E322: Middle Sobriety: One Tool to Use & One Trap to Look Out For
Sober Powered: The Neuroscience of Being Sober
Gillian Tietz, MS, CPRC
4.9 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Middle sobriety can be a really confusing phase because you're not in the chaos of early sobriety anymore, but you also may not feel the way that you expected to feel by now. |
| 0:12.4 | You have more time. You probably aren't struggling with cravings as often. Maybe you're sleeping better, functioning better, and your life feels more stable than it did |
| 0:23.4 | when you were drinking. But emotionally, you probably still feel pretty rough. You still get anxious, |
| 0:29.4 | irritated. You still compare yourself to other people. You still have resentments. You still get |
| 0:36.1 | bored and lonely. And maybe you start thinking, |
| 0:39.7 | why am I still like this? Or why does everyone else seem so much happier than me? |
| 0:45.8 | Or if sobriety is supposed to make my life better, why do I still feel so bad? |
| 0:51.5 | And that's where a lot of people get discouraged because they think that feeling |
| 0:55.5 | better physically means they should be doing better emotionally. They think that if the cravings |
| 1:01.9 | are quieter and less often, then the hard part should be over. But that's not really how it works. |
| 1:09.2 | Early sobriety is mostly about not drinking. It's about getting |
| 1:13.4 | through the day, planning your time, avoiding obvious triggers, and creating enough structure so you |
| 1:20.2 | don't go back to alcohol. But middle sobriety is different. This is the stage where you start to see |
| 1:26.2 | what alcohol was actually helping you |
| 1:28.6 | avoid. So if you're somewhere between a few months and a couple years sober and you're thinking, |
| 1:35.1 | why am I still struggling? Well, then this episode is going to help you understand that stage |
| 1:40.5 | more clearly. When you get sober, one of the unexpected perks is realizing you want to take better care of yourself and your pets too. Suddenly, you're consistent, your home more, and you notice things like, wow, has the litter box always been that potent? I'm a hardcore cat lady, but doing the litter box has always been a dreaded |
| 2:02.3 | task for me. My little guy Rudy is a prince though, and he deserves the royal treatment. |
| 2:08.6 | That's why I love the whisker litter robot. It automatically cycles after every use, so I'm not |
| 2:13.9 | constantly scooping or dealing with lingering box odors. |
| 2:23.0 | It makes my life so much easier, especially on busy days when my brain is already full, |
| 2:27.6 | so you don't have to constantly think about it or remember another daily task. So whether you have one cat or a whole furry little support group, |
... |
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