The Recovered Life Show

Damon: Introduce yourself

Cole Chance: Hello. My name is Cole chan. And I am an alcoholic. And, yeah, that's how I would identify among other things, but alcohol was was my big one. I've been sober for just over nine years now.

Damon: When was the first time that you noticed a problem?

Cole Chance: So right when I started drinking, I knew that it I was the girl for booze. And it was the thing for me. I very clearly recall telling myself. The first night i ever drank at thirteen on a starry night, Peppermint sn that I was gonna do this forever. I felt so big inside my body like I finally filled myself out. I was showing up. The way that I wanted to, the way I imagined in my life. And, yeah, that delusion cost some damage. But for a long time, I didn't realize, I guess I just assumed that Alcohol was like that for everyone. I couldn't figure out why, you know, life was, you know, not the only thing that we were doing was drinking. But whenever I started to realize that I was drinking differently. I guess I started to notice that other people would get tired. Other people like wouldn't want to. I remember I was thinking that was very bizarre. I would kinda go from group to group you know, whoever was kind about partying with me, but was a very clear kind of deli between, like, that's before I knew I was alcoholic. And then after because then there's always a little bit of a guilt that comes with it. Even though you... Or I do did my damn just to deny it. One big turning point was when I started drinking in the mornings. I moved out of a tourist counties used Barton and Tourist towns. So everyone was drinking in the morning it was very common to have mimo, bloody mary before you went up on the mountain and so it was really easy to hide. And I worked in restaurants and all of that and people were always we were always drinking, so it was quite easy to hide. And then I moved into another town Santa Cruz, which is not not a party town, but it wasn't a tourist town. So we were going to work doing all these things, and I would want to drink in the morning, and I would shake So I remember making this pivot of like, okay, I'm going to drink and realizing that by myself and knowing that no one else was doing it and hiding it. So I kind of made this choice, and that's kinda when I knew that, okay. Now i I knew it needed to be hidden. And that was a a a really clear moment for me. I should have known a zillion different reasons, but I was a really good at. Another moment that I really remember, and this is even after I think I'd been to a couple rehab. That I had read a book called drinking, A love story by Carolyn and Nap. And I remember finding it in a thrift store and it was kind of like the light was just shining on the binding of the book, and I picked it up and it felt eerie, and I read it, and I couldn't look away after that as well. That was there was no denying that she was like, telling my story. Is there two pivotal moments.

Damon: Tell us about your life growing up.

Cole Chance: There's one other piece that I want to share here that I think was really important i'm enterprise that I missed it. That... you know, I... I'm really concerned with belonging. So I in eighth grade of the eighth grade. Find a cool older boyfriend, someone who I consider, you know, Cool he's kind a bad kid, but a cool kid and we had sex. And the first time that we ever had sex, I got pregnant in the back of an ag in ent. This happened in a conservative town in oklahoma. Very segregated town. Who's also a black boy at the time. I the whole school found out. And me so concerned with that everybody thought. This was quite dramatic. Kind of my world went black for a little bit. I don't remember a lot of it. I do recall. My father, you know, my parents being mortified. Of course, you know, like, from their daughter who was just fine all the time. She was fine. She was good. Straight student sports. The where of this come from so out of the blue so much shame around it. But I recall my dad taking me to get an abortion, Oklahoma. There are protesters everywhere. Yelling at me. It was horrible. One thing I recall that is is interesting that I remember this is like, my dad, the strong silent type he doesn't really know how to handle me or talk to me or like, this is like the most fucked up situation. Like, what do you say? And I remember him, like taking me afterwards like to Tj maxx to bite me, like, a shoot something. I can't remember, Like, my parents often will, like, buy me clothes to show me they love me or something. I remember taking me to Tj Maxx like, afterwards, like, probably just out of utter knowing what to do and throwing up in the middle of the store, like post procedure. And just being, like, adding that in embarrassment embarrassment it's on top of, like, all of it, but it's always interesting the things that we remember. It's kind of like this thing that seems peripheral, like that extra drop in the bucket, but I just like I really remember that and just being so mortified in tj maxx. Weird memory. But I carried that with me and, like, what this after this, my parents moved me. So I already moved a lot, but now we moved and it was because of me, it was kind of the first time. And I really took that... They were ashamed of me. And in hindsight, wanted me to get away from my story, but I I I took that so hard that they were embarrassed of me. And this ruined relationship with my mother for for many, many years. I took my shame and it came out as anger. Towards her, Like I don't know how I wrapped or connected that story, but that's that's what happened. It's horrible to my mother for the next you know, fifteen years. And I absorbed the store that I was bad. That I was like a bad there was, like, something core wrong with me. And rather than holding that shame, you know, like, how it came out as anger, well it also came out as this costume in this v of that. Like, I'm a bad kid. On the party kid, like, I would then I started to, like, find trouble. So then I was like, trying to... Or something called the woman that seeks the arrow. It's like a Buddhist parable. That we have this core shane this course story about ourselves, and then we validate it because not only are we story makers. We also like to be right. So if we believe a story, we we seek to validate it. So my wound was that I was bad and then I lived out that story. And that trajectory of proving that my story was correct. Well, it was the long in windy he road almost two the end.

