Guest Story Eleanor Kotelniski Ep. 13

This is Episode 13 with guest author Eleanor Kotelniski. "What do you get when you take an alcoholic woman - who just happens to be a control freak - and let her run her life on her own terms? Chaos with a capital C!" Listen to her share her struggles and fears as she learns to yield from her own way of doing life to discover the beautiful rewards that come when she begins to rely on her faith in God. Find out how a spiritual awakening  has kept her sober for over 20 years.

For a copy of Ellen's book "My Purpose Written Life" you can reach out to us or Eleanor directly via email at ekotelniski@gmail.com  

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Song: Rise and Thrive
Artist: Young Presidents

**Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this episode are not professional or medical opinions. If you are struggling with an addiction please contact a medical professional for help.

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**Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this episode are not professional or medical opinions. If you are struggling with an addiction please contact a medical professional for help.

Music provided by Premium Beats: https://www.premiumbeat.com
Song: Rise and Thrive
Artist: Young Presidents

Resources:
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Kelly: Welcome to the laugh life podcast, a lifestyle podcast based on living alcohol free and a booze-soaked world. My name is Kelly Evans and together with my friends, Tracey, Djordjevic, Mike Sutton and Lindsay Harik. We share uncensored. Unscripted real conversations about what our lives have been like since we ditched alcohol and how we got here by sharing our individual stories.

[00:00:26] Kelly: We'll show you that there isn't just one way to do this, no matter where you are on your journey from sober, curious to years in recovery and everyone in between, you are welcome here, no judgment and a ton of support.

[00:00:42] Lindsey: Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 13 of the LAF life podcast. We want you guys to head on over to apple podcast Spotify hit subscribe so that every Tuesday you have the fresh episodes, hot off the press preloaded, and you can catch up and connect with us. If you find this helpful or you think this would help a loved one, share the episode with them and let them know that they can have a listen. We are here for you guys. So, we have a really great treat for everybody today. We've got another guest. We have the fabulous Eleanor with us. Hi Eleanor. 

[00:01:28] Eleanor: Hello,

[00:01:29] Tracey: welcome. 

[00:01:31] Lindsey: Eleanor, you have had quite the journey. I'm just gonna read something here. What do you get when you take an alcoholic woman who just happens to be a control freak, and let her run her life on her own terms? Chaos with a capital C. Find out what happens when through a series of supernatural encounters, God gets Ellie's attention and teaches her a whole new and exciting way of living. So, Eleanor welcome. And we have so many questions for you. That was a little excerpt from something that you wrote. You actually wrote a book during your 12th year of sobriety to sort of talk about how you struggled with it. Entered an addictions program, multiple attempts to quit. How many years are you sober now?

[00:02:26] Eleanor: May 6th will be 21 years. 

[00:02:29] Lindsey: Wow. Congratulations. That's amazing. 

[00:02:33] Eleanor: Yeah, I didn't think it would ever happen. Believe me, I had the other life so long, I just had that other way of living for so long. I couldn't even dream that I would be without to be able to function without alcohol on a daily basis. So, the fact that here it's, 20 years and, and I haven't had any it's, it is really just a miracle because I struggled so many years and just all the crazy things you try when you're trying to quit drinking and 

[00:03:04] Lindsey: Tell us a little bit about that. What did your life look like and what were some of the things that you tried? 

[00:03:09] Eleanor: Oh well, you just give yourself that pep talk sometimes, I'm in there, I don't know. I think even used to write a letter to myself, why I remember the millennium new year, remember when everybody thought that 

[00:03:23] Lindsey: the world was going to end, 

[00:03:25] Eleanor: it would be. Yeah. And I was going to a social that night and I was so excited to be going to a social, but you know, I also knew that what could happen at that social, things could get out of hand and, most likely the way it always went is it probably would get out of hand. And I ended up writing out, like all the reasons why I shouldn't do it. And it's just things like I wrote, one drink, and what my behavior would be two drinks, what my behavior would be at three drinks. If I had three drinks, what would my behavior be like four drinks? I try to work out a deal, I guess 

[00:04:06] Lindsey: they can negotiate with yourself. Right. 

[00:04:08] Eleanor: I could have this many drinks and nothing bad was probably, probably nothing was gonna, you know, not, I might be 

[00:04:16] Lindsey: bad would happen. 

[00:04:18] Eleanor: Yeah. And so, just things like that, that obviously I could do that all day long and it doesn't work. You know, it definitely doesn't work. So, things like that. And it's always, you decide, okay, I'm not going to drink this weekend. And five seconds later, the phone's ringing, oh my gosh, there's a party. I'm coming to pick you up in 10 minutes. Okay. I'll stop drinking next week. Right. It's those things, it's almost like this, this opposite land thing happens. So anyway, I got in trouble, I did bad things and I'm on my second marriage right now. But the, the interesting thing is just to backtrack a bit. My first husband, he only knew me the way the, the drinking Ellie and. Has been that I have now, he's never seen me with a drop of alcohol. 

[00:05:16] Lindsey: Wow. That's totally opposite 

[00:05:19] Eleanor: two ever had a conversation about me. We'd be talking about two different people 

[00:05:25] Lindsey: for sure. But that's what alcohol does though. You tend to say and do a lot of things that are out of character and, there's a lot of shame and embarrassment and secrets that come with that end as a Christian person yet. Like we just, we don't do these things and this isn't Christian, we're not supposed to behave this way, but we're human beings, So, yeah, that's something , I hear you on that because you and I, we connected at church and I was talking to you a little bit yesterday about this, but, when you gave me your book you had no idea that I was drinking wine every weekend and binge drinking to numb out during my divorce and I remember you telling me that you were actually almost hesitant to give it because you were like, I don't want to just dump this on other people, but yeah, 

[00:06:20] Eleanor: there was a prompting, but I didn't know, I guess, I didn't know why there was a prompting to give you the book.

