November 8, 2024 • 31 mins
In this episode, we meet with Jessie from Boston, a trained sommelier and hard liquor aficionado who describes her family as having many generations of alcohol dependence. We'll hear how she herself has had to come to terms with both ADHD and autism, as well as childhood trauma.
That trauma was triggered again during the COVID pandemic, where her alcohol use came to a head. Working 14 hour days in an essential service was tough enough, but being locked down also brought back the trauma of being trapped as a child. Jessie describes herself as a rebel down to the core of her being, and so the strict rules of AA weren't for her.
And in fact, it was a podcast that started her journey to finding alcohol freedom!
Jessie Calkin
https://www.exit9coaching.com/
Our 30-day group programme:
https://www.cleanlifecoaching.org/aff-group
The podcast home page
https://podcast.alcoholfreedomfinders.com/
Justine Clark
https://justineclarktherapy.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/wellwithjustine/
Barry Condon
https://www.cleanlifecoaching.org/
https://www.instagram.com/clean.life.coaching/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-condon-577b85294/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This is Alcohol Freedom Finders.
In this episode, we meet withJessie from Boston, a trained
sommelier and hard liquoraficionado who describes her
family as having manygenerations of alcohol
dependence.
We'll hear how she herself hashad to come to terms with both
ADHD and autism, as well aschildhood trauma.
(00:21):
That trauma was triggered againduring the COVID pandemic, where
her alcohol use came to a head.
Working 14 hour days in anessential service was tough
enough, but being locked downalso brought back the trauma of
being trapped as a child.
Jessie describes herself as arebel down to the core of her
being, and so the strict rulesof AA weren't for her.
(00:42):
And in fact, it was a podcastthat started her journey to
finding alcohol freedom.
Let's get going.
Well, hello and welcomeeverybody to the Alcohol Freedom
Finders.
Today we are super excited tohave our guest, Jessie Corkins
with us.
And she's going to talk to usabout the magic of finding
(01:05):
freedom from alcohol herself.
So hi, Jessie.
How are you?
I'm very well.
How are you?
I'm great.
It's a hot day in London today.
A rare treat.
I must say, a rare treat.
Hi, Jesse.
Really good to see you.
Thanks for coming on.
Really, you're really excited tohear your, your story.
We've obviously known each otherfor, what is it now?
(01:25):
It's a year, I suppose.
Um, but, um, I don't have manydetails on you.
So I'm, I'm really, reallyinterested to hear, uh, your
background story.
Um, I don't know, where wouldyou like to start?
I mean, we're obviously AlcoholFreedom Finders, so we'd be
really fascinated to hear, youknow, where your alcohol journey
started and, and, and what's ledyou to where you are today.
(01:48):
Thank you both for welcoming meand having me on.
It is also a hot day here inBoston, but we just finished up
a long heat wave of, let me tryto convert to centigrade here,
well over 27 degrees, somewherein there.
And for several weeks and notquite enough rain.
So thanks for tolerating mystrange Americanisms as I try to
(02:09):
convert things to the propermeasurement systems for the rest
of the audience.
Um, I am very honored to behere.
I'm a big fan of both of yours.
So I am very honored, uh, to beable to participate in your new
project.
The pleasure is all ours.
So I can, uh, talk both yourears off or everyone else who's
ever going to listen to this, soI will attempt to be concise in
(02:31):
ways that I am not usuallyparticularly skilled at, um, I,
as you can tell from my voice,I'm an American and, uh, we're
here in Boston, so you mighthear me drop some R's, but not
as many as perhaps people in mydialect region.
Um, as you might guess from whatI just said, my, uh, formal
academic background is inlinguistics.
So if you hear me makingreference to strange language
(02:53):
things, that is why.
So, uh, my journey to being anon drinker, a sober person, an
alcohol freedom person, inwhatever terms you would best
like to use that suit yourheart.
To the truth, uh, startedprobably most accurately back in
2017, and it took a great numberof years for me to move from a
(03:15):
person who realized I had aproblem with alcohol to actually
doing something about it.
Early on in 2017, I noticed thatI had become a daily drinker and
coming from a family ofsubstance abuse, abuse, uh, in
the more kind of physical,emotional sense.
As well as many generations ofalcohol dependent people, I knew
(03:39):
that if I was trending in thatdirection, this was probably
going to end up playing out theway that I had seen other
generations of my family playout.
And that wasn't going to be afuture that I wanted to have.
That being said, I was drinkingevery day because I didn't want
to feel my feelings.
(03:59):
I have both big T and small Ttrauma in my background, as well
as mental health challenges.
I'm also an ADHD er, and I'malso diagnosed autistic.
So I have a few extra things inmy brain that sometimes get in
the way of being the kind ofperson I want to be, or that
society says I ought to be, orthat perhaps my workplaces would
(04:21):
want me to be.
So, uh, just being a regularperson with everyday people
problems like any of us.
One of the ways that I selfmedicated was with alcohol, so I
first started tracking how manydays I could go without drinking
back in 2017.
And it turned out it was, uh,maybe two days.
And I was very uncomfortablewith that, and I had a daily
(04:43):
journaling habit, and I justkept track of it.
I wasn't trying to do anythingwith it, I just noticed it, and
I lived in denial about it for avery long time.
I would go through periods wheremaybe it was two drinks a night,
and then you'd have particularlyrough go, and then I would be
drinking many, many, manyalcohol units, uh, in a week,
(05:08):
far more than what medicine saidwas appropriate for someone of
my age and background.
Where would you do yourdrinking?
I would drink at home with mypartner, who is my spouse now.
I would, we would If I washaving a particularly rough day,
I would say, I need margaritas.
And so we would go to our localmargarita place and my spouse,
(05:29):
he's not much of a drinker onhis own.
He would just try to keep upwith me.
So his drinking always kind ofebbed and flowed with mine.
If I was having a high drinkingperiod of time, uh, he would
follow suit or vice versa.
Um, I.
I learned that I was celiac backin 2013, so beer wasn't my
(05:51):
beverage of choice.
I was very much, uh, I becamevery much a quote unquote brown
liquor drinker.
Um, I was a bourbon person and amargarita person through and
through.
Those were frequently my poisonsof choice.
Um, so I can, uh, fast forwardtoward the, let's, uh, get free
from this unless there's otherthings you'd like me to expand
upon.
(06:13):
No, that's not good, GC.
No, no, yeah.
I'm loving it.
Please, please continue.
Uh, so 2017 saw me, uh, getmarried, woo hoo, um, and in
2018, I started graduate schoolafter working in various, uh, I,
besides having formal ADHD, Ilike to say I also have career
(06:34):
ADHD.
I have changed industries somany times after, you know,
working very hard and kind ofunleashing some level of success
in each one, I would almost gettired of it and want to learn
something else from the bottomup.
