Maggie's first experience with alcoholism was when she was a child. Her own mother died of alcohol-related illnesses at the age of 27. The family preferred to she died of "tuberculosis." Maggie thinks her own alcoholism stems from her mother's disease. She grew up in the seventies and eighties, enjoying the bar and nightclub scenes in New York City, and was a regular at Studio 54. She pursued the alcohol because it allowed her to relax and enjoy herself, where she had no knowledge how to do that sober.