Recovery Rocks

Actor, recovery coach and School of Rock Bottom podcast host Oliver Mason has been through it. He’s survived blackouts, seizures, terrifying withdrawals, an addiction to prescription medication and a hospital stay where he nearly walked out with a box of approximately 500 Librium tablets he'd found beside his bed. Despite having a rock bottom story that could pretty much qualify as a horror movie,...

There are people who have dramatic stories of recovery and then there’s Sabyn Mayfield . Do you know anyone else who showed up at a rehab and, a few years later, ended up as that rehab’s CEO? Well, now you do because Mayfield is the CEO of The Bridge to Recovery —a rehab where he was a client in 2022. A Nashville native, filmmaker, musician and nephew of Dolly Parton, Mayfield spent years in the e...

Open Instagram, Ruin Your Night? We love to hate social media. But it’s also a singular tool for staying in touch, getting the word out on things we care about, and even learning a thing or two. We talk about our early days on the socials and how we use it now. Sober tools can help – just like with a drink, before opening that app, maybe ask yourself why you want to log on and play the tape throug...

Some people love sober anniversaries, some people dread them, and some people don’t keep up with them at all. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. We talk about what counting days and keeping time looks like for us. Anna never misses an opportunity to celebrate herself, from her first soberversary (a karaoke party in West LA!) to her upcoming 25th (a full on 90s party with food trucks and costu...

Our friend Stefanie Wilder Taylor, author of SIPPY CUPS ARE NOT FOR CHARDONNAY and DRUNKISH, and host of the Drunkish podcast,  joins us to talk about being publicly outed as a sober person and what the backlash was like. Stefanie was barely sober when she was thrust into the spotlight as a sobriety expert. We talk about owning our own stories and what anonymity is and isn’t. Check out all things...

It’s bound to happen. At some point in our early or not-so-early sobriety, something is likely to trigger that overwhelming feeling of anxiety or even panic. Maybe it’s in a situation we’d drink our through or maybe it’s out of nowhere. For Lisa, it was the latter. For Anna, smoking cigarettes eased her newcomer sobriety—until she realized it was only exacerbating the issue. Check out all things L...

Plenty of people struggle with the Higher Power part of AA. Natasha Ruby had a particularly good reason: she’d already dismantled the entire religious framework she was raised in and wasn’t especially eager to replace it with another male authority figure.   So she chose a mini-dachshund.   Before that came Mormonism, an eating disorder, alcoholism and a terrifying psychotic break that left Natash...

If a quarter of the people at your conference don’t drink, greeting everyone with champagne is less “festive” than it is “we have made absolutely no effort to know our audience.”   Laura Nelson discovered this when she asked a room of 125 professional women how many were sober or sober-curious. About a quarter raised their hands—hesitantly, while looking around to see who might be watching. Laura,...

Have you ever been ayahuasca-curious? Dr. Jeff McNairy, Chief Medical Officer at Rythmia , the world’s first medically licensed ayahuasca retreat, joins us for a candid conversation about what plant-based medicine can and can’t do. We get into the science, what actually happens at the retreat, who may benefit and what happens when an experience doesn’t go the way someone hoped.

What do you do when the Instagram account you built to more than 200,000 followers suddenly disappears? If you’re Jessica Jeboult, you freak out—and then keep building. Jessica is the founder of A Sober Girl’s Guide and author of Save Your Own Damn Life . She joins us to talk about losing her account, starting over and launching the Best Day app , which takes her modern, community-driven approach...

Comedian and TV writer Laura House has a gift for making you laugh while casually dismantling your entire worldview. Laura joins Anna to talk about the winding road from stand-up comedy, MTV and teaching at an Orthodox yeshiva to finding sobriety after finally realizing she wasn't going to "grow out of" her drinking. The conversation somehow covers drunk houseboats, food addiction, emotional sobri...

For years, Anna was convinced she couldn't write without cocaine. Lisa was convinced she'd eventually write the Great American Novel from a bar stool. Neither plan worked out particularly well. This week, they talk about what it's like to create without drugs or alcohol, the myths artists tell themselves about substances and creativity, and why sober writing is infinitely better—even if it feels t...

