Sobriety Doesn’t Have to Suck! Excerpt #1: Personal Transformation

🎧 "Listen Along! Audio excerpt below

(Excerpt from my eBook, Sobriety Doesn’t Have To Suck: A Guide To Finding Excitement, Happiness, And Fulfillment In Recovery)

Welcome to the first in a series of excerpts from my book, Sobriety Doesn’t Have to Suck! Over the past 30 years, I’ve helped people move beyond just staying sober—to actually getting excited about recovery and making it a transformational experience.

👉 Want more? Download the full book for free here → Sobriety Doesn’t Suck eBook

In this excerpt:

Introduction: I describe the first time I ran the idea for the book by one of clients and his response to the title.

Section I - Personal Transformation: The shift from “this sucks” to “this is awesome!” represents a huge change in attitude—one that could truly be called a transformation.

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INTRODUCTION

One day, while I was working on the manuscript for this eBook, I decided to test something out. I was in a session with a client who had been sober for a couple of months at the time. Towards the end of the session, I showed him the cover page and asked him what thoughts came up as he read the title:

He looked at it for a minute, then started to laugh:
"Well, that’s definitely how I felt that first month or two. Man, I was miserable, walking around crying about how awful everything was. Yeah, it definitely sucked!"

I pointed out that he had just spent the last hour showing an attitude that looked a lot more like the second part of the title. He was happy, excited, and feeling a sense of renewal. Some of the things we had been discussing were exactly what might be called spiritual fulfillment—and he was experiencing them firsthand.

So, how did he go from “I’m miserable, and sobriety sucks!”
…to feeling excited, happy, and fulfilled in just a few short months?

That’s what we’re going to explore in this book.

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Personal Transformation

The conversation I described in the introduction is pretty much the same conversation I’ve been having with treatment clients for over thirty years now. During my time running treatment groups I would frequently ask clients how they feel about being sober, opening the door for them to talk about their view of “having to get sober” as more of a prison sentence rather than an “exciting opportunity for spiritual growth.”

And it’s quite understandable. Here’s a synopsis of the common things I hear from people who are still in the “sobriety sucks” camp:

“First I have to give up something I love and makes me feel so good. Then you start telling me all these other things I have to give up— friends who use, doing all the stuff I love doing. Damn right this sucks!

Again, it’s understandable that giving up something we’re using to make us feel good is not going to be an attractive proposition. And it also shouldn’t be overlooked that moving from “sobriety sucks” to being excited about recovery is a big shift. A really big shift. I’ll go so far as to characterize it as a transformation. We’re talking major changes here— in our attitudes, our priorities, and when it comes down to it, our whole outlook on life in general. It’s not uncommon to hear people who have made it to this point say things like “I feel like a new person.” They are not simply staying “dry” by abstaining from mood-altering substances, rather they have experienced an entire personal transformation. They are a very different person from the one who was miserable, complaining about having to be sober, and dreading a life without chemicals.

Viewing this from the perspective of personal transformation, it brings us back to the question of how do we get from point A to point B?

Part of the reason I regularly have this conversation about “sobriety sucks” with clients is to specifically point out what we’re doing to help them get to point B. When I had this discussion with my client from the earlier example, we went on to talk about the work we had been doing over the past several months. I pointed out that all the various approaches and methods I had been employing with him were specifically designed to help him move from being miserable and hating sobriety to being excited and inspired about his recovery, which he had clearly been displaying during our session prior to the discussion about this topic.

This dynamic of personal transformation and the role this plays in successful recovery has been the foundation of my work for over thirty years now. And I can say I’ve watched hundreds of clients make the transition from “this sucks” to “excited and fulfilled.” So let’s dive in and I will provide a brief outline of some underlying principles you can use to create a process for yourself that opens the door to your own personal transformation.

🔊 Listen to the audio excerpt:

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WRAPPING UP

This shift—from “this sucks’ to “this is awesome”—is what successful recovery is all about. But how do we actually make that transformation happen?

That’s what Sobriety Doesn’t Have To Suck! is all about! I’ll be sharing more excerpts soon, but if you want to dive in now, grab the free eBook here: 👉 Sobriety Doesn’t Have To Suck!

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Can we talk…?

What’s your experience been around the idea of getting sober:

__ Sucks?

__ Awesome?

__ Ask me tomorrow?

What’s your experience with personal transformation:

__ Has been an amazing journey?

__ Wish I could?

__ What’s that?

Drop some comments—I’d love to hear your experiences!