Samara Boss spent 25 years struggling with Alcohol Use Disorder and is now a Freedom Fighter helping others gain the same freedom she now experiences. Samara prayed for the cravings, and doing what other "experts" told her to do led to a stop-and-start relationship with alcohol and sobriety.

Samara Boss is a certified holistic health coach, AADP, who takes a scientific, evidence-based approach to alcohol recovery. After battling alcohol use disorder for over 25 years, she found complete and total freedom from addiction through a little-known treatment called the Sinclair Method that uses neuroscience to reverse the addiction at the root level, which is in the brain.

Samara’s story caught national attention when she was featured in the book, Living Abundantly (2021) by author James Malinchak, known for his role on ABC's hit show, "Secret Millionaire," and author of 25 books to date.

Samara is a success story of The Sinclair Method and is currently a certified TSM coach working with two online platforms- The C3 Foundation and The Alcohol Freedom Program brought to you by THRIVE. Samara is a freedom fighter on a mission to help others become free from the chains of alcohol, which in turn leads them to transform their lives in the process! This method has a 78% success rate, whereas traditional methods have an 80-90% relapse rate.

Samara lives in New Jersey and practices a wellness-oriented lifestyle! She enjoys taking her dog on adventure hikes, evenings at the park, and spending time with her fiancé.

How to Contact Samara

PRIVATE 1:1 COACHING WITH C3 FOUNDATION

https://yoursinclairmethod.com/coaches/samaraibanez/

THRIVE ALCOHOL RECOVERY- A private members-only platform, community & app: treat AUD discreetly from the comfort of your home using naltrexone and the Sinclair Method.

https://www.thrivealcoholrecovery.com/a/2147503462/fK9qmzja

Contact:

Samara: samara@thrivealcoholrecovery.com

Instagram: @the_samarashow

TEDX TALK- HOW OVERCAME ALCOHOLISM BY CLAUDIA CHRISTIAN

https://youtu.be/6EghiY_s2ts

Evidence-Based Research and Efficacy of the Sinclair Method

https://cthreefoundation.org

The Hope Station is Bringing Hope to You!

Are you ready for your own transformational story? Do you want to turn a new chapter in your life or career? There's hope! Schedule a free consult call with me to stop feeling hopeless and gain the hope you need to have the life you deserve. https://calendly.com/diane-coaching/discoverycall

Website: https://www.dianebelz.com/

For additional inspiration and hopeful stories, follow me on Facebook to read my blog: https://www.facebook.com/diane.belz 

Please spread hope by reposting this episode on your social media, tag, and share with your friends, family, and co-workers.

Contact me directly with questions or comments. If you believe you have a transformational story that would bring hope to our listeners, please contact me at diane@dianebelz.com

Thank you for listening! YOUR ENGAGEMENT MATTERS. Please FOLLOW and leave a rating. Five ***** stars and a review are greatly appreciated and make a huge difference in spreading the power of hope, which is the purpose of this podcast. On your favorite podcast platform, look for the "Write a Review" prompt in the notes of each episode.

Samara Boss - 7_25_23, 6.07 PM

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, alcohol, alcohol use disorder, medication, brain healing, addiction, neural pathways, freedom from cravings, changed, health problems, Living Purpose

SPEAKERS

Diane Belz, Samara Boss

Diane Belz

Hello, and welcome to The Hope Station. I am your host, Diane Belz. And today my guest is Tamara Boss, what a great name. And she's a boss because she's going to be talking about her being set free from alcohol use disorder. And she is a holistic health coach that has an evidence based solution. So if you have struggled with alcohol, use or overuse yourself or have someone you love in your life who has Take a listen, because Tamara has 25 years.

Samara Boss

I was so I was addicted for 25 years and

Diane Belz

25 years addiction. So now, I love that I love freedom. So let's let's start with the story. That 25 year addiction and then we'll go to how.

