Living Sober

What does it really mean to live sober? In this episode of The Successful Life Podcast, Corey Berrier shares his personal experience of long-term sobriety, why simply quitting alcohol isn’t enough, and how working the 12 Steps, helping others, and building a recovery community completely transformed his life.

Corey opens up about the dangers of trying to do recovery his own way, including his experience with marijuana after years of sobriety, and explains why recovery requires consistent action—not just good intentions. If you’re struggling with alcoholism, addiction, relapse, or wondering whether recovery is possible, this episode offers honest encouragement and practical insight from someone who’s lived it.

In This Episode:

• What “living sober” really means
• Why stopping drinking is only the beginning
• The importance of working all 12 Steps
• Why service work keeps people sober
• Lessons learned from trying to do recovery alone
• The dangers of “California sober”
• How pride and ego can sabotage recovery
• Why community is essential for lasting sobriety
• Finding a recovery network after moving to a new city
• Why willingness and action matter more than intentions
• How helping others strengthens your own recovery
• Living with peace, purpose, and freedom from addiction

Whether you’re newly sober, returning after a relapse, supporting a loved one, or simply curious about recovery, this episode is a reminder that lasting sobriety is possible one day at a time.

If this episode helped you, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share it with someone who may need to hear this message.

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Transcript

CoreyBerrier 0:30

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier. And today, folks, we're going to talk about a living sober. I can tell you right now, today, I am extremely grateful to be sober. More so, I'm also so I'm also grateful to be in a program of recovery. And when I first got sober, it was around 19 years ago. And we talk about they talk about the promises that come true. Once you get sober, you get the you get the house, you get the job, you get the wife, you get the kids, you get the whole thing. You get everything. You get everything that you've ever wanted. And lots of times it's more than what you could have ever imagined. And so but you only get that through for me was working the 12 steps, obviously stopping drinking, and then helping other people. And when you live a sober life, it's hard to nail down exactly which one of all the things that we do in recovery to stay sober. So you kind of have to do all of them. And you might be thinking, well, Corey, Jesus Christ, that's a lot of work. And it is a lot of work, but it's a lot less work than getting high every day and drinking every day and trying to hide it, and trying to dodge this person and dodge that person and look over your shoulder and figure out what you did last night because you blacked out, or how you wrecked your car, and how you're going to tell your wife. And dude, it's it's freaking draining doing living that life. It's draining. You might be living that life right now. If you're listening to this and some of those things sound familiar, then you're probably one of us. But like I said in the last podcast, I'm not here to, I'm not here to judge. I'm not here to take your inventory. I'm not here to tell you whether you are or not an alcoholic. But I can tell you what it's like living sober. And the peaceful feeling that you get from being sober is unlike anything that you could have ever imagined when you were drinking. And if you are in recovery or you are sober, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are things that happen in recovery and in sobriety that are unexplained. They're explained because you know that God's on your side if you're following that path. And these things are weird, they're strange things that happen. And when you stop struggling to fight what's to fight the steps, to fight with your sponsor, if that's what you've got, which I hope you do. If you're fighting any of those 12 steps, ultimately it's kind of like this. If you take a wheel that's got 12 spokes in it, you take one away, the wheel's still gonna work out fine. Take two away, it's gonna work a little bit less. If you were to take three, four, five, six away, eventually that wheel's gonna collapse. And that's much like working part of the 12 steps or working part of the program. Maybe you've worked the steps, but you're not helping other alcoholics. Maybe it's that you're you're a token sponsor, you're just uh you're a buddy to your sponsees, and that's also not helping, in my opinion. I've been on both sides of the track. I've tried to navigate this thing Corey's way, and Corey's way doesn't really work. It just doesn't. I've tried it seven ways to Sunday to do it my way, and Jesus, the the result sucks. And if you are in recovery and you are struggling, and there are a lot of people in recovery, believe it or not, that are struggling because they just can't wrap their head around the idea of allowing God, in my case, to pave the way. And it's a much easier path. I can just tell you right now, it for me, when I finally let go, and there's a funny saying called let go or be dragged, and it's really like that. You can let go of these old ideas and