#14: Bella Baskin is the 29-year-old founder & CEO of Bless it Bag. While working at WBTV as a photo consultant, she would drive by the same homeless people every day, and although she desperately wanted to help them, she feared if she gave them cash it would just be used for drugs or alcohol. As someone with a history of addiction (who is now 10 years sober) Bella did not want to contribute to the vicious cycle she personally knew could be so toxic. After going to Los Angeles’ Skid Row, talking to people who were experiencing homelessness, and asking them what would be useful alternatives to cash, she decided to create bags for men, women, and dogs, filled with essential items (including snacks, water, personal hygiene products and more) that could easily be kept in her car to pass out to those in need. She decided to call her charity Bless It Bag®, and created a website where people could purchase bags that they could keep in their car to give out to those in need. She also made an Instagram account to educate others about the problems affecting the homeless community and to let her followers know what they could do to help. We are so excited to have you hear Bella's story!
#14: Bella Baskin is the 29-year-old founder & CEO of Bless it Bag. While working at WBTV as a photo consultant, she would drive by the same homeless people every day, and although she desperately wanted to help them, she feared if she gave them cash it would just be used for drugs or alcohol. As someone with a history of addiction (who is now 10 years sober) Bella did not want to contribute to the vicious cycle she personally knew could be so toxic.
After going to Los Angeles’ Skid Row, talking to people who were experiencing homelessness, and asking them what would be useful alternatives to cash, she decided to create bags for men, women, and dogs, filled with essential items (including snacks, water, personal hygiene products and more) that could easily be kept in her car to pass out to those in need. She decided to call her charity Bless It Bag®, and created a website where people could purchase bags that they could keep in their car to give out to those in need. She also made an Instagram account to educate others about the problems affecting the homeless community and to let her followers know what they could do to help. We are so excited to have you hear Bella's story!
Connect with Bless It Bag:
Website: https://blessitbag.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blessitbag/
Email: blessitbag@gmail.com
Our Sponsor:
Lionrock Recovery (http://www.lionrockrecovery.com)
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Show Notes:
2:45 - Bella talks about her company - Bless It Bag
4:16 - Her background and what got her started moving in the direction of starting a non-profit
7:20 - How becoming sober has influenced the opening of Bless It Bag
8:20 - Bella’s childhood and the addiction influences
15:00 - Addressing the “money” aspect of growing up in an affluent family, and the effects of that
18:51 - How social media plays a role in her life and in her company’s life
25:02 - Buying in bulk from Bless It Bag in order to give back more
25:40 - Bella’s battle with substance abuse
41:26 - Bella talks about her battle with an eating disorder
52:45 - Talking the culture of community and support that is so important in sobriety
1:00:18 - “Everything I’ve ever gained is due to everything I’ve ever lost”
1:13:46 - Bella’s positive experience with EMDR
The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast would like to thank our sponsor, Lionrock Recovery, for their support. Lionrock Recovery is an online substance abuse counseling program where you can get help for drinking or drug use from the privacy of your own home. For more information, visit http://www.lionrockrecovery.com.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Hello beautiful people. Welcome to The Courage to Change a recovery podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame, and I am your host. Today we will be talking to Bella Baskin, who is a 29 year old founder and CEO of Bless It Bag. We're working at WBTV as a photo consultant. She drove by the same homeless people every day. And although she desperately wanted to help them, she figured if she gave them cash, it would just be used for drugs or alcohol. As someone with a history of addiction, she's now 10 years sober. Bella did not want to contribute to this vicious cycle she personally knew to be so toxic, so she wish there was a better convenient alternative way and when she started talking to her friends about it, they all said they often felt the same way.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
After going to Los Angeles's Skid Row talking to people who are experiencing homelessness and asking them what would be useful alternatives to cash. She decided to create bags for men, women and dogs filled with essential items including snacks water, personal hygiene products and more that could easily be kept in her car to pass out to those in need. She decided to call her charity Bless It Bag. And created a website where people could purchase bags that they could keep in their car to give out to those in need. She also made an Instagram account to educate others about the problems affecting the homeless community, and to let her followers know what they could do to help.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Bella knew her network could be influential and wanted to use it to create a 21st century approach to charity that would be accessible to every age and income. Furthermore, she wanted to utilize social media to highlight the human connection that is made when personally and directly helping someone in need. And hopes that after experiencing how good it feels to help others, people would be inspired to share their experience with others and continue to give back.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We had a wonderful time having Bella in the office. So grateful that she came down here to the studio from Los Angeles. And Bella also shared her amazing story of sobriety and how she came into recovery and the things that she has overcome, including struggling with an eating disorder. With that, I would like to welcome you to Episode 14. Say it with me now. Let's do this. Bella, thank you for being here.
Bella Baskin:
Thank you for having me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You are the CEO of blessitbag.org. And can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this and what Bless It Bag does?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. I am the CEO and founder of Bless It Bag. I started working on it January of 2018. I launched in December. And what it is, is it's hygiene kits for men, women and dogs who are experiencing homelessness. And it's meant to be an alternative to giving money out your car window, for example. So basically, you buy them online, they shipped to your door, and you are responsible for giving them out yourself. So you get the direct one on one interaction, and you get to see exactly where your money's going and exactly the effect it has.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Do you find that people want that one on one interaction?
Bella Baskin:
Yes, definitely. I think that, especially our generation of millennials are turned off a little bit by charities because we don't have a lot of disposable income. And we don't know where our money's going and that's scary. I think direct interaction takes away that question of where's the money going?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
[inaudible 00:04:01] I've definitely thought that too and had to research where, which charity is the best because I've... Like, "Okay, where is this money going? Is it better that I just walked down and give it myself?" What made you come up with this idea? What was the catalyst for you to move in this direction? Have you always been into nonprofit work?
Bella Baskin:
No, I did grow up going to charity events with my mother. She was involved in the NRDC and the Right Foundation and she would help put on the visionary ball which helps raise money for UCLA neurosurgery center. I grew up going to these charity events, but I come from a very artistic background. I went to CalArts for fine art and costume design. I went to makeup school, I worked at SNL and Warner Brothers as a photographer. My background is very much creative visual arts. And I came up with the idea because I was driving to Burbank every day to work at Warner Brothers as a photo consultant for TV marketing.
Bella Baskin:
I would always see homeless people on the side of the street. And I would always think to myself, "I should keep something in my car." I would see that a lot of them were struggling with addiction, which is something I'm excited to talk about today, because I've recovered from that. And I didn't want to give them money because I didn't want to support something that could possibly kill them. I always wanted to keep something in my car, and then life is busy. I just wished I could buy something on Amazon or something and get that instant gratification. Because it was a nice thought, but I never really followed through on it. I finally just thought that this is a great idea and there's a really big need for this. And I think that this is a void that needs to be filled and why don't I do it?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What made you think, "Oh, I want to leave the arts to move in this direction." What was there to have you given up on or move... Given up is the wrong word moved away from actually doing other artistic things?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, I have just because Bless It Bag has been such a time consuming venture but I think that it's something I'm passionate about. But I think that I was stuck in these big corporations and I just didn't really see how I was going to move forward with that and grow in those major corporations. And I was, in last year I've been doing like freelance styling and photography just for my friends. But I didn't see how I was going to have a career in that and I felt like this was such a great opportunity and a really good idea. And I just wanted to pursue it.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, it's awesome. And I feel like you can probably use a lot of those artistic skills with this venture.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, definitely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We talked, I know that you're 10 years sober.
