From Grief to Grace: Losing a Child, Addiction, and Finding Sobriety
Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories
Brad McLeod
4.8 • 596 Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ashley Jo shares her story of high-functioning alcoholism, grief, shame, and sobriety after years of mommy wine culture and secret binge drinking.
A Christian mom, executive, and outwardly successful woman, Ashley struggled privately with addiction and suicidal ideation before choosing sobriety on August 14, 2020.
This episode covers:
Functional alcoholism, Comparing your drinking to others, Mommy wine culture, Faith and recovery, Self-forgiveness
If you feel like you “should know better” but can’t stop, this conversation will resonate.
Links:
Join the Sober Motivation Community
Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co/
Sober Motivation Website: https://www.sobermotivation.com
Support the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation
Contact me anytime: brad@sobermotivation.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to another episode of the Suburmotivation podcast. Today we are joined by Ashley |
| 0:04.5 | Joe. This is a heavy episode, but is also full of hope. Ashley Joe shares what it was like |
| 0:09.9 | to lose her son, carry crushing grief, and slowly spiral into alcoholism while trying to hold |
| 0:17.2 | everything together for everyone else. On the outside, she was showing up. |
| 0:22.1 | On the inside, she was drowning in shame, self-hatred, and thoughts of ending her life. |
| 0:26.4 | This is a conversation about mommy wine culture, secrecy, comparing your drinking to others, |
| 0:31.7 | and the dangerous lie that it's not that bad. |
| 0:35.0 | If you're exhausted from fighting yourself every day, if you're living two lives, this episode |
| 0:40.2 | might be the one that helps you choose differently. |
| 0:42.5 | And this is Ashley Joe's story on the sober motivation podcast. |
| 0:46.6 | Great to have you back for another episode. |
| 0:48.7 | Thank you so much. |
| 0:49.4 | If you're new here, welcome. |
| 0:51.1 | If you've been listening for a while, welcome back. |
| 0:55.6 | If you would like to support this show, I invite you to check out buy me a coffee.com slash sober motivation. I'm a one man |
| 1:02.4 | show over here. I do the booking of the gas. I do the editing. Now we're doing the videos. |
| 1:07.9 | Everything is in-house and it's me. And any of your support goes a long way. |
| 1:12.6 | Just help cover the cost of subscriptions and all that cool stuff. |
| 1:15.6 | Our world today seems to be built on subscriptions. |
| 1:18.6 | Also, if you would like some more support on your journey of not drinking, |
| 1:23.6 | check us out in the community, sober motivation community. |
| 1:26.6 | I'll drop the link down to the show notes below. |
... |
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