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.
Here's the exciting part: their book becomes the giveaway for that month.
Tune in every Tuesday for brand-new episodes and your chance to win the gift of a transformed life.
Sober Living Stories
Trading Happy Hours for Sunsets: Health Coach Danette's Life Re-Imagined
Picture this: leaving behind the confines of a corporate cubicle and trading it for the open road, a van, and a trusty canine companion. That's exactly what Danette Deichmann did, and her story is inspiring. In our latest episode of Sober Living Stories, Danette opens up about her transformative life experience of swapping a life dominated by social drinking for one fueled by spontaneous adventures, health, and self-discovery. With her first year of alcohol-free living on the horizon, Danette shares the pivotal moments that led her to embrace a healthy lifestyle while living life as a full-time nomad. Her journey is filled with captivating tales of freedom, personal growth, and the new career she's gained.
The conversation doesn't stop there. We explore the courage it takes to make significant life changes, especially when alcohol is deeply woven into social and professional environments. Danette emphasizes the crucial support from communities and shares practical strategies she employed to safeguard her sobriety, like opting for non-alcoholic beverages and harnessing meditation and breath work to manage stress.
Beyond her narrative, Danette offers wisdom on empowering others to take incremental steps toward healthier living. From adjusting social media habits to prioritizing morning walks and quality sleep, her insights as a health and optimization coach provide a valuable guide. Whether contemplating a major lifestyle shift or just seeking inspiration, this episode offers perspectives that could enrich your journey.
Connect with Danette:
Email: healthcoachdanette@gmail.com
Instagram: @danettermay
Website: danettedeichmannwellness.com
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Your story matters.
Hi and welcome to another episode of the Sober Living Stories podcast. Meet Danette Dykman. She's a healthy living enthusiast and a full-time nomad and she's here to share her story with us. She is on her way to her first year of sobriety. She's been sober, curious, for years and she has so many insights to share. She's living her best life. When I say full-time nomad, I know that she lives in a van with her dog, Cody, and she hangs out at the best skiing, climbing and trail running spots in the West. She's coming to us live from Canada and she's going to just take us back. So welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you on, so happy to be here. So, Danette, you're a healthy living enthusiast and an optimization coach for health. So you've recently made a change and you decided to change your relationship with alcohol. So can you take us back as far as you want to go and bring us to the present day and the why of that and how it's helped you in your life?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I would say I had a relationship with alcohol that was very acceptable in societal terms. It wasn't anything where I considered myself an alcoholic. I didn't have an addiction or anything that was super dire that I needed to get rid of. It was more of a relationship that over the years I drank from a very young age. I grew up in a very small town where that was something, again, that was kind of acceptable. And then into college normal or I'd say that this you know what's normal in society.
Speaker 2:I drank a lot in college and had some scary incidents there. And then got a corporate job where I was going to conferences and kind of entertaining clients and drinking was a big part of that. I mean, it seemed to just keep ramping up in a way where it wasn't. It was becoming more and more clear that it wasn't acceptable to me, that it was being really detrimental to my body and my life, and it was something that I had to really take a look at. I was a zero or 100 drinker. I was either not drinking or I was going to drink or binge drink really.
Speaker 2:So it's not that I was drinking every day, but when I drank I drank. So that was something that I think was the first warning sign, or the first like light bulb, that that maybe this is an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and something that I would feel better and be better off without, and I felt like the only way to do that was to completely take alcohol out of my life. So I did. Very luckily, I know I'm fortunate that it wasn't like I said, it wasn't a true addiction, and that I did it pretty easily and that I've had it out of my life for almost a year now.
Speaker 1:Wow, Very good. So you said it was kind of easily in pre-record we talked about or I had mentioned, I think there's like this life-saving sobriety, and then there's also others who are choosing to change their relationship with alcohol and become alcohol-free and their lives are so much better because of it. So the kind of lifestyle that you live can you just walk listeners through that, because it's different, it's fun, but you're living in a van with your I guess, your dog's, your best friend Cody, who I'd love to see a picture of, and just tell us where you go, what you do, what a day in the life looks like for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I am full-time on the road, usually through the whole year. I kind of follow the weather and go where there's temperate climates and where I can stay pretty comfortable in my van with my dog. But a day in the life is kind of ever-changing and that's what I really like is that it does. It's a bunch of micro decisions all the time where to go, where to sleep, where to fill water. You know just these minute details that are really normal and really easy when you're in a house or all of a sudden something to do and something to kind of a challenge when you're when you're on the road.
