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Most people in recovery never tell the full story. This show does.I'm Austin Rampt the author of One Last Hit: The Remarkable True Story of an Addict's Journey to Find Himself.
I grew up in Tampa, spent a decade chasing drugs through eight different rehabs, and eventually fled the country.
I ended up in Mexico surrounded by members of the Sinaloa Cartel, hit the kind of bottom most
people don't walk away from, and somehow made it back.On the One Last Hit Podcast I sit down with people who have been through it , addicts in recovery,
people who've done prison time, survivors of overdoses,
family members who watched someone disappear and then come back. No polished stories.
No watered-down redemption arcs. Just real people talking about what it actually took to get sober and stay that way.If you are fighting your own battle, loving someone in the middle of theirs, or you just need proof that people really
do get better then this show is for you.New episodes every week.
Grab the book: https://www.amazon.com/One-Last-Hit-Austin-Rampt/dp/1968485007/
Audiobook: https://www.audible.com/pd/One-Last-Hit-Audiobook/B0GD8WCDHY
Website: https://www.onelasthitbook.com
Instagram & Facebook: @onelasthitbook
What's happening, ladies and gentlemen,
my name's Austin,
your host for the one last hit podcast.
And thank you so much for tuning in
and joining me today.
Miss Colleen Clifford.
Colleen is a bestselling author, man.
She does all sorts of shit.
Honestly, we're going to,
we're going to dive into Colleen's story.
She has a very unusual occupation that
I've been watching her on Instagram, uh,
post videos on,
and I can't wait to talk about that
too.
But Colleen,
thank you so much for being here.
I'm really happy to be here.
I've really been looking forward to this,
especially after I read your book,
by the way, One Last Think,
which I highly recommend to your listeners
if they have not listened.
I listened to the audio book because I
don't really have time to read,
but I really enjoyed it.
It was phenomenal.
Yeah.
I'm so impressed you're here and doing
what you're doing.
It's really such an inspiration.
Oh, man.
Well, Colleen and I connected over email,
I think, initially.
Was that right?
And then we started following each other
mutually.
You're like one of the few guests I've
had where I have a prior relationship
with, which is just awesome.
But I only know snippets of your story.
I don't think I've gotten your book in
the mail yet.
I have ordered it, though.
So forthcoming, right?
Yes.
Yes.
Well, it's, it's available on Amazon now.
Maybe you ordered the Kindle version
without knowing it.
I don't know, possibly.
Um, the paperback, the soft copy is, uh,
going to be available like in the next
any minute as we speak,
but Amazon kind of lags with, you know,
it's a process.
So anyways,
it's on Amazon right now available.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I'm,
I'm excited to get it and read it.
And, uh,
Thank you.
Okay.
I want to get into your story a
little bit, if you don't mind.
So take me back.
What was it like being little Colleen?
What was your childhood like?
Well, there's five in my family.
I'm number four.
I mean, my parents are no longer young,
but they were young parents at the time.
My mom's first child,
she had at eighteen and she had four
in a row, basically.
So I was number four.
So by the time I came along,
my parents were pretty happy because they
were going to take a pause.
So I was a welcomed child.
And then my little brother came along five
years after me,
and I didn't really welcome that.
But he took my spotlight, right?
So but anyway,
just having a bigger family, as you know.
Yeah.
I can imagine being the parent on that
end.
As kids, you have to learn to share.
You don't get everything you want right in
that moment.
My childhood was great.
We had some normal dysfunction of having a
huge household where you can't just be
perfect all the time.
It's okay.
I have a beautiful family.
None of my issues, I don't believe,
stemmed from that.
Any
family issues i had i worked through with
counseling and therapy and so it's i have
a wonderful relationship with my family
awesome and i know so in your in
your bio and reading it you know you
were you were a binge drinker and you
did you moved into a lot of these
behaviors that i am very familiar with uh
so how how does it progress from here
like where does it go
Well,
I started I was an athlete as well.
So I didn't in high school.
So I didn't go down that direction of
drinking because of my sport was soccer.
And but it was night when I was
nineteen,
I started hanging out with college kids
because I have older siblings and going to
their parties.
And so I started drinking at nineteen.
And then I had a major event happen.
