“I was about to become a grandmother for the first time, and I wanted to be trusted to help look after him.”

I think I found you in 2016. Every time I would get your email I would open it and I would go yep, that’s me… and then keep on drinking. So it took a while for the message to sink in, even though I kept recognising myself in the emails.

In 2018 my eldest daughter was pregnant with our first grandchild and I realised that I wanted my grandchild to have a sober grandparent. Because at that time, none of us were sober. We were all drinking grandparents.

We had a baby shower for my daughter and I helped host it. I live in South Louisiana so what do you do at a baby shower? You serve alcohol! I was tipsy when one of my daughter’s best friends came in with her six week old daughter. And I realised I couldn’t hold the baby safely. That was a tipping point.

I woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover and at six o’clock in the morning, signed up for your class that I think started the very next day.

Now I have two grandchildren. And they are two and three years old. And I am two months sober more than my grandson’s age. So if I ever need to keep track, I just remember how old he is and add two months because I was two months sober to the day, when he was born.

The promise I made to him and to myself was that he would always be able to drink what was in my glass.