So I would start at an entrylevel position and then work my
way up into management whereverI was.
Basically, if I'm learning, I'minvested in my profession and if
(06:57):
I already know how to do all thethings.
In the past, I would almostbecome unmotivated to
participate in my workplace andI'd work myself till burnout.
Uh, I know that burnout is avery common thing across people
of all colors and backgroundsand places of origin, so I don't
think I need to explain it toanyone.
And that was another thing Iself medicated over.
(07:18):
And this pressures of graduateschool as well as running a
small business, uh, running abike shop here in Boston, uh, I
drank over that.
So we don't need to.
Keep getting into that, but the,the turning point for me was, I
think, like for many of us,however, the place that you live
handled the outbreak of theCOVID 19 pandemic, uh, here in
(07:38):
the U.
S., the local government decidedto start shutting things down at
the end of March of 2020.
So we went from whatever youthink of a normal American New
England city, uh, if you haveany middle model of that.
very much.
to absolutely everything shutdown, uh, very quickly.
If you're looking to take backcontrol of your drinking, why
(07:59):
don't you join our AlcoholFreedom Finders 30 day group
program.
It's a great place to start.
Because we approach it as anexperiment, rather than a
challenge.
Whereas, as well as getting agreat detox, you learn the
science and the psychology aboutwhy you're drunk in the first
place.
So whether you want to stopaltogether, or just become a
more mindful and moderatedrinker, why don't you give it a
(08:21):
crack?
Use the link in the show notesto sign up to our next 30 day
program, and you won't regretit.
Because no one ever woke up inthe morning and said, I wish I'd
had more to drink last night,did they?
Back to the episode.
Because the bicycle community isa very important way that people
(08:44):
actually just transport,transportation mechanism here in
Boston, we do have publictransit in the form of subway,
uh, that we call the T and busesas well as.
Decent cycle infrastructurehere.
Uh, the local government decidedthat bicycle shops were actually
an essential service.
So essential services, whetherthey were businesses or
(09:06):
hospitals, were meant to stayopen.
And because public transit wasdeemed not really safe for many
people or, and also they wererestricting the ridership to,
you know, Go hand in hand withsocial distancing measures.
We were, as a business, a bikeshop, we were deemed an
essential service.
So we were open during theshutdown.
We would have lines down thesidewalk.
(09:27):
We had to cut our, our staffwent from 15 to 20.
Three or five, depending on theday, we couldn't have anyone
inside the store.
Our shop is the size of a postalstamp.
The reason I'm bothering tobring this up is for anyone
under any circumstances.
This time was perhaps the firsttime that a lot of us had a lot
of feelings about a number ofdifferent things, or also in my
(09:49):
case, it re birthed inside ofme, a lot of the things that I
hadn't felt since I was verysmall.
When I was young and in anunsafe environment growing up,
it brought up trauma triggerthat I thought that I had dealt
with.
So, uh, I'm at work in anunprecedented time.
So we have not the kind ofsituation that any of our
(10:12):
frontline medical staff weredealing with, but just an in
demand transportation service onthe daily.
You're at work six days a week,10 to 14 hours a day.
You are dealing with incredibletrauma triggers and My self
medication was bourbon.
I was drinking about 750milliliters every other day and
that was just on my own.
(10:32):
That wasn't counting my spouseor anything else.
That was just me.
And I knew I got to the pointwhere I couldn't get up in the
morning, uh, and not feel sick.
I got to the point where Iwasn't eating.
And having Very intense alcoholdependent people in my family, I
knew that if I was getting tothe point where I wasn't eating,
(10:54):
then it was probably if I stayedon that path, it was going to
kill me, but also at this pointin my life, I was dealing with
pretty intense suicidalideation.
Maybe I should put a triggerwarning on this.
I don't know.
Um, It was an incredibly scarytime where you sort of forget
about it now that you sort oflook back and think, Oh, well,
you know, it turned out to be,you know, pretty serious flu,
(11:15):
but it wasn't.
Yeah.
It wasn't, you know, what we hadin, maybe in our minds that it
might turn into, but we didn'tknow at the beginning, did we?
And to be out there on the, onkind of on the front line, uh,
risking your, yeah, essentiallywe were, you know, people were
risking their lives, you know,in as far as we knew.
Um, yeah, that can, that can,that can, you know, drive all
(11:37):
sorts of, uh, thoughts.
So coming through that summer, Iwas.
In an inner situation that Icould probably attempt to put
words to now, but is within yourown hearts and minds, if you
picture the most dire innersituation you've been in, uh,
(11:58):
probably akin to that and I willattempt not to.
How did it feel, Jessie?
During that period of time?
Um, give me some color.
I felt trapped that I didn'thave a future worth having.
Um, I think every romanticrelationship.
Every family was put into newand strange circumstances.
(12:20):
My relationship certainlysuffered because I wasn't
present.
I was just, as soon as I gothome from work, it was bourbon
time and I drank until I passedout.
And then I got up the nextmorning and I went to work.
My spouse works in tech, so hewas working from home.
We couldn't see other people.
Uh, I grew up in a very ruralplace.
And after, uh, my father diedwhen I was a kid.
(12:41):
My household wasn't a safeplace, and because I grew up in
a place without infrastructure,um, it felt like you were
trapped all the time.
And so this feeling of having tobe in the house, having to just
be in one place, I felt trappedagain.
I felt all those feelings frommy young life all over again.
Um, and I didn't have access tothe support network that I
(13:04):
really needed to face that inany kind of a healthy way.
So I did what many of us do whenwe don't know what to do and I
self medicated.
So when did you sort of get tothe conclusion that this isn't
working and you have to trysomething else?
So toward that autumn, uh, Ihave, I think as many of us do,
(13:26):
um, The whole, the sunlight goesaway and you get depression,
good old seasonal affectivedisorder.
So when the sun goes away, Jessebecomes sad Jesse, not
guaranteed every time, butdefinitely that autumn.
And come that autumn, I realizedthat I probably wasn't going to
survive the winter if I stayedas things were.
(13:46):
So I decided that.
Um, come November 1, 2020, I wasgoing to stop drinking and I was
going to really seek out some ofthe mental health help that I
really needed that I didn't haveat that time.
More things were becomingavailable again at this point,
um, this many months into thepandemic at least, how it was
(14:07):
being addressed in my part ofthe United States.
So, uh, I managed to get 90days, uh, without alcohol at
that time.
But still the underlying issueswere not being addressed
sufficiently.
And I went back thinking that Icould moderate, uh, that
February, March.
And as the bicycle life startedto take over again, as it had in
(14:31):
2020, I just went back to whereI was.
I was drinking in a way that Ihadn't even been drinking before
I stopped for those 90 days.
