Oh my gosh, welcome Tricia Lewis to the Peripeteia podcast, a talk show for women. I am so, so excited to have you here. Your podcast, Recovery Happy Hour, is one of my favorite podcasts of all time. You are probably my number one favorite podcast host of all times. I think you did a phenomenal job with your podcast.
It helped me so much in early sobriety. And it was the very first podcast that I was ever interviewed on. I was one year sober and you took a chance on me and I couldn't believe it. And then you had to reschedule our, and I was like, yes, of course, because this isn't actually going to happen. Like that was too good to be true.
You rescheduled. It actually happened. We became friends. Now I won't let you go. Now that I know you, I won't let you go. And what a full circle to have you here on mine. Thank you for joining us today. You're welcome. Thank you for sharing that. You made my, you made my life. You gave me a vote of confidence with Ditch the Drink.
That was brand new. Somebody would want to hear my story and it would help somebody out there. And that I was, it made what I was doing become real, you know, like I had been quietly building something on the side and here I had an audience to share that with. Um, so it got my voice a little bit louder and prouder.
So I'm always so, so grateful for you. Now, today we could talk about a million things of course, right? But I asked you specifically because this isn't a recovery happy hour. It's a story. About women and all the plot twists and turns in our life that happened. And so I invited you to share a topic that might be on your mind and heart to talk about.
And you said your divorce eight years ago was about eight years ago. And you're coming up on a, is it eight year sober milestone? Uh, yeah, divorce was nine years ago. Uh, eight coming up on eight years, uh, without alcohol on November 14th. So yeah, November 14, 2016 is that date and then yeah, the divorce was like a year, year and a half before that.
So these things kind of happened together in tandem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, we also briefly before we hit record, we're talking about how we're coming in today. And both of us admitted. Um, not our best, right? We have things going on. I talked about not feeling well. My stepmom recently passed away, um, maybe not being as prepared as I would like, and perfectionism has been a huge theme in either of our lives.
So just showing up as not our best and showing up anyways. this entire podcast. So how are you coming in today? Well, you know, like we talked about before we started recording, um, you know, I've had a rough couple of months as well, you and I have both been through some similar stuff and, um, I had, um, uh, you know, my, my dog died.
I had surgery, you know, changing mental health medications. Um, you know, lots of life stuff, just life is lifing. Right. And it's a, it's a political season. It's the election season, which adds another layer of stress to some people. And yeah, I, I was, I was driving this morning to go vote and take out some of my anger in the, in the.
booth. I, uh, I was like, you know what, Tricia, no one's asking you to be perfect. And as much as I want to be in a great mood and well rested and feeling awesome to share my story. I mean, the truth is like neither one of us got here because of something, because everything was going right. Right. No one quits drinking because everyone's doing.
Awesome. Right. So, you know, and that's just living life on life's terms, you know? So yeah, I think that I want the audience to know right now that you and I just showing up like not at our best is us showing like recovery, that you just accept things and you keep moving and you keep trying and you keep serving and you keep communicating and you just keep, keep, keep and, you know, Give yourself a little grace.
And I'm, I'm, I'm glad that we're both giving ourselves, we're giving ourselves some grace today to not be perfect. I love that. I love that. And this is so interesting because, um, when I was drinking and it was starting to escalate, I had a friend say to me, like, are you happy? And I was so offended because look at my perfect life.
I mean, I was really wearing a mask of like wearing the right clothes and putting on the right face. And I had the right husband and the right house and the right children. And like, The right job. Obviously, everything was going so well. I wanted her to know that I was doing very well for myself. Despite that I was over drinking consistently, right?
Clearly miserable and getting very confused with that. But it was so offensive to me. And on this side of recovery, I stay with myself, even on my not so good days. That's the difference, right? I allow myself to have not so good days, and I wouldn't expect I would knock it out of the park every day, right?
It's okay to have a different kind of day, and you can still stay with yourself on those days. Yeah, and also we have to sometimes I have to remind myself like to talk to myself like as if I'm talking to my best friend, because I'm a lot kinder on my friends and I am on myself. We just read our expectations are insane but if you've had surgery and you're changing meds and your dog passed away, you're going to have some feelings about that.
Yeah. Yeah. Big feelings. Big feelings. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's been a tough one. Thank you for being here anyways. I think it's a perfect example of recovery. Just like you said. Um, can you share a little bit about your personal relationship and your journey with alcohol and how it affected your relationship, particularly your divorce way back when?
I know. Um, so, uh, I, I, I should, let's see, how do I start this? It's been a minute since I've really gone back there. So, um, so I live in Texas and I'm 43 years old and I quit drinking when I was, uh, 35 and, uh, a year and a half before I quit drinking. My whole life exploded. And as I look back now, I'm,
in fact, I kind of would just want to tell everybody, like if you're having a really hard time and it feels like your whole foundation has been removed from your life, that probably means that. Something really big and amazing is happening is about to happen, but you got to explode the crap before you can build, rebuild.
And I know that back then in 2015, it was like everything just imploded. Um, in a day I was, uh, happily married. I was two years into owning a new business. I was in a new house. Um, And, you know, just had like what I thought was a really tight grip on everything. And, um, really that was just me like white knuckling.
I, not only did I have a tight grip on everything, but like I had white knuckles cause I was clinging onto some semblance of control and, um. I grew up like with really bad anxiety and grew up in a really great family, but alcoholism was sort of a thing in our family as well. So my only really, my only frame of reference around alcohol and drinking growing up was that it was bad and that you could be an alcoholic.
So I grew up with sort of a very, um, like, uh, extreme view of And like nothing good. So when I was 16, a boy broke up with me and I decided that I wanted to change the way I felt. I didn't want to feel that way. I didn't want to feel pain. And so I took three shots of whiskey on an empty stomach 16. Right.
And that's not, if I could go back and redo it, like I would have. I've sipped a Zima, you know, like it was the nineties. That's what girl, teenage girls were supposed to do, but like, I went hard right away. And that's just kind of how I always drink. And I was very protective of it because I knew this thing was bad.
I always wanted to make sure that it didn't look like. I was very, uh, obsessed with seeming perfect. Everything's fine. Don't worry about me. Everything's fine. That was just my mantra for everything. And so, um, as I grew into adulthood, I just, this. I was in the restaurant industry, which is very accommodating to drugs and alcohol.
And I wore a badge of honor, like this ability to drink and work at the same time, you know, you work 12 hours and then drink yourself into a blackout because that's Because you worked hard and you deserved it. Like this was my weird mentality around drinking. Always nothing. There's like nothing healthy about the way that I thought about alcohol ever.
My whole life is, I really go back and retell this story after a really long time. I'm now seeing that there was nothing like healthy about alcohol. Um, there isn't actually. Period. But in my mind, there's never anything. Then and now. Yeah. I thought I was able to use it and control it and like, well, if I know enough about it, then I can outsmart it.
Right. I was just so, um, I, I, uh, I drank to have fun. I drank because I was stressed. I drank cause I was sad. I drank cause I was happy. I drank for every reason. And that kind of caught up to me in my mid thirties when, um, I, uh, woke up one day and found out that my ex husband had been having, um, several affairs, like, like living a double life.
And I had no idea, absolutely no clue. And it was like the ground just disappeared from beneath me. Like nothing was real anymore. It totally uprooted everything. And I went through a very quick divorce and was living alone and realized, and I might be jumping around here, but I realized that, um, My drinking had started to get really unpredictable.
So even though I could make it seem like I was fine, you know, I was waking up every morning sick as a dog, but I would still, you know, show up at work at 7am and work 12 hours. And I don't, you know, I'm perky. Everything's fine. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. It was just always my mantra.
And that, what I noticed was that, um, so I was a blackout drinker always. And what I noticed was that my blackouts were becoming so unpredictable. Sometimes they would happen after two glasses of wine. And sometimes they would have been happen after a whole day of day drinking. It just got to be scary and unpredictable.
And. I was living alone for the first time, and I'm very clumsy, and I fall a lot already, like, when I'm not drinking. Mm hmm. And it got, I realized, like, yeah, I could die. I was falling down stairs and things. I was like, you know, I could easily fall down a flight of stairs in my apartment complex and die in the middle of the night and nobody would find me.
I just had this, this very real image of what it could be if I kept drinking. And it was scary enough, uh, where one day when I didn't, um, I felt like I had the flu. Like I couldn't like keep going. It's like every day just rinse, repeat, wake up sick, you know, work. And then start drinking early and then keep drinking and then go to bed and repeat and do that every single day.
And then there was, uh, after a whole weekend of drinking, which would have looked great on Instagram, by the way, uh, it was, you know, a party bus and it was brunch and it was like all these things that looked fabulous, but on the inside, it was miserable. I was just always. Scared of my drinking at this point, I would get nervous before going to parties because I wouldn't, I wasn't like, I wasn't excited to go like, you know, blow off some steam.
I was scared of like, okay, what's going to happen this time. When I drink, it was always, it was just turned into anxiety. It used to relieve my anxiety. And then the alcohol was just causing anxiety. And then you I've got everything around me. Changing and moving. And my whole, like my person is gone. My house is gone.
My friends are gone. Like my old life is gone. Like who the hell am I now? And I had drinking. I, that was like the thing that had always worked for me. And so I would say that when my, when my divorce happened, it was like, everything had to burn. In order for something to rebuild. And the second I looked for some, I swear it was like every day, something else would just fall to shit, to absolute shit.
And in hindsight, I look back and I'm like, yep. Cause all those things needed to completely burn if you wanted to rebuild and, and with the solid foundation and that divorce. Just put the gas pedal on my drinking because if it, if I, if it hadn't happened, I would have continued drinking the way I was drinking for another 10 years.
I just would have slow instead of like slowly becoming worse and worse and worse. What I did was just accelerated that process and I got real bad, real fast in about a year after my divorce. And then, yeah, it just got to be on a Monday. I woke up, um, I'd been drinking all weekend, I felt so sick, I could hardly move.
And, um, I went another day and I felt like I had the flu and I was like, Oh, I guess I'm getting sick. And then on day three, it was like, ouch, my kidneys hurt what's happening. And that was alcohol withdrawal. That was a full blown detox. And that reality hit me real hard in the face that, Oh my God, Tricia, we're here.
Like I knew, like, like it used to be fun. Oh, wow. Look, what's happening now. Like you can't outsmart this anymore. And reality just slapped me in the face and I knew, okay. At that point, I was like, okay, it's been three days. I haven't drank in three days. I still feel like shit, but let's do some research and see what our options are.
I wasn't like, okay, I'm sick of this. I'm going to quit drinking forever. I wasn't bought in at all. I was just like, let's just get some data. So I started listening to podcasts. podcast. I heard a story from a woman who sounded like me. She was high functioning. I honestly had no idea that other people drank like I did.
I thought I was unique. Um, we are so common. We weren't talking about it. I know, I know we're too busy, like smiling over it and pretending like everything's fine. And, um, and I learned that there were other people like me and I, and that's when something clicked and that woman had gone to an AA meeting is the first part of her recovery.
So I went, I was like, okay, I'll try it. And I was open minded and I just kept trying things. It was, I wasn't fully bought in until I'm not quite sure when, because I was like, okay, well, that felt good. Let's try this too. Okay. Well, that didn't feel good. Let's try it. Let's read this book. Okay. Let's go back to therapy.
I was just kind of dabbling to see how it felt, but I do know that. And although I'm not an active member of a 12 step program anymore. I do remember going into AA and feeling, I personally found relief when I sat in a circle of people and said, I'm an alcoholic that gave me some freedom. And I knew where I was starting from.
I don't think everybody needs to use that word. Um, you can use whatever word you want to use. But for me, there was a little bit of steam that was finally let out when I said that out loud. And I was like, okay, we're here. Acceptance and belonging. It sounds like saying it. Yeah, absolutely. Cause you're so siloed when you're sitting, when you're stuck in your drinking, I was so, uh, self centered and I was so offended at the idea of being self centered when I learned about, about like that.
That phrase and how it's used in recovery. Cause I, I thought that self centered and selfish were interchangeable and they're not like self centered just means like everything is centered around yourself. You were always thinking about yourself, whether it's good or it's bad. So I was always. Thinking about my anxiety and thinking about self help and I need this and I should be doing this and I could do this better.
