Successful Life Podcast

In last week’s episode, Corey asked what to do when fear returns after a brave decision. This week, he looks at what happens when you keep taking those steps over years. He shares how he moved from attending recovery meetings while emotionally on the outside to building friendships, serving other people, and allowing himself to be known. The last three and a half years are a chapter of deeper participation in recovery, not the start of his sobriety.

In this episode: loneliness in a crowded room; the fear of being known; returning to meetings; the work beneath friendship; service and connection; moving to a new community; and one action to take this week.

Connect with Corey

●The Successful Life Podcast: https://successfullifepodcast.com

●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1JbPsiir58/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Listen and subscribe

●Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/successful-life-podcast/id1486100211

●Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6oH6xuInZETJTkGYMTXATH

Buy Corey’s book

●Amazon: https://a.co/d/0iO67k5K

If this episode helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear that connection is possible.

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

Last week on The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier talked about taking the first step despite fear. This week, he asks what happens when you wake up the next day and the fear is still there.

Corey reflects on his first seven years attending AA while keeping himself emotionally on the outside. He shares how honesty, asking for help, and small repeated actions changed his experience of recovery. He also tells a story from a roof inspection: when he admitted he was afraid to continue, the person with him helped him make the right decision to stop where he was.

Fear returning doesn’t erase the progress you made yesterday. The question is whether you’ll take the next honest step today.

This week’s challenge: Choose one place where fear has been making decisions for you. Write down one action you can take in the next 24 hours, tell someone you plan to do it, and afterward ask yourself: What did I expect? What actually happened? What did I learn?

Connect with Corey

• The Successful Life Podcast: https://successfullifepodcast.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1JbPsiir58/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Listen and subscribe

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/successful-life-podcast/id1486100211
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6oH6xuInZETJTkGYMTXATH

Buy Corey’s book

• Amazon: https://a.co/d/0iO67k5K

If this episode helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs encouragement to take their next step.

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

Last week, Corey compared his fear of climbing onto roofs with spending his first seven years emotionally outside Alcoholics Anonymous. He attended meetings and experienced some of recovery’s benefits, but he had not completely stepped into the fellowship.

This week, Corey continues that story by asking an important question: What happens after you finally climb the ladder?

Taking one courageous action doesn’t guarantee fear will disappear. Real confidence develops when we repeatedly take the next right step—even while fear is still present.

In this episode, Corey discusses staying present, moving from information into experience, finding stability through connection, and refusing to let fear make life’s decisions.

In This Episode

• Why fear can remain after we take courageous action
• How focusing on the past or future increases fear
• The difference between knowing about recovery and participating in it
• Why confidence follows repeated action
• How familiar behavior can feel safe even when it is harmful
• The “three points of contact” that create stability
• How to identify and take your next right action

Key Takeaway

You don’t need enough courage for the entire journey. You only need enough courage to take the next right step.

If this episode helped you, subscribe to The Successful Life Podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who may be standing at the bottom of their own ladder.

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

You can study roofing, learn the terminology, and watch other people inspect roofs—but eventually, you have to climb the ladder.

Recovery works the same way.

In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier compares overcoming his fear of climbing onto roofs with his first seven years of sobriety. During those years, Corey attended meetings and remained close enough to recovery to experience some of its benefits—but he stayed emotionally guarded and never completely joined the fellowship.

He knew he was an alcoholic, but he focused on the differences between himself and the people in the rooms instead of identifying with their similarities. Fear of judgment, vulnerability, surrender, and depending on others kept him standing on the outside.

You can attend meetings without participating. You can hear about the Steps without working them. You can know people in recovery without allowing them to truly know you.

Like standing at the bottom of a ladder, it may feel safer to watch from the ground. But some things cannot be understood intellectually. They must be experienced through action.

Corey explains how confidence didn’t arrive before he climbed the ladder—it developed because he climbed it. The same is true in recovery. Faith and courage grow through repeated action: one meeting, one phone call, one honest conversation, one Step, and one day at a time.

You don’t have to wait for the fear to disappear. You only have to take the next step.

