Breaking the Cycle: Sobriety, Boundaries, and Recovery

Maura Casey opens a window into her 39-year sobriety journey with raw honesty and gentle wisdom. As a journalist who worked for prestigious publications like The New York Times and Hartford Courant, Maura's story reveals how professional success intertwined with her recovery from growing up in what she calls a "tumultuous" Irish family where "alcohol was the seventh member."

The conversation takes us through Maura's childhood, where drinking at age 13 was normalized within her family culture. We witness her awakening moment at 28 when she realized her drinking was following her father's destructive pattern, prompting her sobriety journey. What follows is a masterclass in emotional sobriety—the deeper work beyond simply putting down the drink.

Shelby and Maura explore the transformative power of establishing healthy boundaries after years of people-pleasing tendencies. Their discussion illuminates the crucial distinction between guilt ("I did something bad") and shame ("I am bad"), offering listeners practical insights into healing these emotional wounds. The conversation weaves through making amends, changing behaviors, and finding pride in breaking generational patterns of alcoholism.

Perhaps most powerful is Maura's reflection on writing her memoir, "Saving Ellen," which chronicles her family's journey through addiction, illness, and recovery. She shares how her sister Ellen followed her into sobriety, demonstrating the ripple effect our personal healing creates. Whether you're newly sober or decades into recovery, this episode reminds us that showing up authentically each day is a miracle worth celebrating. Subscribe now and join our community of confident, sober women discovering their true potential.

Find Maura's memoir "Saving Ellen" available April 1st from Skyhorse Publishing. Connect with her at CaseyInk.com or email AuthorMKCasey@gmail.com. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Confident Sober Women
• 2:00 Mara's Journey to Sobriety
• 10:53 Neurofeedback Therapy for Recovery
• 19:00 Finding Community in Sobriety
• 26:05 Establishing Healthy Boundaries
• 35:29 Navigating Guilt, Shame, and Amends
• 42:42 Parenting and Family Relationships

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

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 a real life talk about building confidence and transforming your life beyond recovery. So come on, let's talk. Hey there, sober ladies, thank you so much for joining me today for the Confident Sober Women podcast, and I'm introducing you today to my friend, mara Casey.

Speaker 1: 0:55

She is an amazing writer. She worked for the newspapers the Hartford Courant and the New York Times. She's won big national and regional awards and then, in 2020, she discovered some of her old diaries that she had kept as a teenager and really started to lean into writing a book called Saving Ellen, a memoir of hope and recovery that was published on April the 1st. So you can look for that wherever you buy your books. Maura is just a breath of fresh air who's been sober for a very long time. We get into the concepts around boundaries, around making amends, how to speak up for ourselves how we change when we do this work of emotional sobriety. There's a lot in this conversation, including a lot of our personal experiences with that, and you know descriptions of her history and why she wrote the book. So grab your big glass of water or your favorite mocktail and join me for this conversation with Mara Casey.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Hey, it's me 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 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.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Do you want to learn more about neurofeedback therapy. 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, maura. This is so great to have you here today for the Confident, sober Women podcast. I know my audience is going to love our conversation today already, just from what you and I were talking about in our pre-meeting, and I'm going to turn the mic over to you now and let you share a little bit more about your story, and then we're going to chat.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Hey, shelby, so great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Welcome to my barn. I live in a small farm in Connecticut and this is my barn and I get the second floor and my husband has his man cave on the first floor. So this is my domain, but this is a great topic for me.

Speaker 2: 4:10

I've been a happy sober drunk for 39 and a half years. It's been a long time, but I always remember my childhood, which was I grew up in a big Irish family. There were six kids. My mother had six kids in seven years, god bless her and alcohol was actually the seventh member of the family. It was present at every occasion and it was the reliable member to help us celebrate. The reliable member to help us celebrate. It was there to help us grieve. It was there all the time and I used to come downstairs sometimes and see in the morning when everybody had been drinking. And when I got old enough which was 13, thank you very much I was drinking right along with everybody else. There'd be the whiskey bottle right in the middle of the kitchen table with the glasses and whatever strewn around. So it's been a long road.

