Transcript:

Julie: Alright, welcome everybody! We have an awesome line up tonight. I’m gonna have Alex go ahead and start with an introduction.

Alex: Yeah, my name is Alex. Alex Brummel. I’m currently in Omaha, NE. Born and raised in south Texas for 20 years of my life. Then my family, in 2007 or 2008, came to Omaha, as border towns in south Texas were just getting crushed by the recession. So I’ve been in the Midwest for about ten years. I’ve been sober for… today is actually my 100^th day of sobriety.

Steve: Nice timing! Way to go!

Alex: I know! As I was choosing dates, I didn’t choose this date intentionally, but my wife was actually the one last night that told me, “Hey, tomorrow is 100 days.” I thought, oh, wow, yeah, that’s pretty cool. Yeah, those first 30 days crawled, and then after that you blink twice and… anyway, yeah, I’m excited to be here. I have my wife, and then a bonus daughter as I call her. A seven year old that’s not biologically mine, but mine by all other rights. So yeah, just living the sober life and really excited to be here tonight and share some of my journey. This podcast actually helped me, especially the first couple of weeks of sobriety, learning a new lifestyle and how to live the sober life.

Julie: Awesome, well we’re really glad you’re here. Can’t wait to get to know you a little bit better. And so glad that this podcast helped you out. Really glad to hear that. Eliza, would you like to go next?

Eliza: Sure, thank you for having me and huge congrats on 100 days. You’re right, it really crawls in the beginning and then it picks up steam. So I guess I’ll start with sobriety date. I’ve been sober almost 3.5 years now from 10/16/2019. I got sober when I got pregnant with my daughter. I was termed a – and I hate this term – a “chronic relapser.” I could not stay sober. I did a geographical shuffle around the country, I lived in like 9 states trying to get sober and could not get sober and stay sober until I got pregnant. And then it was a race to very quickly figure out what to do. But fortunately we did, and I actually just had my second child in sobriety four months ago. My husband is also in recovery, so that’s pretty cool. We actually met at a treatment center but we didn’t get together until many years later. And I always joked with the treatment center, “I promise we didn’t get together until later!” (laughter)

Julie: That is really great! It sounds like you’ve created an amazing life for yourself here in recovery, I’m so glad.

Eliza: Yeah. I live in Boston, MA in the suburbs now. And I actually just over the summer took a position working for a behavioral analytics company that aims to predict relapse and improve the continuity of care for people in the aftermath. So, it’s really cool.

Julie: Amazing! Yeah, if you want to send some links for some of that over to us, we will definitely include those in the show notes, because it sounds like some really interesting stuff you’re involved with. And last but not least we have Matt.

Matthew: Yeah, I’m Matthew Morrison. I live right outside Ann Arbor, MI. 830 days sober today. Good stuff. I’m a director of operations for a hospitality company. Basically, I travel the United States and pretty much open up senior homes, hospitals, senior living. I’m currently in Long Island, NY. I’m based out of Boston. I’m also a chronic relapser. I went to my first treatment center, I think I was 25, 24. And never stopped, always did it my way. In and out of the program pretty much my whole adult life. I’m a firm believer that you’ve got to hit your rockest bottom, because every time I thought I hit rock bottom it never was. So I just gave up and started listening, and shut the f— up, and here I am today.

Julie: Really glad you’re here. Awesome, well tonight’s topic is forgiveness. I think forgiveness can play into recovery in a lot of different ways, from forgiving others and forgiving ourselves. And of course most of us did a lot of things while we were drinking that require us to ask others to forgive us. So what role has forgiveness played in your recovery? This is a heavy topic.

Steve: Yeah it is.

Eliza: I can go. So I think this is sort of a taboo topic but I think it’s really important, specifically as it relates to pregnant women. The hardest part has been forgiving myself. I didn’t really expect people to forgive me too much at the beginning, I thought my actions would eventually prove that. But by far, the thing that I still grapple with today, is forgiving myself. Because I was not sober when I got pregnant. And I did not get it a week later or even a month later. I was on the path and I was very serious about it. But I did not get sober immediately. And I think that’s something that specifically women have a hard time with, because we’re supposed to be naturally mothers and caregivers, and that’s a really taboo thing to admit. So what better way to admit it than here? Because I hope that somebody who is listening and maybe is struggling with the same thing doesn’t have the same experience. I think it’s realizing that I was very sick and that I was doing the absolute best I could with what I had at the moment, and every day I got closer to sobriety. And we ended up both being sober, months before she was born. She’s never known us a day using. So that’s what I try to remind myself of, but I still really have a hard time with that one. And I would think that a lot of parents would be able to relate to that, even if not women, if their children saw them using. It’s kind of the same thing as being a mother and being pregnant and having that experience. So that’s the thing that I struggle with the most by far.

