Recovering Out Loud

I said "I'm sorry" so many times in my addiction that the word stopped meaning anything. All words, no action — guilt with a better vocabulary. In this solo episode I get into the difference between a verbal amends and a living amends: not the conversation, but the daily commitment to behave differently and become someone who doesn't repeat the harm.

I talk about cleaning up my side of the street, moving from taker to giver, making amends to myself, and the trap of using "I'll just live differently" as an escape hatch to avoid the hard conversations. I also tell the story of running into my old drug dealer at the gym five years sober — and what I did next.

This one's about rebuilding trust after addiction, forgiving yourself first, and why your family doesn't owe you forgiveness — but your actions, over time, speak louder than any apology.

Recovery is simple, not easy.

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0:00 Guilt with a better vocabulary

0:34 What this episode is really about

1:11 "How do I pay my parents back?"

1:29 Welcome to Recovering Out Loud

2:12 What a living amends actually is

2:49 Verbal amends vs. living amends

3:19 Moving from taker to giver

4:02 My purpose is to be of service

4:19 When living amends is the right path

5:21 Amends is for you, not for them

5:46 The trap: amends as an escape hatch

6:32 Making amends to yourself

7:11 The long game — there's no finish line

7:47 What it feels like with family

8:28 You cannot heal anyone

9:18 Why your worst comes out at home

10:26 Nobody owes you forgiveness

11:16 Integrity when nobody's watching

12:03 The drug dealer at the gym

13:31 Don't put yourself in danger

13:46 If an amends pops into your head

15:06 Disturbed, discontent, disconnected

15:34 It's a process — progress not perfection

16:10 Don't use being high as an excuse

16:32 How to actually make the amends

17:22 Forgive yourself first

18:09 The nightly inventory

18:31 Outro

10 unfiltered thoughts from my morning journal on staying sober, comparison, peace over happiness, and the war that's really with myself.

At a year and a half sober again, I sat down with my morning journal and pulled out 10 thoughts that are keeping me in recovery right now — then talked them through, raw and unscripted.

This one's about comparison and jealousy in the recovery and creator space ("why not me?"), getting through hard times one day at a time, building a morning routine when your old life had no structure, beating boredom by reconnecting with friends, and why I show up to meetings for what happens before and after the meeting. We get into believing in the sober version of yourself, chasing peace instead of happiness, the power of journaling, and the reframe that changed everything for me: moving from a war on drugs to a war on myself.

If you're early in substance abuse recovery, navigating life after drug addiction, or just trying to stay sober through a rough patch — I hope one of these helps. Recovery is simple, not easy.

Timestamps 00:00 — Morning Pages & why I journal 02:21 — #1 Competitors as hope, not jealousy 06:23 — #2 Staying sober through hard times 08:03 — #3 The morning routine 09:46 — #4 Boredom & reconnecting with friends 11:46 — #5 Meetings: the before & after 13:36 — #6 Believing in the sober you 15:13 — #7 Peace over happiness 16:32 — #8 Journaling 17:19 — #9 Everything isn't as it seems 21:35 — #10 War on drugs → war on me

Mentioned • The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron — the Morning Pages practice • Past episode with Jessie (loss & staying sober through grief) • Past episode: Pleasure vs. Meaning • My recovery journal — https://linktr.ee/Recoveringoutloudpod

Is it okay to admit you miss drinking? Psychotherapist Eryl returns to Recovering Out Loud for an honest conversation about the grief almost nobody talks about in early sobriety — and why pretending "it was all bad" can leave you feeling more ashamed and isolated than the truth ever would.

Anthony and Eryl get into the alcohol addiction recovery experience as it really is: substances as an "escape hatch," the abusive-relationship analogy that didn't start out abusive, and the "parts work" idea that you can be grateful to the part of you that helped you survive — without ever going back to it.

