July 30, 2024 • 35 mins
Welcome to another episode of the Sober Living Stories Podcast. Meet Stephanie McAuliffe, author of two international best-sellers, as she shares her personal story. From surviving sexual abuse and growing up in a family overwrought with alcoholism, to navigating a high-powered Wall Street career and marriage to an alcoholic, Stephanie's story is nothing short of transformative. Stephanie offers an honest perspective on the challenges of healing from deep-seated trauma...and solutions.
We explore the importance of rebuilding internal safety and trust, and the vital role of therapy, 12-step programs, and energy work in healing. Stephanie sheds light on the toxic culture of alcohol on Wall Street and how it impacts personal lives. She also opens up about the therapeutic power of writing, discussing her book "Message in the Bottle: Finding Hope and Peace Amidst the Chaos of Living with an Alcoholic," which aims to provide peace and possibility to those in similar situations.
Join us as we uncover the path to overcoming trauma and addiction with Stephanie McAuliffe. She brings awareness to and helps people heal from the impact of their internalized trauma. She’s found incredible transformation in her journey through healing sexual abuse, and multi-generational addiction.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
After a 27-year career on Wall Street, Stephanie
is the founder and CEO of theWay of the Diamond Warrior and
author of two internationalbestselling books.
As a personal transformationconsultant and energy healer,
she builds bridges for clientsto step more deeply into their
own path.
Today, she's sharing herpersonal story about overcoming
(00:22):
sexual abuse andmulti-generational alcoholism
and addiction.
She's passionate about how weheal individually and together.
Lean in for an exciting,insightful episode.
Welcome to the Sober LivingStories podcast.
(00:44):
This podcast is dedicated tosharing stories of sobriety.
We shine a spotlight onindividuals who have faced the
challenges of alcoholism andaddiction and are today living
out their best lives sober.
Each guest has experiencedincredible transformation and
are here to share their storywith you.
I'm Jessica Stepanoich, yourhost.
(01:05):
Join me each week as guestsfrom all walks of life share
their stories to inspire andprovide hope to those who need
it most.
Hi and welcome to anotherepisode of the Sober Living
(01:33):
Stories podcast.
Meet Stephanie.
She speaks, writes and teacheson the human condition.
She's passionate about helpingher clients heal from trauma and
live a life free of itsconstraints.
She is one that deeplyunderstands that, as she has
found incredible healing in herown story, and today she's going
to share that story with us.
She healed sexual abuse, aswell as multi-generational
(01:56):
alcoholism and addiction.
Welcome, Stephanie.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Thank you, jessica, it is such an honor to be here.
Thank you, jessica, it is suchan honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
The disease of alcoholism is often, in many
instances, a family disease, andyou talk about healing
multi-generational alcoholismand addiction, so I'd love to
hear your personal story.
Go back as far as you want totake us and let's see what we
(02:28):
can learn along the way.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Thank you, as far back as I can remember, there
were always cocktails thatstarted in the afternoon, drinks
on the weekends, parties, andnothing was out of control,
including our emotions.
It was just a normal day-to-daything of.
Cocktails, like I said, meantto late afternoon and one of the
(02:53):
chores that when I was injunior high school that I had to
do was to make ice cubes.
And it's amazing how somethingso small can be so impactful to
us.
Because I would hear at thatpoint my grandmother was living
with us and I was there with mymother, my stepfather and
stepbrother and younger brothersand I would hear you know,
(03:17):
steph, go make the ice cubes.
And I would pop out the cubesfrom the tray from yesterday and
refill the trays again fortomorrow.
And it meant and I didn't fullyunderstand this at the time,
but that the rest of theafternoon and evening was lost
and what I craved was connection.
And what I didn't understanduntil much later is that the
(03:41):
adults were numbing their ownpain.
We didn't have bigconversations about life, about
what was happening, and at thetime I was being sexually abused
by my stepbrother.
It was known and we didn't talkabout it.
And that was the age when Ifirst found drugs.
(04:03):
I really had no interest atthat point in alcohol and yet
when I was high and it was myneighbor diagonally across the
street who introduced me to potwhen I was in eighth grade and I
remember sitting out in thewoods with my friend Jean and
(04:24):
when I got high it was like Icould feel and I could laugh and
I connected with feelingswithin me that had been buried
because nothing was expressed.
In my household back.
My grandfather was an angrydrunk and kind of terrorized.
(04:46):
My mother and my grandmotherand I am at least the fourth
generation of women in my familywho were sexually abused and
not protected by their mother,because women were very
powerless, women didn't have alot of agency.
Women didn't have a lot ofagency.
And when you're tormentedwithin your own family, you're
(05:10):
not taught how to speak up foryourself, how to stand up for
yourself, how to create any formof healthy boundaries, if they
even exist.
And so I decided also at thatage, about a year after I
started smoking pot and friendsstarted getting into pills, and
(05:30):
I found the Percodans that werein the medicine cabinet for the
dental work and it was like I'mnever getting married, I'm never
having children, I'm going tocollege and I will never be
(05:54):
financially dependent on a man,because I did not want to be
like my mother.
So I did go to college and Ihad the career and I worked on
wall street for 27 years.
I did very, very well inproject management and systems,
so I supported the trading andthe clearing.
(06:14):
I wasn't on the front lines andyet behind the scenes was just
as stressful, and I thrived inchaos, and I thrived in the same
chaos that I lived in when Iwas a child and I married two
alcoholics.
So 10 years twice, and withinthe course of a year my second
(06:41):
marriage ended, of which we wentthrough rehabs with him, and
he's still drinking to this day.
I love him dearly and he is onthe other side of the country
living his life, and I wishnothing but the best for him.
And yet I knew that I couldn'tstay.
I was doing more for him thanhe was for himself.
(07:02):
I was doing more for him thanhe was for himself.
I was doing more for him than Iwas for myself, and so I ended
the marriage, even though I wasstill in love with this man?
I couldn't.
My health was in jeopardy.