Samara Boss

Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much, Diane, you are amazing. You like, introduced me perfectly from just a five minute like, intro that we had together. And that was like the perfect introduction. So perfect. Awesome. Yeah. So let's where do I start? I'll tell you my age, because people don't believe me. But I'm 46. Okay, so I'm 46. And I started drinking really young, like around 17-18 years old. Yeah, so that's why the 25 years, it really was 25 years of, you know, struggle and slavery with that substance. But just to back up a little bit and say something, to kind of set this all into place. Alcohol is the number one substance use worldwide. So of all drugs, and all kinds of substances. Alcohol is the number one thing so it really is pervasive in our societies in different countries. And it affects every family, I often say this, it's it's an every family problem. Every person that I speak to one on one says, I have a niece or I have a cousin or I have an uncle or I have or themselves are struggling with alcohol. So it really does affect almost every person, right? And it's somewhere in your family or a loved one or a friend, right?

Diane Belz

When you said you were starting young, I was thinking you were gonna say eight. So 17, 17 sounds like a normal age for someone did to decide they're going to, you know, test out this wonderful thing that's called alcohol that's supposed to make you freer and feeling just so much better and less anxious. And I remember that in high school, that I would have friends that would tell me that just take a sip and you'll feel looser. I suppose I'm pretty loose like I would I was relaxed and could have fun. And so I get that that 17 is probably a pretty normal age. So yeah, it's different for you, you started and then you had a problem stopping? So, t ell me

Samara Boss

Yeah, so in my early 20s, in all of my 20s, it was just the binge style drinking culture that was in the colleges, you know, and that's what I was used to. So it just, to me, it really didn't seem abnormal, that we would binge drink. And there were other recreational drugs involved as well, back then those were a little wild those days. But in my early 30s, and to be exact, like at 29, I think it was about 29 years old, I kind of woke up from it and realized that there was a deeper problem. You know, there was one thing was that I couldn't, there was no off switch. So I didn't know, if I started drinking that night. I didn't know what would happen if I would drink two bottles, you know, I didn't know if I would get in the car and drive or put myself in a dangerous situation or even blackout and just not remember the night before and wake up and not you know, have to piece together everything that happened. You know, that was very problematic to me. And another thing I noticed. Yeah, and another thing I noticed was that I was now drinking at home alone, where in the past, it was always about social, you know, fun times, but now it was almost like I was coping with stress and with different emotions with alcohol. So that was like, kind of like a thing. I was like, Okay, I need help. So what I did at the time, which is what everybody kind of just did tells you to do when you have a problem with alcohol is I went to AA. I was like, Okay, well, I need to go to AA. And even though I couldn't see my future, like completely without, like, I couldn't see alcohol not being a part of my life. That was all that I knew was to go to AA, work the program, get a sponsor, do the steps, right, do the 12 steps, and then I'll get better, right? That's what they told me. So what that did was, it led me and I did I initially, I went to AA and I did it. What it did was it led me to become a chronic relapse, or for the next 15 years of my life. So for the next 15 years, and

Diane Belz

you would start again, I would try,

Samara Boss

I would try to get sober, I would fail every time. You know, I would just constantly be trying to get sober and fail at it. And then I was told that there was something wrong with me, you know that I was morally wrong. You know, there was something wrong spiritually with me, or I just didn't have enough. You know, Grace, gratefulness. Sorry, you know, I was told the thing, yeah, I can see

Diane Belz

where it's just, I know myself from the things that I stop and start, you know, your confidence gets hit, you really do feel like there's something morally wrong with you, like you don't, you don't have the same strength and the same willpower that other people do. And it starts making your yourself feel ashamed of yourself. So it's almost like, the cure is sometimes just as bad as the problem itself. Because you're in this perpetual, there must be something wrong with me. Right? Stop that, that cycle.

Samara Boss

Well, it got worse, every time I would relapse, I would just, it was very hard on me psychologically. And on my feet. So because when we relapse, we have a, a an uptick in our drinking. And it's scientifically been proven that when anyone who relapses will increase their drinking for a little while, like, it's like we go into a binge, it's basically a binge show. Yeah, yeah. And you, you drink more. And so that was really hard on my body. And then I was beating myself up, and I was in shame. And I was, had no self esteem. And my self worth was on the floor. And it was just this perpetual state for 15 years, you know, and it was that I, at the end of that I was like, a shell of who I really was meant to be, you know, it was like, not I had no confidence, I was just just depressed and miserable. And yeah, it was horrible.

