A Sober Mom's Journey with Kimberly Kearns: "The Weekend Sober" Podcast Host and Successful Author

Explore the world of alcohol-free travel with host Kat Lyons in the Sober Travel podcast.  In this enlightening episode, guest Kimberly Kearns featured on The Today Show, in The Boston Globe, and many more news platforms and podcasts, is a four-year sober mom, wife, author, and 'Weekend Sober' podcast host, shares her experiences and tips for navigating the world alcohol-free. Discover how to tackle travel anxiety without alcohol, make lasting memories with your family, and the importance of self-care strategies. Kim dives deep into her personal sober journey, highlighting the transition from drinking during the pandemic to founding 'Sober in the Suburbs', a support group in Boston aimed at fostering community and sobriety in everyday life. Gain insights into how sobriety transforms parenting, the way we form relationships and the pursuit of hobbies and passions like traveling to Walt Disney World without the influence of alcohol. Additionally, Kim Kearns talks about her very successful book, 'On the Edge of Shattered.' Tune in to 'Sober Traveling' for an inspiring discussion on living alcohol-free, sober parenting tips, overcoming mommy wine culture, and the joy of sober adventures worldwide at places like Walt Disney World!

See everything awesome Kim is doing at:
kimberlykearns.com and soberinthesuburbs.com
Her Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kimkearns?r=cafum&utm_medium=ios

If you like this podcast, please subscribe and give us a 5-star review on Apple Podcast. If you would like to live and travel alcohol-free, head over to Kat Lyons Official so Kat and her team can help you with the perfect sober vacation for you and your family. Here you can also learn more about alcohol-free group trips and alcohol-free meetups! 

Contact and Follow Kat at Sober Travel:
Email: sobertravelkat@gmail.com
Instagram and TikTok: @sobertravel_ (Remember the underscore at the end)
Website: www.katlyonsofficial.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sobertraveling/

Transcript

  📍  

 Hello, and welcome to sober traveling the podcast where we trade hangovers for high fives and explore the world one alcohol-free adventure at a time. I'm your host count lions. Whether you're sober, curious, or have long-term sobriety get ready as we travel across the globe with clear minds and big dreams. I'm super stoked because I have Kimberly here with me today and she has a whole bunch of things going on in sobriety and recovery. She has this whole  mommy kind of suburban podcast. She's got all kinds of stuff going on as she does groups.

 So I'm going to let her introduce herself fully and go over what she does  

great. Thank you so much, Kathleen, for having me on here. This is really cool and really unique for me. Yeah, I do a podcast. It's called the weekend sober. And I. am almost three years sober coming up.

And when this airs, I will be three years. So we're actually, I wrote a book last year. It's called on the edge of shattered. And um, after that book came out organically, I ended up starting a support group for people outside of Boston. I live in Neda, Massachusetts, and it's called sober in the suburbs.

And it's basically a sobriety social club.  So yeah, I do my podcast and I'm at my heart. I am a writer. That is what I believe I am an author. I'm a writer, but I have so many passions and really I do help. I love helping others with telling my story. So that's what I'm doing right now with my sobriety.

And at the end of the day, I am a mom as well. I'm a mom, I'm a wife. I have three beautiful kids, a wonderful husband and yeah, I keep busy by doing all the things. So thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat.  

Absolutely. I felt like you and I have so many overlaps. I'm also a mom and a wife and living in suburban, 

 yeah,  I know. Even though we're on like opposite sides of the country   we are tied by this thing called sobriety, right? And that is what I've found to be so incredible in the past three years on my journey is that I've met so many cool people through this experience and so many, Genuine and authentic, lovely people like yourself.

This is great.  

 It is the unifier, right? It is like common denominator and it's neat. I'm an AA and alcoholics anonymous, and, I go to mostly women's meetings and people will walk in all different walks of life. Some are moms, some are like young, some are grandparents, great grandparents.

