Rachel Casey (00:00:07):
Welcome to Sober Banter.

Rachel Casey (00:00:08):
Colin is not here.

Rachel Casey (00:00:11):
Today we have a guest, an author of a memoir.

Rachel Casey (00:00:14):
I actually have the book right here.

Rachel Casey (00:00:16):
It's called Shit I Do Sober by Kelly Adams.

Rachel Casey (00:00:20):
Hi, Kelly.

Rachel Casey (00:00:21):
Hi, Rachel.

Rachel Casey (00:00:23):
I have two quotes that came up when looking up some of the shit I do sober.

Rachel Casey (00:00:29):
From everyday adventures to extraordinary escapes,

Rachel Casey (00:00:32):
Shit I Do Sober celebrates the resilience and determination required to embrace an

Rachel Casey (00:00:37):
unfiltered life.

Rachel Casey (00:00:39):
And I loved the quote too,

Rachel Casey (00:00:41):
that Kelly does an amazing job of telling her story and being very candid about it.

Rachel Casey (00:00:47):
When you know someone is struggling with addiction, you see the tips of the iceberg.

Rachel Casey (00:00:51):
Kelly's story lets us know what was below the surface deep and wide.

Kellie Adams (00:00:56):
That was one of my favorite reviews so far.

Rachel Casey (00:01:00):
So sobriety date is June 9th, 2014.

Rachel Casey (00:01:04):
So congratulations.

Rachel Casey (00:01:08):
Oh, so my mom is 2014.

Rachel Casey (00:01:10):
So you just celebrate 10 years.

Rachel Casey (00:01:12):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:01:13):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:01:14):
I guess I'm closer to 11 now than 10.

Rachel Casey (00:01:17):
My mom is July 1st.

Rachel Casey (00:01:19):
Sober?

Rachel Casey (00:01:20):
Yes.

Rachel Casey (00:01:22):
And she's, I was born in Battle Creek.

Rachel Casey (00:01:24):
So, I mean, they're from Lansing in Michigan.

Rachel Casey (00:01:27):
like i was like yeah all my family is still out there and i think my grandma's in

Rachel Casey (00:01:33):
dearborn right now i had asked my mom if she knew where costa michigan was and she

Rachel Casey (00:01:38):
did not but it is in the suburbs we looked on a map and i saw where lansing is and

Rachel Casey (00:01:43):
it's gotta be a pretty little town tiny yeah it was even tinier so i grew up there

Kellie Adams (00:01:48):
from 67

Kellie Adams (00:01:50):
when did i move i was born in 67 i moved in 93.

Kellie Adams (00:01:53):
it's a long time those are the exact years my mom did that's crazy that's good

Kellie Adams (00:02:00):
that's awesome yeah it was like idyllic childhood honestly and you hear a lot of

Kellie Adams (00:02:05):
times in sobriety like um unfortunate childhoods right that stunk i mean we had i

Kellie Adams (00:02:10):
had challenges which i know you write about in the book but when i think back to

Kellie Adams (00:02:14):
those times in wakusta i grew up on a gravel road

Kellie Adams (00:02:17):
Rode my bike to the general store.

Kellie Adams (00:02:18):
This sounds like one of those stories a 70-year-old tells you, right?

Kellie Adams (00:02:21):
Like, rode my bike to all the gravel store or gravel road to the store and whatever.

Kellie Adams (00:02:27):
It was super cool.

Kellie Adams (00:02:28):
It was a really good place to grow up and I'm super thankful for it.

Kellie Adams (00:02:31):
Life was not without challenges, but I still have the best memories.

Kellie Adams (00:02:35):
And I always think if I could buy my old house back out there, I would.

Rachel Casey (00:02:39):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:02:39):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:02:41):
throughout the book.

Rachel Casey (00:02:43):
Some of the things that I really love about it is the pictures,

Rachel Casey (00:02:46):
but after each chapter,

Rachel Casey (00:02:48):
kind of having its own little separate page,

Rachel Casey (00:02:50):
reading a memoir about getting sober,

Rachel Casey (00:02:52):
it's not like we have a super fun time.

Rachel Casey (00:02:55):
There are some brutal, honest conversations.

Rachel Casey (00:02:58):
It's nice to have the little lighthearted picture.

Rachel Casey (00:03:00):
It made me feel like I really connected and kind of know you.

Kellie Adams (00:03:04):
after reading so good i've done two podcast interviews but they were before it was

Kellie Adams (00:03:08):
published getting feedback is really neat and that was the point should i do sober

Kellie Adams (00:03:12):
was a concept i started as a blog and it really was just out of boredom when i was

Kellie Adams (00:03:17):
in early sobriety it was like oh i was making oatmeal one day instant oatmeal i

Kellie Adams (00:03:24):
mean let's get real and um i noticed on the package there was a measuring thing you

Kellie Adams (00:03:29):
can measure your water on the package

Kellie Adams (00:03:32):
And so that was one of my, like, should I do sober?

Kellie Adams (00:03:34):
Like I'm aware enough to know, like for 30 years I've been making instant oatmeal.

Kellie Adams (00:03:37):
You can measure whatever.

Rachel Casey (00:03:39):
No.

Rachel Casey (00:03:40):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:03:40):
I relate a lot to that.

Kellie Adams (00:03:42):
In fact,

Kellie Adams (00:03:42):
right now I'm watching the series lost and I watched that years ago when I was

Kellie Adams (00:03:45):
still drinking.

Kellie Adams (00:03:46):
I remember nothing of it.

Kellie Adams (00:03:47):
I don't remember how it ended.

Kellie Adams (00:03:48):
So those insert pages, I mean the title, should I do sober?

Kellie Adams (00:03:53):
So those insert in between the chapter pages are all the shit I do sober.

Kellie Adams (00:03:57):
within, like you said, the trauma and the depths of our bottoms.

Kellie Adams (00:04:02):
And it's funny.

Kellie Adams (00:04:04):
My brother read it and I kind of warned him.

Kellie Adams (00:04:06):
He's 13, 11 years older than me.

Kellie Adams (00:04:09):
And there's some stuff in there.

Kellie Adams (00:04:10):
A big brother probably doesn't want to read.

Kellie Adams (00:04:12):
Right.

Kellie Adams (00:04:13):
And he passed the book on a couple of weeks ago.

Kellie Adams (00:04:15):
I told Sherry, it was a sad story.

Kellie Adams (00:04:16):
I'm like, no, it's not, but it is.

Kellie Adams (00:04:19):
I mean, there's parts that are very sad, but I don't want it to be perceived that way.

Kellie Adams (00:04:23):
I think it's a,

Kellie Adams (00:04:24):
revival.

Rachel Casey (00:04:25):
Right.

Rachel Casey (00:04:25):
The way that I've found to understand,

Rachel Casey (00:04:28):
I think Colin's parents too,

Rachel Casey (00:04:32):
even this podcast and the first few episodes of

Rachel Casey (00:04:36):
They also see it as sad because they didn't know what we were going through behind the scenes.

Rachel Casey (00:04:40):
They were a part of our lives as our family.

Rachel Casey (00:04:44):
And when we talk about what it was really like, they feel guilty or badly.

Rachel Casey (00:04:48):
Like how did we not see it?

Rachel Casey (00:04:49):
But that was the point.

Rachel Casey (00:04:50):
We were trying to cover it up.

Rachel Casey (00:04:53):
We weren't trying to showcase how much we were drinking.

Rachel Casey (00:04:57):
And so...

Rachel Casey (00:04:59):
I'm like, it's not, our podcast isn't sad.

Rachel Casey (00:05:01):
And they're like, to hear what was happening and how much you guys were struggling.

Rachel Casey (00:05:05):
And the fact that they were a part of our life the whole time,

Rachel Casey (00:05:08):
I think is what,

Rachel Casey (00:05:09):
it's that,

Rachel Casey (00:05:10):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:05:10):
the ego of them,

Rachel Casey (00:05:13):
of they should have known or.

Rachel Casey (00:05:16):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:05:16):
I think that's why I understand because if I were to hear that on the opposite end,

Rachel Casey (00:05:22):
I would also probably be like,

Rachel Casey (00:05:23):
man,

Rachel Casey (00:05:23):
I wish I could have been there to help,

Rachel Casey (00:05:25):
but there's nothing they could have done.

Rachel Casey (00:05:28):
I want to say your brother made it worse.

Kellie Adams (00:05:30):
Yeah,

Kellie Adams (00:05:30):
my sister and brother,

Kellie Adams (00:05:31):
I'm the baby,

Kellie Adams (00:05:32):
and my sister read it a couple weeks ago,

Kellie Adams (00:05:35):
and she's like,

Kellie Adams (00:05:35):
I read it in two days,

Kellie Adams (00:05:36):
which is a record.

