66. Beyond the Bottle: Emily Bonds on Anxiety and Addiction

In this candid conversation, Kristin chats with Emily Bonds. They explore the intersection of mental health, addiction, and personal transformation. Emily reflects on her struggles with anxiety, how alcohol became her escape, and the life-changing moment that set her on the path to sobriety.

They also shed light on parenting challenges, the societal pressures women face, and the importance of breaking the stigma around addiction.

With honesty and vulnerability, they highlight the power of community, emotional awareness, and the courage it takes to rediscover yourself.

Jump to the mic drop moments....
0:00 Intro
5:46 Navigating Emotions and Mental Health
17:02 The Impact of Alcohol on Life
24:49 Navigating Early Life and College Challenges
30:50 The Impact of COVID-19 on Drinking Habits
41:57 Finding Support and Resources for Recovery
50:55 Transformations in Personal Relationships and Self-Perception

Connect with Emily:
Instagram: @emilycbonds
Website: emilycbonds.com

Kristin's Best-Selling Book:
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Do you want to reset, expand, and feel more alive? Learn more about Naba and the community detox journey here.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 5:46 Navigating Emotions and Mental Health
• 17:02 The Impact of Alcohol on Life
• 24:49 Navigating Early Life and College Challenges
• 30:50 The Impact of COVID-19 on Drinking Habits
• 41:57 Finding Support and Resources for Recovery
• 50:55 Transformations in Personal Relationships and Self-Perception

Transcript

Kristin (00:00)
I'm glad to get together again just for context.

Emily and I went to school together and I saw something on Facebook as one does and was like, oh, I would love to bring you on the pod and share your story because I love how you're advocating for addiction awareness or substance. I don't know, let's see what phrase that you used or like taking down the stigma around surrounding addiction. And so welcome back.

Emily Bonds (00:31)
Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you for agreeing to re-record just so it's out there. I also have another chronic mental illness that was in the middle of a medication change and was not putting my best foot forward. So I asked Kristen, hey, would you mind if we could re-record? And she was like, totally. That's awesome. Yeah, we can do that. So I'm grateful to have that kind of opportunity to do so. So thank you so much.

Kristin (00:58)
Yeah, well, I

appreciate you speaking up too, because otherwise, like, it could have just festered in like the uncomfortability of it instead of just voicing or expressing the desire, you know, whether it goes one way, because I thought I was like, Oh, I thought the podcast episode was good, or like, you know, I got, or shared some like vulnerable and powerful moments, but I also don't want you to feel uncomfortable and like want to share like what you're comfortable sharing too. And so and I've had moments where I'm like,

That one felt a little edgy or sticky and didn't really like it And I've rerecorded with someone before too. So I totally get it and resonate and I'm like, I've got I've had my own mental health Rollercoaster ride so and totally relate

Emily Bonds (01:39)
yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah, it's a it's something that I'm learning about. I used to use alcohol to kind of regulate my mood and four years out I don't have that anymore. So I guess the alcohol finally all got out of my body really around 2023. And so now. We're trying to figure out what does normal look like? What does?

Kristin (02:11)
Yeah.

Emily Bonds (02:11)
What is my actual personality? And that's been, that's been the kicker. It's what am I really like? Because for so long, you know, I had big emotions. Well, that's just Emily. She's just, she has big emotions, but no, turns out Emily had big emotions for a different, completely different reason. So who is Emily? Is she, you know, is she, is she kind? I hope so.

Kristin (02:14)
Mmm.

Mm.

Hmm.

Emily Bonds (02:41)
Is she, you know, who am I? And that has been an interesting journey so far.

Kristin (02:52)
Yeah, it sounds like it could be a rediscovery process or like a discovery. I have big emotions too. And I think I used to, I definitely used to numb them or they scared me. Now I see them as a gift or like the tenderness as a gift. And like, you know, some I obviously favor over the other ones when I'm like, big joy.

Emily Bonds (02:55)
Almost definitely.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, joy is good. Big sadness is not good, so it's like. Big joy is good. Big sadness, not so good, so it's like it's like how do we? How do we make it to where they are in at an equilibrium? Because you you have to, because if you're too happy all the time, that could be a problem. And if you're too sad all the time, that is also a problem. So it's like.

Kristin (03:21)
What did you say? I missed it.

Hmm

Mmm.

Emily Bonds (03:42)
Where is the middle of this? who, what is, you know, who is Emily? And it's like you said, a self discovery process. And I'm, think I turned 37 this year. I don't really know. I'm not very good at math, but we turned 37 this year. Okay. Okay. Okay. So at 37 in my late thirties, now that I'm not drinking all the time and I'm

Kristin (03:58)
We do. We do.

Emily Bonds (04:10)
you know, working professional and a mom of two and a wife. Like who, who am I actually? And that has been a very interesting journey to say the least. I'm still on it and I don't think I'm ever going to get off of the, off the who am I train?

Kristin (04:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, it can be like as, you know, philosophical, existential as you want it. Sometimes I'm like, who am I? Am I Kristen? Or am I the deep seated awareness underneath this observing my thoughts and actions and emotions? I've been leaning into like, even though I don't really like the sadness or the anger, you know, as much as I do like the joy or, you know, higher elevated states.

Emily Bonds (04:37)
Why am I

Kristin (04:53)
I've been leaning into like just seeing that as a sacred to it's like I feel like I came in to have this human experience and the full range of that is the anger is the sadness, you know, there's divinity within that to or like a pearl that I can find. However, they're like, you know, it's kind of like a delicate balance for me anyway, as far as okay, you know, I'm seeing that I am self isolating here. How can I?

reincorporate some things that, you know, get some more movement and motion, you know, like, or how can I best support myself or nourish myself in this moment? And like, maybe that's movement or going outside or something like that. I don't have to stay there. Yeah.

Emily Bonds (05:27)
right.

yeah, yeah, because.

yeah, because I I could be very comfortable staying in the I call it the sad garden where it's like little like little pansy that's like perp perp perp like I could live there. I could live there and never come out, but that's not fair to my kids. It's not fair to my husband and and it's not fair to me either. So like you said, you have to get outside and move. You have to you have to you're you're in bed, but you're still working.

Kristin (05:48)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (06:05)
But you have to like, you have to get out of bed, you have to work, you have to go to workout class and be around people because people like myself, it's just really easy to stay in the sad garden, so to speak.

Kristin (06:05)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think we have to reset our emotional or our base point or our baseline or like what is familiar to our nervous system or sadness is familiar or chaos. Like I know a lot of some of my friends and I know in my past I have totally like thrived in chaotic environments or attracted like really chaotic experiences. Well, that's because I feel like they're, you know, growing up and you know,

Emily Bonds (06:40)
yeah.

Kristin (06:48)
yelling or arguing and or like chaotic environments. That's what I was used to. That's what in some ways felt safe. Even though like I would much prefer the peaceful alternative.

Emily Bonds (06:55)
yeah.

Well, you

go after what you know, right? And I grew up in a house where there was yelling and there was, you my dad used to give this speech and if he ever listens to this, which I highly doubt he will. I don't know, dad, if you're listening, hi. He used to give us this speech about the haves and the have-nots. And the have-nots made 85s on their spelling tests and they never got into college. So I have like really

Kristin (07:02)
That's good.

Mm.

Mmm.

