One Mom's Journey to Overcome Alcohol Use Disorder w/Crystal Fedeli

J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 0:02 Tired, Weary, Frustrated. What would you be doing if you weren't raising children alone? What's stopping you from living your best life now? On Solo Moms! talk, I discussed with solo mothers the challenges you face raising children alone. So if you're a working solar mom dealing with independent children, insensitive bosses, weight and health issues or even debt collectors, join us as we discover your path to get and stay healthy, increase your income and live with joy and purpose. My guest today is Crystal Fedeli. Thanks for coming and talking to us on Solo Moms! Talk. Crystal, I appreciate you. Crystal Fedeli: 1:08 Yes, thanks for having me.

J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 1:10 Sure, First thing I always want to know is who is Crystal Fidelli? Crystal Fedeli: 1:16 Yes, so my name is Crystal Fidelli and I am an alcohol recovery coach, and I help women reclaim their power over alcohol, go from alcohol wreaking havoc in their life to gaining total power over alcohol, so they can finally be free to create a life that they love, one where they look forward to each and every day. J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 1:36 Okay, all right, thank you. And how did you get into that? I mean, usually when someone choose a career, it's as a result of something happening or something they saw, so tell us about that. Crystal Fedeli: 1:51 Yeah, so basically that is just my personal story. Alcohol used to wreak havoc in my life professionally, socially, personally, my health, just everything. And I suffered for nearly a decade trying just the way we approach people who suffer from alcohol use disorder and I just was never able to get better. And despite really truly trying with my whole heart, just everything, truly trying and. But then I was finally able to find another way and literally within two to three months I just got better. It literally took only two to three months.

J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 2:36 Okay All right, so that's awesome. Now I remember working with a guy once. He was a PhD studying addiction, right, and we have this big argument because I believe that anything can be cured and it seems that the medical profession doesn't believe anything can be cured. Would you say you were cured of your love of alcohol, or would you? How do you view that? Crystal Fedeli: 3:08 Yes, I believe that I was. So when we talk about cured like I, so I believe that we are. How do I describe this? We're getting into dangerous territory here. So I believe in God and I believe that God designed us to be like a certain way. So, for example, somebody who finds they have a hearing loss right, originally their ear was designed to be in everything supposed to be in place, everything supposed to be the way it was supposed to be, and therefore they're able to hear right, like my really good friend who wears the hearing aid. But unfortunately she was born with the inner working of her ear just not the way it was supposed to be. So we have a device called like cochlear implants, is it or something? Yeah, that sounds right Like the implant in the ear. Excuse me for anybody who knows better than I when talking about this. So it's kind of like her device that like helps you, her device that like helps her, right? Oh sorry, something happened on the screen and so would I say that she's completely cured. Well, no, she's not completely cured, because that would be whatever a miracle happening in the ear and everything's put into place. But she's in remission is what I would say. So now, when it comes to alcohol use disorder, I would say that I'm more in remission because the neurochemical disorder, it's not in order. My brain is still out of order, and so I just need the help of what I use to keep me in remission. So does that make sense?

J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 4:58

Am I making sense? It does make sense because it's something I don't particularly really understand and it's not because I haven't been around it. I've had relatives who were succumbed to the effects of alcohol and personally I don't understand how they do that, because I've resisted it. So when I hear that there's no cure, that's telling me there's no hope for anyone.

Crystal Fedeli: 5:27

Oh, well, that's not true. There's so much hope. Okay, we just have to kind of like I would say, the Bible said again I'm a Christian, so I'm always going to take the Bible.

J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 5:38

That's okay, I'll keep going.