Damon: What happened?

Cole Chance: What happened to my life as a result of addiction Well I almost lost it. I almost lost all the relationships that I loved. I was Let's see. Put narrow down that question. I was a very severe alcoholic. My tolerance was incredibly high, and I had to feed the beast all the time. So I was under current constant management of knowing where it was having enough in my system drinking in public, having enough to drink in private. Making sure I had enough for the next day, to get through work, it was it was time consuming. It was exhausting. It was shutting down my bodily eight functions. I was in and out of rehab in my twenties. I didn't want to get sober. I was too young. I was partying. It was a choice I wasn't supposed to be there. You know, all of these things. I would go to rehab just to feel a little bit better to get my turns off my back in the find way to do it better. I was obsessed with being a normal drinker whatever the fuck that means. And obsessed to the point that you had almost cost me my alive. I had Grandma seizure when I was about twenty four from alcohol withdrawal, serious serious stuff. My detox were horrible. I would have deli of hallucinations. Normally would go to a medical detox thankfully. Ended up in a sci where you rehab once that didn't believe in medical detox and that was one of the worst experiences of my life. I highly recommend if you are high tolerance drinker and really for anyone to have supervised medical detox. Very dangerous. My functions began to shut down. I had impaired choice everything centered around getting more it was fake fun, all of this stuff that I felt like I was running towards that I was choosing was a total illusion. It was it was really tragic. My story of course has a ton of drugs in it as well. In the end, luckily, I started shooting Heroin. It's like a big skip forward. But in the end, yeah, Luckily at started shooting here when cane, which brought me to my knees not for the first time, but for another time and you know, an overdose in that scenario, finally, finally kind of broke the bubble of delusion of this like, I'm doing this I want to and doing this because it's a choice. Like it's just this place these people, all these other things that were wrong, not me. But whenever I you had an overdose stroke. I was in, you know, just out of my sixth three rehab like a culmination of the sickness and the environment and how, you know, this used to be a glamorous party and now it was like k house Style hill. Hands and knees sick. I realized that this is this is never ever ever gonna work. I recall somebody in a in the the recent treatment that I had been in asking her. She was a tech at the rehab and I remember asking her like, what like, how? Like, how did you do it? I wasn't really wanting to do it and I was just asking her like, how... Like, I I couldn't even fathom them. How I could, you know, change my whole identity. If you recall, I I started when I was very, very young. So to imagine changing my identity this much. It was like ripping my skin off. Like, I I I would didn't even know how to separate myself from it. Like, it didn't feel physically possible. But I recall her telling me that, you know, one day you're just gonna realize that you can be high or you can be happy and that even though they used to go together, they're never gonna go together again. And that's kind of... I heard that whenever I was trying to self medicate myself back from fucking an overdose. And, you know, of course, nothing was working. And I thankfully heard that. And I realized that I never I was never trying to... I was not on a definition. I was trying to live big. I was trying to, like, experience and his going in the wrong direction I've been lied to, and I finally surrendered. I recall one of my... One of my many therapists prior are saying, like, if you could ever get stubborn in the other direction, you'd be unstoppable. And thankfully, that's what happened. I called this over living place that I had been kicked out of prior. For, like, hiding alcohol bottles. I forgot right i hitting them around their place. They shouldn't let me back in but they did. They told me to come on a Wednesday night, and they showed up on a Tuesday with my suitcase, then I said, I'll sleep on your couch. Which it was the first time that I had really, you know, self propelled myself towards recovery. Everyone at that point had left me and it was like, I had nothing to do, but to do it my myself and that was really necessary for me. My life completely changed. Absolutely completely changed. In one... And one of the treatment centers that I'd went to, I was introduced to Yoga about five years before I got sober. It was a really powerful experience in one that I stuck in my back pocket even though I, like, deliberately denied that I was gonna go that route. Currently, I told myself that if I was to get sober, which I wasn't going to right now. That thought immediately followed. But that when I did, I would look into it, and I did. And I about thirty days. I got thirty days at a Yoga center? Thirty days for thirty dollars or something. And I just started going in every day and prior to that, I had been intermittent going to Yoga. And it always was supportive. But always felt like a safe space, but it was something I couldn't account to because I was living this double life. And once I finally, you know, had made this decision, I just kept coming back and kept coming back and it really became a massive anchor for me. Along with meetings and therapy and all of these other things I was doing my yoga mount was a really safe space for me to get quiet and listen to myself. Currently not... I started to teach in treatment centers. I started to go back into some of the ones that I was a student in or that I was a client in. And started to teach and using my voice and using my story to share, not only supported other people, which is massive that feels great but it reduced the shame of my own story. It was incredibly powerful. Today, I actually have a Youtube channel for the last, like, eight years of yoga. I put recovery videos out there. I lead international retreats. That probably traverse the globe every year, several times almost most. I currently live in Australia. Based seven bass Bali Colorado. My life has really just dramatically changed. I would have never ever ever realized that this was even possible. You know, sometimes we... If you don't... We don't know what we don't know. I was completely blind to do what life could look like without booze. I didn't want it. I thought bright it would be horrible. At really It's really hard to pop that bubble, the that massive thick denial bubble and look luckily the light shine in just enough. So that it could
Damon: What was your bottom?
Cole Chance: I think I answered that last question a little bit wrong. I thought it was asking how was my day today now. So maybe you can insert this, but Well, I guess I kind of already answered it. I think you can maybe just use what I did. This tell what you were feeling and why you made that decision. Yeah. We'll just skip this one. I think that that's wrapped up the other.

