Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Meg's Journey from Gray Area Wine Drinking to sober curious to living a sober life.

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

In this episode we have Meg who shares her deeply personal journey from growing up in a culture of appearances and early alcohol exposure to facing significant life challenges and navigating gray area drinking. Meg details her experiences with perfectionism, the pressures of life, early  interactions with alcohol, and traumatic events in college that contributed to her complicated relationship with alcohol. As she left college Meg got sucked into the mommy wine culture. She discusses the important moment when her drinking habits began severely impacting her life and her decision to seek help, only to be dismissed by a therapist. This is Meg’s story on the sober motivation podcast ---------------- Follow Meg on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intoxicatingliesbook/ Meg's Book Intoxicating Lies CLICK HERE More information on Sober Link: www.soberlink.com/recover Free 30 Day Trial to SoberBuddy Community App: https://community.yoursoberbuddy.com/plans/368200?bundle_token=8d76ca38d63813200c6c1f46cb3bdbed&utm_source=manual   00:00 Welcome to the Sober Motivation Podcast 00:14 Meg's Journey: Childhood and Early Encounters with Alcohol 02:26 Navigating Adolescence: Peer Pressure and First Experiences 03:08 College Years: Binge Drinking and Trauma 05:45 The Work-Hard, Play-Hard Culture and Its Impact 14:03 Facing Life's Challenges: The Slip into Nightly Drinking 17:09 The Realization and Quest for Sobriety 22:50 Reflecting on the Journey and Embracing Change 26:15 The Journey to Sobriety: Tools for Self-Love and Comfort 26:54 Unraveling the Story: From Denial to Discovery 27:11 The Power of Community and the Sober Curious Movement 28:11 The Transformative Impact of Sobriety on Personal and Family Life 30:57 The Ripple Effect: Inspiring Change in Others 38:32 The Importance of Addressing Alcohol's Role in Society and Personal Trauma 42:37 Overcoming Challenges and Embracing Empowermen

Welcome back to Season 3 of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible 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 Meg, who shares her deeply personal journey from growing up in a culture of appearances and early alcohol exposure to facing significant life challenges and navigating gray area drinking. Meg details her experiences with perfectionism, the pressures of life, early interactions with alcohol, and traumatic events in college that contributed to her

complicated relationship with alcohol. She discusses the important moment when her drinking habits began severely impacting her life and her decision to seek help, only to be dismissed by a therapist. This is Meg's story on the sober motivation podcast. How's it going, everyone? We're three months into a new year, and I'd like to take a pulse on how everyone's doing and feeling. If you made the commitment to get sober in 2024, but are struggling to stay accountable. Check out Soberlink. Soberlink is an accountability tool that will keep you honest. It uses a really high-tech breathalizer system to help when those cravings get a little too loud. Here's why I love it. You'll test at the same time every day, eliminating testing anxiety. Devices have built-in facial recognition so it knows it's you

testing. Pamper sensors flag any attempts at trying to beat the system. Friends and family receive instant test results helping to rebuild trust and prevent relapse. If you're serious about getting sober, this is a tool to use and the only monitoring system I recommend. Make these next months count. Visit soberlink.com slash recover to sign up and receive $50 off your device. Welcome back to another episode of the sober motivation podcast. Today we've got Meg with us. How are you? Hi, Brad. I'm great. How are you? I'm well. Thank you for jumping on here and been willing to share your story with all of us. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to share. Good stuff. So what was it like for you growing up?

Well, I was the oldest of three. And so I always wanted to be the good girl. I was the rule follower. I'm born in September. So I'm a Virgo. I'm a perfectionist at heart. And I just never really wanted to disappoint anyone, including my parents. And so I grew up in this country club scene where my parents were either racing off to a party or we were having a party at our house. house every weekend. And my dad traveled a lot for work. So when he got home after being gone all week, my mom would dress me up in my best Jessica McClintock dress and have me serve aderves to her inebriated guests. And I saw it as a way for my appearance to unwind, a way to connect. And for me, it was very much about appearances at the country club scene. And it's very much of how we look and how we appear is extremely important. And then I was people pleasing too, right, talking to adults as they were having their drinks. And I was, you know, pretty young when this all started. And those are really my first impressions with alcohol. And my dad traveled a lot and we ended up moving quite a bit for

his job. And because my birthdays at the beginning of the year, I ended up going to a lot of new schools. And so I had to make friends pretty quickly and wanting to fit in became of utmost importance to me. And when I was in the fifth grade, my mom took us to a prominent psychiatrist in town and had my brother's sister and I's IQ tested. And the reason why I bring this up is she had said that my score was very low after I did the test, but it was a good thing that I could draw because I didn't have much else going for me. And those words really sat and sunk in to my psyche that I would never amount to much. She was the expert. I was the naive, you know, fifth grader and just felt like I didn't fit in at a lot of the schools. Now I have an expert telling me that I'm

risking not smart. And this not feeling really good about myself started at a very young age. And when my mom pulled me out of that all-girls school because I was losing friends at the time because my best friend moved to China and the other girls kind of ostracized me. And I felt very alone. I went to a new school and I had the quote-unquote popular girls over and they asked if they could raid my parents' liquor cabinet. And of course, I wanted to fit in. So we did shots of peach snobs. I don't even know if they make that stuff anymore, but that's what we did. It was pretty disgusting. And that was my first drink. And it was really in an attempt to fit in and be part of the group. And I had my very first hangover. I threw up the entire next day. And I was,

