Transcript:

Steve: Welcome to through the glass recovery podcast.

We believe that connection is the opposite of addiction vulnerability is the antidote to shame and that recovery isn’t just rewarding. It’s also a lot of fun. We’re your hosts, Steve and Julie. Listen as we get together with friends to shed light on the hard things, talk about the other side of addiction and how we create a life so full, there’s no space left for alcohol.

Julie: In this episode, we talk about how we are working to overcome people pleasing in order to start saying no, it’s easy to put others wants and needs before our own and to lose ourselves in the process. And it turns out that leads to resentment more than it leads to fulfillment. Listen, as we talk about some tools we use to gain confidence in saying no.

Steve: If You’ve been listening for a while, We’d love to hear what you think. Give us a comment, Send us an email with the topic, suggestion at www.through the glass recovery.com

Julie: So we are here tonight with our friends, Kelsey, Antje and Sonia. So nice to have you guys all here tonight. It’s a ladies only night plus Steve, which we don’t do very often. So I’m gonna have everybody introduce themselves. Kelsey do you want to go First?

Kelsey: Yeah, absolutely. I’m Kelsey, I’m 31 born and raised in Minnesota. I’m a Minnesota girl, I am just over 13 months sober and I have spoken about my journey since day one. I actually started a Tiktok that just held myself accountable, but also I wanted to create a community and have been sharing on there ever since and love these conversations. So super glad to be here.

Julie: Really cool and really glad to have you here. Next we have Sonja and Sonja is the creator and owner of Ever Bloom. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Sonia: Yes, I am Sonia , I’m 44 I was born and raised in Toronto Canada. I moved to the US when I was 19 for school and I stayed here and I’ve been sober for almost six years.

I recently launched a recovery startup called Ever Bloom and we provide small online group sobriety meetings where the groups are matched based on compatibility. So either by goals, by their life, situation, spiritual beliefs. So they can really feel a connection with a sober community and we kept the size of the group so small so everyone can share, ask for feedback, get advice and help set their goals and intentions.

Julie: Yeah, that’s really, really cool. And then last but not least we have Antje who is back for the second episode.

Antje: Yeah, thanks so much for having me again, Julie and Steve. It’s nice to be here. So I’m Antje, I’m 45 and I have two kids, they’re 15 and 12, I’m married and I’m 11.5 months sober and two weeks away from my first year! I’m already thinking about how I’m going to celebrate that. Yeah, I started my journey wanting to moderate and have tried that for 1.5 years not to drink during the week and just on the weekends. But then wouldn’t keep that up and fell back into a drinking every night and then realizing that, you know, you really probably have to call it quits for good and that was tough at first, but I’m glad I did it now.

Julie: We’re really glad you did too. You’ll have to let us know how you decide to celebrate a year. You’re getting so, so close!

Antje: I have some ideas

Julie: Awesome. Yeah, you’ll have to let us know Steve and I were also talking, it’s been a really long time since we’ve said how long we’ve been sober, so I just hit 15 months and Steve?

Steve: And I hit 21 months today.

Julie: Yeah, cool. So yeah, we should probably check in on on how long we’ve been sober every once in a while too.

So anyway, to introduce our topic for tonight, people pleasing seems to be a common theme for those of us in recovery. Like we ran ourselves into the ground trying to please everyone in hopes that it would fill the massive void in our lives. I call myself a recovering people pleaser as much as I call myself a recovering alcoholic. So today we’re going to talk about saying no – from everything to saying no to a drink offered, to saying no to a party you don’t want to go to. When have you had to say no, was it hard? And have you gotten better at it? And how has learning to say no played a part in your recovery?

Kelsey: This is a good topic. Yeah, I don’t know much time we have but this was hard for me. I am also recovering people pleaser 100%. That’s why I drank. I could make everyone happy and continue to abandon myself. And eventually I got to a point where I sat alone in a room with myself and had no idea who I was, because I was everything to everybody and nobody to myself.

And that’s really when I started to realize that alcohol and me were not a good fit. But boundaries have been something that I have been practicing since I got sober. Saying no to things and to people and to events that I used to just say yes to all the time.

I realized that a lot of the things that I went to and showed up to were not things I wanted to be at. And that was really hard to realize that I was really showing up as a lesser version of myself in so many ways, because I was just there trying to make everybody happy at the expense of my own happiness. And it’s gotten easier over time for sure saying no to things and if there’s an event that I know is going to be really difficult or where everybody’s drinking and I just am not up for it, I will say no.

