Sober Not Somber Hour

Hey, Cadre Sphere, how are we today? Oh, my gosh. 401 gol. I hate being late, but usually I'm just right on time. But come on in. This is the sober not summer hour with Jenn Varale, your host. And I know you can all empathize with me, assuming you've been on a customer service call trying to get something resolved. That was. Yeah. What started at 3:20 with the anticipation I would wrap it up in 20 minutes. Did not happen. And I knew it was a little risky maybe going in, but I certainly didn't think it would take 32 minutes to resolve.

So here we are. I, hey, speak Wonder, have a beverage today that I want to highlight. It is called proxies. Hey, Ms. Shannon Paul. Yeah. This is one of my favorites. So Proxies, and it's actually a brand out of Canada. Their insta handle is drink proxies. And I had this last night, so it's empty. I had it with some pasta, and it was a mood last night in Minnesota, so it was rainy and a little blah. And I was just like, you know what? I'm gonna make some pasta with some red sauce, and I'm gonna crack open a bottle of Pro.

Proxies. So what is Proxies? Proxies are a wine alternative. So they are. It's a new kind of concept for a lot of people. So as I chat with all you, all y' all about varieties of non alcoholic categories, this is one that might be a little confusing because it's like, what is it? It's never been wine, so it's never been with alcohol or made and then dealkalized. It simply is layered blends of fruit and tea, spices, sometimes bitters. And it really is designed to pair with food. So if you look at all their content, it really was aimed at chefs.

So smart branding on their part. They got chefs involved, and the chefs loved it. Here's another one. This is a rich and spicy red. It's called Red Ember. Big, bold, and full of character. So I'm not drinking any of these today, but I am, as I was sharing with everyone, certainly could have been triggered by this customer service call I had to make to my insurance company. High levels of patience. Yeah. Speak Wonder, add a little sparkling, mint and lime with hints of juniper. Love it. Yes. That's always a good go to.

Oh, you're sipping on a non alcoholic mojito. I love that. Gosh, I can just pretend like I'm drinking with you today. But yeah, so I wanted to just Talk about one of the things I did early in recovery. So I have 10 years of an alcohol free lifestyle and one of the things that I noticed over two decades of addiction was that taking care of things like adulting type of things like paying your insurance on time, getting your car tabs, like updated on time. Oh my gosh. Luke and I talked about this in the Mental wealth podcast, if you haven't checked it out, was released just to Cadre Sphere fans about a week and a half ago.

We talked about the word attention and adulting. I took one entire year in early sobriety and made it a policy to open up my mail, pay stuff on time, do all the things. Yeah, they can be mind numbing for sure. Getting to the right person and explaining kind of what happened, especially when there's technology involved that they sort of have to go through chatbots and things to get, you know, to talk to the right person. So I think that is one of the biggest actual gifts in sobriety is that I can hang in and when I have to have these calls that I just know going into are going to be a little stressful because they always involve paying out of money, setting up subscriptions, or sometimes challenging like charges that may be on your account.

Right. So in the past, things like that might have triggered me to actually just, let's numb that with alcohol. Like, I'm, I'm really upset about that call. It really fired me up and I know how I can solve this. Let's add alcohol to it. So in that one year, my word was attention. And I would address things like an adult. And let me tell you, I realized how negligent I had been of things like my, you know, finances, for example. I just, you know, I kind of status quo everything and would only pay attention to it until it really became an issue.

And it reminded me, just today, it reminded me of the absolute kind of unknown after a night of drinking. I don't know if any of you have experienced this, but for my personal story, I might wake up having had too many drinks the night before, maybe in a strange place, not really remembering either how I got home or what I did before I went to bed. And waking up going, it's like a little mystery like, where are my keys? And oh, isn't that interesting that, you know, the car, whatever, like all these things that you would discover and kind of have to piece together the morning after just felt like complete negligence.

And somehow I, like lived that way. And I think, you know, once I was thinking about, like all the attention I try to pay now to adulting and. And how much I just, in the past did not whatsoever. Who's had that same experience, who has let things, you know, adulting responsibilities kind of slide and then paid for it. It's tough. It's tough. I am still learning that lesson. Ten years into sobriety and adulting is hard. I don't ever feel like I can really let up on it. And also just learning as someone newly divorced, doing everything on my own for my own new household.

It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Here. Carrie and Amar. Hi. Hi there. Yeah, so when I think about, like, you should see actually all of the paperwork in front of me right now, I'll spare you, but I was frantically looking for a check that my insurance company had said they sent out to me. Couldn't find it. You know, I have a stack of statements from them. Well, buried in there was one unopened envelope with a check they had reissued to me. So 32 minutes on the phone, we finally figure it out. And it's a little bit of a sense of relief, but also, like, why are all these things so challenging and triggering?

