
Rise Above with Kevin Lanning
- Episódios
- 377
- Publicação
- várias vezes por semana
- Último episódio
- 13 nov 2026
Sobre o podcast
Welcome to Rise Above with Kevin Lanning. Join Kevin, a former Google executive in sobriety, as he shares inspiring stories of resilience. Each episode features individuals who have faced life’s toughest challenges—addiction, trauma, anxiety, and more—and emerged stronger. These conversations aren’t just about survival; they’re about thriving and finding practical solutions to rise above adversity. Kevin’s own journey through addiction and childhood trauma fuels his passion for sharing stories that uplift, educate, and inspire. Tune in and discover the strength within you.
Episódios 377
I Drank 20+ Drinks A Night And Thought It Was Normal
Tanny took something like 20 flights to sit down with Rise Above — because when you live in a 9,000-person town in the Canadian Arctic, that’s what it takes. Coming up on a year sober, she tells a story that’s …
Notas do episódio
Tanny took something like 20 flights to sit down with Rise Above — because when you live in a 9,000-person town in the Canadian Arctic, that’s what it takes. Coming up on a year sober, she tells a story that’s equal parts isolating and universal: a shy only child raised by a single, deeply religious mother, who started drinking and using at 12 and spent her teen years caring for a father lost to crack addiction. By 18 she was behind a bar, and she stayed in the nightlife for the next 18 years.
She’s honest about how far it went — cocaine that turned excessive fast, a bipolar diagnosis she used to explain away her using, and years of driving drunk through a town so small and remote there were no consequences, wrecking her car until it had no bumper left. She talks about the slow burn of guilt and shame, the relapses, the dark year that finally broke her, and the morning she looked in the mirror and saw her whole life flash before her. Today she’s rebuilding one small gratitude at a time — and using her platform to show other people, especially in small towns where everyone knows your name, that recovery is possible no matter where you are.
Follow Tanny on Instagram @tanyhuman.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I'm Exposing The Rehab Scam That's Killing People In Recovery In South Florida
Crystal Meliea is back on Rise Above — and this time she’s risking a lot to tell the truth about an industry most people in recovery are afraid to talk about. With nearly 12 years sober, she pulls back the …
Notas do episódio
Crystal Meliea is back on Rise Above — and this time she’s risking a lot to tell the truth about an industry most people in recovery are afraid to talk about. With nearly 12 years sober, she pulls back the curtain on the business of addiction in South Florida: body brokering, the insurance and call-center schemes, the moving-company scams, and the recovery “influencers” quietly pushing newcomers toward sex work and fraud. She frames it plainly as a warning for the vulnerable people arriving here every day, and for the ones who feel trapped inside it.
Before the exposé, Crystal retraces the story that got her here — a childhood of trauma and violence, the “protector” she became, years of dealing, crack, and meth, and the bottom she hit as a new single mom after her child’s father was taken by the feds two weeks before the birth. She’s honest about the harm she caused, the amends she’s made, the grandmother who stepped in, and the moment in 2015 that saved her life. Today she’s rebuilt everything from a single suitcase into a thriving career coaching men — secretly walking them through their own healing — and a platform she’s using to protect the people coming up behind her.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Couldn't Go A Single Day Without Cocaine For A Decade | From Iraq Combat Vet To Cocaine Addict DJ
J.R. had two lives most people never see collide. He was a decorated Army soldier — one of the first 500 troops across the border into Iraq during shock and awe, living in one of Saddam’s bombed-out palaces …
Notas do episódio
J.R. had two lives most people never see collide. He was a decorated Army soldier — one of the first 500 troops across the border into Iraq during shock and awe, living in one of Saddam’s bombed-out palaces, surviving rocket attacks and losing friends. Then he came home to PTSD, a stack of new diagnoses, and no real plan, and walked straight into the nightlife. Within a few years he was one of the most in-demand DJs in town, pulling $2,500 a night, booking celebrities — and doing cocaine under the DJ booth every single night.
He’s brutally honest about the decade that followed: the money, the chaos, the celebrity benders, and the slow-burn misery of being depressed and suicidal while everyone thought he had it all. He doesn’t dress up the bottom that finally woke him up at 36, or the work it took to climb out — the meetings, the prayer and the gym, the self-development that rebuilt him from the ground up, and the moment a therapist told him to start telling his story. Eight years sober, J.R. is now a present father, a recovery coach who’s helped more than a hundred people, and proof that you can come back from two wars — the one overseas and the one with yourself.
Follow J.R. on Instagram @JHunterCoaching.
