March 18, 2025 • 43 mins
In this powerful episode of the Confident Sober Women podcast, host Shelby John welcomes Louise Atthey, sobriety coach and team member at The Luckiest Club. With nearly 16 years of sobriety, Louise shares her journey from rock bottom to spiritual awakening and how surrendering to a higher power transformed her recovery.
What You'll Learn:
- Louise's pivotal moment driving into a ditch in 2009 that led her to AA
- How accepting spirituality despite initial resistance became her salvation
- The three pillars that saved Louise's life: sobriety, female connection, and prayer
- Why intellectual approaches to recovery often fail without spiritual surrender
- Practical ways to develop your own spiritual practice, even as a former atheist
Key Takeaways:
- The "spectrum" approach to addiction problems versus black-and-white thinking
- Why community support is essential for successful sobriety
- Finding hope through others' stories and experiences
- How spirituality provides relief from the burden of self-reliance
- Ways to overcome spiritual trauma or resistance to higher power concepts
Louise candidly discusses her transformation from "devout atheist" to someone who found peace through prayer, describing the moment she got on her knees and reluctantly asked for help. She explains how creating a concept of a loving, compassionate higher power allowed her to surrender control and find true freedom in recovery.
Both Shelby and Louise reflect on why they consider themselves "the luckiest" - gaining personal responsibility, humility, and spiritual connection that many others never experience.
Connect with Louise Atthey:
- Instagram: @louise_atthey
- Website: https://www.louiseatthey.com/
- Check out her newsletter and upcoming course
Resources Mentioned:
- The Luckiest Club
- Free Neurofeedback Guide: www.shelbyjohn.com
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shelby (00:09):
Hello and welcome to the Confident 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.
(00:30):
So we know we are no longeralone.
In this podcast, you will hearreal life talk about building
confidence and transforming yourlife beyond recovery.
So come on, let's talk.
Hey, it's me, shelby.
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Well, hey there, louise, thankyou so much for joining me today
for the Confident Sober Womenpodcast.
(02:19):
I'm so excited to have you hereand share you and your story
with my audience.
So I'm going to turn the micover to you.
Let you share a little bitstory with my audience.
So I'm going to turn the micover to you.
Let you share a little bit moreabout that story, and then
we're going to chat.
Louise (02:29):
Oh, thank you very much.
It was very kind of you toinvite me and always happy to
talk about sobriety right,especially as a woman.
So when I start my sobrietyshares, I always start off with
the incident the moment that Idrove my car into a ditch back
in 2009 and found myself stoodnext to it in absolute, abject
(02:52):
horror.
No idea why I would have goneinto the car nothing like that,
but absolutely torn apart by theconsequences that may have come
if I hadn't been so lucky as todrive it into the ditch right.
So I found myself in an AAmeeting.
I absolutely wasn't analcoholic.
I was adamant that this was notme, was not my life, was not
(03:15):
going to be my thing, and thenrealised that actually maybe it
might be, and slowly began tocome to terms with the fact that
my problem was a bit moresignificant and that actually
the idea of a problem kind ofexists on a spectrum.
Um, and it's that point ofbeginning my journey on
(03:35):
spectrums.
That kind of then lives with mein sobriety.
You know, the idea thatactually it's never really black
and white, zero to one, it'sall about the in-between.
And I really started to kind ofsit with the program, sit with
people, sit with myself and overthe last gosh getting on.
Now, for nearly 16 years, I'veslowly turned my life around,
(03:59):
made substantial changes.
I ended up leaving my husband.
I, I started a new life,becoming a single parent of two
teenagers, working full time andgrappling with all that life
threw at me, slowly starting tounpick.
Hang on a minute, how did I gethere?
What is it that I do?
(04:20):
Why do I do it this way?
Is this what I want to be doing?
And and just kind of turning itaround, and and now, this is
what I do.
I help people get sober, staysober.
I work for the luckiest club, Iwork for myself, I write a
newsletter, I put together acourse and it's it's all about
mainly women.
But anybody just acknowledgingthat actually this thing doesn't
(04:44):
serve you, this thing actuallydoes you harm, this thing hides
a lot of the stuff that we justdon't feel able to deal with.
But once we put it down, we getthe opportunity to kind of
really find out who we are andwhat we want to be doing with
our lives.
So, yeah, I'm always, alwayshappy to talk about sobriety.
Shelby (05:05):
It absolutely changed my life in all the ways wow, thank
you so much for sharing allthat in such a vulnerable way,
and I always like to say thatthat's how it works right when
we come together either twopeople or 20, you know and we
share parts of ourselves in ourstory, we spread the message of
hope, and that is such ablessing for everybody out there
(05:27):
who is, whether you've beentrying to get sober for a long
time or you've been sober for aweek or many, many years.
There are different times inour lives where we just really
need hope.
We need something to hold on to, we need to know that we can
get through it.
You know we need to speak toothers who have gone before us
and completely yeah, completelyI was very lucky.
Louise (05:49):
My very first meeting was a woman sharing and she'd
been sober for 10 years and shewas very well to do, very lovely
, very clean, the whole thingand it absolutely floored me and
it was that moment of justsitting in an appreciation
actually the term alcoholic isnot the image I've gone with and
(06:12):
it allowed me to much more openbecause I was pretty terrified.
You know, this, this thing was,was something that just
supported me, enabled me,encouraged me, it made me in
ways it had forged loads of myconnections with friends.
It's how I met my husband, thewhole thing.
I didn't understand how I couldpossibly exist in a life
(06:34):
without it and I didn't knowthat's what was going to be
suggested to me either.
I'm sure that if I'd known, ifI'd known that's what came with
going to an AA meeting, Iprobably wouldn't have gone.
So I'm really grateful that II'd known that's what came with
going to an AA meeting, Iprobably wouldn't have gone.
So I'm really grateful that Ididn't know that's where I was
going, grateful that it was awoman sharing and really
grateful that I was able to beopen to the fact that alcoholic
(06:58):
just meant a problem.
It didn't mean homeless male,dirty everything.
It was a problem and I sat inthat problem and went.
Well, dirty everything, it was aproblem and I sat in that
problem and went.
Well, actually, this is where Iam and these people I can talk
to.
The whole thing about being incommunity and seeing others.
You know, even at first, Ilooked at what they were doing
(07:19):
and I was like I don't want whatyou have.
I don't want this happy clappy,not drinking thing.
Actually, I began to realizethat I didn't want what you have
.
I don't want this happy clappy,not drinking thing.
Actually, I began to realizethat I didn't want where I was
and that these were the onlypeople really offering me an
alternative.
Shelby (07:36):
That's so true and I love how so often we are when we
want to make a big change orwhen we have a need, we show up
in spaces where that is, we'remet with exactly what it is,
that we're what we need orlooking for.
We don't know it at the time.
Like that's not a cognitive,like a conscious thought of like
oh, I hope there's a womanspeaking you know no we're just
(07:59):
met.
You know, that kind of like thespirit just gives us what we
need in those moments, and Icompletely that's just always
happening in the background andit's a beautiful thing.
What's what's really amazing iswhen we start to make the
connections.
That that's true, and when we,when we see it but then we like
know where that came from,that's like the higher level
evolution, I think, of aspiritual program, which is, you
(08:22):
know, pretty incredible.
But you're right, like I mean Ione of the things that I just
love so much about sobriety ingeneral.
I got sober in AI too.
Not everybody does and that'sfine.
Like there's lots of ways to doit.
But no matter what way you'redoing it, without a community
it's probably going to be notimpossible, but very challenging
(08:43):
.
Going to be not impossible, butvery challenging.
So if it's whether it's, youknow, an online sober program or
like you're reading a book oryou're in a luckiest club or you
go to AA, whatever it is, thereason why those people, those
communities, exist and they'rein those formats is because we
know that's what works.
We know when people cometogether and share the message
of hope and then they give whatthey have to others.
(09:06):
They show others what they have, that other people will want
that right, because they don't.
Like you said, we don't evenknow what we wanted or what we
think.
We don't even know what'spossible.
Louise (09:18):
You know when you're living in active addiction.
Shelby (09:19):
You just think that that's the way you know.
Like this is the way, like.
Like this is how it is, and alot of times we've seen that in
our own lives, either growing upor around us, that we just like
this is what everyone's doing,this is how life is as an adult
and when, in fact, that is justso, not true absolutely.
Louise (09:34):
It feels like the largest pair of blinkers that
you could possibly imagine andthat it filters everything
through them as well.
So all the messages we get fromsociety, or the messages we get
from just even, you know,watching films and tv and
whatever we're reading orlistening to, everything seems
to come through filters thatkind of go you want to be
drinking in this world.
The only way of doing thisworld is with drinking.
(09:57):
You know, I was adamant that myglass of wine was just a reward
for being a grown-up and beingan adult, and this is how we,
how we did it, and the idea oftaking away all those structures
was just devastating, reallydevastating level is because of
(10:24):
pain, because most of life isvery uncomfortable, and I think
one of the great misnomers ofour, of our modern society is
that is that there are otherpeople or places or spaces where
it's not true.
