Confident Sober Women

When God Shows Up: How Spiritual Practice Transforms Recovery Beyond Willpower

• Shelby • Episode 206

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 In this powerful episode of the Confident Sober Women podcast, host Shelby John welcomes Louise Atthey, sobriety coach and team member at The Luckiest Club. With nearly 16 years of sobriety, Louise shares her journey from rock bottom to spiritual awakening and how surrendering to a higher power transformed her recovery.

What You'll Learn:

  • Louise's pivotal moment driving into a ditch in 2009 that led her to AA
  • How accepting spirituality despite initial resistance became her salvation
  • The three pillars that saved Louise's life: sobriety, female connection, and prayer
  • Why intellectual approaches to recovery often fail without spiritual surrender
  • Practical ways to develop your own spiritual practice, even as a former atheist

Key Takeaways:

  • The "spectrum" approach to addiction problems versus black-and-white thinking
  • Why community support is essential for successful sobriety
  • Finding hope through others' stories and experiences
  • How spirituality provides relief from the burden of self-reliance
  • Ways to overcome spiritual trauma or resistance to higher power concepts

Louise candidly discusses her transformation from "devout atheist" to someone who found peace through prayer, describing the moment she got on her knees and reluctantly asked for help. She explains how creating a concept of a loving, compassionate higher power allowed her to surrender control and find true freedom in recovery.

Both Shelby and Louise reflect on why they consider themselves "the luckiest" - gaining personal responsibility, humility, and spiritual connection that many others never experience.

Connect with Louise Atthey:

Resources Mentioned:

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Oh, and by the way, if you didn’t know, my remote Neurofeedback Therapy program is up and running. Learn more here!

If you aren't part of the Confident Sober Women Facebook group, it's a great place to be. There are over a thousand other sober women there building lives they don't want to escape from. Come on over and join us.

And if you haven't read my memoir, grab a copy today and maybe a second one for a friend. There is so much hope in recovery, and I shared my story so raw and vulnerable so that others would know they aren't alone and that there is a way to live well, manage relationships, parent your kids, and have a healthy body, all while staying sober. Grab a copy of Recovering in Recovery: The Life-Changing Joy of Sobriety wherever books are sold.

Shelby:

Hello and welcome to the Confident Sober Women podcast. I'm your guide, shelby John. I'm the mother of three, wife to one, and sober since July 1st 2002. As sober women, we have something huge in common, and when we share our lives and our stories with each other, we feel that sense of belonging and connection. So we know we are no longer alone. In this podcast, you will hear real life talk about building confidence and transforming your life beyond recovery. So come on, let's talk. Hey, it's me, shelby.

Shelby:

Have you ever wondered what's really happening in your brain during recovery? Are you ready to take control of your anxiety, sleep better and finally feel focused and confident? I want to introduce you to a game changer that's transforming women's recovery remote neurofeedback therapy. I want you to a game changer that's transforming women's recovery Remote neurofeedback therapy. I want you to think of this as a personal trainer for your brain. It's helping you build new neuropathways right from the comfort of your own home. So if you're dealing with anxiety that just won't quit, if you have ADHD that's making life chaotic, or sleep issues that leave you exhausted, neurofeedback could be your missing piece. It's science-backed brain training that works with your natural healing process, helping you regulate emotions and build lasting confidence. The best part is, you don't need to add another appointment to your busy schedule. My remote neurofeedback program brings professional guidance and support right to your living room. Do you want to learn more about neurofeedback therapy?

Shelby:

You can go to my website wwwshelbyjohncom to download my free guide. Is Neurofeedback Right for you? Together, we'll create the calm, confident future you that you deserve. That's wwwshelbyjohncom. Take the first step towards training your brain for lasting change. Well, hey there, louise, thank you so much for joining me today for the Confident Sober Women podcast. I'm so excited to have you here and share you and your story with my audience. So I'm going to turn the mic over to you. Let you share a little bit story with my audience. So I'm going to turn the mic over to you. Let you share a little bit more about that story, and then we're going to chat.

