Addiction Unlimited Podcast

You’ve put a lot of time and energy into trying to quit drinking. And yet, somehow, you keep ending up right back where you started.

You’ve listened to the podcasts, downloaded the worksheets, tried the challenges, and maybe even joined a recovery community or two.

And still, you can’t stay sober.

So naturally, you start wondering if you just haven’t found the right program yet.

But here’s something that might change the way you look at your recovery.

The program isn’t the deciding factor. YOU are.

I’ve been sober for 20 years, and I’ve spent those 20 years in AA. I love it.

And I love all the other programs, too.

I love the people, the laughter, the support, and everything I’ve learned.

And,  AA doesn’t have a monopoly on recovery.

A program can give you the tools, the structure, the people, and the support.

But YOU have to decide what you’re going to do with all of it.

And we’re also going to talk about something that might ruffle a few feathers: the difference between a program that genuinely isn’t right for you and one that simply makes you uncomfortable.

Because those are not the same thing.

In this episode, we’re talking about why choosing a recovery program doesn’t have to be so complicated, what actually moves you from not drinking into real recovery, and why you might be spending more time evaluating your options than actually using them.

If you’ve been searching for the thing that’s finally going to make sobriety click, this is a conversation you’ll want to hear.

 

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Related Episode:  You’re Not Doing the Work – You’re Just Watching Other People Do It

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Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the full transcript of this episode.
Angela (00:20.718)

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Addiction Unlimited. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. Can you get sober without AA? Absolutely. 100%. You can get sober with AA, without AA, with a therapist, with a coach, with an online community, or with any number of different programs and resources. And you can also participate in every single one of those things.

And continue drinking. Because here’s something I want you to understand. The program isn’t the deciding factor. You are. And this is something we don’t talk about nearly enough in the recovery world. People are constantly searching for the thing that’s finally gonna make them stop drinking.

Angela (01:16.236)

The perfect program, the perfect meeting, the perfect podcast, the perfect approach that somehow makes everything click. And I understand that. When you’re struggling with alcohol, you are desperate for something to work. And if you’ve been trying to quit drinking for a while, you know how frustrating this can be. You find something that sounds

Promising, you get excited, you feel motivated, you think maybe this is finally going to be the thing that helps you stop drinking. And then somehow you end up right back where you started. So you start looking for the next thing. But what if the problem isn’t that you haven’t found the right program? What if there’s something else happening that you haven’t even recognized yet?

If you’ve been trying to quit drinking for months or years and you keep finding yourself right back where you started, this is a conversation you’ll want to hear.

I’ve worked with thousands of people over the years, and one thing I see constantly is people moving from one solution to the next. They listen to all the sobriety podcasts, they sign up for free challenges, they download the worksheets, they join online communities, they try the 30-day reset, the 90-day challenge, the year-long things, a new course, a new method, and they continue drinking. Then they decide whatever they tried didn’t work.

So they go looking for something else. And listen, I’m a coach. I have courses. I have a recovery community. I have resources and worksheets. I believe in these things because I’ve seen how incredibly valuable they can be. And I’m 20 years sober with zero relapses. Obviously, my way works. I know exactly what it takes to stay sober and recovery.

Angela (03:14.486)

I know exactly what it takes to stay sober and recover. I also know what all these resources and programs can’t do. They can’t make your decisions for you. They can’t make you tell the truth. They can’t make you show up when you don’t feel like showing up. They can’t make you change your routine or have difficult conversations or take responsibility for the choices you’re making.

They can give you information, structure, education, accountability, and support. But you have to use those things. You have to make the decision not to drink. And then you have to keep making decisions throughout your day that support that decision. You either make choices that move you closer to sobriety or you make choices that keep you connected to drinking. And those choices add up.

Now, I’m not saying it’s easy. Addiction is complicated. There are physical and psychological, emotional, behavioral components, and some people need different components as part of their recovery. But there’s a difference between needing help and expecting help to do everything for you. A program can support your recovery.

Angela (04:40.448)

A program can support your recovery. It can’t build your recovery for you.

Angela (05:07.308)

And if you’re constantly looking for a different program instead of examining what you’re doing with the resources you already have, then no program is going to work for you, right? And this is why people put entirely too much emphasis on which program they’re going to choose, because they start believing that if they can just find the right one, everything will finally fall into place. But that’s not how any of this works.

You can sit in an AA meeting every single day and continue drinking. You can hire an incredible coach and ignore every single suggestion they make. You can join the greatest recovery community on the planet and never participate. You can buy all the courses, download all the resources, and listen to every podcast available. And none of it has to change a single thing about your life because information.

Isn’t transformation. What you do with the information is what changes your life. And that’s true no matter which program you choose.

Angela (06:19.412)

Here’s something else I’ve noticed. People will spend an extraordinary amount of time researching recovery programs. They’re comparing philosophies, reading reviews, listening to other people’s opinions, and trying to figure out which approach is going to be the best fit. And there’s nothing wrong with learning about your options, right? But at some point, all that research and evaluating can become another way to procrastinate, another way to avoid actually getting started.

Because as long as you’re still deciding, you don’t have to commit. You don’t have to walk into a room full of strangers. You don’t have to tell anybody what’s going on. You don’t have to rearrange your schedule or make uncomfortable changes. You can just keep looking for the perfect solution. And because you’re doing something related to sobriety, it feels productive. But researching recovery isn’t the same thing as participating in recovery.

And I think people get those two things confused all the time. You don’t have to figure out which program you’re going to attend for the rest of your life. You don’t have to understand every principle or agree with every concept before you begin. You just need a place to start. And if you don’t like where you start, you can change it. You’re an adult. You get to make decisions. But you have to stop treating the decision about where you’re going to sit.

as though it’s more important than what you’re actually willing to do once you get there. Because it’s not.

Now let’s talk about the things that actually matter, because there are certain qualities and behaviors that are fundamental to building lasting recovery. And these things don’t belong to AA. They don’t belong to recovery Dharma or Smart Recovery or a therapist or a sobriety coach. They’re things you have to bring to the table, no matter what recovery approach you choose. And the first one is honesty.

Angela (08:26.006)

Rigorous honesty. If there’s one principle I believe is absolutely fundamental to recovery, it’s honesty. And not just being honest with other people, I’m talking about being honest with yourself.

Angela (08:59.235)

You have to be willing to identify the reality of your situation. If you cannot drink alcohol without creating problems in your life, you have to acknowledge that. Not negotiate with it, not minimize it, not keep searching for some magical set of circumstances where drinking will suddenly become manageable. You have to stop lying to yourself about what’s happening. You have to be honest that you need support.

And yes, I know you might be independent. I know you’re smart and successful and perfectly capable of handling all kinds of difficult things in your life. But being capable doesn’t mean you don’t need help. You have to be honest that you’re not perfect. You have to be honest that recovery requires time and effort. And if you constantly blow off recovery activities because something more convenient or interesting comes along, you need to be honest about that too.

Don’t tell yourself you’re doing everything you possibly can when you’re not. Don’t confuse thinking about sobriety with actually working on sobriety. And one of the biggest things, you have to get honest about who you actually are versus who you want everyone to think you are. Because a lot of people out here are more invested in protecting their image.

Them protecting their future. And at some point, you have to decide which one matters more. Are you committed to getting sober? Or are you committed to making sure nobody knows you have a drinking problem? And here’s my point: AA can teach you about rigorous honesty. A therapist can help you recognize patterns of denial. A coach can challenge the stories you’re telling yourself, but nobody can force you to be honest. That’s your responsibility.

And if you’re not willing to confront the truth, it doesn’t matter what program you’re attending.

Angela (11:03.358)

The next thing is willingness. And this is one of the biggest differences I see between people who continue struggling and people who start making meaningful progress. In AA, we have a phrase I absolutely love: the gift of desperation. It’s that point where the fear of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of changing. And when someone reaches that point, their attitude changes. I’ve seen this.

Thousands of times. When someone is still resisting, every suggestion is met with an explanation of why it won’t work. I can’t do that because of my schedule. I tried that before. My husband wouldn’t understand. I’m not comfortable talking in groups. I don’t have time. I don’t think that’s right for me. There’s always an obstacle, right? But when someone becomes genuinely willing, the entire conversation changes.

Instead of telling me they’ve tried something before and it didn’t work, people will say, like, I’ve tried that before, but I’m willing to try again. Instead of saying they can’t talk to their spouse, they’ll say, I don’t really know how to have that conversation. Can you help me figure that out? You see the difference there? They stop supporting their limitations and start looking for solutions. Their life circumstances haven’t necessarily changed. Their job hasn’t changed, family hasn’t changed, schedule hasn’t changed.

What changed is their willingness. And that’s something no recovery program can manufacture for you. A program can give you suggestions. It can introduce new ways of thinking and behaving. It can provide people who encourage you to keep trying. But it cannot make you willing. You have to decide whether you’re going to keep defending all the reasons something won’t work.

