Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Mommy Wine Culture Had Me Hiding Alcohol | How Megan Quit Drinking

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

What does it take to finally quit drinking when your entire life revolves around it?In this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, Megan shares her powerful sobriety journey, opening up about growing up around addiction, losing her father to alcoholism, and how her own drinking slowly escalated into hidden alcohol dependence.From the outside, everything looked fine — successful career, family, motherhood. But behind the scenes, alcohol became a daily coping mechanism.This episode dives deep into:Mommy wine culture and how it normalizes drinkingThe progression from social drinking to alcohol addictionUsing alcohol to cope with stress, anxiety, and traumaThe reality of hiding drinking and living with shameWithdrawal, rock bottom moments, and asking for helpWhy quitting drinking requires full commitmentHow community, AA, and support changed everythingRebuilding confidence, identity, and life in sobrietyMegan’s story is a raw and honest look at how alcohol can slowly take over — and how it’s possible to take your life back.If you’ve ever questioned your drinking, struggled to stop, or feel stuck in the cycle, this episode will show you that recovery is possible.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/megan_on_the_rocks/Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co/Support the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivationContact me anytime: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I drank all my husband's expensive whiskey. That was May 21st that morning that I woke up, and he said that to me, you know, are you drinking again? And I was done. I was done. I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was so scared of like what the future held, but I knew at the rate I was going. I couldn't save my dad.

In his death, I really feel like my cousin and I got really emotional about this, but I feel like, In his death, he gave me that gift. He gave me that gift that this is not what might happen, Megan. This is what's going to happen to you. Don't follow in my footsteps. Welcome back to another episode of the sober motivation podcast. Today we've got my friend Megan with us.

And this is a real story about mommy wine culture, drinking in secret, and what happens when alcohol goes from something social to something you can't stop? Megan opens up about hitting her breaking point and how she finally found a way out. If you haven't noticed yet, I'm new on YouTube, but we have over 260 of these stories wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe.

And this is Megan's story on the sober motivation podcast. Welcome back to another episode of the sober motivation podcast. Today we've got my friend Megan with us. Megan, how are you? I'm doing good. Thank you. How are you? Yeah, I'm well.

A long time coming for us to meet on the podcast I feel, so I'm happy it's here. I know. I'm so happy to be here. This is really kind of a full circle moment for me because the first time I tried to get sober is when I just Googled sober podcast and yours was the first one that came up and I started listening to your podcasts. So to actually be here on your podcast is kind of a pinch me moment. It's so wild. I love those stories where we don't people stumble across the podcast and then like at first when I first when I first, started the podcast way off topic here, but this wasn't like a vision. I didn't know because I didn't have episodes and didn't have listeners and it was just kind of like people I knew or people I could reach out to. But at this point, it's so cool because there's people who have enjoyed the show that have been inspired or motivated that come on and share their story as well. So that's, that's incredible. What was it like for you growing up? So I grew up down in Southern California

and a beautiful town, beach town called Manhattan Beach. And when I look back, it's, It's mixed with periods of just an idyllic childhood, but also some moments of chaos. I have an older brother who's 12 years older than me. He's my half-brother. My mom was married before. And then my sister's five years younger. And early childhood, my brother had his own battle with addiction and was bodybuilding and just a big guy with a lot of emotions at that time. and a lot of friction with my dad, who tragically passed away of alcoholism.

But I think he was struggling with my brother. So my parents stayed married. They were married until my dad passed away. And from the outside, we had a beautiful family. But there was kind of these undertones of chaos in the household. And there was a lot of yelling between my dad and my brother. and my poor mom, she was so stuck in the middle of trying to protect my brother, but defend my dad. And there were lots of holes punched in walls. I remember my dad, my brother was a big guy. He punched a hole in a wall. Didn't do anything to himself. But my dad punched a hole in the wall. He must have hit a stud, and he broke his hand. Lots of things thrown. I remember coffee mugs broken. And my brother kicked down our door, our front door. We had this huge, big, dark blue door. And we had cardboard. for a door for a while. I remember the wind like whistling through there. Those moments mixed in with

my brother taking me to the beach with his girlfriend. And I fell in love with horses at a pretty young age. But at the age of seven, my brother, he was getting in trouble. He got arrested a few times. And then it was that third strike law that was in place. So this was, I was born in 78. So this would have been 85 if I'm doing my math, right? But he got arrested and sent to prison for five years. And that had a huge impact on me. You know, my sister was only two. And here's my brother, who's my everything.

My, I just adored him. You know, he'd hold his arms out like this and I could hang on them. He was a big bodybuilder. And to see him be taken away, he said one of his rock bottom moments was, was me hanging onto his leg, crying, screaming and crying as he was being pulled and taken away. And I didn't see him for five years. And I don't remember any conversations with my mom and my dad about that experience. But I imagine I have a six-year-old now. And I know I probably, I mean, you can't really go into too much detail with that age level. So I just didn't understand. And

I think I thought he was never coming back. So that was really challenging. And while he was gone, I think, you know, my parents maybe tried to make up for that early chaos. We had, you know, a lot of family trips. We, we did a lot of camping. My dad was a big, that was when he was in his element when we were camping. You know, my parents, we used to go with other families, lots of families together. But there was always, there was always booze. My mom liked her Miller. She liked Miller High Life. She had one every evening, and my dad really liked his wine, his boxed wine, Franzia. It was, you know, I grew up with it. It was around. I remember from a young age liking the taste of beer. I don't know, the metallic. My mom said I used to always want to

chew on keys when I was little. I have no idea if there's any, anyways. But I, it was, I grew up with it in our house. We would have parties. It was always a celebratory thing. and we kind of, there was this kind of unsaid, you know, work hard, play hard, as long as everyone is, you know, doing their thing to be successful in life, the drinking part, the play hard part was okay. Yeah, so those years in between, those five years before junior high were a lot of, I think a lot of making up for some chaos. So lots of beach time. I got into a lot of, I got into horseback riding. But I would say, fast-for. to junior high is when I kind of, a big, like, switch happened with me, and I probably would

have been diagnosed with, like, a severe anxiety disorder. I don't know. At the time, I just thought it's my age. We went from elementary school to a school that our junior high started seventh and eighth grade was a mix of, like, I don't know, I think at least three or four elementary school. So I went from knowing everyone to like a little, you know, little fish in a big pond. So I had a lot of anxiety. And I wasn't really, I didn't grow up doing like sports, so to speak, like soccer or volleyball. Beach volleyball was really big where I grew up. So to try to start playing in junior high, I would have been way too behind. But I ended up gravitating towards like the party crowd. So I'll never forget. I think it's the, it feels like the first drunk that I had,

but I think it was eighth grade, actually. My mom's probably going to be horrified, but we were out of friend's house and it was Boone's Strawberry Hill. I don't know. There's probably some listeners out there that know what that is. It was a big thing. And so this is the early 90s. I think I was in junior high 90 and 91. But I drank a bottle of Boone's Strawberry Hill and it. And, it was a big thing. and got so sick, so sick. But the euphoria from that and the feeling of my mind racing a million miles an hour, what do people think of me, are they going to like me? I always had that hamster wheel in my head and that relief from alcohol was noticeable.