Emily Bonds (07:29)
I to not pass that on to my oldest, even though he is incredibly smart. We live in Katy, which is a Houston suburb, and he figured out how to get around the Katy ISD firewall to watch YouTube videos. know I'm like, girl, live in like the probably the, if not the best, like second best school district of the state. Like Katy ISD is famous for its schools.

Kristin (07:33)
Hmm.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (07:54)
And he figured out that if he put a YouTube embedded link in Google Docs, he could watch any YouTube video he wanted and get around the firewall. Yeah. And he's nine. So it kills me when he comes home with an 85 on something and I'm like, and I email his teacher. like, what happened here? well, he just didn't read all the questions he wanted to get done. So he could read like he little nerd, like

Kristin (08:02)
wow.

you

Emily Bonds (08:22)
You nerd, like you could have made 100 on this science project. You just decided just to like circle random things and you still guessed and read half the question and made an 85. A part of me is a little proud, but like, hey, you can do better. the, the, uh, it's trying, you know, to go back and try not to put those, those things that we experienced as kids on our, you know, my parents. And I've actually noticed, um,

Kristin (08:35)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm

for sure.

Emily Bonds (08:52)
I've been a little edgy recently and maybe have screamed, stop it a little too often at my kids. Cause they're, they're nine and three and they poke at each other all the time. Cause the three year old thinks he's nine too. And, I was just stop it, stop it, stop it. And all of sudden I started both of my boys, Brody and Brady just started yelling, stop it at each other.

Kristin (09:16)
Mmm.

Emily Bonds (09:16)
I'm like, I'm setting such a bad parent example, but at least I'm not telling them they're going to be homeless if they make an 85 on their spelling test. You know, like, OK, you know, but it's funny how our kids are sometimes a reflection of ourselves and sometimes that's a good reflection. yeah. yeah. yeah.

Kristin (09:24)
Ha

for sure. mean, shoot, I see my dog as a reflection of myself. I think the kids totally are. like, mean,

it's, that's that's a, I could see how that's a challenging.

Emily Bonds (09:47)
Well,

I don't know about your dog, but if I have anybody new coming in the house, my dog, he's he's 13 years old now, or he'll be he's about to be 14. I don't know. He's old. But anyway, if if like if there's somebody new coming in the house, and I'm a little apprehensive, he goes into full little dog attack mode. He's a miniature snouser. He only weighs 15 pounds, but he's going to grab a hold of that person's like shoe, and they're not going to go anywhere.

Kristin (10:13)
Yeah, no,

we just had I mean it scared me like it literally It really did so my neighbor next door has a big dog ferocious bark and Boudreaux is so small that he can crawl underneath the gate and He's durable, but sometimes he thinks he's that dog size and he's like five and a half months so he's still learning and I'm

Emily Bonds (10:16)
You know?

yeah.

Kristin (10:41)
I've been training, I want to get like an extended training with like a professional because I'm like, he has a mind of his own, kind of like me. but also, so we were outside and I was like throwing something and then my neighbor said that, don't worry, my dog is friendly. And so I let Boudreaux run and go say hi. He's been going to daycare and being socialized and, you know, taking, taking some steps. But then the next thing I know, I guess like Boudreaux had like maybe a little stance.

Emily Bonds (10:45)
A real trainer, yes.

Right.

Kristin (11:08)
And then the next thing I know that he's on his back and the big dog has him in his mouth. And I'm like, oh my God, he's gonna get punched. And then I'm like rushing over to try and separate them. And then he's coming over and he's like, oh my God, my dog's never done this. I'm so sorry. And so we had like, was like, I took Boudreaux inside and he was like shivering and shaking. He was like, oh my God. And I don't know. Yeah, I did. And I was like, did I have the mom moment of flipping the truck over?

Emily Bonds (11:31)
I just saw your life flash before my eyes.

Kristin (11:38)
because I didn't even think about getting bit by a dog. I was just like, save the dog. Yeah.

Emily Bonds (11:38)
yes.

Oh yeah. Save the dog. Oh yeah, no, that is what

happens, especially when you have a new little puppy. Like you gotta, yeah, I have those moments all the time and my dog is still, he's 13 years old.

Kristin (11:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, it's been interesting. I've noticed, and you know, we mentioned mirror too, and I noticed that if I feel frazzled, like that little old shithead is gonna be running all over and like biting things. But I remember I consciously like went to take a bath one time and I like, okay, I'm gonna reset my energy and I'm stepping out of this tub grounded and just like in a more calm energetic state. he...

He reflected that to me. Like he just snuggled up next to me. I was sitting like kind of in front of couch and he just like was so chill. I was like, oh my God, that he is my mirror. All that to say though too that I think that your son like that shows some ingenuity and cleverness to get around the rules. Cause there's a part of me that is totally a rebel. I'm like, go. But also at the same time, I understand. I just wrote a little piece about how I thought that I had to earn my love or my parents' pride because I got rewarded for the good grades and that sort of thing.

Emily Bonds (12:32)
Yeah.

yeah.

yeah, okay.

Kristin (12:54)
And then like, you know, I think believe that stories can transcend time because my dad died in 2013 but I have this little booklet that he gave me and even though he did reward me for the grades and like encouraged that One of the questions in there was like what's the most proud or what's the moment in life that made you the most proud? he'd be and it said That would be the moment that you and your brother were born. I was like I had this like crying

laughing moment of, my god, I've been working for something my entire life and I've had it since birth. Yeah, yeah, I was like, but I, it's, yeah, I don't know how I would even begin to pair it. That just seems like such a big yes.

Emily Bonds (13:20)
yeah.

And you didn't need to earn it like it was already there. Yeah.

It's just something you learn on the go, honestly, because

we didn't, we didn't, know we were in the think the same home ec class, but they didn't teach it. They taught us how to, yeah, miss what

Kristin (13:47)
Were we? Okay, yeah, I did not.

What I remember about Home Ec is, what do you remember about Home Ec?

Emily Bonds (13:56)
I remember,

I remember, do you remember Lindsey Boykin? Okay, so we were talking about like shampoo and conditioner and Lindsey was very adamant that you had to condition your hair every day. And then Miss Roach was like, no, you don't. And she was like, yes, you do. So for some reason, I remember that vividly. I don't know why.

Kristin (14:00)
my god, yeah, Lindsay and I still talk to this day.

Mmm.

Emily Bonds (14:21)
But like, watched these videos in that class that were very dated. They were from easily the late eighties. I mean, and I remember that, and I remember we attempted to cook in, and like it was very questionable. It was highly questionable.

Kristin (14:37)
See, that's what I remember.

Yeah, now I remember that because the recipe that I was making said stir by hand. so I was in there like with my fingers, like stirring something by hand. And I guess Ms. Roach came over and she's like, Kristen, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm stirring by hand. She's like, I'm meant with a spoon. And I'm like, oh.

Emily Bonds (14:52)
okay.

We turned our heads!

Oh. Oh, we were like-

Kristin (15:07)
Yeah, about this.

I don't even know really why I'm in this home ec class.

Emily Bonds (15:11)
We were like 14,

15, like, well, it was either that or you had to take ag and I didn't want to take ag. You know?

Kristin (15:16)
okay. I probably

should have taken Ag. Now, looking back, I could have had some really cool like woodworking or skills in my tool belt or, you know, it would have been, I don't know.

