Braunwyn talks about her long-term struggle with substance use disorder, what it was like to quit alcohol while being on TV, and how her family, friends, and partner help her maintain her recovery.
Braunwyn Windham-Burke, welcome to Heart of the Matter. It’s great to have you here.
So good to be here.
So you are a reality show survivor, as I would like to say.
I think that’s the best way to describe it. Yes. I survived being a housewife barely, but I did.
What was that experience like? We’ll get to your journey in recovery, but I’m just curious what that experience was like and also how it intersected with your recovery.
I wasn’t prepared for it. So I had watched reality TV. I thought it was going to be fun. I thought they followed your real life. I had no idea what I was in for. I used Instagram to keep up with my friends. It never occurred to me that when you entered that world, you would have the public opinion of everyone criticizing you and having opinions on you. So I honestly, when they asked me to be on it, because I didn’t know any of the cast members, I was a stay-at-home mom of seven kids, and when they asked me to be on it, I said, “Oh, that sounds like fun.” And I was so naive. I really did not know what I was signing up for. I’m a girl’s girl, I have tons of friends, and I really just thought it would be us hanging out and having a good time.
Why do you think they asked you?
I think at the time they were looking for family friendly. So many of the housewives have had divorces, they had issues with their children. So I think it was that picture perfect, me and my ex-husband and our seven children. They really wanted that aspect to add to the show.
And of course, nobody’s life is picture perfect. From the outside looking in it seems picture perfect, but it isn’t. And tell me how yours wasn’t.
At the time they asked me to be on the show, I was at a low point. I had just had my seventh baby. I’d been having babies in my 20s, 30s and 40s, and I wanted something more. And about two weeks before I got the phone call, I remember talking to my ex-husband and saying, “I need something. I need something for me. I love being a mom, but I’m in my 40s now and I need something that’s mine.” I wasn’t being fulfilled. I was doing the Mommy and Me classes that I’d done in my 20s singing the exact same songs, and I was like, “I need more.” And I think that it came at a time where this was an opportunity. I had had my final baby, I still wasn’t drinking yet, but I’d been sober for about seven years at that time. And this was an opportunity of a lifetime. I thought this could be the thing I need that makes me feel like a complete person.
We’ve heard a lot of people, I’ve interviewed several of them on this show who’ve been cast members on other reality shows. I’ve also, in my day job on NewsNation interviewed people who’ve been on these shows who’ve said that alcohol is highly encouraged, that they like to lubricate the guests because people are more unpredictable and do crazier things when they’re under the influence. Did you find that to be the experience once you started?
100%. So I had been sober for about seven years when I started filming, but I had not been in a program, I had not been working steps. I hadn’t been doing the work. So I thought, okay, I was just sober for seven years. I don’t have a problem. I can drink again. And when you get on these shows, I remember one incident at the very beginning, we were on this bus ride that was, the way the viewer saw it was 15 minutes, but in reality it was about five hours. And they had no water, just tequila. And I just remember being so thirsty and drinking the tequila and just wanting water. Or we’d go out to have a dinner and they would keep bringing us drinks, but the producers would say, “Hold the food.” And when I had asked to leave, they said, “If you leave, you’re fired.” And so just the whole, I know there’s a lot going on right now. Another housewife has a lawsuit going against it that I’m friendly with, and a lot of people are saying this isn’t true. But her experience and my experience are very similar.
When she filed that lawsuit, that ring true to you?
Oh, absolutely. And she got such backlash. I texted her and I said, “How are you? Are you okay?” Because I think it was easier for the viewers to not want to see that dark underbelly. It takes away the pleasure. A lot of people watch reality TV for mindless entertainment. And if you really knew what was happening, that wouldn’t be the case.
Just for our listeners who might not be familiar, what is the lawsuit? What does it allege?
I haven’t read the whole lawsuit. I’ve only seen what I’ve seen online. But it was Leah McSweeney did a lawsuit saying that it was basically an unsafe work environment. She was sober, there was a lot of pressure on her to drink and do drugs. And then she made some allegations about Andy having favorites based on drug use. And I know her. I know her in real life and I know she’s not making any of these stories up. I 100% support her.
And that was also your experience too. You were encouraged to drink and were put in situations where on a hot bus for five hours there was no water, but plenty of tequila.