And even though I thought it was coming from a good place because I wanted to be my best self, what it was was just me thinking about me all the time. How can I be less miserable all the time? How, it was just me, me, me. And the steps, I mean, granted it's been eight years, but the, every single day. Like a cell in your body changes a little bit changes, you know, and I finally just got my head out of my ass and I stopped thinking about myself every single day.
And you start kind of real, like picking your head out of the sand and going, Oh wow, there's a whole world and maybe I can help some people. And you know, in recovery, it's like, that's when the rubber. You know, meets the road when you start to be of service, like that becomes a really that for me, that was a really essential part of my, of my recovery.
But man, that whole, when I think back of that whole period of the divorce and then the drinking subsequently, all I can think about is just sitting in my brain and never leaving their whole world out there outside of our brains. And. Yeah, it, it, it got me to where I am today. Obviously there's a whole lot to talk about in between there, but I feel so much relief in knowing that if I'm sick of myself, it's okay for me to get, to get out of my head and go out and be around people and help all like that's always something that's going to help me feel better.
And I wonder with people that are struggling, like people that are listening right now that are like. Trisha, make your point. Um, I wonder if nobody's thinking that, by the way, that's you in your own head. I wonder if even though we have the best of intentions in all of the self help books that we read and all of the Mental health Instagram accounts that we follow and all of those, you know, self betterment podcasts that we listen to.
It may be sometimes we would stop focusing on ourselves and figure out how we can use ourselves to go out and make a difference. And help other people, you know, it's a real, uh, I don't know, I just keep fixating on this idea of, of self centeredness and how we mean well, but man, are we good at sabotaging ourselves.
Totally. I love your story. I relate to it so much. First of all, I can't stop thinking about. how a seed has to completely combust and destroy itself. It has to break completely open for a flower to bloom. And so that time of your life, complete destruction. Is the beginning, right? A phoenix rising from the ashes.
I'm like, do you have a phoenix tattoo? Do you have a seat tattoo? Like, like this, this really, really happened to you. You did have to burn it all down. Yeah. And it was actually the beginning of beauty and growth, but it didn't kill at the time. No, my God. And it's not like I burned it down. Like it was like, right.
A drive by arson. Yeah. Yeah. It was drive by, like, it's like somebody drove past my house and threw a grenade and I, and like, what's happening? And then I just had to pick it all up alone. Right. It's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it wasn't your choice. Oh, that's the hardest part. And then rejection, you had felt rejection too, I'm sure, in so many ways.
Yeah, and for somebody, oh my God, I'm like, I mean, the ultimate and people pleaser, perfectionism, my God. And then it's like, I'm divorced and my husband was having affairs and everybody's gonna, they're like, they're blaming me now. And Tricia, if you had done this right, then he wouldn't have done, like, you just start going, what did I do wrong?
What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? And, and, um. And then if you're lucky, you realize real quick that you're not the problem, side note, but yeah, I wanted to ask about that to give a little credit to Tricia back then to divorce and walk away and live alone. Like those are really brave choices that you did.
Confused and drinking. Did you question that? Or you just knew? Um, you know, it's weird because there's this business side of my brain that clocked in right away. It's like, it was a coping mechanism. Rather than feel my feelings at the time, I went right into, alright, how are we going to fix this? How are we going to check out?
Let's take care of ourselves. I didn't feel any feelings until like six months later. Because I was too busy trying to distract myself from the pain by reorganizing the rest of my life as best as I could. And that was my cope, that and drinking. Those are the only things I needed to sign documents and split finances and notify people.
I basically divorced myself. Yeah, I did all the work. It's like you're in a business mode. Yeah, absolutely. And I, and, and it's funny, I, I, um, somebody said that to me recently, they're like, wow, I wouldn't have ever had the courage to do that. And I think back and I'm like, I don't know that I even gave myself the opportunity to, to think about it.
I just started doing stuff and didn't think, and just like, okay, we got to be, you know, survival mode. And, um, And, you know, I don't know that, yeah, that kind of worked out, but also six months later when I was drinking and angry and crying over everything and just like making terrible decisions. That's when things kind of sunk in later, you know.
A little delayed processing of emotions. Oh my gosh, yes. Had I let myself just feel my uncomfortable feelings at the time, uh, maybe I could have, Process things a little bit healthier, but, uh, you know, I was really, I was good at drinking to cover them up, you know, that was just what I did. And also in my marriage, the drinking was part of the story, you know, we were drinkers and it, you know, it was expensive vodka in the glass bottle, not the plastic one, you know, we had these wine glasses, you have expensive.
It was just like, no, but this looks great. We're doing fine. We're not getting DUIs. We're not getting in, you know, knock down, drag out brawls. Like, you know, who's really, you know, there's no negative consequences. Like who's really suffering here. That's the lie. You tell yourself. Right. Right. So 16 year old Tricia, boy breaks up with her three shots of whiskey.
This Tricia divorce. Go into more extensive vodka. It's like the same, same thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because you use, you use what works for you, right? You use what makes you feel better. All of us just want relief from pain. Yeah, totally. And we're not, right. And we're not taught how to do that with healthy, healthy coping mechanisms.
We just, you got to figure it out as you go. And back then, like you just weren't having, they weren't having mental health conversations like they do now. Um, so if you're not driving, if you're not losing your job, if you're not getting in part time brawls, then this is not a problem, right? Right. Like, Oh, well, who I'm not hurting anyone.
Like what's wrong with it. And then, you know, um, And somehow managing it was the goal. So I'm a little bit curious about your background of like, alcohol was in my family, but did you have anybody that was alcohol free in your family? Had anybody quit? Yes and no. Um, yes and no. Uh, there had been, you know, it's weird.
Yes, but nobody talked about it. Uh, my, my, uh, older brother was the one who was sort of causing all the chaos in our immediate family. Um, with drugs and alcohol. And he is sober now, nine years, but for a very long time was not. So really no, my close firsthand experience with that was just seeing the chaos that it, that it caused.
Right. So in a family dynamic. It's pretty typical if one sibling is the disaster, the other one is probably the perfectionist. They're probably, that was my story. I was always trying to overcompensate for the problems that were happening. I just wanted to blend in with the wallpaper, be as small as possible.
Causes as few waves as possible. Just don't worry about me. And so I would do anything I could to try to not feel pain. And nobody tells you that pain is like a given. Like, I don't know why we think we're so entitled to not. That we think we shouldn't have to feel pain, right? That's life, but nobody teaches you how to deal with that.
So you just grab what makes you feel better. So when I look back on that girl on that 16 year old, she just was doing the best she could. She didn't know any better. You know, I had no healthy tools. I just wanted to be the perfect daughter. You know, I just wanted to be the perfect girl, the perfect teenager, perfect student, the perfect employee.
If I could just be perfect, then maybe. Um, and then I, then maybe I'd be fine, you know, maybe everything would fall on the line and, uh, eventually it's like that clinging to perfection and control just, you just need to feel control over something, you know, it just, um, it just builds and builds and builds and becomes worse and worse and worse until you figure out that you just got to let shit go.
That's the thing I said, I was just like, I had such a firm grip on things like clinging to anything to feel like I had control. And well, you thought you were going to team the dragon of alcohol like your brother did it bad, but you were going to do it good, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, you can outsmart it, right?
Yeah. Right, so you'll do it the right way because what would be terrible would be not drinking at all. So you're going to drink, but you're not going to drink too much. You're not going to make it a problem. Yeah, like look at me though. I'm doing fine. Everything looks fine, you know. Right, and it's part of your job.
It feels like part of your job. Yeah. The truth is you are checking the boxes. You're going to work, you're getting through your day, that groundhog cycle that you talked about. Oh my gosh. I was on that too. Always exhausted, always miserable, recovering from drinking, getting my next drink, looking to get my next, like that was the top priority and took up all my headspace all the time.
Talk about self centered and selfish, right? I couldn't, I didn't have room to think about other things because I was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other, making sure everybody else thought everything looked okay. Yeah. I drank especially the night before I'm going to wake up extra early and make it even better breakfast and sleep.
Oh my gosh. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I would always deny that I was hungover too. I was, Oh, I'm fine. I would deny how drunk I was. I don't know. I hated those questions. Don't like, oh, do you had fun last night? And, and Oh my God, cute. Like I get terror. I feel terror now, when you said that in my stomach.
Yeah. Because every time I heard that, I was like, oh God, what did I do? Because I never Right. Because I always blacked out. Same. Yeah. And oh God, that feeling. It's so funny with the what, just then when you said that, I was like, Ooh. I felt that like, oh yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm . You don't know yourself. You're like, you don't wanna know.
I know. And although I just, I'm not ashamed of, of that anymore, though, like I said, I have so much compassion for 16 year old Trisha and for 34 year old Trisha, who was just trying to do the best she could with the circumstances she was in, you know, she just was trying, was doing the best. She could, and, and again, we're just, we're not taught.
No, and the I'm fine is our protection. Yes. It's fine as our protection. We have to tell ourselves we're fine. We're fine. Our inner critic is screaming at us so loud. We have to say I'm fine. You're okay. You're okay. It's fine. You're fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. That's your survival instinct after a while.
It's just like, Oh God, you're fine. Just get through the next minute until the next panic attack. You know, it's just, yeah, it's over and over and over. And again, this all comes back to like, in all of this, I'm still thinking about myself all the time, obsessing over myself all the time. Do I look fine? Does everything look fine?
Like no one cares. There's not everybody else think about enough about me. What do you think about me? I don't know who this big, like. This governing body was that I was so afraid of, of like who they are and what they think of me. Like, I still don't know who those people are. Right, right. The they. Well, here's the other thing.
You are drinking, so you don't have clarity. You are not listening to your intuition. You're pouring alcohol on your intuition. Your husband is having a different life and you don't know, but you are not seeking to know part of you is probably protection also to not know, because what happens if that's true, then your whole world explodes, right?
Yeah. Looking back at that, like he's doing his thing and you're doing your thing. Um, tell me more. Do you think any of that was. Protecting yourself without knowing or an unconscious coping. Yeah, you know, I'm glad you brought that up because I figured out recently just how disconnected from my own body.
I was for like most of your life. 35 years. Until now, until yesterday. I hear you. Like when I, when I go back and think about, uh, like where I was when I was 18, 19 years old, which is when I was probably the most traumatized and had no clue. I, I look back and I don't remember being checked into my body whatsoever.
I don't think that I could have even told you what a true feeling felt like. Everything was about should. And what do they think about me? What do they think about my body? What do they think from me? Yeah. How should I look? How should I feel? So I wasn't even thinking of there was nothing intuitive inside of me.
And if there was, I probably just squashed it down with more alcohol. And one of the greatest gifts of where I'm at now is at least just knowing my own body and my own feelings and being. Like, like everything's plugged in now. I actually can feel my feelings and know that that's a real thing. Tricia, it's okay to feel afraid.
It's okay to feel angry. It's okay to feel sad. Like these are just feelings. They're not forever, but I was so afraid of anything. Yeah. That wasn't what I thought should be, that I just like pushed it all away. I don't think I had any capacity at the time to even feel any suspicion or fear. Just numb was the goal.
Numb was really the goal. The not feeling almost Stepford, like, like that feeling was the goal. And alcohol is a perfect numbing agent. No wonder that was such a match. Yeah, no wonder, no wonder we keep doing the thing that works for us. That's the thing, I wanted to numb, I didn't want to feel, so that's what works, so I kept doing it.
Like, anybody would do the same thing with a thing that works, right? And so, you know, and the tricky thing with alcohol is that you drink enough of it, you become physically addicted to it, and then, you know. But it's so annoying, the solution becomes the biggest problem we ever had. Oh no, it is the worst, like, abusive ex boyfriend that will not leave you alone.
Yeah, yeah. It's just, yeah, it's, and I'm sorry, I, I kind of. I don't know if I answered your question. No, you did that. You were not, you didn't have capacity to tap into your intuition. You never even considered it. So I had a hard time trusting myself and what, what I felt like, and even now I have to really talk myself into sometimes into accepting my own.
Uh, feelings and opinions, because I still have a hard time trusting myself. Uh, it's new, sometimes, you know, sometimes it still feels new to, to know, I don't know, to feel all this stuff, first of all. It's not to tell yourself you're wrong. That's what I did. Every feeling I had intuition, I knew what I felt.
And it was wrong. That's not the right way to feel. That's not the way I should feel about that. You're mad. Don't be mad about that. You shouldn't be mad. Why would you? So then I would just drink for that. You know, I would say get over it. You should be over this. So be over it. Pour a drink. Yeah. Absolutely.
