Thriving Alcohol-Free with Mocktail Mom

EP 95 Sober Strength: Addressing Fitness, Mental Health, and Addictions With Jesse Carrajat

• Deb, Mocktail Mom • Season 1 • Episode 95

Share episode

Send me a text message about the show!

In this special episode, we’re celebrating Jesse Carrajat’s one-year podcast anniversary! Jesse, the powerhouse behind Altum Fitness and host of the Sober Strength podcast, is all about helping people build healthy habits and embrace the journey of personal growth—whether that’s through fitness, mindset, or navigating sobriety. As a US Marine Corps veteran and dad of three, he’s learned a thing or two about resilience and staying strong in the face of challenges.

Join us as Jesse opens up about his own sobriety journey, sharing the big ‘aha!’ moments, the struggles, and how he shifted from self-medicating with alcohol to supporting others on their paths to wellness. We talk everything from setting realistic goals to the surprises and wins that come with living alcohol-free. And yes, Jesse gets into the raw details of his experience with family life, perfectionism, and how his career change—from corporate to running his own fitness business—has brought him closer to his purpose.

If you’re looking for inspiration, or some straight-up advice, you’re in the right place. Grab a comfy seat, hit play, and celebrate this milestone with us as we dive into Jesse’s world of sober strength and thriving!


Get in touch with Jesse!
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Listen to the Sober Strength podcast!

Registration is now open for The Mocktail Summit (January 14-16)!

Order a copy of The Happiest Hour: Delicious Mocktails for a Fabulous Moms' Night In

A huge thank you to the sponsor of the Thriving Alcohol-Free podcast!
Giesen 0% Wines

You are loved. Big Time Cheers!

Deb:

Welcome up, friends and welcome to the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast. I'm your host, deb, otherwise known as Mocktail Mom, a retired wine drinker that finally got sick and tired of spinning on life's broken record called Detox to Retox. Let this podcast be an encouragement to you. If alcohol is maybe a form of self-care for you, where you find yourself dragging through the day waiting to pour another glass, I am excited to share with you the fun of discovering new things to drink when you aren't drinking and the joy of waking up each day without a hangover. It is an honor to serve as your sober fun guide, so sit back and relax or keep doing whatever it is you're doing. This show is produced for you with love from the great state of Kentucky. Thanks so much for being here and big time cheers. Okay you guys. Welcome back to Thriving Alcohol-Free with Mocktail Mom. I am so excited.

Deb:

Today I actually have a really well, they're all special guests, but today's super special, Jesse Carrajat. He is the founder of Altum Fitness. He is the host of Sober Strength Podcast. I was actually on his podcast a week ago, I think about a week ago, when we were doing this, and it was so wonderful to meet you and I just felt like I just made a new friend. So thank you for being so kind to me on having me on your podcast, and I am just thrilled to have you here today to share your story and the amazing work that you're doing in this space. I mean, it's just incredible. So can I read your bio? Would that be all right?

Jesse:

Sure, but I just want to say thank you. Thank you for having me and it's an absolute pleasure to be here. But yes, you can read my bio, Yay we're going to have a good time.

Deb:

I'm so excited. Okay, Jesse Carrajat is. Jesse started Altum Fitness in 2023 with the mission to help people discover and maintain healthy habits to live deep, strong and meaningful lives. He resides in Colorado with his wife, Megan, and their three beautiful children. You have two girls and a boy, Is that right?

Jesse:

That's right, yep, we got the boy.

Deb:

Seven and under. You have little kids.

Jesse:

Yes, Six and a half, four and a half and 20 months on the boy. So we're in it.

Deb:

Is he climbing out of the crib?

Jesse:

He's crazy. He doesn't climb out of the crib because we still have him in a sleep sack, so he can't climb out of the dang crib, but he would if he were in a sleep sack. Put the seven-year-old, put the six-and actually named him Jesse James Jr. So everyone calls him JJ.

Deb:

JJ, you have a JJ Jr. That's so cute. Yes, a sleep sack. I need one of those.

Jesse:

Yeah, me too, they have those for 50-year-old women.

Deb:

I think they do that's why I could ask her for my birthday. I like a sleep sack. I do love my pajamas, so that's good. Okay, super. Did you expect any of this when you came on here?

Jesse:

All of it, all of it. That's why I'm excited to be here. This is great.

