Read an Excerpt
"The big alcohol industry—a vast network of producers, distributors, marketers and retailers—is specifically targeting women with these (pro-drinking) messages, knowing it is keeping us small, quiet, and checked out. It is particularly disparaging towards moms. We are taught by society that we earned it; we deserve it. It is like a mom code we have all gulped down unknowingly."
"Identifying and relating to the gray area drinking category created the space and the capacity for me to explore my relationship with alcohol with a group of sober-curious women who felt just like I did. I was beginning to see through the fog and those gray hues to a place where stories like mine resonated with my inner knowing. It became clear, the bigger question was not "Do I have a drinking problem?" but rather "What is drinking doing for me?" If our gray area drinking looks normal, I began to wonder why there were thousands of women in my group questioning their relationship with alcohol just like me. And maybe just like you."
"The alcohol-free journey was a process of stripping off all my old beliefs and growing new skin, new beliefs, which were beginning to strengthen that very important voice within."
"I was finally waking up to no longer disappointing and abandoning myself, now always choosing what felt true and good to me. Choosing myself over and over again began to appear in many facets of my life throughout my alcohol-free journey, each time like a test to see if I would choose my needs, my beliefs, my voice, and my preferences over external validation. These choices arise, asking you to choose only the ones that bring you joy and forego the ones that don't. The beauty is that every day we get to make a choice, asking ourselves: Will you reconnect with your one true self, or will you abandon her to please everyone else?"
"I had finally come to a place in my journey where I could see my one true self and trust my inner knowing, no matter what or who told me otherwise. I can see I am a reflection of God. It means seeing there is so much more to this one precious life than choosing a substance that takes versus gives. I had shifted to my heart—to my one true self—where all my power fully lives."