Or start looking for ways to make it work.

Angela (13:04.838)

And you don’t have to wait until your entire life falls apart to make that decision. You can start right now. Here’s another one: taking responsibility for your own recovery. Because a recovery program isn’t following you around all day making your decisions. AA doesn’t decide whether you go to the liquor store after work. Your coach doesn’t decide whether you keep hanging out with your drinking friends in drinking environments.

Your therapist doesn’t decide whether you have that uncomfortable

Your therapist doesn’t decide whether you have that uncomfortable conversation with your spouse. And your recovery community doesn’t decide whether you show up for a meeting or spend another night sitting on the couch drinking. You make those decisions. And yes, addiction can make those decisions extraordinarily difficult. That’s one reason support and treatment can be so important. But the support doesn’t eliminate your responsibility.

To participate in the process. You have to make time for your recovery. You have to use the tools you’re learning. You have to be willing to examine your behavior and make different choices. And this is where people get stuck. They want to stop drinking, but they don’t want anything else to change. They want to keep the same friends, the same activities, the same routines, the same relationships, and the same lifestyle.

And on top of that, they don’t want anybody to know they’re struggling with alcohol in the first place. They want to quietly stop drinking, keep everything looking exactly the same on the outside, make sure nobody notices what they’re going through. They don’t want questions, they don’t want conversations, and they certainly don’t want anyone thinking they have a drinking problem. They just want to remove the alcohol without disrupting anything else in their lives. And I understand why that sounds appealing, but here’s the problem.

Angela (15:08.278)

Nothing changes if nothing changes. You can’t continue doing everything the same way and expect a completely different outcome. And no program is gonna magically change those things for you. It’s your life. You are the one that has to live it differently.

Angela (15:44.812)

And this is where I think it’s important to understand the difference between sobriety and recovery, because simply not drinking is one thing. But learning how to live without alcohol is something much bigger. You can remove alcohol from your life and still have all the same unhealthy behaviors, emotional struggles, and relationship patterns that existed when you were drinking.

You can still be dishonest. You can still avoid responsibility. You can still struggle with boundaries, communication, resentment, anger, fear. And this is why recovery is about so much more than putting down a drink. It’s about learning how to handle life. How do you manage stress? How do you deal with disappointment? How do you communicate? How do you tolerate uncomfortable feelings without immediately trying to escape them?

How do you take responsibility when you’ve made mistakes? These are life skills. And if you’ve spent years using alcohol to manage your life, you have to learn or strengthen some of those skills. That’s what recovery helps you do. But again, no program can develop those skills for you without your participation.

Angela (17:05.1)

You can learn about healthy communication in AA, in therapy, in a coaching program, in a recovery community, but eventually you have to go home and actually communicate differently. You can learn about accountability in a meeting, but eventually you have to take accountability for something. You can learn about boundaries, but eventually you have to set one. The program teaches you how. You have to put it into practice.

Angela (17:38.656)

And that’s what moves you from simply not drinking into building a life of recovery. So, what about AA? Let’s talk specifically about Alcoholics Anonymous because I’ve spent 20 years in AA and I have some strong opinions about it. But first of all, I love all the programs, right? I don’t care which one you go to. I just want you to find support and be committed to participating.

It doesn’t matter if you go to AA, Recovery Dharma, Celebrate Recovery, Smart Recovery, or something else. Because it’s not the name of the program that makes the difference. And I want to explain something about my own experience too. When I first started going to AA, I didn’t know anything about the program. All I knew was that’s where people went to not drink. And I wanted to be a person who didn’t drink. It was really that simple.

I wasn’t researching the 12 steps or studying the philosophy behind the program. I just knew I needed to stop drinking, and AA was where people went to get help with that. Now, I was a little freaked out about the religion thing. I’ve got my own religion trauma, but I reminded myself, like Angela, you’re a fucking grown-up, dude. No one can force you to go to church. Just sit down and shut the fuck up. I was perfectly capable of saying no, right?

And that concern wasn’t enough to keep me from doing something that might save my life.

Angela (19:12.502)

And that’s a perfect example of resistance and willingness. I had some fear about the religious aspect. I had preconceived ideas about something I didn’t understand, but I was still willing to go and figure it out because my sobriety was more important than my fear. I wasn’t walking in that room to evaluate everybody else’s beliefs.

I wasn’t there to decide whether I liked the language or the format. I was there to learn how to stay sober. And that’s what mattered.

Angela (19:54.934)

Now, here’s where I’m going to challenge some people because I hear a lot of people confidently declaring that AA doesn’t work for them. And when I start asking questions, I find out like they’ve been to three meetings, or maybe five, maybe 20, who knows? But they’ve never worked the steps, they’ve never had a sponsor, they’ve never meaningfully participated in the program, but they’ve decided it doesn’t work. And I have a problem with that.

Not because everybody needs to attend AA, they don’t, but because you cannot claim to understand something you’ve never actually experienced. You can say you didn’t like the meetings. You can say you felt uncomfortable. You can say the language seemed strange or the spiritual aspects made you nervous. That’s fair. But be honest about what you’re actually describing. You don’t know the program. You know how you felt walking into a few meetings.

And guess what? It’s weird. Of course it’s weird. You’re in a shitty place in your life, confronting something overwhelming and confusing. You feel terrible about yourself. You’re walking into a room full of strangers, doing something you’ve never done before, listening to people talk in a language you don’t understand. You don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t know what to expect. It’s all fucking weird. It’s all uncomfortable. Own that.

Don’t blame it on the program.

And I can say that because I’ve been there. I had reservations too. I was confused too. I was scared to death to walk in those rooms. But I was willing to go and stick around long enough to learn what was actually happening. Because being sober was more important to me than the weirdness. And I think a lot of people are putting entirely too much emphasis on things that.

Angela (21:56.076)

Have very little to do with whether you’re gonna stay sober or not. They get hung up on the language, they get hung up on the word alcoholic, they get hung up on the concept of a higher power. They overthink the steps and what they might require before they even understand what the steps are or why we do them. And meanwhile, they’re losing sight of the reason they went there in the first place to get help with drinking. Right? You don’t have to agree with every person in a recovery meeting.

You don’t have to like every single thing about a program. And you certainly don’t have to make somebody else’s beliefs your own. But you might need to stop evaluating everything around you long enough to pay attention to what you can learn.

Now, if you’ve genuinely explored AA and decided it’s not the right fit, that’s your decision. And yes, people can legitimately have negative experiences. But let’s be clear, negative experiences aren’t exclusive to AA either. People have bad experiences with therapists, coaches, treatment centers, online communities, churches, recovery communities, and everywhere else imaginable.

I’ve had worse experiences at the grocery store than I’ve ever had in AA. Definitely worse experiences with therapists. You’re dealing with human beings, and human beings aren’t perfect. Sometimes you encounter people you don’t connect with. Sometimes you get bad advice. Sometimes you end up in a group that’s just not a good fit. And sometimes those experiences are genuinely harmful, and you absolutely have the right to walk away.

But having a bad experience with one person or one meeting or one group doesn’t automatically mean the entire program is bad. You have to be able to separate your experience with an individual from your understanding of the program itself. Because you can go to another program and have a bad experience too. Some people have really serious issues and struggles, and those people will be in all the programs.

Angela (24:11.948)

And if you decide something isn’t the right fit for you, that’s fine. Find something else. But don’t let one negative experience become your justification for giving up on getting help altogether. Because remember, the goal here isn’t to find a program where you’re never going to be uncomfortable. The goal is to get sober.

Angela (24:43.052)

Now, let me tell you what happened when I stopped worrying about everything I didn’t understand and started participating. I was blown away by the people. I had never experienced anything like it. There was so much love and support and honesty and laughter. People are willing to do extraordinary things for each other.

And there was this overwhelming sense of belonging, right? Here I was sitting in rooms full of people who looked different from me, came from different backgrounds, and had completely different lives and experiences. But every single person who shared said something I could relate to. Every single one of them. Someone would talk about their anger, and I understood. Someone would talk about lying, and I’m like, yep, I get that.

Someone would share about their relationships, their fears, the mistakes they made, or things they were ashamed of. And I understood. And more importantly, I got to hear how people were changing, how they handled situations differently, how they repaired relationships, how they learned to deal with their emotions, how they made mistakes, took responsibility, and healed.

I learned about myself by listening to other people tell the truth about themselves. It was like having a mirror in front of me every day. And I can’t possibly explain how valuable that was because I wasn’t just learning how to stop drinking. I was learning how to be a better person. And at some point, I don’t know, probably around six or eight months into my sobriety, I started understanding something else.

