1 year sober (my addiction story) - ep. 2

0:00Do you like that? Wow, okay. I've gotten really good at just sitting down and pressing recording. I think that just has to be how I do it. So I don't overthink things all the time. Cosmo is just a part of this podcast now. I mean, we kind of like assumed he would be. I'm waiting for the day that smokes makes his debut debut. Take the microwave. Not everyone should have a podcast. Okay. I just got home from doing my one year sobriety photo shoot, which I did with a dear friend of mine. Her name is Rachel. She is a photographer and she asked me if I would like to do a one year sobriety photo shoot. And I did. And I felt like right now, honestly, would be the best time for me to sit down and do this podcast. Even if I'm a little conjumbled and all over the place, it's been on my mind a lot today. So I think that it's a really good time to do it.

1:09Originally while planning these first couple of episodes for this podcast, I knew that I wanted to do one of them all about my sobriety. I have so much to say about my sobriety. It is going to be a big part of this podcast in general. I mean, the episodes are launching on my one year sobriety date. They're intertwined. I think that because alcoholism was my entire life, it will always be a big part of who I am. And therefore my sobriety is a big part of who I am. So if it seems annoying to you, I apologize. However, this is a very big part of me. Originally, I wanted to do an episode talking about life in sobriety. And then while discussing it with Emma and planning these first couple of episodes, I decided that it might be better to start with a bit of a reflective episode. As this is being posted on my one year, I think the anniversaries in general are periods of reflection. And I think that they're incredible for that. I feel that way about birthdays, anniversary, any any type of yearly anniversary. I think it's a really good period of reflection. And so my one year sobriety, I figured why not start from the jump. Why don't I start by talking about what my life was like in active addiction and give you guys kind of my background, not my qualifications of being an alcoholic, but like what I was like as an alcoholic, which I still am.

2:25I'm a big disclaimer girl. So I'm going to give a disclaimer. I am going to be talking a lot about addiction and substance abuse in this episode. So if that's something that you struggle with or you feel like you maybe aren't in the right head space to hear about that. It's okay. You don't have to be here. Come back when you're ready. Maybe. Also, if you are struggling, we have put resources down in the description for you to utilize. I always say they're there for a reason. Please use them. You're not alone. Let's start off when I was a child. Alcohol has always played a very big role in my life. I didn't have alcohol too much in the house growing up. Neither of my parents. I will qualify as alcoholics. They drank socially, but it was never a problem that I face growing up. I know that addiction runs in my family. But it wasn't in my immediate family. Growing up as a small child, there was here there. I would try a sip of someone's cocktail at like a house party that we were not even a house party. That sounds like we were throwing ragers at our house when I was growing up. We were not. When my parents had friends over, I might try a sip of a cocktail here. They're nothing crazy. And then I started.

3:32Oh, did you hear the voice shake? Did you hear the nerves coming to the surface? Yeah. My first drink that I ever had was when I was, I believe 14 or 15 years old. And this is my first like actual drink aside from tasting alcohol sip or there. I mean, I'm not going to count my first communion. So I was about 14 or 15 years old. I was with my best friend at the time. And we were at her older sister's house and her older sister being the cool older sister that she was gave us a Mike's heart lemonade and we split it. And then her mom came and chewed out the older sister as she does. Obviously not enough for me to get drunk. I don't even think we finished it. It was just probably a couple of swigs. So that was my first time with an alcoholic beverage. My first time getting drunk didn't come too much after that. I was 15 years old. My mom was not going to be home for the night. It was me and my brother and one of his friends. And we happened to get our hands on a bottle of strawberry lemonade.

4:35It's Fedca. Ew. And not just you because it's the first alcohol I got drunk off of. I know if you've been to college. That might be been showing this entire time. Sorry. My bad. My one addiction that my therapist says I'm allowed to have right now. Okay. If you have been in your 20s, you've tried strawberry. Well, okay. If you've been in your 20s and you drink, you have tried strawberry lemonade. And you understand it's so good when you're still young. When you're still in high school or early college, which obviously I am not promoting underage drinking. Let me get that very clear. Actually, let me put that right across the board for you. Do not drink underage. It's illegal. Don't do it. I want to try to start right lemonade. But can you let me just tell you, you know what? Let me go back a little bit in the day. I did not eat normal meals this day. This random day when I was 15 years old. I have three of those little Caesar salads that you can buy at the grocery store where you mix in the croutons and the chicken and the toppings and they're like in the little bowls. I had three of those on that day. Nothing else. So me, my brother, his friend, we are hanging out at my mom's house. She is not there.