IN THIS EPISODE

• The difference between attending meetings and joining the fellowship
• Why Corey remained emotionally outside AA for seven years
• Looking for differences instead of identifying with similarities
• How fear keeps us isolated and unwilling to ask for help
• The fear of judgment, vulnerability, surrender, and dependence
• Being physically present while remaining emotionally guarded
• Why sobriety without emotional recovery can become a “dry drunk”
• What climbing onto a roof taught Corey about courage
• Why confidence follows action instead of coming before it
• How repetition builds confidence, faith, and trust
• The relationship between fear and procrastination
• Why recovery cannot be fully understood from the sidelines
• Taking recovery one meeting, one phone call, and one day at a time
• How sponsorship helps us recognize patterns we cannot see alone
• Choosing the next right action while fear is still present

KEY TAKEAWAY

Confidence doesn’t come before you climb the ladder. Confidence comes because you climb it.

Courage isn’t the absence of fear—it’s taking action while fear is still present. Whether your next step takes you onto a roof or deeper into recovery, you don’t need to see the entire path. You only need enough willingness to take the next step.

If you’ve been attending meetings while keeping people at a distance, consider stepping fully into the fellowship. Find a sponsor, work the Steps, make the phone call, and allow people to know the real you.

The view changes when you stop watching from the ground and start climbing.

New episodes of The Successful Life Podcast are released every Monday at 7:00 a.m. Eastern.

If this episode helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who may need to hear it.

CONNECT WITH COREY

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1JbPsiir58/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coreyberrier?igsi=MTUycTZxaHI5ZnBtZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

BUY COREY’S BOOK

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow

Amazon: https://a.co/d/0iO67k5K

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

Getting sober stops the immediate damage—but it doesn’t automatically heal the wounds that caused us to drink or use drugs in the first place.

In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier explores the important difference between simply being sober and actively living in recovery. Many people remove alcohol or drugs from their lives but remain trapped in survival mode—still controlled by fear, isolation, people-pleasing, defensiveness, overthinking, and the need for outside validation.

Corey shares how childhood rejection, family dysfunction, financial instability, failed relationships, and painful experiences can become deeply rooted patterns that follow us into adulthood. Although these behaviors may have once protected us, they can eventually prevent us from experiencing emotional freedom.

Using personal stories from recovery, relationships, business, and sales, Corey explains how unresolved rejection can cause us to shut down, expect the worst, avoid difficult conversations, and react emotionally. He also discusses why alcohol and drugs were often not the original problem—they were the medication used to escape it.

True recovery requires more than abstinence. It requires identifying the patterns that keep us stuck and becoming willing to do the work necessary to change them.

Through the 12 Steps, sponsorship, prayer, meditation, service, personal inventory, and connection with a recovery community, we can learn to pause when agitated, accept uncertainty, trust God, and respond to life instead of reacting to it.

The work isn’t always comfortable, but the freedom on the other side is worth it.

IN THIS EPISODE

• The difference between being sober and being in recovery
• Why sobriety alone doesn’t eliminate survival mode
• How childhood rejection can affect adult relationships
• People-pleasing, isolation, defensiveness, and control
• Why unresolved fear causes us to shut down
• How rejection appears in relationships, business, and sales
• Why alcohol and drugs were often the medication—not the original problem
• The emotional consequences of being a “dry drunk”
• How the 12 Steps reveal destructive patterns
• The importance of sponsorship and accountability
• How prayer and meditation support emotional sobriety
• Learning to respond instead of reacting
• Why recovery community and service change everything
• Moving from fear and survival into faith and freedom

KEY TAKEAWAY

Removing alcohol stops the bleeding, but recovery teaches us how to heal the wounds.

You don’t have to continue living scared, isolated, and controlled by old survival patterns. There is a better life available—but experiencing it requires honesty, willingness, connection, and action.

If you’re struggling with alcohol, drugs, or remaining emotionally stuck after getting sober, consider finding a 12-Step program, connecting with a sponsor, and becoming part of a recovery community.

New episodes of The Successful Life Podcast are released every Monday at 7:00 a.m. Eastern.

If this episode helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who may need to hear it.

CONNECT WITH COREY

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1JbPsiir58/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coreyberrier?igsi=MTUycTZxaHI5ZnBtZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

BUY COREY’S BOOK

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow

Amazon: https://a.co/d/0iO67k5K

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

The patterns affecting our relationships, careers, and recovery often began long before we recognized them.

In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier explores how childhood dysfunction, neglect, addiction, people-pleasing, and the fear of abandonment can shape the decisions we make as adults. When we don’t communicate what we need, resentment builds—and we may begin blaming the job, relationship, or other person for something we never addressed honestly.

