“I believed the only way to happiness was my own funeral.”

Meet Liv Sain, who hit rock bottom with alcohol addiction. The first treatment center helped her with a 2-week detox. She learned a lot and felt better each day. This turned into her Amazon Bestselling Book “Liv to Tell”. You must take inventory of the situation you are going back to, or it is easy to relapse.

Liv ended up going back to in-patient care and it was a completely different experience than the first. She got worse every day, and she did not feel safe. The result was a 72-hour psych hold. She gives tips and information about how to find a program that is right for you.

Today Liv is thriving with her new gourmet pickle business. Check out her website and see the Fox 35 Orlando news story on her home page!

Liv’s Gourmet Pickles and Fox News Story https://www.livsgourmetpickles.com/

Liv To Tell (Book) https://www.amazon.com/Liv-Tell-Olivia-Sain/dp/1735099805

Watch the episode at: https://youtu.be/ut_LAQVpIgg

About Deana:

Deana Brown Mitchell is a driven, optimistic, and compassionate leader in all areas of her life.

As a bestselling author, speaker and award-winning entrepreneur, Deana vulnerably shares her experiences for the benefit of others. As a consultant/coach, she has a unique perspective on customizing a path forward for any situation. 

Currently President of Genius & Sanity, and known as “The Shower Genius”, she teaches her proprietary framework created from her own experiences of burnout and always putting herself last...  for entrepreneurs and leaders who want to continue or expand their business while taking better care of themselves and achieving the life of their dreams.

In 2022 Deana released the book, The Shower Genius, How Self-Care, Creativity & Sanity will Change Your Life Personally & Professionally.

Also, Deana is the Founder & Executive Director of The Realize Foundation. She is a suicide survivor herself, and vulnerably uses her own mental health journey to let others know there is hope. The Realize Foundation produces events and publishes books that let people know there are not alone.

“But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds” Jeremiah 30:17

https://www.realizefoundation.org/

https://www.facebook.com/RealizeFoundation

https://www.instagram.com/realizefoundation/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-realize-foundation/

https://www.youtube.com/@realizefoundation5598

https://twitter.com/ScarstoStarsTM

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Hi there, it's Deena and I'm here with live sane. And we are going to talk about alcohol addiction, and inpatient care. And I think that y'all are gonna be really interested in hearing this conversation. I think it's gonna be a good one. So welcome live.

Thank you so much. Excited to be here.

Yeah. So I guess we should start with the first time you checked yourself in to inpatient care. And why you did that and what it looks like and what your experience was.