Louise:

Oh, thank you very much. It was very kind of you to invite me and always happy to talk about sobriety right, especially as a woman. So when I start my sobriety shares, I always start off with the incident the moment that I drove my car into a ditch back in 2009 and found myself stood next to it in absolute, abject horror. No idea why I would have gone into the car nothing like that, but absolutely torn apart by the consequences that may have come if I hadn't been so lucky as to drive it into the ditch right. So I found myself in an AA meeting. I absolutely wasn't an alcoholic. I was adamant that this was not me, was not my life, was not going to be my thing, and then realised that actually maybe it might be, and slowly began to come to terms with the fact that my problem was a bit more significant and that actually the idea of a problem kind of exists on a spectrum. Um, and it's that point of beginning my journey on spectrums. That kind of then lives with me in sobriety. You know, the idea that actually it's never really black and white, zero to one, it's all about the in-between. And I really started to kind of sit with the program, sit with people, sit with myself and over the last gosh getting on.

Louise:

Now, for nearly 16 years, I've slowly turned my life around, made substantial changes. I ended up leaving my husband. I, I started a new life, becoming a single parent of two teenagers, working full time and grappling with all that life threw at me, slowly starting to unpick. Hang on a minute, how did I get here? What is it that I do? Why do I do it this way? Is this what I want to be doing?

Louise:

And and just kind of turning it around, and and now, this is what I do. I help people get sober, stay sober. I work for the luckiest club, I work for myself, I write a newsletter, I put together a course and it's it's all about mainly women. But anybody just acknowledging that actually this thing doesn't serve you, this thing actually does you harm, this thing hides a lot of the stuff that we just don't feel able to deal with. But once we put it down, we get the opportunity to kind of really find out who we are and what we want to be doing with our lives. So, yeah, I'm always, always happy to talk about sobriety.

Shelby:

It absolutely changed my life in all the ways wow, thank you so much for sharing all that in such a vulnerable way, and I always like to say that that's how it works right when we come together either two people or 20, you know and we share parts of ourselves in our story, we spread the message of hope, and that is such a blessing for everybody out there who is, whether you've been trying to get sober for a long time or you've been sober for a week or many, many years. There are different times in our lives where we just really need hope. We need something to hold on to, we need to know that we can get through it. You know we need to speak to others who have gone before us and completely yeah, completely I was very lucky.

Louise:

My very first meeting was a woman sharing and she'd been sober for 10 years and she was very well to do, very lovely, very clean, the whole thing and it absolutely floored me and it was that moment of just sitting in an appreciation actually the term alcoholic is not the image I've gone with and it allowed me to much more open because I was pretty terrified. You know, this, this thing was, was something that just supported me, enabled me, encouraged me, it made me in ways it had forged loads of my connections with friends. It's how I met my husband, the whole thing. I didn't understand how I could possibly exist in a life without it and I didn't know that's what was going to be suggested to me either. I'm sure that if I'd known, if I'd known that's what came with going to an AA meeting, I probably wouldn't have gone. So I'm really grateful that I I'd known that's what came with going to an AA meeting, I probably wouldn't have gone. So I'm really grateful that I didn't know that's where I was going, grateful that it was a woman sharing and really grateful that I was able to be open to the fact that alcoholic just meant a problem. It didn't mean homeless male, dirty everything. It was a problem and I sat in that problem and went.

Louise:

Well, dirty everything, it was a problem and I sat in that problem and went. Well, actually, this is where I am and these people I can talk to. The whole thing about being in community and seeing others. You know, even at first, I looked at what they were doing and I was like I don't want what you have. I don't want this happy clappy, not drinking thing. Actually, I began to realize that I didn't want what you have. I don't want this happy clappy, not drinking thing. Actually, I began to realize that I didn't want where I was and that these were the only people really offering me an alternative.

Shelby:

That's so true and I love how so often we are when we want to make a big change or when we have a need, we show up in spaces where that is, we're met with exactly what it is, that we're what we need or looking for. We don't know it at the time. Like that's not a cognitive, like a conscious thought of like oh, I hope there's a woman speaking you know no we're just met.

Shelby:

You know, that kind of like the spirit just gives us what we need in those moments, and I completely that's just always happening in the background and it's a beautiful thing. What's what's really amazing is when we start to make the connections. That that's true, and when we, when we see it but then we like know where that came from, that's like the higher level evolution, I think, of a spiritual program, which is, you know, pretty incredible. But you're right, like I mean I one of the things that I just love so much about sobriety in general. I got sober in AI too.

