Grief, Alcoholism & Building a Dating Empire with Nicky Wake l EP45

In this episode of The Midlife Awakening, I sit down with Nicky Wake — widow, recovering alcoholic, serial entrepreneur, and solo parent — for one of the most raw and powerful conversations we've had on the show.

In 2017, Nicky's husband Andy suffered a heart attack that left him with a catastrophic brain injury. For three years she lived in a devastating limbo, running a multi-million-pound events business and solo-parenting their son while grieving a husband who was still alive. When Andy passed away during COVID lockdown in 2020, the grief she'd suppressed came crashing down — and she became a highly functioning alcoholic, drinking up to three bottles of wine a day while never missing a day of work.

Nicky opens up about:

• Anticipatory grief and the "limbo" of loving someone who's gone but not gone
• Becoming a high-functioning alcoholic while running a successful business
• The rock-bottom moment that led her to choose rehab
• Rebuilding her life through sobriety and launching Chapter2Dating, Widow's Fire, and SoberLove
• Embracing her bisexuality after years of assumed heterosexuality
• Ethical non-monogamy and finding an unexpected second chapter of love
• Why community and peer support were essential to her healing

This is a conversation about grief, addiction recovery, midlife reinvention, and turning pain into purpose.

Connect with Nicky Wake:
Website: nickywake.com
Apps: chapter2dating.app | widowsfire.dating | soberlove.app
Community: thewidowedcollective.com

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Transcript

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (00:05)
Hi, Nikki. Welcome to the Midlife Awakening podcast. I'm so glad that you can join us today and I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Nicky Wake (00:12)
Great, thanks for having me, delighted to be here.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (00:15)
So before we get into the details of your story, how would you describe who you are today in a way that feels true for where you are right now?

Nicky Wake (00:25)
I would say that I am a widow, serial entrepreneur, a recovering alcoholic and a solo parent to an incredible human being who's about to leave me for university in September. So yeah, in fear of an empty nest. And I found my next chapter in the I'm dating again.

in what I hope and I believe to be my chapter two.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (00:58)
Now you describe yourself as someone who you've had your midlife awakening and that was through bereavement and addiction. So what is...

Nicky Wake (01:03)
Mm hmm. It is indeed.

it was a bit of a brutal midlife awakening. Not one I'd recommend, but yeah, thankfully, I do feel like I have awoken and I'm actually a much better fully rounded human being as a result of that experience. And I think, you know, there is, I think the one thing I've learned is that, you know, you can come through what feels like.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (01:11)
No.

Nicky Wake (01:30)
unsurmountable tragedy and find joy and hope and light at the end of that.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (01:36)
Yeah, and it can feel so hard and difficult when you're in it, but it's good to know that there is you know, you can come out on the other side and

Nicky Wake (01:44)
Yeah, don't lose hope.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (01:48)
So take us back to 2017 when your husband had his heart attack. What did life look like for you in the days and weeks after that?

Nicky Wake (01:57)
Yeah, no problem at all. 2017, I was living my best life. I was happily married to my soulmate. We'd been married for 15 years at that point. And we had a then 10 year old son, Finn. We had an event management business. We'd started together. We had the perfect little family and were busy on travels, exploring the world together and having a wondrous time.

You know, in April 2017, I was in Australia having the holiday of a lifetime with my husband and my son. Fast forward a few months and we were getting ready to go away for a July adventure to Europe where we'd hide a big house for the summer. And Andy started complaining about chest pains and he refused to go to the doctors as men do. And eventually I dragged him to the doctors kicking and screaming. Four more visits to the doctors.

and they had diagnosed that he was having a heart attack. He got rushed to hospital. He had some stents fitted into his heart and we took him home three days later and we were toasting a lucky escape. We went to bed that night and I went up but he was snoring. That's the one thing I don't miss. And so I went to the spare room, secret to any happy marriage as we all know. And at six o'clock in the morning I was woken by the most terrible sound and I went rushing in and Andy was...

suffering another heart attack, but much, worse than the one before. And I did CPR for 40 minutes and I still have PTSD from that experience. 40 minutes till the ambulance arrived. The ambulance arrived and I went downstairs. The ambulance crew took over and asked me to leave the room. And I left the room and I went downstairs and I downed a bottle of red wine in about 10 seconds. And I think that was from that point, alcohol was linked.

to me thinking I could survive and get through the day. And they rushed him to hospital. I saved his life, but they rushed him to hospital and put him in an induced coma for two weeks. And at the end of those two weeks, his consultant came to me and said, I'm really sorry, Mrs. They tried to bring him around from the coma. And they came to me and they said, Mrs. Wake, I'm sorry. Your story doesn't have a happy ending.

