Julie: In the second part of this two part series, we continue our conversation with Ashley, Kris, and John about the first thirty days of sobriety. We discuss the mental obsession with drinking and share tactics that worked for us to fight cravings. We talk about what it means to really take life one day at a time, without worrying about what the future might hold. We share more about the fears surrounding life without alcohol and wondering who we even are when it feels like we’ve lost an integral part of ourselves. And we also acknowledge that, without support from others, sobriety would be a lot harder, if not impossible. 

Ashley: I feel like when you have other people in front of you that know what you’re going through, it’s so much easier. Because this world sucks. Let’s be honest, okay? I mean, the world sucks, people judge you, like it’s hard, and you’re sitting here drinking. And you know, for me, my mom was an alcoholic really bad. She got four DUI’s. And when I told her I was gonna quit drinking, she was like “You don’t have a problem.” So, I got a lot of that. “You don’t have a problem, there’s nothing wrong with you.” But then they’re saying, “Why can’t you just have one beer?” Well, you can’t tell me I don’t have a problem, and then ask me why I can’t only have one beer. So I felt so pulled in so many directions. And then when I finally found people that just understood where I’m coming from I felt still. I think this is probably the most clarity and peace and acceptance of myself that I’ve had in my whole entire life.

Steve: That’s awesome.

Ashley: Ya know, and I’ve been on something since I was probably 12 years old, and it definitely blows my mind how broken I still was, even though I thought “When I as on drugs, I quit. So I’m fine now, right? Like, I went and saw a therapist, I’m good. But I wasn’t because I feel like if we’re not struggling to drink then you don’t have a problem, you’re okay. But I was still struggling. So, yeah.

Julie: That’s a hard one, when people tell you “It’s really not that bad.” I think my husband kind of made me feel that way. He just had no idea how much I was actually drinking. But when someone starts telling you, “Oh, you’re not that bad” it’s really easy to be like, “Maybe it really wasn’t that bad.” It’s that whole alcoholic voice, right? When enough people tell you, “Oh you really didn’t drink that much, you don’t need to quit,” that little alcoholic voice in the back of your head is like, “Yes! They’re right!” And it’s so easy to fall right back into that, especially early on. Because it tricks you right back into thinking “Oh, it wasn’t that bad.” And you forget so fast how bad it was.

For me, journaling was a big thing, in the first 30 days, and I still journal every day. I could make it to 20 days and look back at Day 2 and Day 3 and be like, “Oh, yeah, it was definitely as bad as I thought it was.” And I wrote out this story, it was on Day 5. And this is like a ridiculous example of the mental gymnastics, but I quit in the fall, we were digging potatoes in the garden. So every year since forever, we have dug potatoes in the garden and then I make this potato soup. And potato soup has white wine in it. On Day 5, I’m like “Maybe I shouldn’t make the soup. Maybe I’ll make the soup, maybe I’ll just go get one of the little tiny bottles of wine.” And then I was like, “Maybe I’ll go get a whole bottle of wine, and then I’ll drink the whole bottle of wine other than the one cup of wine that has to go into the soup. No, I can’t do that, because I’m supposed to quit. Maybe I’ll just use chicken broth. Maybe we don’t need to have soup.” I mean it was this cycle, right? But I wrote it all down! And so three weeks later, when I’m like “Maybe it really wasn’t that bad,” I could go back and read that and be like, “Holy shit, I couldn’t even make a decision about soup!” Because the mental gymnastics were so messed up and it was just constant, it was just ridiculous. And I’m really glad that I took the time to just write that stuff down. So that I could go back and look at it. I mean, I could look at it ten minutes after I wrote it and be like, “Girl, you have a problem.”

Ashley: Your mind just spins. Like how I said, the clarity. When you’re going through that, your mind is always racing. Always. And that’s the thing. In the first 30 days, that’s all I thought about was drinking. Now? Yeah, I will occasionally. But I mean, every minute of every day was, “I’m never gonna be able to drink again. I want a drink. I’m never gonna be able to drink again.” Over and over and over. It’s exhausting. That does go away though. It does go away. But you’re crazy in the meantime.

John: Meetings are also like a shorthand for people who aren’t dedicated to journals. You listen to other people’s stories and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, I remember that one. I will have no part of that again.”