And so high school really wasn't much of the same. It was when I could sneak it in, I wasn't allowed to go to parties. And it was more of that binge-like type drinking just to kind of fit in and be part of the group. And that continued into college. And then unfortunately, I had an incident in my freshman year of college where, again, that binge-like type drinking at a on-campus keg party, I had been guzzling the keg beer and a guy asked me to go out back to talk to him because the music was too loud in the party. And so we went out back and I was attacked behind a bush. And so I blamed myself. I felt like it was my fault because I was drunk. I wasn't clearly making good decisions.

I started really feeling very confused in my head as to why somebody would do this to someone else. And so I started justifying it and what I was wearing that night. And again, because I didn't make good decisions, because I was drinking. And it really instilled a fear in me where I felt like I didn't have control over my body. And I wasn't raped, but I was attacked that evening. And it really propelled me into this staying busy to distract myself from the pain. So in college, I joined a sorority and all these extracurricular activities to kind of stay busy to not really face that pain that was there and that fear that was now inside my body.

And after college, I got myself into a very similar situation with another binge-like drinking night, but this time was on a date with somebody and unfortunately was date raped. And now I had this feeling of really being out of control of my body and needing to be in control of everything thereafter and went into a trauma response, really, with feeling like I needed to be in control of every single thing in my life. And so I had a lot of college student loan debt and got into modeling to help pay that off and literally fell into being becoming the big alcohol poster child where I was the Budweiser girl, the Yeagermeister girl, and really objectifying myself and my body in these bars handing out shots, doing shots, guzzling down kind of this external.

appearance was so important to me, as you can see, kind of from my childhood of appearance of the utmost importance. And then external approval from men. And then from work, I got into sales. And so that staying busy and hustle culture really led into this feeling of wanting to prove my worth. So I was only as good as my sales rankings. And it was very much of this culture of work hard, play hard. And in fact, if you didn't go to the bar, it was frowned upon. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. Where did you grow up at? I grew up in Delaware. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, good. Thank you for sharing all that because there's a lot of events there too. One thing that I have been hearing come up in a lot of podcasts too recently is that perfectionism, like trying to just get things right and get recognition like that. And then what I hear a lot of people share and maybe you can relate with this is you just never see. seemed to hit the mark. Like you just never in our, we're like in our own minds. Yeah, it's just never good

enough, you know, it just kind of leaves a short change time and time again. Yes. And it really was not until I became alcohol free of digging into seeing my perfectionism as a coping skill. It was a coping mechanism to feel worthy and to feel enough from kind of what that psychiatrist had told me at a young age as well as the trauma that had happened in my life. And that trauma, response of staying busy and just keep achieving and feeling worthy enough became its own type of addiction for me. And to this day, even with launching my book, intoxicating lies, it's still something that I have to continue to work on. And I view that as not a bad thing. That really helped me survive and even thrive at parts of my life. But I have to be in an adaptable kind of place with

versus maladaptive. And the maladaptive is what you were saying, where it's never enough, and I feel like I need to do more, and I start nitpicking it apart. That's when I know, oh, headed into the bad zone here, I've got to go back to not resisting it, but saying it's okay that, you know, I had to do those things, and they did help me and that they were a protector, really, for me. Yeah, that's so important to reframe it, to switch it a little bit. Do you find yourself having a tough time recognizing and celebrating your accomplishments that you have made, say over the last five, 10 years? Yeah. Yeah, I do sometimes. I get so caught up. It's very easy for me to get caught up in the doing and not the celebrating. And in fact, when I finish writing the book,

my sister is a licensed therapist and obviously I want incredible friend and sister, but I said to her, oh my God, you know, I've finished writing the book and I have no platform, no business around this book, how am I going to launch this into the world? And she was like, can we just take a minute to celebrate that you got sober during a pandemic and you wrote a book? We just celebrate that. And I just started crying. And I thought, oh, my God, she's so right. I sometimes get so caught up in the next step and the next step that I don't sit there. And that's so important in our alcohol-free journey, right, to really celebrate all those wands, even if they're a baby win. 100% yeah and i mean a lot of people i talk to they get discouraged sometimes to see how everybody

else is doing right you know this person has 30 days or 100 days or 1,000 days or 20 000 days and i think that we can get complacent with realizing that for anybody to get to 30 they would have to go through one first and to get to 60 they would have to go through day two first and it's always being careful not comparing our first month or our second month as somebody's first year And we can look at that in any other areas of life, too. If we're comparing where we're at with other people, it just is going to be just constant disappointment. Because there's always, what do they say? There's always going to be someone bigger, faster, stronger.

