In this episode, Sonia Kahlon from Sisters in Sobriety joins us for a deeply honest conversation about recovery, journaling, trauma, and rebuilding life after addiction.
Sonia shares how her drinking escalated from teenage experimentation to daily wine-drinking as a high-functioning professional. While she never had the “traditional” external bottom, she described being emotionally bottomed out — chronically ill, blacking out, and unable to imagine a future.
What finally shifted? A moment of clarity at brunch, when she said “no” to a mimosa for the first time.
From there, she began exploring sobriety through AA literature, community support, and eventually the practice that changed everything: journaling.
Key topics we covered:
- Moderation vs. abstinence: Some people can moderate; some can’t. Addiction exists on a spectrum.
- Trauma and dissociation: Many of us learned early to ignore our intuition and numb discomfort.
- Healing through writing: Journaling processes emotions the same way talking to a friend does.
- Different journaling styles:
- Morning pages (The Artist’s Way)
- Gratitude lists
- Emotional processing
- Prompt-based journaling
- Somatic/body-scan journaling
- Morning pages (The Artist’s Way)
- Rebuilding after betrayal: Journaling helped Sonia reclaim her identity after divorce.
- The importance of community: A network of supportive women helped her through the darkest moments.
ACTION ITEMS FOR LISTENERS
✔️ Try morning pages for 7 days — write 3 pages of unfiltered thoughts every morning.
✔️ Start a nightly gratitude list focusing on 3 things from that day.
✔️ Practice a weekly “body-scan journal session” and write about physical sensations + emotions.
✔️ Identify 3 people you can call when you’re struggling — and practice willingness calls.
✔️ Reflect on the question: Can I moderate? — and be honest with your evidence.
BOOKS MENTIONED
- Blackout — Sarah Hepola
- Running with Scissors — Augusten Burroughs
- The Artist’s Way — Julia Cameron
- The Power of Two-Way Prayer — Father Bill W.
- Radical Self-Acceptance — Tara Brach
- The Obstacle Is the Way — Ryan Holiday
Link to Sisters In Sobriety :
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sistersinsobrietypod
Podcast: https://sistersinsobriety.substack.com/s/pcast
👊🏼Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
🎁Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days – With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
☎️Private Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick
https://www.makesobrietystick.com
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Listen to the episode onApple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website HERE.You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast/id1212504521
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Full Transcript:
Well, Sonia, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. I’m
so excited to be here. I am too. And it’s so funny. So I told you I was going
to start with a little story, which is kind of like a little confession.
Because you and I met through a friend where my friend Michelle, who’s been on the
podcast a bunch of times. And I think it was her that did the email intro. Is
that right?
So I’m so embarrassed to admit this. So. um
and I was like, hey, let’s do your interview. So I sent you the link. So I was
doing a little research and I was like, I searched your name and there was several
emails there. And I don’t know if you remember this, but in 2023, you pitched me
to be a guest. Yes, yes. That is so funny. And you just like never responded?
No, I didn’t. I don’t
Because I get a ton, I get a ton of pitches. I’m sure you guys, you too, right?
And we were new then, right? And so it makes sense that you would be like, right,
right? Like, because actually somebody said to me that, like, majority of sobriety
podcasts, like, don’t last a year. Like, it’s people who are really excited to be
in sobriety. And they’re like, let’s go. And then they kind of are like, right,
right. Yeah, people, so I’ve been doing mine for nine and a half year. So I’ve
been kind of an OG.
and I’ve changed my stance on some things. One being like I actually have clients
now who aren’t really interested in quitting initially. They are wanting to see if
they can practice moderation. And I think that that’s a really important question to
answer is can I moderate, right? And so the thing is for years I’ve saying um the
only thing that i know after 31 years of sobriety is i do not know what’s right
for anybody else yeah and if i really meant that then i should be open to working
with people who are still answering the question can i moderate and be open about
it like not have a preconceived idea that we’re going to eventually get to
abstinence because that’s not how I feel. And I have clients who are high
functioning, really successful that are moderating successfully. And now we touched on
that a little bit when we were talking on my podcast too, because is that like
antithetical to like A .A. Right. So like how do you square that with like A .A?
Right. Yeah. I just know that for me, it’s not an option. For me, it’s not either.
I’m actually dating someone. I’m dating someone now who went to rehab, came out,
and has a beer once in a while. And I honestly, the first few weeks,
like, I’ve never seen him drink, but the first few weeks you were dating, I was
like, this just isn’t, it’s just not, it’s not possible. It’s not going to work,
right? You have answered that question. Yeah. Like you know to your bones, you’re
not going to moderate. I know it to my bones. And he said, I, he’s like, I don’t
know how to explain it to you. But alcohol is not a part of my life. If I go to
a concert, a beer. I’m like, but I don’t get it. I’m the girl, me neither.
I know. I’m like, what about the pickle cucumber thing? Like, what about once you
turn into a pickle, you can’t go back to being a cucumber. Yeah. And I don’t know.
I bet part of me is a little bit jealous. Sure. Yeah. You can go to a concert
and have a beer, you know. What’s funny is I used to, when I was doing tech
sales, I worked with a group of girls who, women, sorry, who had successfully
completed their, this program that allowed them to be an inside sales rep.
