Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - You Don’t Have to Lose Everything to Quit Drinking - Ash Butterss

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

You don’t have to lose everything to question your drinking.In this episode, I sit down with Ash Butterss to talk about the moment she realized something needed to change—and why you don’t need a traditional “rock bottom” to quit drinking.Ash shares her sobriety journey, from living a life that looked fine on the outside to realizing she wasn’t truly happy or showing up as her authentic self. We talk about sober curiosity, emotional growth, and what it really takes to build an alcohol-free life.This conversation dives into the reality of quitting alcohol, learning how to deal with emotions without drinking, and why comparison and expectations can keep people stuck.Ash also opens up about the early days of sobriety, navigating major life changes, and how sobriety helped her reconnect with who she truly is.If you’re questioning your relationship with alcohol, trying to stop drinking, or wondering if life could be better without it—this episode will resonate.Ash on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashbutterss/For support visit: https://www.sobermotivation.com/Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co/Sober Motivation Website: https://www.sobermotivation.comSupport the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivationContact me anytime: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Great to have you for another episode. Brad here, right before we get into it, two seconds of your time. I recently started adding video podcast episodes to YouTube and I'm 125 subscribers away from reaching 1,000. If you could take two seconds out of your day, go over there and subscribe to the channel. Tell a few of your friends. Thank you so much. Now let's get to the show. You don't have to wait until you've lost everything. You don't have to compare your life with anybody else around you or the perception of what an alcoholic is. I think at the end of the day, if you can just really have an honest look at your own life and a true reflection and ask yourself, am I happy? Great to have you back for another

episode. In this episode, I catch up with my friend Ash Butters. Ash and I've known each other for years. She's always been incredibly supportive. And I love just to get her perspective and her take on this process, how it's changed her life, what she sees working for others. And this is Ash Butter's update story here on the Sober Motivation Podcast. I'm curious there when you mentioned, like I think there's a lot of people living in that spot too that you mentioned that your drinking is no different and that, you know, maybe all of the outside indicators aren't there. I think that people are on this, maybe search for things falling apart before doing things before doing something about drinking. I mean, what help do you kind of move through that phase, you know, to get to a spot where like, okay, some changes would help me. Well, I think that the journey to recovery looks different for everybody. And one thing that you can't compare is your rock bottom. So for me, I define my rock bottom as this one night where I went out, you know,

I was staying with my mum in Melbourne and I told her that I was going to be home after a couple of drinks. The reality was I got home at 8 o'clock the next morning and the look on her face, which I'd seen a million times before, but that time it just broke me. something just broke me, like my spirit in that moment shattered. And so I guess what I would say is you don't have to wait until you've lost everything. You don't have to compare your life with anybody else around you or the perception of what an alcoholic is. I think at the end of the day, if you can just really have an honest look at your own life and a true reflection and ask yourself, am I happy?

Am I showing up as the person I know I truly am? because that was one thing that I've only noticed in hindsight is I thought I was happy with the person I was back when I was drinking and how I was showing up. Six years down the path, I can look back at that version of Ash. And I think, oh my goodness, you poor thing. Like I was so inauthentic. I was such a people pleaser. It's like I was just trying to do life so desperately, but nothing was quite falling into place. You know, everything was an effort.

everything was hard and I kept bumping up against life. You know, there was always friction. There was always, you know, like, I'll give you an example, Brad. I used to always crash my car. Not head on collisions with other people. No one else was harmed, but like I would always be scratching my car, opening my car into poles and really silly things, which is such an indication that I'm not being present.

I'm not in the moment. Do you know how many times I've done that since getting sober? None. None. You know, like it's just, yeah. So if you're in that phase of like maybe you're not sure if you're in, you know, we call it sober curious or in you're in that pre-contemplation phase, I would say just try it for a year and just see if your life gets better.