Andy had suffered a catastrophic brain injury. So he was alive, but he wasn't Andy. He'd suffered immense brain damage. He didn't know who he was, where he was, what he was. He was incontinent, he couldn't walk, he couldn't talk. Yet he was aggressive and angry and violent. And he had to be restrained to the bed at times. was barbaric. was like something out of One Fleur Over the Cooker's Nest kind of madness.

And I used to wake up incredulous that this was my life. Now he was never gonna be allowed home. He was so bad. He needed 24 seven round the clock, one on one care. And he was put into a very, very specialist nursing home for brain injuries. And so I began this awful phase of anticipatory grief so that I knew it was never gonna get better.

but I didn't know when he was gonna die. And it wasn't I got a choice to switch off a machine moment, you know, because he was technically alive and living. But I knew that Andy would have hated every second of where he was. know, he would have wanted to die rather than this. And so I'm thrown into this world, this limbo of not being a widow, but not being married.

And having to solo parent a then 10 year old child who I can't let see his daddy because it will be heartbreaking for him. I took a very difficult decision not to let Finn see his daddy. And run a business and employ 20 people and continue to turn over three million pounds a year to keep people in jobs while all of this is going on. And, and, you know, I used to wake up incredulous that this was my life and that this is what it become. was, it was the darkest.

the darkest of all periods. And had I not had Finn, I'd have ended it.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (06:20)
That sounds, it sounds horrific what you've been through. And how long was he, how long was Andy in that condition before he eventually passed?

Nicky Wake (06:23)
Mm.

So Andy was in that condition

for three years. And then in February, 2020, COVID hit the headlines. And I knew there was no way that he would survive COVID. You know, we'd had a lot of near misses with water infections and various other things. And sure enough, they closed the nursing homes down and we had a call to say, you can't come and see him. And then I got a call on the 17th of April, 2020 to say that he died.

I thought that was going to bring relief. You know, I genuinely thought I've done my grieving, you know, almost like I'd been on the guest list for grief, right? I'd done the hard work. And actually I hadn't completely and utterly hit me like a freight train. And it was right in the middle of COVID and I couldn't see my friends and family. It was just me and Finn, you know, in our own little world. And I remember that summer.

I just sat in a hot tub in the garden and drank red wine continually for the whole summer. Now everybody drank during COVID, everyone day drank, know? You know, there was those memes, wasn't there, of middle-aged women with red wine in a cup with like a herbal tea bag hanging out for pretending it was, was, was only that was me. And, and obviously after COVID, everybody stopped drinking in the day and went back to work. And I just continued to drink because it was the only way.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (07:42)
Hahaha.

Nicky Wake (07:55)
I could exist. By this point, I was a very highly functioning alcoholic. So I was drinking up my worst kind of three bottles of red wine a day and probably half a bottle of vodka. And yet I was never pissed. I never missed a day's work. never missed a day's school. No one had any idea. Everyone knew that Nikki liked to drink, right? My friends were always. And because I worked in the events industry, it was very acceptable. I'd have business lunches every day.

I ran big awards do's where the wine was flowing because you had to hit a minimum bar spend. It was very easy. I was flying business class. It was very easy to kind of hide because a lot of friends didn't want to see. Alcoholics are very good at hiding their problems and nobody wants to question an alcoholic.

And so for three years I was utterly miserable and my health was deteriorating and the guilt and the shame and the horror that I was going through. But I knew I had to try and find some hope and some joy again. I knew that I had to do something. So I started dating and I thought that finding love might help heal the pain. And I downloaded Tinder.

