Alchemist Recovery Podcast

I have been listening to all of the latest predictions about Artificial Intelligence and how it’s going to change our lives.

Everything from how it will eventually take your job and end your career, to the ability to offer you a private therapy session with Carl Jung.

On top of that, the advancements in medicine are going to be massive. For example, you’ll be able to take a simple blood test to detect the first signs of cancer. That’s amazing!

But I’m skeptical of the application of this shiny new AI tool to the entire spectrum of medicine and how it will further shift the cultural perceptions of health.

Specifically, how this will relate to addiction?

Will AI:

• Diminish or remove personal responsibility?
• Eliminate desire for overcoming “character defects”?
• Reduce the options for transforming trauma from a painful open wound into a wisdom-filled and experiential-informed scar?

And what of the role of spirit in all of this?

“…but it seems to me that AI has been developed by people who don’t understand things like compassion and random acts of kindness and these sorts of things. It seems like it’s entirely transactional and the AI lacks a spirit. I don’t care what they say. What is missing from AI? There’s no spirit to it.”

• Dennis McKenna from the Brain Forest Cafe podcast with Paul Stamets

What does spirit do?

Transforms through surrender

Provides something bigger worthy to surrender to

Infuses the magic of healing that manifests as a new and never-before-seen, product of co-creation with us

Not a compilation from AI’s algorithm of past human input

• From the Program’s Lesson #18: The Power of Surrender

Which Wolf do you feed?

• Who are you in relationship with?
• From the Program’s Lesson #16: The Story of the Two Wolves

Part 2:

Today is the Islamic Feast of the Sacrifice

Synchronicity with my son’s tattoo text

3 different religions, 3 different holidays, 3 different takes on the Old Testament story of Abraham

I’m not too keen of The Story and here’s why:

Sacrifice can be transactional and focused upon the reward

• With God
• With religion
• Within our own beliefs

So, here’s another take:

What if…

Sacrifice was its own reward?

What would this look like and what’s the point?

As always, send me any questions you have and let me know your thoughts on this one.

With blessings,

Randal

The opposite of addiction is sacrifice because it can immediately break the cycle at any point along the repeating pattern.

It can do this because addiction is all about my stuff:

• my planning
• my acquiring
• my using
• then my covering up
• it’s all about me, me, me,

So the opposite of that is focusing upon someone else. And specifically, another person’s needs.

Quite simply:

Addiction is all about getting

Sacrifice is all about giving

This may sound simple, and it is, but the power behind it is profound.

The entire Cycle of Addiction is able to perpetuate itself because it keeps the energy flowing in one direction: getting my stuff.

This is Yin in nature, which is the negative polarity of magnet, which only imposes its force one way: pulling in.

This is perfectly personified by the Buddhist idea of The Hungry Ghost. This wandering spirit has a pin-hole sized mouth that is forever trying to suck in enough to fill its bottomless belly. Which of course, it can never do, which is why it remains hungry and why it remains a ghost. I can’t describe addiction any better than that.

Addiction

• Me
• Pulling in
• Getting
• Yin -/negative charge

Sacrifice

• Other
• Sending out
• Giving
• Yang +/positive charge

Listen to the rest of our exploration and explanation of how sacrifice immediately can break the cycle in the podcast.

Please leave a comment wherever you listen and as always, send me any questions you may have - I’d love to connect!

With Blessings,

Randal

To stay or leave one's Home is a decision that has profound consequences no matter which choice is made.

And it is a choice we all must make.

For those of us in recovery, we can look back into the past and explore the ramifications of our previous choice.

We can also evaluate the choice that presents itself right now.

And we can look into the future to see how the choices we make moving forward will effect the generations to come.

Big and important stuff.

At the base of the Statue of Liberty is enscripted the poem, The Colossus, with the famous line, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." It was a 19th century call to immigrants, who arriving at the USA's shores, were following The American Dream.

But what was left behind? What was lost?

As we explore this topic, I propose that you answer those questions for yourself, your family and maybe your culture treasures.

Join Us!

With blessings,

Randal Lyons

To stay or leave one's Home is a decision that has profound consequences no matter which choice is made.

And it is a choice we all must make.

