A pivotal event in my drinking history

Welcome to Virgins Don't Take Pregnancy Tests, where real conversations meet hard truths with Angie and Dave. Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Virgins Don't Take Pregnancy Tests, the podcast with Angie and Dave. Um, today we're going to hit a little bit of a heavy topic, um, but it was a pivotal kind of event in my life and a pivotal event in my drinking history. So I kind of want to start there. Um, I'm going to go back to August of 2011. Um, it'll be 15 years, uh, next week. By the time you see this, it'll already have passed. Um, but I really haven't spoken in detail, um, about this to anyone, um, except for the little bit I went into on my book. Um, so what was going on at the time? My husband and I, by 2011, we had been married about nine years, and I'd say we had a pretty complicated relationship. Um, and 2011 was just a horrible year. Um, I was drinking heavily. My husband was a drug addict, and so he had relapsed as of January of 2011, and he had started using drugs again. This is a podcast that talks about alcohol, but addiction is addiction. Um, he was one of the worst drug addicts that I ever saw, and to watch him go back and forth trying to get sober, um, he probably went to rehab six times while I was married, um, and he didn't just go for 30-day stints. He would go for 90-day stints. Um, and so the last year, I really was almost by myself a lot with the kids, and then trying to really hard keep up with where my husband was, make sure he wasn't getting in trouble, trying to just fix everything. I think this was, like, I think this was, like, the first thing in my life that I couldn't fix. Like, I can fix everything. I'm a fixer. Um, I'm going to chime in, because that sounds like a disaster. Um, I can't imagine going through that. So, that makes me just, I have a question. So, how long into your marriage, or just even your relationship with Mike, did you know this dude is not fucking around when it comes to drugs? Okay. So, when I first met him in Atlanta, and I thought this was totally normal, but I also had never heard the word alcoholic before. Like, I didn't, other than thinking of, like, a guy with a bag homeless, I didn't really have an understanding of what an alcoholic was. When I first met, um, Mike, he actually smoked pot, but didn't drink. And that made perfect sense to me. Like, if you can't drink, you smoke pot. Yeah, I get it. That lasted for a very short time in our relationship. And this was before we were married. But right when I was moving to Tampa is when I understood how bad his drug addiction was. That's when I found out about the cocaine. He would go missing for days. He was having legal trouble, all of the above. But when I started, I thought he just smoked pot and didn't drink. And I totally thought that was normal. Aggressively, over the nine years, there are so many things that happened as a result of his drug addiction and using drugs. It's impossible to kind of go through all of it. Um, but I'd say for me, my alcoholism existed before Mike, and we'll talk a little bit about, um, how I grew up in college. But once things started getting really, I'd say shit show, January, 2011, going through that year, he had been in trouble. He had some legal issues. Um, he ended up being in jail for about five weeks of that year. So June and early July of 2011. He was not home. He was in jail. Um, and you know, I was the only one that could get him out. I had to drop the charges that he was going to get out. My family, friends, nobody wanted me to drop the charges. His son, you know, his friends were begging me to drop the charges because he had previous felonies. And so he was going to go to prison for two and a half years. That's what was going to happen. It was like the day after July 4th. And I know I spent July 4th with you guys and it was an awful day. I went to an AA meeting in the morning and then I got completely shit face wasted the rest of the day. And then I flew back home to a husband that wasn't living there. I kicked him out of the house. We decided to separate. Um, and so as of early, um, July, right after the week after July 4th, he had moved into a rental house. It was about 15 minutes away. Um, he was still seeing his son. He was not allowed to see the girls. Um, but I started letting him see the girls as it got into end of July, early August. Um, he was teaching them how to ride bikes. Like when he was sober, it would be a lot of normal stuff. But when he wasn't sober, it was disastrous days gone missing. I don't hear from him. Um, legal troubles. Our neighborhood, everyone in our neighborhood was upset with him. He was driving on drugs. Like everything was just leading up to August 18th, 2011. And this is the day that I found my husband. And this is the day that I found my husband dead of a drug overdose. Um, the day started and actually I'm going to do the night before the night before started. Um, I was drinking by myself. I was at home with the girls drinking wine. Uh, I had not heard from my husband. Uh, I had not heard