POOPING MY PANTS & all the things I do NOT miss about drinking

Getting real personal in today's episode, talking about digestion, secrets, and waking up in a panic every day. There are so many things I do NOT miss about my drinking problem... and today - I'm listing them all for you.

Hopefully this brings you some peace, comfort, or maybe a good laugh. We all did dumb things during our drinking problem -so don't judge! LOL!

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Transcript

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I made a video talking about how I do not miss waking up in a literal panic thinking, what did I do last night? Who did I text? Who did I call? What did I post on Instagram? And it got me thinking about all the other things I don't miss. So in today's video, we're gonna go through that list. Now, what is the purpose of this episode, you might ask? Well, maybe it'll make you feel a little bit less cuckoo crazy bananas, because I know that's how I felt. When I was first starting in my sobriety journey, I would go on TikTok and I would basically watch these videos of people describing their drinking problems, and I felt so much better hearing that I wasn't the only one, or some people did crazier things than I did. So, you know what? I'm just laying it out, laying it all out on the line. And if this helps you, then great. If this makes you have a nice little laugh, if this helps you reminisce on the old you and be so grateful for the person you are today, then great. Let's jump right in. So for the first one, we will start with that situation that I made a video about. Basically, I used to do all sorts of crazy things when I was drinking by myself at home. One of them being posting to Instagram stories. Oh my god, it was so embarrassing. I would get on Instagram stories or make a TikTok video and I would be drunk and I would be saying some stupid stuff, usually something like emotional or really deep or whatever, and I'd put it out there in my drunken state, like thinking that I was being all, I don't know, phys philosophical or romantic or emotional or whatever and vulnerable. And then the next morning I would wake up and I would instantly freak out. I started every morning by thinking to myself, how many drinks did I have last night? Starting to calculate how many it was throughout the day. And then it was like, oh my God, who did I call? I know I called somebody, and I see that I talked to my mom or my friend for like an hour and 30 minutes, and I don't even remember what we talked about. And then it's like, who did I text? And then the worst of them all was what did I post on Instagram? I'd open up my Instagram and see how many people had already seen my story, and I'm like, oh my God, this is so embarrassing. And I would immediately delete it. I just that was, I mean, the embarrassment of that was just awful. And every day I woke up in a panic, and someone reminded me about how in early sobriety that panic doesn't stop. You're not doing the same things, you're not making those same mistakes, but you still wake up every day thinking, oh my god, what did I do? And it probably took like two weeks, two and a half weeks for me to stop waking up in a panic because it was just so routine for me to be like, what did I post? Who did I call? Who did I text? What did I do last night? What did I buy online? And waking up and just being in a panic. So yeah, it it took some adjusting when I finally got sober, and I realized I didn't have to wake up in a panic because guess what? I didn't do anything stupid. So yeah, safe to say I don't miss that anymore. You know the other thing I don't miss? My liquor store rotation. I do not miss having to switch between Total Wine and More, Bevmo, the gas station, and my local corner store. I oh, I do not miss having to do the calculations and the mental gymnastics of like when did I last go to the corner store? Is he I bought a six-pack four days ago, so is it safe to go back there now, or do I need to go to Total Wine and Moore? When I walk in Total Wine and Moore, I'm like, is that the same guy who was working here yesterday? Because today I'm going in the morning. Yesterday I went in the evening, so maybe it'll be somebody else. Or should I go to Bevmo? But then I have to drive, and I've already been drinking, so I should probably go to one of the walkable ones. Oh my god, you guys, it was exhausting trying to coordinate my drinking and like hide my problem as best I could from strangers. And everybody always says when I talk about this, that those liquor store workers knew that I had a problem. I mean, I think about that family that worked at the corner store. It was like a mom, a son, and a dad. And every time I went in, it would be one of them. And I'm just thinking to myself, they know that I have a problem. You know, I didn't think that at the time, but looking back, I'm like, I'm sure they knew that I had a problem. Because at least at Total Wine and Moore, Bevmo, I don't know, maybe this is in my head, but I feel