Sober Friends

Send us Fan Mail Sobriety can take away the drinking, but it does not automatically fix the part of us that avoids uncomfortable things. In this episode, Matt and Steve talk about the everyday tasks that can become weirdly heavy in recovery: making the phone call, going back to the dentist, dealing with money, choosing a contractor, or finally handling the thing we’ve been putting off. This conversation is about the anxiety that builds when we avoid, and the relief that often comes from takin...

Send us Fan Mail Brooke Taylor looked successful from the outside. But behind the polished image was alcohol, pressure, and the exhausting feeling that nothing ever felt like enough. In this conversation, she shares what it was like to get sober before she felt ready — and why early sobriety felt more like punishment than freedom. They also talk about the exhausting work of keeping up appearances, what it took to finally stop, and why getting sober doesn’t always end the search for relief, ap...

Send us Fan Mail Nobody gets sober because they want to stop drinking. They get sober because their life isn't working — and somewhere along the way, someone handed them a set of instructions that actually helped. Matt and Steve call it the recipe. Not a rulebook, not a religious text, not a list of suggestions. A recipe. Follow the steps enough times and something unexpected happens — it stops being something you do and starts being how you live. In this episode they dig into what sobriety a...

Send us Fan Mail What does recovery actually mean? If you've ever measured your sobriety by days and wondered if there was more to it than that, this episode is for you. Matt sits down with Dr. Adi Jaffe — psychologist, neuroscientist, UCLA researcher, and author of The Abstinence Myth and Unhooked — for one of the most honest and wide-ranging conversations Sober Friends has ever had. Dr. Jaffe went from meth-addicted drug dealer with nine felonies to earning his PhD and building one of the m...

Send us Fan Mail That's the part nobody wants to say out loud. Alcohol wasn't just a bad habit — for a lot of us, it was a solution. It fixed the social anxiety. It fixed the noise. It fixed the feeling of not fitting in. The problem wasn't that it didn't work. The problem was everything it cost. Matt shares a moment from a recent trip to Boston — walking past the warm lights of a hotel bar, depleted and exhausted, and feeling the whisper. He wasn't in danger. But he heard it. And that's exac...

Send us Fan Mail You've heard it a thousand times in the rooms — take what you like and leave the rest. But what does that actually mean? Matt and Steve dig into one of recovery's most repeated phrases and ask the question nobody wants to answer: are you using it as a doorway into the program, or a loophole out of it? From the opinions of the old-timer who never shuts up to skipping Step 4 because it makes you uncomfortable — there's a real difference between leaving what doesn't belong to th...

Send us Fan Mail "Carrying the message" doesn't mean becoming Mr. AA or giving speeches at speaker meetings. It's not about recruiting, arguing on Facebook, or diagnosing strangers. In this episode, Matt and Steve talk honestly about what carrying the message actually looks like — and why it has nothing to do with preaching. Steve shares the story of his first AA meeting: lost, confused, and terrified. Then someone reached out with a simple handshake and said, "Hey, I'm Mike. How you doing to...

Send us Fan Mail Service work in AA recovery isn't about giving back - it's about belonging, commitment, and staying sober. "I don't even drink coffee." "That's fine. You haven't been nominated to drink coffee. You've been nominated to make coffee." Steve heard this exchange at his Thursday night men's meeting, and it might be the greatest line about service work ever spoken. Because that's exactly what service work is - doing something that isn't about you, that gets you connected, tha...