LGBTQ Mindfulness: Alex on Mindset Tips & Being Around Drinkers (#195)

Sober Steve welcomes Alex from LGBTQ Mindfulness to discuss their experience navigating sobriety in the queer community while living a mindful life.

Topics include 

• Mindset Tips
• Finding A Community
• Building A Community
• Being Around Alcohol
• Being Around Drinkers
• Daily Care Practices
• And much more

**Where to Find Us:**
- Alex on Instagram 🟢
- Alex's Site 🖇️
- gAy A on IG 🟢
- gAy A everywhere else 🖇️

Tell a friend to listen today!! Until next time, stay sober!

Transcript

Alex: 0:00

if you have to change who you are and your behaviors to fit in with a group of people, they are not your people, period. They're not.

Steve: 0:10

Hey there super sober heroes. It's your host sober Steve, the podcast guy here today with 1095 days sober. And I am grateful that in recovery, when I am sick, I take the time to rest and heal and get better. Which is something that was very foreign to me before in my addiction. But before I get into that for a little bit, I am so psyched to share my interview with Alex, from LGBTQ mindfulness. We had our interview a couple of weeks back before I left for Los Angeles. And it's been something in the pipeline for so long and that I am so excited to finally release because it was an amazing interview about not only mindfulness, which has been a huge change for me to taking care of myself recently and having. That positive mindset practices like gratitude and affirmations that have just been life-changing, but also about what it's like to be around people who are drinking and sobriety, because so oftentimes the first couple of years of my recovery personally, I isolated and I headed away. And when I went out, it was with sober people. I avoided alcohol and people drinking as much as I could because I was still very. Young and sobriety and wasn't learning the tools and tricks to be able to be around it. And I didn't feel comfortable with it yet, and I am comfortable around it. Now I've been going out regularly in the past six months. Well, not regularly, like on a weekly basis, but for me. Regularly. It means like going out once or twice a month to events where there are people that are drinking and I'm able to be social and be around them without feeling triggered or pressured or left out or othered or anything else like that. But it's something that took me almost three years of recovery. And it's something that Alex has a lot of personal experience with. So I'm very excited to share the interview with you. As I mentioned at the top of the show, my gratitude this week is that I was feeling under the weather. I had an amazing time at Florida Roundup. One might say too much fun because after that, And coming back and still going a million miles an hour worth of work and working out and everything like that. All of a sudden Thursday, my body crashed. And it was the, probably the first time. That I can remember, or like possibly in the entire marriage that I've had with my husband, where like, when I woke up, I was like, I'm sick. Like normally he's the one who had to diagnose me because I was trying to say like, I'm fine. Or it's just a cold or it's just a bug because if I was sick, that meant that I wasn't able to like. Drink or use or go out. And I had to, like, I tried so hard to fight any time that I was feeling sick because I didn't want anything to get in the way of my addiction and about like my quest to feel numb and not feel things. And you feel a lot when you're sick. I realized that like on Friday, especially where I was just feeling so emotional and so dramatic and that's like more so than normal friends who know me. But. I was just feeling a lot of feelings being sick about. But I was really kind of proud of myself. I was like, reflecting back on saying like, this is your time to rest. Like you've had your goes, you've done your adventures. You've done the work. Take some time. Rest, relax, hydrate, watch some Buffy. Play some video games, like read a book, just take some time for yourself. And I did that for three days straight. Where I stayed home. I didn't go out. People. And I rested and I wasn't living on social media or trying to create content or working with clients. I just unplugged for three days and drank a lot of Gatorade and worked on taking a lot of naps and enjoyed myself and took care of myself and took it easy on myself. And that's something that. Like I mentioned before, it's just something that's new for me, even in recovery, because I can be very stubborn and I always want to try and be the one who's fine because I don't want to be an inconvenience to anyone or letting the wind down. But I realized that I was sick and I needed to heal and I gave my body the time to heal. And that for me at least is a gift of sobriety that I'm very grateful for it today. So that's, what's been going on in my life and I am very excited to get into this interview with Alex. As I mentioned earlier, it's going to be a blast. So at that. Enjoy. Hey there, Super Sober Heroes. It's your host Sober Steve here with Alex. Hey, Alex. Hi, everyone. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me, Steve. Yes. Well, it's my pleasure. I've enjoyed watching and following you on Instagram and seeing everything you're doing with LGBTQ mindfulness. And so when you reached out about wanting to come on my little podcast, I was like, sure, I'd love that. That would be awesome. So I'm very excited for today. So am I. Thank you. So why don't we start with sharing a little bit about who you are and your story? Absolutely. So I am Alex Castro and I am from Miami. And being from Miami, it's the biggest party city of the United States. So very much alcohol and drug heavy state.

