RR 218: Radical Self Care in Sobriety with Jesse HarlessRR 218: Radical Self Care in Sobriety with Jesse Harless
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Omar Pinto talks with entrepreneur and author Jesse Harless about radical self-care in sobriety, including cold showers, structured routines and deep spiritual work. Jesse shares his journey from federal charges and addiction to long-term recovery, entrepreneurship and an “unstoppable” mindset.
1:29:12•16 Apr 2019
Radical Self-Care, Cold Showers and an Unstoppable Recovery with Jesse Harless
Episode Overview
- Radical self-care practices like structured mornings, meditation and cold showers can dramatically boost energy and emotional stability in recovery.
- Reframing anxiety as “energy” and focusing on managing that energy helps reduce fear and social discomfort.
- Consistent journaling, goal-setting and calendar use create evidence of progress, which strengthens confidence over time.
- Intuition can be a life-saving guide, and practices like silence and meditation help you hear it more clearly.
- Having a recovery team of at least five people you can call is crucial for support and relapse prevention.
“My intuition saved my life, even in my active addiction.”
Curious about how others shape their sobriety around bold daily habits? This conversation between host Omar Pinto and guest Jesse Harless shows how “radical self-care” can become just as addictive as substances once were. Jesse, founder of Entrepreneurs in Recovery and author of *Smash Your Comfort Zone with Cold Showers*, shares how a four‑year spiral from college party drinking into cocaine, heroin and online pill orders ended with federal agents, court chains and a possible seven‑year sentence.
He describes looking over in court at his crying family and realising, “It was like I’d been asleep for four years.” From there, he threw himself into recovery: 12‑step meetings, therapy paid for by the court, full‑time work, and slowly finishing not one but two psychology degrees. He also built what he calls radical self-care: journaling for 13 years, a tightly structured calendar, and a morning routine that now runs up to an hour.
You’ll hear him walk through that routine in detail: vitamins and water set out the night before, making the bed for an early win, meditation, visualisation, gratitude, goal review and then his signature cold shower practice. For anyone thinking “that sounds impossible”, he breaks it down into a simple 20‑minute version you can try tomorrow. Jesse also talks about living with intense social anxiety for years in sobriety, even needing medication, and how reframing it as “energy” changed everything.
Cold showers, mindset work and deliberately doing scary things slowly shifted him to what he now calls an “unstoppable mindset”. The episode is aimed at people in recovery who want more than just not drinking: those interested in personal growth, entrepreneurship and building a life where energy, intention and intuition lead the way. It might leave you asking: what’s one small act of radical self-care you’re ready to commit to today?
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