RAISE THE BAR: On having meaningful conversations around Alcohol Season 3 Ep. 21

In this episode your hosts are having a meaningful conversation about Alcohol.  
Since choosing an alcohol free lifestyle we are often approached by people with lots of questions. We believe these conversations are important to have as you never know who you may be helping. We also recognize that some of those conversations can feel awkward or challenging especially with our teenagers. It's imperative as parents to be curious, ask questions and stay We also touch on how to talk to anyone in your life that may be reaching out because they are questioning their relationship with alcohol. We ask the hard questions while empathizing the importance of taking a gentle and non judgmental approach. The key is to make people feel supported enough to know the door is always open for future conversations.

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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.

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Transcript

Kelly: 0:02

Welcome to the LAF 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, and Lindsey 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. 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. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the LAF Life podcast. It's Trace, and I tonight. Hey, Trace.

Tracey: 0:47

Hey, how are you?

Kelly: 0:48

Good. How are you?

Tracey: 0:49

Good.

Kelly: 0:50

Good. So the topic we picked for tonight is how to have conversations around alcohol. There's definitely more talk I find about people not being happy with their relationship with alcohol. And hopefully that's what we're doing here is opening the door for more conversations. So yeah, we started to have a really good conversation before we started recording here. So let's just continue that.

Tracey: 1:16

Yeah what made me think about this topic was the fact that we have people reaching out to us all the time, right? Asking us about our journey with alcohol and kind of not drinking anymore. But also because we both have kids, right? And kids of an age where they're going to be curious and. Be at that stage of life where they might be trying alcohol or exposed to it. So I think it's important, or maybe we can shed some light or guidance for people if they are being approached with these types of conversations, or even having these conversations with their kids, because people can find it. Challenging, right? Yeah, I think there's a lot of people in general that have a hard time having tough conversations with their kids or feeling comfortable, I think our generation does a bit better job of that because I think we're a little more open which is great, but I think there's still people that probably find it awkward to bring up these things and they're important conversations to have.

Kelly: 2:17

Yeah, for sure. I will always want to say to people you don't have to drink.

Tracey: 2:21

Yeah,

Kelly: 2:22

I think that's the main thing is you don't have to like, yeah, it's around, it's everywhere, but you don't have to partake. And it's like a superpower when you're not doing what everybody else is doing.

Tracey: 2:33

And it's amazing that's not how we think. Or how we're taught, right? Society doesn't teach us that we can just say no, I think there was a old school ad way back in our day to just say no. But

Kelly: 2:49

just say no. Yeah,

Tracey: 2:50

I think that went away. At some point.

Kelly: 2:52

But it was an alcohol, I don't think.

Tracey: 2:55

No, it was drugs.

Kelly: 2:56

Yeah. Drugs,

Tracey: 2:56

right?

Kelly: 2:57

Yeah, there was that whole war on drugs.

Tracey: 2:59

It might have been even around sex as well, oh. Just say no. Abstain. Yeah. But never around. I didn't get, I didn't get either of those messages and we were talking on an episode not that long ago about how it's like a rite of passage, which I hope that, goes away. I see people. Posting like here the drinking age is 18 and it's 19. there like posting taking their kids and they're still kids like taking their kids out and posting a picture of them all drinking alcohol together. I hope that's something that goes to the wayside. That's definitely a good point to make for people with teenage kids. Give them something to think about to not encourage that. Yeah, and recently, too, I've just heard a lot about, how ridiculous it is that people make such a big deal out of us saying no to alcohol or saying, no, I'm not going to have a drink and they wouldn't push you to do lots of other things like drugs or whatnot, they wouldn't make a big deal if you said no to that. But meanwhile, they make such a big deal over saying no to alcohol.

Kelly: 4:05

Yeah, even though alcohol is the one that causes the most damage.

Tracey: 4:08

And the most deaths. That was one thing that I was listening to that was talking about that. It was actually directly related to how many deaths alcohol causes, and it's way more than most of the drugs out there.

Kelly: 4:22

It's more than all the drugs combined, I believe.