And it's really neat because we all have this.  Addiction in common, which I mean, eat is a loose word, but we all did something about it like that's the thing that I think unites us is that we saw we had a problem. And now we're doing something about it. And now we were chatting a little bit before the recording.

So you, what's  your sober story. You mentioned that  you're not in a 

Yeah, so I stopped drinking during the pandemic. So November 28th is my date 2020. So I did not go to AA partly because I  felt there was nothing in person, so I needed to find online support.

And so when I stopped drinking, a friend told me about this thing called the luckiest club, which was started by a woman in Massachusetts, Laura McCowan, who wrote we are the luckiest. And so she lives. A few towns away from me and I felt connected to that idea of somebody close by  starting a group and it was an online group had just started in COVID.

So I liked that idea. I also liked that it was it didn't push any kind of sober mission. So you could be AA, you could be in AA, you could be in she recovers, you could be any type in any type of recovery.  So I went to those meetings early on and kept my camera off for many months because I was terrified.

And yeah, I never went to AA and I never wanted to call myself an alcoholic actually. I, I did, I never really identified with it. I felt like as soon as I stopped drinking, I felt free. And, um, Had  this weight was lifted. And so by constantly having to call myself an alcoholic, I felt like that would be punitive and would be holding me back.

So instead I really wanted to focus on my future and not having to go to meetings and say that. And I actually never really went after I went to the luckiest club online meetings for a while. I stopped. I never really went to meetings after three or four months. I actually did therapy. One on one therapy  and I really felt like I worked on my recovery through writing and journaling.

So I, I actually wrote my book within the first year of my sobriety, which people think is bananas. Yeah. 

Process though. It's bananas if it's a coping strategy. Yeah. 

 I started drinking that when I was like 14. So I, typical  girl in Connecticut, partied in high school, and then went to college in rural Maine, small liberal arts college, Colby College met my husband there, and, we got married young.

For me, I was 25, he was 27. By the time I was 30, I had three kids. So we went to, the small liberal arts college. It was a work hard, party hard lifestyle. We maintain or I maintained that throughout my twenties and thirties. I went to grad school. He went to law school and he learned to dial it back and not go as hard, but I never did.

I always was. the drunkest one. I was always the one blacking out and he was always picking me up off the floor and putting me to bed. And even  after our kids were born, I was still, living that lifestyle of living for the weekends. And I wasn't an everyday drinker, but By the time I stopped drinking, I was, and the pandemic rolled around, and that was really tough on us, tough on me and I never had a rock bottom, I never had a huge moment that happened that, made me, I didn't have a DUI, I wasn't arrested, like some people have those moments that make them stop, I just really, I woke up one day, and I'd had enough, I  had, that crippling, we call it anxiety.

And I, at 5am, I actually didn't remember putting my kids to bed. My kids were six, eight and nine at the time.  Daughter, six year old daughter, eight and nine year old boys.  And I just looked at my husband, woke my husband up and I asked him to help me stop drinking.  So at that point, yeah,  he and I didn't know anybody that didn't drink.

And we both were just navigating this path that was completely unknown.  So I was a creative writing minor in college. I was always loved to write, but I hadn't done it for years. And I had all this creative energy that was just stifled, but it came pouring out of me. It was like the floodgates opened and that was how I processed.

And that was how I moved through those early months with the help of therapy. And yeah, my husband was the only one that read a lot of my writing at first. And then eventually other people started reading my blog and  it was pretty incredible.  So 

that's awesome and validating, when people are enjoying reading it and probably relating to it as well.

And. I, what I love about this whole expert interview series is that it's for everybody. It's for anybody, whether they're sober curious, or they're in a, or they're in another program, or they're in a religious program, or maybe they're pregnant and they're trying to  not drink while they're pregnant.

 It could be anything. And so it's neat that there's all these different paths to the same result, which is sobriety.  When you are traveling, do you have any tips or strategies that help you when you're just planning out your sober travel?  

Yeah, in terms of planning out the actual trip  I always bring plenty of books and I always bring exercise clothes and sneakers.

