https://allmylinks.com/thesobersessions-rec

The Sober Sessions, Boston, MA (2026)

01/11/2026

We love to throw the word forgiveness around like it’s some universal requirement. Like if you don’t forgive everyone, you’re broken. Like healing only counts if you hand out grace with no boundaries.

That’s bu****it.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: not everyone deserves forgiveness—at least not access to you ever again.

Forgiveness is not a free pass. It’s not amnesia. And it damn sure isn’t self-betrayal dressed up as spirituality.

Some people didn’t just hurt you once. They showed you who they are over and over. They crossed lines, broke trust, disrespected your boundaries, and then expected you to keep showing up smiling, calling it “being the bigger person.”

That’s not growth. That’s conditioning.

Real forgiveness isn’t about letting people back into your life like nothing happened. It’s about deciding you’re done carrying the poison. It’s about setting the weight down—not handing the person another knife.

You can forgive someone internally and still say, “You don’t get access to me anymore.”
You can release the anger and still refuse the relationship.
You can move on without reopening the wound.

Some people confuse forgiveness with obligation. They think because they apologized—or worse, because they didn’t—you’re supposed to pretend it didn’t matter.

It mattered.

And sometimes the most loving, self-respecting move is distance.

Forgiveness without accountability is just permission.
Forgiveness without boundaries is self-harm.

You don’t owe everyone a seat at your table just because you’ve healed. Some people were a lesson, not a lifetime invite.

So if you needed permission to stop forcing forgiveness on someone who keeps showing you they haven’t changed—here it is.

Protect your peace.
Honor your growth.
And remember: letting go doesn’t always mean letting back in.

— j. anthony |

01/11/2026

Let me tell you something that people don’t like to hear, but it’s the truth—and truth is kind of my thing.

You don’t beat addiction by just putting the substance down.

That’s the part everyone focuses on. “I stopped drinking.”
“I stopped using.”
Cool. That’s step one. That’s not recovery—that’s interruption.

Recovery happens when you build a new life where using doesn’t make sense anymore. Where it doesn’t fit. Where it actually feels harder to go back than it does to stay clean and sober.

Because if you don’t change the environment, the habits, the people, the thinking, the routines—then all the same ingredients that created the addiction in the first place? They’re still there. And they don’t disappear. They wait.

I know this because I live with it.

My demons didn’t vanish when I got clean and sober. They didn’t pack their bags and move out. They just got quieter. More patient. Smarter. They sit in the background, calm, almost polite, waiting for the right moment—stress, loneliness, resentment, boredom—to take a deep breath and crawl right back into my ear.

That’s the part people don’t talk about.

Addiction isn’t loud all the time. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it tells you you’ve earned it. Sometimes it tells you you’re strong enough now. Sometimes it tells you nobody would even know.

And if you haven’t built a life worth protecting, those whispers get real convincing.

Here’s the harsh reality—no sugarcoating it.

Addiction doesn’t last forever.

It ends one of two ways.

You either get clean and sober and rebuild your life…
or it kills you.

There is no third option. No permanent middle ground. No “manage it forever.” That’s a fantasy.

So recovery isn’t about white-knuckling forever. It’s about creating a life that doesn’t require escape. A life with structure. Purpose. Accountability. Meaning. Connection. A life where you wake up with something to lose.

That’s how you stay clean and sober.

Not by fighting the old life every day—but by outgrowing it.

— j. anthony |

01/11/2026

Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re drowning.

That’s the scary part.

Because you’re not flailing. You’re not screaming. You’re not asking for help. You’re standing there, chest deep, holding everyone else up, telling yourself you’re fine. You’ve convinced yourself that being strong means staying quiet. That being dependable means never breaking. That being the anchor means you don’t get to sink.

But here’s the truth nobody tells you: anchors don’t float. They just keep everything else in place while they sit under crushing weight.

A lot of people in this room know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re the reliable one. The fixer. The calm one in the chaos. The person everyone leans on when their world starts falling apart. You carry their problems, their emotions, their expectations. And you do it so well that no one ever thinks to ask how you’re doing.

Including you.

You’re so busy keeping everyone else from going under that you don’t notice your own lungs burning. You don’t notice how tired you are. How resentful you’re becoming. How heavy everything feels when you finally lay down at night and the noise stops. You tell yourself, “Just a little longer. Once they’re okay, I’ll rest.”

But that day never comes.

Because there’s always another crisis. Another call. Another person who “just needs you for a minute.” And slowly, quietly, you start disappearing inside your own life.

