Resources
TSLN Friday Night Zoom - December 5, 2025
TSLN Friday Night Zoom Event Summary
December 5, 2025
📋 Event Overview
The Toronto Sober Living Network hosted a transformational session on December 5, 2025, featuring Kimberly Flear, founder of Last Call Coaching and a pioneering voice for mental wellness in the hospitality industry. This marked Kimberly's first presentation with TSLN and introduced a critical conversation that bridges two communities: hospitality workers and those in recovery.
Titled "Loneliness in Recovery: Why Self-Connection Changes Everything," Kimberly's session explored the epidemic of loneliness that pervades both high-stress service industries and recovery journeys. Drawing from her 25+ years in hospitality and her own sobriety journey beginning in September 2020, she illuminated why loneliness is not about the absence of people, but rather the absence of connection to oneself.
The 75-minute keynote and subsequent Q&A provided practical nervous system tools, actionable frameworks for self-connection, and a compassionate blueprint for moving from emotional chaos into grounded self-leadership. Kimberly also announced her role as the upcoming host of the Vancouver chapter of SLN, expanding the network's reach across Canada.
Theme: Building Connection. Empowering Lives. Restoring Hope.
Format: Keynote presentation with slides, interactive Q&A, and community dialogue
Attendance: TSLN community members, hospitality workers, recovery professionals, and supporters across Canada
🎤 Featured Speaker
Kimberly Flear
Professional Background:
🍽️ Hospitality Veteran: 25+ years in front-of-house service across 24+ restaurants in Canada, Australia, and internationally. Roles include server, sommelier, bartender, barista, and manager.
🏆 Certified Recovery Coach & Life Coach: Trained in recovery coaching and life coaching after leaving the hospitality industry. Built Last Call Coaching, specializing in nervous system regulation, emotional wellness, and self-leadership for hospitality workers and those in recovery.
🌱 Lived Experience Educator: Founder of Voices of Hospitality, a series highlighting stories of resilience, recovery, and humanity in high-stress industries.
🧠 Nervous System & Somatic Specialist: Practices and teaches meditation, breathwork, EFT tapping, and somatic tools to help individuals regulate their nervous systems and reconnect to their bodies.
📋 Policy & Systems Advocate:
🔹 Workplace Advisory Committee member with the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction
🔹 Director, Chamber of Commerce
🔹 Volunteer, Sobertown Podcast
🔹 Host, Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness Organization (Denver, Colorado)
🔹 Ambassador, Burnt Chef Project
🌍 Vancouver Chapter Host: Launching the Sober Living Network chapter in Vancouver in 2026.
Current Mission: Filling the critical gap in mental wellness support for hospitality workers while helping individuals in recovery transition from emotional chaos into steady, grounded self-leadership through nervous system regulation and self-connection.
Website: www.lastcallcoaching.com
Social: Instagram: @LastCallCoaching
📚 Topics Covered
1. The Hidden Crisis: Mental Wellness in Hospitality
Kimberly opened by asking a pivotal question: Why is mental health such a casualty in the hospitality industry?
🎭 The Culture of Performance: Staff are trained to smile and serve, no matter what they're experiencing internally. The curtain opens at 5 PM, and you must be "on," regardless of what you're bringing to work.
⏰ Irregular Hours: Shifts starting at 5 PM and ending at 2 AM disrupt sleep, nutrition, and nervous system regulation. The constant adrenaline and cortisol spikes create a perpetual state of fight-or-flight.
😔 Emotional Labor Without Support: Every restaurant Kimberly worked at (24 in total) offered zero mental wellness resources, zero mental health support, and zero acknowledgment that staff were drowning on the inside.
🔄 Burnout is Depletion: Burnout is the depletion of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual resources. Staff are constantly giving, giving, giving—with no time to refill their own cups.
🙋 People-Pleasing Culture: The industry inadvertently trains people-pleasers. Staff receive instant gratification through compliments, thank-yous, and tips. This creates a dopamine loop that mirrors addiction, making the pursuit of external validation almost compulsive.
🏚️ The Misfits: Kimberly observed a critical pattern: the hospitality industry attracts those from traumatic or adverse backgrounds. It offers community, acceptance, and belonging—but without the proper support systems, it becomes a place where people escape, numb, and eventually lose themselves.
2. The Accessibility Trap
One of Kimberly's most powerful insights centered on why the hospitality industry has such high rates of substance use:
🍻 Staff Drinks: While camaraderie is beautiful, staff drinks normalize alcohol consumption as a coping mechanism. Kimberly lost a friend in 2021—an industry veteran—who was cycling through recovery but constantly offered shift drinks. What if someone had intervened?
🔓 Unrestricted Access: Unlike other industries, hospitality provides 24/7 access to alcohol, with minimal oversight or boundaries.
😤 No Time to Regulate: Without healthy coping tools, staff turn to unhealthy ones. Kimberly used to say after every shift: "I just need something to bring me down." No one recognized there were tools in her toolbox she'd never learned to use.
3. The Recovery Paradox: Why Recovery Often Intensifies Loneliness
Kimberly then shifted to the core theme: loneliness in recovery.
