Transcript:

Julie: Welcome to episode 37 of Through the Glass Recovery Podcast. We have an awesome group here tonight, we’ve already been hanging out and laughing. This is going to be so much fun. So we are going to do introductions. We’ll start with Maggie. How are you today?

Maggie: I’m so good Julie, I’m so happy to be here. I’m Maggie Jenson. I’m 32, I live in Las Vegas. I guess ironically. I started my sober journey in 2020, about a month before quarantine and total lockdown and I’m so thankful that I did. I don’t know how I wouldve gotten through those months, that year, it was such a good learning experience for me. I will say, my perspective is a little different. I practice harm reduction, so I don’t go 100% abstinent. I don’t promote that all of the time for everyone, because I think taking the pressure off makes it a lot easier for some individuals. I know that sometimes My ideas are a bit different, but I’m happy to be here and just be swapping ideas with everybody.

Julie: It is great to have you here, and I will include Maggie’s information and everybody’s information in the show notes so you guys can check that out. Thank you for being here Maggie, looking forward to chatting with you. And next we’re going to go with Matt.

Matt: Hey everybody, my name is Matt Gardiner. Julie and Steve, thank you so much for having me on today, and Ben, I’ve met you before and it is great to meet you as well Maggie. So I am four years sober. I just had my four year sober birthday at the time that we’re recording, a couple of weeks ago actually. So Yeah, thank you. So I’ve been doing sober coaching for the past 23 months. I left my previous job of 23 years, and I’ve been doing just that for the last 15 months or so. I also do a podcast, that’s how I met Ben. He was a guest on my show. And yeah, really happy to be here, so thanks for having me on.

Julie: Yeah, absolutely, thank you for being here. Really nice to meet you. And last but not least we have Ben.

Ben: Yeah, thank you for having me. Good to see everyone here. My name is Ben Tuff and yes that is my born name not my stage name. (laughs) I have been sober actually 11 years a week ago. I just celebrated my sober anniversary. Thank you! It’s funny because I actually get more joy out of that anniversary than I do my real birthday, which I think is a sign of a true alcoholic who is proud of what they’ve done and what they’re doing. I also had a change of scenes. I was a boarding school teacher for 21 years and this past summer I had a documentary filmed about me and my swimming called Swim Tuff, which will be coming out in just a couple weeks time. So I’m really excited about that and how that’s going to allow me to positively affect other people’s live and bring change for those who need it.

Steve: Right on, really cool.

Maggie: Congrats, Ben.

Ben: Thank you.

Julie: Yeah, that is some really exciting stuff there. And I hear you on the sober anniversary being more important than the birthday. I feel like that’s when my life finally started. So I would agree with you on that. For our topic tonight: since we’ve started this podcast, and also just in conversation with other people in recovery, I hear a lot of mention about filling the void. I think there’s any emptiness inside of us that so many of us, we eventually start using alcohol to fill. When we remove alcohol from our lives, we leave an empty space that needs filling. So what does that look like for you, what does that void look like in your life? What have you done to fill it, and is there anything that you’re still working through?

Maggie: Such a good topic.

Matt: Yeah, took the words out of my mouth, I was literally going to say that exact sentence.

Julie: I feel like it could go so many directions, right? So I’m excited to hear what you guys have to share and Steve and I will for sure jump in, but anybody feel free to start.

Ben: I’m happy to start because mine is very very very extreme. So I went to 5 weeks of rehab in Connecticut and as I went to the four or five meetings I was told to go to, I was told you need to find something after this. You need to find something because you’re going to have a lot of time. You need to do something healthy, and you need to do something for yourself. And behind me I had two old ladies who were knitting and crocheting and I was like, okay I’ll X that off the list. (laughter) But I actually got into triathlon and eventually ultra-marathon swimming. I took it to a whole other level and now I’m doing these swims for 25 to 30 miles. For me I have found the peace that I’m looking for in the same way I found an escape in the bottle. Some people say you’ve just swapped one addiction for another. And yeah that’s true, but at least I’m healthy. There is a certain part of my brain that tells me you need to go for your swim every day. But it’s not because I need to escape things. It’s because I know that during that time, I can process what I need to process through that time, through that day. I can have that time with my higher power and I can get through it in a way that not only is it not hurting anyone around me, but it’s actually benefiting myself.

