Latest / Finding New Waters / Clean Living, Honest Recovery: Meredith Brierly on Sobriety, Wellness, and Motherhood

Transcript

Clean Living, Honest Recovery: Meredith Brierly on Sobriety, Wellness, and Motherhood · Finding New Waters

• 0:00
  You know, I'm kind of a believer in that we all have to drink
• 0:03
  every drink or every pill or whatever the substance that we
• 0:07
  needed to, right, to get to that point of willingness, surrender,
• 0:12
  you know, the gift of desperation, whatever all the
• 0:14
  things that we want to call it, you know, and for me, it's like
• 0:18
  we say that I think truly recovery is a program of action,
• 0:21
  right? Consistency over time.
• 0:23
  And for me, even something as simple as I wasn't willing to
• 0:28
  fully take the suggestions yet, right?
• 0:31
  All right, welcome back everybody.
• 0:32
  My name is Bea Reeves. I'm the Director of Business
• 0:34
  Development here at New Waters Recovery, sitting here with our
• 0:37
  CEO, Justin McClendon. And our special guest today is
• 0:42
  Meredith Brill, also known as Clean Coaching Mama.
• 0:47
  And hey, Meredith, thank you so much for being here.
• 0:50
  Yes, thank you, Meredith, real quick before we get started, I
• 0:53
  did want to point out just to get the awkwardness out of the
• 0:55
  way, B and I are basically wearing the same color shirt
• 0:57
  right now, which we typically don't do, but it's a it's a
• 1:01
  thing it. Might have some subtle stripes,
• 1:03
  which is kind of a no no anyway, but.
• 1:05
  We'll get through. It we will.
• 1:07
  Yeah, you. Didn't even notice, but now I
• 1:09
  have. Now you have.
• 1:10
  That's all you're going to think about for the rest of the
• 1:12
  podcast. You're welcome.
• 1:14
  It'll be even worse if I was wearing the same color, right?
• 1:17
  It would be amazing. Actually, well, thank you for
• 1:22
  coming. And to be clear, Meredith does
• 1:25
  live in Raleigh, but we're doing this virtually due to some
• 1:28
  scheduling constraints. So thank you for for doing that.
• 1:32
  And yeah, so IA mutual friend of ours and of New Waters
• 1:36
  introduced us by phone. And so we've never technically
• 1:39
  met in person, but we talked the other day and I'd heard of you,
• 1:42
  I think by maybe somebody else I know from the rooms, as it were.
• 1:48
  And so tell us just, you know, what do you do and how did you
• 1:52
  start doing it? Yeah, well, the most important
• 1:55
  thing, I'm Meredith. Brill's actually my maiden name.
• 1:58
  My husband will kill me if I don't say briarly is my last
• 2:01
  name, my married last name. And really, the most important
• 2:05
  thing is I'm gratefully sober for 13 years, 13 years this past
• 2:08
  January. That's awesome.
• 2:10
  And my husband is 15 years sober.
• 2:12
  So sobriety is really the anchor for our life, right?
• 2:17
  The foundation for everything. And I kind of say a number of
• 2:22
  factors brought me to what Clean Coaching Mama is and kind of
• 2:27
  honestly who I am today as a sober woman.
• 2:31
  And it was kind of a combination of, you know, having my kids
• 2:35
  older. I was 37 and almost 40 when I
• 2:40
  had my two boys and marrying someone who is 9 years older
• 2:44
  than I am who I joke was like borderline pre diabetic and he
• 2:48
  would be fine with me saying that when we got together.
• 2:52
  And then my background is a pediatric speech therapist as
• 2:55
  well, which was a second career that I did in sobriety.
• 2:59
  I went to Graduate School in sobriety.
• 3:00
  I did corporate sales stuff during all my crazy years, which
• 3:03
  I will definitely get into. But all those things, you know,
• 3:07
  I was trying to get pregnant. I was, which I mean, I'm so
• 3:11
  grateful I was able to get pregnant quickly, but they
• 3:14
  really pointed me in the direction of health, right?
• 3:16
  We get sober and then we're like, OK, wow.
• 3:20
  Well, we learn about HALT, we learn about and right now I'm
• 3:24
  going to give you guys like a 20 minutes, so I'll keep that.
• 3:26
  Let me rein it in a little bit and we can get into that stuff
• 3:28
  later, but I would just say that it's sort of, you know, I kept
• 3:32
  peeling away the onion more and more in terms of what can we
• 3:35
  control about our health. But at the same time, I'm all
• 3:38
  about putting the principles of recovery into practice in all
• 3:42
  areas of my life and not taking myself too seriously, right?
• 3:47
  Being gentle with myself, warding off perfectionism, all
• 3:51
  that kind of stuff. So I like to approach it in a
• 3:54
  very balanced, gentle way. And I ended up getting certified
• 4:00
  as a health coach and then starting Clean Coaching Mama, I
• 4:03
  think almost two years ago. And I do a lot of events and
• 4:08
  workshops. I've taught classes, I do
• 4:10
  individual coaching as well, and I have lots of free resources
• 4:13
  too. So it's kind of my jam.
• 4:15
  Clean living, low tox, cleaner eating, all that kind of stuff.
• 4:19
  Cool. Well, when we backtrack for just
• 4:21
  a second, I saw that you did live in New York and worked in
• 4:25
  advertising back before you were sober and living cleanly.
• 4:30
  Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, Well, it's funny, you
• 4:33
  know, I was one of these people. So yeah, I moved to New York
• 4:37
  City. I went to College in Chapel
• 4:39
  Hill. I'm actually from around here.
