Rhonda: Hello and welcome to Becoming Unapologetic. This is Rhonda and I'm on today with my friend Bridget again. Bridget, how are you?

Bridgette Turnbow: Rhonda, I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. Happy to be here.

Rhonda: you. I'm excited about our conversation today. Today we're going to talk about different pathways to sobriety. I will say that all of this will be pretty new to me. The only pathway that I know of and have heard about is AA or NA, any of the 12 step programs. And some people I know it's a huge successful way to become and stay sober during the 12 steps. But I also know that there's people that it just doesn't fit with, it doesn't relate to and correct me if I'm wrong, but the pathway to sobriety really depends on the person, correct?

Bridgette Turnbow: Absolutely. Yeah, the pathway to sobriety. I mean, that's it's a very, very personal journey. And while like you were saying, there's some more popular ways of doing it. I think it's important that people know that there's more than one, because I feel like a lot of times when people get into say, like the 12 step programs, and maybe that doesn't work for them. And they think that's the only way to get clean or sober. And then they can feel kind of discouraged. So I definitely, this is something I'm really passionate about.

Rhonda: Okay, and isn't it true that a lot of people during this journey to sobriety, there's a lot of stops and starts. You'll do well for a while, and chances of relapse are strong, and then you kind of got to start over again. Is that kind of true? Okay.

Bridgette Turnbow: That's very accurate. Yeah, very, very accurate. ⁓ At least it was for me. I know that I had a lot of, you know, relapses and try agains. I always like to say recovery is not linear. So it does not. It's not necessarily that, you you get clean and sober and then everything just falls into place and it's perfect. There's a lot of skills that you have to learn. ⁓ order to be successful long term. And also, I don't like to think of necessarily relapse as a failure. It's just a ⁓ to stop, reflect, and reassess. ⁓

Rhonda: ⁓ I like that. Because basically, like if you're surrounded with people and you all are drinking or doing drugs together and you say, okay, I'm gonna get clean. You basically have to get a whole new friend group, right? Everything changes.

Bridgette Turnbow: Yeah, I mean, yeah, you have to build a whole new life to be completely honest. Depending on how deep you are into the addiction. mean, your life revolves around obtaining and using those substances. So meaning how am going to get the money to afford them? Spending the time actually doing the substances, the people that you associate with. ⁓ And so you're Friends have to change your routines. Even the way, I mean, it was the weirdest thing. Even the way I related to money when I was getting clean at first was completely off the rails because it was feast or famine. I was used to having no money. So then when I finally did have a little bit of money, I found, ⁓ I'm impulsively spending this money. So I had to learn how to do that too. So you don't realize the gaps that you have. until you or what how much that substance has taken over your life until it's gone and it leaves a pretty big void.

Rhonda: Wow, are some of these ⁓ other journeys, because I know that in working with some families and stuff ⁓ the course of my years in social services, ⁓ are people that have been, unfortunately, they've been addicts ⁓ ⁓ a very long time, ⁓ get clean, but they have burnt down ⁓ ⁓ during their addiction phase to where they don't have relationships with their family anymore. Nobody in their family feels like they can trust them. you know, part of me says, I can see that because I've have had addicts and related family members and they've stolen from us. But the other part of me says, their family. So I think it's a very tricky thing on either side of the coin. But there's some of these ways of sobriety that actually work to repair those relationships.

Bridgette Turnbow: Well, you know, actually, believe it or not, the 12 steps actually are pretty effective at addressing that. One of the steps is to take a moral inventory and then to talk about it with somebody else. ⁓ So that kind of gets you to be aware of your habits and where you went wrong, what your part was and what their part was. And then they actually have you doing apologies. So that is some... apologies and they call them ⁓ amends and there's sometimes, like you said, certain things, some things are just burnt down. in which case, if you're not in their life, they would do what's called a living amends, which is basically you stay clean and sober and continue to show that you are working at your recovery. ⁓ that's how you kind of gain that trust back. But gaining trust back after addiction, is

Rhonda: Okay.

Bridgette Turnbow: There's no one modality or path that's going to completely gain that trust back. It's through demonstrated action. You really, really have to show that your behaviors have changed. And that's not, I wish that there was a ⁓ magic one would ⁓ make everybody trust you again because you know that you're doing well, but they haven't figured that one out yet. ⁓ It's just.

