Rise Above with Kevin Lanning
Kevin Lanning 284 episodes Nov 9, 2026
Join Kevin Lanning, 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.
Episodes
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, 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
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 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
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 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 whol
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 — 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 shoo
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 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, a
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, 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
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, 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 ident
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 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
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 — 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 re
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 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
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 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
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 — 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 s
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 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: k
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 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 wit
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. 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 teenag
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 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, hidde
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 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 a
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 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 l
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 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 relatio
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 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 bu
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 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, a
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, 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 longe
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 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 multip
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 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
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 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
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, 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 int
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 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 h
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 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
Alcohol Was The Only Thing That Quieted My Anxiety — So I Drank Until I Blacked Out
From the outside, Zac Spowart had every reason to be fine — loving parents, a disciplined home, good grades, a heart-surgeon father. But from around 13, he was being crushed by an anxiety so severe he was physically sick, throwing up before school with no idea why. Then he found alcohol, and for the first time the chaos in his head went quiet. That relief became the problem.
Zac is honest that hi
I Tried Out For The NFL While Secretly Smoking Crack
Jerod Thomas grew up in what he calls a "house of horrors" — two alcoholic parents, a father who drank a fifth of vodka a day and turned violent, and weekends spent walking on eggshells. He was dyslexic in an era when no one caught it until his second year of eighth grade, bullied relentlessly, and told by his own father that if he didn't learn to fight, he couldn't stay in the house. Football bec
I Survived Jeffrey Epstein And Numbed The Pain With Xanax And Alcohol | 6 Years Sober
Marina Lacerda is a survivor, an advocate, and a mother who spent most of her life carrying pain she was told to keep quiet. Now 6.5 years sober and one year into publicly breaking her silence, she sat down with Kevin to talk about all of it.
Marina was born in Brazil and raised largely in New York. From around the age of nine, she was sexually abused by her stepfather — abuse that continued for
I Was A Police Officer Secretly Addicted To Meth On The Job
Bob Zbikowski wanted to be one thing his whole life: a cop, like his dad. He got there — nearly two decades in law enforcement, including years as a K-9 handler. From the outside he was living his dream. Underneath, he was a first responder carrying the weight of thousands of traumatic scenes with no healthy way to put it down, and a brain wired for addiction he didn't yet understand.
Bob is open
I Almost Drank Myself To Death — And My Wife Watched It All Happen
This one is different. Addiction is a family disease — it doesn't just happen to the addict, it happens to everyone who loves them. So in this episode, you'll hear both sides. First from Brandon, who nearly lost his life to it — and then from his wife Katelyn, who lived every moment of it beside him.
Brandon Cheek looked like he had it all — a successful business, a family, a life built with his
This Rehab Will Blow You Away | Inside Caron Treatment Centers In Delray Beach
One of the biggest fears I had before going to treatment — all five times — was the unknown. What is it actually like inside? Will I be comfortable? Will they get to the root of what's really going on? So in this vlog, I'm taking you behind the doors of a rehab to show you exactly what it's like.
I got a full tour of Caron's Keele Center in Delray Beach, Florida — one of their two inpatient facil
The Smoke Shop Told Me 7OH Was Natural — It Was A Legal Opioid
7-OH is one of the most talked-about drugs in the country right now — a concentrated kratom derivative sold legally at smoke shops and gas stations, often pitched as a natural remedy for pain. Isabella "Izzy" Saravi is a 26-year-old who got caught by it, and she's here to warn other young people what it actually does.
Izzy grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, in a chaotic home — her parents divorced
Dirty Heads Singer Jared Watson Reveals Addiction To Alcohol, Painkillers & Feel Free Kratom
Jared Watson is the frontman of the Dirty Heads — the voice behind songs millions of people have sung along to. He's also, in his own words, an alcoholic who spent more than a decade fighting to stay sober while the disease kept pulling him back.
Jared grew up in Southern California surf and skate culture, born in a beach apartment to "cool parents," raised in a world where everything — surfing,
I Went To Treatment 13 Times Before I Finally Got Sober
Tyler Bowers grew up in Pennsylvania with what looked, from the outside, like everything — a nice house with a pool, travel baseball, a mom who gave him whatever he needed. But underneath was a kid carrying guilt for his parents' divorce, a complicated relationship with a father who battled his own addiction, and an entitlement he now names as the core of his disease.
