Join me for a special Q&A episode. We talk about my story, my work, my gaming history, book writing, what I've noticed in the sober community, and more! Thanks to everyone who submitted questions Work with me: Community & Meetings: Living a Sober Powered Life https://www.soberpowered.com/membership Sober coaching https://www.soberpowered.com/sober-coaching Weekly email: You’ll hear from me on Fridays https://www.soberpowered.com/email Free resources https://www.soberpowered.com/free Cour...
Jun 27, 2025•33 min
On June 25, 2020 I decided to start this podcast. You’ll learn the story of how this podcast started, how it’s changed my sobriety, how it’s changed me professionally, how it’s helped me do my own “work”, and some of the hurtful things people have said to me over the years. I want to share about the shifts I’ve had to make to sustain being a public person. These are, addressing my addiction to work, learning to not depend on external validation and recognition, being ok with being misunderstood,...
Jun 27, 2025•31 min•Ep. 286
Besides not drinking, one of the simplest ways to heal the damage left behind from your drinking days is to exercise consistently. In this episode, I’ll explain how exercise helps to heal the body and brain, specific types of exercise that are beneficial, and how exercise can increase the likelihood that you’ll resist cravings and stay sober. You’ll learn 5 ways to get started if making exercise a consistent routine is difficult for you, and I’ll discuss a common trap many of us fall into: obses...
Jun 20, 2025•23 min•Ep. 285
When we quit drinking, it’s pretty common to pick up another crutch or transfer the addiction to something else like food, work, cannabis, shopping, etc. Your brain still wants comfort, relief, stimulation, and escape and it’s easy to use other methods of relief instead of doing the emotional work and not needing relief. In this episode, I discuss the desire to replace alcohol with something else, how we do this in unhealthy ways, and what healthy reward substitution looks like. If you’ve ever s...
Jun 13, 2025•20 min•Ep. 284
Learning to put effort into our lives, be patient, and not rely on instant gratification is challenging. Alcohol teaches us that we can have what we want immediately and with no effort. Real life doesn’t work that way. In this episode, I explain alcohol myopia, which is how alcohol narrows our focus and prevents us from accurately thinking about the future. You’ll learn about how your brain is wired for instant gratification and how to start breaking out of this when you get sober. What to liste...
Jun 06, 2025•18 min•Ep. 289
Maybe your drinking isn’t/wasn’t that bad, but does that mean it’s good? If you don’t truly face what you’re doing, then how can you expect to change and move forward? In this episode, we dig into the psychological tricks we use to protect ourselves from the truth about our drinking- minimizing, rationalizing, and rewriting the past. I explain how cognitive dissonance, memory decay, and emotional self-protection keep us stuck in the cycle, and why excusing our behavior prevents real change. You'...
May 30, 2025•19 min•Ep. 282
When the sun comes out, so do the memories of “fun” drinking days, but are those memories even accurate? In this episode, I break down how your brain edits the past to make alcohol look better than it really was. I’ll explain how dopamine, emotional memory, and the fading affect bias distort your perception of your drinking life, and why the “good times” are often more fantasy than fact. You’ll learn how to interrupt the craving cycle before it starts and I’ll share a personal story about my own...
May 23, 2025•18 min•Ep. 281
Are these harmless thoughts or do they lead to relapse? In this episode you’ll learn what is going on in your brain when you romanticize alcohol, how this can make being sober more challenging, and 3 ways to break the romanticizing loop. I’ll share a story from 4 years ago about when I romanticized alcohol, how I used tools, and what that same situation would look like today. What to listen to next: E269: Autopilot mode E273: How the sober brain breaks down alcohol associations Work with me: Com...
May 16, 2025•19 min•Ep. 280
When we start doing “the work”, it’s normal for your behavior to swing hard in the other direction. Emotions become more intense, old memories flood back, or you may feel like everyone needs to know how they’ve wronged you. This is the pendulum effect. We are learning how to do life without alcohol, and that process takes experimentation. In this episode, I explain why the pendulum effect happens, what to expect, the most common things I’ve observed, and 3 ways to start coping so the pendulum ca...
May 09, 2025•25 min•Ep. 279
We’re used to intrusive thoughts about drinking while we’re trying to quit and in the early days, but these thoughts can continue to pop up months or even years later. Does this mean you’re on the path to relapse? In this episode I’ll explain where intrusive thoughts about drinking come from and 3 strategies to deal with them. You’ll learn the 4 most common times when someone thinks about drinking again, my experience with these thoughts, and what to look out for if you’re in early sobriety or l...