Rhonda: That would be nice.

Bridgette Turnbow: Wouldn't it? ⁓ But no, there's, mean, the way that I look at it, there's really a few ⁓ things that we're going to be looking for when it comes to ⁓ addiction recovery and what path is going to work. So we want to look at like ⁓ for change, whether the person needs structure or flexibility, what their personal beliefs are. ⁓ if they have any mental health needs and what kind of support system they might have. And it's also important to look at what they've already tried and what's accessible to them. So as we go through some of these, I'll you where some are ⁓ better those things than others, right?

Rhonda: Okay.

Bridgette Turnbow: So for example, like with readiness to change, when we're looking at abstinence based models, ⁓ it's to be really difficult in like the early stages, you know, for people to completely commit to ⁓ no substances all. So that's why there is ⁓ like a, I know if it's really a model or if it's just a philosophy. ⁓ ⁓ But have you ever heard of harm reduction?

Rhonda: I'm not in this avenue, no.

Bridgette Turnbow: So with harm reduction, it's basically it meets people where they're at. So examples would be like they've got like needle exchange programs, distributing safe use or safer education, and then of course, like moderation. Now that's not something that's normally going to be a permanent thing. It's just something want to reduce the risk of overdose, disease, immediate harm, those types of things. and then also just kind of recognizes the person's dignity despite whether or not they're using drugs. So when somebody's like struggling with moderation... it might be something to kind of look at. And then ⁓ they have a little bit more readiness ⁓ they're able to finally kind of think a little bit clearer, then we can move into some of the more structured models, if that makes any sense. ⁓

Rhonda: So basically it's instead of going cold turkey, you kind of step back little by little as you're comfortable so you don't feel that some people get overwhelmed and feel really scared when they have to quit something just quit. And they feel a lot of pressure, you know, to have that because they can't have it. this is a harm reduction is a way to slowly get yourself ready to basically stop completely. You're just doing it in small doses.

Bridgette Turnbow: To a certain degree, yeah. It's mostly the idea is like, let's make sure that this person can recover eventually. That's the idea behind it. And always, always with harm reduction, you're going to be distra- like, for example, there's like, ⁓ I know in some places they have like a bus where they do like, say, the needle exchange programs. With those, that has a lot- that can have a lot of like stigma attached to it. And I completely understand that. But what people don't understand is that while they're distributing these materials, one, it's reducing the risk of disease, HIV, bloodborne illnesses, that type of thing. But then also they're distributing information on recovery as well. So they're showing you don't have to live like this. There are other ways. And they always make you take Narcan. So they're keeping people safe. And then that way, eventually when they are ready, they're alive to be able to do it, especially when we're looking at like the opiate epidemic. It's really, really important that we get people, we keep people safe so that they can eventually recover. Now that's not obviously the most ideal situation. Most people would prefer ⁓ abstinence and ⁓ can, depending ⁓ ⁓

Rhonda: Right.

Bridgette Turnbow: who's operating within this framework, it can kind of verge on enabling. So most people would have to be very, very careful with that. You have to make sure that you're encouraging recovery on top of everything else. ⁓

Rhonda: Okay, because I would, I just think stopping, just stopping would be very difficult.

Bridgette Turnbow: Absolutely it is. Well, and then there's also now we also have another way of another route of recovery. They've got like the clinical and medical side of things ⁓ that could include stuff like medication assisted therapy also known as like a MAP program. So that would be like Suboxone, ⁓ Subutex, things like that. ⁓ methadone. That's a pretty older one, but I think people still use it. ⁓

Rhonda: Okay, that's supposed to take the craving, is that correct?

Bridgette Turnbow: I'm sorry? Yes, that is correct. naltrexone is be used for both opiate and alcohol use disorder. it reduces cravings ⁓ and also has a nice little trick in it to where if you were to try to use opiate specifically, they would not You would not get a high from them. So that is like, that's a pretty standard one that people use. There's also suboxone and methadone, which are going to be those replacements for opiates. That also reduces the cravings, but it does have some psychoactive effects to it. ⁓ But if somebody is really ⁓ highly, addicted. But there's a taper with that. But if you think about it, it's giving people... what they need, but also giving them their power to go and live their life. Because then, as I was saying before about how the drug just takes over everything, now you don't have to worry about how am gonna get it? ⁓ Is it safe? That whole obsessive loop can kind of be closed. So you can get on these medications, know it's safe, take it once a day, and then you're good for the day. then eventually you can wean off of it. So it's not something you have to be on forever.

