#266: Blossoming in Sobriety: Sonia Kahlon’s Journey from Alcoholism to Self-Discovery

0:00:01 - (Kevin Lowe): Do you ever find yourself in that trap of looking at someone else and thinking, man, it must be nice to be them. They got it all. They got the dream marriage. They got a beautiful home. If only your life looked like theirs. Well, today's guest, Sonia Callan, you could say that she was that woman. She had the dream career. She had the beautiful marriage, and both her and her husband had graduated in the dental industry. She was an orthodontist. They had grew their business to massive proportions.

0:00:39 - (Kevin Lowe): They were doing amazing. And from the outside, her life looked perfect. But what you didn't see was what was happening on the inside. Because starting way back when Sonia was just a child, she would discover the power of alcohol. The alcohol helped the anxiety. It just made her feel good. And as she would grow up, she would find herself drinking a little more, a little more and a little more. While in dental school, she'd be going on three day bingers on her days off.

0:01:20 - (Kevin Lowe): After graduating, working, she's still drinking on her days off. It was an all the time occurrence until all of a sudden, something had to change. Luckily, she realized that for herself. Today, you're going to hear her story. You're going to hear the good times and the bad in her life, and ultimately, you're going to get to hear how she got to where she is today. A woman who is blossoming in finding purpose in her pain.

0:01:57 - (Kevin Lowe): This is the story of Sonya Callan. This is episode 266. What's up, my friend? And welcome to Grit, grace and inspiration. I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind. And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself. And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you.

0:02:27 - (Kevin Lowe): Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why or still left searching for that next right path to take, we'll consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be. Before we dive into today's interview with Sonya, let's get real for a minute. If it's Monday morning, how are you waking up? Are you waking up excited for the day?

0:02:57 - (Kevin Lowe): Can't wait to crush it this week? Or are you already dreading the mere thought that, OMG, here we go again. If you are anything less than enthused when you wake up on Monday morning, well, my friend, I encourage you to find your purpose, to discover your reason why, to identify your own personal north Star, because when you figure that out and then you start designing your life around that purpose, oh, my gosh, you start waking up on Monday morning as excited as you do on Saturday.

0:03:33 - (Kevin Lowe): If you want this kind of feeling next Monday morning, well, your next step is to text the word discover to 5544. Again, simply text the word discover to 5544. And I'm going to let you know how I can help you to make this happen by finally discovering your purpose.

0:03:59 - (Sonia Kahlon): I grew up in Toronto, and my parents were indian immigrants, so they were pretty strict growing up, and the main topic was always academics. So it was like, how are you doing in school? How can we do better? And so it was a pretty disciplined environment in that way. And I think that from an early age, that gave me anxiety, and I didn't know to put a word on it, but I think now I know that that's what it was. And so, yeah, I just had this kind of grew up with this anxiety. Always feeling like I wasn't good enough, so always feeling like my grades weren't high enough, I'm not tall enough.

0:04:39 - (Sonia Kahlon): And so things like that. And so I went on like that until I was like, 1314. I had my first drink, and I was like, this is amazing. This is it. This solves all the problems. All of a sudden, that anxiety was gone. I could relax. I don't think I had ever relaxed like that in my life. I don't think I ever let my guard down that much. And so, yeah, that was sort of my first intro to drinking and drugs. And so that was it. I was self medicating an anxiety issue, looking back.

0:05:14 - (Sonia Kahlon): And, yeah, as a teenager, I was before probably the drinking, like, very anxious and didn't fit in and very quiet and always felt left out. And then the drinking sort of changed that for me. I felt like it kind of gave me a new edge. And so, yeah, that's what growing up was like.

0:05:37 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Wow. Now, the way that you felt like with your parents sitting and just not fitting in, was that exclusive for just at home, or did it translate over to being in school as well?

0:05:49 - (Sonia Kahlon): It for sure translated into school, because I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, and I was just, like, five shades darker. And I think that I was always really aware that I didn't look like the blonde haired, blue eyed girls. And, yeah, it was hard to not understand why I was different, but to know that I didn't fit in and I didn't really know my parents were not really. We didn't really practice our culture that much. They were really assimilated, so we ate indian food. But I didn't grow up, like, watching Bollywood movies and having a lot of pride in indian culture, so I just felt different.