I had two heart attack scares.
I wasn't taking care of myself.
I was working 14 hours a dayand then coming home and finding
(07:26):
anything that I could do todistract myself from what I
didn't want to deal with, whichwas the exact thing that I grew
up with.
And then, a year after mymarriage ended, my 27 year
career on Wall Street ended andall of a sudden, I had this time
and was like what am I going todo with myself?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You know it's interesting.
I heard I heard you may.
When you were speaking, youmade a real decision to become
self-sufficient.
You said you were not going tobe relying on a man for finances
.
Do you feel like that was aresult of not getting the
protection that you needed fromyour family at a time that you
(08:11):
needed it most, when nobodyspoke about the abuse?
Like, if they're not going tohelp, I'm going to do this
myself.
Where do you think that sprungfrom?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Absolutely, and that was, if we're into fight, flight
or fear.
That was my fight.
That was me putting up a hardshell around myself and saying
you know what I'm going to do,what I need to do for me,
because I am not going tocontinue to open myself up to
the hurt from people who youknow.
As children, we haveexpectations that those who are
raising us are going to protectus and care for us and nurture
(08:49):
us, and I grew up with thetrappings of the white middle
class.
I had a home, I had food, I hadclothes and, and everything
from the outside looked perfectand it was a shell.
And it was that same shell thatI realized that I was living
(09:10):
within, that I created formyself, because I created this
hard boundary around me so thatno one could get in, and I think
this is part of why there's somany people who feel like I have
to do this all on my own.
There's a lot of lone wolvesrunning around this world.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
It's like a survival mechanism.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It absolutely is survival and, like I said, it's
actually a combination of fightand flight, because I'm fleeing
from the rest of the world andcreating separation and I'm
going to fight to protect theshell that I've created around
myself.
And yet what I found is westill yearn the connection, we
(09:57):
still yearn to be seen, and it'swhen we start to let down that
guard that we've created forourself, as scary as it may be,
that's when we really begin tocall in what it is that we've
wanted all along.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, and that's the exciting, like as you were
speaking, it just it hit me inmy heart because I can relate to
that so much.
I too formed a heart exteriorfor many years throughout my
life and then I could just telllike from if it's anything like
my journey has been like, whenwe get better and we come into
(10:32):
our own, the the big, the mostwonderful thing is that you can
begin to take that down Rightand then it just it's
life-changing, it's absolutelyyour edges get softens.
You know you don't have tocarry all that because you're
not in survival mode anymore,and that's like an exhausting
lifestyle.
You, you don't have to carryall that because you're not in
survival mode anymore, andthat's like an exhausting
(10:53):
lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You wouldn't have told me that at the time, but
once I came, through that Ithought, wow, I'm so glad I
don't have to do that anymore.
It is incredibly exhausting andwe don't realize how much so
when you think about how muchinternal energy physical, mental
, emotional that it takes tomaintain that shell around us
(11:14):
like it's no wonder why we'realways exhausted.
And yet there's a beauty in andit comes in layers.
You know, we didn't get hereovernight unraveling and
unwinding these layers that wecreated for ourselves.
Yes, this is where we get togive ourselves some grace.
So it's not like all of asudden.
(11:35):
I'm wide open and I know how tocreate healthy boundaries and I
know how to stand up for myself,especially with the toxic
codependency that comes with alot of addiction within families
.
It's in stages and we get tobuild those muscles.
(11:56):
One of the things that we loseis the feeling of internal
safety, and so as we unwind someof the old layers, we learn to
trust ourselves more.
We become more safe in sayingno, I don't want that, or for
asking for what it is that wewant.
(12:16):
And, like I said, we will neverbe given more than we can
handle.
And sometimes it is taking onestep forward and two back and we
learn a little bit and weintegrate, and then we can take
three steps forward.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, and I think it's a lifelong process, you
know, and the trauma for somemay be from your family of
origin, would you agree?
But, like for myself, thatwasn't true.
It was from an abusiverelationship I picked up along
the way in my teens.
That's when my decision tobecome self-sufficient and put
(12:56):
up my wall started.
But I didn't realize that hereI am years, decades later and
not knowing where it started,and I can pinpoint that today,
regardless of where thattraumatic incident happened, I
think that's when we start toadd on those unnecessary layer
(13:17):
well, necessary at the time, butthen shedding them later is the
real freedom.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Absolutely, and there is trauma that we also inherit
through the DNA.
We're in our mother's wombs forseven to 10 months, depending
on when we're pushed out intothis world to take our first
breath, and there are studiesthat show that you know,
newborns and infants and youngchildren can smell fear in their
(13:47):
mothers.
There are studies that arehappening looking at war
veterans and how anxiety ispassed through the sperm.
There's a lot more sciencebehind this, and so there are
also times where we can feellike I don't know where this
came from, and yet when we lookat our family tree, we can see
(14:12):
where some of this has beenpassed down, and that's why I
also say healing comes in layers.
Like I did therapy, I did 12step for many years I was an
Al-Anon.
It helped give me a voice.
It actually helped me.
It actually helped me, helpedgive me the power and the
forthright and the strength,asked my second husband actually
(14:33):
tell him that I wanted adivorce, and it was a support
group for me.
And yet then I saw how stuck alot of people were in their
stories, just as I had been.
I played the victim for a longtime.
I pointed the finger and Ithink, as you know, in the rooms
(14:56):
we say when.
I point a finger, three arepointing back at me, and so when
I decided to get out of thatmode and I also saw how stuck a
lot of people were in theirstories they wanted to blame
their parents, they wanted toblame the friend, they wanted to
blame the coworkers, and yet Iam the common denominator.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Right, right, and I agree with that.
You know, 12-step workabsolutely saved my life and
then therapy helped me get backinto it and understand it.
You know, and the the greatnessabout 12 step programs, I
believe, is that it is neverabout anyone else and because
they understand that, that youknow you're helpless If you're,
(15:40):
you're relying on other peopleto change.
