Stop Living by ‘Should’: How to Break Old Patterns & Discover What You’re Capable OfStop Living by ‘Should’: How to Break Old Patterns & Discover What You’re Capable Of
RAW CHATTER!
Vicky Midwood reflects on why she’s rejecting rigid podcast rules and questions the “shoulds” that often shape life and recovery. She shares parts of her alcohol story, discusses mindset and belief systems, and offers practical questions to help people assess what truly serves them now.
22:46•6 Oct 2026
Stop Living by ‘Should’: Vicky Midwood on Sobriety, Self-Trust and Stretching Your Limits
Episode Overview
- Question any “should, must, have to, ought to” that no longer serves you, even if it once helped.
- Alcohol can act as a solution to deeper problems, so recovery often means addressing what sits underneath.
- Small, consistent shifts in self-talk and beliefs can gradually transform behaviour and capacity.
- You are not here to make everyone else happy, and even your own happiness is a changing state, not a permanent destination.
- Understanding how you personally work – body, brain and nervous system – makes long-term change far easier than following generic rules.
“Doing something because you should, you must, you have to, is not a good enough reason to keep on doing it if it’s no longer serving you.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? Season 7 of RAW CHATTER! opens with Vicky Midwood throwing out the rulebook on what her podcast “should” look like and asking you to do the same in your own life. Vicky, known as “The Addiction Eliminator”, talks frankly about why she’s refusing to niche down, shorten her episodes, or stick to one topic just because marketing experts say that’s the way to go.
Humans aren’t tidy, she reminds you, so why should conversations about addiction, health and behaviour be squeezed into neat little boxes? You’ll hear her unpack how real-life stories – including her own experiences with alcohol, AA and rehab – show that alcohol was “a solution to deeper problems” rather than the problem itself. She shares that she’s now 21 years sober and completely neutral around alcohol, neither anti-drink nor pro-binge, instead focusing on what genuinely serves each individual.
A big theme here is kicking out the “shoulds, musts, have tos and ought tos”. Vicky challenges the idea that you must keep doing something just because it once helped or because someone said it’s the only way.
She stresses that “doing something because you should, you must, you have to, is not a good enough reason to keep on doing it if it’s no longer serving you.” She blends science, mindset, values and belief systems to explain how small, consistent shifts in self-talk can change behaviour over time.
With questions you can journal on, she nudges you to ask where in your life you might be living by other people’s rules and what you might uncover if you tested your own capacity. If you’re in recovery, questioning your relationship with alcohol, or simply tired of living by other people’s expectations, this raw, conversational episode might get you asking: what could life look like if you stopped living by “should” and started understanding yourself instead?
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