Today we have Tom. He is 40 years old from New Canaan, CT and took his last drink on July 12th, 2024.

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Happy March! The Café RE theme this month is Mindfulness and Awareness. This key topic helps us build awareness and space, which ultimately gives us the freedom to make different choices beyond drinking. Café RE will feature chats focused on mindfulness. It has been said that the most powerful medicine can't match the power of awareness.

Recovery Elevator is compiling a list of recovery stories and we're going to put them in a book called This is How We Quit. If you want to be part of this book, and submit your story, we'd love to have you. There is no sobriety time requirement so if your saying to yourself, well, I've only been sober 30 days, I can't submit my story, then nonsense. Send an email to info@recoveryelevator.com and you'll get a google form to fill out and submit your story.

[03:56] Thoughts from Paul:

Paul shares with us a quote from author Brianna Wiest.

"Your new life is going to cost you your old one. It's going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It's going to cost you relationships and friends. It's going to cost you being liked and understood. It doesn't matter. The people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side. You're going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward. Instead of being liked, you're going to be loved. Instead of being understood, you're going to be seen. All you're going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are."

[06:25] Paul introduces Tom:

Tom is 40 years old and lives in New Canaan, CT. He is a construction superintendent, is married and they have 5-year-old twins. For fun, Tom enjoys gold, skiing and spending time with his kids.

Tom first drank at age 14 and says he frequently blacked out when he drank going forward. There were multiple legal consequences throughout his late teens and early twenties as his binge drinking continued through college. Around age 21, Tom began using cocaine which enabled him to drink more with less blackouts.

After college, Tom and his friends mainly drank on the weekend. Fast forward a few years and he found himself drinking alone during the week while his friends did not. As time progressed, he would wake up daily and trash talk himself for not being able to stop at just one or two. He felt like Jekyll and Hyde and struggled with that throughout his 30's.

In 2020, Tom's twins were born. He struggled to juggle his drinking life and his family life. His wife was growing frustrated, and Tom wasn't the parent that he had hoped he would be. In spite of this, he never really thought about quitting drinking, but quickly realized moderation didn't work. He knew he would need to quit drinking for himself and not just for his family. His wife was growing frustrated, and Tom knew he would lose everything if he didn't quit.

On June 12th, 2024, Tom was going to start a new job and looked at it as a clean slate. He says quitting was awkward and he began to talk to an alcohol counselor that helped him a lot. Within the first few months Tom felt better physically and able to establish a workout routine which helped him start the day in a better headspace. He started listening to the RE podcast and relating to others' stories. Exercise has become a hobby for Tom. Woodworking is a hobby that has come back for Tom as well, he takes pride in the projects he completes now.

Tom's parting piece of guidance: If you can make it through the first couple of days, and start to see the benefit, it'll get better every day. There'll be bad moments and challenging moments, but don't give up.

Recovery Elevator

Remember this is an inside job. It all starts from the inside out.

I love you guys.

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