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 I am here with Jackie. Welcome, Jackie. How are you?

Good. Hello. Thank you for having me. So fun to have you. So you are the creator of Sober Magic, but you also have your own awesome story to share. So I'm super excited about that.

That's right. So just start from the beginning, I suppose. Yeah, what are you back us up all the way to the beginning? Okay. Um, I would say my drinking, I'll just start from high school because that's when it all started.

I started drinking around 13 and just a little background. I was very confused at the time. I would say I had some childhood trauma as we all do that I didn't know I was going through.

Um, I just was a hormonal teenager that didn't know what was going on and didn't know how to express her feelings. Um, and she found alcohol and at the time, it was cool and fun and I have some older siblings who were drinking and I looked up to them.

And, um, yeah, I just kind of wanted to be like them. So it started out very, very innocent. Everyone's doing the same thing and it was fun for me.

Then I got, you know, obviously little little bit older at 13. It's very young, but as I started to get older in the high school, I started realizing I felt I felt like I could be a different person when drinking and I felt like I could escape the life that I was going through.

Again, I don't think at the time I even realized it, but after lots of therapy now.

I realized that that's kind of what I was doing, but, um, but yeah, I felt like I could be a different person and again, I didn't, I didn't really have anybody to talk to or that I felt like was going through a similar situation with mine.

Um, I grew up in a very nice middle class area and, um, my household growing up just had, I don't know, just a lot more drama to it than most people's. So I just, I don't know, I kind of felt alone on the family front.

Um, so anyways, it just, it felt like it was little mask for me.

Did you just drink?

Oddly, no. So, my grandmother was, she was an alcoholic. Um, she unfortunately passed due to her drinking

which also happened when I was in high school.

Uh, but my parents know they would maybe have a bottle of beer almost on over the weekend,

and that was it because my grandmother.

So that was like alcohol was always a no-no. So as soon as I got alcohol, I just kind of, you know,

rebelled against them a little bit. Um, and then comes college and that's when the binge drinking started.

And that's what I kind of became known for. I was a weekend binge drinking girl. Um, I was very good

at school, studied really well. I, you know, graduated my first year of college with a 4.0.

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