May 02, 2025•22 min•Ep. 278
I thought getting sober was the end of the story. I did it, I succeeded, now life will be amazing forever. But the parade never came. Instead, I started to get uncomfortable and notice patterns in my behavior that I didn’t like, and without alcohol around, I couldn’t unsee it. This is where a lot of people fall off. Their work begins to show up, it gets uncomfortable, and instead of facing it they talk themselves into how drinking is a good idea. In this episode, I’ll explain more about “the wor...
Apr 25, 2025•21 min•Ep. 277
Many people experience a noticeable shift in mental clarity around 60 days sober. When it happened to me I felt like I was waking up from a long dream and I could finally use my brain again. This may feel like being present, having patience, better focus and attention, improved memory, and reduced mental clutter. In this episode, I’ll explain how alcohol causes cognitive impairments, why we have mental clarity around 60 days in, and how things like memory, attention, and processing speed recover...
Apr 18, 2025•26 min•Ep. 276
Alcohol damages every area of the body, but in this episode we are focusing on the heart. I’ll explain 3 ways that alcohol damages the heart, how the heart heals after we get sober, and 5 things you can do to have good heart health moving forward. What to listen to next: E232: The 3am Wake Up E266: Can You Drink After Taking a Break? E268: Is Moderate Drinking Healthier? Here’s Why So Many Studies Say Yes E247: Sober Sleep is the Best Sleep, But Not Right Away Work with me: Community & Meeti...
Apr 11, 2025•26 min•Ep. 275
Your brain is wired for quick hits of dopamine, or high-reward, low-effort habits that feel good in the moment but sabotage your long-term goals. Over time, this conditions your brain to expect rewards without effort, making real change feel harder than it actually is. In this episode, I’ll explain how these patterns destroy motivation, fuel inconsistent effort, and keep you stuck in the cycle of short bursts of change followed by slinking back to your old ways. You’ll learn how high dopamine, l...
Apr 04, 2025•27 min•Ep. 274
We believe alcohol is required for vacations, unwinding, dealing with stress, celebrating, and socializing. We have built up powerful associations in our brains to reinforce these beliefs through dopamine and repetition. After you get sober, facing life without alcohol can feel impossible. Everything reminds you of alcohol. You start to notice how prevalent it is on TV and in movies. In this episode, I’m explaining how the brain builds associations with alcohol, how that gets worse while we stay...
Mar 28, 2025•33 min•Ep. 273
When we develop a problem with alcohol, it becomes the center of our lives and most or all decisions are made after taking alcohol into consideration. When you remove alcohol, there’s a big empty hole in your life. You can fill this hole with other substances, sex or relationships, gambling or shopping, sitting around sad, or you can make some changes in your life. I’ve slowly made changes over the past 5 years to now have a life where I’m excited to wake up in the morning. In this episode, I’m ...
Mar 21, 2025•24 min•Ep. 272
“I function just fine, it’s not like I’m missing work”, I said until I started missing work. “I have a masters degree, I couldn’t have gotten this far if I was an alcoholic.” Have you ever thought things like this to yourself? Most drinkers are able to function. Most will never reach the stereotypical alcoholic that we think of. High functioning doesn’t mean not a problem, and in this episode we’ll discuss drinking to cope with career stress, when drinking feels like it’s a part of the job, and ...
Mar 14, 2025•27 min•Ep. 271
You probably expect that the more sober time you have, the less you crave alcohol. That’s true for some people, but others experience an effect called incubation of craving. This is where cravings build up over time and peak around 60 days, then again around 6 months sober. In this episode, I’ll explain the research on incubation of craving, what you might experience, why this happens, and what you can do to stay sober. What to listen to next: E231: Everything You Need to Know About Alcohol With...
Mar 07, 2025•29 min•Ep. 270
Regular drinking and early sobriety often feel like living on autopilot, where we are repeating the same routines without conscious awareness. Alcohol changes the brain to increase mindless activity, which can lead to rumination, excessive self-focus, anxiety, and addiction-related thought loops. In this episode, you’ll learn about how alcohol affects the brain and puts us on autopilot, how this keeps us stuck, and when this recovers in sobriety. Many people mistake life stress as the main sourc...
Feb 28, 2025•31 min•Ep. 269
Making new friends as an adult is difficult enough, but when you're sober, it adds an extra layer of difficulty. In this episode, we're talking about how to find friends in sobriety with a focus on what's the block from putting yourself out there, what do we have control over, how much armor do we have up, a fear of rejection, and how we can start attracting the right people in our direction. My guest today is a 42 year old woman who lives in the wilds of Northern Michigan. She's a mother of fou...
