Addicted to More: How I Found Freedom on the Summer Solstice
Sobriety taught me how to be with myself. This Solstice, I remembered how to soften.
Four years sober and still catching myself chasing the high of “enough.”
This month, I’m celebrating four years alcohol-free. And I’ll be honest, that feels big. Not because I followed a perfect path but because I kept choosing myself, even when it was messy. But what I’m sitting with now, what feels real and loud and very here is this: addiction didn’t vanish when the wine stopped flowing. It just shape-shifted.
Four years ago, we had just arrived at the second stop on our big BC pilgrimage, landing on the Naramata Bench—yes, wine country. Surrounded by some of the finest grapes in the province, I was in the thick of it: unsettled, post-move, and carrying the kind of emotional residue that makes wine feel like a good idea.
It had been a long pandemic. And I’d been drinking more than ever. Not to party, not even to celebrate. Just to… regulate. To dull the edges of uncertainty. To get through.
But this isn’t about that part of the story. I wrote about all of that in my memoir Freedom Seeker: Reclaiming Feminine Wisdom. What I want to share now is something different.
Sobriety isn’t just about quitting drinking.
It’s about seeing more clearly what was never working to begin with.
And what I’ve been noticing lately is how easily addiction shapeshifts. Even after the wine is gone. Even when the cigarette cravings have long faded (I quit those 17 years ago).
Addiction, I’m learning, is less about substances and more about the ways we reach outside ourselves for control, for comfort, for escape.
My parents recently came to visit us after living temporarily back in Germany, my birthplace, for the past two years. I was excited because FaceTime, while better than faxing, isn't the same as planting flowers or baking with my mom. I was also nervous, because this visit held some hard conversations and decisions.
When they first decided to move back after thirty years in Canada, it made sense. They were retired, on a fixed income, and still wanted to travel. Europe made that doable. But when they told me over our Sunday FaceTime that it might be permanent, I completely fell apart. That little girl that needs her mom closer than 5000 miles came out tantrum-ing, stomping, sobbing and swinging. To keep myself from spiraling back into old habits, I picked up my pen and let it bleed. I booked extra sessions with my coach and hypnotherapist, knowing I’d need every bit of support I could get to show up with some steadiness when they arrived.
I also threw myself into work so hard I woke up with a headache every morning, and my neck, shoulders, jaw—all locked up.
When they finally arrived, I was tired but resolved.
I was determined to have a good time and keep our conversations calm and kind. It felt like the oxygen had left the room, and I was holding my breath the entire visit. I tried so hard to stay present, to really hear what they were saying instead of projecting my own fears. But every word felt heavier than it should have. I did my best to stay composed (at least most of the time), but inside, I was swirling in grief, tension, tenderness, and this ache I didn’t know what to do with. I didn’t want to seem dramatic or fragile. I just didn’t want to feel that much. And every night, I had the same thought: a glass of wine would fix this. Just one.
But I didn’t.
And that’s where I saw it.
I didn’t reach for the wine but I did reach for the hustle.
That’s when I realized: I wasn’t just distracting myself with work, I was trying to earn my way out of discomfort. If I could just do enough, create enough, earn enough… maybe then I’d feel safe. Worthy. Okay.
What caught me off guard most during their visit was how fast I defaulted to work. Not the meaningful, soul-led kind—but the obsessive, over-scheduled, neck-tensing kind. It wasn’t until I caught myself up late one night, tweaking a spreadsheet no one was waiting for, that it hit me: this wasn’t just about staying busy. This was about trying to control what felt uncontrollable. I couldn’t fix the ache of distance with my parents. I couldn’t undo time. But I could work. I could earn. I could prove—to who, I’m not even sure—that I was okay. And that’s when I saw it clearly: money had become my new regulator. The way wine used to numb uncertainty, hustle became the new fix. It crept in when fear tightened everything, my chest, my thoughts, my sense of what was possible. Fear does that. It squeezes our imagination until we forget that we still get to breathe, that we still have choice.
The word addiction comes from the Latin addictus, which described someone enslaved by debt. That’s where this began. Not pleasure. Bondage. That lands differently, doesn’t it?
My mom’s often said, “Money makes the world go ‘round.” And, while she’s not wrong, we do need money to live, I’ve been thinking about how quickly the fear (or reality) of not having money can shrink our sense of choice. It doesn’t just impact our decisions, it seeps into how we see ourselves, how much we hustle, and how tightly we grip for control when life feels uncertain.
During my parents’ visit, all I wanted was clarity and calm, but instead I found myself spinning. And it wasn’t wine I turned to—it was work. Work became the way I tried to regulate the discomfort. The way I tried to create a sense of control in a moment that felt out of my hands. Just like alcohol once was. Just like money still can be.