Kellie Adams (00:05:37):
She's like, I am so sorry I wasn't there for you.

Kellie Adams (00:05:39):
And I was like, I wouldn't have accepted it.

Kellie Adams (00:05:40):
And you were there for me when I was little,

Kellie Adams (00:05:42):
and you've been there for me with my daughters,

Kellie Adams (00:05:45):
but I hid it for a reason.

Kellie Adams (00:05:47):
Right.

Kellie Adams (00:05:47):
It's like the iceberg quote you mentioned in the beginning.

Kellie Adams (00:05:51):
They only saw what I wanted them to see.

Kellie Adams (00:05:53):
Even my ex-husband, the day I hit bottom, it's in the book, but

Kellie Adams (00:05:57):
He came over and his words were like, what happened to you?

Kellie Adams (00:05:59):
And I was like, you lived with me for 12 years.

Kellie Adams (00:06:01):
How did you not know?

Kellie Adams (00:06:02):
But I was a master.

Rachel Casey (00:06:04):
I think alcoholics and addicts,

Rachel Casey (00:06:07):
whichever you want to say,

Rachel Casey (00:06:09):
I believe the most brilliant people in the world.

Rachel Casey (00:06:11):
And I am so good at being a mastermind of like,

Rachel Casey (00:06:16):
And the things that I could manipulate and sell and move to make the addiction work was,

Rachel Casey (00:06:22):
it's a skill almost.

Rachel Casey (00:06:25):
On page 51 of your book, you talk about this 10 step schedule.

Rachel Casey (00:06:29):
And I related to that so much because my whole life with Evan, after he was born,

Rachel Casey (00:06:36):
was how do I be a stay-at-home mom and a full-time alcoholic?

Rachel Casey (00:06:40):
Because the triggering of being a mom,

Rachel Casey (00:06:43):
you say waking up before the kids,

Rachel Casey (00:06:46):
morning wine,

Rachel Casey (00:06:47):
and then adding the Xanax,

Rachel Casey (00:06:49):
dealing with the postpartum depression.

Rachel Casey (00:06:51):
So when did you have your, you have two daughters?

Kellie Adams (00:06:55):
Yeah, they were born in 1999 and 2001.

Kellie Adams (00:06:58):
It was my first baby that I had the postpartum almost immediately, but I had it for nine months.

Kellie Adams (00:07:03):
the alcohol bottom was scary but that postpartum bottom was fine because i hid it

Kellie Adams (00:07:08):
for so long and it just took over like addiction honestly like the voice not not

Kellie Adams (00:07:15):
like i'm hearing voices no i know what you mean because it was depression it's a

Rachel Casey (00:07:20):
different level i was drinking while that was going on and i tried to use the

Rachel Casey (00:07:24):
drinking to mask it me too

Rachel Casey (00:07:27):
And I,

Rachel Casey (00:07:28):
I related so deeply to you saying you're looking at this small child,

Rachel Casey (00:07:32):
like how can I love something this much?

Rachel Casey (00:07:34):
It is wild.

Rachel Casey (00:07:35):
I was the happiest I've ever been.

Rachel Casey (00:07:36):
I was on cloud nine.

Rachel Casey (00:07:38):
The nurses and doctor got some mix up that they wanted me to go back on Klonopin.

Rachel Casey (00:07:44):
And I said, no, because it passes through the breast milk.

Rachel Casey (00:07:46):
And I was breastfeeding.

Rachel Casey (00:07:48):
My mom.

Rachel Casey (00:07:49):
was high up at the hospital.

Rachel Casey (00:07:50):
I got moved up on a list.

Rachel Casey (00:07:52):
The person who was in charge of the psychiatry department came in and she thought I

Rachel Casey (00:07:57):
was suicidal.

Rachel Casey (00:07:59):
It went dark very fast.

Rachel Casey (00:08:00):
And I was like, no, he was the happiest I'd ever been.

Rachel Casey (00:08:02):
I don't want to go back on drugs.

Rachel Casey (00:08:04):
Life is new.

Rachel Casey (00:08:05):
I have this baby, everything's different.

Rachel Casey (00:08:07):
And this is like one day post giving birth.

Rachel Casey (00:08:09):
And all of a sudden they had me on a psych watch thinking that I was

Rachel Casey (00:08:16):
Uh, just cause it jumped the list.

Rachel Casey (00:08:18):
There was so much miscommunication.

Rachel Casey (00:08:20):
And then I started getting asked all of these deep, dark questions that triggered.

Rachel Casey (00:08:27):
a whole other level of fear, scaredness.

Rachel Casey (00:08:30):
And then the postpartum kicked in about seven days after where I have those intrusive thoughts.

Rachel Casey (00:08:36):
I just won't ever,

Rachel Casey (00:08:37):
I would imagine anytime we went to the doctors,

Rachel Casey (00:08:39):
getting him in the car,

Rachel Casey (00:08:40):
he would fly through the windshield.

Rachel Casey (00:08:42):
Like I would have this whole vision that, Hey, I missed a buckle.

Rachel Casey (00:08:45):
I forgot.

Rachel Casey (00:08:45):
I would never want to drop him.

Rachel Casey (00:08:47):
And I would hold so tightly.

Rachel Casey (00:08:48):
Like, cause I just had this envision of just letting my arms go.

Kellie Adams (00:08:54):
Yeah, crazy is the only way to explain that.

Kellie Adams (00:08:55):
I mean, we're not crazy.

Kellie Adams (00:08:58):
No, I learned.

Rachel Casey (00:09:00):
And they feel so real.

Rachel Casey (00:09:02):
I learned that it's my brain trying to protect me from the fear of that happening,

Rachel Casey (00:09:07):
which is why they're running through these scenarios.

Rachel Casey (00:09:10):
I ended up having to then see a therapist because I'm that scared of being isolated

Rachel Casey (00:09:15):
and held in the hospital with all of these dark questions about

Rachel Casey (00:09:20):
suicide about harming the baby.

Rachel Casey (00:09:22):
Can I afford to have the baby?

Rachel Casey (00:09:24):
They asked like, am I financially stable enough?

Rachel Casey (00:09:26):
And I had to learn, go to a therapist and I had sticky notes all over the house.

Rachel Casey (00:09:31):
This is an intrusive thought.

Rachel Casey (00:09:33):
This is not real.

Kellie Adams (00:09:34):
I do that too.

Rachel Casey (00:09:35):
I still do that.

Kellie Adams (00:09:37):
Now they're usually prayers instead of that, but whatever post-it notes and dry erase markers.

Kellie Adams (00:09:41):
They're my favorites.

Rachel Casey (00:09:43):
Oh my God.

Rachel Casey (00:09:43):
So when I had read that,

Rachel Casey (00:09:45):
they told me the reason they didn't want me to not go back on Klonopin is because

Rachel Casey (00:09:50):
postpartum can be so hard.

Rachel Casey (00:09:52):
I think they made it extremely like exponentially worse by triggering that event.

Rachel Casey (00:09:57):
It's really hard to explain other than it is very similar to the alcoholism

Rachel Casey (00:10:01):
thoughts of even just trying to control it and,

Rachel Casey (00:10:05):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:10:06):
tomorrow I'll get the help.

Rachel Casey (00:10:07):
Tomorrow I'll get the help.

Rachel Casey (00:10:08):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:10:09):
Yeah, for me, it was tomorrow.

Kellie Adams (00:10:10):
I'll tell my husband because I hid it from him.

Kellie Adams (00:10:12):
He went to work and I, oh my gosh, it was desperate.

Kellie Adams (00:10:15):
And finally,

Kellie Adams (00:10:16):
one day I just had to put my daughter in a swing outside because those thoughts of

Kellie Adams (00:10:19):
hurting her came back.

Kellie Adams (00:10:21):
I was like, what?

Kellie Adams (00:10:22):
Why?

Kellie Adams (00:10:22):
I don't want to hurt this little human.

Kellie Adams (00:10:24):
I know.

Kellie Adams (00:10:26):
I just put her in a swing and I called him.

Kellie Adams (00:10:27):
I'm like, you need to come home.

Kellie Adams (00:10:28):
And he was,

Kellie Adams (00:10:29):
again,

Kellie Adams (00:10:29):
the same,

Kellie Adams (00:10:30):
like the same day I hit bottom,

Kellie Adams (00:10:32):
he came over and was like,

Kellie Adams (00:10:33):
what happened?

Kellie Adams (00:10:34):
I'm like,

Kellie Adams (00:10:35):
I've been feeling this for nine months.

