Before we jump in, I’d like to ask you to follow the podcast on Instagram, the account is @odaatpodcast.
Not only am I posting the kind of ideas and suggestions to promote recovery, I’m also creating a ton of content that follows the lessons from Sobriety Reset, a self paced, online course for sobriety. the cover topics like:
How to handle social events sober
How to diffuse emotional triggers
How to resolve past trauma
How to get better sleep
How to build better relationships
How to feel better about yourself, and so much more…
If you want to learn more about the course, just visit SobrietyReset.com or DM me with any questions!
Subscribe So You Don’t Miss Out!
iTunes: https://apple.co/30g6ALF
Spotify: https://odaatchat.libsyn.com/spotify
Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3n0taNQ
YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2UpR5Lo
Be sure to follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration: @odaatpodcast and @arlinaallen
Connect with Brooke!
Visit Website: https://www.innovativecoachbrooke.com/
Follow on Instagram: @brookecollinscoaching
Episode Transcript:
Arlina Allen 6:12
Well, Brooke, thanks for joining me on the podcast today.
Unknown Speaker 6:14
Thanks for having me.
Arlina Allen 6:15
Yay, we’re gonna start with the lightning round. And I keep saying this, but it’s really not very fast at all. So we’re gonna talk we’re gonna, I should just start calling it the turtle room. Go slow. But it’s kind of a fun jumping off point. Because it just is a good place for discussion. And I’ll do your little bio before we jump into this, so But are you ready for the it’s a little game?
Brooke 6:44
For sure. I’m ready. I am as ready as I’m going to be
Arlina Allen 6:51
Do you have a favorite recovery book?
Brooke 6:55
I think that probably the one that helped me the most is I think, Ruby Warrington. So curious, sober curious. Yeah.
Arlina Allen 7:13
Were you still drinking when you read that
Brooke 7:15
I wasn’t, I just it was a whole, it opened my eyes up to a whole to the idea that you could get sober without being paralyzed in your addiction and hitting a rock bottom. Like, to me, it was like the most profound part of my journey, just knowing that there are people out there that don’t have to hit a low point like I did. And I think for whatever your reasons, I just, I feel like that sort of has sparked the move this movement of sober curiosity and people that are getting sober for themselves. And because they don’t like the way alcohol makes them feel, instead of the dependence that I had on it.
Arlina Allen 7:57
Right. So you ended you did actually have that rock bottom experience? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, that’ll be fun to talk about. No, but you know, what’s interesting about the term sober curious, is that I think it’s a sort of soft opening into this world of recovery without having to use outdated terms like alcoholic,
Brooke 8:21
right? Yeah, no, see, I know that it’s an outdated term, but and it’s not a popular opinion. But for, for me, personally, if I don’t say that I’m an alcoholic regularly, I forget that I’m an alcoholic regularly. So I like my brain is like you don’t, you don’t have a problem. But you’re good. You haven’t drank in X amount of years. So I know it’s outdated and it’s not the modern way of things. But it saying it out loud for me has solidified my sobriety by being able to accept and say like, Yeah, I’m an alcoholic, and there’s millions of others around the world that look like me and you know, aren’t living under a bridge. But I do I do think that there is I understand I didn’t want to admit that myself at the beginning right so I do understand it I just for me, personally, I have to alcoholic is a term that will never be outdated in my recovery.
Arlina Allen 9:19
I love that you said that. I think I get a little scared like I don’t want to turn people away from recovery. And some people are like, scared, but thank you for saying that that Yeah, I mean, I don’t think it’s an unpopular opinion. I think there are a lot of people who are very vocal about not liking certain words character defects, alcoholic you know all that stuff. And so there’s this big backlash against using words like that and I’m such a people pleaser. I’m like, okay, we can call it alcohol use disorder. But when I damn it, so codependent Well,
Brooke 9:57
I mean, I think it has its I find myself with certain in certain groups I, I guess I censor myself a little the people pleaser in me will start censoring but the, at the core of it all it is it’s I don’t I know people don’t want to be labeled, but I like that you
Arlina Allen 10:16
embrace the label.
Brooke 10:17
Yeah, well I think it’s a disease it is a delete if my brain were next to someone else’s brain a Normie who doesn’t have an alcohol problem my brain looks different than their brain, it lights up differently. It’s a disease. So, if I had cancer, I wouldn’t say I have a mass that I’m dealing with. I mean, I would say you have cancer.
Arlina Allen 10:38
That is a larious. That is also very true. What you just did. I like that. Um, okay, so Ruby Warrington. I just actually, you know, I just started I just downloaded her book not that long ago, I saw her on my friends podcast, and I was like, my friend, Casey Davidson hosts the Hello Sunday podcast. super fabulous. So I got a really, really good interview. Thanks for sharing that. Do you have a go to mantra or quote that you live by?
Unknown Speaker 11:13
Live for today? Cuz nobody’s promised tomorrow.
Arlina Allen 11:17
Oh, gosh. Isn’t that the truth? Listen, you just told me a little story about your your family. You know? No, you lost your sister. I just lost my mom. Man. Does that quote hit home for me?
Brooke 11:30
It’s yeah, that was her. That’s what she said. So that her sister used to say that. Yeah, that’s where I’ve, I mean, I’ve used it my whole life.
Arlina Allen 11:40
Right? Oh, that’s beautiful. Sort of like the Carpe Diem. Seize the day. Don’t sweat this. Yeah, stuff. encapsulates a lot of good things
Unknown Speaker 11:49
like that. Yeah, it does.
Arlina Allen 11:52
Do you have a regular self care practice? Or do you think of it more like a weekly routine?
Brooke 12:00
Um, I have I think I do. I have a self care practice. That’s regular. I meditate regularly. Lately, it’s been a lot of Joe Dispenza stuff. Work and moving because I’m like, obsessed.
Arlina Allen 12:12
Girl, we should set up. We should go to one of those retreats together.
Unknown Speaker 12:16
I literally just bought the courses because I’m like, these are prerequisites to have to go to any of these things like,
Arlina Allen 12:22
yeah. I hate to burst your bubble. But if you buy the if you go to the live event, it’s included. Okay, so Well, after this, we’ll plan our week long. I have a friend who has been tough, like four of them.
Unknown Speaker 12:40
I’ve heard they’re like, I mean, obviously, they’re life changing. So I am definitely we will chat at the end of this about that because I was I went to Mir of all spawn wellness resort, like bougie in the beginning of November, which has been a kind of a real shift for me. And what did you do there? I did a lot there. I got some Ayurvedic treatments that I wouldn’t normally have in Michigan here that were interesting cleansing that third eye chakra with this. It’s like the cleanse your whole body within and get lymphatic system at the same time. So it’s a massage, but it’s not like a massage you’ve ever had here. It’s very different. And then they say mantras and they massage your belly even which was for any woman is a weird experience. Like, I was like, You’re gonna massage my stomach like I don’t even let my husband touch my stomach.
Arlina Allen 13:41
Nobody’s touching this. Not even me, but
Unknown Speaker 13:43
I gotta say, it felt fabulous. And my whole like, center like felt so free. I like light, I don’t know. And then they put this hot oil over your third eye and they let it drip and then they the oil gets all in your hair and they do this incredible acupressure
Arlina Allen 14:01
massage on your head. It’s like cranial sacral stuff. Oh
Unknown Speaker 14:05
god. Yeah, it was like, so that was my favorite thing. experience that I had it mirrorball. And then I did equine, a couple of Equine experiences, which were a horse that I think are life changing for me. And I like so much so that I have I have talked to them about who does the same type of equine therapy that they do here because I want to continue to do the equine therapy. But anyways, how backpedal I do have a self care routine. Joe Dispenza I meditate and the intuitive emir of all was telling me to that something with energy. I had three kind of spiritual advisors there that I saw and every one of them said, I really see something with energy work with you. You really need to start tapping in like Abraham Hicks or Joe Dispenza and I’m real familiar with Abraham. But I really have only kind of dipped my toe in the Dispenza pool. So now I’m like, all in after like three we I mean, I bought like walking meditations. And I’ve got other meditations. And I mean, it’s just the whole concept. And what he does in a meditation makes me feel so grounded, that I can’t wait to experience even more of of that. Yeah. So meditation practice for me is huge, because I think like many people in recovery, my mind doesn’t stop it never I drank to stop my mind from running the way that it ran. And, for me, it’s extremely important that I ground myself every single day, even if it’s only for 10 minutes. If it’s a crazy, busy day, and I only have 10, five minutes, I’ve got to do something to silence my brain to get my day going, daily grounding.
Arlina Allen 15:54
I love that. Yeah. Joe Dispenza, his some of the ideas that he teaches, I incorporate that into part of my coaching practice. And it’s all in my classes, because it’s just so practical, and it’s science based. So it’s not hyperbole, it’s, it’s so interesting.
Unknown Speaker 16:13
It’s how you clench the the non woowoo belief, you know, like, well, this is a scientifically proven fact.
Arlina Allen 16:19
Yeah, science, or like, the Breaking Bad Guy science bitch. Love him. That’s a great show. I know my God. Okay, so I love that like, and you know, what’s interesting is Joe Dispenza has so many interviews on different podcasts like Aubrey Marcus did, or a couple of interviews with him. Lewis house has a couple of interviews with him that are really good. But I just,
Unknown Speaker 16:47
I mean, yeah, he’s another one that I look up to and listen to a lot of his stuff, his YouTubes because they’re just inspirational. I like to pump myself full of my future self and positive thoughts. Because I left to my own devices, I will sit and tell myself how awful I am all day, every day, you know, I’m not mean to like out my thoughts. I’ll be in my head. Like, what’s wrong with you? So?
Arlina Allen 17:13
Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. The whole negativity, bias, confirmation bias that’s all deeply rooted in our neuro psychology. And, yeah, so it is, you know, it’s interesting. It’s like an ongoing process. Like you wouldn’t go to the gym once and expect to stay in shape forever. Right. So it’s like, it’s the daily conditioning that’s required little daily brainwashing as I like to. Very good. What’s one thing you wish you knew when you first got sober?
Unknown Speaker 17:43
Oh, um, honestly, that, that it gets that it does get better. I didn’t believe that. I knew my life is gonna get better because I was not going to be in the ship. So sorry. Okay, um, I didn’t, I knew I was no longer going to be like, in the total chaos of everything. But I, I truly thought like, things are going to be so boring. Like, who I was and like, and I was doing they don’t work was hard. And the first two years were hard for me. The first year more just about not drinking in the second year, all the emotional stuff. So I think just knowing that it does get better and you get to come home to yourself, and that’s a beautiful thing that I think a lot of people forget that they don’t even know themselves anymore. When you are struggling so bad with numbing and anesthetizing yourself.