Alex: 5:12

Then I moved to the West coast for work and I happened to land in San Francisco, but as a queer person, I started noticing how every city that I went to. All we have is like bars and alcohol in order to connect. That's all we have are parties and leaving Florida. I knew that I wanted to change my lifestyle and I didn't want alcohol to be such a prevalent part of my life in order to connect with other people. So once I arrived to San Francisco, I was like, I'm going to create LGBTQ mindfulness, which is all about creating safe and inclusive spaces for the queer community to come together and just transform and connect through mindfulness, community connection without alcohol. And, you know, I do events, I do courses, I do international retreats, and all of this does not involve alcohol, which is. amazing. Yeah, I love that. So oftentimes in my, before getting sober, I was like, how can we even have fun? Like, how will I ever have fun again without drugs, without alcohol? Because especially in media, that's how we're portrayed. Even if like in sobriety, we learned that that's not always the case. It's like, hey, still, if you were to watch a TV show about a whole bunch of queer people hanging out together today, like, nine out of ten times, it's gonna be centered around a bar or a club or something with alcohol. You're always gonna have the one friend, like, character on the show that's, like, very alcoholic and it's, almost, funny, but, like, it's not funny when you're living it, and it's just interesting, like, to watch. Getting to experience and see people like you doing amazing things to kind of shift that paradigm and show that you can have an awesome time sober, because I know I'm having more fun now in sobriety than I ever had before. Yeah, and I think something that you mentioned was how can I have fun with alcohol or even like, am I even fun without alcohol? It's like, no, yes, I am. I'm actually even more fun if I'm sober.

Steve: 7:10

Yeah, excellent. And going back to your time when you were drinking, when did you notice or feel like it was a possibly a problem or that you needed to shift to try sobriety?

Alex: 7:21

So being raised in a Colombian culture, alcohol is very heavy in our culture. We use alcohol for everything, honestly. And, you know, family parties had alcohol always growing up. I saw people drinking and just in general in society, like that's what you do with your friends. To connect like you go out and you tell them let's go have a drink in order to connect with them And like I said, especially in florida like huge party scene That's literally all you do best djs in the world best clubs in the world so I was very unconscious about the fact of my lifestyle of how Every time I would meet with friends and even during the week it was To drink and during that time you think it's normal because that's the norm. That's the foundation And even like in college I was I was like reading studies about how like bench drinking for a woman is I believe over four drinks and That like, that was what I would do. What I would, we, we definitely, and it wasn't only me. It was like all my friends, we were definitely having more than four drinks. We were definitely like getting drunk most of the time, which it's just not normal behavior. But at the time I, I did think it was because everybody else around me was doing it. And then I think like. Once I got into a relationship and I started seeing, like, I was able to take myself out of that environment and become the observer, I was like, you know, something's off. Like, I don't think that this is normal. And then thankfully I started going to therapy and through therapy, I started realizing how. The drinking and all those behaviors were just a way to cope through the pain of keeping myself closeted, of not being able to allow myself to be who I was, and I was so scared of this judgment from other people, from society for being gay, and I was scared of that judgment, but I also had a lot of judgment against myself, a lot of shame, a lot of guilt for who I was. So it's as if I was using that to just cope with the pain, to cope with the feeling of, I can't be who I am. I'm incarcerated in this life, and it's just so painful, so lonely.

Steve: 9:52

Yeah, I can certainly relate to that as I'm sure a lot of my listeners can relate to that. Even being, in my situation where I joke that I was told I was gay long before I was gay because I was just that flamboyant type of person still, like, having to come to terms with it myself and what that meant for me and, trying to sometimes, co switch or try and fit into places that, weren't me or, whether it be for safety or whether it be for insecurity it was certainly something that I wasn't very familiar with. Definitely, even though I was out, certainly was never comfortable, even when I was out and people knew that I was gay, I wasn't always comfortable being gay, like, myself. And, so, how did things shift for you in sobriety with your relationship to your sexuality and identity?

Alex: 10:37

Mm, I love this question so much, because I was sober for like 390 days or 89 days, starting last year, and just the shift in my life was incredible. It's almost as if you take the fog out of your, out of your mind and you're able to see so clearly. And I think sexuality wise, It hasn't changed much because I'm still very much into women, but there is that like 0. 001 percent that if I do meet a human that's in another body and I fall in love with them, if it's a man, well, That's what it is. I'm not holding myself back. But I think it just brought more clarity around. It doesn't only have to be a person in a woman body, but I am mostly attracted to that.