• 4:40
  I'm one of those weird people that grew up in Harry and moved
• 4:45
  to, well, I moved to London for a year and then then New York
• 4:47
  for almost 10 and did corporate stuff all those years.
• 4:52
  And, you know, this is really, I mean, totally tied to my
• 4:56
  alcoholism story because, you know, I was one of those people
• 4:59
  that I say drink myself into alcoholism.
• 5:02
  I didn't start fully out of the gates, right?
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  Obviously I had the predisposition, obviously I had
• 5:08
  the atypical relationship with alcohol, the tendency blackout,
• 5:12
  the tendency to love that feeling, all that stuff.
• 5:15
  But I was like super focused on not disappointing my parents
• 5:20
  basically, and trying to quote do well, whatever I thought that
• 5:24
  meant, right? So, you know, you throw somebody
• 5:28
  like that into the corporate New York City 20 something world
• 5:31
  that is ripe for compare and despair and beating yourself up
• 5:37
  and, you know, work drinks every single night, you know, flip cup
• 5:41
  tournaments and beer pong and all of it, right?
• 5:45
  So it's fun for some years, fun with consequences, and then it
• 5:49
  got bad. And anxiety is a big part of my
• 5:51
  story, as are anxiety pills. So I'm well acquainted with and
• 5:57
  was for several years with Klonopin and Xanax, which The
• 6:02
  funny thing is they were of course, Dr. Prescribed, right?
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  All the while I was drinking pretty much every night.
• 6:10
  So it just spiraled and you know, it spiraled into a God
• 6:16
  doing for me what I couldn't do for myself type turn of events,
• 6:22
  you know, a bad breakup, getting fired from a job I'd had for
• 6:25
  three months that I've been completely buzzed for during the
• 6:29
  interviews by the way I was, which I laugh now.
• 6:32
  I can laugh about it since it's been 13 years, the first years
• 6:35
  in sobriety, I would still get a little bit, you know, it took a
• 6:37
  while for all that shame to erode.
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  But you know, I was working for a fast company, which is a
• 6:42
  really cool business brand and it was a great opportunity,
• 6:46
  right? But I was just AI mean.
• 6:48
  Oh my gosh, that was awful. I would go for like 3 hour
• 6:51
  lunches and just, you know, expense them and I mean, come in
• 6:55
  late with, you know, dog related.
• 6:58
  I had a different dog bed, but dog related vet excuses all the
• 7:02
  time. New person on a job, mind you.
• 7:04
  Right. And just yeah.
• 7:07
  And then after I I showed up, and it's funny because this
• 7:11
  vivid memory actually came back to me in the last year or two of
• 7:14
  sobriety, and I'd forgotten about it.
• 7:16
  I would say probably. I still don't know exactly why I
• 7:18
  was fired because I did not ask. When they offered more
• 7:21
  information. I was just like, yeah, time to
• 7:25
  get a drink. But we had a meeting with the
• 7:29
  IBM media team, my head publisher, who I, like, barely
• 7:32
  knew. And I literally told her I would
• 7:35
  just, like, meet her at the office and then ended up going
• 7:38
  and getting, you know, a couple of vodka sodas before because
• 7:41
  that's what I had to do at that point.
• 7:43
  This was like the end of my New York years.
• 7:45
  So, you know, I'm sure she smelled.
• 7:48
  I mean, it's funny how we think people don't smell vodka, right?
• 7:51
  But Needless to say, that entire meeting was a haze.
• 7:55
  I don't even really remember it. And the next week I was fired
• 7:59
  so. God, dude.
• 8:03
  Totally 100% blessing. Immense gratitude now, yeah.
• 8:08
  Right. Yeah, interesting.
• 8:10
  I. I hear.
• 8:12
  Well, you know, I grew. I'm also one of those weird
• 8:14
  people who's from here, born and raised in Raleigh, and I lived
• 8:16
  in London briefly and then New York for about 5 1/2 years and
• 8:19
  was definitely not sober, but relate to the, you know, the
• 8:24
  compare and despair because everybody made more money than I
• 8:28
  did. And I just remember people would
• 8:30
  be like, hey, we're going to go to dinner and then go out and
• 8:33
  I'll be like, I'll just meet you out.
• 8:34
  Like I, I didn't have, you know, $200 to go spend at dinner when
• 8:37
  I was 26. And, and, you know, I just, I
• 8:42
  can't say I was trying to really impress, make my parents proud.
• 8:45
  I think I was just trying to, I don't know what I was trying to
• 8:48
  do. I was trying to make everybody
• 8:50
  else think I was cool. I think more than anything, but
• 8:53
  again, this is not about us, this is about you.
• 8:55
  And so I just wanted to hear a little bit about it, about your
• 8:57
  New York, but that it's all part of the, you know, the one of the
• 9:01
  many tiles in the mosaic of our lives, right?
• 9:04
  The New York, whatever, whatever city it is, whatever we did to,
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  I mean, for me it was a series of bottoms and a few of them
• 9:12
  were in New York for sure. But so you move back and then So
• 9:17
  what year are we talking? I'm trying to do the math on
• 9:18
  your 13 years. So OK, so I just turned 45 and I
• 9:23
  got sober at 31, just shy of like I turned 45 in March.
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  I got sober 13 years sober in January.
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  So I moved back here at well, it took me, I didn't get sober
• 9:35
  immediately. Some people do.
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  Took me a little while to be convinced I moved back here, I
• 9:43
  guess. I was 31 and I came back here,
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  you know, I had a bad breakup. I got fired.
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  Of course, I thought that this was the opportunity to like go
• 9:51
  to grad school and start like a totally new life.
• 9:54
  And, you know, I thought that anxiety was the problem.