Speaker 2: 5:13

My childhood was pretty tumultuous. My father had a drinking problem that got worse when my sister was diagnosed with kidney disease in the mid-60s early on, and she was a real firecracker. Ellen was a spitfire. She was always running around, always yelling and always climbing trees and things like that, and she grew very rapidly diminished under kidney disease, which we were told was terminal. And at that time there was very little in the way of organ transplants. That was considered the medical equivalent of walking on the moon. There was no organ procurement system. If a doctor wanted to try a transplant and wanted to find a cadaver kidney in New York State he had to call every one of the 400 hospitals that there existed to find do you have a kidney? It was even against the law to take kidneys, cadaver kidneys, across state lines. So if you lived two miles from a state line and there was one right over the line, it might have been against the law to bring it. So there's many, many obstacles.

Speaker 2: 6:25

It was very early in this sort of medical field and my mother, you know, watched my father kind of fall apart. He began to have a very public affair. He was he, you know, became alcoholic and she was determined to save Ellen. That was her determination. My mom was a World War II Army vet and she was going to do it. So that's the subject of the book I wrote.

Speaker 2: 6:50

But as I got into the book which is Saving Ellen, a memoir of open recovery, I realized that the drinking had so much more to do with the turmoil than simply the situation. And I began to drink when I was 13. And it wasn't seen as real deviant at that time. I mean now, as a mother, I mean, it kind of blows my mind, but it was so much a fabric of our lives that nobody thought it was a big deal that a 13, 14, 15-year-old would be drinking. And in fact at the time it was seen as something like well, they'll learn to handle it at home, which is not true. What it does is set you up as being more likely for problems later on which in my case did occur, which in my case did occur.

Speaker 2: 7:43

And I had an experience. I became a journalist. I went to a journalism conference when I was 28, and I said I had begun to be worried about my drinking and I said, okay, I'll just have one, maybe two. Well, you know, I got together with friends. It was near Christmas. We were at a beautiful restaurant on the Annapolis waterfront. There were the lights, the ships. It was glorious. I had one, then I had another, then I had another, and in the bus ride home to the hotel where we were all staying, somebody pulled on a case of champagne which I decided you know, I gotta, I gotta, help finish this off.

Speaker 2: 8:31

And so by the time I stumbled in bed I felt so awful. Every time I closed my eyes I felt nauseated. Every time I opened them the room would literally spin and I just said I'm becoming a drunk like dad. I'm becoming a drunk like dad. It was a real kind of a come to Jesus moment. So I just stopped. And he the blessing for me isn't just stopping, not going to AA immediately, not doing anything like that was that my husband then and now is very easy for a recovering person to live with because you know he's Italian, he doesn't care about drinking. He, you know he might have a beer every two weeks to keep his hand in, he doesn't care. So it wasn't like I was living with somebody who drank or wanted to drink as much as I did and I had to fight temptation every day. The temptation really kind of didn't exist, at least in our house, which helped a lot. But that's my little drunk log and how I kind of got started and took off from there.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Thank you so much for sharing all that in such a vulnerable way. That's truly how it works, and that's what we learn for sure, like hearing other people's stories and learning that we are never alone in this world. There's always plenty of people, although many of the stories are so different. It took me a long, long, long time to ever even hear my story, but it's out there. So did you? How did you get sober? Did you use like a program or just cold turkey? What did you? How did you get sober? Did you use like a program or just cold turkey? What did you do?

Speaker 2: 10:27

well, at first it was just like white knuckling it. Um, I had been uh pete and I actually I always say this we met in a homeless shelter. We were not clients, we were both hired to work in a homeless shelter and after about three years I decided I wanted to be a journalist instead of, you know, in counseling, a counselor and and so I knew about the foundations of the program. I had actually attended the Rutgers School of Alcohol Studies and so I knew all that. But it took me a while and it took. I was very shy about going to AA and it took while and it took. I was very shy about going to AA and it took. You know, it took some friends. I made friends who were also sober.

Speaker 2: 11:16

I knew a couple of people who were sober and they helped me go to AA, and it was easier to go to AA with someone. I found it, at least for me. I found it much easier to go with somebody who I could kind of tie a knot to and hang on, and we don't talk often enough, I think, about the power of example, the example of people who are sober. There was a woman who had won a Pulitzer Prize and she was a journalist and I had noticed her and she was kind of my ideal of who I wanted to be like. She was an opinion writing the way I was and when I first offered to buy her a drink before I stopped she said no, thank you. She said I like life to go by its own pace and I always remembered that and I wanted to be like her. So it helped me a lot to have an example of a person I wanted to be like and to eventually have a friend or two and go to AA meetings.

