Recovering Out Loud

ROL Productions
  • 4.6 (5)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

Sobriety you can actually use — from someone who lived it twice. I'm Anthony. I got sober in 2015, relapsed after 7.5 years, and rebuilt from zero. Now I'm an addiction counsellor-in-training sharing what actually works in recovery — not theory, real tools. Every episode covers the real struggles of staying sober: emotional sobriety, relapse prevention, identity, people-pleasing, shame, trauma, mental health, and the messy middle nobody talks about. If you're newly sober, years in, or supporting someone you love — this is your space. New episodes every week. Follow so you never miss one.

  1. 7h ago

    The Hidden Opportunities in Recovery (The Wins Nobody Claps For)

    The wins nobody claps for are the ones that built your recovery. Here are the hidden ones. We throw parties for the first sober birthday and the first sober holiday. But nobody warns you about the first sober funeral, the first sober breakup, the first heartbreak you walk through with nothing to numb it. In this solo episode I share the opportunities that hid inside the hard parts of getting sober — the ones I almost missed because I was looking at them the wrong way. This one is a perspective shift. Addiction, for me, was a disease of perception — being stuck in my own view and unable to see another angle. Recovery keeps handing me a different lens. So I walk through the moments most of us overlook: — The quiet window after an urge passes. Cravings work like waves: they build, peak, and fade, usually faster than you'd think, if you don't feed them. The magic isn't the wave passing — it's the proof you bank when it does. "I survived that without using." That's a rep. — Boredom as data, not danger. Boredom is one of the most reliable relapse triggers there is. But it's a signal, not a threat — it's pointing at a gap. When you read it instead of running from it, it tells you what you actually need. — Resentment as a mirror. The people who get under my skin are usually holding up a mirror I don't want to look in. Every name on the resentment list is a pointer at a fear or a want of mine in disguise. It turns a hit list into a treasure map. — The 2 a.m. scroll as a check-in. The scroll isn't the problem — it's a symptom. Instead of piling on shame, I use it as my body raising its hand: what am I actually avoiding right now? — The hours you get back. Active addiction was a full-time job. Recovery didn't just remove the substance — it handed me back the clock. That reclaimed time is terrifying and it's the single biggest hidden opportunity there is. Don't just fill it so you don't drink. Build a life you don't want to escape from. A note before you listen: this is for the everyday hard feelings — the cravings, the resentments, the 4 p.m. dread. It is not a substitute for real help in a crisis. Some waves need a lifeguard, not a surfboard. Riding it out and reaching out are both strength — the work is knowing which one the moment calls for.

    The Hidden Opportunities in Recovery (The Wins Nobody Claps For)

  2. 2d ago

    10 Weird Things My Alcoholic Brain Does in Recovery

    Ten weird things my alcoholic brain still does in recovery — and why none of them run my life anymore. I've been in recovery since 2015. I relapsed around seven and a half years in, and I'm back — a year and a half sober again. This is a solo one: just me laughing at my own brain out loud, because I'm convinced it works differently than someone who doesn't have this thing. For me, alcoholism is a disease of perception — I'm the center, everyone else is just orbiting, and I only ever get my own lens. So I made a list of the patterns I still catch myself running. The arguments I win against strangers who have no idea we're fighting. The "must be nice" my brain mutters when I clock someone else using. The full movie of every possible outcome it insists on screening before anything's even happened. Some of it's funny. Some of it is the exact thinking that used to drink at me. Most of it, I'd bet, you'll recognize. Here's the part that matters: today I can watch all of it happen and just go, "oh, I'm doing that thing again" — and let it pass. The space between the thought and the action gets bigger. It gets quieter. That's what showing up does. If you're in it right now and can't stop drinking or using: keep showing up. Find someone in recovery who has what you want, and do what they did. Simple, not easy. If no one's told you today — I love you. Recovery is simple, not easy.

    10 Weird Things My Alcoholic Brain Does in Recovery

  3. 5d ago

    Everything I Knew About Getting Sober Was Wrong (10 Myths)

    Ten recovery myths that keep people stuck — from someone sober again after a hard relapse. Almost everything I thought I knew about getting sober turned out to be wrong, and some of it nearly cost me my life. In this solo episode I go through ten of the biggest myths I hear online, from friends, and in the news — why each one sticks around, and what's tended to be truer in my actual experience. I'm a year and a half sober after seven and a half years of continuous sobriety and a relapse I didn't see coming. So I've been on both sides of most of these: the version of me that believed them, and the version that lived long enough to find out they were false. This isn't clinical advice and I'm not a doctor — it's lived experience, peer to peer. Take what you like and leave the rest. We cover: Whether you really have to "hit rock bottom" first (and what a bottom actually is)Why addiction was never about willpower for meThe "once you're sober you're cured" trap — and why sober is the starting line, not the finishWhat relapse does and doesn't eraseWhy "do it on your own" kept me sickThe high-functioning myth ("I'm not bad enough to need help")Medication in recovery — and why that's between you and your doctorThe moderation fantasyThe idea that recovery is boringWhether you have to "want it" before treatment can workIf one of these lands for you, that's the point. Write your own myths in the comments.

