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Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today on the bright Side, it

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Speaker 1: is Christmas Day and the very first day of Hanukkah.

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Speaker 1: Merry Christmas, Happy Honkah to all who celebrate. Okay, today

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Speaker 1: we are sharing an encore of a journey to joy

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Speaker 1: and self discovery with Laura Mcowan. She's the author of

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Speaker 1: We Are the Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

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Speaker 2: Laura joined us to share how her journey to sobriety

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Speaker 2: helped her reconnect with herself and to offer valuable tips

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Speaker 2: on removing the roadblocks that keep us from living our

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Speaker 2: best lives. It's Wednesday, December twenty fifth. Marry Christmas, everybody.

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Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe.

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Speaker 1: I'm Simone Boyce, and this is the bright Side from

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Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to

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Speaker 1: share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day. Today's

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Speaker 1: Wellness Wednesday is presented by Coligard.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So, when Simone and I started creating The bright

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Speaker 2: Side with our production team, one of the goals that

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Speaker 2: we had was to set out to produce a show

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Speaker 2: that shared women's stories from.

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Speaker 3: All over the globe different walks of life.

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Speaker 2: And when I think about why, I guess I can

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Speaker 2: only answer personally, and for me, it's that women's stories.

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Speaker 3: Have guided me my entire life.

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Speaker 2: When I was at some of my saddest moments, other

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Speaker 2: women's stories comforted me. And when I was at my

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Speaker 2: highest moments, they guided me too. If you need to

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Speaker 2: figure out how to get an agent, it's in a

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Speaker 2: woman's memoir. If you need to learn how someone else

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Speaker 2: got through divorce, it's in a woman's memoir. Our stories,

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Speaker 2: as unique as they are, are so universal too, and

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Speaker 2: so with Laura, we had the opportunity to hear a

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Speaker 2: story that we hadn't covered yet on the show, a

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Speaker 2: story about addiction and sobriety.

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Speaker 1: We are thrilled that Laura McCallan is the one to

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Speaker 1: kick off this conversation and share her story because Laura

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Speaker 1: talks so openly about her struggles with alcohol and her

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Speaker 1: path to sobriety, and now hundreds of thousands of people

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Speaker 1: both online and in bookstores, turned to her on their

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Speaker 1: own recovery journeys. In twenty twenty, she founded The Luckiest Club.

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Speaker 1: It's an online global sobriety support group where she helps

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Speaker 1: users navigate their new lives and answers questions like will sobriety,

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Speaker 1: end my relationship now. She's put a lot of that

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Speaker 1: wisdom down on the page. She's the best selling writer

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Speaker 1: of two books, We Are the Luckiest, The Surprising Magic

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Speaker 1: of a Sober Life, and Push Off from here. Nine

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Speaker 1: Essential Truths to get you through sobriety and everything else.

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Speaker 1: Don't worry, we are going to be covering those truths

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Speaker 1: with Laura today. And on top of all that, she

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Speaker 1: teaches a course called The Bigger Yes, she's got retreats.

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Speaker 1: It's all an invitation to help us choose our own potential,

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Speaker 1: and she's here with us now. Laura McCowan, welcome to

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Speaker 1: the bright Side.

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Speaker 4: Thank you, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: We're happy to have you here. And this fall was

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Speaker 2: big for you. You celebrated ten years sober in September. Yes,

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Speaker 2: that's got to feel pretty amazing. Congratulations.

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Speaker 4: Thank you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's wild if you can take us back.

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Speaker 2: I have something I call PSA pre self actualization. I

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Speaker 2: went through it, I'd say about five years ago. I

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Speaker 2: committed to going to therapy pretty regularly. I read a

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Speaker 2: bajillion books. You had a moment of PSA pre self

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Speaker 2: actualization one night, and I'm wondering if you can take

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Speaker 2: us back to that night that set you on a

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Speaker 2: path to sobriety.

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Speaker 4: Yes.

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Speaker 5: So in July of twenty thirteen, I was at my

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Speaker 5: brother's wedding and my daughter was four years old at

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Speaker 5: the time, and she was the flower girl in the wedding.