Kellie Adams (00:10:36):
And then I got therapy and went on medication.

Kellie Adams (00:10:39):
And when my second child was born, Jessa, I started therapy before I even delivered.

Kellie Adams (00:10:45):
And that one I didn't have any issues with, but I never stopped drinking.

Rachel Casey (00:10:48):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:10:50):
And I mentioned the pharmacist warned me of drinking and taking it.

Kellie Adams (00:10:53):
medication because they're all depressants.

Rachel Casey (00:10:56):
Oh, I didn't care about that.

Rachel Casey (00:10:58):
I would be like, they don't understand my tolerance.

Rachel Casey (00:11:01):
That warning is for people that aren't professionals like I was,

Rachel Casey (00:11:06):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:11:06):
like Colin and I still laugh about that.

Kellie Adams (00:11:09):
I shrugged it off, you know, like, oh, he's talking to these people behind me in line, not me.

Rachel Casey (00:11:15):
Yeah, no, no, no.

Rachel Casey (00:11:16):
Anytime.

Kellie Adams (00:11:16):
I got this, right?

Rachel Casey (00:11:19):
Yeah, exactly.

Rachel Casey (00:11:19):
What?

Rachel Casey (00:11:21):
inspired you to write the memoir did you have like a moment where you're like okay

Kellie Adams (00:11:26):
here's a time i want to make my own book yeah so as the blog started to the blog

Kellie Adams (00:11:32):
and instagram started to grow a presence i panicked a little bit like well i've

Kellie Adams (00:11:37):
always wanted to write a book i just never knew what about who knew that sobriety

Kellie Adams (00:11:40):
would be the thing but i started pulling those posts off instagram because i

Kellie Adams (00:11:44):
realized it was probably worthy of a book but

Kellie Adams (00:11:48):
When I started really doing the book,

Kellie Adams (00:11:49):
which was 2017,

Kellie Adams (00:11:51):
I got sober in 2014,

Kellie Adams (00:11:53):
I realized this is probably going to be way bigger project than I thought.

Kellie Adams (00:11:58):
And sure enough,

Kellie Adams (00:11:58):
when I got my editor and sent her everything,

Kellie Adams (00:12:01):
she's like,

Kellie Adams (00:12:01):
you need to do a deeper dive on these stories.

Kellie Adams (00:12:04):
And that really inspired me to create what ended up a 250 page book.

Kellie Adams (00:12:08):
Otherwise it was just, I don't know what I was going to do with it, but I was so panicked.

Kellie Adams (00:12:12):
Like what if someone steals my idea?

Kellie Adams (00:12:14):
So I pulled my Instagram page down.

Kellie Adams (00:12:15):
I pulled the blogs down, shut my website off.

Kellie Adams (00:12:18):
Yesterday,

Kellie Adams (00:12:19):
a friend from Michigan who I've known for years,

Kellie Adams (00:12:23):
I asked her if she had enjoyed the book.

Kellie Adams (00:12:24):
And she said, oh, I only read half because I gave it to someone who needed it.

Kellie Adams (00:12:27):
This person doesn't happen to be an alcoholic, my friend, but her friend needed the book.

Kellie Adams (00:12:34):
And I said, that is exactly why I wrote it.

Kellie Adams (00:12:35):
I want it to get in the hands of people who need it,

Kellie Adams (00:12:39):
especially moms and women,

Kellie Adams (00:12:40):
because we are targeted.

Kellie Adams (00:12:42):
Don't get me on a soapbox about the marketing, but, you know, mom wine and mommy o'clock,

Kellie Adams (00:12:48):
whatever, why no clock and how to deal with, deal with your children.

Kellie Adams (00:12:53):
Well,

Kellie Adams (00:12:54):
I didn't,

Kellie Adams (00:12:54):
I'm not batching anybody who does,

Kellie Adams (00:12:56):
because I thought that shit was hilarious,

Kellie Adams (00:12:59):
but now I'm like,

Kellie Adams (00:13:00):
we don't stand a chance.

Kellie Adams (00:13:03):
No, no.

Kellie Adams (00:13:04):
And I embraced it and whatever,

Kellie Adams (00:13:06):
but I'm glad my book is ending up in the hands of people who need it.

Kellie Adams (00:13:09):
That was my point.

Kellie Adams (00:13:11):
I joke because I say I drank in the laundry room.

Kellie Adams (00:13:14):
I drank everywhere, but I would, my laundry room was a closet.

Kellie Adams (00:13:17):
It wasn't even a room, but I would go in there and sit on the washer and the dryer and drink.

Kellie Adams (00:13:23):
It's like, this isn't living.

Kellie Adams (00:13:25):
And that's why I wrote the book was like, I'm going to share this.

Kellie Adams (00:13:28):
I'm going to be raw about it and get dirty details that are, I mean, there's some dirty stuff.

Kellie Adams (00:13:35):
I would call it dirty.

Kellie Adams (00:13:36):
Spicy stuff in sobriety that's in the book too.

Kellie Adams (00:13:40):
Those things that are scary.

Kellie Adams (00:13:40):
It's like the first time I had to dance sober.

Kellie Adams (00:13:43):
You get drunk at 13 years old,

Kellie Adams (00:13:45):
you don't have a whole lot of sober dancing in your...

Kellie Adams (00:13:47):
I just wanted it to be relatable and hopefully helps the people.

Kellie Adams (00:13:51):
I drank for way too long in my life.

Kellie Adams (00:13:53):
Period.

Rachel Casey (00:13:54):
I think it's amazing what you share in the opening.

Rachel Casey (00:13:57):
It resonated so deeply.

Rachel Casey (00:14:00):
Just the introduction, the very first sentence, I didn't want to die.

Rachel Casey (00:14:04):
I just couldn't figure out how to live without alcohol.

Rachel Casey (00:14:08):
and that was exactly me my husband and i we drank till we blacked out if he tried

Rachel Casey (00:14:14):
to tell me to slow down because we had a one-year-old i used it as an excuse like

Rachel Casey (00:14:21):
my one-year-old was the reason if you had a colic kid like i did like the alcohol

Rachel Casey (00:14:28):
was that how else do you think i deal with it it was a hundred percent like

Rachel Casey (00:14:34):
Because I'm a mom, if you understood how hard being a mom was, you would drink the way I drink.

Kellie Adams (00:14:40):
And for years, oh, she's autistic.

Kellie Adams (00:14:43):
She was difficult today.

Kellie Adams (00:14:45):
Well, that was 20 years.

Kellie Adams (00:14:48):
I mean, 13 years of drinking her into a corner, basically.

Rachel Casey (00:14:53):
When I got sober and working the steps, I realized my whole life ran around

Rachel Casey (00:15:01):
How can I drink?

Rachel Casey (00:15:02):
How can we even go to dinner?

Rachel Casey (00:15:03):
I won't be able to drive home.

Rachel Casey (00:15:04):
How do we get the, can we put a car seat in an Uber?

Rachel Casey (00:15:07):
If you don't think I've Googled it, I have.

Rachel Casey (00:15:10):
And that is bizarre.

Rachel Casey (00:15:12):
It seems so normal because this mommy wants her wine.

Rachel Casey (00:15:16):
Oh, mommy has her in the Stanleys.

Rachel Casey (00:15:19):
I'm fitting in with all the other moms.

Rachel Casey (00:15:21):
Oh yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:15:23):
The container swaps.

Kellie Adams (00:15:25):
I talk about the vitamin water bottles in my book.

Kellie Adams (00:15:27):
Like I always had purse wine.

Kellie Adams (00:15:30):
I always had fireball.

Kellie Adams (00:15:32):
I go to my kids concerts with a vitamin water or coffee cup full of wine.

Kellie Adams (00:15:36):
The vitamin water was really handy.

Kellie Adams (00:15:38):
The deception of our own brains.

Kellie Adams (00:15:42):
by our own disease is crazy.

Kellie Adams (00:15:44):
And the links we go to,

Kellie Adams (00:15:45):
there was a post on Instagram the other day about a mom hiking and what a relief it

Kellie Adams (00:15:49):
is not to sneak wine into her Nalgene or her beverage pack or whatever.

Kellie Adams (00:15:53):
And it's like, I get that, but it's so encouraged too.

Kellie Adams (00:15:57):
Like it's okay, mom, just drink.

Kellie Adams (00:15:59):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:16:00):
And it's that autistic daughter is 23 now and she went through hell two years ago

Kellie Adams (00:16:05):
and I was sober.

Kellie Adams (00:16:07):
We went through hell.

