Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Alison’s Journey from Sober Curiosity to Freedom

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

In this episode, we have my friend Alison. Growing up, her father struggled with alcohol, and it created a ripple effect in her life. At 20 years old, she got married and just celebrated 21 years of marriage, but it didn’t come without its challenges. Shortly after, she welcomed three beautiful children into the world and was busy raising them while running a very successful business. In her 30s, feeling the pressures of life, she realized alcohol would drown out the noise and provide a sense of relief. After a home detox and a life long battle with alcohol, her father suddenly passed away, and she took an honest look at her own relationship with alcohol. This is Alison’s story on the Sober Motivation podcast. ------------- Follow Alison on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thealisonhoward/ Get more info on Megan AKA Sobahsistahs Retreats here: https://sobahsistahs.com/bali-2024 Grab Charmaine's ‘Delicious & Doable ~ Recipes For Real and Everyday Life’ Cookbook: 👇 https://www.amazon.ca/Delicious-Doable-Recipes-Real-Everyday/dp/1989304559 More Information about SoberLink: www.soberlink.com/recover  

Welcome to Season 3 of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible, inspiring, and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode, we have my friend Allison. Growing up, her father struggled with alcohol and it created a ripple effect in her life. At 20 years old, she got married and just celebrated 21 years of marriage, but it didn't

come without its challenges. Shortly after she welcomed three beautiful children into the world and was busy raising them while running a very successful business. In her 30s, feeling the pressure of life, she realized alcohol would drown out the noise and provide a sense of relief. After a home detox and a lifelong battle with alcohol, her father suddenly passed away. And she took an honest look at her own relationship with alcohol. This is Allison's story on the Suburmotivation podcast. Welcome everyone back to another episode. I want to give a big shout out to a couple of our new sponsors for the podcast.

Here's a quick update from Soba Sisters, your go-to community for women's sobriety and empowerment. Megan from Soba Sisters is hosting two incredible sober retreats, Bali in April and Vermont in May. These retreats are all about empowering your sober journey in magical settings and building friendships to last a lifetime. If you're interested, over to sobasistas.com slash bali dash 2024 for more details.

If you've been a fan of the show for a while, going all the way back to episode number two, Megan came on the podcast and shared her story. I'm definitely grateful for the friendship that Megan and I have developed over the years working together on several projects. Check out these retreats that she's putting together. She's already done a couple, and they've been nothing short of incredible. And I got to give another huge shout out to her other new sponsor. Charmaine cooking show hosts and author of delicious and doable recipes for real and everyday life.

Charmaine prides herself on living a drug and alcohol-free lifestyle. And she's also a huge fan of the show. So if you're hungry for fun, delicious and doable dishes, Charmaine's collection of over 70 mouthwatering recipes will be sure to please your hungry gang. Pumpkin muffins with coconut crumbled toppings, lemon walnut tuna melts, cranberry turkey burgers with sweet horseradish mayo, and grilled chocolate sandwiches are just a few of the fabulous

and flavorful dishes. You will enjoy preparing and devouring with ease. Check out Charmaine's cookbook today. I'll drop the link in the show notes below to the Amazon listing. Let's go. Getting sober is a lifestyle change, and sometimes a little technology can help. Imagine a breathalyzer that,

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Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got Allison with us. How are you? I'm great. How are you, Brad? I'm well. Thank you for jumping on here and being willing to share your story with everyone today. You are so welcome.

So the same question starts every episode. What was it like for you growing up? I would say that I grew up in the 80s and 90s. And it was a beautiful time before social media and the internet. So by those standards, it was a really. happy childhood because there wasn't a ton of comparison like there is now as a mom of three teenagers. I see that a lot. But I was a happy kid. But from the outside looking in, if you looked at my family, you would see a family that was close and that was really put together. But once you got close,

you would see that there were some issues going on in the home. And the main issue that really kind of overshadowed everything in my life and my family's lives was my dad's alcoholism. My dad really struggled with alcohol. And I first became aware of this when I was probably around five years old. My parents were yelling. There was a fight and my dad left. And I remember he seemed off. And I didn't have vocabulary at that time at five years old for what that looked like or what that meant, but I knew something was wrong. And so that continued throughout my entire childhood. But God's grace and provision in my life was just there from the beginning. My mom and dad both worked full time. And so I was put in child care at six months old. And I was raised pretty much

by my child care provider, Judy, and she was a very strong Christian. And so I was at her house from six months old until I went to kindergarten at five years old, from, I don't know, 7.30 in the morning until 5.30 in the evening. And so I was really raised in this very strong, healthy Christian household where there was no alcohol. But then I went back to my own house where I knew that there was that struggle going on once I became around, like I said, five years old. There was a lot of safety and security because of that. But then also at my own house, there was a lot of chaos and confusion. My dad, his struggle with alcohol, was not like a daily struggle. He wasn't hit the bar every day after work kind of guy. He was a binge drinker. And so he could be sober for months.

And then he would go on a binge and it could last weeks. And that would just kind of rip the house apart during those times. It just felt really chaotic and uncertain. And the more pressures of life is my dad got older, but I know you're a parent and I'm a parent. And so the more that the pressures of life and having three daughters and all these different activities and he was an entrepreneur, a business owner and seeing his business struggling, I think the pressure of life just really impacted the decisions that he was making around alcohol and it became his coping mechanism. And he was also, I'll add this, because I think it's important, he was an immigrant from Portugal. And so having, Having immigrated from Portugal at 12 years old to the U.S., there was a lot of pride there.

People in the Portuguese community didn't talk about addiction, didn't talk about those things. And many people experienced them, struggled with them. You know, addiction's not choosy, I mean. And people didn't really talk about it. So I don't think my dad had the tools at that time in my childhood to really know what to do. And I think his pride was really a barrier in getting help. Yeah. It sounds like the story too, right? Because when your kids, I'm just thinking of my kids and your parent as well. The thing I hear a lot is that what really helps them is that safety, the structure and being consistent in being reliable as a parent. And if your parent, your dad there struggling with his own addiction too, that might throw a little bit of a wrench into what you're needing. But it sounds like it was really a good experience for you at your babysitters that you went to during the day. to maybe get some of those needs met for yourself too.