For those of us in recovery, we can look back into the past and explore the ramifications of our previous choice.

We can also evaluate the choice that presents itself right now.

And we can look into the future to see how the choices we make moving forward will effect the generations to come.

Big and important stuff.

At the base of the Statue of Liberty is enscripted the poem, The Colossus, with the famous line, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." It was a 19th century call to immigrants, who arriving at the USA's shores, were following The American Dream.

But what was left behind? What was lost?

As we explore this topic, I propose that you answer those questions for yourself, your family and maybe your culture treasures.

Join Us!

With blessings,

Randal Lyons

This episode of The Sober Shaman podcast complements the recent written post entitled, “Dear the Spirits of This Place.” We delve into the Shamanic wRites prompt and explore three types of places where you can gain insight, connection, and healing power from being a good guest and responsible resident to the Spirits of Place.

Here are some of the three ways we look at this:

* The place of your birth: I spent years of my youth walking the streets of the island of Manhattan driven by a deep longing for belonging but without a guide to clarify my intentions.. This wRites exercise may help you just that.

* The place where you felt Home: I share a paragraph from the written post, which I later realized was part of my ongoing work in Soul Courting. Welcoming back a lost soul fragment—split off for survival due to TAHL (trauma, abuse, heartbreak, and loss)—is only the beginning. We must actively and continuously create a safe Home for this part. For me, that means providing a space where my 9- to 14-year-old self feels secure enough to stay. When I do, he returns with gifts only he can offer: innocence, wonder, passion, and heart-sourced curiosity, which infuses my present life with these powers and the deep recognition of their importance.

* The place where you are a guest right now: Wherever you are right now, how do interact with the spirits of this place? What is your relationship to the spirits of:

* Nature

* Elements

* Trees

* Mountains

* Bodies of water

* Guardians

* Thresholds

* Ancestors—familial, tribal, national

* Ghosts

* Deities

* Holy teachers

* Taboos

* Gateways to the Lowerworld and Upperworld

Join me as we explore how important it is to bring a guest’s humility to, and the expression of gratefulness for, being taken care of by the inhabitants and the Spirits of This Place.

You can read the full write-up in the written post here:

As always, please hit the ♥️ and subscribe if you feel called, and send along any questions or shares in the comments below, or reach out directly via email: [email protected]

With blessings,Randal

This episode of The Sober Shaman podcast serves as a companion piece to the recent written post entitled, “Addiction Separates / The Web Connects.” In this episode, we explore the year’s first Medicine Drum Journey and how our experience can provide insight, connection, and healing power for our concerns.

Here are some of the ways we look at this:

* Connection is the Medicine for addiction’s pathological power to separate.

* Fear grows in the spaces where we are separated from loved ones, heartfelt activities and places of belonging.

* An overview of the Cycle of Addiction and role of The Web of Life within it.

* In the Earth Phase, we receive the Medicine of Connection through the power of support, home, nourishment & communion.

* Dissolving the negative experience of feeling stuck in The Web

* The transformative power of Earth & the Spleen: extracting wisdom & releasing waste

* The weave of the 5 Elements

Join me as we explore all of this in the podcast.

You can read my full write-up and complete any preparation work before undertaking your own journey in the written post here:

I’m inviting anyone interested in collaborating to reach out. Ways to participate could include:

* Sharing what you received from your journey

* Proposing a writing prompt or offering a place in Non-Ordinary Reality to take a Medicine Drum Journey to that explores a recovery, mental health, and/or spiritual topic of concern

* Discussing how these exercises have worked for you, or, if you're a medical or mental healthcare professional, how they’ve worked for your clients

This could take the form of a written Q&A, a recorded Zoom session, or even through the new Substack live option.

As always, feel free to message me here on Substack or reach out directly via email: [email protected]

With blessings,Randal

This episode of The Sober Shaman podcast serves as a companion piece to the recent written post of the same name. In it, we explore the year’s first Shamanic wRites topic—trust—and how a shamanic perspective can provide insight, connection, and empowerment through my response to the prompt.