0:06:36 - (Kevin Lowe): Understood. Understood. You mentioned starting having your first drink. Would you take me back to that? Do you even remember that, your very first drink?

0:06:46 - (Sonia Kahlon): I do remember my very first drink. It was, like, probably a boyfriend when I was, like, 13 or 14 that had, like, a bottle of something, and I had a swig of some sort of hard liquor, and it burned on the way down, but then minutes later, just, like, very warm feeling. And after that, there's a lot of drinking in indian culture. And so my parents always had a bar in every house we lived in some sort of bar in the basement and filled with hard liquor, just filled with, like, johnny Walker and Crown Royal. And so after that, I started sneaking alcohol from that bar at night after everyone would go to.

0:07:37 - (Kevin Lowe): That only. Did it just continue to kind of get worse, would you say, all through high school years and then into college?

0:07:45 - (Sonia Kahlon): I would say high school was pretty stable. It's not like I would be hungover during the day. I didn't do it every day. Maybe a couple of times on the weekends I would test it out. And then when I got to college, it was my main way of socializing, and I don't think I ever socialized again without alcohol. And so it really made me kind of able to fit into different groups. And I always say I became, like, a mimic a little bit where I could fit into any group and kind of change my personality to fit the group. And I think the drinking allowed that, because I think when you're sober, it's very hard to do that.

0:08:30 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, to be quite honest, even if we separate the drinking aside, that sounds like so many young people trying to fit in and blending into each group individually.

0:08:43 - (Sonia Kahlon): Oh, yeah, so many. And I think I just never really had a really good concept of myself, if that makes sense. I didn't know who I was, so when I would kind of call it, like, code switch a little bit, it wasn't inauthentic in the sense that I had this authentic self and I was betraying it. It was more. I don't know who I am. So I'm going to try this Persona on.

0:09:09 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, no, absolutely. Now, your college, was it away from home? Did you move away from home?

0:09:16 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah, it wasn't that far. I'm from Toronto, and it was in Toronto, but I lived on campus, so a lot of freedom that I had never had.

0:09:26 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Amazing. Now, school for you, was it about studies? Because I know going away to college can do a lot for kids. I think we're thrown into this more adult vibe than we've ever been in. And for you, did you stay on top of your school, or did the partying take over?

0:09:48 - (Sonia Kahlon): So I think I've always had this sense that I have to do well in school. And I would say the partying definitely affected it. But I was always super aware that at some point I had to do something with my life. And it was like my parents were waiting for me to do something with my life. And so I always kind of kept it where it didn't seem like there was ever a problem. I didn't fail any classes. I mean, I wasn't doing great. I was just sort of, like, maintaining so that no one would really notice that there was anything going on.

0:10:23 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Now, what path did you end up taking in college as far as a career path?

0:10:29 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah. So with my parents, there was only a couple of options. It was like, you can be a doctor, you can be a dentist, you can be a pharmacist. And so I sort of just picked the one in the middle, and I became a dentist. So I left Toronto and moved to Boston, and I went to dental school. And again, just, like, not inauthentic career choice, but mean, did I love, like. Yeah. Did I have a burning desire to do a job with my hands?

0:11:03 - (Sonia Kahlon): No. But again, it was just sort of like an easy choice. It seemed like, okay, well, this job makes some money, and I won't starve, and I'll probably be able to marry some sort of reasonable human being. And that's it.

0:11:20 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, you check the boxes. So that's good. Now, talking about meeting a reasonable human being. Talk to me about that aspect of life. When did you meet the man who you would end up marrying?

0:11:36 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yes. In dental school, which I don't think is that unusual because you spend so much time there. And I met my now ex husband. And, yeah, we started dating. We were in our mid 20s when we started dating and both graduated dental school. We both did residencies, and then we got married. We were ticking the boxes. So, like, get jobs, get married, buy a house, and then we started a practice together eventually.

0:12:05 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, wow. Now, I'm curious about the drinking, because dental school is no joke. But were you still drinking? Was that still a part of you? The drinking all through dental school.

