by Paul Churchill | Feb 12, 2018 | Podcast
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In this episode, Paul vents a little bit of his frustration and anger in recovery about AA and “big alcohol”.
Without alcohol in our lives to help us deal with difficult emotions.. anger, resentment, and frustration (to name a few) often rise to the surface. Paul expresses his concern for the abundance of alcohol in society, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is destructive and harmful.
Katie, with 496 days since her last drink, shares her story:
SHOW NOTES
[12:00] Paul Introduces Katie.
Katie is 29 years old, originally from New York, but lived in Colorado for a while and now lives in Dallas, Texas. Since quitting drinking and she is now into fitness. She recently ran her first half marathon.
[15:45] How did you realize you had a problem and how did you get sober?
Katie drank a lot in school. After college, she moved to Denver. She started going out every night, and developed insomnia. Went to the doctor, was prescribed Xanax. The medication eventually stopped working. The insomnia continued. She medicated on both ends of her sleep.
[19:50] When did you realize the core problem wasn’t being solved?
In Dallas, the doctors tried to taper down her medications.
[23:33] When did rehab enter the picture?
She felt alone and stuck. She broke down in her apartment. While moving, she found pills that she was hiding from herself. While her father was helping her move, they went to therapy and had a break down in front her her therapist and her father. Therapist told her she was still young and had a lot of life in front of her.
[27:45] You realized you had a drinking problem while in rehab?
Yes. She was in denial about why she was going. Thought it was just for rest. Left sober, but with the intention of using her meds normally, or as prescribed. In rehab, she slept well. She was going to try to use meds to stay sober… realized she was an alcoholic.
[30:35] What was it like after?
Returning to Dallas was tough. She had no support structure. Started to make friends through the sober community. Got into fitness. Met a guy who was a big drinker, turns out he had been sober for a while and understood her situation.
[37:00] How did you overcome the desire to relapse?
She lost a romantic partner, and it was difficult. She insisted on making it to 1 year, though. She realized that emotions are fleeting.
[38:10] What is your proudest moment in sobriety?
She’s visiting her best friend from college. They’re celebrating sobriety together. She’s also found out that many other people are getting sober.
[40:26] What is something that you’ve learned about yourself in sobriety?
She’s resilient. She’s been hitting her fitness goals more easily.
[41:41] Rapid Fire Round
- What was your worst memory from drinking?Woke up in a disgusting apartment with bug bites.
- Did you ever have an “oh-shit” moment?The moment of clarity in rehab.
- What’s your plan moving forward?Focus on the positive, and keeping the eye on the prize. Don’t mess with the routine.
- What’s your favorite resource in recovery?Her gym. A tough workout, with intention setting.
- What’s the best advice you’ve ever received (on sobriety)?It’s a lot easier to stay sober than it is to get sober.
- What parting piece of guidance can you give listeners who are in recovery or thinking about quitting drinking?Just try it. You can always go back to the life with alcohol.
- You might be an alcoholic if…You have a parking permit at the liquor store so you can park there without worrying about driving drunk.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Visit Rxbar.com/elevator and use the promo code elevator for 25% off your first order.
The Sober Truth – a book by Lance and Zachary Dodes, debunking recovery programs
From Death Do I Part – a book by Amy Lee Coy, her story about overcoming addiction
Connect with Cafe RE– Use the promo code Elevator for your first month free
Sobriety Tracker iTunes
Sobriety Tracker Android
Sober Selfies! – Send your Sober Selfie and your Success Story to info@recoveryelevator.com
“We took the elevator down, we gotta take the stairs back up, we can do this!”
by Kris Oyen | Oct 12, 2026 | Podcast
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Today we have Lani. She is 38 years old, lives in Salt Lake City, UT and she took her last drink on June 9th, 2026.
This episode is brought to you by:
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[03:05] Thoughts from Paul:
Earlier this year David from episode 142 sent Paul the song Find Your People by Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors. Paul’s first reaction was “holy crap, this song was written for Recovery Elevator”. He rebranded the Bozeman Retreat into Find Your People Retreat and with the musical accompaniment of Uprise, the group sang this song every day.
The message within the lyrics reminds us that the opposite of addiction is connection and when you ditch the drink and find your people, your brain will heal. Your liver will send you a thank you card, your dopamine system will rewire, and life will smooth out.
You’ve heard so many times on this podcast that sobriety is all about recovering your authentic self, than you need to find yourself, and you need others to do that. When you find your people, then you find yourself.
