You already know why you drink, and it has not stopped you. Leanna Lapidus, a clinical hypnotherapist who spent a decade at Passages Malibu, joins Massimo Rigotti to explain why a craving is a conditioned program installed by repetition and feeling, why the discipline that built a career cannot out-argue it, how relapse starts in thought and emotion long before the glass, and what returns when the program finally changes.

• Insight is not the problem. A craving is a conditioned response the subconscious learned through repetition.
• The program is installed by feeling. The first drink quiets the overthinking mind, and the cycle becomes a chase for that first warmth and comfort until life begins to hurt.
• The discipline that wins at work does not reach the emotional part that addiction speaks to. High achievers win this battle when they use the same goal process with a why big enough to overpower the desire to use.
• Hypnotherapy is guided, not controlled. She quiets the mind, finds the root, such as insecurity, unworthiness, or imposter syndrome, and the client chooses the new response, visualizes it, and feels it so the change is real.
• Relapse happens in thought and emotion first. One invited thought, like nobody will know, links to a bigger story, and a deal that falls through or a hard night at home makes it louder. Catch the thought, call it a lie and reach for your why.
• Massimo's SOBER move this week is the rehearsal. Ten minutes before your most predictable window, close your eyes and rehearse the next 20 minutes in first person and real time, including the moment you want the drink and you not taking it. Then live it, write one line about what your body did and what you felt, and repeat for seven days.

00:00 Why insight alone never stops a craving
00:35 How a craving becomes a conditioned program
01:49 Why people keep chasing the first feeling
03:39 Why the discipline that wins at work loses here
05:15 How a big enough why overpowers the desire to use
06:32 What actually happens in a hypnotherapy session
08:48 When it is time for a doctor or a treatment center
10:00 Why relapse happens before you pick up the glass
11:45 How one unchallenged thought builds the story that says yes
13:04 What Passages Malibu taught her about readiness
15:05 How growing up around addiction built her compassion
16:47 What choice means when you feel you have none
18:40 Why the SOBER Method stalls at behavior
19:59 What comes back first when the program changes
20:43 How to run this week's rehearsal
21:35 What she would tell her younger self

🎁 Free gift! The exact 5 tools I use with clients to name what is really driving the urge to numb, before it takes over. Grab them free: https://sobermethod.com/5tools
📘 Digital S.O.B.E.R. Method, available now: https://amazon.com/dp/B0H93ZTVS9

If you want lasting sobriety without walking into a room that could follow the job or the license, start at https://sobermethod.com.

Leanna Lapidus, C.Ht., is a Los Angeles clinical hypnotherapist and transformational coach who has spent more than 15 years helping people heal anxiety, trauma, and addiction at the root, including a decade as a clinical hypnotherapist at Passages Malibu. Trained at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, she grew up in a family affected by addiction and is the author of You Have a Choice: The Proven 5 Step Method to End Suffering and Start Living. She joins this episode to explain why a craving is a program the conscious mind cannot out-argue, and how that program actually gets changed. Start at https://www.leannalapidus.com instagram.com/@leanna_lapidus

He was closing real deals the whole time, so nobody needed to ask what else was going on. Nick Mechanic, a former Hollywood agent, joins Massimo Rigotti to tell the story of a double life that ran on commission checks, cocaine, and methamphetamine, the tells that gave him away long before the law did, the Beverly Hills arrest that did not stop him, and the meetings, sponsor, and purpose that keep him sober today.

• Performing well at work can hide addiction from everyone, including you. Nick kept his job because he was really good at what he did, even while he was hungover and missing a lot of work, and he admits he thought he was bigger than he was.
• The body tells on you before you confess. A whistle through the nose, sweating through staff meetings, and a clenched jaw made his use obvious to the people around him.
• An arrest is not always the bottom. Nick kept living that insanity for three more years after the police searched his house, because, as he says, "Consequences don't matter to addicts and alcoholics."
• Help landed when it came from people who had lived it. A psychologist who did not share his experience could not reach him, so he needed like minded people to get a hold of his disease.
• Recovery means refusing to romance the past. Nick says, "This is a thinking disease," and he no longer prays to get his old life back.
• Daily accountability keeps the mindset in check.
• Massimo's Observe move this week: "I want you to keep observing and journaling your own behaviors daily."

00:00 What shows up before a double life collapses
00:37 Why closing real deals hid the functioning addict
02:30 How the tells gave him away on set and in meetings
04:28 Why help only worked from people who had lived it
05:22 What the agency years rewarded and why it never felt like enough
07:17 How using turned into dealing when cash flow got tight
08:27 Why a Beverly Hills arrest did not stop the insanity
12:49 How a clean record until 40 shaped his case
16:21 Why he refuses to romance the past
17:36 How the excuses piled up when he was calling in sick
19:08 How purpose and humility keep the addictive mindset in check
21:33 Why consequences do not matter to addicts and alcoholics
22:43 How friends, meetings, and Sunday messages keep him accountable
24:32 What gets Nick out of bed in the morning

• 🎁 Free gift! The exact 5 tools I use with clients to name what is really driving the urge to numb, before it takes over. Grab them free: https://sobermethod.com/5tools
• 📘 Digital SOBER Method, available now: https://amazon.com/dp/B0H93ZTVS9

If you want lasting sobriety without walking into a room that could follow the job or the license, start at https://sobermethod.com.

Nick Mechanic is a former Hollywood agent who made movie and TV deals for actors, writers, directors, and producers before addiction, drug dealing, and arrest took that life apart. Today he is sober, active in a 12 step program, still selling TV series, and the host of The Mechanic with Alan Katz, as well as an executive producer of John Kiriakou's Dead Drop. He joins this episode to name the hidden tells of a functioning addict and what finally changed. Listen to The Mechanic at
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mechanic/id1890537332
and Dead Drop at
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/john-kiriakous-dead-drop/id1844905790

A father who solves problems for a living learns that love cannot control his son's addiction. On this World Mental Health Day 2026, a bonus episode of the SOBER Method Podcast Perspectives series, Katie Rizzo returns, and for the first time a guest is not alone. Her husband, Nick Rizzo, shares the father's side of losing their oldest son, Nicholas, to an accidental overdose.

Nick talks about the anxious, sensitive, soccer-loving boy he raised, the boundaries he set, the night he called the police, and the regret that still visits him. The turn comes when he admits he can hold two truths at once: that it felt like his job to protect his son, and that he never could have controlled the addiction. He describes going back to work two weeks later and telling no one, learning guitar to honor Nicholas, and why staying connected in Al-Anon and grief groups helped more than ruminating alone. If you are still using and feel your parents' anger, Nick has a message for you: they still love you, and nothing you did changed that.

Chapters

00:00 Meeting Nicholas Through His Dad's Eyes
04:16 Why Love and Anger Lived Side by Side
09:38 Why a Fixer Couldn't Outwork Addiction
14:27 How Al-Anon Helped Save Their Marriage
22:11 Your Parents Still Love You
30:35 Why Men Grieve in Silence at Work
35:46 How a Guitar Became a Way to Honor Him
42:20 One True Sentence to Carry This Month

• Katie's first episode S1E10, He Wasn't an Addict...He Was My Son: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_cX_TtBCTM
• Katie Rizzo, author of The Trimesters of Grief: https://katierizzo.com

Work with Massimo: https://sobermethod.com

Your future is SOBER™