from my husband. And even though we were separated, he called like a lot. He called his son a lot. He called me a lot. Um, and so I hadn't heard from him. And I assumed maybe like he had gone out or something or had relapsed. Well, I call my friend at about 11 that night, my next door neighbor Ingrid. And I tell her, I think Mike's dead. I haven't heard from him. I really think he's dead. Will you go over with me to the rental house? And she said, absolutely not. You're drunk. Go to bed and you'll talk to him tomorrow. So we didn't go that night. The next morning I had a couple of meetings. I was still working at the time. I went to an AA meeting. I then did my work stuff. And around 12 lunchtime, his son called me and he had not heard from his dad in over 24 hours. And that was very unlike him. And he asked me to please go over and check on him, the rental problem. So I said that I would, um, the other thing that happened that morning, just to, I want to make sure I say this. I had three voicemails from him from the night before that were later than I went to bed where he was asking me, he, he was in a really bad, he didn't feel like he felt bad. He was worried. He was going to relapse all this kind of stuff. I never got the messages. I didn't talk to him at all. And the next day when I went over I went over there at 12, I, the one thing that he did, even if he was using drugs was workout, he worked out every day. He was a marathon runner. It's crazy. He just working out was his thing. So when I pulled up to the rental property, he never parked his car in the garage. He always had in the dirt. So it was a black Mercedes. I remember pulling up and there was not a car. His car was not in the driveway. And I was like, Oh my God, thank God. Like he's, he's at the gym. Like he's not here. Awesome. And so I started to get back in my car and this is just like a movie and it's exactly how it happened. I reversed out of the driveway and I happened to like, look at the front door for some reason. And it was cracked open like this much. And so I was like, Oh shit. I pulled back in the driveway and figure what am I going to do? Do I call someone or I just go in and see if he's there? I, I thought he was dead in my head. I don't know if anyone can relate, but when you live with someone that has an addiction, whether it's drugs or alcohol, and it's that bad, you're, when you live with that enough, it stops feeling like fear. And it starts feeling like a countdown to that event actually happening. And what I mean is I could picture the cops coming to my home in Tampa. I had a wooden door, but it had big glass windows. I had big glass windows. So you could see everything on the patio. So in my mind, the cops were knocking on the door. I answered, I see them. They tell me that he's dead of a drug overdose. Well, what actually happened was I went in the house that day. Um, it was very hot. His refrigerator had not been working. So there was like a couple of coolers filled with like food and drink, but there wasn't ice. So it was just like kind of sitting there and there was toilet paper rolls everywhere. I have no idea why, other than perhaps there was people with him. Um, when I read the book, I, I did wonder what the toilet paper rolls were all about. So literally there was like, it looked like a part, like there was 24 rolls. Like someone had thrown it. No, I think they must have thrown it or no. I mean, I don't think they were really doing anything with it, but it got damaged. It was just very random. It is random, but I'm telling you there was, there was toilet paper rolls everywhere. And so I started calling his name. I actually wasn't sure he was there because he wasn't answering. And then I turned the corner and right when I turned the corner, his bedroom was on the left. It was a crazy situation. I freaked out, freaked out. I started screaming. I ran outside and there was this poor guy, the neighbor. And he came over and I smoked at the time. And I was like, please give me a fucking cigarette. And he gave me a cigarette. And he's like, what happened or whatever. And I'm like, my husband's dead. We got to call 911. I was hysterical. Um, they come. I'm just kind of set on the side. I had to call his family and tell them what happened. I called his sister. You did it right there. Yep. I called right there. I called his sister and I called Michael's mom, my stepson's mom, the son that had asked me to go check on him. I called his mom and told her to tell him that her, his dad was okay, that he was at the gym and not like she needed to sit down and tell him at a different point. Like, don't tell him right now. Just to buy some time. Yeah. Just to buy some time. Cause I mean, so the other thing that was going on, he was starting high school on Monday. This was a Thursday. So he was 14. That age is so tough, especially I think for, you know, young men. Um, but anyways, uh, I had called his mother and ironically, the people that I called were my AA friends. So I am not into AA now, but in early sobriety, I did go to AA for a couple of years. Um, a