    Everything I Knew About Getting Sober Was Wrong (10 Myths)

  4. Aug 13

    Staying Sober While Travelling, the Strivers' Curse & "We Could Have Missed It All"

    CHEF DEV IS BACK...A counsellor once asked Devan: what's wrong with the way you feel? This is that conversation. Chef Devan Rajkumar Today, he travels and cooks across different cities, constantly learning, evolving, and refining his approach. Every kitchen, every culture, and every experience adds to how he creates. He stays curious, asks questions, and continues to grow because great food comes from understanding, not ego. He was filling out intake forms in treatment, and where they asked why he got high, he wrote the honest answer — I love the feeling of it. The counsellor read it back and asked him one question that took years to really land: what's wrong with the way you feel? That question sits underneath everything we get into here. We start somewhere lighter — cutting the "jacked guys" out of an Instagram feed — and end up on steroids, peptides and Ozempic as drugs, and the question neither of us fully answered: are you still sober if you're on gear? From there it goes where the real ones go. Body shaming and the comments that stick — the uncle who says "you got fat" before he says hello. The guilt and shame under the attention. And the root of it: what are you actually escaping from? Devan opens up about the mask, the people-pleasing, and putting the oxygen mask on everyone but himself. We talk about how you help someone who won't help themselves, the bridge you can't see until you've crossed it, and why early recovery feels impossible from the inside. Then the stuff that keeps us here: quitting cigarettes and finally deciding if I put it in my body, it has to be good for me. The double life and the secrets that fuel relapse — because in my experience it was never the substance, it was the behaviours around it. The strivers' curse — trading the addiction for a stacked calendar and an overtrained body. Spirituality as humility and gratitude. Seva — selfless service with nobody watching. And a moment I didn't expect, where Devan gets honest about where his own program is thin right now, and decides to do something about it. Nobody in this one has it all figured out. That's the point. If you've ever sat in a room thinking you're the worst one doing this, this episode is for you. This is a peer conversation — lived experience, not clinical or professional advice. 👋 If this hit homeFollow Recovering Out Loud so the next one finds you, and leave a rating if the show's ever helped — it's the single biggest thing that helps another struggling person find us.

    Staying Sober While Travelling, the Strivers' Curse & "We Could Have Missed It All"

  5. Aug 11

    How to Tell People You Don't Drink (Without Making It Weird) : The 5 Reactions & How to Handle Them

    What happens when you tell people you're sober — and how to handle every reaction. Getting sober is one job. Telling people you're sober is a completely separate one — and it never really ends. New party, new drink in someone's outstretched hand, and there you are deciding again how to say it. In this solo episode, Anthony walks through the reactions you'll actually get when you tell people you don't drink, what each one really means (spoiler: it's usually about them, not you), and how much you actually owe anyone. This is one person's lived experience, not a rulebook. Everybody's disclosure looks different — take what helps and leave the rest. Inside this episode: The five reactions — the Defensive Drinker, the "Good For You," the Pusher, the Pity, and the Fighter — and what's driving eachWhy disclosure and anonymity are two different things (you can be open about being sober without ever naming a program)The full menu of what to say, from "I don't drink" as a complete sentence to the lines that shut down a pusherHandling it in the wild: dating, work, family, and the old friend groups who only ever knew you with a drink in your handThe reframe that takes their reaction off your shoulders — and the upside almost nobody mentions If you're finding your footing in sobriety, being open about it out loud turns a private struggle into something with a door in it. That's the whole point of the show. Follow Recovering Out Loud so the next episode finds you, and if it helped, leave a rating — it's the single biggest thing that helps someone else find the show. 💬 Comment: what reaction caught you off guard, and what do you say when someone asks why you're not drinking? Recovering Out Loud — Real stories.