Shelby:

Not everybody does and that's fine. Like there's lots of ways to do it. But no matter what way you're doing it, without a community it's probably going to be not impossible, but very challenging. Going to be not impossible, but very challenging. So if it's whether it's, you know, an online sober program or like you're reading a book or you're in a luckiest club or you go to AA, whatever it is, the reason why those people, those communities, exist and they're in those formats is because we know that's what works. We know when people come together and share the message of hope and then they give what they have to others. They show others what they have, that other people will want that right, because they don't. Like you said, we don't even know what we wanted or what we think. We don't even know what's possible.

Louise:

You know when you're living in active addiction.

Shelby:

You just think that that's the way you know. Like this is the way, like. Like this is how it is, and a lot of times we've seen that in our own lives, either growing up or around us, that we just like this is what everyone's doing, this is how life is as an adult and when, in fact, that is just so, not true absolutely.

Louise:

It feels like the largest pair of blinkers that you could possibly imagine and that it filters everything through them as well. So all the messages we get from society, or the messages we get from just even, you know, watching films and tv and whatever we're reading or listening to, everything seems to come through filters that kind of go you want to be drinking in this world. The only way of doing this world is with drinking. You know, I was adamant that my glass of wine was just a reward for being a grown-up and being an adult, and this is how we, how we did it, and the idea of taking away all those structures was just devastating, really devastating level is because of pain, because most of life is very uncomfortable, and I think one of the great misnomers of our, of our modern society is that is that there are other people or places or spaces where it's not true.

Shelby:

Where that's not true, and I don't, I just don't think there are. Most of life is very uncomfortable, and so the deal is to be an evolved human adult you have to get really comfortable with being uncomfortable, for a lot of your life now.

Shelby:

That doesn't mean there isn't joy and wonderful moments and these golden like times, you know, but they're usually fleeting, they don't last super long and a lot of it is really uncomfortable, and so those feelings of discomfort is why we, why we drink and use, because we don't want to have that. Nobody really wants that, you know so then, we come to.

Shelby:

We come to whatever we come to, whether we use quitlet or a web program or aaa and we get sober and we make this decision every single day that we're gonna stay sober and we want to be sober more than we want to be drunk. And then over time we build up time and we start to change and we realize like, oh okay, I actually can live like I can survive. It might be really uncomfortable for the first year is just usually not that great.

Shelby:

Right, there's a lot of things yeah but then you start to realize like, oh okay, like I'm still here, like I'm alive, I could go to work, I can go to wake up, I can take care of my kids. You know, whatever is happening in your life now, that doesn't mean that's devoid of problems. Usually we do create quite a bit of problems in our active addiction. But we get to, like, make those changes and after some period of time I usually think it's after that first year where we have a great awakening, where there's this big clarity, like our brains come online again and we're like, oh wow, like I want more, like I want, like I want more, like I want to grow, I want to do more step work, or I want to do therapy, or I want to do this. Like we start to really crave like more development and change. I don't know if you have that experience.

Louise:

Oh, absolutely, yeah, that whole point of I didn't get sober just to be in this. Actually, if I'm going to be sober, there's going to be so much more that I can do. There's so many different ways that I can be and actually what are those going to be? And being open, then, rather than kind of being, you know, there's been this closed path to me that this is how the future plays out. This is the way you do your job, this is the way you do your marriage, this is the way you do your parenting, this is the way you are as a person.

Louise:

And then suddenly putting down alcohol and realizing that actually, if I'm not drinking with these, then how do I do these things and how differently can I do these things and how can I be me in all of them? You know I was very aware that I was playing roles when I was drinking. I was being the wife and the mother and the person in my job. And actually learning how to be me and starting to be me in all of those things is really how I then, kind of like, find myself where I am now, just being me and in that space of me, being vulnerable in it and kind of going. Well, actually, this thing is going to be hard and you know. You talked about the discomfort sharing that discomfort, talking about it in meetings, in community, with other people and letting them see that you can be uncomfortable and sober and that nothing ends in that space. But you grow through it instead and it becomes something that actually lifts you and drives you, rather than the thing that you're avoiding.

Shelby:

I totally agree with that. I mean and this has been on my heart and mind a lot and you work for the luckiest club, laura McGowan's program, which I think is so funny. But I've said it several times recently, and I had a very wise woman who happened to be my second sponsor. She was just a very strong, wise woman but she used to share constantly that like she wished everybody would get drunk and lose everything so they can come to AA. And when I was younger, for a long time I didn't really understand that. And then, as I got older and it grew in my own sobriety, when I did my own trauma work, when I built my own therapy practice and coaching program and all of these things, I started to realize more and more like the more well, like the more evolved I became and I don't believe that we're ever done right Until we die I realized just how unwell you know so many are, like most people in the world, and it's not their fault necessarily.