like you go to those places when you're shopping for a party to have people over or whatever. It's part of your like weekly grocery trip or something. I mean, even the grocery store, you can like sneak alcohol in with your vegetables and your milk, you know. Um, but the local corner store, I I I feel like I just went there for booze only. I mean, I did. And they they knew that I lived close by and I probably was under the influence a lot when I was in there, and they they they knew for sure. I don't know about everybody else, but they knew. And I also a lot of you have done this apparently because I've talked about it before, and a lot of you are like, oh my god, me too. But at Total Wine Amore or the grocery store, I would definitely try to hide the booze. For example, at Total Wine Amore, I would buy like way more than I intended to, and like say that I'm going to a party or buy a birthday card, or somehow make it look like I'm doing my weekly shopping, like by getting a variety, like two bottles of wine and one 12-pack, even though I could do that definitely in a night or two nights. Um, but yeah, the birthday card thing, like trying to conceal the fact that I'm buying so much alcohol, it's like, oh, I'm going to a party, you know. I would even say it to the cashier. Oh my god, they're probably thinking, girl, we have heard this excuse a hundred times. I know you're not going to that dang party. You're gonna drink this all by yourself and save that birthday card for the next birthday that comes up. Yeah, that's what I was doing. Embarrassing. And I don't miss lying, and I don't miss the coordination. And yeah, the liquor store rotation was just awful. I truly do not miss it one single tiny bit. And another thing I don't miss is the digestive issues. Okay, my digestion was so out of whack to the point where I love a morning walk. Still to this day, I love a morning walk. Starting your day with a walk outdoors is so good for the mental health. But when I was at the height of my drinking problem, I had to stop taking my morning walks because a couple times, one time in particular, I thought I wasn't gonna make it. I thought that I was gonna have to go number two in the bushes or knock on somebody's house and ask to use their bathroom because it was like that. I was like, it's coming out of me. Like, this is going to happen. Sorry, TMI, but you know, somebody's gotta say it. Um, I would wake up in the morning and I would just have horrible digestive issues. My stomach would be like gurgling, and some days I would think I'm fine. I would embark on my walk and I'd be like, oh my god, I am not fine. And so I kind of stopped going on my morning walks. Or if I was gonna go on a walk, I made sure to use the restroom before I left, and I would not allow myself to go on the walk before I had done that because it would get to an emergency point. Like, if you've had a drinking problem, you know what I'm talking about. Like, I don't know, as a sober person, when I have to go to the bathroom badly, it's not like an emergency, like I I can't control myself. It's it's just I need to use the bathroom ASAP. But when you have a drinking problem and you have that alcohol digestive system going on, it is like I could not hold it in. I could not stop it from happening. And it was scary and like it made me really nervous to go on my walks or like do things that I enjoy. It made me nervous to fly, it made me nervous to see a show or something where you have to be in one place for a while because I was just like always scared that I would have to emergency use the bathroom. My digestion was just so, so horrible. I remember I was like looking up if I had IBS, I was trying to do some research and stuff because I would go number two like every time I used the bathroom. Literally, every time. It was just coming out of me all day. I'm sorry that this is TMI, but like it was so so bad. And in sobriety, my digestion is so much better. And I this might be the number one thing I don't miss about my drinking problem. Like, this was horrible to deal with. Horrible. And I would blame it on everything else. The food that I was eating. Um, I used to think that I was like allergic to Coke Zero or something. No, that's just because I would crack into a Coke Zero sometimes first thing in the morning, like with my alcohol digestion situation going on, and it was just a bad mix. And yeah, I I don't know. It it it was awful. And it was on my mind all the time. Like, I don't even know how to describe it, but the digestion issue kind of takes over your life when you're going through a drinking problem. It is all you can think about. You have to plan your life around your digestive problem, and it's really hard and embarrassing, and especially on like date nights and stuff, it's just like awkward. Um, oh, I just I hated every part of that, and I do not miss it at all. Okay, this one's a little more niche, but I don't miss having to clean up after myself all the time. Like I was spilling drinks everywhere, always. I swear my clothes always