5:47We have our little bottle. We mix it. My brother tells me this is going to be the best thing you've ever tasted. We mix it with Mountain Dew Baha Blast. Listen, this was 13 years ago. I still can't drink Mountain Dew Baha Blast. It pains me inside because I know everyone loves it. I still can't do it. I also sometimes here and there will get a little weird funk about Caesar salads. But we start drinking. I get drunk. And then what does it, what does an alcoholic do? I wasn't an alcoholic yet. But what does an alcoholic do? They get too drunk. They just can't stop. There's no stop. There's just go. So I end up on the bathroom floor. Puking everywhere covered in puke. All bad, right? My brother, he throws a roll of paper towels at me and says, if you don't clean this up in 30 seconds, I'm calling dad. So what do I do? I'm taking the roll of paper towels. The whole roll not taking pieces off. I'm taking the entire roll of paper towels, swiping it up. Also, most of what I'm saying right now is what I've been told from my brother. This is not my memories. I think I blacked out.

6:55Anyway, my brother puts me in bed, puts me on my side, puts towels around me, make sure that I'm not going to lay on my back, throw up, choke on my puke and die. He also put a justice because I was still old enough to be wearing justice, puts a justice tank top on me that was bedazzled right across the chest and it was inside out and it tore my tits to shreds. And I wake up the next morning, my dad comes, he picks me up and we drive four hours to Idaho to go to a theme park and ride rollercoasters all day. So off the rip, not good, not good experience, right? But once I had done that, it kind of opened not the floodgates, right? We're not at the floodgates yet, but it started something in me because then at age 16, my dad moved to England, which if you are unaware, the drinking ages lower there. I believe when you're 15 or 16, you can drink ciders and wines and then once you're 18, you can have hard liquor correct me if I'm wrong.

8:01I just remember being 16, being at the open in Scotland drinking cider. So I think I'm right. But I was already able to drink in public lately, like I was allowed to do it. And so I think at this point in my life, I was actually fine with my drinking habits. I mean, I was literally still in high school and there's a whole conversation about drinking ages. And I think honestly younger drinking ages are better because it helps you cultivate a better relationship with alcohol, which I had until later, which we will obviously be getting into. But I would drink maybe like twice a month throughout high school. And I would go up to parties in the hills. You know, there were warning signs. A lot of the times when I would drink, I would drink to blackout. I would drink as much as I possibly could. I threw up almost every single time I drink because I drink so much. There was one time in

9:04it was either very late high school or early college. I was at a house party. And again, this is where we're starting to kind of see some patterns. Maybe I was already drunk off of vodka. My friend has a bottle of what is it called? Teraantula tequila. And there's it's like it's blue, I believe. I vaguely remember it being blue. Also, I'm remembering this was my freshman year of college because I had my girlfriend with me. I chugged the whole second half of that bottle of tequila just because my friend jokingly asked me to. And where did that put me? Sitting passenger side of my truck that was parked out in the driveway throwing up all over the inside all over the dashboard. A guy who was there told my friends that if they didn't call someone to come pick me up that he was going to call 911. He was training to be an EMT at the time. And he was like, hey, she clearly has alcohol poisoning. Gotta go. Once I hit college, I would say that I drank like a normal college student because I think I did.