you can let go of your own way, but or you can be dragged, and dragging is that sucks to be dragged. And but living in a sober, living a sober life, man, is unlike anything that I've ever experienced. And quite frankly, when people are not sober, maybe they don't even have a problem, they don't have the opportunity to live the kind of life that real sober people get to live. And I like I said, I haven't always done this perfectly. I can tell you, it's a constant, daily, it's a constant, daily, rigorous action, is really what it is. You can make a decision to stop drinking, or make a decision to do the steps, or make a decision to go to a meeting, or whatever. Until you put your ass in gear and take some action on that decision, it's still just a decision. And uh a couple of podcasts ago, I told a saying in AA that three frogs that have made a decision to jump, three frogs, one made a decision to jump off into the water. How many frogs do you have left? Well, you still have three because that third one made a decision to jump, but he didn't jump. And I I get a bit passionate about this because all you have to do is really follow the instructions that you're given, and they're not hard instructions. The hard part is removing your ego from the scenario, letting go of the pride, letting go of the of the shit. I lost my word. Letting go of the resistance is really not the word I'm looking for. I'm really struggling here with this word. I don't know why. I guess resentment is the best way to look at it. Letting go of the resentment of the past, letting go of the things that you've done in the past, the regret that you might have for the things that you've done while you were drinking, or for my case, even in sobriety, I've made a lot of bad mistakes in sobriety because I kind of started running the show and started doing things Corey's way. I got all those things back, I guess, around 2015. And I stopped drinking in 2009. I got those things back in 2015. We bought a new house. I got remarried, two Lexus's in the driveway. I started a business that was working, that was making money. My ex-w ex-wife now had a business that was making money. Things were good. Until I decided that I wanted to start running things my own way and going to very few meetings, not meeting with my sponsor. Then I started smoking weed, and you know how that goes. For me, California sober is not the way to go. I tried that for seven years and things went sideways. And I wouldn't really wish that on anybody. So if you think you can kind of skate around the rules of the program, you're probably wrong. You might be able to do it for a while. I did it for seven years and lost all those things that I just mentioned. And in hindsight, rightfully so. I didn't I didn't follow the program. And a lot of folks think that the program is a cult and they think that it's whatever, fill in the blank, call it what you want, but I don't really give a shit what you call it. Because it works for me. I mean, I'm not saying it's gonna work for you, but this worked for millions of other people all across the world in every single country on the planet. And so when you're living sober and you're doing all those things, you get what you're you get what the promises say. You get freed of financial insecurity, you stop being a victim, and uh you stop just stop living life paddling upstream like a salmon. And I did that for a long time, and it was rough. It was it was a very tough way to try to live sober. In fact, it was really rough because I didn't have the alcohol, and so I wasn't getting DUIs or getting blackout drunk, but I acted like a total jackass, and I acted just like I would if I had been drinking, and that seems crazy to some people, but the truth of the matter is it happens, it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody, and then what happens a lot of times is then people relapse. And obviously, you can't live a sober life if you're re if you're relapsing. I mean, you take control, man. That relapse is coming. Mine was in the form of weed, most people's are in the form of alcohol, and things get significantly worse. You get you either get locked up or you get put into a treatment center, which makes you feel like an even bigger loser. But there's no shortcuts here. There's no shortcuts in sobriety, there's no easy way to get sober. There's just one way for me to get sober, and I don't care how you do it, as long as you get sober, that's all that really matters to me. That's what this show is about is talking to you about real life situations that that happen in sobriety. And for me today, living sober is I took a job about, I don't know, six or eight weeks ago, and a couple weeks after training. They asked me if I could move to Wilmington. I moved to Wilmington. I got it, I got plugged in before I ever got here. And I'm not saying that because I'm anything special. That's just what I was taught to do when I was in Raleigh. I was taught to get plugged in. I was taught to make friends in the program, get surrounded by the people that are doing the deal. And there's people all there's people in every meeting that are doing the deal, but you just got to find those people. And I know it's scary when you first get sober because you're fearful and you don't want to talk to people and you feel like you've been isolated. So it's really hard to even have