Deb:

This is good, we were going to get crazy. Okay, I'm actually going to crack, crack open a go brewing. This is the new school sour, delicious, let's go, let's go, let's have a podcast. Let's have a chat and I would love to hear about your journey of evaluating your relationship with alcohol and you know kind of how you got here into this sober space and talk about sobriety your lives and things like that.

Jesse:

It implies that I was having a need in that area myself. I mean, you jump into this space, like so many of us do, because we have had some struggles or challenges, whether it's with alcohol specifically, mental health challenges more broadly. But that was my story, so I won't spend too much on the genesis of me but get more to why I left my, objectively speaking, successful, lucrative corporate career to take a risk to come out in this space and get healthy, first and foremost, but also to help other people do that. But I grew up Irish Catholic. That may communicate some things to some people, but you know that that means like alcohol is uh, it kind of works its way into everything and in a good way sometimes, you know, like St Paddy's Day. I have really fond memories growing up of my family being very fun, celebrating, partying, work hard, play hard type thing. But one takeaway there when I say Irish Catholic is like.

Jesse:

Alcohol was introduced into my life as early as I can remember just through like family members drinking. But when I got into my teenage years I can use this language now because I understand it. I didn't know it when I was a teenager but I was in a dysfunctional household, so first and foremost, divorced parents. When I was very young and that's fairly common these days, I think. But I think one of the kind of bombs that dropped in my life when I was a sophomore in high school was my father informed me and my brother that he had AIDS and he had had that for a decade. And the reason that he was telling us when he did is because he was starting to be symptomatic, because his immune system was shutting down. There wasn't all of the wonderful treatment options and medication that we have today. So back then and this was in early, early 2000s if you had AIDS it basically wasn't a matter of if you were going to pass away from it, it was when, and my father thought that that when was happening. So he told us he had AIDS and there were lots of other things happening between those two households and lots of other now I know to use the word traumatic things that happened to me. But I think that was kind of the catalyst that kind of pushed me really into a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol.

Jesse:

I was always able to kind of show up to school and get good standardized test scores, but I was just a bad student. I was going out, I just kind of lived for the weekends to party, even as a sophomore, and that just continued. Even though I was playing sports, I was always drinking. And then my kind of brand of drinking, from the first time I ever touched alcohol, was always, for some reason, to drink to excess. So we're talking multiple blackouts, multiple arrests, just thrill-seeking behavior, mischievous stuff, fighting, just lots and lots and lots of trouble which led to eventually my father passing away when I was a teenager still, and thank you, and it was my freshman year of college actually and I really just kind of went off a deep end with drinking. And then, you know, to be super candid, you know, in the kind of the crowd that I ran in, you know there was the big drinkers, which was me, but then there was also drug users there was. You know, as you get into your late teens and your twenties and things, people start bringing around other things, and I was never a drug user, I never sought it out, but I think, you know, we make really bad decisions when we're drinking. So I found that alcohol was a little bit of a gateway for me in those drinking events to try other things and I wound up getting a DUI and last little detail and I'll kind of shut up and close that chapter.

Jesse:

But my father, who I mentioned, had passed away. He was a Marine. My stepfather, who has now since passed, he was a Marine. And every male in my immediate family and even that like kind of secondary family cousins, grandfather, so many of the men served in the military. So for me that was always a draw. I looked up to that. So when I found myself again getting in trouble drinking a lot, I got kicked out of school for fighting. My father passed away. I was essentially just kind of rudderless and I had no direction in my life, I had no self-worth and I decided to say well, you know what, I'm going to join the Marines, I'm going to serve my country, I'm going to hopefully learn some discipline and get my act together and kind of go from there. So that was.

Jesse:

I talk about my drinking as seasons and really I've had two seasons in my life where drinking was a quote unquote problem.

Jesse:

The first one was that kind of early high school, all the way through college that you know. The climactic event was my father dying and me, you know, getting kicked out of school and needing a change. The other season, which is a whole nother story which led me to here now, was really when I started drinking in my 30s, when I was a early father husband and had some corporate success and I started intentionally using alcohol to self-medicate not to thrill-seek, but to self-medicate. And, as most people that are kind of exploring this whole alcohol struggle thing do realize, is what makes alcohol so effective and why people turn to it is because it can do both of those things very well. It can kind of add excitement and euphoria on the social side of things, but then also on the other side, if you just need to turn your mind off, if you're stressed or pressured, have anxiety, whatever it is, it's really good in the short term at turning your mind off, but we all know that if you rely on it chronically it can lead to some pretty bad situations.