0:12:18 - (Sonia Kahlon): So for sure that dental school was so hard that my drinking took a backseat and I really just binge drank when I didn't have exams. So every four to six weeks, we would finish up a section and we'd have a couple of days, and I would just binge drink with my friends. And so it didn't seem that unusual because everyone was doing it. We were blowing off steam at the end of semesters and that type of thing. And so that was what my drinking was like throughout dental school, because there was really no option.

0:12:54 - (Sonia Kahlon): Right. I had to go to school every day from nine to. Sometimes it was like nine to seven and then come home and study. And so it really kept me on the straight and narrow, except for those times where I could kind of go wild.

0:13:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. I guess kind of talk to me and walk me through kind of the next stages of life as far as maybe what led to a turning point or the climax, I guess you may even say, with your drinking and with this direction that you were headed.

0:13:28 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah. So when I started working, I finally had a normal schedule. I worked from nine to six, and it was a really normal thing to me to come home and open a bottle of wine. And it started just like that, where I would come home, open a bottle of wine and felt like sophisticated and adult. And if I had a bad day at work, it felt way better. And it just made everything better. It made, like watching a show better. And so I think I never was used to just having a drink. That wasn't my method of drinking, my pattern. And so I don't remember ever starting at one glass of wine, but probably starting at like, two or three glasses of wine a night and then progressing to a lot more than that every night.

0:14:22 - (Sonia Kahlon): And when I say every night, I mean every night.

0:14:25 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Now, did your husband drink also?

0:14:29 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah, he drank, but he also smoked a lot of weed. And for some reason I gave that a pass. I didn't think. I was like, oh, it's not that big a deal, especially when it came time for me to kind of think about, like, do I have a problem? I didn't think, does he have a problem with weed?

0:14:46 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Understood. Talking about that, when was the first time that you ever even thought, do I have a problem?

0:14:54 - (Sonia Kahlon): So that normal schedule and normal drinking schedule went on for a couple of years, and then when we opened our own practice, we started working a lot more. So back in this kind of crazy, like, 1416 hours day schedule, and the only way I knew how to blow off steam was drinking. And so I was fitting my drinking into less hours and I was hungover every morning and I started to think more that I was unhappy, more than I thought. I have a drinking problem. I hadn't attributed the dissatisfaction with my life to the alcohol yet, and so I was pretty deep, I think, in a mental health crisis, too. I had lost sight of why I had started this business, didn't understand the point of working that hard.

0:15:46 - (Sonia Kahlon): I didn't see kind of a light at the end of the tunnel for how much I was working. And then on top of that, sort of, like, severe depression, anxiety, I felt terrible all the time, physically. Right. And so we eventually got a great offer to sell the practice. And it's when we sold the practice that I had that mental space to think, okay, this isn't just a problem that can be solved with antidepressants, which partly it can't. But there is another thing, is that you're using a depressant every night. You're using alcohol on top of this antidepressant.

0:16:24 - (Sonia Kahlon): And that's when I realized that there was definitely a problem. And I had a lot of family members to look to. To see an alcohol problem.

0:16:33 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Because you kind of talked about earlier about drinking, a big part in your culture. So was that still a big deal? Would you say that family members were alcoholics?

0:16:46 - (Sonia Kahlon): For sure. I would say, though, that men, like, I only really saw men drinking, so it wasn't like I saw my mom didn't really drink when I was growing up, but my brother definitely had an issue with alcohol. And so, yeah, it was something that I saw consequences of alcoholism and still thought I didn't really fit that pattern. I hadn't lost my job. I hadn't lost my marriage. I hadn't lost custody of any kids I didn't have.

0:17:17 - (Sonia Kahlon): So that was another thing that was hard to kind of admit, but seeing sort of that genetic link kind of also was, like, another reason to think maybe there's a problem.

0:17:27 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Now I have to kind of touch on one thing before we move forward, is, were you crazy starting a business with your husband? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

0:17:42 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah. I think what's interesting in our case is that we started, our relationship started while we were in school. So that was always sort of like a part. Our career was always sort of a part of our relationship, and then we both became orthodontists, and so that was, like, another part of our relationship, and it was pretty natural to start a practice together. It didn't start off. It started off when we started that I was still working somewhere else. He was still working somewhere else. It was like one or two days a week, and then over seven, eight, nine years, our practice was big, and we were there every day. But, yeah, looking back, I think you get to see a side of somebody that you haven't seen before.

