S1 E22 The Real Sober Stories with Emily: From Vineyards and Boardrooms to Thriving Alcohol Free

Jane Ballard (00:02.04)
Emily, hi, thank you so much for joining me today.

Emily Jacobsen (00:06.414)
Thank you for having me, Jane. I'm really excited to be here.

Jane Ballard (00:09.752)
Yes, it's such a pleasure. So right now you are working as an alcohol free coach, is that right?

Emily Jacobsen (00:18.893)
Yeah, I'm just beginning my alcohol -free coaching endeavor. I am working on some certifications and building up my business, but have really decided this is the direction I want to go.

Jane Ballard (00:32.76)
Hey, yeah, I think it's so exciting that there is a new kind of conversation around living alcohol free in our culture. And there are so many different ways for people to find support and find community than there was even five years ago. So I applaud what you're doing. That's awesome.

Emily Jacobsen (00:54.253)
Yeah. Thank you. I'm really excited about that. I have had the opportunity over the last year to work with several different alcohol -free coaches. I went through a program through this Naked Mind and was really able to connect with some of those coaches. And I found that that really helped me a lot more in my alcohol -free journey than doing it alone or trying to do some of the more traditional ways of getting help to stay sober.

Jane Ballard (01:24.408)
Yeah. Well, I'm curious a little bit about your story and how you came to be interested in this kind of work, maybe how that, how your own life and your own personal experience influenced you.

Emily Jacobsen (01:38.507)
Yeah, I would say that this has been a pretty long journey for me. It's probably been like a 10 year process, honestly. I've always been someone who is really good at talking to people, really good at listening, always there to help people move through their issues and their problems. And over the past several years, I've really been working on my relationship with alcohol. And so finally was like, I think I can do this.

Jane Ballard (01:47.128)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (02:08.842)
I can help other people in similar situations move away from this thing that is really having a huge negative impact on their life. And so that for me is super exciting. I've been working in a career for almost 20 years. I work in IT and healthcare and spent a lot of time just moving up the ladder. And finally was like, I want to do something that helps me give back.

Jane Ballard (02:18.52)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (02:28.664)
Okay.

Emily Jacobsen (02:35.722)
I've volunteered, I've always been there for friends and family when they need somebody, but I really want to do something that helps women and men live a more fulfilled life. And so I'm really excited about being able to help coach people move away from alcoholics. It's really changed the trajectory of my life and I want to help other people do that as well.

Jane Ballard (02:58.456)
Yeah, and I love how you verbalized that thought of, I think I can do this. Like, I think I have something to offer that can impact other people in a positive way.

Emily Jacobsen (03:11.625)
Well, I'm working on my mindset, so maybe it should be, I know I can do this versus I think, but I do. I know that I can help people and I'm really excited about that.

Jane Ballard (03:21.368)
Yeah, and sometimes, you know, we start out with, I think I can. And so we dip a toe in and then as we go, we develop the confidence that yes, I can help. Even just if it's just one person, I can make a difference.

Emily Jacobsen (03:35.593)
Yeah, and that gives me so much joy and satisfaction of knowing that there are people out there that I can just help move in the direction of an alcohol -free life and really have an impact on them. And whether it's one or it ends up being a million, I get so much joy in helping other people and just seeing them grow. Like that lights a fire in my belly. So I get really excited about that.

Jane Ballard (03:53.976)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (04:04.92)
Yeah, yeah, I think it feels so good when your career isn't just about, you know, making money and paying the bills and climbing the corporate ladder. It's about, you know, doing something that fills that human need to connect with others and to make a difference, to have, you know, significance in somebody else's life and helping kind of alleviate suffering for people.

Emily Jacobsen (04:35.239)
Yeah, and I've done the corporate thing, right? I've been doing that for almost 20 years and I have been extremely successful and very well educated. I'm a leader in my organization, but it doesn't give me that same fire and desire and satisfaction as helping other people grow. And I've done a lot of mentoring and that's the type of work that I've really enjoyed as being a leader.

Jane Ballard (04:58.392)
Mm -hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (05:03.782)
but really looking to take that to the next level.

Jane Ballard (05:06.84)
Yeah. Well, let's back up a little bit and maybe could you talk a little bit about your own personal life and your earliest experiences with alcohol? Kind of what that looks like for you, what your culture was like.

Emily Jacobsen (05:20.55)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, so just outside of Seattle and pretty, I wouldn't say like socially conservative, but more conservative family. We, there wasn't a lot of drinking in my house. We, I'm the middle child and have two brothers, so middle girl and very much type A, high achieving, always on, never a problem.

always just wanted to be a successful type of kid. And so alcohol wasn't really a part of my younger childhood. I do know of stories that I'd heard from my parents of like, your grandfather's brother isn't in our life because he's an alcoholic or something like that, but never like in my immediate family. And so it wasn't really something that I was around too much. And then as I got into middle school,

Jane Ballard (06:16.056)
and

Emily Jacobsen (06:22.373)
I grew up in a larger body, so I was a pretty overweight child, was always trying to make myself smaller, accommodate into other people's situations. And so in middle school, I was just like, I wonder what it feels like to let go, lose control. I had so much control on every part of my life, but I just wanted to see what that was like. So in middle school was the first time that I tried alcohol. I did it alone.