Deb:

Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Two seasons it's very interesting thrill-seeking and then to self-medicate, right, yeah, yeah, how did you stop? How did you realize, like okay, I'm numbing out from this family that I've just built, you know.

Jesse:

Yeah, so that kind of jumps into my later 30s. So I'm 39 as you're talking to me. I'll be 40 in about a month and a half, but but, um, I will for sure. And then I'll use it as an excuse that I can't get out of bed because my feet are tied up. I can't go get the kids, meg, you get them because I'm in a sleep sack. I'm sure that'll go over, that'll go over well, but yeah.

Jesse:

So my, it's kind of weird to jump way into that because, you know, my 20s happened. I graduated college, I entered the workforce and, for the most part, on the surface, like I did, you know, I had a lot of discipline, I worked hard, I wound up, you know, meeting my wife and having this amazing kind of like transformation in my life and my career was taking off because I was just supplying God-given talents with learned principles like discipline and work ethic and consistency, and I was getting promotions, and with promotions you get more responsibility. At the same time, I was blessed with a family that was growing and a marriage that was growing. So, as we kicked off, I'd girl, girl, boy and I found myself in 2023, after the birth of my son, I felt like I had so much responsibilities and so much weight and I still had never addressed what it was that had me turn to alcohol in the early seasons of my life. And I started turning to alcohol in this kind of new chapter in my life where it was stress and pressure Because and this is a key message that I like to scream from the rooftop as I can is I feel like alcohol use is a symptom of a problem. It's not the problem. And if you're really going to address the challenges if you find yourself turning to alcohol, yes, it's great to focus on alcohol and do like blocking and tackling type things and remove it from your life, but you have to also do that coinciding with addressing what's happening right.

Jesse:

So I'm not the only kid that struggled with trauma growing up and had some issues with you know the houses I lived in and issues with my parents having issues but for some reason I chose to turn to alcohol and thrill-seeking behavior and self-destructive behavior. I never asked myself why did I choose that? It's not like I had to do that. That was something that I found comfort or excitement in, right. So you know, later on in life when I started really feeling the struggles of trying to be a perfect in this case executive at a healthcare company, trying to be a perfect husband and by perfect for me that just means being sacrificial, selfless, loving, patient, kind, all of those things. But then this new element of like how do I also do that to not one, but two, but three children?

Jesse:

It felt like my life was falling short everywhere because I was trying to be perfect everywhere and that was really stressful for me and it was really hard in the sense that like I just felt like I was excuse me to curse, but I felt like I was doing a shitty job at everything I did.

Jesse:

And at the end of every day, my mind just the way it works is I kind of ruminate on things, that if I don't get to like put things squarely in a box or check things off, I kind of carry that with me and I found that turning to increasingly stronger drinks could kind of like cheat code, turn my mind off. But then you know, I don't know that, you know how this goes, but maybe you do but one drink turns to two, turns to four, turns to broken promises to yourself, turns to shame and all these other things, and I just found myself like, oh my God, I never thought I'd be, you know, dependent on alcohol just to do life. But that's where I was and I'm sorry I didn't. The question was more like how did you get out of it? But I think, just as context, I think it's important, like how did I get back in it? And we can go from there if you want. But sorry for the long answer.

Deb:

No, it's perfect. You're fine, Jesse. Let's take a drink, shall we? What are you drinking over?

Jesse:

there.

Deb:

What are you having?

Jesse:

You're having an afternoon.

Deb:

What is that? A little elixir you have going on.

Jesse:

We're talking about substance challenges. I'm currently addicted to caffeine, so this is a caffeine. I'm just kidding.

Deb:

The cheat code to survive the afternoon.

Jesse:

We are recording in the afternoon, so I do know I went to Sprouts and this is Laird Hamilton. If you heard of him, he has like these, like superfood yes I have the creamer from him. That's what this is. I've never had it before. I really like it.

Deb:

Yeah, it's very good. Yes, it's very, very good. Yeah, yeah, it's not expired. I have it in my house. Still Few things that's not expired in my pantry. You have no idea, jesse. Okay, all right. So how do you fight the perfectionism now? How do you manage that? Right, because you don't. That doesn't. You're still the personality, right. Check it off the box, right? Check the box, make sure everything's clean, make sure everything's like dialed in. How do you fight that now without alcohol?

