The Sober Mom Life

When my online friend Jaana, the awesome woman behind @thismomsgonnasnap , told me that she didn’t have her first drink until she was 32 years old, I had to know more!  Today, Jaana shares with us how her Mormon upbringing kept her sober well into adulthood, how easy it was for her drinking to become habitual when she finally ‘broke the seal’ and allowed alcohol into her life, and why she cho...

Today I'm bringing back one of my favorite episodes! There comes a time in every woman’s sobriety journey when she feels called to proudly own sobriety and leave the shame behind. ‘Coming out’ as sober to your family, friends, or even publicly can feel scary! So today, Audrey and I are here to help you think through how to handle these conversations and announcements when you’re ready.  We ch...

DISCLAIMER: This episode is not meant to diagnose. Anyone who is perfectionistic does not necessarily have a personality disorder. Please see your therapist with concerns or questions. Perfectionism is one of the most common topics we talk about inside of the Sober Mom Life Cafe. An overwhelming need to be ‘perfect’ can feel suffocating, and can be a major driving factor for drinking. Today my the...

Katie and I are here for another installment of SobrieTEA, where we spill the tea about our favorite escape: Reality TV!  The recent Bravo drought allowed us to expand our horizons into other reality content, so today we’re diving into Chimp Crazy and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Then, we’ll share our thoughts on new cast members Brittany and Bronwyn on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake,...

Today’s Real Sober Mom Keri is 30 days sober and she’s ready to share her story!  Being social always felt like a challenge for shy introverted Keri, so when she found alcohol as a teenager it became a central piece of her social life. Like so many of us, this continued through her teens and twenties, and by her mid twenties she started to notice that her ‘off switch’ with alcohol was disappe...

These past few months have been a lot, and today I’m here for a little vent session to get it off my chest. It’s so important to find a community that will support you when you just need to vent, because sometimes a little venting is all you need to put things into perspective. Thanks for being that community for me today!  I’ll talk about how life has been ‘lifing’ lately, why it’s felt like...

Heather grew up in a party house, so it seemed completely natural to her when she started drinking and became a party girl herself. There were short moments when she questioned her drinking throughout her teens and twenties, but they never lasted long.  Life started to become intense as Heather entered her late twenties and got married. A five year journey to become a mother, followed by inte...

My Mom Susan, our resident therapist, is back this week to educate us on cross-addictions. If you’ve ditched alcohol only to find yourself developing an addiction to something new, whether that be shopping, gambling, marijuana, or many other things, then this episode is for you.  Susan will explain the differences between a habit, a compulsion, and an addiction. Then, we’ll talk about ho...

Meghan’s relationship with alcohol seemed ‘normal’ to her for years. Life as ICU nurse with young children kept her drinking to a minimum. But as her kids got older and she changed careers, alcohol crept into her weeknights until she often found herself hungover or even blacking out.  After one such night with family in 2019, she received a call from her dad. He had a message - clean up...

Today I’m bringing back one of my favorite episodes. We’ll be talking all about the mental gymnastics of moderation. If you've ever struggled with moderation or wondered if sobriety could really be the easier choice, this episode is for you. Moderation can be exhausting and terribly shame-inducing. It puts all of the pressure on you to control the situation, while overlooking the fact that alcohol...

In Melinda’s career as a prosecuting attorney, alcohol felt like a necessary way of life. From college on, every professional event centered around alcohol. As time passed, Melinda felt helpless - it felt like it would be career suicide if she stopped drinking.  Melinda’s drinking tipped from social to personal when she left her husband, and it accelerated to an alarming degree after her fath...

My very first guest, Katy Rexing, is back on the show! Check out her first episode here. Today, Katy gives us a big life update. She’ll talk about what it was like to follow her gut and move her family to California, despite experiencing intense fear every step of the way. She’ll share how her husband has followed her into embracing a sober life. Plus, we’ll talk in depth about what everyone in ou...

Today’s real sober mom, Erin, grew up in an Irish Catholic family, and drinking just seemed like a way of life for the adults around her. In highschool, the drinking culture felt much the same, though she didn’t partake much because of athletics. Alcohol was waiting for her in college, though. Feeling young and socially awkward, Erin turned to alcohol as a shoulder to lean on whenever she felt soc...