We just should honor. So I was just shooting on myself all the time. I should feel this. I should feel, you know, it's like even catch myself too. It's like when my, when my dog died, it was like, you know, I cried for like four days and then the next, I think on day five, I was like still sad. And I was like, well, I shouldn't still feel sad.
I shouldn't still be crying. And it's like, what the, what? Yeah. You should probably feel sad about that for the rest of your life. Yeah. I was like, where did that come from? Like, I'm allowed to have feelings like that's okay. They're not right or wrong. They just are. I tell my clients that all the time.
It's the right feeling because you're feeling it. Yeah. And it doesn't define you. It's not like, you know, like it is temporary. Yeah. But like, just because I felt sad does not mean I am a sad person. Right. I have sad feelings sometimes. Like I get so I, Sunday I was so irritated, everything irritated me. I mean, is somebody breathing would irritate me.
And then once I realized how irritated was, I was so irritated about how irritated I was. Yeah. You know? And like, what, what feelings about feelings? Come on. You know? Yeah. They're hard. They're, they're so meta. I'm noticing that I'm irritated. I'm the irritated person noticing that I'm irritated. I know, but I'm annoyed at myself.
I am, you know, and he just keeps spiraling again. It's all self centeredness, right? You know, it's just like, tell me about that. Tell me about the, like the signs that you're. Drinking is self centered or problematic. Is it the falling down? Is it the, so for me personally, it was, it was life and death. Um, because I, like I said, I could see myself dying alone in a stairwell, but people would ask me, you know, when I started coming out and telling people that I had quit drinking, you know, people ask a lot, you know, well, how did you know, well, how much did you drink, you know?
And
the thing about drinking is. You don't have to qualify to quit. You know, if it's not about how much you're drinking, it's about how much you're thinking about drinking. It's how much you're planning. You're drinking. It's your, you're planning your recovery, like the mental gymnastics. And that's when, you know, like something's not right.
I don't care if you're drinking one glass of wine a night. If you're obsessing over that glass all day, that's, that's the issue. It's not the drinking. It's. Yeah. Why are we so set on this one thing to rule our day? And that, that's kind of the, the, the division that has to happen there. You got to separate those two things.
Cause we're, cause you decide when you want to want to quit, you know, nobody else, it's like as much as you and I are, are box checkers, like we want to check all the boxes, you can't do that with drinking, like. I don't care if you take that AA test 150 times, like you could still check all those boxes, but you decide you are in charge of your own life.
And you, like, if you're exhausted with how you think about drinking, then yeah, maybe then it's time and maybe it's easier to, well, no, I'm going to rewind that part. That's not easier. Pretend I never said that, that half sentence. Um, yeah, I don't know, but it only gets worse. It only gets worse. And again, it's just like, there's no, we want to, we all want a formula.
We all want to be like, okay, I drink this many drinks and I'm sad this many days a week. And so I should quit drinking. And then when I do this, this will happen, this will happen. And it's just not like that. And there are so, you know, I was so obsessed with, am I an alcoholic? Am I not like, like, as if those are the only two options, like you're a healthy drinker or you're an alcoholic and that's not true, there's a whole spectrum of problematic drinking.
And again, you decide what's a problem to you. And for me, it was, uh, I had decided that it was enough on paper. I think anybody seeing how much I drank would have known that I was drinking too much years before. But, um, you know, you're, we get really good at convincing ourselves that it's fine because again, like this is my reward.
I work really hard. I deserve this. I've earned this, you know, and it's just the. The gymnastics are freaking exhausting. Yeah, the headspace it takes up saying you don't have to qualify to quit is a really powerful statement. And I really appreciate that because I've been shamed for drinking too much. And I've been shamed for drinking not enough, like shamed for like, I'm not, wasn't drunk enough.
My story isn't rock bottom enough. It isn't bad enough because I was so high functioning and that. That was what made it so confusing for me. Like you said, the divorce like really escalated it by being alone and putting a spotlight on it. For me, it was a slow suicide over 30 years and it only looked troubling at the very end when I was hit with a bunch of deaths.
Right. So it was very confusing to me. And to my husband, did I have a problem? Did I not? I mean, yeah, I don't remember the night before and I'm pretty stumbly. That could be very dangerous when you're going up the stairs or down the stairs. But also I got up and made breakfast and swept the floor before the sun rose.
And I said, I'm, I say, I'm fine. So is it a problem? And I think that's confusing for a lot of people, but I think about. I was waking up miserable every day and I hated myself, Trisha. That's not a way to go through life. I hated myself because of my drinking. I wasn't keeping promises. I was full of shame. I couldn't look somebody in the eye.
I had a secret. And I always knew I liked drinking more than most people that it hit my brain in a way that must've been so much better than everybody else around me that would walk away from a drink because no way did I, I never wanted the party to end. I never wanted to stop drinking. Could I do it?
Did I do it? Yeah, I did. I did. Sometimes I could moderate once in a while, you know, not every night was a disaster. 75 percent was, but 25 percent wasn't with a lot of effort, you know, so that kept me drinking for far too long. So I love that you said that don't, you don't have to qualify to quit and that's bad enough.
Being miserable is bad enough. It is. And it's toward that. I'm glad that you brought up that, like, just like when deciding, is it bad enough? Because that was torturous. That is absolutely what kept me miserable for so long was thinking that, Oh, well, am I an alcoholic? Am I an alcoholic? Not, I wasn't asking myself, am I miserable every day?
Right. That's what you ask. Oh, you know, it's like, don't worry about the, you know, just, I want to keep waking up and punching myself in the face. Right. Cause God, I'm, I was just like, I woke up and I hated myself every day. I just hated myself. And that is no way to start a day. And as helpful as, you know, going to like 12 step meetings were in the beginning.
Yeah. There are also some times when like some asshole would say, you know, I'm so and so and I'm a real alcoholic. And they would try to, you know, and. You know, it's like try to one up you and as if you don't have a right to be in there and you know, like humans are the best and the worst part about everything, but also 12 step.
Yeah, yeah, hearing that stuff. It's, it's hard when assholes make it harder than it needs to be. But yeah, you don't like you have. You have permission to quit. You want to quit, you know, and like you said, it's not the trying, it's the keep trying. You tried a lot of things. You tried a lot of different things.
You dabbled in a lot of things. And for me too, it was a journey to quit. I didn't one day wake up and go, I'm never going to drink again. Right. I want a life of sobriety. I didn't ask for that necessarily, but through continued efforts and trying new things. It happened gladly, you know, yeah, and I, uh, I always knew I was going to have to quit someday.
I always knew like deep down inside, like I didn't drink like a normal person, people, the audience can't see this, but like I'm holding up like air quotes, like norm drink like a normal person. Like there is no normal. Drinking. I'm sorry. It just, if you're moderating, it's because you're not trying like most people actually not drinking is the most normal thing on earth.
That's the most. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely not drink at all. Yeah. And I think so. I think about how hard I tried to moderate. Thinking, okay, well, I'll just drink moderately like a normal person. Well, people that drink moderately usually aren't trying to drink moderately. They just don't, they just like have a drink and then they don't want to have another, like moderation is not supposed to be that hard.
And so if, yeah, free drinks have taught me that. Like, I'm like, Oh, this is what it's like. Like, I'll think, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna open a groovy tonight, right? Like an alcohol free wine and life happens. And maybe I never even opened that drink. It was like, oh yeah, I was going to do that and I didn't. Isn't that funny?
Or whatever. It's like, that would have never happened to me as a drinker. Right? Well, it's funny though, because when that happens, I'm like, oh, this is what normal drinkers feel. Exactly. Me too. I'm like, not drinking alcohol free beverages has turned me into a normal drinker. I can have a beer and then go to the grocery store.
That would have never happened, right? Yeah, well, it's crazy. You know, I thought about, I just thought of something to my self esteem was in the toilet and when I was going through my divorce, my self esteem was in the toilet, like throughout my whole marriage drinking doesn't help that for sure. Um, in fact.
If you're having self esteem issues, the best thing you can do is stop drinking because, um, just pouring a depressant all over your brain is not going to help you feel good about yourself. So as I, as I started to get into recovery and do the things and, and coming out publicly was a big part of that too, because I needed that accountability.
But as I was starting to do this work and I realized like, I didn't hate myself as much anymore. Um, I was starting to learn who I really was because I. I think any, I was so concerned about who I thought I was and who I should be. Not who I really was. And you're starting to, started to emerge. Yeah. You start to figure out who you are and have built confidence in that and, and trust in that.
and support that too. Um, you know, like we all need to be our own, our own advocate, because if you don't advocate for yourself, who's going to, and that's especially the case with drinking. Most people around you, if they're drinking with you too, are not going to be like, right off the bat, be like, Hey, you should quit drinking.
Like, like we don't normally encourage people to do that when we're all drinking. And if you can't. I guess I'm just like talking in circles, but like you got it in recovery. I learned how to speak up and, and for myself and just, and really decide like, what's right for me, even though that looked weird to this group of people, or even though it felt really weird, cause it was different than anything I'd ever done, like weird and hard.
Isn't bad. It's just different. And then it becomes normal and then it turns into something better. And. It's a process and this is eight years later. Like this doesn't happen overnight. And that is a, that's a representation of just like our whole life. Right. Like, aren't we supposed to kind of take each day as it comes and figure it out?
Like, we never arrive. Right. Completely. Oh, you get to that summit, and then there's another summit. Right? Oh my gosh. Yeah. We're always in process. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not a straight line to the top. No, no, no, no, no. It's like this. Yeah. The second you think you've arrived, like, get ready for a shit storm because it just can't.
Yeah. Thank you for the tools. To navigate, right? Yeah. Because you get stronger. You get stronger. And rarely do we, do, we identify those moments when we've built those muscles and go, oh my gosh, look what I just got through. You know? Yeah. I, we, we don't give ourselves enough credit for for that kinda work when we're in it.
Totally. So tell me about this. I'm curious because I want, I don't know the difference between selfish and self-centered. And also, if I'm thinking about a recovery journey, I'd love to hear from you your story of, first of all, drinking very selfish. I can see that. Self centered and selfish. I can just see that.
You're all about yourself. You're in your own head. You don't have capacity for anything else. Early recovery is A lot of self care, self talk, self help, this is also all about the self. You have become, I, I mean, when I suggested something we talked about, I'm like, can you tell me about your volunteering?
Because that is the most interesting, one of the most interesting things about you and I love that. Like, I know you've had so much give back. And I, the first thing I did, I was between jobs when I quit drinking and I did not know what to do with myself and I went and started volunteering. So that too was like, I started volunteering and I went on the Recovery Happy Hour podcast, right?
Like, I started, um, me to the giving and the acts of service. started to heal me and become something, but walk me through that because drinking is selfish and then not drinking feels very self involved. How do you, how did you transform? Kind of an oxymoron it for when I say like we're self centered and then you stop drinking and you become less self centered when in recovery, you really have to focus on yourself in order to get healthy.
I know that that sounds confusing, but, um, there is a lot of self care that has to happen in early recovery, right? It's triage. You are just trying to get through a day without drinking and the tools and the effort that go into learning how to do that. are not indicative of how it's always going to be.
It's just hard at first. You're just getting that foundational work so that you can learn how to like, get up and brush your teeth without wanting to drink. Right? Yeah. So how do you do that in the beginning? You listen to a podcast and you go to a meeting. Yeah. I, I did everything. Uh, I was like, I pretended like I was at the cheesecake factory and I ordered everything on the menu, that giant knob on the menu that they have.
I went to an AA meeting and then I was like, that was cool. I think I'll go back. And then, uh, I'm going to keep listening to this podcast in the meantime. And okay, I'm going to get back in therapy and okay. And now I'm going to work the 12 steps and okay. I'm going to add journaling to this. And then, okay, well, I tried this thing.
It didn't feel good. Didn't like it. So I'm going to try this now. Like I tried everything, but the most important part of that was telling people that I wasn't drinking. I had to be accountable. I went on a podcast at 30 days sober and shared my story because I had to get it out there. Cause that was my insurance policy.
Cause if I didn't make it public, I knew I was going to talk myself into drinking again. If you keep it a secret, it is so much easier to run back to it. So I was like, screw this. I'm gonna, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it one time. I don't want to have to go through this a hundred different times.