Diane Belz

So how did it affect your you're working your career and your relationships

Samara Boss

It affected every area of my life, but I didn't know that it was but it was. It affected every area. I wasn't in the right career. Because I was just like, in survival mode. So I was, you know, and I might it affected my relationships with my family. And intensely like my with my mom, especially. And she has a whole interview online about how my AUD we call it add alcohol use disorder, affected her and yeah, so it was, I was I was hiding drink. Like, I was sneaking my drinks behind my family's back. And I was like, hiding bottles in the closet. And, you know, like making drinks in the closet . It was bad. Like I was I needed to hide the drinking, because they didn't, I couldn't let them know the extent of how bad it was. But they all knew, you know, it's those that thing were what,

Diane Belz

What did you believe that your drinking was given to you that non drinking wasn't?

Well, the thing is, is that now we know that, that compulsion to drink to that reinforcing aspect of to having another drink, having another drink having another drink. That is something that's in the brain. So our brain neural pathways will equate drinking to like a survival need. It's almost like we get tricked into thinking that we need it to survive. And then we it, it's this compulsion, so it wasn't like I could shut it off. Right? It wasn't that I could just decide, oh, I'm not going to drink today. Like I was being compelled to drink like I would I would tell myself, you know, I'm not going to drink today. Like I would be Like, I'm not going to drink today, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do all my healthy things. And then by 3pm, it was like an obsessive thought it was an obsession. And then my car would drive itself to the liquor store. You know what I mean? Like, it was that kind of thing where I would be in the liquor store, being like, what am I doing, grabbing these bottles? Like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Like, I was like having an out of body experience, it's not necessarily something that you can control. And that's one of the big misconceptions that's out there is that people say, Well, why don't you just stop? If you can? Why don't you just stop drinking? Okay, it's a little bit harder than that. So yeah,

Diane Belz

Well, I think too, when you realize that. And even you can say, there's something in your brain, that, as you said, there's all these switches and triggers. And it's a very complicated system that we can't see. But it's working all the time. So when when it's telling you to do something, you know, that that fight and flight or survive our instinct survive is very great. And was there something that started that trend in your you know that the same survival is predicated on me having alcohol? Or with, you know, how did that all tell me how that all got twisted up in your brain?

That's such a good question. That's such a good question. So what happens is, and now we know this through the scientific study of addiction, but our drinking is actually a learned behavior. It's something that we teach our neural pathways in our brain, you know, we can teach our brain any behavior, right? So we, over the course of many years have this drinking in excess, we train our neural pathways in the brain to be wired up to alcohol, to be wired up to drinking, and even to drinking in excess. Right? We train ourselves to do this.

Diane Belz

We train our brain to over drink.

Samara Boss

Yes. And then now we can untrained the brain to over drink. That's what we do.

Diane Belz

But because if we taught it something, we can unteach it. So exactly. That's the hard part. So how do you untrain your brain? Now I'm very fascinated.

Samara Boss

Okay, so in the, the, the method that I used for this, and by the way, let me just kind of back up a little bit and just go right ahead. Oh, you that, that I cried out to God many, many, many times during that 25 years, probably in the last 15 years, I cried out many, many times. And I was like, God, deliver this for me, like, take, take it away, take away the obsession take away the desire for alcohol. Well, that didn't happen necessarily. But it did, it did end up happening. I believe in my heart, I believe that God used this very specific way to free me and to heal me completely heal my brain completely from alcohol in order for me to be able to pass this on to others, so that's that

Diane Belz

He use works all things for good right for him and are called according to His purpose. So he had a practice review, and it was painful. And sometimes people don't realize that, that we're giving these challenges these obstacles these yolks of addiction, whatever you want to call it and saying that, you know, it's not like a punishment. There's a there's a purpose because there's other people struggling. And then when they look at someone who looks like you, and you're beautiful and go, really, she had an alcohol problem, how could she there's no way you're radiant, you're you're gorgeous, you're confident, you're engaging, you're you know, joyful, you can see all that so I always ask, what's the pain worth you getting to this other side?

