Sober Living Stories
Welcome to the "Sober Living Stories" podcast, a platform built on the power of personal stories. Each Tuesday, Jessica Stipanovic, your host, shines a spotlight on individuals who have undergone remarkable life transformations to inspire hope in listeners worldwide.
Each guest shares their story giving examples of bold beginnings disguised as endings and life lessons that teach how the darkest moments often hold the key to unlocking the brightest light.
This podcast inspires positive life changes. Whether you're sober curious, living an alcohol-free lifestyle, have overcome a challenge and lived to tell about it, or support someone who wants to shed a habit in light of a new one, our episodes promise to leave you feeling understood, hopeful, and motivated to create meaningful transformations in your life.
Join us for powerful new episodes every Tuesday where the most difficult life experiences serve to uplift and inspire. Regardless of your background or belief system, the "Sober Living Stories" podcast is your ultimate destination for uplifting narratives where hope shines from the most unexpected places.
In addition to featuring our weekly guests, each month on the "Sober Living Stories" podcast, we have the privilege of sitting down with a new author, delving into their story and the wisdom they've shared in their book.
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Sober Living Stories
Sober Relationship Blueprint: Dating, Intimacy and Love Connections in Sobriety
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In 2009, as Louie Bischoff's 20-year marriage was ending, she used alcohol to cope with the sadness, grief, and depression. Louie grew up in a domestic violence household where having any type of feeling or emotion, positive or negative, was met with shame, anger, and violence; turning to alcohol at the end of her relationship seemed like an easy way to numb out through this
challenging time. Her divorce was finalized in 2010 when her sons were 6 and 8 years old. Then in July 2012, Louie realized that alcohol was ruling her life and that she was neglecting her kids, then 8 & 10.
By doing personal growth work with professionals, and other people in recovery and by continuing to put herself out there in the dating environment, Louie began pulling all of her notes, thoughts, ideas, and learnings together to create the initial framework of what is now the SOBER Relationship BlueprintTM®. Today, Louie is an entrepreneur, a great mother to her young adult sons, and an advocate for sober living. Louie has her undergrad from the University of Arizona, her MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Business, resides in Phoenix, Arizona, and has been sober from alcohol since July 11, 2012.
In this episode, we uncover the importance of self-esteem and authenticity in dating free from the societal pressures that glamorize alcohol and perfect relationships. Louie's approach of treating dating as a practice or social experiment rings true for anyone attempting to navigate the world of romance while sober. Learn about the crucial role that self-reflection and boundary-setting play in personal growth and how honesty, clarity, and recovery connect to building genuine relationships.
As Louie shares insights into the Sober Relationship Blueprint, we explore the possibility of a healthier relationship journey. This episode will guide you through establishing boundaries, fostering self-awareness, and finding meaningful connections beyond fleeting encounters. Tune in for invaluable lessons on resilience and hope, and discover how love relationships can positively influence other aspects of life. Louie invites listeners to explore further resources available on her website, including a free downloadable workbook designed to support anyone looking to improve their relationships in sobriety.
Connect with Louie Bischoff:
Grab a free copy of Quick Tips for Creating a Healthy SOBER Love Relationship which can be accessed via the main website, SoberRelationshipBlueprint.com
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Your story matters.
