Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - I Was Drinking 3 Bottles Of Wine A Night | Jessica’s Sobriety Story

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

From the outside, Jessica looked like she had it all together. But behind closed doors, she was drinking 3 bottles of wine every night, blacking out, throwing up before work, and quietly falling apart while trying to convince herself everything was fine.In this episode of The Sober Motivation Podcast, Jessica shares her journey through hidden alcoholism, mommy wine culture, trauma, undiagnosed ADHD, addiction in motherhood, and the moment she finally realized she couldn’t keep living that way anymore.We talk about: • using alcohol to finally feel accepted • the loneliness behind addiction • high tolerance and hidden drinking • blackouts and trying to moderate • postpartum depression and emotional isolation • recovery, connection, and rebuilding life without alcoholIf you’ve ever felt trapped in the cycle, exhausted from hiding your drinking, or wondered whether life without alcohol could actually get better, this episode is for you.Sobriety gave Jessica something alcohol never could: peace, presence, and connection.🎙️ The Sober Motivation Podcast shares real stories from people who have quit drinking alcohol and rebuilt their lives in recovery.Jessica on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicaguerrieriauthor/Sober Motivation Mobile App: https://apps.apple.com/app/sober-motivation-app/id6759266291Sober Motivation Website: https://www.sobermotivation.comSupport the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivationContact me anytime: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I remember looking at myself in the mirror and I got done throwing up. And I genuinely heard a voice that wasn't mine. And it said, haven't you had enough yet? And at that moment, I was like, yeah, I've had enough. Enough is enough. I walked back into the bedroom with my husband. And I said, I think I have a problem with drinking. She still had the marriage.

She still had the job. She looked functional from the outside. The shame was building. and the double life was taking its toll. Internally, she was exhausted, isolated, and trapped in a cycle she couldn't escape. And this makes me wonder, how many people are silently struggling with alcohol while everyone around them thinks they're doing just fine. And this is Jessica's story on the Super Motivation podcast.

Thank you so much for checking out the podcast. If it's your first time, don't forget that subscribe button. And if you're able to connect with anything in this entire episode, leave your thoughts below in the comments. Now let's get to Jessica's story. Welcome back to another episode of the Subur Motivation podcast. Today we've got Jessica with us. Jessica, how are you?

I'm so good. Thank you so much for having me, Brad. Yeah, of course. Excited to hear your story here on the show. What were things like for you growing up? Yeah, so growing up, share how I thought it was. And then being a full-time writer now and writing about my childhood, I realize I have an entirely different lens of it now that I have 13 years of sobriety behind me.

But what I would say before is that it was a really idyllic childhood that I had a really loving family, which is very true. We grew up in a wonderful home. We went on vacations. We did all the things. what I will say now in looking back is I very much felt like an outsider looking in on my own life from the beginning. I always felt like I didn't quite belong. I'm 6.1 and I was 6.1 in junior high. And so I liken it to 7th grade dances where if you're a child of the 2000s, there was always that person in the middle that was like the really good dancer and then everybody dances around and they do the really cool move and then they move to the outside. My whole life I felt like

I was on the outside. I felt like I was being pushed to the back. And then come 16 years old, I discover the thing that made me feel like I was inside of the circle and it was drinking. And that sort of started it all from there. Yeah. So looking back and it's so interesting, you kind of mention that too of the hindsight version of things. I think when we're going through it, it's pretty safe to say that we don't necessarily realize what's going on or can put words to it. No, you just feel so lost and confused. I reconciled it through writing and through journaling. I have journals that I started when I was five years old. And actually, what's been really fun is I have three daughters. And I've given them each the age that they are, my journal.

as a way of normalizing the things that they might be going through because we have very similar challenges with when I was a kid, I had intrusive thoughts. I had undiagnosed ADHD. I also had undiagnosed OCD. And so as a kid, who especially was really good at masking all of these things, I was always a really good student, but I was like a sneaky troublemaker. I got away with a lot of stuff because I was such a good student. And I was always seeking attention and validation and just love. Really, I was really desperately seeking love. And that happened in really dangerous ways, a lot of the times, especially when alcohol was involved. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that too. The undiagnosed ADHD stands out to me with how that plays out. I don't know the exact

stats in front of me, but it's massive for ADHD struggling with substance use. I feel like I've mentioned this before in the episode. And when I was going through editing, I'm like, what are the numbers for this? So I'll share with you just something quick. You could obviously Google this to find, you know, the specific studies and all of the results. But people with ADHD are estimated to be two to three times more likely to struggle with substance use disorders.

Some studies show nearly half of adults with ADHD will be. battle addiction at some point in their lives. And for a lot of people, alcohol wasn't just about partying. It was an attempt to quiet the noise. Slow the brain down, feel normal or finally feel relief. And it's a big part of it, I think anyway, is unknowingly trying to regulate our nervous system. This is a big part of my story, but I wanted to share a little bit of that with you. Now let's get back to it. So I literally just got my diagnosis two months ago, which felt incredibly validating and also really sad in a lot of ways. I had to grieve the level at which I masked my suffering and how hard I was on myself for very routine things that I thought that I just wasn't trying

hard enough on. And I've had to give myself a lot of grace. and recognize there's a reason why this was such a struggle. I've noticed it in my children, and that's how I was able to finally get that help that I needed for myself. But as a child, it looked like I was a disorganized, chaotic person with a lot of unregulated emotions. I couldn't, I would go from zero to a thousand. I remember my parents thinking, doing the very best they could, with how I was, but also mental health was not what it was in the 90s and 2000s. And so I just felt really alone in that. And drinking became my solution to everything.

Yeah. When you mentioned the 90s and 2000s, I'm like, man, that's forever ago. But it feels like just yesterday. I know. I know. But the good news is we have come so far in the mental health key. And because of people like you, because of people like me, who I refuse to be silent about my recovery.