Arlina Allen 18:43
I love that you stop that come home to yourself. Yeah, I remember when I got sober after over a short amount of time. My mom was like, Oh, we have her back. Yeah, come on. I mean, yeah. How long have you been sober?
Unknown Speaker 18:59
I’m nine years and 11 months and couple days. So
Arlina Allen 19:07
10 years?
Unknown Speaker 19:08
Yeah, in I think I was talking when we when we first talked but I get real scores. The holidays for me, quite frankly, are. They’re difficult because my last year of drinking was such a holiday cluster. Like I just get like sick to my stomach sometimes thinking about where I was nine years old, you know, it just is. It’s I’m so glad to not be in that space anymore. I’m grateful that I’m no longer there. And I don’t want to turn my back on it because it’s helped me become who I am. But I think anniversaries I just get like I guess squirrelly is the word. I just get like more anxious and fancy. And let’s go let’s go. Let’s go and, like, let’s get it done. Today. Done. stay busy.
Arlina Allen 19:58
Don’t feel anything. So what is your house? anniversary. It’s okay. January 22 2012. That is a great date. That’s right. Actually have a written down. I just don’t read my own notes this. Oh, yes. Okay. Lots of areas of improvement apparently. I am so yeah, well, I love that so it gets better and that you can’t come home to solve. That’s a beautiful, beautiful idea. What do you do for fun these days?
Unknown Speaker 20:30
But don’t I do for fun? No, I do are fun. I like you know I do what everyone else does I go dancing sometimes with friends I golf, I play tennis i i do barcode workouts I’m most people might think that’s not fun. But to me it is. Yeah. Yeah. I like love the whole concept of like, female empowerment. So the whole vibe of the gym, like gets me going. Um, but I you know, I do. I go to concerts. I love music. So music is sort of how I’ve always been able to articulate my feelings is through songs. And I can find songs that I relate to and gravitate to. And then I’m like, Oh, well, that’s how I’m feeling exactly. And then I play them for people when I can’t articulate it in particular, like my husband romantic relationships, because that’s taken me a lot of work to get over a lot of the trauma that I’ve gone through in romantic relationships and intimate ones. So I love cancers. I love musicians I love you know, any type of it doesn’t matter to me what kind of concert it is, I’m there. So
Arlina Allen 21:41
there’s that quote that music speaks when words fail or something like that, I forget who says that. But I will absolutely love that. When I find traveling, obviously, you’re traveling, travel is fun, will be again one day when I first got sober, do you do you remember that band and Nygma There’s a song called a return to innocence. And it sort of speaks to the paradox of early recovery. It’s like, don’t be afraid to be weak. Don’t be too proud to be strong. Because you know, too proud to be strong sort of speaks to you know, like, we got to get vulnerable and share what’s really going on. And that is strength. People think oh, there’s like this sort of idea out in mainstream that there’s some sort of merit in doing it by yourself or I got sober on my own. There’s no merit and that because it actually requires a lot of courage to be vulnerable and tell the truth. Share the ugly truth and be honest.
Unknown Speaker 22:38
Yeah, I think it’s it’s extremely courageous. To go through and say that you need help. Yeah, it’s hard because we are conditioned since birth to like, you can do it stiffen up your upper left, you got it like you don’t need and then addiction, the layer of like hiding and people sweeping things under the rug so that it’s not found out. That conditioning just adds another layer. So I’m glad that I I am glad that I was able to recognize very early on that there was no way I was doing this without help of some type of community. There was just no way. Plus,
Arlina Allen 23:22
that’s that’s the fun part, too. I don’t think people realize how much fun we have.
Unknown Speaker 23:27
Yeah, no, I mean, it is fun. Yeah,
Arlina Allen 23:29
super fun. Um, tell me how old were you and you had your first Was it a dream? Did you get high? What was your first using?
Unknown Speaker 23:37
It was a drink. I was a freshman in high school. I was 14.
Arlina Allen 23:45
Okay, that’s young. First, where were you?
Unknown Speaker 23:51
We were at went to like this field party. I live in Michigan. So there were lots of fields.
Arlina Allen 23:56
Field party. That sounds like so much fun. You just got in the middle of nowhere and everybody’s circles with their cars and drinks. Is that how it goes?
Unknown Speaker 24:02
Is it bonfire? Like it’s like dazed and confused, sort of just not on that scale of that many people but like, you know, you just have bonfires, and every kid gets like, ways to
Arlina Allen 24:15
get into their car and drive home. Amazing.
Unknown Speaker 24:19
It was the 90s that’s what we did. So
Arlina Allen 24:21
why do you why do you think you took that first drink where you just wanted to be a part of
Unknown Speaker 24:26
or? Yeah, I think my friends we were all gonna we planned it. I mean, I think it was on a Friday or Friday or Saturday night and we had given like a junior money, you know, to buy US beers or whatever. And it was like a planned event I hung out with my best friend my freshman year her sister was a junior so like we hung out already with older kids that were already drinking and smoking weed and cigarettes and things like that. So it was only a matter of time before we decided we were jumping in to what they were doing because it was so cool to do.
Arlina Allen 25:03
Did your parents drink at all?
Unknown Speaker 25:06
Not really? No. My parents to this day aren’t big drinkers at all.
Arlina Allen 25:10
It’s not funny. Okay, so you have your end. How was that first experience for you? Was it like the oh my god, this is amazing. Are you oh yeah,
Unknown Speaker 25:19
like, this is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. I felt for the first time because by the time I drank my sister had already died because she died when I was in eighth grade. So there was just a lot of like, heaviness at my house. And you know, it was very much like, a sad place to be. And I think when I first drank it was the first time since my sister was diagnosed with a rare juvenile bone cancer when I was 10. So I had had like three and a half years of her being sick to on top of, you know, then dying. So it was the first time I had felt free since she was diagnosed. Like, I just felt relaxed. And I was funny. And you know, like, my whole I thought I was so much cooler because people were laughing with me and all the stuff. prettier. I mean, you name it. I that it was, that was it. I was definitely becoming a drinker every chance I got after the first time.
Arlina Allen 26:26
So your sister got sick when you’re like nine and a half. You’re really? Yeah, I was 10. Yeah, yeah, that must have been such a scary, scary experience for you. You know what I’ve heard from other people who’ve had actually interviewed a guy whose little brother had actually a couple people now that I think about it, who had siblings that died from illness like that. And there’s like, things that you know, compounding the sickness is like survivor guilt, or not knowing how to process the death, like without professional like, people don’t didn’t get professional help a lot. It wasn’t like the standard thing to do. Did you get professional help? Or was it like it,
Unknown Speaker 27:04
my parents put me in therapy, we did family therapy from, like, my sister’s cancer unit had social workers that dealt with siblings. In fact, I was lucky enough to go to. There’s this camp called special days. And cancer, kids can go and feel normal for two weeks, and they have nurses and doctors, but they get to do all the things. And then they started doing a siblings week, so siblings only went and got away and got to have an experience where the illness wasn’t touching you and wasn’t around you and you could feel and you were with kids going through exactly what you’re going through. Which was my first experience with if you have like minded people going through the same thing you are you just feel complete because you don’t feel so alone in what you’re going through.
Arlina Allen 27:55
And I hear though, like alone is like one of the core wounds along with life. Yeah, not lovable. Or, you know, not worthy, like alone is such a painful experience is it’s
Unknown Speaker 28:11
you know, I’d rather be alone with myself and content than be in there’s nothing worse than being in a room full of people and feeling alone and lonely like that, to me is like, gets paralyzing. When I feel that like I am out of wherever I am. As quickly as I can get out because they’re usually not my people, if that’s the way I feel.
Arlina Allen 28:34
Not my people. Man, it’s so important for us to have a place where we belong. Did you have that feeling when you were growing up of like, you know, not fitting in or not a part of that’s a pretty common experience. I hear.
Unknown Speaker 28:47
Well, I didn’t until my sister got sick. So I was always I was the baby and like everyone, I was kind of like, you know, everywhere we went in it was I got a lot of attention. But when my sister got sick, she was like a very good tennis player nationally ranked and like she got her arm amputated and played tennis later with my grandpa had made this thing so she could one arm serve the ball and she was like a fighter and so her all the sudden she became this person that I could never live up to and then I didn’t want to be better than her after she died because I didn’t want to diminish the life that she had led so I felt a part of things and then I guess on the peripheral it looked like I felt a part of things but I really didn’t especially after she died because like nobody understood what what I was going through at all
Arlina Allen 29:46
kind of isolating. That’s terrible. Okay, so you start drinking at 14 And when does it when does it escalate? I’m sure that you know you don’t become a daily drinker at 14 Hot water Walk me through the progression.
Unknown Speaker 30:02
Um, I actually drank I wouldn’t say normally ever, but I, I did drink like my friends when I got to college, you know, we drank Thursday, Friday, Saturday, like binge drink the weekend through and then Sunday’s were like hungover Taco Bell pizza day, like, reset up and then go back to class Monday and like, start again, um, I would say that my progression started in my mid 20s. I was in an abusive relationship, and we got married and had a daughter. And we partied together before obviously, you know, like, like, attracts like so. And then when I had my daughter, my priority sort of shifted, and his did not. And so for a while, I was able to deflect because he was the one with the problem. And he was the one who needed help. And I sort of held it together through a series of traumatic experiences with him. And when I finally had the courage to leave, and then I was left kind of with the dust of everything that the last like eight or nine years had had handed to me, I really ramped up drinking to a daily situation, it had been going like four or five times a week, six days a week, you know, drink here and there, but then it was like, drinking straight shots. And I mean, I literally couldn’t process the the trauma that I was needing to process.