And at Tinder, it's like the Wild West. You know, it's full of dick pics and ghosting and married men. And I thought, God, this is awful. What I need, I need to date somebody who understands. You know, I need a widower, ideally one that looks like George Clooney, obviously. But, you know, that's what I need. So I thought, there must be a dating app for widows and widowers. And so I went out and I looked and there wasn't. And I'm an entrepreneur, you know, I guess.

I drive myself insane with the business ideas I have on a daily basis. And there wasn't, so I went out and I raised 60 grand in investment and I launched chapter2dating.app in September, 2022. It's a huge media success. So in the UK, I've been in every woman's magazine in the UK. I've been in every broadsheet, every tabloid. I was on the largest

TV morning show. mean, if you think Drew Barrymore in America, basically I was on that equivalent in the UK two weeks ago on the sofa talking about a phenomenon called Widow's Fire. Now Widow's Fire is an interesting thing. So that's our naughty sister app. And that app is something that happens when you're widowed, that you feel incredibly horny. So you're aching for physical comfort. It's a natural medical reaction. And this is a recognized phenomenon.

And I was conscious, I'd launched chapter two dating, which was going incredibly well. And I was trying to have functional relationships with men and failing dismally because I wasn't ready for a chapter two. What I was feeling was widows fire. So then I got the idea of starting a hookup app for widows and widowers somewhere safe. So somewhere that could behave like Tinder, but with other people who understood. And so widows fire is on Nautisister app. So that was quite fun.

And so all of that was going on, but no amount of business success would ease my pain. And I was still drinking terribly, and I was utterly miserable. And that's when I realized I needed to get help.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (11:21)
Yeah, because I was going to ask that I was going to say, because at one point you were even taking, when you were going to visit Andy in the hospital, you were taking vodka in coke bottles, right?

Nicky Wake (11:29)
Yeah, yeah, I spent

literally two years walking around with a bottle of Diet Coke in my hand. fact, you know, I drink a lot of Diet Coke and I've still got one to this day, but this one doesn't have any vodka in it. But yeah, you know, that was how I'd go to the office and and and have, you know, I'd have a red wine for breakfast. I would take a bottle of Diet Coke, which would be half filled with vodka. And yeah, I was you get very good at it. You know, had wine hidden all over the house, you know, and it was it, you know, it's frighteningly

Alcohol is the most dangerous drug. It's so easily and readily available. And, you know, it's so not a taboo. You know, in the UK, we have a pub chain called Weather Spoons where they do, you know, full English breakfast with a glass of a pint of beer, you know, from nine o'clock in the mornings. And it's just, it's embedded in society. And, and yet it was damaging my health so badly. You know, I was, I could barely

you know, I couldn't walk for more than five minutes without needing to sit down. You know, my I was shaking and yeah, I was I was in a terrible state and I tried to stop drinking a couple of times, one of which resulted in a hospital admission with a seizure. And and I knew I needed to get professional help. So on Finn's 17th birthday, the week of Finn's 17th birthday, I was in a very dark place and

And I decided I needed to go to rehab. so I said to Finn the day before his 17th, I'm going to go into rehab. And he said, that's the best birthday present you can give me, which broke my heart. And so I went into rehab and I did a 30 day stint in rehab. And it's the best decision I ever made.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (13:20)
I was going to ask you did he did he notice that what was going on?

Nicky Wake (13:23)
He

knew, yeah, he knew. I mean, we're incredibly close. I mean, we're actually even closer now, you know, we always had a great relationship. He was just very worried. I mean, he'd lost his dad and he could see that he was losing his mom before his eyes. And yet he never, he never shouted at me. never, you know, he knew that it'd been a, there's no excuse for being an alcoholic, but I think it's understandable.

in my case, from the hell that I've been through. And I don't think I would have been an alcoholic had that not happened, you know? And since I've got sober, I haven't touched drop in, well, we're now at 19 months, I think. So, yeah, you know, and I will never drink again. For me, it's, you know, I can't have one and I won't have one and I will never, I look back incredulous at quite how bad it was.

And yeah, something clicked for me in rehab. It doesn't work for everybody. And I don't do AA. I don't like any of that. I've done it my own way with hypnosis and meditation and various other things, but it works for me. And it was the best decision I ever made. And when I was in rehab, they handed me a leaflet that had the word sober sex on the front of it. And I thought, what's that then? Because I don't think I've ever had it.

