Alcohol Episodes

Lori Bell was conceived when her father got drunk at a traveling circus, wrestled an anteater, got fired, and was dropped off in the next city — Kansas City, where he wandered into the unemployment office where her mother worked. Her dad was a third-generation Italian Vietnam veteran with PTSD and an eighth-grade education, and her mother was a Midwest farm girl with abandonment issues. Lori grew up in the chaos that followed — kicked-in walls, constant fighting, and a father who eventually dis...

David’s trouble started when the DEA caught him with five kilos of cocaine at the age of 20. On probation, he moved to St. Louis with court approval, finished college in three years, and was released early from probation. He built a subprime real estate business, but crooked deals and market shifts caused it to collapse. Back in Houston, he returned to high-end real estate and relapsed into heavy drinking and cocaine use. When his father died in 2005, his decline accelerated. Over the next few ...

Taylor Cavanaugh grew up in San Diego with drugs and alcohol in the house from early on. His father had substance problems and financial instability, and Taylor was eventually kicked out of high school for dealing ecstasy and somas. At 18, after getting mixed up in a stolen property situation, he checked into what turned out to be a lockdown psych ward in El Cajon — sharing a floor with old women with dementia and a Marine detoxing off heroin. He moved to Boston, where arrests and DUIs kept st...

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...

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, ...

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...

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...

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, ...

Born in Italy to Russian parents, Dan came to the U.S. as a baby and grew up in a highly driven immigrant community near Princeton, New Jersey. An only child, he was pushed hard to be successful in academics and athletics, with video games becoming an early escape. As a teenager, he turned to marijuana and alcohol, escalating after his mother passed away during his senior year. He headed to college in 2013, where he bounced between fraternities for drug- and alcohol-related issues while throwi...

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...

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...

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...