Jesse:

is so simple and ubiquitous, but it's powerful and it's so hard to do right, so let it go. What do you have to let go when you're maybe tend to be sort of perfectionist? But what's underneath the perfection or the desire to be perfect or at least as best you can, there's a desire to control, and part of my mental health journey, what I've realized is I desperately want to control my life, the outcome of my life, and it's interesting it's not even on a like a micro, daily level, like I'm not trying to control my kids or my wife Well, maybe with my wife sometimes we can go back and forth on that, yeah, yeah, but it's more.

Jesse:

It's more of a deep rooted, fearful desire to control, like, the end outcome of my life. And there's a fear underneath that, right, like, I think, a great question for anyone to kind of like ask themselves. It's very simple, but it's like do you think your life will end up well? I never did, and sometimes I wrestle with that and I can. We don't have to turn this into a therapy session. But a lot of the men in my life, including my biological father and my stepfather, their life didn't end up well and that's what I saw and that's what I knew. And when I say that their relationships with women didn't end up well, their personal health didn't end up well, their decisions they made just in most areas of life didn't end up well, and you know, as a child that kind of watched both of those men go through passing away, I can't help but like, if I'm not like careful, think like, oh, that's going to happen to me too, right? So there's a deep fear underneath.

Deb:

That's your destiny.

Jesse:

Yeah, exactly, and I never put that to words, I never like dwelled and thought about it. I was just moving so fast, partly to redeem some of the decisions I made as a teenager, but partly because you think like if you just work, work, work, like you can prevent some bad outcome at the end of your life and guess what? Like there is some truth to the value of like agency. But so many things, so many circumstances can happen outside your control. So, to answer your question, it's like I had to figure out how to let it go, like how do you just, how do I, let go of the outcome but still focus on making good, healthy decisions in the daily? And it's it's. It's a long process, I'm still in it, but I think you know, the last year letting go of my career I mean literally, I like I spent 12 years building that career reputation, networking, promotions, everything made chronological sense. It was all like, oh, here it goes, and I just blew it up. I literally just I recognized how unhealthy a career was for me at that time in that particular section in healthcare and what I was doing, and I knew I just had to blow it up. So I didn't just carefully diplomatically resign and say, oh, I literally called my boss one day and said I'm struggling. I've never said it, I'm drinking a lot, I'm having some issues, I can't do this. I don't know when I can ever come back into a corporate career, but I just need to let go of this whole thing. And that's what I did. So, I think, identifying those things that you cling to so desperately for comfort and in asking yourself if you have unhealthy relationships with those things for me it was ambition, and underneath that was again a fear of where my life was heading. So I just had to kind of blow it up.

Jesse:

And then in this last year, starting a business and a podcast while having three little kids at home I mean, little kids will teach you so much, and my kids taught me that there's Jesse, I bet it's good. The lessons will keep coming. Sorry, but man, the two biggest things I've learned I mean I probably could give you a hundred, but one is I'm not as patient a man as I thought I was. I had work to do there, and the reason I wasn't patient is because I wanted to control my kids in every moment, in the sense that, like, let's face it, they're little kids, like can we all just be sane? Like can we all just stop having but I? This whole journey for me and doing what I'm doing now has been just a lesson in control and how I need to get to a place where I don't have to have it to be healthy lesson in control and how I need to get to a place where I don't have to have it to be healthy.

Jesse:

Boy, but to have your own business now, right yeah yeah, right, you have to.

Deb:

You have to control so much, you have to control all of it.

Jesse:

Yeah, and you know what's interesting about that. We'll focus on the podcast. For the first six months, I launched the podcast on Veterans Day of 2023. For the first six months, I wasn't heeding the advice that I just gave. Let it go. I was trying. I have to publish an episode every week and I have to do this. Many social media posts and I like kind of learned and then I was executing, just doing the same thing that I was doing in a corporate career, and the growth of the show was like disturbingly slow. You know, like cause there's so many great minds out there in this space.

Jesse:

The moment I just said, you know what. I'm going to talk about topics that matter to me, and I'm going to have people on my show that I think are cool, and if people download it, that's fine, if they don't, that's fine too. And this show has taken off. I mean, today, yesterday, actually, spotify just sent me that it's really cool and they do this. But it said today, yesterday, actually, spotify just sent me that it's really cool when they do this, but it said congratulations, your show's the 24th health and fitness show in the country Shut up. Yeah, deb, like four months ago it was probably the 4,977th show in the country. But the moment I kind of let it go and said I'm doing this for a good reason. Let's just have great conversations. It probably comes through when I talk to people, but that's when the thing started to take off. So God's just showing me all these lessons, and this is another one. He's like just let it go, trust me and you'll be fine.