Emily Bonds (15:29)
That was before

like having your own kitchen. Chicken coop was cool. Like you know we were we were about 20 years late on that trend. Right yeah but all those are thinking about it now all those kids that showed chickens and things when we were in high school like they know how to build a chicken coop they could probably like make money doing that as adults. Oh gosh girl.

Kristin (15:35)
Ha ha ha

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, especially with egg prices these days, man, I went to the grocery store

the other morning and I usually, I mean, a lot of times like I order my groceries or just out of convenience and I'm like, okay, what's my burn rate? Is it more efficient for me to spend my time and energy to go to the grocery store or just order it? And obviously I like pleasure and comfort as I'm in bed recording this, but I went and I was like $7 for the organic, you know, farm, whatever.

Emily Bonds (16:13)
Exactly.

the fancy organic

brown eggs and whatever. Yeah.

Kristin (16:20)
Battle farms, yeah, I'm like, what the?

I was like, sent books for some X?

Emily Bonds (16:26)
I know it's like

it's like I could buy seven energy drinks because like actually you could probably buy three. You could buy three Alani news for the price of this carton of eggs. Like it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, well in my book. sorry. Yeah, no.

Kristin (16:31)
Thank

I'm like, dang, yeah. Okay, yeah. Oh no, yeah, no, I just wanna

say, I'm like, I don't wanna skip over your story. I like, feel like I could talk to you about anything for a long time, but I wanna definitely like hone in on like your story or your arc of transformation about the alcohol and you know, how it was maybe a suppressive of emotions or.

Emily Bonds (16:46)
yeah.

Unreal.

Kristin (17:01)
rediscovering your personality or who you are today without that because it totally is like a social lubricant and it's so embedded in our culture to me that raises a Flag it's like if it's so promoted like why does big government? Why do they want you numbed out or why do they want you not in touch with yourself or your power your emotions or that sort of thing? I kind of like go into like a little conspiracy

Emily Bonds (17:08)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

yeah, I go. I

I wear the whole tin hat when I taught when I might think about it because next time you go to the grocery store and you pick up a bottle of know Peter Grigio. There will be no ingredients listed on that label. It's just it's just look at this pretty label. It's wine like there's no ingredients listed. So you so you have no real idea what you're putting in your body.

Kristin (17:29)
Hahaha

Mmm!

True.

That's true. And it's not just grapes.

Emily Bonds (17:54)
No, no, there's other things in there. There's, you know, sulfates and I don't know. I bet there's some red die 40 in there. You know that all the kids are allergic to now. I bet that's in there so you can't don't trust them. hat then. Yeah.

Kristin (18:04)
Yeah.

Wow.

Wow. Yeah,

no. That's interesting. That is interesting. I think I saw something floating around on the internet advocating for nutrition labels on alcohol or booze. I'm like...

Emily Bonds (18:21)
There should be. Well, now

the surgeon general, and I think that's the right title, they're trying to get black box labels on alcohol because it's been linked to seven types of cancer. It's funny, I don't know if you've ever done any sort of breast cancer awareness walks or you buy the little cups and it's like wine for ta-tas. Well, alcohol actually can contribute to...

Kristin (18:28)
Mmm. Mmm.

Hmm

Emily Bonds (18:48)
getting breast cancer, so you should not put wine in your tall, glass.

Kristin (18:52)
Yeah, yeah, I know.

I've never done any walks, but I'm closely familiar with it. As a client of mine has walked that journey and thankfully come out the other side. And then even my neighbor the other day had like a benign tumor in his breast. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, if I even have to just go back on the feedback that I feel after I have a couple glasses of wine, I don't

Emily Bonds (19:11)
wow, that's crazy.

Kristin (19:22)
feel good. So I'm like, why continue to do that?

Emily Bonds (19:23)
No, no, it's, it's legit poison. that's why

nobody feels good. And we're always, but we're chasing the high with alcohol. And that's what it was for me. had such terrible anxiety while I was in college. I didn't feel like I belonged there. cause I was at Baylor and Baylor is not like Mount Vernon. Like, you know, nobody's nobody there, you know, everybody there, they have a car that works.

Kristin (19:37)
Yeah.

you

Emily Bonds (19:52)
They have, you know, their, their uncle doesn't have mess mouth. Like, you know, like it's, it's a very different environment and you know exactly what I'm talking about too. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Like maybe exactly.

Kristin (20:04)
I do, do, no. I don't know, maybe they just hide it. There's a part of me that's like,

they have some things, or like the stories that we tell ourselves, right?

Emily Bonds (20:14)
Right,

right. yeah. And when you're 18, 19, and you're from rural Texas and you're living in Waco, which you think is a big city, cause they have a mall, like, you know. yeah. They had a Dillard's in town and you didn't have to drive an hour to get there. Like it was, my gosh, it was so big, but I didn't think I belonged there. So I just drank all the time. And in order to do.

Kristin (20:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, I totally thought that way when I went to Tyler. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

you

Emily Bonds (20:42)
homework in order to do write papers, I would just drink like Boone's Farm. It was 99 cents. And I would talk some upperclassmen in my sorority to buy it for me. And I would just drink it. I would literally put it in either a water burger or a Sonic cup with a bunch of ice, pour it in there and just like sip and write papers and do my math homework.

Kristin (20:54)
Mmm.

Wow, I mean, how do you have the focus?

I mean, how did you have the focus to finish the paper?

Emily Bonds (21:10)
So it's crazy is that

I was so amped up about like starting it like, my gosh, I'm never going to be able to finish this. It's this I'm so stupid. Why am I here as essential crisis when you're 19 years old? Why am I here? I'm not good enough to be here. Nobody loves me. If I fail, I'm a disappointment and I'm going to, you know, have some, I have nots are coming. I have to get an a. Um, but what the alcohol did was it made my mind stop working like with the anxiety and I was able to

Kristin (21:15)
Mmm.

Mmm

you

Mm.

Mmm, okay.

Emily Bonds (21:40)
focus and be like, you know, I think that biochemical engineering blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, So that's what did it. And I was successful at it for many years, I was able to turn out term papers and do math homework and get all A's, you know, had that had four semesters where I think I got like a four point straight. So like,

Kristin (21:47)
Hi.

Emily Bonds (22:09)
I was able to do it. But if I had the coping mechanisms I've learned about recently, I probably could have saved myself years of active addiction. But yeah, I drank a lot in college to just cope with anxiety. I had some other things happen too, but I don't want to go down that road. But just had some crazy...

Kristin (22:22)
Yeah.

Emily Bonds (22:36)
not crazy, but just I had a lot of anxiety issues and.

Kristin (22:39)
symptomatic

environments or something. But you didn't drink at all in high school, did you? Okay.

Emily Bonds (22:43)
Yeah.

No, no, because I was afraid I was going to get caught and then

I would go to jail and be the ultimate disappointment to my parents. Yeah.

Kristin (22:54)
Okay, I couldn't remember.

I mean, I don't think I didn't remember seeing you at any of the pastor parties, but which even like I remember going to like one of my first ones and like, Chris, what are you doing here? Like, I like the fun.

Emily Bonds (23:06)
Like, don't know. Yeah.

Well, and when I'm going to be honest, I was not cool enough to be invited to the pastor parties. I was not in that group. you know, looking back in high school when, I don't think I had, I had acquaintances. I didn't have a lot of friends. had acquaintances because we, lived out of town. We lived on a farm. We had, I had stuff I had to do.

