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1 This is Annie Grace and you're listening to This Naked Mind podcast where without judgment, pain, or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture. Hi, this is Annie Grace and welcome to This Naked Mind podcast. Today I am here with Carrie. Welcome Carrie. Hi Annie. It's so good to have you here. We were just commenting on Carrie has the coolest backgrounds. If you're not watching this on video, you should watch it on video. But Carrie, thanks so much for being here. What I love to do is with your story just kind of rewind almost all the way to the beginning. Where did things really start for you? First of all, I just want to say on one of the videos I watched you were talking about fangirling made me nervous because I have just been watching your podcast. I've listened to the book and absolutely love it. I mean, I've actually been looking for this for years because I was like what Claudia calls a gray area drinker for years. It's just really hard because people don't understand that you have a problem. They think that, well, you're successful and you're raising your children, you have a beautiful home and so everything in your life must be fine. From the outside it's totally different. I'd never really drank at all in high school. I grew up in a non drinking home. My mom actually was a single mom. She did drink when I was younger. I don't remember it. She says I dumped her alcohol down the toilet and I don't remember doing that. But I never really was around people that were drinking. My parents did not drink. I remember when I was 13, someone had given my mom a bottle of wine. They never had alcohol in the house. And it was my 13th birthday and I remember taking a few sips of the wine and then I just wasn't interested in it. It just wasn't anything that interested me. I always did well in school, always was in sports and athletics going out through high school and my parents were like you have to go to college. It's not a choice, you need to go. And so when I graduated high school that's what I did. I went for my first year of college and it's funny, I ended up going to Suny Albany in New York which I didn't know at the time, but it's one of the biggest drinking schools. I remember my freshman year seeing all these people, the fraternities and sororities and everybody was just getting drunk and it wasn't my thing. I really honestly my first year there I didn't get involved in it at all. I was very studious. I loved college, I loved school. I love to study and I was kind of isolated. I didn't make a lot of friends because a lot of the people that went there were from the city of New York City. And so for me it was like I was this country girl, very naive, very inexperienced. I just was never very social person. I didn't have a big group of friends, I had just a very few close friends. I guess towards the end of my freshman year I kind of was feeling left out. I ended up being part of the college radio. I deejayed and I love doing that and I met some people there and there

2 wasn't really anybody that I connected with. I had a boyfriend all through high school. He was a year older, so he was in college the year before and then things started going south in our relationship and he ended up cheating on me. I was home for the Summer and I was working at, there was a landscaper down the road from my parent's house way out in the country. I was working for the Summer to make money for college and stuff and we had been together for like five years and he broke up. It was probably at that time before going back when I went back in therapy in my childhood, I mean one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life. It was really, really hard. I think that's kind of what set me up for this pattern that I found in my life where I'll be in a relationship and it'll be great and then things will go south and then I will drink to make myself feel better. And so that was the first time that it started. I was sophomore in college and I went back to school and I was like, well, I am going to be part of a sorority. I pledged to a sorority. It was funny because, and I'm not trying to be antisemitic but people called some of the people from Long Island, they would call them JAPS and I'm like, what does that mean? I didn't figure out what it meant till a year later. It's stands for Jewish American princess. That was kind of an example of who was there at that school. And so when I went to the sorority, you would go and you'd meet everybody. I went there and they all would not talk to me. I mean, they just would not even talk to me. They could tell I was not in their group. And so this sorority then I ended up pledging was more down to Earth, I guess you could say my type of a person. It was funny because when I started pledging it, I didn't have any idea until I was done, until I actually was in a sorority that they were known for being drunks. I didn't know that. But while I was pledging a lot of the challenges that we did rotated around drinking. It was like you have to drink a certain amount of alcohol or do a keg stand or do a funnel or all those crazy things that we did in college. For me I never had one drink, it was never like that. It was always this full out, how much can you drink? I mean, it was a big joke, it was fun. If I'm being honest about it, I really had a good time at that time. I was in college, this was my first experience really I would say in being social with a group 'cause I had never never belonged to a group of friends. During the school year or when school was in session almost every night it would be we were out either at a party, at a bar, at an event, always had all these different events that we would go to. And then when I would go home on break, I would not drink at all and it was never an issue. It's just that I didn't drink at home. It was funny because my nickname was the porcelain goddess because I would throw up a lot when I was in college. And so it's funny now because as I got older I think because I wasn't throwing up, I kind of use that as an excuse as like, well, it's not as bad as what I was doing. I went through college like that and I was still passing all of my classes somehow.