Julie: You’re not alone, by any stretch. I have heard so many other women share stories similar to that. And I think talking about it like you are here starts to release some of that shame. Because that’s what that is, right? That’s shame. When it’s that hard to talk about. And I have talked to a lot of women who have done the same thing. I wasn’t really drinking heavily when I was pregnant, so it wasn’t a thing for me. But so, so many women are in the same position, and I’m really glad that you talked about that.

And I think you’re exactly right, it’s acknowledging that you were doing the very best with what you had at the time. And I think for a lot of us that’s how we start to forgive ourselves. Just that statement, just giving ourselves that grace.

Steve: I think we have to give ourselves that grace. Because the outside world is like, “You’re pregnant, just quit.” Like it’s that easy. And it’s not that easy. You know that, we all know that. It’s just not that easy to put it down or stop using. That’s why you have to say, “I was doing the best I could with what I had, with where I was mentally.” Because it’s definitely a mental health thing, right?

Matthew: Oh, absolutely. If it was that easy we wouldn’t be here today.

Steve: No. And there wouldn’t be so many of us, either.

Matthew: Nancy Reagan, didn’t she say, “Just Don’t Do It?” Or what was her slogan?

Alex: “Just Say No.” One of my favorite quotes from This Naked Mind, a book that really helped me through sobriety, was a lot of times in our society, we choose to blame the beggar and not the bottle. The adage is, you see people walking down the street and she uses Las Vegas as an example. People walking down the street in Las Vegas, walking past a homeless man clutching a bottle. And that’s his only possession in the world. And he’s clutching onto that thing for dear life. And people walking past thing, “Oh God, that could never be me.” While they go into a bar and ingest the same exact toxin that that gentleman is holding onto for dear life. Our society has a tendency to ‘blame the beggar and not the bottle’ and that’s something that has helped me, at least, find grace in the fact that this substance is a toxin. It’s a poison, and it’s an addictive one. None of us woke up and chose to make poor decisions because of this substance, but we all would up in the same boat, and here we are.

Julie: And too, we can’t quit for anyone but ourselves. Everybody thinks, “Why can’t you quit for your kids, why can’t you quit for your family, why can’t you quit before it gets so bad you’re losing your job, or you got a DUI?” We can’t quit for anybody but ourselves. So if we’re not in a place where we even believe we deserve that, and you get into all of the self worth, the mental health aspect. If we’re not in a place where we want to quit and believe we can quit for ourselves, we’re not going to be able to quit for anyone else, whether it’s because we’re pregnant or because our family needs us to, or whatever it is. And that is just the nature of addiction. And understanding that goes a long way in self forgiveness, too.

Eliza: And fortunately, to echo your point, I had things in place before that had helped me find some self worth before that. So I had, after my last treatment center, I was put on MAT – another controversial topic for you – but I’m personally a big believer that, whatever saves lives. If it’s twelve steps, if it’s God, if it’s exercise, if it’s MAT, if it works for you that is awesome. And that enabled me to get a career again that I really loved and get married. And yes, he was drinking and I was using, but we had all these places in our lives that we cared about and that we didn’t want to lose and that were giving us some agency and some sense of efficacy back. When we finally did find out we were expecting a child, I had enough belief in myself that I could do it, to get my act together for lack of a better phrase. And I had the resources in place because I had been around and trying this long enough so I knew who to contact and knew what to do. Which I would not have known, had I not been to all of those treatment centers. So I was in an advantageous position at that point, thankfully, and believed that I could do it.

Julie: Yeah, that’s really good.

Steve: I think as controversial as…. it could be anything, depending on the way we look at it. But your recovery is as unique as your personality, I think everyone’s is. There is no one that is going to follow the same path and the same journey. It is yours and yours alone. And it’s who you get to bring along with you. Who you choose to bring along with you, who crosses our paths. That’s the beauty of the whole recovery community. We’re all a reflection of ourselves, and unique at the same time.

Eliza: I like that.