[00:06:26] Lindsey: Right. 

[00:06:26] Eleanor: And I think I just met you that day. That's right. And I think I get, we went back then we were at a conference, so we went to work, and I think I might've given you the book either. Maybe I brought this the second day. Yeah. 

[00:06:38] Lindsey: It was the second day. 

[00:06:40] Eleanor: So, I'm not sure what prompted me to give you that book, but I don't know, but yeah. It's one of those things where yeah, there is a story and I just feel like, the timing, it's something that, like I was saying as well too, it's, I'm afraid to offend people sometimes, or, but anyway, 

[00:06:59] Lindsey: yeah.

[00:07:00] Eleanor: You have to take a leap of faith. 

[00:07:01] Lindsey: So was alcohol something then that played a role in maybe the breakup of your first marriage. Did that have anything to do with, why that marriage didn't work out? 

[00:07:12] Eleanor: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think there was probably a few key things, but definitely, definitely if I wasn't drinking, I believe it, it had a better chance of making it, but with the way that I was using alcohol every day, that poor husband of mine couldn't didn't stand, 

[00:07:37] Lindsey: man, 

[00:07:37] Eleanor: I was uncontrollable. I was just out of control with it. And

[00:07:42] Lindsey: in what way? In the amount that you drank or behavior yeah, 

[00:07:46] Eleanor: the amount, the behavior and, but he knew that at some point, I don't know if anyone can relate to this or not. Dealing with a person that has a, alcohol problem when they're not drinking. They're almost worse than when they are. It kind of puts you at bay. So, I think that's why he was enabling me to drink because I was easier to deal with for a certain amount of. I don't know if that resonates with anyone.

[00:08:12] Mike: Yeah. You get your irritable that like people are irritable when they're out of their comfort zone and trying to adjust to this change has kind of thrown them for a loop. Right. 

[00:08:22] Tracey: Especially if you're addicted to something, then definitely it was altering your mood. Right. So, when you weren't having it, you probably weren't in the best moods. So, he probably, he probably, like you said, felt you were easier to deal with when you were drinking. Yeah. 

[00:08:38] Eleanor: Yeah. I know. I, I kind of was remembering a story of when my son was in grade two. We lived in Saskatoon, and I'd send him to school. He'd come home at lunchtime and then I take them back to school. And then when I got back home, that's usually when I remember, I would always feel like it was okay to start drinking. So probably around one o'clock in the afternoon. And then I'm not sure, seemed like he walked home. Maybe he walked home from school with a friend. We lived about a block away from the school. And what I remember about that time was that around four I'd phone my husband at work. And I would be because now I've had a few drinks, but I'm running out. I used to drink those. At that point I was drinking those two-liter wine cooler. You know, the two-liter bottles. Wow. Oh, okay. Yeah. Those big ones. Yeah. I couldn't go to the store to get more, but I really needed more by the time, he was coming home. So, I would phone him at work, and I guess I'd beat around the Bush and this and that. And I remember him saying one time, he's like, just tell me what it is you want. And then I'd tell him what I wanted, which was more booze. Yeah. And he'd bring it and then he'd have to deal with me for the whole evening. Oh, very little, very little. He didn't have a problem with it at all. Then he had to deal with me in the evening, you know? Cause by that time I was, kind of. Well, definitely not sober. And it is like playing Russian roulette because you never know what's going to happen. Is this going to be a night when you're going to get, you know, something's going to set you off and you're going to start fighting or you're just gonna get sleepy and go to bed or, anything can happen. So, it was kind of volatile that way. 

[00:10:31] Tracey: When did your relationship with alcohol start? Like, did you grow up with alcohol and your family and what point did it start and kind of become a problem? 

[00:10:42] Eleanor: I remember the first time I had a drink was at a social, I believe I was 16 and we went to a social. I might've been 17, but somehow, I think I was 16. And I remember the girl that I went with. She bought drink tickets and I was sort of like, what are you doing? And she's like, well, everybody's looking, we got to buy drink tickets. And I'm like, well, we're not drinking. And she's like, well, we'll just buy the tickets. But I guess we bought the tickets and obviously we did drink. And that's the thing. How many years did it take me to figure out people can drink and not lose their minds or do all this crazy stuff? But other people can drink, have a drink and then they just, like you said, they just turn into another person there. Their whole personality changes, everything changes about them. And that what I would find out years later when I did go into that addictions program, that that's the difference. Cause you, you think, well, you and your friend go out each have two drinks or three, that friend isn't going crazy. That friend isn't, acting like a lunatic. And then there's the other person who was me. It's like just chaos just followed. So, I started, yeah. So, 16, 17. And then I just, that was my life after that. I just had that lifestyle wherever I went, I would drink and it never, just having a couple and being a nice little person and going home. It was always, oh my gosh, 

[00:12:15] Kelly: Just describe it as like no off switch. Yeah. 

[00:12:20] Eleanor: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It just was always chaos. And I didn't know why. I didn't understand. 

[00:12:28] Kelly: Are you open to talking about your childhood? Because I know that my childhood was super chaotic, and I really feel like my drinking was a way for me to continue that chaos.

