EP 47: Sober Beauty Queen (Emily C. Bonds)

Disclaimer. At Two Addicts in the Moron, we discuss personal stories of addiction with the intention of being educational, relatable, and inspirational. The views and experiences shared are those of individuals involved are not meant to glorify or condone any illegal or harmful behavior. This content is for educational purposes only and is not intended as professional advice. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, we strongly encourage you seek help from a qualified professional or support service. And welcome back to another episode of Two Addicts in the Moron. No longer counting, I've lost count of how many episodes we're in, so I'm not doing that. So it's just a welcome back and how you doing and we are excited to be back. We brought on a guest. We got this guest a little bit different. I think different than any other time, right? Yeah, I think so. You might be the first. Well, with that being said, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Emily Bond. Hello. Yay. Well, do you want to know the story of how I kind of found you all? I would love to. So we're going to get to that in a second. Okay. But we have a tradition that we do. We have a couple that we do. So in the center, Joey the Moron. To the left, Jay Klein. Mike Stuboy, recovered addict, meth, GHB. And you're so special, you get to introduce yourself twice. I'm Emily Bonds and I used to drink Chardonnay like water. All right. All right. Nice. And then to our second tradition. Yes. Before every episode, we make sure we recognize and remember those that are struggling and those that are not here with us with the moment of silence. So let us bow our heads, close our eyes, get centered, get present for this episode. Let's think about the addict that's still out there struggling, their friends and family members that are struggling with them. And the addict that could not be with us here today. Let's take a moment of silence. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Well, I do want you to tell us how you found us. Okay. So get into that. Tell us how you found us. Okay. So y'all had a previous guest who I follow on TikTok. Uh-huh. And who was that? What was her name? Cause I'm really bad. Like I said, I'm bad at names. Rachel? Rachel. Yes. Yeah. Like everybody on the world. Everyone in the world. Rachel. So I was just in case. So, so because the intro webs, they track all your information, right? Like she always shows up on my for you page. I'm like, okay, okay, okay. Yeah. And then somehow on YouTube, she showed up with being here. And I was like, oh, they look cool. That looks like fun. So I like listened to a couple of episodes. I was like, oh, that's really cool. And I have a friend who I do pageants with and she'd been on like all these podcasts. I was like, well, how do you, how do you do that? And she's like, there's, there's Facebook groups where people post about podcasts. So I know there's not, that's not real. Like you're making that up. And y'all were in there and I was like, wait, I just listened to them like three, like three hours ago. I'm going to randomly message them and see if my friend Elaine is right where people actually answer back to random Facebook messages. And so I messaged y'all and here we are. Yep. Yeah. So to all of you people out there, let that be a lesson to you. Talk to us, respond to us. We are going to get back to you. We are not that big of a deal. I promise you. Well, yeah, well, y'all are probably like, who is this girl with like, cause my, my, my hedge, I have used my pageant headshot cause I paid a lot of money for those pageant headshots. So I use them for everything. And so y'all are probably like, who is this over airbrushed, weird, like so much. I'll honor like there's a lot of I'll honor in those photos. Like, but I love them. I love them. Des, if you're watching, you do fabulous work, but so y'all are probably like, who is this AI generated woman? But it's a bot. Yeah. It's a bot. A bot wants to show up. It's Apple. Yeah. On the show. Now we always respond to them. Yeah. We love messages and comments. So guys, yeah, we love message and we do respond. We're always going to respond. We always respond and we couldn't be more excited to have you on. Thank you so much for coming to visit with us. Yeah. Rachel over here to say hi. Yeah. She was one of the coolest people you'll ever meet. Oh, really? Super humble. So humble. One of the coolest people ever. Awesome person. So tell me a little bit about yourself. I got to know a little bit about you the other night when we had spoke and I know that you are a mom and you are a wife and you nine and three nine and three. I have a nine year old and three year old been married to my wonderful beautiful husband for about 14 years now with fantastic shoe. Yes. Representation. He and his his wonderful Jordan sickness. Yeah. Very big. Like it's I'm like, you know, if you're going to spend $600 on these shoes, can I have $600? I don't know. Maybe not buy clothes off Amazon. Maybe get some actual name brand jeans or like a sweater that doesn't come from who knows where. Well, how are you going to buy shoes if he let's you do that? You know, like what? So you're not going to support him. Scott, I support you, brother. You ever need backup? I'm your guy. All right. You get with old Joey the moron over here and we'll get you hooked up. So he favorited a pair. Speaking of the Jordans, it was a and he's going to kill me for saying this. He has a on this app. He has a list of Jordans he likes and one of them is a Dior. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Y'all know how much those are? Um, I'm going to take a wild guess. I think they're like 10 grand. Nine grand. Yeah. And I told him, it's like, okay, honey, if you want to spend nine grand on Jordans, I get to get a custom Sherry Hill gown for my next competition. And he's like, well, how are we going to do that? He was like, well, they're just a dream. I was like, well, I have dreams too. Yeah. Yeah. I got dreams. Well, um, I want to get into, uh, you know, the reason why you started listening to us and why you're here. But what was your drug of choice? Chardonnay, Stout's, Gin, whatever alcohol I could buy at the store. Yeah. Um, I was at one point during the pandemic, I was about having maybe four bottles a day and of wine of wine. Okay. And Scott didn't quite realize how much wine I was buying because we had, um, drive up for H-E-B and since I'm the mom and the mother, I kick all the food. I do all the ordering of the groceries and we were ordering so much stuff off Amazon, I would just put it in the Amazon boxes and put it in the, you know, for recycling because I live in Katie, Texas and we believe in recycling. So he was kind of wondering, you know, what's going on with you, but I didn't really advertise. I was, I'm a real good voice. Been, I've been, I was a suffered with addiction for a very long time and I just kept it under the radar, but since we were locked in the same house, I kind of had to figure out how to get creative and so that was, and as we all know, we're in active, you know, active sickness. We get real creative to hot stuff. Absolutely. Yeah. And, uh, And that's interesting that you say that about, I never would have thought of, of doorstep delivery being a tool to better mask or hide. I would get margaritas delivered to your house. Yeah. Okay. So I have a story. Yeah. So Scott, I think, I think Scott was traveling and I had, you know, favor. I had favor deliver me a six pack of, I think, Shiner because, you know, that seemed like a good idea. And I also had them deliver me three margaritas from torches. Okay. Cause that was a good idea. Yeah. They still do that. Yeah. Oh yeah, still do. They didn't stop after COVID man. They, they lifted. Oh, they figured out they can make money. Yeah. I mean, that's why alcohol, uh, alcohol industry is like a $6.5 trillion juggernaut, which is why they don't have those black labels on things saying how poisonous it is. Yeah. But, um, but yeah, I had that all delivered to my house. Scott was away on business and at the time, like we had one, we had one son. He was, I don't remember how old Bertie was. It was in the beginning of the pandemic. So I guess he was about four. He was asleep. It was, he could went to bed at seven 30 and I was like, I've got all not to party by myself. And that's what I did. I went in and I also ordered a pizza and I don't remember what I watched on Netflix, but I drank, I think almost all the beer and the margaritas. Yeah. That's a lot of booze. Yeah. I was, well, I also was about 225 pounds at the time. I was big girl. I'm not big anymore. Cause it's amazing when you stop drinking how much, you know, I don't know how y'all were back in the day, but you, you drink and then you want to eat. Yeah. So I could down a lot of food because your ambitions are lowered and it's, oh, here's some food. Here's some bluebell ice cream. I once ate an entire carton of bluebell ice cream. I thought that was a good idea. That's bluebell. Kind of impressive. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Bluebell plus. MickaLobaltra obviously is a great combo. Yeah. Oh, that's a hell of a milkshake there. Yeah. No, I don't recommend that. Yeah. I don't remember how it came out, but it probably wasn't pretty. Yeah. I was about to say that the digestive side of that had it been a nightmare. I know what happens if I take one spoonful of ice cream and it's like, are you lactose intolerant? I think everybody is to that point. I think everybody is really. Oh, we're the only thing that drank milk after infancy and we drink it from another animal. It is kind of. It's going to wreck you. Like we're the only thing that I'm a planet. I've always thought of as the first person that ever decided like, I'm going to go get milk out of that calisthenics. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the people in the village looked at him like, what a fucking weirdo. Get him away from our kids. And then somebody else took a drink of it. They're like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. This is great. But yeah, for sure, I thought he had a sickness. Yeah, they were like, oh, yeah. Either that or I just picture him like sucking right off of the utter. Just like, oh, I could put this in a bucket. Yeah. Oh yeah. I could people want to buy this milk was the first drug. Possibly could have been the first drug ever. Possibly. Yeah. How about that? Hmm. We're learning things today on do addicts in the moron. You could hashtag that. Yeah. Hashtag milk hashtag first drug. Yeah. Yeah. Do an anti milk campaign. No, they shoved milk down our throats were all those years. I grew up in rural Texas next to a family owned dairy. So yeah, I love my dairy. Yeah. I love my dairy farmers. Um, so, but yeah, I do Fay a Greek yogurt though. Yeah. I like that. I like to mix that with the magic spoon cereal. Yeah. I don't think I don't think about all the additives that are in the cereal. I just eat it because I like it. Yeah, it's good for you. And like this 30 grams of protein right here. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So how long were you in in active addiction? Oh, I had really good years and really not so good years. Um, when I was in college, I met Scott at Baylor and so I was a girl from rural Texas thought I had no reason to be a Baylor. Um, had 65 kids in my graduating class. I don't know how I even got in. I wasn't top 10. Um, I had a decent ACT score, but I had all these extracurriculars and I think that they saw that I was the only person from the county that applied to go to school there and they wanted to say that they had someone from all the county. Yeah, just fill in the quota or something. I think I feel like the, the rural Texas quota. Yeah. I really do. So I showed up there and there are kids there y'all that they went to real high schools where their algebra teacher wasn't talking about like Vietnam stories. They actually learned stuff. So I got there and I realized or at least I felt like I didn't belong. Like looking back, I did belong, but I didn't realize that at the time. Yeah. And so I got to the point where in order to, I ended up, there were a series of events not staying at Baylor and had a small mental breakdown, which we can talk about later. Sure. Um, but, um, but when I transferred schools in order to write term papers, do my math homework, complete projects. Y'all remember Boone's farm? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I put some Boone's farm in my sonic cup with the cherry limeade and I would have to drink almost an entire bottle to do my homework because I was so anxious. Like I'm, I'm not good. I'm not smart enough to be in college. I was getting a degree in education and I was like, I'm never going to be smart enough to do this. Children aren't going to listen to me, but I got to get this paper done. I can't disappoint my parents. So I would do that in order to literally get through school. Okay. So yeah. And then when we got married, we had two incomes and we lived in Dallas at the time and the cool place to go in Dallas is uptown. So we would just go and we were good, um, weekend warrior drinkers. So we wouldn't drink during the week because we got to save all that money. Yeah. And then we'd go out to the bars and I think on Saturday night, I'm pretty sure I could put away four or five beers and not just like normal beers. The, the stouts, the triple quads or Belgian quads, whatever they're called. I could put those away and just be completely fine for church the next morning because we were going to church too. Yeah. Um, but I think when I entered where I kind of crossed that line from being just a, I call it a silly girl, just being a silly girl into being you got to go talk to somebody. Um, you know, like you should go seek someone first. You know, I have a problem. Um, when I was pregnant with my oldest Brody, I got laid off while I was pregnant. We moved while I was pregnant. I had preeclampsia. I, uh, had a very terrible delivery. Like almost died. Lots of blood. Um, had to, you know, but they still kicked me out of the hospital after three days, but, um, when Scott bit back to work, I was at home with this little baby. He cried all the time. I was still, you know, his breastfeeding and he was crying all the time because he wasn't getting in enough for me. And I talked to the pediatrician and she was like, well, you know, if you have like a dark beer, that could help with milk production until all the, until all the moms that okay. And she said, you know, drink it while your breastfeeding. Like, I don't really know how that's supposed to work, but I took that to heart and I had two. And then that led to, well, I should probably just drink while he's asleep. So I drink while he was asleep and I'd pump. Well, I think I, I think I really want to make a cocktail. Maybe I'll make a gin and tonic before Scott gets home while I'm cooking dinner, you know, being the good housewife, right? I'm going to make a gin and tonic and then I'll make him a drink too. And I'll have a drink with him. And before you know it, I've had seven beverages in one day. Yeah. And that's when it, somebody, but I was again, I'm all this daughter, my parents are very young, we're very young when they had me. So I wanted, I always wanted to appear perfect. So I was the perfect wife, the perfect mom. I was trained for a half marathon too. So I was, you know, in getting my postpartum or my mom, my normal body back, right? Cause we tell women they have to do that. So I didn't really realize at the time that I've met the clinical definition of alcohol use disorder, met the clinical definition. And I would just drink all the time. And even when I went back to work after a year, I went back to work and when Brody was about a year old, I would still, as soon as I got home from work, let's have two beers. Okay. I'm going to have another one while I'm going to have a glass of Chardonnay while I'm cooking. Yeah. Let's have a nightcap. So I'm still having significant amounts of alcohol. Just, we just didn't think about it because I'm not a, I was talking to somebody the other day. And when you think about, you know, individuals that have problems with alcohol, you think about the old guy with the gin and he's, it's wrapped around and he's just kind of sitting there on his trailer porch and I, you know, you know what I mean though? Yeah, no, no, no, I know exactly what you mean. You just, you just think of that guy and, um, I mean, I'm a successful insurance person. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't meet that. And, and it's not important that you're here because I feel like your story is so much more relatable to a lot more people. I mean, he lived under a bridge. Like, I mean, you have, that's not the most all the way relatable thing. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's shocking and it's something to be respected, but I mean, alcoholism and even sometimes drug use looks more like you than it does like the guy under the bridge, right? Well, and it's so ingrained in culture. Yeah. Yeah. It's at all the, all the women in women's events, except for the ones sponsored by the churches are always like sip and see or five, you know, wine and five K. It's, it's painting with a twist. Yes. Painting with a twist. Oh my, I have a painting with a twist story. Oh my goodness. So Kasey, I'm sorry. I'm telling this story. Don't hate me. Yeah. Get in there. Um, so I think we were both like new moms at the time. No, wait, no, I'd had Brody and she hadn't had Hannah yet and we went on a girls. We were in Dallas, uptown Dallas. Very, actually we were in Holland Park, which is like where the fancy people live and they had a painting with a twist studio there. And of course, you know, you bring your own bottle, right? So we're pouring my painting. Just look. Cause we had pregame before we went, we'd gone, there was a, there was a cute little restaurant beforehand. So we'd had like two, three, but her picture came out fabulous in mine. Like it's definitely more interpretive. Yeah. It looked like Michael J. Fox. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Sorry. No fucking. Yeah. He's not listening to us. No. No. Yeah. Look, it's not unusual for us to start going into Parkinson's jokes and shit. I'm sorry. It's true. Okay. It's okay. So yours looked terrible. Oh yeah. It looked awful. It looked like it was very, it was awful. And then of course my friend Casey's is perfect. I'm like, how did you do that? And she was like, oh, I think that was a three genitonics you had before in this bottle of wine. Yeah. And she was kind of looking at me like, yeah, that's why yours looks like shit. And yeah. So that's my painting with the twist. Maybe don't twist so hard. Yeah. If you're going to go there. Um, but yeah, we, but like my painting is so bad guys, Scott and I went to painting with the twist here in Austin for our baby moon. Scott's photo or Scott's painting is all like perfect in mine looks like a toddler did it. And you weren't twisting that time. I was not twisting. So it turns out you just suck at painting. Yeah. I'm just so bad at painting. You could have just boozed it up. It would have been so bad at painting. I'm kidding. Yeah. Oh no. I should have like, I should have stopped before like maybe we should have, maybe we should have gone to pottery. I don't know. That's more textile. Maybe I could have done that. Yeah. I don't know. I went to one before and they have, you know, the person that you follow. Oh, well, that's, I didn't follow directions. Yeah. Well, it doesn't matter because the person that you follow is fucking amazing. And like yours is like, looks like shit. And then you're trying to make it look like that. And you're trying like, even if it looks halfway decent, you make it look even worse because you're trying to change it up. Right. I'm trying to add to it and subtract from it. And then it's just, I just like, fuck it. Oh yeah. I just, this is what my painting looks like. It's like, it's just, it's okay that it looks like a seven year old boy painted this. Yeah. It's fine. It's fine. No big deal. Yeah. Nobody's buying that. No. So was there a moment or a thing that happened where you really knew it was like a problem and I have to address this? I really, I knew in 2018, 2019, I probably had, I probably had a problem, but I didn't want to look in the mirror and accept the problem. And I really, really thought I might have had a problem in November, 2020. You know, we were all, nobody was doing a whole lot, but I had to fly from Houston to Dallas to go to Thanksgiving by myself. And I really thought that if I had four margaritas at Papadose and Hobby Airport, that I would kill the COVID germs. And I managed to also pass out on the plane. And, um, nice Suerdice from Southwest just kind of poked me and my wonderful beautiful husband still picked me up to the airport. But, um, a couple of months after that, um, early January, we went, Scott and I went on a, um, 10 year anniversary trip. Denver had just opened back up, back up. We got a really cheap deal on like a penthouse or a suite. I don't remember, but it was a really nice room at the highest downtown. We've gotten this great deal and we, and the flights were still real cheap because we bore flight of five. So we, we, you know, we'd got this thousand dollar a night room for like 200 bucks. I was like, yes. Look at us. Yeah. COVID, COVID who that? Um, but we, you know, we had a hell of a time in Denver and this one particular night or this day really, we literally spent the day just drinking. We started at one place, we ended at another place and then we went back and had pizza and I think I had three cocktails at dinner. And then we got back to the hotel room and I told Scott, Hey, I don't feel really well. And he was like, Oh, I don't feel well either. I'm going to go lay down. It's like, okay, cool. And I threw up the most I ever had in my life. Um, ended up somehow being on the bathroom floor hit the floor really hard. And I woke up maybe around four o'clock in the morning and it's cold in Denver because they have real weather there. Yeah. Unlike us except for like last week. Um, but my hair, I couldn't get out. I was like, why can't I get up? And it was frozen to the tiles by my own vomit. Oh no. Yeah. And I was like, how am I supposed to get up? And, and I've had the same haircut for probably most of my life. Yeah. And I'm like, how am I going to get up? And I had to take my other hand and like shivvy it. So I wouldn't. Yeah. So yeah. So it was like wet and cold and like dried and, you know, not what you not, not like, I was like, what is the wrong with like, this is terrible. And I stood up or not stood up. I sat up slowly, um, because, you know, if you sit up too fast, it's going to come back for you. Yeah. Um, but I was lucid enough to know not to do that. And I looked at where I fell versus where I could have fallen and I was about this far, maybe make an L go like this, make a U from hitting my head on the toilet and landing in the water. Yeah. And I was like, I'm 33 years old and I almost literally almost died. I almost killed myself. Yeah. On accident. And so I got up and I looked at myself in the mirror and I heard this little voice. I was like, are you, are you done yet? Yeah. Are you done? And I'll, and I remember it and I looked in the mirror and I was like, yes, I'm done. And if you'll help me kick alcohol, I'll help other people. And I knew it was the Holy spirit and I hadn't been listening to Jesus. Hadn't been listening because I had a lot of, a lot of life happened between 22 and at that time, I don't know, 33 had a lot of life happen. It was very angry at God. Very angry. We were still actively going to church. I was a church volunteer. It's greeting people coming in the door. Was that hungover? Yes, but nobody knew because I was really good at taking tones and getting back to work. Right. But I literally looked in the mirror and I was like, if you're, you'll help me, I'm not going to help. I'll, I will help everybody else. And that was January 8th, 2021. Haven't had a drink since and it has not been a bed of roses as life is not. Yeah. But you know, part of I told God I'd help people and that's why I'm here. Help help help other women like me. There's not a lot of role models out there, especially for women. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot more men, right? But there's not a lot of females out there that are willing to talk about, you know, should you really be drinking Chardonnay in the middle of the day? Are these sip and see events really a good idea? Do you, should you really be going out and having three Margaret? Like there's not a lot of women that are willing to talk about that. We all know like meth might be bad for you. Yeah. You know, yeah. Like, you know, we all know that. Yeah, it is. It's not very good for you. That's confirmed. But you know, there's the, there's studies about red wine being good for you. Right. It's totally fine. It's not funded by the industry that made it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we just live in a society where life just pairs well or pairs well with a drink, right? You know, it's at every function we do. Yeah. You know, like, like it's a right of passage. Yeah. It's, you know, you, if you go to an event, you get two drink cards, right? Right. And then afterwards there's an open bar. Everybody gets two more drinks after that, right? Until they close the bar down. It's everywhere and it's, it's a, it's the only really socially acceptable drug. Cause that's what alcohol is. It's the most, it's the most abused substance in the world and people don't like to think of alcohol as a substance. But it's literally the most abused substance in the world. Costs, trillions cost, you know, if you take the entire globe, cost trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars to treat people. Think about all the, just, just think about it. Think about Europe, Russia. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just think about it. Well, you also see, like these sports teams that are sponsored by alcohol. Boxers. That a box. Yeah. I mean, you know, and people that you grew up in, people that younger people look up to that are sponsored by them and it's just so much more accepted. Oh yeah. And really, I would be willing to say that alcohol probably kills more people than anything as far as drugs with drunk driving and everything. I agree with you. But it's, it's the most socially accepted, you know, like what you were saying earlier when you would compare yourself to the guy on the side of the road. I used to do that in my drug addiction when people would be like, don't you think you have a problem? I'd be like, no, because I'm not homeless. Right. Like, no, I've got a job. I make good money. I'm still going to work the next morning. It's fine. That's how I justified it, you know. And when I used to, when I first got in the program, I used to always think like, alcohol wasn't, this is my ego. Alcohol can't be as bad as it is meth, right? To get off of it. But then as I got deeper in the program and realized like, I can't buy meth at the store, right? I don't, every time I walk in a store, I don't have to walk past my drug and stare at it while I'm paying at the register. So it gave me a different appreciation for people that are alcoholics that are able to stop because you literally get it put, pushed in your face every single day. Yeah. Well, what's crazy is you go to the grocery store, you brought the grocery store. You pull a bottle of wine. There is no ingredient list. You pull beer. There's no ingredient list, but you know what they do put ingredients on? The non-alcoholic beers. There's an ingredient list. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. There's an ingredient list. Wow. Yeah. But if you, but if you go and pull, I don't know, what's a, what's a celebrity? What's Ryan Reynolds? He has his own liquor company or something or George Clooney does. Yeah. The, um, Espalon, is it Espalon? No, I just, I just know whenever I pass like a truck and it's him on a bike. Supposedly in Mexico. I'm like, I wonder if that's how that really is. Probably not. But you go, you go to specs, you pull his, you pull that bottle. It does not have a list of ingredients on it. So when we chatted the other day, you had mentioned this to me and I, I never paid attention. So I went, do you go check me out? Yeah. It was like, well, I was just curious. I was like, huh, that's fucking weird. So I'm actually going to go check out the non-alcoholic on the way back. No, like it'll have like something like malt this and I guess maybe they're trying to prove that it's non-alcoholic. Maybe, maybe that's a part of the regulation, but it's pretty ridiculous. It's crazy. Yeah. It's insane. So how did you get sober? Like what? So after the, you know, after the looking in the mirror and having that literal come to Jesus, um, what, um, how did you do it after that? How did I do it? Well, we had two more days left in Denver and I was incredibly hungover still. And I told Scott, I was like, I talked to God and God's going to help me. And he was like, okay, do you want me to go get you like a Michelin. Sweet. How was Scott doing this whole time? Um, he drank, but he was not as good at it as I was. Yeah. I was better because I'm Emily and I've got to be better than everybody. Did he know that you probably had a problem? I think he did. What do you think Scott? Yeah, it's not so so. Did she? Yeah. I'm a master at that. I had a lot of things. So she hit it really well is what he said. Yeah. So I was really good at hiding it, but he drank, but he wasn't, I think he, whenever we went out, he was watching me to make sure that somebody didn't like roofie my drink or he knew that Emily has. No self-awareness. So I've got to kind of watch myself. So I, he knew he just didn't want, I don't think he wanted, I don't think he knew how to say something and it's, and we don't talk about what, what is that magic drink, right? Until unless you Google like, well, how many drinks a week is it considered to be an alcoholic? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of bullshit. Yeah. When you think about it, like Googling that because I, it's like, why are you drinking? Like, what are you doing it for? And whether that's one drink or whether that's 35 of them doesn't fucking matter. Like, you know, it's, I had this old timer tell me when I first got induced to AA at like 2010, he's like, you can only drink once a year and be an alcoholic. I'm like, what? There's no way. He's like, it's not about how much you drink. It's about what happens when you drink. Or why you're doing it. You know, yeah. What are you, what are you trying to accomplish by having the drink? Right. And so. Yeah. You can go Google like, oh, it takes three drinks. So, but if you're, if you're only drinking once a year and it's because somebody died and you can't get through the day. How many, you know, that dates on the calendar, right? You know, you're planning, you're planning your week around that day. Maybe your month, you've taken off two days of forework, three days after. So that way you get it out of your system. You've gone to the liquor store. You've bought your, let's be honest, you've bought your drug of choice. Yeah. And you're going to sit there and watch Netflix because I assume everyone else watches Netflix when they're drinking and you're just getting through the day. Yeah. Sure. And that's, that's not normal either. Right. That's not normal. Right. So the other thing that I would say about Googling, right? Is as an addict, you're going to manipulate that. Oh yeah. Right. You're going to be like, oh, it says three a week or whatever. I only had two and a half or whatever. You want to know what I used to do? Cause I knew it was something like four ounces of wine was considered a serving. Yeah. Well, I got my digital scale out. I'm only going to have like two and a half right now. Yeah. And I'm going to come back in an hour. I'll have two and a half more because then that really only counts as one point two, maybe. Yeah. And like I would, that's what I would do when I felt like it because otherwise it's, and people don't measure out, especially wine and women don't measure out what an actual serving is. It's, and that's, that's your serving. Yeah. You're just dumping it in there. Yeah. It's like, you know, oh, I drank an entire bottle and it only took four glasses. Awesome. Yeah. You know. So, so get back to how you got sober. Like what did you have to work any kind of program? Did you go to any kind of therapy? So I tried to, interesting thing is I tried to find a facility. I tried to find an AA meeting. I tried to find something geared towards women because I didn't want to go to like an AA meeting with a bunch of old dudes. Yeah. My name is Emily. I think I'd have a problem with alcohol. My name's Bob. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I was sex addict. Exactly. Yeah. I didn't want to like do that. And then they, they also, I got on A's website and they had these online meetings, like, I don't really want to get on my computer and that's kind of weird. So on our flight, you know, before we got on the plane, I had googled, googled books and because I love to read love audio books. Love to read actually real books too. But, um, I had googled, right, recovery books or alcohol addiction books and Alan Carr is the easy way to stop drinking popped up, which millions people have read. So we're on the plane ride home and it's like a two ish hour flight from Denver to Houston and I'm just listening to it. Okay. And literally the book talks you out of drinking. Okay. This makes sense to me. This makes sense. So I finished the book and at that point, I think I was, when I, by the time I finished it, I was maybe two weeks, no drinking. And then I got to think about it. Well, there's got to be other books like, because this book is really, you know, this man, this book's written by man and he doesn't know me. He doesn't know what it's like to be a working mom with children trying. And at the time we were all working from home, like he doesn't know. He's a man. He doesn't know. And so somebody, I'd been talking to a friend and they said, well, there's this other book. It's called quit like a woman. It's like, oh, okay. I'm going to read that. And it was how this lady had quit drinking and like all the ways that big alcohol has marketed to women in the past 10 years. Cause they've already got all the men. So it's like, you know why they made white claws because they're low in calorie and they're going to get you. That's why they made, you know, all these, all these low calorie drinks. And that's why they've made the one. You're drinking your drinks now, right? Yeah. Instead of beer, it's fruity. Yeah. It's a strawberry. Yeah. Have a strawberry, have a strawberry white claw or a Smirnoff or we've had all this 96 calorie beer, but you can still get a buzz. So that's why they've started making all that is cause they've already got all the men and once, once I read that and there were a couple of other things about marketing and cigarettes, like how they got all the women addicted to cigarettes, Virginia Slims or is that where they're called? Yeah. Virginia Slims. Yeah. They invented that. I was like, I was like, is it virgin or virgin? You know, you know, Elizabeth was the virgin queen and they named the state Virginia, but like, I was like, well, see, I'm full of random facts like that. Won't remember your name, but I will remember random facts are like what you wore, what your wafts name is and how many kids you have. All right. Yeah. That's your fun fact about me. Good for you. I know. Makes no sense. Yeah. But, but I read that book and it talked about how they had marketed, you know, big alcohol is doing it and how they were taking it. We all know smoking tobacco bad, right? They beat that into us at school. Don't do that. Don't do drugs. And so I realized that they had just taken a book like a page out of their book and they are now using it to trap me and my friends. And I said, no, no, no, no, you're not going to. We're not doing this. I'm smarter than you. I'm in charge of myself. And I tried to find a actual treatment facility in my neighborhood or in Katie. I don't really have those in suburbia because if you think about it, would you want a facility by your house? No. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, I read these two books, but what am I going to do? What am I going to do now? Okay. I'm going to read the Bible. So I literally for several months read the Bible just over and over and over again. And Scott and I somehow got pregnant around. I was reading the Bible every day. I was doing all this stuff and we weren't actively trying for a kid, but we weren't either. Yeah. No barriers. Yeah. Um, but I got, I got pregnant. Yeah. I was, you see, you don't know how you got pregnant. I kind of know. Yeah. I think we're all grown up. When a mommy and daddy love each other very much. Yeah, brother. When a mommy and daddy love each other very much. Yeah. Yeah. I know how it happened. You can, but like, my daughter still thinks we, she, you get pregnant by kissing. Keep it that way for a while. Keep it that way till like high school graduation and then, and then, you know, they have the talk. Yeah. Then she'll just be a dork. Dorks are good. Be a dork. Yeah. Yeah. So we got, we got pregnant. And so I'd already started this like non-drinking journey was like, well, you can't drink when you're pregnant. Otherwise you were like not terrible. Yeah. You can't drink and be pregnant. That's bad. Yeah. So at that point I was, you know, had the baby. He had not issues right away, but he had some, he had this thing called a turtotoracolus. What is that thing Brady had? Turtotoracolus, yeah, whatever he just said. Yeah. And so his, his poor little neck and his shoulder, his muscles were so tight. He got, he ran out of space in my body. So when he came out, he was a little, he was a little stiff. So, he had a crick in his neck. He had a crick. Yeah. That required a year of physical therapy to get out. Did he have to wear the helmet to push it back over? We had two helmets. Did you? Yeah. We had, you know, those little babies walk around helmets in two of them. I'm a friend that had that. Yeah. It was not fun. And those helmets are expensive as fuck. They are very expensive. Like $5,000 a helmet or something. Wow. But what's crazy is insurance, we only had to pay like $800 for the first one, but the second one was free. It's like, okay, this makes no sense, but whatever, UnitedHealthcare. Yeah. You know, we can start diving in that one. Whatever. Hell, blur. You know, whatever. Yeah. But I think that's getting worked out right now. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. But, but yeah. So I knew in order to be aware of what was going on with him, like, I can't, I can't do, I can't drink anymore. I can't do this. I've got a kid who he's got, he's not like when Brody came out and Brody was like super pretty and like perfectly shaped head and drink regular baby. You know, drink, could drink breast milk and he was like, this kid, he needs some help. Yeah. And early on I did question like, well, maybe I could go back to drinking. Maybe I could do this. And it kind of all came to a head. Y'all remember the baby formula shortage? Yeah. So I had to, I stopped, had to stop breastfeeding because I was having some very dark postpartum thoughts and I had to go talk to a doctor and she was like, it might be a good idea if you stop sharing your body with the baby for a little bit. It's like, okay, that's fine. So that happened the same week as the baby formula stopped showing up on the shelves. So I was like, you know, I think I'm just going to drink, you know, just have a glass. I can go and buy those individual serving ones at H E B, you know, just get like one beer so that way it's not a lot of beer. It's just one sign. I can drink just one. And I told Scott, I was like, I think I'm going to do that. And he said, no, you're not. No, you're not. You need to go back in there and read the Bible. Go and read some Psalms because, you know, David's crying out to God to go and go and cry out to God. Like, okay, I'll do that. And that's, that's really how I've been able to do this. I think it's, it's supernatural. Wow. It's a supernatural thing because I tried to find a facility, couldn't find one, tried to find a meeting, couldn't find one. These books came into my life, which kind of woke me up. And then you have the, you have God's word. It's literally a supernatural blessing from God that I've been able to keep this up. Well, it sounds like you got a hell of a support system too. Like having, having somebody kind of call you out, you know, and when telling you what you needed to hear and not necessarily what you wanted to hear, it would have been very easy for him to be like, yeah, one beer. I mean, right. No big deal. Like, and it's not just all on Scott. Like I have, I have a group of friends that I made at the gym. I also thought it would be a good idea to start going to boot camp while I was pregnant. Yeah. So, you know, why not? You know, just deliver the baby while doing squats. That's totally fine. Yeah. Um, but yeah, and these girls, they know that I don't drink. They're a great support system too. So they most, I mean, my friend Diana checks in on me like, Hey, how are you doing? My friend Andrea. Hey girl. Um, you look a little stressed. What's going on? You know, don't, don't give in to whatever the devil's telling you to do. Um, so I've got my good friend Jenny. She'll text me and say, Hey, you know, you weren't at camp yesterday. Are you okay? Are you feeling sad? Are you feeling blue? You know, don't, don't do anything stupid. Yeah. Like, okay. Okay. So I've got these group of, I've got my gym girls and I also, and once I started telling people that. Yeah. Have a problem with alcohol. I'm not drinking anymore. You know, I'm really serious about this. People from the church were incredibly supportive, which those are the people I was the most scared to talk up to. Yeah. Because you know, I go to, I got a second Baptist in Houston, Texas is one of the 50th largest churches in the nation. Yeah. You know, they're, they're a big deal. And, um, like I was afraid if I said anything that maybe they throw me out, I don't know. Judgment's tough. Yeah. Or fear of it. Right. And, and like, you, if you, you're from rural Texas, I'm from rural Texas. What do we do to people that are different from us in rural Texas? We shun them. Shun them. And I was afraid that nobody would be my friend. Nobody would, no one would let me around their kids maybe because they thought I, they wouldn't buy, you know, baby sitting this week. Like we're not going to let Brody like come into our house. That's my nine year old. We're not going to let Brody come over. Um, so, but once I started telling people, yeah, I'm not drinking anymore. I'm really reading the Bible a lot. And they were like, okay, great. Let me tell you some passages because I struggle with that too. Yeah. Or I'm, I go to AA and this is some stuff that they've told us and like, okay. So just it's been a four year journey that guys, it's super natural. Like God has put people in my life. He's put resources in my life that I couldn't even ask for like four years ago. I wouldn't have even known like I grew up in church my entire life, but I'd never really read the Bible because at vacation Bible school, you don't, you know, they just tell you watch this story, you know, say the prayer and you're, you're golden, but they don't talk about what to do after that. And it just took till I was 33 years old to figure out what to do after that. I just, you know, I think you got to give yourself a little more credit than this supernatural thing and only say it because of this. I'm not disagreeing that it was supernatural, but maybe it always was and you just stopped to listen. Yes. Like, you know what I mean? Like, so I think you taking that in and listening to what was being told to you. Well, cause I knew for a long time what I was doing was wrong and I just didn't want to listen. That's it. And you, we all have to get to that place where this, you know, you can either go this way or this way and like, which way do you want to go? Yeah. My buddy Blake, he always says it's one of my favorite things I've ever heard is sometimes it's not rejection. It's God's redirection. Sometimes like God wants you here and you keep going there and he's just going to let you go and go ahead and go explore it. And when you get to that point to where you're looking at yourself in the mirror and he's like, are you done yet? Are you ready to come my way? Yeah. And I believe that's like one of my favorite quotes. And that's how whenever I'm in a bad place, I just say, well, this is just God redirected me. It's just, he's just trying to bring me over here. And yeah, that's a, was that the first time that you'd ever heard God? Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. For sure. And it didn't, you know, when you talk to yourself, it sounds like you in your head. Yeah. You're like, it did not sound like me. Yeah. It was, it wasn't quite like a man's voice, but it wasn't a woman's voice either. It was, it was very clear, clear. You know, people say clear is a bale, but it was very clear that it was not me. It was a supernatural experience. Like it was very clear. And it's something I'll never forget. And I always, when people are like, well, what was your, you know, when, you know, people love to use the term rock bottom, like, I love how a lot of rock bottom. But, uh, let me tell you about this one time that God talked to me and people would get kind of like, when she's hearing voices, I'm like, no, no, it was God. I know it was God. Yeah. I know it. Yeah. Call it whatever, whatever you want, but it got you, I mean, worked. You, you opened up and started listening. Right. So that's really all that's important. And it seemed to get you on, on a path that was good. And I'm sure it sounds like there was some rocky moments in between there. And so tell me a little bit. I know you said that this is something that you're trying to do to help people. Is there anything that you're doing outside coming on to addicts and a moron? Is there anything that you're doing to, to spearhead? Well, what's, what's funny is how I got here and got to be doing this. And I was thinking about this the other day. How I got here is a series of unanswered prayers, but it's got me to where I need to be. When I was a kid in rural Texas, when you don't have a lot of money, your, especially if you're a young girl, your role models are your local town beauty queens in Miss Texas. And when I was a little kid, that's all I wanted to be when I grew up. I thought if I won Miss Texas, my parents would be uber proud of me. And we would, I would cause, I would like just make everyone so happy. No one would be mad at each other. World peace would happen and it'd be the end of the Disney movie. Yeah. And we would just all like kumbaya, right? But that sort of stuff takes money and resources I did not have. Um, you know, farmers daughters don't get to do that stuff. Yeah. Um, so that was something I had put in the back of my head like maybe one day, maybe one day and, um, unfortunately last year we lost my father on law to bladder cancer. He battled for seven years and he finally, you know, his body is now fully hilt in heaven. He's not playing pickleball. He's playing real tennis because