lot of that was driven through rehab and stuff like that. Um, but because I was really trying to quit drinking, even though I was going to meetings and drinking, every day, I would go to a 6 30 AM meeting. I would drink two bottles of wine every night and I would do that and then work in the middle. Um, so my sponsor came over for women from AA came over and I just remember the corner got there, you know, the ambulance didn't come. So it started to get real that it was, he was not going to come out of this. Um, and so when the corner got there, I remember we just all kind of went and, I literally was freaking out. I sat in this bush and smoked cigarettes. So I couldn't see, there was a big bush. Here's his door. I sat on this side of the bush. So I couldn't see what they were doing when they brought his body out. I know all of that. And the craziest thing was when it was all said and done, like literally the police come out, they give me his wallet, his phone. There might've been one other thing and they leave, they take him and leave. And I was just sitting there by myself and had to go home and tell my two daughters. Um, and because that day was so hard for me, obviously, you know, with what happened, it was extremely tough. And I think the trauma of all that and the trauma of that whole year, what we were going through as, you know, our family, it just all kind of snowballed and ended up this day, August 18th. And I remember one of my friends had to go pick up the girls from school. Um, I remember I made my AA friend buy me a 12 pack of beer and she did. And sadly, that's a good friend. I would've done the same thing. I don't care if I was your AA sponsor. I would've done the same thing. So I can't even imagine that's right. She's like, I'm going to do this once for you. So I had beer, I had someone come get the girls and it just, it went way downhill from there. I don't want to get into all the details, um, because there's lots, but basically from August 18th until the end of September, I was just drinking day, night, whatever. I wasn't really working. I constantly had babysitters for the girls. At least I had the forethought. Like I would have a babysitter every night so I could sit in my room and drink. Um, but I did say drink responsibly. So I was drinking responsibly a bit. Um, but yeah, so August until end of September was just a, a real snowball downhill for me leading up to, I had to move back home. I had to move from Tampa back to Virginia. I needed to be around family. I needed to be around friends. I needed to be around people that loved me. And I honestly, it almost, this whole thing almost took me down. It almost took me out. You know, you saw. I did. Um, all right. So I think there's a lot to lead up to that, which I think we need to get to. But I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, uh, we are, we know what's your worst memory of my life. I'm assuming it's that day, unless I'm wrong. But I wanted to get to, like, what's your best memory if you had to be? Honestly, at the beginning, we used to have so much fun because we were competitors at work. Like, that's how we met. He went and met with one of my clients and started shit talking and, like, told her to tell me there was a new sheriff in town. This was in Atlanta. And so, um, I ended up calling him and said, you know, hey, I heard you're the new sheriff or something like that. And we went to Maggiano's. I was actually had offered to, like, I asked him to lunch so I was going to pay, but my credit card was missing. I think it was left at a bar. Seriously. So, it's so me. I used to lose everything. So, he had to end up paying, which he should have anyways, but I was for some reason. And, um, those were good days. I mean, the problem is when you're in a relationship that's kind of, like, I don't even want to say half good, half toxic. I don't know what the ratio is. But when you're in that type of relationship, all of those things just keep chipping away at you. And you just, it's not like you can, I'm not saying I didn't like him anymore, but so much stuff had happened that it just kept chipping away that I just didn't really have a relationship with him. At the end, like I did at the beginning. The one thing I can say about Mike, um, he was boisterous and loud. Um, he was from Philly and he was, um, we always said he was street smart. I was book smart and we kind of helped each other with the other one. Um, but yeah, in the early days we had a lot of fun and Michael Patrick was there and we used to, you know, go to the beach and, you know, go to Clearwater beach and see Petersburg and do a lot of fun stuff. Um, but unfortunately the other part just began to take over his life and took over our life. All right. Well, that's a, that's a story right there. And it's not even, not even close to the full story. Well, let me tell you one thing. Um, when I talked about when he was in jail and everybody wanted me to drop the charges, the one person who I talked to said, only thing that might save him is to let him go to jail for two and a half. His AA