Yeah, that sounds good. My first inpatient experience was back in 2019. And I went to treatment because I was abusing alcohol for many years, which started after losing my father, that was really the start of everything. And, you know, after that real quick, lost multiple family members after that, and just dealing with grief was very challenging, didn't know how to deal with it, a lot was going on in my life. And it was my way of coping was turning now alcohol, to numb the grief and to easing anxiety. So I reached the point where I rely on it on a daily basis. And I really could not even handle emotions, like I got to the point where I hated feeling anything and alcohol numb to that. And I became obviously very depressed because Alcohol is a depressant. And given everything that was going on in my life, I reached a point where I believed the only way to happiness was my own funeral. And I believed that the only way to find peace was to rest in peace. So I became very suicidal, I had lots of suicidal thoughts, I started fantasizing about not being here. And that really became my solution. So 2019, to be just a warning, I had a knife to my neck. And that was the start of everything that was my rock bottom was having that knife to my neck and wanting to go through with it. Obviously, I did not go through with it, because there was something inside me that knew that it wasn't really the entire solution. So I considered treatment and didn't even know didn't even think really about it prior to that time. And I entered a treatment program in Jacksonville. I'm not going to name names, but that treatment center was the first time I ever went into one had no idea what to expect. But it saved my life. It really did. You know, it wasn't the greatest treatment center, you know, there's always going to be negative to everything. But it did help me. And that was I went through a detox program for about two weeks. And I learned a lot from that program, I actually felt better every day. And I was journaling through that experience. And I basically came out of treatment writing a book called Lift the tail, which became a best seller on Amazon. So what I did was, it wasn't until I really surrendered to change. And I dropped the ego and listened to everyone in treatment, including doctors, therapists, speakers, patients. And that was when I really started to see changes when I surrendered to and I was open to actually receiving information. So everything that I learned, I put it in a journal, and I took that journal and turned it into a book. The thing about the treatment center was I it was really the only way to change my life. And I learned that when you go through treatment, you don't just change a little you have to change literally everything about your life. And, you know, really helped it really did. But the problem that I had was I came out of it, I went back to the same things in my life, the same people the same situations. So although it was very beneficial, it's important that when you leave treatment, like what are you going back to? Are you going back to that same toxic relationship? Are you going back to the same circle of friends who enable your addiction? Are you going back to the same family members who enable you you know, you have to really take inventory of what you're going back home to and unfortunately I went back to the same toxic relationship. So I didn't stay sober long after that because I got stressed again and I got triggered and I just I just didn't do everything I was supposed to do following treatment, you know, going to meetings, continuing therapy, but um, but it definitely saved my life. And there's a lot of positives to that program. The only thing that I would say that I wish I would have seen more of is For more meetings in the program, you know, when you go through detox, it is very boring. There is not a lot to do during detox, because depending on the severity of your withdrawal symptoms, most people either can't physically get out of bed. Whereas other people can. Like I was one of those people that was able to physically function and you know, walk around and do things, other people, it just depends on how bad your addiction is. And that was that experience. But yeah, I would like to see more meetings and just staying busy more on my had a lot of downtime to add about seven to eight hours of downtime a day. So even though I didn't really think that made sense for someone coming into treatment, they shouldn't have downtime, they should be staying busy, because that's one of the reasons why we, we, you know, we feed our addiction just because of boredom and loneliness, and not knowing really what to do with our time, and not wanting to deal and sit with those emotions and feel those emotions. So that was the only negative thing was just really, I would have liked to have had a busier schedule. But what I did, I had to make the most of it by writing. So I was like, all the time, I don't have much to do, I might as well take advantage of this free time. And notice I was able to find the get comfortable in my own skin because I was really forced to be alone forced to be uncomfortable, forced to sit with myself and just feel everything.

Yeah, I'm wondering though, I know you said having downtime is hard. And I can understand what you're saying about that making it harder. But do you think that if you would have been busy all the time, you would have come to the same understanding or quote, conclusions about yourself and and you know, the things that you learned about yourself and the things that you wrote and journaled about? Do you think if you were busy with other things that you still would have gotten that out of it?

No, it's a good point. Probably not. You know, in the beginning, the downtime was a struggle. But you know, it did, I guess, if you look at it, in that perspective, when you're constantly busy, you are kind of masking the problems, you're avoiding the problems, it's easy to just stay busy and not deal with it. Because by the time you hit that head on your pillow at night, you're so exhausted with the day, and then you go to sleep and you wake up and you repeat. So yeah, there wasn't you don't really give I guess people don't really give themselves a lot of time to really think about what's bothering them what they're struggling with. Yeah. But yeah, I would say yeah, probably had its positive and negatives, you know, having that alone time. It forced me to sit and deal with emotions, even though I wanted to stay busy. But, you know, I ended up kind of staying busy by writing out my feelings. So I think it was a process that forced me to get comfortable with those emotions. That makes sense.

Yeah. And it's, it's important, because, you know, I met live around the time that she was putting in publishing her book. And that was in 2020. And I was in the middle of losing my business. And, you know, I've had some battles with alcohol on and off in my life. But my real problem was that I was a workaholic, and I work was my coping mechanism. So I just worked all the time. And I never let myself not be busy to sit and deal with those emotions, like you're talking about. And so it was a different situation, but it was similar. And so when I met you, in 2020, I had all this time on my hands, and I didn't know what to do with it. And I didn't know what to do with myself. And I felt like a failure and all of those things. And it's like, journaling is also something that really helped me get through that time and helped me process things by writing about them. And, you know, kind of learning to heal from it, and how to use it in a positive way, and how to talk about it without being emotional. And I think that, you know, we do have our scars to start books that we publish with people's stories and lifted right in the second second book, second volume. And I think you know, if you if you listen to any of those book launches, or our videos from the Arthur's, they all talk about how healing it is to write their story is it's part of why we do that is like how do we how do we go through something like you went through and process all this in order to be able to write your story that could help someone else know that are not alone and that you can get through something. So I don't know if you want to add anything to that. But I have another question for you. Yeah, go ahead. My other question is, and we were about to publish the second book, which live was in, and we were supposed to do an interview, and live texted me and said, I'm not going to be able to do it. Or I'm not going to be able to be at the book launch. Because you were going back into care. And so I'm gonna let you say what you want to say about that.

