Alcohol wasn’t present in Courtney’s childhood, so when she was offered champagne by friends at a holiday when she was fifteen, she had no knowledge of how it would affect her. She only knew that it was ‘forbidden’, and what 15 year old wouldn’t want to try a forbidden thing? The cozy sense of warmth that overcame her was so appealing. After that day, alcohol easily slipped into her life.
Courtney experienced a series of red flags around her drinking through the years, but she ignored them. She clearly didn’t have a ‘problem’, so there was no reason to consider her relationship with alcohol too closely. Yet, as she became a mother, alcohol began to take up more and more space in her brain, and her relationship with it became more and more uncomfortable.
An unexpected third pregnancy that resulted in a miscarriage served as a wakeup call. She was given an opportunity to truly feel her emotions around alcohol, and to create new habits that required sobriety to enjoy. It felt so good, and she became fiercely protective of these new life choices. At that point, she began moderating and paying close attention to how alcohol made her feel until one day at a brewery it became completely clear: Alcohol was not serving her. In fact, alcohol was taking joy from her life. She was done.
Courtney has recently reached 100 days of sobriety!
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