Yeah, that daycare just was a really good foundation. It was a really good Christian in-home daycare. And it made all the difference for me and my sisters. And my parents, my mother especially, worked really hard at creating stability in the home. So there was a lot of good times. I have many happy memories, Christmases and birthdays and Easters and swimming in the summer.

And my dad grilling, he was an amazing. chef and amazing on the barbecue on the grill. And I have all these great memories, but then also there was a dark side. It was very jekyll and hide because when he was drinking and when he was drunk for days on end, there was a deep sadness in our home. There was depression. There was, like I said, chaos and worry. It really impacted relationships in my childhood. You know, I could never invite a friend to sleep over because my dad was not reliable in, and, and, and, you know, and, you know, whether or not he would be drinking or not. And so I could never count on him to attend the swim meet or

the band concert because it just depended on whether or not he was going to be capable of doing that as somebody who was struggling with alcoholism. And my parents did eventually start going. We were raised Catholic and my daycare provider and her husband were really strong Christians and they invited us to church and VBS and things like that. And my parents ended up going there. And I do remember a period of time when my parents became baptized as born again Christians. And there was such a peace and a happiness in our home. My dad was sober for two years. And it was the best two years. It was just, it was seeing who he was capable of really being when he was operating at his best. And I was so sad when he decided to reach for alcohol again. And I think that really as a child in that

environment, it caused me to really be an overachiever. I'm the oldest. So I have two younger sisters. And when things were bad at home, when my dad was really struggling and my mom was really affected by that, I was the one who kind of took on the role of mom, of leader, of comforting my sisters, of making sure lunches were made and the chores were done. And I felt a lot of pressure. And maybe it was self-imposed, but also it was because my parents were really distracted with my dad and his stuff and their marriage problems as a result of it. And so I really felt this pressure to achieve. So I was a really great student. I was somebody who liked a lot of attention, good attention when I was doing good things because I was really trying to fix, even though, of course,

I was a child and didn't realize the depth of my dad's issues. I was really trying to fix the problem. And if I could just be good enough or work hard enough or have a 4.0 GPA or be the best swimmer on the swim team or do great in theater. If I could just get his attention, he would change and we would all be happy. And it didn't work out that way. That's a story I've heard quite a bit here on the show, actually. It seems to go like one and two ways. Those of us that further down the road struggle with some sort of addiction in some sense, it's like we either do really poorly, maybe with our studies, or we take on that role of the overachiever and then do well

and we do really well. But then it seems to still, for a lot of people they share that it never really feels like enough. Like you do really well and then it's okay, you achieve that. What's next? It's almost like that obsession starts with that behavior of wanting to do well and in hopes by us doing well that we can maybe fix or help improve other people's lives. It's so interesting. Yeah, I think that it's calling out for help. Like, I'm struggling here. Can you see me? There's two ways to do that. It's either doing really horribly, like you said, in school and in life, or it's doing really well. And it's just like that constant need to achieve. And I definitely went down that path of just wanting to impress everybody all the time. But I never measured up because I could

fix my dad. I couldn't fix his problems. And there really wasn't open conversations about it in my house. There was never the conversation of, hey, dad really struggles with alcohol. This is what's going on. It was never like that. And it also caused me to kind of question my faith in God, too, because I prayed so much for his healing. I prayed so much. And I think anybody who's ever, you know, lived in a home where somebody was struggling and active addiction has gotten on their knees and prayed for that person to be released from it. And I didn't see that. And I blamed God for a long time when it came to that because a lot of times, especially as a female, I looked to, my dad was my first kind of visual representation of God and his love for me. And if my dad couldn't get

sober out of his love of just being my dad, then what did that say about God and his love for me? So it really created this, I don't want to say an identity crisis, but in some ways it did when I was really young. And it caused me to grow up really fast, a lot faster than I should have because I was constantly worried about these things that I shouldn't be worrying about. We're approaching the holidays right now. And I don't know when this is going to air, but we're approaching the holidays right now as we're reporting this. And I'm so grateful that I've cultivated a family and a home where my kids don't think twice about what Christmas is going to. look like and if it's going to be some messy, sloppy, crazy thing, the way that I worried about that every single celebration and holiday in my life growing up. It was always, oh my gosh,

is dad going to be drinking or not? So that was something that actually, as I grew and as I kind of, you know, went into my teen years, I really was not somebody who was really into alcohol. Like, I wasn't a party girl at all. Because of that, I was afraid of it. I was kind of afraid of until I wasn't, but I was kind of afraid of it because I didn't want to go down the same path that my dad had gone down. Yeah. Where did you grow up? So I grew up in California. I grew up in Central California, the Central Valley, so about two hours from the beach, two hours from Yosemite. It's cows, corn, and cotton, very agricultural. We grow a lot of fruits and vegetables that we supply to the entire country. But yes, that's where we're from. Wow. Okay. Perfect. And you're in Texas,

now? Is that right? I am. Yep, DSW. Yeah, there you go. Interesting. Yeah, so incredible the way that things kind of play out, right, because you have that vision of your father and then you don't want to risk it to go down that sort of path. Maybe not understanding things completely, but what's so interesting to about this is you're saying at five, you started to pick up on this stuff. My oldest is six. And I'm like, man, they are so smart. They pick up. And it's so interesting that you say that because you always wonder what they're picking up on and what you say, I think is so important. At that age, you don't necessarily know how to articulate it, but it doesn't mean that you're not absorbing it. And that's really interesting. Yeah, definitely. Kids are smart and they're intuitive and they don't

have the vocabulary, but they definitely have the inner knowledge of something fills off. Something is wrong. And I mean, just seeing my mom, I could see her sad. I could see her disappointed. I could, you know, I could hear the conversations and the tone. And I knew something. something was off. And my mom didn't drink at all. I never saw her drink in my childhood. And I think it's because she was just, she couldn't do that around my dad. It wasn't something that she ever did. Yeah. Where do you go after high school? So yeah, in high school, I dabbled with alcohol a little bit, but like I said, I was not a party girl. I do remember one of my really good friends having a 16th birthday party where like the parents took the keys and there was kegs and they knew. And that was my first,

like party was her 16th birthday. And that's my first memory of ever getting drunk. And I got so sick. And I remember thinking, why would anybody do this? This is awful. This is horrible. And I mean, I was just so sick. And that was enough to really kind of seal the deal for me that it wasn't something that I wanted to do. And so I graduated high school, did really well in high school. I went off to college. I attended Fresno State in California and I was studying to be a teacher and I was working a ton. I had a waitressing job at Chili's and I was serving. I was working 38 hours a week at Chili's and then trying to do all my classes and I didn't have a ton of time to go out and do like the social stuff. I wasn't in a sorority. I didn't live on campus. I had an apartment with a friend off campus and it was actually about 15 minutes away from

campus. And so I was in college, but I wasn't really a part of the college party scene because I was just kind of removed from it and working so much. And then in my spare time, I just was focusing on school. And I do recall, though, drinking a little bit in college here. And there were some other people in the apartment community who were older than us who would buy alcohol for us occasionally. But it wasn't something, it really wasn't something that I struggled with at all in college. here or there I would drink, but it wasn't something that I didn't live for the weekends. It wasn't like that at all. And then I went to college for a few years.

