Sober Powered: The Neuroscience of Being Sober
Episodes
E317: One Reason Some People Stay Sober and Others Don’t
10 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A lot of people think they’re resilient because they’ve been through a lot. But if that were true, then why do the same situations keep hitting ju...
E316: The Hidden Pattern Behind Productivity, Procrastination, and People Pleasing
03 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
After getting sober many of us notice we go harder on scrolling, being productive, or people pleasing. In this episode, I want to walk you through how...
E315: The “I’ll Deal With It Later” Trap
27 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a very specific thought pattern that keeps people stuck with drinking for years. It sounds like: “I know I should probably stop… but it’...
E314: Why Emotions Turn Into “I’m Stuck,” “This Will Never Change,” or “I Can’t Handle This”
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We are experts at making our emotions much worse than they really are. You might feel stressed, and within a few seconds it becomes “I can’t handl...
E313: The Nervous System in Sobriety: Why You Feel Wired, Exhausted, or Overwhelmed, and How Regulation Returns
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A lot of people quit drinking expecting to feel calmer. You think sobriety is going to reduce anxiety, improve sleep, and make life feel more stable. ...
E312: Ambivalence in Early and Long Term Sobriety
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
You can know alcohol is hurting you. You can want to quit. You can be exhausted by the consequences. And then still drink. In this episode, we’re ta...
Cravings Increase After Quitting Drinking and Peak Around 60 Days Sober and 6 Months Sober (Replay)
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
You probably expect that the more sober time you have, the less you crave alcohol. That’s true for some people, but others experience an effect call...
E311: Sugar Cravings in Sobriety: When Comfort Becomes a Crutch
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Sugar cravings in early sobriety make sense. What many of us don’t expect is still needing something sweet months or even years later. In this episo...
E310: Emotional Sobriety: Why Quitting Drinking Isn’t Enough
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When I quit drinking, I didn’t realize how emotionally immature I was, or how much alcohol had been doing for me behind the scenes. In this episode,...
E309: Early Sobriety Fatigue: What’s Actually Happening in Your Brain
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re sober but still exhausted, foggy, or struggling to think clearly, it’s not random. Early sobriety fatigue has very real causes, from cha...
E308: Does Dry January Actually Change People’s Drinking Habits? What the Research Says
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A lot of people do Dry January hoping it will reset their relationship with alcohol, and then feel confused or discouraged when it doesn’t. Dry Janu...
How the Brain Recovers After Quitting Drinking From 1 Day to 7 Years (Replay)
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Did we blast our brains beyond repair with all of our drinking? What if you drank heavily for decades? Are you doomed? In this episode I’m explainin...
The Witching Hour Without Booze: What’s Happening in the Brain Between 5–9 PM
16 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The witching hour, or usually hours for most of us, are the time of day where you typically drink and want to drink the most when you’re sober. This...
Health Benefits of Dry January: What to Expect
09 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A 30-day break from alcohol changes multiple systems at once: metabolic, cardiovascular, neurological, and behavioral. In this episode, I’m summariz...
How to do Dry January Differently This Year With Casey Davidson and Suzanne Warye
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Stop doing the hardest part over and over again. In this episode, Casey, Suzanne and I discuss our advice for making sobriety stick and the mistakes w...
E307: 4 Biggest Challenges People Struggle With During Dry January & How to Deal
02 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It’s Dry January and whether you’re participating for the first time, the 3rd time, or you’re working towards long term sobriety, then there are...
E306: The Sobriety Audit: What Changed This Year (And What Didn’t)
26 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s almost New Year, New Me time and before you make plans and goals for 2026, I’d love to walk you through a sobriety audit to evaluate how far ...
6 Ways to Protect Your Energy During the Holidays
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Holiday overwhelm isn’t about being weak, it’s about carrying more emotional weight with fewer internal resources. In this episode, I walk you thr...