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Speaker 5: I had separated from my husband at that time. We'd

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Speaker 5: been separated for a year, so it's just me and

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Speaker 5: her going to the wedding, And that night I drank

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Speaker 5: too much and blacked out and left my daughter alone

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Speaker 5: in a hotel room overnight and didn't discover that till

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Speaker 5: the morning, till I received texts from my family members,

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Speaker 5: my mom and my brother. My daughter had luckily made

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Speaker 5: it back to them. But that was the most terrific

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Speaker 5: morning of my life for sure. And until then I

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Speaker 5: had had a lot of consequences for my drinking, but

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Speaker 5: I really still thought nothing bad would happen to her,

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Speaker 5: like I wouldn't put her in danger, and I did,

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Speaker 5: because that's how it goes.

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Speaker 4: There are no things that won't happen.

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Speaker 5: So it was a wake up call, of course, and

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Speaker 5: because my family was aware of it, I couldn't just

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Speaker 5: hide like I had so many other things. I couldn't

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Speaker 5: just forget about it or sweep it under the rug,

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Speaker 5: and I started. A week later, I went to my

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Speaker 5: first twelve step meeting in Boston, and I didn't get

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Speaker 5: sober until a year later. It was really hard to

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Speaker 5: pull myself into sobriety. And so I say time is

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Speaker 5: interesting because it doesn't happen all at once, Right, It's

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Speaker 5: a journey.

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Speaker 2: I feel like it's a lifelong journey, to be honest,

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Speaker 2: The more I know, the more I realize I don't know.

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Speaker 3: Much at all.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think when you recount that story, for

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Speaker 2: anyone listening who doesn't know about the rest of it yet,

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Speaker 2: it's pretty guttural, like it's hard to listen to when

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Speaker 2: you recount the story.

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Speaker 3: How do you feel?

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Speaker 4: That's a great question.

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Speaker 5: I have talked about it so much because that's what

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Speaker 5: I learned in recovery, is that there are no secrets anymore.

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Speaker 5: All the parts of my history and all the parts

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Speaker 5: of me belong. It doesn't feel good to talk about it,

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Speaker 5: but I don't feel the shame that I felt at

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Speaker 5: that time. It took something like that to get me

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Speaker 5: to wake up. As horrific as that was, I am

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Speaker 5: equally as grateful, Laura. We all will go through extreme

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Speaker 5: challenges in this life, and for some of us, our

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Speaker 5: worst nights are going to happen in private. Maybe it's

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Speaker 5: a breakup, maybe it's a really difficult conversation. But for you,

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Speaker 5: the worst night and morning of your life happened publicly

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Speaker 5: in front of your friends, in front of your family

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Speaker 5: at this wedding, and of course in front of your

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Speaker 5: four year old daughter who is greatly impacted by it,

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Speaker 5: and so thinking about how confronting that must have been,

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Speaker 5: like you couldn't hide anymore. And I also know that

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Speaker 5: as a mother, there is a really big difference between

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Speaker 5: shame and a mother's shame.

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Speaker 3: For us, it just hits a little bit different.

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Speaker 5: Absolutely, mom's shame is like acidic and it just goes

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Speaker 5: to the core of everything we think we know about

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Speaker 5: what good people do and don't do. And when it

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Speaker 5: comes to addiction, I have always said there is a

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Speaker 5: special vitriol for mothers who drink. It goes against everything

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Speaker 5: that we've been told is true about what love is

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Speaker 5: and what mothers are supposed to be able to do.

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Speaker 5: And we never let mothers off the hook. But man,

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Speaker 5: if you are a mom who happens to fall into addiction.

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Speaker 5: It kills people because the shame is intolerable, and you

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Speaker 5: get it from not only the inside, but the outside too.

