Six weeks inside Claude Anonymous, the weekly BACKSTAGE meeting where sober people teach each other AI, cut to nine minutes.
Every Monday I open a Zoom, play a theme song I made with AI, and say the same thing: “My name is Alysse, and I’m a Claudeaholic.”
Nobody in the room is anonymous. Everybody in the room is sober.
Nobody Has an Agenda. That’s the Agenda.
The room changes week to week. Preston Peterman, Founder of Far Point Strategy and my business coach, runs an AI automation company and is our go-to problem solver. Matthew Wall had been talking about a daily video series for eight years and now he’s finally doing it. Amy Liz Harrison had 4,000 notes in her Notes app and nobody organizing them. I had a newsletter calendar and no help.
We go around. Everybody shares one thing they learned this week, or one thing they’re stuck on. Sometimes Preston demos. Sometimes someone asks a question so basic that three people lean in because, turns out, nobody knew either.
That’s it. That’s the whole format.
We Grew Up With Tech. We Still Don’t Get It Sometimes.
Here is the part I want on the record. This is a Gen X room, with the occasional elder millennial popping in.
We are not the early adopters. Veronica Valli, 26 years sober, a sobriety coach with three books and a podcast, opened her first meeting with “I am a late adopter with everything.” Two weeks later she had Claude running her morning brief and her weekly social report. “I’m just so impressed with myself that as a middle-aged person I’m doing all this stuff.”
I’m 51. I’ve been sober since April 30, 2006. I built The Sober Curator starting in 2020 with no team, so “slow burn” is the only speed I’ve ever had. What I told Veronica that first week is the thing I believe about this whole moment: making mistakes at full speed is exactly where you want to be.
Nobody here is behind. Everybody here is new.
The Wins Are Not Business Wins. Mostly.
Cherlyn bought a bike in March. She knew nothing about biking. She asked Claude what bike to buy, what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, how to train. In July she rode the STP, Seattle to Portland. 207 miles.
Amy’s 4,000 notes now get organized every night. She calls it “getting my act together,” in slightly saltier words.
Mine is smaller and I’m still smug about it. I gave Claude three months of Flashback newsletters to build, inside Beehiiv, in my voice, Sober October themed, no repeats from the last quarter. Then I let it cook. It built every one. Not one link was wrong. Those newsletters are scheduled through the end of the year and I proofed them with an iced coffee in my hand.
And Matthew. Matthew has talked about making videos for eight years. Eight. Seven weeks ago, in his words, “it was unfathomable to put a video out.” He now posts every day, multiple times a day, and edits with a skill he built himself. More on that in a minute.
That’s the real gift of AI, and I said so on tape: it’s not the output. It’s that the excuses got out of the way. The blank page. The eight years of “I’ll start next week.”
A Skill Is a Sandwich
The lesson that lands every single week is Preston’s, and it’s about sandwiches.
A chat with an AI is you saying “make me a sandwich” and listing ingredients. You’ll get a different sandwich every time. A skill is you saying “bread first, then the mayo and the mustard, then the meat, in that order, every time.” That’s it. That’s the whole difference between playing with AI and running your business on it.
And the first time you do anything with it kind of sucks. Preston says that part out loud too. The magic shows up on the second or third pass.
Matthew Built One. We’ve Been Breaking It In.
Which brings me back to Matthew, because he did not just learn the sandwich. He wrote the recipe.
Over the last two months he built a video editing skill. Bread first, then the mayo and the mustard, then the meat, every time. And since this is a meeting and not a tutorial, the rest of us have been testing it in real time BACKSTAGE. Same skill, different footage, different people, wildly different levels of patience. It holds up.
It’s $7. That is less than the NA beer we all complain about. Go get it. Matthew waited eight years to ship this thing. The least you can do is click.
Full disclosure: that is an affiliate link. Matthew is a member, I am a fan, and if you buy it, a few of those seven dollars come back to this site. I would recommend it either way. I just like watching a guy who waited eight years finally ship and get his stories out there.
“Are You Sure, Claude?”
The funniest 40 seconds of the whole six weeks belong to Matthew.
He asked Claude to look through his iPhone photos. Claude said it couldn’t. Matthew said, “Are you sure, Claude?” Claude said, oh yeah, here are three ways. Boom. The next thing he knew, it had everything.
When I asked how he gave it access, he said, “I just did what Preston said.”
Preston, on camera, in real time: “That is NOT what I told you to do.”
This is why you come to a meeting instead of a tutorial. The tutorial doesn’t have Preston.
What AI Is Actually For
Preston said the serious version: there’s no reason for an AI to take away your magic, but you have to figure out what your magic is.
Veronica said the version I’m going to repeat for the rest of the year: “I don’t want AI to write books or movies or songs. I just want it to take the crappy admin of life that we all hate.”
Sober people know this one in their bones. We already did the hard part. We’d like some help with the paperwork.
Why We Keep Showing Up
I’ll tell you what I told the room at the end of a Monday in September. This is my favorite part about Mondays. It’s almost Monday, I get to see my people.
Veronica put it more honestly than I did: “Preston, what you did was great, but I’m so not there. But it still edged me forward a little bit.” That’s the whole meeting. A little bit forward, every week, with people who laugh at your jokes.
And remember what we say here, let it stay here. (I got jokes for days.)
Claude Anonymous meets weekly inside BACKSTAGE with The Sober Curator, the members-only side of this site.
Come hang: 👉🏼BACKSTAGE membership link
You’re not new to this. You’re ready for what’s next.
And not everyone gets here.
You’ve done the hard part.
You’re sober. You’re clear.
You’ve built a life that no longer revolves around alcohol.
Now you’re ready for something more.
You want better conversations.
More connection.
More culture.
More expansion.
You’re not looking for another recovery meeting.
You’re looking for a room that reflects who you are now.
This is for you if this sounds like you:
- You’re sober and stable.
- You’ve outgrown. traditional recovery spaces.
- You want more than support — you want connection, culture, and momentum.
- You’re ready for what comes after survival.
That’s exactly what BACKSTAGE was built for. LEARN MORE AND JOIN US TODAY →
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What is Claude Anonymous?
Claude Anonymous is a weekly Zoom meeting inside BACKSTAGE with The Sober Curator where sober adults teach each other how to use AI, mostly Claude. The format is loose: everyone shares one thing they learned or one thing they’re stuck on, and someone usually demos. It started in 2026 and is run by Alysse Bryson.
Do I need to know anything about AI to join?
No. The room is mostly Gen X late adopters. Several regulars had never opened Claude before their first meeting. The only requirement is showing up with a question.
Is Claude Anonymous a recovery meeting?
No. Everyone in the room is sober, but the meeting is about AI, not sobriety. Nobody is anonymous and nobody is working the steps. The name is a joke, which you will understand about 30 seconds in.
How do I attend?
Claude Anonymous is a BACKSTAGE member benefit. Join at [BACKSTAGE membership link] and the weekly Zoom shows up in the members calendar.