Kellie Adams (00:16:09):
I just think it, God, if I hadn't been sober,

Kellie Adams (00:16:12):
I would have probably caused a lot more damage and I wouldn't have been there for her.

Kellie Adams (00:16:17):
And that's the gift for all those years that I drank her into a corner and my oldest,

Kellie Adams (00:16:22):
because it all went together.

Kellie Adams (00:16:23):
I was stressed out, but stressed out and hung over, not a good mix.

Rachel Casey (00:16:28):
As I shared, my mom got sober one month after you got sober and I was already an adult.

Rachel Casey (00:16:34):
I'd grown up.

Rachel Casey (00:16:36):
I was actually mad that she got sober the year I turned 21.

Rachel Casey (00:16:39):
It's been really nice to have her as a sober mom.

Rachel Casey (00:16:41):
We talk about the childhood stuff.

Rachel Casey (00:16:44):
I didn't notice it with her as much as my dad,

Rachel Casey (00:16:46):
but it has been really cool to see the transformation,

Rachel Casey (00:16:50):
especially having her as a sober grandma.

Rachel Casey (00:16:53):
She loves that my son will never...

Rachel Casey (00:16:55):
see her drink and she's the one that helped me get sober I called her when I was

Rachel Casey (00:17:00):
wanting to I didn't want to die is I was so suicidal the day before my last drink I

Rachel Casey (00:17:07):
thought I just needed to get locked up because I was so for the first time like

Rachel Casey (00:17:12):
serious and I really didn't want to die because that's why I'm asking for help

Rachel Casey (00:17:15):
right but I did because I was just I couldn't stop drinking

Rachel Casey (00:17:20):
and i also said it was it's not the drinking it's my brain i need to go somewhere

Rachel Casey (00:17:26):
and get help uh now my mom knew because she is sober and she saw me and she picked

Rachel Casey (00:17:34):
up me and my son thank god because she helped take care again he just turned two

Rachel Casey (00:17:39):
had she not been sober i don't know that i would have gotten sober so it's been

Rachel Casey (00:17:43):
cool to have a sober mom and i'm sure your kids appreciate it too

Kellie Adams (00:17:47):
Yeah,

Kellie Adams (00:17:47):
it's pretty neat to hear your perspective because my kids are 25 and 23 and my

Kellie Adams (00:17:55):
oldest is so thankful.

Kellie Adams (00:17:56):
I've done an amends with her and it was very powerful,

Kellie Adams (00:18:01):
you know,

Kellie Adams (00:18:01):
but there's still things I apologize for.

Kellie Adams (00:18:03):
I can see some of her behavior.

Kellie Adams (00:18:04):
I'm like, I know that's a result of my drinking.

Kellie Adams (00:18:08):
I don't like park there and Fred on it and all that,

Kellie Adams (00:18:11):
but I can still see there's deep damage there.

Kellie Adams (00:18:14):
And I haven't done the amends with my youngest, um,

Kellie Adams (00:18:17):
because of the autism she's very high functioning but there's a lack of what she

Kellie Adams (00:18:21):
would think my motivation is in that and it's been recommended that if i do that or

Kellie Adams (00:18:27):
when i do that we will do it with her counselor so she can help us mediate my

Kellie Adams (00:18:33):
daughter's thoughts with my amends but for now that living amends like i'm a

Kellie Adams (00:18:37):
different mom i raised my voice last week and she was like you're acting like you

Kellie Adams (00:18:42):
used to i was like oh god

Rachel Casey (00:18:44):
Oh man,

Rachel Casey (00:18:46):
my son said that I'd be like,

Rachel Casey (00:18:47):
okay,

Rachel Casey (00:18:48):
because I still have moments just because I stopped drinking.

Rachel Casey (00:18:51):
Not everything's fixed.

Rachel Casey (00:18:52):
It's just that I'm not going to make the same mistakes I did when I was blacked out.

Rachel Casey (00:18:57):
I can't remember, but I think you bring up a great point of amends.

Rachel Casey (00:19:03):
It's if it harms the other person,

Rachel Casey (00:19:06):
people will argue in meetings about amends being like direct and immediate.

Rachel Casey (00:19:10):
Making sure that they're on the terms they're supposed to be on reciprocated in the

Rachel Casey (00:19:14):
way they're supposed to be.

Rachel Casey (00:19:16):
The other person matters too.

Rachel Casey (00:19:18):
It's nice to share that because I think it's worth thinking about the other person

Rachel Casey (00:19:24):
when you're going to make amends.

Rachel Casey (00:19:25):
I know I've shared the amends are for you,

Rachel Casey (00:19:27):
not for the other person,

Rachel Casey (00:19:28):
but if it's in a scenario where you're like,

Rachel Casey (00:19:30):
Hey,

Rachel Casey (00:19:30):
they're not going to hear it.

Rachel Casey (00:19:32):
We need to have someone in between.

Rachel Casey (00:19:34):
I think that's really powerful to share because I'm sure there's listeners that are

Rachel Casey (00:19:38):
holding on amends.

Rachel Casey (00:19:40):
For that reason,

Rachel Casey (00:19:41):
that's one of those exceptions in the book of if it's going to cause harm,

Rachel Casey (00:19:47):
it's okay to wait.

Rachel Casey (00:19:48):
So it doesn't mean you're avoiding it.

Rachel Casey (00:19:49):
It means you're actually being responsible and not being impulsive and not just

Rachel Casey (00:19:54):
getting it out of the way for you.

Rachel Casey (00:19:55):
There is the other side of it.

Kellie Adams (00:19:57):
Yeah, because my other daughter I had done in, I guess it was like 2018.

Kellie Adams (00:20:04):
I was four years sober when I did that a month with my oldest.

Kellie Adams (00:20:07):
And right.

Kellie Adams (00:20:08):
a living amends with my youngest she's needed a lot of support the last two years

Rachel Casey (00:20:12):
and i've been there i think that's what my mom swears she made amends to me but i

Rachel Casey (00:20:15):
do not remember it once i got sober i was like i don't ever remember getting an

Rachel Casey (00:20:19):
amends from you and she's like i did i guess i probably was drinking at the time

Rachel Casey (00:20:24):
and yeah

Rachel Casey (00:20:25):
The good thing about her is that as someone who was sober,

Rachel Casey (00:20:28):
she saw all the things of me,

Rachel Casey (00:20:32):
but the part that was hard was she couldn't really do anything about it until the

Rachel Casey (00:20:36):
moment came because it'll spoil that opportunity.

Rachel Casey (00:20:39):
Had she hounded me about it, I would not have called her that day and it wouldn't have worked.

Rachel Casey (00:20:45):
Another

Rachel Casey (00:20:46):
part that you write about in the book.

Rachel Casey (00:20:48):
And I have this tab for that reason.

Rachel Casey (00:20:50):
It's about the middle.

Rachel Casey (00:20:52):
You talk about service work.

Rachel Casey (00:20:54):
I love the part about

Rachel Casey (00:20:57):
giving back and taking on things such as meetings,

Rachel Casey (00:21:01):
making coffee,

Rachel Casey (00:21:01):
just little things you want to share a little bit about putting it in the book?

Rachel Casey (00:21:06):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:21:06):
So I got sober in June and by that fall, I'm self-employed.

Kellie Adams (00:21:12):
One of the gentlemen at the hall who arranged all the parties,

Kellie Adams (00:21:16):
the hall is where I got sober,

Kellie Adams (00:21:18):
realized I was self-employed and would be available.

Kellie Adams (00:21:20):
So I went from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year's, Valentine's, like

Kellie Adams (00:21:25):
all the parties i was out shopping planning and baking and it was kind of a pain in

Kellie Adams (00:21:30):
the ass i was like why am i going to the dollar store 10 times today like why

Kellie Adams (00:21:33):
couldn't he just give me a list all of that was keeping me sober but you in early

Kellie Adams (00:21:38):
society you don't realize like why are they having to go on so many errands they i

Kellie Adams (00:21:42):
think he knew what he was doing but i stayed sober so that first holiday season if

Kellie Adams (00:21:46):
it hadn't been for fellowship hall and all that service work i wouldn't have stayed

Kellie Adams (00:21:50):
sober i know it

Kellie Adams (00:21:52):
The Halloween party was my first time sober dancing.

Kellie Adams (00:21:55):
Even wearing a costume, I was uncomfortable in my own skin.

Kellie Adams (00:21:58):
I have never been sober on Halloween as an adult.

Kellie Adams (00:22:01):
So once I realized that,

Kellie Adams (00:22:03):
I think I started sponsoring when I was about two years sober,

Kellie Adams (00:22:07):
sponsoring other women.