Samara Boss

Oh, 100% Well, you see it, you see what's on the other side of my addiction like this was on the other side. Everything that you described was on the other side. I wish I had before and after pictures I actually do I should probably compile something because I was 50 pounds heavier than I am now. I had a whole slew of health problems. I had terrible rosacea on my cheeks. My cheeks would be like swollen red, with like, broken blood vessels. This is how I looked. Okay. And I also had terrible what is that called?

Diane Belz

A reflux?

Samara Boss

Yeah, yeah, acid reflux was bad. I was like burping up acid throughout the day, sometimes it was just a very bad case of it. And yeah, all of that disappeared, all of my health problems completely disappeared. So you could kind of see in front of you, but I knew I just

Diane Belz

took a picture of Yeah, I have the video, but this is where the before and after, is so powerful for anyone looking for transformation. So and at times we can forget, like, where are we We're. So these sometimes these reflections are introspections. You know, just having a conversation with someone who doesn't know your story. And saying, you know, remember when, remember when I would look in the mirror and I was overweight with rosacea. And I've had, yes, that that acid reflux, that was so terrible, I would get it that would feel like someone had twisted my throat. And I had a combination of being stressed in my executive job. And then also feeling like, Well, I'm just going to calm that stress down with a good Cosma. What's worse, and you know, like, I just think about that it does not solve the stress. There's other things and like you said, its retraining your brain. So you're a gorgeous, wonderful before and after picture. So

Samara Boss

yeah, oh, God, I gotta find one I gotta find good.

Diane Belz

Tell ushow you got on the right track? We're just okay. Yeah. Where did He lead you?

Samara Boss

Diane Belz

I mean, the only stores that are open. Right.

Samara Boss

Exactly. Exactly. So shopping,

Diane Belz

but you can press the liquor store. Go ahead. I know

Samara Boss

which is so crazy. So there's one report that alcohol sales went up by three times during COVID. So yeah, so I just went back basically, I went back to drinking because I didn't know enough of what I was doing and I kind I talked myself out of it, there's there was a lot of factors. But I, I'll just put it the main two factors were that I didn't have a support system around me like a community of people also doing this, you know, and I was all alone. And then I had not enough understanding of scientifically what was happening in the brain, how the brain was rewiring at the physiological level how this medication was rewiring the brain. And you know, I just didn't know enough. So there's actually a book. Okay, I have it right here. Actually, it's, there's a book called The cure for alcoholism, by Dr. Roy Scapa. And this basically tells all the science behind that the doctor who created this method, who discovered this method who dedicated his life to building this method. That's this book, right? This book shows his labs and the clinical trials, there's all this all this research backing this method up, and it's fairly unknown, like, and it's been around for 30 years, and this drug is approved in the United States, FDA approved for alcohol use disorder, okay. It's an act. It's called an anti craving medication. So it reduces your desire and your craving over time.

Diane Belz

Or could you know, I have eating

Samara Boss

a you? That's a great question. So there you it's actually, for most addictions, most different types of addictions, like it can be used for overeating for sugar addiction. So more and more weight loss clinics are using this medic medication. For Weight Loss. I did a research recently, I just kind of did a search with weight loss clinics and found that many of them are using it. The drug is called naltrexone. And it's not it's a generic, like $15 medication. Like it's not expensive. It's not, I'm not promoting this drug. I'm not with any pharmaceutical company or anything like that, that, that, in actuality, the pharmaceutical companies don't promote this medicine because there's no money to be made, right? There's no money to be made on a $15 medication, prescription for that for the prescription not prepare the prescription, not the pill, but the prescription a month prescription.

Diane Belz

Samara Boss

Diane Belz

a well worn loved book.

