"If I Can Stay Sober, Anybody Can." And He Means It.

"I'm seeing the world with new eyes. I'm thinking with a new brain."

That's Ben M. now. We first met him in 2024, three and a half years sober, and his story stopped us cold. The only boy in a big Hispanic family in El Paso. The fox on the way to school. The law license he lost. The psych ward he woke up in twice in one week. The single glass of wine on a flight to San Francisco that undid everything. We called that episode Triumph Over Trials. It became one of the most popular episodes we've ever done.

Now Ben's back. Over six years sober. And the difference between then and now is something we think you need to hear.

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Here's what happened. For a long time, Ben was a chronic relapser. Bouts with insanity, severe depression, poor-me syndrome. "I have taken every reason out of the reasons why this shouldn't work for me and argued, 'This is why it's never gonna work for me,' over and over." His sponsor finally looked at him and said, "Sweetie, I don't know what else I can tell you at this point. I think you may need to start looking for a new sponsor."

Instead of fighting it, Ben sat with it. He calls it the fever breaking. "I just sat with that emotion so long to where I finally broke through it and said, 'You know what? I'm so tired. I am so ready to start listening again.'"

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RRP 127 — Ben M. / Triumph Over Trials, Part 2: Three Sponsors, One Prayer, Over Six Years

Then something remarkable happened. He prayed for ways to be useful. Not long after, three men asked him to sponsor them, one after another. He'd been in a long dry spell. Nobody had asked him in ages. Suddenly he was the one people were turning to.

"The secret was just learning how to sit with my uncomfortable emotions and not react to them. Just because I have the thought doesn't mean I actually have to do anything. I can just sit with it and then allow time to pass."

— Ben M.

Ben still opens the door at Extended Family every Sunday night. He went to his first Pride parade. He brought breakfast casserole to the meditation meeting's sausage fest. Julie finally got him his long-overdue RRP shirt. When she posted a picture of him wearing it, a listener named Ryan commented, "He's why I stay sober and I keep coming back." Julie said she was in tears.

But the thing that stays with us is what Ben says about promises. After years of fighting this program, after relapses and rehab stints and hospital beds, he told us, "I have had so many promises come true to me." He's not a guy who says that lightly. He earned every one.

Ben says that if he can stay sober, anybody can. We believe him.

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