Latest / The Sober Creative Podcast / Episode 064 - The Second Time It Stuck: Dana Kay on Becoming a New Person, Not Just Stopping a Behavior

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Episode 064 - The Second Time It Stuck: Dana Kay on Becoming a New Person, Not Just Stopping a Behavior · The Sober Creative Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone to The Sober Creative Podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Every guest has done the same hard thing.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: They've become honest about what was getting in the way.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're creating from a space that's actually theirs.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Josh Woll, and I'm honored to bring you today's guest.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Dana Kay is a writer, connector, and nurturer who's been alcohol free for over nine years.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Her first memory of alcohol goes back to age five, sneaking sips at her parents' dinner parties.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And by adulthood,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: That early fascination had become two DUIs drinking vodka out of water bottles
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: at work and two years of deferred prosecution spent baking clean urinalysis results.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: In 2016, she went to treatment twice.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: The first attempt didn't stick.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: The second one did.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she spent the years since untangling exactly why Work that shaped how she thinks
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: about the genetic, disease, and decision debate around addiction.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Dana writes on Substack about recovery,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: grief, and what it means to actively decide what she wants to be known for.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: She calls her mission love,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: showing up, listening, connecting people to each other and to themselves.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So please welcome Dana Kay.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Josh.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Dana.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's always so humbling to hear somebody read something about you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's so nice.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I share with you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a DUI, too.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we share that in common.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, gosh.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a fun night.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not a fun night.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember it
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: too much.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember it either.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Not too much.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I remember being in jail.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: I got the police report in the mail.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: However, 10 days later.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was reading the police report going, that happened?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't remember.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember being in the back of the car and going to the jail cell and all that.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some ground to cover.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So let's walk me back of early Dana days.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Early Dana days.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: She was cute.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Really cute.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Youngest of three kids, two big brothers.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I also had step siblings, five step siblings, and then my two big brothers.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So youngest of eight, really.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, gosh.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's just fun to get back in touch with her.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I had a great upbringing in terms of, you know, parents providing for me.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: My parents got divorced,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: but my mom got remarried and my two dads remained very, very active in my life.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: They were very different men, very different men.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the way that's played out has been really interesting.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I always joke with my friends like daddy issues times two.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: But but no, very well provided for.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Really took that for granted in my early years.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then it wasn't until I started paying my own bills that I thought I had
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: a pretty good growing up, right?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just graduated high school at 17, started college at 18.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was the expected track.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: I never had any resistance to doing that.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Graduated at 21, almost 22.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Went for another year, became an elementary school teacher, or I at least got that credential.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: But then I proceeded to travel and do other things for a few years and then became
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: a teacher, elementary teacher reluctantly.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: But then I ended up loving it.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, that's kind of tracing it all the way up.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 20 or 2006, I went into real estate after teaching.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So in between a million different part time jobs,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: multiple jobs at the same time, definitely a great multitasker.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of talents and that kind of thing.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's always a double edged sword, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: That you can over rely on your achievements and your talents and the fact
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: that you always get hired and you're always the favorite and you're always this,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: that and the other.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that definitely played into my alcohol use for sure.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so when did you start?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Did you start like?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, drinking.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that one story that I wrote about,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I remember laying on the beanbag with one of those giant black beanbags.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking 70s people when the beanbags were so popular.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Big, huge dinner party, but they still had that beanbag in the middle of the floor.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember sipping drinks all night.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: When people were turned away having conversation and I'm the little kid sipping.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the night,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of collapsed on that beanbag and there was still people there
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: and they were all laughing.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the adult heads over me laughing.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: How old were you?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like five, four, five, six, four, five, six, somewhere in there.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Did you like, did you just take it from the party or like how was that?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no one was like.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no,
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: my parents were,
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: they loved having me around actually because it was like,
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: oh, look, cute little Dana.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was around.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: We had this big downstairs rec room where they would host parties,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: whether they were for some political candidate or just for fun or something.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they wouldn't send me off to my room.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: They would like, Hey, can you go get some food?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Can you bring so-and-so a drink?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was sort of put to work and it was cute.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody was like, oh, look, sweet little Dana.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then after a while, when they get into their drinking and their buzzing, I was like, huh?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: When they would be turned in conversation.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when you're a little kid,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: it's just because you see the adults enjoying themselves doing that.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so you want to feel what they're feeling.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, I immediately picked up, that's cool.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's making everybody laugh.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's totally why everybody's having so much fun.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to do that too.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I would start sipping just out of curiosity
