Finding Peace: Wendi's Journey from Anxiety to Sobriety

Hi, my name is Wendi. I'm an alcoholic.

Hi, welcome to the meeting.

Thank you, Abraham, so much for asking me to come out.

And I want to thank my wife, Amanda, for coming with me.

And thank you so much for your 10 minutes.

I heard you work on Spider-Man or something cool like that.

It was nice to meet you.

That was an amazing 10 minutes, though.

And I appreciate this light box here

to help me keep track of time.

So I'm just gonna start at the beginning,

what it was like, what happened and what it's like now.

A lot of this is kind of like in hindsight, right?

At the time, I'm sure I would have seen it much differently.

But in the years before I ever drank or used,

I was really just a person

with an incredible amount of anxiety.

And then for a period of time, I was an intoxicated person.

And as of this moment, I'm a sober person

with an incredible amount of anxiety,

but it's manageable and I go through life.

And so,

when I was, for as long as I can remember,

I was just like a super anxious kid.

At the time, I don't think I would have known that.

I just thought this is kind of what life was like.

Cause there wasn't really a big reason for it.

Like I had, you know, a family who loved me.

I mean, we had our problems, but you know,

a family who loved me and I went to a school

and I had friends and inside my head,

it was like I was living in a war zone.

It was just like, like I would lay awake all night,

like around like seven or eight years old,

this part started where I'd lay awake at night,

like terrified of the next day.

And I got it in my head that like,

if I didn't get enough sleep,

that I was gonna like screw up the next day.

And then that was gonna have a ripple effect

and it was gonna lead to homelessness down the line.

And it just like,

there was a lot of pressure on falling asleep by,

I think I got it in my head 9.30.

I, it wasn't like an assigned bedtime.

I just came up with it from my own mind.

My own nervous system.

And I would just like lay there looking at the clock

and I'm like, I'm not gonna make it.

Like, I can tell I'm not gonna be asleep by 9.30

and like it would pass 9.30, you know?

And this is like before third grade.

Like there was nothing important

that I had to do the next day.

But I was so, I was wrapped so tight.

I was out sick for two weeks with the chicken pox

and I got like behind on like my multiplication tables.

And I was just like in a,

just like in a walking panic for months about that.

And no one was upset about it.

Like I didn't even really have particularly strict parents.

I don't know why I was so worried about this.

And I also around, like seriously,

like we're nine years old.

I got it into my head that I was like a really bad person.

I wasn't raised in a religious family.

So I didn't have like a church telling me about sin,

but I was convinced.

That I was gonna burn in hell.

And like I had all this evidence that I was collecting.

Like one time I had a slumber party when I was about nine.

All my friends came over and we just did like little kid stuff

where we got up to no good.

Like we sent a pizza to somebody's house who didn't order it.

And I blew this so out of proportion for months afterwards

of just like what kind of a person.

They opened that door.

What if they didn't have the money

to pay for that pizza that night?

They're stuck having to pay for it.

I'm destroyed.

They're destroying lives.

I mean, it was ridiculous.

And I, but I was dead serious.

And I didn't tell anyone that I was feeling this way.

I just, you know, kept going.

That was just like what it was like to be me.

And I was very socially, super socially anxious.

I would like plan conversations the night before,

you know, like they'll walk in and they'll say hi.

And then I'll be like, oh, hi.

You know?

And like, I would like practice it in my head.

And that was just like 24 hours a day, how I was doing life.

I did not start seriously.

Drinking and using until after high school.

So I just lived that way for, you know, for a long time.

That was just life.

And I didn't know, I didn't even really conceptualize

that it could be different.

That's just how, what I thought being a human being was.

And then the first time I got loaded is when I learned,

you know, that it doesn't have to be like that.

I got drunk and used drugs at the same time, the same day.

I drank some shots and I did.

I did a few lines of crystal meth.

And that was just like from just a lifetime of sobriety,

just right into it.

And it was probably the, it was a religious experience,

if nothing else.

Like I just did not know that it could feel that way

to be in a human body.

I felt totally comfortable in who I was.