Shelby (10:30):
Where that's not true, and I don't, I just don't think
there are.
Most of life is veryuncomfortable, and so the deal
is to be an evolved human adultyou have to get really
comfortable with beinguncomfortable, for a lot of your
life now.
That doesn't mean there isn'tjoy and wonderful moments and
these golden like times, youknow, but they're usually
(10:52):
fleeting, they don't last superlong and a lot of it is really
uncomfortable, and so thosefeelings of discomfort is why we
, why we drink and use, becausewe don't want to have that.
Nobody really wants that, youknow so then, we come to.
We come to whatever we come to,whether we use quitlet or a web
program or aaa and we get soberand we make this decision every
(11:13):
single day that we're gonna staysober and we want to be sober
more than we want to be drunk.
And then over time we build uptime and we start to change and
we realize like, oh okay, Iactually can live like I can
survive.
It might be reallyuncomfortable for the first year
is just usually not that great.
Right, there's a lot of thingsyeah but then you start to
realize like, oh okay, like I'mstill here, like I'm alive, I
(11:37):
could go to work, I can go towake up, I can take care of my
kids.
You know, whatever is happeningin your life now, that doesn't
mean that's devoid of problems.
Usually we do create quite abit of problems in our active
addiction.
But we get to, like, make thosechanges and after some period
of time I usually think it'safter that first year where we
have a great awakening, wherethere's this big clarity, like
(11:58):
our brains come online again andwe're like, oh wow, like I want
more, like I want, like I wantmore, like I want to grow, I
want to do more step work, or Iwant to do therapy, or I want to
do this.
Like we start to really cravelike more development and change
.
I don't know if you have thatexperience.
Louise (12:15):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, that whole point of I didn't get
sober just to be in this.
Actually, if I'm going to besober, there's going to be so
much more that I can do.
There's so many different waysthat I can be and actually what
are those going to be?
And being open, then, ratherthan kind of being, you know,
there's been this closed path tome that this is how the future
plays out.
(12:35):
This is the way you do your job, this is the way you do your
marriage, this is the way you doyour parenting, this is the way
you are as a person.
And then suddenly putting downalcohol and realizing that
actually, if I'm not drinkingwith these, then how do I do
these things and how differentlycan I do these things and how
can I be me in all of them?
(12:56):
You know I was very aware thatI was playing roles when I was
drinking.
I was being the wife and themother and the person in my job.
And actually learning how to beme and starting to be me in all
of those things is really how Ithen, kind of like, find myself
where I am now, just being meand in that space of me, being
(13:22):
vulnerable in it and kind ofgoing.
Well, actually, this thing isgoing to be hard and you know.
You talked about the discomfortsharing that discomfort,
talking about it in meetings, incommunity, with other people
and letting them see that youcan be uncomfortable and sober
and that nothing ends in thatspace.
But you grow through it insteadand it becomes something that
(13:47):
actually lifts you and drivesyou, rather than the thing that
you're avoiding.
Shelby (13:53):
I totally agree with that.
I mean and this has been on myheart and mind a lot and you
work for the luckiest club,laura McGowan's program, which I
think is so funny.
But I've said it several timesrecently, and I had a very wise
woman who happened to be mysecond sponsor.
She was just a very strong,wise woman but she used to share
constantly that like she wishedeverybody would get drunk and
(14:15):
lose everything so they can cometo AA.
And when I was younger, for along time I didn't really
understand that.
And then, as I got older and itgrew in my own sobriety, when I
did my own trauma work, when Ibuilt my own therapy practice
and coaching program and all ofthese things, I started to
realize more and more like themore well, like the more evolved
I became and I don't believethat we're ever done right Until
(14:38):
we die I realized just howunwell you know so many are,
like most people in the world,and it's not their fault
necessarily.
I think some people just don'tknow.
They don't know well A, if youdon't have a substance abuse
problem that takes you down tothe pits of hell where you need
to get help, you don't have thebenefit of like, oh, we're the
(15:00):
luckiest we get to do this, butthen you know you might have
other things that go on thatsend you into the therapy room
or wherever, where you're like,oh okay, now I, now I know, I
feel the joy that comes fromthat and the blessing I can feel
, the spiritual workings aroundme.
But if you don't, but if youdon't, if you're not clued into
that, a lot of people just don'tknow and then they just live
(15:22):
very unwell, you know.
Louise (15:24):
Yeah, and the beauty of doing it in community which
again comes from the addictivespace, right, because that
community is driven by the needto do it together.
It really lifts people.
It does provide a light.
It does provide that sprinklingof hope when actually we didn't
feel there was any.
(15:44):
You know, I can.
I can still remember cominghome from meeting and suddenly
being lifted with hope in a wayI'd never, ever felt in my
entire life and it it's such alight, such a light and it
becomes that whole thing with,with sobriety.
It doesn't have to be about thestick anymore, it's just, you
know, it's that thing with stickand carrot.
(16:06):
I think it's getting better atbeing much more carrot based and
much more about hope and lightand opportunity.
Rather than that you don't wantto be where the stick is and
you don't want to loseeverything.
You don't want to have to be ina, in a place of complete rock
bottom.
Actually, at any point alongthe line you can turn around and
(16:26):
go.
Do you know what?
Enough is enough actually.
I'm going to stop here.
I'm going to, I'm going tothank you all for your
experience of showing me whathappens in between here and the
losing everything and rockbottom place and I'm going to
stop and I'm going to startgoing the other way now with
this.
This is going to be enough forme, and I think one of the
things I've loved about thesober spaces that have been
(16:50):
coming up over.
I don't know how it is youprobably much more aware of the
difference, but when we bothstarted, it was just AA.
There was AA.
It was all about rock bottoms.
It wasn't about consideringwhether you might want more from
your life, but it's about, well, have you hit that point, you
know, and when we still arefinding a lot of people who have
(17:11):
to hit that point, but we'realso finding a lot more people
who are kind of going.
Actually, do you know what?
I'm beginning to realize thatthis isn't working for me and
I'm beginning to see that thereis more that I could be doing
with my life and my experienceand my understanding of myself
if I stop drinking.
I'm I'm constantly comingacross women who've been doing a
(17:32):
lot of work, but it's only whenthey then stop drinking that
they kind of go oh, it's now allcoming together.
All these things I've tried andall these bits did play a part,
but only when I stoppeddrinking did I suddenly realize
what it is I need to be doing?
Shelby (17:52):
I totally agree with that.
You said so much there and theone thing that just came to my
mind and I'm going to ask you aquestion, it's kind of a loaded,
but I feel like one thingthat's really also become
increasingly more bothersome forme, as I guess the longer I've
been around or older I am, I'mnot sure it's like why some
people like just can't get itand it's just hurts my heart.
(18:15):
So I'm, since I'm a clinician,I do see this in my private
practice a lot and it's come upa little bit in the last six to
eight months or so specificallyhere, and it's it's kind of
heartbreaking for me.
I just I've had my own justpersonal struggle with like, why
can't you, why can't you getthis Like?
And especially people who oncebecause before we said you know
it's not really their fault, butonce you are educated on a
(18:38):
thing like okay, somebody says,oh, you have a problem with
alcohol or you land in an AAmeeting or you get a DUI like,
once you've become educated onlike oh, I, you know this is a
problematic in my life.
Now you know, you do know, andso it is your responsibility to
take control right.
So, like you are now educatedand you're a person that cannot
drink or use and so it's yourresponsibility.
(19:00):
But, like I guess I guess whatthe question is and again, it's
not a judgment or anything, it'sjust more just I'm just curious
, like why do you think somepeople, despite that, like
chronic relapse, or people whocome around they've seen all the
things they've been educated,like why can't they get it?
Louise (19:15):
It's the old thinking thing.
For me it's watching peoplestill trying to do it all in
their head.
You know and've, I knew and youand I have probably watched
lots of people particularly cometo come into aa meetings.
I haven't necessarily seen itso much online, because you
don't necessarily see what goeson outside of the room online,
but in aa meetings you you seepeople coming and and
(19:38):
intellectually fighting thething, intellectually
disconnecting themselves fromthis piece, and they stay in
their head with it.
And for me it was very muchabout kind of really beginning
to sit with acceptance that thisis my thing and actually what
(20:02):
is it I'm going to do now?
How am I going to save myself?
And, to be honest, I ended updoing the thing I thought I
would never do, which wasgetting down on my knees and
praying.
So for me there's always aspiritual element of surrender,
not necessarily defeat, becausedefeat is kind of giving up and
(20:23):
lying back and kind of goingwell, I don't know what I'm
doing now, but it's surrenderingto an alternative way.
So, rather than kind of stayingin the thinking and the
existing patterns, it's right.
Actually, how else could I dothis piece?
How else can I do my life?
How can I make these changes soit no longer is this thing that
just exists and I only ever seeit in my head dropping into the
(20:46):
body, beginning to feel,allowing that, no longer doing
anything.
