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How to Sit With Uncomfortable Feelings in Sobriety Nov 04, 2026

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When did we decide that being uncomfortable means something is wrong? Seriously. Think about how quickly we get irritated by the smallest things. Or how easily a bad day can convince us that something in our lives needs to change. And how quickly we start looking for a way to make those feelings disappear. I caught myself doing this recently over something so ridiculous that I actually started laughing at myself. And it got me thinking about something I see constantly in people who are trying to quit drinking. We’ve developed some pretty unrealistic expectations about how we’re supposed to feel. Especially those of us who spent years using alcohol to numb everything we didn’t want to deal with. When you spend years reaching for a drink every time life gets uncomfortable, you get pretty good at escaping your feelings. At least temporarily. And then you get sober, start doing all the healthy things, and expect them to deliver the same result. Make the feeling disappear. Immediately, please. But what if that’s not how any of this is supposed to work? In this episode, we’re talking about discomfort tolerance and why learning to handle uncomfortable feelings without drinking is such an important part of creating a healthy life. I’ll share how a ridiculous moment watching TV reminded me of the importance of personal responsibility, and why our desperation for immediate relief can lead us to make decisions that create much bigger problems. We’ll also get into how avoiding discomfort keeps us stuck and what happens when we start developing confidence in our ability to handle life instead of constantly trying to escape it. Because there’s a huge difference between having an uncomfortable feeling and allowing that feeling to run your life. And once you understand that difference, it changes a whole lot more than your sobriety. Links mentioned in this episode: Is Angela the right Coach for you? Book A Call Here to find out : addictionunlimited.com/call Related Episode: #298 – Doing the Work: Quitting Drinking is Only the Beginning Follow me on Instagram: @addictionunlimited Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/addictionunlimited Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the full transcript of this episode. 460 Transcript Angela (00:11.15)Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Addiction Unlimited. I wanna talk about something today. Hello, my friend. Angela (00:31.992)Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Addiction Unlimited. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. I want to talk about something today that I believe is one of the most important skills we can develop in sobriety and honestly in life in general. And it’s really something we should be talking about more. It’s what I call discomfort tolerance. Our ability. Ability to experience uncomfortable feelings, situations, and circumstances without immediately needing to numb them, escape them, or make them go away. Because somewhere along the way, we’ve developed this misconception that feelings are bad. And if I feel anything and it feels uncomfortable, I need to do something immediately to make it go away. We don’t want to be uncomfortable. We don’t want to sit with feelings we don’t like. We want to feel better and we want to feel better right now. And if you’ve spent years drinking alcohol, this is especially important for you to understand because you’ve spent years practicing the exact opposite of discomfort tolerance. You’ve practiced avoiding discomfort. You’ve practiced escaping it. You’ve practiced numbing yourself so you didn’t have to experience whatever was happening inside of you. And then you quit drinking, and suddenly you need to navigate all these feelings and experiences that you’ve spent years avoiding. But you’re bringing that same conditioned expectation with you. Numb it, get rid of it, kill the feeling entirely. And that’s just not an accurate understanding of feelings or coping. And it’s not realistic, right? The truth is you’re supposed to feel, not numb. And this misconception can become problematic because people will start learning about coping skills and tools and they’ll try them, but they’re expecting them to make the feelings go away entirely, like alcohol did. But the reality is, healthy management of feelings means. Angela (02:50.464)Learning how to soothe yourself, take the edge off so you don’t do something wild, and then be able to handle what’s left. So if you’ve tried all the healthy things, meditation, exercise, journaling, breathing exercises, and you’re still uncomfortable, you might start thinking something’s wrong. You think like, maybe I haven’t found the right strategy, maybe none of this stuff works for me, maybe I’m just different than everybody else. You’re not. Angela (03:21.9)The real problem is that we have an unrealistic expectation of what it means to cope. The goal isn’t to stop feeling or stop being uncomfortable, but to develop the ability to be uncomfortable and still be okay. Angela (03:43.704)Here’s something I see happen all the time. Someone quits drinking, they’re making all these changes, they’re putting effort into their recovery, and they’re trying to learn how to do things differently. And then they have a bad day, stressed out, anxious, somebody’s getting on your last fucking nerve, or you’re feeling lonely and disconnected. And it feels frustrating. Angela (04:10.304)And it’s frustrating to still feel that way. And part of the problem is we have this expectation that if we’re doing the right things, the feelings should go away. If I’m working on myself, I should be happier. If I’m practicing healthy habits, I shouldn’t be so anxious. If I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do in recovery, why am I still having such a hard time? But think about what we’re actually expecting here. We are expecting That if we do enough things right, eventually we’ll reach this place where we don’t feel anything or feel any discomfort. And that’s not a realistic expectation of sobriety or of life. You don’t stop being human because you quit drinking. You still have the same full range of emotions everybody else has. The difference is now you have to learn to experiencing them. Angela (05:07.778)The difference is now you have to learn how to experience them without automatically reaching for something to change how you feel. And this is where that conditioning from alcohol becomes so important because for years you had a very specific relationship with uncomfortable feelings. You felt something you didn’t like and you had a way to shut it down. Maybe you’re stressed out after work and wanted to relax. Maybe you were nervous about going somewhere or being around people. Maybe you’re having relationship problems or you’re lonely or you’re just bored with your life. But you had a solution that could temporarily change how you felt without requiring you to deal with whatever was actually going on. Angela (05:54.316)And when you do that over and over, it becomes your normal response, not necessarily because you sat down one day and decided you were never gonna experience another uncomfortable emotion, but because you had a shortcut and you used it. And now that shortcut is gone. But the expectation that uncomfortable feelings should be numbed hasn’t necessarily changed. So you’re trying to approach sobriety with the same goal you had when you were drinking. You wanna stop feeling whatever it is you don’t wanna feel. And when the healthy things you’re doing don’t produce that result, you think something isn’t working. And I want you to really think about this. Like, when did we decide that having a difficult feeling means something has gone wrong, right? When did sadness become something we shouldn’t have to experience? Or frustration or anxiety or disappointment? These are normal human emotions. They’re part of having relationships, responsibilities, goals, expectations