Exactly. And not to say they made me drink. They never made me drink. No one put anything in my hand. But the culture is very permissive of it. And there’s something that happens when you’re filming. It’s almost like you’re in a bubble. The outside world doesn’t exist. You’re safe. You know that you’re going to be okay. They’re going to take care of you. You’re going to get a ride home. And behavior that wouldn’t be accepted in real life is encouraged. Be crazy, take your top off, throw things. Those are things we would never in a million years do in our real life. But in this environment, it’s not just encouraged, it’s accepted. And they want that over the top explosive personalities, and most of us aren’t like that. And making people drunk, that feeds the beast of that insane housewife behavior.
So back up a bit. What was your relationship with alcohol prior to being on The Real Housewives?
I started drinking when I was 14. I remember it. I was growing up in Laguna Beach. It was the summer before high school. I had my first beer. And I remember that feeling of feeling okay. I was always so uncomfortable in my own skin. I was always anxious. I never felt like I was good enough. And from that first drink on, I never drank in moderation. I would drink till I threw up. I would drink till I black out. And that was my pattern at the time. No one really thought about it because I think a lot of young people have problematic drinking just because you’re young. And “It was funny, crazy story.” “Oh my God, Braunwyn’s the fun one.” And I really fell into that role of party girl, the crazy one. That’s not who I am at my heart. I am an introvert that loves to sit at home and could go days without talking to someone. But alcohol and then eventually cocaine gave me that confidence and bravado, and I became this version of myself that although it wasn’t authentic, was so much easier. And that continued until I got pregnant with my first baby. And then from that point on, when I was in early motherhood, I didn’t drink. I never drank when I was pregnant or nursing, and I kept having children, but I had a break and we were living in Miami, and that was the first time I tried to get sober. And I was drinking heavily. I was drinking all day. I lived in a town where I could walk the kids to school so I didn’t have to drink and drive or really show up. And Miami is a very alcohol, drug-based culture. So no one was really judging me. Looking back, I don’t know how I survived some of the nights that we had. But there was one day where I was too drunk to even walk to get my kids from school, and I had to call a friend to come with me.
This is in the morning, obviously.
Mm-hmm. And she had to help me. And that was the first time that I got sober. And I went down to Mexico. I did something called Ibogaine. And I didn’t drink for seven years, but I didn’t do the work. I just didn’t drink. And that gave me the confidence to go back to drinking on the show thinking I didn’t have a problem. But within, I would say a month or two, I was back to having, I would have five drinks in the first half hour, so-
Wow. On the show.
Well just every day, even if I wasn’t filming, my alcohol use became very, very bad very quickly. It’s like I picked up where I’d left off.
Was there nobody in your life that said, “Oh, this is a problem. You shouldn’t be drinking quite this much”?
My mother.
Your mom?
My mother. My ex-husband was very much an enabler. I could go into so many reasons. He preferred it when I was drinking because I was more dependent. My mom was worried, very worried. And she would get very angry because obviously when you’re drinking at 10 o’clock in the morning and you keep a flask under your pillow so you don’t shake in the middle of the night, things are not okay. There was a time period where I didn’t leave the house for about a week. I was on the floor of the closet. And I don’t know how I was getting alcohol. I’m assuming it was my ex-husband, but it was bad. It was really bad. But no.
Did you go to hospitals for detox or did you do this all on your own?
No, and I really want to make sure everyone knows not to do this because I didn’t-
It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous.
Right. And I didn’t know that. So I was at a party in Miami, and I hadn’t done drugs in a very long time. I hadn’t done cocaine in a very, very long time. And I was at a party in Miami and I did cocaine, and I said, “This is it. I could die and leave my kids without a mother. This has to stop today.” And I went to my ex-husband. It was about 4:00 in the morning, and I, at this point was drinking every 15 minutes. And I said, “I need help. I can’t drink anymore.” And he literally sat on me. So we had to take our plane flight home because I was shaking so bad and I wanted to drink so bad. And that was my last drink. And then we started filming 12 days later.
Wow. Okay. So you start filming the show. You might’ve said this already, but how quickly did you then pick up a drink again after starting-
This was the second season, so this is-
Okay. Second season.
I had reached out to Captain Sandy. She’s on the show Below Deck.
Oh, we had her on this podcast. She’s amazing.
She is. And her wife, Leah is from Orange County. We had mutual friends. We knew each other. And so I called Captain Sandy because I knew she had, I believe at that time it was 31 years. And I said, “I don’t know what to do. I’m about to start filming the show. I have an alcohol problem, I’m an alcoholic, but I don’t want to talk about it publicly.” And the words to me that she said changed the trajectory of my life, which was, “You had no problem getting drunk on camera. Why do you not want to get sober? Because then you’re going to be accountable. And that’s why.” And I said, “You’re right.” And so I called my producer and said, “I’m an alcoholic. This is the truth.” So that obviously became my storyline, but that accountability, she was 100% right, that accountability was so important and helped keep me sober.