Speaker 2: 12:15

And I have never yet gone to a bad AA meeting. And it's amazing in an AA meeting you can see other people just do these subtle little interventions to help people, to say I am with you in what for you is still a dark night. I am with you and that's healing for me as well, even if I didn't need those interventions just being there and having somebody turn to a. I remember one time this one woman always used to knit during AA meetings and she had her knitting needles. She was in like her sixties and which then to me was old, and she turned to a young woman who had been, had stopped about eight days earlier and had been on drugs, and she just said to her we're glad you're here. You know just that we're glad you're here, and knowing you can go to a place where someone will always be able to say we're glad you're here is support in and of itself.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Oh, I totally agree. That's how I got sober too, because back then we only had, you know, rehab and AA. There wasn't any other options, like today we have all these modern things and it's so, it's so great to see the different things emerging with Quitlet and, you know, dry January and you know, sober programs and SheRecovers. There's so many, there's so many options now we have, like we can get our hands into a lot of things, depending on what fits our you know desire, what our need at that time. And then and then sometimes we age and stage and we want something else, you know later.

Speaker 1: 13:53

And, like I always say, take like a layered approach, you know, to things, because you know we need multiple things, often not just one thing, and so whatever works that's going to make you begin to do the work right, that emotional sobriety which is what we are here always talking about, and so kind of, like I mentioned before, I always feel, like you know, that early sobriety work is so hard on my opinion. I mean it just is. There's a lot going on physically, there's a lot going on like emotionally. Usually there might even be, like you know, might be in trouble, there might be bills to pay or legal problems or god knows what you know marital issues or whatever is happening, family stuff and so just a lot. There's just a lot going on during that early, that first year, right, and you start to feel better. Um, in 30 days you know you're as sober as you're ever going to get, but you know you're, you have to relearn.

Speaker 1: 14:41

I always say to relearn how to live life. That's know, in AA they do say things like it's a design for living that really works and I truly believe that because I know I had to relearn. You know how to feed myself properly and like how to you know not exercise six times a day or something, or like you know skincare and like you know just appropriate things, how to be an adult. And so once you get past that like kind of first year time and like that one to five year range for most of us it really is this like big awakening, like kind of the fog is lifted.

Speaker 1: 15:11

We start to clear out, you know, and really begin to wonder like oh gosh, like what do, what do I want to do now? Or who am I now? You know, these are questions um, that kind of come up, or like you know, what do I want my life to? Because now we have options, you know, now we have, we have choices today, now, um. So I'm just wondering maybe you had that same experience and if you can say a little bit more about what that was like for you and kind of how that played into maybe your relationships and, um, you know, anything else?

Speaker 2: 15:38

well, I had a brother who I was very fond of, but he was um, he just loved drinking. And when I would start talking about sobriety I always had the feeling that he was either going to thrust a crucifix in front of my face or get garlic and wear garlic around his neck like warding off the vampire. So but I always said to him you know, it's okay, I mean, the water's fine, it's not as bad as you think. But I realized that I really shouldn't say anything unless I was asked, because first, it's preachy and obnoxious and second, I believe again in the power of example. He could see me, he could see that I was happy and healthy and doing my thing and that was great, great.

Speaker 2: 16:31

But I found I needed more work on my family relationships in the sense that I feel like I'm such a people pleaser and I was kind of trained that way in a way and that was my role in the family. It helped me a lot to read adult children of alcoholics, that whole thing. Lot to read adult children of alcoholics, that whole thing. And in fact when I was at the Rutgers School of Alcohol Studies, the author, janet Woditz, first gave a presentation. It was like the first time she presented her research and there's about 300 people in the audience and you could see in different corners would read off something you could hear like a shriek from this corner and one from that corner was really funny. Everybody was reacting to it and some people dismiss it as being an ordinary list of neuroses, but I thought it was useful Because it gives me some ideas of how I was reacting, in a way, only because I was accustomed to that, instead of really giving careful thought.

Speaker 2: 17:46

Do I really want to do this? Do I really want to be with this person? If that person's overtly negative all the time, why do I have to be with them? Where is that written? You know, and just questioning things that I didn't question before and that felt like putting on a new suit and it wasn't comfortable, but I realized it was also. It was healthy. It was learning new ways to relate to others and new ways to be in a healthy, sober world. So I don't know if it's like riding a bike, but I sure did need some training wheels.

