as soon as Oprah started, I would open a bottle of wine and I would have at least two glasses before my husband got home and meanwhile have two toddlers and and when he would pull into the driveway, into the garage at 530, I would put that glass into the dishwasher or sometimes I would stand in the refrigerator chugging the bottle of Chardonnay as the garage door
is opening. So I could just get down a few more ounces before he came in, because I knew that there was going to be about an hour before I would pretend like I was having my first glass of wine because he was home, because I was hiding it from him, like how much I'm drinking. But I didn't hide bottles around the house. Therefore, I'm not a problem like that lady on Oprah.
Well, you got Matt today and you got Andrea Owen. Andrea Owen is a life coach, an author. She's the pod. She's the host of the podcast Make Some Noise, where she talks about topics like professionalism, the inner critic, courage, and more. She is also an author. The author of the books Make Some Noise How to Stop Feeling Like Shit in 52 Ways to Live a Kick Ass Life. I found Andrea when she was doing a series of shows on her podcast with those who overcame their dependence on alcohol and
recovered. And I'm just a big believer that women are just not served enough in this community, nor can they be overserved. Andrea, welcome to the Sober Friends podcast.
Thank you so much for having me, man. I do want to point out that you said professionalism and it's actually perfectionism. I
Perfectionism.
do not claim to be a professional by any stretch.
So now I'm going to kick my own ass I because I'm a perfectionist and I got it wrong. if it's okay.
Easy mistake
Yeah, that's that's my dyslexia kicking in. I'm so happy to have you on here. I looked a little bit on your website, and what I can best say is your origin story is kind of a shit show.
100%.
You
Not
know, you're.
kind of.
You're kind of knocking up the neighborhood, and I'm like, Whoa! Mm hmm. Yeah. What Damn it. the hell happened there? Yeah.
He was pretty fertile.
Apparently so. Yeah.
The short version is, I was married before, and we'd been together for over ten years, started dating as teenagers. And we were at the point where we were talking about starting a family. We were in our early thirties and always knew that we wanted kids. And he had an affair with our neighbor that lived across the street and got her pregnant instead. And I was blindsided. We had had problems previously in our relationship, very long relationship, but I felt like we were on the upswing.
We had kind of grown up together and were kind of being adults and doing all those things that adults do, saving up for a house. And we were going to get a dog and all those things. And he started a new life with someone else. And then I started dating immediately, which I probably should not have done.
No, probably
Met
not.
someone who who had terminal cancer. And as it turns out that nine months later I found out he never had a terminal
Oh.
illness and had covered up. He had lied about that to cover up his opioid addiction. And I found myself pregnant with his child. So that's really when my life completely imploded. I still wasn't even legally divorced from my husband, and it was just a mess. And I that's when I'd really decided to change my life. But that is not. In fact, when I got sober. That's sort of the the genesis of my recovery story. But from there it was more I was focusing on recovering from codependence
and love addiction. And it was
Mm
a
hmm.
few years later that I actually got sober from alcohol.
I had a guest on about sex and love addiction. Mm And hmm. I find this fascinating, and I can identify with parts of that that it's not really about the sex and love. It's It's about. not. I can't describe it more than just being desirable or wanted by other people, no matter what, whether I want it or not.
Yeah. I mean, it's just that it's similar to the reasons that we drink. It's we're trying to fill that gaping hole that
Yes.
we all have, no pun intended, but, you know, it's there. No other way to describe it is just this for me. What it looked like was just this crippling fear of abandonment and that nobody really loved me or paid attention to me. So I got that, you know, I got that esteem. I got that kind of void filled through relationships with men that were that were very surface level. But of course, I thought I was in love. I thought this was everything.
And it just I just left a graveyard of broken hearts, including my own.