If you are single and sober and ever wonder if a thriving love relationship is even possible, you're going to love. To meet my next guest. Her name is Louie Bischoff. She's the founder of the Sober Relationship Blueprint, which offers online dating and relationship coaching for single people who are sober from drugs, alcohol, food, gambling and sex addiction. In 2009, she had a 20-year marriage that came to an end. She used alcohol to cope with the sadness, grief and depression. She grew up in a domestically violent household where any type of feeling of emotion, whether positive or negative, was met with shame, anger and violence. So turning to alcohol at the end of her own relationship seemed like an easy way to numb out through this challenging time. Her divorce was finalized in 2010, when her sons were six and eight years old. Then, in July 2012, louie realized that alcohol was ruling her life and that she was neglecting her kids, then eight and 10. By doing personal growth with professionals, other people in recovery, and by continuing to put herself out there in the dating environment, she began pulling all her notes, thoughts and ideas together and came up with the framework of what is now known as the Sober Relationship Blueprint. Today she's a successful entrepreneur, a great mother to her young adult sons and an advocate for sober living. So tune in for her personal story.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Sober Living Stories podcast. This podcast is dedicated to sharing stories of sobriety. We shine a spotlight on individuals who have faced the challenges of alcoholism and addiction and are today living out their best lives sober. Each guest has experienced incredible transformation and are here to share their story with you. I'm Jessica Stepanovic, your host. Join me each week as guests from all walks of life share their stories to inspire and provide hope to those who need it most.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome to another episode of the Sober Living Stories podcast. Meet Louis Bischoff. She's the founder of the Sober Relationship Blueprint, which offers online dating and relationship coaching for single people who are sober from drugs, alcohol, food, gambling and sex addiction. She's going to share her personal story. I'm excited about this for listeners because this is the first time we've had someone on that talks about relationships which are really in question when you become sober, because sober is such a Drinking I'm sorry is such a social. This is how we get started in relationships, so you're going to bring another perspective. I'm so excited to hear your personal story. So welcome to the show, louie.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It's such a joy to be here and such a pleasure to be your guest, and thank you for the opportunity and the invitation to be able to be here and also share my story, but also be able to help other people too. That's certainly what I've recognized that the more that I'm able to share more things, the more that people are like me too, me too, me too. So it's just a wonderful place to be.
Speaker 1:Thank, you again for the opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, if you could just start from your. You know we want to hear your personal story and then lead us all the way up to how you got to do it, with what you're doing today to serve other people in this area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, great question. You know I, as you mentioned and thank you for the intro on that as well as you mentioned, I'm the founder of the Sober Relationship Blueprint and the Sober Relationship Blueprint and that's where I'll end up also. But the Sober Relationship Blueprint is set up specifically in five different modules using the word sober, s-o-b-e-r, and each one of the letters of the word sober is an area of learning and I got to those areas of learning my own experience of being single and sober after my marriage ended, sober after my marriage ended. So a little bit about my story is I didn't drink alcoholically for very long.
Speaker 2:I drank regularly as a gentleman, as they say, so to speak, as the book says, as the big book says. Why can't he learn how to drink like a gentleman? Well, I guess I was a gentle lady. But the aspect about that is that I could see the end of my marriage coming down the road, so to speak, and that's when I started drinking alcoholically. So it was about for three years and I'm not minimizing my experience at all and it's not a competition, but that's just my story and the reason why that I was drinking alcoholically for me. I mean, I know that I'm an alcoholic, but the reason why is because I was in the pain because I, my marriage, was ending. I was in my marriage, my relationship with my former husband, for almost 20 years and I conceded that it was coming and I didn't have as, as the word is said is a maladaptive coping skill right coping tool was using alcohol to ease, to numb out, to ease the pain and the grief and the just the loss of the relationship ending.
Speaker 2:And, for the record, I was the one who ended my marriage. It just ended. It wasn't because of my drinking, it wasn't because of other people, it wasn't because of money, it was because we just got to that point where it just wasn't getting better and it just kept not getting better. So I just was, like I said, sad and that was the tool that I was using At that time when I ended the marriage. When the marriage ended, it was actually now a long time ago, in 2010. My sons were six and eight and, as I said, I was drinking alcoholically. I continued to drink alcoholically after the divorce into early divorce time and finally walked into, for me, the 12 steps of work. I know that's not for everyone, but for me that's what I did and it was in 2012. And at the time my kids were 8 and 10. So that's a little bit about just kind of the super surface level regarding my drinking and what it looked like. But let me just kind of fill in a little bit of a backstory I grew up in. I'm the oldest of three kids. My parents were self-employed so they were very attentive to building the business and I grew up in a domestic violence household. So there was constant, of course, constant violence, but also constant instability, no certainty, because a combination, like I said, because they were self-employed and building a business. So there was a lot. Work was number one. Value work was number two. Value work was number three. Value work was number one. Value work was number two. Value work was number three. Value work was number four value and the aspect around family didn't come to like maybe number 100 in the values that I saw. So, without having the direction of learning about comfort or learning about feelings, or learning about safety or seeing boundaries respected, not any of those things. And in my household we were punished for having any kind of feelings. So I had no feelings. So it wasn't just like bad feelings, like you'd be crying in the proverbial oh, why are you crying? I'll give you something to cry about. It was also like, oh, I got a little gold star on my spelling bee. Like, well, who do you think you are? You think you're someone special? I'm like, oh, I guess not.