What was the reaction, not just from the producers of the show, but your castmates when you told them, “I’m an alcoholic, I can’t drink”?
They thought I was making it up for a storyline.
They did?
So did a lot of the viewers.
Really?
Mm-hmm. 100%.
What did they say to you?
They said that you’re just trying to clean up your image. You’re not a real alcoholic. One of them even said, “I see her at Orange Theory in the morning. She can’t be an alcoholic.”
What’s that?
Orange Theory is like a workout class that a lot of us would go to in the mornings. And she was like, “You can’t be an alcoholic. You were at Orange Theory.” I’m like, “Yes, you can. You can still work out and be an alcoholic.” But they didn’t believe me.
So what was that like then? You went public with it and now you are accountable as Captain Sandy said, people will see. Was there pressure to drink and slip? Far from if they didn’t believe you, did they also not support you?
100%. They would put alcohol in front of my face. There was an incident where I was at a party and everyone was drinking, and I tried to go home and they said if I left, I was fired. I ended up crawling to a place where the cameras couldn’t follow me behind Shannon’s trash cans crying hysterically. And then I ended up crawling over her neighbor’s fence to get back to my house because I could walk back to my house from hers, and they followed me. And I signed something that said they could do that. I wasn’t allowed to deny them access to my house. It ended up being the best day because I planned on drinking that day. I was going to relapse. I’d been sober for 30 days.
And in my head I said, “You know what, I’m going to tell everyone I’m going to an AA meeting, because I hadn’t been to one and I’m going to go get a drink.” And so I said to the producer, “I’m going to AA meeting.” And he said, “Okay, let’s go.” And he grabbed the handheld camera and jumped in the car with me. I said, “You can’t come with me to the AA meeting. It’s anonymous.” He’s like, “Oh, you’re right. I can, but I can stay in the car until you get there and I can film you on the way back.” And at that, I was so angry at him, I was like this little MF.
So I ended up going to my first meeting on accident and he asked me, “Do you want me to go in with you?” And I said, yes, because I was shaking. I was so scared. And as we’re in this meeting, we’re going around the room, “My name is so-and-so I’m an alcoholic.” He’s sitting next to me and goes, “My name is so-and-so, and I’m an alcoholic.” And I just looked at him. He said, “I have nine years. I knew exactly what you were doing. I couldn’t stop you, but I could grab a camera and follow you.”
He was in recovery. He really was. He wasn’t lying.
No, he really was. And I get chills with this story because that got me to my first AA meeting. And I left that meeting knowing that I had earned my seat there and I had never felt so much at home. And he ended up being my biggest support during the show. There was times when we go on group trips and we all stay together, and I started to advocate for myself, “I’m not going to stay in a house with a bunch of people drinking all night. I’m going to get a hotel room.” They’d go, “Well, that’s not allowed. You have to show up with the group or you’re not going to get asked back.” I said, “But I also can’t show people that are newly sober that it’s okay to go on a very alcohol-infused party weekend when they have 45 days. So although you’re trying to put a show on, I have to be a role model for people in sobriety right now. And no one should be hanging out with a group of women who drink this heavily at 45 days.” It was a choice I made. Do you want to be a good housewife or do you want to be sober? Because I don’t think you can be both.
And you chose to be sober?
I chose to be sober because I chose to save my life.
Why did you stay on the show? Why didn’t you just quit?
I couldn’t afford to.
What do you mean?
We sign contracts and if we get out of our contract, it’s more money than I would make in a lifetime.
You have to pay them money.
Yeah. I wanted to go to rehab. I should have been at rehab. I should have been at detox and then rehab, but I couldn’t afford to.
I didn’t realize that they made you guys sign contracts like that.
I’m surprised one has never leaked because if people-
Where you have to pay them more than they’re paying you to be on the show?
I think only to my understanding, I think only two housewives have done it. And the contracts are pretty, when you sign it, you don’t think it through, but going back you’re like, “I can’t believe I just signed that. Wow.”
Yeah. So once you got through that time, this was in the second season of the show, correct?
This was the second season.
Did you make a decision not to return for a third season, or because you’re sober, you’re no longer fun, you weren’t asked?
Well, this season was very interesting because my sobriety date is January 30th, 2020, and then the world shut down two months later.
Oh, COVID.