his, because his rotator cuff is fixed. Yeah. So, um, yeah, he used to make fun of people who played pickleball and then he started playing it. So me, I play pickleball. Yeah. I love it. He was like, God, it's because my shoulders are both. Yeah. Yeah. He was like, yeah, I play real tennis and then he started playing pickleball. He's like, Oh, you don't have to run as far. Yeah. This is cool. He's like, if you play doubles, there's not much running at all. Right. Yeah. It's just, yeah, I've kind of don't understand pickleball, but I just Scott plays and there's a lot of industry things that are around pickleball. So I just go, okay, awesome. We didn't have tennis courts in Mount Vernon, Texas. You know, we did, but they weren't usable. But anyway, so I'm real good at getting sidetracked. Yeah, that's okay. It's a, it's a gift. Yeah. It's all. Welcome to two addicts in the morning. We do it all the time. So, so I had, so when Scott's dad passed away, um, we were talking and Scott asked me, well, what is something crazy you've always wanted to do? I don't know. I don't know. And he said, I want to go run with the bulls in Pamploma in Spain. I want to go run with the bulls. I'm like, okay, cool. So he starts Googling when it is and looking at plane processes and look at all this stuff and like, God, whatever, whatever. He's in a couple of weeks later. He's like, Hey, we're going to Spain. You need to, you need to go and get your passport. My guy. Yeah. I'm like, no, we're not, we're not really doing that. And, and he was like, no, what is the crazy thing you want to do? And I sat there and pondered and said, well, I've, I've always wanted to do married lady beauty pageants because I know they exist. I don't know a lot about them, but I think it'd be fun. And you know, it could be, you know, I could wear shiny stuff. I could get my hair done. Sounds like fun. It's like, okay, we'll go find a pageant. Let's sign you up and we'll go by address. It's no big deal. So I start Googling and there's all these systems and I find one and I emailed the director. Yes, our pageants coming up in eight weeks. Would you like to compete? Here's where you send the check. I'm like, okay, cool. Oh, and for this one, you have to have a platform, which is a fancy way of saying volunteer, like a volunteer sort of thing, something you're passionate about. Okay. Okay, cool. Well, I'm passionate about not drinking. I've talked to everybody about how terrible alcohol is. That's, that's going to be my platform. And I look on, I follow some people online pageant coaches and I just randomly messaged one and said, Hey, I'm going to do a pageant. Do you need, can I be your client? And so we got to talking and I got hooked up with a pageant coach and she like, help me see that this is a very needed, you know, girls need to know not to drink and women especially. And so I do this pageant. I don't win. I don't even place. And, but one of the ladies who was the judge, you know, she, the way these pageants work or the way this one worked is you had seven judges. They have, you had to, you had to make like a, an info sheet about yourself on Canva. So mine's real basic because I didn't know what Canva was until they're like, you need to go on Canva and make this thing. I'm like, okay. So she's looking at my stuff and she's like, you know, just surviving is not really enough. If you want to keep doing this pageant, you know, I know you're new. You just told me you're new. Um, you need to do some work. Like you need to get out and talk to the public. You need to, you know, you need to volunteer maybe with a local organization or a national one, like, you know, surviving is just not enough. She's like, no, if you're going to compete in this realm, you need to put yourself out there a little bit more. Okay, cool. So, um, you know, we're all driving home and I'm just like, I don't know if this is for me, but where I come to the unanswered prayer part is, you know, when I was a kid, I wanted to do this. Didn't have the money or resources. Now signed up for this pageant because my father in law died. And I wanted him to be healed here. Yeah. And, um, so that was, so pageant was in 2024, the first one at the end of 2023. God had taken a new job and the way I thought our life was going to go. Didn't go that way in my mind. I was going to quit my job. I was going to be the president of the PTA. I would have become very inward and not really fulfilling what God, you know, my promise, like if you help me, I'll help other people. Yeah, for sure. So I got to really think about it. It's like, okay, I need to start volunteering because this is all these unanswered prayers have gotten me here and my purpose is to help other women like me. That is my purpose and I actually just had that realization like three weeks ago, but anyway, like, like that's what I'm here for. So I started volunteering with Shatterproof, which is a national nonprofit where they're working to end addiction stigma. I was on their national walk group, help plan walks across the country. Super cool. Um, I had a friend who that's how it ended up here. She was like, you know, she put out, she's a big pageant person. She's had been on something like 80, 90 podcasts and she had this group of us. She was talking about how she got on these shows. There are these, uh, Facebook groups. Now there's podcasts, Facebook groups where people are always looking to be asked like, no, there's not, that's not real. Yeah. That's not real. And we actually just, we signed up for that not too, too long ago. Yeah. I signed us up on that. On that. Yeah. I was like, that's not real. That's so stupid. Um, and she was like, no, Emily, if you want to be competitive in this space and you want to like really get out there, you've got to go put yourself out there more, more than just walking on stage in a $1400 address. You got to put yourself out there. I was like, okay. So I, that's how we got here. And that's, that's what God has created me to do. And it's really hard to admit, but I'm here to help other people like me. And I never thought, I thought I was supposed to make sourdough bread and, um, like B Martha Stewart. I thought that was what God made me to be, but apparently he made me to talk to people about the dangers of alcohol and to be a lot for people that are women wanting to stop drinking. Yeah. I can't help but take this away from that little bit of a story. It's a little selfish of me. Guys, we're really big in the pageant community. You know, like we're still going to, there's a series of pageant ladies out there that are like checking us out. What's crazy is that it's funny you say that at the first pageant I did four of us had either, um, alcohol use disorder or substance use disorder histories and that was our, our platforms. Like mine was about alcohol. I had a, um, had, there was a young, there was a lady who had a history of sexual abuse and heroin use. Yeah. So like, like, oh, that's heroin, you know, but like there were four of us that had addiction pass. And, you know, I think for a lot of women, we, especially millennial women, we grew up, you got to have it all. You can have it all. You can have the big house, the big car, the big career for children and look amazing and you can do it. That's not really not a hundred percent true. You can have, you can maybe one day have it all, but you're not going to have it all at the same time. Right. Right. And a lot of women deal with that with the glass of Chardonnay because Olivia Pope did drink fricking moonshine. Like, and that's our, that's our role model, Olivia Pope. You know, she has it all. She's sitting over here at not drinking moonshine and has a giant, you know, you don't know, I'm talking about the giant wine glass that literally like fits the entire bottle. Like that is who like growing up, I wanted to be Olivia Pope. Like she's got cool clothes, presidents in love with her. She's got this cool business. And so what if she's drinking, you know, that's how she in one, she drinks this giant bottle of wine. I want to do that. I want to be like her and so many millennial women. I think that's, that's what they're doing to cope. Yeah. Cause they don't know anything. I don't know any, they don't, I for myself, what I think is when we're all little kids, we're at parties and we don't need, we don't need like, we don't need anything to make friends. But as we grow up, we get more self-conscious. We get more inward and we need, we think we need one to have a good time. We need beer. We need vodka. Um, but we've met whatever, but you don't really need it. And so my thing is like, you can be your true authentic self and that is perfect. Be yourself. Be perfect. Well, not be perfect, but being your true authentic self is being perfect in be comfortable in your own skin. Yes. That's what I had a sponsor that, uh, used to always say that you got to ask yourself why you're putting something in your body to make yourself feel better. Because when we were kids, we didn't do that. Yeah. We could go wherever we wanted to go and have fun and talk to whoever. But as we get older, we get more self-conscious, like you said, more anxiety, more, I don't fit in, I don't belong here. And that's what people think is I need to put something in my body to take the edge off. I'm just gonna take the edge off. Well, and see, it's funny you say that I did a lot of reflection and a lot of why am I doing this? And when I was having, when I stopped breastfeeding, I was having all these dark thoughts and I'd had dark thoughts since I was a kid. When I was in third grade, I wrote a will. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, I wrote a will. That's dark. That's dark. That's dark. And my mom, well, yeah, I wanted to know. I'm a toys away. Like my sister gets this Barbie doll. Lin, Lindsay from up the road gets this one and my mom's like, why? And she found it in my closet. You know, 10, you know, nine year old Emily, right? No, will. And, um, she, and I was like, well, you know, mom, I've watched an episode at 2020 where someone died without a will. I need a will. And then, you know, as I got older, if I didn't make perfect grades, I was literally pray God kill me. Let's leave. Yeah. I'm a little 12 year old who had just got their own room for the first time. And I'm, you know, if I didn't, if I made like an 88 on the spelling test, I felt so terrible about myself. My parents might have also told me that 88 is not acceptable. Um, so I'm upstairs. We'd, we'd moved from this little house to this house that had stairs. It was big deal. And I'm, you know, in my, in my little twin bed, because that's the first time I'd had my own bed. Lord, just I'm such a disappointment. Can you just kill me today? I don't want to wake up tomorrow. Like little nine, 11, 12 year olds should not be having thoughts like that. So I think they do though. I mean, I remember similar stuff, you know, I think it's life is weird. As you get older, the more baggage you pick up, right? Like it's just, you start out as a baby and then you get made fun of when you're five, you get called fat, you get called dumb. You get called that's another bag you pick up. And then when you turn nine, then it's something else. Then you turn 12. Now, you know what I mean? Like it just, and then, but if you, but if it's constant though, that's when, cause that for me, I don't know how it was for you, but it was a constant, like reoccurring thing. Yeah. That wasn't quite that way for me. It was like, if I made an 88, like, that's crazy. We used to get, when you all would have been fucking excited. Okay. So I would have got brought to Peter Piper pizza. Yeah. Peter Piper pizza. Yeah. I would have went all the way to the top. When you all, when you all are in school, did y'all get grades every six weeks? Cause some people do it every nine weeks. There was six weeks and then it went to nine. Yeah. It kind of switched in the middle there. If I