I'm very vocal about it within my community, in my writing. And that's because I don't associate the shame and the stigma of addiction. I actually am very proud of my recovery. I'm very proud of how far I've come. And I want to normalize that journey and what that looks like for people. Because to me, the scariest part was when I, wanted to get off the ride and I couldn't get off the ride. And so that was actually why I wrote between the devil and the deep blue sea, which is my debut novel, is all about being in motherhood

and trapped in active addiction and a fictionalized version of what that looks like in order for women to see themselves and feel safe about maybe exploring things that they wouldn't normally feel comfortable doing. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to said I've heard this story in a couple of episodes I've done over the years too, overcompensating early on in life. Oh, yeah. To maybe make up for the areas that we're struggling in really feels like a full-time job. A lot of people share.

What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I only know a girl's experience, a woman's experience, but I do know that we have to scream really loud to take up space in a room and when we're not supposed to even now. And so I just remember not knowing what I was allowed to do or say or I didn't want to stand out, but at the same time, I was screaming and needing all the attention while secretly wouldn't even know what to do with it if it came to me just because I was so lost. And so I definitely feel like young boys, their version of mental illness or noradiversity, is louder and seeks more attention. And girls can be suffering quietly and they internalize it,

which is what I did with my writing. And then it can manifest in different things. And ultimately, when I grew up as an adult, I look back now and I'm like, of course I turned to substance abuse. Of course I did. It's almost laughable. Of course I did. That was such the easiest, most readily available coping strategy for all of the pains. that I was experiencing on the inside that I didn't want to feel. Yeah. And I think even, too, what you were getting to at 16, you start drinking and it works so well. It works so well until it doesn't, right?

And I don't know if you remember your first drink, but I remember that sensation of warmth. And it felt like a deep exhale for the first time in my life. and there was something about that I went to go seek for the next 15 years, and I could never recreate it, no matter what version of drinking or using drugs I would combine. And that's the bafflement of it, the really confusing part, because I was like, why can't I get to that perfect place of euphoria, of numbness, of all the things? And alcohol is mysterious in that way because it is possible. And then all of a sudden it's not.

And then it's not real. All of the things that I was feeling aren't authentic emotions. And you don't learn that until recovery where you're like, oh, that deep connection that I thought I had across the table with somebody while we were drinking wine until two in the morning. I think I was just slurring my words and falling down. But I thought we became best friends. Yeah. Everybody gives you a hug on the way out. Exactly.

And I love a good hug. Yep. It is. Yeah. You bring up the point there, like remembering the first time I drank, I remember. I don't remember a lot of the times I drank. It's not like I every one index. But the first time I was like, I always say this being shot out of a rocket.

It was just, wow. Where have you been? Everybody loved me. I belonged to fit in. And even if I wasn't, I didn't know any difference. Oh, you don't know any difference. But imagine it. Like you're at the center.

of the circle, right? Everybody is around you and you're dancing at the center of the circle. And like that is for a lot of people that struggle with substance abuse, that's the feeling that you get. And that's why it works so well. Yeah, until it runs out of steam and we're until it does it. Yeah, we're looking for. We're looking for, I think, two things. We're looking for it to repeat and we're looking towards the end for that final night. I'll go out with the bang. I'll have this perfect night. It'll all make sense. The stars will align and I'll turn the page a new chapter in my life.

Where do things go from you for there? Was this a problem starting out for you? Yeah, so you don't know that it's a problem when you're in it, especially in the beginning and especially in the society that we live in, where I went on to college and college is glorified drinking culture 24-7. There is a party every single night of the week if you want to find one. And I always found one. And it turned into this version where I was the life of the party in my mind, whether I was or not, I have no idea.

Consequences, right? You're blacking out. There was some dangerous consequences when it comes to sexual assault, which I write about in my books truthfully. And there was just really situations that you would put yourself in that are outside of your, who, you are as a person. And that just kept happening over and over again. And it was never the alcohol's fault, right? The alcohol wasn't the problem. It was always the other person, the boss, the partner, the, and so you turn into this really angry version of yourself. I was so resentful over all the things I didn't have all over all the, I remember I worked as a special education teacher. And I, I would drink every day when I got home and I got home about 4 p.m. And that was perfect. Because if I did four to maybe nine, I could get through two or three bottles of wine. And then I could usually

wake up, come to, and I would end up forcing myself to throw up the next day because it was better to do that at home than in between teaching junior high special ed, where I'd run to the bathroom in between the teacher's lounge to go induce vomit. So I didn't throw up in front of my students. And yet that was where I was. Like, that's where I ended up at the end. And I thought this was just how it was. This is just what it means to be a teacher in a stressful job, caring for a very specific, hard, needy population. And that was my sacrifice, right? I can, the days would be hard. And there was a lot of physical violence that happened inside my classroom because the students were, we don't use this term anymore, but emotionally disturbed. And that triggered a lot of my PTSD trauma

from a violent sexual assault that I had in college. And that exacerbated my drinking even more. And of course, you don't know any of that as happening as it's happening. But that's what ended up happening towards the end. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that too. Mention there two or three bottles, walk me through how you end up at that point. Was it like that from the beginning or after you leave college? I think a lot of us, I've heard from people too. I think it's probably a pretty common thought of, hey, of course, we're going to party it up in college and whatever.