Here are some bullets on how we can do this:

* Going to where the truth resides

* Merging with my spiritual bones

* Writing from this place

* Receiving the messages of truth as merged with the spirit of The Bones

Join me as we explore all of this in the podcast.

You can read my full response to the prompt, as well as any preparation work you’d like to do before undertaking your own wRites from the prompt, here in the written post:

I’m inviting anyone interested in collaborating to reach out. Ways to participate could include:

* Sharing what you received from the writing or journey exercises

* Proposing a writing prompt or offering a place in Non-Ordinary Reality to take a Medicine Drum Journey to that explores a recovery, mental health, and/or spiritual topic of concern

* Discussing how these exercises have worked for you, or, if you're a medical or mental healthcare professional, how they’ve worked for your clients

This could take the form of a written Q&A, a recorded Zoom session, or even through the new Substack live option.

As always, feel free to message me here on Substack or reach out directly via email: [email protected]

With blessings,Randal

This episode of The Sober Shaman podcast is the companion piece to the recent written post of the same name. In it, we dive into the unique aspects of the Shamanic wRites exercise, specifically what sets it apart from a typical writing prompt. We also explore why approaching it as a spiritual endeavor, rather than a psychological exercise, will yield a different kind of result.

Here are a few topics that are in addition to what’s covered in the written post:

* Modern society’s promotion of the inability to listen to and maintain a relationship with spirit

* How our spiritual sensitivities are clouded and blocked by the shouting from our screens

* What if we swapped the words “truth” and “spirit” in conversation?

* Exploring how writing to, from, and merged with spirit is a different experience than engaging in regular writing prompts

* An advantage of being an addict in recovery is that we know where the line is because we’ve crossed it so many times in active addiction

* By crossing the line, we understand and remember the clear difference between being in control and being out of control

In the new year of 2025, The Sober Shaman will focus on the two experiential spiritual exercises that set this work apart:

* Shamanic wRites

* Medicine Drum Journeys

Since both the written posts and podcasts will explore these two exercises, I’m inviting anyone interested in collaborating to reach out. Ways to participate could include:

* Sharing what you received from the writing or journey exercises

* Proposing a writing prompt or offering a place in Non-Ordinary Reality to take a Medicine Drum Journey to that explores a recovery, mental health, and/or spiritual topic of concern

* Discussing how these exercises have worked for you, or, if you’re a medical or mental healthcare professional, how they’ve worked for your clients. This could be in a written Q&A format, a recorded Zoom session, or even through the new Substack live option.

As always, you can message me here through Substack or reach out directly via email: [email protected]

With blessings,Randal

The following is the post as it appears on Sober App Substack.

This series showcases personal stories of addiction recovery and sobriety. Today’s edition features, Randal Lyons, Doctor of Chinese Medicine and shamanic practitioner whose spiritual, integrative program of addiction recovery has been implemented in holistic clinics, premier treatment centers, and his private practice. You can access the online version of The Program through his newsletter, The Sober Shaman.

When and how did you get sober?

The when is July 17, 1994. And the how is simply that I had just had enough. After countless attempts to quit and many relapses, what changed this time was a clear and unwavering decision to quit. Boom. That’s it. I wasn’t going to try—I just did.

I knew that if this was really going to work, I had to relinquish all the slippery people, places, and things—which made up about 90 percent of my life as a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player trying to make it in LA.

The only other things I had going for me, which were keeping me alive during the insanity, were my study and practice of Chinese martial and medical arts, along with my spirituality.

Neither of those offered clear or well-defined pathways for getting and staying sober, but I knew they worked for me. The passion I had previously poured into making music—and the fire that had fueled my cravings to use—was now redirected into my curiosity about how this medicine could help me and, later, others.

What was the turning point in your decision to get sober?

I would call it the tipping point rather than a turning point. In the moment I made “the decision,” I felt the full weight of 17 years’ worth of using and its consequences tip over into conscious awareness.

It wasn’t any one thing or a lightning-bolt moment of understanding. It was the felt accumulation of all the wasted time. For whatever reason, that was—and remains—my pain.

This pain still serves me to this day, because whenever I’m engaged in an activity that could be judged as wasting time, I’m brought into the present moment. And this is the practice: I breathe, relax, and observe from an objective view what the next right thing is. Usually, it involves stopping whatever activity I was doing, because it indeed was “enough of that.”