a conversation with people because you're worried about what they're gonna say about you. But people don't care. They don't care where you came from, they don't care what you're they don't care how you got here, they don't care how many DUIs you've had, they don't care about how many girlfriends you've gone through, all the money you've lost. People don't care. Like that, it doesn't really matter. But what does matter is that we come together as a group for one primary purpose, and that's to get sober. And then living that sober life is the benefits of putting in that work. Since I've gotten here, I've met some really dope people. We've gone on the boat a couple of times, go out to dinner two or three nights a week. I talk to these guys on a daily basis just to check in, see how they're doing. They've accepted me into this community like I've been here my whole life. And it's pretty cool to move to a new city and uh and get plugged in. And if you've ever moved to a new city and had to find new friends, boy, the best way to do that for me is to find a meeting and go to it and raise my hand and introduce myself as somebody that's brand new into town. But guess what? Even if you're not new in town, you can do the same exact thing because that's what it takes. Willingness to raise your hand and say I'm new. And it's scary, boy. It is really scary raising that hand, admitting the thing that you've known for years. People don't get to recovery by winning the lottery. People don't get to recovery by building a multimillion dollar company and they're successful and their life's going good. That's just not the story. You don't hear about people getting in recovery that are coming in, as we like to call it, on a winning streak. It just doesn't happen. Usually you're beaten down, you're broken, and your last choice is to try to get sober, which is crazy because it should be the first choice. But it's not usually the first choice because it's not the easy way out. But we want to take the easy way out because we're programmed to take the easy way out. But listen, man, uh you can try it that way. And uh I hope it works out for you, but probably it won't. And uh but live in in recovery, being connected with people that you can call on a daily basis, and they'll pick up the phone when you answer. To be in a room of people that you can call friends, to be in a community that accepts you for whoever you are. We all come in here with some sort of inferiority complex, like we're not good enough, fear. All the things that really started probably as a child. Maybe you were rejected as a child, maybe you were abandoned as a child, maybe you had something really effed up happen to you as a child, and I hate that. But if you ever want to live in peace, getting sober is the way to do that if you're an alcoholic like me or a drug addict for that matter. They usually go hand in hand for most folks. Some people are just one or the other, but usually it's a dual diagnosis. And look, there's also folks that come in that have a true medical diagnosis. It could be bipolar, it could be depression, it could be anxiety, it could be any of those things that lots of times feels like treating that illness with alcohol is the only solution because maybe you don't know yet that you actually have a medical diagnosis. And maybe coming in and getting sober and seeing a medical professional, which you probably haven't done in years if you're a drinker like me, unless you're hustling the psychiatrist out of pills, and that doesn't really count. So if any of this is ringing a bell to you, if any of this strikes a cord, then getting sober and living a sober life is the solution. And man, I I look I've been in meetings all across the country, and here where I'm at in Wilmington, North Carolina, you can't ask for a better community. I came from Raleigh, which is the capital of North Carolina, and it's a huge, I don't even know about a huge city, but it's a big city, it's the biggest one in North Carolina. And uh the community is good there, but it's not the same here. It's not the same as it is here, it's different. And that doesn't mean it's gonna be good, bad, or indifferent wherever you go. I think being in recovery and living sober has its benefits no matter where you are. And I'm a little biased because I've had such a good experience since I've been here. But I also put myself, like I said, I put myself in the middle because that's what I was told to do. I was nervous that when I got here that I would just sit on the sidelines, isolate, not get in the middle. But I know the result of that. Man, I've been isolated. I've been in that place where I didn't want to talk to anybody. I've been in the rooms and been sober and felt like I was the only person in the room out of a hundred people. And that's a lonely place to be. It really is a tough existence to live that way. And uh if you're feeling that way because you're drinking, then guess what? There is a solution. If you're feeling like that because you're in, even if you're in recovery and you're feeling that way, there is a solution. You got to look at what you are or are not doing. And really, the only person you have to blame is you. This is not somebody else's fault. You're not a victim of your circumstances. I don't care what the circumstances are, you played a part in though in that situation. And