Something happened to me that I share in
my book that was so shaming and profound.
I really,
I think I had some post-traumatic stress
disorder.
And I internalized a story.
I created this story that I was unlovable.
And nobody would want me.
I'd never get married.
I'd never have children.
And I would never talk about it.
And little did I know,
and I discovered all this just recently.
I'm in my sixties.
And so I lived my whole adult life
with this unconscious belief,
not knowing that it was running the show
for me.
And until I started to really, well,
first I had to quit my drinking.
That was the first, right?
And then I started looking at why was
I drinking in the first place?
And I have a lot of reasons why
I was drinking.
It filled a lot of my needs that
we all think addicts, you know,
we all have our reasons.
We do what we do.
But it really came down to this this
moment when this happened.
And I that's like the that's the moment
where it all began, where my story began.
And it just ran the show.
I started to do things to reinforce my
story that I was unlovable.
I'd put myself in risky positions.
I'd drink and almost die.
I should be dead a number of times.
I think I was testing death.
I wasn't suicidal,
but I think I didn't care because someone
recently said to me on a podcast,
And it was the first time I ever
said it out loud,
which was like a few months ago.
And he said, wow,
that was a death sentence.
I was like, oh my God,
you hit the nail on the head.
And so I was living with this self-imposed
death sentence for years.
Yeah.
Wow.
so you had an event happen and you
mentioned shame and for anyone you know
listening like what what does shame mean
to you like how you know we i
know there's the dictionary definition but
like we all carry it in kind of
a different way what what does shame mean
to you shame means to me that that
i i internalized this thing that happened
to me by the way and somebody that
i admired and held in esteem
said some things to me,
reacted to me in such a way that
I internalized it like I'm a disgrace.
I took that reaction as, oh my God,
I'm a piece of dirt.
I'm garbage.
Nobody's going to want me.
Who's going to want to marry me?
It's just something I internalized because
I didn't have the tools at the time
to just basically tell this person.
It was just one incident, right?
I didn't know how to question it.
Like, wait a minute,
maybe this person's wrong.
But as far as shame goes,
I internalized that I was not worthy,
that I was unlovable, that it's a feeling.
Yeah.
I know that feeling so incredibly well.
Like when I'm walking around in shame,
it's the energy leaves my body.
I feel like that thing I'm ashamed of
is tattooed right on my forehead and
everybody i talk to i think feels exactly
the same way about me that i currently
feel um i have no ambition to strike
up relationships right it's like all these
it's almost like i put on glasses that
just kind of gray the color out of
my world that's what that's what shame
feels like for me and then but on
the other side of that right that shame
narrative at least in my experience
were always what we would call old ideas.
They were ideas that I had formed about
myself that were never true,
but I had built a foundation on top
of those old ideas.
And when they shattered,
it was like somebody solved a problem for
me that I just didn't realize I had.
And I don't know if that was your
experience as well,
but shame's a big deal.
It is,
I call it the story beneath the behavior
now,
because we all have our behaviors of
coping with our experiences in life.
And the happy experiences,
we usually cope on a positive level for
ourselves.
It's the shameful experiences and that we
tend to really harm ourselves.
And like you, Austin,
my story was not true,
but I believed it for years.
So where does your story, you know,
where does your story go from here?
When did you actually quit drinking?
Just five years ago.
Okay.
And so from age nineteen until, you know,
if you're in your sixties,
so you're late fifties.
Yeah.
Sixty.
You were binge drinking.
And tell me,
what did life look like when that was
going on?
I know that you lost a husband.
Is that correct?
I did.
Yes.
Can you tell me about that?
Yeah, so I'll tell you about that first,
I guess.
So he died fourteen years ago,
rest in peace, Scott,
to alcohol-related suicide.
And so what that means is he was
drunk when he died.
And the reason that is a thing is
because alcohol and suicides,
most suicides percentage wise,
a lot of them are alcohol related,
meaning alcohol was in the picture when
they died.
So alcohol has a tendency to push people
over the edge who are depressed.
As we know, alcohol is a depressant.
So without the booze,
he might have survived is basically what I
like to believe.
So
At the time I wasn't drinking.
