I am soooo insanely proud of my dear friend Emily — my Scottsdale BFF — who shares a difficult story of drinking and driving in this new public service ad for the Ad Council. Emily was on the cover of People magazine a couple months ago to bravely talk about being a young mother suffering from alcoholism. She said a lot of things that I’m sure were extremely difficult to admit publicly, but Emily’s been sober for several years now, and her main goal in life is to educate and help other women who are suffering from alcoholism, so that they can recover from the shame of the disease and live healthy, happy, sober lives. People was overwhelmed with grateful and loving letters from readers after they ran her story, and she’s been mentioned on Oprah, Rachael Ray and like a billion other TV shows since. She started a blog about alcoholism and recovery to help others called Emilyism.com, and now she spends hours and hours responding to an influx of emails from people around the world who find hope in her story and want her advice on how to change their lives.
I can’t even imagine how much courage it takes to go on camera and talk in such detail about her past. But I also know that there are lots of other young mothers out there listening, saying to themselves, “I did that, too. I didn’t know anyone else did that. Maybe there is hope for me.” Emily’s a total inspiration to me — she’s full of wise words every time I talk to her, and she was always on the phone with me offering compassion and support and non-judgment when I was going through difficult emotional times of my own. I’m so proud of her, I love her so much, and I’m so happy to share this with all of you.