3 Kind of just barely towards the end like my junior year things got really dicey there. I somehow got a scholarship to go to Japan for my senior year. It was this college we did an exchange. Somebody from America went to the college in Japan and so that was literally the best time of my life. I had never flown in air that my first flight was to Japan. That was my first flight. I mean, I was a sheltered person. I had never been outside of New York, New Jersey area my whole life. It almost a kid in a candy store, you're like, wow, this is so... Just the culture and the people were so friendly. I ended up meeting friends from all over the world. I had a friend from Sweden, a friend from Finland and we all kind of got in this group of friends and we would hang out together and drinking was a big thing with us. Anyways, I did that for a year. I separate things from the drinking I guess at that time because it was still a really great experience even though I was drinking a lot that was kind of what we did and we were still college kids. But there were a few scary times there where I was drinking and was in a place where I didn't know anyone and ended up getting myself stuck in some situations that were not good. Even though it was an exciting time, I think there were a lot of things that kind of came out of that that were not good. Then I came back home from Japan and it was just like kind of a downer. I actually would still be there but my visa ran out. I was there for the Summer and I had a student visa and I couldn't get a work visa because I found out that I hadn't gotten my degree because it was a just a kind of a mess. It was a glitch. I didn't get my degree so I had to go back to school for two classes to get more credits for my degree. it was kind of a bummer. Flying back home and like living with my parents again at 22 and I hadn't officially graduated. I worked at the grocery store in our town and it was kind of like, hmm, okay. Continued drinking but again I wouldn't really drink at home. I would more go out with friends and especially because my parents didn't drink, it was they did not like alcohol in the house. My dad allows it now. Do they drink now or they still don't drink? My mom will have a glass of wine occasionally, probably three times a year. My dad does not drink at all. His father was an alcoholic. He's my stepdad. Another part of this story is around the time that I started drinking when I was 19, I met my real dad. I had begged my mom. I was like I want to meet my dad, I want to know who he is 'cause I knew the he existed basically and my mom had married my stepdad when I was eight. And so around this time I was 19 she was like, okay, I'll find out where he's at. He lived in the same town so she found him and I met him and he was an alcoholic as well but he was like the cool guy. He never got married, I think maybe one time. But when I met him and we started spending some time together, we would go up to Canada because where my mom's from is like northern New York so it's right on the Canadian border.