Steve: 11:38

Yeah. And tell me how has that changed your relationships with the women that you're attracted to or that are in your life?

Alex: 11:44

So it's definitely changed the type of woman that I am attracted to and the type of dates that I go on before being sober. The first thing I would do would be like, let's go have a drink. That would just be the first thing. And now it's like, no. I want to actually do something sober with you because I was actually reading a study about this too, how when your first date with someone is to go and have drinks, alcohol can blind you because you're feeling good inside and you think it's the person that's giving you that, but it's the alcohol. And sometimes you blind yourself thinking that you like them, but no, it's just like the experience that you had with them that you think it's because of them. So being able to truly meet someone. without any type of substances and truly seeing them for who they are has been Life changing for me because now I really know from my core Do I like this person or not? And would I go out with them on a date or not? And the dates are just so much more authentic.

Steve: 12:51

Yeah, I can't imagine. I know that I got sober when I was married So there wasn't much dating other than the dates that we go on together, which are definitely sober now but But I was like lighting up when you were talking about that because I was like if I had that attitude or if I was sober back when I was single and dating around I would have saved myself years of relationships where I was like pretty much drunk the whole time and like from the first date I was like I like them but I maybe it's because I like the alcohol and they let me drink and I drank the entire relationship and when I sobered up I was like oh I don't you I didn't like these people that I was with for a lot of the time.

Alex: 13:23

Absolutely. And I think also being able to go on sober dates with people, it also gives you awareness around the fact of what is this person like to do other than drink? Is drinking their main priority on the weekends? Because if it is, it's just not a match for me. You know, how, how creative can you be on our dates?

Steve: 13:44

Yeah. And for someone who is sober and getting ready to start dating, if they're having trouble figuring out what sober dates even look like, because we are so used to going to the bars, what are some of like the sober date suggestions or what are some good sober dates you've been on?

Alex: 14:03

There's this, I live in San Francisco, but there's this place that I take my dates and it's this little mini golf, but it's like super cute. It's called urban putt. And it's such a great date spot because you go with someone, you're taking out your inner child because you're being playful with them. It's like eight little mini golf courses. They're very, they're very creative. It's like a super cool vibe. And You, you're able to really like compete with them, see how they do if they lose, see how playful they are. You can also have conversations, like deep conversations between little holes between little holes. Also there's this really cool tea bar in San Francisco. That you can go and like sit down and have a conversation. You can go on walking dates. You can go paddle boarding. There's just so many options. Like the options are literally endless. You just have to be creative on like, what do we want to do?

Steve: 15:05

Yeah. I love that being creative is something that I've learned to embrace in sobriety, but when I first got sober, I was like, I'll never be creative again. My creativity was in the drugs and the alcohol. And I learned that no, it actually kind of masked it. So, yeah. And. In addition to those ideas being great for dates, what would you say are some tips for being around alcohol when you do have to venture out into the world where everyone drinks, or a lot of people drink?

Alex: 15:32

Absolutely. From my personal experience, when I cut out alcohol for my life. I did have to isolate a bit, unfortunately, because there was still this temptation and this desire to drink around people that were drinking. So I did have to isolate, which is hard. It is hard to say no to going out and no to places that you know are just all about drinking. However, I do believe that the ultimate goal shouldn't be, I can't be around alcohol, because unfortunately, Everything in our society involves alcohol. You go to a restaurant, there's alcohol, you know, like you, you go to just anywhere, like, even like a work thing, a happy hour, there's alcohol. So I don't think the point is to be like, I can't go anywhere that doesn't have alcohol because it's just not realistic, but it's building up that muscle of resilience of, I am not going to drink and having that self control. So what I would say is if. If it's really hard to not drink, I would limit the interactions. Like I wouldn't go to bars right off the bat. I would really limit myself to going to bars and start going, start planning your interactions with friends around activities that you love. Do you love to paint, go to a paint night? Do you love yoga? Go to yoga with your friends. It's like switching that lifestyle to doing other things with your friends. And yeah, it might mean that you're not going to be out until 2 AM. Maybe you're going to be in bed by 10 PM, but that's amazing. Cause then the next day you can, you can wake up feeling amazing with a great night's sleep and you have so much more time to do all the things that you need to do. And then once you start building that resilience, And you're out with people where you're like, I don't really need a drink. One of the things that I highly recommend is go to the bar and get. Seltzer water, go to the bar and get lemon water, go to the bar and get carbonated water because there's a study as well that smokers. When they stop smoking, they should have some sort of pen in their hand or something in order to help them not want to crave that cigarette. Same thing with drinking. If you're with a group of drinkers, go and get some sort of water so you, you feel like you're still belonging by drinking something and it just tricks your brain as well to think like, oh, I'm actually drinking something, but It doesn't need to have alcohol in it.