If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at https://www.google.com/url?q=https://learn.nocd.com/Rise&source=gmail&ust=1790019126459000&sa=E Use code RISE when you book. #ad
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Robbed My Own Drug Dealers Until One Shot Me | Fentanyl Addiction
Larry Chapman had every reason to make it. A 4.2 GPA honor student who graduated two months early, he was the kid everyone thought would be fine. But he was also prescribed Adderall at eight, lost his …
Notas do episódio
Larry Chapman had every reason to make it. A 4.2 GPA honor student who graduated two months early, he was the kid everyone thought would be fine. But he was also prescribed Adderall at eight, lost his biological mother to a prison sentence when he was little, and by his late teens was chasing a feeling through weed, Xanax, and cocaine. At 21 he was handed what he thought were Percocets — they were pressed fentanyl — and a two-year double life began that nobody around him saw coming.He holds nothing back about how dark it got: living as a functioning addict while spending tens of thousands on pills, robbing his own drug dealers, breaking into stash houses, pistol-whipping a man for his cash, and finally getting shot in the arm during a robbery — the moment that became his bottom. He’s just as honest about the climb out: a brutal precipitated withdrawal, multiple arrests and detoxing in a jail cell, the fiancée who stood by him when he finally admitted he had a problem, and losing his best friend Adam to an overdose, which sealed his decision to never go back. Three years clean from fentanyl and rebuilding a life he couldn’t have imagined, Larry shares the war stories not to glorify them, but so the person who’s done the same things knows they can still get out.Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was A College Athlete Who Ended Up Homeless Shooting Heroin
Dom Scalzo lived and breathed lacrosse. He was the first kid from his small Rochester high school to go Division 1, chasing a childhood dream of playing at Syracuse — until a nagging injury, a bottle of pain …
Notas do episódio
Dom Scalzo lived and breathed lacrosse. He was the first kid from his small Rochester high school to go Division 1, chasing a childhood dream of playing at Syracuse — until a nagging injury, a bottle of pain pills, and the slow pull of OxyContin took it all apart. What started as prescriptions became 30 pills a day, then shooting heroin, cocaine, and even vodka, as the identity he’d built his whole life around disappeared.
He holds nothing back about how far it went: getting kicked out of two schools, an arrest that ended his college career, bringing his own mother into the worst part of the city to buy drugs, overdose after overdose, and a stretch living homeless under a bridge in Brooklyn. He also carries the weight of everyone he lost along the way — more than 200 people over the years. This is the story of how a plane ticket from a near-stranger, a blunt counselor, and one simple phrase finally broke the cycle, and the life he’s built in the 14 years since: a father, an endurance athlete who runs 100-mile races, and a coach who helps high-performers rebuild their health and, quietly, their lives.
Follow Dom on Instagram (@dapperdon)
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Drove The Getaway Car For A Pharmacy Robbery To Feed My Heroin Addiction
Dalen McMillon’s story is almost too wild to be real. A bull rider and martial artist as a kid, he became an Army airborne paratrooper before 9/11, then built a glamorous career as a celebrity hairdresser — …
Notas do episódio
Dalen McMillon’s story is almost too wild to be real. A bull rider and martial artist as a kid, he became an Army airborne paratrooper before 9/11, then built a glamorous career as a celebrity hairdresser — flying around the world teaching for a major hair brand and making a thousand dollars a day. Then a routine injury and a bottle of pain pills pulled him into OxyContin, and eventually into shooting two grams of heroin a day, despite a lifelong terror of needles.
He holds nothing back about how far it went: dealing out of his home with fifteen families dropping off their prescriptions, driving the getaway car for a pharmacy robbery, a home invasion where his girlfriend and infant son were held at gunpoint, an informant planted in his house wearing a wire, a 140-mph chase fleeing the feds, a DEA raid, and finally becoming a fugitive who got caught by bounty hunters. He also learns a devastating family secret along the way — the truth about how his father really died. This is the story of how a man who was homeless and loading syringes hoping not to wake up clawed his way back: a brutal detox, a thousand meetings in a thousand days, and the life he’s built today — married to his business partner, a proud dad, and nearly 17 years clean.
Follow Dalen’s business, Junk Wax Vintage, on Instagram, Facebook, X and eBay.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Brandon Kelly on Losing Everything to Fentanyl and Nearly His Arms
Brandon Kelly is about to celebrate two years sober — the longest stretch of his life, and something he never believed he’d live to see. He grew up in Hammonton, New Jersey in a loving home, raised by a dad and …
Notas do episódio
Brandon Kelly is about to celebrate two years sober — the longest stretch of his life, and something he never believed he’d live to see. He grew up in Hammonton, New Jersey in a loving home, raised by a dad and a stepmom he calls the love of his life, and he was a good student on his way to Rutgers. But he carried a secret about who he was from the age of eight, never felt right in his own skin, and found that the first time he got high at 13, all of it went quiet. That chase would cost him nearly everything.
