The One Day At A Time Recovery Podcast

What if the biggest obstacle to your success isn't your skill set, your circumstances, or even your past — but your addiction to staying stuck?
That's the central thread of my conversation with Peter Moulton, a 35-year recovery veteran, entrepreneur, and author of UP: A Journey of Intention, Focus, and Execution. Peter has spent nearly three decades coaching entrepreneurs and leaders, and what he's discovered cuts right through the noise: most of us don't fail because we lack information. We fail because we're unwilling to be seen.
The Three-Year Prison
Peter describes a pattern he calls the "three-year prison" — the tendency for people to rise to their current level of competence, then repeat the same cycle over and over without ever breaking through. The culprit? Imposter syndrome. The fear that if we become truly brilliant and visible, we'll be exposed. So we self-sabotage. We stay small. We hide.
In recovery, this shows up all the time. We know what we're supposed to do — pray, journal, go to meetings, do the work. But the moment we start feeling better, we stop. And then we wonder why we're vulnerable again.
The Addiction to Pain
Here's where Peter really got me: he doesn't believe people primarily avoid pain. He believes they get addicted to it. After years of generational trauma and learned dysfunction, suffering becomes familiar. Safe, even. And anything that might bring joy — visibility, success, connection — feels threatening.
The healing, he says, isn't about digging endlessly into the "why." It's about acknowledging reality, surrendering to it, and choosing to move anyway.
The Ultradian Method: Work With Your Biology
Based on research going back to 1953 by scientist Nathaniel Kleitman, our waking brains operate in 90-minute cycles — just like our sleep. Peter built his entire productivity system around this: 75 minutes of deep, singular-focus work followed by 15 minutes of complete disconnection. No phone. No screens. Touch grass. Breathe.
His best clients do 3–4 sprints per day. Even two sprints — about 2.5 hours of focused work — consistently outperforms unfocused 8-hour days. Microsoft's own research confirms this: their employees averaged less than 3 hours of actual productive work per 8-hour day.
Action Items From This Episode
Try one 75-minute focus sprint tomorrow. One task. No phone. Then fully disconnect for 15 minutes.
Ask yourself Peter's daily question: Who am I this morning — and who do I want to be by tonight?
Identify the ONE activity that would move your most important goal forward every day. Let everything else wait.
Notice if you're "wound worshipping." Are you staying in the story instead of moving through it?
Books & Resources Mentioned
UP: A Journey of Intention, Focus, and Execution — Peter Moulton 
Unwinding Anxiety — Dr. Judson Brewer
Connect with Peter: [email protected]
Guest website: ultradianpartners.com
Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days – With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
Private Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick
https://www.makesobrietystick.com
Subscribe So You Don't Miss New Episodes!
Listen to the episode onApple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website HERE. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
 
 
 
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast/id1212504521
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpBAmazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast

You Don't Have to Lose Everything First: What Step One Really Teaches Us
If you've ever looked at the 12 steps and thought that's not for me, you're not alone. I thought the same thing for years. The God stuff felt like a barrier. The word "powerless" felt insulting. And the idea that my life had to look like a wreck before I qualified? That kept me stuck longer than anything else.
This week on the podcast, I sat down with Sonia Kahlon — founder of EverBlume and host of the Sisters in Sobriety podcast — to start working the 12 steps together, live, on air. Sonia has nearly nine years of sobriety and had never formally worked the steps. Sound familiar? She's doing it now, and we're bringing you along for the whole journey.
What Powerlessness Actually Means
Step One is this: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. The key word most people miss is over alcohol. Not over your whole life. Not over your career or your relationships or your sense of self. Just over alcohol.
When you look at the dictionary definition — powerless means without ability, influence, or resources — suddenly it clicks. Sonia said it perfectly: once I started drinking, I never knew how much I was going to drink. I told myself just one and ended up ten drinks in. Every single time. That's not a character flaw. That's powerlessness over a substance.
Raising the Bottom
One of the most powerful concepts we talked about is "raising the bottom." The 12 steps and 12 traditions describe it as sparing yourself the last 10 to 15 years of literal hell. You don't have to get a DUI, lose your marriage, or end up in a hospital before you decide to change.
Sonia had what some call a "silk sheet bottom" — financially stable, healthy marriage, functioning career. But emotionally? She wanted to die. That's a bottom. It just didn't look like one from the outside. And that invisibility is exactly why so many high-functioning people wait too long.
Sober vs. Recovered
Here's something we don't talk about enough: you can be sober and still not be okay. Sonia and I talked about the difference between sobriety — not drinking — and recovery, which is the ongoing work of becoming emotionally healthy. You can have years of sobriety and still be running on old patterns, substituting one coping mechanism for another, and avoiding the deeper work. The steps are one path into that deeper work.
Action Items:
– Read Step One in the 12 Steps & 12 Traditions (free online)
– Write down the dictionary definitions of "powerless" and "unmanageable" — then see how they apply to your drinking, not your whole life
– List specific moments where you were powerless over alcohol — not your rock bottom stories, just examples where you couldn't keep a promise to yourself about drinking
– Find a women's step study meeting near you (or online) and commit to going once
Books & Resources Mentioned:
– The 12 Steps and 12 Traditions (AA)
– Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book)
– The 12 Step Guide for Skeptics by Arlina Allen
– EverBlume — online recovery support groups founded by Sonia Kahlon: https://everblume.com
– Open Recovery — free Wednesday night meetings: https://openrecovery.app
Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days – With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
Private Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick
https://www.makesobrietystick.com
Subscribe So You Don't Miss New Episodes!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website HERE. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/@theonedayatatimepodcast?sub_confirmation=1
 
