Ep. 11 Featuring KimEp. 11 Featuring Kim
The Sober Fanboy
Kim shares how years of heavy drinking and drug use led her to seek help and get sober through Zoom-based AA meetings. She talks openly about mental health, family healing, and the small, everyday things that help her stay sober.
36:49•1 Mar 2021
Baby Zoomer Sobriety: Kim’s Story of Getting Sober Online
Episode Overview
- Online AA meetings can support lasting sobriety, even for those who have never been to an in-person meeting.
- Admitting “this isn’t fun anymore” is often the first honest step towards change.
- Therapy can be used more frequently in difficult periods and may help manage urges to drink or use.
- Sobriety can repair and even create new family relationships that didn’t seem possible before.
- Pets, routine and small daily responsibilities can keep recovery grounded and more connected.
“I don’t know what it’s like to be sober. I wake up and I use, and I use until I pass out at night.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This episode of The Sober Fanboy hangs out in that messy, honest space as Kim (also known as Kimmy) shares how she went from beach bar crawls to getting sober on Zoom. Kim talks about growing up between New York and Florida, joking about “beating the system” at school while quietly drowning in booze and drugs.
She describes her early drinking as a whirlwind romance: fun at first, then toxic and miserable, like a bad relationship she just couldn’t leave. Her “drinking career” eventually included hiding bottles in work dumpsters and carrying a backpack stocked with miniatures so she was “prepared 24/7”.
Things shifted on 29 March 2020 when Kim told her sister, “I don’t know what it’s like to be sober… I wake up and I use, and I use until I pass out at night.” Her sister’s description of sobriety as “unclicking a part in your brain that you didn’t know you had” stuck with her, and within three days Kim was logging into her first AA meeting via Zoom – becoming what they affectionately call a “baby Zoomer”.
The chat with host Jon Jeremy stays light and playful – think jokes about being the “Batman of drinking” with a booze-filled utility bag – but doesn’t dodge heavier themes. Kim speaks about bipolar depression, using therapy daily in tough weeks, and recognising manic episodes now that she’s sober. She explains how sobriety has repaired family bonds, including a new closeness with her aunt, and how her cats, Lucky and Sansa, are part of her recovery routine.
If you’ve ever wondered whether online meetings “count”, or if sobriety during a pandemic is even possible, Kim’s story might be the nudge that shows you that change—even via a laptop screen—is still very much on the table. Could Zoom be part of your own fresh start?
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