Steve: I think going to the meetings, I think we all went to meetings really early in our first 30 days. And it became a part of our first 30 days. It was that feeling of “You’re not alone.” Really, you go to a meeting and at least, when I went there, went to a meeting, I started listening to other people and I’m like, “Jesus, I’m not near as different as I thought I was. I’m not near as broken as I thought I was. I’m actually, there was actually, a whole bunch of people that have experienced, are experiencing the exact same thing that I’m experiencing right now in their own form, in their own way, and somehow, Jesus, Wow, Okay, they can actually help me through this because they’ve done it! Like, that’s pretty awesome. This sucks, right now, but they’ve done it. Okay. So you know, that “One day at a time” or “One minute at a time” like you said, Kris, it’s as cliché as it gets, but it is so true. It is so true and when somebody tells you, “It will pass. The craving will pass.” In that moment, it sits there and it gnaws at you and it’s tight and everything is uncomfortable as hell. Your body is uncomfortable, your mind is racing, everything is just “I want this now” and you know, 20 minutes, half an hour later, it’s not there anymore.

Or you know, ask for help. That was one of the best lessons. For me, driving, because I was so scared of it, I had somebody on the phone almost all the time when I was alone in the truck for the first 30 days. Almost every day. To work and back. I was lucky to have a friend that was always there.

Ashley: Yeah. I think that’s where I messed up. On my resets and stuff. Because I didn’t reach out when I felt… like, you know if someone was telling me, “Yeah, you don’t have a problem, have one beer,” or I’m having that craving. I wouldn’t just text someone, or call. I would just like, “Eh, ya know, you know what? You’re right, I don’t.” And then I’d wake up the next morning, because I’d drank the whole day, and night, and blacked out, and was like, “Oh, yeah I do. I shouldn’t have been drinking.” So if I would’ve just listened, and maybe reached out like everyone told me to, I think it would’ve went a lot better than you know, talking to Steve for the whole night and me being completely blacked out drunk. And then I had to tell you in the morning. So that was a good time.

Steve: That was pretty awesome though. Just the courage you had that next day to say, “Hey, I drank.”

Ashley: Yeah. I was like, “I need to take a shower, but I was completely blacked out last night. I will talk to you when I get out. Because I need to wrap my head around some things.”

Julie: I think too – going back to the meetings, because we all keep talking about going to meetings – for me sometimes that was just a way to fill the time. One of the hardest things about the first 30 days or even 60 or 90 days, it went from never feeling like I had enough time to do anything to feeling like there were 143 hours in every day. And like, I could get to 4 o’clock, and then the time just slowed down. And it crawled until it was a reasonable hour to try to go to bed. And meetings helped fill that time for sure. And I think also, that’s when I realized, I need some hobbies. Because I didn’t know what to do with that time. And I ended up knitting and sewing and playing piano and I learned so many different things. But I think that’s a really important part of the early days is you’re gonna have more time than you know what to do with, if you’re not busy, all you’re gonna do is sit there and think about the fact that you can’t have a drink. Like, that was the number one way I spent my time the first time I quit drinking, was just sitting around for like 5 or 6 hours every night thinking about the fact that I wasn’t drinking. And the second round… it does suck! I mean like, it slows down and it’s miserable and it just makes you angry. So the second time I quit, I had stuff lined up. I made a list of all the things I’ve always wanted to learn how to do, and I started learning how to do them. There were all kinds of things. I think that’s really just an important… it’s a little thing. It’s not this big huge mental thing that we have to wrap our heads around like a lot of early sobriety is, it’s just the logistical “Find something to do” and know ahead of time what that’s gonna be, because when 4 or 5 o’clock rolls around, that voice in your head is like,“You don’t have anything to do, we should go drink!” So having a plan is really important.

John: I’ll play into that. I think that in the first 30 days, at least for me, my experience was that I didn’t know what my hobbies were gonna be, and knowing them or being prepared for them is like… but the first 30 days, the thing is knowing you have to find them, knowing you have to try them, be bad at stuff. It’s okay. The first thing is just like figure out what your future might hold for hobbies. What I do now in my spare time is miles away from a year ago when I was first starting off. But it was okay just to have something there that filled the space. I think the meetings for me… I’ve got lots of space where I might have been unashamed of going to bed at like 6:30, so… (laughter) that’s how I kinda made it work.

