Sober Not Somber Hour

Hi everyone. Welcome Sober not Somber hour. How is everyone today on this Tuesday? Have you been outside if you're in Minneapolis? It's sort of miserable. I took my dog for a walk with the idea that I'm going to test it out, see if I can go for a run later this evening. And yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. And. And it's miserable. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome in. Sober Not Somber hour is a space for us to chat a little bit about how hard it is to make maybe more non alcoholic choices and be in sobriety in our society today.

One good thing that happened over the last four years is there's more elevated non alcoholic options to choose from. This one, a favorite one of mine is called Even. There are four different varieties and this one happens to be Par. It's called Par, which is a gulf reference. And this beverage is sort of like a Long island iced tea. Has all the kind of flavor palette and the experience of drinking a Long island iced tea. Gosh. And I think Long island was one of those beverages that had like five different types of hard alcohol in them.

And I used to drink like fish bowls of Long island iced teas where I grew up in my early 20s on Lake Ogoboji, just a big fishbowl of five different kinds of alcohol. So these are our options today. I love Even Bev. It's a local company here in Minneapolis and they're doing a lot of events, showing up at events. So. So welcome in. Hi, Amar. Yeah, so today we're kind of wrapping up the month of July. Do you know July has five Tuesdays and the theme has been freedom. So I have covered, just looking back, I have covered freedom to not drink, which is a freedom of belonging in a social space, freedom to evolve, freedom in connection and freedom and expectations.

All good stuff. I'm just loving that Cadre provides like a theme for the month. Hey, Andy, welcome in the witness. I feel like the alcohol free beverages that like make me want to drink when I don't have them. Yeah, there's a lot of trigger triggering things about things. Beverages that mimic an alcoholic drink. They did an exceptional job with that. That's a whole other conversation for sure. And today I want to talk about freedom of celebration, freedom to celebrate. How many times do we pause and take a moment to cheers.

Na. Cheers. Some of the amazing things that are happening in our life. I just recently picked this little number up. It that's a roman numeral for 11. So it's an X and a 1 and it's my 11 year sober chip and I went into the rooms, the AA rooms, yesterday, and I go in like once a year for various reasons. I have my program and what I practice has evolved, but I still come back to the rooms once a year. And the same room that I stepped into 11 years ago at the end, literally, like, I cannot do this alone.

I need everyone's help. And everyone was there to support me. And that's where I got my sponsor that actually stuck. She stuck with me first n a birthday ever is today 55. Awesome. Andy. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, I'm 53, just had a birthday as well. But yeah, this coin right here says, to thine own self be true, and it says, unity, service and recovery. So, you know, I held this and what we do in the rooms of AA is we pass this around and somebody reminded me they were like, 11 years. How many days is that?

So you know this, you know, I don't know. He must have been a. He said he was 60 something. He's like, I think there's an app, you know, an AA app. So what I did was download the app and then it just automatically calculates how many sober days you had and 11 years. Can anyone do some quick math and guess how many days that might be during the drop it in the chat? Okay, well, I had no IDEA it was 4,018 days. And the crazy thing about being in the rooms and having passing this around is that there were two individuals in there.

One in his mid-40s, the other early 60s, and it was their, you know, first or second day sober. So they needed like a first step meeting and they were celebrating 24 hours. So we always say, you know, let's hear it for 24 hours. And everybody, you know, snaps, congratulates. And that celebration of 24 hours from 4,018 days, that gap for me, when I listen to the new person's story coming in and the absolute bottom that they have reached or been at is it just. It brings me, like, right back to those moments.

It's amazing. It's amazing that so much time has passed. Like, literally, that's 11 years of daily choosing not to drink, choosing myself. So it's a special little, little number. And the celebration aspect of that is to do that in community. The witness. Do you think AA is for everyone? No. Everyone has their own path. It worked for me. I mean, I started 13 years ago to try to get sober, and my insurance didn't cover, like an outpatient program. I used AA to get sober it absolutely worked for me.

