Recovery Elevator

Steven, with a sobriety date of August 7, 2016, shares his story. Registration for the Bozeman, Montana Retreat opened up this past Friday.  Space is limited for this retreat.  You can find more information about events here Internet memes…a picture, coupled with a few short words, can spread powerful messages.  Paul describes one he saw the other day.  It was an old school telephone with the word...

Juan, with a sobriety date of May 29, 2018, shares his story. Congratulations to Kirk S. in Florida for hitting 1 year of sobriety.  This Friday, March 1st, registration for the Recovery Elevator Retreat in Bozeman goes live.  Space is limited for this retreat.  You can find more information about events here After the interview with Juan, Paul will discuss detoxing from alcohol and how dangerous...

Bill, with a sobriety date of October 8, 2018, shares her story. We want to thank Mike Noll for his commitment to doing the podcast show notes for the previous 35 episodes and welcome Kerri, from California, to the position, who will take over doing the next 26 episodes.     We still have a couple spots left for our Nashville event coming up this February 22 – 24.  Registration for Bozeman Retreat...

Crystal, with 84 days of sobriety, shares her story. This is a special podcast episode!  It marks 4 consecutive years of podcasting…208 straight Mondays in a row.  Paul talks about how Recovery Elevator and the RE community has saved his life, and shares ways we can all help others stop drinking.   SHOW NOTES [11:00] Paul Introduces Crystal. Crystal has been sober for 84 days and lives in San Anto...

Tom, with a sobriety date of June 6, 2018, shares his story. Events – I am excited about the upcoming events for Recovery Elevator.  As already mentioned on the podcast we have Nashville on Saturday, February 23rd.  We also have the Bozeman Retreat from Aug 14-18th.  The Bozeman Retreat was a huge hit in 2017 and it is back on the calendar for this year. Guys, what I am particularly excited about...

Dusty, with a sobriety date of  9/21/15, shares his story.   On January 1st, I launched the 3rd private, unsearchable Facebook accountability group.  All Café RE signups starting January 1st-January 31st will be placed in the new group.  This group will be capped at 300 members to ensure intimacy.  For the entire month of January, you can use the promo code 2019 for 75% off registration. If you're...

Kane, with 49 days of sobriety, shares his story. On January 1st, I launched the 3rd private, unsearchable Facebook accountability group.  All Café RE signups starting January 1st-January 31st will be placed in the new group.  This group will be capped at 300 members to ensure intimacy.  For the entire month of January, you can use the promo code 2019 for 75% off registration. If you're a Recovery...

  Lucy, with 65 days of sobriety, shares her story.   Do I need to avoid social situations where alcohol will be present?    The answer is yes, then no, then yes.  Sorry if that's confusing. I explain better in the episode.   On January 1st, I launched the 3rd private, unsearchable Facebook accountability group.  All Café RE signups starting January 1st-January 31st will be placed in the new group...

Jeff, with over 2 years since his last drink, shares his story… That could never happen… Analysis of the famed James Bond movies reveals that James Bond is a full-blown functioning alcoholic living on borrowed time.  "There is strong and consistent evidence that James Bond has a chronic alcohol consumption problem at the severe end of the spectrum… His workplace, MI6, needs to become a more respon...

Warren, with 48 hours since his last drink, shares his story… 12 reasons why sober is better: 1 - Look your best.   2 - Look and feel properly rested. 3 - Alcohol fixes things you didn't notice were broken.  4 - Make the most of your time.  5 - Build better relationships.  The opposite of addiction is connection. 6 - More confidence.  You can do anything you put your mind to.  7 - Less fear! 8 - S...

Jeff, with over 38 days since his last drink, shares his story… During this festive holiday season, we will, no doubt, we encouraged to drink at one point or another.  We can't think ourselves out of long-term addiction, but in the moment, there are tools we can use to help gives us the ability to say no.  Follow the drink, and play the tape forward.  There is plenty of data behind us to help us m...

Walter, with 2½ years since his last drink, shares his story… The Cure to Addiction… Is it possible?  Are we close to a cure?  No.  AA was founded in 1935, and since then we still don't know what causes it or how to treat it.  A holistic cure will attack/treat the root causes.   The Rat Park experiment by Bruce Alexander points to the conclusion that the causes of addiction are social and environm...