Feb 21, 2025•34 min
Most people defend moderation. What about all those people in the blue zones? Europeans drink every day, what about the French Paradox? If you do a quick search, then you can find tons of articles telling you how moderation is healthier than not drinking. Drinking a little bit every day will help you live longer and have a healthier heart. This has generally been accepted for decades, but is it really true? In this episode, I’ll explain the alcohol industry’s involvement in research, a lot of di...
Feb 14, 2025•27 min•Ep. 268
This is the biggest mistake I see people make. There’s one pattern I’ve noticed with people where they want to be sober, but they approach it in a way that makes them less likely to actually achieve sobriety. In this episode I’m going to explain how you can set yourself up for success, how to build an effective support system, and how support can help you stay sober. We’ll discuss the self-improvement trap where people enter a stage of passively collecting information without putting it into pra...
Feb 07, 2025•27 min•Ep. 267
So you’ve taken a break from alcohol and now you’re wondering do you stay sober or do you go back to drinking? In this episode I’ll discuss your options, when the best benefits from a break are, whether it’s possible for some people to moderate their drinking after a break, and how to know if you really have a problem and need to be sober or not. What to listen to next: E204: why some people get addicted and others don't E238: why we can't learn to moderate Sober Support: Community & Meeting...
Jan 31, 2025•36 min•Ep. 266
When will being sober feel rewarding? When does it get easier? When does the boredom go away? In this episode you’ll learn about the process of recalibrating your reward system after quitting drinking. I’ll explain how alcohol messes up the reward system, the process of recalibration that occurs during the first year, what happens if you relapse, and what you can do to make the process go a little bit smoother. What to listen to next: E220: The Hippocampus and Alcohol: Blackouts, Memory Deficits...
Jan 24, 2025•28 min•Ep. 265
Are you cranky AF after getting sober? Is your mood volatile and unpredictable? Are the little things setting you off? This is a normal part of the sober experience, so congrats on getting started. In this episode, I’ll explain why we have mood swings after quitting drinking. You’ll learn what’s going on in the brain, when it should start to ease up, and things to look out for as you continue working on your sobriety. What to listen to next: E232: The 3am Wake Up of Shame: Alcohol and Anxiety E2...
Jan 17, 2025•29 min•Ep. 264
Did you go from never wanting dessert to now never skipping it? Are you craving sugar constantly now that you’ve quit drinking? Sugar cravings in sobriety are very normal and in this episode I’ll explain a few reasons why we crave sugar after getting sober and how you can start managing your sugar cravings moving forward. What to listen to next: E188: Wellness Over Weight Loss E249: Alcohol and Cortisol: Extra Stress and Extra Cravings E165: My 30 Day No Sugar Challenge Sober Support: Community ...
Jan 10, 2025•22 min•Ep. 263
The Surgeon General just recommended that cancer warning labels be included on alcohol bottles. However, the link between cancer and alcohol is old news. A recent study from the National Cancer Institute found that only 50% of Americans are aware that alcohol causes cancer, so in this episode you'll learn how alcohol causes cancer, alcohol and cancer statistics, and what this new information means for you. What to listen to next: E0: How Alcohol Affects the Body (pinned as a trailer) Sober Suppo...
Jan 04, 2025•15 min
Are you trying to quit drinking for Dry January? A sober month is a good opportunity to learn more about your drinking and get experience handling your life without alcohol. I know it’s scary in the beginning and you may not know what to do. In this episode I’ll share some research about Dry January and how to be successful this month, then we’ll cover 31 different tips to quit drinking. Go to https://www.soberpowered.com/tips to get all the tips so you can reference back to them What to listen ...
Jan 03, 2025•37 min•Ep. 262
2025 can be your year. Most of us set goals to quit drinking or lose weight, and then we don’t achieve it. In this episode, I’m going to explain 3 things that make us less likely to meet our goals. Most people think lack of willpower or self-discipline is the reason why we don’t succeed, and I’ll explain why that’s not the case. You’ll also learn 4 ways to set goals to increase your likelihood of success and the goal that I’m working towards in 2025. What to listen to next: E238: Why Moderation ...
Dec 27, 2024•23 min•Ep. 261
If you love the holidays, then I’m happy for you, but many of us don’t. If the holidays make you feel tired, jealous, stressed, and resentful, then you came to the right place. In this episode I’ll discuss different mental health challenges that may be coming up for you and I’ll weave in survey data on stress and mental health during the holiday season. We’ll cover things like social media comparison, invisible labor, pressure to be perfect, feeling overlooked, and being around drinking more tha...
Dec 20, 2024•23 min•Ep. 260