Kellie Adams (00:22:08):
And just this week,

Kellie Adams (00:22:09):
I have a sponsor,

Kellie Adams (00:22:10):
a sponsee who was,

Kellie Adams (00:22:11):
she was about six months sober and she was complaining about her family not doing

Kellie Adams (00:22:15):
the dishes.

Kellie Adams (00:22:15):
And I was like, well, that's a common theme, right?

Kellie Adams (00:22:19):
Talking from one mom to another.

Kellie Adams (00:22:21):
I said, why don't you consider it service work?

Kellie Adams (00:22:24):
She's like, what?

Kellie Adams (00:22:25):
Seriously, if you're doing the dishes, you're not drinking.

Kellie Adams (00:22:28):
She's like, oh my God, I never thought of it like that.

Kellie Adams (00:22:31):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:22:31):
So now, you know, I have two sponsees.

Kellie Adams (00:22:33):
I do chair meetings at the hall, but in the beginning it was washing coffee cups.

Kellie Adams (00:22:37):
It was making coffee, whatever I had to do.

Kellie Adams (00:22:40):
Anytime I was doing service work, I wasn't drinking.

Rachel Casey (00:22:42):
It's a great way to look at it.

Kellie Adams (00:22:43):
I go to bed super early.

Kellie Adams (00:22:47):
So if someone wants me to do something at eight, I'm like,

Rachel Casey (00:22:50):
You know, but I go do it and I feel really good.

Rachel Casey (00:22:53):
The question I always posed on myself was similar to what you just said.

Rachel Casey (00:22:58):
just reframed a little differently would i go get a drink or pick up alcohol if

Rachel Casey (00:23:04):
that were the case like right now at any time in sobriety at least i'm not drinking

Rachel Casey (00:23:09):
i was like well if you would have asked me would you go get a drink right now

Rachel Casey (00:23:13):
someone texted me that would i pick up the phone you know so like when i saw a

Rachel Casey (00:23:17):
sponsee or someone calling it's like oh wait i'm in the middle of stuff but

Rachel Casey (00:23:23):
Would I get a drink if that were ringing?

Rachel Casey (00:23:25):
Yeah, I would.

Rachel Casey (00:23:26):
So then it's the same kind of concept of now I've had a harder time with the

Rachel Casey (00:23:31):
service work because my first year I really was away in pretty much in meetings,

Rachel Casey (00:23:39):
three meetings a day sometimes,

Rachel Casey (00:23:40):
because that's just how I drink at home.

Rachel Casey (00:23:43):
And this year three,

Rachel Casey (00:23:45):
I've really kind of lessened up because I have a five-year-old who requires so much time.

Rachel Casey (00:23:51):
I feel.

Rachel Casey (00:23:53):
guilty at times where i have to choose between doing the mom events that i'm

Rachel Casey (00:23:59):
grateful that's i'm i get to be sober to do those right and between doing recovery

Rachel Casey (00:24:05):
events which now i'm kind of sideline my family but if i'm not sober i don't have a

Rachel Casey (00:24:11):
family so it gets this really murky

Rachel Casey (00:24:15):
Actually,

Rachel Casey (00:24:15):
uh,

Rachel Casey (00:24:16):
down,

Rachel Casey (00:24:17):
I don't even have a sponsor right now because it's,

Rachel Casey (00:24:20):
it's hard when someone's reaching out and I'm having to choose between family events.

Rachel Casey (00:24:26):
It's really busy right now.

Rachel Casey (00:24:27):
And I don't feel like it's fair because I'm not able to be available.

Rachel Casey (00:24:31):
Like even this week with surgery.

Rachel Casey (00:24:32):
Oh, it's.

Rachel Casey (00:24:35):
There's that part with the mommy.

Rachel Casey (00:24:38):
If you say that in a meeting,

Rachel Casey (00:24:39):
I think I'll have 20 women come up to me after and say,

Rachel Casey (00:24:42):
you're so lucky you get to be sober and he doesn't remember you drinking.

Rachel Casey (00:24:46):
I get it.

Rachel Casey (00:24:49):
It's also just hard to be a mom with a little one and also trying to

Rachel Casey (00:24:56):
dedicate my life to what saved it and i don't have a college degree i'm going back

Rachel Casey (00:25:00):
to school it's a lot of different hats that i'm trying on trying to figure out how

Rachel Casey (00:25:06):
to give back while doing the mom life yeah there's a balance for sure i know i just

Kellie Adams (00:25:12):
dropped a couple service positions i thought i was in a position to do that because

Kellie Adams (00:25:17):
i've usually just sponsored or helped out at the halls or with events

Kellie Adams (00:25:21):
But I decided to try to be a GSR.

Kellie Adams (00:25:22):
I realized that my youngest,

Kellie Adams (00:25:24):
she still requires a lot of me,

Kellie Adams (00:25:26):
especially having been through the trauma she went through.

Kellie Adams (00:25:28):
It's like, I can't do this.

Kellie Adams (00:25:29):
And that's okay.

Kellie Adams (00:25:30):
I'm okay with that.

Kellie Adams (00:25:32):
You know,

Kellie Adams (00:25:32):
my sponsor always says,

Kellie Adams (00:25:34):
don't let the life that sobriety gave you get in the way of your sobriety.

Kellie Adams (00:25:38):
So it's like, oh, okay.

Kellie Adams (00:25:41):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:25:42):
I see what she's saying there.

Kellie Adams (00:25:43):
Right.

Kellie Adams (00:25:43):
So I had to drop those service positions.

Kellie Adams (00:25:45):
I'm still doing a sponsorship thing, but I just can't do it right now.

Kellie Adams (00:25:49):
She requires too much.

Rachel Casey (00:25:51):
yeah and i think the other part is those people that were my sponsors i still talk

Rachel Casey (00:25:56):
to them it's not like they i they could call it any time it's just i can't commit

Rachel Casey (00:26:01):
to weekly meetings to read when life is so busy hearing some of in early sobriety

Rachel Casey (00:26:09):
some of the things to struggle with of even being bored i'm like

Rachel Casey (00:26:13):
good God, I wish I could be bored.

Rachel Casey (00:26:16):
Like, you know, and I'm just like, I have no idea.

Rachel Casey (00:26:19):
I think it's always like wearing, it's the other

Rachel Casey (00:26:24):
side of whatever you don't have because one of the things i also have marked and

Rachel Casey (00:26:29):
wanted to talk about was you meeting your husband in a speaker meeting that is so

Rachel Casey (00:26:36):
cute having a sober marriage while i'm still with colin we do want to do like a vow

Rachel Casey (00:26:43):
renewal wedding because while i was pregnant though i didn't drink on my wedding

Rachel Casey (00:26:48):
day but that was probably the hardest my friends almost went and got a bottle of

Rachel Casey (00:26:51):
jameson and they were like if you just do a shot

Rachel Casey (00:26:54):
The baby will be fine.

Rachel Casey (00:26:56):
My response was, I don't want just one.

Rachel Casey (00:26:58):
I don't want, like, I've never just.

Kellie Adams (00:27:00):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:27:01):
I was so jealous when I saw the bachelor Collins part is having the mimosas and the

Rachel Casey (00:27:07):
alcohol on the day of our wedding.

Rachel Casey (00:27:09):
I said, we're redoing this when I'm not pregnant, but.

Rachel Casey (00:27:14):
we want to get remarried in sobriety because i don't want my memory to be of how

Rachel Casey (00:27:19):
badly i was wanting a drink is one thing i can really really really remember i had

Rachel Casey (00:27:23):
a best man he had a best woman and i'm like literally was on the edge of buying a

Rachel Casey (00:27:27):
bottle of jameson but knowing i never just wanted one was hard hearing you talk

Rachel Casey (00:27:33):
about picking the songs i would be emotional and i will so want to cry i think

Rachel Casey (00:27:37):
having in sobriety will be different but if you want to share about writing about

Rachel Casey (00:27:41):
getting married in

Rachel Casey (00:27:44):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:27:45):
I met Clay.

Kellie Adams (00:27:47):
I didn't want to date anybody.

Kellie Adams (00:27:48):
I had just got out of a bad breakup.

Kellie Adams (00:27:50):
Had never seen this guy before at an AA meeting.

Kellie Adams (00:27:53):
I was like, who is he?

Kellie Adams (00:27:54):
He told like 15 minutes of his story.

Kellie Adams (00:27:56):
And here I am like,

Rachel Casey (00:27:58):
I'm not on rebound or anything.

Rachel Casey (00:28:00):
I'm over this other guy.

Rachel Casey (00:28:01):
You were also sober, right?

Rachel Casey (00:28:03):
In the previous relationship before.