I forgave myself for, you know, the pizza from 10 years ago

or whatever it was, you know, I was just like,

everything was fine.

And I knew, I remember thinking that day

that like, I would be willing to give my life over to this.

Like I had a whole other life ready to happen, right?

I'd been a pretty good kid and I was going to college.

This was like right after high school.

And I'd never been in any real trouble.

And in that moment though, I decided like,

I will give my life over to this.

Whatever it takes for me is fine.

I don't want it to take anything,

but I have to have this thing.

And for a while, it was like, okay, I'm gonna do this.

And for a while, it made my life better.

There's no question about that.

I would say from like, I don't even know how long,

but roughly let's say 18 to 20 years old,

it made my life better.

I became somewhat of an optimist.

I became someone who felt comfortable around other people

who thought like I had a bright future,

who was looking forward to things.

And it's not clear exactly when it turned,

but I've gotten sober a few times.

And the first time I got sober was in my mid-20s.

And somewhere between like when it made my life better,

between 18 and 20, and then when I was 26 years old,

it became that I was stealing pain medication from my father,

that I was having seizures when I was sober,

that I was just basically suicidal every day,

just because I was, unless I was efficiently drunk or high,

I was in some sort of withdrawal at all times.

And just like in that, you know, agonizing,

like your bones hurt,

like you can't get through the next five minutes kind of a way.

But I kept trying to do a normal life

for those six years too.

Like I kept, you know,

certain things didn't get better, right?

Like I couldn't seem to get out of my parents' house

for very long.

And even though I kept going to college,

I just never graduated.

I just kept going and going.

When I was 26, when I got sober, I had not finished yet.

I would go every semester and sign up and, you know,

got to the point where I would fail out or withdraw

when I had started off like an A student.

And, but I didn't just drop out and give up.

I just kept going because he was talking about

like other addictions.

My, like a big addiction I have is people believing

that I'm fine.

That is an addiction that I struggle with to this day

is convincing you that everything's fine.

So I don't think I've ever in my life, you know,

in my life had a period of time where I was just somebody

who like no one ever knew what I was doing.

And there was also never a time in my life

where I just like could have a beer after work with people.

I was either someone who hadn't started drinking yet,

or I was someone whose drinking was so bad

that it could only be done in a hidden way.

And people knew when we're talking and worried about me,

or I was sober.

And everybody agreed I should be staying sober.

And I'd never just like went to a restaurant

and like had a margarita like a normal person.

It was always some version of people were concerned.

And so during, you know, that first stint

of trying to convince everyone everything was okay.

My, the pain medication I was stealing from my father,

he had a tumor in his spine started when he was about 40.

And he had a tumor in his spine started when he was about 40.

And he had a tumor in his spine started when he was about 40.

And he had a tumor in his spine started when he was about 40.

And had to be on a lot of pain medications

for most of his life after that.

And when I discovered how well those went with a hangover

or with times that I could not be drunk,

like in the morning, I would start taking them,

but I would not take them all, right?

Because I wasn't gonna commit to this in any way, right?

So I would take just enough for today

and then get through that day.

And then the next morning when I needed more,

I'd have to get more.

And so this involves things like bringing into their house

at three o'clock in the morning

and like crawling on my hands and knees

to the drawer next to his bed.

And then just taking, if I needed three, then I took three.

And just having to live like that,

even after everyone knew this was happening, right?

Even after he'd hidden them and gotten a safe

and they found me on their floor

at three o'clock in the morning,

I still never said like, hey, I have a problem.

It was still, I wouldn't even openly steal yet.

I would still pretend like I was someone

who did not have a problem.

And so I did get sober at that age.

And it didn't last until today,

but it was a really monumental sobriety for me

in the sense that I went to detox for the first time.

I went to Tarzana Treatment Center

and I went there thinking, yep, everyone's been to Tarzana.

I know.

I went there thinking like, if I can just stop,

if I can stop being physically addicted to all this stuff,

to alcohol and to pills, then I can just start over.

Like the reason I'm living like this is

because when I don't, I'm so sick.