I left college and I got married young. I got married at 20 to my high school sweetheart. And he was a submariner in the Navy at the time. And he was already on the East Coast. I moved from California to Connecticut with my life packed up into two suitcases. And my parents' blessing. And we eloped. We got married in Newport.

Port Rhode Island and we started our life over there. And we had a big wedding ceremony six months after that. We weren't even able to drink at our wedding though. I had just turned 21. He was 20, but when we eloped, we were 20. We were both 20 at that time because we had the ceremony six months later, which is very common in the military because he was deployed. And once we were 21 together, we started drinking a little bit the Navy culture for us at the time. I don't know what it's like now. And I'm not saying anything negative about that culture, but the culture we were a part of was one of first year partying. And since I didn't complete college, I did two years of college and then decided to get married. And since he didn't go to college, he went right into the Navy.

We just kind of lived it up a little bit. We were 21. We were on the East Coast. We'd go to Manhattan every now and then. And we just had a lot of fun that first year of marriage, probably drinking more than we should have. and just being young 21-year-olds. But then I got pregnant when I was 21 unexpectedly. And we weren't planning on having our first daughter that early, but we did.

So Emma was born when I was 22. And then not really in my 20s. 22, I had Emma. Almost four years later came my son, Brody, when I was 26. And when I was almost 28, I had my next daughter, Kendall. So my 20s, I mean, I was pregnant and breastfeeding. I mean, I was just busy having babies, and I also started a business at 25. We were back in California at that time in San Diego.

And I was really living the young mama, new entrepreneurial kind of life. And I was in the wedding industry. I owned a wedding planning company in San Diego. And I didn't really spend a lot of time until about probably 28, 29. I was just busy with babies and business and getting plugged into a good church. with my family and there was not a lot of drinking going on at all during that time. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, your 20s there. It sounds like that would have been pretty busy. And you've got Brody there. I've seen Brody's a storm chaser. I love checking out the things,

the videos he puts together. That's incredible though. So you move over to the East Coast. You get married at 20, which, yeah, that's exciting. Yeah, we celebrate 21 years on Saturday. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. That's awesome. And you're doing a bit, you're working business too. I mean, so yeah, this stuff right here is going to keep you fairly busy. Does something happen here at 29? I mean, does something happen to where things pick up a little bit for you as far as the consumption of alcohol goes? Yeah.

So this is the point. It was after I had my third and I was really, my third kid and I was really in the trenches of motherhood. I felt very alone in a lot of ways because I was down in San Diego and all of our family was in the Fresno area in the Central Valley. So we were six hours away from family. I didn't have a support system. I didn't. I had friends from church, but we were all in the same life phase. We were all in the trenches. And so I didn't really feel like I could call anybody or ask for help with the kids. My business was soaring. I was the first wedding planner to use YouTube. And I had a partnership with YouTube. And so I was creating content like crazy. I was doing luxury weddings.

so very high budget weddings where it was $100,000 or more was what I was working with. And so when you're in that type of work where people are spending that much on their wedding, they expect perfection. And I never had one bad review in over 200 weddings. I made sure I delivered on perfection. But it's one of the most stressful jobs in the world. It is just constant. It's a very demanding field to be in. Forbes listed it as one of the top five most stressful career paths that somebody could take. And I didn't know that at the time when I was getting into it. But five years into four or five years into my business, I was really at the top of the industry. Not only was I planning weddings, I had a subdivision of my company that I had created where I was speaking all over the country. I was educating novice and aspiring wedding planners. I was coaching. I was doing business coaching.

with these people. I created a course, the first ever course for wedding planners online. And I was just and then I was also raising these three little children. I didn't have any help with that. My husband had a really demanding job working in defense. He was out of the military at that point, but he had a really demanding job. And I remember a friend had brought over a bottle of red wine for dinner. And I was never a wine drinker. I was like, I was such a sissy drinker. when I did drink. It was like Midori Sowers or Sex on the Beach. Remember those drinks in the 90s? Like early 2000s? Like that was me. Or a Cosmo when Sex in the City was like the rage and Carrie Bradshaw drank Cosmos. That would be the drink I ordered, but I'd be like, oh, that's so

strong. Somebody brought over a bottle of wine to our house for dinner. I had made dinner for friends and they brought it over as a gift. And we hadn't even opened it that night. And I remember being there in my kitchen one day and it was just a hell of a day. It was a really stress day. And I thought, you know what, I'm a nearly 30 year old woman who runs a very successful business and I'm killing it as a mom, although I'm super stressed all the time. I'm going to pour myself a glass of wine because I had seen people do that when it sound, I didn't even think about my dad at this point. I did not even think about alcoholism. I didn't think about anything. I just had a glass of wine and then I had two. And I remember immediately, that's when it kind of

clicked for me was everything going on in this Enneagram 3, overachieving brain, quieted. It was like peace. And I felt like I didn't have to be on. I wasn't the speaker on the stage giving the amazing message. I wasn't the person on the YouTube video. I wasn't coaching and I wasn't doing all these things that I was really good at. And I do a lot of those things still, right, in a different capacity. but I wasn't that. I was just calm. I felt calm. And I wanted to keep feeling that way because it just

made me feel like a nicer, more stable person. And I think that's the lie of whatever the thing is, because we all have a thing. Everybody. And I coach women for a living. I have coached close to a thousand women over the past 15 years. And every single person has a thing, whether it's alcohol or shopping or food or porn or you name it. Sometimes it's not even external. Sometimes it's internal. Sometimes it's internal. Sometimes it's bitterness. Sometimes it's greed. Whatever it is, we all have a thing, a crutch. And that's when I found my thing. My thing was that glass of wine. And I didn't know it at the time because it just seemed my husband came home and I was in a good mood and he's, wow, it's not the stressful, crazy person that I usually come home to. This is nice. Oh, I'll have a glass of wine with you.