Bella Baskin:
Almost, yes.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Almost, congratulations it's awesome. How has that played into this? And what's your background there.
Bella Baskin:
Definitely major influence, because such a big part of being a sober person is being of service. And like I said, I could definitely tell that a lot of the people that I wanted to help were struggling with addiction. I think that's a really big dilemma for people, even people who aren't sober. They know if they give a homeless person money, most likely, it's not going to go to basic necessities that are going to help them it's going to go to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes, and it's actually going to do more harm than good. I think that dilemma was something that I wanted to help give a solution to.
Bella Baskin:
I think that being a sober person had a major effect on that. I guess I... Should I just get into my story?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're sober 10 years. Can you tell us why you decided to get sober? What did that look? What did not being sober Bella look like?
Bella Baskin:
From day one, I'm adopted at birth. I always felt different, I always felt out of place my whole childhood. My parents got divorced when I was three. I moved like eight times before I was 10 years old. And my mom and my stepdad, when I was growing up in Connecticut, we're working out of state and so I had a lot of instability as a child. A lot of different babysitters. I think the longest one I had was like four years. But other than that, it was like always a new babysitter, a new housekeeper. And there wasn't a lot of stability. There was a lot of alone time as a kid. I developed a lot of bizarre tendencies. Like, I had a sign on my door that said, "If you move anything in my room, please put it back where you found it." I had kind of like OCD tendencies.
Bella Baskin:
A lot of collections of things, I collected stuffed animals. In that collecting OCD way, it was kind of like an addictive personality obsessive.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How old were you when you found out you were adopted?
Bella Baskin:
I found out I was adopted when I was five years old. And what that looked like for me is my friend had found out that I was adopted and she asked me, "Are you adopted?" In my brain, I'm like, "I don't know, I don't know what that means I'm five." I'm five years old, what does that mean? She said something along the lines of... And I don't know if I remember this incorrectly or not. But she said something along the lines of like, "Your mom didn't love you and gave you away." And what I read that as is, I'm unlovable, I'm not good enough. I was unwanted. I went home and my mom always told me the story of how I was born, and how she went and picked me up from the hospital, but I never knew that was not normal. And I said, "Mum am I adopted?" And she said, "Yes."
Bella Baskin:
She didn't know I had this really awful judgment from my friend and this messed up definition of what that meant. She always made sure to say like, "We wanted you, we love you so much." She always overcompensate it for the fact. She never made me feel unwanted. She always made me feel like she really wanted me and I was chosen and I was special. Definitely not her fault. And not to say she's a bad mom because she was working or anything. And it's not like she chose babysitters who traumatized me on purpose. Today my mom and I have a really good relationship but there's definitely a strain on it for a very long time. And I had these babysitters and one of them was so hung over she burnt her hand on a toaster. Another one was walking around naked with her tampon string hanging out and I found out what a period was from her. Another one chopped all my hair off. Another one left me in the car while they went and saw their boyfriend in a parking lot for like multiple hours.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, I just had a really bizarre I think childhood. From an early age my mom was like, "You can only have one piece of Halloween candy." I would stash my Halloween candy and then my brother would come over and I'd be like, "I have candy." And I treated candy like it was drugs. I just think I was always, I was born an addict, alcoholic.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Do you know anything about your birth mom?
Bella Baskin:
I know that she was very young. I know that she was 17 when she got pregnant. I think she was 18 when she gave birth to me. And I don't know if she was one of us. I don't know. But there are things that I heard like that she did coke when she was pregnant, but maybe that was before she knew she was pregnant, I don't know. I'm not sure. But I know she was really young. And I know that her parents didn't want her to be a mom yet. They influenced her to put me up for adoption. But that's it. One thing that happens and I've actually had this experience going to treatment with a lot of different types of people from different walks of life. And one thing that happens and I want to address this directly on here, is that people think that if you grow up with money that you don't have the right to say that you've had a bad child... like you don't.
Bella Baskin:
And I remember, shades of that, right? Which is I never wanted for anything physically. I didn't go without in terms of the necessities, right? Or more than the necessities but things happen behind those big gates and I actually went to treatment with a guy who was a prince in a foreign country. Was he an only child? He spent a lot of time alone. And that was one of the things he talked about. And I'll never forget him talking about how he lived in a castle. And he was talking about how the castle was like it was a prison. He was like, "Yeah, I had all these people, all the things." But he talked about, "I was in a prison, the walls were really big. And I was stuck in there a little kid by myself. And I had a big fish tank."
Bella Baskin:
That really helped me visualize what that... My experience was different than that, right? That's the next level of how can that be? And I want you to speak to that because I think when people hear housekeeper nanny, they have judgments on that, and that probably didn't feel the way that it sounds.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Bella Baskin:
It's actually something I've been talking about a lot with my therapist and also addressing online. I had someone, complete strangers, comment on. It looks like you come from money, and how did you get so lucky. It's been something that I have been addressing more and more and is a very sensitive subject for me. Because my whole life has been like, you're so blessed, you're so lucky, that you have grown up with money, that you were adopted in this family that has money because you didn't come from that. Like if I wasn't adopted, I probably wouldn't have been raised the way I was raised. And I think that when people say that they don't validate your feelings, and I think that if I really had a choice, I would have much rather had a family that was present than a family with money. Because to a five year old money means nothing quality time does.
Bella Baskin:
And my parents were out of state a lot. My mom was working in New York. I was living in Connecticut for four days a week. And my step dad was flying to Vegas every other weekend. And my dad lived in New York, and we lived in Connecticut. To me as a five year old, it was like, "Where are my parents?" I didn't care that I had hundreds of stuffed animals or whatever. I wanted my parents, and they were MIA. Also, I will say that I was bullied for having money because I went to a public school, and they called me the rich kid and they made me feel different. And that's not say that I'm not grateful for everything I have. But I was still bullied. And that's not a thing that you would normally bully someone over. For me, it's like, I would never comment on someone not coming from money. It's bizarre to me that people resent me for coming from money, or they feel entitled to my money because my parents helped me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's interesting. That's really interesting.
Bella Baskin:
It is.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
People, to borrow money kind of deal?
Bella Baskin:
Well, yeah. Like I have a lot of people who ask me for money.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's very strange to me.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
It is. It definitely hits a spot in me, it's a very sensitive subject. But yeah. And I actually had a conversation with my friend about it the other day because I posted on my close friends list, wow, I can't believe a complete stranger would comment on my financial situation. They don't even know me. She was like, "This is not an insult." And I was, "Yeah, it is." Because would I ever contact a complete stranger and be, "Hey, it looks like you don't come from money." It's just none of their business. It's completely inappropriate. Like I said, I would have much rather had my parents around than working. And it's not my money, it's theirs. And I'm not a spoiled brat, you know what I mean? I started a nonprofit. That's what I spend my time doing, is caring about other people, you know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
And helping other people. I'm not a spoiled brat by any means.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You have a big presence on social media. How do you match the image with the reality? How do you get people to see the vulnerable piece while also seeing the glamorous piece?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, I think that I'm a little bit of both and I try to use social media as a platform to like influence in a positive way. And so I do talk about sobriety, and I do talk about eating disorders, and I do talk about quitting cigarettes. And I bring it back to like a human level. I obviously talk about Bless It Bag a lot, and what I am doing to help the homeless. I try to influence others to be of service, because I think that that's so important. And I think it's something that our generation is really lacking, but also really wants. Because we're always on Instagram and we're saying pray for this, pray for that. I always I'm asking myself, "Why aren't we doing anything? There's all these charities that we can be of service."