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Speaker 5: There's really no compassion coming your way except from other

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Speaker 5: mothers who have been there. I mean, I had to

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Speaker 5: dissociate from the full experience of that for a while

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Speaker 5: until I was able to handle it, because if I

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Speaker 5: would have allowed myself to feel that in my body,

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Speaker 5: I wouldn't have been able to continue on. And in

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Speaker 5: that meantime, I was met by other women who told

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Speaker 5: me that, yeah, yeah, I've done that too.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing how shame becomes less potent whenever you're in

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Speaker 1: a healthy community and a community that you see yourself in.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it is life saving, Berne Brown says. And I

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Speaker 5: always think of this. If you put shame in a

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Speaker 5: Petrie dish, it require three things to go out of control,

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Speaker 5: and that silent, secrecy, and judgment. And so when you

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Speaker 5: are in community, it alleviates the shame.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 1: I think one of the most courageous parts of healing

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Speaker 1: is actually doing nothing at all or acquires nothing from us.

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Speaker 1: It's sitting with the emotions instead of running from them

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Speaker 1: and trying to numb them and cover them up. And

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Speaker 1: I think, if we're all being honest like that is,

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Speaker 1: it can be a big motivator for drinking, for any

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Speaker 1: kind of substance. So when you pulled the alcohol away,

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Speaker 1: when you took it away, what did you discover when

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Speaker 1: you finally stopped running and had to sit with what

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Speaker 1: you were running from?

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Speaker 5: So the first thing I noticed is my feelings were

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Speaker 5: really uncomfortable. There's a saying that they come out sideways

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Speaker 5: when you're newly sober, and so so I had a

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Speaker 5: lot of rage. For me, drinking was a way to

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Speaker 5: swallow anger and discomfort, and so a lot of things

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Speaker 5: that I hadn't been able to or chose not to

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Speaker 5: put a voice to prior to stopping drinking started to

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Speaker 5: come out. I started to get really angry about alcohol culture,

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Speaker 5: because even though I was the one who with the

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Speaker 5: quote unquote problem, everyone around me drank a lot, and

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Speaker 5: if they didn't drink a lot, they were running in

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Speaker 5: other ways. And there was this profound unfairness that I felt.

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Speaker 5: But then there's also grief giving up alcohol. There's a

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Speaker 5: grief period that you go through if you let go

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Speaker 5: of that, because it's an identity, And it's also who

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Speaker 5: get defines who you hang out with, how you connect

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Speaker 5: with people, how you socialize, how you prioritize time. For

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Speaker 5: a lot of people, it's connected to intimacy with their

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Speaker 5: partner or dating. It's connected to celebrations, it's connected to

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Speaker 5: how you mourn. Really touches so much. So many areas

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Speaker 5: of our lives that are about connection. So that was

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Speaker 5: a lot of what I went through is just this sadness,

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Speaker 5: like where do I belong now? Who will want me?

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Speaker 5: Will I be boring.

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Speaker 3: When you talk about the alcohol culture.

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Speaker 2: Personally, I dealt with an eating disorder in seventh and

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Speaker 2: eighth grade and to this day, however, many you're twenty

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Speaker 2: something years later, When people talk about food in a

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Speaker 2: certain way, I feel stuff come up in me. I

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Speaker 2: think it lives within you forever, and you just learn

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Speaker 2: to live with it in a different way. I heard

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Speaker 2: Glennon Doyle say something one time that I've never forgotten

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Speaker 2: and I don't quite understand. I'm wondering if you can

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Speaker 2: kind of bound on it for me. She said that

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Speaker 2: people who have attended AA are the only honest people

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Speaker 2: she's ever met.

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Speaker 3: Was that your experience and what did she mean by that?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, what she meant and what my experience has been

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Speaker 5: is most of the time, when we're walking around in

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Speaker 5: the world, we're not really telling the truth about what's

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Speaker 5: going on inside of us. There's a culture of secret keeping.

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Speaker 5: Appearances must be upheld. The way we measure success is

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Speaker 5: by a lot of outward measures. And the thing why

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Speaker 5: I say we are the luckiest when it comes to addiction,

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Speaker 5: which sounds like a bumper sticker, but it isn't. It's

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Speaker 5: because when you come up against something like addiction, it

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Speaker 5: brings you to your knees and it forces you to

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Speaker 5: stop lying. So when you walk into an AA meeting

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Speaker 5: for the first time, it is the most bizarre thing

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Speaker 5: because feele are just casually talking about the worst moments

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Speaker 5: of their lives and the hardest things they've ever been through,

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Speaker 5: and that's the norm.