One thing that I was told was, you know, if you want your old life back at the end of this, you can go get it. But the unknown is sobriety. The drinking, the trying to moderate, the guilt and the shame and the, the appellate. and the apologies, you know all of that. You've done all of that. Like, I did that for 20 years. And so I was like, well, you know, I had just gotten to a point

where I had this deep realization that the only person that was going to get me out of this was me. And I needed to take some different actions from the ones that I had been taking. Like, I needed drastic change to be able to get this. Yeah, beautifully said there too. I mean, a very relatable story to where it's like, where are the people or the person or it's going to be. that's going to get us out of that situation by what we do next.

And you mentioned going to rehab and then kind of dropping into in the lockdown of everything you had planned and making shifts. And I think that might be something out there too in sobriety. I know it's not everybody's journey, but what really is? I mean, I don't think there's any one path that it's going to be like, okay, everybody is going to follow this. But sometimes things get extremely difficult in the beginning because, and I see it so many different ways.

But for me, the drugs, the alcohol were the way. that I coped with life and things being unmanageable and feeling like I didn't have control or insecurities or everything else. And then, okay, there was like one of maybe two tools that I had on my belt of like addressing life and that's gone. And things got heavy for a little bit too. And I hear that a lot for, you know, with conversations with people recently that it's really tough to stay because it should be this big bright sort of I've made it, you know, 90 days type deal. Yeah, but you're right, because you've taken away the one thing that was your solution to life.

You know, I heard someone share with me once, like it was the thing that I used to blunt the edges of life because life can be really sharp and really painful. And you know what, Brad, for me, I think back to in that first 12 months, I always thought the hardest thing in sobriety was going to be managing the cravings and social situations. They were like the two things I was most worried about. What completely flawed me was actually learning how to deal and manage my emotions without alcohol because that had been the answer to everything, whether we were celebrating, commiserating, anything in between.

And I remember the only time I came really, really close to picking up a drink was when it was actually, believe it or not, it was when I was about to turn one. I think I was a couple of weeks, or maybe a month away from turning one in terms of one year sobriety. And I had been living in Sydney at the time and I couldn't get back to Melbourne for my brother's wedding because we were put into a lockdown that ended up lasting for like four months. And so I couldn't cross the border and I'm really close to my brother. He's my big brother. He was marrying one of my best friends.

And at the same time, I knew deep down that I was very, very close to ending my own marriage. I'd been trying to make it work for that first 12 months. and it just wasn't, I just knew at that point it wasn't going to work. And on the wedding day, the emotion that overcame me, it felt like my heart was ripping into, I remember watching it on FaceTime and all I wanted was a drink. Like I just, it was the only thing my head was screaming at me, just have a drink, have a drink, you'll feel better. And you know what?

For the first few moments I probably would have, but then I would have had to have dealt with the guilt, shame and remorse that comes with that. I know that I would have ended up having a bend, And I don't know if or when I ever would have come back to recovery had I made the decision that day. And so one thing that I did was I made sure that I was really supported on that day. And I actually ended up spending the whole day with my best friend. He stayed with me.

We watched the wedding together. We went for dinner after. He stayed with me right until bedtime. And then he dropped me off and I went home. And, you know, for people out there who are doing it alone, like I can't stress the importance of community, whatever that looks like for you, whether you're in a sober support. group, whether you are in a 12-step fellowship, like, and also just being really honest and transparent with your friends that are still drinking and just explaining how important this is.

I think sometimes shame keeps us quiet and we don't tell people what's really going on. But if you can be really honest, like, I've never actually had someone say, come on, just have one drink, because they know that I went to rehab and that I nearly died from this disease. So the more we can kind of like, just be really honest with people and say, hey, I'm going to need a bit of support today. Like, it just helps so much so that you don't have to do this alone. Yeah, that's so true. I mean, plugging into something, too, I've seen be so helpful not only for me, but for so many others.

Yeah. Because, you know, in letting other people know when we're ready, I think is good, too. Because I hear sometimes people say, oh, you're not going to believe it, Brad. You know, I went to this party and they offered me a drink. And I said, oh, I said, oh, well, they must know that you're sober. And they say, oh, they have no idea. They have no idea of this journey I'm on. I said, so they were being a good host.

