190 Hype Recovery with Jay Barnard190 Hype Recovery with Jay Barnard
You're Sober! Now What?
Jay Barnard shares his journey from multi-layered addiction, jails and suicide attempts to 14 years of sobriety and the creation of Hype Recovery Coaching. The conversation focuses on learning to love self, building solid foundations and using lived experience to support others in recovery.
1:07:40•21 Mar 2022
Hype Recovery: Jay Barnard on Loving Yourself and Living the Dream
Episode Overview
- Recovery is about filling the void with self-love rather than new addictions.
- Surrendering the fight with oneself can be a key turning point in long-term sobriety.
- Tools like examining thoughts, patterns, triggers and boundaries help build life beyond abstinence.
- Lived-experience support can complement traditional treatment and reduce feelings of isolation.
- Openly sharing recovery stories helps break stigma and shows others they are not alone.
“The most rewarding gift and the biggest present in life is self, and being able to love self for that person we truly are.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of recovery and resilience as Jay Barnard, also known as Chef Recovery, shares his story on "You're Sober! Now What?".
With 14 years clean and sober and over 5,000 days without a drink, Jay talks about going from jails, suicide attempts and total chaos to a life where, as he puts it, "I like to say I'm living the dream because that's what I do." You’ll hear Jay describe his childhood confusion around divorce, identity and feeling alone, and how those early wounds led him through food, porn, sex, alcohol and drugs in a relentless attempt to kill the pain.
He explains that the real issue wasn’t the substances themselves: "All the addictions that come to fill every single void, except for the one void that we should be filling, which is self." That focus on learning to love himself became the turning point in his recovery. Jay walks through his first experience of treatment, the moment he truly surrendered, and the personal prayer that helped him stop "Jay fighting Jay" after 20 years.
He talks about building a foundation through the 12 steps, then realising he needed more tools – like working on thinking, thoughts, patterns, triggers, series of events and boundaries – to create a fuller life. The episode also highlights how Jay created Hype Recovery Coaching and the Recovery Couple with his partner Ashley, aiming to offer lived-experience support alongside traditional services.
His energy is contagious, and he’s clear about his mission: being "the voice for the voiceless so that they can get the voice" and showing that recovery can be loud, proud and even fun. If you’re sober and asking "now what?", Jay’s story offers a high-energy look at how recovery can move beyond just not using into truly investing in yourself. What would it look like if you started to put more into the "bank of you" today?
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