So I went there and I got clean for the first time

since I gotten myself into this.

And right away, I stayed sober at that point,

but I found out how wrong I was.

Like this problem did not go away

when I stopped being physically addicted.

Like my mind was still there.

I was once again, a sober person who was incredibly anxious,

who was overthinking everything that I said or did.

And I was like, because of that, I was such a liar.

And I don't mean like big international crime lying,

nothing like that.

I mean like lying about how much I paid for something

because I didn't know if you thought I'd overpaid

or underpaid.

And so I was like trying, if you were like,

I like that shirt.

How much did you pay?

I'm like naming a price that I think you'll think

is what a person would pay for that.

I never considered telling you what I actually paid.

Like everything I said was an attempt for you to be like,

yes, I agree with the decisions that you're making.

And constantly, I mean like the question,

what did you do this weekend?

Like I did not ever simply answer that question.

Like everything I'd really done either sound like not enough,

like how a loser would have spent their weekend

or maybe too much,

like somebody who doesn't know how to relax.

So I just never ever truthfully answered that.

I mean, there were some people who knew truth about my life,

but it was, or another tactic I used was just deflecting.

Right?

Like if you asked me when I did that weekend,

I would quickly be like, oh, weekend.

So what did you do?

And like literally I would have friends that for years

who knew nothing about me,

who didn't know what I did for a living.

Who didn't know where I lived and we felt close.

I would have called them my best friends.

I knew a lot about them and they didn't know anything about me.

And that was just like, that's okay.

So that is the dark side of my first sobriety.

But there was like some really magical parts to it too, right?

Like I did start going to AA right after Tarzana

and I learned about sobriety for the first time.

And I met other people who had the same problem that I had.

And then, and I did start picking up certain things

that changed me then and have changed me to this day.

So like one of those things was, I always tell this one,

cause this I think will stand out till the day I die.

But my, you know, you guys all know in AA,

it's a lot about like, you know,

a big part of emotional recovery is thinking about someone else

instead of yourself, right?

That's like the crux of how we get out of this,

like obsessive thinking about ourselves.

And at first, I think like a lot of people,

I was confused about being told I was self-obsessed

because I knew I hated myself.

I just didn't realize that spending all day,

everyday thinking about that was still self-obsession.

Especially if I would think about that,

like while you were telling me about you,

that that is still, it doesn't have to, that still counts.

And so I had to go to a party early on in that first sobriety

and I didn't believe anything about AA at first.

By the way, I was going because everyone knew

how badly I had screwed up my life

and I didn't know what else to do.

But I would go home from meetings and like Google,

like AA is a cult.

And like, like I had a to-do list I found years later

where like number three was like, find a way out of AA.

You know, like I was going, but it was not like,

even that was kind of a lie.

Like I was like, I was not drinking or using,

but my belief was a lie.

And the first time anything that was told to me,

anything that was told here worked was when my sponsor,

I had to go to a party and I was like,

super, super self-conscious.

It was a lot of people from my family were gonna be there.

People that I know knew that I was a grown woman

who had not managed to do anything but themselves.

And I just, to me, the party,

the whole point of this party felt like everyone

getting together to look at me,

the person who had screwed up their life.

Obviously that no one even cared that I was going.

Like that, it was like a family party.

It had nothing to do.

With me.

But she was like, when you get there,

do things for people, right?

Just be like, oh, can I throw that out for you?

Or can I get you another drink?

Or ask people like, how did your year go?

And this sounded like the stupidest advice

I'd ever heard in my life,

because now I was not only gonna be the loser,

but I was gonna be like the loser who didn't even know it.

Like I was still perky and happy.

Like I wasn't even cool enough to be ashamed of myself.

And, but I tried it, I did it.

And it was the most relaxed I'd ever felt.

Sober in my life.

Like it, it actually worked.

Like nobody, when I started just talking to people about like,

oh, I heard you started a business.

Tell me about that.

Like that is all that interaction was about.

It was not about the, I mean,

what I now know is that they hadn't been spending the year

thinking about what I've been doing with my life.

