and the more that people are open and honest with it not becoming problematic in their life

and just saying, I don't like the way it makes me feel. It should be absolutely enough.

I'm Amy and I'm Abby and as women we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. But your life isn't supposed to look like hers.

Being your best self means standing firm in your decisions and always being willing to grow with a purpose.

We get vulnerable and real with an honest look into the challenges and triumphs we all face.

Every woman listening gets the opportunity to choose what life looks like for herself.

Today we're going to be talking to Michelle Smith of Recovery is the New Black.

She is an educator, author and TEDx speaker.

Michelle is a sober mom and today we'll dive into her story and the message she has for the world.

We are going to be talking about alcohol consumption during this episode.

Abby and I are both able to moderately consume alcohol so this is not a judgment episode and that is our truth.

But we realize that that's not the case for everyone and that the normalization of alcohol consumption to deal with life's stressors is problematic for some people.

Just like Abby and I are doing, we love if you approach this topic with an open mind and I know that we're all going to learn something from Michelle.

So Michelle, without further ado, could you introduce yourself to our audience?

Hi, yes, I am Michelle Smith. I am the founder and creator of Recovery is the New Black, which is a digital format and community for women who are living or exploring an alcohol free life.

And I have been sober for a little over five years and I've spent the last 20 years working in the field of mental health and substance abuse treatment all the way from doing danger to safety and hotline work for women.

And fleeing domestic violence all the way to working with men and maximum security prison.

So I have kind of turned in my release paper works to the Department of Corrections and decided to really invest my time and my heart and my energy on something that is really personal and I'm very passionate about which is what I believe is the underserved population of vulnerable women.

Especially going through motherhood that are marketed alcohol as a solution to their pain points and their problems.

And I have been doing that for the last four years and nothing lights me up more than connecting with women all over the world and living our best lives together because motherhood is really, really hard and I believe it's not meant to do alone.

Yeah, and before we hit record, we were speaking with you, Michelle, about how this is a really important topic, but it can also be a deep and sometimes dark topic.

And as we gathered questions for you from our community, we got a wide variety of responses and just things that people wanted to know and many people were really excited for us to dive into this topic.

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