About this episode

Kelly shares her journey of building a nonprofit in memory of her brother after his alcohol-related death and discusses the impact of grief on her path to alcohol freedom.

Trigger warning: This episode contains references to the alcohol-related death of a family member. Is it possible to build something meaningful out of the worst loss of your life? For Kelly, the answer arrived just five months after she got free from alcohol herself. That's when her brother died from the same thing she'd spent years measuring her own drinking against. She built Perfectly Made AF in response, a nonprofit funding alcohol freedom scholarships in his memory and an annual Boulder gala designed to prove an alcohol-free life is anything but boring. Kelly's Naked Life story traces how she got there, from years of comparing her own drinking to his, to the two days after his funeral when she had to choose what came next. Kelly and Coach Cole discuss: What almost happened two days after her brother's funeral, five months into her own alcohol-free life Why "I'm not him" was the comparison that let her avoid her own drinking for years The message she wrote her brother a month before he died, and why it came too late How a scholarship fund turned into a full nonprofit with 18 people currently enrolled The thinking behind this year's Perfect Gala, from a mobile planetarium to a…

People in this episode

Host: Annie Grace

Guest: Kelly

Topics covered

• grief
• alcohol freedom
• nonprofit
• personal growth
• loss
• scholarships

Keywords

• grief
• alcohol
• nonprofit
• scholarship
• freedom
• Boulder gala
• personal story
• decision fatigue
• mommy wine culture

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Perfectly Made AF, Boulder gala

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• Why You Drink To Fit In · July 7, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Summer of Love · July 4, 2026 · 58 min
• Why You Keep Going Back To Alcohol · June 30, 2026 · 1h 9m

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