This is going to be one of those hard-to-write posts.

The kind that make me cringe when I hit post, but the kind I also insist on writing because if no one tells these stories honestly, thousands of women are going to be left feeling completely alone and broken. And I know I’m not wrong when I say thousands. My story isn’t unique.

When you read the title of this post, “Confessions of a Homeschool Mom With a Drinking Problem”, I’m going to bet a certain image started forming almost instantly in your head. One of neglect, a home unkempt, half-assed school lessons resulting in poorly educated kids set up for a life of hardship. Society does a good job of helping us create that image, doesn’t it?

But that’s not what it looked like.

The Picture-Perfect Life

If you had looked at my life from the outside, you would have seen something that looked as close to perfection as it could get. Two beautiful daughters, neatly dressed and smiling, spending their days finishing math and grammar so they could run free outside. Chasing chickens, riding horses bareback through the pasture, turning the hay loft into a play house, and camping trips to amazing places when dad was home. Meals were home cooked, everything was neatly organized and systematized and ran smooth as butter, despite a never ending to do list and constant pressure to get it right. In my spare time I knitted hats and sweaters, ran a 4-H club, and every night I read Harry Potter out loud (with accents).

It truly was idyllic. From the outside.

The Ache Beneath the Surface

But underneath that glistening outer layer was a kind of pain and discontent I didn’t understand, and couldn’t stand to feel. I never felt like what I did was enough. I was convinced my husband and my kids deserved better than what I could give them (which was literally everything I had to give.) I got so angry with myself if I made a mistake or felt like I came up short – not just angry, but unleashed a full-fledged attack of self hatred upon myself, sometimes for days.

And then I’d just try harder.

I tried harder to be enough. I tried harder to be happy. I tried harder to just be grateful.

I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me that made me so miserable, when I should be so happy.

Enter: The Wine

Eventually, I discovered wine. It was always just this kind of grown up, romanticized luxury. I’d do All The Things, and then when the kids were off to bed, I’d have a glass to wind down. I wasn’t even sure how it happened, but one glass turned into a bottle. That one glass after bed turned into a glass at dinner, a glass after dinner, and then a glass or two after the kids were asleep.

I loved how much it made me not care. Just for a while. Because I did care, deeply. But caring as much as I did was exhausting. Wine gave me the break from the pressure that I needed. Or so I thought.

Even drinking a bottle of wine every night, I still kept up the beautiful homeschool mom facade. We went on field trips, had birthday parties, practiced for piano recitals and mastered multiplication tables. We read beautiful literature, learned to make cheese and yogurt, and showed up for county fair every summer with freshly washed chickens and ducks and rabbits and dogs and horses.

People would always say, “I don’t know how you do it all.”

And as I took a long pull straight from a bottle of whiskey, I’d whisper back, “I don’t know, either.”

The Cracks Begin to Show

Mornings were getting harder. I started having them make their own breakfasts under the guise of life skills, but really so I could try to sip coffee and fight the headache threatening to send me back to bed. I’d try to help them through algebra problems but could hardly quiet the noise in my head enough to make sense of the numbers. I’d walk out to the barn, fighting back tears, as I berated myself for being such a failure. I hated who I was, who I had become.

But the smile stayed.

I still got it all done. It still looked great.

I managed like that for a long time before the shiny outer layer finally started to crumble, leaving a dark, ugly, hopeless image in its place. My relationships with my kids, which had always been so strong, started to fade. I wasn’t even showing up in their lives anymore. Maybe physically, but mentally I was checked out. If I wasn’t actually drunk, I was fighting the swirling thoughts of self hatred and shame. I didn’t have any space left for them at all. I had always held it together, but I finally just couldn’t anymore.

For years, I had hidden all the ugliest parts of myself. But they were finally starting to show. My family could finally start to see them.

The Cycle I Couldn’t Escape

I can’t tell you how many times I tried to quit before it finally stuck.

How many times I’d promise myself in the morning, filled with the regret of yet another hangover, that I wouldn’t drink that night. That I wasn’t going to drink anymore. But by the time evening came, and the stress and pressure of the day had mounted, another drink seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution. Any coping skills I’d had before (and there weren’t many,) were gone. The only way I knew how to cope with my life was to drink.

Things got horrible before they got better. But somehow, I finally realized that this really was the most important battle I was facing. I didn’t look like the homeless guy under the bridge, swigging liquor from a poorly concealed bottle wrapped in a paper bag. My life didn’t look like the ones in movies, where the main character loses their marriage and their home. But I was facing the exact same problem that those people do.

And realizing that was terrifying.

I’m on the other side of it now. I’m closing in on 4 years of sobriety. And while my life looks mostly the same on the outside, nearly everything is different.

The Moment It Changed

Eventually, the fear of staying the same became bigger than the fear of change. I got honest – with myself and others. I asked for help. I learned how to feel my feelings instead of drinking them away. I built a life where I no longer needed alcohol to survive it. And for the first time in a long time, I started to feel truly alive.

Sobriety didn’t fix everything overnight. It was the start of learning how to live all over again – from the inside out. But I wouldn’t trade this hard-earned peace for anything. I share this story because I know there’s another mom out there right now, pouring a glass of wine she doesn’t want, hating herself for it, and thinking she’s the only one.

You’re not.

And there’s so much more waiting for you on the other side.

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If you’re reading this and recognizing pieces of your own story… I want you to know something:

You’re not the only one who feels this way. You’re not the only mom who’s smiled through the pain, kept it all together on the outside, and quietly unraveled inside. And you don’t have to keep living like that.

Getting sober was the first step—but learning how to truly live without alcohol? That took time, support, and a whole lot of unlearning. It’s what I help women do every day now through coaching.

Coaching isn’t about fixing you. It’s about helping you come home to yourself.

If that sounds like something your heart’s been quietly craving, you can learn more about what it’s like to work with me here. I’d be honored to walk with you.

If you’re ready for more than just “being sober”…

…my weekly emails are a great place to start! Packed with insights, actionable tips, and some honest vulnerability, these emails are for women who put down the alcohol and are now asking, “What’s next?”—and want the answer to be something amazing.

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