And when I say completed the program, their program was in incarceration. They were
incarcerated. And so the sort of go -between company trained these women that were
incarcerated, this new sales skill, right? They were doing like sales development type
stuff. They were, you know, and then when they graduated, meaning were released, they
were eligible to become an inside sales rep. And so I was the only,
I knew the CEO. And when I moved to Idaho, they, when I moved to Idaho, they
created.
But we would do these sales conferences and they would drink. Most of them were
there because of crimes related to drug addiction. I taught entrepreneurship in
women’s prisons. And yeah, same thing. The reason they kind of had me going in
there other than the fact that like I was an entrepreneur was but because I had
had addiction issues. And so. Yeah. No, like I think 80 % of people are in for a
drug and alcohol -related offense. So you watched them moderate or you watch them
drink? I did. They drank. They moderated. They went to work. I mean, they were
highly functional. So I was like, whatever. I think that was one of the experiences
that led me to, I do not know what’s right for anyone else. And if you read the
12 -step literature, they do talk about the quote -unquote real alcoholic. And those
are like really hardcore bottom out cases, which I felt like even though like I had
never been arrested. I didn’t get fired. Like the typical things that you would hear
of, I was so emotionally bottomed out that, you know,
suicidal ideation was like flirting in my mind And things, it got dark for me.
So I considered myself a real alcoholic. That is the pickle for sure. And there’s
no coming back from that, I don’t think. But if we think of addiction as a
spectrum, then maybe there are some people that are still on the cucumber side.
I don’t know. I don’t either. It’s like, it’s like just when you think you know.
Right. Someone proves you wrong. Yeah. Like you see 40 people try to moderate and
you kind of sit there waiting, right? And then and then none of them can. And
then, but then you see like people do it. And it’s like, I just don’t know. Like
I just don’t. I, yeah. And I agree. Maybe it is,
it’s more about your emotional relationship. I was so dependent on alcohol.
I thought about it so much. Yeah. I still probably think about it like not as much
as the, I don’t know, maybe as much as the average person. Like if I’m out to
dinner and I see somebody walk by with like a bottle of wine like a waitress or
waiter, you know, I think about it. But I don’t know. I know. It’s really nice.
And then, yeah, I think we were talking about too about like cannabis, right?
Because I don’t, I don’t mess with anything. I don’t either. Yeah. Well, cannabis
was my get -down, like I was high 24 -7. Okay, so here’s another little thing that,
so this is the real part of the confession, is that I think, so I love 12 -step.
I really do. I don’t think it’s perfect. I am very clear that there are lots of
things that are actually very problematic about it, but I have found a way to get
around what I think of as obstacles, right? And the reason I’m so passionate about
it, I wrote a whole book about it for those that are watching this on YouTube,
because I wanted to see if there was a way to help people gain access to the
actual process of the 12 steps so that they could get, like, you know, cause and
effect, right? The cause is you take certain actions and you get certain effects.
And I’m so obsessed with this process that the actual writing process of the 12
step,
stuff like it’s old man stuff it’s people get triggered by the word alcoholic or
powerless or um you know what i mean like god it’s like those that seem to be the
big three triggers and then there’s the differentiation between meetings and the
actual program those are two separate things and so i was like i wonder if i can
try to just clarify these things in a non -defensive kind of a way um But because
I feel, I get super triggered when I perceive somebody is saying, here’s another way
because 12 -step didn’t work. Yeah. You see where I’m going with those? Yeah, I do.
So I think when you initially pitched me, I just did a quick scan and I was like,
that doesn’t fit for me. So I just didn’t respond. And what was so interesting
about how we met was that I was introduced through a friend. And I didn’t see.
here is an area where I’m not open -minded. Here I am. I’m asking other people to
be open -minded and my book was closed. In a sense, too,
like I would say maybe when we pitched you, maybe I was more closed off even to
AA. My brother had like recently relapsed after having been an AA for 10 years. So
I was little, you know, and I remember reaching out to his AA friends and like
they were not particularly helpful. And actually, they were right. They ended up
being right that they could not fix him, right? Like they, I think I expected. You
were asked, you were looking to them for help, though. Yeah, but I wanted them to
kind of go in like the cavalry and like fix him. Yeah. And I didn’t, you know,
but, but yeah, I think that it’s really interesting the prejudices we have about
like just even certain like words right but also we got a comment we got like a
scathing review on the podcast the other day i really liked it someone got triggered
yeah and it was kind of like like who are these like unrelatable ladies and and it
was basically like that we had never hit rock bottom that because i was a
functioning alcoholic with like a career and like i had a dental practice and i
sold and she actually wrote she’s like these these ladies are
love that gets bashed all the time like we frequently there’s this ideology of not
bashing somebody else’s program except a a like that seems to be that seems to be
okay and i just get super triggered and i’m like what is the treasure under this
you know do i need more compassion where am i close -minded and so i’ve really been
digging and it was just sort of a um
spokespeople of A .A. And it makes me really sad when that happens. But that is not
for me to, you know, I try to clarify where I can, but I’m not into,
I’m not interested in fighting with anybody. I’m really not. Like, I’m not here to
try to convince anyone. I thought I was for a minute there. And that’s just, I
don’t want to argue with anybody. If like, you don’t want to do it. That’s cool.