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: with no idea what it was going to do to me.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I do vividly remember people standing over me when I was like,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I must have been passed out or almost passed out.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And instead of worrying or being sad, they were laughing.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they thought it was really cute.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You were five.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, I think I was five or six.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, somewhere in there.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: that's just one story in how every environment I was in,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: it was the absolute cool thing.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And fun thing from the time I was born yet.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's so, so, so deeply ingrained.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And everything.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So and that's why we're doing what we're doing to try and be like,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: well, hey, we've got another option so that we don't need it.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because, I mean, I wrote about that recently where, you know, it's We're like sponges, right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we learn so much from what we take in and it's not necessarily our fault.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think about that as a mother now too.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: how was I not able to connect the dots between that story and
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: when my kids were little?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely recreated this.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely had them in environments where adults were drinking.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And at that time, I didn't have the awareness of my own story and I'm still drinking.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't think there was anything wrong with it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't think it was a bad way to be raising them because there was familiarity in it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we just felt like, oh, we turned out okay.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we can let our kids do this because our parents did it and we turned out okay.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Until you don't, until you reach some pain point where it's like, oh gosh, Yeah.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I mean,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: it really takes each person to have their own awareness kind of come forward,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: because it was so many times when I was being told,
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: are you sure you want
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: another one?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so...
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what was like college like and such?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you feel like it increased as you got older?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I had a really unique college experience where I didn't sleep around and drink.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Fortunately,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: when I was a freshman,
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: oh my gosh,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was only like four or five months into my freshman year,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: went to UC Davis, California, and
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: I went, oh my gosh, it's so funny.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: My roommate and I just found this group on campus that was a Christian youth group
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: and the boys were cute and we were like,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: let's go to that because they're really cute.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we went to this Christian social group.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Neither one of us like Christian in our upbringing literally just went
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: because there was cute boys and they had fun games and ice cream and pizza
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: and like it just looked like a fun thing to do.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then that changed our lives because we went to on a retreat in
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: the Santa Cruz mountains and we found God and Jesus and beautiful new friends.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I was 18 when that happened.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so the rest of college was good, clean fun with that group of people.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so the only time I would drink, of course, was when I went home to my hometown.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this set of friends and then that set of friends.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: So what was interesting is I still really wanted the hometown vibe
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: where I was drinking and flirting and playing around.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: So my day to day was with this Christian youth group,
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: but then I lived a double life when I drove home to my hometown.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I loved it.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I got more and more passionately in love with living a double life.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I wouldn't tell these guys about that life.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I wouldn't tell these guys about that life.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that is deeply rooted in my origin story with the two fathers and the two families.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can definitely connect all the dots now.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: But at the time, I didn't realize how addicted I was to the double life.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a complete rush, more than alcohol itself.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: The complete rush was, what can I get away with?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, when I would go home, I would definitely drink and party and all that stuff.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: But then I would drive back and do the Christian social group thing, and we didn't need alcohol.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was like these different personalities of Dana were living.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like, did you feel yourself, like, change when you would go back between?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what was that like?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, Josh, full honesty, I loved it.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was so fun.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was a rush.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just the felt in your body.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have this experience.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my gosh.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I hope these two guys will watch this podcast.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: These two college friends that we jumped in their car at the end of the retreat
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: and we're driving back to Davis and we had just become Christians over the weekend,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and Everybody was celebrating us, my roommate and I.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember them saying, wow, isn't it such a trip that you can't party anymore?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you're not going to be partying anymore, doing all these crazy things.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember vividly, they're sitting over here in the car.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember looking out the window on purpose and being like, oh, crap.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I still remember that and just feeling like, Are they serious right now?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I have to give that up.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was kind of a conscious decision for me, like,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: not kind of,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: it was a conscious decision that, okay,
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to keep this part of me away from them and keep this part of me away