Speaker 2:But I get to see new places. Along with the struggles of nomad life, there's all the wonderful things. I walked at Lake Huron this morning where Cody drank a ton of water and then puked in my van. That's the van life. But I did get to, you know, go for my morning walk in a brand new place along Lake Huron and, you know, wake up to a really beautiful view, and that's kind of the perk and something that is, you know, keeps me going every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's, let's talk about this for a second. That's really, that's really interesting. Great, I love how you have to make, I guess, micro decisions on what you're doing in a day to get what you need. Also, I love that you're just going for what you want to do and not following the line. But you did mention you had a corporate job and you also mentioned that you're 11 months alcohol free. So like talk about how'd you get from corporate to nomad life and when did you? Yeah, so like walk me through that. Like when did you make that decision and when did you make that secondary decision? And were they kind of linked? Because you know, corporate life is a little stressful, right, and it's in a box and in a line, and then you kind of freed it up. So how did that look?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't. I don't think it was linear or all at once at all. It really I think we have to wake up and I have to wake up and it took me a long time to start to realize these things that were not benefiting me and were really detrimental to my life. So I always say it was an awakening of like five years where it was just like I don't really like my job and maybe this marriage isn't the best marriage for me and maybe I don't like being in cities, and it was all these things that I was finally able to be, have my eyes open to and wake up to and you know, not be we don't want to look at the things that are uncomfortable or might be hitting us in the face, that are that are wrong in life.
Speaker 2:So, like I said, I took, I took my time to to get comfortable with all these really uncomfortable things that I had to be really honest with myself, that were no longer working for me, and start to allow myself to think about what I really want and what could make me happy and what changes would have to happen to even start to open the doors to a new life. As cheesy as that may sound, but it really has been. So over five years I quit my job, I got divorced, I started a new career as a health coach and I left a house in a city and moved into a van as a full-time nomad and full-time on the road, which is probably the biggest change of all of those kind of life-changing things. And then on top of that I added in sobriety, which was an extra challenge, but I knew it would just level up my life even more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really inspiring. I mean, I'm sitting here and I'm thinking. I want to look at the things, because I think most people say, wow, this is uncomfortable or I'm not happy here, but that's as far as they go. Like, you looked at it, you saw what was uncomfortable in your life and you thought how can I make a change? And then you acted on it, and that, I think, is the differentiating piece between you and a lot of other people. But so could you give listeners just an idea of like, how did you have the courage to do that? Like, what made you just say you know what? I want this to be different, because people may be at a point where they have made the decisions, have eliminated bad habits, and now they're currently in their same situation, without the bad habits. And how can they level it up to be really satisfied in their life?
Speaker 2:I think it's with social media and media and TV and everything.
Speaker 2:I think we a lot of times hear the overnight story where it was like I couldn't take it anymore and here's my new life, and it cuts out all the pain points in between and usually what is what for me was a five year journey. So I would tell listeners in the beginning be patient with yourself and and the first step is to be able to acknowledge that something's not right and that you want something different and acknowledge that that's really scary and that it could take a lot of time and that if it doesn't happen over and over again, it's not possible. It's just everything happens in the timing it's meant to and to really give yourself grace and some space to sit with a new idea or a new feeling or a new, a dream, which I think when we get stuck at our cookie cutter routines and places that we feel safe, even though it's not great, we get really scared or we shy away from from dreaming, and the older we get, we shy away from from dreaming or trying to create something new.
Speaker 1:So I hear what you're saying is to be patient with yourselves.
Speaker 1:And it was not an overnight success and it was a five-year journey and, yeah, and that could be daunting for some people. They're like, oh no, but the truth is we see a lot of success stories but there is an extreme amount of hard work that goes into doing that. But it's life. You don't want to get to the end of your life and be like I wish I would have done that. And so to start now to identify, to look at the places that you want change in and then to have the courage to do it bit by bit and eventually it'll accumulate into the life that you want to live. So your journey from corporate to making decisions, to leave a marriage, to change your living conditions and then to eventually change your relationship with alcohol. So can you talk a little bit about the piece where you decided to change your relationship with alcohol, because that's a big part of listeners but also a health journey, yeah, it was a big piece of my health journey and it was something that I desired.
