Tiffany Norton reflects on early sobriety, loneliness after a breakup and FoMO—how motorcycle sounds trigger urges and tie back to childhood memories. She keeps a candid, lighthearted tone while staying grounded in honest recovery talk.
Hello. Happy Sunday. It must be Sunday if it's comedy centered. It's gotta be comedy centered, because it's.
Tiffany Norton: The sounds of motorcycles is such a trigger for me to drink. She says she's still learning how to alone on the weekends without alcohol. Fomo is fear of missing out. We talk about FoMO, the summertime break from alcohol.
"I need to be very careful about what I want to attract in another relationship, " she says. The sobriety journey has taught her that just when you think you've got nothing to think about, there's something else.
We want to have a lighter look at recovery. But we're always going to keep it very real and very centered on the fact that no matter where you at, you are at in your journey, there are people here that care about it. So have a wonderful Sunday and enjoy the rest of your week.
Hello. I think I started it. Welcome back. Happy Sunday. It must be Sunday if it's comedy centered and it's. It's gotta be comedy centered, because it's. It's me. It's your old pal Tiffany Norton here. What is going on? I hope you had a fantastic weekend. I didn't, but I hope you did. I hope you had a fabulous weekend. My weekend wasn't great. It's fine. Hey, welcome, guys. Welcome, Tim. Welcome, Shelly. I was just regaling no one, really, but myself with my weekend. Hey, dawn, thanks for joining.
Yeah, mine was kind of crappy, if I'm being honest. Part of the Cadre thing is we talk about real stuff, right? I just recently broke up with a person I've been dating for a significant period of time, and I'm still learning how to alone on the weekends and aloning on the weekends without alcohol and without a significant other is boring. Sometimes really boring. I'm like, well, what can I do again, alone today by myself? And it really. One of the things that I think was the hardest for me, especially when I was first abstaining from alcohol, when I kind of decided to have my break with it, it was in June.
It was in June of 2022, the beginning of the month. And one of the things that I've identified now for me to have fomo. I'm sure most people are familiar with the term, but in case you're not fomo, fear of missing out. Little acronym there. The sounds of motorcycles is such a trigger for me to drink. Isn't that weird? I've never owned a motorcycle. I haven't dated a guy that had a motorcycle since I was in, like, college or high school, I don't think. But the sound of motorcycles going by on a Saturday night when I'm sitting at home alone, trying to not focus on the fact that I don't have plans.
I don't have plans in the foreseeable future either. On a Saturday night and trying to really be okay with it and really trying to identify, like, why am I. Why. Why is this affecting me so much? Like, why do I feel so bad? Where is this coming from? And it took me to a really real place, which is like junior high and high school. Hearing people being out and about and hearing the motorcycles and kids laughing and playing and stuff like that. It reminds me of when I was younger and I was a kid who was often a transplant.
We moved schools. I moved schools quite a bit. We moved quite a bit. And most kids would look forward to summer break. I was one of the few kids who didn't look forward to summer break because during the school year, I had something to do. I had people to talk to. But during the summertime, you know, I was a latchkey kid. I was basically just in charge of watching my brother and the, you know, in place of my parents, who both had to work like most people. Right. So I actually had a little bit of a cry about it last night, just thinking about, huh, this is.
This. This. This fomo that I'm feeling missing out on these summer activities is really not about my recent breakup. It's really not about the, you know, not having a plan or something to do on a Saturday night. It really was about tapping into that. That inner child, that younger me that felt excluded and felt left out. And so much of why my drinking kind of went the way that it went for as long as it did was because of that very deep seated feeling of not fitting in and that I would be rejected if I, you know, came forward in my authentic self or my true self.
And as someone who has a lot of anxiety socially, you know, the alcohol is such a great and immediate removal of some of those barriers and barriers, I should say. And you, you know, you. You dial in. Oh, hey, Jules. Good evening, my love. Yeah, it. So it just really struck me as I thought maybe that was something that we should talk about today, about FoMO, the summertime, and then trying to. Even if you're not abstaining from alcohol, but you're just tuning in to comedy center. Great. Welcome.
Hi. Hi. We love it. If you're sober, curious, and you're thinking about maybe taking a break from alcohol. We're here for that as well. Also, people that have chosen to choose it as a path going forward, and it's hard. I was looking forward to today, but last Saturday night, it was touch and go. I'm within walking distance of a couple of places that have live music and bands and people that I would probably bump into and know, and I could have gone and socialized. And I realized, though, that it was really my inner child that was.
Was wanting the socialness. And the reality of it is me going sober and hanging out in a bar to listen to a band and live music is fun, and it can be fun. But my mindset was that really wasn't why I wanted it. What I really wanted was to feel less left out. That's what I really wanted. And I wasn't actually being left out. There were things I could have done on Saturday night. Right. But because of going through this uncoupling, as people call it now. Thanks, Gwyneth, for that. You have a lot of time to sit and think.