0:18:31 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes, absolutely. That's just a whole lot of time to be with somebody all day.

0:18:40 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah, we had multiple offices, so it was not typical for us to be in the same physical location, but we were running a business together, so there was a lot of communication about the business.

0:18:54 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Now, you mentioned that you guys ended up selling the business. So what led to that, and what did you think you were going to do after it sold?

0:19:05 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yes, it was a random thing where I was looking for another orthodontist to work for us. So I contacted, like, a headhunter, and the headhunter said, have you ever thought about selling? I have a group that wants to buy orthodontic offices in Pennsylvania, and I had not even thought about it. I didn't even know that was an option to sell. And what made it attractive was that we had seven offices, and so they really wanted, like, a big footprint. And so, yeah, we were sort of the ideal practice for them to buy to start with. And I remember knowing I had to do it. I remember telling my husband at the time, we have to do this.

0:19:46 - (Sonia Kahlon): We need to get on with our lives. I don't think at that time, we both were not in love with orthodontics. We didn't have any hobbies or interests. We weren't close to our families, and I was really getting depressed. So this came, like, at the perfect time. I doubt he would have wanted to sell because the business was doing so well when we did if I hadn't pushed it. But it was, honestly, to this day, the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.

0:20:14 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. But, I mean, first and foremost, though, applause to you guys for building that level of a business. That's incredible.

0:20:23 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah, I would say things like that sometimes happen a little bit accidentally. It happens, like, accidentally at the beginning, and then we really started intentionally growing the business towards the end.

0:20:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. So what did life kind of look like and direction did it take after the sale of the business?

0:20:44 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah, I was really worried about that. So we stayed on. But I had a really normal schedule. I could work from home half the day and go in half the day and really be done by 05:00. And you can go to doctors appointments and the bank, and all of a sudden, this world opened up, and I think I sort of looked around with this extra time and thought, I don't have anything I like to do. I just was running this business for the last almost decade. And so I would pick up a couple of hobbies and then couldn't finish them, right? Like, I would pick up, I'm going to knit a scarf. And I would get, like, two rows in, and the scarf would be, like, under the couch.

0:21:30 - (Sonia Kahlon): I knew. I was like, you know what? It's because I'm drunk every night that I can't complete anything. And I was still feeling like garbage. So a few months after the sale, it was pretty quick that I thought, I have to do something about this. I don't know how even saying I'm going to do something about it means there's a problem. And I just kept thinking, let me try going a day. Let me try going a day. And I couldn't go a day without drinking.

0:21:56 - (Sonia Kahlon): And I just tried for, like, six months. And then I went one day. I went one day. I remember Super Bowl Sunday when the Eagles won the Super bowl, and I went that one day, that one Sunday, and it was amazing. It was like the world opened up. Like, I woke up. I felt good. Even that night, I remember, like, I was reading a book. I don't remember a book I read before that. I don't remember movies I watched. And so I knew that that was sort of the beginning, and I would try it again.

0:22:29 - (Sonia Kahlon): And then, yeah, opportunity came where I had gone out on a Saturday night, and I had, like, this vicious hangover, which was normal for me, and blacking out was normal. But I don't know. I guess I just hit this point where I was like, I can't do this anymore. And I was like, I'm not going to drink tonight. And then I didn't. And then I just was like, I'm not going to drink the next night. And then I didn't. And then, yeah, I started to string together a week and then two, and then a month and then a few months, and then probably around.

0:22:59 - (Sonia Kahlon): Probably around six weeks, I started telling. Not like, people, but I told my brother. My brother was in recovery by that point, and I was like, look, I stopped drinking, and this is why. So I was like, okay, yeah, I'm not going to drink. I think this is how my life has to be.

0:23:14 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Now, did you have help through a program like aa or anything like that?