Here’s the hard part to accept: being selfless doesn’t mean being self-destructive. You are not required to sacrifice yourself to prove your worth. You are not failing anyone by choosing to breathe. And you are not weak for admitting that you can’t carry everything anymore.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let go of being the anchor.

Let the boat rock a little. Let people figure things out without you holding it all together. Let yourself surface. Because if you go down, everyone loses—not just you.

You matter too.

And if this hit a nerve, if you felt that tightness in your chest just now, that’s not coincidence. That’s your body telling you something your mouth hasn’t said yet.

You don’t have to drown to be useful.
You don’t have to disappear to be loved.
And you don’t have to carry everyone else’s weight to justify your place in this world.

Sometimes saving yourself is the most important rescue you’ll ever make.

— j. anthony |

01/11/2026

Here’s one thing you should know about me—and honestly, this applies to a lot of people who’ve been through some real s**t:

I will match your respect.
And I will absolutely match your disrespect.

That’s not ego. That’s not arrogance. That’s boundaries forged in fire.

See, when you’ve lived long enough, when you’ve been tested, betrayed, underestimated, and still had to get up the next morning and handle your responsibilities, you realize something important: how people treat you is information. It’s data. And you’d be an idiot not to respond accordingly.

If you come at me with respect—real respect, not performative nonsense—I’ll meet you there. I’ll give you my time. My energy. My loyalty. I’ll show up. I’ll have your back when it matters, not just when it’s convenient. Respect creates connection. It creates trust. It creates peace.

But if you come at me sideways?
If you’re dismissive, manipulative, passive-aggressive, or straight-up disrespectful—don’t be shocked when the temperature changes.

Because here’s the truth no one likes to say out loud: tolerance of disrespect teaches people how to treat you. And once you’ve learned that lesson the hard way, you stop playing dumb.

Matching disrespect doesn’t mean becoming cruel. It doesn’t mean losing your character. It means you stop over-explaining, stop chasing, stop bending, stop shrinking to keep the peace. Sometimes matching disrespect looks like silence. Sometimes it looks like distance. Sometimes it looks like saying, “Nah, I’m good,” and walking away without a speech.

And that’s growth.

Because the old version of you might’ve tried to fix it, justify it, absorb it, or blame yourself for it. The evolved version understands that mutual respect is the baseline, not a bonus.

You don’t owe access to people who don’t honor you.
You don’t owe kindness to people who repeatedly cross lines. And you damn sure don’t owe explanations to people committed to misunderstanding you.

Respect is a two-way street.
So is energy.

I’ll meet you where you meet me.

— j. anthony |

01/11/2026

I want to take a second and say this—because someone in here needs it more than they’re willing to admit.

This is a tight hug for everyone who isn’t feeling their best today.

Not the people who are crushing it.
Not the ones posting highlights.
The ones quietly holding it together.

The ones who got out of bed even though it felt heavy. The ones who smiled when they didn’t feel it. The ones carrying stuff they don’t have words for yet. Grief, exhaustion, anxiety, loneliness, pressure—sometimes all at once.

And the crazy part is, from the outside, no one would ever know.

That’s how it goes. The strongest people are usually the quietest about their pain. They don’t want attention. They don’t want pity. They just want the weight to ease up for a minute.

So if today feels off… if your chest feels tight… if you’re tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix—there’s nothing wrong with you.

You’re human.

You’re allowed to have days where you’re not okay. You’re allowed to pause. You’re allowed to feel without explaining it to anyone.

And here’s the part I really want you to hear: you don’t have to solve everything today.

Sometimes the win is just staying. Just breathing. Just not giving up on yourself when it would be easy to disappear.

So yeah—this is that hug. The kind that doesn’t try to fix you. The kind that just says, I see you. You’re not alone. You matter.

Hold on.

Tomorrow doesn’t need a perfect version of you—just a present one.

You’ve made it this far. And that counts for more than you think.

— j. anthony |

01/11/2026

Let me say something that might make people uncomfortable—but discomfort is usually where the truth lives.

Your triggers are your responsibility.

Not your partner’s.
Not your friends’.
Not the internet’s.
Not the world’s.

The world does not owe you soft edges. It doesn’t come with warning labels, safe spaces, or a customized setting designed around your wounds. Life is chaotic, loud, unfair, and relentless. And if you expect everyone else to tiptoe around your pain, you’re handing your power away.

Now, that doesn’t mean your pain isn’t real. It is. Trauma is real. Conditioning is real. The nervous system remembers things the mind tries to forget. All of that is true.