Speaker 2:So as I became more of an adult and um, came into like, uh, being a teenager in high school, I didn't know boundaries, I didn't know, I just saw tons of caretaking. I was a huge caretaker in the family because my parents were working building their business, so I was taking care of my brothers. I got rewarded like, oh, thank you so much for helping. Good job, having to try and caretake around the violence, trying to minimize, trying to interfere, take the violence for myself versus my younger brothers. So as I came into teendom, those aspects about being a people pleaser, trying to eliminate strife, working as hard as I could to control situations just continued to, I mean, get strengthened.
Speaker 2:And that's how I started to show up as an adult and just not knowing how to have boundaries being involved with relationships, sexual relationships, simultaneously being in a committed relationship but having side relationships because, again, I'm not saying like it was a bad, I'm a bad person I just didn't know how to have boundaries. I felt like I had no worth. I was always seeking the external validation because internally I didn't have any worth, I didn't have any validation and that pattern is my pattern for life, until now. So when I started, you know, just a few minutes ago, communicating and sharing with you about like, oh, I didn't drink alcoholically for very long, that is true.
Speaker 2:But the pattern of not being a healthy, mature adult is where I went through and how I went through all of my adult life, from early teendom, from 13, right From 13 until 43, when I walked into AA and it was in the 12 steps and again, it just worked for me. But it was the aspect about starting to show up and learn how to be a better mother, how to be a better sister, how to be a better worker, how to be a better leader, how to be a better daughter. I had to learn those things. I thought I knew them, but I had to learn those things. And then just being single and dating and then just develop the sober relationship blueprint and being able to be out there helping people to learn how to date sober, be single and sober and have relationships. So it's a little bit of my story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very good. Yeah, when you were speaking, I thought of the, the, the phrase. You know, health attracts health. So if that's true, then unhealthy attracts unhealthy. So you know, having that period of time where you know you weren't and having side relationships and just not knowing.
Speaker 1:You know and and I think that might be true for a lot of people you know, as we come into our adulthood or our twenties and thirties there, my twenties were you know navigation of like into our adulthood, or our twenties and thirties they're my twenties were you know navigation of like. Where did I go, like who you know? And then when we come into later thirties, twenties and thirties, we start, we start looking internally and I think what's what's really good about what you said? I know, um, not everybody is for the 12 steps, but I know that that that program structure really takes everybody out of the picture. Like the blame game is over and we're just looking at, like being responsible for who we are, which is the good news, you know, because we can only change ourselves, which is essentially what you did.
Speaker 1:And you know, socializing in a drinking world is a lot easier, right, especially with matters of the heart, because it kind of gives you that liquid courage to just go out and be, but I think, in sobriety, if you do struggle with the isms and the alcoholism, in sobriety, wow, those relationships really can be powerful, meaningful and really long lasting. So thank you for sharing your personal story, but what would be some advice to give to like step out there in in a way that you know you still maintain yourself, do the work first and then step out, um, or just kind of like learn who you are? Like, how do you do that If, if you're, you're just getting sober? How'd you do it? Oh, I love the loaded, it's a loaded question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, it's just super easy. No, it's not easy. Great question. So what I heard you ask is basically how do you get started?
Speaker 2:The adult world is very focused, as we know, as you mentioned, focused on alcohol. And how do I start to get out there and have relationships and what does it look like? And I appreciate what you said earlier. Right is that healthy attracts healthy and vice versa. You know, I use the phrasing also water attracts, water seeks its own level. So when I'm at a low water level, right, I'm going to be seeking more low water aspects level. So when I'm at a low water level, right, I'm going to be seeking more low water aspects, and when I'm at a higher water level, I'm going to be looking for that higher water direction too. So it is true, and that's been my experience. So, how to get started? Um, you know, that's a really great question. I've worked with a lot of people and where I find the stumbling block is and it takes time and we work together is the concept of. I'll say it this way I always start off when I'm working with my clients of saying that life is a documentary, it's not a Disney movie.