And I knew this was not going togo well.
And.
That continued for all of 2021and here, uh, in the, this naked
(14:54):
mind philosophy is, uh, an ideaand I'll, I'll get to how I came
to this naked mind in a moment.
Um, there's this idea of thepause where you stop trying to
stop.
And I kind of, before I evenknew that this naked mind
existed, kind of put myselfthrough that process.
In the winter of 21 into 22, Ijust completely gave up trying
(15:16):
to stop or trying to moderate atall.
And I just thought all thealcohol I wanted, whenever I
wanted, I was spending multiplehundreds of dollars a week on
top shelf things thinking, Oh,if I, if I buy the nice stuff,
then I don't have a drinkingproblem.
Um, sometimes we brainwashourselves to an incredible
extent before we can see thetruth.
It's.
You're sophisticated.
You're an aficionado.
(15:37):
Um, once in my professionalpast, I was trained to be a
sommelier.
So I could justify spending anyamount of money on any kind of
alcohol because I knew itshistory and the artistry inside
of it.
But also with this brain, alsowith the brainwashing, it's
almost a subconscious thingthat's going on.
(15:58):
You're not actively Hiding fromyourself.
It's almost like the alcoholpersonality within takes over
and that's leading the, leadingaway, right?
That was definitely the casecome February of 2022.
I, that process had moved fromsubconscious to conscious.
(16:19):
I, There were, uh, I think theystill exist unfortunately, apps
in the U.
S.
where you could put in youralcohol order and the liquor
store would deliver it to yourresidence.
And so I was spending lots andlots of money with one of those.
And I remember walking down thesteps of my building to receive
my multiple hundred dollar fancyorder during a snowstorm and
thinking, I don't actually evenwant this, but I know that I
(16:41):
will drink every drop in everyone of these bottles.
And going, what is the point?
of a me, if this is me.
I produce no value.
What is the point of me?
What is the point of this?
And that was when I startedlooking for app, looking for
podcasts like this one, lookingfor people who had walked this
(17:05):
path.
And I was like, well, if, I canhear enough stories, if I can
understand that this ispossible, then maybe for me it
can also be possible.
And so the very first podcastthat I started listening to was
one that isn't running anymorecalled Recovery Happy Hour.
And I heard many people on thatpodcast make reference to This
(17:26):
Naked Mind, This Naked Mind,This Naked Mind.
And so I was curious as to whatthat was, and then I ran into
the This Naked Mind podcast.
Um, and I added it to my queueof, uh, either sobriety, sober,
curious, recovery, uh, kind ofthat umbrella of topic podcasts.
And it really was Recovery HappyHour that really changed my
(17:48):
relationship with myself interms of my relationship with
alcohol.
And, but in terms ofoperationalizing it, um,
everyone who was interviewed onthat podcast, their basic
requirement was you had to havebeen alcohol free for a year.
And these people were comingfrom different countries,
different backgrounds, they weredifferent ages, different races,
different spiritual, differentspiritualities, sexualities,
(18:08):
genders, et cetera.
And I, the through line that Ifound was that each person had
to walk this journey in a waythat was true to themselves.
Like, there are so manyprograms, but if we ever lie to
ourselves at any point in theprocess, I think that's why step
four of the Twelve Step ishaving this, like, fearless
moral inventory.
(18:28):
And I'm putting this in airquotes because I think that's
the almost verbatim.
Um, Twelve Step was interestingto read about, but I knew that I
needed something differentbecause I'm a rebel down to the
core of my being.
And I was, I, I wasn't going to.
There wasn't a resonance in myheart for what I needed.
And so, but the people whoseexperiences spoke to me most
(18:50):
greatly from the podcasts I waslistening to were these people
who kept talking about thisnaked mind.
So I Googled as one does, and Iran across the program that TNM
does, uh, called the pack.
And I had at this point alreadypicked my sobriety date.
I picked a date.
I'm one of those people who, ifI pick something, I can hold
(19:12):
myself to it.
I have a, uh, unfortunately alot of willpower, which can get
in the way sometimes.
Um, and I picked Hanamatsuri,which is April 8th.
Uh, it's the traditional firstday of spring in, um, Japan.
Part of my family's Japanese.
And it is the traditionalbirthday of the Buddha.
It comes from a family of, uh,Buddhists on one side.
So I picked that date becauseit's, uh, it's an idea of
(19:33):
rebirth.
And when we get to meetourselves for the first time all
over again, when we, uh, leaveour alcohol life behind.
Uh, why not pick a date inspring if that speaks to you?
So for some folks, it's NewYear's day for me.
I wanted a very close to thefirst day of spring.
So that was the date that Ipicked.
I joined the path a couple ofweeks later, and then I
participated in the year longpath program that this naked
(19:55):
mind, uh, runs.
And in that process, I met manycoaches who were of great
inspiration to me.
And I decided that if I couldbe.
If I was the kind of person whocould help another person, then
I could meet a part of myselfthat I wanted to meet and I
could do the work that Ibenefited from and always
(20:15):
wanting to pass forward thegifts that I have received in
this lifetime.
Uh, that's what made me want tolearn how to become a coach.
I love that.
That's brilliant.
And what would you say, um, soyou've talked about how you got
to the point of drinking waymore than you wanted to, and
you've talked about using thepath to become alcohol free, but
(20:36):
Is there anything that you foundwas the biggest, uh, thing to
overcome?
What was like the biggest hurdleto get from, uh, AA is not for
me, uh, what is for me?
How do I get myself over theline?
What was that for you?
I think many other folks might,uh, identify with this.
(20:56):
For me, I was shame.
I was incredibly, horriblyashamed.
And, um, You know, shamepredated my ever drinking in the
first place.
I had spent my entire youthhating myself, uh, and hurting
myself with a deep and powerfulloathing.
There was nothing that any ofthe bullies in school could say
(21:16):
to me or any horrible boss orany, uh, abuser after my father
died could say to me that Ihadn't said worse to myself.
So the shame and how deep intolike the very core of my being,
as if it were the marrow of mybones, like that was something
that I could numb myself fromwhen I drank and.
(21:39):
Not having to feel anything fora long time was all I wanted,
but you can't put things down ifyou ignore them.
You just carry them around withyou, and shame is like a planet
getting sucked into the gravitywell of a black hole.
It just keeps getting furtherand further and further in, and
what happens when you pass theevent horizon?
(22:00):
You get crushed and atomized.
So my shame was essentially myblack hole, and it just kept
pulling me further and furtherand further into this
gravitational pull.
And so I think it's, it's,sorry, I was just gonna say, I
think it's, it's something that,yeah, it's incredibly common and
in the beginning, it feels as ifalcohol is helping and also with
(22:20):
depression and with anxiety and,and all the things that we are
scared to feel.
