All Up In: My Sobriety Journey

Music. Welcome to all up in my lady business I am your host Mary nisi on this podcast all explore the fine line between having it together I'm losing your shit. Here I share my journey as an entrepreneur a mom a wife a DJ and randomly a beekeeper. I have no shame and no filter except the ones I use on Instagram. My stories of resilience a little structure and a lot of resource Wellness can show you how to take those same things and live your life with your whole ass. Thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in today this is gonna be a big one for me September 21st by the time you hear this and we'll have already happened was my one year anniversary of quitting drinking and, to say that. Change my life would be an understatement and on today's episode we're going to be walking through I guess my drinking journey and the way that it you know if you quit and you start looking back on the reasons why you quit drinking like the events that happened as a result of the things in my life that I did or didn't do and where I am now so come along I promise it'll be more entertaining than sad I hope. That's the plan so as I said September 21st is good pie one-year anniversary of becoming alcohol-free and you know I I've been drinking in some capacity since I was 14 years old and I went on to be pretty good at it like I was a championship Drinker and it was a pretty fun thing for the most part drinking is something you do when you want to have fun and celebrate and it was mostly fun except when it wasn't and then it just stopped being fun it stopped being a thing that was celebratory and seemed more just like a thing I had to do you know like that Simpsons episode where Homer Simpson is like alcohol it's the cause of and the solution to all life's problems you know you do it when you're happy you drink when you're sad you drink when you celebrate you drink to commiserate and I have done so many very cool things that I barely remember because I got a little too drunk and I have done a lot of shameful things that I both don't remember and spent too much time for weeks after wondering exactly what I did what I said did I even say anything did somebody else say it and I just thought I said it does everybody hate me why does everybody hate me I'm pretty sure everybody hates me why did I think it was fun. So if you know me you know that I have no filter if you've been listening to this podcast the dumb stuff I say on here I also say it in real life. The dumb things that I say when I'm sober would only just get enhanced when I would drink and I would apologize afterwards or I would get called out for the bad behavior and I would just booked while I was drunk and it was almost an acceptable answer like. Because almost like well I mean I guess okay because you didn't know what you were doing but still be lingering there it wasn't like I didn't do it because I was drunk I it was just a good enough reason why it did happen and I think of all the things I've done so many cool things I always wind up in cool places I you know things happen to me like I'm it's weird and but I think about like, the what one night in particular that I think about that I really like look back on and just a mad that I couldn't keep it together for was the night that Obama was elected like when he got elected there was a there were rumors that he was going to be doing his election night, rally in Grant Park and I had the forethought to like oh I wonder if there's any hotels, that we can get a hotel room so we can like be down there for it and so I managed to get a hotel room across the street from Grant Park at the Congress Hotel which is kind of a gross hotel but whatever it was like $150 for the night and I got a hotel room and then they announced that it was going to be in Grant Park in there was a lottery and I managed to get John and I tickets to be in Grant Park the night that Obama was elected and it was like I got a hotel room across the street