smelled like alcohol because I'd spill on them. My couch always had red wine stains or beer stains, my carpet had stains everywhere. I was constantly cleaning up after myself as if I had a frickin' unpotty trained puppy. You know, it was just like having to clean up messes all the time. And I was just thinking about this because I spilt on my new couch for the first time. And of course, it's like sparkling water, not that big a deal. Uh actually, I think that's like good for getting out stains, but anyway, um, I spilled on my couch for the first time and I was like, oh my god, how long have I had this couch and I haven't spilled anything? And in my old house, with my drinking problem, with my nice white couch that I had, I was cleaning up that couch like every single night. Like every night I would spill my drink on it, which is crazy to think about. But like my beer would spill in some capacity, like I would spill and dribble off my mouth, or I would doze off with a beer in my hand and it would spill. Um, all sorts of things. And that's just so embarrassing looking back. I d I really don't miss having to clean up my messes all the time. Not to mention other messes, like the messes in the bathroom, and you know, from throwing up or just oh my god, like cans everywhere, having to clean up the cans all the time. I was a freaking slob and I was spilling everywhere, and I hated it. And I'm still messy. I have made a recent episode about ADHD and my messiness, but messiness is different than dirtiness and being a slob. And when I had a drinking problem, I was a dirty slob spilling stuff everywhere, having to clean things up, like reeking, having my stuff just reek of beer. Beer in your clothes and on your couch is a really nasty smell, okay? If you weren't a beer drinker, maybe you don't know, but it's gross. It's probably the worst liquid to spill. And I spilled a lot of it. I do not miss that at all. Oh my gosh, another one that I just thought about recently was I do not miss spending so much money on delivery groceries and delivery food and delivery alcohol. I got everything delivered because guess what? I was pretty much under the influence at all hours of the day. And there were some times that, you know, I'm I'm not safe to drive and I just order anything. I ordered more booze, I would order food from restaurants, I would get my groceries delivered, and I was also injured for the height of my alcohol problem, so the delivery thing was quite useful for that. Um, but I didn't need to be getting, you know, a 30 rack of beers delivered to my house, but alas, I was, and I spent so much money on delivery services. Like, first of all, I would pay whatever membership it is to like get cheaper deliveries or something like that, waive your delivery fee or whatever. So that was expensive. But then also it's like you tip your drivers, they bump up the prices, it ends up being so much more. I mean, I remember I did some really dumb ones, like when I didn't want to go too overboard, I just wanted a little bit more to drink. I would order like a bottle of wine from these places and pay as much for the delivery fee as the bottle of wine with the tip and everything. And I'm just like, how was I justifying that? Because, okay, back to the original thought. The reason that I thought about this recently is because I was looking back at the last couple years and I was like, I have not ordered delivery anything. I have not ordered DoorDash or Instacart or any of those since I quit drinking, which is crazy because in my sobriety, I'm just like, I could always just jump in the car. If I really, really want something, I can always just jump in the car a hundred percent of the time I'm capable of that because I'm not under the influence of anything ever other than caffeine. Woohoo! Um yeah, but I can drive no matter what. Which is awesome. So I don't miss having to get things delivered and paying such a premium to do that. It was so awful, and I can't believe how lazy I was, truly. Aside from the injury, uh, you know, even once I was healed from that or before the injury, I was getting so much delivered. That is like I'm sorry if you do this, you know, we all have our vices, but that is like peak laziness, in my opinion. Get in the car and go get it yourself if you really want it. That's just my personal opinion and maybe a little bit harsh, because I know delivery things are kind of like a luxury and a nice little treat every now and then, or some people can't go out, so they're actually life-saving. If you're a busy person, it could be sitting on your door. I get that there are good sides to the delivery services, but that is not why I was doing them. I was doing them because I was too drunk to go get them myself, always. And so I'm just sitting on the couch drinking my booze and having somebody come deliver me more booze. Not good. Not good. Don't miss that at all. I also don't miss being unable to work out. And let's be honest, when I was at the height of my drinking, I'm not like trying to go to Pilates