Bella Baskin:
I always think to myself, when that stuff happens I want to... When it's a mass shooting, let's just go with that or school shooting, let's go with school shooting. I always think to myself, "Yes, I want to do something." And I actually went to school. I went to UCLA and was doing lobbying and policy. So, I have a background in that. But that's a full time job. That's a full gig that you go out and you do and you lobby special interests. I always think to myself, "I want to be on the front lines, I don't want to hand people money." That's not how I want to do things. So I think that Bless It Bag speaks to that. I would love to be able to find equivalents in that, in other areas. What can we do? Because I do think I can speak for myself. I do think to myself, I'm praying for the families when I see stuff like that on Instagram or whatever it is. And I also think to myself, I have all this stuff to do. And I don't have time to organize. I really don't.
Bella Baskin:
I really have other obligations to keep on my life. And I do care. So I think it's... Because we see so much more with our [demographicies 00:21:16], so much more with the online component. We do want to do more, but there's little time to help. Bless It Bag is basically great because it's not time consuming?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It solves that problem.
Bella Baskin:
And it's not expensive? And it's made for the people who have busy lives. Who don't have time to volunteer, because maybe they work multiple 9:00 to 5:00 or they're raising kids, or whatever it is. Or they don't have a lot of disposable income and they can't donate hundreds or thousands of dollars to a charity. The big part of Bless It Bag and tying it back to your question about my social media is that I want Bless It Bag to be a thing for social media influencers. Who can have a call to action, who can say, "Hey everyone..." Because Bless It Bag sponsors charity. So when you buy bags online $1 per bag goes to a charity of your choice from a list of charities that Bless It Bag sponsors. For example, we have coalition to stop gun violence as our charity that deals with gun violence issues. We have ACLU that's dealing with all the abortions stuff. We have Happy Hippie Foundation for Pride Month.
Bella Baskin:
We have NRDC for the environment, like Earth Day. So whatever issues we're passionate about, we sponsor a charity and we-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So we can do both?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. And so really, it's a three way, everyone wins. Because you're helping a homeless person. You feel great when you do that, because you're not thinking about yourself and I'm sorry but, our generation is very self absorbed. We're always taking selfies. We're always on Instagram, it's always about us. We're always comparing our lives to people's Instagrams. When you're not thinking about yourself for 10 seconds and you're handing someone a bag who's less fortunate than you, you're not thinking about you. And so just that relief of thinking about another person and being of service. And this is what I say a lot, but [inaudible 00:23:27] creates self esteem. That's what's going to make you feel good not comparing your life to someone on Instagram. I think that our generation is really in need of something like this.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
And then also you're helping another charity in the process. So if you're an influencer, you have millions of followers, say it's Pride month or there's just a shooting. You can say, "Hey, everyone, please swipe up buy at Bless It Bag, and when you do donate your donation dollars towards Coalition To Stop Gun Violence in honor of the mass shooting, whatever it is. If you do this, maybe I'll like your photo, I'll follow you, whatever it is.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right some sort of...
Bella Baskin:
And send me a screenshot. And they can say that they helped to raise however many dollars for their favorite charity. And they actually influenced a positive change, not just what shoes to buy, right? So it's an avenue for influencers to use their influence for good.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I like that. I like that a lot. And I like that it gives you the option of working with other causes that you care about. Do you do stuff like... This is going to sound terrible, but we don't have a lot of homeless people around where I specifically live in the suburbs. Not that it's high end, but they're just not here. Obviously, that's very different in LA and San Francisco, where my family lives. Do you have options for people who don't have the time to actually even get... Can I buy Bless It Bags for you to give out?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. The only way we do it so that you don't have to give it out yourself, is if you buy in bulk. We have shelters who have approved in kind donations from Bless It Bag. Right now they're all downtown because the Bless It Bag is in LA.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, that's where it is.
Bella Baskin:
I can't ship hundreds of bags but I can drive them down to downtown. So we had our first bulk order of 100 bags and it was covered by Spectrum News and we brought them to the midnight mission.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, cool.
Bella Baskin:
And that was a really special experience.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yes, I bet, I bet. Tell us a little bit about your history with addiction and what goes on for you when you see the people down at the Midnight Mission dealing with what you've dealt with?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. There's always that thought of, that could have been me. Yes, I come from money, but if I had continued to do drugs and get in trouble with the law, like my parents would have definitely cut me off. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. For sure. I know lots of that from money who end up down the streets because the family just isn't going to bank roll that anymore.
Bella Baskin:
Right. No, that would not fly. My family is very conservative in a way. And the reason why I got sober as I got an intent to drive drunk and I didn't get arrested, but it was going that direction. I was driving drunk a lot. And I was 19 I was not even legally allowed to drink yet.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How old were you when you got sober?
Bella Baskin:
19.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
19. Yeah, that's good.
Bella Baskin:
That's the route. That's the direction I was headed. And there's no doubt in my mind. And if I had been arrested even once, that was what even gave them the idea to send me to treatment. But if I had kept going, I 100% would have gotten arrested and been in jail and that is not acceptable in my family at all.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I remember when I brought my friend home. And my mom was like, "Oh, what's his last name?" This is in high school, or early High School. And I was, "I don't know." And she's like, "What do you mean you don't know your friends last name?" I'm like, "I don't know." She's like, "How do you not know people's last names?" And I'm like, "I don't know." And then she said, "I've never even met anyone who's been to jail." And I was like, "Mom everyone's been to jail. What are you talking about?" And just realizing like totally different planets and having them... When you have family members who come from well, a background that does not have experience in this, they are completely shocked and overwhelmed with what happens to their precious loved one who they've raised to be an upstanding member of society and is suddenly interfacing with the law and not in a good way. It's an interesting... There's a lot of learning for the family to do.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What did drugs and alcohol do for you?
Bella Baskin:
Like I said, I talked about my childhood a lot. I always felt different. When I was 10, we moved to Los Angeles, I was really resentful. My mom decided, and my stepdad decided to play parent-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
All off a sudden?
Bella Baskin:
... all off a sudden. We left my dad behind in New York, and I was just really angry. And so that was my first experience with... I was just fed up. I was angry, I shaved off half my eyebrow by accident. I thought [inaudible 00:28:43], I was in the shower. And so it was this new girl in this new school. They'd all been together since preschool. I had half an eyebrow. My last name is Faye, my legal last name is Faye and they would either spell it fay or gay. I just felt different my whole life. I just felt out of place my whole life. And so what drugs and alcohol did for me is, by the time I was 14, oh, my mom was... I mentioned this before but she helps to raise money for the neurosurgery center of UCLA because she had brain surgery when I was 14.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, wow.
Bella Baskin:
And so she told me, "I'm going to get brain surgery." I had a really bad relationship with her we would fight scream. I was so resentful at her for not being around when I was a kid. And so when she told me that, my fear of losing her... I've recently read some self help books about being adopted, and I realized now that the reason why that is my biggest fear is because I've already lost a mom. So losing my mom is the scariest thing and I knew that if something happened to her, I would always, always, always regret not having a relationship with her or a good relationship with her. She told me she's getting brain surgery and I could not hang. I was just freaked out. I was so scared. That anger and that fear and that feeling different, so I ran away. I went to Idaho. I couldn't hang. I just couldn't show up for her the way that I would now. I went to Idaho, and I had my first cigarette, my first drink and my first joint on the same night.
