INSPIRING TRANSFORMATION –

Sep 8, 2022 – After getting out of bed, the couple went downstairs and dumped every last drop of alcohol down their kitchen sink. It has been over a year and Stoecker hasn’t had a drink since.  

Stoecker’s TikTok was initially made out of boredom. He called himself @thedrunkard and posted videos of himself shot-gunning beers. 

“You make such a toxic relationship, where you can live without it, and it can’t live without you, which is quite literally a transition with alcohol,” he said of his addiction. “Your entire life you’ve been living with alcohol, living with this in your hand and that’s your comfort zone. Nobody likes leaving their comfort zone.”

Stoecker now has over 63,000 followers on the platform and changed his handle to @recoveringdrunkentiktok. His videos vary from serious conversations with commenters about what it’s like to be in recovery to more light-hearted videos, like a POV of waking up and remembering everything that happened the night before.  “There were a lot of catalysts on why I started recovery, but [that night] was absolutely the peak, or the rock bottom, however you want to look at it,” he explained. “I didn’t remember 8 out of 10 Tiktoks I posted, and that was on a daily basis [asking myself], ‘Oh what did I post last night?’”  The ways Stoecker’s life has changed since becoming sober are eye-opening for him. About six months after quitting drinking, he started going to the gym. Even before working out, though, his physical appearance had changed. He found new activities to keep him occupied when he feels bored. He picked up video games again and plays regularly with his son.

“Nothing better in the world,” he captioned one video showing him and his son gaming.

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