The Beauty in Broken: Tracy Viola's path beyond "Pretty Wrecked" Season 3 Ep. 20

Self published author of "Pretty Wrecked", Tracy Viola is letting the stink out of her trash can as she divulges the challenges she faced as a teenager that lead her to believe  when she tried drugs & alcohol that she had found the answers to everything! Tracy was a teenage addict that was fortunate enough to find recovery at the young age of 20. Tracy wrote her story from a unique perspective after 28 yrs of sobriety she decided it was finally time to share her story of triumph and her strength in recovery. Tracy's self published novel "Pretty Wrecked" Confessions of a Teenage Addict and Her Road to Recovery is currently available on Amazon. Get it now!!

Pick up Tracy book on her website: https://www.tracyviolaauthor.com/
Follow Tracy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracyviolaauthor/

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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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Song: Rise and Thrive
Artist: Young Presidents

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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.

Tracey: 0:40

Welcome back to the LAF Life Podcast. Tonight we have another fantastic guest joining us. We have another Tracy, actually. Tracy Viola is here, a self published author, who just released a book yesterday, called Pretty Wrecked. We are so excited to have Tracy here and find out more about her sober journey. Tracy kind of has a unique story because she had an addiction in her teenage years and she's actually been sober now for 28 years and has decided to write about her whole experience and then what her recovery journey has been like since. Thank you so much for joining us, Tracy. We're so excited to meet you.

Tracy: 1:24

Thank you so much, Tracy. I'm so excited to be here and talk about, sobriety and recovery in the book. And share this gift really with other people.

Tracey: 1:34

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm sure our listeners would love that. to get to know you a little and find out what your background is and what your experience was before we dive into the book and how that came about. Tell us a little bit about what your teenage years and that experience was.

Tracy: 1:51

Of course. So my earliest recollection of alcohol and my earliest, exposure to it was from my dad. My dad was an alcoholic and Tired and alcoholic. There are periods of his life that he was more functional alcoholism and there are other periods that were not. And on this particular night he was having a party and he was so jovial and there's certain things I get from my dad that are maybe not my best qualities and there's other things that I love. So you got to take the good with the bad. And on this particular night I was probably eight or nine years old and he was having a party and. He was having me help him cook. He was an amazing cook and he decided to get up on the roof and yell out to everybody. Like the dinner's ready. I remember looking at him at, 8 or 9 years old thinking this is crazy and feeling both good and bad. This is crazy. Good. This is fun. This is cool. This is wild. And also this probably isn't safe. There's that like little, those little angel devil kind of people talking to you, this is cool and fun and this seems really also dangerous. And just being around him and his. Peers and then fast forward to being a teenager, my first exposure myself to drinking alcohol was probably, it was about probably 15 years old which is a little bit later. And I would say later some people from, I guess for a lot of the people that I got sober with 15, they were like 15 but it was at my neighbor's house and her parents were away. We were drinking from the cupboard and I knew I had to go home. So I had to stop, but I remember really not wanting to stop. I remember it being like, I really liked it. I really liked how I was feeling. I really liked that buzz. it felt warm and fun and exciting and like naughty is the best word I can think of. And I didn't want to stop, but I had to because I had to go home that was my 1st kind of experience with alcohol. And then. Fast forward a bit farther is when I started to be exposed to other substances and alcohol in addition to multiple other substances were really what ended up bringing me down in the future. the reason I can talk on the why, because I think that's so important, not just the what with alcohol. I think the why and for me I had this alcoholic father and my parents divorced when I was about maybe 6 or 7. And he was never really a big part of my life except for getting up on roofs and screaming. And my mother remarried my stepfather when I was 12 and he ended up really basically being a sociopath and a con artist. He was extremely cruel to both myself and my mother. For those years that he was in our lives. So between the ages of 12 and 16, which just of course happened to be extremely formative years. My stepfather was very abusive. Mostly emotionally verbally. He was also very threatening. So it wasn't that he was actually physically doing anything, but he was very threatening physically. When we left him, I'm glad that we did leave him before things, Potentially took that turn that's when I really got into things. That's when for me, the why became the numb, it became escaping from those feelings, not knowing how to deal with those feelings, not knowing where to put them. And I have this alternate way of handling them, which was not handling them at all. And that was for me. When I remember the 1st time, for example, I got high I was with a group of people and I had said no and no, for months at this point. And finally, 1 day, I just was like, oh, my God. Screw it. Everybody looks like they're having so much fun. And I felt like shit, at this point now we had moved out of the house. We're living with my grandparents. This was like a very sudden move living with my grandparents. My father's not in my life. We finally left my asshole of a stepfather. And I felt terrible and they're passing around the joint. I was like, why not? And I remember coming home that night and literally the words I think that I wrote in my diary were this is it, this is the answer. And that was it. Like in my opinion, definition addiction right there. That was it. And I was. It was pretty quick off to the races with both alcohol and drugs from that point.

Lindsey: 6:09

What did you think it was the answer to?

Tracy: 6:11

It was the answer to feeling. I didn't have to confront all this. Stuff and I talk about it in the book. I refer to it as my trash can, like this trash can. And I think we all have trash cans. We all have stuff, it's just life, right? It's just that my trash can was maybe a little bit. Stinkier, than other people at this point at this age of 16 years old. And the best analogy I can come up with is I had all this stuff in my trash can and the drugs and alcohol just put the lid on it, right? It just held the stink in. So I didn't have to smell it. I didn't have to feel it. And hopefully other people then it wasn't like coming out sideways and other people didn't have to see it. It helped to keep up that illusion. Yeah. And so I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want you to have to look at it or deal with it. And so we're just going to keep that lid on as tight as we can.

Tracey: 7:02

Wow. That's a pretty good analogy.

Lindsey: 7:04

It is because it's all still in there, right? If you open that lid holy, it's just, oh man, I can totally relate to everything that you're saying so far, especially with your father drinking because I grew up in a household where my dad used to drink. And I remember him having parties or, going to a wedding and he's drinking and us all getting in the car at the end of the night. And he's driving us all home. And me actually really young feeling like I'm scared right now. I'm feeling anxious. He's having a great time. And then I'm like, I don't feel so good about this, but it's like everyone's laughing and having fun, right? Confusing. It's confusing.

Tracey: 7:45

Yeah, I was going to say there's a lot of mixed emotions with that because I am, my dad was an alcoholic as well. My dad was very charismatic, a super funny guy, super social, very loved, and always had people around him. So I get that kind of excitement about it and that fun ness about it but also that fear because I didn't discover until much later in me going through my own stuff that I actually experienced a lot of anxiety due to his drinking. It makes

Tracy: 8:14

sense.

Tracey: 8:14

Yeah. That fear definitely existed as well.

Tracy: 8:17

So that was my why after having gone through all that I went through with my father and my stepfather and there's there's so much more layers there. But I just wanted to stay as numb as possible. And I really tried to make my recovery piece of pretty wrecked. As accessible as possible for people, because I want to say like staying numb, it could be alcohol. It could be drugs. It could be sugar, right? Eating. It could be sex or relationships. It's whatever your lid on the trash can is really. For me, that was drugs and alcohol. That was what was keeping it. That was what was keeping the stink out of my life. And of course. I'm sure either you guys or your listeners can relate, you needed more, right? Oh, and also, by the way, while I'm using and drinking and making terrible decisions. I'm just adding shit to the trash can, right? Like I'm adding more stinking. So that means I need more stuff to keep the lid on tight. It was like that cycle. And so it just became more and more. To try to keep everything stuffed down. I got away with it for a long time. I knew how to play the game. I knew how to appease adults and this all happened really over the course. It was like basically like a four year period. So almost like between, it was like just when I just turned 16 and I got sober almost like shortly before I turned 20 years old. So it was like a four year period of just The train left the station, the distraction and I crashed and burned pretty quickly.

Tracey: 9:46

Did you ever have conversations with your mom about what happened with your stepdad? Did you have open dialogue about it? And I'm sure she must have been going through her own emotions about it.

Tracy: 9:56

Of course. Yes. No, great question. He did a very good job of kind of baiting us against each other as any good sociopath would do. And he would hide when he was being cruel to her kind of between them. And then when he was cruel to me, he would make sure she wasn't around, or he would justify whatever he was saying or doing. And my mom is like the nicest person. And I also say that to a fault. Because she wore these rose colored glasses. Now that's also her generation she was taught to be a very good wife. And so she didn't really want to ruffle his feathers or disagree. I think by the time she realized that this was a real issue it had gone too far. By that point that's when she really had to take action. And she finally decided to leave him and she made the right decision. It was pretty extreme. So what ended up happening was I went off to school one day. I think this was my freshman year of high school. So I was in ninth grade, end of my ninth grade year. And I went off to school one day, normal school day. And when I came home from school, I remember walking in the house and the whole house was gone. And I was like, where is the living room? There's a living room. And my mom came down and she said we're leaving him. I've had movers come this morning and they packed up the whole house and she found my cigarettes. I was like smoking. I didn't even like smoking cigarettes, but it was like the next thing to do. And she's I found your cigarettes. And I just remember, I remember being like, I found your cigarettes. Anyway, it's just such a vivid memory. So many years ago, and she said, we're going to move in with your grandparents for a period of time until we can find our own place. And so that was it for me. That was. It's really something I think that nailed the nail in the coffin in terms of trauma. And it's not, again, we had to leave him, it was going to get worse. And it was also really hard to lose everything. And because two weeks, she said, we're going to live with your grandparents for a couple of weeks and then we're going to get a place on our own. And that did not happen. We ended up living with them for years. So I was living out of a moving box for years of my life. And at 16 years old, that was really. Embarrassing.

Tracey: 12:02

Yeah.

Tracy: 12:02

It was devastating to lose my stuff, like just like my jeans, my jewelry. Posters that was like, remember posters team boss and for sure, like all your music posters and Johnny Depp on the wall

Tracey: 12:17

to bring this up while you're on that topic. I know that you make references in the book to music. Which I love because I'm a huge music lover myself, and I find music is very nostalgic for me. We talked about this a couple times on the podcast because the girls feel that way as well. Then I went on your Instagram and saw that you had your playlist on there from the book and I was like, this is awesome because all the music on there is so our era. I could totally go back in time, just looking at some of the songs you had on there.

