Jen reflects on nearing a 12-year sobriety milestone, explores how sharing recovery stories creates courage and connection, and models enjoying a celebratory non-alcoholic botanical drink while encouraging safe spaces for vulnerable conversation.
Jen opens the episode, greets viewers, and talks candidly about tracking her sobriety date and the significance of the approaching 12-year milestone. She invites viewers to celebrate the milestone with her.
Jen explains the month-long Cadre focus on celebrating BIPOC and minority communities and acknowledges that those experiences are not her own. She positions her perspective as someone who has been a minority within her peer sobriety groups.
She highlights Applos 'Calme' botanical spirit, describes its ingredients and hemp content, pairs it with Thomas Henry tonic, and models how to enjoy a non-alcoholic celebratory drink. The segment includes tasting notes and an invitation to enjoy NA cocktails in summer.
She prompts viewers to consider times their story felt unimportant and describes how listening to others in AA helped her find courage to share. Jen emphasizes how collective, vulnerable storytelling can empower individuals to voice their experiences.
Jen recounts how five women sharing personal stories during sauna experiences led to the creation of her brand Wild Rise and reinforced her work holding physical spaces for vulnerable sharing. She stresses that such containers help transform shame and failure into support and growth.
In closing, she encourages listeners to enjoy non-alcoholic cocktails, invite friends, and find or create safe spaces for sharing and reflection. Jen reminds viewers to celebrate progress, notes how sharing can empower others, and signs off with warm wishes.
Hi everyone, welcome in. It's Jen Varale here with Sober Not Somber Hour and yeah, welcoming you in. It's Tuesday, July 14th and I was just doing a quick check on my calendar because I tend to say talk about my sobriety date as if it's already been achieved. So for example, a couple months ago, I was saying I have 12 years of sobriety, when in fact I had 11 years and 10 months. So just interesting. I know we in general as a population maybe roll that up for birthdays or ages, but sobriety dates are sacred and saying you have 12 years before your actual date can be considered risky business.
I know that from the AA community. However, I'm pretty confident I'm going to hit that 12 year mark in exactly 2 weeks on July 28th. And I invite you to join me in celebrating that. So Today and all throughout July, the content on Cadre has been about every story matters. And it's to celebrate BIPOC communities, minority communities. Those are not my lived experiences. These are from the Cadre day where we were celebrating Pride a couple weeks ago and supporting that community. But from a minority perspective, I would say 12 years ago, I was in the minority of my friend and colleague in peer groups in terms of being the only, the only one who needed to stay sober, the only alcoholic in the group, the only sober necessary one.
And so I want to chat a little bit about that today in terms of story and why my particular story as a person in recovery in those groups mattered. So before we dig in, what I always do is highlight A non-alcoholic beverage of choice because that is for me a way that I've been able to integrate back into social scenes and just be celebratory with a drink in hand that is not alcohol. So today I'm featuring Applos and they have several varieties. This is a botanical spirit. This one is calm, C-A-L-M-E, and it's yuzu, basil, shiso, dandelion, all infused with hemp.
I think it's 20 milligrams of hemp per serving, which is a calming effect. So at this happy hour, we're creating some calm. So I'm bringing out my fancy glasses again because it's so hot and I love a fancy glass in the summer with a lot of ice. And then I'm just simply pairing this with a favorite brand for tonic water and soda called Thomas Henry and they are out of Europe. They have a US division but I was shipped a couple samples of these and I absolutely love them. Not all tonic waters and club sodas are created equal.
So I love just adding a little bit of bubbly and sparkle to any beverage. I mean, you can hear that, right? Doesn't that signify or bring up memories of like, just like summer beverages sitting on the patio, whatever have you. So cheers, NA cheers. Oh, folks, that is really, really tasty. It's touted as a beverage to relax and unwind. And a little bit of citrus. Anyway, so getting into story and being the only one in a group of friends and family who was in recovery and sober necessary 12 some years ago.
And I want to prompt the question for you all today in terms of the importance of story sharing. So has there ever been a time in your life where you have felt like your story didn't matter and you hadn't given it a voice? So if you think back to that time, and if you are timing in later, please drop it in the comments too. I do check those. If there was a time when you just were feeling depleted or like, why do I personally matter? Why does my story matter? And I would hope that for that particular story, you have some point in your timeline where that shifted and you started to share a little bit of that story.
So digging into what was happening when that became something that stood out to you. So I think about the power of story sharing and that others, let's say in the rooms of AA, started to share their stories. And once that happened, once they started sharing their stories and I was just observing and listening, I understood that I had a story as well. it sparked something in me because I began to see how each unique story shared in the rooms collectively sort of empowered me to share mine. So it was alike enough in terms of lived experiences and things, the human experience, but it was unique enough in how it was related to who I was.
And I just remember thinking and finding the courage and the voice in one of those first meetings to share my story in a group of rooms supported by others in AA and how powerful that was. Drop in the chat if you've had that experience, whether sharing in an AA group or another supported group, the power of feeling heard and listened to and seen. It's huge. So I was thinking about that just in terms of what that might inspire you to do. So not only being in rooms where you hear others' stories very vulnerably and either sharing your story in return or putting a voice to your story that you maybe hadn't thought of before.
And I mention that because that's what happened with me over the last couple months. not even in terms of sobriety, but I take those sharing practices that I have had with my sobriety into this next chapter. And that is launching a new sauna brand, a brand related to sauna called Wild Rise. And that all happened simply because five women got together and started talking about our life stories and we were sharing these around and in sauna experiences. So I got to thinking about the importance of story and the containers which we can create to go into to really draw out those stories.
So if you're not going into those spaces to be in community with people that will allow for a vulnerable share. you are perhaps missing out on some deep exploration of defining your story and maybe redefining or writing your story. I find it very powerful and I do that through sauna. So this brand that I just launched and I put a whole sub stack out there and reflected on how it came to be. And it really was over a three day weekend with five women. telling these stories that normally could have been maybe perceived as stories of failure, as in failed relationships, failed businesses, shame, alcohol misuse, and how I behaved in those years.
But the stories just poured out among these women. And it reflected to me the importance of my work in this space, which is holding space, holding physical space in environments where that type of sharing can happen so that we can all rise above the shame, rise above the failure and create something new. Just feeling so supported and allowing that inner light to shine. Like how often does that happen? So yeah, I'm thinking about that today, you guys. Y'all people grab yourself a non-alcoholic cocktail this summer.
Invite friends over. Find a group that you can create a safe space for sharing. That's my advice. Dig into those stories. And as always, my platform is about reflection on how far we've come and then also pausing to celebrate. There's a lot in those moments and shape your story in a new way if it needs to be shaped and find the power of being vocal in that because ultimately you're sharing your story empowers someone else who may feel small or unseen. It empowers them to do that and that is the work.
That's the work folks. so have a fantastic Tuesday. Stay cool and I would love to see you in the summer.
