Episode 37: Celebrating My 3-Year Soberversary (And What That Even Has To Do With Languages)

In today's episode, I share a bit of the more personal parts of my life. Last week I celebrated three years of sobriety, and while it may not be obvious how this ties into language learning, I can say that the link between these two things is very strong for me. I can say for sure that my early experiences learning Italian while living in Italy had a strong impact on my self-doubt, which had a strong impact on how much and how often I drank in order to escape the stress and pressure I put on myself, the raw feelings of vulnerability and failure, and so much negative self-talk. And I can say for sure that how much and how often I drank had a strong negative impact on my language learning because, while I was trying to escape my negative thoughts, I also escaped the positive ones, and I masked the joy of progress I was making and the pride of what I was accomplishing in my language.

So this soberversary was a perfect time for me to reflect on the things that contributed to my downward spiral, with both alcohol and languages, and what I've done to start creating a life from which I don't want to escape. It's not a far stretch for me to see similarities between my journey to and through sobriety and my language learning journey, and some of the tools I used to get and stay sober have also worked for helping me improve my mentality about languages.

Thank you for listening to this vulnerable yet uplifting episode. I hope you get something out of it and are more inspired to create a joyful life for yourself with languages and beyond.

Here are some links to resources for anyone who is newly sober, questioning their relationship with alcohol, curious about sobriety, or just interested to know how an alcohol-free life might change their health, wellness, clarity, or anything at all:

Recovery Groups/Programs:
Tempest: Online Alcohol Recovery and Support to Quit Drinking
Sober Mom Squad
Sober Black Girls Club
Soberistas
Gay & Sober
Smart Recovery
Life Ring Secular Recovery
Sexy Sobriety
This Naked Mind

Sobriety & Recovery Podcasts:
Home by Holly Whitaker & Laura McKowen
The Only One in the Room by Laura Cathcart Robbins
Sober Black Girls Club by Khadi A. Oluwatoyin and J. Nicole
This Naked Mind by Annie Grace
The Seltzer Squad byJes Valentine and Kate Zander
A Sober Girls Guide by Jessica Jeboult
Sober as a Mother by Alyson Premo
Recovery Rocks by Lisa Smith & Tawny Lara

Reading Material:
The Temper by Tempest
My Goodreads Sober Book List
SobrieTeaParty Blog
Simon Chapple Blog
Laura McKowen Blog

Where to find me:
Love, Joy, and Languages Blog
All podcast episodes can be found here.
Instagram: @love.joyandlanguages
Twitter: @LoveJoy_Lang