30 I think it was by like.

00 was when it started to seem like Obama was going to win and there was like thousands of people in Grant Park and we like stumbled across the street and went into Grant Park I barely remember it I barely remember it and it is like such a bummer like I don't know like I was there but I wasn't thanks alcohol anyway I never tried drugs like cocaine mostly because of dare and Nancy Reagan that just sort of worked on me also Len Bias anybody remember the Len Bias story he was like going to be basketball's next big thing and then he'd like did cocaine one time and died like all that really worked on me I didn't think that. Me taking a drug that could kill me the first time I did it was a great way to was it would be an advisable thing for me to do. Also can you imagine me on coke I'd be horrible like I'm a handful, sober I was five handfuls and I was drunk but Jesus Christ can you imagine me on cocaine it be terrible and I never saw anyone on it and I was like oh that's where I want to be grinding my teeth looking Shady running off to the bathroom with other people who also seemed to Shady behaving like assholes. I am quite surprised that my general fomo and the feeling that everyone was always talking shit about me at all times and hanging out without me didn't make me want to try to get over that brand of paranoia so I could hang out with the cool kids it's almost like you should congratulate me for my strength of character for not. Doing the cocaine and I was always secretly. And depending upon how much I drank that night not so secretly judging the shit out of anybody who was doing cocaine as if my drinking was somehow more dignified and the weird thing. Is that the science of drinking has proved that drinking has the exact same effect on the brain and the body as cocaine so I don't I don't know what kind of high horse I thought I was on but hey at least I wasn't on horse. Heroin whatever anyway that being said at this point being a year out from leaving behind drinking I do not at all judge. Anyone who drinks you can drink all you want around me I have absolutely no desire to drink ever again that might change someday. Maybe I'll bring it back into the fold or maybe I will decide that I don't think I've ever going to care about other people I really don't I don't care about it when people come over like that okay or like the order a drink around me that's like don't I don't care I really don't I really don't. And I might want to drink again who knows I mean the idea of going to Paris and not drinking at a cafe that sounds terrible like I feel like I. That wouldn't keep me from going to Paris but once you go months without a hangover which it was something I had virtually towards the end like the last two or three years I had a hangover like every time I drink regardless of quantity one glass was the same as drinking a whole bottle and I don't know if I can handle. One ever again like my life has gotten so infinitely better and I have done more in the last year with Clarity that I have done in years and I'm like a generally high-performing person anyway so the fact that I. Managed to get more done. It was kind of shocking you know I think about in the last year I have doubled down and becoming more invested in the wedding and DJing Community I'm going to conferences I've joined a bunch of organizations I'm like trying to really. Become a person that is a thought leader in my industry or whatever I made that Borg in Story video I've done a ton of weddings. And all of them have been awesome I went into all of them like excited to do them and I knowing I was going to slay them and I used to have such crippling anxiety before I would go do weddings and then I would like flagellate myself for weeks afterwards or I had a bad transition or I mispronounced some name during introductions I would just sit there and tear myself apart for it and that just hasn't happened at all since I quit drinking I said no to a lot of things I stopped doing things that were taking my time that I didn't want to do I became open to the idea of moving and change and then I moved into my house is like my dream house I can't believe I get to live at my house and I started this podcast and I gave myself the space to do it in perfectly and try things and not overthink it and the support that I've gotten from it has been surprising and overwhelming and has made me realize that I am on a on the right path I don't know I'm doing it. The way I want to be right now but at least I'm on the right path so I come from a long line of Drinkers and I think I think a lot of us did Boomers love to drink and there was a five-year gap between me and my older siblings so when I was like 10 they were at a minimum like 15 16 all the way up to 2021 so you know they were doing all their requisite teen drinking and it looked so cool because my older brothers and sisters were doing it and I was just biding my time until that inevitable pull got me the first time I ever drank was it was a bottle of like Cisco or some kind of pink gross. High-proof grain alcohol thing like a Mad Dog 20/20 or a Goldschlager or something I remember that I was on my Elementary School playground which was like a block from my house and I was there with a couple other people. But I don't think I don't think anybody else was drinking I don't I don't really I don't have a whole lot of grounding on I know my little sister was there and I don't and she wasn't drinking and I just I chugged the entire bottle like in like under a minute like I thought that was just so