And it's so true. So we have to really appreciate and celebrate our own unique journeys. So college for you, it sounds like in any way you really got plugged into that binge drinking, right? It seems like when we hit college, it's that you go during the week, you work really hard. or some people do. I didn't really work too hard on my academics, maybe more on the partying. But some people work really hard on the academics.

It may be a part-time job and then the weekend comes. And at first, I think some of us are able to maybe keep it on the weekend. And then the lines get blurred, right? You've got the Monday night specials. And then you've got, oh, I won't drink on Sunday, but then the specials and the Thursday night,

they've got another name for that. And it just kind of all becomes one. What was that kind of your experience? Oh, yeah. You know, it was like the beers were 25 cents on Tuesdays so the first person went to the bathroom, you know? And so everybody's like trying to block the bathrooms. And it's like any excuse to drink, it was $2 at my college got you into any party. And then being in a sorty, there was constantly these different themed parties going on all the time. And so there was always a reason to be drinking and always, like you said, it just normalize though that binge-like drinking. So it was really where it's expected, right? It's like doing these shots and these keg stands and all these party, you know, type of antics become like, oh, right, this is just another Thursday night. And, you know, I'm going to start the weekend early. And like you said, and then the lines get blurred and it starts early and earlier. And we laugh at

these things and we think that they're funny. And that's where we normalize a lot of the jokes around it. And that really led me into the mommy wine culture thinking all of that was funny. You know, I bought the tea towels and the T-shirts and all of those things. And I have a whole chapter about it in my book where it really was the societal permission slip to say, parenting is hard. And I need a place to escape and check out. And so I think, you know, we do that in college. It starts in college where it's like you said, we're working or studying and we want a place where we can kind of let loose. Yeah, it's so true.

And I've heard that story before, too, where the college idea kind of got some people ready, moms especially for that next level of things. But you're right in so many ways. I think it's that foundation. And I don't know if it was your experience, but it was mine. It was celebrated, right? To push it, push the limits and take it too far. It was like heroic in a sense to say, oh, there, you know, there's that guy,

you know, crazy guy. And for me, I love that because I always struggled with fitting in. And I always felt different and I never did well with the academics. So if I could get some recognition or be noticed, I went all in on that. I went all in on it. And then what I figured out was later on is because I had always socialized drinking, it was so uncomfortable to socialize any other way. So that just was like, this is how we're going to do it.

So you get out of college, you graduate college, you're moving on with things. How does the next phase of your life look? like that after college you get into working and stuff like that. Yeah, I fell into sales and I really felt like, again, that my rankings were equaled, you know, it equaled my worth. And I just felt like I was what I produced. And so I, again, was getting just like you were saying, we get praised for our drinking antics and then we get praised for the success that we have at work and these sales that I was

achieving. And so I really fell deeply into just the hustle culture and the grind culture. And that's exhausting in and of itself. And so again, just like we were saying, it was like I was looking for a place to just let loose and not be in control. I was really focused on controlling everything in my life. And we all need a break. We all need to rest. We all need a place to check out, right? And so for me, that became the mommy wine culture. I met my husband in sales. And, and, we got married and we had two kids and that was really at the center of our marriage was drinking. It was we would get the kids down for bed and open up a bottle of wine and that was our time. And I remember rushing through bedtime stories with the kids so that I could get to my rewarding glass of wine. The problem was that mommy wine culture really kind of set me up for when life through three big challenges my way where my husband lost his job and I became. the primary sole income maker. My best friend's husband was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer and then

passed away unexpectedly as well from Legionaire's disease. And then my friend came forward and told me that she had been sexually molested and would I be her safe person? And that brought up all of my stuff that I had not dealt with. And so now that binge or just recreational type of drinking on occasion, became a nightly medicinal use for me. And it was kind of the way that I did escape from the madness of my day. I was in a glass of Merlot. Yeah, those are three very big events. Explain what you mean by that nightly medicinal use.

It was like I was so overwhelmed with these three life challenges and I had a lot of anxiety. I, of course, didn't know I was increasing my depression, but I was depressed about them as well. And we just don't have the earth school that teaches us how to handle all these things when they come on. And so I would be crying most nights. And my husband would come in with a glass of wine because he didn't know what to do for me either. And so it was this self-care. I deserved it. I needed it.

It was like my reward at the end of the day. And what I didn't realize at the time was that I was adding to my anxiety, increasing my depression, making my stress. worse. I just had no idea. But it was the only time that I was literally allowing myself to kind of decompress and shut off the mental chatter that was happening in my brain from all these things. And so it was this constant detox to retux loop, you know, this maddening groundhogs day of thinking I was in control all day by not drinking during the day and biking 20 miles. And then as soon as the sun would set, my brain would flip. And it was like, I had an AME and a PME. I was a divined woman with a divided heart. And I needed that wine at night. It was my self-care.