I mean, you can't fault everybody around us for not. you know, for trying to be a good host or the best host they can. So I think opening up those conversations and being honest with people too is huge. And you find other people on the journey who you can relate to and have been through things, you know. I've heard a lot of people in the sober motivation community, they share something and they're just like, man, other people could relate and they thought they were the only one in, you know, one way or another. and it feels like it's just a weight off their shoulders. I was just going to say, like, that's the power of identification, right? Like, I know, like, that's why I started a podcast.

I'm pretty sure that's part of the reason you started this incredible podcast so that people can hear stories of other people and go, oh, my God, I'm not alone. And then on top of that, oh, my God, if they were able to get sober, maybe I can too. It's so powerful. Did you have anybody in your life? that was sober before you got sober that you looked up to? Yeah, you know, Brad, my dad was 10 years sober when I came into recovery. And this is what's so wild and, you know, we call it like a baffling cunning disease.

It's I had an example of the chaos, the carnage. Like my dad lost everything to addiction. And then he, you know, he managed to rebuild his life over the course of 10 years. And there were a few times throughout that last sort of five years of my drinking where, you know, I'd sufficiently burn my life to the ground and he would take me to a meeting. And it was very much like, hey, I just want to show you like it wasn't any pressure. There wasn't any sort of like expectation that I had to get sober. He just wanted to support me.

And like I said, you know, I would go into those spaces and I would listen for all of the differences rather than the similarities. And I would use different people's stories as a reason. why, well, I'm not like that. I never did that. I never lost my license. I never fill in the gap, you know, and it's always the yets, right? Because I'm sure that all would have happened eventually. And so I kept that as almost like a way to keep myself separate from, which meant that I didn't even think that I qualified for recovery. I didn't think I was bad enough. But the reality was, this was going to kill me one way or another, whether it was through, you know, a fault of my own or

my own hand. I don't know, but I just knew that by the end, I was so desperate for something to change that I was, like I said, willing to do whatever it would take. Yeah. Wow, that's right. Now I'm remembering back to the story of, you know, that example. And I think the way your dad, you know, went about it in that short story there is just, you know, such a great way. I mean, if we could force everybody to, you know, get sober and everything. Because what the other part you mentioned there is sort of, you know, the road block is, you know, the roadblock is, that if we don't see it as a problem or we don't see it as impact in our life negatively at that point, it's like, well, why would I, you know, why would I get sober? Like, I can keep it

all together. Like, it kind of makes, make sense. Because the insanity of it, right, Brad, is that you will say to yourself, next time will be different. And I truly believed that. You know, I really thought that I could manage and control my drinking up until the night before I was going to rehab. I was like, no, I've got this. I'll figure it out because I thought that it was some sort of moral failing on my part. I didn't realize that I carry this illness that means that when I drink alcohol, it has a physiological effect on my body that is different to my mates who are, who are having a couple of drinks and then putting the bottle down. Like that, that just, I just can't do that. Yeah, that's true. That's strange. That of this stuff. I don't know. That's strange stuff.

Those weirdos. Yeah. I mean, I could do that occasionally to put on a show, but I always had sort of a backup plan or like I wasn't just done drinking there, but I could, yeah, oh, yeah, guys, yeah, no, you guys want to leave? Yeah, no, I'm not going to finish that. I'll just leave that. But I, that wasn't the end of, you know, my run.

I did my best drinking when nobody was watching too. Oh, my God. My favorite was I'd go for dinner with the girls and then I would drive and then I would pick up a bottle of red wine on the way home and then I would sit there and just drink by myself and that was my favorite part of the night. Yeah. Yeah. So bring us up to speed. I mean, what have things been like for you since? I know it's been busy for you. Yeah, life has changed so much, like I said. So, you know, in that year one, and I mentioned this in my previous episode, but just those who haven't heard it, you know, I ended up leaving my marriage when I was a year

sober. At two years sober, I left the safety of my corporate job. I'd been working for L'Oreal for five years prior to that, another beauty company for 10 years. And it was a, it was a dream job up until that point. But the really cool thing that happens in sobriety is you start, you start to figure out who you really are. And I think that a lot of my life had been created by this perception of who I thought I needed to be. And then once those layers started to fall away, what was left was the real me. And I started to really understand that I wanted to be in service to others and that I wanted to help people. And so that's when I started my podcast, behind the smile. I, left my corporate job and I retrained as a yoga and a meditation teacher.