Julie: Yeah. I feel like it seems like a lot of people that I come in contact with that struggle with alcohol abuse are very much all or nothing people. That’s what I’m hearing in what you’re saying. I hear so many people in recovery who say, “And then, I took it to another level.” For me, I hike. Most people are happy with a two mile or a six mile hike, and I just under a year sober I was like, I am going to go for a 250 mile hike. All or nothing! Packing it all up and start walking. And maybe that is swapping one thing for another, but instead of running from my problems, I’m facing them head on and I’m taking the time to really face them and work through them, like you said. I just think it’s funny that, “And then I took it to another level” I think almost every alcoholic says that at some point.

Matt: Definitely, definitely. I have a similar story, not quite as extreme. I had two components to my sobriety. I was sober for a little over 3 years from 2012 to 2015, and then decided to try moderation and that didn’t work out so well, and then I went back. So I first started very similar to Ben’s, I started going to the gym every day. And it was on my periphery, things like this should, I should get to the gym, I’ll get to the gym one day. It was always in my periphery and I would try it. I’d have a Strong Bow, then go to the gym and work out, and wonder why I felt like crap right? And I thought, well this isn’t really working. I’m going to have to stop drinking altogether before I go to the gym. And so that was immediately what I did, again replacing one habit with another, a much healthier one. And I found that the mental health aspect that came with the exercise was incredible. A lot of what I was trying to chase with drinking – which was usually just the first sip, to be honest with you – that dopamine rush or whatever it was. I worked out just normally, so that worked very well for me initially. I wasn’t necessarily dealing with the why. It filled the void to a degree, but that’s actually what I’ve been working on this second stint of sobriety is working on all the layers of emotions and figuring out that I do still have these patterns of achievement or distraction. So if I start feeling lonely, or some of these feelings that I used to try to avoid or numb, I still have patterns that avoid or numb them. That being, I’ll just pick up my… let’s surf Instagram for awhile. Or I’ve got this podcast to upload, or these different things that I’m just now realizing at 41 that I still have these patterns that are numbing or avoiding or pushing down these feelings that I’ve had. Definitely a work in progress, definitely raising awareness of it, just working at it a little bit at time and giving myself some grace and working through it with journaling and meditation and other things that, again, were on the periphery that I’m actually doing nowadays.

Maggie: I think I could echo, I mean I resonate so deeply with kind of switching the focus to something that’s going to be physically challenging. That’s going to be that stress alleviation but also the confidence booster. I found that my biggest void, and I’m sure we’re all birds of a feather here is childhood trauma, lack of confidence, lack of self worth. And so I noticed that if I just got rid of alcohol, that meant I would look for that in food, or in other people, in company that I didn’t need to be surrounding myself with. So I really started progressive overload at the gym. Tracking my workouts instead of just going with a hangover and feeling like crap, I was like nope, I’m going to go without alcohol. And I’m going to track everything every day. And that really boosted my confidence. And I had people saying aren’t you switching addictions? Just like Ben mentioned. And through my self study, it’s like no, an addiction is something that brings about negative consequences that you can’t quit. But this just brings about positive. Positive benefits. So filling my time with working out. I’m huge on my walks. I think how many steps am I getting today, versus don’t’ drink Maggie, you better not drink! Its all of this health consciousness versus like this victim mentality of life is happening to me. When I get out and set my mind right, those stressors don’t affect you the same way. Adversity does not affect you or sink in as deep if you’ve got all of your ducks in a row from your self care routine, you’ve got your mindset right, and you’re focused forward. I know my void was just gaping wide when I was always focused behind me. On the shame, the guilt, the remorse. Now it’s like, let that be, let sleeping dogs lie and just go forward Maggie.