Like I didn't do it with other people, but it was one of those things that I snuck and hid and had that first experience. And I was like, that kind of turns off this need to constantly be in control. And then through the rest of middle school and high school, I didn't really drink a ton. There was a couple of times, but even in those instances when I would drink, it was always a binge. Like it was always got to get, got to get drunk.

Jane Ballard (07:05.944)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (07:21.059)
It wasn't, yeah. Yeah, and like I think as I look back on it now as an adult in hindsight, I have a lot more perspective, but it was around a lot of that needing to have control. I was a straight A student, I volunteered, I worked while going to school, I was constantly trying to make sure that I wasn't causing problems for other people. And so just really,

Jane Ballard (07:21.08)
Like you're drinking to get the buzz.

Emily Jacobsen (07:50.243)
having this thing that was secret. Again, I wasn't doing this with a lot of people. There was a couple of friends here and there that maybe I would drink with sometimes, but it was a way for me to just be like, I can let go for a second. And that follows you. That has followed me my entire life. So I think that.

Jane Ballard (08:04.536)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (08:09.176)
Well, and sometimes for people who are achievement oriented, it doesn't even feel like a voluntary thing to be able to loosen up on the goals and the list and the achievement oriented activities. And so maybe it felt like that for you and alcohol turned it off, you know?

Emily Jacobsen (08:30.786)
Yeah, it did. And that followed me for a long time, right? So even in college, there wasn't a ton of, like, I wasn't drunk every weekend. I took care of a lot of friends of mine that would be out drinking. But when I did drink, it was to excess. It was a binge. And it was really to finally let go because I was always looked to as the mom who's going to take care of us, who's going to make sure we don't die tonight.

Jane Ballard (08:59.96)
Yeah, that we get home safely.

Emily Jacobsen (08:59.969)
And so when I did have those opportunities, I'm not kidding. And I worked too through college. So I oftentimes was a certified nursing assistant, so I'd have eight hour shifts. Like I couldn't show up to those hungover. So I didn't do a ton of drinking per se then, but it was problematic when I was drinking. And it was to lose control. It was to like specifically lower those inhibitions because of how wound up I was.

Jane Ballard (09:12.44)
Ow.

Jane Ballard (09:29.176)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, I can hear a theme of being responsible, not getting out of the lines because you don't want to impinge on somebody else. You don't want to make any trouble. I wonder where that came from. Can you see like looking back at your family as like the only girl and two boys on either side of you? Were you kind of the caretaker or what did that look like?

Emily Jacobsen (09:38.336)
Mm -hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (09:54.592)
I would say, and yeah, I've always been a caretaker of friends and family wanting to make sure everyone felt included. And I think honestly, some of it came about as just being a child who wanted to be seen for something besides like my physical size. Like I said earlier, I was fairly overweight as a kid and I've battled with weight my entire life. But...

Jane Ballard (10:18.008)
Okay.

Emily Jacobsen (10:21.631)
I think I like just needed to succeed so that I would be that smart kid instead of the fat kid. I needed to be super nice. So I was the nice kid and not the fat kid. And there, I mean, there's obviously there's things throughout your life and people say stuff and it impacts you. And the more I learn about just how our brain hooks onto things and then replace them for us, as we get older, I definitely see some of those patterns of really trying to be.

Jane Ballard (10:46.68)
Yes.

Emily Jacobsen (10:50.974)
be smart, not cause problems because I wanted to be something besides what people physically saw. And that very much shaped a lot of who I was as a younger kid and even into adulthood, which we'll get to, I'm sure, here in a minute. But it significantly impacted my life.

Jane Ballard (11:08.184)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (11:14.008)
Yeah, it sounds like that is what drove this constant striving for achievement. Yeah. Do you think that your parents recognized that or supported you in any way?

Emily Jacobsen (11:18.461)
Mm -hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (11:27.997)
I think my parents did the best that they could. My parents are from Southeast Idaho, grew up pretty conservative. My parents, my mom was 19 when she got married. She's been a mom caretaker of the house, her entire adulthood basically. And so I think that they did the best that they could with the knowledge that they have. I know that.

Jane Ballard (11:31.48)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (11:54.68)
Mm -hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (11:56.125)
I know that there are instances in my life where my parents would call out my size or say, hey, you know, bigger kids don't tend to have as many friends, or there are some things that I specifically remember. I remember in early middle school, my mom and I doing Weight Watchers together. So I think that in hindsight, these are things that we know now we're probably detrimental to somebody's mental health.

But at the time, I think that they were just trying to do the best that they could.

Jane Ballard (12:26.52)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (12:37.24)
Yeah, their intention was to help not to cause any harm.

Emily Jacobsen (12:42.524)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I have a good relationship with my parents now and I have done so much therapy that I've worked through a lot of it, you know. Yeah, I mean, still there's stuff.