I always plan to exercise whether it's walking or doing little videos on my phone. If there isn't a gym at the resort.  I think that's really important to have that sort of release. Whether it's early in the day or, at some point, especially if I have my kids with me exercises, it's, it keeps me grounded and I would say that is key.

Yeah. And re I, I love to read. So I think having plenty of books on my travels I'm a go with the flow kind of person. I don't like to have things seriously planned out. Although we did go to, so we went to Israel actually. My husband played he plays hockey and he played in the Maccabi games in Israel.

Last summer, yeah, not this past summer, but the summer before. And we did have an itinerary for that and that did ease my anxiety. That did help.  Because that was obviously a country that you need to know where you're going and you need to have guides and that stressed me out a little bit.

So we did have Things planned. But if I'm going to a tropical vacation I just like to know that I have a lot of downtime, and I don't want to plan. I just like to go in, flying by the seat of my pants, and just, that's the way I am. 

Yeah. And it's interesting because we used to spend a lot of the time at the pool bar.

And so I love that you mentioned bringing books and exercise equipment and things like that. Exercise equipment could also just be like short shorts that you can go run on the beach in. Oh, yeah. It doesn't.  

Oh, yeah. By equipment, I mean like a sports bra and leggings. That's. I don't have equipment.

Like I don't actually bring equipment. So that's all like close exercise. Yeah. 

Disappropriate tire. Yeah, for sure. But I like that you're pointing out we love downtime, but we also need an option of something to do. And that could just be reading a book, because that's all I used to do was just get drunk in the pool. 

So I, yeah, I would nurse my hangover with  coffee or whatever at the pool. Sometimes with a cocktail, and then get drunk at lunch, and then get drunk through the day. That was awful, and I'd ignore my children and yell at them.  What I have actually done we did Disney this past year.

And I can't imagine doing Disney hungover and drunk, by the way. But I, we didn't really have a huge plan. We had, an idea of what parks we would go to, but oh my God,  I was so active every day because you have to be, my kids are now 9, 11, and 12. And oh my God, every day.  just walking around and going I think it depends on honestly, how old you, if you have kids, how old your kids are where you are.

If I'm at a beach resort, with kids, it's, you do have to have plans with your children.  If you're at Disney, you're going to be at, you're going to be walking around, you're going to be active. You have no choice in the matter. 

Yeah, 

it really was. It was insane.  So I'm going to Mexico in January for a wellness retreat with my Sober in the Suburbs group and obviously not bringing my children and there will, so it's going to be at a boutique resort with other people there that will be drinking.

We will obviously be a nice little group of sober people, but we have some things planned, but there's going to be a lot of downtime I will have, tools in my toolbox for things to do if I'm feeling that antsy ugh, I don't want to be around these boozy people at the pool, go back to my room and read or go for a walk on the beach having your ear pods to listen to music and or podcasts just tune all that noise out, I think is really important or having a book on audible To tune out the noise, so yeah, 

absolutely. It's so funny that you bring up Disney.

I'm a big Disney nerd, right? I lived in San Diego. We had season passes to Disneyland. I'm assuming you went to Disney world. Yeah,  I was just there.  I went in August, which don't do that, guys.  The only  reason we went in August is because my husband's a teacher and  it was the only time  anyways.

But it was great because there was, so much to do that you didn't need to be drunk for. And it was so neat because you're going to these parks and like animal kingdom and you're seeing all these animals and you're seeing the castle and like super present. And I don't know about you, but I almost get the same level of endorphins and dopamine that I would get when I was drinking.

Yes. On those rides. So excited. 

Yeah, exactly. And I was like a little kid. I was like, let's go on it again. Let's do it again.  I love roller coasters and I don't love, I would say maybe six flags might be a little too much, but Disney roller coasters are the perfect amount of thrill for me.  They're just the amount of like up and down.

Yeah. They're so fun. 