E305: Why the Holidays Create Tons of Stress & One Helpful Tool to Stay Regulated
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The holidays create the perfect storm for stress and emotional reactivity in sobriety. Your reward system may still be healing, your stress circuitry ...
E304: Family Dynamics, the Relapse Mindset, and 7 Drinking Permission Slips We Create to Ease the Tension
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Family interactions can trigger the relapse mindset long before cravings show up. You’ll learn how old emotional roles, deep shame pathways, and the...
E303: “I Should Be Further Along By Now”
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This fear hits so many people between 6–18 months sober. In this episode, we’ll look at the deeper roots of this thought: identity lag, internaliz...
Non-Alcoholic Drinks: The Pros and Cons (Rebroadcast)
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Non-alcoholic drinks and mocktails are very popular, but are they good for your sobriety? In this episode I’ll explain both sides of the argument- h...
E302: Feeling Like a Normal Person Again After 8-10 Months
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A lot of clients will tell me that they feel like a normal person again. This isn’t a random occurrence, there are 4 very real changes that are happ...
E301: The Self-Worth Ceiling: How Low Self-Esteem Fuels Self-Sabotage
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you think you’re a loser and a failure, then you’re going to behave in ways that confirm these beliefs. We all have beliefs about our inherent ...
E300: How Problem Drinking Develops and Escalates
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you know if you’re someone who needs to get sober for good or if you’re just going through a phase? In this episode, I’ll share about how...
November Trailer
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Learn what this month's episodes will be about and what we'll be talking about in the Living a Sober Powered Life Community Join the community htt...
E299: Social Drinking: Drinking to Fit In
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Social drinking feels harmless. Everyone does it right? There’s a difference between using alcohol to socialize and using it to force fitting in and...
E298: Coping Drinking: Drinking to Feel Less
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One of the first things I learned about drinking was that when adults are stressed, they drink, and the stress goes away. As a high stress person, it ...
E297: Enhancement Drinking: Drinking to Feel More
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we think about quitting drinking one of the first things we think about is the loss of fun, socializing, and drinking on vacation. Drinking to en...
E296: The Science of Why We Drink: An Overview of Drinking Motives
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I drink to have fun and socialize, I tell myself as I try to rationalize why I don’t have to quit drinking. Except “fun” and “socializing” l...
I Learned to Swim in My 30's!
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I took adult swim lessons for the past 2 months and in this episode I'm sharing about why I decided to finally learn how to swim, what it was like, an...
E295: The Feeling of Lost Time From All the Years We Spent Drinking
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I’ve been wanting to make this episode for years, but I felt like it would be offensive if I talked about how I struggled with feeling like I wasted...
E294: Why Stress and Emotions Feel Intolerable Without Alcohol
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emotional reactivity is one of the biggest roadblocks to staying sober. For many of us, our brain’s alarm system has been rewired by years of drinki...
Why Shame Blocks Change
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guilt says “I did something wrong.” Shame says “I am wrong.” It feels like proof that you’re a weak-willed loser with no self-control when y...
E293: Tolerance and the Disappearing Buzz
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever thought back to the early days of your drinking and remembered how just one or two drinks gave you exactly what you wanted? That light, ...
E292: Why One Drink is Never Enough
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever promised yourself you’d only have one drink? Maybe it was at dinner, or after work—you told yourself, “Just one, that’s it.” B...
E291: Why You May Still Crave Alcohol Long Term, and Why No Cravings Doesn’t Mean You’re “Cured”
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We tend to think of cravings as the enemy in sobriety. If you still want to drink, it must mean you’re doing something wrong. And on the other side,...
Thinking About Drinking Constantly, Then Thinking About Sobriety Constantly
08 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Obsessing over our drinking is very frustrating and it takes over our lives. There is so much more to life than worrying about alcohol. When you get s...
E290: How to Quit Drinking Without Hitting Rock Bottom
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A rock bottom moment isn’t required to get sober, although it obviously helps. We have no control over what will be our rock bottom, and often we st...