[00:12:41] Eleanor: Yeah, I'm not sure. I had a strange upbringing as well. My mom died when I was six and so I ended up living all over the place. I sometimes I had two older sisters. Sometimes I live with one sister. Sometimes I live with the other sister. Sometimes I live with me. In the summers. We, we had a little farm out in Ru rural Manitoba at times. When I was thinking about, being here today and chatting these different memories came up. But as an example, when I was in, I always remember what grade I was in. So, it was in grade four. My dad had a job working up north in the gold mines and he took me with him there and I stayed as a boarder with people with strangers.

[00:13:26] Tracey: Wow. 

[00:13:28] Eleanor: Just that kind of, okay. Now I'm with this family and my dad's working in the mine so kind of an odd, strange childhood. 

[00:13:38] Tracey: You know what it sounds like to me, Eleanor chaotic. 

[00:13:42] Eleanor: Yeah, yeah, 

[00:13:42] Lindsey: yeah, exactly. 

[00:13:44] Eleanor: The other thing that is interesting as well is I went to 13 different schools, 12 years, but I still went to the same high school for grade 10, 11, and 12. So that will tell you how many times we've moved. 

[00:13:58] Lindsey: That's crazy. 

[00:13:59] Kelly: Wow. 

[00:14:00] Lindsey: So that's like unpredictable that's chaos to me, right? 

[00:14:05] Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. 

[00:14:07] Tracey: Very unstable. It feels like, 

[00:14:09] Eleanor: yeah. Yeah. Well, you were just always, we were just always moving, and I was always starting at a new school and, yeah. It's kind of traumatic, but it's not like I was drinking at that young age, it kinda just leaves you feeling kind of

[00:14:24] Lindsey: For sure. 

[00:14:25] Tracey: Yeah. I'm probably not grounded either. Cause you're really not feeling like you're planting your feet anywhere. Right. Wow. And did you feel like then, because you moved around a lot, when you got to say teenage hood, when you're that age and drinking, did you feel like you utilize drinking as a social tool? We all kind of talked about how we used it to come out of our shell or to socialize because we kind of had social anxiety, 

[00:14:54] Eleanor: yeah. I was very, very, very shy like extremely shy. And so, yeah, that's exactly it. When you had a drink, then all of a sudden you felt. that wall comes down and you can be, I don’t know if you can be yourself, but you can. Yeah. You're just more sociable and you're not so in your head about, oh, are they looking at me or, you know, do my clothes look okay or, what are they thinking? 

[00:15:18] Mike: A little voice.

[00:15:19] Eleanor: So, it definitely helped me that that way. For sure. 

[00:15:22] Tracey: Yeah. You're not as self-conscious. Right, 

[00:15:24] Eleanor: right. Yeah. 

[00:15:26] Tracey: Because your kind of losing yourself awareness with every drink. 

[00:15:29] Eleanor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy. 

[00:15:34] Lindsey: So, when did you meet your first husband? We're like how far? 

[00:15:38] Eleanor: I met him when I believe it or not. I met him when I just turned 18.

[00:15:45] Lindsey: Oh, wow. 

[00:15:46] Eleanor: So, I was just starting to, party my face off and he was older than me. And so, he had kind of been there, done that. Yeah. That was kind of how that relationship went, but again, you don't understand that when you're in the middle of it or when you're young. So of course, I was resentful way back then, but like, as I say in the book there was just so many things, I couldn't figure out about him or my marriage or why and now I get it, but. 

[00:16:18] Lindsey: That's not the way it goes. Hey, like, yeah, looking back. You're like, oh, oh, okay. now I understand. But at the time you just don't know what the hell is going on.

[00:16:28] Eleanor: Yeah. Yeah. What do you mean don't want to stay at this party? It's only 2:30 AM, right? 

[00:16:36] Kelly: Yeah. I can relate to that. 

[00:16:38] Lindsey: Yeah. That's me. That would be me. Me would be like, oh, it's Christmas Eve where I'm leaving my moms at midnight, but I can't wait to get home because I know I have a bottle of wine there and I'm going home to drink it. Like after I've already been drinking wine, like, oh man, I want to read something here out of the book that you wrote. This is going to be a little excerpt. And it says this as I'm writing this, it has been 12 years since I had my last drink. By the time you read this, I know it will be even more. I can hardly believe it's been that long. I had struggled for many years with the exhausting chore of trying to quit drinking each attempt with little to not a success. In 1996, I entered an addiction program hoping to once and for all beat this demon that had tried to take my life on more than one occasion. Try using that one as an excuse for not coming into work for three weeks. You miss work for three weeks. You're going to have; we're going to have to circle back and talk about that. I'm really curious about that. And you go on to say, I give the facility some credit. I had a temporary degree of success making it to about two weeks shy of one year sobriety. 

[00:17:54] Kelly: Wow. 

[00:17:54] Lindsey: So, talk to us about 1996, talk to us about that time you missed work for three weeks, 

[00:18:00] Kelly: or what led to that? I'm curious to know what lead do you, did you have what people would call a rock bottom or what, made you make that final decision? 

[00:18:09] Eleanor: Yes, I've had many rock bottoms, but that was one of them, for sure. I believe that was the time that yeah, I went on a real good bend, you know, fender. Yes. From what I remember, I had, met somebody and they didn't know I had a drinking problem. So, we went on a date, and I think that was the day that I classified myself as an official wine. I had never drunk wine before. But he was going all out, and he ordered wine and I drank it and oh, like I blacked out for sure. it was not good. And that was, I think the beginning of, what happened there, but so yeah, I became a wine and I believe I did think I was going to die that next morning because yeah. You wake up in the morning. You're still drunk. Yes. I was still drunk the next. 