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  You have to to realize at this point, I didn't think drinking
• 10:01
  was a problem. I really didn't.
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  So I thought I was just coping with the bad alcoholic
• 10:06
  relationship. Of course, I didn't know it was
• 10:08
  alcoholic at the time. You know, corporate America, my
• 10:13
  boss is the stress of New York, all of it.
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  I thought it was anxiety was the problem.
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  So move back to my parents thinking I was just going.
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  I say I crawled home with my tail between my legs to kind of
• 10:24
  regroup. And I was seeing a therapist in
• 10:28
  North Raleigh who suggested drinking being a problem.
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  And I was like, what are you talking about?
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  You know? And she was like, well, a lot of
• 10:35
  these stories seem to have to do with being drunk.
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  And I'm like, whatever, you know.
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  So she suggested I try to stay away from drinking.
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  I, it just didn't work. And I started doing, I mean, I
• 10:47
  was like sneaking, hiding, living in my parents house in
• 10:49
  Carrie. And I finally went to a, to a, a
• 10:54
  meetings, went to 12 step meetings to appease my parents
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  and my therapist. And I laugh.
• 11:01
  I mean, there are women who are still in my life and we laugh
• 11:04
  about this. You guys can probably tell I am
• 11:07
  a talker. I would go to meetings sometimes
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  drunk, not even sober, and double share, like literally
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  double share, right? I mean, how embarrassing.
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  So do you know, I just got the whole keep coming back and, you
• 11:22
  know, do you need a ride and such warm reception from the
• 11:28
  recovery community? And I mean, again, I can laugh
• 11:32
  about it now, but I just wasn't convinced, you know, I mean, I
• 11:36
  started going to like young people's meetings.
• 11:38
  I felt like I was young back then and honestly, I heard a lot
• 11:42
  of, you know, in jail DUI. Of course I should have had DUI,
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  but I thought, you know, that didn't relate to me.
• 11:51
  But I heard a lot of stuff. I heard a lot of hard drug
• 11:53
  stories. And even though I obviously have
• 11:55
  a pill, you know, part of my addiction story, I felt like,
• 11:59
  whoa, these people are like real like drug addicts.
• 12:03
  Like I was so arrogant and just looking for the, you know,
• 12:09
  differences and not the similarities.
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  So, so yeah. So I wasn't convinced and I
• 12:18
  ended up going to a 30 day. I went to Fellowship Hall in
• 12:20
  Greensboro, OK. I may have heard of it.
• 12:24
  Oh, I was about. To be received in.
• 12:25
  There. Yeah, well, New Waters wasn't
• 12:30
  around back then or I would have been there in a second because I
• 12:35
  love, I've been there for for meetings.
• 12:37
  It's a gorgeous facility. And I've talked to people who've
• 12:41
  been there and I know you guys are doing such great work, such
• 12:44
  a needed resource in this area. Thank you.
• 12:47
  So fellowship hall was a step, a step down, but it was great.
• 12:54
  You know, I mean, I I learned a lot.
• 12:56
  I learned a lot about alcoholism, which honestly, I
• 13:00
  did not. This sounds kind of like what
• 13:03
  kind of an idiot are you, But I didn't have a lot of addiction
• 13:06
  in my family. I didn't grow up around and I
• 13:09
  didn't get into my family stuff yet, but 412 step and addiction
• 13:15
  standards, I had a pretty normal family.
• 13:18
  Now, we did have some stuff that I think contributed a lot to the
• 13:21
  emotional dynamics that I think are there in most of us who end
• 13:26
  up in substance abuse. But I didn't know a lot about
• 13:31
  alcoholism. So fellowship, Paul, I learned
• 13:33
  about the physical component, that mental obsession.
• 13:36
  It eroded some of that shame that I had with this like
• 13:40
  association that people were suggesting I was an alcoholic.
• 13:43
  So I did not stay sober after treatment.
• 13:47
  I always tell people treatment is great.
• 13:50
  It gives you a foundation and it gives you contained sobriety,
• 13:54
  but what really matters is what happens when you leave, right I.
• 13:57
  Think you're, you're crushing it, but I mean, I'll throw in at
• 14:00
  something right there. I, we completely agree with that
• 14:03
  statement that, you know, we're big believers in treatment, but
• 14:08
  you know, treatment is just the beginning or, you know, a place
• 14:11
  for you to, you know, create separation between you and the
• 14:15
  substance. Learn some good stuff, Hopefully
• 14:17
  have some aha moments about like what's going to be necessary to
• 14:20
  be able to sustain sobriety. But what happens when you get
• 14:23
  back home is, is what's most important.
• 14:26
  You know what I mean? And I think there's an argument
• 14:28
  to say that sometimes people need to go away to treatment in
• 14:32
  order to have enough of that separation to where they even
• 14:34
  stand a chance of being able to definitely they get back home.
• 14:37
  But yeah, what happens when you get back home?
• 14:39
  That's where the where the rubber meets the road, as they
• 14:41
  say. Yeah, we were just talking about
• 14:43
  this on a another episode and I was talking to a guy this
• 14:47
  morning who's leaving New Waters to go to further treatment and
• 14:52
  basically saying what you're saying is just, you know, event
• 14:55
  we can't be in treatment forever.
• 14:56
  So eventually we got to start. We got to take matters in our
• 14:59
  own hands and still need and ask for and receive help on a daily
• 15:02
  basis. But we don't have somebody
• 15:04
  waking us up and telling us to be here and there and taking us
• 15:06
  in a bus to meetings and back and forth and telling us where
• 15:10
  to be. And and so, yeah, I mean, that's
• 15:13
  the thing. I mean, I certainly needed to be
• 15:15
  separated from the substances long enough to get physically
• 15:18
  OK, but also needed to learn a lot about it because I I have
• 15:22
  similarly, I don't have I asked my mom about it and she just
• 15:26
  said I just asked, do we have this in our family?