What was the family of origin like or there things going on there
Yeah, it's interesting. So I'm the youngest of five and my siblings are all my half siblings. My parents each brought two children of their own into their marriage, and I am their only child. So my siblings were much older than I was. So I always kind of got that feeling where I had siblings, but I didn't really have siblings and you know, my siblings, they had each other. And then I was kind of the afterthought and also really the
golden child. My parents were a little bit older when I was born. I got a lot more attention than my siblings ever did. So there was that kind of underlying ripple. And then I had a great relationship with my dad until I turned about 1314, which happens to a lot of teenage girls. I was no longer a child anymore and my dad didn't really know how to relate to me. And so there was definite distance that was put in between us and I was shattered. I mean, of course, it took me a long time to realize
this. I didn't realize it at the time, so at 1415 I turn to boys, which was easy, and I got my attention and validation and acknowledgement and love. I'm using air quotes over here
right.
from boys in high school, and then it just continued. So that's really the short version of the trajectory and how I can surmise what happened.
My son is 15. He's a freshman in
I
high
have a
school.
15 year old son to.
Oh, okay. Whom. So.
So I get it.
Wow. Yeah. He's telling me all about girls like you were at that age where he has a friend that he's distance from because she is trying to get the attention of every boy that she can. And when she gets the attention, they're just. They're. They're gone. So they're using Snapchat. She MM is reaching out. And when she gets enough attention, then they're blocked. And I'm like, Wow. this is this is bad news. And he's like, yeah, it's bad news. And I just don't want to
be around her anymore. This is it's not good reputation for her. It's hurtful. And I'm like, Damn. Oh, and I am so proud of you that you can recognize these bad things that I never could have recognized at Yeah. that age. But I'm seeing it's just through different processes. Mm hmm.
Yeah. I mean, she'll probably end up in therapy, but it but and I was a little bit different where I wouldn't have run away so quickly. I would have held on to the attention as long as I could until, you know, either they started paying too much attention to me or
Mm hmm.
it was just it was a mess of coping mechanisms and behaviors. And I'm definitely an anxious, attached type of person that tends to be attracted to the avoidance. So, you know, when I meet someone who's emotionally unavailable, like that is sexy, like you bring it
How
home
do you
or change
work?
you
How do you work on that? Now?
very clumsily and messy. The difference now is that my therapist acknowledges me on this so much. The difference now is that I see it ahead of time instead of, you know, I see it prospectively instead of retrospectively. And I my mom used to joke and say, Andrea likes to run around corners as fast as she can with her arms open, but her eyes closed. So now I still just because it's my personality, I still run around corners as fast as I can with my arms open, but my eyes are also
open. So that's the difference.
I can identify with that. I've been. I've been married since 2006. Don't don't make me do the math, because I got into podcasting so I didn't have to do math. But I'm not going to cheat. I'm not going to go find somebody else. I'm not going to get divorced. But I will sure as hell tell you that when women show any type of interest in me, that's a buzz. I'm not
Yeah.
going to do anything about it.
You're
But
human.
yeah, it's like I still I still want everybody to be attracted to me. I'm like, Well, what am I going to what does it do for me? Nothing. And I'm like, Damn, that's that's one hell of a character defect.
I kind of disagree, Matt. Like I feel like there is nothing wrong with being flattered and feeling good when someone finds you attractive or if you flirt with someone. I honestly think that that is healthy as long as you have that open communication with your partner. And I, I think that that's just part of being human. Like just because you're married and you're committed to one person in a monogamous relationship doesn't mean that you lose all interest and you
put your blinders on. I think that's kind of the expectation that we have in our culture, but
Yeah.
that doesn't happen. And I think that the more we deny that we want to be attractive to other people or that we are attracted to other people, I think that just breeds secrets and shame. And yeah, I'm just here for just, just say what's there
So other people have this have
we do.
these thoughts, too. Is Sometimes not I feel just. so
You.
alone by that. So let's fast forward a little bit. You're working on codependency and stuff. Yeah. You've gotten pregnant, Uh huh, but there's still alcohol still involved here. yeah. Where
For
where
sure.
do we bridge the gap?
Yeah. So I didn't. So that was oh seven. My son was born and I met my current husband when I was actually pregnant with Colton, who's our son. My, my now husband has legally adopted him when he was two, and I didn't drink while I was pregnant. But, I mean, as soon as those babies were out and I was even nurse, I nursed both of my kids. I was I was
back on. And the thing that was really scary is I look back on that time, you know, the the time period between after my son was born and I was seven, and then I got pregnant again, had my daughter in oh nine, and I got sober in 2011. And really after my daughter was born in in the fall of oh nine, my drinking picked up serious speed. And honestly, I think a lot of it was because I had gotten remarried. I was not on the market, so I didn't have that to chase anymore.
