It's about changing your thoughts, your beliefs, and the stories you keep telling yourself.

I was scrolling through the subreddit stopdrinking forum yesterday, and there was a post that said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "I'm 3 months sober, and I'm miserable because I can't escape reality. I thought once I got sober, things would be better."

So my response back was, "I think the first question to ask yourself is, what in reality are you trying to escape?"

Yes, we remove alcohol, but the thoughts, beliefs, and stories we keep telling ourselves are the same. If you were miserable before removing the alcohol, you're going to be miserable after. Removing alcohol is a huge first step because it allows us to work on our thoughts and how we view the world, but it doesn't automatically give us a happy life.

Sure, you're not adding more anxiety, more sadness, more regret, and more negative consequences to the mix, but you still have to work on why you were drinking in the first place. And...

Your kids are lucky to have a mom who is working on herself because she knows she can do better when it comes to her relationship with alcohol.

Do you know how brave you are to be breaking generational patterns?

Do you know how brave you are to be going against the grain?

Do you know how brave you are to be digging into the underlying reasons of why you drink in the first place?

Do you know how brave you are to be breaking a habit you've relied on for years and some even decades?

Mama, you are SO brave. It takes a lot of courage, strength, and putting aside your ego to look at your mistakes and choose to work on them instead of continuing to stay in a pattern that is harming not only yourself but your kids.

This isn't an easy thing to do at all, which is why a lot of people choose not to do it. I know on this journey, we can be harder on ourselves than need be, so give yourself credit for all the times you slipped up but are learning the lessons.

Give yourself credit for even having...

I talk to so many moms who are so health-conscious. They watch what they put into their bodies, but they give a free pass when it comes to alcohol.

They eat organic and nutritious foods all day long, workout, and then drink wine at night.

All the hard work you're doing by eating nutritious foods and working out is negated by the fact that you have a glass or bottle of wine every night. Because who just stops at one 5oz glass of wine? I never did.

So you're not only drinking a poison but also a calorie-laden substance. This is also why it's not a coincidence that many of us will gain weight when we drink because we first are consuming all these unnecessary calories, and then we let our guard down and may eat foods that aren't necessarily the best for us either.

I was having a 1:1 conversation with a client the other day, and we were talking about swaps to her nightly wine habit. She said she has a fridge stocked with seltzers, Martinelli's, and a few other nonalcoholic options. As we...

Happy face. Messy hair. Drink in hand. It looks like I'm having a good time, right? I probably was, but I never stopped at 1 or 2 drinks like a "normal" person. Once I started, I wasn't stopping until I passed out, someone cut me off, or I was in handcuffs. Yes, back in the day, I was arrested for disorderly conduct, and guess what? That wasn't enough to stop my drinking. But I digress.

Most of the time, when we see pictures of people drinking, we see the good. We see the pretty, but there is nothing pretty or good about drinking so much that you wake up with a raging hangover and can't stop throwing up.

There is nothing pretty or good about blacking out and not remembering how you got home or why there's a stranger in your bed.

There is nothing pretty or good dealing with the worst anxiety you've ever had that you need to start drinking to get rid of it.

There is nothing pretty or good with being so irritable and tired around your kids because you'd rather stay up late and down a...

At the beginning of this sobriety journey, you may feel like everything sucks and wondering why you're putting yourself through this torture of having to feel it all with no relief. And I understand I've been there too.

But no matter how much it sucks, there's always a silver lining. Even if it's just a tiny sliver of good, that's what you hold on to. Like...

Enjoying a cup of coffee before the kids wake up instead of waiting until the last minute to get up because you're tired and hungover.
Playing a board game with your kids and actually being present instead of worrying about when you can have your glass of wine.
Being able to be there for your kids in the middle of the night when they're sick.
Knowing that you're giving your body the love it deserves by not ingesting a poison.
Not adding more anxiety to your everyday life.
Washing your face before bed.

There are SO many silver linings of sobriety. All you have to do at the beginning is be willing to see just one. That's it. One...