It's just something we had never done before. And we were at this point, 28, 29. Also at this point, we really started struggling in our marriage because I was working nights and weekends because of the wedding industry. That's when you work nights and weekends. And he was working during the day from very early until five. So we became kind of ships passing in the night as we were building these careers that we were in. And so our marriage really started to suffer. And that was another thing that kind of, it was just busy career, busy stage with young children. And then all of that led really difficult times in our marriage. Thank you for sharing all of that. Because it makes a ton of sense, right? Everything you're doing, you're doing so much stuff. And being a mom, three kids, like it's a lot. It's a ton, right? Without that

support people close, people to talk to, people to share things with, then it can probably, it gets overwhelming. Definitely gets overwhelming. And then if you find something that kind of quietes it down and right, yeah, the weddings too, you mentioned 100,000 bucks. I can only imagine, I can only imagine the perfection that is expected of an event like that, right? That adds more to the whole equation also. It was definitely a stressful time. And I never, I mean, I guess in the beginning as I was entering my 30s, I would have never said, oh, you're struggling with alcohol. You're using alcohol as a coping mechanism. I would have never said that. That's not something I could even see for myself because it looked so different than my dad. It didn't look anything

like what alcoholism looked like to me. Because when my dad drank as a binge drinker, he was gone. He was physically there, but he was gone for a week to two weeks. just sitting on the couch, just passed out, just not caring for himself, not eating. I mean, it didn't, it just, the way he drank was very gross to me. Like it just didn't look. So what I was doing, having a glass of wine to unwind was what everybody was doing. It's very socially acceptable. I mean, in fact, it's even encouraged.

I mean, I go places now. And if I'm not having a glass of wine as a woman, the first thing I'm asked is, are you pregnant? Oh my God, are you pregnant? And it's no, I just don't, I'm not drinking right now. I don't want to drink. But that is, if you ever as a woman, that's usually the first thing that people are like, okay, what's going on? Are you pregnant? And it's like, no, that's not what's going on. In my mind, there was no issue.

It was just having a, it was just having a glass of wine or two to unwind. And where I, where that shifted was in my early 30s, things got worse in my marriage. And the wine turned into vodka, actually tequila first and then vodka. So it was something heavier and lower calorie because I didn't want. And that was my reasoning was, oh, wine's really high in sugar. And I've always been a healthy person. So wine's really high in sugar. I think I'm going to go to tequila or vodka because that's lower in sugar.

And so if I'm going to have that, that'll be the healthier choice. It really became just a health thing. I just want to make the healthiest choice drinking a complete toxin. But I didn't know that back then. Yeah. So you go from the sex on the beach to the tequila, quite the shift, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And then how do things progress for you? It's interesting that you kind of match it up to write what you're familiar with as somebody who's struggling with alcoholism or addiction, right? Because this is more and more of a topic that seems to be more relevant with this sober curious movement with the way people are just looking at their relationship with alcohol individually. Like how do we feel about it? And it's so interesting because that does, if we have prior experience as somebody else who struggled differently than we did, I think it's very easy to say, ah, there's nothing to see here. It's just not what we're putting out there is alcoholism or

addiction alcohol or a problem with alcohol. It's just, it's really working. And we see it everywhere. I mean, especially for mom culture, right? You go to all the different stores. You go to the gift shops, you go to the party shops. There's always a handful or more of items that just say life and parenting is done better with a glass of wine or whatever it may be. So how do things progress for you throughout this journey? Yes. It was just kind of more of the same in my early 30s where it was stressful day. It wasn't every weekend. It wasn't every night.

It was occasional. It wasn't problematic at all. And in the wedding industry, there is a ton of open bar cocktail parties. And so that revved it up even more. And then there were those situations where, and this is before Uber really, became like a big thing in San Diego or really in any big city. And so I'd be in downtown San Diego at a wedding event, having some cocktails and then having to drive home. And I remember thinking, I wonder if I got pulled over if I would get in trouble. I wonder, I don't even know.

I didn't know my own, I didn't know my own tolerance. I didn't know. I didn't, I had never really stepped into any of that. But I think that the fact that I was even asking the question, asking you myself that question, ooh, I wonder if I got pulled over if I would get a DUI or something that obviously I had too much to drink if I even had to ask that question. I remember that happening a couple times after big industry events that just turned into a big party. We decided because we, Mark and I, my husband, we were struggling so much in our marriage. And the careers were just so demean ending, we decided to move back to our hometown. And we had never lived in our hometown since we graduated high school together. And we decided if we're going to work on our marriage, if we're going to save this thing, we need to be around our parents and our siblings and people who care about us, who love us and who support us. And so when I, when we were, I think 35 or 30, I think we were 35 is when we moved back to the Central Valley and started over. And it was a really stressful time. And I think this is why people throw in the towel, maybe even

prematurely on marriage, is because when you're working through difficulties in your marriage, a lot of times you can feel like you're the only one who struggles in certain ways. And don't lean into all the tools and resources that we have. But we found an amazing therapist, a Christian therapist. And she helped us so much. And really from 2000, I think we moved back to Central California in 2015. That's when we moved back was 2015 or the end of 2014. Yeah, 2014.

That's when it was. From 2014 until 2019, we were really just working on our marriage, on our lives. But I really started looking to alcohol as even more of a coping mechanism during that time. because it's just hard working on marriage. Marriage is hard. And Mark and I mean, we were drinking together. It was like, oh, the therapy session or oh, that, you know, like this difficulty or I had moved on. I sold the wedding planning business and I had moved on into other areas of work and coaching and got my culinary arts degree and started just doing some bucket list things during that time because all my kids were in school for the first time. So it was a really fun time in some ways. There was also a really hard time.