classes or hit the gym that often. But when I wanted to, or if that thought was on my mind, like uh tomorrow I want to work out or something, I literally couldn't because I would start drinking, and that makes me unable to go to the gym. Not because I couldn't go lift weights, but it's like I would convince myself that there's no point in going if I'm tipsy. Um, you know, I you don't want to go work out when you're drinking. And I was drinking like all the time. So it got to a point where I just couldn't work out. And even if I said, you know, I want to change my life, I want to start going to the gym, I couldn't because I prioritized the drinking over the gym. And I don't miss literally being unable to work out because of my drinking problem. I don't know how to phrase this as an I don't miss situation, but I'll try. I don't miss uh having like so few options when it comes to drinks, if that makes sense. What I'm trying to say is that when I ordered drinks when I was a drinker, I got alcohol a hundred percent of the time. Like if we were ordering drinks, I was getting an alcoholic beverage. Definitely, without a doubt. So my options were wine, beer, seltzers, you know, sometimes a cocktail, but really no. Um, or I do a shot every now and then. Like it was alcohol, definitely. If I'm going out for breakfast, it's a mimosa, it's a bloody Mary. Like it was alcoholic beverages. And those drinks like ran my life. I wouldn't even look at the menu. I would know what I'm in the mood for. I sit down, I ordered that. Now it's like a world has opened up to me. You think that when you stop drinking, you're gonna have so few options of what to drink, but you'll see. If you're new to sobriety, after a while of being sober, the world opens up. There are so many beverage options, like every category. You know what I mean? Bubble teas and smoothies and uh sparkling this and sodas and just there's so much. Arnold Palmer, strawberry lemonade, like anything that you go to, the fair, breakfast, the zoo, wherever. It's like you just try all these different things because they're there and it's exciting. And when I was drinking, it was alcohol always, no matter what. I didn't even give myself a chance to decide. It was it was kind of like why would I order anything else other than alcohol? Like, what is the point of that? I did not see the point in that. But now that I'm sober, I will try anything. It's so fun. I I don't know why I thought of the zoo, because I'm kind of craving a trip to the zoo, to be honest. Um, but I you could order, yeah, their strawberry lemonade, their dipping dots, you know, like you might get a pretzel. I would have just gotten a beer and not tried anything else. The world opens up so much in sobriety in the beverage space, in the food space, in the dessert space. Like, life is so fun. There are so many fun options to explore, and I was so blind to that when I was a drinker. So I don't miss having alcohol be my top priority and literally being unable to explore anything else. It's so much more fun on this side of things. Not in the beginning. The beginning was hard. I didn't know what to order, I didn't know what was out there, but eventually you learn what you like, you learn how to explore menus again, and it's pretty fun on this side of things. Another thing I do not miss is having such poor nail health. My nails would break all the time. I was just looking, looking back at an old video, and I had these horrific long red press-on nails that were like falling off of my fingernails, and I was like, good god, and they were long and sparkly, and they just looked like really, really kind of trashy and bad. That's not a bad look, but for me, it they didn't look great, and they were the quality of them, they were falling off. It was it was not the vibe. Okay. So I was like, wow, I am somebody who usually just wears bare nails now, or maybe I have like a polish that I did myself at home. But back then my nails were in such bad health that I had to do press on nails all the time. Because if I let my nails grow out at all, they would snap and break. I remember the thing I remember most significantly is when I would take my laptop out of the laptop bag, it and like if it slipped, that would break my nail. I don't know if I'm making sense, but like you're grabbing your laptop out and it kind of slips out of your fingers and my nail would just break off. I would try to grow out my nails and they would just instantly break. I could never have long nails. So it was either always trimming my nails, or if I wanted to have long, cute nails, I would do these crazy press-ons, and they looked bad, and they made my nails more frail in the end. But when I was drinking, my nails were just so unhealthy. And now it's kind of actually crazy. I sometimes forget how awesome this is, but like seriously, my nails get so long, they don't chip or break or anything ever. And the only time that I have to trim them is when I'm playing golf, and I'm like, oh my god, these are literally hurting me because I'm pressing them