This is What Rock Bottom Really Looks Like

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hi Amber, Hilelah, Welcome to an unlikely affair. Hello babes, Welcome back to an unlikely affair. I am here with my main my superstar, the love of my life, my new best friend.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: I feel like we bonded on a new level in San Francisco.

00:00:21
Speaker 3: One hundred percent we did.

00:00:23
Speaker 2: What was that?

00:00:27
Speaker 4: It was just time away locked in a beautiful hotel room. Wait, can you tell a story how we really had two hotel rooms? And then then what happened?

00:00:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, we get there and iHeart is like, yeah, of course we got you two separate rooms. And I was like, well, why would you do that? And so I asked Amber, I was like, do you mind, like you can like shower at that room, but can you like stay in my room? And iHeart said, why don't we just get rid of one room. We'll put you guys in a suite. And so I loved that for me and my baby because what baby won't baby get? And it was just like such a cute experience, like I missed you in the bed. When I got back to LA you were like sending me pictures with an empty spot where I was laying.

00:01:11
Speaker 4: I know you stayed a day later than me, Yes, I did, and it was very sad. It was very like a big energy shift, and I was like, wait, where is my other half?

00:01:21
Speaker 2: Well, I kept saying her. I'm like, why can't you switch your flight? Like I know, She's like, there's only two flights out of Bozeman, and there's one Saturday morning. I've already missed the Friday one. I was like, there's gotta be a way that you can just like come back to LA with me, because then you can like be with me for Super Bowl and then you can go back to Bozeman. I like had this perfect plan in my head that didn't work out. But I'm going to see you soon, which makes me very happy. But I do feel like we bonded on a whole new level when we traveled to San Franciso.

00:01:50
Speaker 3: Hundred percent yeah.

00:01:51
Speaker 4: And I told you, like I'm I've been told I'm pretty easy to travel with, and I've learned you're also a great travel partner, so I will go anywhere you would like.

00:02:00
Speaker 2: Well, and we're very much on the same page. So we asked on the Unlikely Affair page what people wanted us to talk about. And I have to say anytime I did this when I had the podcast give them La La, even untraditionally La La people love a sobriety podcast. I think there's a lot of people who are struggling with addiction and don't know how to give it up. And so a lot of people wrote in and they were asking, like, I want to know about a mental health journey and your guys's sobriety journeys. And I always talk about how sobriety is not one size fits all. Your journey Amber is very different than mine. What you chose to pick up is very different than what I chose to pick up. And I'm really excited to get like your rock bottom moment because I actually have never heard your rock bottom moment.

00:02:52
Speaker 4: That's really crazy. I don't know your rock bottom moment, you know, it's funny. I was looking at the questions that we received beforehand, and I was also thinking to myself, I don't know much about your sobriety story. I know you're sober, but I don't really know much about your program. We don't go to the same meetings, or we don't I mean, Lala and I are in the same program for those of you who are listening, but like you said, our journeys are very different, and I think I was spiritually broken for me, and a lot of it had to do with things that I dealt with mostly in my twenties, But I think for me, I was even spiritually broken even before then. Like growing up, I always felt I had this like severe sadness. I felt things so deep it was hard to even articulate. I didn't feel like I could turn towards certain people in my life to really explain how I felt, so I kept it inside and I just kept pushing it down.

00:03:56
Speaker 2: Do you feel like that's what made you gravitate toward acting as well? Because it was an outlet where you could put what you were feeling into a character and maybe that felt more safe to you.

00:04:05
Speaker 3: One hundred percent it was truly. I mean, I grew up.

00:04:09
Speaker 4: My sisters are engineers, my dad and my mom have had a business that has nothing to do with the arts. So for me, yeah, I was a very deeply feeling lost soul. But I knew very early on as soon as I got that acting bug, and I truly also believe that we were born with these gifts. So in a way, my higher power was leading me towards acting or the arts in general, right, But I was just trying to escape my own thoughts. And then I got married, and then I had kids really young, and then whatever anxiety and depression I had already had as like a baseline, it just grew, right, So I was managing. I was just managing these feelings that were so overwhelming. And then you start telling yourself stories and then eventually you just believe the stories that you're telling yourself, right, And so for me, I just needed what I called my tranquilizers to get by, to get through, to get through the day.

00:05:07
Speaker 2: When you say your tranquilizers, were you picking up pills? Was that you're you're my drug of choice? Ok, per I mean.

00:05:16
Speaker 4: I alcohol is a part of my story, But I was never I was always a lightweight. Yes, Like I remember back in the day when I would drink. I remember my first hangover when London was like six months old, and I was like, I swear to God, I will never do this again, because it's at like five point thirty in the morning and your baby's crying and you feel like throwing up. And I was like, that was probably like my first lesson. I think all moms have probably experienced that.

00:05:41
Speaker 2: I haven't experienced that because I got to oh that's right before I had kids. But yes, they're even my friends who are completely like their normies, right, and they have like, instead of just two glasses of wine, they go for the third and they're like, never again will I do that? And it's like, I mean from the time you have children to the time that they're like self sufficient because they need you, like you got to wake up to take them to school. Like the whole thing is just a lot. I cannot imagine parenting with a hangover.