Tracey: 4:25

Could be. It's definitely enough to consider the fact that people should just be able to say no.

Kelly: 4:33

Yes, exactly.

Tracey: 4:34

Yeah.

Kelly: 4:35

I loved our episode. Was it last episode with Tracy?

Tracey: 4:38

Yes. Yes.

Kelly: 4:39

Yeah. And how she was. Yeah. saying, you can tell your kids just to say no, or just be careful or just have one drink or whatever. And she suggested having the kids practice what they're going to say. So when somebody at the party or at the social event or at the football game, offers an alcoholic beverage, what are you going to say? Let's practice and how affect how much more effective it is for their confidence to practice saying it out loud. Don't just think about it and plan it, practice it. And as adults too, cause I know that was a big fear for me was like, how am I going to go to social events now? And what am I going to say? What are people going to think? I think that would have been helpful for me too, just to practice what I was going to say. And now it's easy. It's just Oh no, thanks. Yeah, it's like you don't have to give an explanation,

Tracey: 5:27

right? That's what she was saying. And I thought that was brilliant. Not something I would have thought of doing with my daughter. So that's definitely advice I'm going to give her.

Kelly: 5:37

Yeah.

Tracey: 5:38

And It's so funny how we just overthink it, right? Like you said, now it's just second nature. You just say, no, thank you. You get to a point where most people don't ask or don't notice or whatever. It's not as important as we play it up in our heads to be, right?

Kelly: 5:55

No, exactly. I've said it before on here and I'm going to say it again is I was so afraid of that thing. And it turned out, nobody seemed to care,

Tracey: 6:04

right?

Kelly: 6:04

Like I didn't, I know a lot of people do. And I've seen that out there, but I didn't get a lot of questions. I didn't get a lot of people saying how come you're not drinking or, I really didn't. And it was a big fear of mine.

Tracey: 6:16

Yeah, for sure. The other thing I was saying was, when it comes to people reaching out or asking you about your own journey or reaching out because they're concerned about their drinking, I was saying, I'm a strong believer that everybody should have someone in their lives that's going to ask them the hard questions, right? That's going to tell them the truth. Be dead honest, ask them the hard questions that they're not asking themselves. As a way to prompt them to think in a different way, so to me, it's very important that you have at least 1 friend in your life like that. That's going to push you outside your comfort zone when you're in those situations where you're questioning decisions you're making. So if you're questioning your relationship with alcohol and questioning how. It's affecting your life or it's influence on your life. I think you really need to ask yourself some of those tough questions something we talked about 1 question. I think you should ask yourself is how is alcohol aligning with who. You are and who you want to be, right? And I think there's a whole string of questions you can ask in that line of questions. How is it helping you accomplish the things you want to accomplish? If you're a person that cares about health and wellness, how do you justify how it's contributing to your health and wellness? If you can't justify the reason for it being in your life, or tell me how alcohol benefits your life.

Kelly: 7:49

Yeah. I love that question.

Tracey: 7:50

It's as simple as that.

Kelly: 7:53

Yeah.

Tracey: 7:53

What are you getting from it and how is it benefiting you? Then on the flip side what are you afraid of if you don't have it in your life? And I think one of the keys to when people reach out is to always welcome them with kindness and patience because. They're on the same or similar journey. You've been on, think about how long did it take you to finally make the decision?

Kelly: 8:16

Oh, god. Yeah.

Tracey: 8:17

I know for me, I was contemplating it and having that internal battle for probably 2 years before I finally gave it up. I know the people that have reached out to me, they might have reached out to me more than once and they're still doing that internal. Yes, contemplating, and it might take them a while to finally make that decision. So you just have to be gentle in your encouragement. That's the approach I take.

