Foundations: The First Year of Sobriety, Explained

Nobody gives you a map for the first year. They give you slogans — one day at a time, keep coming back — and the slogans are true, but they are not a map. That is what this book is.

A map of the first year of sobriety, drawn by someone walking it one year ahead of you, from a kitchen table in Claremont, New Hampshire. Across 72 chapters, Steven Lavoie blends lived experience with anchor practices, honest inventories, and tools you can use the same day you read them: how to get through the first ninety days, how to handle the holidays, how to rebuild trust one kept promise at a time.

Practical, honest, and built to be worked — not just read. This is the book for the questions that hit at 2 a.m. and the days when the slogans are not enough and you need to know what to actually do.

The first year is the foundation. Build it right, and everything after it has something to stand on. Walk it with someone who just finished the walk himself.