18: Sobriety: Lessons and Guidance from My Sober Journey
Sobriety has been such a gift I’ve given myself, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.
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In this episode, you will learn about:
Updates on my 12 months of sobriety and how I’m feeling at 8 months sober
The moment I knew I needed to try sobriety
My journey and process for healing my relationship with alcohol
My anchors for remaining sober
Advice on how to stick with sobriety
Why many people struggle to stay sober
How to offer yourself compassion when sobriety is hard
Practices for forgiving ourselves for past mistakes
Why forgiveness is key along the sober journey
How our childhoods may be influencing why we drink
Episode References:
14: My Sober Journey: Why I Decided to Do 12 Months of Sobriety
How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self by Dr. Nicole LePera
The Book of Ho’oponopono: The Hawaiian Practice of Forgiveness and Healing by Luc Bodin M.D., Nathalie Bodin Lamboy, & Jean Graciet
Resource Round Up
For the journal prompts referenced is this episode, check out:
Journal Prompts: SobrietySelf-care Practices
Find a support group
Write affirmations and out them in places you can see them throughout the day.
Forgiveness Practice
Therapy (Suggested Places to Start Your Search)
Therapy Aid (low cost therapy for essential workers, and a few other qualifying groups)
Check out my Instagram Post for Questions When Interviewing a Therapist
*Listen to the episode for more specifics about each suggestion.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:31 Teaching
26:02 Listener Question 1
42:48 Listener Question 2
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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Otter. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher 0:02
Welcome to New View Advice, a safe place for you to ask your most vulnerable questions about life, relationships, healing, and so much more. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher. And I believe our fears and traumas are often what holds us back from living life to the fullest. Join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever is holding you back from being your best self. Let's get started. Hi, beautiful souls. My name is Amanda Durocher, and I'm your host. This is New View Advice. And this is a healing centered advice podcast if you're new here. And what I mean by that is that it's not my intention to tell you what to do. It's my intention to offer you tools and resources on how to connect back to yourself. My hope is to offer you a new view on whatever you may be going through. Today, we're going to be doing another episode on sobriety which I'm sure you gathered from the episode title. If you missed my last episode, I also did an episode on my own sober journey in August. So that was episode 14. And I invite you to listen to that before this episode or after but that episode, I go more into my personal journey. In this episode, I will be giving an update on my journey with sobriety as well as answering to questions about other people's journeys and struggles with alcohol. Before we jump in, I just wanted to announce that I'm really excited that this coming January, I'm going to be doing a 30 day sober course. So it's for anyone who's interested in dry January, it's anybody who's just going sober. Anybody who's been sober for a long time, anybody who's curious about sobriety, and is interested in doing 30 days sober in a community. So I'll probably be offering weekly calls, it's going to be four weeks long, and each week, we'll have a different theme. So I'm going to focus on our emotions, our mental state, our physical bodies, and our connection to spirit. So those will be the four weeks, and it's really going to be a healing course. So healing our relationship with alcohol, as well as diving into self love, and how the more we can embrace self love, the easier our sober journey becomes, and how self love really is the way forward in all areas of our lives. And how self love isn't always easy. So I wanted to offer this space where we could do this together. And we could talk about difficult topics, difficult feelings, and really whatever arises. So I'm excited for that. So if that's something that interests you, I would love to invite you to sign up for my newsletter, because that's where you'll be able to hear the most up to date, things going on with that and when that goes on sale. So if you want to sign up for my newsletter, you can sign up through my website, www dot new view advice.com. And if you're on a desktop, you can find it on the right hand side, there's a spot that says newsletter sign up. And then if you're on a mobile phone, you can scroll to the bottom of my web page. And there'll be a box where you can enter your email. So I'm super excited about that. I'm currently creating it. So I don't have a ton of details yet. But as soon as I do, I'll be sending out my first newsletter. So if you're worried about signing up for newsletter, don't worry, you won't be receiving a ton of emails from me. That's not something I really dived into yet. So it'll really just be updates on this course and any courses I'm offering in the future. I'm also hoping to do a grief course in the future where I walk people through the five stages of grief. So if that's something that interests you, as well, let me know. So I'm really excited about that. And if you have any more questions about the course, please feel free to email me at newviewadvice@gmail.com. I'm still in the creation phase. So if you have any suggestions, please let me know. And that's it for updates here. So let's jump on in.
Amanda Durocher [teaching] 3:31
Today, I wanted to start with an update of where I'm at with my 12 months of sobriety. So the last time I recorded an episode, I was six months sober. And now I am eight months sober. And I'm really surprised how different I feel just two months later, I think when I recorded my last episode, I was still really affected by how much criticism I was receiving online. I know it probably wasn't a lot of criticism, but it felt like a lot to me because I'm a pretty private person, which might come as a surprise because I feel like I just air all my dirty laundry and all my inner secrets in my inner world on this podcast, but I am pretty private, I don't talk to many people. I have quality friends over quantity. And this is new for me, exposing my inner world. So having people criticize me for going sober, which is something that has been a life changing, amazing decision for me was really, really hard for me. And also just everyone's questions. People were just asking questions I hadn't thought about, like so many people were like, are you going to drink after the 12 months and it really wasn't something I've been thinking about. I just have been taking this one day at a time. And over the past two months, I really reflected on so many people's questions. I really reflected on my journey with sobriety or reflecting on how I got here because I also had a lot of people who mentioned that I was making this look really easy so maybe I never struggled with alcohol or How can other people do this and not struggle. And today I'm going to talk a little bit about my journey with healing from alcohol, because that started long before this eight months. So that's why it might seem easy for me. But I reflected, journaled, analyzed healed my relationship with alcohol for years, before I actually gave it up. If I'm honest, for a long time, my hope was that I could heal my relationship with alcohol and still drink, and wouldn't have to give it up. But I've really learned that giving it up has been the best gift I've ever given myself. So I don't see myself drinking after this 12 months, I don't see myself never drinking again. But I also don't think I have to make that decision. I could just take this one day at a time, it's my life, you know. So over these past few months, I've become so much more comfortable with being sober. And with talking about it. I didn't realize how uncomfortable I was talking about it, until I had a lot of people asking me about it. But I'm quite comfortable with myself and my decisions and my own journey. And this is how I came to sobriety. I think other people will go to AAA, I think other people will give it up forever. I think other