Episode Details

Tribe Sober - inspiring an alcohol-free life!

Welcome to our third "Sober Short" - an interim mini podcast to supplement the weekly Tribe Sober podcast.

I’m going to kick off this series by taking you through our Tribe Sober Toolkit – this toolkit is just one of the things that we share with you during our regular Zoom workshops – click here for more info.

Our workshops have been a gamechanger for many people so if you want to kickstart your sober journey then sign up today

In this episode

During the first two Sober Shorts we looked at Tools number one and two in our toolbox

Tool one was CONNECTION

“Connection is the Opposite of Addiction” and if you’re serious about getting sober then you need to connect with others on the same path – and also to connect to yourself

On episode 69 of the Tribe Sober podcast you can hear our Yoga Teacher Tamsin explaining how yoga can enable us to reconnect with our bodies in recovery – Tribe members have access to a daily yoga class with Tamsin which is a wonderful start to the day.

Tool number 2 was “Get Moving”

We all know is that exercise is “good for us” and many many people exercise daily but they also drink on a daily basis – sometimes excessively – ditch the drink and keep exercising and you will be amazed at how much fitter you get

So today we are going to look at Tool number 3

BUILD YOUR EMOTIONAL STRENGTH

• Our emotional maturity stalls when we start drinking heavily – so I must have been 18 for a long time!
• If we’ve been numbing our feelings for years we haven’t learned how to deal with the difficult times
• It’s a bit of a cliché to say that difficult times are “character building” but they are…they build resilience
• Our wonderful coach Lynette always tells us that we must “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” and I think that is so true
• It’s really hard to do that at first but (to quote Lynette again) – “what’s wrong with hard?”
• We have to learn to sit with our feelings – not try to chase them away with alcohol – alcohol is the “easy button”
• When I was drinking and I felt miserable I would pour myself a glass of bubbly to “perk myself” up – it worked but I usually overdid it and felt even worse the next day!
• Now that I am sober, life is not all sunshine and roses BUT if I feel miserable I will just take a breath and remind myself that yes today is not great but by tomorrow (or certainly the day after) I am going to feel fine again.
• We need to accept that we were not put on earth to be happy 24/7 whatever our Instagram feed says – the human experience is to deal with the ups and the downs and learn from them if possible.
• To quote the Victor Frankl – “we are not put on earth to seek pleasure (in spite of what Freud teaches) or to seek power (in spite of Adlers teaching) – we are put on earth to find meaning and purpose in our lives”
• And it’s our pain that will lead us to our purpose – I was in a lot of pain during my struggles with alcohol, but I eventually reached out for help which not only led me out of my own addiction but enabled me to find my purpose and help others to change their relationship with alcohol.
• So instead of numbing out we need to learn to reconnect with ourselves and this is where yoga can play a role – listen to episode 69 with our TS yoga teacher
• We need to learn to be Warriors
• Glennon Doyle has a brilliant Super Soul podcast – called “First the Pain, then the Rising”
• She talks about how alcohol becomes the “Easy Button” which we use to bypass pain – but in fact pain is our greatest teacher and we should embrace it and welcome its power
• Emotional pain will build resilience which will enable us to cope with future challenges
• The pain may be big but our courage is