into my palm. They're too long, I have to cut them in order to play golf today. They don't they they never break. It's just crazy. The nail health is through the roof, outrageous. And I'd like to think the same is for my hair as well. Well, I've noticed some new hair growths throughout this journey, but my hair has always been really thin and the thickness hasn't changed that much, but I'm sure like your nail health and hair health are related, right? So hopefully it's helping the hair a little bit, even if I don't notice it a ton. But the nails I notice a ton and I am like so grateful to have strong nails. It's one of those little things that you definitely take for granted, and I like forget that I forget where I came from. I forget how bad they were. And I could like bend them. You know, when you like press your thumb on your fingernail, it would bend. And now they are so strong. Listen to this. Strong, baby. This kind of goes along with the DoorDash one. This kind of goes along with the liquor store rotation one. But another thing I don't miss is having to organize Ubers, organize a ride home, like do doing all the mental gymnastics just to go do something. Oh my god. If I wanted to go to the baseball game, it's not just go to the baseball game. It's where are we gonna pre-game? How can we sneak in booze? How are we gonna get alcohol while we're there? Who's gonna drive us there? How are we gonna get home? Who's gonna stop drinking like an hour before we have to leave? Are we gonna get an Uber? How expensive is that gonna be? It was oh my god, such a headache. It was crazy because where I lived at the height of my drinking problem was like an hour and a half from Dodger Stadium when I was in LA. It was in the valley, uh Kaneho Valley, if you're familiar, and Dodger Stadium is way on the east side. So it was a really long ways. And you could you couldn't like I mean, getting an Uber to and from there would have been like multiple hundreds of dollars. It was so far, so expensive at peak rush hour time for these games, you know? And that was just like out of the question. It was out of the budget. And so I remember my boyfriend and I, or our friends that we were going with, we would have to think, okay, which one of us is not gonna drink, or which one of us is gonna have less and then stop drinking at a certain point? What if we all split? Like, could we have somebody pick us up? Should we go somewhere afterwards to let our buzz wear off and then drive ourselves home? I also, by the way, just remembered having to leave my car one time in uh what's it called? Silver Lake, you know, by Dodger Stadium, because I drank way too much and couldn't drive myself home. So now we're Ubering home, and then the next day I gotta do the drive of shame, another hour and a half drive in an Uber to go pick up my car and drive back the next day. Oh my god, how embarrassing! Is that really how I want to spend my life? Ubering back and forth to go pick up my car that I had to leave overnight and I have a ticket and it's towed and it's I gotta go pick it up from the tow shop and blah blah blah blah blah. It was such a headache. Oh my god. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ Almighty, I do not have to deal with that anymore. It was so much coordination and like regret and mistakes and expensive decisions and oh my god. And then, like I mentioned, the gymnastics you gotta do at the game or before the game to make sure that you maintain your buzz and you get to a certain point before you go in so that you don't have to spend like$18 on one beer and how can we sneak in shots, put it in my boot, like oh my god. It was horrible and just so exhausting. I'm drained even just thinking about this. And now, as a sober person, you know what I do if I want to go to the baseball game? I get in my car and I go. That's it. I don't have to coordinate how how I'm gonna get booze, how much to drink before, where I'm gonna park, how I'm gonna get there, how I'm gonna get home, who's gonna stop drinking. I go, I park, I go into the game, I watch the game, I order whatever I want, and I drive myself home. Period. That's it. I do not miss the mental gymnastics of coordinating my alcohol and my my transportation at all. It was horrible. Don't recommend that. It was awful. Sobriety is that girl. Where does this episode end? Because I could actually talk about this forever and ever and ever about all the things I don't miss, but I will make this the last one. Okay, we're gonna wrap it up here. And this is a big overarching one that spans across every category, and that is lying. I do not miss lying or withholding the truth or hiding. It was horrible. I literally felt like I was Hannah Montana living a double life. I tried so hard, I was working overtime to pretend that I didn't have a drinking problem and make it seem like I was totally fine to everyone around me. And apparently I did a decent job because a lot of the people in my life say that they didn't know that I was struggling, they didn't know how much I was