And now what I do today, what my life looks like today, I run retreats, I run events, I do breath work with clients, I help them. Really, the thing that lights me out from the inside out is helping people who are completely burnt out, overwhelmed high achievers who don't know how to switch off, help them regulate their nervous system. Because the biggest myth that I've figured out in the last six years is that we are conditioned to believe that the answers are outside of ourselves, whether that's happiness, success, you name it.

What I've come to understand is that it's all within. You just need to learn how to access it. And so that's what it gives me the most joy in life today is helping people to do that. And it means that my own life today, you know, because I have to embody the work that I share. There's nothing that irritates me more than people who are out there saying these things and not actually living and breathing it themselves. And so my life today looks really, really different from what it used to look like. It's a lot slower.

You know, I start my mornings really intentionally now, Brad. I don't touch my phone for the first 30 minutes of the day. I meditate every single morning. I write a gratitude list. And some of these practices are things that I was taught in rehab. And, you know, so much has changed in my life. But the one thing that has remained a constant has been that morning routine, has been a foundation to plug me in at the beginning of the day so that I can actually reconnect with who I am before the rest of the world starts to, you know, enter my sphere and

start to disrupt my energy again. So it's just simple, simple things that have allowed me to be, like I can honestly say hand on heart that I am the happiest I've ever been. Like last year, 2025 was the best year of my life. It was absolutely incredible. I got to marry my best friend, you know, because I, so I had a divorce in sobriety. I've now had another marriage. We secretly eloped in Italy, which was just incredible. You know, I never would have done that back when I was drinking because I was such a people pleaser. You know, I was so worried about the fallout.

But now I get to show up and honor myself and my life and those around me, you know, from a place of authenticity. And that's really, really cool. Wow. Thanks for the catch up. I mean, what would it have been like if I would have met you before sobriety? Because there's so, I mean, there's so much life. You have so many things going in.

it's always great energy coming from you. I mean, was this sort of how you carried yourself then as well or no? Yeah, to be fair, I think that I've always come across as somebody who's got a lot of energy and quite extroverted. But the difference between that version, you know, ash in addiction versus ash and sobriety, is that I was always wearing a mask, the old version of me. You know, I would only ever let you get so close. I would only ever let you see the best parts of me, where what I've learned how to do in sobriety on this journey is to show all. all parts of me, the good, the bad, the ugly, the messy middle, all of it. And in doing so, you know, I know, like I get so much feedback from my friends who tell me, you know,

and these guys are lifers, I've been friends with them for 25 years. And they say, you know, we love this version of you. We, you know, we always loved the old version, but this version of you is so cool because we just, we know who you really are now. So, yeah, I think it all comes back to that being able to show up authentically and let people in as well. Yeah, beautiful. What's some of your biggest takeaways from this entire journey? Some of my biggest takeaways, don't worry about what anyone else thinks. What anyone else thinks of me is none of my business. That's been such a big one for me because I think that for so many years I was driven by this desperate need for external validation. allowing that to fall away has allowed me to come to this real beautiful deep place of peace and really reevaluate my life and actually think, well, what do I want?

Who do I truly want to be and how do I want to show up in this world rather than who I think I need to be? And then coming back to that mantra of this two shall pass, you know, sobriety doesn't give you a free ticket in life. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have to deal with hard things, but it is still the greatest ride you will ever take. And so I just remind myself when I'm going through those difficult periods. And sometimes like Brad, towards the end of last year, so I think it was September last year, I had been in Europe for eight weeks on my honeymoon. I came back to Australia. Then I flew to Bali

two weeks later. I hosted an incredible retreat. I got back. I was so depressed, so burnt out, like I was absolutely shattered. And for a period of time, you know, maybe a week or so, like my world was really dark. And for anyone who's experienced depression, they'll know what I'm talking about here. It's that utter hopelessness that washed over me again. And what I do in those moments, I go back to my tools. I go back to doing the drill. You know, it's really simple steps, but they absolutely work. And all I would keep reminding myself was, this is going to pass. And you don't need to force it. You know, the old me would have tried to fix it. Whereas now, when I'm having those moments that may feel a little darker, maybe, you know,