You go to. I think it matters where, like, I think what area of the country are
into or like what meeting you go to. Like, I’ve been, like, because I still will
drop in on meetings and like there’s meetings where you drop in. And it’s like, you
know, four guys from like old guys from a motorcycle, like gang with their hardly
smoking cigarettes outside and drinking coffee. And like maybe to me that’s a bit of
a like, I’m intimidated a little bit by that to like walk into that meeting and
then yeah no in and when i’m in toronto you know you go to a meeting like three
blocks away and everyone’s like my age and like dressed like me and like so and
yeah i hate to say it like i hate it i mean i’ve been to meetings like everywhere
right like in new york city and like there’s just sometimes you walk in and like
the vibe is just i don’t know and maybe it’s my judgment too it’s like oh i don’t
think these are my people yeah i i got to tell you i’ll tell you this one quick
story there was a meeting um there is a recovery center where i’m from and it uh
i walked into this meeting and mind you i was in high tech sales i was wearing a
very nice tailor dress i was in heels i had my louis baton bag um my tiffany
bracelet my you know what i mean i was walking in and these women are my age but
they’re missing teeth they have neck tattoos they have three different color hair um
they they’re looking rough right and i walk in i go these women are not going to
relate to me at all right and i start talking and pretty soon when we talk about
the feelings all the other stuff kind of melts away I know what it’s like.
you.
You know what I mean? Like, I get it. I get it. Right. And when, and when you
speak from the heart, like, that is the language that crosses all boundaries kind of
a thing. And suddenly we’re all the same. And, and I remember walking out of that
meeting going, there you go again. You thought you were different. And we are all
the same. No, that’s true too, right? I think what it is, like, yeah, it’s those
perceptions. But I think, too, my, my brother sort of showed me that because he he
was a low bottom drunk. And so. But he was sober for 10 years.
Yeah. So it’s so funny when someone realized, was, were they a 10 year success
story? Or is that a story of, you know what I mean? I think that there were a
number of years where he was a dry drunk. Oh, sure, for sure. Yeah. And so yeah.
But I think so I remember I was married at the time and like thinking about going
to AA and telling my husband at the time like, you know, I think I have a
problem. And he’s like not like you’re your brother. You’re not as bad as your
brother was. Oh, that’s you’re not as badass. Yeah. And it’s like no, we’re all the
same. And especially when you look at a sibling, you’re like he came from the same
place. Like he’s his trauma is very similar. And so we’re just a different bottom.
throw that out there because I, you know, want to be somebody who is open -minded.
And when I was feeling triggered, the treasure for me was to recognize an area
where I was holding judgment and being close -minded. And I was like,
wow, I’ve missed out on knowing you three years ago.
But here we are, and we’re going to, yeah, everything happens as it should. And
listen, that wasn’t the whole topic of this conversation. What we’re running for like
that point. I’m glad you’re not in a hurry.
We are going to talk about your story and some of the tools that you have used to
heal, recover, relearn, whatever. We’re going to be talking about journaling,
how we can use journaling. And I think we’ve come up with maybe five different
methods of journaling that we can talk about. But before we jump into that, I like
to play pulling out my lightning round of paper. Dun, done, done. Ready for this?
Yeah. There’s used a long pauses, but go ahead. I know. This is fine. When you
first got sober, were there any books that were really helpful?
Oh, this is Sarah Heppola, Blackout?
Burroughs running with scissors. Okay.
I think I’ve heard of that one too, running with scissors. That’s a recovery book?
It is about his recovery. It’s about his… It’s like a memoir. Yeah, it’s a
memoir. Yeah. There’s something about hearing other people’s stories.
Like, that’s the acronym for hope, hearing other people’s experiences. I love that.
Yeah. That’s a good one. If you look back, gosh, you’ve been sober eight years now.
It’s a long time.
Is there a theme to your sobriety? Is there a mantra that you’ve hung on to it?
And I’ll buy you a little time by sharing, you know, mine’s obviously like one day
at a time. Like that has really helped me. It’s like a little mind hack. Like I’m
not worried about next year or whatever. Is there something like that that has
really helped you through your sobriety? Yeah. Yeah, I play the tape forward all the
time. Like so anytime I’m at like a cocktail party or I’m out with friends that
that are having drinks, like I play the tape forward. Like when I feel like I’m
not fitting in like this sucks, like I start to get kind of like agitated, I play
the tape forward to like the next morning and I’m like, oh my I get to wake up
in my like comfy bed, not hungover. And like Even that evening,
I’ll be like, I get to go home and like watch Gray’s Anatomy and pop popcorn. And
so these things still feel so like novel to me. But I play the tape forward like
anytime I have a craving.
