Florence Acosta spent nearly 30 years giving everything she had to everyone around her.
As a nurse. As a CRNA holding patients’ lives in her hands. As an executive director managing surgical teams, patient safety, and the invisible weight of being the person everyone else leaned on. As a daughter-in-law who watched her former father-in-law disappear into addiction while his family quietly stopped asking. As a wife who kept saying what she needed — and kept being met with silence.
She gave and gave and gave. And she never once stopped to ask what was left in her own cup.
Then, at 50, a stroke made the choice for her.
A ruptured AVM she was likely born with and never knew about took her career, her ability to drive, and the identity she had spent decades building around strength and responsibility. It stripped away every role she had used to define herself.
What she found underneath — slowly, through a women’s circle, through daily writing, through the courage to finally speak — was something she had been too busy pouring out to notice: herself.
This conversation is about what happens when the cup runs dry. And what becomes possible when you finally decide to fill it.
[00:00] Introduction — A Life Built Around Giving
Florence is a Michigan-based writer, retired healthcare professional, and the voice behind Becoming You, a daily Substack on intentional living and personal growth.
She spent nearly 30 years in nursing — including as a CRNA and executive director of a surgical center — before a hemorrhagic stroke at 50 permanently changed her life.
The stroke came from a ruptured AVM she was likely born with and never knew she had. It took her career, her ability to drive, and the identity she had built around being the one who holds everything together.
Florence now writes daily for people — women and men — who learned early that it wasn’t safe to ask for what they needed.
Key Insight: “She’s living proof that sometimes it takes losing the life you built to finally start living the one that was always yours.” — Josh Woll
[04:01] The Family That Stopped Asking — Addiction Up Close
Florence opened up publicly for the first time about her former father-in-law’s alcoholism — a presence she witnessed from the earliest days of her marriage.
As a nurse, her first instinct was to help. She couldn’t understand why those closest to him had gone quiet.
Over time she understood: they had tried for years, exhausted themselves, and eventually the silence became easier than hope. His drinking became the family’s unspoken backdrop.
He would wander from home and turn up at the liquor store. He’d leave family events with beer cans stuffed in his jacket pockets in the summer heat — and nobody said a word, because no one wanted to cause a scene.
Key Insight: “They were saying things to try to get him to help himself, but it’s been so long that they were doing this that they just gave up on him, and this became his normal.” — Florence Acosta
[07:58] The One Word That Makes Help Possible
Florence and Josh both arrived at the same word when talking about why helping someone in addiction is so hard: open.
Josh reflected on his own experience — people around him asking if he was sure he wanted another drink, and him being completely certain he was fine. No perspective on what others were seeing.
Florence connected it back to her father-in-law: he was never open to receiving help. And without that opening, even the most persistent love eventually wears itself out.
The hard truth: you can’t fill someone else’s cup if they won’t hold it out.
Key Insight: “You have to be open to receiving it, to receive that help.” — Florence Acosta
[13:21] The Cost of Always Putting Yourself Last
Florence described the particular weight of her anesthesia work: bringing patients to the brink of death and being held responsible for bringing them back.
But when asked what she did to take care of herself through all of it, her answer was immediate and honest: “I didn’t really take care of myself. I always put myself last.”
As a nurse, as a nurturer, as a caregiver — she poured everything out and kept running on empty.
The turning point came in 2019 when she joined a women’s circle: 20 women, meeting weekly for nine months, with two three-day offline retreats. It was the first time she was asked to reflect on what she actually needed.
Key Insight: “I always put myself last. And I didn’t start putting myself first until 2019 when I joined this organization.” — Florence Acosta
[17:23] The Talking Basket — Practicing the Ask
The circle used a practice called the talking basket — passed around so each person could voice their needs out loud, in front of others.
Florence was always the last to go. Always shy. Always hesitant to take up space or ask for anything.
The teachings weren’t meant to be answered to the group — they were meant to be sat with privately. Florence did the work. And through that reflection, she arrived at something simple she had never really let herself believe: I’m important too. I matter.
