An Unlikely Affair: Bad Eggs & Better Choices

0:01Speaker 1:Hi Amber Hilelah, Welcome to an Unlikely Affair. Hello, my loves, Welcome back to an Unlikely Affair. I am with my co host my Heartbeat the First, and I purge on too.

0:19Speaker 2:When I'm having debilitating anxiety, I'm not as honest with anybody as I am with you. I love that, Like I get really vulnerable with you.

0:31Speaker 3:I get really I did this morning.

0:33Speaker 2:Yeah, but what you said this morning was like wonderful and beautiful and I'm just impressed by you. Really, Yeah, why do you act.

0:43Speaker 3:So shocked because I wish I was impressed by myself.

0:48Speaker 2:You don't ever have moments of being like I do no, no, no.

0:51Speaker 3:I do I do.

0:51Speaker 4:There's some moments where I'm like, wow, I just really just like crush that audition or I crushed that meeting, or I do a workout that I don't think that I'm going to be able to get through, and like it's like mind over matter. It actually just shows you how like strong, especially when you're working out, your mind can be when you really want something.

1:10Speaker 3:Here's the thing.

1:11Speaker 4:I need a challenge, Like if like this is like a test, like how bad do you want this? And I'm like, oh, bring it on and then I show up like and I over exceed my expectations of myself.

1:22Speaker 2:But you don't ever look at the overall and think not in terms of like, oh, that audition or that meeting or that workout, but the overall grand picture. You don't ever go, wow, I fucking did it. I'm doing it. You don't have those moments.

1:38Speaker 3:No, because I'm not where I want to be.

1:40Speaker 2:I can understand that because I feel the same way about my own self. But I think it's important to Yes, it's it's great to have goals and things you want to accomplish, but I also think it's very important to take a moment of just feeling so grateful for what you have overcome, because the things you've overcome most people can't.

2:04Speaker 4:I wake up every morning and the first thing I say is, I'm so grateful for my sobriety.

2:09Speaker 3:I'm living a different life.

2:10Speaker 4:It's I still feel so new, and the times that I've gone through that were the toughest times thus far, I wasn't sober, so I still feel like I have so much more to prove to myself. I know I'm really hard on myself, and I think a lot of people are.

2:27Speaker 3:But I really.

2:29Speaker 4:Set the bar so high for myself that it almost feels impossible to achieve. But even if I land just shy of that, I'll be Okay.

2:40Speaker 2:What is that saying, I'm gonna shoot for the moon. If I don't hit it, I'm still amongst the stars. Yes, yes, exactly, I'd rather be with the stars than the moon.

2:53Speaker 3:The moon, baby, why so big?

2:57Speaker 2:Oh it's big, daddy.

2:58Speaker 3:It's a big zetting it just break like a diamond.

3:06Speaker 2:No, the shark, the stars due the stars.

3:10Speaker 5:The way we have eggs, we have an egg story mind off of shitting and charting, because we had eggs the other day and.

3:21Speaker 2:My stomach has never been the same.

3:23Speaker 3:I literally I got ready this morning.

3:27Speaker 2:She comes in fully clothed, makeup on, comes in and goes, so, I'm gonna need to fully shower because I'm having projectile diarrhea.

3:38Speaker 4:I had like two eggs like two days ago, and we've both by the way, we we ate the eggs at breakfast, and then that afternoon I was like, oh shit, the FDA just recalled a bunch of eggs and it's like death.

3:54Speaker 2:Now No, she reads this, I send my eggs and O FW. This says, by the way, don't give ocean eggs. No, no, not for you that you have.

4:04Speaker 3:To say the entire OFW message.

4:06Speaker 2:Because of guys, because you know Jack's Taylor revealed OFW messages. I don't realize. I don't think he understands how fucked he is. Who're just talking about it for five seconds? This man is fucked? Yes, okay, I'm like, do you know why people have OFW. It's for you, the person you're sending them to, and it's also for you to be on your best behavior so that when you go in front of a judge, which by the way, you most certainly will, he's so fucked.

4:33Speaker 3:The core appointed the app.

4:35Speaker 2:It's a core app you get in our Family Wizard or Talking Parents or whatever the fuck else. The other apps are for when you're in high conflict, so that there's no dispute when you enter the courtroom about what was said. You cannot unsent. They even have a little meter that shows you when you've gone too far.

