Hope for Approval Addiction: How to Stop Living for What Other People Think (Ep. 197)Hope for Approval Addiction: How to Stop Living for What Other People Think (Ep. 197)
Genuine Life Recovery with Jodie Stevens
Host Jodi Stevens and former pro baseball player Ricky Scruggs talk about approval addiction, identity, perfectionism and faith, linking these patterns closely with addiction and recovery. Their conversation looks at how chasing other people’s validation shapes lives and how truth and love can break that cycle.
48:37•1 Sept 2026
Breaking Free from Approval Addiction and Performance-Based Worth
Episode Overview
- Approval can function like an addiction, with pride acting as the dealer and validation as the drug.
- Basing identity on performance and others’ opinions creates anxiety, fear and a constant sense of never being enough.
- Perfectionism and people-pleasing are often praised, yet they can become a slow form of self-destruction.
- Shifting focus from outcomes to love, truth and relationships helps reduce pressure and supports healthier performance.
- Surrendering control and false identities opens the door to a truer identity grounded in Christ and genuine acceptance.
“Pride was my dealer and approval was my drug of choice.”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober when the real craving isn’t a substance, but other people’s praise? This conversation between host Jodi Stevens and former pro baseball player Ricky Scruggs puts a name to that hidden pull: **approval addiction**. Ricky talks through how his identity first wrapped itself around baseball. As a kid from a chaotic home, the field felt safe and ordered, and success brought the respect he longed for.
That pattern of chasing validation followed him into professional sport, the car business, and even ministry. As he puts it, "pride was my dealer and approval was my drug of choice." Jodi relates with her own story of addiction, over 20 years of sobriety, and the painful realisation that approval was "like the needle in the arm" long after alcohol was gone.
Together, they link approval addiction with codependency, perfectionism and that familiar sense of being "alone in a crowd" so many people in recovery recognise. The episode tackles how external validation can feel like life or death when it starts in childhood, why perfectionism can become "slow suicide", and how faith and truth can break the cycle.
Ricky explains his work with athletes and high performers, helping them shift from playing to get something (pressure) to playing to give something (freedom), and to root identity in love rather than results. There’s honest talk about church hurt, betrayal, and feeling curled up on the floor with nothing left – and how surrendering approval and control can mark the start of genuine healing.
If approval, performance or people-pleasing have ever felt like your real addiction, this conversation might hit close to home. Could recognising your own "approval addiction" be the missing piece in moving forward with recovery and self-worth?
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