One of the lectors also mentioned that it’s absolutely essential to stay connected to each other in this time isolation, and how to get creative with that, but also mentioned studies that show good ol’ fashioned talking on the phone and hearing another’s voice releases the good, healing, feel-good hormones, like endorphins and serotonin, compared to that instant-gratification communication mode of texting releases gobs of dopamine, which, if you’ve been following Annie’s work at all, is also the same chemical that’s inextricably linked to addiction…

SO, the point being: PICK UP THE DAMNED PHONE AND CALL YOUR LOVED ONES! Hear their voices and allow them to hear yours, too. Use technology for good! FaceTime or Skype might also be a good thing to figure out, if you haven’t already! Be safe, be well, take care of each other, take care of yourself! xo!!! 💜💜

I’m so elated I gained an inch and a half in height that I almost forgot to mention the most important part of my dr. visit! I told my doc that I quit drinking two months ago, and the way her face lit up was priceless…we talked at length about this monumental decision in my life, how it came to be, that I found Annie Grace and TAE, and how life-altering this has been for me on so many levels, medical and otherwise…she wrote the name of Annie’s program in her notes, as a reference for other patients who might be interested in alternatives to AA. Just being heard by a medical professional, without judgment, was another affirming step on this journey…xo!

First, commit to the Live experiment, then DO ALL THE WORK THAT ACCOMPANIES THE EXPERIMENT. Again, non-negotiable. I already know I’m capable of this level of dedication, because I’ve been insanely passionate, committed and dedicated, in all my efforts with alcohol. For the month, I decided to transfer that dedication to being AF. I began with an experimental mindset: I watched ALL the videos in the Live experiment, paying special attention to the ACT exercises, and I did them. Yes, my social life suffered as a result. Yes, my laundry didn’t get done in a timely manner and the dishes piled up as a result. Yes, I ate popcorn and bananas for dinner and crackers and sugar snap peas with almond butter for breakfast as a result Yes, my significant other was neglected as a result. So be it. I let go and trusted that this newly-focused dedication would come full circle and the end result would enhance all areas of my life in ways I wasn’t fully prepared to quite understand yet (which, trust me, isn’t an easy thing to do for this self-proclaimed control freak…)

The videos and exercises were absolutely critical in helping me shift my mindset. Until I directly addressed all the beliefs I previously had about alcohol and challenged them, they’d continue to rule me. i.e: does alcohol REALLY make me smarter, sexier, funnier, braver, more outgoing/whatever? I used to believe all that like it was my damned religion—but today, all I have to do is think about something like, oh, let’s use how much time I’d spend getting ready to go out for a night as an example, shall we? THEN recall the reality: what I looked like at the end of many nights—bloodshot, googly eyes, smeary make up, deflated hair, rumpled clothes, bloated face…recall the unmemorable conversations and regrettable embarrassing things I did and said, and my resounding answer is an emphatic, resounding, believe-it-in-the-nucleus-of-my-cells, honest-to-God HELL NO. Or, I’d come up with a laundry list of all the opportunities I missed thanks to alcohol, or self-sabotaging behaviors I’d blame on everything BUT how they resulted from my drinking…but there’s no way I could have come to these conclusions or truly inhabit my new belief system, or no longer feel like I’m missing out on something by not drinking, or not be tempted to moderate, until I dug in and got messy and dirty, and ugly-cried, and raged, and pity-partied. All the while, at the same time, I still did the work to unearth, identify, dismantle and replace ALL my former beliefs with true, factual information. Not just some. I’m talking ALL. THE. DAMNED. BELIEFS. Annie gives this information to us, and the tools to apply it to our lives, generously and graciously—accept it, graciously.