4:55Speaker 3:Yeah, they're like that is harmful or kind of mean.

4:57Speaker 2:Too many exclamation points.

5:01Speaker 4:The point is she sent an o FW that was might have been the funniest I told her I actually wanted her to print it out so I could frame it because it was like unhinged, but but not unhinged, because it was like, she's fine, she's five, She's five.

5:17Speaker 3:By the way, don't by the way, by.

5:19Speaker 2:The way, the eggs are bad, don't give them the ocean. Next day, Beverly, Glenn Delly all have two eggs over easy. We oh with the side of shits for the next week.

5:33Speaker 3:Fuck, oh my god, I cannot believe we did that.

5:37Speaker 2:I have to say something, and I know that when I watch Jack's become so fucking unhinged and posting o f w's, I have to give credit where credit is due, all right, at least my ex in doing that.

5:56Speaker 4:Now, on top of the eggs, we had a cute date this weekend, two dates this weekend, and we followed it up with ice cream each date, so.

6:07Speaker 3:We are really on top of our bad eggs.

6:10Speaker 2:We're cream filled ladies.

6:12Speaker 4:And if we went and worked out, so we're like, we just want to ask, can you just give us an ask? And he's like, sure, my inner size really oh from doing the slides, yeah, those side lunges and then you slowly slide it across like the fake turf. Yeah, it's real turf, it's fake grass.

6:35Speaker 2:As we're eating our ice cream though, because we're sober, I'm sure it's like they don't have children with them. It's the weekend. They're either sober or Mormons. What two grown women go and get ice cream at that hour? I do, yeah, because at each other, Like, wouldn't it be nice if this was just like a glass of champagne wine. Oh so good? Oh you just like just put it in a flu We were enjoying the thought a little too much though, to the point where I was like, we got to reel it in, reel it in.

7:13Speaker 2:We cannot pull a brad pit. Yeah.

7:17Speaker 4:Sometimes I think though, I could go out just for a little Oh wow, that's the ascoholic and you you need a meeting.

7:23Speaker 2:One, here's a meeting. We should go. Now we shouldn't leave here. But by the way, it only takes two people to have a meeting.

7:30Speaker 4:So here we got no because you know what, drinking wasn't really my thing. It was and it wasn't like in my twenties. I will never forget. I was like, remember when fireball was.

7:41Speaker 2:Like fireball was my jam.

7:42Speaker 4:This shit, yeah, and we were just chugging it, and then we'd go to I'd go to Vegas and we'd get a vodka Red Bull. Remember when that hit you how fucked up you would get all of a sudden, You're like, whoa, the room to start is spinning. You're like, and where am I Disneyland or Vegas? Because I am like tripping right now.

8:03Speaker 3:But it wasn't really alcohol, Like, wasn't really my thing.

8:07Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys, that was just to chase her pills with fucking clown.

8:14Speaker 4:Okay, fine, maybe not today. I will have been to a meeting after this. But speaking of.

8:18Speaker 2:That, did I go too far?

8:19Speaker 6:No?

8:20Speaker 2:I mean never. I don't know.

8:23Speaker 3:Well maybe I do, so.

8:27Speaker 2:Argue you.

8:28Speaker 4:Okay, how about this, You've never just like this weekend when we were standing in the bathroom and we were talking about your control issues that we discovered, and I looked at you and I like got into you a little bit.

8:40Speaker 3:And then hours later I was like, was I too harsh? And You're like, if that's harsh?

8:45Speaker 2:Yeah, she asked me if she had gone too far. I was like, girl, you got to come with a lot more material than just like healthy constructive criticism. I was like okay.

8:54Speaker 4:I was like, Laala, you're an alcoholic. Yes, you have fucking control issues.

9:00Speaker 2:And she's like, you're an addict. Wla did you forget you're an alcoholic? An alcoholic mind? I was like, I got it understood.

9:08Speaker 3:We had a big breakthrough though.

9:10Speaker 2:Brad Pitt fell off the wagon, and she claims he's back off the wagon. That's literally what he said after seven years, and I'm back off the wagon. I wonder if he said it with pride after seven years of sobriety. Brad Pitt feels like he's able to drink responsibly and knows when to stop.

