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    • We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

      Q and A with author Laura McKowen

      We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life

      Tell us how the title of your book We Are the Luckiest came to be.

      Like most people, I thought sobriety was a death sentence. I thought it would be the end of all fun, excitement, joy, sex, travel, relationships, socializing — all the things that made life worth living. I thought the ones who could drink “normally” were so lucky.

      Then one night in 2014, thirty or so days sober, I was lying next to my sleeping daughter, crying. About what, I don’t know — everything was at the surface then. But I was there, with her, in our clean bed with soft sheets and the cool air on my face. Sober. Awake. Not running. Not hiding. I was in pain, but I knew it was the pain of being alive and that this meant something. I was living, not dying. I was expanding, not destroying. I knew it was pain with purpose and that — if I stayed with it — it would take me to the place I’d been trying to go all along, which was closer to life, not further away. I knew it was a gift — that it was the gift.

      I thought, this is the hardest, but it is better. The magic is in here, not out there. They’re not the lucky ones, I am. We are. We are the luckiest.

      I posted something to that effect on Instagram with the hashtag #wearetheluckiest and it caught on. It’s now frequently used as a way to come out sober online and express gratitude for this life. It was the obvious choice for the book title.

      While drinking was your thing, you encourage your readers to recognize their things that are standing between them and their biggest lives. Tell us more.

      We all have something. It can be big like death, divorce, addiction, illness, or it can be something more socially acceptable like perfectionism or working too much or people-pleasing. The point is, we all have some thing — often many things — that push us to our limits and call us to change.

      Addiction was my thing. It brought me to my knees. I thought it was the problem, the flaw—the thing that had gone wrong in my life. But it was actually the doorway to a much bigger, more beautiful and rich existence. This is always the case with our things — they are invitations — even though we don’t usually see them that way.

      You encourage people to drop the labels addict and alcoholic if they want. Why?

      Because they are mostly punitive. Very few people hear those labels and think something positive or even neutral. They carry a big stigma, a big story, and who wants that? You don’t need to call yourself something in order to address it.

      You give your readers permission to forget forever. Please explain.

      Forever was a concept that just seemed so overwhelming in sobriety. Never having another glass of wine, never sharing a cocktail, etc. It overwhelmed me with grief and frustration and it also felt impossible.

      The thing is, the only thing that’s happening is right now. We can always do right now. So I just kept it as that until forever didn’t seem so daunting.

      What advice do you have to offer those who are choosing the sober life that are triggered by other people’s drinking?

      Don’t be around it. You have permission to check out of those things for a while (or forever if you want). I didn’t spend time with people who were drinking for a long time because I tried to do that and it just made me suffer. If I had to for something like a work event, I just kept it really brief. I always had an exit plan and I always let people know beforehand that I wasn’t drinking so there was less anxiety when the time came.

      It can be lonely and hard at first, but you will be forced to find new people and seek out new things, which is necessary. Eventually the drinking won’t matter anymore, but so long as it does, you have permission to opt out.

      Tell us about the “Bigger Yes” that you write about in the book.

      Our unused potential is not benign. When we don’t use what’s inside of us, something dark grows in its place and we get bitter, resentful, depressed. I knew that addiction was killing me in the sense that it was actually killing me, but it was also so painful because I was wasting my potential. We often think of stopping a behavior in terms of what we are giving up, but there’s also something bigger we are moving toward, on the other side — that’s what I mean by the bigger yes.

      Laura McKowen is the author of We Are the Luckiest. She is a former public relations executive who has become recognized as a fresh voice in the recovery movement. Beloved for her soulful and irreverent writing, she leads sold-out yoga-based retreats and other courses that teach people how to say yes to a bigger life. Visit her online at www.lauramckowen.com.

      Excerpted from the book We Are the Luckiest. Copyright ©2020 by Laura McKowen. Printed with permission from New World Library.

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    • Double Vision: Does Smoking Inhibit Our Power as Healers?
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      About six months ago, I got interested in energy healing and got some training in Reiki and other methods. I should mention at this point that I’m a smoker. I believe that we create our own realities, so I believe that if a person believes they will be healthy and live a long life, they can eat what they want, drink and smoke, etc., and they will still remain healthy. Do you think this is true? People seem to be shocked when they learn that I’m a healer but I smoke!

