You’re Not Broken (And That Changes Everything)

Addiction isn't a disease. It's a survival strategy. Here's the difference.

I’ve been holding this back because most people aren’t ready to hear it. But you’re here, so I’m guessing you are.

Here’s what I can’t say in a 60-second video: You are not broken. You never were. And the entire recovery industry profits from convincing you otherwise.

I’ve released 2 books, recorded nearly 200 podcasts, and posted 8,000 videos that have gone viral more times than I can count. Millions of views. Hundreds of thousands of hours of my content consumed. I’ve met thousands of people one-on-one—in meetings, in person, on calls that lasted hours. What I know goes beyond what most people in the recovery industry will ever get a chance to experience. A few months ago, I taught an 8-hour emotional addiction workshop in Italy.

That’s when it became official—not just the content creator talking about recovery, but the guy people fly across the world to hear a different truth from. Next year, I’m speaking in Sardinia on an even bigger stage with Think And Grow Education. The invitations keep coming because what I’m saying works. But here’s what I realized: the stage talks are just the spark. This—what you’re reading right now—this is where the real work happens.

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The Lie Everyone Believes

Let me tell you the story recovery culture has been selling for decades: You have a disease. It’s chronic, progressive, and incurable. You’ll always be an addict. Your brain is fundamentally different. One drink, one hit, one slip and you’re right back where you started. The only solution? Meetings. Forever. Sponsors. Forever. Admitting you’re powerless. Forever.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the problem: none of that is actually true. And I can prove it.

I’ve watched thousands of people white-knuckle their way through sobriety, gripping the disease model like a life raft, terrified that if they let go they’ll drown. They go to meetings religiously. They work the steps. They call their sponsor when they’re triggered. And you know what happens? They stay sober. But they don’t transform. They manage. They cope. They survive.

That’s not freedom. That’s just a different kind of prison.

The disease model isn’t designed to liberate you. It’s designed to keep you dependent. Dependent on meetings. Dependent on the program. Dependent on the identity of “addict in recovery.” Because if you’re always broken, you always need fixing. And if you always need fixing, someone’s always making money off your pain.

I’m not here to make friends with the recovery industry. I’m here to tell you the truth they won’t.

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What Addiction Actually Is

Addiction isn’t a disease. It’s a strategy.

Let me explain what I mean. Your nervous system has one job: keep you alive. When you’re in pain—physical, emotional, psychological—your nervous system goes into problem-solving mode. It looks for solutions. And if substances or behaviors make the pain stop, even temporarily, your brain files that under “survival strategy.”

This is where everyone gets it wrong. They think addiction is about the substance. It’s not. The substance is just the tool your nervous system found to regulate itself when nothing else worked.

Think about it. Most people who struggle with addiction have histories of trauma, neglect, abuse, or chronic stress. Their nervous systems were dysregulated long before they ever picked up a drink or a drug. The substance didn’t create the problem. It solved it. Temporarily. Inefficiently. But it solved it.

And here’s the kicker: your brain doesn’t care if the solution is “healthy” or not. It just cares that it works. If alcohol makes the anxiety stop, your brain says “great, we found the answer.” If cocaine makes you feel confident enough to face the day, your brain says “keep doing that.” If scrolling social media distracts you from the emptiness, your brain says “this is how we survive.”

Addiction is your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect you.

The problem isn’t that you’re broken. The problem is that you learned to survive using tools that eventually stop working. And instead of upgrading the tools, the recovery industry tells you to spend the rest of your life apologizing for using them in the first place.

That’s insane.

I’ve had this conversation thousands of times. The pattern is always the same: people aren’t broken, they’re just operating on outdated survival code...

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Why “Recovery” as an Identity Keeps You Stuck

Here’s something nobody wants to hear: calling yourself “an addict in recovery” keeps you tethered to the very identity you’re trying to escape.

I was drinking 30 to 50 shots of vodka a day and never once called myself an alcoholic. Almost 9 years later, I know that rejecting that label is exactly what allowed me to evolve instead of just white-knuckle my way through sobriety.

I survived liver failure. My body was shutting down while I kept functioning like everything was fine. And here’s the thing nobody tells you: I was using alcohol as both punishment and celebration. Treating the problem with the problem. That’s not a character flaw. That’s a nervous system trying to survive with the only tool it had.

I know this is controversial. I know people will say “but my addiction is part of my story.” And they’re right. It is part of your story. But it doesn’t have to be your identity.

There’s a difference.

When you introduce yourself as “Hi, I’m [name] and I’m an addict,” you’re reinforcing a neural pathway that says “this is who I am.” You’re telling your brain “this is my operating system.” And every time you repeat it, you’re running the same program.