And also being home in my hometown brought some things up to the surface that I hadn't worked on or even paid attention to since I had left. I was really excited to leave my hometown because it was difficult watching my dad make the choices that he continued to make. My parents had divorced. Right at the time when I got married, my parents were divorcing. So when I was 20 and they had new partners, new spouses. The dynamic just felt really different. And there was also not a very closeness with my mother. Our relationship suffered in a lot of different ways. So it felt really uncomfortable being back in my hometown. Although it felt nice in some ways because we were with people that we loved and there was that familiarity. It also, I think, brought up a lot of things that

were uncomfortable to me. I was definitely also struggling in my own identity after having sold my wedding planning business. And I sold it at the height when I was starting to get into celebrity weddings and like having to sign NDAs. And I was really, I was interviewed for a talk show ABC daytime, flew me to Burbank to interview for a talk show. And I was at the height. And so having sold all that and kind of wiping my hands of it and saying I really want to restart and I don't know what I'm going to do and I'm like 35 years old. And so what now? I think that there was a lot of fear attached to that and a lot of uncertainty and just the way to, again, to feel that feeling of calm during that time, it was just an easy reach. It was an easy grab. And still in my mind, I didn't think,

oh, I wonder if I have a major issue with this because it didn't look like what I expected it to look like. But also during that time, I remember I did a Google search for how do you know if you're struggling with alcohol. I wouldn't even use the word alcoholic because for me, it had such a negative connotation that I associated with my dad and his alcoholism and his struggle. I was nothing like that because I was so put together. My home was beautiful. My kids were healthy and happy. I knew how to run successful business. Surely not me. Like I'm not, but I googled that one night. And then later, I remember listening to a podcast, maybe a year after that. And the woman on the podcast had said, if you're Googling that question, then something isn't right. And that's yourself

alerting you to that fact, because people who don't struggle with alcohol don't ever Google that question. And I remember peeing like a light bulb went off. And I was like, oh, crap. Oh, no. What does this mean for me? I can't imagine a life without alcohol. I can't imagine never drinking again or because I saw my dad, even at Thanksgiving's and Christmases, I hosted a lot of that at my house. There was always wine or cocktails and everybody, almost everybody would partake. And he couldn't and he wouldn't because he knew what would happen. And he knew that we wouldn't allow it. It was just kind of a hard stop. We don't want you drinking in our home. And I always felt so sorry for him. And I did not want to be in that box, Brad. I did not want to be in the box that said, you can't. You can't do

this. Sorry, you're not normal. Sorry, you have an issue. Because I saw him ostracized in some ways. and it broke my heart for him. And it was because none of us had language around, you know, what actually was going on. And he wasn't empowered in, no, I'm choosing not to do this because this is actually really horrible for my brain and my body. And it was more of a negative thing, like a slap on the hand, like you can't handle it, like a deficiency in himself. And that's really how we all treated it is, oh, dad can't, he can't have it.

And I feel so sad about that. Now that I know better, I feel so sad that I was, he had his own problem and he should have dealt with that. But I feel sad that I laugh empathy and just the knowledge around what maybe he was going through until I experienced it myself in my own way. So anyways, I remember getting Annie Grace's book, This Naked Mind. And that book I highly recommend. That book was really interesting to me. And I got it because my dad was really struggling in his own alcoholism. Here I am 35, 36, 37, and I'm still dealing with my dad, binge drinking. Now he's getting older. He's starting to fall. He's starting to actually hurt himself because he's older. And his balance is really affected.

And his brain has just been so affected by the abuse all these years. And I'm starting to get really concerned for my dad as I'm also a little bit concerned for myself because I'm coping in a similar way. So there was kind of a very loose parallel or like a duplicity in what I was going through as the daughter of an alcoholic who wanted to help my dad find healing and restoration, but as somebody who was also reaching for the exact same thing using it in a different way, but also to make myself feel a certain way or to not feel a certain way, which is exactly what my dad was doing. It was escapism. We were both checking out, but in different ways to where he couldn't keep a job and I could keep going. I could, I could do everything just the way that I always had because I wasn't doing it the way that he did it.

So that to me, I started recognizing that and I hated that thought. It made me feel a ton of shame. It made me feel afraid. It made me feel that I was going to be ostracized, that every time there was a celebration in my family or a gathering, all eyes would be on me. Like, oh, is she having too much? Is she having too little? Oh, where she at? Just like we were kind of babysitting and watching my dad, walking on eggshells. I didn't know how to kind of operate in that. And so I did what I think everybody does. I just lived in denial. And just said, don't look here. There's no problem here. I actually tried to look even more put together. And I think I tried to seem like I was on top of things even more when in a lot of ways I was feeling really afraid and nervous. Yeah. Oh, thanks for

sharing all that. A lot of stuff in that journey of a couple of years of your life too. And yeah, I can see how that can be a very scary place to be is when you start to see some of the parallels there, some of the things come together. And it looks a lot different externally, but, you know, reaching to it for the same solution to escape whatever is going on and maybe not as much, but it still is there. And I think the longer it is for anybody, the longer we stick around, then the more chances of it getting worse over time. The tolerance builds. You need more to reach the effect of maybe we did five years ago. And that's the thing is when I talk to a lot of people, I always wonder that of like, when did this switch kind of take place? Some people know, some people

they don't know. It just kind of happens that it just kind of, you just go into the progression of it all. So it's really interesting how it, how it kind of plays out. When do you turn this around? When do you get to that? And it's interesting to you. Google it. And that's, I think, an important point for anybody who's listening. And if you're, I mean, if you're listening to this show, hey, there's a reason for it. And it is called sober motivation. But I've always thought about that. And I've shared a couple of times on the show. I never looked up anything about gambling. And gambling is a very real and serious addiction. I'll buy five scratch tickets a year and maybe bet on four hockey games and I never even think about it.

Whether I won or lose, I might not even follow up with the ticket. Like it just very irrelevant. And I think it's interesting when we get to that curious stage of when we're looking at things, it's probably impacting our life. So that's interesting. And then you don't want to use the word alcohol and you search of something else. And then you get it. I had someone show on this show.

We had a good laugh about it. But I mean, I could see how it was a very painful moment at the time. but they did a quiz. They landed on a quiz, and then they lied on the quiz. And then it's, okay, this is, yeah, there's probably something here. But in the time, you mentioned it perfectly, denial. Yeah. I mean, that's where we're stuck.

So how do things have moved forward from here? Yeah. So I had heard right about that time that we either copy or we correct that which we saw in our childhood. That, and I realized I was copying how I saw. my dad, who I also believe was an overachiever in his own right. I think he was an outlier in his family. He was one of the first to go into the entrepreneurial world and the way that he did. He was very charismatic. Everybody loved him. He always made friends wherever he went. He talked to everybody.

