A memoir told from two sides of the same marriage

Quitting was just the beginning.

Mike and Kristen Norris tell the unpolished story of alcohol, separation, accountability, reconciliation, parenting, and the long work of learning how to stay.

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“No one in this family has to disappear for the rest of us to belong.”

Everyone gets a seat.

The book

This is not a polished redemption story.

A man stops drinking. That is where the easy version of the story ends—and where this book begins.

Everyone Gets a Seat follows what happened after Mike’s family left, after the final beer, and after the promises had to become visible behaviour. Kristen tells the story from the seat that recovery stories too often push to the edge: the person who lived beside the drinking, protected the children, left, and chose for herself whether to return.

Together, Mike and Kristen examine marriage, family, ambition, and the company that grew from their belief that belonging should not depend on what is in your glass.

Stopping was only the beginning

An announcement can be sincere. Trust still returns through repeated behaviour, not promises.

Two truths can share a table

Mike and Kristen do not need identical memories for both experiences to matter.

Belonging includes boundaries

Everyone gets a seat does not mean everyone gets their way. Grace and accountability belong together.

“I had mistaken her endurance for permission.”
Mike

“The mind becomes creative when the truth will require action.”
Kristen

The authors

Mike & Kristen Norris

Educators. Entrepreneurs. Partners telling both sides of one complicated story.

Kristen and Mike Norris seated together at a table

Kristen Norris is an educator and entrepreneur who has spent 22 years teaching and holds a Master of Education. Her work has centred on helping people grow, building environments where they feel seen, and proving that compassion and clear boundaries can exist together.

Mike Norris is an educator, entrepreneur, and tool and die maker by trade. He holds a degree in education, and his career has crossed manufacturing, skilled-trades education, college instruction, educational technology, and secondary-school teaching.

Together, Mike and Kristen have turned their lived experience into both a business and a broader conversation about belonging. Through Designated Drinks, their writing, and their speaking, they explore life after alcohol, rebuilding trust, parenting through uncertainty, and creating families and organizations where no one has to disappear to belong.

Visit Designated Drinks

Keynotes · Fireside conversations · Panels

Bring both sides of the story to the room.

Mike and Kristen speak candidly about belonging without sameness, why stopping is not the same as repairing, the cost of founder obsession, and what it takes to rebuild a family without asking anyone to disappear.

Speaking inquiries

Everyone Gets a Seat

A marriage, a family, and the life we found after alcohol.

The book is available now on Amazon.ca.

Buy on Amazon.ca