The only person that can bechanged, that I can change, is
myself.
So that's very empowering.
So the focus is on what did Ido?
You know where was myresponsibility and my part, and
then we can move forward.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
And there's more that we can do as well, and this is
why I focus on the energy workas well, because I think it
comes in layers.
Whether you're doing 12 stepbefore therapy or after it,
those are or together ortogether, which I did, and I
(16:17):
loved 12 step and the differenttherapists that I went to.
That helped me deal with someof the layers of the abuse, and
therapy was good for giving avoice, initially, to some of the
traumas in my story, and yet Ifound that they weren't the two
(16:38):
of them together weren't enoughfor me, and I have a sentence, a
phrase that I like to say isenergy work completed the
sentence sentence.
Because we have energy thatgets stuck in our meridians, in
our chakras, and if you think ofit, you know when you're
blowing bubbles outside and youblow air through the little soap
(17:01):
thingy and a bubble getscreated, when the bubble pops,
the energy and the air thatcreated it, as well as the soap,
dissipate.
When we, no matter what age,aren't able to express what it
is that we're feeling, you canthink of it as if we're
(17:22):
swallowing that bubble, and whenthe bubble pops, the energy and
the soap stick to ourselves anda lot of our feelings, like
fear is stored in one certainplace in a body for the most
part, as well as anger inanother.
(17:43):
So fear a lot of times isstored in the kidney and the
bladder and anger in ourgallbladder and our liver.
High blood pressure is a lot oftimes a result of swallowing a
lot of those bubbles andinternalizing a lot of that
anger and anxiety.
(18:03):
Over half of the population iswalking around with some form of
disease that doctors want togive a pill to, and yet when we
do all of these layers of work,we actually have the ability to
heal ourselves.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So can you speak a little bit to the
multi-generational angle ofalcoholism and addiction?
I know we talk about notknowing well, there's a genetic
predisposition to it or not, andpeople sometimes get hung up on
that.
So what did that look like ofyou not being an alcoholic but
(18:40):
you being part of that wholesystem?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I numbed my pain, just as I saw my parents do and
my grandparents do.
I had, when I worked on WallStreet, I had a wine collection
and I used to have wine shippedin from Napa, california out to
New Jersey and I got obsessedwith the whole thing and I had
an Excel spreadsheet and I knewwhat to drink, when and where it
(19:05):
came from and when we bought it.
And, excuse me, I would comehome from work and then drink a
bottle or two of wine with myhusband both of them so I
followed in the same tradition.
You could have called me afunctional alcoholic, which I
(19:27):
think most of my family was.
And there is this shame aroundthe word alcoholic because we
think of it as the person livingin a van by the river or the
drunk on the street.
And yet a lot of the people Iworked with on Wall Street,
drinking was a huge part of theculture of when I started on
(19:51):
wall street the three martinilunches or going out after work
and having the couple bottles ofwine and sealing the deal.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Right, like networking and social
socializing, stress management.
Sure, it just goes with.
It absolutely would go withwall street right.
And any any other high poweredposition.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yes, and so if you went to one of these things and
you didn't drink, you werelooked at kind of like what's
wrong with you?
Maybe it's just like I don'tfeel like having a drink yeah,
there's yeah, that's so true andI think that's changing.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I do think that's changing, or I'm hearing more
that is becoming acceptable tonavigate through those business
networking events withoutalcohol.
There's other options todaythat I don't think were
available, say, 10 years ago, 20years ago.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I wasn't even aware of the cycle that I was in.
While I was on Wall Street Ijust numbed my pain in any way
that I could and, living withactive alcoholism, I remember I
would take a boat into Manhattanand then drive home and as I
(21:06):
would turn onto my street Iwould just have this feeling of
dread because I didn't know whatI was walking into and I'd pull
up into the driveway and a lotof times, and I didn't even know
, hated, and so he would drinkto numb his own pain, except I
(21:34):
still was highly functional ashe spiraled, and yet me working
14-hour days was another part ofmy addiction.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
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Now back to our guest.
Yeah, and so you can normalizeit.
I'm not as bad as him and I'mstill.
(22:50):
I still have my job.
I worked on wall street, too,for a little bit, and I remember
, at five o'clock this, the likesea of people going down to get
the train, like you could justsee this whole pack move through
in their suits.
It's just a cycle, and then youget up in the morning you head
back, head back in, and you, youknow, but you were functioning.
(23:12):
You were going home and sayingI'm not as bad as this man.
You know my husband.
So in a sense you know, but youwere still in a cycle.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I was, and I was doing exactly as I had been
taught, as my mother had beentaught as my grandmother had
been taught a lot of times wedon't realize that what we think
of as normal isn't healthy andthe men would drink.
And then the parties on theweekends that were like
(23:41):
networking things for mystepfather and his business
associates and also that, well,you can come into the living
room but children should be seenand not heard.
There were so many messages ofsilencing of we don't express,
we don't talk about these myself, and it was fascinating to me
(24:02):
in I guess it was about a yearafter got me on to social media.
I had been talked to the handup at that point because I
(24:34):
didn't want anyone to know orrealize how I felt about myself,
because I didn't feel very goodabout myself.
My career was over, my marriagewas over, and yet this was an
eight week program and on thefirst call she asked the
(24:56):
question how do you want to feel?
And it cracked me wide openbecause I realized I couldn't
answer the question.
I could say, how did I feel,which was based on external
things, but how did I want tofeel was an internal question
that I couldn't answer, that Ihadn't connected with since I
(25:19):
was a child.
So how did you want to feel?
I wanted to feel free.
I wanted to feel heard, seen,free, empowered.
Every year now I pick a coupleof words that are my theme for
the year.
This year is expansive, butit's like looking at what does
(25:40):
expansive mean to me, you know,it's allowing myself to be seen.
It's expanding in the work thatI do.
It's multi-layered, just likewe are.
This whole journey of healingis not about looking at the
external, outside world, as manyof us are taught to do Again.