I'm just so, so it was podcast. It was therapy. It was 12 step. It was exercise. It was, um, at the time I owned a business, but I had hired a chef to kind of do my job. So I was able to take some time off to focus on myself. That's not typical. I also need to say a disclaimer. I don't have children, so I don't.
I can't share what it's like to go through recovery and have children. I'm sure it's much, much more difficult, obviously, but all the things and you're trying to go a day, a week, 30 days. You were just trying to get further and further away from alcohol. Yeah. I don't even know if I even thought about it that holistically.
I just knew that I didn't, I needed to do anything I could to not drink. And that's all I knew. And then not drink tomorrow. And tell somebody. Yeah. I just needed to do anything I could to not drink. Cause I knew that drinking made me miserable and that's all I knew. And, and I kept. I didn't do all these things all the time.
That's the other thing is I list off all these things. I wasn't doing all those things every day. As you get stronger, you start building muscles and you can put this thing away and add that thing on. I was, but I was active in it. I was actively doing recovery every day. I had a Facebook accountability group I could go to.
It's so important that you have community and other people to talk to. about what you're going through, because anytime we share our struggles with anyone who's been through it, we help each other, but we also like, we get extra tools and support. And that is so, so critical. But so yeah, it's kind of a weird oxymoron that you spend all this time working on yourself when you're supposed to be left self centered, but it's temporary, just like anything, just like a broken leg.
You got to heal. You got to be in the cast for a while. until you're healed and you can walk again and then you can go back to regular life. So once I was at a triage and I could kind of figure out how to get through the day and not drink and it wasn't that traumatic anymore, you can start to add more things to your plate, right?
Acts of service. Maybe that's just making coffee at the meeting. Maybe that's putting your neighbor's newspaper on their front porch. Cause they're old. Like it's, you just start thinking of things that are. Not for you there for somebody else. And eventually like the bonus gift is that makes you feel good.
Like that's a nice little, little, little party favor that you get from acts of service. But as you start, as I started to do this more and more, like build healthy coping tools, talk to other people and start helping people. I realized that the less I was thinking about my own misery, the happier I was.
because I wasn't just sitting in the suck. Like it's okay to wade in the suck for a minute, but then you can't let it pull you under. And I just, you just, uh, day by day you start. Learning these things and you make mistakes, you know, you mess up all the time and then so you just try to do better the next day, but I was really open to trying everything, everything I could and there are 100 times more options available now than there were eight years ago.
Oh my God. It's like, yeah, I know. It's like, I have a complimentary call. Call me. And tell me your secret that you have an alcohol problem. I'm a stranger. It's confidential. I'm bound by ethics and standards of my coaching degree. You don't have to buy my coaching package. You can just call me and tell me.
You know, if you need that, tell somebody, I'm with you, find somebody to tell. And if you don't have anyone in your real life, find somebody on the internet, find somebody on Instagram, anybody in recovery is open to receiving that. So you're everywhere. Yeah. So you got out of your head and you got your head out of your ass, like you said, because helping others does feel good.
Feels good. You have the capacity for it and you do get out of your own head. And even, I was saying, I got on a call with a client this week and she's like, I know you're sick and I know like your stepmom just died and we can just make this quick and da da da. And I was like, I have a full day of calls and I am so excited.
To get into somebody else's life and out of mine for a minute. I cannot wait to receive these clients. I'm thrilled with the distraction and the diversion from myself. I love to be helpful, of course. I have a social work degree, like, it's who I am. This is the best thing that could happen to me. I don't want to stop these calls.
I don't want to make these calls short. Like, I'm so happy to have clients to talk to. Like, this is exactly what I want to be doing. There was a very, uh, very noticeable shift in about month four of sobriety for me when I was just in the morning, just, just praying, just begging God, please just let me, just let me be able to help someone.
Just let me be able to help someone with this. Cause you start to feel so good and you want to share that with other people because you know, they're how, how hard. It is for them and how good it can feel on the other side. And so that's, uh, I started to, to get that urge really early on. Right. And then, you know, fast forward, like six and a half years later, right.
Uh, so about a year and a half ago, I very suddenly lost my job. Uh, and. That was like my identity, you know, it was just like, I am this thing. And so like, ah, what am I going to do now without this thing? Well, drinking was your identity plus your job. And then sobriety was your identity plus your job, right?
He's not my whole personality. Fall is I'm one of those. Oh, my whole personality right now isn't this, it's coffee, you know, it's like, Oh yeah, coffee is my personality, I get you. But, uh, That was your job, at the time. Yeah, and so I was, I, my husband's like, what do you really want to do? And I was like, honestly, I just want to, Do art with foster kids.
That's just what I really want to do. And I was able to get in with this opportunity with a local foster care organization here in Dallas, but under they have many different programs under their umbrella. One of them is a reset program for, uh, young girls ages 13 to 17 who are at high risk for, uh, human trafficking or have been pulled from a trafficking situation.
And. I wanted to work with these girls. Um, so I do art with them and I wanted to work with them because words don't cut it sometimes for expressing your feelings. Sometimes you need other ways to get it out. And so I'm, I'm doing art so that I can show them different ways of creative expressions so that they can learn how to use their voice in a way that's maybe not sitting down and having a talk with someone, you know, maybe that.
That's just not going to work for them up and out of you all the ways we can get it up and out of you. Right. I love it. Thank you for sharing. Well, exactly. We need it. My God, we need it. And in doing this, though, I I'm as I'm meeting these girls and learning a little bit about their stories and not much, you know, like that's Between them and their therapists, you know, a lot of people want to know like what it's like, and I'm like, I don't know, I don't ask they volunteer what they want, but they just act like goofy girls, you know, when we're together, they're just teenagers.
And, but when I go home. I just am in awe of how big their problems are, and that doesn't negate my problems and me. I'm not a big fan of being able to feel sad about a problem, but it makes me grateful that I have not been sitting in my problem all day, that I have used my energy helping somebody else.
No, because it helps them, but that also helps me. And honestly, the world needs you. Like I, when I was drinking, I was. Wasn't helping anyone. And there are a lot of problems in the world and I could have been really useful rather than drinking martinis every single day. And the world is so broken. And we can fix it.
You know, we can all help each other. One person can help one person, one person can help one person. And that's where I talk about like the self centeredness. It was just like, everything was just about myself and fixing myself and appearing a certain way. And now it's like, That is in the trash. That doesn't matter.
Serving these people, bringing, you know, offering help, listening to someone, looking at a girl in her eyes and saying, yeah, I see you, you know, like that, that matters. And we can all do something. We can all like, you don't have to go volunteer with foster kids. Like nobody expects you to do that on day one of quitting drinking.
I mean, that would be, that would be crazy, but, but everybody has the capacity to help. And it. It makes our world better, but it makes you better. And the more we can, it's like this perfect cycle that balances each other out. When I am focusing on myself, it is to fill my cup so that I can be of service to others.
It is not just so that I can meet the bare minimum and get through the day. Like me, not that bad, right? The best thing I can do for those girls is try to be the healthiest version of me. So awake and alive and, um, empowered. And so that is the best offering you have to give. We need more women, especially.
That are there like you, that is our offering to the world. That is so, we all have a story to share. We all have a story to share. Like, even if it's not drinking, if it's something else, we all have a story to share. None of us are unique and sharing that with somebody else who's in it, man, you can change, you can change a life.
I mean, it's wild. It's wild. But yeah, like, that's the thing, like for people that are just struggling and just stuck in it, like the world needs you because. You're capable because you can do this. Like we were meant to do this. We were meant to help and serve. And the relief in that is spectacular. And just knowing that this is possible, that joy is on the other side of this, that all of the work pays off that my foundation being imploded has been rebuilt.
You know, like I am remarried to a wonderful husband and who supports me in a way so that I can go and support these girls. You know, I am confident in who I am. I trust my feelings. I'm, I back myself when I have an opinion and talk to people. My world is so much better than it was then. And damn it. If I wasn't just so desperate to make it fit into a certain mold.
And man, once it, once it exploded and I just let it go and I surrendered and I was like, all right, let's just get real. And let's just, let's just figure out our life. Once that happened, like all of the. All of the things I wanted came in, they eventually came to happen. You know, never happens on our own terms.
Ever. so frustrating. Mm-hmm . But, um, man, is it possible And we are strong? And I would've, I would've never thought that it would, I, man, I would've never thought that here I would be. Almost like three weeks away from eight years. Sometimes it feels like eight minutes. Sometimes it feels like 800 years, but I never thought that it could be like this.
And it's possible, man, people are capable. They're so, so capable. You are such a beautiful example of that. Tricia, thank you so much. This is so powerful. I love it. I love how you. Turned your life around. Didn't ask for the explosion, but it was there. You've taken it, you've done it. It's turned, it's expanded your life and your world in ways you didn't know possible.
Your offerings, Recovery Happy Hour was my staple. It was my thing that I was listening to. I think it was dropped on Tuesdays. I think if I remember correctly. Yes. Well, and I want to, I want to say this to you and I want to make sure that people hear this. So don't edit this out. I remember your interview so clearly because I saw like the energy, I see like the energy in me, I see that energy in you, like that, uh, we both just have a lot of energy, right?
We are excited, bubbly, like people that just want to And I saw that in you and that lifts me up, you know, it's that it's contagious and it's wonderful and I've never forgotten it. Like you have a very strong, special, like unique bubbly energy. So everything that you're saying like to me, like, let me say that back to you.
Cause I see it. And you, and I see what you're doing and you make me happy. Like when I see you, you're smiling. Like you bring me good energy when I need it too. So thank you for doing what you're doing. Oh my gosh. I love you. I love it that you say, go edit this out. You know me so well.
Yeah. It's that it's the namaste, like the beauty, the light, the aliveness, the enthusiasm in me recognizes that in you and then in all of us, and we have. So much to give. And I'm so glad we met on this side of sobriety, Trisha. I can't imagine how we would have pulled each other down. Oh my God. In the before pictures, because we're so similar, right?
We would have looked great on Instagram, but you wouldn't have been able to hear a word I was saying. And you have a spouse, and you're a different wife. And I think too, like, there's the giving, the acts of service, volunteering, charitable acts, things like that. But there's also the giving him relationships.
Like for me, the pause between the stimulus and the response, that's been everything in parenting to put myself in somebody else's shoes. Where are they coming from to be wrong? As perfect as I am, as perfect as I strived as strong. Enneagram one, three, right? Like free gram one, right. Just absolutely perfect in every way to go like.
Yeah, I did that wrong. I was wrong. I messed up. Oh my god, and the world kept turning. Exactly. Exactly. Oh my god, what a relief. The world didn't think I messed up again. I need help. I mean, I think that was the hard part for both of us, too, to say I need help. Because we're like, we got it. We're strong, independent women.
We don't need nobody. And then to go like, oh lord, I need help. And now I recognize that quicker. You delegated someone to do your job. Like that was the huge act of strength and courage and that's what got you out. So good on you. Anybody raise your hand, ask for help. Absolutely recommend it. We're not in here.
We don't inherently know how to quit drinking. That's not a skill that we just know. So, uh, yeah, just like anything else, if you don't know how to do it, what do you do? You ask an expert. You ask somebody who's been through it before. It's the same with drinking. You just go and handle your shit. Mm hmm.
Exactly. So last question, how are you going to celebrate your eight years coming around the bend? You know, I don't know. And I don't know if I even will. I don't know if I even did last year. I think the lovely part about getting to this place is that it becomes so normal that it's not, it's just not that big of a deal anymore to celebrate it.
And I'm relieved to be here. I don't see it as like a sad thing or like, Oh, you know, like, Oh, I don't celebrate it more. I just don't feel like it because like Every day is pretty great. You know, I can't say that I'm, I don't know, I might change my mind, but as of right now, I think I'm just going to wake up and not drink that day.
Amazing. And it's just interwoven into your tapestry, right? It's just who you are. It's not even something you're working on. I mean, I'm sure you stay plugged in, in all the ways, but it's who you are. So that's really beautiful. Happy eight years. I love that this journey has connected us. You've been a huge help to me.
Um, I receive, I'll receive the sweet things you said about me. I'll definitely take that in. And this is, this has been a great conversation on how drinking is so self centered and in our relationships and ourselves and that recovery is so expansive and there's so much more to give. You're the best person to have this conversation.
Thank you. Thank you, Heather.