And then I started to realize as these drinking situations increased, down in Southern California, and I'm sure it seems like I hear this in a lot of stories. I mean, it was just easy to get access to in high school. We always were able to get it from a parent's house, or there were older kids that had a fake ID, but it became something we did on the weekends. So in high school, I figured out that I could drink pretty good. I wasn't the girl that had like two beers and passed out throwing up in the bathroom and had to be carried out. And that became like a badge of honor, you know, a source of pride for me.

I became the beerbong queen. And I remember there was one summer. There were three parties at the same house. And I would go to Home Depot and make a beerball and it would get stolen because it was so good. Everyone wanted it. So I'd have to go back. And I remember they'd laugh at me like, you were just here. I could tell you the like tube size, all the little parts.

I can't remember now. but and then at the senior breakfast oh and meanwhile in high school i i got like straight aes i had a few there was maybe one or two incidents where i got caught drinking but i don't remember getting too many consequences when i got home i just went straight up to my room and slammed my door like i was mad but i wasn't drinking and i we got pulled over on a car once the driver was sober but we were all drinking and the parents all had to come and get us i don't remember getting in too much trouble about that either because I maintain good grades. I did activities. So that at senior breakfast, I got, my award was biggest partier. I was the girl and then there was a gentleman that got his award for the

boys. And I was like these thick beer goggles. And the principal, I used to babysit for him and his five boys. And I remember being horrified picking up this gift like, oh my gosh, I don't want anyone to know. I'm like, I'm the studious girl, not the party girl. That was high school. And then kind of college, I was very studious. I went to Cal Poly where I ironically met my husband, but we were just friends. And I was a weekend warrior, but I still, I got really good grades. I did a study abroad in New Zealand and had a great time.

I mean, we all did our weekend warrior stuff, but didn't affect school. I still got really good grades living abroad. graduated and went to grad school, you know, and here we are, as long as I keep pushing the academic bar, I'm okay. And grad school, I ran into my now husband at a bar in a town next door. We recognized each other, took us a while to figure out where we knew each other from, and that kind of was how that, how our relationship started. But, you know, he told us, this whole story at our wedding, I had a big long lead-up about how we actually came to be at the same place on that day. Of course, that part's kind of a cute story, but he at the wedding was like,

I found her in a bar, you know, and everyone laughs and thinks that's funny. And, you know, we had, before we started having kids, I mean, we kind of prided myself on these adventures that we would have, but they were all around alcohol. Like, we would go houseboating. And, you know, we would go houseboating. My 30th birthday party, we got two houseboats. And I'll tell you, I remember the amount of booze that we would go to Costco and buy. My husband would be like, are you sure we need all this? And my viewpoint was always, well, I'd rather have too much than not enough. On my, my bachelorette party was in Vegas. I had 16 girls. We all brought costumes. Every night. One night was like Halloween-ish type costumes. The next night was I had a gold dress and they all had silver dress. I mean, we were noticeable there in Vegas. You know, I always wanted to, if I was coming to the party, it was like, okay, it's going to be wild. But also not getting necessarily in trouble. I wouldn't say they were like I ever got in the, during those years.

So this was, Rod and I met in 2004 and got married in 2009, started having kids in 2014. So this whole time, you know, every vacation we went on was all inclusive or we would get the drink package when we were on a cruise, I can't tell you how many times, especially on vacation, we'd have some kind of excursion booked, and I'd wake up so hungover, just hating myself. I couldn't wait for the excursion to be over so that we have some excuse to go drink again. But that, I would say the, on our, but on our honeymoon, so I had gotten my master's and I was working in a research lab in the vet school, the local vet school, and decided to change my career, which my husband was like, you already have two degrees, you've done all the schooling and you want

to go back. And I just thought, where could I, I was always in the sciences. I was animal science with an emphasis in reproductive biology, so human fertility clinic stuff, but with animals. And I decided maybe nursing, I could apply my knowledge of science with people, because I, I feel like I'm a people person. Maybe I want to be a labor and delivery nurse. So there I go again. Once I get an idea and we got home from there and I started taking my prerex, applied to a program, and I did an accelerated program. And this was 2011. And then got my bachelor's in science of nursing. So I started that job, labor and delivery in March of 2012. And it had to be night shift. And that was hard for me because I was a morning person.

I would wake up at 5 o'clock pretty much every morning during the week, and I swam with our local master's swim team. They're like little ways to swim either competitively or for fitness or for fun all over the United States. So I would swim from 6 to 7, and then I'd get ready for work, ride my bike to my lab job. And that was my daily routine. Now I'm a nurse, and I'm working three days, three days. nights a week, 12-hour shifts, and I'm starting a new career. That also had its stress because I was kind of at the top of my game, and then now I'm starting over. So I can see that's where my, I was,

before I felt like drinking, like, check that box off for fun. We were always, I was a happy drunk. I was always drinking to celebrate. I wasn't drinking at stuff, and I started drinking at my stress, I guess is how I like to put it. The stress trying to force. It's trying to flop back and forth from nights to days. I would feel so gross on like a conversion day. I'm like, oh, if I just have a drink, because I will, and I should have said this too, I am one of those people that will have a beer or a glass of wine. And it's like I had a cup of coffee. Like my energy would go up here. And I guess I thought everyone, I thought that happened to everyone. But in my journey now, I realize it doesn't, right? I mean, it makes my husband fall asleep on the couch. And I

always thought that was so weird. But when I was tired, sorry. Oh, God. No, I just want to go back a little bit to, uh, oh, sorry, and give you a break here. Doing a great job, by the way. But I'm curious to go back to when, yeah, to a few things, right? Growing up in chaos, how did that affect you as your life moves forward? And the other thing that I'm curious for is when you showed up at a, when you show up,

you're just like the life of the party entertaining. meaning when you peel back the layers to that, what do you think it is? Like what do you think kind of pushed you in sort of that direction to sort of have that identity or that role? I mean, two things there. Yeah. Shoot, I'm glad you brought that up because I about about the childhood. So I feel like in that those chaotic moments that that I was exposed to, I didn't,

I kind of created this persona where I didn't want to contribute to the chaos. I didn't want to make anything worse. And then, you know, my brother had his own battles and his own demons, and that was a hard for my parents. And then my sister, I love her to death. And actually, I think we're both really emotionally sensitive women, but I think we're a lot of light. But I hid mine. And so growing up, I remember always telling her, you just got to toughen up. You got to toughen up.

So I took on this identity of like, Megan will be okay. She's not going to contribute to any more chaos in the family. She can handle it. She'll be the big sister. She'll take care of everything. And I also became very good at like reading the room and emotions. My, yeah, my dad was like really moody. He would either be really happy, which was probably when he was drinking or really edgy.