Yeah, I went to treatment again. 2000 Yeah, just two things when three months now God times goes by, it's crazy that time flies. I saw the first program was 2019. The second program I just went in three months ago, I went in on August 25, and 26th, I believe. And once again, I went down that dark road again, and it's, uh, you know, it's gonna be a lifelong battle would be something I deal with for the rest of my life. It just is what it is. And but, you know, I think what really, what makes it worse for me is the lack of finding that purpose. You know, I think, losing dad and losing these family members, I basically had to be my own compass, I had to figure things out on my own, I lost my dad at a very young age, who was my compass, and I relied on him to be my compass. And it wasn't until years later did I realize I need to take ownership of my path. So it took forever, find out figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And I'm 34. And I literally just figured it out after treatment. Woohoo. But it took a long time to figure out what my purpose was. And that was making me even more depressed. It was like, I like one thing after another. It's like, firstly, it was the grief, and then it was the depression. And then it was the lack of purpose. It was just kind of like piling up. And I just started feeling bad about myself, you know, there was no self worth, there was no self love. I just literally verbally abused myself. And that was making me feel worse. So what did I do? I drank more, which only made the thoughts worse. You know, it's like weird because alcohol can either numb you, or it can make the thoughts race. And it just made me worse over time, obviously. So I hit rock bottom again, and I decided to go to treatment once again, you know, even though I didn't want to, but you know, it's, it's not an easy choice when it's an obvious choice. But I can tell you this second time I went it, unfortunately, was a horrible experience. And I will never, in my lifetime, enter another program again. It's just that's my experience. That's what I went through there. I'm sure there's a lot of good programs out there. But there's also a lot that aren't. And I just will never do that again. But it did teach me more. Even though it was a negative experience. It still taught me a lot, you know, and I have to be grateful for the lessons that I learned from it. But I went to a detox program again, and you know, it, I felt worse every day, I was on lots of medication that was making me feel mentally worse. I did not feel like they were protecting me, I did not feel safe in that program. I felt very belittled. And not taken seriously. And they would the thing about the program was it was beautiful play. It was a beautiful facility that you're almost blinded and fooled by how nice it is. But when you actually enter you just see, oh, this is how they run the program. But basically, I was really drugged up on lots of medication. I don't take meds so for me, it really hit me hard. I was on you know, they put me on lots of sleeping pills. So I was sleeping like 15 hours a night to the point that I wasn't going to the bathroom while I was holding, you know, and holding it and then I ended up getting a very bad UTI. I came out of that program with a couple of infections and I'm not going to explain what they are but I did come out of it with some health issues. They Baker Acted me because I was having a side effect of the medication. So the crazy thing about that experience was when I entered that program, I they knew I was already suicidal that I was experiencing suicidal thoughts because I was drinking so much. So it's like they accepted me into the program knowing I was suicidal. But then when I came to them in the program saying hey, I'm still suicidal. I think it's the medication you're giving me because I shouldn't be feeling worse. They Baker Act and they within an hour. And you have to meet a criteria. And again, for those who don't know, what Baker acting means is basically if you're a harm to yourself or others, they put you in a psych ward for 72 hours. And the only way to be released is to be deemed competent. So imagine that feeling, waiting for a psychiatrist to deem you competent just to go live your life to get out. I mean, there's