    How to Tell People You Don't Drink (Without Making It Weird) : The 5 Reactions & How to Handle Them

  6. Aug 6

    The Four Agreements & Recovery: Words, Resentment, Doing Your Best

    The Four Agreements, read through a recovery lens — words, resentment, assumptions, and doing your best. A quiet 1997 book that keeps showing up in the rooms, even though it wasn't written for them. I go through all four agreements and how each maps onto staying sober — the self-talk that runs on autopilot, the gossip that turns fellowship into a rumor mill, the resentments we build out of things that were never about us, and the perfectionism that punishes an imperfect day into a relapse. Peer perspective and lived experience only — not professional advice. Pick one agreement. Live with it for seven days. Notice what shifts. In paid partnership with New Beginnings Recovery Home (newbeginningsrecovery.ca). DM HOME for info. Follow Recovering Out Loud on Spotify and tap the bell. If no one told you today — I love you.

    The Four Agreements & Recovery: Words, Resentment, Doing Your Best

  7. Aug 4

    Ego Is the Enemy | How Self-Centeredness Drives Relapse — and What Beats It

    The thing that almost killed me and the thing keeping me sober are the same voice: ego. In this solo episode I break down ego the way it actually shows up in recovery — not the loudmouth cliché, but the quiet self-centeredness underneath it. Ego has two faces that trade shifts: the top of the seesaw ("I've got this, the rules don't apply to me") and the bottom ("I'm the worst, nobody's been through what I've been through"). Grandiosity and self-pity are the same lie wearing different clothes — the lie that I'm the center of the story. I get into how ego keeps us sick: it's the bouncer at the door of help. Terminal uniqueness ("my situation is different, so I don't have to do the work"). Being right over being well. Comparison — measuring my insides against everyone else's outsides, the thief of joy. And the complacency trap, where the longer you're sober the quieter ego gets, until it whispers one won't hurt. I share the Jamaica story — two years sober, funnels on the beach, and the pause that let me play the tape all the way through. Then resentment and relapse: how ego keeps a ledger, charges interest, and builds the on-ramp back one justification at a time. (Yes, there's an elevator story.) The back half is the antidote — humility. Not humiliation, not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. Right-sizing. Asking for help before I'm on fire. Staying teachable. Service that inconveniences me. Getting honest with someone, because secrets keep you sick. The goal was never to kill the ego — recovery is an ego-deflating process. Start from zero every day, catch the voice a little quicker, and stop letting it drive the bus. If no one's told you yet today: I love you. And remember — recovery is simple, not easy. Book mentioned: Emotional Sobriety: The Next Frontier New Beginnings Recovery Home — this episode is supported by New Beginnings Recovery Home, a disclosed partner of the show. If you or someone you love needs a next step, DM the word HOME and we'll point you in the right direction. newbeginningsrecovery.ca

    Ego Is the Enemy | How Self-Centeredness Drives Relapse — and What Beats It

  8. Aug 1

    The Recovery Skills That Quietly Fixed the Rest of My Life

    The thing that kept me sober turned out to be the thing that made me better at being a person. Recovery isn't just about not using — it's a full retraining in how to be a human being. Most of us don't notice how many of those skills transfer until we're using them on a Tuesday at work. Today I walk through the six that followed me out the door of rehab and straight into a better life — not just financially, but in my relationships and how I show up. The 6 skills: The pause — the gap between an urge and your action, and how it grows the longer you stay soberHALT — hungry, angry, lonely, tired: scan your own state before you decide the problem is your marriageOne day at a time — shrinking the unit of time you're responsible for so the impossible becomes doableRigorous honesty — you can't stay sober on a foundation of secrets, and the honest version of you is more trustworthy than the polished oneAmends over apology — sorry is a sentence; an amends is a pattern changeAsking for help — the "I should handle this myself" voice is the same one that almost killed meThese aren't recovery hacks. They're life skills most people never get formally taught — school skips emotional regulation. Getting sober forced me to learn them under pressure. What a gift. Peer perspective only — this isn't medical or clinical advice. If you're struggling or in crisis, please reach out to someone you trust or a local support line. Which skill are you going to use this week? Tell me in the comments. This episode is supported by New Beginnings Recovery Home (newbeginningsrecovery.ca). If you or someone you love needs a supportive place to land go to their website

    The Recovery Skills That Quietly Fixed the Rest of My Life
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Ratings & Reviews

4.6
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Sobriety you can actually use — from someone who lived it twice. I'm Anthony. I got sober in 2015, relapsed after 7.5 years, and rebuilt from zero. Now I'm an addiction counsellor-in-training sharing what actually works in recovery — not theory, real tools. Every episode covers the real struggles of staying sober: emotional sobriety, relapse prevention, identity, people-pleasing, shame, trauma, mental health, and the messy middle nobody talks about. If you're newly sober, years in, or supporting someone you love — this is your space. New episodes every week. Follow so you never miss one.

Information

  • Creator
    ROL Productions
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    136
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © ROL Productions
  • Show Website
    Recovering Out Loud

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