Speaker 1: 18:25

I love how you describe that and I think that is relatable for most of us. What you're really talking about are boundaries. You know that's kind of the formal term for what you're sharing and you know, maybe some people are already doing these kinds of things and they don't call it that. But you know, in the kind of clinical world and you know, and the personal development world, we do call it that. And you're right, like so many people who are living in alcoholic homes or who have any kind of like dysfunction, like that's majorly impactful in our families, like dysfunction like that's majorly impactful in our families, and then even not like maybe you just have like an over you know zealous mom who is, you know, sort of helicopter-y or just like very anxious or you didn't get a very secure attachment. There might be a development of people pleasing that comes, that you develop, and some of it might be even personality style too.

Speaker 1: 19:14

So it's like multiple things why that might happen. And's very, and I think, women in general.

Speaker 1: 19:19

It's a generalization yes do have a lot of this because you know we get that kind of um bent of being, you know, nurturing and caring and want to take care of people and all that stuff and not not all women, but that's like a generalization and so then it becomes um kind of part of our culture as women or females sometimes to be like the one who does all the things you know, or who's always the caretaker or always the yes woman or um, and you're right like, and then you throw, you know, alcoholism on top of it and drug addiction and dysfunction and mental health, and you know it becomes really unclear about, like what are what is my role and what are my things, you know my issues to deal with and what are somebody else's.

Speaker 2: 20:07

That becomes very unclear very unclear and but at some point, at some point in lives, with all the stuff we're doing and I get it, we're all busy we have to just say what do I want Now? If what you want to do is burn down your neighbor's house, I encourage you not to do that. But if what you want is, you know, I just want the freedom to go away for a weekend, I just want you know, I want my husband to help me with the dishes, I want you know. I mean, it's okay.

Speaker 2: 20:41

It is okay to have normal wants and needs and to meet the needs of your life without feeling guilty about it, without feeling that unnecessary feeling, that unnecessary burdensome guilt. That is not constructive. You don't even have to put a value on it. You can just say to yourself it's not constructive to my life to feel this way and to just begin to make a list and pursue a few of those things. There's nothing wrong with that and you know what. It's your life and you have to figure out how you want to lead it and live it sooner or later.

Speaker 1: 21:30

Yeah, and I would recommend sooner in this, this area, because we get this is a big cause of like burnout. You know I feel like a lot of people, particularly women, if you're trying to manage, you know maybe you have children or you're. You know you're trying to build a career or manage.

Speaker 1: 21:48

You know, run your marriage or whatever's happening, we all we're busy and so you know we're, we get strung out.

Speaker 1: 21:55

And when we live our lives like that, like when we become like the guest woman or we just or we have so much guilt and shame because of our disease, like maybe there was things that you missed out on or you were like not reliable before, and so, um, parts of that like can be great.

Speaker 1: 22:12

They can be a driving force towards like oh okay, now I do want to show up. You know, now I want to be the of that like can be great. They can be a driving force towards like oh okay, now I do want to show up. You know, now I want to be the person that like helps my mom, you know, because I want to be that for her, because she's she needs my help. Or you know I want to be a more present mom. You know things like that. And so there's there's good things about that. But if there's other parts of you that haven't resolved, some of that like shame and guilt, which is what a lot of this can be about, that's just unresolved trauma and shame then you might be doing things for like the wrong reasons.

Speaker 1: 22:40

That's what the whole point is, you know, if you're like always saying yes, or you're always letting someone treat you and because really boundaries, like the definition of it, really is like letting other people know how to treat you you're basically teaching the other people in your world how to treat you, and so when we do that, in whatever way that is, we are letting people know this is how it's okay to treat me.

Speaker 1: 23:03

So, for example, if you have, if you're in a relationship, and you let your partner, you know, scream and yell at you, and that's just something, that that's the way he's always talked to you, or maybe he's like overly critical or something, and you, you have allowed that for all of your relationship. It's gonna it's gonna be a challenge, it's not impossible, for sure, but you've allowed that to go on. So he has learned right to like that you.

