April 22, 2025 • 38 mins
In this insightful conversation, Shelby welcomes Amanda Kuda, author of "Unbottled Potential," to discuss different pathways to sobriety and the importance of finding what resonates with you personally.
Amanda shares her journey to sobriety, which began when she realized her weekend drinking habits were counteracting her weekday personal development work. Despite not hitting "rock bottom" or fitting traditional addiction narratives, she recognized alcohol was preventing her from becoming her most authentic self.
Key Takeaways:
- Amanda's approach to sobriety came from a spiritual angle, studying influencers like Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, and Gabby Bernstein
- Both women discuss how there are multiple valid paths to recovery beyond the 12-step model
- The skills of emotional regulation and sitting with discomfort are essential for long-term sobriety
- Journaling prompt: "Wait, what am I thinking?" can help process emotions that might trigger drinking
- Learning to name your emotions and accept all feelings as valid helps reduce emotional volatility
Amanda emphasizes that you don't need to have a "drinking problem" for alcohol to be a problem in your life. If it's preventing you from being your most authentic self, that's reason enough to question your relationship with it.
Shelby highlights how recent research, including the 2025 Surgeon General's report, confirms that no amount of alcohol is safe for consumption, supporting the decision to live alcohol-free regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of use.
This conversation powerfully illustrates that recovery doesn't always fit into prescribed models - what matters most is finding an approach that resonates with you and leads to a better life.
Connect with Amanda Kuda:
- Website: amandakuda.com
- Instagram: @amandakuda
- TikTok: @amanda.kuda
- Facebook: amandakuda
- LinkedIn: amandakuda
- Book - Unbottled Potential: Amazon
Are you ready to explore your relationship with alcohol from a fresh perspective? This episode offers compassionate insights for anyone questioning their drinking habits, regardless of where you are on your journey.
Support the show
Oh, and by the way, if you didn’t know, my remote Neurofeedback Therapy program is up and running. Learn more here!
If you aren't part of the Confident Sober Women Facebook group, it's a great place to be. There are over a thousand other sober women there building lives they don't want to escape from. Come on over and join us.
And if you haven't read my memoir, grab a copy today and maybe a second one for a friend. There is so much hope in recovery, and I shared my story so raw and vulnerable so that others would know they aren't alone and that there is a way to live well, manage relationships, parent your kids, and have a healthy body, all while staying sober. Grab a copy of Recovering in Recovery: The Life-Changing Joy of Sobriety wherever books are sold.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hey there, sober ladies.
Thank you so much for joiningme today for the Confident Sober
Women podcast.
Today I got to spend time withmy friend, Amanda Kuda.
She is an alcohol-freelifestyle expert and truly a
breath of fresh air.
Her energy is so positive andjust filled with light, so I
(00:21):
know you're going to really loveher as well.
She is the author of UnbottledPotential Break Up With Alcohol
and Break Through to your BestLife, and that's exactly what we
talked about in thisconversation.
Kind of all things, sobriety, inwhatever form, works for you.
We talked a lot about how themodern day recovery era has
(00:41):
brought to light different waysand different language for
getting sober and really howimportant it is for each one of
us to find what works for us.
So maybe you've had experienceswhere you tried something or a
program or a system or a bookand you know just didn't really
like it or it didn't resonatewith you, and then you know
(01:01):
maybe try something else and itreally did.
And that's the beauty of wherewe are today there's just so
many options available to us.
So we really got into some ofthe nitty gritty around that and
also some really practicaltools for developing emotional
sobriety.
So, really, a couple tips thatyou can put into place today,
right now, to really help you onyour own personal, to really
(01:24):
help you on your own personalactualization journey, which is
what Amanda is a specialist at.
So I want you to grab your bigglass of water or your favorite
mocktail and enjoy theconversation with Amanda Kuda.
(01:51):
Hello and welcome to theConfident Sober Women podcast.
I'm your guide, Shelby John.
I'm the mother of three, wifeto one and sober since July 1st
2002.
As sober women, we havesomething huge in common and
when we share our lives and ourstories with each other, we feel
that sense of belonging andconnection.
So we know we are no longeralone.
In this podcast, you will hearreal life talk about building
(02:13):
confidence and transforming yourlife beyond recovery.
So come on, let's talk.
Hey, it's me, Shelby.
Have you ever wondered what'sreally happening in your brain
during recovery?
Are you ready to take controlof your anxiety, sleep better
and finally feel focused andconfident?
(02:35):
I want to introduce you to agame changer that's transforming
women's recovery remoteneurofeedback therapy.
I want you to think of this asa personal trainer for your
brain.
It's helping you build newneuropathways right from the
comfort of your own home.
So if you're dealing withanxiety that just won't quit, if
(02:55):
you have ADHD that's makinglife chaotic, or sleep issues
that leave you exhausted,neurofeedback could be your
missing piece.
It's science-backed braintraining that works with your
natural healing process, helpingyou regulate emotions and build
lasting confidence.
The best part is, you don'tneed to add another appointment
(03:18):
to your busy schedule.
My remote neurofeedback programbrings professional guidance
and support right to your livingroom.
Do you want to learn more aboutneurofeedback therapy?
Brings professional guidanceand support right to your living
room.
Do you want to learn more aboutneurofeedback therapy?
You can go to my websitewwwshelbyjohncom to download my
free guide.
Is Neurofeedback Right For you?
Together, we'll create the calm, confident future you that you
(03:42):
deserve.
That's wwwshelbyjohncom.
Take the first step towardstraining your brain for lasting
change.
Well, hey there, amanda, I'm soexcited to hear you and your
story, and you're with my own,so I'm going to turn the mic
over to you.
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Thank you so much, shelby.
I'm so to turn the mic over toyou, dory Awesome.
Thank you so much, shelby.
I'm so excited to have aconversation with you today and
share the conversation withanyone who's listening.
You know, I know that youwanted to kind of just get some.
Have me share a little bit aboutmy story, my journey to
sobriety, and I'll kind of hiton some of the high notes but
start with saying that I don'tthink there was really anything
super extraordinary about myrelationship with alcohol and
(04:28):
with my drinking journey.
You know, I started drinking inmy late teens as a way to be
cool and fit in and really kindof help with some social
anxieties and some feelings thatI didn't belong much like a lot
of people and that carried intomy young adulthood and in my
lates in fact it was on my 28thbirthday I ended up getting an
appointment with this kind ofmedicine man, body worker,
(04:51):
healer, that was really covetedin the Midwestern town where I
grew up or where I went tocollege, rather, and this
individual changed my life.
Not only physically was he justamazing at helping me with some
pain that I was in, but hestarted to introduce me to some
spiritual philosophies andconcepts that I'd never heard of
before because I was living inthe Bible belt.
So everything in terms ofpersonal development and growth
(05:15):
was very, very, very traditionalreligion orientation, which
there's nothing wrong with.
I just personally didn'tresonate with it.
It felt a little limiting and alittle just a little stifling
for me.
And so he started introducingme to these self-help concepts
and at the time I was living apretty good checking the boxes,
you know master's degree, greatjob for a very sought after
(05:37):
company, bought a house, had thesocial life, had you know all
of the things that should haverendered me very happy and
feeling successful.
But I just felt kind of blah,like something was off track and
that did not feel good.
For all of the work I had done,it didn't feel good to feel off
track, and so to have thisindividual present to me this
way to feel better, that seemedvery natural and very easeful.
(06:00):
I latched onto it so quicklyand so I went home and started
downloading, you know, all ofthese self-help and spirituality
books on my Kindle.
I started watching binge,watching Oprah's Super Soul
Sunday.
That was really kind of likethe what's what of personal
development at the time and Istarted what I thought, shelby,
was devoting myself to apersonal development practice.
But what I didn't quiteconceptualize was that for every
(06:22):
hour I spent Monday throughFriday being mindful was a
counterproductive weekend Fridayat 5.30 PM through whatever
time it's Sunday afternoonevening being mindless.
So I really went for that workhard, play hard kind of thing
that we're taught is exactlyacceptable, very balanced, and I
(06:42):
was just partying and hangingout with my friends and
socializing and cutting looseand relaxing all weekend and it
took me, to be honest, threeyears of doing this kind of
cycle before I realizedsomething feels off.
This personal development stufffeels good but it's not really
clicking and I wonder why.
I wonder why that is.
And so I really put my mind toit and I couldn't come up with
(07:06):
any other reason other thanmaybe it's something
counterproductive you're doing.
And the only counterproductivething that I could think of was
drinking alcohol, and I reallydidn't want that to be the
answer, because I didn't have aproblem.
I was a normal drinker and Iwas a social drinker and that
was a really big part of myidentity.
And I wondered who would Ibecome if I didn't drink?
And the answer is that I becamethe absolute best, most
(07:31):
self-actualized, most authenticversion of myself, when I
finally got brave enough to sayyou know what?
I have, to eliminate somethingfrom my life that's a negative
habit, rather than trying to addin all these positive habits.
And the negative habit wasalcohol.
And my life has never been thesame and I'm sure we'll talk
about that a little bit more.