Deb:

Trust me, and I see the verse behind you that you have there on the wall. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you, boy.

Deb:

It gives me chills to even read that out loud, and he is right, he is with us in those very hard times and that we can give everything over. We can give it over to him and it's like okay, you know, use my. He's given you such wonderful talents, right, and gifts, and just use those and he is just delighting in the work that you're doing so hey, amen, that's right amazing, it's amazing. I'm so excited.

Jesse:

Congratulations thank you that's huge.

Deb:

You got an email. You got an email from spotify.

Jesse:

Well, spotify when you log in to check your?

Deb:

Yeah, they don't email me. I misspoke, they didn't email me.

Jesse:

When you log into, like your dashboard, like they'll send you notifications.

Deb:

Yeah, yeah, and I logged in.

Jesse:

It was like congratulations, you're 24th in the country.

Deb:

I'm like, oh my God, yeah, oh my gosh. And most exciting is that it's just authentically happening because you're just loving what you're doing. Loving what you're doing, yeah, amen, okay, as you guys know, I love Giesen 0% Wines. Their Sauvignon Blanc is my go-to on a regular basis. They recently launched a delicious sparkling fruit 0%, which is quickly becoming a fan favorite. I am so proud to have Giesen as the exclusive non-alcoholic wine sponsor of the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast.

Deb:

Giesen's 0% wines are created through the magic of advanced spin-cone technology to remove the alcohol from their full-leaded wines. The award-winning winemaker Duncan Shouler and his team have done wonders in Marlborough, new Zealand, by creating an entire family of 0% wines with all the flavor and deliciousness you expect from traditional quote full-leaded wine. Their non-alcoholic wines maintain the aroma and the body to create a low-calorie wine that never contains more than 0.5 ABV. Globally available, look for Giesen 0% wines wherever you shop for your non-alcoholic options. Their family of alcohol-free wines include the most effervescent member of the family, the sparkling Brut 0%, which is absolutely delicious for any celebration. My personal favorite although I do love them all is the Sauvignon Blanc, coming in at only 100 calories for the entire bottle and, not to be missed, the other members of their 0% family the Riesling, the Premium Red Blend, the Rosé, the Pinot Gris.

Deb:

With Giesen's 0% wines, there's a de-alcoholized wine for everyone and every occasion. Give Giesen a try and let me know how much you love it, and if you want to meet their winemaker, go back to episode 33 of the podcast, where Duncan Shouler joined me to share about the Giesen story. Well, thank you for your service. I love that you launched the show on Veterans Day. Can you talk a little bit, maybe about like mental health for veterans and maybe how I did not serve but have such high respect for our military and for veterans. So what ways can we support those who are in the military and veterans?

Jesse:

Yeah.

Jesse:

So I think a statistic kind of helps with on the veteran side, just to tie it to mental health, like you're kind of asking.

Jesse:

But I think most of us just kind of assume, and maybe even just know implicitly, that mental health challenges are much more frequent or should I say common, in certain communities and communities like first responders and first responders. It might be broader than most people think. I mean, yes, it's EMTs, firemen, police officers, but also even like the staff at a hospital, nurses, administrators at hospitals, even some people consider teachers to be first responders because of how like frontline they are. But I think most of us just understand that mental health challenges are common in those communities. And then, because so many people cope with mental health challenges with substances, substance use disorders are very common in those communities. So I think how we can help those people, if you know a fireman, a police officer, a nurse, don't just assume that they're doing okay. I think another common I'd say unfortunate occurrence in those communities is because they're looked at to be so courageous and strong they don't want to admit when they're having challenges. It almost feels like it kind of lets people down or breaks that kind of image of that kind of bold, courageous first responder, if you will.

Jesse:

So you asked about veterans, but just broadening that out, I say, if you have a veteran or first responder or someone in your life that's maybe exposed to trauma at a much more I would say daily, frequent basis, just reach out and don't just say how are you doing? Like, if you have that close relationship, be like, no really, how are you doing? Because I think I had a guest on the show that sometimes people say things that stick with you. But connection is protection, right, connection to people can protect you and can just make you feel better and make better choices. So I think just engaging with those people is a good first thing to do, because, especially if you think about veterans and then if you want to drill down deeper now a bias will come out of me right now, but when you think about the armed forces, I think people apply a particular type of brand to like a Marine. It's usually like a excuse my French again but like a badass.