Yeah. So we were filming from the privacy of our own homes. We were doing Zooms, we were working with the restrictions that we had. We were trying to put a show together. It was very difficult. I am so grateful that I wasn’t drinking during the pandemic because I know I would’ve died. So the timing for me was beautiful. The second season ended and I was done. I left early. I didn’t show up for events. I always drove myself, because a lot of times they send cars for you, but then you’re at their whim of when you’re allowed to leave. And I was like, “I’m not doing this”. So they made it pretty clear that if I didn’t join in, I probably wouldn’t be asked back. And I was okay with that. They asked me to come back as a friend of, and I just didn’t want that because the women were being cruel. I watched their confessionals afterwards, and to this point, none of them thought I really was an alcoholic. They all thought I was doing it for attention. And then you have the extra layer of I’m coming out. I had a photo in TMZ and TMZ called me and said, “Hey, we have a photo of you with a woman. We’re not going to run it because we don’t out people. But if we have it, someone else will.” So I’m dealing with sobriety. My ex-husband and I had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for at least a decade, and no one knew that. So here I am coming to terms with my sexuality in a very public way that I wasn’t ready for. I’m trying to stay sober. I’m trying to navigate my family through a pandemic. And I can’t do all this and take on the hate that is being thrown at me. It was vicious. I had to give my Instagram over to someone else because I couldn’t take it in. But all of the hate, I don’t even know what the hate is from. The Bravo viewers are a very interesting group of people with a lot of opinions, and they’re mean.
They’re mean everywhere. If you looked at Twitter lately, it’s like, I can’t believe what people say. It’s like-
I don’t go-
Oh my God.
No. I gave up Twitter. That place is dark. That makes Instagram look nice. So no, I don’t go on Twitter, and I gave my social media over to someone for a couple years because I was depressed. One of my cast members accused me of something horrible that I did when I was drinking, and I took accountability for it, and I found out later that she had made it up and I had never-
Oh, wow.
Yeah, she had said that I had given or offered to give her daughter drugs, and that’s so out of character for me. I was like, “I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sorry.” But here I am new in the program trying to take accountability and make amends, only to find out later from her daughter, “That never happened. My mom made it up.” And I was shocked because that was bad. And I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Once I learned the truth, I was on a gag order and I wasn’t allowed to speak of it.
Wow.
Yeah.
That sounds like, I just have to tell you, I will fully confess I am not a viewer of The Real Housewives franchise. That sounds like a really screwed up world.
It is. It really is. That being said, I’m so grateful for it because that accountability to so many people did keep me sober at some really hard times, and it still does.
So what is it like for you now? I know you said in a recent interview that you still have some hard days. There are still days, even though you’re sober four plus years, when you want to pick up a drink. What do you do?
Well, I don’t drink, but there are definitely days… I know if I drink, I’ll die. I know I’m an alcoholic.
Why do you know that?
Because I know I’m an alcoholic that will never moderate their drinking. I know people use different words. I identify as an alcoholic. I know that if I drink, I will drink myself to death because I can’t moderate it. I can’t have two drinks. And there are days where I’m just so depressed. I’m going through a very tough divorce and custody battle. I know, and it makes me… There’s days where I don’t want to get up, and I know if I drink, I will die. And there’s days where I’m like, “That wouldn’t be so bad. I can’t keep going.” And then what do I do? I don’t drink. I call a friend. I talk to my sponsor. I go for a walk. I have the tools to get through it. But I think to not acknowledge that that is a very real and normal feeling in sobriety to the people that follow me or in interviews would be doing a disservice to so many people. Because I think you need to let people know that…
My Instagram is all happy shiny photos, and that’s a big part of sobriety, but there is another part to it. I’m in therapy. I’m on anti-anxiety medications. I’m doing what I need to do to stay sober. But those dark thoughts creep in and that’s okay. It’s okay.
And I wrote a whole book on the intersection between anxiety and addiction. I self-medicated with alcohol, my anxiety as well. And I remember doing, I did several primetime specials on women and drinking, and there is a huge connection between, for women in particular, anxiety and alcoholism.
I think we have a lot on our plates. Being a mom is hard. Children are a lot. I get overstimulated very easily, and a lot of times I can’t take it all in, and drinking helped numb that. So now I still get overstimulated. I still have those feelings, but what can-
Yeah, how’s your anxiety now?
Right now in this very moment, it’s okay. I still have the moments. The medication does help me, and I’m doing EMDR, it’s a type of behavioral therapy that it has been life-changing for me.
Did you find though that, didn’t you find that once you stopped drinking, at least for me, the anxiety had boomeranged. The alcohol was now fueling the anxiety.