0:23:21 - (Sonia Kahlon): No. So that was kind of the issue that my ex was very against me admitting I had a problem. Right. He didn't want me to use the word sober, and it was embarrassing. To him, he was somebody who was very in control of himself and his behavior, very intentional, very controlling in general of people around him. And so he didn't want to say, like, oh, my wife is out of control. And she had to stop drinking. So I just kept it to myself, and it was so hard.

0:23:52 - (Sonia Kahlon): I told my family, but I didn't go to meetings I wanted to. And whenever I would mention it, he was like, what if a patient of ours is there? What if a friend of ours is there? And I was like, yeah, that means they're there. They have the same problem. But, no, he was really against it. And so that was really tough. But luckily, I did have my brother. My brother was in AA, and so we talked a lot about aa and recovery.

0:24:18 - (Sonia Kahlon): That was definitely an issue that I didn't have a sober.

0:24:23 - (Kevin Lowe): I mean, first and mean, that's incredible that you were able to basically do it yourself, especially with a lifetime of drinking up to this point, basically, yeah.

0:24:37 - (Sonia Kahlon): And for sure, it sounds like I just woke up one day and quit. But it was really tough, and I had been thinking about it for maybe over a year, and so it was really tough. The first week or two, maybe even first three months were tough, like, physically tough. Learning to manage my anxiety without alcohol was really the hardest thing I've ever done, I think.

0:25:04 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, no doubt. Now, what did life kind of look like for you after this, after getting sober? How did life change in many different facets, from relationships to just your personal life?

0:25:21 - (Sonia Kahlon): My life was amazing, and so I felt great. I started exercising. I started eating better. You kind of want to treat your body better. I started volunteering. I'm really into diY. And so I was doing tons of crafts and DIY projects around my house, and really taking all that time that I had spent drinking and channeling it. I started doing a certificate in photography, and it was amazing and really kind of loving my life. And then probably a few years into the sobriety, and after the sale, I started writing about my sobriety a little bit and thought, I do have something to say. I have something to say. And really liked writing about it. And I would post it on my medium page. And then I was like, well, maybe I should take some writing classes. Started taking writing classes and writing about it more, and I would have my husband edit. And I realized probably too late, but he was, like, editing for grammar, right? Fine.

0:26:29 - (Sonia Kahlon): But he didn't comment on the meat of whatever I had written. He really didn't want to talk about it now.

0:26:39 - (Kevin Lowe): He didn't have a problem with you writing about it?

0:26:42 - (Sonia Kahlon): I think he did. I think he didn't vocalize a problem. And I think this is sort of the issue with relationships in sobriety, is that you have to be communicating all the time. Right. This is a major lifestyle shift. And I think that that's sort of where I went wrong, is I didn't ask him how he felt about my sobriety. I didn't. I just didn't. Or about me writing about it or telling people about it. I just didn't ask. I just assumed it was okay.

0:27:12 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. What would end up happening with your marriage?

0:27:18 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah. So kind of went on. It was funny. I was in the middle of writing something, and he had been kind of miserable for a while, so he didn't have the same reaction to selling the business that I did. It was not the world opening up. It was like the world closed for him, and his life got very small, and all he really cared about was starting another business. He couldn't figure out what he wanted to do.

0:27:42 - (Sonia Kahlon): Then he got really deep into crypto. We all know how that turned out. And so he was, I would say, like, not growing that much, but if he was, it was in a different direction. And so he had been really miserable for a couple of weeks. He's like, I hate my life. I don't feel like I have a purpose. Never anything about the relationship. Never said there was anything about the relationship. And then one day, he just woke up and he said, I think it's you. I think that you are too happy with your family. I have an amazing.

0:28:14 - (Sonia Kahlon): Not a very typical family structure, but I have, like, three nieces, two sister in laws that are my main family structure. And I loved being around them, especially sober. Who wants to be around teenagers when you're drunk, right? And then one was younger than that, and so I was really happy. And at that time, we were living in New York, and they had all come to visit in New York the weeks before this, and it was really fun.

