Everybody's going to grill you about why you're not drinking. Almost nobody actually does.Our Side of the Street, Episode 03: Don't Get Me My Usual Christmas GiftThe first person Rebekah told wasn't a sponsor or a pastor — it was the friend who bought her alcohol every Christmas. This one's about announcing your sobriety — who you tell, when, and what you're actually afraid of — and surviving the holidays that used to run on alcohol.Plus: a hundred Jell-O shots, shots of Coca.....Cola in Mexico, and why the hardest holiday of the year isn't Christmas — it's the Super Bowl.We don't speak for AA, Celebrate Recovery, or any church or program. We're not counselors or clinicians. If you're struggling, reach out to a professional, a pastor, or someone you trust.

Two alcoholics, one marriage, two completely separate recoveries — and the one rule that keeps it from blowing up.Episode two is about what nobody warns you about: being married in recovery means being at different points in it, and wanting to tell your spouse how to do theirs anyway. We open with the hardest part and close with the best part.Along the way we get into the myth that couples recover together, why your work doesn't go on the other person's card, what it's like navigating confidentiality when 90% of what you each hear can't leave the room, and whether your spouse should ever read your fourth step. Zach never told Rebekah to get sober — we talk about why, and what "doing research" means in the Big Book.Then the practical stuff: why your spouse probably shouldn't be your accountability partner, the chip day Rebekah tried to talk herself out of, being the only married couple in the room who are both there for the same thing, and HALT — hungry, angry, lonely, tired — which explains it nine and three-quarter times out of ten.Plus: whether Zach is capable of crying, and the three weddings he's nearly choked to death at.We don't speak for AA, Celebrate Recovery, or any church or program. We're not counselors or clinicians. If you're struggling, reach out to a professional, a pastor, or someone you trust.

Two alcoholics who met over a Facebook post about rum, got married, got sober 18 months apart, and are still figuring out which one was harder.Episode one is the origin story. We met in high school (Rebekah remembers, Zach doesn't), reconnected at 21 with a Halloween party invite and a 48-hour first date, and spent the next decade drinking for any reason at all — happy, sad, Tuesday. We talk about moving from California to Utah and having to learn the liquor store system, borrowing alcohol from a boss on a Sunday, and the Dry Januaries that never made it past Quitters Friday.Then the part where it changed. Zach got sober after a men's Bible study made drinking and faith feel incompatible — and two weeks later we went to an adults-only all-inclusive in Mexico. Rebekah kept drinking for another year and a half, until the party ran out on its own, and picked a sobriety date that happens to be her late dad's birthday.Along the way: why one of us loves counting days and the other thinks it's pressure, why nobody gets sober for their spouse or their kids, the difference between CR and AA and why a sponsor on day one matters, what "relapse" should and shouldn't mean, and what we'd say to someone on their first day.We don't speak for AA, Celebrate Recovery, or any church or program. We're not counselors or clinicians. If you're struggling, reach out to a professional, a pastor, or someone you trust.