Recovery gave me more than alcohol ever did

What if the most radical form of freedom is simply waking up clear—and staying that way? Corey opens up about life on both sides of the bottle and what changed when he traded chaos for consistency: mornings that don’t start in shame, a mind that doesn’t spin stories, and relationships built on truth instead of excuses. It’s a candid walk through the quiet wins that stack into a different life: reliability, emotional balance, and the kind of peace you can feel in your chest.

We dig into how trust is earned back one action at a time and why predictability—once dismissed as boring—turns out to be a gift. Corey breaks down the physical reset of sobriety, from real sleep to steady energy, and how that stability unlocks self-worth that isn’t tied to performance. We talk amends as responsibility, not a shortcut to forgiveness, and how consistency rewires identity. There’s purpose here too: service to newcomers, reaching back with a steady hand, and rediscovering creativity that addiction numbed. Financial stability shows up as part of the change—paying bills, saving a bit, planning ahead—because peace also lives in the practical.

By the end, gratitude has a new shape: not denial of pain, but a clear-eyed reframing that turns survival into living. If you’re curious about the real benefits of recovery—clarity, honesty, purpose, emotional regulation, financial stability, creativity, and peace of mind—this conversation offers a map grounded in experience, not clichés. Listen, reflect, and share it with someone who needs to hear that freedom doesn’t have to be loud to last. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what’s one quiet change that’s changed everything for you?

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening: Why Recovery Matters
• 3:09 Clarity Over Chaos
• 5:10 Honesty, Trust, and Self-Respect
• 8:11 Healing Body and Emotional Balance
• 11:58 Rebuilding Relationships and Making Amends
• 14:50 Self-Worth, Pain, and Real Joy
• 18:28 Purpose, Service, and Financial Stability