cool I thought I was like look at me I can do it I can drink alcohol it does actually I can do it and I drank it and then I Prime and I stood up and then I promptly like fell over onto the ground and my I remember Robin having to bring me home and my mom opened the door. Like she was it's almost like I wonder she like had a spidey sense or something that I walked through the front door my mom happened to just be at the door when I walked in and the look I gave her it's like she knew right away that I was drunk. Like I remember it was like it was early in the evening and I don't think I will ever really forget the look she gave me it was like this sad. Like disappointed resignation like she'd already done this with my other four brothers and sisters and she like never said a word to me about it no grounding no nothing. Like nothing got Pastor she knew what. She knew I was drunk and it was like an end of my innocence it kind of I kind of remember it being summer I think it was the summer between my 8th grade in freshman year of high school, and later on she did kind of have a like a call me like don't get in cars with kids you've been drinking and you know that was vice that was advice that I barely followed I didn't really drink again after that. Until New Year's Eve if that year and I was a freshman in high school and I was desperately trying to be popular I wanted so badly to run with the cool kids. I was just I was so thirsty like I failed I was tried out for the cheerleading team I didn't get on it and I was just trying to hang out with the cool kids but I was intrinsically I was like an intrinsically weird child and intrinsically weird kid and I think the universe was basically saying look elsewhere for your people but I had like one like I had to get like one last nail in the coffin of that desperate desire to be popular and that happened the night of New Year's Eve like the New Year's Eve my freshman year I was I went to a party with with my best friend Jenny and. I'm sure I was full of Natty light or mg D or Rolling Rock whatever gross water enhanced beer. Like substance that I was pounding at the time all of a sudden I was in a bedroom with Jenny and her older sister's boy from the three of us were in in this bedroom I don't know how he got in there. And we're going to call him Cory because that's actually his name and he was the captain of like the JV football team and he was probably the home in like homecoming Court probably had a pickup truck. He just like peaked in high school Prime peaking in high school bullshit and I remember. Being in that room at all but I just have all of a sudden we were there was the three of us and he was like I remember being super confused and why we were alone with him when he was when he was Jenny sister's boyfriend like wire what is going on here and then all of a sudden he was kissing me and I had never kissed anyone before like this was my very first kiss it all fell wrong and then he was kissing my friend and I remember feeling like everything about this was bad like what is your sister going to think and I couldn't bring myself to leave the room I didn't know who was outside the door who's going to see me walk out I didn't know if I tried to leave what would happen to Jenny like it was just it was just jumbled mess of being drunk and unable to process exactly what was happening and being afraid socially of what was going to happen to Jenny like was her sister going to kill her thinking that no one can find out about this like this is I've never kissed anybody before like this is not how this was supposed to go and I was afraid to leave because I didn't want to seem lame or prude or whatever and I couldn't believe that this was my first kiss and this is how it was going to happen. No romance he didn't like me he didn't even know me I'm not even sure he knew my name and it wasn't sweet or innocent are fun and it happened to me I had I had no agency in that moment and all I wanted to do was get out of there. And nothing else really happened but I don't really even know how long we were in there but finally I was like I gotta go home or something and I opened the door and literally everybody at the party was outside the door waiting for us to come out and saw Jenny and Isley it Jenny and I walk out of the room with Cory behind us looking like the cat that killed the canary I mean it was like it was so, fucking mortifying I'm 14 and we went home. And I woke up the next day feeling like I would like like with a feeling I would repeat over and over again for decades what happened what did I do what did I say like just blaming myself hating myself. Not in any way blaming him there wasn't I wasn't really like you know because heaven forbid we blame him heaven forbid he was just taking what he could take you know and I just allowed it to happen and it was just and I had no. For that like I had I had no warning I had nobody telling me mostly because this is what happened to girls they would get drunk make bad choices and it was always on their point like that was never on the guy who is taking advantage of a situation like why was he in a bedroom. His girlfriend's little sister and her best friend like just gross stuff anyway. I was wondering what school was going to be like once it started up again, because we are still in Christmas break and no one knew who I was I was loser freshman hopefully that in this would all like past like anything else like hopefully no one would remember it but I got a preview of how it was all going to go down the next day we were going skiing at