And at a I would say initially, like, I would over explain, right, like I can’t make it because I’m not feeling well and I have to get up early tomorrow and I have to work out and I’m feeling stressed because the holidays are coming up and like these long paragraph text messages and now I just I’m like, I can’t come or I’m not up for coming.

And I’ve been really lucky, I think, in the people in my life that know me and care about me now, just say okay.

Which is another part of this, is you find out pretty quickly who your true people are and that that’s been my experience with saying no.

Steve: When you start saying no, those people either show up or they disappear fairly quickly. It’s almost like when you start the saying no process, it’s snowballs itself, you can feel that sense of self start coming back because you actually made a decision instead of giving it away. Yeah, like you said, going to events or doing things that other people liked to do.

I remember being told to get you like to do this, why don’t you go and do this? It’s like okay. And I just, you know, Yeah, I guess that’s what I like to do and then I would I would go and do that and I’d be drunk the whole time. But I enjoyed the event because I was trashed, not because I was present at the event. I never gave the event a chance.

Julie: There’s been a lot of me that… I don’t know when I quit drinking. My whole first six months was just diving into authenticity. Who am I really? And I have for so long met everybody else’s expectations, and thought I liked it, that once I stopped …what were you gonna say?

Steve: or made up what you thought they expected of you.

Julie: Right! And, and I thought that that was fulfilling. So I’d be, I’m going to do this thing because that’s what I think I’m supposed to like. And then I would feel kind of good about myself because people would be like, you’re so great for doing that. And I had to really sit there and figure out what I even actually like and don’t like doing because I just didn’t have any idea. And the other thing I’ve learned is that I tend to box myself in. Like a hobby that I may have had at one point, you know, I’m known as the person who knits, I loved, I loved knitting forever. Now, I’m like, I feel still feel like I have to, because that’s what’s expected of me.

I’m like, I’m kind of bored and I don’t really want to knit anymore, but I had to really give myself permission to not do all of those things that I’ve just always done. And kind of explore what I really like and don’t like. Which is so sad at 40 years old that I don’t even know what I actually enjoy.

Steve: It’s either sad or now you get the joy of figuring it out.

Julie: Yeah, that is true. It is definitely an adventure and its discovery and that is cool.

Kelsey: I will say one more thing on this is that I’ve noticed a beautiful gift that has come out of this unexpectedly is that I have now allowed the people in my life to say no to me without feeling any shame, any guilt. They know that like “if I tell Kelsey, I don’t want to show up somewhere that’s okay. She’s not gonna push, she’s not gonna care, she doesn’t need a reason, she respects it,” and that’s been really good and beneficial for a lot of my friendships and relationships.

Julie: That is a really cool point. I never thought about it that way, but that is a really, really good point.

Antje: I’m testing the water more in my professional life where I’m starting to feel more confident to say no to some things, and even in practice not to apologize for it. But like I always have to erase this, I’m sorry, like no, erase this, you do not have to be sorry for it. Right? You can just say this is not working and some other time I will do this, or so, you know, my private life, this is not a home life, this is all not so easy. There is definitely a difference. But I’m hoping that by saying no my professional life and not being apologetic about it, that I can carry that over one day and be more confident to just say no to things I really don’t want to do, because what happens a lot is that I get angry with myself that I let other people walk all over me. Then I turn that inward, that anger to, you know, drinking or just being really mad and irritable and let it out on like my kids or my husband, you know, who have not caused the problem. That’s something I need to fix, but I’m not there yet.

So I’m admiring Kelsey for 13 months sober, having made such big steps forward and I’m just kind of dipping my toes into that in my professional life where I feel a little bit more confident that I’m allowed to say this, or even to delegate it to someone else. So if I’m not taking it on than to say somebody else is going to do that for me that is adequate for this and should be doing this. You know, just moving it forward, which I didn’t used to haven’t done before yet.

Julie: Yeah. Is anybody else just overly apologetic? Steve’s talked about this a lot and like if I even sort of sound like I’m about to say no to somebody, I will apologize five different ways before the word no comes out. Like I’m so sorry, and I really apologize… but it’s bad. And Steve taught me early on he has like this “No apologies” thing.