They did not care.

I mean, they loved me, but they were doing their own thing.

And another one on that same kind of like theme

that stuck out for me is early on in AA, I got asked to

speak like 10 minutes, like in my first year or so.

And afterwards I was walking around the meeting,

just feeling like I should go home.

Like, I'm so horrified by how badly that went.

Like, I don't even think I can come back here anymore.

And some guy came up to me at the break and he was like,

oh, thanks for reading chapter five.

And he didn't even remember what I had done at the,

like nobody, not only did they not remember what I said,

a certain number of people didn't even remember I'd spoke

like 10 minutes after it happened.

He kind of knew I'd been at the podium.

Like he thought maybe I'd read something.

And just like the clarity of how much people were not paying,

like all the effort I'd put in trying to convince you

I'd paid just the right amount for a lamp didn't matter.

Like that is not, it was only me living in that insanity.

Nobody else was like,

doesn't Wendy always pay the right price for lamps?

And you're like, yeah, she's fantastic.

But that is just like, it was eye-opening.

So that, so it did like, it did change my life.

That's sobriety and it, and it lasted for nine years.

And then it, and then it didn't, and I don't a hundred percent know.

Like when, so when I, I've thought a lot about the whys.

So I got sober with a lot of people who are still really good friends of mine today.

And a lot of them are still sober.

They have the time I would have had if I'd never relapsed.

And like any still self-obsessed person,

I spend a lot of time thinking about like,

what is different about them?

You know, like we all kept going to meetings.

We all kept having a sponsor.

What is, why is mine seems so much messier and I'm never going to have an answer to that.

I honestly, I'm not even sure at this point that it matters.

Like in order for me to have a good life, I have to like find a way to be sober, you know,

whether I was sober yesterday or not, like I have to be sober today.

But I, you know, obviously I, I want to be able to give some sort of reason for it.

But one thing that it does seem true is like in this,

I guess is the definition of alcoholism is no matter how long I've been sober,

at a certain point or how many times drinking and using has just like knocked me down.

If I'm not paying attention, like alcoholism walks into the room

and it's wearing a new outfit this time.

And I just don't see it.

I'm just like, oh my God, it's my old friend who's here, who made me feel so good.

I'm so happy.

And everyone who knows me is like, are you crazy?

This is just a different version.

This one maybe came in a prescription or this one is, you know, but it's the same thing.

Like, don't let this.

Thing into the room.

And I'm always like, no, I think, I think I need to let this thing in the room.

Like she was such a good friend of mine and everyone else can see.

And anyone who's seen me with that, including now my wife knows like that.

No, that's not a good thing.

Like let that out of your life.

But when it shows up again, to me, it looks like my friend.

And so I can't, you know, really rely on my own assessment of that for no matter how much

alcoholism does to me.

Yeah.

That is like life destroying and soul destroying.

At least until recently, when she shows up again, she looks like a friend.

And, um, and so I have to do, I have to do sobriety, even though there's like 30% of

my brain at any given time, that doesn't totally think I need to be sober.

Like that is.

That might change someday, but as for right now, 70% of me knows that if I'm not sober,

my life's going to go up in flames again, because it has always gone up in flames.

But even knowing that 30% of me thinks.

Yeah.

That I need to find some way to have something like alcohol in my system in order to feel

better.

And so all I know to do right now is to just live with that, to acknowledge that there's

that part of me living in my brain and to accept it like as in trying to accept everything.

And I wish it wasn't there because she is the most annoying visitor in my head ever.

She's never satisfied.

She's constantly, constantly forgetting the way things were, but she's there and that's

the way it is right now.

But I, you know, even with all of that, you know, even with that going on seemingly indefinitely

so far you know, it's still a hundred percent true always that, you know, I feel better

when I'm honest.

And when I think about someone else instead of myself, that I have a better day when I

stay in the moment, I have a better day.

I'm always, always, always trying to get back into being like a regular meditator because I do.

I don't live in the moment at all.

Like just like when I was eight and I would be up all night thinking about how I was going

to ruin my life.