10:15But I think that there's a problem with the average college students. So like it was a lot like I don't think it was good. I don't think it was healthy. I don't think it was a normal way to drink. But it was normalized for what was around me. It wasn't I didn't think hey, maybe I'm an alcoholic yet. I didn't have any of those thoughts across my brain yet. I also want to know that through all of this that I'm talking about. There are drugs involved at different points in my life as well, but I'm not going to be talking about them today. I want that to be an entirely separate episode. And I also want to say I know that I'm this is kind of just story time reflection period. But this is all very serious. And this is all something that if you're experiencing should be maybe a red flag. Okay, I can be lighthearted about it now because I have done a lot of work. But clearly I am sober now. So just

11:18everything with a grain of salt always I'm in a good mood and I wanted to film this episode while I was in a good mood so that I wasn't sitting here sobbing my eyes out. So we're in college. Yeah, I drink like a normal college student and fun fact about me. I actually went to four different colleges over the course of five years. So my college experience was long and vast and all over the place, right. It was in college when I believe I started really, really becoming an alcoholic and like many other people out there. It was during COVID. I was already doing online school by the time that COVID hit. I was working at and I was working to go. But right before COVID hit, probably a week or a couple of days before we went into lockdown. Lockdown shutdown. It's a lockdown or shutdown. Why can't I? It's been too long. It's been 60 or like what shutdown?

12:20quarantine. Hello, before we went into quarantine, I went out with my ex girlfriend at the time, but we were still kind of dating. Okay, we went out. I got really drunk. We went to a bar. Seconds after walking into the bar, I run to the bathroom and I throw up and the balancer kicks me out because duh. Clearly, I'm already very intoxicated. Don't need to be drinking more. My ex girlfriend decided to put me in a noob and send me an hour away to her house alone. Yikes, but I don't remember anything until I woke up in her bed. I don't know how long it was after I got to her house, but I was covered in dirt and blood and everything hurt. And I don't know what happened, but the next day I took myself to urgent care. I found out that I had a broken pinky had to wear a little splint. And then about a week later is when COVID happened and quarantine hit. And I was already working to go so logically, I would have been able to keep my job. However, because I had a splint on my pinky, I couldn't wear gloves.

13:35And my more senior co-workers wanted to be able to work to go. And so they basically just told me, hey, take on employment. You can't work right now. Go enjoy your quarantine. So I did. I was living with my dad at the time. I did not want to leave the apartment, even taking the litter to the trash room, scared me. But my dad would do Costco runs every week. And we've had a conversation about this. I don't think he really was aware too much of what really was happening. I don't put any blame on him for this at all. But he kept alcohol stocked in the house. And I would run through that alcohol really quickly. And it was almost every single day. I was just in my room with a half gallon of Kirkland brand vodka. Shot after shot after shot after shot after shot. I would stay up until

14:36anywhere between 7 and 10 a.m. And then sleep until about 5 or 6 p.m. And I would do the same thing. So it started to get really bad. And I think that is the truth for a lot of people during COVID. I think that a lot of people can relate to becoming an alcoholic during COVID. And it's really sad that a lot of us resorted to that and that that became a lot of people's everyday lives. My alcoholism through 2020 just continued to grow because obviously quarantine started in March. And then through the summer mine just continued. And I was 21 at the time too when COVID was happening. I turned 22 in the summer of 2020. So I was able to legally drink once bars opened up once I felt safe to leave my house and stuff. I was going out. And in August of 2020, which I was looking back through my phone to figure out dates for this the other day and realized that it was August 10th that this happened, which I just celebrated my 11 months,

15:42October on August 10th. And I thought that was kind of cool. I guess I went to Ocean Shores with my best friend at the time. And we had a half gallon of tequila, which we polished off. My other friend came and met up with us and she had a dab pen with her. And I'll talk more about this when I talk about drugs, but I hadn't smoked in a long time. And I started ripping that dab pen and boy oh boy. Not good. We decide to go out to the beach. And as we're running along the beach, which is covered in rocks, by the way, like big rocks. It's mostly sand. And then there's big boulders, I guess, basically. And they're slippery because they're seaweed and the tide was out, but they're still wet. I slip on one of the rocks and I hit my head. Very hard. And then we go back to the hotel. We continue to drink and we go to bed.