Hmm.
And I had really thrown myself into 12 step programs around codependency and noticed a lot of, you know, I was in therapy and noticed a lot of my behaviors and my drinking was like, All right, we'll go in. We've been warming up here on the bench. And I found myself drinking a bottle of wine every night. You know, I hesitate when I tell my story to talk about the quantity because some people will say, oh, I don't drink nearly that much or I drink a lot more
Right.
than that. And that doesn't really matter. I mean, it was pivotal for me. I remember the first time I drank an entire bottle by myself, like on a Tuesday night. My husband also doesn't drink, so it was just me and it was the obsession. It was it was flat out the obsession. My dad had also gotten sober when I was 18, and so I knew what a functional alcoholic looked like. I knew about the program because I had already been in it. So I knew
about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I also did a little bit of research and found out that especially for women and maybe the research has changed. It's been a long time. It's been 11 years, and I don't remember exactly. It might have just been, you know, like a WebMD article that the progression for problem drinking or alcoholism for women seems to be faster in in women's bodies. And they're not exactly sure They think it's maybe because we metabolize sugar more quickly.
Really?
And also during that time, stats were up for women with DUIs, women getting arrested for alcohol related, you know, illegal activities. And I knew in my gut he was the kicker. I knew in my gut that if I continued this trajectory, it was not going to get better, it was going to get significantly worse. And I was mad. I did not want to quit drinking. I
How come?
loved drinking. I was so I was a party. I was the party girl. I had so much fun drinking. I love the taste of alcohol. I also was running away from my life. Alcohol allowed me to drop my anxiety, at least for an evening, even though it ended up making it worse and avoid the tremendous amount of grief that I felt around my first marriage, th trauma that I had endured from those back to back awful relationships. I got kind, you know, from
Yeah.
my son's biological father. And just also being a new mom was hard. I had lost my identity. I knew I always wanted to work and start my own thing and felt guilty that I didn't want to be a stay at home mom. So it was like all this stockpile of these issues and drinking worked until it didn't.
My wife had a I'm trying to think of what's the term there. She had postpartum depression when we had Yeah? our first child. And that was a trauma for me, because dealing with her for that first week was like nothing I've ever dealt with in my wife. Of if. If you're. If you have a partner who had postpartum depression, I'm sure you can identify with me. It is nothing like I've ever dealt with. And that in itself was a trauma for me. Mm I think hmm.
there is some type of trauma around having a baby because you're saying goodbye to an old life that's never coming back. Now Ri. you're opening the door to a better life, but what you known is gone and it's never coming back.
Yeah,
But let's look. You got Khan. You got Khan twice. The
basically,
first guy?
yeah. My first husband was living a double life
Yeah.
for seven months. Lying to both of us. And the web of lies was extraordinarily extraordinary. Got conned again. And then after my son was born, I had severe postpartum anxiety with
Yeah.
some psychosis. So I was paranoid. I was fully convinced that my his biological father's family was going to come and steal him. My baby. And I revealed this to my mother one day, very tearful in very hushed whispers in the hallway. She'd come to stay with us and the look on her face. I knew she was afraid for me. And then I immediately thought, She is not safe. I can't tell her because they're going to now take my baby away from me because they think I'm crazy when really I'm
right. And, you know, there's as we're recording this about a month or so ago, there was a heartbreaking news story about a woman who murdered her children and she had severe postpartum depression and anxiety and psychosis. And so I just I want to mention that because it's such a, you know, whether you are in recovery or not, you know, and I know that probably the vast majority people that listen to this are and we
Right.
also there's a huge correlation with mental illness. And so I just want to give voice to that, that I think that not enough of us are talking about the severity. And it's very rare.
Yes.
Postpartum psychosis is rare, but it does happen and I don't think it gets talked about enough. And so I just wanted to mention that as someone who has struggled with it and I think I'm one of the lucky ones, too, where it came and went fairly quickly and just know that I see you and I just encourage you to get help.