Spoiler alert: challenging my beliefs about alcohol made me realize that they’re intrinsically connected to issues that took seed in my childhood, which is where I am now—digging down even deeper, tracing old, faulty patterns of thoughts/beliefs that took root in my childhood, and dismantling them and reprogramming with fresh, new, functioning ones. Yes, more fucking work. When will it end????!!! spoiler alert: probably never, but the fruits of this labor are mind-boggling and heart-filling, and grace-giving, and mood-altering, and life-changing…

I did ALL the journaling (disclosure—I was also very active on the Live page, so I often counted that writing as journaling—I mean, LOOK at the length of my posts!!!!). I felt ALL the feels (coming to the profound realization that they’re so insanely uncomfortable because I never allowed them to exist before—my knee-jerk reaction, for decades, has been to anesthetize with alcohol). Even if it meant I only scribbled a few unintelligible words some days, staying in bed other days, eating everything in the fridge most days, I was 100% dedicated to digging in and trusting that this process was going to work, in spite of the mess that I was creating by digging in deep…

I took my Day 1 photo, and looked at those sad, broken eyes every. single. day. As I worked through the 30 days, disgust, repulsion and shame gave way to compassion, forgiveness, love, and grief…that was so unexpected, and to feel this level of self-love is foreign but feels so good—I breathe with ease, my thoughts are clear, my sleep is sound, my interactions with others deeply connecting. I am overcome with the mission to never again intentionally hurt that person I was on Day 1 with alcohol or anything else; instead, I desire to protect, defend and help her grow and experience life in a completely new way, with all my senses intact…this is how cycles are broken, y’all…mind. blown.

I eliminated the temptation to “collect a data point” (by drinking) out of the picture from Day 1. I already know what alcohol does to me—I’m intimately, acutely aware of this (I believe engaging in the ACT exercises helps to solidify this awareness). I don’t need to collect any more data points as far as that’s concerned. By eliminating those kind of “data points” it eliminated so much exhausting mental gymnastics (again, Annie’s videos go into great detail about the idea of “willpower” and “moderation” and how “maybe” or “I’ll see when I get there,” or any other variation of non-committing means “yes,” every damned time to our brain. Instead, my “data point” collection became an exercise in curiosity, a scientist collecting new data—being alcohol free in circumstances where I’d typically drink, I’d observe, take note and record how I felt. I took on the role of scientist, rather than someone who was being deprived of something, and it has now become a fascinating, often entertaining (sometimes ridiculously annoying) game for me. At this point, I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by not drinking. I can literally do everything I used to do, only now, I do it AFAF.

I visualized the experiment as 30 days in ICU—I was going to take the month to intensively care for myself. I tried to stay hydrated, I slept as I needed to, tried to eat well, but didn’t restrict if I felt I wanted sweets or chips or whatever—there was a part of me that just “knew” that right now, dedicating my efforts to eliminating alcohol was the priority; eating and exercise would factor in again, soon…In time, this ICU imagery gave way to something like a superpower, I am now a Dominatrix—instead of being dominated, I am the dominant one, leather chaps, whip and all…(welcome to my mind, y’all…😅) being AFAF now feels like freedom, not a burden or punishment or depravity. I honeslty don’t believe this mindset would be true if I hadn’t committed. It honestly is that simple, yet so hard to do, because it goes completely against how we’ve done everything up till today.

Once I committed, other resources began “showing up” in my world, and now I’m layering my foundation with other resources, and yes, it’s still a damned lot of work, but the rewards I’m reaping as a result are priceless…

If you don’t think you can commit to the experiment 100% for whatever reason you come up with, recognize that’s where you start—by recognizing that there is a massive barrier between you and being AF that needs to be addressed (spoiler alert: it’s YOU. More specifically, your ego). It will keep on reappearing, dragging you down, holding you back, filling you with false truths, until you face it acknowledge it, accept it, dismantle it, and replace it with new programming. The ego can be an asshole but it’s intentions are understandable: it’s only trying to protect you from the unknown, which can be downright scary. While it keeps us safe from danger, it also goes overboard and keeps us from growing, by keeping us back in “safe, familiar” territory (of drinking…), then we “get to” keep using the same old faulty narratives that have long outlived their service…

Having said that, if you’re not in a place to commit, THAT IS OKAY, TOO. This opportunity will continue to present itself to you again and again and again, until you are ready. It ill never go away, I swear it won’t, because it has patiently, persistently appeared and reappeared in my life for decades, but until my discomfort with my status quo became more painful than the desire to change, I conveniently ignored, dismissed, chased it away…okay, that’s all for now…now I need a nap…🙂 xo.

