The Dry-est Drunk

Okay. Morning. I'm like, how fun would it be to kick off my day with Cadre? So it's like my first. I think this early. I know 8am is not that early. We've all been up or I don't know, I don't know your life. C. C. i hope your comedy thing went amazing last night. 50. Okay, so I. Hey, mafia. Hey, T Babies. Oh my God. Maybe this is. Maybe I should do morning stuff. Okay, so my name is Brittany. It's funny. I always have to like, list the reasons why I feel like I'm able to talk about these things.

But it's also like, very funny because I'm in a world where I'm not supposed to. Hey, Jules. Where I'm dating and like, you're not supposed to like, lead with all this stuff. So let me just tell you. I am an alcoholic. Been sober for 15 years. I'm an army. I was an army medic, deployed with an infantry. And I divorcee and I have a little three year old. Things are pure chaos in my home. I promised myself, no matter what, I would livestream out of my office even though there's boxes everywhere. I.

Oh, Erie, Pennsylvania, never been. Should I go? Well, anyways, high speak wonder. I want to talk about dry drunk. And the reason I'm telling you most of my chaos right now is like I said, I'm moving. Oh my God. My car broke down on Friday. Of course it did, because I just bought a house. Why wouldn't it? I think I cursed myself too, because the thing I said was I just need this car to last five years. Why would I say that? Why would I say that? Anyways, it didn't. It's not. It's in the shop right now.

But let's talk about. The reason I want to talk about pure chaos. And where I'm at right now is because dry drunk. Now, I don't know if most of you are sober. Some of you are sober. Not one of you are sober. That's fine because this is a great thing to learn about anyways in your wellness journey. So you quit. Let's say you did quit drinking. Congratulations. That's huge. That's amazing. That is a big stuff step. But here's the hard truth that people don't love hearing that getting rid of alcohol isn't the only thing you need to do.

It's not the magically fix everything because you don't consume this liquor. This liquor. What I was saying 1920s, the devil's liquor. Because you don't consume like alcohol anymore. Isn't the magic reason you're going to start seeing in aa they call them the promises or the change you want or the things that you think are going differently. Oh, some. Audrey just said she's had three years and she's in upstate South Carolina. Oh my God. Congrats on three years. That's huge. That's everything. So we don't work.

If we don't work on the why we were drinking, you're still going to be dealing with the same problems. Which is really frustrating. Right? Because drink, quitting drinking. Audrey knows quitting drinking is frickin hard. Especially when it's part of your routine. Especially when that is something. So socially is an automatic sign of going out. Right. So let's call, let's talk about the term dry drunk even means. So dry drunk is way more common than you think. It means you are physically sober, but you're emotionally and mentally doing the same thing.

That's not great, right? Like let's think that out. If you're like somebody like me. I just got so overwhelmed again. Bought a house, have a three year old car broke down. What do I want to do? Want to know am I dry drunk? You want to know my big secret? I like to isolate. Which is funny because especially JC knows I'm probably one of the most social people in the world. But I like to disappear. I like to not burden people, not ask for help, not do all the things that I'm taught to do. I like to isolate and hide out and wallow.

There's my dry drunk secret. So I find myself, oh don't forget, lash out when people reach out or people lash out at the people I love the most. AKA my mom, my sister, my best friend Michelle. I like to lash out at those people as well. That's not cute. A lot of people snap at people, avoid responsibilities. Put your hand in the air. Put your hand in the air. That's me. I would like to not open mail. When I start opening mail, that's when I'm at my driest of drunk self. Isolate. That's me. Obsess over old grudges.

Yeah, go back, get angry about things. Let's see, I made a list. You might be in dry drunk territory if you find yourself falling into those. Oh, Mafia agrees. Avoid. Yes. Avoiding is like my comfort blanket. Like I love not acknowledging the world. If I could, I would have left my car at the side of the road and lived in this house until I got evicted. Which is not great. Right But I mean having a three year old makes that a little harder because you have to like acknowledge things in a way that you can't help.

It's why I have two dogs. One's a golden. I like being forced to leave the house. Let's talk about why this can be so problematic. You just got sober, right? She's got sober. And though you want, you want your life to be different, listen, nobody gets sober because everything's going so well. Nobody's like, hey, I'm living my highest best life. Life. Not highest, but like I'm living my best life. And so I'm going to make this big change. You guys were. Because literally you couldn't stand not probably that's what happened to me.

I couldn't stand myself. I couldn't stand another day as that person. So I got sober. And for me, I didn't really, I shouldn't say. I didn't have a choice because I went to rehab. I went to two rehabs. I went to inpatient and outpatient and I, I call it my permanent limit timeouts. And I had to self reflect on what I was doing. Why I was doing the why. The why. So interesting. And you know, you don't. It's funny, I'm like, you could sit and figure out whys all day, but then also what are we doing?

You know, it's the converse. Here's one of my dogs. That why is really important to think back. Why am I doing this? Why? Because I mean I isolate because I don't want to deal because I would rather just not deal with anything. Take that on. So the funny thing is if you're here, you're dealing with the why, which is pretty magical because not just being sober, running around, causing your own little tornadoes. That's amazing. So you're in a place where you're like, I'm actually dealing with the why.