That realization — that her cup deserved to be filled too — changed everything that followed.
Key Insight: “We can’t pour from an empty cup, right? So as nurses, we have to fill our cups up, too. Because you can give proportionately. But how can you give yourself emotionally if you don’t fill your cup, too?” — Florence Acosta
[21:23] When an Empty Cup Breaks a Marriage
Florence connected the dots between her father-in-law’s untreated alcoholism and the slow unraveling of her marriage.
Her former husband had learned, growing up, to sweep hard things under the rug. He’d done it with his father for years. And when Florence told him what she needed, he did the same thing to her.
Not out of cruelty — out of habit. Out of a pattern so ingrained it felt like normal.
The birthday party image captures it: everyone watching her father-in-law leave with beer cans in his jacket pockets. Nobody saying a word. The silence was the problem.
Key Insight: “Brushing under the rug became normal for him. And ultimately, that’s what led to the demise of our marriage.” — Florence Acosta
[27:41] Filling the Cup — Community, Creativity, and Becoming You
Florence launched her Substack without researching it — she just built the page, started writing, and trusted that the right people would find it.
What fills her cup now: quality time with her mom, her husband, her stepdaughter. The comments on her Substack. The back and forth with readers who feel less alone because of her words.
She’s also building something new with her sister — a creative project she can’t fully reveal yet. The shift she named: as a child she preferred to work alone because you can go faster. What she knows now is that you can go farther with someone beside you.
Her platform, Becoming You, is still growing — and still grounded in the same belief that started it: authentic is the only thing worth being.
Key Insight: “I just want people to come to this space and feel like they’re not alone and they can be themselves authentically. Because if you’re not you, then you’re fake. And we don’t want fake people in our lives.” — Florence Acosta
Key Quotes
“They were saying things to try to get him to help himself, but it’s been so long that they were doing this that they just gave up on him, and this became his normal.” — Florence Acosta
“You have to be open to receiving it, to receive that help.” — Florence Acosta
“I always put myself last. And I didn’t start putting myself first until 2019 when I joined this organization.” — Florence Acosta
“We can’t pour from an empty cup, right? So as nurses, we have to fill our cups up, too. Because you can give proportionately. But how can you give yourself emotionally if you don’t fill your cup, too?” — Florence Acosta
Resources Mentioned
Becoming You — Florence Acosta’s daily Substack newsletter on intentional living, mindset, and personal growth
Women’s Circle / Sisterhood — The nine-month community experience Florence joined in 2019, including weekly gatherings and two three-day offline retreats
Substack — The long-form writing platform both Florence and Josh use to build real, vulnerable community
Where to Find Florence
Thank You
A heartfelt thank you to Florence Acosta for her honesty, her openness, and for trusting this space with a story she hadn't shared before. And to Margaret Williams, MS, ACC, Little Edits Atelier, Patrick LaRose, 📚Carolyn Parker, Nabanita, and everyone else who showed up and listened — your presence is what makes these conversations worth having.
Your Cup Deserves to Be Full Too
Florence spent nearly thirty years giving everything she had.
As a nurse. As a caregiver. As the person everyone leaned on. She poured and poured and never once asked what was left in her own cup.
Not because she didn’t care about herself. Because she never stopped long enough to check.
Most of us don’t.
We keep going. We keep producing. We keep showing up. And somewhere along the way, the depletion starts to feel like just... the terrain. Normal. Expected. The cost of doing the work.
Alcohol fits neatly into that story. It softens the edges at the end of a long day. It makes the empty cup feel temporarily full.
But it doesn’t fill it. It just makes you less aware of how empty it is.
That’s what 30 days without it tends to reveal. Not emptiness — but capacity. The thing that was there all along, waiting for the noise to settle.
Florence eventually found her way to that question.
What’s actually in my cup? What’s mine?
The Reset is a supportive path to the same inquiry.
30 days. One container. Real clarity. No labels. No lifetime decisions. No pressure.
Just a structured stretch of time to find out what’s underneath.