Deb:

I was going to say, yeah, you're not going to mess around. This is a badass right. Yeah, exactly yes.

Jesse:

Yeah Well, guess what? That's not always the case, right? I mean, those guys and gals can have weaknesses and blind spots and they can use substances and stuff. So don't assume people are strong just because of their title or their role, and maybe put some effort in to check in with those people in your life and see how they're doing, cause you might be surprised what you find.

Deb:

Yeah, and I think, just the way you said, like how are you doing versus like how are you doing, there's a difference, right, same words. But like, really, like really checking, yeah.

Jesse:

And it's not a, it's not a text, right, it's a, it's a phone call or it's a. Maybe you see him somewhere. I might corner him real quick. I'm like, hey, how's it going, how is it out there? Cause it seems like it could be tough and go go from there and follow your heart. But I think everyone needs help sometimes.

Deb:

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah for sure. What have you enjoyed about Altum Fitness? What got you to start this?

Jesse:

Yeah. So what had me start it was, and then what I enjoyed about it. But when I left my career which was in June of 2023, I told myself I was going to take the summer off and then I was going to start something. It hasn't been that long, it hasn't. No, no, it hasn't.

Deb:

Yesterday practically.

Jesse:

Yeah, literally. I mean, our first episode was 11-11 for the show and that'll be a year, I think. This time last year I was still like brainstorming and gearing up and all these things, which makes this podcast performance even more for me, just kind of like blows my mind in the humblest way possible. But what have I enjoyed? God continues to teach me many lessons.

Jesse:

There's been so many times, even in the past year, where I was so convicted on something. It could be just like a slogan or a tagline or it could be where I thought I was going to see growth in different areas. And, man, I was wrong so many times. And so I continue to be humbled, but just in the creative process. But then I think the most enjoyable aspect of it is the people that are in my lives who I never knew that I'd meet and I never knew how much I'd appreciate meeting them. There are really really good people out there in. You could pick your label for it, but we'll call it like creating content to help people, whether it's a podcast or a community or what have you, and there's just some really really good people. There are not so good people as well, but that's life, that's life.

Deb:

That's everywhere. Yes, that's everywhere. Apparently, they're here too.

Jesse:

Yeah, but I've just really enjoyed, like it's so exciting. I got to tell you like when I put out an episode, let's just use the podcast right, like I published on Wednesdays. I just love putting out an episode. And then I'm almost like giddy to see people comment, respond, the person who came on the show, if they shoot me a message, and they're just like, oh my God, like I love how this came out, Like there's just so much fun connections with human beings that you know it's irreplaceable. So I think that's probably the most rewarding thing. And then, of course, when someone reaches out and it happens often and says, man, that episode you put out really just changed me, or changed the way I think about something. We just published an episode today about first responders and addiction. That's why some of these statistics are so fresh.

Deb:

Oh, interesting.

Jesse:

And what was so cool was an audience member two months ago responded to a poll and all I said was what should we talk about next? And they said I'm a first responder and I think it would be great if someone talked about substance use amongst first responders. So we went out, we tried to find the perfect guest. They said yes, they came on the show. We published it today. It's so fulfilling to respond to an audience member, put that episode out there and then hopefully make a difference in that community. So how could you not feel fulfilled from something like that?

Deb:

like that. Yeah, yeah, it's just to have such purpose with your life and to be making such a difference and to be getting those messages. And, yeah, okay, I'm so excited for today's episode that I have to share it. I have some very, very good friends. I'm going to send the episode to today because, yeah, one of my friends, a veteran, she's first of mine. That I would love. That's awesome, yeah, and I know it's something she helps many of her friends with from her unit that she just retired from. Actually, okay, can we talk a little bit just about using fitness to help our mental health?

Jesse:

Yeah.

Deb:

Okay, so Altum is an app for anybody who doesn't know.

Jesse:

Yeah, so Altum Fitness, and since you called out the verse there behind me, so Altum means deep, means deep in Latin. So the word deep it's one thing to be be surface level fit, like I was for a decade, right, like you look muscular, you look like you train you whatever aesthetically you look good. But, like, what's the point of that if, like, deep down, you're struggling with emotional fitness and mental health, right? So the idea was how can you, how could I create a company or a brand that speaks to like deeper fitness, of which substance use is a big part of, because that's my story, right? So that's kind of what ultimate fitness is, isn't an app? Yes, but also the podcast rolls up to ultimate fitness. We do have an app now. The app it's a fitness app and there's the whole bunch of amazing programs in there, but it's free for veterans and that's really the heart behind it. I like to say I don't know if this comes off the right way, but it's free for veterans and cheap for everybody else.

