You're listening to This Naked Mind with Annie Grace.

Hi, this is Annie Grace and welcome to This Naked Mind podcast. I'm here with Jenny. Hi, Jenny. Hi, Annie. I'm so thrilled to be doing this with you.

Oh, I'm so glad you're here. This is awesome. This is just great. Let's start at the beginning.

Walk us back to early days. Where did it all start for you in your journey with alcohol?

So I was late to the party and thinking about this, I think in terms of my story and anyone's story,

it's important to have some context from my family backgrounds because I think that really

influenced how I ended up at the bottom of a wine bottle some years later and some significant

events that happened when I was very young as well. So I was one of

three, youngest of three, and youngest by a lot. There's a 10-year gap between me and my next brother.

And I was premature by 10 weeks, which was kind of a big deal in 1965. And in a very

small hospital in northwestern Minnesota that apparently did all right, because here I am,

the third time I pulled my feeding tube out, they decided I was strong enough to go home. So that

was how it all began. And I am told I was

spunky and a bit obnoxious from the get-go. So there you are. At any rate, my family moved to Western

Nebraska when I was four. And that's so I consider myself a Nebraska and not a Minnesotan. And that's

where I did most of my growing up. My father, you know, looking back now, we understand. But my

father had diagnosed or undiagnosed some of each, I think, mental illness and had been dependent on alcohol himself

until I was born, interestingly. And then he stopped. And I never saw him drink during my

childhood at all. But he was very emotionally abusive, particularly toward my mother, not me. I was

kind of the golden child. And I was also smart and I

was pretty sassy. And he liked that, but he didn't much like it. You know, we were personality-wise

very, very similar. My mother was amazing and navigated that territory with a very precocious me as best as she could.

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