Episode 124: Sober and Still in It - 5 Years Without a Drink in an Industry Built on One

Now I want to get to the real reason I wanted to record this episode today.

Okay.

I was on a podcast last week as a guest, and it was a midlife podcast for female entrepreneurs.

And I didn't expect it, but I started crying in the middle of the show because the host asked me what the hardest part was about making the decision to stop drinking.

And I don't think that anybody's asked me that before.

You know, it's been five years since I decided to stop drinking, like I said.

And the question landed really, really hard for me that day.

And I realized that the toughest thing for me was giving up a life that I thought I wanted to live and a life that I had started to build for myself.

So I want to take you back a little bit for those of you that don't know my full story or that are newer listeners to the show.

Been in the restaurant industry for 20 years.

Started as a line cook at 15.

In my mid-20s, when I started to enter in management, I started to weave in alcohol into everything that I was doing from a personal and professional standpoint.

I was studying to become a sommelier.

I was traveling to wine country every single year.

to meet the people behind the wines, behind the labels, behind the marketing, to do wine tastings.

I mean, it was, I think my first trip to wine country, I visited 25 wineries in five days.

I mean, it was excessive.

But I was excited about it.

I wanted to continue my studies.

I wanted to be able to come back and tell those stories to the guests.

I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could about wine.

I also studied with master mixologist out of New York when I lived in Colorado Springs and worked for the Broadmoor.

And they had brought us this beautifully curated cocktail program that was all about classic cocktails and fresh ingredients.

And it was something that Colorado Springs had never seen before.

Colorado was just starting to get on the map.