And so here's the thing with binge
drinking is that you can deny it being
a problem for me anyways,
because as a binge drinker,
my story is different than yours in a
sense.
And other people I listened to that have
really,
that hit rock bottom and have really
a real journey in their addiction.
The binge drinking,
you can deny it being a problem because
I didn't drink all the time.
I didn't drink every day.
And even when I drank,
it wasn't always a problem.
And so the binge drinking,
we just call it partying, right?
Like a football game,
you go to a football game,
you're with your friends,
you might drink too much.
The next day you have a hangover and
you're like, oh wow, I should watch it.
But that is considered a binge incident.
If you're drinking for a guy,
it's five or more drinks.
For a girl,
it's four or more drinks in an occasion.
And that's pretty easy to do, right,
at a party.
Yeah, very easy.
And so when you talk about binge drinking,
would you go on multiple days or would
you drink every now and again,
but when you drank, you overdid it?
I would not go on multiple days because
I would wake up hungover and I would
say, I'm taking a break.
Okay, gotcha.
Yeah,
and so I think that's why a lot
of people don't consider this behavior as
a problem or alcohol use disorder because
you're not continuing the binge.
Hmm.
Well,
you seem to have some sanity about you
on the other side of it to say,
wow, that was not something, you know,
like the, where,
and this is why I'm curious about it
because in my, in my case, right,
if I alter my mind and it can
be, it can be, man,
I have tried every which way to get
high successfully, man,
I'll tell you if I could do it,
man, when I first got sober,
I would have given up my left arm.
I
And, uh,
but what happens is I start having this
uncontrollable obsession, right?
If, if it's not the urge,
cause I do have,
when I start taking something,
I have an urge for more.
It's comes from within my soul.
Um, but let's say that,
that I get sober again.
Right.
And I'm,
I don't know if I'm hung over the
next day or whatever,
for a period of time,
I might have some resolve to stay away
from it.
And then my brain goes right back to
it.
Like it's the wildest thing, but this,
this type of drinking caused consequences
for you, I would imagine.
Right.
yes and it can for anyone i mean
i like to describe it as the ninety
five five factor because meaning that so
if there's no consequences a person's
gonna continue the behavior because it
gives it gives you something that you like
right so for me drinking most of the
time i had no consequences
I'm talking about the reason I quit was
because there's a small percentage of the
binge drinking where you can have,
I call it the wild card in the
game of drinking.
The wild card is in the deck and
it's that wild card that can flip over
when you're not prepared.
Nobody plans to start partying and say,
tonight's the night I'm gonna destroy
everything or tonight's the night I'm
gonna die.
It just happens when we binge drink and
we don't know which way it's going to
go.
And, you know,
I think for some people it's a wake-up
call.
Like, I got scared straight.
That's why I quit.
I did not hit rock bottom, thank God.
But I drove home drunk my last binge.
And it was because I was not preparing
to binge.
It was just what I said to you.
I did not start that day thinking I
was going to drive home drunk.
And I have so much gratitude and I
apologize to anyone out there who's been
affected by a drunk driver.
And I donate to Mothers Against Drunk
Driving.
In fact,
my book's proceeds are going to Mothers
Against Drunk Drivers.
So, but I said a prayer, you know,
I didn't think I was drunk when I
started driving.
I realized when I saw a double line,
I was.
And I said, God, get me home.
And I swear to you, I will quit.
And I got myself scared straight and I
quit.
The next day I went on my journey.
It wasn't just like that.
I mean, quitting is a process in itself,
but I'm very proud that I kept my
promise.
And I know how lucky I am.
I could have destroyed my life.
I could have destroyed somebody's life.
I didn't even get a ticket.
I could have woke up the next day
not telling a soul.
And just thought, oh, wow, man,
I was really lucky.
I drove home drunk.
I can't believe it.
Shit.
God, how did I do that?
I'm never doing that again.
And then start drinking again in three
weeks and maybe drive home drunk again.
Yeah.
I mean, drinking and driving is still out.
The statistics show it's still alive and
well.
So people ask me how I could do
it.
And I said, in your drunk brain,
you're not thinking right, right?
Totally.
Yeah.
My wife and I joke sometimes.
We watch this show.
What were we watching?
Oh, it's called Million Dollar Nannies.
