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speaker-0: Hello and welcome to Deer Vernon, a sobriety support podcast brought to you by the team at the Luckiest Club. At the Luckiest Club, we exist to help people get sober, stay sober, and thrive in a life of recovery. Welcome to Deer Vernon.
speaker-1: So Eric, we have in the Luckiest Club now three programs. The Sober 90, the Sober Study, and the Sober Life. What is the deal with these three programs and w wh who should take what when?
speaker-0: Well, these programs are really designed to help folks get sober, stay sober, and then thrive in a life of recovery. It's not like we have learned it's not just enough to put the drink down, right? You gotta think about how you engage with life as your sobriety grows. So the Sober 90 is really our foundational program designed for folks who are in the first six to twelve months of recovery, maybe don't even have any time. Yet in recovery. This is all about laying a solid foundation for sobriety. So, yes, we do talk about putting down alcohol and navigating cravings, but we also talk about how to stay with the difficult situations in life that we have frequently been drinking at. So this is about developing a solid set of non-negotiables, building good habits, learning how to ask for help. Learning how to accept help when it's offered, and really digging into some of our core practices of sobriety that you write about, like acceptance and honesty and embodiment and service and connection, and understanding what these mean and how they support our ability to get sober. The sober steady was one that we came out with because we were we were hearing in our community that folks at that 12 to 18 month mark. ish or maybe a couple of years in sobriety weren't as worried about hitting the pillow sober, but still were wondering about how to be more steady in their sobriety. ⁓ they were still reeling when experiencing setbacks, still struggling with
speaker-1: Motivation wears off. That like adrenaline state of the that first year dies down and it's like, Okay, this is my real life now, so how do I enter this phase?
speaker-0: Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's it's motivation fatigue is real. And in fact, that's something we talk about early in the sober steady. Like, how do you keep yourself going when there's motivation fatigue, when there's change fatigue, and when life ultimately gets lifey. And so the sober steady is for folks in that stage who are looking to become more resilient. improve their confidence, improve their courage, improve their compassion, especially for themselves and others. ⁓ build practices to better self soothe and self care so they can navigate tough moments like setbacks, loneliness, boredom, busyness, right? Which is
speaker-1: In their relationships which inevitably happen in sobriety. Yeah.
speaker-0: Exactly right. All of and even in some cases, how to initiate those changes that they know need to happen. So yeah, that's really what that sober steady is for. And then, you know, as life goes on, we challenges mount. Yeah. We created the sober life, ⁓ which has actually been around now for almost three years, believe it or not, as sort of a masterclass in emotional intelligence. ⁓ The sober life is really for folks who have a at least a year, but often a couple of years of sobriety and now are really looking to improve how they show up for themselves and how they show up for others. So we actually begin with a whole baseline module in like adult development. And what does it really mean to be the adult in the room? How do you interrupt the way you make sense? of situations so you can be kinder to yourself. And then we get into like some of the real tenets of emotional sobriety, like how to be with anger, how to be with joy, how to be with sadness and how to navigate grief. You know, things that we're just not taught how to do and become a big part of living a sober life. We get into interpersonal relationships like boundaries and navigating resentments and practicing forgiveness and knowing when it can be offered and when it can't be offered and how to be okay with that. And all of that shows up in that sober life module. So the arc of these programs is about really getting sober, building good habits, staying sober through improved resilience, and living sober. through improved emotional intelligence and interpersonal awareness. And it's become I think a really nice portfolio of offerings that I think are unique to us. I mean, I don't know anybody that quite does all this work. Hey, what is up y'all, and welcome to another episode of Deer Vernon. Hey Laura, how you doin'?
speaker-1: Long time no talk.
speaker-0: That's true. We've been chatting all morning. I love it. But it's been a while since we've had a chance to release a Divirda episode. I'm excited. Yeah.
speaker-1: Yes. That's what I mean. We haven't talked on Deer Vernon for a minute.
speaker-0: I know, I miss it. Our fans miss it too. Both of them emailed me and said, Hey, are you gonna have another episode? All three of them. Yeah, they're sweet though, so I love them dearly. I have a funny story. Can I s can I tell you a funny story? Of course. Okay. So many of you out there know that ⁓ we are parents of of daughters who are about the same age and yours is of course starting her senior year and
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: Is exploring colleges that sound like they're quite a ways away. And we just dropped our daughter off in ⁓ Arizona. She's a freshman at Arizona State, which is a three day drive away. Yes. On day three of the drive home, so somewhere in eastern Missouri, maybe western Illinois, we receive a text from my daughter. This is all it says. She says it to like the full family thread, so this includes her brother. It says, Hi, I just got hit by a car. Ha ha ha.
speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. Okay. This is after you've driven three days out, spent the weekend doing all the things and setting it up and going to orientation, like you're like ⁓ she's settled.
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speaker-0: Yeah, she's made friends, she's moved into her dorm. There's the grief of leaving her there and and already being like all the sadness, all the grief. But by day three, it's like, okay, like she's she's she's been on her own for a couple of days, seems to be taking care of herself, has friends. Like we're just at about the point to exhale. And that text comes across Hey, I just got hit by a car. Ha ha ha ha. The ha ha ha ha is critical here because that's of course w ⁓ because that makes me giggle. But her mom does not have the same reaction. She is just like, Wait, what the fuck are we talking about? You're like, what just happened? Yeah. So I so I I called her and of course she doesn't answer.
speaker-1: my god. The Yes I can because it happens to me almost every day. The emergency, multiple texts, and then no answer. Yeah.
speaker-0: Can you imagine? And no answer. There are fewer things more frustrating as a parent than not getting an answer in that moment. She calls back like sixty seconds later, and you know, of course, we're like, What? Like, what happened? She goes, I'm fine, everything's fine. I'm like, but you got hit by a car. And she's like, Well, here's the deal. So she and her friends were crossing the street in a crosswalk. at a red light. They had the full right of way to do it. And apparently there was another college student who was sitting at the red light with you know, stopped, but she was staring at her phone. Of course. And she didn't realize that she didn't have the break all the way pressed down. So she was like slowly idling into the crosswalk. And she just slowly idled into my daughter who Felt the bump and then turned around to see the car was just like inching forward and she put her hands on the hood and the girl like snapped up. The driver was like, ⁓ luckily she
speaker-1: Snap up and go faster.
speaker-0: Well, yeah, exactly, right? But she like steps up, and then of course, like any not self-aware, you know, college student, she looks at Sienna and gives her the like, what the hell are you doing? Touching my car. Yeah, what's your problem? Look, and so it's like, what's your problem? You hit us, and you know, so they finish crossing the street, the light turns green, and the driver like squeals her tires and pulls off as though Sienna did something wrong. So anyway. That rather than saying, Hey, hey, a funny thing just happened, I should tell you all about it. She says, I got hit by a car and sends that out in a text. So like nervous systems on fire, you know, it takes it it takes, you know, like two days to come down from that. And anyway, I just
speaker-1: some texts that you should never send. I have trained my mother because she did it for years and it would Burn me to the ground every time. Honey, can do you have time to talk? And don't ever send me that text. Don't. Ever. I don't care if you're my friend. We need to talk. Do you have time to talk? Can we talk? Any version of that text without
any context, I want to murder you. Yes. ⁓ Yeah, and and I finally Told my mom, you have to stop sending that text. Like it sends me from level zero to like 8,000. Something's wrong, you're mad, you're in danger, you're in the hospital, you're dying, you just got a bad diagnosis, you're I don't even know. You like it all the catastrophe in in one. ⁓ so yeah, there's some texts you should never send, and one of them is I just got hit by a car. Ha ha ha.
speaker-0: You know what both of those situations have in common is that like context really matters. Jesus Christ. You know, I realize that text is shorthand and people get used to that, but like context matters, folks. Put a little put a little context in your messages. Hey, do you have a couple of minutes to talk? I'm trying to choose my dress for this weekend. Hey I got hit by a car, but it it was they were just idling, everything's fine, it's actually really funny. I'm okay, call when you can. Or maybe just don't say that at all. Bring it up the next time we're on the phone.
speaker-1: Maybe just call instead. Yeah, I can feel like when I was explaining getting that text from my mom, I can feel the like energy crawling up the back of my head and in like the the anger and anxiety crawling up the back of my head. It makes me furious even to think about it. ⁓ and I whenever I would text her back, like, yeah, is everything okay? She go ⁓ yeah, ha ha, it's okay, everything's fine. I just want to talk. I'm like, no. No. She's she she has stopped doing it though. She finally got it. This makes me want to never talk to you. Ever again when you do that.
speaker-0: Or That one that is infuriating. That is you are a hundred percent right. There are there's no situation where that text is okay.
speaker-1: Can we Never. Never. Never. Yeah. And as someone who receives that text that way, I would never send that text. Even if it was like I'm pissed and I'm and I want to make you anxious, I wouldn't still wouldn't send it.
speaker-0: No.
speaker-1: I'm all worked up just thinking about it.
speaker-0: I wouldn't even do that out of vengeance.
speaker-1: No, I wouldn't I wouldn't.
speaker-0: I might.
