The Gambling and Alcohol Starting Points: How to Start, Curiosity And Repetition

What if the two biggest roadblocks to recovery were hiding in plain sight? We unpack why “not knowing” can be a superpower when paired with curiosity, and how simple, repeatable actions become the backbone of lasting change. From the first shaky days to the moment life finally feels steady again, we share the habits, mindsets, and tools that keep progress real.

We explore meetings as a live lab where you borrow what works from people 30 days, six months, or three years ahead. We talk about building a personal learning plan with books, pamphlets, podcasts, audiobooks, and documentaries that deepen your grasp of forgiveness, love, higher power, and practical step work. You’ll hear how emotional intelligence grows from naming feelings to processing them out loud, and why a basic spiritual connection can steady you when motivation dips.

Then we zoom in on repetition: tiny daily reps that rewire your brain and outlast willpower. Think five minutes of reading, one message to a sober friend, a short prayer, a brisk walk, or a single meeting that keeps you connected. We warn about recovery atrophy when life gets better and offer a lean maintenance plan so you never lose touch with community, body, and spirit. You’ll also get a real-world coping example that shows how movement, connection, and creativity can shift a depressive spiral into traction.

If you’re ready to replace overwhelm with a 24-hour focus and the next right thing, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with someone who needs encouragement, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show. What one habit will you repeat today?

