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I posted a reel on Instagram yesterday. It was the B-roll kind, me doing whatever in the background with the focus on the words. And the background video I chose was me playing this really cool turquoise piano last year at a sober retreat. It was an average reel. I wasn’t expecting much engagement. But […]

I read a story in an online sober group the other day that felt painfully familiar. A woman, about 3 months sober, went out for a nice dinner with her husband. Instead of enjoying the dinner, she could feel anger bubbling up in side her chest the whole time. She felt angry that she couldn’t

In the early days of sobriety, the cravings are brutal. It seems like you think about alcohol at least once every hour sometimes, and it’s so frustrating, always looking for another way to distract, another way to navigate the cravings. As a recovery coach, the single biggest challenge my clients face is getting through the

Two weeks into sobriety, I stepped on the scale. I’d been drinking more in the past three years than I ever had, and I had the pudge to prove it. Everyone in my recovery circle talked about how much weight they lost when they quit drinking, and I was excited to see the number on

I wasn’t scared of bears. I wasn’t scared of mountain lions. I was scared of being alone with my own thoughts. On the first day of my 185 mile hike – the first long hike I’d ever done – I suddenly found myself faced with hiking the whole thing alone. The friend I was hiking

In 2021, my life was fully out of control. No one could really tell… I was still doing all the things I normally did, I was still showing up in my life. But mentally, I was crumbling. The negative self talk that used to be just background noise was front and center. “I’m such a

If you’ve quit drinking, and now sleep feels impossible, you’re in the right place. Nothing is more frustrating than knowing you won’t wake up with a hangover… but that you’ll wake up grumpy and still exhausted instead. I’ve been there. When I got quit drinking, I struggled with all of it – falling asleep, staying

I was a functioning alcoholic for the better part of a decade before I finally stopped drinking. I was really good at taking care of all of my responsibilities as a mother and a wife – even homeschooling kids and running a small farm – while still drinking a bottle or more of wine most

I’ve lost track of the number of people in recovery from alcohol misuse that I’ve talked to who made it through the big event where they were so worried about being triggered to drink, only to relapse when they came home. Vacations. Concerts. Marathons or other physical feats. Performances. Competitions. Weddings. I’m actually in the

How many mornings did I stand in front of the mirror, yesterday’s makeup smeared under puffy, red eyes, and start berating myself for yet another failed attempt at sobriety? “What’s wrong with you?” I’d ask the almost unrecognizable face in the mirror. “Why can’t you just figure this out? You’re such a failure. Your family