Tracy: 12:51

So I thought that was really fun. Yeah. I'm so glad to hear that. I really do feel like music transports you to like the moment that you heard the song or the album. And it's just such a puzzle piece of my soul. And I was like, I can't write the book without writing, having music and nostalgia in there. Even like the old, like 80s swing sets, right? Where you like pinch your fingers in the swing, in the middle swing. Burn your thighs going down the slide. And all of that stuff riding like my mom's Volvo by her giant Volvo with no seatbelt because they didn't have seatbelts, it's just, so it was fun to include those memories good memories and bad memories. Yeah, that's awesome. Maybe tell us a little bit about then how you came to sobriety. What was whatever you want to call it. Some people call it a rock bottom. I don't know if that's what it was for you, but whatever transpired that got you, I'm assuming in some sort of recovery or rehab. Yes. Yes in order to keep the that lid on that trash can, I kept turning to more and more substances. The interesting thing about alcohol. I want to talk about alcohol specifically for a minute. Is that I knew from the beginning that I drank alcoholic and. That meant that I had to be conscious of when I chose to drink, I'd have to do it when I knew I could be sleeping at a friend's house, or not have to interact with my mom or my grandparents cause now I'm living, now I'm living with my grandparents. So I mean like mom and pop up, so I'm like dealing with coming home to mom and pop up and my mom. So I had to be very careful with alcohol because I knew. I couldn't do it socially. It was not a, it was not like, I was not doing it for the flavor. People that have a drink or a beer or a wine, I was always like, I'll be honest. I've been sober for 20 years. I still, I'm like why? And I shouldn't be taking their inventory. And I really don't a lot, most of the time, but there are times I'm Like just don't drink anyway, side note, but I added more and more substances on. I go through them in the book and it was all just justifications of, oh I smoke a lot of pot and pot is natural. So like mushrooms are natural, so I can take mushrooms and well, mushrooms are hallucinogen and acids of hallucinogens. And it's the same thing. And if you snort coke, you're totally a drug addict, but if you smoke it, then that's fine. Yeah, all these crazy, crazy, like crazy rationalizations and justifications to do what I wanted to do. As any good addict does, I make an excuse to do whatever I want to do. And Eventually I crashed and burned and my mom, what happened was I went off to college did awful most of my friends got arrested or kicked out and I came home from school. We're talking like 1. 4 GPA, my first semester of college. And my mom finally confronted me and she said I should have addressed this earlier. I know you have a problem and it's been proven by this semester away. You can't handle yourself. And I'd like, I want to get you into a treatment facility. And I thought she was bluffing at first because I usually can get one over on her. And she was like, nope, I've actually signed you up to go to Hazelden, which is like the way I refer to Hazelden is it's like the mothership rehab in Minnesota. It's like a no joke. It's the rehab. And she did, she put me on a plane and sent me to rehab. I Didn't like it. I was not ready. I did not want to be there. I was doing it to shut her up. Then I went through withdrawal and rehab, and that was absolutely awful. I got into an altercation with my counselor where he had me put into a padded essentially. I had gotten violent because what was happening, the trash can lid was coming off when I had no substances to keep that lid on. All that stink was coming out and I was feeling it and I was smelling it and it was awful.

Lindsey: 16:45

You had no coping mechanisms.

Tracy: 16:47

Totally. Exactly. Exactly. My only coping mechanism was to numb and now I have no numbing. There's no numbing I lost my shit. That's it. Was put in a padded cell and I'm 19 years old. And I remember that was the first time that my brain, that, that little thing in my brain went, this is not like, where did you go wrong? Like, where did I go wrong? What's happened? This was not the plan. It was the first time I took a second to pause and go, Hmm. Not where I wanted to be. Not where I was

Lindsey: 17:19

from. This is it. That journal entry to holy shit. This is not it. This is not it.

Tracy: 17:27

This is not it. Yeah. This is not it. I was still not ready, but I knew this it was like that. I had been the first time in four years that it had a week without drugs or alcohol. And that one little brain cell was like maybe you need to look at this. And I, of course, was like, Oh, hell no, I do not want to look at this. And so I was 19 years old. So I signed myself out of rehab and I called my mom and I said, of course not taking any responsibility for my side. And I said, mom, they're crazy here. They threw me in a padded cell and she was like, I know what happened. I know what you did. And the counselors there basically said to her, if you let her back in the house, you are enabling her. You are just going to continue to let her feed her addiction. To my mom's credit, she said, you can fly home to Philadelphia, but you're not allowed in this house. And that was it. So she kicked me out. So I landed in Philly with nowhere to go. And I called an ex boyfriend of mine that I knew would, Be there if I wanted him to, because I was a manipulative bitch and and he did and he picked me up from the airport and I spent the month of January 1996, basically homeless. So sometimes I would sleep in people's basements. They would unlock their door and I'd like to get to sleep in the basement. I've slept in sheds. I slept in the back of cars that were unlocked.

Kelly: 18:47

Tracy, did you go back to Drinking or drugs at this point? Immediately.

Tracy: 18:53

We're talking like, landed in Philadelphia and was smoking a bowl And at a party drinking awful, disgusting, cheap beer within minutes. And oh yeah, no, I was not ready to address that trash can. So I lived like this for the month of January, essentially in 1996. And to make a long story short, and I go into it in the book, my mother I had called her now remember this is no cell phones, no, no Facebook, no, nothing now. So this was like good old fashioned. I think we had cordless phones, but, the phone call. So I called my mom and said, here's a couple of houses. You might want to call. If you need to find me, this is where I might be. I was hoping she was going to like eventually say, okay, you should come home.

Lindsey: 19:37

Come back. Yeah.