Crystal Fedeli: 5:40

Awesome, but it's Romans 8.32, I believe. That says if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. Now, the passion translation I like a lot better because the passion translation is I know that it's like controversial, but the passion translation, but I think that it really kind of translates in a way that we understand. As what are we in the 21st century? Yeah, 21st century, yes, I always mix the centuries up. You know day people, modern day people, so anyways. But it says if you accept the truth, then you will be set free. So it's not just knowing the truth, it's accepting the truth. Now, I think these are the two hurdles that we really have to cross when it comes to understanding alcohol wreaking havoc in somebody's life. We have to know what the truth is. But then I found that there's this second step of people actually accepting the truth. It's just so hard for people to accept it. And now you say that you know you have a hard time maybe understanding, like, why your family members, you know, are finding the alcohol wreaks havoc in their life because you've resisted it. I like to always liken it to like other medical conditions that we have better understanding of, for example, somebody who has a prosthetic, a prosthetic leg or something like that. Right, no-transcript. We don't really understand personally how it is to be them, but we can see that they need a prosthetic leg to be able to walk onto legs like we can with our full and tapped legs or whatever. Well, somebody who finds that alcohol is wreaking havoc in their life and they're really not able to get a handle on it. They just need certain interventions that maybe we don't because we don't have that medical condition, and so I'd be happy to get more into this science behind it of what the heck I'm talking about. But does that make sense? Am I making sense?

J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 7:45

Yes, yes, it does make sense, thank you. I always I've heard a few people come on here and talk about addiction, and we just kind of talk about addiction, you know, but we never really tried to pull it apart a little bit. I mean, it's controversial because we who believe believe in healing and cure right Whereas some people don't and feel, you know, this kind of stuff is beyond our control, and I just wanted to touch on that. I'm not yeah, I try not to be controversial on anything, but you know, I have certain beliefs and I like to bring it out just in case somebody else does too, right?

Crystal Fedeli: 8:25

Yeah, well, I believe in full healing too, Like I believe in miracles I haven't really seen one in my lifetime. I know people who have and I would. I pray for that power every day. Like Jesus, I know you gave it to us, it says it right here in the Bible. But I don't have it and I'm not going to blame other people around me like, oh, they don't have that faith for it. No, no, no, no, no. Like Jesus healed many people who didn't have the faith and that's how they got it. It's the faith that is because it happened to them. We don't have to get into that controversy. But I believe in the leg growing out and, until then, I believe in the prosthetic helping that person walk right. Am I going to deny them that? Because, oh, no, it should have been. The leg should have grown out when I prayed and it didn't. So no prosthetic for you. No, that's silly. Yeah.

J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 9:10

I got it yeah.

Crystal Fedeli: 9:11

You know, it's the same alcohol use disorder. Yes, I would love for somebody to truly just have the cray things, that obsessive thoughts, just go away by a miracle. I would love that to happen. Or just be able to have a drink or two and truly be able to put it down and not even realize it, instead of like I need more, more, more, more right. Or to truly just be like I, truly just, I don't have a desire for it. I would love for that to just happen through a miracle, and until that's able to happen for every single person, for the people who are not, we have other interventions, just like a prosthetic leg, right? We have other interventions, right?

J. Rosemarie (Jenn): 9:50

Okay, all right, sure, thank you. All right. So let's get into your story. How did it happen for you? Did you have some kind of trauma? And, if you did, tell us about it and tell us the journey from crystal, you know, newborn and you know everything seems to be normal until you needed. I'm going to say this and I say it with love you needed a crutch to get through life, yeah, yeah.