Speaker 2:Like I said, another desire for years I was sober, curious and I wondered what it would be like to be able to cut out alcohol In my marriage. It was a big part of what we had in common. We were big wine drinkers and that was a big thing. So I always kind of said, well, I can't get rid of it for that reason, because I didn't want to hinder my relationship. So there was a lot of ways I put it off for years, but it kept being a desire, like a true desire of you know. That I knew in my core was something I wanted to do and want to eliminate for myself.
Speaker 1:So when you made your decision to leave corporate, to leave your marriage, to make real life changes, and one of them was being changed your relationship with alcohol, because ultimately it's for your health, because you're a health coach, so this is like hand in hand with your health evolution. So you know, can you kind of walk us through that, and especially the part with where you put down your relationship with alcohol? A lot of people are alcohol free and they do it all different ways. So how was yours Like? How did you come to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So mine was kind of in cadence with my own health journey. I was starting to get healthier and work on some a myriad of health issues that had taken me down this path of health coaching and learning about nutrition and how to improve my life through diet and nutrition and holistic methods. I always knew alcohol was unhealthy for me and it wasn't doing me any favors, but it was still serving a lot of other pieces of my life. It was a big part of my marriage. We were big wine drinkers. It was a big part of my career. We were always out and entertaining clients.
Speaker 2:So there were so many things for years that felt like it was making it really hard for me, which it is. It's in our society. It's so accepted Alcohol is so widely accepted that I think it's very scary and it is very hard to think about stepping away from it. So again, I just gave myself time. It was a decision over a number of years where I just kept revisiting this core feeling that it was something I really really wanted to do for myself was to get away from alcohol and try a completely sober life. So again it was.
Speaker 2:It was timing and a lot of things that came together at once. So I was, I was on the road and I was able to keep alcohol away from my van. I'm oftentimes parked somewhere for a week and all I have with me is the groceries I brought. So it's really easy to keep things out of the house and not the house, the van, your house, not be in restaurants or you know places. Where it's really tempting. And that was really beneficial to me was just to have it away and then to find a group of people that also were trying sobriety or trying the same thing. I think it's so important to have a community and support of other people that are like-minded and dealing with the same challenges and going for the same goals you are. So a lot of things came together at once and finally allowed for me to make this decision, to make this jump into sobriety.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you made a good point with community. It's so much easier when you're surrounding yourself with people who are doing the same thing. So there's a lot of communities, there's 12-step, there's church communities, there's online communities, and what was your choice for community?
Speaker 2:For community was. I found friends that were also toying with this idea or had made the jump, and I had a friend that did a full year of sobriety and I had seen him and talked to him about what his journey was and where he was now and how everything that he was experiencing on the other side of sobriety, and it was just truly an inspiration to me and it was like that final thing that I needed to just take the jump.
Speaker 1:Sure, and those early steps of making changes and safeguarding your decisions by not going to restaurants, keeping it out of your home. Those are really important, and not necessarily that they have to be true for the future, because as we gain momentum in our health decisions, we reenter, because it's a drinking world, right, and so we can't take it out of the restaurant. But we can probably easily reenter that whole world, and we have to because you know we want to be part of, and so. But in the beginning I think safeguarding, like you had said, is so important until you get that habit in place that that's just not part of it anymore and you order different. So what do you order when you go into a restaurant? What do you buy now for your home slash van, which is your nomad life? What do you bring into your house now? Any replacements that have been great for you?
Speaker 2:A ton of replacements and there's so many now. Nowadays it's just like years ago. You couldn't be gluten free. It was really hard, and now we have all these replacements. And then the last five years it's become the same with alcohol. There is so many different things that you can have. There's even replacements for gin. There's fake hard liquors. But my main thing is in a restaurant I do club soda and lime. I'm a little boring that way. But outside of that in my van I have all kinds of different sparkling waters. Spindrift is a huge favorite of mine. Trader Joe's has sparkling pineapple juice. I just do little treats, something that's bubbly and and has that same feel as a. It's a, it's a drink to enjoy, and I'm not and I eliminate the need for a feeling from it. It's just having a bubbly drink to enjoy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good. Do you have any like? Is there any spiritual component? I know a lot of people have like a spiritual component that they add in or practice, or some people that don't like. I mean for you, is there anything like?
