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. And today I'm doing something that I've only done like one or two other times, but I have a return guest. Welcome, Meredith.

Hi, I'm great. How are you?

Good. So we talked like literally one of my very first episodes ever. Was it? Yeah, it was awesome.

It's like 10 maybe or something like that. Okay.

And so I know that so many people listen to this podcast and that didn't listen and so they don't know you. So I still want you to go go back through all the things and tell me your whole story.

Oh, yeah, I have a great story. I mean, don't we all. Yeah, so let's say I haven't started from the beginning in a long time. This is good. This is good practice. Annie, thank you for having me on your note. Just kidding.

So I left home at 18 and started drinking and I pretty much did that for 20 years. And I was a mom.

I was really worried about what was going on. What? Why do I leave home? Like, yeah, I graduated high school and then I went off the college and I never stepped back in the home.

Like I just needed to get out of home and not go back. And it was interesting that I once I got out of home, I just started drinking like a lunatic.

I had a connection there. It's fine. But anyway, I went off to college and drank a ton like, you know, but everyone does that in college right. And so then I go on to law school, get married, have a couple kids and I'm still doing it. I'm still drinking a ton.

I was a blackout drinker. What's the point of one drink? You know, it was zero or 10 and just a very, very big heavy drinker in all sense of the words. I got up to about 280 pounds.

I was not like, I was a fun drunk for a few few glasses. And then I wasn't.

There's always that damage that you leave behind in your wake, which is always fun. But one morning, well, I started doing the sport of traffic on the 2010 because I thought if I exercise, then I'm healthy.

And so I did traffic on I started doing that.

And so I went on to do big races and all this stuff while still having a very serious drinking problem. And so one morning, it was in 2014.

I woke up and my alarm went off and I turned it off and I rolled over and went back to bed. And no matter what had happened in my life, I always got up. I did the things I needed to do. I mean, I might have been like, oh my gosh, you know, suffering.

But I got my kids to school. I did all the mom things. I, you know, holding it together. I was doing it all. And that morning, I just turned off my alarm and I went back to bed.

And I woke up a couple hours later.

And the kids were gone. So I knew they were at school or missing, you know, one or the other.

And I went downstairs and there was empty bottles of wine, a pizza box, a nice cream container, some unpaid credit card bills, like arranged on the counter, like someone had put them out for me.

...