Bella Baskin:
Because if I'm going to go in, I'm going to go in. And that's my obsessive tendencies that have always been there. What it did for me is it took away those awful feelings that I dealt with my whole life. I no longer felt different. I no longer felt scared. I no longer felt angry. I just felt like a release and it was an escape. And I use that. I use that and I was very committed to whatever drug I was doing. It was like I was in a relationship with it.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Totally.
Bella Baskin:
Until it hurt me and then I would move on to the next one. And I would just cross addict. And so it started with alcohol, and then I found pot. I was like, "Well, pot doesn't give me a hangover. And then I found coke. I was grounded all high school by the way. They caught me with pot. They caught me drinking.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You weren't good at hiding it?
Bella Baskin:
I don't know. I was so obsessive. I had this little box with all the paraphernalia in it.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too.
Bella Baskin:
It was like a collection. It was like a little shrine.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
The process was like it's part of the addiction, for sure.
Bella Baskin:
Right. And honestly, it was a security blanket. Because at least I knew that was there.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
The devil you know.
Bella Baskin:
Right. And then I found coke and I was like, "Well, coke doesn't give me the munchies and it doesn't make me lethargic or whatever," I don't know. And then I found... I'll go into a little bit about coke. This is when it started to not even be fun. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
Because I would just do so much that I would get so paranoid and I was convinced because I got caught so many times, I was convinced there's a camera in my smoke alarm. There's spies in the trees that my parents have hired. They have a secret passage way to my closet where they can...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Because they need a secret passage.
Bella Baskin:
At four in the morning, they're going to come check up on me. So I better pretend that I'm asleep because I should be asleep, because if I'm not and they catch me, they're going to know that I'm doing coke.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, totally.
Bella Baskin:
It was just very bizarre behavior. My friend would come over and I'd be, "We have to whisper." Back to that, five year old me. It was like, "I have candy." It was like sneaking around. And it was this really bizarre thing where a lot of times it wasn't fun. I don't know, I couldn't stop until I found a replacement.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Did you ever try to stop?
Bella Baskin:
I think I would wake up and I'd be, "God, that was awful. I didn't sleep all night. I'm never going to do that again." And then I just do it again.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Because you and I got sober the same time, similar backgrounds in terms of that. And with coke I did not know. I had the same, "Oh, this is terrible. I don't want to do that again." I didn't actually know I had a problem until my boyfriend challenged me to stop it. I was like, "Oh, if you challenge me, I'll try."
Bella Baskin:
Exactly. I had my first serious relationship, I was 17 and he was 23. And he was a pot guy. And he didn't like that I took coke. So it became a secret and then it became... He wouldn't hear from me for a few days because I'd be on a bender and I knew he didn't like it. Then he was like, "I don't really like that." Then we broke up. What it was, was like "I'll stop to prove to you."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, exactly.
Bella Baskin:
But what happened is, I found heroin.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
"I stopped."
Bella Baskin:
I did stop coke though.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
"Yeah. I stopped coke."
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. I started smoking heroin and it just numbed all the feeling of the breakup.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How did you find heroin?
Bella Baskin:
I was hanging out with this guy, and was like, "I don't want to do coke. I want to do something else," or something that. And he was like, "Oh, well I have this thing. It's opium. It's non addictive. I was, "Why would you say that?" I was like, "Whatever. Does it get you high?"
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Like I'm not actually worried about that.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. And I was like, "Okay, and I so can we do it?, I was just confused. I was still like why it was making a big deal of it. And then I found his... I really liked it. And I found his dealer and I started doing it. I went away for a week and I started to have a little bit of withdrawals. I told him, and he was like, "No, that's heroin, it takes three days to get physically addicted to it." And I was like, "Oh." I was naive.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, you and I had the same experience, which was for me, same deal, boyfriend. Mine was that same boyfriend was like, "You have a coke problem." But he was shooting heroin. And tried to stop, I couldn't stop. And moved to heroin but I didn't know, I don't know how I didn't know this. But I did not understand you get high on heroin and then there's get sick and get well. No one told me, I didn't know. And with the heroin for me, I did not know what I was signing up for.
Bella Baskin:
Me neither.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I just had no idea and I felt really stupid when I found out. Because I was already in.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. So my parents... I tried to quit before I went to college. I went to CalArts and I went to Vegas for a weekend. And I was only there for three days and the fourth day of withdrawal is the worst. The worst. I was on the plane, and I was... I don't know if I want to say this, but I was getting really sick.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Those of us who've done heroin know exactly what was happening.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. And I was on a plane. And it was really unpleasant. I was shaking and I was shivering. And it was awful.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Chills just to hearing it.
Bella Baskin:
I tried. I got in bed when I got home. I told my parents I have food poisoning and I was going through really gnarly withdrawals and I thought I was going to die. I was like, I can't.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Feels like you're going to die.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. So I got more and I went to college. And what happened is, I told my dad because I knew my mom would have pulled me from school and I didn't want to stop. So I told my dad, and he helped me get off of it. He win me off of it and got me Suboxone or something lik that. It was methadone, I think. And I only did methadone for a few days and then I just kicked from there. So got me through the worst of it. And then I just ended up replacing it with alcohol and I would get really, really drunk to pass out so I didn't have to deal with the withdrawal symptoms that would keep me up all night. At that point, that demoralization of having to tell my dad and have him see me like that. That was when I was like, "This is not normal." It became very clear that this was not normal behavior.
Bella Baskin:
That went from the boyfriend and a couple friends being turned off by the coke use to being having the secret. My parents would give me $80 a week for food and expenses. And that all went to heroin. It became, I'm just smoking to stay well. I wasn't getting high-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, you're not getting high anymore.
Bella Baskin:
... for the majority of my... I didn't have the means, I didn't have the finances to fund that. And they'd always want receipts, and I'd be, "I spend it in the vending machine." I would lie and I did not have receipts for my heroin purchases.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I didn't either. Turns out not taxable.
Bella Baskin:
Actually you don't get receipts.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, so I was just smoking to get well and it was funny because someone said to me once that... And I was on heroin at the time, they said, "That was the first time I saw you smile." And that hit. Because I had the secret and I couldn't tell anyone. None of my friends were doing heroin.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
This was totally by yourself?
Bella Baskin:
It was totally isolating and it became that same feeling as when I was a little girl of I'm alone. It was really demoralizing. And telling my dad that and having him see me like that. And so I went from the girl who didn't talk to anyone my first semester to the sloppy drunk girl who got so drunk that she went skinny dipping or embarrass herself in some sort of way. And walk in hugging everyone. I went from not talking to you to hugging you. And you're, "Who are you? Who is this girl?"
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
She really opened up.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, what happens? I knew that this was not normal and I knew that something was different. And I did find people who drank the way I drank, though, and partied the way I partied. And so it became easier to lose the people who were freaked out in.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, exactly. So yeah.