Jane Ballard (12:51.32)
You've worked through all of it. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I can hear this. Yeah, it's a journey. It's a lifelong journey. But I can hear the compassion and like the love and respect you have for your parents, you know, and and giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Emily Jacobsen (12:59.324)
It does, yes.

Emily Jacobsen (13:05.528)
yeah, they provided. Yeah.

Jane Ballard (13:10.648)
Yeah. Okay. And so after college, what did that look like for you? What were you doing?

Emily Jacobsen (13:19.707)
Yeah, so college was kind of a wild ride for me. I was pretty tightly wound. I did really well in school because I have this part of me that needs uncertainty and excitement and sometimes alcohol would give that to me. Other times it was taking risks in other ways in my life. So I spent part of my senior year of high school studying abroad in Germany and living with a host family. I lived abroad in

Jane Ballard (13:47.544)
Wow.

Emily Jacobsen (13:49.21)
college. I lived in Cairo, Egypt, studying Arabic. And then my senior year of college, I went to Ghana in West Africa and studied there. And throughout college and living by myself and really being active, living in the city, my, my body size had shrunk down. And when I went to Ghana, I met a man and my senior year of college got married.

eight weeks later came home from living abroad and was like, yes, but I did. and so we, so my senior year of college, I got married and then was like, no, I have to have a job. Like I have to support this person because they live in a different country and immigration. And so I, I just.

Jane Ballard (14:20.76)
Ow.

Jane Ballard (14:37.336)
Yes, so you had to leave him there and come back and figure out now what, how do we figure this out?

Emily Jacobsen (14:40.761)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (14:45.497)
Yeah, I had, yeah, that was in January and I graduated from college that summer. And so at the end of that, I was like, I need a job. I need to support this person. So I ended up kind of falling backwards into the career that I have built. I was an international studies major and then ended up getting a job in healthcare IT and moved from Seattle to the Midwest. And,

Jane Ballard (14:52.376)
Okay.

Emily Jacobsen (15:12.856)
Eventually it took a year and a half, almost two years, and he was able to immigrate to the US. And so that was a huge thing in my life, going from knowing all of these people and growing up and living in the same place and then moving to the Midwest by myself. It was pretty lonely. And then I traveled a lot for work. And I would say at that point, I probably started to ramp up my drinking more than just...

Jane Ballard (15:18.52)
Okay.

Emily Jacobsen (15:41.591)
every once in a while, some binging to a pretty regular part of my life. I mean, all of us that started to work for this company, we were young, a lot of what we did was go out every weekend. Wisconsin has a huge drinking culture. I think they still do. And so, yeah. So if you want to play volleyball on a team, it was volleyball while drinking. If you wanted to go to a sports game, it was that sports game while drinking. So.

Jane Ballard (15:54.52)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (15:58.808)
That's what I've heard.

Emily Jacobsen (16:10.742)
There was a lot of alcohol involved in that four years that I lived in the Midwest.

Jane Ballard (16:15.608)
well, just woven in, it sounds like. But I'm curious, like, about the marriage. Like, how are you feeling about this person that you'd married and only got to spend eight weeks with them and then, I guess it was long distance for a couple of years?

Emily Jacobsen (16:34.135)
Yeah, so we got married and then I, so we met, got married. I was there for a couple more months and then I had to come back and finish school and be an adult. And so it was going distance. I think hindsight looking back on it, I have gone through lots of work on why did I, why was I so impulsive? Why did I do those things? We aren't together today. We've been divorced for,

Jane Ballard (16:45.08)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (17:03.702)
eight years, but we have three kids together. And I think a lot of it was around some of those insecurities of like, who am I, what am I doing? I need some excitement in my life. I married the first person who said, I love you. And just like, it was an impulsive decision, got really great things out of it, but also a lot of things I had to work through to.

Jane Ballard (17:07.448)
Bye.

Jane Ballard (17:17.592)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (17:31.669)
to come out on the other side and it also helps escalate my drinking.

Jane Ballard (17:36.344)
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And I think that 21, 22 year olds, you know, they are, their brains are structured in a way that they do tend to make impulsive decisions at times. And, you know, it probably did feel really exciting. Like it sounds like you have this interest in other cultures. You were seeking out these opportunities to go study in Germany and then you go to Ghana and.

Emily Jacobsen (17:58.576)
yeah.

Jane Ballard (18:06.936)
find this person and feel in love and then it's like, well, I'm leaving and the only way we can be together is if we get married, you know, like you can see how it would happen.

Emily Jacobsen (18:16.916)
Yeah, it was, I think I always was like, well, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And then I'm also a perfectionist. So when you go home and then you're like, well, not working is not an option. And so what's really hard for 11 years for it to work. And I think part of that is when you're in something and you're working really hard for it.

Jane Ballard (18:23.32)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (18:31.128)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (18:36.376)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (18:44.819)
alcohol becomes an escape that you're like, okay, I can take a break for a minute. I can turn the grind off. And so I did, I think through that 11 years, my drinking escalated. But also I had to, during that time, I became a mom when I was 24, which is fairly young, especially now, even 15 years ago when I was young to become a mom. And then,

Jane Ballard (18:49.272)
Yes.