in a life that’s important to you. If you love people, you’re gonna experience sadness and disappointment sometimes. If you have goals and ambitions, you’re going to experience frustration and uncertainty. If you’re trying new things or stepping outside your comfort zone, you’re probably gonna experience some anxiety. If you’re building a different life for yourself, there are going to be situations that feel awkward and unfamiliar. That’s not a sign that something is wrong. In fact, sometimes it’s a sign you’re doing it exactly right. Angela (07:34.36)Think about someone who has spent years avoiding social situations unless they could drink. Now they’re sober and they’re trying to start going places and participating in life without alcohol. Of course they’re uncomfortable. They’re doing something unfamiliar. They’re learning how to interact with people without relying on alcohol to make them feel more relaxed or confident. Angela (08:03.584)And they might go to an event and feel awkward for the first half hour. They might have a little anxiety before they walk through the door. They might have moments when they don’t know what to say or feel out of place. None of that means the experience is bad. It means they’re having an experience they’re not accustomed to having sober. And that’s an important distinction because if they evaluate that experience based entirely on how comfortable they felt. They might decide it was a failure. They might tell themselves, I went, but I was anxious the whole time. I still felt awkward. I still didn’t know what to do with myself. But I would look at that situation and see something completely different. You went somewhere you were nervous about, you experienced discomfort. You didn’t drink. You handled yourself and you came home. That’s a successful experience. Not because it felt amazing every minute, because you were able to do something that mattered to you without having a drink to create a false sense of comfort. Angela (09:16.556)Drinking doesn’t magically make you comfortable or confident. It just numbs the discomfort and insecurity. And the same thing is true in so many areas of life. You can be sad and still have a good day. You can be nervous and still do something well. You can be frustrated and still be productive. You can have uncomfortable conversations and still be proud of the way you handled yourself. Your feelings don’t have to determine the Quality of your entire experience. And they certainly don’t have to determine the choices you make. Now, I’m not suggesting that we ignore our feelings, right? Our emotions give us information. And sometimes that information is important. Sometimes anxiety is telling you that something needs your attention. Sometimes sadness is telling you you’ve experienced a loss. Sometimes frustration is telling you that something in your life needs to change. But having a feeling doesn’t automatically mean you need to eliminate it. Sometimes you need to understand it, you need to respond to it, and sometimes you just need to allow yourself to experience it. That ability is what we’re developing, and it’s a skill that impacts every area of our lives, not just sobriety. Angela (10:40.726)I think one of the things that makes this conversation especially relevant right now is how accustomed we’ve become to convenience. We have access to almost anything we want almost immediately, right? We can order food without leaving the house, we can watch whatever we want whenever we want, we can get answers to questions in seconds, we can communicate with people instantly. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that. I love convenience as much as anybody else. But I also think we’ve become increasingly. Intolerant of even the smallest inconveniences, right? We don’t like waiting. We don’t like being bored. We don’t like things taking longer than we think they should. We get irritated when something interrupts what we’re doing or when other people aren’t moving at the speed we’d prefer. And sometimes our reactions are completely disproportionate to what’s actually happening. I had a Perfect example of this recently. Sitting at home watching something on one of my streaming platforms and an ad came on. And I caught myself immediately feeling irritated. And this, I’m not telling you to love ads. Nobody loves ads. They are super annoying and there’s way too many of them. But you know how it is. You’re watching your show, you’re enjoying yourself, and suddenly you’ve got to sit through a commercial. And I caught myself and I started laughing because I was like, damn, Angela, are you seriously irritated right now because you have to wait 60 seconds? Like 60 seconds. You’re sitting in your beautiful home on your ass, relaxing, watching television, and you’re aggravated because you have to wait a minute. Really? Because if I can’t tolerate 60 or 90 seconds of waiting for a commercial. I’ve got bigger fucking problems, you know? And I know that sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly why I think it’s such a great example because nothing was wrong. Angela (12:40.81)I wasn’t being harmed. I wasn’t being mistreated. There wasn’t some terrible injustice happening in my life. I just didn’t want to fucking wait. And I recognized how ridiculous it was to give that situation any of my emotional energy. That’s not who I want to be. I don’t want to be someone who gets irritated by every little inconvenience. I don’t want to waste my time and energy being frustrated over things that are completely. Completely inconsequential. And here’s where my personal philosophy comes into this. I’ve been practicing self-awareness and personal responsibility for almost 21 years. And one of the biggest changes in my life is that my instinct is to look at myself first. What’s going on with me? Why am I reacting this way? What do I need to do about it? Now, obviously, that doesn’t mean I never get irritated. I just told you I was aggravated by a damn commercial, right? But I recognize what’s happening and I take responsibility for my response. The streaming service isn’t the problem. The commercial isn’t the problem. My impatience is the problem. And that’s something I can work on. And I want you to think about how often this happens in everyday life. You’re sitting in traffic and you’re getting increasingly frustrated because cars aren’t moving. Or you’re standing in line at the grocery store and the person in front of you is taking forever. You’re waiting for someone to respond to a message. You’re at an appointment that’s running behind schedule. And you can feel yourself getting irritated. You start thinking about how ridiculous it is, how inconsiderate people are. You don’t have time for this. And before you know it, you’ve turned a relatively minor inconvenience into a much bigger emotional experience. Now you’re angry, you’re in a bad mood, you’re complaining to somebody. And for what? Because you had to wait 10 minutes? The situation might be inconvenient, but your response is creating a whole lot of additional drama that doesn’t need to be there. And this is where. Angela (14:56.982)And this is where self-awareness becomes so valuable because you can recognize your own response. You can decide whether or not you want to cur. Angela (15:08.768)And this is where self-awareness becomes so valuable. Because when you can recognize your own response, you can decide whether or not you want to continue participating in it. You can notice that you’re getting irritated and think, okay, this isn’t really that big of a deal. I don’t like waiting, but I can handle waiting. It’s not the end of the fucking world. I don’t enjoy sitting in traffic, but I don’t have to make myself fucking miserable while I’m doing it. And really, You end up making the people around you miserable too. I know I definitely don’t like to listen to people bitch and complain about useless stuff. When people get irritated or frustrated by inconsequential things, I want to escape them, right? And that was a major light bulb moment for me early…