Alcohol feels as if it's helpingyou with it, but did you at some
point come to see alcohol asbeing part of the, of that
problem or contributing to shameor to any, any other kind of,
uh, negativity that you werefeeling?
(22:40):
It took a long time to be ableto admit to myself that alcohol
was not helping.
My desperation made it just sothat I didn't want to feel
anything and the self inquirydidn't go much farther than
that.
It was, can I, at first it was,can I just get relief from these
untenable feelings?
(23:00):
I cannot deal with them.
I cannot deal with this being inthe present.
It was the most painful andawful thing.
And so that was, uh, a patch ona sinking ship, you know,
Titanic hits an iceberg, big oldhole breaks in half.
It's like trying to put a tinylittle patch on a ship.
Shit, that's broken in half andsinking into the sea.
On the flip side of that then,if that's the greatest struggle,
(23:23):
shame is the greatest struggle,what's the biggest sort of
takeaway from your journey,thing that you've, the biggest
success, something that is maybesurprising, not the obvious,
well clearly it's because Idon't drink.
What surprised you most aboutbeing on the other side of
shame?
If it is all right, I willinclude also how I went from
(23:46):
shame ruling everything topresent moment and the biggest
surprise, if that is all right.
Um.
Please.
So part of this came from myBuddhist practice and part of
this came from this naked mind.
So as we go through themethodology and this naked mind,
we move from what we kind ofcall like asleep, like not
(24:10):
really realizing we have asituation to awake.
We move from.
A place where we want to escapeour lives to the idea of course,
wanting to, uh, to have a lifethat you don't want to escape
from.
And when I heard that tagline,there was some part of me that's
like, it's great marketing,never gonna be me.
Uh, so, but it, it, it sparkedinside of my heart, this idea
(24:32):
that perhaps there was a futureworth having.
And perhaps it was somethingthat I could build for myself,
that it wasn't going to comefrom outside of me.
It was something that I had tobuild inside of my own heart
first.
And that's kind of the,obviously there's as many
different types of Buddhism asthere are types of Christianity
and other kinds of spiritualpractices.
Um, one of the kind of coretenets of the type of Buddhism
(24:55):
that my family practices isthat, um, all living beings have
the Buddha capacity.
All living beings have alreadyas an inherent endowment, the
same life potential as the beingthat we would refer to as the
Buddha.
There is no separation.
It's not a deity, mortal, With abig gulf in between that all of
us have that highest capacityinside of us and that Buddhist
(25:16):
practice exists for us to accessit and in a kind of metaphysical
idea in your head, like soundscool.
Um, but I didn't even after atthis point, what, 15 years of
Buddhist practice at that point,I was still really kind of just
living in the ideas of thingsrather than in actually living
them.
(25:36):
And in this community of people,I found others who felt what I
felt and were walking their ownunique versions of the same path
that I was walking.
Community made a big difference.
Obviously, we have all thedifferent communities that we
participate in as people.
Maybe there's your workcommunity, your family
community.
If you have a faith practice,maybe you have a faith
(25:57):
community.
Maybe, like me, cyclistcommunity.
You have communities of practicethat we all engage in.
But when the shame shuts us downand makes us hate ourselves or
pretend to be something we'renot, we don't bring everything
we are to these communities.
We live these siloed lives.
This is bicycle me, and this iswork me, and this is family me,
(26:17):
and this is me and my marriage,and this is customer service me.
These are all these differentme's.
And that's incredibly taxing onour minds, on our souls, if you
will, um, on our innerresources.
The way that I learned.
That shame didn't necessarilyget to play head coach.
(26:38):
That didn't, that shame didn'tget to be in charge was one
understanding that.
Alcohol exists.
It just exists.
Chemistry.
I did pre med before I graduatedwith linguistics, because I have
ADHD and I can't make decisions.
So, chemistry is interesting.
We know, we have interestingbrains.
(26:59):
Alcohol.
Our brains go, Ooh, tasty.
I like you.
I'm going to become superdependent on you.
Same as with, or, othersubstances of the deadly and
less deadly variety.
We have nifty brains, we evolvedin a way, our brains just get
(27:19):
real hooked on things so easilysometimes, just because we're
self medicating and leaning onsomething to not feel our
feelings, or we have incredibleshame and there's a substance,
it doesn't make you a horribleperson, just a brain with
chemistry and there's chemicals.
If you feel terrible aboutyourself, that's one thing to
(27:41):
work on.
If you have.
Deep, medical, chemicaladdiction that also needs to be
treated with reverence and alsowith respect as we would any
disease of the heart, mind, orbody.
Each aspect of So what you'resaying, Jessi, is you're saying
that community is key for makingthat change.
(28:05):
Community helps us understandthat the shame doesn't have to
win and that Yeah.
The community of practice thatwe reside in and that we can be
our whole selves in helps uschange ourselves from the inside
out.
what would you like to know orone thing that you wish you had
known right when that sort ofdips of 750 mils a day or when
(28:30):
you were drinking, what's onething you would say to yourself
if you could go back in time,uh, about your drinking?
Even in the worst days, there isa future worth having, and you
can build it with your ownhands.
Just because you don't know ifsomething is possible for you
doesn't mean that it isn't.
There's a whole lot more that wewill never know about the
(28:52):
universe than what we know now.
And if asking questions can getus compassion for ourselves and
the people around us, somethingwe might call being curious, if
curiosity is the antidote toshame, then let's pick up some
Crayon, and start drawing on thewalls, metaphysically speaking.
(29:15):
I love that.
Curiosity.
So, if you were able tosummarize, uh, your journey, and
you've been so wonderful withall of your words and story, uh,
what three words would summarizewhere you are now?
As I may have mentioned earlier,I don't have three words.
I have 30, 000, so I'll leave itat It's such a wonderful story.
(29:40):
I mean, and I think, I think Itis.
Yeah, I The, the, the, the, theADHD world is, is, you know,
we're, we're discovering that,that it, it, a lot of people are
on that spectrum.
Um, and addiction is potentiallysomething that, that, uh, people
with ADHD are even moresusceptible to than, than, than
(30:03):
others I've, I've read.
Um, and, and, and, and traumais, is, is, uh, a common theme
for, for, for many people.
So I think there's going to beso many people that, that can
resonate with your story.
Um, and it's wonderful to hear.
Um, you so bright and, andenthusiastic now with, with how
(30:23):
life is going.
And, and, and so where canpeople find you and what, what
are you doing now?
Uh, cause you, you, we know youbecause you, you, you're a
coach, uh, you trained with us,um, what sort of people are you
looking to help and, uh, uh, howcan people get in touch with
you?
Uh, thanks Barry.
So, uh, you can find me at exitnine coaching.
Uh, it's exit number ninecoaching.