guess what? You got to own that, and you got to figure out how to navigate out of that. And without using for me, it's God, I don't know how you navigate that because I tried my best 180 different ways to navigate it myself, and it didn't work. But living sober is God giving me now a life that I couldn't imagine. Things that are happening in my life so easily and effortlessly, with ease and flow, and it's unlike anything I've ever seen. And so I I have to ask myself, well, what was I maybe doing wrong when I was in Raleigh? Why weren't things so easy? Well, I was probably in the way. I was probably in the way of God giving me the things that He wanted to give me. And He'll let you do that. He'll God'll let you get in the way. He'll let you get right in your own way, step on your own toes, F everything up for yourself, and you'll still be there if you decide to show up and ask for help, but you do have to ask for help, which is again that action part. You can't just show up and not say anything in a meeting. You gotta go, you gotta say something, you gotta introduce yourself, you gotta get you gotta stick your hand out and meet people, get people's phone numbers. Like I know how hard it is, dude. I've been there. I've been there, and it's tough. So it's really tough to remove your ego when you walk into a church basement and you don't know anybody, and it smells like coffee and cookies and maybe some cigarette smoke from outside. Not a glamorous place to be, but it's the place that saved my life. Those dirty cute dirty church basements saved my life. Recovery and sobriety has saved my life. And I burn up all nine lives, I feel like. And I might have another one, but I'm not really going to test the waters to find out. But uh listen, I'm not here to preach to you, I'm just sharing with you my experience, how I did things. That doesn't mean that you got to do it my way, that's for sure. You can do whatever how you want to do it. But my way for me has worked, and really it wasn't my way, it was the program's way, it was God's way. And when I stopped fighting and decided to start listening and helping other people, which is really the key to my sobriety, is being willing to help another alcoholic when they're in need, whether it means they're going, they need to go to treatment, they need to spend seven hours in the emergency room, whether that means they need to look for a place to live, whether that means that they need help finding a job, whether that means they need you to walk them through the steps, whether that means you just answer a damn phone call when they call, that's all part of it. And there's nothing better in this life than to be a Service to another struggling alcoholic because somebody was there for me when I came in. Somebody reached their hand out and said, Glad you're here. Welcome. My name is Bob or whatever. It's a wonderful life. And it's there if you want it. It's the program's not for people that want it or need it. It's for people who do it, who take the steps, put them in action, and live them in their daily lives. And nobody does this thing perfectly. But you should, not should, you shouldn't do anything. You can do whatever you want. But my experience has been it's the easier, softer way just following the damned instructions. But you don't you don't have to do it that way. There's several other programs that you could go to that are probably just they're certainly not as successful, but they're probably there probably is a good success rate. I don't know what it is because I don't mess with those programs because I only know the one that worked for me. And and I have no experience with them, so I can't really talk about it. But what I can tell you is if you decide you want to get sober and you decide that you want to stop living on this treadmill of disaster after disaster, I can tell you how I did it, and that's how work the 12 steps in my recovery program. And I can't emphasize to you enough that if you are on this treadmill of disasters, this is a solution. And it's pretty simple. But you just got to do it. And I hope that for you. If you're listening to this and you are struggling inside or outside the rooms, I hope that you hear this and maybe it gives you a little bit of motivation to step into a meeting and stick your hand out, stick your hand up, say, My name's Corey, I'm an alcoholic, and connect with people because people do want to help you. Believe it or not, it helps me significantly. I mentioned this earlier. It helps me more than it helps the newcomer to provide some sort of service. And that's the goal of the podcast is maybe this will reach somebody that needs to hear it, and maybe we'll save a life today. Maybe. Not me, not this podcast, but maybe you'll step into a recovery program and you'll get a taste of how it is to live sober. So that's all I got today, folks. I appreciate you tuning in. If you have not subscribed to the podcast, I would encourage you to do that so that way you get an alert every single week on Monday when this thing comes out. If you don't mind, go and leave us a five-star review. You can scroll down about, I don't know, two or three scrolls down on Apple Podcasts. You can leave a review for the show. It just helps it reach other people. And maybe it helps that person that that really needs it today. I appreciate you guys. We'll see you next week.