Steve: Yeah. What I did was I define what sorry meant to me. So then after I wrote down my definition of what sorry is I then went out into the world and if it didn’t fit that definition, I had nothing to be sorry for, I had nothing to apologize for. So I would sit in a conversation and it would get thrown back at me and then I would say my piece and then I’d be like I feel like saying sorry right now. I literally… and I’m no it doesn’t fit my definition, I didn’t do anything wrong here. So I sat quietly and it was hard, like it was not, it was not easy. And as I sat there I realized that silence puts the onus back on the other person instead of you taking it away from them. Every time you apologize, you take responsibility for of that event, or even that piece of the conversation and you pull it back and you give it to yourself. So now you end up taking your own emotional responsibility for the situation and then you take theirs. So now you’re carrying the weight of two people instead of just the one and you actually kill the conversation. You end up owning both sides and you don’t allow them to own theirs.

So as soon as I held myself accountable to my own definition, I allowed them to hold and and people are actually really good, if you let them be. The problem is we never let them be because we said sorry for them before it happened. So when you don’t take it away from them, they’re like, oh, this is my problem and then you actually move forward. And what comes with that is self confidence.

Julie: Yeah.

Antje: I think I’m often too afraid that somebody is mad at me. You know, like the feeling that somebody else has that if I say no, they’re going to hate me or I say no, they’re going to be angry that I didn’t do this. The understanding that I’m not responsible for how somebody else feels when I say no, because that’s my business, that I can’t do this right now. That is for me, a super hard concept. I can’t, I have a really hard time with this and I’m not quite sure how am I going to any any advice how to get over this. Like I just cannot.

Julie: It’s in the practice of it. It really is the more you just don’t say sorry and you’re met with somebody who’s like, okay, cool, no problem. And then they just move on and you’re like, you’re not mad and if you do that often enough, I think it gets easier. I’m not by any means going to say I’m a pro at it. But when I have said no. I’ve even taken longstanding volunteer positions that really just haven’t served me for a long time and I was just doing to make people happy. I’ve kind of, you know, let some of those go and sent that email that just says I’m stepping down from this position.

And I mean it was like the one where I just wanted to apologize and I was cringing to hit send and it just comes in with, okay, no problem, thanks so much for the time you put in, we’ll find somebody else. And it was great. And I was like, oh, this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But I think the more we do that, the less guilty we feel for for saying no.

Sonia: I think Antje needs some like tools, right? Like, so the first few times you do it need to be ready to do it. Like I’m going to say nothing or I’m going to say thanks a lot and like walk away, you just have to like psych yourself up to do it the first few times

Steve: Start out with the conversation that you that you don’t think it’s gonna be that difficult. Because if you do it with a hard conversation, the silence that you sit in is awkward as hell. It’s weird. It feels really weird to do it. Small, simple situation. It’ll come up when your mind’s ready for it. It’ll happen. It happened with me just organically like I thought I wrote it down. It didn’t happen right away. If you start thinking about it and then you find yourself in a situation where you’re like crap, why the hell did I say sorry for that? I am not responsible. And then you go back to it and then have that conversation again. Like if you circle back and then try and correct it afterwards, you start teaching yourself that I don’t have to go back to it because I can own it over here instead.

Antje: I meant just more in general to just to say no. It’s hard when I worry about the reaction or how that other person might feel. So one of the things that I’ve tried is for example, here is a really good example. I was approached by a class to be the class representative representative for my family school and I was like, this is like the nightmare come true for me. I am not that kind of person. When we have these meetings, I’m in the corner talking to no other parent. I can’t do this. And I’m supposed to be the class representative. Why is she reaching out to me? I’m not doing this.

But I was about ready to reply to that email to say of course I will do this because this is me right. And I hated it already. And I was like why am I?And then I was trying to tell myself it’s not gonna be that bad, you’re gonna grow in this. This is the first time you’re gonna do this, it’s gonna be something you… and I’m thinking and my husband is gonna tell me, are you nuts? You never want to do this, you barely show up to those things because you are so socially anxious about this stuff, right? Why are you?

And so before I wrote this email, then the new step for me, of new me is to say, okay, honey, here’s this request. I really don’t want to do this. And I can’t say no, can you write this email for me? So then we sit together and he just says you don’t have time right now. She needs to go somewhere else and ask someone else. And I’m like I can’t say this, she’s gonna hate me. Like she’s gonna hate my my son for it, right?

And so you’re in this dilemma And he’s like what’s the problem? You are over your spread so thin with other stuff, you don’t need to be this first thing, right? And I’m just like, okay, I’m just gonna trust the process and I’m gonna write this the way he says. I’m supposed to write this and then I send it out. And to this day, I feel bad about it. I have to honestly say to this day, I feel my son is probably have some kind of repercussions from that because I said no, and to this day they haven’t found a class representative and it’s all my fault because nobody else wants to step up.