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Can You Get Sober Without AA? Oct 28, 2026

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You’ve put a lot of time and energy into trying to quit drinking. And yet, somehow, you keep ending up right back where you started. You’ve listened to the podcasts, downloaded the worksheets, tried the challenges, and maybe even joined a recovery community or two. And still, you can’t stay sober. So naturally, you start wondering if you just haven’t found the right program yet. But here’s something that might change the way you look at your recovery. The program isn’t the deciding factor. YOU are. I’ve been sober for 20 years, and I’ve spent those 20 years in AA. I love it. And I love all the other programs, too. I love the people, the laughter, the support, and everything I’ve learned. And, AA doesn’t have a monopoly on recovery. A program can give you the tools, the structure, the people, and the support. But YOU have to decide what you’re going to do with all of it. And we’re also going to talk about something that might ruffle a few feathers: the difference between a program that genuinely isn’t right for you and one that simply makes you uncomfortable. Because those are not the same thing. In this episode, we’re talking about why choosing a recovery program doesn’t have to be so complicated, what actually moves you from not drinking into real recovery, and why you might be spending more time evaluating your options than actually using them. If you’ve been searching for the thing that’s finally going to make sobriety click, this is a conversation you’ll want to hear. Links mentioned in this episode: Is Angela the right Coach for you? Book A Call Here to find out : addictionunlimited.com/call Related Episode: You’re Not Doing the Work – You’re Just Watching Other People Do It Follow me on Instagram: @addictionunlimited Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/addictionunlimited Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the full transcript of this episode. Angela (00:20.718)Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Addiction Unlimited. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. Can you get sober without AA? Absolutely. 100%. You can get sober with AA, without AA, with a therapist, with a coach, with an online community, or with any number of different programs and resources. And you can also participate in every single one of those things. And continue drinking. Because here’s something I want you to understand. The program isn’t the deciding factor. You are. And this is something we don’t talk about nearly enough in the recovery world. People are constantly searching for the thing that’s finally gonna make them stop drinking. Angela (01:16.236)The perfect program, the perfect meeting, the perfect podcast, the perfect approach that somehow makes everything click. And I understand that. When you’re struggling with alcohol, you are desperate for something to work. And if you’ve been trying to quit drinking for a while, you know how frustrating this can be. You find something that sounds Promising, you get excited, you feel motivated, you think maybe this is finally going to be the thing that helps you stop drinking. And then somehow you end up right back where you started. So you start looking for the next thing. But what if the problem isn’t that you haven’t found the right program? What if there’s something else happening that you haven’t even recognized yet? If you’ve been trying to quit drinking for months or years and you keep finding yourself right back where you started, this is a conversation you’ll want to hear. I’ve worked with thousands of people over the years, and one thing I see constantly is people moving from one solution to the next. They listen to all the sobriety podcasts, they sign up for free challenges, they download the worksheets, they join online communities, they try the 30-day reset, the 90-day challenge, the year-long things, a new course, a new method, and they continue drinking. Then they decide whatever they tried didn’t work. So they go looking for something else. And listen, I’m a coach. I have courses. I have a recovery community. I have resources and worksheets. I believe in these things because I’ve seen how incredibly valuable they can be. And I’m 20 years sober with zero relapses. Obviously, my way works. I know exactly what it takes to stay sober and recovery. Angela (03:14.486)I know exactly what it takes to stay sober and recover. I also know what all these resources and programs can’t do. They can’t make your decisions for you. They can’t make you tell the truth. They can’t make you show up when you don’t feel like showing up. They can’t make you change your routine or have difficult conversations or take responsibility for the choices you’re making. They can give you information, structure, education, accountability, and support. But you have to use those things. You have to make the decision not to drink. And then you have to keep making decisions throughout your day that support that decision. You either make choices that move you closer to sobriety or you make choices that keep you connected to drinking. And those choices add up. Now, I’m not saying it’s easy. Addiction is complicated. There are physical and psychological, emotional, behavioral components, and some people need different components as part of their recovery. But there’s a difference between needing help and expecting help to do everything for you. A program can support your recovery. Angela (04:40.448)A program can support your recovery. It can’t build your recovery for you. Angela (05:07.308)And if you’re constantly looking for a different program instead of examining what you’re doing with the resources you already have, then no program is going to work for you, right? And this is why people put entirely too much emphasis on which program they’re going to choose, because they start believing that if they can just find the right one, everything will finally fall into place. But that’s not how any of this works. You can sit in an AA meeting every single day and continue drinking. You can hire an incredible coach and ignore every single suggestion they make. You can join the greatest recovery community on the planet and never participate. You can buy all the courses, download all the resources, and listen to every podcast available. And none of it has to change a single thing about your life because information. Isn’t transformation. What you do with the information is what changes your life. And that’s true no matter which program you choose. Angela (06:19.412)Here’s something else I’ve noticed. People will spend an extraordinary amount of time researching recovery programs. They’re comparing philosophies, reading reviews, listening to other people’s opinions, and trying to figure out which approach is going to be the best fit. And there’s nothing wrong with learning about your options, right? But at some point, all that research and evaluating can become another way to procrastinate, another way to avoid actually getting started. Because as long as you’re still deciding, you don’t have to commit. You don’t have to walk into a room full of strangers. You don’t have to tell anybody what’s going on. You don’t have to rearrange your schedule or make uncomfortable changes. You can just keep looking for the perfect solution. And because you’re doing something related to sobriety, it feels productive. But researching recovery isn’t the same thing as participating in recovery. And I think people get those two things confused all the time. You don’t have to figure out which program you’re going to attend for the rest of your life. You don’t have to understand every principle or agree with every concept before you begin. You just need a place to start. And if you don’t like where you start, you can change it. You’re an adult. You get to make decisions. But you have to stop treating the decision about where you’re going to sit. as though it’s more important than what you’re actually willing to do once you get there. Because it’s not. Now let’s talk about the things that actually matter, because there are certain qualities and behaviors that are fundamental to building lasting recovery. And these things don’t belong to AA. They don’t belong to recovery Dharma or Smart Recovery or a therapist or a sobriety coach. They’re things you have to bring to the table, no matter what recovery approach you choose. And the first one is honesty. Angela (08:26.006)Rigorous honesty. If there’s one principle I believe is absolutely fundamental to recovery, it’s honesty. And not just being honest with other people, I’m talking about being honest with yourself. Angela (08:59.235)You have to be willing to identify the reality of your situation. If you cannot drink alcohol without creating problems in your life, you have to acknowledge that. Not negotiate with it, not minimize it, not keep searching for some magical set of circumstances where drinking will suddenly become manageable. You have to stop lying to yourself about what’s happening. You have to be honest that you need support. And yes, I know you might be independent. I know you’re smart and successful and perfectly capable of handling all kinds of difficult things in your life. But being capable doesn’t mean you don’t need help. You have to be honest that you’re not perfect. You have to be honest that recovery requires time and effort. And if you constantly blow off recovery activities because something more convenient or interesting comes along, you need to be honest about that too. Don’t tell yourself you’re doing everything you possibly can when you’re not. Don’t confuse thinking about sobriety with actually working on sobriety. And one of the biggest things, you have to get honest about who you actually are versus who you want everyone to think you are. Because a lot of people out here are more invested in protecting their image. Them protecting their future. And at some point, you have to decide which one matters more. Are you committed to getting sober? Or are you committed to making sure nobody knows you have a drinking problem? And here’s my point: AA can teach you about rigorous honesty. A therapist can help you recognize patterns of denial. A coach can challenge the stories you’re telling yourself, but nobody can force you to be honest. That’s your responsibility. And if you’re not willing to confront the truth, it doesn’t matter what program you’re attending. Angela (11:03.358)The next thing is willingness. And this is one of the biggest differences I see between people who continue struggling and people who start making meaningful progress. In AA, we have a phrase I absolutely love: the gift of desperation. It’s that point where the fear of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of changing. And when someone reaches that point, their attitude changes. I’ve seen this. Thousands of times. When someone is still resisting, every suggestion is met with an explanation of why it won’t work. I can’t do that because of my schedule. I tried that before. My husband wouldn’t understand. I’m not comfortable talking in groups. I don’t have time. I don’t think that’s right for me. There’s always an obstacle, right? But when someone becomes genuinely willing, the entire conversation changes. Instead of telling me they’ve tried something before and it didn’t work, people will say, like, I’ve tried that before, but I’m willing to try again. Instead of saying they can’t talk to their spouse, they’ll say, I don’t really know how to have that conversation. Can you help me figure that out? You see the difference there? They stop supporting their limitations and start looking for solutions. Their life circumstances haven’t necessarily changed. Their job hasn’t changed, family hasn’t changed, schedule hasn’t changed. What changed is their willingness. And that’s something no recovery program can manufacture for you. A program can give you suggestions. It can introduce new ways of thinking and behaving. It can provide people who encourage you to keep trying. But it cannot make you willing. You have to decide whether you’re going to keep defending all the reasons something won’t work. Or start looking for ways to make it work. Angela (13:04.838)And you don’t have to wait until your entire life falls apart to make that decision. You can start right now. Here’s another one: taking responsibility for your own recovery. Because a recovery program isn’t following you around all day making your decisions. AA doesn’t decide whether you go to the liquor store after work. Your coach doesn’t decide whether you keep hanging out with your drinking friends in drinking environments. Your therapist doesn’t decide whether you have that uncomfortable Your therapist doesn’t decide whether you have that uncomfortable conversation with your spouse. And your recovery community doesn’t decide whether you show up for a meeting or spend another night sitting on the couch drinking. You make those decisions. And yes, addiction can make those decisions extraordinarily difficult. That’s one reason support and treatment can be so important. But the support doesn’t eliminate your responsibility. To participate in the process. You have to make time for your recovery. You have to use the tools you’re learning. You have to be willing to examine your behavior and make different choices. And this is where people get stuck. They want to stop drinking, but they don’t want anything else to change. They want to keep the same friends, the same activities, the same routines, the same relationships, and the same lifestyle. And on top of that, they don’t want anybody to know they’re struggling with alcohol in the first place. They want to quietly stop drinking, keep everything looking exactly the same on the outside, make sure nobody notices what they’re going through. They don’t want questions, they don’t want conversations, and they certainly don’t want anyone thinking they have a drinking problem. They just want to remove the alcohol without disrupting anything else in their lives. And I understand why that sounds appealing, but here’s the problem. Angela (15:08.278)Nothing changes if nothing changes. You can’t continue doing everything the same way and expect a completely different outcome. And no program is gonna magically change those things for you. It’s your life. You are the one that has to live it differently. Angela (15:44.812)And this is where I think it’s important to understand the difference between sobriety and recovery, because simply not drinking is one thing. But learning how to live without alcohol is something much bigger. You can remove alcohol from your life and still have all the same unhealthy behaviors, emotional struggles, and relationship patterns that existed when you were drinking. You can still be dishonest. You can still avoid responsibility. You can still struggle with boundaries, communication, resentment, anger, fear. And this is why recovery is about so much more than putting down a drink. It’s about learning how to handle life. How do you manage stress? How do you deal with disappointment? How do you communicate? How do you tolerate uncomfortable feelings without immediately trying to escape them? How do you take responsibility when you’ve made mistakes? These are life skills. And if you’ve spent years using alcohol to manage your life, you have to learn or strengthen some of those skills. That’s what recovery helps you do. But again, no program can develop those skills for you without your participation. Angela (17:05.1)You can learn about healthy communication in AA, in therapy, in a coaching program, in a recovery community, but eventually you have to go home and actually communicate differently. You can learn about accountability in a meeting, but eventually you have to take accountability for something. You can learn about boundaries, but eventually you have to set one. The program teaches you how. You have to put it into practice. Angela (17:38.656)And that’s what moves yo…