Transcript

Framing The Big Question

Values: Laugh, Work, Love

Tools: Scorecard And Natural Dopamine

Naming The Two Roadblocks

Curiosity As A Recovery Engine

Meetings As A Live Lab

Read, Listen, Watch, Learn

Emotions, Spirit, And Total Health

Learning To Name Feelings

Repetition And The First Two Years

Focus On The Next Right Thing

Beware Recovery Atrophy

Maintain Connection And EI

Real-Life Coping Example

Peace, Esteem, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 0:02

What two things hold people back the most in recovery? Haha, that's what we're going to get into today. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in recovery, where we encourage you to laugh every day. Work hard. Work hard in recovery relationships, your job, business, school, just work. And to put much more love out there. Love unconditionally. If you put much more love out there in the world, you'll see much more love returned to you. That is just a law of the universe. Remember, recovery is beautiful. Your EQ is your IQ, and you cannot outthink an emotional issue. We encourage people to do is to go to the website, lifeiswonderful. I repeat, the free recovery growth scorecard, where you can introduce natural dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin, where you start healing the brain and you start doing things first on your own, because that's how we all deal with recovery. We first have to be a little bit self-motivated, but we need some tips. We need some type of checklist on what we need to do each and every day to get up and get going and to do what we need to do. Remember, that's life is wonderful. So now let's jump into this week's episode. The two things that really stop people's recovery is broken down to two things, such as ignorance and repetition. Or I should say lack of repetition. And what I mean about ignorance is you to get recovery, you need to be curious. You do not know shit. And the only way to get out of this hole, whatever hole you're in, if you're all the way down to rock bottom, if you're somewhere in between, if you've been already threatened. Question is, is you gotta get out. And so that means you don't know what whatever you've been doing has not been working. So you got to do something different. And with that way to get out, since there is no one exact road to recovery that everybody uses, everyone uses similar roads, but everyone tweaks it just like to you're either your own understanding or what really is what you're gonna be able to do day in, day out, day in, day out. And with that, that's what we're trying to get to is to find out what you need to do. But with that, you have to have this within you, almost within your DNA, this gene of curiosity. You have to want to learn more. You've got to want to learn more about addiction. You want to want to learn more about recovery, you want to learn more about kind of with the limbo, whether that's abstinence, sobriety, white knuckling, whatever it is, how are you gonna get to that point where you feel really at ease and you really are in kind of a control and you know what you kind of want to do, but you gotta be curious. You have to go to meetings to learn. You've got to learn from people that have already been there before you, even if it's 30 days, even if it's six months, a year, three years, you've got to learn from people. People always think that meetings are some type of sentence, jail sentence. No. What it is, it's a live lab where you get to talk to people currently in recovery and what's working from them. So you can either incorporate them or just listen to them and support people. And also you learn this ability to be much more empathetic because as addicts, we have lack of empathy. And so you go to meetings to learn. But here's the part where really separates people is people who actually go and get literature, buy books, buy pamphlets, not only supposedly like the big books, whatever 12-step program you're working, but other kinds of literature, whether it's work in the steps, things that are talking about God and higher power, things that are talking about forgiveness, things that are talking about love. These are these topics, but you have to read. Now the beauty is there's a lot of podcasts on recovery. There's a lot of podcasts on mental health and psychology. You can listen to a multitude of podcasts. There's also audiobooks if people don't want to either read from an actual book or from some type of reader, like a Kindle or a Nook. There's lots of ways to get this information. And even go on to Netflix. Netflix has an abundance. Apple TV, there's an abundance on any type of TV platform to get information. But you got to be curious, you got to be wanting to learn how to get better. How do I truly understand what is an emotional disease? Addiction, they always say, is an emotional disease, but they also say it's a spiritual disconnect. They also say you're just in ill health. So you got to learn what is total health, what is spiritual connection, how do I get back in with God or with whatever religion we were brought up in or that we want to start with? What is this whole thing about emotions? How to have much more emotional intelligence, how to really grow. Because I can tell you, that very first meeting when I was there, or first or second meeting, there was my psychologist, and he's asking me how I feel. And I'm sitting there clueless. I could muster up anxiety because that was easy, because I had mainly two big emotions, anxiety or anger. And I didn't really know how to DSA, talk about my depression. I didn't know how to talk about the excitements or the joys that I had in my life. Uh you know, those are there were few. I didn't know how to live in the moment. So a lot of this I had to learn, and then you know, when psychologists kept asking, well, what is another emotion besides anxiety? I was totally clueless. And that is where I kind of had to learn is like, oh, maybe I know nothing. And that I think is one of the greatest ways to approach recovery. Stop saying that I know a few things about emotions. I believe in God. I know that I, you know, my family supports me. Go from the fact that you know nothing about emotions, God, psychology, that your family does not support you. Uh, and go with ways to find out how you can improve all this. Because that curiosity is going to move you forward. And the other one is repetition. Repetition will get you to the other side. Even if you wake up a day and you don't want to either go for a run or eat correctly or pray or go to a meeting or read literature, even if it's for five minutes, even if it's for 30 minutes, even if it's an online meeting, something you've got to stay in the same repetition because what got you to detox, what got you to, let's say, 30 days, six months, is going to keep you, especially for those first two years. Those first two years are so vital to be really repetitive and stick to the motion. But only focus on 24 hours. Don't overwhelm yourself. Don't start thinking about the whole week, the whole, especially the whole month or the next six months or the quarter or the rest of the year. Because you start thinking about, oh God, I got to do all these things each and every day. Just focus on what you can do today. Like they say, do the next right thing. The next right thing is to call someone, text someone, read something, go to a meeting, do that little thing. You'd be amazed as long as you start repeating doing the right thing. And even as unfortunately, what happens a lot too, people start getting better, especially after six months to a year, year and a half, then they start dipping on meetings, dipping on reading literature because now their life is good, you know, they're much better placed with their spouse, they're much better placed with the family, their finances are up. Uh they're actually feeling like they're got their life back together, and that is good. But you it's just like you can't stop going to the gym or stop running or swimming. Your body will then go into atrophy. It's the same thing about recovery. Recovery will go into atrophy, into, oh, I got this. Figure out, now it can change. You don't have to go to as many meetings, or you may not have to do as much work, but there's always got to be a contact. The same reason why it's always good to have some type of contact with some type of religion. At least have touch base that there's some type of foundation. And it's something, same thing with your emotions, your feelings. You've got to be able to know who out there can you talk to. Because you have to learn how to be able to state, process, feelings. That is emotional intelligence. That's how you get through it. Just this past week, I was feeling depressed, but I did certain things. I went to the gym, I called someone that I knew I could talk to. Someone else called me. I did an art project. I was able to get out of that depression. And you know, that is the beauty. You've got to know how to deal with what life throws at you. Because there's always something that can possibly trigger you, startle you, get you thinking, either in a good way or in a bad way. And we just always got to know, just stay on track. Because I just want everybody to live in peace and serenity, to love themselves, to have high self esteem, and to do the things that really drive their dreams and their goals. So, with that, we're going to conclude this episode of the 1% in recovery.