the sad little bump called Mount Crescent across the border in Iowa from Omaha. And apparently my entire high school was also going skiing and Jenny and I were trying to have a good time and people were skiing past us and calling us the double-team Queen's and sluts and like screaming to Jenny like how she could do that to her sister how I could do that to my friend it was. Beyond humiliating and I was like stranded in Crescent Iowa waiting for a parent to come get us so like we were I was just like stuck there like stuck there while people were just. Lambasting us for being the awful people that we were I was branded a whore I barely had done anything in my life was the first time I ever touched a boy. But Corey never really talked to me again and I was okay with that because I was mortified the abuse continued one school started it was terrible people all of a sudden everyone knew who I was and people I didn't even know we're calling me a slut and as I walk down the hall and it was like the Fatal blow in my reputation and I was 14 I didn't even attempt anything even remotely close to flirting with a boy for 2 years, I just like turn that part of my brain off and was just this prude who didn't Court any drama and I didn't drink again until. I was like a junior in high school and I started running with the group of friends that turned out to be my crew for the rest of high school and really the rest of my life these are like, I am still close with almost all of them today and it was a great group of people it was all because all my friends were very smart, like really sassy high-functioning AP class kind of kids and like that side of my life really took off like I this isn't really about like my education but like being friends with them really kind of made me recognize that I am smart and that and that's when I started doing take Taking AP classes and being a became a much better student they were high-functioning girls who also loved to party and started drinking fairly heavily and by that point I was had been tainted sexually by Corey I didn't feel like I was allowed to have fun and flirty and innocent things so I was just like fuck it I won't be a fun innocent thing anymore. I'm just going to I just decided kind of became like this makeup queen and I would get drunk with my friends and we all I mean kiss anyone who seemed vaguely interested we drink all the time and drove in cars with people who are drinking I don't know how I made it out alive but anyway so then I moved here for college would Chicago for college and I became my land I became. I can't I moved here for college and I began my life and college and then work and I drank like all my friends did and it was just part a part of everyday life and I came to realize. That while I drank like all my friends we were all pretty heavy Drinkers and it felt normal but in retrospect it wasn't. But I was able to highly function you know I didn't I didn't keep any alcohol at my house. Like not as a rule but more like I don't do it here or alone like drinking is something I do out in public so like you know I had Apartments be a lot of parties I went out almost every night that any given night there was like. Tend to like 30 of my friends that were like at any bar in this four block radius we were just kind of move between them and like that was every night there would be nice I wouldn't leave the house like I would stay at my house and we we like just hanging out until like,

00 in the morning depending upon when they closed because there are four I am bars during the week and then 5 a.m. on the weekends and then I would go to work the next day I always went to work you know like how did I do that. How did I do that anyway so I finally I'm moving to my first place by myself right after I started toast and jam and I moved pretty far north in Chicago that was far from my friends and I needed that isolation to drill down and figure out my business and figure out my systems and all that stuff and I was working like 14-hour days in my apartment by myself and by the end of those days I didn't I wanted to go out and I wanted to hang out with my friends but it was really far away and Uber didn't really exist yet and cabs were expensive and I wasn't going to drive so I started buying like jugs of Carlo Rossi like super gross and they lasted a long time and it wasn't like I was draining them nightly but it was just like I would like. Pour a glass of wine with dinner and you know began to like normalize the drinking alone Behavior so then eventually I meet John my husband and so much of dating is drinking to cover up the nervousness and it gives you something to do and really every single thing we do in modern society has a drinking component you can drink, everywhere home restaurants bars but then also like at Whole Foods while your grocery shopping get a glass of wine for the architectural boat tour weddings baby showers going to see Hamilton everything like notice how much you are marketed to as you drive down the street sides of buses signs and cafes ads on Twitter Facebook Instagram Gwyneth Paltrow has a room booze that she sells on our health website, there are wind in yoga classes mommy and me painting classes but mommy and me painting classes that come with you no wine and don't even get me started on Mom wine culture like it is. I was a very active participant in it and I didn't think there was anything wrong with it because literally every one of my friends and those around me were all doing it it was encouraged and celebrated and if anyone declined to drink an