How Don Quit Drinking After Hitting Rock Bottom | Sobriety Story That Will Change You
Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories
Brad McLeod
4.8 • 596 Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2025
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do you quit drinking when you feel like you can’t stop?
In this powerful episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, Don shares his raw and honest story of alcohol addiction, hitting rock bottom, and how he finally found a way to get sober.
If you’ve ever struggled with alcohol, wondered how to quit drinking, or felt trapped in addiction, this sobriety story will hit home.
Don opens up about growing up with an alcoholic father, experiencing early trauma, and how alcohol quickly became something he couldn’t control. What started as confidence and escape turned into full-blown addiction, near-death experiences, and a life spiraling out of control.
This is more than just an addiction story—this is a story of recovery, transformation, and hope.
Don on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donabenante/
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:32 Don's Childhood and Early Exposure to Alcohol
02:05 Memories of Don's Father
04:19 The Impact of Don's Father's Death
06:39 Don's Struggle with Alcohol Begins
09:48 Life as an Alcoholic and Career Challenges
12:18 Hitting Rock Bottom and Seeking Help
16:00 The Turning Point: Finding Sobriety
21:52 Rebuilding Life and Embracing Sobriety
29:17 The Struggle with Sobriety
29:38 The Turning Point
30:07 The Battle with Kratom
32:19 Support Systems and Sobriety
34:08 Finding Peace in Sobriety
37:21 Embracing Sobriety as a Superpower
40:17 The Journey to Self-Acceptance
45:25 Career and Sobriety
46:21 The Netflix Opportunity
48:04 Building a New Life
01:00:15 Final Thoughts on Sobriety
Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co/
Sober Motivation Website: https://www.sobermotivation.com
Support the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation
Contact me anytime: brad@sobermotivation.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Season 4 of the Super Motivation Podcast. |
| 0:03.1 | Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. |
| 0:08.0 | We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. |
| 0:12.1 | Let's go. |
| 0:15.0 | In this episode of the podcast, Don shares his journey growing up with an alcoholic father |
| 0:19.9 | to his own struggles with addiction |
| 0:21.3 | and eventual sobriety. Don recounts the turning moments that led him to realize the depth of |
| 0:26.5 | his addiction, including his near-death experiences and the kindness of a stranger who helped him |
| 0:31.7 | find his way. He discusses how sobriety opened doors to unexpected opportunities, including |
| 0:36.9 | a role in a Netflix |
| 0:37.8 | show and a thriving career in building hot rods. Don's story is a testament to the power of |
| 0:43.5 | resilience, support systems, and a higher power in finding a new and fulfilled life. And this is Don's |
| 0:49.7 | story on the Subur Motivation podcast. How's it going, everybody, midway through October, just want to do a little check-in. |
| 0:57.5 | I think one of the things I wanted to bring to the beginning of this episode was one of the |
| 1:03.8 | things that really kept me stuck. |
| 1:05.8 | One of the things that really kept me stuck was thinking that I was so much different than everybody else. |
| 1:12.4 | And although I am, I've had my own personal journey and perspective in life and |
| 1:17.0 | own experiences. When it came to all of this, my goodness, I was no different. |
| 1:23.0 | And I have a lot of chats with people all the time, you know, how things for them look different. |
| 1:29.4 | They're, it's not relatable to some of the stories they hear or how other people were, |
| 1:33.3 | maybe how their parents were. |
| 1:35.0 | You know, they're quote, unquote, high functioning alcoholics, which I do find very interesting. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Brad McLeod, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Brad McLeod and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.