Speaker 2:that For me it's it's meditation and breath work, and that's more coming from my health journey as well. Stress was a big thing that played into my health and was really detrimental to my health, was keeping me sick all the time. Stress was also a big reason I drank. So I knew that I had to find a way to manage stress, especially with completely eliminating alcohol. I leaned hard into meditation and breath work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting, that's good. Yeah, because it's a coping mechanism for a lot of people, for whatever reason, and a stress eliminator, right and so. But unfortunately it's under the guise of like, oh, this is going to help me, but it eventually doesn't help because it's a depressant and it's all these things, and we wake up feeling terrible, you know, and it like does not really do what it's marketed to say it does. So breaking that whole myth for yourself must have been pretty, pretty eyeopening, as I know it was for me. So, yeah, and I think it's true, there are a lot of other replacements and alcohol-free options out there, and meditation and breath work is really great, I know.
Speaker 1:Just, even if you're not fully involved in meditation and breath work and if you remember to, you know I tell my kids before they go into an event that's stressful or a test, you know we do three huge breaths, like in through your nose, out through your mouth, like get that oxygen up to your brain, and or before bed, you know, and just give space, you know, and give yourself some a moment to breathe, because a lot of times we move so fast we just don't, we forget, you know, and just slowing down. So what's it like? Like you have your dog with you, so when you're in your van, like a dog is another wonderful companion and friend. We just brought a dog into our home and he was a little puppy and now he's 95 pounds and he was a rescue. But what a joy to our life. Like what he's a member of our family, like we absolutely are in love with him. And so what has that been like for you to travel with your companion.
Speaker 2:I have had my dog, cody, for he's 17. So he's my little old old man, he's my, my grumpy, grumpy old man, old man, um, but he's been such a big component of of my my health journey as, as well as sobriety, um, he's what gets you up in the morning, like when you have a dog. I'm sure you know now, staring at face. You have to get out of bed, you have to take them for a walk, you have to go outside, which I think without a pet, sometimes you can stay inside all day. So it gets you outside, it gets you to take a breath of fresh air, it gets you to get your steps in when he's done. He's done all those things and and more for me, in addition to just being a companion and being the guy on the other seat that I, that I talked to when I'm in Toronto traffic.
Speaker 1:Right, and you're in Canada right now and you mentioned a morning walk. So where did you walk? And like that's, that's so great, you know. And dog yeah, having a dog gets you out there, but like really committing to getting outside in nature and like just being out there, being physical, looking around, being in different environments, like where did you walk today?
Speaker 2:This morning I put my phone away and I went into a little park that happened to be right along the beaches of Lake Huron and you could see out into. It looked like an ocean because it's such a big lake. These the Great Lakes up here have just blown my mind in their vastness and size. But yeah, we walked along Lake Huron this morning in a little park.
Speaker 1:That's great. So, yeah, we talked about replacements having the courage to make change. What else can you add to listeners who are kind of, like I said, on the fence of like they've made some big health habit day by being free of the constraints of like a normal routine of society? So what has that done for you to break free from that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think being able to be on the road and living my own, living my own truth and doing things my way has been so vital for my sobriety and my health. I think it's. Oh, I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought. Oh, I'm so sorry. Can you summarize your question again?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you had the courage to make some really big changes and you're living a life that's not following societal rules. You're traveling and you're seeing sites that a lot of people don't get to see. You're choosing to do it on the road, and so what would you say to people who are currently? They shed the old habits, they've made some changes, but they're still not quite taking the jump. Whether it's starting a business or changing out of a relationship, or even if it's a friend group, they want to make a shift because it's not feeling right, or making a health change. Like what would you say to them to make that push? Like what have you found on the other side of that risk?
Speaker 2:I would say don't wait and find the smallest thing that you can do that feels like it's a step in the right direction and it might be the first of a bunch of different decisions.
Speaker 2:It might not be the thing that gets you there right away, but it's a step in the right direction and you want to just start layering those things. I think we all rely on motivation or hope for motivation or hope. There's something that's going to be the thing that pushes us to do whatever's scary, whether it's changing your health or leaving a friend group or anything that we don't want to do. We rely on motivation and something that's going to just drop down and make us do it, and that really never comes. So I say there's another M word and it's momentum. And you get momentum by taking the tiniest little step that doesn't feel scary, that isn't as hard as something that feels big or overwhelming, and then those little steps turn into momentum and that's what gives you the quote, unquote motivation to actually change it. Just it happens it's kind of tricking yourself almost into the life that you want to live.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, I know that when I took my book off the shelf and I recommitted to writing it, I was online, as we all are all the time, and you had mentioned putting your phone down and going for a walk, and I started to look at what I was viewing, you know, for the past month, and it wasn't really serving me becoming literate, you know, in that field again, right? So I changed, like, my algorithm, like and I did that by X-ing out of the things and then I started following things that were more in line with my what I wanted to happen, my goal of accomplishing the book, my goal of staying accountable, or tips on how to write better editing. So I just kind of redid it to speak to more of a literary space, of how I wanted to do. And you talked about community and being surrounded by like-minded people and being alcohol-free, and so is there any good tips that you can give people as far as an online presence for helping you along your health journey?
