When my client, Michele, told me she was going to reintroduce alcohol. I’ll be honest — I was nervous. Actually, that’s bullshit. I felt like a failure. She’d been sober for 10 months.

I was her sobriety coach. And at that time, I was still operating on the mindset that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Because everybody knows you can’t unpickle a cucumber.

But as we learn in coaching school, the client is the expert on their own lives. Telling people what they should and shouldn’t do is condescending, not coaching. So I checked my own fear and anxiety and held space for her.

Michele is the first client I coached with a truly open mind — where there is no “right” way to drink, no moral high ground for whoever has the most sober days, and no starting over after you have a drink. Alcohol is neutral–it’s not good or bad or right or wrong. It’s not the problem and it’s not the solution.

Working with Michele completely changed the way I think about recovery from alcohol use disorder. She is my patient zero, if you will. This experience laid the foundation for the work I do now as a mindful drinking coach.

And she’s here today to share her story and talk about what it’s really like to learn how to trust yourself again…to heal your relationship with yourself so you don’t have to worry about your relationship with alcohol. It’s raw. It’s honest. It’s messy. And for me, it’s personal — because this opened my eyes, my mind and my heart to see what’s really possible when you stop using the past to predict the future.

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