sponsor told me not to drop the charges until then he would go to jail and I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. And then he died five weeks later. And he was one of the only people that told me keep his ass in there and he was right. Yeah. I don't really remember specifics of that, that, uh, I would like to think I would be able to say that to you as well. Yeah. I think that was pretty close. You guys were definitely, I mean, my family, you guys at that point, I mean, it just was a bad situation. Um, yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Um, my family was very much in the side of what are you crazy? Let him go to jail. You and the girls moved to Virginia, start a new life. And I, for whatever, I think cause I'm highly codependent. Like I'm so worried about other people. Like I literally couldn't let him go to jail. I couldn't do it. I felt like what a shitty wife is going to let their husband go to jail for two and a half years when you can get them out of it. I just, I don't know. I, I was. All right. So I can only imagine you never ended up, never thought you would end up in that type of situation. So let's go back to high school, right? I've been to that house. I've been to the pool in the back. We've had a lot of good times there. I know it was. Yahtzee by the pool. You got to jump in the pool. You have to jump in the pool if you get yahtzee. It was a whole thing. So, I mean, go back, tell us about that. Like how, cause I know you were very happy and very jovial and very outgoing and there were a lot of good times growing up in your childhood. Um, let me tell one story. Okay. Yeah, I don't, I think you remember, you were talking about it the other day, but the first time we met. Oh, your tattoo? Yes. First time we met, uh, it was out by the pool and we're standing there and, and Kathy had, uh, it was my sister, Angie, whatever. Because I was, I'm sorry, I was eight years older, so my sisters were still in middle school when I went away to college. So, I got this tattoo like 30 years ago. It used to say death before dishonor. And so, she introduced us and we're out by the pool, so I'm sure I didn't have a shirt on. She said, oh, what's your death before dishonor? And she goes, it seems a little drastic. Like that, those were your first words to me. So, yeah. A little dramatic, Dave. Yeah, that's a little dramatic. Um, that's funny. Yeah. So, let's talk about that stuff. Yeah, so, kind of growing up, um, I had an amazing childhood. I have the best parents. I'm super close with my parents and my sisters. Um, to this day, they all live here, except my parents are in West Virginia. But growing up, I mean, I played soccer. I played, that was my whole thing. I wanted to play soccer in college. I played varsity soccer in high school and I wasn't good enough eventually to go to college. But growing up, it was all about sports. My dad was a PE teacher. My mom just worked retail. But we had like a super normal life, parents and three girls. We went to the beach. Like, it just was a completely normal childhood. We went to church every Sunday. My mom is not necessarily like a Bible leader, but she was big on, we were Methodist. And so she, it was really important to her. We would, we would go to that every week. And so I don't really remember alcohol being a part of my life until maybe college. Now I did drink in high school, but I'm saying I just don't remember it being around all the time until I got older. And I don't know if that's just because I was young and I didn't know what to look for. The only thing I can think of as far as like growing up was, I remember my favorite grandpa. And I don't know if he was an alcoholic or not. I just remember he always smelled like whiskey and chapstick. That sounds amazing. The black chapstick too. So, um, I came to find later that there is some alcoholism in my family. Um, growing up, like, honestly, when I started drinking, um, it was 10th grade. And I remember I got invited to a sleepover and the parents were out of town. Oh boy. And Henry, Julie's brother, went and got us. This is wine cooler Julie. Yep. This is wine cooler Julie. Julie and Kate. Uh, and Rebecca was supposed to be there, but her mom busted her on lying and knew Julie's parents were out of town and her dad came and got hurt. So she didn't get to, um, partake. Um, but anyways, he bought us wine coolers. I, I didn't have more than four. I mean, I think I had probably three, two, three. I don't know. We were hilariously drunk. You know, a chair fell. I went to grab Kate. I broke her bracelet. Like, you know, just like all kinds of like bonding that you do when you get drunk with friends for the first time. And it was. That's what you guys do. Me and my friends beat the shit out of each other. All right. Well, we, it was fun. It was so fun at first. And I remember thinking like, oh my God, I like finally fit in. And it was like, kind of like my first type of friend. That's a big part of it, right? Yeah. And so that's where it really started for me. And if I had known that 25 years later, it was going