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: from them.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so when alcohol plays into that,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: increasingly over the years, it's just rocket fuel, the combination
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Those, yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, how long did this go on for then?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that was, I was 18.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then I didn't get sober until almost 10 years ago.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So 18 to, well, actually, you know, probably somewhere earlier in my teen years, but until 47.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: The,
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: but so like, Was this where you were going to both places for that length of time too?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I did it in different ways,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: as life evolves and there's the pre-marriage years,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: then there's the marriage years,
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: then there's the raising kids years, and then the different careers in between.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that that pattern played out was consistent.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: But again,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have that awareness at the time,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: or at least not the awareness of how detrimental it was.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I still really loved it.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if we fast forward to when I started doing real estate at 36, 37, um,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember times of just anytime I would get stressed,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: real estate's very irregular and it's hours.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't just go to work and come home.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I would start lying to my husband and my kids and say,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I have to go drop off flyers or do an open house or meet some clients.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they never knew.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like there was no way for them to track.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Most husbands know your work hours.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so they know if that is out of the ordinary.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he didn't know.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: I would do that so I could go drink.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it just started slipping that way.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you feel like it increased over the years, like your intake?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: What did that look like?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Josh.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta take a deep breath.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Take a sip.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is water, not vodka.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Same, same.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because I was just, well,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: it's not funny,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: but it is funny because there's been enough years sober,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: but I was telling the water bottle story to one of my home inspectors who I've known
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: for probably 15 of my 20 years in the business.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw him the other day and we're hugging.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't seen each other in a while.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Rob, do you know That I'd be on inspections with you drinking vodka.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, what?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yeah, in my water bottle.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: You guys.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you had to have known.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: You had to have known.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: was there even one time when you smelled it or you thought or Dana was being weird
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: or anything like that?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, no.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, kudos to me.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I fooled you.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, wow.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: But that, that energy of wanting to get away with it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And fooling everyone,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: lived more on that than the substance.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't really discover that about myself until I was in treatment.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because you look beyond the behavior of drinking alcohol,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: you have to get to the deeper layers of,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: like Gabor Mate says,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: you don't say, where's the addiction or where's the alcoholism?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: You say, where's the pain?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so in treatment and looking at where's the pain,
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: you have to dig deep to figure out where the roots of that are.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: before we get to that part,
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like you, when did you decide to go do the first treatment?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: That was, let me think.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: That was like January of 2016, the end of January.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard because I went twice in 2016.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, which one was the story that got me there that time?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was just, oh, no, no, no.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now I remember.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a therapy session, actually.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: My beautiful therapist.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: She was so patient with me.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: I went to her largely because I was having marriage problems and just being honest
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: about the patterns in me as far as irritability and unkind things I was doing.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And why am I doing those things?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And trying to steer around alcohol when you're in therapy, trying to get to every other reason.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I didn't mention alcohol to her at all.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was just pegging around it.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember that particular day, she shocked me because we had a good relationship.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'd been going to her for several months.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And she just took her little booklet, shut it and went like this.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, well, we can't get any further until you're honest about alcohol.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, mic drop.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what do you mean?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like we weren't even talking about alcohol.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: What are you?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, well, you drank before you came here, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I thought I was fooling her.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So she absolutely called bullshit on me.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, well, and I got mad at her.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I'm an alcoholic.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I got irritable.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: I got reactive, not yelling, but just like, that's not what I'm here for.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: What are you talking about?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Blah, blah, blah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then I proceeded to go home that night.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Put the kids to bed, start drinking some more.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I Googled.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: I Googled something about how do you know if you're an alcoholic or something,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: which a lot of people do.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And what popped up was my history.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know how it says you already searched this such such.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: It said you already searched this treatment or you searched this treatment in December.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like December 24th of 2025, like Christmas Eve.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And Josh, I didn't remember that.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw that little history thing pop up.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it really hit me like, okay,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: you were in a blackout,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: obviously, when you Google that, because you don't remember right now.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So there's your answer.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because here you are Googling that again.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just kind of, I was like, oh, crap.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Ann is right.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, I was sweating, not able to sleep, dry heaving every morning.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: so then I woke up in the morning and had the conversation with my husband.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't talk to him until I called the treatment center that I was thinking about