 
 
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast/id1212504521
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpBAmazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast

What if the secret to lasting change isn't a single powerful moment, but thousands of tiny, unremarkable ones?
That's the central idea behind Eric Zimmer's powerful new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life. Eric is the host of The One You Feed podcast and a long-time figure in the recovery community with 26 years of sobriety. In Episode 424, he and I explored why real transformation happens slowly — and why that's actually good news.
The Hammer and the Chisel
Eric opens his book with the story of Dasrath Manjhi, an Indian man who lost his wife because the road to the hospital was impossibly long. After her death, he took a hammer and chisel to the mountain separating his village from the town and spent decades chipping away at it — enduring ridicule and seemingly no progress — until he had carved a path that cut travel time by 90%. Eric calls this the ultimate story of how a little becomes a lot: not dynamite, just consistent effort.
Why Progress Is Invisible Before It's Obvious
One of the most important points Eric makes is that progress happens long before we can see it. Our brains, wired for negativity bias, are constantly scanning for what's not working — which makes it easy to miss all the marbles accumulating in the jar. He shared a story of a client who began putting a marble in a jar each sober day (without removing any for slips), and how seeing that jar fill up over months changed her entire relationship with her recovery.
The Recipe for Change
Eric's formula is simple but not easy: low-resistance actions, done consistently, over time, in the same direction. Low-resistance doesn't mean tiny — it means something you will actually do. Consistent means you don't stop when it gets hard or invisible. And same direction means you aren't scattered across 30 goals.
The 6 Saboteurs of Self-Control
Eric identifies six things that derail us at our "choice points":
The Autopilot Pitfall — acting without awareness (hello, phone scrolling)
Fatigue Fallout — being too tired to make good choices
The Shortsighted Stumble — valuing the present over the future (play the tape all the way through)
Emotional Escapism — wanting to feel different than you do
The Self-Doubt Stalemate — believing you can't do it
The Insignificance Trap — thinking one day doesn't matter
Action Items from This Episode
Do the values exercise on page 35: identify three times you were happiest, most proud, and most fulfilled — then look for the pattern.
Pick a "guide" — someone you admire — and note what qualities you admire. Those are your values.
Identify your current top saboteur and name one structural change to make it easier to choose well.
Start a marble jar. Seriously.
Books & Resources Mentioned
How a Little Becomes a Lot by Eric Zimmer – Buy Here
The One You Feed podcast — oneyoufeed.net
Guest Website: https://oneyoufeed.net
Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days – With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
Private Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick
https://www.makesobrietystick.com
Subscribe So You Don't Miss New Episodes!
Listen to the episode onApple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website HERE. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
 
 
 
 
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast/id1212504521
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast

When Nothing Goes According to Plan — and That's the Point
Andrew Lassise didn't get sober because he wanted to. He got sober because a judge gave him a choice: jail or rehab. He chose rehab. And as he'll tell you, that was the best decision he never really made.
Andrew's story is the kind that makes you laugh out loud and then quietly reassess your own life. At 16, he was blacking out at parties. By college, it was a daily habit. By his mid-twenties, he had a 0.24 BAC DUI, three failed breathalyzer readings on his own car-mounted device, and a pocket breathalyzer he'd purchased on eBay to cheat the first one. "I could have just stopped drinking," he admits now. "But that wasn't an option until the judge made it one."
What happened in the years that followed is a masterclass in what recovery actually looks like when you apply it everywhere — not just to the bottle, but to business, failure, and the relentless uncertainty of building something from scratch.
Failure as Feedback
After rehab, Andrew moved to Florida, brought the wrong resume to a job interview, and accidentally landed his first tech job. He joined a small IT company, loved it — and then watched it go out of business. His response? Offer to keep running the tech department for free from his living room. That's the company he spent the next decade building. In 2023, he sold it for 70 times the number someone once told him he was "crazy" to want.
Along the way, there were credit card processors who held his money for years, campaigns that completely flopped, and moments where — as he says — "knowing what I know now, I would have quit." But he didn't. And the program was a big part of why.
"My sponsor would tell me: you can keep fighting reality, or you can accept it for what it is," Andrew says. "Change what you can change. Let go of what you can't."
The Community That Didn't Exist
After selling his company and spending exactly one year in corporate (he quit three hours after he was legally required to stay), Andrew did an ikigai exercise — mapping out the intersection of what he loves, what he's good at, and what the world needs. The answer was clear: a community for sober entrepreneurs. When he went looking for it, it didn't exist. So he built it.
Sober Founders is a nonprofit — Andrew makes $0 as president — built on 12-step principles and designed for entrepreneurs who want to bring their real business problems to a group that gets it. The results speak for themselves: connections made, deals done, and more than a few phone calls where people cry out of gratitude.
Action Items:
Visit soberfounders.org and attend a weekly meeting

Try the Arthur Brooks failure journal exercise: write down what happened, then revisit in 3 months

Ask yourself Andrew's question: When's the last time God let me down?

Do your own ikigai exercise to find the intersection of purpose and skill

My First Million — podcast Andrew mentioned listening to (about strikeouts before home runs)
Arthur Brooks' Failure Journal Exercise — write down what happened after a failure, revisit in 3 months, then again 3 months after that
The Ikigai Exercise — finding the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, and what the world needs (this is what led Andrew to start Sober Founders)
Sober Founders — soberfounders.org, free weekly Thursday mastermind meetings
Vistage / YPO / EO (Entrepreneur's Organization) — mentioned as peer groups with a similar model to Sober Founders
Soberlink — the in-car breathalyzer brand Andrew referenced from his DUI story



Guest Website: https://www.soberfounders.org
👊🏼Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
🎁Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days - With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
☎️Private Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick
https://www.makesobrietystick.com
Subscribe So You Don't Miss New Episodes!
 
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website HERE. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/@theonedayatatimepodcast?sub_confirmation=1

 

 
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast/id1212504521
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast

What if your energy was like a bag of Skittles?
That's the metaphor Anne uses in this conversation, and once you hear it, you can't unsee it.
Every day you wake up with a limited number of Skittles. Each one represents your energy — mentally, emotionally, and physically.
The problem?
Most of us are throwing our Skittles away without even realizing it.
We spend them worrying about things we can't control, replaying conversations in our heads, arguing on social media, or saying yes to things we don't actually want to do.
Before we know it, our energy is gone.
And we're left feeling exhausted, resentful, and disconnected from the life we actually want.
Anne knows this pattern well.
For years, she lived in survival mode. After experiencing childhood trauma and later losing her sister unexpectedly, alcohol became a way to numb the pain.
Eventually the chaos caught up with her.
At 39, she checked into rehab and began the process of unpacking the deeper reasons behind her drinking.
What she discovered changed everything.
Healing wasn't about simply removing alcohol. It was about confronting the invisible weight she had been carrying for decades.
Through therapy, journaling, somatic work, and eventually an ayahuasca experience, Anne began releasing the emotional burdens she had unknowingly held onto.
As those burdens lifted, something surprising happened.
Her energy came back.
Suddenly, she had clarity about what mattered and what didn't.
She stopped wasting Skittles.
Anne believes the key to peace and purpose is understanding one simple truth:
You are the architect of your life.
Not your past.
Not other people's expectations.
Not your circumstances.
You.
That means you also have the power to change how you spend your energy.
Here are a few simple ways to start:
1. Notice where your Skittles go.
Pay attention to what drains your energy during the day. Arguments? Worry? Overcommitment?
2. Stop saying yes when you mean no.
Every "yes" to someone else is a "no" to something else in your life.
3. Question old patterns.
Ask yourself: "Why do I keep doing this?" Awareness is the first step toward change.
4. Take your power back.
Blame gives away your power. Responsibility gives it back.
The truth is, most people think life is happening to them.
But Anne sees it differently.
Life is happening for you.
And once you stop wasting your Skittles on things that don't matter, you'll have the energy to build a life that actually does.

Buy The Book: https://amzn.to/4sNdDDq
👊🏼Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
🎁Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days - With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
☎️Private Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick
https://www.makesobrietystick.com
Subscribe So You Don't Miss New Episodes!
 
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website HERE. You can also watch the interview on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/@theonedayatatimepodcast?sub_confirmation=1

 

 
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast/id1212504521
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast