In this episode, I continue Chapter One of The Trails and Trials of Addiction and Anxiety and talk about how my first drink felt like relief — and how that relief slowly became a way of avoiding life.

I reflect on how anxiety, loss, and the need to fit in shaped my relationship with alcohol, and how uneventful days quietly turned into years I didn’t know I was losing.

This is a story about trading one set of chains for another — and what it takes to find courage again.