Wellness Me Up Is a Question
Episode 26 of Wellness Me Up — Wellness Me Up Diary Entry
with Recovery Coach, Author & Speaker Joby Sanchez
Written and hosted by Amanda Reece, founder of Wellness Me Up.
Joby Sanchez helps high-performing people navigate addiction privately — without losing their careers, their families, or themselves. He's lived it. He coaches from it. And he turned Wellness Me Up into a question. Nobody has done that before. Just listen.
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Who Is Joby Sanchez?
Joby Sanchez is a recovery coach, author, entrepreneur, and speaker who helps high-performing individuals navigate addiction, mental wellness, leadership pressure, and personal transformation — while still managing the responsibilities of everyday life.
He is also someone who has lived every single part of what he coaches. The addiction. The shame. The hiding it. The losing days. The wife who carried the boat when he couldn't. The moment things finally shifted. All of it.
He works one-on-one. Four to five clients at a time maximum. Eight weeks per program. And he checks in on them not just during their weekly Zoom call but throughout the week — a text, an email, a simple hey what are you up to Saturday night — because he knows what it feels like to be alone in it and not have anyone ask.
The Privacy Problem Nobody Talks About
This was one of the first things Joby named that made me lean forward.
So much of the conversation around addiction is about treatment programs and rehabs and stepping away from life. But what about the CEO? The manager? The supervisor? The person who has spent decades building a career and a reputation and a family and genuinely cannot step away — and doesn't want to?
Joby built his coaching model specifically for those people. Because they exist in huge numbers. And they are suffering privately, carrying the weight of an addiction they cannot show, because showing it feels like losing everything they've worked for.
The shame of a hidden addiction is its own particular kind of hell. You're still out there. Still showing up. Still doing the job. And the second work ends... you fall back into the pattern. Nobody knows. And because nobody knows, nobody can help.
That was me too. I worked as a child and youth worker for years. I worked in separation and divorce. I was out there helping people through some of the heaviest moments of their lives. And the second work was done I was thinking about where the drinks were coming from that night. The shame of that hypocrisy sat in me for years.
Joby gets it. Because he lived it.
Delete the Numbers. Stop Going to the Places. Confide in Someone.
This is his roadmap for getting clean and it's beautifully simple.
Delete the phone numbers. Stop going to the places that activate you — and every addict knows exactly which places those are. The bathroom where things happened. The corner where you used to meet someone. The bar where the night always ended badly. You drive by them and you feel it.
And then confide in someone. Even just one person. Because the silence is what keeps you alone in it. And being alone in it is what keeps you stuck.
For Joby that person was his wife. He was ashamed she was seeing it. But he also didn't have to lie to her. And having even one person who knows — one person you don't have to perform okayness for — changes everything.
Not everyone has that person. That's where Joby comes in.
Redirect the Pattern
This is the core of what Joby does with clients and it lit my brain up completely.
Addiction runs on pattern. There's a time of day. A trigger. A sequence of events that leads you right back to the same place. And you can't just remove the thing you're addicted to and leave a gap where it was. The gap will pull you back in.
So you redirect. You find out what someone used to love before life got in the way. Before work took over. Before marriage and kids. Before the drink became the easiest thing to reach for.
He told the story of a client who had always wanted to play guitar. And Joby told him — next time you want to reach for a drink, pick up the acoustic instead. Just for ten or fifteen minutes. Just jam a little.
And the endorphins that come from learning a song — from finally doing the thing you always said you'd do — are the same endorphins. The brain doesn't care where they come from. It just knows it feels good.
I shared my own version of this. When I had my hysterectomy and could finally walk again, I remember the first time I made it around the block. I was so excited I could barely stand it. That excitement — that holy shit I just did this — it radiates off your shoulders. It becomes the thing you chase instead.
You're Only Cheating Yourself
Joby said something about honesty in coaching that I want every person considering working with a coach to hear.
He goes first. He tells clients who he is, where he came from, what his battles were. Because if he can speak freely without embarrassment or shame, they're more likely to give that back to him.
And if they don't — if they're only giving him 40% of the truth — then he can only help them with 40% of what's going on. He has 100% of their 40%. But there's a whole 60% of triggers and patterns and things happening that he can't see because they haven't told him.
You can't get 100% results from 40% honesty. It's just math.
And the person being short-changed isn't the coach. It's the client. You are only ever cheating yourself.
He Spun the Wheel Twice
A first for this podcast. Joby asked to spin again. I love him for it.
The first spin landed on: What's something you once wished for that you now have?
His answer was family. Not the word but the actual experience of it. Twenty-six years with his wife. Clean and sober and present for it. Making breakfast. Taking his son to school. Saturday movies with popcorn and a big Dr. Pepper because that's what his kid loves.
He said ten or fifteen years ago the answer would have been something physical. A car. A status symbol. Something to show people. And he had those things. And nothing changed. Because he was painting the picture for everyone else to see except himself.
Now the picture is Saturday mornings. And it's enough. It's more than enough.
The second spin — after we removed the first question — landed on: What's the hardest thing about being the one who helps others heal?
Hearing the struggle. When someone finally opens up and there's something behind the curtain that they're ashamed of even though it might not be their fault at all. He said it hits home every single time. It doesn't become just part of a conversation.
But he reframed it beautifully. The hardest thing is also the best thing. Because when you hear where someone is — really hear it — you can help them see what life looks like on the other side. And then you get to watch the snowball start to roll.
What Wellness Me Up Means to Joby
He took a breath before he answered this one. And then he said something nobody has said on this podcast before.
Wellness Me Up is a question.
From his side as a coach it's the person saying help me. Wellness me up. Get me out of this. From his side as someone who has been in addiction it's the same ask directed outward. And the beauty of it is that it works in both directions at once — the person asking and the person answering are sometimes saying the same thing in the same moment.
I don't think I'll ever hear the name of this show the same way again.
Want to work with Joby?
Joby Sanchez is a recovery coach, author, and speaker working one-on-one with high-performing individuals navigating addiction, accountability, and personal transformation — privately, and without blowing up the life they've built.
👉 jobysanchez.com
📱 Find him on socials — search Joby Sanchez
👕 And check out his wife's incredible apparel company RPS — rpsapparel.com — where 10% of all profits go to Autism of America
If this one resonated... share it with someone who's been hiding it. And subscribe to Wellness Me Up wherever you listen.
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