🛤️ The Journey: Recovery isn't just about stopping a substance—it's about discovering who you are beneath the addiction, the performance, the escape. This journey inevitably involves periods of profound aloneness.
🌍 External vs. Internal Loneliness: External loneliness is about not having people around. But internal loneliness—disconnection from yourself—is far deeper and more painful. You can be surrounded by people and still feel utterly alone.
🔄 The Cycle: In recovery, you're shedding old identities (the "restaurant folk," the drinker, the performer) while building new ones. This in-between space is tender, confusing, and inevitably lonely.
💔 The Lie: Many people in recovery believe loneliness is a sign they're doing it wrong, that they should have more support, more people, more community. But Kimberly revealed: loneliness is not failure; loneliness is an invitation.
4. What True Loneliness Teaches Us
Rather than running from loneliness, Kimberly offered a radically different perspective:
🏠 Coming Home to Yourself: The deepest loneliness, she explained, is the disconnection from yourself. And recovery is the moment we learn how to come home to ourselves.
🧘 Self-Connection as the Foundation: Before you can truly connect with others, you must connect with yourself. This isn't selfish; it's essential. It's the difference between being "lonely with others" and being "with yourself."
✨ The Awakening: Signs of self-connection include increased awareness of your actions, noticing when you're not present, feeling called to connect with your body, and gradually shifting your lifestyle to include practices that nourish rather than numb.
🔍 Identity Reconstruction: Kimberly walked participants through the recovery journey as a spectrum: from the old self (performing, numb, escaped) to the new self (present, grounded, connected). The loneliness is the bridge. In that bridge space, you discover who you actually are.
5. The Nervous System: Why Regulation is Self-Connection
A critical section of Kimberly's presentation focused on the nervous system:
🧠 Fight-or-Flight as Default: Hospitality workers exist in chronic states of activation. Their nervous systems are trained to scan for threats, manage crises, and perform under pressure. This becomes their baseline.
⚡ Unregulated Activation: Without healthy tools to downregulate, the nervous system seeks unhealthy coping: alcohol, drugs, excessive work, numbing behaviors.
🌊 Regulation as Medicine: Kimberly introduced simple but powerful tools:
🔹 Breathwork: Conscious breathing signals safety to the nervous system.
🔹 Somatic Practices: EFT tapping, body scanning, grounding techniques.
🔹 Meditation: Not about emptying the mind, but anchoring into the present moment.
🔹 Movement: Yoga, exercise, walking—anything that helps you feel your body and discharge stored activation.
🛑 The Key Practice: Kimberly offered a simple exercise during the session: "Put all your attention on the bottom of your feet." When you do this, the mind becomes quiet. There's no past, no future—only now. This is presence. This is regulation.
6. Practical Tools for Self-Connection and Presence
Kimberly provided actionable frameworks participants could implement immediately:
🧭 Grounding Techniques:
🔹 Name 5 things you can see
🔹 4 things you can touch
🔹 3 things you can hear
🔹 2 things you can smell
🔹 1 thing you can taste
⏱️ Micro-Practices Throughout the Day:
🔹 One-minute breathing practices between activities
🔹 Body check-ins (How am I feeling? What do I need?)
🔹 Mindful eating
🔹 Nature connection (even 5 minutes)
🧘♀️ The Non-Negotiable: Kimberly emphasized that presence isn't productive in the traditional sense, but it's the most productive thing you can do for your nervous system and your recovery.
7. Rebuilding Identity in Recovery
Kimberly discussed the identity work that recovery demands:
👥 Work Becomes Identity: In hospitality, your job becomes who you are. "I am a bartender. I am a server." This creates vulnerability because your entire sense of self is tied to a role and an industry.
🔄 The Transition: In recovery, that identity dissolves. Who are you without the job? Without the substance? Without the performance?
🌱 Rebuilding with Intention: Kimberly encouraged filling the void with practices and activities that are wholesome and nurturing: yoga, meditation, creative pursuits, connection with nature, learning, growth.
🧬 Anchoring a New Identity: Recovery requires consciously building a new sense of self—one rooted in presence, self-connection, values, and contribution rather than external validation or performance.
8. The Role of Community in Recovery
While emphasizing self-connection, Kimberly also validated the need for community:
🤝 Loneliness ≠ Isolation: Self-connection doesn't mean isolation. Rather, it's the foundation for healthier community engagement.
👥 Reciprocal Connection: True community involves mutual giving and receiving—not the one-directional people-pleasing of hospitality work.
🌍 Spaces Like TSLN: Kimberly highlighted TSLN as a model of what community can look like: judgment-free, authentic, diverse, and grounded in lived experience.
💡 Core Takeaways
✅ Loneliness is an invitation: Not a failure, but an opportunity to develop a relationship with yourself.
✅ Self-connection is non-negotiable: Before connecting with others, you must come home to yourself.
✅ The nervous system is the vehicle: Regulation through breathwork, somatic practices, and presence is foundational to recovery.
✅ Presence is the practice: Not productivity, not thinking—but being here, now, fully alive.
✅ Identity is reconstructible: Recovery requires consciously building a new sense of self, anchored in values and presence rather than performance.
✅ Hospitality has a crisis: The industry systematically trains people to abandon themselves while offering zero support systems.