[00:19:11] Lindsey: Now you're having anxiety on top of it. 

[00:19:13] Eleanor: Cause I'm going to be awake for the whole hang over. And it was bad. I think I did feel like I was going to pass away of alcohol poisoning that, next day.

[00:19:24] Lindsey: Wow.

[00:19:25] Eleanor: And. I know a friend came over and this is going to sound really weird, but he put, and I don't remember if it was limes or lemons. He put; I believe it was lemons. He put lemons under my armpits, and I was still, I was so ill. I was crying. You have this big recollection of what you did the night before or the two nights before. Yes. I couldn't remember whole blocks of time of what happened. And yeah, so he put these lemons under my armpits, and I remember just sobbing, sobbing, it was a rock bottom moment and I thought it was going to pass away then I think then I started to scramble and try to, reach out to cause most people didn't know that side of me.

[00:20:14] Eleanor: And what happened was I have another friend of mine. I told her what happened, and she said, you're coming to live with me and we're gonna, and I said, I can't come and live with you. You know, I can't, I have to go to my job. I had joint custody of my son. Thank goodness. He didn't witness any of that. But inevitably just with that panic of that, she was going to try and take control of me and my problem. I signed myself up. I phoned the AFM, the addictions foundation of Manitoba, and I. Got into a program right away. But I had to phone my boss, tell them that I wasn't. I said I can't come to work tomorrow. Why? I said, because I have a drinking problem. 

[00:21:03] Lindsey: Wow. What did your boss say? 

[00:21:05] Eleanor: Said Ellie, it's going to be okay. They gave me the time off, his wife took my place and worked for me. And I went on the Monday, and I went, yeah. So, it was three, like Monday to Friday, nine to four. I went into the day program. 

[00:21:24] Lindsey: Okay. So that means you could go home, right?

[00:21:26] Eleanor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, that was where I found out I was an alcoholic. And, I think I say it in the book, it was sort of like, that was one of the best days of my life, because I finally knew what was wrong with me. 

[00:21:38] Lindsey: Oh, 

[00:21:38] Tracey: wow. 

[00:21:39] Kelly: Powerful. Was that the first time you had said that out loud, Ellie to your boss?

[00:21:45] Eleanor: Yeah. 

[00:21:45] Kelly: Yeah. How did that first say

[00:21:47] Eleanor: that to anybody? 

[00:21:49] Tracey: And did anybody else call you on it or say, I think you have a problem. 

[00:21:55] Eleanor: Well, when I was lying there with the lemons under my armpits, I 

[00:21:59] Kelly: what were the lemons for 

[00:22:00] Lindsey: like a vitamin C thing. Like maybe that's like electrolytes or something like, oh yeah.

[00:22:09] Eleanor: I don't know. I was so I was pretty stunned though. I just realized; I couldn't even take care of myself. I was that sick, but I had on that same day or the day after or whatever, I phoned my ex-husband and I told him I needed help. And the thing was where I thought he might come to my rescue. Like he had many times before he said, you know what? He said, you better watch it. He said I'm going to take your son away from Oh God. And I was terrified. I did not see it going that way, but it makes sense. Now I was irresponsible 

[00:22:48] Lindsey: wow. For sure. 

[00:22:49] Tracey: But you would think that he was like, finally, you're going to get some help. You think he would have realized maybe that you had a problem and at least you were doing what you needed to get help. And that, that would actually benefit his son 

[00:23:02] Eleanor: right. Yeah. I don't know if it just caught him off guard or I'm not sure, but that scared me a lot. 

[00:23:10] Tracey: Oh yeah, for sure. that would 

[00:23:12] Eleanor: to do something drastic.

[00:23:14] Tracey: Yeah. 

[00:23:15] Lindsey: You go on to say this as well. You say I have never forgotten one particular scenario that was presented during a class at the program. The counselor asked us to envision ourselves drinking six bottles of pop in one sitting. This was a great visual, as I immediately thought it would be ludicrous to do so. Not to mention the terrible stomach-ache that would result from this now, then why would it seem normal to drink a six pack of beer or six Rye Cokes in one sitting, it was finally beginning to sink in, and then this is what really Hit me too. The other myth that was dispelled during this time was the one that claimed I should be able to quit drinking by sheer willpower. I often wondered this myself. Why couldn't I just quit? I want you to kind of speak to that because I think some people who've never struggled are just like, just stop, 

[00:24:09] Eleanor: right? Yeah. Yeah. The next little bit there at that part in the book what the counselor had said to that was that's like having willpower to stop diarrhea.

[00:24:19] Lindsey: You said that. Yeah. And you can, you are freaking can 

[00:24:25] Eleanor: come on. No, you just 

[00:24:28] Lindsey: will it away. Stop your diary.

[00:24:30] Eleanor: And I never forgot that because it's true. It's not about willpower because that works for a little bit, you can do that, but we're human 

[00:24:40] Lindsey: for sure.

[00:24:41] Eleanor: And we're tempted every day and we're, 

[00:24:44] Lindsey: you say that no matter how bad we want to continue, we don't want to continue in these nasty habits. We ultimately fail time and time again with our own willpower. It's depressing news. And you say that you went on to discover that there's a better way. 

[00:24:57] Kelly: I can relate to that. I remember reading books and like on habit, forming and being word self-disciplined. And I was so confused why I couldn't get it together.

