RE 608: Find Your PeopleRE 608: Find Your People
Recovery Elevator
Lani shares how daily drinking, toxic relationships and failed fresh starts led her back to AA, where she chose to “let herself break” and begin again. Paul and Lani talk about community, simple routines and connection as she builds 78 days alcohol-free and starts to truly find her people.
55:42•12 Oct 2026
Find Your People, Let Yourself Break: Lani’s 78 Days Alcohol-Free
Episode Overview
- Alcohol often feels helpful until it quietly becomes the main thing pulling life apart, especially in relationships and everyday functioning.
- Moderation experiments repeatedly fail for Lani, reinforcing that complete abstinence is safer than trying to control the amount.
- Letting herself “break” in an AA meeting and becoming radically honest marked a turning point, opening space for real support.
- Daily routines such as meditation, meetings, journalling and time in nature help her stay present and build stability in early sobriety.
- Connection with sober peers shows that recovery moves faster and feels lighter when you stop doing it alone and “find your people”.
“How can I alchemize my pain into something really beautiful, which I think is like a huge part of my purpose, and stop running from it?”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This episode of Recovery Elevator shines a light on that question through Lani’s raw, funny and honest story. Lani, 38, from Salt Lake City, shares how growing up around alcohol and within a heavily religious culture left her craving belonging.
She talks about converting to the LDS church, marrying young “hoping it would fix whatever this empty shit is going on inside of my soul”, and then turning to alcohol once that structure fell away. The “slow burn” of drinking moved from social to daily, threading through toxic relationships, cross-country moves and yet another marriage and divorce.
Host and author Paul Churchill keeps it real and light, joking about his new dachshund puppy Mikey even as he reminds listeners that “the thing you think is adding value to your life… is actually the thing that’s pulling you down.” Together they talk about failed “geographical cures”, attempts at moderation that crashed and burned, and the moment alcohol “just stopped working” for Lani.
A key shift comes when she walks back into AA on 10 June and, in her words, “just let go” and “let myself break”.
She describes crying for all the past versions of herself and asks, “How can I alchemize my pain into something really beautiful, which I think is like a huge part of my purpose, and stop running from it?” You’ll hear how she leans into community, daily meetings, meditation, time in nature and simple routines to build 78 days of sobriety, and how birthdays that once ended in hospital now finish with cheesecake and sober friends.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’ll *ever* find your people, this conversation might nudge you to ask: who could you invite into your thoughts today, instead of facing them alone?
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