✅ Awakening is awareness: Recovery involves becoming aware of your actions, noticing dissociation, and slowly building a life of presence and authenticity.
✅ Your body is your anchor: Grounding techniques, somatic practices, and nervous system tools are practical, accessible, and transformative.
🎯 Who This Session Serves
🔹 Hospitality Workers: Current and former employees seeking to understand the industry's mental wellness crisis and tools for regulation.
🔹 Those in Recovery: Individuals navigating the loneliness of early and long-term recovery who need practical tools for self-connection.
🔹 Family Members: Those supporting loved ones through both hospitality burnout and recovery.
🔹 Healthcare Professionals: Therapists, coaches, and counselors working with hospitality industry clients or those in recovery.
🔹 Business Leaders: Restaurant owners and hospitality managers interested in implementing mental wellness practices.
📞 Connect with Kimberly Flear
Website: www.lastcallcoaching.com
Email: [email protected]
Services: Recovery coaching, nervous system regulation training, hospitality-specific wellness programs, workshops on presence and self-connection.
🌍 Upcoming: Kimberly is launching the Vancouver chapter of TSLN. Follow her socials for announcements.
🌟 Final Reflection
Kimberly Flear's session was a masterclass in compassion, vulnerability, and practical wisdom. By weaving her own story—from hospitality's high-stress environment to recovery's lonely awakening—she gave permission to everyone in the room to stop performing, start feeling, and come home to themselves.
Her message transcends the hospitality industry. It speaks to anyone who has ever felt the ache of internal disconnection, the pain of living for others' approval, or the struggle to find themselves in the wreckage of addiction.
"Loneliness isn't a lack of people. It's a lack of self-connection. And recovery is the moment we learn how to come home to ourselves."
The tools she offered—breathwork, grounding, somatic practices, presence—are not luxury practices reserved for wellness retreats. They are medicine. They are accessible. They are necessary.
For those in recovery, for hospitality workers, for anyone seeking to move from emotional chaos into grounded self-leadership: Kimberly's work is a lifeline.
Building Connection. Empowering Lives. Restoring Hope.
Toronto Sober Living Network - Every Friday @ 7:00 PM EST
🔗 https://linktr.ee/soberlivingnetwork
TSLN Friday Night Zoom - November 28, 2025
TSLN Friday Night Zoom Event Summary
November 28, 2025
📋 Event Overview
The Toronto Sober Living Network hosted a deeply moving and practical session on November 28, 2025, featuring Caroline Barrett, a Certified Recovery Coach and the founder of Sober Me Recovery Coaching. While previous sessions have focused on the neuroscience or philosophy of addiction, Caroline brought a profound, heart-centered, and multidimensional perspective to the conversation.
Titled "The Three Rooms of Understanding," Caroline’s session explored addiction through three distinct lenses: her own nine-year journey of sobriety, her experience witnessing her brother’s ten-year path, and the devastating grief of losing her best friend to an overdose.
The 60-minute keynote and subsequent Q&A moved beyond the "how-to" of abstinence into the "how-to" of living. Caroline broke down the vital role of recovery coaching in building a future-focused life, offered actionable frameworks for families struggling to support loved ones, and shared a powerful testimony on transforming grief into a lifelong mission.
Theme: Building Connection. Empowering Lives. Restoring Hope.
Format: Keynote narrative presentation followed by interactive Q&A
Attendance: TSLN community members, family support allies, and recovery professionals
🎤 Featured Speaker
Caroline Barrett
Professional Background:
🏆 Certified Recovery Coach: Founder of Sober Me Recovery Coaching, specializing in sustainable sobriety and grief support.
🧘♀️ Lived Experience: 9 years of continuous personal sobriety.
👨👩👧👦 Family Advocate: Sibling to a brother celebrating 10 years of sobriety; witnessed the family dynamic from both inside and outside the addiction.
🕊️ Grief Specialist: Transformed the tragedy of losing her best friend (Eddie) to overdose in 2019 into a dedicated support mission.
Current Mission: Helping individuals move from "surviving" sobriety to "thriving" in it, while educating families on how to provide non-judgmental support and creating safe spaces for those navigating overdose loss.
Website: www.soberme.ca
Social: Instagram @Soberme.ca | YouTube SoberMe11
📚 Topics Covered
1. The Three Rooms of Understanding
Caroline introduced a powerful framework for empathy, explaining that to truly grasp addiction, one must understand three distinct vantage points:
🏠 Room #1: The Self: The internal battle of the addict. Caroline shared her own history, starting at age 15, where she fell in love not with the taste of alcohol, but with the feeling of escape it provided.
👀 Room #2: The Witness: The helpless vantage point of the family member. She detailed watching her brother navigate his recovery, offering a dual perspective on the pain caused to families and the complex dynamics of trust.
💔 Room #3: The Bereaved: The room no one wants to enter. Following the death of her best friend Eddie in 2019, Caroline had to navigate the "double grief" of mourning someone she had already been grieving while they were alive.
2. The Architecture of Dependence (Behavior vs. Substance)
A critical insight into how addiction is often about ritual rather than just chemistry:
🍾 The Non-Alcoholic Trap: Caroline shared a vulnerable story about drinking a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne a night early in her recovery.