But what if you’re not an addict who’s choosing not to use? What if you’re someone who used to use substances to regulate your nervous system, and now you don’t, because you learned better tools?

See the difference?

One is management. The other is transformation.

Management says: “I have this condition and I have to manage it forever.” Transformation says: “I learned survival strategies that no longer serve me, and I’m becoming someone who doesn’t need them anymore.”

The goal isn’t to be “in recovery” for the rest of your life. The goal is to graduate. To evolve. To become someone who doesn’t identify with the problem anymore because you’ve fundamentally changed who you are.

I teach people how to graduate OUT of recovery. Not because recovery is bad. But because staying in recovery forever is like staying in kindergarten forever. At some point, you’re supposed to move on.

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What Changes Everything: Safety, Not Willpower

So if addiction is a nervous system survival strategy, what actually creates change?

Safety.

Not willpower. Not discipline. Not “just say no.” Safety.

When your nervous system feels safe—truly safe—it doesn’t need substances to regulate. It doesn’t need constant distraction. It doesn’t need numbing. Because the threat is gone.

But here’s where it gets tricky. Most people think safety means “not being in danger.” That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about nervous system safety. The felt sense that you’re okay. That you can handle what comes. That you’re not constantly bracing for impact.

For most people struggling with addiction, their nervous system has been in survival mode for years. Maybe decades. They’ve been running on cortisol and adrenaline so long they don’t even know what calm feels like anymore. And then we tell them to “just stop using” without addressing the fact that their entire system is screaming “WE’RE NOT SAFE.”

Of course they relapse. Their nervous system is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Real change happens when you learn to regulate your nervous system without substances. When you teach your body that it’s safe to feel. Safe to rest. Safe to be present. That’s when substances stop being necessary. Not because you’re white-knuckling it. But because you genuinely don’t need them anymore.

This is what I teach. Not behavior modification. Not cognitive tricks. Nervous system recalibration. Identity reconstruction. Becoming someone who doesn’t need the old survival strategies because you’ve built new ones that actually work.

And when that happens? You don’t “stay sober.” You just... live. Because sobriety isn’t your identity anymore. It’s just a byproduct of who you’ve become.

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The People Who Graduate

I’ve worked with thousands of people at this point. And the ones who actually transform—not just manage, but transform—all have something in common.

They stopped trying to fix themselves.

They stopped going to meetings hoping to hear the magic words that would make it all make sense. They stopped reading self-help books looking for the one technique that would finally work. They stopped performing recovery for other people.

And they started asking different questions.

Not “How do I stop using?” But “Who do I need to become so that using isn’t even appealing anymore?”

Not “How do I manage my triggers?” But “What is my nervous system trying to tell me when I feel triggered?”

Not “How do I stay sober?” But “What does freedom actually look like for me?”

These questions change everything. Because they shift you out of management mode and into transformation mode.

I’ve watched people who were “chronic relapsers” for years completely turn their lives around once they stopped trying to fix the addiction and started building a new identity. I’ve seen people who were told they’d need meetings forever walk away and never look back—not because they’re rebellious, but because they genuinely don’t need them anymore.

And here’s what nobody tells you: once you make the shift, it’s not hard to maintain. Because you’re not fighting yourself anymore. You’re not resisting. You’re just being who you are now.

That’s what graduation looks like.

Nearly 200 podcast episodes, 8,000 videos, thousands of conversations. This is what I know.

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The Invitation

Look, I’m not here to convince you of anything. If the traditional recovery model is working for you, genuinely working, then keep doing it. I’m not trying to take anything away from anyone.

But if you’re reading this and something in you is saying “yes, this is what I’ve been trying to say for years,” then you’re probably ready for a different approach.

I built Beyond Sober for people who are done performing sobriety and ready to actually become someone new. People who are tired of being told they’re powerless. People who want to graduate, not manage forever.

This Substack? This is where I go deeper than I can anywhere else. This is where I say the things that don’t fit in 60 seconds. The things that require nuance. The things that challenge everything you’ve been told.

If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re in the right place.

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You’re Not Broken

Let me say it one more time, because this is the thing people need to hear most:

You are not broken.

You’re not diseased. You’re not fundamentally flawed. You’re not destined to struggle forever.

You learned survival strategies in an environment that required them. And now you’re in a different environment, and those strategies don’t work anymore. That’s not a character defect. That’s just evolution.

The question isn’t “How do I fix what’s broken?” The question is “Who am I becoming?”

And once you start asking that question, everything changes.

Welcome to Substack. This is where the real transformation happens.

Let’s get to work.

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Want to explore what this looks like for you? Take the Beyond Sober assessment and get a personalized roadmap: beyondsoberscan.com

Have questions or topics you want me to dive into? Drop them in the comments. I read everything and I respond to the good ones.

See you next week.

— Kohdi