Arlina Allen 31:44
Now, I don’t want you to share anything that you don’t want to share. But I have found that and I know that you know, this is true that when we share because there’s there are women listening right now who are either in the middle of a an abusive relationship or have left but have all this unresolved trauma. And you can share in a general way if you want, but can you just sort of as as much as you’re comfortable with share, maybe like the nature of the abuse or the traumatic experiences that then you drank over later? Yeah, sure, it
Unknown Speaker 32:17
was physical. And I’d say looking back narcissistic abuse, a lot of emotional abuse, which I think in the after effects, the physical stuff, like breaking my nose, and there were a couple other really bad incidences like that all healed. But the verbal abuse didn’t, because the stuff that was said to me on a daily basis, weekly basis, like just lingered, and I couldn’t get past the belief that that I was those things that I was fat that I was unlovable that you know, that the wrong kid died, and everybody knows it, and I really had to work at going beyond those thoughts. So while physical, each each form of abuse has its own, you know, aspect to it, I guess, where you need to heal, but I, I have found that the verbal and emotional abuse that I endured, where it was like I was the son, and then I was, you know, like this bag, constant manipulation, that I’m still honestly, over a decade later, like still unlocking and healing from a lot of that stuff. And I’m like, I have a husband now who I’m grateful like his patient, like, what’s up with me going through things because I do you know, I think for any woman that’s stuck in an abusive relationship, you really feel like you can’t leave or you can’t get out because not so much the some some people the financial hardships, that kind of problem, but the emotional like, I’m not worth anything to leave who’s gonna want me who’s gonna want me if I leave this relationship, at least I’ve got somebody you know. So I feel like I’ve I’ve helped at a lot of local abuse centers, and I feel like that seems to be a real thing that a lot of women do feel is why leave because I’m useless. Like I’m worthless. Yeah. What
Arlina Allen 34:39
would you say to somebody listening right now who’s feeling like that?
Unknown Speaker 34:43
Well, that they’re absolutely not worthless, and that they have it within themselves to heal and find joy again, if they have the courage to just reach out and tell somebody and take one step at a time. Don’t look at the big Picture, just leave, it gets better.
Arlina Allen 35:03
That’s so important one step at a time. Tell somebody. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. I know that that’s so painful. But yeah, I mean, that’s one of the things about recovery is that we get to use our experience like we are uniquely qualified to help certain people. So yeah, for sharing that part. Okay, so and you were in that marriage for eight years, eight or nine years? Is that what I heard?
Unknown Speaker 35:27
Yeah, we were married, I think seven. And then together for nine, we added together when I was 20. And I, our divorce was final, like, right at 30. So
Arlina Allen 35:38
are very formative years. Okay, so and then. So it sounds like you had did you have like a moment of clarity? Did you What was the thing that tipped you over to, like, I have to stop drinking.
Unknown Speaker 35:51
Um, I had a moment of clarity. I think it was before the summer where I was sick of I was getting sick, I would get up and like be throwing up and like, couldn’t, I was starting to get withdrawals, like shaky, and I just knew that I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. And the one moment of clarity I had was I had gotten drunk, and I would put macaroni and cheese on for my daughter, like I put the noodles in boiling water. And I ended up passing out and I woke up and the noodles were like black in the pan. And she was like asleep next to me. And I’ve kind of even thought about that in a long time. And that, for me was a defining moment of the thing that killed me was she had turned the stove off, like they were burning, but she had it was off the fire had been turned off. So I just thought this, here’s this five year old now. What did she eat? Like there were wrappers of like, little NutriGrain bars and stuff. And I’m like, oh my god, like, she’s taking care of that. And that I shouldn’t put that on her because I’m not capable of handling life.
Arlina Allen 37:15
I must have so so
Unknown Speaker 37:17
I had called I was lucky enough at that point that I did have a best friend that I grew up with it had started going to meetings. And he was angling 60 days sober. So totally on this pink cloud. And everything was so great. And I hit started wanting to feel that way. Because he all he was doing was telling me how great it was how awesome he was feeling how wonderful everything was. And it was like God, well, like if, if TJ has this going for him like I mean, I need to try this, you know. And so I had asked him after that morning, I you know, I said I think I need help is there. I only was only interested in women’s meetings. And there happened to be one that night. And so I went to my very first a meeting and that was mind blowing to me because I felt like I fit in somewhere for the first time in a long time because I had been hiding and lying and covering my tracks and living this secret for so long that to say out loud, I had said to myself multiple times like fuck, I’m an alcoholic. Like this is like getting bad. And I had never said it in front of other people. And so to say that was one of the most profound experiences because it was like that secret that hiding that shame like it instantly. I mean, I was sobbing I could not say it without it was like a very like took me a long time to say it. But I really felt so good. And then I stuck with it for I don’t know, I think I got like, probably 100 days and then I went back out I met up with a friend and was like, Yeah, okay, I haven’t drank and things have been going really good. And so I’ll have you acted. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. And so I had a glass of wine and I vividly can remember like driving home from her house like fuck these people. I just had one glass of wine and I’m good, I’m fine. I’m fine. There is no problem. I didn’t want another one like everything’s great. And then we are self deceived.
Unknown Speaker 39:43
And then it was I mean it was immediate that compulsion the wanting to drink the next night the wanting another one. The kneading and the looping, have obsessive thoughts about it. And I white knuckled it I think for like 10 days and then I was I mean I was out. That was just kidding. Take me back. Yeah, it was.
Arlina Allen 40:06
I think that’s an experience to go through, though, don’t you?
Unknown Speaker 40:09
Yeah, I do. I there, it’s very rare that you find people that are sober that haven’t had where they’ve multiple blips, right, but like, I think you need, I’m a person who’s always had to prove it to myself. And that was, I think, where I proved to myself that no, this is more than just, I can’t control my drinking. And that’s also when I started recognizing it is a disease because the way that I had four ounces of wine and it was obsessive from that, the second I drank it, like I was focusing on alcohol, if I should have alcohol, if I should not have alcohol, I can’t drink, I’m not going to drink, I’m not going to drink. And it was like so strong and powerful the way that the My mind was, like, battling itself. That it was I definitely think it was an experience that a lot of people need to have just push them. nudge them a little into the acceptance phase of you know what, I’m not like normal people. I really am not because it’s like, an allergy. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Arlina Allen 41:22
It’s like, well, that’s a that’s an important we all have to sort of come to that conclusion ourselves. I’ve I had so many experiences where I was like, what was that? Like? You know, you wake up the next morning, you’re like, Oh, what’s that all about? Why was I so? I keep talking about how like, I had to alter egos. When I was drinking, like I never knew who was going to come out once I started drinking. It was either badass Betsy or wimpy Wendy because I was either fighting or cry. Perfect, though. Yeah. Crazy, bitch. That’s what, that’s what that was.
Unknown Speaker 41:55
Oh, for sure. I mean, I was equally as crazy. I’m guaranteed.
Arlina Allen 42:00
So fun. Is
Unknown Speaker 42:04
real ball fun to be around? Yeah,
Arlina Allen 42:06
good times. So glad that’s behind us now. So you go back to the women’s meetings, do the whole thing, the sponsor and work all the steps.
Unknown Speaker 42:16
And I had a sponsor and I worked them, I got to the third step and kind of struggled more so with getting ready to do my four step and then meeting the character defects part of it, but like, I was not all in it, because I kept sort of dipping my toe back out in like, having a drink and then coming. But I mean, I was always honest with her, like, look, I went out and this and that. And so, you know, she had gotten to a point where it was like, Look, when you want this, like I’m here, I can’t work this for you, you. I’m not your therapist. I’m not you know, like, I’m here for you if you want to go to meetings, but you’re not doing what you need to be doing for you and your sobriety. And so that was but I, you know, was so mad. I’m like, whatever, like this lady’s nuts.
Arlina Allen 43:09
I just did the double finger middle fingers for those. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 43:14
Oh, yeah, I’m sorry. Flicking off the camera cast. So it really was like, if you like, Who do you think you are. And I went back out, and then my ex husband had resurfaced for a minute. So it was just this I’ll call it an explosion of the final hurrah of, We’re never getting together because this is never gonna work. And also drinking so much in such a small amount of time. Like that. I was actually, I was actually scared with the amount I was drinking, like what was happening like, I would if I couldn’t give out I was drinking like, these like boxes of wine, these Botha boxes. And like, I would drink this red wine and chug it and like barf immediately because it was red wine. And I was chugging it, and then pour more in a cup to like, like, make it stay down. And I just was like, terrified of I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to live and I didn’t want to live the way that I was living. And I was in this major, I guess the internal battle of all battles of you know, am I ready to get better? Do I want to get better because then I don’t have all my stuff to lean on anymore. And then my last drink was a three day situation with a drinking buddy of mine and ended up with my mom coming over and 911 Being called and I was, you know, taken to the hospital with like a point 398 blood alcohol level. And I woke up and had like a sitter is what they call them here like, because I’ve been talking about ending my life and not remembered it. And so I was like strapped to the bed, I in the ER, and it was I was an eye opening, look into my future, basically, if I didn’t stop drinking. And I’m lucky that my mom, when I said contact, my sponsor had, had had an interaction with her and like, knew what her name was and was in my phone and like, was able to contact her. And she, I mean, I’m grateful every day she came, she’s my sponsor to this day, by the way, but she came to the hospital and brought her big book and said, you know, she walked right in and looked at me and said, Are you willing to do whatever it takes to get sober? And I was finally defeated? And said, Yeah, I am. And so she sat down next to me and held my hand and said them, we’re gonna we’re gonna get sober. And so we started the book over again.
Arlina Allen 46:19
Oh, that’s beautiful. Makes me want to cry. I mean, just like that hopelessness. I’m like, Are you Are you ready, you’re ready to do whatever it takes. Yeah. And that’s really the place we need to be.
Unknown Speaker 46:34
It takes a lot. I mean, you’ve got to, I feel like I was, I call it the gift of desperation today. Of course, didn’t think so much of that, then, but I was desperate to not die. I mean, the doctors were very, very open with me about my ends at liver enzyme levels, and like, you know, you are only 31 years old, I’m 32 years old. Like, if you keep drinking, you’re gonna die in like a year and a half, like your quality life, you’re gonna get cirrhosis, cirrhosis, you’re gonna, you know, all these things are gonna happen. And I’m lucky that I was traumatized by a childhood, you know, my sister being sick in hospitals and doctors that I’m like, a hypochondriac like I can’t I get so anxious in any medical situation. So that was another driving factor that I call a, it’s a gift today, because I was so petrified of having to go back through that and have to deal with, you know, IVs and being sick, and I was terrified. I mean, I was scared of death, you know. So, I’m, I always say, like, the hypochondriac of me, kind of kept me sober for at least six months, right there the beginning, because I wanted my liver enzymes to get better.