(30:45):
com and my socials will be upthere.
And if you also like cycling, ifyou identify with any part of
ADHD or autism.
If you are just a person who'sany regular old person who
thinks that this story hashelped you at all, perhaps I am
a person to talk to, or not.
(31:06):
Because not everyone iseveryone's cup of tea.
That's brilliant.
Now, thanks.
Thanks so much.
both for having me on.
I'm so excited about this newshow.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that asmuch as we did.
And don't forget to like andsubscribe and we'll see you in
the next one.
This is Alcohol Freedom Finders.
In this episode, we meet withJessie from Boston, a trained
sommelier and hard liquoraficionado who describes her
family as having manygenerations of alcohol
dependence.
We'll hear how she herself hashad to come to terms with both
ADHD and autism, as well aschildhood trauma.
(00:21):
That trauma was triggered againduring the COVID pandemic, where
her alcohol use came to a head.
Working 14 hour days in anessential service was tough
enough, but being locked downalso brought back the trauma of
being trapped as a child.
Jessie describes herself as arebel down to the core of her
being, and so the strict rulesof AA weren't for her.
(00:42):
And in fact, it was a podcastthat started her journey to
finding alcohol freedom.
Let's get going.
Well, hello and welcomeeverybody to the Alcohol Freedom
Finders.
Today we are super excited tohave our guest, Jessie Corkins
with us.
And she's going to talk to usabout the magic of finding
(01:05):
freedom from alcohol herself.
So hi, Jessie.
How are you?
I'm very well.
How are you?
I'm great.
It's a hot day in London today.
A rare treat.
I must say, a rare treat.
Hi, Jesse.
Really good to see you.
Thanks for coming on.
Really, you're really excited tohear your, your story.
We've obviously known each otherfor, what is it now?
(01:25):
It's a year, I suppose.
Um, but, um, I don't have manydetails on you.
So I'm, I'm really, reallyinterested to hear, uh, your
background story.
Um, I don't know, where wouldyou like to start?
I mean, we're obviously AlcoholFreedom Finders, so we'd be
really fascinated to hear, youknow, where your alcohol journey
started and, and, and what's ledyou to where you are today.
(01:48):
Thank you both for welcoming meand having me on.
It is also a hot day here inBoston, but we just finished up
a long heat wave of, let me tryto convert to centigrade here,
well over 27 degrees, somewherein there.
And for several weeks and notquite enough rain.
So thanks for tolerating mystrange Americanisms as I try to
(02:09):
convert things to the propermeasurement systems for the rest
of the audience.
Um, I am very honored to behere.
I'm a big fan of both of yours.
So I am very honored, uh, to beable to participate in your new
project.
The pleasure is all ours.
So I can, uh, talk both yourears off or everyone else who's
ever going to listen to this, soI will attempt to be concise in
(02:31):
ways that I am not usuallyparticularly skilled at, um, I,
as you can tell from my voice,I'm an American and, uh, we're
here in Boston, so you mighthear me drop some R's, but not
as many as perhaps people in mydialect region.
Um, as you might guess from whatI just said, my, uh, formal
academic background is inlinguistics.
So if you hear me makingreference to strange language
(02:53):
things, that is why.
So, uh, my journey to being anon drinker, a sober person, an
alcohol freedom person, inwhatever terms you would best
like to use that suit yourheart.
To the truth, uh, startedprobably most accurately back in
2017, and it took a great numberof years for me to move from a
(03:15):
person who realized I had aproblem with alcohol to actually
doing something about it.
Early on in 2017, I noticed thatI had become a daily drinker and
coming from a family ofsubstance abuse, abuse, uh, in
the more kind of physical,emotional sense.
As well as many generations ofalcohol dependent people, I knew
(03:39):
that if I was trending in thatdirection, this was probably
going to end up playing out theway that I had seen other
generations of my family playout.
And that wasn't going to be afuture that I wanted to have.
That being said, I was drinkingevery day because I didn't want
to feel my feelings.
(03:59):
I have both big T and small Ttrauma in my background, as well
as mental health challenges.
I'm also an ADHD er, and I'malso diagnosed autistic.
So I have a few extra things inmy brain that sometimes get in
the way of being the kind ofperson I want to be, or that
society says I ought to be, orthat perhaps my workplaces would
(04:21):
want me to be.
So, uh, just being a regularperson with everyday people
problems like any of us.
One of the ways that I selfmedicated was with alcohol, so I
first started tracking how manydays I could go without drinking
back in 2017.
And it turned out it was, uh,maybe two days.
And I was very uncomfortablewith that, and I had a daily
(04:43):
journaling habit, and I justkept track of it.
I wasn't trying to do anythingwith it, I just noticed it, and
I lived in denial about it for avery long time.
I would go through periods wheremaybe it was two drinks a night,
and then you'd have particularlyrough go, and then I would be
drinking many, many, manyalcohol units, uh, in a week,
(05:08):
far more than what medicine saidwas appropriate for someone of
my age and background.
Where would you do yourdrinking?
I would drink at home with mypartner, who is my spouse now.
I would, we would If I washaving a particularly rough day,
I would say, I need margaritas.
And so we would go to our localmargarita place and my spouse,
(05:29):
he's not much of a drinker onhis own.
He would just try to keep upwith me.
So his drinking always kind ofebbed and flowed with mine.
If I was having a high drinkingperiod of time, uh, he would
follow suit or vice versa.
Um, I.
I learned that I was celiac backin 2013, so beer wasn't my
(05:51):
beverage of choice.
I was very much, uh, I becamevery much a quote unquote brown
liquor drinker.
Um, I was a bourbon person and amargarita person through and
through.
Those were frequently my poisonsof choice.
Um, so I can, uh, fast forwardtoward the, let's, uh, get free
from this unless there's otherthings you'd like me to expand
upon.
(06:13):
No, that's not good, GC.
No, no, yeah.
I'm loving it.
Please, please continue.
Uh, so 2017 saw me, uh, getmarried, woo hoo, um, and in
2018, I started graduate schoolafter working in various, uh, I,
besides having formal ADHD, Ilike to say I also have career
(06:34):
ADHD.
I have changed industries somany times after, you know,
working very hard and kind ofunleashing some level of success
in each one, I would almost gettired of it and want to learn
something else from the bottomup.
So I would start at an entrylevel position and then work my
way up into management whereverI was.
Basically, if I'm learning, I'minvested in my profession and if
(06:57):
I already know how to do all thethings.
In the past, I would almostbecome unmotivated to
participate in my workplace andI'd work myself till burnout.
Uh, I know that burnout is avery common thing across people
of all colors and backgroundsand places of origin, so I don't
think I need to explain it toanyone.
And that was another thing Iself medicated over.