But like, people being told there’s not that bad of a problem, I’ve never had people tell me it’s a problem. And ya know, even when I would try to explain to other people, I had that too… Meetings are a place where I actually found someone who would say “Yeah, you’re kind of a mess too. Like, but welcome to the club. And I know there’s a lot of debate about labels and whether we call ourselves alcoholics or not. For me, I do. But there’s actually a lot of freedom in coming to the meeting and being able to use that word being like, “Oh, thank God, I know what my problem is now.” Someone has told me, they all smile and nod when I say it, like “Yep, that’s right, you are!” and phew! Now it makes sense. This whole path that I’ve left behind me of chaos and confusion and unhappiness and mine’s not super destructive but just miserable. And to look back like, “Oh! Now I understand a little better what all of this is all about. And now when I go forward not that I have the support or memory of the past but I have some rational days. Because I look back and all that unhappiness for all those years… it’s not that alcohol was the only thing that made me unhappy, there’s other stress too, but it sure fueled a lot of it. And it didn’t fix any of my problems. So I think a place to just feel like… to feel that both at the same time. Labeled, but loved with it. Because I think that’s something we rarely get out in the world, is to be like, both – “You’re an alcoholic, and it’s okay.” Those rarely go together outside of a meeting. But to have that, you’re like, “Oh, whew. I got it nailed.”

Steve: That acceptance is beautiful, isn’t it?

John: Without the denial that there’s a problem. Because they’ll be like, “Oh, you’re fine.” And like… No, now I don’t feel heard.

Steve: Yeah. You come to a meeting and you’re like, “Yeah, I have a problem,” and everyone’s like, “Yeah, me too, come here, I’ll give a hug.” Right? (laughter) “Welcome to the club, yeah, me too.”

John: My first meeting, it was someone talking about their year, and I was like, “Yep, I did that, and I did that, and I did that. Ah, okay, I’m in the right place.” (laughter)

Julie: These are my people, this is my tribe.

Ashley: Julie, I wanted to go back to what you said about hobbies, because I’m gonna bring up – my boyfriend always gets on me that I don’t have hobbies. Like, I’m boring I guess, I don’t know. But, I don’t know why it popped into my head now, but my hobby… was drinking. Before that it was… I don’t know, watching TV and getting messed up on pills. It was always a hobby. Every single day, every moment, that’s all I thought about. Some way I’m being numbed. Even caffeine – I always had to have something. My hobby was just… not being here was my hobby, I guess. Not being present.

Julie: Yeah. That’s all I did was drink, and watch TV. And generally pass out to whatever I was watching. That was how I spent most evenings. And you have to completely rewrite what your evening looks like. That’s one of the things I was thinking about in the first 30 days. For me, I’m a stay at home mom, my life is a very defined routine, every single day. So between 4 and 5 o’clock, I started cooking dinner, and that’s when the night time routine started, and that is when the drinking started. So it would be cook dinner, then go outside and take care of animals, do some chores, whatever. Then get the kids ready for bed, read stories, get them to bed, and then just drink. Until I passed out. And the first thing that I changed was that I stopped cooking dinner. Which sounds bad, but I realized that that was the thing that triggered it. If I needed to start dinner at 4 o’clock or I needed to start dinner at 6 o’clock, it was walking into the kitchen, pulling out some pots and pans that triggered that instant reaction – “I’m supposed to be drinking right now.” So I started throwing food in the crock pot, so I could just take that part of my life away for a little while. The first 30 days that’s all I did. Put a huge batch of something in the crock pot and then I didn’t have to cook for a few days. And then I would figure out what the next thing was going to look like, but it wasn’t going to be a part of my routine. I just changed the entire thing, and then there were a lot fewer triggers that way. And then I made myself do something that involved activity or thinking, not just sitting and watching mindless TV, because that was another thing that made me want to just pick up something and drink it.

Ashley: Yeah, that was one thing too for me, was recognizing what was making me drink in the first place and being prepared. Because I came in cocky, in a sense, like, “I’ll be fine, I can do this, it’s not a big deal.” And it was a big deal, obviously, because I wasn’t ready for the triggers that were making me drink. And that would just make me fall every time, because I was like, “Well, I’m not going to do this, I’m not going to reach out to anyone, I’m gonna go here still, even though I know if I go here, I’m going to drink.” But once I recognized that, it helped so much.

