“It changed me. It changed everything.” Fiona’s story of growth, understanding and empowerment.

Giving up drinking is hands down one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. Drinking had become highly problematic for me and it was impacting every single area and aspect of my life. I was so unhappy and I just couldn’t see a way out.

In the end, it was an easy decision, but it was not an easy process to get to that point. It took years, to be honest. I remember how terrifying it was, not knowing how I would ever be able to do it. But I did do it. And what it opened up for me…it changed me. It changed everything.

Since that time, my life has improved on every single marker you can possibly measure. And over a decade later, there are still some mornings when I wake up and feel grateful that I don’t have a hangover.

After years of trying to moderate and make rules around my drinking, by the time I decided to choose happiness for my life and enlisted the support of Hello Sunday Morning (in January 2013) it wasn’t even a hard decision, because there really wasn’t another choice to be made.

A bottle of wine a day (and counting) had become my normal and my first drink was getting earlier and earlier each day. It had always been a bit like this for me, but somehow, I had been able to function and achieve things in my life. But it was like the wheels were really starting to fall off, the hangovers were getting worse and a real sense of fear and desperation was starting to pervade my life.

This was not how it was meant to be.

My children were tiny, I felt like I wasn’t mothering properly. I was overweight, unfit, unhealthy, unhappy in my relationship and I had completely lost my confidence in my ability to get any of it right. I struggled to get work and just couldn’t see a way out of our financial situation.

This was not how I had planned or wanted to live my life, and certainly not the life I wanted for my children. The truth was, I never had a plan for my life. I had just drifted along and hoped somehow that things would pan out for me and I would be happy and successful in life.

As I was to come to understand, I had created this reality in my life – and this was incredibly powerful knowledge for me. It meant that I could do something about it if I stopped blaming other people for my problems and instead started taking 100% full and complete responsibility for my life.

Fast forward to today – after a lifetime of feeling like a victim in my life – I’m proud to share:

• I do not drink alcohol and have not had a drink since January 2013
• I have loving, thriving and positive relationships
• I am the fittest, healthiest and happiest I have ever been
• I operate and show up from a position of empowered living and have people, tools and practices to support me
• I built a business from the ground up, helping other people change their lives, teaching all I have learned and implemented in my own life and business
• I have written and published two books
• I am the host of two podcasts (just about to launch my third)
• I have reconnected with my faith, which brings me untold peace and joy
• I took a stand for me.

For me, the real significance of quitting alcohol was not in terms of what I stopped doing. It was what I decided to do instead – meditation. So, while giving up drinking was a very important thing for me to do, it was the meditation that created the real space for me to start to make real changes in my life. Meditation opened me up to exploring other ways of understanding myself.

I became more aware of the way I thought – understanding that I am not my thoughts. I stopped believing every single thought in my head, or obsessively thinking about it, or using whatever means available to deny or suppress it. In my head, my life was a nightmare, and this was mirrored back to me from the world around. My meditation practice has evolved over the years, with the benefits becoming more profound as I expanded my practice.

Here's the thing…I am no different to you. Just like you, I am a human being, who has thoughts and also experiences emotion, and perhaps, just like you, I muddled my way through this life. But I came to the conclusion that the way I was operating and the way I was living my life just wasn’t working. It was time to find a better way. It was time to start taking responsibility for my life, where it was heading and to really start playing my game to the best of my ability.

I had to quieten all the chatter, chaos and problems lurking in my head. Through the simple practice of meditation, I was able to connect with my heart and begin to look at things from a place of acceptance, compassion and forgiveness. Within myself, I began to feel calm and centred, optimistic, and hopeful, even as the chaos still ravaged around me in the external world.

It was from this place that I was able to change my story and perspective. The deeper I accepted, the more I shifted my perspective, the happier my life became. I realised that happiness is to be found in overcoming the obstacles and challenges in our lives, not in the absence of them.

I wanted to know more, I wanted to understand more, and I wanted to have a different experience for my life. I wanted to know my potential, connect with the potential of who I could become in this lifetime and what I could achieve. I committed to meditating everyday. I knew drinking wasn’t the problem (I was using it to try and quieten the noise and chaos). The drinking was simply a consequence of other things.

I discovered that “the thing” which we think is “the thing”, is never the thing. Somehow, given the circumstances I had found myself in at that time, I knew that I had to look deep within myself for what my life had become. And the last decade has been the most incredibly enriching, empowering and enlightening experience of my life.

Not once – seriously, not once – have I regretted my decision to stop drinking. I am not here to sell you a quick fix or a magic potion. Instead, I am here to tell you that any kind of change requires consistent effort and focus, dedication and perseverance, patience and vigilance, and the determination to keep going, even when it feels like there is no point, no point at all. However, when you are clear in your mind, when you have a vision, when you are willing to do whatever it takes to create a different reality for yourself, then the process of becoming makes it all worthwhile.

If you are feeling ashamed about your drinking, please know that you are not on your own. If you don’t know how you could ever possibly stop and you cannot even begin to imagine a life without alcohol, it’s ok, I’ve been there. I understand. No judgement from me.

When you decide that enough is enough, when you really make the decision that you are going to do this, no matter what, an opening is created. You’ll discover that you don’t have to do it on your own. You’ll experience a life that is so much better without drinking, and it is not even something that can be put into words.

You’ve got this.