0:01

This is Alcohol Freedom Finders. In this episode, you'll hear about Stacey's many attempts to find alcohol freedom. Stints in rehab, trips to the ER, months of AA meetings, and a lonely Mother's Day weekend drinking champagne that left her fighting for her life. But then how it was a book that finally helped her become an alcohol freedom finder. Let's dive in.

Stacey Crescitelli: 0:27

Silence.

Barry Condon: 0:47

a single mother and an empty nester and someone who's worked her whole life in hospitality. But she's got an amazing story. And I'm really looking forward to hearing more about it. Welcome, Stacey.

Stacey Crescitelli: 1:00

you.

Justine Clark: 1:02

So I'm so excited to see you that I'm going to come and fly out to LA and see you in person next week. So that's super exciting.

Stacey Crescitelli: 1:08

Can't wait.

Justine Clark: 1:09

I know, I can't wait, really, honestly. So let's get started. Why don't you tell us what's unique about your journey and what led you to this naked mind, and ultimately becoming alcohol free?

Stacey Crescitelli: 1:23

My journey is unique in that I am one of the people that you hear about but you don't think these things really happen, and that I had a very, very scary, near death medical event at the culmination of my drinking. like lots of others, I started drinking at a young age in my twenties and, you know, wine to relax, to socialize, to connect after work. And being in the hospitality industry, it was very easy to fall into that on a nightly basis. Ultimately what ended up happening, and we'll talk about this more later, is I ended up having a withdrawal seizure when I decided one morning that I'd had enough.

Barry Condon: 2:09

Wow. So we'll take us back a little bit to, to where, to where your, where you first sort of became aware that, that, that drinking was an issue for you.

Stacey Crescitelli: 2:20

became aware that drinking was probably an issue was actually not until my 40s. So at this point I've been drinking for many, many years. Several or many years of gray area drinking. And it wasn't until my second time being married. When my husband, who was not a drinker, asked me point blank, Stacy, are you an alcoholic? And I was aghast and I said, no way. I'm not one of those people. actually at the time I was just offended, it didn't give me pause. it started to snowball at that point and there were a couple of trips to the emergency room when he felt that I had gone too far and he was worried about alcohol poisoning. it wasn't until probably about age 45 that I really thought to myself, Hey, maybe this actually is a problem.

Justine Clark: 3:12

No, I totally get that. I think that sounds like, like, so common for many of us. We're not sure whether we're drinking too much. We kind of go, well, know how much is too much. What are other people drinking? How many units am I doing? Type into Google, am I an alcoholic? what, what is Was one of your biggest struggles there and, and in that process and how did you overcome that?

Stacey Crescitelli: 3:36

I really had a huge cognitive dissonance in my brain because the people that I socialized with were all from my work life and we all drank the same way I drank. when others were non drinkers or light social drinkers like my husband at the time, I thought he was the outlier. It never occurred to me that I was the outlier and that this was not normal drinking behavior. So I really struggled in this relationship and during this time. the constant questioning about my drinking and me being defensive and really just not knowing that how much I was drinking was just not normal. Because I could easily put back two bottles of wine every night. You know, that magic number, that two bottles of wine. I was doing that.

Barry Condon: 4:26

Yeah, well. That happened to be my lucky number as well at the end or unlucky number. It's, it is amazing though. I don't know whether it's a sort of, that's your mind playing tricks with you, but there are always people who are drinking way more than you around you. It just feels like, well, I'm not, you know, I'm, there's, you know, I don't drink like them, you know, that I think he might have a problem, but, but me, you know, maybe, maybe I get drunk once, you know, too often. And then, and you know, I used to feel that was a bit of a lightweight because, you know, I, I might get drunk before they did, you know, but I wasn't, you know. Drinking loads of whiskey and drinking in the morning and all that kind of stuff. So when did you sort of start to address it yourself then? Yeah,

Stacey Crescitelli: 5:08

the end I was always leaving that one little last couple sips in the bottle to drink it in the morning to ward off those morning shakes. And even then I still have the conversation in my head that maybe this has gone too far. my first attempts at reining this in were not of my own accord. These were, like I said, my husband was worried and he at one point during that really rough few years of drinking and being in denial, I did a five day stint in a detox facility. And even then I thought, well, you know, I just went way too far this time and after detox, I'll just rein it in. And I, I had no intention of quitting drinking even after leaving a detox facility.

Justine Clark: 5:55

I think it's surprising that what you said so far in the journey reminds me that alcohol sneaks in so insidiously into our lives that, you know, I like you and Barry was drinking two bottles of wine a day, some of it I was on a show that people would see I was drinking a bottle, but the other was the bit I was sort of self medicating to just make me to normalize my life. it's what's surprising is that alcohol finds a way to make us think it's normal. And that we have to do it. It's not like we're over drinking, we're having to drink that much just to stay, to stay level, right? So what what changed for you? What, what was the, I want to hear about how you stopped, because I know for me it's taken, it took a number of times, a number of ways, and I think that's really helpful to people who are on the journey to find out how did you make the change?