Tracy: 19:39

And I got a call from her one day and she said you probably won't make it home before he's dead. And I did not. My grandfather had a brain aneurysm and he slipped into a coma and he died. My God, I would say that of. All of my addiction. That was my biggest loss. Because I can't ever, he can't, I never, I know he's looking down on me now type of thing, but I can't ever apologize to him. I can't ever say to him, thank you for taking us in when nobody would, when we went through what we went through, thank you for being the only kind of father figure that ever stuck around. My mother let me stay for his funeral. And this is the worst part. My mother let me stay for his funeral and she said to me, you can stay for his funeral, but you have to leave when the funeral is over. And the night of his funeral, my dog died and she was on our kitchen floor. I remember when she died. My neighbor had to come and scoop her up and carry her out of the house and there was a spot on the floor and I just lied in her heat, the heat that was left over from her body. And that for me was. What I didn't know, but that was going to be it. The next day, my mother opened up the door to our house and said I told you could stay for the funeral time to go. As I walked towards the front door, I remember looking back behind me at the spot where my dog would sit by the stairs and she wasn't there. And I remember just falling to the floor. And I just said, I can't do this anymore. And I didn't know what that meant. I just knew I'd hit a breaking point. I didn't know if that meant I wanted to stop using. I didn't know if that meant I wanted to go to rehab. I didn't know if that meant I want to die. I don't know what it meant. I just know. That I didn't know anymore. And I had lived my addiction, always trying to one up everybody and always trying to be in control and everything is fine and I look fine and I'm going to manipulate the shit out of you and I'm my way. And I didn't know, my mom said I could stay home if I got into another program and she found an intensive outpatient treatment facility that would take me and so I started treatment there. And I still don't know what I wanted to happen. But I told them, I said, I'll give you 30 days. I said, of course, not taking responsibility for myself. I said, I will give you 30 days. And if you don't work some miracle in 30 days, it's like their job. Then I'm done. And something happened on, I want to say like day, 20 and I didn't drink and I didn't use. And that's a miracle cause I got to go through withdrawal a second time which was even worse than the first time. And for some reason, and this is the miracle of sobriety, didn't drink or use. Sometimes it was like one minute at a time and it was like a lot of rocking a lot of sitting in the shower, with the water just coming down on you and a lot of fear But I had a moment that my counselors kept me after group, and we got into an argument, not a surprise because the lid was coming off the trash can again. They confronted me on some big stuff. Again, to make a long story short, that's when my moment happened and for me, it really came down to the best way I can describe that whole moment was responsibility. I finally realized that I have this trash can and it sucks, right? My dad was an alcoholic and he wasn't there and my stepfather was an asshole and he wasn't there. And some other shit went down that I haven't discussed. But I needed to choose how I was going to deal with that. And the lid, I had to stop with the drinking and the drugs to keep the lid on. So for me, it became, came down to choice. It came down to responsibility and making the choice to, to do this. And if I was going to do it, I was in, I was all in. So as my counselors used to like to say take the cotton out of your ears and stick it in your mouth. Cause you don't know it. So I started to listen and I started to say, what comes next? What do I do? For me I went to meetings. I did enjoy AA meetings. That's where I found a big community for me. Some people love it. Some people don't. I started to go to meetings. I started to get honest. I avoided people, places, and things. I had to go through all my. Concert t shirts and tuck some away for a period of time. I didn't get rid of some of my Grateful Dead shirts. They're worth money now, right? But I basically listened to people that had gone before me and said, what comes next? What do I do next? What do I have to do? And I just kept showing up and doing the next right thing. And that I really, I feel like that can summarize so much change, whether it's. Walking away from alcohol or wanting to change something about your life. I just kept making the next right decision and I had my kind of my eye on the prize. And again, sometimes it was minute by minute day by day. There's a Tanzanian proverb that says little by little becomes a lot for me, that summarizes sobriety I just took little teeny bites, little baby steps. Think about what about Bob, right? The movie. What about Bob 90s movie? I took lots of little baby steps and eventually time built healing began trash got sorted. And I became a person that I was really proud of that had tools. Lindsay, you mentioned it that about not, I didn't have any tools. I started to have tools to confront life and feelings. And really that's what I've done. It's. No different than when I started. It's still just making the decision to show up and be the best me today.

Tracey: 25:10

Do you still attend meetings or anything like that, Tracy?

Tracy: 25:14

I do. Yeah. And sometimes it's much more sporadically. In the beginning I went. To 10 meetings a week, I went all the time doubling up on the weekends. Now it depends. There's times I'll go to 4 in a month and there's times I'll go to 4 in a year. I also have a. Amazing network of people. I think that is so important. Like the fact that you guys all have each other, you talk to each other, you have a vested interest in something that's about recovery. I have some amazing peers that I talk to on a regular basis and they're like my foundation, right? They're like my meeting. I can call them and they are a meeting because. I've known them for years and we can just be presumably honest with each other. I talk about one of them in the book. His name is Dave. I call him my bury a body friend. We've been sober together for 28 years. He's the godfather to one of my children. And I'd be there for him in a minute, wherever he needed me. He's just. My sober bestie

Tracey: 26:10

it's great to have people that can understand, right? That have been through it or something similar that makes a big difference. You know,

Tracy: 26:18

especially in early recovery, having people talk that language and know those feelings and know those awkward moments. I heard you talking on one of your other podcasts with somebody else just about on multiple ones. Because I think this really is a true topic that we really need to address is the fact that society normalizes alcohol consumption and like you're a freak if you say no, and like it's the only drug where you can say, I don't want it. And it's like, why? You don't say that to crack, I don't want to hit it. The crack pipe. They're not like, I want to say it's better than it was in 1996, it's a little bit more accepting, but I not much. We haven't come that far.

Tracey: 26:56

I think in some ways, there's certain things that have gotten worse, right? I think women's drinking has increased. The mommy wine culture is to me, an epidemic and has been for quite a while. So I think in that sense, and accessibility, right? Accessibility is increased as well. Then we have all these platforms to promote it and market it, right? So I think in some ways it's

Tracy: 27:24

Make it look sexy when really it's just gross.

Tracey: 27:26

Yeah. It's gotten worse, but definitely there is more awareness. These days as well with that and it is gaining more traction, which is amazing. I love this and I love, I do love hearing about like sober curious. We have a friend of ours who, after I wrote my book and he was like, I really think I want to try not drinking and he doesn't have a problem with alcohol. And I was just like, Great. I think that's. Awesome. You're gonna love it, and so I'm like excited for him. Do you have a lot of friends and does your husband drink?

Tracy: 28:01

My husband does drink, but barely, never drinks with me, honestly, I cannot remember the last time we had a drink in this house. And not because I don't want him to, I don't care. It's been a long time. If he wanted to have a couple beers one night here, fine, I don't care. But if we go out and he will often tell me we went to a friend's party. They had a great eighties party. I love the eighties. That's my favorite music. They had a great eighties band and they had a great eighties party. And I don't mind going to these parties. I have a great time. I'm just going to dance and be wild and crazy. And I'm the one driving home. It's totally fine. And my husband will let me know we're going out tonight. I'm going to drink tonight. And they're like, thank you. No problem. Go ahead. And it doesn't bother me. I guess I like the heads up to know what he's getting into. And often I'll say to him at some point. Maybe this happens 3 times a year at some point during the night. I'll say to him, that next drink is not going to make tonight more fun. It will make tomorrow worse.

