E260: Lowering the Bar - Why 'Just Staying Sober' is a Championship Win

Sober Friends

Matt J

12 Steps, Spirituality, Personal Journals, Mental Health, Sober, Recovery, Health & Fitness, Addiction, Religion & Spirituality, Alcohol Free, Sober Curious, Alcoholics Anonymous, Dry January, Society & Culture, Sobriety

4.3 • 722 Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Send us Fan Mail It’s mid-January, the "Pink Cloud" of New Year’s resolutions has evaporated, and for many in the Northeast, we are staring down a "marathon of dark, cold, and gloomy days". In this episode, Matt and Steve get honest about the "January Gloom" and a phenomenon many newcomers face but rarely understand: Anhedonia. If you feel numb, bored, or like life has lost its "charm" since the holidays ended, you aren't doing recovery wrong—your brain is simply healing. We discuss why tryin...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Sober Friends podcast.
0:04.4	My name is Matt Jay.
0:06.7	Over there is Steve.
0:08.9	Oh, we're in 2026, Steve.
0:11.8	We're in that time of year where I find winter to be more depressing because you don't have the holidays to give it some type of charm. Charm is gone
0:24.6	and now we just have this marathon of dark, cold, and gloomy days. And it got me thinking
0:32.4	a little bit about the January gloom and how the pink cloud can just evaporate.
0:44.7	It's that gloom, it's gloomy winter, and how do you stay motivated in sobriety when
0:51.2	nothing special anymore?
0:56.0	Yeah, how you doing, Matt?
0:57.9	Good.
0:58.5	It is this time of year.
1:01.8	I always say it's that hustle and bustle between the three major holidays or three
1:08.6	of the major holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's,
1:12.5	and then nothing, right? Nothing happens at all. And so it can be that. It's not for me. I mean,
1:24.3	I'm an outdoors person and I actually like the cold weather. So I was talking with
1:29.7	somebody the other day. I'm like, I'll take 25 over 85 any day. Yeah, it's all you. Yeah, and I know.
1:37.0	Most people don't feel that way, but I do. And so for me, I able to still do a lot of stuff.
1:45.0	But I do get it.
1:45.8	My wife, a lot of people don't.
1:47.6	Plus, it is a dull, it is a drab time.
1:50.7	It depends on where you live, right?
	...

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