“You need willingness to walk through all the doors that open.” August 11, 1988. The tile floor and dirt-smeared windows reflect back light in all directions. I sit in one of the ubiquitous metal chairs, felt banners with gold letters facing me from the front wall. It’s not my first meeting, just the one that…
Q&A with psychotherapist Kaitlyn Elizabeth This series showcases conversations with experts who are sober themselves and working in the recovery space. Today’s edition features Kaitlyn Elizabeth, a psychotherapist, coach, and business owner from the Midwest who currently lives in Denver with her husband, son, and their two dog-like cats. Kaitlyn writes a newsletter called dialoguing, where she demystifies therapy…
Move through pain, change the channel, find forgiveness. We’ve all been there. One minute you’re enjoying your day, and the next, you’re hit with the emotional equivalent of a bad TV rerun—resentment. It’s like re-watching that cringe-worthy moment from your past on an endless loop. Resentment isn’t a fun experience for anyone, but oldtimers tell us that…
Expert Q&A with astrologer Kaitlyn Ramsay This series showcases conversations with experts who are sober themselves and working in the recovery space. Today’s edition features Kaitlyn Ramsay, an empowerment coach, astrologer, and writer from Canada now living in Thailand with her dog, Lady. After she quit drinking, she needed to find a way to process the emotions…
For Tyler Content/trigger warning: Suicidality, substance abuse Before baking in a brick oven, one doesn’t consider the chief chore, having to clean the oven. Ash and soot build up after days of burning wood, amassing small mounds in the back of the oven. One of the first things I learned in training as a baker…
Welcome! As part of celebrating and growing the Sober App Substack community, this periodic feature showcases recent guest contributors. Check out their bios and publications below, find their guest posts on the homepage, and share your own sober publication or say hello in the comments. Nancy Boyd is a Leadership Development Coach, the 2009 International Coach of the…
Clare Egan shares her experience of quitting alcohol I decided to stop drinking on January 1, 2021. The previous night, I’d celebrated the New Year with friends. I’d climbed the fence close to their house with a homemade fruit crumble under my arm. At midnight, we’d toasted to the end of 2020 with a glass…
Connection and community make it way easier. In getting sober, we not only leave alcohol and other drugs behind. We leave parts of ourselves behind, too. Parts like habits and routines that are familiar, if miserable. Like personalities that turn on with alcohol and fall silent when sober. Like relationships and ways of being in…
After 48 years sober, I’ve come to some tough realizations. The first drink I ever had resulted in the worst hangover of my life. I was so sick I couldn’t keep water down for more than a week. A normal person would have said: “If this is what drinking is like, I don’t want any…
Does anything require more commitment than getting clean and sober? Commitment: the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc. a pledge or undertaking; an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action.¹ All good definitions. But what if commitment actually creates freedom rather than restricting it? Shouldn’t that also be a definition of…