He’s brutally honest about the slide: Percocets, then shooting heroin, borrowing and stealing until he was kicked out at 21 and not allowed home for a decade. He talks about losing his grandmother while he was too far gone to make it to her funeral, years of homelessness in Camden, and a fentanyl-related infection so severe that seven doctors told him he might wake up from surgery without his arms — and how he got high within an hour of them saving his life. This is also the story of how he finally came back: the shelter that led him to treatment, getting honest for the first time, the service work that rebuilt his self-esteem, and the slow, patient work of making amends and learning to trust his family again. If you’ve ever believed you were too far gone, Brandon is proof you’re not.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was A Straight-A Engineering Student Secretly Overdosing At Parties | Lily Trestan on Overdosing at 21, Getting Sober Young and Finding Her Purpose
From the outside, Lily Trestan looked like she had it all together — a private-school kid from Montreal, a straight-A student on track for an engineering career at McGill. Underneath, she was struggling badly …
Notas do episódio
From the outside, Lily Trestan looked like she had it all together — a private-school kid from Montreal, a straight-A student on track for an engineering career at McGill. Underneath, she was struggling badly, and by her late teens drinking and weed had turned into mushrooms, Ambien, cocaine, and fentanyl-pressed Xanax bars bought off a dealer’s menu. She’s remarkably honest about the double life she kept, the toxic relationships, the isolation, and the night it nearly ended: an overdose on Xanax, cocaine, and alcohol at a party — one that happened to be themed “death,” on the same day she’d signed her life insurance papers.
Lily also opens up about losing her friend Jake, the one person she’d ever been truly vulnerable with, and how his family and his old counselor kept showing up for her in ways that felt like more than coincidence. She walks through the rehabs, the relapses, and the four-day binge that finally became her bottom — and the work that’s followed: getting to a meeting every single night, leaving engineering to study psychology so she can help others, and building the kind of relationships and peace she never thought she’d have. Now a year and four months sober, she wants young women to know it’s possible, and it’s worth it.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron.
If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available.
➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above
📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103
Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Played In The NBA With LeBron...Then Lost It All To Addiction | How Delonte West Found Sobriety
Delonte West lived a dream millions of kids chase — a standout at Saint Joseph's, drafted into the NBA at 21, and years in the league alongside legends like Paul Pierce, Gary Payton, and LeBron James. He was …
Notas do episódio
Delonte West lived a dream millions of kids chase — a standout at Saint Joseph's, drafted into the NBA at 21, and years in the league alongside legends like Paul Pierce, Gary Payton, and LeBron James. He was, by his own description, sheltered inside the business of professional sports, growing as a player while the rest of life stayed on pause.
When the game ended, everything he'd built his identity around went with it. In this conversation, Delonte is open about the long, slow progression of addiction that followed his career, his diagnosis and lifelong battle with bipolar disorder, and the years he spent cycling in and out of his lowest points — much of it playing out in the public eye in ways that were painful and dehumanizing.
But this episode isn't about the videos the internet passed around. It's about the man behind them, and the work he's doing now. Delonte is coming up on a year sober this December, and he credits consistency, the right medication and treatment, his faith, and the people who never gave up on him. He's found peace in staying in the moment, and he's using his platform to reach the person out there who's still where he was.
#RiseAbove #DelonteWest #AddictionRecovery #NBA #MentalHealthAwareness #RecoveryIsPossible #SoberLife#BipolarAwareness #Comeback #SobrietyJourney #SaintJosephs #Boston #RiseAbovePodcast #KevinLanning#SecondChances #MensMentalHealth #TheManBehindTheVideos #Redemption #YouAreNotAlone #OneMoreThing
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was Found In A Coma On The Side Of The Road...No Pulse, No Heartbeat
Carrie has 26 and a half years of sobriety — and a story that shows just how far this disease can take someone, even after years clean. Adopted at birth and carrying a deep fear of abandonment, she took her …
Notas do episódio
Carrie has 26 and a half years of sobriety — and a story that shows just how far this disease can take someone, even after years clean. Adopted at birth and carrying a deep fear of abandonment, she took her first drink at ten and felt instantly invincible. By 17 she was a daily drinker, and her father loved her enough to sell his own life insurance policy to get her into rehab. She got sober at 24, built a life, got married — and then, after eight and a half years, drifted from her program and relapsed.
What followed nearly killed her. She’s honest about all of it: drinking through an abusive marriage and divorce, the night she got in her car with a plan to end her life, and the overdose that left her in a coma on the side of a road, with police telling her parents she might not make it through the night. This is also a story about coming back — how much harder recovery was the second time, losing and rebuilding the business she loves as a dog trainer, staying sober through the deaths of both her parents, and finally finding the peace she chased her whole life. If you’ve ever relapsed and felt too ashamed to walk back through the door, Carrie’s message is for you: people will embrace you, and it’s never too late.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was A Sex Addict Living A Double Life For 20 Years
Ben Brown has seven years of sobriety and one of the most layered stories we’ve had on the show. Born in Brooklyn and raised between two completely opposite households, he grew up never feeling like he belonged …
Notas do episódio
Ben Brown has seven years of sobriety and one of the most layered stories we’ve had on the show. Born in Brooklyn and raised between two completely opposite households, he grew up never feeling like he belonged — and found that the things that finally got him acceptance, weed at 14, then alcohol, cocaine, and above all sex, became the very things that ran his life for the next two decades. He’s remarkably honest about all of it: the performance anxiety, the womanizing, the BDSM, the love-addict/love-avoidant cycle, and the double life he lived while appearing to have it all together as a New York real estate agent.