to kick my ass the way that it did. I mean, obviously I wish I made some different decisions. So would you drink every weekend in high school? No, because I was playing soccer. Well, no, I played baseball. I played sports all year round. I still drank every weekend. I did not. And it was usually at my house. Because my parents would go down the shore every weekend and everyone knew, hey, burgers Saturday night or go to burgers house. It was always the parties in my house. I think I was a goody goody because just like you, I had that party that I got caught. That's why my sisters were never allowed to do anything because I got busted so hard for having a party. And I had told my mom I needed to do like an SAT prep class and stay home for the weekend while they went to Ocean City. And I think I had a soccer practice or something that was all a lie. Me and my friends were planning this big party. As Dave has mentioned, we had a pool in the backyard, but the back of the house was two stories. So there was a basement. I'll preface with you also, you had a diving board. We had a diving board. All right. So you could have easily just jumped into the pool from the diving board. So I didn't jump off the roof. But the claim to fame of this party is, and this is true, people were jumping off the roof into the pool until my neighbors called the police. The way that I got caught the next day, because it was a great party. We had a blast. The police came, closed it down, whatever. The next day, we realized we had ruined my mom's flowers. Like there was a, the whole side of the pool, there was like a hill with all her flowers and stuff. All you had to do was not fuck with the flowers. We made it into a beer mudslide. There was no flowers. They were gone. It was a big puddle of mud. So me and my friend, what happened to my chrysanthemums? Where are my pansy? Well, here's the funny part. Me and my friends were like, we're going to, we went and bought more flowers, but we didn't put them in. We just sat up by the table. It's effort. Hey, that's better than her getting home from the beach and having to go do it herself. No, she did have to do it. But you bought the plants already. We bought them. And then the other funny thing was we had that wood at the gate, the fence. Behind the fence, we still had all that property, like the woods and stuff. But when my dad went around the fence, he found like, I'm not kidding, 45 beer cans. And it was quite, quite an instant. So it's funny that your dad found beer cans like outside of your house because my friends were so cool. They thought it'd be fun to hide beer cans all around my house. So we would have parties at my house. You mean to get you in trouble? Next Thursday, I'd find whatever we were drinking, low and brown back then, probably. I'd find a lower brown can in the dryer or behind a picture on the bookshelf or something. These dummies would just hide shit around my house to try to get caught. I don't think I ever got, I don't remember ever getting caught. But I have to assume my parents knew that. I mean, I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did. I'm sure the neighbors were told, hey, just make sure no one really does anything stupid. Yeah, it was, it was, it was every weekend, whether it was at my house, if I was having a party or there was always a bonfire, there was always a football game. Someone's parents were always out of town or we would just go find an empty parking lot and go show complex and just sit there and have drinks. So I was what you called kind of a goodie. Like went out on Friday night to pizza with Nancy and only like my parents and my sisters, you know, like I did, you know, every now and then I would be invited somewhere or go to a party, but it was not a regular thing until I got to college. And that's where Elia became an expert dreamer. So in college, was it just like going out to bars or I like, I mean, I've never really been to college, but I like, is it just pre-gaming before the bars or the way it's, the way, yep, we did frat parties. We, I lived by my third year with eight other, you know, girls, women, and we would have just us getting a keg was a party because there was eight of us and then our friends would come. So it was like a big party. We pre-gamed. I remember pre-gaming on my 21st birthday. We took lemon drop shooters. I wasn't even, I didn't even get in the first bar. They said, no, you guys were wasted. Because you were too drunk. Wow. They did not let us in. How many people didn't get into a bar on their 21st birthday? I think I actually did end up getting into one because we just went around the corner. But we, in college, it started off as Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Those were kind of like big nights to go out. And then Tuesday would be trivia night. Wednesday would be wing night. Whatever it was, there was a reason to go out for everything. We also, so I went to school at University of Virginia and that is, I know people think it's just smart people. There is a lot of drinking. It is a very alcohol centric