some places that yeah, can hold you up for a long time. They don't think you're competent, and they can force you to stay there and force you to go to another treatment center. Imagine how scary that is, you know, to have your life in someone else's hands. It was terrifying. It was a horrible experience. I felt like I couldn't talk, you know, given what you do. You do such great work, you know, encouraging people to speak up and be honest. But the problem with this that I learned was, that's what we're taught, we're taught to be vulnerable. And we're taught to be honest, and we're taught to speak up if you're suicidal, speak up if you're depressed. Well, now I can tell you why most people don't. Because you might get Baker Acted. And it was just an unbelievable, terrifying experience, to something that was out of my control. You know, I do believe that I was feeling that way from the medication. And I can tell you, I know why. I can tell you that's a fact. Because ever since I got into treatment, I haven't had one suicidal thought. So, you know, no one can tell me Oh, it was you. It was your experience, you know, it was your mental state. No, it wasn't, it was what they put me on because I have not had an issue since that day. I felt better. It's it's crazy. But I actually felt safer in the psych ward, because I wasn't they weren't pushing meds on me. It was scary to sleep there at night. But no one bothered me. You know, no one was pushing drugs or anything on me I was, I kind of kept to myself, you know, I was able to have access to the phones too, I was able to call my family, my loved ones, they treated me better, and there just sounds so crazy. But um, it was a horrible experience, I went in there to get help, I went in there to change my life, to come out of it with bigger problems that I still am dealing with today. You know, it's made me kind of shut down. It's made me not want to talk about my feelings. And that's not good. You know, you shouldn't be able to want to talk so, but I will be honest, I don't think I met again, I did not meet the Baker Act criteria, you know, because it is more of like a he said, she said, you know, you wish to be Baker Acted a clinician, a social worker or doctor can do that. But that system needs to change because it's basically saying, you can say out loud, I'm suicidal and just go be sent into a psych ward, it shouldn't be that way. You know, we should be able to express Hey, I'm not feeling I was still coherent enough, knowing this isn't a normal feeling. And I was aware of that. And I came to the facility and expressed those concerns. I thought I did the right thing, or I thought it was better to speak up and hold it in and feel worse and internalize everything. But fortunately, it kind of backfired. But it did scare me it you know, it terrified me. I think that was the only positive thing that came out of it because it taught me even though alcohol didn't put me in the psych ward, it's how it started. So if it wasn't for alcohol, I never would have gone to that program. The program never would have Baker Acted me and there were you know, people in the program that were that were bothering me and that made me feel even more unsafe. So it just unfortunately wasn't a good experience. And to be completely honest, it's all a money game. In my opinion. I believe most of these places are scams, and they are and you know, I know that might be hard to hear. I know that might be controversial, but it is a fact. Most of these places are scams not all but some. But I came out of it and I've been doing well you know I've been three months sober. And I started a pickle business of all things Believe it or not. People are like a pickle business. But you know it just the treatments you know, I just I will never do it again. But I will always reflect back and learn and try to take lessons that I've learned and apply it to you know, my daily life. My future I do believe I'm strong enough now. I don't think I need another treatment center. I will always battle this Yes, there will be days that I want to relapse it will be days I want to drink. Like I can't tell you if I will ever go a day without it because I just nobody can predict the future. But I know what I need to do to stay on that positive, healthy path. So

