Ep 100 From Collapse to Clarity — Beth McDonough on Sobriety, Accountability & Rebuilding After Public Loss

Welcome back to Morning Cup of Brand Spark, the podcast where we slow things down and we explore the moments that change how we see ourselves. These aren't conversations about success, visibility, or getting it right. They're about the mirror moments, the reckoning, the collapses, and the quiet decisions that shape who we become next. Today's conversation is about what happens when a public identity falls apart.

and what it really takes to rebuild a life you don't need to escape from. So let's get started. And a warm welcome Beth McDonough

All right, so welcome Beth. I'm so, glad to have you on this episode of Morning Cup of Brand Spark, Mirror Conversations. So I have a bit of a ritual at the start of every episode. Before we dive in, what's in your cup today?

Hi there!

In my cup today is Diet Coke and it's half full. Have that for a little mantra for you.

Half? Okay.

And it's afternoon for you, right? So it's not coffee morning anyway for you.

No,

it's afternoon and I just had to switch up which caffeine intake I was gonna do this morning. It was coffee. Now we're on to the diet coke

Perfect. And where are you joining me from?

I currently live in St. George, Utah, which is the beautiful, sunny Mojave Desert is here, the Great Basin, the Colorado Plateau. So we have natural parks here, red sand and pine trees. It's really an interesting and stunningly beautiful place. It's just outside of Vegas, close to Zion National Park and Bryce National Canyon.

Beautiful.

Awesome, I'm jealous. Everything is flat here. So I'm going to come visit you.

Oh my gosh, today it's

going to be 65 and I'll probably go hiking this afternoon if I can.

this podcast is all about the mirror moments that we experience, the things that we go through that help us to see ourselves, to see ourselves clearly. And sometimes, for some of us, it's seeing ourselves for the first time.

And boy, do you have a story to tell about your mirror moment, which is why I actually reached you to see if you were interested to be a guest on this episode. But before we talk about what happened with your TV news, your career, your job at that moment, before everything for you fell apart, who do you believe you were back then?

⁓ wow, what a heavy question.

Wow, a heavy question and a good one. Who do I think I was back then? I think I was an overly ambitious, fearless,

Pursuer of the truth and writer of wrongs.

Wow.

Kind of all of that in a

bottle wrapped up into one.

And I imagine you're still quite fearless though.

You know,

I think so. I think that I brought that along with me with every passing year. I think it's one of those things that's like experience. It doesn't just go away.

Yeah, it's part of you, right? It's ingrained in your own persona and that will never change. were in journalism for such a long time, but what did journalism represent for you, like beyond your career back then?

Yes.

It represented the ability to tell stories, tell other people's stories. And I love that so much. I love getting in there and learning what makes people react to situations the way they do, how they survive the worst moments of their life. That's very interesting to me. And lo and behold, who would know that would come to apply to my own life, right? As these things do and karma does.

Yeah.

And I just, loved getting in there and telling people's stories and in a creative way, not just kind of, you could say someone shot or you could say, you know, a child was, you know, was hit with a bullet or a child was shot and it was a hit to the parent's heart. You know, I like to tell creative stories like that. So it really,

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

helps to eliminate the impact that various things have on people's lives. know, whether it's 9-11, surviving that or not, or various situations. I just love the survivor stories and where people find their internal fortitude to keep pushing through. That's always appealed to me and lo and behold, I made a living out of it for a while.

So.

Yeah. Yeah,

And then, of course, you had your mirror moment. You faced some challenges back then of what happened to you. And I imagine, I mean, I'll ask you about your mirror moment in a second to walk me through, but I can imagine that you always were telling other people's stories. Was it also hard for you in that moment to start telling your own story? Because you became the subject of the story, right? Yeah.

Oh God, yes it was.