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: and that my therapist had mentioned to me.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I called them and I spoke to an intake person about what does it take to actually come here?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing that scared me the most was taking 10 days away from my family
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: and away from my busy, busy real estate career.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: How was I going to explain that to anyone?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you have that fear.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: My second fear was,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: she said, I have to be a sober admit if I'm only going to do the 10 day program.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise I have to do a detox period and then start the 10 days.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: So for me at that time,
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: it was the number of days and people finding out and how am I going
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: to explain this away?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: I can't take that much time off because I wanted to hide still the truth
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: of what I was doing or why I do it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the first time.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then I stayed sober.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So let's see, I got out of there beginning of February.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I was sober February through June, February, March, like four months.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went on a Europe trip with my son and drank with all the other adults,
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: parents and stuff because I'm a cool kid.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: I got to drink with all the parents.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that was part of my relapse was just feeling deprived.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody else gets to have fun in life, right?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't get to have fun in this life.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that sucks.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then also I had a fault.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: My treatment program was so strong and amazing that I had a false sense of security,
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: that my cravings were gone, that I wouldn't relapse.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if I just drink now, it's not permanent.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not going to go full blown.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: You've got it under control.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I told myself that I could do that and be sober when I got home
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: or just you just convince yourself that that's not sliding all the way back.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Did you like know you were sliding back when you got back?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: From June to August was just it was worse than before.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem like it's more intense.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my gosh.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they teach you in the treatment program.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like there can be no first drink because your first drink, you will go back harder than before.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they drill that into us.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you don't want to believe that when you're doing it,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: especially after that first drink, you don't want to believe that's true.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I always had that determination to beat the odds.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've had that my whole life.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the girl that beats the odds in everything, right?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was determined to beat the odds and just, no, no, that wasn't true.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't true for me.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: But by August, so it was June, by August, late August, I was in the fetal position in my bed.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: My organs like seized up one morning to where I was literally
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: in this tight fetal position and I couldn't move.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I got so scared.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And here my husband was walking back and forth past me getting ready to go to work.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Poor guy.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And he's just like, are you okay?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yeah, I just have a tummy ache.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just lying.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's going to work and I don't want to dump this on him before he goes to work.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he kisses me on the cheek and leaves and I still couldn't move.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm laying on my bed, unable to move.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't remember the in-between of like, somehow I moved eventually and got up out of bed.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went to his work later in the day and said, I have to go back to the hospital.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have to go back.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he was pretty stunned.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Not really aware that I was as bad as I was.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: How much, how much were you having?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, Josh.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So funny when they do the intake at a program and they ask you that,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was always like, and so I just had to tell them my day, what I did during my day.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I wasn't the girl who like had a fifth and then just watched how much of that was gone.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I would drink between every appointment starting in the morning.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I Would be sober in the morning and mom of the year and get them all
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: the healthy food and pack the lunches and get them on the bus and get them
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: to school.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I would start drinking right as soon as they were gone.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I would go to a restaurant or someplace to have breakfast and drink three
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: or four doubles that were super strong and super big.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then stop myself so I could drive home.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Drive home, drink some more, and then crash.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I would take some sort of a nap for an hour or two,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: like two hours, and then convince myself I was sober by the time the boys got home.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they would get off the bus and I would be sober.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this system, right?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then on busy real estate days or when their dad was home,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I would do that morning thing and then between every appointment,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: no matter where I was driving, I had certain bars I would stop at.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know how much I was drinking because it literally was woven
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: into every moment of every day.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So then the kids would get home from school and if I wasn't doing real estate,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I would help them with their homework and soccer practice and baseball practice
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: and cook the dinner and do all the good mom stuff.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then I wouldn't drink anymore until after they were in bed.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had myself convinced that they didn't know.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I love them so much now because we can talk so honestly.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: One of them sleeping right behind me in this bedroom.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: We can talk very honestly about this now.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they're in their 20s and, you know, having their own adult things happening.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm so grateful every day because, I mean,