(07:18):
And this pressures of graduateschool as well as running a
small business, uh, running abike shop here in Boston, uh, I
drank over that.
So we don't need to.
Keep getting into that, but the,the turning point for me was, I
think, like for many of us,however, the place that you live
handled the outbreak of theCOVID 19 pandemic, uh, here in
(07:38):
the U.
S., the local government decidedto start shutting things down at
the end of March of 2020.
So we went from whatever youthink of a normal American New
England city, uh, if you haveany middle model of that.
very much.
to absolutely everything shutdown, uh, very quickly.
If you're looking to take backcontrol of your drinking, why
(07:59):
don't you join our AlcoholFreedom Finders 30 day group
program.
It's a great place to start.
Because we approach it as anexperiment, rather than a
challenge.
Whereas, as well as getting agreat detox, you learn the
science and the psychology aboutwhy you're drunk in the first
place.
So whether you want to stopaltogether, or just become a
more mindful and moderatedrinker, why don't you give it a
(08:21):
crack?
Use the link in the show notesto sign up to our next 30 day
program, and you won't regretit.
Because no one ever woke up inthe morning and said, I wish I'd
had more to drink last night,did they?
Back to the episode.
Because the bicycle community isa very important way that people
(08:44):
actually just transport,transportation mechanism here in
Boston, we do have publictransit in the form of subway,
uh, that we call the T and busesas well as.
Decent cycle infrastructurehere.
Uh, the local government decidedthat bicycle shops were actually
an essential service.
So essential services, whetherthey were businesses or
(09:06):
hospitals, were meant to stayopen.
And because public transit wasdeemed not really safe for many
people or, and also they wererestricting the ridership to,
you know, Go hand in hand withsocial distancing measures.
We were, as a business, a bikeshop, we were deemed an
essential service.
So we were open during theshutdown.
We would have lines down thesidewalk.
(09:27):
We had to cut our, our staffwent from 15 to 20.
Three or five, depending on theday, we couldn't have anyone
inside the store.
Our shop is the size of a postalstamp.
The reason I'm bothering tobring this up is for anyone
under any circumstances.
This time was perhaps the firsttime that a lot of us had a lot
of feelings about a number ofdifferent things, or also in my
(09:49):
case, it re birthed inside ofme, a lot of the things that I
hadn't felt since I was verysmall.
When I was young and in anunsafe environment growing up,
it brought up trauma triggerthat I thought that I had dealt
with.
So, uh, I'm at work in anunprecedented time.
So we have not the kind ofsituation that any of our
(10:12):
frontline medical staff weredealing with, but just an in
demand transportation service onthe daily.
You're at work six days a week,10 to 14 hours a day.
You are dealing with incredibletrauma triggers and My self
medication was bourbon.
I was drinking about 750milliliters every other day and
that was just on my own.
(10:32):
That wasn't counting my spouseor anything else.
That was just me.
And I knew I got to the pointwhere I couldn't get up in the
morning, uh, and not feel sick.
I got to the point where Iwasn't eating.
And having Very intense alcoholdependent people in my family, I
knew that if I was getting tothe point where I wasn't eating,
(10:54):
then it was probably if I stayedon that path, it was going to
kill me, but also at this pointin my life, I was dealing with
pretty intense suicidalideation.
Maybe I should put a triggerwarning on this.
I don't know.
Um, It was an incredibly scarytime where you sort of forget
about it now that you sort oflook back and think, Oh, well,
you know, it turned out to be,you know, pretty serious flu,
(11:15):
but it wasn't.
Yeah.
It wasn't, you know, what we hadin, maybe in our minds that it
might turn into, but we didn'tknow at the beginning, did we?
And to be out there on the, onkind of on the front line, uh,
risking your, yeah, essentiallywe were, you know, people were
risking their lives, you know,in as far as we knew.
Um, yeah, that can, that can,that can, you know, drive all
(11:37):
sorts of, uh, thoughts.
So coming through that summer, Iwas.
In an inner situation that Icould probably attempt to put
words to now, but is within yourown hearts and minds, if you
picture the most dire innersituation you've been in, uh,
(11:58):
probably akin to that and I willattempt not to.
How did it feel, Jessie?
During that period of time?
Um, give me some color.
I felt trapped that I didn'thave a future worth having.
Um, I think every romanticrelationship.
Every family was put into newand strange circumstances.
(12:20):
My relationship certainlysuffered because I wasn't
present.
I was just, as soon as I gothome from work, it was bourbon
time and I drank until I passedout.
And then I got up the nextmorning and I went to work.
My spouse works in tech, so hewas working from home.
We couldn't see other people.
Uh, I grew up in a very ruralplace.
And after, uh, my father diedwhen I was a kid.
(12:41):
My household wasn't a safeplace, and because I grew up in
a place without infrastructure,um, it felt like you were
trapped all the time.
And so this feeling of having tobe in the house, having to just
be in one place, I felt trappedagain.
I felt all those feelings frommy young life all over again.
Um, and I didn't have access tothe support network that I
(13:04):
really needed to face that inany kind of a healthy way.
So I did what many of us do whenwe don't know what to do and I
self medicated.
So when did you sort of get tothe conclusion that this isn't
working and you have to trysomething else?
So toward that autumn, uh, Ihave, I think as many of us do,
(13:26):
um, The whole, the sunlight goesaway and you get depression,
good old seasonal affectivedisorder.
So when the sun goes away, Jessebecomes sad Jesse, not
guaranteed every time, butdefinitely that autumn.
And come that autumn, I realizedthat I probably wasn't going to
survive the winter if I stayedas things were.
(13:46):
So I decided that.
Um, come November 1, 2020, I wasgoing to stop drinking and I was
going to really seek out some ofthe mental health help that I
really needed that I didn't haveat that time.
More things were becomingavailable again at this point,
um, this many months into thepandemic at least, how it was
(14:07):
being addressed in my part ofthe United States.
So, uh, I managed to get 90days, uh, without alcohol at
that time.
But still the underlying issueswere not being addressed
sufficiently.
And I went back thinking that Icould moderate, uh, that
February, March.
And as the bicycle life startedto take over again, as it had in
(14:31):
2020, I just went back to whereI was.
I was drinking in a way that Ihadn't even been drinking before
I stopped for those 90 days.
And I knew this was not going togo well.
And.
That continued for all of 2021and here, uh, in the, this naked
(14:54):
mind philosophy is, uh, an ideaand I'll, I'll get to how I came
to this naked mind in a moment.
Um, there's this idea of thepause where you stop trying to
stop.
And I kind of, before I evenknew that this naked mind
existed, kind of put myselfthrough that process.
In the winter of 21 into 22, Ijust completely gave up trying
(15:16):
to stop or trying to moderate atall.