Speaker 1: 23:28

It's okay to treat you that way, it's okay, you're okay with that. And so what we do is we start to undo that, untangle that through our work, like emotionally, with really great clinical work and things like EMDR and neurofeedback therapy and, you know, aa, whatever recovery materials, to start to really change those thinking patterns and heal the trauma so that you can start to see, oh gosh, no, I don't, like, I don't, that's not appropriate, I don't want anybody to treat me that way.

Speaker 1: 23:56

And so we come back we circle back in and we start to learn when certain things happen. I then say, oh, I don't I, that's not okay with me. Um, for you to talk to me like that, like I don't, I don't want, I don't want anybody um screaming yell at me. So we can continue this conversation, but we're going to do it like when everybody's calm and the trouble with that, and I mean that's a great thing.

Speaker 2: 24:18

The other trouble with that is that the reaction is generally not rainbows and unicorns right, because the people around you will get confused I always say it's one of these things where things can get a little worse before it gets better, because they'll try like.

Speaker 1: 24:35

So that's one example, but it could be another thing. Like work, you know like say you have a job and you are pretty strung out and you're always the girl that's like. Your boss calls and said we have this new project and we want you to take this on, and you're like, okay, cool, and cause you're like, I just really want to. You know, I want to build this career, I have this new, we have this new employee, we need you to train her. But you're like, and so you're always or you take the calls, you know, after 6, 30 at night, or 7, and you're always one. You know, you just you always do it um.

Speaker 1: 25:02

And so now you're starting to get a handle on your life. You know, maybe you've added something else children, or something else in your life and you just don't want to work like that anymore and you start to say, actually I don't, I don't, I'm not going to to do that anymore, I'm not going to take phone calls after five or six, whatever, you know, you make that rule. Or you start to say, no, you're going to get a pushback, right, they're going to be like, well, what, like she, oh, like shelby always said yes to this stuff like, and they might get ugly, right, they might just start to say like, well, you know I don't know if you're going to be able to.

Speaker 1: 25:33

You know, keep working here, or whatever.

Speaker 2: 25:34

And so like that's.

Speaker 1: 25:36

There are always consequences for all of our choices, good and bad. But it doesn't mean that it's wrong to do it. You just have to figure out. This is like a tightrope, right?

Speaker 2: 25:46

Right, and it's also as you mature in your sobriety you get better at it. One thing that is important to make a distinction between is the difference between shame and guilt, guilt being maybe what you did and shame being more who you are.

Speaker 1: 26:03

You know, guilt is I did something bad and shame is I am bad. Right Very very important, you're right.

Speaker 2: 26:09

Yeah, and just just knowing that, and I felt a lot of shame about all the drinking I did when I was so young. But you know, you kind of have to forgive myself for that and understand that it was the time and it was the culture and it was, you know, family values that had gone askew my father. Eventually he didn't quite get sober, but he cut way back on his drinking and at the end the last year of his life or so, he was sober and he just said to me he felt so guilty about the things he did that he shouldn't have and the things that he didn't do and he should have, that he just couldn't sleep at night. And I said to him what you have to sleep sometime, dad, what helps you? And he said I have a rosary and I pray. I just pray for forgiveness.

Speaker 2: 27:03

And seeing him at the end kind of marinating in guilt and, frankly, justifiable guilt, because he wasn't that great of a father he was, he there was terrible alcoholic scenes at home and it really made me think. It really made me be very grateful that I had stopped at 28, um, early on, before I could really make a mess of things. I had only been married about two years when I stopped and it was kind of a sight to behold because he was very contrite. Didn't help me when I was 11, but it made me feel badly for him and it made it easy for me to forgive him.

Speaker 1: 27:53

Right, and so you just kind of described what that process of us of we work through emotional sobriety again, in whatever form or program that you're using, it's through the steps, right, and so that's like the formal, you know, 12 step recovery process. But you're going to be doing very, very similar work If you, you know you're in therapy or you're working through some other kind of workbook or program. Because what happens is is we start to, you know, we get, we age in our sobriety, we take a look at all that stuff, and that's kind of the point of you know, formally, again through 12 steps, is making amends, right. So when we get to that like fourth and fifth step time, which we do need to do things in order, right. So, because if we did that, like when we were one month sober, one week sober, it's probably going to be for the wrong reasons.

Speaker 2: 28:39

We really do need to you know, give it a minute.