And I was really good at like, when he was edgy. I always felt like, okay, what did I do? How can I make it better? So maybe that started forming that people pleasing part of me because when my dad was in a good mood, we were all in a good mood. The vacations that were the best were when dad was happy and laughing. I mean, we had vacations where he would just stay in the hotel room. We had vacations he didn't even go on because he was too edgy and anxious to go. Like he would lock himself in his room. I'd have to knock on the door to talk to him and ask him things. And I just thought all that. was normal. So I became someone who felt like they couldn't be emotional. Like I had to be the tough one.

I had to be in control. Megan's got this. She's the stable one. She can handle it. And then I also became like a people pleaser. I didn't, the chaos was so uncomfortable for me. You know, I wanted everyone to be happy. I wanted my dad to be happy all the time. So I think that fueled my drinking quite a bit. it's even when like I hear a lot of people share a story like this of growing up with a lot of chaos and then they find themselves maybe starting to wear different masks or or putting their own needs aside right like at this point it sounds like your own needs maybe as you know younger person five years old seven years old 10 years old you're not even recognizing them but maybe that's not getting met I mean it takes so much effort just to try to be like quote unquote good do well in

school, like, try to be perfect, not to cause any more friction. I mean, basically, like, I don't know. This could be way off, but basically, like, grow up and not be a kid. You know, I'm thinking of, like, my kids, like, they're always causing friction. And my wife tells me, like, they're kids. This is their childhood, you know, have patience with them and everything they're doing. But it kind of sounds like what you're sharing there is, like, growing up really quick. Your brother, too, is, you know, gone to prison and you look up to him so much and you guys have an incredible relationship and that's kind of gone you're you're in the middle too here of the pack so many things that are really interesting you know about those earlier

days of your life and i i think it shapes us in one way or another you know moving forward about how we process things and how our nervous system sort of develops yeah yeah i when i you know reflecting back on on my journey as i think of telling my story it's almost it feels like hindsight is 20 20 it's like I can just see it ramping up from conditions that I adore my parents. They were both very loving. And, you know, my dad, unfortunately, had this disease. He just couldn't beat. And they did the best they could with what they had.

And it was a hard deck. There weren't a lot of people that knew what was happening in our house. You know, we went to church every Sunday. And we went down to the beach. And we had, you know, a beautiful home on kind of a pretty, popular street and it just wasn't it wasn't we kept up that perception from the outside but there was we were all dealing with on some level a lot of chaos and to kind of to add to that too in the middle like with junior high was when my brother got out of prison and i can't tell you how like to feel

like somebody and i i know this is going to make him emotional like to feel like somebody kind of had almost died. Like that's almost how I felt when he was gone because I was seven. And then to have him come back at the age of 12 was really, it was such a overwhelming experience. You know, all those feelings. Like, is he really here? We did this trip to Magic Mountain, just the two of us that I'll never forget. We sang this song, John Bon Jovi, I'll be there for you.

And he sounded like a dying dog, but I kept that tape and I loved that tape. And then he really struggled. He was okay with me sharing this part of his journey too because I am so darn proud of him for his recovery. But he really struggled when he got out of prison. They don't, there are not a lot of programs to help people when they get out. And he did not change his group of friends. And so he went back to using. and bad behavior and was in and out of my life.

So now there's kind of this, okay, he came back, but is he really here? Some abandonment. That was hard too, and that was all happening, you know, in junior high and high school. But I, the drinking, I think being able to wear that carefree mask

while I was drinking, like I was such a stress case. I was such a worrywart. I worried about everything. Like, I just couldn't shut my brain off. But when I was drinking, that all quieted. And I could be the Megan who didn't care, who didn't, I don't know if we can say bad words. Can I say bad words?

I could be the Megan who didn't give a shit. I just didn't give a shit. And I could let that happiness out and turn off that. I could be unapologetically me. I mean, I thought I was being me. But I would, I was always like the daredevil. I mean, we went, we would go and jump off our pier. I was a good swimmer and our, there were a lot of people that were scared.

The boys would do it. There were a lot of girls that were too scared to do it. Some of them did it with me, but, you know, we'd run down the pier at night. Half the time we were drinking, you know, at the time, I think it was a two or $300 ticket if you got caught jumping off the pier into the ocean. I never cared. I would do it. I would jump off big high.

Oh, where is that? Oh, why is my brain? Lake Havasu. Lake Havasu had Copper Canyon, and that cliff was super high. And I, Megan wants to go jump off it? I'm going to go jump off it. It took away. I mean, I kind of a daredevil anyways, but, you know, I was game for anything. I could keep up with the boys.

I could, I was a cake stand just in my, I don't know how, that was a couple years ago. Maybe three years ago, I was down in Manhattan Beach where it was kind of like a high school reunion. And here I was doing a cake stand, you know, and all the guys held me up. I was wearing a damn skirt. They all held me up and they were like, yeah, go Megan. I just, that kind of response, I just craved feeling I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be liked. And when I had my drinking hat on, I felt like I was.

Yeah. That's relatable. I mean, for me, I mean, in different ways too. but I hear a lot of stories of that too, of just wanting to fit in to be like the sense of belonging. It's sort of the drinking is fueled by not having a sense of belonging. And then we start drinking and all of this stuff opens up to us. And it's like, okay, this makes a whole ton of sense.

Going back in your story a little bit too, you know, sharing a little bit about your dad struggling. Some people share that seeing their parents or somebody close to them growing up, turn them off to the idea of drinking altogether. what was sort of your experience, you know, seeing that growing up, maybe not understanding completely at times what all the moving parts were, but did it change sort of your perception of things or no? That's a good question.

I think he didn't, I feel like the, my perception of the negative drinking, because I didn't understand it when I was little, like when he was moody. And in hindsight, I understand that was the hangover that was affecting his own anxiety. I mostly associated the drinking with him being happy when I was, ironically, when I was younger, because we would have family parties, his brother would, my uncle, my uncle Dan would, the two of them would have these infectious laughs. I mean, you could not, not laugh when you were around them. It was impossible.

And so I associated joy at that time. And when that turned for me, I would say kind of in college when my sister, like I left, my sister was she was exposed to a lot more of the negative part because she stayed in the house and had to drive him around a lot while he was too drunk and I started to see a lot of the negative stuff after I left like he would have these binges and that he wouldn't I don't know I didn't I always thought I don't drink like that I don't binge and then throw up and have all these GI problems and then lock myself in my room for a week to recover I don't drink like that I don't drink like that. So I, he's got the problem, not me. I can shut it down. I just go drink for the weekends and then I'm good during the week while I'm working. I just thought I'm not, I don't have a problem with I'm not like him. And my first year in nursing school, my mom told me how bad it was, how bad he was drinking.