[07:27] Paul introduces Lani:
Lani is 38 years old and works in the juvenile justice system, providing trauma-informed care to youth. She has a dog named Chip, a partner named Audrey, and enjoys hiking, kayaking, yoga, gardening, and spending time outdoors.
Lani grew up in Utah in a home affected by chaos and her estranged father’s alcoholism. Searching for belonging and structure, she became involved in the LDS church. She began drinking in high school despite promising herself she wouldn’t follow in her father’s footsteps. After leaving the church around 2010, alcohol gradually became a bigger part of her life, eventually progressing to daily drinking.
In 2018, after graduating from college and recognizing that her relationship was toxic and her drinking was out of control, Lani planned to become a flight attendant. After drinking heavily, the night before an important test, she failed and felt something needed to change. She moved to Dallas and attended an AA meeting, where she found a sense of belonging and met her first sponsor. She stayed sober for about six months, even living out of her car and tent for a period while working and attending meetings.
After moving back to Utah, Lani relapsed. Over the following years, she moved to Colorado and back to Utah, changed jobs, and experienced more difficult relationships. Despite periods of sobriety, including nearly seven months in 2024, she repeatedly returned to daily drinking.
In October 2025, Lani went to treatment after a frightening experience involving alcohol and travel. She continued drinking after treatment, eventually reaching another breaking point during a trip to Seattle. After returning home, she tapered off alcohol to manage withdrawal symptoms and returned to an AA meeting on June 10th, 2026.
Now 78 days sober at the time of recording, Lani is learning to let herself break, accept help, and stop pretending she is okay. She struggles with the concept of a higher power but is finding meaning in meditation, journaling, daily meetings, and connecting with nature. She is also learning to give herself permission to rest and allow recovery to unfold one day at a time.
Lani’s parting piece of guidance: Be patient with yourself and just try. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Invite someone in. Don’t do it by yourself. There are people that are willing to talk with you about it. And if that’s where it starts, let it be that.
Recovery Elevator
We took the elevator down.
We got to take the stairs back up.
We can do this.
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by Kris Oyen | Oct 5, 2026 | Podcast
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Today we have John. He is 39 years old, lives in Vermont, and he took his last drink on July 15th, 2026.
This episode is brought to you by:
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Check out this free guide to your first seven days without alcohol.
[02:43] Thoughts from Paul:
Paul says that when he first quit drinking and entered the rooms of recovery, he heard so many sayings or recovery slogans and most of them made him roll his eyes. But now when he hears them, he recognizes the wisdom baked into these lines.
Paul shares numerous phrases with us that many of us will recognize, but the one that got the biggest eyeroll out of him when he first got sober was “One Day at a Time”. There is so much in this five-word phrase.
Shortened to three words, it is The Present Moment. Shortened even further to one word, NOW. Eckhart Tolle wrote a whole book about it.
If you find yourself thinking about how you’re going to make it through the witching hour sober, you’re not there yet. Or how you’re going to be AF for the rest of your life? You’re not there yet either. One day at a time means to be here in this moment.
You’ve heard it before on this podcast, but addiction is the greatest life curriculum that one can be blessed with. You’re blessed with the opportunity to fully dissect the saying one day at a time because the other side of an addiction is trying to get you to live in the present moment.
[06:22] Paul introduces John:
John is 39, lives in Vermont, and works in quality control and production. For fun, he enjoys golf and basketball and has rediscovered his love of reading. He says his alcohol-free journey began with Annie Grace’s This Naked Mind.
John first started drinking in his early teens. He and his friends drank and smoked pot on weekends throughout high school, except during sports seasons when he would tone it down. John began questioning when the last time was that he and his buddies had done anything sober. He says programming took over, and alcohol became woven into the fabric of everything.
When John bought his first home in his early 20s, he adopted the habit of having a beer or two after work. He knew drinking might be a problem but never considered quitting.
In his late 20s, John began dating a woman who didn’t drink much. After she moved in, they began drinking together. Over time, John’s drinking worsened, and hers ramped up too. His work schedule and drinking habits made it difficult to make plans, and their relationship began to suffer.
About four years ago, John started reading quit lit and listening to podcasts. He realized he didn’t have control over his drinking and unsuccessfully tried moderation. His girlfriend confronted him, and although he promised to do better, he began hiding his drinking. He felt weak when he realized he couldn’t control it.
While listening to the RE podcast, John heard stories that reminded him of himself. Hearing others’ success motivated him because he realized that if they could do it, so could he. He planned to wean himself off alcohol over a few weeks, but on the fourth day, he woke up knowing he needed to stop.