We were very similar. He was a fantastic chef. So am I? Like, we have a lot of similarities. And something my mom used to say that I hated growing up was she looks like just, me, she looks just like me, but she acts just like her dad. And I remember feeling so offended by that because I knew the deep issues that my dad had around addiction. And I didn't want to be anything like my dad. And I worked so hard in my life to not be. And then here I am, 2017, 18, 19, realizing, wow, I actually have a lot of his similarities, but I have a lot of his really good things. And I do want to copy those things. I talk to people really easily. I, I love to make friends.

I am an outlier in a lot of ways, too. And the entrepreneurial world, I really enjoy business. But I definitely do not want to copy this one thing because this thing destroyed my dad's life. And it was watching it destroy his life, his marriage, and his career was, it was heartbreaking to see somebody with so much God-given potential completely wasted. it. And so I became very curious. I for sure was sober curious during that time. I don't really have any long stents of sobriety between 2017 and 2020. Maybe I did a dry January or a sober October here or there. But instead, I kind of started to pull back a little bit and recognize this is not something that's super healthy for me. In 2019, I moved into, I had done business coaching for a long time

with women. I added health coaching to that. And I started really getting physically healthy. I started really working on my mindsets and my physical health. And that really also allowed me to, in a really safe community, in a safe space, take a look at how I was using this coping mechanism. The way that I was, just like a lot of the people in the health space, as somebody who works with people who are struggling in their health, they're using food as a coping mechanism. So I actually gained a lot of tools just in coaching people around health for my own life. I think even in 2018, 2017 or 18, I went to a couple AA meetings. And I did that. This is what I told myself, Brad, because I didn't need AA, right? Like that, I mean, I told myself, I don't have a problem the way true alcoholics

have a problem, right? So I went there for my dad. That's how I told myself. I'm going to go and check this out because my dad was vehemently against AA. He had gone to a a couple meetings back in the 90s and he's, I am not like those people. And I was like, dad, I'll go to a few meetings and I'll let you know what I find out and then you should start coming with me. He never did. But as I was sitting there, I knew, although the community was wonderful, that wasn't my community. That wasn't where I felt comfortable because my life did not look like a lot of those people's lives. But I knew that there, that I was on a spectrum. I just didn't know where I was on the spectrum. And 2020 happens, right? And the world shuts down. And all my kids are home. And I remember

kind of having probably like a lot of people a little bit of that yolo feeling where it's like, the world's ending. Let's go stalk up on the vodka. And I remember that my drinking increased a little bit because of boredom, because of uncertainty, because of fear. And 2020. And I think the, if you were anywhere on social media, you saw the drinking culture really increased in 2020. And that's all we could do was get together with friends and family and just do home, things at home, barbecues, pool parties. There was more drinking by the pool that summer than any other summer until August 2020 when my dad died.

And it was really unexpected. It was just, it was a heart attack. and it was a direct result of his alcoholism. I hadn't talked to him for a few weeks, and I knew he was on a binge because that's what happened, right? He would isolate and go dark. And I couldn't get a hold of him, and he was just keeping to himself. And that's what he did when he was on a binge.

And the day that he died was, I think, three days post binge, which he was basically self-detoxing. And that's what he did all those years. We know that's so unsafe. You can increase the risk for stroke or heart attack, and he had a heart attack and died. And I remember that scared me so much. And it just broke my heart for him that the thing that he had struggled with his entire life was the thing that ended up taking him so young. He was 64.

And for the next two weeks after that, me and vodka were BFFs. I was just mourning. I was so sad. I was lamenting. I was in such a low. It was COVID, which was hard in California anyways. And we weren't able to be with him because California laws or whatever they were back then required us to be outside of the hospital. We couldn't even be at his bedside when he took his last breath. We said goodbye over an iPad, which I am still bitter about because it was so inhumane. It was just so inhumane. So I really drank so much the two weeks following his death. I was in a deep state of, sadness and depression, pain like I had never felt. And I didn't know how to cope with that. But I had kind of a realization a few weeks after his death, not even, it wasn't even two weeks. It was less. It was maybe 10 days of that where I thought, I'm not going to let the same thing

that robbed my dad of so much, robbed me of so much. Because I have this amazing life. I have these gifts and these talents that God has equipped me with. And I want my kids to be proud of who I am and I want overcoming. I want conquering to be a part of my story. And so I decided to do 100 days alcohol free, not forever because I couldn't commit to that yet, but 100 days alcohol free. I really wanted to mourn those first few months after his death awake. I wanted to have my eyes open. And so through his planning his funeral, through all of that, his celebration of life, I was totally sober. And it was the longest actually stretch of sobriety that I had really experienced consciously as a decision outside of pregnancy. And I did that 100 days, but oh my gosh, I white knuckled it.

And I was counting down the days until 101 came so that I could have that drink. It was like a celebration. I made it. I'm done. And so I knew that it didn't stick, but at least I had a little experience with it. That really is what opened me up to kind of an experience, but I still couldn't wrap my brain around long-term sobriety or what that would look like or what that would mean or what box that would put me in. And I continue, though, to be sober curious and I had longer stints of sobriety after that in 2021. And then in 2021, we left California and moved to Texas. And when we were,

moved to Texas. That first year in Texas was a little bit more of a struggle for me in my business and getting acclimated, getting the kids settled, just the transition of moving across the country. And there was a more frequent, it became a more frequent thing again, coping and reaching. I was really grieving my dad because I think that first year after his death, you're just kind of going through the motions. It's the first milestone of everything. The first Christmas, the first birthday, the first this, the first that. And the second year is when I really started to feel grief. And then my mom unexpectedly, she was planning on moving to Texas with us at some point after she retired and she unexpectedly decided to move to Portugal. And which is great for her.

She's super happy. But I felt super abandoned and blindsided by that decision. And it just brought up more grief. It just kind of brought up more grief. And this was summer of 2022. And that summer was really where things rubbed up, where it became reaching for that vodka soda water became a very regular thing with summer of 2022. I was very unhappy. My business was struggling so much. And my marriage was good, which praise God for that. My kids were good. But I was really struggling with my dad being gone and never seeing him healed and my mom being gone really kind of feeling orphaned. I felt very orphaned. I felt very alone. And it was the holiday season in 2022. So last year. And the holidays just give you permission to just go for it. And I really started going for it.

