When life takes on new meaning, everything is possible.
Sober since January 19, 2013
Hi, I’m Brooke, and I’m really glad you’re here.
Let me share a little about me. Like most of you reading this, my story has two parts.
First, there’s the before.
Straight after graduation from Columbia University in Manhattan, I taught scuba diving on St. Croix, the biggest of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Yes, there was a lot, a lot of rum. In between all the drinking, I fell in love with the ocean. Sixty feet beneath the surface, I found a peace that I didn’t experience again for years.
As much as I loved island life, my heart was yearning for a writing career, and so I moved back to New York City.
For several years, I worked in advertising, planning all the travel for the CEO and for photo shoots. My claim to fame from this period was finding a herd of sheep available for rent for a major department store ad campaign.
From here, I landed a gig as the associate editor of a Sport Diver magazine (a publication about scuba diving—shocker!), part of Bonnier Corporation, which also included Islands as well as Field and Stream magazines. During this time, I dove into international trip planning, handling logistics for writers and photographers jetting to the Galapagos Islands, the Cayman Islands, Mexico and more.
After leaving the company, I became a freelance writer, planning my own trips throughout the Caribbean as well as Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia and a handful of other destinations. (Yes, I know how damn lucky I am.)
Wanna read how I got sober? Here’s the full story.
And now, the after.
When I was first getting sober, someone suggested I pen a list of what I most wanted in life. In the beginning, I wasn’t too sure what it would look like to dream bigger than what my everyday looked like. But I started with travel. As much as I had been around the globe already, I still harbored dreams of seeing more. And I knew the trips would mean so much more to me now that I was sober. I wanted to see Bali, Fiji and Antarctica. I wanted to swim with whale sharks, raft the Grand Canyon and kayak Alaska.
It took time, but those trips all happened. The universe, God, my higher power—something bigger than me was certainly in my corner.
And then I started wondering what it would look like to lead adventure trips for sober people. I never imagined I would start a travel company, and yet, in the back of my mind, owning my own business was one big thing I always dreamed of. I’d envisioned a company like this back when I was in Indonesia (read that story here), and couldn’t be more thrilled that that dream is now reality.
In sobriety, one thing I really, really love are firsts
I love connecting sober people with trying something new for the first time sober or just trying something new, period—whether that’s kayaking in the ocean or drinking the water from a green coconut straight off a tree or seeing the green flash at sunset. In each of these moments, I get so much joy in seeing someone’s world get a bit fuller. Richer. For me, to see someone else connect a little bit more with the joy of sobriety makes me feel so alive—and completely happy, joyous and free.
A Peek at where I’ve been …
