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Hi I’m Megan, I’m a mother of 3 and an Alcohol Recovery Coach, I’m also someone who has found their passion and purpose but it’s been quite the journey getting there!
At a young age I developed a generalised anxiety disorder and had quite severe worry all through my childhood. Then when I was 17 I stood up in front of the class at school, to read the daily no-tices which I loved to do. On that particular day I started shaking and the paper I was holding was shaking.
From that day on for many many years, I had to hide the physical symptoms of a social phobia; when eating, drinking in front of others, speaking etc. I worked the autocue at Channel ten news for a few years in my 20’s and I would shake and I’d dread doing it, it was EXHAUST-ING.. so exhausting for so many years.
I don’t think I can explain how tiring it is to worry all day every day to the point that I missed school, days at work, etc because I was just so anxious. But the thing was, somewhere inside me I still wanted to live the life of my dreams. I didn’t want the shaking to take over my life and make me a recluse.. so I tried everything to get past it, CBT, courses, therapists, cutting out coffee, you name it. But then, when I was 18, I had my first drink of alcohol. I had honestly not had a drink before that! And with that first drink the fear disappeared, the shaking disappeared, the constant worry disap-peared.
My confidence increased whilst I was drinking (or so I thought).. and the drink tricked me into thinking I had self esteem. I could socialise, meet people, eat and drink in front of people without shaking, and I seemed so confident BUT I was also pretty messy because truth be told, I was never a “normal drinker”, I was always a binge drinker from the word go, so blackouts, falling down, slurring my words. So for me alcohol was really a medication. For the next 26 years or so I drank, to deal with my crippling anxiety. I stopped drinking through my pregnancies and was just a social (binge drinker) in between.
But after had my third baby, when he was about one my mothers group and I were going out for a night out for the first time. I remember one of them saying we should practice drinking as we weren’t used to it after the pregnancy etc and they were going to have a couple of drinks at home, and at the time another friend from my mothers group, who was a drug and alcohol coun-sellor, said be careful doing that because it starts with one or two at home and it will increase. I remember thinking that that wouldn’t be me.
But that was EXACTLY what happened. Over the next 9 years or so I started to have a drink at home alone and I’d leave over half the bottle and then slowly slowly I’d get through 2 or 3 drinks a night and then it went to one bottle and eventu-ally I could easily have 2 bottles at night at home alone. This process occurred over about 6-8 years. And I was functioning really well to anyone outside, I looked after my kids well, I worked every day, I started a business, I cooked and cleaned etc. But then at about 5pm I’d drink and just numb my head. So In 2018 I decided I’d had enough and needed to stop drinking. During that time I tried out a few different sobriety communities, like Sexy Sobriety which was a 90 day online course .. and then AA. But didn’t really look into why I drank in the first place and after almost 5 months, I went back to drinking.
And then Covid hit...
and it was a great excuse to drink at home, every night. However, by this time, my anxiety was getting SO much worse. And I realised that the drinking wasn’t only NOT helping by this point, but it was making my anxiety really really bad. i’d wake up extremely anxious and feel terrible all day until I could drink to stop the feeling of dread that was constantly there.. and I was shaky again. I knew at this point that I was making myself worse and there was just something telling me I’d had enough. I was not happy, I wasn’t enjoying the feeling of a drink, I was just drinking because I had to stop the anxiety that the drinking was causing. So in Sept 2021 I did the Live Alcohol Experiment, by Annie Grace of this Naked Mind and it was then that I decided I wanted to be an alcohol recovery coach and I think subconsciously I had wanted this for quite a while (even though I had been drinking).
So on Dec 31st 2021 I had my last drink and I started the course to become a recovery coach. And I was extremely lucky to meet Bella during this course and we started our podcast She’s Sober Sydney!
I am now living my passion and my purpose and I couldn’t be happier being alcohol free. I am now 18 months alco-hol free, I don’t miss it, but I’ve done a-lot of work to get here. I don’t need willpower anymore I just don’t feel like a drink (this is something I learnt how to achieve through my coaching). And now through my business and podcast I am helping others to find freedom from alcohol like I have!
website: https://glassfulfilled.com.au/
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glassfulfilled/