people might do 30 days and then keep going doesn't matter. Everybody comes at this journey differently. And we just don't have to judge one another. Everyone's relationship with alcohol is different. And it can be complicated. And I don't think that there has to be a one size fits all approach. I think so many people think it's AAA or you're fine. You're an alcoholic, or you're not. And it's just not that simple. To me, it's all about looking at our relationship with alcohol, or our relationship with any of our coping strategies. This could be work, you know, there's so many workaholics out there. What's your relationship with work? Like, this could be marijuana, a lot of people stopped drinking, and then they started smoking weed. And that can be okay. But the question is, how are these things affecting your life? Are these things causing problems in your life? How do you feel when you pick up these coping strategies? Do you feel better? Or is it a short term fix? This is to me about becoming curious about your relationship with substances and with your coping strategies. So currently, one of my coping strategies is television. And I'm curious about it, but I'm not judging myself for it. I gave up alcohol this year, that was a huge step. For me. That's how I used to cope. If I watch a little extra TV, that's okay. If that's how I still numb out. That's okay. Because it's not affecting my life. I'm not hurting myself with it. It's not where all my time's going. And it's not causing problems in my life. The biggest problem is maybe I stay up too late, you know, but it's not causing problems in my life right now. So it's okay, if I indulge in some TV, that's just an example of looking at your coping strategies. But for me with alcohol, I'll talk about my journey with exploring that now. And how I came to come to the decision to do 12 months of sobriety. So as I mentioned, I started looking at my relationship with alcohol long before these eight months, I would say probably two years before I finally got honest, that my relationship with alcohol was unhealthy. But I was in therapy at the time. And that's when I was really healing from disassociation in the repressed trauma that I have mentioned in the past healing from disassociating from being raped in my childhood in my teens. And in the midst of this, I started becoming really curious about my relationship with alcohol, through therapy, because my therapist would hear me criticize myself for drinking. And she asked me to start becoming curious about my relationship with alcohol and not to go straight to I have to give it up, but to become forgiving of myself that I was working through some really hard things. And sometimes I needed to check out and I chose to pick up a drink. Could I become curious about that? Can I start looking at it. So after she brought this up and asked me to bring forgiveness and a more of a curious energy to my relationship with alcohol, I spent time with this for months, and I didn't give up drinking. But I really began to become aware of my relationship with alcohol. I asked myself why I drank I took note of when I picked up a drink, how was I feeling was this out of anger, depression, overwhelming anxiety? Was this a social event was I doing it because everyone else was, I really started to analyze this. And I journaled a lot. And I constantly forgave myself because I wasn't ready to give it up. I know how this sounds, but if I'm honest, there was a point in my life where I really couldn't give it up. So for me on my sober journey, I don't judge anybody who drinks I don't judge people who struggle with giving it up. Because there was a point in my life, I really couldn't. I'm personally really thankful for alcohol, because I think it got me here. And I know how that sounds. And you might disagree, and maybe it caused you a lot more problems. But for me, it caused a lot of self hatred. I was very, very self critical. But without it, I don't know if I would have survived everything that I was healing from. It felt like to me on my journey, that everything came back at once, and I was forced to do a lot of work at once and my box opened and I couldn't put anything back in the box. And alcohol helped me through this. And was it healthy? No, but I really don't know how I could have done it better because I didn't have the skills, the resources or the tools to deal with it any better. I didn't have have the tools I have now? Can I be forgiving of myself because I didn't have the meditation. I didn't have the self love practices. I didn't know what self care was. I didn't know how to quiet that very critical voice in my head. Yeah, can you forgive yourself for the times you've used coping strategies because you had nothing else in your life, we are not set up with tools for success. That's why I make this podcast, I don't think we talk enough about mental health, and how debilitating it can be, how debilitating anxiety and depression can be. How by being shamed by parents, teachers, society, whatever, how that can be traumatizing and devastating to us. And it's like swimming in the dark. And you're fishing for the lights. You're just like, where are the lights, but you can't find a light switch. So you're grabbing whatever's in front of you. And for me, that was a bottle of wine. That was all I knew that would shut the thoughts off in my head. Okay, I'm still here. And now I have the tools, I have the tools that I didn't have them. So now I'm making a new choice. And I'm okay with that. Alcohol also, for a long time helped me numb some memories that came up this year that I wasn't ready to look at until I gave up alcohol. And I'm very grateful for alcohol. But I also see the devastation it has caused in my life. And for a long time, I wasn't ready to look at that. I wasn't ready to look at what people had done to me when they drank, the places I had put myself in when I drank the times, I blamed myself for drinking too much. So then things like I was raped happened. And I completely blamed myself. I wasn't ready to look at things like that until this year, I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the resources.
And that's okay. Our bodies are like super computers. And they know when to give us information. They know when we're ready. And it usually comes slowly. I feel like it comes quickly. But it is actually slowly. And it's only when you're ready to be kind impatient with yourself. And that's my biggest regret before going sober is that I just wasn't more kind and loving to myself along the way. So as I mentioned, I was really analyzing my relationship with alcohol while I continued to drink. And I was definitely judgmental of myself. But I was really becoming aware and seeing when I would pick up a drink. And I was starting to pick up a drink less. There was less anxiety, less depression, but I would still do it a lot of times in social situations or when I became overwhelmed, I still had a lot of anger that I didn't know how to deal with it at that time. So I used to use alcohol to help me numb my anger. But this isn't a healthy way the anger doesn't go anywhere. That's the thing. When we numb our feelings with alcohol, they don't go anywhere. So when he goes over, you do have to deal with all those feelings. But it's freeing, but it's difficult. So I'm not saying my surgery has been easy. It's just been easy not to pick up a drink. But it hasn't been easy. I've feel like I fly through emotions like I'm growing at lightning speed because I'm not numbing anything because I don't really have that choice anymore. So for me, the moment I knew that I was going to have to change my relationship with alcohol that the way I was going wasn't going to work anymore, that just analyzing it just healing it just forgiving myself wasn't going to work anymore that I was going to have to give it up for a period of time was last fall, I was in Aruba. I lived in Aruba for six weeks. And me and a bunch of friends were at the beach and I took one too many tequila shots. And I ended up going back home and just falling asleep. This wasn't actually a rock bottom moment where my life fell apart. And all these horrible things happened. I actually didn't do anything to hurt anybody else. I really drink too much fell asleep. There's plenty of other times that could have been my rock bottom, but they weren't. This was my rock bottom. Because when I