And I just thought all thealcohol I wanted, whenever I
wanted, I was spending multiplehundreds of dollars a week on
top shelf things thinking, Oh,if I, if I buy the nice stuff,
then I don't have a drinkingproblem.
Um, sometimes we brainwashourselves to an incredible
extent before we can see thetruth.
It's.
You're sophisticated.
You're an aficionado.
(15:37):
Um, once in my professionalpast, I was trained to be a
sommelier.
So I could justify spending anyamount of money on any kind of
alcohol because I knew itshistory and the artistry inside
of it.
But also with this brain, alsowith the brainwashing, it's
almost a subconscious thingthat's going on.
(15:58):
You're not actively Hiding fromyourself.
It's almost like the alcoholpersonality within takes over
and that's leading the, leadingaway, right?
That was definitely the casecome February of 2022.
I, that process had moved fromsubconscious to conscious.
(16:19):
I, There were, uh, I think theystill exist unfortunately, apps
in the U.
S.
where you could put in youralcohol order and the liquor
store would deliver it to yourresidence.
And so I was spending lots andlots of money with one of those.
And I remember walking down thesteps of my building to receive
my multiple hundred dollar fancyorder during a snowstorm and
thinking, I don't actually evenwant this, but I know that I
(16:41):
will drink every drop in everyone of these bottles.
And going, what is the point?
of a me, if this is me.
I produce no value.
What is the point of me?
What is the point of this?
And that was when I startedlooking for app, looking for
podcasts like this one, lookingfor people who had walked this
(17:05):
path.
And I was like, well, if, I canhear enough stories, if I can
understand that this ispossible, then maybe for me it
can also be possible.
And so the very first podcastthat I started listening to was
one that isn't running anymorecalled Recovery Happy Hour.
And I heard many people on thatpodcast make reference to This
(17:26):
Naked Mind, This Naked Mind,This Naked Mind.
And so I was curious as to whatthat was, and then I ran into
the This Naked Mind podcast.
Um, and I added it to my queueof, uh, either sobriety, sober,
curious, recovery, uh, kind ofthat umbrella of topic podcasts.
And it really was Recovery HappyHour that really changed my
(17:48):
relationship with myself interms of my relationship with
alcohol.
And, but in terms ofoperationalizing it, um,
everyone who was interviewed onthat podcast, their basic
requirement was you had to havebeen alcohol free for a year.
And these people were comingfrom different countries,
different backgrounds, they weredifferent ages, different races,
different spiritual, differentspiritualities, sexualities,
(18:08):
genders, et cetera.
And I, the through line that Ifound was that each person had
to walk this journey in a waythat was true to themselves.
Like, there are so manyprograms, but if we ever lie to
ourselves at any point in theprocess, I think that's why step
four of the Twelve Step ishaving this, like, fearless
moral inventory.
(18:28):
And I'm putting this in airquotes because I think that's
the almost verbatim.
Um, Twelve Step was interestingto read about, but I knew that I
needed something differentbecause I'm a rebel down to the
core of my being.
And I was, I, I wasn't going to.
There wasn't a resonance in myheart for what I needed.
And so, but the people whoseexperiences spoke to me most
(18:50):
greatly from the podcasts I waslistening to were these people
who kept talking about thisnaked mind.
So I Googled as one does, and Iran across the program that TNM
does, uh, called the pack.
And I had at this point alreadypicked my sobriety date.
I picked a date.
I'm one of those people who, ifI pick something, I can hold
(19:12):
myself to it.
I have a, uh, unfortunately alot of willpower, which can get
in the way sometimes.
Um, and I picked Hanamatsuri,which is April 8th.
Uh, it's the traditional firstday of spring in, um, Japan.
Part of my family's Japanese.
And it is the traditionalbirthday of the Buddha.
It comes from a family of, uh,Buddhists on one side.
So I picked that date becauseit's, uh, it's an idea of
(19:33):
rebirth.
And when we get to meetourselves for the first time all
over again, when we, uh, leaveour alcohol life behind.
Uh, why not pick a date inspring if that speaks to you?
So for some folks, it's NewYear's day for me.
I wanted a very close to thefirst day of spring.
So that was the date that Ipicked.
I joined the path a couple ofweeks later, and then I
participated in the year longpath program that this naked
(19:55):
mind, uh, runs.
And in that process, I met manycoaches who were of great
inspiration to me.
And I decided that if I couldbe.
If I was the kind of person whocould help another person, then
I could meet a part of myselfthat I wanted to meet and I
could do the work that Ibenefited from and always
(20:15):
wanting to pass forward thegifts that I have received in
this lifetime.
Uh, that's what made me want tolearn how to become a coach.
I love that.
That's brilliant.
And what would you say, um, soyou've talked about how you got
to the point of drinking waymore than you wanted to, and
you've talked about using thepath to become alcohol free, but
(20:36):
Is there anything that you foundwas the biggest, uh, thing to
overcome?
What was like the biggest hurdleto get from, uh, AA is not for
me, uh, what is for me?
How do I get myself over theline?
What was that for you?
I think many other folks might,uh, identify with this.
(20:56):
For me, I was shame.
I was incredibly, horriblyashamed.
And, um, You know, shamepredated my ever drinking in the
first place.
I had spent my entire youthhating myself, uh, and hurting
myself with a deep and powerfulloathing.
There was nothing that any ofthe bullies in school could say
(21:16):
to me or any horrible boss orany, uh, abuser after my father
died could say to me that Ihadn't said worse to myself.
So the shame and how deep intolike the very core of my being,
as if it were the marrow of mybones, like that was something
that I could numb myself fromwhen I drank and.
(21:39):
Not having to feel anything fora long time was all I wanted,
but you can't put things down ifyou ignore them.
You just carry them around withyou, and shame is like a planet
getting sucked into the gravitywell of a black hole.
It just keeps getting furtherand further and further in, and
what happens when you pass theevent horizon?
(22:00):
You get crushed and atomized.
So my shame was essentially myblack hole, and it just kept
pulling me further and furtherand further into this
gravitational pull.
And so I think it's, it's,sorry, I was just gonna say, I
think it's, it's something that,yeah, it's incredibly common and
in the beginning, it feels as ifalcohol is helping and also with
(22:20):
depression and with anxiety and,and all the things that we are
scared to feel.
Alcohol feels as if it's helpingyou with it, but did you at some
point come to see alcohol asbeing part of the, of that
problem or contributing to shameor to any, any other kind of,
uh, negativity that you werefeeling?
(22:40):
It took a long time to be ableto admit to myself that alcohol
was not helping.
My desperation made it just sothat I didn't want to feel
anything and the self inquirydidn't go much farther than
that.
It was, can I, at first it was,can I just get relief from these
untenable feelings?
(23:00):
I cannot deal with them.