Kris: Yeah, changing routine was a big deal for me, and it was evening for me as well. After dinner, watching television, and I was a wine girl. So you know, start the wine with the dinner, and then just continue on. So I had to have so many beverages in the house, non alcoholic beverages. I mean, I have like all the different sparkling waters, I love Kombucha, I have ice tea, all the different kinds of herbal tea, hot, cold, whatever. I feel like I constantly have a beverage in my hand. Now, even if I am watching television, I’ve got that, whatever I’m drinking. Eating ice cream – I love to eat ice cream now at night, and I take it upstairs. Once I’ve finished eating dinner, and I can go upstairs and I can still watch TV up there, but I’m just far away. Far away from thinking about drinking, and then I tend to fall asleep in bed, so that’s good.

The other thing I was going to say is that the one thing I’ve found is that in past times, when I tried to stop drinking, and it didn’t last, is that right around 30 days, I feel so good that I decide I’m fine, I can moderate. Now I know I need to just drink one or two glasses of wine and stop there. And then I would do that and fail, and do that and fail, and then say it again and do it again. That’s one thing I have to really take in deeply is that, the answer is: No drinks for me. Some people can moderate, that’s not my path. So that is a lot of acceptance, and it still is. And I can’t say at this point that it still doesn’t come to my mind that I’m like, “Yeah, I could probably do that.” And then I’m just like, “No, you can’t do that, Kris! You know that you’ve tried this so many times, and the only reason that you feel this great and are doing this good is because I’m not drinking.”

Ashley: I think it gets easier once that clicks, too. Once that clicks in your mind – and really clicks, not the first week and you’re like, yeah I can’t drink. I do the same thing, you get to 30 days and you’re like, “Nah, I’m fine, I went a month. I’m just gonna go and have on beer.” And again, you go and you’re passed out everywhere. But once that clicks in your head that you cannot moderate, I felt like it’s downhill from there, it’s just easier, it’s effortless. Because once I just accept something, I’m good. But when I know I can’t do something, I want to be stubborn and go against authority, and be like, “No, I’m gonna do it.” And then I just mess up. But yeah, that’s so true. So true.

John: Yeah, I realize now – I don’t want a drink. I want at least like 6. And I really feel that. Like, who wants ‘a’ drink? That’s dumb.

Steve: It’s ridiculous, right? Why would you?

Ashley: Right! I wanna get so f-ed up that I’m just, I’m done! Like this is a party, this is an activity, you know?

John: Wait, wait, wait no… I want the experience of having like 8, and the consequences of having one. (laughter) But once I’m honest with the fact that I really want 8, I’m like, hang on, the craving is for 8. But I think like, how do I picture myself? I think, oh. Hmm. Huh-uh. I don’t really wanna do that anymore. It does make it easier, I think, because I know that the picture in my head of what I’m gonna drink is not really what my body is craving. The two aren’t matched up anymore. It’s not interesting. That does get easier.

Ashley: It’s craving the release of whatever is going on inside.

John: Yeah, it wants oblivion.

Ashley: Exactly, that’s what you’re craving.

Julie: That was something that I had to learn, too. You’re gonna be uncomfortable, things are going to happen, you’re going to get really stressed out, you’re gonna get really angry, you’re gonna get really sad and depressed… and that’s okay. You don’t have to do anything to try to make it go away. I remember thinking, I’m super stressed out, I know I can’t drink, what am I supposed to do now to turn it off? It never occurred to me, you’re just not supposed to turn it off. You just are supposed to feel that. And then you’re gonna be okay afterwards. It’s gonna pass. You’re not gonna feel that way forever. And then you move on with life. That was a lesson I actually had to learn. I think that comes naturally to a lot of people, I think that’s a lesson most people learn when they’re younger. I never figured it out, so I’m like, “What do I do when I feel something uncomfortable?” (laughter) Exactly! It’s okay!

Ashley: We don’t want to be emotional. I have a problem still a little bit with being emotional, because I just want to drown it out. Until we learn to just let it all out there, and just cry and do whatever we need to do to get relief, then we’ll be okay.

John: The deep magic you find, I think, in the meetings is that you go through that, and as it turns out, it’s less bad when you don’t drink. Because you believe, “I need to block all this, I need to not feel.” And you cannot conceive in the first 30 days that it’ll be better not drinking. Like, that did not even register on my consciousness. Not even as a theoretical idea that other people talk about. But over time, and I think this is where the repetition of the meetings, we talk about cliches but part of the reason is that you have to hear it dozens, hundreds of times to really have it sink in and be like, “Oh, wait.” And then you look back. I’m almost at a year, that’s a good time to look back, right? And I’m like, “Wait, emotionally, I’m kind of bored lately.” People ask me how things are going and I don’t know. I got work, kids, back to school, there isn’t any of the terrible stuff that I feared. But you have to take that a little on faith early on that there will be a better future because you cannot conceive of how much better it can get because it’s not better in the way you hoped it would be better.