woke up after this, I woke up and it was like the middle of the night. I hated myself. I hated myself so much and I had been here before. For me when I drink. It made me hate myself. Most times I would wake up in the morning after drinking and I would hate myself I'd rip myself apart. It didn't matter how much I drank. It didn't matter if I remembered everything. If I blacked out. If it was somewhere in between where life was a blur. It didn't matter. I hated myself. Every single time I drank. I analyzed everything I said I was anxious. I felt shame. I hated myself. And what I realized this time and Aruba in the fall was that I no longer hated myself when I was sober. And that was like a lightbulb moment where I was like, wow, I've really hated myself for so long. And I finally don't. I finally don't hate myself so much anymore. And I didn't even realize how much I hated myself during the day. But this was the moment that I realized, no, I didn't hate myself. When I wasn't drinking. I actually loved myself. Somewhere along my healing journey. I actually started to love myself. And it happened sneakily almost as I didn't even realize it happened. Until this moment when I realized how much I hated myself when I drank, and how much I didn't hate myself anymore. How much those critical thoughts only came in when I drink. And they used to be all day every day. And they used to be why I drank because I couldn't shut off the voices in my head that were telling me how horrible I was. How no one loved me how I was unlovable how everything I did was horrible how I never said the right thing. How I never wore the right thing, how I was fat, how I was ugly, how the voices in my head wouldn't shut the fuck up. Well, this moment in a robe I realized they had. That wasn't what I was drinking anymore. So then I had to go shit, why am I drinking? Now it's become a pattern because I don't hate myself so much anymore. And there were a lot of reasons I still drank, right? It's how I made friends socially. It was how I numbed my emotions. There were so many things, but I didn't need it, to shut off the critical voices anymore. Because I was really thankful they weren't always there doesn't mean they don't pop in. Of course, they pop in. I'm human, but they weren't there constantly. And now I had the tools on how to quiet them or sit with them or talk with them that I used to not have, as I mentioned, I'm very forgiving and loving towards myself. Because I see, at the beginning of my healing journey, I didn't have any of the tools I have now. But in this moment in Aruba, I realized I did have the tools, and that I had started loving myself. And then I actually thought I was pretty fantastic. That was no. So it was the first time I realized I loved sober me and I hated drunk me. And there was a difference. For a long time. It was just I hated me. And this was the first moment it was like no, I don't hate me, I hate drunk me. When I drank I was a different person. You know, when I drink, I disconnect from my connection with life, my spirit, my higher self, I say things I don't mean I wake up not feeling great in my body. And I wake up with these self hating thoughts. And then do you ever have those moments where a thought pops in your head? And you're like, Wait, who is that? Because the thoughts kind and loving and it's not your normal thoughts and sticks and you hear a truth in your thoughts. And you're like, when did I become so wise? For me, this is one of those moments I consider this one of those moments my higher self drops in and this happens a lot more often now than it used to. And this is a practice through meditation that I connect with my spirit, my source God, universe, you know, whatever word you want to call, it's welcome here. And in this moment, the thought that popped in my head was even one thought against yourself Amanda is one thought to many. What if by giving up alcohol you would no longer turn against yourself and shame and self hatred. Well, shit. I lied awake at two in the morning and just pondered this, I realized how much kinder I was to myself when I wasn't drinking or hungover, how I didn't shame myself over every little thing I did, and that I was finally happy. And that I hadn't been for so so long. And that all the work I had been doing on my healing journey for years, was really paying off. I finally felt it. It was the first time it came into my awareness where I was like shit, I really do love myself. And you know, I started my healing journey because of all the self hatred because when my friend Dolan died, it really brought into my awareness. How critical I was with myself how much I hated life and how purposeless I felt, and how I just knew life had to have more to offer. What was the point of all of us being here? If you're miserable, if everybody's miserable? What's the point? So I figured there has to be happy people. There has to be a point of being here. What is it? And so that was really how I went about my healing journey. It was it was like there has to be more, there has to be more miserable. It can't get worse than here. And in this moment in a Roomba lying in the bed at two in the morning and hating myself. Love popped in. Love popped in was so rare for love to pop in when I was in a self hating spiral. And that was progress. It may seem small, but it was life changing for me. So from this moment, it took me another three months to be honest, to commit to your sobriety. I definitely started drinking less, I definitely became really curious, but I definitely wasn't fully confident I wanted to give it up forever. So it took me about another three months. And as I mentioned, I chose a year because it seemed attainable. I also wasn't ready to commit to forever. At the time, I really couldn't imagine my life without alcohol. It was such a big part of my life. It was ingrained in my family patterns. It was ingrained in my relationships. In my relationship with my partner, it felt like a part of who I was I just identified with it. I was a fun party girl who really hated partying, which is kind of funny, but that was just how I interacted with people. I couldn't imagine giving it up. And it also was my coping strategy. There were plenty times in those three months. It was like, Oh, wow, it was a rough day. I'm gonna have a glass of wine. So it took me three more months to give it up for the year. And then that's when I started my eight months of sobriety journey. I'm not sure how much I've shared about that. So I just wanted to go into detail that this wasn't an overnight decision. This wasn't an easy decision for me that this is how I came at sobriety because I don't think that there's a one size fits all approach. And I've found that This year of sobriety has been a lot easier for me, but for a few reasons, because I'm so aware of my relationship with alcohol, because I did so much healing with it. Because I've already forgiven myself for a lot of the mistakes I made while drinking. And a lot of the self hatred I had, I also have the tools to deal with my feelings. So when feelings arise, that can be overwhelming. But I have the tools that I talk a lot about on this podcast, journaling, meditation, moving align the feelings to move, and just allowing myself to feel the feelings, I was already really familiar with that practice or already had that practice built, where I think a lot of people hit rock bottom, and then they go silver, but they don't have the tools. So as they're going sober, they're also building this self care practice that I built before these 12 months. So now with all that said, is every moment of my life easy God, no, there are plenty of moments when I'm still like, oh my god, can I please check out? If I choose to stay sober? Does this mean that I have to check into my life that I always have to feel my feelings all the time? I can't believe people do this. What is this shit, I definitely have times like that, where it's like, can I just check out for like 24 hours. Because it's kind of insane to check in for your life, if you've been checking out for so long. I mean, just the other day, I was having a really hard day, I was stressed, overwhelmed and lacking on my self care. And I found my thoughts jumping from you should kill yourself, you should have a drink to just breathe, you're doing great. You should kill yourself, you should have a drink. You're doing great.