And I popped on a plane. I had my nursing salary. I mean, I literally bought a ticket that day and flew home. And we filled up three big. big trash cans full of bottles that were all over the room. And the way he looked, I thought maybe he had internal hemorrhaging. I called 911. And the fire department, the whole shebang showed up. Of course, one of the firefighters was someone I went to high school with, which was so embarrassing. They, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, like,

as us alcoholics can do, like, to hide it, he turned on that, I'm okay, and they couldn't take him against his will. I ended up later on promising him booze on the way to the ER. I gave him, like, a to-go mug of wine. I got him in the ER, because I was worried. I thought he was going to, I don't know, have a seizure. Something bad was happening, and we got him into a detox. He safely detox, but he had that rebound anxiety from the withdrawal and checked himself out so angry. And that whole here at my point of view at that time was like, gosh darn it, now I'm a nurse. I know exactly what you're doing to your body. Please stop.

You're going to kill yourself. Stop. And I went into that like I can save him. And I still struggle with those feelings of, you know, you can't get sober. that's a that you have to decide to do that no one can make you get sober and gosh i tried i tried and i i kind of wish it was kind of tough on him yeah i and then i yeah so going back to like my did that change my it didn't change the way i drank at that time because i didn't associate my drinking as bad.

It was just hits. Which is so many people share that too. Like somebody else in their life or maybe the movies or whatever it is or somebody they heard about or somebody else in the family is drinking maybe more out in the open or it looks like something that you would think a quote unquote alcoholic or a problem drinker would look like. And if mine doesn't look like that, then there's nothing to see here. interesting thing about that whole thing is that this all lives on a spectrum. And it's like when

we're in that moment, we don't kind of like look into the future of like, okay, I started when I would say 16 and I had two beers. And college, it ramped up a little bit. When I started a career in the real world and I'm just giving a random example here, it ramped up a little bit more. But we can't connect all of the dots to say, okay, like I'm going in that direction. It might be taking a couple of years, but it is really hard sort of in the earlier days or if we don't see all these external consequences or if we're not drinking out of a paper bag under a bridge to say like, hey, there is definitely something that is not good here. Very relatable for a lot of people. Yeah, I was, yeah, I didn't even, I didn't even consider mine a problem. I'm like, I'm a nurse now.

I'm not, no, mine, I just, you know, have a drink here and there. I don't drink for 24 hours, seven days straight. Yeah, so I was pretty tough on him. Yeah. So you mentioned another thing that I was curious about too. Yeah. Is that, I mean, if you want to get and stay sober, you have to do it for yourself. I mean, why do you think that is?

Like, what is the reasoning is why that's important? Because it's such hard, it's such hard work. I think you have to really want it. And I think if someone else is trying to force you to do it, I've asked my husband this. I'm like, why didn't you say something to me? He's like, because you would have told me to fuck off. I'm like, yeah, you're right. And it's almost like the more someone else tells you, sometimes there's this push.

And it's also that you talk a lot about that denial. That denial is a huge roadblock. But I think it's just, it's so hard. It's so hard. It's like you have to really want it. And if you're doing it for someone else, I think you're not going to do it with your whole heart. And that, for me, that is what sobriety took. I had to put my whole heart and soul into it. Yeah. Well, I mean, and I think if that was, if we could do it for other people or inspire other people or like move them forward, I think there's situations in both of our lives, the one with your dad and me with many of people that are

no longer with us as well that I've worked with over the years that I for sure would have done whatever I could have done to, you know, get them, get them started. And I think you're right. I mean, it is, it is so hard. You have to be interested in doing it yourself, you know, at times. The whole journey forever is not, you know, this big uphill climb of the mountain every single day, day in and day out. But there's tough moments. There really is, especially at the beginning. And without our own sort of investment or interest, in doing it. Like, I think it's just

it's very tough. Yeah, yeah. I tried so hard to help him. I would have done anything to help him. And there was a period of time where I didn't talk to him about seven months because he was in the middle of a binge when I had my first child.

And that was in 2014. And gosh, I was mad. It was like, how dare you choose alcohol over the birth of your first grandchild? You know, like, how dare you? And I was so angry. And I ended up working through that and letting that go. But I could just tell alcohol was just, it was like affecting his, his brain, his like thought process was starting to get bizarre. And I was, it was the summer of 2015, July. And my mom went on a cruise

to Alaska with my sister and her husband and my brother's son. And they were gone and she came home to a dark house with mail piled up and found my dad dead on my sister's bed. And he was in the middle of a binge. There were bottles everywhere. He'd fallen in the bathtub, I think, and cut his head. I mean, it was just, it was horrible. It was horrible. And I really, really struggled with that on a personal level. Like, even knowing that alcohol took his life, like, I started to cope with alcohol. At his funeral, we had the whole, the whole place was stocked with booze. I remember one of my mom's friends there, bless his heart, but he was like, I will make sure your hand is never empty. And I remember, and my uncle was so intoxicated. He, he, he was.

He had problems with alcohol, too, that he was throwing up in a trash can and had to get taken home. I mean, I remember having a moment at the celebration after the funeral that, like, God, are we all really just getting wasted to celebrate my dad who just died tragically of alcoholism? That was, I think, those seeds of my drinking, because like I said, when I became a nurse, I started drinking at the work stress. I started drinking at my schedule. Then I became a new mom. I started drinking at the stress of parenthood. I was sober for my pregnancy, obviously for my pregnancies in the breastfeeding. But that's when my moderation started.

Like how many drinks can I have before I have to breastfeed again? Or is it? That's when I started counting drinks. And I started looking up. I'd had a friend or two have been diagnosed with breast cancer. and I, older moms, and I started to think I'm an older mom because I was 35 when I had my first. What if my pregnancy and all the estrogen and I, you know, the pregnancy causes cancer, not the drinking. I started, and that was, I had my first Cooper back in 2014.

So that's when the seeds were planted. But boy, did it, it really ramped up. You know, I had a lot of trauma with my dad's passing. And again, I took on, I guess to go back to that quickly. I took on that role of I will take care of everything. I will field all the phone calls. I will help my mom organize. I'll get the picture of him.

I'll do all the poster boards with pictures of him like growing up. And my firstborn was only a year and a half. But I took on that role and didn't process really like I should have. I drank at it. So just wondering too. Like when it sounds like anyway you've identified this like 2014 having your son, you noticed a shift. I mean, well, even starting nursing,

you noticed a shift about how you're drinking, then this other stuff is kind of coming into your life. And I'm picking up on it anyway. Yeah. There's a lot of moving parts. And maybe not dealing with it in the healthiest of ways, all of these situations that are coming up, right? Maybe leaning more and more into drinking,

drinking at things. Like, is that close? Oh, yeah. Yeah. because I think I had a new job that was stressful and I'm a new mom. All of that combined, you know, I really fell into that mommy wine culture. Gosh, I just, on my social media, I just had a memory from nine years ago pop up like something along the line. Am I anyone that, you know, thinks wine is the magic that makes you a better parent?

And I just look at that like, oh my gosh, you know, I'd have my glass of wine in the evening while I'm getting the kids ready for bed. and then I would want them to go to bed, like, just go to bed so I can sit on the couch and drink my wine and zone out with a show. Yeah, I definitely, my drinking with periods of stopping with pregnancies, when I had to stop with my first pregnancy, I remember I was a raging bitch about it. Like, my husband will tell you, I had so, like, why, I'm the one that has to stop drinking? That's so unfair. I mean, what a selfish place to be in. Like, I was so blessed with this pregnancy. And in the beginning, that's, you know, that was a huge issue for me, letting go alcohol.