They also dig into why we keep reaching outside ourselves for a fix (the car, the body, the next purchase), how attachment and self-regulation sit underneath addiction, the cross-addiction "whack-a-mole," and a hard look at the predatory wellness and peptide marketing showing up in recovery spaces right now. It closes on emotional regulation, money, and what it means to build a life you don't need to escape from.

A peer + therapist conversation about substance abuse recovery, grief, and emotional sobriety — real stories, no guru energy.

This episode discusses body image and eating-disorder recovery. Support resources are in the show notes.

Find Eryl on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/erylmccaffrey/

00:00 Eryl's last 30 days — and the day she said "I need help"

03:07 Why your "failed attempts" weren't failures

05:09 Is it okay to miss drinking? The grief no one warns you about

07:05 The escape hatch: avoiding discomfort at all costs

09:42 Avoiding people, places & things (and why it's temporary)

11:52 What you were really chasing was connection

13:22 Grieving the old you — and being grateful to it (parts work)

14:50 When the craving hits: delay, distract, cope ahead

18:30 Self-regulation, co-regulation & where addiction starts

20:00 Attachment styles, gender & the substance you reach for

23:52 Whack-a-mole: trading one substance for another

24:48 Everything can become a drug — nicotine, scrolling, shopping

25:07 Peptides, Ozempic & predatory marketing in recovery spaces

31:00 Honesty about TRT and the rabbit hole

32:45 "Be curious, not judgmental"

34:01 The real question: WHY am I reaching for a fix?

35:01 Financial sobriety and your relationship with money

37:55 How alcohol gets marketed to keep women small

41:44 Selling escape: the beach, the Corona, the lie

44:25 Building a life you don't need to escape from

46:41 Waiting for the other shoe to drop

48:30 Emotional regulation, in one elevator pitch

49:56 You are not your thoughts — meditation & the observer

Everyone talks about what you lose when you get sober. Nobody talks about what you get back.

Not the big stuff — career, family, health. Those are real, but they're slow. They're not what keeps you sober at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday.

In this episode, Anthony breaks down the unexpected, small, sometimes weird gifts that sobriety actually delivers — the ones that sneak up on you, that nobody puts in their inspirational reels, and that are quietly building the proof your brain needs to stay sober long-term.

What's covered:

• Real sleep vs. passed-out sleep (and why they're completely different)
• Cognitive recovery: when memory and word recall actually come back
• Why boredom stops feeling like a five-alarm fire
• Eye contact, shame, and what happens when shame unhooks from your identity
• People not flinching when you walk in the room — and what that actually feels like
• Time you didn't know you had
• Being trusted again (and why that weight is a gift)
• The weird ones: knowing where your phone is, being able to sit in a quiet room

Anthony also covers the honest caveats — PAWS (Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome), the gifts that require active work, and the ones that don't show up on schedule.

And for the person who can't feel anything yet: your timeline is real, even if it's slower than the posts.

Recovering Out Loud is peer-led recovery media — real stories of addiction and sobriety, no clinical voice, no guru energy.

You're allowed to miss it. Nobody tells you that.

Most recovery content tells you your using days were all bad. But if that were true, you wouldn't have kept going back. In this episode, Anthony gets honest about the parts of his drinking and using days he actually misses — the escape, the ritual, the identity, the connection — and why admitting that out loud might be the most important thing you do in your recovery.

In this episode:

• What euphoric recall actually is, and why it's not a character flaw — it's brain wiring
• The fading effect bias: why month 18 can be harder than month 3
• 5 things people in recovery are allowed to miss (but usually don't say)
• The two-bucket framework: needs you can meet differently vs. needs you have to grieve
• Why the people in trouble aren't the ones talking about missing it
• The one practical tool: playing the tape all the way through

Key takeaway: The thoughts you can talk about are the thoughts you control. The ones you can't are the ones that control you.

This episode is a permission slip.

Recovering Out Loud is peer-led recovery media built on lived experience — real stories of addiction and sobriety, no clinical voice, no guru energy.

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