And, and I realized from a horror that dating sober was going to be harder than dating as a widow. And dating as a sober widow was really hard. And so while I was in rehab, I thought, there must be a dating app for widows. There must be dating app for sober people. And there was in the UK, you've got a great one in the US called Lucid, but in the UK, there wasn't anything really credible. So I launched soberlove.app in March, 2025.

Um, and, uh, that's going really well. Um, we're currently, we're live in the UK and the U S with that. And it's only a dollar a month subscription. you know, it's thanks to nothing, just what we build the brand and, um, and yeah. Um, and life is, is it measureably better than it was? Um, and then in last July, I, um, I broke my own rules. So I always had a rule that I wouldn't use my own websites because it felt morally wrong charging.

people to take money off them to then cream off the best men for myself. And yeah, I got an approach on Widow's Fire. So I thought, well, that's okay. It's just casual, isn't it? It's important. a lovely, I mean, he's not quite George Clooney, but he's not far off, Silverhead Fox. And we had a very fiery Widow's Fire date. And then we had six more of those. And after six dates...

He looked at me and he said, I think this is a chapter two, actually. And I know. And so we're nine months in and I've been at his house, which is where I am now, all weekend. It's been his daughter's 16th birthday. Our families are blended now. So my son's just, we've just all been out for dinner. It's evening here. We've all just been out for dinner. My son's hanging out with his kids next weekend while me and Dan go to a festival for the weekend.

So Finn's babysitting them. So it all works beautifully and I've never, never been happier, I think. And arguably, in a sort of sliding doors moment, you know, I think I'm happier now than I was before Andy fell ill, if I'm brutally honest. And, you know, that's, that's a kind of tough one to say out loud and admit sometimes, but it is, I'm a different woman. You know, my experience redefined and shaped me.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (16:49)
That's amazing.

Nicky Wake (17:11)
It's made me build an incredible business turning pain into purpose. know, it's, it's, it's shown me that I can survive anything and come out the other side. and, and yeah, I wouldn't be the woman I am today had I not gone through it. So, and I think if you'd have told me that in the midst of that darkness and that grief and that black place, I wouldn't have believed that there was hope. and you know, I can look back on it now and think,

You know what, I'm glad. I'm glad I've experienced the life. wouldn't, obviously I would have Andy back in a heartbeat, but my life would be very different to what it is now. You know, I don't, I wouldn't be living where I am. My son probably wouldn't, my son's about to go off to university to do fashion in London. He might not have taken that course. You know, our lives would be very different. And sometimes, you know, you can't always think that they would have been better, you know? I'm a huge believer in fate and life.

throws up, what he throws up. And sometimes you question why it's happening to you, you know, why me? It was a question that rang through my ears for years. And now it feels like the pieces in the puzzle are coming together and I've been in really good place.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (18:29)
That's amazing and I'm so glad that you've come out on the other end and you've found love again and you've done the work to heal yourself because that is, know, must have been incredibly difficult to make that decision to say I've had enough. Yeah.

Nicky Wake (18:41)
Yeah, was. wasn't,

well, it kind of, if I hadn't, I wouldn't be here to tell the tale. You know, it got to that rock bottom. You know, I, yeah, I was, there was no other way than admitting I was an alcoholic and that it had taken control of my life. And I needed professional help to get me out of that situation. And, you know, for anyone who feels like they're in that, I tell you, if anyone had told me,

three years ago that I'd be happy saying I'd never drink again. I would never have believed you ever. And now the thought of alcohol is abhorrent. And if I can do it, I don't know if anyone can, because I was a very, very bad alcoholic.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (19:28)
And would you say that that sort of progressed from that first downing of the bottle when Andy had the heart attack? Did it slowly progress over the three years and then when he passed it intensified? Yeah.

Nicky Wake (19:32)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah, it did. Yeah. Yeah. So,

you know, initially, when Andy was ill and in the coma, yes, it was, you know, I was drinking a lot that those couple of weeks when I when I I found out that he was never getting better. Then I wasn't drinking in the mornings, but I drink at lunchtime. And then before you know it, you're drinking at breakfast and you're waking up in the night to have a drink because you sobered up and your body's screaming for alcohol. And so, yeah, it was a slow deterioration and decline. But, you know,

Within the space of three years, I was a raging alcoholic.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (20:11)
must be really difficult to the withdrawal symptoms and that is that what makes it even more difficult. It's the withdrawal symptoms here.