That is logical, but startingto tap into the emotional or
spiritual side has been key forme and I, when I work with
people, I quite often, quiteoften, will open that as a as a
way to to move forward andsomething to be willing to look
(21:09):
at.
Shelby (21:11):
I agree, and I think it is a spiritual lack.
Right, there's like um, you'reright, we try to intellectualize
, we try to rationalize, we tryto use, to use our own will, we
try to use ourselves.
And I'm not saying we're notsmart, most of us are very smart
and most of us are very wellresourced.
We have a lot of good thingsabout us, but there are some
(21:32):
things that we just can'tovercome by ourselves, like
you're saying, and so we try todo that or use our own will, and
then continuously andrepeatedly it doesn't work.
But I just, I just, I justsometimes I just want to be like
ah, anyway.
So you mentioned like you helppeople to see that and to start
to put that into your life.
I would love to hear, like, howyou do that, like what does
(21:53):
that look like for you, forpeople who are maybe in that
space where they don't have aregular spiritual program?
Maybe they were either raisedwith something that they don't
agree with anymore or gave themsome spiritual trauma, or maybe
they've just never had it.
How do you start to insert thisin their life?
Louise (22:09):
So, as always and with everything that is sobriety, it
begins with the sharing of myown experience.
Right, and so when I first wentto AA and I was like huh,
there's a program, but I'm notdoing that, you have to talk to
women.
Well, I'm not doing that.
Most of the women I know can'tdrink anyway.
And then it was this, god, Iwas like, right, certainly not
going there.
I would have described myselfas a devout atheist.
(22:31):
When I first turned up in therooms, absolutely adamant that
that was not going to happen,stopped drinking, struggled.
The whole thing was a nightmare.
It's like running, getting upin the middle of a roller
coaster every morning, strappedin, going through the day
desperate to get back to bedwithout a drink, crawling back
to bed at the end of the day andnotching up another day on what
(22:54):
felt like a prison wall.
And it went on.
I don't really know how much.
I didn't keep a diary oranything at the time, but there
was one night where I wassuddenly alone.
My husband had gone to bed andthere was half a bottle of wine
out in the kitchen and it sangto me.
I mean, really sang.
It pulled every single part ofmy being over towards it.
(23:16):
Louise, just come over here,have a sniff, it will take the
edge off.
You're having a hard time,tough time.
Come here, my love.
Come here, my love, let me help, let me help.
And as I find myself leaninginto it, I suddenly saw at the
bottom of that bottle a dirty,slimy, smelly creature, all
whiny and nasty, a bit likeGollum out of Lord of the Rings,
(23:38):
going come here, my pretty.
And I just kind of like jumpedback in in absolute horror
because I knew if I, if I drank.
That's where I was going and Itexted somebody.
You know how people give youtheir phone number and you're
like don't give me your phonenumber, I'm not going to use
your phone number.
Why would I use your phonenumber?
This woman, sam, had given meher phone number.
(23:58):
I'd like okay, sam, I nearlydrank, what do I do?
And she said, louise, you needto pray.
And I said, no, I'm serious,I'm serious, I nearly drank,
what do I do?
And she just texted me back incapital letters get down on your
knees and say the serenityprayer.
And I, I didn't know what elseto do.
Right, and it's that wholepoint, shelby of just.
(24:19):
I was frozen in my own thinking,frozen in my inability to have
any kind of control over thisthing, because I had no control
over it.
And I finally really saw thatand I can still remember my
first getting down on my kneesin my room, sat looking at the
(24:39):
wall, going well, there's lotsof swear words that would come
with my usual share of this.
I don't believe in you, but II'm terrified and you need to
turn up because, because this isgoing to kill me and I don't
want to die, and I said theserenity prayer out loud.
(25:00):
I got up and I got into bed andthe next morning I got up and I
wasn't on the roller coasteranymore.
It was slower, it was still.
I got back down on my knees.
I had the same conversation.
You know, I really want to getthis.
I'm being told I need to prayto you and being told I need to
pray to you, I absolutely don'tbelieve in you, but if you start
(25:23):
turning up, I will start tobelieve in you.
Here's the deal.
And God started to turn up.
The difficult things that hadbeen kind of feeling like they
were coming like some kind oftrain crash in all directions.
They just suddenly all stopped,just that little bit away from
(25:44):
me and I kind of got to dealwith them all very slowly.
There was a new person at workand he, he got a new job.
There was a bill that neededpaying, a check came, I needed
to talk to somebody aboutsomething.
They turned up.
Little by little all thosethings started to change and I
(26:05):
started to kind of go well,maybe there's something in this
and I had, and I and I had theconversation with myself what is
it that's stopping me frombelieving?
How about I put that down?
How about I look at my head andI say, right head, hang on a
minute.
I want to be open to this.
(26:26):
I want to understand more aboutwhat history is stopping me
from thinking that prayer isgoing to help and how can I
start doing more of that, ofthat?
So it's understanding thatmindset piece and acknowledging
(26:47):
that religion is the issue,rather than a spiritual being.
If I can put religion down, whatmight come?
What would I want from a god ofmy understanding?
How would I want my god tobehave?
How would I want my God tosupport me?
I expect my God to be a loving,generous, compassionate God who
doesn't hold my mistakesagainst me when I sit and learn
(27:10):
how to accept myself.
It's so much easier to do thatwhen I accept that I've been
chosen to be me as I am, ratherthan been here to be somebody
else.
So, just starting to kind ofpractice those conversations,
what does open and willing looklike?
(27:31):
If I'm going to be open andwilling, and how can I create a
space?
And once we create a space,like my god turned up.
It's amazing how many timesthat happens for people.
It's amazing how many timespeople come back to me and go
okay, so this really bizarrething happened, you know, and we
both sit there and shrug ourshoulders and go well, of course
(27:52):
it did.
Of course it did because youbecame willing to see it and
willing to allow it and thenwilling to accept it.
Right, so the being worthy ofI'm going to be worthy of my
god's love.
I'm going to be worthy ofattracting better things.
I'm going to be worthy of beingable to deal with some of the
stuff that's going I'm going tolearn how to ask for help from
(28:15):
this god, that I may notnecessarily believe in all the
practices that we use to getsober, allowing it to then build
into the rest of our lives andsupport and hold and embrace in
that.
Every single decision I've madesince I've got sober has
involved sitting with my god andkind of going right.
(28:37):
What am I going to do here then?
And inviting signs and gettingthe signs leaving my husband,
leaving my job, all those reallyhuge life choices, much like,
okay, god, am I really giving upalcohol?
Yes, you are.
Here's why.
Here are the people that youneed to hear, here are the
(29:00):
stories you need to hear to tellyou why you need to give up,
and here are the people who aregoing to help you.
That's how it started, and thenit kind of just ballooned into
everything I do and, yeah, I, Iwouldn't be without it and I had
.
I had to get to that point ofbeing absolutely emotionally
(29:20):
broken and unable to see how Icould do anything else before I
kind of surrendered and wentokay, show me how.
Shelby (29:30):
Yeah, I think that that word surrender is so powerful
and it's not something that mostof us really want to embrace,
right, we want, like I saidbefore, we want to use our own
will, we want to be in charge ofourselves, and as much as we
are, in many ways we do havefree will.
You know, there are times inour lives when we have to
(29:52):
realize that we are.
We cannot do it.
You know, we cannot do this onour own, and so something else
needs to be able to come in andhelp us.
And I like how you said you knowyou were, you know, not like a
card carrying you know Christianor Bible thumper or any of that
like you were really kind of anatheist, you know, not a
believer, and you said toyourself what are the kinds of
(30:12):
things, qualities I would wantin a God?
If there was, I love that.
And so you kind of were likelet's put that on Like I would
want understanding, I would wantcompassion, I would want love
and and support and embrace.
You know, like you can start tothink of the qualities of maybe
other people in your life thathave been the things that you
liked or needed and then putthat onto that being, which to
(30:34):
me, is like a really cool image,right.
It's like almost like if you hada poster board and you could
kind of just like put the wordsyeah, completely and then just,
and then just use that as asthis, um, conception of this,
you know, this higher power,this being outside of yourself,
because really, um, one of thethings, the sad fact of adulting
, honestly, is, like, you know,we no one's gonna come and say,
(30:57):
you know, we have to do itourselves, right, like it's
between between us and our, ourGod, to like do anything to make
ourselves happy, to get thingsdone.
Yes, of course many people helpus, but no husband, no kid, no
mom, no, any of that is gonnacan do those things for us.
You know we have to end updoing.
We have to do them forourselves.
Yeah, and it's when you, withthe support of God, because
(31:20):
otherwise, because peopledisappoint right, humans
disappoint everyone your mom,your husband, your kids, your
employer they all willdisappoint you at some point.
And if that is true, if humansdisappoint is true, then that
means eventually you'll get tothe bottom, where you're the
only thing left.
And then what happens when youdisappoint yourself?
Where do you go then?
Louise (31:40):
And that point around free will as well right that
whole thing about being sat insobriety meetings going well,
when I've been in my way.
This is where we got to right.