John used journaling to stay motivated and made a list of all he had lost while drinking. He began reading more quit lit, he joined a gym, bought a basketball, and began exercising. He is now focused on building a routine and a support network.
In the past when John tried to quit, he was doing it to prove to someone else that he could do it. This time, he is in it for the long haul. He hasn’t had cravings and is just looking forward to finding new things to do to occupy his time.
John’s parting piece of guidance: “Today’s the day. Every single day that I waited, I look back and wish I would have quit a day sooner.”
Recovery Elevator
We took the elevator down.
We got to take the stairs back up.
We can do this.
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by RE Helper | Oct 1, 2026 | Alcohol Free, Blog, Helpful Tips, Uncategorized
I Finally Stopped Running
The Beginning
I grew up in rural Australia. My childhood was one that most people dream of. The ocean, the bush and the boundless plains were my backyard. I was a tough kid for my parents: I threw tantrums and I was destructive. One of my first addictive behaviours as a three-year-old was compulsively picking up cigarette butts and eating them.
At the age of eleven my parents moved me to another school, and this caused a change in me. I had been at my primary school since I was four. This transition, including the sudden attention of bullies and a scary bus ride with high schoolers, caused me to become frightened. That fear and uncertainty became part of me through the rest of my childhood and into my adult years.
I was a pretty good sportsman and student, but if I wasn’t in first place then I saw no victory in anything. I always felt I had more to prove, so I lied, I embellished, and I tried to pretend that I was more than I was.
Running Away
I had sipped alcohol a few times throughout my childhood. But I was 14 or 15 the first time that I got drunk. I was around my family, and as a result the first time I got drunk was also the first time I needed to lie about my drinking. But I loved alcohol. It took away that self-doubt. After that, I got drunk any time that I could. From the start there were consequences from my drinking and my solution to those problems was to run away.
Chasing that dragon defined my life for almost 25 years. As a restless alcoholic, I roamed the world, but wherever I went I took that self-doubt, the desire to be more than I was, and the drinking along with me. It affected my friendships, my relationships, my family and career.
I never quite crashed and burned, but mostly because I was always one step ahead of it. I would skate out of town by the seat of my pants and tell myself, “I’ll be better in the next place.”
There is a profound pain in addiction, where the thing that is hurting you the most is also the only thing that momentarily soothes you. For many years before I finally stopped, I didn’t want to drink, I just did. I had mostly lost sight of the fact that there was another option.
I had also slowly shrunk my life to where the only thing left was drinking. My social life was soaked in alcohol. I no longer had hobbies, and my health was beginning to fail me. I made one more desperate relocation, hoping that this time it would be different.
Surrender: The Decision to Stop Drinking
It was different. It was worse. Within a couple of months of arriving, I had managed to create more chaos in my life than ever before. I was tired, I was lonely, and I was on the verge of losing my job, my relationship and, if my luck ran out, my life. I was beaten, and I was finally ready to try the one thing I had never truly tried before: stop drinking.
Previously I had tried to moderate, and even made a few half attempts at stopping, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was clinging to the belief that I needed alcohol to have fun, to connect with others, to connect with myself. The idea of stopping completely scared the shit out of me. So with all the courage I could muster up, I drove myself to an AA meeting and walked inside.
That was 14 months ago. In that time I haven’t drunk or used drugs, and my life has changed profoundly.
Change
The first few months were detox, not just from booze, but from the chaos and the emotion. I slept, I ate ice cream, I went to meetings, I listened back to every episode of the Recovery Elevator Podcast, and I did anything that I could to not drink. I was fortunate that my cravings disappeared quickly, but what replaced them was something more existential: the reality of my life.
There wasn’t much left when you took out the alcohol. Fortunately, I fell into a fun and supportive sober crew through AA, good people who take care of each other. That community and its support have filled my life back up, and that has been one of the biggest factors in helping me maintain my sobriety as long as I have.
Along the way, I have worked on understanding what led me to drink the way I did. I have also been forced to confront the damage that my behaviour caused over my lifetime. That seeking of answers and honesty was a first for me. I had spent my adult life running away from all of my problems.
This was the first time that I forced myself to sit with them and begin to make changes that weren’t just cosmetic: a new job, a new girlfriend, a new city. I was finally examining who I really was, what brought me here, and changing what and who really needed to change all along.
Community, Spirituality and Learning
Probably the biggest surprise of sobriety has been the development of a spiritual belief and practice. The concept of a higher power materialised in my life, and now time with that higher power, be it in a group of people being honest with each other, at the top of a mountain or at the beginning or end of each day, is the most sacred time I have. Prayer and meditation have become tools that I use daily to connect with the universe and with myself.