Lindsey: 28:56

Ooh.

Tracy: 28:58

And usually he listens usually okay. And then he knows it's time to switch to

Lindsey: 29:01

I love that. So Tracy, you've been sober for 28 years.

Tracy: 29:07

28 years. I celebrate 28 years in February. Yeah,

Lindsey: 29:09

that's huge. Congratulations. Yeah.

Tracy: 29:12

Yeah.

Lindsey: 29:13

Does the addict still live within you?

Tracy: 29:16

Yes, for sure. For example, I think because I've had to be around alcohol forever. We all are right. It's everywhere. Like you said, social media is at every party. It's mommy wine culture. It's everywhere. I don't want to say I've gotten used to it. 99. 9 percent of time, I honestly don't care. And when I see other people acting where they're acting or looking where they're looking, I'm like, thank you for reminding me why I don't. I am nervous about the access and availability and use of drugs. Of gummies of people smoking pot, and that makes me a little nervous because I've been lucky that for the majority of my sobriety, that hasn't really been around and or accessible or like in my face. And now it really is. Yeah. And, um, I just don't like it. Like I'm okay. I don't feel like I want to go do it, but but I don't like it. And that's what makes me aware of the fact that I'm still like, That rubs me the wrong way. And I'll also say that all of the isms as they say, there's the figure of speech, the isms of so many of those behaviors that drove my addiction. I've shifted to my career and success. While it's very rewarding and effective, It can also be very obsessive. So it's one of those things where I have to be sometimes careful and find, try to find that balance because just because I'm not using and drinking and drugging doesn't mean I'm not fucking crazy. Sometimes

Tracey: 30:46

we're looking for an escape somewhere else.

Tracy: 30:49

Totally running. Exactly. Exactly.

Tracey: 30:52

Yeah. You can still it's not

Tracy: 30:53

Yeah. numbing anymore, but it is run. Do you ever catch yourself trying to put a lid on and then go, Oh shit, I'm doing it. I got to take the trash out. And I've got to do it this way. Like I find that's something I had to learn. When I stopped, cause this is how, why I used alcohol. It was to numb, numb everything. It was to deal with anxiety. It was to numb a failed marriage that was complete garbage with a narcissist who was just a disaster. I just drank and I did it a lot alone, not with people because I didn't want other people to know how much I was drinking. And, making bad decisions. And then I'm like, Oh shit. That's embarrassing. It just became this cycle, but, you have to learn. You got to sit there and unpack the garbage and be like, okay, this is recycle. Okay. Wow, this is really trash. Okay, I can maybe compost this. I don't know. I might have to go back and look through that bag. I don't know what's in there. You got to sort through it and then You've got to find ways to actually how to handle it once the lid comes off, but yeah do you ever find yourself trying to put the lid back on and then go, Oh, no, you're doing it. This is how we handle it instead now. Yes. And I think that's more situational as opposed to big issues. I feel really grateful that I feel like the best. Big stuff has been sorted. But I do have moments where, and it usually has to do with control. I'm a, I'm like an A type Taurus. If you guys are into sun signs, like left handed A type Taurus, alcoholic. I want this shit in control, right? Total issues with that. So if something is like really out of control, The first thing I first I recognize I'm like I'm spiraling right now. I feel it. I'm aware of it. And then I'll usually let myself do some type of, self care, meaning for me, I was jokingly saying on my drink of choices potato chips. So I will go and I will get a bowl of potato chips and I will like, wrench the shit out of them and I will not like stuff like the little, I'm not gonna eat the whole bag. I get a bowl, I pour it into a bowl and I let myself realize I'm eating potato chips. I'm trying to soothe right now. And then I process it and then I deal with it, but I give myself a moment. I give myself a time out because I feel like if I don't do that, sometimes I don't need that. But if I don't do that, sometimes it is overwhelming and I let myself say, okay, I'm going to sit here for a second. I'm going to do something that's really not that unhealthy. I'm going to eat a bowl of potato chips or popcorn. Also sufficient. Really, I love the phrase. It's a military phrase. ODA, O D A observe, orient, decide, act, O D A. I give myself a moment to just observe and observe my feelings and maybe observe myself stuffing potato chips in my face. And then I orient, okay, you've eaten your bowl of potato chips. What's going on? How are we going to process this? Can we process this? Is this even in our control? Can we make any decisions here or is this out of our control? Then I decide on what needs to happen next. And then I act. And then this is the key. I fucking move on. I don't hold it. I love the figure of speech. Don't keep a record of wrongs. And I swear, I think that is like part of the health of my marriage is that if my husband and I disagree, we disagree, we come to a decision, we move on. I don't bring it back up again. I don't want to remember it. And I think that is a gift of sobriety being able to just be present and be in the moment and feel the feelings and process the feelings. And then let it go, move on. Yeah. Cause I know for me, when I was drinking, it was like a stewing, I don't know about you guys, I'd have like full conversations in my head, arguments with people in the shower, in the mirror. That's what I would do. I'm going to say this and then they're going to say that. And then I'm going to say this and they're going to like full conversations. And I can catch myself doing that now and go, Let it go. Let it go.

Tracey: 34:44

And we say often too, it will pass, right? This too shall pass. Yeah. Something I wanted to ask going back to 28 years of sobriety, and I'm sure you've had this question before, but Why write the book now or what inspired you to do it now so long afterwards? And second to that question, I'd like to know, were you journaling the whole time?