Damon: After you decieded to get sober what did you do?

Cole Chance: For the first month of Sobriety, I was on my yoga out every day. I went... I was at a sober living house, which I I really couldn't have done it without that. I do not think I could've have done it without it. I lived in many sober living houses prior to that, and I never wanna do there. It was horrible, but at this this time, it felt like safety. It felt like... I I remember, like, just everyone there was annoying. My roommates were annoying. Like, I didn't really like connect with anyone, but we had this through line and this understanding that we were, like, trying to get through something some really hard stuff and being seen in that way and not having to hide it. Was invaluable. Therapy. I had an excellent excellent therapist in Austin, Texas. Yeah. Are some of the... Those are some of probably the main things my first thirty days. But yeah, yoga was a massive through line. That was like me and mind. So there's, like this outer stuff me and my therapist, me and my community, recovery community and way, and then there's like me and b. And that was the relationship that I needed to build in. That's what I was able to do on my open map.

Damon: What is it like now?

Cole Chance: beyond getting to live the life of my freaking dreams today, like... You know, one thing that I always wanted through alcohol was I thought that I was getting freedom, and I wasn't. It was a big lie that I just ate Oakland glenn sink. And today, I live so much for. And I have all kinds of stuff that still comes up and that, like, ties me down and there's so many things in between me and you know, presence so often and peace so often, but that's the nature of being human. But considering, oh my god, like, so much more freedom to choose where I want to be in the world to choose what I want to do. I get work on creative projects and inspiring things all the time. I run in a recovery program now called merge, and I work with I work with my people with people trying to get sober. People trying to, you know, red rediscovered themselves. It's it's beautiful. I Yeah. Create gatherings all over the world. I'd truly get to, like, find this community that, you know, I wanted so bad. A sense of belonging. And I get to show up as I am and, like, one thing that is... We forget is like, we can't show up in authentically and ever belong. But that's not how it works. So today really get to be myself and find belonging. And that is invaluable.

Damon: Your advice to someone that is deciding to get sober?

Cole Chance: Well, you know, on the fence if you're on the fence, kinda depends on what you're on the fence about, I guess. See, I was always... I was not really on the fence off, and I was pretty much on the other side of the fence, but one of my big things was that like, what was I gonna do with my life? Like I was really under this idea that like, I wasn't going to... I was gonna be a shell of a person without it. I had assigned so much power to it that life was going to be boring. I wasn't going to, like, feel passion or feel a alive or excitement and I guess the advice is like, you don't know what you don't know and you have to leave some room for possibility. Because you never... Know. It could be better than your wildest streams and like, you just have to leave space for that. As soon as we, like, let go a little bit, of our idea of the way that we are the way that the world is and decide to get curious and let a little bit of grace happen. Could be better than you ever imagined.