• 15:28
  You know, because I grew up around lots of drinking and all
• 15:31
  that, but not but there was nobody who was a real alcoholic
• 15:35
  addict who was had been to treatment or needed to or
• 15:39
  anything like that. But she said, you know, I had a
• 15:40
  great uncle who I remember your grandmother would bring him
• 15:43
  cakes when he would get a, you know, his first anniversaries.
• 15:46
  But that was the only. So basically this is all of my
• 15:49
  own making. But I it's funny that is a lot
• 15:54
  of similarities, but there is right?
• 15:56
  Yeah, interesting. To chat offline, we've got.
• 15:59
  I know we will, but. And so you get you.
• 16:02
  You finally do find your footing even though treatment didn't
• 16:06
  take. And you know, because back to
• 16:08
  that, you know that it creates this, it can, I see it everyday,
• 16:12
  a false sense of security where people are like, well, I just
• 16:15
  went to treatment and I learned so much about everything.
• 16:18
  And they come home and there's, there's a really strong
• 16:21
  correlation between especially going to two meetings, but at
• 16:24
  least one meeting the day somebody gets home.
• 16:26
  And obviously sometimes people get home at midnight and they
• 16:29
  can't go but within a 24 hour period because that's what
• 16:33
  happens is, you know, with every day that goes by, it gets easier
• 16:36
  and easier to say, well, I haven't drunk alcohol or picked
• 16:40
  up a drug yet. I'm all right.
• 16:42
  And then two days goes by and it's like, well, I don't need to
• 16:45
  go. And then a week.
• 16:47
  And we all know how it goes. But you know, you said you kind
• 16:53
  of you stuck around long enough, even though you were drinking at
• 16:55
  1st and, and but, but there's something you kind of even
• 17:00
  though you were sort of comparing and you know, you
• 17:02
  know, you're comparing out instead of identifying with, but
• 17:04
  something about it kept you coming back.
• 17:06
  And then that's that's the thing that is so important is we all
• 17:11
  think that or I'm not going to speak for anybody but me, but
• 17:14
  that for somebody to get better and get and stay sober, that
• 17:18
  person needs to say help, I need help.
• 17:21
  I'll do anything. And then they go take
• 17:24
  suggestions and do it right then that that like perfect world,
• 17:27
  but that almost never happens. But it's really about just going
• 17:31
  through the motions long enough to get some results and just to
• 17:34
  see that, wait, this does actually work.
• 17:36
  So, and why not keep this up? Oh, totally.
• 17:41
  And, you know, I'm kind of a believer in that we all have to
• 17:45
  drink every drink or every pill or whatever the substance that
• 17:49
  we needed to, right, to get to that point of willingness,
• 17:53
  surrender, you know, the gift of desperation, whatever, all the
• 17:56
  things that we want to call it, you know, And for me, it's like
• 18:00
  we say that I think truly recovery is a program of action,
• 18:03
  right? Consistency over time.
• 18:05
  And for me, even something as simple as I wasn't willing to
• 18:10
  fully take the suggestions yet, right?
• 18:14
  I mean, that was my big thing. I kept doing stuff that really
• 18:18
  wasn't smart if I wanted to stay sober, right?
• 18:21
  And it was, you know, my last, my last drink wasn't even
• 18:27
  anything. I had more dramatic consequences
• 18:32
  during those drinking. It was about 6 months from when
• 18:34
  I came to AAI, went to treatment in the fall, August, September,
• 18:39
  and then my sobriety date is January 1st.
• 18:42
  And there was no grand proclamation to January 1st,
• 18:45
  which people laugh about like New Year's Day, like, oh, I'm
• 18:47
  sure that's a good sobriety date.
• 18:50
  It was just the last day of utter hell.
• 18:53
  You know, I had gone on a trip that was not suggested, that was
• 18:56
  not recommended. I'm a social enough person that
• 18:59
  I was, like, super connected to these women, like the recovery
• 19:03
  women that I'd met. And yeah, I'd gone on a trip to
• 19:08
  the, you know, the old boyfriend with my dog, you know, to Ohio.
• 19:12
  I mean, he was a drinker. I mean, it was just nothing
• 19:14
  about it was a good, good idea, right?
• 19:17
  And of course, I ended up drinking.
• 19:20
  And what is so magical and so, in my opinion, really a divine
• 19:24
  moment in what ultimately happened is that, you know, that
• 19:29
  last drinking, it was like, slam in a Bud light hiding it in my
• 19:31
  suitcase, slam in a Bud Light hiding it in my suitcase.
• 19:33
  You know, just to the point of being like, what am I doing
• 19:37
  waking up the next morning and literally like being on my
• 19:41
  knees. You know, I had believed.
• 19:43
  I do want to touch on this a little bit, but I'd had a
• 19:46
  relationship with God. I'd actually been involved in a
• 19:48
  church in New York City. I had met a pastor to talk about
• 19:52
  my anxiety over beers, over pints.
• 19:56
  I had gone on a missions trip years ago.
• 19:58
  I mean, I was acquainted with, you know, faith as a, as a part
• 20:02
  of life. So in that, you know, I didn't
• 20:04
  have a problem with that. You know, some genuine, you
• 20:08
  know, not just the foxhole prayers, but like a real like,
• 20:10
  OK, God, please help me, I'm done.
• 20:11
  I'm done. I'm done.