But here’s the hard part no one likes to talk about: healing begins the moment you stop making your triggers someone else’s job.

A trigger isn’t a weapon to control the room. It’s a signal. It’s information. It’s your mind saying, “There’s still work to do here.” And that work? That’s yours.

When you take responsibility for your triggers, something powerful happens. You stop reacting and start responding. You stop blaming and start understanding. You stop living in defense mode and start living with intention.

Because if every uncomfortable moment sends you spiraling, you’re not free—you’re fragile. And freedom doesn’t come from avoidance. It comes from resilience.

Growth is learning how to sit with discomfort without letting it hijack your behavior. It’s learning how to feel without exploding. It’s learning how to face your past without demanding the present protect you from it.

That’s strength.

That’s maturity.

And that’s how you stop surviving and start actually living.

— j. anthony |

01/11/2026

Tonight, sit down and let this one sink in. Because there’s a moment in life when you realize something that changes you forever.

The thing they hoped would destroy you?
The pressure.
The criticism.
The betrayal.
The whispers behind your back.
The moments they counted you out?

That didn’t break you.

It lit a fire in you.

Because pain has two options. It can consume you… or it can fuel you. And somewhere along the way, you stopped running from it and started using it. You took the doubt and turned it into discipline. You took the setbacks and turned them into strategy. You took the hate and refined it into focus.

That’s alchemy.
That’s evolution.

What was meant to end you became the very thing that sharpened you. It forced you to grow thicker skin, clearer vision, and a deeper sense of purpose. It stripped away the need for approval and replaced it with conviction.

And now?
You don’t even have to announce yourself.

Your work speaks.
Your presence speaks.
Your consistency speaks.

The same people who underestimated you don’t talk loud anymore. They whisper. Not because they don’t remember — but because they can’t ignore the transformation. Because there’s something unsettling about watching someone rise from what was supposed to bury them.

You didn’t win by getting even.
You won by getting better.

And that kind of victory?
It’s quiet.
It’s heavy.
And it lasts.

— j. anthony |

01/11/2026

If you really want to understand why your life looks the way it does, don’t start with motivation or luck.

Start with your relationships.

Not just with people—but with the three forces that quietly shape everything you become.

First, the relationship you have with yourself.

This one sets your ceiling. It determines what you believe you deserve, what you tolerate, how hard you push, and when you quit. If you don’t trust yourself, if you talk to yourself like an enemy, if you don’t keep your own promises, no amount of outside success will ever stick. The way you treat yourself behind closed doors dictates how high you’ll allow yourself to go.

Second, your relationship with time.

Time exposes your priorities without asking permission. Everyone has the same 24 hours, but not everyone uses them the same way. What you give your time to is what you’re building—whether you realize it or not. If you’re always “too busy” for what matters but never too busy for distraction, that’s not a scheduling problem. That’s a values problem.

Third, your relationship with money.

Money doesn’t make you who you are—it reveals who you already are. How you earn it, spend it, save it, or avoid it shows what you truly value. Comfort? Security? Status? Freedom? Money is honest. It exposes discipline, fear, generosity, and impulse faster than almost anything else.

And here’s the key part most people skip.

These relationships aren’t static. They drift if you don’t check them.

That’s why you audit all three—every year.

Check in with yourself.
Check in with how you spend your time.
Check in with how you handle money.

Because if even one of these is off, it quietly pulls everything else out of alignment.

Get these three right, and life gets clearer.

Not easier—but clearer.

And clarity changes everything.

— j. anthony |

01/11/2026

Let me tell you something that sounds simple, almost like a throwaway line, but it carries a ton of weight if you really sit with it.

Don’t let a wishbone grow where a backbone should be.

What that means is this: stop wishing your life would change while refusing to stand up and do the hard, uncomfortable work required to change it. A wishbone is passive. It hopes. It waits. It crosses its fingers and tells itself, “One day things will be different.” A backbone is active. It decides. It draws lines. It says, “Enough. This ends here.”

So many people spend their lives hoping circumstances will shift—hoping people will treat them better, hoping opportunity will magically appear, hoping pain will just fade on its own. But hope without action turns into stagnation. And stagnation quietly eats years of your life.

A backbone is built when you stop tolerating what’s breaking you. When you speak up instead of shrinking. When you choose discipline over comfort. When you stop outsourcing your future to luck, timing, or other people’s behavior.