What I what was I supposed to step up?

Julie: Right, How many parents are there? How many parents are there? Like, okay, so it is not solely your responsibility to fill that spot. Every other parents said no too.

Sonia: Yeah, I don’t know if everyone notices this too, but like something we all have in common. I feel like part of the reason we drink, we cannot sit in that discomfort. And so whether it’s like talking over it or like staying busy and doing something and sometimes you just have to like literally just sit on your hands and like, let it wash over you and be uncomfortable. And it’s like the hardest thing I feel like I just started maybe being able to do it and not reacting to like get rid of that discomfort.

What can I do to get rid of this? Well I’ll do this, I’ll do this, I’ll do this like no, just do nothing.

Antje: That’s a good point. That’s what I’m practicing to is trying to sit with it and just let it be. Say hi, this is what it is, but I’m doing this and it’s gonna get easier, you’re right, I’m actually doing that.

Kelsey: I was gonna say it reminds me of uh… and you had mentioned how your son is probably like, what the heck mom?

And it reminds me of a story. I believe was Brene Brown on her podcast. She was saying she was invited to a conference at her son’s school and she told her son I’m not up to it, I’m not going to go. And he looked at her and he said, I didn’t know we could do that. And she taught him in that moment, right, that you don’t have to go to things you don’t want to go to. And like so much of my upbringing was like, no, you show up with a smile. You hug that person you show up, you do the dance, you go home. It doesn’t matter how you’re feeling, you just show up. And you might be thinking your son’s thinking what the heck mom? But he could be thinking dang, that’s cool. She said no, she didn’t want to do it and now I can do that and she’ll support me. And like, that’s a really cool lesson that I think so many of us never got.

Antje: Yes, because my son has the same tendency. He actually was stuck with the kid, nobody liked on a class trip and that kid ended up bribing him into, or making him pay for stuff that he wanted. He came home in tears and said that he spent all his little bit of money that we gave him on these other kids ice cream and whatever that kid wanted and made him like a pushover. Like he just did it. And I said why did you do that? But I would have probably done the same thing so he can definitely use some modeling and honestly he was like mom, I know you don’t want to do this.Like please do yourself a favor.You knew that it wouldn’t be for me.

Julie: Yeah, that is a really great point. It’s just that empowers not just you, but it empowers him too. I think that’s a beautiful thing.

Sonia: Mhm I just think there’s also for me like the big No is engaging in conversations I don’t want to that aren’t healthy. Like I think I grew up with a lot of like gossiping and criticism. And like something about getting sober, it’s just like it’s like wall went up and I would have like a physical reaction to like people trying to like gossip with me or talk about other people and and it was strange, it was like I can no longer tolerate passive aggressive inauthentic negative type. You know, it’s fine. Like I have no problem with the emotions of anger and pain and like sadness but those kind of like toxic behaviors, I just can’t I know that the closer I am or the more I engage them, the closer I am to drinking.

Like I just can feel it in my body that it gets me like that much closer and so I have to just kind of like stay away from it. I don’t know if anyone else has that.

Steve: It doesn’t do any good for anyone, gossip does nothing good for anyone.

Julie: It’s gossip is… to me, gossip is a lot like talking about politics and a lot like talking about the weather, and it’s a really good way to fill the silence without ever saying anything meaningful about yourself. It is like you’re putting up a wall and you’re telling the people around you, I am not going to be vulnerable, you are not going to know anything about me. Let’s talk about other people. And it makes me, it makes my skin crawl. Like I’ve never liked gossip. It’s always made me uncomfortable. I really have a hard time even like being in the presence of people who spend their time gossiping. Like the old girl’s nights that I used to go to. I haven’t really done that in a really long time. You know when I did show up and I was sober and I wasn’t just you know, drinking and laughing like everybody else.

I was just thinking, what is wrong here? Why are we so obsessed with all of these other people that I barely even know, but we’re not going to talk to each other about anything important. There’s zero connecting going on at those, you know, events because we’re all just focused on something outside of ourselves. It’s just a way to fill the silence and I cannot handle that anymore at all. I just don’t go to girls nights. I don’t, if if I am sitting there in a situation where people are gossiping, I will straight up leave. I’ll just sorry guys, I gotta go. And I don’t, I really don’t even feel apologetic for that one anymore.