9:29Speaker 4:See, I understand that. I feel like me and Brad have a lot in call. No, wait, do you think that his Do you think his girlfriend Yance?

9:40Speaker 3:I don't know who, what what she is? Do you think that she drinks or if she drinks?

9:43Speaker 2:Sure she does. I just don't understand how you could feel like you're able to drink when we all know that his children don't talk to him, that there was an incident on a private jet where he was drinking and it got very very chaotic in buckwh piled up there?

10:01Speaker 3:And why altitude will do that.

10:07Speaker 2:When I think about the path of destruction. You know, I'm a big Angelia n Jolie fan. The path of destruction you left for that woman and those children. And you think that it's a good idea to pick up a drink again, That great for you. You're a fucking whack job.

10:30Speaker 3:Well you know what they say. He just is going out to do some more research. That's it.

10:35Speaker 4:Oh, more research, more research, yep, So we'll see where the research lands up.

10:38Speaker 3:Listen, he may prove.

10:39Speaker 2:Us all wrong or he may can I tell you he could be like Drew Barrymore was sober for a really long time. She now can have a glass of wine like totally has it under control, and she's good really from the outside looking in.

10:56Speaker 3:Yes, oh, I didn't know that about her.

10:58Speaker 2:He reached a point where he felt comfortable making a different choice. For him, that means moderation and being very conscious of his limits. You cannot put those words in the same sentence as alcohol, because in your sober mind thinking about it, all of that makes sense. It makes sense to me. Moment you drink, you don't know what moderation is, and you cannot make conscious decisions because you're inebriated.

11:24Speaker 4:But it's not just about how many I used to argue with my ex about this all the time, and not the one that we share. It's not just about how many drinks and not be able to like put down drinks. It's even if one drink gets you so fucked up.

11:37Speaker 3:Because I'm a lightweight, I.

11:39Speaker 4:Wasn't drinking five six strinks like amber you were combining it with pills.

11:46Speaker 2:Can I just put out there?

11:48Speaker 3:Not all the time, Not all the time. I was using it as a way to numb myself. So not all the.

11:54Speaker 4:Time was I throwing back a xanax. Now if I was on a going on a plane because I've I'm terrible fight a fine a xanax and drinking, then yes I was. Some days I was on a mission because I was in.

12:09Speaker 3:Such pain, I just want to feel the pain.

12:13Speaker 4:Yeah, which, by the way, it totally backfired it. I would just feel it even more and I would just start crying. All the time, I wasn't an angry drunk.

12:22Speaker 3:I never got angry. Never. I was very emotional.

12:25Speaker 4:It's not just about having multiple drinks, like you could be an alcoholic after two drinks.

12:31Speaker 2:I'm not gonna find out you don't have to. Like I can sit here and be like, oh, like when you mentioned the vodka soda or Red Bull and vodka in Vegas, Like I can immediately place myself there and be like, that sounds fucking fun. Let's go. And then I start thinking about, oh my gosh, the feeling after, and let's remember what life looks like right now. And by the way, you don't have, you know, one night of a bender and lose everything. It's a slow process.

13:00Speaker 2:It all just starts slipping through your fingers and you wake up one dango wow. Two years and now I cannot recover from this, and I'm not willing to start over. I'm not willing to have my children suffer because of alcohol. And I become unpredictable. So you saying you're not your family, and you you don't get angry. There's no telling what's going to happen with me. I could become very emotional. I could be the funnest girl you've ever met in your life. Or I could try to fuck you up pretty hard. M put my hands on you. You may be running screaming, bloody murder and I'm chasing after you naked and six inch hills.

13:41Speaker 3:That's hot.

13:41Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not that hot in the moment, it's terrifying.

13:45Speaker 4:If I'm watching it on the screen, I wouldn't want to be the person running from you.

13:50Speaker 2:No, but that's what I'm saying. It becomes very unhinged. Yeah, yeah, well it's a real thing. Well we'll see where he ends up. But he quit drinking after an alleged twenty six sixteen drunken plane incident. So that, yeah, that was his rock bottom venture.

14:06Speaker 6:Go there.

14:06Speaker 2:I need you to venture back into that Bradley venture back into that.

14:10Speaker 4:I wonder what he's going through personally in his life because remember us talking about trying to get out of the pain, Like what he is going through personally that he feels like he needs to get out of the pain, because that's remember when you're an alcoholic, it's it's drinking. Is the symptom using as a symptom, you're in fear, you're in like turmoil internally, it's a spiritual.