Ben also opens up about the wreckage underneath — a chaotic childhood, his father’s long struggle with mental health, and the heartbreak that finally cracked him open. He walks through the string of “God moments” that led him into recovery, the hardcore sponsor who put him through a full year of withdrawal, the 500 days he went without sex as he rebuilt himself from the ground up, and how he finally learned what real intimacy and love actually look like. Today he channels all of it into helping other men through his coaching and his podcast, The Shift.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Had A D1 Lacrosse Scholarship — Then I Started Shooting Heroin
Mac Chase had one goal growing up in the Annapolis area: become a Division 1 All-American lacrosse player. He got there — a scholarship to UMBC — but his drinking, which started around age ten, already had its …
Notas do episódio
Mac Chase had one goal growing up in the Annapolis area: become a Division 1 All-American lacrosse player. He got there — a scholarship to UMBC — but his drinking, which started around age ten, already had its grip on him. Within two years the scholarship was gone, and what followed was a decade-long slide through cocaine, pills, OxyContin, and eventually shooting heroin. He talks openly about it all: getting paid in OxyContin through a shady deal at the lacrosse shop he managed, driving eight hours each way to score, smoking pills in his hospital bed after a head-on crash nearly killed him, and conning his own mother out of her savings until she took a second mortgage and broke down.
Mac doesn’t flinch from the wreckage — the stealing, the lies, the near-fatal relapse that left him in kidney failure on dialysis at 34 — but this is ultimately a story about what came after. Ten years sober now, he shares the spiritual turning point that changed everything, the long road of making amends to his mom, being at his father’s side for his last breath, and the life he never thought he deserved: a wife, two daughters, and a gratitude he lives out one day at a time.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hiding Vodka & Shaking Every Day | I Needed A Drink So Bad I Walked Into A Murder Scene
Holly Hiles has six years of sobriety and a story that’s almost hard to believe. Growing up she bounced through twelve schools, leaned on her twin brother, and lost her footing at fourteen when she got pulled …
Notas do episódio
Holly Hiles has six years of sobriety and a story that’s almost hard to believe. Growing up she bounced through twelve schools, leaned on her twin brother, and lost her footing at fourteen when she got pulled off her cheer squad and fell in with a rougher crowd. What followed was a lifetime shadowed by loss — her grandmother, her father, her first love, and eventually her twin brother, a death she spent nineteen years calling a “motorcycle accident” until recovery helped her see it for what it really was.
As her drinking progressed, Holly built a successful healthcare-marketing career and an ego to match, hiding vodka before work and drinking alone until the shakes set in. She shares the surreal night her addiction drove her to a little liquor store where she found the clerk murdered — a moment that still didn’t stop her — and the DUI, the rehab, the relapse, and the ex-husband who finally told her the hard truth that helped save her life. Today she’s rebuilt everything from the ground up: amends with her mother before she passed, a new faith, a master’s degree, and a company built around helping other people find their way out.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You Don't Have To Hit Rock Bottom To Stop Drinking
Cadence came on Rise Above with a story that breaks the mold most people picture when they hear “sober.” She never drank in high school, never craved alcohol, and to this day doesn’t call herself an alcoholic — …
Notas do episódio
Cadence came on Rise Above with a story that breaks the mold most people picture when they hear “sober.” She never drank in high school, never craved alcohol, and to this day doesn’t call herself an alcoholic — but her relationship with drinking still cost her plenty. She talks openly about the blackout years in Scottsdale: bartending and partying, hiding her boyfriend’s BMW from the valet after she caught him texting his ex, and a night that ended with her getting arrested. She also lived through the other side of addiction up close, watching a partner spiral into drug-induced psychosis and a friend overdose in front of her.
What makes this conversation land is her honesty about the quieter kind of rock bottom — the slow “death by a thousand cuts,” getting sick of being sick, and finally choosing herself. She shares how running a 5K a day, converting to Catholicism, and building a sober community online rebuilt her life, and why she’s careful with the word “alcoholic” out of respect for the people who struggle differently than she does. Her message is simple and worth hearing: you don’t have to burn your life down to earn the right to stop drinking.
Follow Cadence at Cultivated Cadence on Instagram and TikTok.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was Told Kratom Was Harmless...It Was The Hardest Thing I Ever Quit
Tiffany Mercer flew across the country to tell a story most people in recovery have never heard put into words. She’d already done the hard work — sober from alcohol, years of meetings, treatment at Hazelden …
Notas do episódio
Tiffany Mercer flew across the country to tell a story most people in recovery have never heard put into words. She’d already done the hard work — sober from alcohol, years of meetings, treatment at Hazelden Betty Ford, rebuilding her life as a mom. Then, in the middle of a brutal divorce, a friend handed her what everyone called a harmless, non-addictive herbal supplement for anxiety and sleep: kratom. Within two months she was taking it around the clock just to keep from getting sick, buying powder scooped out of unlabeled buckets, and quietly losing the joy in everything she loved.