Corey shares how recovery and the 12 Steps helped him recognize his own patterns, find his voice, and become willing to have uncomfortable conversations. He also discusses an unresolved financial amends he has carried for years—and why cleaning up his side of the street matters, regardless of how he feels about the other person.

Recovery isn’t about becoming perfect. It’s about becoming honest, taking responsibility, making things right, and learning to speak up before resentment takes over.

In this episode:

• How childhood experiences influence adult behavior

• Why people-pleasing can lead to resentment

• Learning to ask for what you need in relationships and at work

• The danger of relying on verbal promises

• Why uncomfortable conversations are necessary

• Selfishness versus healthy self-advocacy

• Making amends even when you dislike the other person

• Giving yourself, your parents, and your children some grace

• Why discomfort is often part of personal growth

• How the 12 Steps help uncover destructive patterns

Sometimes you have to fall off the bike, skin your knees, and experience discomfort before life gets better. Whether you’re considering sobriety or struggling in recovery, the next difficult decision could become one of the best decisions you ever make.

If this episode helped you, share it with someone who may need to hear it. Please follow the podcast and leave a review—it helps more people discover the show and its message of recovery, hope, and personal responsibility.

CONNECT WITH COREY

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/1JbPsiir58/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/coreyberrier?igsi=MTUycTZxaHI5ZnBtZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

BUY COREY’S BOOK

Audible:

https://www.audible.com/pd/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow

Amazon:

https://a.co/d/0iO67k5K 

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

What if getting sober feels like standing on the edge of a 30-foot cliff—terrified, frozen, and unable to trust what’s waiting on the other side?

After returning from an unforgettable recovery trip to Cherokee, Corey shares how his fear of jumping from a cliff reminded him of the fear he experienced when he first walked into a recovery meeting. He watched other people take the leap safely, but fear still prevented him from following them. Early recovery can feel exactly the same.

You may see millions of people living sober, rebuilding relationships, succeeding in business, and enjoying lives they never thought possible—but taking that first step still requires courage, trust, and a willingness to ask for help.

Corey also shares stories from whitewater rafting, tubing down the river, fishing, fellowship, and spending the weekend with an incredible group of men in recovery. These experiences demonstrate an important truth: sobriety isn’t the end of your life. It can be the beginning of a life filled with genuine friendships, new adventures, spiritual growth, and real freedom.

In this episode, Corey discusses:

• Why getting sober can feel like jumping from a cliff
• The paralyzing fear of walking into your first recovery meeting
• Learning to trust the experience of people who have gone before you
• Why asking another person for help is a sign of strength
• The importance of sponsorship, fellowship, faith, and the 12 Steps
• How recovery creates genuine friendships and unforgettable experiences
• Why the promises of recovery may take time—but can come true
• The internal work required to build a life worth living
• Why alcohol and drugs cannot solve pain, rejection, or relationship problems
• How one honest decision can completely change your future

Recovery requires work. You may have apologies to make, consequences to face, money to repay, and painful truths to confront. But the life waiting on the other side can be greater than anything you currently believe is possible.

You don’t have to overcome every fear today. You only have to take the next step, raise your hand, admit that you need help, and allow someone to show you the path forward.

If this episode gives you hope, share it with someone who is struggling, considering sobriety, or having a difficult time in recovery.

Visit SuccessfulLifePodcast.com to connect with Corey and hear more real conversations about sobriety, recovery, personal growth, and building a successful life.

Subscribe to The Successful Life Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leave a review, and remember: you never have to face recovery alone.

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

Rejection can make you question everything—your recovery, your career, your relationships, and even your place in the world. But what if rejection isn’t proof that you’re failing? What if it’s simply part of the process leading you somewhere better?

In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier shares how starting a new roofing sales position reminded him of the emotional connection between rejection, fear, and recovery. Whether it’s knocking on doors, making an uncomfortable follow-up call, walking into an AA meeting, or reaching out to someone for help, fear can convince us to avoid the very action that could change our lives.

Corey reflects on feeling like an outsider during his first seven years in recovery, believing he was different from everyone else in the rooms. Although nobody rejected him, the stories in his head made him feel as if he didn’t belong. It wasn’t until the pain became great enough that he became willing to work the steps, listen to others, and stop relying solely on his own plan.