• 20:12
  But, you know, I sent this long manifesto off to like all my
• 20:15
  girlfriends and I was just like, yes, this is this is a new day.
• 20:19
  And, you know, but everything changed and I started doing,
• 20:24
  like we said, the actions. I started really doing what was
• 20:28
  suggested, you know, and trusting that, you know, a lot
• 20:32
  of people think in early sobriety life should start
• 20:35
  looking great. And we forget, you know, how
• 20:38
  long it took us down that road to get to that point, right?
• 20:42
  There's a lot of wreckage, there's a lot of damage.
• 20:44
  And if this is in fact a disease, that's really about our
• 20:48
  thinking, right? We've got to do some work before
• 20:51
  things are going to change. So that's where I think I was
• 20:55
  lucky too, in that I didn't have a lot going on.
• 20:59
  I was like doing pre write classes for Graduate School.
• 21:02
  Most of the people I'd reconnected with, I wasn't even,
• 21:06
  you know, because I'd come back to my North Carolina life.
• 21:09
  I had some good friends who were still in the area who were like
• 21:11
  solid people who knew what was going on.
• 21:13
  But I was like really connecting with recovery people.
• 21:16
  And at there was a point I was doing 2A meetings a day, which I
• 21:20
  know people are like, how would you now?
• 21:21
  I can't even imagine doing that with my schedule, But that's
• 21:25
  what I was able to do. And I got in the middle of
• 21:28
  recovery and it has just been, you know, I mean, life happens
• 21:34
  and hard stuff has happened, but it has just, I've never left the
• 21:38
  recovery community, not in these 13 years.
• 21:40
  I don't plan on it. My husband's story is the same,
• 21:46
  you know, and it's just, it's, it's those actions, right?
• 21:49
  That that's where the change comes.
• 21:51
  So. That is, yeah.
• 21:53
  I'm glad you brought that up about staying in the middle of
• 21:55
  the pack. I mean, I remember hearing
• 21:58
  several different metaphors for it.
• 22:00
  And you know, the one, the elk who get picked off are the ones
• 22:04
  who are on the edge of the herd. And, and then one guy, remember,
• 22:07
  he said, you know, it's hard to fall off the middle of a roof.
• 22:10
  And I just, you know, I, but I, I was kind of like, again, like
• 22:14
  you a little bit where I, when I got out, I took some more time
• 22:16
  off work and I had the luxury of just, I would go to sometimes 2,
• 22:20
  even 3 meetings a day and I just did it.
• 22:23
  And I was willing to do whatever they told me to do.
• 22:26
  And just, but I, but I started getting results and when I was
• 22:30
  six months sober after listening with, you know, not wanting to,
• 22:35
  but listening to my sponsor helped me figure out for myself
• 22:39
  not to go to see, go see fish on 2 separate occasions.
• 22:43
  And then, then, but when I was six months sober, I kind of was
• 22:46
  like, I think I'm, I'm OK to do this.
• 22:47
  And he agreed. And I went to meetings every day
• 22:50
  in New York and I kept hearing, and it's first time I've been to
• 22:52
  New York sober other than when I was probably nine years old.
• 22:57
  And this was in and I went to meetings every day and I heard a
• 23:01
  different person say the same thing, which was I came from my
• 23:04
  drinking. I stayed for my thinking.
• 23:07
  And I needed to hear that right then and there because I was
• 23:11
  like, you know, to me, six months is a long time at that
• 23:13
  point. And it, it is for somebody like
• 23:17
  me. And, and I was like, OK, I'm
• 23:21
  doing all this stuff with my but I'm just, my thoughts are just
• 23:25
  so out of whack. And I, and when I heard that, I
• 23:28
  felt like, OK, I needed that confirmation right then and
• 23:31
  there, that reaffirmation that I'm right where I need to be.
• 23:34
  And then, you know, when I, like you were saying, you know, we,
• 23:38
  we think we're magically going to get better because that was
• 23:40
  kind of how I felt. I was like, I'm sober for six
• 23:43
  months. Why am I thinking like this, you
• 23:46
  know? But you know, in hindsight,
• 23:48
  yeah, I was sober for only six months.
• 23:50
  Yeah. And I think one of the things
• 23:54
  that's this is just reminding me of that with what you were
• 23:56
  saying is that, you know, when I talk to women about this a lot
• 24:01
  and my, you know, in the in recovery meetings, is that like
• 24:06
  I was now on these people who thought, Oh my gosh, sobriety.
• 24:09
  I mean, yes, I had a pink cloud, but I also had to really rely on
• 24:14
  that idea of it's not going to look this way forever and
• 24:17
  staying in the day. And, you know, you mentioned
• 24:19
  going to a concert. You know, for me, I wasn't even
• 24:23
  I was like, I was so arrogant. So I was so disconnected from
• 24:28
  like my actual emotional reality.
• 24:32
  And I was like North Carolina. Like if I got to stay in North
• 24:34
  Carolina, like what? Like, you know, like this is
• 24:37
  going to be my life forever. Sitting in a a meetings all day.
• 24:39
  Like, are you kidding me? I like to travel.
• 24:41
  I'm a foodie. I love restaurants.
• 24:43
  I love, like going out. I love, you know, and I didn't I
• 24:47
  was like, OK, OK, OK. But I'll just just stay where my
• 24:49
  feet are. Stay in today and trust it will
• 24:52
  get better. Then going out to a restaurant
• 24:55
  for the first time with friends in recovery, going to a wedding.
• 24:58
  My brother got married. I was, I want to say 2 years
• 25:01
  sober and he's a partier. And it was like a four day
• 25:06
  affair in Pittsburgh or something.
• 25:07
  You know, lots of drinking events.