I don't know. I don't know if I have any wisdom for you today other than just to say, like, sharing this with others, sharing that these things can be really hard. I always thought I look to other people who seem to have it together and I'd be like, how do you do that? How do you renew your license, tabs on time? How do you do all these things? And, you know, part of it is, you know, actually opening your mail. And then I just had a name change through divorce, so I've had to be Uber on top of changing accounts and making sure that everywhere I have statements or subscriptions knows where to find me so that I don't run into all these crazy subscription charges for apps that I either didn't know I purchased or didn't realize I had inadvertently signed a contract for.

So, yeah, that's my thoughts for today. Like, how. How do we all manage that? How are we feeling about all of those adulting things? Have we approved Speak. Wonder says I'm horrible at opening up mail. You know, one of the things I'm going to do for that is I asked my insurance company, just don't send me my monthly statements. Don't. Just don't send them to me. Yeah, it's a grief thing. Oh, interesting. Grief connected to male. Who I want to hear more about. Speak Wonder. Amar. Is that. I hope I'm saying your name correctly.

You have a question? Yes. Throw it in the chat. I'd love to hear it. And I'm just pondering stuff, too. Baby steps. Oh, my gosh. Oh, Carrie, so true. So when I started taking action, this is years ago, seven, eight years ago, I was like, all right, I'm going to dial this in. I started to go, oh, this is how other people get ahead in the world. They don't have, like, late charges. They don't have other. Like, they can set up, you know, like payment plans and automatic payment plans and have money in their account to, like, just smoothly kind of.

I mean, that's goals, right? Gosh, I didn't intend for this to be a financial podcast or a share, but. But it's turning into that. Okay. Yeah. So, Amar, what would you do for forgiving a person at a close friend? I want to forgive him. People make mistakes and move forward. Yeah, that is a big one. Forgiving. You know, I just was listening to. Actually someone on the Cadresphere was talking about forgiveness and that it is often overlooked the importance of that. Not for the person you're forgiving, but for yourself.

It is huge. And be more of a mature adult with an open mindset. I think the best thoughts I have around that is recognizing that you're not doing that other person a favor by forgiving them. You are actually allowing yourself to let go of that, whatever that is. If that's helpful, I'd love to talk more offline about the details. Yeah, absolutely. People make mistakes. And to be empathetic to that and not hold that and truly forgive, which is different. I have often started forgiveness at a slow pace and realized, oh, I haven't fully forgiven that person yet.

And it takes time and iteration on the content or thinking about what happened. Speak. Wonder. When my husband died years ago now, I absolutely could not deal with incoming mail. Oh. Oh, hon. Yeah, I've sort of recovered. I get. I see a problem when I'm down or sad, but I cannot cope with. Yeah, that's your real. That's your real. Oh, my goodness. Oh, that's huge. Yikes. Yeah. I don't know. Is there someone that can open your mail for you? Right. In those situations, I find that. And this is reality as well.

So I have. I live in an apartment, and I have a mailbox, you know, that I have to open with a key. I don't open it every day. I know it comes every day. So my reel is, am I a financial good mindset to actually open that mailbox? And I might do it once a week and. And just be like today. I feel like I can handle it because it's. It's not generally really great news, you know, coming in the. Whatever comes in the mail. I have been getting a lot of grad cards lately, so that's fun. But general not really great stuff comes because people who want money from us and have adulting things to ask of us, that's how it arrives.

And inadvertently. Yeah. Mail coming to your, you know, husband who passed, that is. That's a real situation and very, very hard. I'm sure your friend came over and opened. Wow. And probably things you never. Oh my gosh, knew you needed. Thank goodness for friends. That's wonderful. I love that. And Carrie says creating new rituals around it can help. Oh yeah, yeah. Like mailing myself, like different. Who knows? Something that you can ensure that you're gonna get like some sort of positive thing in your mail.

But yeah, creating a new ritual around that and interesting. I love it. Oh my gosh, everyone. I am at like time. I'm 4:15. I just. Today was just all real. I mean, I didn't even consume a beverage, but I had a lot to say. But yes, today is all proxies. And if you need to unwind, Drink proxies has a bunch of non alcoholic ways to do that. I appreciate all your comments. And yeah, adulting is hard. Adulting is hard, but we got to stay in it. I don't know, it's like we have to go through it, we have to address it.

And in the long run, it does pay off to be on top of these things and enlist help right when we need it. Thinking of you all. And I will see you next week on the Sober not Somber hour. Have a great evening, everyone. Bye. Bye. Na. Cheers.