Kohdi Rayne shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Kohdi, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
After releasing nearly 8,000 videos over the past five years, I’ve had thousands of people ask when they could experience me live… if I was a public speaker, where they could hear me in person. For a long time, that question scared me. I used to be a DJ performing for crowds of thousands, but always under the influence. Alcohol was my social armor, the only way I knew how to be fully seen.
ADHD and social anxiety made the idea of standing on stage sober feel impossible. But after years of helping others break free from that same dependence, I realized it was time to do the very thing I’d been guiding others toward: face myself without anything numbing me.
This year, I officially stepped into the public speaking space. My first event was in Italy at Evolve 2025, a private retreat in the hills of Umbria outside of Rome. That moment cracked something open. I’ve always spoken about sobriety, but I’d been afraid to go deeper… to talk about the energetics, the quantum side of recovery, and the science behind how we truly heal. Because of that experience, I’ve been formally invited back to speak in Sardinia at Evolve 2026 in Italy.
Most people don’t know this, but I’m a total science and tech nerd. I study quantum mechanics, biochemistry, and what I call quantum recovery. It might sound “woo woo” to some, but it’s the bridge between emotional healing, neuroscience, and human transformation.
I’m no longer afraid to speak from a higher level of consciousness. My mission now is to help people see who they truly are beneath their struggles… and to remind them that recovery isn’t about fixing what’s broken, it’s about remembering what’s whole.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m an international thought leader and best-selling author reshaping how the world understands recovery and human potential. As the architect of the Beyond Sober movement, my work goes far beyond helping people stop drinking… it’s about healing the core emotional, psychological, and energetic roots that create the desire to escape in the first place.
After surviving liver failure and cardiac arrest, I built what’s become one of the most talked-about recovery revolutions on the planet. Beyond Sober has helped over 15,000 people reclaim their identity, restore their nervous systems, and reconnect with who they truly are… without relying on substances to feel whole.
Today, my work is supported by a global network of world-class healers, neuroscientists, and consciousness leaders. Together, we’re bridging quantum science, biochemistry, and emotional intelligence to redefine what recovery looks and feels like in the modern world.
Beyond Sober isn’t just a program… it’s a new way of being. My mission is to bring that message to stages, systems, and conversations across the planet, helping people remember that recovery isn’t about fixing what’s broken… it’s about realizing who they are beneath the pain.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was the overemotional loud kid with undiagnosed ADHD… too much for some, not enough for others. I had a thousand thoughts firing at once and no one to help me make sense of them. I was told to quiet down, then punished for not being involved. So I learned to find comfort in curiosity, taking things apart just to see how they worked… people, music, emotions… it didn’t matter. I wanted to understand what made things tick.
But growing up without emotional support meant that sensitivity slowly turned into survival. By the time I hit my teens, the only version of me that felt safe or accepted was the one under the influence. Alcohol gave me the illusion of peace… the silence between my thoughts, the confidence to exist without apology. I thought I was escaping my mind, but I was really chasing the real me underneath it.
It took years to realize that every sip I ever took was an unconscious attempt to reach the person answering this question. That’s how I became dependent, but it’s also how I learned what I now teach: recovery isn’t about finding a new self, it’s about remembering the one you buried.
Today, my ADHD is my superpower. The same mind that once spiraled with anxiety now sees patterns others miss… emotional codes, behavioral loops, subconscious programs that keep people stuck. I’ve turned that restless energy into a lens for transformation.
So who was I before the world told me who I had to be? The same person I am now… just finally feeling allowed to be loud, curious, and free.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
There are certain things you can only learn through suffering. You learn what you can endure, what you’re willing to, and what you’ll never tolerate again. As a liver failure survivor, I discovered that my body loves me more fiercely than I ever realized… it fought to keep me alive when I didn’t. I learned that my brain is infinitely stronger than I’d ever given it credit for. There were conversations happening between my body and mind that I wasn’t consciously invited to… and once I stopped fighting reality, I stopped punishing myself for what it wasn’t.