What followed was, in her words, the hardest thing she has ever done — a withdrawal worse than opiates or Xanax, a cold-turkey Super Bowl weekend that didn’t end on Monday, a three-week taper, detox, and the darkest night of her life. In this conversation she’s honest about all of it: the childhood that taught her to fake a perfect family, the relapses, the custody fight, and the faith, community, and small moments of joy that carried her through to where she is now — 17 months free, running her kratom-awareness platform Kicking Kratom and building her juice company, Big T Juice.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was A 7-Time Felon On Alabama's Most Wanted | Heroin Addiction Left Me Homeless Living Out of My Car
Amanda Lee grew up a privileged, straight-A overachiever in Birmingham who dreamed of becoming a nurse — but by 10 she was gripped by crippling anxiety, and her very first drink at 12 unleashed something she …
Notas do episódio
Amanda Lee grew up a privileged, straight-A overachiever in Birmingham who dreamed of becoming a nurse — but by 10 she was gripped by crippling anxiety, and her very first drink at 12 unleashed something she couldn't control. By 14 she was shooting Dilaudid and addicted to the needle; by her twenties she'd flunked out of college, written dozens of fraudulent checks, and fled across the country with an ex-convict, living out of her car, shooting $5 heroin, and panhandling on highway off-ramps. She survived seven years inside a group later exposed as a cult, a brutal relapse shooting heroin in Baltimore, psych wards, and a night so dark she nearly didn't make it. In the end, she racked up seven felonies and landed on Alabama's Most Wanted.
The turning point came when her own mother made the heartbreaking decision to press charges — a choice Amanda now credits with saving her life. She turned herself in, got sober that very day, and has never looked back. Twelve years later, she's an RN who worked the front lines of COVID at the same hospital where she was once strapped to a bed, married to a husband who's never seen her take a drink, a homeowner, and a pardoned woman using her story to give hope to others. This is one of the most powerful comeback stories we've ever had on the show.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By 8th Grade I Was Getting High With The Homeless In Parking Garages
Lauren Latterell grew up moving from home to home around Palo Alto, never quite feeling like she belonged — and by middle school, she'd found that alcohol and drugs could finally quiet the chaos in her head …
Notas do episódio
Lauren Latterell grew up moving from home to home around Palo Alto, never quite feeling like she belonged — and by middle school, she'd found that alcohol and drugs could finally quiet the chaos in her head. What started as sneaking drinks and lying for a thrill spiraled fast: by 8th grade she was spending her days drinking and using with homeless people in downtown parking garages, and her teenage years became a blur of juvenile hall, probation, and treatment centers. After high school came the rave scene, blackout drinking she thought was normal, cocaine she couldn't drink without, three DUIs, and finally a year of pure "oblivion" — paranoid, isolated, and convinced people were coming to hurt her.
Facing a year in jail or treatment, Lauren chose treatment — and in a shower, in a moment of total surrender, she made a promise to never go back to that place again. Eight years later, she's kept it. She's rebuilt her life around purpose and service, made amends to the people she hurt (including, in one stunning moment, the woman she injured in her last DUI), cared for her grandmother through her final days, and is now engaged to a partner in recovery. This is a raw, honest, and deeply hopeful story about how far down you can go — and how completely a life can be rebuilt.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was A Porn Star Drowning In Cocaine & Whiskey — Now I'm A Sober Mom
From the outside, Riley Jensen was living a life a lot of people fantasize about — a successful adult-film career, thousands of dollars a week, flying around the world, the "life of the party" everywhere she …
Notas do episódio
From the outside, Riley Jensen was living a life a lot of people fantasize about — a successful adult-film career, thousands of dollars a week, flying around the world, the "life of the party" everywhere she went. But underneath the money and the image, cocaine and whiskey were quietly taking over. What started as "just part of the lifestyle" in her early twenties grew into years of benders, hidden bottles, and an ego that kept everyone who loved her at arm's length. By the time she became a single mom, the disease had her completely — and it culminated in a terrifying night of drug-induced psychosis that put both her and her little girl in danger.
That night became her turning point. With the example of her father — 24 years sober — in front of her, Riley finally surrendered, walked into the rooms, and did the work for real. Now coming up on six months sober, she's rebuilt her body, her relationships, and most of all her sense of purpose — chairing a meeting, working with a sponsor, and using her platform to help other people who are still struggling. This is an honest, vulnerable look at addiction behind a "perfect" life, and proof that you don't need the lowest bottom to decide to change.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
At 17 A Car Crash Sent Me Down A 15-Year Spiral Into Addiction
Jonathan Gale was a 17-year-old athlete in small-town Wyoming when one lunchtime car ride changed the course of his life. His cousin, driving, inhaled air duster, passed out at the wheel, and their car …
Notas do episódio
Jonathan Gale was a 17-year-old athlete in small-town Wyoming when one lunchtime car ride changed the course of his life. His cousin, driving, inhaled air duster, passed out at the wheel, and their car accelerated into two kids holding hands in the school parking lot before slamming into the gym wall. Everyone survived — but the fallout didn't spare Jonathan. Shunned by his coaches and community and treated as a villain despite being the passenger, he lost his place in the world he knew and fell into the party crowd instead. What followed was a 15-year spiral through weed, cocaine, probation, jail, court-ordered rehab he wasn't ready for, a marriage that fell apart, and years of hiding how far gone he really was.