It just became a very regular, more of a daily or every other day to where my husband, Mark, even voiced concern. And he's like, hey, I'm getting worried about you. Like, this is becoming really frequent. And to where he wasn't even wanting to have cocktails with me anymore. He wasn't even wanting to drink with me anymore because he was like, this is just too frequent for me. Like, this is not good. And it was right after Christmas last year where I knew that it was becoming an issue. And I remember hearing on something. It wasn't on your podcast because I hadn't come across it yet. but I remember hearing somewhere that alcohol, oh, maybe it was Annie Grace, that alcohol is a highly addictive substance, the more that you have of it, the more that your body craves it and

wants it. And for the first time, I kind of let myself off the hook. And I said, oh, maybe this is why so many people, because my own clients were struggling with alcoholism too, because it was such a thing that was pushed in 2020. It kind of became such like a culture thing. And women's alcoholism went up like crazy post-COVID. So I really got curious and serious about it then. And it was December 28. So a few days after Christmas at 3 a.m. in the morning, I was like startled out of sleep. And I really felt, and I don't for anybody out there who doesn't believe in God or the Holy Spirit or whatever, you call it, but I felt God say to me, you need to release this. You need to let this go. Just within my spirit. It wasn't an audible thing. It was just like this. You are meant for

more. You were created for more. You need to trust in me as you're sourcing your supply for everything. And you need to stop going to this thing or any other thing to make yourself feel better. And it was like a turn. I mean, it was just, I woke up the next day and I told my husband, hey, I am done. I think I'm going to take the whole next year and just lean into support. And I had never even done past 100 days. And he's like, a year. Okay, we'll see how this goes. And I never looked back. And it's been, what, over 300 days. It's been almost a year. And I found your podcast. That was the first thing I did was just being in the coaching world, in life coaching. And one of the first things I always tell my clients is whatever you're

struggling in, you have to find community around that thing. Because isolation is the devil's playground. And we are better together. And I, promise you, you're not that unique. You are, but I promise you're not that special in your struggle, that there are going to be 100 million other people who share whatever your struggle is. And that's what I found in the sober community is once I started listening to your podcast and hearing other people who sounded like me, people who were professionals who were put together, who you would look at and never think, I've never had a DUI, I've never gone to jail. I've never had a rock bottom where I had to lose so much praise God in order to wake up. But I saw my dad lose a lot.

And I knew that I was going down a really tricky path if I kept continuing down the path that I was going on. I found your community and I started listening. And I heard somebody say, talk about disorder drinking and that everybody falls on a spectrum. And I was like, oh, this makes sense to me. I will still never call myself an alcoholic. I hate that word. And I think it's very black and white. I think for most people, we are operating in the gray space of drinking. Where it's when I do it, I do a little bit too much.

Or I just, I have concepts. I have feelings about it. But I do it because it's so socially acceptable. And I just don't want to hear about it from other people if I'm not. Or there's so much gray drinking. And I had never heard those concepts before. And yeah, I cut it out. And this year, and I think I told you this just in our own, like, messaging months ago, I have never been as productive as I have been this year in my life.

I have never experienced more peace and more happiness, more steadiness than I have this year. And I've never believed more that alcohol is a toxin that is here to steal and kill and rob us of so much more than I. ever have before. And I listened, who did that podcast, Brad? I know because I think you've referenced it, Huberman Lab, where he talked about like the physiological, physiological effects of alcohol on the body and how it is an actual toxin. And that's why we become intoxicated. I remember when I heard that, I was like, wow, how am I 40 years old? And I'm hearing this for the first time. Really? You know what I mean? No one ever told me that. I just never understood it. So anyways, that was kind of like the big aha. And then at a spiritual level, I just believe, I don't think there's anything wrong for some people with drinking.

I don't think there is. I know people. I have gone to dinner with friends many times this past year who get a glass of wine or who get a margarita. And they can have one and be done with it and move on, just like you were talking about gambling. You can do your few scratchers. You can bet on a few hockey games. And that's it. You're not obsessing about it.

You're not thinking about it. That was something I really struggled with. It was never just one glass. It always had to be two or three. It was never, I just didn't understand people because, you know, I wanted, let's have a party. Let's like live this up. Like I wanted to really let loose and enjoy it. So I didn't understand that whole like mentality of having one and being done with it.

And so once I heard that podcast, I was like, okay, this makes sense. And then as a believer, the Bible talks about it's fine to have wine. It's Jesus drank wine. He turned water into wine. But it's different to be drunk. and to lose control of yourself. And I just never want to lose control of myself ever again. I never want to be in a space where I am reaching for a coping mechanism

instead of reaching for something that's actually true and lasting and real. Yeah. Wow. Thank you so much. That's incredible. Coming up on a year and everything, it's just been, it's been so cool to meet you anyway in this journey and see you from afar here on Instagram and all that stuff. and growing and building and everything.

It's just so beautiful. And I think what you said to, it's wild because I didn't know that either, that you get intoxicated because your liver can no longer break down the alcohol. So that's why we drink faster. Overload. When I was drinking, it would just be drink faster, three, four beers in an hour. Overload that part and then start the intoxication process. And how dangerous.

I mean, there's nothing else in life that we would do that. I mean, I don't think we would consciously consume other poison. But it's sold to us. It's sold to us on TV where it's like these yacht parties and these beautiful people jumping off the boat. And I never even knew this until more recently is that they're not allowed to drink the alcohol in the commercials. I'm like, that's the weirdest thing.

Why is that? I don't know the answers to that. I'm actually going to look it up because that is maybe think of it. I just feel like we, in a sense, we got sold this big dream idea. And then we get hooked. I mean, it's addictive. So the longer you stick around, then I think the more chance. is obviously are of that all lining up. But what an incredible journey in that so many things you

brought up are just in line with the way I felt about things in the way so many people do, the spectrum, where do I fit in the mole? Gray area drinking is really becoming a place where people are looking at. And I've heard so many people, because I always thought if you didn't drink that much, if you gave it up, how much would your life really improve? But I've heard some stories recently that have blowing me away that people weren't drinking. Everybody's thing is going to be different about what's much. But my opinion, they weren't drinking much, six pack a week. I mean, for me, that was every day, six, eight beers. But they were doing that. And once they quit, they experienced so many incredible things. And I think that's so important for the spectrum. And once we really truly

understand what alcohol is, we can have those facts and have that stuff to make an informed decision. but I appreciate you so much for sharing your story with us all in the podcast. Before we finish up here, is there anything else you want to share? Where can we find you? What the heck are you up to? Share a little bit of that stuff with us. Yeah, I think that if there's anything else that I can say to encourage your listener, is that know that, first of all, you're not alone and you are not the exception.