Tracy: 35:07

That's a really good question. I actually appreciate you asking it. Why now? I had floated the idea to my husband about this a few years ago. And I don't even know what sparked it. Maybe I was talking to my friend, Dave, that I've been in. And I just was like, it was like, maybe I called him on his anniversary. Probably each other always on our anniversaries. And I just was like, Oh my God, like this has been years. Can you like for two decades? I just remember being like, this is stupid, crazy. And it still is. Then I remember my 25th anniversary. Was highly emotional. So I don't want anyone to think that I'm like, Oh, it's 28 years. Every year is a miracle. Every year I go to a meeting on my anniversary and I raise my hand and I say, I cannot believe I'm saying this. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have whatever 22 years, 25 years, 20 years. So I just want to round you in that reality that every day and every month and every whatever is. What happened about a year ago, literally around this time, about a year ago, is that little voice, whatever it is in my head that whispered to me in that padded cell it said to me 2 words, it said, do something. What I was talking about was, I don't know about you guys, but I witnessed such an increase in alcohol abuse during COVID, during and after COVID. And now these people are continuing alcohol abuse, just dramatically increased use of alcohol abuse. And also now I'm just seeing gummies. I know people that I'm like, you're high every day. Every time I see you, I'm not an idiot. I can see it in your eyes. You're high every single day. And then the opioid epidemic. Fentanyl deaths. It's just, it's too much. I can't even, it's so tragic and this little voice said, do something and pretty wrecked was the result. I just was like, I need to share this gift. It's a gift. I guess I work on it. Yes. I work on my sobriety, but this is a gift and especially a gift that I was able to get so young and basically grow up sober. I don't trust me. You make some really bad jokes. Also bad decisions with relationships over too. Don't think I've had like a perfect ride. And that's why that it just I had to do it as far as journaling. I've, I have like pictures, but most of it was memories. I do like a memory box of certain things and a journal. I have an old diary, but the way that I was able to write the book so vividly do you guys watch Stranger Things? No TV show. No. Okay. Whatever. So in stranger things, one of the characters has to go into this, almost like sensory deprivation to to do this like crazy shit that she does. And what I would do is I would put earplugs in and I would close my eyes and I would record myself on my phone in present tense. So I would be walking into my house. And not seeing anything there. So I'm walking in and I walked past the washer and dryer. So I was able to recreate these moments in real time, which involved a lot of potato chips. It was very emotional to relive. a lot of this trauma. Then I would take that and I would write it. I would change the tense into past tense. And so that's how I was able to write the book so vividly is I literally went through the experiences again. It was really hard and it was also like really oddly healing. I was going to say, you must've found it healing though. I really did. And I think there's something about writing the acknowledgements at the end of just realizing where I am today. It sounds weird that it took the whole book to get to the acknowledgements at the end to go, God, you know what it felt like? When you like take a deep breath in and you're like, like it clicks, at the top of your breath and you feel your shoulders relax. That's what finishing this book felt like. It felt like I was like, It's just able to take that deep breath in and release it and you're like, it's out there.

Lindsey: 38:56

Gift. That's really

Tracy: 38:58

good. Yeah.

Tracey: 38:59

Wow. That's awesome. I feel some people would think, isn't it behind you in a way? I'm probably being overconfident some days thinking I have 3 years under my belt and sometimes it feels like it's behind me, but then there's always something to remind me that it's not. So I feel like people would probably think that. But at the same time, it's also you being a perfect example of how. Experience and that part of your life was the foundation of building who you are today.

Tracy: 39:32

Yeah, I have 2 daughters. And I'll get emotional here and I wouldn't wish any of this on them. I wouldn't wish. Their father is very different father than I had. I wouldn't wish any of the things that happened to me. I also know there is no way I would be who I am, where I am with who I'm with. All of these things without having come out on the other side of that. There's something to be said about that journey through pain. Of course I don't wish that type of pain for my daughters. And at the same time, they will tell you, they hear, figure it out as often as they hear. I love you because. You got to fall on your ass, honey. That's the best way you learn is you got to scrape those knees. So they know that I'm a bit of a school of hard knocks kind of mom. And I really believe that it's getting through those things that builds that confidence and that character. Again, it hurts, pain sucks, and there's so many lessons in it.

Tracey: 40:32

So how do you talk to your girls about alcohol and have they always known? And have you always been open about your own journey?

Tracy: 40:40

I have, yeah. So they've always known that I don't drink. I've always told them, Oh, I don't drink. And it's hilarious. Kids say the darndest things, it's so funny how for them when they see other parents drinking, it's like shocking to them. They're like, God, they're like drinking so much. It's just so interesting because they've just always known me not to drink. And I'm the 1 that's on the table dancing. I'm the 1. I'm the designated driver and I'm the 1 that's like up on the table and wearing a ridiculous outfit and. Without alcohol. So they absolutely know that I don't drink. And I told them at age appropriate times. I have a master's in counseling and psychology. So I know brain development and what is not appropriate. For example, I have a 16 year old and I have let her read the book. I've said to her, I want you to ask me questions, come to me with any questions. And she had some great questions and she loved the book. It was really cool. My 11 year old she's almost 12. So it was, I'll call her 12. She's 12 in a week. My 12 year old, she knows. that I did a lot of alcohol. She knows that I did drugs and I've asked her to not read the book, but she can read certain chapters. She's been very respectful of that. So they know my history. They also know that there is a concern in my heart of a kind of genetic component. Especially since, my father Was an alcoholic and I think it was his mother that was an alcoholic. My father had five children. I'm my mom's only child, but he had a wife before my mother. And like four out of five of his children have alcohol or drug issues. So I'd let them know my concerns. And at the same time, all I can do is tell them my experience, my concerns, and then my 16 year old's going to have to make their own decisions.

Lindsey: 42:16

Yeah.

