Lea story

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Chapter I

Lea chugged the bottle of Vodka for a few seconds and immediately began calming down. Her heart no longer felt like it would punch through her chest, and the cold sweats ceased.

The fight-or-flight response was flipped off like a light switch, and Lea’s panic mode turned off.

Next, she poured a 24-ounce glass of 8 ounces of Vodka, an ice-cold 12-ounce can of ginger ale, and a handful of ice cubes.

Lea sat on the couch, took a drink, turned on the TV, clicked on YouTube, and searched for “alcohol treatment” videos; took another sip of Vodka with ginger ale on the rocks, then began scrolling through the YouTube search results.

“Why in the world did I drink again? I can’t believe I thought this time I could drink in a controlled way. I’m pathetic. I’ve done it this time,” Lea thought to herself.

Lea had gone three months without taking a drink. In fact, over the past couple of years, Lea quit drinking many times; however, each time, she only made it between three days on the short end and three months on the long end. She was stuck in an addictive cycle of alcohol bingeing, detoxing, healing, and so on.

Although a few times, Lea relapsed due to distress, loneliness, or boredom, the majority of times were times when she felt happy and healthy.

When she decided to drink alcohol during the majority of relapses during the past two years, she felt like she could drink responsibly now and had figured out how to control drinking. Sometimes, she was alone, and other times, she was with friends, but each time, she found herself out of control and unable to stop drinking alcohol.

Lea wondered why she could have a couple of drinks sometimes. Still, invariably, it was just a matter of time before she began drinking excessively and daily and then a 24/7 Vodka drinker to stave off the withdrawal symptoms.

Lea took another drink, this time a big gulp, and made an audible sound of relief as she breathed deeply and sank deeper into the couch. She nestled cozier in the blanket with her male cat, Cooper, cuddled beside her.

At this point, Lea found a YouTube video that said “WHY DO I CRAVE ALCOHOL” on the thumbnail, and she clicked on it immediately. She began watching the Fit Recovery video, which was titled The 4 Root Causes of Alcoholism and the Top 7 Obstacles to Recovery.

After watching the 15-minute video tutorial, Lea finally felt some HOPE. “Wow! I’ve never heard about this, but it makes perfect sense!” Lea thought to herself with excitement.

She binge-watched Fit Recovery videos until 4 am and then went to bed. The following day, she felt horrible. Thus, despite Lea’s plan to quit drinking today, the fight-or-flight response was so activated that she rushed to the kitchen, reached for the Vodka bottle, and began chugging it for a few seconds until she calmed down.

Now that she was relaxed and no longer experiencing symptoms of acute alcohol withdrawal, Lea made a plan to begin tapering off Voka. Thus, instead of quitting abruptly or “cold turkey,” she would strategically decrease her consumption a little every day and then, after a week, stop entirely.

Chapter II

Lea was feeling both optimistic and worried about the taper method. She had successfully tapered off nicotine before, but that was nothing compared to her alcohol use disorder severity.

She made a Voda and ginger ale on the rocks, sat on the couch next to Cooper, who was taking a nap, and began binge-watching more Fit Recovery videos on YouTube, specifically the ones on supplements for withdrawal and mitigating symptoms.

After two and a half hours of watching Fit Recovery, Lea felt like she had gained numerous significant “cheat codes” for quitting drinking and alcohol recovery.

She took plenty of notes on paper and started a digital note on her phone, where she saved all the links to websites, supplements, and other products she planned to utilize in her evolving Fit Recovery taper plan.

So far, she planned to lessen her symptoms while tapering off alcohol: take a premium multivitamin, B-complex, vitamin C, omega-3s, glutamine, and magnesium; drink plenty of high-quality water; eat more protein while avoiding junk foods and processed foods; and mainly consume a Pro-Recovery Diet.

She learned about the Pro-Recovery Diet and supplements for AUD recovery from an interview with Fit Recovery founder Chris Scott and Julia Ross, the best-selling author of The Mood Cure: The 4-Step Program to Take Charge of Your Emotions – Today.