Speaker 1:And so what?
Speaker 2:I mean by that is that so much of our concepts it's not, it's just information so much of our concepts around relationships and romantic relationships I'll speak to directly are conceived from a Disney thought process of a fall in love happily ever after, of a fall in love happily ever after. There is one person, this kind of fantasy thinking, and when I work with people, I begin working with people. As I said, I start with that little snippet, that little phrase about right Life is a documentary movie, not a Disney movie, and let's sit down and unpack that a little bit. And when? My experience is is that it actually is. Yes, and so, yes, keep working on yourself. Yes, keep doing the things that you need to be doing, whether it's working with professionals, whether it's working with a sober coach, whether it's doing 12 step recovery, whether it's whatever it is that you're doing for yourself, to grow yourself and be able to start moving forward.
Speaker 2:For me, when I started dating, I was not dating at all, and this is what I say is I was not dating to get into a relationship. I was dating to see if I could begin to change my behavior. I could begin to change my behavior If, if somebody, if the man that I'm. I'm a heterosexual female. If the man that I was on a date with wanted to see me again but I didn't like him and I wasn't interested, did I have enough self-esteem? Did I have enough self-esteem? Did I have enough self-confidence? Did I have enough courage to say thank you? I appreciate you saying that, but this is not a fit for me because, as I mentioned about in my story, like I'm a, I was groomed to be a people pleaser.
Speaker 2:Right, because there was, there was a direct effect if things were amiss at the house growing up. So what are these things that I can do? Well, it's okay, I'm unhappy, I just need to make sure the house is okay, or the kitchen's cleaned up so that I don't get beat up, or my mom doesn't get beat up, or my brothers don't get there, so there's more comfort or stability or safety, and so, okay. So many times, so many times, I can't even write my. It was like oh, my college days or after whatever, like oh, I really like you, louie, I really like you, but I'm like I don't really like him, but okay, he likes me, okay, oh. So I go out on a date and somebody says, oh, can I give you a kiss, I'm like I don't like him, I don't want him to kiss me, like that does not sound appealing.
Speaker 2:Like no that's not going to be comfortable for me. Wait, what Like? Who said that I mean I could, but I couldn't, and that's how I started dating. Jessica was just being able to practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like an experiment. My own data point, one social experiment. Okay, how about this? Okay, how about this? So when I work with my clients, there's only one thing I say is do you want to only go on one more date with this person? That's all Not. Do I want to get in a relationship? Not do I want to have kids? Not do I want to like. Is this person going to support my recovery? None of that, because that's all fantasy thinking and it takes me out of being present. So when I'm in that position of being able to sit in that seat on the date or go walking or go for, you know, bike riding, whatever that date looks like, I'm only looking at it with the filter of do I want to talk to this person one more time? And the answer is no, that's totally fine, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that's okay. Yes, yeah, and I love you brought up the word self-esteem and I think in getting sober it's a rebuild. For sure, from whatever background you come from, it's a definite rebuild and with an increase in self-esteem also comes an increase in self-respect. But I love what you're saying because it's a small step, it's like a practice and it's keeping it on you and what you view as being okay to go further and then having the courage to voice that and to see the response and like, regardless of what it is, be okay with it, and then kind of come back and talk to your people and try and do it again, because that's ultimately like how you rebuild and start to change, right. So that's essentially how you're doing this coaching, I would imagine, and you did it yourself. You built it out of self-experience, yeah. So talk a little bit about the importance of self-esteem and how it correlates with self-respect in the early days of getting back out there and being sober.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So love that, love, love, love that. So the question is right basically, what's the importance of self-esteem? Well, I'm just going to talk about sober relationship blueprint for one second, because sober relationship blueprint, as I mentioned, each letter of the word sober is an area of learning and it's not accidental on the way that the letters are arranged or, excuse me, the words in the letters. So the S is for self-esteem and the O is for openness, the B's for boundaries, the E is evolving into other intimacies beyond sexual intimacy, and then the R is for readiness. So when I set up the like you said, exactly, it was from my own, all my own experience.
Speaker 2:When I set up the sober relationship blueprint, I knew the S had to be around self-esteem, because I can't go forward with anything else without building up that confidence, the self-esteem, that belief, even if it's a little tiny, baby belief that I am enough and that I'm worthy. And then the O is about being open to new things. Like, oh, I only date this type of guy, I only have this type of girlfriend. Yeah, but what if you don't? What if it's as you said, it's a rebuild, let's be open. And then creating those boundaries with the B. So the reason why I wanted to say that and getting back to your question is because for me, and what you said, is that it does have to start with self-esteem. But it's not just wave of magic wand. And now you have self-esteem, because in my experience and my understanding is that it all is internal, sure, so I'm sharing about, I'm looking for that exterior right, that external validation for myself, because interior, internal, I don't feel enough, I don't feel valuable, I don't feel worthy, I don't inside. So how do I build that up? So, with self-worth, um, uh, when I started dating, I mean, I had a sponsor, 12-step sponsor, and that was helping, but I didn't have a dating coach. So when I work with my clients, right, we're specifically targeting on these things.
Speaker 2:So working together with mindset of of the iams, or affirmations like I am worthy, I am valuable, even though that sounds silly, but it's actually really valuable to continue to change the, the thought process, the neuro, the neuro processes and, in my experience, having self-worth, having self-confidence, having self-esteem allows me to begin to sit still and listen to really what I really want, what I really need. What does that look like? How do I verbalize my wants and needs and my boundaries and keep those boundaries. Like early on when I started dating, I would like, oh, I've got a boundary. Like I was just sharing. Like, oh, somebody wanted to kiss me and I didn't want to kiss him. Okay, I don't want to kiss you, and there's my boundary. And then 30 seconds later I'm like boundary with boundary. Like here's me making out with the person in the parking lot because I verbalized it but I didn't keep the boundary Right. So these are all my own personal growth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wrong with me. I'm not a bad person. These are just the things I had to learn and that I recognize. Other people need to learn too if they want to.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, it makes me think about, I remember early on, because we talk a lot about, you know, self-evolvement, but then too, I think, what goes hand in hand with growing internally and spiritually or otherwise, you have a value on how the other person feels as well. So, whereas before you talked about kissing someone you really didn't want to kiss, so there you're giving them the false hope that there's something that's going to happen in the future or there's a relationship that's going to come from this, when internally you know that's not going to happen and at some point you have enough self worth upon yourself but you also have enough, um, like respect for other people to not do that anymore, to not let somebody hang on where you know you don't give false hope because that's not what you're about, you know. So it's not only like a respect for you and to end it when it's supposed to be ended, but it also allows the other person to move on, to be in the truth of where you're really at, so that they can say, oh, okay, then she's not really for me and I'm going to have to move on. So it gives them that grace too, as you give yourself that practice of being able. And I think another thing that we could talk about, if you don't mind, is they talk about, in early sobriety, getting comfortable, being uncomfortable, and so when we do things differently, like if you say, yeah, I had a great time, but yeah, I don't want to do this again for next time, that may be severely uncomfortable for people to voice their truth, right, and but what, what comes?
Speaker 1:Tell us what happens on the other side. If you really allow yourself to be uncomfortable, to hear yourself say that and to be like, oh my God, was that me, did I say that? But when you get home, how does that feel if it's the truth? Because the truth is hard, you know, but it's necessary if you want to get healthy. So what's it like when you get home after speaking your mind and you know it's a success, right mind?