Definitely. For me too. I remember waking up, seeing the sun coming up, and I was shaking, knowing I’d have to parent. The anxiety when I was drinking was next level. My anxiety now is situational, I would say. Where we’re getting ready for a big trip, “Oh, I’m getting anxious,” but it’s manageable. The anxiety when you’re drinking, it just comes back 20 fold.
Yeah, it is not pretty. So I’m curious, for people who are fans of yours who did believe that you were in fact struggling with alcohol and trying to get sober. For people who are wondering, because you see this growing sober-curious movement and a growing awareness that, “why am I drinking?” “why do I have to have a drink or two before I even go to the cocktail party where I’m so anxious and nervous because those things make me anxious and nervous, but I have to go anyway?” People who are examining that, what would you say to them that you wished you had known back when you were in that stage?
I think the biggest piece of advice is that if you’re continuously giving up alcohol for six weeks or two months, you’re doing the hardest part over and over and you’re never getting to the good part. So I was trying to stop drinking. It would last for a couple of weeks or a month, and that is the hardest part. Stick with it and then you get to the good part, because it does get so, so good. I would also say that you’re not alone. I just had a huge birthday party for my fiancé, and I would say a quarter of the guests are sober by choice. So you’re not alone. It’s becoming so much more socially acceptable to choose not to drink, not because you have an alcohol use disorder, but because you want a better quality of life.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny. I’m sober nearly a decade. Somebody told me that exact same thing. She said, “You keep doing the hardest part over and over,” and they’re right. If you can just not drink, eventually it gets easier and easier and easier. I’m curious, you’re a mom of seven kids. How much do they know about your struggles with alcohol? What do they think of it all and what have you told them?
I’m very open about it. I grew up, my father passed away from this disease, and my aunt had some very bad incidences. She was in Betty Ford. She broke her, bad, and my family never spoke of it. I have a family from Mississippi where it’s like, if it’s not pleasant, don’t speak of it. And I am the exact opposite. All of my children know I’m in recovery. They know why. My younger kids are 11, nine and six, so they know a little bit less. They don’t know about the drugs or I don’t think they’re old enough to understand that. The older kids know everything, and I’m very open with them about how to keep an eye out on their drinking. Because this is a genetic disease that runs on both sides of my family. So I’m always open with them about everything, because I think that’s the key, one for them to learn how to drink responsibly if they choose to. But two, to have a role model that if drinking’s not working for you, it’s okay. There’s resources and life is going to be good. You’re not alone.
When you say that because there’s a genetic component, what do you say to especially your older kids? You don’t want to scare them or freak them out, but you also want them to be aware of the danger.
Right. So my oldest daughter’s 23, and she’ll drink socially. She’ll go out with her friends. She was with me at Jen’s birthday party, and she’ll have one or two drinks. That’s her limit. That’s her choice. My second daughter, she’ll go out all night long and party the night out. They both have their own ways of it. My son doesn’t like to drink at all. He’s nervous about it. He’s scared that he has that gene. So every child has taken it in their own way and run with it. I think it’s just having those open lines of communication. I know with my second daughter, she was making some choices. She’s like, “I can’t do this anymore. It doesn’t feel right.” And I love that she was comfortable enough to tell me that.
Yeah, open lines of communications are most important. And being willing to answer whatever they want to ask you, without judgment.
I’m open about everything. I’m open on Instagram. I’m open in real life. I have no shame behind the fact that I’m an alcoholic. It to me has been the biggest blessing that I’ve ever had. I’m so grateful to be an alcoholic.
Why? People say it’s so counterintuitive.
One, because it has made me so much more aware of who I am and why I do the things I do. It put a mirror up to myself and said, “Why are you doing this? What are you hiding from? What do you need?” It’s also given me a community. The sober community is family to me. When I moved to Nashville, I didn’t know a soul. I didn’t know one person here except for Jason Wahler. He was on The Hills. I don’t know if you know him. And he’s sober. And we knew each other just through the sober world. And then through him, I kept meeting more and more sober people. And there is an amazing connection no matter where you are in this world, where you find sober friends and they become your family and they show up for you and they support you, and what a gift that is. And what a gift is to be able to go into a room where no one judges you. We all have shared experiences and be able to have these real honest conversations.
Yeah, it’s wonderful. Braunwyn, it’s great to meet you. Congratulations on everything that is going so well in your life, on your four plus years of sobriety, and for being a real honest and open role model for people who are struggling and can see, okay, there’s a path forward. I can watch her and see how it’s done. Thank you.
Thank you for having me here. It meant a lot, so thank you.