She loves smut.
And because she is the boss,
I watch smut with her.
And she looks at this girl that's all
sloppy drunk and she says,
why don't you just do some fucking cocaine
like a lady?
Get yourself sobered up by doing cocaine.
And I just cackled.
I didn't think it was a freaking hilarious
line, man.
But I get it.
I get it.
get it and i hope i want to
call back on if you don't mind you
know i know you went through a
tremendously traumatic time with with what
happened to your husband and i'm curious
about the years leading up to that like
what did that look like yeah the years
leading up to that that was in my
well he died let's see fourteen years ago
so you know like
And years up to that,
we weren't partying crazy.
He wasn't depressed when I married him.
I mean,
he fell into depression with a couple,
his parents died.
like back to back.
And he fell into depression.
He didn't know how to handle and started
drinking.
So,
and I didn't know how to handle that.
I had no experience around depression.
And so it just spiraled.
And so, you know,
life was amazing during that chapter.
It was in my fifties, or excuse me,
my forties.
We had a horse,
he had a horse to accompany in Sedona.
We were traveling.
you know we had horses and it was
just magical time until his parents died
and his mom died first and then his
father died and then we moved to Utah
to try to we thought a move would
help him recalibrate and it just didn't it
didn't go didn't go as planned.
Yeah,
and how did you how did you cope
around that time like what did it look
like for you and that all that all
happened.
It was almost surreal.
Like I,
you never expect someone you love or
anyone.
I mean, I think most of us,
a lot of us have known someone who's
died by suicide and it's always shocking.
Yeah.
And most of the time you're like, wow,
I had no clue.
And so that is another level of grief.
I still can't wrap my head around it,
but I've learned to live with it.
And it was insane in the sense of
your whole world is flipped up in the
air and the pieces are just floating all
around you,
dropping like bombs around you.
I realized that nothing's in my control.
I had to let go not only of
my idea of relationships and pain
internally, but just our animals.
I had to find homes for some of
the horses, the dogs, the cat.
I mean,
I lost basically everything that I thought
was mine.
Was...
no longer mine.
And so I realized, wow,
life is just really what we carry around
here in our bodies.
We really like think of people who lose
their homes in fires or their whole family
dies in a car accident.
I mean, it's just, you know,
it's pretty heavy thinking and we don't
want to wish that on anyone.
But when you get that experience,
you just kind of realize that sometimes
we're striving for the wrong things in
life and what really does matter.
Wow.
That's powerful.
And as you were talking,
I love going down the,
I don't know that I would call it
the supernatural rabbit hole,
but like the rabbit hole of what happens
after death.
Or like,
what are these mediums who are talking to
spirits and like all these different
things that some people look at and they
go, ha, you know, phooey, whatever.
But man,
I've gone down those rabbit holes and I
believe, like, I believe there's,
you know, when we lose somebody, right.
you know i don't think they go anywhere
i think their their bodies don't exist any
longer but you know my wife has this
awesome thing that she does her father
passed away of uh brain cancer in twenty
eighteen it was really sudden and
traumatic he died like eight weeks after
we found out and when we have cardinals
fly into our backyard she'll she'll say
things like oh there's grandpa rusty which
she'll say to my kids which was her
her dad and there's a while i used
to think you know
that's so stupid.
You know, back in the immature me,
I was like, oh, that's so stupid.
But then,
but then I started realizing like,
who's the stupid one?
Because she's the one here having an
experience with her father.
Like whether I can prove that that's true
or not is irrelevant to the fact that
her life is improved in a remarkable way
just because of some recognition that she
has.
And I'm like, wow,
that's absolutely beautiful.
And I started digging down the rabbit hole
of like what happens after death.
And, and, uh,
don't know man i i could talk to
you about this honestly for hours because
it's so intriguing to me but i do
think our souls continue on as soon as
our when our bodies turn off you know
that's just my own belief so i'm i'm
a thousand percent with you there
especially after after my experience and
can i share a bird story with you
to help maybe validate your wife's
Please.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not cardinals,
but I've always been spiritual prior to
this.
I already believed that there was life
after death.
Anyways,
so I commercially fish and I'm out on
the boat, on the ship,
and my captain's a photographer,
one of them.