a little more sticky. I use them as lessons. What can I learn from this experience? What does the universe God want to teach me in this moment rather than trying to fix it, trying to intellectualize it, trying to disassociate from it. And as a result of that, what I learned from that particular experience was I was still trying to do too much. I was still trying to prove to the world that I was enough. And so I was saying yes to everything, even though a lot of the time that was, that meant that I was sacrificing other things that were really important to me. And so that the life, three months of last year, I really took a slower season. And it was the best decision. Like, I'm actually now carrying that into this year because I just, I love this version of me. And I think

that it's the closest I've ever been to the most pure version of me. So I want to really protect that and maintain that. Yeah. Thanks for running us through sort of that, you know, in real life. Yeah. Yeah. About sobriety. I mean, I feel like sometimes you can get lost. You know, I look at sort of Instagram and the way it's, it's definitely changed. over time and you know, I feel like you can, it's easy to get lost in what all of this should actually look and feel like, you know, and I'm like, I look at stuff sometimes and I'm just like, man, am I like missing the boat here because that ain't my life? So I appreciate those honest,

raw stories of the sobriety is not the ticket to just the easy road with everything. Life is still going to happen and there's ebbs and flows, but I love those tools that you plug into that this two shall pass because it does. 1,000% and oh my goodness, yeah, on that point, like, I've had to let go of comparison, Brad, like that has been one of the, like especially in the world that you and I live in. Like, it's just wild out there. And one thing that has really helped me has been to let go of comparison and to let go of expectations because they were two things that really kept me stuck in a loop for a period of time there.

And, you know, the reality is, I know we've all heard this before, but Instagram is not a true reflection of people's lives a lot of the time, you know. And that's why I really do try to show when I'm in those moments of messiness, like share those as well as the good stuff as well. But yeah, for anyone out there who's like following along and, you know, maybe inspired by different creators, that's fantastic. But please don't ever compare your life because you're not seeing the full picture. That's the fact.

Yeah. That is so true. Seeing me trying to put my kids to bed at 10 o'clock and my head is skiing off my shoulders. I don't post that part on Instagram. Yeah. Thank you so much, Ash, for making time early in the morning for you, too. So thank you so much for jumping on. I saw a while back, too, that you had rebooted the podcast.

Yes. Yes. So I took a six-month break, and it's so crazy, you know, going back to that whole idea of community, I missed it so, so much. And so I decided 12 months ago to bring it back. And we've been back now for a year, and it was the best decision. ever made because jumping on having these conversations, you know, there's nothing that lights me up more, being able to help people that are on this road. So yeah, go check it out,

behind the smile with Ash Butters. And thank you, Brad. Thank you for everything that you do. You're just such a legend in this space. I think you're so real, so authentic. And I just wish you nothing but success because bloody love you. Yeah. Thank you. Before we scoot, I mean, send one thing out there to somebody who's maybe trying to figure out what their next. step is or somebody who's curious, you know, if they want to step into sobriety and, you know, give up drinking. My one piece of advice is going to be just start, like, because we can always tell ourselves, I'll do it tomorrow, or I'll do it after my birthday, or I'll do it after that wedding. Just start, if you can give yourself a year, you know, three months minimum.

But for me, a lot of the really deep changes that started to occur, these deep fundamental shifts and this rewiring and reprogramming of how I see the world, that really didn't happen until my sort of end of my first year into my second. So try to give yourself a full year of sobriety. And like I said, if you want your shitty life when you end that year, you can go back to it. No worries. Yeah. Yeah. One of my earliest mentors told me that too. He said, hey, like, as far as I see it, they'll always be selling.

alcohol. So if you're interested in that, you know what I mean? You can you can go in that direction. Beautiful. Thank you so much. And yeah, I mean, 25 was good for you. It sounds like you've got the bar raised high for 26. So I hope it stays the same. Yeah, right back at you, Brad, wishing you nothing but success and love and joy and all the good things in life. Thank you for having me. Of course.