Peter Loeb:
Hi, I'm Peter Loeb, CEO and co founder of Lionrock recovery. We're proud to sponsor The Courage To Change and I hope you find that it's an inspiration. I was inspired to start Lionrock after my sister lost her own struggle with drugs and alcohol back in 2010. Because we provide care online by live video. Lionrock clients can get help from the privacy of home. We offer flexible schedules that fit our clients busy lives. And of course, we're licensed and accredited and we accept most private health insurance. You can find out more about us at Lionrockrecovery.com or call us for a free consultation, no commitment at 800-258-6550. Thank you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And where did the eating disorder fit into that?
Bella Baskin:
I think that at a really young age like 13 I would say, food was my first go to for numbing my feelings. I would eat a whole family size bag of doritos in one sitting and I'm not a family I'm one person. I say that a lot but it's true. It became an escape and I gained a lot of weight. My family, God bless them. They don't get it. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
They bribed me to lose weight. They were like, "We'll give you, I don't know, it was like 20 bucks a pound or something.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh boy. And nothing better than that for an eating disorder.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. That was not the... It's common.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's common and it's problem solving and trying to be supportive.
Bella Baskin:
They we're trying to, but I was 13.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:42:20].
Bella Baskin:
Let me just be chubby. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
Then my eating stuff was just dependent on what drug I was doing. When I was 17, and I was on coke, my parents thought I was anorexic. But I just wasn't hungry. Then when I was doing heroin, anytime I would eat dairy I would throw up for no reason, I don't know why. I don't know if that's a common thing with heroin. But you just throw up a lot with heroin. I don't know. And so I would just throw up sometimes-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
[crosstalk 00:42:48].
Bella Baskin:
... and I don't know why.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
A lot of throwing up.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, and then when I was drinking I was eating like fourth meal. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah.
Bella Baskin:
Fast food restaurants after partying, 2:00am, Street hotdogs, whatever. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
I was drinking those malt liquor juice, or a 2,000 calories [crosstalk 00:43:11].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Brutal.
Bella Baskin:
Then eating garbage on top of that. I was overweight when I got sober. So what happened is I cross addicted and I went from drinking and drugs to anorexia and cigarettes.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You went anorexic when you got sober?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Interesting.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. And so it became obsessive counting calories. It became measuring my broccoli subtracting calories for how much gum I chewed.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How did you go from the bingeing to... What changed? Because you didn't take the bingeing with you into sobriety, you transferred it to anorexia?
Bella Baskin:
And I didn't the way I looked because I was overweight from all the drinking. I was really bloated.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
This was the solution?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Full Speed in the other direction?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. I think it was just the fear of being overweight that kept me. Because I don't have body dysmorphia. I never looked in the mirror when I was 92 pounds and thought, I look fat. I was like, "Whoa, I'm way too skinny."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. How tall are you?
Bella Baskin:
I'm 5'4".
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Bella Baskin:
I'm 130 pounds now so, I was 40 pounds lighter.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh my God.
Bella Baskin:
It looked really scary.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It sounds really scary.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. And so my parents were, if you want to leave your sober living house, you have to gain weight.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
[inaudible 00:44:37].
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. They were like, "You need to be healthy. Else, we can't have you transition out." And also not the answer. But they tried their best. You know what I mean? I started binging. I remember, because I hadn't eaten that and so on, I felt my stomach was going to explode and my heart rate was off. And it really scary.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, you're really sick.
Bella Baskin:
Uh huh. And so I started bingeing and eating all the foods I was restricting off of to get to the minimum healthy weight, which is 107 pounds for someone my weight.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. You knew [crosstalk 00:45:13].
Bella Baskin:
I binged till that point. Then I was counting calories to maintain that weight, but it was still that obsessiveness. And what happened is I quit smoking cigarettes not because I really wanted to but my parents asked me to and I was like, "Okay, I'll try." And I had 10 months sober and I went from, for a week seven, six, five, four, three, two, one cigarettes a day. And I went to Six Flags for some sober convention thing. And I got really sick. Your blood sugar lower. I actually just got nine years off cigarettes on June, 6.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Congratulation.
Bella Baskin:
Thank you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Hardest thing I've ever quit.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, it is. I got really sick. I fainted. I blacked out. I was throwing up and I couldn't get off my couch. The day I was supposed to have one cigarette, I ended up having none. And so I was, "Well, I guess this is it. Let's try this." What happened for me is because I got so sick that, it really scared me because I thought I was sober. And I never really felt sober until I quit cigarettes.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Interesting.
Bella Baskin:
Because I use cigarettes alcoholicly, I used them when I was stressed, I use them when I was angry. I use them when I was irritated. I use them as a reward. I use them as a release. I know it's a sensitive subject with sober people because they rely on it a lot and they think it's better than. But it's something that kills you and it's bad for your health. And that's a fact. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What's interesting with-
Bella Baskin:
It is a self destructive tendency.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. The resurgence of vaping has been an interesting thing because I think we were really moving. I think we were moving away from people smoke, is certainly in the West Coast.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Where people weren't smoking as much. It wasn't cool anymore. I had a friend who hadn't smoked in 15 years who started vaping and then started smoking. We've moved... seeing that-
Bella Baskin:
E-cigarettes weren't really a thing when I quit.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, no, no.
Bella Baskin:
They were brand new.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
And they weren't cool or anything.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, they definitely weren't.
Bella Baskin:
I think honestly, they make it harder to quit smoking.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I think so too.
Bella Baskin:
Because how do you get yourself off that?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, because you could do it.
Bella Baskin:
What are you going to have? You're going to be, "Oh, I can only have 10 puffs a day." How does that work?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
People do it more because they think they can do it inside. I'm actually definitely allergic to it. So it's a whole different thing for me.
Bella Baskin:
It makes me throw up. Which is a blessing because it's kept me away from it. But yeah, so what happened is I started to see better, smell better, taste better. And I was like, "Wow, I had no idea what I was doing to myself." And because I got so sick when I quit, it reminded me of heroin withdrawals.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You had adverse.
Bella Baskin:
I really did not like that. Because I thought I was on the spiritual path. I was trying to be a self loving person. And I was, "Oh my god, what was I doing to myself? I had no idea."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's just that next layer.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. And it freaked me out. And so I quit smoking. I didn't really plan to but it was that reaction, I got physical withdrawal, which reminded me of heroin... I was like, "Wait, I thought I was sober. These doesn't feel sober, it doesn't.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You got sober at 19 which, I've never had a legal drink club.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I know what that's like for me and thinking back on that. What has that been for you? Sometimes I've run into, "Oh, I've spilled more on myself than you've ever eaten." All that shit where you're just... Or people who... The one I get is, "Oh man, I'm so jealous that you got sober at 19. And you had all this." I'm like, "Do how badly I had to (beep) up to get sober at 19?" I do run that to the ground to be 19 and be, "Okay, I'll be sober. I won't do anything." What has your experience with that been?
Bella Baskin:
Right. I think that everyone's for the most part in my life, always been really supportive. But I have people who are like, "You [inaudible 00:49:35], didn't really have a problem." It was just experimenting as a kid. It's like, "No, I know my truth. And I know that I was really psychologically screwed up. I really relied on drugs and alcohol heavily." I was doing a gram of coke a day. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
This was not this cute weekend, fun-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Glamorous.
Bella Baskin:
No, this was really dark. I think when you start to use heroin... Coke is one of those things where I think people negotiate. I feel there's no place for heroin socially.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, no.
Bella Baskin:
Not that I've seen.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No.