Leah’s supplements would arrive the following day, as she chose the fastest shipping to start the protocol as soon as possible.

It was time for her to shower and do her morning hygiene before beginning work. Fortunately, Lea worked from home, so she didn’t need to risk getting a DUI by driving to and from work while intoxicated.

However, it was the fact that she had to start working from home during the pandemic that led to her alcohol problems in the first place.

What started as a short-term coping tool for lockdown stress ultimately morphed into a massive problem itself and a much worse problem than stress and boredom.

As Lea sat down at her work desk in her home office and powered her laptop on, she thought, “How am I going to do this? Will this actually work?”

She took a drink and thought, “Yes, I can do this. I’ll follow the plan and drink only enough not to feel sick and no more than that. I don’t need to feel much of a buzz; I want to be done with this slavery.”

Throughout Lea’s workday, the emails and deadlines began to weigh on her, and the initial plan to drink less during work did not pan out.

Instead, the mounting stress, workload, tension, and even resentment became so great that Lea drank more Vodka and ginger ale to alleviate it.

After work, she tried not to beat herself up and was able to harness some self-compassion as she had watched Matt Finch talk about its importance and benefits on a Fit Recovery video that morning.

“Okay, today was a good learning lesson. I need resources other than alcohol for stress. But what?! I don’t want to take Benzos because my mom was severely addicted to Xanax for ten years, and it was tough for me to watch her suffer through it.” Lea was thinking.

That night, she began journaling for the first time in over a decade. It felt incredible to write about her fears, goals, dreams, and strategic plans to quit drinking and regain her health and confidence.

Lea wasn’t used to being proactive like this, and she was quickly beginning to see how living in reaction from the moment she opens her eyes every morning is not conducive to her goals of becoming and remaining alcohol-free.

She remembered Chris and Matt discussing in a video why they use giant dry-erase whiteboards with markers in a few colors for organization, goals, strategies, resources, etc. She went online to purchase one for herself, which would arrive in two days.

Lea loved the dopamine boosts from making progress and investing her money into products that would improve her life, versus alcohol, which destroyed her life.

Chapter III

As Lea drifted off to sleep, she thought about her life. She was so sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. The following day, something clicked inside of her. Instead of the usual fear and anxiety, she felt anger and activation energy.

She began to see all of the ways these continued cycles of alcohol bingeing, detoxing, healing, and so on could easily be avoided. How alcohol always sounded great in her mind, but the physical playing out of it in real life never matched what her mind told her.

The result is always the same. 24/7 severe alcohol use disorder activation and a new Kindling phenomenon that made each withdrawal episode longer and more severe.

Now that Lea was in proactive mode and had anger harnessed as activation energy, she could ride this wave of emotion and physiology and taper off Vodka over two weeks.

First, she started taking supplements and then new supplements and eating patterns. She only tapered a little the first week.

By the second week, she began to notice her efforts because tapering the rest of the way off Vodka wasn’t too hard.

Lea took a three-day weekend from work as well, timing it so that her first three days transitioning completely off alcohol (days 1-3 alcohol-free) would be as easy as possible.

The transition off alcohol from home wasn’t bad, and Lea primarily rested and took it easy. She also enrolled in Fit Recovery 2.0 Membership for strategies, support, accountability, and community.

“This time will be different,” Lea thought on the evening of day three, alcohol-free. “I haven’t dealt with my drinking problem as seriously as I needed to before. Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is his definition of insanity, after all! This time, I will make staying alcohol-free a daily absolute must, not a should or a really should.”

As Lea prepared to return to work the next day, which would be her fourth day alcohol-free, she contemplated something she heard Matt say in a coaching video:

“Half measures will avail you nothing. A half-hearted attempt at recovering from drinking issues, even a sustained one, is unlikely to lead to success. Especially in Early Alcohol Recovery, it often takes not just a FULL Measure, a full-hearted, full-powered, fully-convicted, full-fledged attempt at recovering, but a sustained full measure approach.”

