Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Today marks 20 days of sobriety.
It’s the longest I’ve gone without a drink since alcohol slowly became a part of my life.
People often ask how someone ends up with an addiction.
The truth is, for me, it didn’t happen overnight.
Looking back, I can see how one difficult season slowly led into another.
On July 25, 2014, I lost my mother to a brain aneurysm.
Losing my mom changed everything.
She was the center of our family. She was the one who brought everyone together, settled disagreements, and somehow always knew how to make things better. I was her “go-to” daughter. If she needed something, she called me because she knew I’d figure it out.
Then she was gone.
About a year and a half later, my dad was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer.
He was determined to fight it, and he did. He went through chemotherapy and radiation. At the time, we had no idea that his years in the Navy and asbestos exposure had likely contributed to his illness.
Watching him fight while knowing there wasn’t anything I could do to fix it was incredibly hard.
After losing both of my parents, I felt alone in a way I never had before.
I still had Miles.
I still had my children.
But life had changed.
My boys were growing up and didn’t need me the way they once had.
Miles had started working a second job. It was originally supposed to help pay for a trip to England so he could visit his family, but like so many families, we became dependent on the extra income.
That meant I spent a lot of evenings by myself.
One evening, I mixed Crown Royal Apple with cranberry-apple juice.
I liked the taste.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
Looking back now, I think I liked something else even more.
For a little while, it quieted the loneliness.
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