Transcript

CoreyBerrier: 1:01

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier. And today, folks, we're going to be talking about the benefits of recovery. And it's a little bit about my story and how the gifts of sobriety have, well, they're just a gift. That's all there is to it. And I never thought I'd say this, but you know, but recovery has given me more than alcohol ever did. Uh when I was drinking, I thought the bottle gave me courage, gave me connection, fun, even sometimes relief. But what it really gave me was chaos and emptiness and regret. And recovery's giving me my life back. You know, it's not just the basics, but a version of life that I didn't know was really possible. And today um I'm going to take you through the benefits of recovery from my own experience. This is not theory and not cliches. It's just the reality of what I've discovered since I've put the bottle down. So when I was in my addiction, my mornings would always start behind. I woke up groggy, scattered, and quite ashamed, really, of what I had done the night before. And then in recovery, you know, I wake up with a clear mind. And that may sound small, but waking up without a hangover, being able to think straight, remember conversations, plan my day, that's clarity, and clarity is power. So let me ask you, when's the last time that you woke up fully present and not running from last night and not medicating this morning with some sort of a pill or something to get you through the day? Well, that's a gift of recovery hands you every single day. You know, my drinking kept my life very unpredictable. You know, I never knew where the night would take me or how the morning would, you know, greet me, if you will. You know, recovery gave me freedom from that chaos. I began to trust myself again. People started trusting me again. My days became more steady, if you will. Uh, and there's, you know, it here's the surprising part. Predictability became a gift. I used to call it boring, and now I call it peace. You know, I spent years lying to myself, uh, to the people I love, to anyone who asked too many questions. I became a professional manipulator. And recoveries forced me to be honest. And when I finally told the truth and, you know, about you know how I was and what I'd done, it was it was terrifying, but it was also freeing, way more freeing than I imagined. But here's the kicker when I started to be honest with others, I didn't just regain their trust, I regained my own self-respect. You know, I could look in the mirror again, which was hard to do when I was drinking, you know, and my body paid the price for years when I was drinking, the exhaustion, the shakes. Oh my god, the shakes. Unbelievable. It's the worst feel in the world. The aches, the pains, you know, I didn't want to admit any of that. But in recovery, your body starts to heal. Uh, you start to sleep better, your energy comes back. You don't need as much caffeine. And for me, I don't need any sugar. Um, but when I was first getting sober, I definitely depended on that sugar. I could move again, I could laugh again, I could breathe again. And I realized that health isn't just the absence of feeling hung over. It's it's really, you know, having your health is about having energy in your life, you know, being able to actually live. And one of the hardest things about recovery wasn't putting the drink down, it was facing the people that I had hurt. I mean, I'd broken trust so many times that even when I said I'm done drinking, nobody believed that. And I don't blame them. You know, recovery taught me that trust isn't something you demand back, it's something that you earn back. And let me tell you, it takes you don't earn it back as quickly as you lost it. I can tell you that. But you do that by showing up sober, by doing what you say you're gonna do, and by being the same person today as you were yesterday. And little by little, people started believing in me again, not because of my words, but because of my consistency, you know, in addiction. My relationships were were were shallow. They they were built on drinking together and partying together and lying together, and I didn't really even know what true connection felt like. But recovery gave me the ability to actually connect with other people, look people in the eye, listen, be present without feeling like I gotta have a buzz. And it's pretty amazing when I stopped, you know, hiding behind alcohol. I found out people actually like me for me, that which was pretty mind-blowing. And honestly, you know, that kind of healed a part of me that that I didn't even know needed to be healed. And if I'm honest, in my drinking days, you couldn't count on me. If I said I'd show up, I didn't. If I promised I'd be there, I'd disappear. I mean, my word didn't mean jack shit. But in you know, in recovery, reliability became one of my greatest gifts. Being the person people can call on, being dependable, showing up on time, following through, something I've never been great at. And it may sound simple, but when you've been unreliable for years, becoming reliable is like building a whole new identity. And it does feel pretty good. You know, recovery's given me the ability to face my past, to own what I had done and make it right where I could. You know, making amends isn't about saying I'm sorry and expecting forgiveness, it's about taking responsibility. And sometimes that's with words, and sometimes that's with action. But it was about cleaning up my side of the street, cleaning up the wreckage of the past that I'd left behind. And you know what? Some people forgave me, some didn't, but I forgive myself because I finally tried, and that's where the real healing in relationships began. For years, dude, for years I felt worthless. Like no matter what I did, I wasn't enough. And alcohol gave me that temporary escape. Probably a lot like you if you're still drinking. I'm you know, it made me feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof for a few hours. But when that buzz wore off, I was right back to feeling small again. And in recovery, I discovered self-worth wasn't tied to performance or to what people thought about me. It wasn't based on how well I could fake it or how much I could achieve. I started to realize I have value just because I exist. And when that truth started to sink in, it became one of the most powerful benefits of recovery. You know, when I was drinking, my emotions ran the show. Anger, fear, shame. They controlled me. I thought drinking gave me a balance, but really it just buried every one of those things until they exploded. And recovery's giving me a different kind of balance. You know, I still feel anger, I still have fear, I still have sadness, but you know, I don't get to drown those things out now. And I don't get drowned out by those things. You know, I can just sit