RAW Recovery Podcast

Most of us didn’t get sober because life was going well. We got sober because alcohol stopped working and the cost became too high. But what keeps us sober isn’t fear — it’s discovering what sobriety actually gives us. Over time, sobriety stops feeling like a loss and starts revealing itself as a gift.

The gift of sobriety isn’t perfection, comfort, or a pain-free life. It’s clarity. It’s choice. It’s the ability to show up, feel, ...

Recovery isn’t just about not drinking — it’s about becoming useful again. For a long time, our lives revolved around chaos, self-centeredness, and survival. Alcohol promised relief but delivered isolation. What the program offers instead is something deeper and steadier: a sane and happy usefulness.

Sanity doesn’t mean life is perfect. Happiness doesn’t mean we’re always comfortable. Usefulness doesn’t mean we’re indispensable. It...

In this episode of God Centered Recovery, Roger McDiarmid and Dion Miller take a hard look at Proverbs 8:11–14 and what it reveals about pride, desire, and decision-making in recovery.

This passage reminds us that wisdom is more valuable than anything we want — and addiction thrives on choosing desire over wisdom. Together, Roger and Dion explore how prudence, humility, counsel, and sound judgment play a critical role in staying gr...

It’s easy to forget where we came from once life starts to stabilize. Time sober, routines in place, and a little distance from the chaos can quietly turn gratitude into judgment. That’s why this reminder matters: but for the grace of God go I.

Recovery isn’t proof that we’re better, smarter, or stronger than anyone else. It’s evidence that grace intervened where self-will failed. The line between where we are and where we once wer...

It’s easy to forget where we came from once life starts to stabilize. Time sober, routines in place, and a little distance from the chaos can quietly turn gratitude into judgment. That’s why this reminder matters: but for the grace of God go I.

Recovery isn’t proof that we’re better, smarter, or stronger than anyone else. It’s evidence that grace intervened where self-will failed. The line between where we are and where we once wer...

For a long time, we thought alcohol was our biggest problem. But the truth runs deeper. Alcohol was the symptom — lack of humility was the handicap. Pride, self-reliance, and the need to be right kept us stuck long before the drink ever did.

Humility isn’t about thinking poorly of ourselves or shrinking down. It’s about seeing ourselves honestly — without exaggeration, denial, or ego. Until humility shows up, recovery can’t take ro...

There’s a lot of confusion in recovery around the Fourth Step. Some people treat it like something they’re supposed to redo over and over, digging endlessly into the past. But that’s not what the program teaches. We take one honest Fourth Step, and then we move forward into maintenance, not constant excavation.

The Fourth Step is about clearing the wreckage — not living in it. Maintenance is where growth actually happens. It’s wher...

Most of our pain doesn’t come from what’s happening — it comes from where our mind goes. Regret pulls us backward. Fear pushes us forward. And somewhere in between, we miss the only place life is actually happening, right now.

Living in the now isn’t about ignoring responsibility or pretending the past didn’t happen. It’s about releasing the constant mental tug-of-war between what was and what might be. Recovery teaches us that sob...

I keep hearing people argue about whether recovery should be clinical or spiritual, and honestly, that argument misses the point.

Alcoholism doesn’t live in just one part of us. It messes with our thinking, our emotions, our behavior, and our spirit. So why would recovery only address one of those?

Clinical tools help me understand my patterns, my trauma, and my reactions. Spiritual principles help me surrender what I can’t control...

Newcomers don’t need to be fixed, managed, overwhelmed, or impressed. They need safety, honesty, and hope. How we work with newcomers matters — because the first experiences in recovery often shape whether someone stays or disappears back into the darkness.

Working with newcomers isn’t about control or authority. It’s about remembering where we came from, meeting people where they are, and offering what was freely given to us. Reco...

Sometimes recovery doesn’t fall apart because we need something new — it falls apart because we drifted away from what already works. Complication, overthinking, burnout, and ego creep in, and before we know it, we’re no longer doing the simple things that kept us grounded in the first place.

“How It Works” isn’t outdated. It isn’t basic in a dismissive way. It’s foundational. When life gets loud, emotions run high, or sobriety fee...

The holidays have a way of blurring lines, reopening old wounds, and testing our recovery in ways that regular days don’t. Family dynamics, expectations, guilt, obligation, and tradition can pull us right back into patterns we worked hard to outgrow. That’s where boundaries stop being optional — they become essential.

Boundaries aren’t about punishment, control, or shutting people out. They’re about protecting your sobriety, your p...

Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself — it’s thinking about yourself less. In recovery, humility becomes the foundation that keeps everything else standing. Without it, growth turns into ego, learning turns into arrogance, and service turns into self-promotion. Humility keeps us teachable, grounded, and honest.

This isn’t about self-shaming or playing small. It’s about knowing where our strength actually comes from. Addiction ta...

One of the quiet miracles of recovery is realizing how many things we no longer have to do. We don’t have to lie. We don’t have to run. We don’t have to manipulate, numb, hide, explode, or pretend. Addiction told us everything was a requirement for survival. Recovery shows us most of it was fear.

The “I don’t have to’s” are about freedom — real freedom. Not the kind that comes from doing whatever you want, but the kind that comes f...

At some point in recovery, many of us start asking a question we never thought we’d ask before: Is this God calling me… or am I just out of my mind? When the noise quiets down and the chaos settles, something new shows up — intuition, conviction, purpose, direction. And that can feel unsettling when you spent years not trusting your own thoughts.

This isn’t about hearing voices or chasing signs everywhere. It’s about learning the d...

There are moments in recovery when quitting feels easier than continuing. When progress feels slow, when mistakes pile up, when life doesn’t let up, and the old voice starts whispering that none of this is worth it. That voice lies. Recovery isn’t built on perfection — it’s built on persistence.

“Never, ever give up” doesn’t mean you never fall. It means you don’t stay down. It means you keep showing up, even tired, even discourage...

“Happy, joyous, and free” isn’t a mood. It’s not a nonstop emotional high. It’s not pretending life is perfect or that pain disappears in recovery. It’s a spiritual condition — one that grows when we stop fighting life, stop running from ourselves, and stop trying to control outcomes.

For many of us, happiness was something we chased. Joy was something we tried to manufacture. Freedom felt impossible. Recovery teaches us that these...

Thinking of others doesn’t come naturally to most of us — especially in early recovery. Addiction trains us to live inward, to focus on our needs, our pain, our fear, our cravings, our story. That mindset keeps us stuck. Recovery begins to change when we start looking outward.

Thinking of others isn’t about neglecting yourself or becoming a doormat. It’s about stepping out of self-centered fear and into usefulness. It’s one of the ...

We all came in thinking our problems were unique — different stories, different damage, different pain. But recovery has a way of stripping that illusion away. Different paths brought us here, but the solution is surprisingly common.

A common solution doesn’t mean a cheap or easy one. It means shared principles: honesty, surrender, accountability, humility, service, and reliance on God rather than self-will. The details of our stor...