Kristin (23:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (23:36)
and my parents had me in every extracurricular activity known to man. Like I showed steers through the four H club. I was in basketball. I was in UIL. I had younger siblings. I had to help take care of, like I was busy. I didn't have time for friends. There was no downtime. And I honestly think that was one of the reasons why college was so weird to me because you could go hang out with people. You didn't have like.

Kristin (23:40)
Mm-hmm.

more.

Emily Bonds (24:02)
You didn't have to go feed steers your steer at five o'clock in the morning. It's like, do do? Like who are these kids from Dallas? I can't relate with them. They have, you know, they sleep until nine o'clock. Like, is this? You should be up at seven 30 going to the gym. Like what is wrong with you? And looking back now, like they had it figured out. You didn't have to, you know, you didn't have to be the first one at the gym in the morning. Like it's fine. The gym is always going to be there.

Kristin (24:04)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Mm.

Hmm

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (24:34)
But yeah, but I drank pretty much in college to deal with anxiety. And when I got married, my husband and I, I got married 90 days after college graduation. FYI. Yeah. Yeah. I don't recommend that for anybody, but I wanted to get married. So I did. And we did, I guess it takes two people. But we got married and we had.

Kristin (24:46)
Wow.

Emily Bonds (25:03)
He had a job and this is probably going to date us, but he made $45,000 a year and we thought we were rich. We thought we were so rich. We had all this money, AKA we had $500 in our bank account, which meant we could go to a couple of the bars in uptown Dallas and we could get several drinks and it'd be under $150 and we would still have money in our account to pay our electric bill.

Kristin (25:09)
Hahaha

You

Emily Bonds (25:32)
And

that's, that's all you care about at 23, 24 is like, can you do when you're out with your friends? And we turned into little weekend warriors. We were just drinking and having a good time. And, uh, for me, when I crossed the line into from just casual, I'll call it weekend warrior. And that's kind of the term that a lot of people use when you like party hard on the weekend.

Kristin (25:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (26:02)
When I crossed the line into flirting with full on addiction, after my son was born, Brody, when he was little, I was a stay at home mom. And so I, and my well-meaning pediatrician, when he was a newborn, I wasn't making enough milk for him. And she told me, well, if you drink a dark beer, that'll help you produce more milk because of the yeast or something. I don't know.

I just heard dark beer drink. Like, okay, I can do that. So I would drink too and help with milk production. And then when he was down for his nap, you know, it's 1130, you can still make brunch for yourself at your house. So I would make bacon, eggs and toast and have two mimosas because why not? And then now making dinner, I'm going to make myself a cocktail or have a glass of wine. Oh, my husband's home. I'm going to make him.

Kristin (26:38)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (27:01)
you know, a drink and I'm going to make myself one and then we're going to have a nightcap. So I was drinking six, seven, eight drinks a day for about a year and wondered why I couldn't lose weight. Why, why is my postpartum body not, you know, why am I not bouncing back? Like, you know, all the celebrities on TV, why am I not doing all that? but I drank like that for a, for a while.

Kristin (27:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (27:30)
and for years actually. But when I went back to work, I obviously wasn't drinking it on the job. That would not be good. But I was still having three, four, five drinks a night at home. Or really, you know, kind of close, probably like closer to three or four, which I think once you hit, I can't remember the exact number of drinks that the government tells you. But what I was definitely

Kristin (27:43)
Yeah.

Emily Bonds (27:59)
over that amount of weekly consumption. It was definitely over that for many years. Then we moved to Houston. That was a whole other set of stressors. But the great thing about Houston is we have all these breweries with playgrounds. So it's very easy to go and get beer and pizza and have your kids jump off the top of the playground. It's fine.

Kristin (28:17)
Mmm.

Question, how long did y'all wait to have kids?

Emily Bonds (28:29)
You know.

We waited five years. I know people that they started trying on their honeymoon. That just was not for us. We wanted to travel, which did we travel? No, because we drank all of our money away. you know, we knew that we didn't want to have kids right away because we were still trying to figure out who we were. We didn't know if we wanted to have kids. For a while, we thought, no, we're not going to have kids. We're just going to be that

Kristin (28:36)
Okay.

Emily Bonds (29:03)
cool aunt and uncle type person that you know, maybe with my siblings have kids will just spoil them. But we saw everyone else starting to have kids. And we are friends of church they were having kids and they looked cute and they they knew we weren't babies. They smell so good. And I told my husband, well, let's you know, Scott, let's just try for a couple of months and see what happens. And

Kristin (29:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (29:33)
I, we stopped taking, I stopped taking my birth control pills and we were pregnant within a month. I actually ran a half marathon pregnant and didn't know it. Yeah. I thought I was just throwing up because I was nervous or had butterflies. No, there was a baby in there. There was a legit baby in there. Brody was in there. He was there and yeah, I wouldn't change it for the world though.

Kristin (29:49)
Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, women are resilient.

mean, people are too. mean, men are too. I'm just like, I'm like just, there's all the things.

Emily Bonds (30:04)
yeah.

yeah, cause

like I literally was throwing up at the start line. was like, I'm just nervous. No, no, I was like 10 weeks pregnant.

Kristin (30:18)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (30:20)
But yeah, the things that we do when we look back, it's like, my gosh, how did I survive that?

Kristin (30:27)
And then I didn't mean to like interrupt you, but just going, so you went back to work and then we're still drinking. What escalated it after that?

Emily Bonds (30:30)
no, you're fine.

Yeah.

So COVID was a big, so I will say there's two things. Where we happened to move in Houston, it's very family friendly area. Even the bars are family friendly. Like they have kids menus and kids drinks and it's family oriented. So it was really easy to go to the brewery, get some drinks, have him play on the playground or go, there's

Kristin (30:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Bonds (31:08)
there's legitimate bars here that are designed for parents. So it was very easy to do. So I could try all the new beers that I wanted or all the new wines and they had a whole play area for little kids. Like it's crazy. It's crazy to think about now, but what pushed me further over was COVID. We were all working from home.

Kristin (31:35)
Mm.

Emily Bonds (31:39)
It was not fun because I happened at the time to have a pretty stressful job. I was a workers comp clean suggestor, so nobody's happy. Yeah, nobody's did that for five years. Yeah, yeah, nobody's happy when they are hurt. Nobody's happy when they're hurt at work. And people definitely were not happy during a pandemic. So there was.

Kristin (31:52)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (32:06)
that and not being in the office to talk about like, oh, they just injured worker. just, you know, he just told me blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like there, know, you didn't have your coworkers there to talk to. So in order to deal with the stress of that, I would just, I, I ordered the groceries in this house. I do all of that. So I just would order bottles of wine. And at one point I was going through about four bottles a day.

Kristin (32:16)
Meh.

Emily Bonds (32:35)
usually realistically about one, one and a half a day. If you could, you know, after, log off your computer at four, four PM, you know, fill up this size glass with some wine, that's a significant chunk of the bottle. And then, you know, cooking dinner, fill that up. What, you know, fill it up after, you know, during dinner, fixing dinner after dinner, drink a whole bottle.

Kristin (32:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Emily Bonds (33:04)
And there were times on the weekends where it would be four bottles because we couldn't go anywhere. So we just give Brody as I've had, or I'd wait till my husband went to sleep and I'd sneak out of, sneak out of our room and pop open a bottle of red wine and just watch Netflix by myself. Cause I couldn't deal with being at home. Not alone cause he was here too, but just, it was just a very stressful time as it was for everybody in the country.