Yeah, anytime, anytime I have a craving. That’s so interesting that you play a
forward and you think of the positives. Like my mind immediately went to, I’m not
going to risk driving drunk. I’m not going to be
I would say, like, when I was going through my divorce, like, I would be like, I
really want to drink, like, a bottle of wine. And, like, I think that I, I played
the tape forward. And I was, like, sending angry messages in my mind to, like, the
mistress and to my husband and, like, and, like, everybody I knew and like, whar,
and like, and so that, when I played, I was like, I don’t want to be that person.
Yeah. I do a little bit. Like, you know, that petty part. But, like, I don’t want
to be that whole that person. Yeah, I don’t want to be that person. Yeah,
that’s a good one. That is a powerful motivator. Do you have a regular self -care
practice, like a morning routine, or do you think of like a set of meetings that
you go to weekly, anything like that? I’m a big journaler. I think that that’s
something it’s so consistent. Also, like, I travel like a little bit. And so it’s
something you can take with you, which I love. I don’t like working out, but I do
it. Same. Yeah, I hate it, but I do it. I don’t know.
I think like my evening, my evening routine is really calming. And so it’s, I kind
of need to be like in my bedroom sort of like near or on my bed for a couple of
hours, like before I go to bed. And whether it’s like journaling or or like,
and reading is something I couldn’t do at night when I was drinking. Yeah. And so
it’s something like anything like that is still really special to me, like things
that I just, because I was like an everyday drinker, like every day for at least a
decade. And so every day I couldn’t get in bed and read. Wow.
Yeah. Every day I didn’t take my makeup off for 10 years, you know? And like, so
I think it’s those things that were impossible before that feel the most, like,
sacred. That’s so interesting. I’m pretty obsessed with, like, my morning routine, but
I didn’t even think about my morning routine. I have, like, this routine of, like,
taking a bath and washing off my face, and I have, like, this whole skin care. I’m
obsessed with, like, all this skincare stuff. It’s super fun for me. It smells good
a little bit. And then my husband and I typically watch TV before we go to bed,
and that that is sort of my wind down process. So, yeah, it’s kind of nice to
have something at both ends to kind of calm down. Yeah, I would like to, you know,
I had a dog up until like six weeks ago. Oh, no, I’m so sorry. What happened? Oh,
she was 16 and a half. So we had a good run. But so my morning routine was
always taking her out the first thing, like when I open my eyes, I would take her
out. And so it may be time for me to.
about yourself, about sobriety.
Something I didn’t realize was that not drinking was just the beginning.
Yeah. And so I still had like, I don’t want to say like it’s not an uphill
battle, but there was still a lot of stuff to like uncover and dig through.
And I don’t know if it would have helped to know like, okay, let’s just.
that to stay sober I would have to like mine like the depths of my trauma I know
isn’t that crazy like we don’t realize that they’re like we have trauma when you
were young and then we dissociate like we just literally like bury it somewhere and
we become unconscious of it but that is the very thing that compels the addiction.
And we’re like, why am I like this? I don’t even know. Well, of course you don’t.
You’re dissociated. Yeah. And it’s like, I know it sounds like it’s just like,
oh, like I don’t want to figure that stuff out. But it’s like I, I like, I feel
bad for people who don’t get to figure that out. I know. Like my ex, I don’t
think we’ll ever like figure it out, you know. And I think like that’s what it is
when you’re numbing and running and you just, I don’t know. I think it’s a gift.
It is. I always think that I always say that alcoholism is like the best, worst
thing that ever happened to me. Ryan Holiday wrote this book called The Obstacle is
the Way. Yeah. Yeah. Alcoholism was definitely my obstacle. It became like a whole
way of life for me. Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty cool. It sort of, I mean, I wouldn’t
say it defines me but it’s a big part of my identity right like yeah i think it’s
one of those things that really determined my value system yeah i had to get very
clear on what it was that i value like what kind of attributes did i want to
embody what was really you know the what were the principles like the intervals that
they call them the principles you know honesty integrity service like spirituality
like those are the those were the things that i wanted to
So we have that in California. My mom was from Mexico City. That is from Kentucky.
So hence the fairness. But you,
you know, and some of the things that I read about you was this idea that there
was such high expectations of you growing up. What was that like for you?
I mean, I think I just, I think sometimes you were born a certain way. and I’m
one of those people that I’m, if you tell me, like, I suck and I can’t do it,
I’ll agree with you. I’m not going to be like, I can do it. And I don’t respond
to that type of encouragement, if you want to call it, that type of,
like, tough love. And so I think for me, it just created this, like,
it didn’t create, like, motivation and inspiration. I just created this, like, bundle
of anxiety. anxiety.
Some people are like, I can do it. And some people are like, oh, my God,
I’m so scared. And I was one of the, yeah, so scared to fail, so scared to, yeah,
not meet the expectations. Yeah, that’s really tough to deal with on a daily basis.
Would you consider that a form of trauma growing up with these unreasonable
expectations or not good enough or? I think a lot of immigrant kids grow up with
those expectations. I think the trauma comes in the way that they were expressed to
me. Do you have an example? Yeah. I mean, my, my dad was a like harsh,
harsh kind of abusive guy. And so if you,
you know, didn’t do well on a test or something, there were repercussions. And so I
think that it was more.
express expectations and disappointment without doing that. I’m still learning, right,
how to do it in a healthy way. But that, yeah, I think that essentially,
like, I shut down. Like, you know, when people raise their voices, I shut down. So,
yeah. Yeah, yeah, the phrase response. That’s really hard. So you started drinking.