I'm mostly thinking about how I'm going to ruin my life.

Right.

I wake up in the morning and I'm like, what mistake am I going to make it work today that

like I lose my job and my license and then we're going to be homeless pretty soon.

And like, um, and not like nothing's happening that day.

She's not worried about this at all.

Um, and so when I can, when I'm.

I can meditate on a regular basis, even just like 10 minutes a day, it just gets me, uh,

enough in the moment to realize like what's actually happening is I have like a wonderful

marriage and we have a beautiful home and I have a job that I really like that I'm pretty

good at, uh, that we're, our life is pretty spoiled in a lot of ways.

Uh, and honestly, I'm not really that different from other alcoholics or drug addicts or anybody,

anybody with any kind.

Like my story is not that unique.

We're.

That it feels somehow if I let myself get into a pity party, like, is this one harder

than you can fill in the blank with someone I know who stays over?

I'm like, is mine harder.

But I know that, that alcoholism is like, by definition, it is tricky.

It is like, it's uncomfortable.

And I am lucky enough to just be standing here on August 21st.

Second.

Thank you.

August 22nd.

Totally sober.

Like.

Thank God.

I mean, the number of ways I've tried to just destroy that, you know, um, the number of

times that I've made decisions that would not make that possible.

And yet still somehow I'm standing here today.

Um, completely sober.

I do have a, a sponsor now.

She is actually, these lights haven't gone on, so I still have time, right?

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Okay.

So I just want to make sure they didn't break or anything.

And I would just have going and going 10 minutes.

Okay, perfect.

So I have a sponsor now.

Um, she is one of the first people I met in AA.

She's been my friend for like almost 20 years now.

Um, and so I never thought I would have, um, like a sponsor who's a friend of mine that

seemed kind of messy.

Um, but she is the third sponsor I've had.

And, um, unfortunately in the past, what would happen is I was happy sponsors where like,

um, again, like I was, they had so much more time than me.

Or they only knew me as my sponsor.

And so I just could not get away from like, feeling like I wanted to tell them what they

wanted to hear.

Like I, every time I called, I would hope they wouldn't answer.

Um, and then if they did, I would, you know, just, if I wasn't putting like 110% effort

into it, I'd be like, everything's good.

Yeah.

I'm not having any concerns today.

Um, and that just, I mean, that doesn't work.

I don't even sure that's, there were still stuff I could get.

Out of that.

They could, they still managed over the years to give me direction.

Like I said, that was life changing.

But the good thing about having this friend of mine sponsor me is, um, she's known me

for so long, just as my friend.

So she already knows a whole bunch of stuff about me that I never would have wanted to

tell a sponsor.

Uh, she actually apparently has been forming opinions about what I should do differently

for like 15 years also.

So like she was ready for this, so that's, uh, and you know, she's just like enough of

a, like a loving non-judgmental person where I don't mind that either.

Right.

Like, it's funny to me that she has some ideas about my life, but it also means that I can

call her three days in a row.

Um, not feeling better than the day before or three days in a row where I'm fine, you

know, but I don't have to like watch what I say, right.

I never had to, but I always felt like I did.

You know, I would always be amazed when I would hear other people call their sponsor

and just tell them exactly how it was going.

And they didn't feel the need to.

This is kind of a weird one, but they didn't feel the need to always make it look like

the sponsor's advice works.

So this is a trap I'd always run into.

So say I called them with like, just a totally boring problem, like a work problem.

And they were like, try this.

And I try it and it didn't really work.

I don't feel like I can go back and tell them that because I have to present it as like

your sponsorship really worked in this case.

So now I'm stuck because I actually need more help or I need to talk about this more, but

I'm finding myself being like, yeah, I did that.

And everything's different now.

I don't know what that is.

I mean, I'm pretty sure it came from my mom, to be honest, but I it's mine now.

And I, I clearly not everyone has it because I watched, I've sponsored people in the past

where time after time, they're like, Hey, your sponsorship didn't work and they didn't

seem to care at all, but I worry about it quite a bit.