His turning point didn't come from rock bottom in the usual sense — it came from a calm, loving boundary. When his fiancée told him she and their kids simply wouldn't be around for that life anymore, something clicked, and Jonathan quit cold turkey. Three years sober now, he found his way back not through meetings but through purpose — coaching football, showing up as a dad, and leading by example so powerfully that both his father and his brother got sober after him. This is a story about accountability, second chances, and how one decision can finally break the cycle.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Robbed The Bank I Worked At...Then Stripped For 20 Years & Ended Up On Crack
Allison Doss grew up in a tiny, divided Louisiana town, in a home ruled by fear — and from a young age she learned she could survive anything and bend the world to her will. That drive took her everywhere it …
Notas do episódio
Allison Doss grew up in a tiny, divided Louisiana town, in a home ruled by fear — and from a young age she learned she could survive anything and bend the world to her will. That drive took her everywhere it shouldn't: robbing the very bank she worked at as a teenager, running away to Washington D.C. at 17 with a single suitcase, and stepping onto a stage that began a stripping career that would last two decades. Along the way came ecstasy, cocaine, and finally crack — the drug that, in her words, shut everything off: the shame, the accountability, all of it. She lost her money, her homes, and most painfully, her children, before ending up homeless, sleeping in abandoned houses and her car.
It took years of relapses, treatment centers, and one final slip to bring her to the work that finally stuck. Today Allison is sober, has done the deep inner work of forgiving herself, sponsors other women, and has rebuilt real relationships with her sons — her youngest now lives with her by his own choice. Her story is a raw, unflinching look at how far addiction can take someone, and proof that it's never too far to come back.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Made Six Figures A Month On Wall Street...Then I Was Eating Out Of Garbage Cans
Ray Rapaglia had the life most people chase — a six-figure-a-month Wall Street career, a nightclub he owned with other brokers, celebrity parties, models, Ferraris. But none of it was ever enough. Over 34 …
Notas do episódio
Ray Rapaglia had the life most people chase — a six-figure-a-month Wall Street career, a nightclub he owned with other brokers, celebrity parties, models, Ferraris. But none of it was ever enough. Over 34 years, his drinking and drug use progressed from beer and cocaine to a decade of smoking crack, and finally to a crushing OxyContin addiction that cost him everything: four marriages, his relationship with his father and kids, his money, and his will to live. By June 2010 he was homeless, eating out of garbage cans, and sleeping under a tree in a cemetery — convinced his life was over.
Then a stranger named Michael offered him a cup of coffee and treated him like a human being for the first time in years. That one act of kindness changed everything. Sixteen years sober, Ray now runs a recovery nonprofit, picks men up from jail in the middle of the night, cooks them Italian meals, and dedicates his life to paying forward the mercy that saved him. This is one of the most powerful comeback stories we've ever had on the show — proof that no matter how far down you've gone, it's never too late to start over.
If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at https://www.google.com/url?q=https://learn.nocd.com/Rise&source=gmail&ust=1790019126459000&sa=E
Use code RISE when you book.
#adLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Drank For Almost 30 Years Before I Finally Got Sober
Polly Pierce spent nearly three decades lost in alcoholism — and from the outside, she kept up the appearance of a churchgoing mom who had it together. Underneath was a life unraveling: a toxic boyfriend who …
Notas do episódio
Polly Pierce spent nearly three decades lost in alcoholism — and from the outside, she kept up the appearance of a churchgoing mom who had it together. Underneath was a life unraveling: a toxic boyfriend who was a bookie, the afternoon she opened her door to a gun pointed at her face, fifteen years in an abusive relationship, two DUIs, a drunk-driving crash that nearly killed her, and jail. She buried her mother, raised someone else's children while her own world fell apart, and eventually watched her oldest son walk out the door — gone for seven years.
Her turning point came when the man who would become her husband set a hard boundary: get help, or lose him too. Polly got sober through faith, service, and sheer determination — and today, twelve years later, her life is almost unrecognizable. She's reunited with her son, married to the man who stood by her, mentors people coming out of jail, is opening a sober-living home in her own backyard, and — after losing her sister to a fentanyl overdose — founded an annual overdose-awareness 5K that now draws hundreds. This is a story about how it's never too late to become the person you were meant to be.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Never Had An Off Switch With Alcohol....My First Drink Was A Blackout
Elena Sanders grew up anxious, highly emotional, and feeling like she never quite fit in — a sensitive kid carrying far more than any child should. By the time she was a teenager, she'd found the one thing that …
Notas do episódio
Elena Sanders grew up anxious, highly emotional, and feeling like she never quite fit in — a sensitive kid carrying far more than any child should. By the time she was a teenager, she'd found the one thing that finally quieted her mind: alcohol. She drank alone, blacked out from the very first time, and never had an "off switch." What started as escape spiraled through weed, psychedelics, pills, and eventually cocaine — the first line of which made her think, "I never want to feel any other way." Deep in Birmingham's rave scene, she was spending everything she had to stay high, calling out of work, and waking up in places that could have cost her life.
