The Sober and Happy Podcast

One of the biggest challenges we have to face when we get sober is cleaning up the mess that many of us have left behind from the damages we have caused by a life of addiction. I have never met a person yet who was getting sober that didn’t have parts of their life that didn’t need rebuilding.  For some, it might be rebuilding relationships and trust with the people they love.  For others of us, w...

When I first got sober, it seemed like everything started falling into place.  Things were turning around, I was feeling great and was accomplishing so much in life.  I definitely was riding what is often referred to as the pink cloud which is that euphoria that you often feel in early sobriety.  And I thought that is what sobriety was going to be like forever. And then life happened and brought m...

Today I want to talk about an important topic that affects so many individuals on their journey to healing - overcoming stigma and shame in our recovery. These are unfortunately common struggles with people in recovery.  We worry that people will look at our addictions as a moral failing and that by talking about it we will certainly experience judgment, discrimination, and rejection. Out of fear...

Most of the time when we look to make improvements in our lives, we look for things we can add.  Maybe we upgrade a car, buy that toy we have been thinking about for a while or do something like start traveling more.  All those things can be great, however, I find that when it comes to making those big shifts in our life that really make a big difference, subtraction is often what is needed rather...

On July 6th, I celebrated 12 years of sobriety.  I would have never thought that not only could I go 12 years without drinking, but that I would be in such a happy place in life right now. Every year, I reflect back on the last year of recovery and my entire journey to that point.  I do this primarily to reflect on whether I have stayed committed to growing and evolving over the last year, and als...

Throughout my almost 12 years in recovery, I have watched the people who have gone from the lowest of rock bottoms and created amazing lives. I have seen others who have struggled for years, putting together sobriety time here and there, but always ending in a relapse only to try again later.  I sadly have also known more people than I can count that have lost the battle of addiction.  Although in...

When we continually put off taking action, we fall into the trap of believing that opportunities will always be available to us in the future. We convince ourselves that tomorrow will be the perfect time to start, make changes, or pursue our dreams. However, this mindset can lead to missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential. What is that costing us in our recovery?  Could this be why the &quo...

In this episode, we talk about how the attempt to avoid discomfort is causing most of the struggles not only in recovery but our lives.   It is often why we started drinking or using in the first place, a reason why we struggle to be happy in our recovery journey, why it is the core reason behind most relapses, and how our lives will improve dramatically if we challenge and embrace discomfort in o...

Within recovery there are several points that we have two choices:  give up or be resilient, push through, and become the hero of our own life story.   This is very obvious at the decision point of quitting an addiction, but in our recovery journey, we will find ourselves at the crossroads of this decision many times.   In this episode, we will discuss why it is vital that we step up to those chal...

This week, we will talk about how we can build lives that are so amazing that the substance that we were prisoners of for so long, will no longer have any power over us, even if it is all around us. Once we do that, living one day at a time sober no longer will be necessary, because our sobriety simply will just be part of our new amazing lives. We will discuss how to discover the life you want to...

If you have been in recovery for any amount of time, you likely have heard some version of the study where they placed a rat in a small enclosure where he had two bottles.  One had water, the other was water laced with drugs such as morphine and cocaine and the rat would become hopelessly addicted. However, simultaneously the same scientist performed another experiment that had a shockingly differ...

I wanted to talk about the effects alcoholism and addiction have on our families.  I am of the belief that stories are best told by people who have experienced them, so I thought who better to join me on this episode than my mom? She talks about what it was like to watch my destructive path with addiction, and how support from her friends, family, and al-anon helped her cope.  She also discusses t...

One of the most common phrases I hear when people are struggling with either active addiction or in their recovery is "I just feel stuck". Sometimes when we feel stuck we don’t know what is holding us back.  Other times, we know exactly what it is, but don’t know the best way to get unstuck. In this episode, I am going to discuss how to identify the things that are holding you back and t...

Recovery from any addiction can be incredibly overwhelming to the point that we often will question whether we can make it through those periods where it seems like too much. But when you know the type of things to expect and why those emotions can be so difficult to process helps.   Today, we will talk about some of the most common sources of being overwhelmed in recovery and the steps we can tak...

In this episode, I answer some of the most asked questions I have received in the six months of doing this podcast.   I talk about the following questions: What to do if I am not being supported by my loved ones when I quit drinking? Is alcoholism a disease? What does your daily routine look like? Should I wait a year after getting sober before dating? Do you ever crave alcohol anymore? Were you w...

Today I want to talk about how to live your best life in recovery.  I am not talking about the Instagram posts in some exotic location with the tag “living my best life”.  I am talking about regularly waking up and being excited about your life even if you aren’t in some exotic location.  Waking up in your bed, in your everyday life, and being excited level of your best life. Today, I will give yo...

I want you to ask yourself this question: Are you happy?   If you were to measure the success of your recovery by joy and fulfillment instead of sober days accumulated, would you consider your recovery a success right now? When I started asking people this, they will point to events in their life that made them happy, but if I ask them if they were to think of a day that didn’t have things on the...

What is the story that you tell yourself about who you are?  Maybe it is that you are not worthy, that you fail at everything you try, that you never will be able to get sober, that sober life is miserable, that you can’t have fun sober, that you are not worthy of love, that you are stuck, that you are a bad friend, child, parent, or sibling.   We end up becoming the stories we tell ourselves. Of...

In today’s episode, I want to discuss the importance of having a plan for getting sober.  We will discuss what you should do before taking the last drink, give you steps to get through that first 30 days, and how you can best set yourself up at the beginning of your sobriety to have long-term success.

One of the biggest challenges people have especially in early recovery is dealing with the cravings to return to the substance that has been destroying their lives.   I remember when I first got sober, I would hear in AA meetings that some people were still dealing with cravings even decades after getting sober.  So how do we deal with the cravings that come in early sobriety and conquer them for...

Today we will discuss one of the biggest reasons I see people still struggle in recovery with either staying sober or being unable to live a sober life filled with joy and happiness. You often see people start their recovery with great enthusiasm.  You often hear people refer to this as the “pink cloud”.  But for most people, this period of happiness wears off and most people in recovery accept th...

I think most people with addiction problems go through various phases and degrees of denial about the true impact alcohol has on their lives.  I know from personal experience getting past denial can be a difficult and often uncomfortable process, but it's an important step toward personal growth and healing. This week, I want to get into the importance of getting real with ourselves and the s...

Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. I had another topic scheduled for this week, but I want to talk about dealing with difficult moments that life deals us when we get sober.   This is very fresh for me as someone I love very much had a massive loss in their life this morning.   Here is the thing, life can be tough at times.  Tragedy doesn’t stop just because we got sober. ...

The inability of people in recovery to establish and set healthy boundaries is one of the biggest struggles I see with people when they are building their new lives.   In fact, this is the method I see most people trying to set boundaries which is exactly what I did for the first many years I was sober: If someone does something that upsets us, we react negatively to it with maybe anger, sadness,...

One of the hardest shifts I see people in recovery make is becoming someone who believes in themselves.  It makes perfect sense early in recovery.  Most of us while in active addiction have years of making really bad decisions and likely were not someone who can be trusted. So it is natural that when we first get sober, it can be very challenging to trust ourselves and always be questioning our de...