• 25:10
  And looking back that, I mean, now there's been a lot of
• 25:14
  others, but that was one of the most powerful experiences I've
• 25:19
  had in sobriety, right? Going through that as a sober
• 25:22
  woman, using my recovery tools, being able to be a part,
• 25:26
  experiencing that freedom that we get when it's not, you know,
• 25:31
  an issue. It's not like a kind of fear,
• 25:34
  right? But being a part of but doing it
• 25:36
  in a smart way that I was able to keep my sanity, my serenity
• 25:42
  and really be grateful. And that's how it's been for
• 25:46
  everything, whether it's traveling, whether it's, you
• 25:48
  know, eating out, whether it's concerts, whether it's.
• 25:50
  And part of it, my husband and I talk about this a lot.
• 25:52
  I don't know about you guys, but like part of it is also learning
• 25:55
  who you are in sobriety and delineating what was more
• 26:00
  alcoholic me. So like there are certain things
• 26:03
  that, you know, even for my husband watching football wasn't
• 26:06
  the same or, you know, like, I don't care as much about
• 26:11
  concerts now. I mean, I like them, but like a
• 26:13
  lot of things were more of like a another reason to go party
• 26:16
  with everybody. So it's like figuring out, well,
• 26:19
  I love eating out, right? I mean, New Yorker, Hello, I'm a
• 26:22
  real foodie and I and that's really what it's about is like
• 26:25
  the, you know, the restaurant experience that you know, but am
• 26:31
  I at the bar for two hours before?
• 26:33
  Am I going out for drinks afterwards?
• 26:35
  Am I staying? No, like I'm there for the
• 26:37
  dinner now. I mean, I used to joke there was
• 26:39
  like, so for the end of my, I lived in Hoboken actually the
• 26:42
  last year of all those years, there were a couple restaurants
• 26:45
  in Hoboken that were really like critically acclaimed
• 26:48
  restaurants, but they were like either BYOB or they didn't serve
• 26:52
  alcohol. I never went to any of them the
• 26:53
  whole time I was there because I was like, why would you go to a
• 26:58
  restaurant, if you, you know what I mean?
• 26:59
  Like literally like steps from my, you know, blocks from my, my
• 27:02
  apartment. So it's just interesting, you
• 27:05
  know, learning how to, because it's like we get sober to live
• 27:09
  life, right? Not like that's something I just
• 27:12
  so strongly believe in, but it doesn't happen at 3060 or 90
• 27:16
  days sober. Now I hear you.
• 27:18
  I remember sitting in treatment and I was on a pink cloud and
• 27:24
  was just like humming with excitement about being sober.
• 27:28
  And then I was overcome with fear briefly when I would just
• 27:32
  started thinking about, wait a minute, I feel great.
• 27:35
  But wait a minute, how am I going to go to a party, a
• 27:38
  wedding, a concert, a baseball game, a date, a comedy show, New
• 27:45
  York, Europe, New Orleans, anything.
• 27:49
  And then I thought for another 30 seconds, wait, how did I do
• 27:52
  any of that before when I was so handcuffed to substances in
• 27:55
  order to even do it? And, you know, and since then,
• 27:57
  everything I've mentioned I've done and, you know, to your
• 28:00
  point about the wedding, it's important to have those to get
• 28:03
  through stuff and, you know, be accountable and have a call, a
• 28:06
  sponsor and friends and recovery and, you know, an escape plan,
• 28:09
  have our own beverage there and all the all the things they tell
• 28:12
  us to do. But trying to do that on a daily
• 28:15
  basis. And not that we're going to go
• 28:16
  to a wedding every day, but hanging out in bars and drinking
• 28:19
  ginger ale. That sounds awful.
• 28:21
  And then, you know, that expression, you hang around the
• 28:23
  barbershop long enough, we're bound to get a haircut.
• 28:26
  And So what I realized pretty early on was and I just kind of
• 28:29
  stayed away from all that stuff. I don't think I went to, I
• 28:32
  didn't go to that fish hotel 6 months wedding just happened.
• 28:35
  I didn't need to go to 1 for about 6 or seven months and
• 28:38
  other stuff. I just kept it really, really
• 28:40
  small. And I kind of saw basically my
• 28:43
  old friends, I'd see them during the day, but like I didn't go
• 28:46
  hang out at like party. I just, I just did.
• 28:49
  I just stayed away. But then, but getting through
• 28:53
  that stuff was important. And what I realized though, is I
• 28:59
  can't, there's no, I'm not going to try to live the way I lived
• 29:03
  minus substances. That just sounds awful.
• 29:06
  But when I have a good reason to be there, respected the motives,
• 29:08
  you know, like it says, I have a good reason to be somewhere that
• 29:11
  I'm that I'm there. 100% I'm so glad you brought everything
• 29:15
  you're saying. I'm like, oh, I got to say
• 29:16
  something about that. I I completely, you know, it's
• 29:19
  funny. So I am so grateful that, you
• 29:25
  know, it goes back to the freedom, right?
• 29:27
  So, yeah, it's like my friends. So first of all, as in I'm 45.
• 29:31
  So if my kids are five and seven, I mean, a lot of my mom
• 29:34
  friends are like 10 years younger than me.
• 29:36
  It's like a joke that I shut down at 9:00 PM.
• 29:38
  You know, I'm like, no, it takes a lot for me to do.
• 29:41
  You know, if I want to go do something in the evening, I
• 29:43
  will. But everybody knows, you know,
• 29:45
  I'm just not like a, you know, And if it's if it's like like
• 29:50
  book club, for instance, like I'm in a neighborhood book club,
• 29:52
  They're not a so we can, you know, bottles of wine type book
• 29:56
  club. Because I tell them if you were,
• 29:58
  I wouldn't want to be a part. I don't really want to be around
• 30:00
  that. Right.