4 The drinking age in Canada was 18. So he would take me to Canada and we would drink. I mean, I never thought anything of it. Or he would take me to a bar down the street from his house just the old country dive and we would drink. It was just kind of interesting how I guess that kind of reinforced that drinking was fun and the fun people drank. Fast forward back to graduated from school and everything. And then it was I just ended up being in a really abusive relationships. I went back to school. I was living with my grandmother at the time in northern New York where my dad was from. My real dad ended up deciding that he didn't want to talk to me anymore. He found some reason why he wanted nothing to do with me and so that kind of ended. I was pretty devastated about that at the time. And it's funny looking back on it now because it's like I was really upset but I never thought to do anything about it. It's just kind of one of those things that I was just like, okay, I had no control over this. I ended up in an abusive relationship that was really, really bad and I actually had a car and he smashed the window. He disabled my car so that I couldn't go anywhere. My mom begged me, she's like, "Please leave. Just get in the car." And it was some miracle of God, it really was. My aunt happened to live in Indiana, that's how I ended up here. And she was like come and stay with me. She owned her own business. She's like you can work for me, I'll give you a job and you can stay with me until you get on your feet. I got in my car and drove and I never looked back. It was so funny because at the time it seemed like such a long drive because somehow I had convinced someone I think to fix something that he had cut in the car, the battery or something. I remember the whole time I was driving I was so afraid that my car was going to quit on me. Somehow my car made it all the way to Indiana from New York. I mean, it was just a miracle. I don't think I'd be alive right now if that hadn't worked out for me. So amazing. I have a very similar story about getting in a car and driving away so I'm really feeling you right now. It was the clothes on my back and a small bag of stuff. That's what I brought with me. I mean, I literally had nothing. It's funny to talk about this 'cause I haven't thought about any of this for a long time. I got a job with my aunt. I worked with her for almost a year. I worked full time and then I ended up getting a job. I was like 23 at the time. I waitressed at Applebee's and worked for my aunt. I don't know if you are aware of what waitressing, especially when you're younger, it's like- I was a waitress for four years and we did shots in the back room, part of the job. It's huge. I mean, it was like after work every night it was go out and get hammered. Where I'm from it's not like it is here. I mean, this area there's a huge drinking culture here. It's just kind of normal for people to be even what I would call a full blown

5 alcoholic. People kind of don't think anything of it. I don't even know how I got involved in bodybuilding but I lost a bunch of weight. I started getting involved in bodybuilding, weightlifting and so I just kind of stopped drinking. I mean, I didn't drink for a long time. Off and on I guess I would, but I was really into bodybuilding and did that for, gosh, I don't know how many years that was. Things didn't work out working for my aunt so I ended up getting another job and met another group of friends through my work. When I was seven or something I had accepted Christ, but at all didn't ever think about God. Again had met a guy through my waitressing job who lives in Wisconsin and we had a long distance relationship for almost a year and then when we broke up things were just went in my life. It was like my life is over. I was desolate. I did drink a little bit but not as much as I had before. I kind of threw myself into bodybuilding instead of the drinking. That's kind of another thing that I found about myself. I'm very black or white which I think is what caused me for so long to not get help was because while I'm not an alcoholic, I don't get up in the morning and drink so I must be the other side 'cause for me it's always it's one way or the other. This gray area is just really difficult for me. I've learned to be more understanding or know that there are gray areas in life, that life is not black and white. And so I threw myself into bodybuilding, got really fit. For a couple of years started doing bodybuilding shows. Even though I think that weight lifting in and of itself was probably a good thing, that kind of started an eating disorder for me because I was like, well, you can only eat certain things and then I would binge. I guess I had always been kind of a dieter type of person, but I never really struggled with my weight until I started doing the really strict dieting and got down to a low body fat. I did that for a long time. I dated a guy off and on during that time but there really wasn't anything serious. I think I'm okay to share this. My brother was addicted to heroin for a long time and so while this stuff is going on in my life, my family is just very focused on him and what's going on with him and trying to take care of him, trying to get him off the streets. He was actually living on the streets for a long time and then he disappeared at one point and we had no idea where he was. My mom called me. She was just like, "I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know where your brother is." I was back home for almost a year to just be with my family because I felt like the right thing to do. I did really well during this time. Oh, I forgot. I'm sorry, I'm skipping ahead. Back track to when I was 23. Things ended with this relationship and I really at one point was wanting to commit suicide. I knew that God was there and I told God, I was like, if you want me to live, I need you to do something to show me that you're there. It's so funny I had this old Bible. It was actually The Red Letter Bible and it had the red binding, all the pages were painted red on the side.

