Can You Drink Normally Again After Quitting? Jason's Story
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Jason sat in a work meeting hoping nobody could smell what was really in his coffee cup.
"I can remember sitting in a meeting one time, hoping that the people in the meeting couldn't smell my coffee and whiskey that was in my cup. But I needed it, because that was the only way I was gonna make it through the day."
Drinking again after being sober is one of the most common and least talked about turns in recovery. Many people quit drinking, stack up months or even years, and then convince themselves they're fixed and can drink like a normal person. Jason tested that theory after two and a half years alcohol-free. Within weeks he was back to a fifth of whiskey every other day.
On this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, Jason told Brad McLeod the whole story: the party guy identity that took decades to build, the secret that made his first stretch of sobriety feel fake, the mom he lost to alcohol, and the connection that finally made it stick. Today he's 196 days sober, and he says he feels like a completely different person.
Here's what his story can teach anyone wondering whether they can go back to drinking, or whether it's time to stop for good.
The Functional Drinker Nobody Worried About
Jason's drinking never looked like a problem from the outside. That was the problem.
He started drinking in eighth or ninth grade and thought it was normal high school behavior. In college at Ohio University, it ramped up, and it kept ramping through his twenties and thirties. He became a DJ, and with that came an identity: the party guy. The one who could out-drink most people, stay up later than everyone else, and always keep the party going.
Through all of it, he kept his life together. Jobs, promotions, a master's degree earned while working full time. He never got a DUI, never got caught, never had the wake-up call people assume comes standard with a drinking problem.
"When I hear this term like functional alcoholic, that's me. Like there's a picture of me in the dictionary if you look that up."
But Jason has a sharper way of describing functioning now, and it's one of the most quotable moments of the episode. In his words, functional is another word for limited. You can get through life. You can even be successful. But there's a ceiling on how far you can go, and the drinking is what's holding it there.
If your life looks fine on paper but alcohol quietly runs your evenings, that pattern has a name. We wrote about it in Gray Area Drinking: When Your Life Looks Fine but Alcohol Is Running the Show.
"If You're Googling It, You Probably Have Your Answer"
After his second divorce, Jason's drinking escalated. A fifth of whiskey every other day. Waking up in the middle of the night full of anxiety as the alcohol wore off, then coming downstairs for a couple of big swigs to get back to sleep. Eventually, whiskey crept into his morning coffee.
During a fight, his ex-wife said the words that hit him at his core: that he had a problem he couldn't stop. His first reaction was anger and denial. His second reaction was quieter. He started googling whether he had a drinking problem.
"If you're googling 'Do I have a drinking problem?' you probably do have one, if you're trying to look for confirmation."
That's Jason's advice to anyone in that midnight search spiral, and it matches what we hear from guests over and over. People who don't have a problem with alcohol don't spend much time researching whether they have a problem with alcohol.
If you're in that spot right now, start with 13 Signs You Have a Drinking Problem (That Don't Look Like One). Jason's story checks more of those boxes than he realized at the time.
Alcohol-Free but Not Sober: The Secret That Made It Feel Fake
In March 2019, after a week-long bender that ended with him staring into the mirror at what he feared was jaundice, Jason quit drinking. He thought about his young daughters watching him. He thought about his mom, whose drinking had progressed to a terrifying place.
Four months later, in July 2019, his mom died of liver failure. She had moved to Colorado to be close to him, and he learned after her death that she came there to die near her son. Jason says he had to get sober in order to survive that loss. Her sister and her father died the same way.
He stayed off alcohol for about two and a half years. But he's careful with his words about that period, and the distinction matters.
He was alcohol-free. He wasn't sober.
Every ounce of energy he had put into drinking, he shifted into another substance, and he kept it secret. Friends told him how inspiring his alcohol-free milestones were. Inside, he felt fake. He was stacking days in public and hiding a problem in private, and he had never dealt with the underlying question of why he drank so much in the first place.
That's the trap of white-knuckling a quit without doing the deeper work. Remove the alcohol, keep the pain, and the pain finds another outlet.
The "I'm Fixed" Experiment
By 2021, Jason had a story he liked the sound of: he'd gone so long without alcohol that he must be able to handle it now.
"I made a decision that I thought I could start drinking again like a normal person, 'cause I had gone without it for so long. I was like, oh yeah, I'm fixed. I'm good. Good to go."
It started with sneaking a drink here and there. Then a Christmas party with a drink openly in his hand, telling a sober friend he'd decided he would be okay. She told him that if she saw him start to slip, she'd call him out.
How fast did it go back? In Jason's words, almost instantaneously. Within a short time he was back to a full bottle of whiskey every other day, shots in the middle of the night to get back to sleep, waking up hungover, skating through life. On weeks without his kids, he drank alone to numb the loneliness, not realizing the drinking was making the loneliness worse.