Speaker 1: 28:42

We need to check in because we are naturally self-centered. So once we get to that space, where we are ready, you know, we have a hard posture of true, true repentance, right, like we are really remorseful, and we go to the people in our lives and we say, you know, like look, I've had a chance to really think about this and I and I um, I'm really sorry for how I harmed you you know, and again we're not doing that for anything back to us.

Speaker 1: 29:03

We're doing it to cleanse our own palate right and to make that amends, but that person may not accept it and that's they're allowed to. But then as you progress through we get to you know, like the 10 step was my favorite thing of all time. Right, because it's really about adulting, like how do you live life?

Speaker 2: 29:19

how do?

Speaker 1: 29:19

you do this right, well, you start to um, put in place things like boundaries. You start to have things like restraint of tongue and pen, right, we start to think before we act and speak. So now we have more discernment and ability to say like, how would this maybe be harmful to somebody if I did that? Right, and so we get that wisdom. But but in all of that too, we were changing. We were changing.

Speaker 1: 29:41

And so your dad like same thing for him, like he changed some, but he struggled with a lot of that guilt from his drinking, as did you and I both. But my opinion anyway, maybe a bit different one, is you know, after we do get and stay sober for a long time and we're doing this work and we're making what I call living amends by like just not doing those things anymore, I mean we are a new, we are kind of clean. I mean it doesn't change the past, we didn't, we can't erase it, but we also aren't in the red anymore, like if we've done that work and we've changed, and then we've said our men's sincerely.

Speaker 2: 30:20

you know, we get to live on the other side of it, so right that guilt and shame is not the driving force now of our choices anymore and if I act like a simple jackass, I can't blame a bottle of whiskey for it.

Speaker 1: 30:34

It's just me, yeah exactly, and then we had to take a look at that and be like, oh, that's like, that's the such, that's the power of this, though like that's the power of what we get to do today, because we do make mistakes all day long, all the time, and we will mess up.

Speaker 1: 30:54

We will say the thing, we will have the tone. We will, you know, maybe, maybe even sometimes like cheat on our taxes or something, or try to try to. You know, cut a. You know, and the beauty of being sober for a long time, though, and doing the work, is to get that conscience that comes in right. It helps us.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Right, it is.

Speaker 2: 31:15

And you know, I am just so grateful. The one thing I really regret is that as a journalist, I didn't write about sobriety. I didn't write about sobriety. I didn't write about my being sober because, for, I think, the first 10 years I felt kind of ashamed. Ashamed that I had to stop, ashamed that I had gotten to that place in my life and it took me a good 10 years to understand. You know what? I did? Something really cool. I stopped. There's generations of my family. If you shake my family tree, a drunk will fall off every branch and I stopped that in its tracks, at least for me. And so it was cool. And so I began to write about it, you know, when I was maybe sober 20 years. I should have done it sooner, but at least I began to be comfortable in my own skin enough to be able to write about it and I just, I just wish I had gotten that comfort level years, years before.

Speaker 1: 32:25

I had pretty much the exact experience. I got sober at 28 as well. I was 27. I turned 27 in rehab and I had almost a very exact experience as far as like the length of time Now I was doing the work. I changed a ton. Everything in my life changed. I got pregnant when I was six months sober. I had three kids in four years. I was doing all the things I did all the therapy, the marriage work where I maintained you know, we stayed married, which is, you know, huge, but yet it was just still so much I remember and I actually, because I celebrated my anniversary for most of those years I haven't really done that in kind of a while now, but at my 10-year anniversary I stood at the podium and I was pissed off. I was mad because I just felt like I was grateful. I stood at the podium and I was pissed off. I was mad because I just felt like I was grateful. I had all the gratitude. I understood, but I didn't think it would still be this much work. Why?

Speaker 1: 33:15

am I not further along why? Am I still here, like I was, like what is I'm doing it? I'm showing up to the thing. Why is why? Basically, why is life still hard, you know, and I think I didn't have enough age and stage yet, even though I was probably 38 by then Right Should have, I guess, but I did it. I didn't have enough age and stage to know that life is hard all the time for most people.

Speaker 2: 33:36

Right.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Most all of us, and so I just didn't have that maturity yet. Um, but that's the benefit of being in like an older, yes Cause I wish. I mean, I have have three young adults now. Two daughters are in college and one son who's still a junior in high school. But I just so want them to get a lot of this way sooner than I did, you know. But I don't, I don't know if it's even possible.

