Easier Ways is here to help a person stay sober, trust their own wisdom, and build a life they want without the need to rely upon traditional recovery methods. That said, there is nothing here that will contradict what is found in any support program. At Easier Ways, we know there’s no single path to sobriety. What works for one person might not work for another, and that’s exactly how it should be. Therefore, we respect whatever helps someone find their footing. That’s why we’ve taken a deep dive into the different approaches out there and created a resource center to help people explore their options and figure out what fits for them. And even though every method has its own language and focus, all of them rest on a few shared foundations: honesty, open-mindedness, a willingness to start… and as you go, humility and commitment. Then there are a few things that don’t always get talked about, but when you step back and take an objective look, especially through the lens of behavioral science, they start to stand out pretty clearly. 🟢 The thing a person trying to change? It’s almost never the real problem. It’s a symptom, a sign that something deeper is asking for attention. 🟢 Relapse isn’t some kind of personal failure. More often than not, it just means the help the person had didn’t reach the real need underneath. 🟢 Every one of us has core psychological needs. The need to feel safe. To experience variety and adventure. To feel appreciated. To love and be loved. To avoid pain and experience joy. And when those needs aren’t met? We’ll do whatever we can; sometimes in ways that help, sometimes in ways that hurt, to try and meet them. that’s when life can start to feel complicated, and overwhelming. Unsafe. 🟢 Every single one of us runs on patterns; patterns of thought, patterns of behavior. One of the deepest habitual patterns is the feeling that the present moment is not good enough. 🟢 Everyone is capable of change. In fact, we do it all the time. We change our minds, our opinions, our plans. But the trickier part isn’t surface-level change. It’s the deeper stuff, the beliefs we’ve been carrying for years about who we are and how life works. A lot of those beliefs made sense at some point. They helped us feel safe, in control, or at least able to make sense of things. But over time, what once protected us can start to hold us back. The challenge is, we tend to see what we expect to see. Thanks to confirmation bias, we accept the evidence that supports our old story and ignore the stuff that doesn’t fit. Real change starts when we’re willing to get curious about those old beliefs, to ask, “Is this actually helping me now?” And if it’s not, to make room for something new through insight. When we see differently, we live differently.

Hi friends I am so grateful that you have accepted the invitation to join the Easier Ways community on Skool. It's been a learning experience for me, and I hope you have gleaned something valuable. That said, I am going to put the Skool community on pause while I create a book. The tentative title is "Easier Ways; Stories of Recovering the Joy of Living." If you have a story about your fresh start in life that has led to a new joy of living, I would love to explore the possibility of collaborating in the book's writing or recording a conversation for a podcast. And of course, I can always be reached on Facebook or you can email me at [email protected] Randy

Humility and honesty are two sides of the same coin, and here’s why: both require you to drop the façade and face reality as it is, not as you wish it to be. Humility isn’t about thinking less of yourself or pretending to be smaller than you are. It’s about stripping away the ego-driven nonsense that makes you inflate your accomplishments or ignore your flaws. It’s admitting, "Hey, I don’t have all the answers, and that’s okay." And honesty? It’s the same thing, just pointed outward. Honesty says, “Here’s the unvarnished truth, even if it’s uncomfortable.” It’s being real about who you are, what you want, and what you’ve screwed up along the way. When you’re honest with yourself, humility naturally follows because the truth has a way of cutting through all the ego-stroking B.S. The reason these two concepts are inseparable is simple: you can’t be truly honest without being humble, and you can’t be humble without being honest. If you’re too busy pretending you’ve got it all together, you’ll never admit the truth to yourself or anyone else. And if you’re too afraid to be honest, you’ll never see the value in stepping back and saying, “I could be wrong here.” At the end of the day, humility and honesty are what keep you grounded.

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Alright, so let’s talk about wonder and awe—two things we all used to have in spades as kids but somehow managed to lose somewhere along the way between taxes and scrolling through Twitter at 2 a.m. These days, wonder and awe are like those rare birds you only hear about in nature documentaries—beautiful, fleeting, and barely seen in the wild. And the thing is, without them, life starts feeling pretty damn flat. It’s like going through life in black and white when you know color exists. So, that’s the mission here: to help people recover that spark, that sense of “holy crap, life is amazing,” even if it’s a bit messed up most of the time. Because here’s the thing—wonder and awe aren’t just nice little add-ons. They’re fuel. They’re what make us feel alive, connected, and actually excited to get out of bed in the morning. Without them, you’re just grinding, going through the motions, thinking the next promotion or the next “perfect” relationship will give you that feeling. Spoiler alert: it won’t. Helping people recover wonder and awe means digging beneath the “what’s wrong with me?” questions and getting back to the “what’s actually right with life?” part of ourselves that we’ve ignored for way too long. It’s about learning how to see again—to notice the little things, the beauty in the ordinary, and the magic in what we already have. We’re talking about breaking out of the mental boxes we’ve put ourselves in, the labels and expectations, and all the noise that makes life feel so heavy. It’s about peeling all that back and finding a part of ourselves that can still look at the world and say, “Whoa.” Because when we see the world with that kind of curiosity and awe, suddenly everything starts to feel more possible.