Steve: And our recovery is that, all on it’s own. I got thinking about this, and I think I couldn’t forgive… I had to start trying to forgive myself before I could forgive even others. I had to self reflect and stop playing the victim of my own alcoholism, and then start realizing that I was a product of it, and that the events that happened were a product of that and the decisions that I made. And then as soon as I could start really admitting that yes, this is what happened, this was my fault. How can I accept this and how can I work through this. And regardless of whether that was me apologizing to someone for my own actions, and for my own decisions, I still had to be okay with it myself to even reach the point where I could start asking for it.

Julie: There’s a lot of power in taking responsibility that we need to take responsibility for. There’s so many things that we don’t even want to own. Well, again, going back to shame. But we can’t forgive ourselves or others if we don’t first own that stuff. As hard as it is.

Steve: Eliza brings up the children, and my children, my two young girls for the first four years of their lives I was a drunk father. That plays a lot in it, and I’ve shed a lot of tears over that. I couldn’t even say the words, “I’m a good dad.” Those were almost impossible to get the words out at one point. And to even start trying to forgive myself for that I had to talk about it. As ridiculous as it sounds sometimes coming out of my mouth, I had to talk about it to start. And I’m not even really there yet, I’ll have my days where I have a really hard time with looking at myself in the mirror when it comes to that fact.

Matthew: Yeah Steve, I totally relate to that. Going back to the way my brain works, playing that tape back, how shitty of a person I was in my active addiction. In thinking about forgiveness I look at it two fold. I can’t imagine that people have actually forgiven me. I wouldn’t be where I’m at today if it wasn’t for forgiveness. Maybe family, relationships, work. But it is a struggle sometimes, trying to make amends or even asking for forgiveness to people because, is it really genuine. You know? I’m an alcoholic. I can say I’m sorry a thousand times and not mean a damn word of it. I’m good at that, I’m great at lying. For me right now it’s about digging deep. Am I even ready to ask for forgiveness? Because, like everybody, we’ve done some shitty things in life. We’ve treated people very poorly. But like I said, if it wasn’t for forgiveness, I wouldn’t be on this podcast. People have picked me up. Unconditional love, that’s forgiveness. And that’s my struggle is just loving myself enough to go and be heartfelt about it, and say you know what, I am sorry. And they may forgive me, they may not. Some things are unforgivable in some people’s eyes. Even family, friends, you name it. And I can’t judge them on that, I can’t judge them because they’re not going to forgive me. I’m the one that f—ed it up.

Eliza: I think there’s a real vulnerability in approaching somebody, especially when you really deeply care about the outcome and baring your hear and putting it in their hands of whether they forgive you or not. And it does trace exactly back to what you said, and it’s – are you okay with the outcome, no matter what it is, and can you still forgive yourself. Another interesting point about lying in addiction or in whatever somebody’s substance was, doesn’t matter. But I know that I lied that every time, by the end, I was saying, “Oh, I’m cured, I’m better, I’m done, I’m so sorry!” It was transactional in nature. It was because I wanted something out of it usually. And so the last time I knew things were really different because I wasn’t asking for it. I was waiting for my actions to change the action to change the relationship, and to prove to them that I was sorry and I am sorry. I’ve done probably the worst stuff to my mom, honestly. And you know she’s a great mother, she loves me, she kept forgiving me, she kept showing up for me. She was rightfully incredibly critical and harsh for me at times, but kept showing up for me. And it’s taken her the longest, I think, to come around. Because she heard it the most, she heard the false apologies and the lies the most. It took probably two and a half years for things to truly be different there.

Matt: Yeah, I think that for me, that was key is there’s no time table on forgiveness. I know fresh out of rehab, so many times, I’d get out, think I’m cured, get up on my soap box, everything’s fine, rent’s paid, everything’s good, look at me! There’s all this debauchery that I created for the last two years and people are hurt and people are damaged because of my actions. But I’m fresh out of a 90 day program or fresh out of jail and I’m like, “Look at me, forgive me.” And now I know that’s not how it works, and there’s no time table. A great counselor at my last treatment center said we want that instant gratification, and I’m like, I want them to forgive me now, I need them to forgive me now, and she’s like, “It’ll take time. Just show your sobriety by your actions, and they’ll come around.” Not everybody came around right away. But I was the first one to stand on my soap box and be like, “Look at me! 90 days! I just did 90 meetings!” But everybody else is picking up all the pieces of all the shit I just caused. But that’s my brain… I was raised to sweep everything under the rug. Dad got drunk, fell down, just don’t tell anybody and everything will be fine. So that forgiveness pieces of – not everybody’s going to forgive you on your timetable was real tough for me. It’s been over two years, and some people are still looking over their shoulder waiting for the shoe to drop. Because like you, Eliza, the track record for me is relapse, have a year, maybe 6 months, maybe 3 months, then go back out. Some people that have been in my life twenty or thirty years are just waiting for it to happen. Thank God it’ll never happen, it was my last relapse. But it’s very hard for me to recognize that I have to give them time, too.