0:28:40 - (Sonia Kahlon): And he said, you're just happy with too little. I wasn't interested in making that much more money. I was really thrilled with where we were financially. I loved my dogs. I just really liked my life. And, no, I wasn't striving for that much more. And I think that, in his defense, I had been a striver my whole life and our whole relationship. And then all of a sudden, I was like, I'm really happy. I'm just going to coast here and do this, and something will pop up that I really want to do. And I'll do it.

0:29:15 - (Sonia Kahlon): And he left. He left really abruptly, and that was devastating.

0:29:20 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I can imagine. But basically, it sounded like a situation where you were happy. He was not. You had kind of found the blessings in this life, and you make improvements to yourself where he didn't.

0:29:38 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah, I mean, that is sort of the cliff notes of it, is what. That's what it looks like. And unfortunately, I never got an explanation. He disappeared. So he left that day and slowly just started decreasing communication until within a month, he hadn't come back, and he had stopped texting, and I never heard from him again. After 18 years, I still, to this day, have not heard from him.

0:30:05 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. That's weird. That's weird. That's crazy.

0:30:09 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah. I reached out and with final kind of text, like, not sure what to do here. Haven't heard from you, going to contact a lawyer, nothing. And the best this is actually. And there's very little that's funny about this, but what is funny is that because we weren't in communication, I had to serve him divorce papers by using his doordash app and seeing where he was having food delivered.

0:30:40 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow.

0:30:41 - (Sonia Kahlon): And cross checking it with his uber. Like, our uber and doordash apps, and, like, okay, he's been here for two days. Let's go.

0:30:55 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow.

0:30:56 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah. So I can laugh at it now, but at the time. Oh, my God.

0:31:02 - (Kevin Lowe): I can only imagine. My gosh. I don't know where this fits into this timeline, if it was before or after, but I wanted to ask you about a specific birthday when you turned 45. I would love for you to tell me a little bit about the significance of that birthday.

0:31:24 - (Sonia Kahlon): So, that was this past year, 2023. After he left, I really struggled with my sobriety a lot and didn't know how I would stay sober and was just like, what did I do this for? What was the point? I'miserable. Like, I have no life. Like, this person who I'd built my life around is gone. And so it took a lot to kind of stay sober, and I did and went to meetings and just talked about it a lot with my family. Like, I feel like drinking, I feel like doing drugs, and just kind of really back to that day to day.

0:32:03 - (Sonia Kahlon): One day at a time, really went right back to it. After five years, I was struggling every day. So a couple of years later, I turned 45. And I always say to my family, I'm like, I wish I was further along. Like, in this healing kind of process. I wish I was further along. I wish I was further know. I really haven't had a relationship since, know, that type of thing. But what I had done is I had gotten an apartment in Toronto where my family was, which I would never have done if I was still married.

0:32:37 - (Sonia Kahlon): And I had started a company that does sobriety, like offers women's groups, sobriety groups. And so I had a meeting that day on my birthday with the ladies. And then my nieces and my sister in law were like, we'll come take you to dinner. I'm like, yeah, but my meeting is till like, eight. I have to walk my dogs after. By the time I'm going to be ready to go, it'd be almost nine. They're like, no, we're coming.

0:33:03 - (Sonia Kahlon): We went to a vegan restaurant and I remember just sitting there at like 10:00 on my birthday, on my 45th birthday, being like, this would have been impossible six, seven years ago. It would have been impossible three years ago when I was still married. This thing that is giving me so much joy, this moment would have not been possible, right? So if I had been drinking, I would have been on my 45th birthday at 10:00 p.m. I would be blackout drunk if I was still drinking. And if I was with my ex, we would probably be at some fancy hotel that he had picked at a fancy restaurant that he had picked, which wasn't really me either.

0:33:43 - (Sonia Kahlon): And so, yeah, this moment just crystallized in my mind where I thought, I love these people so much. This is unconditional love too, right? They are not going to leave. They're not going to leave. They're okay that I'm happy with too little. They're proud of me, that I'm sober. And, yeah, I remember getting back home and getting in bed and just being like, I'm so lucky. It still really hurts that I lost. My husband lost is kind of like that. My husband left and that life will never be the same, but it's different and it's really still good.