But that's the long story, lesslong.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, I love that.
Thank you so much for sharingall that, and I think that it's
such a beautiful opportunitythat you were given to come to
those terms on your own.
You know I think so many times.
You know, I know I talked to alot of people in this case I've
(08:15):
been sober kind of a long timeand maybe you have along the way
too, that you know we don'tpeople who haven't had you know
sort of choice and drink, butthen they were definitely didn't
really have much choice inrecovery either, right, so they
were either like voluntold orgiven you know a slip or landed
in a jail cell.
So you know, I think it's it'sI think both the privilege and
(08:38):
also it can be a disservice.
I think at times when you cometo this realization kind of on
your own I don't know if youknow what I mean by when I say
that.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah no, absolutely, because my my struggle with
coming to it.
You know I have addiction in myfamily, so I've seen firsthand,
you know, my father and then oneof my stepmothers really really
be powerless over alcohol andreally understand how awful and
difficult that is.
And so I went into myrelationship with alcohol
(09:08):
knowing a couple of things If Inever get that bad, as bad as my
step-mom was, then I'm okay.
And also knowing that if, andalso having the sense of if you
never get that bad, then youshould just keep on drinking.
And so when I started to kindof question my drinking, I had
this like mental struggle of,well, I'm not at rock bottom,
(09:29):
I'm not powerless over alcohollike she was, so shouldn't I
just be able to figure it out?
And it was this you know, thisstrange, this strange lie,
basically that I was tellingmyself that I almost wasn't
allowed to quit drinking becauseI wasn't that bad.
And I have real heart foranyone who chooses the path,
(09:49):
whether almost by force andnecessity or by just their pure
own free will decision to quitdrinking, because it's not easy,
no matter which way youapproach it.
There are definitely more paths, some paths that are more
difficult than others, butthere's still so much stigma
around alcohol and sobriety thatit is a difficult path to
pursue, no matter which way youpursue it.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
It?
Yeah, it certainly can be,depending on what community you
live in or kind of what is thesurrounding kind of values of
your, of your family or thepeople around you.
But I'm curious.
I'm curious now that you'vebeen a little time away, I don't
know exactly.
Eight years, yeah, that you'vebeen some time away now and
that's that's kind of a longtime.
(10:33):
Do you still feel that?
Do you still feel a connectionto the beliefs that you had
about your drinking then, likethat you weren't powerless or
that you didn't really have, youknow, like a quote unquote
problem or anything like that?
Do you still connect with that?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, I do.
I mean, I I think that therewere times where my drinking was
very binge drinking anddefinitely wasn't healthy, but
it wasn't abnormal from what,what, what anyone else was doing
, and it didn't in terms of apsychiatric scale, did not rate
on the scale of.
I mean, I sit with my therapistand I said, hey, here's what's
(11:10):
going on and what do you thinkand I think this is something
that is also kind of challengingand confronting that, you know,
in our medical system,especially at that point that
was 10 years ago, eight yearsago, when I quit, but 10 years
ago when I was starting to havethis question, you know, there's
this, there's this.
Oh well, you have to rate onthis scale and if you don't,
(11:30):
then you're doing okay.
And so she just kind ofshrugged it off as well.
It wasn't to be manipulative or, you know, um bad in any way.
She was just like nope, youdon't have a problem, you know,
maybe just drink a little less.
And it didn't occur to herbecause she hadn't been taught
that.
Oh well, yeah, go ahead.
If you feel like quit drinking,quitting drinking, do you think
that's something that'saffecting your life, give it a
(11:50):
go.
And so I think that, yes, Istill very much relate to that
and I think it's important tosay because, absolutely could I
have, if we look back and reallygot nitty gritty, could there
be a way that we could say, well, yeah, if you're questioning it
, then you do have a problem.
But the issue with that, shelby,is that doesn't resonate with
(12:12):
some people.
And if the path that I tookresonated with me and got me to
a different way, that's what Ihave to celebrate and choose.
I understand that that wouldhave not been productive for
some individuals and that thatcould have actually been very
destructive for them.
You know for them to hear themessage that I was feeling in my
soul.
So I try to be very open withyou, know there's many paths to
(12:32):
one destination and that youdon't need to have a problem
with alcohol for it to be aproblem in your life.
And if alcohol is in any waykeeping you from being your most
authentic, actualized self andit's, it is a problem.
It doesn't mean you have toquote, unquote, qualify or meet
some sort of specific label inmy book.
(12:53):
And again, if that resonateswith you, like, choose whatever
path works for you.
But for me that actually keptme more stuck than anything.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I think that that is really true for a lot of people,
particularly in the last, Iwould say, 10 years or so.
I've been sober since 2002.
So back then there was reallynothing except for AA and
treatment, and so that's what weused and it was fine, like it
worked for me.
But as we, you know, last, inthe last, I think, eight to 10
(13:20):
years or so, it's been reallyinteresting, especially being a
woman who was kind of likeraised in like 12 step model
which was, which is completelyfine, I totally embrace it and I
think there's many good thingsand bad things, but that's what
happened.
It's been very interesting tokind of to learn some new things
(13:41):
, to start to really get to knowsome kind of different kinds of
women, especially particularlywomen who are writing, you know,
memoirs and um doing all kindsof research and sort of starting
to use language like you knowgreat area, drinking or super
curious things like this.
And you know at first for sure,I would, I have to say, like I
was a little put off because Iwas kind of like oof, what is
(14:03):
this?
This doesn't feel like Likewhat you learned.
It doesn't feel like what Ilearned.
Yeah, it feels in directopposition to like what would be
success in sort of gettingsober, and so it's been an
interesting journey.
I still relate to all of thethings, yeah, and what I've
learned mostly I think aboutespecially around being around
(14:24):
so many different.
I went to a sober in the cityevent, I guess that was.
I think it was maybe two yearsago, yeah, Last year, and it was
so great Cause there was like ahundred plus women in this room
, you know, I think some of themwere probably similar to me,
but many of most of them werenot like as far as like the way
they got there, when they, whenthey got sober, things like that
(14:45):
, and so it was very it's beenvery interesting like learning
that, hearing other people'sstories and the way they do
relate to things, and thenreally just becoming willing to
accept and like, really embrace.
You know all paths to recovery,whatever it is, you know, and
also that like you said you knowall paths to recovery, whatever
(15:06):
it is you know, and also that,like you said, you know if
something doesn't feel alignedor relatable to you, it might
prevent you from doing a thing.
So what we know for sure forthe research.
Actually, in fact, I was justposting something before I got
on with you, because this isApril's, like mental health
month, but there's this bigreport that came out from the
(15:26):
surgeon general's office, the2025 report.
I don't know if you've seen it,with all of this alcohol and
cancer, um, uh, research anddata, yeah, it's pretty solid.
I think we've known it for along time.
We're just confirming andconfirming.
So, anyway, the world healthorganization says you know, no
amount of alcohol is safe foranybody.
It's not a health food, it's,it's made from poison.
(15:48):
Yeah, Like when we put all ofthese pieces together, it points
.
All errors point to no oneshould consume any alcohol.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Uh-huh truly.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
And so when you put it in that perspective too, then
it makes sense to say for thedoctors even to say, yeah, like
it's made from a poison, likeyou shouldn't consume it, yep.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Absolutely.
You know, I think that the theearlier on in my journey, when I
was, I was really hesitantbecause, like I said, I did have
experience watching someoneexperience very, very
troublesome, heartbreakingaddiction.
And so there was this fine linebetween am I being
disrespectful by sharing thisapproach?
(16:28):
Am I, is there a chance that Icould be harmful to people who,
by sharing this approach, thatworked for me.
But then I also had to realizethat there had to be other
people like me who were hesitantto make a change because there
wasn't an approach thatresonated with them.
And trying to fit them into anexisting approach just because
it had been so successful for alot of people wasn't necessarily
(16:50):
the right thing to do.
And I just felt really calledin my journey to, you know, take
an approach where I could sharesomething a little bit
different, and I feel like forme that was the right thing to
do and that was in the highestintegrity, because I know that I
can help people who felt likeme and that if I wouldn't have
started having this conversation, that maybe they would still be
(17:10):
on the same track that theywere on, and that's the most
important thing to me Right?
And so I tried to be verysensitive and cognizant and also
realize you can't make everyonehappy.
You're going to piss somepeople off and you're going to
trigger some people and all Ican do is be kind and generous
when that happens and try tohave an open conversation.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
That's so true, yeah, I mean, I really think that's
the, that's like a great messagefor all of us, right?
You know people, whoever theyare, wherever we are, it would
be better and kinder and, Ithink, just more peaceful if we
kind of just listened andrespected where they were, on
whatever topic, right, and then,yeah, kind of just realize that
that's okay and like our way.
If it's the complete oppositeis also okay and for sure we can
(17:51):
all kind of survive in thissort of world and community
together, even with all thosediffering values and um, that
makes a beautiful place filledwith lots of diversity, and I
think that's actually a bigmissing link right now.
I'm hoping we can get back tothat.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I think so.