16:43I wake up that morning, terrified for my life. I have never and will never feel the way that I felt that day. And I think about that day all the time because it caused me. It ruined my life. Like for years, I think that day truly ruined my life. I woke up. Terrified that I had a concussion because I hit my head and I went to bed. So I faced my dad. I make him do like a concussion test on me over the phone to make sure that I wasn't going to die. And we drive home. I had felt anxiety before in my life, but I had never felt the way I did. And I'm sure a lot of it was anxiety. I was only 22. I didn't even fully comprehend that obviously yes being hungover can make you anxious. And that compounded with my medical anxiety that I have in me having known that I hit my head. I was in pure fighter flight. And it wasn't even just that like I I think that if you've experienced anxiety to this degree that I'm talking about you might be able to understand me.

17:57But that's the only way to explain it like there's there's no words that can describe what was happening in my brain. I thought. I was dying. I thought that my brain was shrinking. I thought that my throat was wrong. I just thought that everything was wrong. I thought that I switched dimensions. I've never felt that degree of anxiety and I could not get rid of it. And unfortunately, I didn't get rid of it for two years. If not longer after that, I still struggle with anxiety a lot. It never fully left me. And it was terrifying. And the only way that I could cope with it was to drink more. Shortly after that incident occurred, I moved down to Arizona with my best friend at the time. And one thing about Arizona, your experience might be different. But in my opinion, it is a drinking state. Oh my god. And we moved to Tempe which has ASU which is a drinking college. Oh my god.

19:02The drinking culture in Arizona is so strong and boy oh boy did I fall into that. Okay. Because little refresher. I was just really coming into my alcoholism. And then I just had this slightly. I don't even want to call it traumatic. It was traumatic. Actually, what am I saying? I just said it literally changed my life and cried about it. Of course, it was a little traumatic. I just went through these things. So perfect little conjumble for Brynn Marie to go get more drunk. Arizona scares me. I still visit it every once in a while to get my hair done. And I think I've gotten past it now where it's not as triggering. But anytime I've driven past old town Scottsdale. Something inside me. Panics. Oh my god. I drank so much when I lived in Arizona. I don't even know. Like I could not tell you how many bottles upon bottles I would go through every single week. And I was spending all my money on it too. Mind you, I was posting on social media this time, but I did not have the following that I have now. I was not doing it as a full-time job. I think I was barely making any money from it at the time if any.

20:13I was sometimes not able to afford rent and would have to ask my dad for help because I was spending all my money going out. And on alcohol and getting drunk. It got to the point to which I was already at the point actually where I was drinking alone in my room. I think that's when you really know, hey, maybe I'm an alcoholic. But that was during COVID. So in my brain, different circumstances, but at this point, living in Arizona, I would drink at home alone all the time. My roommate would be off at work and I remember one time in particular. I was on TikTok live doing my makeup. And I had a bottle of Tito's and I just kept taking polls out of it. That's the last thing I remember all of a sudden I am waking up face down on my bed full face of makeup. My life was ended, thankfully, but I don't know. And that was a thing that I did a lot actually throughout my alcoholism in general through like 2020 through 2020.

21:17Three probably was go on TikTok live and use that as an excuse to get drunk because everyone in the comments was like, yeah, take another shot. Go crazy with it. Do it. And one thing about an alcoholic is everything and anything is an excuse. I found an excuse in everything. Everything had a reason to drink every single thing. I could find it. I could find a reason to drink for anything. Ew. Oh my god. Unfortunately, in Arizona, I was still dealing with my anxiety, which is part of the reason why my alcoholism was getting so bad because it's just it's a catch 22, right? I would get drunk because it would make me feel less anxious and then I would wake up hungover, which was the worst anxiety. And then I would get drunk to make me less anxious. And then I would what you see where the problem lies. And I think that is the truth for a lot of people you use alcohol is a coping mechanism and then you get stuck in the cycle of it. And while living in Arizona.

22:25Another catch 22. I kept putting myself in really dangerous situations. While drinking and I'll talk about it with you guys someday. I don't know for right now is the time. But to cope with all of that. I just drink more. And I want to do a whole episode on sex because what I'm about to talk about really goes hand in hand with that and a lot of these episodes that I'm talking about all go hand in hand with each other. And I want you to be able to do that. I want you to be able to reference them. And I had chronic UTIs while living in Arizona. And that's the thing though. Did I? Because I also got to a point where my anxiety would manifest itself as a UTI. I would frequently get tested for UTIs and for STDs. And I wouldn't have either. And it got to the point where an urgent care doctor you literally yelled at me told me to go see a urologist because I kept thinking I had UTIs. But upon talking with a therapist. I think that it was just my anxiety. It can have physical manifestations. And because I had really bad experiences with UTI. It was like my brain thinking, oh, what's the worst thing that could be happening right now.

