Episodes

To most people, yet another opioid death might seem like just another statistic. But for Ed and Brighid Hillmuth, the tragic end of their son, Christopher, shattered their world, leaving them with the enormous task of trying to make sense …

Get ready for a high-energy, rapid-fire episode of genuine, forthright conversation on faith-based recovery! In substance-use recovery herself, Angel Nichols is the Clinical Coordinator for Arc Recovery Services in Akron, Ohio. She and Marc engage in a f...

Danica Adams doesn’t mince words, and when it comes to telling her recovery story, she is not shy. Honesty is not in short supply. It takes profound courage to describe such a complex and deeply personal narrative. At 14, her …

Ten years. Ten years of ‘skill-building’. That’s a good amount of time. Musician and writer Kevin McManus built up a decade of the ‘skills’ that enable those with a substance-use disorder to hone their craft. The craft of being dishonest. …

Just the memories and a microphone. No safety-net. Nothing to fall back on. Just like that decision to finally ask for help, sometimes the realization that the time has come and it is now can only be arrived at by …

"Be the change that you want to be." It was a seemingly simple decision to change schools that moved the momentum of a young person's life trajectory. It would be easier, he thought. Closer to home. That fateful choice would …

It's the front line of tomorrow's America, and being on the front lines can be tiring and messy. It can be lonely yet crowded and chaotic. The front lines in the life of a middle-school student are like a minefield. …

“I just wanted to feel better. I didn’t want to feel bad.” These words from Summit County Domestic Relations Court Magistrate Cheryl Wear make it challenging to understand how someone brought up in a well-to-do, loving, well-adjusted Christian home, who …

In childhood, Crissy Youngblood was surrounded by grown-ups who struggled and suffered from alcoholism and drug abuse. She is a survivor of the consequences of what is known now as a Mental and Physical Heath Disorder. Born to a mother …

At 24 years of age, most young people have moved in a career direction. Some have even chosen marriage. A few are giving birth and starting families. Some, like Brianna Brady, will get to choose none of them. Losing one's …

Mental Health Issues. Substance Use-Disorder. Each poses significant challenges for the person afflicted and the person tasked with helping the person when it comes to diagnosis and, when combined, represents a unique and different course of treatment. ...

Athena Fleming has endured something that most people will never experience: the loss of a child to addiction. In perhaps the most gut-wrenching episode of this podcast, Marc and Athena try to untangle and comprehend the journey and tragic ending …

“Trauma is not unusual. What’s unusual is not having somebody to help us move through it”. April 23rd, 2019, may have been a remarkably ordinary day for most. But for Jennifer Bartolotta, that day was the breaking point and the …

“Trauma is not unusual. What’s unusual is not having somebody to help us move through it”. April 23rd, 2019, may have been a remarkably ordinary day for most. But for Jennifer Bartolotta, that day was the breaking point and the …

The ‘well of pain.’ For the person in long-term recovery, ‘pain’ is real. Sometimes unforgiving. What can begin the process towards healing? Or, maybe even better put: who? Can a frog? Marc thinks aloud in this final episode of Season …

The Road to Redemption – Judge Susan Baker Ross If Season 3 of ‘Recovery Talks: The Podcast’ has shown us anything, it’s that addiction knows no gender, nationality, or social class. It can transform the lives of everyone from working …

Can a person be active in recovery without realizing why they are in recovery? Rachel Pollack is such a person. Stricken with an eating disorder, sidelined by the pandemic, it wasn’t until months into beginning a recovery path that Rachel …

When the Wheels Come Off - China Darrington This is not your average "girl who gets in trouble" recovery story. Let's face it: most 9-year-olds are playing soccer, making friends at grade school, or playing video games. Most are not …

Relationships can be both intensely gratifying and amazingly complex. And they’re made even more challenging if a relationship involves violence, particularly ‘intimate partner violence’. In this one-of-a-kind episode, Marc steers the recovery-conversa...

Recovery. And ‘creativity’. Are they light-years from each other? Distant cousins? Or soul-mates? The seemingly divergent paths of ‘staying clean and sober’ and ‘creating something musically’ collide in this latest episode. Hold on to your seats, becaus...

As a functional addict, Christopher Wimmer made every effort early on to, in his words, ‘get as messed up as possible as often as possible. Luckily, early on, he also made a decision, after bouts with depression and suicidal thoughts, …

What happens when nobody wants you around. When you’re ‘unemployable’. When you’ve burned every bridge. At an early age, Clyde Hensley already knew that with the obstacle of a speech-impediment, a beer or two could temporarily help him to overcome …

‘Grief’ is transformational on a variety of levels. Helping others through their time of grief within the scope of an occupation compared to experiencing grief, personally, can be two completely different scenarios. But can one lean on the other? In …

It’s a dichotomy and an irony: When Zach Friedhoff’s mother passed away, that event provoked a kind of a mental pirouette, one that, in his words, ‘caused a spinning that he hoped would stop’. And yet, as he and Marc …