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Speaker 2: We have to take a quick break, but we'll be

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Speaker 2: right back with Laura McCollen.

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Speaker 3: And we're back with Laura McCollen.

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Speaker 1: I think we can all benefit from the principles that

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Speaker 1: have guided your recovery, and that's exactly what you're doing

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Speaker 1: through this class that you teach called the Bigger Yes.

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Speaker 1: So how does the bigger yes offer all of us

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Speaker 1: an invitation, Laura.

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Speaker 5: So the bigger yes came to me in early sobriety

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Speaker 5: because I felt like all this potential that I had

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Speaker 5: when I was drinking, that was hidden when I was

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Speaker 5: drinking and that I was tamping down, started to come

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Speaker 5: forward when I got sober. And for me, it was writing.

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Speaker 5: I had always wanted to write, and it was something

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Speaker 5: I wanted more than drinking, which there weren't many things.

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Speaker 1: I think there's a lesson about delayed gratification in there too,

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Speaker 1: because the smaller, easier yes is drinking, but the bigger

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Speaker 1: yes that requires you to delay those desires in the

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Speaker 1: moment is writing.

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Speaker 5: Absolutely, it's the short game versus the long game. And

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Speaker 5: the short game drinking is always going to be good,

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Speaker 5: and it's even going to be actually fun for most

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Speaker 5: of us and not have huge consequences. But what does

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Speaker 5: it mean if you are Let's just use drinking as

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Speaker 5: an example, but it could be anything. It could be

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Speaker 5: scrolling on your phone endlessly or whatever. You feel good

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Speaker 5: in the short term, but in the long term you

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Speaker 5: don't get to play that long game because you're not

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Speaker 5: available for it. Right And the quote that turned it

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Speaker 5: around for me. I was in this book shop after

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Speaker 5: I had gone to this like yoga workshop, and I.

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Speaker 4: Was twenty day is sober, terrified, out of my mind.

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Speaker 5: And I picked up this book called The Great Work

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Speaker 5: of Your Life by Stephen Cope and open to this page,

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Speaker 5: and on the page was a quote by the Gospel

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Speaker 5: of Thomas. It said, if you bring forth what is

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Speaker 5: within you, what you bring forth will save you. And

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Speaker 5: if you do not bring forth what is within you,

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Speaker 5: what you do not bring forth will destroy you. And

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Speaker 5: that was it for me. It was like, Yeah, this

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Speaker 5: unused potential that we each have is not benign. When

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Speaker 5: we don't live into that, it turns into something dark,

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Speaker 5: and it looks like depression. It looks like despair. It

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Speaker 5: looks like we know we know inside when we are

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Speaker 5: not living the way that we could. And what I

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Speaker 5: mean by that is not like, oh, you could be

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Speaker 5: making more money or you could be having this very

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Speaker 5: outwardly important job in the world.

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Speaker 1: It's really just internal. It's being who you actually are. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's alignment, it's integrity.

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Speaker 5: Yes, and telling the truth about who you actually are

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Speaker 5: and living. See what happens when you start doing that,

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Speaker 5: living into that.

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Speaker 2: It's one of the three most common regrets that people

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Speaker 2: share at their end of life, meaning that they didn't live.

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Speaker 3: The truth of who they are.

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Speaker 2: They lived for other people, for their parents, for their

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Speaker 2: husband or wife, et cetera. Now, talking to you today, Laura,

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Speaker 2: I can tell that truth and untruth. It's almost like

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Speaker 2: an image for me with the scales, like that's how

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Speaker 2: important it is to you.

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Speaker 3: I can tell.

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Speaker 2: And you have a book called Push Off from Here,

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Speaker 2: Nine Essential Truths to get you through sobriety and everything else.

