Recovery Rocks

If rehab worked the way it’s supposed to…why do so many people end up right back where they started?After more than 30 years in the trenches of addiction treatment, Jimmie Applegate has some theories.In his recently released book Addicted to Failure: Why the Rehab System Doesn’t Work and What Must Change, he pulls back the curtain on the myths, blind spots and outdated models that keep people stuck.We talk trauma, brain rewiring, why “just go to rehab” is wildly oversimplified and what real, lasting recovery support should actually look like. This one is part wake-up call, part hope for something better.Learn all about Jimmie’s work here.  Finally, check out all things Recovery Rocks, Lisa and Anna. Lisa Smith is the author of the award-winning memoir Girl Walks Out of a Bar. Anna David is the author of the novel Party Girl, as well as multiple nonfiction books. Together, they bring the honesty of lived experience to conversations about addiction, sobriety and the messy, meaningful truths at the heart of recovery.

What happens when your “journey of self-discovery” includes Burning Man debauchery, spontaneous decisions to move to other countries and the ingestion of substances you probably should’ve Googled first?We asked the best source on the topic—Carly Schwartz, a former top editor at The Huffington Post and Editor-in-Chief of the San Francisco Examiner all about it when discussing her upcoming recovery memoir, I’ll Try Anything Twice: Misadventures of a Self-Medicated Life.To call Try Anything Twice just a recovery memoir doesn’t do justice to just how poignant, tragic and inspiring it is. It’s a sharp and painfully honest look at dealing with depression and addiction, not to mention chasing meaning in all the wrong places—before finally finding real recovery.We get into adult identity crises, denial that deserves an award, suicidal depression and what it actually takes to rebuild a life you almost lost. Also, we talk a lot about how we’re all obsessed with each other.Find out more about Carly on carly.ink, on Instagram, and on LinkedIn. And book a writing and storytelling workshop with Carly at Mindwriters.  Finally, check out all things Recovery Rocks, Lisa and Anna. Lisa Smith is the author of the award-winning memoir Girl Walks Out of a Bar. Anna David is the author of the novel Party Girl, as well as multiple nonfiction books. Together, they bring the honesty of lived experience to conversations about addiction, sobriety and the messy, meaningful truths at the heart of recovery.

Our resident Swiftie, Anna, is over the moon as we chat with Julianne Griffin, founder of Swift Steps, a recovery community for sober Swifties. We talk about what music, and Taylor’s music in particular, means to us in recovery and the power of a supportive community in staying sober.Find Swift Steps:www.swiftsteps.orgPrivate FB GroupFacebookInstagramYouTubeTikTokCheck out all things Lisa and all things Anna.

We both love to shop, but come at it from different places. No surprise it reflects our feelings of financial security. Anna has been buying things she loves to decorate her dream home. Lisa loves to pay bills. We save tons of money by not buying drugs and alcohol, and we didn’t get sober to feel deprived. So if it’s in our means, it’s in our basket. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Being in a human body means experiencing physical pain at some point. Handling it can be challenging for sober people. We talk about attitudes of people who don’t understand recovery, including many doctors, toward pain medication. And we both agree – there is no shame in taking prescribed medication to find relief. Of course, we’re careful to protect our sobriety when meds are necessary. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Friend and fellow sobriety author Kristin Casey hangs with us to talk about her books, CASEY DANCER: A MEMOIR OF DATING, STRIPPING AND A LITTLE HOT YOGA and ROCK MONSTER: MY LIFE WITH JOE WALSH, and much more. We talk about what our relationships were like before and after getting sober. Spoiler: once we learned to like ourselves, our standards got higher and our own needs took priority. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Baby, it’s cold and dark outside. Winter blues and seasonal affective disorders are real and we struggle with them. We talk about how we handle them. Anna does the bold thing, combining cold plunges and infrared saunas. Lisa tries to stick her body in the sunshine, now that she realizes how it lifts her winter mood.  Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Open Instagram, Ruin Your Night?We love to hate social media. But it’s also a singular tool for staying in touch, getting the word out on things we care about, and even learning a thing or two. We talk about our early days on the socials and how we use it now. Sober tools can help – just like with a drink, before opening that app, maybe ask yourself why you want to log on and play the tape through on where it might lead. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna.