23:43I would play this little game where drinking made me stop thinking about it. That was when I really started to realize, oh, I'm using alcohol to cope right now. And I just simply couldn't stop. And I think my mom's calling me right now. What timing is that. Hi mom, I'm recording a podcast right now. I love you. Like, she didn't say I love you back. Root. Where was I? So that was when I started to. Sorry, being in a rough day, then going back into it. I can't help a laugh at myself. So that's when I started to realize that I was using alcohol to cope. That's when it really internalized for me. Like, oh, wow. Also, I keep thinking like, wow, I'm so early on in the podcast. And then I keep remembering, wow, I'm so early on into my brain. So early on into my alcoholism. I also want to throw out there really quick. My memory from 2020 to 2023. No, 2020 to 2024 is incredibly hazy. And it is because of my alcoholism. And it is because I was blocking out almost every single night. And it's really hard for me because I'll have memories. And I can remember things.

24:56The way I described it to a friend the other day is that I know that I would do with a bouncer behind the DJ booth in old town Scottsdale, but I don't remember the bouncer's name. I had sex with him multiple times. I don't remember his name. My memory just feels very splotchy from these times in my life. All I know is that I was in a very, very, very dark place. 2020 and 2021 just looked like a lot of going out and drinking and going to the clubs. It was my club rat phase. It was my whole phase. It was all the phases. I was about 23 years old. And then in 2022, I went viral. And I plan on doing an entire episode talking about that. So not too much on that right now. I discussed this a little bit in my healing from relationships episode that is also posted today. Hello, go watch it. I did not cope well with breakups. So at the end of 2021, I broke up with someone. I rather they broke up with me. And then I ended up having to get a restraining order against him. And how did I cope with that by going out and getting drunk? That happened in November. And I remember the next following months were really dark for me.

26:06I had to quit my job. They were not allowing me to have time to go meet with my lawyers and for court. So I figured might as well just take the L. And this yes makes me sound like a terrible employee. I was a good employee on my good days, but on my bad days, I would be outside in the 120 degree weather, sobbing, calling my mom hyperventilating because I couldn't drink to cope with my anxiety because I was at work. I quit that job surrounding the time with the restraining order and then had not even a month off from work. And I started working at a sports bar that was right next to my apartment. So it was about a two mile, two mile Jesus Christ. Two minute walk from my apartments. And so while this was a dark time while I was coping with alcohol, I got a job at a place that is mainly about alcohol. And the people there. It was very normalized to drink on shift. And I did that I would have normally either.

27:06I think it was either two buzz balls or one beat box while getting ready for work. And then while at work, I would have probably four or five green t shots. And I would also be doing drugs in the walk in. And I then also had something super traumatic happen. Again, when you're putting yourself in these bad situations to try to cope with your trauma, it's just going to put you right back into bad situations. I don't know how good I'm doing at telling the story right now, because there's aspects of it that I want to save because I want to be able to talk about them in detail. But basically all I wanted to have from that for this episode is that I had a big life change. I went viral and I started doing TikTok full time. And honestly, I did kind of cut back on my drinking a smidgen like the tiniest smidgen that you've ever seen in your entire life. I was still getting drunk so frequently, but it was back more towards like maybe normalized drinking, but I was still the person, you know, going out with friends, I was still the one telling everybody to take shots. I was still the one taking it too far. But in my brain, I was cutting back a little bit that lasted maybe a month. And then I was right back into full blown alcoholism.

