012: Missi's Story: Changing My State

Missi joins Jason and John to share a story about a frightening childhood experience that reverberated through her life. Her desire to be someone other than herself and a need for validation led to a successful career as an actor and an entertainer. However, there was still a deep-rooted insecurity that drinking helped to quell temporarily. In recovery, she's discovered tools that help her stay sober and really connect with other people, not just her fellow addicts, in a deep and meaningful way that allows her to feel a daily sense of peace, purpose, and joy. We also talk about what the heck "A Higher Power of Your Own Understanding" means and how important that is to recovery. It sounds serious, but this episode is pretty hilarious, so give it a listen. You'll hear a lot of wisdom, and you'll find out how an on-set dildo accident still affects Missi to this day.

Key Topics & Themes Discussed

• Higher Power: How the hypocrisy and casual violence associated with her religious upbringing made belief in God difficult until she was able to create her own conception of the divine.
• Fellowship: The importance of walking the path of sobriety who share the same issue and can understand what you're going through. "In my phone right now I've got hundreds of numbers, and a lot of those numbers, I could call and just say hey, I just need to talk. And how amazing is that?”
• One Day at a Time: The simple trick of not worrying about what years of sobriety look like. Just focus on not drinking today. Can you do that? “That's all you got to do. Just do that today. Call me tomorrow. We'll talk again.”

Memorable Quotes

• "That was how I was raised. Like nothing was ever good enough. We were never good enough."
• "I just was a liar or a cheater. Like, I just, I was unfaithful in every relationship I was ever in. I just was uncomfortable. I didn't know how to be myself. I didn't know what myself was. I didn't have any confidence."
• So alcohol helped me with so many different things. And then before I knew it, I was drinking every night.”
• “I really was a functioning alcoholic. If you could think functioning, which is not really functioning.”
• “I remember him saying, like, ‘I just wish, I just wish that you could Love yourself.’ And I remember just being like, I love myself. Fuck you. I totally. Fuck you, man. I'm fine. You're the one who's got the problem. I didn't ever want to be wrong. I always wanted to be…in control.”
• “Creating a God of my understanding has been pretty awesome. Like what makes sense to me”
• “So it's like I'm just giving over to what I'm supposed to be here for and I have to do it every single day. And if I don't do it, a lot of the old stuff comes in."

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