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: it could make me very emotional,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: but there was a day when I wasn't sure they would ever trust me again.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so the fact that we can talk honestly now is amazing and just get really raw
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: about the lies and the way that we fool ourselves into doing destructive things.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, those open conversations are priceless.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's good stuff.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to commend you.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredibly brave.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Just, like,
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: sharing all this and, yeah,
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: and just getting to this point and having that relationship
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: with your kids is really incredible.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the second time, it's State.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about that.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have a little tattoo on my ankle that has a little logo of the program.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was a different one or a different program,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: but I just took their little butterfly logo and had it tattooed on my ankle after
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: the second time.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was really funny, too,
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: because I did it with my girlfriend,
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Kelly, and she said we had gone through the program together.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And she said,
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: someday we're going to be 70 years old drinking in some pub and we're going
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: to look down at our ankles and be like, damn it, we relapsed.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, girl, no, that is not what's going to happen.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: No way.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, Kelly, if you ever watch this, you need to call me.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Call me.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are you sober?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't know.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where she is.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: So the second time.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: The second time, I mean, gosh, it's such a long story.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: The main thing I wanted to pass on to anyone listening was the difference between
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: the first time and the second time and why it stuck was
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: because essentially every day, it's a 10-day program, every day was the same.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like there was different teaching.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: There were the same counselors teaching the same stuff.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: What hit me in therapy the second time was
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you're going to be successful at this, you have to have an entirely new identity.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the first time I went through, I was focused on stopping the behavior.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I would invite every single person to be curious about that.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's the difference between stopping a behavior and committing to a different identity?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the level of commitment and restructuring that you have to be willing to do
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: to have a whole new identity.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: it's where I couldn't do it the first time because my identity took me into relapse
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: because I still wanted to be the pretty fun, cool girl, mom, friend, daughter.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to fit in still.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that identity was still stronger than the new identity I wanted.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: So in your journey, I mean, have you felt that like where you come up against your identity?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: What that looks like?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think it's something that we experienced so many times in our life.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean,
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: there's so many different experiences,
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: and people that come in and out of your life that, I mean,
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: it changes The only thing that's constant,
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: and so it's, it's,
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: it's like trying to,
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: trying to accept that,
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and,
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: and instead of holding on to,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: you know, what,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: what was,
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: and so it's, it's,
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: it's really hard,
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: but yeah,
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: whenever I,
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: I stopped it, yeah, I mean, it was,
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: it was that for my health,
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: it was like,
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to excel in fitness and it just wasn't something that,
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: um, It was, I was going to be able to do like, there was no way to sustain it.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And, um, yeah.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was, and I just committed to a year of, of publicly to, to not do it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was, that was when it was like, I knew after three months that this is my life now.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and I've built a very great accountability system here on.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to drink for a year.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's your accountability, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely helped.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, it's like, I don't think about it that much.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really don't have a desire for it.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's when the days are hard,
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: it's I'm just being with that, you know, and versus like, Trying to push it away.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's almost every single time that I'm not in a good place,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: it's because of an irrational thought that's happening in my mind.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: You try and become aware of it, but sometimes you're just in it and you've got to ride it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it usually will shift the next day and such.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay,
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: the new identity, yeah, what was it like?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, okay, so this, yeah, I mean, it's been years.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, when did you start to be like, wow, this is so different now?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is this nine years?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think he said.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful journey.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, my 10-year birthday is September 1st.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: September is coming.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's so crazy.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: I realized,
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize until a few months ago that 2026 is 10 years sober and 20 years
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: in real estate.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, wait a second.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's my 10, 20 year.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: It just feels big in a lot of ways.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you asked me how it feels different, how it started to feel different and has progressed.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, immediately after making that decision, I changed my driving route a lot of times.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't drive by the same bars.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because the car would just automatically, right?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: So literally, I had to consciously...