speaker-1: All right. So talking about today. Yeah. So we ⁓ we wanted to talk about Brad Pitt and his he had an Esquire interview come out, ⁓ a profile piece come out a couple weeks ago now. And w I hadn't seen it. I came to learn about it through texts that came my way and a few
speaker-0: Hey,
speaker-1: Instagram messages and actually emails that came my way from people asking like why does this make me so mad? Did you see this? ⁓ Brad, Brad, Brad, you know don't you know moderation doesn't work? And so I went and read the piece, ⁓ which actually was very little to do with his not being sober anymore. But and I had no intention of writing about it or talking about it, but I actually thought it was worth going through because I have a s a personal story ⁓ about my dad that comes into play here about his being sober and then not not being sober after a while. And my own process of that as a young adult. And then through my getting sober in my late 30s and now being 13 almost no wait, what am I? I'll be 12 years sober in a exactly a month. So I wrote about it on Substack and then ⁓ you and I also thought we should just talk about this because there's actually a lot here, right? There's actually there's a lot of conversation to be had. So I'm gonna read the totality of what he says in the piece. it's just a couple paragraphs, and then we'll go from there. ⁓ so the context for this is the interviewer went to Brad's house and the it the ⁓ conversation goes all over the place. But at one point Brad offers the guy a glass of wine and the guy says, ⁓ you you're not drinking or you drink now or you're not drinking, or something about his he was sober for seven years. And Brad says, ⁓ no, no, no. I was sober for seven years, and then I got back Off the wagon. Little laugh. He raises his famous opposing diacritic eyebrows and holds a finger up. In a more restrained manner. I got overconfident a couple of times, went, Yep, nope, not good for me. Not in big quantities. So you can have a glass of wine. Yeah, well, I can have a few. But I can't have a lot. I have to be professional about it, Brad says. He likes mornings now anyway, and you can't miss a lovely morning when you drink too much the night before. It's just not as interesting. Mornings are interesting, and he doesn't want any more of them to go by unseen, even on a day like today. So the totality of what he says is he acknowledges in a sort of offhanded way, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was sober for 10 years, and then I got back off the wagon, which by the way, I never know if it's on the wagon, off. I I've never understood that. But he he got back off the wagon. ⁓ and then he says, Aha, but wait, hold on, in a more restrained manner. Like I've gotten overconfident a couple of times since I started drinking again. And then I went, Yep, it's not good for me, not in big quantities. The guy says, ⁓ so you can have a glass of wine and he I can have few. I have a few, but I have to ⁓ I can't have a lot. I have to be professional about it. And that's really all he says. ⁓ and then the piece goes on to talk about other things. So what are your initial thoughts when you read that or hear that? What comes to you?
speaker-0: Yeah. A couple of things. The first thing is I actually was a little sad. you know, we've this has come up a lot in our community and there's been a wide range the the Brad Pitt getting back off the wagon is something that has been a
speaker-1: Do you like admire do you do you do you in general follow celebrity stories? I know you like certain people, like you're a big Matthew McConaughey fan, you're a big Dave Grohl fan, like do you have an affinity towards Brad Pitt? Do you care either way? Like I'm assuming you like Fight Club 'cause you're a dude, but do you like care about it? I mean, just start
let's start there. Like, what's your orientation to him and celebrity culture in general when it comes to these things?
speaker-0: Yeah, well folks who know me know I'm a big pop culture aficionado. So I do I do and I source a lot of inspiration from pop culture. I struggle with Brad Pitt, if I'm being honest. I f I What is I'm trying to remember who said it, but there's that famous like, can you separate the art from the artist? Yes. And I feel that very it very hard with Brad Pitt because I do love a lot of movies that star Brad Pitt. Yes, Fight Club and Snatch, one of my favorites, maybe his best role. He's not even really the lead. But he's incredible in Snatch. He was really great in F one. I love the Oceans movies, things like Inglorious Bastards and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I'm a big Tarantino fan, and he plays a prominent role in some of Tarantino's most recent work. And there are many others. ⁓ all the way back, he's what is he, Cliff in ⁓ True Romance. ⁓ right. Right.
speaker-1: See, you're so this is I I didn't even know we were gonna go here, but I really wanna like slow down with this because you are so much more dialed into pop culture and in general than I am. And so I'm just like, take your time. I wanna hear your view on Brad Pitt and and 'cause I I feel like this in f maybe informs it might. Where we're going. Or it's just fun to talk about.