I love you. And my thoughts were bouncing back and forth, boom, boom, boom. And for me, I just want to quickly say when suicidal thoughts occur to me, it's just a time where I need to really check in with myself. It's like, Whoa, my self care must be really lacking. What am I trying to tell myself, I've learned that these thoughts may never go away. And the less I judge them, the quicker they pass. And the more I just become curious, they're usually communicating to me that my tank is on empty. So I need to take some time for myself, I need to stop working. I need to stop putting energy into other relationships, I need to put energy into my own body. And I mentioned this because if you struggle with these thoughts, the best thing you can do is not judge yourself. That's the best thing you can do. They're becoming more fewer and far between for me, but like I said, just the other day, I was having a really rough day. And I had to sit with why that was and feel a lot of feelings that I had been ignoring, I'd been trying to run from them. And when that happens, sometimes the thoughts can pop in. And the best thing we can do is to just love ourselves and to start giving ourselves some self care when that arises. And not ignoring ourselves or not trying to shame ourselves for having thoughts that society would tell us are shameful. So in this moment, when I have these thoughts bouncing back and forth, kill yourself, drink, love yourself. I sat with myself, I journaled. And I reminded myself why I'm sober. Because in that moment, even when I was having a thought have a drink, it just didn't feel like an option. It was like no, that's not going to make me feel better. Like I already know it, it's not going to make me feel better. And so I journaled, the reasons why the drink wasn't going to make me feel better. And I hadn't really reflected on these because these aren't the three reasons I had when I first went sober, because these are things I discovered along the way. But I just want to share these with you because I think having an anchor and continually going back to why you're sober can be so helpful along this journey. So for me, my three reasons for being sober. Eight months for being sober through the year and remaining sober. It's looking like after the year are one alcohol disconnected me from my creativity. And my creativity is my everything to a better and more loving partner and friend, when I don't drink, my relationships have flourished, I've become a more patient and loving person. I can't imagine ever going back to being drinking me, I wasn't the best. When I drank, I can see that I'm so much more loving now. And three, I deserve a life of happiness. And I know I can have this. But I really don't think I can have it with booze. So for me, these are the three things that keep me grounded. And they also make it so I'm not triggered by others drinking. But as I've mentioned, I've been healing looking at meditating on journaling, about talking therapy about my relationship with alcohol for quite some time. So if you're not here yet, don't judge yourself. It's a process. It's a journey. And we're all coming at this at different places. Be kind to yourself. As I mentioned that moment for me and a Roomba when that self love came in when I was in a self hating spot, and I realized how much I loved myself when I wasn't drinking that took years to get there. I'm so grateful I did I'm so grateful I stuck it out. I'm so grateful I continued to he'll continue to feel the feelings continued to look at why was the way I am. But yeah, it took time. You know, all this is patience. We live in a society that wants everything right now. And the truth is the things that we work for in life, the things that we have to overcome obstacles, the things we have to push ourselves for are the most rewarding, and they feel so good when we get there. And the journey is half of it. I'm so aware of who I am. I can see He's so much about myself. And I can love myself so much deeper because I know who I was, who I am now and how I got here. And all that work I put in, wow, I can't believe that 23 year old me, was willing to put in that much work. And that she did it for years, I don't think she would have done it to start if she knew how long it would take. But I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for myself. And this whole healing journey has just brought me closer to myself, so I wouldn't change it for the world. So that's just a bit about how I got to my sober journey, where I'm at now, how life's not perfect, but how these anchors really helped me, and how I currently don't think I'll ever drink again. But maybe in a month, because I think I'm going to do a sober episode, every month, throughout the rest of the year or throughout the rest of my year. And just to keep you updated. But yeah, that's where I'm at. And I just wanted to fill you in, because I had a lot of people ask for updates. So there you have it. And today, I have two questions to answer that I'm really looking forward to. So let's jump on in.
Amanda Durocher [listener question] 26:02
Dear New View Advice. I have tried sobriety multiple times, but haven't been successful, because I often need to use alcohol as an escape from life. I think about it all the time and judge myself. Any advice on how to stick with it, especially when times are hard? Thank you so much for this question. I think that this is a very relatable question. And thank you for your vulnerability of writing this in. I know that I received a lot of comments that talked about other people struggling with this and using alcohol as an escape on my Tiktok. So I just know that this is a very common question. So thank you for asking it. First, I want to offer you some grace, I think that you're being pretty hard on yourself. And that anytime we find ourselves judging ourselves is a moment for us to step back. And to offer ourselves some self love. And as I mentioned in my intro, but also in many episodes, that that isn't an easy thing to do. Self love can be really difficult. Self love is often the hardest choice to make. We are so programmed to not love ourselves, and to put others before ourselves, and to pick the easy way instead of the hard way. And sometimes Self Love is the hardest thing we can do. So I just want to offer you some grace and some compassion and send you love. I have been exactly where you're at. Before I was able to go sober this time, I had tried to go sober multiple times. I had swore off alcohol and then talked myself back into how it wasn't that bad or how the reason I swore it off wasn't a big deal. Or you know how many times that I wake up hungover and say, Oh, I'm never drinking again. I had given up alcohol for 30 days, I did dry January a lot, which is one of the inspirations for the course that I've mentioned, I'm going to be teaching in January. And I think that using alcohol as an escape from life is very common, especially with the world we're living in, I have read about how alcohol sales have increased since the pandemic, especially here in the United States. And I've heard from many people about how their drinking has increased since the pandemic and from staying at home. And though at least in the United States, I know plenty of places in the world, the world isn't open yet. But in the United States, the world's open a bit more, people's drinking patterns haven't necessarily changed. And people find themselves drinking more now than they were before. So I mentioned this because I don't think you're alone in how you're feeling. And I used to use alcohol to escape all the time. But what I have found that using alcohol as an escape can only work for so long, until you hit this point where you find yourself judging yourself a lot for it, and it's starting to hinder your life more than help it right. So it helps it as it helps you escape. You feel like you need to escape. So you feel like it helps it. But if you find yourself judging yourself and trying to go silver multiple times, it's obviously not working for you the way maybe it once did. So that's something to reflect on. But my advice to you would be to start reflecting on your relationship with alcohol. So instead of trying to swear it off, and then swearing off, and then not knowing what to do, I think that's what happens with people is that they're like I'm done with alcohol, but then they don't have any of the strategies to cope with their emotions, or they don't know how to escape life or they can't escape life anymore. They have to be checked in and that is too much for them. That can be too overwhelming. So then they relapse and they decide to have a drink again. So for you, I want you to start becoming very curious. Very curious. So here are a few journal prompts that I will also link in the show notes at www.newviewadvice.com/eighteen. And these are some great intros into reflecting on your relationship with alcohol. One. When do I most often pick up a drink, too? reflect on the last time you picked up a drink? How are you feeling? Do you remember any of the thoughts running through your head? What did your day look like leading up to that drink? Three? Reflect on your family history with alcohol? Do your parents drink? Do your parents not drink? Do you know of any relatives who struggle with an alcohol problem? become curious about that? For?