Tracy: 42:16

I don't think she's drank. I know she talks, she tells me when she goes to parties that's drinking there, but I can look in her eyes and I can look at her and talk to her and I've never noticed anything. And she's told me she hasn't and I, we generally have a very honest relationship. But I'm not going to try to stop her. All I can do is give her the information and hope.

Tracey: 42:33

And if you've been open with her, the likelihood is she'll be honest with you. You think, right? or you hope? I think so. I hope so. I hope the same with my daughter. I try to be open with her, hoping that she'll be honest with me and let her know too. You're going to be curious. That's just natural. So if you do it. I'm not going to be mad at you. My number one concern will always be your safety.

Tracy: 42:55

Completely. The other thing that I always say to her is to practice saying no. What are you going to say? Don't do it in your head. Say it like, say it in the mirror or say it to me or say it to a friend she has a good friend of hers that also is really not into this stuff either. And I said, don't do it. To practice back and forth being at a party and being like, I'm good. And then of course, as we all know, they're going to pressure her, right? Why are you good? Why aren't you drinking all the 50 other questions that come next and to practice standing your ground and what you're going to say to that person. So she's done that before and we've worked on different comments she can say and what she's comfortable with. I think that's something even as a sober person to work on. Sober like, how am I going to handle people pressuring me to drink? I think it's just so important to practice those words coming out of your mouth. To tell people that you're not drinking that night. Yeah,

Tracey: 43:45

That's a great trick. Actually, I never thought of that. So thanks for that little tidbit of advice. I'll be utilizing that with my daughter for sure.

Tracy: 43:54

Yeah. And and again, don't think it because words, psychologically words in your head. feel different in your mouth. So you might think you're going to say this, but when you say it, it might feel weird. I know that's a weird thing to say, but to really practice saying the words out loud and almost to like role play, whether it's with you or with a friend to role play those potential interactions.

Tracey: 44:18

Wow. Okay.

Lindsey: 44:18

I feel like I just didn't know at 15, 16 I knew people drank alcohol. I've witnessed it, I witnessed it in my family. I saw people at weddings. Then I didn't actually start drinking until after 18. That's when I had my first drink. But I actually didn't realize The alcohol that I'm putting in my mouth is the same shit that goes in the gas tank of my car. I didn't know that's ethanol and I didn't know how it affected brain function and liver and then why are you blocking out? I didn't. understand all that, you just think it's funny and you're doing all these stupid things and making really bad decisions. I really honestly didn't know how bad it was for your brain health, your body, everything. And I think it's important just to, Talk to your kids about that. This is why you get drunk on alcohol. It's because it's poison. Your body emotions are shutting down. Yeah this is what you put in your gas tank. It's the same thing, right? Ah, yeah, I don't know. It's just things like that I didn't really know. And of course, I just saw this on Facebook Annie Grace, love her, we had chatted about this people say they drink alcohol because they like the taste of it. That is complete bullshit. Who likes the taste of alcohol? Nobody. I remember trying to choke down my first glass of wine and I was like, this shit is nasty, right? But at the end that was my drink of choice because I sure. Like the taste and the undertones and the oak and the what? What really like I didn't give a shit. It got me drunk exactly.

Kelly: 45:51

I'm squeezing out the bag, the wine bank milking it. The oak so great. Is that grape? Yeah. I just am like, that's great. The taste of it. Like hint of wood. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't buy it like we're it's it doesn't, it actually doesn't taste good.

Tracey: 46:15

You acquire a taste for it when you start becoming addicted to it. That's what happens. That's the thing. Yes. You're addicted to the reaction your body has to it, not anything to do with the taste of it.

Tracy: 46:28

Yeah, you'll put up with the before to get to the after.

Tracey: 46:31

Exactly. Exactly.

Kelly: 46:33

There were a couple of parts of your story that I could definitely relate to and I think are important for maybe somebody who's listening who hasn't gotten to the end of their drinking career, we call it here. Just that moment when you were just done, like after being on the kitchen floor and Your mom asking you to leave and it's not always the worst hangover or something terrible as a result of the drinking. It's just being done. The other part was not knowing what the next step is. That's really important for people to hear, too, because we sure love certainty. I know I love, I'm working on the control thing, too, but certainty and knowing what the next steps are, and we don't need to know. There are people that have gone before us, and, I think those tips, they're really important for people to hear, that we don't need to know anything other than the fact that we're done.

Tracy: 47:26

Exactly.

Kelly: 47:26

And that's it.

Tracy: 47:27

Exactly. Yeah. And I would That. people get there faster than I did and not have to lose so much. Just to be done and say, this isn't working for me, or I don't want this anymore, or I'm not where I want to be. I'm not who I want to be. And you're absolutely right. You don't need to know what comes next. You just need to know that it's not that.

Lindsey: 47:47

I think that's the really important thing. I'm not who I want to be. I think if you're drinking in any capacity, And you have that thought, or if our listeners thought to themselves, when you said that, Oh, I'm not who I want to be Oh, that hit home, evaluate that. Are you drinking alcohol? Yes. If you're not who you want to be, You've got to change something. Give not drinking alcohol the same chance that you gave drinking it, like you'll put up with the barfing and the hangovers the next day and the blacking out. I know I did for years. I was done for two years before I actually said, okay that's it. No more. But I think that's just really important if you're thinking I'm not who I want to be if alcohol is in any way a part of. Regular routine weekend thing, and I'm not talking about somebody who has two glasses of wine a year at a wedding, but if you're drinking consistently, and that doesn't have to be every day, because I thought I don't have a problem. I only binge drink on weekends to the point of blacking out every weekend, but, just evaluate that think, okay, this is one thing that I can do make that decision, right? Eliminate it and see what happens, because you might be really surprised, and I know it probably sounds weird, but it's not. Simpler, like it's easy to say, okay, just give it up, but I think you just got to do that work. You got to get curious about why you're putting up with all the negative effects of it. I wasn't who I wanted to be. I was like, okay, I did everything I could to hang on to that one last thing. I was like, I'm not who I want to be. I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed. I did this. I said this. I'm overweight. I'm puffy. I feel like crap all the time. But no, I like literally hung on to that for as long as

Tracy: 49:25

I think that's the cycle, right? It's you feel all that you recognize that. And then you go back to the alcohol to put the top on the trash can again, because you don't want to feel that stuff. If you're trying to make a change, You're going to actually have to change. I'm not saying it's easy. I am saying it's simple. It is. If you want to change, you're going to actually have to make a change.