It was, you know, it was the one story I never wanted to tell. And the one I certainly didn't want exposed. mean, you

Yeah, yeah.

wants your worst demons to be put out for all the public to comment on? And no one wants to grow up to be an alcoholic. You know, no one's like, oh, that'll be fun. I think I'll blow up my life. Let's see how much damage I can cause or how many people I can hurt. So.

The public.

No.

Yep.

Yeah, I dealt with it. I've kind of joke my whole life has been one of survival and maybe that's why I enjoy telling other people's stories. You know, so for me, a couple of moments of clarity. It was interesting. I was a newscaster for 30 years and worked for all of the major networks at one time or another and lived all over the US covering big, big stories like the George Floyd riots or 9-11 and or the death of Prince. I broke that story. And

Mm.

You know, it's hard to be kind of my, was known as being a crime reporter or jokingly on the street, they would call me justice. I mean, how ironic, right? What a dichotomy. And I'm like, ⁓ justice has seen both sides of this now. And so, you know, in the news, I would always work the evenings too. And so we'd go in at like noon, maybe get off at 11 or midnight. And what do do at?

Right.

really? can do what? shit. Yeah.

the end of your work day, you know, some people got a happy hour. Well, the only thing open 11 or midnight bars, you know, so colleagues and I would go and blow off some steam in the hopes that you don't take home what you saw or, know, maybe you try not to absorb all the trauma that you see day in and day out. Cause I've seen a lot of, a lot of stuff. would say, you know, shit, I've seen a lot of shit and you know, my partying early on.

Yeah.

Is the virus. Yeah.

I imagine.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

as we all sometimes do in our twenties and thirties, you know, at some point over time, it started to really become a problem. And I had a whole bunch of factors going on at the time when my drinking really started to take off. You know, I was going through a divorce, which I wanted. And these are not excuses, but just more explanations of, life factors, in addition to what I did for a living, you know, going through a divorce, my mother was dying very unexpectedly. My father had a quadruple bypass.

Hmm.

Yeah, at that moment, of course.

My dog died of all things and I found out that I was going to my contract wasn't being renewed in Philadelphia. I was working for NBC News and because new management was coming in and they were, you know, they like to bring in their own people. So also, yeah, I was going to have to move, lose my job, go find another job, you know, so much out there. In addition to, you know, just covering major disasters and kind of my

There was a lot going on. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah.

It might look like the moment of clarity was when I was fired because I got one DUI in 2007 right after the 35W bridge collapsed. And then my boss warned me at the time, and I got in a little bit of trouble. My boss warned me at the time, know, Beth, if you have a problem, you better tell us now. We can get you help. We'll send you to treatment. He offered me a lifeline. And addiction being what it is, I didn't want anyone to know I had a problem.

You don't take it. No.

You don't want to talk

Of course.

about it. You don't want to bring it up. You're afraid you're going to lose everything. You're going to be the problem child, you know, or, and guess what? You're going to lose it all anyway, if you don't own up to it. you know, but I told him it was a one-off. This would never happen again. And I actually stupidly thought I might be able to get a handle on it or get control, you know, cause you're, get to be a very strong person as a reporter, seeing all of this stuff and solving other people's problems for a living for 30 years, major, major problems. And,

Yeah.

What yourself? Yeah.

And I told him it was a one-off, it would never happen again. And he said, if it does, you will be fired because Fox News has a zero tolerance policy. Well, they kept me. They already gave me a second chance because they kept me. And it hurt a little bit, but not enough. And it was a year later, Halloween night, of all things. And I could feel myself getting drunk. And I'm like, you got to get home. You got to get home.

Yeah.

Was it?

why I didn't take an Uber or cab. I mean, it's alcoholics stinking thinking. We all can look back on

You don't

bad decisions we made when drinking, all of us. in driving home, I hit someone on the highway at 80 miles an hour. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt. It was a fender bender. He wasn't hurt. His car was certainly damaged and he did sue me. But when I pulled up at my home, the police were there waiting for me again.

all of us.

door.

for the second time in two years. so I, and I was a blackout drinker. I remember just parts of that arrest, but I blacked out and I woke up 36 hours later in a drunk tank on holding cell at the county jail surrounded by other women who were watching the TV. Cause what do do when you're in jail? You know, what'd you do to get here? You're talking to each other passing time. Are you watching television or Jerry Springer usually?

my.