(26:02):
It's coming back to whole newlayers of safety and trust
within ourselves, and I'mforever grateful for the first
coach that I worked with, aswell as myself, of saying yes to
this journey of I wantsomething better and different
for myself, because, even thoughI don't know where it's leading
(26:22):
, I don't want to continue tolive as I am right now.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
What a difference from being quiet for so many
years to now doing what you'redoing.
So I know you wrote a couple ofbooks and congratulations on
that.
Because they're twointernational bestselling books.
Can you talk about how and whyyou chose to write it down?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So my first book, which was published seven years
ago this week, is the Message inthe Bottle Finding Hope and
Peace Amidst the Chaos of Livingwith an Alcoholic.
This was I initially startedworking with families of
alcoholics.
This is where I came from.
This is where I did a lot of myinitial healing work when my
(27:11):
ex-husband first went to rehabback in 2012.
And I had been in recovery fora few years before that.
I saw the changes that I hadexperienced in saying yes to
myself and I wanted to helpfamilies of alcoholics, and in
(27:31):
each of the chapters there are alot of introspective questions.
What I found is that a lot offriends who are in AA and are
alcoholics or have had their ownexperiences with drug addiction
also resonate with this book,because the subtitle of finding
peace amidst the chaos of livingwith an alcoholic is sometimes
(27:54):
ourselves.
It is finding the peace withinus, and so this first book is a
lot edgier than my second.
It's where I was seven yearsago or eight years ago when I
started writing it, and yet itis the journey of the coming
(28:19):
back to yourself, and it shows alot about my own story and of
living and marrying twoalcoholics.
My second book, the Impact ofSilence.
Heal GenerationalAppropriations.
Reclaim the Sovereignty of yourSoul is a deeper journey into
our spiritual journey my ownstory.
(28:59):
I realized how pervasive it iswithin society and families to
not talk about our feelings, tosilence what it is that we're
feeling and the impact of that.
My second book goes a lot moreinto the science of how our
brain waves are, for instance,up through the age of eight, and
we are so wide open.
We're basically taking on theenergy of everything and
everyone around us.
We don't know discernment, wedon't know how to create
(29:21):
boundaries and if we're livingin a dysfunctional situation, we
learn dysfunction.
We learn to not speak up, andthis is I wrote this book.
After my travels, I actually inJanuary of 2018, sold everything
(29:45):
but my remaining things instorage and traveled for eight
months, and it was a journey ofself-discovery.
For the first time in over 30years, I had no pets, no partner
, no rent and no mortgage, and Ifound safety in having a few of
my cherished possessions in mysix-speed Mazda and traveling
(30:08):
around the country.
And it was the beginning ofgoing deeper into my own
spiritual quest and a feelingsafe and wandering and not
having to have a plan and takecontrol over everything, because
that was one of the otherthings in my old life of I
(30:31):
needed to create control.
So I felt safe in a world thatthat did not feel safe.
And and there's there's a lotmore to the story, and yet so
the second book is is more of aspiritual healing offering, and
there again, in each chapter, isan invitation for the reader to
(30:51):
go deeper into their own story.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I like the word invitation.
I think that did you do themajority of the writing on that
when you were on your eightmonth quest of.
Is that where you wrote or isthat where you just acquired the
information for the second book?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I acquired some of the information and then I ended
up moving to Utah, where I justmoved from.
I was there for four years andit was while I was in Utah that
this, this thing aroundboundaries and our energy and
how we stand up and speak up forourselves, was really where I
(31:33):
started to write this book.
What's very interesting in thatI got through the second
developmental draft of that bookand only about 10% of it went
into what was published.
Books have a life of their own.
They sure do yeah, right, andwhat wanted to come through was
something very different.
(31:54):
I was also undergoing thejourney of healing breast cancer
.
While I started, actually, Iwas diagnosed in the middle of
writing the book.
I put it down.
When I picked it back up, thatwas when it had a completely
different voice.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Okay, yeah, understood, yeah, yeah.
So you hit on two very bigthings that I think are so
relevant to listeners is thefamily piece of addiction and
alcoholism, and also it you knowthe title of your book the
impact of silence.
(32:32):
I've heard people throughoutthe years talk about how they
were never able to talk aboutanything in their home and how
that didn't serve them.
So I think that these two booksare really going to be
something that, if anyone wouldlike to look them up, I'm going
to put them in the show notes tofind you.
(32:52):
Like to look them up?
I'm going to put them in theshow notes to find you.
So if you could just letlisteners know what are you
doing now, because I know yourpurpose is dedicated to helping
people overcome trauma and whatyou went through as well, so
you're helping other people dothat.
Can you speak to that a littlebit and let other people know
where they could find you andlet other people know where?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
they could find you Absolutely.
So currently, right now, I workone-on-one with people.
Okay, and it's a mixture ofboth coaching and energy work.
So it's the alchemy of it,because there's times where we
can have the awareness ofsomething, and yet just having
the awareness doesn't clear theenergy of it, because if we
(33:34):
think of a situation or a personand continue to get triggered,
just having the awarenessdoesn't clear the energy of it,
because if we think of asituation or a person and
continue to get triggered,there's something more to do.
So I work one-on-one with peopleand I actually just finished
the first round of an eight-weekprogram entitled the Energy of
Boundaries.
And yet the people that workwith me are like they're ready,
they've done a whole bunch ofwork, they want to be done with
(33:56):
this, and we typically worktogether in three-month
increments, because that givesthem a safe container to give a
voice to some of the things theymay never have given a voice to
, as well as clearing whatthey've internalized.
So it's an incredible journeyand honor to be able to do this
(34:22):
work with people, because whenwe have that freedom of no
longer carrying the story and Ilike to say there's no story
that can't be healed, sharingthe story and I like to say
there's no story that can't behealed and people can find me on
my website, which is Way of theDiamond Warrior.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Thank you so much for bringing out some real good
insights on multi-generationaladdiction the impact of silence,
being heard and just livingfree living a freer version of
yourself.