      – Cheryl

      Dreamchaser:

      If you REALLY think something is true on every level – mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, conscious, subconscious, higher self, lower self, etc. – then you have to believe that it is true for you. That is all that should matter to you. Obviously, you must have some doubts, or you would not have come here to ask this question in the first place.

      As far as health issues go, mass consciousness often has a stronger influence than just our influence alone. For example, we were told that saccharine causes cancer. Now however, researchers have recanted and say it is fine. For the longest time, people ran around thinking they were going to get cancer because they had consumed saccharine, and some even did.

      Mass consciousness WILL affect you if you let it. However, if you believe 100 percent that you will be fine, then you will be fine.

      Your higher/inner self is the REAL ruler here. It will tell you what you should do. There have been lots of times I have personally chosen something I thought I wanted that my inner self was saying I should not have. I learned the hard way.

      When I listen to my gut, I am always in perfect harmony with what is. I do believe your gut is kicking up on you, or you would not be here asking this question.

      You need to ask yourself why you believe you need to smoke and drink. That is the real issue, not whether or not you CAN smoke and drink. It is an addiction, so it rules you – you do not rule it. You justify this habit by saying, I can create my world. Well okay – create what you want with people who question your habits.

      As a healer, you have to consider your example to those around you. Would you advocate one of your patients smoking and drinking while you were trying hard to give them healing? If a medical doctor came walking in the exam room with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, telling you what you needed to do in order to be healthy, would you take him seriously on any level?

      Also, as a healer, you are responsible for creating a healthy environment for yourself and those around you. You can mess up your world all you want, but when you smoke around other people, you are affecting THEIR world. Secondhand smoke is deadly. We know this – it has been proven.

      If you were talking to your child, what advice would you give to that child? If you can say to your child, If your belief system is that you will be okay, then I am okay with you smoking and drinking, then you can say that to yourself as well. You are talking to a child you know – you are talking to your own inner child.

      I wish you reassurance.

      *****

      Astrea:

      Ancient cultures often smoked tobacco and other substances to create visions. Plants of that kind were and still are used for medicinal purposes. Even thousands of years ago, however, they knew that these substances could be very dangerous, and they didn’t use them on a daily basis either to invoke euphoria or to escape ordinary reality.

      We live in modern times with intense advertising encouraging us to use substances that are bad for us both spiritually and physically. We still have free choice, however, on whether we want to be a victim of that advertising and become an addict.

      For the record, I smoked from 1962 until June 28, 1976. The way I quit was to dump a pack of cigarettes out and roll up 20 one-dollar bills. Every time I felt I needed to smoke, before I did, I had to burn one of the dollars. I had to roll it up and set it on fire. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t burn the money.

      I quit smoking abruptly this way, and with each cigarette I didn’t smoke, I put the dollar in a shoe box and replaced the one in the pack. I still have all 20 of those cigarettes. When I felt I was free of the addiction, I looked in the shoe box, and I had six hundred dollars! That took about three months.

      In order to heal others, a person has to eliminate disempowering dependencies. The healer has to call the God Force to his or her person and transfer it to the person who is requesting healing.

      The body is a temple that is easily polluted to the point of uselessness. So is the spirit. It will be weakened further every time you light up. Addiction to drugs of any kind prevents a person from being able to heal others.

      Tobacco has particularly nasty spiritual side effects, and it makes your hair and clothes smell horrible. Smoke and energy linger. I could never get past that smell with a healer who smoked. Most people pick up the negative vibrations from the odor, and that’s enough to turn them off.

      Tobacco calls negativity to it no matter where it is, and all those vibrations might transfer to your client. Nicotine alters natural reality and puts you in disharmony with your body. It will put your victim into the SAME disharmony. You can certainly choose to use tobacco, but if you do, please don’t attempt to be a healer. Drug addicts can’t heal others. Why would you inflict that energy on others under the guise of healing?

      If you find it impossible to heal yourself of your nicotine addiction, then please don’t endanger others by telling yourself you can help them. Please don’t be that irresponsible! At least be mindful of our safety if you can’t be of your own.

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