When did you start drinking? Journal about the first time you drank? And how it made you feel? Were you in high school? Did it make you feel cool? Did you drink way too much and you felt super shameful. become curious about your first encounter with alcohol. And to go off that become curious about your first encounter could also be if you have a memory of a family member or an adult in your life drinking, when you were a child and how that may have affected you. I would invite you to journal about that as well. So those are some questions I recommend that you journal on because, as I've mentioned, I think the first step is to become really curious about our relationships with alcohol. What I have found in life and through my healing journey is that life is about becoming curious about your relationship with everything. We are constantly in relationship with life. We are in relationship with everything, not just the people in our lives, we're in relationship with our jobs, or in relationship with our homes. We're in relationship with our neighborhoods, we're in relationship with substances, we're in relationship with food, we're in relationship with sex, not just the people we have sex with, we're in relationship with sex. So it's all about becoming curious about your relationships with life. And so I invite you to next time you judge yourself to start becoming curious, because judgments come in. And one of the first things you can start doing on the healing journey is to become aware of these judgments, jot them down, reflect on them. Where did these come from? Many times, the judgments we have today are from our childhood. Many times the judgments in our heads are actually things that people have said to us in our life and we decided to identify with become curious about yourself. Another thing I invite you to do, My piece of advice for you about how to stick with it when things get tough is to really up your self care. So I don't know what your self care practice looks like. But part of my sobriety journey is that self care is non negotiable. I took a course with Cassandra Wilder, she's does a course on the female menstrual cycle, and she calls them non negotiable. nourishments the triple ends, we all have to pick non negotiable nourishments for ourselves. Because as I talked about a lot, you have to fill your own cup up first. So for you, I think you're having a really hard time because you're lacking in self care. You're looking to escape from life. And oftentimes, if we're escaping from life, or we feel like we can't not escape from life, it's because we're not taking care of ourselves. We don't have our own backs. We're not taking care of our mental health, our physical health, our emotional health and our spiritual health. So I want you to start thinking about your non negotiable nourishments Do you meditate, I invite you to try meditation, if you haven't, meditation was life changing for me. I think that learning how to sit with yourself, sit with your feelings, sit with your thoughts, and just sit in silence is the best thing anyone could do right about now. We live in a world with constant communication. And it makes it hard for us to think and to hear ourselves. We live in a world with a lot of comparison, sitting with yourself, puts it into perspective, brings you home to yourself brings your body back down to homeostasis. So many of us are running in stress mode fight or flight. meditation helps to bring that nervous system down so that we can start thinking clearly, people have been meditating for 1000s of years it has health benefits, mental health benefits, physical health benefits, highly recommend. But that might feel too hard for you. So could you give yourself a morning routine? For me, my morning looks like I get up, I make myself a cup of coffee. And currently I sit outside. And I either read a spiritual book, or I meditate or a journal. But I take the first for me I take an hour, but it could be five minutes. It does not have to be that long. And I sit with myself and I give myself I fill my cup up. Right? It makes me a much better person. Throughout the day I can tell the difference of the days where I do my morning routine and the days I don't That for me is non negotiable. My partner on the other hand, needs to exercise he needs to move his body daily. He feels a difference when he doesn't I can sense the difference when he doesn't. Sometimes he doesn't exercise until the evening and I'm like Oh, you're so much more grounded. Now. That's something he needs for his body. It just helps him to ground and to feel better, so you can pick what's best for you. Other ideas for a morning routine or a daily practice would be a daily gratitude list. Writing three to 10 things you're grateful for every day in the morning or when you go to bed at night. Another great thing you could do, if you don't know what to do is to start reading self help books. So on my website, I'll link it in the show notes, I have a list of self help books, I highly recommend. I've read over 100, self help books, and these are some of my favorites that I have listed on the website. And I think they're a great place to start. So if you don't even know where to start, find time to read a self help book every day. And to get new tools and tips. One book I'm still reading right now that I love is Dr. Nicola Perez, how to do the work. I've mentioned it before. But I think it's a great introduction to self help a great introduction to healing yourself a great introduction on how to do the work. So I think that that could really benefit you. Because I think that you're escaping life. Because you haven't quite come into communion with life yet. We're always in communion with life, but you're not aware of your connection with life. I was like that for so long. No judgments here. But I invite you to start finding ways to ground yourself. Because the reason this is important is because if you start doing it in the morning, or you start doing it daily, when those hard emotions come up, you'll already have the practice. I had a friend reached out to me recently and asked me if I had tips on meditation for sleep, I really thought about it for a little bit. And what I realized was my tip was to start meditating daily, so that when you needed it, in order to go to sleep, you already had that practice. And that's my recommendation for you, you're looking to escape life. So it's hard to reach for a self care thing you don't use if it's not a practice yet. So by implementing these practices in your life, when you go to escape life, next time, instead of picking up a drink, you might be like, Oh, I have this other thing that I've been doing. Oh, I've noticed how meditation helps, I'm going to do that you know what I should journal, I have some journal prompts that could really help. Oh, you know what, instead today, I'm going to pick up the phone and call a friend. Or I'm going to veg out and watch TV and not have a drink. But the more you ground yourself, the more you bring in this self care, the more that these moments won't feel so overwhelming, because you'll have the tools and resources. When you want to go escape life. What I'm really trying to say is that if you don't have these tools, then you're going to want to build them every day, rather than just when you need them. It's like say you had never driven a car before, but you needed to get somewhere, you can't just get in a car and drive there. If you've never driven a car, you have to learn how to drive a car first. And then now anytime you need a car, you can just get in the car and use it. But it's the same thing with meditation. And all these self care practices is the more you do them, the more you'll grab them when you need them, the easier will be to grab them when you need them. It's by building these practices daily, you will see better results. And these are all practices that as I mentioned slowly over time, you'll just be like, Wow, I love doing this. It doesn't feel like a chore anymore. Or wow, I didn't meditate today and I can see a difference. I've really started to love doing that. So I invite you to start a self care practice and define what's best for you experiment, you don't have to stick with something. You can try a bunch of different things you can try journaling one day meditating, one day, exercise one day, figure out what your self care practice looks like. But I invite you to start experimenting with that. Because you said, Any advice on how to stick with it, especially when times get hard. And like I said, I think having this practice will help those hard times. Because you'll already have something to reach out for you won't be reaching into the darkness into like an empty closet. I think that's kind