MY STORY

My parents met in a beer tent.

My dad tended bar. So when I tell you I understand how alcohol gets woven into a life—I mean mine.

I spent twenty years in corporate sales and HR. Happy hour was where I got time with decision-makers I'd never see in the office. Drinking didn't feel like a choice. It felt like part of the job. Mommy wine culture hit at the perfect time to help me through dinner time, bath time, and bedtime with two little ones, while feeling a lot of loneliness and loss.

It grew slowly over thirty years. Not every night. Rarely dramatic. I had the career, the family, a few half-marathon medals—and a quiet undercurrent that something wasn't right.

I started meditating while I was still drinking. That was the beginning. Then for 3 years I experimented with sober experiments. In 2018 I quit for good. A friend did it with me.

I didn't want a new life. I wanted to get through one night without hating myself.

I wanted to wake up without punching myself in the face first thing and give myself a chance at a good day.

What I got was so much more—and some of it was hard. I lost friendships, my identity, and my social life. Grief taught me that sobriety doesn't protect you from pain. It lets you be there for it. Sobriety didn't make life easy. It made me present for it.

So I left HR, went back to my social work roots, got certified, and started Ditched the Drink in 2019. I called it my dare to dream, the title of a journal I created in third grade. 

The wine was the solution that became a problem. It was the coping tool. Coaching is where we find a better one.