The Most Important Thinking Shift I Made in Sobriety
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Quitting drinking doesn’t automatically change how you think, it just removes the numbing. For many of us, that means we’re left with a mind that ...
E289: Emotional Tunnel Vision: When Little Problems are a Big Deal
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In sobriety our brains are still stuck in survival mode. We zoom in on small problems, assume they’re huge, and feel overwhelmed by everyday stresso...
E288: How to “Sit With It” Without Avoiding, Suppressing, Ruminating, or Escaping
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Learning to manage emotions is one of the most difficult parts of sobriety. Many people don’t think they were drinking to cope, only to find out onc...
E287: Are You “Strong Enough” or Just Stubborn? (Self-Control & Willpower)
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we think about getting sober, most of the focus is on not drinking, but we don’t think about what to start doing to actually rewire the brain a...
5 Year Podversary Q&A (E286 Part 2)
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Join me for a special Q&A episode. We talk about my story, my work, my gaming history, book writing, what I've noticed in the sober community, and mor...
E286: How This Podcast Changed My Life (Happy 5 Years to Sober Powered)
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On June 25, 2020 I decided to start this podcast. You’ll learn the story of how this podcast started, how it’s changed my sobriety, how it’s cha...
E285: How Exercise Helps Your Brain and Body Heal From Alcohol (and How to Get Started)
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Besides not drinking, one of the simplest ways to heal the damage left behind from your drinking days is to exercise consistently. In this episode, I’...
E284: Reward Substitution: Healthy vs. Harmful Replacements for Alcohol
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we quit drinking, it’s pretty common to pick up another crutch or transfer the addiction to something else like food, work, cannabis, shopping,...
E283: Alcohol Shortens Your Perception of Time (Instant Gratification)
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Learning to put effort into our lives, be patient, and not rely on instant gratification is challenging. Alcohol teaches us that we can have what we w...
E282: Minimizing, Rationalizing, and the Myth of “I Wasn’t That Bad”
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe your drinking isn’t/wasn’t that bad, but does that mean it’s good? If you don’t truly face what you’re doing, then how can you expect ...
E281: Why Your Brain Makes Drinking Look Better Than It Was
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When the sun comes out, so do the memories of “fun” drinking days, but are those memories even accurate? In this episode, I break down how your br...
E280: Romanticizing Alcohol: What’s Going on in Your Brain
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are these harmless thoughts or do they lead to relapse? In this episode you’ll learn what is going on in your brain when you romanticize alcohol, ho...
E279: The Pendulum Effect of Healing
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we start doing “the work”, it’s normal for your behavior to swing hard in the other direction. Emotions become more intense, old memories f...
E278: Intrusive Thoughts About Drinking When You’re Already Sober & 3 Ways to Deal
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’re used to intrusive thoughts about drinking while we’re trying to quit and in the early days, but these thoughts can continue to pop up months...
E277: Being Willing to Start is the Hardest Part (“The Work”)
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I thought getting sober was the end of the story. I did it, I succeeded, now life will be amazing forever. But the parade never came. Instead, I start...
E276: A Burst of Mental Clarity at 60 Days Sober (Cognitive Healing)
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Many people experience a noticeable shift in mental clarity around 60 days sober. When it happened to me I felt like I was waking up from a long dream...
E275: 3 Ways Alcohol Damages the Heart and How to Have Good Heart Health in Sobriety
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alcohol damages every area of the body, but in this episode we are focusing on the heart. I’ll explain 3 ways that alcohol damages the heart, how th...
E274: High Dopamine, Low Effort Behaviors and Making Sobriety Feel Less Hard
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Your brain is wired for quick hits of dopamine, or high-reward, low-effort habits that feel good in the moment but sabotage your long-term goals. Over...
E273: How the Sober Brain Breaks Down Alcohol Associations (But They’ll Build Back Up if You Drink Again)
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We believe alcohol is required for vacations, unwinding, dealing with stress, celebrating, and socializing. We have built up powerful associations in ...
