Skited

Two weeks ago, one of my all-time favorite sober ladies, Glennon Doyle, launched her new podcast “We Can Do Hard Things.” To say I was excited about this new project from my sober spirit animal/idol would be an understatement.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was introduced to Doyle’s book Untamed while in treatment this fall and it has saved my life and been my guide to living the truest most beautiful life I can imagine ever since. I have the audio book on my phone and listen to it constantly. Doyle’s UnTamed and Brenee Brown’s podcast “Unlocking Us,” are to two most listened to audio files on my phone (I'd say the most, but damn I listen to the Hamilton soundtrack on repeat constantly.)

I love those women and listening to them unpack the hard things in life that we can handle has helped me so much as I’ve traveled along this winding road called recovery.

I often refer to Doyle and Brown as my sober spirit animals, and I mean this in the most complimentary way possible. I look up to these women, their sobriety and their peace of mind. I want what they have. Their openness about their experiences has helped me so many times since I started getting sober and whenever I’m in doubt or looking for the better way to handle something, I turn to them. I aspire to be just a little bit like them, and I believe I am a significantly better person because of it.

So when I listened to “We Can Do Hard Things” last week, I was elated to find many more ways to connect to Doyle and was actually a little freaked out by just how many of my thinking patterns mirror hers.

For example, in opening the podcast, Doyle sets the scene, saying:

Hi. I’m Glennon Doyle. I’m so grateful to be here. And so very grateful that you’ve come to join me. This is the first episode of We Can Do Hard Things, which means this is the first time I’ve ever done this. So let me set the scene for you. I’m sitting here at home in Naples, Florida in my office, in front of this fancy microphone that I really hope is working. It’s early in the morning and my wife, Abby, and the three kids are still asleep. I’m in my PJ’s and I’ve got a huge mug of steaming hot coffee, which is my favorite thing. My second favorite thing, my bulldog honey is sleeping at my feet. You know, since I got sober 19 years ago, these early mornings have become my very favorite time of day because soon the world will wake up and I’ll slip right into all of my roles and I’ll forget my soul completely like I do every day. But on mornings like this just for a bit, it’s quiet enough to remember. I think my hope, my great hope for this podcast is that no matter when during the day or week you listen, that We Can Do Hard Things will become a time each week where you will remember the, you beneath all your roles.

Just two weeks ago, I wrote the following:

I love this time of the morning. The birds are just starting, the sun is trickling in our shades and I’m cozy and curled up in pillows with the option to turn back over and cuddle in next to Blake. He lets out one of those contented sighs, the soundtrack of a man who is living his life exactly how he feels he should.

I can wake up and head to the gym, as I do five out of seven days a week, but today is Monday, my day off. I stack pillows up between Blake and I to protect his slumber from the sound of my keyboard taps and settle in to write.

Moments and mornings like this are such a blessing. They stand in such dark contrast to the restless hours I spent tortured by my own behaviors in my active addiction. I am so grateful for the tranquility and piece of mind I find in these mornings now. They are truly one of the great gifts of this amazing life of sobriety.

Yes, basically I just told you all that because I had to share just how freakishly similar my and Doyle’s thoughts on mornings are. Because when I was listening to We Can Do Hard Things in the car I literally almost had to pull over because I was so shocked by the parallels. “OMG I’m becoming Glennon Doyle,” I gushed to myself. I was very proud of this realization.

The similarities didn’t stop there, one of the other unbelievably relatable things Doyle shares in the beginning of the episode is the word “skited.” It’s what her family uses to describe the feeling of scared/excited.

I LOVE it! I only recently became introduced to the fact that nervous and excited were feelings that could occur simultaneously. It was before my move to Philadelphia and while chatting with my brilliant and emotionally intelligent cousin who also happens to be a social worker. As I told her how thrilled I was and not the least bit intimidated by changing my entire life to move in with Blake in the midst of a pandemic, she saw straight through my bullshit. “It is possible to feel both nervous and excited at the same time,” she reassured me. Being able to identify those feelings and know they are acceptable and normal has been so helpful to me ever since, and now Glennon had given me the right terminology for it.

I share all this as background to tell you that this morning, I am skited! Today is a big day.

Another tool in my sobriety tool box has actually been Instagram. When I first got sober, a quick Google search of the best sober Instagram Accounts introduced me to amazing women like Millie Gooch of Sober Girl Society and Stefania Bolles, who have built sober communities on the photo-sharing social platform.

These communities have been there for me through all the years of my recovery and helped me so much along the way. Last year, I was delighted when a sober fellow named Matt launched another fantastic one of these digital spaces called “A Life Recovered.”

The account features authentic stories from community members who have recovered and never fails to inspire. The journeys shared on the page are so raw and real. They bring so much hope because of the way they honestly share just how long and tumultuous to the road to sobriety can be. I’ve long aspired to be one of those brave and amazing people featured on Matt’s before and afters, and about a month ago after finally launching my blog, I worked up the courage to submit my story.

Let me just say to anyone thinking of sharing their story with Matt, DO IT! I can’t tell you how easy Matt makes it and what a pleasure he was to work with. Letting someone else put your story out there can be a little nerve-wracking, and I give Matt a ton of credit for how kind and respectful he was as he put together mine. I’m so grateful for him, his incredible work and to be a part of it.

I hope that by sharing the raw and brutal realities of my recovery, I can help to raise awareness for how hard this challenge really is and do my part to reduce the stigma surrounding addiction. Moreover, I hope that I can be like so many others who have been featured on ALifeRecovered previously and show those struggling that recovery really is possible. As I said in my story:

"To anyone who is struggling right now, please don't give up the fight. You're worth it and the best is yet to come."

Last night, Matt messaged me to let me know that he’d be posting my story today and the butterflies began. I knew exactly what the feelings bubbling up inside of me were: skited. So without further adieu, here’s my story on A Life Recovered.