Rachel Casey (00:28:04):
Cause I read that and I was like, oh wow, you can still be in a bad relationship in sobriety.

Rachel Casey (00:28:10):
Like it doesn't mean you're sober.

Rachel Casey (00:28:12):
Oh, of course I'll pick the good ones.

Rachel Casey (00:28:14):
You had a bad relationship in sobriety.

Kellie Adams (00:28:16):
Terrible.

Kellie Adams (00:28:17):
And I let it go for three years, but I learned a lot.

Kellie Adams (00:28:20):
Like, okay, I will not do that again.

Kellie Adams (00:28:21):
And I will not settle for that.

Kellie Adams (00:28:23):
And he was supposedly sober too.

Kellie Adams (00:28:25):
But anyway, we'll just let that one go.

Rachel Casey (00:28:26):
New women that are struggling.

Rachel Casey (00:28:28):
It happens.

Kellie Adams (00:28:29):
And you can get out.

Kellie Adams (00:28:29):
It's not our fault.

Kellie Adams (00:28:30):
I mean, I had the best intentions.

Kellie Adams (00:28:32):
I probably should have not dated.

Kellie Adams (00:28:33):
I met him when I was six months sober.

Kellie Adams (00:28:34):
I should have probably not dated till I was a little bit more sober.

Kellie Adams (00:28:38):
But whatever.

Rachel Casey (00:28:39):
Learn.

Kellie Adams (00:28:40):
So I met Clay at an AA meeting.

Kellie Adams (00:28:41):
He had a sleeve of tattoos and Southern drawl.

Kellie Adams (00:28:45):
And I was like, who's that guy?

Kellie Adams (00:28:47):
Well,

Kellie Adams (00:28:47):
a friend of mine in sobriety,

Kellie Adams (00:28:48):
we both funded him on Facebook and she was like my partner in crime.

Kellie Adams (00:28:52):
Like I would say, invite him to game night.

Kellie Adams (00:28:54):
So she'd invite him and it took him about three months to get the hint that I was interested.

Kellie Adams (00:29:01):
And yeah, so we dated almost three years and he asked me to marry him and it was great.

Kellie Adams (00:29:08):
I think we were on our third date and we were at a

Kellie Adams (00:29:12):
frozen yogurt place and we're walking to the car.

Kellie Adams (00:29:13):
He's like, should we talk to our sponsors about this?

Kellie Adams (00:29:16):
We really did it by the book.

Kellie Adams (00:29:17):
And I was going to do it by the book because that first one was such a disaster.

Kellie Adams (00:29:21):
So we got approval from our sponsor.

Kellie Adams (00:29:24):
We don't have to, it's a suggestion, but we did it.

Kellie Adams (00:29:28):
And then it was just, you know, full-time relationship and we got married.

Kellie Adams (00:29:33):
See, I met him in 2017 and we were married in 2020 during COVID small wedding.

Kellie Adams (00:29:39):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:29:39):
It ended up very small, which wasn't bad.

Kellie Adams (00:29:42):
And we did have alcohol at the wedding for guests that drank and we toasted with

Kellie Adams (00:29:48):
blood orange sparkling juice.

Rachel Casey (00:29:51):
Yes.

Rachel Casey (00:29:52):
I love that.

Kellie Adams (00:29:53):
And the alcohol,

Kellie Adams (00:29:54):
you know,

Kellie Adams (00:29:54):
we have a friend who there was a lot of alcohol leftover because a lot of our

Kellie Adams (00:29:58):
guests were sober,

Kellie Adams (00:29:59):
but a couple of our friends saw all the leftover alcohol and they were like,

Kellie Adams (00:30:03):
can we take that home?

Kellie Adams (00:30:05):
Like, yes, please take it.

Kellie Adams (00:30:07):
I was six years sober at that point.

Kellie Adams (00:30:09):
He was seven.

Kellie Adams (00:30:10):
And we had really considered, should we or shouldn't we?

Kellie Adams (00:30:13):
We decided to have the alcohol because it didn't bother us.

Kellie Adams (00:30:16):
We hope it didn't bother any of the other guests.

Kellie Adams (00:30:20):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:30:21):
It was far different than my first wedding because I was obsessed with alcohol too.

Kellie Adams (00:30:26):
It's in my book.

Kellie Adams (00:30:26):
I mean,

Kellie Adams (00:30:27):
I remember my whole first wedding,

Kellie Adams (00:30:29):
but I was obsessed with the next drink the whole time.

Kellie Adams (00:30:31):
I'm glad I remember all of it, but it was real nice to try it a sober way.

Kellie Adams (00:30:36):
You know, like, okay, I'm going to actually really be in the moment instead of

Kellie Adams (00:30:40):
wanting that next drink or hiding the next drink because a bride shouldn't drink

Kellie Adams (00:30:45):
that much on her wedding day which i started in the morning had i not been pregnant

Rachel Casey (00:30:50):
i've been slurring my words so i can tell you that much yeah i love the recover out

Rachel Casey (00:30:55):
loud in your tattoo it's on your wrist right yeah well it is and now it's i

Kellie Adams (00:31:00):
embellished it so my daughter and i got the triangles which is and then my second

Kellie Adams (00:31:06):
my second daughter my little daughter and i

Kellie Adams (00:31:09):
Can't see triangles are down here.

Kellie Adams (00:31:10):
And then my youngest and I've got more.

Kellie Adams (00:31:14):
So this is my daughter tattoo arm.

Kellie Adams (00:31:18):
So there's a semicolon, the heart for love and a cross.

Kellie Adams (00:31:21):
She's extremely Christian and not necessarily, but.

Kellie Adams (00:31:25):
I love her and support her.

Kellie Adams (00:31:27):
And there's an anchor that I'm an anchor.

Rachel Casey (00:31:28):
I just have my circle triangle.

Rachel Casey (00:31:31):
When I shared about wanting a tattoo, the feedback I got was don't jinx it.

Rachel Casey (00:31:35):
Don't do it.

Rachel Casey (00:31:36):
I originally won my date.

Rachel Casey (00:31:37):
I left room to put my date.

Rachel Casey (00:31:38):
People are like, you're going to be so mad if you have to change it.

Rachel Casey (00:31:41):
It scared me off not to get the date.

Rachel Casey (00:31:44):
Every time I look down at my wrist and see it, I love it.

Rachel Casey (00:31:46):
I've never once regretted it.

Rachel Casey (00:31:49):
I look at it as a pause button.

Rachel Casey (00:31:50):
The thing about the room sometimes of like a,

Rachel Casey (00:31:54):
there's a lot of different personalities and that's why they say principles before

Rachel Casey (00:31:59):
personalities is that there can be feedback from a lot of different angles.

Rachel Casey (00:32:03):
And I tried to take it all in.

Rachel Casey (00:32:06):
And now I'm so focused sometimes on the sobriety part that I'm not showing up for my family.

Rachel Casey (00:32:10):
It is just a very hard mix.

Rachel Casey (00:32:15):
We figure it out, right?

Rachel Casey (00:32:16):
That's we do this.

Rachel Casey (00:32:17):
We talk to each other.

Rachel Casey (00:32:19):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:32:19):
Connect in.

Kellie Adams (00:32:21):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:32:21):
There's a connection is the opposite of addiction.

Kellie Adams (00:32:24):
I was isolated in my house with room darkening curtains the last few years of my drinking.

Kellie Adams (00:32:30):
I had friends come over knocking on the door and looking in the window and I would

Kellie Adams (00:32:33):
jump in the shower and hide.

Kellie Adams (00:32:34):
Like they're going to, I'm just in your drinking, leave me alone, you know?

Kellie Adams (00:32:39):
Yeah, exactly.

Rachel Casey (00:32:40):
You don't need to worry about me.

Rachel Casey (00:32:42):
And even the thought of having to add anything like the Halloween and the trunk or treats,

Rachel Casey (00:32:47):
it's like,

Rachel Casey (00:32:47):
good God,

Rachel Casey (00:32:48):
can I not just drink and leave me alone?

Rachel Casey (00:32:50):
I don't want to do this stuff.

Kellie Adams (00:32:52):
What's all this organized chaos I have to take part in?

Rachel Casey (00:32:56):
Just let me drink.

Rachel Casey (00:32:59):
It's so crazy.

Rachel Casey (00:32:59):
So now that the memoir is out, it's published.

Rachel Casey (00:33:04):
Is there anything unexpected or how are you feeling after have any challenges arose

Rachel Casey (00:33:08):
in reflection or any revelations about writing the memoir?

