addiction recovery Archives

Exploring ‘Cali Sober’: A Modern Approach to Addiction Recovery

March 4, 2025 By Denise Leave a Comment

In recent years, a lifestyle trend known as “Cali sober” has emerged, gaining attention for its unique approach to substance use and sobriety. This lifestyle involves abstaining from alcohol while permitting the use of other substances, particularly cannabis and psychedelics. Advocates believe this method offers a balanced path to mental and physical well-being. The Wall Street Journal

Understanding ‘Cali Sober’

The term “Cali sober” reflects a shift from traditional sobriety definitions. Individuals adopting this lifestyle choose to eliminate alcohol due to its potential negative effects but continue to use substances like cannabis and psychedelics. They view these alternatives as less harmful and potentially beneficial. For example, Lauren Brenc and Atara Oven have embraced this approach, organizing alcohol-free events that incorporate psychedelics for recreational and therapeutic purposes. The Wall Street Journal

The Rise of the Sober-Curious Movement

The “Cali sober” lifestyle aligns with the broader sober-curious movement, where individuals consciously reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption to improve health and well-being. This trend reflects a growing awareness of alcohol’s detrimental effects and an openness to exploring other substances perceived as less harmful. However, it’s crucial to approach this lifestyle with caution and awareness of potential risks.The Wall Street Journal

Expert Perspectives and Considerations

While some find benefits in the “Cali sober” approach, experts like Dr. Jeff Chen advise caution. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the potential risks associated with substances like ketamine and the need for responsible use. Further research is essential to fully comprehend the long-term effects of adopting this lifestyle. The Wall Street Journal+1samarpanrecovery.com+1

Conclusion

The “Cali sober” lifestyle represents a modern approach to addiction recovery, focusing on abstaining from alcohol while permitting other substances. As with any lifestyle choice, it’s essential to consider individual health needs, consult with healthcare professionals, and stay informed about potential risks and benefits.The Wall Street Journal

Exploring the ‘Cali Sober’ Lifestyle and Its Implications

The Wall Street Journal

Meet the ‘Cali Sober’ Set: No Booze, but Drugs Are Fine

Today

Sources

Ending January Strong: Embracing Sobriety in the New Year

January 28, 2025 By Denise Leave a Comment

As the first month of the year comes to a close, it’s a natural time to reflect on your progress, goals, and the fresh opportunities that a new year can bring—especially when it comes to sobriety. For many, January is a symbol of new beginnings, filled with hope and motivation to make positive changes. But how does the transition into a new year affect sobriety, and how can you carry the momentum forward?

The “New Year, New Me” Energy

January is often marked by the promise of change. It’s a time when people set resolutions, many of which involve cutting out alcohol, breaking free from harmful habits, or focusing on health and well-being. Initiatives like Dry January or personal goals for a healthier lifestyle can provide the perfect springboard into a sober life.

For those in recovery, the beginning of the year can feel empowering. There’s a collective energy around transformation, and being part of this movement can feel inspiring. But as January ends, it’s important to stay focused on the long-term journey and not let the novelty of a “new year” fade away.

Why January Feels Different

The start of the year often brings structure, like returning to work or school after the holidays. This structure can create an excellent opportunity to build new routines. For those working on sobriety, establishing healthier habits like meal planning, exercise, or mindfulness during this time can provide a solid foundation for the months ahead.

However, it’s equally important to acknowledge that January can also be a challenging time. The post-holiday blues, financial pressures, and shorter days can weigh heavily on mental health. Recognizing these challenges is key to navigating them successfully.

How to Sustain Sobriety After January

Here are some tips to keep the momentum going as you move into February and beyond:

Set Realistic Goals: While New Year’s resolutions are great, they can sometimes feel overwhelming. Break your sobriety journey into smaller, manageable milestones that you can achieve throughout the year.
Reflect on Your Progress: Take time to celebrate your accomplishments from January. Whether it’s one day or one month sober, every step forward matters. Reflect on what worked and how it made you feel.
Stay Connected: Lean on your support system—friends, family, or recovery communities. Feeling supported can make all the difference in staying committed to your goals.
Anticipate Triggers: With January ending, social situations or old habits might reemerge. Prepare for these moments by revisiting your coping strategies, whether it’s avoiding certain environments or reaching out for help when you need it.
Focus on the Positives: Sobriety isn’t just about what you’re giving up—it’s about what you’re gaining. Better health, improved relationships, and a clearer mindset are all incredible benefits of this journey.