Kelly: 8:46

Yeah. No judgment. Yes. Judgment. No question. Yeah, leaving the door open, like you said, Trace, I see people come back and it's still the same thing. We went through that cycle too. And what makes me sad is the people that I don't hear from. Ever again, because I'm not going to be like, Hey how are you doing? I don't want to make them feel guilty if they're still drinking and things like that. So it's like whoever's listening, there's no judgment, reach out as many times as you want. Cause it will stick one day. It will just keep trying. And I think that's why people, from what I've heard, that's what the mentality is. In AA right. So I think that's why that helps. A lot of people is they have that support in a non judgment type of way. There's people that have gone through that program that explain or describe, falling off the wagon and being, so full of shame, but then, they're still welcome with open arms by the other people around them. You want a soft place to land, and it's a process. So you have to understand. For every person, it's a process. Not many people just say, okay, I'm not going to drink anymore. And that was their thought today. And they just give it up like that. I think it's very important to like I said, just gently continue to support those people and encourage them and throw them a couple of nuggets of things to think about or encourage, great a lifestyle without alcohol can be. Mm hmm. Yeah. I've had people approach me and say Oh, I don't know if I could ever do that. I don't get on my soapbox and be like yes, you can. I did and you can too. That's not. But I just say, if that's something that's meant for you, you'll know when it's time. We all have that moment where it's okay, that's enough. Hopefully nothing terrible happens for some people it does. But a lot of us just have that moment where we're just like, Oh, can't do this anymore.

Tracey: 10:47

Yeah. You hope people get there before that happens.

Kelly: 10:50

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have anybody come to me. I don't feel like I had anybody in those, like you're saying, having that one friend, we'll say I had a friend that was also questioning her relationship with alcohol, my best friend. And we had a lot of conversations, we went on a lot of walks, but it was still more around like trying to fix. the relationship and keep it like, keep the moderating. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot around that. Then I quit and then she eventually quit. She unfortunately passed away. But yeah, we both ended up quitting, but it was more like those conversations were more. About, we know it's bad for us, but, let's drink less.

Tracey: 11:34

Did you have anybody that you reached out to Kel I always say seeing your story was an inspiration for me because I knew you, right? You weren't just some stranger, although I found those type of people in groups I joined on Facebook as well. But for me, Seeing you was more impactful because I knew you. So did you have anybody like that, that you knew that was inspiring you along the way?

Kelly: 12:00

No, I listened to the Bubble Hour podcast. And that was really helpful to me because I realized that those people were just like me. Hearing that they were moms and professionals and, things that and they weren't as I call it in the gutter, like I thought I had to be to quit. That was my like, Oh, the first few episodes I was like, Oh shit, I'm going to have to quit. Cause I was still trying to keep it at that point. And then I just kept on listening. I kept on listening. I kept on listening. It's just like an hour long episode of people's stories. And I had a really hard time once I quit, I had a really hard time just like being with my own thoughts. So those podcasts really helped me just keep my mind focused on something and obviously something positive. Cause I was hearing what they did and how they overcame that and what their life is like now. But then I also had a friend who I didn't know a lot about her. Journey, but I knew she was sober since she was 23 and she's the same age as me. So she had been sober for 20 years. She was the one that I reached out to and she took me to my first meeting. Okay. Okay. I'm so grateful for her. Yeah. She's just, yeah, she's an amazing friend. As far as having like you're talking about, it wasn't people that I knew, but it was definitely people that I'm very grateful. They put their stories out there cause they helped me a lot.

Tracey: 13:24

Yeah. No, thank you. I wish I had reached out to you sooner because I did know you, but I didn't know you well. So I think I was hesitant just for that reason. But then when I did, finally give it up, you were like the first person I wanted to reach out to. And I knew to reaching out to you that you would support it. So it made it easier for me to do it. I've mentioned, I did try to have conversations with my friends about it, but I think because they were doing it themselves and probably don't have a problem themselves with alcohol necessarily. They were just blowing it off. I wasn't having conversations with the right people is what I realized after the fact.

Kelly: 14:06

I think it's huge. I think finding your people with that common thread that's why meetings are so important. And that's why Facebook communities work, finding a common thread with people because your friends and your family, they can be supportive and they'd be like, Oh yeah, that's good. Quit if you want or whatever, if they don't understand, we can't expect them to understand if they're not going through the same struggle. But I think that's a really important part of the whole. puzzle of all the pieces that have kept me here for over six years is that's one of the first main pieces was finding that common thread.