And your kids are so happy there, too. So it's Oh, this is so great. And that being said one night we were at Epcot and there was people who were drinking around the world. Oh yes. Oh, I know. I know exactly what you're talking about.  It was like, what? We went on the frozen ride.

No, the frozen ride. Keep this in mind. This man behind me was so drunk that he almost fell on top of me. He like fell on my shoulder and he smelled awful and I'm pretty sure he went from the ride to puking in a trash can. 

This is so funny. We were, so we would go around Epcot at night because our hotel was right next to it.

And we had park hopper passes, so we'd go into there. Were you in Boardwalk or Beach Club? Beach Club. Oh 

my gosh, 

that's the best pool! It is! The sand in the bottom. Yes! Yes. Oh good. It is so good.  I was just saying we need to go back there. Like it is so fun. Yes. Oh my God.

So let me just say that  in the morning we would do the parks and then when it got super hot, we would go and hang out at the pool cause the pool's so amazing. Then go back to Epcot at night. Because we were right there and it was such a great little walk, but we went on this guardians of the galaxy ride.

And what they do at Disney is they, you go in, and they have a little video, and they make you wait in one room, and then they move you into another room, and you watch another little video. So it doesn't make you feel like you're waiting in a long line, which is genius on Disney's. They're really smart the way they do it.

While we were waiting in the room watching one of the videos, It was like a swarm of drunk people and they're all falling on top of each other and there's no lines in there It's just a mass of people and you're supposed to stand and wait. It was such a drunken scene and they were very young So they were like early 20s  and my kids were like, oh my god They're so drunk and the fact they knew this and could smell it and oh but yeah, so I was like Evenings at Epcot are a little rowdy.

FYI,  remember, future reference. 

Yeah, travel tip, avoid Epcot after five.  Like four?  Yeah, it's a whole thing. And I will say that comparing it to Disneyland, where until a few months ago, they just changed it. Walt had made, Walt Disney had made this huge thing about there not being any alcohol in Disneyland.

And he wanted only to have alcohol at the hotel so that parents would be present.  Isn't 

that fascinating? 

I was like, this man is a genius on so many levels. 

But then was he missing out on so much revenue? Then he, 

I think he did pretty good. 

And he had alcohol up in his private place. If somebody, cause he had an apartment there, so if people wanted to go up there and drink, they could, but the park guests,  he was very adamant that he wanted parents playing with kids. And that's why the rides were so big and so that everyone can fit.

And it's man, this guy knew what he was doing. And then. He passed before Walt Disney World was created, and his brother built that, and 

Oh, his brother built it. That makes sense. That's why there's so much booze at Hollywood Studios, or MGM, whatever they call it now. The one with the Tower of Terror.

What's that called now? Hollywood Studios. 

Yeah. 

. I 

do remember going there years ago, and I was so happy they served booze there. I was like, look at this. I was like, double 

fisting. It's interesting how that shifts, but now going sober, I love, Animal Kingdom is my favorite park, which is really funny because people are like, what?

And it's not. Focused on alcohol. It's focused on conservation and animals. And that's why I love it so much.  So as we're traveling, we get to see our past selves, by the way, in line.  

Yeah yes. It is that is a really good point. We get to see our, so I see my past self in general when I'm traveling.

This is a good, oh, this is a good blog post. Seeing my past self at the airport bar. That is where I see my past self. The first time I flew, I saw my past self at the bar with a mimosa, with her girlfriends, and I felt a huge moment of jealousy, right?  But what I always do, this is a good tip if somebody is newly sober You got to play that tape forward.

And that is what I did in that moment. And I was, three months sober at the time. And I saw these women, cause I used to go on a girl's trip every year to Florida and I would come home  nearly on my deathbed because I would drink so much. And I actually write about this in my book. I came home once.

With a black eye from that trip, I fell out of an Uber and hit my face on the pavement. So I had to come home to my husband and children with a black eye. So I see these women at the airport bar with their mimosas and I'm like,  Okay, one turns into two turns into three because I could never have just one.