Julie: Yeah. I think Steve found a quote, “An apology without action is just manipulation.” Is that how that quote goes? And I can’t tell you how many times I apologized to somebody just because I wanted to fix it just to move forward, so we could move and pretend it never happened. Just to make myself feel better. It was never about them, it was never to try to repair anything that was done. It was just a quick, “I’m sorry” because I wanted to feel better because I felt guilty. And if I said I’m sorry then I would feel less guilty. It was all about me. And to recognize that and understand what real apology is is completely different. Very eye opening.

Steve: Yeah, a real apology isn’t about you at all.

Julie: Right

Alex: It’s easy for that apology to ring hollow also, when the person issuing the apology doesn’t really think it’s their fault to begin with anyway, “It was the booze’s fault.” I’ve ruined relationships where I’ve said really hurtful and bad things and I don’t remember, and “Come on man, you can’t hold that against me, I don’t even remember saying it.” That doesn’t take away that memory in their head of you saying the really awful and terrible things that you said. My journey into sobriety came to me through getting too drunk on my wedding night and not making it to my wedding reception. And robbing my wife of her first dance with her father, and robbing my mother of her first dance with me. And robbing my wife of our first dance together. There’s a lot of things, it was really hard, and if I’m just being as honest as possible, I’m not completely there yet on the forgiveness side yet with myself. It’s interesting, I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety and depression for a little over three years now, so I had done a lot of the legwork internally to get to a good mental state, pre- coming into sobriety. So I kind of took an interesting path into all of this. And to wake up at 1:00 in the morning and the last thing you remember is you’re at your wedding, and now you’re on the couch with my dad who was crying. He’s crying, my wife is understandably pissed, and I’m thinking to myself, am I going to be 24 hours into a marriage that’s ending in divorce? It was really really tough. And that rock bottom is what ultimately led me here and to think back on all of the apologies that I gave to her stemming from things that happened because of alcohol use, it was never really a true apology. I never really thought that it was my fault, it was just the booze. Sorry, it got away from me. Can we move on, can we forget that ever happened? That’s not how an apology works.

Julie: So on the flip side of that… what do you do when you’re the one that’s struggling to forgive someone else? Because I find myself there every so often, and like, that is some major resentment. I’m not AA, but I know as well as everybody else that resentment leads to relapse, right, isn’t that what they say? There are definitely situations where I struggle with forgiving other people. And sometimes they’ve asked for forgiveness and I just don’t have it in me to forgive them, and there’s also the times where we’re kind of owed an apology, or it would be the right thing for the person to do. But you know you’re never going to get that apology. How do you forgive that person enough to move on and not sit there in resentment all the time? So the biggest thing that comes to mind for me – my neighbor shot my dog. It was devastating. It’s a long, long story, but she was my most beloved dog, and my neighbor shot her. And it was a really awful horrible situation and that man is a really awful horrible person who still lives just next door. I mean, I say next door, we have property so we’re pretty separated. So every time I go for a walk, I walk by that house, and I walk by that field where my dog was shot, and the amount of resentment that I carry, and the amount of sadness and anger, like borderline rage, is really unhealthy. And I recognize that, I just don’t know what to do about it. I would love to come on here be like, “I have mastered this,” but I have not mastered this. He still does things just to torment me occasionally, and I go from zero to one hundred rage in an instant. And I don’t know how to… I’ll never get an apology, but somehow I have to make it okay enough that I can… I don’t even know if that’s forgiveness, I don’t know what that is.

Steve: I think it’s acceptance at this point.

Julie: Is that what that is?

Steve: I was going to talk about that part too. At some point if you can’t reach forgiveness, because I don’t think you’re going to be forgiven for everything. I think you have to accept the fact that it might not happen. I think you have to accept the fact that you might not forgive someone else, either. I think that plays a factor. I think that’s the difference between acceptance and forgiveness. I think forgiveness is an action. Right? And I think acceptance is up here, it’s up in our heads, it’s part of the mind game. Because I don’t think acceptance is an action, is it?

