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  • Why They Tell You Not to Date in Your First Year Sober

    Why They Tell You Not to Date in Your First Year Sober
    2026/10/14

    Why do recovery communities tell you not to date or make major life changes during your first year sober?

    Because getting sober isn't just about learning how to live without alcohol. It's about learning how to handle your feelings without it.

    And when you're newly sober, those feelings can be ALL OVER THE PLACE.

    You're dealing with boredom, loneliness, insecurity, and a whole lot of emotions you may not even know how to identify yet. Then someone comes along, and suddenly life feels exciting again!

    But dating brings its own emotional roller coaster. Rejection, jealousy, uncertainty, disappointment, and heartbreak can be overwhelming when you're still learning how to manage everyday life without drinking.

    In this episode, we're talking about why dating in early sobriety can be especially challenging, why major life changes can threaten your stability, and how giving yourself time to build confidence and coping skills can make all the difference.

    Because the goal isn't to avoid big feelings. It's to learn how to handle them without alcohol.
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    26 分
  • The Real Moment You Become Ready to Stay Sober

    The Real Moment You Become Ready to Stay Sober
    2026/09/23

    You can desperately want things to change and still have a long list of things you don’t want to do.

    In this episode, we’re talking about the moment you stop letting fear, discomfort, and resistance make your decisions—and become willing to learn from people who have already gotten where you’re trying to go.

    Whether you’re trying to quit drinking or you’ve been living sober for years and feel like your growth has stalled, this is a conversation about becoming teachable, seeing what you can’t see on your own, and discovering what becomes possible when you stop requiring recovery to happen according to your rules.
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    27 分
  • How Do I Know If I Actually Have a Drinking Problem?

    How Do I Know If I Actually Have a Drinking Problem?
    2026/09/30
    How do you know if you actually have a drinking problem? You make rules about when you’ll drink. You negotiate how many you’re going to have. You promise yourself tonight will be different. You replay last night trying to figure out exactly what happened. You take breaks, make new rules, Google questions, take quizzes, compare yourself to other people—and somehow alcohol keeps requiring more and more of your attention. At some point, that’s worth looking at. In this episode of Addiction Unlimited, we’re getting away from arbitrary drinking counts and labels and looking at something far more revealing: your actual relationship with alcohol. In this episode, we’re getting away from labels and arbitrary drinking counts and looking at something far more useful: your actual relationship with alcohol. Is it really a drinking problem? The surprisingly revealing question that has nothing to do with how much or how often you drinkWhy taking 30 days off alcohol may not prove what you think it provesThe difference between having a plan for the night and actually being in control of what happensWhen researching your drinking stops giving you answers—and starts becoming part of the answer And after all the research, analyzing and comparing—you already have enough information—you just have to be willing to do something with it. Because sometimes the amount of work you’re doing to prove alcohol isn’t a problem tells you more than another quiz ever will. You don’t have to decide what to call yourself today. You don’t need the perfect label or one more piece of evidence. You can simply acknowledge that your relationship with alcohol isn’t working anymore—and let that be enough truth to take the next step. Links mentioned in this episode: Book A Call Here: addictionunlimited.com/call Sober Society Membership: addictionunlimited.com/membership Related Episode: Why Am I An Alcoholic – the Bio-Psycho-Social Truth About Addiction Follow me on Instagram: @addictionunlimited Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/addictionunlimited Prefer to read instead of listen? Here’s the full transcript of this episode. 455 Transcript Angela (00:07.374) Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Addiction Unlimited podcast. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. How do I know if I actually have a drinking problem? This is probably one of the most common questions people ask themselves when they start getting uncomfortable with their drinking. Am I really an alcoholic? Do I actually have a problem? Or am I just drinking a little too much right now? Maybe I just need to cut back. Maybe I need to take a break.Maybe I should stop drinking during the week and only drink on weekends. We will create an entire strategic plan around drinking before we’ll sit down and ask ourselves the most obvious question. What the hell is going on with me and alcohol? And here’s the first thing I want you to understand. I am not going to give you a diagnostic quiz today. I’m not interested in do you drink X number of drinks on X number of nights? Have you had X number of consequences? Check seven boxes and congratulations, here’s your label. That’s not how I look at this. And I never tell people. Angela (01:52.102) And I never tell people they’re alcoholics. First of all, way too many people can’t handle that word. We have some very delicate sensitivities these days. And I’m a little different about that stuff. I am a no BS human. Tell me the truth so I can figure out the solution. I don’t need you to beat around the bush or hold my hand or find the softest, prettiest language possible. If I’m trying to fix a major problem in my life, I just let’s get on with it. I don’t particularly care what we call it. I care about how I’m fucking up and what I need to do to stop fucking up. I also understand that not everybody feels that way. So when somebody says to me, I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic, I think maybe I just drink too much sometimes. The first thing I notice is that they’re asking the question. at all because that tells me something has shifted. Angela (03:02.24) You are questioning your connection with alcohol because somewhere along the way you felt that relationship start to change. You probably can’t even pinpoint exactly when it happened. You just know you’re thinking about alcohol more than you used to. You’re relying on it in ways you didn’t before. You’re planning around it, recovering from it, wondering about it, worrying about it. And there’s this little voice in the back of your head saying. Something about this doesn’t feel right anymore. And that’s usually when we start asking the question. Then here’s what happens next. Almost immediately after someone tells me they’re wondering if they have a drinking problem, they start giving me all the reasons they don’t. I don’t drink every day. I’ve never had a DUI, I don’t drink in the morning, I ...
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    33 分
  • How to Stop Giving Up on Yourself in Sobriety

    How to Stop Giving Up on Yourself in Sobriety
    2026/10/07

    About to give up, reach for a drink, or follow the same old pattern? Angela shares how a split-second choice can change your direction—and why the victory starts before you know the outcome.
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    25 分
  • You Quit Drinking. What Are You Using to Escape Now?

    You Quit Drinking. What Are You Using to Escape Now?
    2026/09/16

    You quit drinking—but what are you using to escape now? When normal things like shopping, dating, food, or work get hard to put down, it may be time to look at what’s really going on.
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    31 分
  • People-Pleasing Is Costing You More Than You Think

    People-Pleasing Is Costing You More Than You Think
    2026/09/02

    People-pleasing can look like kindness while quietly creating exhaustion, resentment, dishonesty, and isolation. Learn what drives the automatic yes, why other people’s feelings aren’t yours to manage, and how to start saying no without making it weird.
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    35 分
  • How to Forgive Yourself for What You Did While Drinking

    How to Forgive Yourself for What You Did While Drinking
    2026/08/26

    You stopped drinking. You’ve changed. So why do you still lie awake thinking about the things you did?

    Self-forgiveness in recovery isn’t pretending the damage didn’t happen—and it doesn’t require everyone you hurt to forgive you, either. In this episode, we’re talking about guilt, damaged relationships, rebuilding trust, and the uncomfortable reality of becoming someone different when other people may still remember the old you.

    We’ll also dig into the difference between sobriety and recovery, why quitting drinking doesn’t automatically fix every destructive behavior, and a powerful way of making amends that has very little to do with another apology.

    If you’re tired of letting the worst things you did while drinking define who you are today, this conversation is for you.
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    30 分
  • The Life Skills Alcohol Kept You From Learning

    The Life Skills Alcohol Kept You From Learning
    2026/09/09

    You stopped drinking. Now you have to learn all the things drinking allowed you not to learn.

    In this episode, we’re talking about the life skills alcohol can keep you from practicing— Because sobriety isn’t just learning how not to drink.

    It’s learning how to handle your life without needing alcohol to manage it.
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    29 分