Thank you, it's been an honor.
Thank you for tuning into theSober Living Stories podcast.
If you have been inspired,consider subscribing and sharing
(35:08):
with anyone who could use hopein their lives.
Remember to stay tuned for moreinspiring stories in the
episodes to come.
To view our featured author ofthe month or to become a guest
yourself, visitwwwjessicastepanoviccom.
After a 27-year career on Wall Street, Stephanie
is the founder and CEO of theWay of the Diamond Warrior and
author of two internationalbestselling books.
As a personal transformationconsultant and energy healer,
she builds bridges for clientsto step more deeply into their
own path.
Today, she's sharing herpersonal story about overcoming
(00:22):
sexual abuse andmulti-generational alcoholism
and addiction.
She's passionate about how weheal individually and together.
Lean in for an exciting,insightful episode.
Welcome to the Sober LivingStories podcast.
(00:44):
This podcast is dedicated tosharing stories of sobriety.
We shine a spotlight onindividuals who have faced the
challenges of alcoholism andaddiction and are today living
out their best lives sober.
Each guest has experiencedincredible transformation and
are here to share their storywith you.
I'm Jessica Stepanoich, yourhost.
(01:05):
Join me each week as guestsfrom all walks of life share
their stories to inspire andprovide hope to those who need
it most.
Hi and welcome to anotherepisode of the Sober Living
(01:33):
Stories podcast.
Meet Stephanie.
She speaks, writes and teacheson the human condition.
She's passionate about helpingher clients heal from trauma and
live a life free of itsconstraints.
She is one that deeplyunderstands that, as she has
found incredible healing in herown story, and today she's going
to share that story with us.
She healed sexual abuse, aswell as multi-generational
(01:56):
alcoholism and addiction.
Welcome, Stephanie.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Thank you, jessica, it is such an honor to be here.
Thank you, jessica, it is suchan honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
The disease of alcoholism is often, in many
instances, a family disease, andyou talk about healing
multi-generational alcoholismand addiction, so I'd love to
hear your personal story.
Go back as far as you want totake us and let's see what we
(02:28):
can learn along the way.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Thank you, as far back as I can remember, there
were always cocktails thatstarted in the afternoon, drinks
on the weekends, parties, andnothing was out of control,
including our emotions.
It was just a normal day-to-daything of.
Cocktails, like I said, meantto late afternoon and one of the
(02:53):
chores that when I was injunior high school that I had to
do was to make ice cubes.
And it's amazing how somethingso small can be so impactful to
us.
Because I would hear at thatpoint my grandmother was living
with us and I was there with mymother, my stepfather and
stepbrother and younger brothersand I would hear you know,
(03:17):
steph, go make the ice cubes.
And I would pop out the cubesfrom the tray from yesterday and
refill the trays again fortomorrow.
And it meant and I didn't fullyunderstand this at the time,
but that the rest of theafternoon and evening was lost
and what I craved was connection.
And what I didn't understanduntil much later is that the
(03:41):
adults were numbing their ownpain.
We didn't have bigconversations about life, about
what was happening, and at thetime I was being sexually abused
by my stepbrother.
It was known and we didn't talkabout it.
And that was the age when Ifirst found drugs.
(04:03):
I really had no interest atthat point in alcohol and yet
when I was high and it was myneighbor diagonally across the
street who introduced me to potwhen I was in eighth grade and I
remember sitting out in thewoods with my friend Jean and
(04:24):
when I got high it was like Icould feel and I could laugh and
I connected with feelingswithin me that had been buried
because nothing was expressed.
In my household back.
My grandfather was an angrydrunk and kind of terrorized.
(04:46):
My mother and my grandmotherand I am at least the fourth
generation of women in my familywho were sexually abused and
not protected by their mother,because women were very
powerless, women didn't have alot of agency.
Women didn't have a lot ofagency.
And when you're tormentedwithin your own family, you're
(05:10):
not taught how to speak up foryourself, how to stand up for
yourself, how to create any formof healthy boundaries, if they
even exist.
And so I decided also at thatage, about a year after I
started smoking pot and friendsstarted getting into pills, and
(05:30):
I found the Percodans that werein the medicine cabinet for the
dental work and it was like I'mnever getting married, I'm never
having children, I'm going tocollege and I will never be
(05:54):
financially dependent on a man,because I did not want to be
like my mother.
So I did go to college and Ihad the career and I worked on
wall street for 27 years.
I did very, very well inproject management and systems,
so I supported the trading andthe clearing.
(06:14):
I wasn't on the front lines andyet behind the scenes was just
as stressful, and I thrived inchaos, and I thrived in the same
chaos that I lived in when Iwas a child and I married two
alcoholics.
So 10 years twice, and withinthe course of a year my second
(06:41):
marriage ended, of which we wentthrough rehabs with him, and
he's still drinking to this day.
I love him dearly and he is onthe other side of the country
living his life, and I wishnothing but the best for him.
And yet I knew that I couldn'tstay.
I was doing more for him thanhe was for himself.
(07:02):
I was doing more for him thanhe was for himself.
I was doing more for him than Iwas for myself, and so I ended
the marriage, even though I wasstill in love with this man?
I couldn't.
My health was in jeopardy.
I had two heart attack scares.
I wasn't taking care of myself.
I was working 14 hours a dayand then coming home and finding
(07:26):
anything that I could do todistract myself from what I
didn't want to deal with, whichwas the exact thing that I grew
up with.
And then, a year after mymarriage ended, my 27 year
career on Wall Street ended andall of a sudden, I had this time
and was like what am I going todo with myself?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You know it's interesting.
I heard I heard you may.
When you were speaking, youmade a real decision to become
self-sufficient.
You said you were not going tobe relying on a man for finances
.
Do you feel like that was aresult of not getting the
protection that you needed fromyour family at a time that you
(08:11):
needed it most, when nobodyspoke about the abuse?