00:06:15
Speaker 4: No, it's awful. It really, it really is awful. And I never I never drank and drove my I was never. I was never that. I literally just wanted to stop feeling the pain. And for me, the easiest way to be able to still cope and function in my life and show up was was xanaxo, was this or oh you have that, let me try that, let me do this and of that, and the oh let me try to also manage my anxiety and depression. With my psychiatrists, it was just like a recipe for disaster. Until I started, I realized, stop fighting with yourself, right, I had to stop fighting with myself and stop suppressing all of these emotions and get really clear on what matters to me.

00:07:01
Speaker 2: And when was that? Would you say, like, do you remember the day it was or was it a build up?

00:07:07
Speaker 4: So I got sober for I was sober for two years when I was in my last long term relationship after my marriage, that's a long time. I was trying to help the other person get sober, and I was like, you know what, I'm going to be a good partner. I'm going to give up alcohol. I'm going to give up everything. And it was, I think subconsciously a little test for myself.

00:07:29
Speaker 2: So you gave up pills and drinking, you were like a sober person, yes, yes.

00:07:36
Speaker 4: Then when that person decided to start picking up and drinking again behind my back, I was like, well, if you're going to do it, then what the fuck am I doing this for?

00:07:48
Speaker 3: Right?

00:07:48
Speaker 2: Right? Well, because you weren't doing it for yourself, you were doing it for someone else, right right, which everyone knows in the program you cannot get sober for someone else.

00:07:55
Speaker 4: You have to get sober for yourself, right exactly. So So I went out and I started drinking again. I was having a time. I was dating, and now I'm like dating for the first time since I was what nineteen, wow when I got eighteen when I got married. I was nineteen when I got married, twenty was twenty twenty when I got married. It's all a blur at this point, and I didn't know how to date. So now on top of all my trauma trying one failed marriage, one failed relationship, now I'm dealing with kids, I'm dealing with dating. I'm dealing with my career. The pandemic hit. You know, no one's working, and then you have all the actors strike and the writers strike, and I'm just like, I'm a hot mess, and I'm like, where's.

00:08:44
Speaker 3: My life going?

00:08:45
Speaker 4: And I think there was one particular date that really I woke up and I said, I really need to stop drinking if I'm going to be serious about finding the right partner, because you keep choosing making the same mistakes. What stories are are you telling yourself? What patterns?

00:09:03
Speaker 2: Right?

00:09:03
Speaker 3: At this point, I was like, I think I'm.

00:09:06
Speaker 4: The problem, and you stop pointing the finger at everyone else and look at my own life and my choices.

00:09:13
Speaker 3: And so I first came in through alan On.

00:09:16
Speaker 4: I was like, I want to understand what these people that have so many issues, you know, what they're about. And then I would go to these mixed alan on in AA meetings and listen to each side talk, and again it's that little voice nudging you, going like, oh, you're not really an alcoholic because I hadn't had a DUI, I haven't been homeless. I've lived a pretty damn good life. My kids are healthy. I've never had any you know, major disasters. I'm not sitting in front of a judge begging for you know, a shorter life sentence, none of that. And I never knew that that doesn't have to be your story in order to enter.

00:09:53
Speaker 2: The that's the addiction talking.

00:09:55
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And so I and I said, you know what I'm going to give. I'm going to give AA try And the second I walked in those rooms, it just all came out.

00:10:06
Speaker 3: I mean I.

00:10:06
Speaker 4: Cried for a year straight, a year straight. I don't think there was a day that I didn't cry. And then I would cry because I was crying and I was like, what is who are you going with me?

00:10:16
Speaker 3: You know, I just didn't understand what was happening.

00:10:18
Speaker 2: Time. Yeah, yeah, you for the first time are left with the shit and nothing to numb it. You're having to take a good, hard look at your life, the choices you've made, all of the times that you want to blame everyone else, and you have to then go, well, what was my part in this? It's a lot, but I'm telling you. When I entered the rooms and I picked up the big Book and I looked at the twelve steps, I was like, I don't want to say right off the bat, because it did take some time, but I was begging for sobriety. I knew that I'm never going back to this life that I used to live. And I was like, this is so beneficial to human beings in general. You don't have to be an alcoholic to practice these steps. This is what we all should be living by every single day. Granted we live that way because you know, we are addicts and we have the alcoholic mind that decides to when we do practice these things, we go, oh, no, this is too much. I need to pick something up. I need to I can't deal with thinking about my part in things. There's no self reflection. Honestly, Amber, there were so many moments that I would wake up and say, like, you need to stop drinking. I never labeled myself an alcoholic, but there were. It was every morning, this vicious cycle of waking up so depressed and needing a drink. And then my dad died and I just leaned in heavy. I was drinking from the moment I woke up until I passed out. I was chaotic. I would go from being really happy and okay because I had just the right amount of alcohol in my system to breaking down, screaming profanities in public and needing to get to a room or a pillow to just scream into it. I felt so lost and my life was so unmanageable, and I remember going on a trip. So I actually went to a therapist, a psychiatrist, and we were talking and it was me, our ex and the psychiatrist, and as we were talking, you know, they were looking at is she bipolars? She's severely depressed throughout all of this. She asks our ex to leave the room and she starts asking me about my drinking, and she asks me to take down a phone number. And I pause, and I was like, because in my mind I was like, I just like drinking. I'm a fucking good time. I'm nothing is wrong with my life. I don't have a DUI, thank god, because I was drinking and driving. Absolutely I was drinking and driving. And my mom told me after I got sober, her biggest fear every time I called her was the fact that I was in the car and she knew that I had been drinking. And I had to work through a lot of shame in that. But I was like, I'll get sober when I have kids, because I can't drink and be pregnant.

