by Kris Oyen | Sep 12, 2022 | Podcast
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Episode 395 – Can you have fun without alcohol?
Today we have Jim. He is 50, from New York, and has been sober since June 19, 2022.
Curious Elixirs: https://curiouselixirs.com/
Highlights from Paul
Paul and our listeners would like to hear from prior podcast guests. Please send us a note (approximately 200 words) to let us know how you are doing. We would love an update on your sobriety journey. Email: info@recoveryelevator.com
Yes! You can have fun without alcohol. Paul just finished hosting the Bozeman retreat, and it was FUN. One of the highlights was an ecstatic dance party. Imagine 60ish sober people dancing on a basketball court in the afternoon. There was also a silent dance party on the last night. Paul loved watching and participating in pure joy and fun.
Sober fun is a learned skill, but it’s worth it. You learn to have fun without an external substance. Life is like a movie. Consider yourself the director. You can guide or nudge it any way you want. Leave room for other actors in your life and let them act their way. It makes the experience rich. If you are not having fun, check your inner narrative. At times we let external rules guide us when we have fun. Forget those rules and have fun now.
Stay tuned to the end for a poem written by one of our listeners, and today’s outro music was written and performed by Michael P, a member of Café RE.
Better Help: www.betterhelp.com/elevator – 10% off your first month. #sponsored
[10:02] Jim has been sober for two weeks. He had almost two years and drank, and now he is back on track. He’s had 699 sober days in the last 700. Jim is married with two kids and loves reading on his front porch.
Jim attributes his recent field research to not using his tools.
Growing up, Jim drank in high school with his buddies. The quest for beer was their primary goal. College was more of the same. After college, it didn’t feel as good. Drinking is part of his work culture and was celebrated. His first attempt at sobriety was at age 25. He stayed sober for three months, then returned to drinking. It was part of his job, his social circles, and his life always included drinking. Alcohol pushed back his fears.
In his early 40s, he started to realize he had a problem but didn’t know how to go about quitting. He didn’t love AA. By 45, he knew his drinking had become unsustainable. Drinking was like a low-grade hum that perpetually played for him. He began drinking alone at home, where nobody would bother him, and he could drink like he wanted.
Gradually he began exploring sobriety. He would accumulate a few months and do more field research. He read “This Naked Mind.” When the pandemic hit, he decided to make more efforts to maintain sobriety. He joined Café RE in July of 2020, which was his turning point. Earlier this year, he started traveling more for work. He now realizes he stopped using his tools, including Café RE. He only drank for one day. It was scary; he was a wreck and knew he couldn’t do this anymore.
Jim writes every day. It helps him get the thoughts out of his head and on paper.
[49:33] Paul’s Summary
Paul reads a poem, “Connection,” by Kelley A, Café RE Go Group.
[51:05] Outro Music, The Light Inside, by Michael P.
Upcoming events, retreats, and courses:
- You can find more information about our events
Resources
Connect with Cafe RE – Use the promo code OPPORTUNITY to waive the set-up fee.
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We are the only ones who can do this, but we don’t have to do it alone.
I love you guys.
by Kris Oyen | Sep 5, 2022 | Podcast
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Episode 394 – Fixin’ to Grow
Today we have Kristie. She is 47, from Michigan, and has been sober since May 2020.
Ditch the Booze/Mindfulness and AF Photography 101: https://www.recoveryelevator.com/cafere/
Highlights from Kris
Return to school is here and is the catalyst for conversations about expectations. Growing up, the letter on the report card was the measure of success. Kris has begun to consider praising the work instead of the result.
Neuroscientists have identified two different mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. A fixed mindset looks at intelligence as static. The effort is pointless – you’ve got it, or you don’t. It’s all about the result. The growth mindset is more about a learning goal. The effort is seen as a path to mastery.
What is your goal in recovery? Language matters. Think about the metrics. If you are fixed on being alcohol-free and have a slip, you might feel like a failure. Embrace the growth in yourself and let that be enough.
