THE THRIVE SOBER BLOG

After your “Deep Yes” then the “What Next?” moment, it’s about ACTION.

Recovery is - and always will be - a verb. I used to think that once I made the decision to quit drinking, my life would magically change. I can now see that part of why I failed at many attempts to sobriety is because my ...

“What next?” is where good intentions come to die. 

“What next?” is where most of us who struggle with addiction get stuck. Addiction robs us of the power to do “Next.” We make grand decisions in our heads to finally make a change.

We only take action when our mind and body gives us a gre...

I’d had 5 years of sobriety the day I found myself in the parking lot of a CVS, pouring warm Chardonnay down my throat. That was the first day of my relapse: a two-year tumble back down the rabbit hole of addiction. 

Two years is more than 700 days. At least half of those mornings, I woke up vowing...

It was such an honor to appear on the SHE RECOVERS Podcast! I love any chance to connect with Taryn or Dawn, and their podcast honors and works through the idea that everyone is recovering from something.

In this interview, I talked about the ways that my past trauma detonated my use of alcohol, an...

I often get questions about what I do and why someone would want a recovery coach when programs like AA are free. My job is to complement a program of recovery, adding a whole new layer on top of your sponsor—something more high level.

An important note here: I am a child of AA. I’ve done the prog...

This story is part two of my most recent post about what recovery in action looks like for me right now. Read it here.

Less than a month ago at lunchtime, while at work, I went up to the skyline - the one open-aired place in the building I used to call home. I sat on a chair under the sun, sweating...

Two weeks ago, my job became a soft-casualty of Covid-19. I say soft because of the many, many people who came down with the virus and lost much more than me. Me, I got laid off unexpectedly. From one day to another, my executive salary disappeared. Like millions of Americans who live paycheck to pa...

Today, my nails tell the tale of the One animal we are - a collective of humans within a surreal chapter of life. Look at them. Look at us. Growing. Changing. Shedding our polish. Unbecoming. Becoming real. Below the hard, shiny shell - showing the world who we are. Transparent and vulnerable. Hones...

I am writing to you wrapped in blankets, cradled on a hammock under pine trees, in the middle of an East Texas forest.  The air is chill, the sky is deep blue and my cellphone has zero bars. Zero. It’s bliss. You have permission to mildly hate me.

I brought myself to a retreat in the woods to welco...

I have to confess—I am feeling a bit off this Sunday morning as I write this. I over-indulged last night, and my body is feeling the effects. As my alarm went off at 7 am, I had a moment of panic as I realized my head hurt and my body felt a little off. Had I drank last night?

In the interlude betw...

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. This guide is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If your symptoms are acute, call 911.   

As we step out of addiction, we all go through moments where we feel a deep craving for the substance/behavior that was the source of our addi...

The first time I got sober in 2009, my idea of “recovery” only pertained to my drinking. I didn’t see any other issue to personally recover from, other than the very clear toxic relationship I had with Cabernet (and Merlot, Chardonnay, Stella and all that gang). So long as I could find a way to stop...