00:13:24
Speaker 4: That was my thought process. I was fucking insane. That's when the party ends is when you have that.

00:13:28
Speaker 2: That's when the party ends is when I when I have a baby. She I say to her, you know, are you asking me to be sober, because like that's not going to happen. I had already made up my mind. She goes, I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm telling you that if you need this number, you have it, and if you don't want to use it, you don't have to use it. I was like, all right, put the number in my phone. We go with your children, my niece and nephew. We have like twenty six people that we go to Disney World with. We're there for the weekend. I am obliterated the whole time we're at Disney World. I can't, I can. I have two, maybe three vivid moments of that trip. I constantly was wondering where the bar was. I remember excessive amounts of alcohol being brought into the car because I didn't know if they had a bar there, and I needed my rodies. And then I remember going through the gift shop Easton and I getting a bottle of Hennessy to take on the private plane, and I say, and face chugging it out of the fucking bottle. And I always think how ironic it is that I hit my rock bottom thirty thousand feet in the air because I let the kids draw all over my legs. I mean, I was tanked. I couldn't get any drunker. We land, I go to my apartment, I go to sleep. I wake up my mom and Easton and his girlfriend had flown away. I look at my apartment and my shit is everywhere. I remember that night I had scrubbed my legs so that I wouldn't wake up with the remnants of just the trip right amber when I tell you, I sat there and I was like, I am an alcoholic and I'm reaching out today to that woman. I texted RX, I said, I need to talk to you immediately. I'm coming to the office. I remember sitting in his office and saying, I'm letting you know that I'm identifying as an alcoholic and I'm going to be reaching out and getting help today. And I've never been so broken, but I've never felt more hopeful in my entire life. I reached out to the woman. She said, I want you to call me every day and I want to meet with you every single day until you meet your sponsor who I'm going to introduce you to. My first meeting was on was in Brentwood, and then I went to another one and I remember this woman who had like forty something years and she goes, I promise you when I see you in thirty days, you're going to be a new human. Literally, after thirty days, she came up to me. She was like, you look different. You have light in your eyes. She was like, I want you to keep coming back. I'm praying that you keep coming back. It's the best decision I ever made in my entire life.

00:16:14
Speaker 3: Thank you for sharing that story.

00:16:16
Speaker 4: And I know that's like it's you know, to say your story out loud and again, because we don't necessarily always share it in this way.

00:16:25
Speaker 3: So thank you for doing that.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate you doing it too, because I think it's important that you remember your rock bottom moment often so you remember why you chose this life.

00:16:37
Speaker 3: I realized that I was trying to.

00:16:41
Speaker 4: By drinking and taking pills and just bad behavior. I was seeking control. That's what I wanted. I wanted to be in control. And then it's like, okay, well why do I want to be in control? Because I have so much grief and I didn't want to get out of the grief. I was trying to get out of the grief. I just didn't know how. It's like I was in this hole and I was just every time. But again, it's like these stories that we repeat in our head over and over again that keeps that addiction alive. And well, how did you in the first thirty days.

00:17:14
Speaker 3: Cope from not drinking? Did you go to rehab?

00:17:17
Speaker 2: So the first meeting that I had with this woman, and she wasn't She was a case manager, so a lot of people I paid her because she dealt with people who are coming out of rehab, and my first meeting, she said, after I told her my story, she said, I think you need to go to rehab. And I said, listen to me. I am so dead set on being sober. If I relapse, I promise you I will check myself into rehab that fucking day. But just give me a shot, because I think I can do this. I want it so badly. And she actually gave me. When the Brent Shapiro Foundation, which for those of you who are not familiar with it, it was started by Robert and Linnelle Shapiro, the attorney and his wife, and they lost their son Brent, to drugs. So what they do is inspire our youth junior high to high school and incentivize them that if you stay sober, you have a shot at getting a full ride scholarship to a college. I love your choice. Wow. So it's a wonderful, wonderful charity. I just I love everything about it. But when I met Bob, he said, I would really love to give you the Spirit of Sobriety Award this year. This was, you know, during season we were actually filming season ten, and this woman who saved my life, I call her my angel. I called her and she picked up and walked me through what my new life was going to be like. She gave it to me, presented me with this award, and she said and in her speech, and this stuck with me. She said, you know, this is my unicorn. And there's so many times that people reach out to me, and I know that they've been reaching out to you on like how do you stay strong in your sobriety? And I don't really know how to answer it because it's just a feeling that I have that makes me feel so happy and good. There's moments I pass bars and I go, oh, a drink would be really good right now. But then I walk myself through the rock bottom moment and where that will lead me. And there's there are days where I can't stay sober for myself and I stay sober for my kids.