My wife is pretty close to that. It was a bad situation. She did not have it with the other two kids. But it was. It was a very scary situation. And for
Yeah,
me, being a new father, life is upside down. And I'm dealing with the baby. But I'm also
you
dealing
have a newborn?
with a wife who is not good. And I'm lucky that I did say, I think you need help. Are you willing to get help? And she said, Yes, I am. Yeah, And that's the thing. So if if you're going through something like this or you know somebody, it can happen. It doesn't mean you're broken. Ask for help. There are things that can handle it. It's yeah, it's a real thing. Hormones yeah. are just all over the place and it affects people differently. It's complicated. Mm hmm. So you have like back to
back to back trauma. This is real trauma. I talk a lot about trauma. I talk about it at work. That trauma isn't that you took a punch to the face. It's this emotional stuff that leaves damage. Mm hmm. And the fact that you got through in one piece. All of this trauma is astonishing in and of itself, but it leaves a mark. So after Sure the postpartum, does. Mm hmm. you're dealing with that. You're dealing with the
codependency. I'm just thinking through if it was me and I was in 12 step groups for codependency, I still probably would deny my drinking is a problem. I'm not like your people. I'm not like I'm not like them.
Right. Oh, that was easy to do. Yeah. Yeah. And I just want to circle back to something that you said. You know, getting punched in the face is a trauma, too. And I like the
Yes.
philosophy. Have you heard of, like, big T trauma versus little T trauma?
No, I haven't.
So big T trauma is considered the bigger things like assault being in some kind of natural disaster or people who have to face wars in their country. Child abuse, sexual abuse like those are big T traumas. And then the little T traumas are things like getting punched in the face. Maybe, you know, someone yelling at you when you were a kid. And it's something that you remember for
the rest of your life. Like, it just it sort of puts things in perspective, but also doesn't minimize the sort of smaller things that can impact
Yes,
us and affect us throughout life. But no, you're right. Like, I didn't I was in complete denial. And I remember at that time. So this is Oprah still had her show. This was like, you know, during the final years of her of her Oprah, of the Oprah Winfrey Show. And I remember and actually I became friends with this person in real life. They they did they did a show where they featured a bunch of different women who were alcoholics. And it was sort of dramatic, like the show
Intervention. Remember, that was this one woman, the woman that I ended up being friends with. And they were they had two cameras in her house and she was showing where she would hide her bottles of Chardonnay like she had one in the washing machine. She had one in the hamper. She had one under the sink behind the box of the big Costco box of trash cans. She had all these hiding places. And that allowed me to say, well, I don't do that. Like,
Yes.
as I was drinking my first glass of wine at 4 p.m., mind you. And I did that because as soon as Oprah started, I would open a bottle of wine and I would have at least two glasses before my husband got home and meanwhile have two toddlers and and when he would pull into the driveway, into the garage at 530, I would put that glass into the dishwasher or sometimes I would stand in the refrigerator chugging the bottle of Chardonnay as the garage door
is opening. So I could just get down a few more ounces before he came in, because I knew that there was going to be about an hour before I would pretend like I was having my first glass of wine because he was home, because I was hiding it from him, like how much I'm drinking. But I didn't hide bottles around the house. Therefore, I'm not a problem like that lady on Oprah.
Right.
So there's and there's so many instances of that, like the show intervention, where there's these dramatic stories where people are pretty far down the spectrum in their drinking career. And it just it is so easy for us to and it's like meetings, you know, like we listen for the differences. I was all over those differences.
Differences. That tells you, well, I'm not as bad
I'm
or I don't
not
have
as
a problem.
even when I went to my first meeting, I wore
Okay.
my most expensive jeans, I wore my most expensive coat, and I'm like, if my life is a mess, I'm at least going to look amazing because I'm not like any of you losers
My first meeting, I put on my dress shoes, my dress slacks, a button up, because at work, when you go to important meetings, you dress up dressed for the part.
right?
And I will tell you, I walked into that meeting insanely overdressed
Yeah,
to a beginner's meeting in a church basement. And but I can identify with that. And I can identify with the feeling that I'm better than even though I know I have a problem, I am better than all of you who are living
right.
in sober houses. I
100%.
own my own house.