Bella Baskin:
And I think that I feel lucky that I quit when I did. I just know my truth. It doesn't really bother me when people say stuff that, I just laugh and roll my eyes.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yes. But people do have-
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, but that's like a jealousy thing because they're older-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Totally.
Bella Baskin:
... and they've ruined their lives for a lot longer.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
For sure.
Bella Baskin:
I feel lucky that I caught it at a young age.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You have had major milestones and really growing up I feel your 20s in sobriety is a crazy. Because you're really going through periods of life where people tend to binge drink a lot, even in normal society.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And what has the growth... And you're growing up so much. I feel like you grow up so much from 20 to 30?
Bella Baskin:
Oh, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What has that been like for you? What has sobriety done for you growing up 20 to 30?
Bella Baskin:
Well, all my friends are always very supportive. My friends who drink and party, whatever, they're always really supportive. And I think that the problem... I think, not the problem, but one of the problem is that people think, okay, I got sober so I can't have fun now. And I think when people have that tendency or that thinking, that sobriety is something that limits you. They're less likely to stay sober.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I love that.
Bella Baskin:
Because-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's the freedom.
Bella Baskin:
It's the freedom. I go to raves still, I used to rave when I was 16. I'd sneak out of my house and drive the San Bernardino, I was real crazy. Which is when I look at 16 year olds or 14 year olds now I'm like, "[crosstalk 00:52:01]."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, I know. It's wild.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I don't think we were normal 16, I don't know.
Bella Baskin:
I'm like, "That's a baby."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's a baby.
Bella Baskin:
I was a baby.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I didn't even look like that. Did you look like that? When I look at photos of, her 16 and my 16. I'm like, "Okay, yeah, that's a baby but also, she didn't look that."
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I was dressing it up. I was wild. Dressing it up.
Bella Baskin:
I think, yeah, that was like a rebellion maybe in a way.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
Or a way of expressing myself because I felt different. It was like an outlet.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. But you got something out of it that you've been able to carry into sobriety though. There's stuff about it that you enjoyed.
Bella Baskin:
The reasons why I raved is because I liked dressing up. I said, I went to school for costume design, and makeup. I liked dressing up. I liked taking pictures. I like dancing. I like that kind of music. So for me, it's so important that I have fun in sobriety.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Absolutely.
Bella Baskin:
Because if I don't, then what's the point? I think that people are, "Oh, well, I can't do that anymore because I used to drink at things that. I used to use at things that." And yes, definitely, when you're newly getting sober, you don't want to be in those environments that are tempting.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You got to do the work.
Bella Baskin:
You have to do the work. You have to get a foundation, solid foundation. You have to get something that you're going to lose. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
And so I didn't party or whatever for my first six months. My first thing I went to was a Halloween party at my college. I was extremely uncomfortable. And then I just realized over time, no one cares that I'm sober. No one knows that I'm sober. If someone asked me if I want a drink, I just said, "No, I'm good." They don't know that I haven't had multiple drinks already.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Or I don't give them a long...
Bella Baskin:
No. No one's thinking about anyone but themselves.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Totally.
Bella Baskin:
They're really not. They're not, "Oh, what a weirdo." A lot of times what happens for me is I'm so free spirited and I'll be at Coachella and I'll be dancing and I'll be laughing. People will be like, "Hey-"
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What do you want?
Bella Baskin:
"... what do you want? Where can I get that?" And it's like, I'm just comfortable in myself and I don't need anything. I'm not relying on the substance get.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You cab get that with 10 years of deep interpersonal work.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, I'm on sobriety.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
I just had to snap out of that. I had to snap out of that self obsession of everyone knows I'm sober. And I just had to force it. And then it just became easier. And I became... I was having more fun because I wasn't so concerned about getting the drug or where's that, or I have to go get loaded, or, oh, I need to go have a cigarette. Those things distract you from being in the moment. And when I'm in the moment, that's when I'm having fun and that's when I'm laughing and I'm letting loose and I'm being myself and I'm comfortable. All that other stuff is just an anxiety driven [inaudible 00:54:55].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Totally.
Bella Baskin:
I absolutely that sobriety makes that better. It doesn't take away from that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Totally.
Bella Baskin:
Having fun.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's funny, I was reading something about this. I was reading something about this as it relates to food. And it was talking about... Because since getting sober food was my first drug, right? And similar things.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah similar [crosstalk 00:55:25].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah. And then drugs now... I was like, "Why eat because that makes you fat, I'm going to do drugs. I don't have to worry about that." And I was reading something about how dealing with that. This was particularly as it relates to, refined sugar. Somebody was talking about how in the mindset is, "I'm going to take this out of my diet." And it's that you're removing something, but the truth is, you're actually adding in freedom. The thought process is on removing something, I don't get to have something. A scarcity but what you're really getting is freedom. And that's exactly what happened with the alcohol and the drugs, which was, I felt I was taking... Particularly at 19 like I was taking out this ingredient of my life and that I could never touch and therefore everything was going to be gray. I was going to live in black and white. And really what happened was that was the black and white and I added back. All the things I got back was the freedom and the color in my life.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Same thing, I grew up in sobriety, I grew up and young people's Alcoholics Anonymous, going to sober raves, going to the conventions, doing all the things, making all the mistakes really. That was the one thing is, I did a lot of stuff sober. Whereas, I have no reason to say no excuse.
Bella Baskin:
I have no excuse.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I have no excuse for my behavior at all whatsoever. Completely sober speaking.
Bella Baskin:
That's just being a kid.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
And we grew up in sobriety.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
But in this community. This community that was like, "We love you, and we're going to love you until you love yourself. Then a community that also said you need to do the work on yourself. That didn't let me get away with, "oh, but I really struggle with this or that. Oh, I have a problem." They were like, "Yeah, that's great. We all have a problem. So you need to do the work. What are you doing?" What kind of work have you done on yourself? We all have our own kind of... If you're in program then you have program. We all have our own recipe for how we stay sober, particularly long term. What have been the big pieces? What is your recipe?
Bella Baskin:
Well, I think what's happened for me and especially, in the last year. What we're talking about, it's just part of growing up. But also that alcohol-ism, that ism, can be directed at anything. Whether it's bad relationships or sex or shopping or food or cigarettes. It's always that searching for something outside of yourself to fix you that has been the part that's hard to break because it's really the root of all of it. Is that searching. What I found especially in the last year, I started meditating regularly, which is something that I always left out of my step work. So obviously, I did what we do in the program, I got a sponsor, I work the steps, I started working with other alcoholics. I sponsor people. I have six sponsees currently. Sometimes they fall off or stop calling or whatever.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I had one.
Bella Baskin:
But, I'm of service. I go to meetings. There's definitely been parts of my sobriety like when I lived in New York for three years where I was really dry. I was not working a program and I didn't have a sponsor, and I didn't go to meetings, I really don't recommend that. I'm a very high maintenance person. I need my daily routine. I need that security of I know what I'm doing today, I have my routine. It's that same thing that in some ways has been one of my defects but it's also something that has now become one of my assets. Is that I'm a routine person. I am an addictive personality. I'm obsessive. And so every day I go to meetings... not every day I'd say, four days a week. I exercise. I do meditation.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Exercise every day?