Steve: Yeah, you can’t take that picture of… Julie likes to say it, “I wish I could give you a photo album of what your future looks like, when you stop drinking, when you quit drinking and start doing the work and start experiencing life the way you should, when you start seeing everything in color.” When it stops being black and white and color starts to show up, emotions start to show up, you start feeling happiness, you start feeling joy, you stop… one of the things I like to say is, “The bad days start disappearing into all of the good days, instead of the other way around.” You used to have so many bad days that the good days disappeared and now you have so many good days that the bad days disappear. Today wasn’t a good day for me. Today I had a really crappy day for the most part. Stressed out, I’ve been irritated for a good portion of the day. Like level nine irritation. Like my phone rings and I’m like “What the f… no.” It’s just been that kind of day. I know it’s gonna pass, I know it’s gonna pass. It’s just how it works. What do I do? I talk about it. It’s just how my day is gonna go today, I know I need an attitude adjustment, it’ll happen. I just need something. Something’s off. Did I eat, am I hungry? Ask myself – go right back to simple things, right?

But, back to the 30 days – kind of going to what John said, you don’t absorb all of the things you hear. You hear so much stuff, especially when you go to meetings, which is the common theme we all have. What we’re all saying is we all went to meetings. We all listened to what other people had to say, whatever you could absorb, because you don’t hear or absorb a tenth of what you hear when you go to them or when you talk. Like hanging on for dear life, and that’s what it feels like. And you hear “it gets better” and it’s hard to believe on day 12, when you feel like your life is crumbling around you, you can’t go to that social event, you can’t do this and you don’t want to do that and you have no idea what’s gonna happen tomorrow and you’re worried about all of that stuff. And then you wake up the next morning and it’s today, and you’re like, “Okay, I’m gonna try this again. I made it. Let’s try!” Right like I made it one more day, I remember that being like, exciting. I did it. I made it through that hard, crappy event, the craving, I drove past the liquor store and I didn’t stop. And I had the courage to tell someone how I felt, which was something I never did. And it felt kinda good. It felt good to get it off my chest, and face reality a little bit and say, “Okay, I don’t have to drink today. It’s the hard thing. I have lots of time. What am I gonna do with it, I have no idea. But at least I didn’t drink.” And that became something that was acceptable. I didn’t drink today. That was cool.

Julie: Some days, that’s it. That’s all your goal can be is just to get through the day and not drink. And wake up the next morning and see what the day holds. But the first 30 days, your only job is Just Don’t Drink.

Ashley: Steve, you made me think of something so funny. We sit here and we’re like, “One day at a time!” And it can be annoying to someone who is just starting out, because I remember when I went to my first meeting, I got off and I was like, “Ugh! These people are way too happy for me!” (laughter) “There is no way that I can do this.” There was no way. I was like, something’s up, it was too positive, it was cheesy and corny and I was cringing. But I kept coming back and now look – I’m the same way. (laughter)

Julie: We’re all actually that happy.

John: Yeah, it’s the truth. I think it’s also interesting really to me is how different everyone’s story is here and at meetings in general and what our drinking was like and what our recovery has been like and yet we all have the same common themes about finding acceptance and how we pushed through it. And that’s maybe one of the most important things to try to absorb is that there’s something that’s different and unique about each of us, but there’s still this common theme for all of us. Like, if you even have to think about going to a meeting, there’s a common theme to how we got here. And it’s a little bit funny, and it’s also kind of serious. We all got here because we’re not real good with emotional processing and managing decisions and stuff like that, and that’s okay. You’ve got a home.

Steve: Exactly. You go to a meeting and there’s twenty people there, and you’re one of them, and there’s 19 other reflections of yourself. It’s really a beautiful thing.

Anyways, guys, I want to thank you very much for your time tonight, and coming on the podcast, and sharing your experiences, it’s been fantastic having you guys on tonight. Really, thank you.

Kris: Thank you guys, for doing this.

Ashley: That was awesome.

John: Thank you both, for having us here.

Julie: Thank you!