Chapter IV

Lea resonated with this and vowed to give recovering from alcohol a 10/10 effort and seriousness this time.

Her sleep was poor that night, and the next morning, she was anxious about work and wished she had one more day off.

The alcohol cravings were significant, and she thought about having one or two shots of Vodka to give her a little energy and take away some of the anxiety.

Luckily, there was no Vodka or other alcohol in the home, and Lea was relieved because had there been, the temptation might’ve been too strong for her to resist.

Lea did her morning hygiene, took the new supplements, and began her journaling routine. Then, she felt a significant amount of worry leave her mind and body.

Simply making gradual progress, taking baby steps, and journaling about it turned out to be a “miracle” strategy for quitting alcohol.

While Lea’s workday was stressful and uncomfortable, it went much easier and faster than her worrisome mind feared.

However, the minute she finished working, her mind instantly started craving alcohol!

It was 5:10 p.m., and the sun had begun to set. The sky was partially covered by beautiful alto cirrus clouds, which were turning pink and orange from the sun’s rays.

Lea felt like there was a lizard with a megaphone in her brain telling her to “DRINK!”

For in the morning, if there were alcohol in the home, she probably would’ve drunk it.

However, there was none, and while she lived a close five-minute drive to a store that sold alcohol, her resolve to remain alcohol-free saved her from getting in the car and going to purchase and consume alcohol.

Then, Lea’s phone beeped, making the sound that notified her when a new text message had arrived.

It was from her best friend, Dolores, who said, “Hi! I’m in town again and had to go on a last-minute business trip, and I’d love to meet up with you and get a drink. It’s been way too long!”

Lea was distraught and on the verge of tears due to the timing, which she thought couldn’t be worse. Her mind went into panic mode as a series of fearful thoughts and questions rushed through her mind, creating an overwhelming feeling of anxiety.

“What do I do? Do I pretend that I’m sick and avoid her? Do I tell her I’m taking a break from drinking? Should I lie and say I can’t drink because I’m taking antibiotics? Will I even be able to have dinner with her and watch her get tipsy or even drunk and try to resist drinking in that type of hard situation? I’m only on day four, though! Ugh! I hate that I can’t just drink like a normal person.”

Then Lea remembered something she had recently read in a FR 2.0 Facebook Group post.

One member shared that they achieved their first 30 days of being alcohol-free by establishing an evening routine for alcohol recovery.

They would leisurely drink a relaxing alcohol-alternative beverage such as U-Relax from the Calming Co. or extra-strong chamomile tea, read a chapter in their fiction book, and engage in a fun board game with their spouse and children.

Lea loved this plan but still hadn’t received her shipments of non-alcoholic drinks, and the anxiety and alcohol cravings were getting worse.

Then, she realized that her blood sugar was way too low, and that was undoubtedly making the cravings and fear worse.

Lea made a drink with four ounces of water, four ounces of cold-pressed organic apple juice, and two grams of micronized glutamine powder, then consumed it, ordered spicy Indian food delivery, and rented a comedy to stream.

She also started running a hot bath and lit a few essential oil candles in the bathroom.

Lea was gungho on doing what she was learning and avoiding alcohol and high-risk people and situations at all costs.

“This time, I will aim for a perfect score as if it’s a test and I’m striving for an ‘A’ grade. This will be my first and last full measure. F*ck this sh*t.” Lea was again channeling the power of anger for addiction recovery, which felt incredibly empowering in the best possible way.

She remembered Matt Finch said that all emotions come from fear or love, and anger is a fear-based feeling that can be harnessed and channeled to achieve freedom from alcoholic slavery.

Lea was angry, all right.

Angry at herself.

Angry at alcohol.

Angry at how omnipresent, easily accessible, and worshipped and celebrated alcohol is.

But mostly, Lea was angry that she continued to try to drink in a controlled way every two or three months for the past two years, each time only to fail miserably, ruin her health, experience a lot of anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, and more, get healthy again, then repeat the cycle.