Yeah.

Jane Ballard (19:06.392)
Yeah, it's pretty young.

Jane Ballard (19:13.112)
Sure.

Emily Jacobsen (19:14.226)
Pretty much from there, I had my first son and then a couple of years later had another boy and a couple of years after that had another boy. And so became this family of five pretty quickly. And a lot of things just had to be dealt with all the time. And so drinking really became that escape for me.

Jane Ballard (19:28.024)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (19:36.344)
Yeah, yeah, like probably it didn't feel possible to like set aside time for yourself to do some kind of organized self care activity. And I think a lot of moms tend to feel that way. Like you can kind of grab something to drink and get a little bit of relief and still try to manage all the things that you've got going on in the house at the same time.

Emily Jacobsen (20:01.266)
Yeah, it was, I mean, yes, very much so that the other thing that I was dealing with was climbing the corporate ladder. I was the breadwinner of the family, also the conductor of everything at home. And so just going through all of those pieces and then not being sure of who I was anymore and that being pretty scary, lent itself to a position where,

Jane Ballard (20:14.744)
Mm -hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (20:28.337)
drinking was a really easy excuse to escape.

Jane Ballard (20:32.824)
Yeah.

At that point, were there other people noticing or feeling concerned about your drinking or was it just kind of something that you kept to yourself and was under wraps?

Emily Jacobsen (20:46.673)
I'd like to say that I was really sneaky and nobody knew what I was doing. And I don't know if people did know to what extent was going on. but I do know that there were some times when it would be a family gathering or there would be other people around and I would, I would go a little too far. I like, cause I got really good at trying to control like, how much more can I have? What's going on? A lot of my life became.

How much can I drink? When can I drink? When do I have to stop drinking? And so I think there were definitely times where family or friends would notice things. But so much of my drinking honestly was alone and not when other people were around because it was shameful. Like I didn't feel good about leaving this escape. So I don't think that anyone knew to what extent I was drinking.

Jane Ballard (21:21.464)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (21:32.952)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (21:44.688)
But they definitely knew when I was drinking, like everything was like, are we going to go wine tasting? Are we going to have this drink or look at these cool cocktails I can make? So I know that they knew I was indulging, but I don't think that anyone fully understood to what extent.

Jane Ballard (22:02.808)
And so much of that is just normal culture, you know, that it's almost like a hobby is, you know, going to wineries or having drinks on a patio, you know, it's pretty normalized.

Emily Jacobsen (22:18.734)
Yeah, I loved to talk about wine. I loved wine. And we, I live in an area where there's a place called Woodinville in the Seattle area and they have, it's almost like every storefront is a winery. So you could go to hundreds of wineries on foot.

Jane Ballard (22:44.536)
Did you stay on foot? Sorry, I lost you for a second.

Emily Jacobsen (22:47.438)
Yeah, sorry, yeah, you could go to all these wineries on foot and it was just the normal thing to do.

Jane Ballard (22:56.504)
Yeah, and you don't have to worry about driving or having a driver or anything like that.

Emily Jacobsen (23:01.262)
Yep. And so that was... go ahead. No, no, go for it.

Jane Ballard (23:03.416)
So it sounds like, go ahead, sorry. I was just gonna, okay, I was just gonna say it sounds like the first theme of your drinking was about like getting these breaks. And then it sounds like eventually it was also part of your, how you socialized or part of your just social culture.

Emily Jacobsen (23:28.974)
Yeah, it definitely was. I used to have this belief that in order to be fun or to be around or to be talkative and to have surface conversations, I needed to be drinking. I have a very close group of friends, but I don't have many. And so if I wanted to be in a larger group, I needed to lubricate the talkative wheels a little bit because...

Jane Ballard (23:43.928)
Mm -hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (23:56.748)
It was boring to me to sit and talk about the weather or, I mean, I love my kids, but that's not what I want to talk to people about when I'm sitting and having conversations because I'm so much more than just a mom and so much more of them, the activities that I run them to. So I felt like drinking allowed me to just kind of numb out and have those conversations and still enjoy myself.

Jane Ballard (24:08.28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jane Ballard (24:23.448)
I can totally relate to that. Like all of it, the, you know, having a close, like having close knit friends, but not having like 50 of them, having a handful of them. And then when you are in situations where you're socializing with people who aren't part of that inner circle, it does tend to be more surface level conversation, which can get really boring pretty quickly. And so alcohol makes it more.

More fun, more enjoyable.

Emily Jacobsen (24:55.403)
Yeah, I would, yes, I used to think that. And then I also had to do stuff for work. Like I had to go to happy hours or go to, I did consulting for a while. So you take your customers out, everyone expects you to drink with them. And so I think that it just was woven into work life, home life, the secret life that I had created that nobody got to know about which.

Jane Ballard (25:12.6)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (25:21.995)
is actually really important to me to have things that are mine that nobody knows about it. I just do it in a healthier way today than I used to. And so it just was every aspect of my life. And then I would say in 2016, right after I had my third son, everything just kind of hit the fan in my life and my drinking escalated pretty quickly from there.

