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