I think that there's been a lotof divisiveness and this way or
that way, and I made a decisionrecently to and this is
something that's evolved in myability to have conversations
and to take on differentviewpoints.
I didn't have that when I was adrinker.
I was very, you know, victimmentality.
Woe is me.
This is the way, this is theright way, this is the wrong way
(18:27):
and just having loving, openconversations with people, even
when I don't fully understand,resonate, agree with.
I actually did an interviewrecently where I knew absolutely
that I shared I didn't sharesome views with the other person
and I almost decided to, Ialmost didn't accept the
interview.
And then I really sat withmyself, shelby, and I thought
(18:47):
you know, who are you as aself-actualized person If you
can't sit down and have a reallygreat conversation with someone
who you don't have the samebackground and have a civil
conversation where maybe you canhelp a lot of people who they
have in their audience, who youwouldn't have reached otherwise.
And I think that that's areally important, you know,
piece of my actualization is tobe able to be more open and
(19:10):
accepting and loving towardmyself and to other people, and
I wasn't that before.
I mean, it was somewhere deepdown, but I just didn't know how
to bring it out and I thinkthat that's a piece of the self
and spiritual development I'veyou know come to on my
alcohol-free journey.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, when you were talking,
I just really kept thinkingabout just our previous
conversation that, like you know, the principles that are laid
out for us in the 12-stepprograms I'm sure you're
familiar with, yeah.
Yeah, in the 12-step programs,I'm sure you're familiar with
some of them.
Yeah, like a lot of that stuff.
If you look at it and then youkind of unpack what it's really
(19:47):
saying, what they're saying,right, the work is really the
same.
Well, it's mostly the same, nomatter what you're doing or what
you want to call yourself.
And that's the thing that Ireally resonate with, like you
know, the work of, like lookingat our negative thinking
patterns the work of saying like, oh, wow, you know, we need to
be tolerant of other people, solove and tolerance is our code,
(20:10):
you know.
And like, oh, you know, we doneed to seek actualization or
connection with somethingoutside of ourselves, a higher
power, and so, like, theseconcepts are all there, yeah,
there's nothing new.
There's nothing new, there'snothing new under the sun.
And I think we do want tocreate something new.
Some people do want to do thatbecause they don't, they want to
distance themselves so muchfrom this one way.
(20:31):
Yeah, so it's so different.
But when you really look at it,I think it's just hilarious.
So it kind of leads me to think, like what, what did you do?
Like what was your way?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah Well, and I think that's the interesting
piece, because I will tell you,shelby, you know I tried to read
some quit lit.
I tried to explore.
You know, I I was open toexploring different approaches,
but if something felt not rightin my gut I just said no, like
I'm going to look at different,I'm going to look at something
from a different perspective,and the funny thing is that, you
(21:02):
know, in the self-help andspirituality place there is
nothing new, like I have ashelves of books behind me that
they're all you know about asimilar concept written from a
different perspective, withdifferent life experiences, with
slightly different nomenclature, so that it can reach the
person who it's supposed toreach, right, and so I think
that there's probably not thatmuch difference in all of these
(21:23):
different approaches.
It's just that, you know, somehave bigger followings or
specific words that resonatewith specific people, and for me
, my approach was coming at itfrom a spiritual angle.
So I was studying, like WayneDyer, marianne Williamson, a
Course in Miracles, gabbyBernstein, really looking at
things that felt good to me atthe same point.
And if we were to look at I mean, even if you look at all
(21:44):
religions and just took thenames off of it.
There's so much overlap, right,everyone's saying something
quite similar, and so myapproach was to kind of
aggregate all of these differentspiritual lessons that I was
learning and help reallyinternalize those and use those
as a lens for my alcohol-freejourney.
But you're absolutely right,it's probably not that different
(22:05):
.
It's a different names,different, slightly different
things, and I'm not.
I'm certainly not saying thatI've discovered something new.
It's just that I put labels onit that resonated with me, or
chose labels and patterns thatresonated with me, and I think
that's you know, the best we cando in with me, and I think
that's you know the best we cando in um as we go through this
world.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, exactly, I love that and it's it sounds like
you, really just kind of I whatI like about what you're saying
too, is um that it feels likeyou were approaching it from a
very energetic experience.
So what was really?
you keep using the word whatfelt good to you, or the phrase
what feels good to me what feltgood to me at the time, and to
(22:44):
me that's a very energeticexperience, meaning you pick
something up and you start andyou're like, ooh, this, this,
yeah, ooh, it resonates, Iunderstand it.
Or like, ooh, absolutely not,like this is not for me and I
think that's just energy.
We can call it energy, you cancall it energy, you can call it
God, you can call it the HolySpirit, like a lot of things
(23:07):
right, but yeah, but it's thatenergetic experience, that sort
of your body, mind, like lettingyou know that this thing is for
or not for you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love thatfor you, and I think what that's
done is created multiplepathways lined with the same
stuff, really, truly, likeyou're saying, I mean, we can
pick up a whole bunch ofdifferent things, but really
what they're saying, it's sortof like, even if you read the
(23:29):
same thing, like the same book,even if I read like the big book
or something, or I pick up youknow a book that I consult with
sometimes and I read it againfor the 10th time, like, yeah,
you get something different,something different.
But what I think is alsoimportant is is it depends on
where you are.
You were already well,seemingly anyway.
(23:50):
I didn't know you, but yousound like you were already kind
of a person that was working ata relatively high level,
meaning meaning you had someawareness of yourself.
You're maybe a little bit older, you didn't have like a lot of
jackpots or things that werekind of cramming up your, your
life, and so you could receivethat information.
I think in a way, that was wasgood for you Like that's why it
(24:13):
worked, versus maybe some peoplelike maybe your stepmoms, like
that, really were kind of maybefurther along that.
We know that it's a linear,like a path of addiction.
Right Can be, it can be on alot of steps on that path, right
.
So, maybe they were like in afurther along path, much more
(24:33):
like physically dependent, likeemotionally, like there was a
like a further damage.
Yeah, absolutely they wouldn'thave been able to receive things
like that and like emotionally,like there was a like, a
further damage.
Yeah, absolutely Receive, theywouldn't have been able to
receive, um, things like that,and so maybe they needed a more
direct approach, like you needto do this like like, kind of
like maybe 12 step provides oruh or some other like coaching
model or something where it'svery, you know, scripted,
(24:55):
because yeah, a lot of structurefor sure, yeah, yeah, I think
that's true.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And here's the thing you know, shelby, I wasn't at
that place then.
Was I in the best place?
No, definitely not.
I wanted my life to change.
But who's to say that if Iwouldn't have kept on this path,
that I wouldn't have gottenthere?
You know, even though I waspretty stubborn, I'm like I'm
never going to get that bad Atsome point, you, you, there's,
there's a tipping point.
You never know what's going tohappen, especially with a
(25:21):
substance that is designed foryou to get that bad, Like that's
.
That is what it's designed for.
You know it's.
It's kind of.
It's difficult to say, but whatI can say is that, without a
doubt, that my life is betterand more miraculous and amazing,
wonderful things have happenedwith alcohol out of the picture,
even though I really fearedthat I would be a loser and a
(25:44):
social outcast and not able tohave fun and all of those things
that we all think of.
My life is just infinitelybetter in every single way, and
I think that's the, that's thebig end thing is, yeah, it was
hard and, you know, this pathworked for me and the result is
a better life, and I thinkthat's all any of us can hope
for.
So, when it comes to the work.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
You know that's what you always quote.
You know the work, what I callemotional sobriety you might use
that term, or maybe you don'tand when it comes to that like
and to me, that's where we allkind of get once it's been a
little bit of time.
You know that one to five yearrange where you really start to
open up and you're like, oh wow,like I feel really good, I'm
ready for more, I want to startthis business, or I want to do
(26:26):
this, or I want to have a baby,or whatever.
Whatever it is, as that'sstarting to like kind of bubble
up to the surface, what are thethings that you really, um, what
are the steps, tips, tools,tricks that you kind of put in
front of people, that you useyourself and then you put in
front of people as far as, like,what, how do we do this?
Like?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
How do you do the?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
work.
Yeah, you know, how I kind oflike to envision it is that when
we're drinking, we are likefloating in a pool of water with
a life vest on, so it feelslike we're swimming, but we're
not diving below the surface andwe're actually not learning the
skill of floating, because wehave this like device that's
keeping us safe you know quote,unquote safe and really all it's
(27:07):
doing is causing us to skim thesurface.
And if we were to float outinto the deep end and take that
life jacket off, we'd strugglefor a second right, because it's
scary and the water's deep andhow the heck do you swim without
this thing helping you?
And so there's this likeneeding to relearn new skills
that we maybe could have learnedwhen we were kids, but most of
(27:27):
us didn't, because most of us,you know, learned to swim the
entire time with a life jacket.
We were not taught emotionalregulation.
We weren't taught to embraceour emotions.
We weren't taught to feel orcommunicate about our emotions,
or that they were okay eventaught to feel or communicate
about our emotions, or that theywere okay even.
