Sober Stories: Brett
What led you to get sober? I know it’s often complicated. It is complicated. The number one reason was mental health. My biological father was an alcoholic; we were estranged for decades because he was going through his own stuff. My dad’s father died by suicide on my dad’s birthday when he was young, which […]
A Conversation With Author Sarah Hepola
I spoke with the author Sarah Hepola over zoom about her book Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, society’s changing attitudes towards alcohol, and finding identity and connection in sobriety. So first of all, I loved Blackout. Regarding the subtitle, “Remembering the things I drank to forget,” can you talk about some […]
Sober Stories: Charlie
What led you to get sober? There was a series of thoughts. The first was I was starting my medical transition, and part of getting on hormones is having a psych evaluation. I did the psych eval and they identified that I had an alcohol abuse problem. By the time I saw my therapist for […]
Sober Stories: Beth
What led you to get sober? I was 23 years old, and at that point I had been using and drinking for a decade. I was sitting at my kitchen table in my little mice-infested apartment, and I had this sudden awareness: if I didn’t stop, I would be dead within a year. My life […]
Sober Stories: Scott
What led you to get sober? For years, I had a feeling about the person I could be. If the person you want to be is always in front of you, I found that after so many years of drinking, I was literally looking backwards. Who I felt I actually was—who I aspired to be—I […]
A Conversation About Criminal Justice and Addiction With Dr. Wiley of the National Institute on Drug Abuse
Can you tell me about your work with The National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA]? I’ve been at NIDA almost 10 years, and I’ve worked on justice issues pretty much the whole time. A few years ago, Congress made a big appropriation to the National Institutes of Health[1]—which included NIDA—to address the pain and opioid […]
Sober Stories: Tommy
What led you to get sober? I own my own business, and when I was drinking, I had severe anxiety about why I wasn’t getting more work. I blamed everything else and didn’t really look at my behavior. It occurred to me how frequently I was coming into my shop very hungover. I’d have brain […]
Sober Stories: Mark
What led you to get sober? My wife and I had talked several times about how my drinking was a problem. I tried multiple times to tone it down, thinking, “Maybe I can just have one drink.” But I’m sure you’ve heard the usual: one drink turns to six or however many. There were some […]
Sober Stories: Bailey*
How’d you decide to get sober? I knew that my drinking had gotten heavier in the pandemic. As I started getting better with my eating disorder, I didn’t have an outlet for anxiety. When COVID hit, I had recently started my business [as a therapist]. I had to change everything to telehealth and figure out […]
Sober Stories: Doug
What led you to get sober? The Drug Enforcement Administration, basically. I’d been drinking and drugging for about 30 years. The last two years, I was using crystal meth heavily. I had a $500 a day habit, and to keep that going I had to sell a lot of drugs. Eventually the DEA put me […]