Speaker 2: 33:59

I don't think it's possible, because they live their own lives and they will. You, they'll get it or they won't. And what I have found as a mother is my most important thing to realize is that, you know, I can love them, I gave life to them, but they get to live their own lives and they get to do whatever. I remember my mother was very funny, very funny, and one of the joys of writing this book and I reread a bunch of diaries I kept, you know back in the day, and I still keep is how funny she was. And at one point I was listening to her. My cousin Ruth was complaining about her daughter-in-law and my mother said look, Ruth, you sound like the mother-in-law in a comic strip. I wrecked my life, you wrecked your life. Let's let the kids wreck their lives, you know, and every now and then I think let them wreck their lives. I can't help it. So it's just detaching in a good way, but always being there for them, of course.

Speaker 1: 35:07

Well, yeah, I always say I have to leave something for the therapist. You know, yes, yeah, and no one gets out of this life unscathed, you know if you're a human and you're living on earth, it's you know you're going to have hard times, they're going to have a terrible thing.

Speaker 1: 35:20

You're going to have the tough times, you're going to have the great times. Joy is wonderful and most of us, I guess, feel like it's more than the bad, or else maybe, I don't know, most of us wouldn't make it. So we feel like there's more joy or more times of peace, or it's more valuable to us to have that than the bad times, and so we just keep doing it. But you know, when we don't do the things that we know are going to keep us well, you know, like when we don't have good spiritual fitness, for me that's extremely important.

Speaker 1: 35:50

And I think that's actually been a highlight of the last maybe five years for me personally. There's been a real change. I mean, it's always been there, but it's really been a I'm older B I feel like that has been a big area where I've invested a lot of time and energy. And then also the boundary work that I've put in place, particularly in my, in my relationships, but also just in my, in my relationship, I guess, specifically in like what I allow and don't allow, has been the most valuable for me.

Speaker 1: 36:18

But I just I do think you're right Like I and I don't want to take away the opportunity for them, my kids, to build like resilience Cause that's how it happens Like you can't take away their pain, even though we want to, because they need that in order to get to the other side right I just want, and kind of my prayer always is that they will get a lot of this like sooner in life but maybe they will, because I started drinking heavily you know heavily alcoholically, kind of you know whatever at 17 or 16, whatever time, and so then my emotional growth got stunted right at that point, and so I lost like 10 years and didn't really start maturing until 27, and I was only 16.

Speaker 2: 36:57

Right.

Speaker 1: 36:58

So maybe they'll have a fighting chance of being better off.

Speaker 2: 37:02

Right? Well, we can all hope so, right. And, as you say, leaving a little for the therapist isn't a bad thing.

Speaker 1: 37:10

I mean, that's what I always tell my, I mean everybody has. You know, there's no perfect family, no perfect parents, no perfect people, and so, no matter what, even in the best of families which there are many families that are great, they're doing great things there's still the thing, there's still the one thing you know, or there, it's just the internalization of the way a one child, um, handled something like though you know, your same words, your same discipline strategy might have been internalized by one of the kids, is very traumatic and harmful to them and created a negative thinking pattern, right, whereas another one was like well, whatever, okay, they didn't, it didn't matter to them, right? Like yeah, and so I, you know that all just gets developed in their own way from their personal process and their experiences that they have yeah, it's always a different prism they're, they're born with different lenses than we have.

Speaker 2: 38:04

And you know we're older and and you know I don't live in Buffalo anymore and even Buffalo isn't the town that I grew up in. You know way back when. And you know this is the life that I've shaped, so it's going to be different and that's okay. All I know is, one of the best decisions I ever made in my life was to be sober, and it made everything else happen. My drinking did not encumber my career and I ended up working for the New York Times and had a lot of fun, a lot of fun, wrote a lot of stuff and got to see a lot of the world.

Speaker 1: 38:46

And I can look back on it and say, well, you know, at least drinking didn't screw it up yeah, it's amazing, you know it's amazing the life we can create and um, yes, when we get and stay sober, um, we get the opportunity to be well, you know, and unfortunately not everybody gets that and I think I try to remember that very regularly too.