Oh my gosh, welcome Tricia Lewis to the Peripeteia podcast, a talk show for women. I am so, so excited to have you here. Your podcast, Recovery Happy Hour, is one of my favorite podcasts of all time. You are probably my number one favorite podcast host of all times. I think you did a phenomenal job with your podcast.
It helped me so much in early sobriety. And it was the very first podcast that I was ever interviewed on. I was one year sober and you took a chance on me and I couldn't believe it. And then you had to reschedule our, and I was like, yes, of course, because this isn't actually going to happen. Like that was too good to be true.
You rescheduled. It actually happened. We became friends. Now I won't let you go. Now that I know you, I won't let you go. And what a full circle to have you here on mine. Thank you for joining us today. You're welcome. Thank you for sharing that. You made my, you made my life. You gave me a vote of confidence with Ditch the Drink.
That was brand new. Somebody would want to hear my story and it would help somebody out there. And that I was, it made what I was doing become real, you know, like I had been quietly building something on the side and here I had an audience to share that with. Um, so it got my voice a little bit louder and prouder.
So I'm always so, so grateful for you. Now, today we could talk about a million things of course, right? But I asked you specifically because this isn't a recovery happy hour. It's a story. About women and all the plot twists and turns in our life that happened. And so I invited you to share a topic that might be on your mind and heart to talk about.
And you said your divorce eight years ago was about eight years ago. And you're coming up on a, is it eight year sober milestone? Uh, yeah, divorce was nine years ago. Uh, eight coming up on eight years, uh, without alcohol on November 14th. So yeah, November 14, 2016 is that date and then yeah, the divorce was like a year, year and a half before that.
So these things kind of happened together in tandem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, we also briefly before we hit record, we're talking about how we're coming in today. And both of us admitted. Um, not our best, right? We have things going on. I talked about not feeling well. My stepmom recently passed away, um, maybe not being as prepared as I would like, and perfectionism has been a huge theme in either of our lives.
So just showing up as not our best and showing up anyways. this entire podcast. So how are you coming in today? Well, you know, like we talked about before we started recording, um, you know, I've had a rough couple of months as well, you and I have both been through some similar stuff and, um, I had, um, uh, you know, my, my dog died.
I had surgery, you know, changing mental health medications. Um, you know, lots of life stuff, just life is lifing. Right. And it's a, it's a political season. It's the election season, which adds another layer of stress to some people. And yeah, I, I was, I was driving this morning to go vote and take out some of my anger in the, in the.
booth. I, uh, I was like, you know what, Tricia, no one's asking you to be perfect. And as much as I want to be in a great mood and well rested and feeling awesome to share my story. I mean, the truth is like neither one of us got here because of something, because everything was going right. Right. No one quits drinking because everyone's doing.
Awesome. Right. So, you know, and that's just living life on life's terms, you know? So yeah, I think that I want the audience to know right now that you and I just showing up like not at our best is us showing like recovery, that you just accept things and you keep moving and you keep trying and you keep serving and you keep communicating and you just keep, keep, keep and, you know, Give yourself a little grace.
And I'm, I'm, I'm glad that we're both giving ourselves, we're giving ourselves some grace today to not be perfect. I love that. I love that. And this is so interesting because, um, when I was drinking and it was starting to escalate, I had a friend say to me, like, are you happy? And I was so offended because look at my perfect life.
I mean, I was really wearing a mask of like wearing the right clothes and putting on the right face. And I had the right husband and the right house and the right children. And like, The right job. Obviously, everything was going so well. I wanted her to know that I was doing very well for myself. Despite that I was over drinking consistently, right?
Clearly miserable and getting very confused with that. But it was so offensive to me. And on this side of recovery, I stay with myself, even on my not so good days. That's the difference, right? I allow myself to have not so good days, and I wouldn't expect I would knock it out of the park every day, right?
It's okay to have a different kind of day, and you can still stay with yourself on those days. Yeah, and also we have to sometimes I have to remind myself like to talk to myself like as if I'm talking to my best friend, because I'm a lot kinder on my friends and I am on myself. We just read our expectations are insane but if you've had surgery and you're changing meds and your dog passed away, you're going to have some feelings about that.
Yeah. Yeah. Big feelings. Big feelings. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's been a tough one. Thank you for being here anyways. I think it's a perfect example of recovery. Just like you said. Um, can you share a little bit about your personal relationship and your journey with alcohol and how it affected your relationship, particularly your divorce way back when?
I know. Um, so, uh, I, I, I should, let's see, how do I start this? It's been a minute since I've really gone back there. So, um, so I live in Texas and I'm 43 years old and I quit drinking when I was, uh, 35 and, uh, a year and a half before I quit drinking. My whole life exploded. And as I look back now, I'm,
in fact, I kind of would just want to tell everybody, like if you're having a really hard time and it feels like your whole foundation has been removed from your life, that probably means that. Something really big and amazing is happening is about to happen, but you got to explode the crap before you can build, rebuild.
And I know that back then in 2015, it was like everything just imploded. Um, in a day I was, uh, happily married. I was two years into owning a new business. I was in a new house. Um, And, you know, just had like what I thought was a really tight grip on everything. And, um, really that was just me like white knuckling.
I, not only did I have a tight grip on everything, but like I had white knuckles cause I was clinging onto some semblance of control and, um. I grew up like with really bad anxiety and grew up in a really great family, but alcoholism was sort of a thing in our family as well. So my only really, my only frame of reference around alcohol and drinking growing up was that it was bad and that you could be an alcoholic.
So I grew up with sort of a very, um, like, uh, extreme view of And like nothing good. So when I was 16, a boy broke up with me and I decided that I wanted to change the way I felt. I didn't want to feel that way. I didn't want to feel pain. And so I took three shots of whiskey on an empty stomach 16. Right.
And that's not, if I could go back and redo it, like I would have. I've sipped a Zima, you know, like it was the nineties. That's what girl, teenage girls were supposed to do, but like, I went hard right away. And that's just kind of how I always drink. And I was very protective of it because I knew this thing was bad.
I always wanted to make sure that it didn't look like. I was very, uh, obsessed with seeming perfect. Everything's fine. Don't worry about me. Everything's fine. That was just my mantra for everything. And so, um, as I grew into adulthood, I just, this. I was in the restaurant industry, which is very accommodating to drugs and alcohol.
And I wore a badge of honor, like this ability to drink and work at the same time, you know, you work 12 hours and then drink yourself into a blackout because that's Because you worked hard and you deserved it. Like this was my weird mentality around drinking. Always nothing. There's like nothing healthy about the way that I thought about alcohol ever.
My whole life is, I really go back and retell this story after a really long time. I'm now seeing that there was nothing like healthy about alcohol. Um, there isn't actually. Period. But in my mind, there's never anything. Then and now. Yeah. I thought I was able to use it and control it and like, well, if I know enough about it, then I can outsmart it.
Right. I was just so, um, I, I, uh, I drank to have fun. I drank because I was stressed. I drank cause I was sad. I drank cause I was happy. I drank for every reason. And that kind of caught up to me in my mid thirties when, um, I, uh, woke up one day and found out that my ex husband had been having, um, several affairs, like, like living a double life.
And I had no idea, absolutely no clue. And it was like the ground just disappeared from beneath me. Like nothing was real anymore. It totally uprooted everything. And I went through a very quick divorce and was living alone and realized, and I might be jumping around here, but I realized that, um, My drinking had started to get really unpredictable.
So even though I could make it seem like I was fine, you know, I was waking up every morning sick as a dog, but I would still, you know, show up at work at 7am and work 12 hours. And I don't, you know, I'm perky. Everything's fine. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. It was just always my mantra.
And that, what I noticed was that, um, so I was a blackout drinker always. And what I noticed was that my blackouts were becoming so unpredictable. Sometimes they would happen after two glasses of wine. And sometimes they would have been happen after a whole day of day drinking. It just got to be scary and unpredictable.
And. I was living alone for the first time, and I'm very clumsy, and I fall a lot already, like, when I'm not drinking. Mm hmm. And it got, I realized, like, yeah, I could die. I was falling down stairs and things. I was like, you know, I could easily fall down a flight of stairs in my apartment complex and die in the middle of the night and nobody would find me.
I just had this, this very real image of what it could be if I kept drinking. And it was scary enough, uh, where one day when I didn't, um, I felt like I had the flu. Like I couldn't like keep going. It's like every day just rinse, repeat, wake up sick, you know, work. And then start drinking early and then keep drinking and then go to bed and repeat and do that every single day.
And then there was, uh, after a whole weekend of drinking, which would have looked great on Instagram, by the way, uh, it was, you know, a party bus and it was brunch and it was like all these things that looked fabulous, but on the inside, it was miserable. I was just always. Scared of my drinking at this point, I would get nervous before going to parties because I wouldn't, I wasn't like, I wasn't excited to go like, you know, blow off some steam.
I was scared of like, okay, what's going to happen this time. When I drink, it was always, it was just turned into anxiety. It used to relieve my anxiety. And then the alcohol was just causing anxiety. And then you I've got everything around me. Changing and moving. And my whole, like my person is gone. My house is gone.
My friends are gone. Like my old life is gone. Like who the hell am I now? And I had drinking. I, that was like the thing that had always worked for me. And so I would say that when my, when my divorce happened, it was like, everything had to burn. In order for something to rebuild. And the second I looked for some, I swear it was like every day, something else would just fall to shit, to absolute shit.
And in hindsight, I look back and I'm like, yep. Cause all those things needed to completely burn if you wanted to rebuild and, and with the solid foundation and that divorce. Just put the gas pedal on my drinking because if it, if I, if it hadn't happened, I would have continued drinking the way I was drinking for another 10 years.
I just would have slow instead of like slowly becoming worse and worse and worse. What I did was just accelerated that process and I got real bad, real fast in about a year after my divorce. And then, yeah, it just got to be on a Monday. I woke up, um, I'd been drinking all weekend, I felt so sick, I could hardly move.
And, um, I went another day and I felt like I had the flu and I was like, Oh, I guess I'm getting sick. And then on day three, it was like, ouch, my kidneys hurt what's happening. And that was alcohol withdrawal. That was a full blown detox. And that reality hit me real hard in the face that, Oh my God, Tricia, we're here.
Like I knew, like, like it used to be fun. Oh, wow. Look, what's happening now. Like you can't outsmart this anymore. And reality just slapped me in the face and I knew, okay. At that point, I was like, okay, it's been three days. I haven't drank in three days. I still feel like shit, but let's do some research and see what our options are.
I wasn't like, okay, I'm sick of this. I'm going to quit drinking forever. I wasn't bought in at all. I was just like, let's just get some data. So I started listening to podcasts. podcast. I heard a story from a woman who sounded like me. She was high functioning. I honestly had no idea that other people drank like I did.
I thought I was unique. Um, we are so common. We weren't talking about it. I know, I know we're too busy, like smiling over it and pretending like everything's fine. And, um, and I learned that there were other people like me and I, and that's when something clicked and that woman had gone to an AA meeting is the first part of her recovery.
So I went, I was like, okay, I'll try it. And I was open minded and I just kept trying things. It was, I wasn't fully bought in until I'm not quite sure when, because I was like, okay, well, that felt good. Let's try this too. Okay. Well, that didn't feel good. Let's try it. Let's read this book. Okay. Let's go back to therapy.
I was just kind of dabbling to see how it felt, but I do know that. And although I'm not an active member of a 12 step program anymore. I do remember going into AA and feeling, I personally found relief when I sat in a circle of people and said, I'm an alcoholic that gave me some freedom. And I knew where I was starting from.
I don't think everybody needs to use that word. Um, you can use whatever word you want to use. But for me, there was a little bit of steam that was finally let out when I said that out loud. And I was like, okay, we're here. Acceptance and belonging. It sounds like saying it. Yeah, absolutely. Cause you're so siloed when you're sitting, when you're stuck in your drinking, I was so, uh, self centered and I was so offended at the idea of being self centered when I learned about, about like that.
That phrase and how it's used in recovery. Cause I, I thought that self centered and selfish were interchangeable and they're not like self centered just means like everything is centered around yourself. You were always thinking about yourself, whether it's good or it's bad. So I was always. Thinking about my anxiety and thinking about self help and I need this and I should be doing this and I could do this better.