The principles of AA aren’t exclusive to AA. They stole all that shit from other places. We’re talking about principles that have existed for centuries. Ancient philosophy, religion, stoicism, psychology, spiritual traditions, right? It’s honesty, humility, accountability, acceptance, service, self-examination, forgiveness. AA didn’t invent those things.

Angela (27:01.622)

And you don’t have to attend AA to learn them. But here’s what AA did so incredibly well. It took these powerful principles, organized them into a framework, and surrounded them with people who could help you understand and practice them. And then it made all of that accessible for free. I didn’t have to figure out what books to read.

what philosophies to study, which principles mattered, or how to implement them. All I had to do was walk into a room, sit down, shut up, and learn. And I needed that. I would have never figured all those things out by myself. And even if I somehow found the information, I didn’t have the structure or accountability or consistency to put it into practice. That’s what the program gave me.

And here’s the important part.

I didn’t have that experience simply because the letters on the door were A and A. I had that experience because I showed up. I listened. I participated. I was surrounded by people working toward a common goal and I was willing to learn from them. That’s how I was willing to show up. And that’s the part that matters. How you show up. And that kind of growth can happen.

In

Angela (28:35.084)

And that kind of growth can happen in other recovery programs too, because the principles don’t belong to AA, and neither does recovery. You know, there’s something we say in the rooms, you come to quit drinking, you stay for the fellowship. And that’s certainly been true for me. I love alcoholics. We are some of the best people on the planet. We are charming and smart and funny, and we love fiercely.

There’s just something extraordinary about being surrounded by people who truly understand the thing you’ve struggled with. Because alcoholism is a monster. It infiltrates every part of your life. And while people who haven’t experienced it can absolutely love and support you.

There’s a particular understanding that comes from someone who’s lived with that same monster. They understand the mental battles, they understand the shame, they understand the stakes. And most of us don’t get many opportunities in our everyday lives to be surrounded by people who understand that part of us. But in AA, I had rooms full of them. And nothing makes me happier than a room full of alcoholics. The laughter, the love, the honesty.

The absolute ridiculousness of some of our stories. I mean, it’s incredible. And over time, something else happened. I started feeling a sense of responsibility to be there for the next person, especially the next woman. Because I remembered what it felt like to walk through those doors for the first time. I was scared to death, wondering what kind of weirdos I was about to encounter. And

My first meeting was all men at least 25 years older than me, not exactly the environment I was dying for. So, what I wanted was when that next woman walked in the room, I wanted her to see someone like me. Another woman who was happy, who was smiling and laughing, who was comfortable with herself and proud of her sobriety, someone who could help her see that her life wasn’t over.

Angela (30:51.544)

That there was actually something extraordinary waiting for her on the other side of drinking. And for many years, that was an important reason I continued showing up. And that’s one of the beautiful things a recovery community can provide: connection, support, belonging, perspective, and opportunities to help other people. But again,

None of those things are exclusive to AA. You can find extraordinary people in all kinds of recovery communities. And I encourage you to find yours.

But you have to show up and participate if you want to experience those benefits. You can’t sit on the sidelines judging everybody and expect to develop meaningful relationships. You have to be part of it.

Angela (31:41.506)

And I want to touch on one last part of this too, the judging other people in the room. Every week of my life, I’m in a conversation with someone who’s telling me how uncomfortable they are in a meeting with other people who have to be there. And they’re like, Well, there were some other people who had to be there, like court ordered to be there, and I don’t have to be there. Well, so fucking what? It’s not AA’s fault that the court system makes people go there.

It also doesn’t mean that you’re somehow different or better than that person. And lastly, it’s none of your fucking business. It is literally none of your business what anyone else in that room is doing. It’s none of your business if they’re court ordered, if they believe in God, or if they’re gonna be drunk by nightfall. You are there to stop drinking, not to analyze everyone in the room.

and share your super important thoughts and opinions about them. Mind your own business and learn how to love people instead of trying to make yourself feel better by minimizing other people. You are your business, not anyone else.

So let’s come back to where we started. Can you get sober without AA? Absolutely. You can get sober through many different programs and approaches. But here’s what I really want you to understand: the decision about which program to choose is not nearly as important as the decision to actively participate in your own recovery.

People want to know which program has the highest success rate, which meetings are best, which approach is gonna feel the most comfortable, which one has the best philosophy. And I’m not saying those things don’t matter at all. Of course, you want to find support that meets your needs, but you don’t need to turn that decision into a six-month research project while you continue drinking. Find a place to start. Show up, listen, ask questions, learn.

Angela (33:49.494)

And start putting things into practice. And here’s something else you might find interesting. In a 2020

Angela (34:01.224)

In 2020, a major Cochrane review examined 27 studies involving more than 10,000 people to evaluate the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-step facilitation compared to other established treatments. And you know what they found? AA and structured 12-step approaches actually produced higher rates of continuous abstinence.

than other established treatments, including cognitive behavioral therapy. That’s a significant finding. And I think it deserves attention, especially when people are so quick to dismiss AA as outdated or ineffective. AA has a tremendous amount to offer. The structure, the fellowship, the accountability, the opportunity to learn from people who’ve been where you are, and the research supports its effectiveness.

But having access to those things and actually taking advantage of them are two different things. The program can provide the opportunity. You still have to participate. Because no matter where you go, you’re still gonna have to be honest. You’re still gonna have to take responsibility. You’re still gonna have to make time for your recovery. You’re still gonna have to learn how to navigate life without alcohol.

And you’re still gonna have to make decisions that support the life you’re trying to build. No program can eliminate those responsibilities, and no program should have to.

Angela (35:42.604)

Because the whole point of recovery is learning how to live your life differently, learning how to trust yourself, learning how to deal with difficult situations, learning how to manage your emotions, communicate, build relationships, and take care of yourself. And those are the things you need to develop within yourself. With support, absolutely, but you’re the one who has to practice them.

I hope by now you understand why I don’t think choosing a recovery program needs to be nearly as complicated as people make it. I love AA. I love the people, the fellowship, the structure, everything I’ve learned over 20 years. I love all the programs because they all offer the important components of support, learning, love, and accountability.

And I know people can create extraordinary sober lives through a ton of different approaches. What matters is what you’re willing to do. Are you willing to be honest? Are you willing to ask for help? Are you willing to make time? Are you willing to try something unfamiliar? Are you willing to examine your own behavior and make changes? Because those are the things that matter, not the name of the program.

Not whether everybody in the room believes the same things you believe, not whether you love every word they use or every suggestion they make, and not whether the experience is always comfortable.

Angela (37:14.124)

You don’t have to find the perfect program. You have to find a place where you can get support, learn, and start doing the work. And then you have to actually do it. You can sit in AA meetings for the next 20 years and keep drinking. You can work with a coach, attend therapy, join online communities, and buy every sobriety course on the planet and still never change. Because you can’t outsource your recovery. The program doesn’t decide whether you drink.

The program doesn’t decide whether you show up. The program doesn’t decide whether you’re honest with yourself. And the program doesn’t decide whether you’re willing to change your life. You do. So don’t spend so much time deciding where you’re gonna sit and start paying attention to what you’re willing to do once you get there. Because you don’t have to get sober through AA, but you do have to participate in your own recovery.

Because you don’t have to get sober through AA, but you do have to participate in your own recovery. And that’s something no program on the planet can do for you. If you’re tired of going in circles, trying different things, and continuing to end up in the same place, that’s exactly the kind of work I can help you with too. And I have a few different options to choose from. We can look at what’s keeping you stuck, what needs to change, what fits your lifestyle.

Not everyone is appropriate for the same thing. That’s why I have options. But you can book a free call with me and we’ll talk about how to start moving forward. AddictionUlimited.com forward slash call. You don’t have to figure everything out by yourself, but you do have to be willing to show up for yourself. And that is where your recovery begins. Again, addictionunlimited.com forward slash call. That link is always in the show notes.

I love you guys. I hope you’re having a fantastic day. And I will see you next week.

Okay, real question. Have you ever wanted someone to grab breakfast with, or take a class with, and then realized… you honestly don’t know who you’d ask?

Yeah. Why is making friends as an adult so damn awkward—and where are you supposed to meet people?

It gets even weirder when you quit drinking.

You might still love your friends, but you don’t want to spend every Saturday night watching them get drunk.

You want people you can laugh with, and conversations you’ll actually remember the next morning.

You just have no clue where those people are hiding.

And if you’re an introvert like me, someone telling you to “just put yourself out there” probably makes you want to throw your coffee at them.

I get it. I love being home. I need a lot of alone time.

I will never be the girl who walks into a room with her hand out, ready to chat everybody up.

But I’ve also learned that when I’ve gone days without talking to a real human, I need connection too.

And I had to learn how to do that without alcohol.

In this episode, I take you back to my early days in AA, when my anxiety was so bad I’d grab the corner seat and slip out early so nobody could talk to me.

I wanted so badly to stay sober and be comfortable, but I was doing everything I could to be invisible.