Speaker 1: 39:06

Um, and another thing I really have been focusing on too and maybe this is relatable is just the minimization, I think, that a lot of us do, of like of showing up in life. You know, people will I myself included. I mean I was like a perfectionist, I mean kind of like a wackadoodle, crazy mom, you know always had to have all things. You know very driven all things, you know very driven, schedule oriented, all the things. But you know, I would be hard on myself the first time something wasn't like great, or my kid forgot the thing, or I didn't, I messed up, or you know, and I, I think it's easy to be like, well, I'm a terrible mom, or I'm not a good worker, or I let my spouse down, or my parents and all this stuff, and start to get into that cycle of like I'm not enough, or I didn't do it, and like instead of realizing.

Speaker 1: 39:55

I say that a lot of people is like you know some people, like you got up and you showed up and you were in service to your family today. Like you showed up and you you did. You woke up and you got out of bed and you showed up for your family. A lot of people don't.

Speaker 2: 40:07

Right.

Speaker 1: 40:08

I think we I know it sounds dramatic, but it's very true, and so I've been really focusing on that and sharing that so often to help other people realize you know, yeah, this is a struggle in this life but, you're here.

Speaker 2: 40:22

Like you showed up, you came to therapy, hey look at you, you know Exactly, and just you, that. Hey. Look at you, right, you know exactly. And just showing up for those those little things and not being passed out on the couch or whatever, um, is a big deal a miracle, big deal it is it is yeah, so um, where are your kids today?

Speaker 2: 40:42

oh well, they, they're great. Um, I have two take-no-prisoners granddaughters. One is six and she just never stops. I feel like I've run a marathon every time I babysit her. And the other one is two little Riley, riley and Ellie, and my daughter. They're my daughter, anna's daughter. Uh, they're my daughter, anna's, um, she works for a medical device company.

Speaker 2: 41:12

And my brother, my, um, my son, tim, who I named after my two favorite men, my, my brother, tim, and my husband is, um, a high school history teacher in a kind of an inner city high school in hartford, and, uh, he loves his kids. They're mostly lower income and he loves them and they love him. And it's fabulous. I mean, he's doing the great work every day, just being there, being there for his kids. So they both are. I'm real proud of them, but I'm proud of who they are and not what they do. I don't care what they do as long as they are good people. You know, and, um, you know, I've been married 41 years now. Pete's still, you know, hanging out with me. He still has his one beer a week or whatever it is. And, um, it's been, it's been good.

Speaker 1: 42:02

Yeah, you're a real warrior there.

Speaker 2: 42:05

I don't know how it happened.

Speaker 1: 42:06

I can't explain it I know I feel the same way.

Speaker 2: 42:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:10

Well, I know your book is coming out. Why don't you just give us the quick synopsis of the book a little bit more, and maybe do a little bit of the beginning and just where?

Speaker 2: 42:21

people can find it and when Saving Ellen a memoir of hope and recovery goes into my crazy Irish blue-collar childhood in Buffalo, new York, and lots of drinking and lots of struggles at the end to get sober and do that. Ellen got sober also, which was great, and I got sober first and that's the power of example. She got sober after me. She said if you could do it, I could do it. And I said, absolutely right. So we were able to be sober together and you'll meet my family, my very funny family and somewhat dysfunctional. But there you are, aren't we all? And that's going to be available April 1st from Skyhorse Publishing Company and anywhere you want Amazon or Barnes, noble or your independent bookstore. So I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 1: 43:19

That's amazing. Well, maura, I really appreciate your time and your energy today. This has been a great conversation. Where do you like people to reach out and find you if they want to? Today, this has been a great conversation.

Speaker 2: 43:29

Where do you like people to reach out and find you if they want to? Well, I have a website, casey Inc. C-a-s-e-y-i-n-k. Like the Inc. You write with CaseyInccom Also. Authormkasey at gmailcom is great and. I'm here in Connecticut. I'm going to be doing my own little book store in Buffalo and in Connecticut and you know I will offer sparkling water and coffee at all books any bookstore I go to. Forget about the wine people You're not going to get any with me, but maybe some sparkling apple cider if they're very lucky.

Speaker 1: 44:06

That's amazing. I love that. I'll make sure I link to those sites below, and so best of luck with the book. And thank you so much for your story and for the message of hope that we all got to hear and just living an amazing sober life. You get to do that today.

Speaker 2: 44:20

Isn't that a great thing. Every day is new, it's a blessing. Clear head.

Speaker 1: 44:31

Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it, thank you. Thank you so much. 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.