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Family Focus: Blogger focuses on sober living after tragic loss

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte woman is using her struggle with alcoholism to help others battling addiction.
 
A national website just started publishing her blogs.
 
During a photo shoot for Allison Hudson and her dog, both wore T-shirts to spotlight sober living.
 
Hudson's shirt reads: "Sobriety is the new black."
 
The photos will be part of a new blog post she's writing about the faces of alcoholism.
 
"Basically this is what an alcoholic looks like, or this is what an addict looks like. Just to break down the stigma and shame that's so often associated," Hudson said.
               
Hudson said her first drink came at 20. She was in college and dealing with a break-up.
 
"It gave me this like, this relief, you know and kind of got me outside my head, and that's what I liked. I always chased that feeling," she said.
 
In just a few years, social drinking turned into daily drinking.
 
"I didn't know I was an alcoholic for a long time, because our society is just so … it's so accepted," Hudson said.
 
Hudson said she hit bottom after her brother, Will, died from a drug overdose in April 2012.
               
The weeks following his death, she drank morning, noon and night.
               
That June, she decided on rehab.
 
"I think if I would've been the big sister that I kind of had been most of my life to him, then he would've followed suit, and you know, gotten sober," Hudson said.
               
Her blog "It's A Lush Life" focuses on living a sober life.
 
"It was a living amends to my brother," Hudson said.
               
Last month, the Huffington Post picked up her articles. She's now a featured blogger on the website and is overwhelmed with the response.
 
"I got an email from one guy, and he said, 'Thank you for permission to have a problem, because I didn't know that I had a problem until now,'" Hudson said.
 
Her ultimate wish is people will let go of the embarrassment.
 
"My recovery is something I'm not ashamed of. My life I live today, is not anything to be ashamed of," Hudson said.
 
Hudson said she'd love to open a rehab center someday in memory of her brother.
 
To read Allison's blog posts on the Huffington Post, click here.
 
Here is a link to Allison's blog, "It's a Lush Life."