Tracey: 14:42

Yeah, I think it's important to make sure you're having those conversations with the right people. This is the message I would definitely want to share with people. Because once you do, and once you begin that, it's much easier to come to that decision it was much easier for me to stick with the decision after I reached out to you. Because when I reached out to you, I was only 3 months. And I really wasn't sure at that point, was it going to be something that stuck or that I stuck to? It was just something I was experimenting with yeah. Yeah, after reaching out to you, it really. That's what kind of helped make it stick,

Kelly: 15:19

right? Gives you some accountability. Yeah.

Tracey: 15:21

Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly: 15:22

Once I had a hundred days under my belt, I put it on Facebook publicly and I'm not a big I don't share a lot about my personal life on social media, but that sure was like, Holy shit. Like still when I make those posts, I'm like, okay, everybody knows, I guess I better keep doing this. Yeah. Yeah. And not everybody has to share like that. I was talking to somebody about that today. It's your own journey, but yeah, some sort of accountability, I think is a big

Tracey: 15:49

I was going to say it does definitely hold you accountable. And I think that's a big piece, too. Same with me. I announced it when I was my one year. And that was big for me, too. But I felt like at that point, it was something worth sharing. And then I knew that I was going to explore doing this. So I wanted to have it out there in the universe. I just felt like you gave me the courage to do that though, too. By Watching you share right

Kelly: 16:21

now. I love seeing that. I love seeing the authentic shares on social media because I think there's so much fake stuff on social media. I have somebody that I'm Facebook friends with her. I've only met her a couple of times in real life. But she quit smoking I don't know what her day is like a hundred and something today, but every day she posts it just with when you make texts and there's can be hearts behind it. And the other day she said, is this annoying? Like, is this annoying everybody? And we're all like, no, I love that positivity and the vulnerability around it too, and it gives people permission To their own truth. So whether it's drinking or smoking or, getting healthier or whatever, I do like that authenticity.

Tracey: 17:01

And it is something you should be proud of. That's what I've said many a times. You live in so much shame for so long, it helps you release yourself of that.

Kelly: 17:11

Yeah. And yeah, there'll be judgment. I know that people unfollowed me and unfriended me and they didn't want to see that, but you were watching, you never know who is watching these posts and reading things. Yeah. So the ones that unfollow and don't want to be supportive. Yeah. That's not meant for them. It's not meant for everybody.

Tracey: 17:30

That's what I heard the other day too, which I think it's very true. If somebody has a problem with the fact that you're not drinking, if they say anything other than, Oh, good for you or nothing, they're not your friend, right? Like they're saying something in judgment or questioning why you're not, or encouraging you to do it like, Oh yeah, just come on, yeah. That's not a friend, right? No. A friend and someone that cares about you should be supporting any big life decisions you make. Yeah. For yourself that you think are going to contribute to your happiness and your well being. Let's talk a little bit about how you have conversations with your kids, Kel. So what kind of conversations did you have? When did you start having conversations with your kids? Because you have three kids. I only have one. And yours are different ages. Their ages are staggered a little bit. Yeah.

Kelly: 18:25

So my kids grew up around. a lot of drinking. And the two younger ones don't drink. So I never told them not to, I never told them not to. I did let them when they were like 16 have a beer. In front of us what are we going to ask?

Tracey: 18:42

I was going to say, did you find a difference? Because obviously your oldest son had the most exposure to your drink. Do you find a difference in. Their attitude towards drinking, considering that him in comparison to your younger ones.

Kelly: 18:57

He is the one that drinks, but not problematic drinking. He's aware, I think, because of. what he knows. Now both of his parents don't drink. So yeah, I'm always just be careful. He had some pretty nasty hangovers when he was, like early twenties or late teens. So I don't, I think it affects him in a really good way when he drinks too much, and he knows that. So yeah. Maybe another question too, was your messaging different with him? Because were you still drinking when he became more at an experimental age? Oh yeah. We were still drinking good old Facebook memories came up the other day. And so it was 2000. I don't remember what year, but it was his 16th birthday. Okay. He's 28 now. So it was a long time ago, but my older sister had come to surprise him for his birthday and his grandparents were there and we had a big dinner at our house and my sister had posted pictures after she came. Yeah. I was just like those pictures. I remember I was just trashed. Drunk. He grew up in like a party atmosphere.