Like, if they're not going tohelp, I'm going to do this
myself.
Where do you think that sprungfrom?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Absolutely, and that was, if we're into fight, flight
or fear.
That was my fight.
That was me putting up a hardshell around myself and saying
you know what I'm going to do,what I need to do for me,
because I am not going tocontinue to open myself up to
the hurt from people who youknow.
As children, we haveexpectations that those who are
raising us are going to protectus and care for us and nurture
(08:49):
us, and I grew up with thetrappings of the white middle
class.
I had a home, I had food, I hadclothes and, and everything
from the outside looked perfectand it was a shell.
And it was that same shell thatI realized that I was living
(09:10):
within, that I created formyself, because I created this
hard boundary around me so thatno one could get in, and I think
this is part of why there's somany people who feel like I have
to do this all on my own.
There's a lot of lone wolvesrunning around this world.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
It's like a survival mechanism.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It absolutely is survival and, like I said, it's
actually a combination of fightand flight, because I'm fleeing
from the rest of the world andcreating separation and I'm
going to fight to protect theshell that I've created around
myself.
And yet what I found is westill yearn the connection, we
(09:57):
still yearn to be seen, and it'swhen we start to let down that
guard that we've created forourself, as scary as it may be,
that's when we really begin tocall in what it is that we've
wanted all along.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, and that's the exciting, like as you were
speaking, it just it hit me inmy heart because I can relate to
that so much.
I too formed a heart exteriorfor many years throughout my
life and then I could just telllike from if it's anything like
my journey has been like, whenwe get better and we come into
(10:32):
our own, the the big, the mostwonderful thing is that you can
begin to take that down Rightand then it just it's
life-changing, it's absolutelyyour edges get softens.
You know you don't have tocarry all that because you're
not in survival mode anymore,and that's like an exhausting
lifestyle.
You, you don't have to carryall that because you're not in
survival mode anymore, andthat's like an exhausting
(10:53):
lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You wouldn't have told me that at the time, but
once I came, through that Ithought, wow, I'm so glad I
don't have to do that anymore.
It is incredibly exhausting andwe don't realize how much so
when you think about how muchinternal energy physical, mental
, emotional that it takes tomaintain that shell around us
(11:14):
like it's no wonder why we'realways exhausted.
And yet there's a beauty in andit comes in layers.
You know, we didn't get hereovernight unraveling and
unwinding these layers that wecreated for ourselves.
Yes, this is where we get togive ourselves some grace.
So it's not like all of asudden.
(11:35):
I'm wide open and I know how tocreate healthy boundaries and I
know how to stand up for myself,especially with the toxic
codependency that comes with alot of addiction within families
.
It's in stages and we get tobuild those muscles.
(11:56):
One of the things that we loseis the feeling of internal
safety, and so as we unwind someof the old layers, we learn to
trust ourselves more.
We become more safe in sayingno, I don't want that, or for
asking for what it is that wewant.
(12:16):
And, like I said, we will neverbe given more than we can
handle.
And sometimes it is taking onestep forward and two back and we
learn a little bit and weintegrate, and then we can take
three steps forward.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, and I think it's a lifelong process, you
know, and the trauma for somemay be from your family of
origin, would you agree?
But, like for myself, thatwasn't true.
It was from an abusiverelationship I picked up along
the way in my teens.
That's when my decision tobecome self-sufficient and put
(12:56):
up my wall started.
But I didn't realize that hereI am years, decades later and
not knowing where it started,and I can pinpoint that today,
regardless of where thattraumatic incident happened, I
think that's when we start toadd on those unnecessary layer
(13:17):
well, necessary at the time, butthen shedding them later is the
real freedom.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Absolutely, and there is trauma that we also inherit
through the DNA.
We're in our mother's wombs forseven to 10 months, depending
on when we're pushed out intothis world to take our first
breath, and there are studiesthat show that you know,
newborns and infants and youngchildren can smell fear in their
(13:47):
mothers.
There are studies that arehappening looking at war
veterans and how anxiety ispassed through the sperm.
There's a lot more sciencebehind this, and so there are
also times where we can feellike I don't know where this
came from, and yet when we lookat our family tree, we can see
(14:12):
where some of this has beenpassed down, and that's why I
also say healing comes in layers.
Like I did therapy, I did 12step for many years I was an
Al-Anon.
It helped give me a voice.
It actually helped me.
It actually helped me, helpedgive me the power and the
forthright and the strength,asked my second husband actually
(14:33):
tell him that I wanted adivorce, and it was a support
group for me.
And yet then I saw how stuck alot of people were in their
stories, just as I had been.
I played the victim for a longtime.
I pointed the finger and Ithink, as you know, in the rooms
(14:56):
we say when.
I point a finger, three arepointing back at me, and so when
I decided to get out of thatmode and I also saw how stuck a
lot of people were in theirstories they wanted to blame
their parents, they wanted toblame the friend, they wanted to
blame the coworkers, and yet Iam the common denominator.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Right, right, and I agree with that.
You know, 12-step workabsolutely saved my life and
then therapy helped me get backinto it and understand it.
You know, and the the greatnessabout 12 step programs, I
believe, is that it is neverabout anyone else and because
they understand that, that youknow you're helpless If you're,
(15:40):
you're relying on other peopleto change.
The only person that can bechanged, that I can change, is
myself.
So that's very empowering.
So the focus is on what did Ido?
You know where was myresponsibility and my part, and
then we can move forward.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
And there's more that we can do as well, and this is
why I focus on the energy workas well, because I think it
comes in layers.
Whether you're doing 12 stepbefore therapy or after it,
those are or together ortogether, which I did, and I
(16:17):
loved 12 step and the differenttherapists that I went to.
That helped me deal with someof the layers of the abuse, and
therapy was good for giving avoice, initially, to some of the
traumas in my story, and yet Ifound that they weren't the two
(16:38):
of them together weren't enoughfor me, and I have a sentence, a
phrase that I like to say isenergy work completed the
sentence sentence.