Speaker 2:and you know it's a. It's a success right, yeah, it. Well, you know like over time, the perception becomes that it's a success right, but, as you're saying in the moment, because it's a different behavior it feels really uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Sure. What you were just saying, jessica, reminds me of what one of the Brene Brown sayings right, clear is kind. And when I'm working with my clients and even for myself, I just hold on to those three words because clear is kind For me, this alcoholic, this addict, this person over here who's been in active addiction before. This person knows how to lie. I know how to live a double life, I know what that looked like. I know the, the lying, the manipulation, the, the way that I just moved through my life by having the double life all the time, the amount of energy it took to do all those things. Right, right, to do the lies, to live the lies, to say the lies, to do the manipulation, to do all the hiding. And so clear is kind and as I've gotten more sober, is that I move away from the lying, from the deception and, like you're saying, leading people on. Now I can recognize that. You know, when I'm communicating with someone, when I'm going on a date with someone, or when I'm even working with someone or a client, I can recognize that that exterior thing, that person, is triggering my addict or triggering the codependent, or triggering that intensity that I used to seek out at being in active addiction, and now I can recognize that. So back, going back to what you were saying regarding being comfortable with being uncomfortable because it's all new, right, as you were saying, is that getting sober is having to rebuild. Having to rebuild and because the previous Louis or the previous anybody right, this is what I'm used to, or I'm used to the chaos, or I'm used to the codependency, I'm used to sleeping with people. This is my pattern, that I'm used to. But I want to change the pattern. And the only way I can change your pattern right If nothing changes, nothing changes. The only way I can change the pattern right If nothing changes, nothing changes. The only way I can change is is that I change it and in my experience, having other people around me or me being of support to other people really continues to fortify that change and that discomfort.
Speaker 2:I remember a couple of years ago that when I was going on lots of first dates and I was in a recovery meeting and I was saying, and I sat there and it was my turn to share and I said you guys, if I did not know that I'm doing the right thing by going on so many first dates, I would think that I'm doing the wrong thing. Like what's wrong with me. I keep going on first dates Like why can't I, you know, find some? Or like what's wrong, why don't you know? Just kind of like that, mental gymnastics, what's not helping me. But knowing like going on multiple first dates is actually positive because it's eliminating what I don't want. But it's uncomfortable, like you're saying, and continuing to be in the discomfort, and then, as you said, when I get home, I'm like, oh wow, cool, I did that.
Speaker 1:Who knew. That's great. And I think a lot about percentages when I think of early sobriety and matters of the heart, right, because we tend to. You know, if you're in a relationship where you have an interest, it takes up a lot of your mind space and it takes up a lot of you know your day and it's like an 80-20,. You know 80% the relationship, 20% of what we're supposed to be doing, you know, and when we keep it on ourselves which is essentially what you're talking about, is it really can shift that to 80-20, like where 20 can be the relationship and 80 can be on how we're reacting to it, or you know how we're fitting it into our life instead of making it our entire life. And I think that's so important because it's like you talked about the mental gymnastics and like it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a big energy drain and a lot of exhaustion to live the previous Jessica or the previous Louie right. It's just a lot of um, figuring out stuff that we don't have to, being responsible for people we don't have to be responsible for and their feelings and actions and such. And when we write ourselves, it gives us that energy back to kind of just be us and to focus on what we're supposed to be focusing on, but then to kind of give that 20% like yeah, we're going to go out there again, or sure, I'd like to go out again, but it's not going to be consuming your life, because you're like rebuilding internally yourself. You know, and it's not about everybody and everyone else's feelings, which you know go with people pleasing and a lot of the isms that come with being an alcoholic actively or growing up in an environment that wasn't quite healthy. So, wow, there's a lot, a lot of good there. It's it's like balances it out almost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, and just wanted to touch back on um.
Speaker 2:I know that uh, uh, you and I may have, you know, some time under our belts for being sober and I don't want to have your listeners think like this is easy.
Speaker 2:I just can only speak for my own journey, like it's still one day at a time and I don't mean one day at a time that I'm not going to pick up alcohol or drink or do other things I don't need to be doing.
Speaker 2:It's one day at a time of just moving through today and just life, just for me, and so early in sobriety and getting back into that aspect around social alcohol and what that looks like is being able to like, for example, work with me or work with someone, or even with a sponsor or a guide or a mentor, having someone on your side, in your corner, that can guide you through these new things, right Through that discomfort, through the like, how do I? Do I put this on my dating profile that I don't drink? Do I put on my dating profile, like, how do I do I tell them right away? And you know, one of the things the biggest thing I've learned is that people have to earn the right to hear my story and so that I it's not this false sense of vulnerability when I go out on date. Number one of like let me tell you all about this trauma it's that they have to earn the right. I didn't know that Cause I didn't have any belief that I had boundaries and and had words.