So before. So disclaimer before I start sharing. So there's this deep seated belief that somebody who has alcohol wreak havoc in their life, that the root cause is because of a trauma or because of mental health disorder. I completely disagree with that. I think the research data and statistics really just show us that that's false. Now, I'm not saying that never happens for anybody. It might sound like I'm always talking about research, because one of my grad degrees is in research analysis, so I'm just very research heavy. But you know, and so what I'll say is is that in every research study there's always outliers, so there's always going to be the outlier of where the root cause was because of mental health or, you know, like a trauma. That happened right. The difference for me and this is where, like this, is the part, this is the very important part right, a trauma or mental health disorder may cause somebody to pick up a drink to self-medicate. My whole point is that that's all well and good, I don't care why somebody picks up a drink. My whole point is, when somebody has a neurochemical disorder, a disorder of the neurochemistry, one's body, one's brain which the brain isn't just here, it's all over in our body is disordered, right, and so they can't stop. They can't put the drink down even if they wanted to, right, because they have a physical addiction to alcohol. That's the difference. So somebody who doesn't have alcohol use disorder, for which the cause is a neurochemical disorder, right, they can put that down if they want to. They won't get the physical cravings, the obsessive thoughts, all that kind of stuff. That's not who I'm talking about. That's behavioral. That's a very small subsection of the population. I'm talking about the large majority of the population who literally can't put the alcohol down. They can't stop over drinking and they can't not drink for long periods of time or forever. That's who I'm talking about. So I just wanna kinda qualify that before I say what I'm about to say, because I did have a traumatic childhood. I did have trauma and I think it kind of made me even more victim of our treatment system. Because of that. It was like a ding against my record almost, because then everybody's like oh, she has trauma, good, that is the real cause of her alcohol issues and we need to solve that trauma and mental health disorder and then the alcohol use disorder is gonna get better. Well, after 10 years of literally miserably failing time and time again, with consequences to my professional life, my personal life, my relationships, all that kind of stuff. I think it's actually torture to put someone through that. And there's a ton of people I know who have never had a trauma. Their family loves them, they support them, and they find themselves physically addicted to alcohol. And then what I'll say is, once I was able to find the intervention that I use now, in two or three months I got better. And then after that my mental health healing skyrocketed because I was finally not physically addicted to alcohol and I was myself and I was able to concentrate on the mental health stuff and it just skyrocketed and I wasn't re-traumatizing myself over and over and over again, because when you drink too much you put yourself in situations that re-traumatize yourself Just how alcohol. It's a toxin, right, so it just kind of knocks the hormones and everything out of whack and that makes you feel terrible. So yeah, I just wanted to kind of qualify that. But yes, I had a very crummy childhood. It wasn't even good for a while. It was right. When I was conceived, my one parent didn't want me to come to be Crystal Fidelia, you know, a fully birthed human. They wanted me aborted. So I'm told so, and it was just nothing but trauma from the beginning. Really, yeah, there's just yeah, there's a lot of trauma that happened in my childhood and I was eventually removed from custody. I was a recipient of Child Protective Services in the state I live in the United States and then in my 20s I just allowed myself to be re-victimized over and over again by men and I really had no family whatsoever in my 20s until I got pregnant with my daughter at 27, which I really don't know how it didn't happen until I was 27. I should have had multiple kids by that time but, irregardless, I found myself pregnant with my daughter and her father basically was like if you want to go forward with your pregnancy, you'll be on your own. And so I went forward with my pregnancy. Obviously I was on my own and now I'm married with two children. But it was. You know, it was pretty hard, but she was the first person that I could ever love and that unconditionally, like, loved me. And right after I had her really is when I found this new way of treatment that I use and that I got better in two to three months with and that now I use in large part to help all of my clients finally reclaim their power over alcohol. And now I'm. Now I'm good, now I'm better.

Okay, all right, thanks, um, I. I don't want to go back into the discussion. We just have um, because you answered the question in a way that I think is satisfying. But what role does your faith play, or did your faith play, in you being able to control your consumption of alcohol? I wouldn't say, if I if I phrase that correctly, you know, forgive me for not using the right term.

So, no, no, no, it's okay, it's just a conversation, you know, um, so I would say my faith is paramount in everything like in my life. For me personally, um, my faith, you know, jesus is who I go to first and foremost, for everything, and Jesus determines how Jesus wants that answer carried out. You know, and so you know, and so I believe that my faith gave me the strength to keep going and to keep searching and to just persevere um to find. You know what the answer was? Um, which, which is, you know, my, my whole thing. It's, it's totally anti the system. Um, it was such a hard ordeal, even gaining access to this treatment, um, you know, but I believe, you know, my faith is what just just kept me. You know, throughout, throughout everything.