🔄 The Realization: She hadn't quit the behavior of drinking; she was still seeking the ritual of numbing.
🍺 The "Near Beer" Danger: She discussed her brother’s use of non-alcoholic beer and the risk of it keeping the neural pathways of addiction active.
🧠 Key Takeaway: "Sobriety isn’t just about the substance. It’s about dismantling the architecture of dependence."
3. The Recovery Coaching Framework
Caroline clarified the distinction between therapy, sponsorship, and coaching:
🛋️ Therapy: Focuses on healing the past and unpacking trauma (Archaeology).
🚀 Coaching: Focuses on the present and the future (Architecture).
🤔 The "Thinking Partner": A coach doesn't provide answers; they provide the right questions to help the client unlock their own wisdom.
🎯 Goal Setting & Accountability: Moving beyond "not drinking" to building a life so full that alcohol no longer fits.
4. Grief as a Companion
One of the most impactful sections of the evening dealt with navigating loss while in recovery:
⚠️ The Threat to Sobriety: When Eddie died, Caroline faced the ultimate trigger—the desire to numb the pain of loss.
🌱 Choosing Life: "I can't drink, because I still want to live."
🕯️ Transforming Pain: She honored Eddie not by "moving on," but by integrating his memory into her mission ("Sober My Eddie").
🤝 The Ministry of Presence: Creating space for "disenfranchised grief"—supporting friends and partners who may not be recognized by traditional family support structures.
5. Family Support: The "Just Listen" Protocol
Caroline provided a radical simplification for families trying to help:
🔇 The Communication Gap: You cannot force someone to understand the pull of addiction if they haven't lived it.
🛑 Stop Explaining: Instead of trying to make them understand, ask for what you actually need.
👂 The Strategy: Ask loved ones to "Just Listen." No fixing, no judgment, no "whys." Just witnessing the pain is the intervention.
💡 Core Takeaways
✅ Recovery is Multi-Dimensional: You must address the physical, the behavioral (rituals), and the emotional (grief) to sustain it.
✅ Coaching is Future-Oriented: While we must respect our past, we cannot live there. Coaching builds the roadmap for tomorrow.
✅ Grief Integrates: We don't "get over" the loss of a loved one to addiction; we learn to carry the weight, and eventually, that weight can become a source of strength.
✅ Behavior Matters: Switching to non-alcoholic versions of our poison can sometimes keep us trapped in the same behavioral loops.
✅ The Power of Listening: The most effective tool for family members is often silence and presence, not advice.
✅ Support the "Witness": Families and friends suffer a unique "ambiguous loss" and need their own recovery support, separate from the addict.
🎯 Who This Session Serves
🔹 Individuals in Recovery: Looking to deepen their understanding of behavioral triggers and long-term maintenance.
🔹 Family Members & Siblings: Seeking to understand the boundary between support and enabling.
🔹 The Bereaved: Anyone who has lost a friend or family member to overdose and feels isolated in their grief.
🔹 Professionals: Coaches and therapists looking for frameworks to explain the difference between clinical and coaching support.
📞 Connect with Caroline Barrett
Website: www.soberme.ca
Email: [email protected]
Services: Individual Recovery Coaching, Family Support Strategy, Grief Support.
🌟 Final Reflection
Caroline Barrett’s session was a testament to the power of vulnerability. By opening the doors to the three rooms of her life—the addict, the sister, and the grieving friend—she gave the community permission to bring their whole selves to the table.
Her message reminds us that recovery is not a solitary act of willpower, but a communal act of honesty. Whether we are the one struggling, the one watching, or the one mourning, we all share the same need: to be heard without judgment.
As Caroline powerfully stated regarding the loss of her friend:
"All I needed was for someone to just sit with me in that empty room. To listen. No advice, no platitudes. Just the shared presence."
Building Connection. Empowering Lives. Restoring Hope.
Toronto Sober Living Network - Every Friday @ 7:00 PM EST
🔗 https://linktr.ee/soberlivingnetwork
📧 [email protected]
TSLN Friday Night Zoom - November 21, 2025
TSLN Friday Night Zoom Event Summary
November 21, 2025
📋 Event Overview
The Toronto Sober Living Network hosted an extraordinary evening on November 21, 2025, featuring Eric Mark Fischer, former professional baseball player turned film producer and peak performance coach. This session offered a profound exploration of rebuilding life after addiction through intrinsic motivation, vision development, and radical self-examination.
Eric's presentation moved beyond traditional recovery narratives, diving deep into the psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy that underpin sustainable transformation. With raw vulnerability, he shared his journey from elite athlete to hospitalization from alcohol poisoning, and ultimately to discovering what truly drives lasting change.
The 90-minute session combined personal storytelling with practical frameworks for developing a meaningful life vision, understanding the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, and building sustainable recovery through self-awareness and curiosity.
Theme: Building Connection. Empowering Lives. Restoring Hope.