It started with weed, then a
I Overdosed On A Legal Drug From The Gas Station (7OH) And Woke Up In A Coma
7-OH is one of the most dangerous drugs almost nobody understands yet — a concentrated kratom derivative sold legally at gas stations and smoke shops, often marketed as a harmless supplement. Ian Crawford is here to tell you what it nearly cost him.
A surfer, lacrosse player, and Florida kid whose athletic future was derailed by concussions, Ian had moved through years of experimenting — weed, ps
I Was Shooting Heroin and No One Had Any Idea | 18 Years Sober
Justin Gurland grew up the oldest of four in a close, loving New Jersey family — family dinners every night, a dad who was a doctor and coached his teams, a childhood that looked idyllic from the outside. But Justin always felt a little different, a little black-sheep-ish, and from the very first time he drank at 13, he'd found the feeling he didn't know he was missing.
By college at the Universi
I Was Addicted To Heroin and Crack | My Body Was Shutting Down
Lauryn Boorstein grew up in the Poconos in a home full of chaos — a painful divorce, a father she loved who struggled with his own demons, and an autistic brother she appointed herself the protector of before she was old enough to protect anyone. She fell in love with the lifestyle — the fighting, the adrenaline, the not-caring — long before she understood she was an addict. By her early twenties,
I Was A Pro Boxer With An Eating Disorder That Almost Killed Me
Danny O'Connor was an Olympic-team boxer and professional fighter from Boston who spent ten years chasing a world championship. From the outside, he was elite, disciplined, relentless. What almost no one knew was that the same all-or-nothing drive that made him a champion was also fueling a secret, life-threatening eating disorder.
It started when he was a teenage wrestler, learning to manipulate
Why Getting Off Antidepressants Can Be Harder Than Heroin | Dr. Teralyn Sell
⚠️ The views in this episode are Dr. Teralyn Sell's professional opinions and personal experience. This conversation is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Never start, stop, or change a prescribed medication without consulting your doctor — stopping some medications suddenly can be dangerous.
Dr. Teralyn Sell is a psychotherapist and PhD with a background that spans maximum-
I Was A Harvard Student Secretly Addicted To Oxy And Xanax
On paper, Emma Gray had every advantage — a New York City upbringing, elite schools, a spot at Harvard, and eventually a six-year finance career. Underneath it, she was a person who, in her own words, couldn't sit with an uncomfortable feeling for more than a moment without needing to escape it.
Emma started with alcohol, which never agreed with her, and then found the thing that did: first weed,
I Got Addicted To A Legal Drug Called 7OH I Bought At The Smoke Shop
7-OH is one of the most talked-about drugs in the country right now — a concentrated kratom derivative sold legally at smoke shops and gas stations, marketed as a natural supplement. Bari Leigh is here to tell you what it actually did to her.
Bari's story starts long before 7-OH. A gifted athlete and touring singer-songwriter from a family that looked, for a while, like the American dream, she su
I Had A Degree And A Career While Secretly Addicted To Fentanyl
On paper, Ava Garcia was the kid who had it together — straight-A student, captain of the varsity basketball team, an artist, the responsible firstborn. Underneath it, she was raising herself in the chaos of two parents in active addiction, competing for attention with a younger brother who needed all of it, and by 13 she was already using. She sold Xanax to fund an opioid habit while keeping her
I Was A Drug Counselor Getting High On Fentanyl Between Sessions
From the outside, Laura Bonczek was the picture of success — a well-known family in her Connecticut town, a teacher mother, a father in long-term recovery, good grades, sports, and eventually a master's in social work. She built a career as a therapist and rose to clinical director of a substance abuse treatment facility. And the entire time, she was secretly living the exact disease she was being
I Was A Cornell Student Living In My Car Addicted To Adderall and Doing Sex Work
On paper, Tatum Love was thriving — a bright kid from New Hampshire who lived the all-American athletic life and went on to an Ivy League education at Cornell. Underneath it, she'd been fighting something since childhood: a family history of addiction and disordered eating that, after her parents' divorce, found somewhere to take hold.
Tatum's story is a powerful reminder that addiction doesn't c
How Do You Know If You're Really An Alcoholic? | Addiction Recovery Q&A
Back by popular demand — Karina Miesner (IG @karina.mies) returns for our second Q&A, where Kevin and Karina answer the questions the audience asks most in the comments. Two people with real long-term recovery talking honestly about the stuff people actually want to know.