Arlina Allen 47:55
Keep me out of that place. Nothing good happens there. That’s amazing. Thank you for sharing that. I wanted to transition a little bit to some solutions, because you’ve been able to maintain your sobriety for let’s say, 10 years, and you’ve had the process like you’ve been through the steps, which are amazing. I’ve been I do them all the time. You know, I go through the steps. And I have a sponsor that was like, you know, we continue to go through the steps because as we address the steps, we change, you know, they I heard in the beginning, did you hear this too? Like, if you work the steps, the
Unknown Speaker 48:31
steps will work you? Oh, yeah, that was one of the first Yeah, I love that I like because it’s true, you
Arlina Allen 48:37
know, you take it in it. Because during the process that invokes this law of cause and effect, right, you take action, you get a result, nothing personal, you don’t have to be smart, or a good person or anything, you just do the thing. You get the you get the result. But I have found that it doesn’t solve all the problems, like I needed to go to therapy, and it sounds like therapy is part of your story, too. So, you know, how did you you know, we were going to talk about boundaries a little bit because I think that is such a, that’s like so primary and, and having healthy relationships as we get older, because relationships can be such an area of like pain or struggle or whatever. Tell me a little bit about how you think of boundaries and how to have better boundaries.
Unknown Speaker 49:30
Sure, well, I first learned about boundaries, honestly, when I got sober because I finally had to put up a boundary that I was not going to go places where people were drinking or restaurants even that had a bar in it because I knew I couldn’t not feel tempted, right. So I tried to pull myself out of places that were going to be a temptation to me, and that was my first experience with life. Like, Oh, well, when I do this, like, people aren’t mad at me for not going one and two, they’re supporting me more almost because I’m standing my ground. And, you know, I feel proud of myself, because I didn’t go. And I was able to get another day of sobriety. So that was honestly, when I was like, oh, that’s what a boundary feels like, you know, you can enforce them for yourself. Because they are for yourself, I was thinking they were about other people and other places. And it actually was not there about me and what I need to do for me. And, you know, I call them like a loving little fence, you know, without boundaries around you, you are resentful, which any buddy in recovery knows is like the kiss of death, because you just sit pruney and bitter, you know, in the resentment. And it’s really interesting, when you look at like, starting, I always call it baby stepping, like, from what about Bob baby stepping to the bus. So it was like, my first boundaries, were like, Baby stepping, I’m not drinking, baby step, then I had another baby step, I’m not gonna go to bars with my friends. Now they’re baby step, I’m not coming over if you guys are drinking. And then also on the other end of that boundary, recognizing that I was not losing my friendships because of it, because I was just standing up for myself and respecting myself enough to know that, I can’t handle that, you know, and as my sobriety has evolved, boundaries have allowed me to take responsibility for a lot of things that I didn’t want to take responsibility for, you know, I think that I wanted to blame everyone else for everything happening to me, and when you start enforcing boundaries, and, and I say enforced, because anybody can put a boundary down and say, I’m not, I’m no longer gonna go to the restaurant with a bar in it. But if you don’t follow through with it, you’re really not setting a boundary. Right? You know, there has to be a consequence, and you know, an enforcement happening within yourself, like, I’m not going to do that and upholding it. But once I was able to really enforce them and stick to them, I started to notice that my relationships were improving instead of deteriorating, I felt less anxious about having to do things and saying no, was very hard for me. You know, I mean, I’m am also a good little codependent. got that going for me too. So I saying no, was one of the hardest things I ever had to learn to do. And it all started with saying no to drinking. And once I was able to sort of realize that those were boundaries, I was able to start putting them with people in relationships and seeing that everything’s getting so much better. Because I’m, and here’s a wild thought, I’m respecting myself. I’m having respect for myself. And this is what I mean, this is what it feels like, right to respect myself. Because quite frankly, I didn’t respect myself ever until I was in my 30s. I just didn’t, I drank and I did dumb things. And I would shame myself and tell myself how awful I was. And it didn’t help that I had a partner. My first marriage was a partner that saw those things, and use them against me as a weapon. So anybody that’s looking to begin boundaries, it starts with saying No, and that’s the very first step. And it’s a small one.
Arlina Allen 54:15
Well, you said something really interesting to me, because, you know, when I first started contemplating the idea of boundaries, I would think of how I was going to set boundaries with others. Like, I’m going to teach you how to treat me like this is not okay. You know what I mean? It’s like, that’s how I first was introduced to the idea of boundaries by what you were talking about or self boundaries. Right? I almost bad. I don’t know. Self boundaries are a thing for me. Like I have a total a workaholism tendency or a little
Unknown Speaker 54:50
No, you’re not you don’t say,
Arlina Allen 54:53
yeah. Water seeks its own level. We’re gonna be friends. But I’m not I had to put you know, even to this day, it’s like self boundaries are still really important for me to be like, I don’t have people in my life who cross my boundaries. But I, I betray myself all the time. I betrayed myself all the time. And it’s an you know, an interview to Dr. Anna Lemke and she was talking about pro social shame, which is a content I wasn’t really familiar with. And she used it in terms of, you know, the 12 step program, where people lead by example. Right? And so, yeah, I was like, Oh, I thought that was so interesting, because that is a form of boundaries, right? We hang out with people that are, you know, sort of on the same path and kind of get it, you know, but what is very easy to hide is how I abuse myself by making myself work too hard or too long or self sacrificing the, you know,
Unknown Speaker 55:57
self sacrifice all day long. I mean, yeah. Because I, I’ve, I’ve educated myself a lot on these and I work daily. I mean, I’m no different than anybody else. Just because I have some education and certificates and history of helping other people. Doesn’t mean I’m 100% Awesome with myself, like
Arlina Allen 56:19
are not saying that line always cracks me up into meetings when they say, Oh, we are not saying so it’s like really big, like, nobody’s confused about that.
Unknown Speaker 56:28
Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, the thing is, it’s like, everybody struggles with it. Because I would rather sabotage myself, I’ll throw myself under the bus all day, every day, like, oh, well, you know, for me, it’s not hard to be, I’m my own worst enemy. The person that I’m up against all the time is me. It’s never another human being. I’m competing with myself who I want to be who I was who I am today. And it is in finding self regulatory boundaries that I was able to maintain sobriety because I’ll fight myself all the way to the bottom of a vodka Smirnoff bottle. It’s so gross. Like, but I will burn my throat out just to prove to myself how I’m weak. And I’m not, you know, I’m not
Arlina Allen 57:24
worthy. deserving? Yeah, reinforcing those negative biases.
Unknown Speaker 57:29
Yeah. But through being able to say no, I motivated myself into a whole new kind of stratosphere. And when I work with, you know, sponsees or even clients, I, you know, if you get that little, little bit of confidence, you know, you say no, one day and you and you make it through the 24 hours, and it’s like, that confidence, feel so good to have, Wow, I did it, you know, and it motivates the next 24 hours. And when you make it through those next 24 hours, it’s a bigger, like, oh, shit, I’m getting good. I got two days. You know. And, um, I will be honest, the only boundary in the last decade that I have not had conflicted issues with is my boundary of I’m not drinking. So that is the one step one, you know, like, I’m an alcoholic, like I get it every day, that is the one I will not break at least knocking on wood today. For today, I’m not breaking it. And I’ve had a pretty decent streak of, of not breaking it. I think for me, it helps my husband’s in recovery. So it definitely helps me to have you know, someone who not just supports me, but understands the way my crazy mind can be, and have patience and grace with me for the things that I’m not perfect for. Because as women today, in 2021, we have so much pressure from society, from social media, from other parents, if you’re a parent from other co workers, if you’re you know, if you work in the corporate world, from you know, other friends and neighbors that you got to keep up with because they just got an escalated now I’ve got to get an escalate and I’ve got to work harder to get the escalate and there’s so much pressure and then it’s even worse because we put the pressure on ourselves. And then it’s I’m not skinny enough. I’m not pretty enough. Why can I go 20 hours like my neighbor who’s hopped up on Adderall, and you know, why am I not able to run all day and only sleep for three hours and get all the PTA and the stuff done? Um, But
Arlina Allen 1:00:01
the comparison thing that you’re talking it’s comparison Rudel.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:05
And then it goes back to what you said in the beginning that the courage to ask for help, because we seem to think that we can do everything on our own. And we, as women, as a whole are notorious for thinking, I don’t need to have I can do this. I can do this. If I just Ababa, pop, reallocate, move, shifting shift priority, say no to myself, put these people above here and move. It’s like, you know, if you because you can’t see me on the podcast, like, shuffling my little boards around on my calendar, you know? And at the end of the day, I’m still burnt out. I’m still overwhelmed. I’m still exhausted. And why? Because I am incapable of saying, I am fucking drowning. I’m drowning.
Arlina Allen 1:00:53
I’m tired. And yeah, that’s really important that happens
Unknown Speaker 1:00:57
in sobriety, it happens to people who are therapists, it happens to women who are, you know, everybody, Oprah Winfrey herself feels bad. And on some level?
Arlina Allen 1:01:09
Absolutely, absolutely. I think that’s so important and that we, you know, you speak to that we need each other to, you know, get through, you know, and I had shared with you that my mother passed away and the one of the biggest gifts of you know, the end of her life was just being a witness to her goodbyes. And the reoccurring conversation was around, I’m so grateful for the time that we shared together, the laughter like the just the conversations that you were there for me when I was struggling, thank you for all the laughs and that was all that mattered? No, not once did they talk about their cars or their money or their you know, what I’m saying? was beautiful, just such a beautiful experience to, to get to witness that we really do need each other. And that’s all that matters in the end. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:58
And I would, I think, coming out of this pandemic, and I shared that I went to this mirrorball wellness resort, because I needed to untangle myself from my family and my home and get to a place where there was digital mindfulness. So I didn’t have a phone or my, you know, like I was on available to anybody but me. And the overwhelming. The one experience I had during this equine therapy was that, you know, I have been drowning for so long because of this pandemic. And I didn’t even realize it, I help other people for my job, I’ve kept my kids afloat, I’ve kept my husband afloat. I’ve been there for my parents, I’ve done all the things except for take care of myself. And I wasn’t taking care of myself, because I wasn’t recognizing that I was so overwhelmed from all of the unusual because let’s face it, God, I hope we never have to go through anything like that, again in my lifetime. And, you know, I think that the mental health impact is not even started to open up. I think it’s just a little scrape where people are recognizing the impact that it’s had, but I, I get very tired of being everything for everybody else. But the codependent in me, thrives on it. God, it feels so good to help to be the one that like helps in the saving. And when my kids need me, it feels so good to say, here’s your launcher, here’s, you know, like this, and I left this and I’m dropping into school. But like, even though that feels good, it isn’t good for me. And
Arlina Allen 1:03:54
it’s out of balance for sure. Exactly. So
Unknown Speaker 1:03:59
I think making sure that I reevaluated my boundaries and saying like, wow, God, I really, because my kids didn’t have school for a year and a half at school, basically. And we couldn’t do summer camps. Like I have just been in this bubble of all the time. And I’m like there’s a reason you can’t be with your family this much left. Even though I adore my family, I love my husband I love my children are like my, my world but like enough, there’s a reason I need eight hours a day with you in a building learning and me being able to work and do you know, do me because even in a normal situation, I can lose myself in my identity and have these moments of God, where am I? I don’t even recognize myself anymore. And it’s even harder when you’re with the COVID stuff and I’ve been dealing with my clients I’m sure you have to just people feeling like I have no idea what I want to do. I have no idea why I’m so anxious like, nobody’s even.
