrate certain milestones for people, or people are having yoga and wine sipping or. What's your take on that? My job security, my ex husband owned a gym. I've been in the gym industry. People who go to the gym do not care about nutrition. I just don't see like that passion. The clients that I get they're totally different for the functional work. All my personal training clients, some of them would run the labs. They did not care about nutrition. They all love to drink. If you're normal and you feel like you can handle doing something like that, I guess why not? Depending on what your fitness goal is I don't think that people understand how horrible alcohol is on the body. I don't know, if doing a gummy might be a little bit better, I don't know, but just alcohol alone. One drink a week is horrible on the gut and the hormones for females. It's horrible. The stress response, your cortisol response, the anxiety that you get with it the liver congestion you get with it the gut weight gain. I can't find a reason why you would want to work out and then do that. But there's probably something else going on, it's my guess I just opened a company. I just started another company and it's a so we're doing breath work and then we're going to do ice plunge and then sauna and then ice plunge and then sauna. So it's a contrast therapy and we want to run events. So my big part of it is, team building all that good stuff, but a big thing is you don't have to go out and to the bar and get wasted. You can do healthy things for your mommy's birthday party or whatever. The women get together for your birthday. Do something like this. I'm going to tell you, they'll never forget you. They're going to have such personal growth, to get your friends, to get an ice plunge with you. That's some serious shit, and that is what's going to make you stronger. That's really cool. Yeah, I know. I'm excited. It's a lot to be mobile. So we'll like, drive it around. Yeah. Yeah, that's really great. Yeah, that is good. We're talking more from a promotional side, right? Like people that own gyms or they own yoga studios and we just don't feel like. It aligns with that lifestyle, why would you promote it as part of a healthy lifestyle when it's not healthy?

Samantha: 43:05

They work out a lot and then they can eat a lot. A lot of people think that I can do it because I work out a lot. Gym people have a total different mentality.

Kelly: 43:14

It's more about what they look like than what they feel like They don't root cause health and wellness. They don't think about they count calories. They sometimes they don't even know that a snicker has 100 calories, but a steak is 350, but the steak is better. My ex would have pizza parties and his holiday party would be at a bar. Everyone's great, yeah, that's what people like to do Yeah, even when I go to these conferences I actually been trying to get Some of these big conferences with the biohackers and all that stuff. Oh, yeah. I've emailed them and been like, hey, can I run a meeting can we run a sober group for people there who are in recovery because there's a lot of people in the health industry because we get that's where we go. Or we are, like, we're felons and we need to like, everyone will hire us, but, because when I go to these people they love to get wasted. All these health people love to, they just get the healthy wine it's all the clean fit wines so they do it, but it's cleaner products. Once I started pounding down that shitty vodka, I was like, oh my, this is so bad. I knew, I was like, this is bad. I'm box. So it's just, people like to drink. I don't know. I'm not normal, so i's hard for me sometimes to wrap my head around that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know what it'd be like to just have one drink. I've never, I don't think I've ever done it. No.

Tracey: 44:33

Yeah, I guess it's that sense of reward, right? Which is always associated to drinking or food or yes, social not knowing alternative things to do. It's easy to do. It's easy to plan. True. True. So I just have one last question for you, what advice would you give someone on a wellness journey that is maybe still using drugs or alcohol define wellness journey? Someone that say like us who thought we were on a wellness journey, or were Trying to be on a wellness journey, but we were still, drinking when you come across clients like that, how do you tackle or what kind of advice do you give them about the drinking component? I don't really advise on the drinking. I just start to teach them. I try to get them to feel good again. To realize that alcohol is not doing them any justice, if that makes sense, because us not like to be told what to do and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna open that. And so I just talk about what I've learned from my experience, what I know on a medical side of it. what I think a great example is that Huberman, like I send that damn Huberman podcast out to questioning whether or not it's a great podcast. There's a ton that are really good. There's good books, we talk about you came to me because you have sugar cravings and you get hangry and you're storing fat, in your belly. You can't lose weight. I'm going to tell you, I'm not worried about the calories of the alcohol, but it's your body's response to it. Like you're waking up at 2 in the morning because your body is always going to try to detoxify that liquor before it detoxifies all the other shit that it needs to do on a regular basis. That's why you wake up at 2 o'clock. That's when your liver starts to do its job every day. That's why you're waking up. I try to show them because they'll be like, oh, yeah, I do wake up every time I drink at that time. And that maybe that's why my sleep because your sleep gets so disrupted and every time you drink, it's going to be a cortisol response. You temporarily relieve the anxiety you're shooting for or that feel good. But then your body reacts as a stress response to that alcohol. And then, from there. You're gonna get, more anxiety and your body's going to go into fight or flight and store fat, you know These are all things that people don't think about that. I think they just need to know another thing is one day. I was like thinking about it is Rubbing alcohol we put on our hands right to kill everything. What is alcohol, and we drink it So healing everything you've got it's go drink some hand sanitizer and let me know if you want to do that. Have fun, so yeah that would be the biggest thing is try to educate yourself of the impact it's going to have. I know, eventually that'll start to sink in and you'll start to correlate your symptoms with your drinking. I could say I was drinking. And it took me a while I know a lot about health and wellness, and I was literally, I tried Wellbutrin at the end, and then I tried Prozac, and I was like, I need anti anxiety meds I would wake up every night in sheer panic attacks horrific and my heart was just like, I was like, you're trying to catch your breath, you have anxiety so bad, and I think it was my hormones, but it's because of the alcohol. The second I stopped, I have not had any of it. None. And I don't even believe in medicine and I was like going to medicate myself because I didn't want to stop drinking. I couldn't stop drinking and I just wanted to get the anxiety to go away. And it's just the, the cycle. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You got to break it. It's hard, but yeah. Samantha, tell everybody where they can find you. I know you're on Instagram. you said, I know you have a website. And I do want to mention that you did say you can work with clients in Canada, even though you're in the U. S. So that's great. Yeah, let our listeners know where they can find you

Samantha: 48:11

all right. Yeah, I work with people all over the world. So I really am all over Instagram. I feel like. It's seefit living. So it's S E E F I T and then living. And then www. seefitpt. com is my website. It's a little outdated. But it can get you to a clarity call or wherever you need to go to book a call for sure. And facebook, Samantha Lander or See Fit just Google find me.

Kelly: 48:37

We'll link everything to in our show notes. Yeah. Yeah.

Tracey: 48:42

We'll put everything in the show notes so people can find you. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us. It was great meeting you. You can also find us at LAF life podcast and at LAF life on Facebook and our Facebook community. We also have a website www.laflifepodcast.com. And thank you again. Until next time, you know what to do. Keep laughing!

Kelly: 49:10

Thank you for listening. Please give us a five star rating like and subscribe, share on social media and tell your friends. We love getting your feedback and ideas of what you'd like to hear on upcoming episodes of the LAF life podcast. If you yourself are living alcohol free and want to share your story here, please reach out.