The Superpower of Forgiveness

The Superpower of Forgiveness

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This coffee shop chat between Mike and Glenn centres on one core idea: "forgiveness is a superpower" for anyone trying to live alcohol-free. Sitting across the table after more than five years of consistent sobriety and hundreds of episodes, they talk honestly about how grudges, guilt and shame once fuelled their drinking – and how forgiveness now keeps their tanks full.

You’ll hear them break forgiveness into three parts: being forgiven by a higher power, making amends with others, and learning to forgive themselves. The AA Steps, especially eight and nine, come up as practical tools for clearing lifelong wreckage and keeping a “clean street”.

There’s plenty of humour and warmth, but the conversation also turns very raw when one host shares, for the first time, a childhood experience of physical and sexual abuse and how he carried the weight for decades, blaming his adult self for something that happened to him at eight.

He explains how a simple forgiveness prayer and a deep desire for a better life helped him finally release his resentment toward the relative who harmed him, even though that person has died. That shift, he says, was "key to my mental health today" and stopped him reaching for anything – alcohol, gambling, shopping – to blur his mind.

From there, the pair talk about everyday hurts, social media slights, unpaid debts and family tensions, all set against the benchmark of that larger healing. Throughout, they stress that forgiveness doesn’t mean becoming a doormat: you can close "the bank" on repeat offenders while still dropping the emotional weight. If resentments lead to the next drink, this episode argues that forgiveness might just be the ultimate sober superpower.

So the real question becomes: who – including yourself – do you need to let off the hook to protect your recovery today?