Everything that I've ever donemy way needed alcohol or was
fueled by alcohol had thatrelationship with alcohol.
If I'm going to do it in a waythat doesn't lead to alcohol,
(32:02):
then I can't do it my wayanymore.
I need to find a new way.
And where do you go for a newway other than okay, well, let's
see what comes when I go.
God, I'm giving you the chanceto turn up, ship up and show me
how to do this.
And the evidence throughout mylife has been overwhelming since
(32:24):
I got to that point.
And it just, it just blows meaway that the things I found in
that you know those those earlydays in AA when I said, but I
don't think I'm going to getdrinking because I'm not really
an alcoholic, you know, I'm notgoing to talk to women because I
don't really trust them, andthen I'm not, I'm not going to
pray and the three things thatsaved my life were stopping
(32:45):
drinking, talking to women,learning how to love women,
because I am one and I wasavoiding loving myself by
avoiding other women and thenpraying to God of my
understanding and those are thefundamental points that I live
with now is learning to be me.
I needed to put down alcoholand I needed God to support me,
(33:09):
and doing all those thingstogether is how I do it all.
Now I wouldn't be here doingthis with you, I wouldn't be at
the Luckiest Club, I wouldn'thave left my husband All these
things that just wouldn't havehappened if I hadn't kind of
gone.
Ok.
Shelby (33:30):
God, help me find me and help me find what's right for
me to stay sober.
And I think also that the thepainful parts of of the reality,
of kind of looking at ourselves, the painful parts of like
doing the personalresponsibility work like the
three fingers pointing back atourselves, right, yeah.
Called to do constantly, whichis why I also think we are the
luckiest right, where morepeople in the world had that.
(33:52):
We would be living in acompletely different society If
people had personalresponsibility and the humility
that we get to have because ofthat.
That painful part is not realamenable to like.
Um, oh, like, I really want tolike, look at my thinking
patterns and like, oh, I reallywant to go to my partner and say
(34:14):
you know, I really shouldn'thave spoken to you that way.
You know, I really want toapologize and make amends.
For my part, I think that's nota thing.
That's not that comes naturalto us, for humans, to humans,
it's not, but that is a.
That is a thing that comes tous when we are connected with
something that's outside ofourselves.
And again, it doesn't have tobe any kind of religious God,
(34:37):
but it's a concept of we are notthe whole center, we are not,
you know, even if there isn't aGod and I always say to like, so
what if there isn't?
Okay, fine, you do these things.
You say, oh, I'm going to getdown on my knees, like, and like
what if there isn't like?
Cool, then you got everythingand you lost nothing.
Cool, right, yeah yeah and so tome it's kind of like so what do
(34:58):
you have to lose?
So you said you had a privatemoment in your home where you
got on your knees or you quietlyprayed in your car, or, like
you to yourself, you have thisspiritual program that you are
building.
Like so, like like.
To me.
I don't understand any um anycon to that you know yeah what
(35:22):
is the con?
Louise (35:23):
absolutely, absolutely.
I had no idea.
When people say you know you'renot in charge of you.
Shelby (35:28):
Is that the con?
I'm really the reality, if youlook around, you're actually not
in charge of you anyway.
Louise (35:33):
Anyway, right anyway, yeah, I, I find, you know, I
remember lots of conversationswith people that I'm I'd had
before I stopped drinking aboutthings that really hurt me, that
I carried particularly loads ofanger around some stuff in my
past and they said you know, youjust need to let it go.
And this whole concept ofletting go, I'd be like, well,
(35:54):
how do you just, how do you letgo of something?
And it then just sits there,whereas when I started kind of
going, okay, well, let go, letGod.
I could give it to God.
I could kind of go okay, Ican't carry this thing anymore.
You need to carry this thingfor me.
I can't be responsible forthose people anymore.
You need to be responsible forme.
I want my kids to have this asa life that they don't have.
(36:20):
But tell you what, given that Itrust you with mine, I'm going
to trust you with that right.
It's so much easier to let gowhen you've got somebody to give
it over to, rather than justput it into an ether and hope
that it goes somewhere.
It's like, actually I don'tneed to do that anymore because
I can just go.
Here's my god box, here's mystuff, it's all over there, it's
(36:43):
all being looked after.
I don't need to think about it.
All I need to do is stay soberevery day, do the things that
I'm called to do every day,which is help be the people who
reach out to me or write mynewsletter or do this course.
That blows my mind, and and itjust keeps coming.
It just keeps coming and it, itworks, so why wouldn't I just
carry on doing that?
Shelby (37:07):
Yeah, it does, it works.
And again, I don't, I don't getthe resistance.
Sometimes I understand itemotionally because, you know,
especially for people who havespiritual trauma, which is a
very real thing, and I get thatcompletely have a history of
that which, for me, I didn'teven understand what that was,
and probably until 10 years agowhen I saw it here in my room
for the first time and I waslike, oh okay, now I understand.
(37:28):
But the other than that, likethere's really no, there's no
con to it, there's nodisadvantage, you know, for
having a connection withsomething you know the only
thing it does is is releases youfrom the bondage of self.
It's sort of the same thing aswhen we get sober, when we
decide to get sober, and everysingle day we make that decision
(37:50):
, you know, we're releasing thechains to self right and we're
saying, yeah, oh, okay, I'maccepting the fact that and
surrendering to the fact thatI'm not a person who can use
substances properly, whateverthat is, even if there is such a
thing you know, and so yeah,it's just sort of just like
another step of that, like thenI'm accepting and so and saying
(38:13):
that I'm the kind of person thatwould like to welcome the help
from the universe and fromspirit and from nature and from
God in my life and like cool,like I bet it'll be easier and
there's so much humility in thatthere is.
Louise (38:30):
There is, and it's beautiful being part of a world
now where people are able to puttheir bits forward.
I get a lot of PixieLighthorses reading.
She's very much in the divineand universe space and it's been
great to be able to connectwith that and not feel that it's
going to be done my way.
That whole piece of kind ofgoing well, mine's, mine, right,
(38:51):
yours can be yours, we can alldo the bit we need.
The trauma piece I I find hasbeen really hard for me to
experience, which is mostlythrough the luckiest club and
really appreciating howincredibly difficult, painful,
traumatic some of that has been,and trying to just kind of go
(39:14):
well, my thing still sits overhere.
It's still very different tothat and I'm still in that space
of trying to align the two.
But I have to put it downbecause it's too big for me, too
big an experience that I don'thave and I kind of only can only
bring it back to myself andkind of go well, this has been
(39:36):
what's working for me and how Ihave invited my higher power, my
faith, my god in, and I'mreally sorry that has been your
experience of it, but that ismuch more about religion and
faith, and for me it's keepingthat distinct clarity between
(39:59):
the two it is the easier, softerway too.
Shelby (40:03):
I always say that you know.
I mean, I think, generallyspeaking, we are a kind of
people who want to make thingsharder for ourselves.
You know, we would never say itthat way, but we tend to make
decisions sometimes, and um,choices repeatedly that make
things harder for ourselves.
And so if we want to be sobermore than we want to be drunk,
that's a huge first step.
(40:23):
And then if we want to be sobermore than we want to be
dysfunctional.
That's another big, huge stepthat we never stopped working on
, ever in the rest of our life.
You know, I was actually justtalking.
My oldest daughter is 21.
She's in college.
Uh, two of my girls are incollege and like, uh, she called
last night and she was um intear like she was crying about
she, she's a nanny for herfamily and she's like I think I
(40:46):
just lost my job but they, thegrandmother was coming to live
with.
It was kind of everythinghappened very quickly it wasn't
about her, which was great, likeit wasn't.
Yeah, I heard it was justcircumstantial and um, and she's
boohoo and I and I feelterrible.
You know it's very hard.
I support her, validated herfeelings, we listened and talked
and I was sad with her andcried and then she said you know
(41:06):
that's not fair.
And I'm like it's not.
You know, it's definitely it'snot, it's not fair.
And now her whole schedule is amess, her financial
responsibilities are in jeopardy, like there's a lot of stuff
you know and it's you kind ofjust want to be able to wallow
around in your in your mess,right and yeah you know, take
tonight, let yourself feel thefeelings, be sad about it.
I said, get up tomorrow.
And you know, you get to schooland you get to your classes and
(41:28):
you and you do the next rightthing and you say to yourself,
what is the next thing I need todo to, like, take care of
myself?
What's the next thing I need todo for my financial
responsibilities?
You know, um, and she justtexted me this morning and I
said how are you doing?
And she said I'm just sodepressed.
You know, I'm depressed andit's not fair.
And I said it's not.
You know, um, but you get todecide.
(41:49):
You get to decide and thosepeople who decide to choose um
to stay there is a limit to ourown self-pity right.
And if there's people who don'tchoose to decide that there's a
limit to that and they end andsay, okay, what is the next
right thing?
They get stuck, you know, andthey're not well.
(42:11):
So, the blessing is is it's upto us Every single day we get to
decide that.
Thank you so much, Lise, foryour time and and for this
incredible conversation.