Stacey Crescitelli: 6:53

My change happened my journey included, I want to say maybe four or five or six day ones with a concerted effort to leave alcohol behind. And the first couple of times, like I said, after a stay in an ER and after the detox encouraged by my husband and my family, I went on a long ish string of days with no alcohol. But I always return, because the thought of never again, I, I just didn't know how to process that. And so, and I think there's just so much misinformation about alcohol and alcoholism and alcoholics, so that if I'd string together enough days, there would be a night where my husband would say, let's have a drink together tonight, as sort of like a Celebration, or Stacey, you've done so well, let's have a drink together. So, of this to a drinker's brain, and even to his non drinking brain, it's very confusing and it makes, it makes that journey, it just gives the journey more twists and turns. I'll say that. So, like I said, five or six day ones.

8:08

If you're looking to take back control of your drinking, why don't you join our Alcohol Freedom Finders 30 day group program. It's a great place to start. Because we approach it as an experiment, rather than a challenge. Whereas, as well as getting a great detox, you learn the science and the psychology about why you're drunk in the first place. So whether you want to stop altogether, or just become a more mindful and moderate drinker, why don't you give it a crack? Use the link in the show notes to sign up to our next 30 day program, and you won't regret it. Because no one ever woke up in the morning and said, I wish I'd had more to drink last night, did they? Back to the episode.

Stacey Crescitelli: 8:49

And to get back to how I finally did stop drinking, we're jumping ahead a little bit. I actually did a 28 day stay in inpatient rehab in 2016. And when I came out of that is when I put together quite a long string of days. I was alcohol free, say alcohol free because it didn't enter my mind. I was literally free from thoughts of it, but about two and a half years in, I thought, well, this birthday. The first of my friends is about to turn 50. I will go and have one glass. Surely that will be fine. And so I, I didn't plan it in my head as titled my relapse, but that's in fact what happened and it was back to the races very quickly. culminating in a very sad, despondent weekend where I just went off the rails and when I came to on Tuesday morning, I said, that's it. I'm done. And went about my day until things started to go sideways. I ended up having an alcohol withdrawal seizure. I spent three days in the hospital and seizure was so intense and lasted so long that they pumped me full of so much that I didn't wake up for almost 24 hours. So that's a scary ending to a drinking story, right? That's a scary end.

Barry Condon: 10:19

that's, that's unbelievable. And, and, and it really, it really shows you how how easily that's done. You know, cause it's just like, you know, we've all had a big weekend, you know, where, where we've drunk way too much on, you know, twice as much as we normally would or whatever. And it wasn't as if you were guzzling liters of, of, of, of whiskey but your body reacts, your body defends itself. And, and I guess that's what, what we think of withdrawal as something as your body pining for it or something. That's how I sort of envisage a withdrawal. It's something, you know, your body's pining for something and it can't deal with the withdrawal, but it's actually your body just sort of trying to protect itself from from the next onslaught and, and, and then it doesn't come. And so it's sort of overstimulated trying to protect yourself from the sedation. That's terrifying though. So how, how, what, what happened next?

Stacey Crescitelli: 11:08

I read a lot of stories about people who talk about multiple episodes of seizure in their history. was terrified to my core. When I woke up in the hospital and it, they didn't piece together what had happened to me for several hours after I came to. And then they finally said, and I was so ashamed and I was so frightened and terrified. And my, my first thought was, what if I had died? What if they had told my son that I drank myself to death? And still right now that that gets me so choked up because that was not my intention. I was just drinking bottles of champagne. my house alone because it was Mother's Day and I was by myself. I was, I was sad and despondent and I had no intention of harming myself, but I drank myself into this situation. I knew laying there in that hospital that I was done. And one of my friends, my best friends that came to visit me, came in the room and said, you done? Because they've watched me go through this up and down cycle of I drink, I don't drink, I drink too much. I'm taking a break. And now here I am lying in a hospital. those words, are you done? They just, they sat on me like a blanket. I, I knew in my soul that yes, I'm done. then when I come home from the hospital, I'm done, but how am I going to stay done? Because this has never stuck before. And now it has to, and I am just at a loss. Okay. I'm terrified,

Justine Clark: 12:52

I look, I resonate with that so much. I'm sure so many people do so you feel powerless and that alcohol somehow got this power over you and you're doing something you really don't want to be doing and it's just dawned on me Stacy actually that this whole withdrawal and craving cycle. Lots of it is happening at a subconscious level. We don't even, we're not even consciously aware of what we're doing. None of us wants to become a heavy drinker. None of us wants to end up having a seizure from withdrawal. It's, and that's where fear is taken away with the kind of work that we've been doing is Instead of dealing with the conscious behavior, to decode the subconscious behavior. So we tackle the withdrawals and the cravings from underneath, the subconscious where they've been programmed in. And how did that work for you, Stacey? How did you go from going, I don't know what to do, I can't do this again, to finding your way to where you are now?