I used to believe success meant money, women, fame, parties, admiration… all the external validations that crumble the second your internal world collapses. When liver failure and cardiac arrest stripped it all away, I realized that the version of me who achieved that “success” wasn’t strong enough to sustain it. That man lied, manipulated, and disrespected his own efforts until he lost everything. Alcoholism took my house, my career, my friends, my ability to walk… and nearly my life.
But that collapse became my greatest classroom. One of the core lessons I now teach is this: knowing what you don’t want is far more powerful than knowing what you do. And just because you’ve become skilled at surviving pain doesn’t mean you’re meant to keep living in it. Endurance isn’t identity… it’s evidence that you were built to transcend it.
My lowest point was taking thirty shots a day, fully dependent, fully broken. My greatest success wasn’t surviving that… it was giving myself permission to be happy without needing to earn it. When I had nothing, when my reputation was shredded, when everyone counted me out… I chose authenticity. I chose to be happy as I was.
Suffering is a catalyst for discovery. If you can commit to hurting yourself for years and still survive, you already have the tools to thrive. You’ve already proven your strength. The real work is remembering you deserve to feel good. These days, I remind people that both success and happiness are skills… but only one of them actually means freedom.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
Sobriety isn’t real. There’s no such thing as “sobriety” … there’s only sober and intoxicated. Everything else is just the transition between the two.
That statement alone has earned me thousands of arguments and even death threats, but it’s the truth. Scientifically, it takes about four days for the body to become clinically sober, yet society has turned “sobriety” into an identity, a trend, even a religion. People cling to the idea of being “in sobriety” as if it’s a permanent state of being. But when you identify as “a sober person,” you’re subconsciously identifying as “an alcoholic” or “a former addict.” You’re wiring your brain to live inside a label that keeps you tethered to the past instead of free in the present.
The real problem is that people have confused sobriety with recovery. Sobriety is a moment in time… recovery is an evolution of identity. You don’t have to be “in sobriety” to be healing. You simply stop intoxicating yourself, and your body, brain, and spirit will naturally do what they were designed to do: recover. The human body doesn’t need permission to heal; it just needs you to stop interrupting it.
Unfortunately, a lot of the modern recovery space has become a branding exercise. “Sober coaching” has turned into a buzzword industry where few can even define what sober means. When I ask most coaches, they give me an interpretation instead of a definition… and that’s dangerous. Because words shape the nervous system, and the labels we choose dictate how we live.
I’ve been attacked online by what I call “sober squads” … angry communities convinced that if you stop identifying as an addict, you’ll relapse. But that fear-based model keeps people trapped in shame. The truth is, you’re not the sum of your past actions, thoughts, or labels. You’re the consciousness behind them.
Most people who call themselves alcoholics… aren’t. They don’t have a clinical dependency. They’ve just learned to behave like one. And in some ways, that’s worse … because it means they’ve accepted a false identity as truth.
My mission is to help people wake up to that truth. Sobriety isn’t a lifestyle. It’s just what naturally happens when you start remembering who you are.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: If immortality were real, what would you build?
If immortality were real, I’d build exactly what I’m building now… just on a global, eternal scale. I’d create systems that reprogram human suffering out of existence. Not through religion or rigidity, but through emotional intelligence, science, and remembrance. I’d build a new framework for human evolution … where recovery isn’t about fixing broken people, but activating dormant potential.
Beyond Sober was never meant to be a sobriety program. It’s a blueprint for conscious reconstruction. A living system that teaches people how to feel, think, and create from the truth of who they are instead of the pain of who they were. If immortality were real, I’d spend it building ecosystems like this … ones that continue healing the human condition long after I’m gone.
I’d build recovery centers that feel like temples of transformation, not hospitals of punishment. Schools that teach emotional regulation and nervous system mastery before algebra. AI systems that mirror consciousness instead of manipulate it. I’d build worlds where people remember what love feels like before trauma rewrote their code.
Because immortality isn’t really about living forever. It’s about building something that will.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rvyne.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kohdi.rayne
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beyondsober
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kohdirayne
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@beyondsober
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@kohdi.rayne