Rachel Casey (00:33:12):
No,

Kellie Adams (00:33:13):
the only thing that came up,

Kellie Adams (00:33:15):
there were a couple of parts of the book I thought I would get some pretty hard

Kellie Adams (00:33:18):
critique on and I haven't yet.

Kellie Adams (00:33:20):
I'm not going to mention them, but I did have a lady who read it who.

Kellie Adams (00:33:25):
was very uncomfortable with it.

Kellie Adams (00:33:27):
She's not one of us, but she was worried.

Kellie Adams (00:33:29):
She's like, I feel like I just read your personal diary.

Kellie Adams (00:33:32):
And I was like, that's a memoir.

Kellie Adams (00:33:34):
And what I've said in my response was if I don't bring the mess, people won't hear the message.

Kellie Adams (00:33:39):
So I brought them up and I published it and it is messy.

Kellie Adams (00:33:43):
But there's also a lot of beauty in that.

Kellie Adams (00:33:45):
Like, how do we grow without the mask?

Kellie Adams (00:33:48):
I don't think that's possible.

Kellie Adams (00:33:49):
I didn't understand that before I got sober.

Kellie Adams (00:33:51):
I was a little put off at first that she thought she was reading my diary, but it is.

Kellie Adams (00:33:55):
There's stuff in there that when I first got sober and did my first round of steps,

Kellie Adams (00:33:59):
I was mortified to share with my sponsor.

Kellie Adams (00:34:02):
And now it's public, right?

Kellie Adams (00:34:05):
But honestly,

Kellie Adams (00:34:06):
if I'm going to save some lives,

Kellie Adams (00:34:08):
one or two,

Kellie Adams (00:34:09):
and spare them what I went through for 34 years,

Kellie Adams (00:34:12):
it's worth it to me.

Kellie Adams (00:34:14):
So far, that's the only thing that's come out.

Kellie Adams (00:34:16):
Okay.

Rachel Casey (00:34:17):
That's interesting.

Rachel Casey (00:34:18):
I guess the separation of someone recovery,

Rachel Casey (00:34:23):
someone not,

Rachel Casey (00:34:24):
I never even once thought that because this is,

Rachel Casey (00:34:28):
I understand.

Rachel Casey (00:34:29):
I'm like, oh yeah, me too.

Rachel Casey (00:34:31):
I can market me too.

Rachel Casey (00:34:32):
I will say, and this actually comes from the postpartum.

Rachel Casey (00:34:37):
is i was mortified to say any of that stuff out loud probably as much as my

Rachel Casey (00:34:42):
drinking before i walked into a now three years in talking about pretty much

Rachel Casey (00:34:48):
anything does not even alert me i'm just like yeah yeah heard it done it or someone

Kellie Adams (00:34:55):
else i know has done it a meeting and i think that's the thing i was telling my

Kellie Adams (00:34:59):
brother it was like

Kellie Adams (00:35:01):
If you sat in on a few AA meetings, none of this would be shocking.

Kellie Adams (00:35:04):
This could be mild.

Kellie Adams (00:35:06):
I mean, my story is pretty mild.

Kellie Adams (00:35:08):
In my mind,

Kellie Adams (00:35:08):
it's like,

Kellie Adams (00:35:09):
I went through a lot of emotional stuff,

Kellie Adams (00:35:11):
deaths and postpartum and all that,

Kellie Adams (00:35:14):
but I've heard other stories,

Kellie Adams (00:35:16):
you know,

Kellie Adams (00:35:17):
it's like,

Kellie Adams (00:35:18):
and we laugh about it in AA meetings.

Kellie Adams (00:35:20):
Some of our most tragic stories were laughing.

Kellie Adams (00:35:22):
I remember when I was in early sobriety, like, oh my God, how are they laughing?

Kellie Adams (00:35:26):
That should be embarrassing.

Kellie Adams (00:35:28):
It doesn't matter anymore.

Kellie Adams (00:35:29):
But that is the difference.

Kellie Adams (00:35:31):
Someone who's never sat in an AA meeting or tried spray and realized that you have

Kellie Adams (00:35:35):
to spill the dirt.

Rachel Casey (00:35:37):
Yeah, you do.

Rachel Casey (00:35:38):
And so I was the only really reason I was opening up about the postpartum depression.

Rachel Casey (00:35:47):
And it was someone who was one of my drinking buddies.

Rachel Casey (00:35:50):
She came over with bottles of wine and our kids were

Rachel Casey (00:35:55):
I think six months apart.

Rachel Casey (00:35:56):
She's asking, how are you dealing?

Rachel Casey (00:35:58):
Do you have postpartum depression?

Rachel Casey (00:35:59):
And of course my answer is no, just like the same as I would feel with alcoholics.

Rachel Casey (00:36:05):
And she's like, man, it was really hard.

Rachel Casey (00:36:09):
And she had shared one of the scariest ones for her.

Rachel Casey (00:36:13):
And her sharing that, I was like, oh my God.

Rachel Casey (00:36:19):
Well,

Rachel Casey (00:36:19):
I thought about my son going through the window of the car and it got to where we

Rachel Casey (00:36:25):
could actually say it.

Rachel Casey (00:36:26):
And when I said it out loud, it kind of lost its power.

Rachel Casey (00:36:28):
And that's when I actually seeked help and started being honest about the thoughts

Rachel Casey (00:36:32):
I was having,

Rachel Casey (00:36:33):
because I felt like if I were to say it out loud,

Rachel Casey (00:36:36):
even to my husband,

Rachel Casey (00:36:37):
it would become real or he would think I was crazy.

Rachel Casey (00:36:40):
And then I would be away from my baby.

Rachel Casey (00:36:41):
But it took another mom sharing.

Rachel Casey (00:36:44):
This is kind of what happened to where I'm like, oh my God, I'm not alone.

Rachel Casey (00:36:49):
So I think putting that stuff in the memory,

Rachel Casey (00:36:51):
with sobriety,

Rachel Casey (00:36:53):
if you don't have an addiction,

Rachel Casey (00:36:55):
it might sound a little crazy to you,

Rachel Casey (00:36:57):
but it doesn't sound crazy to this person that's like,

Rachel Casey (00:36:59):
oh my God,

Rachel Casey (00:37:01):
I didn't know I wasn't the only one.

Kellie Adams (00:37:04):
Well,

Kellie Adams (00:37:04):
I think both the common denominator with postpartum depression and addiction or

Kellie Adams (00:37:09):
alcoholism is shame.

Kellie Adams (00:37:11):
The reason we continue to suffer is shame.

Kellie Adams (00:37:13):
We don't, and I always say, use your voice.

Kellie Adams (00:37:15):
It'll take the power away once you start talking about it.

Kellie Adams (00:37:18):
And in 1999 and 2000, postpartum wasn't that talked about.

Kellie Adams (00:37:24):
I remember I was so pissed because Tom Cruise was on Oprah or one of those shows.

Kellie Adams (00:37:28):
He was making fun of women who have postpartum and he was jumping up and down on

Kellie Adams (00:37:34):
the couch like crazy.

Kellie Adams (00:37:35):
I was like, you asshole.

Kellie Adams (00:37:38):
I could have died.

Kellie Adams (00:37:39):
My child could have died.

Kellie Adams (00:37:40):
It was that serious.

Kellie Adams (00:37:41):
It feels very real.

Kellie Adams (00:37:43):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:37:43):
And I told my husband, I'm going to write a book about postpartum.

Kellie Adams (00:37:46):
which I never did because I was still drinking and didn't have the bandwidth to write a book.

Kellie Adams (00:37:51):
But I so badly realized like women were hurting and it's the same thing with alcohol.

Kellie Adams (00:37:57):
Women are hurting and so are men.

Kellie Adams (00:37:58):
I'm not trying to belittle male alcoholism.

Kellie Adams (00:38:01):
It's just the targeting toward women and moms is so brutal.

Kellie Adams (00:38:06):
It's relentless.

Kellie Adams (00:38:07):
When the kids were little, they were probably like five and seven.

Kellie Adams (00:38:11):
I used to take them to this public

Kellie Adams (00:38:13):
pool in Bozeman, Montana, where we lived.

Kellie Adams (00:38:15):
I remember I was drinking at the pool while they were swimming,

Kellie Adams (00:38:19):
reading this book called Mommies Who Drink.

Kellie Adams (00:38:22):
On the cover, this lady had a glass of wine or a martini and a lampshade on her head.

Kellie Adams (00:38:26):
It was hysterical because I related to every bit of that book as a drinking mom.

Kellie Adams (00:38:32):
Now I'm like, oh my God, just me sitting at a pool drinking wine while my kids are swimming.

Kellie Adams (00:38:38):
I'm laughing at a book about alcoholism, basically.