with it, name it, and I can respond instead of just react. That emotional balance is one of the quiet gifts of sobriety, and honestly, it's what makes long-term recovery sustainable. I drank to avoid the pain, the pain from my childhood, the pain from mistakes, the pain from fear of the future. You know, that bottle was my escape. But recovery taught me to sit with the pain, to let myself feel it instead of running from it. And what I found is that pain doesn't last forever. Feelings don't kill you. Avoiding feelings certainly kills you. Now, when the when the pain shows up, I don't panic. I breathe, I feel it, I let it pass. And that lesson alone has changed my entire life. You know, I thought that alcohol was the only way to feel joy, laughing at the bar, celebrating with a drink, loosening up at a party, but those highs always came with lows. Every time. You know, I remember the first time I laughed sober, I mean like really laughed, like belly-aching laughter. And I realized like this is what joy really feels like. And recovery gave me joy that doesn't come with a hangover, joy that isn't followed by shame, joy that's real, clean, and it lasts. I remember when I was drinking, my only purpose was getting through the day and figuring out where that next drink was coming from, which was basically survival mode. I wasn't living. And in recovery, I started asking deeper questions like why am I here? You know, what am I supposed to be doing? What's my life for? What who do I want to be become? Because it was all watered down before. And I found a sense of purpose that wasn't about me anymore. It was about, and well, it wasn't about escaping the pain, it was about creating meaning, about serving others, about leaving something better than how I found it. And that wasn't the case before. You know, recovery didn't just keep me alive, it gave me a reason to live. You know, my bank account used to bleed from alcohol, bar tabs, late bills, money spent covering up mistakes. I'd burned through cash without a thought. And sobriety's taught me responsibility. You know, I started paying my bills on time, checking the mail, saving money, making plans, and with that came stability. I never realized how much freedom there is in having financial peace, not because I'm rich by any stretch, but because I no longer I'm no longer broke and I'm no longer broken. I can provide, I can plan, I can finally dream again. You know, one of the biggest things or one of the biggest gifts, I should say, in recovery is I have learned to stop thinking about only, you know, only thinking about myself. I used to be the center of my universe, and some days I still am for periods of time, but uh those times have gotten fewer and far between. You know, everything was about what I wanted or what I needed or how I felt, and recoveries kind of flipped that, and it showed me that life is bigger than me. You know, helping someone else, especially someone who's still struggling, became or has become the fuel that's that keeps me going. Because every time I reach back to help, I'm reminded of how far I've come, and I get to pass on that gift the same way it was passed to me. You know, alcohol numbed everything, not just the pain, but the passion as well. My creativity dried dried up. My I had no spark left. But in recovery, that spark has come back, and and I can, you know, I've started creating again, writing and doing this podcast and dreaming and building, and sobriety gave me access to passions I thought were gone forever. And I realized alcohol didn't just steal my past, it also tried to steal my future. But recovery gave me that back. You know, one of the biggest gifts in recovery's given me wasn't flashy at all. It was peace of mind. And in a, you know, when I was in addiction, my my head was loud. Those voices inside of my head was really loud. Constant chatter, worry, regret, lies that I had to keep track of. Every day was mental gymnastics just to survive. Now it's pretty quiet. I can breathe. I don't need to spin stories or keep up appearances. Peace of mind doesn't mean life's perfect, it means I can live without you know a storm inside of my brain. And that peace is is priceless. You know, my choices didn't just affect me, they affected everybody around me. And in addiction, I was just passing down chaos, pain, and dysfunction, just like had been handed down to me. But in recovery, I get to hand down something different: healing, stability, presence, which feels unbelievable. You know, and that's not some kind of measure of some grand achievement, but it's a daily example I get to set for other people. You know, it's how my friends get to experience me now compared to before. And recovery, you know, allows me to leave behind healing instead of hurt. An addiction, I was stuck in why me? Victim mentality. Why is life so hard? Why can't I catch a break? Why does everything happen to me? But recovery shifted my perspective, and now I wake up grateful, grateful for another day, grateful for a clear head, grateful for people who still believe in me. You know, gratitude doesn't erase the struggle, but it does reframe it. It turns survival into living, it turns pain into perspective. Gratitude makes sobriety not just manageable, but but beautiful. No rules, no limits, no accountability. But that wasn't freedom. That was really slavery, to be honest with you. I was chained to the bottle, chained to my impulses, chained to my pain. And in recovery, I learned what freedom is. Freedom is not needing that drink. Freedom is being able to show up as myself. Freedom's living without shame, without the chains, and without pretending and having masks and all the shit that I talk about on here. I mean, that's what the gift of recovery has given me. Real freedom. And it's the kind of freedom that lasts, the kind that I want for anyone who is still struggling with addiction. It's a nightmare. And I feel for people when they come in to the rooms and they're, you know, they're hanging on by a thread because I've been there. And I can talk to them all day long. If they're not ready, that talking doesn't really do anything. But you never know when you're gonna say just that exact right thing for that person to go, oh yeah, that makes sense. So you do have to, you know, I I make an effort to try to talk to the newcomer every chance I get. Because you just never know if you may be that person that God's using for that individual that's coming in. And sometimes you just have to reach out your hand and shake their hand and introduce yourself and make some feel better. And that's a good feeling. And I don't do it for accolades by any stretch, but I do it because somebody did it for me. So I listen, I appreciate you guys listening. We'll see you guys next Friday. Please subscribe to the podcast. Please leave us a review, and we'll see you next Friday.