[00:25:08] Eleanor: Yeah. I was listening to everybody's testimony as well, in the past few weeks, someone was talking about being a dry drunk and that's exactly what I was for that year. So, I went to the, the addictions foundation and I stopped drinking and I made it to almost one year. I think it was two weeks shy of a year. I was a dry drunk and that was the willpower. So, for almost a year, I was using my willpower to not drink, but it was exhausting for sure. It was. Still very unpredictable because it's like, I've tried this in the past, but I was a miserable, dry, drunk, because I wanted to drink every day. Yeah. I wasn't, but I all I thought about, so that's the difference in that. And that's just my story too, because everybody has a different story about that. About the way they came to not drink anymore I just couldn't do it on my own, and I went to AA meetings every day. I had that little it was like a little piece of paper folded in three, and it had all the places in the city that had meetings. And on any given day, morning, noon, and night, you could go to a meeting if you were really struggling. And I went all over. I went to the mall and it's like, okay, so then you're you want to drink? So, you open up the little folder. Okay. It's Tuesday, it's seven o'clock and then you raced down to, wherever Portage and whatever. And they're not called AA meetings on the door. They're always kind of, it's a secret, so no one knows you're going, but yeah, I tried that. And so ultimately, yeah, everything failed that I tried on me.

[00:26:59] Lindsey: So, after you were in AFM, in the program, you were sober two weeks shy of a year. And then what happened? Do you remember what happened, where you picked up drinking? Yeah, 

[00:27:14] Eleanor: yeah. Yeah. 

[00:27:17] Lindsey: Screw this. Like you've gone long enough with willpower. I'm having a drink. Yeah. You 

[00:27:22] Eleanor: forget, you forget. Yeah. I went right back to it. Somebody made me mad, and I thought, no, you, you want to see, you want to see this girl? She can do. I'll show you. And., I started drinking and it's like, you never stopped. That's what they say as well. You don't go back to the one drink and oh, that's enough. You just pick up where you left off and then it's just hardcore.

[00:27:52] Lindsey: You're right back in it. 

[00:27:53] Eleanor: Yeah. 

[00:27:53] Mike: Did you alone on that kind of call it a relapse. Did you drink alone by yourself or did you call a girlfriend and say, hey, let's get bombed. 

[00:28:04] Eleanor: No, I'd usually we'll either, or it didn't matter to me, but I drank alone a lot. '

[00:28:09] Mike: because I was just curious to see those people that knew that you were that far along to see if anybody, like you had said your first husband kind of helped you along by buying you the wine coolers and stuff. So, I wondered if like, you know, a close friend, one of the girlfriends or whatnot would have said, Hey, yeah. Okay. Let's have some wine. 

[00:28:26] Eleanor: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just probably, I did it in secret at first, but nobody ever came up to me and said, hey lady figured this. So, you got a drinking problem. I'm surprised nobody did because I was terrible. So yeah, when I went back to it, it was just like, oh, there's the old Ellie again 

[00:28:45] Lindsey: wow. How many times did you quit and then start again? Do you have any idea? 

[00:28:51] Eleanor: No, there was so many, 

[00:28:53] Lindsey: like more than 10.

[00:28:55] Eleanor: Oh yeah, 

[00:28:55] Lindsey: really?

[00:28:56] Eleanor: Because I hated myself the next day. I always hated myself. The next day because I was never a nicely nice little drinker. 

[00:29:06] Mike: Well, and you probably also realize in your heart of hearts, that it wasn't who you really were, 

[00:29:12] Mike: You change as a person because you know, I'm burying, I'm suppressing the true who, who I really am. And it sucks because you get so far and then you just have that one slip and it's like, I got to start over again. That's the psychological side of things for sure. But you know, we've always kind of hit on this in the previous is that you're trying to quit, and you fall off the horse. You gotta get back on it as fast as you can because what's waiting another day. Right. It's just prolonging the inevitable that you're going to get there. So over 10 times, wow. That's yeah. 

[00:29:44] Mike: And how long were the, the different bouts, like another months and months or like until finally clicked in? 

[00:29:52] Eleanor: I don't even remember. I just know I was always trying to quit drinking, but that one, where I said, I made it two weeks shy of a year. That was my one kind of I had that coin in my purse. You go to AA and after you make it so many days you get that coin. So, I always had that as my proof. Yeah. Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I did. I'm not drinking. Right. I got that coin and, but I don't know. I just remember I was always, remorseful, but so in 96 was when I was in that program. So, 97 almost, and then yeah, hardcore drinking and then I drank right up until it was in March. And I went out, I also talk about that in my book. I went out drank way too much. And then there was an incident in the parking lot again, just chaos and all this other stuff. luckily, I got a ride home. I had my car there. Wow. And I woke up the next morning and I looked at myself in the mirror and this is, I remember this. I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, well, my hair looks so good, but guess what?

[00:31:06] Eleanor: I had thrown up in your hair and the bottom of my hair yeah. Was vomit dried up from it. But I hadn't been doing that. I had no recollection of it. I just thought my hair looked good in the morning and how out of it. I was, and then it was like, oh my gosh. And then, okay. So yeah, I was still drunk in the morning and then the whole cycle starts again. You're hung over remorseful. I'll never drink again. Never drink it. No, I'm really never going to drink again. The next weekend I went on another big bender. 

[00:31:40] Eleanor: So, bender number two. 

[00:31:43] Lindsey: Yeah, no kidding. 

[00:31:45] Eleanor: And that was the point were. Again. Yeah. Like whom knows it? Just imagine the worst. That's probably what I did, cause yeah. Always turned out the same and my niece came up to me. I don't know if it was the next day or two days later or whatever it was. And she had said Ellie, I think we should get baptized. And I just kind of looked at her and it was like, yeah, go for it, lady. I'm not interested. She goes, no, no, really, really, we need to get baptized, and we need to do it right away. And I really was not interested even though yeah. We were going to church. 