They were watching the news that morning and as I'm slowly coming to and I'm in the orange jumpsuit from jail laying on this cold cot, know, miserable, my head's pounding and I look up at the TV and they're talking, they're like, Ooh, look at that. Well, it was my mug shot up on the TV set. I am waking up to my own mug shot and the sense of dread right then I knew I was like my life as I know it is very over, very, very over and

No.

Yeah.

It's

when I was finally released from jail for a few days and my attorney wouldn't pick me up because I didn't learn my lesson the first time. So it was going to make me stay there a little bit longer. And so all of this is part of the moment. You know, it was when my boss called me and said, you need to come to the TV station. You have some paperwork to fill out. It was just dread and, you know, the awful yoke that overcomes you. And I said, well, can you send me a taxi because

And then.

You get more than two DUIs in Minnesota in 10 years. The state can take your license for a year and your car and seize your car and sell it at auction, which they were doing. And so I said, otherwise I don't have a way to get there. And he said, sure. So they sent me a taxi. And when I got to the TV station, boy, you know, I went from having many friends in that newsroom to having no one who would look at me. They didn't want to make eye contact. They certainly didn't want to breathe my air because I was damaged goods and

Yeah.

If got too close to me, you might explode yourself, you know, because I dropped an atomic bomb in my life. And yeah, my mugshot was on all the newspapers, TV, you know, radio, inside edition was outside of my home. And my boss said, you know, we warned you last year if this happened again, you would be fired. And I said, yes. And he goes, we offered you help, Beth. You know, and that's what I want to stress to people. I was given a lifeline and I didn't take it.

⁓ gosh.

And now, yeah.

Because you're afraid you're going to lose everything. And here I am losing everything. So I knew as soon as I got fired, it was a matter of time before I'd lose my home, I would go broke. You know, all my fines and court costs were doubled. The man I hit sued me rightly. So I lost a lot of friends, family, you know, all of that. And when my boss said, you know, it's a shame you had a job here for life. I mean, how nice to know you were going to have a paycheck every two weeks for the rest of your life. But that wasn't enough to, you know, to keep me sober and out of trouble and

Yeah.

Mm-mm.

And so he said, it's a shame, you know, because you helped to put us on the map. had a job for life, but you can't be a crime reporter when you commit a crime. So as of today, you're fired. You're no longer of use to us. And we kept the taxi. You can take it to treatment. You can take it home. It's up to you. And then it was interesting. The next couple of days as I was alone by myself, like with all the consequences and you know, there was, I couldn't outrun myself anymore.

That's when the moment of clarity hit me when I couldn't, when all the noise kind of stopped and it was me alone in my town home with my tears and my dog that, you know, I knew I couldn't fix this anymore, that I couldn't outrun myself. couldn't out think it out smarted. I couldn't, you know, I'm a professional problem solver and I couldn't solve my own problem. And so I knew I looked in the mirror and I'm Beth McDonough, you've got a problem. You've got a drinking problem and you got a, you know, pony up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And was it that moment,

was it that moment that you said, this has to change right now? Yeah.

It has to change right now because,

and it was probably a blessing in disguise that I don't have anyone to blame but myself. I did this to myself. I threw this atomic bomb in my life. You know, I started selling all my clothes, my furniture, my towels, dishes, pots, pans, everything out of my home for money to live to eat because I couldn't, I didn't even have money to eat after, you know, all the lawsuits and the court costs and the stuff. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so you do, you do whatever you have to do to survive.

to get by at that point and for recovery. Did you do that yourself or did you have help for that as well?

my gosh, I had help. I feel like recovery is something that you honestly can't do on your own. I mean, I tried previously case in point the year before couldn't do it. You were all smart people, you know, you know, the right course of action. but things get in the way. So I couldn't do it on my own. So I knew this time, you know, getting busted twice in two years, I'm like, read the tea leaves, you know, you've got a problem and it's bigger than you and you need.