If you've ever heard someone in recovery whisper ominously about "the Fourth Step," this episode is for you. Anna and Lisa talk about why taking a fearless moral inventory has such a terrifying reputation—and why it turned out to be one of the most freeing experiences of their recovery. They get into resentments, expectations, victimhood, abandonment, impossible bosses, impossible exes and the unc...

Nobody tells you this when you get sober, but eventually a doctor is going to hand you a prescription for the very kind of drug you spent years trying to avoid. So...now what? Anna and Lisa compare notes on anesthesia, Valium and pain medication, and discover they couldn't have more different reactions. One wakes up from a procedure wondering why anyone would voluntarily do that again. The other i...

Before Recovery Rocks, Anna’s Recover Girl podcast featured conversations about addiction and recovery that were messy, funny and deeply honest. In this Thursday Throwback, Girls star Jemima Kirke talks openly about getting sober young, bouncing between rehabs and feeling constantly pushed into the role of “the problem.” She shares what it was like navigating treatment centers that often felt more...

Getting rejected is awful. But as Anna and Lisa discovered, rejecting someone isn't exactly a joy, either. Lisa talks about the first time she had to fire an employee, why she called her sponsor before and after the conversation and the Disney version of "you're fired." Anna shares the story of breaking up with a guy who responded by writing about her in Elle magazine—which, in hindsight, made it...

Before Recovery Rocks, Anna hosted Recover Girl, a podcast built around people sharing their darkest stories in the funniest and most human ways possible. This Thursday Throwback features comedian Ally Weinhold, whose story somehow manages to be hilarious, uncomfortable and heartbreaking all at once. Ally talks about addiction, identity crises, rehab, “Crazy Ally” lore and the chaos of her drinkin...

Lisa talks with Gene Bowen, co-founder of Road Recovery , the music industry-driven non-profit that helps young people as they battle addiction and other adversities. Come for Gene’s inspiring story and the life-saving work Road Recovery does, stay for the coffee collaboration with Fred Schneider of the B-52s. Pick up a bag of Outer Space Blend here . 

Long before Recovery Rocks, Anna’s Recover Girl podcast featured raw live storytelling from comedians and recovering addicts. This Thursday Throwback brings back Greg Behrendt — comedian, bestselling author of He’s Just Not That Into You and one of Anna’s favorite guests ever. Greg talks about the strange grief of getting sober: realizing music is too loud, dates are terrifying and reality is way...

Most parents don't expect their kid to ask them that question. Gregg Champion is not most parents but someone who’s spent years helping people rebuild their lives through recovery—until the 2025 Pacific Palisades fires destroyed both his home and business and he found himself needing literal help rebuilding his own life. In this episode, Gregg talks about loss, grief, resilience and the uncomforta...

Before Recovery Rocks existed, Anna hosted Recover Girl, where comedians, writers and addicts told stories that were dark, hilarious and weirdly healing. This throwback features legendary comedian Eddie Pepitone in peak form. Known as “The Bitter Buddha,” Eddie riffs on sobriety, panic disorder, apocalypse anxiety, addiction, coffee during panic attacks, adult coloring books and the sheer discomfo...

Long before celebrities were launching sobriety brands and influencers were posting mocktails on Instagram, Shane Ramer was talking publicly about recovery into a microphone with no guarantee anyone would listen. As the founder and host of That Sober Guy Podcast, Shane has spent more than a decade having honest conversations about addiction, recovery, fatherhood, masculinity and what it actually t...

Before she became a successful TV writer and meditation teacher, Laura House was getting drunk on a barely floating houseboat filled with naked Texans, animal-print speedos and enough beer to sink the thing entirely. In this Thursday Throwback from Anna’s original Recover Girl podcast, Laura tells the unbelievable true story of a Fourth of July weekend spent partying on “Naked Island,” a floating...

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week, but here's a rebroadcast of one of the first episodes since Anna joined the show. Let’s get straight to it. Sober sex for the first time is a big deal! Some of us had never even done it before. We talk about our experiences – from what we were told to what we expected, and what it was actually like. Lisa had an eventful trip to Utah a...

Before Recovery Rocks, Anna hosted Recover Girl, where conversations about addiction often turned into surprisingly deep discussions about ego, identity, fear and why nobody actually feels like a real adult. This Thursday Throwback features John Taylor of Duran Duran— yes , that John Taylor in the flesh. John talks about becoming a global pop star almost overnight, still living in his childhood be...