Looking Ahead: The Bigger Picture

Sobriety is a journey, not a destination. While January can be a powerful catalyst, the real work lies in creating sustainable habits that last all year. The key is to stay intentional and kind to yourself. Every day is a chance to recommit to your goals and build the life you envision for yourself.

As we step into February, remember: you’re not alone. Whether you’ve been sober for years or are just starting out, each new month is an opportunity to grow stronger and live with purpose. Let the fresh start of the new year inspire you to keep moving forward—one day at a time.

Living a Healthy Lifestyle in Recovery – New Course

February 21, 2021 By Nick Leave a Comment

Are you ready to live a healthy life in recovery?

One thing that has become apparent in this last year of the global pandemic is the need to take care of ourselves physically and emotionally. We’ve been thinking about how that applies to those of us in the world of sobriety and recovery. In fact, anyone who is sober knows that self care and health is of critical importance for maintaining sobriety.

That’s why we decided to create and release a brand new course; Living a Healthy Lifestyle in Recovery.

When you are on a sober journey for life there are many things to consider. And, while not being addicted is certainly one component of sobriety it is not the only one. What we mean by this is that in order to successfully maintain sobriety over your lifetime you need to have things in order in your life. This includes eating healthy, maintaining decent activity levels daily and adopting some kind of mental health / spiritual health routines.

In Living a Healthy Lifestyle in Recovery we dive deep into these three topic areas. We’ll teach you exactly what you need to do in order to build habits and routines that will support you over the long term. The course is a short course coming in just under an hour long but covers three main areas:

Physical Health

In our physical health section we teach the core principles surrounding nutrition, fitness and sleep. These principles serve as the foundation for feeling great every single day from a physical perspective. You want to wake up each day with the energy and gusto to attack the day and if even one of these elements comes up short you won’t be able to operate in the peak zone required for a life of recovery.

Psychological Health

Once you’ve sorted out your physical approach to health you can then focus on being strong mentally (of course you can choose to start here if you feel inclined!). It actually doesn’t matter what order you focus on and you should likely be working on all areas of your life at one time. However, our psychological health section helps you establish good practices in all areas that affect mental health.

Social Health

Our final section deals with the social aspects of life. Every day we are faced with relationships that span work, friends and family. This means that you need to be aware of how to deal with these relationships in the right way to protect your sobriety and sober journey. If you aren’t prepared to deal with a hostile coworker, for instance, you might be inclined to pick up a bottle of wine when you get home as a coping mechanism.

This short course is a great reminder for why you need to be focused on the whole self during recovery. Think of it as a quick shot in the arm for recovery.

After finishing the course you will understand:

Why you need to incorporate the Sobriety Success Method into your life to live a healthy lifestyle in recovery;
The importance of nutrition while in recovery and what it takes to make a healthy nutrition plan;
The importance of fitness while in recovery and what a healthy fitness plan consists of;
How to incorporate healthy sleep habits to ensure you are living the healthiest life in recovery;
Why taking care of your psychological health is important in recovery and how to keep psychologically healthy.

Want to take this course?

Living a Healthy Lifestyle in Recovery is just one of more than 20+ courses that are included as part of your membership to Sobriety Success. Sobriety Success is a comprehensive program that helps you overcome addiction through self-paced courses, workbooks, eBooks, podcasts and much, much more.

Find out more about the available plans by clicking here!

Free Online Substance Abuse Courses

January 15, 2021 By Nick 3 Comments

Looking for free online substance abuse courses? In order to support your mental health we’ve been building our new vide series, 30 Days to Sobriety Success and we’re releasing it for free.

If you’ve been struggling to get and stay sober, this is the perfect opportunity for you to learn in a relaxed, easy way. Online courses are typically longer investments of time and money that not everyone can afford. That’s why our 30 day free tip series doesn’t require any kind of sign up process of registration.

In fact, we have been uploading a video each day to help people overcome their addictions. This series is designed to provide little nuggets of help to anyone who might need it.

How to access free online substance abuse courses

Access to our free program, 30 Days to Sobriety Success, is done via YouTube. No special registration is required and it means you can take action and implement the techniques we’ve created for you right away. No purchase is neccessary – we strongly feel that these tools and supporting activities are a way for you to jumpstart recovery.