Format: Keynote presentation followed by Q&A and community discussion
Attendance: TSLN community members from Toronto, across Canada, and internationally
🎤 Featured Speaker
Eric Mark Fischer
Professional Background:
🏟️ Former Professional Baseball Player: 8 years in Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins organizations (drafted 7th round, 1998)
🎬 Film Producer & Writer: 20+ feature films, $500+ million box office performance, degrees in Film Production and Media Law from Cal State Northridge
🎯 Peak Performance Coach: Certified coach specializing in lifestyle design and executive coaching for entrepreneurs and high performers
⚾ 20+ Years Coaching Experience: Youth athletes, parents, coaches, and organizations
Current Mission: Helping individuals overcome obstacles and reach their highest potential through evidence-based strategies rooted in intrinsic motivation, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy.
Website: https://www.ericmarkfischer.com/about-eric-fischer
📚 Topics Covered
1. The Crisis: Rock Bottom
Eric opened with unflinching honesty about his descent into alcoholism:
The Progression:
🔻 Initial drinking to manage severe back pain (herniated L5S1 disc causing sciatica)
🔻 Escalating consumption from social drinking to dependency
🔻 Isolation in Cincinnati while family moved to Minneapolis
🔻 Five days of extreme binge drinking (approximately 5 handles of vodka)
🔻 Psychosis, inability to walk, falling and cracking his head open
🔻 Hospitalization with dangerously low potassium levels, 12 bags of IV fluids
🔻 Decision to enter inpatient rehab in Florida
Key Insight: Eric deliberately keeps the emotional weight of this experience close: "I never forget what it was like... because when we forget, we get overconfident and complacent."
2. Vision Development: The Foundation of Change
Core Principle: We don't have the option of whether to develop a vision for our lives—only whether it will be good or bad, intentional or unintentional.
Three Vision Pathways:
A. Bad Vision Through Subjective Lust and Whims
❌ Living reactively based on immediate pleasure
❌ Nobody wants to be around you (or for wrong reasons)
❌ You hurt family and loved ones
❌ Professional struggles
❌ Most importantly: you struggle
B. Someone Else's Vision
⚠️ Living according to societal expectations
⚠️ Following explicit and implicit laws society mandates
⚠️ Abandoning childhood dreams because "life is busy and hard"
⚠️ Losing belief in yourself
C. Intentional Positive Vision (The Path Forward)
✅ Sustainable and upward trajectory
✅ Long-term orientation
✅ Self-authored and authentic
✅ Aligns with curiosities and values
3. Looking at What We Don't Want to Look At
Carl Jung's Wisdom: "We will find what we need most where we least want to look."
Eric's Shadow Work Process:
Facing Personal History:
🔍 Growing up in "eggshell environment" where crying was weakness
🔍 Father's generation: World War II/Vietnam mindset—"sleep when you're dead, keep foot on gas pedal"
🔍 All-boys Catholic prep school reinforcing emotional suppression
🔍 Defined by athletic achievement from age 18
🔍 Career-ending surgeries (4 on throwing arm)
🔍 Living in cognitive dissonance between true self and projected image
Uncovering Hidden Stressors:
⚡ 10-year lawsuit over Paul Walker's estate (Vehicle 19 film)
⚡ Severe physical pain and loss of fitness outlet (therapy substitute)
⚡ Family dynamics: borderline personality disorder in ex-wife's family
⚡ Prolonged attacks, lawsuits, private investigators
⚡ Children taken twice
⚡ Isolation and lack of community
The Realization: "I didn't know myself at all. If I had known myself, I would not have been a nice guy, I would have been a good guy."
4. Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivators
The Central Framework:
Extrinsic Motivators:
💰 External rewards: money, status, approval, trophies
📉 Temporary dopamine spikes
📉 Never satisfying ("I'll be happy when...")
📉 Creates hedonic treadmill
📉 Unsustainable long-term
Intrinsic Motivators:
💡 Internal drivers: curiosity, autonomy, mastery, purpose
📈 Sustainable dopamine through learning and growth
📈 Self-directed and meaningful
📈 Creates lasting fulfillment
📈 The foundation of recovery
Key Questions for Finding Intrinsic Motivation:
1️⃣ "What am I curious about?"
🔹 We don't choose our curiosities—they choose us
🔹 Pay attention to what piques interest
🔹 Write it down and explore it
2️⃣ "What could I do all day, every day, never get bored, and never receive a trophy or paycheck for doing?"
🔹 Answer this = found your life's path
🔹 Money becomes byproduct of good work
🔹 Work doesn't feel like work—it's life's work
3️⃣ "What do I want to learn more about?"
🔹 Educational curiosity
🔹 Growth mindset orientation
🔹 Learning as sustainable dopamine source
5. The Neuroscience of Addiction and Recovery
Brain Chemistry Insights:
Addiction Profile:
🧠 Lower baseline dopamine levels (need more stimulation)
🧠 Love of novelty
🧠 High openness to experience (creative intellect trait)
🧠 Reduced impulse regulation
🧠 Difficulty planning for future
🧠 Narrow focus when compelled toward substance
The Dopamine Paradox:
⚡ Anticipation of alcohol creates massive dopamine release
⚡ Brain narrows focus toward substance
⚡ Everything else disappears from awareness
⚡ Clever adaptation (tracking BAC to time consumption)
Recovery Brain:
🌱 Intentional boredom allows brain's default mode network activation
🌱 Creativity lives in default mode network
🌱 Growth mindset provides sustainable dopamine
🌱 Learning creates positive neural pathways
🌱 Community and connection regulate nervous system
6. Personality and Self-Understanding
Big Five Personality Model Application:
Eric used the Big Five framework to understand himself and relationships:
📊 Analyzed his own personality traits
📊 Mapped parents, sister, ex-wife, children, in-laws
📊 Discovered patterns and incompatibilities
📊 Recognized lack of shared long-term vision in marriage
Key Insight: "The only way a marriage, business, or otherwise partnership works is that both parties share the same long-term vision."