So I made a deal with myself to start changing my patterns, and my first step was a lot smaller than starting a conversation.

I also had to admit something kind of embarrassing: people weren’t approaching me in life because I wasn’t approachable.

Head down, sunglasses on, earbuds in, nose in my phone. Apparently that doesn’t say “come say hi.” Who knew? 😂

I’ll tell you how I made two friends, one from my gym and one from a tarot class (yes, really).

We’ll also talk about where to meet people, what to actually say, how you go from “hey, good to see you” to “want to grab breakfast?”, and what to do when someone says no.

You don’t have to turn into an extrovert.

You just have to let people get to know you.

And then you can go home and put your sweatpants on. 💛

Links mentioned in this episode: 

Sober Society Membership: addictionunlimited.com/membership

Book A Call Here: addictionunlimited.com/call

Related Episode:  Guaranteed Results When Your Social Life Is Stalled

Follow me on Instagram: @addictionunlimited

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/addictionunlimited

 

 

Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the full transcript of this episode.

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the Addiction Unlimited podcast. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. Today we’re talking about something that can feel surprisingly difficult when you quit drinking: making friends. Because where the hell are adults supposed to meet people? You’re a grown-up. You have responsibilities and routines in a life that’s already pretty full. You’re not sitting next to somebody in school every day or

Living down the hall from a hundred other people who are also looking for something to do on Friday night. And when you take alcohol out of the picture, you may realize you don’t know what your social life looks like anymore. Maybe you still love your friends, but you don’t want to spend every weekend doing the things you used to do together. Maybe you want someone to have breakfast with or go for a walk, take a class, or have a conversation you’ll actually remember the next day.

You want connection. You just don’t know where to start.

Angela (01:23.47)

And if you’re an introvert or you’ve relied on alcohol to feel comfortable around people, the advice to just put yourself out there probably makes you want to throw something. So today we’re going to get more specific than that. Where do you go? How do you get past the anxiety? What do you say? And how do you build friendships without the liquid courage of alcohol, turning you into an outgoing person who wants to talk to everybody?

And I promise you, this is all possible because I am an extreme introvert. And if I can figure this out, you definitely can. Alone time is a requirement for me. And I require a little more of it than most people do. I also have anxiety. It’s gotten better as I’ve gotten older, but it’ll never be completely gone. So I will never be the person.

Angela (02:24.792)

So I will never be the person who walks into a room with my hand out, like ready to shake hands and introduce myself and make small talk. I would literally rather die. Now, if somebody starts a conversation with me and we connect, I can talk all day long. I think sometimes people confuse introversion with being shy or insecure, uncomfortable with yourself. Those aren’t interchangeable things. I’m very confident.

I just don’t enjoy large groups and small talk.

Angela (03:10.304)

If I’m surrounded by conversations that don’t interest me, I’m probably gonna be quiet because I’m bored to tears. And eventually I’ll fake a headache and get the hell out of there. But when I feel safe with somebody, when I can open up and laugh and have a meaningful conversation, I’m happy to let that person in my bubble.

And I know a lot of you understand that because a lot of my clients are introverts too.

Angela (03:42.124)

You enjoy being home, you like your space, you don’t want plans every night of the week, and a canceled invitation sometimes feels like a little gift from the universe. You can enjoy all of that and still need friends. For me, I can usually tell when I need connection because I start getting irritable, right? I’m working too much, I’m getting overtired, I’m spending too much time in my own little world.

And it doesn’t always announce itself like Angela, you’re lonely. Sometimes it shows up as me needing to get away from my work and connect and laugh with somebody who knows me.

Angela (04:34.062)

Mm mm.

Angela (04:42.552)

For me, I can usually tell when I need connection because I start getting irritable, right? I’m working too much, I’m overtired, and I’m just spending way too much time in my own little world. And it doesn’t announce itself. It’s not like all of a sudden my head goes, Angela, you’re lonely. No, it’s usually that.

Angela (05:07.318)

No, it’s usually that I find myself being bitchy, like every little thing is irritating the shit out of me. And then I have to go through my checklist, right? Halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. That’s always where I start. And I’ll realize, like, holy shit, you know, it’s been three days and I haven’t had human contact. So

Angela (05:32.992)

I need soul food. Connection is soul food. Time with friends I can open up with and be myself. I also know my limits. There’s only so much being out of the house and being around people I can comfortably do in a week. I will hit my limit of being in public and I need to go home and recharge in peace and sweatpants. But that’s the kind of social life I want you thinking about building, one that gives you connection and

fits who you actually are.

Angela (06:07.924)

And there’s a part of this conversation where we have to get honest about our own behavior, right? Because when someone tells me like, I don’t have any sober friends, my first response is, well, you have to go where the sober people are and say hi, right? A bus full of sober people isn’t gonna show up at your house and ask to be your friend. They’re not coming down your street with a breakfast reservation and a seat saved for you. You have to participate. And I say that with love because we can’t stay home all the time.

Bitch about how much we hate people and then whine when we don’t have friends and fun things to do. Pick a fucking lane. It’s one or the other. You either hate the people or you want things to do and have friends. You are perfectly allowed to be a homebody. You can prefer quiet evenings in a small circle. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’re unhappy with how disconnected you feel, you have to look at your decisions and figure out if you’re really trying to make connections at all.

If you decline every invitation, never go anywhere new, and leave every activity before anyone has a chance to talk to you, those choices affect your opportunities to make friends. Own that.

Mm.

Angela (07:39.914)

You don’t control whether a particular person becomes your friend. You do have control over whether you make room to meet people and get to know them. And this matters when we talk about social activities and drinking and anxiety. A lot of people tell me that feeling anxious around others was one of the main reasons they drank. Social situations. Everybody thinks they’re unique that they have social anxiety. You’re not unique.

Almost all of us have it, right? It’s one of the ways alcohol traps us. Alcohol was how you walked into the party, started the conversation, or stopped worrying about what everyone else thinks of you. It allows you to feel like you belong and you’re connected. When you quit drinking, those situations feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I understand why you’d want to avoid them.

But if you keep waiting until you feel completely comfortable before you do anything, you could be waiting a very long time.

Angela (08:44.684)

You really need a manageable place to start. And I mean manageable for you. When I first started going to AA, my anxiety was so bad, I could barely function. I mean, obviously I was brand new sober. I just quit drinking. I’m still in withdrawal and post-acute withdrawal. But I couldn’t not go just because my anxiety was an asshole. I needed to be there. And I knew it would never get easier if I didn’t challenge myself.

Right, because if you left it up to me and my introverted anxious self, I would find the most corner y corner seat in the room, preferably where somebody could not sit next to me.

Angela (09:29.398)

I wouldn’t talk to anyone, and I might leave a little early to make absolutely sure I escaped before the small talk started.

Not because I didn’t want connection. I wanted to feel comfortable with those people, but my anxiety was unbearable. And avoiding everybody was how I got through it.

The problem was I wanted to feel like I belonged.

Angela (10:00.396)

The problem was I wanted to feel like I belonged while doing everything I could to remain invisible. So I had to give myself something small enough that I would actually do it, but challenging enough to start changing my pattern. That’s the crux of recovery, changing your patterns. So I made a deal with myself: make eye contact with one person every day. That was my entire assignment.

I didn’t have to introduce myself or start a conversation. I just had to look at one person instead of looking at the floor and making my way to my little corner.

And it had to be a different person every day. That’s part of it too. I couldn’t just pick one person and eye contact with the same person every day. It had to be a different person. And when that became comfortable, I added the next step: make eye contact and say hi. That’s it. Just hi. I didn’t need to stop and exchange astrological signs and the ages of our children and our entire family fucking histories. Nobody was asking me to become the welcoming committee. I just had to say one word.

And when that got easier, I bumped it up to a few words. How are you? Good to see you. Glad you’re here. And by the time I got to that third step, going to meetings felt so much easier. I wasn’t freaking out every day about to cry. I was looking forward to going in. People knew my name and I felt like I belonged.

Angela (11:29.954)

That connection I wanted finally had some room to happen because I was letting people see me and get to know me a little bit at a time.

I didn’t wait until I felt comfortable to participate. I participated in small ways until I started feeling more comfortable. And that’s what I want you to take from this. Your first step can just be eye contact. It can be one word. You can choose something that stretches you without expecting yourself to handle everything at once. But you have to choose something. Again, you can do nothing or you can do something.

I knew what doing nothing was getting me: a corner seat, an early exit, and probably drunk again. If I wanted connection and sobriety, I had to start making different choices. Something else I had to learn about myself is that people don’t often approach me because I’m not very approachable. And that was a weird little discovery for me.