As you build up your skills and strategies for coping with getting sober you will learn how to properly deal with your substance use disorder. These tips aren’t a complete substitute for a proper addiction recovery course however.

Designed to provide you with short bites of information you can use we recommend starting with Day 1 and moving through each of the days from there.

Supporting Mental Health Online

There is an assumption, created from professionals in the industry, that getting help for your addiction needs to be done in person. But, the pandemic has taught us that we can actually get access to the same materials and resources online. By building awareness of online programs, like Sobriety Success for instance, we hope to provide a generation of people the tools neccessary to counteract the harmful effects of addiction.

New technology has enabled the delivery of treatment for substance or behavioral addictions remotely. This has opened up the possibilities for so many people around the world. If you are already sober and working on your long-term recovery then continuing education is a great way to keep invigorated and focused.

There are many factors that contribute to living a healthy life. And, while it is never possible to perfect 100% of the time, if you arm yourself with the strategies needed for success you can expect to have much more success in the long run.

Each person is unique when it comes to overcoming addiction which is why a unique, individual approach, to recovery is the recommended approach by many professionals.

Your Next Steps

If you are ready to get started now on your free videos then head on over to our YouTube channel. However, if you are interested in exploring more of a comprehensive approach to overcoming your addiction then I’d recommend checking out our full online program, Sobriety Success.

Sobriety Success is made up of over 24 online courses designed to support your recovery at every level. In addition we provide bonus materials, learning guides, ebooks and master class sessions along the way. Pricing is affordable with simple, month to month pricing and no long term commitments. Sobriety Success is a smart option when it comes to fighting addiction and it doesn’t require an expensive rehab program.

Furthermore Sobriety Success has a private, exclusive, support group that helps other people like you to achieve your long term recovery goals.

You don’t have to do this alone and by becoming a part of the global community you’ll see incredible success.

The Sobriety Success Method

February 5, 2020 By Nick Leave a Comment

Fighting addiction is hard. The Sobriety Success Method makes it easier.

Over the last few years we’ve been working with more than 2,000 students worldwide to help them overcome their addictions. For some people, the journey has been relatively straightforward. For others, however, the journey has been a little bit more complex.

We founded Live Rehab and developed our approach to recovery to help anyone who might be struggling with addiction. A while ago, we realized that a book might be a fundamental way to help people and that’s when the idea was born, The Sobriety Success Method.

I’m excited to announce that The Sobriety Success Method is now officially launched and available for purchase on Amazon. Within just a few days it has also become #1 on Amazon for Sobriety!

So, what exactly is The Sobriety Success Method and why should you get yourself a copy?

The book is split into 4 main sections and each section is designed to work together in order to help you overcome addiction from a holistic, 360 degree perspective.

Physical Health

Psychological Health

Social Health

Addiction Focus

The old approach to addiction recovery is broken

There’s a problem with how the modern world is approaching getting sober.

Breaking the chains of addiction typically means you’re thinking about either a) rehab in person or b) alcoholics anonymous (or narcotics anonymous). And that’s a major problem.

In our normal, everyday lives, we would never accept a 5-10% success rate on just about anything would we? Imagine visiting a restaurant who said that 9 out of 10 times your dish would be inedible. Oh and that they didn’t give any refunds.

That’s what visiting traditional rehab is like. Marketwatch in 2014 did an investigative report into traditional rehab centers and found that relapse rates and success rates were horrendously bad when they were even reported at all.

The rates for AA/NA or a 12-step program aren’t much better either and they don’t even have to publish their results either. Ofcourse, there will be plenty of people who can come forward and explain how AA or a treatment center saved their lives. But, that’s not the point.

It’s time for something new.

The Sobriety Success Method is the first approach towards getting sober that changes it all. Designed to be done at home, The Sobriety Success Method allows people to get fight addiction without having to leave friends, family, pets or work like a normal rehab program does.

Here’s how the book is broken down and how it supports long-term sobriety.

Physical Health

Your physical health represents an important function of overcoming addiction. The book dives deep into how to rebuild your approach to healthy living. This includes things like how to overhaul your diet, sleep and activity levels.

Physical health has been shown to be linked quite closely to mental health and the same goes for addiction. Mastering your physical health becomes vital after years of abuse from addiction.