I read somewhere that you started, you can’t read it, believe you read it on the
internet so it sounded like you started smoking first and then drinking is that true
yeah i started smoking probably around 13 and then drinking around 15 like those
just kind of awkward years everybody does yeah it seems like that’s when it starts
yeah yeah and um when did you recognize that it was becoming problematic like
because i know you didn’t drink till you stopped till later when did it become
problematic for you? I would say when you look, I’m sure you feel this way.
Like when I look back, like it was always problematic. Like I was never a normal
drinker. Like I was always binge drinking. I was like always getting sick. Like and
so. Blacking out. Yeah. Blacking out seemed normal in college. You could get away
with it. And then I would say probably,
and so I just binged, right, until I wasn’t in school. And then when I started
working full time and I had like a little bit of money and could like pick up a
bottle of wine on the way home and it was like very sophisticated, right? Like I’m
going to open a bottle of wine and I’m going to. So boogey. Yeah. And so probably,
probably a couple of years before I quit. Like when I was trying like 35, 36, I
was like I started trying to go a day without drinking. And I never did.
Wow. There was years, years where I would try, I would like wake up on a Monday
and be like, I’m not going to drink today. And by Monday night, I’d be drinking.
Yeah. What did that do to your self -esteem or your self -image? I mean, I think
that I was in such like denial that
I was very much like, well, I worked really hard today. Yeah. It deserved. Yeah,
it was a really tough day and I’ll do it tomorrow. So I didn’t think like,
oh, I’m constantly failing at this because I wasn’t taking it seriously enough.
Yeah, because you weren’t as bad as your brother, quote, quote. And it’s easy to
dismiss it. Yeah. What was it that made you.
Yeah, I was really lucky with that, too, because I, for some reason, I also knew
if I got a DUI, I would lose my dental license. Oh, yeah. And you work so hard
for that. Yeah. And so I was very careful about it. And so, yeah,
I think there was a series of really bad nights. And also I started to feel like
chronically ill. Like I only felt better,
right? The only part of the day I felt good was after like my first drink, like
in the evening. So I was sick essentially all day. The first couple of drinks felt
good. Then I would start to black out and then I would be hung over in the
morning. And so I think that cycle just started to wear on me.
And I think I started to see, like, I couldn’t see my future. I couldn’t see what
does this look like when I’m 60, 70, 80. Like, what is this? How do you even get
to that age doing this? Like, I, yeah, I started to not be able to visualize,
like, a future. Yeah, that’d be scary. It’d be hard to be just, like, chronically
ill all the time. You’re just, like, chronically hung over. Hungover? Chronically hung
over. How much were you drinking? I mean, really, like, probably by the end, like,
a little over a bottle of wine a night. So, like, four or five glasses a night?
Yeah. Sometimes, like, a bottle and a half. If I went over that, then I was, like,
sick, sick. Yeah. Did your husband ever express concern about your drinking?
No. Which makes him a bit of an asshole now that I’m like that. Dick. I’m just
kidding.
Do you want me to him? Because I will. No, I don’t blame him at all for anything,
really. He was smoking weed, and I think that sometimes when you have your own
issue, you’re not going to start pointing out somebody else’s because then I think
it would have been like, well, you’re smoking weed. And so he never, I mean, the
minute I would pour a glass glass of wine, he would light up a bowl. And so it
wasn’t, um, they were different. And for some reason, I don’t know if he had me
convinced or I was convinced, convinced that weed was like, not addictive and a lot
better. And so I wasn’t that I wasn’t super concerned about his habit.
He didn’t seem super concerned about mine. Yeah, I smoked non -addictive marijuana
every day for like 15 years.
yeah you was smoking every day yeah yeah that’s a yeah if you’re doing something
every day it’s like people who are like oh if i could smoke if i could do heroin
like a normal person i would do it every day yeah yeah wait a minute um yeah okay
so you decide was there just like was there like a dark moment that you’re just
like this has to stop yeah i Yeah, I think there were a lot.
I think I was blacking out the majority of the nights, the months before I quit.
And we went out one night with another couple, which is, this is very funny. But
my ex -husband ended up cheating on me with her, the couple that we were out with,
the night. Hilarious. Yeah.
And She was pregnant and drinking, I remember, and we were at a B .YO,
and so there were just like an enormous number of bottles of wine. And so I wasn’t
tracking at all, like how much I was drinking. I showed up drunk. I think I went
home and drank more. And I had brunch for the girlfriend of mine the next day. And
I was like seeing like splotches of black. Like I was like, I could barely,
like, stand up straight. And I just remember, and Sundays were, like, a great day
for me to, you know, have memosas and start drinking early. And the waiter came by
and was like, do you want a mimosa? And I don’t think I’d ever said no to, like,
a drink. And I said, I just remember this, like, moment. And I thought, no.