And so now we have to go backand do some work and kind of
like learn how to dog paddle,learn how to float, learn how to
(27:48):
swim, and for me, that is just,you know, understanding, first
of all, what are the basicemotions and what are the
emotions, like the secondary andtertiary emotions underneath of
them, that we're feeling andexperiencing, and how can we
just learn to communicate aboutthem with ourselves?
You know, the ultimate level isto be able to share that with
others and communicate withothers.
But could we just, when we'reexperiencing something that
(28:10):
feels overwhelming orinsurmountable or even
impermissible, be with that fora moment and say, okay, here's
what this emotion is, I'm goingto name it, I'm going to say I'm
feeling it out of, you know, 10out of 10 on a 10 scale or
whatever that is, and maybe justwrite about it and process it.
And for me, my, a lot of myprocess was centered around
journaling and just kind of selfcommunication, because I needed
(28:33):
to learn to talk about it withmyself first before I could
share it with others.
And the the act of being intune with your emotions, naming
them, sitting with them, talkingabout them to yourself and then
sharing those with others, isreally, you know, I think the
process that is is veryimportant for long-term
emotional sobriety is to be ableto deal with the things that we
(28:55):
were trying to control,manipulate or manage with
alcohol.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Right I?
I think what you're describingis becoming willing and
developing almost the skill, Iguess of being uncomfortable.
Yeah, yeah, I always say I feellike multiple times a week.
Now you know, most of life ispretty uncomfortable for most
people.
You know we have situations,you know at work or in the
(29:20):
public, or with our kids or ourfamilies or our spouse, whatever
.
You know our family and andit's uncomfortable you know we
don't like it.
So I think it's really it's soimportant to be able to learn
how to emotionally regulateyourself.
But you're right, it's not.
These are not.
These are the.
I guess they're called softskills.
Not these are the.
(29:43):
I guess they're called softskills.
I guess they are taught like ifyou're coming up you're
starting to learn them, like inschool and different things,
because you can't just like lashout at the teacher yeah, yeah,
you can't just hit yourclassmate.
I mean you can I guess, butyou're gonna get in trouble.
So sure you're being kind oftaught how to do that, at least
in our day, but they're maybeand I think it's somewhat better
now people are starting to putlanguage around.
(30:03):
Oh, yeah, yeah, like helpingpeople recognize, like wow, it
sounds like you're really.
You know, you're really angry,right, it looks like you're
really mad.
Yeah, kind of happening at ayounger age, but for many of us,
we didn't grow up in systemswhere that was like a norm?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
No, not at all, you're told.
You know, if you were angry,then it wasn't.
Let's talk about it.
It's like don't do that, go toyour room.
And so then anger became bad.
But the reality is, anger is anemotion.
It's a valid emotion.
We just weren't taught how todo it Right, you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Right and, like I just you know, somebody said
recently to me, frankly recently, is that all feelings are true.
You know, all of our feelingsare true and right to us and I
was like, wow, that really thattracks.
I was like, okay, they all arebecause they're ours in that
moment.
Now our reactions to those areour responses.
Whichever we choose to do withthat is our responsibility.
(30:54):
So if you are angry and you lashout at somebody, then you are
responsible for sort of makingamends for that or correcting
that situation.
But the feeling of being mad orsad or happy or or grief or
whatever is is they're all valid.
And if somebody else isn'texperiencing that same feeling
(31:14):
around around that samesituation, that's okay too, like
they don't have to.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, I think the real gift that I've given myself
and that everyone else canexperience through that is my
emotions used to be so much morevolatile and unmanageable and,
yeah, there's a lot ofuncomfortable situations.
Like you said, a lot of life isuncomfortable and awkward or
not convenient.
But I used to go like way offtrack when I would start to
(31:40):
experience an intense emotion orsomething was inconvenient and
now it's more like a little likedeviation and then back to
feeling okay and that feels somuch better not to have these
you know high and low swingsthat, frankly, I was creating
for myself sometimes, but to beable to let hard stuff happen
and then still feel mostly kindof in the neutral space, which
(32:02):
is just feel so much better.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So I love this.
So, basically, the this sort oftip is around learning how to
be a good emotional regulatorand you talked a lot about
naming the feeling, which I love.
Once we name it, we can kind ofput it outside of us.
It's not us, it's not yeah.
Me, yeah, my identity it's this, it's a feeling, it's just yeah
.
And then you talked aboutjournaling, which I think is
(32:26):
great too.
It's a great strategy for kindof recognizing patterns in
yourself, for recognizingfeelings and when they come up
sort of identifying like what,when this happened, then I had
this feeling, or then then thisthought and then this that helps
to um point you in thedirection of how to make the
changes in that.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
And so what's?
Speaker 1 (32:45):
another, what's just like one more thing that you,
that you do now or maybe youhelp your clients with, to
become more actualized.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah.
So I love to just give ajournaling prompt that I love to
use.
That helps me in those momentsbecause sometimes you get kind
of stuck and I hear from a lotof you know, I work with mostly
women like I don't know what tojournal, I feel silly, it feels
immature, I don't know where toget started.
And so I like to use thisprompt, especially if you're
feeling kind of impulsive andmaybe it's something, it's a
feeling that's causing you towant to drink.
(33:14):
But even if it's just like anintense emotion, I always offer
the journaling prompt wait, whatam I thinking?
And using a timer, going byyourself for 20 minutes, because
we know that 20 to 30 minutescan help dissipate this
sensation, the intensity of anemotion and then just writing at
the top of the paper what am Ithinking.
And you know, let's, let's sayyou had a fight with your
(33:36):
coworker, Tom, and you're justthinking well, tom's a piece of
you know what, and that's thethought in your head and it's
not mature and you're not proudof it.
But guess what?
That's the thought you'rehaving.
So what am I thinking?
And then going?
You maybe just download anddump everything Even it feels
adolescent and immature aboutTom and once you feel kind of
complete, they're going intowhen I think this thought, I
(33:57):
feel, and share the emotion withyourself that you feel and let
yourself journal about thatfeeling.
So when I, when I think that way, I feel this, and you know, I
like to use like a tool like I'msure you've used the emotion
wheel before to help name andexplain emotions a little more
deeply and again these are goingto feel like juvenile things,
like really I'm a, you know, I'm39, I'm a 39 year old woman.
(34:19):
I'm using this little wheel totry and explain my emotions and
I'm journaling about Tom likehe's the town gossip and I'm 13.
Like he's the town gossip andI'm 13.
Well, yes, that is what I needto do at this moment.
So that's what I will do.
And it's frustrating to have tokind of do some of these
juvenile activities and theydon't feel very sophisticated.
But let me tell you what youknow, shelby, they work.
It works to process in whateverway you know works for you.
(34:42):
And maybe you try journaling acouple of times and it doesn't
really do the trick.
But I think it's worth it togive yourself the opportunity to
explain and express and getsomething off your chest to
where you're not holding it inyour like internal filing system
trying to make sense of it, theyou know the the worst thing
that can happen is that you dumpit onto the page and then
(35:03):
you're not reeling about it inyour head, which I think is a
really freeing feeling.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, that's the worst thing that can happen,
right, yeah, and it can happenis is you're not thinking about
it as well?
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I love having those prompts that W A, I, t is.
So what am I thinking?
Uh, but similar to an activitythat I use the entire first
module of my course around thismaterial, eliminating negative
thinking patterns, and that oneof them is is sort of taking a
thought inventory.
That's kind of, yeah, similarso they can learn to recognize.
You know what are my negativethings, what?
(35:37):
are my negative thoughts andthen like what happens to bring
them on.
So is it the phone call fromthe boss?
And then immediately you'relike, oh um, I did something
wrong or I'm always a failure,or is it it the?
Is it the?
Is it the child that's givenyou?
You know, kind of pushing back?
You know what is it that makesyou go into that negative
thought and then being able toimpact that and change that in a
(36:00):
much, very subtle way, whichthen will change your emotions
about your feelings and thenyour behavior.
So it's such a positive andproductive experience.
Truly, it's just that none ofus really spend the time to do
it.
I don't know why we don't dosome of these super easy things.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, it's not as it's not as instant
gratification, but I I know youknow that it pays off.
If you can just, isn't itbetter to take that 20 minutes
to like, sit and process, ratherthan see about it and try and
replay a conversation for twohours Like it's just?
Speaker 1 (36:35):
So when you do it, when you get really good at this
and you start to give yourselfthose moments, you learn about
grace for yourself, like youlearn how to extend grace to
yourself.
And then you also learn thatlike wow, that like really bad
thing happened to me and Ididn't like implode yeah, I
didn't die, the world didn'tstop moving, like I actually
this terrible thing and feelinghappened and like everything
(36:59):
just kind of kept going.
Yeah, I was able to go to bedand wake up the next morning and
even though it's uncomfortableand I didn't like it and I was
sad or I cried.
You know I still did.
I went to bed and I got up.
You know we, just we were ableto keep going and the more
opportunities you have to dothat, the more like resilience
you build up.
