The back and forth cycle is frustrating and depressing and it can feel like you’re never going to figure it out. It also really hurts our self-esteem, which makes it even harder to not drink. This topic came up in one of my meetings this week and I want to share why it’s important to keep trying. In this episode, I am covering 3 things that may be keeping you stuck in the back and forth struggle and 3 reasons why you can’t give up. What to listen to next: E144: self-sabotage and perfectionism E1...
Jun 02, 2023•16 min•Ep. 154
If you’ve quit drinking for any amount of time then you may have experienced a drinking dream, which is a dream where you relapse and drink alcohol. They seem really real and can be upsetting. It’s normal to feel panicked when you wake up because it takes a moment to realize it was just a dream. I had a drinking dream recently, at 3 and a half years sober, so I thought this was a perfect time to do an episode on it. In this episode you’ll learn why drinking dreams happen and what it means if you...
May 29, 2023•12 min
If this is your first summer without alcohol, then you might be really nervous because warm weather makes you want to sit outside and drink, there are extra parties, and vacation time usually means drinking too. In this episode I’ll cover 5 different challenges that the summer brings to sobriety and how you can navigate them. What to listen to next: E143: how to stay accountable in your sobriety E116: drinking envy and wishing you were "normal" E134: coping with boredom in sobriety Resources I o...
May 26, 2023•18 min•Ep. 153
People with anxiety or depression are much more likely to experience negative consequences from their drinking, even when they drink exactly the same amount as people without anxiety or depression. It’s not the quantity or frequency, it’s brain differences and self-medication. In this episode I discuss a new study that came out a few weeks ago on this topic, the concept of telescoping and how mental health struggles accelerate the process of developing alcohol use disorder, and the harm paradox....
May 19, 2023•14 min•Ep. 152
There are a lot of different ways to quit drinking and what works for 1 person won’t necessarily work for everyone. I think everyone has tried things that haven’t worked, so in this episode I’m going through some of my experiences. You’ll learn why these methods didn’t work for me and hopefully this will help you make some decisions about the ways you are trying to quit. If you've been trying to quit without success then this episode may give you a better idea of what's been going wrong. What to...
May 12, 2023•17 min•Ep. 151
One of the reasons emotions can be so overwhelming is because we don't have coping skills to deal with them, so we run right for alcohol every time we feel discomfort. Workshops are a new part of my Living a Sober Powered Life community, and here is a sneak peak at our workshop on coping skills. In this workshop I explained why stress accumulates and taught about 5 coping skills to try. My members have homework throughout the month. Workshops happen at the beginning of every month and are availa...
May 08, 2023•12 min
I used to spend so many mornings Googling, “how can I moderate my drinking?” I thought if I could just figure out the right strategy, then I’d be able to control my drinking. What I didn’t realize was that I spent nearly all of my time drinking or thinking about my drinking, which meant that my drinking was already controlling me. To celebrate this milestone episode of releasing 150 episodes of the podcast I want to go over 15 moderation strategies that I tried that didn’t work. I hope this make...
May 05, 2023•23 min•Ep. 150
Alcohol can cause your nervous system to become dysregulated, which puts you in a state of constant stress. Then we feel compelled to drink to cope with the stress. In this episode you will learn all about the nervous system and how it’s impacted by your drinking. You’ll learn how alcohol throws off the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, the effects of binge drinking, and how you can heal your nervous system and find true relaxation and peace in sobriety. What t...
Apr 28, 2023•19 min•Ep. 149
When I was drinking I was very dramatic and immature. I was a toxic person who blamed everyone else for my problems. One of the hardest realizations in sobriety was coming to the understanding that I contributed to my own problems, and maybe even caused some of them. I’ve learned a lot of skills over the past almost 3 and a half years and here are the top 5 that I believe have made the difference in my ability to finally quit for good after years of trying to hang on to my drinking. And not just...
Apr 21, 2023•15 min•Ep. 148
We spend a lot of time avoiding our emotions to try to reduce the amount of pain and discomfort we feel, but you can’t numb the bad without numbing the good too. Trying to avoid pain closes us off to the amount of joy and love we can feel too. In this episode, I explain 3 ways you can start embracing your emotions and why it's important to stop numbing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 18, 2023•6 min
Have you ever gone through something so hard that you didn’t know how you were going to make it out the other side? Often, we use alcohol to numb the pain and make it a little bit more tolerable. If you’re sober though, you don’t have that option anymore. I’m going through something very painful right now and it has given me an appreciation for anyone who’s had intense emotional pain and coped with alcohol. Resources I offer: Community & Meetings: Living a Sober Powered Life https://www.sobe...