yeah, well, I really appreciate you sharing all that live, because I know, it's very personal and hard. But I do think it's, it's good for our community to hear your story. Because, you know, there are a lot of people that are dealing with addictions that are scared to go to a facility or go to a treatment plan or talk to anyone about it. And I think that, you know, we're in a situation with at the realized foundation that we are more of a peer to peer support situation, we're helping people tell their stories, so they can heal. But we are not licensed counselors, we are not addiction counselors or anything like that. Although a lot of us have been through many of those things. Right. But this is a safe place to have these conversations. And there are people in our community who have had a lot of experiences, like lives experience, that might could help you decide what is the best path for you at whatever time you decide you want help. And anybody I ever talked to, if I really think they're a danger to themselves, and I know, you know, it's okay to ask people, do you have a gun? Do you have a plan, right, have any of those things, and if they do have a gun, or they do have a plan, I think it's very important that you get in touch with someone in an emergency situation, like 988, you can text them or call them you can write, you can text them for your friend or family member just to find out like, what is the next step. And sometimes those situations do turn into inpatient care that maybe you didn't voluntarily go to. But it might be that it saves your life, like Liv said in the first stop.

Right? So I absolutely couldn't agree more.

So I just I just wanted to kind of clarify that for you know, what our role is, as our events in our books and our, our foundation, what is our role in that, and it's really, to facilitate these conversations, to help people connect with other people that can help them with lived experience in some way to now, you know, find the next step.

Well, and that's another thing that I do want to comment on is the lived experience for me, I will only listen to somebody who has actually lived it. Like, if you haven't gone through addiction, if you haven't gone through a recovery program. Honestly, at the end of the day, I'm not going to relate to you, you know, there's a lot of people in people I've spoken to, in the mental health world who give this give all this advice and tell you what to do. And I'll be like, oh, so did you struggle? Do you overcome addiction to now? Have you ever been in a treatment center? Now? Okay, so it's just one of those things where we relate to people who have lived similar experiences to us, you know, so that's just the only other thing is I, you know, the people on the program, the patients, I related so much to them, because they've actually been through it. And then the day, it's almost like, the patients are smarter than the staff. Because they see it, they have actually lived in, they can see through everything and be like, that's not going to work. That's not going to help me I know, we're the problem isn't the answer. Those programs are almost looked at, as they know more than you do. But we're very smart people. I mean, unfortunately, addicts and alcoholics are very brilliant people. But um, we mean, I do believe that I've reached a point where, although I've struggled with alcohol for years, I do know what is best for me. But, but yeah, I just wanted to point that out is that's something that's always bothered me about the system is, it's no different than a grief counselor. Are you going to go to a grief counselor who's never experienced loss before? I don't think so, you know, it's easy to just read out of a textbook or get a degree and tell someone what not to do. But until you've lived it, it's yeah, it's not a one size fits all, that's probably the best way to explain it.

I agree with that. And I think that, you know, it's like therapy with someone that you don't relate to in any way shape or form. Because, you know, there are a lot of people who, well, I should just talk about my own experience. I went to a therapist to had never felt depression, she didn't know like or anxiety. And it was nice to have someone to talk to that would listen and and maybe give you some feedback here and there. But like you said she did And she'd never felt what I was feeling. And it's hard. And I know they're trained, and they have a lot of knowledge that I don't possess. But at the same time, it's it's really frustrating. After everything I've been through in my lifetime, and the therapists that I haven't been to many, but I happened to some, and it's like you ask them, like, what's the next step? Or? Why? Like, am I gonna need to go see a doctor to get some kind of diagnosis or what is going on with my brain? And they don't. She's like, Oh, that'll come. You know, like, I still I'm 53 I've never been diagnosed with anything, survived one suicide attempt, you know, struggles with alcohol, you're sure. And, you know, depression and anxiety most of my life, and nobody has ever diagnosed me. And when I woke up in the hospital after my suicide attempt, they told me to call a doctor and make an appointment. And they let me walk out the front door, like within eight hours.

You know, yeah.

Yeah. Think there's, you know, I'm very thankful for our, our world, and the resources and the medical community and all of that, and we do need it. But I also think we need to be more discerning about what we each need for ourselves, right? And what that looks like and do some research about, you know, if you're, if you're an addict of any kind, and you're looking at going to a treatment facility, like, how do you decide where to what, what to look for? And maybe, maybe you have a couple point, pointers on that live, but I think it's important to know what you're getting into?