Bella Baskin:
I exercise four days a week on average, it changes, three, five, whatever. But I'm not obsessive with my workouts like what happened for me with food which was different from drugs or alcohol. You can smoke or not smoke, you can drink or not drink. You can drug or not drug but you can't eat or not eat. So with food that was really difficult for me because I had to learn how to moderate. For me, like you were saying, that taking away, that does not work for me. If I take away or if I restrict, I'm 10 times more likely to go the other way and over eat or binge. Recently, this is what I want to say too, is something I heard recently was, everything I've ever gained is due to everything I've ever lost. So if you don't lose something, you're not likely to gain anything.
Bella Baskin:
If you don't lose the bad ex-boyfriend, you have no room to meet the new love of your life or whatever it is. I actually have it tattooed on my foot, but it says rejection is God's protection. I just always I'm trusting that things are taken out of my life to give room for a more positive path. And I just pushed in whatever direction I meant to go in. And I have to live in that faith. Yeah, restricting didn't work for me and taking away stuff doesn't work for me. What I had to do is not restrict myself, I just had to learn how to moderate and have... I can have a donut whenever I want but do I want a donut? Is it nourishing my body?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Is in alignment?
Bella Baskin:
Is this a self loving act. Okay, if I'm at a birthday party, and there's cake, I'm going to have a slice of cake. Because if I don't, then all I'm going to think about is how much I want cake. And I'm going to go buy a cake the next day or else I'm going to eat the whole cake. If I'm at the movies, I have popcorn, you know what I mean? I live my life, but I'm I going to the movies every day? Is there a birthday party every day? No. It's like-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's sweet to have kids when there is a birthday party every day.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. I let myself live.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Do you have a coach or a person? You've learned these behaviors. Did you learn them in treatment or therapy or where did you get these or they were just?
Bella Baskin:
Well, when I first got absent from eating disorders, I went to OA. And that helped for a while. And then like I said, I had a dry spell in New York.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
OA is Overeaters Anonymous?
Bella Baskin:
Overeaters Anonymous. And then I had a dry spell. When I was living in New York, I was working 68 hours a week.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What is dry Bella look like?
Bella Baskin:
Just really irritable, really angry, really just impatient. Food was the last thing I got under control. And it was the first thing to go and loss is a really big trigger for me. Abandonment because I'm adopted. And I had one friend in New York when I moved there, and he got hit by a car riding his bicycle, and he died.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, my gosh.
Bella Baskin:
When that happened, most people-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Were you all living there?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah, I met all my friends in New York at his funeral actually. It became a beautiful experience. But their way of dealing with it was to drink and party. And my way of dealing with it is, I just started eating, and I could not stop. And I relapsed on my eating disorder. I started bingeing for a long time, and I gained so much weight, and I could not stop bingeing that I eventually started purging. And I tried to avoid that purging part of it as long as I could, but I just couldn't.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
If you can't stop bingeing. Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. And I tried to control the weight gain by purging and it didn't help. That's not how you lose weight. For anyone listening that does not work. And I know from experience. That was the first thing to go and I started trying to go away again, and I could not connect, I couldn't. It just wasn't working. I started going to a behavioral therapist, and being accountable to him is what helped me get abstinent that time. And I think it was an important experience for me because I'd never experienced a relapse situation before. I got sober when I got sober. I quit smoking when I quit smoking. I got abstinent in OA.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It was humbling.
Bella Baskin:
It was humbling. I had never had really a lot of compassion for relapse situations and so it gave me that. I had my first experience with a major relapse in anything, addiction related and then I had an experience where something other than program can help. A behavioral therapist, being accountable to him. I started dating someone. I was like, "Well, I live in a studio apartment, what am I going to go? Go in the bathroom?" This doesn't fit into my lifestyle anymore. I got abstinent. And I just said if I'm a little bit overweight, but I'm just stable, I don't care. I was a little bit bigger than I wanted to be. But I was just the same way for over a year, which has never happened before. Because I was either, I'm skinny forever and I got rid of all my "fat clothes." I don't use that word. And then I'd be overweight and I'd get rid of all my skinny clothes and I'd be skinny again. It was this back and forth struggle of... Basically I went through every eating disorder and sobriety.
Bella Baskin:
Now I have three years, maybe four, abstinent. But my relationship is so much different with food because it had to be. I don't know my exact sobriety or my abstinent date because I just... I'd get one day and then I get two days and I get one day and it was it just I don't know. I don't know the exact day. I believe it's the end of August sometime four years ago, maybe I'm coming up on four years.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Maybe it's when you got the behavioral therapist?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You made it... I just thought it was interesting. Because I go to OA and this is something that's been up and down and with kids and pregnancy, the self care thing is super gnarly and my sponsor was telling me that... she was saying... What did I do? Oh, I said something to the... I just made a different decision. It had nothing to do with food per se. I was like... Oh, I know what I did. Somebody sent me the potato diet. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but you eat only potatoes. And that was I didn't open. I was like, "That's nice." You lose a pound a day, blah, blah, blah, I've been down that road. And I literally didn't open it. I just told her, I didn't open it. I just know that-
Bella Baskin:
That's not good.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's just not going to work. It may work for-
Bella Baskin:
A temporary.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's just not the solution for everyone. She was like, "Oh, that's a recovery decision." I've had to look at my relationship with that is making recovery decisions. It sounds like you're moved to say, "Okay, this isn't working and I need to make a recovery decision." That was your first or next for recovery decision. But I love that you sought help in whatever form.
Bella Baskin:
I just had to kind of act as if, I was like, "Okay, people who don't have problems with food aren't thinking about what they're going to eat today." You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I mean, no, I don't know. I believe [crosstalk 01:07:07].
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yes I've heard that. I heard that people do that.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. I just... I don't know, I had this relief from it. And now I don't have to think about food, the way I used to, I just don't... It's like a complete... it's a different world.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's awesome.
Bella Baskin:
Because it was either I'm on this diet, I can't have this or I can have this, let me plan what I'm eating every day. And let me figure out what calories are in it. Or it was just like, stuffing my face with all the stuff I said I couldn't have. Or it was just this instability. And now it's just... I tend to eat the same things, but it's not something that... It's just a complete different relationship with food than I ever had before. And it's this relief. There's nothing gnarlier than having an eating disorder in sobriety.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's the worst.
Bella Baskin:
And I truly believe that because you have no relief. You have no relief. It's just, "Okay, I can't have that. Oh, I had that. Oh, how dare I? What did I do? Why did I eat that? How many calories in that? What am I going to do to fix it? I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to do this. I'm going to take these pills. I'm going to..." Whatever. It was just so gnarly, that inner voice that you could not shut up with a drink. I don't think I would have stayed sober if I hadn't gotten my eating disorder under control because it was so gnarly. It was just the voice never stopped. It was just that self beating myself up all day about why did I eat that or you can't have that or you're too fat to eat. I don't even use that word anymore. It's hard for me to say it.
Bella Baskin:
I don't talk to myself like that anymore. And that's what I had to start with. Is that inner voice of the way I talked to myself and just accepting myself and loving myself and anytime I think a negative thing, I replace it with a positive thing and it became all about the mindset of it. I don't work out to lose weight. Working out isn't what makes you lose weight. It's not, unfortunately, and I work out for my mental...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Bella Baskin:
Getting rid of stress.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's part of the self care.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. What I do on a daily basis is how I stay sober. And I think the biggest piece that I've learned in the last year is the meditation. And because I've learned how to meditate and I learn how to sit with myself and be okay in myself and just be with me. I realized through my meditation practice that everything I ever searched for outside of myself, like happiness or love, acceptance, all those things that I searched for in the bottle or the cigarettes or the food I've had all along. And it became more of a power thing, a powerful thing that I have all the things that I ever wanted. What's the saying that I'm looking for? Everything you seek you already possess.