Speaker 2:I think you made a really good point with that. I often see social media as kind of something to put away or get down or do less of, but I think you can really comb it and groom it and make it something that's really positive. So if you're looking to make a health change but your social media feed doesn't really have anything healthy in it or it's a bunch of junk food or recipes or something that has been fun but it's not in line with what you want to do, it would be to comb that social media and change it to things so that everything you see every day is in line with your goal and you're inundating your mind with the things that are your goal instead of things that are not going to help you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good. Have it reflect who you're looking to be and you'll probably get there a lot quicker to be and you'll probably get there a lot quicker. Yeah, I love the walk. I love getting up and going for a morning walk. I don't do that, However, I should be. So that was really when you said that. I paid attention to that because I wanted it to be part of something that I do. So, yeah, there's so many small steps that can be taken to really reflect how we want to be and it'll just gain momentum because it feels good. Yeah, exactly, Very good. So you're a health coach, an optimization coach. Can you explain that to listeners and like what do you do and how do you help and who do you?
Speaker 2:help. I work with everybody, but I focus on millennials that are trying not to become their parents and I say that with so much love. We love our parents. Right now, I think we've seen a lot of the older generation go on to pills and into surgery and try to manage everything with a bit of a bandaid fix and they're not ending up feeling their best. So I work with people that are trying to prevent that and looking for different ways to optimize their health and really live out all of their years in the best, healthiest way and really feel good through holistic things such as nutrition and diet and sleep and stress.
Speaker 1:Sleep is a big one, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It's a big one and like who doesn't love sleep? So that's where I start with my clients a lot, because if you can focus on that and then, like you said, realize when you start feeling good that it's coming from whatever that morning walk or sleep then you want to do more of it, Then it becomes easier, Um, and you want to optimize it more. So sleep is one I start with a lot.
Speaker 1:That's really good, yeah, so where can people find you? And, as we wrap up, and if you have any um, where can people connect with you during the week and, if you want to, where can people connect with you during the week and, if you want to, where can people connect with you during the week? And if they wanted to connect with you to have you as a coach to walk them through nutrition, sleep, alcohol-free living, because you have expertise in that, as far as you making a change for yourself and it worked and you're seeing the benefits, where can they connect?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Instagram is my main thing. My handle across Twitter, instagram and TikTok is Danette R May. D-a-n-e-t-t-e-r. May and I do a free 30-minute coaching session where we can talk about some of your goals and some of your tribulations and what you're looking to accomplish and see if we're a fit. I do that 30 minutes free and you can set that up really easily through my Instagram link.
Speaker 1:So it's like a free consultation yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1:So do you document your travels?
Speaker 2:as well. That's all in the same thing. So my page is a combination of healthy living and healthy living on the road.
Speaker 1:I love the title healthy living enthusiast. It just encapsulates everything that you're doing, your decisions, your lifestyle, your choices and how you're going to serve people, and I look forward to watching you and seeing this all play out. And also I encourage listeners to follow you on Instagram. I'll have that in the show notes. I'll also have her coaching consultation link in there if you wanted to click on that and have a free 30-minute consultation with Danette. She's happy to have that with you and get you on your path to living out the best version of who you are. So thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate you coming on and taking some time out to let us know a little bit about who you are. Thank you so much for having me and congratulations on almost having one year alcohol free. That's a huge accomplishment. We'd love to see a picture of your dog and stuff Is Cody on your Instagram.
Speaker 2:He is. He is all over my Instagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we'll have to check him out. And it's so great I love that you have a companion to do this whole thing with and enjoy Canada. Where's your next destination I am headed?
Speaker 2:to the far East as far as Maine. Those are Maine, vermont, new Hampshire three States I've never been to so I'm going to explore those into the fall.
Speaker 1:Well, enjoy it and keep going after your life. You're doing an incredible job and I'm going to explore those into the fall. Well, enjoy it and keep going after your life. You're doing an incredible job and I'm happy to have had you on the show today.
Speaker 2:Thank you.