What surprised you about getting sober?

What surprised me the most was that I was able to give up playing music as easily as I did. I had such a deep connection between my addiction and my playing that I knew I couldn’t stay in that field. That part was obvious.

But the good that I received from music, which I would call soul nourishment, led me to be surprised by the possibility of finding new ways to get the same medicine.

For example, when I wrote music, it was always a collaborative jam. There’s nothing better than riding a groove, being carried by its current, and, in all aspects of the phrase, playing together. This was experimentation, without judgment, in which we responded to each other’s input with, “Yes, and…then, what if…?”

Later on, armed with a degree, a medical license, and a bunch of acupuncture needles, I could drop into a group at an addiction treatment center and do exactly the same thing. But instead of hitting a chord to elicit a band member’s response, I could throw out a question like, “What’s stronger: belief or reality?” and the room would quickly divide into sides, the discussion rolling, and the current of exploration, learning, and insight in motion. And now, I can add healing to that list—and yes, this was, and continues to this day to be, surprising, as well as exciting and inspiring.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve encountered on your recovery journey?

I’d say there have been two challenges. First, because I was a man of more and addicted to faster, louder, sharper, let’s-keep-this-train-a-rolling ridiculousness, there’s still a part of me that holds these beliefs and suggests that sticking my finger in the nearest light socket is a good idea. You know, just for the feeling of it—just for ol’ time’s sake.

Quite simply, this is when I allow feelings to completely override all sense of logic and reason. A freight train of feeling has always provided enough of a jolt to ignore whatever reality I’m avoiding.

So, the big challenge is recognizing when that belief is offering its opinion—disguised as passion, excitement, or something I totally deserve—and seeing it for what it is. Most often, I say, “Thanks. Great idea. But instead, I’m just going to do this boring, next right thing over here.”

The other big challenge has been with my spirituality. It’s hard walking a path of practicing core shamanism, especially as the teachers lie on the other side of the veil in non-ordinary reality. So, finding other people who know the language, the medicine, and the ins and outs of this work is not so easy. After all, it’s not like being able to look up the nearest Roman Catholic Church and drop in on a service.

What are the biggest benefits or gifts of sobriety?

While there are so many obvious and powerful benefits of sobriety and how it affects health, wealth, and happiness, of course, the biggest gift is my relationship with the Love of My Lifetimes and simultaneously ex- and current wife, Dr. Dana Leigh Lyons—which in no way could have happened or been maintained if I were anywhere near active addiction.

And while a close and meaningful relationship is easy to identify as the biggest gift, it also serves as a reminder of the big gift of appreciation and gratitude for exactly what I’ve got, right here and right now, in this exactly perfect form, showing up exactly as the way things are.

What words of advice would you give someone who’s considering sobriety or newly sober?

Stop searching. Start trusting. Trust what you already know to be true. “Answers” are not found “out there” somewhere. Rather, they are listened to as what I call “the truth that resides in your bones.” This truth speaks of the next right thing to do and reminds you that you are completely deserving of all the best this world has to offer.

Want to share your sobriety story?

Thank you for sharing, Randal! We look forward to connecting with you in the comments.

Want to be published on Sober.com? If you’re a sober writer, we invite you to contribute! Reach out to [email protected] for details.

And from me, thanks for listening and/or reading—it’s always appreciated. If you feel called, please hit the ♥️ and send along any questions.

Blessings,Randal

In this episode of The Sober Shaman Podcast, we delve into a recent—and common—conversation with a client about the benefits of adopting a spiritual approach to recovery.

They want to know, “What will it do for me?”

There are certain perspectives that viewing life through a spiritual lens can provide, which can be used to one’s advantage. But first, we need to confront the baggage carried into the present. For many of us:

The problem is that we’ve been conditioned to believe what spirituality should be, rather than discovering for ourselves what it can be.

Listen in above as we explore some of the wonders that spiritual medicine can offer.

I’d love to hear your feedback—leave a comment or send me your questions. And don’t forget to hit the little ♥️—your support is always appreciated!

With Blessings,Randal