Trait Patterns in Addiction:
🎨 High openness to experience
🎨 Autonomy-driven ("don't tell me what to do")
🎨 Think outside the box
🎨 Love novelty
🎨 Often ADD/ADHD component
7. Radical Acceptance and Responsibility
Taking Ownership Without Blame:
Eric carefully distinguished between responsibility and victimhood:
🎯 "I try my best to see people as they are, not who I autobiographically manufacture them to be"
🎯 Acknowledged family dynamics and mental illness without making excuses
🎯 Recognized his role in patterns
🎯 Chose proactive life over reactive life
Stephen Covey's 7 Habits Influence:
📖 Proactive vs. reactive living
📖 Seek to understand before being understood
📖 Curiosity over judgment
📖 Intentional over impulsive
8. Two Powerful Vision-Setting Exercises
Exercise 1: Walk Through Your Death
With courage and granular detail, imagine:
💭 How old are you when you die?
💭 What are you passing from?
💭 Who's at your bedside?
💭 What's your legacy?
💭 What will people remember about you?
💭 How did you behave and treat people?
💭 Did you have integrity and empathy?
Effect: "Virtually everything in your life becomes manageable"
🔹 See things as they are
🔹 Be present for deserving people
🔹 Stop self-sacrificing inappropriately
🔹 Take each day as gift
🔹 Stop rushing
🔹 Understand where brake pads are
Exercise 2: Build Your Future Self (Last Decade of Life)
Envision ages 80-100 with vivid detail:
🏡 Living alone or with someone?
🧘 Can you sit cross-legged and stand up unassisted?
🐕 Walking a dog? How far?
🚗 Driving yourself to grocery store?
🚶 Walking up steps?
💪 Physical capabilities?
🏠 Living situation?
Effect: Changes temperament, what you fight for, how you see people
🔹 Focus on what truly matters
🔹 Stop fighting for frivolous things
🔹 Move with purpose while intrinsically driven
Backcast to Present:
Once future is clear, reverse-engineer to today's actions
⏪ Health span vs. lifespan
⏪ Need muscle in lower legs to hold frame at 85
⏪ Longevity requires intentional daily choices
9. Practical Implementation Strategies
Start Small and Build:
🎯 Action fuels motivation (not the reverse)
🎯 Begin as small as possible
🎯 Identify one curiosity to explore
🎯 Take one step today
Radical Acceptance:
🙏 Can only control two things: body and brain
🙏 Can't control spouse, kids, circumstances
🙏 Release need to rule by power (tactical and finite)
🙏 Focus energy where you have agency
Growth Mindset as Lifestyle:
📚 Every conversation: "What can I learn?"
📚 Every book: "What can I learn?"
📚 Every show: "What am I learning?"
📚 Nervous system settles with learning orientation
📚 Sustainable and dopaminergic
Intentional Chaos:
⚡ Moral and ethical obligation to step into chaos daily
⚡ Puts you on cognitive edge
⚡ Growth happens at edge of order and chaos
⚡ Self-leadership and development
⚡ Definition of learning
Cognitive Load Management:
🧹 Strip everything not absolutely crucial
🧹 Every possession requires maintenance
🧹 Reduce wants to focus on needs
🧹 What we focus on with emotion, we move toward
🧹 Simplify to amplify
10. The Role of Community and Connection
Human Need for Connection:
🤝 Rooted in connectivity and community
🤝 Isolation is worst form of punishment
🤝 Without community, brain turns on us
🤝 Connection regulates nervous system
Eric's Transformation Tools:
🏥 Inpatient rehab (Florida)
🏥 4 months IOP (Intensive Outpatient) in Minneapolis - 3 days/week, 3 hours/session
🏥 Individual therapy on non-IOP days
🏥 Surrounded himself with psychologists
🏥 Continuous learning and reading
Philosophical Influences:
📖 Carl Jung (shadow work, inner dialogue)
📖 Friedrich Nietzsche
📖 Carl Rogers
📖 Stoic Philosophy: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Socrates, Plato
📖 Brené Brown (vulnerability and courage)
📖 Stephen Covey (7 Habits)
11. Rebuilding Trust and Identity
The Nice Guy vs. Good Guy Distinction:
🔵 Nice guy: people-pleasing, unclear boundaries, reactive
🟢 Good guy: authentic, clear communication, proactive, shared vision
SoberLink Experience:
📱 Voluntarily used breathalyzer with concerned party monitoring
📱 Court-registered accountability
📱 Rebuild trust through consistent action
📱 Acknowledged cleverness of addiction (tracking BAC precisely)
Career Transition:
💼 Lost corporate job
💼 Sold baseball facility to Cannes Baseball Organization
💼 Moved fully into coaching entrepreneurs and high performers
💼 Integrated all learning into new mission
12. Key Philosophical Concepts
Crying as Strength:
💧 "Crying is a definable and provable sign of strength, not weakness."