Samara Boss

I've read it, this is my third time going through it. And yeah, so I mean, it says the medically proven way to eliminate alcohol addiction. It's medically proven like this is this should be more out there. This should be like a lot of people should know about this. And it's just kind of, well, there's there's reasons behind that. But,

Diane Belz

you know, that's why we say follow the

Samara Boss

exactly,

Diane Belz

Prophets that the fr s and the pH ETS. Follow them there tells you something. Yes. group here live and someone wants to make money off of your lungs.

Samara Boss

And the rehabs are like a revolving door of every time someone goes, it's $30,000, right? It's like $30,000 a month or something crazy like that. And it's a revolving door, right? So they rely on repeat business. And if there's like a simple medication that you can take at home, at, you know, in the comfort of your home and attack this drinking problem from your couch, while you're still drinking, um, and then, in five months to a year, like pretty, pretty, not too much time, you can be done with that and move on with your life.

Diane Belz

So how did you deal with different the second time that you've been now it's three years, we're going to give you a three year time span, what has changed, or what had to change so that you can make this remarkable change?

Samara Boss

Diane Belz

good day to start almost anything January.

Samara Boss

Diane Belz

It feels to me that this medication helped you give you that brainspace to do the deep work you needed to do anyway. AA wants you to do the work and you're not saying the work isn't necessary important. You're saying now you're Trying to do two things you're trying to fight your urges and then dive deep so you it's like all consuming What else can you do? When you said when you can go to the gym? Well, you can see where if I'm trying to fight alcohol from you know taking over and then I'm also trying to just figure out what's the triggers and go on this other path to you know free myself clear my mindset get spiritually aligned. You can see where we're it's almost exhausting, I was exhausted list to get like there's so much work behind this. And when people a couple of things. Number one you didn't want to fall that you had alcoholism, I believe that when we identify, we call ourselves something. So, I believe when we change our story, we can change our life. So, if you're changing your story, I am not an alcoholic, I am someone who has alcohol use disorder. There's a there's a, there's a process and a symptom for that. So that's number one, you change that story. But then you also were changing the story that I can do this, now I can do the hard work. And by doing that you really have changed your life. But the story had to be changed. What we call ourselves is so powerful, and no one realizes, you know, and when you're studying the brain, the power of the words that we say to ourselves, we think that the words that other people say are the things that really hormones, it's all the things that we've said before that moment that someone said something, and after that moment, because we start believing so much of it is true. And that that's some of the challenge. So, if you're believing that that's not true, I don't have to live this life have never been free from alcohol. I can live a different life. Yes, freedom is powerful. Freedom from people fight for freedom. They fought for freedom. Freedom Fighters.

Samara Boss

Do you want to know, do you don't want to know what actually changed that year. I'll tell you what happened that year, it everything, everything that you just said. My whole identity changed around alcohol. My identity was all wrapped up in alcohol and what it was doing for my life and the benefits that I thought I was getting from it, you know, like, relaxing and calming me from my day. And, you know, the things that I that, you know, that I was turning to it for? I was turning to alcohol to relieve stress, and to cope with whatever negative emotions I was feeling at the time, or to just maybe just forget about my problems, you know,

Diane Belz

And forget about the problems of drinking too much.

Samara Boss

Yeah, exactly. Because that was causing all of my problems. I didn't know. But yeah, my whole identity shifted that year. And the medication was so important, because it helps me to be able to do that work. So yeah, there is work to be done. But it's actually not that hard when we have this help from this medicine that is fairly, like there's hard, not that many side effects. Like there's initial a few side effects that you experienced, but there's no long-term side effects. Like it's, it's a fairly, like I said earlier, it's like most people can take this medication, even if they're on other medicines to.

Diane Belz

Okay, so you, you changed how you thought about yourself, you're changing your identity. What are you doing now to help other people as a coach with this program with thrive?