Steve: Interestingly enough for me physical activity wasn’t even a part of it. Wasn’t a part of it at all. I am a Covid sober baby. So I quit drinking in isolation. So there was my wife who’s my ex now, and I have two little girls. So I quit and all I had was zoom meetings. Getting out of the house because the relationship that I was in wasn’t healthy to begin with, getting out of the house I would be met with guilt in one way or another so even going to do stuff was never really fulfilling because when I came back there was damage waiting to happen. I got sober within a really emotionally unhealthy relationship, partially due to my drinking and partially due to this was the nature of the existence that I was in. The nature that I woke up to going wow, okay. So physical activity for me never happened. For me, if I look at this I had a time void I needed to fill, right? I filled that with baking. I filled that with trying to figure out what I liked. So I was like, baking bread kind of saved my life a little bit. It gave me an escape, it gave me something to do inside an environment that was already really stressful for me. And I looked at this and first there was the time void that I had, and then I had this emotional void that started showing up. What were friends? Who are they? What are those? Those were the people I guess that I was going to meetings because I couldn’t go anywhere else. I couldn’t go and see people. That was impossible so I couldn’t even test those waters. So what do I do? For me, connection was through meetings, basically where we’re sitting kind of thing right. And talking to people and actually finding that freedom for an hour a day or every other day or whatever it was. And now I’m sitting with the void of purpose. What is that? What does that look like to me? Is my career fulfilling, no. Much like I hear from Ben and Matt, is you’ve had a career of almost 20 years and you’re like, you know what, it’s time to actually put my energy into something that’s not only going to give back but it’s going to give back to me too. And so I’ve got and I’ve struggled with the emptiness of career ever since I woke up from my sobriety and I have a really hard time with that one there. That one there is the next little piece of my puzzle. But the emotional void is probably the absolute hardest one outside of time, to start filling because there’s friends that disappear and there’s spouses that you outgrow or end up clashing with and there’s so much there about even learning about me myself and accepting me for who I am and filling that void that makes it really difficult.

Maggie: Thanks for sharing that. Wow.

Julie: I don’t think that I recognized for a long time, even after I got sober, that I had an emotional void. I don’t even think that… I have spent the majority of my life lacking emotional connection and I didn’t even know what it looked like or what it was or that it existed. So going into sobriety I think I was very much drinking that away without even knowing what it was. It took actually finding connection, meaningful connection, meaningful conversation generally through the recovery community. But also in a couple of friends that I’ve had for me to realize that’s what was really missing in my life. And that is a massive void to start to try to fill. It doesn’t happen quickly and it doesn’t happen easily, but I think for me that was the biggest void that I’ve had to face.

Matt: It’s super relatable right? One of the reasons I started drinking in the first place was that I felt like I never fit it. It was like alcohol was my social lubricant, right? So once that’s removed, I’m just left with myself. And yeah, kind of like what Maggie was mentioning, I had a lot of self doubt in the first place, right? So when the alcohol is pulled away and it’s there, it’s advanced and it’s got all these different variants to them that have accumulated with all my years of drinking. So yeah, absolutely, the whole emotional sobriety thing. And that’s why I like – and you mentioned it Julie – when you start getting worthwhile conversations with people like the conversation we’re having now, where like as soon as you get into a room of recovery, whether it’s a zoom room or in person, for me – and I’d be interested to hear what you guys have to say about it – my need for a persona or ego melts away and I can speak from my heart and it was instantaneous. When I went to my first AA meeting, that was where I was like, I felt a physical weight come off my shoulders. I started tearing up. It didn’t really matter what was being said. Just being in the energy of those people that night truly saved my life. I could literally feel this need to hide something about myself just melt away and I got that from talking with people in recovery.

Steve: Yeah, just being real. For the first time in who knows how long. That’s where those tears came from for me too, it was just being real, like oh my god I can tell the truth. I lied so much. That was to avoid the void. Right? It was just to avoid it completely, was the only was to feel connected with everyone I guess was to agree with what they were saying. And like what they were liking. And as long as I could smile and not and laugh and giggle with all the stuff that they were laughing or giggling regardless of whether I understood it or not, that was okay for me because I didn’t know any better. There’s a lot of I didn’t know any better. Getting stuck in that, getting stuck in the self abandonment part of the addiction where the only thing that mattered was the next drink for the most part. You don’t really realize that until you stop. Right?

