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, this is Annie Grace and welcome to this naked mind podcast. I'm really excited to

day because I have Laura here and Laura has founded one of the coolest companies I think on the planet called

Mingle mocktails, which is just so exciting. But before we get into that, I want Laura to tell us her story.

So welcome Laura. Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor and really excited to be speaking with you as well.

That's awesome. So why don't you back us kind of all the way up for you, you know, this obviously I think this business probably came out of a journey of your own that I'd love to hear about.

Yeah, so Annie what you mentioned was I did launch a brand Mingle sparkling mocktails and I'll start with the end and then go back.

It's a line of non-alcoholic mocktails for people who want to feel part of the party and this product was 100% inspired by my journey. So now I'll start back.

I have my story is actually similar to you Annie where I

grew up in Southern California in San Diego went to college, got a job in sales and was very always highly motivated to be a successful business woman.

My mom reminded me over Thanksgiving. She's like you always wanted to wear power suits, you know, you wanted to have an office and all this stuff which ranked true and that's what I ended up doing. So I I developed a career in sales and

within that career, there was a lot of activities involving drinking.

And now growing up I had my own experiences drinking as many of us did and I did drink more than most people at various times, but it was really in the workplace and as I got older in my 30s and such where drinking became more of a prominent part of my life.

And so it was really what I found was when I was at work events participating in cocktail parties and business dinners and receptions.

I loved those two, three, four glasses of wine. You could see how I started with two but it quickly went to four and that became a problem. I found that I

I look forward to drinking more than I look forward to the business being done at those events and I called myself out on it.

It was in about four years ago in our neighborhood. I live in Philly now. A lot of ladies were doing juice cleanses and my very best friend who lives in Sonoma California. She was doing it as well.

And all these people looked so vibrant and they look like they were glowing. So I thought I'm going to try it.

So when I did this juice cleanse, I had to quit drinking and I noticed two things. Number one, it was super hard for me to do that like super super hard. And number two, I felt a heck of a lot better and I made a decision to stop and it was really hard.

I'm not going to lie to you. It was so hard. And the biggest challenge I found was that when I went to social events or work events where alcohol was served, I felt like a fish out of water, especially in the beginning. I mean, I can remember specific neighborhood gatherings. I went to where they're like, well, you know, the drinks are over there and it's like white wine and beer and cocktails. I'm like, what do I drink? So it's just the same at work events. You know, you get stuck with Celter with the water.

...