And he and I'm in the galley,
so I'm always below the wheelhouse.
And but we have a phone because,
you know,
sometimes I need to talk to the boss.
And he calls me whenever he sees something
cool like whales or, you know,
because he knows I really dig it.
And, you know,
it's kind of neat to share those things.
So he calls me, goes,
you got to run up here quick.
And I, you know,
put everything on simmer and I run up
there.
Yeah.
And he's like, yeah.
he points to this little owl on the
bow and he says,
he's been taking pictures of it,
which he shared with me too,
which is incredible.
And so this was the day of the
first year,
the anniversary of Scott's death.
And he didn't know that.
And he says,
and my captain's name is Scott,
coincidentally too.
And he said, I,
in all my years fishing,
I have never seen an owl this far
from shore and never on the bow.
And I was like, in my head,
I didn't share with him because I didn't
want to totally freak him out.
I just was thinking, wow,
that's a sign from Scott.
I mean,
I didn't necessarily believe it's Scott,
but it was a check-in that I'm okay
with.
Here I am.
And I continue to see signs like that.
I think if a person's open to it,
because I don't really believe in
coincidences,
I just think it makes life easier.
And it gives you, you know...
My mom's died last year at a nice
old age.
So it's a beautiful thing for her to
have lived as long as she did.
And we all miss her tremendously,
but her birthday is August fifth.
And my book was,
I know it's just a few days ago.
And so my book,
I've been waiting and waiting for Amazon
to say your book is available on Amazon.
And it came on August fifth.
And I was like, Oh, thanks mom.
Mom's proud.
And just, I, I,
that's what I like to believe.
So I'm,
I'm with your wife on these things.
Well, and I'm, you know,
I got to the point very quickly of
also being with my wife on these things
because I realized something.
I realized that,
and I didn't come to the realization,
but through a lot of searching and reading
and investigating,
I came to the realization that we create
the reality that we live in.
And if I want to live in a
reality where everything is random and
we're just flying off to some random point
that's meaningless,
I can live in that reality.
Or I can live in the reality that
says there are miracles and signs and
serendipitous things happening all around
me.
And it's kind of like,
which world do I choose to live in?
Whether I can prove it or not is
irrelevant.
Because it's what world do I choose to
live in?
And it sounds like you're doing the same
thing.
And that's a happier world.
You know, that's a happier world.
Yeah, I love that.
How did you get into your occupation?
And please tell people what that is.
I'm curious about the story on this.
I commercially fish.
I'm a commercial fisherwoman.
And I appreciate that you're watching some
of my posts because I'm new to posting
on Instagram.
And we're just having a lot of fun
with it.
It's not perfect, but we're having fun,
me and my crew in the galley.
So anyways, I started in my twenties.
Back in eighty seven.
So long time ago.
I know I have to keep doing the
math.
Like, is it really thirty six years?
Oh, my God.
Am I that old?
Wait a minute.
Let me check.
Let me check again.
It can't be that long.
You know,
it's just trippy when you get older.
But anyways,
I dropped out of college because of binge
drinking,
because of my partying and I stopped going
to class.
And so I dropped out and I really
had no direction.
I just went to go play soccer, basically.
And
So my friend was fishing, and she said,
hey, Carl, you should come join us.
It's a lot of fun.
And back then,
nobody knew what commercial fishing was,
right?
And I'm always up for an adventure.
Even today,
it's part of my essence and who I
am.
So I said, yeah, sign me up.
I'm on board.
And I got a job,
and the rest is history.
It was perfect for me at the time.
I didn't realize it at the time,
but looking back now, I see.
Because back then there was no,
there's no wifi.
No one, you know, my parents, nobody knew.
I didn't even know what I was getting
into.
It was a new industry, quite honestly,
in the US.
The Pollock industry.
And so we were the pioneers of that
industry.
So it was a great escape.
I was perfectly, you know,
because I told myself I was never getting
married or having kids.
I could,
it was a safe container for me because
I didn't have to watch my friends over
here on land, starting their families,
having their weddings.
and so it was perfect for me and
then i'd get off the boat and i'd
go travel and do my thing because i
didn't have any obligations and i had some
money in the bank and my my married
friends would say we want your life and
i'm thinking i want your life so it's
kind of funny how you just never it's
hard to find joy in what you're doing
right
I think I saw.
