RE 595: You Have One Job

Today we have Rich. He is from Sacramento, CA, he is 60 years old and took his last drink on August 8th, 2025.

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[02:14] Thoughts from Paul:

If you are in early sobriety or find yourself on day one, your only job right now is to not drink. It isn't time to fix your whole life or worry about being productive and having it all figured out.

By staying honest with your #1 job of not drinking, the body will become incredibly productive in terms of healing. Your dopamine begins to rewire; your sleep system starts to re-balance. All while you are resting.

Even though we sometimes know that not drinking is our #1 job, we can still struggle to keep it this simple. The good news is that every day is a new opportunity to perfect the job and by doing so, everything else will fall into place. Trust the process.

[06:05] Paul introduces Rich:

Rich is 60 years old and lives in Sacramento, CA with his wife of 35 years. They have two grown children and two rat terriers to help fill the empty nest. For work, Rich is a salesman for an equipment company. For fun, Rich enjoys riding his Peloton bike, cooking, and he is an avid sports fan.

Rich reflects that a lot of his drinking came from his inability to control his emotions. He says his home life growing up was great, but there was no discussion or expression of emotions. He was bullied often when he was in junior high but didn't feel comfortable telling anyone about it.

On a few occasions throughout high school and college, Rich realized that alcohol helped him become the life of the party and be able to talk to people he wasn't normally friendly with. He learned that if he drank, he would be accepted and have friends.

After graduating college, Rich was working in the restaurant business as a bartender in a small beach town. He said he had a lot of fun, made a lot of money and met his wife there. After getting married, they started a restaurant that they ran together for several years. Rich says his drinking wasn't an issue at that point because the restaurant did not have a focus on alcohol.

Alcohol began becoming an issue for Rich in 2018 when he transitioned from a management position to a sales position that involved a lot of traveling and entertaining customers. Over time he was basing where he would stay on the location's proximity to a liquor store and would drink before and after meetings with customers.

After a while, Rich started recognizing that the bottle he bought at the beginning of the trips weren't lasting as long. He would try to moderate and quickly realized it was a problem doing so especially when COVID lockdown had him concerned that liquor stores were going to be closed. At this point, Rich says a lot of his drinking happened in isolation. He was withdrawing from friends and family and trying to hide how much he was drinking from his wife.

Rich was confronted by his wife a few times and always promised to work on his drinking with little luck. He attempted moderation with the help of an app but didn't make much success and says trying to moderate made him think about alcohol more. Eventually his wife called in reinforcements with their daughter, and Rich knew it was time to stop, but wasn't sure what that looked like.

Rich was able to quit that day. The detox symptoms were hard, but after 10 days, he began to feel better and sleep better. Rich began reading quit lit and utilizing apps and its resources. After six months, Rich's wife encouraged him to find community. As a listener of the RE podcast, Rich heard about Café RE and decided to join. Rich credits his family as being a valuable resource and motivation to stay sober.

Recovery Elevator You took the elevator down; you've got to take the stairs back up. You, WE, can do this.

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