#128: Dating, Sex & Love in Recovery with Nina Pick#128: Dating, Sex & Love in Recovery with Nina Pick
Sun & Moon Sober Living Podcast
Mary Tilson talks with somatic healing practitioner Nina Pick about dating, sex and love in recovery, focusing on attachment, shame and sober relationship skills. The conversation outlines how early wounds shape adult patterns and how community, boundaries and nervous system care can support healthier connections after addiction.
57:42•14 Jul 2026
Dating Sober: Attachment, Shame and Love with Nina Pick
Episode Overview
- Healthy relationships in recovery benefit from understanding attachment styles and early relational wounding.
- Shame often begins in childhood and builds through addiction, making early sobriety a key time to work gently with it.
- Attraction patterns are linked to familiar childhood dynamics; they’re not proof that someone’s "picker is broken" but a call for conscious choice.
- Dating sober is easier when planned with the nervous system in mind, using time limits, grounding practices and clear boundaries.
- Labelling behaviour as "codependent" can be harmful; viewing it as insecure attachment adaptation supports healing and healthy interdependence.
“What allows me to show up to be a partner is my recovery.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey while dating and building relationships? This conversation between host Mary Tilson and returning guest Nina Pick offers a grounded, heart-centred look at dating, sex and love after getting sober. Nina, a somatic healing practitioner and integrative counsellor, talks through her new book *Sober Secure: An Attachment-Based Guide to Dating, Sex, and Love in Recovery*.
She explains the "gap" she saw in recovery literature: plenty of support for getting sober, far less guidance on "then how do we live our lives to the fullest" and cultivate healthy relationships once the substances are gone. You’ll hear Nina break down early attachment wounding and how childhood environments shape adult patterns like choosing unavailable partners or feeling terrified of intimacy and community.
She challenges phrases such as "my picker is broken", suggesting instead that attraction often follows familiar childhood imprints and can be part of a healing journey when approached consciously. Shame is a major theme. Nina describes how shame forms as a physiological response when a child’s reach for connection goes unmet, and how it snowballs through years of addiction. Early sobriety, she argues, is a key time to work gently with shame, supported by sponsorship, meetings, therapy and community.
As she puts it, "What allows me to show up to be a partner is my recovery." The chat also touches on dating with the nervous system in mind, practical boundaries for first dates, and why the word "codependency" can be misleading and shaming. Nina prefers talking about insecure attachment adaptations and healthy interdependence, especially in a "dependency-phobic culture".
If you’re sober or in early recovery and wondering how to date, set boundaries, or talk about your story without feeling "less than", this honest and compassionate episode may be exactly what you need. How might rethinking attachment and shame change the way you approach love in recovery?
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