You know exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yes, yeah, every time you tick that box, you, you,
you had made like a flex, likeyou flex the muscle and you're
building that muscle andeventually it's going to become
kind of close to second natureto do that for yourself.
Just take practice.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Totally agree with that.
Oh my gosh, Amanda.
This has been such a greatconversation.
I know everyone is going tolove it, and so where can they
find you if they want?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
to reach out.
For sure.
I've loved the conversation aswell.
If this resonated with you, I'mtypically hanging out on
Instagram.
I'm at Amanda Kuda and that's KU D A, or you can visit my
website, amandakudacom.
I have my book that came out acouple of years ago unbottled
potential breakup with alcoholand breakthrough to your best
life and I think that that wouldbe a really great resource for
(38:00):
anyone who's on this journey aswell.
Who liked this conversation?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Absolutely.
I'll make sure I link to thosethings in the show notes below
so that they can all find it.
And again, I just thank you somuch for your time and I hope
our paths cross again so too.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yes, thanks, shelby.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of
Confident Sober Women.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, hit the subscribe
button above so you won't missany upcoming episodes.
And, hey, if you really lovedit, leave me a review.
You can learn more about thesober freedom inner circle
membership atwwwshelbyjohncoachingcom.
(38:38):
Forward slash inner circle.
See you next time.
Well, hey there, sober ladies.
Thank you so much for joiningme today for the Confident Sober
Women podcast.
Today I got to spend time withmy friend, Amanda Kuda.
She is an alcohol-freelifestyle expert and truly a
breath of fresh air.
Her energy is so positive andjust filled with light, so I
(00:21):
know you're going to really loveher as well.
She is the author of UnbottledPotential Break Up With Alcohol
and Break Through to your BestLife, and that's exactly what we
talked about in thisconversation.
Kind of all things, sobriety, inwhatever form, works for you.
We talked a lot about how themodern day recovery era has
(00:41):
brought to light different waysand different language for
getting sober and really howimportant it is for each one of
us to find what works for us.
So maybe you've had experienceswhere you tried something or a
program or a system or a bookand you know just didn't really
like it or it didn't resonatewith you, and then you know
(01:01):
maybe try something else and itreally did.
And that's the beauty of wherewe are today there's just so
many options available to us.
So we really got into some ofthe nitty gritty around that and
also some really practicaltools for developing emotional
sobriety.
So, really, a couple tips thatyou can put into place today,
right now, to really help you onyour own personal, to really
(01:24):
help you on your own personalactualization journey, which is
what Amanda is a specialist at.
So I want you to grab your bigglass of water or your favorite
mocktail and enjoy theconversation with Amanda Kuda.
(01:51):
Hello and welcome to theConfident Sober Women podcast.
I'm your guide, Shelby John.
I'm the mother of three, wifeto one and sober since July 1st
2002.
As sober women, we havesomething huge in common and
when we share our lives and ourstories with each other, we feel
that sense of belonging andconnection.
So we know we are no longeralone.
In this podcast, you will hearreal life talk about building
(02:13):
confidence and transforming yourlife beyond recovery.
So come on, let's talk.
Hey, it's me, Shelby.
Have you ever wondered what'sreally happening in your brain
during recovery?
Are you ready to take controlof your anxiety, sleep better
and finally feel focused andconfident?
(02:35):
I want to introduce you to agame changer that's transforming
women's recovery remoteneurofeedback therapy.
I want you to think of this asa personal trainer for your
brain.
It's helping you build newneuropathways right from the
comfort of your own home.
So if you're dealing withanxiety that just won't quit, if
(02:55):
you have ADHD that's makinglife chaotic, or sleep issues
that leave you exhausted,neurofeedback could be your
missing piece.
It's science-backed braintraining that works with your
natural healing process, helpingyou regulate emotions and build
lasting confidence.
The best part is, you don'tneed to add another appointment
(03:18):
to your busy schedule.
My remote neurofeedback programbrings professional guidance
and support right to your livingroom.
Do you want to learn more aboutneurofeedback therapy?
Brings professional guidanceand support right to your living
room.
Do you want to learn more aboutneurofeedback therapy?
You can go to my websitewwwshelbyjohncom to download my
free guide.
Is Neurofeedback Right For you?
Together, we'll create the calm, confident future you that you
(03:42):
deserve.
That's wwwshelbyjohncom.
Take the first step towardstraining your brain for lasting
change.
Well, hey there, amanda, I'm soexcited to hear you and your
story, and you're with my own,so I'm going to turn the mic
over to you.
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Thank you so much, shelby.
I'm so to turn the mic over toyou, dory Awesome.
Thank you so much, shelby.
I'm so excited to have aconversation with you today and
share the conversation withanyone who's listening.
You know, I know that youwanted to kind of just get some.
Have me share a little bit aboutmy story, my journey to
sobriety, and I'll kind of hiton some of the high notes but
start with saying that I don'tthink there was really anything
super extraordinary about myrelationship with alcohol and
(04:28):
with my drinking journey.
You know, I started drinking inmy late teens as a way to be
cool and fit in and really kindof help with some social
anxieties and some feelings thatI didn't belong much like a lot
of people and that carried intomy young adulthood and in my
lates in fact it was on my 28thbirthday I ended up getting an
appointment with this kind ofmedicine man, body worker,
(04:51):
healer, that was really covetedin the Midwestern town where I
grew up or where I went tocollege, rather, and this
individual changed my life.
Not only physically was he justamazing at helping me with some
pain that I was in, but hestarted to introduce me to some
spiritual philosophies andconcepts that I'd never heard of
before because I was living inthe Bible belt.
So everything in terms ofpersonal development and growth
(05:15):
was very, very, very traditionalreligion orientation, which
there's nothing wrong with.
I just personally didn'tresonate with it.
It felt a little limiting and alittle just a little stifling
for me.
And so he started introducingme to these self-help concepts
and at the time I was living apretty good checking the boxes,
you know master's degree, greatjob for a very sought after
(05:37):
company, bought a house, had thesocial life, had you know all
of the things that should haverendered me very happy and
feeling successful.
But I just felt kind of blah,like something was off track and
that did not feel good.
For all of the work I had done,it didn't feel good to feel off
track, and so to have thisindividual present to me this
way to feel better, that seemedvery natural and very easeful.
(06:00):
I latched onto it so quicklyand so I went home and started
downloading, you know, all ofthese self-help and spirituality
books on my Kindle.
I started watching binge,watching Oprah's Super Soul
Sunday.
That was really kind of likethe what's what of personal
development at the time and Istarted what I thought, shelby,
was devoting myself to apersonal development practice.
But what I didn't quiteconceptualize was that for every
(06:22):
hour I spent Monday throughFriday being mindful was a
counterproductive weekend Fridayat 5.30 PM through whatever
time it's Sunday afternoonevening being mindless.
So I really went for that workhard, play hard kind of thing
that we're taught is exactlyacceptable, very balanced, and I
(06:42):
was just partying and hangingout with my friends and
socializing and cutting looseand relaxing all weekend and it
took me, to be honest, threeyears of doing this kind of
cycle before I realizedsomething feels off.
This personal development stufffeels good but it's not really
clicking and I wonder why.
I wonder why that is.
And so I really put my mind toit and I couldn't come up with
(07:06):
any other reason other thanmaybe it's something
counterproductive you're doing.
And the only counterproductivething that I could think of was
drinking alcohol, and I reallydidn't want that to be the
answer, because I didn't have aproblem.
I was a normal drinker and Iwas a social drinker and that
was a really big part of myidentity.
And I wondered who would Ibecome if I didn't drink?
And the answer is that I becamethe absolute best, most
(07:31):
self-actualized, most authenticversion of myself, when I
finally got brave enough to sayyou know what?
I have, to eliminate somethingfrom my life that's a negative
habit, rather than trying to addin all these positive habits.
And the negative habit wasalcohol.
And my life has never been thesame and I'm sure we'll talk
about that a little bit more.
But that's the long story, lesslong.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, I love that.
Thank you so much for sharingall that, and I think that it's
such a beautiful opportunitythat you were given to come to
those terms on your own.
You know I think so many times.
You know, I know I talked to alot of people in this case I've
(08:15):
been sober kind of a long timeand maybe you have along the way
too, that you know we don'tpeople who haven't had you know
sort of choice and drink, butthen they were definitely didn't
really have much choice inrecovery either, right, so they
were either like voluntold orgiven you know a slip or landed
in a jail cell.
So you know, I think it's it'sI think both the privilege and
(08:38):
also it can be a disservice.
I think at times when you cometo this realization kind of on
your own I don't know if youknow what I mean by when I say
that.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah no, absolutely, because my my struggle with
coming to it.
You know I have addiction in myfamily, so I've seen firsthand,
you know, my father and then oneof my stepmothers really really
be powerless over alcohol andreally understand how awful and
difficult that is.
And so I went into myrelationship with alcohol
(09:08):
knowing a couple of things If Inever get that bad, as bad as my
step-mom was, then I'm okay.
And also knowing that if, andalso having the sense of if you
never get that bad, then youshould just keep on drinking.