Her rock bottom came when she woke up in an emergency room, having been found face-down in her own vomit. That was the morning everything changed. Today Elena is coming up on a year sober — she found a home group, a sponsor she met at a book study, and a relationship with her family she never thought possible. In this raw, honest conversation, she opens up about anxiety, bullying, the lies addiction tells, and what it actually took to finally get free.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Had The Corporate Dream Job & A Drinking Problem No One Saw
From the outside, Mike Cavallaro had the blueprint: prep school, college athlete, investment banker with the title and the money. But a career-ending back injury stripped away the only identity he'd ever known …
Notas do episódio
From the outside, Mike Cavallaro had the blueprint: prep school, college athlete, investment banker with the title and the money. But a career-ending back injury stripped away the only identity he'd ever known, and in the years that followed he chased that sense of self through fraternities, bartending, and the high-pressure finance world — numbing the emptiness with weekend benders that got longer and darker every year. It cost him his health, his peace, and two relationships with women he genuinely loved before he finally looked in the mirror and admitted something had to change.
What makes Mike's story different is what he did next. Instead of just getting sober quietly, he set out to rebuild nightlife itself — founding Move More Collective and its Midnight Moves experience series, creating alcohol-free events where people can go out, connect, and have a real night out without booze or drugs. In this conversation, Mike and Kevin dig into losing yourself and finding your way back, the lie that "the fun is over" when you get sober, and the fast-growing sober-curious movement that's giving a whole generation a better option.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was Snorting Fentanyl Every Day...Now I'm 3 Years Sober
From the outside, Mike Van Holderbeke had no reason to end up where he did — a two-parent home, food in the fridge, gifts under the tree, a successful older brother. But addiction doesn't discriminate. What …
Notas do episódio
From the outside, Mike Van Holderbeke had no reason to end up where he did — a two-parent home, food in the fridge, gifts under the tree, a successful older brother. But addiction doesn't discriminate. What started with weed in seventh grade and a single oxycodone he calls "the warm blanket" spiraled into a full-blown fentanyl and benzo addiction — crushing pills behind the wheel, surviving multiple seizures, losing his best friend to an overdose, and eventually watching 16 officers raid his home. He got sober the day he was sentenced to prison, and served 15 months.
Prison could have broken him. Instead, with the help of a counselor who became a beacon of hope and a sponsor he met on the inside, Mike used the time to rebuild himself from the ground up. When he came home, he found the thing that changed everything: running. He ran his first marathon alone around his neighborhood on Christmas Day — and today, 3 years sober at 27, he logs over 100 miles a week and spends his life showing other people that the past doesn't have to define them. This is one of the most inspiring comeback stories we've had on the show.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Cocaine, Nightclubs & the FBI | Ingrid Casares Reveals Her Wild Addiction & Recovery Story
Ingrid Casares lived through the cocaine-fueled Miami of the 1980s, multiple trips to treatment, relapse, fame, the height of the South Beach nightclub scene — and even a federal investigation that brought the …
Notas do episódio
Ingrid Casares lived through the cocaine-fueled Miami of the 1980s, multiple trips to treatment, relapse, fame, the height of the South Beach nightclub scene — and even a federal investigation that brought the FBI to her door.
In this episode of Rise Above with Kevin Lanning, Ingrid opens up about discovering cocaine as a teenager, how quickly addiction consumed her life, running away, treatment and relapse, and eventually finding sobriety.
Her life then took an unbelievable turn. Ingrid became a major figure in Miami nightlife, co-founding the legendary nightclub Liquid while sober and building a life she once never thought possible. But success didn't make her immune to addiction. She shares how relapse returned years later — including after being prescribed Vicodin following surgery — and how one drink eventually progressed into drinking tequila every day.
Today, Ingrid is seven years sober again and shares what decades of addiction, relapse, recovery and the 12 Steps have taught her about staying sober one day at a time.
This is a story about addiction — but even more importantly, it's about second chances.
If you or someone you love is struggling, please know that recovery is possible.
Subscribe to Rise Above with Kevin Lanning for more conversations about addiction, recovery, trauma and the people who have found a way forward.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Overdosed on Heroin at 20 | Beauty Queen Reveals the SHOCKING Addiction That Nearly Killed Her
From the outside, Victoria Treadwell was the picture of the all-American girl — raised on a 295-acre dairy farm in upstate New York, a crowned dairy princess and beauty queen, an honor-society athlete who …
Notas do episódio
From the outside, Victoria Treadwell was the picture of the all-American girl — raised on a 295-acre dairy farm in upstate New York, a crowned dairy princess and beauty queen, an honor-society athlete who seemed to do it all. What no one saw was the addiction underneath. Chasing acceptance and drawn to the "bad boy," she was introduced to heroin in a Walmart parking lot as a teenager, and within a year and a half it nearly killed her. In June 2016, at just 20 years old, she overdosed — waking up to CPR on a kitchen floor after being brought back with Narcan twice.