28:21I at this point had kind of come to terms a little bit more with the fact that, hey, maybe I'm an alcoholic because I had noticed that I was using it to cope with things. I had the wherewithal to kind of understand that I knew that I went through traumatic things that I needed to work on. Cosmely, I'm so cute right now. I decided I think it was around June maybe in 2022 to get sober. This would be my first time trying to get sober. I went five days and then I was invited to a event in LA for the launch of a very popular skincare company where I was getting ready beforehand. And I was freaking out and I was like, I need a drink. I needed to drink. I need to call my nerves down. I need to drink before I go to this and my best friend at the time was like, well, just maybe have like a vodka soda. Just have one drink and then you'll be okay. And I was like, oh my god, you're so right. And it once I felt like I had that permission.

29:29I had that one drink. Then I had about three more at the bar before calling the Uber and going to the event. And at the event, I had more and more drinks. By the time I was leaving the event, it was an amazing event. By the way, it was something that I think is so cool. And I think about it all the time. And I wish that I wasn't drunk for it. I go to Uber home very drunk. I'm face timing my best friend in the car in the Uber. My hotel was right next to Skid Row. And the Uber pulls over on the side of the road. I get out. I'm barefoot. I'm holding my heels. I'm wearing a very nice dress. I'm holding my little goodie bag that has the name of this very famous brand on the side of it. And I get out of the Uber. I'm still on FaceTime with my friend. And she says, Brin, where are you? Because she has my life 360 and she's looking and she's doing all this to make sure that I get home safe. Because she knows how drunk I am. And because she wanted to hear about the event. But I look up. I realize I'm standing in the middle of Skid Row, barefoot in my dress. And I start running. And I ran to my hotel. And then proceeded to sit at the hotel bar.

30:42Met up with a middle-aged couple, had more drinks, made them walk with me to go get jewel pods, ended up in their hotel room. Not anything gross or weird. Did do drugs. Did end up doing drugs. And then I woke up the next morning having to pack all my stuff within 15 minutes and drive six hours back to Arizona. And the shame and guilt that I felt, oh my God, ew. Like, what do you mean I made it five days and then I had to do that, right? Oh, Brin, oh my God. That was my first time trying to get sober. And that's, I think a lot of people's first times trying to get sober. It didn't, it didn't work. And I just then was like, fuck it. Continue to drink, continue to have my problems with it. I moved to California about a couple months later.

31:442023. Yikes. That was a very bad year for Brin. I can't remember the beginning of the year. I'm trying so hard right now. I remember I had my split dye hair at the time. I was still just drinking a lot. Like, I don't even know what else to say at this point. Like, I have stories here or there, but it's like, it's the same story. It's just I was drunk. I was drunk and I did something stupid. I was drunk and I did something stupid. I was drunk and I hated myself. I was drunk and I ruined my life. Like, I was just drunk all the fucking time. And I don't remember. I was making the stupidest fucking mistakes. Like, I was inviting people that I met at Disneyland that followed me online back to my apartment to come get free PR, which I mean, like, Sherbrin, nice. But why are you inviting strangers in your house that know you what the fuck are you doing? I was sleeping with random people, of course. Also, once I started doing social media full time, I had all the time in the world to do this. Okay. I didn't have a job that I had to go clock into.

32:46I still worked plenty, but I could be drunk for work. I could go on TikTok live and get drunk. And I was drunk for almost every filming has always been such an excuse for me to drink. And I just reminded myself that I had a mocktail that I poured to drink before this. Because filming is an excuse to drink every time I would film all this like, well, I might as well be a little tipsy at least for it. Because it just in my brain made it more fun, which no, it didn't bitch. You also had to get up 20 different times to pee while trying to film a 30 second video. You get it together, realize you have a problem, not get the fuck off. Holy shit. Okay, 2023. I start dating someone who ended up cheating on me within that relationship. I was already a peak alcoholism. That relationship did not make me more of an alcoholic while I was in it. It just it validated my alcoholism because I was also just like in West Hollywood. And oh my God, I need to talk about hope I got my little mocktail. It's not even a mocktail. I feel like a mocktail used to like mix. I just got my non alcoholic beverage or cherry lime. It's delicious. I forgot to mention. Yes, living in Arizona, the drinking there, bad, but then also living in LA as an influencer going to influencing events. Also bad. There is an open bar at every single influencer event. And I will say a lot of them are very good about having mocktail options.

