Recovery Rocks

Most parents don't expect their kid to ask them that question.

Gregg Champion is not most parents but someone who’s spent years helping people rebuild their lives through recovery—until the 2025 Pacific Palisades fires destroyed both his home and business and he found himself needing literal help rebuilding his own life.

In this episode, Gregg talks about loss, grief, resilience and the uncomfortable reality that recovery doesn't make anyone exempt from life's hardest moments. We also get into why he believes vaping and gambling are quietly becoming two of t...

Before Recovery Rocks existed, Anna hosted Recover Girl, where comedians, writers and addicts told stories that were dark, hilarious and weirdly healing. This throwback features legendary comedian Eddie Pepitone in peak form.

Known as “The Bitter Buddha,” Eddie riffs on sobriety, panic disorder, apocalypse anxiety, addiction, coffee during panic attacks, adult coloring books and the sheer discomfort of being alive. Somewhere between stand-up set and existential breakdown, he delivers one of the funniest and most painfully honest recovery stories we’ve ever heard.

If you’ve ever felt simultaneously grateful to be sober and absolutely horrifie...

Long before celebrities were launching sobriety brands and influencers were posting mocktails on Instagram, Shane Ramer was talking publicly about recovery into a microphone with no guarantee anyone would listen.

As the founder and host of That Sober Guy Podcast, Shane has spent more than a decade having honest conversations about addiction, recovery, fatherhood, masculinity and what it actually takes to change your life.

We talk about what recovery looked like before it became culturally acceptable, how the conversation has changed and why some of the most important things...

Before she became a successful TV writer and meditation teacher, Laura House was getting drunk on a barely floating houseboat filled with naked Texans, animal-print speedos and enough beer to sink the thing entirely.

In this Thursday Throwback from Anna’s original Recover Girl podcast, Laura tells the unbelievable true story of a Fourth of July weekend spent partying on “Naked Island,” a floating hillbilly paradise created by one of her most gloriously chaotic friends. The story involves houseboat debauchery, accidental nudity, Texas-sized drinking and eventually…court.

Laura is one of the funniest people alive and this...

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week, but here's a rebroadcast of one of the first episodes since Anna joined the show.

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. 

Before Recovery Rocks, Anna hosted Recover Girl, where conversations about addiction often turned into surprisingly deep discussions about ego, identity, fear and why nobody actually feels like a real adult. This Thursday Throwback features John Taylor of Duran Duran—yes, that John Taylor in the flesh.

John talks about becoming a global pop star almost overnight, still living in his childhood bedroom after Rio became a massive hit and slowly realizing that alcohol and cocaine had become stronger than he was. He opens up about addiction, shame, resentment, celebrity, Catholicism, recovery and the strange reality that even su...

Lisa chats with Kristin Horstman, whose new podcast, Sunsets Are the New Happy Hour, is a neuroscience-informed discussion of sobriety and behavioral changes that can make a positive impact. Come for the chat on rewiring your nervous system. Stay for the sunsets and glimmers.

Before Recovery Rocks, Anna hosted Recover Girl, where conversations about addiction and recovery were less “before-and-after success story” and more “let’s unpack the human condition for 45 minutes.” This Thursday Throwback features musician Moby in one of the most thoughtful recovery conversations we’ve ever aired. 

Moby talks about getting sober at 22 after years of chaotic drinking and drug use, throwing legendary degenerate parties in New York, relapsing after eight years of “insufferably sober” Christianity and eventually realizing AA wasn’t just a clubhouse for drunks — it was a spiritual program. 

The conversation goes everywhere: anonymity, ego, relaps...

Fear of public speaking commonly ranks among the world’s top phobias. 

And why shouldn’t it? Standing in front of room full of eager eyes waiting to hear something brilliant can be terrifying. 

We both learned how to speak in front of others in 12-step meetings. Today, Lisa worries about being hit with a panic attack on stage (it’s happened before), while Anna panics about the memorization.

We also get into this week’s Petty Resentment. How do you feel about a stranger tapping you?

Despite being so grateful for our sober lives, we still experience jealousy over big things (friends
with great adult kids) and little ones (another author going viral). The difference is that we now
have the tools to handle it gracefully…most of the time.
Also, welcome to our new segment, Petty Resentments! First up: Why are we pressured to tip on
what are essentially medical procedures?

Before Brad McLeod became one of recovery’s most inspiring voices, he survived an almost unbelievable series of hardships—including childhood instability, extreme isolation as a teen, addiction, incarceration and briefly sharing a jail cell with a murderer.