Angela (12:37.024)

I can want connection all day long, but if my head is down and I’m avoiding eye contact and I look like I don’t want to be bothered, what invitation am I giving somebody to talk to me? And now we have our phones, makes it even worse, right? You can walk into a room full of people and immediately disappear into your screen. You’re physically there, but nobody has any reason to think you’re interested in interacting. And then you go home and say, Nobody talked to me. Well, did you look up? I mean

I had to recognize that in myself. And once I did, I started correcting it. Now I make a point to walk in with my head up, my phone in my pocket, I smile at people, I make eye contact, I pay attention to what’s happening around me instead of staying buried in my phone or lost in my own thoughts. I’m still the same introvert, but I’m giving people a chance to see that I’m open to them.

Because someone across the room can’t know you’re sitting there wishing you had a friend. They can only see what you’re showing them. And if everything about your behavior says leave me alone, they’re gonna leave you alone.

Angela (13:50.368)

I used to always be head down in my phone, sunglasses always on, earbuds in. Of course, connection was challenging. I looked like a weirdo, right? But before you decide nobody ever approaches you, take an honest look at how you show up. Are you making yourself available for conversation? Are you looking at anyone? When someone smiles at you, do you smile back? Those are small things you can start changing right now, today.

And sometimes that’s where you need to begin, creating an opening instead of wondering why no one’s coming in.

Angela (14:46.988)

And that same willingness to take one small step at a time is how you give yourself a chance to make friends outside recovery too. Once you have a manageable way to interact with people, the next question is where do you want to keep showing up? For me, it helps to have something to do, right? I don’t want to walk in a room where my entire assignment is to mingle. That is not fun for me. I need a

purpose, an activity, something to do with my hands, give me a class, something to learn, something I’m interested in. Then I have a reason to be there. And I already have something in common with everyone else in the room. We already have something to talk about.

Angela (15:35.19)

I have a gym friend and we’ve taken the same class together every week for years. We started saying hi, then having short conversations. Eventually, she invited me to breakfast with some of the other women. Then we went to the pool at our gym after class a few times over the summer. We aren’t lifelong besties, but we connect and we really enjoy each other.

And look how that happened. We’re both doing something we enjoyed, seeing each other regularly. We start chatting about our workouts and getting comfortable with each other.

And look how that happened. We’re both doing something we enjoyed, seeing each other regularly. We started chatting about our workouts and getting comfortable with each other. Then someone extended an invitation. That’s something you can create opportunities for in your own life. Pick a class that meets every week, volunteer somewhere regularly, find a walking group or a recovery meeting you can return to. So you have a chance to recognize people and be recognized.

Because if you go somewhere once, don’t talk to anybody and leave saying, well, that didn’t work, what exactly did you give a chance to happen? You walked into a room full of strangers. It may take a few visits before you have someone to say hi to, and a few more before you have a conversation you want to continue. Give yourself and the people around you some time. Another girlfriend of mine I met in a tarot class.

I love all things, spirituality, the universe, the stars, the signs. And I had a growing curiosity about tarot. And I thought it’d be fun to learn more about it. And I am a person who literally wants to know everything. Like there’s almost nothing on the planet I don’t want to learn more about. So I found a class and I signed up.

Angela (17:29.238)

We sat next to each other every Sunday for six weeks. By the second or third week, we decided to get something to eat after class. Then we started doing that after every class. And now we’re fantastic friends. That friendship started because I followed my curiosity and actually signed up for something. So think about what interests you. What would you enjoy learning? What have you wanted to try? What’s something you used to love that you haven’t made time for?

And choose an activity that you will enjoy even if you don’t make a friend immediately, right? You’ll have a reason to go back. And while you’re there, you’ll be around people who share at least one of your interests.

Angela (18:16.346)

And if what you specifically need is sober friends, go where sober people gather. Recovery meetings, sober communities, alcohol-free activities. These give you an opportunity to meet people who understand that part of your life. There’s a lot of comfort being around people who get it, where you don’t have to explain why you aren’t drinking or wonder if you’re going to spend the whole night watching everyone else get drunk.

You can also make friends through your work, through gym, the classes.

You can also make friends through work or the gym, classes, other interests, other parents you meet through your kids’ events and sports and school things. Your social life can include people who don’t share your recovery experience, but still respect your sobriety completely.

Angela (19:11.97)

Think about what you want to spend time doing and who you enjoy doing it with. You’re building a life and there’s room for different people in it. Now, once you meet somebody you like, there’s another little step you have to take too. You know how I went from eye contact to hi and then a few words. Well, this is another version of that. You’ve had some conversations, you enjoy each other. Now you can give that connection somewhere to go.

With my gym friend, she invited me to breakfast. With my friend from Tarot, we decided to get food after class. You can do that too. Say to your person, hey, do you want to grab something to eat after class? Or when you’ve been talking for a few minutes and having some laughs, this has been really fun. We should grab coffee sometime. You’re suggesting a little more time together. You don’t have to figure out whether you’re gonna be friends for the next 30 years before you have breakfast.

And I know there’s some vulnerability there. You’re letting somebody know you like them without knowing exactly how they’ll respond. But the other person may be just as hesitant to ask you. And if you both are waiting for the other person to make a move, you could spend the next six months smiling at each other across the parking lot.

Angela (20:36.438)

And if both of you are waiting for the other person to make a move, you could spend the next six months smiling at each other across the fucking parking lot. Somebody has to offer the invitation. And if they can’t make it, give yourself a minute before you turn that into a story about how they don’t like you. People have schedules, kids, jobs, and things you don’t know about.

One declined invitation doesn’t tell you everything about how they feel. Listen, I’ve gone through a couple of years of life struggles that no one could see on the surface, and I declined a ton of invitations. Not because I didn’t want to go or I didn’t want to spend time with someone, but because I had health stuff going on and I had no energy, and my stress level was astronomical. Give people room to have their own stuff.

Without making it all about you. You can suggest another time or see if they offer one. If there’s consistently no interest or effort coming back, put your energy elsewhere. Friendship needs participation from both people.

I also want you to leave room for friendships that look different from one another. I’ve told you how much I value deep connection. I need people I can open up to and laugh with and people I feel safe letting into my bubble. I also value my gym friend. We enjoy each other. We have fun together. That friendship adds something good to my life. You may have someone you love walking with, someone you have breakfast with, someone you call when you’re having a hard day.

Some of those friendships may deepen over time. Others may stay centered on something you both enjoy. They all have value. If you expect every person you meet to immediately feel like your life

Angela (22:49.632)

If you expect every person you meet to immediately feel like your long-lost soul sister, you could overlook some really good connections. This was huge for me in early sobriety. I went to coffee and lunch and dinners after meetings with all kinds of people, most of them probably 20 or 30 years older than me. We don’t have to have every single lifestyle thing in common to enjoy a coffee and great conversation.

People are amazing and smart and funny, especially alcoholics. We are the most amazing and smart and funny. And I learned a lot from those coffees and lunches. We didn’t need to pledge our lifelong love for each other and exchange friendship bracelets.

Angela (23:41.08)

We didn’t need to pledge our lifelong love for each other and exchange friendship bracelets. We could still enjoy one another, spend a little time together, and learn from each other. Let yourself enjoy someone without deciding right away you need them to be your new BFF. And when you do find people you enjoy, make some room for them. Answer the message, follow up when you said you would, suggest a plan occasionally.

Let the other person know you want to spend time with them too. You can do that while respecting your limits. I’m still an introvert. I still need plenty of time at home. I hit a point where I am done being in public. Knowing that about myself helps me make plans I actually want to keep.

Angela (24:37.004)

Know yourself, right? You can meet one person instead of joining a large group. You can have breakfast after a class you’re already attending. You can spend an hour together and then go home. You don’t need to fill every empty space on your calendar. You do need to give friendship some space if you want it to grow. So let’s come back to the question how do you make friends when you don’t drink? Go where you have a chance to meet people.

Include sober spaces when you need that shared understanding and follow interests that put you around like-minded people. Keep going back. Give yourself time to become familiar with people instead of deciding after one anxiety-ridden visit that it didn’t work.

And if talking feels overwhelming, remember where I started. Eye contact. Then hi. Then good to see you. Choose something you’re willing to practice and build from there. When you meet someone you like, help the connection move forward. Offer an invitation, accept an invitation, and follow through. Let those friendships develop without expecting every person to become your closest friend.

That’s how you start creating a social life that fits you, one where you have people to laugh with, things to look forward to, or somewhere you feel like you belong. You can be an introvert and have that. You can love your alone time and have that, but you have to participate in building it. This week, choose one step and follow through. If you’ve been avoiding every opportunity to meet people, choose somewhere to go. If you’re already going but hiding in your corner,

Practice letting someone see you. If you found someone you enjoy, ask them to grab coffee. Make your next step specific enough that you know whether you’ve done it. And if you’re looking for a place to start connecting with other people in sobriety, that’s part of why I created Sober Society. It gives you a place to show up regularly and get to know people who are also building their lives without alcohol. And when you join, give us a chance to get to know you.