And then you get off the airplane and you're feeling hungover, right?  And then you're starting your trip off with a hangover. And then you're probably coming home with a black eye, Kim, because that's what you do.  

Yes. I used to make jokes about I think you get abducted by aliens at night because they wake up with all these random bruises.

I don't know how it happened. 

Me too. I had so many bruises, so many awful. Yeah. Yeah, that's always my tip to newly sober people is play that tape forward, especially in the airport. Because those airport, those 24 hour bars where people feel like, Oh, just because we're in an airport, we can drink.

Yeah. 

It's a culture, right? It's okay because, Oh, I'm jet lagged. No, I'm not. But I'm like, Oh, I 

have a one hour layover. Let's get drunk. Or it's like, what? 

No. I love the playing the tape out. I tell Sponsies to do that a lot where it's okay this is the first scene. The first scene is you getting drunk.

What does the climax look like? Yes. What does the ending look like? And it's we all know what it looks like. 

What does the next day look like? 

Yeah. All of the disappointment of the next day as well. So that's a really good technique for sure. For sure.

 Since you're mentioning the wonderful technique of bringing books and things like that with you on your traveling adventures. Let's go back to your book a little bit. , can you tell me a little bit more?  

It was incredible. I never planned on turning it into a book. The book itself is an exploration of my sobriety, but I also go back through my childhood and write about the things that made like the reason why I drank in the first place because we all know our reasons why we want to stop. And for me, obviously it's my children, my husband, I wanted to be a better mom, a better wife.

I wanted to stop feeling  awful every morning. But then through, early recovery, I realized, oh, there's reasons why I drank. Why was I numbing? Oh, that's a whole new layer. And that was. That's what my book was about.  

Yeah. Alcohol is actually the solution, quote unquote, to my problems, right?

It wasn't a problem. It was my solution to avoid my family, to avoid stress, to avoid and basically,  go into your own little selfish. world. Yeah. Remove the alcohol. And there's just you and all your problems. 

Yeah. All of a sudden you're like, Oh, I have to deal with this stuff now. Now I have emotions.

I have to deal with it in face and promise from my past. I have to stop ignoring. And that's really what it was. And allowing myself to sit with all of that and. Look at my childhood and college and traumas that things that happened to me.  I've been able to connect with so many women across the world now who have said,  I've had similar experiences.

I've never been able to face them. And now you've given me the courage to do this. And it's, that  has been so rewarding. And ultimately why I wanted to publish my book was because I felt so alone. In the beginning of sobriety I felt like I was the only one dealing with all of this. I was the only one that had these things happen to me, and I was the only one that was walking this path.

I searched high and low for stories like mine, and I read all the Quitlet, and I wanted others to feel that they were not alone, just because I found comfort in reading other stories, 

and I love that with your book. It's the on the edge of shattered a mother's experience and finding freedom through sobriety.

So can you talk a little bit more about just being a mom and getting sober. 

Yeah,  it is the story from my perspective as a mother and I go through the first hundred, or really it's the first year, but I focus a lot on the first hundred and fifty days probably, and I'm a stay at home mom, and so I was in the thick of dealing with homeschooling kids during COVID and  three young children.

 I talk specifically about how  I spoke to my kids about my sobriety and how I dealt with the shame of my past and how that haunted me at, in those early days because that was really tough. That was really hard. I felt that I'd really hurt my children with the mistakes I'd made. I, There, I won't give it away, but there are a lot of examples in the book where I had done not, nothing that,  not like driving drunk, but just stupid things like falling down in front of my children.

And they were starting to become aware of my behavior and my drinking. And that brought a lot of shame to the surface and disappointment in myself.  So I talked to them about my mistakes in the past and how my sobriety is so important to me and how I've changed as a mother and learned.

And I think that it shows them that we can make mistakes and grow from them. Yeah. 

It's very brave to talk about that stuff too, just as a mom from I'm a mom to a mom, like it's an emotional thing. I remember when my oldest kiddo was like,  why do you always drink your juice? 