And even though I thought it was coming from a good place because I wanted to be my best self, what it was was just me thinking about me all the time. How can I be less miserable all the time? How, it was just me, me, me. And the steps, I mean, granted it's been eight years, but the, every single day. Like a cell in your body changes a little bit changes, you know, and I finally just got my head out of my ass and I stopped thinking about myself every single day.
And you start kind of real, like picking your head out of the sand and going, Oh wow, there's a whole world and maybe I can help some people. And you know, in recovery, it's like, that's when the rubber. You know, meets the road when you start to be of service, like that becomes a really that for me, that was a really essential part of my, of my recovery.
But man, that whole, when I think back of that whole period of the divorce and then the drinking subsequently, all I can think about is just sitting in my brain and never leaving their whole world out there outside of our brains. And. Yeah, it, it, it got me to where I am today. Obviously there's a whole lot to talk about in between there, but I feel so much relief in knowing that if I'm sick of myself, it's okay for me to get, to get out of my head and go out and be around people and help all like that's always something that's going to help me feel better.
And I wonder with people that are struggling, like people that are listening right now that are like. Trisha, make your point. Um, I wonder if nobody's thinking that, by the way, that's you in your own head. I wonder if even though we have the best of intentions in all of the self help books that we read and all of the Mental health Instagram accounts that we follow and all of those, you know, self betterment podcasts that we listen to.
It may be sometimes we would stop focusing on ourselves and figure out how we can use ourselves to go out and make a difference. And help other people, you know, it's a real, uh, I don't know, I just keep fixating on this idea of, of self centeredness and how we mean well, but man, are we good at sabotaging ourselves.
Totally. I love your story. I relate to it so much. First of all, I can't stop thinking about. how a seed has to completely combust and destroy itself. It has to break completely open for a flower to bloom. And so that time of your life, complete destruction. Is the beginning, right? A phoenix rising from the ashes.
I'm like, do you have a phoenix tattoo? Do you have a seat tattoo? Like, like this, this really, really happened to you. You did have to burn it all down. Yeah. And it was actually the beginning of beauty and growth, but it didn't kill at the time. No, my God. And it's not like I burned it down. Like it was like, right.
A drive by arson. Yeah. Yeah. It was drive by, like, it's like somebody drove past my house and threw a grenade and I, and like, what's happening? And then I just had to pick it all up alone. Right. It's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it wasn't your choice. Oh, that's the hardest part. And then rejection, you had felt rejection too, I'm sure, in so many ways.
Yeah, and for somebody, oh my God, I'm like, I mean, the ultimate and people pleaser, perfectionism, my God. And then it's like, I'm divorced and my husband was having affairs and everybody's gonna, they're like, they're blaming me now. And Tricia, if you had done this right, then he wouldn't have done, like, you just start going, what did I do wrong?
What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? And, and, um. And then if you're lucky, you realize real quick that you're not the problem, side note, but yeah, I wanted to ask about that to give a little credit to Tricia back then to divorce and walk away and live alone. Like those are really brave choices that you did.
Confused and drinking. Did you question that? Or you just knew? Um, you know, it's weird because there's this business side of my brain that clocked in right away. It's like, it was a coping mechanism. Rather than feel my feelings at the time, I went right into, alright, how are we going to fix this? How are we going to check out?
Let's take care of ourselves. I didn't feel any feelings until like six months later. Because I was too busy trying to distract myself from the pain by reorganizing the rest of my life as best as I could. And that was my cope, that and drinking. Those are the only things I needed to sign documents and split finances and notify people.
I basically divorced myself. Yeah, I did all the work. It's like you're in a business mode. Yeah, absolutely. And I, and, and it's funny, I, I, um, somebody said that to me recently, they're like, wow, I wouldn't have ever had the courage to do that. And I think back and I'm like, I don't know that I even gave myself the opportunity to, to think about it.
I just started doing stuff and didn't think, and just like, okay, we got to be, you know, survival mode. And, um, And, you know, I don't know that, yeah, that kind of worked out, but also six months later when I was drinking and angry and crying over everything and just like making terrible decisions. That's when things kind of sunk in later, you know.
A little delayed processing of emotions. Oh my gosh, yes. Had I let myself just feel my uncomfortable feelings at the time, uh, maybe I could have, Process things a little bit healthier, but, uh, you know, I was really, I was good at drinking to cover them up, you know, that was just what I did. And also in my marriage, the drinking was part of the story, you know, we were drinkers and it, you know, it was expensive vodka in the glass bottle, not the plastic one, you know, we had these wine glasses, you have expensive.
It was just like, no, but this looks great. We're doing fine. We're not getting DUIs. We're not getting in, you know, knock down, drag out brawls. Like, you know, who's really, you know, there's no negative consequences. Like who's really suffering here. That's the lie. You tell yourself. Right. Right. So 16 year old Tricia, boy breaks up with her three shots of whiskey.
This Tricia divorce. Go into more extensive vodka. It's like the same, same thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because you use, you use what works for you, right? You use what makes you feel better. All of us just want relief from pain. Yeah, totally. And we're not, right. And we're not taught how to do that with healthy, healthy coping mechanisms.
We just, you got to figure it out as you go. And back then, like you just weren't having, they weren't having mental health conversations like they do now. Um, so if you're not driving, if you're not losing your job, if you're not getting in part time brawls, then this is not a problem, right? Right. Like, Oh, well, who I'm not hurting anyone.
Like what's wrong with it. And then, you know, um, And somehow managing it was the goal. So I'm a little bit curious about your background of like, alcohol was in my family, but did you have anybody that was alcohol free in your family? Had anybody quit? Yes and no. Um, yes and no. Uh, there had been, you know, it's weird.
Yes, but nobody talked about it. Uh, my, my, uh, older brother was the one who was sort of causing all the chaos in our immediate family. Um, with drugs and alcohol. And he is sober now, nine years, but for a very long time was not. So really no, my close firsthand experience with that was just seeing the chaos that it, that it caused.
Right. So in a family dynamic. It's pretty typical if one sibling is the disaster, the other one is probably the perfectionist. They're probably, that was my story. I was always trying to overcompensate for the problems that were happening. I just wanted to blend in with the wallpaper, be as small as possible.
Causes as few waves as possible. Just don't worry about me. And so I would do anything I could to try to not feel pain. And nobody tells you that pain is like a given. Like, I don't know why we think we're so entitled to not. That we think we shouldn't have to feel pain, right? That's life, but nobody teaches you how to deal with that.
So you just grab what makes you feel better. So when I look back on that girl on that 16 year old, she just was doing the best she could. She didn't know any better. You know, I had no healthy tools. I just wanted to be the perfect daughter. You know, I just wanted to be the perfect girl, the perfect teenager, perfect student, the perfect employee.
If I could just be perfect, then maybe. Um, and then I, then maybe I'd be fine, you know, maybe everything would fall on the line and, uh, eventually it's like that clinging to perfection and control just, you just need to feel control over something, you know, it just, um, it just builds and builds and builds and becomes worse and worse and worse until you figure out that you just got to let shit go.
That's the thing I said, I was just like, I had such a firm grip on things like clinging to anything to feel like I had control. And well, you thought you were going to team the dragon of alcohol like your brother did it bad, but you were going to do it good, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, you can outsmart it, right?
Yeah. Right, so you'll do it the right way because what would be terrible would be not drinking at all. So you're going to drink, but you're not going to drink too much. You're not going to make it a problem. Yeah, like look at me though. I'm doing fine. Everything looks fine, you know. Right, and it's part of your job.
It feels like part of your job. Yeah. The truth is you are checking the boxes. You're going to work, you're getting through your day, that groundhog cycle that you talked about. Oh my gosh. I was on that too. Always exhausted, always miserable, recovering from drinking, getting my next drink, looking to get my next, like that was the top priority and took up all my headspace all the time.
Talk about self centered and selfish, right? I couldn't, I didn't have room to think about other things because I was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other, making sure everybody else thought everything looked okay. Yeah. I drank especially the night before I'm going to wake up extra early and make it even better breakfast and sleep.
Oh my gosh. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I would always deny that I was hungover too. I was, Oh, I'm fine. I would deny how drunk I was. I don't know. I hated those questions. Don't like, oh, do you had fun last night? And, and Oh my God, cute. Like I get terror. I feel terror now, when you said that in my stomach.
Yeah. Because every time I heard that, I was like, oh God, what did I do? Because I never Right. Because I always blacked out. Same. Yeah. And oh God, that feeling. It's so funny with the what, just then when you said that, I was like, Ooh. I felt that like, oh yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm . You don't know yourself. You're like, you don't wanna know.
I know. And although I just, I'm not ashamed of, of that anymore, though, like I said, I have so much compassion for 16 year old Trisha and for 34 year old Trisha, who was just trying to do the best she could with the circumstances she was in, you know, she just was trying, was doing the best. She could, and, and again, we're just, we're not taught.
No, and the I'm fine is our protection. Yes. It's fine as our protection. We have to tell ourselves we're fine. We're fine. Our inner critic is screaming at us so loud. We have to say I'm fine. You're okay. You're okay. It's fine. You're fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. That's your survival instinct after a while.
It's just like, Oh God, you're fine. Just get through the next minute until the next panic attack. You know, it's just, yeah, it's over and over and over. And again, this all comes back to like, in all of this, I'm still thinking about myself all the time, obsessing over myself all the time. Do I look fine? Does everything look fine?
Like no one cares. There's not everybody else think about enough about me. What do you think about me? I don't know who this big, like. This governing body was that I was so afraid of, of like who they are and what they think of me. Like, I still don't know who those people are. Right, right. The they. Well, here's the other thing.
You are drinking, so you don't have clarity. You are not listening to your intuition. You're pouring alcohol on your intuition. Your husband is having a different life and you don't know, but you are not seeking to know part of you is probably protection also to not know, because what happens if that's true, then your whole world explodes, right?
Yeah. Looking back at that, like he's doing his thing and you're doing your thing. Um, tell me more. Do you think any of that was. Protecting yourself without knowing or an unconscious coping. Yeah, you know, I'm glad you brought that up because I figured out recently just how disconnected from my own body.
I was for like most of your life. 35 years. Until now, until yesterday. I hear you. Like when I, when I go back and think about, uh, like where I was when I was 18, 19 years old, which is when I was probably the most traumatized and had no clue. I, I look back and I don't remember being checked into my body whatsoever.
I don't think that I could have even told you what a true feeling felt like. Everything was about should. And what do they think about me? What do they think about my body? What do they think from me? Yeah. How should I look? How should I feel? So I wasn't even thinking of there was nothing intuitive inside of me.
And if there was, I probably just squashed it down with more alcohol. And one of the greatest gifts of where I'm at now is at least just knowing my own body and my own feelings and being. Like, like everything's plugged in now. I actually can feel my feelings and know that that's a real thing. Tricia, it's okay to feel afraid.
It's okay to feel angry. It's okay to feel sad. Like these are just feelings. They're not forever, but I was so afraid of anything. Yeah. That wasn't what I thought should be, that I just like pushed it all away. I don't think I had any capacity at the time to even feel any suspicion or fear. Just numb was the goal.
Numb was really the goal. The not feeling almost Stepford, like, like that feeling was the goal. And alcohol is a perfect numbing agent. No wonder that was such a match. Yeah, no wonder, no wonder we keep doing the thing that works for us. That's the thing, I wanted to numb, I didn't want to feel, so that's what works, so I kept doing it.
Like, anybody would do the same thing with a thing that works, right? And so, you know, and the tricky thing with alcohol is that you drink enough of it, you become physically addicted to it, and then, you know. But it's so annoying, the solution becomes the biggest problem we ever had. Oh no, it is the worst, like, abusive ex boyfriend that will not leave you alone.
Yeah, yeah. It's just, yeah, it's, and I'm sorry, I, I kind of. I don't know if I answered your question. No, you did that. You were not, you didn't have capacity to tap into your intuition. You never even considered it. So I had a hard time trusting myself and what, what I felt like, and even now I have to really talk myself into sometimes into accepting my own.
Uh, feelings and opinions, because I still have a hard time trusting myself. Uh, it's new, sometimes, you know, sometimes it still feels new to, to know, I don't know, to feel all this stuff, first of all. It's not to tell yourself you're wrong. That's what I did. Every feeling I had intuition, I knew what I felt.
And it was wrong. That's not the right way to feel. That's not the way I should feel about that. You're mad. Don't be mad about that. You shouldn't be mad. Why would you? So then I would just drink for that. You know, I would say get over it. You should be over this. So be over it. Pour a drink. Yeah. Absolutely.
