My sobriety journey has had many twists and turns. I went to treatment the first time when I was about 25, self admitted. When I felt like I had the problem whipped, I stopped going.

This only lasted for about 6 months and I was back to drinking and drugging. I spent the next 13 years perfecting my disease. I got a DUI when I was 37, and by the time I got to my mandated treatment at 38 in a rocky marriage. I was court ordered to do treatment this time.

• Do you relate to any of this story?
• Have you been in and out of treatment – on and off sobriety?
• Do you need to get your life together so that your kids don’t suffer and repeat the family patterns?

When I quit cold turkey, my whole world fell apart. I was mess emotionally and physically. I would have to say my marriage ended when I got sober. My husband was not supportive and I felt very alone. I did wait, however, the recommended year  to get a divorce but it definitely was inevitable.

Anyway, treatment was the first step in sobriety for me. Getting sober with support and getting used to living sober. They follow the AA (alcoholic anonymous) model which has great concepts and ideas. I still struggled emotionally because I had no coping skills.

One day while hanging out on the internet, Twitter to be exact, I came across Maia Berens who was a life coach. Some of her tweets really resonated with me, and I reached out to her. Long story short, we eventually spoke on the phone and I knew what she was talking about, was what I needed. She had this loving approach of emotion-based coaching. I didn’t really even know what that meant, I just knew for the first time I felt hope.

She became my Life Coach, and I eventually decided to go through a program she had been working on for many years called YOU University. This program is designed to take you back to your beginning and deal with all of the “stuff” that got you to the place you are today and teach you many tools that you use to transform your life. I was very doubtful that it could help ME. I mean, I had been to counselors, therapy, you name it, and I was still broken!

Well, low and behold, I followed her recommendations and did the hard work involved in the online program YOU University (which follow some of the same principles of the 12-Step program that AA lives by), and for the first time in my life I began to understand me, and I also began to make significant changes in how I lived my life. YOU University was the missing link for me. It was better than treatment. Drinking and drugging became less and less of a burden to me. Sobriety felt good. I began to love myself and see my true potential. I began to allow my “true self” shine through and the people around me could even see a change. From this point on in my life, I was hooked on my personal development. I wanted to forever live feeling this way and eventually trained to be a life coach myself.