Speaker 2:So I just am like let me tell you about all the trauma versus someone has to earn the right to be able to hear my story.
Speaker 2:So when I'm present in my date, that first date, the second, whatever that looks like. But I'm building up that self-esteem. I'm sitting in my discomfort, I'm being present and observing myself like, oh, my date's not asking me any questions. Oh, that person's a jerk, okay, but how come, when the person's not asking you any questions, what is that about you? Oh, the person's not asking me questions. I feel not enough. I feel not worthy that they want to know about me. Okay, let's unpack that a little bit versus oh, that guy was a jerk, or that person was a jerk, or that woman was just like she couldn't get right. I don't care about the other person on the other side of the table from you, I care about you. And being able to be in that space early in sobriety or middle sobriety or long-term sobriety it's all not easy. That's just been my yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that I, the um, you know, whatever you, it's the right to hear my story and because a lot of times I know, if I come, come across uh, some girls or otherwise, and myself too, you know, I used to just, you know, say it all in one in the first 15, you know, and then you hear other people do that and say, oh, wow, that was a lot of information to give someone they don't even know. You know, and to guard that. And I think that's another step in self-respect also self-restraint, listening and just self-esteem, where you know we're not any more like connecting through, like woundology, you know, like we're not anymore connecting through woundology, we're not connecting our wounds, right, I think that was like Carolyn Miss or something. Anyway, it's just like that's not where we're living anymore. We're just I'm listening to you, we're presentensing it right, and so you're starting new and you're building a new life and you don't have to connect through your you know hostilities and your survival kit and your like past mistakes, but you connecting in health, in a sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and being able to. Again, I can't control the other person, right, I can only control myself. But I can say like, okay, I'm going to have boundaries around this, I'm going to. I just can only speak for myself and say, like when I was in those positions, and then I'm like oversharing. Right, the easy word is oversharing. I'm oversharing all this stuff because I have this false belief and false, but I thought it was real but because I have this false sense of vulnerability and connection.
Speaker 2:The next thing that I know and that's not a value statement or it's not a judgment but with the next thing, I know that I'm in their bedroom and doing adult things and and you know, I just met him two hours earlier. Again, not a judgment, not a value statement, I'm just saying like, for me, I did that over and over and over again because I felt that there was some attention, I had some value, there was some connection. Yes, I mean, now I don't look for that connection and other people's bedrooms or other people's beds. I look for that connection, that that depth of connection with other people, like in recovery or in the rooms, or with the people that I work with. That there's where I build connection, and those are much deeper connections than what I believe they look like.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and that reminds me of a someone I had met once. She was, she was a great girl and I remember she was very just new to dating and she went out with someone at night and she had slept with him the first night and I remember her coming over the next day and she said, gosh, he hasn't called, he hasn't called. And then the next day, he hasn't called, he hasn't called. And I remember saying to her well, he doesn't have to like cause it already had happened. And she was like, wow, you know, like she gave her self away that night, you know, and it was like her first little piece of awareness that, wow, this is a, this can be a slow build.
Speaker 1:Like this isn't like you know, old me first time, right, like she was just putting it together, like, wow, he didn't have to call me back. You know like when you say you earn the right to hear my personal story, you also earn the right to be in an intimate situation with me. You know which a lot of people maybe didn't come to the table with knowing right, and so that's a learning curve for and just another thing with self-respect and boundaries and self-esteem, you know what feels better. You know, and yeah, it's really all great information so far. I just I really value having you on here talking about this like candidly and and that's what I love about this podcast A lot of times we talk about things that people just don't talk about.
Speaker 1:You know, out of closed, inside, closed doors and, um, this is definitely an area that you know as human beings.
Speaker 1:You know that as human beings, we're meant to be in a relationship and we're meant to be next to someone, right, and I know, for me, I was like a lone person for a while.