00:19:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a pause, it's a spiritual pause. I think that's what the program gives us is these tools, the tools from AA gave me a foundation.

00:19:50
Speaker 4: But I also need outside help because a lot of people think like, oh, if you have mental health issues, then you can't take any SSRIs. That's not that's not true at all. I think everyone's program is very different. If you need outside help meaning therapy, or you need a life coach, whatever it is, you create your own toolbox, which is so beautiful, like we have a set of tools.

00:20:15
Speaker 3: Do the twelve step program right.

00:20:17
Speaker 4: Don't be a part of a twelve step program if you're not going to work the twelve steps.

00:20:21
Speaker 2: And once you're finished with the twelve steps, you always go back to one. It's never done.

00:20:27
Speaker 4: I'm on my second round and let me tell you, I'm doing it with a different sponsor. I'm having a different experience. And it doesn't matter if you've been sober forty years, thirty years, twenty years. From what I've heard in these rooms is that you always have a different experience every time you do them, and stuff comes up all the time, right because life is happening right, And it doesn't mean that life is not messy.

00:20:46
Speaker 3: Trust me.

00:20:47
Speaker 4: I have to wake up every day and I say to myself, literally.

00:20:50
Speaker 3: Today this was my day.

00:20:51
Speaker 4: I wake up five o'clock, my head's already going and I'm like, Nope, you're not going to do this. You're going to get to your head before your head gets to you.

00:20:59
Speaker 3: And that's what I have to say.

00:21:00
Speaker 4: I love that so then immediately I put in my headphones, I do my Joe Despenza meditation, put myself into gratitude.

00:21:11
Speaker 3: I say my third step prayer.

00:21:13
Speaker 4: Now I'm working on my seventh step, which is a completely different experience than I had before.

00:21:19
Speaker 3: And I pray and then and then I go about my day.

00:21:23
Speaker 4: So if I do not get to my head before my head gets to me, that's the first step. It's a twenty four hour program and that is what I need. And then I have all these other tools. Go to the gym, you know, if I need a pause during the day, whatever it is, call you know, you're sine my routine.

00:21:41
Speaker 2: You have a routine.

00:21:42
Speaker 3: So it's like a daily reprieve and that's what they call it.

00:21:44
Speaker 4: So people that are listening that want to get sober, just know it's not easy, but it's worth it. And like there is a program, find a sponsor and start working the program. That is the only way that sobriety has worked for me. For me, it was just rebooting my life emotionally spiritually. I had to strip myself down and it still happens on a daily basis and some days I'm spiraling and guess what I can call you, I can call my sponsor, I could journal pen to paper like it. Just these are the tools that I need every day to make sure that I'm spiritually.

00:22:19
Speaker 3: Okay in a line.

00:22:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, and not every day is perfect that and I say this all the time.

00:22:23
Speaker 3: Growth is not linear, like you just have to start.

00:22:36
Speaker 2: I want to go back to what you said as well for anyone who wants to get sober, because they call it the pink cloud. When you first get sober and you feel elated and youphoric, but then life still happens and now you're forced to deal with it with nothing to numb you out. You're there head to head, face to face, and it can become I mean, I go back to when my sobriety was very much tested. My sobriety wasn't tested when I lost my dad because I got I had my last drink exactly six months to the day that my dad passed away. And honestly, when I had that moment of you're an alcoholic and you're never living this way again, I felt my dad amber. I felt my dad come to me and say, like, enough is enough, and now you're going to warn me the way that I deserve to be mourned, and after that I had such like a positive experience thinking about him, like before that drinking six months. I've seen people who have lost their parents, right, of course, they're devastated, but they're moving through life in their mourning in such a healthy way. I wasn't doing that. I was just beside myself. I couldn't get a grasp on what I was feeling. I couldn't even go through a grieving process because anytime I was awake, I was just numbing the fuck out. But my sobriety was very much tested when I left my ex. And I think about what I achieved in such a short period of time. And I'm not even talking about the tangible shit I'm talking about, like becoming a single mom. I'm talking about my independence that I really have never had, like those things. It was put to the test. And I think about if I had picked up a drink, how different this story would have ended.

00:24:42
Speaker 4: And you were there for your mom. Think about if you weren't sober, how you couldn't show up.