Stacey Crescitelli: 13:55

I am a very spiritual person and sitting on my porch one day after coming home from the hospital. I, I just heard a loud, a strong voice said, you will go, you'll find an AA meeting and you'll go. And I didn't want to, I had been to a couple before and I did not belong there. I did not belong there, I found a meeting and I went whereas the times when I'd gone before, I didn't feel like. I didn't feel like things were bad enough for me to be there. Now at this time, I thought, wow, I am definitely one of these people. And my story is shocking. And I went and when I told my story, nobody was shocked. Not one person, nobody raised an eyebrow. I was just another person. in a room full of people that we all shared this same affliction. And the connection there that I found was the first stepping stone on the road that eventually led me to my true freedom. And that, that was like the piece that I just said, it was connection. were people there that knew exactly what I was going through and we're all in this struggle together. The difference for me was that I never subscribed fully to the fact that I was diseased with something called alcoholism. inherently always knew that if you do something long enough it becomes part of who you are so when you over drink this substance, of course, you run the risk of becoming an alcoholic if you over consume alcohol. I already had this thought spinning in my head, but that's not a premise that is alive and at the forefront of AA. So I had this, I had this comfort in the rooms, but I had this brain full of different ideas.

Barry Condon: 15:55

Yeah, I think it's, I think, I think the community. Connection, you know, it is the sort of antithesis of, of, of addiction and, and that kind of lonely struggle. So yeah, that's, that's definitely the, the, the, how the power I can see in, in, in in AA. And I think, you know, for a lot of people just following a set of rules and, and, and saying, you know, I give myself over to, you know, I'm powerless and I give myself over to. This way of thinking and way of a way of acting, you know, it works. It works for people, but it's not for everybody. And it certainly wasn't for me. And I think for a lot of people they don't feel they belong there. And I think, like you said, you know, it took, you know, something really extreme for you to feel like, oh, I fit in here because it feels like that is very much the, you know, you know, You have to hit a rock bottom before you can be accepted So how long did you, how long did you go to a for?

Stacey Crescitelli: 16:52

went for four or five months, and around that time, some little tittering talk in our meetings was starting to happen about a book that was called This Naked Mind, and I would hear it in sort of whispers in little private side chats, and it really, Peaked my curiosity because these conversations about this book were immediately shut down every time the words were mentioned. And so Kind of in a, in a naughty way, I was really interested in finding out what this book was about because it was so taboo in the meeting. So I got the book This Naked Mind by Annie Grace, sat down with it and immediately was just so engrossed. And I don't know how far into the book she states, it's not your fault. And that is what did it for me because I don't know, is that human nature? We just want to know that whatever has happened, it's not our fault. So in reading, her, her take on alcohol, like the scientific and the neuroscience part of it, about what alcohol does to your brain, what it does to your body, that it's an addictive legal drug, and that it's not our fault when we become addictive, sold. Read the whole book in one sitting. And It was the piece for me in my inquisitive brain and these thoughts that I'd been having about Alcoholics who drink a lot of alcohol? It all just made sense. It was it it was the best day I just I felt that was when my my freedom arrived I knew right then and there that I was going to be okay and that this wasn't going to be a life of meetings and of raising my hand and introducing myself as an alcoholic and society labels. it was, it was like a crown. Like I just, I walked free that day.

Justine Clark: 18:59

Amazing. Stacey, and I think that's something that people need to hear. You know, we, we, we all have a unique journey and a unique way to find freedom. For some of us it is A. A. For other of us it's, it's this naked mind or a combination of both or another way. of us become spontaneously sober. It happens like that. Some of us have to work a lot harder for it. What would you say to somebody else who, who knows they have to change, they feel it in their bones that it's time to change? But they haven't yet started that process.

Stacey Crescitelli: 19:36

I really can relate to those people and empathize and being a coach now, that's my passion. And What I want them to know is that it is possible. No matter how entrenched you are in alcohol culture, no matter how much you're drinking, possible to get free, there's some work involved. There's a lot of self work, and that's the piece I didn't get to experience until later. I became free first, and then I did the self work, and for most people, or many people, I should say, maybe that is in the opposite order. there's, there's questioning. Why are we drinking? What is it that we're really seeking when we drink? And for me, I was seeking connection. I, I was just grown up as such an introvert and a shy person. I didn't know how to connect with other humans. until I put on that layer of alcohol, which then I'm connecting with people who are not themselves and I'm not myself because alcohol does that to us. So I like to walk my clients through that, through the why what are, what are some better ways?