Yeah. You mentioned it was kind of an evening thing. But did you ever get to the spot where you were thinking? Like, when you woke up in the morning, I can't wait for the evening to get drinking or this just flipped in the evening? The time that scared me the most, I feel like the hangover was just enough that I never really wanted to drink during the day. And in fact, I wanted to believe I was such a controlled freak that I wanted to believe I was in control and that I didn't need it and all of these things. But when I no longer wanted my kids to do sports in the evenings

so that I could compel them to my rewarding glass of wine, that is when I realized I was no longer in control. This was in control of me. And that scared me. And that was when I was in therapy for these three, back-to-back life incidents that I just mentioned. And I went to my therapist and I told her, I finally worked up the courage and said, I feel like I might have a drinking problem. And I told her all this back and forth tug of war in my head. And she told me, nope, I just think you're thinking

about it too much. And so her ill advice kept that gray area of drinking going for two more years. And I really felt alone. I felt like something was wrong with me. Because my drinking looked like my friends. When I would ask my family or my friends, do you think I have a drinking problem? There would be like, no, you drink just like I do. You know, there was no external consequences. There was no rock bottom. For me, the rock bottom was when I didn't want my kids to do sports in the evenings anymore, that I had to have it at 5 o'clock. So when you ask, was I thinking about it? Of course, I was thinking about it. I wasn't drinking during the day, but I couldn't wait, right, for that reward in the evening. Yeah. Interesting. A few things I picked up there that were interesting, even with the, you said it was a therapist you were seeing, right? Yeah. And then they mentioned that you're thinking about it too much. And it's, yeah, that's why it's a problem. I'm thinking about it way too much. You know, I always go back to this thing, right? Is to where when people ask, right, because I've gotten thousands of messages over the years, when people are asking, you know, do I think I have a problem? They might lay out a little bit of their situation. Do you, do I think of a problem? I don't know if. somebody else does or who am I to say. But what I do think makes a lot of sense is that if you're thinking that your life could be better or that there might be a problem with this, there probably

is because I know people in my life who they have the occasional and their wheels are not turning. Their wheels are not turning. It's their life goes on and maybe they'll drink again in another month and they have a big stock of stuff that they never touch or that you know what I mean? I'm like, if you're to a spot where you're thinking, hey, maybe there's something better out there for me or not drinking, it's, man, you know what, there's probably something to that for sure. But it's also interesting, too, that you mention that you talk with other people around you about, hey, you know, maybe there's something up, right? Because I've heard this too before. And it's a, it's an interesting thing. Because if we drink like the other people and I go to them and say, hey, like, I think something's going on here. I think maybe I might have a problem. Or however we shape it up. Then we're kind of like a mirror and they're like, oh, my goodness, I don't want to go there, man. I don't want to go there. And it goes back to what you said earlier about the comparison trap that we fall into, which is, you know, we'll always find somebody that drinks more than us. And there's so many different shades of gray in the gray area drinking category.

I couldn't find any books on it in the time. That's why I wrote my book because I was like, oh, I wanted to read about this specific spot on the alcohol use disorder spectrum. And in 2019, I couldn't find anything. But I stopped listening to all the external opinions of whether or not I had a drinking problem or not and listened to that inner knowing, like you said, that was questioning, that was wondering, that was thinking about it constantly. That was enough to, thankfully, you know, wake me up and do something about it. Because if I had gone and just listened to the experts, I mean, when I would work out,

they would say sweat out the toxins. it's okay if you're hungover. I've heard doctors who say one to two glasses of wine a night is just fine, right? We have these permission slips that are handed out all day long in our pro-drinking society. And for gray area drinkers, it's really confusing because you're like, wait a second, I'm questioning this, but everybody else is telling me this is normal and just fine. And you have to listen to yourself. It's like you said, it doesn't really matter.

What matters is how you feel about it. And that's so powerful. that's what it all kind of comes down to. But I think the other side of this too, is that when we're wrapped up in it, you know, part of us wants to not be wrapped up in it, but another part of us gets so comfortable

and so used to the relief that it provides that we kind of defend it a little bit. You know what I mean? So it's, hey, if this doc says one to two a night, it's great, like I'm running with that article. I'm not looking at the one below it where it says that this is not maybe what it was said to be before

or that it's bad for us or that it does this. You know what I mean? So it's that sort of thing too. I'm wondering to go back a little bit in your story, right? When you talked about not wanting to do the sports in the evening with the kiddos, was that like a conscious thing that you connected the dots on that, hey, I don't, I want to avoid the sports because I want to drink? Yeah.

Yeah. I think I caught myself upstream, right? if I had stayed in that place, I would have probably hit a rock bottom, right? It's a one-way drinking highway. I was headed the same place we're all headed on it. It scared me enough as somebody who likes to be in control of everything. I realized I now was in a place because I took that permission slip that you just mentioned from my therapist and said, oh, okay, well, I don't really want to deal with this.

And I do like the way that it makes me feel in the evening, so I'll just stay with it. You know, but that inner knowing, that inner voice kept pleading with me, please do something about this where I'm so sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. And so it really wasn't until I listened to myself that I started exploring online private programs. I was just really sober curious and I did not want to break up with alcohol. I just wanted to kind of rein it in, like you said. I still wanted this in my life and I wasn't sure how to keep it in and not be thinking about it all the time like I was.

