The Sober and Happy Podcast

A very common piece of advice to newly sober people is to remove the things in your life that are associated with drinking. I don't know about you, but in my life when I was drinking, everything I did was associated with drinking. I followed the advice and it left a huge void in my life. What we do to replace that void is often the difference between struggling with staying sober and living a...

Often when I talk to people in recovery they will ask me how often I get judged since I decided to start being open about my past addiction and my current recovery. I only started posting on social media this last year, but I stopped hiding the fact that I don’t drink because of my past drinking problems about 7 years ago around the time I decided to stop going to Alcoholics Anonymous. Do I get na...

One of the patterns I have seen often from people struggling in recovery is after the initial emotional boost from escaping from addiction, there comes a point in many people's recovery where they fall into a lull where life seems just to be dull. And then the thought creeps into their head, where they start thinking “Is this really it?”. Most of these people are simply not drinking and have...

First off, Happy New Year!   The start of every year encourages promise and hope for the next year, which often means making changes.   One thing that has gained popularity over the years is dry January.   If you are not familiar with the movement, it is when someone commits to not drinking for the entire month of January. I have known many people who have taken on this challenge, but is it a good...

As the year comes to a close, I always spend time in reflection.  I not only look at my last year, but I often reflect on years past and see where I am improving and what areas in my life could use some changes. In doing this, I thought of many of the mistakes I have made along my sobriety journey and what I would have done differently if I could go back and give myself advice.   I thought today w...

I often repeat the phrase, “What you say matters” and that couldn’t be more true when it comes to what we say about ourselves.   You see, our beliefs about ourselves shape our reality.   But often, especially when battling addiction, we carry limiting beliefs that can hold us back from achieving a life of sobriety and happiness. So, how do we begin to recognize what beliefs are holding us back and...

When we get sober, we face a lot of challenges. Most of the focus in the recovery world is on the things we need to avoid in our environment, such as dealing with being around alcohol. However, having had past failures in the years before finally staying sober, along with working with many people over the years, I have found that the biggest dangers for a relapse lurk within us. What things should...

One of the biggest challenges I faced in early sobriety was dealing with the fact that I was surrounded by alcohol.   Even though I stopped going to bars and did not have alcohol in my house, it was everywhere.   Billboards, TV commercials, and the grocery store.   It seemed like everywhere I turned, I was reminded of the substance I was desperately trying to quit. So how do we stay sober in a soc...

One of the biggest obstacles many of us have on our recovery journey is dealing with guilt and shame.   Whether it's the harm caused to ourselves or others, the lies told, the promises broken, or having to say no to doing things with our old friends because it might jeopardize our recovery, guilt and shame have a way of stalling our progress in recovery and many times lead to relapse. So how...

The holiday season is officially among us, and I know this time of year causes a lot of anxiety for people in recovery, especially if it is your first. So how can we navigate the holiday season so that we not only stay sober but enjoy the holiday season sober?   In this episode, I will talk about some of the challenges I faced during my first sober holiday season. I will give you practical tips yo...

The question I get asked the most from people about my recovery is “What is the most important thing you have done to stay sober for so many years?”. The answer is easy for me.  It is because I have established and maintained a healthy routine.  Over the years, I have replaced bad habits that set me back with healthy ones. So where do we even start when it comes to establishing healthy routines? C...

If you are in the recovery world long enough, you can start to pick up on patterns that are common between the people who are more likely to make it and the ones who continue to struggle to stay sober. What I have found, is the most common differences all focus around having what I call a sober mindset. So what is a sober mindset, and how can work towards living in that state of mind?

One of my favorite quotes is something I have heard Tony Robbins say many times which is “Where your focus goes, your energy flows”.   You can test this theory quickly anytime you are feeling an emotion strongly.   If you are currently angry, what have you focused on most of the day?   It is the same reason that if we have a bad day at work, even though we may no longer be working, if we are still...

I have lost count of how many times I have seen someone in recovery go through this pattern.  They get sober, and things are going really well.  They are excited about their recovery, things are starting to turn around for them, they are healing damaged relationships, and it seems like they are going to make it.  Then, out of the middle of nowhere, they relapse. But was their relapse actually so s...

We often hear the term functional alcoholic to describe someone who drinks alcoholically but is able to meet the basic requirements in life like maintaining a job and paying their bills. When I first heard this term, I knew that is what I wanted to be.   I never wanted to be a normal drinker.  The idea of having one or two drinks did not appeal to me.   I liked to get drunk.   I wanted all the fun...

If you listen to most recovery stories there usually is a point that someone will talk about their rock bottom.   The point when everything got so bad, that they finally realized they needed to stop. But why do people who have even the worst rock bottoms you can imagine, end up drinking again?   Why was the event that motivated them to stop not enough to keep them stopped?   Well that is what we a...

Addiction can be a complex and challenging battle especially early in sobriety.   In those early months of my recovery, it seemed like everything triggered me, and on many days I would have multiple triggers that would accumulate throughout the day and I was not sure if I was going to make it through the day. Let me know if something like this has happened to you.   Everything is going great.  You...

There has been an event that has been gaining traction every year which is Sober October.  If you are considering participating in this and taking a month off of drinking, I am going to cover some tips to get the best out of attacking this challenge.   If you have been sober for a while, don’t worry, this episode is still for you too as some of the tips are great for evaluating where you are at in...

When I first immersed myself in recovery, I would hear people talk a lot about the importance of emotional sobriety.   But when I asked people what it was and how to achieve it, I was surprised by the general lack of understanding of what it actually was.   It seemed like one of the terms people tended to repeat, but didn’t have a deep understanding of what it was.   So what is emotional sobriety,...

There is no easy way to say this, but if you want to live a life free of addiction, you are going to have to make some serious sacrifices in your life.   You may have to give up many of the habits, environments, and beliefs that led us to and kept us in a life of addiction. So how do we know what things we need to change in our lives to support building our new lives and how do we deal with the ch...

In a perfect world, when we decide to start our recovery journey, everyone around us will be understanding and supportive of our journey. Although you will find that many people are, we will often have people who simply are not. Maybe it is the family member who is constantly pointing out your past mistakes, the friend who keeps insisting that “you can have just one”, or co-workers who keep trying...

If you have spent any amount of time in recovery, either in meetings of recovery or in recovery groups on the internet, you will see that relapses happen at a staggering rate. It is so common that you will often hear people say that “relapse is a part of recovery” as if it is a certainty that you will relapse at some point.   But it doesn’t have to be.   In this episode, we will talk about some of...

You hear it often said that almost everyone has been affected by addiction at some level, and this week has been a big reminder for me.   I am attending a podcast conference and have gotten to meet a lot of people in my day here.  The conversations at this type of conference usually start with a quick introduction, and then you ask each other what your podcast is about.   As I would tell people th...

When I first sober everything reminded me of everything I was missing out on.  Songs on the radio, posts on social media, and it seemed like every commercial on TV showed people living their best life with a Coors light in their hand. “I am never going to have fun again” is the thought that kept going through my mind.  I knew I couldn’t drink again and I had no desire to go back to that old way of...

When we think about addiction and recovery, we often focus on the process of breaking free from substances or destructive behaviors. But what comes after that? Sobriety is not just about abstaining from alcohol or drugs; it's an opportunity to rediscover who we truly are beneath the layers of addiction. Within our addiction, most of us completely lose touch with the person we truly are.  And...