And I was introduced to this concept, and it's a gentleman, and, oh, my God, his name is going right out of my head. But basically, it's in the vein of Buddhism. And. But essentially it was saying that sometimes the reason why we're so anxious to fall in love and we fall in love so easily is that we fall in love with love. We've fallen in love with trance, with relationships. And the reason why some of these feelings might get accelerated is because we actually felt like we were drowning a little bit.
We felt like maybe we were not able to hold on alone. And then all of a sudden, that relationship looks real good, someone else to do it with you, you know? And so when you end a relationship, there's that similar reassessment. Right. Well, this manifested in my life. I manifested it. We were together for, you know, three and a half years. Significant amount of time in adulthood. Right. And childhood, obviously. But I recognize now that some of the things that I was maybe turning a blind eye to and not that he's a bad person.
Not at all. But some of the things that I normally wouldn't have been necessarily so okay with or whatever that was on me. And real talk, we. We met just before the. The October was October of the pandemic. So it was kind of right before that second lockdown, at least in Minnesota, we were pretty locked down. Other parts of the country obviously weren't to the extent we were during cold and flu season, but everything was pretty crazy at that point. And I kind of. And I felt very alone and very vulnerable and very insecure, and so a relationship, whoa.
Well, that would just fit the bill right now, you know? But, um, here we sit a couple years later. Now the threat level has gone from red back down to yellow or orange or wherever they keep. Wherever NORAD keeps it at. Um, and we both kind of took a step back and. And realized maybe. Maybe this was more of a situationship than a relationship. Um, and it was situational in the sense that it was scary time, and I think we both needed someone to lean on. And, yeah, that's how it goes. But again, that's also why I was feeling Fomo on Saturday night.
Right? Like, let's. Let's. You know, being newly single, I feel like on some level, I should be, like, going out, you know? You should go out, like, right. Like, we watch all those. Those rom coms and like, oh, well, you've got to get your girlfriends and go out on the town and show him what he missed out on. Well, I'm not doing any of that because I don't drink anymore. And also, too, I'm really taking this seriously for myself. I need to be very careful about what I want to attract in another relationship if I want to for a while.
And I'm thinking probably not. The sobriety journey has taught me, if not thing. It's taught me for sure that just when you think you've got nothing to think about, oh, here comes something else that you could think about. So, for me, this is this break that we're taking, and it's very. It's friendly. It's friendly. We had a. We had a good conversation about it. And, in fact, I bumped into him, actually, at the gas station earlier today, which was kind of funny. He was stopping. You get an energy drink on the way to the gym.
And I was like, see, those are two things I don't do. I don't buy energy drinks, only diet coke. I'm brand loyal, and I don't go to gyms. I hate gyms. They're full of germs. So, you know. Um, but, yeah, so, I guess, in summary, today, on this beautiful day, and I'm not sure what the weather is like, where you are here or where you are, but it's been raining, like, for five days, and finally the sun came out, and so it's. It's sunny and shiny now. And I might. I might actually go outside and have that walk.
But remember that much like a butterfly, if you're going through a major change, a metaphor, a metamorphosis, right? Those in between stages are really lonely, and you're gonna be alone. And sitting with that fact is not easy, you know, but it's necessary, because if you try to rush it and hurry up, hurry up. I want to be a butterfly. I don't want to be this chrysalis crap anymore. Come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. I don't have time for all this. Let's go. You know, nature doesn't work that way, and healing doesn't work that way, and growth doesn't work that way, and development doesn't work that way.
So we were kind of talking about it last week about the seed and how a seed can survive a millennia if it just sits there underneath the ground. It doesn't try, but it tries, you know, it tries to grow and tries, and growth is hard and lonely sometimes, but you know, you can always pick up fun people along the way. Oh, look at that. See, Jules? See, Jules is a beautiful night for walk. I just came in off the lake. See, there you go. Very nice, Jules. And also Jules. I don't know if anybody else in the chat is with us, but we do.
Jules and I are officially on team hashtag hash dryJuly. Or will we not be drinking alcohol for the month of July? And that's a big one. 4 July. That's a tough one for a lot of people. I know that is a big holiday celebration. Lots of boating and camping and barbecues and get togethers and so coming up before that, we'll maybe have some prep. I'll write you some funny lines that you can say to your relatives. They want to ask you nosy questions about your sobriety journey. You know, I'll save them.
I'll write some. I'll write some. You don't want me to just knee jerk it right now. But hey, thanks again, as always, for tuning in sharing space. Comedy centered is here. Just, we want to have a lighter look at recovery. We want to laugh and also. But it's got to be. But we're always going to keep it very real and very centered on the fact that no matter where you at, you are at in your journey, there are people here that care about it. And when you show up, so do we. So have a wonderful Sunday and enjoy the rest of your week.
Okay? Have a great night.
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