Author Laura McKowen Discusses Overcoming Addiction, Sobriety Helped ‘Me Find Joy’
By Movieguide® Staff
Author Laura McKowen, known for her book “We Are the Luckiest,” is open about her struggle with past addiction and the healing power of sobriety.
In an interview from Jan. 2020, the author revealed that she wants to share how faith and honesty helped her begin her journey to sobriety.
McKowen, who boasts over 80,000 Instagram followers, talked with Guideposts about her book, ‘We Are the Luckiest,’ and got vulnerable about her past struggles.
“This is a book about my experience in getting sober from alcohol, but it is really a book for anyone who comes up against big pain or [a] struggle that they cannot seem to overcome,” McKowen explained.
McKowen said that her addiction to drinking came in her mid-twenties when social drinking was normalized for her in her public relations career.
However, it was not until after McKowen separated from her husband and began to see how her addiction negatively affected her daughter that she decided to seek help.
In 2013, she attended her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
“It was my first sort of formal step towards sobriety, and then I didn’t actually get sober until September 2014,” McKowen recalled. “It was a full year plus that I was struggling…really wrestling with giving up what I thought was a very big part of my life.”
“There was no dramatic turning point,” McKowen added. “My turning point was more of just a pure exhaustion. It was just, I can’t feel this way ever again. I couldn’t imagine ever feeling that anxiety of the day after drinking again.
McKowen said that real change began when she took little steps to “burn all the boats” that led her to alcoholism in the first place.
“I was talking to someone recently who said, ‘If you want to stay on the Island, you got to burn all the boats,’” McKowen explained. “And I burned all the boats. All these little sneaky ways that I was still hiding or working to keep drinking in my life, like not really being honest with people about where I stood with sobriety.”
Another factor in McKowen’s journey to sobriety was faith in God.
“When I can remember God, when I can remember that I am held in favor in this, in grace [than] I can get perspective that is so necessary to be okay even in really difficult and turbulent times,” McKowen said.
“I thought that it would be a small life and a very sad life,” she continued. “And it’s exactly the opposite. Everything that I really wanted all along, which is a direct experience of life and to be able to feel everything completely and to be able to access my joy and my potential, that was all in sobriety, it was never in drinking.”
In 2023, McKowen announced a new book coming in March 2023, called ‘Push Off From Here: Nine Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety.’
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Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