speaker-0: Both things can be true. ⁓ The news about Brad Pitt makes it seem like he's not a good dude. And
speaker-1: You mean not just this news? The
speaker-0: Not just not this news. Yeah, I'm not talking about the article, but the stories about the flight that led to the ultimate demise of his relationship with Angelina Jolie. Again, these are stories. I don't know Brad Pitt. I'm not in his life. I don't know what's true and what's partially true and what's not true at all. But there are an awful lot of stories about how he's estranged from his children. Yeah. And That those are choices that his children made, that they don't feel safe or comfortable being around him. one of the core elements of my identity is fatherhood. Like I love my kids, my kids love me. We have a very good relationship. I care very much about that. I would not do anything to jeopardize that relationship. And so Men who don't take the role of fatherhood seriously are not men I tend to look up to or want to associate with unless there's a desire for repair. I'm always happy to help somebody with repair. But I don't get the sense he has a desire for repair and
speaker-1: And again, this is speculation. We don't actually know.
speaker-0: It's all speculation. Yeah, I don't I don't know. I know I am very well read on what is available to read around him. And he seems like an incredible actor who is not such an incredible person. And I'll contrast that a little bit with somebody like Ben Affleck, who has been so open about his struggles and sort of willing to even laugh at some of the things he does to make headlines. Like his his relationships, many of them have ended in very public failure. And he seems open to talk about those. ⁓ you know, Jennifer Garner spends a lot of time talking about how hard he tries to be on a good terms with her and how they have a beautiful friendship. That is the result of a lot of work that he's done on himself. Like he's he still steps and turds frequently, but he seems genuinely interested in developing and improving and learning from his mistakes. And I I don't see publicly, you don't get the s impression that Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck are moving forward in the same way. And so I can look at Ben Affleck and say, Man, I love your movies, Goodwill Hunting and the town and ⁓ working men and and also like I'd wanna be around you as a person because you seem like a like a good dude who makes human mistakes and tries to learn from those. I like Brad Pitt's movies, but I don't get I don't get the sense I'd enjoy spending time with him based on what I read. And I could be wrong. I don't know. It's just
speaker-1: Well the but the part of this is the stories the stories play into how we feel about what happens.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's right. That's right. And so yeah, that's so when I get when I heard the news that he wasn't sober anymore, the first two things were that made me sad. Because I thought sobriety was a genuine effort at being a better person. And I know that sobriety can be a gift to your kids. It can be a gift to your family. And I thought, well, maybe this is something his way of making repair. And so it makes me sad that that's not the case. And then I guess there was an element of I'm not surprised because it does feel like this was something he was doing to prove something to people, or maybe something he was being forced to do. And with the benefit of time, storylines have played out the way they are. And he's like, Okay, I don't have to do that anymore. I don't have anything left to prove or The people I was proving it to don't care anymore. So now that I feel like I have more of a say in this, I'm choosing a different path. And I do see that a lot in sobriety. Like if you're not doing it for you, it's probably not gonna stick in the long haul. Like it's gotta be something you believe in. And with the benefit of hindsight, I find myself wondering if he ever believed in it in the first place. and
speaker-1: Did you ever hear the conversations that he had? Like 'cause he credits Bradley Cooper with sort of helping him get into sobriety. And then I never listened to the f because I don't listen to I don't generally listen to armchair expert, but I guess he had this long episode with Dax, and they're both so you know, they talked a lot about sobriety in this very bro way, like we're in the same sort of club. Did you ever listen to that?
speaker-0: I only listened to part of that. I didn't listen to the full episode. I have spent a lot of time listening to Bradley Cooper and Dak Shepherd though. Again, I I
don't know these people. You know I I think that one of my strengths is that I'm pretty good at reading a room. And I'm I'm pretty good at recognizing sincerity. And when there when Bradley Cooper or Dak Shepherd or Tom Holland or Eminem
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: talk about their sobriety, there's a there's a level of sincerity in conviction like this has changed my life. This has changed my relationships. ⁓ and in many cases like I needed to do this to save my life. I mean Dak Shepherd was in a pretty dark place, you know, and all of them. Yeah, yeah, all of them. I I don't know. I, you know, there are
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: Not just celebrities, they're people all the time. They're like, ⁓ yeah, yeah, like sobriety. But you can I don't know. I feel like I can tell sometimes when it's a trend or a or a fad. ⁓ I mean, I've listened to thousands of people talk about their sobriety. And there has always been something in Brad Pitt where it it feels like he wants to say, Yeah, I don't drink anymore, and change the subject and get into something else. And even what I heard about the conversation with Dax is that Dax led that conversation and Brad. particip Brad participated in that conversation. And there was always a sense of sincerity and conviction and depth in the way Dax reflects on his sobriety that I've not personally heard from Brad Pitt. I I think he has said, Yeah, I don't drink anymore. and I he I think he's been Honest about the benefits of that, but it also hasn't always felt like, and I'm totally sold that this is the way to be forever. You know, whereas somebody like Bradley Cooper who will say, I can't imagine a life, I can't ever imagine going back to the way it was. You know, my life is something to be treasured, and I wouldn't jeopardize that. And there's just language that I I hear from somebody like Bradley or Dax that I don't hear from Brad. ⁓ and I have no judgment about it. It just when I hear that he's not sober anymore, it's it's not a huge surprise. Although I'm still sad about it.
