Episodes

Aug. 1, 2022

Death By Poison

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 …

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July 30, 2022

Please, Somebody Pull My Brake

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...

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July 18, 2022

Radical Acceptance

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 …

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July 11, 2022

152 Days and Counting

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. …

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June 13, 2022

The Waiting, The Wearing-Through, and the Willingness

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 …

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June 1, 2022

Just a Dad from Akron

"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 …

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May 17, 2022

When It’s Time For the Hard Conversation

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. …

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May 10, 2022

A Hobby Turned To a Habit

“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 …

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May 2, 2022

Rise Up: A Story of An Adult Child of Alcoholics

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 …

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April 26, 2022

Unicorns and Polka-Dots: A Song of Hope

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 …

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April 18, 2022

Deep-Diving on Dual-Diagnosis

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. ...

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April 11, 2022

Never Give Up

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 …

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April 4, 2022

When the Shattered Pieces Come Together

“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 …

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April 4, 2022

When the Shattered Pieces Come Together

“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 …

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Dec. 28, 2021

Hurt People Hurt People

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 …

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Dec. 20, 2021

The Road to Redemption

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 …

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Dec. 15, 2021

Feeding the Malnourished Brain - Rachel Pollack

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 …

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Dec. 6, 2021

When The Wheels Come Off

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 …

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Nov. 29, 2021

The Master Manipulators

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...

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Nov. 22, 2021

Helping-Each-Other Magic

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...

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Nov. 16, 2021

Being OK Where You Are

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, …

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Nov. 8, 2021

Too Blessed To Be Stressed

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 …

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Nov. 1, 2021

Grief Brain

‘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 …

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Oct. 25, 2021

When the Spinning Stops

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 …

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