Deb:

It's not like it's not supposed to be for everyone, but it's yeah.

Jesse:

Yeah.

Deb:

It's great it's free for veterans. Really.

Jesse:

Yeah, it's free. It's free for veterans. And then there's a community that, whether you pay, we're kind of going around with the price for everyone else but like $9.99 a month. If you pay that or you get in free for veterans, you both go to the community is free. So the community has some resources around habit change, like digital detox if you're trying to cut back from social media, which is a whole nother animal, alcohol, things like that, but really it's like if you want to get physically fit. I wanted to offer a resource there specifically for veterans. But what I kind of care about more is the emotional fitness, the mental health and things like that. So our sanity when this phone is attached to our hand, practically super glued right.

Deb:

How do you keep your mental health when we're being bombarded with messages and messages? You know DMs or whatever. It is constantly. How do you set boundaries? Word is constantly. How do you?

Jesse:

set boundaries. So, whenever you're trying to change a habit, yes, there can be things that are specific to the habit that you're trying to change, but I also think there's some blocking and tackling that you can do that can be applied to help you have a healthier relationship with anything that you consume, and I do include social media as something you can consume. You consume it with your eyes, obviously, right. But what are some of those things? Well, I think one is accountability and boundaries, right, so you think about alcohol. What does accountability look like? Well, a lot of times it can be interpersonally. You turn to your spouse and just finally say it I'm drinking too much. Same conversation, you know what. I'm on Instagram too much, which, by the way, could be very vulnerable to say, because it implies that there could be a weakness there, like your attention span. Or you know you might be turning to social media. In the same reason, you turn on the alcohol to turn your brain off, to just disconnect, right. But I think accountability, interpersonally, being honest and telling someone that you're trying to cut back on that thing, that's blocking, tackling Boundaries are huge on the alcohol side. Don't have alcohol in your house if it's a trigger for you, if you live with a spouse who drinks, ask them if they'd be willing to support you by saying look, I don't want alcohol in the house. I know that you drink, but can you do that for me? Right On? The same thing on the social media side, now with boundaries for social media.

Jesse:

I think most of us have smartphones that have built in boundaries in our phone. Learn how to use them. Have screen time boundaries, have the phone pop up and make you put in a code to continue watching YouTube if you're already past your 10 minute jelly thing. But like use actual physical tools to kind of hold yourself accountable, especially on the social media side. I find like a really good hack. For me on the technology side. This might sound silly to you, but I have it's literally like a jar that says coffee on it and it has a lid. At the same time, every day I'll pick up the lid and I'll drop my phone in there and shut it. Every day, I'll pick up the lid and I'll drop my phone in there and shut it. For me there's something about like if I want to go grab that phone and the reason is because I forgot to text someone or I wanted to look at Instagram physically opening up that. It's just so much more of an act for me that I stopped myself like kind of like halfway through it. I think that's really, really important.

Jesse:

And then one more kind of a third thing that you have to look at outside of. You know, getting accountability from a person and building in boundaries around what it is is. I think it's so important to ask yourself really deeply why it is that you're turning to that and then let those answers guide you, because somewhere in there to bring this all the way back to like a mental health type conversation there's a reason why you're struggling with that thing, and I think just having accountability and boundaries will maybe help you get through like a one or two or three week cleanse or four week. But you will always fall back to that habit unless you address, ready for this, the deeper right, the ultimate, the deeper reason. And there we go, and there we go. So I think again, hopefully, my message is getting across.

Jesse:

It's like there's reliable fundamental things that you can do to attack any habit, but then if you're really kind of addicted to something, that's when you have to get more specific to that habit, whatever it is.

Deb:

And for me it's been just like alcohol, like it's just creeped. It's just been this creeper. New habit, new, you know. It's like all of a sudden, it's like, instead of just being on the phone, you know this, many hours, whatever. It's like. Oh my gosh, I, this thing is never, I'm never off of it. So even just going for walks and take a walk, or sometimes not taking my phone, I mean I feel like ago. You know I, I would go to the mall without a phone, you know.