Yeah. And I would. And I was still for a while listening for the differences. And I, when I first went in, I just wanted to know how to quit drinking. Like, that's all I was really interested in. And the quitting drinking I found was the easy part. The staying sober was the hard part, but the hardest part was the recovery. That, to me sort of took the wind out of my sails because I didn't know at that time that there was a major difference between sobriety and
recovery. I thought I was going to quit drinking and that was going to be great,
What made it hard?
actually having to look at all my shit and like the 12 steps like, Well, kick your ass up and down the street. Step four, like, just No, I wanted to I wanted to quit drinking, but I also wanted to keep control of everything else of my in my life. T was really difficult for me. And it was it was also difficult to you know, I've been blogging since oh eight, so and I'd been talking about my struggles with an eating disorder, my struggles in relationships and
codependency. And that for some reason was so much easier than talking about getting sober because still there was so much shame and stigma and taboo for a suburban woman, a mother, especia a mother, to have a problem with alcohol. And, you know, in my community of women that I have written for in that I've had a podcast for ten years, I felt safe telling them, but like, would I wear a shirt? I have a t shirt that says sober proudly across the front of it in all caps. What I wear that to
a PTO meeting? Probably not. I would now that I have 11 years,
Yeah.
but in my early years of recovery, no, because I was still ashamed and worried they wouldn't want to have playdates with my kids. They wouldn't want to bring their kids over. They wouldn't want to invite me to bunko, par because like, well, Andrea doesn't drink, so she's not going to want to hang
Oh,
out with
yeah.
us.
Bunco is a big drinking
It's a big
game.
drinking thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just it's just drinks with, like, some dice. But yeah, those those early years were tricky in terms of, of just the, the being out. And I know there's, you know, we could get into a whole conversation about anonymity and things like that but in and just the personal recovery part of it like really looking at my stuff and looking at the shame that was the hardest part.
I'm a firm believer that we have to have role models who are public so that, you know, a good sobriety looks like. And I think about people like you. It's not just for other women to see. It for their
Hmm.
husbands to see to so that they get an idea of maybe my significant other has a problem, too. Even though she's not in the gutter, she's Right. drinking wine. So I guess if she's drinking good wine, that's not a problem. But I'm identifying with Andrea saying maybe I can help somebody else in my household. That's important for me, too. But
Yeah,
having those role models are so important. How quickly did you get into, like, writing and podcasting after this point? Because I went through I was scrolling through it to try and find an origin story, and I kind of stopped because it kept going on. Like when when the hell does this start? I'm like, Oh
it's
my God,
been a while.
this is, Mm. you know, if you go if you go before Serial, that's like the O.G. days of podcasting.
Yeah.
Like you've been around a long time.
2013. So this month we're recording this in May. It was, I think it was May 5th, 2013 that I started my podcast.
Wow.
So it's been ten years and I didn't. So I one of my very best friends, a woman named Courtney, already had close to a decade of recovery. When I decided to confess to her that I think I needed to get sober and I was so afraid to tell her I thought she was going to gasp and just, you know, clutch her pearls. She did not. It was like, so not a big deal. She's like, okay, you know, let's talk about it. And so early on, I felt a pull to tell my community that I had gotten sober and that I was
in recovery. And I was going to meetings and she sat me down and said, she's like, My advice is for you to wait a year. She's like, Look at this. Like you. You know, like they say in AA, like, don't start any new big things. Don't start any new relationships for one year. She's like, I want you to do the same thing with talking about this publicly with your community. She's like, It's so tender and look at it like a newborn baby and it's so
important to you. She's always said that her worry was that she that I would get into that place of wanting to look a certain way for my community to, like, uphold this position as a role model. And while, yes, it is being of service, she said that first year is just paramount for your recovery. And she said, Please just trust me on this. And I did. And I waited an entire year until my one year anniversary of sobriety. And then that's when I put out a blog post where I told my entire
story and the the feedback. I don't think I've ever gotten so many emails in my life from my newsletter list and messages on Facebook. I don't think Instagram existed at the time, but the amount of women that and I still am friends with some of these women on Facebook that lived in other countries. And that point to me, and many of which I got on the phone with and said, Your story gave me the courage to get sober. And they're still sober after all
these years. Like, I cannot think of anything better than that. So that makes it all worthwhile.