I cannot deal with this being inthe present.
It was the most painful andawful thing.
And so that was, uh, a patch ona sinking ship, you know,
Titanic hits an iceberg, big oldhole breaks in half.
It's like trying to put a tinylittle patch on a ship.
Shit, that's broken in half andsinking into the sea.
On the flip side of that then,if that's the greatest struggle,
(23:23):
shame is the greatest struggle,what's the biggest sort of
takeaway from your journey,thing that you've, the biggest
success, something that is maybesurprising, not the obvious,
well clearly it's because Idon't drink.
What surprised you most aboutbeing on the other side of
shame?
If it is all right, I willinclude also how I went from
(23:46):
shame ruling everything topresent moment and the biggest
surprise, if that is all right.
Um.
Please.
So part of this came from myBuddhist practice and part of
this came from this naked mind.
So as we go through themethodology and this naked mind,
we move from what we kind ofcall like asleep, like not
(24:10):
really realizing we have asituation to awake.
We move from.
A place where we want to escapeour lives to the idea of course,
wanting to, uh, to have a lifethat you don't want to escape
from.
And when I heard that tagline,there was some part of me that's
like, it's great marketing,never gonna be me.
Uh, so, but it, it, it sparkedinside of my heart, this idea
(24:32):
that perhaps there was a futureworth having.
And perhaps it was somethingthat I could build for myself,
that it wasn't going to comefrom outside of me.
It was something that I had tobuild inside of my own heart
first.
And that's kind of the,obviously there's as many
different types of Buddhism asthere are types of Christianity
and other kinds of spiritualpractices.
Um, one of the kind of coretenets of the type of Buddhism
(24:55):
that my family practices isthat, um, all living beings have
the Buddha capacity.
All living beings have alreadyas an inherent endowment, the
same life potential as the beingthat we would refer to as the
Buddha.
There is no separation.
It's not a deity, mortal, With abig gulf in between that all of
us have that highest capacityinside of us and that Buddhist
(25:16):
practice exists for us to accessit and in a kind of metaphysical
idea in your head, like soundscool.
Um, but I didn't even after atthis point, what, 15 years of
Buddhist practice at that point,I was still really kind of just
living in the ideas of thingsrather than in actually living
them.
(25:36):
And in this community of people,I found others who felt what I
felt and were walking their ownunique versions of the same path
that I was walking.
Community made a big difference.
Obviously, we have all thedifferent communities that we
participate in as people.
Maybe there's your workcommunity, your family
community.
If you have a faith practice,maybe you have a faith
(25:57):
community.
Maybe, like me, cyclistcommunity.
You have communities of practicethat we all engage in.
But when the shame shuts us downand makes us hate ourselves or
pretend to be something we'renot, we don't bring everything
we are to these communities.
We live these siloed lives.
This is bicycle me, and this iswork me, and this is family me,
(26:17):
and this is me and my marriage,and this is customer service me.
These are all these differentme's.
And that's incredibly taxing onour minds, on our souls, if you
will, um, on our innerresources.
The way that I learned.
That shame didn't necessarilyget to play head coach.
(26:38):
That didn't, that shame didn'tget to be in charge was one
understanding that.
Alcohol exists.
It just exists.
Chemistry.
I did pre med before I graduatedwith linguistics, because I have
ADHD and I can't make decisions.
So, chemistry is interesting.
We know, we have interestingbrains.
(26:59):
Alcohol.
Our brains go, Ooh, tasty.
I like you.
I'm going to become superdependent on you.
Same as with, or, othersubstances of the deadly and
less deadly variety.
We have nifty brains, we evolvedin a way, our brains just get
(27:19):
real hooked on things so easilysometimes, just because we're
self medicating and leaning onsomething to not feel our
feelings, or we have incredibleshame and there's a substance,
it doesn't make you a horribleperson, just a brain with
chemistry and there's chemicals.
If you feel terrible aboutyourself, that's one thing to
(27:41):
work on.
If you have.
Deep, medical, chemicaladdiction that also needs to be
treated with reverence and alsowith respect as we would any
disease of the heart, mind, orbody.
Each aspect of So what you'resaying, Jessi, is you're saying
that community is key for makingthat change.
(28:05):
Community helps us understandthat the shame doesn't have to
win and that Yeah.
The community of practice thatwe reside in and that we can be
our whole selves in helps uschange ourselves from the inside
out.
what would you like to know orone thing that you wish you had
known right when that sort ofdips of 750 mils a day or when
(28:30):
you were drinking, what's onething you would say to yourself
if you could go back in time,uh, about your drinking?
Even in the worst days, there isa future worth having, and you
can build it with your ownhands.
Just because you don't know ifsomething is possible for you
doesn't mean that it isn't.
There's a whole lot more that wewill never know about the
(28:52):
universe than what we know now.
And if asking questions can getus compassion for ourselves and
the people around us, somethingwe might call being curious, if
curiosity is the antidote toshame, then let's pick up some
Crayon, and start drawing on thewalls, metaphysically speaking.
(29:15):
I love that.
Curiosity.
So, if you were able tosummarize, uh, your journey, and
you've been so wonderful withall of your words and story, uh,
what three words would summarizewhere you are now?
As I may have mentioned earlier,I don't have three words.
I have 30, 000, so I'll leave itat It's such a wonderful story.
(29:40):
I mean, and I think, I think Itis.
Yeah, I The, the, the, the, theADHD world is, is, you know,
we're, we're discovering that,that it, it, a lot of people are
on that spectrum.
Um, and addiction is potentiallysomething that, that, uh, people
with ADHD are even moresusceptible to than, than, than
(30:03):
others I've, I've read.
Um, and, and, and, and traumais, is, is, uh, a common theme
for, for, for many people.
So I think there's going to beso many people that, that can
resonate with your story.
Um, and it's wonderful to hear.
Um, you so bright and, andenthusiastic now with, with how
(30:23):
life is going.
And, and, and so where canpeople find you and what, what
are you doing now?
Uh, cause you, you, we know youbecause you, you, you're a
coach, uh, you trained with us,um, what sort of people are you
looking to help and, uh, uh, howcan people get in touch with
you?
Uh, thanks Barry.
So, uh, you can find me at exitnine coaching.
Uh, it's exit number ninecoaching.
(30:45):
com and my socials will be upthere.
And if you also like cycling, ifyou identify with any part of
ADHD or autism.
If you are just a person who'sany regular old person who
thinks that this story hashelped you at all, perhaps I am
a person to talk to, or not.
(31:06):
Because not everyone iseveryone's cup of tea.
That's brilliant.
Now, thanks.
Thanks so much.
both for having me on.
I'm so excited about this newshow.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that asmuch as we did.
And don't forget to like andsubscribe and we'll see you in
the next one.
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