E272: 6 Habits That Make My Life Better
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we develop a problem with alcohol, it becomes the center of our lives and most or all decisions are made after taking alcohol into consideration....
E271: Alcohol, Career Stress, and the Lie of “I Function Just Fine”
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“I function just fine, it’s not like I’m missing work”, I said until I started missing work. “I have a masters degree, I couldn’t have got...
E270: Cravings Increase After Quitting Drinking and Peak Around 60 Days Sober and 6 Months Sober
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You probably expect that the more sober time you have, the less you crave alcohol. That’s true for some people, but others experience an effect call...
E269: Running on Autopilot Mode
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Regular drinking and early sobriety often feel like living on autopilot, where we are repeating the same routines without conscious awareness. Alcohol...
Making Friends After Getting Sober (Mini Coaching Call)
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Making new friends as an adult is difficult enough, but when you're sober, it adds an extra layer of difficulty. In this episode, we're talking about ...
E268: Is Moderate Drinking Healthier? Here’s Why So Many Studies Say Yes
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most people defend moderation. What about all those people in the blue zones? Europeans drink every day, what about the French Paradox? If you do a qu...
E267: Resources vs Support: Are You Setting Yourself Up for Success?
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is the biggest mistake I see people make. There’s one pattern I’ve noticed with people where they want to be sober, but they approach it in a...
E266: Can You Drink After Taking a Break?
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
So you’ve taken a break from alcohol and now you’re wondering do you stay sober or do you go back to drinking? In this episode I’ll discuss your...
E265: Rewiring Your Reward System After Getting Sober
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When will being sober feel rewarding? When does it get easier? When does the boredom go away? In this episode you’ll learn about the process of reca...
E264: Here’s Why You Have Mood Swings After Quitting Drinking
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are you cranky AF after getting sober? Is your mood volatile and unpredictable? Are the little things setting you off? This is a normal part of the so...
E263: Sugar Cravings After Quitting Drinking
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Did you go from never wanting dessert to now never skipping it? Are you craving sugar constantly now that you’ve quit drinking? Sugar cravings in so...
Alcohol and Cancer Risk (Surgeon General Warning Explained)
04 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Surgeon General just recommended that cancer warning labels be included on alcohol bottles. However, the link between cancer and alcohol is old ne...
E262: 31 Tips to Quit Drinking in Dry January
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are you trying to quit drinking for Dry January? A sober month is a good opportunity to learn more about your drinking and get experience handling you...
E261: The Psychology of New Year's Resolutions (Willpower and Goal Setting)
27 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
2025 can be your year. Most of us set goals to quit drinking or lose weight, and then we don’t achieve it. In this episode, I’m going to explain 3...
E260: 5 Holiday Mental Health Challenges
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you love the holidays, then I’m happy for you, but many of us don’t. If the holidays make you feel tired, jealous, stressed, and resentful, the...
E259: 10 Things You Might Be Doing to Sabotage Your Sobriety During the Holidays
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Staying sober during the holidays is difficult, but there are some things that I’ve observed people do that make it even more difficult. In this epi...
E258: The Science of Peer Pressure to Drink and 7 Strategies to Resist
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Humans are wired to conform—it’s a survival instinct rooted in safety and belonging. That’s why it can feel nearly impossible to resist the pull...
E257: Sober Socializing: Why Alcohol Doesn’t Help
29 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I know it feels like alcohol is required to socialize, connect with others, and have fun. What if I told you that alcohol makes you feel more relaxed ...
E256: Dealing With Your Dysfunctional Family Without Drinking
22 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Your family and how you grew up have a major influence on how difficult it is for you to get sober, do the work, and resist relapse. A dysfunctional f...
E255: 6 Strategies For Staying Sober Through the Holidays (and Some Holidays Drinking Statistics)
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s that time of year again. Time for company happy hours, holiday parties, and seeing family. It’s also a time of year when most people drink a ...
I'm 5 Years Sober: Here's How I Reached Acceptance
09 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The most difficult part of the process of quitting drinking is getting from the point where you realize your drinking is problematic and that you need...