No. I mean, I’m not going to drink today because I am so sick right now.
stayed sober again Monday. And then probably after a week or two,
I called my brother. And I said, I think, I think I might need to go to AA. This
is like a lot harder than I thought. And he had no idea. Yeah,
because you were so high functioning. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you never know what’s going
on behind closed doors. That’s a brave admission, especially to somebody who’s in the
program, because then you got to back it up with some action.
that a fair statement? Yeah, I explored it a little. Yeah, I explored it a little.
Had my brother who was in the program. Right. Right. And it was super helpful.
But I, when I discussed it with my husband at the time, he was like,
you can’t go to a meeting around where we live. It’ll jeopardize your career. Yeah.
What if people see you? What if people see you? And he wasn’t wrong. I don’t blame
him for saying that. And so I really thought, okay, I’m just going to like listen
to a
But it really helps to hear other people’s stories, even if there’s like a little
like piece that resonates. Yeah. It’s like, oh, they get it.
I love that. Yeah. That’s amazing. And it just, so you are an example of there are
many paths, right? And every path is valid is really how I truly feel about it.
Every path to sobriety is valid. And I feel like there are so many options and
solutions that there’s no reason not to find one, find a path,
right? First, you have to answer the question, can I moderate or not? And I think
that’s really an important question to answer. But once you feel like you have
enough evidence that no, I cannot, then there’s lots of ways. And I want to talk
about some of the ways, like one of the tools of sobriety is journaling.
And you and I identified a few different ways. I have some books in front of me.
So for those listening on the podcast, I’m holding up the power of two -way prayer
and the artist way. Did you know, I don’t know if you knew this, but Julia Cameron
is also sober. No. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah,
just a little shout out to Julia Cameron for being sober. That’s in my Kindle right
now. Oh, my God. I love this book. Yeah. If you, if you all have
pages. Yeah. And what I find it’s it’s really challenging to do that,
but people that can submit to that process, it’s like you’re just getting at like
all the chatter that’s in your brain. You’re just getting it all out on paper and
your mind is more peaceful because of that. What other forms of what forms of
journaling have you tried? Yeah. So I look at the morning pages like as equivalent
to just like like a mind dump, right? Yeah. Like just you take whatever is.
nothing to, you know, I, you were five years sober at this point. I was five years
sober and I was having a hard time staying sober. I did stay sober, but it was
really helpful to gratitude journal. And so pick three things that you’re thankful
for. And it really, I think it shifts your nervous system,
right? I think it shifts it from this yeah fight or flight almost yeah and you’ve
had been in in a relationship for 18 years yeah yeah and you’re blindsided by this
blindsided and so it was so it’s still surreal like but it was so shocking that
and also you know just like on practical note like We were living between New York
and like rural Pennsylvania. And New York just didn’t feel like home. So I came
back to rural Pennsylvania and I was pretty isolated physically. And so it was
really hard to picture what my life was going to look like. And so actually be
listing what I was grateful for was really the building blocks of like creating a
new life. It’s so interesting because I also use something called the five.
And then it’s three things you’re grateful for, three things that would make the day
great, an affirmation. And then there’s an evening phase where you write down three
good things that happen and something that you learned. And so I tend to do mine.
I write the evening portion in the morning for the day before because I only do it
once a day. So I do the evening part from the day before.
looking for those throughout the day and your brain starts to orient towards positive
things whereas, you know, we actually are fighting against negativity bias. Yeah.
Right. Our brains are naturally wired for survival. So we’re always looking for
threats. Yeah. Right. And there’s a lot of threats out there these days, real or
imagined. So it does sort of reorient your, I would call this your locus of
control. So like an internal locus of control is I’m intentional about how I spend
my time, the thoughts that I think, the actions that I take were as opposed to an
external locus of control as I’m reacting to external stimulus, like reacting instead
of responding. So it’s a really interesting way to sort of like rewire your brain.
That’s really interesting. I think that’s super helpful. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And
I, so when I coach clients, I often ask them to get it. And then we trade lists.
Like, they’ll fill it out and take a picture of it and text it to me. Oh. And
I’ll do that for them too sometimes, depending on who it is. But it’s really, like,
as a coach, it’s good for me to sort of be able to keep track of what’s going on
in their their life between sessions. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. So that that’s
been really good. What other types of journaling have you tried? I was doing a lot
of emotional processing. For your divorce. Yeah. And it was just that.
I think too. Like I think sobriety brings up just like a bunch of stuff you’ve
been like pushing down or not wanting to deal with. And so, and you’ve been
numbing, right? Distracting, numbing, yeah. Yeah. And so I think the emotional
processing is like, you know, admitting things like, I’m angry, right?