Kristin (33:09)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (33:33)
It was incredibly stressful, but I guess.

Kristin (33:36)
I had an interesting experience

with COVID. There was always something from the beginning, there's just something that feels off here as far as massive restrictions and I'm not big on having freedom restricted. So at some point I stopped watching the news and I was very lucky to have been in my ex-relationship or ex-partner. We were out on eight acres in nature, we very peaceful.

Emily Bonds (33:44)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Kristin (34:06)
In some ways, like for me, it was like an introvert's dream as far as like, okay, I don't have to go out and I got the time. I had always said I'm like, I just want the time to dedicate to writing a book. And I'm like, wow, okay, I guess I have that time now. But it was like a magnifying glass on our relationship and we ended up breaking up at the end of 2020. So it was challenging in some ways, but in some ways I didn't feel as...

Emily Bonds (34:22)
Right.

I will.

Kristin (34:37)
I don't know stressed or as yeah as I hear a lot of people have or I didn't have the same experience. I was trying not to let the outside stressors influence my internal state as much but it's just a good reminder for me that that my experience isn't the universal experience but

Emily Bonds (34:44)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, and it's

different when you have like, when you're in the suburbs and you, I'm trying to work while the daycare shut down.

Kristin (35:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's challenging and like hard to get to like teach as well at all or yeah.

Emily Bonds (35:07)
And it was.

Yeah, no, Brody

wasn't quite old enough for that, but they had shut the daycare down for three weeks. But you're still expected to work and produce and everything. So he turned into an iPad kid for about a month. so the way we could get back in daycare, the state of Texas sent out this

Kristin (35:14)
Bye.

yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Bonds (35:36)
mandatory form where if you wanted to send your kids to daycare, you had to be an essential worker. And they, so they put financial services as being essential and insurance is financial. So we, that's how we got them back in. And there were hardly any kids there. So he had the run of the place. So

Kristin (35:46)
yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I totally

don't blame you for any of that. mean, like, do what you got to do.

Emily Bonds (36:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

Now, now was it the best? No, but he, I mean, he was, he turned, I guess when he turned four was around, I'm so bad with like numbers and times and places, but like during the COVID time, he learned how to read because there was nothing else to do. Like he was four and a half and he was learning sight words. And so, which is a blessing now.

Kristin (36:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Emily Bonds (36:32)
except for him like that he loves to read, he loves to create, he also loves to try to get around firewalls, but that's okay. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Kristin (36:32)
that he loves to read, yeah.

Yeah, I was about to say he was getting creative to get to that book those pages I mean I love to hear

it the peak that young kids are wanting to read love to hear that actually because there's a part of me that's afraid of like our attention span these days and like just you know like the value of words and in a book and I so It's just near and to my heart. No, I'm curious. Did it just continue to escalate or was there like a moment?

Emily Bonds (36:59)
yeah, most definitely.

Kristin (37:06)
that shifted or was like an all is lost type of moment or like a rock bottom type of moment that pivoted like the your trajectory.

Emily Bonds (37:12)
It was, it was actually,

it was an, it was a religious experience. And that's the best way I know how to describe it. We were, Scott and I were on our 10 year wedding anniversary trip in Denver, Colorado. It's January, 2021. Everything kind of opening a little bit, sort of, not really, but we got a really good deal on plane tickets. on Southwest, was like 200 bucks and we got a.

Kristin (37:19)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (37:41)
We got a penthouse hotel in Denver, which would normally be something like a thousand dollars a night. got it for $300. So like, when else would we get this? Um, but we, we went out, we were there for about a week. My in-laws watched Brody so we could do what we needed to do, you know, go out and have a good time. But, um, we went out this one particular day and I had.

Kristin (37:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Emily Bonds (38:12)
At least 13 drinks that day, at least, probably more. But we got back to the hotel and I told my husband, I don't feel good. I think I'm going to be sick. And we happened to, this hotel room was so big, it had two bathrooms. And he was like, well, I'm going to take this one. You take this one. Okay. Okay. Okay. And, as one does when they are incredibly intoxicated, I just started vomiting and vomiting. And at some point I passed out.

Kristin (38:40)
Mm.

Emily Bonds (38:41)
And I woke up and I couldn't really move my head. was like, what is going on here? And vomit had dried in my hair and had like made me get started acting as a glue. And I was stuck to the bathroom floor because it's Denver. It's cold there. Things freeze. You know, so I was like, what is going on here? I can't, can't get up. So I had to like take my hand and like shivvy the vomit out.

Kristin (39:00)
No, yeah, yeah, aww.

Bye.

Emily Bonds (39:11)
And I, you know, I not stood, I sat up and I looked and if I had fallen a little bit differently, I would have fallen head first into the toilet and probably asphyxiated on my own vomit and toilet bowl water. So I was like, oh my goodness, what is going on here? And I stood up, was really wobbly, stood up, held onto the sink and.

Kristin (39:21)
Hmm.

Wow. Yeah.

Emily Bonds (39:38)
I just looked at myself and then I heard this voice and it said, are you done yet?

Kristin (39:43)
Hmm.

Emily Bonds (39:44)
I was like, yeah. It's like, are you done yet? Like, and then I realized like, my gosh, God is talking to me. This is, this is God. God is talking to me. my goodness. And so I said, yes, I'm done. And if you'll help me get over this, I'll help other people. And that was January 8th of 2021. And so I've, yeah, I've celebrated my four years.

Kristin (39:52)
Yeah.

and

Wow.

Yeah.

Emily Bonds (40:14)
And since then, it's been this whole journey of how am I going to help other people? What does that look like? And have I been tempted to drink? yeah. Life's hard. I have two kids now, not just one. And like the second one, he's developmentally delayed. Like he is not like normal. He's not a super genius like my first kid. Maybe he will be some sort of super genius. I don't know.

Kristin (40:30)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (40:43)
But like he's three, but like, like, it has not been easy. Um, like I, in 2024, I had basically a mini break from reality. Like I saw things that didn't exist and heard things that didn't exist. had a medication malfunction. That's the best way I know how to put it. And I'm lucky to be alive and like,

Kristin (40:44)
Mm-hmm.

Bye.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (41:10)
That was my 2024 lucky to be alive. And 2023 was hard too. And you know, we lost people in 2024. My father-in-law died. My grandmother died. Our dog even died. We had two dogs, but now we only have one. Like it's, but the story, you know, the story of how I got sober is always compelling, but it's what has happened since. Yeah.

Kristin (41:22)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I was about to ask, like I'm curious

about like, you know, maybe the first step that you took or like, did you find support or did you like go to AA or did you, like what were your like tools or, you know, that first just stumbling step, you know, that you take when you make that decision, you know, at that pivotal moment, like, okay, I'm going to walk this different life path.

Emily Bonds (41:44)
Yeah.

So.

The first.

Yeah.

Well, when we were in the elevator, not elevator, in the airport to come home, I was notorious for needing at least two margaritas to get on the plane. I'm not a, and during COVID, you know, the way I kind of, in order to get on the plane to go to Denver, I thought I needed two margaritas to kill the COVID, you know, with the alcohol killing it. Yeah.

