One of the questions we hear a lot in recovery circles goes something like this:

I’m not really thinking about drinking anymore… but I’m unbearably lonely.

It’s a surprisingly common experience. In fact, it might be one of the most disorienting parts of early sobriety. You’ve done something incredibly hard—you’ve changed your life, your habits, maybe even your values—and yet what you’re feeling isn’t pride or relief.

It’s loneliness.

Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson tackle one of the most common (and least talked about) challenges in recovery: the profound loneliness that can show up after early sobriety.

This week’s question comes from a member of The Luckiest Club who’s over a year sober and struggling with what he calls “drifting through interstellar space socially.” 

The camaraderie of early recovery has faded, old relationships feel less relatable, and he’s wondering: if connection is the key to long-term sobriety, what do you do when you feel more alone than ever?

There’s a piece of sobriety advice that floats around like a well-meaning but slightly bossy aunt at Thanksgiving: “Don’t make any major life changes in your first year.” Don’t quit your job. Don’t move. Don’t start or end a relationship. Don’t breathe funny. Just… stay still for 365 days and try not to touch anything sharp.

And if you’re two months sober and hate your job, your relationship, your apartment, your haircut, and maybe your entire personality — this advice can feel less like guidance and more like a prison sentence.

So let’s answer the real question: Do you have to wait a year before you change your life?

In this episode of Dear Vernon, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson take on a question almost everyone in early sobriety faces:

“I’m two months sober and I hate my job.
I’ve been told not to make big life changes in the first year…
So am I stuck here for 10 more months?”

It’s a real one.

There’s a lot of guidance out there about “no major changes in the first 12 months.”

But is that a rule? A myth? A suggestion?
And what do you do when the thing you want to change feels unbearable?

One of the most persistent questions in sobriety — whispered early, wondered about quietly, sometimes asked out loud — is this:

Will I ever be fully recovered?

Or is this something I carry forever — like a backpack filled with bricks — heavy, exhausting, and never quite put down?

It’s a fair question. And if we’re honest, most people aren’t asking it philosophically. They’re asking because they’re tired. Early sobriety is effortful. It’s uphill. It takes attention, discipline, restructuring, and a level of emotional labor that can feel overwhelming. So when someone asks, “Will I ever be fully recovered?” what they often mean is:

Will this ever get easier?

Let’s talk about that.

In this episode of Dear Vernon, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson respond to a listener question:

"Are you ever actually recovered, or are you in recovery forever?"

Laura reflects on what recovery means to her now, more than a decade into sobriety — how it’s shifted from something effortful and front-of-mind into something deeply integrated. Eric dives into the difference between sobriety (not drinking) and recovery (learning how to live, cope, and regulate without alcohol).

If you’ve ever woken up in the morning with a clear promise—Today I’m not drinking—only to feel that resolve quietly dissolve by evening, you’re not alone. In fact, this experience is so common in sobriety that it can feel almost scripted: clarity in the morning, cravings by late afternoon, and compromise by night.

At The Luckiest Club, we’ve heard versions of this story thousands of times. And while it can feel deeply personal, it’s actually the result of very predictable forces—physical, psychological, and emotional—that shape the way alcohol interacts with our bodies and our lives.

Understanding those forces is the first step toward changing them.

Every so often, something happens in the broader culture that ripples through the sobriety world. A new study. A headline. A shift in public guidance. And suddenly, everyone is asking the same question:

What does this mean for alcohol — and for us?

Recently, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office updated its guidelines around alcohol consumption. The change itself was simple. The messaging around it… not so much.

Let’s unpack it.

In this episode, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson dig into a question a lot of you have been asking lately:

What do we actually think about the new Surgeon General alcohol guidelines? 💭

And maybe more importantly… why do they feel so confusing?

Welcome to the very first episode of Dear Vernon.

We know. You probably have questions.
Like… who is Vernon?
And why are people writing letters to him?
And how did this turn into a podcast?

In this episode, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson sit down to talk through the why behind Dear Vernon—where the idea came from, what it’s meant to be (and what it’s not), and why creating a space for honest questions about sobriety felt necessary.