34:13I wasn't taking the fucking mocktail option. I was taking advantage of the free bar of the free alcohol that is in front of me. And I took so much advantage of it. Jesus Christ. The amount of movie premieres. I've been at just black out drunk. The amount of famous people that I've met black out drunk. And I think back and I'm like, oh my God, what impression have I made? I used to joke about it actually all the time where I was like, well, yeah, of course they want to invite me on the brand trip. And of course they want me at these events because I'm the fun person. Like I bring the party. I'm the fun girl. And sure, yeah, until you're eating shit down the stairs on a tart trip in front of literally everyone busting your shin open brain. I should talk nicer to myself. I need to put not put so much negative energy out into the world. I started eating this girl. Oh my God. I was back on that. Okay, after the breakup happened. Jesus Christ. Did I go far? I'm not going to be deeper into the alcoholism. I'll talk about this a lot within the drugs episode because the drug you got heavy.

35:14Yes, it did. The drug use got very heavy. And they go hand in hand at that point. The second half of 2023. I sometimes can't even look at pictures because I just know I was drunk in every single one of them. I'm not sure of 2023. I once again tried to not get sober this time, but I was going to do dry November because Halloween I got way too fucked up and if we're who the scary's were scary. And so I was like, well, we'll do a dry November. That lasted again about four or five days until I went to a monster truck rally and the traffic was bad getting into the parking lot. And I decided that was reason enough for me to go have a drink once I got in. I said, what I dealt with that. Oh my God, I deserve a drink. Oh my God, I went through that like I did. I need a drink after that. Do you though you had to sit in traffic for 15 minutes. Do you really need to have a drink? Are we serious.

36:15But I did. Yeah, then late fall winter 2023. It was a very, very, very dark time for me. Your girl was going through it. Okay, it was I think just at a point where I had had so many traumatic things happened to me over the course of the two to three years at that point. And I hadn't gone to therapy and I hadn't dealt with any of it. The only way I coped was with alcoholism. It was really bad. I think that was my rock bottom. And I'll talk about it more in the drugs episode because I think it lands more in that. But by January of 2024 now. I started talking to my ex and we had conversations about my drinking, which I've talked about on the internet before. And I actually slowed down a lot. Don't get me wrong. Still would consider myself an alcoholic. Still think I drink way too much. Still think I always took it too far.

37:20Still think I found an excuse and everything to have a drink. So even today still feel like I'm an alcoholic. But I did slow down a lot, especially in 2025. The thing is is I'm not trying to say that I that I wasn't an alcoholic at this point. I'm saying that I didn't get sober at my rock bottom. My rock bottom was the end of 2023. And then I was able to ever so slightly ween off for two years before I did get sober. And I don't know if that makes sense to you, but I know that it makes sense to me. And by the time I got sober in 2025 a year ago today as you're watching this, I just knew that it was time. I was being told that I was the problem a lot in my life at the time that I got sober and I didn't want to be the problem. I was trying everything for the year, year and a half before that to not be a problem.

38:33And I was so fucking sick and tired of waking up and being told things and not trusting myself and not remembering. Even though I had got back on drinking, I just I was so confused and I was like, I need to figure this out. I think it's finally time. And I told the internet that I got sober right after my dad's heart attack, which is true. But it was about a week after my dad had his heart attack. I still drank that following week. And then I woke up one morning after a really bad night and I told the people around me that I'm no longer drinking. And I knew that I had to do it. I knew that I had to figure my life out.

39:44But things in my life were not okay. I knew that the majority of my adulthood wasn't okay. And the things that I had gone through weren't okay. And I knew the way that I was handling things wasn't okay. And I needed to show whatever I don't care if I make up gets fucked up, honestly. I can be a pretty stubborn person. And I know that maybe sometimes that might seem like a negative trait, but I think in this instance, it was a really good trait. Because the second I made that decision and I told people in my life, I never looked back. And I mean that in the sense of like, yes, obviously I think about all the time. I think about what it would be like to relapse all the time. But I haven't. And I was able to stick with it. It was finally able to stick. I just feel really sorry for the younger version of myself, the girl who was making all those stupid decisions.