0:34:25 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, it's so beautiful. It's so powerful, that whole story. And yet I understand also the heartbreak as well. That's understandable. But to have that powerful realization of even just the difference between being sober to where you had been, and I would assume you kind of opened your eyes to maybe what you had been missing out on.

0:34:55 - (Sonia Kahlon): Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, if you think about when you're drinking, part of you has that shame of knowing that what you're doing is hurting you and people around you. And so you have this tendency to isolate, especially from people you're really close to. So I had isolated myself from my nieces and my sister in laws during that period. When I say I wish I was further along, a lot of things have changed.

0:35:24 - (Sonia Kahlon): I am just still a little bit heartbroken, but things have changed. Things are good.

0:35:30 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Amazing. Talk to me a little bit. You mentioned it briefly when you were sharing the story about your 45th birthday. Talk to me about this business, this company, organization, whatever it's called that does the groups. What led to that? What is it? Tell me all about it.

0:35:47 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah. So that was just directly out of a need that I had when the divorce was happening. During this breakup, I really needed sober support, and I knew it. It felt very like I knew intuitively, like, I need other people that have gone through this. And so I would check out meetings online, and that was another thing, right? Like, I travel a bit to Toronto and back to Pennsylvania, and I want to be free to go and see a friend. And so I didn't want an in person meeting, but I wanted something online, but not impersonal.

0:36:20 - (Sonia Kahlon): I still wanted to make connections. And the meetings that I went to just. That's not the point. The point is to share your story and then move to the next story. Right. The point is not to get feedback on your story. And the model is a drop in. So it's inconsistent. The people that are there. So some days there would be, like 250 people on a call, and some days there would be, like 75, and you don't recognize any of them. They kind of change. And I thought, this is not me. I need people who know me a little bit. Right. And so I need some consistency.

0:36:56 - (Sonia Kahlon): And part of it, too, is I didn't want to repeat this sop story every time I shared. And by the way, my husband left, and by the way, I feel like drinking. I needed some sort of continuity, and so I couldn't find it. I looked everywhere, know, kind of consistent sober groups, and it's just not what aa, for example, is about. A lot of things are based around not. That's a come one, come all. And I love that about aa, but I needed something a little bit different. Like, there should be somewhere everyone can go at any hour of the day.

0:37:32 - (Sonia Kahlon): I just needed something different. And so, yeah, I made it where we match people into groups, not, like, demographically, but kind of what you're struggling with. And you meet every week, sometimes twice a week, if that's what you want. And they know each other, so ever. Bloom's been around for over a year, and a lot of these women have been there for the whole time, and they know each other. They'll say, like, hey, what happened with your sister when you had that talk with her? Or, oh, hey, what happened when you went to this party? And I know you were nervous about drinking, and did you drink? And so what I wanted to happen has happened for sure in the groups and probably even more than I expected. Like, that connection.

0:38:15 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. I absolutely love this idea because, unlike you, just the way that you describe the other style of groups. Yeah, maybe there's accountability, there's support in being there, but there's no one kind of more or less, like, holding you accountable, like a family there as support. So I love that.

0:38:41 - (Sonia Kahlon): That's exactly. Actually, that idea came from my family when both my sister in laws have been divorced from my brother. Very unusual situation. And I would say my one sister in law I talked to every day and was like, I ate three tater tots today and a toast. And she's like, that's amazing. And I was like, right, yeah. Because yesterday I didn't eat almost anything. I think I had a yogurt yesterday.

0:39:12 - (Sonia Kahlon): And so that idea came to me that that's what I needed. I needed someone to say that my tater tots were amazing, that that was a step up. And the only reason she knew that is because she knew the weeks before I hadn't been eating that much and that I'd been nauseous. And so just that. Yeah, it was something about that that really hit me. I was like, that's what I need. I need that. But in a sober community.

0:39:36 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Talking about your sister in law, you and one of your sister in law, you have a podcast.

0:39:42 - (Sonia Kahlon): We do. We have a podcast called Sisters in Sobriety. And it really came out of me meeting with women all the time and hearing the things they're struggling with. And another void I found, which I didn't know existed, was a lot of women that I work with don't want to say they're an alcoholic. They don't want to say they're sober. They want to change their relationship with alcohol. And so I realized these people need to be able to go somewhere. They can't go to aa, either.

