When 'Leave Me Alone' Becomes a Dangerous Place w/ Steven F 🏳️🌈 A Queer Recovery Podcast 🎙️When 'Leave Me Alone' Becomes a Dangerous Place w/ Steven F 🏳️🌈 A Queer Recovery Podcast 🎙️
At The CCC
Anthony, Jordan and Louie sit down with Steven F at a queer recovery retreat to talk about how isolation can quietly turn dangerous in sobriety. They compare solitude and withdrawal, share personal stories from sober living and conferences, and reflect on mental health, meetings and the fine line between rest and retreat.
29:32•2 Nov 2026
When "Leave Me Alone" Becomes Risky: Steven F on Queer Recovery and Isolation
Episode Overview
- Isolation in recovery can look like ghosting, skipping meetings or suffering in silence, and can quietly increase the risk of relapse.
- Healthy alone time is different from withdrawal; the key is checking whether time by yourself actually supports or undermines your mental health.
- Changing meetings or trying new groups can refresh recovery when routine starts to feel monotonous or emotionally heavy.
- Living in sober housing reduces opportunities to isolate, acting as both support and challenge for those who prefer to withdraw.
- Depression and other mental health issues may masquerade as self-care, so honest self-checks and sharing with trusted people are essential.
“"Is isolation me taking care of myself, or am I doing something that's going to hurt my mental health and compromise my recovery?"”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This chat at Finding Fellowship brings back Steven F, one of the original production crew, sitting down with Anthony, Jordan and Louie to talk about when "leave me alone" turns into a seriously risky place in recovery.
You’ll hear Steven share how his life opened up once he got sober: chairing the Western Roundup Living Sober conference, going back to school, working a lot and living in a sober house with 12 people. That setup means isolation isn’t really an option, and he jokes that it’s both a blessing and a curse.
His knack for boundaries and honesty becomes a running theme, from telling Jordan he’d "work on it this weekend" and meaning it, to admitting he sometimes needs to shut his phone off just to cope with being so busy. The group continues their "committee in our head" series by focusing on the Isolationist – that inner voice that pulls you away from meetings, fellowship and responsibilities.
They talk through what isolation looks like in real life: ghosting texts, skipping regular meetings, sitting silently in the back of a room, or suffering in silence while pretending everything’s fine. Louie jokes about his "silent scorn" and Jordan presses on the difference between healthy solitude and isolation that quietly feeds addiction. Mental health sits right in the middle of the conversation.
Louie mentions living with bipolar II and how what can appear like self-care can, in reality, be part of his illness if he’s not sleeping, eating or taking meds. Jordan adds ideas about depression as the body’s "request for deep rest" that signals something needs to change, and the group throws around the concept of "clean pain" versus "dirty pain" when it comes to rumination and shame.
There’s plenty of humour, warmth and queer camaraderie here, but the core message is serious: isolation in recovery is sneaky, painful and can be dangerous. How often is your "alone time" actually you quietly edging away from the support that keeps you sober?
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