Shelby:

I think some people just don't know. They don't know well A, if you don't have a substance abuse problem that takes you down to the pits of hell where you need to get help, you don't have the benefit of like, oh, we're the luckiest we get to do this, but then you know you might have other things that go on that send you into the therapy room or wherever, where you're like, oh okay, now I, now I know, I feel the joy that comes from that and the blessing I can feel, the spiritual workings around me. But if you don't, but if you don't, if you're not clued into that, a lot of people just don't know and then they just live very unwell, you know.

Louise:

Yeah, and the beauty of doing it in community which again comes from the addictive space, right, because that community is driven by the need to do it together. It really lifts people. It does provide a light. It does provide that sprinkling of hope when actually we didn't feel there was any. You know, I can. I can still remember coming home from meeting and suddenly being lifted with hope in a way I'd never, ever felt in my entire life and it it's such a light, such a light and it becomes that whole thing with, with sobriety.

Louise:

It doesn't have to be about the stick anymore, it's just, you know, it's that thing with stick and carrot. I think it's getting better at being much more carrot based and much more about hope and light and opportunity. Rather than that you don't want to be where the stick is and you don't want to lose everything. You don't want to have to be in a, in a place of complete rock bottom. Actually, at any point along the line you can turn around and go. Do you know what? Enough is enough actually. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to, I'm going to thank you all for your experience of showing me what happens in between here and the losing everything and rock bottom place and I'm going to stop and I'm going to start going the other way now with this. This is going to be enough for me, and I think one of the things I've loved about the sober spaces that have been coming up over.

Louise:

I don't know how it is you probably much more aware of the difference, but when we both started, it was just AA. There was AA. It was all about rock bottoms. It wasn't about considering whether you might want more from your life, but it's about, well, have you hit that point, you know, and when we still are finding a lot of people who have to hit that point, but we're also finding a lot more people who are kind of going. Actually, do you know what? I'm beginning to realize that this isn't working for me and I'm beginning to see that there is more that I could be doing with my life and my experience and my understanding of myself if I stop drinking. I'm I'm constantly coming across women who've been doing a lot of work, but it's only when they then stop drinking that they kind of go oh, it's now all coming together. All these things I've tried and all these bits did play a part, but only when I stopped drinking did I suddenly realize what it is I need to be doing?

Shelby:

I totally agree with that. You said so much there and the one thing that just came to my mind and I'm going to ask you a question, it's kind of a loaded, but I feel like one thing that's really also become increasingly more bothersome for me, as I guess the longer I've been around or older I am, I'm not sure it's like why some people like just can't get it and it's just hurts my heart. So I'm, since I'm a clinician, I do see this in my private practice a lot and it's come up a little bit in the last six to eight months or so specifically here, and it's it's kind of heartbreaking for me. I just I've had my own just personal struggle with like, why can't you, why can't you get this Like?

Shelby:

And especially people who once because before we said you know it's not really their fault, but once you are educated on a thing like okay, somebody says, oh, you have a problem with alcohol or you land in an AA meeting or you get a DUI like, once you've become educated on like oh, I, you know this is a problematic in my life. Now you know, you do know, and so it is your responsibility to take control right. So, like you are now educated and you're a person that cannot drink or use and so it's your responsibility. But, like I guess I guess what the question is and again, it's not a judgment or anything, it's just more just I'm just curious, like why do you think some people, despite that, like chronic relapse, or people who come around they've seen all the things they've been educated, like why can't they get it?

Louise:

It's the old thinking thing. For me it's watching people still trying to do it all in their head. You know and've, I knew and you and I have probably watched lots of people particularly come to come into aa meetings. I haven't necessarily seen it so much online, because you don't necessarily see what goes on outside of the room online, but in aa meetings you you see people coming and and intellectually fighting the thing, intellectually disconnecting themselves from this piece, and they stay in their head with it. And for me it was very much about kind of really beginning to sit with acceptance that this is my thing and actually what is it I'm going to do now? How am I going to save myself? And, to be honest, I ended up doing the thing I thought I would never do, which was getting down on my knees and praying.