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How to Make Friends When You Don’t Drink Oct 21, 2026

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Okay, real question. Have you ever wanted someone to grab breakfast with, or take a class with, and then realized… you honestly don’t know who you’d ask? Yeah. Why is making friends as an adult so damn awkward—and where are you supposed to meet people? It gets even weirder when you quit drinking. You might still love your friends, but you don’t want to spend every Saturday night watching them get drunk. You want people you can laugh with, and conversations you’ll actually remember the next morning. You just have no clue where those people are hiding. And if you’re an introvert like me, someone telling you to “just put yourself out there” probably makes you want to throw your coffee at them. I get it. I love being home. I need a lot of alone time. I will never be the girl who walks into a room with her hand out, ready to chat everybody up. But I’ve also learned that when I’ve gone days without talking to a real human, I need connection too. And I had to learn how to do that without alcohol. In this episode, I take you back to my early days in AA, when my anxiety was so bad I’d grab the corner seat and slip out early so nobody could talk to me. I wanted so badly to stay sober and be comfortable, but I was doing everything I could to be invisible. So I made a deal with myself to start changing my patterns, and my first step was a lot smaller than starting a conversation. I also had to admit something kind of embarrassing: people weren’t approaching me in life because I wasn’t approachable. Head down, sunglasses on, earbuds in, nose in my phone. Apparently that doesn’t say “come say hi.” Who knew? 😂 I’ll tell you how I made two friends, one from my gym and one from a tarot class (yes, really). We’ll also talk about where to meet people, what to actually say, how you go from “hey, good to see you” to “want to grab breakfast?”, and what to do when someone says no. You don’t have to turn into an extrovert. You just have to let people get to know you. And then you can go home and put your sweatpants on. 💛 Links mentioned in this episode: Sober Society Membership: addictionunlimited.com/membership Book A Call Here: addictionunlimited.com/call Related Episode: Guaranteed Results When Your Social Life Is Stalled Follow me on Instagram: @addictionunlimited Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/addictionunlimited Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the full transcript of this episode. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the Addiction Unlimited podcast. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. Today we’re talking about something that can feel surprisingly difficult when you quit drinking: making friends. Because where the hell are adults supposed to meet people? You’re a grown-up. You have responsibilities and routines in a life that’s already pretty full. You’re not sitting next to somebody in school every day or Living down the hall from a hundred other people who are also looking for something to do on Friday night. And when you take alcohol out of the picture, you may realize you don’t know what your social life looks like anymore. Maybe you still love your friends, but you don’t want to spend every weekend doing the things you used to do together. Maybe you want someone to have breakfast with or go for a walk, take a class, or have a conversation you’ll actually remember the next day. You want connection. You just don’t know where to start. Angela (01:23.47)And if you’re an introvert or you’ve relied on alcohol to feel comfortable around people, the advice to just put yourself out there probably makes you want to throw something. So today we’re going to get more specific than that. Where do you go? How do you get past the anxiety? What do you say? And how do you build friendships without the liquid courage of alcohol, turning you into an outgoing person who wants to talk to everybody? And I promise you, this is all possible because I am an extreme introvert. And if I can figure this out, you definitely can. Alone time is a requirement for me. And I require a little more of it than most people do. I also have anxiety. It’s gotten better as I’ve gotten older, but it’ll never be completely gone. So I will never be the person. Angela (02:24.792)So I will never be the person who walks into a room with my hand out, like ready to shake hands and introduce myself and make small talk. I would literally rather die. Now, if somebody starts a conversation with me and we connect, I can talk all day long. I think sometimes people confuse introversion with being shy or insecure, uncomfortable with yourself. Those aren’t interchangeable things. I’m very confident. I just don’t enjoy large groups and small talk. Angela (03:10.304)If I’m surrounded by conversations that don’t interest me, I’m probably gonna be quiet because I’m bored to tears. And eventually I’ll fake a headache and get the hell out of there. But when I feel safe with somebody, when I can open up and laugh and have a meaningful conversation, I’m happy to let that person in my bubble. And I know a lot of you understand that because a lot of my clients are introverts too. Angela (03:42.124)You enjoy being home, you like your space, you don’t want plans every night of the week, and a canceled invitation sometimes feels like a little gift from the universe. You can enjoy all of that and still need friends. For me, I can usually tell when I need connection because I start getting irritable, right? I’m working too much, I’m getting overtired, I’m spending too much time in my own little world. And it doesn’t always announce itself like Angela, you’re lonely. Sometimes it shows up as me needing to get away from my work and connect and laugh with somebody who knows me. Angela (04:34.062)Mm mm. Angela (04:42.552)For me, I can usually tell when I need connection because I start getting irritable, right? I’m working too much, I’m overtired, and I’m just spending way too much time in my own little world. And it doesn’t announce itself. It’s not like all of a sudden my head goes, Angela, you’re lonely. No, it’s usually that. Angela (05:07.318)No, it’s usually that I find myself being bitchy, like every little thing is irritating the shit out of me. And then I have to go through my checklist, right? Halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. That’s always where I start. And I’ll realize, like, holy shit, you know, it’s been three days and I haven’t had human contact. So Angela (05:32.992)I need soul food. Connection is soul food. Time with friends I can open up with and be myself. I also know my limits. There’s only so much being out of the house and being around people I can comfortably do in a week. I will hit my limit of being in public and I need to go home and recharge in peace and sweatpants. But that’s the kind of social life I want you thinking about building, one that gives you connection and fits who you actually are. Angela (06:07.924)And there’s a part of this conversation where we have to get honest about our own behavior, right? Because when someone tells me like, I don’t have any sober friends, my first response is, well, you have to go where the sober people are and say hi, right? A bus full of sober people isn’t gonna show up at your house and ask to be your friend. They’re not coming down your street with a breakfast reservation and a seat saved for you. You have to participate. And I say that with love because we can’t stay home all the time. Bitch about how much we hate people and then whine when we don’t have friends and fun things to do. Pick a fucking lane. It’s one or the other. You either hate the people or you want things to do and have friends. You are perfectly allowed to be a homebody. You can prefer quiet evenings in a small circle. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’re unhappy with how disconnected you feel, you have to look at your decisions and figure out if you’re really trying to make connections at all. If you decline every invitation, never go anywhere new, and leave every activity before anyone has a chance to talk to you, those choices affect your opportunities to make friends. Own that. Mm. Angela (07:39.914)You don’t control whether a particular person becomes your friend. You do have control over whether you make room to meet people and get to know them. And this matters when we talk about social activities and drinking and anxiety. A lot of people tell me that feeling anxious around others was one of the main reasons they drank. Social situations. Everybody thinks they’re unique that they have social anxiety. You’re not unique. Almost all of us have it, right? It’s one of the ways alcohol traps us. Alcohol was how you walked into the party, started the conversation, or stopped worrying about what everyone else thinks of you. It allows you to feel like you belong and you’re connected. When you quit drinking, those situations feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I understand why you’d want to avoid them. But if you keep waiting until you feel completely comfortable before you do anything, you could be waiting a very long time. Angela (08:44.684)You really need a manageable place to start. And I mean manageable for you. When I first started going to AA, my anxiety was so bad, I could barely function. I mean, obviously I was brand new sober. I just quit drinking. I’m still in withdrawal and post-acute withdrawal. But I couldn’t not go just because my anxiety was an asshole. I needed to be there. And I knew it would never get easier if I didn’t challenge myself. Right, because if you left it up to me and my introverted anxious self, I would find the most corner y corner seat in the room, preferably where somebody could not sit next to me. Angela (09:29.398)I wouldn’t talk to anyone, and I might leave a little early to make absolutely sure I escaped before the small talk started. Not because I didn’t want connection. I wanted to feel comfortable with those people, but my anxiety was unbearable. And avoiding everybody was how I got through it. The problem was I wanted to feel like I belonged. Angela (10:00.396)The problem was I wanted to feel like I belonged while doing everything I could to remain invisible. So I had to give myself something small enough that I would actually do it, but challenging enough to start changing my pattern. That’s the crux of recovery, changing your patterns. So I made a deal with myself: make eye contact with one person every day. That was my entire assignment. I didn’t have to introduce myself or start a conversation. I just had to look at one person instead of looking at the floor and making my way to my little corner. And it had to be a different person every day. That’s part of it too. I couldn’t just pick one person and eye contact with the same person every day. It had to be a different person. And when that became comfortable, I added the next step: make eye contact and say hi. That’s it. Just hi. I didn’t need to stop and exchange astrological signs and the ages of our children and our entire family fucking histories. Nobody was asking me to become the welcoming committee. I just had to say one word. And when that got easier, I bumped it up to a few words. How are you? Good to see you. Glad you’re here. And by the time I got to that third step, going to meetings felt so much easier. I wasn’t freaking out every day about to cry. I was looking forward to going in. People knew my name and I felt like I belonged. Angela (11:29.954)That connection I wanted finally had some room to happen because I was letting people see me and get to know me a little bit at a time. I didn’t wait until I felt comfortable to participate. I participated in small ways until I started feeling more comfortable. And that’s what I want you to take from this. Your first step can just be eye contact. It can be one word. You can choose something that stretches you without expecting yourself to handle everything at once. But you have to choose something. Again, you can do nothing or you can do something. I knew what doing nothing was getting me: a corner seat, an early exit, and probably drunk again. If I wanted connection and sobriety, I had to start making different choices. Something else I had to learn about myself is that people don’t often approach me because I’m not very approachable. And that was a weird little discovery for me. Angela (12:37.024)I can want connection all day long, but if my head is down and I’m avoiding eye contact and I look like I don’t want to be bothered, what invitation am I giving somebody to talk to me? And now we have our phones, makes it even worse, right? You can walk into a room full of people and immediately disappear into your screen. You’re physically there, but nobody has any reason to think you’re interested in interacting. And then you go home and say, Nobody talked to me. Well, did you look up? I mean I had to recognize that in myself. And once I did, I started correcting it. Now I make a point to walk in with my head up, my phone in my pocket, I smile at people, I make eye contact, I pay attention to what’s happening around me instead of staying buried in my phone or lost in my own thoughts. I’m still the same introvert, but I’m giving people a chance to see that I’m open to them. Because someone across the room can’t know you’re sitting there wishing you had a friend. They can only see what you’re showing them. And if everything about your behavior says leave me alone, they’re gonna leave you alone. Angela (13:50.368)I used to always be head down in my phone, sunglasses always on, earbuds in. Of course, connection was challenging. I looked like a weirdo, right? But before you decide nobody ever approaches you, take an honest look at how you show up. Are you making yourself available for conversation? Are you looking at anyone? When someone smiles at you, do you smile back? Those are small things you can start changing right now, today. And sometimes that’s where you need to begin, creating an opening instead of wondering why no one’s coming in. Angela (14:46.988)And that same willingness to take one small step at a time is how you give yourself a chance to make friends outside recovery too. Once you have a manageable way to interact with people, the next question is where do you want to keep showing up? For me, it helps to have something to do, right? I don’t want to walk in a room where my entire assignment is to mingle. That is not fun for me. I need a purpose, an activity, something to do with my hands, give me a class, something to learn, something I’m interested in. Then I have a reason to be there. And I already have something in common with everyone else in the room. We already have something to talk about. Angela (15:35.19)I have a gym friend and we’ve taken the same class together every week for years. We started saying hi, then having short conversations. Eventually, she invited me to breakfast with some of the other women. Then we went to the pool at our gym after class a few times over the summer. We aren’t lifelong besties, but we connect and we really enjoy each other. And look how that happened. We’re both doing something we enjoyed, seeing each other regularly. We start chatting about our workouts and getting comfortable with each other. And look how that happened. We’re both doing something we enjoyed, seeing each other regularly. We started chatting about our workouts and getting comfortable with each other. Then someone extended an invitation. That’s something you can create opportunities for in your own life. Pick a class that meets every week, volunteer somewhere regularly, find a walking group or a recovery meeting you can return to. So you have a chance to recognize people and be recognized. Because if you go somewhere once, don’t talk to anybody and leave saying, well, that didn’t work, what exactly did you give a chance to happen? You walked into a room full of strangers. It may take a few visits before you have someone to say hi to, and…