You had help, yeah.

So, bye.

Yeah, it's time.

You need to go to the experts, the people who do this for a living, who've seen it day in and day out, who can help you find your path going forward that's sober and that's livable and sustainable. So I went to inpatient treatment for 30 days. I joined an AA recovery program. I took on a sober roommate. I did aftercare for six months, know, daily therapy, group therapy, random drug test, all of it.

Wow.

Like I approach most everything. I kind of joke, I try to be successful at everything I do. And I was in this case, blowing up my life. So I'm like, all right, Beth, well, you know, it's up to you to start to walk the walk.

And of course it's a journey. This doesn't happen overnight. The recovery piece doesn't happen overnight. And it doesn't happen overnight, the getting your life back in the first place, of course. Of course.

my

gosh, I would say it took me about a solid 10 years to get everything back on track and at a hundred percent healthy point. And I don't say that as discouragement. just say, you know, it's a recovery, ⁓ it's a construction project. You build it, build it, build it, build it over time. And Rome doesn't get built in a day.

Yeah, really.

Yeah.

It's the reality.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Indeed. And was there a moment where you sort of realized that you weren't ever actually trying to get your old life back? You were building something completely new. You were building a new life now.

Yes, yes, as I got further into recovery and I would look around and just kind of see what people did when they were drinking. And for me, I needed to look at alcohol as the enemy, as poison, because it ruined my life and I allowed it to ruin my life. And when you look back at that and then how life is when you're sober,

And my life sober is exponentially better than it ever was back in my drinking days. And I'm like, so when you look at that and I'm like, why would I ever go back to, you know, coming home after work and pounding a bottle of wine, waking up at five or 6 a.m. with a pounding headache, but still going for a three to five mile run, beating my body up, drinking, you know, Red Bull, Diet Coke, all of it to get through the day each and every day.

Yeah.

and working the next morning

And knowing I had this secret and I'm such a big proponent of accountability and it just, was time to come clean and really acknowledge that I have a problem. And listen, I've had cancer before and I've survived that. You know, I used to run marathons and I blew my back out at the 19th mile of the Chicago marathon and finished. I'm like, Beth McDonough, you have got to power through this too. And, clean up your life and embrace sobriety.

And then show others, you know, and put it in this book, but show others what you did to get sober, what worked for you and different things work for different people, And show them how to come through the dark tunnel. Come over to the light side.

Yeah,

Yeah, there is a light side. I think that's the hard part for anyone in that situation to even think, I'm in the light now, it's all good, right? It's all good until it's not.

Right? You think it's all good. And the journey,

you know, it's like driving through the mountains. You look up and you see mountain, you're like, I'm almost there. And then you keep driving and you're like, okay, no, dude, they're winding roads and it's longer. It's longer than it looks.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, totally. And then if someone is listening to this right now and they're maybe standing in the wreckage of their own identity, what would you want them to know right now as a first thing?

Do not waste your suffering. All the suffering that you've been through right now, there's a point to it. You're going through it for a reason. So don't waste your suffering. Don't put that behind and act like it never happened. All the suffering happened for a reason and you have to learn the lessons along the way. And then use that.

Because at some point when you are grounded enough in your sobriety, like I am now, I just celebrated 17 years, hallelujah. Thank you, thank you. And it's, you know, I never thought I was going to get here. I mean, I'm telling you my first week in a recovery program and I was like, I don't know how people do it. And here I am 17 years later. And that's why I say, don't waste your suffering. Listen to it. It's teaching you things.