Cause it was mommy's special juice. That was what I called it, which. Oh yeah, we all did. Yeah. But it was just like, why do you always drink your juice and then talk funny, and it's like all of these little moments, there was lots of other things that happened to it was just the memory that popped into my head.

There is a lot of shame and guilt around that, like mom guilt. Now I feel like sometimes I even overcompensate because I'm like, Oh, I did so poorly in the beginning, yeah.  Yeah. 

Yes. I did the same thing. I do the same thing. And I had to find that balance because so in the first couple of years I was doing that.

I was feel like I felt like I had to overextend and overcompensate because I was. So absent for so long and not necessarily physically absent, just mentally checked out like for four o'clock on. And my daughter who is now nine, she was little when I stopped, she was six.

She has very vivid memories about me always having a glass of wine while putting her to bed. And so she. remembers. But what I love is the fact that she and I can talk so vulnerably and openly about the fact that's not me anymore. And I stopped because I didn't like who I was becoming and how I acted and the mom I was.

She is very proud of everything I've done. And she tells her friends and her teachers, my mom's sober and my mom has a podcast and my mom wrote a book about being sober and 

I love it. 

Yeah, so it's,  for me, my sobriety is a badge of honor and I do not, feel ashamed whatsoever.

And so I'm really, why I do what I do is trying to change the stigma and show my kids that, yeah, being vulnerable and making mistakes is, it's part of life and being vulnerable is actually a good thing. And yeah.  

Yeah. That's when we learn, when we're vulnerable and we're like actually admitting Oh, maybe I should do something.

My son about a month ago,  something, I think he's in health class. He's 15. And they must be talking about alcohol and drugs because now we're having all these conversations about drugs. And which is really funny. Cause I used to teach health.  Oh, that's a whole like.  Other thing. Full circle. Yeah, but he came home and he was just like, Mom,  you don't drink ever. I'm not going to drink ever either because it does really bad stuff to you. Did you know? And then he  listed all the things that happened. He's so I don't know why anyone would drink. I'm not going to drink ever. And I'm like you.

 On the one hand, I was like, okay, you don't have to do it that way once you're an adult,  so I think that those little impacts that we're making with them, even if, like just how proud your kid is that you have this podcast and that you're sober and then it looks different when they get older and they actually get to the point, hopefully not a 15 like me, but later that they'll have that awareness of, okay, I can participate or not.

It's not, you don't have to do it. When I went to college, I felt like I had to do it. And then being a mom, there's this whole mommy wine culture that you talk about. Can you talk about that? This, the normalization of it

yeah,  it, so I, exactly. And the mommy wine culture is this whole  thing that for us, it's so frustrating because It's, it was a part of my life when I was in Boston, I would go to these playdates and all the moms would bring their bottle of wine.

We would put them under the stroller. I lived in the South end and like I said, I had three kids under the age of four. So my boys are 17 months apart. And I got pregnant when my oldest was nine or, yeah, nine months. And so I lived in the city with these two little babies in the double stroller.

And I found comfort in going to these play dates. My husband worked very long hours in the he worked at a big law firm. And these women would invite me over.  And I knew there would always be wine there. It was a distraction to these monotonous,  Exhausting long afternoons with these two little babies,  and also friendships that would, provide me entertainment when my husband was working these long hours.

But for some reason,  I gravitated towards people that offered the playdates with the booze. People that offered playdates and didn't necessarily offer me a glass of wine, I never, I usually didn't go back to those.  I liked that the party scene. That was who I was. I always gravitated towards that kind of person.

And I think that those people that serve the wine, because I accept, greedily accepted that wine at three o'clock we all condoned it. We all never saw a problem with it, because It was that whole mentality of, Oh, we're all doing it. Everyone's doing it. So this it's gotta be okay. We would see these memes on Instagram and, the tea towels and home goods, and, with the mommy wine time and the little onesies.