There's so many things you can do, kind of just changing behavior in general. First figure out what your dry drunk is so powerful. I mean the biggest example is just talking to someone about this is I'm out in these streets dating again. I mean I say that loosely. I don't really go on dates, but like in theory I could just call myself out for like, oh yeah, I'm dating. No, I'm not. I'm not hanging out with a golden retriever. But that figuring out for me, we had this big talk around what's my type and why.

Why I why. So we figured out what is because I'm attracted to Emotionally unavailable men. And then the question was why? That was such an interesting conversation. And I think that dealing with that with your dry drunk as well. So step one, you're in a place of I'm sober. Step two, let's take a beat. When things get hard, when things get rough. Not like you're having a great sober day, because we have so many great days where we're like, I'm not thinking of alcohol. Or maybe I am, but it's not like a problem today.

When your car breaks down, when you're moving, when you're going through a divorce, when you lose a baby, you know, that's a hard one. And I'm not going to touch on that. But like, when. When something happens, where do you go? What do you do? Figure that out first. And then it's the why. Why do you deal with that? There's so many conversations to have. I mean, it's all so personal. But I'm telling you, dealing with the why of it all is beautiful. And then, listen, you don't have to live in the why.

Go to the why for a little while, Stay there for a little bit. And then. And then, like this. Is that actionable change. And me and JC talk about this and how f****** beautiful it can be is. Let's change the way you are reacting to things. Again, you can still be p*****, you can still be angry, but maybe I don't disappear for a whole weekend like this. This time I'll tell you about what I did this time differently. I got. I've had a lot of chaos in my life and well deserved. I mean, I got a divorce, I moved, then my car broke down on Friday and I was supposed to hang out.

Well, first off, my best friend literally texted me and saying, I'm going to pick you up and bring you to work. Don't ask questions, just tell me what time you're coming. Now, secretly, what did I want to do? I wanted to tell her, no, I'm fine and just taking an Uber because I don't want help. I want to do things independently. But why? Why? So we had a great chat on the way to work. That was lovely. And then I was supposed to hang out with somebody Friday and I almost wanted to say, no, thank you, because I wanted to isolate.

But I changed it up. I hung out and it felt really good. So again, let's figure out. Take a beat. Maybe not today. Actually today it's Sunday. Do it today. When life kind of punches you in the stomach, how do you react? Yeah, the old you would drink for sure. And so at least you have that step done. But like, are your reactions the same? Are you lashing out? Are you yelling? Let's figure that out. This isn't about perfection. This isn't gonna go, wow, I got my kid punched me in the crotch today.

And I said, leaned down and said, hey, do you really think that was the right journey for you? This is about little modifications that are going to change your life in a huge way. So next time the world does punch you in the stomach, you're not blowing up in other ways if this one's a hard one. So if you're sober and miserable, you're probably doing it wrong. Now, the word miserable is key there. I'm not saying if you're sober and sad, if you're sober and struggling, if you're sober and whatever.

If you are sober and miserable, most likely you're doing it wrong. Miserable is one of those words where, I mean, I get it, like we've all detox, we've all dealt with the physicals, but if you're like one or two years sober and literally miserable, still your life, you're finding you're, you're still dealing with those same cycles, you're definitely doing it wrong. That's a hard one for most alcoholics to hear. You shouldn't be miserable. Your life should be getting better. You should be seeing change.

And that's where, like, I think we struggle. Because sometimes the look of sobriety can look a certain way. Like, oh, oh, I want to be sober, but I don't want to be like that person. Sobriety is pretty f****** amazing. And like, I would love to talk more on that. And I know it's so personal. So I don't want to do any broad overviews because different people have different look of what's like your day to day is another person's like, not their ideal world. So I don't want to go into detail saying that it should be this way, it should be that way.

But I will say you should not be miserable. Continue. You're doing an amazing job by the not drinking. But like, let's stop and take a beat today and think about am I growing or am I just not drinking? Which is again, cannot stress enough. Please don't go, well, then I should drink. I know you won't, but think about what actual changes you've made in your behavior. Are you slipping back into the isolate, into the avoiding? Don't. I mean, I just stupid this. Don't. I mean, think about it. For real.

And be really honest with yourself today. If things get rough, when things get rough, where do you go? At least you're not going to the bottle. But you might. You might be dealing with your driest drunk. I loved talking with all of you in the morning. It was so lovely. Jc, Mafi, Audrey, all the people who came and hung out with me. Oh, Audrey, thank you for the message. Cheers. Coffee. Do all the things also shame me? Because I still have so many boxes? I told myself, no matter what, I was gonna live stream out of my office today because I have to start acknowledging this room because it's kind of where I've been dumping everything.

So if you could see this, you'd go, she's chaos. Why would we listen? Because, like, I'm stupid happy. I'm stupid happy. It's disgusting. Disgusting. All right. I love you. I hope you have an amazing Sunday. Amazing. Whatever. Again, take a beat. How are you reacting when things get hard? All right, have a great one. This is the always the awkward vibe and live stream.