So many of us (myself included back in the day) didn't think we had a problem with alcohol. Thoughts of...

"I enjoy a glass of wine here or there, but I can go without it."
"Yes, I may drink a little more on the weekends, but I'm winding down from a stressful week. No big deal."
"Having a whole bottle of wine in one night is totally fine and normal."
"I got too drunk because I "forgot" to eat."

The list could go on and on with the excuses we give ourselves that we don't have a problem, but I think a good gauge is trying to take a break for 30 days. Of course, you're not going to break a habit and reap all the rewards of being alcohol-free in just 30 days, but this is a great starting point to assess your relationship with alcohol.

"Maybe you're thinking this is a piece of cake. Of course, I can go without alcohol for 30 days. I'm not dependent on it." Then the weekend rolls around, and you're pacing around, irritable, and all you want is a glass of wine to unwind. There's your clue...

You don't have to hit rock bottom to change your relationship with alcohol. That's an old belief that people need to lose everything before they finally quit for good and realize that they have a problem.

That notion will have you stuck in this cycle longer than need be and, in the long run, worse off. We all have different journeys and wake-up calls.
My wake-up call was the day I walked into detox, but for 3 years, I let myself get to that point. Going back and forth with a few weeks or a month of sobriety and then back to drinking. And the cycle repeated, and each time it led me down a darker path quicker than it did the previous time.

My wake-up call was detox, and I'd recommend stopping before using that as yours. These are still wake-up calls too.

Not remembering how you got to bed the night before.
Driving under the influence.
Sending text messages that you regret the next day.
Being controlled by your 5 pm on the dot glass of wine.
Having your kids tell you your favorite drink is...

Oh damn. I heard this on a recent podcast episode of Straight Up with @trentshelton, and it stopped me in my tracks.

Sidenote - his podcast has become one of my favs, and I've binged like 10 episodes in the past two days. So if you, like me, like a little kick in the ass with some truth bombs, then he's your guy!

Back to why this quote is so powerful. He's right. You CAN'T heal until you bring forth what you've been suppressing and hiding for so long. If you keep stuffing it down with booze, then you're never going to be able to take a look at what the real issues are. You're never going to get out of this drinking cycle because you're just removing the alcohol. You're not taking a deeper look at why you chose alcohol in the first place.

This is why most people who use willpower or "white-knuckling" as their long-term approach will most likely go back to alcohol because our will eventually runs out. There's only so much our brains can take, and something may set you off - a bad...

I "have" to drink because I'm going out to dinner with my friends.
I "have" to drink because I can't turn down a drink from my mother-in-law.
I "have" to drink because insert any excuse you've given yourself.

Mamas, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, and that includes drinking. You don't HAVE to drink; you WANT to drink, and I'm not saying that means you're a bad person at all, but I am saying that you need to be real with yourself.

Stop with the excuses. Stop lying to yourself. You can simply say, No thanks. I'm not drinking. Boom. That's it. And if they still push (which 99% of the time), they won't then repeat, No, I'm good. If you're serious about not drinking, then you'll stick to your commitment.

What it comes down to is fear. Fear of judgment. Fear of rejection. You're scared to say no or tell people you're taking a break because of what they may think of you. And that's totally normal to feel that way. But newsflash, if your "friend" is judging you for not...

What it comes down to is we only have one life. Are you going to spend it constantly running, escaping, and numbing out? Or are you going to appreciate that negative experiences are just part of life because we can't appreciate the good without the bad. We don't know what joy is until we've experienced pain. We don't know happiness until we've experienced sadness.

Don't spend your time here thinking about drinking, drinking, or regretting you drank just because you don't want to deal with life. Your one life is precious, and so is the time with your kids.

Imagine how much time and mental energy you are wasting. Imagine what you could be doing with that time. Imagine the moments you're missing out on because you're more concerned about escaping rather than dealing with it head-on and then moving on.

Don't waste any more time on a substance that doesn't add value to your life. You deserve so much more than the regret, mom guilt, and anxiety that's waiting for you at the bottom of the...