Angela (26:58.51)

Come to a meeting, say hi, respond to someone in the community and keep coming back. And you’ll also have the member hub where we work on the everyday challenges of building a life you enjoy without alcohol. You can learn more about sober society membership at addictionunlimited.com forward slash membership. That link is always in the show notes. Addictionunlimited.com forward slash membership.

I know how much easier it can feel to stay in your own little world, but I also know what it meant to walk into a room I used to be terrified of and hear somebody say my name. Give yourself a chance to have that feeling. And then afterward, you can go home and put on your sweatpants.

Angela (27:50.806)

And remember too, if you want help with all of these things, all of these changes, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, if you’re done screwing around with trying and you’re ready to actually make some progress and have some support and have people to laugh with.

Book a call to talk about us working together. You know, we’ll see if we’re a good fit. And if we are, we can get started immediately. I actually have, I think I have two openings for private coaching right now. And you can book a call with me at addictionunlimited.com forward slash call. That link is always in the show notes and always in your weekly podcast emails if you’re on my email list. Addictionunlimited.com forward slash call.

I love you guys. I want you to have so many friends you don’t know what to do with all of them. And to do that, we have to be a little braver and step up and step into our lives and do what we have to do to create those friendships and those spaces.

Angela (28:58.508)

I hope you’re having a fantastic day, and I will see you next week.

Why do recovery communities tell you not to date or make major life changes during your first year sober?

Because getting sober isn't just about learning how to live without alcohol. It's about learning how to handle your feelings without it.

And when you're newly sober, those feelings can be ALL OVER THE PLACE.

You're dealing with boredom, loneliness, insecurity, and a whole lot of emotions you may not even know how to identify yet. Then someone comes along, and suddenly life feels exciting again!

But dating brings its own emotional roller coaster. Rejection, jealousy, uncertainty, disappointment, and heartbreak can be overwhelming when you're still learning how to manage everyday life without drinking.

In this episode, we're talking about why dating in early sobriety can be especially challenging, why major life changes can threaten your stability, and how giving yourself time to build confidence and coping skills can make all the difference.

Because the goal isn't to avoid big feelings. It's to learn how to handle them without alcohol.

About to give up, reach for a drink, or follow the same old pattern? Angela shares how a split-second choice can change your direction—and why the victory starts before you know the outcome.

How do you know if you actually have a drinking problem?

You make rules about when you’ll drink. You negotiate how many you’re going to have. You promise yourself tonight will be different. You replay last night trying to figure out exactly what happened. You take breaks, make new rules, Google questions, take quizzes, compare yourself to other people—and somehow alcohol keeps requiring more and more of your attention.

At some point, that’s worth looking at.

In this episode of Addiction Unlimited, we’re getting away from arbitrary drinking counts and labels and looking at something far more revealing: your actual relationship with alcohol.

In this episode, we’re getting away from labels and arbitrary drinking counts and looking at something far more useful: your actual relationship with alcohol.

Is it really a drinking problem?

The surprisingly revealing question that has nothing to do with how much or how often you drink

Why taking 30 days off alcohol may not prove what you think it proves

The difference between having a plan for the night and actually being in control of what happens

When researching your drinking stops giving you answers—and starts becoming part of the answer

And after all the research, analyzing and comparing—you already have enough information—you just have to be willing to do something with it.

Because sometimes the amount of work you’re doing to prove alcohol isn’t a problem tells you more than another quiz ever will.

You don’t have to decide what to call yourself today. You don’t need the perfect label or one more piece of evidence. You can simply acknowledge that your relationship with alcohol isn’t working anymore—and let that be enough truth to take the next step.

 

Links mentioned in this episode: 

Book A Call Here: addictionunlimited.com/call

Sober Society Membership: addictionunlimited.com/membership

Related Episode:  Why Am I An Alcoholic – the Bio-Psycho-Social Truth About Addiction

Follow me on Instagram: @addictionunlimited

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/addictionunlimited

 

 

Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the full transcript of this episode.
455 Transcript

Angela (00:07.374)

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Addiction Unlimited podcast. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. How do I know if I actually have a drinking problem? This is probably one of the most common questions people ask themselves when they start getting uncomfortable with their drinking. Am I really an alcoholic? Do I actually have a problem? Or am I just drinking a little too much right now? Maybe I just need to cut back. Maybe I need to take a break.Maybe I should stop drinking during the week and only drink on weekends. We will create an entire strategic plan around drinking before we’ll sit down and ask ourselves the most obvious question. What the hell is going on with me and alcohol? And here’s the first thing I want you to understand. I am not going to give you a diagnostic quiz today. I’m not interested in do you drink X number of drinks on X number of nights?

Have you had X number of consequences? Check seven boxes and congratulations, here’s your label. That’s not how I look at this. And I never tell people.

Angela (01:52.102)

And I never tell people they’re alcoholics. First of all, way too many people can’t handle that word. We have some very delicate sensitivities these days. And I’m a little different about that stuff. I am a no BS human. Tell me the truth so I can figure out the solution. I don’t need you to beat around the bush or hold my hand or find the softest, prettiest language possible.

If I’m trying to fix a major problem in my life, I just let’s get on with it. I don’t particularly care what we call it. I care about how I’m fucking up and what I need to do to stop fucking up. I also understand that not everybody feels that way. So when somebody says to me, I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic, I think maybe I just drink too much sometimes. The first thing I notice is that they’re asking the question.

at all because that tells me something has shifted.

Angela (03:02.24)

You are questioning your connection with alcohol because somewhere along the way you felt that relationship start to change. You probably can’t even pinpoint exactly when it happened. You just know you’re thinking about alcohol more than you used to. You’re relying on it in ways you didn’t before. You’re planning around it, recovering from it, wondering about it, worrying about it. And there’s this little voice in the back of your head saying.

Something about this doesn’t feel right anymore. And that’s usually when we start asking the question. Then here’s what happens next.

Almost immediately after someone tells me they’re wondering if they have a drinking problem, they start giving me all the reasons they don’t. I don’t drink every day. I’ve never had a DUI, I don’t drink in the morning, I have a good job, my kids are taken care of, I don’t hide bottles, I can go days without drinking. And I’m just listening. Because here’s the thing: if an idea is completely preposterous to you.

You don’t have to build a defense against it. If somebody said to me, Angela, I think you might secretly be a six foot four professional basketball player. I’m not gonna spend the next three hours Googling the average height of WNBA players and gathering evidence to prove I’m not, right? I’m gonna say that’s absurd. And then I’m gonna move on with my life. When something happens,

Clearly doesn’t apply to us. We don’t usually have to convince ourselves that it doesn’t apply. So when you’ve built an entire defense around why you’re definitely not an alcoholic, I’m interested in why you need the defense in the first place. And I think part of the reason people fight this so hard is because they’re not only fighting a conclusion about alcohol.

Angela (05:07.69)

They’re fighting what they believe that conclusion says about them.

To a lot of people, the word alcoholic means, I’m not even really sure, weak, I guess, broken, irresponsible, a bad parent, a bad partner, a failure, somebody who can’t get their shit together. So sometimes when you’re fighting the possibility that you’re an alcoholic, you’re not even protecting alcohol. You’re protecting your identity. You’re saying

I’m successful, I’m responsible, I’m a good person, I take care of my family. I’m not that. And somewhere along the way, you’ve decided that being a person with an alcohol problem is incompatible with all those other things. I don’t see it that way at all. I wear the label alcoholic as a badge of honor.

Angela (06:06.112)

I wear the label alcoholic as a badge of honor. I have a tremendous amount of pride in being an alcoholic because to me, the word represents something I survived, confronted, and overcame. I’ve dealt with something that most people aren’t equipped to handle, recognize, and least of all have the balls to actually do something about it. And I’ve always been a little different in that way.

Even when I was drinking, I knew I was an alcoholic. There was nothing normal about how I drank.

But I lived in Los Angeles for many, many years. There were sober people everywhere, successful people, powerful people, celebrities. I had plenty of evidence around me that being sober didn’t mean your life was over, and being an alcoholic didn’t mean you were a loser, right? So I wore my alcoholism as a badge of honor.

Angela (07:12.556)

What embarrassed me wasn’t that I was an alcoholic. What embarrassed me was that I couldn’t handle my life. I was high functioning too. I could work, I made money, I could show up and perform and take care of all the things. But emotionally, I wasn’t growing. I couldn’t cope with my own feelings. I wasn’t advancing in life. Like I was just stuck. And drinking was the thing I used.

So I didn’t have to deal with any of it. That’s why I’m not particularly interested in convincing anyone to use the word alcoholic. I love the label. You don’t have to. The label isn’t the fucking point, right? The point is what is actually happening in your life, and are you willing to tell yourself the truth about it? Because I think one of the reasons people stay.