So my only frame of reference is being
a huge Deadliest Catch fan for years.
And I saw that you made a post
in Dutch Harbor.
I'm like, oh, Dutch Harbor.
Yeah.
But what are you on the Bering Sea?
Like, because that looks.
Yeah, I can get gnarly.
Yeah.
Very fast.
It looks gnarly.
That's where we are.
That's where we are.
Holy crap.
Yeah.
So I did crab fish once,
by the way.
I kind of am proud of that,
so I have to share it.
The first time I wanted to buy a
house,
I was trying to make a little more
money.
So my friend said,
come over here and crab fish.
And it was like November.
Oh.
And it was the scariest month of my
life.
And probably the month I made the least
money, too, by the way.
Not every crab boat produces a huge
paycheck.
I worked the hardest, for sure.
And I thought I was going to die
every second I was there.
So I never went back to crab fishing.
And I give those guys a ton of
respect for what they do.
They are...
Yeah, it's just really, you know,
those kinds of things get in your blood.
I think there's adrenaline about the
danger.
I hate to say it.
I'm sure women can crab fish, but I,
for me, it's too physically demanding.
And so if I were a guy,
I probably would have loved it.
But as a woman,
I wanted to just make their lattes and
I was in the galley cooking and I
was totally cool with that.
You guys can be wet and cold and
miserable out there.
I'll be sitting here sipping my latte.
Come in to eat lunch.
Oh, and by the way,
I'm just going to be hanging on here.
Making sure lunch doesn't land on the
deck.
That's my job.
Oh my gosh.
That is so, you know,
I've never spoken to anyone that's ever
done that.
I've been, you know,
a little less so now because I don't
get to watch a lot of TV with
so many kids,
but I was obsessed with those various
shows over the years because of the
danger.
Like I could, you know,
I'd hold my breath watching this stuff and
I can't even imagine what it's like to
be on those boats.
And so tell us about your book, Colleen.
What was the start?
Why did you write it?
Like what can people expect from reading
it?
Yeah, thanks.
I've always liked to write.
I mean, well,
probably because I stuck on a ship for
many years with sometimes nothing to do
before TV was accessible.
Anyways,
I started writing on Substack because I
wanted a place to put my writing other
than just a blog.
And so I joined a program with a
guy there who's a really good writer,
and he had us start with a pain
point in life.
And so for me, it was Scott's death.
and i started really writing as much as
i could descriptively about that
experience and it was very emotional for
me and the feedback i got from the
people in my group also writing was really
positive people wanted even though it was
very vulnerable
things I was sharing,
the feedback was huge.
And people started sharing their
experience with suicide,
whether it was they tried to die by
suicide themselves or their brother killed
himself or whatever.
So I realized, wow,
this is really something people wanna talk
about.
And I had made a promise to Scott
in my grief journey that I would do
something in life,
I didn't know what it was at the
time, to make a change,
to make a difference,
to try to bring awareness around suicide.
And so just bit by bit,
I wrote more articles, and I thought, hmm,
maybe I should write a book.
And the opportunity came up with She Rises
Publishing to help me through that book
writing process.
And so I kind of took parts of
my writing on Substack,
and that's part of my book as well.
I took some of those things I wrote
and put them in the book.
And then I thought, wow,
this could be a really good platform in
which to share,
like to get on podcasts and talk about
my book and talk about suicide and talk
about drinking and share that.
By the way,
there is a nine eight eight helpline for
anyone who has suicide ideation or a
crisis going on.
You can text or call anytime in the
U.S.,
And I always like to throw that plug
in as well as a nine, eight, eight,
one helpline for veterans because veterans
are really struggling as well.
And so I decided that, wow, okay,
I think I found my lane,
like where I'm supposed to go with my
promise to Scott and how I can hopefully
make a difference, keeping his name alive,
finding the silver lining in his death,
because I feel like,
It's such a tragic ending to his story,
but on the flip side,
it's such a beautiful beginning to how his
death maybe can touch others.
Yeah.
And so that's my mission.
That's why I'm here, honestly.
That's why I'm trying to grow my
Instagram.
