For Shannan Kym, alcohol was like a close friend – one she could rely on during both joyous and challenging times.
Being a stay-at-home mother, she kept herself busy running the household, and yet nearly everything was done with a drink in hand.
It was only much later that she realised that should have set alarm bells ringing.
‘I didn’t know at the time I was using it as a coping mechanism,’ Shannan, 56, from Alberta, Canada, told Daily Mail.
‘I was a high-functioning addict. “Wine mum” culture is something we joked about because it was so normalised at the time.’
But for Shannan, it didn’t stop at a glass of red at the end of a tough day. At the nadir of her addiction, she was drinking six bottles of wine a day.
She also ticked many of the classic alcoholic hallmarks: hiding bottles around the house, and even making her own wine at home.
Her battle with booze started from a young age, yet it would take decades until she hit rock bottom and finally achieved sobriety.
Shannan Kym, from Canada, struggled with alcoholism for decades. It took cutting out almost every person from her life – excluding her four children – to finally achieve sobriety
But that required cutting out family, friends and almost everyone from her drinking years – with the exception of her four children.
Shannan grew up in a household where addiction and dysfunction were the norm. Being one of nine in such a chaotic household, she was forced to grow up fast.
When she was two years old, her dad took his life, sending shockwaves through the family, which only escalated the chaos.
‘I never felt loved or protected. I never felt safe in that environment,’ she said.
‘I became a people pleaser at an early age. By the time I was in Year 4, when I started hanging out with friends, I compared my upbringing to everyone else’s. I only realised then that my upbringing was so dysfunctional.
‘I was so ashamed of my family that I would do anything to fit in. By middle school [Year 7], I became more involved in sports like baseball, basketball, volleyball and running. I was very athletic, but didn’t do well in school.’
Living in a small town in Saskatchewan with a population of about 1,000 people, many of her friends and neighbours used alcohol to pass the time.
Shannan had her first drink at 14. She didn’t know it at the time, but it was the start of her toxic relationship with alcohol that would almost destroy her.
Shannan (pictured with her four children) has been sober since August 2019
Throughout adolescence, she relied on it to have fun and suppress her emotions.
‘During high school, we couldn’t wait until the weekend. My drinking progressed more and more and I was depressed by my final year. But in the 1980s, no one talked about mental health – it was so taboo,’ she said.
Even as her mental health deteriorated into suicidal thoughts, Shannan kept drinking.
When she eventually moved from her hometown to a bigger city, it should have been an opportunity for a fresh start.
But the scars of her upbringing remained and she was drawn to the wrong crowd and soon surrounded herself with toxic influences.
In 1997, Shannan met her now ex‑husband and they went on to have four children.
For a time, life was good – and throughout her pregnancies, Shannan had no trouble cutting out alcohol.
It wasn’t until the couple married in 2010 and moved away from the support of family that cracks started to show.
‘I loved him with all my heart but over time I realised I was the last priority,’ Shannan said.
‘He was always focused on his business, his family, the kids, and never me. I thought when we moved away [that] things would change, but they never did.’
On the outside, their world appeared perfect. But inside, Shannan was crumbling.
‘Everybody thought I had it all – a beautiful house and a family, but as the years went by, I knew we didn’t. I was so sad and lonely,’ she said.
As a stay-at-home mother, her drinking escalated.
On a typical day, she would have her first drink at 6.30am and within two hours would have polished off a bottle, before taking the kids to school.
She’d be two bottles deep by lunchtime.
‘I always had an afternoon nap before the kids came home. Then I’d take them to sports, dance and other activities,’ she said.
‘I would drink from the moment we got home until 11pm. The more you drink, the more your body can tolerate. I was definitely high-functioning.
‘I wouldn’t feel the effects until I had at least two bottles.’
Learning how to make wine from her husband’s parents not only kept Shannan busy, but meant she could save money and have access to dozens of bottles at a time.
‘I was constantly making wine. It was another way to mask how much I actually drank. Each wine kit made 28 bottles and I would make two kits, so close to 60 bottles. I was using it as a sense of escapism,’ she said.
Shannan took up bodybuilding and even entered three competitions; however, she soon realised she had swapped one addiction for another
‘I was a pretty good drunk. I hid alcohol all over the house, in the laundry, in cupboards and drawers – I had it everywhere. I would recycle and reuse the wine bottles to make it so no one knew how much I had drunk.’
Through it all, Shannan volunteered at her children’s school and even coached their sporting teams.
The friends she made through these activities, while big drinkers themselves, had no idea she had a serious problem.
By 2015, Shannan was having suicidal thoughts again. Her drinking habit had reached six bottles a day. She lost all hope. It was her rock bottom.
‘I didn’t care about my life anymore, I was dead inside. I didn’t have feelings towards anything,’ she said.
In November that year, she made the decision to walk into a treatment centre.
There, she was assessed by doctors, spoke to psychologists and was taken care of by professionals for nine weeks.
After leaving the centre, she returned home and didn’t touch alcohol for 18 months.
Shannan took up bodybuilding and even entered three competitions; however, she soon realised she had swapped one addiction for another.
‘I had transformed on the outside but not the inside. My mindset hadn’t changed,’ she said.
Some alcoholics use the term ‘dry drunk’ to refer to this phenomenon, where a person has stopped drinking, but the underlying emotional and psychological patterns persist.
After her foray into bodybuilding, Shannan relapsed into drinking again.
But in August 2019, she finally found the strength to stop for good. This time, she knew she would need to heal from the inside out for her sobriety to last.
In 2021, Shannan gave a TEDx Talk about her journey to sobriety
For Shannan, that required cutting out almost everyone from her life – an enormous personal sacrifice that many would refuse to make. But she believes it saved her life.
‘I had to let go of my whole family completely, my marriage, my friends – everything,’ she said.
‘I had to let go of everything and everyone from my past. The only thing that I have taken forward with me is my children. I don’t have one friend left from my old life.
‘That’s how committed and focused I was to changing my life and resetting everything.’
In 2021, she walked on stage in front of hundreds of people and gave a TEDx Talk about her journey.
‘I want to be that voice people are so desperate to hear – telling them there is a way to find their greatness within and create a new life that they can’t wait to wake up to,’ she said.
‘My life has changed so much and I haven’t looked back.’
Shannan Kym is an award-winning author, TEDx public speaker, certified life coach and transformational mentor.
Her latest book ‘Find the Answers Within You: Ten Pathways Toward Self-Discovery’ shares her story and inspires others struggling with addiction.
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