Addiction Recovery Advocacy & Career Episodes

David became a father at 18, finished college while working full-time, entered Nissan's executive training program, and then built a successful marketing agency serving plastic surgeons. As his success grew, so did a hard-partying lifestyle driven by cocaine and alcohol addiction, and he drifted from his faith. After suffering a severe stroke and grand mal seizure in 2015, he was put in a medically induced coma and told he likely would not survive. Experiencing a decisive spiritual turning poi...

Frustrated by an education system Aaron viewed as compliance-driven and devoid of meaningful agency, he left teaching to work in trauma and addiction recovery. Over 20 years teaching high school, Aaron observed that his students' lives and trajectories were effectively set by the time they graduated. He began noticing recurring patterns: victim thinking, codependency, and a clinical culture that prioritized diagnosis over genuine identity change. He became deeply interested in story, narrative...

Although Curtiss was sexually abused as a child, he did well in school and football until a humiliating pep‑rally incident in seventh grade led him to quit sports and start smoking marijuana. Drifting into fights, he landed in alternative schools and eventually dropped out. While his mother used crack and his father cooked meth for the Bandidos, he lived mostly with his grandparents while stacking up arrests and DWIs. For two decades, he cycled through probation, prison, and the SAFP program, ...

Jessica's childhood fractured early. Her alcoholic father went to prison for a DWI, and by the time she was six, her parents had divorced. Her mother remarried, folding the family into a blended household with an adopted stepsister who had split personality disorder. That stepsister would go on to accuse both her own father and Jessica's stepfather of molestation, and eventually began self-harming in front of the family. When the situation became untenable, they cut the stepsister off and fled ...

Rachel’s parents divorced when she was just a baby, and she lived with her mom, who struggled with alcoholism and mental health issues, while her older sister went to live with their dad. By ninth grade, she was rarely at school, drinking heavily, and immersed in the punk scene. She blacked out a house party and assaulted her cousin who called the police, leading her to hide out in a friend's basement for 2 months before fleeing to Dallas on Greyhound bus. In Dallas, Rachel dropped out of scho...

Craig “Bubba” Norton was first exposed to addiction when his mother died from alcoholism in 1982. His father later entered treatment, and during a family program Craig realized at age 20 that he was also an alcoholic. After moving from North Carolina to Texas, his drinking escalated, leading to three DWIs and jail in 1987, where he decided to seek help. He found early stability through work and AA but later stopped going to meetings, believing he was cured. Although he stayed abstinent for a ti...

Nikki grew up in a small town with a mother who struggled with alcoholism and periods of abuse but was also loving and devoted. As a teen, she began using substances like weed, pills, and whippets. At 19, she sought help from a doctor but felt dismissed, and at 21, she entered her first treatment program. Three months later, she met Curtis at an AA/NA club. Both had histories of alcohol addiction and drug use, along with legal issues. They married in 2015 and ran several businesses together, in...

Richard Galvan began stealing, getting arrested and drinking vodka alone in sixth grade. He snorted and sold his Ritalin, stole his mother’s pills and drank cough syrup. By his early teens, he was selling pills, using meth, and became well known to the police. Born in 1982 in the San Fernando Valley, by 10th grade, he started using heroin and spending time downtown near Skid Row. He was kicked out by both parents, lived with relatives, friends, and on the street, and entered juvenile hall at 16...

Born and raised in East Texas, Randy Grimes grew up in church with an older brother and sister and played football and baseball. He attended Baylor University, where he had a strong football career and met his future wife on his first day. They married after his junior year. In 1983, he was drafted in the second round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and moved to Tampa with his wife in a U-Haul. He soon began taking large amounts of opiates from a team drug safe to manage injuries. By 1990, he exper...

Jenifer grew up in a home marked by physical and verbal abuse, which shaped how she viewed trust and relationships. She got pregnant at 18 and had her son, Hunter, at 19, raising him mostly on her own. At 28, she married, but the relationship was unstable and ended in divorce due to her husband’s alcoholism. Jenifer built a 20-year career as a dialysis nurse but battled major depressive disorder. She developed an alcohol addiction and turned to alcohol to cope, which led to a drunk driving acc...

Doug experienced abuse in early childhood, and at age 12 when his father left, he spiraled into severe depression, suicidality, and repeated psychiatric hospitalizations. As a teenager, he discovered alcohol and used it to manage his symptoms while earning a master’s degree in social work and working at a suicide hotline, even as hospitalizations and heavy drinking continued. In his mid-30s, after a suicide attempt and abruptly quitting alcohol addiction, Doug was introduced to crack cocaine, ...

Seeing him on this podcast for the first time in 13 years, Matt admits to his old friend Austin York that he robbed him during the chaos of their using days in Southern California. Like Matt, Austin got into trouble very young, fighting in school and using drugs at a young age. His parents sent him away several times to try to get him back on track. He bounced around multiple high schools but never graduated, spending most of his teen years in juvenile rehabs like Phoenix House in San Diego and...

