Speaker 1When you're newly sober, everyone tells you all the things you're giving up. The lifestyle, the fun, the friends, the weekends out, the freedom, whatever lie they come up with or tell us that we really think that we had. Nobody tells you about the weird stuff that you get back when you get sober, like the smell of your own apartment when nothing is in it rotting, or the clean house that you live in, like remembering the end of a movie, like the fact that nobody flinches anymore when you walk in the room. People aren't walking on eggshells. So this episode, I want to talk about all the surprise wins that you get when you get sober, the things that you don't really think about, the surprises that sobriety has given you, the things that maybe you should stop and take a second and say, wow, I can't believe I got that back. You might not even notice. And I'm going to go through them all today. Hey guys, my name is Anthony. I'm an alcoholic and an addict. I am in recovery, been in recovery since 2015. I started this podcast last year to stay sober. And to hopefully help one other alcoholic or addict or someone who's sick and suffering. I had seven and a half years of continuous sobriety and recovery, and I relapsed on steroids and secrets and ADHD medication. Today, I'm almost a year and a half sober again, and I'm bringing the recovery content to you for free. And I'm grateful for every single one of you. So let's get into it. Early recovery messaging is almost entirely loss coded. What you can't do, what you can't have, what you have to give up, a lot of negatives. When I was first getting sober, every list I read was a list of nos. I needed a list of yeses and nobody was giving me any. So today I'm going to give you that list. Why the small gifts matter more than the big ones. The dramatic transformations, career back, family back, you get money back, time back. Those are real, but they're slow. And they're not what keeps you sober at 11 PM on a Tuesday, because let's be honest, those are the things that don't happen. Real depth and weight, the material things that will never make us happy. The outside things that we use to try to change our insides that won't bring us that contented peace and happiness in recovery. What keeps you sober is the small weird stuff, the stuff you didn't even notice, the accumulating proof. I didn't stay sober because my life turned into a movie. I stayed sober because I started tasting steak again. I started enjoying sunsets again with my wife. I started enjoying beach days and the sun and walks. The things that I had forgotten about in music. Even today's episode is the yes list, the unexpected, small, specific, sometimes weird gifts that nobody puts in their inspirational reels. So today I'm not going to give you the obvious ones because you already know those. Your life gets better. Your liver gets better. I'm going to give you the ones that snuck up on me, the ones that you might not be aware of that you need to celebrate. We all need to celebrate. So in all honesty, not every gift shows up on schedule. The research is clear that physical recovery is mostly predictable. Sleep starts restoring at seven to 10 days. Skin improves by two weeks. Cognitive function measurably better by 18 days, even in severe cases. So you start to, the brain fog starts to lift. I remember in my first recovery, sorry, my third rehab, I'd gone in there and I had detoxed at home. I didn't do a detox with them. I was falling asleep every two minutes. I couldn't even stay awake because I was detoxing off stimulants and benzos and my anxiety was through the roof. I was so tired. I just wanted to eat all the time and sleep. That's it. So for the first two weeks, I remember I couldn't even put a sentence together. I couldn't even talk. I couldn't, I was a shell of a human being. I couldn't get my thoughts into words and I didn't even want to. I was so exhausted and just sick and tired of being sick and tired. Emotional and reward system recovery is slower. Post acute withdrawal syndrome, which stands for PAWS, P-A-W-S. I talk about this a lot. It can run through months. Two to three with mood swings, emotional blunting and, and Hedina and Hedinia. That's not failure. And Hedinia, I believe that's not feeling anything. The just being depressed or not even depressed, just being flat. That's not failure. That's the brain rebuilding. Some gifts don't show up at all. This is the honest truth and uncomfortable truth in recovery is that some damage is permanent. You may not get those families back. You might not get your health back to where it was. When I went into my second rehab, I had fatty liver and I was put on this liver program while I was in there. Thank God. And it restored my liver after three weeks, I believe, but it was scary. It was scary to have, that was my first real palpable health concern in my third rehab, I had to go to the hospital because my heart, I felt like I was having a heart attack. One of the days I was sitting in class and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest for an hour and a half straight. I couldn't focus. I couldn't concentrate. I was, I think I was having a panic attack, but what happened was I got picked up in the ambulance. They ran all the tests and I sat in the hospital for three, four hours, however long it took, you know, Canadian hospital systems, not the best, but I'm grateful at the end of the day because the health care is all provided and I was taken care of my lungs and my heart were surprisingly in good shape. And if I go back out today, if I relapse, I don't know if that's going to stay the same. I, there's some. There's some real health concerns that happen when you use stimulants and benzos together, your heart is going up, your heart is going down. So I don't want to test that out today. I'm grateful that I have the health that I have today. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than it was. Some gifts you have to actively go and get a lot of people. A lot of what's promised in sober content is passive. Your body heals itself. That's true for some things, skin, sleep, liver, and it's false for others. Joy, meaning, identity, connection. And I always say this, when you get sober, you're not magically just going to get happy all the time. You might be on that pink cloud, but it ends. You need to find meaning. And I go into this and it's a great detail in the episode about finding meaning. Nobody handed me a sense of purpose at 90 days sober. I had to build one. I started the podcast. I started counseling. I went back to school. The body recovered without me. The life didn't. We have to go and get those things, those passions. I have to find what I like in recovery and I have to find out who I am. And then I have to love that true self, but I have to go and get it. I have to try things, be a beginner at things. And I might hate some of them, but I might like some of them. It's process of trial and error where you are trying new things, seeing if we like them. If we don't, we move on. Okay. So caveats are done. Here's the actual list. The surprises that I didn't see coming and that my friends, family, recovery peers keep telling me they didn't either. They're not front and center. This might be subconscious. So first, number one, real sleep versus passed out sleep. The first time you wake up without an alarm and actually feel rested. I remember there were so many times where I used to just wake up at, I don't know, 11, 12 in the afternoon and I would still feel tired. I would be up all night partying and taking my ADHD medication, abusing cocaine. The next day would be a write-off. I'd wake up some days at four in the afternoon and I'd wake up in hotel rooms with the blind, blinds shut and the blackout blinds on, and it would be five, six o'clock in the evening and the whole day was gone. But I had been up till 6:00 AM the night before. Those Uber rides, riding home from the club or from someone's apartment at six in the morning. Don't miss that. Worst feeling ever when you're just sitting with a guy and thinking about your life and watching people go to work and you're going home. The brain stuff. So memory coming back. This is a big one. It's a big one. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. it's not going to kill me. This is, it's not ruining my day. I can have a lot of bad days in recovery and be bored and feel useless and feel like I'm not doing enough, but it's different, right? It's different than this danger of boredom before was like a life or death scenario. I felt like I was going to die. I felt like I needed to do something to have fun. I needed excitement in my life so bad that I was going to die if I didn't experience some sort of excitement every day with drugs and alcohol, mainly. It's that feeling of being bored, not having anything to do and just sitting with yourself and not trying to immediately fix it. Boredom used to be a five alarm fire. Now it's just a Tuesday afternoon. Oh, this one's good. I like this one. Eye contact. Have you ever noticed that you're able to look people in the eyes today? If you've been sober for a bit in addiction, I was always walking around with my head hung low, depressed, not confident, didn't believe in myself. I was always walking around with my head hung low, depressed, not confident, hated myself. Today, I can walk out into the world and look people in the eyes and have conversations with them and listen to what they're saying and get something from it. When I hear people talking and telling me a story or talking about their experience or just even small talk, I find it interesting because I can ask them questions and I actually care about conversations. I can benefit from conversations in my life today. Instead of having those 6am kitchen talks about changing the world and starting a business and changing your life, all those bullshits, surface level conversations we have at the after party and in addiction and and alcoholism. Those fake relationships we build with random people. Shame isn't a personality trait. It's a side effect. When the using stops, the shame starts unhooking and you face your face stops working overtime to hide it. So you're not always constantly thinking about what other people are thinking of you. You can just be present in scenarios