When I quit drinking in June of 2021, I did so to save my marriage and to write my book. That first year, I focused only on staying sober and writing daily. We were technically homeless—living in Airbnbs and exploring the province. And, I felt more alive than I had in years.
But the moment we settled into our new home, and the book launched, the pressure was back. Money. Productivity. Strategy. I went from creative flow to “balls to the wall” in a matter of weeks.
I started equating worth with income again. I knew better, but the old story had a grip. And like with drinking, it took time to see that the chase was just another escape.
We’ve let money become the regulator. The validation. The “okay, I’m safe now.”
There’s an old Mexican parable that I think of often and especially when I’m burning the midnight oil.
A businessman, vacationing in a small coastal village, sees a fisherman come in early with his morning catch. Curious, he asks what he plans to do with the rest of his day.
The fisherman shrugs, smiles: “Play with my kids. Nap with my wife. Later, I’ll drink wine with my friends.”
The businessman launches into a whole plan. He could fish longer, sell more, buy more boats, build an empire, become rich beyond measure.
“And then?” the fisherman asks.
“Well,” the businessman says, “then you could retire, move to a quiet village, sleep in, fish a little, nap with your wife, play with your kids, drink wine with your friends.”
The fisherman grins. “But I’m already doing that.”
We chase what we already have—then wonder why we still feel empty.
We confuse more with meaning.
We’re being told to optimize, scale, and monetize every ounce of joy… when maybe what we want is already within reach.
And as I watched myself spiral into productivity mode—while scrolling headlines about housing costs, billionaires, and broken systems—I realized: it’s not just personal. The patterns we live in are reinforced by systems that profit off our disconnection.
We have a choice.
This month, around the solstice, I felt it shift.
My parents flew back to Germany. And it felt like a cord was cut. I was alone—but not lonely. Just… grown.
Thankfully, I’m not alone. I have an amazing network of people around me who see me, love me and show me that sisterhood isn’t about bloodlines, it’s about women caring for each other, helping each other out, from coming together to clean and prep a house that’s no longer a home for sale, shedding tears together as we say goodbye to loved ones, bringing soup during nasty flu knockdowns’, and dancing barefoot while howling at the moon.
CHANI says, “Care is the cornerstone of true wealth.” And I feel that in my bones.
The victimhood I’d been carrying as a woman, the scarcity stories, the self-destructive patterns hiding in perfectionism and overwork…
Done.
Like Kacey Musgraves sings: I found a deeper well.
This summer solstice I declare:
I’m not chasing anymore. I’m choosing.
Choosing relationships over transactions.
Choosing support over solo struggle.
Choosing to love what’s looking back at me in the mirror.
I’m letting go of old programs. Old structures. I’m building from something truer. Writing from a place of reclamation—not survival.
I’m working on my next book and it’s not about proving anything. I’m not bleeding onto the page to feel seen. I’m writing because there’s something stirring in me that wants to be known.
It’s sensual. It’s sacred. It’s mine.
For the first time, I’m writing as a woman who feels at home in her body. Not all the time. But enough to know the old hooks don’t hold the same weight.
Because reclaiming your life force isn’t an idea. It’s a physical, cellular return. It’s what happens when you stop pretending and start softening.
So if you’ve been spinning, hustling, distracting, just to avoid feeling what’s really there, I get it.
And you don’t have to stay there.
This is your invitation to pause. To listen.
Ask yourself:
What are you chasing that’s costing you peace?
What are you afraid will happen if you stop?
Who might you become if you gave yourself permission to be still?
I don’t have a formula. But I do know this:
Community helps. Witnessing helps. Ritual helps. Rest helps.
That’s what I offer in my work—not because I’ve mastered it, but because I’m walking it too.
Whether you join the Wild Woman Collective or reach out for a conversation—you’re welcome here.
Not when you’ve figured it all out. Now. As you are.
This month, I didn’t want to just think about what freedom means—I wanted to feel it. In my breath. In my body. In ceremony.
So I teamed up with my dear friend Anne Dunnett to create something sacred:
The Solstice Self Ceremony Guide — a gentle companion for the light within you.
Inside, you’ll find:
A grounding candle ritual
A soulful playlist for movement
A sensual tea + oil blend to awaken the senses
A journal prompt to meet yourself where you are
And a touch of ritual magic to return to your own rhythm
You can access it now inside the Wild Woman Collective membership.
Turn down the volume of the chase. Turn up the whisper of your soul.
You are a keeper of the light.
Prefer to listen? You can catch the audio version of this blog on the Wild & Wise Show—wherever you get your podcasts.