Kristin (42:08)
Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Emily Bonds (42:24)
And my husband was like, you sure you don't want to drink before you get on the plane? was like, no, no, I'm sober now. I'm sober. He was like, okay. And while we were, our plane got delayed and while we were sitting there waiting, I started Googling sobriety books and I read Alan Carr's, easy way to stop drinking. It's a pretty famous series. He's, he wrote a book called the easy way to stop smoking. And that

Kristin (42:40)
Mmm.

Emily Bonds (42:53)
he's a recovery specialist. And so I read, I read, listened to that book the entire way home. And basically the book talks you out of drinking and it's, very fascinating. And I also read another book it's called quit like a woman and it's a via lady and I can't remember her name and I can never remember it when I'm talking. but she tells, you know, she, it's about her own.

Kristin (43:04)
Mmm.

Emily Bonds (43:22)
sobriety story, her journey, but she kind of hits hit on some facts that made me very angry at big alcohol. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very good book. Perfect book. But she she told this there's a story in there of how the suffragettes in order to get the right to vote, they thought they needed to be a man like be a man, right?

Kristin (43:30)
Holly Whitaker. Okay. Yeah. I Googled it.

Mm.

Emily Bonds (43:48)
We need to vote. need to be a man. We need to be like men. We're just as powerful as they are. And one of the ways they did that was they had a smoke out. They all had cigars and cigarettes. It's like, look at us. We're just like you. We can smoke. That doesn't make any logical sense. But that's what they assumed was masculinity. And so much of drinking

Kristin (44:05)
I'm

Emily Bonds (44:15)
You know, go to the bar with your coworker, be a man, get the whiskey, be a man. You know, you're watching your figure, get the white call. You know, it's fine. So realizing that a giant marketing team was out to poison me and my friends bugged me. And I decided like, no, I am legitimately done with this because some man and some marketing team and

Los Angeles, California, can't tell me what to put in my body.

Kristin (44:49)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (44:51)
Yeah.

Kristin (44:53)
And then so from there.

Emily Bonds (44:54)
Oh, and I

tried, I tried to go to AA, but a lot of, a lot of the AAs were virtual at the time. And the, yeah. And then the idea of like talking to someone at like random strangers over a zoom call was not going to happen. So, so I read a lot of books. I tried to find an in-house treatment facility.

Kristin (44:57)
Yeah.

wow, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Bonds (45:20)
to go to. I thought that would be a good idea, but they didn't have any in Katy. Because if you think about it, if you live in the suburbs in a nice shiny big house, do you want a alcohol and substance use treatment facility in your neighborhood or within 25 miles of you? No, no you don't. So there were no places to go. There were, there wasn't really a big support group.

Kristin (45:25)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Emily Bonds (45:50)
So I read books, I

read the Bible three, four times, had no idea what half of it meant, because it wasn't written recently. It was written a couple of thousand years ago. So I kind of had no context really, and I'm someone that grew up going to church, and I was a Christian at that, still am.

Kristin (46:00)
Yeah.

Emily Bonds (46:15)
always will be but like I had no context of some of this stuff and didn't even think to like study, like get another resource to interpret but I was just reading like okay, okay this King David guy, he talks to God about everything in Psalms like he's even telling him about like in how dark his soul is like my soul is real dark too. I should talk to God about my dark soul so.

Kristin (46:26)
Hmm.

Yeah.

you

Emily Bonds (46:44)
That was, that's really what I did is I read books. I read the Bible and I also had a really great group of girlfriends who I told them, Hey, I'm, I'm not drinking anymore. And they're like, okay. And that they did, I don't think they believed me either, but, cause I was the party girl like, yeah, let's go drink again. but they were really supportive. And when we went out, they were like, okay, we'll go find the mocktail list for you. well,

Kristin (46:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm, that's sweet.

Emily Bonds (47:15)
Like they were very, very supportive and they've continued to be very supportive. Yeah.

Kristin (47:19)
Yeah, that's respectful. Like I've had a

couple of bouts where I'm not totally like not drinking like I'll have I'm very intentional though than versus in my younger 20s. Like if I want to like savor a tequila, like I'll have a tequila, but there's there's like a conscious intention, you know, with it. It's not like I'm drinking to black out anymore. But I but there's been times in my life where I'll go extended periods of time where I'm not drinking and

Emily Bonds (47:37)
Yeah.

Kristin (47:49)
there have been moments where people have either like still tried to like force or urge me to drink and it seems very disrespectful of my choice. And it's I'm like, I don't care if you're drinking. That's your whole, that's what you're putting into your body. This is my choice though and can you disrespect that? So I just thought it illuminated like who was supportive.

Emily Bonds (47:57)
right.

And it's so annoying. annoying.

Right.

yeah.

Kristin (48:17)
or who maybe I was a mirror to the amount that they were drinking. Like my choice to not, like made them question something or maybe, you know, something came to the surface that they didn't want to question. You know, so that's good that you have that support group that would find the mocktail. I still like finding a good mocktail now. I mean, I try to not, I'm like, some of them I'm like, is that just all sugar? But.

Emily Bonds (48:21)
yeah.

yeah, yeah, most definitely.

yeah, well

there's so many great now like I call them non-alcoholic like ritual and I can't they're like non-alcoholic liquors which I'm like this is weird. Yeah, they make a Tanqueray Zero which we were in Europe and that's when I tried it and it was a little too close to Jen because Jen was my

Kristin (48:53)
Yeah, there's like a non-alcoholic tequila now. I want to try it.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Really? Gin? So like I remember, so when I was a bartender, someone told me like, if I, if you drink just gin, you will not have a hangover. I experimented and I tried that. That was like lies. Lies. I cannot say. Yeah. So was it too, like it was too similar, the taste or smell or something?

Emily Bonds (49:07)
Gin was my drug of choice back in the day. huh, yeah.

lies lies

It was like the

taste was way too similar. I actually had, I actually took it back and had asked them, like, I had my husband go and watch them make the drink. Cause I was like, can you go watch them make this? And he was like, yeah, they use the one that said Tinker Ray Zero. was like, I can't, I can't drink this. It's too similar. Can't do it. Um, but, there's been a couple, but what's funny is

Kristin (49:30)
Okay, yeah.

wow, okay. Just to make sure, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Bonds (49:54)
I'll try something like that or like in a non alcoholic beer, maybe like, you know, I'm at a party, I'll have a non alcoholic beer and someone will go, well that that has 0.5 or under. So you're really not sober. Really? Really? I'm not really this is literally there's 0.5 % alcohol in like everything. Like, yeah. I had somebody tell me that because I like Drake kabocha once I tried it was

Kristin (49:59)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm. Mmm.

Yeah, like what about kombucha?

Emily Bonds (50:23)
I think it tasted like but but not my forte. If you like it, that's fine. But but somebody was like, Oh, you know, it has trace amounts of alcohol in it. You're not sober anymore. I'm like, really? Uh huh. Yeah.

Kristin (50:26)
Yeah.

Wow. that

they'll discredit your whole journey and commitment from that. And to me, it's just a reflection of like where they are, who they are. But still, it's like, how are you going to come at me like that? I'm curious, like what are some of the biggest shifts that you've noticed with since not drinking?

Emily Bonds (50:40)
Yeah. Yeah.

most definitely.

I'm a much better wife and mother. I know what's going on with my sons. Now there's two of them sons. And I know I can pick up on things. One thing that was really hard to reflect back on was how much time we let Brody have with his iPad because we were too hung. I was too hungover to take care of him. So.