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Think of different ways to drive or schedule appointments that I wouldn't skip
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: or wouldn't miss.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like if there was another person waiting for me or my kids or something
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: or my husband,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: like I just had to not give myself a lot of lag or an hour or two
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: between appointments because that would be super tempting.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so to have accountability with certain friends on that or with my spouse on that.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's why AA is so great for some people because you've got those people built into
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: the fabric of your everyday life.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just started to realize that the more time passed, I was better in the gym.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, getting to that PR now is really not so hard.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to deny before that that had anything to do with alcohol.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: But it did.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I remember my husband and I leaving CrossFit and going to drink together
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: because it was fun.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: We did it.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's celebrate.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we told ourselves that clear distilled were fine.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we were on this paleo nutrition kick and we both were losing weight
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: and getting lean and our libidos were great, like all the things.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were still buddies because we would leave the gym and go drink.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: So after I felt different in the gym,
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: I felt different in my body and they were good differences and having
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: a morning practice of journaling and forcing myself to write down
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: the changes I was noticing so that then times later when I would feel weak,
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: I would go back and read my own words.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, Dana, you know that this is going to lead to that.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: This feels so much better.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: You wrote it right here.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, This is your own acknowledgement of whatever's happening.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that helped.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then having good friends to speak to about it,
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: who would then reiterate it to me at times later on, that accountability.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: then I noticed that I was noticing more things, like
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be driving to an appointment and I live in a gorgeous area.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden I turned my head while I'm driving and trying to make this appointment.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I turned my head and noticed how beautiful it was and just see the trees and
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: the mountains and the ocean and the sound and hear an eagle out my window or see
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: a deer over there or whatever.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I never used to notice that before.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was in awe.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: It makes me emotional.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was in awe of my own noticing, like it's still so beautiful.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: I will notice things and I'm like,
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: thank goodness I'm not drinking because I was in beautiful spaces and places
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: while I was drinking.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: And how much did I miss out on?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: How much did I not notice?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then just allowing myself to grieve that as part of the process.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Not only is it okay to grieve that, it's important to grieve that.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then to be more grateful now.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: I remember sunrises and sunsets where I was drawn to nature.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's always been who I've been, alcohol or not.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always drawn to being in nature.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: And yet,
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: like right now,
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm remembering a time in Mexico and being at this beautiful resort with my family.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's asleep.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: No one in the resort's awake yet.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I got up early to watch the sunrise.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I was drinking.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: And not that I didn't still notice the beauty of the sunrise,
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: but I know I experience that differently now.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Just because the energy it took to be focused on the alcohol took some energy away
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: from being present in the experience.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that I woke up to pour that drink and then go out to the sunrise.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and then I can tell my family I just went out to watch the sunrise.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: When really the truth inside of me was it was a place to go hide and drink.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: So now that space is available for the fullness of the sunrise.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Know what I mean?