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Why They Tell You Not to Date in Your First Year Sober Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

Why do recovery communities tell you not to date or make major life changes during your first year sober?

Because getting sober isn't just about learning how to live without alcohol. It's about learning how to handle your feelings without it.

And when you're newly sober, those feelings can be ALL OVER THE PLACE.

You're dealing with boredom, loneliness, insecurity, and a whole lot of emotions you may not even know how to identify yet. Then someone comes along, and suddenly life feels exciting again!

But dating brings its own emotional roller coaster. Rejection, jealousy, uncertainty, disappointment, and heartbreak can be overwhelming when you're still learning how to manage everyday life without drinking.

In this episode, we're talking about why dating in early sobriety can be especially challenging, why major life changes can threaten your stability, and how giving yourself time to build confidence and coping skills can make all the difference.

Because the goal isn't to avoid big feelings. It's to learn how to handle them without alcohol.

How to Stop Giving Up on Yourself in Sobriety Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

About to give up, reach for a drink, or follow the same old pattern? Angela shares how a split-second choice can change your direction—and why the victory starts before you know the outcome.

How Do I Know If I Actually Have a Drinking Problem? Sep 30, 2026

Show notes

How do you know if you actually have a drinking problem? You make rules about when you’ll drink. You negotiate how many you’re going to have. You promise yourself tonight will be different. You replay last night trying to figure out exactly what happened. You take breaks, make new rules, Google questions, take quizzes, compare yourself to other people—and somehow alcohol keeps requiring more and more of your attention. At some point, that’s worth looking at. In this episode of Addiction Unlimited, we’re getting away from arbitrary drinking counts and labels and looking at something far more revealing: your actual relationship with alcohol. In this episode, we’re getting away from labels and arbitrary drinking counts and looking at something far more useful: your actual relationship with alcohol. Is it really a drinking problem? The surprisingly revealing question that has nothing to do with how much or how often you drink Why taking 30 days off alcohol may not prove what you think it proves The difference between having a plan for the night and actually being in control of what happens When researching your drinking stops giving you answers—and starts becoming part of the answer And after all the research, analyzing and comparing—you already have enough information—you just have to be willing to do something with it. Because sometimes the amount of work you’re doing to prove alcohol isn’t a problem tells you more than another quiz ever will. You don’t have to decide what to call yourself today. You don’t need the perfect label or one more piece of evidence. You can simply acknowledge that your relationship with alcohol isn’t working anymore—and let that be enough truth to take the next step. Links mentioned in this episode: Book A Call Here: addictionunlimited.com/call Sober Society Membership: addictionunlimited.com/membership Related Episode: Why Am I An Alcoholic – the Bio-Psycho-Social Truth About Addiction Follow me on Instagram: @addictionunlimited Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/addictionunlimited Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the full transcript of this episode. 455 TranscriptAngela (00:07.374)Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Addiction Unlimited podcast. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. How do I know if I actually have a drinking problem? This is probably one of the most common questions people ask themselves when they start getting uncomfortable with their drinking. Am I really an alcoholic? Do I actually have a problem? Or am I just drinking a little too much right now? Maybe I just need to cut back. Maybe I need to take a break.Maybe I should stop drinking during the week and only drink on weekends. We will create an entire strategic plan around drinking before we’ll sit down and ask ourselves the most obvious question. What the hell is going on with me and alcohol? And here’s the first thing I want you to understand. I am not going to give you a diagnostic quiz today. I’m not interested in do you drink X number of drinks on X number of nights? Have you had X number of consequences? Check seven boxes and congratulations, here’s your label. That’s not how I look at this. And I never tell people. Angela (01:52.102)And I never tell people they’re alcoholics. First of all, way too many people can’t handle that word. We have some very delicate sensitivities these days. And I’m a little different about that stuff. I am a no BS human. Tell me the truth so I can figure out the solution. I don’t need you to beat around the bush or hold my hand or find the softest, prettiest language possible. If I’m trying to fix a major problem in my life, I just let’s get on with it. I don’t particularly care what we call it. I care about how I’m fucking up and what I need to do to stop fucking up. I also understand that not everybody feels that way. So when somebody says to me, I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic, I think maybe I just drink too much sometimes. The first thing I notice is that they’re asking the question. at all because that tells me something has shifted. Angela (03:02.24)You are questioning your connection with alcohol because somewhere along the way you felt that relationship start to change. You probably can’t even pinpoint exactly when it happened. You just know you’re thinking about alcohol more than you used to. You’re relying on it in ways you didn’t before. You’re planning around it, recovering from it, wondering about it, worrying about it. And there’s this little voice in the back of your head saying. Something about this doesn’t feel right anymore. And that’s usually when we start asking the question. Then here’s what happens next. Almost immediately after someone tells me they’re wondering if they have a drinking problem, they start giving me all the reasons they don’t. I don’t drink every day. I’ve never had a DUI, I don’t drink in the morning, I have a good job, my kids are taken care of, I don’t hide bottles, I can go days without drinking. And I’m just listening. Because here’s the thing: if an idea is completely preposterous to you. You don’t have to build a defense against it. If somebody said to me, Angela, I think you might secretly be a six foot four professional basketball player. I’m not gonna spend the next three hours Googling the average height of WNBA players and gathering evidence to prove I’m not, right? I’m gonna say that’s absurd. And then I’m gonna move on with my life. When something happens, Clearly doesn’t apply to us. We don’t usually have to convince ourselves that it doesn’t apply. So when you’ve built an entire defense around why you’re definitely not an alcoholic, I’m interested in why you need the defense in the first place. And I think part of the reason people fight this so hard is because they’re not only fighting a conclusion about alcohol. Angela (05:07.69)They’re fighting what they believe that conclusion says about them. To a lot of people, the word alcoholic means, I’m not even really sure, weak, I guess, broken, irresponsible, a bad parent, a bad partner, a failure, somebody who can’t get their shit together. So sometimes when you’re fighting the possibility that you’re an alcoholic, you’re not even protecting alcohol. You’re protecting your identity. You’re saying I’m successful, I’m responsible, I’m a good person, I take care of my family. I’m not that. And somewhere along the way, you’ve decided that being a person with an alcohol problem is incompatible with all those other things. I don’t see it that way at all. I wear the label alcoholic as a badge of honor. Angela (06:06.112)I wear the label alcoholic as a badge of honor. I have a tremendous amount of pride in being an alcoholic because to me, the word represents something I survived, confronted, and overcame. I’ve dealt with something that most people aren’t equipped to handle, recognize, and least of all have the balls to actually do something about it. And I’ve always been a little different in that way. Even when I was drinking, I knew I was an alcoholic. There was nothing normal about how I drank. But I lived in Los Angeles for many, many years. There were sober people everywhere, successful