Sober Not Somber Hour

Foreign. Greetings, everyone. Sober not somber hour, 4 o' clock Tuesdays. Jen Faralla here, your host today. I'm going to mention this a few times through my live I am celebrating one year of being on the Cadre sphere and the Sober Not Somber hour. And I would have to say I believe I've made every single Tuesday except maybe two over the last 52 weeks. Yes, it's been so much fun being here with you all, sharing weekly, holding me accountable to my mental health and wellness journey. Welcome in 2 ply 85.

I don't know if I know you. Welcome in Emily. Hi, hi, hi. Hi, Rachel. Come on in. Sober Not Summer hour. Today, as you know, we're talking about all things of a celebrated sober lifestyle and digging into what my life looked like 11 years ago right before getting fully sober. So I always start out by highlighting a non alcoholic beverage of choice. Today we are going with St. Agrestis out of Brooklyn, New York. And this is phony espresso negroni. So it's got 100 milligrams of caffeine. And for today's happy hour, I'm loving that because I'm going to go work after this.

I've had a day of writing and doing some creative things, but now like after this, my actual work day will start. So here's the Phony Espresso Negroni. I'm always reminded, oh wow, dang, that's good. That the Negroni has a bitter taste to it. And if you're new to the non alcoholic cocktail scene, it might be a little much. I personally love it. My taste buds have adopted over the last seven years that I've been experimenting with. Naomi, I love this. And then there's also a little bit of an espresso flavor.

Oh my gosh, that's so good, Rachel. It is espresso flavored, coffee flavored. Boy, I haven't had this in a while. I have a whole pantry stocked with NA products that people send me, NA makers send me. So I never know what I'm going to feel like pulling out. But yeah, that is the beverage of choice for today. So here we are. February, as I mentioned a year ago, was my first live. And the intention really with this hour is to uncover all the topics that are kind of set forth in the Cadre sphere for the month and then go deep in with the lens of sobriety.

And so this year or this month's topic is Real Connection. And the month topic then has for further topics to break down. So we are talking about being Honest with ourselves today. Yeah. Yeah, I, I'd like to just kind of start with the prompt of, you know, if you've ever experienced anything in your life that has sort of blindsided you where you thought the story you were telling yourself was the whole truth and all of truth, and then discovered at a later point that you really weren't being honest with yourself.

And I think the, the thing that I want to prompt us to think about is the honesty piece because that's something that I feel like others might not call you out on. Like they're not going to be aware of how you're not being like truthful to your values or honest to. Because you really are the only one that sort of knows what feels true and good to you. So I would say, and just to like kick off the conversation around this is that I have named my coaching practice where I help people discover long term sobriety or just make better choices, like mindful drinking choices.

Is that alcohol? For me, there was, there was truths there that I needed to uncover about my relationship with alcohol and I was unwilling to look at and be honest about the real impact of alcohol in my life. And this is, let's say age 17 or so when I really started, you know, connecting alcohol with fun and social to probably age 42. So, you know, 24 years of alcohol misuse and how was I not able to be honest with myself about the negative impacts and the implications of misusing alcohol? Which for me meant, and I'll be very clear meant blackout drunk, driving under the influence, waking up, not sure of what the story, what happened the night before.

So really detrimental. But not being honest about alcohol as like a cause of all of this. I sort of just went along with society that said, well, it's, you know, sometimes that happens, you over drink or, you know, these, these things happen and it's, you can laugh it off, like if nobody calls you on it, it must be okay. So for a very long time I was not honest with, with myself about my alcohol misuse. It seems so obvious now. Anyone else have something in their life that either in the past that you woke up to and realized you weren't being honest with yourself about, or is there something right now that you sort of are being called to look at about, about your either behavior or something?

Like, I feel like it's almost like this underlying thing where there's a gnawing or nagging feeling to say this doesn't feel connected or truthful, but where's the like actual time and willingness to look at what that might be. Rachel said that would be the first 25 plus years of my life. Not being honest with yourself. I don't mean to laugh. I know part of your story. But yes, for me, 24 years where I was like, oh, you know, me and alcohol, we're fine. We have a great relationship. It really serves me well.

Not true. So I think, you know, there's things like that that we can look back on to realize, oh, wow. The power of our behavior and our rhythms and our habits totally blindsiding and shutting down. Like the opportunity to take an honest look at what might me not serving us. Yeah, we have to laugh at ourselves. Right. It's. It's kind of ridiculous. I mean, if anyone called me on, well, not to mention not being honest with myself about how alcohol impacted me, but just like not being able to even behave and show up in an honest way.

I lied a lot. I lied a lot. It was like little white lies. Right. When I was abusing alcohol, it would be like, you know, oh, I think I only had, you know, four drinks last night. Or things like that. Where dishonesty and a disconnect from behaving in your core values oftentimes causes more. More dishonesty. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's. There's a lot. There's a lot of layers there. Where are you not being honest with yourself right now? I don't know. Does anyone any. Is this resonating with anyone? Does anyone have an area?

It could be in a relationship with someone? It could be. Am I not being honest about, let's say, red flags in new relationships or collaborations or a sense of how, you know, even just reacting to a person's behavior. I have, you know, I have a tendency to put people in a. The best light possible. And therefore I sometimes am not honest with myself about my willingness to be. Share space or share energy with a person or a new connection? That's a hard one. And you know what? I think we're also trained to be.

Be polite and be, you know, all these things and give people the benefit of the doubt. But if I'm being honest, my energy and if I'm protecting my energy and sharing it with, in, in a great, like a good, healthy way. I might not be as engaged with certain people at different times. Right. It's just like, that's hard. That's hard for me. Rachel, thank you for commenting. Also, she says shape shifting in order to fit in depending on who is around, what they, they thought they would accept. In my mind, all that mattered was that others were happy regardless of my own feelings.

Yes. People pleasing to the nth degree. And I think that gets us stuck in things that don't feel honest or true. For sure. I did that all the time. What do other people need me to be right now? And then I can show up. But is that being true or honest to, you know, myself? And you're the only person that knows that. The only person that knows if you are not truly showing up in that way. I really like the espresso flavor. I wish I could share it with you guys. Yeah. So honesty. I probably. I have a lot more to say on that.

But like I was mentioning my all of the truth coaching is.