This episode explores the importance of taking action without controlling the outcome. Corey discusses how recovery, service, Transcendental Meditation, meaningful relationships, and his move to Wilmington have helped him trust the process and recognize the gifts he couldn’t initially see.

Sometimes the breakthrough comes from making the phone call you’re afraid to make, attending the meeting you want to skip, asking for help, or simply doing the next right thing. You may not receive the result you expected—but it could be better than anything you planned.

In this episode:

• Why rejection feels so personal in recovery, sales, and relationships
• How “head trash” convinces us that we don’t belong
• The danger of comparing differences instead of identifying similarities
• Why knowledge alone cannot replace action
• How fear prevents us from making important calls and connections
• The role of meditation in calming anxiety and managing rejection
• Why letting go of the outcome can create unexpected gifts
• How working the 12 Steps helps uncover childhood wounds
• The difference between being sober and actively working a recovery program
• Why God’s plan may be bigger than the plan we create for ourselves
• How doing the next right thing can completely change your life

If you’re struggling with alcohol and believe it may be time to get sober, you do not have to do it alone. Help is available wherever you live. Reach out to someone in recovery, attend a meeting, or contact Corey through TheSuccessfulLifePodcast.com.

Subscribe to The Successful Life Podcast, leave a five-star review, and share this episode with someone who may need to hear its message.

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

Sobriety doesn’t mean life suddenly gets easy. Relationships still fall apart. Money gets tight. Jobs change. Fear shows up. Life still happens.

But sometimes the hardest moments in recovery become the greatest gifts.

In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier shares how his perspective on sobriety has changed over the years—from trying to control outcomes and expecting life to go his way to learning how to let go, trust God, make amends, help others, and recognize the gifts hidden inside difficult seasons.

Corey shares personal experiences with heartbreak, financial struggles, moving to a new city, making amends, overcoming isolation, and learning to become comfortable in his own skin. He also shares a powerful story about a young man making a difficult amends—only to discover that the person on the other side of the door had been sober for 30 years.

Recovery isn’t simply about not drinking. It’s about becoming free from the things you’ve carried for years.

In this episode:

• Why difficult seasons can become gifts in recovery
• Letting go of expectations and the need to control outcomes
• The freedom that comes from making amends
• Why asking God and other people for help matters
• Getting comfortable being uncomfortable
• How helping other alcoholics strengthens sobriety
• Why 30, 60, and 90 days sober are enormous accomplishments
• Finding gratitude in ordinary moments
• Why money alone doesn’t create a successful life
• Doing the next right thing when life isn’t going your way

If you’re struggling in early sobriety—or wondering whether life really gets better without alcohol—this episode is a reminder to keep going.

Nothing in your life gets better by picking up a drink or a drug. But recovery can give you a life worth living.

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠

What if the biggest thing keeping you stuck isn’t alcohol or drugs—but the mask you’re wearing?

In this deeply personal episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier shares the raw truth about recovery, authenticity, and what it took to rebuild his life after years of believing he had everything under control.

After first getting sober in 2009, Corey experienced many of the promises of recovery—business success, financial stability, a new marriage, and material success. But underneath it all, he was still wearing masks: pride, ego, perfectionism, and the belief that he was different from everyone else.

Eventually those masks led him away from the principles that had transformed his life. Marijuana replaced genuine recovery, his business collapsed, depression took over, and he found himself starting over in 2023.

In this episode, Corey opens up about:

• Why looking for differences instead of similarities kept him disconnected from recovery.
• The dangerous masks of pride, ego, perfectionism, and “having it all together.”
• How untreated alcoholism can exist even while attending meetings.
• Why honesty and vulnerability became the turning point in his recovery.
• Starting over after years of sobriety and the humility it required.
• Making amends and rebuilding a life based on authenticity instead of appearances.
• Why surrender—not control—has brought more peace than anything else.
• The role of sponsorship, service work, prayer, meditation, and the 12 Steps in lasting recovery.
• Encouragement for anyone considering getting sober or returning to recovery.

Whether you’re newly sober, questioning your relationship with alcohol, or supporting someone in recovery, this episode offers hope that freedom begins when the masks come off.

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear that recovery is possible.

Send us Fan Mail

https:newpathemployment.com

Connect with Corey

• Visit The Successful Life Podcast⁠
• Follow Corey on Facebook⁠
• Follow Corey on Instagram⁠
• Buy My Book on Audible⁠
• Buy My Book on Amazon⁠