people, powerful people, celebrities. I had plenty of evidence around me that being sober didn’t mean your life was over, and being an alcoholic didn’t mean you were a loser, right? So I wore my alcoholism as a badge of honor. Angela (07:12.556)What embarrassed me wasn’t that I was an alcoholic. What embarrassed me was that I couldn’t handle my life. I was high functioning too. I could work, I made money, I could show up and perform and take care of all the things. But emotionally, I wasn’t growing. I couldn’t cope with my own feelings. I wasn’t advancing in life. Like I was just stuck. And drinking was the thing I used. So I didn’t have to deal with any of it. That’s why I’m not particularly interested in convincing anyone to use the word alcoholic. I love the label. You don’t have to. The label isn’t the fucking point, right? The point is what is actually happening in your life, and are you willing to tell yourself the truth about it? Because I think one of the reasons people stay. Angela (08:20.962)Because one of the reasons people stay confused about this for so long is that we’re looking in the wrong place. We’re obsessed with quantity. How many drinks do I have? How many nights a week do I drink? How many drinks does an alcoholic have? Can an alcoholic go days without drinking? Can an alcoholic only drink on weekends? Can an alcoholic do dry January? And those questions can give you information for sure. But they don’t tell me nearly as much as people think they do. I want to know about your relationship with alcohol. How much mental real estate is it taking up? How much of your time is spent thinking about drinking, planning drinking, actually drinking, or recovering from drinking? Because I had three stages of life. I was thinking about it, doing it, or recovering from it. There wasn’t much room for anything else. And that’s what I want you to look at in your own life, because maybe you don’t drink every day, but you’re thinking about it every day. Maybe you’re making rules about when you can drink, breaking the rules, creating new rules, counting drinks, checking how much wine is left before people come over, wondering whether you need another bottle just in case. Angela (09:40.748)Maybe you wake up the next morning trying to reconstruct the night before. Like, how many did I have? Was it five or was it six? Did anybody notice? Was I too loud? Did I say anything stupid? And then by afternoon, you’re already negotiating with yourself about tonight. I’m not drinking tonight. Except you’re going out. So maybe you’ll have two. You’ll be good tonight. You’ll drink water between drinks, you’ll leave early. And now you’re conducting a forensic investigation into Friday night while simultaneously negotiating the terms of Saturday night. Look at how much work that takes. Angela (10:23.052)Because all the things sneaking, minimizing, planning, counting, defending, negotiating, recovering, making rules and renegotiating new rules, those are not isolated behaviors. They’re an ecosystem. Alcohol has become important enough in your life that you’re having to manage your relationship with it. That’s what I want you to look at. Not whether somebody on the internet says six drinks makes you an alcoholic and five doesn’t. Look at how much of your life revolves around managing alcohol. And if you want an interesting comparison, watch somebody who genuinely has an uncomplicated relationship with alcohol. These fucking weirdos don’t think about it at all. They’re not obsessing about whether or not they’re gonna drink tonight. They’re not freaking out about dinner with friends because they don’t know what they’re gonna drink. They’re not looking at the restaurant menu three days in advance to make sure they have mocktails. They simply don’t care. What’s in their glass? If somebody offers them a drink and they don’t want one, they say, no thanks, and that’s it. No internal crisis, no elaborate explanation, no concern about whether everybody is gonna think they’re weird. They don’t want to drink, so they don’t have one. Angela (11:55.894)And here’s another thing these weirdos do. They don’t finish their drinks. Like, what the fuck is that? They sip. They leave half of it sitting on the table. They forget about it. Meanwhile, we’re watching the level in the glass and calculating whether the server’s going to be back here fast enough because we’re going to need another one. They’re not wondering whether there’s going to be alcohol at the party or the neighborhood barbecue or the camping trip. They go camping to actually camp and enjoy their friends and family, not as an excuse to sit and drink in a different location. Alcohol has no gravitational pull for them. It doesn’t require management because it simply isn’t that important. Angela (12:56.854)And that is a much more interesting thing for you to examine than whether or not you drank three nights or four this week. Angela (13:07.98)And there’s another piece of this that I think is even more important, and that’s control. Because people love to tell me they can go days or weeks without alcohol and not even really think about it. Okay, a lot of us can stop for periods of time. We are fairly defiant people by nature. And especially if somebody tells us we can’t do something, boy, nothing will make me act like a toddler. faster than feeling like somebody’s telling me what to do. So if your spouse gives you a little shit about how much you drink, it doesn’t surprise me at all that you would go, okay, bitch, watch this, and quit for months, even. Because we are defiant and rebellious and we’re control freaks. So if you tell me in some way that you’re paying attention to my drinking, which means you’re trying to control how I’m drinking, of course I’m gonna do something major to prove you wrong. Honestly. A decent amount of my resolve in sobriety came from spite because it was me against alcohol and I wasn’t fucking losing. Period. Angela (14:24.586)One of the realizations I had in my own rock bottom moment was that alcohol was controlling me. It was controlling my choices, my behavior, my chaos and consequences. And that pisses me off. I don’t like being told what to do by anyone. And as soon as I understood that alcohol was running the show, that fueled my fire in a huge way to stay sober because I am the boss of me, not alcohol. So, yes, you may absolutely be able to decide not to pick up the first drink for thirty days or sixty days or however many days, but that’s not the only kind of control. Angela (15:11.17)But that’s not the kind of control I’m interested in. I want you to think about Angela (15:21.868)I want you to think about the last few times you drank before you had the first drink. Maybe you told yourself how you wanted the night to go, right? We love to do that. I’m only gonna have a couple, I’m gonna leave by 10, I have a workout tomorrow. So I’m definitely not gonna get crazy tonight. And here’s what I want you to notice. How much confidence do you actually have in that plan? Not how badly you want it to happen, not whether you’ve successfully done it before. But when you put that first drink to your lips, do you know with certainty how the night’s gonna end? Or are you just crossing your fingers? Because those are two very different things. Are you having one drink? Or are you having a drink and hoping everything goes okay? Because hope is not control. Maybe tonight you have two and go home. Maybe tonight you have six. Maybe you’re home by 10, maybe it’s two in the morning. Maybe you remember everything, maybe there are fuzzy parts. Maybe you’re perfectly pleasant all night long. Maybe you get a little too loud and develop a little attitude with somebody you secretly don’t like. Maybe you get home, wash your makeup off, get everything ready for tomorrow, get to bed, and make your workout in the morning. Or maybe You wake up with a headache, cancel everything you planned, and spend half the day trying to piece together the night before while guilt and anxiety eat you alive. The question isn’t whether the worst case scenario happens every time. The question is whether you know which version you’re getting before you take that first drink. Angela (17:18.786)The question isn’t whether the worst case scenario happens every time. The question is whether you know which version you’re getting before you take that first drink. If you don’t know, that’s the part I want you to pay attention to. That’s the loss of control I’m talking about. And frequency doesn’t answer that question. But I only drink on weekends. Okay, but what happens when you drink on weekends? I only drink a couple times a month. Okay. What happens those couple times a month? You could drink once a year. And if every time you take that first drink, you have…