Arlina Allen 1:05:05
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we’re all on a tight, you know, set boiling frog syndrome. And I don’t even know where this I don’t know if it’s a metaphor, what do you want to call it? But like, Have you heard that idea that if you put a frog in a pot of water when it’s, you know, waters cold and turn up the heat slowly the frog doesn’t even know no to jump out. It doesn’t notice that it’s being boiled. It’s very Yeah, gruesome. But it’s true. But
Unknown Speaker 1:05:29
me pulling myself out of it to say like, oh my god,
Arlina Allen 1:05:34
I like what I’ve been doing to myself. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:37
I got on an airplane and felt more free and had more energy than I’d had in a year probably. Yeah. I mean, it was like, instant.
Arlina Allen 1:05:48
Yeah. Now this is really good. Thank you for talking about the self. I wrote down self regulatory boundaries. That’s really important. And you mentioned that you work with clients how to if people are looking for a coach, or would like to connect with you to talk about how you help people what’s, uh, what’s the best way for people to get a hold of you.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:09
Mostly Instagram, just DM me and then go to my website, too. But Instagram is where I spend most of my time. So it’s at Brooke Collins coaching.
Arlina Allen 1:06:20
Collins coaching. I love that.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:25
Yeah, cuz as Collins was taken the Battle of Instagram, it was like, underscore comments was, like, I’m just gonna do workouts. That’s what we’re doing.
Arlina Allen 1:06:36
Instagram is a double edged sword for me. I love it. And it’s fun at the same time and invokes all my worst character defects of comparison. But it’s fine, it’s fine.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:51
Well, I find that I can jump into that pool as well. Which is why I just kind of spend my time in my DMs talking to real people. And yeah, you know, what’s so good looks like?
Arlina Allen 1:07:06
Well, listen, it’s been such a pleasure to talk to you and get to know you. We’ll talk later about setting up a Joe Dispenza retreat. Oh, yeah, for sure. I think I was trying to talk you into going to the she recovers event in April to Yes, put that put that on your to do list of things to consider.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:25
It was on because it looks like it’s gonna be so much fun.
Arlina Allen 1:07:28
Oh, my gosh, it’s gonna be great. I went a couple years ago to the Beverly Hills one. And it was really amazing. It was an amazing experience. And I think in at this phase of my life, I’m looking for enriching experiences rather than things. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:43
I mean, even with Christmas presents, I actually it’s funny. You said that. So I know we’re wrapping things up. But like I asked my husband like, do you want me to get you like a gift this year? Or should we do an experience like should we go on a little like five day jaunt by ourselves like girls like, experience hands down experience? So then I’m like, Okay,
Arlina Allen 1:08:04
I don’t need another thing I need. Well, I don’t he might need. Yeah. So fun. Well, Brooke, thank you so much for your time today. And I’m looking for people to getting to know you better and reaching out to you. So thanks so much for all that you shared today.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:22
Oh, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It’s an honor to be on your show. I’m glad to have met you for sure. Yeah. And looking forward to getting to know you better.
Arlina Allen 1:08:30
Yes, ma’am. Oh, talk soon.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:34
All right. Bye, bye. Perfect. So I’ll do a bio to obviously in NATO cut this. So hey, what’s up? Okay, so, welcome to the desperately seeking self podcast. Arlina. Allen, I am so excited to have you here.
Arlina Allen 1:08:55
Thanks for having me.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:57
I am really just inspired by a lot of the things that you do. And I love to find someone who I consider air quote, soul sister who is into sobriety who’s been sober for a while, who also helps women empower themselves to be the best versions of themselves. And that’s what, what I live for. Really, it’s like my jam. So why don’t you just tell me tell the audience or all of us a little bit about yourself and how you got to be such a badass, you know, therapist, you’re, you know, you have a podcast, your podcast host, you have all kinds of things that you do a coach, it’s the list is endless for all the things you do. So what
Arlina Allen 1:09:42
we want to add that to a little bit of workaholism. Yeah, so I got sober April 23 of 94. So it’s been a long time. And I immediately broke the rules. They said don’t get into a relationship and I met my husband five months in, but and he just celebrated 33 years. So I like to say that we’re off to a good start. Good see was my favourite Star? No, he’s my favorite person ever. And I have to attribute it to, you know, the 12 step program. Because, you know, I feel like the thing that comes in between relationships is resentment. And it wasn’t until I was made aware of this program and steps and all these different concepts that there was a way to actually resolve resentment, resentments, like a wedge in a relationship. And, you know, over time, that wedge can just get so bad. But if you have a way to, you know, metabolize that resentment and process that term resolution, and sort of pivot, you know, make tweaks and adjustments along the way you can go the distance, right. And so I felt like that’s where we’re at.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:54
I love that you said pivot, because to me, I’m always like, literally like friends in my head. I like pivoting myself into oblivion all the time.
Arlina Allen 1:11:05
But so funny, Peppa Yeah, I love that show. Me Yeah. So and that’s, that’s kind of like the end of the story. But the beginning of the story was that I grew up in a family. My parents are really nice people, but they divorce and I was really young. And another very sick, which was very traumatic for me. And then the other significant, you know, traumatic event was that I was sexually abused by a neighbor. When asked about virus, it started when I was about five or six years old, really, um, and it was a neighbor, girl, so that totally, yeah, I messed up my head so hard for a very long time. But those things that happened to me sort of instill this idea that I was not good enough. I wasn’t worthy. I was a bad person. And I sort of from that point on, I was on this quest to fix what was broken, had this idea that I was broken. And what I know now is that I was not broken, I was wounded. Right? We get these soul bruises. I like to call them because we experienced these wounds, and they’re not visible on the outside, but we carry them with us. And there is this lie that time heals all wounds, it doesn’t the pain weight, and we build our lives upon these allies in these wounds. And it’s literally building your house on sand instead of on a solid foundation. But, you know, my parents are very nice people. They did not have drug or alcohol problems. Dad is from Kentucky, very religious, 400 years of ministers on Monday said, because people came like pre Civil War. So they’re been here a long time. My mother was from Mexico City. And so she was first generation. So I was kind of, you know, I’m 53. So when I was growing up, there wasn’t, they didn’t consider like Mexican American kids like me as biracial, it really wasn’t like talked about, like kids that were maybe black and white, right? African American and white. So but we were definitely biracial. And I started I had that experience where I was always different. Like when I was with my Hispanic family, I was the white kid. And when I was with my white family, I was the Hispanic kid. It was weird. Even though like the people on the Mexican side, they were like Spanish. So a lot of them are like blond, blue eyed, which is kind of an interesting, dynamic. That’s a whole nother thing. But all this to say that I grew up feeling different, and alone and afraid, is really how it was. And very early on when I was about it was less than 10. And I just I always say it was less than 10 because I really have a hard time wrapping around the wrapping my head around the idea that I was so young and felt the need to change the way I felt but I did. My parents had divorced, my mom had gone out to dinner, she was allowed to leave the house. She went to dinner, and I decided it’d be a great idea to drink some of the booze it was in a dusty old bottle in under the cabinet and I was left home alone with my older sister. And who was the compliant child I was not. But I remember that first drink like it was yesterday. The booze burned my lips, it burned all the way down. But when it hit bottom, that worm spread through my entire body and then juxtaposition between those two feelings. I didn’t really realize how bad I felt until I felt good. Right? Like all this self consciousness, self hatred, the self loathing, all the feelings of that I was a bad kid. Those are all suddenly removed. And I was left with this relief feeling and that is the feeling that I’ve changed my entire life. Right? Like who doesn’t want to feel that even now, right? ain’t that good feeling but yeah, I got really sick, I threw up everywhere my sister cleaned me out and put me to bed and that sort of beginner alcoholic codependent relationship. And, you know, I had asked her once, I was like, Why didn’t you say anything to mom? And she said, because I would have gotten in trouble. So it wasn’t until I got sober much years later, many years later, when I was doing the four step, that I began to see this pattern that I grew up with this idea that you didn’t have to take responsibility for yourself that you had to take responsibility for others. Right. So that led me to a place where I was disempowered. I was blaming others. And I crashed and burned basically, when I was 25 years old. I just, you know, I just had many experiences from the first drink to the last where it was like, I like to encapsulate my using it experience by saying that if it was in a bottle, a bag or blue jeans, I was doing it.