speaker-1: I find myself so curious as you're talking about what that difference is between you know what the what the conviction is or what the like is it a humility? Is it a not is it is it about you know and the humility born of really going to the depth of despair that Some of us get to, where we are come totally out of depth of our own, like we can't fashion a way out of it any longer. It's this it this it's the surrender, like totally having to surrender to the fact that this thing has you and that you are. And that it will r it will ruin your life. Not just your outer life, but it has destroyed s it it will take away something so essential about your inner life that you are forced, there's a moment of of turning towards sobriety in a different way than someone who hasn't quite touched that place yet. like is it that ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: I I just I find myself and it and yeah, sure, we can apply it to Brad or Bradley Cooper or and of course it's just conjecture. We have no idea what these people actually experience, but you can sense something. I ⁓ I'm more curious because I've seen it in myself versus other people where I will be in a conversation with them and this is not a judgment. It's just like an acknowledgement of a difference, right? Where I will have a moment of talking with them about what my experience was and they're showing what their experience is and I will think, ⁓ we didn't we didn't experience the same thing. Cause I went to the place of total, complete desperation. ⁓ to the place of in in a there's a saying incomprehensible demoralization. I was in incomprehensible demoralization. And something happened to me. in that process that made me hold sobriety in a certain way. so I have that question. And then I also have the question can people be there, experience that, and then actually change? Cause there's this idea that if you have been there once, you don't, you know, you can't turn a pickle into a cucumber again. Like it just doesn't happen. ⁓ And this is we could I could bring in the story about my dad here because this is when it makes sense too. But like, can people actually grow out of that? Can they can they experience that in full earnest honesty and and actually have that exp same experience I'm talking about, but but then grow out of it and ⁓ proceed into a different path where they do drink again or they experiment again or whatever it is and they're quote unquote okay with it. Like I both of those questions are are present for me.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I am curious, I would love to hear your story about
speaker-1: you want yeah. Do you I about your dad? Yeah, okay. So when I was fifteen so I grew up with this story. My parents got divorced when I was six, five and a half six. And I grew up with the lore. I was very, very close with my maternal grandmother. She was I was with her like almost every day of my life. And she was very Italian Catholic funny, ⁓ like hush hush. We don't talk about a lot of things, but we're also just gonna like throw these like barbed comments out there sometimes. And she would she would say about my she sort of ha loved my dad and ha and held him in this like because he was tall and sometimes he had a lot of money, she would look at him as this like royal creature at some at certain points, but then also like was very denigrating about him at other points. And so when she was feeling denigrating about him, she would say, you know, your parents the the divorce happened because of your dad's drinking. And so there was this lore about my dad's drinking that I sort of grew up with, but I never saw him he wasn't the a typical sort of alcoholic where Or the typical alcoholic where it was like a lot of I never saw him like really drunk that I remember. He wasn't like, you know, I I didn't see outward displays of drunkenness. But it was but it was very present. He always sort of was drinking and he is a volatile
person. He was a volatile person. Lots of ups and downs, lots of mood changes, lots of like he's an intense guy and by n by his own admission, a very difficult character. So I had these two realities. One is or these two storylines. One is that, you know, the divorce happened because of my dad's drinking, and the other is that my dad's this difficult guy. And I think maybe subconsciously I attached those two things together. ⁓ though I didn't realize that. And so when he said to me at fifteen, we were sitting there, ⁓ at ⁓ mm having lunch. I was with him on the weekends, me and my brother, and my brother's younger. And we sat down to have lunch and he didn't order a beer. Like he always had beer when we'd have a lunch. And I said that to him, like, ⁓ you're you didn't order a beer. And he said, Nope, too many ⁓ weekends spent on the couch not spending time with my kids. And he just sort of announced it like that. And I felt so relieved. in that moment and like kind of proud and and I think it was because of that subconscious connection I had between his sort of volatility and maybe the drinking, even though I hadn't totally seen that. Like I I didn't have a lot of I don't know, it's also very hard to see your parents clearly, right? Because it's just like whatever you're used to is what's normal. And I didn't see his drinking as abnormal per se. But it was sort of always there. Okay. So he stops drinking and it just becomes this thing that is going on. And my dad is this very intense person, whatever he's doing, he's doing like in a obsessive sort of way. So he got very obsessed with AA. And we spent a lot of time in cars with my dad. We would 'cause we lived in this small town, so whenever we wanted to do anything, we had to drive to Denver. Which is like forty five minute drive, we want to go to a movie, if we want to go to dinner, if we wanna go do really do anything. And so we spent a lot of time in the car with my dad, like proselytizing to us about whatever was on his mind. A lot of times it was politics, you know, big right wing politic messages. ⁓ but it started in that time to be about AA. And so I I started to hear all these aphorisms and I started to hear all the like tenets of AA and how you know he got very like involved and and excited about this part of his life. And he got a girlfriend in AA and he would sometimes like we would often go to movies and dinner on a Saturday night and he started adding an AA meeting before that. So a couple times I went and sat in on the meeting, but mostly we would just like sit in his car and wait. And he would come out and just be like full of this energy, right? And ⁓ he made friends And he's not a big friends person, but he like made friends and started having like dinners with people and like his life really seemed to change ⁓ for the better. And and as for me as his kid, there was just this element of maybe unpredictability and danger that was removed because of that, ⁓ because of his sobriety.