40:51And I have so many more stories that I want to share. And I have so many more experiences to share. And I don't know if I did a good job at it today. I just wanted this to be an episode of reflection because I think that it's important. And I think that in a way, I should normalize it because normalizing it then when I say that it's a problem and that it's not okay. Maybe it can cause someone else to do some reflection and realize that their coping mechanisms are not okay. And how they're handling things isn't okay. And what they're going through is an okay. And it's not normal. So as of today, as you're watching this September 10th, 2026, I am one year sober and you're all caught up. And there's so much more in there because that was. I mean, listen, I started drinking 13 years ago. I started drinking heavily six or seven years ago. I can't recount every single day.

41:55And I can't make it all make perfect sense because it was every single fucking day. I can't sit here for six years and tell you every single thing. I hope that I did a good job. And I hope that if you relate to any of it, maybe that it causes you to do some reflection. And I want you to know my life has never been better. Ever except maybe when I was like three years old and didn't know what a fucking airplane was like, do you know what an airplane is when you're three. I feel like actually I should have known that when I was three years old. Yeah, I was taking piano lessons. I knew what a plane was. My life has never been better. Okay. I think sobriety is the most beautiful choice that you can make for yourself. And I truly think that you'll never understand it until you're in it. And I want you to know also that addiction is a disease. And it is a beast. And more importantly, you can die from getting sober from alcohol. Okay. You are body.

42:57Kin sees you can have tremors. You can have health complications from trying to get sober on your own. So if you feel as though you are severe alcoholic, please don't try to do it on your own. Okay. Go to a center. They will help you. It can be dangerous. I want you to do some internal reflecting on what your relationship with alcohol is because that's another thing. You are the only person who knows truly fully what your relationship with alcohol is. You are the only person who knows how you think about it. If you're thinking about it every day, if you're the one trying to come up with excuses to drink for every single event, if you're the one telling your friends to take shots, if you're sneaking shots. You are the only one who knows that. Therefore, you're the only one who can change it for yourself. You need to reflect basically is what I'm saying. It's okay if you are an alcoholic. It's okay to admit that you have a problem. And it's okay to see the things that you're doing and understand that they're bad.

43:57You might feel bad. You might feel guilty. You might feel shameful. That is part of it. But wouldn't you rather fix that? Wouldn't you rather try to turn your life around and become a better person who you can look at in the mirror and say, I like what I'm doing. I like who I'm becoming. I like the choices that I've made for myself this week. It feels so much better than the opposite. And I feel like I'm getting into what my sobriety episode is going to be. Because I think this was my alcoholism episode. And it was a little all over the place. You know, I really just as my grandpa would say farted in the wind. It was something like that. Well, that's my life. I can't wait until I tell more stories about my alcoholism. Honestly, I can't wait for part 57 of my sobriety series. I am so happy that none of that is my life anymore. And I'm happy that I can look back on it and know what I need to learn from every single instance.

45:00And I think that as I continue through my sobriety, there will be more things that I remember and more realizations that I have. That's also just a part of growing up and maturing. And I can't wait for it. And I can't wait to tell you all about how amazing sobriety is. And I can't wait to share with you what my life is like now outside of active addiction. As I've said in the other two episodes, if this is the first episode you're watching, I know I launched all three on the same day. At the end of every episode, I like to give a song that either I've just been really vibing with for the week or that I feel like relates to the episode. And you can find them all on a playlist called Modern Girl, of course, on Spotify. I think there will be a Lincoln bio probably right? Emma, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going back and forth on what to do for the song for this week because I did want it to kind of match in with the vibe of this week. And I had my song picked out originally when I was going to do this all about sobriety rather than my active addiction.

46:03But because it's my active addiction, I want to do a song that I loved listening to in 2023 when my life was really fucking bad. And when I was getting drunk all the time. And it is called I heard you got to lit last night by Saint John. Oh God, it's fun. It's it's nothing too serious. Like I said, I can't wait to talk about all of this again. I think that one of my next my my next episodes is going to be my sobriety episode. So I look forward to talking about it. And I hope you look forward to listening to it. And I love you so much. And I hope you have a wonderful week.