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Today we have Brooke. She is 55 years old, lives in Denver, CO and she took her last drink on February 17th, 2026.
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[02:39] Thoughts from Paul:
In the upcoming book, This is How We Quit, we are currently narrowing down the submissions from 66 to around 20. While reviewing these all, Paul shares with us a snippet from one of them by Kristi, who was the guest on episode 492.
[07:45] Paul introduces Brooke:
Brookes lives in Denver, CO, has been married for 25 years and they have two sons. She has a background in education and for fun she enjoys being outside. They enjoy hiking, skiing, walking and playing tennis.
Growing up, Brooke believed that alcohol was necessary part of living. She saw her parents drink casually and was in a lot of environments where drinking was a given. Brooke took her first drink in high school, and it was just part of socializing throughout high school, college and her early professional years.
Brooke says it’s hard to imagine a time when she didn’t think drinking was normalized. Whether drinking for celebration or drinking for grieving, alcohol was always present.
Once Brooke reached her 40s, she noticed that it wasn’t as easy to get up the next day without some sort of hangover symptoms even if all she had was one or two drinks after a hard day at work.
Brooke was starting to question her drinking but the talk about alcohol being “good for us” was conflicting. She was beginning to see the signs of alcohol interfering with her health. She was participating in cleanses for 10 or 30 days and found that she felt so much better when she took breaks from drinking. It was hard for her to think about quitting completely because if how much it was present socially.
When Brooke’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, she noticed that all of the doctors discouraged alcohol. This got the wheels turning for Brooke and she did a deep dive on the detriments of alcohol on our bodies.
Brooke was recovering from shingles this past February and that is when she decided she was done with alcohol. She doesn’t feel like it was a rock bottom moment, but more of a realization that she was just exhausted from the inner dialogue around her drinking.
When she initially quit, Brooke was questioning how she was going to show up in her life without the drinking. She had experience quitting from doing cleanses in the past, so she knew it would be tough initially, but was prepared to be kind to herself throughout the process. She focused on caring for herself as she would care for one of her children if they were in distress or sick.
Learning and reading research about what alcohol does to our bodies has been helpful for Brooke. She has learned to slow down and be more aware of her feelings and what she needs to make herself feel better, without alcohol. Brooke uses a breathwork to help calm her nervous system and has also found great healing in nature.
In addition to yoga, mediation, breathwork and nature, other resources Brooke has found helpful on her journey are attending therapy, reading Quitlit, research on functional medicine and reading the bible. Attending meetings with sober communities has been important as well.
At about two months sober at the time of this recording, Brooke says she feels stronger than she’s ever felt. She feels free and clear in both her head and heart spaces and is excited to explore life free of alcohol.
Recovery Elevator
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