Hey, congratulations, wow. ⁓

about you and your personality that you need to know to live your best life going forward. So don't waste that suffering. Experience it, sit with it, acknowledge it, you know, and we brought it on ourselves. And then the takeaway, the lessons learned from that, so you become a better person. You know, I had to learn who I was without a job title, without the armor, without, you know, you got to change direction. And fortunately, the world is much more open to messy stories these days.

Yeah.

and really encourages and embraces people when they're like, all right, this path isn't serving me. I must pivot. You know, there's no problem on earth that alcohol can't make worse. So learn from that suffering. Don't waste it.

Yeah, yeah.

Great advice. you've had the last 17 years of sobriety, right? What did that teach you about resilience that maybe you never thought about in the past?

Yes.

Whoa, that resilience is everything. Resilience is everything because no one is born with resilience. We don't come out of this shoot, this strong person able to overcome adversity. It's like when you're a baby, you have to start to build your immune system, right? And that's how resilience is. You have to start to build your resilient system, if you will. And it's doing, I always hated this phrase in treatment.

Mm-hmm.

And now I understand it so completely. It's doing the next right thing. So you start, you know, one step in front of the other, but the next right step in front of the other of like, you know, I did something terrible to you and I owe you an apology. You go sit down with them face to face. And I've done that dozens of times. It's nerve wracking in the beginning, but I can't tell you how liberating it is now on the other side. And most people.

Hmm.

Really?

will be forgiving, you know, they want to help those who will help themselves. If you're genuine and you're authentic about it and the resilience is comes from overcoming adversity, know, jumping, you don't start off at the high hurdles and track. You start off with the low hurdles and you know, that's kind of how you do it. It's a muscle and that's kind of how you do it. And it's facing what you did owning it. That's very big. think if people still trying to ask others to

You work it, it's like a muscle.

Don't talk about it. Don't let them know. think that's such a bad idea. doesn't, it doesn't help anybody. Accountability will also help to build your resilience and bring your self-respect back. Cause you know that you're like, I'm, I'm trying to do something about it here. I'm taking action. I'm not talking about it, but I'm taking action.

one step forward is better than 10 steps back, right? It's also, don't expect perfection, right? It's make positive forward movement.

Absolutely. I'll take it.

Yeah, and there's no magic button that you can hit to speed up and, know, fast forward this. But every day you don't have to wake up hating yourself and regretting what you did the day before. And that's just, there's so much peace in that.

I can't imagine. Well, I'm proud of you for your 17 years, sober. It's the first time meeting you, but I'm already proud of you. That's awesome.

Thank you. Thank you. am

so incredibly grateful and so, so grateful. And if you'd ever told me I would get here, I mean, seriously early on I was as raw as they come, you know, and, now I just, I've learned things along the way that could really benefit other people. And so I want to share that with others and, and pay it forward because

You wouldn't believe that.

Yeah.

I'm so grateful that I've been able to live 17 years clean and I want to encourage others to be the hero of their own story too. They can do it. I've seen it. I've done it. I've lived it. Boy, have I gone through the fire. You know, I played on the fire cut glass and boy, I got burned. And so, you know, I want to show people how they can come out of this a better person than they were before. Destruction can develop you into a better person.

Sure.

So where can people find you? Where can they read your work? Tell me a little bit about your book. And how can people connect with you if this conversation resonated with them?

Yeah, thank you. So I just came out with my first book. It's called Standby, which is a TV term, of course, you know, when you're kind of suspended in limbo, prepared for whatever's next in life. So that's what the Standby comes from. And it talks, it starts out the first chapter, the readers will wake up in the jail cell with me. And so I take readers through it from a journalistic narrative. They're along this ride with me.