Full show notes at the publisher

The Real Moment You Become Ready to Stay Sober Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

You can desperately want things to change and still have a long list of things you don’t want to do.

In this episode, we’re talking about the moment you stop letting fear, discomfort, and resistance make your decisions—and become willing to learn from people who have already gotten where you’re trying to go.

Whether you’re trying to quit drinking or you’ve been living sober for years and feel like your growth has stalled, this is a conversation about becoming teachable, seeing what you can’t see on your own, and discovering what becomes possible when you stop requiring recovery to happen according to your rules.

You Quit Drinking. What Are You Using to Escape Now? Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

You quit drinking—but what are you using to escape now? When normal things like shopping, dating, food, or work get hard to put down, it may be time to look at what’s really going on.

The Life Skills Alcohol Kept You From Learning Sep 09, 2026

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You stopped drinking. Now you have to learn all the things drinking allowed you not to learn.

In this episode, we’re talking about the life skills alcohol can keep you from practicing— Because sobriety isn’t just learning how not to drink.

It’s learning how to handle your life without needing alcohol to manage it.

People-Pleasing Is Costing You More Than You Think Sep 02, 2026

Show notes

People-pleasing can look like kindness while quietly creating exhaustion, resentment, dishonesty, and isolation. Learn what drives the automatic yes, why other people’s feelings aren’t yours to manage, and how to start saying no without making it weird.

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