[00:32:20] Lindsey: Yeah. 

[00:32:20] Eleanor: And I don't even know why that wasn't interesting to me, but anyway, it wasn't, but she said, we're getting baptized Ellie. And I said, no, we're not. And then two weeks later we were baptized. 

[00:32:32] Lindsey: Ah, that's amazing. 

[00:32:35] Eleanor: And so that's sort of, the part of my story that, goes in a different direction now, but because we got baptized on May 6th, 2001, and I have my little thing here, somebody gave me this journal on my baptism day.

[00:32:57] Lindsey: That's amazing.

[00:32:58] Eleanor: And it says, Eleanor, a prayer journal for you on this special day on your baptism. And she goes on just to, this is what she gave me. And all I write in here is I'm writing about, when am I going to have my next drink? No, no. And May 16th. Oh one. Thank you for taking away my desire to drink for today. So. For today and throughout this 

[00:33:27] Kelly: was that the first one is that your day one? 

[00:33:29] Eleanor: I didn't have anything to drink two weeks before we got baptized about two weeks. Maybe it was a little bit longer. Cause yeah, that was March or April. I went on those benders and then May got baptized, but my first entry so may, so it was 10 days later. It was my first entry. And that's all I wondered about was why wasn't drinking. But I did say thank you to God for taking away my desire to drink for today. So, I hadn't, put two and two together at all. Right. But I never did drink again from that day on. 

[00:34:01] Kelly: So, May 16th will be 21 years coming up and, in a month, 

[00:34:08] Eleanor: Yeah. May 6, 20, 22 will be 21 years. 

[00:34:12] Kelly: That's amazing. So, what would you say change that day? Do you know? Or, 

[00:34:17] Eleanor: well, yeah, I did not know that that was gonna be the outcome. I had no idea, but what I realized now is that when you get baptized, you ever wonder why you go down in the water and why am I going to tank here a minute, a jacuzzi with my clothes on, in front of the whole congregation, but you're standing there before you go under the water and you are who you are. And then you go under the water, they put you under the water and when you come up out of the water, they say you're a new creation. And so, if you're a new creation, that old person that went under the water died and all the, I guess the alcohol person died under the water. And when I came back up out of the water, I was a new creation. I did not know that that was going to happen. I didn't know that because I didn't really understand baptism. I just, I did it because my niece asked me to, and she was just adamant on it. So. Anyways though, but that is my miracle story, 

[00:35:23] Kelly: that's so amazing thank you 

[00:35:26] Eleanor: I just did. I didn't have a clue that I would never drink again. I just haven't drank is I have no desire to drink. 

[00:35:35] Kelly: It's gone. 

[00:35:38] Lindsey: I was going to ask because every day for you before that was literally the willpower fight to not drink. And it's all you could think about. And now you don't even think about it.

[00:35:49] Eleanor: I don't think about drinking. I even after that point, I was trying to think, yeah, even worked in the bar at some point there too, but I just had no desire. I wasn't tempted by. Wow. If I went out with friends and they'd say, oh, well, we're going to go here and there, whatever. And I go and, and its like, is it okay if we have a drink? It's like, it's fine. I didn't sit there and go, oh, I bet that tastes good. Ooh, she's having a Rye and Coke. Or which was the way it was before when I wasn't drinking. I still wanted to drink this. Now the desire was gone, but 

[00:36:24] Lindsey: so, are you creating your own, your new self? Are you you're the new creation that you came up out of the water as this new creation? Are you in the driver's seat? Creating? 

[00:36:37] Eleanor: I would say, this is the part I didn't know about it's God.

[00:36:41] Lindsey: Yeah. 

[00:36:41] Eleanor: God is the one that. Given me this miracle, I would not be alive today, otherwise. Yeah, I definitely would not be. I know that for a fact, because I just had no control the other way, but yeah, I just had no idea that that is what was going to be the outcome of my getting baptized. again, I really didn't say much to people. They knew I wasn't drinking, but in an and then people would start to congratulate me on my willpower, and I'd be like, I have no power. Yeah. But it's, it's all God really

[00:37:21] Tracey: did have a rebirth there. 

[00:37:24] Eleanor: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:37:26] Kelly: I love that. 

[00:37:27] Eleanor: Yeah. It was just such a surprise to me. I didn't figure it out for months and months. I was just thinking, well, is tomorrow in those journals? It's like, is tomorrow going to be the day? I did not know that I would never struggle with it again, that this is the desire would be gone for. Good. 

[00:37:45] Lindsey: Wow. 

[00:37:46] Tracey: That's amazing. 

[00:37:47] Lindsey: That is a pretty exceptional story. Yeah. 

[00:37:51] Kelly: What would you say to somebody who is on the same path as you were before that day that you wrote that 

[00:37:58] Eleanor: well, it has to be kind of nobody wants to be told what to do, and that's the, the part where you do have to kind of come to the end of yourself, right? Like when you were saying about rock bottoms, but what I would say is it doesn't have to take that, but yeah. I remember crying out to God that time there, that I had the lemons under my armpits there, where I thought, it was going to pass away. I remember just crying out to God, like save me, like really, really saved me because I don't want to die yet. So, I would say to anybody, like you don't have to be at that rock bottom point, just still cry out to God. And he will, he'll show up for you every single time. 

[00:38:40] Kelly: That's amazing. 