Nicky Wake (20:17)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And I've got to the point where you can't, if you are an alcoholic at that level, you can't stop drinking safely on your own because you will have a seizure and you will die. So, so, you know, that's, that's why I, I tried to stop on my own, had a seizure, ended up in a hospital and they did a sort of a detox on the NHS there, which is like, you know, they safely withdraw you from alcohol and then just release you without any kind of aftercare. And obviously on the way home from

from the hospital, went to the supermarket and bought alcohol. It needed 28 days of private medical care in a very swanky rehab center to make me see sense, but thankfully I had medical insurance. So that was fine, but yeah, I couldn't have done it on my own.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (21:06)
And it became your coping mechanism because, I mean, that was such an extreme, yeah, yeah, extreme events all of a sudden. It's not like, you know, I mean, his heart attack was within hours, days. Your life completely changed.

Nicky Wake (21:08)
Mm, it numb the pain.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, literally in a heartbeat is kind of how I describe it, you know, and your life can change in a heartbeat. And the other thing I think about being with Ode is it gives you a very different perspective on life. You know, I have a kind of seize it, seize the day moment, you know, attitude every day, never say no to an opportunity, know, book the fly, you know, eat the cake. It's like, it's just don't take this life for granted because

It can and it does change in a heartbeat. And, you know, I'm grateful for every day I have here in this world now. And for every second I have with my beautiful son that, you know, my poor husband missed out on. You know, I went last week and sat where we've got a bench where his ashes are scattered near the house where we used to overlooking the river, it's a beautiful spot. And I went and sat and talked to Andy. I don't believe, I'm not religious, I don't believe in God, but I talked to him.

And, you know, I was telling him how proud he'd be of this beautiful little boy. He's become an incredible man. And, you know, I'm sad. I can now, I can look back without raw pain and emotion now. can look back very fondly of the times me and Andy shared together and the beautiful memories we made and the fabulous little boy that we created.

And that's a different chapter in my life now. And I'm an entirely different woman, you know, through this kind of midlife period that I know you're talking about.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (22:55)
Absolutely, and I think that's so important is that these awakenings are there for a reason. There's lessons to be learned, there's growth that needs to happen. And unfortunately, sometimes it happens in a way that is shocking and extreme. But it forces us to wake up and to move towards our authentic self. Yeah.

Nicky Wake (23:00)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean,

I would never have chosen this path, but I can, I've certainly hit acceptance, you know, which is the final stage of grief. I've certainly hit acceptance and if anything, I'm now embracing the new deck I've been dealt and making the very best of it.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (23:40)
So why do you think it is that so many high functioning women who are alcoholics, why is it such a struggle to come to terms with the fact that they have a problem and to seek help?

Nicky Wake (23:50)
because it's the one thing you can't control. if you're highly functioning, you're usually somewhere on the spectrum. I'm used to running a business, being in control, making the decisions, calling the shots. I also think I grew up in a very booze.

laden culture, you know, it was, it was, it was in the UK, we had this kind of Luddite culture that you keep up with the boys and you drink as hard as they were. know, and I was, was in the boardroom with, with men and, and, and behaving, you know, along those kinds of habits. Yeah, I, I just think alcohol is incredibly dangerous of all the drugs there are. I think it, it destroys more lives and it doesn't just destroy the lives of the person.

who has the addiction, it's those poor people around them. And it's, you know, it's still advertised on the TV, you know, it's, it's on the Christmas, it's on the end of every aisle at every supermarket, you know, I, I used to buy myself a wine advent calendar, so could start each day with wine. I mean, what is that about? You know, that's, but, but, you know, alcohol,

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (24:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, socially acceptable, yeah.

Nicky Wake (25:06)
runs through everything and it's an incredibly dangerous substance I think.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (25:11)
and we've made it socially acceptable. We've made it a part of our celebrations, our lives.