And I was very proud of him. Like I loved that when we would go to order when we would go to ⁓ dinner and he would ask ⁓ he would go to order dessert and he would ask if the tiramisu had alcohol in it and he would say no if it had alcohol in it like I loved that about him. I loved that I felt I was just so proud that he I f I held his sobriety with this pride. Even as I was totally experimenting with drinking myself as a teenager, and ⁓ you know, we really like butted heads about that. So fast forward ten years, and I'm a young professional living in Boston, and my dad calls me one day with his I knew he had a new girlfriend, ⁓ and he tells me that he that they got married. And they did it over the weekend and I was kind of I was devastated, not kind of. I was devastated 'cause I had didn't know this woman and she just he just fucking married her. Like, okay. And so I went back to Colorado to meet her and we had dinner and I noticed he was drinking wine at dinner. And I totally panicked. it felt like everything was falling apart. And I talked to my brother about it and he's like, ⁓ yeah, I think he's like, you know, drinking again with her and I talked to my dad about it and ⁓ I was very upset and he's he said this wasn't something he came to lightly. He and ⁓ her had talked about it quite a lot and he, you know, really needed his time in AA, but what he had was a spiritual problem, it wasn't an alcohol problem. And I I'm twenty four or twenty-five. I don't know anything. Like I I am not the person I am now. I I don't know anything about addiction really or you know, but I but I didn't like it. And it felt wrong and it felt very scary and out of control. ⁓ but over time I just sort of learned to accept it and I would have I would drink with my dad, we would have wine. He did sometimes drink to excess, but like not really. and I just sort of rolled with this new reality. Right. And I I mind you, I live across the country, so I'm not seeing him all the time. But my brother told me that if you know he would watch and if things like were getting out of control, that he would ⁓ let me know. Okay, so fast forward another 10 years, and I am in trouble with drinking. And one of the people that said something to me about my drinking was ⁓ my dad. And I didn't see him often. Again, we lived across the country, but I did he did he was out in Boston for work, ⁓ for some work meeting at one point. And this was right after I'd gotten separated from my ex husband. And I was, you know, real bad place. Like my drinking was in a very bad place. I was the I was on roller skates all the time. And I went to dinner Or I went and met my dad for a drink in Faniel Hall in Boston and we had like two or three drinks. And then he invited me to come to dinner with this the people he was gonna have dinner with at this like steakhouse. So we went and sat ⁓ and waited for them. We had like a glass of wine there and I drank it really fast and I noticed that my dad was noticing this, and then the people the guys came and sat down and I ordered another drink. And then my dad basically like dismissed me, like you're not having dinner with us. And I went home and like the whole thing felt w I felt very self conscious and weird. Like I knew he noticed my drinking and I couldn't stop myself from drinking as much as I needed to. And the next day he said he called me out. He's like, I don't know, you know, my dad's very much not like this, but he was like, I don't I just need to tell you what I saw and your drinking is not normal and you need to figure out what to do with that and ⁓ it's a really big deal and it will ruin your life and he just basically that's all he said. And That was a few months before I got the like DUI and then other things happened and then I you know eventually had to get sober. So One of the things in my my early attempts to get sober that was like drove me crazy was that my dad stopped drinking for ten years. He was sober and very serious about it and then he started again. And I was like, How is that possible? How? It like it got me really stuck in my search for a third door because he had found the third door. It seemed like he found a way to go back to drinking, quote unquote normally. And it made me feel crazy and it made me upset. And I said something to him, like, You went back though. Like you did it. And he's like, I don't know what to tell you about that, but you still have to deal with what's going on for you. And ultimately, just like everything else, like I had to accept my reality. And my reality was that I could not drink in safety. ⁓ and what I told myself at the time to just like alleviate the anxiety it was causing me was when I get to ten years sober, like my dad did, I can decide then if I want to go back to drinking. But until then, I just need to put this to bed. Like this is not an actual argument I'm gonna have with myself. So