Chris grew up in Odessa, Texas, in a home where alcohol and drugs were part of everyday life. At 15, he altered his birth certificate to work in the oil fields. By 19, he was drilling, and by 25, he was running crews—building a successful career. Drug addiction resulted in four incarcerations, and by his last conviction he faced a potential life sentence. In prison, he began seeking faith and direction but his addiction destroyed his family. When an 86-year-old lawyer offers to take Chris’s ca...

Growing up in Spring, Texas, Jordan was a standout student and star athlete. Raised in a supportive, yet strict household, he excelled in sports and academics, graduated near the top of his class, and was inducted into his high school’s Hall of Fame for football. While attending Cornell University on a football scholarship, sports injuries shifted his focus from athletics to cocaine, ketamine, and marijuana. After graduation, he moved to Miami for law school and a master’s in sports administrat...

At the age of 17, Robert entered treatment for the first time for heroin addiction, painkillers, and Dilaudid. Over the next few years, he cycled through nearly 60 detoxes and programs across the country, spending several years in and out of institutions. At 19, he moved to California for a fresh start—attending trauma therapy, enrolling in college, and playing football at Santa Monica College—until a fractured femur ended his athletic goals and he literally ended up homeless and living on Skid...

Rachel grew up in Louisiana in a family marked by loss. Her older sister died of leukemia at age seven, leaving deep grief that shaped her childhood. At 13, she experienced sexual abuse, and by 21, she lost her mother to untreated hypertension and heart disease—the event that sent her drinking spiraling out of control. She developed depression and anxiety early on, and alcohol addiction quickly became her way to cope. By 25, she was a new mother, married to an alcoholic, and caught in a cycle o...

Ted was sent to military school, later joined the Navy, and served during the Gulf War, stationed in Jacksonville and working drug interdiction missions off the coast of Venezuela. During his Navy service, he developed alcohol addiction, a habit he continued for years in New Orleans while working in the oil and gas industry, as drinking was embedded in the local social culture. After several failed recovery attempts, Ted achieved sobriety in March 2017 and launched Bodine Recovery, an addiction...

Candice grew up surrounded by addiction and loss. Both parents drank heavily, and by 11, she had lost her mom. Her dad died soon after, and by 19, most of her family was gone, including her sister, who was killed in a murder-suicide. She became a single mother at 16, and by 21, she had three kids. After her third child, heroin addiction and painkillers took over her life. She lost custody—her daughters went to live with an aunt, and her son entered the court system—while she lived with dealers ...

Brandon grew up in Houston with an abusive, alcoholic father and experienced trauma from sexual abuse at ages eight and 10. By 11, he had his first sip of alcohol, and by seventeen, he was charged with organized crime and began a seven-year prison sentence—learning basic life skills like shaving from other inmates. Over time, he spent a total of fifteen years incarcerated, carrying a street mentality that followed him long after release. On parole, Brandon returned to drugs, relationships, and...

Karen married young and became a mom at 15. By 17, she had two children, and by 36 she was a grandmother. Her brother’s Xanax addiction and overdose involving alcohol at age 19 propelled her toward addiction recovery work, determined to help others find the support he never had. Jill lived in her car in the East Texas heat and humidity, calling treatment centers nonstop after losing her insurance. After more than a year of pestering, she was finally granted a spot in a state-funded facility. T...

From Jason’s first drink at 17, his alcohol addiction spiraled into prison, and homelessness. He tried AA, NA, and church, but staying in recovery was tough, and a string of DUIs and prison sentences made things harder. While homeless, Jason describes walking the streets of Pensacola, covering about 20 miles in June heat until his shoes were bloody and had to be discarded upon arrival at a mental hospital, where he collapsed. This grueling walk marked a turning point, leading him to seek help a...

Rune never directly struggled with substance abuse, but grew up surrounded by it and then married into it. His father battled alcohol addiction and eventually died. Later, his ex-wife also lost her life to addiction after multiple attempts at treatment and time in jail, leaving their two children without a mother. For years, Rune kept his head down and worked quietly in IT to avoid the weight of his own reality. When he finally got divorced, he shifted and slowly stepped into the addiction reco...

Andy grew up in Houston and started drinking in high school, escalating in college. After getting kicked out and switching schools, she eventually graduated while trying to keep her drinking under control. But when she entered the workforce, it got worse. In 2013, after a family ultimatum she went to AA for the first time and stayed sober for a month. She relapsed and repeated that pattern for several years, bouncing between AA and psychiatric hospitals, searching for something that would stick...

Dr. Kamal Shah’s perspective on addiction recovery is both deeply personal and scientifically informed. Addiction isn’t just behavior. It’s the brain, trauma, and the emotional patterns that keep people stuck. Over a decade into sobriety himself, Dr. Shah combines his lived experience with a background in neurology, movement disorders, and addiction medicine to explore what really drives relapse and what truly supports lasting recovery. GUEST Kamal Shah, MD Dr. Kamal Shah is a behavioral neuro...