Tracey: 20:08

I'm not asking those questions to put you on the spot, I'm asking you.

Kelly: 20:12

It's a little uncomfortable, but that's okay. No,

Tracey: 20:14

but you know why I'm asking you is because you actually have the unique opportunity to come from two perspectives.

Kelly: 20:20

Yeah. Because you

Tracey: 20:21

have a bit of an age gap between your kids. So you have the perspective of your older one being at an impressionable age when you were drinking in comparison to your younger ones, they were at that age when you were going through your sobriety journey.

Kelly: 20:38

Yes.

Tracey: 20:39

Correct.

Kelly: 20:40

Yes. Yeah.

Tracey: 20:41

So I just think you can offer both perspectives, which might be helpful to people,

Kelly: 20:45

yeah. I don't know. It was how they were influenced, right? They all grew up around drinking yeah. Yeah,

Tracey: 20:53

I meant if they were asking about drinking or your approach or conversations with them about drinking, if they were any different say, with your oldest to your youngest, like, when he got to teenagers. Like you said, you let them drink. You let them all drink at 16.

Kelly: 21:10

Yeah, they were allowed to have a beer, like not get drunk or anything like that. None of them did that when they were young, my oldest had more opportunity to drink because he told us later on that he would take alcohol from us. And of course there was alcohol. Yeah. The younger ones. Yeah. They had that when they were younger. They told us at the cottage, they would drink the bottoms of our drinks and stuff like that. The younger ones. But yeah, my kids have been around a lot of alcohol.

Tracey: 21:37

Hey, so has mine. I joke around now that we're not going to be the party house because there's not going to be any booze here so nobody's coming here and stealing our booze. It's non existent.

Kelly: 21:51

Yeah, we do. But we have fun. Yeah we will have alcohol in the house, like when my oldest comes for dinner, I'll buy some beers for him and stuff.

Tracey: 21:58

I'm not opposed to having alcohol in the house. It's just Randy and I both don't drink. So unless we have company, the likelihood of there being alcohol here is pretty slim.

Kelly: 22:09

Yes. Yes. Same here. Yeah. But yeah the younger ones choosing not to drink, that was their choice. The youngest one hasn't come out and said I'm never going to drink again, but I honestly don't think he will. The middle one is not what Carter was on the podcast, which was so fun, but yeah, he's not, I don't see him. He doesn't see himself drinking. Ever and that was by their choice and they had all the information. My message was mostly be careful and also you don't have to drink like, you don't have to drink. That's not something you have to do.

Tracey: 22:38

That's good. Yeah. No, same here. I just try to be open with my daughter. So if she decides to she feels comfortable telling me and if she's stuck somewhere in an altered state, she feels comfortable to reach out to me and she jokes that she'd be like, calling me, freaking out because she does have anxiety. So there's a couple of things that deters her from drinking, which is. To my advantage, I think she does have anxiety. She's. Concern that if she drank, she'd just be more anxious and she'd be having like, a freak out. And then she's also concerned because she absolutely hates puking. She has the biggest fear of puking. So she knows a lot of, 1st time alcohol experiences comes with puking. So that's a big deterrent for her as well. So we laugh and joke about those things, but I'm not naive. I know there's probably going to come a point where she might look past those things, or be under peer pressure or whatnot, be in a situation where she decides she's going to try it. It could be curiosity, or it could just be, okay, her friends are doing it and she feels like she should or wants to, so I just try to make her feel comfortable when those situations arise that same type of thing. Yes, you can say no, but also if you are curious and decide to do it I'm not going to be mad at you. just make sure you're safe and that's, my biggest concern is your safety. But I also have very candid conversations with her and I think this is really important and maybe something we haven't talked enough about on the podcast. Maybe it's a whole separate topic episode one time, but I think it's very important to discuss the vulnerability girls especially put themselves in. Vulnerable situations under the influence of alcohol when they're young and naive with men or boys.