[00:38:42] Lindsey: That's so amazing. Oh, you are such an inspiration. And I just wanted to thank you for sharing your beautiful story. 

[00:38:51] Kelly: Oh, you've given this gift back to the world. What's your book called? 

[00:38:55] Eleanor: It's called my purpose written life. Not to be mistaken with my purpose driven, 

[00:39:01] Kelly: driven. I've heard that purpose written life. 

[00:39:06] Eleanor: I believe that that is one of my purposes is just to, to share that, that story and if I'm not sort of out there verbalizing it, where you can, it can be taken, Maybe like, oh yeah, that's good for you, but you don't know my story type thing. It's hard to verbalize it all, but in a book, people can, take it or leave it. They can read it and form their own, opinion about it. Or it might resonate with people and be like, okay, I never thought of it that way before. 

[00:39:38] Tracey: That's a good point. That's a really good point. But now you are sharing it out there too verbally, which is great. And we're thankful for that 

[00:39:48] Lindsey: for sure. Yeah. Incredible story. 

[00:39:51] Mike: And what are some of the things you do now to preoccupy your time?

[00:39:54] Eleanor: Well, I took a dog grooming. A few years ago. And so, I'm sitting here in my grooming room and I, I love animals. So, they fill me up and I'm trying to do a little side gig of dog grooming. Yeah. 

[00:40:13] Mike: That's awesome. 

[00:40:14] Eleanor: So, and like, everyone else, I guess COVID is change the world and stuff like that, but it makes you realize how lucky well, for me, I realize how lucky I am, that like, when you do get to see family or friends, it's like, wow, who knew just even something like that would be as precious as it is 

[00:40:35] Lindsey: for sure.

[00:40:36] Eleanor: But yeah, I still am. And instead of always going for drinks, I used to like, go for drinks, go for drinks. Let's go for drinks. Now it's a lot of, well, not now, but before COVID it's go for coffee. I can still go for drinks too. I just don't drink. Oh, I can have anything, just, I don't choose alcohol, but. I don't want people to think. All of a sudden, you turn into a stick in the mud or something. 

[00:41:01] Kelly: It doesn't sound like you miss out on anything. No, you wake up with clean hair. Looks pretty clean. Ellie. 

[00:41:09] Eleanor: There's no barf. Oh my gosh. 

[00:41:15] Lindsey: I may have barfed in my hair at one point or another. I'm just saying.

[00:41:20] Kelly: Sure. I did. 

[00:41:24] Lindsey: We do not wreck. You do not recommend. No, no. 

[00:41:27] Lindsey: That's amazing 

[00:41:30] Mike: oatmeal in your hair like that.

[00:41:32] Lindsey: Well, I can laugh now. 

[00:41:36] Mike: That's why it's laugh. life we have to laugh at those moments. 

[00:41:41] Lindsey: Yeah. Oh my God. 

[00:41:44] Tracey: Yeah. That's part which I'll get, you thought your hair looks

[00:41:47] Eleanor: the straight. I think I was seeing double and was like, I just remember looking in the mirror. It's like, oh my hair.

[00:41:54] Lindsey: Wow. God 

[00:41:58] Mike: Ellie. Can I ask you a question? So how did you meet your second husband was in relation to an environment where alcohol wasn't involved or something along those lines.

[00:42:07] Mike: That's my 

[00:42:07] Lindsey: name.

[00:42:13] Eleanor: Yeah, I did. I met him at, I don't know if you remember Lindsay, that bar called coyotes. 

[00:42:19] Lindsey: Yes, I do. On Pembina. 

[00:42:22] Eleanor: Used to be Chucky cheese and drink there too. Yeah. 

[00:42:29] Lindsey: Wow. 

[00:42:30] Tracey: Does he drink Ellie? 

[00:42:31] Eleanor: Yeah, just socially he's so wonderful and it wouldn't matter anyway, but he's never had a drink in the house here. Right. Goes in and has a drink. He goes in the garage and have the drink, but it wouldn't bother me anyway, but I think he just does that out of respect, but he doesn't have a problem with it anyway, you know? So that's the thing is that I learned at the AFM there, it's like, well, how come some people can have a few drinks and they don't turn into this nut person and then other people. If you're an alcoholic, as soon as you have that first sip of a drink, you’ll never be able to stop that craving of alcohol. That's why, for me, even like, you've had 16 drinks now it's three in the morning and you still looking for more alcohol. That doesn't make sense, but it's that your body is doing that. So 

[00:43:24] Mike: yeah. It's like sugar cravings and nicotine and it's an addiction. Yeah. Hands down. 

[00:43:31] Eleanor: Yeah. Yeah. So, but so he, anyway, yeah, he doesn't have a problem. 

[00:43:36] Lindsey: Yeah, I would kind of wonder about that too. Now that you're saying those things, I'm that type of person. I can't just have one drink. If I don't drink. I don't think about it. I've never craved it. I don't have withdrawal symptoms. If I have one. A sip of wine, that's it? Yeah. I am the person at 4:00 AM. After 16 drinks blacked out looking for more wine. It didn't get that far all the time. Right. But that's yeah, there wasn't just one glass. I've, I did go for dinners, have one glass of wine and that was it, but that's not what I wanted to do. My inclination was to keep drinking. If I was leaving dinner and I didn't have wine at home, we were going to get wine, so I can relate to you on that for sure. 

[00:44:26] Tracey: Definitely people have different tolerances and our different drunks Right. There are people that it just doesn't agree with almost. And, but they still drink and do it on a regular basis and yeah. And then there's some people who can drink a lot and you wouldn't even know they're drinking. Right. I think I actually disguised my drinking pretty well, because it would take a lot for me to drink for you to even notice I was drunk or tipsy or anything like that. Like, my tolerance was probably unusually high.

