028: "Can't Keep a Sober Girl Down" Amber Leone Murphy now 9 years sober shares with us her 10 year battle with alcoholism028: "Can't Keep a Sober Girl Down" Amber Leone Murphy now 9 years sober shares with us her 10 year battle with alcoholism
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Amber Leone Murphy reflects on her decade-long struggle with alcoholism, from childhood drinking and a blackout through 9/11 to finding recovery. She talks about how service, creativity, spirituality and small everyday miracles support her life nine years sober.
1:01:22•25 Aug 2015
"Can't Keep a Sober Girl Down": Amber Leone Murphy on Chaos, Miracles and 9 Years Sober
Episode Overview
- Early drinking and drug use can quickly escalate into dangerous, life-altering situations, even when someone appears high-functioning on the outside.
- Feeling unseen, unheard or misunderstood can fuel addiction, but those same feelings can become the spark for creating recovery-focused communities.
- Service and sponsorship are presented as powerful ways to feel better: if you want happiness or results, help someone else move toward theirs.
- Simple daily practices like prayer, meditation, creativity and looking for small “miracles” help maintain emotional balance and long-term sobriety.
- Recovery does not have to be perfect; asking for help, returning to meetings and staying open to change are shown as more important than doing it flawlessly.
“I would say to reach down and find enough curiosity and enough passion and enthusiasm to help someone as much as you would want to be helped if you have recovery.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This conversation between Omar Pinto and Amber Leone Murphy pulls you straight into that question with raw honesty and a surprising amount of humour. Amber, now nine years sober, talks openly about starting to drink at just eight years old, sneaking beer from a pink plastic cup at family parties.
From there, she describes a decade of escalating chaos: smoking weed at 14, getting busted at school, a DUI at 19, sleeping in her car after bar shifts in Hollywood, and an alcoholic blackout that lasted through 9/11 in New York. She doesn’t glamorise any of it; she simply tells it as it happened. The turning point comes when she realises she could destroy the good in her life with one selfish decision.
That moment leads her to ask God for help and walk into her first recovery meeting on Whidbey Island, where she finds people who “took me in as their own” even when she felt she looked and felt like “crap”. From there, you’ll hear how Amber built a new life: working the steps imperfectly, wrestling with self-will, and eventually launching “Can’t Keep a Sober Girl Down” out of a place of deep pain and frustration.
She talks about creativity as spiritual practice, seeing three birds and random dimes as tiny miracles, and how sponsoring others finally cracked her self-centred thinking. Her biggest suggestion? “Reach down and find enough curiosity and enough passion and enthusiasm to help someone as much as you would want to be helped if you have recovery.” If you’re feeling stuck, selfish, or scared you’ve got nothing to offer, this story might make you rethink how powerful your experience already is.
Could helping someone else be the thing that actually saves you?
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