Samara Boss

Yeah, that's yes. Thank you so much for asking. Yeah, so what I and I kind of fell into this work because, okay, so there's this, this YouTube girl, her name is Katie Lane, she's on YouTube. She did this method for herself, and she's also a Christian. And so she did this for herself. And then she just started documenting her recovery. She was just like, well, I did this method. This took this medication and now she's been alcohol free for five years, okay. And she says she just one day she just forgot to drink. She just forgot. She just forgot to drink. And then she just forgot to drink the next day and the next day and it went into months and now it's yours. Okay, so that's how much of not an obsession it is like when we get free this way. There's no more cravings. There's no more thoughts of alcohol. There. You can have alcohol in the house. Other people can drink around you. There's no Like, negotiating in your brain, because I'm telling you, and when you're in alcohol, there's this constant battle in your head about, should I drink? Do I not drink? How do I sneak a drink? How do I take a drink over here? How to, you know, just like it's exhausting? There's no more of that.

Diane Belz

I have a question. Once you're on medication? Do you have to stay on the medication?

Samara Boss

No. So you, you use it temporarily to attack the drinking problem. Once you're done, and over the hump, you have two choices, you can continue to be just like that normal drinker that you kind of always, always wished you could be like, where you can drink one or two glasses of wine in a sitting and then be done, right? Or you can become alcohol free, or you just, you just have, it just has no use in your life. And you're just like, I don't need that, right. So if you become alcohol free, which that ends up happening to a lot of us over time, because the medication works better, the longer you're on it. Okay? You know, it's it's a little nuanced. But so what happens is, a lot of people do become alcohol free. You don't need to take it, okay, you just don't need to take the medicine anymore. Now, if you ever plan to drink in the future, you have to take your medicine before you have a drink. So that's one thing that is like a non-negotiable, because what happens is our brain can relearn the addiction very quickly. So essentially, safety.

Diane Belz

Safety the people who have been alcohol or drug free for such a long time? That that that it's, it snaps back in, it's like, there's a piece missing, and it just snaps in, and then they're down that path, again,

Samara Boss

The neural pathways are, are they have changed, and that's why you don't have any more cravings or obsessive thoughts. But if you drink again, without the medication, you are basically unprotected from those pathways developing very quickly, again, to what they remember, the alcohol use disorder. So essentially, you do you actually do doing this, you revert your neural your drinking neural pathways back to their pre-addicted state, you can do that. So that's why again, no more cravings. You're not thinking about it, you're not fighting back urges to drink, there's no urges to drink, there's nothing. It's just like, you're free. You're truly free. And it's a beautiful thing. But if you were to drink without the medicine, that's playing with fire.

Diane Belz

So how are you helping other people now as a coach.

Samara Boss

ah, yeah, so I worked with two separate platforms. One is a nonprofit organization, the woman who does the TED Talk, her name is Claudia Christian. She has a, it's a viral TED talk about this, okay. And I am one of her coaches, she has a coaching program where she certifies Sinclair method coaches, that's the method that we use is called the Sinclair method. And so, she certifies us, and then we have a platform there. And it's very reasonable prices, because it's a nonprofit. So, we don't want you know, we're trying to help people with addictions here. So, you know, so it's very reasonable, you know, but we do have to put food on the table. And then yeah, and then I also work with Thrive Alcohol Recovery, which is an established organization that they, it's a subscription based online platform, where you have a community, you have a course that you take, like, we give you modules and a course. And then you have access to coaches like me, you have one on one sessions with us. So we give you a referral to a doctor, because this this is a medication that has to be prescribed by a doctor. So we refer you to a doctor, and then we take you through the steps on how to get better. And we take you from A to Z so the beginning of it of your journey to the end when you've hit what we call so it's called extinction. So there's a there's an end to this process. And it's called extinction. It's where you extinguish the behavior in the brain. You've hit extinction, essentially. Does that make sense?

Diane Belz

Yes, it does like that was like you can feel like a fire hose. Yeah. That extinguish the fire.

Samara Boss

Right? And as long as you after that, you can make a decision, a decision not to drink or if you do want to drink like, you know, like you want to have a glass of wine at a wedding or something. Just take your Medication an hour before, and you'll be fine. Right? So I still carry my medicine even though I'm pretty much alcohol free. Like I just don't. I don't I'm working on so many things that, you know, I

Diane Belz

I don't want to risk.