I feel like it could go onforever.
I really appreciate you andyour work, and where do you like
people to kind of connect withyou if they want to reach out?
Where can they find you?
Louise (42:29):
so instagram is probably best.
I have a.
I have links there to my substack and my course will be
coming up on there soon.
I try and do a reel every weekto remind people to take a pause
and to stop on their Sundaysand just to allow for a moment
the world to kind of stop takingthem with it and leave it all
(42:49):
out there.
So, yeah, that would be thebest.
Shelby (42:51):
What is your Instagram handle?
Louise (42:53):
It's Louise underscore Athe, which is A-T-T-H-E-Y.
Shelby (42:57):
Perfect, I'll make sure I linked that in the show notes
below.
And again, thank you so muchfor your time and I really
appreciate it.
Louise (43:04):
It's all right, it's good to see you.
Thank you, shelby.
Shelby (43:11):
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.
(43:31):
Forward slash inner circle.
See you next time.
Hello and welcome to the Confident 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
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Well, hey there, louise, thankyou so much for joining me today
for the Confident Sober Womenpodcast.
(02:19):
I'm so excited to have you hereand share you and your story
with my audience.
So I'm going to turn the micover to you.
Let you share a little bitstory with my audience.
So I'm going to turn the micover to you.
Let you share a little bit moreabout that story, and then
we're going to chat.
Louise (02:29):
Oh, thank you very much.
It was very kind of you toinvite me and always happy to
talk about sobriety right,especially as a woman.
So when I start my sobrietyshares, I always start off with
the incident the moment that Idrove my car into a ditch back
in 2009 and found myself stoodnext to it in absolute, abject
(02:52):
horror.
No idea why I would have goneinto the car nothing like that,
but absolutely torn apart by theconsequences that may have come
if I hadn't been so lucky as todrive it into the ditch right.
So I found myself in an AAmeeting.
I absolutely wasn't analcoholic.
I was adamant that this was notme, was not my life, was not
(03:15):
going to be my thing, and thenrealised that actually maybe it
might be, and slowly began tocome to terms with the fact that
my problem was a bit moresignificant and that actually
the idea of a problem kind ofexists on a spectrum.
Um, and it's that point ofbeginning my journey on
(03:35):
spectrums.
That kind of then lives with mein sobriety.
You know, the idea thatactually it's never really black
and white, zero to one, it'sall about the in-between.
And I really started to kind ofsit with the program, sit with
people, sit with myself and overthe last gosh getting on.
Now, for nearly 16 years, I'veslowly turned my life around,
(03:59):
made substantial changes.
I ended up leaving my husband.
I, I started a new life,becoming a single parent of two
teenagers, working full time andgrappling with all that life
threw at me, slowly starting tounpick.
Hang on a minute, how did I gethere?
What is it that I do?
(04:20):
Why do I do it this way?
Is this what I want to be doing?
And and just kind of turning itaround, and and now, this is
what I do.
I help people get sober, staysober.
I work for the luckiest club, Iwork for myself, I write a
newsletter, I put together acourse and it's it's all about
mainly women.
But anybody just acknowledgingthat actually this thing doesn't
(04:44):
serve you, this thing actuallydoes you harm, this thing hides
a lot of the stuff that we justdon't feel able to deal with.
But once we put it down, we getthe opportunity to kind of
really find out who we are andwhat we want to be doing with
our lives.
So, yeah, I'm always, alwayshappy to talk about sobriety.
Shelby (05:05):
It absolutely changed my life in all the ways wow, thank
you so much for sharing allthat in such a vulnerable way,
and I always like to say thatthat's how it works right when
we come together either twopeople or 20, you know and we
share parts of ourselves in ourstory, we spread the message of
hope, and that is such ablessing for everybody out there
(05:27):
who is, whether you've beentrying to get sober for a long
time or you've been sober for aweek or many, many years.
There are different times inour lives where we just really
need hope.
We need something to hold on to, we need to know that we can
get through it.
You know we need to speak toothers who have gone before us
and completely yeah, completelyI was very lucky.
Louise (05:49):
My very first meeting was a woman sharing and she'd
been sober for 10 years and shewas very well to do, very lovely
, very clean, the whole thingand it absolutely floored me and
it was that moment of justsitting in an appreciation
actually the term alcoholic isnot the image I've gone with and
(06:12):
it allowed me to much more openbecause I was pretty terrified.
You know, this, this thing was,was something that just
supported me, enabled me,encouraged me, it made me in
ways it had forged loads of myconnections with friends.
It's how I met my husband, thewhole thing.
I didn't understand how I couldpossibly exist in a life
(06:34):
without it and I didn't knowthat's what was going to be
suggested to me either.
I'm sure that if I'd known, ifI'd known that's what came with
going to an AA meeting, Iprobably wouldn't have gone.
So I'm really grateful that II'd known that's what came with
going to an AA meeting, Iprobably wouldn't have gone.
So I'm really grateful that Ididn't know that's where I was
going, grateful that it was awoman sharing and really
grateful that I was able to beopen to the fact that alcoholic
(06:58):
just meant a problem.
It didn't mean homeless male,dirty everything.
It was a problem and I sat inthat problem and went.
Well, dirty everything, it was aproblem and I sat in that
problem and went.
Well, actually, this is where Iam and these people I can talk
to.
The whole thing about being incommunity and seeing others.
You know, even at first, Ilooked at what they were doing
(07:19):
and I was like I don't want whatyou have.
I don't want this happy clappy,not drinking thing.
Actually, I began to realizethat I didn't want what you have
.
I don't want this happy clappy,not drinking thing.
Actually, I began to realizethat I didn't want where I was
and that these were the onlypeople really offering me an
alternative.
Shelby (07:36):
That's so true and I love how so often we are when we
want to make a big change orwhen we have a need, we show up
in spaces where that is, we'remet with exactly what it is,
that we're what we need orlooking for.
We don't know it at the time.
Like that's not a cognitive,like a conscious thought of like
oh, I hope there's a womanspeaking you know no we're just
(07:59):
met.
You know, that kind of like thespirit just gives us what we
need in those moments, and Icompletely that's just always
happening in the background andit's a beautiful thing.
What's what's really amazing iswhen we start to make the
connections.
That that's true, and when we,when we see it but then we like
know where that came from,that's like the higher level
evolution, I think, of aspiritual program, which is, you
(08:22):
know, pretty incredible.
But you're right, like I mean Ione of the things that I just
love so much about sobriety ingeneral.
I got sober in AI too.
Not everybody does and that'sfine.
Like there's lots of ways to doit.
But no matter what way you'redoing it, without a community
it's probably going to be notimpossible, but very challenging
(08:43):
.
Going to be not impossible, butvery challenging.
So if it's whether it's, youknow, an online sober program or
like you're reading a book oryou're in a luckiest club or you
go to AA, whatever it is, thereason why those people, those
communities, exist and they'rein those formats is because we
know that's what works.
We know when people cometogether and share the message
of hope and then they give whatthey have to others.
(09:06):
They show others what they have, that other people will want
that right, because they don't.
Like you said, we don't evenknow what we wanted or what we
think.
We don't even know what'spossible.
Louise (09:18):
You know when you're living in active addiction.
Shelby (09:19):
You just think that that's the way you know.
Like this is the way, like.
Like this is how it is, and alot of times we've seen that in
our own lives, either growing upor around us, that we just like
this is what everyone's doing,this is how life is as an adult
and when, in fact, that is justso, not true absolutely.
Louise (09:34):
It feels like the largest pair of blinkers that
you could possibly imagine andthat it filters everything
through them as well.
So all the messages we get fromsociety, or the messages we get
from just even, you know,watching films and tv and
whatever we're reading orlistening to, everything seems
to come through filters thatkind of go you want to be
drinking in this world.
The only way of doing thisworld is with drinking.
(09:57):
You know, I was adamant that myglass of wine was just a reward
for being a grown-up and beingan adult, and this is how we,
how we did it, and the idea oftaking away all those structures
was just devastating, reallydevastating level is because of
(10:24):
pain, because most of life isvery uncomfortable, and I think
one of the great misnomers ofour, of our modern society is
that is that there are otherpeople or places or spaces where
it's not true.
Shelby (10:30):
Where that's not true, and I don't, I just don't think
there are.
Most of life is veryuncomfortable, and so the deal
is to be an evolved human adultyou have to get really
comfortable with beinguncomfortable, for a lot of your
life now.
That doesn't mean there isn'tjoy and wonderful moments and
these golden like times, youknow, but they're usually
(10:52):
fleeting, they don't last superlong and a lot of it is really
uncomfortable, and so thosefeelings of discomfort is why we
, why we drink and use, becausewe don't want to have that.
Nobody really wants that, youknow so then, we come to.
We come to whatever we come to,whether we use quitlet or a web
program or aaa and we get soberand we make this decision every
(11:13):
single day that we're gonna staysober and we want to be sober
more than we want to be drunk.
And then over time we build uptime and we start to change and
we realize like, oh okay, Iactually can live like I can
survive.