And then once I had Cooper, I think I asked for a beer in postpartum. Like, I wanted a beer. I would nurse. And then, okay, I have a little bit of time to have this beer so it'll clear. Just that whole thought process is, how can I work booze back into my life? I've had this break pregnant. And then, you know, I had another child in my daughter in 2016 and then another child, my son in 2019, which was then followed by COVID. So now I'm not breastfeeding. Once I weaned my third, I wasn't breastfeeding. I wasn't pregnant. We weren't planning to have any more kids. And then it was like COVID hit. And my, that extra stress and then it was like, I

have my body back and I have given so much of myself to this family. I feel like I've lost myself. I deserve to just do whatever the hell I want. And it was like I felt like the pendulum had gone way over this way with me not taking care of myself. And so here, let me take care of myself over here and drink. That's self-care. That's what I thought. And it was just like one glass of wine at night, turned into two, turned into the hangover is so bad the next morning, I'm going to have, you know, a drink at lunch or maybe even a mimosa. I mean, I loved, I loved an excuse to go out to breakfast and, you know, start having mimosa's day drinking was the best. But that mommy wine culture had a huge impact on me. We all thought that. In my neighborhood, I ended up putting

together this little like couch area in our front yard and we put this white picket fence around the front grass yard and when my third was little and crawling, he could be safe out in the front yard while I had neighbors over to drink. It's like, oh here, we can be outside and the kids can play and we can have our drinks. And then I was drinking in the neighborhood and that was very easily accessible. I, you know, I would go and hang out thinking that was my self-care hanging out with these women and drinking, leaving my family alone in the house. At the time, I didn't see anything wrong with that. And I have a lot of shame and sadness over that, you know, feeling like I needed to

escape my family. A lot of shame over that. But I, everything, I would say, COVID, we as labor and delivery, we were on the front lines. We had a lot of, we saw a lot of it on our unit. We had pregnant moms getting COVID and very sick. And we were floated, some of us, to a COVID unit. And it was scary.

I had little kids. I had a baby at home. And I would come in through the garage and strip all my clothes. And hopefully my husband had left a towel for me. And I'd throw my clothes directly in the washing or the washing machine. I was going to say dishwasher, the washing machine. And go straight in the shower. I mean, we didn't know.

And so there was all that stress, too. And then it made it. I mean, my schedule, my work schedule didn't change. I wasn't working from home. I still had to go, I still had to go into work. And now I needed babysitters to come into the house because my kids weren't going to school. That was stressful. I wouldn't say the schedule affected, you know, made my drinking easier.

It was more of the stress. All of the unknown. Kind of share about that. Curious to understand how you're feeling about yourself as you go through this. I mean, even I think like you said earlier, the hindsight's 2020, right? We reflect back, right, on your dad's celebration of life, having all of this stuff out in the front yard,

like all of these sort of scenarios where when, I think if you look back now, you'd say, okay, the drinking thing shouldn't have fit into all of this stuff. But when you're going through it, you mentioned something that a lot of people share is that you just don't see it. You don't have any idea that all of that you could do all of this stuff completely different.

How are you feeling about yourself? I mean, you're juggling a gazillion different things here, the kids, the job, COVID, you know, this social life too that you're plugging into, drinking a lot. I mean, how do you feel on the inside, like with the masks peeled off? Oh, I was like crumbling. I mean, I just equated to like I had my chin just barely above water. I was I was barely holding it together. And I thought, you know, alcohol was that, like,

like glue was going to hold me together. And I kept thinking things were going to, you know, it'll get better. I'm just in the trenches. Things are going to get better. But little did I know that the more I exposed my body to alcohol, the more my anxiety went up, the more my depression went up, the more my self-hate, my self-doubt, my, I hate what I did last night. I hate how I spoke to my husband. I hate how I texted that person. You know, you wake up with all that shame and I never want, you know, I don't want to be that person, but I'll, I'm in a tough place right now and I need the alcohol. I will, I will tone it down later. That's what I kept telling myself. Like, there's always time to tone it down, but right now life is hard. So I deserve to drink.

Life is hard. I'm going to be okay. I'm just going to get through this rough patch. And I can't, you know, I know you've said this like pickles walking down the street and or a cucumber's walking down the street and turns into a pickle, but you don't really know where. I couldn't tell you where, but before I knew it, like my hangovers were so bad. I was waking up in the middle of the night, like that 3 a.m. panic, anxiety, and I was needing, like, a shot of whiskey. I started drinking hard alcohol to get rid of that panic, anxiety, anxiety really quickly. I would wake up in the morning and get the kids to school, and then I couldn't wait to get home to either nap it off or have a few drinks to get rid of that.

I started hiding alcohol bottles in my closet. Before, before I knew it, I was drinking just like my dad. I was hiding it all so that I could clean myself up and be ready. Like work was a hard line for me. You know, why my family wasn't a hard line. But I, I don't know, work was a hard line for me. But I had one weekend where my withdrawal was so bad whenever I tried to stop that I couldn't stop. So I called out all weekend. And I told everyone I had the flu. And I was vomiting so severely that there's a powerful anti-medic, anti-nause med called Zofram didn't touch me. And it was terrible. It was terrible. I mean, all the stuff I'd seen my dad do, all the stuff. And then I just, I wanted to show you that I was in the middle.

When I was in the middle of all of that, my daughter, Lucy, drew me this picture and gave it to me. And I remember thinking and looking at it. You know, she thinks I'm just sick and she loves me and wants me to get better. And I went right back to that little girl with my dad and trying to save my dad.

And I'm like, why am I putting all of this on her? This is my shit. I need to handle my shit. She's just a child. need to get my shit together for my family. And that was the first time I really scared myself. And I will say in the middle of that particular binge, I know you have a question. And this is heavy. This is heavy. And I want to share this because I know that it's important to for other people

to know when and if they've had these feelings that they're not alone. But I honestly was so sick in the middle of all that and then so shameful when I saw that picture that I looked at a bottle of Tylenol PM and I thought, you know what, maybe I could just make this all go away. And, and, but then my, you know, I even Googled how much would I have to take to make this all go away and you know what comes up on Google. And then I thought, you know what? If I don't do it right, I'm going to kill my kidneys and be on dialysis. That was my nursery brain. And that snapped me out of it. That was the only time I had those thoughts. But it was scary. It was scary. You were going to ask me something. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that too because it can feel that hopeless at times. Like there's no

way out. Like you're completely stuck. And then the things that maybe we're trying just don't work. And this is, yeah, it just strips the joy. I mean, there's an old expression too that alcohol gives you wings and then takes them away. I kind of, I even kind of thought of that when you were sharing about your dad of like the happy times and you're at the parties and he's enjoying himself and that's when you know he's feeling the best and then that sort of shifts right to that other spot other spot where it takes them away and then it's like really hard if not impossible to like get to that joyous part of life for the everyday small things like that seems to just be gone and it's just drinking in drinking i was just thinking about too as you're kind of sharing you know all this stuff