campus. And it is very hard to go there and not end up drinking as much as you do. Sure. I think you could say that about any, any major college. And now, won't your daughters go to one of the biggest party schools in the country? They do. They do. That's good. So, first, it was just kind of like the weekends. And then the weekends started earlier. And then by my junior year, I mean, literally, I think I was drinking probably five nights a week. But so this wasn't, you weren't doing any day drinking at this point? No, no. My day drinking didn't really start happening until that summer that Mike died. I, that's where I ended up, like I couldn't sleep. So I was having sleep issues, but I was also drinking. And then I would drink all night because I couldn't fall asleep. So when everyone woke up, my mom was there. My sister was there. I was still there drinking. Like I couldn't sleep. So it was almost like I was just wired and like not in a good space. But yeah. Okay. So we've kind of talked about drinking and how fun it is, you know, jumping into pools and parties and football games and bonfires. And that's cool. It's fun. It's a good time. But there are consequences, right? If you, if you don't tamper it, handle it correctly, or if you get a little out of control. So did you, it doesn't sound like you had too many consequences in high school. Did you have any in college? Or did you have consequences in high school? So I don't think I had any consequences in high school. I also, like I said, you know, you asked me if I was drinking every weekend. It wasn't that regular until I got to college. When I got to college, I, the consequences that I started having were more like bad decisions, maybe doing something that I wouldn't have done, uh, fighting with, you know, relationship issues. Um, I was having just like early consequences. I want to make sure that I say consequences are probably the number one thing that expedites an alcoholic getting sober. You're having fun until you're not. And then there are bad things happening. And I think I said this in my first episode, but I'm going to say it again. Cause it's really important. Every time I drink, something bad didn't happen. Every time something bad happened, I was drinking. Period. Always. Uh, I would lose my purse at the bowling alley. Oli would yell at me like just drama. There was always like, when I say consequences, drama, relationship problems. But I, I, that changed my senior year of college. I was actually home for the summer and I got my, got my first DUI. Your first DUI? My date. No, my DUI. Okay. A DUI. All right. I got a DUI and I was at PJ Skidoo's, um, for ladies night or something. I left my ID at my friend's house. She lived in Centerville, PJ Skidoo's. It was 10 minutes. She goes, just take, his name was Huffy. Just take Huffy's car. Huffy was. We're taking Huffy's car to PJ Skidoo's. The reason I told you, the reason I told you that is because it's funny when I, the reason I got a DUI is because I didn't really know how to drive stick and I was driving and I was driving and I was at a light and I rolled back into a car. Okay. I did not have any shoes on. I didn't know what Huffy's name was. So I didn't know whose car it was. Huffy was a name. Do you know his name now? John Huffstetler. John Huffstetler. All right. So I just, honestly, that's when, when things like that, that started a part in my life where drinking wasn't really always great for me. The one thing I always think about and I'll share with you guys is like, if I knew how bad my drinking was going to get, would I have stopped earlier? And so the one thing that I always say is I would really have quit drinking after college if I knew how bad it was going to get, um, I just, I didn't have the education. I didn't have the wherewithal. I also was in denial because I didn't really know any alcoholics. I was drinking with other alcoholics. Right. So you almost felt like it was normalized. Like it was totally normalized, especially when I was in Atlanta. And these are some of my best friends still to this day. They are super supportive of my sobriety and not drinking. I still visit them. I still, you know, it's still an amazing relationship, but we also, at the time, all of us were drinking kind of an unhealthy amount. Um, we called ourselves like the Savannah squares because we lived in Savannah square, but pretty much we just found an excuse to drink. Melrose plays Sunday, this Saturday, that, you know, everything. Um, Melrose like now. Um, but yeah, but things, you know, just slowly started happening. And by the time I left Atlanta and moved to Tampa, I was pretty much a full fledged. I could not control my drinking. I would have nights where I would say I was just going to have a couple. I'd be the drunkest one there. I remember I went to a work Christmas party and I wasn't going to drink very much. My husband, Mike had to take me home early. And that's embarrassing, but stuff like that. Everyone gets a Christmas party pass. Everyone gets a work Christmas party pass. I've been to Christmas parties, work Christmas