Now, you might have made a huge impact on well, clearly, if you're getting those messages, you made an impact on one person at least
Exactly
and help get them sober. But that's that's where I struggle with the anonymity piece, is what if we're out there and we have a good message to share? Who are those people that we're not touching?
right.
And it's just such a balance with those traditions. But I'm in the screw it category and say, I'm going to put myself out there for men to do this and let the chips fall where they may. I,
Yeah.
I will tell you, I'll put it out there when I'm having a bad day or not. That's part of it is it's not Pollyanna ish. Life is not going to be great every single day. They're going to be things that suck.
Yeah,
The difference is I don't have to drink over it. I've got
exactly,
a new set of tools.
exactly. And I just want to say quickly to like, the principles were written, what, almost 100 years ago.
Yes,
And I do think that if Bill W was still alive today, he would look at social media and podcasting
Yes.
and and the way that we can connect with each other. And he would make some edits to the principles and some clear clarifications
We
at
had
the
William
very
Shamberg
least.
on the podcast who wrote the book writing the big book. It's probably one it's probably the best book about Bill's thinking when he was writing this and everything that he could find. Looking at the original document, said, Bill never thought that the big book would never change. He thought it was updatable. It's what happened. It's what people did with it afterwards. So I'm I'm a big opinion of that, that the big
Huh?
book would change and I'm a total I totally believe if Bill was on today he'd be on Tick Tock he'd be on Instagram, he'd have a YouTube channel. Yes. He probably wouldn't write a book at all. He wrote a book because that's the medium of the day. That was Facebook of the day,
That
a
was
book?
it. Mm. That was, that was, that was pretty much all they had. And I just, I do think, you know, there's a really great documentary out there. It was from years ago, the anonymous people. Have you seen it
Yes.
with Greg.
It's awesome.
Yeah it is. And I just there's a few clips from it that just make me so emotional. Just about, you know, like if we could tap into the millions of people who are in long term recovery, we could completely change this thing. And there's
Yes.
just like we are trying to incarcerate our way out of addiction. We are trying to shame people out of addiction. And it's not working. It never has and it never will. So that's why, you know, and there's this whole new I call it like the new wave of sobriety and recovery. It's like it's got a wellness kind of boogie spin on it of, you know, alcohol. The calling
it alcohol free. And to be honest with you, I'm kind of like, just can we just also work on pulling out the stigma of calling ourselves alcoholics because a lot of times when I get interviewed for podcasts like yours, where the people like call themselves alcohol free or grey
Mm hmm.
area drinking, which I think is great, like if more people are not drinking just high five, but you know, and they'll ask me like, do you identify as an alcoholic? And I'm like, I identify as an addict. Like, I cannot like I if one is good, five is better. I cannot
Yup.
be trusted around things that make me change the way I feel in a very quick and easy way. Yeah, I'm here for it. And I don't. I just I, I get a little fired up about that because it makes me feel like there's a group trying to other us and categorize us into like there's those alcoholics and addicts over there, but we're over here just staying sober for our health.
Get fired up because I am 100% on board with this. I can identify with both. It bothers me at meetings when I hear the old timers say, Well, you're talking about now things that are not alcohol. And it's the same thing I can identify with a sex addict, a food addict, somebody who's addicted to cocaine, because it's not about the substance. It's about how the substance makes me feel.
Hmm. I took my first pain pill when I got my wisdom teeth out, and the moment it kicked in, I counted down the hours to when I could take another one. Yeah. And I got off of that real quick because of how that felt. A that is going to make me feel better. I love Huh? and I'm addicted to. So saying I'm an alcoholic is really important to me. That keeps me in check. It's not a bad
Yeah,
thing. It's who I am. I like saying I'm an alcoholic because it reminds me of what I actually am and what I actually have to do to stay sober. So, yeah, I get
yeah,
get angry about that. Get
I
mad,
know.
yell at the mountaintops.