Psychological Health

It should go without saying that focusing on your psychological health has plenty of benefits. But this section of the book is designed to walk you through the process of setting the proper mental health foundations you need.

Your psychological health isn’t just limited to your mental health however as The Sobriety Success Method also examines key topics in areas like spirituality and living intentionally. Strong psychological health gives you the strength to overcome addiction and you need to build resilience to win the battles ahead.

Social Health

Social situations crop up all the time in recovery. You need to know exactly how to deal with things like family, friends and work. If you don’t know how to deal with them or build strong social relationships, your ability to stay sober is at risk.

In The Sobriety Success Method I provide you with the tools you need to make smart decisions around who to keep in your life and who to hold at arm’s length. Making these kinds of decisions is hard but needs to happen for your recovery’s sake.

Addiction Focus

The last section of the book dives into key topics such as setting a quit date, taking inventory and managing triggers. These are all vitally important functions if you want to get sober from home. Managing triggers, for instance, helps you to identify aspects of your life that may lead to a relapse and what to do about them.

This book is about creating a holistic, 360-degree, approach to sobriety. You can’t try to get sober without tackling each of these different subject areas. All 4 of the sections build off of each other and are really very connected.

It has been my experience over the last few years that overcoming addiction requires a full approach to every aspect of your life. By writing The Sobriety Success Method I’ve given you the tools you need to get it done. Long-term recovery is not only possible but can be part of your recovery story.

What does success in sobriety look like?

A life in recovery means developing the tools, skills and mental power to live a sober life. There are many assumptions that regular meetings are the only way to achieve a successful recovery. We’ve been conditioned by other people in recovery that we need to mimic their recovery journey even if the cost of rehab is far too great.

Your journey to a successful recovery means building a recovery program the way that suits you and your life. This book gives you everything you need to create that successful sobriety journey. I know many of you want a life in sobriety and are scared to take that first step. Maybe you’ve been burned before with other alcohol treatment programs. Maybe you have other mental health issues that you need to also tackle at the same time.

To overcome a substance use disorder you have to take action. But that action can’t come at a price too great to pay. That’s why we wrote the book.

I’ve done it in a way that means you won’t ever have to leave your family, friends, pets or work and it won’t break the bank either. No more 12-step meetings and no sober living houses required.

Pick up your copy today – click here to visit Amazon.

Not convinced? Check out what Ivan had to say on his review of the book:

This book have ALL what you need to start your recovery journey right now, from home and without investing a lot of money, time and energy. The Sobriety Success Method WORKS, why do I say that? Because I had use it before.

In this book you will find all the information that you need to create your path to leave your adicction, also the book comes with some FREE PDF WORKSHEETS as bonuses that you could use to design your recovery program.

You have to get in mind that a full recovery means a full live change, you can’t change your future being the same person you were in the past, so you have to accept it and work on it (the results you will have deserves the work).

So in this book you will learn the very fundamentals that will keep you up with your full recovery:
-Diet and Excercise: (one of the most importants parts on recovery)
-Sleep: (to recover and recharge your body and mind)
-Psychological Area: (the second most important part of your recovery, this is very personal, deeper and longer work for some people, other will have nothing or just simple issues there, it depends on your live past and mindset)
-Spirituality: (another important area of your recovery) does not worry, it does not runs on religions or this kind of topics, actually the book invites you to find what is best for you
-Living Intentional Life: (third most importan area of your recovery) if you have a broing with no intention life, would be so easy to just go back to your addictions, so you have to change your way of life, everyone has something to reach on life, so here you will find the path to (find or work) on you life intentions and aspirations
-Social Life: (other very important area for your recovery) you have to connect with your social being, so let loneliness and start living a whole new life
-Adicction Topics: Triggers, Relapse Prevention (this is very, very important) how to keep your recovery

I had beeing doing the Sobriety Success Method from some time ago when I found Denise’s work on her online courses, and also I read this book and done her theraphy and online workbooks, so I know that this method works to start your path to your recovery. Always keep in mind that this is the foundation of the recovery process and that process is so personal, there is not and could not be a “one size fits all” method. So you will have to DO your own work on recover yourself, with the help and guide on this book, you will start that process, then is up to you to keep working on your new life.

Link to review

Exploring ‘Cali Sober’: A Modern Approach to Addiction Recovery