You Quit Drinking. What Are You Using to Escape Now?

You Quit Drinking. What Are You Using to Escape Now?

How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober? This episode of Addiction Unlimited gets right into that awkward space after quitting drinking, when life is suddenly wide open and your brain is frantically searching for a new way to "change how I feel right now". Coach and recovering alcoholic Angela Pugh talks directly to people in sobriety who notice their energy shifting into shopping, dating, work, exercise, food, television or gaming.

She’s clear that enjoying things isn’t the issue: "You're allowed to love things... Doing something frequently doesn't automatically make it unhealthy." The concern comes when a normal activity starts doing heavy emotional lifting and becomes hard to put down. Angela breaks down why alcohol felt like a solution in the first place, describing layers of anxiety, insecurity, trauma and shame that drinking temporarily softened.

When alcohol disappears, those layers remain, and many people unconsciously swap the bottle for Amazon, dating apps or overworking. She shares her own patterns with isolation, video games and binge-watching, showing that compulsive behaviour doesn’t always look dramatic, but can quietly drain time, relationships and self-respect. You’ll hear practical questions to test whether a habit is getting wobbly: Can you stop when you intend to? Is it cutting into responsibilities? Are you continuing despite consequences?

Angela then offers concrete tools: setting boundaries and timers, adding counterbalances (like scheduling a coffee after a stretch of isolation), building daily self-soothing, breaking big tasks into tiny actions, and telling yourself the unvarnished truth instead of making excuses.

With a straight-talking, no-nonsense style and plenty of humour, this episode is aimed at anyone in recovery who’s wondering, "What am I using to escape now?" It’s a candid reminder that you "worked too damn hard to stop drinking just to hand your life over to something else." What’s one thing you’re ready to put back into balance today?