Recovery Rocks
Ever wonder what it's like to go on your first sober date? Or survive a wedding without liquid courage? How about dancing stone-cold sober or dealing with your first breakup without wine? If so, you're in luck because you can join bestselling authors and longtime sober friends Lisa Smith and Anna David as they talk to guests—and each other—about addiction and recovery, including all the “firsts” that come with sober living. From awkward to amazing, cringe-worthy to surprisingly poignant, they’re discussing what it’s like to experience life without substances. Lisa is the author of the award-winning memoir Girl Walks Out of a Bar, while Anna wrote the novel Party Girl, which has been widely credited as having sparked the early “Quit Lit” movement. Together, they explore the real-life moments behind the kinds of stories that shape how people understand recovery. Whether you're newly sober, sober-curious or just want to hear some honest stories about recovery, Recovery Rocks is here for all of it. Because as it turns out, when you can remember everything that happened, life gets a lot more interesting. New episodes weekly. Real stories, real recovery, real talk.
Episodes
It’s the dreaded 8th Step in 12-Step recovery - making amends to those we have harmed. Anna and Lisa talk about their first experiences with it, as well as what “living amends” look like. And when an amends turns into a bitch session for the other person, we take it in stride, and maybe even have a laugh years later. Plus: how do you make amends to a no-longer-living grandmother you tricked into shoplifting against her kno...
What does the first Saturday night you stay home sober look and feel like? Just the prospect of it can send shivers down a newly sober spine. Lisa remembers a sense of relief, tinged with some envy knowing that her friends were out partying. Anna learned that boring wasn’t always bad and that maybe those people who’d been watching Saturday Night Live while she was out tearing it up were onto something.
We catch up with Ann Dowsett Johnston (anndowsettjohnston.com), the author of the groundbreaking bestseller, DRINK: THE INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WOMEN AND ALCOHOL. Published in 2013, it will be mass-market re-released in the fall. In her 60s, Ann got brave again, followed her heart and became a psychotherapist. We dig into all of this, plus the return of Ann’s popular memoir writing course, “From Memory to Memoir.” F...
Eric Zimmer went from homelessness, heroin addiction, and facing prison at 24 to inspiring global audiences with his podcast, The One You Feed, and his new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life. Eric and Anna discuss how Eric’s podcast grew, why he didn’t focus it solely on recovery and what it took for him to decide on the book he wanted to write.
Business dinners often come with the expectation of drinking to loosen things up and get everyone feeling chummy. Defying that expectation can feel uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to. Anna spent her first nine months of sobriety among the open bars of the most fabulous Hollywood events as Premiere magazine’s “Party Girl” columnist while Lisa’s nights out with her colleagues taught her a lot about the way other people dr...
Who says you can’t go home again? You can. Sometimes it’s a choice, and sometimes it’s not. Lisa went home to her family straight out of detox and immediately faced the reality that she might have left the world of drinking, but it hadn’t left her. Anna learned what can happen when a family member asks if you mind if they drink, you say you do and they get mad. The ladies also veer into discussing going home to an apartmen...
Being a sober woman in a male-dominated corporate world can be challenging, to say the least. Toni Will, General Manager and Governor of a men’s professional hockey team, knows all about it. So do Lisa and Anna. They talk about how their sobriety gives them an advantage in dealing with the demands and frustrations of work, as well as going public with their sobriety.
Learn more about Toni here.
It was bound to happen - an ex from our pasts would pop up out of nowhere. Lisa ended up rekindling an old flame that was more fun sober. And Anna found herself face-to-face with her first love. We talk about crazy run-ins, finding closure, and the universe bringing people back into our lives.
After dropping out of college, Nikki Mammano was an “it girl” kingpin in Waikiki’s drug trade. When it all fell apart, she landed in prison and then on the street, thieving and hooking to survive. Flash forward to today – Nikki is a PTA mom of two daughters living in the burbs. How did this happen? Her memoir, BREAKING GOOD, tells the tale and we are here for it!
Find Nikki’s book and more on her website.
If rehab worked the way it’s supposed to…why do so many people end up right back where they started?
After more than 30 years in the trenches of addiction treatment, Jimmie Applegate has some theories.
In his recently released book Addicted to Failure: Why the Rehab System Doesn’t Work and What Must Change, he pulls back the curtain on the myths, blind spots and outdated models that keep people stuck.
We talk trau...
What happens when your “journey of self-discovery” includes Burning Man debauchery, spontaneous decisions to move to other countries and the ingestion of substances you probably should’ve Googled first?
We asked the best source on the topic—Carly Schwartz, a former top editor at The Huffington Post and Editor-in-Chief of the San Francisco Examiner all about it when discussing her upcoming recovery memoir, I’ll Try Anyth...
Our resident Swiftie, Anna, is over the moon as we chat with Julianne Griffin, founder of Swift Steps, a recovery community for sober Swifties. We talk about what music, and Taylor’s music in particular, means to us in recovery and the power of a supportive community in staying sober.
Find Swift Steps:
We both love to shop, but come at it from different places. No surprise it reflects our feelings of financial security. Anna has been buying things she loves to decorate her dream home. Lisa loves to pay bills. We save tons of money by not buying drugs and alcohol, and we didn’t get sober to feel deprived. So if it’s in our means, it’s in our basket.
Being in a human body means experiencing physical pain at some point. Handling it can be challenging for sober people. We talk about attitudes of people who don’t understand recovery, including many doctors, toward pain medication. And we both agree – there is no shame in taking prescribed medication to find relief. Of course, we’re careful to protect our sobriety when meds are necessary.
Friend and fellow sobriety author Kristin Casey hangs with us to talk about her books, CASEY DANCER: A MEMOIR OF DATING, STRIPPING AND A LITTLE HOT YOGA and ROCK MONSTER: MY LIFE WITH JOE WALSH, and much more. We talk about what our relationships were like before and after getting sober. Spoiler: once we learned to like ourselves, our standards got higher and our own needs took priority.
Baby, it’s cold and dark outside. Winter blues and seasonal affective disorders are real and we struggle with them. We talk about how we handle them. Anna does the bold thing, combining cold plunges and infrared saunas. Lisa tries to stick her body in the sunshine, now that she realizes how it lifts her winter mood.
Open Instagram, Ruin Your Night?
We love to hate social media. But it’s also a singular tool for staying in touch, getting the word out on things we care about, and even learning a thing or two. We talk about our early days on the socials and how we use it now. Sober tools can help – just like with a drink, before opening that app, maybe ask yourself why you want to log on and play the tape through on where it might lead.
...It’s the question many ask when getting sober: What am I going to do on New Year’s Eve if I’m not drinking? The answer is anything you want! No need to have FOMO – New Year’s Eve is a night for amateurs. And nothing beats waking up on New Year’s Day without a hangover. We take the opportunity to catch up on sleep. And we don’t make resolutions. Why make a declaration that we’re going to change on a certain day when we can ...
Following the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner, their son, Nick, has been charged with their killings. Media reports focused on Nick’s long history of substance abuse, oversimplifying what is clearly a more complex situation. Anna interviewed Nick a decade ago with his mother sitting alongside him and while the original interview is no longer online, we are releasing it as part of this episode. We’re highly aware of what ...
We all have them. And guilty pleasures in sobriety are even more fun when we’re able to enjoy them fully, without the blur of alcohol. Anna is on a steady drip of sugar all day long (Dr. Pat Allen told her she was a “non practicing bulimic”). Other guilty pleasures include Love is Blind, Instagram/Threads, the podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me, Hunter Harris and Joel Stein’s Substacks and regular massages. Lisa’s guilty plea...
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