Rhonda: I would think that would be tricky to be able to take the medication once a day and not have the cravings and all of a sudden you can live your life. I think that'd be very tricky for a lot of people because you get so in the habit of wondering when you're going to get your next dose and everything and how you're going to get it that to not have that worry is probably like, well, what do do with my day? you know, how do I live my life? So I think that would be tricky too.

Bridgette Turnbow: I you. Yeah, they all come with their own challenges. I mean, I personally believe that everyone trying to recover, I don't think just one thing is going to fix it all, right? So I think there's always gonna be a combination of things that people are using, whether they know it or not. Also, under that clinical medical model, ⁓ it's in conjunction with some sort of therapy. ⁓ inpatient or outpatient program. So usually with MAT, is they usually have some sort of program requirements to kind of help with that a little bit. Now, it can sometimes it is clinical, so it doesn't necessarily have that community feel to it, but it'll give people the coping skills that they need, maybe kind of help with any underlying mental health issues that they might have But I'm of the opinion that substance use plays a big part as a symptom ⁓ of like trauma and illness, as opposed to it being like the core issue. ⁓

Rhonda: I totally agree with that. think a lot of people who have experienced trauma, they self-medicate so that they don't have to feel that pain ⁓ longer, so that there's some kind of ⁓ around the edges, ⁓ if they're still living in the trauma. Some people haven't gotten out of the trauma, and even the ones that have, ⁓ getting the help you need to be able to... ⁓ move past it so it's not a constant thought. yeah, think self medication is a huge thing for trauma.

Bridgette Turnbow: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And it's, It's one of those things where it's like, ⁓ it the chicken or the egg? Because I know for sure being an addiction itself added another layer of trauma onto things. ⁓ because you're literally blowing your whole life up. So that comes with a certain kind of, Life isn't necessarily always ⁓ filled happiness. ⁓ which kind of then fuels the substance use. And then again, you're in that loop again.

Rhonda: Right.

Bridgette Turnbow: Now, there are... where was it? So now we've got the abstinence based and harm reduction, but there's a whole bunch of stuff there in the middle of that too. for example, there's smart recovery. I don't know if you've ever heard of that one. It's kind of like a 12 step program, but it does not have the... As in it's a support group rather.

Rhonda: I haven't heard of that.

Bridgette Turnbow: So it's a support group. ⁓ offer like cognitive behavioral therapy tools, lot of self-empowerment, and there's no component to it. So they have like a lot of emphasis on autonomy and self-efficacy, and it's based in science. ⁓ the only... Yeah, I really liked it. The only problem with it is that it is not as big of a program. ⁓

Rhonda: Huh.

Bridgette Turnbow: as say AA or NA. So there's not as many people involved in it, so there's less of a community around it. Most of the meetings I think are online, if you're looking for them.

Rhonda: Okay. Okay. And I would have to think that ⁓ regardless of what path you take for recovery, your personal support network, you need to have something. Because I know AA, you have a sponsor, and then you have a sponsor. But that's not the same as your really support group. I mean, having some people to help pick you up when you need it and.

Bridgette Turnbow: But.

Rhonda: you know, talk to you, maybe take you out and do something so you're not sitting at home feeling antsy because you're no longer using but you're not quite sure what to do with yourself. Is that correct that your support group is pretty major?