Lindsey: 49:48

And take the responsibility. Just like you said, it's you, it's on you. Don't blame your upbringing. Don't blame your Lack of this or that, or it's genetics, or this is the way I am. I can't control this. Yes, you can. You've got to take the responsibility. You've got to make the decision.

Tracy: 50:05

Absolutely key for me was just that one word. It was responsibility. Yeah. What do I want? And it wasn't that.

Lindsey: 50:11

Yeah. Oh, I love that.

Tracy: 50:13

Yeah. So it's great. I have no interest. And when I see people. Drinking, even just socially, but mostly, if I see them over drinking a lot, I hate to say it, but it's like such a reminder for me of being like,

Kelly: 50:25

yeah, same dodge that bullet. Yeah, I agree. I think we're meant to see those things.

Tracy: 50:32

Yeah.

Lindsey: 50:33

Oh, I think this was such a really good episode. I loved our conversation.

Tracy: 50:38

Thank you. I did too. It's just nice to connect with people that are like minded, and just see the insanity. We now see the man behind the curtain and we're like, we see you, we're going to kill you. We're going to win. It just feels really good. Anyway, so now I've got to, do you mind if I mentioned my book, man? No, I was going to say, like my plug and I don't call it a shameless plug because I am not ashamed. I am thrilled to an unshameless plug. My book It's called Pretty Wrecked. And do you notice, look at the title, what does it look like? Right away. Pretty Woman. It looks like Pretty Woman. I saw it. Good. That's awesome. I have like little nuggets of nostalgia throughout. There's some hidden things in there. If you can uncover them all, I'm impressed. But it's called Pretty Wrecked Confessions of a Teen Addict and Her Road to Recovery. Available now on Amazon in paperback and ebook. Go get it. Listeners go get it. Go get it. Yes. I'm self published. So honestly, this was my heart right here. And I designed the cover art and. Formatting, editing, publishing, distribution, marketing, promotion, the whole thing. So it's been a lot. If you love it, I hope you read it. I hope you love it. Please review it. That stuff is really important for the algorithm. You guys know this with your podcast. Absolutely. It really matters. So it would just be great. And I hope I really tried to write the last third of the book in a way that was relatable and applicable to any change. All of the things that I say about my recovery are, again, I don't what your thing, what's your thing? You wanna, stop drinking alcohol, stop doing drugs have a problem with food, have a problem with relationships, whatever it might be. I really tried to make it accessible and relatable for anyone looking to make a change.

Kelly: 52:26

That's awesome. I love that. Thank you. Thank you for writing that and thank you for sharing your story with us.

Tracy: 52:31

So welcome. Thank you for doing the work that you do and talking to all these people. It's just, it is so heartwarming to hear other people's stories. We do recover. I love that hashtag, right? Hashtag. We do recover.

Tracey: 52:42

I was going to say, thank you. You were very generous. To share your book with us. Definitely after having this conversation with you, if we weren't excited and interested already, I'm sure we're all going to jump to be reading it. And we will definitely make sure that even though you gave us a lovely copy that we support you. Absolutely. Oh, thank you so much. Yes. We'll link it.

Tracy: 53:06

Spread the word. If you love it, tell a friend in recovery or maybe a friend that needs to be in recovery. Yeah,

Lindsey: 53:12

exactly.

Tracey: 53:13

Tell people where to find you, Tracy, and then I'll share everything.

Tracy: 53:17

So my website, it's my name. It's Tracy Viola, author. com. If you look up www. tracyviola. com. author. com. You can find information about me there. You can sign up for my newsletter. I'm not a spam newsletter person. I send like maybe one or two a month. They always have a quote that I love and what it means to me. They always ends with something funny or a, usually it's like an Instagram video or a Facebook video that just makes me laugh that I love. So I try to keep it really light, but like things that articles that I love that like I found really moving or like lessons that I've learned lately. I try to make it again. I'm all about applicability, this link resonates with me. I'm going to read it, or this video was funnier and move on. We're busy people. You're on Instagram. What's your Instagram handle? I love that you're covering. Look at this. You're going to use my publicist. Yes. So same thing, Tracy Viola author. Go follow her. Yes, go follow me on Instagram. Tracy Viola author on Instagram and Facebook. Pretty much anything Tracy Viola author and that's me. Sweet.

Tracey: 54:16

You got to go check out her playlist, especially if you go to her website.

Tracy: 54:21

It's so good. If you go to my website, Tracy Viola author. com, you can click to link to my Instagram, my Facebook, my Spotify playlist. You can buy my book. It will link you directly to Amazon. So like you can literally link everything right there. Okay. Perfect.

Tracey: 54:39

All right. Lindsay is going to wrap us up because she's our wrap up queen. Alrighty. Love it. Guys again.

Lindsey: 54:46

Yeah. Everybody, that is a wrap on today's episode with Tracy Viola. Thank you so much for joining us on the LAF Life podcast as always. So head on over to Instagram, follow our guest, Tracy Viola, and don't forget to grab her book, Pretty Wrecked. I am going to head over to Amazon and grab my copy. I can't wait to dive in. So we will see you back next Tuesday with a brand new episode. And until then. You guys all know what to do. Keep laughing.

Kelly: 55:19

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.