This is a bit long and quite personal, including parts of my story I haven’t shared publicly yet.
Yet, I’ve had a number of questions and connections recently that shown me that this is the right time to share with you.
I want to take you on a journey back in time, to about 5.5 years ago. At 29 years old, I was living in Cambodia and had just secured what I thought was my dream contract in my field. I had been hired by Family Health International to develop a drug strategy for Cambodia, and was also working with the Soros Foundation’s Drug Policy Program to write a regional strategy. I was living the exciting life of an International Consultant and Global Health Advocate.
My 20s had been action-packed: I had founded an non-profit (at age 23), worked for the City government as the first Youth Advocate Mentor (age 24) and then co-founded an international youth advocacy network called Youth RISE that received global acclaim (age 26) and provided me with the opportunity to travel and work in somewhere between 15-20 countries (I honestly lost count) before settling in Cambodia.
I wanted desperately to believe I was as great as everyone else thought I was – but I felt like a fraud.
I struggled with imposter’s syndrome BIG time. In some ways, the 29 year old me wasn’t much different from the 16 year old Caitlin. That was when I left my mother’s house after a huge fight, moved in with a friend, worked 2 jobs while also trying to finish grade 11 (Junior year), all while trying to convince my guidance counsellors and teachers that I was okay.
As you can probably guess, I wasn’t okay.
At 16, I blacked out for the first time, and then repeatedly. At 16, I was date raped at a party. At 16, I started using alcohol as a coping mechanism, as an escape, as a means for connection and intimacy (or so I thought), as a confidence booster, as the soothing balm that could so easily erase reality and quiet my troubled mind.
At 29, my relationship to alcohol wasn’t that different. I was going through a divorce and lonely. I was in a career that no longer thrilled me even though I had worked so hard to “make it.” I was living on the other side of the world, having effectively isolated myself from my friends and family back home.
I was drinking almost every night to cope with insomnia and anxiety, combined with a dangerous mix of pills including some of the same pills that lead to Heath Ledger’s accidental overdose. I was regularly going out to party and drinking excessively to the point of blacking out.
I remember one morning, a few months before my 30th birthday, when I woke up mid-day next to a guy a vaguely remembered meeting the night before. He said my phone had been ringing but he wasn’t able to wake me up. I glanced around the room and saw two empty cocktail glasses sitting in pools of condensation. I didn’t own glasses like that, so where did they come from?? Then I realized we had walked right out of the after-hours with the glasses in our hands. And the missed calls?? From one of my contacts at the World Health Organization, a strategic partner for the contract I was working on, wondering why I wasn’t at our 10am meeting.
I’m sure I don’t need to try to find the words to explain how awful I felt – because you know , don’t you? (You know because in some way you’ve experienced this shame before)
So why I am I sharing this now?
Well, I’ve had a few people ask me recently how “bad” my problem really was.
Did I black out?
Did I really struggle that much with alcohol?
Have I really come that far?
These are totally legit questions!
Potential clients want to know whether I’ve struggled in the same way they have.
Seeing me now – it’s hard to imagine I once had such a problematic relationship with alcohol, isn’t it?
Without the backstory, you might think that alcohol moderation comes more easily to me.
And to give you a totally current snapshot into what my current drinking looks like (because I know you’re curious) in the past few weeks:
– While in New York City (formerly known as “Trigger City for me) I abstained from alcohol most nights but went out one night and had a glass of sangria with dinner and though there was a bottle of champagne open in front of me at the club, I probably only had a total 1.5 glasses (that would have been unheard of before!!)
– Last week on our little mini-vacay on our way back home, my partner and I went out for dinner and shared a bottle of red wine and I had no desire to keep drinking after that.
– On Sunday, we opened a bottle of white wine and each had a spritzer (half wine, half sparkling water) and, even though I had a few stressful days in the middle of the week, that bottle has sat untouched
– I often go an entire week, sometimes a lot more, without drinking anything or even thinking much about it.
This didn’t happen overnight. It’s been 5+ years since the situation I described above and has involved a complete and holistic life overhaul!!
I moved across the world, focused almost exclusively on self-care while I was trying to figure out what to “do” next, started taking all kinds of healing-focused courses, started teaching dance and fitness again, enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and applied everything I was learning to my own healing and development, hired my own coach, took business courses and eventually changed careers, launched my business and wrote a both which, combined, are the biggest, most badass accountably mechanism ever because I literally have thousands of people helping me stay true to my intentions!!)
I’ve also spent over $20,000 in the past few years alone to get from “there” to HERE (investments in training, schooling, certifications, coaching, treatments, time-off from working to “find myself” again 
Does that mean that you have to do the same? Of course not.
In fact, I don’t want you to have to spend many thousands of dollars or spend years trying to make the changes I did.
I want you to have the results you desire faster and more affordably.
I want for you to be able to redefine your relationship to alcohol, on your own terms!!
You see, what I now know is that going through what I did was necessary to truly define my MISSION.
From there, I was able to create a METHOD that has worked for me and dozens of others that I have worked with 1-1, and countless others who have read and implement the strategies in my book.
The next step? Create a MOVEMENT. It has already started but I want to give it more.
I want every person who intuitively knows there “must be another way” to have access to this information and support.
Exciting things are brewing so stay tuned!
On Monday I will be making an announcement about the direction we’re heading and what it means for you 
In closing, I want you to know how grateful I am that you’re here, that you allowed yourself to be open to another way of living and that you read all the way to the end of this email
Now I’m going to hit the send button before I talk myself out of it (yes, vulnerability is still scary for me).
Have a beautiful weekend and I’m so excited to be in touch again on Monday!!
xoxo