Barry Condon: 20:52

Yeah, that's amazing. I think that that's one of the biggest differences I think with this naked mind and, and the way that, that we as coaches also look at alcohol. We, we see alcohol as the problem, not, the problem. You know, as you said, it's not your fault. You're, you're, you're drinking something that is addictive. So you're just, you know, acting naturally by, you know, when you over consume it, it's because it's addictive. And I think by understanding the way that the science works, it gives you the power yourself to, To solve the, the, the issue to, to, to step away from it and, and gives you back the power where, where, where Alcoholics Anonymous wants you to feel powerless and, and follow the system almost like joining the army and being drilled to follow the, the, the, the, the, the, a strict path, you know, for some people, you know, they're, they're cut out to be that sort of regimented but, but for, for, for me, I'm, I'm inquisitive and, and, and, and want to and like to. Problems myself and and it was in Congress, you know with the rest of you know, how to think with the rest of my life and Yeah, it's just amazing and for me it feels that that that's that's The way that we're able to Detach ourselves from alcohol and look back and go. Oh, that was why I did it but now I understand I don't need to and I don't want to and I don't have to and it's And that's the the finding of the freedom and not the finding of the being able to say no I don't know how you feel about that and and and how you look back on, on, on alcoholics anonymous now,

Stacey Crescitelli: 22:33

said everything you just said, and thank you so point for how I think. Think that AA definitely has a place for people, maybe as a piece of their journey. For me, it didn't resonate with me. to sit there for the rest of my life and label myself an alcoholic. And now five and a half years free from alcohol in that land. If I were to go to an AA meeting, I'm supposed to say, I'm Stacey and I'm an alcoholic in my brain, alcoholics drink alcohol. And I don't, I don't drink it. I don't think about it unless I'm coaching someone through it. And it just takes up zero space in my brain. So there's no way that I could be an alcoholic. And that's, where I am today. And that's me. Everyone chooses their own journey. me, I needed the science piece behind what alcohol is and what it does and why, why I needed the why. And

Justine Clark: 23:31

Yes,

Stacey Crescitelli: 23:32

when I got that is like I said, when I, when I gained my freedom,

Justine Clark: 23:37

I love that. We needed to understand why. So on that note, have you found the most surprising about being free from alcohol?

Stacey Crescitelli: 23:49

the thing that I found the most surprising is that I am okay. And I like me. And yeah. I didn't know how to like me before. I would never say I didn't like me. I didn't know how to like the parts of me that were different than other people. And again, I'm going to go back to this. I used to be so shy and such an introvert. And when I say that to people now, they just roll their eyes because in many situations I over talk and overshare and it's. It's just from freedom. I'm just me. I'm okay to be me. I like me. I like life. Life is adventurous and exciting and it's not scary. And yes, there's pieces of it that are, but they don't require me to numb with alcohol and it's just, it's, it's awesome. And I just, I want it for everyone. That's really why I became a coach.

Barry Condon: 24:48

that's brilliant. I mean, that's, that's, that's it. That just, you know, I couldn't have said it any better either. That, that just, yeah, that's why I'm inspired to try and help other people as well, is because you just want them to realize that, you know, This is possible and they don't need to keep doing, you know, banging their heads against the wall. The question we like to ask everybody at the end is to come up with the three words that best describe their their, their journey of finding alcohol freedom. Can you explain? Great. We'll put that in the

Stacey Crescitelli: 25:20

learn, and rise. And that That sums, yeah, that sums up my journey perfectly. Learn, I, I needed to learn. I learned so much, like I said, about alcohol and our brain and our physiology and that alcohol is a legal drug. I needed to learn all of that and grow. I did so much self growth and I'm still in the process of, like, it's a lifelong journey learning about myself and where I fit in the world and how it's okay that I'm unique and not like someone else. And that growth is such a gift it's helped me rise and I want to continue to rise. That's, Rise up. You

Justine Clark: 26:08

that's wonderful, and that's a wonderful way to end our session. Stacey, if people are looking for some coaching from you to rise up, where will they find you?

Stacey Crescitelli: 26:19

can find me on Instagram. It is Stacey underscore Crescitelli underscore coaching. I'm on Facebook as well as Stacey Crescitelli health and wellness coaching my website staceycrescitelli. com.

Justine Clark: 26:34

Amazing.

Barry Condon: 26:37

show notes now. Thanks so much for joining us. It's been amazing.

Stacey Crescitelli: 26:43

awesome.