parties. And after the first couple, um, I knew I had to arrange a ride. Um, I could get to the Metro, like my, like they would like take me out of the party, um, put me, make sure I got to the Metro. And then someone would pick me up and just put me to the Metro. I would somehow arrange to get a ride into work. Like I had to plan it, plan to be able to get home from Christmas parties because they're, that's a, they're a thing. I feel that. They can get nuts. So I, I'm not going to falter on that one. Um, but yeah, so the consequences were just getting worse and I don't want to sugarcoat it. And I, I don't want to dive into detail now, but like my drinking got really bad. I mean, there was certainly things happening that should not have been happening. Um, you mean like health wise? Did you have any health issues? Um, so I really never had health issues. Um, even though I'm pretty sure I was physically dependent, I never had like, like the shakes. I mean, I, I would wake up and be anxious and shaking and sweating, but like, that was kind of the extent of where it took me. I didn't have severe physical symptoms or withdrawal symptoms when I quit. So like we had talked about, um, previously, um, like my doctors would always tell me like your liver, your beat, your liver to death. Um, and I've got a little bit of cirrhosis. I mean, that was always the thing I've heard the word transplant. I I've heard you have to stop this. Never. I heard that. So you've never heard anything like that. No. Did they, did any, did they ever focus specifically on your liver and ask you specifically? I never had any. Wow. How much are you drinking? Nope. Never. Really? Never. I've never had any health issues. Yes, I'm a fucking asshole. No, I've never had any health issues from, I mean, yes, of course you're, you know, not productive, you're tired, all that stuff. But I mean, like seriously, like concerns. Luckily, I really didn't have physical issues. That's good. I mean, I don't know because I think it allows you to drink longer, right? Like if, if something isn't stopping you from, I mean, and that's why people end up stopping or going to rehab or going to AA, it's 99% of the time because there's some crisis event, a DUI, or you're in jail, or you're about to go to court, you know, that's the time people tend to get sober. So, yes, I didn't have any physical symptoms, but I also think that allowed me to drink longer. Even my husband told me he wasn't sure if I was an alcoholic at the beginning and he would call me like happy hour drunk. It was not. I was always drinking to get wasted. I mean, I was like the big drinker. Um, but yeah, not really. Like that was like, you would consciously say to yourself, I'm the wasted. No, I never. And I've noticed a lot, by the way, you say wasted, I say hammered. What that means? No, I, I never said I'm going out to get wasted. Rich has always had. I just went out and every time I drank, I didn't stop drinking. I just always drink more, more, more, more. I didn't have that stop line. That's how it was for me. That's how it was. Okay. So we've talked a lot about, um, you know, drinking through college, well, high school first and then college and then kind of ramping up as you moved to Atlanta. Um, for as long as I've known you, I've known you a very long time. You've always been very successful. You've always had a great career. Um, so how was that possible? Right. How did you get from, you know, drinking at least four or five nights a week? Um, and then go to Atlanta where admittedly, right. It was a good party with a span of whatever's. Uh, so how did you maintain a successful career for not even just that, but you still do. So I think there's a lot of salespeople that are alcohols. If you look at like personality wise, um, I got into sales in Atlanta, um, kind of haphazardly, but I was always going to like trade shows. I used to travel all the time. When I first got started in my career, I was traveling a ton, um, big shows, events. I was drinking at night. That's a strange to me. Airport bars. Yeah. I used to love drinking at airport bars. All of it. I drank through my career really. And it was impacting it. Not in terms of like, I've been successful as a sales person. Like I can do that. But like in my first real sales job, I remember one night and I was drunk. We were at some big event, my boss, who I was really close to, his name doesn't matter, but he pulled me aside and talked to me. I was so hoping your boss's name was called me. That would have brought everything full circle. No, John. So anyways, he actually pulled me aside and had a pretty direct conversation with me about what my life was going to be like. If I kept drinking like that, he had, uh, I think it was a cousin or something that had some, you know, he was telling me about that. I literally, it went in one ear out the other, like that didn't, I don't even think it was a pause other than, oh yeah, he talked to me and I continued doing that. I was always able to drink successfully, I guess, sort of in the closet, right? Like in my hotel room