And why am I angry? Because I’m scared about what my life is going to look like
or, you know, I’m angry. It took me a while to even say, I’m angry that my ex
cheated on me. Oh, that betrayal is so brutal. Yeah, but honestly, for the first,
if I trace back my journal entries from the first six months, like it was more
like, what did I do wrong? Oh, like you were blaming yourself? Yeah. What did I
do? What could I have done differently? What mistakes did I make? And so when,
and that’s kind of the beautiful thing about journaling is that you can look back
and see. And so just when I’ll have days where I’m like, I thought I would be so
much better by now. I’ll look back and I am so much better. Oh, yeah. You’re
comparing yourself to yourself. Yeah. Like this is like way more healed than I was,
you know, a year ago type of thing. And so yeah. Yeah. I really think like naming
your emotions is and something really hard, I think for people that are newly sober.
Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Just.
for me. So do you think that anxiety, so journaling really helps your anxiety?
Yeah, I think, I think it does like a lot. They say they. We had somebody on the
guest, a therapist that said they’ve done studies where it has the same effect as
talking to a friend. Oh, processing. Yeah, processing some,
you know, a situation with a friend, the same effect that you get from journaling.
And I was like, that is something, right? What a great tool. There are so many
people who want to get sober, like, quote unquote, on their own, right? And I feel
like these are people that are hyper responsible, people who have trust issues, like
they couldn’t rely on the people they grew up, like their family to be safe.
And so what a great tool for people who sort of fall into that category.
Yeah. Yeah. I think I really love that. And then I thought about it after. And I
thought, yeah, it is like that. And even more so in the sense that there are
things I can’t say to some of my friends. Right. Some things you shouldn’t say to
your friends. I have like, I really, I do have the greatest friends in the world.
But I hit a friend. I don’t think she’s going to listen to those. She said to me
she’s hooking up with a married guy and she said, why can’t he leave his wife like
Jeremy left you for his mistress? She said that to her face. But she herself’s in
so much pain over this relationship. She’s still wrapped up in it. Yeah. I promise
I’ve known her
27, 20, almost 30 years. I know she didn’t mean it. And honestly, I laughed when
she said. She forgot who she was talking to. I laughed when she said it.
I said, I don’t know. I don’t know. Okay. I just want to offer a little, like,
apparently this is my day of confession. But when I was drinking, I often dated
married men. And I didn’t know that I dated married men because they were
emotionally unavailable because I thought so little of myself that I could I couldn’t
like real intimacy is somebody who’s willing to stand in front of you and look at
you all of you good and bad and accept all of who you are like that to me is
real intimacy and yeah by choosing people that were unavailable there was never any
threat of any real intimacy and that was all low self -esteem stuff. You know,
I think that is what’s going on with her. Maybe I should suggest that as a
possible explanation. Girl sent her my way. I’ll talk to her. No, I mean,
there is something about that, right? Yeah. It comes from not good enough,
low self -esteem. Yeah. And I felt it. When she said that to me too, I felt it.
Like, I was like, it made me so sad for her. Yeah. It made me so sad.
She’s saying, why am I not good enough? Yeah. Oh, that’s so sad. I know.
I feel for her. Yeah, I hope she can get out of that. Yeah.
You said real empathetic. Oh,
yeah. Ho for show.
Okay, listen, talk about when you said that journaling is like writing to a good
friend, that made me think of the power of two -way prayer. And that is sort of a
really old Oxford group, like A was founded off of the Oxford group,
and they were like pretty strict, pretty religious. And of course, so the guy that
wrote the book, The Power of Two -Way Prayer, was Father Bill. He’s a religious guy,
so he’s kind of bringing it back.
And that’s just like talking to a friend, somebody who loves you. And I feel like
the great thing about it is you can define it anyway. You can define the other
side of the two any way you want. So you can call it your tuition, intuition.
You can call it your guides. You can call it a spiritual. You can call it whatever
you want. It doesn’t have to fit anything specific. I actually we’ll ask questions
to my intuition to your intuition do you have this are you are you um spiritual do
you believe in a god or a higher power or anything yeah yeah yeah yeah for sure
spiritual no specific denomination but for sure i believe in yeah i believe in yeah
i believe there’s a reason for everything um and so the intuition this is really
interesting is that my therapist said to me um you’ve spent your life learning to
ignore your
that learning is really like healing is unlearning it’s like unlearning the the
impulse to dissociate or push it down it’s like and it’s you know self avoidance
there’s this book by terra bra called radical self -acceptance yeah i think that’s i
love this book like i know some people are like put off by the title but i that
is the book I return to probably more than any other except for like the 12th step
literature because she talks in such a compassion it’s like a series of lecture have
you have you heard it or read it yeah yeah yeah oh okay yeah so yeah she talks a
lot about the self avoidance and the self avoidance is all about I have pain I
don’t know how to resolve right and these journaling practices are a way to process
pain to resolution. Yeah. And I think it’s like, I think she talks,
I don’t know if she talks about in that book, but like that journaling is not
always comfortable. No, no. Feelings are not. Like there are days where the last
thing I want to do is journal. Like if I’m really actively upset,
it is really uncomfortable to journal. And sometimes I will skip it. I try not to
when I’m really.