Better Help: www.betterhelp.com/elevator – 10% off your first month. #sponsored
[11:29] Kristie has been surise for two years. The word sober doesn’t resonate with Kristy. She wants to be fun and exciting and enjoy every moment. Kristie believes that language creates our reality. Through journaling, she came up with the word surise – it brings her energy, light, and love. Kristie believes surise is yours – the opportunity to be your authentic self.
Kristie is from West Michigan and is an academic advisor. She is married and has two daughters. She loves traveling, the beach, the woods, nature, and connecting with people.
Growing up, her parents rarely drank, but they did smoke. After her parents’ divorce, she assumed much responsibility for her younger brothers. She was the conduit between her parents. She was involved in theater, student government, and dancing.
Kristie went to college and was ready to rescind the role of the responsible oldest child. Earning a degree was essential to Kristie. She went to school and partied and enjoyed drinking and being social. She adopted the work hard, play hard mentality and always drank to get a buzz. She put herself into some risky situations and was raped. Alcohol helped numb the pain, and she learned to carry on.
Kristie met her husband in college, and drinking was part of their relationship. Drinking was a coping mechanism for the stress of parenting. Over the years, her drinking progressed from beer to wine to vodka. After her father died, Kristie’s drinking became very dark. Drinking was a reward, a way to avoid loneliness, and it served many purposes.
Several years ago, Kristie’s husband announced that he was planning to quit drinking. He did, and she couldn’t follow suit. After her father-in-law died, they were both drinking again and went backward. Kristie read “This Naked Mind” and listened to Annie Grace’s podcast. Paul Churchill was Annie’s guest, and something clicked for Kristie. She could hear herself in other people’s stories. She joined Café RE in 2020 and went to her first women’s AA meeting. She quit drinking for several months and returned to drinking when the pandemic began. In May of ’20, she found a small group of RE members all over the US, and they held each other accountable.
Kris’s Summary
Look at your mindset. Ask yourself without judgment, are you holding on to absolutes? What is your measure of success? Do you find joy in the results or the process? Wherever you are is okay. Show yourself grace. Change the narrative. Surrender to the process. Let go of old ideas.
Upcoming events, retreats, and courses:
- You can find more information about our events
Resources
Connect with Cafe RE – Use the promo code OPPORTUNITY to waive the set-up fee.
Recovery Elevator YouTube – Subscribe here!
Sobriety Tracker iTunes
Recovery Elevator-
We are the only ones who can do this, but we don’t have to do it alone.
I love you guys.
by Kris Oyen | Aug 29, 2022 | Podcast
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Episode 393 – Hello Listeners
Today we have Alina. She is 32, from Northern California, and has been sober since June 20, 2022.
Fire Brew: https://www.drinkfirebrew.com/
Ditch the Booze/Mindfulness: https://www.recoveryelevator.com/cafere/
Highlights from Paul
If you are in a cycle of continuous Day ones, keep showing up and listening to the podcast. We believe in you.
If you have quit drinking, don’t forget incredible short memory can get us any time. Don’t look back. That old way of life didn’t work. Keep building the new.
If you are a normal drinker here to support someone, we are glad you are here. The opposite of addiction is connection, and we appreciate your support. The healing process is a collaborative effort that requires both parties to come together.
If you are in your teens or twenties, you are learning vital lessons and building resilience. When the dust settles, and your normal drinker friends begin to phase out of the party years as they marry and have kids, you will have acquired unique life skills that your friends don’t have. Your unique skills revolve around presence, listening to your intuition, taking life as it comes, loving yourself and others. You’re more grounded. Your roots go deeper. Also, be patient. I think it’s harder to quit drinking at a younger age, but with time, and each year around the sun, some of those challenges get easier. Time is working in your favor.
If you treat or support someone who struggles with, what is addiction? Addictions are adaptive behaviors leveraged to survive in unhealthy environments. Addictions are present when something is out of balance or not in harmony with our environment.