6 I got that Bible out and I flipped and the first thing that I flipped to was the story of the prodigal son. It's weird. I don't know why I kept that Bible for so long, but I kept it with me everywhere. I never read it. It was falling apart, I never even opened it up. I mean, that's when my life changed. I'm 42 now, so it's been 20 years that I've been walking with God. I've had a lot of struggles and a lot of things to work out, but it's just amazing. I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for that. After I got saved, I started going to church and then I ended up meeting some Christian friends and things were really good at first and then for some reason, which I later found out, I'm not going to tell the whole story, we all started drinking. It was like we would still go to his church and we'd still talk about God but we were getting drunk all the time. It wasn't even a just on the weekends thing, it was even during the week. I think that's kind of when, for me, I think drinking started to be more like a normal thing because it had always been like party or I guess like one of the things you say in your book is how there's so many things in the media like movies that when something really bad happens, even there's a movie on Netflix right now, a series called How To Get Over a Breakup. The first episode is just her getting shit taste. I think it was always like that for me and this kind of became a lifestyle. It was just a lifestyle, that's just what we did. I mean, we just would get ready to go out, me and my friend and at the time this person was my very best friend. I thought she was my best friend. We would do shots and then we'd go out and have a great time and we were all doing it. We were all a big group of friends. In between that time I moved back home for almost a year. I stopped drinking for a while and I didn't think about it at the time, but it was while we started drinking again, I had gained all this weight because I had been doing bodybuilding thing, wasn't really drinking and then I met these friends. We started drinking and binge eating was another part of that as well and I gained a bunch of weight. When I moved back home I got back into weightlifting, lost a bunch of weight and then I ended up moving back here because all my friends were here. It's funny now looking back on it because I think until I was 30 something, I was so naive about people. I hadn't interacted with that many people in my life, I kind of isolated. And this girl that was my good friend, I would've done anything for her and at the time I felt like she would too because we were just always together. It was like, what are we doing this weekend? And so while I was gone she begged me to come back to Indiana and I didn't have any friends in New York. That was another thing that was I'm not drinking. I had my best friend from when I was in high school, she was married with children. I was still single at 29 at this time. It was kind of another setup for how drinking is the fun time. Whenever I'm drinking, that's when all the fun times are. This person that I thought was my friend, things got really bad really fast. While I was gone she was calling me and she ended up getting in a couple of car accidents because

7 she was drinking all the time. I didn't know at the time because she never talked about, and I think this is another thing with the Christian rules of you're not supposed to talk bad about your husband or your wife. She never told me that she was in an abusive relationship. I had no idea. I mean, I would spend the night at their house. They were married. We'd party, whatever, and I'd go back, I'd go to the spare room and they go in their bedroom. I never even thought about it and everything ended up turning into a big mess. The couple that I was really close friends with, they were friends with another couple and the wife who I wasn't that close with at the time, she ended up leaving her husband. All the drinking and stuff is going on at this time. We're getting trunk all the time. She ended up leaving her husband for this other man and starts living with him. And so in the meantime, my close friend starts getting involved with her husband, the husband of the woman who left. And it's so funny 'cause all this is happening and none of us are thinking, oh, it's the drinking that's causing all these problems. We're not even thinking about that. The drinking, that's the fun time. And then I end up getting involved with a guy and ended up getting pregnant. This all kind of happens at the same time literally. The one girl leaves, my close friend ends up getting involved with her husband and leaving her husband. It comes out she says that he was abusive, so on and so forth. Anyway, when she finds out I'm pregnant, she wants nothing to do with me. She continues on with her life and it was weird because I lived right across the street from her parents at the time which she was really close to their parents and I was really close with her family. I mean, that's how good of friends I thought we were. I was invited to all of her family functions like Sunday dinners and everything. The guy that I was with, we ended up moving in together and when I got pregnant and we were like, yeah, we're going to get married. I just remember living across the street from her dad and I ran into her dad and he's like, "We are so glad that you're doing the right thing and getting