I wouldn’t use anything. I love that I totally bought into that whole Cinderella story that Prince Charming is going to come rescue my ass like I thought I was doing. Yeah, I thought it was gonna either be money or love that was gonna save me. So I super became super obsessed with making money. So I had a job since I’ve been 13 years old. I’m 53 It’s been a minute. Yeah. And I was kissing a lot of frogs looking for someone to come save me. And you know what the interesting thing was, you know, when I finally was like, got sick and tired of being sick and tired is basically what happened. I got to that dark place of, you know, how did I get here again, I was a puker. Or used to say that if I didn’t have splash marks on my shoes, the next day, it wasn’t a good time. I just had to make a joke out of everything. Because he’s so full of shame. I’m so full of shame about my using experience. You know, waking up going, Oh my God, that’s not my say like, who are you? Oh, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you is not an uncommon phrase on a Sunday morning. Good times.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:14
I think for a lot of us, though, you know, that’s you wake up and you’re like, I had this one. I woke up once and I didn’t know where I was. And I looked back at the wall. And there was this giant poster of Notorious BIG and I was like, Wow, this definitely is the right person because I loved like I love you know, old school gangster rap. I’m not gangster at all. But I love it. Like I really the first
Arlina Allen 1:17:41
thing I thought of when I saw you Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:45
But like, like 16 You know, the East Coast West Coast like, Biggie Smalls. Like it was a big thing. And I was like always east coast. Always. Whatever. So that was like, one of my experiences where I was like least I’m kind of in the right room. Yeah, it’s
Arlina Allen 1:18:00
a good wow. At least there’s that so funny a joke about it now. Oh, good times. Yeah, so that’s that’s kind of that’s the girl that I was that girl. I was that girl and just desperate for desperate for love. And you know what’s funny is when I finally was like, Okay, I can’t do this anymore. I spent about I had a horrible night with my sister. She and I went out and I got super drunk and I had just broken up with my police man boyfriend, who was married. I like to say now that the only married man I sleep with now as my husband. Which he appreciates. But yeah, I had just broken up with my married policeman, boyfriend and I was actually dating his best friend. And he said, The best friend stood me up at the bar. So I was obviously brokenhearted. Because whenever and when we were she was driving my my truck home and we passed the married boyfriend doing a field sobriety test on somebody. And apparently I lost my damn mind and punched the windshield in a couple places and tried to crash the car and tried to jump out and my poor sister was trying to control me. Good luck with that. And we barely We almost made it home. But apparently I kicked her in the face and gave her a bloody nose like while she was driving, I know. And she managed to pull the car over in the neighborhood that we grew up in and went to a neighbor’s house and the police were called and for whatever reason they didn’t take me to jail. But that’s when I woke up the next morning with that. Incomprehensible demoralisation where I was like, I can’t do this anymore. And she had gone to Al Anon and I was like, for me.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:46
For me, who are you going to
Arlina Allen 1:19:48
work with? What is that? Where are you going? I was at Yeah, I was very like confused. Like I was, I was like so so I was completely self centered that incapable of self examination and it’s it’s such a weird place to be right? Yeah, it makes sense to ever make sir make sense to everybody else but I was I was confused. Sharp is a marble as I like to say. But as alcohol does do your brain it’s not not a good thing. And weed I was a terrible weed smoker I used to, you know, and it gave give me as I used to say, like, I when I was growing up, I was, I was going to church a lot. And a pastor’s daughter was the biggest weed smoker I’d ever met one time she told me that not being high was her altered reality. And I was like, I want to be just like you when I grew up. It’s like, You’re my hero.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:42
Yeah, seems legit to me. I mean, yeah,
Arlina Allen 1:20:45
I was like, Oh, my God, I want to be just like you. But the idea was, is I just was trying to numb my feelings out. I just had no coping skills, right. And zero coping skills. My mom didn’t know how to teach many coping skills. You know, my dad left when I was growing up, he was the nurturing one. And she was just angry. And so I just had terrible self esteem when I was growing up. And so I think that’s what the drinking was all about. I just hated who I was. And then I met these guys that were, I was a sales rep for a transportation company. So I was dealing with a lot of men and two of my customers were in the program. And they started breaking these ideas down to me, like, if you don’t take the first drink, he can’t get drunk. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And I was like, desperate to be anybody bought me. Right. And, and so they, you know, you know, ushered me into the rooms, but they were these fine, upstanding men of Alcoholics Anonymous, and they were like the women work with a woman. So they assured me and took me to my first meetings, I choked on the word anonymity. As we do, they would say welcome to the new calmer and I thought I was under the the interrogation spotlight. I was like, Oh, shit, it was so embarrassing. But I was so desperate, you know, it’s funny. It took two years between the incident with my sister to the time I got to the rooms, because that two year period, I had a lot, I had a lot of questions. It’s like, what is an alcoholic? Linda, I crossed the line. What about all the other people that are drinking just like me? Are they alcoholic? Just one question led to more questions. And it was like opening Pandora’s box. But it took me two years to finally show up into the rooms. But when I showed up, I had that gift of desperation that that you talked about too, right? It’s like I was hated who I was. They said you have to change everything a lot. Like Sign me up. There is nothing that I want. Right? The one thing that terrified me was they said that I had to work with a woman. And I had spent so much time and energy decorating the outside. I felt like I didn’t have anything to offer on the inside. My mom and my sister and I did not have good relationships. So I was terrified of woman when I first got sober. But I was so desperate to be sober. I was willing to do anything that they told me to do, including work with women. And so what I did, I found a sponsor. I picked her because she remembered my name. The second time she met me. And I asked my name is hard to remember. So people you know, when when someone remembers my name, I was like, Oh, shit. But it was like the skies had parted. And it was like, Oh, yes, sun was shining on her. I was like angels were singing. I was like, I guess it’s you. You’re the one. And I was terrified of relapsing. And I kept hearing about this ominous four step that people would do steps one, two, and three and relapse, and I was all hail, no, that is not going to happen to me. And I was slightly competitive. So they were like, oh, one, only one and 100 people, you know, get this thing or whatever. And I was like, is going to be me, isn’t going to be me. Yeah, yeah, it’s going to be me, I will compete and kill myself if I have to get there. But I asked her if she would listen to my inventory. And you know what she said to me, she said, I would be honored. And then she said, but we’re going to start with step one. So that’s what we did. And when I worked all the steps, and you know, I learned that in the fourth step, that I was taking inappropriate responsibility for others and not appropriate responsibility for myself. And I quickly learned that I got this idea that if I gave up blame that I could, you know, be empowered and really changed my life and, and I don’t know where that idea came from. Probably didn’t come from me, because all my ideas were polar opposite of like, spiritual, you know, like, you hear I heard things. I heard things like if you’re resentful at someone, you should pray for them. And I was like, You mean slash their tires? Correct. Right. Oh, pray for the free for them that they get everything that you want. I was like, that’s crazy. But nothing I was it was hard
Unknown Speaker 1:25:04
working a hard concept for me to I was like what? I wasn’t it’s I think it’s hard for people to wrap their brains around. Even people without alcohol problems you want me to well wish someone that’s causing me pain? What?
Arlina Allen 1:25:18
Yeah. Because the assumption there is that you’re innocent. Right?
Unknown Speaker 1:25:24
No guilt, the you know, there’s no people I didn’t look at things as 5050 that I was giving 50% of whatever communication or relationship I was having for a very long time.
Arlina Allen 1:25:36
Did you ever read that book? The road less traveled by Amscot pack? No, oh my god. It’s such a good book. But that was in the two years stint that I was trying to figure out who I was I, I pretty much lived in the Self Help section at Barnes and Noble. And one of the things one of the books I read was M Scott Peck and he talked about how every relationship is like 5050. And that we have to own our part. And that was a pretty original concept to me. I was like, I was confused because I thought I was the victim. Turned out I was provoking people and they were responding in a negative way. And all I saw was them responding. I didn’t I had no visibility into how I was no awareness and to how I was affecting others.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:21
That interesting. So you were able to, through sobriety, remove squit slashing people’s tires. And
Arlina Allen 1:26:31
well, I never did, but I was I thought about it.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:37
I egged people’s cars in high school. That was my and then I did have an incident with a golf club and a car at one time in my drinking career. So allegedly, allegedly, yeah, they wanted to arrest me. Thank God my ex husband’s mother owned the vehicle that I tanked because charges so think I mean every day I think sure that bitch she was in that she was in my life and that she didn’t want to press charges because my ex has a restaurant restaurant. I’m all like, wow. But yeah, I so that was one of those things where it seemed totally normal to me because I thought it in my head, like, Yeah, I’m gonna take a golf club to that fuckers car. Like totally normal. I mean, I really thought like, this is so normal. I think everybody does this
Arlina Allen 1:27:24
Carrie Underwood song now exactly hawks about it.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:29
Yeah. And no, it wasn’t normal. And I I think there’s no lesson learned about taking responsibility for your actions or holding yourself accountable until the police walk in. And then you’re like, Oh,
Arlina Allen 1:27:43
my bad. Gravy.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:49
Um, but you So you went through, I like that you had a two year period of asking a bunch of questions, because I think that that’s an important. I think it’s an important journey for anybody, like curiosity about things. And I think for most people struggling with alcoholism or even low self esteem, it’s there’s a lot of questions that we ask that are just meant to keep us stuck, like, well, if so I was drinking as much as I am, then are they an alcoholic? No. So then I’m not an alcoholic it like green lights, the behavior that you want to change, but you don’t really want to change at that time, right? Don’t you think that it opens up a whole new kind of, you get to see things a little differently as your questions evolve, because you can’t outrun yourself or your own truth for too long. I mean, you can for a minute, but I don’t think you can run it for too long. And I think two years is a long haul of things. And
Arlina Allen 1:28:52
that was really painful. And he was so interesting. After interviewing 187 people on my podcast, you know, this two year period is not uncommon. You know, it’s not uncommon to have an extended period of time where you have to ask the questions, and you have to try to shoot all the angles, right? It’s like, okay, this is a problem. How am I going to solve it? Right? Is it reading books? Is it a glass of water between each drinks? Is it switching from beer? hard alcohol to I like I had to try all the things because it was my coping skill. It was my favorite thing. And addiction is interesting, because I follow this guy, Dr. Andrew Huberman. He has a podcast called Huberman lab, and he’s a neuro biologist at Stanford. And he talks about his definition of addiction was really interesting. It’s the narrowing of things that blink bringing pleasure. Right? It’s like we like people that are addicted. You know, and I love the I love the neuro chemistry and the biology aspect of it because it sort of depersonalized Is it because before I got sober, I just thought it was an immoral, horrible person. And when I I found out Oh, alcohol is addictive. What is addiction? You know, what about, you know, non addictive marijuana? You know, can I eat acid and smoke non addictive marijuana like a normal person? Turns out No. Turns out No. I can’t I can’t do anything. But those are all my those were my coping skills. Sorry. I feel like I’m all over the place. But
Unknown Speaker 1:30:20
oh, you’re but you’re right on because I can’t even have ice cream sandwiches without coping with 12 of them in like a three day period like, Yeah, I can’t. That’s what I can’t stop like even non addictive anything like it’s I’m gonna? Yeah,
Arlina Allen 1:30:33
here’s the thing, the purpose of addiction is distraction. It’s a distraction from pain. And so I don’t care if you’re using food, sex shopping, workaholism. Let’s not talk about Netflix, I’m still not ready to surrender Netflix. But it’s like all all these coping mechanisms that we use are trying, it’s a self defense, a self preservation method. Like I say the drugs and alcohol saved my life because of when I was 14 and 15 years old. If I had to feel all the feelings, I would have killed myself, like I that was the that was the choice. Either I’m going to medicate and numb my feelings or I don’t think I’m going to survive this. I hated who I was. And it was just a very dark place as in a very dark place. But that’s where the addiction began. And it happened so early. And what I know now about neuroscience and biology is that the younger you are, when you start using things even at fits tobacco, I interviewed Dr. Judith Grizzle, she has a PhD in neuroscience. And she wrote a book called Never enough, and it’s about the experience and neuroscience of addiction. And when we look at it from that perspective, it D personalizes it, it takes out the shame, and the guilt and go, Oh my god, I was I didn’t have a fighting chance. It really didn’t. You know, and when the younger you are that you start, the more you’re the bigger your chances are victory start under I forget what he said, your brain doesn’t stop developing to like you’re 25. So if you start at a young age, using things that increase your dopamine is sort of like greases the rails for later and then you have a one and 25% chance of becoming an addict. And it doesn’t matter what because what ends up getting triggered is your dopamine reward system gets all screwed up. And
Unknown Speaker 1:32:26
if you’re right, like instant pleasure, it’s what you you, you need to hit.