Jane Ballard (25:26.776)
Yeah.

Yes.

Emily Jacobsen (25:50.891)
to more than it had been. And that's when I decided, I guess a couple years of that escalation. And then I was like, I need to get help.

Jane Ballard (25:51.576)
Okay.

Jane Ballard (26:00.44)
Like this is not sustainable or working anymore. Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (26:04.147)
Yeah, so I think in 2016, right after I had my son, I had been as tired, like you just, I'm a mom of three. After all of my kids, I went back to work in less, like with my second, I went back to work after six weeks. With my third, I went back to work after 10 weeks. My first was born two months early and so was in the hospital. So,

There was just some like trauma around being a mom and having kids. And I just, I was.

Jane Ballard (26:39.864)
Well, and like a decade of being like pregnant, postpartum, raising a baby, do it again, like that's really hard. You don't get a lot of time to just be a human.

Emily Jacobsen (26:45.131)
-huh.

Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (26:54.635)
No, you don't get any time to be a human. And so it was around that time where I had kind of decided, started to wake up to the fact that I was really unhappy in my marriage and started to kind of evaluate what is this relationship at the same time, was also when my best friend got diagnosed with cancer and that fight had to start pretty intensely and,

Jane Ballard (27:18.36)
Hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (27:23.883)
really started to put things in perspective for me. Like, ugh. I remember waking up one day and being like, is this really how it's gonna be forever? Like, I can't do that. I don't wanna be hungover anymore. I don't wanna be in this relationship anymore. I want to actually know who I am and what I wanna do. And so that like was a pretty difficult time for me.

Jane Ballard (27:49.176)
Yeah. And it sounds like maybe you hadn't allowed yourself to consciously think those thoughts because if you did, what would you do with them? But eventually it came to a point where you're like, I just can't keep doing this anymore. Like I have to admit that this is how I feel about the state of things.

Emily Jacobsen (28:01.995)
Boom!

Emily Jacobsen (28:12.139)
Yeah, I think that you, I always have said, like, I'm really good at putting things in boxes and just this ignoring box started to overflow and it was too overwhelming. And I spent a lot of 2016 and 2017, like, pretty sad and like trying to figure out what's going on. My best friend didn't make it and it really turned a lot, like she passed away in February.

Jane Ballard (28:22.872)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (28:36.344)
Mmm.

Emily Jacobsen (28:42.379)
And then in, it was probably the end of February, early March, I told my husband at the time, I was like, we're done, I can't, I need a divorce. And so then that process starts. So you go from one trauma right into like not even really grieving into, I'm not gonna live my, like if, like she was 39 when she passed away and I was like, if she didn't get a whole life and if I'm not gonna have that, I'm not.

Jane Ballard (28:52.952)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (28:57.88)
to another one.

Emily Jacobsen (29:10.827)
spending what I do have this unhappy. And so, yeah.

Jane Ballard (29:14.84)
Yeah, it kind of wakes you up to how precious and short life is and that none of us know how much time we have. Every day should be, we should be feeling like we're living how God intended us to live, like living into our purpose, not just surviving and getting through it.

Emily Jacobsen (29:40.932)
Yeah, no, I 100 % agree. I will say that from that time till now, it took three years for me to figure that out. But it was a process. And so I think one of the things that changed in my drinking was really started using drinking more as a medicine for my sadness that I was experiencing. And so I had shifted a little bit. And I think the last kind of...

Jane Ballard (29:49.784)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (30:10.372)
three years of my drinking experience was more of a medicated experience versus for fun or whatever. And that is probably those three years are probably the most detrimental to like.

Jane Ballard (30:19.032)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (30:27.14)
my mental health, my physical health, and all of those things. So those three years are that period of time where I'm just like, I'm glad I went through it, but I'm so happy I'm on the other side of that.

Jane Ballard (30:32.568)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (30:40.344)
Yes. So during those three years, is that when you were grieving the loss of your friend and then going through the divorce and grieving that?

Emily Jacobsen (30:52.098)
Yeah, there's, I would say there's a lot of grief. I mean, I think in divorce, there is like, you know, what's the right thing to do. But I was grieving. I was grieving this thing that I said I was going to do for the rest of my life. I looked at it, I failed. I looked back at it and was like, people are going to think I just like, that he just married me because he wanted to immigrate. Not think like,

Logically that didn't make sense because we had these 11 years together 10 and a half years together Yeah, but I was like I was so embarrassed and so disappointed and there wasn't a lot of divorce in my family So that was difficult and then just thinking like my gosh, I'm a single mom I have three kids. I had to sell my house. I bought my

Jane Ballard (31:26.072)
and a family and.

Jane Ballard (31:38.904)
Mm -hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (31:49.505)
I bought a house by myself for the first time and I just, it was a lot. Like I was so lucky to have family close by. We actually ended up moving a couple blocks away from my parents so the kids could walk there if they needed to. But it was, it's a lot of work to be a single mom and to do that. And during that same time, it was like, okay, am I gonna date? How's it?

Jane Ballard (31:56.376)
a lot.