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Speaker 2: Can you share those nine truths and how you came

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Speaker 2: up with them?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So I got sober in twenty fourteen. In twenty

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Speaker 5: sixteen and seventeen, I had been writing on a blog

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Speaker 5: mostly for all those years. I also did a podcast

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Speaker 5: about sobriety. So I had started to build a little

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Speaker 5: bit of a following. And I would get letters from

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Speaker 5: people who were either struggling with addiction or you know,

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Speaker 5: someone they knew was or something. And I got a

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Speaker 5: letter from this sister who her sister was struggling with alcohol,

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Speaker 5: and she was in that place where people go when

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Speaker 5: someone they love is caught an addiction. She was angry

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Speaker 5: and scared and sad and frustrated, and of course wanted

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Speaker 5: to help her sister, but didn't know how. So she

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Speaker 5: wrote me this long letter and said what should I

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Speaker 5: say to her? And I wrote her a long letter back,

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Speaker 5: and I said, if all of that is too much,

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Speaker 5: just give her this list. And the list was the

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Speaker 5: nine things that ended up being pushed off from here.

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Speaker 5: And number one is it's not your fault. Two is

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Speaker 5: your responsibility? Three is it's unfair that this is your thing?

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Speaker 5: But four this is your thing. Five this will never

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Speaker 5: stop being your thing until you face it. Six you

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Speaker 5: can't do it alone. Seven only you can do it.

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Speaker 5: Eight I love you, and nine I will never stop

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Speaker 5: reminding you of these things. And that was in twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 5: In twenty twenty, when I published Well You Are the Luckiest,

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Speaker 5: my first book, that was the epigraph to the book,

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Speaker 5: the little quote that appears in the very beginning, and

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Speaker 5: people gravitated towards that.

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Speaker 4: There was like a whole book to read.

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Speaker 5: But people would often want to INTERVENI you or talk

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Speaker 5: to me about those nine things. And so when I

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Speaker 5: founded a sobriety support community in twenty twenty, I made

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Speaker 5: those sort of bar are sort of backbone, and we

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Speaker 5: read them at the end of every meeting.

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Speaker 2: I hear you saying that other people gravitated towards them,

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Speaker 2: and they meant a lot to other.

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Speaker 3: People in the community.

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Speaker 2: As you spoke them, you started breathing differently, and I

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Speaker 2: could tell they mean a lot to you.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, they do.

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Speaker 5: It was I have gone back to them again and

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Speaker 5: again and again for different things. You know, I'm six

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Speaker 5: months out of an engagement, ending a four your relationship,

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Speaker 5: and facing a whole new era of you know what

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Speaker 5: my thing is right now. So I have leaned on

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Speaker 5: them again and again myself because it doesn't end.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 5: It was alcohol, and then it was then it was

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Speaker 5: other things, and it will always be.

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Speaker 4: That way, you know.

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Speaker 5: So there are nine things that I think we never

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Speaker 5: stop leaning on and learning, and they're paradoxical. You can't

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Speaker 5: do it alone. Only you can do it. It's not

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Speaker 5: your fault, it is your responsibility. It's kind of everything

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Speaker 5: I know about what we have to hold simultaneously when

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Speaker 5: we go through change.

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Speaker 3: I'm sorry that you're going through change again. It's really frickin' hard.

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Speaker 4: It is.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, it's time for another short break, but don't

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Speaker 1: go anywhere because we'll be right back with Laura mcowan.

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Speaker 3: And we're back with Laura mcowan. I have a personal

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Speaker 3: question for you. Okay, it's more asking for a friend.

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Speaker 2: Everybody in my life tells me I need to do

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Speaker 2: two things meditate and journal.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I don't do either of those things. I have

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Speaker 3: like gems in my notepad.

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Speaker 2: You say that journaling can be a really powerful tool

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Speaker 2: for people in recovery as well as people that are

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Speaker 2: looking for that bigger Yes, what am I missing out on? Oh?

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Speaker 3: Tell me about the journal.

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Speaker 5: Okay, okay, yeah, So I don't like saying that. You know,

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Speaker 5: there's that this is the thing that will work for everybody.