Bridgette Turnbow: ⁓ yeah, it's probably... I would say having support is probably one of the biggest factors in whether or not you're going to be successful in recovery. And that doesn't have to be the traditional support, it could be the support groups, could be your family, it could be some very supportive friends, know, considering whether or not they were in addiction with you or not, of course. and then also, I mean, if, if you really did say you have no natural support, some people do ⁓ to, ⁓ find other ways of getting that support. It doesn't always have to be from an addiction standpoint. It's just having people around you, like you said, to go out and do things with, to have, to build a life around. And so, of course, people are going to be very, very important to that because connection is just important to us all. There's that really famous, ⁓ quote that somebody had said that the opposite of addiction ⁓ connection. And I believe in that too. ⁓

Rhonda: Definitely. how do you different support groups for people with addiction, but, you know, just looking at it from, you know, the non addiction side, what kind of groups are there for people who want to be helpful and be supportive, but don't know how, you know, because I remember when I was working in sexual assault, there was people that wanted to help the victim but they just didn't know how to do it in a way that wouldn't be traumatizing or like they're not being supportive they didn't know how to handle themselves around a victim and I kind of look at being an addict is kind of the same way how do you support them without I guess doing or saying the wrong thing you know what I mean

Bridgette Turnbow: ⁓ yeah, I do. A lot of it, when you're trying to support somebody with any sort of mental health issue, it's a challenge. Like you said, do you want to make sure that you're ⁓ careful. Careful is the right word. Careful that you're not going to cause any additional harm. there's groups like Al-Anon that people can join. ⁓ that's the, that's kind of like the sister for ⁓ ⁓ and they have Nar-Anon as well. That's another one. now I don't know if Smart Recovery has any, ⁓ like family and friends support groups, but I would imagine they might. There also is, know that NAMI, ⁓ National Alliance for Mental Illness, they do what's called a family to family class. That's, believe, I don't have all the details on exactly how it works, but I know that they, it's a group of people that, it's just peers, like peer support specialists that help the family members.

Rhonda: Okay

Bridgette Turnbow: go through the journey with their loved ones. So that's also an option for people. I know that there's a lot of online support too. Now, I mean, if you want my personal opinion on how ⁓ support somebody in recovery, a lot of that is just going to be to educate yourself on whatever path they are choosing. So find out ⁓ is What does successful mean there? What does successful mean? Because it's going to be very personalized, right? ⁓ So one person might be doing a 12-step recovery where a relapse is restarting their days. So that means that if they do have a relapse, the extra support that you might need to offer would be to ⁓ help them with some extra guardrails if they have

Rhonda: Okay.

Bridgette Turnbow: relapse. I mean, that can be helpful no matter what, but be sort of an accountability buddy. Granted, if you are not supporting them in more of like a professional sense or like a sponsorship sense, that's not always your responsibility to keep them accountable. So you really want to figure out what best fits your role, if that makes any sense. For example, hearing something from my parent is going to feel a lot different than hearing it from, say, up here.

Rhonda: because some people it sounds judgy.

Bridgette Turnbow: Yeah. Judgy and also there's that inherent power imbalance. Parent-child kind of stuff. That can be very difficult at times. Because you're gonna have, no matter what, it doesn't matter how old you get, you're still gonna have that don't tell me what to do mom type of thing. And you're not exactly in your most mature brain when you're an active addiction, so.

Rhonda: Right. Yeah. Right. Very true, very true.

Bridgette Turnbow: Now, a lot of people also find a lot of benefits from like holistic or lifestyle roots of recovery. like yoga, fitness, nutrition, mindfulness, things like that. Stuff that will improve the overall well-being and that can be really, really helpful for that gap too. Filling the void that drugs and alcohol leave. I think it's more complimentary than a main recovery modality, but I do feel like having some sort of lifestyle, not just changes, but improvements can really, really be helpful as well.

Rhonda: Do you find that because you were an addict, now that you're not partaking in the substance you were addicted to that it's easier for you to become addicted to other things? Like I have a friend that stopped drinking and became addicted to her yard, gardening, everything. my husband's a gardener. mean, just, I'm like, how many more plants or garden beds do we need? You know, but it's just, it's that personality that you have to in on something else. Is that, do you think that's true?