Angela (08:20.962)

Because one of the reasons people stay confused about this for so long is that we’re looking in the wrong place. We’re obsessed with quantity. How many drinks do I have? How many nights a week do I drink? How many drinks does an alcoholic have? Can an alcoholic go days without drinking? Can an alcoholic only drink on weekends? Can an alcoholic do dry January? And those questions can give you information for sure.

But they don’t tell me nearly as much as people think they do. I want to know about your relationship with alcohol. How much mental real estate is it taking up? How much of your time is spent thinking about drinking, planning drinking, actually drinking, or recovering from drinking? Because I had three stages of life. I was thinking about it, doing it, or recovering from it. There wasn’t much room for anything else.

And that’s what I want you to look at in your own life, because maybe you don’t drink every day, but you’re thinking about it every day. Maybe you’re making rules about when you can drink, breaking the rules, creating new rules, counting drinks, checking how much wine is left before people come over, wondering whether you need another bottle just in case.

Angela (09:40.748)

Maybe you wake up the next morning trying to reconstruct the night before. Like, how many did I have? Was it five or was it six? Did anybody notice? Was I too loud? Did I say anything stupid? And then by afternoon, you’re already negotiating with yourself about tonight. I’m not drinking tonight. Except you’re going out. So maybe you’ll have two. You’ll be good tonight. You’ll drink water between drinks, you’ll leave early.

And now you’re conducting a forensic investigation into Friday night while simultaneously negotiating the terms of Saturday night. Look at how much work that takes.

Angela (10:23.052)

Because all the things sneaking, minimizing, planning, counting, defending, negotiating, recovering, making rules and renegotiating new rules, those are not isolated behaviors. They’re an ecosystem. Alcohol has become important enough in your life that you’re having to manage your relationship with it. That’s what I want you to look at.

Not whether somebody on the internet says six drinks makes you an alcoholic and five doesn’t. Look at how much of your life revolves around managing alcohol.

And if you want an interesting comparison, watch somebody who genuinely has an uncomplicated relationship with alcohol. These fucking weirdos don’t think about it at all. They’re not obsessing about whether or not they’re gonna drink tonight. They’re not freaking out about dinner with friends because they don’t know what they’re gonna drink. They’re not looking at the restaurant menu three days in advance to make sure they have mocktails. They simply don’t care.

What’s in their glass? If somebody offers them a drink and they don’t want one, they say, no thanks, and that’s it.

No internal crisis, no elaborate explanation, no concern about whether everybody is gonna think they’re weird. They don’t want to drink, so they don’t have one.

Angela (11:55.894)

And here’s another thing these weirdos do. They don’t finish their drinks. Like, what the fuck is that? They sip. They leave half of it sitting on the table. They forget about it. Meanwhile, we’re watching the level in the glass and calculating whether the server’s going to be back here fast enough because we’re going to need another one. They’re not wondering whether there’s going to be alcohol at the party or the neighborhood barbecue or the camping trip.

They go camping to actually camp and enjoy their friends and family, not as an excuse to sit and drink in a different location. Alcohol has no gravitational pull for them. It doesn’t require management because it simply isn’t that important.

Angela (12:56.854)

And that is a much more interesting thing for you to examine than whether or not you drank three nights or four this week.

Angela (13:07.98)

And there’s another piece of this that I think is even more important, and that’s control. Because people love to tell me they can go days or weeks without alcohol and not even really think about it. Okay, a lot of us can stop for periods of time. We are fairly defiant people by nature. And especially if somebody tells us we can’t do something, boy, nothing will make me act like a toddler.

faster than feeling like somebody’s telling me what to do.

So if your spouse gives you a little shit about how much you drink, it doesn’t surprise me at all that you would go, okay, bitch, watch this, and quit for months, even. Because we are defiant and rebellious and we’re control freaks. So if you tell me in some way that you’re paying attention to my drinking, which means you’re trying to control how I’m drinking, of course I’m gonna do something major to prove you wrong. Honestly.

A decent amount of my resolve in sobriety came from spite because it was me against alcohol and I wasn’t fucking losing. Period.

Angela (14:24.586)

One of the realizations I had in my own rock bottom moment was that alcohol was controlling me. It was controlling my choices, my behavior, my chaos and consequences. And that pisses me off. I don’t like being told what to do by anyone. And as soon as I understood that alcohol was running the show, that fueled my fire in a huge way to stay sober because I am the boss of me, not alcohol.

So, yes, you may absolutely be able to decide not to pick up the first drink for thirty days or sixty days or however many days, but that’s not the only kind of control.

Angela (15:11.17)

But that’s not the kind of control I’m interested in. I want you to think about

Angela (15:21.868)

I want you to think about the last few times you drank before you had the first drink. Maybe you told yourself how you wanted the night to go, right? We love to do that. I’m only gonna have a couple, I’m gonna leave by 10, I have a workout tomorrow. So I’m definitely not gonna get crazy tonight. And here’s what I want you to notice. How much confidence do you actually have in that plan? Not how badly you want it to happen, not whether you’ve successfully done it before.

But when you put that first drink to your lips, do you know with certainty how the night’s gonna end? Or are you just crossing your fingers? Because those are two very different things. Are you having one drink? Or are you having a drink and hoping everything goes okay? Because hope is not control. Maybe tonight you have two and go home. Maybe tonight you have six.

Maybe you’re home by 10, maybe it’s two in the morning. Maybe you remember everything, maybe there are fuzzy parts. Maybe you’re perfectly pleasant all night long. Maybe you get a little too loud and develop a little attitude with somebody you secretly don’t like. Maybe you get home, wash your makeup off, get everything ready for tomorrow, get to bed, and make your workout in the morning. Or maybe

You wake up with a headache, cancel everything you planned, and spend half the day trying to piece together the night before while guilt and anxiety eat you alive. The question isn’t whether the worst case scenario happens every time. The question is whether you know which version you’re getting before you take that first drink.

Angela (17:18.786)

The question isn’t whether the worst case scenario happens every time. The question is whether you know which version you’re getting before you take that first drink. If you don’t know, that’s the part I want you to pay attention to. That’s the loss of control I’m talking about. And frequency doesn’t answer that question. But I only drink on weekends. Okay, but what happens when you drink on weekends?

I only drink a couple times a month. Okay. What happens those couple times a month? You could drink once a year. And if every time you take that first drink, you have no idea whether you’re gonna have two or 12, whether you’re home at 10 or 2, whether you remember the whole night or wake up wondering what the fuck happened, that’s worth paying attention to. Not quantity, predictability. And while you’re looking at that.

Stop using other people’s drinking to answer questions about yours. I hear this stuff all the time. My husband drinks way more than I do. My sister drinks every night. My friend gets way drunker than me. At least I’ve never blacked out. Okay. I was a raging alcoholic. I didn’t black out either. You can count on one hand the number of times I blacked out in 15 years of daily drinking.

I didn’t drink alone. I didn’t drink in the morning. And it took me 14 years to get a DUI. If I had picked any one of those arbitrary behaviors as the offensive

Angela (19:03.798)

If I had picked any one of those arbitrary behaviors as the official benchmark for alcoholism, I could have built a very compelling case that I was doing just fine. And I wasn’t. How much or how often somebody else drinks has absolutely nothing to do with your relationship with alcohol. There are probably plenty of people around you who have drinking problems.

It’s really none of your business. Your business is your drinking problem.

My mom doesn’t drink at all. Oddly, that had no impact on how much I drank, right? So stop looking sideways and just look at yourself.

Angela (20:04.856)

So, how do you know if you actually have a drinking problem? If you’ve been asking this question repeatedly, you’ve probably done some research. You’ve Googled it, you’ve taken the quizzes, you’ve read the articles and listened to the podcasts, and you’ve looked up how many drinks qualify as alcoholism. You’ve compared yourself to people who drink more than you do. And here’s what I want you to notice about that process. What happens when you get an answer?

You don’t like? Do you stop or do you keep searching? Because last week we talked about resistance.

Angela (20:52.908)

Because on last week’s episode, we talked about resistance and how when we don’t like the answer we’re getting, we just keep searching for a different answer. And this is what resistance can look like in real life. It doesn’t always look like somebody sitting on the couch saying, I refuse to deal with this. Sometimes resistance looks incredibly productive. You’re researching, you’re reading, you’re listening, you’re analyzing, you’re busy as hell, but you’re not moving. The searching

looks like problem solving, but it’s really procrastination dressed up as problem solving. Because think about it, if somebody finally looked at you and said, with everything you’ve told me,

If somebody finally looked at everything you’ve told them and said, nope, you’re fine. You absolutely do not have a drinking problem, would you believe them? I don’t think you would. Because somewhere underneath all the noise, you already know the truth. Even if you’re a master of denial, you know when something isn’t right. That’s why you’re Googling it in the first place.