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Speaker 4: Nothing is like that.

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Speaker 5: But there are a few things that I feel like

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Speaker 5: can benefit a lot of people, most people, and journaling

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Speaker 5: is one of them. And this is why when we journal,

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Speaker 5: and especially if we're writing on paper versus typing, because

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Speaker 5: it's more embodied and it utilizes a different part of

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Speaker 5: our brain. We are bringing what is unconscious into consciousness.

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Speaker 5: And it's an accessible, anytime, anywhere, any day type of

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Speaker 5: thing you can do.

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Speaker 4: It's free, which is one of the things I like.

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Speaker 5: It's like, you don't have to have resources to pull

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Speaker 5: out a pen and paper, and so many of the

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Speaker 5: things that we the wellness bullshit that we say people

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Speaker 5: have to do is not accessible totally. So I think

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Speaker 5: of journaling as this conversation between me and maybe my

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Speaker 5: higher self, me and wisdom whatever. It's not necessarily a

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Speaker 5: higher power thing, but it's like a conversation. Sometimes I'm listening,

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Speaker 5: sometimes I'm asking, Sometimes I'm just documenting things to get

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Speaker 5: them out of my body. So one of the things

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Speaker 5: that I think is so enormous, and it's part of

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Speaker 5: push off from here, is that our bodies have to

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Speaker 5: be included in our healing and in our process, in

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Speaker 5: our day to day feeling and processing of emotions, and

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Speaker 5: we neglect that. And so writing is an embodiment practice too.

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Speaker 5: It's not really it's a mind thing, but it's so

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Speaker 5: much more of an embodiment thing, and so you get

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Speaker 5: that going to it brings the body in.

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Speaker 2: Are there any other tools that you found really helpful

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Speaker 2: for you in a journey of self discovery?

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Speaker 3: Time and again, for me, a.

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Speaker 5: Movement is like the number one, And I think part

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Speaker 5: of that is just because I have a lot of energy,

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Speaker 5: like anxiety, just energy in my body that has to

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Speaker 5: move and so physical. I don't even want to call

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Speaker 5: it exercise because that sounds unappealing to so many people,

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Speaker 5: but just movement walking.

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Speaker 4: I have been in this season of my life lifting

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Speaker 4: heavy things like you. I never thought that I would

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Speaker 4: want to do that.

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Speaker 5: I was always a runner, and oh my god, it

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Speaker 5: is just it is everything for my brain. So for me,

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Speaker 5: that has been a constant tool and mainstay of my

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Speaker 5: mental health. Really, I'm a sort of spotty meditator, so

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Speaker 5: I can't I would love to say, yeah, meditation, but

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Speaker 5: I go in and out of it, and I think, again,

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Speaker 5: it's one of those things that depending on the type

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Speaker 5: of person you are, like sometimes a lot of times

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Speaker 5: my exercise, my movement is the meditation. Right, those are

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Speaker 5: the big things, and then the other I was a

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Speaker 5: huge thing that I find very annoying because I am

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Speaker 5: not a joiner and I just still want to think

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Speaker 5: that I can do things alone. Is community and being

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Speaker 5: with people, really connection with other people and allowing myself

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Speaker 5: to not be a teacher and a leader in a

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Speaker 5: space and just be a person.

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Speaker 1: Laura, congratulations again on such a huge achievement your sobriety

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Speaker 1: journey is very inspiring, and thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: joining us on the bright Side and sharing your story.

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Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: Laura mcowan is the author of We Are the Luckiest

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Speaker 2: and Push Off from here.

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Speaker 3: That's it for today's show.

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Speaker 1: Tomorrow, we're giving you an encore presentation of our conversation

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Speaker 1: with Italian food icon and emuinning TV personality Diata dala Entis.

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Speaker 1: Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect

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00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:35,199
Speaker 1: with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram

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Speaker 1: and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and

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Speaker 1: feel free to tag us at Simone Voice and at

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Speaker 1: Danielle Robe.

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Speaker 1: See you tomorrow, folks, keep looking on the bright side.