• 30:01
  So I think part of it is, you know, it's funny because I have
• 30:05
  some friends who are still staying too close to alcoholic
• 30:12
  drinking life. I would say more of your
• 30:13
  proverbial like Country Club drinks every night kind of
• 30:16
  thing. And my husband and I just aren't
• 30:18
  that's not our scene. We don't, we haven't built a
• 30:20
  life around that. And I think it's like sometimes
• 30:24
  we used to, or I used to think that everybody was like that,
• 30:27
  that like everybody partied like that.
• 30:29
  But like what's really nice is when you're looking at life
• 30:32
  differently, you just honestly connect and relate with people
• 30:36
  and the world around you on a different level and differently.
• 30:39
  Not to say it's better, but you're just drawn to different
• 30:42
  things, right. So it's like I can be a part of
• 30:45
  all these, like groups or organizations or friend groups
• 30:48
  that aren't recovery people, but they're just people who are,
• 30:51
  like, not getting wasted all the time, right.
• 30:55
  They're normal, right. And I think that that's such a a
• 31:00
  blessing because, you know, I was totally like you though
• 31:03
  those early, I'd say first year, six months or year.
• 31:07
  Yeah. And I remember I love that you
• 31:09
  brought up dating because, yeah, I mean, that was a whole, whole
• 31:12
  big thing, dating and early sobriety.
• 31:16
  And I remember saying at treatment, well, you mean I'm
• 31:18
  supposed to get married? I mean, I was single.
• 31:20
  You mean you're I'm supposed to get married and not like, have
• 31:23
  the champagne at my own wedding. That was like a big thing I was
• 31:25
  hung up on. And I remember the counselor
• 31:27
  being like, you're not even engaged.
• 31:30
  Like, calm down, you know? And lo and behold, my husband
• 31:35
  and I had a sober wedding. We had a sober honeymoon.
• 31:38
  And it was great. I mean, we were both sober and I
• 31:42
  mean, it was a, it wasn't even like on my radar that it
• 31:44
  wouldn't be sober. Yeah, that's amazing.
• 31:48
  That's amazing. Yeah, Meredith, I know we we're
• 31:51
  kind of on the tail end here and I didn't want us to miss the
• 31:54
  opportunity to hear a little bit more about what you do and the
• 31:58
  the Wellness side of things. So if you could maybe kind of
• 32:00
  share a little bit about that. Yeah, so.
• 32:04
  I think I think I well, I did share a little bit of how I sort
• 32:08
  of got to that place. You know, I think, and this is
• 32:11
  really more entwined with my mom.
• 32:13
  Part of my identity, I guess is that you know, the mom role.
• 32:16
  So because my husband is also in recovery and he does come from
• 32:20
  long, you know, addiction background all that, so much
• 32:23
  more so than I do. But we're so intentional, right
• 32:26
  about everything right in our family and in our parenting.
• 32:30
  And I think I'm just extra conscious of both for myself, my
• 32:37
  family, but also helping others. And that's not, they don't have
• 32:39
  to be, you know, not around substances, just this concept of
• 32:42
  like whole health support, right?
• 32:43
  Like what can we do? I mean, like, for instance,
• 32:46
  anxiety and depression, right? There's really interesting
• 32:50
  research out about what's going on like in gut, the gut with
• 32:53
  things like that, right? Like, what we're, what we eat
• 32:56
  and how we live basically effects everything, right?
• 32:59
  That's my belief. And it's really empowering to
• 33:04
  me, both in my own home but with other people to help them feel
• 33:09
  empowered by that and to say, wow, OK, I never really thought
• 33:14
  about reading food labels like that or wow, you know, helping
• 33:18
  people learn about added sugar, right?
• 33:21
  And how sugar is pretty much pervasive.
• 33:25
  And it's funny to the recovery community because in early
• 33:27
  sobriety we're like, eat all the ice cream you want, eat all the
• 33:29
  candy you want, you know, but, but honestly, you know, we have,
• 33:34
  I mean, I don't ever like to, It's funny like when I present
• 33:36
  to mom's groups, like one of my slides is like the health stats,
• 33:39
  right? Current health stats on trends
• 33:41
  in adults and in pediatric populations.
• 33:43
  And the reality is they're not good, right?
• 33:45
  We can't argue with that. They are not good.
• 33:49
  And I am of the mindset that our ultra processed foods are
• 33:55
  environmental toxins around every corner, our stress, our
• 34:00
  more sedentary lives than ever before, our device focused
• 34:05
  lifestyles, all these things right contribute.
• 34:09
  So what can we do? What you know, realistic swaps
• 34:14
  can we make, what products can we buy?
• 34:17
  What habits can we adopt, whether it's introducing easy
• 34:22
  meditation or mindfulness to busy moms?
• 34:25
  Like I was presenting to a preschool moms group not long
• 34:27
  ago. And I mean, I remember having
• 34:29
  like two kids under 5. Like, there's no time for
• 34:31
  meditation. You're too tired at night,
• 34:33
  they're up too early in the morning, and you have too much
• 34:36
  to do during nap time. But can you take slow, deep
• 34:40
  belly breaths when you're in the car for a few minutes?
• 34:42
  Yes. Can you find an anchor of how
• 34:45
  your body's feeling? Is your body feeling safe?
• 34:47
  Is your mind all the way up here or all the way back there?
• 34:51
  You know, those are tools that we can do.
• 34:53
  And that's actually a recovery thing, right?