14:36Speaker 3:Like bottom.

14:38Speaker 2:Or he could have just been having a piece of red meat and thought, you know what would go great with this instead of this diet coke? Yeah, a nice tabrinet.

14:48Speaker 3:Yeah, it's called getting the fuckets.

14:51Speaker 2:Yeah, Like when I'm having a Javier at Polo Lounge, I'm like, you know what would go great with this ice cold Champs? That would really make this a fucking party.

15:05Speaker 4:Yeah, I feel that way on a hot day, I just want a beer and I don't even like beer.

15:08Speaker 2:But tell me this, and I do not. I'm not saying go out and get yourself, you know, non alcoholic beverages, because everybody in their sobriety journey is completely different. In some people, that's a trigger for them. I've been drinking non alcoholic beverages since the time I got sober. But how hard did that n A beer hit the other day?

15:30Speaker 6:Oh?

15:31Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that was amazing.

15:32Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we cracked it at one. It had been a rough day. Cracked the NA beer, Yeah, and it was slapping. Do you feel triggered when you drink something that like that beer?

15:43Speaker 6:No?

15:43Speaker 3:Not no, not beer, because like beer's one of those drinks that you have to drink a lot in order to get drunk.

15:48Speaker 2:Okay for me anyways, So you know that even the taste of it, You're like, I wouldn't be drinking this is anyway to catch a buzz?

15:53Speaker 4:I think I have such a big imagination that like even taking a drink of a beer, just the like even the holding the beer cup or the bottle.

16:02Speaker 2:We had a bottle, right, that stuff has never triggered. No. Like I go to Bevmo and there's this brand called seed Lip and Easton also sober, will take shots of like the faux vodka, and it's almost like a placebo effect of That's my point.

16:18Speaker 3:It is like drinking a beer is like a placebo.

16:21Speaker 4:Drinking anything out of a wine glass or a champagne glass, it's placebo. It's great, doesn't bother me. Some people it might trigger them, but for me, it doesn't.

16:34Speaker 2:And I guess it depends on if you're in the program, whatever your sponsored, because everyone's even though we're in the same program, everyone's program is very different. Yes, And that's why you go in and you search for your person, right, you little your little sober soulmate to help you through staying sober. I have been very fortunate in my sober I was never into pills. I was never into I had never done blow. I had never done really anything.

17:11Speaker 2:And I've talked about this. I did mushrooms one time. That was pretty fun, the best, awesome like that with a hit or.

17:21Speaker 3:Ten and of a blunt yeah, and a music festival.

17:24Speaker 2:Oh, there's a music festival in my head. The trees are performing for me and they're like, I'm giving you oxygen, and I'm like, oh my god, Wow, I thought I was doing a lot. You're providing air for all those holy shit, you know it is amazing, amazing, Wow, I'm there right now. There was a time so when we were filming in Mexico, I was you got your push over on? I do.

17:54Speaker 4:I just was just making sure that it was Oh, it's their baby, it's there.

17:58Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we're on the bus. I know I'm not supposed to talk about the valley, but I'm doing it. We're on the bus in Mexico and they only showed like a little bit of it. Schwartz is like asleep, like a dead spider, and people had done mushrooms, and Jasmine was right in front of me with her fiance at the time, her now wife, Melissa, and Jasmine is just cannot stop crying. It's like a flood of emotions and she's like, do you guys understand We're never gonna have this moment again? It's past. This is only a memory.

18:35Speaker 2:And when I tell you I saw her so hard, I was like, I got into it with her. I was like like, right now, what I just said will never come back. It's all in the past. I was like, does it make you so emotional? And we both start like sobbing, and Melissa goes, those mushrooms are good, right. I was like, I didn't take any. She goes, you're you don't take mushrooms. I was like, no, Melissa, I'm sober. She goes, oh, oh my god, you seem like a little fucked up. I was like, I'm true. I have high thoughts all the livelong day, and I get the placebo from other people.

19:08Speaker 4:Yes, I was just gonna say, it's crazy when you go out. I was so worried when I first got sober. I'm like, dude, I don't know how I'm gonna go rock it with people at like a seven pm dinner.