This is the honest answer to the question that brought you to this post. Jason went years without a drink and still couldn't drink normally, because the time away doesn't rewire the reason you drank. Nothing about his relationship with alcohol had been healed. It had only been paused.
His story isn't unusual. JB lived the same loop for years, and you can read that one in Hundreds of Day Ones: How JB Quit Drinking After Years of Failed Attempts.
The Podcast Search That Changed Everything
In 2025, Jason decided he had to do it again, for real. He went back to AA because it was the only thing he knew, but it never quite fit him. So one day, sitting in his car, he searched the Apple Podcasts app for sobriety podcasts.
The Sober Motivation Podcast came up. He started listening, and for the first time he heard people telling his story. He drove around for work listening to episode after episode, and he sat in his car wondering if he could ever string together enough days to be a guest himself.
Then he heard Brad mention the Sober Motivation community and joined the free trial, not even knowing there were meetings inside. He strung together 60 and 90 day stretches, slipped, and came back. Every time he returned, the community met him with acceptance instead of judgment.
The turning point came on New Year's Day 2026, when Jason joined a meeting from his bed at what he calls the lowest of the low. The hard part wasn't logging back on. The hard part was the fear that these people would eventually be sick of him. They never were. And this time, something told him this was really it.
At the time of this episode, Jason is 196 days sober. He quotes two lines that carry his recovery. One from Brené Brown: shame dies when stories are told in safe spaces. And one from a TED Talk that's become a north star for him: the opposite of addiction is not abstinence, the opposite of addiction is connection.
What Finally Made It Stick
Jason's last six-plus months look different from every previous attempt, and he's specific about why.
He changed his identity, not just his habits. He made a conscious decision to let go of being the fun guy, the party guy, the one who could outlast everybody. In his words, if you don't let this change your identity, your brain will pull you back to drinking, because you're still the same person waiting for permission.
He learned what a craving actually is. This might be the single most useful tool in the episode:
"I'm not craving a drink. I'm craving a solution to a feeling that I'm having. Whether that's anxiety, depression, boredom, whatever it is."
Once he could name the feeling underneath the craving, he could sit with it, let it pass, and then bring it to people instead of a bottle.
He built real accountability through real relationships. The people in the community became his best friends, some of whom he's never met in person. The deeper those connections got, the harder it became to imagine walking away from them for a drink.
He's doing it for himself. Ultimatums from a spouse or family can put you on the path, Jason says, but they can't keep you on it. That has to come from you.
Sobriety Is a Superpower
Asked to leave listeners with one word, Jason didn't hesitate: sobriety is a superpower. It gives you the pause. It raises the ceiling that functioning kept low. Since getting sober, he says opportunities and people keep showing up in his life that he never would have noticed while drinking.
The man who once prayed nobody could smell the whiskey in his coffee cup now shows up to meetings to welcome the newest person in the room, because he remembers being the guy in the car, listening, wondering if it could ever be him.
If you're that person right now, wondering whether you can ever drink normally again, or wondering if you'll ever string the days together, Jason's story is your answer. You're not broken. You're not too far gone. And you don't have to do it alone.
Listen to Jason's full episode on the Sober Motivation Podcast, and if you want the kind of community that helped him make it stick, learn more in The Sober Motivation App: What It Is, What It Does, and What Real Users Are Saying.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you drink normally again after being sober for years?
For most people with a real drinking problem, no. Jason went two and a half years without alcohol, decided he was fixed, and returned to heavy drinking almost instantly. Time away doesn't change your relationship with alcohol if the reasons you drank were never addressed.
What does "alcohol-free but not sober" mean?
It means you've stopped drinking but haven't dealt with the underlying issues, and often you've replaced alcohol with another substance or behavior. Jason describes stacking alcohol-free days publicly while hiding another problem privately, which left him feeling fake despite the milestones.
Why do you wake up at 3am with anxiety after drinking?
As Jason experienced, alcohol helps you fall asleep but is terrible at keeping you asleep. When it wears off in the middle of the night, you can wake up flooded with anxiety. Many drinkers, like Jason, end up drinking again at 3am just to get back to sleep, which deepens the cycle.
How do you know if your drinking is a problem when your life looks fine?
Jason held jobs, earned a master's degree, and never got a DUI while drinking a fifth of whiskey every other day. His test is simple: if you're googling whether you have a drinking problem and looking for confirmation, you probably already have your answer.
What finally makes sobriety stick after multiple attempts?
For Jason it came down to connection, identity change, and doing it for himself. Joining a sober community gave him acceptance without shame and accountability through real friendships, and recognizing that a craving is really a craving for relief from a feeling gave him a tool to sit through the hard moments.
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