event it was like why are you why why are you pregnant are you quitting here have a drink loser it was like weird if you didn't drink and no one was excited for anyone who quits alcohol is the only drug we have to explain not using. Think about that my drinking looked like everyone else is drinking and so I thought I was fine. But then in 2019 John quit drinking and I very much supported him he needed to quit drinking you know and I was like I was very happy for him to do that because it. The thing that had to happen for him but his drinking didn't look like my drinking so I didn't really think I had a problem I did stop drinking at home. And the general volume of my own drinking like greatly decreased like I would actually go a whole day without drinking sometimes and I mean I would I what I mean I would go couple days but it was like it was always a thing like I haven't drank for a couple of days like if you are able to count how many days it's been since you've been drinking at any rate my own volume of drinking had gone down and then the pandemic started and I was forced to be home all the time while my business was imploding and I had hundreds of clients freaking out on me and trying to take care of my employees was really tough and trying to take care of my employees and not put them in dangerous situations was on my mind all the time my son was now doing remote school and you know he had recently been diagnosed with autism and so the older he was getting like the autistic Behavior was coming out more so I'm like at home with John all the time. With Sebastian he's trying to do remote school it couldn't figure out what the right thing to do before him was it was all so heavy everything was so heavy and I was like John, can I start drinking at home can I please have wine at home and by then he was over a year sober and he felt comfortable I suppose or I believed he was like I wanted to believe. That he would be okay with it in retrospect it was a super selfish and shitty thing of me to do to ask him to allow that but hey it was sort of addict Behavior so I started drinking at home and I had a few people in my pod and we would drink a lot of wine in my backyard or on porches and every day I would play the game of is it too late for coffee or too early to start drinking like it was. And I was drinking every day like every day it was a glass of wine at 6 p.m. and then 6 being became like 6 p.m. became 5 p.m. And then fight behind became 4 p.m. and it was like when was it late enough or what like when was it late in like was it early could I start drinking like.

00 was really the the the earliest I could start doing it and then I would have that one glass we get topped off before dinner and then I would have another one after dinner so that's like three quarters of a bottle of wine at night when I was alone and if a friend came over we would you know sit back there we were so desperate for you know entertainment we would drink one to two bottles of wine sometimes three you know like it was. There's alot so by the time we got into the summer of 2021,

00 every day and. I would buy I would know what I started doing is I would buy those like shitty cans of wine and I would limit myself to one can denied that was fine for a while. Then I would like a drink that would drink the can too quickly and then I'd be like well I'll just open another can and I'll just drink a little bit of it but then it was like oh well. Am I just going to have this half drink can of wine in the fridge like, is it going to be okay tomorrow so then I would be like well fuck it I just playing these mind games with myself pretending like I had some control over wine but it was, becoming clearer and clearer that it was actually controlling me and it was exhausting like every event I was going to have to drink I would schedule hangovers into my life like oh we can't have a playdate at 10 a.m. on that Sunday because the night before we're going to see a concert and I won't be able to handle that much activity on The Hangover I know I'm going to have and I won't remember half the set of songs they are going to play and I'll probably want to leave early and Miss half the show because I pregame dat my house before dinner and we had a bottle of wine at dinner and then I had a drink at the venue that broke me so we just miss most of the show like this was like. At the end of the day I was still be like still hungover the next day and like didn't I scheduled hangovers into my life so my friend Katie has a super curious program called Dynamics we she was an early guest on this podcast last year I think she may even been the second episode second or third episode she had been trying to get me to do the program for a few years and I was like I don't need to take a break I love wine wine loves me and it's all good but as I began to see the hold that it had on me and the summer of 20 21 I realized I needed a break. And Katie was starting another session of Dynamics on September 21st 2021 and I was like okay fine I'll give it a go. It's only three months I can do this I've done dry January I can pull this off but then the craziest thing happened. Because like once I got through that first month of white-knuckling it that first month the detoxing was really hard like I think that when I would do dry January there was always this idea that was going to end at some point so like it was almost easier to do a dry January because you I wasn't really giving it up it wasn't psychologically this one was much harder knowing that there were going to be two more after