of what happens. We're like, what do I have? Nothing. There's nothing in here. A wine that helped me last time I'll grab that. Because there's nothing in the closet. So we have to build up the closet, right? We got to put stuff in the closet, so that when we're in a stressful mode, and escapism mode, a bad day, we open up the closet and it's like, okay, I got like 10 tools in here. Which one do I want to use today. So that would really help is to implement these practices daily. Again, it's not easy, be kind with yourself. If daily sounds intimidating, Saturday mornings, Sunday mornings, I love treating Sundays as sacred. The third thing I want to recommend is finding a support group. So this could be a or this could be a different support group. When I was healing from rape, I found support groups. So helpful. I'm also currently in a leadership support group. And I found that so helpful. Finding people who are struggling with the same things as you is so helpful. I highly recommend finding a support group if that's something that interests you. I mentioned two other things. First one because I didn't do a support group into I know it can be really hard to join a support group. I think that their life changing and I think that there's so much healing that happens and just hearing that somebody else had the same experiences you like, Oh, I'm not alone. So many of us feel like we're alone with all our problems. And we're really not. There's people out there who relate we just often have to find them because it can be so hard to find vulnerable spaces and safe places to talk about what we're going through. So I know that people use AAA I personally never went to AAA but I know that There's AAA has great support groups everywhere. I know people who highly recommend AAA, I also know that there's other alcohol support groups, coping strategies, support groups, if you've been through a trauma, you could find a trauma support group. But I recommend finding a group to hold you accountable as another way to help you through this. Because as I mentioned, that can be really helpful when I did the sexual assault support group that was really, really helpful for me. So I highly recommend finding a support group. And finally, as always, I really just invite you to be compassionate with yourself, to start noticing those judgmental thoughts and to start bringing awareness and self love. So what this could look like is, oh, my god, I hate myself, I can't believe I had that extra glass of wine last night is bringing in, it's okay. It's okay, I forgive you. I forgive yourself. Why did I do that? Maybe you have a reason. Maybe you don't just start becoming curious. And to just remind yourself, how much you love yourself. Because you are so lovable, you are so amazing. You are a gift to this earth. Every human is a gift to the earth. Do you know how much of a miracle it is that you're even here? It is such a miracle that you're here. And I'm so sorry, that life is really hard for you right now. I'm so sorry. That you find it hard not to escape life, I know how that feels. I still find it hard not to escape life, I still find it really hard not to check out. I constantly wish I could still check out the way I used to. But I can't. And I know that didn't really bring me happiness. But I know what it feels like to want to check out to want to escape, want to leave this present moment and come back tomorrow, to have had enough for days to be really, really hard. And I'm so sorry. That's where you're at right now. But I want you to know that it will get better, that you're worth loving, you're worthy of everything you've ever dreamed of, actually, you deserve all the happiness in the world. And I'm here to cheer you on. My goal in life is for everyone to realize how much happiness they deserve. And to stop settling for less. We all have a lot to heal from collectively and individually. We're at a point in time when things aren't so great on this planet. And I'm really sorry about that. I'm really sorry, we found ourselves here. And I'm really sorry for whatever you've been through and what you're going through. But I want you to know your healing as possible. There is a light at the end of that tunnel, and I want to guide you there. I know how dark it can be. And I invite you to be compassionate with yourself. Because you are worthy of that compassion, that grace and that love. I'm sending you all my love today.
Amanda Durocher [listener question] 42:48
Dear New View Advice. I've been sober for a few months, and I'm finding it really difficult. I constantly feel the urge to pick up a drink. Some days, it isn't even only at night when I have a craving. This makes it really hard to keep moving forward. I've made some mistakes in my past, which causes me to sometimes want to drink. Any advice on how to maintain my sobriety? Thank you so much for this question. I think so many people can relate to this. And I just want to say congratulations on being a few months sober. I don't know the exact amount of time but any amount of time is something to be proud of and to congratulate yourself for. So I'm very proud of you. And I know it's been difficult, I can tell from this question that it hasn't been easy. So by you remaining sober. That's an act of self love. So I just want to congratulate you on that because I think it sounds like you might be a little tough on yourself. So I just want to remind you to celebrate your wins. When I first went sober, I celebrated each month I was sober. I think that that's a great way to honor yourself is to celebrate those wins with each milestone. So for you, I do recommend everything I recommended in the previous question. So that would be to journal and I'll give you a few different journal prompts, but also to start a self care practice. I think that could really help ground you and to help you to start being more kind to yourself. Another self care activity I did mention would be to write affirmations if you find your really critical. One thing I do. I'm currently doing this because I found myself in a critical mindset recently is I put affirmations all over my house. Quotes. I love things I want to remind myself of they're all over my house. They're at my desk, there are my podcast space, they're in my bathroom, they're next to my bed, they're next to the TV. They're everywhere in my house to remind myself to be kind to myself, I can fall into really critical self patterns. So sometimes for me, I need reminders. I need reminders to be nice to myself. That sounds so bonkers. I wish that wasn't the case. But it is for me. Sometimes I become really critical during this podcast is really hard for me. I'm not used to being this vulnerable and I can be really hard on myself about it. and some other things happened in my life recently that caused me to to give myself a hard time. So I give myself reminders, remind myself to be nice to myself. And I made a whole thing about making these affirmations, I took out my markers and pretty pens. And I made them really pretty. And I allowed my inner child to have fun and to color and to write affirmations that I leave around the house, to remind myself to be kind to myself. And I invite you to do that as well make it a fun day, make it a craft, make it an activity, I love to throw on a funny movie and to write affirmations and to have fun with it. I have glitter pens, I have glitter I have, sometimes I use watercolors, I have paints, I have fun with it, and I make it a craft for myself, I invite my inner child. And so that's another self care practice, I recommend if you're like me, and you're very self critical. I'm an anagram for for anybody who's into anagram and anagram fours are known for being particularly critical. So if you're an anagram four, I invite you to do that as well. And really anybody who's self critical. So as I mentioned, journaling self care practice and for you, if you're not in a support group, I think a support group could help you as well. But for this question, I really wanted to focus on forgiveness, I think for you, a forgiveness practice will be very helpful. I don't know where you're at in your sober journey. I don't know if you went to AAA because I know forgiveness is part of their program. But no matter if you go to AAA or not, if you become sober, you will need to develop a forgiveness practice. And for me, this forgiveness, practice is a lot of self forgiveness. There is so much self forgiveness to be done on the healing journey. But I have found that self forgiveness, and forgiving others has been key along my sober journey as well. And you mentioned that you've made mistakes in your past, which caused you to want to drink. And that's a key to me, that you need to start forgiving