Resilience Is A Daily Practice with Dave Loiterstein

Dave Loiterstein's recovery story starts earlier than most, with a quiet belief he carried as a kid: if his own mother didn’t want him, nobody ever would. Alcohol and drugs showed up fast, and the “off switch” never really existed. Together we talk honestly about what craving feels like, why some brains chase blackout instead of “just one,” and the disease model of addiction.Then we get into the part most people avoid saying out loud: relapse. Dave doesn’t glamorize it or call it inevitable, but he also refuses to let shame be a life sentence. He shares what it meant to have 21 years of continuous sobriety followed by relapse. We dig into the pressure of the sobriety number and the daily reprieve that keeps recovery alive.Dave’s journey stretches far beyond survival: a music-driven life, a career as a Hollywood makeup artist, and a pivot into substance abuse counseling and rehab admissions, taking crisis calls from families who need help immediately. Structure, routine, creativity, and parenting with boundaries are part of this discussion, because stability can feel unfamiliar after years of chaos.Support the showOut Of The Blue:Exclusive content: outoftheblue-thepodcast.org/blog