One of the main characteristics of someone who struggles with alcohol is the obsession. We think about our drinking all the time. We do mental gymnastics and try to figure out how to control our drinking. We bargain with ourselves and talk ourselves into why drinking is a good idea. The obsession is frustrating and it continues into early sobriety too. I’ve seen so many people feel defeated because they think about alcohol all the time even though they’re sober. In this episode I’m explaining the obsession and why alcohol dominates your thoughts. This is a good one, and I hope it answers a lot of questions for you.

What to listen to next:

E62: dopamine deep dive

E115: why you aren't ready to quit drinking and how to get ready

E122: how exercise can help your recovery

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you been wondering how you should be eating to aid your recovery? Or why you have so many sugar cravings? In this episode we’ll talk about how the type of food we eat impacts our cravings and the amount of food we eat overall. You’ll learn about an interesting study that came out recently about protein and obesity, and how you might want to consider adjusting the foods you eat based on your goals. We will also talk about what contributes to extreme hunger and food cravings. Before we get started I want to put out a trigger warning for anyone who is uncomfortable or upset by discussions on calories or weight. I’m not recommending any particular lifestyle here, but consider skipping this one if the topic is sensitive for you. The purpose of this episode is to help you understand why you might be experiencing extreme hunger or food cravings, so you can disconnect those experiences from your self-worth or how much self-control you think you have.

What to listen to next:

E41: why sober people want so much sugar

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why can’t I stop drinking once I start? Have you ever wondered this or beat yourself for not having enough self-control? There’s a pathway in the brain called the go, no-go pathway and I’ve been wanting to talk about it for a long time but haven’t found the right info until now. When you want to make a decision, like you want to moderate and stop drinking after 2 drinks, the go, no-go decision making pathway in your brain does it’s thing and you either continue on drinking, which is the go path, or you stop, the no-go path. In this episode you’ll learn more about your off-switch, where things can go wrong to weaken your off-switch, and what to do if you’re in this situation where you can’t stop drinking once you start.

What to listen to next:

E117: Why Sobriety Eventually Just Clicks

E97: Why We Keep Believing it’ll be Different this Time

E99: Why We Can Never Drink Again (Neuroplasticity and Permanent Changes)

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I celebrate 3 years of sobriety on November 9th and each year I record an episode about the past year of sobriety and how it went. What stood out to me the most this year is that I am getting tired of sharing my story and I feel weird about being personal. Lately, I have been asked to share my story a lot on other podcasts. I think sharing our stories is very important because it helps newbies or people who are struggling to accept they need to get sober might see themselves in your story and realize they are not alone. However, I’ve shared my story a bazillion times and bringing up old, painful memories feels exhausting for me.

At first, I felt really guilty, probably because guilt is my natural state, but then I realized it’s okay to want to move on. I want to focus on what happens after sobriety, not before. So instead of getting super personal in this one, I want to discuss how long it actually takes us to heal and recover. You may find yourself obsessing about sobriety or feeling frustrated that it’s taking you so long to feel better, but it’s a long journey. You don’t just quit drinking and go back to normal right away. In this episode you’ll learn how long it takes for the brain to recover and what you can do to take care of yourself while you’re healing.

What to listen to next:

E75: How Sleep Improves from Actively Drinking to Long Term Sobriety

E73: The Obsession Eventually Evens Out (I’m 2 Years Sober)

E21: I'm 1 Year Sober!

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can’t imagine your life without alcohol? Are you unsure if you truly have a problem and need to quit drinking? Maybe you look around and think, “everyone drinks like I do, I’m not that bad”. That’s why I asked Dr. Matt Glowiak, PhD, LCPC, CAADC, NCC, to join us and talk about the difference between a heavy or daily drinker and someone who has alcohol use disorder. In this episode you’ll learn how we normalize our drinking, why it’s hard for us to control our drinking, what to do if you can’t imagine your life without alcohol, and how to learn what to do with your time in sobriety. 

In this episode you’ll learn:

WebMD Article

https://www.webmd.com/connect-to-care/addiction-treatment-recovery/what-happens-with-untreated-alcohol-use-disorder

Connect with Dr. Glowiak

https://counselingbyglowiak.com/

https://www.choosingtherapy.com/matt-glowiak-lcpc/

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want an easy way to deal with cravings and negative emotions? Want to build back some of the brain volume you may have lost from drinking 1,000 drinks? Well, the answer is exercise! I hope you didn’t just roll your eyes at me. It’s true. We are usually looking for this complicated secret that’s going to help our sobriety, but usually, it’s the simple things that have the biggest impact. The trick is just finding a way to be okay with the simple things. In this episode we’re going to talk about how exercise can help your recovery. You’ll learn about a ton of different studies on how exercise helps the brain physically, how it helps us cognitively, and why it can be such an effective tool in sobriety.

What to listen to next:

E22: Why you think alcohol helps your anxiety

E41: Why sober people want so much sugar

E69: Alcohol Shrinks the Brain, but What Does That Mean?

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many of us will go back and forth between drinking and not drinking for years, and what holds us back is this idea that our drinking isn’t “that bad”. So what are we supposed to do if our drinking makes us unhappy, but we haven’t experienced a rock bottom yet? You may beat yourself up for not being motivated enough to quit or wishing you had enough self-discipline or courage, but it has nothing to do with that. That’s why I asked Eric Zimmer, behavior coach and host of the top podcast The One You Feed, to join us today and talk about how to get past this and make sobriety stick. We discuss why a lack of external consequences keeps many of us stuck in this back and forth cycle, what to do if you get sober but still don’t feel great, and how you can start feeling hopeful about your recovery.

In this episode you’ll learn:

Eric Zimmer is a behavior coach, author, and the host of The One You Feed Podcast. He is endlessly inspired by the quest for a greater understanding of how our minds work and how to intentionally create the lives we want to live. At the age of 24, Eric was homeless, addicted to heroin and facing long jail sentences. In the years since, he not only found a way to overcome these obstacles to create a life worth living, he now helps others to do the same. Eric works as a behavior coach and has done so for the past 20 years. He has coached hundreds of people from around the world on how to make significant life changes and create habits that serve them well in achieving the goals they’ve set for themselves. In addition to his work as a behavior coach, he currently hosts the award-winning podcast, The One You Feed, based on an old parable about two wolves at battle within us. With over 500 episodes and over 30 million downloads, the show features conversations with experts across many fields of study about how to create a life that has more meaning.

Connect with Eric:

https://www.oneyoufeed.net/

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone knows chronic stress is bad, but did you know that chronic stress can actually change your brain? And just like everything else we talk about, it can change the brain in ways that makes it easier to be stressed or to turn to something like alcohol to attempt to cope. In this episode you’ll learn what chronic stress does to the brain, results from the 2022 Stress in America Survey, and how you can turn some bad stress into good stress.

What to listen to next:

E119: Why We Can't Cope

E67: How Alcohol Impacts Cortisol and Causes Cravings

E22: Why You Think Alcohol Helps Your Anxiety

E64: Anxiety and Alcohol (Part 2)

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some people just can’t cope. It’s not because they’re weak-willed losers, but it can definitely make us feel like that is the reason. I had a stressful situation last week and I wanted to understand why I escalated it so much in my mind. In this episode I want to share with you why some of us just can’t cope. Both nature and nurture is involved, and at the end of the episode I will share how you can get started on becoming more resilient so you can handle stress in a way that you won’t regret later.

What to listen to next:

E61: How Alcohol Memories are Triggered in Sobriety

E91: Do You Want to be Sober or Do You Want to Drink Without the Consequences?

E115: Why You Aren’t Ready to Quit Drinking and How to Get Ready

E104: Why Alcohol Doesn’t Help You Cope with Dr. Ashish Bhatt, MD, MRO

E46: Neuroplasticity Helps us Recover

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sober sex can be very intimidating, especially if you believe alcohol helps you feel more confident, comfortable, and in the mood for sex. I’m joined by Dr. Nazanin Moali, host of the Sexology Podcast, to discuss why we think alcohol is essential for sex, why sober sex can be so scary, and tips for singles and couples who are trying to get comfortable with sober sex. Dr. Moali shares strategies for anyone to begin implementing in their sex life whether you are single or in a relationship, and we touch on situations where someone might have a history of trauma or a history of body image issues and disordered eating.

In this episode you’ll learn:

Dr. Nazanin Moali is a sex and relationship expert and has helped many individuals and couples improve their sex lives and restore and achieve deep and passionate connections with their partners. In addition to hosting the top 20 rated Sexology podcast, Dr. Moali launched a similar, top-rated podcast in Farsi in 2016 and has extensive training in treatment of eating disorders and addiction from some of the nation’s leading experts. She is a published researcher who regularly gives talks at major universities and international conferences, and has given therapy advice and information on local television shows. Dr. Moali has her postdoctoral training in sexual wellness and trauma.

Connect with Dr. Moali:

The Sexology Podcast https://sexologypodcast.com/blog/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sexology/id1193611459

Bedroom Fizzle to Sizzle Course https://sexologypodcast.com/enroll/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sexologypodcast/

Resources I offer:

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices