In this week’s episode, we have the lovely Arielle Lorre on to chat about her journey to sobriety, spirituality, and her new podcast, Over the Influence!

Arielle is a blogger and health and fitness guru that spends time posting delicious recipes, fitness tips, and curating her beautiful Instagram account. We are seriously jealous of her aesthetic! But what some people might not know about Arielle is that she is sober, and uses her recovery journey to help others.

Much like Alexis and Evan, Arielle and her husband met in recovery, and have a significant age gap between them. Part of recovery is joining a community of people from all different walks of life and age ranges. So instead of seeing someone’s age, we just the amazing, strong person and the struggles they’ve been through. Likewise, Arielle just sees the man that she loves, and not a number.

If you know your truth and rise above the judgment of others, you will never care what people think of age difference in a relationship. 

This shared understanding among people that are sober is not just for spouses, but for everyone.

“You can go anywhere in the world and walk into a room of sober people and not know them and still have that bond. We are all kindred souls and have this shared camaraderie.” 

There are also no age limits in the recovery world, which is why recovered people have friends of all ages. Everyone is on the same journey of healing and growth.

As far as Arielle’s backstory goes, she does not have the “conventional” traumatic history that most addicts do. She lived a relatively stable life growing up, and didn’t have much trauma. It wasn’t until she began drinking alcohol at age 17 that everything changed. 

For the first time in her life, Arielle felt at ease. She realized that up until her first drink, she had felt nothing but unease her entire life.  

Once she knew the feeling of relief, there was no turning back. She began partying and using cocaine, and at age 19, was sent to her first recovery program at an outpatient center. 

For 10 years, Arielle was in and out of treatment, swinging back and forth between recovery and relapse. It wasn’t until a completely traumatic experience that she finally chose to gain control of her life. 

She was living in California at the time, and remembered her parents flying in to host an intervention. At this point she was abusing alcohol, cocaine, Xanax, and Adderall. Seizures from overuse would completely overtake her body, and she was once found unresponsive in her apartment by the police and rushed the hospital.

Arielle knew she needed to surrender, but the idea of facing life sober seemed too overwhelming.

This is a common experience for those in recovery. For so long, you are used to numbing out any emotion with the high of a substance. Without anything to fall back on, you are left to feel those raw emotions. And it is so hard. 

Unfortunately, there is no way to wean into life. But Arielle truly believes that her community of support is what got her through to the other side. Then, you must surrender to the process of healing and be humbled by it.

We have to be strong enough to admit that we don’t know everything, and that we must re-learn how to live life.

Learning to be okay with suffering is difficult, but that is where a spiritual foundation can be a real game changer. We can choose to believe in something greater than us, and rely on that to guide us through life. It is then our connection to something bigger that keeps us going. 

“With faith, it makes the waves of life less turbulent. Life becomes calmer.”

All the joy, suffering, and pain that we feel on this earth are the essence of life. Without the pain and suffering, we can’t experience the pure joy.

Like the voice that called Arielle said, “There is something beautiful on the other side of this.” We need to hold out hope and remember the lessons we’ve learned from our painful experiences. 

These principles are what Arielle is communicating on her new podcast. The community she’s cultivated with Over the Influence is really important, and she believes it is a true part of recovery.

Her online presence has allowed her to be open about her struggles, and help those that are struggling as well. She calls on her experiences with sobriety and health to create her amazing content and change people’s lives.

With a world that places a lot of value on numbers, we need to ask ourselves what really matters to the followers, and that is community. Even though engagement in the comment section might be low, there are a ton of DMs waiting to be answered, where people want to have a real connection.

Social media can be a great tool for fostering genuine connection between like-minded souls. Then, our relationships blossom into something empowering and real.

To wrap up and end on a light note, Alexis and Arielle play a fun game of Would You Rather. Because let’s be real…who wouldn’t love to choose between sex with Jason Bateman or a complete unattractive stranger?! You’ll just have to listen to find out!

#ANDSOITIS

If you or someone you love needs help, please go to alorecovery.com

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