From Sobriety To Recovery: An Addiction Recovery Podcast

Ep #198 - Lapse and relapse happen well before the drink is drank or the drug is used. Your thoughts, feelings, actions, and behaviors are leading you down a path. Which path is that? One down toward your old, addicted self you already told yourself you're sick and tired of or is it along the flat path of sobriety when you were still feeling out this new life? In a desirable world, your are moving...

Ep #197 - I love what Nuero-Linguistic Programming has opened me up to in my life. The way it has guided me to heal my past, shift my mindset in the present, and the life I see ahead for myself - all three of these, my past, present, and future are being painted through the infinite palette that is NLP. This metaphor is my way of describing how Nuero-Linguistic Programming has helped me and how it...

Ep #196 - Energy is all around us. Emotions are energy in motion. You know how you have felt blocked, like something inside you is holding you back, or just doesn't feel right. The main problem is that most of us attempt to reconcile this internal charge through our rational thinking mind, or if addiction still steers us, we hit the bottle, straw, or pipe hard. We all know when we feel life is in...

EP #195 - Today is six years in the making. Six years ago I woke up and swore to the heavens that I would never be intoxicated again. It's been quite the journey, four of them with you, and in this episode I will go over some of the most amazing things I have learned about myself - and in the process I hope that it encourages you to continue on your own journey!! Much love to all of you for being...

Ep #194 - The decisions you make right out of the gate will greatly help you navigate the choppy waters those first few days and weeks will storm your way. When you decide to fully commit to sobriety it is going to feel different than the previous times when you shouted at yourself, "never again," after a hard night.  In this week's episode I discuss the Top-10 things you are going to want to figu...

Ep #193 - We choose to attach meaning, feelings, and emotions to words. We use words to paint our reality, that was formed internally, to the external world. Well, we do a whole lot of internal jabbering too don't we? I use certain words intentionally. Power words are my way have anchoring a feeling into a word so I can evoke an emotional state when I need it. These power words become the foundati...

Ep #192 - Are you going to be the kind of person who shares with those you love what you are going through? Are you going to be intentional when playing with your kids or showing love to your partner? Are you going to be kind, and understanding, and empathetic when you interact with people you are seeking to connect and bond with? You are on a journey. You are on a magnificent adventure. Your life...

Ep #191 - You are doing the best you can with the resources you have. You were doing the best you could then with the resources you had then. Coping mechanisms around trauma, grief, and suffering are resources. Sure, binge drinking and swallowing anything that remotely promises a buzz is not the best way to cope with negative events and emotions - but it was the resources we had at the time. Yeah,...

Ep #190 - There is no failure, there is only feedback. This is a rule of life I learned in my neuro linguistic programming training. Failure doesn't actually exist. It's a judgement placed on an outcome and is very subjective to each individuals perspective. One person's "failure" is another person's "success." Getting up before noon might be a "failure" to someone who eats 10Ks before sunrise and...

Ep #189 - Stigmatizing language is happening all around us and it can rear its ugly head in such a way that you won't even notice it happening. "If I can do it, so can you" is one you have undoubtedly heard before. "When I was a kid, I did this and that, and I didn't become an addict," is another I have heard many a time. "You don't even know what a bad childhood is," and, "they had a great childh...

Ep #188 - You know how the debate over addiction as a disease seems to be ongoing? The main issue is that people want to hold onto the traditional stigmas and thinking around mental health and addictive substances and behaviors. We all know the more we've learned about this topic the more the evidence of addiction as a disease becomes less debatable and very much fact. Today I will introduce you t...

Ep #187 - Emotions are a joy. Without them life is a malaise, its just plain dull, and most of use spent an inordinate amount of time running from emotions, pushing them down, away, and bottling them up - BUT not now!! NO, now we're in a state of exploration of sobriety and recovery so swimming in the emotions, immersing ourselves in them, working our way out of the fog and into the light - that i...

