Opening up about sobriety

Here’s to the ladies who lunch –

Oct. 15, 2020 – “If you look at the footage of the premiere, you can see my hands shaking because I knew if I said, ‘I’m an alcoholic,” I couldn’t take it back,’” she told the publication.

“When I first got sober, I was scared I wouldn’t be fun anymore, that my life was going to be boring,” she said. “I really thought alcohol made life enjoyable, and that’s sad. Now, nine months later, I realize that’s not at all true. Honestly, I dance even more now because I can stay awake. I sometimes used to pass out at, like, 7 p.m. because I had been drinking all day. So yeah, I actually have way more fun now.”

The mom-of-seven admitted she “never had a healthy relationship with alcohol” and that she began drinking at 14.

She explained, “When I drank, I drank until I blacked out or got sick. But I never drank when I was pregnant or nursing—and in many ways, I think that probably saved my life. I went to a meeting when I lived in Miami, but instead of sticking to a program, I just got pregnant. I have seven kids, so that’s a huge chunk of my life that I was sober—or I should say, not drinking. Now I realize there’s a difference between not drinking and being sober, for me.”

Windham-Burke said she hadn’t drunk for seven years, but that went out the window when she began filming for “RHOC” last year.