Steve: 18:09

Yeah, and I would add to that, because I recently have been venturing out more into the world where people are drinking. Not to have five Red Bulls in one night, because that's not good for any person, whether you're sober or not. At first I was like, I'll have waters, and then I was starting to get tired, so my friends were bringing me Red Bulls, and the next morning I was like, oh no, this is like a caffeine hangover, which is like less severe than an actual hangover, but still something that sober people don't like to experience.

Alex: 18:34

Totally, totally, totally.

Steve: 18:38

Excellent.

Alex: 18:39

I would want to add something too to that. Sure. Also, when you're getting, you know, if you want to cut out drinking from your life, I think making a, taking, doing a self reflection of your life of who are the people that I drink most with, because. Unfortunately, like the people around us do affect our behavior. There's been countless studies on this. If you hang out with people that drink a lot, if you hang out with five drunks, you're going to be the sixth drunk period. It's just reality. If you hang out with five broke people, you're going to be the sick. Like it's just reality. So. really doing a self reflection of who you hang out with the most, who are the biggest drinkers in your life. And for, for the beginning of your journey, maybe setting boundaries and setting, like, maybe I'm not going to go with this person to a bar and I'll hang out with them in another environment. Because Some people's behavior do bring out the worst in us. It's just reality. So it's, it's really taking that, that time to self reflect and being like, in what environments do I drink the most with what people I drink the most, creating some sort of separation and maybe switching the interactions to somewhere else or. time wise, just just setting yourself up.

Steve: 20:11

Yeah. And I love now that I'm getting into more of a routine of being around alcohol. It is easier, but I almost had to push myself out of my comfort zone because I got sober during the pandemic and then it was very easy to isolate and to like do that kind of healing like you talked about where you're not around alcohol when the whole world was shut down. But what I found myself is like, after I might have been like emotionally ready to start venturing out and being around alcohol, I'm talking like one year, a year and a half, almost like two years into sobriety, I was still isolating and not being around alcohol. And it turns out like something switched in that time where I was like, now I know I was able to and I'm able to be around alcohol. But it's kind of like making excuses out of fear. of being in these social situations more so than it was that I talked it through with like my sponsor at the time of the, you know, we talked it through and I was like, no, I'm not afraid of going out to bars because I'm afraid I would drink. And they were like, well, what are you afraid of? And it's like, it was more of that. I wouldn't fit in with the people that I was hanging out with because I wasn't drinking, or I was like afraid of how they would perceive me or how I might perceive them. And it was a lot of fears that weren't about my sobriety at all. Like I was very comfortable being sober. It was more of what being around alcohol and other people drinking might. mean or what I might make it mean. So especially like when you're making that transition from isolating to going back out into the world, if it feels kind of scary or overwhelming, what kind of advice would you give to someone?

Alex: 21:39

I think you touched a very pivotal point there where you were like, I'm not afraid to go out. I'm just afraid that I won't belong. And I think that a lot of people Especially in the queer community crave so much belonging just because in our lives, we feel like we haven't belonged and we've been excluded from our family, from society. We're going to get shamed. We're going to get guilt for who we are. And. Now it's like we're so thirsty to fit into a group of friends and they're drinking. So I'm going to drink too. So I'm not the odd one out. And if there's any advice I can give someone is that if you have to change who you are and your behaviors to fit in with a group of people, they are not your people, period. They're not. And even with some of my Miami friends where I, when I go back and visit them, I have had to have this conversation where I'm like, Hey, I'm not drinking. I don't want you to pressure me into drinking because I'm not going to drink. So in order for me to have a good time with you guys, please don't be like, Oh, why aren't you drinking? Oh, come on. You'll, you never see us like this peer pressure that I don't want. So like. I'm like, I'm warning you now that when I see you, please don't pressure me into drinking. And they have respected that. And that's perfect. You know, those are my people to hang out with. If you're approaching a new group, be your authentic self from day one in order to see if they're your people. And if they criticize you or judge you, then that wasn't your group. And then that gives you space and saves you time to go find the real people that you want. But also if you want a sober lifestyle and you don't want to drink as much, like Maybe the bar is not the best place to go find the people to hang out with, maybe figuring out like what you love and maybe go find a group of queers that hike on the weekend, find a group of queers that surf, find a group of queers that do other things during the day, and a great resource is meetup. There's a lot of queer groups on there that have so many activities that people do other than drinking.

Steve: 23:56

Excellent. I'll have to link over to meet up in the show notes for people to check that out. And speaking of that, I always love this question from people because what I love about the podcast and my online presence is that I get exposed to people beyond the 12 step program that I'm in. That I use for sobriety. And so I get to meet people who use other methods or get sober on their own. And so without having a program of tools, like I was given, what tools did you use in early sobriety, like meetup to help you connect with other sober people or to help build that community?

Alex: 24:29

The tools that I use was resilience and discipline but also meditation, honestly, like I went so much within and really started regulating my nervous system, started regulating my body because I feel like when we are dysregulated, we tend to want to reach for the alcohol, reach for, reach for the things that we like to cope with that aren't good for us, that make us feel good. So I started gaining the awareness of, Oh, I have, I've had a stressful week at work. I want to drink because of that. But what's another alternative? How about I go to the gym instead? So it's also building a lot of awareness and going within regulating your body in order for you to have a strong foundation of, okay, my body feels good. now emotionally what's going on that I want to drink this thing or that I want to get drunk, you know, so figuring that out. So literally just exercise. I thought exercise was great. Meditation also really helped me to ground myself and discipline. What's my goal? Why do I want to be sober? Why do I want to cut alcohol out of my life? And what is one step I can take every day to get there.

Steve: 25:59

Excellent. And what would you say is your favorite part of being sober today?

Alex: 26:07

The way I feel. How do you feel? Oh my God. When I stopped drinking, literally, it was as if I got sober. My life back. I had so much time to do so many other things that I wanted to do. It just, if just thinking about the hangover feeling is like, you know, so like not having to ever feel that ever again is like, Amazing. And it was so interesting because after being sober for 389 or 90 days, I drank again and I was able to see difference of how I feel of how it fogs my mind of how it takes me away from my spirituality of how. It's a way to cope with stress and I just feel tired the next day. I don't feel like I'm in my body. And I had this realization too, because there was like one night, it was like a Thursday and a Friday. I had like two wines on Thursday. I had another two wines on Friday and then Saturday I was like really feeling the effects of the alcohol. And I had a silent retreat that I went to and it was almost as if I was able to integrate that experience at the silent retreat. And literally what I got from it was like, there's a light bulb, right? And the light bulb shines light alcohol, just like dims my light and my energy and how I show up to the world. And I was like, Wow. I feel that. And, and why? And like, for me, it's like, if I have such radiant energy and such loving, shining energy, why am I going to dim that for, from others? Why for an hour or two hours of like feeling good? Like. No.

Steve: 28:04

I love that, and I love your bright, shiny energy. Thank you. Alright, and any final tips or bits of advice?

Alex: 28:14

I would say that if you are curious about cutting alcohol from your life and being sober, to try it. Start out small. Do Sober January. And then if it feels good, do Sober February. And if it feels good, do February. sober barge. And there's going to be times where, you know, you may slip up and have one too many drinks, but that's okay. Get up the next day and try it again. That's life. So really trusting your gut as well. If you could, because my intuition for drinking came from my gut, it was this voice inside of me that was like, stop drinking, stop drinking until I finally listened to it. And. It's interesting because every time we listen to our intuition, we get more into alignment of what our life's path is. And I listened to that voice, my business doubled. Just the, the one, all the things that I was able to accomplish in 2023, I would have never been able to accomplish if I would have been drinking and getting in late and not waking up on time. So if you have that intuition in you, follow it because it will lead you to the right path.

Steve: 29:29

Excellent. And if people are listening to this episode and are thinking part of my path is connecting with Alex about their events and everything like that, how can people find you?

Alex: 29:39

Yes, so they can follow me on Instagram at lgbtqmindfulness and I'm also on TikTok as Alex Castro with two X's and two O's. And usually on Instagram is where I have most of my offerings. I'm actually doing a retreat in Columbia, August 2nd to the 10th, where mindfulness meets adventure. So if you're interested in that, DM me on Instagram.

Steve: 30:05

That sounds awesome. Well, thank you so much, Alex. It was great getting to know you better.

Alex: 30:10

Same, Steve. Thank you so much for having me and thank you for your listeners for listening to this so far.

Steve: 30:16

All right. And back to you future self. Welcome back. I'm so glad you enjoyed the interview. I'm assuming you did, because it was a blast to record and even listen to when I was editing it again. And if you want more information on Alex, make sure you check out the show notes so you can link over to all of their amazing work as well as all of my stuff as well. And while you're playing around in your podcasting app, make sure that you've already left us a five star review. And if you haven't already please do so, reviews are huge at telling apple that this is a podcast that's worth telling other people about. And so if you believe that this is something that could help someone else stay sober, leaving the review as the best way to say, Hey apple, Hey Spotify, share this, please. So please do that. And until next time everybody stay sober.