This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hi everyone, I am Annie Grace, author of this naked mind and today I'm here with Emma and Emma came to me.

She has such an exciting story because I think specifically because of her background and just her success in life and her empowerment and decisions.

Emma, here you are, welcome to the podcast. Hi Annie, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, it's so fun. So we're just going to kind of go through a bunch of questions and I mean pretend it's just us talking like nobody's listening.

We're just here. So kind of, you know, what did your life look like before you really started questioning your drinking and I guess more importantly, where did you even start with you drinking wise?

Yeah, so I mean, I've had a very lucky good life. I mean, I can't complain about anything. I was raised in London, England and I came over to the States when I was like 18 and I had relatives in my house that were drinking.

I had alcoholism, I would say I grew up around a lot of alcohol and I so I was always sensitive to the fact that I might have a problem.

Regardless of being worried about that, I still, you know, when I was 14, I started going out on Saturday nights with my friends and drinking and it's very early on. I started drinking.

And then I had you have to say binge drinking because, you know, Saturday night.

And so that's, you know, and I was drinking quite a lot for a teenager, you know, early on, although it would just be on the weekends kind of thing.

You do like it at the time. Was it pretty?

I did. Yeah, I was just, you know, I was kind of a wild child.

Right. Right. Back in the 80s, everyone smoked. I smoked too, you know, it was bad, you know.

So, you know, it was just, it's just what we did, especially in England, to use probably more of that culture.

But when I came over to the States, you know, I'm still kind of drinking off and on. I knew that I needed to be careful with it just because of what I'd seen growing up a little bit.

And then so, right, I think it was maybe in my mid 20s when I actually went to my first AA meeting. I just wanted to quit.

And I really, I've been, I was in and out of AA from like 25 to 30 early 30s.

And what sort of I got that first meeting. Was it this?

You know, just I always like fear of turning it out like certain relatives, you know, and just like having a problem.

And I have to say that AA is a wonderful program for many people.

...