That's what everybody's doing. So why would I do anything different? But you know what? Brad, when you leave, you're obviously going to get a grown-up job and you're going to do grown-up things and make better choices. But not always the case. It wasn't for me anyway. And also sometimes you can.

fake it, right? Sometimes you can hide it until you can't, obviously. So I went on to grad school with the intention that the grad school that I went to get my special education teaching credentials was not a dry campus. And that was intentional. And it was all at night. And so they ended up having a policy where in between our classes, you had to have a tally mark of how many drinks you could have in between classes because of people like me. Because I would set the bar where I would, I had an incredibly high tolerance at the end. Like I said, I used to do in college, I would do what I called 10 and go, which is where I would do 10 shots before I left the house and then I would go. So that's the level at which I was starting at. And so I was so frustrated because they would only give us three glasses of

mine when we got dinner in between our courses. And so I had to figure out ways of being sneaky around it. And then I would go present on early literacy in special education while I was blacked out. And I passed and I became a teacher. I don't know. I don't know how that happened. But that doesn't mean that I wasn't suffering and struggling because I was. And yet nobody really noticed until.

it got too obvious that there started to be serious consequences. But it was a lot like my masking of my neurodiversity. And when I was younger, I got really good at presenting as fully functioning and capable. Yeah. Which I hear a lot too on the podcast with people. I think from the outside for a long time, nobody really notices. But I think that that could be relatable. to you and it could not be. I think that's a really like a real big defense mechanism that we

plug into is we have to keep everything on the outside together because we're falling apart behind closed doors. If that comes into our public life, then everybody knows that this isn't the actual truth. Like this isn't authentically us. We do so well to protect. what everybody else sees and how we carry ourselves, make sure we're a little bit early, try not to be late for stuff, you know, pay our bills on time, whatever it is,

whatever responsibilities we have in life. And I feel like that adds a big part of stress to this whole thing too is because we kind of get that, we're going to figure this out someday, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Any of that makes sense or no? Truly, not only does it make sense,

but that is actually what I write my books about, literally that thing that you just said, because women, especially in the mommy wine culture, where we are presenting that we can go to PTA meetings, we can hold it all together, we can look very put together. And yet on the sidelines, there are red solo cups during the softball games that our kids are doing and we're drinking during the day. And that is presented as normal and also encouraged because it's like your reward for being a mother. and this is the false narrative that we're getting. And so I wanted to show, okay, well, what does that actually look like if you play that tape

all the way out? Because sooner or later, whether you have the addictive gene or not, alcohol is addictive in its nature. And so if you're drinking the amount that society wants us to, especially as moms when you go to Trader Joe's, and literally it says back to school shopping and it has an arrow for moms and it says in the wine aisle back to school shopping. And you're just like, huh, that's a interesting message. Yeah, I'll go get some staplers and pencils and make sure I get my wine because back to school is really hard and my reward is drinking. So I refused this narrative because if I was

still drinking when I became a parent, which luckily at that point I was actually sober, I would love that narrative. I would be like, oh, it's okay for me. need a drink at the PTA meeting. And that's such a dangerous thing. And so when you play it all the way out, it looks like, yeah, we're functioning. Not only that, but if you look on Instagram, it's five o'clock somewhere, it's mommy sippy cup, it's wine time, it's whatever you want to call it. And you see all these beautiful moms that, you know, are lined up with their drinks in their hands, their babies on the other, and they're, you know, live in their best life. It was not going to be my experience.

And that's not an experience that a lot of women and mothers can relate to because what happens is all of a sudden, the wheels start going and two drinks becomes three drinks. becomes a bottle. And that's what I noticed the most for people within my community and circle during the pandemic is really when it hit because, again, it's 5 o'clock every time. That is actually when I relapsed using drugs was during the pandemic because I saw everybody else coping with substances. I knew I couldn't drink.

But hey, maybe I could try something else. Yeah. I think when you look back, it's like I didn't even know they were getting into that. I was going to end up. The alcohol did know what they were doing. Sure. People that are getting sucked into it didn't know. Yeah.

There's a lot of stuff out there, too, that points a lot of stuff pointing into that, I mean, they were definitely targeting moms. I think, too. I'm obviously not a mom. I have three kids, but not a mom. But I think that your schedule changes too, right? As opposed to being working and whatever, now you're home all day. So the thing was.

with the alcohol is the tolerance builds. So what one drink might have done for you a month ago no longer does anymore. So you're kind of two. And it's a slow progression, I think, for most people. Stories too often of like one glass, one day and four bottles next week, it's usually just builds up. And then your life, your identity gets wrapped up in it, right?

Play dates and hanging out in the front lawn or hanging out with other moms or whatever the activities are. It's birthday parties. I went to a birthday party recently, and it was, I think the guy was two years old. I was the only person not drinking, and this was a birthday party. They're doing their own thing. I'm not for what they're doing. That's what they're just hanging out drinking.

And I'm like, I don't know, this guy has a strange birthday party to me. One of the things that I explore in my writing is the why behind it. So why are those people drinking at a two-year-old's birthday party? And of course, there's the easy answer, which is, it's fun, right? But what is it telling you if you're trying to escape from your, specifically, two-year-old's birthday party? And what it was telling me in addiction is I am unhappy in something, right? I don't want to feel the sadness that I'm feeling specifically in the pandemic when I relapsed with addiction. It was, I had so much fear. Like I had so much fear and anxiety. I was homeschooling

my kids. I had three kids under five at that point. Oldest got pulled from kindergarten. It felt like the world was ending and this isolation, all of my recovery groups were online and I needed the human connection. I think is the opposite of addiction is connection. And so I just found excuses to be like, okay, well, nothing is working. Nothing is as it seems anymore. So obviously I can just check out. It is the solution is to just check out. My kids watched a lot of bluey. And at that time, I just lost back in that pull of I just don't want to feel anything because everything feels horrible. Prescription pills and THC gummies got a hold of me.