In this episode they get into: how you know if you're actually an alcoholic or addict versus someone who just drinks too much,
I Was Shooting Meth And Fentanyl Living In My Car
Alexa Cunniff never really had a childhood. Raised like what she calls "a gypsy kid" — living in hotels and trucks, on the run from process servers, never setting foot in a classroom until sixth grade — she learned to read off an atlas and grew up around addiction on every side of her family. She was drinking and using by 12, in the clubs by 15, and chasing the "hard stuff" she'd heard glorified h
I Was Shooting Fentanyl On The Streets Of Kensington
From the outside, Cassidy Matone had it all together — a makeup artist and bikini bodybuilder from Long Island with her own business. Addiction doesn't discriminate. What started as a single Roxy a friend handed her "to help her sleep" turned into a full-blown opioid addiction, then counterfeit fentanyl pills, and eventually a needle.
Her story runs from the corporate office where a boss left a R
How My Recovery Podcast Ended Up On Paramount+ | Behind The Scenes Of Building It From Nothing
Come behind the scenes on one of the biggest weeks yet for Rise Above. We just launched our merch line — hoodies, sweatshirts, and hats — and every dollar from it goes right back into the podcast to keep spreading the message of hope.
I'm also pulling back the curtain on the business. Two years ago I started this thing not knowing if anyone would watch, and it's grown into something I never imagi
I Was Sold For Sex And Had No Say | Overcoming Sexual Trauma, An Eating Disorder & Getting Sober
Kelsey Daniels grew up poor in Connecticut, one of three kids, chasing an athletic scholarship as her whole identity and her only path out. She was molested at eight, sexually assaulted at sixteen, and — in the aftermath — slut-shamed by classmates and even her own family, until she quietly absorbed the belief that the abuse was somehow her fault.
That belief followed her to college, where a prof
I Started Shooting Heroin as a Teen | Robbing a Bank High on PCP, Prison and Getting Sober
Matt Handy was the oldest of ten kids, raised in a strict religious home in San Diego — and living a double life almost from the start. He smoked weed at 13 the night his youngest sibling was born, tried crack within a month, and was shooting heroin by 17. A felony arrest in high school slammed the door on his plan to become a lawyer, and from there his life accelerated into a world most people on
"When I Drank, I Couldn't Stop" | Binge Drinking, Blackouts & How I Finally Got Sober
From the outside, Allie Serea had it all together — good grades, a masters degree, a corporate job at a major company, an easy way with people, and a reputation as the fun party girl. On the inside, she describes crawling out of her skin, hating who she was, and feeling like an empty shell every Monday after another blacked-out weekend.
Allie was never a daily drinker. She was a high-functioning
I Was A Prison Guard Secretly Shooting Heroin | SWAT Raided My Trap House While I Was In Uniform
Andrew Gautreau grew up in a middle-class Louisiana family — a dad who built his own business and a mother who worked in child services, sometimes bringing him along as she pulled kids out of crack houses and placed them in foster care. He saw exactly what drugs did to families before he ever touched them. He went anyway.
It started with weed and ecstasy at high school parties, the first time he
I Was Homeless Shooting Fentanyl in Miami | Overdoses, Coma & How I Finally Got Sober
Jonah Fingerhood had a nearly perfect childhood in New Hampshire — until he was 16 and lost his older brother to substance abuse. A year later, a skateboarding accident and a compound fracture put a bottle of Percocet in his hands, and the pain of that grief, followed by his father's cancer diagnosis, finally had somewhere to go. He describes the first time he crushed and snorted a pill as the mom
Addicted To Roxys At 17 For 15 Years | How Suboxone Kept Me Stuck & How I Finally Got Sober
Chris Broby grew up in Sarasota, Florida, in a good middle-class home — hardworking parents who built a furniture business, no trauma, no abuse. But he always felt a little like the black sheep, a small kid looking for a way to fit in, and when alcohol showed up in his early teens it filled that space instantly. By his senior year of high school, a Roxy at a party made him feel, in his words, the
My Little Brother Is Still In Active Addiction | What Addiction Does To The Whole Family
Michaela DeGier grew up in a close, loving family just outside Cambridge, Ontario — high school sweetheart parents still together after decades, three tight-knit siblings, summers in the forest behind the house. Her little brother was the baby of the family: the uncle who'd sit at a tiny table and have tea parties with his two-year-old niece, present at every birthday and holiday.