Kelly: 24:32

Oh yeah. Oh my God. Tracy. Yes. I was in so many.

Tracey: 24:38

Yes. And I was two

Kelly: 24:39

situations. Yeah.

Tracey: 24:41

I think actually a couple of my first drinking experiences We're like that. So I think that actually deterred me from drinking. That's probably why I didn't drink much in high school after that, nor in my early days. So I do talk to my daughter about that. And I tell her be careful if you're at a party and there's boys there and there's drinking. Yes. Unfortunately, I think that's just. A reality of life and

Kelly: 25:08

yeah,

Tracey: 25:08

I don't think anybody is intentionally trying to be harmful or malicious, but you don't know how people are going to act when they have a substance in them and it can change people's behaviors.

Kelly: 25:21

And as we know, yes, it does change. The ability to make good judgment or decisions. And I think that becomes a factor where judgment and good decision making go out the window, and then if they start getting encouraged by their friends. It gets worse. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Tracey: 25:40

I think it's it's scary to think about, actually, and I'm sure there were situations. We had our guests, Nicole. Who spoke candidly about some of her experiences in high school too. I'm sure you've thought about this too, because I have the situations could have been way worse that I was lucky didn't turn out that way. I'll never forget this. Kel, you talking about a time when you left your door unlocked.

Kelly: 26:06

Oh, I was just thinking about that. I'm like, have I told that? Yeah, I was 19 or 20. And yeah, I would wake up and have like stuff that I got from 7 Eleven on my way home that I didn't remember buying. And then my freaking door was unlocked in downtown Ottawa.

Tracey: 26:22

Yeah,

Kelly: 26:23

like that is so I'm lucky to be alive. I really see that. I do not know.

Tracey: 26:27

And that's the thing. I think it's a hard conversation again to have, but a necessary one. Yes. Kids should be made aware, especially females, that these are risks that you're taking when you decide to try drugs or alcohol. They're real things that happen, unfortunately.

Kelly: 26:47

Yeah. So you want to change the subject a little bit?

Tracey: 26:49

Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly: 26:50

I have gotten to the point where I like calling people out or organizations out or businesses out or things out on not recognizing what they should know about alcohol. So I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and the nurse, I think she was a nurse or an assistant or something, came in first and she was like making all the notes on the computer before the doctor came in. So she was asking me all these questions about my history and asked about what kind of job I had. You could see that it's getting to it's her life stressful or, figure that out. And then asked me if I smoked cigarettes. Then it was over and then he let her, do all the thing or whatever. And I'm like, Hey, can I ask you something? You asked me about cigarettes, but you didn't ask me about alcohol and she's Oh, with certain types of cancer, like da the cigarettes or whatever. I'm like, but alcohol is a carcinogen and it causes seven different types of cancer. I was still kind, like I wasn't like in her face. And at first she was like, Oh, like you could tell people don't usually ask her questions. But by the end of it, she was like really appreciative. She's yeah, you're right. I should like, she's obviously going by what she's been told to ask. But she's yeah, I'm going to send your feedback or something like that. It was really cute the way it ended, but that's my goal now is to, yeah. Call things out. Like we've done with the yoga and wine on Instagram and doing charity fundraisers, for cancer and serving wine. That's insane. I'm calling that shit out for now on. I vow to just say something and I'll do it in a kind way. And I hope my hope is to have people see things in a different way.

Tracey: 28:30

I say this even about some people's behavior. Sometimes people don't even realize they're doing something that's so wrong and it takes someone bringing it to their attention. And I don't think it's any different with these type of things. And again, it's so socially accepted that people just don't think about it. And you know what? There are going to be times where you say something and people are going to just be like, Oh, forget it. You know what I mean? And then

Kelly: 28:59

yeah,

Tracey: 29:00

there's going to be other times where people are like, Oh, wow that really made me think twice.