19:17Speaker 3:Let me sleeping.

19:18Speaker 2:But it's true.

19:19Speaker 4:You start to get this second wind, and you the energy between the drunk person and the sober person.

19:25Speaker 3:It just transfers.

19:26Speaker 4:And I'm like, whoa, I feel like I feel high and I have a ton of energy and I feel great, and.

19:32Speaker 2:You want know what's amazing? The next day, you want to rock a seven am workout?

19:36Speaker 3:You can.

19:36Speaker 2:I am fucking right there with you.

19:38Speaker 4:I know.

19:39Speaker 2:Isn't it great to best so Bradley? Why would you give up your sobriety? You're the best of all worlds.

19:47Speaker 3:That's rude.

19:48Speaker 2:You know what you needed to come hang out with us?

19:52Speaker 4:All right, brad You're welcome on the podcast anytime, buddy, anytime, my friend.

20:08Speaker 2:I get this question a lot in my DMS about what the first step is to getting sober, and once you conquer that, how do you stay sober? And I always have to like separate those two questions because the thought, even now, right now, when I tell myself you can never have another drink again in your entire life, that thought makes me want to go have a drink, because I don't like things that are forever right.

20:41Speaker 3:That film, it's overwhelming, that that's overwhelming.

20:44Speaker 2:Yeah, So I have to say, let's not think about how to stay sober. Let's talk about how we get sober right now in this moment. And sometimes I have to stay sober minute by minute. Sometimes I have to stay sober for my kids because I can't do it for myself because I'm ready to fucking throw it all the way m hm. And although those moments don't happen to me very often, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it. Of course, I know I'm not going to do it because I have the tools, right, I know. Oh, we got it, like, and I.

21:13Speaker 3:Thought, and that feeling is going to pass. Yes, I think for me.

21:17Speaker 4:I really, I came in through alan On, so I never had the problem, and that's because I never could look myself in the mirror.

21:25Speaker 3:But I just stayed curious. And I know it sounds so simple, but if you have an open mind, you know.

21:33Speaker 4:People you say like, well maybe you should get sober, or like, hey, have you ever thought about going in to a meeting like and they instantly say no. I think you have to be willing to say like, huh, that's really interesting. I wonder what it's about. Like it may not be for me, and I don't have to like put a label that I'm an alcoholic, but just go sit in an open meeting and just listen because everyone's story is different. And they say it only takes resonating with one person's share that you're like, oh my god, me too, and then you start having the you felt that way too, or you felt bullied as a kid, or you always felt like.

22:07Speaker 3:Depressed or like whatever it was like, you felt.

22:10Speaker 4:Alone, and then you get more and more curious, and then you keep coming back, and then one day you have the courage to say, oh, I think maybe I am. Because I had no idea. I thought I just had anxiety and depression, like severe depression and severe anxiety. But once I started going to AA, I realized those were the symptoms. And I used xanax and alcohol and sex and shopping and food and all the other things to mask and to cover up.

22:45Speaker 3:It was like that temporary band aid that I would put on.

22:47Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, we were talking this morning with the news of Hayden Pantier's passing, and you said something that like like rocked me. And you even said in the car, you know, she put up a very good bite for a long time, and you relate to that, and you know she had written about this in her book, and she was on Jay Shetty's podcast and talking about her custody situation, talking about her depression, her anxiety, her addiction, and you know, I think I'm very lucky that drinking was my main thing and I didn't pick up other things because I had a really addictive personality. As what I would tell people as I'm slammed, like, I don't do that because I don't want to be addicted. I think my sobriety journey would be very different. I don't think I could have first try approaching eight years. But I know that Hayden went through many times of trying to get sober. But you were talking about this on the couch because you related to her situation.

24:16Speaker 4:Yeah, I think when you have people surrounding you that have like for instance, for her it was her ex husband and her situation with her daughter and among other anxiety depressions, and also losing her brother who was twenty six when he passed away.

24:34Speaker 3:I get it.

24:35Speaker 4:Sometimes it's the fight is just too hard and you're like I can't win, I cannot win, and it just feels so heavy and you feel so broken inside and you're in so much pain and you just feel like there's no way out. And I've definitely been there before where I'm like.

24:56Speaker 3:Dude, there's no way out.