To truly welcome and embrace an alcohol free life takes a tremendous amount of time, effort, commitment, and work, there’s no doubt about it. As one of the sober coaches I follow says repeatedly, “you spent an ungodly amount of resources drinking—if you’re serious about being sober (y’all know I am more fond of AFAF4LYFE, than I am of “sober”), you have to be willing to invest that same amount of commitment, persistence, energy and passion to being alcohol free/sober. If you can’t, then I can’t help you, and I release you with love…” touché, Victoria…

I never thought of it like that, until the January experiment brought this fact to the surface: how goddamned committed I was to drinking—because all this time, I believed I wasn’t “that bad.” But the reality is, people who don’t have a problem with alcohol don’t spend most of their waking hours thinking about drinking. They don’t spend a considerable amount of time and energy planning their lives around drinking, or frantically try to manage all the work that goes into hiding their drinking, or cleaning up after their drinking, or playing catchup after drinking, or fooling themselves into thinking they can moderate (euphemism for: “not that bad”).

To let go of old ways and replace them with new, means I have to go down deep, not just to learn where the origins of my drinking mindset began, not just to acknowledge it, not just to accept it, but also to dismantle and replace my original, faulty stories with new, truthful narratives. And not just about alcohol but every aspect of my life. Spoiler alert: it goes back to childhood. Goddamned, that’s a long time back for a lot of us, now, isn’t it? Who wants to go all the way back there?! Who wants to deal with all that shit?! No one, that’s who. I’m so over that crap, it’s in my past, shut the door tight, and numb me, please…but unless I want to keep repeating myself overandoverandover again, unless I want to stay stuck and never transcend the arbitrary barriers and self-sabotaging I set in place years ago, unless I want that insanely uncomfortable “crawling out of my skin” feeling to do me in for good, unless I want my drinking to not just resume at the pace it was 60 days ago, but likely escalate to something far worse, I have to do the work. Or, I’ll continue to repeat the same shit every year and wonder why things never change. I’ll get to keep saying, “see, I told you I’m flawed,” or “It’s my parents’ fault” or “because my husband died,” or, or, or… I not only have to make peace with my past, but reprogram it, so I won’t ever feel like I’m missing out by not drinking, so I won’t ever believe I’m not as fun or smart or outgoing or courageous or whatever when I’m not drinking, so I won’t ever be tempted to “moderate”—I have to completely reprogram all my decades-old believes about myself, which led me to drinking in the first place. For the record, if it hadn’t been drinking, it would have shown up in other ways in my life (and it has)—this unresolved shit always has an uncanny way of showing up, and will continue to show up, until we show it down.

I had no fucking idea what ‘feeling all the feels’ meant until I dove in deep. It’s ugly, and awful, and makes me cry something fierce every damned layer deep I go. But you know what else? It’s also immeasurably grace-filled and forgiveness-filled, and I have not felt this kind of peace and love for myself in I don’t think forever in my life. And as deep as I’ve already gone, I know I’m still only just splashing around in the kiddie pool. There’s so much more work to be done, and I can’t do it all alone. Right now, the desire to learn more, and change more, far outweighs any desire to numb this ugly pain with alcohol. What the everlasting fuck is going on??!! I don’t care, just give me more of it, please…

I’ve “met” astounding, inspiring, courageous people in this group, people who are sharing their AFAF4LYFE stories with their community of friends, are but a few that I know for certain who are opening up to the world about their journeys—there are likely far more, I hope to learn of your stories, too…and that is my next step—to open up about how debilitating this way of being has been for me, and how I’ve worked so hard to hide it, and it doesn’t have to be this way any more…as soon as we decide we’ve finally had enough, we can get off this only-going-down elevator…I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday, and she will learn of this new layer of my health history. I will be looking for a new therapist (always a daunting task, but I want someone who is familiar with this new science of alcohol addiction that we are coming to know, not ol’ skool ways of 12 step and inherent personal flaws and willpower and white-knuckling…). I will open up to more of my friends and family, that this is no longer an experiment, but an evolutionary, existential, transcendental journey…

And for the record, this change of heart didn’t just happen with the 30 day Life Alcohol Experiment—that certainly has been my tipping point, my come-to-Jesus moment, my eye-opening pivotal experience…mine has been years in the making, I have a long string of do-overs in my history, more than a lifetime’s worth of self-flagellation to my name. I always go back to my Day 1 photo (the one on the right). The truth behind those Day 1 eyes gets me every time. As always, thanks for being here, and thanks for reading…xo!