Relapse Warning Signs with Melissa Witherspoon

Episode 129

My podcast guest this week is the author of a very touching memoir called:-

I’m Sober…So Now What?: A Journey of Hope and Healing by Melissa Witherspoon

That’s an excellent question and there’s definitely quite a difficult stage that we reach when we are in early sobriety…

For many of us it’s a bit of a void – a kind of flatness when we suffer from anhedonia – we haven’t found our Sober Feet yet and we are certainly not thriving and enjoying our sobriety

Our old routines are messed up, our drinking buddies are keeping their distance and we are not entirely sure what to do with ourselves..

That’s why we aim to take people on a 7 stage journey here at Tribe Sober – because there is so much more to recovery than “not drinking”

We help people to ditch the booze and then introduce them to yoga, coaching, meditation, art therapy so they can explore and start to build their alcohol free lives – a life they won’t want to escape from.

Melissa Witherspoon calls her memoir a journey of hope and healing and it really is..

Anyone who has been struggling for years will take hope from this book – Melissa spent decades struggling with alcohol – in and out of rehab – getting sober and then relapsing – but it finally stuck..

In this Episode

Melissa came from a happy home but struggled at school. Suffering from Attention Deficit and Dyslexia when neither condition was really acknowledged meant that either her teachers or her classmates were giving her a hard time
She never really found a friendship group at school – not until she got to High School when she finally found “her people”
Trouble was her new friends were mostly boys and a bit older than her – and they were using drugs and alcohol – but she was happy - she finally felt that she was “fitting in”..
She was so influenced by this group that she left home and turned her back on everything she knew
Melissa found herself living with a bunch drug dealers in what she describes as a “den of inequity”
She felt so free and grown up – she could come and go as she pleased and had access to the drugs and alcohol she wanted – she loved it!
However things got quite “dark” and Melissa was rescued during a police raid!
In one way this was a relief but her mum was in denial about what had been happening and Melissa was just expected to slot back in to “normal” life…without any help
She was full of shame and guilt and finally managed to get some counselling at the age of 21 but she wasn’t open with her counsellors so ended up carrying her shame and guilt into her 20’s and 30’s
She coped with the pain by drinking and using drugs – and for two decades she was in and out of rehabs, making poor decisions and then dealing with the consequences
For some periods she managed to keep up an external façade that she was coping but inside she felt she was falling "down the rabbit hole"
Melissa went to one rehab to help her come off alcohol and Xanax – when she left they gave her a bag of pills– pills she subsequently used in a suicide attempt
Her life was only saved when her husband came home unexpectedly
Back in rehab she remembers how irritated she was with the “one day at a time” mantra – she couldn’t even get the schedule for the following day as she was told to just focus on today..
With perspective she now appreciates how it can work and even today she finds herself saying “one day at a time Melissa” if she feels anxious or stressed – a good habit for all us I think
Another mantra she’s learned to love is “progress not perfection”
We use that a lot here at Tribe Sober – we’re currently running our annual 66 day challenge and many people are daunted by the thought of 66 sober days – but we give them a tracker and tell them to mark their Sober Stretches – how many stretches can they d

Published on 3 years, 3 months ago

Podcast Episode Details

Relapse Warning Signs with Melissa Witherspoon