We just should honor. So I was just shooting on myself all the time. I should feel this. I should feel, you know, it's like even catch myself too. It's like when my, when my dog died, it was like, you know, I cried for like four days and then the next, I think on day five, I was like still sad. And I was like, well, I shouldn't still feel sad.
I shouldn't still be crying. And it's like, what the, what? Yeah. You should probably feel sad about that for the rest of your life. Yeah. I was like, where did that come from? Like, I'm allowed to have feelings like that's okay. They're not right or wrong. They just are. I tell my clients that all the time.
It's the right feeling because you're feeling it. Yeah. And it doesn't define you. It's not like, you know, like it is temporary. Yeah. But like, just because I felt sad does not mean I am a sad person. Right. I have sad feelings sometimes. Like I get so I, Sunday I was so irritated, everything irritated me. I mean, is somebody breathing would irritate me.
And then once I realized how irritated was, I was so irritated about how irritated I was. Yeah. You know? And like, what, what feelings about feelings? Come on. You know? Yeah. They're hard. They're, they're so meta. I'm noticing that I'm irritated. I'm the irritated person noticing that I'm irritated. I know, but I'm annoyed at myself.
I am, you know, and he just keeps spiraling again. It's all self centeredness, right? You know, it's just like, tell me about that. Tell me about the, like the signs that you're. Drinking is self centered or problematic. Is it the falling down? Is it the, so for me personally, it was, it was life and death. Um, because I, like I said, I could see myself dying alone in a stairwell, but people would ask me, you know, when I started coming out and telling people that I had quit drinking, you know, people ask a lot, you know, well, how did you know, well, how much did you drink, you know?
And
the thing about drinking is. You don't have to qualify to quit. You know, if it's not about how much you're drinking, it's about how much you're thinking about drinking. It's how much you're planning. You're drinking. It's your, you're planning your recovery, like the mental gymnastics. And that's when, you know, like something's not right.
I don't care if you're drinking one glass of wine a night. If you're obsessing over that glass all day, that's, that's the issue. It's not the drinking. It's. Yeah. Why are we so set on this one thing to rule our day? And that, that's kind of the, the, the division that has to happen there. You got to separate those two things.
Cause we're, cause you decide when you want to want to quit, you know, nobody else, it's like as much as you and I are, are box checkers, like we want to check all the boxes, you can't do that with drinking, like. I don't care if you take that AA test 150 times, like you could still check all those boxes, but you decide you are in charge of your own life.
And you, like, if you're exhausted with how you think about drinking, then yeah, maybe then it's time and maybe it's easier to, well, no, I'm going to rewind that part. That's not easier. Pretend I never said that, that half sentence. Um, yeah, I don't know, but it only gets worse. It only gets worse. And again, it's just like, there's no, we want to, we all want a formula.
We all want to be like, okay, I drink this many drinks and I'm sad this many days a week. And so I should quit drinking. And then when I do this, this will happen, this will happen. And it's just not like that. And there are so, you know, I was so obsessed with, am I an alcoholic? Am I not like, like, as if those are the only two options, like you're a healthy drinker or you're an alcoholic and that's not true, there's a whole spectrum of problematic drinking.
And again, you decide what's a problem to you. And for me, it was, uh, I had decided that it was enough on paper. I think anybody seeing how much I drank would have known that I was drinking too much years before. But, um, you know, you're, we get really good at convincing ourselves that it's fine because again, like this is my reward.
I work really hard. I deserve this. I've earned this, you know, and it's just the. The gymnastics are freaking exhausting. Yeah, the headspace it takes up saying you don't have to qualify to quit is a really powerful statement. And I really appreciate that because I've been shamed for drinking too much. And I've been shamed for drinking not enough, like shamed for like, I'm not, wasn't drunk enough.
My story isn't rock bottom enough. It isn't bad enough because I was so high functioning and that. That was what made it so confusing for me. Like you said, the divorce like really escalated it by being alone and putting a spotlight on it. For me, it was a slow suicide over 30 years and it only looked troubling at the very end when I was hit with a bunch of deaths.
Right. So it was very confusing to me. And to my husband, did I have a problem? Did I not? I mean, yeah, I don't remember the night before and I'm pretty stumbly. That could be very dangerous when you're going up the stairs or down the stairs. But also I got up and made breakfast and swept the floor before the sun rose.
And I said, I'm, I say, I'm fine. So is it a problem? And I think that's confusing for a lot of people, but I think about. I was waking up miserable every day and I hated myself, Trisha. That's not a way to go through life. I hated myself because of my drinking. I wasn't keeping promises. I was full of shame. I couldn't look somebody in the eye.
I had a secret. And I always knew I liked drinking more than most people that it hit my brain in a way that must've been so much better than everybody else around me that would walk away from a drink because no way did I, I never wanted the party to end. I never wanted to stop drinking. Could I do it?
Did I do it? Yeah, I did. I did. Sometimes I could moderate once in a while, you know, not every night was a disaster. 75 percent was, but 25 percent wasn't with a lot of effort, you know, so that kept me drinking for far too long. So I love that you said that don't, you don't have to qualify to quit and that's bad enough.
Being miserable is bad enough. It is. And it's toward that. I'm glad that you brought up that, like, just like when deciding, is it bad enough? Because that was torturous. That is absolutely what kept me miserable for so long was thinking that, Oh, well, am I an alcoholic? Am I an alcoholic? Not, I wasn't asking myself, am I miserable every day?
Right. That's what you ask. Oh, you know, it's like, don't worry about the, you know, just, I want to keep waking up and punching myself in the face. Right. Cause God, I'm, I was just like, I woke up and I hated myself every day. I just hated myself. And that is no way to start a day. And as helpful as, you know, going to like 12 step meetings were in the beginning.
Yeah. There are also some times when like some asshole would say, you know, I'm so and so and I'm a real alcoholic. And they would try to, you know, and. You know, it's like try to one up you and as if you don't have a right to be in there and you know, like humans are the best and the worst part about everything, but also 12 step.
Yeah, yeah, hearing that stuff. It's, it's hard when assholes make it harder than it needs to be. But yeah, you don't like you have. You have permission to quit. You want to quit, you know, and like you said, it's not the trying, it's the keep trying. You tried a lot of things. You tried a lot of different things.
You dabbled in a lot of things. And for me too, it was a journey to quit. I didn't one day wake up and go, I'm never going to drink again. Right. I want a life of sobriety. I didn't ask for that necessarily, but through continued efforts and trying new things. It happened gladly, you know, yeah, and I, uh, I always knew I was going to have to quit someday.
I always knew like deep down inside, like I didn't drink like a normal person, people, the audience can't see this, but like I'm holding up like air quotes, like norm drink like a normal person. Like there is no normal. Drinking. I'm sorry. It just, if you're moderating, it's because you're not trying like most people actually not drinking is the most normal thing on earth.
That's the most. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely not drink at all. Yeah. And I think so. I think about how hard I tried to moderate. Thinking, okay, well, I'll just drink moderately like a normal person. Well, people that drink moderately usually aren't trying to drink moderately. They just don't, they just like have a drink and then they don't want to have another, like moderation is not supposed to be that hard.
And so if, yeah, free drinks have taught me that. Like, I'm like, Oh, this is what it's like. Like, I'll think, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna open a groovy tonight, right? Like an alcohol free wine and life happens. And maybe I never even opened that drink. It was like, oh yeah, I was going to do that and I didn't. Isn't that funny?
Or whatever. It's like, that would have never happened to me as a drinker. Right? Well, it's funny though, because when that happens, I'm like, oh, this is what normal drinkers feel. Exactly. Me too. I'm like, not drinking alcohol free beverages has turned me into a normal drinker. I can have a beer and then go to the grocery store.
That would have never happened, right? Yeah, well, it's crazy. You know, I thought about, I just thought of something to my self esteem was in the toilet and when I was going through my divorce, my self esteem was in the toilet, like throughout my whole marriage drinking doesn't help that for sure. Um, in fact.
If you're having self esteem issues, the best thing you can do is stop drinking because, um, just pouring a depressant all over your brain is not going to help you feel good about yourself. So as I, as I started to get into recovery and do the things and, and coming out publicly was a big part of that too, because I needed that accountability.
But as I was starting to do this work and I realized like, I didn't hate myself as much anymore. Um, I was starting to learn who I really was because I. I think any, I was so concerned about who I thought I was and who I should be. Not who I really was. And you're starting to, started to emerge. Yeah. You start to figure out who you are and have built confidence in that and, and trust in that.
and support that too. Um, you know, like we all need to be our own, our own advocate, because if you don't advocate for yourself, who's going to, and that's especially the case with drinking. Most people around you, if they're drinking with you too, are not going to be like, right off the bat, be like, Hey, you should quit drinking.
Like, like we don't normally encourage people to do that when we're all drinking. And if you can't. I guess I'm just like talking in circles, but like you got it in recovery. I learned how to speak up and, and for myself and just, and really decide like, what's right for me, even though that looked weird to this group of people, or even though it felt really weird, cause it was different than anything I'd ever done, like weird and hard.
Isn't bad. It's just different. And then it becomes normal and then it turns into something better. And. It's a process and this is eight years later. Like this doesn't happen overnight. And that is a, that's a representation of just like our whole life. Right. Like, aren't we supposed to kind of take each day as it comes and figure it out?
Like, we never arrive. Right. Completely. Oh, you get to that summit, and then there's another summit. Right? Oh my gosh. Yeah. We're always in process. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not a straight line to the top. No, no, no, no, no. It's like this. Yeah. The second you think you've arrived, like, get ready for a shit storm because it just can't.
Yeah. Thank you for the tools. To navigate, right? Yeah. Because you get stronger. You get stronger. And rarely do we, do, we identify those moments when we've built those muscles and go, oh my gosh, look what I just got through. You know? Yeah. I, we, we don't give ourselves enough credit for for that kinda work when we're in it.
Totally. So tell me about this. I'm curious because I want, I don't know the difference between selfish and self-centered. And also, if I'm thinking about a recovery journey, I'd love to hear from you your story of, first of all, drinking very selfish. I can see that. Self centered and selfish. I can just see that.
You're all about yourself. You're in your own head. You don't have capacity for anything else. Early recovery is A lot of self care, self talk, self help, this is also all about the self. You have become, I, I mean, when I suggested something we talked about, I'm like, can you tell me about your volunteering?
Because that is the most interesting, one of the most interesting things about you and I love that. Like, I know you've had so much give back. And I, the first thing I did, I was between jobs when I quit drinking and I did not know what to do with myself and I went and started volunteering. So that too was like, I started volunteering and I went on the Recovery Happy Hour podcast, right?
Like, I started, um, me to the giving and the acts of service. started to heal me and become something, but walk me through that because drinking is selfish and then not drinking feels very self involved. How do you, how did you transform? Kind of an oxymoron it for when I say like we're self centered and then you stop drinking and you become less self centered when in recovery, you really have to focus on yourself in order to get healthy.
I know that that sounds confusing, but, um, there is a lot of self care that has to happen in early recovery, right? It's triage. You are just trying to get through a day without drinking and the tools and the effort that go into learning how to do that. are not indicative of how it's always going to be.
It's just hard at first. You're just getting that foundational work so that you can learn how to like, get up and brush your teeth without wanting to drink. Right? Yeah. So how do you do that in the beginning? You listen to a podcast and you go to a meeting. Yeah. I, I did everything. Uh, I was like, I pretended like I was at the cheesecake factory and I ordered everything on the menu, that giant knob on the menu that they have.
I went to an AA meeting and then I was like, that was cool. I think I'll go back. And then, uh, I'm going to keep listening to this podcast in the meantime. And okay, I'm going to get back in therapy and okay. And now I'm going to work the 12 steps and okay. I'm going to add journaling to this. And then, okay, well, I tried this thing.
It didn't feel good. Didn't like it. So I'm going to try this now. Like I tried everything, but the most important part of that was telling people that I wasn't drinking. I had to be accountable. I went on a podcast at 30 days sober and shared my story because I had to get it out there. Cause that was my insurance policy.
Cause if I didn't make it public, I knew I was going to talk myself into drinking again. If you keep it a secret, it is so much easier to run back to it. So I was like, screw this. I'm gonna, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it one time. I don't want to have to go through this a hundred different times.
