I finally did it. I shared one of my blog posts to my Facebook page approximately 4 months after I planned to. Now I feel like the toothpaste is out of the tube and I can’t put it back in. Did I really just share very personal parts of my life with a social media platform full of people I hardly know? I guess so. This page did get a lot of traffic for that one day so people really did read it! But, I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

How did this happen? Last Tuesday we had our first PTSA general meeting. I am the president of the PTSA so I take these meetings very seriously! Since I have been serving on this board for 4 years now, which may hold some type of record for a middle school, I know you really never know how the meetings will turn out. Everyone has something other than PTSA going on in life, except for me apparently, so it’s hit or miss if there is a turnout or not. Last Tuesday was fantastic! We had a packed house. For the past few years, we hold our meetings at our local brewery. Although we’re not allowed to serve alcohol, with PTA funds anyway, anyone can order what they’d like and we supply the food. So if you’re a PTA person reading this and struggling with meeting attendance, try moving your meetings to a bar! My sign up pages also filled up 😆I’m just gonna have to send some reminders to certain people who had higher bar tabs! It was a great turn out with so many great conversations about how we can make this school year amazing for our families. The next morning, I was feeling so good about it that I decided to use my PTA post: Let me tell you how I feel about the PTA. as the official coming out post. This is what it said:

So that’s that. I have ripped off the band aid. I am not sure how I feel about it either. Years ago I wanted to start a blog but really had no clue where to start. I had a ton of content, 3 kids under the age of 4 and all the wild childhood stories about things like them projectile vomiting on Tommy Bahama display furniture while we were couch shopping in a high end furniture store, my son successfully catching the greased pig in the rain at the county rodeo and brining it home in my brand new car, and even the scary but still WTF moments like when my 4 year old shoved a watch battery so far up her nose it had to be surgically removed. But all of those are fun stories and easy to talk about and share. Talking about my mental health struggles and alcoholism? That’s what I landed on?! Oh and yes, I do see the irony in the recovering alcoholic PTSA President holding PTA meetings at a bar lol. I am at a place where I am not bothered much less influenced by people drinking around me. There are still times that I am envious of normal brained people who can drink a few beers and not destroy their lives, even though I am not one of them I know they exist and I’m glad they can have fun at a PTA meeting having a beer. When I decided to start this blog I did what anyone in the year 2026 would do. I asked Chat GBT how to start a blog. Surprisingly it gave me a list of books to read and a few questions to answer to direct me to the best web platform to use. I ordered the books from Amazon and decided on WordPress. The books were ok, but kind of boring. WordPress was not the same as the social media pages in which I have become accustomed, and it quickly dawned on me- this was going to be harder than I thought! I kept kicking the can down the road and promising myself I’d sit down and really give it the time it needed “tomorrow”. My Superbowl was going to be on my one-year Soberversary. I had it all typed up and then- I didn’t hit publish. Total stage fright that I do not have in public speaking opportunities! Pulling down the curtain to my seemingly regular suburban mom life was scary! So it took me 4 months. In that 4 months I shared this privately with some friends who I could trust to give me the feedback I needed to hear. I expected the generic “wow, good for you!” what I didn’t expect was for one of them to tell me she had to share this with a friend who was going through a lot of the same things THEN that friend messaged me and thanked me! Or another friend who told me they are completely reevaluating their relationship with alcohol because of my blog, or the friend who thanked me for my honesty, OR the people on Facebook who privately messaged me and said they have the same story but didn’t know who to share any of it with, after I finally hit “post”. When I wanted to stop drinking, I binged sober podcasts and social media accounts for encouragement. Never did I think I would be the one eventually offering the encouragement.

Last week I was on double school drop off and pick up duty for my 3 kids while my husband was recovering from a shoulder surgery. That meant a lot of hours logged in the car and time to catch up on my podcasts. I landed on one from Mel Robbins who was interviewing a musician I had heard of but didn’t know much about- Benny Blanco. I ended up listening to it twice to fully absorb all it had to offer! What stood out to me was how both of these super successful people shared how they both knew there were a million other bloggers and musicians out there but so what, there’s still room for more. So many parts of the podcast had me saying “yes!” out loud. One common piece of advice that is given in Mel’s podcasts is the simple yet somehow difficult idea that if you want something in life you just have to start. You are your own worst critic. More than likely most people will read my posts and forget them but for someone else, they may hit at exactly the right time. I feel like this post was a little all over the place but that’s ok. This is only my 2nd out in the public

If you are looking for some inspiration from my girl Mel https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/72cc76f8-c4d0-4d99-b3bf-b3bc3cgive-me-60-minutes-and-i’ll-eliminate-your-self-doubt-forever-with-benny-blanco

and if you’re wondering about the pig my son caught 3 years ago and brought home in my brand new car…Here is the photo I took of him today. He’s been living a very well kept life.