24:57Speaker 4:I'm not getting out of this and so when I see her on when I was you know, I had watched that J. Shetty podcast and I almost couldn't get through it because I know exactly what she was talking about. Like you see her on you see her on his couch or on the chair, trying to almost convince herself that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. But you could still see that she was just fucking fighting for her life.

25:28Speaker 3:And it was her time. And just knowing now that.

25:34Speaker 4:Like her soul is free of that fear and anxiety and burden in that just feeling like you're being strangled on a daily basis by life or people around you. It brings me so much relief because I know she's not in pain anymore. And I think there's some souls that come to this earth and they are just fucking tortured, you know, and you know, it really sucks for her daughter. She's free, and that's like one less tortured soul.

26:16Speaker 2:Yeah, you know.

26:17Speaker 4:And Viola Davis gave this beautiful like tribute to her on her Instagram. I can't remember exactly what it said, but she was just like, now you could fly free, and that's what it is. It's like life gets really challenging, and when you have kids and when you have exes and when you've been you know, whether she was emotionally physically abused, which I think she experienced all that, Like.

26:44Speaker 3:Yeah, it's it's I get it. I fucking get it.

26:48Speaker 4:And so it's almost hard for me to even watch any of her videos anymore because there's so much of myself that I see and like, I fucking she just like keep she held on for as long as she fucking could. And whether she died. I think she died of a cardiac arrest or something like that, probably with a drug overdose.

27:08Speaker 3:It's it was her only way out. It was the wrong she was. She probably felt like a caged animal.

27:25Speaker 2:Do you think that making because you know, there's so many decisions that humans make in life, whether it's picking up to numb out taking their own life. And there's the argument of your being selfish in those moments. I don't quite believe that.

27:45Speaker 4:I don't think so. I think some people just I mean, I'm sure she tried to get sober. I'm sure she. I actually know she had a psychiatric help and went to great people that I actually know to try to help her, and sometimes your soul is just so tortured you just don't want to fucking go. You don't want to move on anymore.

28:07Speaker 3:It's like it's just too hard and I can't.

28:11Speaker 4:It's almost like I'm having a hard time with the words yeah, conveying it, because it's.

28:15Speaker 3:Just unless unless you've been in.

28:20Speaker 4:Those shoes, and it's a daily like for me, my anxiety is a daily fight.

28:25Speaker 3:It's like it's a daily fucking fight.

28:29Speaker 4:But I know if I don't stay sober, and I know I joke about having a drink or whatever, in all seriousness, I don't know if I would be able to return from it.

28:42Speaker 3:That's how serious it is.

28:43Speaker 4:Like it's a chemical imbalance, It's a real fucking chemical imbalance, and a spiritual death.

28:55Speaker 2:I mean, I don't even want to pretend like I know what like you've gone through, because I don't. I think I have to like quite literally walk in your shoes you've been doing. You've been putting up this fight for a decade plus, and I can't even begin to imagine what it was that Hayden Panitier was going through because I have never felt like I was so tortured that I needed to escape. Really, I don't think I've been put to the Maybe I have and I've come out.

29:35Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know. What I do know is during the passing of my dad, I was heavily in my addiction. But I've always said this, I feel like God made us capable and well equipped to handle the passing of a parent. You know, like I was going to get through that. It's just the circle of life.

29:57Speaker 3:But you felt that pain when your dad passed.

30:00Speaker 2:I was gut wrenching. But again, I don't think that we're equipped a handle pain of full on fighting for your child. And yes, I put up a really really good fight for Ocean. But then I hear other stories and I'm like, oh, now you were backed into a corner and you were really having to fight. I was two three years sober in thank God, the custody situation.

30:32Speaker 4:Can you imagine not being sober going through that that?

30:35Speaker 2:I think I I think either I would have been dead or someone else would have been dead had I been fucked up, because that was torture. And it's not often that I can like go back and think about it. Because I think I disassociated and because I did come out of it, and I found my strength and my power and my full independence in every aspect. It's like I can look back and go, yeah, that was a weird time. Then if you and I are having conversations and I remember certain feelings of being at that house, the treehouse, and like on the phone with lawyers all day long and not knowing like what the future of my child, Like that was torture, And had I not been sober, we would be in a very different situation.

31:28Speaker 6:Yeah.