Samara Boss

No, it's just that I don't have time for alcohol anymore. But if I were like in France, and I want to have a glass of champagne, and you know what I mean? Like, there's never there, there may be a time in the future where I drink, but I will take the medicine and then I'll be protected.

Diane Belz

What is the Sinclair method? You've talked about? How is that different from other coaching programs or for other l alcohol recovery programs?

Samara Boss

Okay, yes, that's very, very good question. So the Sinclair method is, is an alternative treatment to alcohol use disorder. It's not an abstinence-based treatment. So, you actually have to engage in the activity of drinking in order to get better, okay, because you have to take this medication, and then you have to drink. So, it's very different. And it is very much a paradigm shift from the traditional methods that we've been so kind of wired up to doing in the world. And so that's the difference here. This is it's actually called harm reduction. So there's a type of addiction treatment that's called harm reduction. And this falls in that category. The Sinclair method is named after this doctor, his, his name was Dr. John David Sinclair. And he was in Finland, and he started studying, he repurposed this medication. So this medicine is a is in the same family as like Narcan, which is something that they give to they use it in hospitals now to stop an overdose.

So it's an opiate blocker that blocks the opiates that are that are get being sent to the receptors in the brain. Okay. So, yeah, so this medicine is it blocks the opiates coming from alcohol. So I'll just tell you this. So when a person has very advanced alcohol use disorder in the brain, they are getting a huge, massive flood of endorphins from their drink. That's what keeps coming, keeps them coming back to that drink. That's why they're there's the person that can't seem to stop at one drink. You know what I mean? Like, they just can't, it's just a free for all, once they get started drinking, it's like, who knows? It's almost impossible to stop at that point, right? That was me. That was me. I just, I couldn't seem to stop myself. I had no shut off button. And that's enormous amount of endorphins that you're getting from the drink, that causes that reinforcing aspect reinforces the behavior.

Diane Belz

So are there some people that are more wired to get those endorphin hits than others? Is that something again, that's almost something you're predestined to? But you have what's there are people who over exercise they overshot they, they over binge watch TV? I know I can well, what? Well, what's one more show? You're like to shut up the debate? None of them have been life changing. But it is like, yeah, let me try it again. Let me try it again. Let me try it again. So I get that reward system. That's why we're addicted to our phones where we have an addictive brain mechanism. And a lot of that is, as you said, it's based on survival, to keep eating, to keep sleeping, to keep procreating, to do all those things. There is a pleasure component to those things that we need to do to survive. But then it can be like so many things, it can be overused, or, you know, just needs to be rewired a little bit. Something went a little awry here. Let's go in and fix it.

Samara Boss

Yeah, yeah. No, you're so correct about all of that. Drinking is a learned behavior. Just like other behaviors become habits, like watching binge watching shows. That's a neural pathway in our brain that has expanded, it's gotten wider. It's gotten deeply grooved, and it's getting a big amount of pleasure, chemicals when we do it, and that reinforces the behavior, right? So yeah, so part of this is that behavior change that we're doing, but the medication makes it possible because without the medicine And, again, we're back to just misery like trying to suffer through cravings and urges to drink. And seeing the statistics; it is almost impossible because about 90% of people don't make it. After six months of rehab, it's 80 to 90%. Don't make it six months of rehab. So after rehab, so this, this tells us that we're failing the majority of people who try to seek treatment for their alcohol use disorder, they were failing them with these abstinence based methods.

Diane Belz

You're trying to do not to do something that now has become very natural for you to do it's become part of your nature on this. Sounds like what you lacked on your first try? Was that support and that community having a method having, you know, a process, you are now stepping into that space for other people? Yeah, I always think that the best one to lead you down a path to freedom is someone who's been on your side and knows what it feels like, they get you to the other side, do you find that that to be true that you can be more, not just empathetic, but really understanding of what it is you're not blaming, and you know, how it feels to be where they're at?