And so when I started to kindof question my drinking, I had
this like mental struggle of,well, I'm not at rock bottom,
(09:29):
I'm not powerless over alcohollike she was, so shouldn't I
just be able to figure it out?
And it was this you know, thisstrange, this strange lie,
basically that I was tellingmyself that I almost wasn't
allowed to quit drinking becauseI wasn't that bad.
And I have real heart foranyone who chooses the path,
(09:49):
whether almost by force andnecessity or by just their pure
own free will decision to quitdrinking, because it's not easy,
no matter which way youapproach it.
There are definitely more paths, some paths that are more
difficult than others, butthere's still so much stigma
around alcohol and sobriety thatit is a difficult path to
pursue, no matter which way youpursue it.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
It?
Yeah, it certainly can be,depending on what community you
live in or kind of what is thesurrounding kind of values of
your, of your family or thepeople around you.
But I'm curious.
I'm curious now that you'vebeen a little time away, I don't
know exactly.
Eight years, yeah, that you'vebeen some time away now and
that's that's kind of a longtime.
(10:33):
Do you still feel that?
Do you still feel a connectionto the beliefs that you had
about your drinking then, likethat you weren't powerless or
that you didn't really have, youknow, like a quote unquote
problem or anything like that?
Do you still connect with that?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, I do.
I mean, I I think that therewere times where my drinking was
very binge drinking anddefinitely wasn't healthy, but
it wasn't abnormal from what,what, what anyone else was doing
, and it didn't in terms of apsychiatric scale, did not rate
on the scale of.
I mean, I sit with my therapistand I said, hey, here's what's
(11:10):
going on and what do you thinkand I think this is something
that is also kind of challengingand confronting that, you know,
in our medical system,especially at that point that
was 10 years ago, eight yearsago, when I quit, but 10 years
ago when I was starting to havethis question, you know, there's
this, there's this.
Oh well, you have to rate onthis scale and if you don't,
(11:30):
then you're doing okay.
And so she just kind ofshrugged it off as well.
It wasn't to be manipulative or, you know, um bad in any way.
She was just like nope, youdon't have a problem, you know,
maybe just drink a little less.
And it didn't occur to herbecause she hadn't been taught
that.
Oh well, yeah, go ahead.
If you feel like quit drinking,quitting drinking, do you think
that's something that'saffecting your life, give it a
(11:50):
go.
And so I think that, yes, Istill very much relate to that
and I think it's important tosay because, absolutely could I
have, if we look back and reallygot nitty gritty, could there
be a way that we could say, well, yeah, if you're questioning it
, then you do have a problem.
But the issue with that, shelby,is that doesn't resonate with
(12:12):
some people.
And if the path that I tookresonated with me and got me to
a different way, that's what Ihave to celebrate and choose.
I understand that that wouldhave not been productive for
some individuals and that thatcould have actually been very
destructive for them.
You know for them to hear themessage that I was feeling in my
soul.
So I try to be very open withyou, know there's many paths to
(12:32):
one destination and that youdon't need to have a problem
with alcohol for it to be aproblem in your life.
And if alcohol is in any waykeeping you from being your most
authentic, actualized self andit's, it is a problem.
It doesn't mean you have toquote, unquote, qualify or meet
some sort of specific label inmy book.
(12:53):
And again, if that resonateswith you, like, choose whatever
path works for you.
But for me that actually keptme more stuck than anything.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I think that that is really true for a lot of people,
particularly in the last, Iwould say, 10 years or so.
I've been sober since 2002.
So back then there was reallynothing except for AA and
treatment, and so that's what weused and it was fine, like it
worked for me.
But as we, you know, last, inthe last, I think, eight to 10
(13:20):
years or so, it's been reallyinteresting, especially being a
woman who was kind of likeraised in like 12 step model
which was, which is completelyfine, I totally embrace it and I
think there's many good thingsand bad things, but that's what
happened.
It's been very interesting tokind of to learn some new things
(13:41):
, to start to really get to knowsome kind of different kinds of
women, especially particularlywomen who are writing, you know,
memoirs and um doing all kindsof research and sort of starting
to use language like you knowgreat area, drinking or super
curious things like this.
And you know at first for sure,I would, I have to say, like I
was a little put off because Iwas kind of like oof, what is
(14:03):
this?
This doesn't feel like Likewhat you learned.
It doesn't feel like what Ilearned.
Yeah, it feels in directopposition to like what would be
success in sort of gettingsober, and so it's been an
interesting journey.
I still relate to all of thethings, yeah, and what I've
learned mostly I think aboutespecially around being around
(14:24):
so many different.
I went to a sober in the cityevent, I guess that was.
I think it was maybe two yearsago, yeah, Last year, and it was
so great Cause there was like ahundred plus women in this room
, you know, I think some of themwere probably similar to me,
but many of most of them werenot like as far as like the way
they got there, when they, whenthey got sober, things like that
(14:45):
, and so it was very it's beenvery interesting like learning
that, hearing other people'sstories and the way they do
relate to things, and thenreally just becoming willing to
accept and like, really embrace.
You know all paths to recovery,whatever it is, you know, and
also that like you said you knowall paths to recovery, whatever
(15:06):
it is you know, and also that,like you said, you know if
something doesn't feel alignedor relatable to you, it might
prevent you from doing a thing.
So what we know for sure forthe research.
Actually, in fact, I was justposting something before I got
on with you, because this isApril's, like mental health
month, but there's this bigreport that came out from the
(15:26):
surgeon general's office, the2025 report.
I don't know if you've seen it,with all of this alcohol and
cancer, um, uh, research anddata, yeah, it's pretty solid.
I think we've known it for along time.
We're just confirming andconfirming.
So, anyway, the world healthorganization says you know, no
amount of alcohol is safe foranybody.
It's not a health food, it's,it's made from poison.
(15:48):
Yeah, Like when we put all ofthese pieces together, it points
.
All errors point to no oneshould consume any alcohol.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Uh-huh truly.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
And so when you put it in that perspective too, then
it makes sense to say for thedoctors even to say, yeah, like
it's made from a poison, likeyou shouldn't consume it, yep.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Absolutely.
You know, I think that the theearlier on in my journey, when I
was, I was really hesitantbecause, like I said, I did have
experience watching someoneexperience very, very
troublesome, heartbreakingaddiction.
And so there was this fine linebetween am I being
disrespectful by sharing thisapproach?
(16:28):
Am I, is there a chance that Icould be harmful to people who,
by sharing this approach, thatworked for me.
But then I also had to realizethat there had to be other
people like me who were hesitantto make a change because there
wasn't an approach thatresonated with them.
And trying to fit them into anexisting approach just because
it had been so successful for alot of people wasn't necessarily
(16:50):
the right thing to do.
And I just felt really calledin my journey to, you know, take
an approach where I could sharesomething a little bit
different, and I feel like forme that was the right thing to
do and that was in the highestintegrity, because I know that I
can help people who felt likeme and that if I wouldn't have
started having this conversation, that maybe they would still be
(17:10):
on the same track that theywere on, and that's the most
important thing to me Right?
And so I tried to be verysensitive and cognizant and also
realize you can't make everyonehappy.
You're going to piss somepeople off and you're going to
trigger some people and all Ican do is be kind and generous
when that happens and try tohave an open conversation.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
That's so true, yeah, I mean, I really think that's
the, that's like a great messagefor all of us, right?
You know people, whoever theyare, wherever we are, it would
be better and kinder and, Ithink, just more peaceful if we
kind of just listened andrespected where they were, on
whatever topic, right, and then,yeah, kind of just realize that
that's okay and like our way.
If it's the complete oppositeis also okay and for sure we can
(17:51):
all kind of survive in thissort of world and community
together, even with all thosediffering values and um, that
makes a beautiful place filledwith lots of diversity, and I
think that's actually a bigmissing link right now.
I'm hoping we can get back tothat.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I think so.
I think that there's been a lotof divisiveness and this way or
that way, and I made a decisionrecently to and this is
something that's evolved in myability to have conversations
and to take on differentviewpoints.
I didn't have that when I was adrinker.
I was very, you know, victimmentality.
Woe is me.
This is the way, this is theright way, this is the wrong way
(18:27):
and just having loving, openconversations with people, even
when I don't fully understand,resonate, agree with.
I actually did an interviewrecently where I knew absolutely
that I shared I didn't sharesome views with the other person
and I almost decided to, Ialmost didn't accept the
interview.
And then I really sat withmyself, shelby, and I thought
(18:47):
you know, who are you as aself-actualized person If you
can't sit down and have a reallygreat conversation with someone
who you don't have the samebackground and have a civil
conversation where maybe you canhelp a lot of people who they
have in their audience, who youwouldn't have reached otherwise.
And I think that that's areally important, you know,
piece of my actualization is tobe able to be more open and
(19:10):
accepting and loving towardmyself and to other people, and
I wasn't that before.
I mean, it was somewhere deepdown, but I just didn't know how
to bring it out and I thinkthat that's a piece of the self
and spiritual development I'veyou know come to on my
alcohol-free journey.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, when you were talking,
I just really kept thinkingabout just our previous
conversation that, like you know, the principles that are laid
out for us in the 12-stepprograms I'm sure you're
familiar with, yeah.