I didn't think of that.

so they can see what it's like to get booked and fingerprinted and you hear what other cellmates say. And I had some surreal experiences in jail. Let me tell you that. And I share those in the story, in the book. And then I walk you through as well how people might be able to understand how you can absorb the daily trauma that you cover in addition to regular life. So I show people some really interesting news stories behind the scenes of how we gather news and approach people and

the risks involved with that as well, and how over time then, you know, my career became the love of my life almost over everything else, short of my parents and my dogs. And the two DUIs, you know, I didn't know it, but getting those two DUIs were the worst, best days of my life. And I didn't know it at the time.

Hmm.

worst of best.

And so I talk about all of that in the book and then what it looks like afterwards to try and start recovery and reclaiming yourself and your identity when you've been very publicly exiled, fired, know, broke, sued, losing your home, looking for a bridge to live under, didn't have enough money for groceries. So I started walking neighbors' dogs for $20. And you do what you have to do to survive and become the person you always wanted to be.

And so that's what the book talks about. And it's got a lot of journalistic narrative, true crime, you know, and I kind of joke if it's embarrassing, it's in the book standby. If it's really embarrassing, it's chapter 42, because there are some eye popping things that I did along the way that I finally come clean about and talk about that are horrible and embarrassing, but it shows you the depths of the addiction to and how high functioning alcoholics, you know, kind of

Really?

It's real.

power through and now I like to just say I want to put the fun back in functional without the alcohol. you know, yeah, and all the things you remember when you're sober now like sex, I actually remember sex. That's a great idea, you know, hey, right. You don't have to wonder what I did last night or with who or whatever. ⁓ Yeah, and it's nice to wake up and not have that fear of dread and kind of

Much better framing, right?

Not blackouts anymore.

Phew. Yeah.

And just knowing, you're going to hear from someone today about something really crappy you said did and and I don't live that life anymore, which is great.

something you did.

And where can people find you? you have a website that you'd like to share?

Yeah, so I'm I feel like

I'm everywhere right now, which is kind of fun, actually, because I just want to get the message out as much as I can to as many people, because during the holidays, people struggle. And boy, I had a relapse 17 years ago. So I understand struggling during the holidays. So you can find me anywhere on the socials, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. I have a sub stack blog that I write.

then I have an author website that it also has a lot of the interviews that I've done with, you know, networks, TV stations, magazines, podcasts. I also show you on my webpage, some reports that I personally have done. So people get to see my news reporting in action. And my author website is www.bethmcdmedia.com. So Beth McD media.com and standby is for sale on Amazon.

Okay.

Barnes & Noble and Kindle and soon early in 2026, it'll be on an audio book as well. I'm just trying to get that recorded as we speak now. And who knew publishing was such a process, but it is. It is, it's a challenge.

⁓ cool.

It's hard, isn't it? It's hard. Yeah,

it's way more than you think. It's definitely been the case. Anyone I've ever spoken to who's written a book in the last five years. It's been tough. It's tough.

I guess

it's a challenge, you know, and I'm up for it. enjoy that. you know, again, to use my own phrase, I can't waste my suffering. Like I have to pay forward what I've learned and shown people, you know, I came out of the fire. You can do, you know, come over to the clean living side and you

Indeed, indeed.

And if you inspire

anyone in that process, it's amazing.

and I'd like to say you won't get back what you lost. You get back so much more.

It's more. And it's good. That's a good thing. That's awesome. Beth, I thank you so much for joining me. when you get the book on audiobook, let me know, because I will add it as well into the promotion for this. And I will add all of your links in as well to the show notes. So anybody who wants to go find Beth and her book, you guys can all grab it from the show notes. So, Beth, thank you so much.

Yeah, it's a good thing.

Wonderful and thank you. Thank you for having me on. I sure appreciate it.

Well, that was Morning Cup of Brand Spark. Thanks for joining me today. If this conversation stirred something in you, a memory, a truth, or maybe it's a question you've been avoiding, let it sit with you now. Not everything needs to be fixed right away. Sometimes awareness is the actual work. And if you know someone who's quietly rebuilding or standing at the edge of their own reinvention, share this episode with them. Until next time.

Keep your coffee warm and your mirror close.