And turns out you can be addicted to weed very easily. I'm a California person. So I was like, well, California sober. That's the thing, right? Not for me. Not for me. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I think any time you're looking to escape the present moment or whatever

we're dealing with inside, yeah, it can definitely have an impact. Going back, too, to a little bit in your story, to making that sort of transition of things ramping up, maybe slowly. What did things look like for you sort of after college? Is there any relationships in here, too? Or is this just single? Are you moving around? No, so I had a long-term relationship. So originally I went to UC Santa Barbara, and within my first week was when my violent sexual assault happened that I actually decided to put almost verbatim of what happened in my second book, both can be true because I wanted to talk about the conversation of sexual violence

against women, as well as substance abuse. Those are my two passions because the way that we've normalized it in our culture and something like one and four women will be assaulted in their lifetime. And I have three daughters and I don't like those statistics. And so in Santa Barbara, I fell into a depression. And after my assault, I joined a women's sexual survivor group. And it was in that group that I started to feel connected to other people that had been through similar traumas and used that connection to find healing. That was the very first time that I had used another group of people that way before I found recovery. And I went to the counselor at UC Santa Barbara and I told them about my assault.

And I'll never forget this because they told me, and this is a direct quote, I need to get out of here. I said, I don't feel safe here. I have a boyfriend that's at UC Davis. My family's closer to Davis. I feel really far away from them here and isolated. And I said, can I please transfer to UC Davis? And because I got in, too, can I just go? And they said, well, we transfer rapists to other UCs often.

So we should probably be able to transfer survivors. Wow. And I just couldn't really process that because I was in my own trauma at that point. Looking back on it, it's really sad that nothing is actually really changed in that front. When it's being held accountable, right, for their actions. I was able to transfer and I went to UC Davis and I live in Davis now and it became my safe space. I built a whole community here. I fell in love with the town.

I love the mixture of academic. And then they have a wonderful biking community. Everything is on a green belt. My kids bike to school. It's like a little utopia. And I just felt incredibly safe. And so I had the same boyfriend for a long time. And then I kept drinking in the way that was problematic and just kept making horrible decisions

related to our relationship in that and made a lot of mistakes. And then we spent time apart. And I ended up meeting my current husband through Davis. And we were together for a really long time. And then really at the end of our relationship, he was just so fed up with my drinking. He was the only person, and really this is true of a lot of drinkers. Your partner, or the person you sleep next to is the only person that really sees how much you actually drink. I know my parents staged an intervention for me with my sister that I didn't know was an

intervention because I was so blacked out that I had no idea of what was going on. It took me six months into sobriety for my sister to be like, well, when we did the intervention, and I was like, there. What intervention. How far gone I was. And I just remember my husband being like, hey, we ended up getting married. We took time apart for a little bit and my drinking got worse. And then I kept it together a little bit better, hit it a little bit more. And then we proposed. And then we got married. And then sort of all bets were off, right? But all of a sudden it was like, we wanted to have children. Like, I love children. I was a special education teacher. I always had all the cousins on my lap. I wanted to hold a baby at every moment. And yet my husband told me, like,

I won't have kids with you like this. I'm not giving you an ultimatum. I'm just telling you, I don't feel safe having children if you can't remember what we talked about the night before. What if you were taking care of a baby? Of course, I resented the hell out of. of that statement, right? And also it was his fault. It was his mother's fault. It was my mother's fault. It was everybody else's fall. I remember one time I was like, it was summer. And when I was teaching, always the breaks were the worst because I had spring break where I wasn't teaching. And then I could just drink all day. And I ended up laying out and reading a book outside. And I passed out on the asphalt. And I got third degree burns down the side of my fifth.

face. And my husband had to spray me with the garden hose because he thought I was dead. He didn't call 911 because I came to with the hose. He wasn't doing that to be mean or cruel. He was panicked. It was the level at which he witnessed what was happening to me. And these are stories like my parents didn't know, my sister didn't know, but he knew. And the whole time he was, you know, going online, doing his own research that was like, I don't understand why my wife drinks like this. Why is she doing this? And we did all the things. Like I would tally on my wrist. Like I did one. Right. Like, okay, so I did one. Okay, tally. Okay. So I can have three. Okay. But then I erase this one. Okay. I can do wine. I can't do hard alcohol anymore.

Okay, but they have a new kind of hard alcohol. This one's probably safer. So I did all the rules. I played all the games that everybody, you know, that's listening is very familiar with. And he played along with me because he was like, well, you know, we drink and like people drink. And like, I'm sure it's okay. I'm sure it's fine. Yeah.

And it wasn't. It wasn't fine. Yeah. Well, in hopes. I mean, I think that that's a common hope that a lot of us. have at some point too is that, of course, we're going to be able to figure it out. We're going to turn a corner here. We're going to get back to drinking normal.

Like, it'll be good. We'll figure it out. And what baffled me was some people did and some people can. And that was something that I became obsessed with in early recovery of that, like, jealousy of like, wait a minute. Like, oh, they get to do the like wine on their front porch and watch their children play idly by and like still feel that warmness without taking it too far. Why can't I have that? Yeah. And I wanted that. Could you ever do that? Like, could you ever do that? Um, no, because of the obsession of the mind. Like it, my, the way that my brain is wired is that

if I have a drink, I'm thinking of the next drink. So I'm not in it. I can't stay in it. I can't be in the joy and the whatever the false euphoria that I'm feeling, I am already onto the next drink. I cannot be present to save my life. And that's no way to live, right? Like, especially as a mother, because our children's existence is so fleeting. Like, every moment is precious. I'm sure you know with your own kids where you just like, look at them and you're like, how did you get to be this age? What is happening? And I don't want to drink that away. Like, I don't want to drink that time away. I don't want to be on to the next thing.