E254: Why You Can’t Make Good Decisions About Your Drinking (or Anything Else)
08 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever vowed to stop drinking, but then you drink again anyway? It’s a rhetorical question. I know the answer is yes. It’s frustrating when...
E253: 5 Common Mistakes in Early Sobriety and How to Avoid Them
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Are you making being sober harder for yourself? I had no idea what I was doing when I first quit drinking and maybe you feel the same way. Over the ye...
E252: How Many Attempts Does it Take to Quit Drinking for Good
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Multiple quit attempts are common when you are trying to get sober, but how many tries does it take before it finally sticks? In this episode I’ll c...
E251: Here’s Why You’re Emotions Are So Intense
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The intensity of our emotions determines how we deal with them. If the intensity gets too much and we become overwhelmed, we can use avoidance coping ...
E250: What Does it Mean to “Be Ready” to Get Sober
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When I was struggling to quit drinking people would constantly tell me that I wasn’t “ready” yet. I felt ready. I was suffering and wanted it to...
E249: Alcohol and Cortisol: Extra Stress and Extra Cravings
04 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Stress is a main reason many of us drink and it’s a big trigger for relapse after getting sober. In this episode you’ll learn all about cortisol- ...
E248: You Can’t Be Comfortable AND Stay Sober
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Getting sober is tough. We have to figure out how to live again and finally learn some coping skills and tools. It’s uncomfortable. In this episode,...
E247: Sober Sleep is the Best Sleep, But Not Right Away
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve heard people say it, sober sleep is the best sleep, but when are you going to get some of this great sleep yourself? In this episode, I expla...
E246: Alcohol and Dementia
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us worry that we’ve done permanent damage to our brains with our heavy drinking or that it’s been too long to make a change. In this episo...
E245: Want to Stay Sober? You Need to Be Consistent
06 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is being sober truly a priority or would it be a nice to have? If you want to make progress in getting sober, staying sober, and doing “the work”,...
E244: Boredom in Sobriety
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s very normal to feel bored when you quit drinking. We get used to constant excitement, dopamine and chaos while we’re drinking, so it can be d...
E243: Emotional Eating After Getting Sober
23 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Emotional eating is a very frustrating thing to deal with, and it’s not uncommon to eat extra or have sugar cravings when you get sober. In this epi...
E242: The Science of Making Good Habits in Long Term Sobriety
16 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us eventually realize that we have unhealthy habits like eating a bunch of junk at night, drinking way too much caffeine, not exercising, and ...
E241: 6 Theories of Alcohol Cravings
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Understanding why you crave alcohol can be a powerful tool in your sober journey, helping you reduce the frequency and intensity of these cravings. Th...
E240: Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) After Quitting Drinking: 8 Tips to Cope
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You may have heard of Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS), a condition that can develop after you’ve quit drinking and includes lingering symptoms...
E0: How Alcohol Affects Your Body: Here's What the Science Says
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is a deep dive into how alcohol affects the body, timestamps are below. This isn’t an episode meant to scare you, just to inform you ab...
E239: How the Brain Heals After Quitting Drinking
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode you’ll learn about what the brain is like in the first couple of weeks of sobriety, how the brain’s of people who relapse are diff...
E238: Why Moderation Doesn’t Work
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Moderation is impossible. If you can’t moderate, then you’ll never be able to. Some people can moderate with rules and intense focus, but that’s...
E237: Why We Forget How Bad It Was
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever felt totally convinced that it was going to be different this time, only to drink and find out it’s still not any different? We can re...
E236: Why Alcohol Feels Good and Then Feels Really Bad
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of our drinking, we continue to drink even though it’s not enjoyable and causes a lot of suffering. As addiction progresses it goes from ...
E235: Dopamine and Loss of Control
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone loves dopamine right now. We know it’s involved in addiction and pleasure, and that it gets depleted when we drink. In this episode, I’m ...