Apr 14, 2023•10 min•Ep. 147
People tell me all the time, “I just can’t accept that I have a disease”. We hear that addiction is a disease of the brain, but not everyone wants to accept that they have a disease. In this episode you’ll learn about the disease model, the choice model, and some newer models of addiction. I’ll explain what these models say, where they came from, and at the end of the episode I’ll share my opinion on the subject. What to listen to next: E143: how to get accountability to stay sober E68: how alco...
Apr 07, 2023•17 min•Ep. 146
There are a lot of people in the sober community getting adult ADHD diagnoses, so what’s going on here? There is a strong link between struggling with ADHD and developing a problem with alcohol because just like with anxiety, trauma, or depression, alcohol can be used to self-medicate the symptoms of ADHD. In this episode you’ll learn why alcohol and ADHD are linked, what is going on in the brain’s of people with ADHD, and how having ADHD makes it harder to stop drinking once you start. What to ...
Mar 31, 2023•16 min•Ep. 145
Self-sabotage is a common experience for many people who struggle with alcohol. Despite our best efforts to quit drinking, we find ourselves continuing to drink anyway. Sometimes you may even drink without understanding why. It can be frustrating and disheartening, but understanding the root causes of self-sabotage can help us break free from this destructive cycle. In this episode we’ll cover self-sabotage, perfectionism, and procrastination, and what you can do if this is a problem for you. Re...
Mar 24, 2023•17 min•Ep. 144
I was recently talking to someone and they mentioned all the opportunities there are in my life for relapse- for example, the podcasting conferences I go to and how I work for myself alone in my house. The thing is, although I have a lot of opportunities to drink, I don’t, and I believe there are 2 main reasons why. I have accepted that I can never drink ever again and I have built up a lot of barriers to protect my sobriety. In this episode, you’ll learn how I protect my sobriety, how you can u...
Mar 17, 2023•17 min•Ep. 143
Hiding your addiction is a full time job. It requires a lot of mental energy to keep up appearances and seem like nothing is wrong. Laura Cathcart Robbins was in a high profile marriage. She wanted this amazing life, but once she got there she realized it wasn’t the life she wanted. The pressure continued to build once Laura became the first Black PA President for her children’s school since 1972. In this episode, Laura and I discuss the pressure of maintaining a perfect image, how she found rel...
Mar 10, 2023•45 min•Ep. 142
You can’t shame yourself sober, and you can’t punish yourself into change, but similarly, we need to recognize our patterns and be willing to tell the truth. I am so excited to welcome Laura McKowen, author of the new book Push Off From Here, to the podcast. Laura and I get into this idea of a blame story and what personal responsibility really means. In this episode we discuss the chaos we live in on a daily basis, what personal responsibility means, how to identify your blame story, and how to...
Mar 03, 2023•43 min•Ep. 141
It’s very triggering if you’ve stopped drinking, but aren’t feeling better. You may observe others on their pink clouds and think you’re the only one feeling this way. It takes time for the body to heal and that’s why I invited on Dr. Brooke Scheller to talk to us about how our nutrition impacts our cravings for alcohol and the way we feel. In this episode you’ll learn what to do if you stopped drinking but don’t feel better, how to re-evaluate your nutrition, and a few simple steps you can take...
Feb 24, 2023•41 min•Ep. 140
If you’re going back and forth between drinking and not drinking, then you are not alone. It’s a journey from the time someone considers not drinking to the time they actually stop drinking for good. Even though this back and forth process is pretty typical, it’s really frustrating when you feel like you just want to be sober but you keep drinking. In this episode I’m describing 5 reasons why you may be having trouble staying sober. If you identify with any of these reasons, then it’s important ...
Feb 17, 2023•14 min•Ep. 139
One of the most empowering things I’ve learned in my research is that not everyone experiences alcohol in the same way. When I got sober, I started talking to my husband more about his experience and I started interacting with people in the sober community who shared my experience with alcohol. Over time, I realized how different my husband and I were. In this episode I want to talk about 5 ways we think differently than take it or leave it drinkers. I’m going to use the word normal occasionally...