I'm just so, so it was podcast. It was therapy. It was 12 step. It was exercise. It was, um, at the time I owned a business, but I had hired a chef to kind of do my job. So I was able to take some time off to focus on myself. That's not typical. I also need to say a disclaimer. I don't have children, so I don't.
I can't share what it's like to go through recovery and have children. I'm sure it's much, much more difficult, obviously, but all the things and you're trying to go a day, a week, 30 days. You were just trying to get further and further away from alcohol. Yeah. I don't even know if I even thought about it that holistically.
I just knew that I didn't, I needed to do anything I could to not drink. And that's all I knew. And then not drink tomorrow. And tell somebody. Yeah. I just needed to do anything I could to not drink. Cause I knew that drinking made me miserable and that's all I knew. And, and I kept. I didn't do all these things all the time.
That's the other thing is I list off all these things. I wasn't doing all those things every day. As you get stronger, you start building muscles and you can put this thing away and add that thing on. I was, but I was active in it. I was actively doing recovery every day. I had a Facebook accountability group I could go to.
It's so important that you have community and other people to talk to. about what you're going through, because anytime we share our struggles with anyone who's been through it, we help each other, but we also like, we get extra tools and support. And that is so, so critical. But so yeah, it's kind of a weird oxymoron that you spend all this time working on yourself when you're supposed to be left self centered, but it's temporary, just like anything, just like a broken leg.
You got to heal. You got to be in the cast for a while. until you're healed and you can walk again and then you can go back to regular life. So once I was at a triage and I could kind of figure out how to get through the day and not drink and it wasn't that traumatic anymore, you can start to add more things to your plate, right?
Acts of service. Maybe that's just making coffee at the meeting. Maybe that's putting your neighbor's newspaper on their front porch. Cause they're old. Like it's, you just start thinking of things that are. Not for you there for somebody else. And eventually like the bonus gift is that makes you feel good.
Like that's a nice little, little, little party favor that you get from acts of service. But as you start, as I started to do this more and more, like build healthy coping tools, talk to other people and start helping people. I realized that the less I was thinking about my own misery, the happier I was.
because I wasn't just sitting in the suck. Like it's okay to wade in the suck for a minute, but then you can't let it pull you under. And I just, you just, uh, day by day you start. Learning these things and you make mistakes, you know, you mess up all the time and then so you just try to do better the next day, but I was really open to trying everything, everything I could and there are 100 times more options available now than there were eight years ago.
Oh my God. It's like, yeah, I know. It's like, I have a complimentary call. Call me. And tell me your secret that you have an alcohol problem. I'm a stranger. It's confidential. I'm bound by ethics and standards of my coaching degree. You don't have to buy my coaching package. You can just call me and tell me.
You know, if you need that, tell somebody, I'm with you, find somebody to tell. And if you don't have anyone in your real life, find somebody on the internet, find somebody on Instagram, anybody in recovery is open to receiving that. So you're everywhere. Yeah. So you got out of your head and you got your head out of your ass, like you said, because helping others does feel good.
Feels good. You have the capacity for it and you do get out of your own head. And even, I was saying, I got on a call with a client this week and she's like, I know you're sick and I know like your stepmom just died and we can just make this quick and da da da. And I was like, I have a full day of calls and I am so excited.
To get into somebody else's life and out of mine for a minute. I cannot wait to receive these clients. I'm thrilled with the distraction and the diversion from myself. I love to be helpful, of course. I have a social work degree, like, it's who I am. This is the best thing that could happen to me. I don't want to stop these calls.
I don't want to make these calls short. Like, I'm so happy to have clients to talk to. Like, this is exactly what I want to be doing. There was a very, uh, very noticeable shift in about month four of sobriety for me when I was just in the morning, just, just praying, just begging God, please just let me, just let me be able to help someone.
Just let me be able to help someone with this. Cause you start to feel so good and you want to share that with other people because you know, they're how, how hard. It is for them and how good it can feel on the other side. And so that's, uh, I started to, to get that urge really early on. Right. And then, you know, fast forward, like six and a half years later, right.
Uh, so about a year and a half ago, I very suddenly lost my job. Uh, and. That was like my identity, you know, it was just like, I am this thing. And so like, ah, what am I going to do now without this thing? Well, drinking was your identity plus your job. And then sobriety was your identity plus your job, right?
He's not my whole personality. Fall is I'm one of those. Oh, my whole personality right now isn't this, it's coffee, you know, it's like, Oh yeah, coffee is my personality, I get you. But, uh, That was your job, at the time. Yeah, and so I was, I, my husband's like, what do you really want to do? And I was like, honestly, I just want to, Do art with foster kids.
That's just what I really want to do. And I was able to get in with this opportunity with a local foster care organization here in Dallas, but under they have many different programs under their umbrella. One of them is a reset program for, uh, young girls ages 13 to 17 who are at high risk for, uh, human trafficking or have been pulled from a trafficking situation.
And. I wanted to work with these girls. Um, so I do art with them and I wanted to work with them because words don't cut it sometimes for expressing your feelings. Sometimes you need other ways to get it out. And so I'm, I'm doing art so that I can show them different ways of creative expressions so that they can learn how to use their voice in a way that's maybe not sitting down and having a talk with someone, you know, maybe that.
That's just not going to work for them up and out of you all the ways we can get it up and out of you. Right. I love it. Thank you for sharing. Well, exactly. We need it. My God, we need it. And in doing this, though, I I'm as I'm meeting these girls and learning a little bit about their stories and not much, you know, like that's Between them and their therapists, you know, a lot of people want to know like what it's like, and I'm like, I don't know, I don't ask they volunteer what they want, but they just act like goofy girls, you know, when we're together, they're just teenagers.
And, but when I go home. I just am in awe of how big their problems are, and that doesn't negate my problems and me. I'm not a big fan of being able to feel sad about a problem, but it makes me grateful that I have not been sitting in my problem all day, that I have used my energy helping somebody else.
No, because it helps them, but that also helps me. And honestly, the world needs you. Like I, when I was drinking, I was. Wasn't helping anyone. And there are a lot of problems in the world and I could have been really useful rather than drinking martinis every single day. And the world is so broken. And we can fix it.
You know, we can all help each other. One person can help one person, one person can help one person. And that's where I talk about like the self centeredness. It was just like, everything was just about myself and fixing myself and appearing a certain way. And now it's like, That is in the trash. That doesn't matter.
Serving these people, bringing, you know, offering help, listening to someone, looking at a girl in her eyes and saying, yeah, I see you, you know, like that, that matters. And we can all do something. We can all like, you don't have to go volunteer with foster kids. Like nobody expects you to do that on day one of quitting drinking.
I mean, that would be, that would be crazy, but, but everybody has the capacity to help. And it. It makes our world better, but it makes you better. And the more we can, it's like this perfect cycle that balances each other out. When I am focusing on myself, it is to fill my cup so that I can be of service to others.
It is not just so that I can meet the bare minimum and get through the day. Like me, not that bad, right? The best thing I can do for those girls is try to be the healthiest version of me. So awake and alive and, um, empowered. And so that is the best offering you have to give. We need more women, especially.
That are there like you, that is our offering to the world. That is so, we all have a story to share. We all have a story to share. Like, even if it's not drinking, if it's something else, we all have a story to share. None of us are unique and sharing that with somebody else who's in it, man, you can change, you can change a life.
I mean, it's wild. It's wild. But yeah, like, that's the thing, like for people that are just struggling and just stuck in it, like the world needs you because. You're capable because you can do this. Like we were meant to do this. We were meant to help and serve. And the relief in that is spectacular. And just knowing that this is possible, that joy is on the other side of this, that all of the work pays off that my foundation being imploded has been rebuilt.
You know, like I am remarried to a wonderful husband and who supports me in a way so that I can go and support these girls. You know, I am confident in who I am. I trust my feelings. I'm, I back myself when I have an opinion and talk to people. My world is so much better than it was then. And damn it. If I wasn't just so desperate to make it fit into a certain mold.
And man, once it, once it exploded and I just let it go and I surrendered and I was like, all right, let's just get real. And let's just, let's just figure out our life. Once that happened, like all of the. All of the things I wanted came in, they eventually came to happen. You know, never happens on our own terms.
Ever. so frustrating. Mm-hmm . But, um, man, is it possible And we are strong? And I would've, I would've never thought that it would, I, man, I would've never thought that here I would be. Almost like three weeks away from eight years. Sometimes it feels like eight minutes. Sometimes it feels like 800 years, but I never thought that it could be like this.
And it's possible, man, people are capable. They're so, so capable. You are such a beautiful example of that. Tricia, thank you so much. This is so powerful. I love it. I love how you. Turned your life around. Didn't ask for the explosion, but it was there. You've taken it, you've done it. It's turned, it's expanded your life and your world in ways you didn't know possible.
Your offerings, Recovery Happy Hour was my staple. It was my thing that I was listening to. I think it was dropped on Tuesdays. I think if I remember correctly. Yes. Well, and I want to, I want to say this to you and I want to make sure that people hear this. So don't edit this out. I remember your interview so clearly because I saw like the energy, I see like the energy in me, I see that energy in you, like that, uh, we both just have a lot of energy, right?
We are excited, bubbly, like people that just want to And I saw that in you and that lifts me up, you know, it's that it's contagious and it's wonderful and I've never forgotten it. Like you have a very strong, special, like unique bubbly energy. So everything that you're saying like to me, like, let me say that back to you.
Cause I see it. And you, and I see what you're doing and you make me happy. Like when I see you, you're smiling. Like you bring me good energy when I need it too. So thank you for doing what you're doing. Oh my gosh. I love you. I love it that you say, go edit this out. You know me so well.
Yeah. It's that it's the namaste, like the beauty, the light, the aliveness, the enthusiasm in me recognizes that in you and then in all of us, and we have. So much to give. And I'm so glad we met on this side of sobriety, Trisha. I can't imagine how we would have pulled each other down. Oh my God. In the before pictures, because we're so similar, right?
We would have looked great on Instagram, but you wouldn't have been able to hear a word I was saying. And you have a spouse, and you're a different wife. And I think too, like, there's the giving, the acts of service, volunteering, charitable acts, things like that. But there's also the giving him relationships.
Like for me, the pause between the stimulus and the response, that's been everything in parenting to put myself in somebody else's shoes. Where are they coming from to be wrong? As perfect as I am, as perfect as I strived as strong. Enneagram one, three, right? Like free gram one, right. Just absolutely perfect in every way to go like.
Yeah, I did that wrong. I was wrong. I messed up. Oh my god, and the world kept turning. Exactly. Exactly. Oh my god, what a relief. The world didn't think I messed up again. I need help. I mean, I think that was the hard part for both of us, too, to say I need help. Because we're like, we got it. We're strong, independent women.
We don't need nobody. And then to go like, oh lord, I need help. And now I recognize that quicker. You delegated someone to do your job. Like that was the huge act of strength and courage and that's what got you out. So good on you. Anybody raise your hand, ask for help. Absolutely recommend it. We're not in here.
We don't inherently know how to quit drinking. That's not a skill that we just know. So, uh, yeah, just like anything else, if you don't know how to do it, what do you do? You ask an expert. You ask somebody who's been through it before. It's the same with drinking. You just go and handle your shit. Mm hmm.
Exactly. So last question, how are you going to celebrate your eight years coming around the bend? You know, I don't know. And I don't know if I even will. I don't know if I even did last year. I think the lovely part about getting to this place is that it becomes so normal that it's not, it's just not that big of a deal anymore to celebrate it.
And I'm relieved to be here. I don't see it as like a sad thing or like, Oh, you know, like, Oh, I don't celebrate it more. I just don't feel like it because like Every day is pretty great. You know, I can't say that I'm, I don't know, I might change my mind, but as of right now, I think I'm just going to wake up and not drink that day.
Amazing. And it's just interwoven into your tapestry, right? It's just who you are. It's not even something you're working on. I mean, I'm sure you stay plugged in, in all the ways, but it's who you are. So that's really beautiful. Happy eight years. I love that this journey has connected us. You've been a huge help to me.
Um, I receive, I'll receive the sweet things you said about me. I'll definitely take that in. And this is, this has been a great conversation on how drinking is so self centered and in our relationships and ourselves and that recovery is so expansive and there's so much more to give. You're the best person to have this conversation.
Thank you. Thank you, Heather.
T