At that moment, Lea started to try to balance her anger at herself with compassion for herself, which was not easy.

While the glutamine kicked in and spicy Indian food was being prepared for delivery, she began journaling about it.

Lea felt so much better after writing and journaling. After the glutamine effects stabilized her blood sugar and mood stability, she decided to make journaling after glutamine dosing a part of her evening alcohol recovery routine, even though it was already part of her new morning ritual.

Chapter V

Once the food came and Lea ate the spicy curry chicken, rice, vegetables, and a glass of cool filtered water, she finally felt comfortable and relaxed for the first time in four days.

Moreover, she no longer craved or even desired alcohol.

Why?

A big, nutritious, and satisfying meal filled her belly and eliminated the urge to drink because there was no more room in her stomach.

Lea felt pretty good, especially all things considered.

Since she had poor sleep the night before and a stressful workday without alcohol to curb the stress and alcohol withdrawal-induced exhaustion, Lea decided to set her phone to airplane mode and put it in another room for the rest of the night, watch a comedy film, and then go to bed early.

“I’m so tired,” Lea thought.

The following day, after a night of around four hours of sleep and a lot of insomnia and discomfort, Lea broke down when her alarm went off at 7 am.

She had just fallen back asleep after being awake for two hours, and the alarm woke her up and activated her fight-or-flight response.

Lea had compounded insomnia symptoms and hadn’t got the physiological and psychological repair from sleep to be feeling and thinking at her best and closer to feeling and thinking at her worst.

The anxiety and fear felt like they were in her bones and nerves, and she quickly got dressed, grabbed the car keys, headed out the front door, got into the car, and drove for five minutes until she arrived at the liquor store and parked.

Upon leaving the car and walking up to the liquor store entrance, Lea realized it was not open yet. A sign on the front door showed the hours of operation didn’t begin until 8 a.m. on weekdays.

This was perfect because it snapped Lea out of fight-or-flight mode and gave her some mental and physical space from alcohol to be able to come up with and choose a better solution.

As Lea got back into her car, she looked through her purse for the 200 mg lemon-lime-flavored L-Theanine EZ-Melt Tablets that had arrived around 9 p.m. the night before.

She opened the bottle and took one tablet immediately, chewing it as fast as possible. Then, she reached for another tablet, put it under her tongue, and let it slowly dissolve over the next few minutes.

“WOW! This stuff is fantastic!” Lea loved the taste, and the tablets had melted away about two-thirds of the anxiety she was experiencing.

Moreover, she didn’t want to drink at all.

Lea started the car and drove back home while singing the lyrics to the song on the radio with the windows down and the early sunlight in her eyes.

Chapter VI

That day, Lea completed her full supplement protocol while working from home. She took the L-Theanine twice more, which immensely helped with her anxiety, nervous system, mood, and energy.

She finished work at 5:00 pm then completed her evolving evening routine for alcohol recovery.

Lea watched a Fit Recovery 2.0 group coaching replay video and learned about the Shame Shiver relapse prevention technique from Matt Finch.

Matt said that he used it himself with great success, and Charlie Sheen talked about how he uses it to stay away from alcohol and other drugs.

Here is what Matt said about this.

The Shame Shiver is simple enough to use, and learning why it works and how to use it can provide a valuable asset to your recovery capital.

The more recovery capital you have in early recovery and beyond, the better.

Recovery capital is the depth and breadth of internal and external resources an individual can use to initiate and sustain recovery (or wellness) from addiction.

