Welcome To Alcohol Literacy

Welcome to my corner of Insight Timer.

I’m Amy C. Willis, an alcohol culture educator, dual-certified sober coach and speaker. My work sits at the intersection of alcohol, health, gender, culture, behaviour change and wellbeing, with a focus on translating research into practical, useful education.

In this introduction, I’ll tell you a little about who I am, what I mean by alcohol literacy, and what you can expect from my work here.

We’ll explore what alcohol actually does in the brain and body, how it can affect sleep, stress, mood, and health, how drinking patterns develop, and how alcohol culture, marketing, and social expectations shape the way we think about drinking.

You’ll find research-informed educational audio, practical tools and deeper conversations about alcohol, women’s health, alcohol culture and sobriety.

I’m really glad you’re here. Have a look around, and I hope you’ll stick around for what’s coming.

Transcript

Hello and welcome. My name is Amy C. Willis and I am so glad that you are here. I am thrilled that you have found me and I am also thrilled to be here as a teacher on the Insight Timer app. On a personal note, I have been using and enjoying and benefiting from the Insight Timer app for several years. So I am beyond excited and extremely grateful to have been invited to join this app as a teacher and to share my insights, My learnings, My expertise with this beautiful community. Before we get into that, I would love to share a little bit about myself so you have some context and background around who I am and how I got to be where I am today. Gender and sexuality studies, And I also hold a global health and research based master's degree. I founded my company whole and well in 2019. I arrived at this work after struggling personally with alcohol for many years. In August, 2026, I celebrated 10 years of sobriety and it has been an epic journey. Needless to say, The work is profoundly meaningful and deeply personal to me. Coaching clients in 2019, I quickly realized that the conversation around alcohol was much larger than any individual's choices about what they may or may not be drinking. In my own sobriety journey, I got very curious about understanding as much as I possibly could about alcohol and addiction because truthfully, I wanted to understand what had happened to me. So I did what I always do when I'm curious, And that is hit the books. I put on my researcher hat and dug into the research so that I could learn as much as I possibly could about alcohol. Including what happens when you put it in your body? How does it disrupt sleep? How does it impact our nervous system? What are the short and long term health implications of drinking? What are the factors that make one person more vulnerable to addiction while another is more protected from it? And importantly, How did alcohol become so normalized that we no longer even question it? I have spent the last decade researching alcohol, Alcohol use disorder, Sobriety, And also alcohol culture. And of course I bring all of these learnings and all of this education to my clients, But I'm also interested in bringing this conversation to anyone and everyone who does interact with alcohol or who will interact with alcohol in their lifetimes. Because at the end of the day, Alcohol is this deeply normalized, Culturally and socially embedded and encouraged substance that we all interact with on a daily basis. But most of us do not have nearly enough accessible, Accurate, Evidence-based information to make a truly informed decision about alcohol and how it exists in our bodies and in our lives. In addition to my coaching work, A huge portion of the work that I do is educating around and advancing alcohol literacy. So if you are curious to learn more about alcohol, This substance that we all navigate and interact with on a daily basis, I hope that you will stick around. We, Of course, Will also be talking about sobriety and living big, Bold, Beautiful, Alcohol-free lives. So if that sounds like your cup of tea, I hope you will follow and join the conversation. Thank you again for being here and cheering you on as always. I'm grateful that you're here. And as always, I am cheering you on.