It might be reallyuncomfortable for the first year
is just usually not that great.
Right, there's a lot of thingsyeah but then you start to
realize like, oh okay, like I'mstill here, like I'm alive, I
(11:37):
could go to work, I can go towake up, I can take care of my
kids.
You know, whatever is happeningin your life now, that doesn't
mean that's devoid of problems.
Usually we do create quite abit of problems in our active
addiction.
But we get to, like, make thosechanges and after some period
of time I usually think it'safter that first year where we
have a great awakening, wherethere's this big clarity, like
(11:58):
our brains come online again andwe're like, oh wow, like I want
more, like I want, like I wantmore, like I want to grow, I
want to do more step work, or Iwant to do therapy, or I want to
do this.
Like we start to really cravelike more development and change
.
I don't know if you have thatexperience.
Louise (12:15):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, that whole point of I didn't get
sober just to be in this.
Actually, if I'm going to besober, there's going to be so
much more that I can do.
There's so many different waysthat I can be and actually what
are those going to be?
And being open, then, ratherthan kind of being, you know,
there's been this closed path tome that this is how the future
plays out.
(12:35):
This is the way you do your job, this is the way you do your
marriage, this is the way you doyour parenting, this is the way
you are as a person.
And then suddenly putting downalcohol and realizing that
actually, if I'm not drinkingwith these, then how do I do
these things and how differentlycan I do these things and how
can I be me in all of them?
(12:56):
You know I was very aware thatI was playing roles when I was
drinking.
I was being the wife and themother and the person in my job.
And actually learning how to beme and starting to be me in all
of those things is really how Ithen, kind of like, find myself
where I am now, just being meand in that space of me, being
(13:22):
vulnerable in it and kind ofgoing.
Well, actually, this thing isgoing to be hard and you know.
You talked about the discomfortsharing that discomfort,
talking about it in meetings, incommunity, with other people
and letting them see that youcan be uncomfortable and sober
and that nothing ends in thatspace.
But you grow through it insteadand it becomes something that
(13:47):
actually lifts you and drivesyou, rather than the thing that
you're avoiding.
Shelby (13:53):
I totally agree with that.
I mean and this has been on myheart and mind a lot and you
work for the luckiest club,laura McGowan's program, which I
think is so funny.
But I've said it several timesrecently, and I had a very wise
woman who happened to be mysecond sponsor.
She was just a very strong,wise woman but she used to share
constantly that like she wishedeverybody would get drunk and
(14:15):
lose everything so they can cometo AA.
And when I was younger, for along time I didn't really
understand that.
And then, as I got older and itgrew in my own sobriety, when I
did my own trauma work, when Ibuilt my own therapy practice
and coaching program and all ofthese things, I started to
realize more and more like themore well, like the more evolved
I became and I don't believethat we're ever done right Until
(14:38):
we die I realized just howunwell you know so many are,
like most people in the world,and it's not their fault
necessarily.
I think some people just don'tknow.
They don't know well A, if youdon't have a substance abuse
problem that takes you down tothe pits of hell where you need
to get help, you don't have thebenefit of like, oh, we're the
(15:00):
luckiest we get to do this, butthen you know you might have
other things that go on thatsend you into the therapy room
or wherever, where you're like,oh okay, now I, now I know, I
feel the joy that comes fromthat and the blessing I can feel
, the spiritual workings aroundme.
But if you don't, but if youdon't, if you're not clued into
that, a lot of people just don'tknow and then they just live
(15:22):
very unwell, you know.
Louise (15:24):
Yeah, and the beauty of doing it in community which
again comes from the addictivespace, right, because that
community is driven by the needto do it together.
It really lifts people.
It does provide a light.
It does provide that sprinklingof hope when actually we didn't
feel there was any.
(15:44):
You know, I can.
I can still remember cominghome from meeting and suddenly
being lifted with hope in a wayI'd never, ever felt in my
entire life and it it's such alight, such a light and it
becomes that whole thing with,with sobriety.
It doesn't have to be about thestick anymore, it's just, you
know, it's that thing with stickand carrot.
(16:06):
I think it's getting better atbeing much more carrot based and
much more about hope and lightand opportunity.
Rather than that you don't wantto be where the stick is and
you don't want to loseeverything.
You don't want to have to be ina, in a place of complete rock
bottom.
Actually, at any point alongthe line you can turn around and
(16:26):
go.
Do you know what?
Enough is enough actually.
I'm going to stop here.
I'm going to, I'm going tothank you all for your
experience of showing me whathappens in between here and the
losing everything and rockbottom place and I'm going to
stop and I'm going to startgoing the other way now with
this.
This is going to be enough forme, and I think one of the
things I've loved about thesober spaces that have been
(16:50):
coming up over.
I don't know how it is youprobably much more aware of the
difference, but when we bothstarted, it was just AA.
There was AA.
It was all about rock bottoms.
It wasn't about consideringwhether you might want more from
your life, but it's about, well, have you hit that point, you
know, and when we still arefinding a lot of people who have
(17:11):
to hit that point, but we'realso finding a lot more people
who are kind of going.
Actually, do you know what?
I'm beginning to realize thatthis isn't working for me and
I'm beginning to see that thereis more that I could be doing
with my life and my experienceand my understanding of myself
if I stop drinking.
I'm I'm constantly comingacross women who've been doing a
(17:32):
lot of work, but it's only whenthey then stop drinking that
they kind of go oh, it's now allcoming together.
All these things I've tried andall these bits did play a part,
but only when I stoppeddrinking did I suddenly realize
what it is I need to be doing?
Shelby (17:52):
I totally agree with that.
You said so much there and theone thing that just came to my
mind and I'm going to ask you aquestion, it's kind of a loaded,
but I feel like one thingthat's really also become
increasingly more bothersome forme, as I guess the longer I've
been around or older I am, I'mnot sure it's like why some
people like just can't get itand it's just hurts my heart.
(18:15):
So I'm, since I'm a clinician,I do see this in my private
practice a lot and it's come upa little bit in the last six to
eight months or so specificallyhere, and it's it's kind of
heartbreaking for me.
I just I've had my own justpersonal struggle with like, why
can't you, why can't you getthis Like?
And especially people who oncebecause before we said you know
it's not really their fault, butonce you are educated on a
(18:38):
thing like okay, somebody says,oh, you have a problem with
alcohol or you land in an AAmeeting or you get a DUI like,
once you've become educated onlike oh, I, you know this is a
problematic in my life.
Now you know, you do know, andso it is your responsibility to
take control right.
So, like you are now educatedand you're a person that cannot
drink or use and so it's yourresponsibility.
(19:00):
But, like I guess I guess whatthe question is and again, it's
not a judgment or anything, it'sjust more just I'm just curious
, like why do you think somepeople, despite that, like
chronic relapse, or people whocome around they've seen all the
things they've been educated,like why can't they get it?
Louise (19:15):
It's the old thinking thing.
For me it's watching peoplestill trying to do it all in
their head.
You know and've, I knew and youand I have probably watched
lots of people particularly cometo come into aa meetings.
I haven't necessarily seen itso much online, because you
don't necessarily see what goeson outside of the room online,
but in aa meetings you you seepeople coming and and
(19:38):
intellectually fighting thething, intellectually
disconnecting themselves fromthis piece, and they stay in
their head with it.
And for me it was very muchabout kind of really beginning
to sit with acceptance that thisis my thing and actually what
(20:02):
is it I'm going to do now?
How am I going to save myself?
And, to be honest, I ended updoing the thing I thought I
would never do, which wasgetting down on my knees and
praying.
So for me there's always aspiritual element of surrender,
not necessarily defeat, becausedefeat is kind of giving up and
(20:23):
lying back and kind of goingwell, I don't know what I'm
doing now, but it's surrenderingto an alternative way.
So, rather than kind of stayingin the thinking and the
existing patterns, it's right.
Actually, how else could I dothis piece?
How else can I do my life?
How can I make these changes soit no longer is this thing that
just exists and I only ever seeit in my head dropping into the
(20:46):
body, beginning to feel,allowing that, no longer doing
anything.
That is logical, but startingto tap into the emotional or
spiritual side has been key forme and I, when I work with
people, I quite often, quiteoften, will open that as a as a
way to to move forward andsomething to be willing to look
(21:09):
at.
Shelby (21:11):
I agree, and I think it is a spiritual lack.
Right, there's like um, you'reright, we try to intellectualize
, we try to rationalize, we tryto use, to use our own will, we
try to use ourselves.
And I'm not saying we're notsmart, most of us are very smart
and most of us are very wellresourced.
We have a lot of good thingsabout us, but there are some
(21:32):
things that we just can'tovercome by ourselves, like
you're saying, and so we try todo that or use our own will, and
then continuously andrepeatedly it doesn't work.
But I just, I just, I justsometimes I just want to be like
ah, anyway.
So you mentioned like you helppeople to see that and to start
to put that into your life.
I would love to hear, like, howyou do that, like what does
(21:53):
that look like for you, forpeople who are maybe in that
space where they don't have aregular spiritual program?