Here are some examples of recovery assets (resources) that build recovery capital:

• Physical – Safe place to live, reliable transportation, money to buy necessities with, healthy foods, high-quality supplements, Peloton treadmill, Bowflex home gym, 2x/month appointments of deep tissue massage, superfood powders, alkaline-ionized/reverse-osmosis water filtration system, infrared sauna, Bluelight glasses, Vitamix blender
• Psychological – Growth mindset, internal locus of control, 100% responsibility frame, realistic optimism, therapeutic counseling, hypnotherapy, resilience, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), mindfulness-based therapies (MBTs)
• Social – Compassionate, loving, and understanding spouse, a tight support group, healthy relationships with coworkers, love/connection with friends and family, play/cuddle/love time with pets regularly
• Spiritual – Faith, a daily meditation practice, morning prayer, and worship routine, member of a Bible study group

The Shame Shiver falls under the psychological category of recovery resources. Charlie Sheen says that any time he gets an urge to use addictive substances he has sworn off, he activates the Shame Shiver.

Here is the 3-step framework of Charlie Sheen’s Shame Shiver process:

1. A thought, impulse, or urge to use occurs
2. He notices the urge, yet instead of giving in to it and compulsively acting on it as he often did in the past, he shifts focus from negative thinking and fantasizing about using to feeling gratitude for everything good in his life.
3. To systematically and quickly deactivate the craving, urge, or thought to use, Sheen transports his consciousness into his mental movie theater and plays a series of three montages. These montages are the three most shameful events from his addiction. These mental reruns are so realistic Sheen says they cause him to shiver with shame (which makes perfect sense, as research has shown that our brains cannot perceive the difference between an actual event and something intensely imagined)

In Sheen’s case, those events did take place, and he’s simply accessing those memories to access the feelings of shame he knows will help him stay off substances.

Lea was really into this approach because she had gone through three terrible and embarrassing experiences due to alcohol use disorder that caused significant shame.

“This method is going to come in handy, I feel,” Lea thought with fake-it-till-you-make-it-optimism combined with fear.

She thought the Shame Shiver would be helpful because it’s backed by science and psychology and helped Matt and Charlie Sheen avoid relapsing.

Moreover, Lea committed to adding other recovery assets and increasing and strengthening her recovery capital, which is the depth and breadth of internal and external resources an individual can use to initiate and sustain recovery (or wellness) from severe alcohol and or other drug problems.

Chapter VII

Over the next 30 days, Lea stuck close to her daily morning routine and evening routine for alcohol recovery, no matter what happened during the day.

By starting and ending her days focused on her alcohol recovery goals and maintaining an inner mantra that all she needed to do to be successful each day was not to drink no matter what.

It was easier said than done, but Lea made it through all the triggers and stressors by utilizing her recovery tools, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual, and felt 100% back to normal after 30 days without a drink.

Lea remembered when she had committed to going a full 30 days alcohol-free because, on day seven, she watched a video of Dr. Anna Lembke, Standford addiction psychiatrist and best-selling author of Dopamine Nation, where Lembke was teaching a podcast host that, based on research, the average length it typically takes for a person to reset their dopamine and brain after quitting a substance is approximately 30 days.

This motivated Lea and gave her a powerful subjective intrinsic incentive and ultimately helped tremendously to get her 30 days alcohol-free along with the other recovery capital.

Knowing that her brain would reset and heal and having an approximate timeline reduced a lot of fear and increased clarity and courage, a winning combination for alcohol recovery.

Lea had regained her physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, saved a lot of money, and created a lot of empowering momentum toward her goals and dreams.

Reaching this significant 30-day milestone after a lot of smaller milestones provided Lea with a natural high that she knew wouldn’t have adverse effects, unlike the high effects and consequences of alcohol intoxication.

In 90 days, Lea continued to abstain from alcohol, although she missed it at times and had a few near slips that she was able to get through alcohol-free.

Here are some of the primary recovery assets and habits that helped Lea achieve this alcohol recovery goal:

1. Fit Recovery 2.0 Membership and Accountability
2. Nutrition and Supplementation
3. Physical Exercise
4. Journaling and Mindfulness
5. Morning Routine
6. Evening Routine
7. Relapse Prevention Techniques
8. and more

Lea wrote a long post in the FR 2.0 Members-Only Facebook Group about how she achieved 90 days alcohol-free and thanked everyone in the group for holding her accountable and supporting her.