Vulnerability and Courage:
💪 "Without vulnerability, there is no such thing as courage." —Brené Brown
The Observer Self:
👁️ Zoom out and become your observer
👁️ See the map, not just the road ahead
👁️ Make intentional decisions
👁️ Not shocked when road splits
Jacob's Ladder:
🪜 Set goal, hit it, set another, hit it
🪜 Human beings don't stop progressing
🪜 No end state to success
🪜 "I'll be happy when..." is illusion
Wants vs. Needs:
⚖️ Distinguish between necessary and superfluous
⚖️ Reduce cognitive load
⚖️ Focus energy on essentials
⚖️ Simplify for clarity
💡 Core Takeaways
✅ Vision is non-optional - Choose to develop good vision or suffer bad vision
✅ Look at what you don't want to look at - Shadow work is essential healing
✅ Intrinsic > Extrinsic motivation - Internal drivers create sustainable change
✅ Know yourself deeply - Personality, patterns, triggers, values
✅ Community is biological need - Isolation is dangerous; connection heals
✅ Curiosity is calling - Pay attention to what interests you; explore it
✅ Growth mindset is dopaminergic - Learning provides sustainable fulfillment
✅ Radical acceptance - Control only body and brain; release the rest
✅ Death contemplation clarifies life - Makes everything manageable
✅ Future self guides present action - Backcast from 90s to today
✅ Action fuels motivation - Start small; momentum builds
✅ Wants vs. needs - Simplify to reduce cognitive load and amplify focus
🎯 Who This Session Serves
🔹 Individuals navigating addiction or early recovery
🔹 People in long-term recovery seeking deeper transformation
🔹 High performers and entrepreneurs facing burnout or seeking meaning
🔹 Anyone rebuilding life after major setback
🔹 Family members wanting to understand recovery psychology
🔹 Healthcare professionals and coaches
🔹 Anyone curious about intrinsic motivation and sustainable change
📞 Connect with Eric Mark Fischer
Website: https://www.ericmarkfischer.com/about-eric-fischer
Services:
🎯 Peak Performance Coaching
🎯 Lifestyle Design Consulting
🎯 Executive Coaching for Entrepreneurs
🎯 Speaking Engagements
🎯 Workshops on Intrinsic Motivation
🌟 Final Reflection
Eric Mark Fischer's presentation was a masterclass in psychological depth applied to recovery. Rather than focusing solely on alcohol abstinence, he revealed the fundamental restructuring of identity, vision, and motivation required for sustainable transformation.
His message resonates far beyond addiction: any life transition, setback, or desire for meaningful change requires the courage to look inward, the wisdom to distinguish intrinsic from extrinsic drivers, and the discipline to build a vision worth living.
As Eric powerfully stated:
"When we focus on the healthy dopamine, the intrinsic drive, all other things start to fall in their proper bucket."
Building Connection. Empowering Lives. Restoring Hope.
Toronto Sober Living Network - Every Friday @ 7:00 PM EST
TSLN Friday Night Zoom - November 14, 2025
TSLN Friday Night Zoom Event Summary
November 14, 2025
📋 Event Overview
The Toronto Sober Living Network hosted a powerful evening on November 14, 2025, bringing together a diverse community of individuals in recovery, family members, healthcare professionals, and allies for an evening of connection, education, and hope.
This session featured three exceptional speakers who brought complementary perspectives on addiction recovery: Sydney Graham shared evidence-based family support strategies backed by decades of research; Mike revealed the internal transformation work that builds lasting sobriety through self-worth development; and Chad Johnson offered raw authenticity about trauma, lived experience, and the power of community.
Together, they addressed the full spectrum of recovery—from supporting loved ones with compassion and science-backed approaches, to doing the deep internal work of rebuilding identity and self-worth, to embracing vulnerability and connection as pathways to sustained healing.
The 90-minute session combined professional expertise, personal storytelling, and interactive dialogue, creating a judgment-free space where attendees could learn, ask questions, and recognize they're not alone in their recovery journey.
Theme: Building Connection. Empowering Lives. Restoring Hope.
Attendance: Members of the TSLN community joined from across Toronto, Canada, and internationally via Zoom, representing various stages of the recovery journey and diverse lived experiences.
Format: Three keynote presentations followed by Q&A and community discussion, emphasizing practical tools, scientific evidence, and authentic connection.
🎤 Featured Speakers & Topics
1. Sydney Graham | Families for Addiction Recovery (FAR Canada)
Professional Role: Peer Support Manager with 30+ years healthcare experience
Topics Covered:
- Addiction as an Illness - Reframing addiction from moral failing to medical condition (40-60% hereditary)
- Co-occurring Mental Illness - 50-90% of people with addiction have concurrent mental health conditions
- CRAFT (Community Reinforcement & Family Training) - Evidence-based family support approach with 65-75% success rate in engaging reluctant loved ones in treatment
- Motivational Interviewing (MI) - Communication strategies that strengthen motivation for change
- Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) - Building psychological flexibility to accept difficult emotions without substance use
- Reducing Shame & Stigma - Separating the person from the illness and eliminating harmful "tough love" and "rock bottom" myths
- Family Support Services - Free resources through FAR Canada (1-855-377-6677)
- Key Message: Families are not helpless—evidence-based strategies work, and both the loved one and family members deserve support.
