I Took My Bicycle to the Liquor Store Because My Parents Had Taken My Car Keys & My Wallet — I Crashed It Into the Woods

Episode 48 | Kim (Sober Kimbo) — From Blackout at 14 to a Year Sober: The Canadian Dental Hygienist Who Lost Two Phones in Europe & Found AA in Nova Scotia In this warm, funny and genuinely relatable episode, Jimmy sits down with Kim — aka Sober Kimbo on Instagram — a dental hygienist from Nova Scotia, Canada, who got her one-year anniversary just weeks before this episode aired. Her story spans blackout drinking at 14, a solo Europe trip that imploded spectacularly, a devastating breakup, a DUI, a coworker finding her drunk in bed, and finally walking into her first AA meeting brought by a man she didn’t know was sober — who turned out to be the same stranger who’d let her into an apartment building three in the morning months earlier. Kim had her first drink at 14 — a water bottle full of vodka in a park — and immediately blacked out. She discovered two things that night: she didn’t react normally to alcohol, and she didn’t care. She and her sister both joked they were “allergic” to alcohol — it turned out Kim actually was. Neither the blackouts, nor the shame, nor the concern of everyone around her was ever enough to make her stop. Through high school and then dental hygiene college in Montreal — where the drinking age is 18 and the bars were open to her from day one — Kim kept drinking every weekend, always more than anyone around her, always the one people assumed had been spiked. On her very first night at college, with her mum still in the room, she went out with strangers and came back so drunk that two concerned students knocked on her door the next morning to check she hadn’t been drugged. She told them that’s just what alcohol does to her. The real crisis point came at 22 after a brutal breakup — her boyfriend told her not to come back to the condo they shared while she was home for a weekend visit. She spiralled hard: a week in bed with a box of wine, then a solo trip to Europe that fell apart almost immediately. She lost her phone in Berlin, bought a new one, lost that one the same night. She ended up stranded in Munich airport for two days without a phone, and flew home early through Iceland with a pint of vodka and an accidental business class upgrade. She landed with no memory of the flight, her ID cards mailed back to her by the airport weeks later. The scrapes kept coming — more situations involving police, a DUI driving to her parents’ house after a bottle of wine on a night she was supposed to be working the next day. None of it was enough. The end came last summer. A Friday night date — she drank a full mini vodka before he even picked her up, remembered nothing, didn’t show up for work on the Saturday. Her coworker came to her house, found her key in the unlocked car, let herself in and found Kim drunk in bed. She went back to work and told everyone. Kim kept drinking for two more days — cycling to the liquor store after her parents took her car keys, crashing her bike into the woods. When she finally woke up and looked at her phone she thought it was Monday. It was Tuesday. She went to AA — brought by a man her friend had suggested, who turned out to be the same stranger who’d silently let her into an apartment building at 3am months earlier. She walke My Instagram is: https://www.instagram.com/recovery_jimmy And you can find all my other links at: https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle Buy me a coffee… https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt Alcohol Explained - William Porter https://a.co/d/0854fIb6 This Naked Mind - Annie Grace https://a.co/d/0gy6mT9Z A Million Little Pieces - James Frey https://a.co/d/0jdcIjGb Donate: https://motiv8.im/donate/ https://nacoa.org.uk/get-involved/donating/donate/ My Instagram is: https://www.instagram.com/recovery_jimmy And you can find all my other links at: https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle Buy me a coffee… https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt Alcohol Explained - William Porter https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB This Naked Mind - Annie Grace https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z A Million Little Pieces - James Frey https://amzn.to/44jOV3i Donate: https://motiv8.im/donate/ https://nacoa.org.uk/get-involved/donating/donate/