Emily Jacobsen (32:18.688)
going to work? Do I? What am I going to do? And so just a lot of figuring out and then just still, I hadn't at that point even started therapy or thought about therapy for all of those little T's that you have growing up from a trauma perspective.

Jane Ballard (32:38.968)
And so at that point you had never done any therapy till after your divorce. Okay.

Emily Jacobsen (32:42.879)
No, not really. Yeah, like we tried to do a little bit of couples therapy when I had let my husband know that I wanted a divorce and that didn't go well. So not a lot of therapy had been done at that point. My therapy was running, working out. Like I was gonna, if I was, I was gonna sweat it out. I was just gonna like, I was gonna fix everything, right? I'm just gonna run really fast.

Jane Ballard (32:59.384)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (33:05.752)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (33:09.56)
Yeah, give you a little relief for a second or at least you'll be feeling a different kind of pain.

Emily Jacobsen (33:15.647)
Yes, I'm kidding.

Jane Ballard (33:17.56)
Yeah. Okay. So looking back on that, you can see that there was meaning and purpose, but also there's now gratitude that you're in a more peaceful place.

Emily Jacobsen (33:31.135)
Yeah, I think, yes, 100%. I'm in a much more peaceful place, but to take you through those three years, kind of what happened is I had started to like, my drinking had escalated. I started dating. I ended up in a relationship with my now husband, who's amazing. And we ended up,

about two years post -divorce, maybe three years, I don't know all the dates and stuff, but in 2019 we ended up getting married and combining our families. So now I have my three kids, he has his two girls and we all moved into a house together and then COVID hit. So we kind of like threw everything together.

Jane Ballard (34:06.2)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (34:11.224)
Okay.

Jane Ballard (34:17.432)
Ow.

my gosh.

Emily Jacobsen (34:25.758)
And I was working at home, so I was home all the time with the kids and he worked in a job where he still had to go into the office except for like a very short period of time during COVID. So a lot was happening. We had one of our kids go through a mental health crisis of their own and trying to manage that. And I would say during that 2020, 2021 timeframe, we all knew my drinking was at, like it wasn't that.

secret anymore. We all knew that it was starting to escalate more than we were comfortable with. And so that was pretty rough. But at the same time, I was still working full time. I was making sure my kids got through school. We had a senior in high school and a kindergartner at the time and everywhere in between. And then I decided, you know, that's not enough. And I went back to school to get my master's. And so this was...

Jane Ballard (34:59.864)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (35:12.684)
my gosh.

Jane Ballard (35:19.608)
my gosh.

Emily Jacobsen (35:21.724)
Too much happening and it just, it all kind of collided. And in 2022, I went in for my annual exam. My normal doctor wasn't available. And so I just was like, whatever, I need to go in. So I've been avoiding it. And it was the first time I went to the doctor and I didn't lie on those forms that they say, how much are you drinking? How is like, like you know, PHQ9, like what is your mental health looking like?

Jane Ballard (35:46.52)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (35:51.579)
And my scores were not great. My scores were horrible. And when the doctor came into the room, she said, do you want to have your physical today or do we want to talk about your drinking and your mental health and what you actually really need? And I was like, and my gosh, it was the best.

Jane Ballard (36:11.224)
Good for her. That's so rare.

Emily Jacobsen (36:18.49)
I was like mortified at the time, but looking back, it was the best experience because not only did she do that, she canceled her lunch and sat with me for an hour. And it was the first time that I cried and the first time that I really said, I have a problem and I need help.

Jane Ballard (36:21.143)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (36:39.8)
And that can be so terrifying and also so empowering just to say, whatever I'm doing, is it working? I need somebody to come in and give me some guidance.

Emily Jacobsen (36:54.202)
Yeah. And, and I think that just being able to tell her was really important, but it also then allowed me to be like, I have to tell my husband. And so from there, I was able to have a conversation with him and I struggled five months together. After that, I was like, I was training for, the New York city marathon. And I was like, this is going to be great for my training. I,

Jane Ballard (37:19.544)
Bye.

Emily Jacobsen (37:22.585)
really focused on making sure that I had other alternatives around me and was diving into lots of quit lit. I started therapy for the first time and was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be successful. And I did for a while. I did for five months. And then I was like, I think I can moderate.

Jane Ballard (37:40.696)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (37:45.561)
And that didn't go well. Yeah, so it's, it was something that I was like, I think this will work for me. And then it wasn't even, it was like the second time I drank after not drinking for five months, I was back to where I was before hiding it, binging. And like, for me, the most, the place where I got the most shame from, I don't anymore, I've worked.

Jane Ballard (37:47.384)
Yeah. Yeah, moderation. Ugh.

Emily Jacobsen (38:15.065)
through that was the fact that I was doing it in secret. Like I knew what I was doing wasn't good for me, wasn't good for my family. And so the fact that I was lying about it or doing it in secret was what was really hard. And I knew that that needed to change.

Jane Ballard (38:19.064)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (38:31.384)
one of the, yeah.

Yeah, and you know, doing it in secret, like there's shame that comes along with that. But then just the keeping a secret and living with that knowledge just intensifies the shame. And it's such an awful, awful feeling to live with.