Jesse:

Yeah, yeah for sure you know now. I can't live without it.

Deb:

You know what's huge. Do you have a? Do you have a smartwatch? I can't see your wrist.

Jesse:

Hey, this, this thing can do everything that our phones could do. When you were at the mall 25 years ago, right, like if you, I found that having this, especially like, it's another $9.99 for me to have cellular data, so I can take calls from this without my phone near me. But I think if you have a smartwatch, just put your phone somewhere, like buried in a bag when you go somewhere, and just have your smartwatch, because guess what, you're not swiping Instagram on this thing.

Deb:

You're just getting calls and texts. I definitely can't see anything with my 53-year-old eyes. But I can answer the phone. Yeah, there's a green button, I can answer it. That's good, okay, that's good advice. Yeah, that's really good, yeah, okay. Lastly, how would you define sobriety? How would you define sober?

Jesse:

Okay, I suspect you might not get this answer a lot, but something that I'm trying to do with the show Sober Strength is actually redefine the word sober and, I might even say, revisit the original definition of the word sober. So if you trace the word sober back, let's just say, to maybe 400, 500 AD, it wasn't connected specifically to alcohol. I'm just going to pull from the Bible, but you can. Any stoic would talk about this. But the term sober-minded was often used and what sober-minded meant was clarity and freedom from anything that could be distracting your mind and taking you away from being present, of which alcohol, of course, was one of them.

Jesse:

In the 1900s, that's when the word sober became very specifically connected to alcohol and even sometimes substance use.

Jesse:

But to get to your question, I think we're falling short if we just look at alcohol, because if let's just say we do all of this really hard work and we remove those chains from our life, but then at the same time we're also chained to social media, we're also chained to binging, Netflix, whatever it is, alcohol, social media, entertainment, all those things are just taking you away from being present.

Jesse:

Alcohol gets and it should gets so much of the kind of focus in sobriety because it has the most disastrous effects, mostly. But to define sober, I think it means free from any type of substance in which we are overindulging, right? So alcohol, yes, but, like I think any one of us should pull up and just say, okay, what are all of the areas that are robbing me of my freedom, for being completely independent and free from the chains of overindulgences, and then remove those things or at least create healthier relationships with all of those things. So sober to me means sober-minded, which just means clarity, peace of mind and presence, because that should be the goal that we're all searching for.

Deb:

Absolutely. I love that. Pulling back and looking at okay, what are the chains, what am I attached to, what am I stuck with here? Yeah, I do not want to be attached to. Yes, we want to live in freedom. We want to live in freedom freedom from alcohol, freedom from my social media. Yeah, life is so short, so let's, let's live the best, the absolute best. Let's live while my t-shirt, my shirt, says authentic freedom.

Jesse:

That's what it's all about.

Deb:

That's what I've felt since I stopped drinking. I have truly felt authentic freedom. That's what it felt like for me was was breaking up a Chardonnay.

Jesse:

I love that the original name of our show in November of last year was Live Fit, break Free. Oh really, yeah, I just love, I love, break Free. That was taken.

Deb:

So, but here we are Sober Strength. How did you switch to yeah, sober Strength. When did you switch the name of the podcast?

Jesse:

Shoot must've been maybe four or five months ago, I think. Just to be candid, I think Live Fit, break Free is kind of vague, it's not as specific enough, and I've really, just, in my own research, have been quite excited about the opportunity to redefine sober under different terms. So I wanted there to be, you know, kind of more of a connection to the word but also freedom to redefine it.

Deb:

So Jesse, you're doing such a great job. Congratulations, thank you. Up here to your one year podcastversary, I will be celebrating with you. Thank you for everything you're doing in this community, for just showing up in such a way and just filling so many people with hope and for, and you know that the that freedom is waiting for them. A life of sobriety and whatever that is is waiting for them, so that they can have that.

Jesse:

So thank you, authentic freedom, authentic freedom, and thank you for being such an amazing welcoming, like just incredibly loving spirit. I really have appreciated these last couple of weeks and we're going to stay friends.

Deb:

Oh, for sure, For sure. Yes, I can't wait, can't wait, thank you. Thank you Big time. Cheers to you for tuning into the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast. I hope you will take something from today's episode and make one small change that will help you to thrive and have fun in life without alcohol. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social, send up a flare or leave a rating and a review. I am cheering for you as you discover the world of non-alcoholic drinks and as you journey towards authentic freedom. See you in the next episode.