Kelly: 29:06

And maybe not in the moment, but I hope I'm planting a seed, yeah, just give some thought. Hopefully, they'll give some thought to it.

Tracey: 29:14

Change in the world, Kel. One comment or post at a time.

Kelly: 29:23

But with the amount of information that's out there now, why are we blindly doing some of these things now? When we know what's not good. Why are we still doing it? Just because we've always done it like, let's shake things up a bit. Let's do things differently. Oh my God. I don't accept that even as an answer. I tell the people at my work, don't ever come to me and say, we do it this way because this is the way we've always done it. Yes.

Tracey: 29:47

I'm like, that's not an acceptable answer. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do it. No.

Kelly: 29:54

There's a better way. There's a better way. There's a better way to live. Now. There's a better way to celebrate. Now. There's a, like there is a better way.

Tracey: 30:01

Yeah. I posted something actually on my LinkedIn page. It was a repost of someone's that had a statement about that and how basically that's the death of your business, right? It's having that mentality. And I think it's really no different in life. It's like what Tony Robbins says. Every living thing, if they're not growing, it's dying. You're not growing, you're dying. Yeah, it's no different with people. You have to look at things from different perspectives and it's okay to challenge things every once in a while. Nothing has been changed in this world without someone challenging it. That's how change happens. Speaking of change, it's no different with changing yourself. It happens little by little, right? And it's the same with this. You're just going to peck at it, plug away at it little by little, all those little inputs are bringing it to people's attention.

Kelly: 30:53

And I think that's, like using our voice and speaking up as women, we've been silenced for so long and taught to be nice and quiet. And I guess no more of that. Just say it

Tracey: 31:04

I agree.

Kelly: 31:06

Yeah.

Tracey: 31:06

All right. I think we touched on a lot of great stuff there, Kel.

Kelly: 31:10

I think so too.

Tracey: 31:11

And hopefully we gave some content. Listeners something to think about questions they can ask themselves questions or conversations they can have with their kids. A couple of ideas around that don't be afraid to reach out. I love having those conversations. And that's the thing too, like I was thinking when we were talking about people messaging us and stuff like that, I understand and I recognize the fact that sometimes those messages like that one message, that first message is the first time they've ever told anybody that they're struggling. So I feel honored that somebody would reach out to me with that and I also have a lot of respect for that and will treat it with as much kindness as I can. Yeah, I was going to say that's a gift, right? That they've chosen you and that they feel comfortable to be vulnerable with you to yeah, expose themselves in a way. Yeah. And I'm not an expert and I'm not a, medical professional, but there's that common thread we were talking about before, just talking to somebody who's been in your position before. Yeah, I remember I'll never forget it. Yeah, and it's a safe place, right? Again, going back to being that safe place for someone to land. Yeah, when they need it. I agree. I love it when people reach out. So everybody out there keep doing it. We're here for you. We have our facebook group that's growing and yes, it's private. It's a private community. Yeah, and that's a safe place to ask questions or throw some comments in there, and people will provide you with some feedback. If you're looking for other support type of things, like support systems, there's people in that group and ourselves that can give you some direction in that sense, too. We've had so many great, amazing guests on the show that a lot of them are recovery coaches and do all different types of work with people. Definitely could recommend a few of those too.

Kelly: 33:07

Yeah, for sure.

Tracey: 33:08

We don't have an episode next week. I should mention that maybe. So go back and listen to your favorite episode next week. Yeah. Tracy is on holidays next week. So we will all be taking a vacation from the podcast next week, just for one week. Tune in again the following Tuesday and we'll have a brand new episode for you, but like Kelly suggested, definitely catch up on some episodes. Like Kelly mentioned, go to our Facebook community at LAF Life and follow us on Instagram at LAF Life Podcast. Check out our website, there's resources on there, www. laflifepodcast. com, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Hopefully we gave you some good information, and until next time, you know what to do. Keep laughing.

Kelly: 34:01

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 LAF life podcast. If you yourself are living alcohol free and want to share your story here, please reach out.