Louise:

So for me there's always a spiritual element of surrender, not necessarily defeat, because defeat is kind of giving up and lying back and kind of going well, I don't know what I'm doing now, but it's surrendering to an alternative way. So, rather than kind of staying in the thinking and the existing patterns, it's right. Actually, how else could I do this piece? How else can I do my life? How can I make these changes so it no longer is this thing that just exists and I only ever see it in my head dropping into the body, beginning to feel, allowing that, no longer doing anything. That is logical, but starting to tap into the emotional or spiritual side has been key for me and I, when I work with people, I quite often, quite often, will open that as a as a way to to move forward and something to be willing to look at.

Shelby:

I agree, and I think it is a spiritual lack. Right, there's like um, you're right, we try to intellectualize, we try to rationalize, we try to use, to use our own will, we try to use ourselves. And I'm not saying we're not smart, most of us are very smart and most of us are very well resourced. We have a lot of good things about us, but there are some things that we just can't overcome by ourselves, like you're saying, and so we try to do that or use our own will, and then continuously and repeatedly it doesn't work. But I just, I just, I just sometimes I just want to be like ah, anyway.

Shelby:

So you mentioned like you help people to see that and to start to put that into your life. I would love to hear, like, how you do that, like what does that look like for you, for people who are maybe in that space where they don't have a regular spiritual program? Maybe they were either raised with something that they don't agree with anymore or gave them some spiritual trauma, or maybe they've just never had it. How do you start to insert this in their life?

Louise:

So, as always and with everything that is sobriety, it begins with the sharing of my own experience. Right, and so when I first went to AA and I was like huh, there's a program, but I'm not doing that, you have to talk to women. Well, I'm not doing that. Most of the women I know can't drink anyway. And then it was this, god, I was like, right, certainly not going there. I would have described myself as a devout atheist.

Louise:

When I first turned up in the rooms, absolutely adamant that that was not going to happen, stopped drinking, struggled. The whole thing was a nightmare. It's like running, getting up in the middle of a roller coaster every morning, strapped in, going through the day desperate to get back to bed without a drink, crawling back to bed at the end of the day and notching up another day on what felt like a prison wall. And it went on. I don't really know how much. I didn't keep a diary or anything at the time, but there was one night where I was suddenly alone. My husband had gone to bed and there was half a bottle of wine out in the kitchen and it sang to me. I mean, really sang. It pulled every single part of my being over towards it. Louise, just come over here, have a sniff, it will take the edge off. You're having a hard time, tough time. Come here, my love. Come here, my love, let me help, let me help. And as I find myself leaning into it, I suddenly saw at the bottom of that bottle a dirty, slimy, smelly creature, all whiny and nasty, a bit like Gollum out of Lord of the Rings, going come here, my pretty. And I just kind of like jumped back in in absolute horror because I knew if I, if I drank. That's where I was going and I texted somebody. You know how people give you their phone number and you're like don't give me your phone number, I'm not going to use your phone number. Why would I use your phone number? This woman, sam, had given me her phone number. I'd like okay, sam, I nearly drank, what do I do? And she said, louise, you need to pray. And I said, no, I'm serious, I'm serious, I nearly drank, what do I do? And she just texted me back in capital letters get down on your knees and say the serenity prayer. And I, I didn't know what else to do. Right, and it's that whole point, shelby of just.

Louise:

I was frozen in my own thinking, frozen in my inability to have any kind of control over this thing, because I had no control over it. And I finally really saw that and I can still remember my first getting down on my knees in my room, sat looking at the wall, going well, there's lots of swear words that would come with my usual share of this. I don't believe in you, but I I'm terrified and you need to turn up because, because this is going to kill me and I don't want to die, and I said the serenity prayer out loud. I got up and I got into bed and the next morning I got up and I wasn't on the roller coaster anymore. It was slower, it was still. I got back down on my knees. I had the same conversation. You know, I really want to get this. I'm being told I need to pray to you and being told I need to pray to you, I absolutely don't believe in you, but if you start turning up, I will start to believe in you. Here's the deal. And God started to turn up.

Louise:

The difficult things that had been kind of feeling like they were coming like some kind of train crash in all directions. They just suddenly all stopped, just that little bit away from me and I kind of got to deal with them all very slowly. There was a new person at work and he, he got a new job. There was a bill that needed paying, a check came, I needed to talk to somebody about something. They turned up.

