Something Physically Held Me Down in That Car Seat — Five Seconds Later a Crash Sent Metal Flying Through the Seat Where I’d Have Been Sitting

Episode 61 | Natalie — From Brooklyn Moonshine & Croatian Moonshine to Cocaine, Custody Battles & 3 Years Sober: A Story of Synchronicity

In this extraordinary episode, Jimmy sits down with Natalie — a first-generation Croatian American from Brooklyn, New York, whose recovery story is unlike any other on the podcast. It spans moonshine at age seven, a supernatural premonition that saved her life at ten, ecstasy, cocaine, a toxic divorce, a restraining order served on her last day of rehab, and a grandmother who died at 5:55pm on 11/11 — and whose passing became Natalie’s rebirth.

Growing up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, alcohol was never a problem in Natalie’s family — it was a ritual. Every September her Croatian family would make wine and Rakija, a 150-proof moonshine so powerful you’d feel it in your chest from a single piece of fruit soaked in it. Her first sip of Hennessy and Coke came at age seven from a great-uncle who loved her. She climbed a ladder to the roof singing. She was hooked on the feeling long before she knew what that meant.

At ten, a force she still can’t explain physically held her down in the back seat of her brother’s car — preventing her from climbing to the front passenger seat moments before another vehicle’s grill came crashing through exactly that spot. Her brother pulled glass from his hands, crying. “How did you know?” She didn’t. She just knew.

Diagnosed with depression, anxiety and rage at 12, Natalie witnessed a murder on her corner at nine, grew up without a woman figure to guide her, and found alcohol, ecstasy, pills, quaaludes, acid, ketamine and eventually cocaine in quick succession through her teens and twenties. She crashed her car outside a police precinct in Coney Island at 20, stone drunk, and charmed her way out of an arrest. She was always the ringleader. Always the one who didn’t know when to stop.

A nine-year relationship and brief marriage brought a period of relative calm — until it fell apart. Then a second marriage, two daughters, a COVID baby born mid-pandemic and sent home from a C-section in 24 hours, postpartum depression, and a marriage imploding around her. Natalie found herself waiting every night for her children to fall asleep so she could drink herself into a stupor, cut lines of cocaine, and clean the house alone in the dark. She was self-harming. She was having heart palpitations. The alcohol stopped working. No matter how much she drank she couldn’t feel anything — so she’d add more cocaine, and feel her heart racing towards a heart attack instead.

Then her grandmother — who had helped raise her — died on All Saints’ Day at exactly 5:55pm. 11/11. The angel number for divine guidance. 5:55 — the number for change. Natalie didn’t grieve. She collapsed. And then she surrendered.

She checked into rehab on November 28th 2022, excelled — they called her Little Miss Sunshine, she organised karaoke every day — and on her final day before discharge, was handed a restraining order from her ex-husband. She went to jail in February for sending a text. She lost her job of 11 years. Her ex lived in her father’s house for 17 months while she fought for custody from her childhood bedroom in Brooklyn.

And through all of it — sh

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My Instagram is:

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And you can find all my other links at:

https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle

Buy me a coffee…

https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt

Alcohol Explained - William Porter

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This Naked Mind - Annie Grace

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A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

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Donate:

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