Bridgette Turnbow: Yeah, think having... I think it's a little bit of an obsession kind of loop that we can tend to get into. ⁓ if it's a healthier habit, that's probably good, ⁓ hopefully if you're learning the tools that you need to ⁓ over a drug addiction, you would be able to hopefully spot when things are becoming problematic, right? so it is important to have balance no matter what. For example, like ⁓ ⁓ know you know this, but it's like, love to crochet. That's, that was one of the main things in my recovery when I first started getting clean, was crochet because it gave me something to do, gave me something to do with my hands. ⁓ but can easily ⁓ tip into, ⁓ okay, been doing this, this and nothing but this for ⁓ days. You need to find some balance. You need to go, you know, make yourself some food, go talk to your husband, you know, like, ⁓ you know, get a little bit social because ⁓ tend to be the more isolating type of person. So ⁓ I have to get out of myself in order, but that might not be for everybody. That's just me personally. But it can be really, really easy to kind of

Rhonda: Right.

Bridgette Turnbow: transfer your addiction to something else. In early recovery, I'm gonna say I wouldn't worry too too much about that, but as you're trying to have a more well-rounded life, you definitely want to have a take a look at everything and ⁓ sure that you're not neglecting things. for your coping mechanisms. No one coping mechanism should take over your life, regardless of if it's jobs, gardening or crocheting or anything.

Rhonda: Right? And that, but that's a hard thing too, because you get hyper focused on something. And that's what's so tricky about addiction and addiction can run the gamut of things because there's Weight Watchers. That's for people who are addicted to eating, you know, you know, there's just all different

Bridgette Turnbow: Mm-hmm.

Rhonda: types of things and like I would really love to be addicted to working out eating right. But that just doesn't seem to be happening for me, you know, so, I have my other issues, but I think everybody has some form of some type of addiction in some ⁓ way. I don't think it's possible not to have some type of addiction. It's just whether it how detrimental it is to you. Like eating

Bridgette Turnbow: You're right. ⁓ absolutely.

Rhonda: Eating cookies versus ⁓ doing drugs. Eating cookies is less harmful than doing drugs, so does it seem like a big addiction? Until it catches up with you.

Bridgette Turnbow: ⁓ I know. Well, also when you're looking at like whether or not something is an addiction, the way I look at it is, okay, so we've got all of these realms of our life. So we've got, our mental health, our physical health, ⁓ work, social life, or we can instead of social, we'll say relationships, so on and so forth. So we have all of these areas. Now, if your addiction, ⁓ right, is affecting any of those areas, it's worth looking at. And that's the way I look at it. If it's affecting them negatively, rather. I think that's the best way to assess whether or not, should I be doing this or not? Now, of course, there's going to be some people that say, ⁓ well, this substance does not affect my life. I would like to challenge that by saying that ⁓ your health is usually always going to be impacted and also legally, you know, the legality of things and that's challenging when we're talking about the more legal drugs but anything that could destabilize your life if you continue doing it, that's when you really need to kind of look at it. That includes ⁓ with addictions too. So if you're addicted to working out but now you are ⁓ not you're at the gym from the time you get off work until 10 o'clock at night and you're not spending time with your family, well, you know, it's impacting your life.

Rhonda: Right, right. And it may be on the scale of healthier types of addiction, but it's still making an impact on your life and could be adversely affecting things. And I just, I have trouble believing working out that much is not going to hurt you in some way down the road. That's a lot on your body.

Bridgette Turnbow: I'm sure. I know. Well, and then the thing is, too, is like, I would assume, and this is, I unfortunately did not get the working out addiction either, but ⁓ I would also assume that your mental health, if you kind of get obsessed with it in a way that it's affecting your mental health, maybe your body image, maybe the way that you look at food, things like that. So, I mean,

Rhonda: but.

Bridgette Turnbow: Too much of any one thing can be bad, even if it's an objectively okay thing to do.

Rhonda: Right. So the best way you think with trying to find the road to sobriety is to find what suits you best. One size does not fit all.

Bridgette Turnbow: Correct. Yeah, one size absolutely does not fit all. I mean, basically, no matter what recovery path someone takes, we want to look at, do they have connection in their life? Do they have self-awareness? Are they learning to tolerate distress? Are they building a sense of purpose? And do they have some real-life coping skills? It's less about the specific program and more about whether those needs are being met.

Rhonda: Okay, and then try to find a way to get those needs met What do you think of the recovery centers like going into an addiction program? They usually have support groups there and case managers there and everything, eventually, I don't know what it's like when you leave, but eventually you have to leave. are those, I guess it depends on the person, but overall are they?

Bridgette Turnbow: Sorry.