Ep #186 - The way you behave, your personality, your habits, all of these began to form in you at a young age. If you feel like you are acting in a way that no longer serves you, look no further than the way you behaved as a child for the root cause in the restlessness in your life now. There is an eternal child in all of us. It seeks to be healed from the behaviors we took on in our youth to surv...

Ep #185 - Confrontation is a natural part of the human experience. It's when the conversation turns "ugly" and the yelling starts that it all goes sideways. Fostering love and connection in a relationship is paramount to creating healthy connections with other humans - heck, yelling at your pet isn't a great idea either, since, ya know, they can't understand a word you are saying. In this episode...

Ep #184 - Reverse engineering from the end-outcome you desire, all the way back to the very first step, will provide you confidence as you enter back into social life in your sobriety and recovery journey. You are going to want to go to events in your life. That's a generally fact about life. Humans like to gather for special occasions, sports, and live music, etc. When humans gather there is a ve...

Ep #183 - Lapse and relapse aren't just separated by the "re." There is a huge difference in their definitions, the way you internalize the two differently, and how those thoughts and feelings can effect your mindset when you awaken not so sober. In this episode we take lapse and relapse to a deeper level and connect them to the five stages of change... Pre-contemplation Contemplation Preparation/...

Ep #182 - What do you want from your sobriety and recovery? What do you want for your life? Addiction took things from you, hell, we all gave up things we once enjoyed as we slipped further and further into our addiction. Whether it was willing and without thought - we gave up so much. Now you are in your sobriety and recovery journey and it is time to seize the day. What you desire for yourself i...

Ep #181 - Give yourself permission to: sleep, rest, be sick, take a day off, get up, bust your ass, be healthy, work an extra day...and on and on and on. Last week I was very ill. Laid in bed for 3 out of 4 days. It was very weird for me to be laying in bed at noon, and still at 2, and still at 5 - and to do it without feeling GUILT, or SHAME, or beating myself up. Where in your life are you ready...

Ep #180 - Parts of you will probably want to connect the shame and guilt you potentially feel, on your sobriety and recovery journey, to the ethical and moralistic virtues and codes you broke during your active addiction. Doing this will guide you toward the most desirable behaviors and actions you can partake in so you can release and heal the trauma, deceit, and manipulation you put yourself and...

Ep #179 - Spirituality. I talk a lot about it on the show. It's talked about in meetings, recovery centers, treatment facilities, and all the other places we go to achieve our sobriety and recovery - but what exactly is spirituality? I have my take on it and today we are going to review morals, ethics, values, beliefs, and opinions so you have a clear understanding of what they are moving forward....

Ep #178 - The journey from active addiction to sobriety and into recovery is a long road. Can you relax into the process or are you stressing yourself out at any turn possible? How do you relax? How do you cope with stress? When you are fighting with yourself to work on the stuff that will bring the meaningful into your life what do you do when your mind tries to push you out of the seat of action...

Ep #177 - Blaming, complaining, and making excuses is going to hold you back in your recovery. It matters. It really, really does, and here is why. When you blame others, complain about what is happening in your life, and making excuses for why you aren't doing something - you are willingly handing your power to create your life, the way you desire it to be, and handing it over to someone else.  A...

Ep #176 - The standards you set for yourself become the bar which you seek to reach yourself each day in the pursuit of your goals. Your goals are your ambitions, they are what you seek to achieve in your life - your standards are your daily practices that drive your actions so you can achieve your goals. Today I discuss how to set your standards as outlined in a book I just finished, "The Power o...

Ep #175 - I feel like most humans favorite activity is reliving the past in their head, in a state of looping, looking for ways they could have done things differently. The judging, complaint, blaming, and making excuses, all aspects of not taking personal responsibility, are literally the embodiment of people living in the past. We are accustomed to living in the past. To reliving long ago experi...

Ep #174 - Breaking bad habit and replacing them with goods ones is very circumstantial and absolutely your subjective perspective. Desirable habits lead you to desirable people, places, and things in your life - and only you can really know if these changes are leading you there. When you enter into the action phase of the recovery cycle you are going to be wanting to get some quick wins in the ba...