From Alcoholic to Trainer: What Sobriety Taught Me About Fitness Consistency

I got sober at 28 years old. Relapsed at 35. Got sober again at 35. And then built a fitness program from my Venice Beach studio apartment 2 years later.

Now, at 43 years old, I’m sober and I run an online women’s fitness program. I help women stay consistent with fitness.

I want to be clear about something. I’m not comparing your relationship with the gym to my relationship with alcohol. They’re not the same. Addiction is its own animal.

But the mechanics of “I keep starting and stopping and I don’t know why” are very similar across both. And the things that worked for me in recovery are the same things that work for the women in my program who can’t seem to stick with a workout plan.

So here’s what sobriety taught me about fitness consistency. Take what’s useful. Leave the rest.

TL;DR

The same things that get you sober get you consistent in the gym. Contrary action. One day at a time. Community. Bottom is the beginning, not the end. And honesty about where you actually are, not where you wish you were.

You don’t have to like it. You just have to keep doing it.

1. Contrary action is the entire game

In recovery they teach you contrary action. You feel like drinking. You don’t. You feel like isolating. You text a friend. You feel like quitting. You stay.

Your brain is going to tell you what to do, and most of the time the right move is the opposite. Especially in the first year. Your brain is not a trustworthy source. Your brain wants you to be comfortable, and comfort is what got you here.

This is exactly how fitness works for women who hate working out. Your brain says skip class. You go. Your brain says you’re too tired. You do it anyway. Your brain says you’ll start fresh on Monday. You start now.

The reason this is hard is because we’ve been told to listen to our bodies. Sometimes that’s right. Most of the time, when you’re trying to build something new, your body is a follower, not a leader. The body learns by doing.

You don’t have to feel like it. Doing it anyway is the whole skill.

2. You don’t need to like it. You need to do it.

I wanted to stop drinking for years before I actually stopped. Wanting did nothing. Wanting drank with me. Wanting cried about wanting to stop, and then cracked open another bottle.

What worked wasn’t wanting. It was doing.

Same thing in fitness. Women come to me and say they really want to get in shape this time. They’ve wanted it for ten years. The wanting has not produced abs.

You don’t need more wanting. You need an action small enough that wanting isn’t required.

In recovery: don’t drink today. Just today.

In fitness: do one class. Just today.

You don’t have to commit to forever. You have to commit to today. Tomorrow you’ll do it again, and that’s how forever happens, one today at a time.

3. The first 30 days are the worst, and that’s the point

When I quit drinking, the first month was unspeakable. Every cell in my body wanted what I wasn’t giving it. I cried constantly. I slept badly. I was furious at everyone.

And then around day 35, something shifted. Not a lot. Just enough that I could see I wasn’t dying.

Day 90, I felt like a different person. Year one, I was one.

This is the same shape as the first month of any new fitness practice. The first three weeks are when your brain throws everything it has at you to make you stop. The body is sore, the schedule is annoying, the workouts are hard, you don’t see results, you feel worse before you feel better.

This is not a sign you should quit. This is the cost of admission. The body and brain don’t change comfortably. They change because you outlast the period where they want to go back to the old setup.

If you can survive 30 days, you’re going to make it. The question is whether you can be uncomfortable for 30 days. Most people can. They’ve just never had anyone tell them the discomfort is the work.

4. Community is non-negotiable

I have never met a sober person who got and stayed sober alone. Not one. The internet is full of people swearing they’ll do it without a group, and most of them aren’t sober anymore.

There’s a reason every recovery framework, religious or secular, has a community piece. Humans don’t change in isolation. We change in groups of people who are doing the same thing we’re trying to do.

Fitness is the same. The women in my program who stay consistent are not the ones with the most willpower. They’re the ones embedded in the group. They have a small accountability cluster of five or six women who notice if they don’t show up. They have a leader who checks in. They have someone to text when they’re about to skip.

This is not a vibe. This is a mechanism. Belonging to a group that’s doing the work makes the work easier, and you cannot replicate that with an app.

If you’re someone who keeps starting and stopping, the missing piece is almost never information. It’s almost always isolation. You’re trying to do something hard alone, and humans aren’t built for that.

5. Bottom is the beginning

In recovery they say you have to hit bottom. Bottom isn’t a fixed place. It’s wherever you stop digging.

A lot of women come to me at fitness bottom. They’ve tried Peloton, they’ve tried CrossFit, they’ve tried Beachbody, they’ve tried walking. None of it stuck. They’re tired of starting over.

That tired is useful. That tired is what gets people to actually do the work this time. Hopeful doesn’t get the job done. Tired does.

If you’re tired of starting over, you’re ready. Not because you’re motivated. Because you’ve finally run out of plans to be hopeful about.

The bottom of hope is the top of action. That’s where the work begins.

6. Honesty about where you actually are

The hardest part of recovery, harder than not drinking, was rigorous honesty. About what I’d been doing. About how bad it had gotten. About what I wanted and what I was afraid of.

Fitness is full of dishonesty. Women tell themselves they walked enough today when they didn’t. They tell themselves they ate clean when they didn’t. They tell themselves they’ll start Monday for the 47th Monday in a row.

You can’t change something you’re lying to yourself about.

The version of rigorous honesty I practice now is small and dry. “I didn’t work out yesterday because I didn’t want to.” Not because I was busy. Not because I had a long day. Because I didn’t want to.

When you tell yourself the actual truth, you get to choose what to do about it. When you tell yourself a story, you stay stuck in the story.

The fitness version of sobriety

I don’t think about drinking much. Not because I beat it. Because I stopped doing it long enough that my brain rewired around the new normal. Drinking became something I used to do, instead of something I have to actively resist.

Fitness can be the same. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life white-knuckling workouts. You spend the first year doing the thing whether or not you feel like it, and by year two it’s just what you do. It stops being a decision.

That’s the goal. Not motivation. Not love of exercise. Just: this is what I do.

You don’t have to like working out. You just have to keep doing it.

Miracles are happening. Let’s go.

Frequently asked

Are you saying being out of shape is like being addicted?

No. Addiction is its own medical and emotional thing, and I would never compare those directly. What I am saying is that the mechanics of building consistency, especially when your brain is fighting you, work the same way across both. The principles transfer.

Do I have to be in recovery to use these ideas?

Of course not. Take what’s useful. The ideas work for anyone who’s struggling to be consistent with something hard. You don’t have to share my history to use the playbook.

What if I’m currently struggling with alcohol or another substance?

Please get help that’s appropriate for that, not a workout program. Fitness is a great support to recovery but it is not a substitute for actual treatment. AA, SMART Recovery, your doctor, a therapist who specializes in addiction. Start there. Then come work out with me.

Is fitness recovery?

For me, it’s part of how I stay sober. Moving my body daily is non-negotiable for my mental health. It’s not THE work, but it’s a piece of the work. Plenty of sober women in my program describe it the same way.

Where do I start?

Same place I always say. One class. You can try mine free.