Um, yeah, okay, All right, thank you All right. So what is crystal grateful for today?

Oh, I'm grateful to be here, I'm so grateful to be sharing my story. You know, instead of living in it still, um, I'm, I'm. I mean, the story is still going right, but it's post alcohol wreaking havoc in my life, you know, and if it hopefully doesn't come up again, but if it does, I know what to do. Right, I know exactly what tools I have. I know the research, I know the solutions. Thanks Bye, I'm free. I have this knowledge for the rest of my life.

You know, yeah, yeah, thank you. All right. So how can we get in touch with you, like tell us what you do and what you can do for us, our audience, mainly Solar Mom. So tell us.

Yeah, yeah. So basically I'm an alcohol recovery coach and I have my signature program how to reclaim your power over alcohol 90 days to gain total power over alcohol. So that's my program and really in this program what we do is we learn all the different passive treatment because the system is going to tell you that there's one way, and one way only Accidents and normally it's through sheer willpower if you cannot control your alcohol assumption. First of all, it has a 99% failure rate. There's a reason why you're not able to be successful. You're not a part of the 1%. I'm a part of the 1% in spite of that. And then, second, we really kind of discover what your goals are with alcohol, not anybody else's goals. What are your goals with alcohol? We really get clear on that and then we just, you know, create your own treatment plan and we connect you with everything you need to achieve your goals with alcohol that fully align with your goals with alcohol. And I help my ladies do that in 90 days. And I have a free gift for everybody in your audience If you go over to wwwcrystalfidellicom forward slash three ways to reclaim your power over alcohol, and that's the number three. I have a gift for you Three ways to reclaim your power over alcohol and, of course, if you wanted to book a call to see if we are the perfect fit to help you reclaim your power over alcohol, there's buttons all over my website. You can do that.

Okay, all right, thank you. We put those links in the show notes and, ladies, get on over there. Even if you don't, if, even if you don't have issues with this on topic, maybe you know somebody who does. Okay, so, before I let you go, give us, I want you to give us one piece of advice to a solo mom. Give a solo mom a piece of advice. Is she's, is she's really struggling with staying away? Right, I want to put it that way because it's something of experience in that I know how to stay away, but there might be someone who don't know how to stay away, or you know, help them, help me stay away, okay. And then a general one, because you, you related your story that led up to you having a daughter, and I also want you to give us a piece of advice for that time when you're really, really struggling.

Yeah well, reach out for help. Reach out for help from somebody who is going to be in your corner. That is going to be like listen, I might be the expert in all the different ways to treatment, but you're the expert on you and you know what you want, and you know whether you want to stay away from alcohol or whether you want to truly be able to moderate your drinking. And you know I'm just here to support you in whatever goal you have. So find that person. I mean it's really hard. That's why I started my whole thing, my whole program right, because I have my whole community. I know all the doctors, the therapists who will support either goal and truly give you the tools that you're truly going to be able to do it, because everybody else is just going to tell you you just have to moderate through sheer willpower. So, yeah, so I would just like, really just don't take no for an answer and keep going, and I'm always here if you want to DM me, right, or if you want to download the free resource, but just keep going and don't take no for an answer. Nobody has control of your life. You have control of your life and when somebody tries, to take control of your life. you say, no, I'm sorry, it's my life and I'm going to keep going until I find what I want.

So Okay, thank you See. Get help, get support, You're not alone, right.

And make sure it's the right support. Yes, right.

Thank you. Thank you, Crystal Fadeli, International Alcohol Recovery Coach. I appreciate you coming and talking to us today.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was such a lovely conversation.

Sure Any parting shots.

Shots. That's funny. Yeah, no, no, yeah, just thank you for having me and, ladies, for listening to me. It was just my honor to be here, so.

Thank you and I'm sorry, I don't drink so I forgot about it.

No, no, it was funny, it was a good time, it was good.

I didn't even. I'm sorry. Anyway, thank you, crystal, thank you, thank you.