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Today we have Jenny. She is 38 years old from Hudson, WI and she took her last drink on February 16, 2020.
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Recovery Elevator has a nonprofit called Café RE which is our alcohol-free community. For all of our happenings and what we offer, click on Recovery Elevator Events.
[02:35] Thoughts from Paul:
It doesn’t really matter what word or label we attach to our relationship with alcohol. It doesn’t matter what we call it; we still need to do something about it. Paul says that his own pursuits of solving the “why” behind his drinking and how his addiction took hold has been a revealing journey of self-discovery even he won’t be able to pin down exactly why he crashed and burned so hard.
When we relentlessly scour the past for reasons why we drink, we take our energies away from the only moment where true healing and peace reside, which is this very moment right now.
Addiction does everything it can to pull us from the present moment. Ruminating on what happened, what you have tends to be fruitless. Befriend and make peace the part of you that seeks oblivion and self-destruction. An addiction path may be what our souls choose in hopes of teaching us what really matters in life.
[09:03] Paul introduces Jenny:
Jenny is a previous guest and was featured in Episode 417 back in 2023 after celebrating three years alcohol-free.
Jenny is married and they have a seven-year-old son. She enjoys exercise, adventure and being outside. She does professional development for the construction industry.
Jenny drinking when she was 11 years old with the goal of being a rebel. She says she had a goal of being a tough, naughty girl and says it let her down the road to 22 years of binging and going on benders with alcohol and drugs.
In her late twenties, Jenny had a miscarriage and says that it was at that point that she knew she had a problem, and she didn’t think she’d be able to stop. She and her husband had their son in 2017 and decided a life change was needed so they moved back home after living out west for a while. She was 31 years old, unemployed, had a newborn son and was deeply in debt. The move to her in-law’s basement and being back in her hometown opening old wounds drove Jenny to use alcohol more and more to escape.
Rock bottom came for Jenny after Super Bowl Sunday 202. She got very sick while driving and called out of work. For the next few days, she was hungover and thinking about ways to end things. A spiritual awakening and vision of an uncle that had passed away before she was born, led Jenny to get up and decide enough was enough.
Jenny says the first week was hard like ripping a bandage off and bleed profusely. All aspects of her life needed to be explored. She wanted to live a life of integrity and knew she needed to do the right things for herself. She feels like every day is a victory for all of us on the journey.
After a year without alcohol, her husband encouraged her to find connection and she tried AA. That group helped her define her higher power and she loves AA and the 12 steps. She finds that friendships in recovery are so much deeper.
In the last few years since she was on the podcast, Jenny says not much has changed but life is more stable now. When she quit drinking, she was able to address other issues that she wasn’t aware she had. She is capable of just being and seeking peace in her life.
Jenny knows that relapse is a non-negotiable for her. She says she hasn’t come this far to only come this far. Being able to tell the whole story about things that happen is important to her.
Recovery Elevator
You took the elevator down. You got to take the stairs back up.
We can do this.