yourself for these mistakes in your past. There's nothing you can do about what you've done in your past, you can't go back. But the way forward is forgiveness is to forgive yourself to forgive that version of yourself. I don't know what these mistakes were, I don't know how bad they were, I don't know who you've harmed. You need to forgive yourself. And so I'm going to offer you a few suggestions. But I think we all need to forgive ourselves for a lot of things. I sure know that that's a main part of my healing journey of self forgiveness. And I invite you to start forgiving yourself daily. And yes, that is really difficult. Because what I am asking you to do, by forgiving yourself daily is to bring something difficult to your awareness every day, for 30 days, and to forgive yourself. And yes, this is a very difficult thing I'm inviting you to do. So doing it every day might be too hard. But I find we get momentum when we start doing things daily. And it will get easier for you if you start doing it daily. And I think you'll find that it might take a few days to start forgiving yourself for one incident because forgiveness doesn't happen overnight. So I invite you to pick a time you want to forgive yourself for forgive someone else for whatever it may be. But I find when we've made mistakes or even when others made mistakes, usually there's a self forgiveness in there too. Because we have to forgive ourselves for being involved in the situation, forgive ourselves for the blame we've placed upon ourselves. And I know with my own experience, even the horrible things that happened to me, I had to forgive myself along the way. So self forgiveness is a huge part of the healing journey, a huge part of sobriety because you can no longer numb the way you used to. And so it can be really hard. As you said, it's getting really, really difficult for you. Because you're reliving you're rehashing events from your past mistakes you've made the way forward is through forgiveness. And my favorite open quote that I say all the time is that forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different. So through forgiveness, we offer ourselves self acceptance. We accept the past, we accept who we were we accept those involved, we accept that the past couldn't have been any different. We offer ourselves compassion, love, and grace. Forgiveness is so important because it's truly how we move forward. So a few suggestions I have for you are one to sit with this difficult thing. I would pick one mistake to start with because forgiveness doesn't happen overnight, especially if you're new to forgiveness, especially if you've been holding on to a lot from your past. And I invite you to start sitting with it. Because what usually happens when we made mistakes, our passes we didn't allow ourselves to feel all the feelings. So you might feel regret and sadness and anger and whatever it is allow those feelings and that might be really hard for you depending on how big it is, and how much forgiveness work you've done. So allowing it in small bits once a day, in the morning or at night, and allow yourself to have these really hard feelings, and to offer yourself grace and compassion. And so through this forgiveness practice, you're going to start looking at this event, from a different perspective. Who were you when this happened? Did something trigger you? Did something trigger a past event? Did you yell at somebody because they reminded you of something from the past are becoming really curious about how the situation was created, curious, not judgmental, offer yourself compassion. You cannot change what you've done, but you can change who you are moving forward, as the beautiful thing about life is we can always be reborn anew, we can always change, we always have the choice to change. We live in a world that doesn't want people to change and shames people for their past. But the truth is, you can be a new person today than you were yesterday. That's the amazing thing about life is you can choose to start over anytime you want. might not feel like that, but it's true. And you can. So I invite you to start forgiving yourself. And so as I said, I would sit with the incident and start becoming curious. That's one way to practice. I love his hop opponent. Oh, no, this is a Hawaiian prayer that goes, I'm sorry. Thank you, I love you, I forgive you. And what you're going to do is you're going to bring whatever this memory is forward in these feelings. And you're gonna repeat these four phrases. And I would go one at a time. This is how I do forgiveness personally, just so you know. And you're going to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, self. I'm so sorry. I put myself in this situation. I'm so sorry. I overreacted. I'm so sorry. I was triggered by the past. I'm so sorry. It's taken me this long to look at this. Thank you. Thank you for bringing this to my awareness. Thank you for showing me this. And look at if there's anything you can learn from this experience. Thank you for showing me how I reacted when x happened. So that next time I can do better.
I forgive myself, I'm so sorry, I forgive myself. And if you need to forgive anyone else, this is a time you can offer forgiveness to. And in your mind's eye. If you feel like you can offer you can say to them, please forgive me. I don't think we always have to go to the people we've wronged in every aspect of our life. If these people are still in our lives, yes. But if there's somebody from your past, you don't talk to anymore, I don't think you need to go knock on their door and ask for forgiveness, I think you can do this in a meditation. Because I think so often too, we can see that two people often play into a situation, you can say, please forgive me. And you can send that healing energy out into the universe and send that to that person through your meditation in your mind's eye. And then say, I love you and just sit with that. And repeat those phrases to yourself. And this forgiveness might not happen overnight. But you will feel the shift when it does. And if it doesn't, you know, there's many incidents that have so many things that needs to be forgiven, that we have to sit with it multiple days in a row, which is why I invite you to try 30 days. And even just pick one incident that you need to forgive. And each day you might notice a different layer rises something new, something new that you need to forgive within yourself within someone else within a situation. And I invite you to start doing that. In Episode Five, I also go more into forgiveness. And I think that that can be really helpful for you. But I invite you to try that hip hop opponent Ono practice, I have found that to be so helpful. I'll also link a book that gives more details that I've read as well, about Hapa pono pono. And if you have trouble sitting with it sitting in meditation, sitting with your inner child, if that's too hard, I invite you to journal as I mentioned. So three questions you could ask yourself about forgiveness are what is a memory that I've been replaying over and over again in my head, that I need to finally let go of journal about the incident. Make sure to include everything you felt everything you're feeling now, all the feelings and thoughts that are arising. And then ask yourself, Am I ready to let this go? And if you are right, I forgive myself, I forgive myself, I forgive myself, I'm ready to let this go to I invite you to become curious about your childhood, and how something from your childhood may be playing out now. So I don't know what the mistakes you've made are. But I invite you to start forgiving yourself and possibly your parents for your childhood. So often if we had traumatic upbringings, or even if we don't label it that way, but we had parents that weren't fully healed and had wounds within themselves, that we end up with wounds and patterns that we play out now. So I invite you to become curious about your childhood and to start delving into inner child work which I also talked about it Episode Five. But to start bringing that compassion to yourself that who you are today is most likely affected by things that happened in your past that you were not responsible for. Did you have an absentee father? Did your parents get divorced? Were you physically, emotionally or sexually abused? Did you have a critical mother? Did you have a father who yelled? Did you have a parent who was overly emotional? Did you have a parent that was under emotional, wouldn't allow you to get in touch with your feelings? Did you have a parent that constantly made fun of you and said that they were just joking, reflect on how these things from your past could still be affecting you today? Because I promise that there's nothing