Today he's in h
I Was A Cop Taking 55 Pills A Day
Mike Morgan spent 30 years in law enforcement — a decade of it working the most violent part of one of the most violent cities in America. On his very first shift, he saw two homicides in five hours. He describes a career of natural deaths, suicides, fatal car accidents, and children he couldn't save — and the armor he'd started building as a kid, growing up with a hypercritical, verbally abusive
I Grew Up In A Crack Addicted Household | What It Really Does To A Child
Indee Fields was four years old the first time she watched her mother hide from witches that weren't there. Her mom was smoking crack. By ten, Indee was the one running the household — bathing and feeding her younger siblings, breaking up the violence between her mother and stepfather, and calling the police when she was told to, onl
Ketamine Psychosis | My Ketamine Addiction Was Destroying My Organs | How I Got Sober
Sydney Steele was prescribed Ritalin at five years old, just as she was finishing preschool. From there came Concerta, Vyvanse, and Adderall — a stimulant cycle that ran nearly nonstop through her childhood, alongside psychiatric diagnoses she now believes were largely a reaction to the medication itself.
She made it through Syracuse as an illustration major with a real gift and a growing art bus
A Decade Long Addiction to Opioids | How I Broke the Chains and Got Clean & Sober
By June of 2017, Billy Rich had nothing left in his own eyes. A decade into opioid addiction, isolated in a blacked-out bedroom in Rhode Island, cut off from his family, grieving his father, buried under legal fear and a mental state he describes as beyond anything he'd known — he had decided he was done. He didn't see a recovery option. He didn't think there was a way out.
He survived that night
What Leads Someone To Plan a School Shooting?...The Early Warning Signs Everyone Missed
⚠️ This episode is presented for educational and prevention purposes only. In 2018, Brendan Vaughan was arrested for making terroristic threats against his high school. We sat down with him — and previously with the detective who arrested him — not to sensationalize what happened, but to understand the early warning signs that might help someone intervene before a young person reaches that point.
She Sold Her Body For Heroin & Crack, Totaled 7 Cars & Had 5 Arrests In A Month | Now 5 Years Sober
Brittany Logan grew up an only child split between two households — her mother's world of structure and discipline, and her alcoholic father's world of no rules and chaos. By 15 she was drinking before class and never wanted to stop. She got kicked out of art school, was arrested five times in a single month, and moved from blues to Oxys to heroin — a drug she says she first heard glamorized insid
I Drank a Bottle For 700 Straight Days and Lost Everything | How I Finally Got Sober
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
I Was Buying Kratom At The Gas Station Every Morning Just To Function....It Destroyed Me
Matt Von Boecklin grew up outside Seattle, raised by a single mother after his father suffered a mental break when Matt was a toddler and had to be cared for in a home. A socially anxious kid always reaching for the edge of the cool crowd, Matt found early that alcohol quieted that feeling — and years later, a motorcycle accident introduced him to opiates and opened a door he says was impossible t
My Heart Stopped From A Fentanyl Overdose & I Woke Up From A Coma Having To Learn To Walk Again
If you caught Brenda Zane's episode a few months ago — the mother who shared the harrowing story of her son's addiction and near-death — this is that son. Enzo is here to tell it from the inside.
Enzo grew up in Seattle with two loving, supportive parents and a natural entrepreneurial streak, running little candy schemes and haircut businesses as a kid. But a fascination with the "forbidden" turn
I Was Spending $300 A Day On 7OH....Legal Gas Station Hero!n
Nick Thornton grew up outside Portland, Maine, raised by his grandparents after his mother's addiction pulled her out of his life. He was warned early that with both parents struggling, he could never drink — a warning he took as a challenge. By 14 he was drinking and smoking weed daily, and from the very first time, he always went harder than everyone around him.
What followed was a decade-plus
I Was Doing Cocaine Every Single Day For 3 Years & Had A Seizure At My Desk....and I Kept Using
From the outside Gregg looked like he had it handled — a family, a career, a wife he'd known since middle school. Underneath it he was doing cocaine every single day, and had been for years. He'll tell you he never fit the picture of what people imagine an addict looks like. He wasn't running around wired; cocaine actually quieted the chaos in his head, turned down the noise, and let him not feel.