And I feel like I had kids. I, my babies were born right in the thick of this mommy wine culture. And  unfortunately I. really fell victim to it. I found comfort in it and it validated my behavior and I was primed for it. It just unfortunately  sunk its claws right into me. Yeah, 

It makes it okay, right?

So if we have that kind of addiction mentality, we're looking for people to normalize that behavior, right? So that we can feel like There's nothing wrong with me. I'm just like the other moms, right?  Because I can't tell you how many times I did the same thing. It was like I need to find my girls who are going to drink like me, or otherwise they're going to think I'm weird.

And I don't need to deal with that. So how has that changed now? What are your relationships like now that you're sober and you get to do you talk about doing groups and all this, how has your relationship with other women and moms changed? 

Yeah. It's definitely evolved in the people I associate with are obviously quite different.

But, we didn't stay in the city once we had our third, we moved out to the suburbs and we are 20 minutes outside Boston. But, I didn't stop drinking till three years ago. And so even in the suburbs, It is,  there's a lot of drinking, obviously. I still found my people who drank and we,  the kids,  soccer games, the football games, the baseball games,  parents still bring coolers full of booze to those.

Events on the weekends and even practices, they would bring, coolers. And I remember when we first moved to the suburbs, it was Halloween and that was like such a booze fest. Everybody was walking around with their drinks and I was like, this is awesome. The suburbs is there. This is so fun.

Everyone gets drunk on Halloween.  I think that what's been really hard is. finding people that don't drink around here because the majority of people do.  Which is partly why I started the social clubs over in the suburbs because my entire group of friends that they all drank and they were yeah, just just similar to my social style.

And  after I wrote my book, I had all sorts of people coming to me wanting to go for walks and coffee.  Then I started to meet people that were like me and I said, okay, so there are people out here that don't, and  I need to start to connect them and show people that. Life can still be awesome and fun.

Just because we stopped drinking doesn't mean life ends. Which is often what people think. And what kept me stuck drinking for so long was that belief that, I'm not going to have fun and I can't enjoy myself, which will segue into traveling, because I know we need to talk about that.

But yeah, that's what,  that fear of not enjoying myself was, crippling and kept me terrified. And also that fear of what would people think of me if I stopped drinking, which is ironic because I was like  blacked out, falling down on my face. And I was concerned what people would think if I didn't drink, but I was like the biggest hot mess in  the entire room yet.

 Yes, absolutely. 

Yeah. 

It's just, it's a new, you're making new connections with your new life, right?

And I think too,  in my experience, now I'm so much more present. So much more present, like actually sitting with my kids and living life. And then we do get to travel and go on vacations and things like that. Because for me, when I got sober, I turned a lot to nature and doing outdoor activities.

I lived in San Diego and ocean beach at the time.  I was doing a lot of outside, like venturing around my town. And then I started booking some trips because  I felt part of the reason that traveling for me was so therapeutic is because I felt like I had lost so much time. Yeah, I felt like I had lost so much time with my kids.

We had gone on little vacations and stuff, but  I always had my social lubricant with me,  my alcohol. And I  was like, okay, I need to start traveling with my family and creating new positive memories that one they'll remember with me being fun, cause sometimes when I would drink, I would snap, I would just, I just wasn't  as kind and I didn't even realize That  until I got sober and compared.

So have you had any experiences like that with traveling? 

Yes. So when I was drinking, I didn't realize how much anxiety I had social anxiety and just. general anxiety. And traveling really brought that out in me. And just the simple idea of going to an airport made me extremely anxious, nauseous.

I would really need to drink the minute I got to an airport. The first time we traveled was It was incredibly rewarding. I'm sorry, traveled sober. Yeah, because it was with my kids and I was about three months sober. And we went to Florida. To a place we'd never been.

We went to Key West Florida Keys to marathon to a little boutiquey resort, and it was really incredible to go on vacation with them because. It's every trip we'd ever been on with my kids. I had been, yeah, drunk by the time the plane landed and really just drinking my way through the entire week because  when you're on vacation with little kids, their schedule is off.