00:24:48
Speaker 2: And then I was able to allow my mom to grieve the death of her husband. I mean she couldn't even every time we were together I mean she and I would both go to Ralph's near my apartment, and it started at as a bottle of champagne for both of us, and then we each got our own bottle. And then when she went back to Utah, she lived in normal she was in normy, but when she was with me, we were numbing the fuck out. And you know, my mom doesn't drink anymore strictly based off of like just supporting me in Easton. She's not sober, she's not in a program. She just doesn't drink. But when people, when people want what we have, I always prepare them. Look at who you're choosing as your sponsor, because that's going to be your fucking lifeline. You also have to really sit down and commit to really looking at yourself and your addiction and finding your higher power and knowing that when you go out into the world, life is still happening. It doesn't stop because you've gotten sober. People are still going to act the way they act. People are still going to pick up drinks. You have to now think about what you can control. And that's so funny that you talked about you would pick up because you wanted control over something you finally realize the only thing I have control over is myself and what I choose to do, and that could.

00:26:11
Speaker 3: Be sometimes the hardest thing to let go of.

00:26:14
Speaker 2: I know, I want to control everything.

00:26:16
Speaker 3: Of course we all do.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: Like yesterday, I wanted Ocean to wear something cute and she put on a pink striped shirt with a green plaid skirt and hot pink shoes, and I was like, I'm picking my battles. This is a negotiation that I will not win, but I want to control everything. You're like, you don't much.

00:26:38
Speaker 4: What about your spirituality compared to being sober? Like were you spiritual before you were you got sober?

00:26:45
Speaker 2: I was raised like you were raised Mormon, like you had you had a very structured faith, correct, Yeah, mine was not. Mine was like we would pop into like a no nominational tri where like everyone was in jeans and like or in like ski outfits because they were gonna love that. It was wonderful. It's like a rock band that would play and they talked about very much like everyday issues that were happening in our lives, and it just always seemed to speak to me. But spirituality was like at the forefront of our family because my dad was raised very Mormon and that was traumatizing for him, and my mom was raised in a very Christian household, which I think was a little intense for her. So they came together and created just like we believe in God, and that's what it is. When my dad passed away is the first time I questioned a higher power. So I'm like, there were a God, I would not feel this way. You wouldn't have taken my dad, this wonderful man. You would have taken the piece of shit who's causing people harm. Like that was my mindset. When I got sober, Oh gosh, I leaned hard into my higher power, which for me is is God. I don't think he's a man in the sky by any means with like a beard and looking all sexy, okay.

00:28:12
Speaker 4: Right right right, or that one movie, uh Telldigan Knights, he's like a he's a man, he has.

00:28:20
Speaker 2: A beard, Yeah exactly. He doesn't look like that for me. But when I left our ex bro, that's when I was like, God is fucking alive and well and he's fucking working hard, and this universe has my back and this is all gonna make sense one day. I didn't question any of it because it was all I fucking had.

00:28:45
Speaker 3: M gosh, I didn't have that experience, but I'm glad.

00:28:48
Speaker 2: You did know. But when that happened to you, you weren't sober. No, do you think it would have happened if you were sober?

00:28:58
Speaker 4: Oh?

00:28:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I definitely would have.

00:29:00
Speaker 4: I would have definitely had a some sort of different experience. But like growing up Mormon, it was great because it kept me grounded ish as a kid. They also say Mormon girls are like the horniest ones, Like if you go to Utah, they're always.

00:29:17
Speaker 2: Like is it true?

00:29:20
Speaker 4: Me?

00:29:20
Speaker 3: No, what are you talking about?

00:29:22
Speaker 2: Now? Not at all?

00:29:23
Speaker 3: That is such a lot.

00:29:25
Speaker 2: That is such a lot, baby.

00:29:27
Speaker 4: But but I realized that like this, and I question everything in the Mormon Church. I remember when I before I got baptized, I was like why why? I was like a three year old when I was like, I think it was nine when I got baptized.

00:29:40
Speaker 2: I only feel like the Mormon Church's worst nightmare. Put your questions on the shelf, baby.

00:29:46
Speaker 3: I know they did not like me.

00:29:50
Speaker 4: And then all of a sudden, then I started going, you know, my I promised my exit we would raise the kiss Jewish and I was like great, Like I was so happy, and then I love being part of the Jewish community and I was up you know, at the temple and whatever and night. So I kind of like started finding my own spirituality.

00:30:08
Speaker 2: Did you ever convert to Judaism?

00:30:11
Speaker 4: I started the conversion process right before I moved to Montana, so recently.

00:30:16
Speaker 2: Are you still wanting to do that?

00:30:17
Speaker 3: Yes? I do. I would like love.

00:30:19
Speaker 2: So that's that is the religion that speaks to you the most.

00:30:23
Speaker 3: It is, it really is. I'm not you know, I struggle with that laala.

00:30:27
Speaker 4: I really do, because I want my kids to have some sort of foundation. And I just wanted tradition. I think that's what I was craving at the end of the day. I wanted a family that like walked in and had maybe not to temple together. I wanted Shabbat dinners And it wasn't It was just about lighting the candles and having a moment where the phones were put away and we were just thinking about this beautiful life that God has given us.

00:30:53
Speaker 3: And I fought that.