Well, and I think, you know, speaking of tick tock, I was finally diagnosed a few years ago with ADHD, and it came actually after my daughter was diagnosed, like we thought she might have a learning disability. And we were my husband. I were surprised when they came back after we had her evaluated. And they're like, No, she has A.D.D.. And I was like, Explain this to
me. So they were she was kind of the doctor was going through the how it shows up and girls and I started crying because I'm like that is that you're explaining my childhood and like my school experiences. So I went and got tested. Turns out I have had it all along. And so it's been interesting for me to do some research on it and how people with ADHD and ADHD are dopamine deficient. And so we're we're in a constant state of chasing dopamine,
Yeah.
hence drugs and alcohol and the high of relationships. You know, no wonder I chased it down all day.
You're giving me a reason to go get tested myself, because I've always assumed I have this. It is very hard to keep my attention if I'm
Oh,
in meetings
same.
at work, especially on Zoom or teams. My mind just starts drifting and I have to work hard at staying focused. And it's affected jobs sometimes because
Yeah.
I just can't absorb things because I can't shut my mind down
A quick tip on that for any for you or for anyone listening who is an adult. I'm assuming most people listening to this are adults. When you get tested and they you have this long, lengthy questionnaire, is that a lot of times you'll want to answer the question. It'll say, you know, do you forget things on your calendar and miss meetings? Always, all the way over to two? Never. And and I answered it and I'm like, well, never. Because, you know, I'm in my forties and I've had to create a system
right?
or else I would never be able to be a productive member. It you should see my systems. And so it's it's just make sure that you look at that because I think that they should be more clear on the questionnaire and things like
Your
that.
assistant is a hell of a system, I'll say
Oh,
that.
she's amazing. She's been with me for ten years. I, I every time I try to schedule something like of a podcast or just DMS me on Instagram or something, and I'm
Yeah.
like, I can just do it. I will mess up the time zone, I will put it at 4 a.m. instead, 2 a.m. instead of PM and totally miss it like I make the most careless errors for the simplest of things and it's because that is not my strength.
Oh, my God. She is looking out for you. It's just the sum of the things that you are going to send me a calendar. You going to give me your phone number? You're going to give me this thing in case we need to get a hold of you. And you're saying that I'm like, Oh, my God. Not only do you have a great assistant, but it's clear she cares about you. Mm She's hmm. trying to help you.
A she knows where I will completely mess up and drop the ball.
Oh, it's great to have partnership like Mm that. hmm. What got you into writing? How did you. I look at the idea of writing a book as insurmountable,
Yeah.
especially at my lack of focus. What made you say I got to write a book? And then how did you follow through and do it?
Honestly, getting sober, I had always wanted to. I had been. I was a voracious reader as a child, and only books that I wanted to read, you know, not that things I didn't want to, of course. And just always really looked up to authors, you know, like Judy Blume. And, you know, these these women especially, who were authors, I thought that was like the coolest job ever, that you could make a living, just like writing books and
telling stories. So I lost myself in my twenties in the relationship I was in and didn't write and then started writing poetry again. And and then when I when my life fell apart, honestly, is when it was sort of the heyday of blogging, too. So I just started started writing again. And I never really I mean, this isn't to be dismissive of my talent, but I never thought I was a prolific, amazing writer.
But I definitely was someone who had my own style and voice, which at the time and still today was important in standing out. And it really was a serendipitous universe looking out for me moment. I was blogging about writing this book. I honestly just sat up one day actually after I relapsed because I got sober in May of 2011, was sober for about five months and had a little went out for two days. And so it was after that that I sat up in bed and told my husband, I think I'm
going to write a book. And he was like, okay, like, it just didn't. I mean, that's par for the course with me. And I started writing it. I had no idea really what it was. I just that's what I do. I just once I make a decision, I start running and I figure things out as I go, which makes me a great entrepreneur. And a publisher found me on Twitter
Oh,
and
my gosh.
she said, I first thought it was a scam. I was like, Get out of my inbox. And it turns out it wasn't. So then it became very easy for me to get a literary agent because I already had a legitimate publisher sniffing around. So it all sort of happened very quickly. I got a very small advance, but I didn't care because I just wanted my foot in the door. And then, as they say, is history. I've written three and it and I'm almost done with my fourth book proposal. So we'll sell that soon.
kind of thinking about. What's your what's your view on spirituality with this? Because that doesn't happen in normal people. That seems like you got struck by lightning.