Kellie Adams (00:38:41):
didn't realize it at the time you know so now i'd like my book to be that relatable

Kellie Adams (00:38:45):
but on the flip side right sober moms we can do

Rachel Casey (00:38:50):
I believe your book will get into the hands of people who need it.

Rachel Casey (00:38:52):
Again,

Rachel Casey (00:38:53):
if they don't,

Rachel Casey (00:38:54):
it should be like a congratulations if you don't get it,

Rachel Casey (00:38:56):
because you probably have never had a drinking problem.

Rachel Casey (00:38:59):
If that doesn't sound relatable, congrats, you're probably a normie.

Rachel Casey (00:39:03):
As you were already told, this book was handed to someone who needed it.

Rachel Casey (00:39:08):
And I think it can be the softer, easier way, and maybe even a way to read about

Rachel Casey (00:39:14):
the rooms of AA looking at you, who you are looking at Instagram or reading your book.

Rachel Casey (00:39:19):
You're like, oh, okay.

Rachel Casey (00:39:20):
So it happens to normal people because people think it's like the homeless AA

Rachel Casey (00:39:26):
meeting is like,

Rachel Casey (00:39:26):
I don't know how else to explain.

Rachel Casey (00:39:29):
It's not what you think.

Rachel Casey (00:39:30):
I promise.

Rachel Casey (00:39:31):
Just go listen to an open meeting and you'll be like,

Rachel Casey (00:39:34):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:39:34):
this is nothing probably like what I thought.

Rachel Casey (00:39:36):
But yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:39:37):
I think you do a great job.

Rachel Casey (00:39:39):
And I like that in the beginning of all the chapter labels,

Rachel Casey (00:39:43):
you have it very well displayed to where if someone wants to go to a specific

Rachel Casey (00:39:47):
section that they want to say,

Rachel Casey (00:39:50):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:39:51):
I'm dealing with having one year sobriety.

Rachel Casey (00:39:53):
Oh, okay.

Rachel Casey (00:39:54):
I'll let, I kind of want to read at one year.

Rachel Casey (00:39:56):
And I like that you have the dry drunk, the God, the big deal.

Rachel Casey (00:40:01):
You even have the part where you're talking about your brother, the sex section, you know,

Rachel Casey (00:40:07):
And you probably skipped that chapter.

Rachel Casey (00:40:10):
I love the marriage with a twist of humor.

Rachel Casey (00:40:11):
I thought it was very well done.

Rachel Casey (00:40:13):
I loved the pictures.

Rachel Casey (00:40:14):
It's broken up very nicely.

Kellie Adams (00:40:15):
I mean,

Kellie Adams (00:40:17):
besides the first few chapters that are state,

Kellie Adams (00:40:20):
you know,

Kellie Adams (00:40:22):
otherwise you can read it in any order.

Rachel Casey (00:40:24):
If you or someone is sober curious, I think this would be a great book.

Kellie Adams (00:40:27):
I think it's a good springboard.

Kellie Adams (00:40:28):
Before I got sober, I picked up a book called drinking a love story.

Kellie Adams (00:40:32):
And I think it was Carolyn Carr that wrote it.

Kellie Adams (00:40:34):
I couldn't finish it because I wasn't ready to quit drinking.

Kellie Adams (00:40:37):
It sat on my shelf for four years.

Kellie Adams (00:40:39):
Then when I got sober, I read it and I was like, no wonder I couldn't read it.

Kellie Adams (00:40:42):
It was too real.

Kellie Adams (00:40:43):
I didn't want to know how she got sober.

Kellie Adams (00:40:46):
I didn't want to read about all her escapades with men.

Kellie Adams (00:40:49):
It was so my story.

Kellie Adams (00:40:51):
I was like, nope, not reading this.

Kellie Adams (00:40:53):
But I did and it was amazing.

Kellie Adams (00:40:55):
And that might happen with this book.

Kellie Adams (00:40:58):
It might be too real.

Kellie Adams (00:40:58):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:40:59):
And that's okay.

Rachel Casey (00:41:01):
It hits when it's supposed to hit, but I think it all builds to when you're ready.

Rachel Casey (00:41:05):
The truth is nothing can happen until you're ready.

Kellie Adams (00:41:08):
I think I mentioned it maybe near the back or maybe it's in the front about,

Kellie Adams (00:41:10):
just put a bookmark in it.

Kellie Adams (00:41:12):
If it's too much, come back to it.

Kellie Adams (00:41:14):
Cause it could be, you know, and that's okay.

Kellie Adams (00:41:17):
It doesn't have to make sense right away.

Rachel Casey (00:41:19):
But if it's in someone's hand, they're curious.

Rachel Casey (00:41:21):
For your book, is there a certain way you would like people to purchase it?

Rachel Casey (00:41:24):
Like through your site?

Kellie Adams (00:41:25):
Right now it's only available on Amazon.

Kellie Adams (00:41:28):
I am working on doing it on Barnes and Noble and a couple of other areas as well as

Kellie Adams (00:41:31):
my own website.

Kellie Adams (00:41:33):
Um, my meta accounts all were suspended two weeks ago.

Kellie Adams (00:41:36):
So I've been rebuilding.

Kellie Adams (00:41:38):
I had 2000 plus followers on Instagram.

Kellie Adams (00:41:41):
So if I have any plug today, try to find my new Instagram page and follow me.

Kellie Adams (00:41:45):
That was heartbreaking.

Rachel Casey (00:41:46):
I'll put it somewhere below.

Rachel Casey (00:41:48):
Yeah.

Kellie Adams (00:41:48):
So right now you can buy it on Amazon.

Kellie Adams (00:41:50):
If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, I'll eventually have them on other channels too.

Rachel Casey (00:41:55):
Awesome.

Rachel Casey (00:41:55):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:41:57):
Meta, I have a level two suspension of something.

Rachel Casey (00:42:00):
I'm not sure what is going on.

Rachel Casey (00:42:02):
And there's no way to reach anybody.

Kellie Adams (00:42:06):
The thing said, our technology detected a violation when she tells me it was AI.

Kellie Adams (00:42:10):
It was like, well, I don't have time to wait for you guys to approve this.

Kellie Adams (00:42:13):
So I'm just going to rebuild everything.

Rachel Casey (00:42:15):
I've debated it since December 14th.

Rachel Casey (00:42:18):
I have not been, I have been like on the night I've messaged.

Rachel Casey (00:42:22):
And then I think I get an AI bot and I'm like, okay.

Rachel Casey (00:42:26):
And then I ended up letting it go.

Rachel Casey (00:42:27):
Cause that's what my program teaches me to do.

Rachel Casey (00:42:29):
I'm like, I'm going to give it to the universe.

Rachel Casey (00:42:32):
And then it keeps going to the night and I'm like, okay.

Rachel Casey (00:42:34):
My Instagram will go to whoever needs to see it.

Kellie Adams (00:42:36):
It's kind of like whack-a-mole.

Kellie Adams (00:42:38):
I feel like I just get it figured out and then something else pops up.

Kellie Adams (00:42:40):
That's another challenge.

Kellie Adams (00:42:42):
The other should I do sober page I started on Instagram is still there.

Kellie Adams (00:42:45):
i can't log in i can't do anything with it it should be gone by july if you have a

Rachel Casey (00:42:49):
friend struggling if you're thinking about getting sober or if you are sober

Rachel Casey (00:42:52):
because i'm sober and i enjoyed reading it it's very relatable you're very honest

Rachel Casey (00:42:58):
it's unfiltered and it wasn't a triggering read for me it was very things that i am

Rachel Casey (00:43:04):
yep me too me too it's anything i would hear

Rachel Casey (00:43:08):
in a meeting is pretty comparable.

Rachel Casey (00:43:10):
But if you've not been to a meeting, yes, it is.

Rachel Casey (00:43:13):
I guess you get used to the unfiltered truths.

Rachel Casey (00:43:17):
I know when someone's not telling the truth, I'm like, I don't hear that empathy.

Rachel Casey (00:43:22):
And my mom did tell me before my first meeting,

Rachel Casey (00:43:26):
don't go trying to bullshit because those are bullshit experts in there.

Rachel Casey (00:43:32):
Don't try and do it, but okay.

Rachel Casey (00:43:35):
Yep.

Rachel Casey (00:43:36):
Well, thank you so much for coming on.

Rachel Casey (00:43:37):
So it has been so nice to talk to you.

Rachel Casey (00:43:40):
It has been nice to get to talk with the author of the book I've been reading for

Rachel Casey (00:43:43):
the last few weeks.

Rachel Casey (00:43:44):
I will put all the links below and thank you for coming on.