00:30:53
Speaker 4: I was like, you asked for this, and now I'm begging for it and it is what it is, and so now I'm on. I think my own what AA has given me is my own relationship to a higher power. And I don't force anything down my kids. I do, especially with London because she's older, and when she goes through a hard time or she's having a hard day, I say to her things like maybe you should pray.

00:31:20
Speaker 2: What does she say when you tell her that? She goes?

00:31:22
Speaker 4: I know, And sometimes I ask, I said, do you want me to pray with you? And sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't. And I think that just letting my kids find their own spiritual relationship with whatever it is right, And I even told my girls, I said, it could be in the beginning, let it be whatever. Let it be a special tree outside or a special It doesn't have to be like we said this man. It could be a man or a woman or whatever. You could just pray to the universe, to Mother Nature. And when you strip yourself down spiritually that way, and you give yourself the permission to make these steps towards realizing there's something greater than yourself, then you find something and then you ask like okay, God, like if you're here today, like just let me know that my angels are with me, and then for me, I'll see my eleven eleven, or I'll see when I was in La, I would see Hummingbird or the other day. I was just like, I didn't really feel like my angels were with me. And I said, are you there, and if you are, show me something red, no joke. I walked out of my room and I looked out my window across like a thousand yards and I saw a piece of a red house. And I would never look out the window when I walked out my room. Then Riley's friend comes down the stairs and she put on Riley's red sweatshirt.

00:32:50
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.

00:32:51
Speaker 4: Then I'm driving the girls to a steakhouse Riley and her two friends. And I had at this point, I had completely forgot that I had asked the universe for I need to show me anything red.

00:33:01
Speaker 3: And it just came to me. And there's a red truck driving in front of me.

00:33:05
Speaker 2: You're like, bitch, you want to know we're here. We're gonna show you read all day.

00:33:08
Speaker 3: I'm like, what, Okay, I get it. You're here.

00:33:11
Speaker 2: So when you forget, you could ask, just ask, you know what, though, Amber, there are so many moments, even though I know that, like I'm being looked after, like I can feel that. I know that, but I'll pray and I will tell him. I'm like, I'm having a really weak moment. I'm questioning you, buddy, what the fuck is going on? I just want to know, just want to fucking know, Like, what's the game plan here? Buddy? You know again, I know you're there and I'm being weak. But my mom always says, so I'll have these moments of saying like I'm really questioning it, man, and she'll go, you want to question him? Just wait and see what he'll do if you question him. I'm like, well, I don't know that God. If that's your God works, I don't know that. I want that God to just see how bad it fucking can get. I'm like, I don't know. World seems kind of bad right now, seems pretty pretty bad.

00:34:07
Speaker 4: I say that those moments that I have right when you ask, it's like a God wink. It's like God winking at you, going I got you.

00:34:16
Speaker 3: And it's okay.

00:34:17
Speaker 2: And after I pray and sometimes i'll loop, I'm like I still got the pit, like I need to feel you, And then all of the sudden it just like goes away. I'm like, all will be good. Let's be grateful for our health, things that are right in front of us. In fact, I'm really really bad at going to meetings right now, Like I'm gonna be very transparent. I am bad, but I'm a part of this group chat and I'm very transparent with my sponsor. Like we were supposed to start going to meetings every Thursday, and there was a time where I had canceled and I was like, I'm gonna be honest. I was like, I would actually rather just like chill with my kids this morning. I don't really want to hit a meeting. And she was like, you know what, why don't we start? Just like if you feel you're strong in your sobriety, this is where finding your sponsor comes into play. I don't want you freaking calling me every day. I've been sober for over seven years. Granted I could pick up a drink tomorrow and it could all be gone, but like, I will call you. I want this bad, And I do call her. I call her when shit gets fucking real. And she's given me epic advice, like life changing advice, but she has me in this gratitude text thread, and it allows me amber to sit back and go, what am I grateful for? I'm so consumed with all the things that are not right in this moment. Let's take a step back and look at the things that have gone right. And it kind of resets me. I'm supposed to list three things, but I could list a thousand right now because there's so much good happening that I'm not focused on.

00:36:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the best, haven't you.

00:36:03
Speaker 4: It's like those those simple things that you think that are like so annoying to do, Like I don't want and I have the same thing.

00:36:10
Speaker 3: It's part of the program.

00:36:11
Speaker 4: I have my list of girls that I and I just get Sometimes I get lazy and I know, I know, and I'm not doing it. I get a little eared wool and I get discontent and I'm like, oh, like I just catch myself.

00:36:25
Speaker 3: What about when you go to parties?

00:36:29
Speaker 2: Now?

00:36:29
Speaker 3: Like, how do you manage you?

00:36:31
Speaker 4: Know?

00:36:31
Speaker 3: Your your Uh?

00:36:34
Speaker 4: Are you fucking kidding me? You're still sucking on that thing. If I could come through the screen and rip that out of your hand.