married." And I didn't know what to say. Now when I look back on it, at the time it seemed like the right thing to do because I had been raised Catholic so it was always like, oh my gosh, don't get pregnant out of wedlock, get married. I think at the time I was just panicked. And of course as soon as I found out I was pregnant, I stopped drinking. But up until that point, I was drinking still, we had been. I mean, we were regular drinkers. I find out I'm pregnant, I stop drinking. Of course I'm not no longer invited to any of the events so it kind of bread this really bad situation for me where I was with this guy. He ended up being abusive. We did get married and he was very abusive. It was just a really, really bad situation. I had my daughter when I was 30 years old and it was just one of those things where I had lost all of my friends. I really had no friends because all my friends were party and was married to my ex husband at the time. We went away to Branson, Missouri to get

8 married and we got married just the two of us in a chapel and then we had a reception afterward. It was like as soon as we got married, he started to being abusive. I mean, up until that point I had no idea. I didn't know what the signs were or anything or that it would be a pattern in my life. I thought I had escaped that by moving here. And so we get married, I have my daughter which is one of the most joyful, if not the most joyful moment of my life. I mean, it's so funny when I see women that are pregnant because I'm just like you just have no idea how awesome that's going be and how challenging at the very same time. It's the craziest job you'll ever [inaudible] pool parties at our house where we got drunk, but it just wasn't what we did. It just ended up we would break up, I moved out, we got back together. For three years it was kind of off and on again. My daughter ended up being almost three years old and things were just so bad. I was working. he made me go back to work. I wanted to stay home with her but he was like, no, you need to work. I go back to work and I was working a really stressful job, taking care of my daughter, taking care of a home and taking care of him because he refused to take care of himself and then dealing with him being abusive to me. I mean, I just snapped. I couldn't do it anymore. My one thing that I did for myself is I was still into weightlifting and working out and that was my thing. He would always be like, oh, you're checking off the guys there and you're there with the guys. And I was like, I mean, if you want to come with me you're more than welcome to. I ended up finally leaving 'cause my daughter was getting old enough and she was starting to understand things and I'm like she knows what's going on here. He was calling me names and screaming at me in front of her and his son and I'm like, I can't do this. This is not how I want my daughter to be raised. I left and I leave him, moved to an apartment and start dating one of the biggest alcoholics in town and start becoming friends with him. And then right at this time I meet a group of girls who are big into partying and drinking and that became my life. That's when things got really, really bad for me. I wasn't even drinking every day at that time. It was still just on the weekends, partying and everything, but it would be from Friday until literally Sunday bedtime I would be drinking. Not during the day Saturday or anything and it just made things worse because at that time when I left my ex started stalking me and it was just a whole lot of different incidents that were going on. I was just having this like anxiety, this really bad anxiety. So then I would drink, but then not knowing the drinking was making it worse. During that time which was like two years I think, a year and a half maybe, I end up getting pregnant again and it was the same thing all over again. As soon as I got pregnant, I lost everyone that I thought was my friend. It's funny as I'm telling a story because I am seeing it almost like an outsider and now looking back on it I'm like, oh my

9 gosh, it was the drinking. And what was funny was I did still have some good friends, but it's like when you're in that, I would call it a lifestyle, where you're in this group and this is just an area where there's a lot of people that do that. That you're just in a group of friends and that's what you do. You just always go out and get drunk together or you have parties, that there's always drinking involved. There was always somebody that was worse off than me, so it was really easy to justify my own drinking and say, oh, it's okay. After I had my second daughter, of course I end drink through my pregnancy. Actually that's not true, I did drink during my pregnancy. I drank twice and I had read somewhere that it was okay to have a glass of wine when you're pregnant. I had what ended up being two or three glasses of wine. I remember one of my favorite drinks was I had gotten into Martinis at a certain period of time. And so at Christmas I treated myself to a Martini while I was pregnant. Looking back on it now I'm like, why did I do that? That was so awful. But at the time it was like, I haven't drank in so long, it's okay. And then after she was born, again, both of my daughters they are what has motivated me to try to change my life and to be a better person. For all these years I just justified my drinking. I just always justified. I