083: Recovering Out Loud with Sarah from Sober Gratitudes083: Recovering Out Loud with Sarah from Sober Gratitudes
You're Sober! Now What?
Tamar talks with Sarah from Sober Gratitudes about her journey from secret teenage drinking to long-term recovery and public advocacy. The conversation focuses on trauma, mental health, motherhood, and the decision to recover out loud through her own podcast.
1:04:54•22 Mar 2021
Recovering Out Loud: Sarah’s Journey from Secret Drinking to Sober Gratitudes
Episode Overview
- Alcohol can feel like instant relief for trauma and anxiety, but often becomes an all-consuming obsession over time.
- Appearing high-functioning and "normal" does not mean someone isn’t deeply struggling with addiction and self-loathing.
- A powerful emotional or spiritual jolt, like Sarah’s drowning-in-alcohol dream, can be the catalyst to seek help through meetings.
- Early recovery may involve new unhealthy behaviours, so additional support such as therapy and mental health care can be crucial.
- Sharing recovery stories openly can reduce stigma and help others see that a meaningful, purpose-driven life is possible after addiction.
“My outsides did not match my insides at all.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? In this conversation, Tamar sits down with Sarah from Sober Gratitudes to talk about how a teenage “life partner” with alcohol turned into a full-blown addiction, and how she's now choosing to recover out loud. Sarah describes her first drink at 14 as “wild” and instantly magical: the numbness, the confidence, the feeling of finally being comfortable in her own skin.
Behind that rush were family tensions, trauma, undiagnosed anxiety, depression and ADD. Alcohol became her solution, then her secret, and eventually her obsession. She shares how academic success, relationships and motherhood all existed alongside hidden drinking, self-loathing and eating disorders, with her outsides carefully polished while her insides were falling apart. Things escalated into secret daytime drinking, driving drunk with her children and hiding wine in sippy cups.
She talks honestly about wanting to die, then waking from a terrifying dream of being submerged in alcohol and hearing a simple thought: "google local aa meetings." That moment led her to a recovery meeting where she finally felt at home. You’ll hear how early sobriety wasn’t neat or pretty—cigarettes, over-exercising, under-eating, trauma therapy and intense work in a 12-step programme all feature.
Sarah and Tamar relate over that “double life” feeling, the obsession with looking normal, and the hunger for validation.
Sarah also shares how her marriage slowly healed, how spiritual growth deepened through working the steps again, and why she now believes “we’re the luckiest people in the world.” They wrap up by talking about Sarah’s Sober Gratitudes podcast, her passion for “recovering out loud,” and the idea that the effort once spent plotting the next drink can be redirected into purpose, service and genuine connection.
If you’ve ever felt your outsides don’t match your insides, what might recovering out loud change for you?
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