Perfectionism isn't a personality quirk — it's a documented relapse risk, and it doesn't switch off just because you got sober. In this solo episode of Recovering Out Loud, Anthony unpacks how the same engine that drove the using — the need to be liked, to fit in, to perform, to be "the funny guy" — quietly follows us into recovery and sets up the next slip.

We get into the difference researchers draw between perfectionistic strivings (high personal standards, which can be healthy) and perfectionistic concerns (fear of mistakes, dread of judgment, self-worth on the line) — and why the second one is the one that hurts you. Anthony walks through the abstinence violation effect: how it isn't the slip that relapses you, it's the shame spiral about the slip. He shares his own story of not even recognizing he was in a relapse — telling his story in a 12-step room while still in it — and the all-or-nothing "might as well burn it all down" thinking that turns one bad moment into a full return to use.

This is lived experience, not clinical advice. But the tools Anthony names are evidence-based: catching all-or-nothing thoughts (a CBT move), self-compassion (backed by meta-analysis and RCTs showing it weakens maladaptive perfectionism), and deliberately doing one recovery thing imperfectly on purpose — the "B-minus" practice that teaches your brain you can fall short and survive it.

If you've ever skipped the meeting because you couldn't do it right, quit the journal after one missed day, or worn the "I've got it together" mask while quietly drowning — this one's for you. Recovery doesn't ask you to be perfect. It asks you to be honest.

This week's one thing: Do one recovery thing imperfectly, on purpose. Notice that you survive it.

Recovering Out Loud is produced by ROL Productions. Anthony shares as a person in long-term recovery — peer to peer, lived experience only, never as a clinician or expert.

Why the pain, not why the addiction? An honest, peer look at the trauma model of recovery.

This week it's a solo one. I sit with two thinkers who reshaped how we talk about addiction — Gabor Maté (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts) and Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) — and I try to do the thing recovery content usually skips: take what's genuinely useful, and stay honest about where it gets oversold.

Maté's line — the question isn't why the addiction, it's why the pain — did more to pull shame out of addiction than almost anything this century. It reframes you from a bad person into a hurt person, and for a lot of us that's the first door out of self-hatred. Van der Kolk adds that trauma doesn't just live in your memory, it lives in the body and nervous system — which is why cravings and relapse aren't a simple willpower problem.

I also get personal about what trauma actually is (it's not only the "big" events — it's how your body stored what happened), a grade-four moment I still carry, and the long work of forgiving myself, including after a relapse that cost me what I thought was seven and a half years.

Then the other side. Critics like Stanton Peele and Nick Haslam point out that most people with addiction weren't traumatized as children, and most people who were traumatized don't become addicted — trauma raises risk, it doesn't write destiny. Richard McNally argues some of the science gets stated more strongly than the evidence supports. The danger for us in recovery: "my trauma made me this way" can flip from liberating to a life sentence. The honest frame — your pain is real, and you're still not sentenced by it. Understanding why you hurt is a starting line, not a verdict.

Two questions I leave you with: – Does understanding my pain free me, or give me a place to hide? – My pain is real, and I'm still responsible for ______.

Recovering Out Loud is peer-to-peer lived experience, not medical or clinical advice. If you're struggling, please reach out to a professional or a trusted person in your life.

Surrender sounded like giving up — until it became the thing that finally let me stop losing.

For years I thought surrender meant waving the white flag: defeat, quitting, rolling over. My ego hated it. This solo episode is me trying to do what nobody did for me early on — actually explain what surrender is, what it isn't, and how you practice it on an ordinary Tuesday.

I get into the difference between compliance and surrender — a distinction the psychiatrist Dr. Harry Tiebout drew back in the 1950s. Compliance is going through the motions while privately keeping a date in your head for when you'll go back. Surrender is the internal shift where you stop reserving that exit. I was compliant through all three of my rehabs before I ever actually surrendered — and from the outside, the two look identical. Only you know the difference.

I talk about my third time in treatment, the moment I handed over my drugs and said I'm done; why real surrender tends to show up right when the ego runs out of moves; and why it's never one-and-done. It's a state you keep returning to — in traffic, in a resentment, in a craving, in the things about my own health I can't control right now. I share the metaphor a therapist gave me: treat your anxiety, fear, and depression like guests knocking at the door. You can board it up, or you can invite them in for coffee and watch them leave on their own.

And the paradox at the center of all of it: the more I surrender, the more freedom, peace, and quiet I actually get.

If you're white-knuckling right now, here's the honest starting point — compliance counts. It gets you in the door. Surrender can come later.

Recovery is simple. It's just not easy.

Working the steps gets you sober. Living the principles keeps you there. All 12 — and why they hold.

My mentor asks me one question: "How are you living today, Anthony?" It's easy to be a star in the rooms — shake hands, smile, say everything's great. But the magic is in the other 99% of life: the traffic, the argument, the boring Wednesday afternoon. Step 12 says to practice these principles in all our affairs, and this episode is about what that actually looks like day to day.

Addiction ran on dishonesty, isolation, and being the center of my own universe. Recovery didn't work because I white-knuckled that old system harder — it worked because I started running a new one. That's what the principles are. And they keep you sober almost mechanically: you can't be honest, connected, of service, and paying attention, and also be quietly walking toward a relapse. Those two things can't run at the same time.

I walk all twelve — what each one is, what it costs, and why living it keeps you from picking up. Take what works, leave the rest. There's no official list of these; this is the version I've lived with.

Ten things I thought were normal until I got sober — supply math, pre-gaming, the morning panic. I'm not a doctor. I'm just a guy who did all ten of these, and didn't realize nobody else was living like this until I put it down.

In this solo episode I walk through the behaviours that quietly separate problem drinking from normal drinking — the stuff we laugh about in the rooms because we all thought we were the only one. If you're sitting with the question "am I an alcoholic or not," this one's for you. I can't answer that for you. Nobody can. But maybe hearing your own life described back to you helps you decide.

The 10:

1. Supply math — knowing exactly how much is left, to the ounce
2. Pre-gaming — warming up before the thing where you'll already be drinking
3. "Just one" being a foreign concept — one was a starting pistol, not a finish line

and more...

A bit of my story is in here too: in recovery since 2015, a relapse around seven and a half years, and one and a half years sober again today. Grateful to be alive, grateful to be sober.

None of this made me a bad person. It made me a person with a thing. And every one of these stopped the day I stopped.

If you're new, or you've been here a while and needed the reminder — thank you for listening. Follow the show if you haven't; it's the best (and free-est) way to support it.

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.

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.

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 me
• The "once you're sober you're cured" trap — and why sober is the starting line, not the finish
• What relapse does and doesn't erase
• Why "do it on your own" kept me sick
• The high-functioning myth ("I'm not bad enough to need help")
• Medication in recovery — and why that's between you and your doctor
• The moderation fantasy
• The idea that recovery is boring
• Whether you have to "want it" before treatment can work

If one of these lands for you, that's the point. Write your own myths in the comments.