Yeah, in the 12-step programs,I'm sure you're familiar with
some of them.
Yeah, like a lot of that stuff.
If you look at it and then youkind of unpack what it's really
(19:47):
saying, what they're saying,right, the work is really the
same.
Well, it's mostly the same, nomatter what you're doing or what
you want to call yourself.
And that's the thing that Ireally resonate with, like you
know, the work of, like lookingat our negative thinking
patterns the work of saying like, oh, wow, you know, we need to
be tolerant of other people, solove and tolerance is our code,
(20:10):
you know.
And like, oh, you know, we doneed to seek actualization or
connection with somethingoutside of ourselves, a higher
power, and so, like, theseconcepts are all there, yeah,
there's nothing new.
There's nothing new, there'snothing new under the sun.
And I think we do want tocreate something new.
Some people do want to do thatbecause they don't, they want to
distance themselves so muchfrom this one way.
(20:31):
Yeah, so it's so different.
But when you really look at it,I think it's just hilarious.
So it kind of leads me to think, like what, what did you do?
Like what was your way?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah Well, and I think that's the interesting
piece, because I will tell you,shelby, you know I tried to read
some quit lit.
I tried to explore.
You know, I I was open toexploring different approaches,
but if something felt not rightin my gut I just said no, like
I'm going to look at different,I'm going to look at something
from a different perspective,and the funny thing is that, you
(21:02):
know, in the self-help andspirituality place there is
nothing new, like I have ashelves of books behind me that
they're all you know about asimilar concept written from a
different perspective, withdifferent life experiences, with
slightly different nomenclature, so that it can reach the
person who it's supposed toreach, right, and so I think
that there's probably not thatmuch difference in all of these
(21:23):
different approaches.
It's just that, you know, somehave bigger followings or
specific words that resonatewith specific people, and for me
, my approach was coming at itfrom a spiritual angle.
So I was studying, like WayneDyer, marianne Williamson, a
Course in Miracles, gabbyBernstein, really looking at
things that felt good to me atthe same point.
And if we were to look at I mean, even if you look at all
(21:44):
religions and just took thenames off of it.
There's so much overlap, right,everyone's saying something
quite similar, and so myapproach was to kind of
aggregate all of these differentspiritual lessons that I was
learning and help reallyinternalize those and use those
as a lens for my alcohol-freejourney.
But you're absolutely right,it's probably not that different
(22:05):
.
It's a different names,different, slightly different
things, and I'm not.
I'm certainly not saying thatI've discovered something new.
It's just that I put labels onit that resonated with me, or
chose labels and patterns thatresonated with me, and I think
that's you know, the best we cando in with me, and I think
that's you know the best we cando in um as we go through this
world.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, exactly, I love that and it's it sounds like
you, really just kind of I whatI like about what you're saying
too, is um that it feels likeyou were approaching it from a
very energetic experience.
So what was really?
you keep using the word whatfelt good to you, or the phrase
what feels good to me what feltgood to me at the time, and to
(22:44):
me that's a very energeticexperience, meaning you pick
something up and you start andyou're like, ooh, this, this,
yeah, ooh, it resonates, Iunderstand it.
Or like, ooh, absolutely not,like this is not for me and I
think that's just energy.
We can call it energy, you cancall it energy, you can call it
God, you can call it the HolySpirit, like a lot of things
(23:07):
right, but yeah, but it's thatenergetic experience, that sort
of your body, mind, like lettingyou know that this thing is for
or not for you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love thatfor you, and I think what that's
done is created multiplepathways lined with the same
stuff, really, truly, likeyou're saying, I mean, we can
pick up a whole bunch ofdifferent things, but really
what they're saying, it's sortof like, even if you read the
(23:29):
same thing, like the same book,even if I read like the big book
or something, or I pick up youknow a book that I consult with
sometimes and I read it againfor the 10th time, like, yeah,
you get something different,something different.
But what I think is alsoimportant is is it depends on
where you are.
You were already well,seemingly anyway.
(23:50):
I didn't know you, but yousound like you were already kind
of a person that was working ata relatively high level,
meaning meaning you had someawareness of yourself.
You're maybe a little bit older, you didn't have like a lot of
jackpots or things that werekind of cramming up your, your
life, and so you could receivethat information.
I think in a way, that was wasgood for you Like that's why it
(24:13):
worked, versus maybe some peoplelike maybe your stepmoms, like
that, really were kind of maybefurther along that.
We know that it's a linear,like a path of addiction.
Right Can be, it can be on alot of steps on that path, right
.
So, maybe they were like in afurther along path, much more
(24:33):
like physically dependent, likeemotionally, like there was a
like a further damage.
Yeah, absolutely they wouldn'thave been able to receive things
like that and like emotionally,like there was a like, a
further damage.
Yeah, absolutely Receive, theywouldn't have been able to
receive, um, things like that,and so maybe they needed a more
direct approach, like you needto do this like like, kind of
like maybe 12 step provides oruh or some other like coaching
model or something where it'svery, you know, scripted,
(24:55):
because yeah, a lot of structurefor sure, yeah, yeah, I think
that's true.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And here's the thing you know, shelby, I wasn't at
that place then.
Was I in the best place?
No, definitely not.
I wanted my life to change.
But who's to say that if Iwouldn't have kept on this path,
that I wouldn't have gottenthere?
You know, even though I waspretty stubborn, I'm like I'm
never going to get that bad Atsome point, you, you, there's,
there's a tipping point.
You never know what's going tohappen, especially with a
(25:21):
substance that is designed foryou to get that bad, Like that's
.
That is what it's designed for.
You know it's.
It's kind of.
It's difficult to say, but whatI can say is that, without a
doubt, that my life is betterand more miraculous and amazing,
wonderful things have happenedwith alcohol out of the picture,
even though I really fearedthat I would be a loser and a
(25:44):
social outcast and not able tohave fun and all of those things
that we all think of.
My life is just infinitelybetter in every single way, and
I think that's the, that's thebig end thing is, yeah, it was
hard and, you know, this pathworked for me and the result is
a better life, and I thinkthat's all any of us can hope
for.
So, when it comes to the work.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
You know that's what you always quote.
You know the work, what I callemotional sobriety you might use
that term, or maybe you don'tand when it comes to that like
and to me, that's where we allkind of get once it's been a
little bit of time.
You know that one to five yearrange where you really start to
open up and you're like, oh wow,like I feel really good, I'm
ready for more, I want to startthis business, or I want to do
(26:26):
this, or I want to have a baby,or whatever.
Whatever it is, as that'sstarting to like kind of bubble
up to the surface, what are thethings that you really, um, what
are the steps, tips, tools,tricks that you kind of put in
front of people, that you useyourself and then you put in
front of people as far as, like,what, how do we do this?
Like?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
How do you do the?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
work.
Yeah, you know, how I kind oflike to envision it is that when
we're drinking, we are likefloating in a pool of water with
a life vest on, so it feelslike we're swimming, but we're
not diving below the surface andwe're actually not learning the
skill of floating, because wehave this like device that's
keeping us safe you know quote,unquote safe and really all it's
(27:07):
doing is causing us to skim thesurface.
And if we were to float outinto the deep end and take that
life jacket off, we'd strugglefor a second right, because it's
scary and the water's deep andhow the heck do you swim without
this thing helping you?
And so there's this likeneeding to relearn new skills
that we maybe could have learnedwhen we were kids, but most of
(27:27):
us didn't, because most of us,you know, learned to swim the
entire time with a life jacket.
We were not taught emotionalregulation.
We weren't taught to embraceour emotions.
We weren't taught to feel orcommunicate about our emotions,
or that they were okay eventaught to feel or communicate
about our emotions, or that theywere okay even.
And so now we have to go backand do some work and kind of
like learn how to dog paddle,learn how to float, learn how to
(27:48):
swim, and for me, that is just,you know, understanding, first
of all, what are the basicemotions and what are the
emotions, like the secondary andtertiary emotions underneath of
them, that we're feeling andexperiencing, and how can we
just learn to communicate aboutthem with ourselves?
You know, the ultimate level isto be able to share that with
others and communicate withothers.
But could we just, when we'reexperiencing something that
(28:10):
feels overwhelming orinsurmountable or even
impermissible, be with that fora moment and say, okay, here's
what this emotion is, I'm goingto name it, I'm going to say I'm
feeling it out of, you know, 10out of 10 on a 10 scale or
whatever that is, and maybe justwrite about it and process it.
And for me, my, a lot of myprocess was centered around
journaling and just kind of selfcommunication, because I needed
(28:33):
to learn to talk about it withmyself first before I could
share it with others.
And the the act of being intune with your emotions, naming
them, sitting with them, talkingabout them to yourself and then
sharing those with others, isreally, you know, I think the
process that is is veryimportant for long-term
emotional sobriety is to be ableto deal with the things that we
(28:55):
were trying to control,manipulate or manage with
alcohol.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Right I?
