Recovering Out Loud

Ever been the person everyone walks on eggshells around? Sober, and still miserable?

In this Borrowed Wisdom episode, I read from a recovery talk by Bob D. that I keep coming back to. I share my own lived experience alongside it: seven and a half years sober, a relapse, and coming back.

Bob says untreated alcoholism is easiest to spot when someone isn't drinking. Restless. Irritable. Discontent. Never at peace.

IN THIS EPISODE

- The person everyone walks on eggshells around

- "I worked 50 places and none of them did it right"

- Mistaking excitement for happiness

- The committee in your head

- What you worship: the pie graph exercise

- Feeling "less alcoholic" as life gets better, and how that led to my relapse

- Believing a higher power is running the show, then acting like you are

- The lamplighter: seeing help in hindsight

A NOTE ON "GOD"

We're talking spirituality, not religion. Use whatever word works for you: a higher power, the universe, the group, something bigger than you.

This is peer support and lived experience, not medical or professional advice. If you're struggling with alcohol or drugs, reach out to a doctor, a local treatment provider, or a support group near you.

If this landed, follow the show and leave a rating. It helps other people in recovery find it.

Message me on Instagram: @recoveringoutloudpod

If no one has told you today: I love you. Recovery is simple, not easy.

Everyone has a locked room in the house: the past we don't want to look at. Today we open the door.

In this solo episode of Recovering Out Loud, Anthony shares a three-part process from his own addiction recovery: uncover, discover, discard. Whether your path is 12-step, therapy, SMART Recovery or another peer support group, some kind of personal inventory is at the heart of the work. It's not about sitting in the past or beating yourself up. It's about looking at it honestly, with someone you trust, so it stops running your life.

In this episode: • Why inventory is "an inventory, not an interrogation." A store doesn't count its shelves because it's guilty. • Fearless, not flawless: why courage matters more than doing it perfectly • Why your head is a bad filing cabinet, and what changes when you put it on paper • Finding the patterns: how 20 resentments can point back to one fear • Shame vs. guilt: "I did a bad thing" vs. "I am bad," and research linking shame-proneness to alcohol and drug problems • The "my part" column: where was I selfish, scared, dishonest or inconsiderate? • Discard is a swap, not a delete: replacing old behaviours with their opposite (judgment → curiosity, dishonesty → honesty) • The guy who cut you off in traffic, and why you don't have to be the sheriff of the universe

Try this week:

1. A 20-minute dump: set a timer and write the thing you don't talk about. No editing, no rereading.
2. The rewrite test: find every "I am ___" on the page and rewrite it as "I did ___."
3. One line, one person: read one line of your inventory to one safe person.
4. A swap list: two columns, with the pattern on the left and the opposite action on the right. Practise the right column for seven days.

You can't let go of what you won't look at, and you can't look at it alone.

Research mentioned: Dearing, R. L., Stuewig, J., & Tangney, J. P. (2005). On the importance of distinguishing shame from guilt: Relations to problematic alcohol and drug use. Addictive Behaviors, 30(7), 1392–1404. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3106346/

Recovering Out Loud is a peer-led podcast about addiction recovery, sobriety and lived experience. Anthony shares his own experience as a peer, not as a clinician or a professional. If you're struggling, please reach out to a professional, a support group or someone you trust. In Canada and the US you can call or text 988 any time.

If this episode helped, follow the show and leave a rating. It helps someone else find their way here.

Recovery is simple, not easy.

#RecoveringOutLoud #Sobriety #AddictionRecovery

Your gut feeling and your addiction can sound exactly the same. Here's how to tell them apart.

That little voice saying "maybe don't go to that party" is intuition. The voice saying "you've earned one, nobody will know" can feel like intuition too, and it's the addict brain. In this solo episode of Recovering Out Loud, Anthony talks through the "vital sixth sense" from 12-step literature: conscious contact with something bigger than yourself. You can call it God, the group, Good Orderly Direction, the ocean, or nothing at all.

This is not an episode about religion. Here's how Anthony puts the difference: religion is for people afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people who've already been there and don't want to go back. If the word "God" makes you flinch, this one is still for you.

In this episode:

• Why conscious contact is a sense you train, not a belief you hold
• Practice first, belief later: "You don't believe your way into conscious contact. You practice your way in."
• Prayer is talking, meditation is listening
• What the research found: spiritual practices partly explain better drinking outcomes in a 1,726-person study; mindfulness-based relapse prevention beat standard approaches at 12 months; body-awareness training reduced substance use and craving in women in treatment
• When the addict voice disguises itself as a gut call, and the justification test that exposes it
• Coming back after a relapse at seven and a half years, and why there's no moderation for Anthony
• Plus a new mocktail: jalapeños in soda water 🌶️

Try this week:

1. Pause and say the Serenity Prayer (or any line that grounds you) before you act when you're agitated
2. 3 minutes of breath focus every morning. When your mind wanders, notice it and come back. The noticing is the rep.
3. 30-second body scan before big decisions: what's my body telling me?
4. Two filters: Is this pulling me toward people or away from them? Would I say it out loud to someone I trust?

Recovery is simple, not easy.

Studies mentioned are linked in the show notes on YouTube. This podcast shares lived experience and peer perspective. It is not medical or clinical advice. If you're struggling, please reach out to a professional or a recovery community near you.