Louise:

Little by little all those things started to change and I started to kind of go well, maybe there's something in this and I had, and I and I had the conversation with myself what is it that's stopping me from believing? How about I put that down? How about I look at my head and I say, right head, hang on a minute. I want to be open to this. I want to understand more about what history is stopping me from thinking that prayer is going to help and how can I start doing more of that, of that? So it's understanding that mindset piece and acknowledging that religion is the issue, rather than a spiritual being.

Louise:

If I can put religion down, what might come? What would I want from a god of my understanding? How would I want my god to behave? How would I want my God to support me? I expect my God to be a loving, generous, compassionate God who doesn't hold my mistakes against me when I sit and learn how to accept myself. It's so much easier to do that when I accept that I've been chosen to be me as I am, rather than been here to be somebody else.

Louise:

So, just starting to kind of practice those conversations, what does open and willing look like? If I'm going to be open and willing, and how can I create a space? And once we create a space, like my god turned up. It's amazing how many times that happens for people. It's amazing how many times people come back to me and go okay, so this really bizarre thing happened, you know, and we both sit there and shrug our shoulders and go well, of course it did. Of course it did because you became willing to see it and willing to allow it and then willing to accept it. Right, so the being worthy of I'm going to be worthy of my god's love. I'm going to be worthy of attracting better things.

Louise:

I'm going to be worthy of being able to deal with some of the stuff that's going I'm going to learn how to ask for help from this god, that I may not necessarily believe in all the practices that we use to get sober, allowing it to then build into the rest of our lives and support and hold and embrace in that.

Louise:

Every single decision I've made since I've got sober has involved sitting with my god and kind of going right. What am I going to do here then? And inviting signs and getting the signs leaving my husband, leaving my job, all those really huge life choices, much like, okay, god, am I really giving up alcohol? Yes, you are. Here's why. Here are the people that you need to hear, here are the stories you need to hear to tell you why you need to give up, and here are the people who are going to help you. That's how it started, and then it kind of just ballooned into everything I do and, yeah, I, I wouldn't be without it and I had. I had to get to that point of being absolutely emotionally broken and unable to see how I could do anything else before I kind of surrendered and went okay, show me how.

Shelby:

Yeah, I think that that word surrender is so powerful and it's not something that most of us really want to embrace, right, we want, like I said before, we want to use our own will, we want to be in charge of ourselves, and as much as we are, in many ways we do have free will. You know, there are times in our lives when we have to realize that we are. We cannot do it. You know, we cannot do this on our own, and so something else needs to be able to come in and help us.

Shelby:

And I like how you said you know you were, you know, not like a card carrying you know Christian or Bible thumper or any of that like you were really kind of an atheist, you know, not a believer, and you said to yourself what are the kinds of things, qualities I would want in a God? If there was, I love that. And so you kind of were like let's put that on Like I would want understanding, I would want compassion, I would want love and and support and embrace. You know, like you can start to think of the qualities of maybe other people in your life that have been the things that you liked or needed and then put that onto that being, which to me, is like a really cool image, right.

Shelby:

It's like almost like if you had a poster board and you could kind of just like put the words yeah, completely and then just, and then just use that as as this, um, conception of this, you know, this higher power, this being outside of yourself, because really, um, one of the things, the sad fact of adulting, honestly, is, like, you know, we no one's gonna come and say, you know, we have to do it ourselves, right, like it's between between us and our, our God, to like do anything to make ourselves happy, to get things done. Yes, of course many people help us, but no husband, no kid, no mom, no, any of that is gonna can do those things for us. You know we have to end up doing. We have to do them for ourselves.

Shelby:

Yeah, and it's when you, with the support of God, because otherwise, because people disappoint right, humans disappoint everyone your mom, your husband, your kids, your employer they all will disappoint you at some point. And if that is true, if humans disappoint is true, then that means eventually you'll get to the bottom, where you're the only thing left. And then what happens when you disappoint yourself? Where do you go then?

Louise:

And that point around free will as well right that whole thing about being sat in sobriety meetings going well, when I've been in my way. This is where we got to right. Everything that I've ever done my way needed alcohol or was fueled by alcohol had that relationship with alcohol. If I'm going to do it in a way that doesn't lead to alcohol, then I can't do it my way anymore. I need to find a new way. And where do you go for a new way other than okay, well, let's see what comes when I go. God, I'm giving you the chance to turn up, ship up and show me how to do this.

