Welcome to Sober Soulful, a beautiful, diverse, 2,400+ member community.
As a sober writer and Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, I offer a safe, expansive space for folks:
In recovery from or examining their relationship with alcohol and other drugs, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive patterning, online technologies and social media, overwork, perfectionism, external validation, fucked-up relationships, etc.
Seeking an intimate, personal exploration of addiction, sobriety, and being human.
Reach me by email here: hello@danaleighlyons.com (no spam, unsolicited offers, or unasked-for advice, please.)
What can you expect at Sober Soulful?
In short? Intimate explorations of how to show up and grow up in this body-mind-soul. Also how to navigate being and becoming with honesty, heart, curiosity, and a willingness to un-know—rather than insisting on answers.
That’s the soulful part. For me, in sobriety, it couldn’t be otherwise.
This newsletter will often feel like good medicine, but it’s not prescriptive. Unless you’re seeing me as a patient in clinic or asking as a friend or loved one off platform, I’m not offering advice about what you should do—whether as pertains to sobriety or anything else. I’m sharing my personal, living experience.
Take what’s useful. Push off from there. Leave the rest.
Not sober? Not a problem!
Don’t feel as though you need to identify as an addict, sober, sober curious, or in recovery to stick around. If you follow me a while, you’ll learn pretty quick how I feel about conventional narratives, boxes, and labels.
The 2,400+ member community at Sober Soulful is wonderfully diverse, and I hold recovery and sobriety in a living, breathing, ever-changing way—one that’s expansive, inclusive, and quintessential human. (And we’re all human here, still figuring it out.)
On the other hand, if you’re not the least bit soulful (which is not synonymous with or equivalent to “religious,” though they can overlap), this might not be the newsletter for you (or maybe, it’s exactly the newsletter for you!). I approach sobriety and life through a spiritual, soul-conscious lens—even when on a tear about those boxes and labels.
Free versus paid
You can expect two free essays a month. Most essays do move behind the paywall after a week or two. This is in part because I put many hours into creating this newsletter. It’s also because much of my content is deeply personal. I don’t feel comfortable providing full, unlimited access for free.
Paying subscribers receive:
The Ask Me Anything column, where I answer personal questions and share some of my most vulnerable content and advice learned the hard way.
The Early Sobriety series, consisting of a personal love letter and resources to support quitting a thing (whether substance or behaviour) the first Sunday of every month.
The Financial Sobriety series, where I explore beliefs and patterns around money, covering topics such as: shame and secrets, limiting beliefs and falling victim to our stories, systemic and familial cycles and the difficulty of breaking them, unspoken agreements and unhelpful dynamics in relationships, self-sabotage, and addiction to patterns of consumption.
The Eating & Body series, where I explore beliefs and patterns around food and body, covering topics such as: disordered eating, body dysmorphia, anorexia, binge eating, trauma and protective mechanisms, connections between eating addictions and addiction to alcohol and social media, and supportive routines and practices.
The Hyper Online series, where I explore patterns and addictions related to online technologies, covering topics such as: social media, hate comment culture, online ethics and etiquette, performance of identity, pursuit of external validation, and parallels between online consumption and other addictions.
Access to community pop-up threads, where you’re welcome to share your personal stories and promote your work within this kind, supportive community.
Essays exclusive to paying members plus the full archive—I move most posts behind the paywall a few weeks after publication.
What it costs and why
Full access to Sober Soulful costs:
$9.00/month or
$30/year (72% cheaper than subscribing monthly)
This is the lower end for annual subscriptions on Substack. If you instead opt for the free version, you’ll receive two essays each month. You’ll miss out on exclusive essays and the full archive, AMAs, Financial Sobriety series, Early Sobriety series, Eating & Body series, and Hyper Online series.
Thank you for being here. I appreciate you. I love you.
Dana