But, you know, everyone. Everyone's paths are different. And now there are so many communities, so many different ways to connect, that you can literally carve your own way. Thanks, Amar. Yeah. Quitting marijuana for sure. I mean, like any addiction, right, it's just rewiring the brain. But how do you do that if you don't have community around you? And ways to kind of weather the ups and downs. So in that AA meeting yesterday, it was a noon to one group, and there was a man in there who sees me every year because he.

He goes like daily. It's crazy that someone. He's 38 years sober, goes every day crazy. But he remembered me. And he's like, oh, you're back for your annual check in. Yep. But again, that. That widening of that gap 24 hours to 4,000 some days, and the ability to be in empathy and hold those newcomers in the room with such love and. And give them hope. And they hear hope through the. The stories of the people who have overcome. So by sharing my. The first question they ask when you have a soberversary is, how'd you do it?

So I went into that story, which is very humbling to share because it's not something that I saw I could do on my own. My husband, now ex, had to point it out to me at the time that I was actually hurting everyone around me. And, you know, alcoholism is a disease of isolation, and I wanted to believe it was just affecting me. So those two newcomer stories that were told, I could see myself in them. No matter how different our lives looked, I could still see the pain of losing everything and the potential of having to start over.

So what I would say to that is, you know, we were celebrating 24 hours for them and a milestone for me. But the point is, you know, being able to celebrate that and being able to not forget to celebrate those moments in life doesn't have to be sobriety could be anything. So I would ask you, you know, what are. What's something. A goal that you have and something you're working on right now that you're trying to achieve? And have you thought about, once that happens, what you will do to celebrate?

So, for example, on my. I guess this is, I don't know, three weeks ago or so, I started thinking about what do I want to do on that day, Monday, 28th July, what. What am I going to do that day to make it feel celebratory and special? And each year it kind of looks different. This year ending, going through like the end of a relationship and things have been really challenging and I've just not wanted to socialize much at all. However, I know that community is healing. So I scheduled a sauna event and just said, anyone who wants to join me at Embrace north, like a 6pm time slot, sign up and join.

And as I was getting ready, thinking about what I was going to share today, I just kind of was like, gosh, I wonder how many people showed up for me sort of last minute. I posted it a couple days in advance. 11 people. 11 people showed up for me to celebrate. It was, it was so amazing because I'm feeling kind of in a. In a space of being a little bit lost and not sure who's gonna show up for me in Life. And these 11 individuals were there. So you know that it's like almost like anticipating how you want to celebrate and actually being planful about it instead of all of a sudden reaching a milestone and not having a go to idea to celebrate.

And that could be celebration alone. However, I think it's much better in community. Amar. I'm working towards CSO position. Awesome. I want to hear what you're going to do when you achieve it. Planning for your three month T North. Yay. Want to help people at Metro Transit, Amar. Yeah. So goals, right? So like, what does that look like? Really start to manifest and envision that. It was hard for me to kind of set in my mind what I wanted to do for that milestone date. But let me tell you, when the day arrived yesterday, I didn't question it because I think in this society it can look very promotional, right?

To like be like, look what I did. And this to me is so not about that. It's so not about that. In my new coaching certification and willingness and drive to help others on this journey, we have to model what works and our successes and celebrate them so others can. Can be welcomed into that. So I would encourage you to think about that as well. It's not, you know, celebration is not extra. It's essential. Nikki. Yeah. Teaching us so much. I feel like I learned so much from this community, honestly.

Yeah. So the other, the other piece of celebration is it may come at moments and it often does when you're holding a lot, you're holding emotions or extremes or truths that feel negative or sad. And then the other, the other spectrum, there is joy and celebration. So not letting you know your overall kind of space in your life, take over how you're showing up and planning. These little moments really I think are critical. They've helped me and it's going to get me through this week. Mondays we posted some photos and had a great sauna session and it's very energizing to be in that.

So I would encourage you all to celebrate yourselves. End of July ideas of, you know, freedom. Feel free to do that, feel empowered. It's so important. And I will say nheers to my 11 years and to all of your accomplishments as we look forward to Cadre and all the good sharing in August to kind of keep you on track and keep you moving forward with your mental health and wellness. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone, thanks for being here. Have a great rest of the week.