I want to be here. And that's, like, the gifts that sobriety has given me. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for walking us through that experience there. I mean, the question comes to mind, too, which I think there will be some people out there listening. I mean, people listen to the show, probably different parts of their journey. Some people just checking things out, some people further along. Why not get help, though, when you're in that spot of you're in this cycle?

of you're in this cycle of things. I mean, your husband is on to it. You know, I mean, obviously looking for solutions and trying to make it all work. Why not maybe the next level? What prevented you from seeking something or did you? So, yeah, so I mean, we're not done until we're done, right? Like one person's rock bottom looks completely different. You know, the expression is like the elevator goes all the way to the bottom. Like you get to decide where you want to get off. I actually like very smugly would share like, oh, you know, I got a, like I had a high bottom. I got off actually really like I didn't lose my husband. I didn't lose my house. I technically did get fired from my job because of my drinking. But because I am a master

manipulator, I went and met with the superintendent and was like, hey, look at all these parents that support me. I was falsely, you know, I was falsely represented. They hadn't mentioned my drinking at all, but it was, you know, I was late to work. I was calling in sick every Monday, all this stuff. just like, no, I'm a great teacher and you guys can't fire me. And he's like, okay, you have tenure. Here you go. And I was like, great. So I was like, no more consequences for that. So technically, I lost my job, but I was like, I can always find a way to get out of it. And it wasn't until one morning I had gone to my sister-in-law. They just bought a house. And we did a lot of family barbecues. And my husband's family is super interconnected. And they're all really wonderful. There's like 13 cousins

under the age of 12 and they're all really close and it's just beautiful. But before that, none of us were parents and we went to his sister's house and it was supposed to be a celebration. And I was like, anytime there was like the word like party attached to it, I'm sure you know and you did the same thing or it was like, oh, wonderful. So I pre-partied before, had my other sister-in-law come pick me up. And she had actually come pick me up a month prior. when I had been drinking and painting our house because it was spring break.

And I fell off a ladder and I tore my knee in three places. And I called her and then my husband came home. Our neighbor had to come who coincidentally, he was also in recovery. But he had to lift me because I couldn't walk into the car with my husband because I'm not a small person. And that was a drinking accident. I had to hobble around. I literally, when I, when I found recovery, I literally like came to recovery on my hands and knees because I was, my knee was torn in three places. And I had to wear a huge brace. And so I had my sister-in-law pick me up again in my knee brace. She knew what was going on. She actually

has a mom who is in recovery as well. And we arrived. And then I don't remember the rest of the party. And every day or every morning I would come to. and I wouldn't wake up. I would come to because literally that's how much I was drinking. And I'd see if my husband was sleeping next to me or not. And that was the barometer of, are we fighting? Did I do something wrong? Can I get away with one more night like this?

And he actually was next to me that morning. But I did what I always do. I went into the guest bathroom to make myself throw up because I had to teach that day. And there's a big vanity. and we used the guest, I used the guest bathroom because I didn't want him to hear that I was throwing up. And so I got so good at making myself throw up that I would use the sink instead of the toilet because I would splash dirty toilet water on my face when I was vomiting into the toilet. Splash cold water in your face as you're, as you're vomiting, because it's all liquid anyway. I'm not eating.

I'm just drinking. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and I got done throwing. up and I genuinely heard a voice that wasn't mine and it said, haven't you had enough yet? And at that moment, I was like, yeah, I've had enough. Enough is enough. I walked back into the bedroom with my husband and I said, I think I have a problem with drinking. And he said, oh, thank God.

Thank God you said that. I've been so worried about you. I've been waiting for you to come to me and say this. And then I immediately went to my doctor. I actually had them do blood work because I wanted to hear if I was doing anything to myself. I needed a physical proof because the torn knee, the firing, the all the other stuff, the puffy face, the 40 pounds that I had gained wasn't enough. And so I had them check my liver enzymes or they offered to. And they're like, yeah, you have the liver of a 75-year-old alcoholic.

because at that point, I was on a handle of vodka every other day. I was like, okay, I was really lucky because I grew up where I had a family member who was an alcoholic, and we were very close. And I remember I was 13 years old. My dad called me home from a friend's house, which he never did. We were very children of the 90s walking around the neighborhood. And he somehow got a hold of me. I came back with my sister.

We were sitting at our dining room table. And he's like, I just need to tell you that your aunt is an alcoholic. And she's actually in a rehab facility right now getting help. And in my 13-year-old brain, I remember this distinctly. I was like, what does this have to do with me? Me home, selfish and self-seeking at 13 more so than any other time in your life. And I just was like, I don't care. And then I had this thought on that last day of my drinking, like, oh, it turns out it

has a lot to do with me because my aunt was super open about her use of 12-step recovery programs seeking help that way. And so I looked up online. I went to a newcomer meeting. I sat in the room crying. I listened to them share and tried to find all the ways that I did not relate to any of them and was better than all of them. And I was just like, well, what I was doing wasn't working at all. And then I heard a woman speak who I related to, who has a light behind her eyes, who was funny, who was witty. And I was like, wait, you can't be all those things and be sober. That's not possible. These people are faking it. Afterwards, they all get together. They go drink. It's not possible. And I genuinely thought that for years until I started to feel it myself.

I had the gift of desperation. I haven't had a drink of alcohol since May, second 2013. Wow. Congratulations. So interesting there, too. Bring up the rock bottom element of things and listing off. A few things, I think that people, it's just common. It's just what you hear.

Divorce or losing your house or losing your job. We don't pay attention to or maybe talk about enough is what happens internally for years. Or for some, okay, we're looking for this outside thing to sort of be the green light. Okay, this happened. and now I got to quit drinking. I got to quit drinking because this happened. But we seem to, I think it's the human condition though. I mean, we don't want to be top of mind all of the time about everything we're maybe coming up short in life with or things that we know we could do better.

If that was what we thought about 24-7, it would be a pretty tough life. So there's a built-in protection. But it's by the time we get to this point, we've already suffered and struggled. And I think left so much on the table. that we already have hit the bottom or been at the bottom for some time. A suffering piece of it. I genuinely did not understand the amount of suffering that I was experiencing. I genuinely thought I was thriving.

