Sobriety: The Journey, Challenges, and Fulfillment with Alex Zauner

The Creating Ripples podcast was designed to create empowerment, inspiration, community, and provide guidance to elevate those around us. Alex Zauner believes in the power of showing up and sharing our experiences + knowledge with others to create ripples of impact around us. We have the opportunity to create ripples, both small and large, everyday. Whether it’s smiling at a stranger or complimenting someone on a new hairdo, these simple acts can change the course of their whole day and everyone else they come in contact with. With honest conversations, sharing stories, “aha” moments, and more, Creating Ripples Podcast does exactly as its title implies. 

In this episode, Alex opens up about her sobriety journey after countless negative drinking experiences in college. Blacking out, causing trouble, fighting, getting bad grades, and making decisions she wouldn’t support if she was sober became her normal--something too many people can relate to. After waking up in a hospital and seeing how her drinking habits impact her relationships, she decided to make a change. She enrolled in an outpatient program and has been sober since September, 2014; her 24th birthday. 

Alcohol is a forefront for social activities and we see it in our lives constantly in phrases like: “Let's go out for drinks!”, “Drinks after work?”, or, “It’s Friday, drink up for the weekend”. Drinking has become the status quo! People don’t react well to the word sober, nor alcoholic. However, sobriety--removing something that isn’t serving you anymore--should be normalized without the negative perception that follows. 

Being sober has allowed Alex to be her best and truest self and show up for those around her. She is fun, trustworthy, reliable, supportive, kind, and resilient. She is creating ripples through her platform and reminds us that we can keep going, we are wildly capable of doing hard things, and there is a spot for you in whatever dream you are going after.

We also talk about…

College drinking cultureBlacking outStatus quosIntentionResilienceFalse narrativesComparisonThe “why” behind doing what you do

Alex’s Resources:

Creating Ripples Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creatingripplespod/Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandrazauner/Listen to Creating Ripples on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: .

It's Hard Resources:

https://www.itshardpodcast.comFollow It's Hard on Instagram if you don't already! I share updates on the episodes, chats about mental health and other parts of my life--go check out https://www.instagram.com/itshardpodcast/Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-hard/id1487375933NEW WEBSITE: https://www.itshardpodcast.comNow find us on TikTok! https://www.tiktok.com/@itshardpodcastJoin me in It's Hard. You'll love it as much as I do. https://it-s-hard.mn.co/feed?autojoin=1

It's Hard is edited by Sather Audio https://www.instagram.com/satheraudio/

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