made an 88, 87, it wasn't an A. It was, I was like, Lord, just kill me in the face. Like literally all the time and like any tests, like I'm such a disappointment. I'm such a disappointment. Did you get in a lot of trouble for it? Like for not getting in? I usually got a stern talking to, like we expect more out of you. You know, you're a very smart young lady. Maybe you should study harder. Maybe you should pay attention more. But I got, I just got diagnosed with the ADHD. So that's why I couldn't pay attention. Yeah. But, um, but, um, you know, like, I see, I am funny. No, you're hilarious. You, you're a little side stories that come up or pretty funny. Yeah. They're good. They're good. They're pretty good. But like my parents, I just don't think they knew a lot of about life. They had me very young. That's what I was going to ask for. They, I was, I was the 11th month anniversary president and I don't blame them now for a lot of the things that happened because they were just young. They wanted me to be successful and they didn't know any other way. Yeah. And as an adult now, I can have more empathy for them because they were, you know, they were small town people and they, they had big dreams for their little girl. Yeah. They wanted me to go to Baylor or go to UT, get good grades and get with a different class of people that I would not meet in rural Texas. They wanted a different life for me. Yeah. And the best way to do that is you got to get good grades. So you go to the bright school. Hmm. And as a parent now, like I understand what they did, but I have different tools. Right. So I'm not going to make the same mistakes, but I just, I've forgiven them for that and that's the most powerful gift we have to is forgiving other people and also forgiving ourselves. Yep. It's wild. How having kids does that. Oh yeah. Right. Like how it makes you look back at your parents and some of the things that you hated, you then start to understand or you couldn't wrap your head around it and then you have your own kids and you're like, oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. There's a great book about forgiveness too. It's by, um, I think her name's Catholic, uh, Catholic, uh, Schwarzenegger Pratt, the, the, the Schwarzenegger that married Chris Pratt, Arnold's daughter. Your name's Kathleen, but she wrote a book about forgiveness and she interviewed all these people that had had horrific things happen to them and how they're able to move on and forgive. First story in there is Elizabeth smart. Oh, wow. And yeah. And like she's world famous for the things that happened to her, but she was able to forgive her attackers and she's been able to live this beautiful life. And a part of that for me was, you know, you can forgive somebody, but you don't actually have to reconcile maybe. Yeah. It's like, they're going to think that, you know, that crazy man thinks that he is right. He thought he was right and he probably still thinks he's right. You know, hanging out in the jail, but I always say you can forgive, but you don't have to forget. Right. Yeah. Well, the forgiveness. I don't feel like, I don't feel like Jesus didn't forget who traded a man, right? Like he forgave Judas, right? But he didn't forget it. Otherwise we wouldn't read it in the book. Right. Right. So I feel like you can forgive, but you don't have to forget so much. Right. Well, the forgiveness is for ourselves. Yeah. You know, so we don't carry that. Exactly. And I've had to really, like for a long time, um, I was really mad at a lot of people. Yeah. But once I started going through this journey of, you know, reconciling that I had alcohol use disorder and I got a real diagnosis from a real doctor about it. And like, why was I drinking? I was holding on to all this anger and all this resentment and I had to forgive these people or it was going to kill me because like those, the people I was mad at, they don't care. They're not in my life. They were moving right along. Yeah. They don't know that, you know, the things they said to me 20 years ago or did to me 20, 25 years ago is still affecting me as a grown woman. They don't know that. Um, so just really working on that really helped a lot too, but it's very out why you're drinking that plate apart. Um, I had these dark thoughts we were talking about and the thoughts kept getting darker and darker and so much show. I told Scott like, Hey, I'm going to go buy some Jack, Jack Daniels. Um, I'm going to run into the Walmart because they have good G.L. General liability insurance. And, um, there won't be a lot of people working at the Walmart because they're close, they close at 10. So I'm going to go at midnight. I'm going to drink all this Jack Daniels, bury me in this dress because y'all don't need me anymore. I can't breastfeed. Like I'm not useful. So he was like, no, we're going to go talk to the doctor now. And, and through a, you know, a series, I went through a couple of doctors. Um, like I have a chemical imbalance and what do we do? And I was using alcohol for many years to get it back on to get it back. Like if I'm too happy, you know, if you're happy, you drink, if you're sad, you drink, so it curly, it's an equilibrium and I didn't have that anymore. So it was a big wake up call. Like you've got some other things you have to manage. So not only do I have alcohol use disorders of chronic disease, whether mental health stuff is chronic as well, cause it's something that's going to be with you forever. I have to really check in with myself. Like am I doing too much? And I was thinking on the way up here, is this too much for me being on camera? Talking to three random dudes, like that I met on the internet. Like, sounds like it's a terrible idea. It sounds like such a bad idea. Like is this, is this bad? Like, you know, um, should I have bought my hatches? Like, I don't know. He, I have a story about him and a knife, but anyway, he went to a pawn shop and bought a knife and he now uses it. Scott is the most interesting guy on earth. He loves Jordans. He digs football cards. He went to Baylor and he has a crazy story about a knife. I want you to get into it right now. Let's go. His coworker, his coworker, his coworkers, wife's parents. So, you know, tree, um, they own a pawn shop off Westheimer in Houston. And so Scott thought it would be a good idea to go there and buy with our non-year old and buy like silver coins. Like, you know, like they always advertise on like the radio stations, like diversify your portfolio with gold. We know all about that. Yeah, me and Mike are very familiar. Yeah. And so he took Brody to this pawn shop to buy a silver bullion. Yeah. Did I use it right? Okay. Yeah. With like these coins and God's like, em, guess what? I took Brody to a pawn shop. Like, why did you take my baby to a pawn shop? Show him how to be a man. That's how I was. Why? Why did you take my baby to a pawn shop? And, um, he comes in, he's like, you know, but this knife, at least like a burry knife and it's kind of like a case and he's like, yeah, I got it for $10 at the pot. And so he tells me about why they went to the pawn shop. I'm like, okay. So you came back with a knife in these silver coins that have like buffaloes on them. Yeah. He's like, yeah, yeah, it's real cool. I'm like, okay. And he, what he was supposed to be doing was going down to River Oaks to get a gift card from Bratton for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Yeah. So he goes back with this gift card and a knife. Like you didn't need the knife in River Oaks. That's like the nicest part of used it. No, I got a knife. Scott and I are a kin, man. Yeah. Probably. I got like a little bit of a story about that. So it probably tells you why I'm divorced. Okay. But, um, when, uh, so by X, Y sent me to the grocery store to buy groceries, just like a normal stuff. I came home with a puppy. I love that for you. Not even with the groceries. I forgot all about the groceries. I just came home only with a puppy. Well, were they like, awesome. Look at him. One of those puppies in like the, in the two people are giving him a watch. He was like in the parking lot of it was like, I got, look what I got. So you got a neighborhood special puppy. Yeah. It was great. It was great. I lost him in the divorce. Oh, he's like, she didn't let me take it back. No, it's, it's cool. It's all good. It's all good. Yeah. Me, me and X, Y for great. We're friends and stuff, but I'm just saying that was decisions. Like that, that were probably not. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I relate a lot to, you know, hey, go get this gift for mom, please. Yeah. I got a fucking knife. Let's get this knife. It's super awesome. Right. Yes. This makes sense. We're just fine. And I got a somebody kills. Yeah. Well, it was great is now whenever we get an Amazon. He's like, let me use my knife. Yeah. The most impractical knife to open boxes with. It's like this long. It's like, let me use my knife. Like, okay, cool. With all those Jordan boxes, let me use my knife. Yeah. Like, okay, honey. Hey, out of boy. Like, and like, are you going to take up wood carving for your neck? He's like, Oh, I don't know. That might be a good audio. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Yeah. So what does life look like for you now? Like, yeah. How, how will. Well, now I have two children. Yeah. I want to stop drinking. I had one. Yeah. I have to. I work in insurance. I'm a territory manager for a large insurance company. So I get to talk to interesting people all day. Cool. And I do this pageant stuff to help help other people and go to boot camp a lot. Um, after I got pregnant, I signed back up. I went to 250 camps in 2023. Wow. 2024 early got to 25, but we did go run with the bulls. Nice. For like two weeks. Did you do it? Okay. So I was supposed to. Okay. But I got pneumonia in Spain. Oh, I know. I thought out like, he thought I was faking that I didn't like Scott thought like, oh, she's just being a wimp, you know, and I'm like walking around at first we were in London and I'm like, I just don't feel good. I don't feel good. And then we're walking around Spain or we're walking around Pamploma, which is where they run the bulls. And I'm just like, I'm not going to go with you today. I don't feel good. I'm not doing it. And so we get back to Madrid and we took the, we took the train real interesting train, real interesting how that works. And so we get into the hotel and he talks to the concierge like, Hey, I don't know what's wrong with my wife, but you know where I can take her to the doctor and I had a doctor come to the hotel and test me for flu and COVID and she listened to my lungs and she was like, no, you have pneumonia. We're going to send you to a private hospital and yeah, I got diagnosed with pneumonia. We need to get out of our hotel. Yeah. Oh, well, no, well, the hotel was very accommodating. They're like, do you need to extend your flight? Do you need extra days here? Like, let's do you, do you need anything? And, um, yeah. And, uh, they took an X-ray, everything. And they're like, yeah, you have like full blown pneumonia. Here's these pills. Of course they're in Spanish. Yeah. So we have to Google it and figure it out. Like, it's like, what are they doing? They're from another country. I wouldn't even get back in my addiction. I'm like, fucking give them to me. Yeah. I'll take them. It's like, oh, it's real. You know, you know, it's in a different language. It must be real good. I'm like, okay. Yeah, we have these pills. So did Scott do the bulls? Of course he did. He left me in the hotel room to die. Yeah. He was there. Well, come on. He was like, he could have died too. Yeah. First of all, I think his thing was more dangerous than your thing. Just being fair. Maybe. I mean, come on. Don't be over dramatic here, pageant lady. I know. Did they, did they, did they catch up to you, Scott? I'm going to talk to you after this. Cause that's something