I thought, well, this is my best life. I get to be drunk Monday through Friday when it's spring break and just be alone. Because at that point, I couldn't be around other people because then they would see how much I was drinking. I thought that that was the version of happiness. And now that I have sobriety and all of the promises have come true of what is promised if you seek recovery, I have a life literally beyond my wildest dreams of going towards all the things that at that time, I was too broken and lazy and deeply, deeply, but into. things that actually matter, things that hold value and weight, sharing this message of hope

and recovery, putting it inside books for people to read and feel less alone in their experience, that is just worth everything. Yeah. What were the first things you noticed to change as you're plugging into meetings and connecting with other people? A big part of the addiction, too, is the isolation. And maybe not even the physical isolation, the emotional isolation that I think that we go through of where we're so disconnected. I mean, what are some of the things you're noticing sort of shift here in the beginning for you? Yeah, well, and it didn't happen quickly in the sense that the way that I did recovery was actually 30 days into sobriety. I got my 30-day chip, and I was feeling really sick. Part of my story has to do with feeling nauseous and throwing up.

And it turned out I was pregnant. And so 30 days into sorriety, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. And we had been trying, which was not really true because my husband to have children with me at that time, it happened really quickly. And so I was navigating early recovery and motherhood in tandem. And that was a whole different experience because I felt like I had this built-in layer of protection that I had this person that I was responsible for. And so, of course, I wasn't going to drink, even though I wanted to still. And I still had the obsession, even though I was working

a program and doing all the things. But I also had all this resentment because I was like, well, my life is over because the party is over. And now I have to be really selfless. And I wasn't entirely ready to give that up. And so I had a lot of darkness. I had postpartum depression. after my daughter was born and I didn't know. I didn't know it wasn't normal to stand at the top of the stairs and think about throwing myself down the stairs just so I could have a break in the hospital. I didn't know that that wasn't what every mom was feeling. I was right back into a version of the isolation and the loneliness again inside motherhood. And I put that into a lot of my books as well because I think it's super honest and not a lot of people really talk about it or feel comfortable talking about it.

But that doesn't mean they don't experience it. So it took years into motherhood and into really finding my footing and recognizing. I thought motherhood was going to be the thing that I was best at. It turns out it's not. While I love my children to the ends of the earth, being neurodivergent, all of the things that are hard about parenting, schedules, overwhelmed. patience are all the things I struggle with. And that's motherhood on a Tuesday. And so I had this, okay, well, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy of it. Messing it all up. There's just these negative thoughts. And so it took me years and years of working through that, of having honest

conversations with other sober people to say, no, you are. And also, you are human. You are human. being doing the human experience as an addict. And you are doing the best that you can. And your children know loved. You're also breaking the addiction cycle firsthand. And you're changing the pattern of substance abuse in my family. My family comes from Ireland and I have an uncle who died of this disease. And my daughters know that I'm in recovery. They know that when I pick up the phone, I'm calling a sober person to connect or to help. And there's no stigma attached to that in our households, a lot of hope. Yeah.

Thanks for sharing that too. It makes me think of, we talk about it a lot on the show that there's so much more to this than just not drinking. I think that when we first start, I just think, man, if I just sober up, everything, of course, this is causing all the problems in my life. So if I just sober up, I'll be good to go. And then what I realized was, yeah, I mean, life starts happening. And I'm like, okay, I just don't really have the tools.

or I don't really know how to work through this stuff. I mean, emotions, relationships, careers, jobs, bank account, keeping that out of the red. I had to learn all of these things and it did take time years to work through stuff. And I know a lot of people, I mean, some of the people in the community and some of the people in the podcast, I mean, they've been drinking for 30 or 40 years of avoiding everything, not feeling grief, not feeling stuff. And now it's 90 days sober. I think kind of on average of the pink cloud wears off.

It's like, okay, this thing is for real. Like, what am I going to be here? And now I have to feel it all sober, which feels like a sick joke in early recovery. Truly, I just remember being like, okay, well, I'm also depressed. I feel incredibly sad. And I'm just supposed to raw dog this life thing now. How? Because you said, we don't have any of the tools.

We drink as a tool. and use that as our coping strategy. And so the only way that we learned how to do it was through other people and through watching other people walk through it and say, no, you can. I did. Here's my story.

This is exactly what you're doing with your podcast is you offer the message of hope of being like, no, I sat where you sat. I promise you I did. It doesn't look like I did, but I promise you I did. And you can too, truly. If I can,

you can. The only way that we get that is through hearing other people's stories and and having them walk with you through it. Yeah. I think it's so true because there's, I just see this gap between knowledge and then actually doing it. And I think the stories do a good job. Fill that gap because I don't think that if there's anybody out there who is thinking, I want to get sober. In the world we live in, I don't think that there's a lack of knowledge. You can find out the information at your fingertips. In two minutes, you could have a plan that if you followed through with it, it would be a phenomenal plan of getting sober and quitting drinking.

But it's that gap of what I know and then what I actually do. Look at it like building a house. I mean, I could want to build a house, know everything, but I really need to learn how to master the craft of using the tools and all the other stuff, a big gap in between there. And I think the stories do a great job. If people can relate to where you've been, where I've been, been where other guests have been. Some of that story makes sense for them because let me know if I'm

wrong here, but I think we do a really good job convincing ourselves that we're the only one. Like nobody else is drinking the way I'm drinking. That can really keep us stuck. Your chronic uniqueness, nobody else is like me. To speak on what you're saying about disconnect and that gap and how do we get to that place of knowing and then also doing and going to the action place. I know for me, the thing that I recognized and how I turned my dream into a reality was in the pandemic, I noticed that all of a sudden, everyone in the world can relate to the feelings of loneliness and isolation, whether you're an addict or not. You know what it feels like to feel hopeless. You know what it feels like to feel out of control. And so I capitalized on that