I really don't like it.
To be honest,
I'm not a social media person.
I think there's a lot about social media
that's not healthy.
But I realize it's a necessity in our
day and age and you have to do
it.
So, I mean,
you don't have to do it,
but if you want to make an impact,
it's part of the part of the program.
So get on board.
Yeah.
I remember my my wife was sitting in
bed next to me one day and she
said, dude,
you've got to get on social media.
And I was like,
I don't like social media.
Like, I feel so ingenuine, you know,
with what I'm doing.
And
Uh, you know,
and then there's the big influencers and I
just like, ah,
I just cringe when I watch their stuff,
you know?
And,
and that was actually how this podcast
came about because I knew how to do
podcasting.
I had the setup already.
Um, I said, well, you know what?
I'll just let other people create the
content for me.
And that's kind of what I started doing.
And I'll snip the hell out of this
when we're done with it and put out
a bunch of cool shorts, you know,
and all that.
So, um, yeah,
that was my social media story.
And, you know, I mean,
I'm a baby on social media, but.
whatever.
I'm having a good time doing it.
And I'm, you know, so, so what,
what's the substance of the book?
Obviously we've talked a lot about your
life,
but what can people expect by buying your
book?
What will they read about?
Well, the substance,
I wanted it to be self-reflective for the
reader or the listener.
Yeah,
so because my story maybe has some
interesting aspects to whoever reads it or
listens,
but usually we always are self-reflective.
uh what's that word we're you know when
we're listening to someone talk we're
already thinking about how we want to
answer so we we are are all self-absorbed
so i wanted my book to be about
when people are reading it and hearing
what i'm saying they might be going oh
how does that you know oh i can
relate with that or so i'm always asking
questions throughout it to just kind of
like have a conversation and it definitely
is a memoir it's about my experience with
binge drinking
And I like to offer without judgment.
I'm not preaching to anyone that alcohol
is the devil.
It's just always throughout it is how is
it working for you with your behavior?
And I believe that there is a story
beneath the behavior.
So I just offer suggestions on if you're
someone that is questioning your behavior
and it's not showing up for you,
you're not showing up for you the way
you want to in the world,
how can you start shifting that?
your behavior.
I love that.
I love,
I did none of that in my book.
I was just like, you know,
the self of here,
I'm just going to tell my story.
Right.
But isn't that characteristic of every one
of us that we've got that sort of
self-centered side that everything we
hear, everything we see,
it's always being filtered through the,
how does this affect me lens?
And I think
You had talked about the episode that I
did with my sponsor and kind of getting
a little feel for the twelve step process.
And the reason that that works so well,
a number of reasons.
A,
the process is it's kind of like cognitive
behavioral therapy.
It retrains your brain.
we get a community but the underlying
foundation of all of that is that hey
you as an alcoholic you are a
self-centered person and that
self-centeredness is going to kill you so
we have to shift our thoughts to other
people as often as we possibly can which
is really the twelfth step in sponsoring
and so you really like you kind of
hit the nail on the head uh you
called it self-absorption but man
That is so characteristic of me and at
least in my experience, you know,
alcoholics and addicts specifically.
It's wild.
Totally wild.
Yeah, I can relate to that.
I think all of us can really.
I mean,
if you think about the conversations you
have with people who maybe even aren't
addicts,
a lot of times they won't let you,
like I'm really working hard on my
communication and it's retraining and my
listening skills.
So it's retraining to really listen
because we automatically want,
because we're so excited maybe sometimes
to share what we have to share and
we stop listening to what the other
person's saying because we're thinking,
oh, I want to share this.
And when can I share it?
You know,
and almost even running over someone
because you feel you have to share what
you want to share like now and you
don't let the person finish.
So I think a lot of it for
me in my in my watching my behavior
of how I communicate,
it is retraining and it's, you know,
you're not going to get it right all
the time.
And but it's just trying to
communicate better and listen better.
Yeah.
That's a huge skill.
Uh, I don't know how it came about,
but early on in my twenties, I, I,
I read the book, uh,
how to win friends and influence people by
Dale Carnegie,
which is like a hugely famous book.
Um,
And but but it's a masterclass in teaching
you what's important to people.