00:36:39
Speaker 2: Do you want to know what's happening today? Easton's going to Utah with the vape and you know I don't buy them. I don't buy them, but it's happening like it has to. It's it's I mean, I'm having surgery, so everyone wished me fucking look, but I am telling you, Amber, the vape has become my security blanket when I go out.

00:37:02
Speaker 3: I know, I was with you all.

00:37:04
Speaker 4: Weekend, I saw, I saw. I'm really listen.

00:37:09
Speaker 2: I'm worried.

00:37:10
Speaker 3: I've puffed on the vape a few.

00:37:11
Speaker 4: Times and I'm like, whoa, I like this way too much and I don't I wouldn't buy them either, and my kids are older, so I definitely could not.

00:37:20
Speaker 3: But oh my god, it's I get it. I get it.

00:37:25
Speaker 2: No, it's it's really bad, and it's really bad for you.

00:37:28
Speaker 3: It's iley ii ley bad for you.

00:37:32
Speaker 2: And you know what. I had given it up for so long, and I remember shit hitting the fan with our ex in that moment and I was smoking it and my mom was like, you picked that shit back up again. I was in that bedroom and I was like, Mom, not the time, And let me tell you something. The stress I'm feeling right now is gonna kill me before this fucking vape does. Like I was stressed and then seven years later, I mean I took long breaks. I mean I was pregnant and breastfeeding. I wasn't vaping during that time. I'm like, why did you pick it back up again? It's because I'm out and someone has one. I'm like, I have a puff of that.

00:38:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's easy.

00:38:12
Speaker 4: Immediately we're off to the races again. I know, you just got to be gentle on yourself. And the most important thing.

00:38:16
Speaker 2: Is amber I've been sober over seven years. All right, well you it's time. Okay, you don't have to convince me. I know it's trying to convince myself because it's such like when I have moments of feeling stressed out or we're going out to a party, I'm like, I have to have my thing, but I don't. I'm fine.

00:38:43
Speaker 3: Like you said, it's a pacifier.

00:38:46
Speaker 2: It is. And like you said, a craving only lasts how long, Well.

00:38:51
Speaker 4: A feeling, so the feelings only last ninety seconds. So you're picking up that vape because you're having a fing Yeah, having a feeling now if you need, you're such a bitch. Okay, So let's just do a few questions. Because people wrote in some really great questions. And so one of the first questions that I think is really good, Laala, is what does sobriety give you that you don't want to lose?

00:39:23
Speaker 2: My entire life Without my sobriety, I don't have what's happening here. I lose my relationship with my mother and my brother. I lose my interactions with my children, which, let's be honest, the stress of the day can mentally take you away from your kids. Without alcohol, I'm not going to allow a drink to take me away from my kids. Let's talk about the stuff. I wouldn't be able to go out and work and afford the lifestyle that I have for my that I've created for my family, Like, I don't want to lose my life, which I will if I drink.

00:40:04
Speaker 4: Life gets really good when you get sober. It really doesn't know what is it for you. I think for me, it's losing myself. And I'll explain that because I feel like in my sobriety, I finally have come home to who I am and I really missed that girl. I really missed her. And I think, like I think that the shit that's happened in life not just to me, but to everybody, even dealing with all the stuff that's going on in the world, I really got pulled and sucked in. And now I'm starting to like remember who I am and not give a shit, right, not care like I like who I am. I'm not perfect, but I want my kids to be able to look up to someone, right, Yeah, And I want them to look up to me as their mom, as a woman, as a person in their community and their society and their life, and be there for them. So if I lose me, you know that's anything, I lose everything. Yeah, Okay, Amber, stop fucking crying.

00:41:06
Speaker 3: See I still cry.

00:41:07
Speaker 2: No, I love that you cry.

00:41:09
Speaker 3: Do you like sober sex better? Which I know we had a podcast about.

00:41:12
Speaker 2: That, but I've been trying to be less graphic. I need to like tame myself a bit.

00:41:19
Speaker 3: So it's a yes or no. Do you like sex better sober?

00:41:22
Speaker 2: I'm going back to that podcast where I talked about Okay, whatever the vagina I do. I love it so much more because I can enjoy it like I know where I am and the person I'm with. I'm not going to wake up the next morning and be like, how did you get here? You looked better last night, and also like I look better in the morning as well. Oh, hands down, that part's great. I've had and you didn't get to get you.

00:41:49
Speaker 4: Don't get to not answer hello, I had some fun.

00:41:54
Speaker 3: It's just easier.

00:41:56
Speaker 4: I think for me, I'm really uncommon. I feel like I get my head and I'm really I feel like I'm really awkward. It's made it better, but I've gotten I've learned how to have better sex sober, and now I'm starting to like it more.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: Right, Oh no, it's terrifying the first time that you do it without alcohol. In my head, I'm like, is he gonna know that? Like my one boob is droopy and the other one's like heart is a fucking rock. And then like my go to is like, hey, it's like you were with like two women at once. Yeah, that's kind of fun.

00:42:28
Speaker 3: I'm like, turn down the lights. I don't want any lights on while this is happening.