Louise:

And the evidence throughout my life has been overwhelming since I got to that point. And it just, it just blows me away that the things I found in that you know those those early days in AA when I said, but I don't think I'm going to get drinking because I'm not really an alcoholic, you know, I'm not going to talk to women because I don't really trust them, and then I'm not, I'm not going to pray and the three things that saved my life were stopping drinking, talking to women, learning how to love women, because I am one and I was avoiding loving myself by avoiding other women and then praying to God of my understanding and those are the fundamental points that I live with now is learning to be me. I needed to put down alcohol and I needed God to support me, and doing all those things together is how I do it all. Now I wouldn't be here doing this with you, I wouldn't be at the Luckiest Club, I wouldn't have left my husband All these things that just wouldn't have happened if I hadn't kind of gone. Ok.

Shelby:

God, help me find me and help me find what's right for me to stay sober. And I think also that the the painful parts of of the reality, of kind of looking at ourselves, the painful parts of like doing the personal responsibility work like the three fingers pointing back at ourselves, right, yeah.

Shelby:

Called to do constantly, which is why I also think we are the luckiest right, where more people in the world had that. We would be living in a completely different society If people had personal responsibility and the humility that we get to have because of that. That painful part is not real amenable to like. Um, oh, like, I really want to like, look at my thinking patterns and like, oh, I really want to go to my partner and say you know, I really shouldn't have spoken to you that way. You know, I really want to apologize and make amends.

Shelby:

For my part, I think that's not a thing. That's not that comes natural to us, for humans, to humans, it's not, but that is a. That is a thing that comes to us when we are connected with something that's outside of ourselves. And again, it doesn't have to be any kind of religious God, but it's a concept of we are not the whole center, we are not, you know, even if there isn't a God and I always say to like, so what if there isn't? Okay, fine, you do these things. You say, oh, I'm going to get down on my knees, like, and like what if there isn't like? Cool, then you got everything and you lost nothing.

Shelby:

Cool, right, yeah yeah and so to me it's kind of like so what do you have to lose? So you said you had a private moment in your home where you got on your knees or you quietly prayed in your car, or, like you to yourself, you have this spiritual program that you are building. Like so, like like. To me. I don't understand any um any con to that you know yeah what is the con?

Louise:

absolutely, absolutely. I had no idea. When people say you know you're not in charge of you.

Shelby:

Is that the con? I'm really the reality, if you look around, you're actually not in charge of you anyway.

Louise:

Anyway, right anyway, yeah, I, I find, you know, I remember lots of conversations with people that I'm I'd had before I stopped drinking about things that really hurt me, that I carried particularly loads of anger around some stuff in my past and they said you know, you just need to let it go. And this whole concept of letting go, I'd be like, well, how do you just, how do you let go of something? And it then just sits there, whereas when I started kind of going, okay, well, let go, let God. I could give it to God. I could kind of go okay, I can't carry this thing anymore. You need to carry this thing for me. I can't be responsible for those people anymore. You need to be responsible for me. I want my kids to have this as a life that they don't have. But tell you what, given that I trust you with mine, I'm going to trust you with that right.

Louise:

It's so much easier to let go when you've got somebody to give it over to, rather than just put it into an ether and hope that it goes somewhere. It's like, actually I don't need to do that anymore because I can just go. Here's my god box, here's my stuff, it's all over there, it's all being looked after. I don't need to think about it. All I need to do is stay sober every day, do the things that I'm called to do every day, which is help be the people who reach out to me or write my newsletter or do this course. That blows my mind, and and it just keeps coming. It just keeps coming and it, it works, so why wouldn't I just carry on doing that?

Shelby:

Yeah, it does, it works. And again, I don't, I don't get the resistance.

Shelby:

Sometimes I understand it emotionally because, you know, especially for people who have spiritual trauma, which is a very real thing, and I get that completely have a history of that which, for me, I didn't even understand what that was, and probably until 10 years ago when I saw it here in my room for the first time and I was like, oh okay, now I understand. But the other than that, like there's really no, there's no con to it, there's no disadvantage, you know, for having a connection with something you know the only thing it does is is releases you from the bondage of self.