Keep the thinking mind in check. The mind has 60,00-70,000 thoughts per day, and science has shown that most of them are not valid. Keep doing the inner work, find your people, and show the world how it’s done.
Better Help: www.betterhelp.com/elevator – 10% off your first month. #sponsored
[13:04] Alina has been sober for two weeks. She has three kids, loves being outside, cooking, and reading. She immigrated to the US from Ukraine, is the youngest of seven, and had her first drink at age 16. Growing up, she had the impression that an alcoholic was someone who drank every day.
In 2018, Alina had her first blackout. She resolved to do something different. She listened to “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace. Moderation never worked. During the pandemic, Alina went on vacation to Mexico and drank daily. Alina continued to learn about recovery, and she learned to see the similarities in other people’s stories. She is an active member of Café RE and enjoys the chats.
Paul’s Summary
Listeners, stick together. Choose love over fear. Choose peace over being right. If the conditions are right, we bloom as a species. If the conditions aren’t right, we don’t. Humans are so close to blooming on a large scale, and addiction is fast-forwarding this process. Addiction forces us to surrender, open up, and say yes to the flow of life.
Upcoming events, retreats, and courses:
- You can find more information about our events
Resources
Connect with Cafe RE – Use the promo code OPPORTUNITY to waive the set-up fee.
Recovery Elevator YouTube – Subscribe here!
Sobriety Tracker iTunes
Recovery Elevator-
Lighten Up.
I love you guys.
by Kris Oyen | Aug 22, 2022 | Podcast
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Episode 392 – One Week Without Alcohol.
Today we have Megan. She is 34, from Florida, and has been sober since June 22, 2021.
Gruvi: https://www.getgruvi.com/
Highlights from Paul
Stacking days, which is a day here, and a couple of days there, is fantastic, but your body and mind will respond faster to continuous sobriety, and I think a week is the most doable chunk of time. I know for me, even 30 days was overwhelming.
Day 1: Drink water, then more water. Eat at least one full, healthy meal. Your body is detoxing today. Anxiety is part of this. Embrace the process. Remember the pain. Exercise will help with sleep. Sleep won’t be great, and night sweats are expected. Expect cravings, and ice cream is your friend.
Day 2: Expect to be tired, exhausted, and anxious. Drink water, sleep, eat ice cream and worry about sugar later.
Day 3: Sleep should improve and welcome back appetite. Eat a healthy breakfast.
Day 4: Your body is healing. Drink water, sleep and eat (sugar does help with cravings.)
Day 5: What happened? You may be sleeping better, and you are hungry. Eat some healthy food and don’t worry about calories. Your brain is coming back on, which has two sides: your cognition is better, and the thinking mind is on overdrive.
Day 6: Your confidence is building, and your energy begins to return. Inflammation begins to dissipate.
Day 7: Sleep! Cellular restoration. Mental clarity improves.
Tips for week one:
Drink plenty of water
Exercise for at least 20 minutes. It gets endorphins going
Eat at least one meal with healthy greens
Put pen to paper and capture your insights
Remember, it’s a week and not forever.
Seven days is the start of the healing process. Your seven days await – go get ’em.
Paul describes PAWS (Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms) in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esHLnz-BUXw&t=1s
Better Help: www.betterhelp.com/elevator – 10% off your first month. #sponsored
[15:40] Megan has been sober for over a year. She lives in Orlando, has two kids, is a social worker, and is getting a master’s in criminal justice. She loves to travel and has been to 25 countries. She loves the beach, music, theater, working out, and theme parks.
Megan grew up in a conservative religious home with no alcohol in the house. Her grandfather was a recovering alcoholic. Alcohol was a big part of her family history, and Megan experienced a lot of generational trauma. Megan’s father passed away when she was 15, and her childhood abruptly ended. Coincidentally she had her first drink that year.