Sonia: It’s amazing though because it’s like before, it’s like, what was that? Was that part of my personality? Was it something I did like, I don’t know, it’s, it’s it’s an unbelievable change that happens where you’re like, oh no, not okay. I don’t know why I tolerated that.

Steve: It’s not authentic at all.

Sonia: It’s not.

Steve: I think that’s where the part, that’s the part where it becomes not okay is the whole inauthenticity of it. I’m so worried about what everyone else is doing. I’m completely disregarding myself.

There’s nothing authentic about it. So once you get sober, you start self actualizing and then once you do that, none of that conversation sounds fun.I mean, I’m guilty, plenty guilty of gossip. Right? I was the center of a whole bunch of it before. It’s something I avoid now completely, completely.

Sonia: How do you avoid it? Like how do you guys like get out of situations where you’re like, you know what, I can’t, I just can’t do it. I know in my head I’m doing it and was like, I don’t have that for you right now.

Julie: I have, there’s one person in particular that I can think of that, it seems like the conversation always turns into gossip of some kind and I always, okay, so like, I don’t know how to explain this in a way that if this friend ever hears this podcast, they’re not gonna be… so, so she’ll say something kind of judgy about another person. That seems to be really common, right, Whether it’s judging somebody else’s parenting or judging how somebody else dresses or whatever. And so I’ve, like, in the parenting instance, which has come up a few different times, I’ve turned that into, um, have you ever just like, showed up and offered to help her? You know, if there’s a mom that she’s like, oh my God, she just never does anything or whatever. I’m like, have you ever just showed up and been like, hey, do you need some help? Do you need to like, do you need a break? Can I watch your kids for a few hours so you can go have some time to yourself?

So I almost tried to take the judgy saying and turn it into how can we problem solve for this person to make their life easier instead of just saying something negative about what they’re experiencing. And that at the very least, just shuts the conversation down. Then I’ll bring it back around to some, like, I’ll tell a story from my life or something that I’ve done just to try to redirect it. That’s easier with one other person. I don’t have enough of a big personality. If I’m sitting in a group of people to try to redirect an entire conversation. But in a one on one conversation, I have found myself doing that several times. Let’s problem solve for this person instead of judging them. And let’s see if there’s a way we can help them.

And then also I’m going to tell you this funny story about my dog from last week or you know, this embarrassing moment or whatever and turn it back over to… Because I would rather talk about me and that other person I’m there with, I would love to tell embarrassing stories or stories about my kids or whatever are what is happening in our lives. Which is actually happening because half of gossip is just made up and and assumed anyway. That’s where the connection happens is in talking about ourselves with other people and sharing that connection.

So that’s generally where I go with it. I make that sound easy and it’s not and I have failed multiple times, but that has been so far my, my kind of plan of action with that.

Antje: What I hear you say Julie is kind of like this uh, if I can’t say straight out no to the conversation or no to something. Somebody’s asking me to, I’m solving the problem, right? I’m like, when I can’t do a certain thing, somebody’s asking me then I’m doing it by saying, hey ask this person he’s actually better or this person, right? And I could just say no. You could just say in that situation when you don’t want to have these conversations. No, I really don’t want to talk about this, right? And I think that should really be at some point the goal, right? But I’m with you too with that strategy of saying, okay, I don’t want to straight out call them out or say just plain out no, because that’s my boundary. I’m going to solve the problem. I’m going to say how about over here? Look over there, I gave you the solution, right? And you’re kind of doing that too by saying how about we do this and this, you know, and divert it. But I think what would be really authentic is just to say, you know what, I really don’t want to have this conversation, right? And yeah, but not like I could do it. I’m just pointing out that was kind of on my mind that I tend to go forward now with saying no by actually solving their problem, because I say no by saying how about over here or how about that there? Which is not my job really? I just need to say no, but I make it my problem, whatever they’re bringing to me.

Steve: when someone is gossiping about someone, I mean I’ve done this before too and it’s like you seem like you’re very concerned about what this person is doing, why don’t you have a conversation with them? They’re not here right now. So I mean if you really do, you’re showing some valid concern here. Why don’t you just reach out and after that it’s like crap, you just made me own gossip. Like it is that I’ve done it before and it shut it right down. No, well I don’t want to talk to them about it. Well, I mean talking to me about it isn’t gonna do any good. We’re not gonna solve that person’s problem, right? But you seem like you’re visibly concerned talking about here. Isn’t gonna do anything.