And, you know,
I'll spoil it for a lot of people
who have never read the book.
The thing all of us want more than
anything else is appreciation.
So, you know, the line is,
be hardy in your approbation and lavish in
your praise.
And that if you if you find a
way to speak to people.
by not talking about what we want,
but by talking about how they can get
what they want by helping you get what
you want.
It is a my whole world changed.
I mean,
I still screwed up my life more than
I can even articulate, really.
But but yeah, man,
such a such a cool process to learn
what makes people tick and and what makes
me tick so that I can be a
better listener, be a better communicator.
I love that so much, Colleen.
And I'm curious,
how can people get in contact with you?
Like if somebody is like, oh,
this lady's cool as shit and you are,
you're cool as shit.
I'm so glad I had you on the
podcast, right?
Like how can people- You're cool as shit
too, by the way.
How can people contact you?
Well, I'm pretty basic.
Oh, thank you.
My book is life,
or my website is lifebeyondthebinge.com.
And if you want to email me like
I did with you,
After I heard you speak on Kevin's
podcast.
Oh, yeah, Kevin Lanning.
Yeah,
because I'm going to be a guest on
his in December.
So I was like listening to his.
Oh, hell yeah.
Yeah.
And so I really enjoyed that conversation
you had.
And so I reached out to you.
I found you.
I was like,
I want to read your book.
And so be supportive because I know what
it's like to try, you know,
I'm trying to build my, you know, well,
I don't know about for you,
but I just,
I like to give those snippets of, hi,
I heard you.
And that was great.
And I hope you can reach out to
me at Colleen at LifeGroundTheBinge.com if
anyone wants to just say, hey.
What's up?
Yeah.
Oh, man.
That's awesome.
Colleen, thank you so much for being here.
I hope your book is just such a
home run and touches so many people's
lives.
I know that it's going to be awesome.
Yeah.
Thank you.
It was a pleasure to write it and
life changing, right?
Yeah, totally.
You know,
I'm going to ask you one more question.
What was how did it change your life
to write that?
Like,
what was your internal experience as you
were going through that?
Well, it was hard, you know,
especially I'm so vulnerable with what I
shared because I was never going to talk
about it again ever in life.
And so now I put it in my
book.
So, you know,
it's really like letting go of fear and
just putting it all out there.
And then at the end of the day,
I realized my story wasn't true and that
I am lovable.
And I've been able to hug that nineteen
year old and embrace her with love and,
you
You know,
just I feel bad that she had to
go through everything she did.
But at the end of the day,
you know,
I was talking to my dad and he
read it.
I was like, oh, my God,
you read my book.
He's like, of course.
And those are the people you're like the
most afraid of reading.
And it was really sweet because he said
he noticed a change.
He and my mom noticed a change in
my behavior around them.
And they thought it was something else,
but they never asked me about it.
And he says he wished he had.
So it was really beautiful for me to
hear that and say, Dad, you know,
we just move forward.
And by the way,
if I hadn't have gone through everything I
had, just like you, with all your,
like you said, your fucked upness life,
you know,
I wouldn't be who I am today.
And I wouldn't have the, you know,
I wouldn't have the authority to talk
about this, just like you.
Like, you've gone through some shit.
And look at where you're at, right?
I mean, serious.
You've said it too, so...
Yeah, no, no, it's absolutely true.
Absolutely true.
Yeah, and look at it, you know,
talk about being a beacon of hope for
people, right?
We each are in different ways and that's
beautiful.
And so you couldn't be an authority on
it if you hadn't lived through it.
Oh, man.
What a pleasure chatting with you,
Colleen.
Do me a favor.
Stick around after I hit the outro so
we can chat just a little bit, okay?
But thank you so much for being here.
I really, really appreciate it.
Oh, thank you for having me.
I had so much fun.
Awesome.
And for anyone listening,
if you're listening on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, whatever,
wherever the heck you're listening,
do me a favor, leave a review.
If you're watching this on YouTube,
subscribe, like,
do all those things that the influencers
are supposed to ask you to do.
I just do it because people tell me
I'm supposed to do it.
Anyhow,
we're going to get the hell out of
here.
My name is Austin.
Thanks for tuning in.
We'll catch y'all later.
Bye-bye.