Angela (22:09.304)

People who have an uncomplicated relationship with alcohol aren’t repeatedly searching, am I an alcoholic? Because alcohol doesn’t have enough presence in their lives for them to wonder whether it’s out of control. So when you’re sitting in a pile of evidence and continuing to search for more evidence, eventually we have to ask, what are you actually looking for?

Angela (22:40.588)

Because sometimes you’re actually stalling. Because knowing creates responsibility. So as long as you’re still quote unquote figuring it out, you can stay exactly where you are. You can keep drinking while telling yourself you’re researching. You can stay in the comfort zone. You can stay in denial. You can stay in avoidance.

Angela (23:09.41)

But once you finally say this isn’t working anymore, well, now you have a decision to make. And that’s why underneath the question, Am I an alcoholic? there’s another question. And that question is is this bad enough that I actually have to do something about it? Because if the answer is yes, it’s like, fuck, now there’s another thing you have to fix. And I understand that.

You’re already exhausted. You’re working and parenting and running a household and trying to exercise and pay bills and managing relationships. You’re taking care of everybody. You already need an extra three hours in every day. And now the thing you’ve been using because you’re overwhelmed is apparently another fucking problem you have to solve. Of course, your brain wants to keep researching. Your brain is like, well, maybe.

We should make absolutely certain first. Let’s take another quiz. But there’s also a problem with the belief that recovery is.

Angela (24:30.484)

Of course, your brain wants to keep researching. Your brain’s like, maybe we should just make absolutely certain first. Let’s take another quiz. But here’s another problem. There’s a real problem with the belief that recovery is going to require all this time and energy you don’t have. We’re pretending drinking doesn’t already require those things.

We talk about recovery like it’s this enormous additional expense, another thing requiring time and money and energy and attention and inconvenience. But we’re making a huge error in that calculation. We’re treating drinking like it’s free. It’s not. Think about what you’re already spending to maintain your relationship with alcohol, not just money, although God knows we’re spending that.

But think about your time. The evenings that disappear, the mornings you lose because you don’t feel good, the workouts you skip, the hours of anxiety replaying what you said.

The emotional energy it takes to negotiate with yourself about whether or not you’re drinking tonight, or how much you’re gonna have, or whether you’ve been drinking too much, or whether you need to take a break, whether you have a problem, whether you need to quit. Think about how much of your life is already being consumed by this thing you’re telling yourself you don’t have time to address. You’re already paying.

Angela (26:06.518)

Recovery isn’t suddenly asking you to find resources you don’t have. It’s asking you to start redirecting resources you’re already spending. I had to be equally committed to my recovery as I was to my drinking. That means

I did my recovery when I was tired because I drank when I was tired. I did my recovery when I had a bad day because I drank when I had a bad day. I drank when I didn’t feel good. I went to the liquor store or the bar when the weather was bad. So when it was time to recover, I couldn’t suddenly decide that being tired or having a bad day or the weather being shitty meant I couldn’t show up.

Angela (26:53.814)

If it’s snowing out and you don’t want to go to a meeting, ask yourself a simple question. Would the snow have stopped you from drinking? Would the snow or the rain or whatever have stopped you from going to the liquor store or the bar? No. Then apparently snow isn’t the barrier. We will tolerate an unbelievable amount of inconvenience for drinking. We’ll spend the money we don’t have. We’ll sacrifice tomorrow morning.

We’ll be hungover. We’ll miss the workout. We’ll be impatient with our kids. We’ll lose an entire day. We’ll tolerate anxiety and guilt and embarrassment and making apologies. Then recovery asks us to be inconvenienced. And suddenly we’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s not get crazy. I don’t have time for all that. But here’s what I need you to understand: doing nothing isn’t the free option.

Angela (27:54.142)

One path costs you time, money, energy, and comfort and takes you straight into a dead end. The other path costs you time, money, energy, and comfort and gives you a path to freedom. You’re gonna spend the resources either way. The question is, what are you buying with them? The dead end or freedom?

So let’s go back to the question we started with because I don’t want you to get to the end of this episode and think I never actually answered it. How do I know if I actually have a drinking problem? I’m not gonna tell you it’s because you drink four nights a week instead of three. I’m not gonna give you a number of drinks or tell you which consequences officially qualify you. I’m gonna tell you to look at the relationship.

First, how much mental real estate is alcohol taking up? How often are you thinking about it, planning it, negotiating with yourself about it, doing it, or recovering from it? If alcohol requires that much management, if you are constantly creating rules around it, worrying about it, thinking about whether there’s enough, promising yourself you’ll do something different next time, that’s a clue.

Second, what happens to your control after the first drink? Not whether you can quit for a week or do dry January, but when you have that first drink, can you reliably predict what’s going to happen? Do you know you’re having two and going home at 10? Or are you hoping you’ll have two and go home at 10? Because hope is not control.

Angela (29:39.064)

Third, what are you doing to protect your drinking? Are you minimizing it, hiding it, sneaking it, defending it, comparing yourself to people who drink more, looking for all the reasons you can’t possibly have a problem because you’ve never had a DUI or you don’t drink in the morning or you’ve never blacked out? If you’re working that hard to prove

If you’re working that hard to prove alcohol isn’t a problem, I want you to ask yourself why you need such a strong defense for it in the first place.

And fourth, what is alcohol costing you? Not just catastrophes. I don’t care whether you’ve lost your house, your marriage, or your job. What is it costing you today? Your mornings, your energy, your workouts, your patience, your presence in your family, your confidence in yourself, your emotional growth, hours of your life spent recovering, days spent feeling anxious and guilty about the things you said or did. You don’t need a catastrophic rock bottom.

before the cost counts.

Angela (30:54.01)

And finally, why are you still asking the question? If this is the fifth article you’ve read, the tenth podcast you’ve listened to, the 20th quiz you’ve taken, what answer are you still looking for? Because at some point the searching becomes part of the answer. The obsession with proving you don’t have a problem becomes evidence that something isn’t right.

People who have an uncomplicated relationship with alcohol don’t spend this much time trying to figure out whether their relationship with alcohol is complicated.

Angela (31:47.138)

Deciding or understanding you have a drinking problem is a very personal decision that you have to make for yourself. But I can tell you that if alcohol is taking too much space in your brain, if you can’t reliably predict what happens after the first drink, if you’re constantly managing and defending your drinking, if alcohol is costing you things you care about, and if you keep coming back to this question over and over again.

You have enough information to stop dismissing what you’re seeing.

Angela (32:24.022)

You don’t need to figure out the perfect word for it before you’re allowed to do something about it. Maybe today all you’re ready to say is my relationship with alcohol isn’t okay anymore. That’s enough truth to start with. And then get out of your own head because your head is not a reliable source of information. It’s what got you into this mess. Go find a sober community.

Start listening to people. And I mean actually listen. Don’t walk into the room and immediately start scanning for all the reasons you’re different. Don’t look at what they’re wearing, what they do for a living, whether they drank more than you or less than you, or whether their story looks exactly like yours. Listen to how people think. Listen to the rules they made, the negotiations they had with themselves. Listen to the guilt.

Listen to how much space alcohol took up in their lives. Listen to what happened inside their brain after that first drink. Because that’s where you’re going to hear someone who is successful and accomplished and married and raising kids and running a company and doing all the things. And suddenly you’re going to think, fuck, she thinks exactly like I do. That’s what you need. Perspective.

Angela (33:49.824)

You need to see that you’re not the only high-functioning person on the planet who ended up with a fucked up relationship with alcohol. Not everybody has some desperate, catastrophic, rock bottom moment, and you don’t need one. You need people who are further down the road than you are so you can see what this looks like on the other side. And if you don’t have that community, that’s exactly why I created Sober Society. We have meetings every week.

with real people having real conversations about sobriety and life, the feelings, relationships, triggers, growth, all that shit that happens when you stop using alcohol as the answer to everything. Just get out of isolation and start hearing from people who understand the conversation happening in your head. And if you want to join me, you can find sober society, addictionunlimited dot com forward slash membership.

That link is also in the show notes, addictionunlimited.com forward slash membership. And whether you join us or you find another sober community that feels right for you, I want to leave you with this.

Angela (35:05.184)

Out of millions and millions and millions of sober people, there are people just like you too. You are not the one special case that no one has ever seen before. There are people who drank like you, who thought like you, who were successful like you, who were scared like you, people who sat up at night Googling the exact same questions you’re Googling.

Angela (35:33.12)

And there are people who found their way through it. Maybe you don’t need one more quiz or challenge or one more definition, one more comparison or consequence or one more terrible morning. Maybe you already have.

Angela (35:58.243)

Maybe you already have enough information. Maybe the next step isn’t finding another answer. Maybe it’s finally doing something with the one you already have. I love you, my friend. I hope you’re having a fantastic day, and I’ll see you next week.