Feb 10, 2023•15 min•Ep. 138
So many people have reached out to me online and said “I wish I had your level of self-control” or “I wish I was disciplined like you are”. It’s not about self-control or discipline and by saying that you are making your drinking into a morality thing. In this episode we’re going to talk about why we are so quick to call ourselves losers and make it a self-control issue. If you’re stuck on this idea that you need more discipline, then I hope this episode gives you some perspective so you can sto...
Jan 27, 2023•16 min•Ep. 136
It's hard to quit drinking when you feel like your drinking isn't that bad and you haven't had any consequences from it. We justify so many things and tell ourselves that "we're not that bad" and we should just learn to control it or drink less. That's why I had my friend Casey, host of the Hello Someday Podcast, on today. We talk about consequences and how our baseline for what's normal and acceptable gets distorted while we're drinking. This is a serious one and a funny one, so I hope you have...
Jan 20, 2023•46 min•Ep. 135
I recently surveyed my audience to create a free eBook and one of the questions was what’s your biggest struggle in sobriety. I was shocked to see that almost every response said boredom. I know that’s a major trigger, but I expected more of a balance between boredom and negative emotions. In this episode you’ll learn about why some people are more likely to feel bored, how this relates to drinking, and what you can do to manage boredom in sobriety. You’ll learn about why some people are more li...
Jan 13, 2023•17 min•Ep. 134
In this special episode I’m joined by Eric Zimmer from The One You Feed Podcast, Dave Wilson aka Sober Dave from One for the Road Podcast, and Casey Davidson from the Hello Someday Podcast. We wanted to get together to show you 4 different approaches to quitting drinking, not just in how we ended up getting sober, but you will also learn what held each of us back from quitting, the challenges we had in the beginning, and the beliefs we had about getting support. Casey McGuire Davidson helps succ...
Jan 06, 2023•58 min•Ep. 133
I’ve stopped drinking 3 times, and each time I thought I could just stop and that was that. I thought stopping was the hard part and that drinking was my only problem. It wasn’t until I was months into my current sober streak that I realized I had to do a lot of work. We build our lives around alcohol, so if you just remove the alcohol, then you’re going to feel the void and be triggered all the time. In this episode I’m going to cover 10 tips to stop drinking and stay sober. These are for anyon...
Dec 30, 2022•17 min•Ep. 132
What can you replace alcohol with when you stop drinking? Many of us search for an alternative, and in this episode I’m going to discuss common transfer addictions that might show up when you stop drinking, like food, sugar, or cannabis. You’ll learn why transfer addiction happens, how to identify if you’ve developed another problem or if it’s not a big deal, and what to do to prevent transfer addiction from happening. TW: discussions of weight and disordered eating What to listen to next: E112:...
Dec 16, 2022•15 min•Ep. 130
Perspective can help you maintain your calm and not let other people have control over the way you feel. For people in recovery, being able to stay calm and manage our emotions is critical. In this episode I want to walk you through an example of a time where I was easily offended and flipped out over nothing, versus a time when something worse happened but I was able to have perspective and stay calm. You’ll learn how you can work on adjusting your perspective and become more resilient and adap...
Dec 09, 2022•19 min•Ep. 129
Cravings make it hard to stay sober. You may feel frustrated that you have so many cravings and be wishing you just had more self-control. In this episode we’re going to talk about why cravings can be so powerful and how you can learn to manage them. You’ll learn more about how alcohol dominates our thoughts, why we crave alcohol, and what you can do to reduce the amount of cravings you have and their severity. What to listen to next: E119: Why We Can’t Cope With Anything E114: Why We Believe Al...
Dec 02, 2022•16 min•Ep. 128
One of the main characteristics of someone who struggles with alcohol is the obsession. We think about our drinking all the time. We do mental gymnastics and try to figure out how to control our drinking. We bargain with ourselves and talk ourselves into why drinking is a good idea. The obsession is frustrating and it continues into early sobriety too. I’ve seen so many people feel defeated because they think about alcohol all the time even though they’re sober. In this episode I’m explaining th...
Nov 25, 2022•14 min•Ep. 127
Have you been wondering how you should be eating to aid your recovery? Or why you have so many sugar cravings? In this episode we’ll talk about how the type of food we eat impacts our cravings and the amount of food we eat overall. You’ll learn about an interesting study that came out recently about protein and obesity, and how you might want to consider adjusting the foods you eat based on your goals. We will also talk about what contributes to extreme hunger and food cravings. Before we get st...
Nov 18, 2022•15 min•Ep. 126