I manifested it like an I like if we're going to talk about law of attraction, you know, I need to I need to say some disclaimers. But at the time, in 2011, 2012, I was very much into, you know, manifesting in the law of attraction.
Mm hmm.
An I have a little bit of a different take on it now. I just think it's heavily cloaked in privilege, but it can work. It depends. So I had this journal and every day one of the journal prompts was, Wouldn't it be amazing if you would fill in the blank? And my coach at the time encouraged me to go big. She's like, This isn't wouldn't it be amazing if the sun was out today all day and it didn't rain? These are moonshot things. So I wrote, I believe it was October 12th, 2011, and I still have the
journal. Wouldn't it be amazing if a book publisher reached out to me and wanted to publish my book, which is unheard of? You know, it's like
Yeah.
the story of Charlize Theron getting discovered after she had a fit at the at a bank with bank teller. And like, there was like an acting agent there. It just doesn't happen very often. And it happened like a few months later. And I was like, What? So yeah, I just I believe that, you know, to answer your question, I grew up in a fairly religious home. We were Lutherans. My parents were both former Catholics. Lutheran is Catholic Lite, pretty much
Oh, yeah,
went to church every Sunday with my mom, was very heavily involved in the youth group, mostly because I had crushes on boys, not necessarily because I wanted to spread
of
the good
course.
news. And then I stopped going to church in high school and really sort of walked away from church, but never really walked away from my views on Christianity until I had children, brought them to church and sat in the congregation realizing this doesn't feel right, but I don't know why. And I realized what I was missing was the community. But there were many things that felt out of alignment with me. And so I up now to kind of go full circle. I absolutely believe there is some kind of
God. I believe it's genderless. I don't believe it's like a human form. And I also believe that we all have angels and guides that are with us. I've had several like kind of fun psychic and tarot readings, and they all tell me pretty much the same thing, that there's a team and they come in the room
Yeah.
with them and it's so interesting to me to hear the same story. And there are there have been some times in my life excuse me honestly, about where I should have been dead
Yeah. Then
and
there are two.
I'm not. And that to me, is an absolute miracle. It's a miracle that every day when I get up and I don't drink and I, I truly believe that by following and listening to my intuition, which is that, you know, my higher self, my guides and angels, whatever that is, what makes my life better and better, because every time I have ignored it or screened those phone calls, as I like to say, s hits the fan at worst. At best, I'm not happy.
Yeah,
That's
I.
sort of my my take
I'm a firm believer that the higher power or whatever spirituality looks like what gets me through it, because I struggle with the traditional religion. What gets me through it is the idea that this is more than I could possibly comprehend. And just because I can't comprehend. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm just going to accept that could be something like what you said, these guardian angels around you in a form that I can't see, I can't comprehend, but I sure as hell can feel it,
right?
and I don't have to identify it as having a gender or a person. It's something. And that's enough for me. And if I go with that, then I feel better with it. When
Can't
I overthink
be explained.
it, it's I can explain it away. Yeah. I got saved from a car accident where I almost went over a cliff. But if I overthink it, it's like, well, that was all me. That was my good driving. That saved me. It wasn't some other power that was looking Uh out huh. for me. Uh huh.
I'm with you 100%.
Andrew, where can we find you if we want to find your podcast or books, know a little bit more about you and your message. Where do we find you?
Yeah. My home address.
No,
Yeah,
no, don't do that.
I'm kidding. I well, my podcast is called Make Some Noise. And on there I interview experts around personal development. So anything from all different modalities of therapy, you know, experts around money, experts around relationships, etc.. And then also I my websites. Andrea Oh and dot com and I'm on mostly on Instagram and TikTok at Hey Andrea when.
Yeah, I found John and on Instagram, if you listen to your podcast and you're not feeling better, it's your You're fall. I mean, you're doing your best. yeah. And if I think about how you came out, how you grew up, what you overcame, and you're sitting here with a smile on your face with this amount of energy and making a positive impact, you can get rid of that one voice. I think you're you're your power of that. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the Sober Friends podcast today.
It's been my pleasure and I just want to give a quick like just extend gratitude for the people that are listening. Their time is so incredibly valuable and I'm always so grateful that they choose to spend it with us.
Yes, I agree. All right, everybody, see you next week, everybody.