Rhonda: good ways to do things or.

Bridgette Turnbow: I think it is a really good way if you are ready. If you have at least a shred of willingness to change, I think it's very beneficial for people. It definitely is like a crash course in coping skills. A lot of times most programs are going to have, they're going to integrate a lot of what I was talking about earlier. Like most of the programs that I've gone to have had some sort of yoga, fitness, nutrition, those types of classes too. And then they of course do like the cognitive behavioral therapy stuff depending on program they may have specialized trauma therapies. Though I am reluctant to ⁓ start sort of ⁓ real therapy in a 30 day rehab program simply because you don't want to unzip all of that and then be uncertain whether you can zip yourself back up because I promise you that's not going to be done in 30 days. And that kind of brings me to the ⁓ I want to say, issue that I have with treatment centers. And it's not necessarily their fault, but it's limited. We've got maybe a month, maybe a month, maybe 60 days, depending on the person's circumstances, but between ⁓ the of it and insurance and all of that, it's not... ⁓ exactly accessible to everybody. I would look at treatment ⁓ as crash course sampler situation of all of different recovery models and definitely do your research when you're looking at different treatment centers of what they offer if it's something that you're interested in ⁓ trying. it's not like, ⁓ I'm going to go to ⁓ this center, going to do 30 days and when I get out, I'm going to be fixed. That's unfortunately not how it works. You definitely need aftercare. Hopefully, if do go to rehab, there's some sort of ⁓ step down like an IOP that you can go to. You could even do sober living if you don't feel that ⁓ going home right is necessarily a good thing. I just think that it is limited. just because you don't have that level of structure long term. It's just a very short term structured program. So a lot of times people will go home to no structure and then fall off the wagon and think that they did something wrong. And a lot of times it's just because they didn't have anything ⁓ up for them afterwards ⁓ succeed.

Rhonda: You know, I've often wondered because you were talking about trauma and how, you know, if you can unpack that, that takes a lot of unpack. And if you're to have to leave somewhere, you got to repack it and try to go on. But they talk a lot about the dual modality, you know, so you have a mental health issue and you have an addiction issue. And like you said, what came first, the chicken or the egg? But

Bridgette Turnbow: Yeah.

Rhonda: And do you think it's, I mean, if you're someone who has experienced a lot of trauma in your life, is it wise to try to take on both those things at the same time? I know you got to work a little together with it, but if you are able to get yourself sober and kind of get that in balance and then work on the trauma is... Do see what I'm saying? Is it better to do one and then the other, or is it, some people think you have to do them both at the same time for it to be successful, but I don't know.

Bridgette Turnbow: You I think it really depends. That's gonna be a really personalized thing. in the initial stages we're talking, you know, withdrawal, that kind of thing. ⁓ want to take care of the physical need first, right? First and foremost, ⁓ detoxed. That's gonna be the main goal. Beyond ⁓ if want to try to take on some sort of trauma therapy, I think if that is the... if you're using it to cope with trauma,

Rhonda: Right.

Bridgette Turnbow: if you're using substances to cope with trauma rather, I would say that it is important to get to that core. Now, whether or not you're going to do that in a 30 day setting, ⁓ that, don't know if ⁓ that necessarily be always beneficial. I think it's good that they have trauma programs in rehab because those types of things will come up and you're going to need to process them. That's kind of natural because now you're going to be dealing with it with no coping skills, essentially. Just very high structure. So it's good that there's therapists there to discuss it, but as far as really diving deep and doing, say, EMDR or something like that, I would save that for the aftercare, personally.

Rhonda: So kind of work on the coping skills so you can manage but don't totally unpack everything until you're with someone that can do a little bit more.

Bridgette Turnbow: I would say yeah, at least until you can commit to, I would say, at least six months to a year.

Rhonda: Gotcha. That makes sense.