always had a way to justify it. And then after I had my daughter and then she got a little bit older, I was breastfeeding so I couldn't really drink. Her dad was not involved in her life for the first six months or so, I can't remember. And so she was with me full time. Again, one of the most amazing times of my life. It's so different having a second child because it's like you're not this anxiety ridden person. My first daughter, I mean, I thought that she was going to break if I held her too close. I actually ended up going on an antidepressant for a while because I was just so, and at the time they said it was depression but I think it really was more of having so much anxiety. I kind of have been on and off antidepressants. And then after I had my youngest, I decided at one point, well, I want to start drinking again so I'm going to stop breastfeeding when she was like eight months old. That's another really shameful thing that I just feel really guilty for that because it meant more to me to be able to have fun and what I thought of was needing to do that, I didn't think it was the drinking. But I was home a lot and that was almost the first time that I started getting drunk at home. Up until then, I would occasionally, but not to the extent that I started. And plus I was really broke at that time. I didn't have any money and so I didn't have the money to go out. After I had her I guess it's just been kind of, I was 35 when I had my second child. For five years it was kind of this off and on. I started getting these feelings like you really should stop drinking. This isn't good for you. And so I would stop, I would go on this health kick for a while and then I would always start up again. So then I ended up getting involved with another guy that was an alcoholic because I was meeting these people when I was out and fell in love with him,

10 thought he was just the greatest thing ever and lo and behold, a year later things ended up ending. I ended up going back to school and getting my master's degree at this time because I didn't have a very good job. I think some of it was the company that I was working for just was not very helpful in helping you move ahead with your life or whatever like getting ahead, getting a better job or a better position. I went back, got my masters degree, and this is the first time that I really remember that I could tell my mind was starting to go. I was starting to have all these really angry outbursts that I had never struggled with that my whole life. Never. I was never an angry person, never. It was always getting upset with my kids over something 'cause it was always drinking the weekends my kids weren't there because I was a single mom and then the weekends that I had my kids, I wouldn't drink most of it sometimes. I would still sometimes after they went to bed drink. I couldn't handle anything that they were doing. My reaction was just get angry. It just was it escalating to drinking more during the week at home. And again, being in a relationship with alcoholics, you have something to compare and you're not as bad as they are. As I started doing better in my career, was getting more of an education and then I had job stress on top of everything else because before I had a job where it was just like, go to work, work your job and go home and you're not really responsible for anything. And then when I went back and got my master's degree, I ended up getting a better job. I was at my new job for one week when I found out that my biological dad had passed away the year before and you think my drinking is normal or whatever and then at this time it got to the point where I knew, I was just going to the liquor store and buying bottles of whiskey and whatever else I could get my hands on. Because I hadn't spoken to him for 20 years when he passed away. I felt like why did I not try to get in touch with him? My mom kept saying he was the adult, you are the child. He was the one that should have reached out to you. I went through a really, really, really bad time for a while. I think it was a year after that, I had a friend that ended up committing suicide. It was just all this stuff kept happening and I got really sick for a long time. I didn't know what the problem was. I still had to go to work because I was a single mom and the doctor kept telling me, "We don't know what's wrong with you." And I was like, "Well, it can't me because of the drinking. That can't be it." Plus I was on antidepressants and drinking all the time. I was working at this job that I had for three years and I had responsibility at this job. Met another guy, things didn't work out with him either. I think I was 40 when that happened. I ended up in a really, really bad place and that's when I finally knew I need to get help because I remember that's when I started getting