drinking. I had no idea you were drinking that much. That's what they always say. And I know everybody always says, everyone knows that you had a drinking problem, you didn't hide anything. I think I hid it okay. You know, some people have come out and confessed that they noticed certain things, but all in all, I think I did okay at hiding it. I was pretty high functioning. I always talk about the fact that I had my highest growth year, you know, income-wise, while I was at the height of my drinking problem. So, you know, obviously I was still alive and well and not well. I was functioning. But the mental turmoil of maintaining the the lie, like maintaining this front, was exhausting. It truly was the worst part about having a drinking problem. I felt guilt about lying to people. I felt alone because I was the only one who fully knew the truth. Like I think that's why I isolated myself so much, why I always wanted to live alone, never wanted roommates, why I would tell my boyfriend that I needed to have like time to myself. It was so that I could go be alone at home and drink without putting up this front. Because everywhere I went, everyone that I talked to, everything that I did, I'm putting up a front. Even when I was out drinking with friends, I was putting up a front. Because I would say things like, oh, I'm trying to cut back, or like, oh, you know, I usually never drink this much. I'm just like going through something, or, you know, I just want to have this or whatever. Like, I was just always making up these stories. Or I would pre-game and have seven beers before I left, and then I'd be like, oh yeah, I'm like tipsy a little bit after two glasses of wine. Little do they know, I pre-gamed the heck out of that lunch. I was just lying all the time. Like, I could give you a hundred million examples, but I was always withholding the truth. I was always hiding my cans everywhere. I was sneaking alcohol in places. I was taking out the trash before anyone entered my apartment so they wouldn't see how many were in the trash bin. I was sneaking away to the bar to take a shot while everybody else was hanging out. I was chugging a beer in the bathroom. Like it was just always hiding and lying. And I I actually felt very, very lonely. I think that I mean, I felt lonely all in all when I was in LA. Like overall, I just felt lonely because I didn't have any of my family. Um, I was in this just modeling acting industry that isolates you a bit. And then on top of that, I'm maintaining this drinking problem. And the only person who I can be fully myself with, like fully no filters, is just myself when I was at home alone. That's the only time where I felt like I could just be totally filter-free and drink however I wanted to in my own way, without any judgment, without having to explain myself, without having to come up with some story. And I really don't miss just the exhaustion that came with pretending to be somebody I'm not in public. Some people just let their drinking problem uh fully expose itself in social situations, but me, I I did everything I could to make sure nobody found out how I was really drinking. I was so embarrassed by it. I didn't want anyone to know I I was disgusted at my own behavior, and I I did not want anybody else in uh in on my secret. I wanted it to just be private with me only. And so that's something I really don't miss is just hiding my problem and lying to people or withholding the truth if it wasn't a direct lie. Nobody knew what was going on. And that yeah, it makes me sad thinking back. So I don't miss that at all. At all. So thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope, you know, maybe this gave you some comfort if you feel like you've done some crazy things along the way, like all of us have, you know. And in sobriety, life is just so much better. There's so many things I don't miss about my drinking problem. Like life is just so much better on this side of things. I can't even remember the person I was. It's just crazy all the work I put in into maintaining my problem. Like, alcohol was number one in my life above everything else. It was the first thing I thought of before anything else. And now I don't think about it at all. So think of all the amazing things that get to come first, that get to come higher in my priorities than a liquid substance. I mean, that's so embarrassing to think that a liquid substance was my number one priority. Like, what about my family? What about my significant other? I mean, I'm single right now, but you know what I mean. Um, what about my work? What about art, hobbies, redecorating your home, physical fitness? All that stuff now comes before alcohol, whereas the old me had alcohol at number one and all that stuff just went by the wayside. So now we get to prioritize the things that we actually care about, and I think that's really, really beautiful. Thank you for listening. I'll see you for the next episode. If you'd like to join our Facebook support group, the link is in the description. As always, with love. Bye.