Flipping the Record: Kristina's Journey from Excess to Soul Songs

For Kristina Ambrosia, life has always been lived at full volume. She's someone attracted to excess, a ruminator and a reactor. She's extremely sensitive and often insecure. Though never officially diagnosed, she's confident she falls somewhere on the OCD/ADHD spectrum.

"I've never been good at moderating, not my activities, not my feelings, and not my drinking," Kristina shares. "I think the draw for me in drinking was the way it allowed me to dissociate from all the overthinking and overfeeling."

The shame around her drinking weighed heavily, especially as a mom to a young child. One Memorial Day pool party became a turning point she couldn't ignore. In an attempt to be responsible, she hired an Uber to get them to and from the party. But the next morning when she woke up, she couldn't tell you a thing about the Uber driver. Was it a man or a woman? Were they young or old? She also had no memory of putting her daughter to bed.

"Did I put her in her pajamas? Did she dress herself?" Kristina recalls. "If I could remember the details of the night, then I could convince myself things weren't that bad. I was capable of being a social drinker and a good parent. I didn't need to quit. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember, and I did need to quit."

Finding a New Path

Kristina tried to quit drinking several times before it stuck. She didn't go the traditional AA route, though she has deep respect for the program and the kindest, most empathetic, inspiring people she's met in those rooms.

"I attended a few AA meetings, but I couldn't get behind the AA introduction, 'Hi, I'm Kristina and I'm an alcoholic,'" she explains. "I still don't use that word. I still have trouble saying it. I believe words are spells, and while it might be helpful for some to identify using that label, for me, it was not. I didn't want to keep reinforcing an identity I didn't want to have."

One thing that did help her start her sobriety journey was the book Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington. The book is punchy, non-preachy, filling the gap between full abstinence and drinking more than we want to. At the time, she couldn't think about forever abstinence. But she was willing to consider Warrington's invitation to see what would happen if she gave up booze just for a while, three months specifically.

When she told a friend about the book and that she was giving it a go, he said, "Think about it. You can't do anything physical when you drink, you can't do anything intellectual, and you can't do anything spiritual."

"And I was like 'hot damn, what does that leave?'" Kristina recalls. "It's been six years, and life seems better lucid!"

The Record Player Metaphor

As she struggled to commit to a life without booze, Kristina developed a powerful metaphor that helped her move forward.

"I would pretend my life experiences were like a record," she explains. "Side A was the drunk ditties and Side B was full of, well, I didn't know, because I just kept listening to Side A on loop, refusing to turn the record over and explore the tracks on the other side."

She knew the songs on Side A word for word, and there was comfort in that. She could sing and dance those tracks by heart. She knew when the bass came in, the chord progressions, when the music hit a crescendo and when it dipped.

"Then one day I thought to myself, 'What if the best song ever is Track 3 Side B and I'll never know it because I keep listening to only the songs I already know on repeat?' I owed it to myself to give Side B a listen. If I hated it, I reminded myself, I could turn the record back over to the songs that had made up the soundtrack for most of my life."

She didn't hate Side B. She loved it.

"Side B was full of what I now call Soul Songs. I fell in love with their strong delivery, honesty, and powerful pulse."

Yoga, Writing, and Creative Practice

Right before she got sober, Kristina began her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training. She also amped up her reading, writing, and running. It's incredible how much extra time you have on your hands when you aren't sitting around sloshed.

"I see yoga as creative practice, as paradox, and as prayer," she shares. "It invites you to be everything and nothing. It is strength and surrender. It is both intensely personal, a coming home to yourself, and beautifully communal, connecting practitioners through their breath and their bodies. It provided a gateway into a more spiritual side of myself and helped me through those times I fought to stay away from the bottle."

The other thing that really helped her get and stay sober was the process of creating. She used all that extra time to pursue her writing more seriously and to plan and facilitate women's circles. She published her first piece of poetry and co-created a 32-card oracle deck. She planned and led workshops and wellness retreats.

"To me, creativity became a passageway to safety, to sanity, to joy!"

A Message of Empowerment

Kristina's advice for anyone struggling is rooted in self-compassion and honesty:

"Remembering that we are all both heroes and villains, dark and light, lost and found, is helpful. Your stories are worth honoring, even the scary chapters. Those are the ones often most useful to share. They make us all feel less alone."

Her message to others facing mental health challenges:

"You are your most beloved protagonist, despite your screw-ups, probably because of them! They make you relatable. And they make you human."

Today, Kristina continues to live lucidly, exploring the Soul Songs on Side B of her life's record. Her story is a reminder that sometimes the best songs are the ones we haven't yet discovered, and healing often means giving ourselves permission to turn the record over and listen to what we've been missing.

No matter where you are on your journey, remember: you've survived every hard day so far, and that's your proof that you can keep going.