11 up in the morning and I started having, I had never had the shakes before this. I started going to a 12 step program is that we have in our area. I was going to the 12 step program but one of the things that I don't like about that is that for people that are gray area, especially drinking. I mean, there's not a lot of gray area meth users and it's like those kinds of things. But for me it was really hard because I worked the steps and everything and it's funny because one of the things that they say it's celebrate recovery is a Christ centered 12 step program. But it's very similar to what you find it that at or any of those things. And one of the things that you say is we recognize that we're powerless over our addiction and that we needed someone to restore us to sanity. I mean, that's one of the things that you say. And it's funny because I was just there last night and I as I have been kind of thinking and setting over the last year just about the mind and even how does that work with God? Does he control our minds? Obviously we have free will, but where does the Holy Spirit come in to intercede or help us? And I think a lot of the other concepts that are about 12 step, going through your past regrets, the things you've done wrong or the ways that you've been hurt is I think really helpful to get to the root cause of why you're drinking. But again, the problem is once you're in that position where you're already addicted mentally, it's very hard to kind of reason with that. By the time I went to CR, I was weeping every day. It was so bad. I mean, it was just so, so bad. I really couldn't make sense of anything that what's going on in my personal. But it was really hard because at the same time I felt like, but I'm not really an alcoholic. I've been in CR for two years. I think I spent, my gosh, it seems like it's been longer than that. And for almost a year I was alcohol free. I didn't drink at all, but at the same time I knew in my heart I'm not an alcoholic so it was always like, well, I can go back to having a drink or two and then it would just spiral from there. It seems like when difficult things happen, that's where I would turn. I think it's so true that it's in the subconscious mind. That's where the addiction is happening. It's really hard as you're going through that program, your subconscious mind isn't being changed. You still want to drink, you still think drinking is fine. And if you're someone that doesn't have a factor like a DUI or got your kids taken away or something that's to the extreme, then it's really hard to justify in your mind, why should I continue to not drink? Does that make sense? A few months ago I was on YouTube and I found you on YouTube. I was just like this makes so much sense. There's another lady that you need to, what I wanted to tell you about. he's written several books. You may know her already. I think the book she wrote is called The Best You. She's a neuropsychologist. Is Dr Caroline Leaf. Yes, that's who it is. I started listening to some of her talks on YouTube as well.

12 I have so many of her books. Here's one. It was reminds me so much of the naked mind, the fact that we are so powerful. Our mind is so powerful. We don't really know exactly how powerful yet, I think. It's been awesome. That's so great. Wow, what a story. That's beautiful. I love it. Thank you for sharing it all. I always, excuse me, sort of at the end ask the question, what would you go back and tell Carrie of before about like how things are for you now? I mean, I wouldn't trade some of the experiences I guess. I would just tell her to trust your intuition and I think really being true to myself and who I am and that it's okay to be who I am and that I don't need to do anything to fit in because the things that I was doing to fit in were what I thought I needed to do, that's really where I feel like a lot of the pain came and doing things to try to be accepted by people. If you have to do something to be accepted by someone then that person really isn't your friend. Because I think as I've kind of sorted through my addiction, the biggest thing for me was a relationship addiction was the first thing, that came first. And just having this kind of emptiness that I felt that I needed someone else to be there for me all the time. I think the biggest thing for me is just recognizing that it's good to have good people in your life, but really God is what you need. I mean, Jesus is all you need and people will let you down and I guess not getting so attached to those relationships in our lives. I mean, just learning to lean on myself and do you do what feels right for me. That's beautiful and so true. This has been just awesome. I was going to tell you that especially in those times when you're feeling really guilty about certain things, I mean, I remember stopping nursing and being so relieved about being able to drink again and it was 10 months with my first son, 6 months with my second son and then my daughter is 20 months now and she's still occasionally nursing. I just wanted to tell you that you're just doing the best you can with the tools you have. There's a lot of stress in parenting and we've been told that alcohol relieves stress. And so it was like you'd never have bad intentions. There's nothing coming from really any of us that's like, okay, I have bad intentions towards myself, I want to mess this up for me or for my offspring. That's just not true. Anyway, I just want to tell you that because I can really relate to so much of what you talked about. Thank you. I appreciate that. That was beautiful Carrie. Thank you so much for sharing. I can't tell you how awesome it is and how much I appreciate it. It's really great and I just hope you have a really wonderful day. Thank you.

13 All right. Bye. Annie, bye. This has been Annie Grace at This Naked Mind podcast. Thank you so much for listening. You can learn more at thisnakedmind.com and please remember to rate, review and subscribe as it really helps us spread the word.