I'm Sober Now What with Lynette le Roux

My guest this week is a very special member of our Tribe Sober Team

I first met Lynette LeRoux when she came to one of our workshops more than 8 years ago

She was in a dark place back then but the workshop was the catalyst she needed to change everything

Lynette has been transforming and enriching her life for the last 8 years – she’s found her passion and qualified as a Coach and for the last 3 years she has been working for Tribe Sober as a Coach

In this episode

• Lynette first tasted alcohol at the tender age of 9 – she’d got hold of some tiny bottles of whisky and brandy which she kept near her bed.  She would take a sip when she went to bed as it comforted her
• Going off to boarding school at the age of 5 left her with lingering feelings of isolation – a feeling that those little sips chased away.
• As she reflects back she realises it was a way to feel nurtured and held
• She didn’t drink much in her teens but in her 20’s she met a guy who loved his whisky and she began to drink regularly
• Lynette had never really felt comfortable in her own skin so alcohol helped her to socialise
• Her relationship deteriorated due to her partners drunken rages and he left her when she was pregnant
• She coped well over the next few years and began to develop her career
• The usual after work drinks culture prevailed and Lynette fell back into her old patterns
• She would drink excessively at the weekends as well as after work sometimes
• Like many of us she would resolve to stop or cut down but nothing really changed
• Then she met her current husband who hardly drinks at all
• He thought she drank too much so she tried hard to make a change
• She managed some sober stretches but as she got into her 40’s the alcohol came back into her life
• Even though she was drinking Lynette tried a lot self development programs during this period
• Looking back she realises that she never tried to integrate her learnings into her daily life
• If we don’t apply the learnings then the courses are really a waste of time and nothing will change
• As she moved into her 50’s Lynette became more dependent on alcohol
• She felt she was losing connection with her husband and her friends
• Always looking for the quick fix she decided to study plant medicine
• As part of Lynette’s ongoing odyssey for a quick cure for her problems she came across our one day workshop
• She attended the workshop but true to form she never really engaged
• After the workshop she didn’t apply the tools or connect via the chatgroups
• So nothing really changed and three months after the workshop she hit her rock bottom
• Driving to work and struggling with an awful hangover she had a “not this” moment
• Followed by a “if not this then what?” moment
• Out of desperation she looked at her Tribe Sober workshop notes and decided to reconnect
• Lynette went to the coffee meetup and engaged on the WhatsApp group
• After reading other peoples messages for a while she decided to reach out
• She posted a message that she felt really low
• Another member explained that she felt that way because her brain was recalibrating and healing
• This really resonated with Lynette and became her mantra
• She began to study coaching and started to see that a different way of life was possible
• As Lynette has been coached herself and has coached many people I asked her to explain why coaching is so valuable
• She explained that coaching helps us to get perspective on our life and our mind
• Coaching enables a growth mindset as we move towards our future self
• We talked about the benefits she has gained from 5 years of sobriety
• The biggest benefit for Lynette was reconnecting with herself and then developing her passion for coaching
• She’s learned so much about her beautiful brain and she’s learned how to feel
• She’s learned that emotional pain is a sign of growth and she must learn to get comfortable with being uncomfortable
• That's a lesson she’s taught us all here at Tribe Sober
• We agreed that there is so much more to recovery than “not drinking”
• As Lynette said tha's just 10% of the work – and we will never thrive in sobriety if we don’t tackle the other 90%
• We talked about anhedonia which is the low mood that sometimes hits us in early sobriety
• For more on dealing anhedonia check out Lynette’s video on our you tube channel and the Tribe Sober podcast interview with Dr Loretta Breuning, episode 55 on Apple Podcasts
• We talked about the Path to Purpose which is Lynette's membership program
• We discussed the synergy between Tribe Sober and Path to Purpose memberships and our plans to bring them closer

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