Maybe they were either raisedwith something that they don't
agree with anymore or gave themsome spiritual trauma, or maybe
they've just never had it.
How do you start to insert thisin their life?
Louise (22:09):
So, as always and with everything that is sobriety, it
begins with the sharing of myown experience.
Right, and so when I first wentto AA and I was like huh,
there's a program, but I'm notdoing that, you have to talk to
women.
Well, I'm not doing that.
Most of the women I know can'tdrink anyway.
And then it was this, god, Iwas like, right, certainly not
going there.
I would have described myselfas a devout atheist.
(22:31):
When I first turned up in therooms, absolutely adamant that
that was not going to happen,stopped drinking, struggled.
The whole thing was a nightmare.
It's like running, getting upin the middle of a roller
coaster every morning, strappedin, going through the day
desperate to get back to bedwithout a drink, crawling back
to bed at the end of the day andnotching up another day on what
(22:54):
felt like a prison wall.
And it went on.
I don't really know how much.
I didn't keep a diary oranything at the time, but there
was one night where I wassuddenly alone.
My husband had gone to bed andthere was half a bottle of wine
out in the kitchen and it sangto me.
I mean, really sang.
It pulled every single part ofmy being over towards it.
(23:16):
Louise, just come over here,have a sniff, it will take the
edge off.
You're having a hard time,tough time.
Come here, my love.
Come here, my love, let me help, let me help.
And as I find myself leaninginto it, I suddenly saw at the
bottom of that bottle a dirty,slimy, smelly creature, all
whiny and nasty, a bit likeGollum out of Lord of the Rings,
(23:38):
going come here, my pretty.
And I just kind of like jumpedback in in absolute horror
because I knew if I, if I drank.
That's where I was going and Itexted somebody.
You know how people give youtheir phone number and you're
like don't give me your phonenumber, I'm not going to use
your phone number.
Why would I use your phonenumber?
This woman, sam, had given meher phone number.
(23:58):
I'd like okay, sam, I nearlydrank, what do I do?
And she said, louise, you needto pray.
And I said, no, I'm serious,I'm serious, I nearly drank,
what do I do?
And she just texted me back incapital letters get down on your
knees and say the serenityprayer.
And I, I didn't know what elseto do.
Right, and it's that wholepoint, shelby of just.
(24:19):
I was frozen in my own thinking,frozen in my inability to have
any kind of control over thisthing, because I had no control
over it.
And I finally really saw thatand I can still remember my
first getting down on my kneesin my room, sat looking at the
(24:39):
wall, going well, there's lotsof swear words that would come
with my usual share of this.
I don't believe in you, but II'm terrified and you need to
turn up because, because this isgoing to kill me and I don't
want to die, and I said theserenity prayer out loud.
(25:00):
I got up and I got into bed andthe next morning I got up and I
wasn't on the roller coasteranymore.
It was slower, it was still.
I got back down on my knees.
I had the same conversation.
You know, I really want to getthis.
I'm being told I need to prayto you and being told I need to
pray to you, I absolutely don'tbelieve in you, but if you start
(25:23):
turning up, I will start tobelieve in you.
Here's the deal.
And God started to turn up.
The difficult things that hadbeen kind of feeling like they
were coming like some kind oftrain crash in all directions.
They just suddenly all stopped,just that little bit away from
(25:44):
me and I kind of got to dealwith them all very slowly.
There was a new person at workand he, he got a new job.
There was a bill that neededpaying, a check came, I needed
to talk to somebody aboutsomething.
They turned up.
Little by little all thosethings started to change and I
(26:05):
started to kind of go well,maybe there's something in this
and I had, and I and I had theconversation with myself what is
it that's stopping me frombelieving?
How about I put that down?
How about I look at my head andI say, right head, hang on a
minute.
I want to be open to this.
(26:26):
I want to understand more aboutwhat history is stopping me
from thinking that prayer isgoing to help and how can I
start doing more of that, ofthat?
So it's understanding thatmindset piece and acknowledging
(26:47):
that religion is the issue,rather than a spiritual being.
If I can put religion down, whatmight come?
What would I want from a god ofmy understanding?
How would I want my god tobehave?
How would I want my God tosupport me?
I expect my God to be a loving,generous, compassionate God who
doesn't hold my mistakesagainst me when I sit and learn
(27:10):
how to accept myself.
It's so much easier to do thatwhen I accept that I've been
chosen to be me as I am, ratherthan been here to be somebody
else.
So, just starting to kind ofpractice those conversations,
what does open and willing looklike?
(27:31):
If I'm going to be open andwilling, and how can I create a
space?
And once we create a space,like my god turned up.
It's amazing how many timesthat happens for people.
It's amazing how many timespeople come back to me and go
okay, so this really bizarrething happened, you know, and we
both sit there and shrug ourshoulders and go well, of course
(27:52):
it did.
Of course it did because youbecame willing to see it and
willing to allow it and thenwilling to accept it.
Right, so the being worthy ofI'm going to be worthy of my
god's love.
I'm going to be worthy ofattracting better things.
I'm going to be worthy of beingable to deal with some of the
stuff that's going I'm going tolearn how to ask for help from
(28:15):
this god, that I may notnecessarily believe in all the
practices that we use to getsober, allowing it to then build
into the rest of our lives andsupport and hold and embrace in
that.
Every single decision I've madesince I've got sober has
involved sitting with my god andkind of going right.
(28:37):
What am I going to do here then?
And inviting signs and gettingthe signs leaving my husband,
leaving my job, all those reallyhuge life choices, much like,
okay, god, am I really giving upalcohol?
Yes, you are.
Here's why.
Here are the people that youneed to hear, here are the
(29:00):
stories you need to hear to tellyou why you need to give up,
and here are the people who aregoing to help you.
That's how it started, and thenit kind of just ballooned into
everything I do and, yeah, I, Iwouldn't be without it and I had
.
I had to get to that point ofbeing absolutely emotionally
(29:20):
broken and unable to see how Icould do anything else before I
kind of surrendered and wentokay, show me how.
Shelby (29:30):
Yeah, I think that that word surrender is so powerful
and it's not something that mostof us really want to embrace,
right, we want, like I saidbefore, we want to use our own
will, we want to be in charge ofourselves, and as much as we
are, in many ways we do havefree will.
You know, there are times inour lives when we have to
(29:52):
realize that we are.
We cannot do it.
You know, we cannot do this onour own, and so something else
needs to be able to come in andhelp us.
And I like how you said you knowyou were, you know, not like a
card carrying you know Christianor Bible thumper or any of that
like you were really kind of anatheist, you know, not a
believer, and you said toyourself what are the kinds of
(30:12):
things, qualities I would wantin a God?
If there was, I love that.
And so you kind of were likelet's put that on Like I would
want understanding, I would wantcompassion, I would want love
and and support and embrace.
You know, like you can start tothink of the qualities of maybe
other people in your life thathave been the things that you
liked or needed and then putthat onto that being, which to
(30:34):
me, is like a really cool image,right.
It's like almost like if you hada poster board and you could
kind of just like put the wordsyeah, completely and then just,
and then just use that as asthis, um, conception of this,
you know, this higher power,this being outside of yourself,
because really, um, one of thethings, the sad fact of adulting
, honestly, is, like, you know,we no one's gonna come and say,
(30:57):
you know, we have to do itourselves, right, like it's
between between us and our, ourGod, to like do anything to make
ourselves happy, to get thingsdone.
Yes, of course many people helpus, but no husband, no kid, no
mom, no, any of that is gonnacan do those things for us.
You know we have to end updoing.
We have to do them forourselves.
Yeah, and it's when you, withthe support of God, because
(31:20):
otherwise, because peopledisappoint right, humans
disappoint everyone your mom,your husband, your kids, your
employer they all willdisappoint you at some point.
And if that is true, if humansdisappoint is true, then that
means eventually you'll get tothe bottom, where you're the
only thing left.
And then what happens when youdisappoint yourself?
Where do you go then?
Louise (31:40):
And that point around free will as well right that
whole thing about being sat insobriety meetings going well,
when I've been in my way.
This is where we got to right.
Everything that I've ever donemy way needed alcohol or was
fueled by alcohol had thatrelationship with alcohol.
If I'm going to do it in a waythat doesn't lead to alcohol,
(32:02):
then I can't do it my wayanymore.
I need to find a new way.
And where do you go for a newway other than okay, well, let's
see what comes when I go.
God, I'm giving you the chanceto turn up, ship up and show me
how to do this.
And the evidence throughout mylife has been overwhelming since
(32:24):
I got to that point.
And it just, it just blows meaway that the things I found in
that you know those those earlydays in AA when I said, but I
don't think I'm going to getdrinking because I'm not really
an alcoholic, you know, I'm notgoing to talk to women because I
don't really trust them, andthen I'm not, I'm not going to
pray and the three things thatsaved my life were stopping
(32:45):
drinking, talking to women,learning how to love women,
because I am one and I wasavoiding loving myself by
avoiding other women and thenpraying to God of my
understanding and those are thefundamental points that I live
with now is learning to be me.