What if we saw rehab as an opportunity instead of sign of failure? Jen is here today to help you make that perspective shift! Jen is a major part of the Sober Mom Life Cafe, and she shared her story on The Real Sober Moms last fall! Be sure to check out that episode for a deep dive on her story. Today, Jen details her two separate experiences in rehab, and how a different mindset going into e...

Katie and I are here for another installment of SobieTEA, where we spill the tea about our favorite escape: Bravo and reality TV. We’ve got a lot to talk about this week!  We’re diving deep into the role that alcohol plays in the lives of The Real Housewives of Orange County, from the false dichotomy of ‘alcoholism’ to how alcohol has exposed the cracks in the friendships between the women.&n...

Meg Fee from You Don’t Have to Drink is back on the show! Check out her first episode on the show here . Something has changed in Meg’s life since she was last here - she’s now a mom to a 4 month old little girl!  Today, Meg shares how sobriety has impacted her experience of early motherhood, her personal opinion on ‘if pregnancy counts’ in sobriety, and her journey with giving up THC. We’ll...

Alcohol was ever present in Jessie’s childhood, to the point where it felt like she had two sets of parents: sober parents during the day, and drunk parents at night. Drinking affected each of her parents differently, though, and she was told from a young age that only her father had a drinking problem, because alcohol made him treat others poorly. Once Jessie started drinking at 14, she leaned on...

Today writer and sobriety influencer Kate Taylor is on the show to share her sobriety story!  Kate tells us about growing up in a high end drinking culture, and how that made her romanticize alcohol from a young age. Then, she shares how her drinking got out of control (including an evening at a knitting club that ended up in a jail cell!).  One night, two bottles of wine deep, Kate coul...

Whispers of an ‘alcoholic’ father felt constant in Elizabeth’s home as a child, leading her to associate alcohol with secrecy and shame. With this stigma in mind, she successfully kept alcohol at the fringes of her life for many years. It wasn’t until she moved after college that alcohol started to find its way in - as a crutch to lean on to make new friends in a new place.  As the years...

My mom Susan is back on the show to talk about an extremely important topic - drinking and driving. In addition to being a therapist, Susan is an Intoxicated Driver Program Assessor, and in this role she has listened to people talk about the fallout of drinking and driving for over two decades.   The legal and safety repercussions of DUIs, DWIs, or OWIs can be intense. One of the scaries...

Today’s Real Sober Mom, Laura, grew up in a home with two struggling parents - her father with alcohol addiction and her mother with mental illness. The fractures in her homelife caused her to struggle socially at school, but once she tried alcohol she experienced a sense of relief. Her challenges didn’t feel so hard when she was drinking. At that point, alcohol quickly became enshrined in her lif...

My husband Russell is back on the show, and this time things are a little different - he’s 100 days sober!  Today Russell will share why he decided to commit to one full year of sobriety. We’ll talk about the benefits of creating a goal, how he’s handled challenging social situations without drinking, and the physical, mental and emotional changes he’s experienced in the first 100 days of his...

Katie and I are here for another installment of SobieTEA, where we spill the tea about our favorite escape: Bravo and reality TV!  This week we’re talking about Suzanne’s first impressions of Love Island, and the dizzyingly jampacked first episode of Season 18 of The Real Housewives of Orange County.  Plus - Katie meets Jax on her LA trip, How Lindsay’s pregnancy will affect Summer House...

Susan Knower, my therapist mom, joins us today for an Ask Me Anything, therapist style! She is a licensed professional counselor with a substance abuse specialization and is here today to answer the most common questions you submitted on Instagram.  We’ll talk about the challenge of convincing a loved one to stop drinking, if trauma can be healed without a professional therapist, how the ‘ st...

Shannon always went overboard with alcohol, from the very first time she got drunk from her parents liquor cabinet when she was 15. She spaced out her drinking in her teens and twenties because she always knew she would drink all night once she got started.  Once Shannon began having kids she became obsessed with having a clean, healthy, non-toxic life. She cooked entirely organic and was ext...