Arlina Allen 1:32:30
Well, you know, what’s interesting is that, I think that that’s a common misconception is that dopamine triggers pleasure. But dopamine is it’s like a save button. You experience pleasure, like serotonin or other pleasure chemicals. And dopamine is the safe button that says Don’t forget with this, you did this thing. And this is the feeling that you got. So let’s say that dopamine is like the vehicle. It’s like,
Unknown Speaker 1:32:58
it’s like the on demand record button.
Arlina Allen 1:33:02
It is. Don’t forget this good thing you know, dopamine is released after. So we we when we start drinking and using we skew or dopamine reward system. And then it sets off a series of other neurochemical sequences that just it’s a negative spiral that leads downward is the simplest way to put it, you know, and Dr. Anna Lemke is a chief of the addiction program at Stanford, and she talks about how we all have in terms of neuro chemistry, in psychology, we have this balance scale, like a teeter totter, you know that your brain is always seeking homeostasis. So if you front load pleasure, you get the equal opposite and pain on the back end. And it works the other way too. So we know people in theory who run the, you know, they enjoy it. God bless them. I only if I’m not some was not chasing and running. But like people who exercise that’s front loading the pain experience up front, and you get the runner’s high on the back end. So your brain is seeking to balance out these neuro chemicals, and then you go back to balance. And so it’s just, you know, everything comes with a price tag, everything in life has a price tag. And so what sobriety and recovery is about, it’s about doing the work up front, like doing the the work, the work of recovery is painful, but then you get the positive on the other end, right. And so we either suffer the pains of growth, or the pains picking up the price tag from a negative behavior. So I have just learned to sort of flip the script. I have sort of learned in recovery that if I do my recovery work first, then the rest of my experience, whether it’s that day or over the long haul is pleasurable, and I’m a pleasure junkie. So I’ve sort of rewired my brain that way.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:00
That’s so interesting. I guess I’ve never thought about the pain and the pleasure needing to balance one another out. Like, I don’t know why that’s not really ever occurred to me. But it makes complete sense now that you just talked about it. And I’m not a runner pain and then hitting the high after like, no. That’s not me either. So I think just learning the way we cope, right, like, it’s how you are. I think anyone who experiences trauma becomes you either sued with things and then the addiction comes in, or you withhold and block yourself off and kind of detach maybe a little. And that’s where you get like these different ways of handling situations. It’s just so I mean, I love that you have a husband who’s sober for so long. And I really think the other part is, we’re the spiritual person in me. And the, the universe doesn’t put you in the wrong place at the wrong time, type of person, and synchronicities. It’s interesting that you were in sales, and you were dealing with so many men, and then there’s these two guys who are so rare who start planting these seeds to you. And you were young, I mean, by you. So the fact that you even picked up on those because at 24, I would have been like, yeah, okay, bro, you know, like, have fun with that, like, I wouldn’t have even been able to listen to it. So I look at those things like universal. Think about how maybe you don’t even talk to them today. But like how, what a pivotal role they played in your life. So
Arlina Allen 1:36:56
memorable. Yeah, yeah. And it’s interesting, because I kind of got away from the spiritual aspect. I grew up in the church and I have been begging God to fix me my entire life. Right? It turns out, I was asking the wrong question. Right. And but I but in my mind, I thought that God had abandoned me. Right. But it wasn’t until my coping skill was no longer working like drugs and alcohol were my coping skill, and they were no longer working for me, let’s be honest, man to you. I have like a how to help be like love addiction, you know, using people to seeking outside myself to feel better. I need I needed that external validation. Right? And, and that’s, you know, and now I understand, you know, I’ve been through hypnotherapy, you know, and I listen, I knew this from, I’m an obsessive learner. I am an obsessive learner. That’s the one thing I had going for me. And I knew that you know, all these things, all this stuff that I was learning was going to help me get sober. In the end, I lost my train of thought, I think that’s what happens when you’re 53 and menopausal, and
Unknown Speaker 1:38:04
I just took a drink of my water. So you’re like, Oh, she’s taking a drink? Um, no, it’s, um, I think that is what happens is because you turned your back, you’re asking the wrong questions, then you, you know, I think you just
Arlina Allen 1:38:20
gave up on it. You did?
Unknown Speaker 1:38:22
Yeah. You gave up
Arlina Allen 1:38:23
on it. I got frustrated, and I gave up on God. But when I was ready to change and get sober, the first thing was God, please help me. Right. And then I went to the rooms and they you know, and then they told me that I could redefine what this higher power meant to me. And that was my saving grace. And that’s what helped me and then I had many spiritual experiences. Over the years, I’ve been sober a long time. And it’s so funny, they say that we have a quick forgetter those of us that are in recovery, we have a quick forgetter. And I’ve had so many like amazing, like serendipitous or spiritual experiences, God shots, whatever you want to call them. And still after some time that goes by I’m like, Yeah, but I’m not sure. You know. And then I and then I had one after my mother passed away. They, you know, my mother, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer on October 12. And she died a month ago today, November 3, and it was very 2022 days from diagnosis to death. It was fast. And you know what, I stayed sober through that whole experience. I was giving her I had access to liquid morphine and Lorazepam and Tramadol, and all this stuff, and I took really good care of my mom and I was so grateful for that experience. So grateful for my sobriety. And the day after she passed away. I my husband, I was on a 7am meeting and it just ended and my husband opens the door and he goes, Oh my God, you have to come outside. The sky was ablaze. It was like this. Bring and pink and red and gold. And often I haven’t, I’m looking at a picture of it now I had actually posted a picture of it online and a girlfriend when one of my gals downloaded it and put it on a card and mailed it to me. So now it’s on my wall and I stare at it. But I walked out and it was like my mom. Sorry. It was like my mom was on the other side letting me know that she made it that she made it to the other side. It was just such I’ve never seen a sunrise like that. The sky, I’ve never seen anything like that in a tuckaway it was like, all these times that I doubt whether there’s a higher power or some kind of loving force, it’s like, Okay, again, I just knew to my core that she was okay. But she made it to the other she was saying I made it to the other side. And that was definitely like a spiritual experience undeniable to me, and it was so personal. And that’s what I found about these spiritual experiences. They are so personal. It’s not. It’s not like the well I guess in this case, it really was like I came down from heaven and just like showed up to me. But it was such a profound personal experience to me that I was like, Okay, I’m not alone in this. I can trust in a higher power and a power greater than myself to restore me to sanity and I’m not alone. But I was so alone when I was growing up that I felt like I had to do everything by myself I was like I default to self sufficiency which ends up being like the bane of my existence I torture myself you were talking to me about setting personal boundaries and that is something that not just boundaries with other people but boundaries with myself treating myself with kindness not working myself too hard doing the self care all that stuff it’s really important
Unknown Speaker 1:42:02
ever evolving process I love that you said that undeniable? I just don’t know why that’s like making my brain like spin because I think spiritual experiences are so personal and that’s one thing when I get around people who are still so angry with any type of higher anything spirituality Yeah, I don’t care for source universe God, Buddha, whatever you want to call it like to me when you have something as profound as like that sunrise and here it was profound enough that a friend of yours printed it on a card and sent it to you so it was more than just profound to you like they saw something you know, it’s an undeniable proof Science, Science pitch or whatever, you know, like
Arlina Allen 1:42:59
Breaking Bad reference. I love it.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:03
It’s a it’s just it’s interesting that you have these pivotal moments and they are undeniable but we do have quick for getters so in all the end I think it gets harder if you’re on a constant quest for learning and I in much the same like I’m a Gemini like can’t fake I’m Detective I’m figuring anything out I’m gonna get to the base of the root of what is happening. And I just think when sometimes people like us we like study ourselves kind of dumb. Like we know all this stuff and can rattle off all these this information and it isn’t until you have a reminder experience like and it’s weird because do you see this feather White Feather? It’s just came out of nowhere. Wow. So I take that as a sign that it angels near just FYI. Um, oh, I love that. So I mean, because there’s no reason for there to be a white feather anywhere around me at all. Okay, so anyway, Christmas decorations? No, cuz I was just thinking that but there’s not um,
Arlina Allen 1:44:16
that is a trip. God just showed up.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:19
And it came across the screen and we ever have it undeniable there’s love it. Yeah, but I just think that when you have an experience like that, and you’re able to be like, it moves you to your core, it creates this serenity within you and when I first got sober and I was going through like a totals are so much chaos. I was so into drama. If I wasn’t drinking, I was addicted to drama. Like I was finding the drama and the distraction. Yeah, yeah, and My sponsor said, you know, part of getting sober one of the gifts of getting sober and not just not drinking is that you actually find serenity and you need to protect that serenity be in your little bubble and not let things penetrate it. And I think that I fought that for a long time because I was like, Let’s never gonna happen. Boundaries. I didn’t you know, like I said, I was really good at them when I got sober. So if you’ve had all these spiritual experiences, you know everything about like hypnotherapy and the way that, you know, your were our brains are chemically wired, right to do certain things. And we talked about people pleasing and not wanting to use the, the X marks the spot word of like, alcoholic or like labeling ourselves. But I know that we’ve talked just that you consider yourself a recovering alcoholic. And I do too. Like I said, I need the reminder, because I do have a quick forgetter. And if I were just to say like, oh, I’m, you know, I have just an I, what is it alcohol use?