and how you felt and, you know, it's really hard for people to sort of pinpoint exactly sort of when things shifted to. But like, what was that like internally when you noticed yourself leaning more into drinking and then you're going through this and it's really hitting you, it seems like in this sort of stretch of your life physically, mentally, you know, maybe a lot harder than it was before. And do you ever think throughout this of maybe the million dollar question, like, how in the heck did I end up here. I mean, you have, you know, college, grad school, job, you know, new job, family. I think from the outside looking in, I mean, that's what people kind of aspire

for, of course, when you have all of this. I mean, you outgrow drinking and, you know, really plug into this. Like, any thoughts there? I, it was, I felt like I was trapped. The thought of quitting, like, I couldn't see my life, like, without it. It was part of everything I did. But then it had turned into this terrible site. Like, it wasn't fun anymore. And I'm like, can I get through? I mean, my brain really did think, can I somehow work myself out of drinking badly,

you know, like this bad part and go back to just drinking for fun? That shame, like there was just so much shame. I was making terrible decisions. You know, I had a bar. I wouldn't go past it and then I'd go past it. And then I kept putting the bar, you know, I'm not bad unless I do that. And then I would do something really stupid and shameful. And it's just that you get, I got in such a hole.

It was like I dug myself into such a hole that getting out felt impossible. It really, really did. I tried to get sober after that first binge. I don't know if I answered your question. Yeah. When was this? What year was this when you tried? This was December of.

Let's see, 2000, 24, so we're in 2006. So January of 2025 is when I tried to get sober the first time. And, you know, I broke down crying and asked a friend, you know, I needed help. I can't quit drinking. But I do remember getting the feedback of like, why don't you just stop for a month? And then maybe you can have, you know, a glass of wine again with dinner or something. But I white knuckled it. I mean, I remember telling my husband, like, you imagine if you could.

never have cheesecake ever again. I can never have alcohol. I thought, I'm like, okay, I'm really going to try to get it out of my life. But then I went like 30 days without drinking, white-knockling it, really not happy. And we had a trip planned for my husband's birthday to Cancun with another family for their 50th birthdays. And it was all-inclusive. I'm like, how can I not drink on an all-inclusive? I thought, you know what, I've proven to myself that I can not drink for 30 days. We should just go enjoy ourselves. I went right back to drinking like I was, you know, having blackouts and yelling. My poor husband, I remember yelling at him at a dinner in front of all kinds of people. I honestly can't even remember what I was yelling about, but he told me I ruined that trip.

So I came home with a lot of shame and quit drinking again. And then had a, that was, so that trip was mid-February. And then March, I got invited to go on an island trip with a friend. I had to kind of move mountains to make it happen. She was on a work trip. And I went, and there was a lot of working, and I was by myself. So I had a pity party, and I'm like, you know what, I can have another drink. And I ended up drinking the entire trip.

We got in an argument. The trip ended, not because of the argument, but sooner than anticipated. I had a pity party coming home. I drank the entire way home and was not able to see a predator. And on the way home from that trip, this was the end of March, I was sexually assaulted. And that kind of put the nail in my coffin. At that time, you know, I kept trying to get sober and it was just like, I can't handle this life right now. Now I feel like the dirt has come over my head. I don't see a way out. And I wanted, I got home from that trip, but like 11 o'clock crying hysterically, told my husband what had happened.

I said, get the whiskey. Get the whiskey. And I just shot after shot, after shot. And my mom was in town with the kids and I just was on a 24-7 drinking cycle. I could not stop. And there was a weekend. And, well, my daughter, she had friends that were in a, like, a showcase at a big event center here in town. They were like dancers.

It's a dance studio. And I took her to go see that. And I couldn't even stay sober there. And I remember thinking, oh, gosh, the moms all know, you know, I'm trashed. And why am I trashed at this dance thing? And I finally got home. I got home from that. It was a, that was a Tuesday night.

And it was Wednesday morning. my husband said, this drinking, you've been drinking again, because I kind of had that, like, I'm kind of slowing down, I'm kind of stopping thing going on. And I said, yes, just pour everything out. Just pour it out. I can't even have it in the house. And that was my, no big, the assault was, you know, I went another, so that happened the end of March. I drank on and off through April, trying to hide and say that I could, I could moderate. No one's, saw the really bad drinking. I was doing that when people were out of the house, you know, hiding bottles in the closet again. I was, I drank all my husband's, like, expensive whiskey.

So this was May. That was May 21st that morning that I woke up and he said that to me, you know, are you drinking again? And I was done. I was done. I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'm like, I was so fucking scared of like what the future held, but I knew at the rate I was going. My dad, in his, you know, I couldn't save my dad. In his death, I really feel like and my cousin and I got really, got really emotional about this, but I feel like in his death, he gave me that gift. He gave me that gift, but this is not what might happen, Megan. This is what's going to happen to you. Don't follow in my footsteps. And, you know, I looked at this again, And I'm like, I have to do this for my kids.

I cannot do to them. What happened to me, I know he didn't mean to do that. It was not a vicious thing. Alcoholism is a asshole. But that was that morning, you know, I had so much rebound anxiety. I felt like I was jumping out of my skin. I mean, I ended up, I probably should have detoxed in a facility, you know, the nurse and me. I had some gabapentin at home.

I took that. and detox myself, but I had the severe shakes, the rebound anxiety, the hallucinations. So I do not recommend to anyone listening to do that yourself. Don't do what I did. But I made it through, and I had a dear friend come and sit with me through my anxiety, and I was crawling out of my skin, and she connected me through a friend of a friend. I got connected with another nurse in the town next door to me who had gone, had a similar battle as I did, had children, was in the healthcare profession. And she told me to go to

AA. So that, you know, she told me to do 90 and 90. So that's what I did. And, um, and about two months into sobriety, I found your group, sober motivation. And, um, and between those two, you know, community, 100% was what, what, that was my like higher power. my guiding light out of the dark. That first meeting that I went to that night on the 21st, a Thursday night, the AA group here in my town. I mean, they just embraced me. I cried the entire meeting.

I was a complete mess. I mean, I was still detoxing. And then the next day, I took my oldest bottle rock in Napa, which is an all-day concert. And I had my, oh, my God, how can I go to a concert sober? But they have good food. Focus on the food. I didn't want him to miss out.

