Brett B. Age 31 Sober since: 11/22/19Brett B. Age 31 Sober since: 11/22/19
Keep Coming Back: Real Stories of Sobriety & Recovery
"And when I drove back...I'll never forget this, I walk right up to my mom and say "I have a drug problem."" She goes "what??!!...can we talk about this?" "No I'm going out to watch the Giants/Eagles game." "And I went and drank at a bar, 10 minutes after telling my mom I had a drug problem. That is how clueless I was to the disease of addiction back then"
43:05•21 Jul 2020
Brett B on Relapse, Routine and Progress Not Perfection
Episode Overview
- Complacency and getting too comfortable in sobriety can quietly lead back to relapse.
- Addiction for Brett meant isolation, nailed curtains, cancelled plans and every pound going on drugs rather than food.
- Seeing sobriety as "progress, not perfection" helps relieve the crushing pressure to get everything right instantly.
- Combining AA identity with everyday life, instead of being two different people, has strengthened Brett’s recovery.
- For newcomers, building a network by getting phone numbers and actually calling people is highlighted as a key way to get real traction in early sobriety.
“I went and drank at a bar 10 minutes after telling my mom I had a drug problem. That was how clueless I was to the disease of addiction back then.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of addiction, relapse, and starting over as Brett B, 31 and sober since November 22nd 2019, sits down with host Mike S on **Keep Coming Back: Real Stories of Sobriety & Recovery**. The episode opens with Mike talking about routine: pre-Covid busyness, the shock of lockdown, and how holidays still knock his recovery habits off course.
He’s blunt about what happens when prayer, meditation and meetings slide: "I start to make wise-ass comments... I have a short temper... the idea of giving any kind of service, that's just non-existent." Brett’s story then pulls you straight into the reality of addiction.
From early cocaine use at 15–16 to opiates and cocaine together, he explains how his binges ended in paranoia and psychosis: curtains nailed shut, pots and pans on the windowsill as makeshift alarms, convinced something terrible was coming while knowing logically it wasn’t real.
He sums up the mental trap: going further into a binge feels awful, "but stopping sounds worse." He talks honestly about wrecked cars, arrests, and the pain he’s caused his family, alongside the guilt of rebuilding trust and then relapsing again.
His first rehab at 21 was meant to fix a “drug problem”, while he still believed drinking was fine, shown in the jaw-dropping moment he told his mum, "I have a drug problem" and then went straight to the bar ten minutes later. The heart of the conversation circles around relapse, complacency, and the idea of "progress, not perfection".
Brett admits he split his life into "AA Brett" and "normal Brett" for years, and shares how bringing those versions together has been huge. His main advice to anyone new? Don’t do it alone. Get numbers, actually use them, and lean into the discomfort of connection: it might feel like "nails on a chalkboard" at first, but he says it’s the thing that changed his sobriety.
If you’ve ever wondered why stopping feels impossible, or how to start again after slipping, this one may hit close to home.
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