Speaker 1:I was self-sufficient to the utmost degree, and I remember my brother saying to me you're like a truck that has that beep, beep, beep. You just back it up when it gets too close, right, or like a dog, he's eating out of his bowl and another dog comes up and he's like, you know, he's just like he's upset, he's like get out of here, you know. And he said, hey, we are meant to be in relation with people, you know, because I think he wanted that for me and it was just so unattainable because I was so stuck in my anger or whatever, because I was just so raw, you know, in my relationship with myself and my relationship with the world at that time. And that's changed and it's been a big gift, you know, and he was right, and so I think you bring that to the table. You give people the opportunity to grow relationships sober.
Speaker 2:So could you?
Speaker 1:tell us to grow relationships sober. So could you tell us you know a little bit more about what you do and how you help individuals, and at what stage they have to be to contact you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much. You know, the Sober Relationship Blueprint is the company that I founded and is directed at helping people create healthy, sober love relationships and the focus is on love relationships and romantic relationships. But it's actually all relationships, right, Because as I start to build, like you were talking earlier about self-worth or self-confidence, right, as I start to have a better relationship with myself, all of my relationships start to get better my romantic relationships, family, all of those work relationships they get better. So Sober Relationship Blueprint helps single people in recovery from addictions, whether it's behavior addictions or chemical addiction, able to start to build those healthy, sober love relationships.
Speaker 2:And I wanted just to touch real quickly two quick things. As I mentioned before, is that each letter of the word sober is an area of learning, right? So the S is self-esteem, the O is openness, b is boundaries, e is evolving into other intimacies besides sexual intimacy, and then the R is for readiness. So one of the things you were just talking about earlier regarding, you know, the woman that you knew who became sexually intimate with someone, is that I was that person all the time, all the time Because I didn't know, I didn't know there were other intimacies that I could build with people, not just romantic partners, but other intimacies. The E in sober is being able to evolve into other intimacies so that I can learn how to be emotionally intimate with someone. I can learn how to be intellectually intimate with someone. I can learn how to be spiritually intimate, and it doesn't have to be my romantic partner, it's just for me having to learn about those other intimacies. And then the R for readiness is being able to be ready to go out and do those things. You know have a sober dating plan. I work with people all the time on creating that sober dating plan working on the profiles for the dating apps, making sure that it's the right balance of language to protect you as a person out there dating and to be able to be open to other new things as well. So sober relationship blueprint is set up for that is to help single people in sobriety from chemicals or for behavior. And you asked like where do they have to be? Um, I can't. I would say optimally this is not a hard fast optimally, as the phrasing goes to be sober for at least a year, because being able to start to do that rebuild um out of old behaviors, but I I can't mandatory, mandatorily make somebody be sober for a year or more in the program, but that's optimally where somebody is going to be, because they're going to get more out of it.
Speaker 2:And I have a free download. It's five quick tips for healthy, sober love relationship. It's on my website, sober relationship blueprint one wordcom, so it's a pop and it's easy to find. It'll just be a pop up. Put your name, email address in their phone number, click it. You'll get the email with the download. It's really great, you know. One of the things you mentioned earlier was about listening. Yeah, listening is one of the five quick tips to build a healthy, sober love relationship. I need to learn how to listen with discernment to become better. So you know just different things like that, and I love doing what I do because I see the results immediately and having people men and women be able to start to learn more about themselves and learn how to have healthy, sober love relationships using the sober relationship blueprint that I've created.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you back it with life experience and when you've walked through it yourself, who better to teach that? I also. There's two things that stuck out to me as we close. You do say love relationships on your website and that really caught my eye because you can start, because it's like that's the focus, but then it also matriculates onto other relationships as well. I mean this is a complete change. And then I love that the R is at the end for readiness, because it's like a buildup, like you do S-O-V-E-R, and then you're ready to go. So it's like an exciting, like I am ready to go do this, to walk into my new life, to walk into like a new dating, love, relationship world, and I'm equipped. So I thank you so much for being here. I'm definitely going to have you back on to talk more and I will put everything that she had just spoken about Louis had just spoken about website, her free download in the show notes. So, please, I encourage listeners to visit and to grab that workbook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you Love this. Thank you so much, jessica, for allowing me the opportunity to be your guest on Sober.
Speaker 1:Living Stories. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here, louie, it was great.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:Love it To view our featured author of the month or to become a guest yourself, visit wwwjessicastepanoviccom.