Bella Baskin:
I learned how to just be with me and just love myself. I think that that over the years, my friend Emily always says, I've peeled away the layers of the onion, and I've gotten to the core. And between my meditation practice, and I had to... It was the drugs and the alcohol and then it was the cigarettes and it was the eating disorders and then it was my relationships with men. I definitely over shopped at one point or you can use anything.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Anything. It'll creep up anyway.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. The most recent part, a couple years ago was my last breakup and I had to figure out why I was choosing men that would abandon me the way I was abandoned when I was adopted. They would live with me multiple times. They were living with me, and then all of a sudden, one day they'd be gone. They would move out without telling me, it happened twice.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You'd come home and they were gone?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, my God. I'm not adopted and I would freak the (beep) out. Freak out.
Bella Baskin:
I've learned with compassion that we were so codependent and unhealthy that they felt they had to leave that way because I wouldn't have let them if they had asked, or talked about it. But at the same time, I had some really, really bad choices in relationships. People that I knew I didn't want a future or see a future with. People that I knew didn't have their (beep) together, excuse my language. But yeah, I would choose this men and I had to look at that. Because I'm 29, I want to find the guy that I'm going to be with and what am I doing wasting my time with people that I know can't give me what I want or what I deserve. And two years ago, I had came out of a really unhealthy codependent relationship. He left the way... He moved out without telling me then he moved across the country without telling me, we were really codependent really unhealthy arguing all the time.
Bella Baskin:
And why, why I'm choosing to be in toxic relationships. The meditation thing is of recent as of the last like two years, that was huge for me. And then the last like six months or so, maybe a little bit less than that, actually, I started going to EMDR therapist.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, awesome.
Bella Baskin:
Which is like trauma therapy.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I love the EMDR.
Bella Baskin:
And before that I went to a sex therapist, and I have been trying for the most part to be abstinent and just be single and not sign up for things that I know aren't healthy. And yeah, I've had like month tid bits here and there where I'm like... And then it ends because I'm like, "No, this is not what I want?" But it's an old behavior popping up. And choosing guys that I know, whatever. Luckily, they were short term. There was a few of them in the last couple years, and I think that the EMDR has really helped because it's... I'll give one example. That memory that I have of the girl telling me that I was adopted, it helps bring up trauma memories and re-categorize them. I categorize that memory is I'm not good enough, I'm unlovable. I'm different from my fellows, whatever it is. And what I learned to do is re-categorize that as, that girl wasn't a nice girl. And I was able to think... What happened is when we were doing the... You follow the fingers with your eyes.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Or the tapping, yeah.
Bella Baskin:
And what happened was is, I remembered other memories of that particular girl where she was not nice to me. And I was like, "Oh, that wasn't me." You know what I mean? There's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with her. She's a bully. And I was able to figure that out.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
She just happened to have bad information.
Bella Baskin:
And I was able to re-categorize that memory as grouping it with the other times that she was not nice to me. That was really groundbreaking. You know what I mean?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
It's helped a lot, I think. But other than that, I just do what's sober people do and I think taking it back to Bless It Bag. What helps me is being of service and not thinking about myself. I want everyone, including people who aren't sober to have the opportunity to have an outlet to be of service. Because we're all so self absorbed. And we're always comparing ourselves to people's lives on Instagram, which isn't real. And what really makes you feel good about yourself is being of service. I wanted to give people in [inaudible 01:15:47] and outside of [inaudible 01:15:48] a way to be of service that felt realistic for them. Because the men's and women's bags are $15, the dogs' bags are $7 it's very affordable.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I love that you included dogs, because you always see homeless people with their dogs too. And you know that they're companions.
Bella Baskin:
And the concern with that is like okay if they can't take care of themselves how are they taking care of the dog?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
For sure.
Bella Baskin:
And that's a big...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, I love It's true. It's true and you know taking away an animal for someone who has nothing is also really devastating. I love middle ground. That's I'm all about. I'm extreme about middle ground. Well, I love what you're doing and I'm so grateful that you are here and I know that we want to work with you and do stuff with Bless It Bag. Where can people go to follow you, find you be a part of your journey, contact you, et cetera.
Bella Baskin:
You can go to blessitbag.org. All the information's on our website. You can order the bags from our website. You can go on Instagram @bleesitbag or very-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's B-L-E-S-S-I-T-B-A-G.
Bella Baskin:
Yes. Our social media presence is really important to us because I think that that's something that a lot of charities are lacking in. We want social media to be chained to influencing a positive change. We have that and then if you have any questions, you can email me at blessitbag@gmail.com.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You're the granddaughter of Baskin Robbins. Is there going to be anything with Baskin, are you going to be giving out ice cream or are they going to come in to help?
Bella Baskin:
Yes, it was my grandpa and my great uncle. They both passed away now. They started Baskin Robbins. They sold it long time ago. I believe Dunkin Donuts owns it now.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, really?
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. I don't know. That's actually a good idea.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You got to call them.
Bella Baskin:
That's a good idea. But yeah, it's not...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
I don't get free ice cream. My Nana is the connection, it was her husband and her brother so her maiden name is Robin's her married name was Baskin. She named Rocky Road ice cream.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Love that.
Bella Baskin:
She is the coolest. My number one human and I'm her biggest fan. But yeah, we are not tied anymore.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Well, hopefully they'll come in and help out.
Bella Baskin:
That would [crosstalk 01:18:25].
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That would be really cool. Yeah.
Bella Baskin:
Yeah. But it's funny, I'll tell a story because it's Idaho related. I was eight or something. And my friend was like, "Let's go try to get free ice cream." And I was like, "Oh, I got very nervous about it. And I knew I was like, "We're not tied, they're not going to care."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
The behind the counter is-
Bella Baskin:
Right, who's the person behind the counter-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
They're not going to care.
Bella Baskin:
We walk in. We're in Sun Valley, Idaho, and we go to the Baskin Robbins. It was like in between Haley and Ketchum I think, I don't think it's there anymore. And we go there and I'm like, "Hey, my grandpa is, Baskin of Baskin Robbins, can we get some free ice cream?" And they were like, "Yeah, we get that all the time." And I was like, "Really?"
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We what? That's pretty amazing.
Bella Baskin:
You get that all the time? That's really weird.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's actually more interesting than the free ice cream part.
Bella Baskin:
As a kid, I was so embarrassed. I was like, "I'm never going to ask for that again."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Totally, totally. Well, I love what you're doing. And it's amazing.
Bella Baskin:
Thank you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And your story is really amazing. And I think your recovery shows that and that you've done the work. I love that.
Bella Baskin:
Thank you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And thanks being here.
Bella Baskin:
Thank you for having me.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Absolutely. The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast, would like to thank our sponsor Lionrock Recovery for their support. Lionrock Recovery provides online substance abuse counseling, where you can get help from the privacy of your own home. For more information. Visit www.lionrockrecovery.com\podcast. Subscribe and join our podcast community to hear amazing stories of courage and transformation. We are so grateful to our listeners and hope that you will engage with us. Please email us comments, questions, anything you want to share with us how this podcast has affected you. Our email address is podcast@lionrockrecovery.com. We want to hear from you.