So I went. And that experience, being with people who spoke my language and who had gone through what I had gone through, I mean, I heard my story and everyone in that room who embraced me. I wasn't broken. I wasn't, you know, I didn't have the plague. I was worth saving. I had a disease and I saw a way out. And then I started having these experiences, you know, I thought I could never have fun without alcohol. God, I can't go to a concert. I can't go on vacation. I can't go camping. I can't go out on the lake and a ski boat. But here's the summer coming and I had all this stuff stacked up to do. I went to Bottle Rock. I stayed sober. Green Day played at the end. And my son and I, you know, it's a core memory for us. They were amazing. If anyone's ever seen them live, they sound just as good as they do on the radio. But I would have been shit-faced at that concert. I would have missed the entire, you know, ending or last act. We went to Catalina a week. I was a over a week. That's an island off of Southern California. The ferry on the way over to the island,

I was like, why are all these people dressed up? And they're all celebrating. Well, it was the 10th anniversary of the Catalina wine mixer. So everyone was getting wasted all weekend. But I'll tell you, I saw that vacation, like, I'm not searching for the next bar. I'm not all the focus. I would have been drinking at the airport. I would have been drinking on the boat. I would have landed there in Catalina, where can we go get lunch? Where can I drink? That space in my head, I finally had space to like, what can we do with the kids? What activities can we do together? What memories can we form? I didn't realize how much time I was spending focusing on alcohol. It was taking so much of my life away. And I just started building those new muscles. I was doing all these things I never thought traveling,

concerts. I never thought I could do sober. And I was doing them and I was enjoying them even more. I didn't feel like shit. And I didn't have all that, you know, focus. But. Yeah, that helps huge. You know, you do. I mean, we do. We spend so much time trying to drink or figure out when we're drinking, hiding, drinking, recover from drinking. It's like, oh, my gosh, when you remove that, I mean, it's like a whole other life kind of opens up. I'm curious, though, towards the end of your story there where you say you connect with this other, you know, this other nurse that is like go to AA. What made you so like open to listen now?

I mean, you must have heard AA before like this point in your life. And here you were willing to go. I mean, what was that shift like? So the first two times I tried to get sober, it was about what was getting taken from me. and it was I had this woe is me attitude and then I I had just been so broken and I was so low I had finally just gotten to the point where I knew that I just I wasn't someone that could drink anymore and it was for whatever reason my body had changed and I was just so ready to be done with all of the all of the heaviness and all of the yuck and all of the chaos. I was so done. And I had gone to,

you know, as a nursing student, you, it's like a requirement to go to an AA meeting and just listen or NA. And I went to a few meetings. And I just thought, you know, she's telling me, she said, if you do what I do, Megan, you will get better. That's what this, I bless her. She was an angel to me. If you do 90 and 90. And I just, I was like, what do I have to lose? My life is terrible right now. I cannot keep doing this. I was desperate. I had the gift of desperation, really.

And I just, I was so done with alcohol. Wasn't doing anything for me anymore. I was drinking just to get rid of the withdrawal symptoms. I wasn't getting that fun. I was never fun anymore. I was angry and mad when I drank. And I was just drinking to maintain my ability to function. I mean, the rational brain in me finally went like,

okay Megan you have this you are done you have got to let this go this is not doing you any favors you need help you need you can't do this yourself you need help yeah and that's where i think that for a lot of people it gets to but a lot of people i think try on their own like yeah i'll just get because the shame i think is so it's so heavy right like how could i have possibly let myself get to this point you know like that's what i think that that i thought anyway I'll just quietly. I'll figure this out and nobody needs to know and I'll move on with my life. I'll either one of two things will happen.

I'll figure it out how to drink like maybe when I first started. Like that would have been at the time I would have thought that would have been so sweet. And number two, that I'll just kind of quit and just tell people whatever they want to hear if they ever ask me why I'm not drinking. But I'm not going to talk to anybody about any of my struggles or how life was or how bad I felt about. myself or I'm not going to talk with anybody about that. I'll just quietly figure it out. I mean, I tried those two things. Neither of them worked. Both of them were disastrous. Both of them were miserable. But I talk with so many people that they just have this deep rooted desire

to do this all on their own. But keep ending back up at the, you know, the starting line. And I'm just like, man, just get some help from somebody somewhere, therapy or meetings or community, or just taught with somebody. Was therapy ever part of your journey, too? It was. So I sought out a type of therapy. It was recommended to me by one of the physicians I work with called EMDR, eye movement desensitization reprogramming.

It's kind of, I had to take a leap of faith with it, and I highly recommend it for anyone suffering from trauma. But I went to it from the perspective of dealing with the assault, but it ended up, and I was still drinking when I started. But the magic in that therapy happened when I quit drinking and was doing the therapy at the same time. And that helped me really unravel some patterns like with my childhood. And I kind of started to see my pathway.

So yes, the therapy really helped. I'm still doing that now. Yeah. And I, for me, we all, with my family and, you know, this alcoholism and all the chaos in my younger life, there was this, you know, people just didn't really talk about that kind of stuff back then. You know, it wasn't, so we just kind of kept it to ourselves. It was like, we don't unload our problems on other people. But for me, part of my recovery process was getting over that hump of silence and accountability. Like I, that was going to, to AA, that was starting my

accountability and with my family. I'm like, I can't do this to my kids. I can't promise them. I'm going to get sober and then not. So I have to put all these things in place that are going to help me and keep me accountable. So that was, I ended up sharing, over that summer, I kind of protected my new sobriety. Those first couple of months, I really protected it because I didn't, I didn't want anyone influencing me either way. But at the end of the, when I joined, I think I joined your group in July. And maybe in the second meeting with you guys, I shared that I shared on social, media, I just ripped that band-aid off. For me, it was important to, this is my new life. This is not a joke. I felt like if I'm telling people, I can't go back on it. Before, when I was trying to get sober by

myself, when you're quiet, if you decide to change your mind, if you haven't really told anyone, it's so easy to change your mind. No one knows that you were trying to be sober, so no one's going to criticize you for having a drink. But I really felt like I needed help and safety so that I wouldn't fall back because I knew it was going to be hard. It was my whole identity. So I shared on social media. I got a wonderful, really wonderful loving response from everyone. And I've had a lot of people come out of the woodworks, you know, that I didn't even know we're struggling, which makes me feel good to help other people. But I've been, I'm so blessed to have a wonderful work family that is so supportive of me. And my own family, I mean, my husband, God bless him.

I really put him through the ringer. And I'm on, you know, I am doing, I'm working the 12 steps. You know, AA in the 12 steps are not for everyone. My sponsor is amazing. I adore her. She's really helping me. And I'm on my ninth step. I will say, even, you know, if AA is not for you, there's a lot like you kind of, you

kind of look back at your old patterns. What was I doing that was not serving me? Okay, let me own up to my shit. And then let me kind of start living a, a quarter of. to my values, make my apologies, and now live according to my core values, and have humility. And so that's important to me because I got so off. I got so far from who I really wanted to be and thought I was. And now I'm living with honesty. I mean, I am brutally honest now. I was lying. I mean, lying, I would lie to you about why I was going, you know, out in the backyard. I mean,

I was lying about everything. And I, it's hard to keep up with all your lies. I am so done with all of that. What you get is what you see. And I, that confidence that I was craving as, you know, a 12-year-old girl in junior high that I thought I found in alcohol, I have in ACEs now. I finally feel like I am comfortable in my own skin. I am comfortable in who I am. And I don't have that imposter syndrome anymore. I was like, gosh, I don't deserve to be working in the vet school. I don't, I don't deserve to be a nurse. There's all these nurses that have it in their long line of families. They want to be a nurse from kindergarten. I'm just faking it. I just don't deserve to be a mom. Don't deserve to be a wife. It's like, yeah,

you know what? Yes, I do. This is who I am. And my confidence, I mean, it's just skyrocketed. and my anxiety has gone way down. And I just have this new love for life. I really feel there's that analogy. I know Melissa talks about it a lot, the newborn baby, you know, you're like being born again. You're looking at life differently. Like, how does taking one thing out of your life roll out in this?