That night became the turning point. Through outpatient treatment, hard-won boundaries, and cutting ties with the people who kept her sick, Victoria rebuilt her life from the ground up. Today she's 10 years clean — a certified surgical technologist, a college graduate chasing PA school, a marathon runner, and a national pageant finalist who now uses her crown and her platform to prove that addiction doesn't discriminate. Her story is living proof that one choice can send your life in a completely different direction.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was Severely Burned In A Fire At 14 | Then The Pain Meds Led Me To Fentanyl
William Ellis was 14 years old, a freshman in high school, when gas splashed onto him near a smoldering fire and he went up in flames from the waist up. He survived second- and third-degree burns, skin grafts …
Notas do episódio
William Ellis was 14 years old, a freshman in high school, when gas splashed onto him near a smoldering fire and he went up in flames from the waist up. He survived second- and third-degree burns, skin grafts, and months in a burn unit — but the narcotics that came home from the pharmacy with him started an addiction that would last most of his life. What began as prescribed painkillers turned into selling pills at school, forging prescriptions across four states with his mother, and eventually shooting heroin and fentanyl just to keep the sickness away.
William is the third of the Ellis siblings to sit down on the show — after his sister Brittany and his brother Cody — and together their stories are one of the rawest portraits of the family disease we've ever aired. He buried both of his parents, bounced from ministry to ministry chasing a geographic cure, survived being electrocuted and flatlining on a job site, and finally found his way to treatment in South Florida with his brother's help. Today he's sober, married, working as an electrician, and building the kind of ordinary, grateful life he never thought he'd live to see.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Was A Straight-A Student Blacking Out Every Weekend By 13
Paris Bazley had her first drink at 13 — and blacked out that very first night. From the outside, nothing looked wrong: she was a straight-A student in AP classes, graduated high school two years early, joined …
Notas do episódio
Paris Bazley had her first drink at 13 — and blacked out that very first night. From the outside, nothing looked wrong: she was a straight-A student in AP classes, graduated high school two years early, joined a sorority at UCF, and became the bartender everyone loved. Underneath it, she was blacking out almost every time she drank, chasing the next party, and using alcohol and cocaine to fill a hole she'd carried since childhood. She survived a traumatic night at a sorority social and the disbelief that followed, and kept drinking to escape it — until her 21st birthday, when she found herself detoxing on her parents' couch without even understanding what was happening to her body.
What turned it around was a phone call from her dad — six months sober himself — asking one simple question: "Are you okay?" That was the moment everything changed. Today Paris is coming up on two years sober, back in school, working as a nanny, training for a Hyrox, chairing her home meeting and serving as an intergroup rep — living proof for a younger generation that putting the drink down isn't the end of the fun. It's where the real life begins.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
My Dad Taught Me How To Do Cocaine At 16 | My Whole Family Was Addicted
Cody Ellis grew up as the youngest of three in a small Georgia town, and by the time he was a teenager, addiction had swallowed his entire family. It started when his older brother was severely burned in an …
Notas do episódio
Cody Ellis grew up as the youngest of three in a small Georgia town, and by the time he was a teenager, addiction had swallowed his entire family. It started when his older brother was severely burned in an accident at eight years old — the pain pills that followed pulled his parents in, and the household never came back from it. Cody watched his mother forge prescriptions, watched his family lose their home again and again, and was handed his first opioids at 13. By 16, his own father was teaching him how to use cocaine. What followed was more than a decade lost to methadone, pills, crack, and IV meth — cycling through jail, psychosis, and moments standing on the edge of a highway ready to give up.
Both of his parents died in active addiction. But his sister got sober first, came back for him, and got him to treatment in Florida — and everything changed. Today Cody is four years sober, married to a woman in recovery, raising two kids, and chairing a meeting every week to give back what was given to him. This is one of the most raw examples of the family disease we've had on the show, and proof that the cycle can be broken.
Sponsored by Caron Treatment Centers My recovery journey began at Caron Treatment Centers, and the care I received there changed the course of my life. That's why I'm proud to partner with Caron. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, Caron has been helping individuals and families find hope and lasting recovery for nearly 70 years. They are in-network with all major insurance providers, and same-day admission is available. ➡️ Learn more: https://www.caron.org/lp/rise-above 📞 Call Caron today: 855-352-0103 Recovery starts with taking the first step.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aqui estão os 40 episódios mais recentes de 377. Os mais antigos estão no feed do podcast.
Podcasts parecidos
Mais podcasts de Sociedade e culturaEste podcast é seu?
Confirme com uma entrada no seu feed: você recebe um código aqui, adiciona como podcast:txt no canal do seu feed e nós verificamos. Depois disso, seu podcast aparece como “verificado” no SoundNode.