Bridgette Turnbow: ⁓ Yeah. Well, and then also something I want to mention just about addiction in general. One thing that people always get frustrated about is there is like, for the first year after you're no longer dependent on substances, you experience something called anhedonia, which is basically not being able to experience pleasure in the things that you used to. And that is a pretty, that's a pretty normal thing that happens because your brain, all of the chemicals need to develop or it need to balance back out, you know? So I find that once somebody gets sober ⁓ I would say the first 90 days or so, they call it the pink cloud. That's where everything is great. You're sober. Everything is fantastic. You're enjoying life. And then eventually life catches up because it just does. Life happens. you will really feel the amount of work that you put in in those 90 days. I say 90 days because that's just, pretty typical for like the novelty of being sober to kind of wear off a little bit. And so I do say that for the first year, if you need to get on any sort of like,

Rhonda: Right.

Bridgette Turnbow: antidepressants or anything, you know, any psychiatric medications, even if it's just temporary for the first year or so, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, ⁓ I think a lot of people would encourage it depending on your own personal medical history and things like that. just while you're getting everything evened out, just it's not failure if you don't feel perfect in the first year. That's my what I'm trying to get at, I guess.

Rhonda: That's a good thing to think about because people usually just, you know, think of the initial, I'm gonna quit doing this and life will be better. But it's never that easy. There's always some kind of changes that have to occur, things, life does get easier, but it takes, there's that adjustment period of time to where it's not the life you thought because you were doing this when you were thinking it, now the reality set in and it's not as easy as you thought and it's not what you thought right away because you got to kind of readjust everything in your life.

Bridgette Turnbow: Absolutely. I mean, recovery is a is a very personal and transformational journey, and it's worth it every step of the way. But at the very same time, the world does not owe you anything just because you got sober and life will still happen. And that's the part that is so difficult, you're still going to experience things like, you know, I don't know, losing a job or, you know, ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ just stress for finances, things like that, like everyday life is still, going to happen. And it's like, I feel like a lot of times people will look at recovery and be like, okay, my life is going to be completely 100 % better. No, the thing is, is now it's not gonna be perfect, but you will have the tools to deal with it this time. So it is better. It's just not going to be this happy, shiny, perfect. ⁓ thing that some people kind of expect out of life afterwards.

Rhonda: They didn't throw you a parade, basically.

Bridgette Turnbow: No, I did get a party though, so that was pretty nice about my year. ⁓ But that was my family, so, you know.

Rhonda: ⁓ it's funny. Well, it's very interesting, Bridget. I'm glad that we had this conversation. I think we might need to ⁓ circle back around to this again, because to me it's interesting because there's some people that are just so set that there's only one way to recover and it's refreshing to hear these different ways to do it and there's no wrong way and people shouldn't judge you are going to relapse. That's part of recovery, relapsing. And that doesn't mean that you failed. It means that you hit a bump and let's readjust and let's go again, basically. And so it's nice. It's nice to hear these different ways and different things that you can do, because I think it's a tough thing to

Bridgette Turnbow: Right.

Rhonda: try to give up anything, regardless of why you started doing it, now your body's used to it and having to function in basically real life without the crutch is difficult. And I think people need to acknowledge it, not judge others for it and be hard on someone because their path looks different than your path.

Bridgette Turnbow: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that if you're a person in recovery, it's kind of one of those things while unless you are a accountability person for somebody, meaning that person has asked you to keep them accountable to something. Other people's recovery is not your business. And that's the way that I think a lot of people need to see it. Unless somebody is putting themselves or somebody else in danger or if they are you doing something that directly affects you and your recovery. How they decide to recover is 100 % their business. If they want to get on ⁓ if they want to do a different program, I mean, those things, ⁓ that's, it's personal. And I think that that's the most important thing to take away from it is just stay, stay. ⁓ feel safe to do the things that are going to help you and allow other people to do the same.

Rhonda: I think that's great advice and I so appreciate this. I want to thank you, Bridget, for spending some time with me today. And as always, you can reach out for any comments about this at my Life Coach website, U2.0. That's Y-O-U, the number 2.0, www.you-2-0.net. Becoming Apologetic is on there so you can learn a little bit more about us on the website. But if you have any questions or want to join us in a conversation about Pathways to Supriety, please let us know and we'd be happy to do that because the more information, the better and the more we can all help each other out. Bridget, you are so amazing. I so much appreciate it. Thank you.

Bridgette Turnbow: Thank you.

Rhonda: Have a great day.

Bridgette Turnbow: You too. ⁓ You're welcome. I don't know how this I was like, don't know how