after dinner. So I could have two glasses of wine at dinner when I maybe wanted to have three or four, but at work, I would just have a couple and then I would buy it and go to my room. I always had a bottle of bourbon in my hotel room. So I was doing a lot of drinking by myself and this started early. I mean, even when I was in Atlanta, that's where it first started happening. Um, but yeah, I was just traveling a lot. And so I think my career, like being in sales, there's a lot of like taking people to lunch or dinner or a happy hour. Like there's a lot of drinking in sales. Well, because I also think maybe when, when you have a little bit of a buzz or you start feeling good, maybe some inhibitions go out the window. But like, don't you think you can, like you kind of build a rapport and you get a little more, a little more talking, maybe some good ideas come to your head when you're drinking. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you get a little chatty and everything gets going. Yeah. And it helped me. I mean, I had plenty of clients that I got drunk with. Um, I mean, I remember going to New York all the time to see my Lancome lady. Her name was Julie. And we would go get a really expensive dinner because my company was handboard. And then we would get wine and just drink the whole rest of the night. That, that kind of is just like, uh, some of the best deals you've made on golf courses. Um, I'm going to tell you one story. This is really bad. When I was in Tampa, two, three of us flew to Chicago to do a pitch for new business. It was with Career Builder. I remember that. The night before the meeting, the three of us that I work with, two people and myself, we met some Australian guys in the bar. We ended up, the bar closed. We bought a bottle, took it outside in the lobby. Like it was just like excessive. And the next day we had the meeting. We did terrible. But what happened was at lunch, I'm not kidding you. My cohort went to the bathroom and threw up before our food came. That's how much we drank the night before. Just making room. Throwing up at a lunch with a client. And we drank that night. It's better than doing a table. Yeah, but, and you would go on and drink again that night. So anyways, just stuff like that. I think for a long time, you can get away with drinking in sales. I think. As long as you're like delivering your number, right? If you're hitting your quota. Right. And luckily I've been able to do that. It, alcohol did start to interfere with my work. So like when I, right after Mike had passed away and I moved back to Virginia and I was, I did go to rehab, but I didn't, I kept drinking. Like that wasn't the one that stopped. I think I stopped for like a week. Um, but that is where it had progressed. And I was drunk on a sales call with a client. My boss was on it. And I just remember him saying, you don't sound all right. Maybe we should catch up tomorrow. So whatever. He let it be known. Like, he was like, get off the phone. And I'm like, you know, but that's when it started to, to really impact my work. Um, and I left that job and it wasn't because I was drinking, but that didn't help. You know what I mean? Like that was part of the end of it. Just too much drinking. So I, we're going to kind of wrap this up. I want to do two things. I want to tell, uh, my Mike story. Okay. Because I really only caught one really big fish in my life. And it was with Michael. And I was the best one to catch a fish when his, the, the, the outing he had. Wasn't that our wedding? Do you remember all the girls drink your cooler beer the night before? And you guys were pissed at 6am? We drink it all. I don't. We went to your hotel. We took all the beer and you guys were pissed. I'm shocked I had a cooler beer in the hotel. Mike probably did. Um, no, but I was, they're talking about, we went fishing. We took a bunch of guys out fishing the night before. And I think the, the, the fish that we caught on that boat, I think we took it back to the hotel and they put it, it was on the table at your reception. Oh my God. I don't remember that. It definitely was. That's awesome. And I was the last one to catch a fish on that trip. And they were talking about reel them up. We got to go in. And I'm thinking, shit, I'm literally the only one that didn't catch fish now. And as we're like told to reel them up, I got like a 25 pound kingfish or something. It was the biggest fish I ever caught. And it was with Mike on the boat the night before he went. And like that week was a really good week when you asked earlier. Like that was fun. Things were still, you know, yeah, a bit crazy just in terms of like behavior, but it was fun. And so I'm glad you caught a big fish. I did catch a big fish. I don't know that I ate it at your wedding. I didn't eat it at my wedding. So I don't know. Let's, let's, because I know we're going to get really deep into this stuff in another episode. But let's close this one out. Okay. Stick to the rules. Describe Mike one word. The word that comes to mind, I don't, I don't know if it's a good one. Broken.