Kristin (50:58)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (51:23)
We had to deal with breaking up with the iPad. And if I was still drinking like I was, he would be completely in love with the iPad and would not like books as much as he does. So that was a rude awakening. also, I'm more present with my friends. can tell when they're struggling with something. I'm more open with them. They know when I'm

Kristin (51:26)
Mm.

you

you

Emily Bonds (51:52)
having a hard time too. So that's completely different. And I've actually lost a good amount of weight too. The vanity comes in right here. I've lost about 80 pounds since I stopped drinking. Yeah. And it's just, I'm not taking in excess calories anymore. And if you, you know, don't, you know, if you watch what you eat and I don't like to say it like that, but if you are, if you think about,

Kristin (52:01)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Emily Bonds (52:22)
When you, don't know about you, but when I drink or used to drink, I would also eat large amounts of queso, taquitos from Water Burger, anything from Water Burger is better when you're drunk. So it's Taco Bell. So like I'm not doing that anymore. And I haven't done that for many years. So, so my body, and I guess in a way is told itself, so to speak. Cause I'm not, I'm not doing that anymore.

Kristin (52:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

Emily Bonds (52:51)
So the natural consequence of not intaking 10,000 calories every day is you weigh less.

Kristin (52:57)
Round.

Yeah, no, I think it's totally fine to like and appreciate your body, you know, posts not drinking. I mean, I don't even know if I'd call it vanity. It's just like, hey, I like my body better. It's helping help confidence level or like, know, and but whatever. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, want to call it that, that or it's fine. I just think that whatever helps you like have that like

Emily Bonds (53:15)
Right.

Yeah.

Kristin (53:28)
a better relationship with your body. I know that's something that I've like battled with, you know, at different times in my life. It's like whether it's dysmorphia or just like having the harsh like self judgment around my body. Yeah.

Emily Bonds (53:38)
Yeah, well, it's a part of part of being a woman too, right?

Like you and I grew up in the era of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and they say, yeah, they were like, like they were like this thin, you know, you couldn't, I, one of those like one of Britney's performances showed up on my TikTok feed. was about like how her dancers helped her keep her clothes on. It's because her bottoms were about this big.

Kristin (53:45)
Yeah. Was it heroin chic? Yeah.

Thank you.

Emily Bonds (54:07)
No wonder, no wonder her pants

Kristin (54:08)
Yeah, not

Emily Bonds (54:09)
almost fell down. Her shorts were six inches, legitimately six whole inches. So it's like we grew up in that time. So I think all millennial women have some sort of body issue just because that's what was in vogue when we were kids.

Kristin (54:18)
Yeah.

Yeah, I've definitely had to work on like, you mirror work and dry brushing and just like different, like how I communicate the language I use with my body. It's definitely had to take some like conscious effort because instead of like looking at and like being super critical of my body that does so much miraculous things for me. then, you know, I mean like here's where babies and like those like, and like all these like dramatic shifts and lifts heavy things and like all these incredible things.

Emily Bonds (54:39)
yeah.

Yeah.

yeah.

Kristin (54:57)
I forgot where I was gonna go. I was thinking of, I don't know, maybe several months ago, I was looking through my phone at old pictures and I was like, wow, I remember thinking then that I looked fat and like my, and it's just, and like the amount of compassion now that I have for her is just like dramatically shifted or, like, it helps me when I look at myself in the mirror today and how I talk to myself because I'm like,

Emily Bonds (55:14)
yeah.

Kristin (55:27)
Okay, if I was thinking that then I'm looking at this photo and I'm like, I was thin as fuck. Like, how was this fat?

Emily Bonds (55:32)
Yeah, it's like I look good.

Well, have you

done have you done that with pictures of yourself from like high school and college too when we all thought we were Yeah Yeah, it's like I look good. I'm like, why did I think I was fat it's because

Kristin (55:41)
Yeah, yeah, we got something like college or like, you know, early 20s or and so on.

Yeah, I'm

like, where did I get that? Just like the it's like that whole mental skew. It's it's interesting. I want to I want you to share too, like real quick if you have time about like the exciting things that you're doing now and what else has opened up for you or anything else you want to drop in. Yeah, please do.

Emily Bonds (55:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me show you something. Let

me show you so. I have a fun story. Yes, so let me put my Chrome box down OK so. Back in 2024. It doesn't it doesn't go really with the headphones, but so. So I will say I've always wanted to do patrons, but.

Kristin (56:13)
Yes.

How cool.

It can. No, no.

Okay.

Emily Bonds (56:35)
you know, girls that grow up like us with not a lot of funds and resources, they don't get to do those things because they take funds and resources. At the beginning of 2024, we were my, my father-in-law just passed away and my husband asked me like, what is something crazy you would want to do? And I said, well, I'd, I'd love to try pageants, but I don't, I think they have them for married ladies, but I don't really know a lot about it. And so I Googled married women, beauty pageants found

Kristin (56:39)
Hmm.

Emily Bonds (57:05)
Found one in a couple of months later. Got some coaching did not place at all, but had a fabulous time, had a fabulous time and decided like, I think I'll try this again. I'll try it again and.

Kristin (57:19)
First off, I want to commend

you from being going from, you know, very socially awkward or anxious to like a willingness to try new things and put yourself in new environments. And that's a big shift too.

Emily Bonds (57:33)
Well, it's part of, and that's why I do the podcast and I do the pageants. This is a fulfillment of the promise I made to God. this, this is not about me at all. It's about what this brings, what it amplifies. You know, it helps me share my story because we are all so fascinated with shiny objects right now that this is an amplifier. My message is powerful, but this makes it louder.

Kristin (57:41)
Yeah.

Hmm. Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Mmm.

Emily Bonds (58:04)
And that's why I do it, because otherwise, I am your fellow introvert. I would love to just sit in the back and do this and be hey, what's up, guys? Nice to see you. But that's not what I said I'd do. I said I would help other people. And in order to help other people, you have to open your mouth.

Kristin (58:10)
Thank

huh.

Emily Bonds (58:26)
Yeah, and honestly 2024 was not a good year for us. I had a terrible mental health break from reality. And if I hadn't had a 2025 pageant that I had already entered to focus on. I would still be here, but I don't know what kind of shape I would be in. So pageant have they gave me something to focus on. So I could I could have a.

Kristin (58:41)
Mmm.

Hmm

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (58:56)
This doesn't sound bad, you know, you're I had a reason to get better, but it was it was another reason besides my kids and my husband. It was something like it was a goal, a goal to win a pageant. And and actually funny thing, the pageant I was planning on doing the last time we spoke, it actually got pushed back. And so I was like, well, this goal that I've had for six months.

Kristin (59:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Emily Bonds (59:24)
What am I going to do now? What am I going to do? And magically this pageant system that I originally wanted to do, it's called Universal Mess. It's who I'm Miss, Miss Southwest, Universal Miss. I should probably know the name of my title. I am. Let's just bust out the whole thing. Why not? YOLO. I am Miss.

Kristin (59:42)
Hahaha

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (59:54)
Myths Southwest Universal Elite myths. Yeah, that's not longer anything. No, no. But I had originally wanted to do this one, but it was going to be in Marshall, Texas of all places. And I was like, I'm not going to Marshall to be in a pageant. But they ended up having to move it to be in Kingwood, which is here in the Houston area. And I thought, you know, this is just a great coincidence. This is an hour from home.