I thought about this story lot when I read the Brad Pitt piece. Because and I and I've thought about it a lot since, like my ⁓ the story about my dad, because ⁓ the the thing about my dad's story is I don't have a clear answer. Like I don't know what the truth is for him. It's does has drinking wrecked his life? No. No, it actually hasn't. ⁓ have I seen him drink too much at times? Yes. does he have like significant consequences because of his drinking, or even some consequences? I don't think so. I think he's I don't even know what his drinking story is right now. Like he might just really not altogether. I mean, he's in his mm almost late seventies. And that answer would have been so unsatisfying. It would have been not just unsatisfying, but incomprehensible. Like to just rest in this I don't know what the reality is for my dad and it's really not my business. I I wouldn't have been able to settle into that until many years into sobriety. But now I can. It's just a question mark. I don't have to answer it. I don't have the answer to it. It's not
answerable for me. ⁓ so when I read about Brad, and it's again, I like I don't I know very little about him, even from a celebrity pop culture. Like I know the movies that I like of his, but I haven't I tend to really tune out celebrity news because their world just seems so alien to me that I I I don't know. I I I'm like I know he was married to Angelina, I know they have many kids. I just I guess there's part of me that like feels like it's so unrelatable. Like how they live is so unrelatable to me that I can't even possibly project some kind of story about it because I just don't it just doesn't even make sense. I have never been one to like get heavily invested in celebrity news. Like I never all my friends used to read us weekly and I was like I don't understand the allure. I just don't get it. So the amount to which I've thought about this is very little. I it's really only in the context of my dad's story. And when I read what Brad said about, you know, I have to be a professional about drinking, like I don't even know what that means. I don't and I don't even know even know what that means. What does being a professional about your drinking look like? ⁓ I guess I'm just bringing this all back to what's true for me is that I The idea of trying to figure out how to drink sounds like absolute hell to me. Whatever he's doing might be fine for him, it might not be fine for him. We might more will probably be revealed over time. But I definitely know for me, it's just not an option. And it's not an option in it's not an option that I even want to try for, right? Thank God. Like I don't I don't get wishful when I see something like that. It's not like when I would think about my dad in the early days of my own trying to get sober and I'd be like God I hope that I can find that third door. I hope that I can find that way. I don't hope that anymore. I genuinely don't. I don't I don't have to try to push it away. I don't have to try to not want it. I just don't want it. S and this goes back to that. original point I made about like some turn happened at some point where it just fell off the table as a viable option or a desirable option. And I don't know that that's anything that I did. I think it's just it's an outcome of some force beyond me. Right. At the same time I also totally understand all the feelings about it. I totally understand Ever I I've had I had those feelings for years. If this would have news would have hit me in the first or second or third or maybe even fourth year of sobriety, I would have had a lot more feelings about it. I would have been a lot more like when we are forming a new identity, we are very rigid. Our our ⁓ we are black and white about it. We have to be, because that's what it takes to like form this solid shape, right? And then as we grow, And Young talks about this. This is a a very well-known psychological phenomenon that as you grow and integrate more, your identity becomes a lot more flexible. ⁓ you don't have to have these rigid boundaries, you don't have to think in black and white anymore. ⁓ but you can't you can't catapult yourself into that. It's something that you have to experience ⁓ over years and growth and ⁓ fumbling and really feeling your way through the tensions of the black and white thinking and feeling your way through the challenges to your identity and and all of that. So that's that's what I I have to say about it.
speaker-0: Yeah. I love that. There's so much richness in there. And I I I think I'd I just have to say I like I agree with where you landed on this. Like it's it's just not an option. Right. For for you. It's not an option for me either. I there was definitely a point where I would have wanted what your dad describes or what Brad Pitt describes if if he's I mean, I don't know how much
speaker-1: If it's genuine. Right.