Absolutely. And I do, I want to comment on that part of the treatment, how to find the right place, but I do want to make one common that some people will come across or say it's tough love. And in my opinion, it's not tough love, it's ignorance. So know the difference between that tough love and ignorance. And like we said, it's just relating the people who have actually been there, done it and overcame it. But as far as treatment centers, my best advice would be if you're seeking a treatment center for yourself or a loved one. Do your research. Take your time. I know sometimes it is a matter of life and death, I get that I really do. But it might be worse. You don't just want to send somebody to a facility without doing your homework, because then you might regret it later. Like, look what happened to me like, Yeah, I do regret going in that place. Even though I learned a lot. I was referred to it by a person, it's not the person's fault. But if it wasn't for that person, I would never have known about the place. So you can't really tell me that they never would have happened if it weren't for that person. But I chose to go yes, I take accountability that I chose to go to this place. But I also had no idea that even existed, don't take one person's word for it and do your homework, do your research and read reviews, be careful with their reviews, because a lot of fake reviews, anybody can put a fake review on their website. And believe it or not, a lot of people can delete the Google reviews, which I didn't realize that I thought you weren't allowed to, to delete Google reviews, if you report it. When I got out of that treatment center. I just so happened to look at their reviews because I was going to write a review. And I saw a review that was just a month or two after I left. And it was a negative review. And they said this place left me for dead and dropped me off at a hospital. And I'm thinking holy moly, they Baker Acted me and left me at a hospital. That's not a coincidence. So I went back again to go find that review, it was deleted. The only reviews that are showing under that facility are from over a year ago, probably to make it look like you know, it's not so suspicious. And then what they would do is they would go into each negative review and copy and paste the same exact response to everybody. Not even dealing with it just showing that I acknowledged you but I'm not really going to deal with it. So the problem is you can't really trust reviews, and some of them are deleted. I would say if you know somebody who has been in the program that is better than relying on a review, but again, it's like everyone has a different experience. But I would just really try to find out if there is a place that you're sending someone to do you know anybody who has been there and you know when you call the place you know find out exactly what the program entails, you know what the schedule is like? But it's like I felt like I'm contradicting myself but at the same time, even if you call and find out all this information, it's still a challenge, because sometimes they just tell you what you want to hear. And that's what happened with me. They told me all these things that I could expect. And then when I went into the program, it was the opposite of what they said, and I was already in the program. So I was already there, I was over two hours away from my home, not like I could just get in the car and leave, I felt stuck there. So it's just be really use common sense. You know, use your head, and do your research and talk to people and get educated on addiction and these facilities. You know, if you know nothing about it, it kind of gets to the point where you trust the facility, that facility sometimes will make you feel like, we know what we're doing. This is our job, this is our expertise. Not really not all that not so not always the case. So just be very careful. And just when you hear something, oh, go here. Don't just send somebody there immediately, you know, take your time and really compare the places the pros and cons. But yeah, yeah. It's, it's hard to

hard. It's hard. I mean, it's just like picking a doctor, right? When you have rights, cancer, and you you know, or you have some life threatening disease, and you don't know, you just automatically trust the doctor, you, you automatically feel like, they have the knowledge and and they're going to do what's best for me. But like, sometimes that's not true, unfortunately,

got to be your own advocate. That's what it comes down to. And depending on your mental state, your frame of mind, you might not be in the position to be your own advocate. So do you have someone in your family a friend, that could be an advocate for you, that's just the most important is, you know, yeah. Well, other thing too, I noticed about this program is every time I spoke up, every time I asked about, Well, where am I going? What's the next step? I was always asking about the future. They took that as you're worrying too much, you have too much anxiety. And then they would say, go take a pill to calm your anxiety. So that's another thing. It's like, Well, I came into this facility to get off of a substance to not rely on something to ease that anxiety. Now you're telling me to ease it with a pill? How does that make any logical sense? So it's just, yeah, it's very frustrating. You know, it's just, it's a very flawed system, not all are bad, not all places, not all people are bad. It's just, you got to really weed through the bad in order to find the good and might take some time, but you just don't want to jump at the first place suggested to you because you might come out of it with more problems.

Yeah. And I think that applies to everything we do in our lives, because we have to make choices about all kinds of things. And, you know, sometimes we're really good about wanting to buy a car and doing all the research about that. And then, you know, we go to a doctor, and it's just either somebody recommended them, or they're the ones in my town, or whatever the answer is, and so we trust them. And sometimes it's right, good to be a little more discerning

and have a mind of your own. For yourself, don't take this everyone else's opinion as a fact, that's an opinion, you know, have a mind of your own, come up with your own decisions and create your own opinions about things and know that a one size does not fit all, you know, some people go to AAA, and it really helps them it doesn't help me, doesn't mean it's not a good meeting, it just doesn't work for me. And, you know, people will sometimes make you feel is that while you're not going to meetings, and you're not really serious, no, it just doesn't work for me. You know, we're all different individuals. And what helps me is therapy, I love therapy, I go to therapy twice a week. And that is the one thing that helps me is actually talking about it finally talking about my problems in my past. And that's what helps me not sitting in a room listening to other people. And just sitting there. I mean, I want actual, I want to talk it out. And I want to them to provide that feedback to me, and having a purpose and maybe getting spiritual going to church, you know, having something to look forward to having that positive circle of influence. Those are the things that are going to help you.