and said, okay, I'm going to write an article and put it out there. And again, got picked up by a scary mommy. And it was like, how do these two things relate? And now you know what it's like to be inside the mind of an addict that's trapped. And just opening up that language and offering that explanation started something for me. And it was when I was in the pandemic that after relapsed in addiction with drugs, I said, okay, well, what am I doing about this? I have help. I have support. I'm so lucky to have every resource available to me. I put together a group of women, not in recovery, but just a group of mothers. And we would meet in Target, the parking lot. We would open up our trunks and sit in a circle and have a group therapy session, essentially,

and we would bring dinners and eat and stay 10 feet apart. And that's really depressing when you think about it now, but also really hopeful in a lot of ways. And I said, okay, so 2020 in California, California, there were fires, the pandemic, there was everything. And I was like, I need something good to happen this year. And so I said, what if we were 100 days before the end of 2020? And I said, what if we all make a goal for ourselves? And so my goal was to write a novel. And I sat down and I wrote between the devil and the deep blue sea. I had other friends who lost weight. They reconnected with their partners in a meaningful way. I had somebody, had a divorce that was needed. You have a goal, you do it and you achieve it. And just that feeling of accomplishment. And I know in recovery, it's like, well, what's our end goal? Okay, well, our end goal is to stay sober, but that's ongoing. And so we need something to hold on to that's a tangible, something that we can see. And so I was like, okay, so I need to do this. And in order to do that, I had to reach a level of preparedness for rejection in a way that I was deeply

uncomfortable with, deeply, because I don't know about you, but other people criticizing me was cause for me to pick up a drink. And I was like, okay, well, what if I put my art out there and people reject it? How do I stay sober in that? I had to work really hard to be like, okay, I believe enough in this story. And I decided to write about a woman in active alcoholism and in motherhood. And I said, I will do it in fiction because book clubs have become glorified wine clubs where people just drink and don't even open the book or they use it as a coaster. What happens if they do open the book and they see themselves and they recognize problematic

drinking or they recognize it in their partner or they recognize the loneliness? feeling of early motherhood and they see themselves. And then they take that and they can heal with that. What if I do that? And so after a hundred forms of rejection, literally a hundred letters, a hundred phone calls, a hundred emails of people telling me no, I got an agent. I just kept going, kept editing, kept changing it. I got on the phone with my publisher. And at that time, I'd already given up on my first book because it was two years later. And I was like, okay, this is never going to happen. But I believe in it still. Okay, I'm going to write a second book. I'll just keep going. Because that was my goal. I'm going to keep going. I want to do this.

And I wrote most of my second book. And then I got the call about my first book. And when I presented it to them, I had two books ready to go. And they said it's going to be a two book deal. And I got a two book deal with a Big Five publishing house, which statistically you have more chance of getting hit by lightning. I just, I went all in and I said, this is what I'm supposed to do. This is how my message is going to get out to people. And the amount of DMs that I get, the amount of connection that I've gotten from other people who have said, I hear myself, I see myself, you write addiction in a way that I never could and now I feel seen brings me so much in my recovery. It reminds me to sober that this is what I'm supposed to do. I just find so much a pleasure in it. And it brings me more joy than any

drink ever possibly could. Yeah. Wow. What a journey. I don't know if this is relatable to you, but for me, it feels sad at times just with the people who are still struggling out there. I won't field gazillion messages and emails. And yeah, it's tough. That's really tough. I think it's great on here. I mean, we share stories of people who are on the other side of things. And I'm like, hey, this is phenomenal.

And there's, I think, over 100,000 people have listened to the show, maybe more. But there's still so many people who are just getting started. We're trying to figure out how this is all going to work for them. And they feel stuck and they feel hopeless. And they feel like it's never going to, it's never going to make sense. they'll never get there. So there is the light at the end of the tunnel of all the people who are like, hey,

things are getting better in they're doing well and making a ton of progress. And then there's other people too that I feel for them. I feel for them that they're struggling. And there are and there always are statistically. There's more of those people than there are of us, right? Statistically, which is devastating. And I, I had a young woman come up to me after a book signing. And she said, you know, I want to tell you that my mother died of alcoholism.

She never found recovery. But when I read your book, I started to, I think I can start to forgive her because I see that it wasn't her choice, that she didn't choose alcohol over me. For a lot of time, I thought that was what happened. And I wanted to write honestly about the sickness piece of it that we're not bad people trying to. be good. And that messaging, I think, it speaks to what you said of like, there are some people that don't make it. And that's because nothing about this is easy. Everything is telling us. Everything in our brain is telling us that we have a solution and it's drinking. We have an easy button and it's drinking. And believe it or not, the easy button is actually sobriety, which I was like,

that's a sick joke. What do you mean? I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it for so long. Yeah. Well, I was just talking with somebody the other day. It's much easier just to not drink at all than be trying to figure out if it's going to be wine or beer or tequila or this place or that place or what time I need to start and stop at and what store I got to go to and who I've got like that or just the one choice, the one decision of. I'm not drinking. And it doesn't spend until gymnastics. I like to say. Yeah, it's exhausting because it's all your effort, right? Every moment of your thought, I share the conversation of like, my dad sat down with me one time.

He's like, would you be able to tell me like, this is before I became a writer, like, would you be able to tell me what it's like inside active addiction? And I was like, sure. So imagine you're at Thanksgiving with your whole family. And at the table, you need to sit down at the location that is closest to the wine bottle. And you do this because you're going to be the one pouring for other people, but specifically pouring into your cup. You also want to be closest to the kitchen because you're going to be getting up to drink more in the kitchen so it doesn't look like you're drinking as much.

Everyone around you is talking about all the things that they're thankful for. They're saying they love our family. We're all together and you're thinking about where your next drink is. And that's all you can do. And I was like, that's what it's like in active addiction. And if you're trying to moderate or trying to limit your drinking because you're never here. You're not present. You're somewhere else entirely. And that's the piece that I think is really hard for people that are struggling in that beginning time to wrap their head around. Yeah.

