Today we have Marisa. She is 50 years old from Fairfax, VA and she took her last drink on March 17th, 2024.

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[03:18] Intro summary:

You may be listening right now and feeling tired. Not just sleepy tired, but soul tired. This kind of tiredness comes from trying to clean up your inner world while the outer world feels like it's run by toddlers having the world's most expensive tantrum.

You're choosing consciousness while others choose chaos. You're picking love while others are picking fights. You're building your spiritual muscles while they're flexing bank accounts and crypto wallets.

This is a contradiction that we are living in and it's hard to be sober, raw, real and authentic in a dysfunctional world. However, the quiet revolution matters. The decision to face our demons instead of drowning them matters. The choice to feel everything instead of nothing matters. You're not just quitting drinking—you're quitting the lie that says we have to be drunk to survive this world.

Keep going. The world needs your consciousness more than it needs another unconscious knee jerk reaction. Ditching the booze and cleaning up your inner world is how we solve this mess.

[07:58] Paul introduces Marisa:

Marisa is 50 years old and lives in Fairfax, VA. She is engaged and has a 12-year-old daughter. She works as a government contractor, enjoys live music, spending time outside, traveling, reading and binge-watching TV.

Marisa says that for her, alcoholism was not a progressive disease. She had her first drink at 12 and the first time she got very drunk was 13 and she loved it. Alcohol assisted her in numbing the pain of abuse that she experienced in her childhood. Marisa has always known alcohol was a problem for her.

Over the next 30 or so years, there were ebbs and flows to Marisa's drinking. She always had an excuse/reason that she chose to drink like she did. Because she was high functioning, no one really knew about her issues. When she started seeing a therapist in 2022, she told them about her drinking and says a weight was lifted. Marisa met with a substance abuse counselor a few times after that, but didn't have a good experience and wasn't ready to try AA again.

Marisa would try to moderate for the next few years but eventually knew something had to change. She told a friend of hers who she knew was in recovery that she had an intention of quitting for 30 days and began to attend AA.

Since quitting, Marisa says that she has never looked back. She knew that drinking was no longer serving her. Remembering the six-week spiral that she went through before quitting helps remind her of who and where she doesn't want to ever be again.

Marisa knows she needs to stay tethered to her recovery through attending meetings, seeing her sponsor once a week, listening to podcasts and talking with other people in recovery often. Marisa has gone to therapy for quite a while but wasn't committed to it when she was drinking. Now she is doing the work and beginning to heal from the traumas that drove her to seek relief with alcohol.

Marisa's parting piece of guidance: it was difficult to get sober, but it has been amazing and wonderful and easy to stay sober.

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All of this change starts from the inside out.

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