Maggie: Yeah, I think the next drink and the next thing I say – are people going to like that? It was like I was always looking for that thing outside of me to give me that feeling that you’re good enough to be here. So it’s that next drink, and then it’s well if I’m the chameleon in this social environment, I just agree with everything you say even if I’m lying, even if I’m not being myself, that makes me good enough. And for me to get to where I’m at, for you guys to get where you’re at, we had to look at ourselves and say I’m good enough because I decided it. It’s not what anybody else thinks about me or what the alcohol makes me feel, I can do that on my own. And I think for me I’ve had a little bit of a different experience where I didn’t ever look for the connections outside of me. What I realized was that I had zero connection with myself. I had absolutely no idea who I am, other than a liar. I think it’s really profound that you brought that up, I was lying to other people but I was lying to myself. I had to really kind of shut out the world which was amazing about the quarantine time for me. Timing was impeccable because I needed to sit with my feelings for that long and see why is it that I’m so disconnected from myself and trace that back.

Ben: For me, it was the feeling of being alone that really destroyed me in my drinking. I would drink on my own, I would hide it, I would find excuses to drink with other people, but even then I was only drinking with those other people, not because I enjoyed their company but because it was an excuse to drink. And it was an excuse to escape. So once I got sober, and I was in this house in rehab surrounded by all these other guys who were going through the exact same things I was going through with a lot of common ideas in our stories, it was like Oh my gosh I’m not alone. And I still have sober friends and I still have friends who don’t drink, but yesterday I talked to my first sponsor. We catch up every week or so, and he calls me – he still calls me out on my BS. Like, Ben, stop doing that to yourself. Get your head out of the gutter. Be happy with what you have going right now. And I was like, man no one else does that. Why is it that takes another person in recovery to really see through all the BS. And then I thought of it well, it’s because he doesn’t he same thing to himself. And it’s that idea of not being alone anymore when we’re called out, when we’re set straight, and why I come off of those phone calls thinking I feel so much better, I feel so relieved. Even if it’s not what I want to hear.

Julie: What Maggie was saying too. I think a lot of us have the victim mentality, that all of these things are happening to us. As soon as we recognize that filling that void is our responsibility. That we can’t look outside of ourselves and look for other people to take care of that for us, I think that’s when we become empowered and that’s when we become comfortable with ourselves. I know for me, the loneliness is big, but then like Maggie said, that sitting by yourself, being alone with yourself. It took me a long time to get comfortable just being alone with my own thoughts. I think that whole process of filling that emotional void. It definitely helps to have other people in recovery to share that with and just to… I don’t know, for me so many different aspects and perspectives get shared in a room like this or – I never did AA – but in other meetings that I’ve been to, that it just lets you see what there is that you still need to work on. Then you pick little bits out of here and little bits out of there and you work to just keep filling your life. We say all the time, create a life so full there’s no space left for alcohol. That’s been my motto since I first quit drinking. And sometimes you don’t even recognize that empty spot for awhile. And then something happens and you see the opportunity to find one more way to fill your life with something meaningful.

Steve: Solitude is a wonderful thing and it’s scary as hell all at the same time. So the first time that I really got to sit with myself was I drove to Colorado. I live just outside of Toronto, Ontario. I drove to Colorado, that’s a 24 hour trip. And I drove to Colorado by myself and I slept in the truck on the way and there was no one else there and I spent 8 hours of that trip with no music on, nothing. Just and I tried doing it intentionally and there was some points within that that you get all itchy and twisty and this is just weird. But so much of it was teaching I taught myself to really be present for the first time and notice the stuff on the side of the road and really get into the actual drive. I love it, I absolutely love it. It was the first road trip that I ever went on that was insanely long. It was really amazing. I was looking forward to it but I was scared of it all at the same time but it was amazing to do that and I think that part of the loneliness for me was I never really connected to my authentic self I never really connected to me and when I started learning who I was cuz I presented to the world something that wasn’t really me and because I did that the world reflected that back to me. So I was rewarded for myself being fake. And now it’s happening the opposite, I get to be real, I have the opportunity to tell my truth, I have the opportunity to present me as I am. And at least this way the reflection that I get back is an authentic reflection of the world because I am choosing to be present within it instead of lying to it.

Matt: yeah, that’s powerful. Funny you mention Steve. I just came back, like an hour before we started, from a 12 hour road trip I did similar where I’d have chunks of time where there was silence. There’d be no music, I find like podcasts and audiobooks can be somewhat numbing as well, right? It gets me into that interest and curiosity of self development and such and it’s great. But I want to be able to integrate it too, like I just keep doing that and that’s another pattern that I have of myself. So intentionally did the same thing, just being very present about what was like it was a beautiful drive right? So any sensation that’s going. I’m the same way man, I don’t sit very well for very long, so 6 hours in and it’s hot and I’m starting to get all twisty like you mention, it was good for me, it sounds like it was good for you.