And so it is the, the amount of effort I just put into on a daily basis of just being honest

about who I really am.

What's really happened.

The way I'm really feeling, but then not so much too, that I forget to be grateful also,

like not so honest that I let my mind like convince me that things are the way my mind

thinks they are too, because I also need someone to tell me that, you know, my version of reality

is based on the fact that in a lot of ways, I'm still that kid who thinks being behind

on your multiplication tables is the end of the world and all of that, like that is, that's the,

that's the, that's the key.

Newscast I'm getting from my brain.

And that's a lie too.

So, um, this sounds so stupid and so silly, but like, uh, my wife and her in this thing

where a lot of times she'll be like, oh, do you have more work to do tonight?

Um, because she just wants to know, like, are we going to have dinner early or whatever?

And what I hear is like, and she's never once said this, this just came from inside is like,

I hope your work is all done because otherwise you're not a very efficient person.

And our life is going to suck.

And so anytime someone asks me something like,

are you done for work or is it going to be another hour now?

I'm now I'm just like, I'm trapped, you know?

And like, because literally I'm just dealing with a crazy person running my thoughts, you know,

just telling me that I have to not be honest somehow about whether or not I finished my work

for the day yet, or if I need another 45 minutes.

And, um, you know, but speaking of my mom, who I mentioned another minute ago, you know,

one thing that really makes me so grateful.

For the fact that I fell into AA so young, you know, whether I stayed sober the whole

time or not is, um, thank you.

I talked to my mom fairly regularly, especially, uh, my dad died maybe about five or six years

ago.

And so I've been talking to her pretty regularly on the phone since then, and really gotten

to know her better.

And I don't mean this as a, as an insult at all, but, uh, she is a lot who I would be

without if I hadn't had any program or any something therapy, something, you know, um,

because she just a hundred percent believes her own head, right?

Like it never occurs to her.

If she feels nervous about something, it's because that thing is dangerous.

And I have been so saved by, by the.

Like people teaching me that what I'm thinking is not the truth.

Alcoholism runs a lot in my family.

Um, my dad was an alcoholic, um, and kind of everybody on his side of the family that

I'm related to is an alcoholic.

But.

But.

But much like me, there's a lot of secret alcoholism in my family.

So, um, my dad's sister actually died of alcoholism, but I never knew till I was an

adult that she even drank because no one like at our family Christmases would drink openly,

right?

All the alcoholics had bottles in their purse that they would drink in the bathroom.

And then everyone came out and pretended to all the other alcoholics that they were not

drinking.

There was never a bottle of wine on the table.

I know this is just what I got.

I come by this.

Honestly, I don't know why we're like this, but I didn't even know how much alcoholism

was in my family.

And, and my dad genuinely did get sober when I was very young, when I was three years old.

He'd been quite the open, terrible alcoholic before that.

Um, but he never got AA.

He didn't, he didn't do program either.

He didn't even do like Christianity the way John's dad did.

He just stopped drinking.

And again, it's just, it was an example to me.

Uh, I loved drinking.

I love my dad, but an example to me of what would have happened to me if I never run into

some sort of recovery in my life.

You know, he, by the, by the time he died, he was someone who, um, carried a gun around

with him and Kate, because one time he was at a Walmart and someone insulted him in the

parking lot verbally that they didn't threaten him.

And he waited for them outside for the gun.

And then they didn't come.

He never actually like shot anyone or ended up in prison.

He was just.

Yeah.

Suburban crazy, right?

Like he's just so lucky.

Nothing ever happened.

He, he like myself could somewhat put a regular life around him, but otherwise was just completely

insane because of his own fear and anxiety and self-hatred.

And, um, I, I, I will always be grateful.

Not, you know, not only for, for the long stretches of sobriety, but just for, you know,

anyone pointing out to me that my head is wrong.

There's so much relief from pain in that.

Um, and just the.

The community of people I found who are all so open about just what it's like to be them

and what it's like to be a person, you know, I will forever be grateful for.

And that, that is it.

Thank you again, Abraham, so much.

For having me.