Megan started using alcohol as a coping mechanism in her early twenties. Her marriage, work, and being a grown-up were a lot to manage. In 2021 she started working for a men’s prison, which changed her life. Giving something back and witnessing other people’s trauma helped her harness her inner strength. Megan was able to share her story and learned to adopt solid self-care practices. Slowly, she started to heal.
Today, Megan sees sobriety as a beautiful way to live, even if incarcerated. She credits the men at the prison with helping her to get sober. Her sobriety tools include self-care, Café RE, leveraging an accountability partner, focusing on the good in life, and great friends. Instagram: magicalsobermama
Kris’s Summary
Together is always better. Kris just returned from the Bozeman retreat, and he loved getting to see all the participants.
Upcoming events, retreats, and courses:
- You can find more information about our events
Resources
Connect with Cafe RE – Use the promo code OPPORTUNITY to waive the set-up fee.
Recovery Elevator YouTube – Subscribe here!
Sobriety Tracker iTunes
Recovery Elevator-
We are the only ones who can do this, but we don’t have to do it alone.
I love you guys.
by Kris Oyen | Aug 15, 2022 | Podcast
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Episode 391 – What do you Want?
Today we have Polly. She is 50, from Minnesota, and has been sober since December 23, 2021.
Ditch the Booze Mindfulness Course starts 9/20.: https://www.recoveryelevator.com/cafere/
Recovery Fit – Paul Lapine. Lapine Fitness Center. https://Lapinefit.com/recoveryfit Insta:Paul_Lapine_
Highlights from Paul
Paul shares that he created the podcast to create a new level of accountability for himself when he quit drinking. He is grateful for his listeners and proud of how the podcast has evolved since the first recording. Paul would like to hear more from listeners about what they want to hear during the intro portion of the podcast.
Email Paul at: info@recoveryelevator.com
Better Help: www.betterhelp.com/elevator – 10% off your first month. #sponsored
[10:09] Polly has been sober for six months. She is a high school English teacher, has two daughters, and has been married for 24 years. She enjoys animals, running, the outdoors, camping, and family adventures.
Polly’s parents drank, but not to excess. Turning 21 was a right of passage, and Polly waited to drink until then. In college, Polly partied, partially as an act of rebellion. After graduating, drinking was a weekend social thing but not an issue. Polly’s husband was not a daily drinker, which was initially a red flag. There was drinking everywhere, from sporting events to book clubs to unwinding from work.
As time progressed, Polly started hiding how much she drank from her husband. She slowly started gaining weight, and drinking/eating/negative emotions became a spiral for Polly.
Polly’s husband asked her to get treatment and told her she was on the verge of losing her family, friends, and job. She was in treatment over the Christmas holiday. She was violently ill during detox, and the detox nurse told her never to forget how sick she was. She appreciated how much people embraced her during treatment. She vowed to herself that she would give back and described treatment as the best experience of her life.
After leaving treatment, Polly leveraged the tools she learned in treatment and recognized that cravings are temporary. Alcohol still calls to her at six months sober, but she works on it daily. Her husband quit drinking a week before Polly went into treatment, which made her home more supportive. Polly is outspoken about her cravings and regularly asks for help. She attends AA meetings; she has a sober community and is transparent about her addiction with those close to her. She talks to her daughters regularly about her addiction. Polly hopes her experience ends her family’s addiction cycle so her daughters never have to choose treatment. Polly describes sobriety as the most challenging thing she has ever done, but she is also proud of her success. She carries some shame for what she put her family through while drinking.
Paul’s Summary
Paul believes adding joy, fun, and creativity to your life helps you to maintain sobriety and live a life you don’t need to escape. Paul reminds listeners not to take themselves too seriously, to find joy, and don’t let healing be painful.
Upcoming events, retreats, and courses:
- You can find more information about our events
Resources
Connect with Cafe RE – Use the promo code OPPORTUNITY to waive the set-up fee.
Recovery Elevator YouTube – Subscribe here!
Sobriety Tracker iTunes
Recovery Elevator-
Lighten Up.
I love you guys.
