E323: Long Term Sobriety: One Tool to Use & One Trap to Look Out For

Sober Powered: The Neuroscience of Being Sober

Gillian Tietz, MS, CPRC

Mental Health, Education, Science, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2026

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Long-term sobriety can be a strange phase because from the outside, things might look pretty good. But internally, you might still have this feeling of, “Is this it?” And that can be really confusing because you did it. You made it past the constant cravings, the social anxiety, the awkward firsts, the nights where you had to white-knuckle your way through. So when you get a couple years in and you still feel restless, bored, unfulfilled, or like something is missing, it can make you start questioning the whole thing. You might think, “Maybe sobriety isn’t enough.” Or, “Maybe I did all this work and my life still feels kind of flat.” Or, “I thought I’d be happier by now.” And this is where people can get tripped up, because they interpret that dissatisfaction as a sobriety problem. They think the issue is that sobriety didn’t deliver enough. But that’s not usually what’s happening. Early sobriety is about protection. Middle sobriety is about understanding your patterns. But long-term sobriety is about expansion. It’s about asking, “Now that I’m not drinking, what am I actually building?” It’s about making sure the life you built is worth staying present for. Work with me: Community & Meetings: Living a Sober Powered Life https://www.soberpowered.com/membership Content only membership https://community.soberpowered.com/checkout/lessons Sober coaching https://www.soberpowered.com/sober-coaching Weekly email: You’ll hear from me every week-ish https://www.soberpowered.com/email Support the show: If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support all the research and effort that goes into this podcast https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors Sources are posted on my website Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Long-term sobriety can be a strange phase because from the outside, things might look pretty good.
0:07.1	But internally, you may still have a feeling of, is this it? And that can be really confusing because you did it.
0:15.8	You made it past the bad part, the social anxiety, the awkward first, the nights where you had to just
0:22.6	suffer your way through. So when you get a couple years in and you still feel restless,
0:27.9	bored, unfulfilled, or like something is missing, it can make you start questioning the whole
0:33.9	thing. You may think maybe sobriety isn't enough, or why did I do all this work and my
0:39.8	life still isn't good? Or I thought I'd be happier by now. And this is where people can get
0:45.3	messed up because they interpret that dissatisfaction as a sobriety problem. They think the issue is that
0:52.8	sobriety didn't deliver enough, but that's not what's
0:56.0	happening. Early sobriety is about protection. Middle sobriety is about understanding your patterns,
1:04.0	but long-term sobriety is about expansion. It's about asking, now that I'm not drinking, what am I actually doing with my life? At this
1:14.1	stage, you've just become a person who doesn't drink, someone who's free, and that's amazing.
1:21.4	But it creates a new question. What are you actually going to do with this life that you fought so hard for?
1:29.6	I used to think feeling kind of off was just normal. Low energy, not feeling quite like myself.
1:36.5	I figured it was just part of being busy or stressed. But it turns out a lot of that can
1:41.7	actually come back to your gut health. Better health really does
1:45.2	start in the gut, and that's why I want to tell you about physicians' choice 60 billion probiotic.
1:50.6	What I like about it is it's not just one strain, it's 10 different probiotic strains, so you're
1:56.0	getting a much more potent and diverse formula than most probiotics out there. And it also includes prebiotics, which
2:02.6	help feed the good bacteria so they can actually thrive. Physician's choice is actually the number
2:07.9	one best-selling probiotic on Amazon when it's developed with a team of doctors using clinically
2:13.3	studied strains. If you're working on your health, then you probably realize how connected everything
	...

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