Yeah. Interesting that you're able to connect those dots. That's kind of the spot I think a lot of us get to. We hit that spot where we want to quit. We don't know how or we can't. And then we get into this phase of curiosity. I mean, more recently there's that there's that term, you know, sober curious that maybe this is something I could check out. But it is so interesting that even with all the damage that's done, and I'm with you on this, that we still want to keep the dream alive. And I always go back to that first time that I ever got into drinking. I just fell on top of the world. I went to this party and I fell on top of the world and everybody loved me.

It was the coolest thing. And everybody wanted to be friends. And I never really had too many experiences like that. And what I realized looking back is my old drinking career life, I was trying to get back to that one spot. where everything just lined up. And then what I realize now is that I never got back there again. I never felt warm and fuzzy and loved like that ever again. But I was trying to find it, that level of acceptance with others with myself.

And then it just became a nightmare. But it's a thing that's sort of the process, you know, that I think a lot of us kind of have to go through something up. You have to try a couple times, too. Like I would quit for two weeks at a time, but I could never quit them more than two weeks. That scared me. So it was like little things of trying things like, oh, I'll, only drink tequila because I'll just sip it and then it won't be so much. You know, we start putting all these moderation rules and guidelines around it to keep it in our lives. And what we end

up doing is making that mental bandwidth even worse, right? Because we're how many I can have and when I can have it and what kind I can have and only on special occasions. And really goes back to what you said about the people who just can take it or leave it. They can have loads of it in their house and just maybe have one on their birthday and, you know, split one with a friend. You know, it just they could take it or leave it. And for some of us, it shifts. It's, it's, it's, alcohol is slow and insidious. And over time, it starts shifting into our lives where it starts taking more and more control. And I think because we do get that, like you said, that social lubricant from it, where we feel good at the party, we feel like we can talk to other people. We have that.

so on so-called courage in a can, which is another intoxicating lie, you know, we have to just learn to feel all of our feelings, but we live in a society that says, no, don't feel just be happy, right? Just pad yourself at every turn, whether it's with shopping, gambling, drinking, drug, whatever it is, just don't feel it, feel happy. And so we don't model showing others how to do that. And so that's really why I wanted to, especially with my kids, here, here I have a story in the book where I caught my daughter vaping. And here I am telling her not to vape, which is an addictive substance. And yet here I am drinking wine. And, you know, it's like, what are we modeling here? What are we saying? And, you know, we have a lot of addictive substances in our culture and ways of checking out. And so it's learning and in the alcohol-free journey, getting those tools of how to deal with life and how to feel comfortable in your own skin. And you love yourself, like that you don't need all that external approval that I was looking

for my whole life too. Yeah. It was so powerful there. Yeah, exactly. That external approval from people. And then the drinking too just quiets down the voices. It everything else. And like you mentioned your story, wanted to control everything.

And, you know, and kind of this is what it ends up like at the end, right? So how does this story unravel here? So you've come to this spot. You mentioned your therapist said, oh, there's nothing to see here. Kind of keep on going. You're thinking about it too much. You mentioned it to a few other people. There, everything is good.

So how do you go within at this point? How do you get to the bottom of this? Yeah. So I ended up seeing this was in 2019. And I truly just sober curious did not want to break up with alcohol and saw a video with Jen Couch, friend Sober says, which I know you've had. on the show. And her video of this, which this is her term, the retox to detox loop, and I felt, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I'm doing. There's somebody else out in the world that feels like

I do because I really felt alone. I felt like there was something wrong with me. I had a lot of shame around this vicious drinking cycle. And so when I got into her program, I thought it would be me and three other women. And there were thousands of women in there. And I'm thinking, why are there so many women in here? What is going on? And so I just became more and more curious. I thought that I would do 21 days to reset my drinking. And what ended up happening was I ended up feeling better and learning so much about the truth of alcohol that I was like, oh, I'm going to go for 60 days. And then at 60 days, the sleep started to improve. And I've always suffered from eczema. And at 90 days, my eczema was getting better. And so all these little things I was having better.

conversations at work that they were clearer. My kids started saying to me, Mom, you have more patience. And I thought, you know, these were like big things that were happening. And I thought, okay, you know, at 100 days, things really started to shift for me. And I couldn't, with all the research I was doing and all the reading of Quitlid and listening to podcasts and doing Jen's program, I couldn't find a reason to go back. And so I started journaling throughout this entire process and I was sharing it with the girls in my group and they were like, you really need to write a book about gray area drinking because other than Jolene Park, who is, you know, the leading authority on gray area drinking and she really put it on the map, I just could not find any

books on it. I couldn't find anybody really talking about it in 2019 and other than those two. And I really resonated with it. And I felt like, my God, there's so many people in this space. We have got to start talking about this. And now we're. Like you said before we got on the call, this is mostly what you're talking about because there's so many of us trapped in this space. Yeah. No, beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I love Jen.

Had Jen on the. Oh, my goodness. It's been maybe a year ago. Maybe not that long. But it's incredible in that sort of punchline there, too, about just kind of going in circles of the same stuff over and over again. And expecting something to change throughout that while further getting into the hole, right? Because alcohol is addictive substance. I mean, highly addictive.