it like it was. It was a detoxing project process that I had never really felt before and it's also I probably hadn't been drinking as much as I had been. Before prior jury it dried January's or so beat Embers or October's or whatever the things I was doing. So yeah so I got through that first month and I'm part of the program was Dynamics it's very heavy online, meditating and journaling and like reading all the quit lit books that Katie put my face, the most important ones being this naked Mind by any Grace but the other one was quit Like a Woman by a woman in Hollywood occur and I think I've mentioned it before but that book is. I really credit that book is being the thing that. That really brought me here it broke down the entire alcohol industrial complex and how the patriarchy uses alcohol to control women and it was like this radical feminist act to quit drinking. It spoke my language like and it put messages I never see in plain English that but no amount of alcohol is safe. There is no upside to alcohol that we are being manipulated and brainwashed to think this Stark inevitability that drinking is just going to happen and if you are a problem Drinker or you are addicted to it it is a failing of your character that you can't handle it it is an alcohols fault if you can't handle consuming and addictive poison don't blame poor alcohol that you are defective because you can't keep yourself from being mean abusive sloppy sexually enhanced loud boring we be all the things that happen to most people when they start drinking like. You were treated as if you are the problem instead of alcohol. You're constantly being pressured to drink in a classy fashion like being able to hold your liquor is like the biggest badge of honor you have to be able to drink a ton but then act like you didn't just drink a Class 1 carcinogen that has the exact risk level and connection 28 different cancers the same cancer risk that smoking and asbestos are the same as smoking. The same as smoking remember how we all smoked like all of us smoked smoked a lot and then at some point we all quit smoking. And now when you see someone smoking you're like wow who still does that you see someone smoking in a car with kids and your instinct is to stop that car and rescue the kids that is the same as drinking. But we don't see it that way alcohol is innocent fun it's cultural badges like like. Drinking is part of all cultures and it can you know like the idea that like you know like how hard can it help bad can it be like you know every single culture has has some alcohol, associated with it like it can't be that bad but I mean really what it is that we have wanted to disassociate from life since the beginning is what that tells me like we used to do a lot of things that were bad and dumb we step Gladiator fights in ancient Rome and at some point someone powerful was like this is fucked up and they stop doing them just because it was or is a part of our culture doesn't mean that it should be and I can't wait to see the long I mean like I mean the really think about like they'll like think about what the internet has done to us like I kind of can't wait to see what the long-term effects of tick tock are like there's no way that Tick Tock is good for you I'm off my soapbox now sorry. For those of you who felt attacked by my attack of alcohol so during my 3 Month break so much of my life got better my anxiety almost disappeared I became so productive I was able to look at some relationships and saw they weren't great a lot of my friendships changed. I was able to see new opportunities and embrace change and I knew that the drinking was holding me back it was keeping me small questioning possibilities and staying in situations and relationships long after their sell-by date it was like I was still 14 years old staying in that bedroom having bad choices presented. I didn't know how to get away from and feeling like I didn't have a choice and letting other people Define me and agreeing to shit that I knew was bad. And not trusting my gut and I knew that it was because I quit drinking that all these new opportunities were possible and happening. As you know if you listen to this podcast I sold the building that I that I had bought I closed the co-working space that I had created and I started this podcast. And I realized that. You know if With Our Fate with my family with John and Sebastian that we needed some kind of big change we move to Evanston which is really awesome and I have to say I almost feel guilty about how great it is up there. But what's weird is that I'm getting so much more joy out of everything. Everything in my life now like I did when I was a kid I liked music again in a way that I haven't really. Since like I remember thinking to myself like some time and I'm like my late 30s I was like Mom pomp like I just remember when I would hear songs and I was a kid and they felt so amazing, and like I love them so much I could barely listen to them because I love them so much and I was like well that's just because life is, you know like dull the senses and when you get older you don't have the bandwidth to like care about music the way that. You used to well I'm back to feeling that way like I hear songs and I love them like I love them in a way that I haven't in a long time. And I want to go climb things and be silly way better. I'm such a better mom now I'm so much more present like I actually want to do things that I thought I hated it's almost like that New Year's Eve when Corey was. Stunting like that whole day it basically it changed