Yeah, it's kind of like our we have a list of 60 different healthy coping mechanisms on our website that anybody can download. Because it's kind of what you're saying you have to pick and choose what works for you and right and, and sometimes you have to try it out and see. Exactly I don't like this, but I like this. And so finding what works for you. So well. This has been an awesome conversation and I think it's it's going to be helpful to people and I also want everyone to know I know that our community is a place where you can connect with other people who have been through something similar to you. And so we do have a private Facebook group. And we do have, we're going to do these events quarterly. And we're also doing two books a year still. So if you're interested in get involved in any of that, I would love to hear from you. You can you can reach out to me, and I would be glad to either connect you with somebody that fits what, what you're doing dealing with, or just to be part of our community, we'd love to have you. So thank you for being here. And having you having this most important conversation with me. No, and

it's good that you said that, you know, making people feel like they're that there is that safe place without having without dealing with the consequences? You know, letting people know that part?

Yeah, absolutely. That's the whole whole reason I'm here after being silent for 23 years.

Yeah, you get it, you know, it.

It's, I feel what I feel like the most important thing that would have changed things for me, is having a place like this, or, or being coached to write my story in a way that it was healing, and I could have talked about it sooner. So that's the reason I do everything I do. But but I'm so glad to have you as part of our community and, and your wisdom about everything you've dealt with and been through because you have you have more you could talk about that. We'll save that for another day.

Yeah, absolutely. Any questions someone has, yes, please reach out. Because it was a lot of a lot in that experience that I learned. And, you know, again, my memory has been so bad since then, just because of everything that I was on and coming off of the alcohol. So anyone has a question, and they can easily reach out to learn more.

And also, you know, if you if you put lives book up, but we'll give you that link again. But also, you have even other than the alcohol, you have some mental health stuff you've dealt with for a long time that we haven't talked about. And so maybe we can, we've had a conversation about some of that, that's on our YouTube channel, too. So it's a really good resource, and she's an awesome person. And, you know, I want you to tell people what you're doing now and how they can find you.

Absolutely. Well, before I do that, I want to tell you real quick, the first place that I did go into I was misdiagnosed, because I was on alcohol. So that's another thing to be very mindful of is when you're going to get that intake, you're getting an evaluation, be mindful, how long has it been since you've been off here, you know, drug of choice. Because when I went in, it was people thought I was bipolar. And I believed I was, and I kind of act in bipolar because of the alcohol. But it wasn't until I got sober that I started to see that I was not as up and down. So just be mindful of that is when you go in to see the psychiatrists or you have that evaluation, how long has it been since you've been clean? Because it can, sometimes you can get misdiagnosed. Anyway, how you can find me, believe it or not, I said this earlier, I make homemade gourmet pickles, because I'm a chef too. And I love cooking, but I didn't plan that it was I made them for treatment. And I posted one picture and sold 48 jars in a week. And then I came out of treatment and I was like I want to do my pickle. I want to take it seriously. And ever since I got my food permit. I got everything. And I now have a pickle business called lives gourmet pickles that you can find right there. But it's only local and right now I don't offer shipping outside of Orlando. But yeah, that's how you can find me and it's makes me happy. It gives me something to look forward to every day I can still do my passion keeps me busy. So I don't, you know, like, don't do bad things.

And you and you just did your first farmers market. I didn't hear about that yet.

I did that last week it was it when the weather was really bad. Unfortunately, it was very cold and rainy. But I'm hopeful about the next one which is in three weeks. But it usually draws in two to 3000 people a month. Once a month. So yeah, I just got to get out there and do events and farmers markets and

and I've already on the list for the first time I know I've ever seen it so I can get some here in Colorado.

I know I can't wait for that day.

Awesome. Well, thanks again live for being here a great conversation and I know it's gonna it's gonna help some people.