Matthew: You don’t think it’s an action?

Steve: I don’t know, I’m just throwing the question out there.

Julie: That’s like super philosophical.

Steve: I don’t know, I get that way sometimes.

Matthew: I think it’s an action.

Julie: Forgiveness to me – so I actually wrote down some thoughts on forgiveness. Saying, “I forgive you,” means “I can understand how this transgression happened, and I trust that it won’t happen again, or at least that there will be some improvement or sincere effort.” So to me, when I say I forgive you, I expect an action. I guess for me, acceptance is, I work that out in my head to make it okay enough that I can live with it without reaching the point of rage.

Eliza: Honestly, I think acceptance is where you have to get to to be okay with your life and not be eaten up by this. One of my favorite quotes about resentment is like drinking the poison and expecting someone else to die. It’s just eating you up and the person’s walking around enjoying their life like they don’t care. Or they’re getting some sort of sick enjoyment out of it, which in this… normally I’m like, “There’s no way that’s what’s happening,” but in this situation, that could be what’s happening. And so for self preservation, it’s just reaching a point of acceptance. I don’t have anything that drastic, I don’t have anything that’s even remotely close to that. All of my examples of forgiveness where I’ve needed to forgive somebody else, the more time I’ve been sober the more I’ve been able to put things in perspective. But again, these have been minor examples and nothing remotely close to that. I don’t think that I could or would want to or would have any interest in forgiving the person in that circumstance. Because I also think some aspect of forgiveness, unless you’re doing it so that some emotion isn’t eating you up inside, I think it does end up benefiting the other person as well as yourself.

Steve: Forgiveness is a two way street. Acceptance is a one way street.

Julie: That’s a good way to put it, yeah. I was raised in a very Christian household in a Christian school, where you’re expected to always forgive. That is just the expectation, if you don’t forgive someone, that makes you a bad person. And just the idea of that not being a requirement is kind of freeing to me. I’ve never even thought about this before but the idea of maybe I don’t have to forgive him, maybe I just accept that it happened and… yeah, not that it’s that easy, not by a long shot. But that has always been the expectation or “requirement” is that you forgive. Always. Maybe that’s always necessary. You guys have me thinking.

Eliza: I don’t even think that’s healthy to always forgive. In certain circumstances I think it’s not. But I can absolutely understand how that upbringing would make you feel like you need to always forgive people. Of course. But absolutely, there are circumstances that don’t warrant forgiveness, where it’s actually detrimental and unhealthy to forgive somebody. You mentioned that the expectation there is that things are going to change and if you blanket forgive somebody, knowing that they aren’t going to change, then you’re setting yourself up to be hurt again.

Julie: Yeah, that is exactly right. This is a really good conversation for me.

Matthew: I feel like for me with that, almost being that doormat in a way. I feel like I forgive very easily, and I feel like it’s… not a barter system, in my head, but I know what I’ve done in my life and I’ve been forgiven for a lot of things. So when someone wrongs me, or I have resentment, I relate it in my head as, “Well, it wasn’t as bad as shit that I did, so I should forgive them.” Which in turn, has kind of turned me into a doormat in a way of people constantly abusing the system in a way. So like you said, it’s not healthy to always forgive, and I need to draw that line of, I need to hold onto this one for awhile and let their actions show me that they’re worthy of it.

Steve: That’s the whole boundaries piece, right?

Matthew: Right, exactly. Which I suck at.

Steve: Which is then the doormat piece. Because if we suck at boundaries we are phenomenal at being doormats.

Matthew: And great at being a people pleaser.

Steve: Yes! Hand in hand!

Matthew: A vicious circle. You think you get one, and then you’re like, “Shit, here we go again!” It’s never ending. I’d rather be doing this self care and everything else than that rabbit hole of, “When am I going to get my next drink, when am I going to sneak it, how am I going to get away with it? Can I go out to my car for ten minutes and return to work and throw Altoids in or whatever I’ve got to do to just to get that little edge.”