Now he’s the founder of Sober Motivation and helps people around the world stay sober through honesty, storytelling and connection. This conversation answers the question: how does someone survive the unsurvivable?

The Sober Curator (thesobercurator.com) is the place to find all things sober pop culture and more. It has you covered on book, movie, music, and TV reviews, sober travel and events, gift guides, and other tips for living your best sober life.  We talked all about it with our friend Alysse Bryson, the Sober Curator herself, who created the site for fellow pop culture, fashion, and entertain junkies, who happen not to drink.  Subscribe to the newsletter and watch for the upcoming membership club, “Backstage with the Sober Curator.” It will have special live sessions and content. We’ll be th

You know the birthdays, the ones with a zero at the end? Hitting our first ones in sobriety added a new dimension to the milestones. Lisa couldn’t believe she made it her 40th birthday and wishes she’d kept contributing to her 401(K) before that. Anna turned 30 a month after going to rehab and 50 in the midst of the pandemic. Despite the challenges, in the end we realized there’s always a reason to celebrate.

It’s the dreaded 8th Step in 12-Step recovery - making amends to those we have harmed. Anna and Lisa talk about their first experiences with it, as well as what “living amends” look like. And when an amends turns into a bitch session for the other person, we take it in stride, and maybe even have a laugh years later. Plus: how do you make amends to a no-longer-living grandmother you tricked into shoplifting against her knowledge?

What does the first Saturday night you stay home sober look and feel like? Just the prospect of it can send shivers down a newly sober spine. Lisa remembers a sense of relief, tinged with some envy knowing that her friends were out partying. Anna learned that boring wasn’t always bad and that maybe those people who’d been watching Saturday Night Live while she was out tearing it up were onto something.

We catch up with Ann Dowsett Johnston (anndowsettjohnston.com), the author of the groundbreaking bestseller, DRINK: THE INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WOMEN AND ALCOHOL. Published in 2013, it will be mass-market re-released in the fall. In her 60s, Ann got brave again, followed her heart and became a psychotherapist. We dig into all of this, plus the return of Ann’s popular memoir writing course,  “From Memory to Memoir.” For women only, it’s an eight-session live-on-Zoom course, and it takes participants from the elements of finding voice and story to getting an agent. Classes start at the end of April, so regist...

Eric Zimmer went from homelessness, heroin addiction, and facing prison at 24 to inspiring global audiences with his podcast, The One You Feed, and his new book,  How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life. Eric and Anna discuss how Eric’s podcast grew, why he didn’t focus it solely on recovery and what it took for him to decide on the book he wanted to write.

Business dinners often come with the expectation of drinking to loosen things up and get everyone feeling chummy. Defying that expectation can feel uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to. Anna spent her first nine months of sobriety among the open bars of the most fabulous Hollywood events as Premiere magazine’s “Party Girl” columnist while Lisa’s nights out with her colleagues taught her a lot about the way other people drink.

Who says you can’t go home again? You can. Sometimes it’s a choice, and sometimes it’s not. Lisa went home to her family straight out of detox and immediately faced the reality that she might have left the world of drinking, but it hadn’t left her. Anna learned what can happen when a family member asks if you mind if they drink, you say you do and they get mad. The ladies also veer into discussing going home to an apartment that had previously been a den of inequity and starting fresh (and clean).

Being a sober woman in a male-dominated corporate world can be challenging, to say the least. Toni Will, General Manager and Governor of a men’s professional hockey team, knows all about it. So do Lisa and Anna. They talk about how their sobriety gives them an advantage in dealing with the demands and frustrations of work, as well as going public with their sobriety.

Learn more about Toni here. 

It was bound to happen - an ex from our pasts would pop up out of nowhere. Lisa ended up rekindling an old flame that was more fun sober. And Anna found herself face-to-face with her first love. We talk about crazy run-ins, finding closure, and the universe bringing people back into our lives.

After dropping out of college, Nikki Mammano was an “it girl” kingpin in Waikiki’s drug trade. When it all fell apart, she landed in prison and then on the street, thieving and hooking to survive. Flash forward to today – Nikki is a PTA mom of two daughters living in the burbs. How did this happen? Her memoir, BREAKING GOOD, tells the tale and we are here for it! 

Find Nikki’s book and more on her website. 

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 sh...

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...

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.org

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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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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 l...

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.

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.