0:40:14 - (Sonia Kahlon): And so, yeah, we talk about a lot of different things in the podcast, and mostly how to change your relationship with alcohol and how that affects different things. We recorded this morning. Know, how does it affect dating which girl? Oh, my God. We just talk about whatever kind of, like, we set our topics based on things we've struggled with or things we have questions about. And so, yeah, I sure have struggled with, if you want to call it sober dating. And so we talked about it today, and I went through three of the worst dates I've ever had.

0:40:59 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, my gosh. That is too. The things you don't even think about. Yes. I love it.

0:41:04 - (Sonia Kahlon): Those things that linger, and you're like, what would I do if. Yeah. So I asked her, I said, what would you have done in this situation when this guy started drinking martinis and getting trashed at dinner? And she's like, I mean, you should probably get up and leave. And I was like, okay, I didn't do that. I probably should.

0:41:23 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, my gosh. So my next question that I want to ask you is, so at this point in your life, do you feel like you finally fit in? Do you feel like you finally maybe found what you want to do rather than what maybe your parents thought you should do?

0:41:44 - (Sonia Kahlon): Wow. Yeah, I've never thought about that. Yeah, I fit in now, but I'm not trying to fit in with people I don't need to fit in with, if that makes sense. So I'm a very quality of relationships versus quantity. So I don't have a ton of friends and a ton of people, but who I have are so solid and so consistent and so supportive that, yeah, I fit in. And so affirming, too, which is something I never grew up with and didn't have in my marriage either.

0:42:19 - (Sonia Kahlon): And so, yeah, I fit in. I for sure fit in. But, I mean, if I went out in the, like to a, like, do I fit? Probably not. Probably not. With the corporate crew that goes to happy hour at a bar in downtown Toronto. Probably don't fit in. Probably not. But I don't do things like that very often. I want to be around people that understand me now.

0:42:47 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Now, what about what you do as far as your everyday life work? You've talked about this whole organization you're running. Is that life? Is that work for you now?

0:43:01 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah, that's what I do now. And I can't even imagine having a better job. I can't imagine then talking to women about changing their relationship with alcohol. Yeah, let's go. Let's talk about it. I'm so passionate about it, I think, because how I've seen my life change, and I feel like I also have some experience where not everything changes for the better. My marriage didn't change for the better when I got sober. And so, yeah, I think I have a really honest kind of view of sobriety or when you're using alcohol as a crutch. And when you stop, what happens.

0:43:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Remind me of the name and where we can find this organization for somebody who's listening today.

0:43:53 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yeah, we're called everbloom and we're at joineeverbloom.com. And we're join everbloom on pretty much every social media or we're ever bloom on every social media that's out there.

0:44:04 - (Kevin Lowe): Fantastic. And your podcast, sisters in sobriety.

0:44:08 - (Sonia Kahlon): Yes, sisters in sobriety. I hope people check it out. It's fun, but there's some inspiration there and a lot of things for you to take home and think about. Like a lot of ideas to think about after.

0:44:21 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Well, I will be positive that both of those are linked in the show notes for easy access for anybody interested. Lastly, most importantly, thank you for being here today. Thank you for just sharing not only your story, but just who you are. I think you've obviously become a really amazing, beautiful woman who's found where she fits in in life. And sometimes that means fitting in just wherever you are, not trying to fit into a place or with a certain people, but you're who you are, attract the people to you, and I think you've done that.

0:45:01 - (Sonia Kahlon): Oh, thanks, Kevin. I mean, thank you for what you do. It's amazing how you pull these stories out of people and. Yeah, and it's so important what you're.

0:45:14 - (Kevin Lowe): Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And for you listening today, as always, my hope, my prayer is that something said here on the podcast can mean something to you. So if you find yourself suffering, if you find yourself maybe where our guest was today, back a few steps behind. Check out the show notes today. Get plugged into her world. Because remember, the most important thing that you can do when you listen to this podcast is to put what you hear into action. My name is Kevin Lowe, and this is Grace at inspiration.

0:45:50 - (Kevin Lowe): Get out there and enjoy the day.