Asaph, with over 6 weeks since his last drink, shares his story… A link to the mentioned Russell Brand podcast episode with Gabor Maté.   Gratitude, what is it good for?... everything.  Gratitude is a topic that needs to be continually covered in recovery.  It's a box in recovery that will never be checked, because it is ongoing.  How do we create a mindset of appreciation?  Apply some conscious a...

Patrick, with 10 years 2 months since his last drink, shares his story. SHOW NOTES [10:50] Paul introduces Patrick Patrick is 37 years old, and is from Brooklyn, New York.  He's been sober since August 23, 2008.  He is married and has no children.  He works as a stand up comedian, recovery coach, and a video editor.  He likes to try to squeeze in a good meal between shows, visit friends, and snowb...

Aaron, with over 1 year since his last drink, shares his story...   SHOW NOTES   [12:30] Paul Introduces Aaron. Aaron is 39 years old, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He's been sober since October 16, 2017.  He's married with two children.  He works in HR and Recruitment for a small company.  He likes home improvement, the outdoors, gardening.  He likes to restore and repair his house and cars.    [ 1...

Dan, who doesn't practice abstinence based recovery, shares his story… Link to the Fox News article mentioned in the episode "To be human is also to suffer from addiction. The particular vices vary as do our degree of addiction to them, but it takes precious little searching to know we've all got something unhealthy that pulls at us." - Mike Kerrigan, Fox News SHOW NOTES   [ 11:08] Paul Introduces...

Corey, with 5 days since his last drink, shares his story… The mentioned article from the Irish Times   SHOW NOTES   [ 8:48] Paul Introduces Corey. Corey has been sober for 5 days.  He's from Minnesota, now lives in Boston.  He's 25 years old and is working full time.  He likes to exercise.  He loves music, plays guitar and piano.  He has an upcoming trip to Columbia, is learning Spanish.  He feel...

Kellie, with 2 months year since her last drink, shares her story...   SHOW NOTES   [ 11:00] Paul Introduces Kellie. Kellie has been sober for 28 days.  She's 43 years old, married with two children.  She's a real estate broker that enjoys puzzles, reading, cooking, running and hiking, and her animals.    She tried alcohol for the first time around 10 years old.  She dabbled in different drugs in...

Nel, with over 1 year since her last drink, shares her story… Drinking is more than the average habit.  To reduce our problems with alcohol to a "bad habit" is missing the bigger picture.  We drink for a variety of reasons.. for example: to cope, to ignore, to numb, to hide.  Digging ourselves out of alcohol dependency actually requires the changing or removal of several habits.  We need to change...

Stephan, with 10 months since his last drink, shares his story… Harm Reduction - The feeling of constantly downgrading addictions.  Most of us address one addiction at a time, and usually tackle what we perceive to be the most harmful addiction first.  Things improve with each hurdle.  The lessons we learn from each stage strengthen our ability to move on to the next stage.  Often at the root of m...

Kelly, with 8 days since her last drink, shares her story… "Addiction gets harder and harder and ends in death. Sobriety is hard work too. But it gets easier and easier and ends in life. " - Andy Ziegler In this passage to sobriety, expectations do not always line up with reality.  In reality, it takes years for an addiction to take hold.  The healing process takes equally as long.  The negative t...

Jamie, with 93 days since her last drink, shares her story… "No amount of alcohol is safe for your overall health." "Alcohol was the leading risk factor for disease and premature death in men and women between the ages of 15 and 49 worldwide in 2016, accounting for nearly one in 10 deaths, according to the study…" A recent article released by CNN presents scientific studies that show the negative...

Sarah, with 162 days since her last drink, shares her story… "When this happens, then I'll be okay."  You may already be living the live you have been dreaming about.  Try not to fall into trap of "when this happens, I'll be okay."  "When I get another month of sobriety", or "when I move to another town", or "when I get the right X" are all common examples of not living in the present moment.  Sto...

Tamara, with 88 days since her last drink, shares her story… "There is only one line we can cross that we can't come back from" The National Suicide Prevention Hotline – 1-800-273-8255 SHOW NOTES   [4:20] Paul Introduces Tamara, and she recaps her experience with relapse and suicidal thoughts. Tamara had a relapse after 48 days of sobriety.  She just moved to a new apartment.  She started the day...

John, with over 1 year since his last drink, shares his story… The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice – though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff finge...