Choices Are a Gift of Recovery - How FREE Do You Want to Be?Choices Are a Gift of Recovery - How FREE Do You Want to Be?
This is Your Wake-Up Call
Karis shares her journey from childhood loss and heavy drinking to a committed life in recovery, motherhood, and meaningful connection in a sober community. Her story contrasts mere sobriety with active recovery, stressing daily choices, support, and self-worth.
52:59•27 Jul 2026
Choices, Freedom and a Life She Won’t Lose: Karis on True Recovery
Episode Overview
- Being sober and living in recovery can be very different; recovery for Karis means daily work, support, and active engagement with the 12 steps.
- Early trauma, grief and parentification pushed her towards alcohol as a way to avoid feelings, reinforcing the belief that drinking was the only relief.
- Short stints in treatment and sober living didn’t stick until she accepted help, stayed connected to AA, and stopped looking for how she was different.
- Choosing to continue her pregnancy became a turning point, motivating consistent sobriety so her son would never see her drunk or high.
- Community, service, sponsorship and building healthy relationships have helped her create a life she values too much to risk by drinking again.
“I’ve created a life I’m not willing to lose.”
How do individuals turn their lives around after addiction?
This episode of *This Is Your Wake-Up Call* follows Karis, who shares how she moved from simply counting dry days to building what she calls “a life I’m not willing to lose.” Speaking with host Jerry Bis Bee, Karis contrasts being "just sober" with actually "living in recovery." For her, sobriety without change meant white-knuckling it for relationships and appearances, while real recovery meant daily work: meetings, a sponsor, the 12 steps, and honest surrender.
As she puts it, “Choices are a gift of recovery… I’ve created a life I’m not willing to lose.” Karis traces her story from a loving childhood in Boulder, to losing her mum at 10, her dad’s alcoholism, and stepping into adult responsibilities far too young. Her first drink at 15 felt like warm relief: “I realized I didn’t have to feel the pain and the grief and the sadness.
I could drink all of those feelings away.” What follows is a blur of university, marriage, teaching, and a growing dependence on alcohol that prayer alone couldn’t stop. The episode speaks directly to anyone stuck in the relapse loop. Karis is brutally honest about treatment stays where she focused on how she was different, cycling through sober living, and watching relationships fall away.
Things shifted when she reached out from an airport, said “please help me,” found AA, stayed, and later chose to continue her pregnancy and parent in recovery. Now a single mum, working in sober apartment living and engaged to another person in recovery, she talks about fun, community events and small daily choices that keep her free. Her message is simple and strong: keep moving, keep showing up, and learn that you’re worth the effort.
If you’re tired of starting over, how free do you want to be?
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