I want to do. Always want to do it. Well, so we want to go back. We're not going to go back in 2025, but we do want to go back in 2026. I promise I'm not going to have pneumonia. Yeah. This time. And we're going to, I want to do it. I'm an adrenaline girl, which might be why I had a problem with alcohol. Cause I like to be number one. Yeah. Best drinker, best runner, best everything. Best bull runner, drummer. Yeah. Person. Cause I need to do it cause I really wanted to do it. Now we didn't get to do it, but I'm going to go back and do it. That's pretty awesome. So I want to ask you your first, your first son, right, Brody, he went through your addiction a little bit with you. Right. You're set. Your second kid did not. Right. What is the difference between you as a mom when you were drinking compared to you as a mom now and the same difference between you as a wife when you were drinking compared to you as a wife now. As a mom, I'm a lot more present. Um, I, one of, one of the first times we took Brody to a restaurant. We, um, we were at a Baylor young professional happy hour. Of course I wasn't a professional as a stay at home mom at the time. And, uh, we taught him how to cheers. Like with his little Siby cup, we're over here with our Belgian quads. Yeah. And, um, Brody, like we didn't, we didn't go do as much on Saturdays and Sundays because I could not get out of bed. Like he and, he and Brody and Scott would go to the grocery store, but I'm, you know, and I'm like, buy whatever you want. Um, I was being hungover. Yeah. Being hungover. Um, I would plan what we were going to have for dinner. Like he, he might have gotten a lot of like mac and cheese for dinner because I was having too much fun making grown up dinner, AKA gin and tonics. Um, but, you know, he knows now that because he's getting to the age where he notices advertisements and he's like, mama, they're talking about the beer. He calls it the beer. They're talking about the beer. I'm like, yeah, that's bad. He goes, yeah, it's real bad. Yeah. Like it is. And he goes, aren't you alert? We, we say that mommy's allergic to alcohol. It's like, aren't you allergic to that? Like, yes, they are. And he's like, oh, okay. And I explained it to him and this is how you explain addiction. This is how I've chosen to explain alcohol, alcohol use my problem with Brody. He has a lot of friends that have food allergies, peanut allergies, especially in the schools. They talk a lot about peanuts. And if you, if somebody has a peanut, they're going to go into influx shock and they're going to have to go to the hospital. Mommy has is allergic to alcohol. Mommy can't drink that or she's going to have to go to the house hospital. Now, what would that really look like? Mommy would probably drink and probably pass out and might not wake up. So it is an allergy. So I say, so you said he has the peanut allergy. No, it was an allergy. No, he has a lot of friends. Like do you have, you have, you have a 16 year old. I have a 16 year old and 22 year old. Okay. So now in the, in elementary school, for some reason, yeah, they send out every year, you get a piece of paper that says you have a child and your child in your children's classroom has a, has a peanut allergy or an egg allergy or whatever. Like please be mindful of the things you sent home. So Brody's very adamant about we can't have any peanuts because he has a friend in the neighborhood. He has peanut. He's going to die. Yeah. Cause he goes very extreme because he's related to his mother. Um, so, you know, he goes very extreme. He'll say they're going to die. Yeah. They'd have to go in the ambulance. No peanuts in this house with anything. No, it's funny. When he was in preschool, he actually, like they started talking about food allergies in preschool because that's kind of when all that starts. Kind of creepy. They didn't do that shit when I was in school. No, they did it for my kids too. Well, here's, here's the big story though. Here's the big story though. There was a kid eating like peanut butter crackers and Brody just starts yelling at miss J who's the cafeteria lady. They have peanuts. Yeah. They have peanuts. He's like four years old and she takes it and she's like, yeah, this is peanut butter. Good job, Brody. So that's great. That's crazy. So there is a comedian that I like a lot. His name is Louis CK. A little bit of trouble, but he had this joke called of course, but maybe. And he said, of course it's terrible that there are peanut allergies and it might kill somebody who eats a peanut. But maybe we ignore that for about a year. Right. And then we have no more peanut allergies. Maybe. Maybe so. Maybe so. It was just a joke came to me. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's kind of gnarly, but it's. But to follow up on my time, different. As a mom now, or like, as a mom, I'm a lot more present. Yeah. I'm a lot more aware, which I'd really need to be. Obviously, because now Brody's in big, he's in big kids school. Yeah. He's got big, you know, he's got like, this is the first year of the standard ass testing. He's, he's in athletic stuff. Like I need to be aware for that. Yeah. And I'll be. You get to show up. Yeah, I get to show up. Right. And as a wife, I'm not hungover all the time. I can, we can go and do things like run with the bulls. We can, which we never would have done if I was still drinking because I would, I'd be really drunk on the plane and probably wouldn't have been able to get off. But, like, I'm so much more aware in our marriage too. We, we're a lot more equal now and we can talk about things without me just going, well, I'm not talking about this. I'm going to go get, I'm going to go get a beer. Leave me alone. And we actually talk about our problems now. And so our marriage is a lot stronger than, I think our marriage is, you know, when you first get married, it's lovey-dovey and you think you're never, you're gonna. It's the greatest thing in the world. It's great. It's great. It's great for about the first like year and a half. Yeah. And then you have a problem and then, you know, that's when the first test comes. We've managed to survive 10 years of terrible tests. Yeah. And now we're at a place where we have a deeper understanding of each other and a deeper love for each other that we would not have if I was still actively drinking. Definitely. There's a clarity there. Oh yeah. Well, and we, it made us grow up. Like for, for forever, we were just like Brody was our little, he was our partner's like, yeah, we're gonna get the, I live in such a suburban area. Y'all, they have, they have bars that have kids menus. And so we would just take Brody to the bar with us. We went to a comedy night at a bar, sat front row. We were drinking beers. Brody's drinking soda and eating mac and cheese. And the guy like made a joke about us being there. And of course I spout back at him and he was like, she's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Like we used to do stuff like that all the time and didn't think no second thoughts about it. You're starting to see it more often now where I go play pickleball. It's a bar and grill and there's a kid's playground in the back. Right behind the pickleball. How many breweries do you know of that have playgrounds? Yeah, they all do. Bunch. There's one in Cedar Park. Like there's a really nice brewery out there and it's like kind of playground and it's wild. Or they host five case. Yeah. It's like, yeah, go go run and then drink this beer and see how you feel. Like I'm a big I've run over 105 case by the way. Did that. Yeah, I like to watch Shonda episode. Did you watch Shonda episode yet? No, not yet. John Livingston. Not yet. He ran 100 miles. They did a documentary on him a year and a half after being a heroin and homeless at home. Wow. Okay. Yeah, homeless. You can watch it on YouTube. It's 100 miles to redemption. It's really good. I will watch that. But he started out 5k. Like he was like, I was just short out with the one mile. He just went on like a mile run or something and then he felt really proud of himself and then did a 5k and then you had a person with him that was like, you can do more. Yeah. And he just he's a psycho. Like he's not like, right? Anybody else really. But yeah, I could never do 100 miles at once. I did a half marathon. I've done two half marathons and that's 13 miles or is that 13 13? Yeah. And I 13.1. Don't forget about the one. I mean, you're running 13 miles. That's important. When you fall at 13, you didn't finish. That's true. What? If you fall at 13, you didn't. Yeah, you didn't finish. You got that point one. You gotta get that point one in there. Yeah. So, but I've heard this and maybe you can talk a little bit better about this, but running a half marathon. A lot of people say if you can run a half marathon, you can do the whole one. Like it's. So you want to know a story about my first half marathon? Yeah. Let's talk about it. I might have been borderline hungover when I ran. All right. See, so you could have done a whole. So we went out. So we ran. It's the marathon. It's in Waco and it's something I'd always wanted to do and I trained for it. And of course, the night before we go out and we're, we're celebrating me being there and I have cup cocktails and maybe a beer. I don't remember, but I'm like not feeling good at all. And I throw up and I'm like, oh, you know, whatever, but I'm just going to go run this thing. And yeah, I was throwing up because I was really drunk, but apparently I was like newly pregnant with Brody. So I ran a half marathon, little bit pregnant, a little bit. Cause they, they, they tell you you've got about a six, eight week, you know, mark where probably nothing's going to happen. But yeah, that was, that was crazy. And then when he was a year old, I ran the Dallas marathon, the Dallas half marathon, which is at white Rocks beautiful. But after, but race culture is, and I haven't, I've really looked for races now that aren't that there was not alcohol involved, which is really hard because after a lot of the, a lot of, for example, the Dallas marathon after you finish, it's sponsored by like Bud Light. Yeah. And you get free drink tickets and you know, you can go and drink afterwards. So a lot, and that's how a lot of the five Ks we used to do. You, they're sponsored by, there's a great one that we used to do. This is pre-children in Dallas on state paddies day. You run and then you get unlimited Guinness. Like, yes. Yeah. But yeah, like so much about recreational running culture revolves around alcohol. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Does it bother you when you're around alcohol now? It doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when I can see where people have had maybe one too many and their eyes get glassy and then they say stuff where it's like, do you realize what you're saying? You've told me this same story three times. Yeah. See my fiance gets, she gets a little jealous when people can drink and not go ruin their life. Oh, okay. So she's like, how come they can do it, but I can't do it. Well, I figured out people do really stupid stuff when they drink. Like I was at a happy hour where I was the only one not drinking and this was a, you know, it was the only one not drinking and this woman that I know asked me a question. She goes, oh, are you not drinking? Are you and Scott going for another kid? Are you going through IVF or something? No, I haven't drank it three years. Yeah. Or like how many times you get asked that you're pregnant if you're not drinking like every time. So I guess how long is she not years. So it's like a muscle. It's like anything when you go to the gym and you start a year off of alcohol, two years off drugs. Okay. Tell her congratulations. But you know, when you go to the gym, you go to the gym, when you start lifting, you don't start with 300 pounds. No, you're doing dead lifts. You don't start with a huge amount of weight. You start with a little bit. You start maybe with the bar or maybe with dumbbells and you build yourself up. And that's, that's kind of the point where I've gotten today is I can be around it, but when people start to overdo it and I see it, I try to remove myself because that's what makes me sad. Like you realize you've just had like seven, like five drinks and two hours. You don't see that this is like not so good for you. And it goes back to what you were saying is like, you can still be an alcoholic and only drink once. Right. It's, it's like these people, they get in these public settings and it's fine. Yeah. It's not fine. Well, yeah. Cause then you, then you're the outsider. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't really care about being an outsider. Well, yeah, but some people can adopt that. Like, yeah, I don't care. I really don't care anymore. I don't give a shit. That's the way it should be. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. I mean, so it, I'm a drinker still, but I can like have a beer or two and then I'm done for like the next week or two, maybe even right. And it wasn't always like that. It got that way when I started doing this, like I started really paying attention to why I drink instead of just doing it out of muscle memory or just because I can. Right. And yeah. Now I am in a lot of situations where I'm around friends that I used to drink with drink heavily with. They're still my friends. So I started noticing in like media or shows you're watching people that like how often beer or alcohol or drinks are in all that. This is really opened my eyes to a lot of that. Like a lot of subliminal marketing, just subliminal stuff and, and even just being around my brothers, I've drank with them a lot. My friends and, and we're, I'll be the only one not drinking and a whole group of six or seven people. And it's the, I start noticing this. I'm like, man, was I this dumb with them? Oh yeah. Like maybe even worse. Yeah. So, but, um, but yeah, I definitely see what you're saying. And then I think I told you, um, Rachel put out something, we talked about it before, but it was like normalized not asking why when somebody says they don't drink. Like, because that's always the thing. Even if you're a guy, it's like, why? Like what's wrong with you? Why are you drinking? Right. Like it should probably be normalized not to ask that question. If somebody's not having a drink. It's, it is, I mean, you wouldn't, if you're outside waiting, you know, standing there, why are you not smoking a cigarette? Like we don't ask that. Yeah. Maybe you just want to be outside. Yeah. Um, but yeah, people and people get, sometimes get really freaked out when you're not drinking and they ask that question and it's like, well, you know, and I've started to where I just tell people like, yeah, I'm sober. Isn't that great for me? Right. They're like, yeah. And then they go away or they ask me more questions. Like, oh, how long has that been? Or I'll have like, do you all do NIs? Okay. So I'll have like a, like a Hanukkah zero at an event and it's like, Oh, hold on. Do you mean? Oh, no, like Hanukkah zeros or anything like that. No, I'm not. Narcotics anonymous. So I'm going to Christmas tonight. Yeah, I have. I like very recently I've, I've grabbed those instead. I have friends that do. Do they have no alcohol in them? Yeah. They have no alcohol in them. I have friends that do it and to me, it's just like, wait, what's the point? So I was in a movie and it was at a bar when I first got out of recovery and they gave me one of those. Uh huh. Wasn't a Heineken. It was something. A Duel's. It was, it tasted so much like beer. Did it? That I wanted a beer. Oh yeah. So I was like, dude, this does, I had to tell the people like, Hey, I can't drink this. Yeah. I've had that happen with a couple where like, um, there was one, it was a stout and I used to drink stouts like water. Yeah. And it was too close. I was like, Nope. Nope. I mean, the bottle and everything looked like it was a beer. Yeah. And I drank it and I was like, wow. I said, that actually tasted so good. I was like, yeah. But like what I'll do if I'm going to like a social event or something for work is they'll, the beer, the bars have gotten to where they'll have a Heineken zero. I'll get it. I'll just open it. Now. They'll just kind of walk around like, and I might sip it a little bit because the tape, because that doesn't start a temptation for me. And, um, they'll ask me like, Oh, well you have a Heineken zero. Are you, is that, you're not really sober then. You're not really, I'm like, I'm not. Thank you for questioning my sobriety. Yeah. Um, would you like to have a beer? Do you have a deeper conversation about this? Or like, I don't, I don't drink Cabocha. I think it's disgusting, but I had a friend who's like, well, if you drink Cabocha, you know, it's got trace out. It's got how come like, yeah. Yeah. Go fuck yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like that's kind of what I feel. So I crazy though, but people think they can like, they're like, well, you're, you know, you're not meeting what I think it is. You know, you're an uneducated person and you don't know anything about me, but you're going to question my sobriety. Yeah. Thank you friend. Next. Yeah. That's why I don't drink. I don't drink because of this podcast. I know for 100% and I probably shouldn't say this on camera, but I've never been an alcoholic. I was a drug addict. I know that I could drink and not even care to take a second one, but I refuse to lose my sobriety over it. So that's the reason that I'll drink. Now, if you put meth in front of me, there's no telling when I would stop. If you, if I didn't know. Yeah. What are you going to say? I drink 12 Heineken NAs as an experiment. How did you feel? Like this was not that long ago. Yeah. How'd you feel? I didn't feel anything. Like I was so to all of those naysayers out there, I was like, I'm just going to give it a whirl. I want to see if you get any kind of buzz from drinking a 12 pack of them. Right. All I had to do was piss. A lot. And I was like that. And as a matter of fact, at Walgreens, I got the, the breathalyzer and I blew a 0.0 from having 12 of those. So you should have done a podcast episode about that. Like, yeah, we could have sat here and just drink. Oh, you should. Maybe y'all could do a YouTube video like this. Do a short. Yeah. Do a short. Or maybe go sponsor us. Yeah. I mean, that'd be cool. Yeah. Athletic brewing is all they do. Yeah. Or the breathalyzer thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, I mean, it was a cheap breathalyzer, probably not the one that the cops use or whatever. I was in Walgreens yesterday and they had a fentanyl tester. You know, they had them. Yeah, dude. Oh, really? You can test your drugs for fentanyl now. They got Narcan and fentanyl. Well, I bought Narcan yesterday. Yeah, I have to have some just in case. I have my 16 year old son has Narcan in his backpack. And like school, like drugs when we were in school versus the drugs they have on the street today, they might have some fentanyl in there. I mean, you can't really tell. You can't tell anymore. Like if even if you're getting a pill from and they're telling you it's a percocet and you think it's a percocet and it's from Mexico or an Adderall or whatever, it's like, so my son and my ex-wife, we had a conversation about it and my ex-wife was like, why is it carrying this? And I was like, not for him. Cause if it happens to him, that's not going to help him. Right. But this is for somebody else that it might happen to. So it's sad to do that. I mean, I told my son that too. I was like, man, I'm really bummed that I have to do this and have to send you with this, but you might save somebody's life. I saw a stat in 2021 that 70,000 people died of fentanyl overdose. Oh, it's probably, I think it's almost 200,000 a year now. It's really, it's a lot. It's crazy. That's, I think they say they could fill up a plane. Yeah. Every day. Yeah. I've heard that too. You could put like people like a fill a bow in 737 and then they just dropped from the sky every day and that's how many people die. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's nuts. Well, thank you for coming on. You're welcome. This was fantastic. And I'm such a fan of this episode for a couple reasons. I told you number one, alcohol is always one alcohol only is one that fascinates me and work in your way and navigating your way through it because it's everywhere, you know, so kudos to you and your family and your girlfriends for being a community for yourself and just through talking to you. I don't know if you guys picked up on this, like just her saying you kind of worked the 12 step program without that. Yeah. I was just, I meant to say that like a minute ago, but it was like you kind of did it on your own. Right. Like it was thinking about it and that's pretty fascinating. I'm so glad you caught that. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. No, when you leave or you get out of here, look up the 12 steps. And I don't know if you did them in order, but you definitely did them. Like you might have missed one or two in there, but I mean, you basically worked the essential essence of the program, which is surrender and then to establish an internal connection with God, you know, make amends. Yeah. Yeah. And then continue on, right? Like just keep working. So the other reason why I'm really excited and I mentioned this to begin with is you are so much more the face of this than so many other people and being so brave. I know it's not easy coming on here and sharing your story. You made it look really easy, but I know it's not and couldn't appreciate that more and this is going to help a lot of people. Yeah. And so I just appreciate that. So thank you. Thank you, Scott for coming in and be under bodyguard. You see, she had nothing to worry about with our dumbasses. But yeah, just like that. I think we got another one in the books. Yeah. Talk to them about that. I have a website. It's Emily C bonds.com. Um, I also, that's also my handle. Is that the right word handle on Instagram and tick tock. Awesome. Emily C bond. Yep. Bonds with an S. Oh, bonds. Okay. It was like Jane bond, but James with an S on the end multiple bonds. Yes. Yeah, you're multiple. You're so badass. I try. You multiple. So before you leave, can you sign the wall? Okay. Yeah, you're getting on the wall of fame. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, thank you so much for coming in and we appreciate it. And like I've always told every single person who comes in and sits there, you are part of our family now. And if you ever need us for anything. Let us know. I will. And our, that seat will always be open to you anytime you're around and those seats will definitely be open. If you ever just want to come check, when I win my national title, I can come. Hell yeah. So I tell you what, if you win your national title, you're coming on here. This is going to be part of the run. You're part of your, I have to put it to add some more on sponsors. Yeah. Yeah. If you make it to the, if you make it to the nationals, we're definitely going to get in on that for sure. State pageant is actually Saturday. So hopefully things go my way and the national pageant pageant system. I'm currently competing in their nationals is in July and Allen, Texas, the Allen event center. They also play hockey there. Well, you got, you got our number. So let us know how it goes. Oh, I will. And good luck. Thank you. Yeah. Hopefully you get after it. Well, um, episode, whatever of two addicts and a moron. I don't know anymore. 47. Keep liking, subscribing, notification bells, whistles, reach out to us, reach out to us. Look, reach out to us. You might end up on the fucking couch. Right. This is proof of it right here. So, um, love you guys to addicts and moron over and out.