It’s the question many ask when getting sober: What am I going to do on New Year’s Eve if I’m not drinking? The answer is anything you want! No need to have FOMO – New Year’s Eve is a night for amateurs. And nothing beats waking up on New Year’s Day without a hangover. We take the opportunity to catch up on sleep. And we don’t make resolutions. Why make a declaration that we’re going to change on a certain day when we can just commit to new behavior anytime.  Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Following the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner, their son, Nick, has been charged with their killings. Media reports focused on Nick’s long history of substance abuse, oversimplifying what is clearly a more complex situation. Anna interviewed Nick a decade ago with his mother sitting alongside him and while the original interview is no longer online, we are releasing it as part of this episode. We’re highly aware of what a sensitive and tragic topic this is and want to be entirely clear that we don’t have any firsthand knowledge of the exact sequence of events that led to this horrific situation. What we have is first-hand experience with the people involved and our own experience with addiction and recovery. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna.

We all have them. And guilty pleasures in sobriety are even more fun when we’re able to enjoy them fully, without the blur of alcohol. Anna is on a steady drip of sugar all day long (Dr. Pat Allen told her she was a “non practicing bulimic”). Other guilty pleasures include Love is Blind, Instagram/Threads, the podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me, Hunter Harris and Joel Stein’s Substacks and regular massages. Lisa’s guilty pleasures include anything true crime, everything Dexter, and podcasts about ghost stories.   Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

We talk about how music enhances our sobriety and what our playlists look like. We also talk about sober concerts we’ve loved. Live shows are a revelation, not just because we remember everything, but because we are present in the moment. To Anna, listening to Taylor Swift is the closest she’s come to feeling high (watching The Eras tour movie made her understand why people do ayahuasca). Lisa talks about the Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead shows.   For all you Swifties, dig into Swift Steps.  Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Some people love sober anniversaries, some people dread them, and some people don’t keep up with them at all. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. We talk about what counting days and keeping time looks like for us. Anna never misses an opportunity to celebrate herself, from her first soberversary (a karaoke party in West LA!) to her upcoming 25th (a full on 90s party with food trucks and costumes). For Lisa, it’s changed multiple times over 21 years. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Our friend Stefanie Wilder Taylor, author of SIPPY CUPS ARE NOT FOR CHARDONNAY and DRUNKISH, and host of the Drunkish podcast,  joins us to talk about being publicly outed as a sober person and what the backlash was like. Stefanie was barely sober when she was thrust into the spotlight as a sobriety expert. We talk about owning our own stories and what anonymity is and isn’t.Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

The official kickoff of the holiday season, Turkey Day, can be tricky. Especially the first one.  Family, friends, food, and often a lot of booze. What could go wrong? Lisa ended up flat on her back beneath a green bean casserole. Anna spent her first sober Thanksgiving freezing to death in a motorhome in a San Diego parking lot. (True!)Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna.

Just because we’re sober doesn’t mean we don’t still want to have fun wherever we hang out. But being comfortable in bars and clubs isn’t automatic. Lisa took a pass for a long time and only goes on rare occasions. Anna spent her first year sober as Premiere magazine’s “Party Girl,” which involved going out every night among the shiniest of people and the most open of bars. Amazingly, the experience only enhanced her commitment to sobriety more. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Legend has it that drugs and alcohol have spawned some great works of art, including books. But evidence shows that numbing ourselves out actually stifles creativity. Anna and Lisa talk about what it was like to first feel that spark and flow of an idea without the booze. Anna was terrified that just sitting in front of the computer was going to trigger cravings and was shocked to discover that writing was actually a million times easier sober than high. Lisa felt it straight out of the detox unit. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

It’s bound to happen. At some point in our early or not-so-early sobriety, something is likely to trigger that overwhelming feeling of anxiety or even panic. Maybe it’s in a situation we’d drink our through or maybe it’s out of nowhere. For Lisa, it was the latter. For Anna, smoking cigarettes eased her newcomer sobriety—until she realized it was only exacerbating the issue. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna. 

Our first vacations in sobriety should be occasions to relax and let loose. And ours were! Just not without some pre-planning and flexibility on the fly. Anna found herself abandoned in the woods when she tried to find a meeting in New Zealand while Lisa found sober support in the City of Lights. Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna.  

Let’s get straight to it. Sober sex for the first time is a big deal! Some of us had never even done it before. We talk about our experiences – from what we were told to what we expected, and what it was actually like. Lisa had an eventful trip to Utah and Anna, well, let’s just say she ignored all that advice about not dating for the first year.Check out all things Lisa and all things Anna.