Steve: It was an amazing experience. I got to drive back to. It was just an amazing experience.

Matt: Yeah, very cool. So what I ended up doing about halfway through, there was stuff coming up and normally I’d be like, K, turn on the podcast! I actually took out my voice recorder and started letting it fly. It felt great to do and I felt shifted my energy and shifted my spirit from doing that; some of it was admittance, some of it was like just calling myself out on some things that are opportunity areas for me that I don’t think I would have normally done had I been at home. But just the stimulation of being out on the road and being out of my environment and putting myself where I could raise my conscious awareness in such a way. So it’s really cool that you mention that, definitely some parallels so I wanted to jump in and share that story.

Steve: Really cool.

Ben: I think that as I process what’s gone on for me the last 11 years. I waited ten and a half years of sobriety to change jobs. That was a long period of time that I was kind of just dragging my feet, stuck in the same ol’ same ol’. And it all came down to purpose for me. I knew that it was there, I just needed to take that step. It would be the equivalent of me driving across country in a tractor trailer, getting paid thousands and thousands of dollars, and then going in like a 1950 convertible, going at my own speed, enjoying it. Not getting paid at all, because I’m not getting paid at all yet. But hopefully that will come with time. But in the end, as my dad told me, there’s never a good time for anything. So just go with your heart and find that purpose, because if you find purpose and you find what you love, then you’re never going to go starving and neither is your family. And I was like, wow, okay. I thought you would say the opposite, but let’s go.

Julie: That is super supportive. I think that’s a huge piece of this filling the void, is not just recognizing what you have to do, but then finding the courage to just jump. And that’s really scary. A lot of times we can see that change that needs to happen in our lives, but to actually make that change can take a long time to work up the courage and convince ourselves we really can do it. For me, I did a lot of work in the Rewired book by Erica Speigelman. I’ve talked about it a lot on here. But I kind of dragged Steve through some of those chapters with me. We got to the evolution chapter which is all about looking at your life and seeing how it needs to change and evolve. And Steve – he’s making faces right now – was very uncomfortable with that. And it’s an easy place to get stuck in your recovery. And I think until you work your way through it, there’s always going to be that space, that void. And especially if you’re doing something, spending the majority of your time doing something that has nothing to do with what you feel like your real purpose is. And most of us in recovery just start figuring out what our real purpose is in life once we get sober. A lot of us had no idea until we quit drinking what that even is. So that’s a huge, very long and grueling process I think, to make all of those changes and let ourselves evolve.

Steve: And I think that’s like… everyone’s talked about giving themselves a little bit of grace. None of this is fast. One of the most important things of recovery is patience. None of this growth, at least for me, hasn’t happened in an instant. It’s all been circumstantial, it’s all been picking away at it, and it’s all happened one way or another and it’s not always by choice, but it’s required a lot of patience. Like I can’t want it now. I have to go and get it. It’s a different, completely different story, completely different way of doing that and I can’t get that end without starting somewhere and that’s where Evolution always got me. I had a really long way to go to even bother. So it seems like even in early sobriety, everything seems so far away. Really in the end, how to get there is just one day at a time, just keep picking away at it. And eventually you wake up and you’re like, holy cow, I’m just over 2 years sober. I have come a long freaking way. I have a lot to be proud of. I’ve done a lot of hard things. This is pretty awesome. I know at 3 months, whenever I hit those small milestones, I spent that time reflecting. And even at 3 months when I looked back, I was like yes, I am not that guy! Amazing.