Steve: I feel like this is something we’re going to say on this podcast, Melissa said it, I think it’s going to be a regular thing now because it’s brilliant. And that’s just what you’re talking about Matt, if you go back to the bottle, you know what’s on the other side of that. But you don’t know what’s on the other side of not. You don’t know what’s on the other side of that forgiveness and just facing it. Even if you’re the doormat again and again, you know what’s on the other side of that bottle. You don’t know what’s on the other side of trying to set boundaries, trying another time to see if it’s going to change. The self care, the rest of that, whatever that may be, face masks, baths, you name it.

Eliza: Ice baths

Steve: Ice baths… I haven’t done one of those yet. I did a cold one!

Matthew: I was just talking to my colleague about that. I asked him, have you seen these guys on YouTube jumping into a tub full of ice. That just doesn’t seem cool.

Julie: And yet it seems better than going back to drinking, right? (laughter)

Matthew: Absolutely, 100%

Steve: And then if you listen to Huberman Labs Podcast, he talks about the dopamine release from doing an ice bath that’s like, it’s a 3 hour slow release of dopamine after you do that. It’s actually kind of cool. There’s a whole bunch of scientific neatness that goes along with that ice bath that I don’t know that I’m willing to just hop in an ice tub and find out what that’s like. I’ll take a sauna or a hot tub. (laughter)

Alex: Ice baths are not fun. It’s cold. (laughter)

Matthew: I can tell you one thing about forgiveness, things I’m writing down about people and forgiveness. And I remember the day before my last drink, that morning in the Philadelphia airport, when I got on that plane to go to treatment. You know, last day, and I remember praying to God that my plane would crash. And I remember saying, I don’t care who dies. I want to f—ing die. And as I’m checking people off my list, for forgiveness and amends, I’m like, “All the people on the Delta flight to Philadelphia.” And I’m kind of struggling with that. Like, how do I ask for forgiveness from people I’ve never met. Like, I’m losing my mind here, this is silly. But I feel like I have to forgive for wishing that upon 250 people on a plane. I know that sounds mental, but…

Steve: I don’t think that sounds mental, dude. For me, I remember wishing other people would get hurt. I remember wishing other people would get in car accidents, other people would… my wife at the time, co-workers. That was stuff that went through my head because I didn’t want to have to deal with them. I wasn’t a violent drunk, I wasn’t a violent person. In my head, the violence was going to happen to them from someone else so it wasn’t my fault, it was someone else’s fault. And then I wouldn’t have to deal with their presence in my life. That’s how selfish that was. I completely relate to that. And the only way to look at that is, it was just a wish. I never really took any further action to make that happen, to really harm them. I mean, I already caused the harm to those people, just by the choices that I made. But I can relate to that, Matt, because I wished harm on other people so I wouldn’t have to deal with the stress that I thought they were causing me.

Alex: If if makes you feel any better, Matt, I too have been on a place, violently hungover, questioning all the decisions that I had just made from a bender. And wishing that the plane would go down as well. Not caring who was on it, the Pope could’ve been on it at that point, I really wouldn’t have cared. I wanted that thing to go down. Because I knew when I touched down back home, I had a whole pile of shit to eat. And I was not ready. I never thought about going to the point of thinking I need to ask those people for forgiveness, but I completely understand what you’re saying. Your brain does these gymnastics and there’s a lot of… the more scientific you get into it about the effects of alcohol on your brain and how your synapses fire and how your neurons connect, there’s a lot of interesting information about that as well and how it does just impact your brain and put you into such a foggy, horrible place where, it doesn’t matter, I just want this to be done, I don’t care anymore. And if it takes out other people also, sorry you got in the crossfire. Which is horrible to say now, 100 days into sobriety, I don’t wish that upon anyone obviously and knock wood, never have to be on a plane that’s going down. But I’ve been there man, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Julie: It just illustrates how bad we all got.

Steve: Sometimes when you get random people in a room, one person decides to be vulnerable, and he ends up hearing two other stories that are similar to the same one he just shared. And you all feel just a little bit less alone, because I know I do after listening to you guys. And here we talk about forgiveness. And I know after this, I feel a little bit better because I have tingles. Alex, you talked about society and blame the beggar not the bottle. That’s the stigma. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for forgiveness, Matt you said that. And you also said loving myself enough to be heartfelt about it, and that’s about that forgiveness and about that apology. Eliza, you shared a really vulnerable story about your pregnancy, and working through that and I think this podcast got really personal. I really want to thank all of you guys, Alex, Eliza, and Matt, for coming on here today. Because there is no timetable for forgiveness and I think sometimes we have to accept things for the way they are. So thank you guys for being on here, thank you for your thoughts.