00:42:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, please don't ask me to do it doggy style with the lights on, all right, I'd prefer not.

00:42:40
Speaker 4: Oh okay, I love this one. How do I start? I wake up thinking about it and go to bed thinking about it. That breaks my heart.

00:42:52
Speaker 2: That is my story, and I think you can relate to that as well. Oh this is just such a hard one, isn't it? Because you have to you have to want it so badly.

00:43:03
Speaker 4: So they say in AA you have to have the gift of desperation, and you have to be desperate enough, like when you woke up in your apartment and you decided to make that phone call.

00:43:14
Speaker 2: Oh, I was desperate, right, you have to be desperate enough. I wish I could give someone the roadmap to becoming sober. But you have to want it so badly that you'd give up everything and anything. And what's wild is in that thought process you end up gaining everything.

00:43:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, truly you do.

00:43:34
Speaker 4: I think for me, I would just say if anyone is listening and is either sober curious, or is desperate and wants to get into the rooms and get sober. There are so many apps out there, Lala, you have one that you use?

00:43:47
Speaker 3: What is that so I use?

00:43:50
Speaker 2: I actually have like a little you know how you can on the iPhone like put different apps into sections. So I have like in my lifestyle app, which is all sobriety, the meeting guide. It's a blue tile and it has just like a folding chair in white like a drawing. And then I also like twenty four hours because it keeps track of your sobriety but also gives you like a thought of the day, and that's a way to just kind of like dip your toe in. And also on that meeting app, you can pick all women meetings, you can pick all male meetings, a combination open meetings, where like if you want someone who's really really a positive force and wants to support you in this journey, they can attend with you. And it can also be on Zoom, like it shows you you can go in person. Here's the Zoom link, you.

00:44:41
Speaker 4: Know, and if you go to a Zoom meeting or in person, it's a community and everyone's like literally they'll just hug you and say welcome home, because that's that's what it is.

00:44:52
Speaker 3: You're coming home.

00:44:53
Speaker 4: So yeah, currently on day twenty three, sober from gummies and drinking. Any advice rate, keep coming back, keep doing it.

00:45:02
Speaker 2: Keep doing the work. Remember there it's one day at a time, but sometimes it's one second at a time. And I see you because I equate like your addiction and even though mine with the vape is not mind altering, But it's something that I want to give up, and it is fucking hard. But twenty three days, bitch, like you got this, You've got this.

00:45:22
Speaker 3: I have a question.

00:45:23
Speaker 4: You don't get a head high from the vape the first hit of the day. I do, Okay, So it is mind altering.

00:45:32
Speaker 3: I'm calling out. I'm calling you out. I love you, but I'm calling you out.

00:45:37
Speaker 4: I love you great, that's why we're so close. Oh how do I stay sober during rough times? Lean into the program if you're in one, call a friend, call a sober sister, right law, any other advice?

00:45:51
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that your community is everything, like you have to have. And you know what, amber Sometimes people who get sober they can't be friends with who they used to be friends with, and that's also very intense. But I have my homies that are normies and they can go out and drink. But I have my sober community, and those are the people who I may not see every day, I may not talk to every day, but they've got me every step of the way. And when I first got sober, I was like talking to my sober community multiple times a day, every single day.

00:46:26
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you lean on your sisters real hard, like real hard. And by the way, you don't have to go to an expensive rehab. I don't want people to think just because they don't have the money in the bank or they're suffering, that you have to go to some crazy, you know, rehab in Utah or Palm Springs or California of Florida.

00:46:46
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be that.

00:46:48
Speaker 2: It doesn't take nice that can I give an unpopular opinion. Sure, those places worry me. Yeah, they do because you come out into the real world again and you don't know how to face it without the alcohol. You're in those places and it's fabulous and you've spent all this money and they're keeping you sober, you're getting massages, you're eating sushi, and then the real world you're released back into it, and I find that it's difficult for some people.

00:47:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, guys, I hope we answered a lot of questions. Lala, thank you for sharing your story. I actually learned a lot about more about you today.

00:47:26
Speaker 2: I learned about you too, and I love that because I know that you went through moments of like giving up drinking and things like that. But I've always been curious, which I don't know why we've never had this conversation about the moment that you were like, this is my rock bottom. And I love that you talked about, well, I'm not an alcoholic because I don't do this and I haven't gotten a dui because it's so true you go through those moments.

00:47:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's ego.

00:47:50
Speaker 2: I don't hide bottles, so I'm not an alcoholic. Hm mmm, No, i'ms in many forms.

00:47:55
Speaker 3: It comes in many forms.

00:47:57
Speaker 2: I'm very proud of you, Amber. Congratulations on your sobriety.

00:48:01
Speaker 3: I'm proud of you too.

00:48:03
Speaker 2: I love you so much. I love you too, and I love you guys. Thank you for listening to another episode of An Unlikely Affair. Thank you so much for writing in your questions. You guys were vulnerable, you asked epic questions. We're going to catch you guys next week for another episode.

00:48:18
Speaker 3: Love you, Bye bye, guys,