Arlina Allen 1:46:12
Disorder? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:46:13
I just, you know, I use it’s a disorder. And you know, to me, there was that just and maybe for the new people and a younger generation that does help, but I’m like, I need to be reminded that I can go even further down the scale than I went. Yeah. And, to me that word, you know, my grandfather died of alcoholism, he died choking on his own vomit by himself had been banished, you know, from my dad’s family. And because my dad’s a perfect adult child of an alcoholic, he controls drinking, he does not a big drinker. And also my family, my aunts and uncles, none of them really drank very much. And nobody educated us about alcoholism, except for the fact that he died of alcoholism. It wasn’t until I got sober that you start hearing these stories of they had to take him in a straight jacket to the hospital to detox and it’s like, like a full blown alcoholic, you know, like in my mind, and it’s just so interesting how we all don’t want to be shamed. And we want you know, to like not have the stigma or the shame that comes with admitting that you are an addict alcoholic? I find today, I don’t think I found I believed in anonymity, pretty hardcore until like, I had a real problem with people on social media, talking about meetings and the program and their sobriety, mainly because they would go back out. And I’m like, This is not what it’s about, like tooting your own horn on social sorry if I offend anybody, but I, I really valued my anonymity at the beginning, because honestly, I don’t know that I could have done it without feeling like I was safe in a basement of a church without people judging me. And today, I’m open about it, obviously. But what is you have 27 years of sobriety? What do you think? Or just as I could go on all day, with you about a million things? Just a year, one day at a time podcast show, and now we’re doing mine? So what is it you think that that helped you come back home to yourself? Because you had mentioned how your mom said that you came back, you know, when you got sober? But what is it that you think? Or what is the memory of being like, Oh, I’m me, I feel complete, not the broken, but the completed healed version.
Arlina Allen 1:48:49
I mean, when I was drinking and using, I would wake up the next morning, and I was like, why am I like this, like, Who is this? This, I had a sense that I wasn’t my true self. But I couldn’t not do it. Right. And it was my coping skill I was trying to survive. But my Savior was becoming my executioner. And I had to stop or I was going to die. I was either going to kill somebody else for myself, because I was a frequent drunk driver. And I just hit that bottom and I just knew something had to change. But I did hit the rock bottom, you know, I skipped along the bottom for a little while for like, two years, I would say. But I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I wanted to be better. And and I wanted to be anybody else but me. But as it turned out, when I got sober, I learned who I really was, right. When you scrape away all the crap, you know, then I was just left with who I really was. And it turns out, I wasn’t a bad person. I was just sick. Right? And I just had all these wounds and they needed help. And so that’s for me, like where it all began is. They say that you can’t help hate yourself? Well, and that’s what I had been trying to do. Do I hated who I was. Right. And so I had to, you know, I was so grateful to have that practical, pragmatic process of sorting out going through the sorting process, like sorting out all my pain, all my resentments and seeing my patterns of behavior, learning where I could take responsibility and let go of what wasn’t mine. And really, and this is why I focus on in my work, I focus on self esteem, because I firmly believe that we only allow into our lives, what we believe we deserve on a subconscious level. Right, there are some people who feel so shitty about who they are, they can’t receive the solution. And I see people relapse over and over and over again. And then the anonymity of the program and the and the things that we do about like, announcing yourself for the first 30 days, that actually, you know, in some cases can be pro social shame, but it also can actually be very damaging, to have to, you know, I see people it decorates their self esteem. And so my work is largely about building self esteem. You know, I do have a six week workshop where we do. So this is what’s interesting about the way we think is that you’ve everybody already knows what to do. We all we all know what to do. Like we already we know if we want to lose weight, we need to die and eat right? Everybody knows that. Nobody does it. Some people do badly. Yeah. But what is holding us back is what we believe we deserve. Also, when we’re kids our identity, we have this formed identity. That happens by the time you’re six years old, right? What’s crazy is that that’s like, that’s when you develop all your beliefs about the world and yourself, what you’re capable of what you deserve. All that is established by the time and that is your default mode network is in neuroscience terms. And then we spend the rest of our lives trying to but we’re making decisions about ourselves as children without context, right? So you go, you’re a little kid, you run a mom, and you’re demanding or whatever, and she’s had the worst day of her life. And she’s like, just shut up or whatever she says, right, and, and walk away thinking that, that we’re not that we’re not worthy, we’re alone in this, you know, we’re not good enough or whatever, that I’m too much or not enough, or whatever. We develop these beliefs about ourselves. And then we develop these coping skills to overcome, right, so like, for me, it was all about achievement and workaholism and people pleasing, just so that I could feel okay. And so the work that I do is about deconstructing the unworthiness. Like it’s about the recovery process about undoing unworthiness, which is about it’s really about going inside out getting to the subconscious belief system through things like hypnosis, to uncover the negative belief system and reframe those ideas give that inner child context and perspective. It’s like, No, you were in a bad person. One was tired. She was middle aged, she was afraid she was tired. I mean,
you know, she was just had a bad day. It wasn’t you personally, she did the best she could, you know, and it wasn’t good enough, you know, she’s human, like Nobody escapes childhood without some issues. That’s that’s like Yeah, so the work that I do to help women heal is and I do it in a workshop because women will show up for each other in a way that we won’t show up ourselves individually. Right 100% So the workshop is live we do the exercises in class together you and I share a love for the Joe Dispenza his work right so this you know laws of attraction science cause and effect and I do have a spiritual practice. So bringing in you know, a spiritual component I think is important. And really, you know, a self care practice is a built in self self esteem. It’s the whole point of a class but a support system. We do things like willingness calls, the girls have to call each other I only do it for women and at the moment and they make them do willingness calls, which is you have to call somebody at the be willing to call somebody say hey, I’m just checking in because the number one thing I hear when people are early in recovery is I don’t want to call them bother anybody. Right but what they don’t realize is that when like I love getting phone calls Oh somebody thought to call me like I love getting phone calls something yeah my advice Are you kidding me? Sign me up. But we I make them do wiliness calls and what that does is that they get in the habit of being current with several people that way if the shit hits the fan as life does that if the first person you call isn’t available, you have a few other people you can call in your current with everybody so that you don’t have to spend a lot of time on the backstory you can get right into solution. And solution by the way, is validation. acknowledgment of the pain first and then solution people the whole spiritual bypassing thing. You know that’s it’s a spiritual bypassing is skipping over the process of metabolizing the pain and going straight for a solution, which is completely literally invalidating the pain. And but that’s our natural instinct as people in recovery is that we don’t want to feel any pain, right? But, but pain shared is lessened right. And so when we share our pain, we get honest, we share the pain, it diffuses it, right, we’re defusing anger which a fusing pain. Anger, by the way, is a secondary emotion. It’s rooted in, in, you know, Tara Brock is a is an amazing person who wrote a book called radical acceptance. And she talks about anger being a sign of an unmet need, not a want a need. Right. So when we don’t get our needs met, we get angry, you know, it’s a coping skill. And that’s actually, anger is my go to thing I wasn’t allowed to feel sad when I was growing up. It was anger. And so when I get angry, I know now that oh, that’s a red flag for me, I’m actually sad about something. So anyways, so the the whole idea of the class is that we get to reinvent the class is actually called reinvent, we’re reinventing our identity. We’re reinventing what we believe we deserve. We’re building our self esteem, because the whole premise of the class is we only allow into our lives what we believe we deserve on a subconscious level. Because whether people want to admit it or not, we make decisions emotionally and justify logically, I learned that from 10 years of sales, tech sales is that people really, they buy emotionally and justify logically. And so that’s how all our decisions are made. So if you have a presupposition that you’re not, you don’t deserve to be happy, or that you have to struggle to get anything good. That was my subconscious belief, then that’s very problematic, you know, as you move through life. So anyway,
Unknown Speaker 1:57:13
that’s incredible. And it’s a workshop, they can sign up so people can find you if they’re looking for you and reinvent, to reinvent themselves or just learn more about you. And Instagram, right?
Arlina Allen 1:57:26
Yeah, they can go to at ODOT podcast, and Oda is spelled Oda T, I did not think it through when I named my podcast
Unknown Speaker 1:57:38
was one day at a time. You know,
Arlina Allen 1:57:41
one day at a time, at a time, data time podcast, I used to be the worst. But anyway, I put everything on sober life school, because that’s sort of like the hub. That’s where you can get to the self esteem class. That’s where you can get to the podcast, or that’s where you can get to me if you want to book time with me to do some, I offer a free strategy call. It’s like I’ve been sober a long time, I have a good sense of being able to evaluate where someone is at and present solutions, whether they’re with me or not, I don’t even really care to be perfectly honest. It’s like if I can help you great. If not, I have all kinds of people that can help you. I’m connected. That’s my Get down. I’m connected to the sobriety community, and I know a ton of coaches,
Unknown Speaker 1:58:25
that’s the power of community and having people and that do the same kind of work that your friends, you know, that you’re plugged in with.
Arlina Allen 1:58:35
And I don’t believe in scarcity. Like if you don’t want to work with me, that’s cool. Because there are tons of people who are willing to work like I All my needs are met. You know what I mean? But I do want to share, I do have I am driven to share the things that I have learned to help and suffering for others. So if it’s not me, if I can direct you to somebody else, I mean it listen, truth be told, there’s enough crazy to go around. Right? Yeah, I don’t need to help everybody. But yeah, that can’t help if I can’t help you. I know somebody who can. That’s the thing. So, you know, I’m a real person, call me set up some time. We can, we can talk we can, you can DM me. And if you just need a pointer in the right direction, I’m your girl. I’m here to help. That’s, that’s my mission in life now.
Unknown Speaker 1:59:24
Love that. So I will definitely call you and reach out and everyone listening. Today, head over to Instagram and reach out if you’re looking for some guidance or want to just soak up some of her awesomeness. You can do that over there. So thanks so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it.
Arlina Allen 1:59:42
Thanks for having me. I adore you. You’re doing amazing work. Thanks so much.
Unknown Speaker 1:59:47
Looking forward to our Dispenza retreat. All right, thanks.
Arlina Allen 1:59:54
Have a great day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Leave a Reply