On any list I've ever checked, if you just Google, you know, addictive substances or addictive drugs. I mean, it's usually top three. Right. It's up there with heroin, tobacco. So the longer you stick around, it's, you get hooked on it. You know what I mean? It's just kind of the way it's going to play out. And it's interesting, too, because you mentioned that thing.

You don't really know when it's going to turn on you. You know what I mean? Because like with me and my story, things were, you know, things were all right. It didn't start out terribly bad. It didn't start out as this huge. problem. It was pretty cool. I thought it was pretty cool. My folks may disagree because there was some consequences, but it was all right. It was really manageable. And then at a time when I couldn't even tell you, everything flipped. Everything changed. And it was like my best friend one day and

the next day. And that's when we want nothing more to quit and we can't. You know, we get to that spot where we can't. Did your husband ever mention anything to you about, you know, maybe you should quit or have a look at this or? No, in fact, he was drinking on par with me. And like I said, it was really at the center of our marriage and our connection. That was the biggest and hardest transformation in my journey, the slowest, was finding new ways of connecting with him without alcohol. And I know this isn't the case for most people,

but he ended up joining me on my journey several months after I quit. He saw all the improvements I was having in my life. and he quit. And he has a couple health issues and they well got dramatically better. And so he was then like, wow, there is something to this. But when I had first started, he was like, is this like a forever thing? I mean, he knew I was just sober curious and that I was not going to break up with alcohol. So I think he thought I was just going to do this reset and go back. And then I kept going. And then he kept watching. And then he joined in, which I feel very blessed to have that support. I know most people don't. And that's why in my book, I talk about other women in my group who had spouses that drink because I think for the

majority of people, that's the case. But I do hear the majority of people say that the spouse cuts back, even if they're still drinking. They're usually cut back on the amount. So you just never know the impact that you're going to have when you make this choice. Yeah, that's true. So when's his book coming out? Well, he actually came up with the title intoxicating lies. So I have to give him credit for that. Oh, look at that. That's awesome.

And that's so powerful. People close to home will definitely see how things are changing. I mean, that's so cool, too, that your kids. I'm just wondering how old they were when they told you this. But you have more patients. I have teenagers now. Yeah, they're teenagers now. But, you know, I'm four and a half years.

So when I made that choice, I think my daughter, Let's see, my daughter was 11 or 12, and my son would have been, so 10. So they had seen drinking mom. They knew the mom who, when life got tough, you know, mommy's sanity juice, she needed a glass of wine. And now my son, when I come home from work and I've had a stressful day, he'll say, Mom, do you need to go for a walk? And that's amazing, right? So they've gotten the right messages now of you don't need to have alcohol to have fun. We have a lot of conversations around that. My daughter is like the age where drinking is definitely happening. And instead of coming at her with fear and don't do this, it's more of a curiosity as to let's talk about, did you think this made you funny? How did you feel the next day? So there's a lot of questions that we talk about. Yeah, just to build that awareness, right? That's the important part to support the awareness. growth and asking questions and everything like that is so important.

And just think it's so interesting, too, even that they notice the patient's thing. And I'm sure that there's other stuff that was recognized as well. They're slick. I mean, mine are not that old yet. My oldest is six. And I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old. But even at that age, if we go places and stuff like that, they do realize they do pick up on the things.

Yeah, they're watching you. Yeah. Yeah. And my daughter, and so she's 17 now, but what's so cool about going out to restaurants is we'll try mocktails together. So she'll be like, oh, I want to try the blueberry mojito, you know, and of course there's no alcohol. And I'll say, oh, I'm going to try the strawberry breeze. And we'll like, we have a really good time.

And I'm trying to show her, you can go out and have a really good time, be part of the festivities. And you don't need to have alcohol, right? So she's watching. And she's seeing that. And so is my son. So I think, you know, you just never know who's watching you, but your kids definitely are. they definitely wore. Yes.

Yes. 110%. Okay. So four and a half years did you mention? Yes, four and a half years now. That's incredible. Great job there. And it's so interesting, right, that you went into this because I think a lot of us go into

this, right? We're curious. We want to see. We want to just kind of dip our foot in the water and see what it's all about. And after 21 days, you're already starting to recognize some benefits in your life that you're like, maybe I'll carry it on for 90 years. days or I'll just keep it going and then when you get there, you're like, okay, you know, this makes so much sense. It really starts to make less and less sense to try to moderate this.

And then I think if most of us reflect back on our previous journeys, whether we were conscious or not conscious about it, we tried the moderation. We try, you mentioned we, we tried to cut back. You try to switch the drink or you did this time or that time. You know what I mean? We tried all these tricks. We tried every one out of the bag. And every time, maybe it took a couple days, but we usually ended up back to the same place we were wondering what happened. So how were you able to really get into that first week? What really helped you? I mean, I know you were doing the course, but what else really helped you?