Because we have energy thatgets stuck in our meridians, in
our chakras, and if you think ofit, you know when you're
blowing bubbles outside and youblow air through the little soap
(17:01):
thingy and a bubble getscreated, when the bubble pops,
the energy and the air thatcreated it, as well as the soap,
dissipate.
When we, no matter what age,aren't able to express what it
is that we're feeling, you canthink of it as if we're
(17:22):
swallowing that bubble, and whenthe bubble pops, the energy and
the soap stick to ourselves anda lot of our feelings, like
fear is stored in one certainplace in a body for the most
part, as well as anger inanother.
(17:43):
So fear a lot of times isstored in the kidney and the
bladder and anger in ourgallbladder and our liver.
High blood pressure is a lot oftimes a result of swallowing a
lot of those bubbles andinternalizing a lot of that
anger and anxiety.
(18:03):
Over half of the population iswalking around with some form of
disease that doctors want togive a pill to, and yet when we
do all of these layers of work,we actually have the ability to
heal ourselves.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So can you speak a little bit to the
multi-generational angle ofalcoholism and addiction?
I know we talk about notknowing well, there's a genetic
predisposition to it or not, andpeople sometimes get hung up on
that.
So what did that look like ofyou not being an alcoholic but
(18:40):
you being part of that wholesystem?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I numbed my pain, just as I saw my parents do and
my grandparents do.
I had, when I worked on WallStreet, I had a wine collection
and I used to have wine shippedin from Napa, california out to
New Jersey and I got obsessedwith the whole thing and I had
an Excel spreadsheet and I knewwhat to drink, when and where it
(19:05):
came from and when we bought it.
And, excuse me, I would comehome from work and then drink a
bottle or two of wine with myhusband both of them so I
followed in the same tradition.
You could have called me afunctional alcoholic, which I
(19:27):
think most of my family was.
And there is this shame aroundthe word alcoholic because we
think of it as the person livingin a van by the river or the
drunk on the street.
And yet a lot of the people Iworked with on Wall Street,
drinking was a huge part of theculture of when I started on
(19:51):
wall street the three martinilunches or going out after work
and having the couple bottles ofwine and sealing the deal.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Right, like networking and social
socializing, stress management.
Sure, it just goes with.
It absolutely would go withwall street right.
And any any other high poweredposition.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yes, and so if you went to one of these things and
you didn't drink, you werelooked at kind of like what's
wrong with you?
Maybe it's just like I don'tfeel like having a drink yeah,
there's yeah, that's so true andI think that's changing.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I do think that's changing, or I'm hearing more
that is becoming acceptable tonavigate through those business
networking events withoutalcohol.
There's other options todaythat I don't think were
available, say, 10 years ago, 20years ago.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I wasn't even aware of the cycle that I was in.
While I was on Wall Street Ijust numbed my pain in any way
that I could and, living withactive alcoholism, I remember I
would take a boat into Manhattanand then drive home and as I
(21:06):
would turn onto my street Iwould just have this feeling of
dread because I didn't know whatI was walking into and I'd pull
up into the driveway and a lotof times, and I didn't even know
, hated, and so he would drinkto numb his own pain, except I
(21:34):
still was highly functional ashe spiraled, and yet me working
14-hour days was another part ofmy addiction.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Let's take a moment to hear a recovery story from
one of my sponsors.
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found himself in a Texas rehabfacility detoxing After 10 years
of addiction.
He was finally able to admitthat it was time to get help.
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(22:06):
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(22:29):
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the show notes to click thelink and receive $50 off your
device today.
Now back to our guest.
Yeah, and so you can normalizeit.
I'm not as bad as him and I'mstill.
(22:50):
I still have my job.
I worked on wall street, too,for a little bit, and I remember
, at five o'clock this, the likesea of people going down to get
the train, like you could justsee this whole pack move through
in their suits.
It's just a cycle, and then youget up in the morning you head
back, head back in, and you, youknow, but you were functioning.
(23:12):
You were going home and sayingI'm not as bad as this man.
You know my husband.
So in a sense you know, but youwere still in a cycle.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I was, and I was doing exactly as I had been
taught, as my mother had beentaught as my grandmother had
been taught a lot of times wedon't realize that what we think
of as normal isn't healthy andthe men would drink.
And then the parties on theweekends that were like
(23:41):
networking things for mystepfather and his business
associates and also that, well,you can come into the living
room but children should be seenand not heard.
There were so many messages ofsilencing of we don't express,
we don't talk about these myself, and it was fascinating to me
(24:02):
in I guess it was about a yearafter got me on to social media.
I had been talked to the handup at that point because I
(24:34):
didn't want anyone to know orrealize how I felt about myself,
because I didn't feel very goodabout myself.
My career was over, my marriagewas over, and yet this was an
eight week program and on thefirst call she asked the
(24:56):
question how do you want to feel?
And it cracked me wide openbecause I realized I couldn't
answer the question.
I could say, how did I feel,which was based on external
things, but how did I want tofeel was an internal question
that I couldn't answer, that Ihadn't connected with since I
(25:19):
was a child.
So how did you want to feel?
I wanted to feel free.
I wanted to feel heard, seen,free, empowered.
Every year now I pick a coupleof words that are my theme for
the year.
This year is expansive, butit's like looking at what does
(25:40):
expansive mean to me, you know,it's allowing myself to be seen.
It's expanding in the work thatI do.
It's multi-layered, just likewe are.
This whole journey of healingis not about looking at the
external, outside world, as manyof us are taught to do Again.
(26:02):
It's coming back to whole newlayers of safety and trust
within ourselves, and I'mforever grateful for the first
coach that I worked with, aswell as myself, of saying yes to
this journey of I wantsomething better and different
for myself, because, even thoughI don't know where it's leading
(26:22):
, I don't want to continue tolive as I am right now.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
What a difference from being quiet for so many
years to now doing what you'redoing.
