Your children aren't your excuse to drink. They're your reason NOT to. By Alyson Premo.

The mommy needs alcohol to parent narrative is utter nonsense and quite frankly ignorant and dangerous.

Yes, parenting is hard. Maybe one of the hardest things we'll ever do in our lives. But it is not an excuse to run to a toxic substance, check out, and potentially put our kids in harm's way.

I say this with the utmost compassion, and there is no shame EVER in this space. We already have enough of that from our drinking days, but it's the truth. Our kids are watching us, and they are absorbing their surroundings more than you think.

By the time they are 7 or 8 years old, they have a solid foundation of beliefs based on all the programming from people in their life. These beliefs get stored in their subconscious, so they react based on childhood experiences later in life.

It's clear from stories I hear from 1:1 clients and challenge participants that their mother or father's drinking impacted their own drinking behavior. It also affected how they view themselves. It's not impossible to change those deep-rooted thoughts, but it is hard work.

Our parents said or did things in our childhood that we would never realize impacted us, but now we're spending our adult life trying to rid ourselves of those beliefs. I wish schools stressed the importance of a developing child's brain and how we nurture them, speak to them, and raise them would impact them into adulthood.

Not only that, but we are teaching our kids to cope with life by running to alcohol. How sad is that? No matter what memes you see or what your friends and family say. IT IS NOT NORMAL. Let's teach our kids healthy ways to cope so that they have a better chance of not running to alcohol.

Whether you want to believe it or not, alcohol impacts the relationship you have with your kids. The longer you wait, the harder it is on you and them. Stop waiting and join us for the 60 Day Alcohol-Free Challenge! Registration is NOW OPEN. The first (5) who register will receive a FREE copy of We Are The Luckiest by Laura McKowen and a journal to get you in the alcohol-free mindset BEFORE we even begin. EARLY BIRD PRICING ends 1/22 at 11:59 pm EST. Click here to grab your spot!

P.S. Only 40 spots are available!