They don't sleep well. The food, they don't like the food at the hotel, it's,  it can be stressful. And Yeah, I would, oftentimes my husband was working and on calls and never really fully present. And so it was always on me to deal with the little ones.  I would just drink to deal with all that stress and anxiety, but not, the flying was really I don't know if it, it's always is it the alcohol that causes the anxiety or is the anxiety that makes me, it's so when I had finally stopped drinking.

The anxiety had just decreased so much. So I was able to  be so much more present, so much more aware and appreciative. I was really engaged with my children and just able to  Find the joy naturally without  searching for it at the bottom of a bottle. I remember being on the beach that vacation and normally, at sunset after it was after dinner and. 

Normally I'd be like, I don't want to go watch the sunset. I don't want to go down there and I remember we went and got ice cream at this little shack down by the beach and I would have been like, I need to go get another drink. I can't just go down there and hang out without Drinks, I would have brought my a bottle of wine for myself and just been, like, totally checked out.

But, the kids are jumping in and out of the waves and, I think I had a milkshake or something. And I was just very present and taking pictures of them and really just happy really joyful.  And that was a moment I almost cried, I think, because it was really just,   Yeah.

Pure joy. 

Yeah. And it hits you with that gratitude for me too, because I was just talking to another person, like I ugly cry sometimes and it's usually because I am so thankful that I get these experiences now and I get to feel the feelings, because  alcohol did wonders to, to our bodies, it, and with the anxiety piece for me, actually alcohol raised my blood pressure.

And I was in my early twenties when I got sober and I had to take blood pressure medication  when I was drinking, probably a year before. And so  I don't know if it was anxiety or if it was truly just my body,  basically rejecting the alcohol. Cause I drank since I was 14 also.

Yeah. And it's so cool that we get  to not do that now.

I feel like I could just talk to you all day. I know I could talk to we 

let's do it again. Let's do it tomorrow. 

That's the part of that building a community, right? You get to connect with awesome people and be like, Oh my gosh, you're just like me. 

But as we hit our time ish do you have anything else that you would really like to end on some final thoughts or takeaways?  

Maybe like a message to the newcomer.

If you have somebody new, what would you tell them? 

Okay. So I always say, I have this tattoo on my wrist. It says free because.  I think that for I talked about this. I felt that I was so trapped in my drinking  and that's the best way to explain it. I really felt like I was in a cage and this thing had such a strong grip on me and such a huge control over me and my decisions.

And also  how I looked at myself and I had no confidence. I was a shell of myself. I just, and I had no passion for anything, feel so incredibly freed. Everything on this side just feels.  Brighter, clearer, there's just so much joy and  the freedom that comes with letting go of alcohol is, it's terrifying, but there's such a freedom. 

There's such a joy. There's so much gratitude that can be discovered. If you can find that little tiny bit of bravery.  Asking for help, letting it go. You, if you can unlock the cage and just creep out, poke your head out and ask for help there's so much joy to be found and  I was so scared for so long and I let myself stay stuck, but it's brighter on the side.

And a hell of a lot more fun. Yeah. 

Yeah. I love the comparison to a cage. I always say it was the haze, like I was looking through like a fog glasses at the world. And now those glasses are gone and stomped on. 

Yeah. I always say I was, In this dark cloud, like there was a dark cloud over my life.

I felt very dark and now everything just feels like it's a bright, sunny day. And that sounds so cheesy. And I would have laughed at myself. I would have been like, you are such a loser back in the day. I would've been like, you are such a loser. No, I'm not listening to that, but it's true. 

There's no better way to explain it. 

I love it. All right. And you can check out her book, if you are interested we'll have links,  so thank you so much for being here with us   thanks  bye guys. Bye.  

If you liked this episode, please subscribe and share it with anyone who wants to travel alcohol free. You can also message and tag me on social media to let me know what topics you might enjoy listening to next.  📍 Thanks again, and have an amazing day traveling beyond the bar.