Samara Boss

Oh, my gosh, 100%, like this, I'm serving the person I once was, you know, like, it's, it's my purpose, I had to go through this, in order to find my true purpose. For life. I know that God healed me this way, so that I can help these people, like so many people are suffering. And I guide them through and I get them doing the protocol. And I answer all their questions. And they, you know, it's beautiful, the success rate is 78% on this medication.

Diane Belz

78%. Wow. What did you say traditionally, what, what's the success rate,

Samara Boss

traditional abstinence based methods lead to an 80% failure rate after six months, or at the six month mark after rehab. After that six-month mark, it jumps to around 90%. So around 90% of people will relapse eventually.

Diane Belz

Would you rather have a 78% success rate than an 80 to 90% failure rate. It's like the exact opposite.

Samara Boss

And this exactly, the odds are in your favor, if you're going to try if you have an alcohol use disorder, or you have a problem with drinking and you want to try something different, like an alternative treatment, the odds are in your favor that this will work for you at almost 80%

Diane Belz

i Yeah. And it's like what if you're going to buy a lottery ticket? Would you rather buy the tickets that you know, or there's a 78% chance of you winning? Or would you rather buy the one where there's a an 80 to 90% chance of you failing?

Samara Boss

Right?

Diane Belz

This is like a no brainer, but yeah, it's a no brainer.

Samara Boss

It's healing? Yeah.

Diane Belz

It's been overworked.

Samara Boss

That's that's like what that my Instagram says, heal your brain. Like one of the things on my Instagram, in my bio, it says heal your brain, because that's what we do. We heal the brain. And we completely in that process, change our relationship with alcohol, our identity, you know, changes we're, we're no longer. I'm not an alcoholic. I don't have alcohol use disorder anymore. I used to have alcoholic use disorder for about 25 years, right? Like 25 years, I was enslaved by it. And now I'm free.

Diane Belz

And freedom is there's you went through the hard stuff to get to the other side of freedom and knowing that you found your purpose. You're helping other people. You look beautiful and wonderful and healthy. You're excited. You can see just the excitement of saying who doesn't want to be a freedom fighter who doesn't want to give people freedom.

Samara Boss

I love it. I call I call myself and one of my buyers a freedom fighter, but I am I'm writing a book about this. It's called out it's well, preliminarily, it's called recovery revolution. And it's about my story and about why it's better, why it's different, why it's important, you know, to the world.

Diane Belz

As a former business executive, I am going for the statistics. Show me the proof. Show me the data. And you've done a wonderful job of sharing your story. The ups and downs and the pains of it. And this beautiful God given transformation, as you call it. So, any last things, I'll put information about how to contact you, for anyone who's struggling and wants to be set free. Any other last words you want to share?

Samara Boss

Um, you've been so wonderful.

Diane Belz

Speak directly to those people struggling right now Samara

Samara Boss

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to say like it anyway, this this whole talk, if you like resonated with this, you know, if you're out there and you resonated with this, there is an alternative treatment, you don't have to go the route of the abstinence-based route. You know, you don't have to live suffering with cravings and live in misery trying to fight back urges to drink, you don't have to do that this, this method is fairly easy. There is work to do, but the medication helps. And then you can actually address those other areas in your life, you can change your relationship with alcohol, you can transform your identity, you don't have to call yourself a recovering alcoholic. You don't have to call yourself that you're not you're not an alcoholic anymore, right, you can move on from that. And then maybe you can help others, you know, that are in the struggle. So, there's a lot of hope out there. I hope this gives you some hope, because that's what the Sinclair method is. The Sinclair method is a message of hope to the people who are suffering with cravings and with urges to drink.

Diane Belz

So that's why you're here with The Hope Station today. Oh, my gosh, I was so good. And beautiful. Thank you so much for your time. And we'll list information in our show notes so that people can reach out to you. Thank you so much. This was an absolute blessing, and it's given me some hope for some people that I do love that I know we're struggling. Thank you,

Samara Boss

Amen.