Joe Carr grew up in Wigan, worked in pubs and clubs, and drank in the way most people did in the late 90s and early noughties - constantly, and without much question. At 21, absolutely hammered and on her way out for the night, she got off a bus outside a local college where an open day was happening. A lecturer called Alan wouldn't let her walk past. She ended up on a business course, came out with a first class honours, became an accountant, met her husband at work, had two kids, and built a life that looked, by every external measure, like everything was fine.

It wasn't fine.

After having kids, Joe tried to get back to who she was before. But the version of herself before kids drank. A lot. Lockdown made it worse. And then she found running - which she threw herself into with exactly the same all-or-nothing energy she'd always brought to everything. By 2022 she was getting up at 3am to eat, running 20 miles at 4:30am before school drop-off and a full day of work, fuelling marathon training on 1200 to 1500 calories a day, and keeping all her race medals in a drawer because she was never happy with the times. She wasn't running towards anything. She was running away.

Her last drink was the 6th of April 2024 - the night before her wedding anniversary. She doesn't remember getting home. When she woke up, she decided she wasn't going to drink. Again. Like she'd decided hundreds of times before.

Then, at exactly 30 days sober, she got a phone call. Her best friend from school was in hospital with alcohol-related illness. She didn't survive. Joe went to the funeral and realised she wasn't just grieving her friend. She was grieving a life she thought she was supposed to live - all the things she'd never had the courage to do, the version of herself she'd never let exist.

She's now two years sober and has built Find Your Mojo, a fitness and wellbeing space built around one core belief: nourishment, not punishment. Her classes are built around a hexagon of healthy habits - movement, nourishment, rest, connection, mindfulness and purpose - with trauma-sensitive language and the radical idea that rest never has to be earned.

This week, Joe joins Rich and Andy for one of the most honest conversations they've had all year about the relationship between alcohol, exercise, perfectionism and self-worth. And the line that sits at the heart of it all - the one she arrived at two years on the other side: I thought sobriety would teach me how to live without alcohol. It taught me how to build a life I no longer wanted to escape from.

Find Joe on Instagram @findyourmojomindandbody and @findingmymojo2024

FRIDAY CONNECTION CALL 1PM EVERY FRIDAY Register here - https://portal.take-a-cleanbreak.com/friday-connection-call-page