Was it connecting with other people? Was it just learning new stuff? I mean, what was so helpful for you? It really was both. The community was incredible. I told you I felt so alone. I suffered silently and internally for a long time. And so to have other women saying, me too, and I feel exactly like you did and I thought

something was wrong with me as well, just immediately made me feel like I was part of something that was bigger than myself, right? And just, oh, wow, there's so many of us out here that are suffering from this. And, you know, I just realized that the big alcohol industry wants to make us small, quiet and think that we're the problem. And it's the problem, right? It isn't our fault, it is our responsibility. Laura McCohen says to do something about it. But it really was community. And then I was reading this naked mind by Annie Grace and just all of the truth about what alcohol is and what it was doing to my body and my mind and my spirit. I just was like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why am I having a cursogen with my kale salad? Why am I using a depressant to

celebrate the wedding? Why do I? I think doing drugs is okay in front of my kids. You know, like I started asking myself these questions of what it truly was and none of it made sentenced. Yeah, no, those are some really powerful ways to look at things, especially when everywhere, you know, even for even on the topic of the mommy wine culture, I've taught what a bunch of guests before about this. And I've seen all this stuff myself.

You go into a souvenir shop, you go into the store, the T-shirt store at the mall. This is all the stuff printed everywhere. that this makes parenting easier. And what I hear time and time again is that for being a mom, it doesn't make parenting any easier. And it's, you know, for dads too. Oh, yeah. For dads, too.

Yeah. It doesn't make things any easier. But yeah, it's that it's sort of, you know, over time we've just gotten into, to buying into this idea. Inpoxicating lie that it makes parenting easy.

Such BS, you know, and we're making women sick. And drinking one up 41%. in women during the pandemic. We're dying at a faster rate because we metabolize alcohol differently than men. So this is a real epidemic for women. And if we don't go upstream and try to catch before, you know, we're hanging on by a thread, this is why these conversations are so important. And that's why I felt just this urgency to get my book out as soon as I could about gray area drinking because I wanted women to say, oh, that's me. I see myself in your story.

And that's what has been echoed back to me over and over again. And you gave me the permission slip to explore my relationship with alcohol without having to hit a rock bottom. And that's exactly what the goal of the book was. Yeah. Have you heard some feedback from it for people? What's the impact? It's having out there. And the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive of it being not only the permission slip to explore the relationship with alcohol,

but also they said it was a permission slip to heal a lot of the trauma or things that had happened in their past about their self-worths. So the book really opens up with about self-worths about how we feel about ourselves. And all of us, I think at the end of the day, feel like we're not enough, right? That's a common theme that most people feel like. And we used alcohol one way or another to feel accepted or part of something. and it's really an intoxicating lie. And women being sold that this is self-care is really making us sick.

And so I have regret from when my kids were little and I was too hung over to go play with them. That fuels me to keep getting this message out. But the response is, yeah, it's just been overwhelmingly positive. This is my story. I could see myself in your story. Unfortunately, there's usually alcohol involved with sexual assault most times. And so there's a lot of women who have been subjected to this

and not many people are talking about that as well. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people have shared. You know, share a story like that, women, especially women here on the podcast and their stories, you know, and it adds to that trauma that you talk about and that you have to work through. And I think for anybody going through trauma, it's obviously not my specialty or anything, but I think putting the alcohol down can be a step to start to heal some of these things that we go through. And I think a lot of us have stuff that it goes on or that we've had go on in life that we have to look at too. And maybe some of the underlying things that we're trying to avoid through drinking alcohol. And then it's just kind of these phases in our life, right?

We hit the college. We talked about in your story. And then it's like the mommy wine culture and it's stressful and it's overwhelming and it's tough. And you're trying to balance the career. then you have those other three major events that happened in your life. I mean, it's a perfect storm. And alcohol just seems like the solution. It just, it really works, too.

It works until it doesn't, you know? And then it's so cool to hear your story about you jumped into the sober curious space. You check out Jen's thing there. You see other people. That's what you hear so often too, right? You jump into these virtual groups, these virtual meetings. And you see so many other people. And for once, it's my goodness, here I am.

I thought I was the only person going through it. And this is really the big story about what this show, this podcast is all about, is let other people know they're not alone, tons of different stories. And that you can get out of that cycle and have a really good life for yourself. Oh, the best life. And, you know, I think all of these things disconnect us from ourselves, whether it's the comparison culture, the hustle culture, the pro-drinking culture. All of these things disconnect us from who we truly are. And it's only when we remove alcohol, like you said, even if you just do it for a period of time. to get back into your body, to feel what you need to feel, get into therapy, get help, ask for help,

get into community, know that you're not alone. We heal best in community. It's the antidote to addiction. And then it's this whole new world that opens up for you, and it's just the most beautiful journey. Honestly, it was the best decision of my life. So I'm just so glad if anybody's just starting out to stay curious. Yeah, beautiful. Is there a, Any challenges that you've been able to overcome over those four and a half years? Oh, yeah. I think every challenge now that comes my way in the past, I was stuck in what I call the drama triangle.

So I was either the victim, normally the victim, and I deserved a drink. Alcohol was the rescuer that came in and swooped in. Or I was the persecutor. I was the judge. I was judging people. I was kind of staying at this surface level, gossiping, you know, type of attitude in this drama triangle. And I ping-punged in there for years why I was drinking.

But now that I'm out of that, I am in the empowerment triangle, which is this is all based on a book called TED, The Power of Ted, by David Emerald. And what it is is that everything that happens to me now, I get curious about it, just like I did in my alcohol-free journey and say, huh, wonder why I'm not. this is coming into my life. I wonder what it is here to teach me. And then I start to view the trigger or the person or the situation is actually a gift. It was actually brought to me to help me see a part of myself. Maybe I haven't seen or a place within a wound that I haven't healed. And so, I mean, I could sit here and list so many things that have happened. But whenever I feel triggered now,

I stop and I get real curious of where maybe in my past, that little girl wasn't seen, wasn't heard, wasn't loved, wasn't validated, go back, give her that love, give her that support, and then say, wonder how I could reframe this, reparent this, and move through it. So every time, and so like this work, right, the work of always feeling like I need to do more. my life coach was like, it's just going to keep coming up. But every time you step in the water, you step in a different place. You look at it from a different perspective. You learn a little bit more about yourself.

So it's this repetitive letting go, but with more ease, right, with more flow. Do you find that too in your journey? Yeah, no, I think that's beautiful. Yeah, I mean, getting out of that victim rules, I think is number one, right? Because there's no solutions there. Like we just give all the power away to everything else. And I mean, I'm with you. I was in living like that for a long time that everything was happening to me.

And switching over to everything is happening for me and just looking at things differently and then going into them with the new experience we have, that whole idea of maybe it's not enough. But the new lens, every time it comes up, we have a little bit more experience to draw on a different lens we can look at it. And just appreciate ourselves for where we are, you know. I mean, look, it's incredible your story and my story. all these stories, you know, it's like where a lot of us are living where we never thought we would be, right? Yeah. And it's amazing, like the amount of energy and thing and life becomes, I'm not saying it's not hard. It's definitely still hard. But it becomes more technicolor and more awe and wonder and

more flow versus feeling stuck all the time. Oh, my goodness. Does it ever? Yeah. I never, I never want to live like that Groundhog Day thing over and over again. Yeah. It is. In a you can recognize it because you go through these challenges and then you're able to recognize your progress and work through them. And sometimes you just have to feel the stuff. You just have to feel it and work through it. And it's beautiful because it's easier. But then it gets easier and easier. Every time you do it, it gets easier and easier. But it is hard at the beginning. Yeah, extremely difficult for sure. And even sometimes in my life, now I still hit stuff where I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to figure this out. But when you're able to really put 110% effort into stuff and not, you know, when we're drinking, I don't know,

maybe we're showing up to life at a 20% or a 10% or maybe a 50. You know, so when you're showing up at 100%, you can really come up with some solutions and some stuff that's helpful. So true. But look, Meg, thank you so much for jumping on here to share your story. Tell us a little bit more about the book. Where can we? Are you still sold out?

I mean, are we going to get a chance at one year? It's in stock now. Yeah. It's been out for about a year now. So you can find it anywhere, books are sold. You can get signed copies on my website, which is intoxicating wise.com. And feel free to reach out to me or follow me on Instagram, which is Intoxicating Wise book. And that's attached to my Facebook page.

Okay, beautiful. One last question for you before we skate. What would you say to that mom who's in that spot that you used to be in if they're listening to the show today? Just to give yourself so much compassion, I know there's a lot of shame there and it's not your fault. It is your responsibility to get curious. I would recommend getting into a community where you can find people with similar stories to yours so you don't feel alone and ask for help and get help. Whether that's through podcast, quitlet, coaching, whatever works for you.

But it's important that you try not to do it on your own because it's really hard to do on your own. I tried it myself many times. And so just stay curious and stay compassionate. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate you having me. Well, there it is, everyone.

Another incredible episode. Be sure if you enjoyed this episode, you're able to connect with any parts of it. To send Meg a message over on Instagram at Intoxicating Lies book, let her know what you thought. Let her know you appreciate her coming on the show. It was so powerful that she had mentioned about the community aspect of things. That's why I think it's so important that we all get plugged into a community of some sort.

And I'm so proud to be part of the sober buddy community and host meetings over there. And just get to meet a bunch of people who enjoy the podcast and listen to it, see them grow. We've been running virtual meetings for over a year now. And some people have been there since the beginning, doing incredible things, working through this and improving their life and the lives of people around them. I get so many messages every day about people who want to get sober. And it's so tough because people have tried things one time or if they checked it out and it didn't work. So they just run with that. The willingness is not there for many people, to be honest with you.

It's not willing to step outside of their comfort zone to see what could help them to plug into something different. And I can relate to that all so well. I kept doing the same things, expecting different results, only to get the same results. time and time again. It's just how it went. And for a lot of people, that's just how it goes until we try something different. So like I mentioned in the previous episodes, I'll drop the link in the show notes of this episode, give you a 30-day free trial to the sober buddy app, and you can connect with over 40 meetings and just meet a truly incredible community that cares that will help you and will show you the way. And I hope to see you over there. And I'll see you

on the next one.