Julie: That’s actually like brilliant though, because how often does gossip show up as concerned, quote unquote for another person? Right? Like that’s the way to make it acceptable. I’m really concerned about this person because they’re doing such and such an oh my gosh, can you believe it?You know? Whatever. That’s a brilliant way to word that. Like, you should go talk to them because that’s that is a valid concern. I love that.

Steve: The last thing… you want to shut that down. The last thing you’re gonna want to do. I’ve been in one. I remember one it was it was that where can there was a couple of people that were essentially kind of making fun of someone and I was like, this isn’t really fair to this person because they’re not even here to defend themselves and everyone just went silent and I was like ha that worked, you have to remember that

Sonia: Steve coming in big!

Steve: It’s like I haven’t had very many opportunities to do that, but that happened the one time and I was this is really uncomfortable, I was really uncomfortable in it. And we’re making up stories, we’re making up stories about what this person’s doing and laughing about this person behind their back. How fair is that? I mean I’m guilty of it. I’ve done it a lot of times, but there’s nothing positive about it. All we’re doing is character assassination behind someone’s back. It is not fair to that person at all. And I mean I don’t want that to happen to me, why should I do it to someone else? And so I try to make a point to not anymore and it hurts, it’s not authentic. It’s back to that. Again.

One of the things that I was I have written down here is just not having the courage to say no and then dealing with it later. This is something I’m guilty of. Saying yes because it’s not my problem now. I can deal with it, I have two weeks to deal with it. So I’ll say yes now I don’t want to do it, but it’s easy so I can say yes and I got to walk away from it and then I just procrastinate my way to the problem and then I’m stuck between the rock and a hard spot. And now I’m running around asking for help. I’m running, I’m doing all of these things that I don’t need to be doing because I didn’t have the courage to say no in the first place or at least open up the conversation or deflect and say, you know, what can I think about this?

Can I have some time? Most of the time I feel like I have to answer right away and I have to give that yes or no or whatever that may be. Like it’s an immediate concern. Everything is now hurry up now now and it’s not. Life moves on. It’ll carry on. It’s not like there’s a fire in front of me and I have to do something about it immediately. Learning, teaching myself how to not treat every situation like that helps reduce the immediate stress in trying to answer right away.

Julie: That is an excellent tool. Like how often does somebody ask us to do something and you’re just like your heart starts racing and you start sweating and you’re like, yes, I’ll do it. Like if we all just stopped , every time somebody asked us to do something and say, can I get you an answer this afternoon? Just give ourselves space to pause before we say yes or no. If we make that a habit, we would probably all be a lot less over committed. Because for me it’s just it’s like instant reaction to just say yes. Because I want everybody to like me by golly. And so if we that’s like that’s a really great tool that we could probably all use

Antje: also since I got sober, I’ve picked up quite a few hobbies and now I have much more balance in my life and when people come and ask me about things I’m now thinking and that means giving up the things that I made space for. Like running, like yoga painting, you know where I’m like, okay, I say yes, that goes bye bye. You want this not to happen any more than say yes, right?

So I challenge myself with that and say, okay, if you want to keep that balance, you got to say no more often. It didn’t work when I used to think, okay, it will take time away from my family because that for some reason, always gave gave gave and I just work, work, work and ad that on. But now I found some kind of pleasure and you know, having actually a life outside of things and now it’s like, okay, if you want to keep this, you’ve got to say no. And then my family also has more for me because for these hobbies I’m home more or I’m saying no more often. So as I said in my professional life, I’m able to do this more. But yeah, amongst friends or other things. It’s still very hard.

Steve: So, Kelsey, you talked about allowing others to say no to you, something I had never really thought about and how that effect comes back around. I think that’s that was beautifully said tonight. Supporting your children when they say no. That was another really interesting one. Sitting through the awkwardness of the silence in between or giving other people a chance to reply instead of taking that away from them.

We talked about trying to avoid gossip and how we deal with it and then delaying that reply with commitment so we can allow ourselves some time to think about it. Kelsey, Sonia, Antje, thank you guys so much for joining us tonight. Thank you for your time and thank you for your thoughts. Really, really appreciate it.

Julie: Yeah, thank you guys so much.

Sonia: Thank you.

Kelsey: Yeah, this was amazing.

Julie: We’d also like to thank our listeners for sharing this space with us.

Remember to subscribe or follow to keep getting new content.

And if you have any comments or topic suggestions, you can email us at through the glass recovery at gmail dot com.

We’ll see you next time as we continue to explore life on the other side of alcohol