And that all goes away with time. Like with time now in my life today, I don't think about drinking. I can't say I never think about it because you see it on every sports show. I mean, you think about it. But my perception has changed. I just know that's not going to help. me achieve my goals in life. Like it is not, you see it for what it is, right?

You see kind of the wool pulled over people's eyes and the same sort of thing that got me, right? Everything you see in movies, right? The wedding, he got the girl or they hit the jackpot. Let's celebrate or you got the promotion. That was never my story at the end. I wasn't getting any promotions. I was getting fired from every job that I ever had. Thank you so much, Jessica, for jumping on here and sharing your story.

sending something back out there to somebody who might be struggling right now or considering starting this beautiful journey of sobriety, what would you mention to them? I would tell them that the answer to all things that I found is connection. I feel like the loneliness and the isolation and the peace where you feel like you are the only one that is existing in this. That is simply not true. our lived experience is what helps another person stay sober and by reaching out to another person by asking for not even asking for help because maybe you're not ready to say like I need help

maybe you're just willing to take a tiny step in a direction that looks like I'm open to it and sometimes that's all it takes is the willingness and so opening your mind to the the idea that maybe your life might actually look better without drinking because I know mine certainly does. Yeah. Yeah. Connection. The changes, that changes the game for people.

But I was even fielding some questions the other day about people are afraid. What's this going to look like? What's my job going to think? What are the people around me going to think? How is it going to allow? Are they going to think I'm an alcoholic or how bad of a problem or that I've hit it from them? Which is all valid stuff. I think that it's all really real and valid.

But I think you solve that because that's shame. You solved that by connecting with other people, sharing your stories, hearing other people, talk about their experiences and you can relate to it and say, oh, my goodness, there. You know, I remember when I first started, I said, did he actually? I used to go to celebrate recovery. I'm like, is he actually saying that in a church? What's wrong with this guy? Right.

Can you say that in the church? Oh, man. Yeah. But it just opens you up that, hey, like, it's all good. It's okay. You know, I mean, this is the story of the path and we can relate with others probably a lot more than we realize. And I genuinely, like, I like to offer this too that like I didn't start out like shouting this from the rooftops, right? Because if we shouted from the rooftops, we have to be held accountable. And this is part of my story in the sense that I actually like in a. post pink cloud haze did reach out to all of my family and friends and say, I am an alcoholic. I have a problem with drinking. I need you to hold me accountable. And I deeply regretted doing that.

Right. Like I was like, oh, man, that was a mistake. But thank God I did because if I didn't get pregnant and I, like, and I got pregnant and I hadn't made that announcement, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that my children would not be alive today because I was a blackout drinker. And I would have said, okay, I did nine months. Good for me. Maybe. Maybe I did nine months. I don't know. But I would have just gone right back into drinking. And so I did tell everyone that I had a problem. And it really helped me stay accountable because people are like, oh, you can't unsqueaths that tube of toothpaste, right? But I didn't share publicly in the sense of I have it in, Inside my books, I had to sign a morality clause with Harper Collins that said, I am who I say I am, which is a sober person.

If I'm going to be representing your brand, which I kind of loved because I was like, oh, again, you're holding me accountable. Great. I need that. Every now and again, I need that messaging. For those people that are like, I'm not going to go out there and be like, yes, I'm sober. I'm a doctor. I can't do that. You absolutely don't have to.

but someone has to know. Someone else has to know in your life because otherwise you will keep lying to yourself and you will find an excuse. My husband was that person for me and yet he still didn't do ultimatums. He still didn't do because that doesn't work, right? You have to reach that point yourself and you have to get there, but you absolutely need to be honest with another human being just so you don't have to carry it alone.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. It's about that accountability. We go to great lengths to avoid that. But I think a lot of people share too. When they finally get to that point and they let somebody else know, it's like taking off the bag of rocks on our back of like, oh my goodness, like we didn't catch on fire in that moment. The moment we thought was so scary for so long actually was so freeing

because we're leaning in towards our truth, sharing with somebody else. Like people, I think people already. For me, anyway, they already knew. They already knew what was up. I wasn't feeling anybody. Tell me if, like, you had this experience. I was so resentful of the people that told me, like, yeah, I could tell something was going on with you or, yeah, I really knew because I thought I was hiding it so well.

And I was like, what do you mean you knew? Like, you didn't know because I was such a master of a disguise. And like, so instead of focusing on like the recovery piece of it right there, I was just, like, busy building a resentment towards them because they caught on to me. How dare you see me closely, right? And then it was like, no, like, thank you. Thank you for loving me enough to know that something was wrong and looking hard enough at that. That's how these things happen. I feel like a lot of people come up to me and they ask like, what would you say to a beloved one if they were struggling? Like, how would you help them? And I just, I always say like, become their safe person.

Like be their safe person to just keep that doorway of communication open. You can say, I'm worried about you. You can name it for what it is. I'm worried about your drinking. They will absolutely meet you with, I don't have a problem. You have a problem with drinking. They will meet you with all of the excuses until they're ready. But you have to keep that door open and like just be the person that can be on the other side of that and just be ready to help.

and ready to receive them. And like, I've been really lucky to be that person for so many people. I know you're that person for so many people. And, like, what a tremendous honor. Like, truly, what a tremendous honor. Yeah, it really is a beautiful thing. Well, thank you again, Jessica, for hanging out and sharing your story. My absolute pleasure.

Thank you. Well, there it is another incredible episode here on the podcast. If you're not following the show, please follow along. It really helps out this show, get to more. more people would be incredible. This story unique in that it's Jessica's story. But I feel like very common in all of the stories, this idea of secrecy and keeping everything together on the outside.

It just feels so exhausting. It feels like a lot of work, a full-time job. And for anybody out there who's living it right now, I'm just rooting for you to try something different. And it would love for you to check out the sober motivation app. Go to the Apple App Store, Subur Motivation app. look for the logo, come and join the community, see how it feels for you, and I'll see you on the next one.