wrong with you. And that so many of us need to forgive ourselves for our childhood and forgive our parents. Because the truth is, they didn't know better either, in order to move forward, so I invite you to start reflecting and looking back into your past. Three, is there someone in my life I need to forgive? If so, who is this person? What happened? And am I ready to let this go. And I invite you to journal about that. And that might not happen overnight. That could be a month long journal question. You could spend one month with one person one month with one incident. But I invite you to start being compassionate with yourself. Because what happens is when we make mistakes in our past, and we aren't able to move forward, oftentimes we are shaming ourselves. So that would look like you, constantly replaying this incident. And being super judgmental, and super self critical. And calling yourself like the worst person in the world and saying that this incident defined you, you can redefine yourself in any moment. And I invite you to do that today. I invite you to choose that today's the day you're going to show up and love yourself a little bit more. And again, self love isn't easy. Self love is offering yourself compassion in a world where everyone hates themselves. In a world where somebody is so happy to tell you how horrible you are. And it is so hard to find somebody to tell you how great you are. So in for you, I invite you to really start being compassionate, loving and caring with yourself. So I think a self care practice, as well as forgiveness work will do wonders for you. And if none of these pieces of advice sound helpful, or you still don't know where to begin, a great place I invite you to explore would be therapy. Therapy is a great place to have somebody hold an environment for us to learn how to forgive ourselves and to forgive others. And to see that most oftentimes the way we are today is because of the parenting or the adult structures we had when we were children, or the abuse we experienced when we were children. And so many people who have a substance abuse issue, are escaping from pain from their childhoods. And it is not doing any help to be shaming yourself today. And not healing and looking back and forgiving yourself. You don't need to shame yourself anymore. It's safe for you to remember who you really are. And that's a loving, compassionate being. That is a whole being that as a beautiful human born into this world whole. And I'm so sorry, you forgot that. I'm so sorry that we don't have adults who teach children that from the second thing come out of the womb. I'm so sorry that most people's parents hate themselves, or small children who never grew up and never healed. And that they projected that onto you. I'm so sorry that you grew up in a world that may have not understood you. I'm so sorry that you're so self critical because everyone else is so self critical. I'm so sorry that you've put the problems of the world and of others on yourself. You don't have to do that anymore. Your job is to learn to love yourself. And that is the most radical thing you can do. If you start loving yourself, you'll cause a revolution within yourself. There will be no part of you to shameful, you will be able to love every part of you the way that you may be looking for someone else to love you. Many times when we're critical and it sounds like you're critical because you are replaying these mistakes from your past. It's because people have criticized us. And then we grew up to think if I can criticize myself first I'll stay safe. It won't hurt so much if I criticize myself first. Or you called me an idiot already called myself that 10 times today. Oh, you think I'm ugly? Yeah, I already know that. That's a defense mechanism. And in order for you to move forward, you need to start feeling all those feelings. forgiveness isn't easy. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a lifelong practice. And I invite you to start exploring that and exploring what forgiveness could look like in your life. So through meditation, through prayer, through calling on a higher power to help you with this I don't know your connection with God source the universe. But I believe God is all loving. God has forgiven me for everything. God loves me no matter what I have been through. There is no mistake too big for God. God is always listening, always forgiving, always loving. God wants you to remember how lovable you are. And I just want to send you love today. I know how hard it can be to go sober. As I mentioned, I know exactly where you're at. And I struggled with going sober for a while because of mistakes from my past and self blame I put on myself for even things that weren't my fault. So I invite you to embrace a forgiveness practice. And to just remember how lovable you are. I truly believe everything is forgivable, there's nothing too big. Everything is forgivable, because, as I said, in the overcoat, forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different. We forget to set ourselves free from the past. And you deserve that and so does everyone else. So I hope something in this answer helped. I love you so much.
Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of newView advice. I am so grateful to everyone who tunes in and who listens to this point listens all the way to the end. So I quickly wanted to do a resource Roundup, which is what I like to do at the end of each episode, where I quickly recap the resources I recommended and the practices and the tools that you could start implementing in your own life. So one, I recommend journaling. I think journaling is a great practice when we go sober, to help with our sober journeys. I think it's a great way to keep track of our sober journeys, but also to get all those feelings out. A lot of times we go sober, we're just learning how to deal with all our feelings. And journaling is a great practice for feeling your feelings to to implement self care practices in your life. I invite you to look into a morning or evening routine, and figure out a way where you can have those non negotiable nourishments I talked about, and how you can really embrace self care and self love daily. So this could be meditation, journaling, walking, exercising, reading, finding a way to take care of yourself. Three to find a support group support groups can be really, really helpful. And if you're struggling with sobriety, there are so many support groups out there and not just AAA, I invite you to Google and see if you can find a support group for alcohol or another substance or whatever you're working through. And also support group for any specific trauma you may have experienced for affirmations. If you're like me, and you're really self critical person, or find yourself having a lot of self critical thoughts, I invite you to put affirmations all over your house. Even just write I love you and put it all over your house. It's such a great reminder for our awareness and our mental thoughts to switch those thoughts to switch it from critical to remind ourselves that we do love ourselves and to remind ourselves the things we want to believe about ourselves. Five, I invite you to explore a forgiveness practice. Forgiveness is key to the healing journey. And it's key to sobriety. So I invite you to explore forgiveness, and six if you have trouble doing these things on your own, I invite you to find a therapist. As I mentioned, I know it's not always an option for everyone, but I invite you to explore it and see if it's an option for you. I'll have some resources in the show notes. But I invite you to explore therapy as an option. So all these resources and all the references in today's episode will be able to be found on the shownotes at www.newviewadvice.com/18. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of New View Advice. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, I'm currently putting together a four week course that we'll be launching in January. I also have some other exciting plans for 2022. So if you're interested in getting updates on my sober course and all other new viewer advice news, I invite you to sign up for my newsletter, which you can do through my website at www.newviewadvice.com. As I mentioned, if you're on desktop, it'll be on the right hand side and if you're on a mobile device, you can scroll to the bottom of the homepage and you'll see a spot where you can put in your email address. Thank you again for joining me Amanda Durocher for another episode of New View Advice. As always, I'm so grateful to be here with you and to offer you a new view on whatever you may be going through. sending you all my love. See you next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