Kristin (1:00:09)
wow.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (1:00:24)
This my dad can watch the kids. This is, this is a great thing. We'll just do this one. And I worked really hard. I had already worked hard for the first pageant that I wanted to do. That was supposed to be the same weekend. So I already had all the coaching, all the preparation, and I just went in there giving away two titles and I happened to get one of them. So it was meant to be, but yeah, definitely.

Kristin (1:00:46)
Hmm

Emily Bonds (1:00:51)
Yeah, here's my crowd. Isn't it cool? It's got the U it's got the for Universal Miss. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristin (1:00:53)
That's cool. yeah, to me it speaks

volumes to like, okay, sometimes when those things happen to ourselves, I truly believe all things work out for good. And so even if I can't see it in that moment, and so it's like that moment, you know, if it gets pushed back or something gets canceled or some things shift, it's like, you know, maybe all that stuff had to go happen or like, then you preparation is longer so that you could bring home that.

and title and share your message or amplify your message more. It's like we only have, you know, privy knowledge to a limited number of elements. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm curious, is there anything that you would whisper to like the, to the woman that woke up with vomit on her hair or to the floor or like anyone that's just starting on like a sobriety journey? Like is there something that you would share with them or her?

Emily Bonds (1:01:29)
We only know what's in front of us. We can't see what's beyond.

Oh, you've got this. are the authentic self. You've got this. Because you do. If you want it, you've got it.

Kristin (1:01:52)
and

Hmm.

think authenticity is so important and it's what resonates and they're like the vulnerability and I just want to thank you too for coming on and like being vulnerable and open because it's scary but it's also so courageous and I think that stories are echoes and mirrors for us and like who knows who's listening to do it that it can help dramatically impact. I mean that's your message though. Like you get it. Yeah so thank you for coming on and being vulnerable and open.

Emily Bonds (1:02:04)
and

Kristin (1:02:32)
Is there any way, or is there any like thing that you want to drop like social media or website?

Emily Bonds (1:02:33)
You're welcome.

Sure.

So my Instagram is Emily C. Bonds and so is my TikTok. Same thing. And my little website is EmilyCBonds.com. can reach me through there. national pageant is going to be an Allen for Universal Myths. It's the 22nd through the 27th, I believe. And finals will be the last day of the pageant. yeah. June, June.

Kristin (1:02:49)
Awesome. Hell yeah.

Hello?

February, March or when? June. Okay,

cool.

Emily Bonds (1:03:08)
Yeah,

yeah, I should know that too. I should probably know that before I go.

Kristin (1:03:10)
No, no, I mean, I was like in a

few days, I was like, honey, it's the 19th. I didn't know.

Emily Bonds (1:03:14)
no, no,

no, but I just ordered some things for the pageant off Posh Mart and I feel like such a, like look at me, I'm sustainable fashion. I got it off Posh Mart.

Kristin (1:03:21)
Cool.

I guess,

you know, I've been I just recently I went vintage shopping on Saturday I'll throw this in here because I saw a video on tik tok about dopamine dressing and or like just dressing for me It's like okay that future felt self-revision. I'm like, how does she dress? How does she move in the world? She doesn't rush so she walks slower, but she wears things that makes her light up and happy and so it's like she wears more color like I was so I wouldn't got like little pieces so I think that that stuff's fun and like I'm all for anything that like

Emily Bonds (1:03:46)
yeah. yeah.

Kristin (1:03:54)
but small evasor helps my mental health.

Emily Bonds (1:03:54)
Yeah. Well, and I've,

have found this one Calvin Klein dress that I now have it in about five different colors because I know what size I need now. So I just going on Posh Mart and buy like, like, okay, here's it. Here it is in white. I'll pay like 30 bucks. Here it is in black. $15. Yes. I'll take that. So I, it's just, it's great. I love Posh Mart and I love, I've never heard of dopamine dressing.

Kristin (1:04:03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Emily Bonds (1:04:22)
Not gonna lie, kind of sounds like a weird salad, but I'm gonna try that. know, think about what Peter be.

Kristin (1:04:26)
You know, I told it, I

I wore some cheetah to a yoga class Monday and my, yeah, my instructor, she's like, I love what you're wearing. I'm like, yeah, I'm calling it, like I'm trying dopamine dress. She's like, I just call that getting dressed in the morning. And I was like, well, whatever it's called, I'm digging it because it's just, Holly recommends things that light you up. And like clearing of the old, like I.

Emily Bonds (1:04:31)
I love that.

Ooh, surprise surprise.

I love that.

Yeah.

Kristin (1:04:50)
Got rid of some I just see it as like clearing space for more new to come in to like and I mean that also is like new experiences or more abundance or or things like that more crowns who knows like Well, okay me posted And I'll let you know when all this like goes live and stuff,

Emily Bonds (1:05:02)
That would be great. That would be great. I will. I will and I'm gonna.

OK, cool, cause I'm gonna start posting again. I take I've had to take a little break from social media just for my own. Life but yeah. Yeah, while you're at it like and subscribe. But but I'm going to go back to posting probably daily in March, early March, but I don't want to.

Kristin (1:05:17)
Totally get that. Highly recommend. But while you're at it, like, subscribe, and share.

You there?

Emily Bonds (1:05:32)
make that a hard fast roll. But yeah, I just needed a break because I had a tumultuous January. I don't know if that's the right word. I had a crazy January. I was getting ready for the pageant and then I won. And so I've needed just some time to chill.

Kristin (1:05:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. And

I totally subscribe more to at least this year I felt like I'm still in winter. My new thing that I'm going to launch that's going to wait till the springtime. Like if you think about seasonal or cyclical living, like there's so much like, you know, pressure to have like everything that we want to do like Gen 1, you know, or have that certain energy. So I just like to give permission that

Emily Bonds (1:06:14)
Well, and is

Easter this year like something in late February? It's yeah, Easter is like at a weird time this year. I know, I know. it's like, okay, so Easter is the Ash Wednesday is the fifth. So that means that Good Friday is the seventh. So like it's one of those time when it's early again. I hate that.

Kristin (1:06:18)
Is it? Is Easter like February?

Mom, Jesus? No, no. Yeshua, I mean? No, no, no.

Okay.

Wait, let me see, it's a...

Emily Bonds (1:06:45)
Cause I'm like, why is it so freaking early? Well, Ash Wednesday is the fifth.

Kristin (1:06:46)
When was it?

Emily Bonds (1:06:51)
So that makes me think that, Siri, when is Easter?

Kristin (1:06:58)
I'm just kidding.

Emily Bonds (1:07:01)
it's the 20th. I don't know why I thought it was. I thought it was in.

Kristin (1:07:03)
Oh, okay. Easter's

on 420, how funny. Now I just have like a little image of Jesus smoking a doobie.

Emily Bonds (1:07:07)
that is funny.

For some reason I thought YouTube was in March.

wow. wow, they put that in chat, she'd be keen, so it shows up. I don't know, for some reason I thought that, I don't know why thought that that was in February. my gosh, Emily, brain fart. Time, what is time? What is time? What is time?

Kristin (1:07:26)
What a time, I'm like,

we're transcending it. No. Yeah.

Emily Bonds (1:07:34)
We've

got we've got very new age on this podcast today.

Kristin (1:07:38)
Yeah, I'm

going to stop this.