Emily Jacobsen (38:55.543)
Yeah, it really is. And I thought to myself, am I ever going to be able to change? Like, I'm not even willing to talk to people about it because I had stopped, right? And then I started drinking again. I felt so much shame around it. And it just, it really escalated. And the only person I was honest with was my therapist at the time. And she was...

Jane Ballard (39:15.96)
Mm -hmm.

Emily Jacobsen (39:25.046)
She was amazing. She had been a therapist in male prisons and so she didn't take any of my crap. She was like, mm -mm, nope. I don't think so. yeah, she would call me out in the most appropriate ways because I will also be someone who kind of hides my feelings with humor or self -defecation. And so she was really good at calling that out. And...

Jane Ballard (39:35.544)
Yeah, her BS radar was very sensitive.

Jane Ballard (39:43.128)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (39:52.566)
and got me into doing EMDR therapy. So really being able to process some of those things from my childhood that I was like, that impacted me? Are you kidding? As an adult looking back, why would that have so much of an impact on my life? And so we did that. And with working with me, she was like, I really think that you have bipolar two disorder.

Jane Ballard (39:57.064)
yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (40:21.365)
Like I think that you are self -medicating, you are doing these things. We started tracking my moods and my behaviors. And it was the first time someone from the outside was looking at it as objectively and saying, it's not just that you're drinking, it's when you're choosing to drink, it's how you're choosing to drink and where you are in some of these elevated mood cycles. And then you fall into like a...

Jane Ballard (40:22.296)
Alright.

Jane Ballard (40:37.816)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (40:48.725)
deep depression for quite some time. And so it was fascinating.

Jane Ballard (40:52.44)
And that makes so much sense with like the need for excitement or novelty and kind of these trips and these impulsive decisions, like that theme of that popping up makes sense. So.

Emily Jacobsen (40:58.325)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (41:07.733)
Yeah, and I, throughout my whole life, I've been like, okay, two, three -ish years is about all I can stay at one job and then I need something different. And whether that was a promotion or changing my employer or whatever, but like, I needed change, but I also needed stability. So it was just this weird kind of thing. And so that was, yes, yeah.

Jane Ballard (41:17.336)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (41:27.576)
Yes.

Like you mostly need stability, but you need the occasional shakeup. And for our listeners, for those who, sorry. I was just going to say for those who aren't familiar with kind of bipolar one and bipolar two, bipolar two means that there's episodes of depression and then episodes of mania with bipolar. And in bipolar two, the mania is kind of like a lower form of that. It's not as extreme.

Emily Jacobsen (41:36.949)
tracking it, I was able to see it.

Emily Jacobsen (42:00.85)
Yeah, and so my, my, my up mood, really manifested itself in like wanting to buy lots of stuff. wanting to like needing to do something, extreme, whether that was take a trip. I spent a lot of time when I was younger traveling by myself. I still do that today as an adult, cause I need that excitement. I, it's when I would decide to go to Los.

Jane Ballard (42:12.6)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (42:27.)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (42:29.394)
Like I went to the UW Law School to get my master's in jurisprudence. I was in a little bit of an up mood when I made that decision, but then the perfectionist in me was like, you have to finish it. So of course I have to finish it. Well, yes, so there was some impulsive decisions. And I worked with her and then a psychiatrist to try and figure out like, how do you manage this? I failed every medication that I took.

Jane Ballard (42:36.824)
Yeah.

We're sticking with it.

Emily Jacobsen (42:56.497)
and had some allergic reactions and felt very discouraged by it. And finally, in 2023, in April, I went to a natural path and we were like, let's look at all your, let's look at like, we did a nutrient eval to look at all my nutrient deficiencies. And I was off the charts low in a lot of areas that impact your mood, your stability.

Jane Ballard (43:03.32)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (43:25.2)
and a lot of it was because of my drinking. And so we decided to kind of start attacking that, but in order to do that, I needed to stop drinking. Like I had to, like my body was just processing alcohol at that point. It wasn't actually absorbing what I was putting into it. And so I continued with my therapist with EMDR therapy. I decided that I was gonna,

Jane Ballard (43:28.76)
Hey.

Jane Ballard (43:43.96)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (43:53.136)
pay for enjoying this year long thing because if I'm paying for it, I joined this making my path. If I'm paying for it, then I definitely am going to be reminded every month. And then I also started trying some alternative treatments. So I went into some pretty intensive ketamine treatment in order to get my mental health rebalanced and continue therapy and getting my nutrients back up. And so,

Jane Ballard (44:01.496)
I'll stick with it.

Jane Ballard (44:17.048)
Emily Jacobsen (44:23.44)
June 5th of 2023 is my sobriety date. And so I'm almost at that year, but yeah, it's been an amazing journey. And my mental health is in such a good spot these days. It's so great.

Jane Ballard (44:29.944)
You're coming up on a year.

Jane Ballard (44:40.728)
That's amazing. And there's so much hope in these new treatments that are coming up and there's more and more evidence to support treatments like ketamine and even looking at different physiological things that could be out of balance that are contributing to mental health. There's a book called Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety. Have you heard of it? Yeah, it's a great one.