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📚 STUDIES MENTIONED

• Kelly et al. (2011). Spirituality in recovery: A lagged mediational analysis of AA's principal theoretical mechanism of behavior change. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 35(3), 454–463. 1,726 adults, 15 months. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21158876/
• Krentzman et al. (2013). Multiple dimensions of spirituality in recovery. Substance Abuse, 34(1), 20–32. 364 adults; only private practices (e.g., prayer, meditation) mediated the effect. https://doi.org/10.1080/08897077.2012.691449
• Bowen et al. (2014). Relative efficacy of mindfulness-based relapse prevention, standard relapse prevention, and treatment as usual for substance use disorders. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(5), 547–556. 286 adults, 12 months. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24647726/
• Price et al. (2019). Longitudinal effects of interoceptive awareness training through Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT). Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 198, 140–149. 187 women, 12 months. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30928884/
• Study on prayer, meditation & the Serenity Prayer as spiritual "active ingredients" linked to abstinence: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5293659/

#RecoveringOutLoud #Sobriety #AddictionRecovery

How do you stay sober and at peace when the news, your feed, and the world feel like they're on fire?

In this episode of Recovering Out Loud, I talk about what I call the pocket of recovery. That's the protective bubble I get to walk around in when I'm connected, current, and working the principles. I also talk about what happens when that pocket collapses: when I'm doomscrolling at 6:30 a.m., arguing in the comments, refreshing my metrics like I'm waiting on a dealer, or letting a headline hijack my whole day.

This isn't about becoming a hermit or pretending the world isn't happening. It's about staying informed, staying kind, and staying sober without handing your mood over to an algorithm. In recovery, a disturbed mind isn't just an inconvenience. It's a risk.

In this episode:

• Why the Serenity Prayer was written for a world on fire, not a calm one (it dates to the early 1930s)

• The three-pile sort: can I change it, influence it, or do I need to let it go?

• What happened when researchers asked people to quit social media for one week (a 2022 randomized trial)

• Why around 4 in 10 people worldwide now avoid the news, and why the top reason is mood

• The perception gap: why we assume the "other side" is about twice as extreme as it really is

• Why your feed is a using environment, and how to change people, places, and things online

• KMS, restraint of tongue and pen, and why I've never once regretted the comment I didn't post

Try this week: write down what's disturbing you and label each item change, influence, or let go. Pick one news window, one trusted source, and a 15-minute cap. Spend five minutes inventorying your feed and mute anything that leaves you clenched. Before you post or argue, wait an hour.

Serenity isn't a quiet world. It's knowing which part of the noise is yours.

This is lived experience and peer perspective, not professional or medical advice. If you're struggling, reach out to someone you trust or a local support line.

Sources:

• Lambert et al. 2022 (full paper)
• Reuters Digital News Report 2025 (Statista)
• More in Common perception gap (VOA)
• Shapiro on Serenity Prayer authorship (Yale Alumni Magazine)
• Schüll on gambling design in social media
• Instagram “Your Algorithm” (Metricool)

🎧 Follow Recovering Out Loud and leave a rating. It helps someone who needs this find it. 📲 Instagram: @recoveringoutloudpod

If no one has told you this yet today: I love you. Recovery is simple, not easy.

Triggers don't mean you're failing at recovery. They mean you're a person in recovery. At a wedding last night, a table conversation about ADHD meds lit my brain up instantly — and it made me want to come back to triggers, one of the most underrated parts of staying sober.

In this solo episode of Recovering Out Loud, I talk from lived experience about what a trigger actually is, how it's different from a craving or an obsession of the mind, and why a trigger is a cue, not a command.

By the end, you'll know how to:

• Spot your triggers — including the sneaky ones like sunny days, celebrations, and "I deserve one after a long day"
• Tell a trigger from a craving, an obsession, and a relapse
• Ride an urge out instead of running from it

We also get into why cravings can feel louder a month or two into sobriety than in week one. There's a name for it — incubation of craving — and it doesn't mean you're going backwards.

What the research says (sources below):

• A 2022 meta-analysis in JAMA Psychiatry found cue exposure, cue reactivity, and craving all predict later use and relapse — triggers are real, not a character flaw.
• The relapse prevention model treats negative emotions as a near-universal high-risk situation, and notes triggers vary person to person and change over time.
• In a 286-person randomized trial, both mindfulness-based and standard relapse prevention reduced relapse risk vs. usual aftercare; the mindfulness version held up best at 12 months.

Practical tools from this episode:

• Map your triggers in four columns — people, places, things, feelings — and redo it every few months
• Name it out loud: "My brain is doing that thing again"
• Surf the urge — notice it, breathe into where it sits in your body, watch it rise, peak, and fall
• Plan the good days: your drink in hand, your exit line, and one person who knows you're going

This is peer support and lived experience, not medical or clinical advice. If you're struggling, reach out to someone in recovery, a professional, or your local support line.

Tell me in the comments: what's one thing that helped you get through a trigger in early recovery?

🎧 Follow Recovering Out Loud and leave a rating — it helps other people in recovery find the show. 📲 DM me on Instagram @[handle]

Sources:

• Vafaie N, Kober H. Association of Drug Cues and Craving With Drug Use and Relapse: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry. 2022.
• Hendershot CS, Witkiewitz K, George WH, Marlatt GA. Relapse prevention for addictive behaviors. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy. 2011;6:17.
• Bowen S, et al. Relative Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention, Standard Relapse Prevention, and Treatment as Usual for Substance Use Disorders: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. 2014;71(5):547–556.
• Snelleman M. Exploring factors related to craving and relapse in alcohol-dependent outpatients (doctoral thesis). Erasmus University Rotterdam. 2017.
• Parvaz MA, Moeller SJ, Goldstein RZ. Incubation of Cue-Induced Craving in Adults Addicted to Cocaine Measured by Electroencephalography. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016.

#RecoveringOutLoud #Sobriety #AddictionRecovery