"I Thought Everyone Drank Like That" featuring Morgan Coyner

"I Thought Everyone Drank Like That" featuring Morgan Coyner

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation with guest Morgan Coyner offers a raw mix of dark humour, family heartbreak, and hard-won recovery that’ll resonate with anyone touched by addiction. Across the episode, Morgan talks openly about growing up with a mother facing bipolar symptoms, addiction, and heavy medication, describing a childhood where she both adored her mum and quietly prepared herself to one day find her dead.

She shares early drinking memories – first vodka shots at 12, family parties where alcohol flowed freely – and how her college years at Virginia Tech turned into high-achieving alcoholism, complete with sorority life, Four Lokos, and blackouts that still left her with a 3.9 GPA. Things turn heavier as Morgan recounts her mum’s knee injury, long-term opioids, Ambien and benzos, and eventually a fatal fentanyl and Xanax overdose.

Her dad’s death from illness just three months earlier adds another layer of grief, with Morgan contrasting his peaceful, family-held passing with the chaos and unanswered questions around her mum’s death. You’ll hear how a simple line from her sister – “Do not ever make me worry about you the way I worried about mom” – became the turning point that pushed Morgan towards sobriety, AA, and deep support from her church community.

She later moves into working at a treatment centre and then with Addiction Professionals of North Carolina, fighting policy battles so people can actually access decent care. The tone swings between laugh-out-loud moments (college stories, family quips, sorority stereotypes) and honest talk about rage, grief and learning to see her mum as both very sick and deeply loving.

If you’ve ever thought “I just assumed everyone drank like that”, this episode might make you pause and ask what you’re really carrying – and who you’re protecting besides yourself.