Shelby:

It's sort of the same thing as when we get sober, when we decide to get sober, and every single day we make that decision, you know, we're releasing the chains to self right and we're saying, yeah, oh, okay, I'm accepting the fact that and surrendering to the fact that I'm not a person who can use substances properly, whatever that is, even if there is such a thing you know, and so yeah, it's just sort of just like another step of that, like then I'm accepting and so and saying that I'm the kind of person that would like to welcome the help from the universe and from spirit and from nature and from God in my life and like cool, like I bet it'll be easier and there's so much humility in that there is.

Louise:

There is, and it's beautiful being part of a world now where people are able to put their bits forward. I get a lot of Pixie Lighthorses reading. She's very much in the divine and universe space and it's been great to be able to connect with that and not feel that it's going to be done my way. That whole piece of kind of going well, mine's, mine, right, yours can be yours, we can all do the bit we need.

Louise:

The trauma piece I I find has been really hard for me to experience, which is mostly through the luckiest club and really appreciating how incredibly difficult, painful, traumatic some of that has been, and trying to just kind of go well, my thing still sits over here. It's still very different to that and I'm still in that space of trying to align the two. But I have to put it down because it's too big for me, too big an experience that I don't have and I kind of only can only bring it back to myself and kind of go well, this has been what's working for me and how I have invited my higher power, my faith, my god in, and I'm really sorry that has been your experience of it, but that is much more about religion and faith, and for me it's keeping that distinct clarity between the two it is the easier, softer way too.

Shelby:

I always say that you know. I mean, I think, generally speaking, we are a kind of people who want to make things harder for ourselves. You know, we would never say it that way, but we tend to make decisions sometimes, and um, choices repeatedly that make things harder for ourselves. And so if we want to be sober more than we want to be drunk, that's a huge first step.

Shelby:

And then if we want to be sober more than we want to be dysfunctional. That's another big, huge step that we never stopped working on, ever in the rest of our life. You know, I was actually just talking. My oldest daughter is 21. She's in college. Uh, two of my girls are in college and like, uh, she called last night and she was um in tear like she was crying about she, she's a nanny for her family and she's like I think I just lost my job but they, the grandmother was coming to live with. It was kind of everything happened very quickly it wasn't about her, which was great, like it wasn't.

Shelby:

Yeah, I heard it was just circumstantial and um, and she's boohoo and I and I feel terrible. You know it's very hard. I support her, validated her feelings, we listened and talked and I was sad with her and cried and then she said you know that's not fair. And I'm like it's not. You know, it's definitely it's not, it's not fair. And now her whole schedule is a mess, her financial responsibilities are in jeopardy, like there's a lot of stuff you know and it's you kind of just want to be able to wallow around in your in your mess, right and yeah you know, take tonight, let yourself feel the feelings, be sad about it.

Shelby:

I said, get up tomorrow. And you know, you get to school and you get to your classes and you and you do the next right thing and you say to yourself, what is the next thing I need to do to, like, take care of myself? What's the next thing I need to do for my financial responsibilities? You know, um, and she just texted me this morning and I said how are you doing? And she said I'm just so depressed. You know, I'm depressed and it's not fair. And I said it's not. You know, um, but you get to decide. You get to decide and those people who decide to choose um to stay there is a limit to our own self-pity right. And if there's people who don't choose to decide that there's a limit to that and they end and say, okay, what is the next right thing? They get stuck, you know, and they're not well.

Shelby:

So, the blessing is is it's up to us Every single day we get to decide that. Thank you so much, Lise, for your time and and for this incredible conversation. I feel like it could go on forever. I really appreciate you and your work, and where do you like people to kind of connect with you if they want to reach out? Where can they find you?

Louise:

so instagram is probably best. I have a. I have links there to my sub stack and my course will be coming up on there soon. I try and do a reel every week to remind people to take a pause and to stop on their Sundays and just to allow for a moment the world to kind of stop taking them with it and leave it all out there. So, yeah, that would be the best.

Shelby:

What is your Instagram handle?

Louise:

It's Louise underscore Athe, which is A-T-T-H-E-Y.

Shelby:

Perfect, I'll make sure I linked that in the show notes below. And again, thank you so much for your time and I really appreciate it.

Louise:

It's all right, it's good to see you. Thank you, shelby.

Shelby:

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of Confident Sober Women. If you enjoyed this conversation, hit the subscribe button above so you won't miss any upcoming episodes. And, hey, if you really loved it, leave me a review. You can learn more about the Sober Freedom Inner Circle membership at wwwshelbyjohncoachingcom. Forward slash inner circle. See you next time.