I needed to put down alcoholand I needed God to support me,
(33:09):
and doing all those thingstogether is how I do it all.
Now I wouldn't be here doingthis with you, I wouldn't be at
the Luckiest Club, I wouldn'thave left my husband All these
things that just wouldn't havehappened if I hadn't kind of
gone.
Ok.
Shelby (33:30):
God, help me find me and help me find what's right for
me to stay sober.
And I think also that the thepainful parts of of the reality,
of kind of looking at ourselves, the painful parts of like
doing the personalresponsibility work like the
three fingers pointing back atourselves, right, yeah.
Called to do constantly, whichis why I also think we are the
luckiest right, where morepeople in the world had that.
(33:52):
We would be living in acompletely different society If
people had personalresponsibility and the humility
that we get to have because ofthat.
That painful part is not realamenable to like.
Um, oh, like, I really want tolike, look at my thinking
patterns and like, oh, I reallywant to go to my partner and say
(34:14):
you know, I really shouldn'thave spoken to you that way.
You know, I really want toapologize and make amends.
For my part, I think that's nota thing.
That's not that comes naturalto us, for humans, to humans,
it's not, but that is a.
That is a thing that comes tous when we are connected with
something that's outside ofourselves.
And again, it doesn't have tobe any kind of religious God,
(34:37):
but it's a concept of we are notthe whole center, we are not,
you know, even if there isn't aGod and I always say to like, so
what if there isn't?
Okay, fine, you do these things.
You say, oh, I'm going to getdown on my knees, like, and like
what if there isn't like?
Cool, then you got everythingand you lost nothing.
Cool, right, yeah yeah and so tome it's kind of like so what do
(34:58):
you have to lose?
So you said you had a privatemoment in your home where you
got on your knees or you quietlyprayed in your car, or, like
you to yourself, you have thisspiritual program that you are
building.
Like so, like like.
To me.
I don't understand any um anycon to that you know yeah what
(35:22):
is the con?
Louise (35:23):
absolutely, absolutely.
I had no idea.
When people say you know you'renot in charge of you.
Shelby (35:28):
Is that the con?
I'm really the reality, if youlook around, you're actually not
in charge of you anyway.
Louise (35:33):
Anyway, right anyway, yeah, I, I find, you know, I
remember lots of conversationswith people that I'm I'd had
before I stopped drinking aboutthings that really hurt me, that
I carried particularly loads ofanger around some stuff in my
past and they said you know, youjust need to let it go.
And this whole concept ofletting go, I'd be like, well,
(35:54):
how do you just, how do you letgo of something?
And it then just sits there,whereas when I started kind of
going, okay, well, let go, letGod.
I could give it to God.
I could kind of go okay, Ican't carry this thing anymore.
You need to carry this thingfor me.
I can't be responsible forthose people anymore.
You need to be responsible forme.
I want my kids to have this asa life that they don't have.
(36:20):
But tell you what, given that Itrust you with mine, I'm going
to trust you with that right.
It's so much easier to let gowhen you've got somebody to give
it over to, rather than justput it into an ether and hope
that it goes somewhere.
It's like, actually I don'tneed to do that anymore because
I can just go.
Here's my god box, here's mystuff, it's all over there, it's
(36:43):
all being looked after.
I don't need to think about it.
All I need to do is stay soberevery day, do the things that
I'm called to do every day,which is help be the people who
reach out to me or write mynewsletter or do this course.
That blows my mind, and and itjust keeps coming.
It just keeps coming and it, itworks, so why wouldn't I just
carry on doing that?
Shelby (37:07):
Yeah, it does, it works.
And again, I don't, I don't getthe resistance.
Sometimes I understand itemotionally because, you know,
especially for people who havespiritual trauma, which is a
very real thing, and I get thatcompletely have a history of
that which, for me, I didn'teven understand what that was,
and probably until 10 years agowhen I saw it here in my room
for the first time and I waslike, oh okay, now I understand.
(37:28):
But the other than that, likethere's really no, there's no
con to it, there's nodisadvantage, you know, for
having a connection withsomething you know the only
thing it does is is releases youfrom the bondage of self.
It's sort of the same thing aswhen we get sober, when we
decide to get sober, and everysingle day we make that decision
(37:50):
, you know, we're releasing thechains to self right and we're
saying, yeah, oh, okay, I'maccepting the fact that and
surrendering to the fact thatI'm not a person who can use
substances properly, whateverthat is, even if there is such a
thing you know, and so yeah,it's just sort of just like
another step of that, like thenI'm accepting and so and saying
(38:13):
that I'm the kind of person thatwould like to welcome the help
from the universe and fromspirit and from nature and from
God in my life and like cool,like I bet it'll be easier and
there's so much humility in thatthere is.
Louise (38:30):
There is, and it's beautiful being part of a world
now where people are able to puttheir bits forward.
I get a lot of PixieLighthorses reading.
She's very much in the divineand universe space and it's been
great to be able to connectwith that and not feel that it's
going to be done my way.
That whole piece of kind ofgoing well, mine's, mine, right,
(38:51):
yours can be yours, we can alldo the bit we need.
The trauma piece I I find hasbeen really hard for me to
experience, which is mostlythrough the luckiest club and
really appreciating howincredibly difficult, painful,
traumatic some of that has been,and trying to just kind of go
(39:14):
well, my thing still sits overhere.
It's still very different tothat and I'm still in that space
of trying to align the two.
But I have to put it downbecause it's too big for me, too
big an experience that I don'thave and I kind of only can only
bring it back to myself andkind of go well, this has been
(39:36):
what's working for me and how Ihave invited my higher power, my
faith, my god in, and I'mreally sorry that has been your
experience of it, but that ismuch more about religion and
faith, and for me it's keepingthat distinct clarity between
(39:59):
the two it is the easier, softerway too.
Shelby (40:03):
I always say that you know.
I mean, I think, generallyspeaking, we are a kind of
people who want to make thingsharder for ourselves.
You know, we would never say itthat way, but we tend to make
decisions sometimes, and um,choices repeatedly that make
things harder for ourselves.
And so if we want to be sobermore than we want to be drunk,
that's a huge first step.
(40:23):
And then if we want to be sobermore than we want to be
dysfunctional.
That's another big, huge stepthat we never stopped working on
, ever in the rest of our life.
You know, I was actually justtalking.
My oldest daughter is 21.
She's in college.
Uh, two of my girls are incollege and like, uh, she called
last night and she was um intear like she was crying about
she, she's a nanny for herfamily and she's like I think I
(40:46):
just lost my job but they, thegrandmother was coming to live
with.
It was kind of everythinghappened very quickly it wasn't
about her, which was great, likeit wasn't.
Yeah, I heard it was justcircumstantial and um, and she's
boohoo and I and I feelterrible.
You know it's very hard.
I support her, validated herfeelings, we listened and talked
and I was sad with her andcried and then she said you know
(41:06):
that's not fair.
And I'm like it's not.
You know, it's definitely it'snot, it's not fair.
And now her whole schedule is amess, her financial
responsibilities are in jeopardy, like there's a lot of stuff
you know and it's you kind ofjust want to be able to wallow
around in your in your mess,right and yeah you know, take
tonight, let yourself feel thefeelings, be sad about it.
I said, get up tomorrow.
And you know, you get to schooland you get to your classes and
(41:28):
you and you do the next rightthing and you say to yourself,
what is the next thing I need todo to, like, take care of
myself?
What's the next thing I need todo for my financial
responsibilities?
You know, um, and she justtexted me this morning and I
said how are you doing?
And she said I'm just sodepressed.
You know, I'm depressed andit's not fair.
And I said it's not.
You know, um, but you get todecide.
(41:49):
You get to decide and thosepeople who decide to choose um
to stay there is a limit to ourown self-pity right.
And if there's people who don'tchoose to decide that there's a
limit to that and they end andsay, okay, what is the next
right thing?
They get stuck, you know, andthey're not well.
(42:11):
So, the blessing is is it's upto us Every single day we get to
decide that.
Thank you so much, Lise, foryour time and and for this
incredible conversation.
I feel like it could go onforever.
I really appreciate you andyour work, and where do you like
people to kind of connect withyou if they want to reach out?
Where can they find you?
Louise (42:29):
so instagram is probably best.
I have a.
I have links there to my substack and my course will be
coming up on there soon.
I try and do a reel every weekto remind people to take a pause
and to stop on their Sundaysand just to allow for a moment
the world to kind of stop takingthem with it and leave it all
(42:49):
out there.
So, yeah, that would be thebest.
Shelby (42:51):
What is your Instagram handle?
Louise (42:53):
It's Louise underscore Athe, which is A-T-T-H-E-Y.
Shelby (42:57):
Perfect, I'll make sure I linked that in the show notes
below.
And again, thank you so muchfor your time and I really
appreciate it.
Louise (43:04):
It's all right, it's good to see you.
Thank you, shelby.
Shelby (43:11):
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.
(43:31):
Forward slash inner circle.
See you next time.
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