• 34:55
  Like we have the tendency to be ruminating on the past or
• 34:58
  projecting on the future. And everything about how I
• 35:02
  approach Wellness, everything I do with my family, for myself.
• 35:07
  You know, I mean, I did a tapping meditation earlier
• 35:10
  before I met with you guys because I wanted to.
• 35:14
  We had a soup, my husband's traveling.
• 35:15
  We had a busy day, like I wanted to ground my body right?
• 35:20
  What's a tapping meditation? Oh, it's EFT, Emotional freedom
• 35:24
  Therapy. Tapping.
• 35:26
  It's somewhat not the same thing as EMDR, but it's just a
• 35:30
  meditation. Yeah.
• 35:32
  Anybody who's in the meditation world, therapists use it a lot.
• 35:36
  It's tapping on the energy meridians while you're repeating
• 35:39
  statements. It's like acupuncture meets
• 35:41
  cognitive behavioral therapy. Cool.
• 35:44
  So just stuff like that, like I'm, I don't know, I think it's
• 35:47
  just funny how, you know, is it odd or is it God that I got
• 35:53
  sober and then it's literally been a progressive journey of,
• 35:59
  you know, how do I live cleaner? How do I live healthier?
• 36:03
  And not in a like crazy obsessive way either, just in a
• 36:07
  what's doable. And then, I mean, you know, I'm
• 36:11
  45 and my hormones are great. My, my, my provider said I've
• 36:16
  never see liver numbers that look this great.
• 36:18
  And I was like, wow. And for a recovered alcoholic,
• 36:22
  that's great. What are a few things that
• 36:26
  people could do, whether they're in recovery or not, in terms of
• 36:30
  just a few things in the especially in the pantry or the
• 36:33
  refrigerator that are easy things that you would like the
• 36:36
  first thing you would say to replace or get rid of?
• 36:39
  Yeah, well, I always tell people to first try to get a handle on
• 36:42
  added sugar and by get a handle on it, just start looking at it
• 36:47
  usually, right. A lot of, I mean, some of us are
• 36:51
  are already into that. But you'd be surprised
• 36:54
  sometimes. I mean, I love when I do pantry
• 36:56
  makeovers and people are like, whoa, you know, the applesauce
• 37:00
  with like 12 grams of added sugar per half cup or how the
• 37:04
  Smucker's Jelly, you know, versus the lower sugar options
• 37:09
  to just start looking at the added sugar line in your
• 37:12
  ingredients, bearing in mind that the recommended limit is
• 37:17
  24g or less per day for women and children, 35 or less for
• 37:22
  men. So that's not a lot, right?
• 37:25
  I mean, one can of Coke has more than that.
• 37:27
  So for, you know, the illustration.
• 37:30
  So look at added sugar and focus on your staples.
• 37:36
  Don't worry about the things that you're, you know, the ice
• 37:38
  cream that you love or you know that one, you know, snack bar
• 37:43
  that your kids love. Focus on your staples.
• 37:46
  You know, your breads, your yogurt that you might eat
• 37:48
  everyday, your cereal that you might eat everyday and work on
• 37:53
  those. Reading those labels and
• 37:55
  understanding that if there's a whole lot of ingredients listed,
• 37:57
  it's most likely fairly processed, right?
• 38:01
  Shorter ingredient lists are usually cleaner ingredient, less
• 38:04
  processed foods. I have like a yeah, I'm trying
• 38:09
  to, I don't want to give you guys too much 'cause I know it
• 38:11
  can be overwhelming, but I always say focus on your staples
• 38:15
  and the thing that's funny. And this is the last thing I
• 38:17
  want to say. I mean, I exercised like, you
• 38:20
  know, I was like hot yoga and like fancy yoga studios and
• 38:24
  spinning and Equinox spin classes in those New York years.
• 38:26
  I've always liked exercise. But this stress piece of both
• 38:31
  recovery and just Wellness, you know, if we're run it like we're
• 38:36
  racing around and go to the gym and do this with our kids and
• 38:39
  go, go, go, go, go. Like a lot of us are.
• 38:43
  I mean, look at the the numbers of, you know, anxiety, Look at
• 38:46
  how stressed we are. I always say that stress is
• 38:49
  actually the most adverse health factor.
• 38:52
  So getting a handle on stress. And then what does that take,
• 38:59
  you know, starting exercising, slowing down, saying no to more,
• 39:04
  trying to do a little bit of mindfulness in a way that's
• 39:07
  realistic with your family's schedule and with your season of
• 39:11
  life. Love it.
• 39:13
  That's awesome, perfect. That's a great place to that's a
• 39:17
  great place to no, we wanted that and thank you.
• 39:19
  And that that just a little taste and a teaser so people
• 39:23
  will go. And on that note, how do people
• 39:25
  find you, Meredith? Well, I have a website, of
• 39:29
  course. Everything is linked on my
• 39:32
  Instagram. Clean coaching Mama.
• 39:34
  Those are pretty much the best ways.
• 39:35
  Yeah. And then my website
• 39:37
  cleancoachingmama.com. Cool.
• 39:39
  Well hey, this has been awesome and I we have plenty more to
• 39:43
  talk about, so maybe we'll do a part too.
• 39:47
  I know, but you can think of everything right now.
• 39:49
  I didn't even get to. Well, thank you so so much for
• 39:52
  being here. This has been really awesome.
• 39:55
  Yeah. Thank you so much.
• 39:57
  Thank you guys. I appreciate it.
• 39:58
  If you liked what you heard today or just want to know more,
• 40:01
  give us a call on 9196708119 or visit us at
• 40:06
  newwatersrecovery.com. Thank you.