my whole life it changed it's still my joy its toll. My youth and my fun and it made me this you know what's. The Pandora's Box was open and I didn't I wasn't a kid anymore. I Knew Too Much or something it was gross like everything stems back to that night that's something I've kind of realized. Like the way my whole life has unfolded was because of that night and quitting drinking unstuck me from it. I hadn't thought about that night in years like in years I decades I hadn't thought about I had put it in a box in my brain. I forgot all the details about it until I quit drinking. I found myself thinking about it a lot I found that Dune on Facebook and he's divorced and he lives in what looks like a very small life and. He has a daughter that in theory he hopes no one treats the way he treated me but. Much like my mom looking the other way when I came home drunk at 14 he probably thinks a girl tree getting treated like that is inevitable. I called Jenny to tell her that I wanted to tell the story of our traumatic Cory Nightmare and if she be okay with it I was actually going to use a different name and. She said it was okay to use her name, and I was never going to protect Cory so fuck that guy but I told her about how much shame and guilt I had about it and how it ricocheted through my life for years and I didn't even realize the effect it had until recently and she said that it has it was a big element in her life too, and that he was still in her life socially like he just still managed to kind of pop up here and there in her life and she had seen him recently. Actually she told me that she's seen him the every single time she sees him which isn't I mean she's not like with him a lot she doesn't live in his town anymore but she sees whenever she would see him. He had the audacity to thank her for that night and that hook up because apparently it was like the highlight of high school for him and he was such a stud and the eyes of other dudes he was friends with and I think. That other girls have let him do it to her ability to it to them because that was what he did or something I don't know but I was just fucking flabbergasted like. To be almost 50 and getting to 14 year old girls drunk in 1989 which. Is the year of our Lord and savior Taylor Swift how I could besmirch the year 1989 I don't know but taking advantage of them. Taking advantage of me and Jenny was the highlight of your of high school. I mean you're still talking about it 30 years later the fuck is wrong with you. Look what a damaged nightmare but can you imagine list of other women he's done that to like there's no way that stopped with me and Johnny. I'm sorry this turned into a big Quarry bashing but that whole thing really actually I don't really apologize it's just it's amazing how much that one. Event. Like just changed my whole life and here's the thing I don't regret drinking like I don't I mean I it's served me for years I met John at a bar I met most of my friends at bars. I've wandered around Paris Tipsy with John on great wine I've hit Napa Valley very hard I've toasted friends weddings. And was able to not have it all be just a tragic waste of time. We'll use drinking to fast forward to the Joy you know make it you know like get you start start the party quicker and who doesn't want that. It just no longer serves me it didn't serve me and I'm ready for bigger things the drinking was keeping me from. I'm in this new town with new friends who won't know me as a drinker all these new friends I have they don't know me as drinker. And everything feels so much easier with them I do get lonely I get very lonely which was something that never happened to me before. So I had to be very mindful about how I spend my time and what I want to do. It also sucks have to feel everything it rip that is one of those that is one of the downsides is there's no drowning a feeling anymore and I have to feel everything. And unravel it you know but the upside is that I just deal with everything faster and I move on faster. Really no downside to this I mean I guess the downside is that now I have a massive Sweet Tooth which is such a like a non-drinking cliche like a such like a. I initially lost like 10 pounds when I quit drinking and then I've gained it all back because I just want I just want cake like all the time. And there's always other people not drinking that's the one thing I there's way more people not drinking that I anticipated there's also more people that drink like normal people I used to think no one drink like a normal person a lot of people drink like normal people I'm just not one of them, the only really downside to it is going to bars and restaurants with bad or non-existent non alcohol drink programs. That said I do Rue the day that some dipshit makes a nun alcoholic MD 20/20 MD 00. I don't know but I might have to drink it if it's presented to me as an option. Thanks for listening to all up in my lady business it is written by me Mary nisi. It is produced by Christina sorum Williams and Amelia Ruby with softer. It is recorded at the toast and jam offices in Logan Square in Chicago. You can find resources and links from this episode in the show notes at all up in my lady business.com, if you enjoyed this episode and you did Smash that subscribe button and if you're the kind of person that reviews things on the internet please rate and review us wherever you listen to us it really does help people find us follow us on all of your socials and don't forget whatever you do this week do it. With your whole ass thanks for listening. Music.