speaker-0: Yeah, if it's genuine, I don't know what's true and what's not true, but there are people who say I can moderate. And there was a time in my life where I would have said I want to get like my long term goal is to get to that point. Mm-hmm. And it's not my goal either anymore. It is I I'm just one of those people that if like one is good, then eleven is better. Like it just it doesn't even matter what it is. If I'm going out for a run and I tell myself, I'm just gonna do two easy miles today, I'm gonna run six. Because I'm already out the realm. Like, well, why not just do a little bit more? Do 10 push-ups. Great. Let's do 50. Like, it's just I have enough time trying to just take care of myself through that pattern when it comes to eating potato chips or whatever. Push like it's just who I am. And I'm always conscious of that. I don't even think it's possible for me. But then on top of that. I mean, there was a point in my life where I was like, well, I'm gonna moderate. You know, I'm gonna set two two is my limit. Two is my limit. What the fuck does that mean? ⁓ my god. And I I used to remember, but I used to remember even debating that in my own head. Well, is that two beers or is that two glasses of wine? Or is it two shots of whiskey? And what if it's two double shots of whiskey? Is that still two? Is it and what really is the difference between two and three? And then
speaker-1: So bad though.
speaker-0: Like I'd be start thinking from eight in the morning, like, ⁓ well, I only get two, so when do I have two in order to maximize the impact of two? And you know, I do the first one at five and the second one at ten so I can go to bed and sleep okay, as though it helps me with sleep, or do I do two right away? And like it was an absolute purgatory to find that full-time job, full-time job. And ultimately, what I learned is There's no difference between two and three, three and four, four and five, five and six, and I there's no moderation. Like I d what's true for me is that doesn't work. It didn't work at year one. It didn't year work at year five. It won't work at year thirteen or
fifteen or twenty or twenty-five. It's just not that's not who I am. And and what I think the big gift of sobriety, one of the many big gifts is you're gonna figure out who you are. You're gonna figure out what matters. And if you if you can love that, if you can accept that, then when the moment comes to say, Well, can you moderate, you're gonna know the answer. And for the vast majority of us, the answer's gonna be like that won't work for me. And I'm okay with that, both pieces, which is what I hear you saying. Like that won't work for me. And I'm that's where I wanna be. Right. That won't work for me. That's where I wanna be. And I think, you know, ultimately what I hope for Brad is that he learns what's true for him. You know, maybe he does this and the net result of his is he just decides that doesn't work for me and I need to do this for me now. And if he arrives at that, you know, I'm cheering for him.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, same. I you know, and I think th that like again, we don't really know what's going on with people. Like with my dad, I can say, yeah, I think he probably did have a period of time where he was very addicted to s alcohol substances, whatever. But there's a lot of underlying stuff with him. Like he has an inner restlessness that's just sort of always present and there's probably mental health stuff going on and it's ultimately like not for me to diagnose. ⁓ and it does come back to knowing knowing what's true for you. ⁓ I yeah, I'm not gonna say anything new here that hasn't already been said, but I I I guess I I want to underscore that there's nothing wrong if you have angsty like someone emailed me and said, Why am I so pissed off about Brad pit drinking again and they had many years of sobriety and I was like I get it. Like there's nothing wrong with you. It's totally normal to feel that way. ⁓ and I am not better because I don't feel that way. It's just a different place to be, right? And I there was years when I could not imagine, could not imagine and never would have believed that I'd be neutral about something like that. ⁓ it's just a function of time and again, force is beyond my control. ⁓ and doing a lot of work and n trying to, you know, understand myself better and trying to live into who I am better and increasing willingness to sort of face tough questions and I don't know. I it's a it's a mystery. We don't like mysteries either. We like to know where to put things. We like to know which box they fit in. We like to know what's what's true and what's not and what's this and what's that. And some things don't qualify. They don't fit into those boxes. Most things don't. Oftentimes mm, you know, there's two things that are true at the same time. So yeah, it's a it is a fascinating topic. I did write about it. If you want to read more, it's on my Substack. It's a free article available to to everybody. And ⁓ maybe we can put it in the show notes or something.
speaker-0: Yeah, that's a good idea. It was a good article. I appreciated you sharing your thoughts on that. And I appreciate your vulnerability today, you know, and sharing your story about your dad and everything too. So thanks for that. Good conversation. And this this was a topic in the community. We did get a lot of questions about this. So thank you all for as always. We've had such terrific questions submitted here for us to talk about on Deer Vernon. We'd love for y'all to keep them coming. You can send them to us on Laura's Substack. If you're part of our community, you can send those to us there. You can reach out to us on Instagram, ⁓ through our account, submit questions that way as well. We've got a link for that too, you can always ask for. So keep them coming. We love doing this. And ⁓ yeah, we look forward to having another conversation soon. So take care.
speaker-1: next time.
speaker-0: Thank you for listening to this episode of Dear Vernon, a sobriety support podcast brought to you by the team at The Luckiest Club. If you or someone you know needs support, connection, or accountability to help make sobriety stick, check us out at The Luckiest Club. You can find all the information you need on our community and our programs at the Luckiest Club dot com. Thank you for listening.