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: So the noticing is,
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: the greatest gift on the other side,
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: whether you're noticing differences in your romantic relationship or in the gym or
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: in your business.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was much more honest in my business,
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: not like I was actively lying, but I wasn't hiding parts of me.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: As manipulative or anything in any way, right?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's so good.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:09
  Yeah.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's crazy, too,
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to throw out there is that I also grew up in a family
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: of everybody was steeped in AA and Al-Anon.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the irony of that dinner party story,
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: my grandparents were the pillars of the community for Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I also grew up
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: as a girl.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, my grandparents weren't at that party.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I would go to their house when they were having AA and Al-Anon meetings,
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: help my mom and my grandma serve up pie and coffee.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's wild how I had roots in that too.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: But looking back, that all just felt like a game.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're playing this game in this environment and this game in this environment.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, the double, like you got the double in that.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: So much game playing, so much learned manipulation.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's just incredible if I really think back to all of it.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then those grandparents hiding things.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I love them.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't hiding,
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: actually,
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: but there wasn't a full transparency about their daughter being an alcoholic.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: My aunt, she's the K and Dana K, right?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: She was an alcoholic my whole life.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have incredible amounts of family lineage of alcoholics, like so many.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a learned sense of hiding that.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say it's,
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: I would say at least someone in someone's family has experienced it at some point.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so like you write about, tell me like what you write about now and and such.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I laugh because I'm just accepting that I write about all kinds of stuff.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: For the last five years or six years,
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to get myself into one niche and say,
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know, I'm the woman for this never really worked out.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I would throw offerings out there and no one would sign up and this, that and the other.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Until I came to a more beautiful place in the last year or two with acceptance of
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: the fullness of me and that everything I express is my art.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: So what do I write about?
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is all about love, but love is a giant umbrella.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a lot of wisdom in terms of this subject matter, obviously around sobriety.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: I really like to hold people in whatever they're going through and
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: then connect them back to their own soul for answers.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's the love.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: So no matter what the topic is, it's not about, for me anyway,
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: I just express what genuinely comes through from God or my inner wisdom or my divine intuition.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: So on any particular morning, that might be about relationships.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: That might be about being a mother of older children and the grief that comes with that.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: It might be about, yeah, like being single in your 50s.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: It might be about starting your life over and being brave enough
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: to switch careers later in life.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: A variety of experiences, but my main goals are connection, acceptance, and noticing.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: C-A-N, it's kind of a dorky acronym.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can, but I can.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Connection, acceptance, and noticing.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because those are the three biggest gifts I think I've received through Life experiences.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the thing that I like to hold with people.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: I like to just really listen to what they perceive their problem is and
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: then open those things through questions and curiosity, you know?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I write about a lot of different things.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about love and possibilities though, for sure.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: There is no saying no to whatever your dreams are, whatever you want to do with your life.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's just, there's no no.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's so good.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks everyone for joining us.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions, please feel free to pop them in the chat.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we could go on for another hour, I'm sure.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: We could.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what are you working on next?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to let everybody know where to find you.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, on Substack, I'm here as Dana Kay and Instagram, I'm Dana Kay.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: I am constantly writing and I know it'll turn into a book or five books at some point.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right now it's notes and articles,
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: but I also do one-on-one calls for anyone who wants to be held
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: in whatever they're going through.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a great connector.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if anyone feels like, man,
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: I really just want to meditate more,
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: or I really just want to know how to figure out if I should stay in my relationship,
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: or am I an alcoholic,
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: or what do I do with this sadness now that my kids are older,
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: or just any kind of a space.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you read something that I write and you want to visit that in a personal way,
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: I do one-on-one calls also.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I go to retreats and host little circles about gratitude and forest walk
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: and talks and just all the things.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Where are those retreats?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have one coming up or is there, did you have one already this year?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I don't host them myself.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: I get invited to be a Workshop person.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah,
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: and sometimes it's corporate and sometimes it's a more soulful space or
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: a yoga retreat or whatever,
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: but pairing gratitude with that as well as, you know, opening deeper connection.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a lot of fun.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I love to do.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Dana, thank you so much for Yeah, it was all so very, very good.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: So grateful for these conversations and your wisdom.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I know everybody who listens and who was here today, thank you for your time.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, definitely taken away.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks, everybody.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't being witnessed the coolest thing?
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: So great.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Josh.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate you reaching out.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we all can click on things on Substack, but you can't.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: With the extra mile to personally reach out.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that means a lot.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my pleasure, Dana.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, have a great weekend.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Take care, everyone.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.