[00:44:58] Eleanor: Okay. 

[00:44:58] Tracey: And odd because even when I was younger and didn't drink a lot, right. From the get-go starting drinking, I always had a high tolerance. And I think it's kind of maybe genetic thing because my dad was a drinker, and he had a really high tolerance to 

[00:45:16] Eleanor: interesting. Okay, so you didn't change personalities.

[00:45:21] Tracey: No, not really. Unless I was really, really deep into drinking or something else threw off the course of my evening. If I didn't eat a lot or I was sleep deprived or something, something that would otherwise kind of change your mental state, then I might get drunk quicker or, you know, seem less like myself. But usually if it was just a regular night and I'd had a meal and had some drinks, I could drink a lot, a lot before anybody would notice. Yeah. I always thought it was shocking when I listened to the girls. Talk about blacking out because that wasn't something I experienced.

[00:46:00] Lindsey: I experienced that quite a lot. 

[00:46:03] Kelly: Me too. Yeah. 

[00:46:06] Eleanor: And then people tell you what you did the next day. And you're like, I didn't do that. Yeah, you did. 

[00:46:13] Lindsey: And worse yet. Here's a picture, a video of it. And I'm like, oh my God. That's like that pit, not your anxiety. Your face goes red and you're just so humiliated. You want to die under a rock?

[00:46:27] Kelly: Yeah. I never want to feel that again. Never, ever. Nope.

[00:46:32] Eleanor: Oh boy. Crazy days. 

[00:46:35] Lindsey: Well, does anybody else have any questions for miss Ellie before we wrap up? 

[00:46:40] Mike: I got one. I'm curious about. So, you said you worked for somebody. Did your alcohol ever interfere with your job at all? Like drinking at work or drinking at lunch or anything like that? 

[00:46:51] Eleanor: No, I didn't drink at work or at lunch, but I was hung over a lot. Yeah. But I usually could make it into work. The odd time I'd have to phone in sick. I don't know about you guys, but for me, Sunday was always a bad day cause like I can't drink Sunday because I gotta go to work on Monday. And the more you said that or felt that it'd be like, oh, maybe I'll just go have a drink. But I was always hung over on a Monday. Seemed like girls I'd have to phone and sit kind of Monday. Mondays 

[00:47:22] Kelly was my biggest hangover day. Yeah. Really? Sunday family dinner. Sunday nights. Yeah. 

[00:47:28] Lindsey: No way. 

[00:47:30] Mike: Sunday was recovery day for me from Friday and Saturday. 

[00:47:36] Lindsey: Sunday was recovery day, 

[00:47:38] Mike: greasy food. McDonald's horizontal on the couch.

[00:47:43] Kelly: Yeah, well, yeah. I could have my Sunday Caesar to nurse the hang over from Saturday 

[00:47:48] Mike: the hair of the dog. How could I forget? I never did that. Wow. See, everybody's got a different story. I really want to say. Thanks for sharing your story with us, for sure. 

[00:48:03] Lindsey: So good. 

[00:48:04] Tracey: Yeah. 

[00:48:05] Kelly: I can't wait to read your book. Where can we buy it?

[00:48:09] Eleanor: I was saying they do have some, well, I don't know if they still have copies, but halls, bookstore in Winnipeg did have some, I don't know if they've sold them. I didn't, I haven't heard, but I have copies here. If anyone wants, when I can just, mail them out or whatever.

[00:48:24] Kelly: Okay. So, if our listeners. would like a copy of your book. Can we share your email address or is there somewhere, or would you like them to just contact us directly? 

[00:48:34] Eleanor: Oh, whatever's best for you, but I can give my email address. 

[00:48:37] Kelly: Sure. We can put it in the show notes at the end.

[00:48:39] Eleanor: Yeah. 

[00:48:40] Kelly: That's amazing. 

[00:48:41] Eleanor: ekotelniski@gmail.com 

[00:48:43] Kelly: Perfect. Well, yeah, it'll be in the notes for sure. 

[00:48:49] Tracey: We'll get it from you and put it in the notes. 

[00:48:51] Eleanor: Okay, great. Yeah. 

[00:48:53] Tracey: Perfect.

[00:48:53] Lindsey: Love that. We're so honored to have you on Ellie. Oh my gosh. Your story is amazing. And you're an incredible person. You are beautiful and strong, and your story is going to definitely inspire, some people and you're not alone. And you're here with us. We each have our own stories and yeah. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing it. It was really powerful to listen to all the attempts, the program. And now, 21 years of sobriety. It's crazy. And thank God. Right? You're a blessing. I just want to say that you've been an absolute blessing sharing the story with us.

[00:49:39] Eleanor: Yeah, everybody has a different journey, 

[00:49:40] Kelly: so much. 

[00:49:42] Eleanor: Oh, you're welcome. Thanks very much for inviting me. 

[00:49:45] Lindsey: You're welcome. Alright everybody. That is a wrap. Check us out, LAF life podcast. Make sure you subscribe and give us a five-star rating so that you get our episodes every Tuesday. Thanks so much for tuning in and keep laughing. 

[00:50:03] Closing

[00:50:03] Kelly: Thank you for listening. Please give us a five-star rating like and subscribe, share on social media, and tell your friends. We love getting your feedback and ideas of what you'd like to hear on upcoming episodes of the laugh life podcast. If you yourself are living alcohol free and want to share your story here, please reach out.