The community and friendships I have formed have been some of the best of my life. People in recovery are some of the realest that you will meet. The honesty, support and camaraderie that come with seeing others hit milestones and get better is so beautiful.
Literature has also been a big part of my recovery. Beyond the well-worn AA literature I have discovered a world of books dedicated to helping people get sober and get healthy. The Drop the Rock series by Hazelden Publishing helped me understand that I must take responsibility for my own behaviour. Authors like Melody Beattie and Tian Dayton have helped me see more clearly the family nature of addiction and the complex combination of nature and nurture that can cause it.
Endless Opportunity
Recently, my focus has become welcoming the endless opportunity the future holds. Getting sober has a way of widening your vision. Eliminating that binary feeling that nothing could exist beyond alcohol has made me ask myself, “What else have I been wrong about?”
The world is a big, beautiful place, and the universe has a way of giving you what you need when you need it. In the past I hid away from the world because I was scared that I would end up drunk if I left the house. Now I am free to once again step outside and explore the lakes, forests and mountain ranges, and I know that wherever I go I am going to have an experience that I, by definition, have never had before.
Each day and each moment of life is at the very end of time.
Much Love, Lewy
by Kris Oyen | Aug 31, 2026 | Podcast
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Today we have Jordan. He is 35 years old from Las Vegas, NV and he took his last drink of alcohol on July 20th, 2025.
This episode is brought to you by:
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Café RE – the social app for sober people
Today, we are celebrating the launch of the compilation book This Is How We Quit with a live event via Zoom. Everyone who registers for this free event will receive one free month of membership in Café RE. And throughout the rest of 2026, $2 from every copy sold will be donated to Café RE.
Coming in September, Café RE will be hosting Ditching the Booze: Emotions. It is a four-week live course, every Wednesday in September at 8pm Eastern
[02:51] Thoughts from Paul:
Paul shares with us a field guide to water. Yes, there is way more to it than just H2O. There are a lot of options out there and while many of the names are used interchangeably, there are actually differences.
Let Paul know which water you prefer to drink in the comments section on Spotify or comment on the RE Instagram page under this episode’s post.
[07:12] Paul introduces Jordan:
Jordan is 35 years old, lives in Las Vegas, NV. Jordan is a field installation lead for a modular home company. He has two children and has been married for five years. For fun he enjoys skateboarding and spending time with his kids.
Jordan says he first started drinking when he was 15 years old spending summers in Detroit with a cousin that was 21. In high school, Jordan played football and says that it was normal to meet up at somebody’s house after a game and drink.
When Jordan was 19, he got into the music industry as a rapper and songwriter. Drinking was part of that culture as well. Jordan found himself blacking out and frequently getting into fights. His mother confronted him about his drinking when he was 20 and told him he should go to AA. He disagreed and believed he could keep it under control.
Jordan was 23 when he began working in the concert industry as a stagehand and rigger. The schedule was hectic and drinking after a long night was the norm. Jordan’s drinking began to cause him to get kicked off of tours with big artists.
In 2015, Jordan’s grandfather died. For the next year, Jordan was able to limit his drinking. In between tours over the next year, his grandmother committed suicide. This led Jordan to quit his job and move back to Detroit where he was depressed and spending a lot of time alone.
A friend of Jordan’s got him back in the tour business, but his drinking continued to create issues and fights he got into led to him losing work again. Jordan decided to move back to California. He didn’t quit drinking and began using Xanax.
Jordan and his wife got together after she bought a puppy from him. After they had their daughter, Jordan began attempting to quit drinking by way of 75 Hard challenges. He was always ready to drink as soon as they were done, however.
In late 2024, a domestic dispute found Jordan going to jail. He tried to quit but didn’t make it past 45 days. He says his drinking slowed down because he wouldn’t let himself forget the night he went to jail.
Jordan was suffering from a bad hangover the morning he decided to quit. He told his wife that he couldn’t do it anymore and while she had never told him to quit, she was pleased to hear that he was ready to.
Telling his wife was freeing. Each month she gets him chips to celebrate. Jordan began attending AA and went to meetings daily for the first four months. His friends have reacted encouragingly and one of them joined him in recovery after he reached 90 days.
Since quitting, Jordan has noticed the brain fog is gone, he has more gratitude for what he gets to do each day and has a lot more energy. He doesn’t believe he will ever drink again. He looks forward to living a long healthy life with is family while being present for every moment.
Recovery Elevator
You took the elevator down.
You got to take the stairs back up.
We can do this.