Here’s the brutal truth: nobody is coming to save you. That’s not pessimistic—it’s empowering. Because the moment you realize that, you also realize the power is already in your hands. You don’t need permission to change. You don’t need perfect conditions. You need resolve.

And yeah, it’s uncomfortable. Standing your ground will cost you things. It may cost relationships. It may cost familiarity. It may cost the version of yourself that stayed small to keep the peace. But what it gives you back is far greater—self-respect, clarity, and a life that actually feels like it belongs to you.

So don’t wish your way through life.

Stand up in it.

Build a backbone strong enough to carry the life you say you want.

— j. anthony |

01/10/2026

Here’s something simple that can change your entire life if you actually take it seriously:

Pay attention to who you’re with when you feel your best.

Not hyped.
Not distracted.
Not numb.

Your best.

Who are you around when you feel calm? Clear-headed. Confident. Grounded. When you’re laughing without forcing it. When you don’t feel like you have to explain yourself, perform, or stay guarded.

That’s data.

Your nervous system doesn’t lie. Your body keeps the score long before your mind catches up. If you constantly feel drained, anxious, defensive, or smaller around certain people, that’s not random. That’s your intuition waving a red flag.

And on the flip side—when you’re around people who make you feel safe, seen, energized, and more like yourself? That’s alignment.

A lot of people ignore this because familiarity feels comfortable, even when it’s toxic. They stay in rooms that exhaust them because they’re used to the noise. They confuse chaos with connection.

But growth starts when you notice patterns.

Who brings peace into your life?
Who sharpens you instead of dulls you?
Who allows you to exhale?

Those are your people.

And here’s the hard part—sometimes the people you feel best around aren’t the ones you’ve known the longest. Sometimes they’re not the loudest, the most impressive, or the most popular. They’re just real. Consistent. Safe.

Protect those relationships.

Because the people you feel your best with aren’t just company.

They’re medicine.

— j. anthony |

01/10/2026

Alright, let’s slow this down and really look at it, because this is one of those truths that hits people in the chest when they’re finally ready to hear it.

You’re not stuck. That’s the lie your brain keeps feeding you because it’s comfortable. What you really are is committed—committed to patterns that once kept you alive. And that part matters. Those habits, those reactions, those defenses? They worked once. They protected you when you didn’t have better tools. They got you through chaos, pain, survival mode. So yeah—honor that. That version of you did what it had to do.

But here’s where people get trapped.

What saves you in one season can sabotage you in the next.

The same instincts that helped you survive rock bottom will absolutely wreck you when you’re trying to build something higher. Hypervigilance, control, isolation, self-sabotage, numbing out—those aren’t character flaws. They’re outdated software. And you’re trying to run version 1.0 in a life that requires version 5.0.

That’s why it feels like you’re pushing uphill with no traction. You’re applying an old formula to a new level. You’ve outgrown the strategy, but you keep trusting it because it’s familiar. Familiar feels safe—even when it hurts.

And this is the hard part nobody likes.

Growth requires you to betray old habits that once felt like home.

You don’t move forward by wanting it harder. You move forward by updating how you operate. New level, new rules. New relationships with discomfort. New ways of responding instead of reacting. New standards. New boundaries. New internal conversations.

If you keep doing what worked five years ago, you’ll keep getting five-years-ago results—no matter how badly you want more.

So no, you’re not broken.
You’re not lazy.
You’re not failing.

You’re just using the wrong equation.

Change the formula, and the outcome changes with it.
That’s not motivation talk—that’s reality.

And once you really get that?

Everything starts moving again.

— j. anthony |

01/10/2026

When it’s all said and done—when the noise finally quiets—no one is going to talk about the brands you wore.

They won’t care about the logo on your shirt, the square footage of your house, or the number sitting in your bank account. None of that survives the end of the story.

What lasts is something completely different.

They’ll remember how you made people feel.
They’ll remember whether you showed up when it mattered.
They’ll remember the way you loved—freely or selfishly, generously or conditionally.

Because impact leaves a mark money never can.

You can be rich and still leave nothing behind. You can have everything and still be forgotten. But when you live in a way that lifts people, challenges them, encourages them, or gives them hope—that echoes.

Real wealth isn’t what you accumulate.
It’s what you contribute.

It’s the conversations you had when someone was falling apart.
It’s the forgiveness you offered when it wasn’t deserved.
It’s the way you used your strength to protect instead of dominate.

At the end of your life, the scoreboard isn’t material—it’s relational.

And the people who mattered won’t remember what you owned.

They’ll remember who you were.

That’s the kind of wealth worth chasing.

— j. anthony |

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