The Hopeaholics
The Hopeaholics
Addicted to Hope
Doing Zoom IOP With Beer In The Closet Behind Me w/ Sean Couper | The Hopeaholics Podcast #343
1 hour 14 minutes Posted Jul 10, 2026 at 12:00 am.
Cold Open
Intro
Meet Sean Couper / Nashville
Growing Up: Saint Pete and North Hollywood
First Drink at 5 Years Old
First Real Drunk at 13
Finding Out His Real Father Wasn't His Dad
Moving Out at 18 / Healthcare Career
Compound Pharmacy: Mixing Meds for HIV Patients
30 Years as a Functioning Alcoholic
Marriage and Family
The Bachelorette Party Incident
First Marriage Ends: His Ex-Wife's Pill Addiction
Single Father, Bottle a Night
Mom Dies Christmas 2019 / Three DUIs / COVID
The Doctor Flags His Liver
Physical Collapse: Jaundice, Edema, Passing Out
Relapse: "Just One Beer"
Hiding Bottles, Replacing Liquor with Water
Daughter Finds the Beer / Wife Throws Him Out
Agrees to Treatment / Zoom IOP While Still Drinking
Waving the White Flag
Telling His Daughter / The Drive to Cumberland Heights
The "Let Go and Let God" Sign
Detox, Post-Acute Withdrawal, 21 Questions Exercise
Leaving Treatment / Wanting to Help People
Going Back to School
Getting Back in the Gym / Brian Welch Connection
Becoming NASM Certified
Life Today: Full-Time Trainer, Working with People in Recovery
Fear, New Business, and Building Something New
Chad's First Podcast Panic Attack
How Natalie Joined the Show
Wrap Up
0:00
1:14:23
Download MP3
Show notes
Chad and Natalie sit down with Sean Couper, a personal trainer and 4.5 year sober alcoholic who spent three decades functioning at a high level in corporate healthcare. Sean covers his full story: growing up between Florida and California without a real father figure, a first drink at five years old, thirty years of high-functioning alcoholism that nearly ended with liver and kidney failure, three DUIs exactly a decade apart, his mom dying on Christmas Day 2019, and the long road from ...