He Was Drinking Every Day & Ready To Give Up | The One Thing That Gave Him Hope
Pete Kuc was living a life that looked like the movies. A young real estate hotshot in northeast Florida, he was making a fortune, flying on private jets to the Bahamas, entertaining high-end clients on the waterfront, and running on Adderall and alcohol to keep the whole machine going. He describes it as his own Wolf of Wall Street era — money, parties, and the feeling that as long as he was perf
From Cooking Meth at 19 to Finding Sobriety | Colton's Recovery Story
Colton's addiction began long before adulthood. By 17, he was injecting drugs. Before turning 20, he was cooking meth, living in violent drug houses, escaping juvenile detention, and eventually serving time in prison. He shares stories of psychosis, crime, near-death experiences, and the devastating reality of meth addiction.Today, nearly two years sober, Colton has transformed his life. He helps
He Went From Princeton & Harvard Law To Shooting Heroin On Skid Row
Damon Watson did everything right. Harvard-Westlake prep school. Princeton, where he was a national debate champion. Harvard Law School. A career as an intellectual property litigator at Latham & Watkins, one of the biggest law firms in Los Angeles. On paper, his life was the American dream.
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Haley Ragsdale grew up outside Nashville in the wealthy town of Franklin, a scared kid with crippling anxiety, insomnia, and a phobia of vomiting so severe it ruled her entire childhood. When her parents' divorce detonated — a five-year court battle that pulled her out of class for abuse checks and had her father legally removed from the home — the chaos swallowed the whole family.
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Addicted To Oxycodone At 15... Heroin On The Streets By 20
Clint Pitre was raised by his grandparents in Deltona, Florida, a Jehovah's Witness household where he always felt like something was off. By middle school he was smoking weed and drinking at the skate park. At 15 he took his first Oxycodone at a house party and knew instantly he wanted to feel that way for the rest of his life. By junior year he was so dependent that his own grandmother had to ha
I Was A Pastor Secretly Addicted To Sex & Affairs While Preaching Every Sunday
Jason Lyles was adopted at 14 days old and raised in a strict Southern Baptist home. He read the Bible cover to cover by age eight and felt called to ministry. He also found pornography at ten or eleven, and from that moment he was chasing something he couldn't name — convinced each time that the next thing would finally fix him. Marriage at 19 would fix it. Giving his life to God would fix it. Bu
The Dark Reality of Alcoholism | My Battle with Alcohol Addiction, Blacking Out & Horrific Detoxes
Laura Tomana appeared to have it all—a successful career, a thriving social life, and a bright future. Behind closed doors, however, alcohol had taken over her life.What began as partying evolved into blackouts, drinking around the clock, and eventually becoming physically dependent on alcohol.
After losing her mother to cancer, Laura made a promise to stay sober—but grief, addiction, and despai
I Went From The MVP Quarterback to Shooting Heroin | How I Found Sobriety and Changed My Life
Tommy Lyons grew up between Brooklyn and Staten Island, a fearful, introverted kid with a nervous disposition who found that drugs made him feel like he could finally talk to anyone. He was smoking weed at ten, doing Xanax by thirteen, and a borderline cocaine addict by fourteen — funding it by stealing and robbing before he was even old enough to drive.
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A Surgery Led To My Painkiller Addiction | What My Life Looks Like 8.5 Years Sober | Vlog Ep. 3
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A routine shoulder surgery is where my painkiller addiction began. This is what my life looks like 8.5 years sober.
In this vlog I'm taking you through a real day in my life and the things that keep me grounded. We start at Tequesta Biomechanics where I train with Jessica, working on decompressing my lower back, recovering mobility in the shoulder that started it all,
A Heroin Addict's BRUTAL Lifestyle | Losing My Arm, Arrests and How I Found Sobriety
Mike Debany was a fast-talking sales guy living what looked like the good life in South Florida — a fiancée, a baby on the way, money in the bank. Underneath it he was already an addict, having found his way from marijuana to the pill mills of South Florida, where a doctor in a parking lot would hand out 180 Xanax and 90 Roxys to anyone who waited long enough.
Then on October 18, 2010, everything
I Lost My Job, My Wife & My Son To Alcohol & Oxycodone
From the outside Nick Johnsson had it all. Born in Sweden, educated in Australia, and based in Southeast Asia, he spent a decade climbing the corporate ladder until he was the general manager of 72 hospitals and clinics across Indonesia — one of the biggest roles of its kind in the world.
And he was quietly falling apart behind the closed door of his corner office.
Every promotion made him lonel
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