in conversations. Next, we have people not flinching or walking on eggshells around you. So kids, who stop bracing, partners who stop scanning for threats, parents who answer the phone differently when you call. Oh, my God, my dad is happy to see me again. He doesn't have that look on his face. That's like, son, how are you going to let me down today? Anyone remember that when you used to show up to family functions or around your friends or wife or husband, and they just had that look of what are you up to? How are you going to let me down today? That look of mistrust and sadness and despair. I don't cause that on anybody today. What a beautiful thing. I don't invoke fear in people everywhere I go. I don't create anxiety in people. I'm fun to be around again. I can bring people up instead of bringing them down all the time. You know, this one's interesting, too, because I find that even in sobriety, I can be very low sometimes, some days, some moments. And I notice when I'm being, you know, I'm in a situation where I'm like, I'm not going to be able to like that because other people notice it. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm one of those people that if I'm in an emotional place, you will know about it. And sometimes I can't control it. Sometimes I self-pity. It's like a logo on my t-shirt. I can just, I show up into situations and rooms and you can sense the sadness on me. And that's okay. It doesn't last. And I can get through it. And it's just temporary. I don't, I'm not spending majority of my days like that anymore where I was before. I was extremely high and I was a flight risk and people were always nervous around me because my anxiety was through the roof. My excitement was through the roof. I was talking in my own minute. You couldn't get a word in. What a gift to not have to do that today. Next we have being depended on. So first thing that comes up to mind when I think of being depended on, so being a person who can show up is being a designated driver. What a gift. I can drive people around when they're driving. And I can enjoy it. I can take care of people and they need to be taken care of. If my friend has had too much to drink, I can be that person that he used to be for me. I can take care of people if I have to, in those scenarios, especially if you're young and you're still going out, that's a gift. When someone asks me for a ride for advice, to watch their kid, to hold something for them, I can do that. I can be that person. I can, my sister trusts me around her daughter. What a gift to have people trust you again. That is beautiful. And it takes time. You got to prove it through actions, but it's worth it at the end of the day. And it's a beautiful thing. Trust feels heavy when you haven't carried it for a while. That weight is a gift. This is a good one too. Time you didn't know you had. When you get sober, you're going to get a lot of time back on your hands. You'll hear people say that. And it's true. I spent a lot of time planning, premeditating, acquiring my drugs and alcohol, thinking about I was constantly in this state of how am I going to get my next high? How long is it going to last? How am I going to be high after that? Is it going to be enough? Do I have enough? Do I have things to do tonight that will contribute to my fun? Always about me, self-centered to the extreme. I'm the main character of the story all the time in addiction. And I can still be that way in recovery, but I'm aware of it now. And I can jump out of it when I'm being main character, Anthony. Okay. Here's some of the weird ones that you might not think about. Knowing where your phone is and being able to leave your phone places and not have people looking at it and seeing that you're dealing drugs or picking up drugs or doing things that you shouldn't be doing. I can leave my phone and know where it is. I'm not worried about losing it when I go out. Remember? I used to check your pockets every 30 seconds to make sure you had everything on you, your wallet, your keys, your phone. It's a small gift, but it's a real one. You always know where your phone is, your wallet, your keys. The constant low grade panic of having lost something is gone. Always knowing where your drugs were, having to sneak drugs into places. That was another one that I used to worry about. I used to worry about, I used to worry about, I used to worry about, a lot. Next we have being able to be alone with yourself. This one's good. I don't need music. I don't need to drive and listen to, I don't have to be stimulated all the time. Sometimes I can just sit with myself and meditate, be aware of consciousness, be aware of now. Pray, journal. I can be present and not feel like I need to escape myself. The room is quiet and you're in it and that's fine. Yesterday I was sitting watching TV and I noticed that I had nothing to do today. I had no plans and I actually was kind of relieved by that. I was okay with just enjoying the night with my wife and being alone until she came home. The dramatic transformations that we talked about in the beginning and why the small stuff is the real stuff is because those dramatic