Matt: Yeah Julie, I want to circle back to what you talked about. This is one of the topics that we’ve been riffing on is the whole idea of purpose. For me it was like, I had been doing the same job – I mean, obviously I had been getting promoted – but I was 16 years old, and through the 23 years of basically it was my first job. I went all the way to assistant store manager. And there was definitely some part of me that was starting to feel unfulfilled by what I was doing, and I just got turned way up as soon as I removed the drinking part. I remember saying to myself similarly, obviously I’ve got a very nimble justification mechanism in my brain certainly from my drinking. And I was doing that with my job, too. Well, you know, you’ve got all the benefits, I’ve got 6 weeks paid vacation. I only have to do this for another 15 years, I would say to myself. As soon as I’d say that, I’d feel my body… the opposite of expansion. I guess contract, or… So I’m like, something is here, I need to explore this a little bit. So that’s what led me down the path that I’m on now. I wanted to mention that again, as far as it would have been easy for me to just continue on, doing the job, coming home, having a few drinks. And I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be talking to you guys today, right? But removing the drinks from it, there was definitely something in there. It was a sensation, there was a sensation in the pit of my stomach. It was hard to describe, I don’t want to get too far into that. But there was something there that was like telling me there’s something else to explore here. So that’s what I did.

Maggie: Intuition.

Matt: Yeah, yeah. My intuition was very prickly. Yeah, 100%.

Steve: A lot of those times where it gets uncomfortable, we’re like yeah, I’m not going to listen to that. That’s the point where you said, I thought I would explore that. When you get prickly or itchy or twisty, that’s the cue that I need to explore this Because there’s something there that I could probably do so I’m not so prickly or itchy. And it’s going to be good for you, regardless. It’s going to be good for you.

Maggie: And when you’re drinking daily, it’s very easy to overlook that or not even feel it or just shut it up. I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want to have to move outside of my comfort zone. But it’s when you remove the drinking that those gut hunches, those physical reactions start to really take over where you get to the point of, okay I’m frickin listening, what should I do now? And just following it to the point where you look up, and you’re like 3 months down the road like you said Steve, and you’re like whoa, look at all the cool things I’ve done. And I think that anybody that isn’t doing something that’s aligned with their purpose, isn’t fulfilling, it’s going to sound very good to go back to the escaping agent. I think that finding purpose is the biggest ingredient in living sober or living a life where alcohol is irrelevant, even if you have one you’re able to cut yourself off and say no more, because I enjoy being present for my life now. I love it so much that I don’t want to have this distraction here. And it sounds crazy to my old self, like if I’d have told that to my old self five years ago, I’d have been like here’s the bird, go on, get out of here. But finding that magic.

Julie: That’s exactly what it is. There’s a magic in understanding who you are, what your values are, what’s really important to you, really getting in touch with that, listening to your inner voice, which if we were drinking… all of us drank enough to shut that inner voice off completely. And it takes a lot of practice to start hearing it again. And it takes a lot of… and then that’s what I was going to say, to start trusting it. My inner voice will tell me things I’m like, nah. You don’t know what you’re talking about. And as soon as you start to trust your inner voice and start following it, you’re following your values. I think it was Maggie who said the alignment. When you’re in alignment with your values and your self, the actions that you’re taking, the choices that you’re making, are in alignment with whatever your values are, then you can start feeling all those different voids start to fill with something meaningful instead of just trying to ignore them or dump alcohol into them and hope that that fills it up.

Ben: I would add to that, one of the greatest realizations I’ve had in 11 years of sobriety is that, when I first got sober, a lot changed in a really good way. There was so much momentum forward. And for some reason I thought in the back of my head that the rest of sobriety – as long as I didn’t drink, it would always be that way. Only to realize there were going to be setbacks and I was going to have to face adversity. And that was life. But I wasn’t going to drink over it. That was the piece that was different. Instead I was going to have to deal with it in a healthy, proper way. And I have found that the way that I fill that void complements the setbacks in that it allows me the time to, and the ability to address those issues. Straight, head on.

Steve: And I think you just set me up to wrap this up. You talk about the adversity of life. Inside of the adversity of life, after we’ve started on this journey. We have the time void, we have the emotional void, we have that void of purpose. We have the void of acceptance, belonging, connection with yourself. Essentially that is life and sometimes life happens to us where we’ve been missing those pieces. The greatest thing that we’ve done and that I’ve heard you all speak about is that you’ve found ways to fill that. Because you’ve given yourself the opportunity to have set backs, to have those failures, to have the successes and allow people to share it with us. It’s one of the things that I don’t think we ever did in a really authentic way. Share the ups, downs, and everything in between, even if it’s just a normal day. Ben, Matt, and Maggie, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your thoughts today and thank you so much for your time. It was great having you guys on tonight.