Emily Jacobsen (45:06.574)
I've heard of it and I haven't had it.

Jane Ballard (45:09.432)
It's great just talking about different nutrients and then the foods that you can get these specific nutrients and then how they impact your mental health and physical well -being. And so I think there is so much to that. Like our mental health and our physical health are not as separate as we think they are. They are pretty much one in the same.

Emily Jacobsen (45:31.694)
Yeah, I 100 % agree with that. I'm working with a functional med doctor, which has been life changing for me. Not only do they sit and have conversations with you and draw pictures and explain the processes within your body, I'm pretty scientifically based. Like, I get that. And to really target where I was deficient has been really important. I had some really low, my B levels were really low.

Jane Ballard (45:49.848)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (45:59.95)
my amino acids were extremely low. And so being able to build those things back up has really allowed me to, I'm not tired. And like, I'm tired, like, because I'm a mom and I'm busy and I work full time and I do all of those things, but I'm not fatigued anymore. And that has, yeah. Yeah. And when you're, and when you're starting much fuller, it's so much easier to get through the day without.

Jane Ballard (46:07.416)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (46:16.728)
Yeah. Yeah, like the feeling of exhaustion and just depletion.

Emily Jacobsen (46:29.613)
thinking about the drink. Like it's not even, alcohol is not even a part of my life anymore, which is, I can't believe I'm saying that because it was like an everyday occurrence I spent. From the minute I woke up, I was like, when can I have my first drink? When is it appropriate? Are there meetings I can cancel towards the end of the day so I can have it sooner? Or like it was always on my mind. And so the mental head space of drinking.

Jane Ballard (46:35.128)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (46:51.544)
Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (46:57.676)
is gone and I'm doing, like I'm able to do so much more in my day and live so much happier because it's not there. And by doing these other things, I've got my bipolar too under control and not being medicated on a day -to -day basis, but really doing the work. I feel really good.

Jane Ballard (47:16.312)
with yes.

Jane Ballard (47:23.416)
That's amazing. I mean, I say this all the time, but going alcohol free, it's like the ultimate life hack and just getting the space back in your mind, getting the energy back into your body and feeling so much clarity about how you want to spend your time here on this planet. You know, and the beliefs, go ahead, sorry.

Emily Jacobsen (47:42.412)
Yeah, I agree. I think it's great. No, no, I was just gonna say I agree. It's been an amazing transformation and I did not believe that I would be here because I just had such a negative mindset about myself, what I was worth, what I was going to become. When I got diagnosed, I was like, great, another thing. So there was just...

So much negativity and now the positivity is such a different way to live and it's lighter. I feel better. I'm doing cool things.

Jane Ballard (48:22.648)
Yeah, so much lighter. Yes, and those beliefs that you had that held you back that felt like facts.

in a relatively short period of time are completely irrelevant to you now.

Emily Jacobsen (48:38.569)
Yeah, 100%. And I would credit, I think EMDR therapy was really helpful in that and helping me process faster. I did not do well with talk therapy. That wasn't for me. I would just joke or, you know, I just said, how was my day? You know, so really being forced to look deep inside helped me understand some of the whys.

Jane Ballard (48:49.784)
Yeah.

Jane Ballard (48:54.328)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Jacobsen (49:06.057)
And I'm a why person, like, just don't tell me to do something, tell me the why. And so that was really helpful. And then just attacking this from so many different directions and really understanding why my brain was working the way that it was working and being able to recognize it now. Like I still have ups and downs, but I know when they're coming and I know how to manage them and I have tools and none of those things involve alcohol.

Jane Ballard (49:09.496)
Yeah, yes.

Jane Ballard (49:18.072)
Mm -hmm.

Jane Ballard (49:27.768)
Yes.

Jane Ballard (49:34.936)
Yeah, that's amazing. Well, you just have a beautiful story and you've overcome so much and you know, it's just so inspiring and I love that you're willing to share it so that, you know, other people know that they're not alone and that there's hope. Like this change is possible. It's available to everyone.

Emily Jacobsen (50:02.151)
Yeah, no, it's exciting to start to tell people your story. I think once you kind of own it and you can talk about it, I know that it will, there will be people that resonate with it and be like, there might be some hope and some chance for me there. So thank you for having me and letting me share my story.

Jane Ballard (50:11.928)
for sure.

Jane Ballard (50:19.896)
Absolutely.

Yes, thank you. If people want to find you and connect with you, what is the best way for them to reach out to you?

Emily Jacobsen (50:31.143)
So I have an Instagram, which is Emily Jacobson Coaching, and Jacobson is S -E -N. And then I also have a website if people are interested in working with me or having a conversation, and that's EmilyJacobsonCoaching .com.

Jane Ballard (50:37.4)
Okay.

Jane Ballard (50:46.424)
Okay, and Jacobson is S -E -N.

Okay, awesome. Well, Emily, again, it's been a pleasure and just thank you so much. I've loved talking with you today.

Emily Jacobsen (50:59.591)
Thank you.