31:28Speaker 4:I think if I would have been sober during my situation, it would have been very different. I had no coping mechanisms at all and at all, but here we are today, So I think it all leads back in the whole thing.

31:44Speaker 2:You don't meet anyone who goes My life got really, really great and manageable when I started picking up and using You just don't hear that. Anybody who has gotten sober, they will tell you life still happens. But I can manage it.

32:05Speaker 3:One hundred percent. I get it.

32:07Speaker 2:Yeah, I can get a grasp on the bigger picture and go, you know, this is my today. Tomorrow may be the exact same shit, but I know that I can get through it one day at a time, right, and before you know it, you're out of it. I mean during my custody situation, I was like, I'm never getting out of this, and people would say to me, oh, you've been in it for six months, call me in ten years, and I'm like, ten fucking years. Ten years is how long it's going to take. I'm five years out of it. And although there are moments where I still feel like, oh no, I'm being choked out now, and not in the fun way. This is beat. I don't like this caged animal. Yeah, yes, I know, stay sober, hold your ground, do take the tools into play with sobriety.

33:03Speaker 2:But also you know what to do, you know who to make the phone call to, you know exactly what the playbook is right there.

33:10Speaker 3:It's so funny. I text my sponsor this morning.

33:12Speaker 4:I was like, hey, do you have any suggestions on literature for control issues? And she said, yeah, there's a big book that two men wrote.

33:24Speaker 3:I was like, fuck you.

33:26Speaker 4:Okay, I guess I need to pick up the book that has all the answers in it.

33:29Speaker 2:By the way, I have a really good book at home that my sponsor told me to get it's just sitting in a true.

33:34Speaker 3:And you haven't opened the front cover. I bet no.

33:37Speaker 2:I did when I first got my new sponsor. Yes, I haven't picked it up since.

33:40Speaker 3:Okay.

33:41Speaker 2:She gave me homework and I was like, all right, I'll do the homework. I get excited. I got back on the pink cloud because for a moment, I was like, I'm not getting anything from this program anymore. I'm just gonna be a sober person, take a beat on the meetings. I'll check in with my sponsor. And then I was telling Easton, I go to give one of my sober sisters a cake, take me to this meeting. This is the meeting she wanted to go. My plan was to walk in there, give her her kid, go home, be with ocean because she was leaving. I stayed throughout, and it like reignited my I was like, Oh, this is these are my people. Yeah, yeah, this is where I come from.

34:17Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, that's a godshot.

34:20Speaker 2:It is.

34:20Speaker 4:I call it a god wink because my God is cute and funny.

34:28Speaker 2:I have to and has long blonde hair to.

34:31Speaker 4:Push up Brad and he's tall, dark and handsome, and his penis looks like that.

34:38Speaker 2:Dark your handsom with a pink wiener unicorn?

34:42Speaker 3:Unicorn? You know why he's gay?

34:45Speaker 4:Oh my god, I was gonna say, I do.

34:48Speaker 2:All right, I picture your gud because that looks like a unicorn.

34:53Speaker 3:So no, he is shooting rainbows out of that thing.

34:57Speaker 2:It's not just come. Here's why, sober you can do it. Here's a godwink.

35:07Speaker 3:It's not like.

35:10Speaker 2:Not a splooge. No, this is not a.

35:12Speaker 4:Sploogy, a like gross and creamy and ugly. Mine's like little sparkles in it.

35:18Speaker 3:I'm here. Fuck, I'm in trouble. I know this.

35:23Speaker 2:Well, here's the thing. I really love you, and sometimes I'm a little too tough. And you can ask my mom this. I get very hard on people, which I need to adjust that. But I would probably say you're out of your fucking mind, and no that's not happening. But the reality of it is we have to talk through it. What in this moment is making you want to pick up a drink? All right? Well, I'm feeling this, this and this. Okay, Well, before we go straight to the drink, how do we how do we not numb these feelings but address these feelings so you don't want the drink.

35:58Speaker 3:Let's not run to the.

36:01Speaker 4:Let's get curious and figure out why you're feeling this way, and maybe there's an easier, softer way.

36:06Speaker 2:Yeah, then bugging up? Yes, I think that's And a lot of people ask me, you know, my friend clearly has a drinking problem. What do I do? And it's like, you let your friend have the drinking problem because you cannot get someone sober.

36:23Speaker 3:You cannot.