Nicky Wake (25:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Although it's

nice to see with fitness generation that there seems much less drinking isn't part of their culture. So that's refreshing that I see younger people who aren't, on his 18th birthday, it was my one year anniversary of being sober. And ironically, I took him out and bought him a drink, but I didn't have one. But that was probably the first.

alcohol he'd ever have. I think my aversion therapy course worked quite well on him to be honest. But yeah, that's probably put him off for life. But yeah.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (25:58)
now alongside your sobriety, you came to fully embrace your bisexuality. Yes?

Nicky Wake (26:00)
Thank

Yes, yeah, indeed. Yeah,

I mean, I've always been bisexual. I lived as a lesbian for four years before I met my husband. I one of my very first jobs was as a naked podium dancer in a very famous nightclub called the Hacienda in Manchester in the UK on their gay night called Flesh. And then I used to run a gay nightclub for a few years. And I was living with a lady called Sarah for a while.

And then a lady called Claudia had Portuguese girlfriend for a while. And I was very happily identifying and living as a lesbian at that point. And then I fell for a DJ at the nightclub who was a man. And I then wrestled with my sexuality for a bit and was bisexual and was fairly comfortable with bisexuality at that point. When I went handy, I was very open about it.

And I always say that actually I fall for people, not for genitals. You know, I couldn't have a good time with anything. It's not that it's about, it's about the person. And Andy happened to be a man. You know, I did, it wasn't like I'd made a conscious decision to marry a man and have what would be seen as a conventional, normal, you know, heterosexual relationship. It just happened to be a man. You know, it could have happened to be a woman. We made a difference. But when Andy died, I saw that as an opportunity to explore my

bisexual side. And me and my partner, Dan, who is a man, we practice ethical non monogamy. you know, and I think, again, that's come from, from being widowed. He's a widower, obviously, I met him on my app. And, and we both have a like, let's live for the moment testitude. And, and, and therefore, it was, he knew very much that I was embracing my bisexuality as a widow.

And as most straight men are, he was quite keen to encourage that. You know, I mean, that's just a typical bloke thing, isn't it? And so we were very open from the beginning that we wanted both to practice ethical non-monogamy. And that works very well for us. Doesn't work for everybody, but certainly works for me. And I think as a widow, you just think, yeah, absolutely, save every moment. I I used to joke to Andy that I would give him a threesome for his 60th. Well, he never...

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (28:07)
Yeah.

Nicky Wake (28:28)
He never got to 60, did he? So he never got to see that. it's like, and that sort of experience makes you very, very liberated, I think, in your approach to life later, you know?

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (28:38)
I love that.

I love that. so you were you had identified as bisexual before you got married. Did you have to did people always assume that you were heterosexual because you were in this marriage? Yeah.

Nicky Wake (28:50)
Yeah, yeah, the minute you get married. Yeah, the minute

that was it. was there. It was almost that I remember my dad thinking, thank God she's grown out of that phase. You know, it's like that kind of thing. And then obviously now, you know, I'm like to my dad, have you met my, you know, this is my latest girlfriend. And he's like, well, you're with Dan. I'm like, yeah, but that's fine these days. It's It's how it works. And my son's gay and he loves the fact that, you know, his mom's got this wild, crazy, gay past. So, yeah.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (28:57)
you

Nicky Wake (29:17)
And, you know, when I take him to pride, you know, I'm a very proud bee in the LGBTQ community. and, yeah, it's about, I think, you know, anyone can love anyone, can't they? You know?

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (29:33)
And that's what it comes down to at the end of the day. It's about love, isn't it? Yeah. Not about judgment, not about this or that. It's just love. And we should be expressing it more towards each other, regardless of gender or anything else, really. I think the world would be a better place if we all embrace that, definitely. Yeah. So you've built this entire ecosystem of communities, widows, sober daters, for people rethinking alcohol. Where does the drive to build

Nicky Wake (29:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It is.

Yeah.

exactly.

It definitely would, yeah. The world needs more love.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (30:02)
these come from.

Nicky Wake (30:04)
For me, it's about solving problems and it's about bringing people together as a community. I'm a huge social creature and I know that the one thing that got me through being widowed was the widowed community and the peer-to-peer support that happened within that. I so much so I've launched a community not-for-profit called the Widow Collective, which is, I recognise that I was dealing with widows but only when they were ready to date and actually I wanted to be able to help all widows.