transformations are unreliable motivation. They're not going to keep you going and keep you sober. I'm going to get sober and get my career back, my family back, my health back. They're real, but they're long game payoffs. They're not going to bring you the dopamine or the satisfaction, the fullness of your spiritual cup. The brain doesn't run on long game payoffs. The brain runs on what is noticed this morning. The small wins, the base hits, if you will, in baseball, the small instrumental movements, inches, progress, not perfection. Small gifts are evidence. Every small unexpected gift is the brain logging proof that sobriety is delivering things using or using and drinking delivered intensity. I always say this, but I was always living at a 10, nines and tens. Today I can live at the fives and the fours and, or I was at the nines and tens in addiction or the ones and the twos. Now today I can live at the fives and the sixes and be okay, be content. So this is about compound interest. A small single gift doesn't keep anyone sober. A hundred small gifts noticed and named will. I started to write them down. I started gratitude journaling and seeing all the things that I've gotten back. I started to write them down. I started to write them down and seeing all the things that I've gotten back. Talking about the good things, putting my magic magnifying glass on the positives in my life, not the negatives. So last thing before I close, this is for the person listening who can't think of anything yet. And that's okay. It's, it takes time to notice the good things in your life. If you're still in months one to three and feeling nothing yet, the version of you didn't feel the gifts yet. Your timeline is real. Even if it's slower than the inspirational posts, post acute withdrawal syndrome is real. It's a chemical thing going on in your body. You are still recuperating months after the using your body is still adapting. You're rewiring your neurotransmitters. I got a, I got a message the other day on Instagram. Somebody literally just said, how do I rewire my neurotransmitters? How do I change my neurotransmitters? The only answer I have to that individual is just keep going. There's no shortcuts in addiction recovery. There is only small wins accumulated over time over and over again, until it changes. It just takes time. The first three months of my recovery again, this time around, I was thinking about using cocaine every day and I was pissed. I was sad. I was resentful. I was depressed and I just pushed through it. I called somebody every single day and told them about it and talked about it. And I asked other people how they were doing. I got out of myself. I went for walks. I worked out. It does pass. This too shall pass. I promise you it will just keep going. So pick one of these things, the rewards, the gifts from body, brain, people, money, or weird ones that I've mentioned today. Look for one gift in each this week. Don't try to feel gratitude for it. Just notice it. Naming it counts. Write it down. Feeling is a bonus that comes later. Notice the good things in your life today. Maybe you need to ask somebody else, Hey, have you noticed any change in me? Have you noticed any growth improvement? Can you tell me about it so I can notice it? Having another person, another perspective is essential here because we're only one perspective and we're negatives we're we're wired that way we're scanning for threats it's human nature sobriety isn't a list of things you got back it's a sensitivity that comes back online the ability to notice what was always there the food was always there the mornings were always there the eye contact was always available you're not getting new things you're getting your receiver back you're changing your perception you are changing the way you look at the world when you get sober you are noticing certain things you never noticed before and that is the gift here that is the promise if you stay sober long enough and continue to work a recovery program you will notice the good in your life so comment down below what's one small unexpected gift sobriety gave you that you didn't see coming dm me comment below i'm collecting them not just for content but just for me i need to be reminded of the small wins because i can forget you i can forget how good sobriety can be i can focus on the negatives often i do it a lot when there's not a lot of good things externally it's very easy to look internally and start to notice the bad or it's really easy to notice all the things you should have instead of the roof over your head the air conditioning on the food in your fridge the family in your life messaging you the lack of hangovers it's very easy to notice the bad start looking for the good and it will change your life it's hard but it's worth it thank you everyone for listening today i love every single one of you please like follow subscribe to the podcast i just looked on spotify and it says 14 of the listeners are following so if you could follow on spotify on youtube subscribe i would appreciate it i love every single one of you thank you remember recovery is simple not easy
PodcastTranscript AI