I'm not saying it's easy. It's fucking hard. I've done a lot of shit. I actually did 120 meetings and 120 days. While I was vacationing, I do at least two or three of your meetings every week. Your Toronto meetup was amazing. I just, I had to make some mountains move for this next trip this summer, and I've already done it. I've already done it.

Love it. Yeah, it was so great to connect with everybody in Toronto. I mean, what you mentioned there earlier, too, so much great stuff there, you know, in your life that has changed. but it's one of the things I kind of refer to as burning the boats sharing on social media. Not that everybody needs to do that. But I mean, hearing your story here, Megan, and not saying there's anything wrong with it, but I think a lot of us lead this way. We're proud of the drinkers we became.

I mean, we're the party animals. Everybody around us knows that. But when we get sober, for some reason, we feel a little bit weird. We don't want anybody to know that we're not drinking anymore or that maybe we're, we're living this different way of life. And I think us crossing over that and what I refer to as sort of burning the boats, make this real. Like I didn't have a problem with everybody knowing of a, you know, that I was drinking

and it was reckless and it was craziness. And I was getting in all this trouble. And I really had to reflect within my sobriety. Like, why was I so worried what other people thought when I was doing the right thing for my life, when I was doing what was best for me? but I was so uncomfortable. And so I love that aspect. And not that everybody needs to share on social media,

teach their own. But I really see that as one of the burning the boat's moments to where you're closing that door for what was. And if you go back to drinking, that's going to be friction. It's going to be like, okay, now I told everybody I'm not. It might buy you if you ever come to that spot.

I know it definitely bought me some time to really think things through about, okay, everybody knows the direction I'm heading. go back there, that's going to be weird. Do I want to have those conversations? No, I don't. Okay. Stay with this journey. You know, like you do you don't want to end up in there. But yeah, it becomes kind of something secretive, you know, back to that too. If I teach their own, everybody go about this thing, whichever way makes sense for you and works. But it's like, I see people that really make big progress. Like they own this. This was my life. This is how I'm

live in now and the rest is yet to come, but it's just putting it out there. I think that that offers, like you said, you needed accountability because doing it in the shadows, doing it quietly, never worked before. And for most people, it doesn't work. Thank you, Megan, so much for jumping on here, sharing your story with all of us, excited for the next meetup to, glad you were able to, you know, move mountains. Anything that you look back over, you know, all of these years that was really helping, your perspective or some insight maybe to share with somebody else who's listening. You know, maybe a mom out there. Maybe somebody who's into health care, right?

Where it's kind of like, do I even share about this or do I just silently continue to struggle until I lose it all or, you know, maybe somebody that can relate to you? That alcohol promises you a bunch of things, but they're all lies. That you can, that your life. will be so much better without the presence of alcohol. And your experiences are so much more authentic. And overall, I mean, I want my, I want my level of happiness for everyone. And it really is that simple of just removing this one thing. It's a liar, you know. And if you are struggling and you feel like you have to have a drink every evening.

If you can't go an evening without having that to wind down, think about how you feel after drink two or drink three and the next morning. Like that is your body physically reacting to a toxin. It really, life just gets better. It really does. You can have fun without alcohol. That's going to be my tagline. You can have fun without alcohol.

Yeah. I love that tagline because that is what people believe. I mean, I feel a ton of messages every week and I have for years and I've worked with a ton of people. And that is sort of a very common thing is that after I quit, the fun, the joy in life is over. And if you're not to that place yet, I can pretty much guarantee you one thing. Alcohol will take any sort of joy from your life. You might have a little bit of it if you're early in the game. but there will be a point where you'll be wondering what happened to all of that.

It will be gone. And the only time you would feel somewhat normal is when you're drinking, but then you'll hate drinking. It's very strange how it works out. And the joy is completely gone. And alcohol sort of acts as this gatekeeper of, oh, you want to socialize with your friends. Well, you got to go through me first.

Oh, you want to do it. You got to go through me first. And then like Megan shared there too, Every activity, everything, before you even realize it, everything is involving alcohol and, I mean, get off of this train at any time. You don't have to ride it to the last stop. You don't, like, it just doesn't usually improve on its own. So thank you again, Megan. I, and, you know, I thought about, like, people spend so much time focusing on their health and what they, you know, organic food or exercise, but then make time for this class one. carcinogen is like a reward for eating well and doing all this exercise. I mean, I had no idea it was that bad for you. So I'll leave that little morsel out there. And then I also, I'm wearing my McCarthy shirt. I was Megan McCarthy growing up. It's my dad's name. And I would love to dedicate

the show to my dad. John McCarthy. Yeah. Question there too. I mean, what's your reasoning or importance there for you, you know, for your dad and in what role he has played in your life and even in your story today. I can see this disease through his eyes now, and I have so much compassion for him. It takes the lives of so many people, and it is a disease. And I didn't see it from that perspective. As a child, you know, growing up, I only saw my dad being edgy and, you know, I thought it was a willpower thing. I have so much compassion for him, and I, I, I, I I just love him. And it makes me sad that his childhood trauma rolled out into his own life, you know, that he had those demons.

He just couldn't, he just couldn't, you know, get away from. So, yeah, I understand this disease now from both perspectives as a victim of it and as the perpetrator. Yeah. And has that helped you have some grace for yourself as well on this journey? Yeah. Yeah, it has. And that was hard at first. You know, the perfectionist in me was, is, it gets so angry that I even let myself go through this. But yes, yes, it, it'll get anyone. It doesn't discriminate. Men, women, famous people, the gentleman under, you know, under the pier with a bag, it just doesn't, a brown bag. It doesn't discriminate. It'll get anyone. Yeah, so true. Well, thanks again, Megan.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really really. Really, Brad, what you do is so amazing. And you and your group and your podcast have played such an important role in my sobriety. So I'm incredibly grateful. Forever grateful, Brad. You are, Brad, you're my hero. I'm going to get my own hat. That's a inside joke.

Well, there it is another incredible episode here on the podcast. Huge shout out to Megan for all of the progress that she has made. It's been incredible to get to know Megan, have her be part of the sober motivation community, hang out in Toronto, hang out again this summer. So proud of the progress that she's made. So proud of her for jumping on here and sharing her story with all of us. I'll drop her Instagram, contact down to the show notes below.

So if you want to reach out to her and let her know, thank you. That would be incredible. And I'll see you on the next one.