2. Mike | Real Raw Recovery
Professional Role: Co-owner of Real Raw Recovery, Certified Addiction Recovery Coach with Master's in Health Education
Topics Covered:
Personal Journey - From active addiction (20+ years) to meaningful recovery through transformational therapy
Self-Worth as Root Cause - Low self-worth and self-esteem drive addictive behaviors
Triangle of Transformation - Three foundational pillars:
Responsibility: Owning your thoughts, feelings, and actions without shame
Choice: Recognizing that choices create reality and are influenced by beliefs
Power: Controlling emotions and mindset through thought awareness
Mirror Work Practice - Daily affirmations and self-dialogue to reconnect with authentic self and inner child
True Sobriety Definition - Abstinence plus living a life of happiness, pride, and integrity
Transformational Influences - Louise Hay, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Dr. Harry Henshaw
Key Message: "Rebuilding is hard, but you did the best you could with what you knew. Recovery starts from within by building self-worth."
3. Chad Johnson | Not All There Podcast & Art of Recovery Foundation
Professional Role: Host of Not All There Podcast, Certified Recovery Coach, Founder of Art of Recovery Foundation, 11+ years sober
Topics Covered:
Personal Trauma Story - Prolonged childhood physical, mental, and emotional abuse leading to 21 years of active addiction
The First Drink - Recognition that addiction journey, while painful, led to transformation and purpose
Recovery Beyond Abstinence - "You can quit drinking but still be the same asshole"—recovery requires deep personal work
Facing Trauma - Five-year "nervous breakdown" processing blocked trauma necessary for genuine healing
Radical Acceptance - Reframing experiences from "happened to me" to "happened for me"
Fear as Driver - Understanding how fear fueled addiction and learning to face rather than avoid uncomfortable emotions
Humor as Healing - Using twisted humor to process darkness without being consumed
Community Building - Sober soirees, storytelling events, and launching Chicago Sober Living Network
Daily Practice - Waking each day acknowledging diagnoses (alcoholic, addict, PTSD, bipolar) to approach life strategically
Key Message: "Recovery is hard. Recovery is possible. You're not alone. If I can laugh at what I've been through, I can survive it."
📊 Research Highlights from the Guide
- CRAFT Success Rate: 65-75% treatment entry (2-3x more effective than traditional interventions)
- Family Involvement Impact: 6% reduction in substance use, translating to 2 fewer drinking days per month
- Motivational Interviewing: 75% effectiveness in research participants
- ACT Effectiveness: 63-67% of participants show benefits compared to control groups
- Heritability of Addiction: 40-60% genetic factors
- Co-occurring Conditions: 50-90% of people with addiction also have mental illness
- Neuroplasticity: Brain structure and function improve significantly with sustained abstinence over months to years
🛠️ Practical Tools Provided
For Individuals in Recovery:
- Morning routine for sustainable sobriety
- Triangle of Transformation daily application
- Mirror work step-by-step guide
- Trigger management plan with HALT and urge surfing
- Values clarification exercises
- Recovery identity building
- For Family Members:
- CRAFT's 7 elements of positive communication
- Boundary-setting frameworks (physical, financial, emotional, time)
- Self-care strategies (oxygen mask principle)
- Managing hope and disappointment
- Realistic expectations for recovery timeline
- For Healthcare Professionals:
- Trauma-informed care principles
- Motivational Interviewing OARS skills quick reference
- Stigmatizing vs. person-first language guide
- Evidence-based practices (CRAFT, MI, ACT)
📚 Additional Resource Sections
- The Science of Recovery - Neuroplasticity, brain healing timeline, social connection research
- Harm Reduction - Meeting people where they are, medication-assisted treatment
- Special Topics - Cultural considerations, gender-specific care, adolescent support
- Comprehensive Resource Directory - National and Canadian resources, apps, online communities
- 33 Research Citations - Peer-reviewed sources from NCBI, NIDA, medical journals
📞 Speaker Contact Information
Sydney Graham - Families for Addiction Recovery:
Phone: 1-855-377-6677
Website: www.farcanada.org
Mike - Real Raw Recovery:
Instagram: @realrawrecovery
Podcast: Real Raw Recovery (Mondays)
Chad Johnson:
Not All There Podcast: https://notalltherepod.com/
Sober with Chad: https://www.soberchad.com/
Art of Recovery Foundation: https://www.artofrecoveryfoundation.org/
🌟 Core Takeaways
✅ Addiction is an illness, not a moral failing
✅ Evidence-based strategies (CRAFT, MI, ACT) work
✅ Self-worth is foundational to recovery
✅ Family involvement significantly improves outcomes
✅ Trauma must be addressed for lasting recovery
✅ Recovery is more than abstinence—it's building a life you're proud of
✅ Community connection is essential
✅ Humor and vulnerability can be healing
✅ You're not alone—recovery is possible
Building Connection. Empowering Lives. Restoring Hope.
Toronto Sober Living Network - Every Friday @ 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM EST