36:23Speaker 4:I actually went through this with a friend and I for five years. I was like, this is just one this is going bad like it.

36:33Speaker 3:It got really dark and it got really ugly.

36:35Speaker 4:I know who you're talking about, and I would have to call my sponsor and figure out, like how do I help?

36:39Speaker 3:She's like, Amber, you can't.

36:40Speaker 2:You want to know what's so funny? What is when I was thinking about getting a friend, it is feeling like I needed to address it. I called the same person you're talking about.

36:50Speaker 4:Yeah, and she gave me the best advice. And now she's in recovery. She's it like at a program and she's doing and I am absolutely shocked. And in this lesson, I learned as painful as it is to see someone burn their life down and hit rock bottom, and sometimes that might mean death.

37:13Speaker 3:There's nothing you could do.

37:14Speaker 2:About it, No, because someone has to want it. Yeah, I can't want it for you. I would say the one thing that I do when I'm around people who I feel may have a problem, you may or may not, which this is easy because I don't drink, but I don't promote it. I don't ask them do you need a drink? I don't like. I have been around groups of people where someone has an issue, and then I see someone who may not have an issue, but is enore me, you know, let me grab you a drink at the bars? Like, no, no, no, you're promoting the behavior.

38:03Speaker 2:You can't sit here and talk to me about what do we do. You're sober, you know what to do. I've told you what to do. So then why are you running and getting you know, him, a drink at the bar? Yeah, and promoting the fucking drinking that you just told me you think maybe a problem? Yeah, otherwise you got to walk away. If you think it's that big of a problem. You just have to say, this is a journey that you're on. I can't be You have to cut ties.

38:30Speaker 4:You have to cut ties with a person and it is painful for me.

38:33Speaker 3:It was really painful.

38:34Speaker 4:I knew this girl for a very very long time, and she's now, she's doing the work, and who knows she may come out because we know how it is when you come out of rehab. Can they survive and will she like create an environment for herself that is supportive.

38:46Speaker 3:And it's just.

38:49Speaker 6:Having the gift of desperation to want to change. That's why I say I feel very lucky. There's not one part of my life that changed, Danbar. I just woke up knowing I want to be a sober person. I'd never want to feel this way again. Two days later, I want a private jet to Mexico with all of my friends who are making cocktails on the plane.

39:12Speaker 2:We're on yachts, We're in a fabulous house. Everyone's having Margarita's m We go to a nightclub where they're bringing out ginormous bottles and I fucking did not pick up a drink.

39:25Speaker 3:It gets easier in the beginning, it's really hard.

39:28Speaker 2:You have to say it was hard though I was so desperate for it. You were so desperate it almost the thought of having that drink made me sick to my stomach.

39:36Speaker 4:That's how I got when I first got so overd the thought I would instantly is the placebo effect. I would get that like gurgly stomach and then the spins, and then I'm mine was.

39:43Speaker 2:Taking me right back to waking up so fucking depressed that I wanted to drive off of a cliff. I was like, that drink represents me wanting to take my own life.

39:52Speaker 4:Yeah, oh that's powerful, that's really really powerful.

39:57Speaker 2:So it's just not happening. Yeah, and here we are.

40:00Speaker 3:I'm not believe eight years. It's on day.

40:04Speaker 2:At a time, October twenty second. But I'm like, I feel like I just watched on the valley me celebrating seven years. Already, almost a year has gone by. It's almost been a year that my that I put Lily to rest time is so fucking precious.

40:23Speaker 3:It is.

40:23Speaker 2:And I'm not wasting one moment picking up a fucking drink. No, no, nope, although a glass of champagne does sound nice right now? So what do we do? We vape?

40:37Speaker 4:We vape, Huff the feeling away, huff the magic drag.

40:45Speaker 2:Don't judge me, We're all give me the last weekend, motherfuckers. I love you, guys. This was a great episode. I love podcasting with you. I podcast being around you. I love you. You're like a part of my soul. It's very important you know that.

41:04Speaker 3:Thank you. You are a part of my soul.

41:07Speaker 2:You guys have the best rest of the week. Oh we're going into the weekend. Praise him Hallelujah. Enjoy yourselves, drink responsibly, let it get it, keep up on that sobriety. We love you. We'll catch you next week.

41:19Speaker 3:Bye bye,