In the UK we have a charity called Widowed and Young that helps people who are widowed under the age of 51. And I was, and I found great solace and help in their services. And I realized now I'm 55, I wouldn't have been able to access that. And I don't think I'd be quite in as good a place as I am now. So I launched the Widow Collective, a not-for-profit with eight other widows and widowers that I know as a board to help give back to the widowed community.

wherever we can. Yeah, I'm a huge believer in the power of community. And I take great joy in in bringing people together. mean, chapter two, we've had five marriages and we've even had a chapter two baby. I thought we were all beyond baby making, but some of our youngest members got together and made a baby, which is lovely. I know they didn't even invite me to Christmas. But, you know, so, so, yeah, I love, I love, I love making stuff, creating stuff.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (31:20)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Nicky Wake (31:30)
I drive myself mad with ideas. You know, I've got five other

business ideas I want to do, you know, time is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (31:35)
That's an entrepreneur for you. You're a true-blooded entrepreneur at the end of the day. And

I think people underestimate the power of community. I think it's really important. And we forget that we're actually cultural beings. We need community. We need support. So it's great. The more communities we can create, the better, I think, because we've moved too far away from community. And I think we need to start coming back, definitely coming back to community.

Nicky Wake (31:44)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (32:03)
So for anyone who right now is quietly unraveling and maybe going through the same, you know, going through the same difficult time that you went through, what would you want that person to hear?

Nicky Wake (32:15)
to know that this will pass. You know, as a mantra, this will pass and you will find a way to navigate your way through something. But be gentle on yourself, you know. Don't have to solve everything overnight. Don't drink would be my other piece of advice. You know, you can't drown grief or sorrow with red wine. Believe me, I tried and it doesn't work. You may think it's, you know,

It's going to numb the pain, but it's a depressant, not an antidepressant. And to seek professional help. You know, I've spent a fortune on, on counseling and therapy and rehab, and it has been the best investment in me and my life I could have made. I'm a huge believer that you can't solve big problems on your own. You know, you do need professional help for that. And there's no, no shame in seeking help.

or asking for help.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (33:16)
I was going to ask you, was going to say the drinking was probably your way of avoiding the grief and avoiding, yeah.

Nicky Wake (33:23)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

The one thing rehab taught me was to sit with my feelings and to not hide from them. know, it is okay to feel absolutely devastated. That's why. And allow yourself the time to do that and the space to do that. And you have to do that to get through, you know, grief. As widows, we don't move on, but we do move forward.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (33:32)
And sometimes that can feel, yeah.

And sometimes it can feel so overwhelming, I think. Those feelings can feel so overwhelming. But I mean, you are showing that you're a testament that facing the grief head on, it's worth it at the end. Yeah, absolutely.

Nicky Wake (33:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, it is. And you have to go

through that to find the other side. But there is another side. It might not feel like there is, but there is. And, know, a really good analogy that the counselor gave me was that at the beginning, grief is a huge rock on your back. And by the end, it's a pebble in your pocket. It'll always be there. Yeah. You will always feel it. And, you know, it's fundamentally changed the woman I am, that loss. But I can now live with it.

even happily live with it as part of my life and accept that that is something I will carry forever. But I wouldn't be who I am doing what I'm doing today had that not happened.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (34:49)
said. thank you. So one more last one more question and I'll ask this to all my guests. If you could tell your younger self one thing what would that be?

Nicky Wake (34:59)
It's going to be okay.

Yeah, it's going to be okay.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (35:07)
big hub.

Nicky Wake (35:08)
Yeah.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (35:10)
So if people wanna find your apps or find you, where can they go?

Nicky Wake (35:13)
Yeah, I mean,

I'm all over the internet. If you just Google Nicky Wake, N-I-C-K-Y-W-A-K-E, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Insta, I'm on Substack. You can also find me at nickywake.com and then the actual apps are chapter2dating.app, widowisfire.dating, soberlove.app, and if you're after our community site, it's the widowcollective.com.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (35:42)
Thank you so much, Nikki, for coming on today and for sharing your story. Thank you.

Nicky Wake (35:43)
My pleasure. Thanks. Have a nice day.