yeah like giving yeah i resting is a thing like that is um that is resting is a
tool for and it’s so funny because those of us who sort of identify with like the
overachiever never good enough more doing more doing the doing the exact opposite
which is letting your nervous system calm down take take your anxiety offline for a
minute like that’s you know people sort of use this idea of oh go go touch grass
like in a sort of mean mean way but
safety so scant isn’t that interesting so all these little tricks that we have i
typically when i get really angry i need to talk to somebody i do that too yeah i
need someone to talk me off the ledge so but when i’m really triggered i forget
who my friends are so i literally have a post -it note under my desk of so we um
i interviewed shannon watts from mom to mom’s demand action She started after Sandy
Hook for gun violence. And she was reading something or listening to a podcast that
said, you should be able to count like five people you can call in the middle of
the night. And it can’t be your family. Yeah. And she realized she didn’t have five
people. And she really set out intentionally to create a community of women she
could rely on. And I think that’s really important in sobriety. I think that is,
I don’t know what I would have done during my divorce if I didn’t have the five
women. Yeah, for sure. When I sponsor women, I ask them to do what I call
willingness calls. And that is you make, you know, at least one phone call every
day to several different people. And the idea is that you’re willing to sort of go
outside your comfort zone and you connect. And you know, in our community,
everybody’s like, Arlena’s making me do this thing. They’re like, yeah, we know. It’s
fine. It’s just got, but you get, you get five people that you call. And the point
is, it’s easier to call when you feel good. It’s very difficult to call when you
feel bad. So we don’t rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level
of our training. So if you put in the reps of making these phone calls when you
feel good, you are way more likely to make the phone call when you feel bad. Yeah,
you’re totally right. Yeah, it’s been a really good practice for me. And the thing
is, is if you’re current with like even three people, you know, when the shit hits
the fan and you call the first person and that’s out there, you get the second
person on the phone, you’re like, can I just, you know, talk to you for a few
minutes? you don’t
five is good right but i think if you have a spouse and you have kids like you
know especially like when you have older kids that you can like talk to i think
probably where it’s that you know it’s so funny so my husband’s sober too we’ve
been together since i got i was like five months sober when we started dating but
uh i started doing this thing with him and i need to vent i’ll be like he grew
up with women so he learned not to offer a solution. He learned to listen. But,
yeah, but the downside of that is sometimes I felt like I was talking to a plant
because he wouldn’t respond. So I’d be like, okay, I need to talk.
I’m just going to vent. And at the end, I need a poor baby and a hug. And he’s
like, he’d be like, okay, go. So I’d be like, and pause. And I look at it and I
go, poor baby. And he goes, oh, poor baby. Give me a hug. I can see how you’d
feel that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He does this funny thing where he’d be like, do
you want me to hate them? Yes. Yes. I love that. Yeah,
just always on my side, which is so funny. It makes me laugh because of course
not. I said that to my boyfriend the other day. Like I was like, you know, we
don’t have to be compatible about like everything and like on every, you know, we
have to be aligned on everything. But if I hate someone, you hate them. Yeah.
but they don’t fix, but they don’t know what to do instead. So we need to get
better at telling people what it is that we need from them. Love that. Yeah. More
baby to hug. Was there any other kind of journaling we should talk about or do you
feel like that was good? I think there’s always like prompt based is always fun and
good. I think it like gets you out of your head a bit and into like,
oh, wait, I hadn’t thought about that, right? If you really prompt from like, we
have them on our substack. I think you have prompts, right, too, that you can,
like, give people, like, journal prompts. And so that’s really good. Yeah. And then
the one that I just started using, but like a little bit briefly, I’ll do it while
I’m doing like emotional journaling is like the somatic, which is like the body
scan. And so. And you’re writing out your body scam. So you’re kind of like,
like you kind of go for
I have anxiety or and something like that right like it’s just yeah so I like that
or you’ll notice I’ll be like oh you know what my knee kind of hurts I’m going to
take a Tylenol like or whatever it is but I think sometimes your body gives you
clues that something else is going on and you don’t realize it yeah for sure I
love that I had not heard of the body scan connected to journaling. That is,
that’s genius. That’s really good. Yeah, our bodies have a lot of wisdom. And if
you’ve experienced trauma when you’re young, we learn to dissociate from our body. So
this is a great way to sort of unlearn some of them. That is what it is. I have
learned to dissociate, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think I have a very, like, high
threshold for physical pain, too. So you don’t Sometimes it’s like, I need to stop
and scan. Yeah.
I love that. Well, listen, I kept you way longer than I had intended.
I’m glad you didn’t have a hard stuff because I feel like we covered a lot of
ground, lots of different forms of journaling. But thank you so much for sharing
your story and all the tools that have helped you. And I really appreciate the work
you’re doing. If people are interested in getting a hold of you, where can they
find you? Oh, you can head over to our substack at substack .sac .com. And so all
our information is there or check out our podcast, Sisters and sobriety. Yeah, but
thanks for having me, Arlena. Yeah, I had so much fun being a guest on your
podcast. Is it out? It hasn’t come out yet. No, it hasn’t come out yet. Okay,
yeah. I can’t wait to hear it because I had so much fun. I have no idea what I
said. But I’m going to leave those that are listening i’m going to leave links in
the show notes so if you’re driving you don’t have to try to remember all that but
son it was such a pleasure to hang out with you again i thank you so much for
everything that you shared today thank you
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