Others’ comments congratulating her started to pour in, and Lea went to bed that night feeling fantastic and excited about life.

Chapter VIII

After four months alcohol-free, Lea went on a weekend vacation with her big sister, Janice, and while they were dining out at a fancy restaurant on Saturday night, Lea decided that one glass of red wine couldn’t hurt.

Unfortunately, after she drank the first glass, the temptation was too great, and Lea had a second, a third, and a fourth. Then they went to a bar, and two guys bought them free drinks.

Lea ended up blacking out and acting very foolish, then got arrested by a policeman and was brought to jail and charged with being drunk in public.

When Lea woke up the following day in the drunk tank, it was the scariest experience of her life. She had poisoned herself the night before, and the last thing she remembered was arriving at the bar drunk and doing shots with two guys they met.

“Oh no! What the fu*k did I do?!” Lea thought to herself while looking around at her surroundings and seeing her imprisonment.

She was released that day and given a court appearance date and a fine. Lea called Janice to pick her up from jail and waited in front of the Starbucks across the street.

When she got into the car, Lea buckled her seatbelt and began to tell Janice about the experience, noting that she didn’t remember anything after taking shots at the bar.

She asked for Janice to detail to her what happened after taking shots and why she got arrested.

“You got all crazy and started to flash your boobs to random strangers after we got kicked out of the bar because you were getting out of control, and a policeman saw it and stopped you. I begged him not to arrest you, but I was lucky he didn’t take me to jail, too.” Janice stated.

“I feel so ashamed and stupid. I’m so sorry,” Lea said back while starting to cry.

Lea stayed alcohol-free the remainder of the day and felt sick to her stomach, shame, anxiety, guilt, and fear.

On the short 55-minute flight home, Lea worried about what she would say to the other Facebook group members.

“I’ve let them all down.” Lea thought.

When Lea’s Uber driver dropped her off at home that night, she first opened up her laptop and logged in to Facebook.

Next, she wrote a long post detailing her one-night slip and how innocently it started, then how she blacked out and was arrested for being drunk in public, and the guilt, shame, anxiety, fear, physical sickness, and shakiness from poisoning her brain and body.

Lea started crying after she clicked the button to publish the post.

The next day, Lea bounced back from her slip after reading the loving, supportive, and nonjudgemental comments on her Facebook post.

She used the slip as a grist for the mill and a valuable learning lesson for alcohol recovery.

Lea had two more slips in the next few months, then something clicked.

Before, Lea had been repressing her innate desire to drink.

By doing full-measure alcohol recovery, she was able to avoid it every day other than three one-night slips. Still, it took tremendous willpower to avoid alcohol 100% while she naturally desired to drink.

After the third slip in seven months and the following day and night of severe physical, mental, and emotional alcohol hangover symptoms, Lea had an epiphany.

“Alcohol is just my Kryptonite.” Lea thought and said aloud.

Over the next two years, Lea didn’t drink and didn’t have the urge or craving for alcohol.

Whenever offered an alcoholic beverage, she said, “No, thank you.”

Every time an individual asked Lea why she wasn’t drinking, she responded with, “Alcohol is my Kryptonite,” and the questioner usually loved this response.

Lea had begun this transformational journey to alcohol recovery with the simple goals of quitting drinking and getting healthy and fit again, yet she achieved so much beyond these goals in two years.

Lea was living a fulfilling life filled with natural highs from exercise and nutrition, loving friends and family, and a growing new intimate relationship with a man who had become her best friend, biggest fan, and biggest supporter.

Life was truly extraordinary, and looking back on how she arrived here, Lea says it all came down to that night she found Fit Recovery on YouTube, got on the free email list on the official Fit Recovery website, and became a FR 2.0 Member.

Lea thought that investing money, time, and energy in FR 2.0 gave her a massive geometrical return on investment.

Her most significant lesson learned from her trials, tribulations, and ultimate success is to treat herself and others with kindness and compassion.

The End.