You're probably the rule. There's a lot of people in this community. people who don't even struggle really with alcohol at all. My husband is that person actually. He decided not to drink anymore either. And just because it was never something that was an issue for him, but he wanted to just feel his best 100% of the time. He's an athlete and he lifts weights and he just wanted to feel great all the time.

So wherever you find yourself, whether you're sober, curious or wherever you're at, there's space for you here. There are all different types of people. all different types of stories on this journey. And you're not alone. You are not alone. And I just kind of felt alone for a long time. And there's nothing to be ashamed about because I think that the people who keep their struggles quiet, I think they really suffer more than anybody because they are really trying to go it alone. I think when you shine light on the darkest places in your life where you feel the most shame, what happens is not only do you feel,

find freedom, but you unconsciously give permission to other people to step into freedom too. And so share your story, share your struggles, share your journey. It's actually what's going to make the whole process so much easier. You can find me on Instagram. My Instagram is at the Allison Howard, Allison with one L, T-H-E, Allison Howard, and my cooking Instagram is Allison Howard Cooks. So those are the two places you can find me, but I share a lot of like my coaching motivation inspiration stuff at my main Instagram, the Allison Howard. So I'm just so happy I was able to be here with you, Brad. You are doing great work. And I know that this is part of your own sobriety plan. I know when we talk about where we were and where we are and what has changed

along the way, it reinforces what it is that we want to create in our life. And I see you constantly reinforcing that in your own life by creating this platform on allowing people like me to share our stories. And it's just such an encouraging podcast. It's the first one I found after I made that decision. And it's been my favorite ever since. And I tune in faithfully and I really enjoy the work that you do. And I knew in December when I started listening last year, I'm going to be on that podcast one day. I know I'm going to be sharing my story. And thoughts become things. And if you can see it behind your eyes, you can hold it in your hands. And here it is. And I just hope that this is encouraged and inspired somebody in some way today.

Yeah, that's beautiful. You know what? I really appreciate your support. It makes it all possible, right? And that's sort of the full circle effect. I mean, starting out the show, you don't really have anybody listening to come on the show with any stories. And now it's just been incredible because a lot of people who checked it out at the beginning are getting around that one year, six months, eight months. And now we're having people on the show. I just think it's a complete full circle moment, not to say that it wouldn't happen another way that people wouldn't get sober if there wasn't. a show. Of course, people would, but I just think it's so cool to have that community to really show people what's possible. To show people, there's different ways and just to show people that you can really get off the elevator at any time. You don't need to wait until it finds the basement and crashes and blows up and explodes and everything falls apart. I just, I'm really finding a lot of personal inspiration for these stories because when I first started this, it wasn't a thing. And that was just the environment then. It was mostly. understood that you had to have these external consequences or be like this or be like that.

And I'm so happy and encouraged that people are just deciding that they just don't feel great about drinking or doing other things. And they're just like, let's make a change. And then in less than a year, you're the most productive. You're out there doing so many different things. I mean, what else could we literally change in our life that turns around and offers so many rewards in under a year. I don't know. And the thing is, most of us know. Like, we know inside when there's an issue. And it's just having the courage and the bravery to say, what is separating me from my best? What is separating me from living an extraordinary life? Because this ordinary life that I'm living, doing what everybody else does is not working out. So how can I step into

the freedom? And for me, it was abstinence. Moderation didn't work. And it's the same thing. with jalapango chips. I can't have them in my house because I'll devour them, right? I have to go full on abstinence, right? So identify those things that separate you from living your best, from honoring God, from whatever it is, right? And do it and step out and courage. And it may be hard at first. You know, I had little stints of sobriety here or there, here and there, but this stuck, this time it stuck. And, you know, I don't know. People ask me, I have especially girlfriends who say, how long are you going to do this thing? Like that's a question I get a lot because I have a lot of social friends. And I say, I don't know. I don't know what the future looks like, but I know I'm not

drinking today. And I know I'm probably not going to drink tomorrow. I'm really understanding the whole one day at a time. This is what I'm choosing for my life today. And I've gone through a lot of hard things over the past year, but I've survived every single one of them and every hard thing that I survived that I didn't reach for the easy button for that drink, I came out with so much more confidence. I came out knowing, just really taking ownership over my life. And it's just been incredible. And you're right, Brad. This is one of those things in life where once you rip the band-dating, you say, no more. I'm done with this. Amazing, beautiful things happen as a result because you just step into a new space where you really do feel limitless. You just don't have that crutch

anymore and it's fantastic. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Wow, another incredible episode on the podcast. Huge shout out to Allison for jumping on here and sharing her story. What an incredible inspiration, though. You know, somebody who wanted to change and make a difference and be an example of

overcoming stuff, working through challenges. And she's doing exactly that. Thank you so much. As always, if you guys enjoyed this episode, be sure to send her a message over on Instagram, get old of her somehow. Let her know you appreciate it. It's hard sometimes to share our story,

especially with an audience of the world, from all over the world. So be sure to take two minutes out of your day and send her a note. You enjoyed if you could relate to any part of her story. Before we wrap this one up, I was just thinking. After most episodes are completed, I find myself shedding a few tears.

Not tears of sadness, but tears of hope and tears of joy. When I get ready to hit that green published button, my only hope is that we can reach someone, a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a grandmother, or a grandfather. Because if we reach one, our work here is done. I know what it's like to live without hope, and I don't want anybody to have to go through this alone. And with that said, as always, I'm so grateful for everyone's support on this journey,

this podcasting journey, this story sharing journey, this trying to make a difference journey, this figuring it out as we go journey. And this journey of just letting people know they're not alone, that we all struggle. We all go through tough times. But there's light on the other side that we can find a way out from the day in and the day out grind of struggling with addiction. So if you're enjoying the show, be sure to share it with a few people. You never know who might benefit from a story of recovery.

See you on the next one.