I think what you're describingis becoming willing and
developing almost the skill, Iguess of being uncomfortable.
Yeah, yeah, I always say I feellike multiple times a week.
Now you know, most of life ispretty uncomfortable for most
people.
You know we have situations,you know at work or in the
(29:20):
public, or with our kids or ourfamilies or our spouse, whatever
.
You know our family and andit's uncomfortable you know we
don't like it.
So I think it's really it's soimportant to be able to learn
how to emotionally regulateyourself.
But you're right, it's not.
These are not.
These are the.
I guess they're called softskills.
Not these are the.
(29:43):
I guess they're called softskills.
I guess they are taught like ifyou're coming up you're
starting to learn them, like inschool and different things,
because you can't just like lashout at the teacher yeah, yeah,
you can't just hit yourclassmate.
I mean you can I guess, butyou're gonna get in trouble.
So sure you're being kind oftaught how to do that, at least
in our day, but they're maybeand I think it's somewhat better
now people are starting to putlanguage around.
(30:03):
Oh, yeah, yeah, like helpingpeople recognize, like wow, it
sounds like you're really.
You know, you're really angry,right, it looks like you're
really mad.
Yeah, kind of happening at ayounger age, but for many of us,
we didn't grow up in systemswhere that was like a norm?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
No, not at all, you're told.
You know, if you were angry,then it wasn't.
Let's talk about it.
It's like don't do that, go toyour room.
And so then anger became bad.
But the reality is, anger is anemotion.
It's a valid emotion.
We just weren't taught how todo it Right, you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Right and, like I just you know, somebody said
recently to me, frankly recently, is that all feelings are true.
You know, all of our feelingsare true and right to us and I
was like, wow, that really thattracks.
I was like, okay, they all arebecause they're ours in that
moment.
Now our reactions to those areour responses.
Whichever we choose to do withthat is our responsibility.
(30:54):
So if you are angry and you lashout at somebody, then you are
responsible for sort of makingamends for that or correcting
that situation.
But the feeling of being mad orsad or happy or or grief or
whatever is is they're all valid.
And if somebody else isn'texperiencing that same feeling
(31:14):
around around that samesituation, that's okay too, like
they don't have to.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, I think the real gift that I've given myself
and that everyone else canexperience through that is my
emotions used to be so much morevolatile and unmanageable and,
yeah, there's a lot ofuncomfortable situations.
Like you said, a lot of life isuncomfortable and awkward or
not convenient.
But I used to go like way offtrack when I would start to
(31:40):
experience an intense emotion orsomething was inconvenient and
now it's more like a little likedeviation and then back to
feeling okay and that feels somuch better not to have these
you know high and low swingsthat, frankly, I was creating
for myself sometimes, but to beable to let hard stuff happen
and then still feel mostly kindof in the neutral space, which
(32:02):
is just feel so much better.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So I love this.
So, basically, the this sort oftip is around learning how to
be a good emotional regulatorand you talked a lot about
naming the feeling, which I love.
Once we name it, we can kind ofput it outside of us.
It's not us, it's not yeah.
Me, yeah, my identity it's this, it's a feeling, it's just yeah
.
And then you talked aboutjournaling, which I think is
(32:26):
great too.
It's a great strategy for kindof recognizing patterns in
yourself, for recognizingfeelings and when they come up
sort of identifying like what,when this happened, then I had
this feeling, or then then thisthought and then this that helps
to um point you in thedirection of how to make the
changes in that.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
And so what's?
Speaker 1 (32:45):
another, what's just like one more thing that you,
that you do now or maybe youhelp your clients with, to
become more actualized.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah.
So I love to just give ajournaling prompt that I love to
use.
That helps me in those momentsbecause sometimes you get kind
of stuck and I hear from a lotof you know, I work with mostly
women like I don't know what tojournal, I feel silly, it feels
immature, I don't know where toget started.
And so I like to use thisprompt, especially if you're
feeling kind of impulsive andmaybe it's something, it's a
feeling that's causing you towant to drink.
(33:14):
But even if it's just like anintense emotion, I always offer
the journaling prompt wait, whatam I thinking?
And using a timer, going byyourself for 20 minutes, because
we know that 20 to 30 minutescan help dissipate this
sensation, the intensity of anemotion and then just writing at
the top of the paper what am Ithinking.
And you know, let's, let's sayyou had a fight with your
(33:36):
coworker, Tom, and you're justthinking well, tom's a piece of
you know what, and that's thethought in your head and it's
not mature and you're not proudof it.
But guess what?
That's the thought you'rehaving.
So what am I thinking?
And then going?
You maybe just download anddump everything Even it feels
adolescent and immature aboutTom and once you feel kind of
complete, they're going intowhen I think this thought, I
(33:57):
feel, and share the emotion withyourself that you feel and let
yourself journal about thatfeeling.
So when I, when I think that way, I feel this, and you know, I
like to use like a tool like I'msure you've used the emotion
wheel before to help name andexplain emotions a little more
deeply and again these are goingto feel like juvenile things,
like really I'm a, you know, I'm39, I'm a 39 year old woman.
(34:19):
I'm using this little wheel totry and explain my emotions and
I'm journaling about Tom likehe's the town gossip and I'm 13.
Like he's the town gossip andI'm 13.
Well, yes, that is what I needto do at this moment.
So that's what I will do.
And it's frustrating to have tokind of do some of these
juvenile activities and theydon't feel very sophisticated.
But let me tell you what youknow, shelby, they work.
It works to process in whateverway you know works for you.
(34:42):
And maybe you try journaling acouple of times and it doesn't
really do the trick.
But I think it's worth it togive yourself the opportunity to
explain and express and getsomething off your chest to
where you're not holding it inyour like internal filing system
trying to make sense of it, theyou know the the worst thing
that can happen is that you dumpit onto the page and then
(35:03):
you're not reeling about it inyour head, which I think is a
really freeing feeling.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, that's the worst thing that can happen,
right, yeah, and it can happenis is you're not thinking about
it as well?
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I love having those prompts that W A, I, t is.
So what am I thinking?
Uh, but similar to an activitythat I use the entire first
module of my course around thismaterial, eliminating negative
thinking patterns, and that oneof them is is sort of taking a
thought inventory.
That's kind of, yeah, similarso they can learn to recognize.
You know what are my negativethings, what?
(35:37):
are my negative thoughts andthen like what happens to bring
them on.
So is it the phone call fromthe boss?
And then immediately you'relike, oh um, I did something
wrong or I'm always a failure,or is it it the?
Is it the?
Is it the child that's givenyou?
You know, kind of pushing back?
You know what is it that makesyou go into that negative
thought and then being able toimpact that and change that in a
(36:00):
much, very subtle way, whichthen will change your emotions
about your feelings and thenyour behavior.
So it's such a positive andproductive experience.
Truly, it's just that none ofus really spend the time to do
it.
I don't know why we don't dosome of these super easy things.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, it's not as it's not as instant
gratification, but I I know youknow that it pays off.
If you can just, isn't itbetter to take that 20 minutes
to like, sit and process, ratherthan see about it and try and
replay a conversation for twohours Like it's just?
Speaker 1 (36:35):
So when you do it, when you get really good at this
and you start to give yourselfthose moments, you learn about
grace for yourself, like youlearn how to extend grace to
yourself.
And then you also learn thatlike wow, that like really bad
thing happened to me and Ididn't like implode yeah, I
didn't die, the world didn'tstop moving, like I actually
this terrible thing and feelinghappened and like everything
(36:59):
just kind of kept going.
Yeah, I was able to go to bedand wake up the next morning and
even though it's uncomfortableand I didn't like it and I was
sad or I cried.
You know I still did.
I went to bed and I got up.
You know we, just we were ableto keep going and the more
opportunities you have to dothat, the more like resilience
you build up.
You know exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yes, yeah, every time you tick that box, you, you,
you had made like a flex, likeyou flex the muscle and you're
building that muscle andeventually it's going to become
kind of close to second natureto do that for yourself.
Just take practice.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Totally agree with that.
Oh my gosh, Amanda.
This has been such a greatconversation.
I know everyone is going tolove it, and so where can they
find you if they want?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
to reach out.
For sure.
I've loved the conversation aswell.
If this resonated with you, I'mtypically hanging out on
Instagram.
I'm at Amanda Kuda and that's KU D A, or you can visit my
website, amandakudacom.
I have my book that came out acouple of years ago unbottled
potential breakup with alcoholand breakthrough to your best
life and I think that that wouldbe a really great resource for
(38:00):
anyone who's on this journey aswell.
Who liked this conversation?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Absolutely.
I'll make sure I link to thosethings in the show notes below
so that they can all find it.
And again, I just thank you somuch for your time and I hope
our paths cross again so too.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yes, thanks, shelby.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of
Confident Sober Women.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, hit the subscribe
button above so you won't missany upcoming episodes.
And, hey, if you really lovedit, leave me a review.
You can learn more about thesober freedom inner circle
membership atwwwshelbyjohncoachingcom.
(38:38):
Forward slash inner circle.
See you next time.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.