So I know you wrote a couple ofbooks and congratulations on
that.
Because they're twointernational bestselling books.
Can you talk about how and whyyou chose to write it down?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So my first book, which was published seven years
ago this week, is the Message inthe Bottle Finding Hope and
Peace Amidst the Chaos of Livingwith an Alcoholic.
This was I initially startedworking with families of
alcoholics.
This is where I came from.
This is where I did a lot of myinitial healing work when my
(27:11):
ex-husband first went to rehabback in 2012.
And I had been in recovery fora few years before that.
I saw the changes that I hadexperienced in saying yes to
myself and I wanted to helpfamilies of alcoholics, and in
(27:31):
each of the chapters there are alot of introspective questions.
What I found is that a lot offriends who are in AA and are
alcoholics or have had their ownexperiences with drug addiction
also resonate with this book,because the subtitle of finding
peace amidst the chaos of livingwith an alcoholic is sometimes
(27:54):
ourselves.
It is finding the peace withinus, and so this first book is a
lot edgier than my second.
It's where I was seven yearsago or eight years ago when I
started writing it, and yet itis the journey of the coming
(28:19):
back to yourself, and it shows alot about my own story and of
living and marrying twoalcoholics.
My second book, the Impact ofSilence.
Heal GenerationalAppropriations.
Reclaim the Sovereignty of yourSoul is a deeper journey into
our spiritual journey my ownstory.
(28:59):
I realized how pervasive it iswithin society and families to
not talk about our feelings, tosilence what it is that we're
feeling and the impact of that.
My second book goes a lot moreinto the science of how our
brain waves are, for instance,up through the age of eight, and
we are so wide open.
We're basically taking on theenergy of everything and
everyone around us.
We don't know discernment, wedon't know how to create
(29:21):
boundaries and if we're livingin a dysfunctional situation, we
learn dysfunction.
We learn to not speak up, andthis is I wrote this book.
After my travels, I actually inJanuary of 2018, sold everything
(29:45):
but my remaining things instorage and traveled for eight
months, and it was a journey ofself-discovery.
For the first time in over 30years, I had no pets, no partner
, no rent and no mortgage, and Ifound safety in having a few of
my cherished possessions in mysix-speed Mazda and traveling
(30:08):
around the country.
And it was the beginning ofgoing deeper into my own
spiritual quest and a feelingsafe and wandering and not
having to have a plan and takecontrol over everything, because
that was one of the otherthings in my old life of I
(30:31):
needed to create control.
So I felt safe in a world thatthat did not feel safe.
And and there's there's a lotmore to the story, and yet so
the second book is is more of aspiritual healing offering, and
there again, in each chapter, isan invitation for the reader to
(30:51):
go deeper into their own story.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I like the word invitation.
I think that did you do themajority of the writing on that
when you were on your eightmonth quest of.
Is that where you wrote or isthat where you just acquired the
information for the second book?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I acquired some of the information and then I ended
up moving to Utah, where I justmoved from.
I was there for four years andit was while I was in Utah that
this, this thing aroundboundaries and our energy and
how we stand up and speak up forourselves, was really where I
(31:33):
started to write this book.
What's very interesting in thatI got through the second
developmental draft of that bookand only about 10% of it went
into what was published.
Books have a life of their own.
They sure do yeah, right, andwhat wanted to come through was
something very different.
(31:54):
I was also undergoing thejourney of healing breast cancer
.
While I started, actually, Iwas diagnosed in the middle of
writing the book.
I put it down.
When I picked it back up, thatwas when it had a completely
different voice.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Okay, yeah, understood, yeah, yeah.
So you hit on two very bigthings that I think are so
relevant to listeners is thefamily piece of addiction and
alcoholism, and also it you knowthe title of your book the
impact of silence.
(32:32):
I've heard people throughoutthe years talk about how they
were never able to talk aboutanything in their home and how
that didn't serve them.
So I think that these two booksare really going to be
something that, if anyone wouldlike to look them up, I'm going
to put them in the show notes tofind you.
(32:52):
Like to look them up?
I'm going to put them in theshow notes to find you.
So if you could just letlisteners know what are you
doing now, because I know yourpurpose is dedicated to helping
people overcome trauma and whatyou went through as well, so
you're helping other people dothat.
Can you speak to that a littlebit and let other people know
where they could find you andlet other people know where?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
they could find you Absolutely.
So currently, right now, I workone-on-one with people.
Okay, and it's a mixture ofboth coaching and energy work.
So it's the alchemy of it,because there's times where we
can have the awareness ofsomething, and yet just having
the awareness doesn't clear theenergy of it, because if we
(33:34):
think of a situation or a personand continue to get triggered,
just having the awarenessdoesn't clear the energy of it,
because if we think of asituation or a person and
continue to get triggered,there's something more to do.
So I work one-on-one with peopleand I actually just finished
the first round of an eight-weekprogram entitled the Energy of
Boundaries.
And yet the people that workwith me are like they're ready,
they've done a whole bunch ofwork, they want to be done with
(33:56):
this, and we typically worktogether in three-month
increments, because that givesthem a safe container to give a
voice to some of the things theymay never have given a voice to
, as well as clearing whatthey've internalized.
So it's an incredible journeyand honor to be able to do this
(34:22):
work with people, because whenwe have that freedom of no
longer carrying the story and Ilike to say there's no story
that can't be healed, sharingthe story and I like to say
there's no story that can't behealed and people can find me on
my website, which is Way of theDiamond Warrior.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Thank you so much for bringing out some real good
insights on multi-generationaladdiction the impact of silence,
being heard and just livingfree living a freer version of
yourself.
Thank you, it's been an honor.
Thank you for tuning into theSober Living Stories podcast.
If you have been inspired,consider subscribing and sharing
(35:08):
with anyone who could use hopein their lives.
Remember to stay tuned for moreinspiring stories in the
episodes to come.
To view our featured author ofthe month or to become a guest
yourself, visitwwwjessicastepanoviccom.
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